School Committee Meeting 3/12/24

001he knew was be a team approach all right give me one second I just get my little script so I know it's say beginning thank you lii still read your script I have to pull it up because is it you have to remember to say all yes all right okay you tell me when we're on now okay all right guys we're on we're live all right good evening I would like to call this meeting of the burlin Regional school committee to order just a reminder that this meeting is being recorded your image and or voice may be broadcast please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag the United States of America to the for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice okay public comment Christina did you

002w to speak sure all right do you want to come in the middle or are you more comfortable over there whatever whatever it's up to you it's better to be in the middle so yep if you want to be HT and the microphone yeah where are the mics uh here's one there's one right there just because I Al so maybe should she stand here she stands standing in the center will pick her up it'll pick her voice up is it like taking me stands stand right here between Carol sorry all right um so I know I'm supposed to uh have three minutes um I typed all this up to be mindful everyone's time um so my my name is Christina MOS uh some of you know me uh for those who don't I have four

003children in the district I have three at bees currently and I have one at T Hunter prek uh I'm also the treasurer for the BTO and I've had a full-time job in finance for about 14 years um I came here tonight um to ask the school committee not to scale back on any of our nursing support as part of the continued efforts um that you guys are going to have to go through for budget cuts uh my goal tonight is to bring awareness of the current medical support needs of our school district and to Advocate that we should start having conversations about how we can add more support in the future um as I understand it that's the school committee's job to find out what the schools need and what our students e to make

004sure that happens um my priority as a parent is to ensure the health and safety for my children uh while attending school first and foremost and then their overall academic experience um I think you'll find most parents would agree with that statement um the school budget should mirror those same priorities by making sure that we are asking for the appropriate level of funding to ensure that we have enough medical support to keep our kids safe and healthy uh in the last um school committee meeting I've been watching all the meetings and the town budgets and everything um from what I can tell uh just the contractual nurse uh sorry contractual teacher salary increases and then the added increase of special education transportation is is really almost over the budget that the town is is offering

005this year and I know there are a lot of options but um that's going to mean that you guys are going to have to make some really tough choices this year um I'm here to say that we we can't take those cuts from our nursing staff um you know the state doesn't require a nurse to be in school which was a huge shock for me um as a parent I had no idea until I started researching this um and often districts will look to cut those areas that are not State mandated um we also had with covid came grants and we got extra nursing staff and we really relied on that um and even when Co went away uh we still had the medical support needs in the school um so if we're is from

006what I have heard we had to cut back our floating nurse this year and they had to beg and plead to sort of keep her on for a couple hours a week um and that was funded by a grant which is no longer available so to in a budget situation that would look like an increase to nursing staff which is tough when you guys are having to make these cuts um I've spoken to our lead nurse I talk to her every day we have uh very busy Health offices at the schools um and they're struggling to support all the needs we have uh just to give you an example last week at bees she saw over a hundred students come through her office and in total so far this year they've seen about 2400 um

007on a daily basis students are coming in to receive medications they come in because they got hurt uh there's behavioral issues the social social and emotional needs um students come in to receive daily Medical Treatments and in some cases they're monitored throughout the entire day um on top of seeing kids in their office nurses also have to follow documented medical plans with students who have needs they track absences they make phone calls to parents they speak to nurses and doctors about treatment decisions they do mandated reporting configure schedules find sub nurses organize field trips so they're they're not just seeing students but they also have a whole another another set of responsibilities um when we don't have adequate Staffing levels the potential for you know medication errors escalates uh that means not doing a treatment

008correctly or giving the child the incorrect medicine uh it means less time checking in with students that might need additional monitoring it means nurses have to spend time outside of their working hours to fill paperwork and reports um you know student safety becomes compromised in all those situations we don't want there to be a situation where student ends up getting hurt or Worse um it would be devastating for families and it would potentially lead to legal consequences for the district um we know these needs exist and we need to commit our budgets to staff them properly and uh on a personal note uh 2023 was a tough year for my family we found out that my son Wyatt who's in fifth grade has Type 1 diabetes um the first year for adolescence is a very

009tough and volatile time um diabetes specifically in children and Young children um is a very serious illness uh they're particular risk when they're at school um and it requires constant monitoring and often a level of medical knowledge that most Educators and school administrators just don't have um just a typical day for him I speak with the nurse every day over email to tell her what he's eating uh the nurse monitors his blood sugar all day long based on where his sugar is the nurse may have to go and intervene and give medication he has to have insulin before his lunch before his snacks and they're often communicating multiple times a day between Educators parents and doctors on how to treat his highs or lows that's just for one child and to give you an example

010there will be seven diabetic children at the high school next year or at Tanto in total that is a that gives me a lot of anxiety as a parent um just knowing what he needs and what those other kids are going to need and not to mention all the things that I just mentioned on top of it uh so in closing I would say it's probably reasonable that parents think there's at least one medically trained professional on property at their child school at minimum every day um but parents with children on health plans like myself we have the added anxiety of you know just wondering if our child's going to get the care they need uh parents deserve to feel confident that when they send their children off to school they'll be safe and healthy

011um we don't want to force parents to have to consider sending their child out of District because we can't find the budget to provide the proper medical staff and monitor their care thank you thank you thank you very much for sharing that and your personal experience as well all right any other public comments are you here no all right does anyone have any Communications yeah Megan I have to bring up the one we received earlier last week y so I received communication from a parent Carol we talked about this about a survey that would out to Tonto students asking them about their sexual orientation can you tell us why that was done yeah um I will let uh Lisa speak a little bit more to it but I can speak to it first by just

012telling you I was unaware that the survey went out we typically I guess I don't get asked if that's okay this was a survey that went out as part of a um Civics project in the high school students um explore a topic of Interest related to Civics um uh Civic action and that individual sent that out as survey to collect information so that's what it was about um as I shared with you and the um some of the members of the school committee who who reflected on that with me we did put steps in place to improve that situation since that time so I was grateful that we did get your information about that um I think that we didn't necessarily have parameters in place but I feel like that we do now I don't

013know if you want Lisa to continue with that I mean there's more to add so is this something students sent out on their own or this was approved by teachers or by Lisa no it was approved by it was approved by a teacher so with the is that even legal to send a survey out to minor children and ask about their sexual orientation uh no it's um not um illegal um and it wasn't it was um they don't they didn't have to as a survey they didn't have to participate but you're saying it's it's legal to ask minor children their sexual orientation in a survey without talking to their parents I don't think it's illegal but I would want to I can certainly look that up that wasn't the question that when you had emailed

014me about it that I no but it's a concern I mean it's a sensitive subject right especially for a sixth grader yeah right a survey sent out whether there's a description on it or not I'm sure there's some sort of pressure they might feel to answer that so what was done with the answers were they recorded were they Anonymous are they on a list somewhere what's happening with this list does this not open the district up to incredible risk of claims in the future now that you know you know a student answered one way or another that student turns out you know maybe they don't like a grade they got all of a sudden now there's a claim well I got that grade because I answered a certain way about my sexual orientation it just

