School Board Meeting 5/24/22

001navy broadcast we're going to begin with pledge of allegiance [Music] i pledge [Music] one allegiance under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all do we have any public comments tonight hearing that has anyone any members have you received communications that you would like to share um moving on to item five is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented [Music] thank you discussion [Music] alan baber um i was going to have mr many hands since he's not here just yet not sure if he's coming or not um move on to our candidates um our candidate interviews because we do have people here for our vacancy which is pretty exciting um i'd like to welcome mrs kyle burns and mr robert holmes for our school committee tonight both have generously volunteered to build

002an empty growing seat left by the resignation of susan henry in february i would like to extend a sincere thank you to both of you for your interest in representing your town and the schools for the next six months as you may have heard for the boylston berlin boys and regionalization agreement we are all up for re-election in november um i'm going to follow the same system that mr spencer employed in august when we were going through the appointments so part one is that we've reviewed all of your letters of interest and resumes and we've independently researched you on our own time this may include past communications as well as publicly available information i will invite you to come forward introduce yourself and share with us a little bit about yourself we like to keep

003it to three minutes if possible and each member will have the chance to ask you a question they have prepared they will ask the same question to each candidate and there may be follow-up questions from the committee to those questions and then once the interviews are completed we will openly debate a celebrate on the floor this means that all discussion is going to be public um it's going to be as awkward for you as it is for us um once we have completed deliberations i will ask for a committee member to appoint a candidate to fill the open seat this requires a second from another member if there is no second it doesn't move on to discussion and the motion doesn't pass when there is a second it goes into a discussion and then a

004vote in order to be appointed at least well let's just say three of five but three of four correct that would be yeah three or four members to vote in favor of the candidate um if three descent the motion doesn't pass should the motion fail and there still can be glad we start the whole process all over again using the same parameters for success and it's hard to to take this advice but please don't be nervous um every member here has been appointed some of us um had other people that we had to stand up and you know speak for ourselves and hope that we were the best candidate um but regardless of whether we had competition or not you know we know what it's like to be in your place and we just want

005you to know we're not trying to stop you um we just want to try to get to know you better so any questions before we start i would like to invite mrs kyle burns right there thank you you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're going absolutely good evening members of the community school community it's a pleasure to meet you my name is kyle burns and i am a resident of berlin massachusetts i have a first grader at berlin memorial my younger son will start kindergarten in the year in the school year of 2023. we're just beginning our family's academic journey and i'm eager to engage and support the school and the district communities in as many ways as i can we're also new to massachusetts and as i told

006my husband when we moved in last summer joining participating volunteering will be our way to meet and become a part of this community and so we've been to all the town activities we've given to the fundraisers and teacher appreciation activities i am lasagna love volunteer making and giving lasagna to local families in need and now i find myself with this unique opportunity to bring my background into service for the berlin and boylston regional school district to that extent i have a master's degree in organization development and knowledge management a certificate in leadership coaching and i'm an entrepreneur i have a careers worth of examples that indicate that i have the knowledge and ability to assess develop and execute quality learning programs i've had clients across all sectors from academic institutions to large corporate entities and

007i believe that my experience thus far gives me a really strong position to delve into the research and the understanding around issues that the school committee will face i know that i can bring a level of curiosity and questioning to school committee business that offers new perspectives and new potential ideas for addressing that business my husband brian and i and our two sons have felt very welcome to meet this community i'm eager to take questions and offer what support i can to continue and build on the good work of this school community thank you thank do you want to start meeting with julie and then actually you're ready no i'm ready to flip because i write it down it's hard because you come with a couple questions in case somebody else all right how's that

008question i choose all right here we go i'm ready okay kyle nice to meet you um so first off thank you for stepping forward this serving volunteer is a big task so thank you for that all right i see that you have um one child in elementary school and one hearing at burma memorial school which is a terrific school as you know yes it really is um so my question to you is how would you seek to understand issues that affect boylston elementary school and our middle high school with your children sure so we as i said we wanted to participate as much as possible so we are currently deep in baseball land which is west closed in boylston and berlin we also did soccer in the fall so we've had lots of parents and

009families from both regional areas i also this is a funny connection in uh when i was 18 years old i traveled with an international community service organization called up with people and one of my very best friends who lived for a year to travel the world during service and learning about the people of the world she was involved woested her two kids are now dear to honda um so of all the world's places to end up seven miles from a person who i love dearly and have that great inside insight into the boylston world through her and she's been such a helpful friend just letting us get connected so i think right now i've started the process right we're new and we're just getting involved finding ways to cross the boundaries and barriers if there

010are any i don't know i haven't experienced them because we keep crossing them naturally so i think that's just the best way for me to move forward anyway to build a community and certainly to understand what's happening both in boston and in berlin and thanks um i also have a first grader in berlin too so maybe so in your opinion what's the most important part of the budget we should be looking at next year in the next community well i haven't seen the budget in particular um and the last time meeting you started the baseball game so i missed the time national student organization i work for nonprofits and budgets are a huge part of what the organization does and in my experience i know that putting the mission first is always what needs to

011happen so in terms of what this school community has to look at i would imagine looking at curriculum quality looking at hands-on learning opportunities for all pre-k through 12 is going to be incredibly important obviously there's a balance these days in cleaning and sanitizing and making sure that we have good air and all of that all of the schools themselves are ready to support a clean and safe learning environment in all ways possible so without knowing the budget that is where i look mission first quality curriculum and beyond that how how the school itself is operating once again thanks for joining us i represent uh welcome boylestone and have a sunday oil snowmen also an excellent school so my question is you know the mitigation of cocaine 19 has been the topic of much discussion

012in our meetings for the past two years the most notable actions taken in that time were to close the schools and require that people are masters in school buildings we've now seen student performance data that indicates that there was harm done due to our response to code how would you what would your decision-making process be on topics related to code medication sure so i think the data shows nationally all students performances down because of it in general because of closing their schools because of not having strong learning opportunities or the right experience face-to-face is obviously the best so that said it's happening everywhere not just here and so the efforts that this district have taken are pretty incredible and frankly when my son entered at the beginning of the year and we did the assessments

013he qualified for uh reading support and math support um big likelihood because we chose to home school and all of that stuff last year because of it right and he's already he's soaring he's skyrocketing now it's amazing so what was and what would have been what's happening are different things at the same time science needs to drive future choices so as proven numbers are going up i do think we need to keep an eye on what's happening in our communities what our hospital loads up what the cdc recommendations are i come from a background in science my father's phd geneticist my husband works in pharmaceuticals he does drug development understands what a vaccine does and how it's developed and is on top of our literature i myself volunteered early in the pentagon with the fda

014to become a vaccine [Music] speaker it was a zoo zoom class on how vaccines are in primary what vaccine does what the mri was and how to then use good solid data and knowledge to go forward and advocate for people to make certain public health decisions and i think going forward in schools that's what it is frankly if we can keep in school but put masks back if they are needed that's what i would 100 vote for because that is one of the real obvious choices for protecting our students and allowing them to have their face-to-face interactions with peers and teachers not the best obviously we want this thing to go away but it's not going to go away unless we continue to take the right steps to protect our community and there are members

015of our community who are completely unprotected at this point you know i have a little guy who can't be vaccinated yet so i am very conscientious and aware of how to protect him and the risk that my first grader brings home from school every day because of his interactions there but it's also the balance of what's good for him in school so you do what's necessary i will always land on the side of science thank you i'm gonna ask um a two-part question but they're they're connected um first is what made you decide to seek the open position and then what qualities and experience you have that you think lends itself to being sure so my first reason is my sons obviously like most of you they're very young we're just getting started and i

