School Committee Meeting 8/27

001good evening I would like to call this meeting of Berlin Boon Regional school committee to order just to reminder that this meeting is being recorded your image and or voice may be broadcast please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Ali to the FL of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation god with liy andice all right we're going to roll right into public comment is would anyone is there anyone here that would like to make a public comment uh all right it doesn't matter all right Beth why don't you go first okay welcome back and say your name and I am I just want to make a comment on on the voting on the health and wellness policy um I just want to say I think the

002implementation of the health and wellness policy in terms of the stringent rules for poliart snacks while it's well in pension might not result in the desired outcomes reducing what can be sold and purchased down to a formula relying on calories and percentages will most likely result in smaller packes that the kids will buy in more and I'm mostly talking about too I don't know if anyone's familiar with allart the Hondo the big thing with those that crowd um many students purchase these snacks not to be consumed at lunch but for after school before Sports and activities many appropriate healthier protein Rich non Parable snacks which I would love to see available would not meet the current stringent standards these high school students are already ordering double lunches that fill up to last through the day

003and practice based on the formulas in place for the current School lunch I'm not sure if releasing the snack bar is the best way to get the desired outcome I'd rather see more nutritious self shelf stable snacks available for the kids to save for after school and see the policy put in place that would end up with kids buying three smaller packages something to try and fill up the snack bar is a cashfree service parents have to load the account and put money on it for anyone to buy anything from it so and once the kids parents log in they can see everything your child has purchased so if you're unhappy that they're purchasing something you could just not put money on their account and opt out that way that's thank you thank you right

004hi my name is pet darney I'm an English teacher in the English Department here at Tonto about to start year number 29 32 overall so long time um I'm here I was actually here to talk about policy I regarding the surveys but I see that had been moved from this agenda to a later agenda from what I understand it was moved because the policy subcommittee did not have a chance to meet during the summer which I'm actually excited about that is I as I wrote in my letter that I read to you back in June I would love the opportunity to meet with the policy sub committee and I've met with Steve Pico the history department chair and Daniel rer who was their history teacher who specifically deals with the Civic Action project to sit

005down and just have a conversation uh with the policy subcommittee about the impact of that l language will have on our students and their ability to research topics of their choosing without any type of restrictions placed upon them that that policy would do um so again I met with Steve and Danielle and they're more than willing to um to sit down and have those conversations so we can have you know just hash all that out about the impact it's going to have not only in Civic Action project but also tangentially Upon Our uh specifically our gay and trans population that this um policy seems to be specifically looking at um topics that they may wish to explore because that survey that went out uh last year about these things was wanted to explore the um

006the bullying and harassment that those students undergo here at tto and it's not a new thing it's been happening for years I've had a good long conversation with a former student of ours good friend of mine Nick Mandela class president in 2005 he talked to me openly about his experiences here at Tonto back then knew in seventh grade he was gay was terrified to come out because of harassment that he had seen another one of his gay friends go through and he's like he said to me Peter he's like I didn't have anybody in that building I felt safe coming out to that crushed me because I've known Nick for years and so this is a very real issue that one of our students wanted to explore and ask the question you know if you

007identify as a member of the lgbtq plus Community here at Tanto if so have you undergone harassment if not have you witnessed it that was the survey and it's been turned into something completely different than what that is and so I think it's important that before we go through with a policy that's going to put a serious restriction on our students ability to research topics that explore their very real lived experiences here at Tonto we need to have a good conversation amongst many people including staff that directly work with these students specifically in these projects and these areas and also probably the students who themselves will be directly impacted so that's what I came here tonight to to talk about and I would love that to um you guys to consider that I had another

008question um when I was here in June I read my statement um and I was told that the I read that you know for the discussion there was additional information that was added after I left which was that you had received information or communication from the district lawyer and your District lawyer said you had legal grounds to go forward uh with this again I wish that was told to me when I was here so I would have asked this question then my question would be does the district lawyer specifically know that this policy would be the only policy in our district that would be called opt in versus opt out like parents have every right they don't want their child to be in a health curriculum discussing things things to opt up I am 100%

009behind that I've opted my children out of certain things that loner I am I'm all for that but by limiting it to by making it an op in where we know as you've discussed in that meeting on June back on it was a Thursday morning yeah the discussion you know that parents will read their emails you know that parents are going to see this so that when you make it oped in you've automatically gone to there are 0% of people who could be reached out to and maybe a 10% read it now we those students can now only reach out to 10% of the population that is and it's restricted to those kids and it would be the only policy in our district that had that restriction placed upon it and I feel in my

010opinion and in the Civil Rights uh Law Firm I spoke to in their opinion that is targeted and that is um in a way as a violation of their civil rights to exclude them from the same opportunities of other students so my question would be does did are was that made clear to our lawyer that this is would be the only policy that would have that restriction placed upon it you don't have to answer that now that would something I would love to to talk about you know that could be yeah I have if I yeah um typically we don't discuss policies that not on the agenda you know that I do but this is a hot button topic yeah absolutely has zero to do with sexual identity other than the fact that the survey

011that a parent was upset about contain those questions it's about requiring 12y olds to tell people their sexual identity or any other question that a survey might go out it's one of no it's one of that's up to Megan eight categories it's one of it's one of eight categories the policy committee did read your lesson letter we would have met in August as you know our superintendent left she wasn't available to meet with us that's pushed it off that's why it's not on the agenda tonight we will meet with it I've already discussed with Al putting a meeting together for it we will meet with it we will take that opin language into consideration the language and the regulation I believe it is prior written consent is the way it's worded in the Federal Regulation

012similar like that so we'll take a look at it right but it's not on the agenda tonight so and it sounds like to me food chair it sounds like that we're going to have a subcommittee meeting and it sounds like you're you're asking to be if you could go to that meeting and it looks like it's okay for them fre you to attend that meeting actually because it's a public meeting public meeting so I know this is public comment so uh we appreciate what you you said and we'll certainly I'm sure they'll consider when they have the one issue I take and because I've heard Mike say this multiple times is required no student is required to answer anything there the survey was marked required uh questions on the survey I could pull up I

013could pull up the survey if you're but it's been addressed there's no survey public com not this yeah and I appreciate the back and forth and I think let's keep it at the policy sub committee meeting and then when we have it on the agenda it's not up for sorry I should have emailed you and let you know that we moved it so I'm really sorry about I appreciate it um as Mike said with Carol leaving it's been a whirlwind of a couple weeks Meg may I just say one thing this is a lot of people think policy I is about sexuality it's about I believe it's nine covered protected legally under the Constitution different areas where parents have to opt in or opt out so I just wanted to make that clear there's a

014whole bunch of other areas on there as well I know that's the point of contention I understand that I just don't want the public to that we're making one thing out of like we're focusing on one thing so when is the policy subcommunity have to so we have talk about that Thursday okay yeah so they have to schedule that and then you know if it would be obviously your teaching during the day so it would be helpful if you guys could uh connect I'll take a personal date it's that important and conversation I'm sure they'll connect with you and try to schedule it around you know after school hour whatever you know whatever works for the done but I I know they're both reasonable above that kind of stuff all right thanks thank you all

015right any other public comments any Communications I have one I did receive paperwork from people who are running for the election for school committee this year we have three seats that are open um so I received the verified paperwork I let the Secretary of State know and I received confirmation that our ballot will look like the following so it's going to say vote for not more than two and that's in Berlin and the people that are on the ballot this year are Lisa May who is currently um on the school committee as well as Beth manini who help to be here right now um so it's vote for two there are two running um there in uh bur I'm sorry in Boon there's going to be two people running but it will be both for

016one it's going to be Megan Grill who is our chair as well as James wheit um and I'm gonna explain this on the websites because we had problems in the past where people didn't understand voting for two voting for one the way it's going to work is they will be it'll be a fouryear commitment and the people that run this year will have four years and then two years later my seat Mike's seat as well as Jessica's seat will be up and it'll be another four-year term so we we're finally on the track of the four years it's official yay thank you so much and that was a huge undertaking so thank you for all the work you've done on the election appreciate it any other Communications um I saw the Board of Health um

017request Ed that Hillside Fields be sprayed because of the triple and the West Nile and so this kind of a more urgent issue and so I apologize for not asking to be put on the agenda but um I didn't know that was a possibility and so I talked to at meum today um at bees and he said that he thought the school committee or I guess the superintendent could make a request to have the the school sprayed by the I think Central Mass mosquito and and through the chair does that go so and just catch up the speed everybody so please appreciate that uh the buildings are own by the towns right so does that go through the school Comm is that something that we would do or is it something that because the town

018owns the properties that they would do I'd be more than glad to have that because I'm seeing the sense of of needing that to take place now um but I just wasn't sure but if it goes through us then absolutely have no problem Tanto yeah we own Tanto and um the towns own the schools but the schools have rules about the spray and the chemicals they use on the fields okay so I think that's something we're going to have to take offline I understand how critical it is because Youth Sports start and there's after school and school starting so add it on to your maybe Jess can help this yeah if you want to work with Jess this week and yep really easy to make a request yeah Central Mass I did it for my

019house quick can I also be included in that conversation because I have some additional information that might be relevant okay all right yeah yeah yeah yeah so yeah great so yeah if you guys want to connect this we that would be great thank you okay any other Communications thanks J all right consent agenda we have open meeting minutes from May 28th June 6th June 13th July 22nd August 1st August 6th August 8th wow we were so busy this summer um could I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved Lor Julie all right all in favor Meg before ask question yeah what happened to the June 17th minutes in recording the so those minutes Sally took remember those you were writing on the back she's there was a recording that J sent

020to Paul right no so because Britney couldn't come it was a voice recording and we were having I was having trouble over the whole summer getting to her and finally I found a format that just recently she was able to get a hold of oh Britney yeah Britney so it was a fairly lengthy meeting so I was wondering if those voice recordings could be submitted as the the minutes to that because it was a fairly detailed review of the um I did take notes and gave to Nicole she's just working so if you can get those minutes or that the voice recording to Nicole oh that oh no no I she has those recordings yeah so I committee meeting did you video You video you videoed that meeting and call no iads okay whoever it

021went to is is it online IO you did okay you did yeah it was files because it was so three different all right so I'll check on that June 17th minutes she still working on because they were not in the format that she could that's yeah someone's working on that's fine okay okay that was the discussion all right you guys ready all in favor I all right I'm an i as well motion passes all right um so I'm G to do my chair's report I'm gonna cut off Al because I have Cynthia here I want to introduce we'll do our vote and now was she's not stuck here oh come on because I know she wants to listen to everything but we'll do that first then we'll roll into Al's report Michael has so kindly