015seems like it opens up so many unintended but negative and risky consequence that if a student just sent it out I could understand the mistake but with an adult being involved it seems pretty bad to me yeah and I respect your opinion and that of the school committee who has talked to me about that as well so we're trying to make every effort to make for parameters in place around the these types of things so that surveys like that are developmentally appropriate for the ages that they like you said most importantly that they are legal I would want to definitely check into that that wasn't a question that came up in that email but I would certainly consider it so I appreciate suggesting especially if I if you're sending out to a senior they're 18

016or something that's fine but what are you in sixth grade 11 10 12 yeah yeah you know sexual orientation is a protected class we don't ask those questions specifically because it's a protected class because you don't want to be seen as making a decision based on that answer and now the entire district is or at least the the middle high school is open to that risk yeah the best I would tell you now Mike is what I shared in my email to all of you that I I've looked into that I've discussed that with Lisa and with the other administrators and she has talked to the teachers all of the staff about that and what was appropriate and I can certainly follow up with more information on that so to follow up with that Carol

017it kind of leads some of the particular questions on that survey would make someone who maybe doesn't know the school very well wonder if there is an issue because one of the specific questions was are you were you ever discriminated against because of your orientation are you aware of discrimination against or is there a case against a teacher or an office that makes you think when some when a student is asking that question you know students probably know a lot more about what goes on in the school than we do it makes you wonder if there are multiple cases if there is discrimination I remember earlier this year we talked about you know the teachers union got upset when I as the chair of the school committee suggested I would even ask you as a

018superintendent to look into cases of discrimination you know I I don't understand what the the fascination is with these these groups these boxes of you know we told we're told this year regarding that that kids in this District have various levels of privilege when it comes to their skin color now we hear that they're being asked about their sexual orientation it's being suggested that there are multiple cases of discrimination going on through this survey I just don't understand the fascination of the schools with these race groups and these sexual orientation designations of these students as sexualizing children I don't understand the fascination with it I don't even understand how that could possibly be part of a class project to be curious about students sexual orientation I I just don't understand how that could possibly come

019up as a subject in a high school class so thank you yeah oh are you are you okay with that yeah go ahead Lisa yeah if you want to kind of explain the I don't think so just before sorry before you go Jessica and Lisa were not on the email I think that you're yep so do you want to give a 30 second background a parent reach parent reached out asking about a survey that was sent to ol of Danto some of the questions on there asked about the students are you a member of the LGBT community basically what's your sexual orientation other questions around that about have you ever been discriminated against that are you aware of any discrimination cases around others or your own orientation so um I reached out to Carol but

020that it's such an egregious act that I think it needs to be discussed it would be interesting to hear the context of the situation yeah um so um it is required by the state of Massachusetts for students to be come involved with um pacifics Action Project it's a part of the um you know the a Desy requirement for graduation um they do iic projects in 8th grade and they do them um spanning from their junior to senior um year in high school and most of them are they're they're issues that they're personally um interested in um so they they're not they're not told what you know what particular area that they have to you know research or it's a particular area that they're particularly interested and passionate about so they kind you know they um

021come up with um you know a project and part of the project is I you know coming up with research and you know so if a particular student was interested to understand maybe this was something that they personally had felt but didn't know if anybody else had um had come in you know had had the same experiences and so I think that's the context of this particular survey was like you know the question was you know do you identify and how do you experienc this now that's the that's the data Gathering um piece of it and then they could you know move forward you know depending on you know what their topic is or what they feel as though they wanted um you know to you know maybe it was to have you know um

022you know bath I I I don't know but I'm saying like what could come out of something like that you know um you know bathrooms like that tends to be you know a topic you know a privacy topic you know that those are the types of things um and so the um that you know the teacher reviews all surveys um surveys are used extensively um throughout the high school um for to gather information to understand I mean one just went out um by the student council with a list of days for Spirit Week like you know which Spirit Week do which spirit days do you want and they'll take the top five you know they have a list of 10 so they'll do that um so with the Civic Action project and I and and

023I did speak um you know immediately with the parent um that I guess they contacted you early on or sometime of the week ear on Friday I spoke to the parent um at 7:14 on Monday morning and you know within you know 15 seconds I was able to give him context and able to give him an understanding and then immediately address the situation with the teacher I spoke to the um I you know spoke to the teacher I spoke to the student I had that survey um locked down so it could no longer be answered um and it you know redistributed only to high school students um and I think that you know so we had a long discussion about that and then with a group of teachers that normally produce Sur or their students

024produce surveys because we do surveys with with exibition um different topics and then you know having a conversation around you know every Sur should really have you know some kind of context at the beginning of it and understanding you know you know what the survey um is with the purpose of the survey why it's being used you know what class and then you know is anonymous and this particular survey was they weren't um you know I checked the settings they weren't collecting any of the um the emails so and you can have all those settings on Google forms so there's all there's a variety of different settings that um and I've made lots of Google forms myself so you can have you know those settings in place and I had checked um all of those

025with the student and with the teacher and So within you know less than eight hour period I'd say a six hour period of time I was able to you know put all that in place and immediately called the parent I actually called him several times in between and finally was able to get in touch um with him and he was um you know very grateful um that I had acted so quickly and um you know he felt comfortable with how it was handled and the steps that I had put in place and you know I sent the following day I had sent out you know um followup emails and protocol and I had an additional conversation today um to answer anybody's questions about like when and how surveys are being used so I think oftentimes

026we at the particularly at the high school level many of these topics are very they're they're topics that are often well discussed among you know a lot of different groups just kind of topics that are discussed in you know many areas whether many in the humani class so I think there there was no like and I I feel like it was brought to everybody's attention that it might not be developmentally appropriate they're like uh you know and I think it was just making sure that people were aware and we had the conversation and understanding that any you know particularly with sixth and seventh grade that um surveys shouldn't be blanketly put out but they they should get special permission for that yeah I mean Lisa I can understand a Civics project around this topic I'm

027sure there's a lot of things you could do with that naturally locally if kids want to talk about it themselves if they have these conversations that's their choice that's fine I think I don't know who thought it was a good idea to send a survey of to the entire Community asking this question that seems like the dumbest thing I could ever think of as an adult to do just to be one with you and I would say my I sh you know as I said to you I think in the email I do I did share that I was very shocked surprised about what what I was reading that night and handled it the next day I I do agree with you I think that there's sensitive topics and I think there's certainly developmentally appropriate

028ages to have these kinds of discussions have the conversation I think education has to happen before that happens because one of the things I I could imagine receiving that as a child who had not even had any frame of reference to that is I don't even know what to do with it like what do I do with this so so we learn from these and I apologize for that sort of opens up this idea now that based on these questions is there a problem with this in Tanto is there a problem with discrimination based on someone's sexual orientation as the survey suggests yeah it sounds like there is I I don't know the survey suggesting or simply asking to see if there is I don't think the survey's questions are insinuating that there's a problem

029that I don't think directly either I would agree with you on that Lisa but the idea that a a student thought to come up with this question what does the student know that you don't know did they ask on the survey specifically discrimination at Tahanto or just in general uh are you aware of any cases against teachers or the office I think is the way it was working well it's not a huge t to the imagination with that meetings were we're questioning whether diversity Equity inclusion is an important topic within the schools so yeah it's no doubt that it's an important topic within the schools if you want to have a discussion about what it means on a national level what it means civically politics being kind to your neighbor that's one thing but if