016know this year at fuller memorial has been phenomenal the support the care the academics it's it's been he skips to the school questions he skips to the school uh he's afraid of summer well what about school so that's my first reason secondly though i have a earned bias right from my experience in education and learning and that is that hands-on experiential learning serves all people who live really loud uh because then you can do the reflection that is the verbal learning that is the that is the chemist that is the oral learning all of that supports it but that kinesthetic hands-on piece really gives everybody all levels something to work with to grab on into the connections between what happens in the classroom and what happens so i will be an advocate from my background

017in creating learning from my background assessing learning and to find opportunities to support whatever my country would adore i know that there's been a lot of hands-on science and ponds and scary stories and snakes and things lately i love it i love it right and then third as um as a new member to the community i met mrs rappa on phone the school secretary and she was phenomenal she helped me do the registration she offered a tour through the school it was wonderful and yet whether it's available or i haven't been able to access it communication from the district and school on just how things work where to find forms that sort of thing has been hard to come by so i will be an advocate for the reason i wanted them to be here

018but is to advocate for uh just stronger levels of communication between the committee and the constituents that it serves and i know not all business can be discussed until it is public but once it is a strong communication plan and a way to outreach to people uh a new family welcome that says don't forget there is a forum that you have to have on file in order to do that field trip that you want to do at the end of the year didn't know [Music] thank you tyler really appreciate it absolutely it's my pleasure thank you all and now i'd like to invite mrs thanks hello hello community members thank you very much for having me tonight my name is rob holmes i have been a resident of the town of berlin for about 10

019years now i have three daughters at burrell memorial kindergartener first grader and the second grader i've lived in massachusetts the majority of my life i graduated from wpi in the year 2000 with a degree in mechanical engineering i've worked in many industries in my career doing advanced research for the first half and product development for the second half and currently i've led the development and launch of products you might actually recognize from companies like keurig and thermacell and now my robot but regardless of where i've worked or what industry i serve common theme has been present throughout my career and that's been working with teams specifically teams with individuals that have very different backgrounds different priorities different points of view and different personalities i've been successful in motivating groups of people to achieve common goals

020despite our own unique individual differences i think in my ability to hear perspectives ask kind questions and help guide a group to consensus would be an asset to the school throughout my life service has been an important and consistent theme it probably started when i was younger on my journey to becoming an eagle scout where service is a key premise in high school as part of the natural honor society service to our community was also important the theme of service continues throughout my family's experiences today our church where i teach pre-k in kindergarten sunday school and serve our community holidays as well i believe service to our community is important i've been considering how i might further serve my community for some time i've been an active member of our town and have filled a

021number of informal roles but have been searching for a place to really sink my people when the spotlight shown on our school committee during the height of the pandemic i remember having two major takeaways one wow this is a really important job and two i don't know um as the time passed and i contemplated where i could direct my energy i remembered 19 hours from school the hard work required then the thankless nature of the job but most of all the importance of that role for our kids our kids spend a significant amount of time in our school system this experience will influence their view of education for the rest of their lives school is a place that can inspire children to greatness it will inform their social identities drive curiosity influence personalities and underpin

022their means of forming relationships it's a crucial component of our children's adolescence being a part of the committee that helps shape that experience for our kids feels like the absolute best place for me to direct my energy and so for those reasons i've decided to formally seek an opportunity to serve thank you for your willingness um same question as i asked kyle i see we have children in the elementary school at brooklyn school terrific school how would you seek to understand issues that affect the es elementary school in high school with kids great great question thank you um so we do have you know our social network does extend into the town of boylston um but the you know eight friends we have involved it probably doesn't represent the entire town um verily so um

023an idea i would have would be to try to partner with others on the school committee veteran where we can leverage each other's networks within our respective talents perhaps um i could invite a member from the boylston town to join us at social events community events in berlin and potentially reciprocate the other way to try to get a sense of what's happening that's great well thanks uh budget being one of the three things that we actually have some uh direct involvement in what should we be focusing on next year's budget yeah a tough question um and you would think that being able to listen to all these questions first would give me advantage and her answers uh he's not so again i don't like like mrs burns i don't have the context for around the

024budget so it'd be completely difficult and maybe short-sighted to try to take a stab at answering that um uh without that context but um i do have uh extensive experience managing budgets um i understand how to allocate funds to different different categories i understand that sometimes we have to make tough commitments and tough decisions so um i think honestly i think mrs burns knocked it out of the park where prioritizing what's around the mission and curriculum is priority all of my operational needs issues that might face a middle school or high school might be different to the issues that we might see within our elementary school where our kids are in school how would you seek to understand better the operations and the challenges and successes of the living room high school things have to

025do with it right you have to be present uh be present at events that you might not normally be invited to as a parent but be there as a school community member um you know speak with members of the administration speak with members of the faculty speak with parents um you know provided with this within the guidelines of our role the school committee i would want to talk to many members of the community and berlin as possible to get an understanding of what's on there thank you so to my question the mitigation of code 19 has been in the topic of discussion in our meetings the past two years some of the most notable actions taken at that time or close to schools it could require that people wear masks and school buildings we've now

026seen the student performance has some of our communications done hard and our response to go over 19 based on student performance that we have available to us what would your decision-making process be if you are asked to vote on topics in the future so um we've all become um advocates for science i think these days um i certainly have been in throughout my career professionally um i think what's what's critical is that we really assess you know as many different angles of the problem as we possibly can it's it can be tempting to to get wrapped up in a headline or or a common common thread that might be popular but but i really do think it's it's crucial that we listen to all uh all aspects all members of the community that have a

027voice in the mountain and look at um look at the problem comprehensively rather than getting swept up with the trend so it would be about listening to the community first collecting data that not just supports a particular conclusion of life but really challenges it and stress tests you know all potential solutions choose the best thank you so my question would be what prompted you to seek this appointment and what are you bringing to the table that goal thank you yeah so um as i as i mentioned in my intro you know serving the community was not an if for me and um really the it just really needed to come together once once i was able to create some time in my life personally to offer that service and make a commitment i'm at that

028point now and so i really kind of assessed what opportunities there are and where my strengths might be able to be realized the best um given my background in managing cross-functional making complicated decisions with significant consequences you know i think i could bring a unique perspective to the committee one that listens that advocates for different viewpoints from a diverse group a diverse group from the community and you know i think i would be able to use empathy specifically to really consider consider each and every member of the community's viewpoint and then we're trying to make them any follow-up questions thank you now we get to the deliberation portion and this is where we discuss the candidates um and after we discuss them i'll ask for a motion to appoint one of our applicants to fill

029the vacancy does anyone want to begin no they might be excused i think it's an area so i certainly really appreciate it um bringing that up was was really great um another thing i'll just say about bob you know i i like the uh tenure he's had within the community he haven't been arrested for throwing for 10 years i think that gives someone a good perspective on on our communities in our school district um you know what he said about working with teams and being able to at the very least you know hearing everyone else and driving towards the closest we can come to consensus we don't get there um but i think that that skill is one that i was very uh and kyle's henry will get involved learning degree and boss spoke a