022um come tonight to get his report and then the principales um and then we do have a few presentations well no we just have one we have the half day Child Care update which is great so Julie and um Eric and is anyone else here for that no FR okay great so so real brief I wanted to talk to say three things tonight so first off um as everyone knows Carol is officially retired and we have Al here so we're very excited welcome Al and we are also so grateful for the huge um chunk of Carol's career that she committed to this district and I wish her well um second I know there have been a lot of grumblings um on Facebook and um from parents of the buses and the lunch menu and I

023hear you and my request is to just be patient we have um a lot of change going on right now and and I think it's going to be great we have Al coming on from what I've uh learned since I've worked with him I think he's gonna do some wonderful things for this District the business office what we did is we had a consulting company come in and we were trying to keep our costs reasonable so we have this lovely man Michael Wood who was only supposed to be working part-time who ended up coming in and and giving us so much time as well as other people from the consulting company so that's the situation with the buses where we're we have leads on full-time candidates that are going to come in and work in

024the business office it just takes some time and as everyone knows summer is kind of that period where things stand still so I just ask respectfully for patient and Grace I know it's frustrating and if you have questions or concerns the best way is to email Al or the school committee and you know usually day-to-day operations that's Al so school committee's policy budget and oversight of Al so if you're not getting anywhere with all or principles then you come to us but usually we've got some great principles we've got great superintendent so I I think you know there's specific issues about buses or the lunch menu or whatever it is brought those through the principles and just remembered we're in that tumultuous change period I think within the next month or two things are going

025to get a little bit um more consistent okay last thing I want to talk about was today we had the um msba which is the Massachusetts building School bu business Building Association um so we had applied for a grant from the state to help with the cost of the new roof for Boon Elementary and we were selected um to be interviewed and the state came today they walked through the building with Mrs syes Al um and our facilities crew we went up on the roof so we are really really hopeful that which was a feat of itself going not so much going up but coming down the ladder was broken they had like literally a little bungee cord on there but we helped each other up and up yep yep so it was great so

026I wanted to let everyone know um yeah it is great I want to let everyone know we car this was something Carol and I had applied for with the committee's help and permission back in March um we had the help of a boon select board um that meum was a huge resource for us um and the town is fixing part of the roof right now but we're really hoping that we're going to get some funding from the state to redo the roof of this building so really hopeful we're going to find out by the end of October and we'll keep everyone posted but really good things kind of in the works um right now if I can just add that so it's it's quite the process going through msba and working with them right so

027getting yourself in into that networking of of that is is a huge piece and you know hopefully we'll have success what we did today I think we gave them a great tour really got to see what our our school looks like and in the investment the town is putting into our school um which is something that the msba wants to see um but certainly they could help us out financially and also they're good to have those relationships done and develop so in the future right if you need new doors you need new windows as things get older in our our schools that once you start developing those relationships and they see the the the things that you're going to put forward as a community that's very helpful so we're hoping we're going to get some

028good news back in in October we certainly um ra out laid out the red copete from Cindy did a nice job as a principal um gave him some nice pastries and sat and have a conversation with him for a little while but then they certainly got to see the building how great it is and and what we need with that roof right now I mean it certainly concern uh I think of everybody there as well too so um this is a good relationship that's St and develop but hopefully we'll will flow even into something more yeah all right so without further Ado um so we have so tonight what one of the votes we have is to approve a new District Treasurer so our district Treasurer Joe michelbach who has been our district treasurer for

02917 years is retiring um again thank you a huge thank you to Joe he I think he came to us in retirement and he was working part-time for us as our district Treasurer um so we've been very fortunate tonight um to have we Al had a connection with Cynthia I also had a connection with Cynthia um full disclosure we're second cousins um but she came forth and said she'd be interested in the job so um I'd like to introduce Cynthia to us I believe her resume is in the drive and tonight what we have to do is we have to vote on you know we have to appoint her um and determine a salary so um Cynthia I don't know if you just want to say hi or hi everyone nice to be here did

030anyone have any questions I'm sure everyone I don't want to get into her resume or details everyone had a chance to look at her resume did anyone have any questions so just sorry go ahead oh no he didn't so um Cynthia her and I work together at veteran Academy right so we're we're quite the team um she was sort of uh a a business manager for veterin and it certainly encompassed my role as the director of admissions as well too working together the families but she also oversaw all that financial piece as well too uh did a phenomenal job at veterin um so when there was an opportunity I real that our treasur was treasur was um leaving certainly reached out C I think she'll be a great addition to our team and certainly St

031cing some of the waters that we have concerns about in the business office um but I think we're very fortunate if we can get her as part of our team and be part of um the burlin Wilston Regional School District okay so the proposed salary so it's an annual salary um the proposed salary be $14,500 um so does anyone have any questions or discussion on this or I'm just going to make a motion because I wonder to St tomorrow y def she's actually gonna come in tomorrow uh so we want to get the contract done so she can sign it tomorrow and get started uh Joe retires on September 6 so we wanted them to have a little bit of time to overlap and get the bank accounts all set up all right so then

032um all right so could I please have a motion to appoint um Cynthia Henderson as our district Treasurer the contract period will be August 28th 2024 through August 27th 2025 and then we'll vote again next year we vote every year on it um for an annual salary of $14,500 J and Julie any discussion on that how many hours uh so it's it's gonna be the way we have it this is the same as I just look we vote on this every year but Joe's been here so long we've just been giving him the same contract so it's a minimum of one day per month and increments of two half two half days and she has to be available on call as needed like if there was an issue with a bank account the bank would

033have to call you know they'd have to be able to be in touch with her or or Al would have to be in touch with her um but she can it's more of as she sees fit it's a minimum of one eight hours a month split into two coming in yeah twice a month and the other part just through CH she'll be extremely helpful on boarding our our a new Director of Finance as well too um the skill set that Cynthia has will certainly help with that Gap when when TMS leaves um but also having a new Director of Finance and having Cynthia's knowledge will be extremely helpful in that transition yeah and we need someone on the bank accounts for right when um Joe leaves so this is great very fortunate to have someone

034with experience all right um any more discussion all in favor I'm in I as well that motion passes congratulations cynia thank you the key that yeah that's perfect thanks everyone yes yes I'll be back take care she we're very fortunate to be able to get joining our team very very fortunate y all right yeah we will all right so Al you are up next sure so so good afternoon uh just gotta I I normally will have much more of a prepared statement for you guys but I'm still catching up on on day finishing full day two um let me start out again by saying thank you to the school committee um for the opportunity to lead the Berlin bison M School District I I've had an very exciting couple days as well too um I'm

035very excited for this opportunity to lead the district and have it continue to grow I truly am uh in the very short period of time I've had an opportunity to certainly meet our Administration meet our parents meet our teachers faculty directors I've met some select board members Town administrators and certainly some students of some of the practices that were taking place outside this afternoon as well too um don't ask me any of their names but I certainly got I got some some definitely some connection with them um we had a wonderful opening day hosted by Lisa at Tanto so thank you for all of our faculty and staff um I attended a great ice cream social last night at Berlin as well too Memorial and today as Megan said still on the roof of bolon

036elementary school with the msba so the last two days have certainly been a lot going on um I've had also had the opportunity to hire um some strong additions to our staff to fill the positions that we needed Cynthia Henderson being one of them um I'll talk to you a little bit later on on the agenda I'm Director of Finance position and we have people lined up that are applying to that role as well too uh met with custodians and our director of facilities uh in the buildings and grounds are ready for open they really they've done an incredible job actually we had a little breakfast um earlier this week just to make sure everyone's on board and thank the custodians for the work that they've done all along and getting these buildings ready and

037lastly as Megan said bus rots are in place so they're there right and so as Megan said just a little patience and Grace right now we're trying to work it out so that we'll make those changes I met with the school resource officer in Berlin yesterday um so he's looking at some of the concerns they have got safety on some of those stocks as well to so we're working that out but we the important thing was getting those bus Roots online which we did yesterday and I thank people for helping us get that ready as well too um I can officially report to you that Berlin Boston Regional School District is ready for opening tomorrow morning um all right schools are ready our bus routs are somewhat ready um but we're we're ready we're ready

038to go for tomorrow so we're excited for that very first day and I will be spending my day tomorrow along with my administrative team we sort of came up with a plan so we're not all in the same building at the same time we're sort of working in a clockway clockwise direction to make sure we're there to support our principles not to get in the way of them but certainly to support them as well um and and lastly again I I I couldn't be more thrilled to have this opportunity to be your superintendent um it's something I've always said and I and I just will continue to always say as a superintendent that our meetings that we have here um we should be always having our meetings like this children in the room right because

039that really is the work we're doing right we're doing this work for children and and the other part of that is we should be running these meetings for the people that are watching out town that don't have children don't with children in our in our district but still pay the taxes for our for our schools that they see what the work we done here because this is such important work everything that we do here is what's going to have to get our what's going to take place to get our kids in school tomorrow SCH too so I thank you for the work you're doing I know that everyone's volunteering here um so I appreciate all that you do um to help get our students and schools ready for thank you thank you Al uh next

040we have Michael Mr Michael Wood has a little Finance update for us sure so in your packet uh and for the public there is a document our expense uh report for the month of August uh or to date of the month of August so you know we started a new fiscal year as of July 1 uh in as in always in a um fiscal year there may be changes as the budget year flows we'll adjust some accounts um as the U or or the next uh team will uh do some adjustments of the accounts uh as needed uh for you know new hiring and so forth to make sure the money is in the right um accounts and so forth for the hiring of staff and so forth uh and um but there's there is

041the reporting we're in good shape for two months in the year um so it's always a good way to start the year uh and I think you're going to be in great shape for the for the entire fiscal year um just a couple of things you've mentioned buses they are up there um just you know the message that I'm telling parents that I've shared with principes to and secretaries to tell parents is you know the first two weeks are important um nrt is about safety first obviously uh and but when they when they go through the Versa trans it's about the efficiency as well uh and they they can only look at the roots uh as best they can with what they know about the geography of the area and so forth uh and I