030I sat here and went around and asked everyone at this table what's your sexual orientation and you answer and I keep track of it so to protect Hippa is very important so the fact that the settings were reviewed and future surveys will have that looked at and being asked is a little inappropriate of an 11year old I I remember when the DARE officer came in and had us do a little survey who' drank if who've done drugs within class and that was all Anonymous so I think current day these are people's realities and there was a survey that was found out earlier saying how safe people felt which I think was very important given the political climate that is everything is polarized speaking of that survey there also was a question do you feel that

031you're getting attention from teachers when you're struggling and the answer was no so why is it because of the way they responded to this survey that maybe we don't want to help someone who answered a certain way or or reacted a certain way you can't know you can't know for sure having conversations around these topics isn't an issue but giving kids the idea that you're requiring them to tell you what you are oh not that these are completely optional I just want to make it does an 11-year-old realize that when they get a survey from the school say answer the survey that most of the surveys aren't answered by the sixth graders I would say that good they do know that it's optional okay because I mean you know I I just yeah I just

032think unfortunate poor thing all the way around but that being said I think I think we have to do a better job of of putting parameters around this absolutely and that we we've addressed it and that's why we address swiftly and I did with the admin team and Lisa did what she needed to do as far as this goes I don't anticipate this happening so as far as a from a legal standpoint it is legal to send these surveys out to ask these questions I bet I don't know on this I will check want to check on it yeah all right we'll reach out to Kim on that so the only thing I'd add to that is we did get the second assistant principal for the high school so I think that and I know

033it's going to be a process but to Mike's Point there's going to be things that are appropriate for grades 9 through 12 and things that are appropriate for an 11 or 12 yearold um that may not have gone through puberty yet so they don't know what sexual orientation they are so I think that um it's a process and just hearing that it sounds like you guys are trying to work towards that direction but I think we need to maybe see more of a divide in that building like the survey May again I don't know the legality we need to look into that may or may not have been appropriate for a high school level maybe not appropriate at school I'm thinking I don't know um but absolutely definitely not appropriate would you ask a job

034applicant that question well that's how I think about I think about every Anonymous so I think it's not relevant to the Congress rightous period yeah some of the I mean I'm looking at it right now so it does specifically say it references the office at Tanto um can you forward that to the rest of the committee uh yeah I only have screenshots of the survey so if Lisa or Carol wanted to send the survey out that would be great yeah and and Lisa and I actually have that on the agenda for tomorrow as part of our admin meeting with the with the uh High School Middle High School administrators because there is more I want to find out and I think Mike get really had to do what I was looking at was policy policy

035around communication and the use of of emails of right it doesn't specifically State anything about surveys but that's something that I think we need to consider any kind of communication that goes out from the schools um how how does that apply to our students sta just as much as this was mostly staff that it addressed but I think that in this world of electronical electronic communication we also have to take into consideration that the students are corresponding with one another and that they do that in a safe and respectful and legal manner so this is something else now we're going we're I would also be interested to see what the survey Anonymous answers would be because I think the atmosphere that we create at the schools is very important that kids do feel safe if

036they are identifying in different ways no matter what group they might identify see I'm going to disagree with you on that Jess I don't think we should have access to these answers I don't think we want to know these answers is it not enough to just treat everybody kind are we treating students when they come to do a Dei presentation with respect how did you know any of their orientations or backgrounds or anything before you said Dei was a waste of time in your own life I don't need to know anyone's orientation and background to know that it's we to that's right we should be respectful of anyone and everyone but we weren't in that nor was the committee respected nor was the committee respected when the question that the chair of the committee at

037the time asked of the administration for that meeting was ignored I understand but there were students at that meeting and it sets tones within the district well that's the problem there were students at the meeting in a sensitive topic and if they can't handle the sensitive discussions we have yeah all right so we got to we got to Veer back onto topic so under thank you for bring in the communication will forward that along a parent had sent an email I saw that Mike reached out to Carol I'm sorry I didn't realize we were going to talk about it tonight or else I would AFF it to the other people not on the email so I apologize for that and I will do that see can that in the future be put within parent Communications

038or emails with yeah we usually have a folder for parent communication it wasn't written uh that was a non-verbal communication Mike can send an email to Carol and I was cced on it so that's how I knew about it okay nice to know meetings yeah um there was another communication Adam about a Facebook conversation about the calendar so I don't know if that should be brought up now or during the discussion the calendar I am hoping to discuss the calendar last but that was another yes yep I did see that email yeah Carol you were not on that email so um it was about after school Pro adding after school program so we can talk let's talk about that when we talk about the calendar but thank you any other Communications okay could I please

039have a motion to approve the consent agenda so Lori and Julie all in favor I'm an i as well that motion passes okay so we have three items to vote on tonight we're going to go one by one we're going to discuss and then we'll do the vote I'm going to save the calendar for last um I think first we'll do the approval of the student opportunities act plan this was a first read last time Sally gave us some information um it was in the last time did anybody have any questions or discussion on that before we vote I have a question about sure Lisa all right hold on let me just peek what I wrote down here I'm G open it up myself okay so it's in the February oh I just think that

040there might have been a number issue in there it said that um The Chronic absenteeism was like 20% for the three subcategories but then like in the summary of it it said it was like 30 something per. so I just wanted to double check that that was correct well the group the group that we picked was high KN but then that's broken down into three separate subcategories yeah it oh okay so I thought the high needs was like the overall category and then there were three subcategories underneath it yeah yeah it that is okay because I think the three subcategories said that they were all around 20% absenteeism and then like the summary at the end for the high needs it said it was like 30% or something so I just I wasn't sure if

041I misread the sentence or if it needs to be updated what page Lisa um page two yeah I know it's on the second oh are you talking about the the paragraph about the high needs at the end yeah High needs um it's specifically that sentence that says the overall percentage of chronic absenteeism that one because I think that's what the entire it is for the whole instead of breaking it down into separate categories yeah I can take a look at it again categories in high needs other than the three that are broken out no so the high needs is like an overarching for the you know English Learners students with disabilities and then the umom right so all of those were like 20% and then in that high need section it said 30% so like

042like an average of 20% you know would be 20% so every child every child fits into one of these categories there's not like an other bucket that's not listed here well there's an all students but then there's High needs and then under high needs there's three categories but under high needs are there students that don't fall into one of these three English Learners students with disabilities or low income that would account for the that would account for the additional percentage because I'm guessing you pulled this number off desie yes I did yeah and I don't have the numbers in front of me but sometimes um like that high needs because some students fall into both categories and so sometimes that changes the percentages without having those numbers right in front of you that might be

043an explanation of why those averages aren't compenent yeah that's true you can fall under one yeah and that changes sort of like the proportion right I'm wondering if that's a possibility yeah you're right because I did get to get this data right yeah yeah just to add because a student could be an English language learner so it's like additive so it's like additive yeah it's weighted okay it could be it could be waited okay well that would explain it I'm projecting a Poss right because they tying these out to desie I think that's fine my second possibility is the sentence says here with a rate of 31.2% chronically absent more than 10% or more so within each other categories that's a subcategory of the categories does that sense of that of that 20% 31.2% of