030lot towards that community feel the leadership team building which as we've seen over the last uh two or three months is huge it really makes the work better easier smoother so from ourselves validation last year communication outreach is in there team building also you i think you're both outstanding i there was so much learning done on the devices and that's really trickled into the classrooms um substantially so i like that that's going to be the focus area of kyle's um for bob there were so many things that i just pulled toward a lot of the services i love the idea of using empathy to make objective decisions especially now where it's very easy to not do that to do the other his background working with diverse teams is very appealing and i liked how adam

031you asked the follow-up question to mine um how will you how will you understand get rid of one to detail how people understand that middle high school because when i was in elementary school you just can't you can't understand high school until your present day and then um and i think that also speaks to that bridging the gap between um i really liked your budget question mike um that's a really hard question i don't know how i would have ended that prior to being on the school committee i liked that [Music] i liked that kyle has worked for non-profits and i also liked bob's experience as well you know working with their companies and this is going to be a very hard decision because i feel like they're both extremely qualified and it's just tough

032because they're also likeable too so i guess uh this was there any other does anybody want to do any more deliberations i'm pleased to see parents and both of you up and watching school it's incredibly important the parents who have students in our school district are willing to step up and take these roles and applaud development for that because it's it's the right thing in my opinion but on top of that it's difficult sometimes because you're having to make decisions that may not agree with your child best friend and what their parents think that's a challenging thing to take on sometimes and so whatever ends up happening does anyone want to make a motion is there a second okay is there any discussion you know just i'll say at this point you know i um

033i never met bob until today but i will comment to say that back in the press of when decisions were being made about three or four schools and went to rio school of power within schools i distinctly remember they wrote a letter to the school committee at that time i remember that letter got posted on facebook remember i didn't know about myself honestly i've never met him before that you should put your name before the small beginning whenever there's an election it's gonna be in november but so whoever gets appointed everyone can run an event but i i think that i recognized prior to myself in the school committee and prior to being opening that um the way he approached the commentary he made at that school community meeting when he would like him at

034the time or consider him rent power over the schools was something that valued as a as a parent or district or a future parent of the district and so that plays a role in my interest in support i would actually like to add that that reminded me a lot of you because um when we were going through the throes and you were very intent on making sure that we had our election which was the right thing to do we had a nice bathing work with one another and it really shows character when you're discussing difficult topics that are really can be very emotional to be able to be rational and behind this big deal so i thought that was interesting i thought of the same play to reiterate what adam said um you're gonna face

035decisions that are tough because uh your kids being in school and can be both well three of us have kids in the same class so it's a tough call a call has to be made but uh again like i said there will be an election all right so with that um we will move to hope um all in favor of appointing mr robert holmes to fill the vacancy in berlin on the school committee i propose i mean i as well welcome mr holmes and mrs burns i'm really sad that they don't have two spots because you're phenomenal it's okay i hope you'll run in november thank you um and christy the disappointing order um [Music] so we are going to move on to our post new york city field trip report mr minnehan he's got

036some students with him we had a trip to new york city on the 13th of may which was about 10 days ago i came before the school committee the last time i proposed the idea and i had a number of interesting questions about delays how do we deal with that and we had a brief delay on the way home but other than that everything ran really smoothly and caden and rebecca and sydney were three of the six students on the trip um and they can field any questions that people have experience what they learned [Music] either the art museum or the food so food was everywhere and easy to come by and shoot so that was awesome for me and the exhibits at the art museum was pretty cool to see yeah i was just

037there friday actually um i don't have anything specific but i've never been to new york before this trip so just to be there walking around is just really interesting and they do not lie about new york pizza being related i think my favorite part like butterwise was definitely the pizza the pizza is really good but like the um going to the art museum was really cool because you could see a lot of the stuff like i've seen some of the like works online but seeing them in person is like a different experience so it's really cool to see them like in person awesome exactly and i would just say since it's open to everybody my favorite part sydney told me about a painting which is uh the death of socrates which is by uh jacques

038louis david uh and it's at the metropolitan museum of art and she had read up on it uh and i realized that this painting was in the textbook uh that we got this year um so that was kind of a neat connection and i also saw their painting by the same artist that happened to be on the cover of a collection of plays by euripides that i read during seventh grade this year so i read hakuba as part of the change in the curriculum standards we were incorporating ancient greece in rome and so we read this buddy and on the cover of the particular copy that i have is another painting by jacqueline david um the morning of andromeda who is the wife of hector who is a great trojan hero and so to see

039both those paintings up close and have a connection through the text it's really nice and for sydney to say up she had gone out and researched that there was a very nice connection that was you know all the things that we are trying to do build relationships and connections and so that was very nice and a favorite part of mine other questions how about you went to the 9 11 [Music] there was this room where they had the names of all people and these like big screens all over where you could press the names it showed their background and it just showed that they were people too and just for them to say like two thousand something people died it doesn't really mean anything if you have i wasn't alive we weren't alive when that

040happened but to be able to see the people and their families in the room just made it a lot more realistic yeah like what sydney said since we were like before before it was happening i don't really feel like we had like any like memories connected to the event so if the 911 like memorial was like really cool to see all this stuff there like they had all these like um like pillars and like foundation and also like the room with all people it really connects numbers and like humanizes them and more for us yeah i think they did an amazing job honoring uh the lives lost during 911 and it was just nice to see everything put together so nicely i have a question so mr manhattan came in and he proposed his field

041trip and he talked about getting on a plane which normally we do buses and flying down to new york city i want to know um so i remember dropping back and sitting off at um 6 30 in the morning and then this is social sitting in the back of that um after midnight so my question to you would be in the future if there were field trips like this do you think that the school committee should approve them and how did you feel about the experience do you think it's something that other people would want to experience definitely i think uh the plane was pretty cool because i know uh some kids have been on the planes years i think a lot of the kids had been on since it was like maybe a baby

042so this would be like this first real time being on a plane and so like sharing that with the class and the career is pretty cool and especially going to new york from worcester with your class that's a pretty awesome experience and it wasn't honestly it wasn't that expensive either it went really smooth like all aspects were really smooth the only thing that wasn't smooth was like the delay but it was only really not it wasn't very long it could have been worse so i think definitely we should be doing these things more because i got a lot out of it yeah i agree i feel like because of copenhagen and like um you missed a lot of things that you could have experienced and this is like i think my first field trip since

0437th grade so um yeah it's really fun i think it's just awesome for this idea and how the kids go you guys appointments i think it's great um did you ride the subway yes i kind of said new york city as a joke when he said we stick to field trips but i mean he was so like enthusiastic about it and we all thought of new and exciting things we could do in new york and we realized the federal reserve's in new york so that was our i know there's a camera i just wanted to know what surprised you about new york city like but if you went down there thinking one thing about it what change did you have after you came away from june yeah or did you have one yeah it was

044i thought it would be from boylston biggest city ever veteran was like boston which is this big compared to new york city apparently and so it was like culture shock it was just like everything that like i've seen movies is kind of like it but it's just like more like tame and not as wild yeah everyone that we saw like i i was kind of expecting on the new york subway that everyone would just be weird and they would everyone yeah i thought there was any more rats yeah i just want to say yeah i think it's a great idea what you did i hope that you guys as students become i don't look great but become ambassadors to your other students in the school encourage them to do things like this encourage teachers to

045bring up these ideas whether it's new york boston some you know whatever you guys have seen that person now even new york and there's plenty right there [Music] i think you'll find an encouraging school committee um i think you're going to graduate in a week or so yes june 5th uh thank you so much for coming and speaking we really really appreciate it i'm so excited that you did this and i mean they're going to have memories and experiences and it's real good learning so thank you thank you to the committee uh to everybody who was involved um for their support uh it was you know a team effort from starting to finish um and thank you for the opportunity to come and speak uh and as you say um to be ambassadors for this