042I believe you only have them maybe three years maybe maybe this is the second cycle uh but um you know concerns can certainly be emailed to principles uh or to to my office uh or to the superintendent we will forward those on to nrt and work directly with them uh and um you know where necessary du sight visits and so forth to make sure that uh we have agreement and understanding of of the placement of those of those stops uh and um you know as as we've said there there may be some situations where we have a couple of missing students on those bus runs um and um if that's the case uh certainly um you know look at the bus routes know know where the buses uh the stops are and go to the

043closest one to your house uh and and you can catch the bus there and and we'll iron out um very quickly where they are uh we did learn today how to use the bus app uh so if you want to use that we have um somebody has great records um and I think it was that's your secretary Michelle uh and so we're we're a team uh so pulling that together it was really really helpful um for much of the summer um it's it's been me uh and uh one day a week with a staff member from from my office TMS but we finally got uh a Personnel uh HR specialist in Late July and an accounts payable uh person um in U early August so training has been an effective part of the last few

044weeks and that will you know obviously be ongoing as the new person comes on board and so forth as well um and um with with what's really great is um at least on the AP side of things uh the person two people ago did a great job leaving a how-to manual um so that's been very very helpful to all of us there's a how-to manual for AP yeah Sharon from Cheryl yeah she did a great jobs and so that's that's been very helpful to me as as well as to to staff we we brought on board um and um just also um in terms of Food Services is just more information for the school committee uh that an item of business fairly fairly soon on will be the adult lunch price um it hasn't been

045addressed uh in a number of years and in talking to the director it's something that he would like to see um looked at and and um addressed and that would be a vote of the school I feel like we voted on that before did we not it was before your time I'll have to look into that we voted on prices overall for adult prices we had adult like lunch price we had prices for adult lunch I think we did too because I think for fi they know where adult price is for we absolutely have ad have a price he he would like to raise it yeah oh yeah oh yeah we have a price okay all right so that would yeah that'll have to be we'll put that on an agenda yeah we got to

046look some data for that all right thanks just a followup question Michael so I know you've been here short Peri time so look is this our last year with this bus company or top contract with a new contract will have to go out to bid um really whenever you want to but certainly no later than January yeah and and sort of publicly saying this so I guess I am you know this is their Super Bowl getting us the the bus list right I know it has nothing to do with you in this office but getting into us so late right doesn't give us that lead time at all to try to fix things and so we're sort of um so it's certainly a little concerning to me so certainly something we need to look at

047um when we're when we're we're bidding the next one out if it's them having maybe almost I don't know why I'm talking to you Mike sorry about that I know you had nothing to do it but even given like a timeline we need the bus routs by right so this way gives us a little time to try to work out the Kinks that we need to work out giving them to us you know in such a sh nose has made it difficult for our principles and certainly our parents as well too so just something I said to somebody that we need to start this process in June yeah uh even internally in terms of and clean yeah class this is a Super Bowl right they should be getting it all done and ready this is

048like the the big thing right I will give them credit based on what I was told I would get um the list was pretty clean yeah and and we had to do very little in terms of um you know set set up and reformat it I I was told that there was cut and paste activity and so forth on previous ones this one we was pretty clean so and follow question so so something like that putting off a bit I'm just ask asking for clarification so I'm sort of in contact with the executive director now who's after my email to them so is that something that goes in front of school committee is that where you guys okay great so maybe we could stop putting that on a further agenda Nicole down the line but

049to certainly stop that conversation yeah for the buses I don't I don't think I think the cleanup was like for example I can use one for Boon Elementary my kids we don't have a bus in our neighborhood but like it says it takes 17 minutes to go like a 0.1 mile from the school to the corner of schol Street and Compass Circle so like I think that was the kind of cleanup Nancy actually sat on her phone like oh Matt questioned like oh no wait that's not 17 minutes that's one minute so the times were more accurate so I mean I can just speak from that one I I haven't actually reviewed all the other ones like I think there was a few people that said stops were missing so if anyone is out there

050listening and they have gripes with the buses Al is the guy as Michael sorry Al I know your last day is this week we don't yeah we have some you know we have some options out there for the finance director thing but nothing solid yet so it has to go through Al and then Al will have to sit down and and figure that out with the bus company but I do remember Nancy actually re so so everyone needs to be patient maybe things may change slightly for the better but yeah no one's fault again just how would you how are you supposed to know that right how is anyone supposed to know that and yeah on them forgetting it literally the day before so what what that's what I use stop it so I have

051right so my two questions are if anyone can answer them um families I get it just go to the closest route of people work so is there like some kind of timeline that we can let parents no by Say by hey Tuesday we are going to have something for you so you're yeah you don't have to drive your child two blocks down and wait because it's outside your home so no I'm meeting with um D who's on the the agenda as well too um on Thursday so we we just give us some time I hate to say Tuesday because it's not Tuesday then you'll be saying is Tuesday so just give us up that's his number one priority right now is getting all these bus Roots done and cleaned up and stuff okay all right

052great and is my last question if he can he can you can ask him this too in Berlin as we've talked about the kids that get picked up have a parent already working on that so you're already that there could be a FL there could be a FL so in instead of me going to the bus company saying fix this I'm coming with a solution so I'm working with a parent um Mr hes Bob Bob holes yeah I'm working with him and he's helping recreate that roof so this way when I go to the bus company I can say you know here's here's the solution instead of just coming AC so we're working on that he doing every route or just that specific all all of us he's doing them all great y so again

053I can't guarantee that's going to happen but at least I'm coming to the bus company saying here here's an option for as opposed to not saying fix Point okay so we're trying we're trying two years ago it was like that was reversed and last year it wasn't so I'm curious I think there was a I don't want to go off our topic but I think there was a particular families and stuff that from what I'm learning that how to make the root go a certain way but we're we're definitely addressing it we're going to try to address it I'll leave at at that yeah I also whole time no no it's okay yeah it's just it's all it is is just change I don't a lot of this is like new people are coming on

054and they don't know that you have to do this and no one's telling them and so we're kind of learning as we go having manuals that's one of the things we talked about last year Mike was one of the people that was trying to drive that you know every one maybe this will be the year we start actually working on procedure manuals for everyone's job so let's say if Janelle left no one would know what to do you know what I mean we need to start documenting some of the processes so that when we have new people coming on cross training yes cross training or just documenting like this is what I do in my job this is what I do because we're not always going to have overlap so that's a huge thing for

055small districts that's a huge thing huge all right any other questions for Michael sorry yeah is the do the bus drivers have any input I mean I feel like they know their RS it's a great question worth they're good resources they do I mean she she the the P our contact our lead dispatcher uh referenced that they've gone over the roots and some of her questions to me were because the drivers raised them so um I I don't know where in the process if it's the beginning or the end but they do talk to the drivers great all right thank you um Cindy would you like to go next I would first of all thank you for allowing me this time to share some of the great things happening at PES this year the first

056thing I have to do is thank the custodial staff and Dan a for really getting this um the school open and sparkling I love going into the beginning of the year the floors are nice and shiny they don't stay that way for long but they really invite the kids in and the families when they when they come on the first day so a you things happening school committee you're going to be very happy to hear this because I know we were talking about it last year I have it in there as our newly reorganized PTO they are no longer PTO or bef or vetto which I introduced you last year they're now going to be back which is the Boyston education collaborative fancy I met with them they have some great ideas one of the

057things they're taking off on ready enagement as link as so they're going to take that on which is just I know something that we need at while soon uh a couple other things that we're doing this year we are going for gold at bees which means that's the theme this year we're raising our standards they're high the teachers have them high but it's giving students what they need um high expectations and we're doing it in a fun way so you're going to see Gold Everywhere I am actually wearing gold tomorrow and search high and low for this outfit but I got it um one other thing that I I am very proud of is kind of my baby and we the team is just jumping on board because we are building a sensory room at

058our school I have a vision people are joining that Vision it is not there yet we were hoping to have it painted they ran out of time the room um but we have some great uh resources for students and staff and principal to use at certain points that the PTO from last year donated and they spent $2500 for this room and they have ideas to add to it they've got a little tour um it's not done I'm hoping to have that complete before open house which is on September 12th I might be in there some Saturdays and Sundays we'll have some sensory Saturdays and Sundays and invite help but I'm really looking forward to this and inviting you in to see it because it's a great room it's one that I really believe in be

059surprised you see me in that room every now and then just personal space that's all sorry thank you thank you Cindy thanks Cindy let's see who's next John oh sure not nearly as traumatic as my colleague in CRI gold I'm not gonna be wearing gold tomorrow I'm gonna be wearing my Buffalo Bills r i because that's how we fly more actually a lot of the things I I won't belabor the things that everybody's going to say yes my school also looks beautiful Dan the guys did a great job um we're ready for the first day of school with the occasional hiccup on crazy bus routes um and a couple of last second supplies but teachers are s of ready to go we met today we talked about I'm stealing an idea from Tahanto we talked

060about a school wine goal this year great um and staff were really into that so good yeah that's we're talking more in terms of in promoting student Independence in the way they think and act um so we'll see where that goes and then the last thing I just want to thank link um because they are amazing we had a couple of Summer picnics this year we had a special thanks to Peg Stone who's uh the on the brn select board I believe she's the chairperson of the select board um who did some great reading and a shout out to my son who sometimes watches these and I did our version of The Three Little Pigs so that was a lot of fun got thanks great thank you John Lisa so Tanto um thank you everyone

061for um providing this opportunity so on Monday we welcome the staff back and again um I think just echoing what everyone else has said um custodians did a wonderful job Food Service uh we host the opening day at Tanto and the Food Service um and Rob did a wonderful job they did a really really wonderful job so that makes for a wonderful welcoming um day and truly our unsung heroes um that day also we had um our sixth grade orientation on Monday was led by our high school students Council um and their advisers Daniel Rinker and Emily McCarthy and they do such a wonderful job with our sixth graders they lead them through all kinds of activities get them comfortable with the building and the schedule and opening lockers and I think that is such

062an important moment to relieve some of that anxiety um in as students trans transition into Middle School um we have had a host of other students come through um all summer long um through just to visit as people have moved in quite a few people have moved in so welcome all the visitors we love that um I I felt um and I was saying this I felt kind of like July you know I was a little and then you know kids started coming you know and then the student council and then people and I was like oh this is better you know so it it does feel more alive and that is wonderful our um Athletics started a week before school um The Fall season kicked off um on Monday the 19th um and we