044that percentage of that group maybe had 10% yeah it's just not clear way right there it's not it's not in general I know we have this here I read it all I understand some not all of it we just get the elevator pitch for this because it is it looks like it is costing about $29,000 sure so I can explain so basically they um desie reaches out to us and says you know we'd like you to write this report every three years and they provide us with data and they asked you to take a look at it and figure out which group is is most in needed support and so we had to pick the highs because when we compare the data to the all students and for the reasons I listed that's where we

045saw um some differences in numbers with you know the absen and then they provide with a whole list of um evidence-based programs and they please pick three or four of these that would fit to what you're doing in your District to help make improvements with these numbers over the next three years and so we picked three of them that we felt were tied into what we we're working on um so one of them had to do with you know um increased opportunities for planning time another one had to do with increasing and improving professional development and then the other one was about adding Pathways for students so that allowed me to talk about what we're doing with fortive graduate and our new internship program and the job CHR we talked about um you know the

046fact that John and I are sharing this role so that's helped us develop more opportunities for professional development of our staff we talked about how look looking at that study for the half days um to see if that would be helpful for us and we've also um talked about um the scheduling committee that we have at Tonto where we're looking to incorporate more tier two um interventions and also um common planning time the funds that they actually and then the state does they give you a template and they ask you to write it in this manner and in this order and they ask for those figures so that was an estimate of what we we generally spend have spent over the last two years already and so that's just a projection of what will continue

047to spend on this okay so that's just the breakdown in our current budget it's not a request for additional F no it's already in there John did you want to add to that at all no okay I just want to make sure okay because John Sally and John worked on this together so they all levels all right anything else on that before we vote okay so Sally we need to approve this report correct yeah I have to have it approved before I um sub okay so can I please have a motion to approve the student opportunities act plan as written Mar and Julie any discussion all in favor any abstain all right I'm an i as well thank you that passes all right so um let's do the uh Tahanto Middle School and High School

048course of study next so last time we had that was a first read um does anyone have any questions about those classes I have one question it's question about electives um at the Middle High School how often do they change just seems like it's the same and if they don't why um they they change based on um people's certification and com you know you know their knowledge base that would be important um you don't want people teaching collectives that they don't necessarily have you know content that um and it really has been on you know kind of scheduling and you know who's available to teach certain electives so there's availability and that um and planning time so when you teach a new course I know that I've taught a lot of new courses and the

049planning time is pretty extensive so I think that so combination of all of those and resources um so four things so um you know content knowledge planning time scheduling um and you know then Financial Resources if you're if you have a new elected depending on what that is it may require different resources or you know additional resources and so we can't necessarily say hey even if somebody was really excited about teaching something different the first question is like would you mean and can do we have the budget for that so so all of that kind of goes into the this thank you okay anyone else I had a question about um the the new financial literacy requirements does a course here listed that it it satisfies that need it's Human Geography how just from the

050description here it wasn't clear how that right so when you go into the fin financial literacy standards um and you can and so the Human Geography talks about like gross national product right you know for you know of different countries and so it it looks at kind of the economics there's portions of the curriculum that look at the economics of where people live and so it satisfies that portion of it so not not every course will satisfy all portions of it but it does satisfy that portion looking at kind of the economics of human geography then the only there's red and yellow highlight throughout the document what is this the final document or what are those that that was um so I was I had um been you know told that that you know to

051identify what would be changing so the red things are going to be taken out and the yellow items are the things that were changing like some there might have been some wording or some clarification so that was and then once it's approved so it would be easier for you to all look at so you would see what was being taken out or you would see what was changing and then once it would was approved then all the highlighted would be you know taken out so the red is being taken out and the yellow is being so on page 12 where it talks about the courses at Danto are being divided into you're removing four levels and you're adding three level removing the word four and adding the word three which means they're divided into three

052levels but then it goes on to explain four different levels yeah page 12 of the high school so all like so St all standard curriculum um is identified is um in the three different levels advanced placement honors or College Prep um The Life School the life skills is um not um part of the general education curriculum so that was counted as four before and now you're only counting it as three um yes and was youology limited just number of teachers or the um so the ecology you wild yourself that was going to be a high school elective taught by a middle school teacher and in the teacher that was teaching it their team didn't have enough electives for the Middle School themselves actual students so that we just couldn't support it with that do you

053have a lot of teachers that cross over and teach middle and high school um we have three teachers currently that are well three content teachers um but all of our um all the elective teachers teach both interesting okay okay any other questions on that program of study who who is this for are we going to be sending it out to families and I believe they send it out that's how they choose their classes right Julie time or review it every single year no that's this that's the um this the course this is the course of study so um it will be posted on the website and so that the students can review okay so when the kids pick their classes they have a document to go to with their parents or caregivers that explains what

054their requirements are and what the class description is so they know what they're selecting yeah okay and what's required too for graduation so you can start tracking from freshman year yeah there were just some typos in there also so I don't know I mean how we want it to moving forward it would be super helpful if you could email those ahead of time so they can fix them before the meeting and then we don't have to hold off a vote for well that's what I'm wondering so when we're reviewing these I mean can I make suggested edits in the document or I don't know how it's sent I don't have access to the school it's actually PD I wouldn't do that no you can't you have to send an email with a list of the

055things you found Ian there's a lot it's not a Google form it's a PDF and a and a word form yeah yeah so unless you you could always you could always download a copy and then kind of highlight the parts too and send it then yeah SC it and then yeah send it back and just we'll send it through Carol and she can have whoever she wants Julie and I are very impressed by your editing prowess really you're good like net it's awesome so why don't we do this if they're just typos why don't we approve the document as written and then Lisa can uh with the update to fix the typos and then you can just email them to um so we don't have to go through every typo in the yeah guys think

056that's okay we I mean we even make a motion to approve them with typo yeah that's what I said yeah yeah yeah yeah and then she can send the typos to Lisa and Lisa can just update it before she posts on the website does that work for everybody yes okay so could all right was there any other discussion besides the typos or any other things people want okay all right thank you that's great so um could I please have a motion to approve the Danto Middle School and High School course of study with as currently written under the impression that Mrs squero will update the document for any typos before it's posted onto the website so moved thank you laori and Julie any more discussion on that all in favor I I'm all right any

057opposed no all right I'm an i as well that motion passes all right last but not least the calendar I might have been distracted by a cookie did you do the consent yeah thank you for reminding me though did sorry Nicole did I do the consent agenda no you did oh that's Cindy and her cookies no we're gonna be out of here in five minutes we're just gonna bang out this calendar both all right the calendar so um Carol did you want to say anything on this topic we had this as a first read last time I I want everyone to say how they feel about the calendar we had it as a first read last time uh the gist of it for anyone that wasn't you know paying full attention last time is this

058year we've added or Carol has added in she's worked with the union and they've they want to do a bunch of um PD days as half days so we've added half they want some continuous PD throughout the year so we have half days and the issue that I think some of the members on the committee have heard is from parents is uh people are wondering about child care for these half days and I think Jess to your point that was the communication from uh Adam Wilbur was uh requesting um information on if Child Care would be provided on these half days 10 half days there's 10 half days on this on the proposed calendar did you want more about do you want to speak to ad yeah sure I mean the long short of his