046concept to try and do this again in the future so we're gonna move on is and we went through an extensive search and consider the number of qualified candidates for the position um but in the end hands down the damaged choice this is dancing he's here today and um miss kadiski is a graduate of western illinois college in springfield she's been a business manager since uh 2012 in a couple positions currently a sitting business manager she's held several financial positions in the private sector before that in banking the banking industry also she's licensed by the ddse right yeah and uh because she's a member of masco and society for hr management so um would you like to say a couple words sure before you take the barrage of so you have to take the sword

047and uh yeah and shield but mr president well um as i'm nancy kaninsky thank you very much i was fortunate enough to spend a couple hours in five today i can tell that i have big shoes to fill he uh you can see he's done a great job of the finances so thank you for showing me the ropes a little bit today but i look forward to hopefully joining you and thank you thank you very much [Music] yes yes as the new director of finance and operations as of july 1st 2027 so wait a second discussion as well motion to approve the appointment of mrs nancy misty as the new director of finance and operations as of july 1st i think this is where we said oh yes actually [Music] and i know in two

048hours [Music] also before i get to my goals i would like to acknowledge a retiring principal um diane cesari who's been here for 32 years i don't know if there's a teacher a young teacher been high in the past five or ten years who works in there went to school didn't have diane as they i don't know if that makes you feel old enough just the amount of things that diane has done for the district um just 32 years and i think always have one here in this district uh which is a testament to diane's dedication to this school into this district yeah also to our district that someone would want to stay for that long um she's somewhat of a historic in the district if you want to know something about the old school

049or anything that went out here since 1989 diane's the person to ask so we're gonna miss her she started as a physical education teacher and coach and dean of students and it was a dance students and principals so we really are going to miss you diane but we wish you luck [Applause] okay that was the fun part and uh so i think you've got packets like this so it's easy for you to follow easier than online our goal one was the equity goal and i've talked about this a number of times this is a goal we started a couple years ago and so the goal my goal this year was to broaden the sphere of influence related to equity by including staff from the districts and to create a district equity statement and so so

050that's really what what the work has been for the last few years and this year we've increased the team we initially started off with just the leadership team and what we're trying to do is just basically trying to find out you know what does it mean to us as a district before we start going out to the teachers like what do we see uh equity and we realized we really had to make it personalize that we were going to you know find out if there were any inequities in our district and then attack those first so one of the things that happened this year is i work with the principals to create ask them to look in schools and find places where you think they might be an equity and then treat it as a

051science project you know just have a hypothesis and then see if you can prove it or not without any you know collect all the data first so that really was the equity worth this year so in terms of evidence i said we would have a an equity statement and that is in your packet under goal number one uh first page is the meaningful time this year second page is the faculty statement and again you know one of the things and we did as a leadership team we put together a um a rough draft and the idea was to then take that rough draft bring it to the bigger group and have them refine it with the help of teachers21 so we've come up with this of course it's a working document and again we didn't

052want to we didn't want to over promise but at the same time we think that we're a small district we should be flexible we should be able to give students individual attention they need and if there are inequities that you should deal with and not have any preconceived idea of where those connections are so in the principles goals were fantastic uh cases gold's in there we looked at ell students and whether we override identified ell students in special education and that's a big topic these days a lot of times learning a language a language issue is diagnosed as a disability if you're not if you're not careful so we don't want students to be diagnosed not speaking english is not a disability so he's got some interesting results with that it's in there i'm sure

053you take it had a chance to take a look at it john had an interesting role it's another one you know it seemed like it'd be common sense but um is there is it equity in the way you call on students you know when you ask a question it's a form of um it's an informal um sort of testing you know and so you want to make sure that there's no inequities so john looked at things like you know does the student the teacher call on all kids on the left side of the class or the right side of the class call on mostly males call out most females a big one does the teacher call on kids who always have the handwritings because we know from you know national data if the kid raises

054a kid who doesn't raise his hand and always hide and that's that's not good you have to draw that student out you know kind of in a meaningful way not embarrass the student but that's a student that can get behind you know and you have to observe these things and you have to point these things out for teachers and i i i'll tell you this story from my own um background when i was a teacher that i uh my department had observed me and said you know you always call on people on the left side of the classroom and and i realized the reason i did because i had check which was high tech back then i used to write my notes on it and it would be reflected on the board it was a

055big deal but because i'm right-handed i always turn this way and the light was bright so i couldn't look into it and see the people with the kids on this side of us so if you want to touch thai which a lot of them did in my class you would sit over here you know they knew i couldn't see them so i never thought about it until somebody somebody called it out and then diane's was looked at in equities in terms of gender and we've done a lot of work in the last couple years with science technology and engineering and there were some 20 years we've been working on this now and there are still some places where um some groups of some genders are underrepresented and so that's one of the things that diane

056and sally looked at and so the idea this year was to kind of do not necessarily a run-through but take it in stages have a hypothesis collect the data see if what you're thinking was correct and then next year that follow up on that goal is going to be okay now what do we do about that so now that they have uh two people in the building that can act as advisors for this they can stop those two people can start you know doing professional development can stop working with the faculty and they can start working on these projects and there's no shortage of them here it's all small things you know john's fine it seems just again so common sense but it has a profound impact on students so those are the kind of

057equity things that we look at and i only say that because i know one of the other things i'm supposed to produce here is an equity um you know one of the comments and they're like you know one let me ask the questions or you know if there's some kind of hidden meaning and it's really just trying to collect data and if you don't if you don't know us if you if you if you just look at the survey it it does kind of seem like well maybe they're up to something and especially the politics around this stuff but that's not that's not the case if you look at our work you know our work is focused around just this district and what we see because then everything's going on someplace else somebody else will

058deal with them our job is to deal with the kids and staff and community districts and so we stand by that so that's the equity goal is anything else the second goal was the um the principal walk food that i actually started i think the second year i was here that whole for a couple years with coleman i hope we started reviving it this year and really you know what you want ultimately is you want the principals to um you know get into the habit of keep going and just getting out of the issues going into the classroom having you know developing a routine where they have follow follow-up conversations with them the teachers get used to them being in there and our principles all go into classrooms but you know so that the teacher

059knows when when when the principal leaves not just when the superintendent is there that there's going to be a follow-up meeting we had a four-point survey that there's going to be a survey to say okay you know what do you think about what do you as a teacher see what was going on when i came in you know what was your question and follow-up meetings with the teacher and then take that data and then use it as a springboard for what the next walkthrough is gonna be and the federals did things a little bit differently which is okay john and h change up their focal areas a little bit diane concentrated on basically the same ones for all of our meetings you can do it either way um just a sort of a matter of

060preference it depends what each principle is trying to get at in the school there might be something that we see as a weakness that they've been observing so that's going to be the that's going to be the focus the focus here so um diane decided yeah what we so what happens with the program isn't based on the research for better teaching the superintendent supervision of principles and so it's like a gradual release so when we did these originally would sit down and come up with these focal points and then um we decided we had a couple other systems in place but we basically decided who would you sort of based on the focus area so um and then the program as you go on so this isn't really like the third year we've done this

061the principals stopped doing that stuff and so what they would do is depending on what they see going on in the schools because they see it every day they would decide what teachers so if they're seeing something in the middle school what the middle school teaches we focus on those school teachers that day is it something that the high school that they want to take a look at will focus on high school teachers and sometimes it's just a mix and honestly mcas sometimes it's like we want to go there but if we don't do it today it's going to be two weeks so um let's let's kind of mix and match today so it kind of looks like a jumble but there's a there's some thoughtfulness that goes in that into it just depends on