063currently are running um boy soccer Middle School JB and varsity girls soccer Middle School JB and varsity field hockey JV and varsity golf middle school in Varsity and cross country so we really look forward um it's I I love um fall Sports it's always very fun I think the bulk of the report though that you'll notice is the school committee um was asking about enrollment and you know where the enr moment stood and also when people were leaving why were they leaving and so um as an admin team and I think Renee very much for um doing the work for reaching out to many of the students so um there is a first graphic that identifies the enrollment now we've had students coming in enrolling up and through yesterday so the numbers you have that

064were download in a PDF might not be um the current actual numbers so in sixth grade we have currently enrolled now it's at 77 seventh grade we have 91 students e8th grade we have 83 nine we have 77 10th we have 10 we have 71 so we went down to 11 we have 74 and 12 we have 67 so we have a total enrollment of 540 students to Hanto and there's a summary of um an exit survey that um that we took the number of students who um exited each of the grades and kind of where they were going and then further breakdown so there was two Graphics a breakdown of generally where students were going and then a little bit more like an appendix about additional information collected through the surveys and there's a

065bar graph that shows that you know the bulk of our transition um was in the ninth grade and the new enrollment information um so the new students enrolling but that was as of 820 so that's um that has changed so if there's any questions on that I know you had time to digest that but if you have any questions s I'm happy to Rene and I are happy to um speak to anything on those reports for the qcc for 11 and 12 is that dual enrollment or is that okay I mean there's three there's three different programs um there's dual enrollment there's Gateway and there's Ace so often most this most of the students go through dual enrollment and it really offers an incredible opportunity for our students to get a head start also to

066get those General requirements taken care of at a low cost and I think that is driving a um many of the decisions that it becomes very cost effective those kids still take some classes at Tanto or everything's at qcc everything at qcc but they can well today we had a student he'll be taking um music courses here so he'll be coming here for music class so they it it depends on the student okay but you're still cting our numbers excuse me sorry through chair they're still count our numbers those students even though they're doing rowing yes that's correct because they do they will graduate with us they will graduate with the class and they still can participate in athletics and all our program and and that's important for the financial piece of that as well

067too right not bus good excent so for me I wanted to say thank you because this is such good information um I think the I mean it's really detailed it's really thorough um I I think it's good to is you know keep going with it so then you can start to see Trends if there are any year-over-year right um I do think it's also interesting right it's always so hard when you're looking at numbers because it depends on what graph you have or what sheets you have and who came in who didn't but the projected numbers that we had last school committee meeting to what we have ended up with are a lot lower but you don't people move they move you don't have any control over it which in this a lot of these

068wise there's a lot of movement with families yes which I think is interesting rather than you know I didn't have what I I needed at that school did wasn't giving me enough you know that's whatever so I think this is great information so thanks for doing it CL oh sorry go yeah go ahead Mike I agree with Julius good information in here some of the stuff least that you can probably start doing today to try to we talk about fixing things and convincing people to say see some here are leaving because there wasn't enough parent teacher communication yes uh Math and Science I know we just had a full-time math hire right yes so I assume you you have plans in place right now to start fixing this today yes what are they so with

069with the parent communication um so we've discussed that at the team um meetings um for that specific um you know addressing those concerns so um you know we've had meetings with the the staff that we are concerned with so that is the step and I think we have templates we've provided templates for um for staff as well we're also looking at the open house and um understanding that the conference and open house formats AR necessarily produ as productive for the middle schools we're looking at having different formats so I think something that's held us back it has been all the um a vision that all of the scho schools have to do the same thing all the time when that doesn't always meet the needs of the families at each developmental level we see that

070very clearly at the Middle High School where at the middle School were mobed with students and families during open house and during conferences and essentially when you're an 11th and 12th grade the teachers the families have already met most of the teachers so there it's it it's a it's a very different look so looking at those models and making sure that those times are well spent and it's more based in engagement and communication so with the f math teacher you announced Monday the full-time athletic director position I know you mentioned the sports that are going on now but I was going to wait for a couple months maybe to ask you this question but what's going to change in the athletic program now that there's a full-time athletic director that we can look forward to

071so one there's um a couple that actually just had this conversation with um Matt today about some of the goals that I would like because just as Educators have goals administrators have goals as well and so one of the areas so coach evaluations are important are important to me and we we need to put a system in place for evaluating coaches um I want the athletic handbook revised that hasn't been revised in a very long time and that needs to be revised um and I also want to look at um team building and an engagement through the teams and we had um Kyle cares which is a program that really highlights leadership roles with within teams so that our student athletes become community leaders so I'm really kind of looking at those three things right

072now cool it's great yeah thank you there's so much El there we can talk about that right for some of our athletes right you you talk about sorry for the chair talk about learning right not community service but Service Learning right and that they decide what they want to do as a team or a group of athletes um what they how they want to get back to the community so that's certainly something our athletic director that would be great thanks thanks L thank you it's great uh Janelle sure um so my brief report reflected some of the highlights from the pupil personnel office um over the summer which included welcoming um some new staff um and really celebrating the addition of a second occupational therapist at the district which we're very grateful um that the

073budget's allowed us to do that and a community support to do that that was um so much needed so thank you um also our extended school year I note that for the first time we actually held our extended school year program here at Tanto um in all recent history it is alternated between the elementary schools and just based on planned work in the elementary schools we held it here at Danto um we have debriefed on the feedback from that what worked well and what didn't and we'll be talking about that again in the winter to decide where those services will be held in the summer of 2025 submitted our grants um as you know as expected those have been submitted the Ida grants um which are referred to as the 240 and the 262 grants

074came out to a total of 320,000 $935 those are submitted um and then our big Focus for the year ahead is certainly the new IEP form which I've talked about here before I keep bringing it up because it is such a big deal for all of the families um with children in the special education program as well as the staff that provide services to special education students um and then in October um the admin team will be reporting out on preschool program review that we received very late in the spring I'm going the process of analyzing that now and developing our recommendations and sharing them with you in October it's great so I'll we'll touch base and then we can get that on the agenda because I know a lot of people there's a there

075was a lot of um questions around add a full day preschool and yes sure been anticipating to see how the results and certainly connects to the budget right so we want to we get it in there um before that budget cycle so if it doesn't work for October of course you'll let us know where it fits um but we do want to be mindful of the budget CC as well yes great thank you thanks did did anyone have any questions for J oh thank you all right awesome thanks uh Sally sure so um to piggy back off of what Janelle was talking about with grants I recently submitted my application for the Essa grants which stands for every student succeeds acts this involves Title One um which um funds our Title One programming uh we

076also have a title 2A Grant which we use for professional development for our staff and we also have a title for Grant which we use funds for um we've been using it for our portrait of graduate initiative and we like to extend that to strategic planning this year um I do have allocations but since it hasn't been approved yet I just didn't publish it yet but I'm certainly um happy to do that in the next report uh we also had our new staff orientation last Friday and that was took place at Tanto Regional um from 8 to two for new teachers and Par professionals and during that time the administrative team met with everyone and we talked about different protocols and um we took them on tours of all three schools we had a nice

077lunch and um the teachers were able to meet up with their mentors that they've been assigned and spend some time together in the afternoon um so um Gail ker is the mentor coordinator that works for me with me for that and she did a really great job helping to organize that um our administrative team some of us uh took part in a Leadership Institute that took place um held by desie it was a free Institute that um provided a wealth of information that was really helpful um lots of different tools to help with um the curriculum process and I plan to share those with um Department chairs throughout the year and um finally the wellness policy which I know we're going to talk about later um once it is approved our committee has plans to

078take uh a presentation that we're preparing um kind of on the road to different groups like The boosters and the PTO and faculty meetings um also with um School councils the it's it's meant to be a kind of a proactive um presentation to help provide Alternatives um to how things have been done in the past that would still be helpful and successful but that don't um go against the the current policy which you know we wrote according to federal and state regulations so um and um also just about the importance of why that you know that policy needs to exist and so we can talk about that more when we uh go to the vote later if you have any questions on that also um there was an inquiry in the spring about where we

079were with our district Improvement plan so um at our administrative retreat in July uh we sat together as a team and we went through it part by part and colorcoded it for you all and it was submitted so you can see um the color cing reflects whether something was completed whether it was something that we uh changed Direction on whether it was in progress uh whether it did not happen or whether um is some things that are not clor coded are happening this year and this is the uh last year that we're going into with that District Improvement plan so um you know Al's brand new but we'll be sharing that with him and going having discussions about that very soon good that was a beautiful document thank you oh thank you yes really helpful

080and I I think we should share it with the towns as well because I think there was assumptions that we were just not planning so it' be great to show them the progress on yeah put on that District website well to we can talk about that it okay this is this is the third year of a three-year plan um so hard um maybe you know at some point closer to budget probably blast that out in an email um for people that are interested with some information could be sometime this to right for the budget probably I think that's where it's most applicable right so people understand when we're like oh we need a teacher it's not just like yeah we feel like adding a teacher it's this is part of the plan this is part

081of the growth we're on track this is what we need okay great um Paul oh so I know there were some questions about the wellness policy but let's let Paul do his report I think we have Eric and Julia going to present on the half days and then we will uh go we'll do the other votes and then we'll do this question all right go ahead Paul um good evening apologize first for being a little late I had Co and then actually took a couple of days off so um sorry for it being a touch late um we had the report um first was again just updates on end of year from last year um just to you know up that we you know met all deadlines for all recording Sims eims sscs ssdr um

082Sumer projects included um getting 250 Chromebooks ready as well as iPads um if you get a chance at some point in Tanto to stop in and see the new tech music Tech Lab um uh Mr GL would be glad to like show it off I'm sure um we were also able to U do installs in 16 rooms across the three schools with projectors and the camera update at Tanto is again 95% complete they're waiting on a couple parts to get two last cameras on board um one other item that came in today um the uh Walky talkies are in progress but um they were able to deliver kind of like our our basic need we needed to add some more at each of the schools um that happened today um and again I'm not a

083big radio person but for folks that may or may not know like um getting radios nowadays is a 8 to 12 week um ordeal and and so we were lucky enough to to get stuff for it so that would have in place for our first day of school um and I I got to thank Peter goby from Electronics um I think he maybe borrowed some from a few places that he maybe shouldn't have borrowed conf from so that we made sure we got him but um we we appreciate that it made life easier for the for the principals to get school start tomorrow Paul can I just ask a question so uh uh uh the radios all connected through buildings are just individuals buildings of well currently just building to building we're working on um