059email was some screenshots some Facebook conversation that the the proposed calendar had 10 and a half days which is challenging for parents because half days generally aren't working half days um so you generally have to take the whole day off um and so it's concerned for people that work um to find child care so um he was saying that he thought that child care should be included in this um was voting is that y yeah yeah no for sure yeah no I I understand that I do understand it yes Carol go ahead you can speak to that I do want to just open the discussion up by just saying saying a few things about this calendar you know when we came on board um it was always expressed to me to try to make changes

060for the betterment of our our school district so we are trying new things I spoke about that last our last meeting about the celebration of learning and we're going to see how that works this is something that I don't think has been entertained in my time to try to do these half days but as we try to show to you last last time we were here there are a number of districts that are really strong exemplary districts who do do this approach as a matter of practice and as and have been doing this for many years it's just ingrained in the culture I feel like this year we're always trying to make changes and changes really hard to do and I and I respect that but I I feel like if we don't when I

061don't even make an effort then then shame on us um I I do think that the admin team has been working diligently and looking at this calendar I think that it was supported by the teachers not because it gives us anything special or anything to get away with the day we're trying to look at professional development over a longer extended period of time so it's more meaningful so that groups teams and departments and vertical teaming can occur um and it build on itself in ways that we can't do when we have full days not saying that those aren't valuable but this is this is Meaningful to making the kind of changes that that the committee has asked us to try to make in terms of student achievement and just looking at those pockets of students

062in need we can't get to that in a consistent and meaningful and and committed way when we're having a PD in in September and then another one in November and then another want you know it it doesn't happen that way um we're looking again like I said for something different something to improve that's really totally the purest reason we're doing this I will say yes I think it is going to be a hardship for for some parents as as Jessica brought up and emails you've gotten or feelings you might have about this but I would say that I look at this is we're in partnership with parents I don't want this to be an adversarial issue I want this to I ask the parents step back and say you know all right we're going to

063work together to see if this is going to work to see if we are making improvements do we have to keep it year after year after this absolutely not if we're finding this is ineffective and I think that speaks to what we have to provide to the school committee then then we can make changes to this but we don't know until we try and so I guess I would ask those parents you know we're trying to put some things in place um to make make it easier on families who may be working um we would run we still will have our after school after school like we usually do I don't know if you want me to mention we do have some offers here to do a buffer in between there and that's only beginning

064with this possibility and it's only March and we're going you know until next year to plan this out um and to ask groups to plan this out more thoroughly I I guess that's you know I know it's hard on the families my primary responsibility and that of my administrators and my teachers as our children um and if we can do this well and give our children a better chance to learn that that's surely what I'm looking to do with this opportunity so um I'll leave that open any other questions yeah cars I have several questions one about your measurement uh tracks but like J said like like a lot of parents said I don't know if people understand just how interruptive this schedule is there isn't a period of time here in the schedule except

065for the beginning of September all the way until May where there is more than two weeks back toback of actual full weeks of school every other day every other week There's a half day holiday an early release on a Friday before a vacation starts you've got holidays in here that aren't even holidays the day after Thanksgiving is not a holiday I know it's traditionally no school but surely there's some sort of Middle Ground on the number of half days nobody's discounting the idea that teachers need professional development everybody knows teachers need professional development they want it but there's got to be some Middle Ground here there's no consistency here every other week is a different schedule and you know maybe most kids in our district most parents will be able to figure it out but

066we just talked about high needs kids where 30% of the district is loow income or economically challenged kids what does that mean I I meant to ask you how do you define that my guess is you probably would find that those folks are going to be the hardest hit with having to take time off from work missing shifts if they're paid hourly not salary I mean that's a hardship on them and then you know talking about an after school program I think you absolutely have to have an after school program for this no matter what you do how you run it but I don't think parents should be charged for that I think it needs to be part of just what the school does but even then having an after school program for the period

067of the early release through the end of the regular school day you still got Transportation issues to figure out because these parents you know kids go on a bus the bus ride might be 30 minutes 45 minutes that's that buffer of time that some parents might need to get through traffic to get home to make sure that someone's home for the kids and it's probably more disruptive for the younger kids but even the older kids I mean all this time out of the classroom we talk about John talks about all the time don't go on your vacations during school time your kid needs to be in the classroom and now we're taking kids out of the classroom so yes the tradeoff is okay teachers are doing some professional development they're going to learn better ways

068to help those kids that's great so now tell me how you're going to measure that and prove that this actually worked versus the the regular thing that we would normally do to close those gaps that you talk about in your letter I think there's two I think there's two pieces in here that you're talking about Mike so one is this child care matter and that sounds like a large part of what you've just shared the second piece is how we're going to measure that I think we do already have measures in place we watch year after year the mcast presentations about closing those gaps with our high need students it may affect their parents who are working but this may also be a way to benefit those students by getting more specific targeted professional development

069for teachers so they can address the issues of so are you going to be able to show us next year with your AMS web scores and then the year after that with your mcast scores because we did half apds scores improve this much more than they would have otherwise are you gonna be able to do that I'd like to try I think I think we should have that and I think that's the point I made before if we don't try and if we can't show one trial over yeah Carol said that try yeah show any kind of grow specifics like okay yeah we we increased you know scores improved x% well did they improve X perc because of PD half days or did they improve X percent just because they improved well it's hard to

070measure that whatever else but she I know it's hard to measure that's the point I mean so it's hard to measure that but she's saying though there are districts doing this they're having great success with it all right so let's talk about that what is the specific success that they're having I think that they're test scores are stronger I think they're higher and lower because of this so our test scores will be stronger and if they're not we'll go back to the old way well we're not really showing much growth in the way we've been doing things and I think these hard to measure against these people because they they did this for a long time already so they the growth that they've shown is over a long period of time well these are the

071types of questions you know parents you're asking parents to take 10 days off of work through the year for this well no she's not because if she's putting in a place for for child care she's not asking parents to take time off if that's a big if Julie well I think that's I mean I sit on the rec committee we've said in Berlin what about has agreed as well all right we have that so both R is gonna provide programing fill that Gap you you can execute anything if you plan correctly right so this is far enough in advance I think that the rec committees with the help of students possibly because every week of the school year there's something going on except for I think two periods of time I'm curious like in terms

072of like saying a half PD is like a half day and then a full PD is like a full not hours like six hours like TimeWise how is the 10 half days and then a couple full days compared to the hours that we have on our calendar this year sorry is there more time I what she's asking no she basically add time the full day PD is and cut them two halves right so equivalent time should be equivalent time right including the lunches yeah for more continuous half days I can check more frequently because I think is it contracted the amount of PD time I don't know for sure I can't even remember as the state inquire I don't know I mean I think it makes sense like you said teachers want to collaborate I