062what they're seeing and something [Music] three observations well i meet with each of them once a month right yeah so you won't because i would have to put names here oh no instead of you know it's a teacher one teacher two teacher three right so there were three observations done and i'm just wondering if those observations are done so how is the middle school getting observed elementary well at the elementary school it's all one level right but i would still potentially know yeah that's why we do it there too so that's why we try to take try to like there's one of them in there and i'm thinking if somebody somebody was in the schools enough they didn't know who this was and so you know i have to have to be a i'm sort

063of defense on what i give you what i don't give you because some of it i say i'm going to give it evidence and then i look at it i'm like well i don't want to stop putting lies through everything and i realize if someone's in school enough they'll be able to figure out who this is so you know i sort of walk a line when that happens so but i'm not answering your question right now so what is i guess my question is if if if if you're doing walkthrough observations um to meet these student learning goals um and this is coming to us as part of the evaluation how can we evaluate based on that if i don't know what was being evaluated focus areas how would you be able to determine if

064it's middle school high school because i think they're two different almost schools right even though they're not here that's true but that's not my job my job with them is to develop and develop procedures for them to be able to go in and make observations their job is to decide in their building if they know who they're going to observe and what they can look at so my part of the goal is to to help them develop those procedures and those routines to be able to go and make those observations so the only but when i go in it's not the only time they go in sure so so the goal is that if i can do this work from cal does similar work develop those procedures and those protocols so that when we're not

065there they can go so it's really irrelevant why see when i go in i want to see a development of a protocol so i want to see them sending out surveys to teachers i wanted to do that with that foreign obviously they're going to focus um [Music] we have another system that gets put into place i want to talk too much about it but basically what happens so a teacher who needs more help the principals will see maybe like they see them once a week and then there's group of teachers who they're okay and they maybe see him once every three weeks and then there are teachers who have rock stars and something you got to keep an eye on that you don't see them as much so they make that decision so when i

066go in all i'm trying to do is work with them to develop routines who they see how they do that actual evaluation it doesn't matter what level it is because i only go in to do these formal things with them i do want to i do each once a month so it's even irrelevant to me i already know like that that last one was from the last observation so i remember that but if i were to look at the other one if i didn't see the names i wouldn't know and it's not important to me either um my part of the superintendent is to create a you know a sustainable protocol for principles to use to go in and make observations on teachers it's going to be the same at every level they vary like

067they said you know diane thought it was more important to have um consistent focus areas that she saw multiple times chinese had multiple focus areas so it's it's gotta be so i don't even really i don't really make that distinction between those great ones it's just are they are they able to develop those routines so when i get the you know when i get the surveys they even send them the surveys out are they getting feedback from the teachers are they having those conversations that's really important okay next question so as i look at the law that i have here of walkthroughs that were conducted in corresponding survey responses as for example and see that they were watching them in december january of march and may but i think this is very response related to

068the walkthrough i just gave you a sampling of just to show you what they what i was trying to do with them so you know the process was followed consistently yeah yeah and so you know the evidence was to develop like so if you look so you can find that in there you can see it that they've actually developed okay we're not going to see all of them no just a sampling so you're not going to see all of their stuff but just what i said that i was going to provide samplers so so that's that goal and again i think that you know we've come a long way on it although i think that you know cold is really um so let's go to goal three this one you know this was i think

069we talked about this one you know in january it's the one i was had the most issue with [Music] because so this is my professional practice goal and when i taught i wanted i set these goals earlier as soon as i did a lot of work with me on them i tried to find a professional practice goal i'm sort of beyond the point in my career with you know taking classes and doing that kind of stuff and one of the things you know she said that made a lot of sense why don't you pick something that's really broken to where you are and you know maybe your post career whether it be two three four years down the road um and so i you know i thought about it i i've been in regional schools

070for a long time i like regional schools only enough regional districts and so and i thought that would be some work that i would do when i'm retired and um my mentor is actually the executive director at moz the massachusetts association of regional schools it's close by and it's probably something i'll be involved with when i retired and um so i wanted to start doing work and it but it was a weird year because as i said um usually there's more things that work there's things that i teachers and this year really not so much you see the list here it's all things that are chapter 70 funding leadership and organization these are all uh enemy air before training and obama did that one year they have a superintendent they're their superintendent like a mentoring

071course that they that i went through early on so but not a lot of stuff for teachers so i've gone to the meetings and um you know provided what was available for administrators and i'll continue with this next year i'm hoping that you know we can expand this and office stuff for teachers that was one of my action steps that i wasn't able to get to and i think i said that in january that i wasn't i was not gonna be able to get to that so uh this one was this one you know it didn't you know what i said i was gonna do but uh i would say as a professional practice was i was hoping one for myself that's it does anyone have any species for themselves that's a good question we

072brought them on because we thought okay let's bring someone on who's not us who has expertise here they did some great stuff we didn't always agree with them um we did a couple years of work with them we think we're far enough along that we don't have to bring them back um you know we have a lot of queues know in case we need them there is one of the consultants that we thought about bringing back as a speaker but we think we we're far enough along that we can we can do we at least begin some of our work um we've collected a lot of data this year and julia had asked questions about the equity report and what we're going to do with all of that and so um we're going to put

073together a media movement collected all this data now we're going to just start analyzing it and figure out what exactly are we going to do we're going to have a student we're going to have students surveying this in the fall and we asked about that we don't know what it's going to look like and see where that goes is that something you want us to continue with them what is that if you answered yes the next question was costs yeah they're not cheap so and that's the other reason we think we've got enough information we can sort of do this yeah we'll know once we analyzed it once we're gonna start analyzing all these i like what the principals chose to look at in classrooms because i think those are really important issues and especially

074in our district um i think it was thinking outside the box as to what the traditional equity surveys would be or or what you'd be looking for in a classroom and i felt that great so now i want to mention my goal was to focus on principles but sally also had a science and technology science technology engineering as we all had this time um so just as you know our budget scriptproof downs and it was a long process um not necessarily an easy process um and um i just wanted to thank first the administrative team for their work and my patience and kind of working through some of the challenges that we had they put a lot of thought into other schools and we can't always support everything that we want to do and we

075had to make some difficult decisions and we arrived at at one that that was feasible to the towns while also kind of enhancing what sports or providing to our students um so i also want to thank the school committee i know you had a lot of questions about the process and we appreciate your support and particularly coming to some of the meetings we've had with the towns i find that's helpful and would encourage you to continue to do that i think it helps and obtaining support from towns as opposed to just administrators having folks who live in the town to be there to be part of discussions helpful um i also wanted to call the mcdonald and i said it to them personally but the selectboards and the incomes of both tenants they don't have

076an easy job either kind of balancing tax considerations finding they're getting um by their funding sources um i think particularly this year there's a little bit of a shift but the challenge was more with berlin and boston um and so i just wanted to acknowledge their work and kind of give and take with us to arrive at something that was workable um and um i would also one of one of the things i plan to do for for the next meetings just to kind of outline some longer-term considerations i do believe that the challenges that i had would be a little more more prevalent in berlin than boston primarily because of some potential commercial developments in boston because of declining vocational acceptances from boys those who want to go there and if they do want