084there is infrastructure to be able to go beyond so that'll be kind of like phase two okay um but yeah okay excellent thanks great thank you does anyone have questions for Paul okay all right Julie are you and Eric ready to so we have a presentation from um the parks and wreck crew uh Eric is from Boon and Julie is on the parks and wck crew in Berlin um and so this presentation is going to kind of outline uh what they have been working on the summer uh for child care on the half days I think we've have what nine seven seven half days this school year um professional development it's the professional development half days is correct so if it's a holiday half day like the half day before Christmas you guys aren half

085day that they have conferences because the building won't be available all right so um I don't know how you guys Eric do you want Eric has a dance do your intro dance oh my God that would be fantastic I know where should we go come on join us yeah the table we're not unless you're gonna take the G we want to make sure we get your possession right y feel so important all right okay um so I'm gonna obviously speak on behalf of the rec committee and Eric is speak thank you this is not a school committee speaking School committe member speaking right now okay we'll Reserve questions to the end that's what you're asking yeah hopefully I can stick to that um we will thank you okay so I wanted to just clarify and

086and Al I know this is probably VI to you this is probably a good little brief introduction to this sure so we the school committee Ved to change the calendar um last year's calendar to this 202 24 25 calendar and what that meant was um Carol had brought to us and I'm sure after me the administrative team too that um they wanted to do more half days so the teams could collaborate the teachers could collaborate and have more time to work together um more consistent sure rather than what we what we had had in the past further to that is Carol also provided us with research and data that show The Districts that are doing this half days once a month so their staff can meet and become stronger together so ultimately our kids are

087achieving here um or higher performing districts um and there was lots of data that supported that that she hadr us um and then schools that aren't doing this aren't necessarily as high achieving um so there was conversation what do we do now with this is this is quite an Ask of parents right to do half ch um so we had said I actually probably said it before weing to Boon um the recreation departments can partner with the schools separate this is not I do want I do want to emphasize this this is not a school's sponsored thing this is completely run by the rec departments out of be and Bo I mean in Bur Memorial School because those are Town facilities we do have shared use agreements with um the towns when school's not in

088session we actually have a signed lease agreement in Berlin Boon's getting to that point um that the towns will use leave these buildings because they're 10s um we had met throughout the summer um Eric and myself and Cindy and John and some other and Pam also works for Bo and how how do we do this school ends at teachers have to go and train and now we have all these children that need places to be maybe um we would still do regular dismissal through the schools and then the rep programs would come in with our staff and run some really cool enich programs um for a period of 11:45 until 3:05 which is the end of day dismissal time in which time Point kids can either be dismissed to their parents like they would in

089the normal school day or they're going to pick up the after school program that the elementary schools run on a regular day um run by our teachers the no the after school programs are run by know teachers and peers employes School staff School sponsored School staff that's a school sponsored yeah so they be the professional wining of that 11:45 time block right all the school staff are doing their school training and the rep programs are coming in managing um okay just to catch you so I did compare the calendar from last year to this year because when this was proposed it was not received well naturally from parents right a percentage of parents the calendar the calendar not the program the calendar because look you know now we have we need child care for this

090time um the recro was really didn't have a program in place yet detailed program so I compare the calendars from last year this year I just want people to understand what the difference really is okay so last year we had four full PD days this year there'll be three right full so we're losing one full PD day which is being split to the two half days yeah right so you would have parents would have to do child care for those four full PD days right so so you got to understand that point to start I do last year we had three half days for PD days this year well it looks like we have seven we are losing one full day which is actually the two y so really which one day correctd correct we're

091not adding it looks on paper l oh my gosh if you look at all those yellows that's a lot going on there and it does it is aligning at first side you take a deep breath you compare the calendars we see that it's a full day was shifted into two half days and we added two more to benefit the staff right so that they can better prepare our kids it makes sense okay but that's where we came in now so we did you guys all have your drive I um is we made this plan all right um I don't know if yeah you guys so basically what it what it outlines is the time we would start the dates that are it's offered so this we'll clean this up we we're gonna we are going

092to once this gets support from the committee we are going to put this on our websites we're going to post it to social media we can put it in the um um principal newsletters we can get this we'll use um Tahanto too because we're going to need um staff to work this um we're going to get this information out to as many people certainly as possible yes okay so what this what this will look like is on those half days School runs and then at dismissal time the elementary schools will do their regular dismissal almost like we're running just like an after school program however we'll work with the elementary schools however they want to dismiss those children to the rec programs that will be up to them because that's a bigger moving part that

093they should manage in their building um I would say we'll probably go last because you'll probably get up the dismissals through and then what we did was we created this little descript of kind of what the day looks like so it's a 3 hour and 15 minute block and what we would do is for the first hour and I didn't what going on in 10 minutes we'll do lunch with the kids and then we'll do recess because remember these kids haven't done recess because they've been in school all day so we'll feed them their lunch we'll do the recess and then we'll start their programming the programming will be all sorts of things which is what we do recreationally anyways we'll do stem programming we'll do movement programing I think we have sensory we have

094puzzles games art books all kind of theme based for the month so like for October it would be like pumpkins and ghosts because they are Elementary right um things of that nature we would move the kids because we could we don't know how many children we're going to have in this program um we did kind of have the convers we did have the conversation with Cindy um this was when John W able to make this meeting but how many kids are in the current after school program at bees is sort of like an idea and they're roughly 75 children so if we had we Mark that up by even up to 150 or 100 say in that range we do have to have staff to student ratio we're going to follow the ACA standards which

095are the American Camp Association standards um which it it varies by age so it's like 1 to five if they're five and six year olds or it's 1 to 10 if they're older than that um so we'll have all that once we get the kids ages we'll be able to manage all the Staffing um what else oh we discussed how we manage the cost right because this is not school this is essentially um we have to pay these counselors that work because they are working so they should be paid um although it's nice to have volunteers do things it's also nice for high school kids to make some money for the work they're doing um so we we spoke about definitely paying every counselor that works whether they're high school kids or if it's a

096mom or a dad or grandmother as long as their four sty check they will make minimum wage and they will be employees in the town so that onboarding process will be done on our end not the schools so they'll get hired through the town all that paperwork um the Cory stories will be done through the town too um so we toyed around with okay what do our numbers look like what do the ratios look like could how could we pay everybody bu the supplies you know the paint markers the paper all the stuff um and and do this at a cost so we thought would $15 work and then we mapped it out with this many kids but the ratio of this are we breaking even we don't we certainly don't want to be paying

097R programs to run this program right we want to do this for the schools so we put on this $25 I think is that right yeah yeah I think it's important to knowe too that um our recck departments in town all you know you pay taxes direct we don't we don't have like a budget neither town has a big budget for program literally hundreds of dollars so we can't support a program like this without charging some kind of money to pay the coun and materials and what y so how do we get this information out um we both have websites um Eric has and Berlin will have it pretty soon within the next month probably we have a software that's really really great really user friendly you sign up online you're paying online we do

098it in link when they do the enrichment program same idea I don't know if you do something similar with after school okay not yet but it'll be familiar and it's great because then he uses it in his town we use it in our town northb uses it you know everyone's using it's user friendly locally so which is really nice um wait is it sorry interrupt is it the software that you use like if you're signing up for a w program my my myre yeah oh yeah everyone in BO yeah yeah like if you sign up for like the camps you guys yeah yeah yeah yeah easy all right great and the nice thing about that is you're not in Berlin right now because we're we're little old fashioned still um but we're getting there um

099we're still dealing with checks and collecting payments and doing Google forms where this program is just it's all done oh yeah yeah and then you can put a credit card in and yeah um so we do have seven of these half days for the year the idea is um we do not want to have people signing up for all seven at once because anything can happen right and we don't want to be issuing refunds actually we're not issuing refunds there's no refunds if you sign up just consider I don't know we can't do refunds the town's not going to want to be refunding people oh right that'll be a logistical nightmare so we said how do we do this so people we don't put people in this situation what we'll do is we'll let people

100sign up for two months at a time so the month before we'll open it up we'll do a pre-release it's coming kind like sept days till Christmas and then s that out let families know we're going live on this date they do this in other towns that are very busy you release it people sign up and that's and that's how we do it can it not be at 9:00 a.m. on a Monday well that's fair I agree I agree it should agree y I agree with you that's a good point Jess it shouldn't be during working hours ask aou questions on that so far if that's okay so obviously you'll keep the principals informed of like who's attending right so that day is coming so and will there be a cut off date for that

101as well too so like by this day if you're not signed up like so just way that information go to the principal so they know where whose kids are going home and was getting pick up that's great thank you for that I didn't say that you want speak we have to that too we need to know how many CS so it's going to be earlier rather than later to cut off and the only thing I I would ask you to think about is we did this at ven Cynthia and I had an before school or an after school and it was hard to like come up with a fee right so you end up charging people for the hour right so if you had the first hour we came up with a figure right um

102because some people might only stay until 12:30 then some people stay till 1:30 some people stay till 3:00 just just something that that give hour yeah instead of just one flat feed some people might only say that out and that might throw things off for you guys it might make it even hot I'm just telling you what we've done question definitely how the cut off date was helpful to us looks great nice job on this yeah and you can have a status in the dismissal app I don't know if berin uses that same yeah so that like the parent can actually you'd have to say not only do you have to sign up here youve got to make sure you put your kid in that status so they can easily add that yeah that's what

103John's done in the past good yeah for you guys probably already do it forment yeah we got to do it like for likeo Club a long time we haven't had that for yeah and then also right as we have guys this is the first year doing this right and we want to support the schools with this um because that's really important we felt our our committees or our Parks and Rec Department felt that it's very important to work together and Par appear here um we don't know we don't know we don't know how many kids we're going to get that's that's the fortunate part here and do you need a certain number to make it work oh that's a good question I would say no okay I would Su what do you think a certain

104number to make it work a minimum well we'll definitely have enough people s Cindy sent out a survey of to all the parents interested and we already got quite a few excellent right I don't think that and if we have certainly we can also do you know we'll put it out to the workers but if we have Burling kids and we don't have enough we send some thoring folks over to work in the boil at the PS program all right yeah sure goad I'm G write okay jul I mean the document you put out there on the drive is really good I like it I appreciate it um I hear your math on the half days and the number calend phase anything it goes from three count three half days to seven half days four

105full days to three full days is it's still more doubling the calendar days so the only thing I would say and it's not necessarily for the rec department but for the committee if you're going to be charging for the one you mentioned serving lunch is that included in the fee or is that through the school lunch well it's free this year anyway so that would be up to the child but but is it through the school lunch program or is it your bring they would they get it yeah okay all right but there's gonna be a feat for it since we are creating this burden for parents I would ask the committee to think about including this in the budget for next year a a cost or a line item to to cover this because