073remember speaking to teachers in the elementary school what do you need we need more time with our professionals to collaborate to work together so here's a way to make that happen with other districts that are doing it with the great success rate with your Rec programs that are willing to step in and help I see your point about low income and high needs um and I know there's not you know there's not a group organization that would ever turn a kid away for if they can't no I know that I don't think we should be asking parent if we're doing an after school thing parents shouldn't be ask to pay for that it should be part of what the school pays for whoever whoever runs it however it's run because it's most like like toono

074kids maybe working under the rep department is that yeah I mean I would say that students should be paid for yeah what they do um they should whoever runs the program should get paid it should not be by the individual parents it should be by the school you someone earlier mentioned I think even in Carol's letter maybe a fee was mentioned at some point maybe I'm reading that wrong but regardless there shouldn't be a fee involved if that's Cas so if there's 10 days and there's four hours that's 40 hours and if we have volunteers it's not gonna be a huge thing hit on why why should parents have to pay for don't have me add anything else right seven days it's only seven half days it's only seven the three hour they half days

075before well that's yes that was my next suggestion John we need to de December half day I mean that's five days before so well no I think all right so we have a half day before Thanksgiving we have a half day before Christmas and we've got a half day for the last day you keep your half day on the last day can you imagine the kids being there all day last day of school Carol what Carol what if you did instead of having completely closed down the day after Thanksgiving that's not a holiday why not do a full PD day that day oh families go away though I that would be yeah that's a contractual that's is it a contractual thing that's yeah I mean it's all right well look I'm looking for I'm looking

076for ideas we're in Academia though this is not Corp America as we have learned multiple times in our discussions I'd like to ask a question sorry go ahead L and then after La I'm sorry it's okay go I was gonna ask when you have these professional developments does the district get together like do the does does BMS get together with bees oh absolutely because what I'm thinking is you know mik kept saying one district one district one District if you have all of these half days that's opportunities for the fourth grade at BMS and the fourth grade at bees to get together and Co plan together which I think is your intent Bey beyond that too it's also the opportunity and I think we've heard that in the presentations it's opportunities for the Middle School

077teachers to get together with the elementary teachers and the different content areas and the high school to get together with the Middle School it's hard enough now for the I mean the high school and Le see you can correct me if I'm wrong to even get together with their own departments um and they certainly have a heart almost impossible to get together with the middle school so there's that it's the idea of the vertical articulation that we have to make sure that we're the curriculum is is following a certain pattern and pathway and that and then talking about assessments that we're giving assessments and being able to learn to use that data as it kids come up through the grade levels there I could go on I mean this is just that's just a part

078of the kind of things you're doing or bringing in training um I know for example you know talked about the I the new IEP process for special education that's not just a oneandone training it goes over a long periods of time to do that well we we've been doing things okay I just want to try to do it better I guess that's what I'm trying to look at what ways to do it this is one way of one the best way we could come up with right now I I'm not sure what else we could go back to the regular way and just have those full TDS but so are you committing to the after school program there will be an after school program on all early release dates I don't think it's my commitment

079Mike I think it's a commitment of it sounds like the the um well no no no it has to be a commitment from the school that if the rec for whatever reason can't do it on a particular day that it will will still be done covering make it happen I trust you thank you okay but that's we know how things go a whole year and a half that's right that's a that's the best we can do right now I mean I just yeah and I think if we put so I just crunched a couple num like for for 15 adults to be paid $30 an hour for the number of hours you would need for coverage assuming you do four hours of coverage after a half day it would be like 2,000 bucks so that's

080can add that in the budget what yeah you probably get a donation for that what NY my only concern is a lot of Staff worked after school program so are they going to be in PD no the after no no rack programs got for the half days if rack programs came in and they got to Hanto teenagers or whatever they got found somebody to run programming where their babies and we paid the people but we didn't charge the parents it would cost about $2,000 to add it into the budget so it was free care but you're still paying the people that are running the program yes you're talking about students what you're talking about students well if you're paying 30 bucks an hour you probably can get people better than I don't know hour I'm

081saying $2,000 not sure have to pay $30 an hour but I'm saying even if you pay $30 an hour we're looking at less than $2,000 so to add it into the budget it would be to find the that that was actually I wanted to connect to what Nancy was saying is I think that there's a concern we're such a small school district and we have a limited number of staff so of all of our staff are in the professional development um sessions we really would be relying on yeah but that would be R that's after after school the regular after school program build the district yeah R could build R could if R wanted to pay the people that they have working these programs and then build the district back and the district could just

082pay for it and they don't even have to charge parents it could be like free programming on the seven and half days John's right there's only seven ones before Thanksgiving everyone's going to want to go home the kids aren't kids I don't know how much learning gets done on those days I mean I know my kids are like the day before Christmas break and then the last day of school so it's s half days if you have a 4our program on each of those reasonable to ask parents to pay it adds out well at the end of day I don't think the school should pay for kids after school care I don't think well we're taking these half days away from that it's just um small fee yeah probably be a very nominal fee just

083to pay the students right well students the right students the right people to to do this I mean you gota sure you'll have adults there too of course we know how to do yeah you're not going to have just students but you probably I don't care how much you're paying whatever I just I'm say I think the school should should come from the school budget in my opinion the parents should pay if their children are being one the parents pay a lot it'll be fine unless more next year yeah it's a very nomal it'll be a nomal fee to pay the students that are working that's how it works right so the school will take care of it and they'll have their PD and the parents will still be able to stay at work through

084a normal yeah I love all that I'm just questioning the school paying for it I I would support that I think the parents that's my recommendation it's going to be so nominal either way I don't think we should worry about it so but yeah go y it would have to come from a revolving account it can't come from like the general budget just so right because it's an after school thing FS just so everyone knows that's F if you do this yeah talk again we're talking like a couple thousand dollars on 20s something million dollar budget right so all right so we ready oh yeah Lisa just so I had an idea when I was reviewing all of this that would get rid of the half day problem that would there would be great you

085know professional development time and it would eliminate the problem of school going too late you know in June but I'm sure there's a problem with like it's so obvious what if you did all of the PD that first that last week in August so the students will get to start after Labor Day all the PD would be done and it would be a nice focused kind of retreat you know PD and then we wouldn't have to have the half days wouldn't delay the school year right the teachers want to implement stuff in the meet back and and so that's why the half days are spread all the way out that would be great if we had like a a program that we wanted to bring in on something I don't know like school safety and

086we said okay we're going to spend four days in this training go and then we don't see them for the rest of the year that it's ineffective and it goes against what the Desi Department of Ed wants us to be able to do with our staff which is provide meaningful professional development over time and that's how we learn that's how we we learn like we have children we learn but we go out we teach they practice they come back they use the information they go they learn again they go back out again that's the concept it's just like the classroom that's what we do so it be like yeah I'll just leave it at that okay I knew I knew there was probably a good reason for yeah well it's a nice idea and and

087it has been done in districts in the past districts who talked about FR years ago front loading all of their let's put all the trainings we do we try to do that as much as possible all already with the mandated trainings C how many man what are the mandated trainings between you and Janelle that you that we have to do with the staff right we're doing at least that many front up front in the beginning of the year where the teachers are trying to do that the first two days of school mandated by the state and desie that we have to get done so many of so that takes up that time as well you know that so Carol I'm I'm just looking at we start off school with three days a partial week then