077to go they probably have to think about whether they want to travel so further i'm not sure if that's going to be something that's going to do so there's a decline in vocational expenses that may be an opportunity to get more support for the boston budget particularly the elementary school which is a little bit below character groups in terms of perhaps spending and i know we've looked at uh some things to have to as well so if you see that as a potential future challenge i'd like to kind of outline some some things um for the next meeting so you have a record and so nancy has a record more structural financial issues i'm not going to be advocating for resources the students needs that's the administrative team's job um but things like funding for

078op and reducing school choice usage which you've heard about and how to do that in a gradual way so you don't have a budget shock and getting here i also want to just mention too that the budget is done we start this in october and this is a long process and things happen and change so um so i don't want to have you worry about this because it's going to be solved but it's pretty much solved already but we've had things come up that are going to cost money that we did not budget and those surprises happen throughout the year sometimes it's good news sometimes it's not expense wise and so there are some some challenges that have arisen and um some unbudgeted special education costs i just wanted to give a shout out to

079um our special department particularly michelle and janelle and i talked about applying for extraordinary circle partners so you can get extraordinary relief when your costs increase a certain amount in the given year so when i talked to janelle we thought well let's go ahead and through and try to apply i thought we might get about five thousand dollars doing some quick miles some costs would be eligible so it was gonna be a lot of work five thousand dollars but we said well janelle you're new i'm kind of new karen you should do this [Music] well michelle did all the work um and we came up with 85 000 so you know all the work we did in the budget is fine but things happened changed and um you know john and ace and diana um

080fortunately for this year a lot of that came through was supported by michelle doing the work to get some additional 85 000 and emerges so i just wanted to give her a shout out she does work very quietly and efficiently um and i don't know she gets probably recognized i just want to give a shout out all um i would like to invite principal this year to share an update on tonto middleweight high school thank you i'd like to first begin by um talking about our math course uh sequence for algebra at the honda so in 2017 the massachusetts curriculum frameworks was revised for mathematics and so working with carol and our math department chair francine gleason as well as our math coach uh rebecca cox in the middle school we looked at beginning to

081align our current toronto curriculum to that of the curriculum revised curriculum frameworks to make sure that um our students had a strong um foundation for algebra um you know what we were seeing um and covet i think really uh brought it more to light um was that with beginning in the sixth grade having um you know differentiate differentiation in the sixth grade with an advanced math six and then having our students then going into um some of our students going into algebra one what we're seeing and i think if you take a look at our mcas for math and the middle school we were seeing students with gaps in curriculum because what what they were essentially doing was trying to fit in curriculum in grades six seven and eight into two years um and that

082was creating gaps and then what what that happens is the students have progressed up to high school where if they don't have a strong algebra algebraic foundation um it catches up to them and then what ends up happening is then teachers up at the high school level have to um do some remedial work prior to them being able to get to their curriculum so it's you know it's um almost like a a chain reaction and um so we are um looking at and we'll begin a line aligning next year our pathway to match that of the state's recommended pathway i think some of the um you know questions and concerns that i think some parents may have is well then how is my child going to get to ap statistics um and that is still

083i mean that is obviously still achievable um as stated in the in the documentation and the pathway that students would be able to when they get up to high school at certain levels be able to double up in mathematics currently we do have students that double up for a variety of reasons um and that would still be available to them and you know next year really is more of a transition year so i know that um you know there was a concern that you know students have you know in the eighth grade going into ninth grade had already selected their courses for next year as were you know students in grades nine through eleven that is not impacted the change that that we see for the 2022-2023 school year will be in grades incoming grades

084six seven ending and all of the courses that um are being revised and realigned our um the curriculum is already approved um within the courses it's just sort of how we sequence those courses um you know each year and um does anyone have any questions about that i have one sure so you see on the pathways on the drive so you're getting rid of for next year and i i think it's a great idea i should definitely write about the foundations and then go ahead and smooth this one out so there's gonna be no sixth grade it's gonna be all six everyone's at the same level correct seventh grade you're gonna have a regular seven and then an accelerated seventh yes no algebra i think well there's no there there's there are algebra concepts taught

085within that yes okay it's just not being called algebra because really algebra one is a high school course right typical you know it's typically a high school course so even if students take you know for instance even if students take you know those students that are taking algebra one now and eighth grade yeah when they get up into high school their high school transcript doesn't say algebra 1. it will say geometry algebra 2 probably pre-calculus and then either calculus or a b because they take it they have been taking it in middle school okay so then these current seventh graders that have picked their eighth grade classes if that algorithm won i mean yes the algebra one and seventh is no longer offered yeah they're just being moved right into accelerated math instead of that

086it will it'll be right it'll be dependent upon on the assessments and you know and the recommendations they they have done quite a bit of assessing of the students in sort of a um a readiness exam um because again because of kovid on you know we're seeing this the um the teachers not being able to get through all of the curriculum that is that we typically have we've been able to get through in um in like an algebra one so they're gonna basically the current students now that are in algebra one and seventh grade they will take um algebra one part b in seventh grade so that they make sure that they have that foundation and they finish up the remainder of that algebra curriculum that they were not able to get to because we

087then just said okay well you know that's fine and we're going to put you into geometry when they get up into algebra 2 it's again so then where did the kids go from accelerated math seven well to eighth grade um so some of the more advanced students so the x the current students yeah so current eighth graders um current seventh grade is right now in uh accelerated math yeah so so that's algebra one essentially right yeah one they would go to algebra one part b okay okay yeah just to solidify that foundation okay great to finish up curriculum that was not able to be completed and to solidify those skills prior then prior to them moving on to geometry and then algebra ii okay yes i see okay okay this isn't starting in high school

088until 23. let me see it's number 22 20 22. all right yes correct okay okay correct all right i think it's great yes makes sense um i'd like to also um in my report just give a recap i'd like to thank matt matt picaro for um doing all the the crunching of the numbers for us um we really had a um exciting year in athletics um this past year uh we had it started with the end of the close of the school year last year where our baseball softball and lacrosse teams all made the district tournaments last year uh baseball won the district three division four tournament and played in the state semifinals as well during this year alone we had 475 students participate in 38 sports and that's with a part-time athletic director and

089you know that is an amazing accomplishment um in the fall toronto had over um 200 students participate in sports in the fall and some of the students participated on the west boys football team um we also had west boylston join us for golf and cross-country teams in our co-op program and the fall season was one of the most successful into haunted school history girls cross country team placed first in the inaugural central mass tournament field hockey boys soccer and girls soccer all placed first in their league boys soccer team first league title in 15 years um the girls soccer team hosted a final eight appearance in the state tournament in which they went into overtime and the winter again brought great athletic success 88 students participated in middle school jv and varsity basketball cheer and

090ice hockey co-op with hudson and the boys and girls basketball team both qualified and gain gained a couple of wins in the state tournament um the girls basketball team won his first uh league title in the history of the school and right now we have 175 student athletes participating in the spring um a number of our track students um participated in the state meet and baseball ranked number two in the state softball number seven and lacrosse number 13 will all be host to begin the first ever central mass spring tournaments um so it really is an exciting year and i think it's again i think it's great that the kids are are you know we were able to get back in full swing um and have you know as many students as we have participated

091in in athletics and i'd like to thank the coaching staff um as well and all of our student athletes and then the last page you can see upcoming events this is uh probably our our busiest time of the year um at the school this last month of school is a whirlwind with a lot of things going on so um i just added some of those important dates and as as kate had mentioned graduation is um is june 5th at 2 p.m in the that's a haunted gymnasium [Music] hopefully my um i'd like to tommy and it'll be better so we finished 8th we have grades six seven eight six seven eight nine to ten we'll talk tomorrow christy come retirement sorry i'm sorry that's okay um defonzo like my lead teacher but also my testings