106we are we are creating this burden for parents and it's 175 bucks if someone goes all year which to some people is nothing but to other people is everything so I'm glad you brought that up actually so um if right because you always have to if there is a hardship somewhere and it's for some family right we do have a plan for that okay um the Boon education collaborative has agreed for Boon residents that they will pay for any scholarships scholarships and we'll certainly set something up in Berlin for that same thing whether it's through link or who knows how we'll do that but in some capacity the burlin families will have that same um opportunity afforded to them um I I you know I I don't know I'm curious with how the school committee

107would put it in their budget because it's not a school it's not a school sanction thing uh you know just like I would just ask that we consider it is where if we're gonna if we're gonna continue to do this I was looking at the calendar too there's a uh two we period in September where you actually have back-to-back School weeks of a full school week and then you don't have another full backtack full school week until February where you have one what and then it's not until May where you have another one so every single week There's a full half or holiday school day other than two periods and there's no way like kids can't get into a routine families can't get into a routine two weeks weeks it's difficult so there's single weeks

108that they have a full week but there's not there's no 10 days in a row of school I get what you're saying until March probably it's hard to create a routine especially for younger kids and I don't know the kids maybe I'll find that out in a few years but I don't know I would I would defer building principles for that I feel like I'm just asking the committee you know if we're gonna create this burden that's fine but can we consider maybe covering the cost something if we can't we can't but let's just bring it up uh John did you want to say just real quick as you're thinking about that if you use School District point where you make it a school sponsor event and then you're going to run into special education

109costs and some other complications which just when you get that discussion actually that's a good question so learning some information through the par negotiations what if a student that needs to attend this does need some sort of oneon-one attention that they would normally have during the school day it's not a school sponsor yeah how that they're out of luck um so have one volunteering Wilson that's already volunteer yet so yeah which is great I a concern would be because we do have some students right who may be there during the school day and then accessing the after school program and we can't allow their disability to become a barrier to participate um in this program I know but that's I know it's so tricky and we certainly do not want to exclude anybody however um

110that's a school after school activities affiliated with the school so there's different parameters with that right as you know yeah and because also we don't we would not have any knowledge of anybody's plan because that's a privacy issue we would never have information sure right I I think that this I interpret it a little bit differently and I think that you know what qualifies as a school sponsored of event um or School sponsored activity there's a little bit of kind it's kind of a great area and I feel like there's some features here that fall into what would be a school sponsored activity and some that fall out and just I know know that none of us want to exclude any of our students from being able to participate that I know that that's not

111the interest of the room so I think you know we could probably just look at the list of students that are are signing up and internally make arrangements um you know for those students um and I think we could probably be creative to make sure that everybody can participate and that that doesn't become a barrier because we we do indeed have some students that if we weren't able to provide them with appropriate support it would be a barrier to them attending and participating sure all right perfect through men so I I completely agree with you I I know we keep saying well it's not a school spons event but look who's discussing it right here is that whole school commity making decisions on this right so as much as we want to say it's not

112a school sponsor event it really is because we're having these conversations in school committee um so I think we really need to be looking at at those those students that that that would need that so I think the sooner we get this information out to parents and say sign up if you want the quicker we can look at Staffing for that as well too because I really agree with you that I think this is underneath the perimeter is the way we're approaching this as a school sponsored event especially if like the PTO are offering scholarships and we're using school funding to pay to pay lunches right we're paying lunches I know feed them school lunches right we're going to have the the the staff of the school lunches prepare those meals as well too so

113it really is hard to we have that anyways with the every child that happens on half days anyway does everyone get a lunch on half day okay yes if they want if they want some people but I but I agree and I think you're right nobody in this room no no of course not but let's have a plan it see the list and then make arrang for that right it's great idea that we yeah just sorry get so I was curious if any thoughts on like a counselor and training kind of sign up um like some of the sixth graders would probably be very helpful with the younger kids but not yet 14 um so I just want to put that out there they volunteer because they could yeah willing you know I'd be will

114and give them something to do as well actually um maybe I don't know I don't know um and then sibling discount so like the after school program if you have this many kids for which I know it's hard to support Staffing but i y that's fair we talked about that I can't be hard to you still need I wrot down all good so discount Y and then just kind of to go along with Mike said for next year um all but one is a Wednesday and so it might be nice to think about a little bit of variety um you know I 11:45 dismissal would mean I would have to take an entire day off um and I think that might be true for other individuals to get home to get a kid off the

115bus so um that's just future discussion next yeah I think next year we need to we need to see what happens this year with this program and PD and I think we had requested if we did this for the calendar we had requested Carol of Carol we had said you know we want you to show us how this is actually I agree with Julie the time the actual time spent on PD you're getting eight extra hours on PD is there actually an an added benefit of this um so you know just trying to figure out what the best you know and maybe even looking at what other districts do um I know a lot of places kind of Outsource their child care and stuff like that all right so moving right along did anyone have

116any more questions on that we do not have to vote on that that's not something the school committee would vote on because it's a wreck program that the school's G to be offering so did anyone have any other questions before we move on to the votes could I just say one thing oh yeah I just want to thank you for the effort the amount of planning these are this is great this is really wonderful like I know we're talking about the nitty-gritty so it sounds like it's negative but this is really a wonderful thing and it's community building and I just think it's so thank you thank yeah the time you guys seriously volunteers again so thank you both you thanks guys thank you guys so much all right gonna take some votes it's the

117first tomorrow's the first day of school we all want get home get to bed at 8 o' right yeah absolutely all right so we have an a request to move the Tanto graduation back one weekend from what is it it's usually the second weekend in June no it's it's always the first weekend in June did we have it wrong on the calendar yeah okay it was just so it should be June 1st and not June all right so this is just to amend the calendar all right so this is just an error on the calendar um so I please have a motion to change the date of the Tanto Regional Middle High School graduation ation from June 8 June 8th to Sunday June 1st Julie and Mike all right any discussion on that all in

118favor I I I'm an i as well that motion passes okay I'm GNA skip the wallness policy because I know we have some discussion on that um so Nature's Classroom fundraising for both bees and BMS so this is just uh they want to get started early that's great so this is just to approve allowing Cindy and John um and whoever the groups are from their schools to get started on their fundraising now so I could I please have a motion to approve fundraising for Nature's Classroom at both Boon Elementary School and Berlin Memorial School mov second Jess any discussion on that all in favor I I'm an i as well that motion passes um okay so we have the Tanto Regional Middle High School handbook out there um did anyone have any questions that was

119a first read way back in May or June Lisa May uh volunteered her time to work with Mrs saera um on the formatting and cleaning it all up and thank you for your time on that huge it was such an amazing help I so appreciate it really was great it was wonderful thank you it was a pleasure working with Lisa as well I'm happy to do the other ones that we talked about too okay awesome yeah Lisa is great with the grammar and the format yeah seriously it's an actual document not skinned images was fantastic looking through it it look good what was that I said it was an actual document not scanned images so it was nice and easy to go through great yeah nicely done very nice thanks both did anyone have any

120questions on the um content of the handbook I did all right go ahead Mike we talked about this last time um but we're still allowing students to f fail classes yet continue to participate in extracurriculars I see that still in there I don't necessarily agree with that I also noticed the section about the senior privileges it specifically says in order to use your senior privileges you cannot have any failing grades so why seniors can't have failing grades but athletes can I think as a school we should be promoting not celebrating failure but promoting you know if a kid's gonna fail do the work to help them get the passing grade before participating in extracurriculars I just I don't agree with that personally um so that our that that part of the handbook is consistent with

121Mia policy so we're just consistent with um Massachusetts so that's like the minimum right we're you know we talk Monday we're good but we want to be better right I just I can't imagine a student failing a class and instead of going to a teacher for extra help hey you better get on the field and practice it just seems counter to what we're trying to do so and I think that um it think it's a good point I think there are a couple things to consider and to think about that we are looking at um having you know to you know looking at those students who might struggling in athletics and having them spend time after school prior to practice um and with a full-time athletic director that can be coordinated much easier um to

122do that as well we don't have um many students because students who um you know fail courses often are not um participating in in you know Sports um um for the person for the student who may be failing a course maybe Athletics is really the only thing that is getting them to school and I I would say that it you know we were following the Mia rules I would hate to not allow that opportunity for a student who may have a particular um hurdle in a particular topic and you know in school they may be struggling in an area I would hate for them not to be able to participate in athletics um because of one hurdle and if that student was a senior he couldn't have their SE or she couldn't have their senior

123privileges but they couldn't Place boards what are the senior privileges the senior privileges to be um to sign out like if they have a study hall at the end of the day they can sign out or if they have this a study hall at the beginning of the day they can sign in late and so it depends on their schedule many of our seniors have full schedules and don't have our you know and actually don't have study halls that allow them to access that privilege because they're taking Rous course loads P course loads so if they do happen to have a study call at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day um if they're if they're passing all of their classes they can sign out but a student who's failing

124a class doesn't necessarily need to worry about that he can go to practice or to the game it just seems counterintuitive to what we're trying to do Lisa what do you want to say oh you know before we go into any more discussion lii pointed something out I should have made the motion first and then we should do the discussion all right so thank you L um so could I please have a motion to approve the Tahanto Regional Middle High School handbook so moved seven lri and Julie all right now the discussion go ahead Lisa I just wanted to say I think that dichotomy makes sense because physical activity is really good for your brain like it helps your brain to work better so going into practice might actually help them do better in their

125classes but leaving early on a school day they might just go home and you know watch TV or play on their phone or whatever but if they have to sit there in the class you know they might actually take that time to study so I think it actually makes sense yes Jess yeah so there's really good research on exercise being as effective as the medications for ADHD and so I think a lot of kids that might be struggling classwise might have that diagnosis that they're dealing with with um exercise is also a great treatment for depression and anxiety as well which could also lead to difficulty in classroom attendance or or classwork so I think it's allowing them do the sports along with extra support academically helps the student in the end so I'm just

126noticing the parking rules they're allowed one failing class as well so to I think what Mike's point is not that it's he's for or against it but that the protocols don't match across um because it looks like the parking you can fail up to one class as well and still retain parking it's the senior privileges um and and I agree with you because exercise I I know a lot about depression anxiety exercise does help um but it's tough It's really tough because if we're trying trying to make if the education is the most important thing and that's what we're in charge of it's something that might be worth looking at so it I I should back up it's not just sports that this covers it's just extracurricular activities usually we just think of that sports