088the next week is a partial week then we have two full weeks then another partial week a full week a partial week a partial week a partial week a full week let's hypothetically you have all these partial three and four day school weeks kids learning is interrupted the time in the classroom's interrupted there's no consistency they can't get into a schedule they can't form a habit say just hypothetically one of their teachers is uh take some personal time on these days you've got a substitute in there that's a further Interruption to their schedule a further Interruption to the learning then you've got more partial weeks I mean one you know one teacher being out for a few personal days in a row for whatever reason in the classrooms interrupted for maybe three four five weeks

089how like this seems I don't know I I hear you're saying this is a good idea for person professional development but the other side of it is it seems like it could cause as many problems as you're trying to solve I guess I want to go back Mike I'm trying to take notes as as you're talking the mention about not getting into a schedule an instructional schedule it would seem to me that the students are getting into more of a schedule because they're in school more least let me correct it and say inconsistent schedule because You' got you know five day week a three- day week a 4 day week a three and a half day week a four and a half day week then a five day week it's an inconsistent schedule I guess

090I should have said in in consistent terms it's not full days correct it's not full full full weeks yeah I'm not sure that that would be inconsistent as much for the children as it is the adults honestly kids the kids will at least be in school right many more days so that they do have at least that half day instruction I'm not sure what you mentioning about the down the um the potential interruptions and the substitutes I've just said in a hypothetical situation let's say a teacher is out for three days in a row for whatever reason that week is now interrupted because a substitute comes in they do their best they they're qualified people but it's not the regular teacher so there is a disruption to the classroom it's not the person that the

091students are familiar with all that and then the next week it's another half day and then it's a four week you know it could be several weeks before they get back into a consistent school routine consistent meeting every day they in school fulltime I think isn't a consistent school routine like waking up getting your backpack ready I'm talking about little kids having lies going to school sitting on the rug reading math science yeah which is then interrupted by a half day and then holiday shorter day of that it's still a consistent routine for the kid um is it Carol you mentioned you mentioned other districts do the same thing like half half days it just looking at the menu but look at the calendar like having two in one month just seems a lot and

092so I'm curious if those other districts have a similar number Carol what we what we pulled Jessica I just wanted to tell you is these these districts also at least some of them from the list Sally had put together have additional half days for days before holidays as well we just didn't include that in because it was not relevant to the topic of professional development we only wanted to show that but they have even more in some cases saw list of the like that before an after Labor date was there another list that had I I put that in there there's an after date that was a separate kind of discussion or point that was brought up by a school Committee Member as a consideration but I didn't I thought that was going to be

093the ACT the topic tonight and not this so I was trying to just bring that make like put that in there in case that was brought up so we could look at it out of respect for the person who brought that up but I yeah Carol I brought that up but I was instructed by a very certain someone not to push for a post Labor Day schedule for the start of two particular students so I'm not bringing that up I just want this I'm just recommending this one I just I wanted to say like we're talking about inconsistencies and I noticed that with the exception of the November conference all of the professional development days fall on a Wednesday and if I am correct doesn't act in boxboro which has tremendous scores don't they always

094have a half day on Wednesdays they they do and we talk that was one of the topics and I would just add the principles please feel free to chime in because you were we've all talked about these things a joint effort the when Wednesday was initially a concern brought forward by some of the representatives of the bbaa but what we realized for example Tanto is they were rotating schedule so it's not the Wednesday doesn't always last time you said this last time because of their schedule right and then the elementary schools can rearrange specials on those days so it's not hitting at the same time it just is more consistent for the schools and for even for the family like knowing it's on Wednesdays for example so that was something we were keeping in mind

095that's a fairly affluent district and and just looking at the the the other one about the the Labor Day one if you look at the districts that start after Labor Day they are also pretty affluent um so the thoughts of like Hing a nanny or Child Care would be less significant than a economically diverse District that we are I mean I have a friend that works in active and they you know it's a really great School District um and not you know from a teacher perspective I'm I think that's a valid point good um you know because they're able to talk to each other but it as a working parent I mean I'm privileged enough to work half time but my long day is on Wednesday so you know the first time I saw this

096schedule just from my own perspective I was like you know like that's a lot and I can't even work half a day like um so that would be a full day but I am also again C enough to have a spouse and and an extended family that lives in the area that can help but that's not the story so it's just difficult from a parent perspective to see two PD days in one month I think we just have to pick a lane like yeah are we doing this because we're concerned about our children's education are we doing this because we need which is our T which which is one of the T with or we need to pick a lane here right are we challenging this because um it's it's going to be a detriment

097or a help to our kids education or is it because we can't find child care and parents have no I just think it's in I I think it doesn't consider those real challenges that parents have so if there's a plan in place child so say Child Care is not an option I mean is not problem not a problem then why are we if it's not a problem it's not a problem meaning is then are we is this acceptable to have a half day so the teachers can collaborate together because multiple I agree Julie because multiple points have been brought up so is the issue the child care or is the issue inconsistency in the schedule or is the issue so and I think we kind of have to move forward because we're kind of beating

098a dead horse here so this is the calendar proposed and approved by the union Carol and the principles this is what they support this is what they want so do we want them to go back and take another pass at this or do we want to accept this because we're throwing out lots of ideas here and they're all good and they're all valid but if if we want to pursue to Julie's point a certain idea then it needs to go back it needs to get amended and it needs to come back for us or if we're we like okay these are things that we take into consideration for next year we try this out we see how it goes child care I think that's a that's a Dead Issue wreck is gonna take care of

099it we're gonna see how that goes again could it be a disaster yep could it be an awesome thing and the kids love it and tons of kids want to do the half day thing absolutely so the teachers might love it yeah so so I think the question right now is I want to vote are you guys ready to vote on this or is there any other points so what it matter before and after Labor Day is off the table now is that oh I don't know about that I have no opinion on that matter that's right you said I think once the calendar is published whatever is voted upon I think if I think it would be good for the public to know that these considerations have been taken into account that discussions are

100being held with the rec departments in both towns to provide child care after school uh the reason why we're doing these half days is so our Educators can work on very specific issues and meet again and be able to teach your children dynamically and hopefully end up with higher success for them whether that you know whatever you know aims with or not I aims with but I think I think a caveat needs to be given or blur needs to given when this calendar is published oh I totally agree maybe in your um newsletter and I would also I would assure you the thing I can assure you is that the principles will work with the rec committee and and do what they need to do to provide the the location to provide what the needs

101yeah car to further address the point I agree with everything Jess said you're going to need to communicate a concrete idea or goal as we are going to accomplish we hope to accomplish XYZ and it might take more than one year to measure it might take two years to measure it but after two years you you must have a measurement of something which you state today and we or whoever the committee is at the time needs to be able to look at that and just like you showed us like there are other districts that do this currently that are higher R than us like I assume active is higher than us or something so I think having those links embedded within what you're say is important so people that have to look at data you

102know and maybe studies that show like more frequent PD days show better teacher satisfaction which we would like to do too I so it is in Finland tell them Carol like where where I went to study these things and things they dosek yeah but I but I I do I do know that the admin team has makes that commitment to make sure that this goes really well they already have the ideas of what they want to do and would do if they were given that time to work with their but Carol it's not just you know the descriptive flowery language of we hope to to accomplish better communication it's you hope to accomplish better communication because you've eliminated XYZ number of errors or issues or improv scores by X percent it's not just we you