092are in the building and she's the one that works well with schedules works through all the accommodations and make sure that we have departures wouldn't have happened would have been success without without i want to talk a little bit about some end of the year events we actually been able to do some things we haven't been able to do the last for i wouldn't say three years uh our boys education foundation had pdf bingo he moved it outside which i think i'm not on the board i don't get a boat i think we should do that from now on beautiful evening uh the weather cooperated very quickly and the kids had places to go play on the field and they had a little board with the bingo i'm not looking forward to finding out the

093final content but i know that they've been well over 10 000 so a tremendous amount of work on their part and it was great to see the whole community back together you know so we have to be out there and then when the pto was in full swing we were planning for our race for education uh in a couple of weeks there they've targeted a goal of fifteen thousand dollars raised i know that they're about a third of the way there um and yeah the whole community and so that you know everybody can run around the field and have a great time it wasn't at the time but um there was a promise they meet their goals because her dining room this year she's been a fixture in boylston elementary school for 16 years her

094career bds can actually drive to the high school now probably couldn't have a parking spot um so she's impacted too many kids to account for her community and i know that she's going to be necessary for the opportunity to retire um you can see there's a long new list of upcoming events this spring is a very busy fun exciting time i did want to highlight two and invite everybody on the committee um if you would like we will have our combined concert tomorrow here at toronto at seven o'clock i'm stealing this so johnny can't say it now uh it's uh again a tradition we have not been able to have for the last couple of years we would bring the berlin and the oil spin band of course together for performance on the big one

095in front of the big legs and it's a it's a great time jackie bruce and audrey thompson our teachers that make that happen it should be beautiful the other one i wanted to point out because i want to steal john thunder was on friday june 10. we have a they create something this year it's a delivery system for our vaccine program so the preferred will travel to bes we'll have everybody set up in the jail they'll have a lot of time to put their creation together using the blueprints that they've already created they'll be judged by professional scientists that come around with a with the rubric and we ultimately award all prizes to boil opportunities especially in the spring when it's warm in it's created familiar and it really keeps them engaged it's a great

096it's a great thing that we have so let me bring you anyone to attend that [Music] fathers that i'm worried about like firecrackers um [Music] is um [Music] it's interesting to see the kids kind of fall right back into that routine it's not about getting the questions for everyone it's about doing your past on every single question and we stress everything is every single time so it's not news but i have a pleasure of being the third grade teacher during the ela class that's best because mrs tucker was out and the first day so the kids got that you know chromebooks with two pencils and one sheet [Music] to all the ela teachers that kind of help them figure out their structured variations um so the first day comes and you know they work hard

097but it's like gathered the scratching because you're attached right you've worked so hard with her she was so hopeful that you would use your scrap paper to do a better job and you really feel through your answers second day pages were full it's amazing um so it's just attachment to how hard kids want to work to please their t-shirts and the work that teachers do every day to kind of get kids ready for that it's not i know in a lot of places it's a very high stress time that are pervading to this together it's another day it's just it's just another class it's not a big deal so i was pleased with their neighborhood i was here yesterday writing shotgun on behavior uh while the kids were rehearsing the course with your person and

098they blew me away i mean it's really good if you don't know anything else come to the chorus part um i'm always amazed at the band because they made but this mrs impressive called joyful voice at the beginning of the year and to hear think it's a them of places you can't get that kind of work and we take the time and we invest the money in really strong musical education come and see the results of their current efforts uh i mentioned ice cream we um i don't mention one last thing it's just one of the things we're going to get to berlin memorial school takes the memorial part of today very seriously for years we've had a very elaborate memorial day ceremony it is less elaborate still but the community is invited out the

099other week obviously you know the veterans come and the kids have a song with your part if you're a veteran when your service standards play those veterans stand and if it's honestly um so i'm looking forward to that as well um i thought ours it's an important part of bringing people in and heading uncomfortable um super hard to get that right um carol castella was kind enough to do some tours of her old villain because of course carol preceded me as a principal a little bit more so she did some tours and we've learned some stuff you know that first year we took peer-to-peer into the two elementary buildings and there are some things like touring you know we're going to code their [Music] later on one of the things that we used to do

100was it was just parents and there was a lot of discussion around you know this is an occupational therapist this is a speech therapist but the teachers are going to get together they're going to do uh other immigration movements the incoming kindergarten parents so you get that more adult version of [Music] thank you [Music] all the activity going on once again i've been able to be a part of some of the activities bes and we've done field trips preparing one friday third grade class recently went to the library i think that it's really wonderful to be able to get out there again into the ingredients look forward to hearing about the ice cream social at tahoe [Music] congratulations if the principals would like to end their day now and head home i invite you to

101come today we appreciate you coming and thank you so much oh [Applause] so we have to the negotiation subcommittee update um we have had megan grill and i um as well as the administration we have had two meetings one on april 27th and the other on may 10th um all involved have worked really well together and we're hopeful to have well we're hopeful that items covered by the end right now thursday this week but i believe it's being rescheduled um and we're going to have an executive session at the end of this meeting to update the committee on progress so uh mr tatman do you have a policy subcommittee update yes i think i do so we met last week and we have several discrimination and harassment policies for you guys to read for free

102tonight uh these documents come straight from the party's office as is uh we took a look at our code protocols and policies there seemed to be a bit of confusion out there around what happened with positive cases in schools [Music] so we discussed we discussed that with jeff but when we switched to at-home testing uh the state recommended to the admin testing procedure for programs to do away with the contact tracing and so we did that i think we added some language into the policy to sort of clarify that that's up tonight it's more in line with what we discussed earlier this year what the nurses wrote to us about it's basically the contact tracing piece it was a big administrative burden taking away time from nurses teachers and administrators from their regular duties so

103added on top we've had several discussions this year about that it really takes time away from the actual teaching that needs to happen um with the recent assessment data that we saw we know we need all the time you get for teaching and learning so it's good that we don't have that so we have some language in there to clarify that uh i believe we'll be able to focus our energies on this uh same coding policy and protocol but just the more formalized convergence on one place one document uh we wanted to add this language to the base covering policy just to make it clear what our procedure is in the event there is a positive case becoming known to the school district so please take a read through it we have them already through

104the policy and protocol that's added to the event with that we do not have language in there we don't intend to have language in there that treats any student differently in this protocol in regards to the protocol based on their vaccination status or any of the status that they might have that wouldn't be equal we don't think that would be fair so just to all the nursing teachers and administration we do thank you and congratulate you on your hard work keeping the school safe and open and your dedication to our students so that falsity is up there also like i wanted to add in um the nurses were the ones prior to jesse suggesting they may not do copied uh contact racing um they were the ones that felt it wasn't worthwhile well do you

105remember the numbers jeff was like how many how many contact racing did they do and then how many recommended but also what our nurses had experienced and felt even prior to testing going forward um so i just wanted to put that out there thank you i appreciate that and they weren't able to do it who's got the department to do so much of that they won't be able to become much [Music] does anyone have any um questions or comments i had one question on the um [Music] why were these recommended did they change i believe there's some slight changes in the law so they just updated them but they're no significant changes in themselves usually if they usually um news is two ways this happens we can either get them from the mesc for review