127but it could be whatever extracurricular activity you have I feel like if you're failing go past the class before you start doing extra I mean can can you get up to a d i can get a d yeah so you can't down right so so chair so does this have to be approved for the first day of school well this is we never had one last for two years yeah it would be nice because I think this is a is a a valuable conversation I think there is a little like we we need to look at how that happens right um I I think and again I'm here to do the job this year right probably not here to make friends but I'd love to have this conversation with you maybe using that athletic Direct

128that's what we did in here waham right so that now that it's fulltime me again not here to make friends just here to do the job really well for you guys but something that our athletic director did was held sort of like a study period before they went to practice right that's we've been talking about that so that's a real was a really good thing so the kids even though they still could participate in the sport and they might have been failing there was a period of time where where they they went to have a little bit of a study there right and a little bit of time to do some work or catch up and then they went to their and this is just something we we didn't hear the Willam not sure if

129successful but I think it's something that we certainly could have a conversation and I'd like to have that conversation with you guys if that's if you guys are okay with so what we could do so you actually have a chance to meet with Lisa and maybe make some changes that you could suggest I mean we could actually table this to September 10th we're meeting again in two weeks sure um so if you if you come back and say good the way it is right but can at least but at least that that way you have some oversight into this because this was a conversation we had with Carol last year um and you know I don't I don't know if the conversations were had or what happened but yeah I I do think that it

130makes sense I see both sides of it because I see you're failing you might have some mental health issues might not just be that actually can't do the work you're having trouble maybe you don't have support at home I don't know maybe this is your outlet so I get that um but a middle ground there's a middle ground I also get yeah you have yeah teach kids to be held accountable because the real was going to chew you up and spit you out if we don't teach that in high school um so I see it but I I I'm I think yes give us your input that's have that conversation oh absolutely and I mean we are already having that conversation we are having that conversation with you know the you know some of the

131coaches already great so I mean it's not as though that's you know having that time supported time after school before the athletes go out so we're already in conversation with that yeah and I apologize I'm trying to catch up so I'm sorry a lot I just don't know I'm just asking questions absolutely um I'm very open to that conversation and I are we have really um wonderful coaches who are very who really talk you know are really looking at the student athlete and I've gone to them before to talk about you know student students grades and ask them and so it is a very collaborative great um situation so we I absolutely can talk more on that maybe it's something you add in the handbook you know you must have a study session if you

132are failing a class and you want to do Sports you must attend a study session once a week or whatever with you know or you must have after school help so yeah I'll let you guys figure that detail is everyone on the committee okay with yeah I think getting the Mia um like footnotes of their research that went into for that particular rle because clearly that was based on something so I think that would also be I think too it's based on you know you're looking at the whole state that's right right so sure of course sure our athletes are not failing I just think it's it's a further conversation and and I apologize I just I'd like to be part of that conversation with you guys what do you think wait you guys want

133yeah I think it's hard you know opening year after year without hand I know I know I know because people are going to want it but if we vote on it September 10th can send it out before the open what's open house is the 12th I mean it's just so much for your open house to do the next month so um I'm sorry there's because there's also so the the so we also are we have a little file going for other things because we've had this handbook um kind of hanging for two years so we have a file going that we want to also look at adjusting some other things we have some absence some you know things around attendance other policies that we want to address as well so if we're going to hold

134off to do this then I'm thinking okay so then we we have a we have a whole file that we can then but we've spent so much time editing it and and doing it so I've been just like okay everybody let's refile let's put all the things that we're going to edit in this file Lisa how long would it take you to add those things to this do you need months three months six months five [Music] months it's Carol was going to ask that a subcommittee um take a look at two of the attendance policies that just the language doesn't match of the policies of those policies right so that almost that kind of subcommittee would need to happen first on attendance the policy subcommittee would have to take those policies to then make those

135policies match or delete one of those right to then transfer into this handbook is this something we could approve for the fall semester and then you work on that and then we come back that's what I would yeah or just approve it for this year and then it's something for yeah or you mean false I approve for the false will give is that something that would work and um if we could could also ask the school committee sub the policy subcommittee to look at the the your two attendance policies because the they're two different policies and they don't match so once they match then we can then also look at our things that we want to do and add changes to that you said that to us Tom we'll start we we can send those

136policies yeah send the attendance policies to Mike marari all right so the motion on the table is to approve the Tonto Regional Middle High School handbook it was seconded we've discussed it we need an amendment to this motion one more thing to mention so in the one on the drive it's Nancy kiski's name is highlighted as the finance director so that change would have to be made to the one that everybody that's perfect I just wanted to say that yeah that's perfect because by the false after the false semester so like well we can vote on we'll put this on the agenda Lisa Renee for Janu uh for December yeah sure all right can we make it can we amend the motion to say it will have the name are we voting on someone next

137no no we're not going to vote on him because he's just a part-time he's not gonna actually be come in consult capacity so that is not gonna have anything to do with school committee so yeah we're not GNA have a name probably for like a couple weeks let's just say a month right so I think that's good let's roll with it now you could just leave it blank right well and the the one see I don't have access access to your the drive so did you update interim superintendent no so I have to do that can I make a motion yes yeah so the motion been seconded so you got to amend my I would like to make a motion to amend the motion to edit the document to remove ny's name remove Carol's name

138add Al's name add TBD for finance director and to amend the vote to uh for this to be in place through the spring semester only fall fall semester only thank you is that good yeah all right so there's an amendment on the table all right Julie second in all right any any discussion on the amendment all right all in favor I I I I'm an i as well all right so that Amendment passes so then the original motion is going to be approved the handbook with what we just approved as amended as amended so I don't have to remotion that right all right so we're going to take a votee on that unless there's discussion okay all in favor all right I'm and I as well so are you guys clear what you got to

139do you're just gonna change Nancy's take Nancy out put dbd put Al's name in as intrum and this is good for we'll vote on it in December awesome great all right um so thanks Lai for bringing that up I wanted to say so Dan be we talked about we have uh the Man Dan Dei who has a lot of experience as an interim Finance director he's only able to give us a limited amount of time because he does not he's retired and he does not have a waiver so he is going to come in and give us some hours to help us as TMS transitions out their contract is up at the end of the month he's gonna kind of get us over that hump um we do have an applicant I think who uh

140hopefully will be able to interview where hoping to reconvene the um committee we had in place um in in the summer at because we did have applicants we did interview we just didn't find the right fit for this role we're really looking for the perfect fit so um I think we'll well we don't need to vote on Dan um he's just somebody that the superintendent is gonna hire as um a consultant or uh he's not really going to be the finance director he's just going to be kind of y a consultant to help us and he's he's a retired Director of Finance for many many years uh and worked in Regional School District so he'll be able to help us in that in that Gap um time as well and like like Megan said that

141we're hoping to do interviews next week I'm already talking with John so there is a sitting Director of Finance that's applied right now um that has comes with a wealth of experience as well too so we'd like to get him on board but again he's going to have to be give some time to the his job he's at now so my goal is with Megan and I talking is that this d d will be able to give us that Gap until the new person's on yeah we can pay him hourly and we'll figure Al can figure that out and get him on you know whatever but that'll be something that Al takes care but higher we don't school committee doesn't need to approve that um all right so last but not least we have this

142wellness policy all right so I please have a motion to approve the Berlin Boon School wellness policy so move Lori second Lisa all right discussion on this wellness policy Megan do you mind if um Beth repeats her public comment because I think I agreed with her but IET yeah do you have it written down like um just give us give us yeah of it is thanks at T they have the snack bar some of the kids use it to like supplement their lunch a lot of the kids actually use it to prepurchase their after school snack sport if you put these parameters on these pretty tight parameters that I had trouble trying to figure out what fit in what and calories were like 200 there's a lot of healthy things with these kids could and

143should be eating before they play a sport after school that would make more sense instead they're going to buy three bags of some 100 calorie whatever that fits the parameters yeah I just think we should rethink whether and I was before I even heard about this I was hoping in the future we could start selling some kind of like an after school snack box or something for these athletes I volunteered in the cafeteria two years ago when there were short to run the C for one and I cannot believe how many of these kids bought double meals with these boys these 18yearold men this is not enough and so there are something going to the snack bar buying something to eat after school still probably not great bring something from home it's the same group

144of kids that you watch walk in without Co like you're not g to do it so it'd be nice to offer them something and these calorie restrictions are going to really limit their options and you can only buy if you have money on your account and your parent puts money on your account your parent can see what you're buying so if you don't want your kid participating you don't put in I think those are really great points and the problem is is that it's Federal Regulations so we don't have a choice for that at all unfortunately and the Government tried to make it better you know by having these requirements will help but of course there's always to be know some kind of you at the and there's always a way to work it get

145and then you have mozzarella six in Marin aof is lunch but these kids can't buy a cliff bar to take out I don't I I do agree yeah I think we I totally agree we had talked about this um in the spring spring and we said how crazy it was too like you can't even do fundraisers for this stuff and yeah we're like oh it's a healthy snack like is a Pop-Tart a healthy snack right like to your point is like those 100 calorie snack packs like that are loaded with chemicals you know what I mean are those because they only 100 calories but they're like loaded with you know yeah we poptarts yeah instead of like a cliff bar or like my kids eat z bar so I totally agree with you that have

146like probably more calories because they have like Whole Foods in them um I so what happens if it doesn't get approved I think we we were supposed to approve this Sally jump in here weren't we supposed to approve this like that last summer or last uh spring so we brought it in for a first read in the spring and there was a couple of questions that good questions people had some wanted some clarification on so we took it back to our committee in June and Lisa and I have worked on it a little bit over the summer one of the questions had to do with um are we allowed to to put out fundraising posters around school if the items don't fit the smart snack sure enough we consulted with the wellness coaches that we

147collaborated with which we work that are from Desi yeah and helped us write this whole policy using a special assessment tool to make sure we were um including all the federal and um state regulations so that's why those items are all in there um it is true that we cannot it's kind of funny rules but and and again this is federal and state but um you can put if you're going to do a fundraiser that involves food because they don't have to involve food right um and that's something we're going to talk about in our presentations when we go around then if you're going to advertise something that does not contain smart snack smart snack items you can't do that until 30 minutes after the school day is ended you can put up signs then