103know have a better understanding of how our kids learn now so we're going to continue to Foster you know all that flowery language that we often see too much of it needs to be concrete specific data driven like my my goals color I mean I'm not calling but I know and and a lot of the language to M I would have to say and I don't know if that was directed at me per se but I'm just going to say it's because I because in this field when people don't understand the language that we speak I have to articulate it and clarify and communicate it even more than if I have to call up John or Cindy or s parents and taxpayers don't understand you know we improved XYZ communication they understand our district is

104ranked X points higher our students scored X points higher our students got into better colleges and universities our students earn x% more income when they graduate from here than they do our competitors that's what taxpayers and parents understand it's not oh yes we have a much more congenial working relationship that's great it's needed and it's fantastic but it it doesn't show a return for what they're giving up here well I think maybe I mean that's like 10 20 year goals like you're showing through college and income and stuff but I think if like maybe through teacher surveys like satisfaction also teacher retention staff retention might be shown through that like how many something yeah something concrete some numbers that you can show this worked out and improved something measurably yeah I could I could do

105I could do one of my goals on that I don't I don't think it necessarily has to be one of your goals I think it needs be attached to this idea of a schedule like this it's going to have to be in two years from now you're not yeah yeah one year you're not even going to have mcast results right but yeah you'll have as web you'll have can I just ask a question how many more half days do we have in this proposed calendar than normal seven and a half how seven and a half more no so there's seven and half days in this calendar and this current year is this the current year one no what was how many half days do we have this year four five but you said P Time

106s p half days there's 10 half days equivalent time equivalent PD but what happened is they took a full day and broke it into two half more half days half same amount same amount but I guess I'm just wondering so we want like this hard data you know to show that we had an improvement but I'm just wondering do you think it's possible to do that with just an increase in a couple you know like three half days a year you know what I'm saying well if it's not then what's the point of doing it anyway yeah I just I think it'll be really hard to tease that out I think it'll be hard to I agree with you I'm not so sure you can measure maybe you're saying you're doing this you can measure

107Improvement you pick metrics this is going to be a fractional Improvement if you want like a drastic improvement that you can report of you need a half day every single Wednesday every single Wednesday that's right I said every single wedes day I mean I remember Ace coming and saying that we want that's consistent that's consistent that's not inconsistent it's not inconsistent and I think that would be like every single week they'd have a new thing you got have a new speaker here you could have but your point that's an affluent districts are doing that they have money to fund that PD they have money to people have money the taxpayers like go y that's fine I have my nanny or whatever so I don't know that that applies here but I agree it's going to

108be fractional improvements so it's easing into maybe doing something down the road in 10 years maybe one fin question and then we got there will there be a nurse on S that goes to professional development or is that nurse in the building Works a normal day there will be yeah the nurses will be in the building okay they work a normal day the nurses are part of the teacher contract so they are um participating in all of the PD sessions so they would be there if there was an emergency on AB okay if if the child needs like somebody fell and cracked their head open yeah something like that oh yeah medicine yeah and then all the more reason to have a float nurse then you pay you know you might need to have you

109probably to yeah that's valid okay all right so anything else about this calendar we're gonna vote all right can I please have a motion to approve the current calendar for the fiscal or for the 2024 2025 school year yes so L and Julie any more discussion any more voting on the pre- Labor Day one yeah yeah yeah so run that was the first read last time okay Megan are we specifically motioning to do this in conjunction with the after school program well what happens if something happens in the rec program yeah that's the problem work out okay then put it in the motion do you want it in I don't think we can do that you're bringing another to right yeah two separate we can't do that conversation you have to trust your girl Julie

110Lee she's in charge with that your girl motion something on the W committee from Boon when there's no one you just assured us that it's Tak care in writing but we're not gonna put that in a motion we can't do that I say we trust Julie we know her we know where she lives feel I feel like the rec departments are invested in providing for the towns I feel like it's a no-brain ear where they've already had these discussions because what if like they find out they can't start on the September one but they're going to start in October we can't go and change the calendar at that point in time or what if we don't find out that they can't do it until August like we gonna do vote on another calendar at that

111point I think we just we just gotta this is like you got to just put a Hail Mary up and hope this works out I trust no no it's not a h Mar there there are discussions and plans that are in yes I trust Julie so have to I should say we have to trust jie on this one Eric and and the director Eric for Boon wreck and then we decide if you want to add after school and after the PD day to extend the day there's all different things that they can talk about but we're going to trust as a matter of fact who we're really going to trust is Carol to work with the administrators and follow that out all right so the motion's on the table as is we're not adding in

112the all right any more discussion right all in favor I any opposed I'm opposed okay I'm an i as well that motion passes all right one last thing we have our budget Forum on March 19th I hope all the parents listening to this meeting please come out have your voice heard um I had a few people ask about information for the budget forum and I think that's G uh probably later this week or early next week we'll try to relas release that out to the public it'll be on our website the presentation that Nancy is going to give next Tuesday it's one week from today so maybe we should aim to get that out there by Friday afternoon my goal is Friday okay we day Thursday like kindergarten numbers too like I'm just thinking in

113terms of Oh you mean for the new kindergarten the numbers like class numbers you mentioned you mean for the new kindergarten yeah think is that in your presentation it wasn't enrollments in there enrollment yeah yeah but not the new kindergarten coming in I'm sure the principal it's an approximation but it's it's in ny's okay yeah that's what I thought okay it's on that page with the enrollment because they're still registering they are still register reg okay that's right yeah yeah but we have an estimate yeah are there any things updates or notes that we should be thinking about before then um feedback from towns or anything yeah there is but I don't we're not get into it now too much we have a we're um is there another subte meeting we're not going to be

114able to do a subcommittee meeting this week but we I'm planning on like a two to three hour discussion so we'll have ample time to discuss and then Nancy will fix everything so we'll have our final number right here and we'll vote on that but the information should be by Friday it should be on it should be in the drive it should be on the website so if there's questions ahead of time you can send them in same thing for the public if they have questions they can't make it to the meeting send them in in if you want to come and speak it would be greatly appreciated um and we're still working with the towns things looking good bad trending up down the towns have both said that there's limitations um yeah Berlin I'm

115not sure that it's tied to an override I think it's just limitations that their fincom would like us where their fincom would like us to be Boon I think there's limitations uh into their Levy capacity but I I'm still I just emailed the town accountant and she said she's still working on the numbers so I think we're still working on that but hopefully that's going to be ironed out this week yes there have been limitations set by the towns though absolutely okay any yes yeah the only other thing I just wanted to mention in case you're getting questions about school choice um we're talking about that tomorrow also an admin meeting that comes out that will be in April so in case you're you're hearing from parents the April meeting out of the district that

116are interested um it's April okay right we present those numbers to the committee okay we didn't forget thank you all right so could I please have a motion oh is there anything else anyone want to say all right could I please have a motion to adour the meeting soone second than LA and Julie all in favor hi all right I'm as well thank you