106or when they get them to get them from our attorneys they've just done something work on you know maybe there might be some small changes in there but significantly so that their district should put down themselves this might want to adopt that first read correctly evaluation committee first i'd like to thank you for submitting your school committee self-evaluations and i'm going to have a report for you on june 7th when we have our next meeting um yesterday you should have received the superintendent evaluation form via email with the information you have gathered over the years as well as the report that jeff gave tonight should be easy to fill out um which would be well equipped at least if you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to me i'm happy to

107help those evaluations are due on or before may 31st so that we can have a report written by june 7. um and this last one is don't forget to downl and that's a lot of work to be lost so i forgot to mention that um does anybody have any questions on the evaluation mr wilford do you have an update for our elections that so we've received the information from the secretary of state's office related to the upcoming um election for school committee so a couple things i'll just note here um so i've spoken with both town clerks both in royals and berlin we're going to plan to open the process to take our nomination papers on tuesday may 31st when papers can be taken out will be the boylston town park the berlin counterpart or

108from myself at the district's park in order to get onto the valley you have to collect from boylston or for our berlin wilderness district each candidate has to collect at least 42 signatures now reminding the interesting candidate that when collecting signatures if you do choose to cut them from both and boylston we have to keep those separated on different forms because the berlin town clerk's going to receive the form and certified voters from georgia berlin vice versa and if there's the berlin name of oil to this the boylston uh counterpart will cross off as not the registered voter um those are going to be due back to the town clerks by uh 5 pm on july 26th so the process to take out paper and return them will be eight weeks which is what i

109understand pretty long compared to other processes to become located so i'm glad they're giving people the time they need the other thing i'll point out is just to remind everybody there are all six seats will be up for election in november there will be three seats for residents of berlin three seats for residents of boylston on the boylston side two will seem to be for a four-year term one of them will be for a two-year term the opposite is the case for girls where two seats will be for a two-year term and one moving forward so that's the information i'm going to prepare a press release to put out get over to the item as well as other used uh agencies interested in sharing this as well as making sure this information gets in front

110of the select boards of berlin there's only 42 signatures 22 citizens required in berlin forms is based upon a great question it's based upon the number of voters in the recent elections the number of certified signatures required in the district foundation papers must equal one percent of the last most cast for the governor in the district [Music] yeah i would also encourage you to get more than 42 anybody that's running because a lot of times before non-elections sometimes they will nullify a signature because it doesn't match or the information so it's always better to go over just to make sure you have 45 that are approved i mean like that correct point perspective candidates also have to decide whether they take out the paperwork for the four years thank you so much all right now

111we are moving on to the business items um at this time i would like to entertain a motion to approve the formation of a budget and finance subcommittee thank you discussion all in favor all right hi i'm an eye as well opposed motion to approve the formation of a budget and finance subcommittee is approved yes i'd like to appoint adam wilbur and julie lee to the budget and finance subcommittee thank you for your service i would also like to appoint mr joseph michael beck as the bvrc treasurer for 2022 2023 thank you very much and could i have a motion to approve the marian hoffman award no sorry award passes at this time i'd like to understand a motion to approve the moses read tyler scholarship award recommendations second discussion just a question i guess

112i'm trying to understand why these roles sit with us and i think this i know for the moses really tyler um award the fund um the person who was in charge of the fund or actually i think it was first developed it was recommended that the school committee approved i think those are the only scholarships that we approve yeah it's just the way we're set up [Music] um i would like a motion to don't do the inside i say most screen moses tyler scholarships award recommendations passes my apologies um i would like a motion to approve the student activity fund guide sort of discussion all in favor aye morning have a nice while motion there's no nobody else motion to approve the student activity fund guide passes like a motion to accept the grade seven

113to hondo field trip to roger williams park zoo discussion all in favor the motion to accept the grade 7 condo field trip to roger williams park suit i would like a motion to accept a donation of 9 942.10 from the boylston education foundation to the boylston elementary school for the purchase of five instructional audio systems by wednesday right discussion what what are these questions or filtering it amplifies the sound um it's like it's audiology help basically but i mean i know personally it benefits all students not just students who have those needs like for me personally sometimes i haven't find something but something that's uh assistive technology called teacher awareness day um everybody's so we have them now in all of the bms classrooms okay um and i think that when we started doing this

114yes we had it in a couple of classrooms and i'm not sure if they moved it to kind of a specific student and for now i don't know this might get us to having in every classroom and then so these last a while too so we don't need to replace them they're amazing systems i know that i have people out here from woodward when i go into those classrooms you can stand virtually sometimes they go into regular classroom and have trouble hearing the teacher except when they use their nose so yeah that's amazing any place in the classroom and they're talking you know a normal tone in my experience teachers that have them equipped in the classroom once they've been given a chance to get used to them they do use them regularly yeah pretty

115reliably because i think that it also again helps them um in terms of voice product you know production and being able to reach everybody in the room and if you had a student get five or four right under iep um it could be written into a five or four or ninety eight yeah it's an accommodation either some students do require them to bob's point um but that's not the purpose right of this gif this is more of a universal science yeah so thank you to the bef [Music] all in favor aye hi i'm an eye as well motion to accept a donation of 9 942 and 10 cents from the boylston education foundation to the western elementary school purchase of five instructional audio assistants by lightspeed would like a motion to accept policy evcfa with

116added amendment discussion just a second no absolutely so i'm pleased that we're covering covered policies and policy and we can point to this when there are questions about our policies and to the extent to which we even have public policies in some cases um as i look at this there's obviously a continuation of our mass optional policy except for school health offices and it's pretty clear readiness that's the only time and place where we require mass to have schools here in berlin um i also see here that there's language added that says once a suspected coping case is presented to the school community we will follow protocol a no other protocols are necessary any other steps to be taken by school officials so i i think that what has occurred over the last couple months

117is that there have been a combination of recommendations and requirements from multiple entities whether it's destiny or the mass department of health or the cdc and at this point many of those are not in compliance with each other and when we don't have a policy that states where our policy is different people within a building might look to different other entities to determine what our policy actually is as i started looking and reading through some of the information that we've even reviewed back to january because there were things even within our own policy documents that concluded each other so i think this is our be all end all coded policy documents it's great i think that the future needs to make adjustments to this that we come and look at this first and make it

118very easy for our administrators and teachers to understand and nurses understand what our policies are i think that prior to now it's been somewhat failure of the school committee to not have had this as clearly stipulated as we do now which is to say that there are no other protocols beyond what's in here that we expect from our school district when it comes to contact person or anything of that nature um and furthermore we're going to be able to put in place a protocol that specifically speaks to students being assumed staff individuals it says to test positive and the requirements that they will remain out of school for five days they can return less than they've been about fever for 20 more hours and experience improvement in other symptoms so we certainly i think are

119continuing to be very aware of the covert situation we obviously have more cases happening right now luckily for everything most of these cases have pretty mild symptoms and i think that we continue to monitor this i know i look at the dashboard every monday morning and see where it is christy thanks for continuing to get that published for us every morning every monday morning um it makes us aware of what's going on across our first position i think it's no different than what's going on of state right now i think we continue to have a policy that is appropriate for the current endemic nature of this disease that causes predominantly violent symptoms of the vast majority of people who get it especially students who are in our schools so thank you guys and i just

120certainly support you and we will uh we'll certainly let's improve and get it out to the school to make sure um j k l and m are all at first reads so we will score those next time our next and final meeting is june 7th we're really looking forward having uh join us as an official member um we'll be leaving three of six again could i have a motion to go into executive session to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with bbta and not return as well this concludes our meeting good night thank you