148they would have to be removed before the next day now Rob kilan who's our director of Food Services has agreed that he'd be happy to talk to any fundraising groups about what those smart snacks are or how to how to work within the parameters so that you could still use some foods for fund res um but everything that we do have in there are are like I said they are things that we are expected to have so um so we did clarify that with some of our language in there just to make it a little bit more clear I'm curious Sor if the food containing magazines don't come out of the book bags until home and aren't mentioned in those fundraises like I'm just thinking like the PT one that was done this last year

149like you know the cookie dough and all that like if that doesn't appear to the child until it gets home would that no school property can't be on school property until after 30 minutes after school day and the school's Distributing and they're just trying to get the schools to stop promoting really unhealthy to I that's F this just feels like honestly to me and this is like what I do but this is I mean it's not actually this is like the food pyramid from however long just in a different format like flavored milk is okay low fat what why is flavored loaf have milk smart snack when it's not but anyways so what happens if it doesn't get approved basically then like the policy that we have right now is add of compliance yeah we're

150opening ourselves up to and maybe Los funding because we get money everybody right now we need this policy to have the free I mean that's the thing about is that true yeah I read that on the thing and we understand you we as a committee agree that some of this feels very strict you know um and this is you know but this is why we want to take this presentation we're working on and and I would have shared it with you now but we would like to meet with the committee one more time in the fall to get their feedback and input before we finalize it I'm certainly happy to share it with you later um but we got a lot of ideas from this conference that we went to where we were recognized as

151Wellness Champions and I brought our Banner in it's over there if youd like to see it the table over there oh yeah but uh they gave us a lot of great ideas for how we can work with people because they said you know people are going to be concerned they're going to be like how do we work around this it's and and we understand that and and and and again certainly it's not even um and I don't mean this to make that to make light up the policy but it's we put it out there so that we can promote healthy well-being for our students and not to be punitive necessarily if people are not following it it's it's a matter of educating them it's not a punitive thing you know but it but it needs

152to exist a tool for Education right and inspiration actually of families for everybody to just understand what's happening with the kids and their health and how we can do better yeah yeah I agree with all that I just when you put a policy in place with you know your snack has to to be A4 cup of whole grains with you know 30% good fats I mean how is that even measurable in the district how my my thing would be here we have this policy and now what happens when we're not following the policy well that's what I that's what we were talking about then you know that's a matter of us educating um those people that are not so that we can you know get things to be followed I mean this is a m

153will show up I mean you know spring we were walking through BMS and there was a popcorn party because they did something it was like they could read while eating popcorn and you know like human beings are social creatures and it usually gathers around food so I just I understand that very popcorn you can have popcorn but you can only have two cups I'm just no it's not about the popcorn it's about using food as a reward oh you aren and you're not able to bring in um outside all that stuff you're not so the BMS thing that Jess is talking about was what a readathon I think and the group that read the most got a little popcorn party so you wouldn't be able to do that anymore what about your ice cream social

154you had yeah School run by and it was outside of the building not was inside the and like some things in here too morning bus routes will be scheduled to allow students to arrive at School in time to eat breakfast I mean what NT say with that I just think there's so many well they have that anyway they can they can get no matter what when they get no I get that but this is talking about morning bus routs will be scheduled to allow students to allow this full in time right well the schedule that we set right which we have in place so just to just to reiterate because I remember this from the spring because I remember we were all in yes yeah basically you took the laws that were handed to you

155from Massachusetts and the federal government and you put them into an easily readable document it's not anything that you two generated and said hey we want said this is what we are required to do by law yes thank you that I just want to make sure like I totally get with everybody's horror but as we go through this on the policy committee all the time we have to go through laws and that's where unfortunately this is where we're at and it does feel a lot like and also tutoring clubs organizational meetings not during the Lunch Period isn't that when clubs take place they can eat they can eat minutes yeah just making sure they're not missing time eting um I'm curious like so on page four in the fourth paragraph it's talking about smart snacks

156and being quote sold to students find it sorry sorry PDF I know I okay sweet so if you go in the other file it has oh it says when you scroll it says the bottom page 4 14 I do like the kids recess can't be taken for Behavior that's awesome so this doesn't apply to anything after school so this won't apply to sports clubs so the physical activity is a punishment you can't make a kid run extra laps for dropping the ball right okay so so you can still well you still can do that actually no foods and bages served are sold to students in before after care whether run by the school or an outside party will meet a list standards so after school they bring snacks you're not going to be they have

157to be all on the smart snacks like I know at bees right Mrs McQueen used to go by a bunch of snacks they still have for the beginning you're sorry yeah no no no yeah so they'll have to be on in accordance with the smart smart snack guy and there's a way around that I've talked to Rob from you know the company he could provide those so that they do fit into that so that's something so that's perfect that's great that might actually alleviate some issu and then that then that eliminates the whole defens reimbursement and all that it's just coming right from the district yeah I mean I get it trust me but uh at this point in time L your point if this is the law we need to be in compliance because

158we need to you know our job as school committee members too we got to make sure so is there for this law is there a deadline because I remember the last time there was Federal Regulations around school lunch there was a lot of noise about it and I haven't heard anything is there a deadline to implement this uh I mean you know when we no you want to have it in as soon as I understand if it's federal law or state law is there I mean these are already these laws are already in place I mean it's not like the coaches said you this you know this needs to be done by a certain date but this is what we're supposed to be doing so they're in place and we haven't had this so what

159happens to us since we haven't been in compliance well luckily nothing has happened so far but like I don't you know we don't want to yeah we don't want to lose free lunch little late too like we've did this a couple years ago so this is not something that's just coming down this is from a couple years that this has been in place we worked on this this past year yes we were supposed to vote on this I think and then so much the budget yeah we and we did have to clarify some questions for you and then summer happen so you know that's what we're coming back to it now all right Jess has a question oh go ahead sorry no it's okay okay so uh it SM sex Insurance apply to all food

160and beverages sold to students through District sponsored fundraisers I was curious like does that apply to like a concert at in the evening if it's after 30 days I mean 30 minutes after the school days end and it doesn't apply fre all HP Tarts everywhere so you know like if there's a sports game here at night the snack I know it sounds ridiculous but that's the ru oh so you can still have your candy bar sales after 30 minutes basketball games we come but as long as it's like the PTO or not boosters the boosters out it can't be the school because it's the time of day matters and the purpose is to to provide kids another option besides always putting food for them because that's like you said we're rewarded by food right that's

161how we are as Society so to trying to say here's another option during a school day after school you know you can you know and that's why we're putting that presentation together we have a lot of good ideas for alternative ways to fundraise and like I said Rob kilum is very happy to consult with anybody who does want to involve food for any kind of fundraising so that we do it the right way um like for instance even um you know like one of the rules is about not competing with our kitchen for instance um but you know when we talked about it with Rob Rob said well you know then we can just make sure that certain fundraisers don't happen at the same time when we're offering food then it's not a competition you

162know so there are ways around some of these things and that's what we're going to be highlighting in our presentation that we go around too so we just have to finish that out to Lor's point if this is based on regulation uh that's the minimum standard any policy that we do that's based on that is the minimum we can always add additional protections uh allocations whatever you want to call them yeah so if we wanted to change make change I think this document even has a process for making changes changing the committee annual review yeah that's always an option there's a there's a link in this in in this document to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from the um executive office of Health and Human Services and it basically talks about the competitive food and beverages

163in public schools there's another website switched and it says at the bottom in most places the state regulation and the federal rule are in alignment however where there is a difference schools must follow the stricter rule yeah so and it's sort of like being your your taxes right so you you submitt your taxes and hope no one you don't get audited right but that's the same thing with this you put this policy in place if you don't put it in place and someone comes and checks on it you don't know who that is or when it's going to be but it's better to have it on record and vote that the school Comm said we approve this all right we ready I know I just want to say it's not all bad like pretty negatively

164but but really the whole idea is to not create like food issues for kids you know not get them addicted to the sweet food like at least not contribute to that happening I think it's exactly doing that when you're talking about 200 calories to a kid I think it's exactly doing just that going to do the opposite absolutely when you're saying your snack can only have 200 calories now we're becoming we're talking only about calories to kids rather than you know what an avocado has 360 calories believe me that's where I would go if I I don't know who wrote this I imagine they're qualified nutritionists regulations it's like it came directly from there so yeah but I would I would say with good intentions sure we're trying to bring good foods and all of

165that but you know nutritionist told me one time with kids you're sending a message of let's eat healthy let's let's do let's make a healthy choice and while we think that we're sending a really positive message to a kid they might view that as do you think do you think I need that because I'm too big or do you think I need that because we don't know so nutritionists now are saying like with kids you're no good for telling kids you know we're just deciding what's going to be offered you know what I mean and so yeah then there's the education piece that what do you do if now the policy's not follow then we educate and I just it's it's a very slippery slope that's all I'm saying kids and food and that they're

166not your they're not our kids even though they are kids all in the district but you know you can have those private conversations in your own homes but when you open this up in a public school I I I think that's I I would say shame on the government to put I want to say that the education is for the administration and the staff who's making decisions about what to offer yeah but you have to also know peers they are also going to very willingly give their input to their friends about that 200 Cal pack because that's what kids do because their authorities are they are and I know it's with good intentions I just wish it was rolled out a little bit more thoughtfully and I know they have the hooks in you right

167because there's the free lunch there's the free lunch so you have to approve this to keep the free lunch and I I wonder can like the adjustment counselor or the therapist in the school be have their input into how it's presented actually the school the school adjustment counselor from tont was on the committee or is on the committee and certainly you know certainly I I understand your concerns and I certainly can bring that back to the committee and we can have conversations and keep our eyes out for things that change as the year goes by I mean that's why we're supposed to review it from time to time because if research is coming out maybe hopefully that will be something that changes you know I it's not that I disagree with you it's just I'm

168just I'm just being very and white about it as as regulation you know and I and I understand the frustration I really do I appreciate the work and I just also want say that you guys are all welcome to join the wellness Comm as much participation as we can have really and yes and this year we are gonna open it up and ask some kids to join with us and like to get it to be a bigger group um we're definitely interested in that so yeah all right let's vote right all in favor I I Mike did everyone vote you ask who is in favor oh yeah all right any opposed all right I'm an i as well so that motion passes you don't have I know I know all right um could I please

169have a motion to adjourn or so our next meeting September 10th two weeks from now could I please have a motion to adjourn the meeting so so I mean second all in favor I'm I as well have a wonderful first