001time. It can be a difficult conversation to have with young students. Um, and I'd say if anyone is still having any um difficulties, you know, supporting their student, just reach out. We can connect them and try to support them whenever we can. So, that's always always a tough one. Um, so you know, besides that, then the summer updates as we're we're moving along with our with our plans and uh the construction's going and we'll cover a lot of that stuff as we go through. So, uh, the first thing we have here is the school committee calendar. Uh, we presented it as a draft at the last meeting. uh if you guys you know I don't think we even need to formally vote on it unless you want to but if there's uh unless there's any
002objections or changes we can move forward with this as our as our calendar. >> Looks good. >> All right. So we this is what we'll plan on. So if you want you can always rip that page out and put it on your uh refrigerator. U but we'll try to and then obviously you know we can we can change or add meetings as things come up if we need to. This is sort of our our guideline to try to stay stay on task. Uh and also the uh Kelly has put in the um calendar version of it uh behind the list. So you have that too. >> Uh we have a couple policies. Not asking you to approve anything tonight. Just sort of approve it. I guess approve it but as a first reading um and
003then we would make a motion to uh hopefully adopt at the next meeting. Uh first one we have is JJIF which is a concussion policy. Uh the policy itself is really one page. Um but then it references the protocols which there's a lot it's a it's a very thick thick packet in here. Um the this was made uh these were all uh recommendations uh made primarily by our athletic director. Uh this was reviewed it wasn't reviewed by the policy committee because a lot of it was the procedures. was reviewed by the uh wellness committee uh with the nurse and the uh Bailey was on that committee. Um and we just kind of looked at it to try to make sure that we were complying with the state law for concussions and also making sure that
004we were um you know doing what we say we're going to do in our policy and our procedures. So, uh I'd make a recommendation to uh approve that as a first reading if you're comfortable with it. >> We'll entertain a motion from the committee. Move. >> Are all three of these off for first reading? >> Yeah. So, you're going to wait and do them all? Yeah. Okay. So, the other two are um smoking on school premises and um ADC. Our old policy was smoking on school premises the which was from I guess we looked at it in 2012 or someone looked at it in 2012. Uh the new version that's been updated is uh tobacco products in school premises and really it's you know it's the same idea. It just also includes electronic cigarettes and
005vaporization all that kind of stuff. Kind of modernizes it and then policy GBED tobacco use on school property um by staff members. Uh same idea. So it's really just modernizing those policies. Those are the MASC model policies, but we just noticed that they were kind of out of date when we were reviewing our faculty uh and student handbooks. So, we just uh they are the MS MASC model policies. So, I'd recommend to approve all those as a first reading if you're okay with that. >> So, does the athletic concussion policy follow the model of the MASC? I I just normally you see that and maybe I just missed it. Um you know, you usually see the legal reference mass general law and all that. Um >> yeah, the the actual policy is very much because
006the policy is pretty short. It's really these procedures that it references that are the the long part. >> So yeah, it is um >> but it is following the the >> Yeah, I mean we can I can get you the exact uh MASC version, but I know it's it's either from the this version is either from the MASC or it's from the uh like MIA. It was from it's from one of the organizations to try to make sure that we're um following the the law. Yeah. >> Okay. All right. Is there a motion? >> I was going to say so that being said, the pleasure of the board for the first reading would be you guys want to approve first reading. >> Thank you. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> Thank you. >> Um
007facilities walkthroughs. It's that time of year when we want to start looking at um scheduling uh facilities walkthroughs. We don't need to do them right now, but it's probably one of those things if we want to uh Matt, I don't know if you want to reach out to you on what building and then maybe coord and then we can work with Kelly to kind of coordinate with um uh Brian just sort of normally what we do is um you know sometime not you know right now it would just be sort of getting it on the books and and doing the organization we can finalize the next meeting. Um but normally that kind of week before school starts um everyone sort of usually we kind of divide and conquer and kind of go check out some
008of the facilities just to make sure that we feel everything is uh uh where it needs to be to start the school year. >> Yeah, I think that'd be great. And if we could just make a note, one of the things I think could be super helpful for the committee would be if there are any specific projects that are sort of on the radar as we're thinking about the thinking about the opening of school, whether it's like you just had mentioned, you know, talking about the AC, you know, I I think there's a project going on where we're resurfacing the tennis courts. >> Um I know from a couple of years ago there was a warrant article approved by the town where we were talking about um putting up the facility, the extra facility storage
009over there. So, I I know that that's not the purpose of the walkthroughs themselves, but I also think as we're thinking about how facilities is going to be taking a look at the near and the long view for the year for us, it'd be cool to know what kind of projects are going on because it's it's easy to think that we're building a middle school and that's taking up a lot of time when we think about projects, but there's also a lot of great work that's going on and and stuff that's teed up. So, if Bri could kind of just load our >> and I'm sure he has it ready to go. I mean, if Bri check in on a lot of that stuff. Um, yeah, I think the the the tennis court resurfacing like
010you mentioned is is well on its way. The AC has been delayed by some Mr. Surac has wrote some entertaining AC saga updates for everybody. And uh and then the uh um I know those sheds, they kind of got put on the back burner because the ARPA money that's being used for a lot of the AC type stuff got kind of >> understood >> fasttracked, but that is on his radar as well. Um, so we we've been talking about, but yeah, we can get that update from from Brian as well. >> Thanks. >> Um, the middle school building project update. So, since we last met, a lot a lot's happened over there. Uh, if you notice when you drove, >> dirt's gone. >> A lot of dirt's gone. >> Very valuable dirt. >> They did
011end up saving a lot of that dirt. They worked with the uh town requ the the DPW, I think, had requested um I forget the exact number off the top of my head, but a large amount of dirt that we've stored over. I think it's in a property near the dump uh the old dump um that the DPW plans on kind of reusing and >> future use type of stuff. That's great. >> So, uh so that was good. That kind of came through at the 11th hour and that was that that that helps. >> Um so I just tried to show you a couple things in here. Um you know, we have our next building committee meeting tomorrow. Um, but there's like a there's a little check sheet here with some of the uh there's
012a little schedule. One of these is like a three-week look ahead. So, we there's a meeting there's a construction meeting that I'm involved in every every Tuesday um in the morning. And one of the things that they do is they kind of go through these three-week look ahead so we know like what they you know what they did this week, what's coming up. Um and I think one of the big ones coming up soon is going to be the uh the geothermal. Uh I think it's 20 oh no 14. So geothermal should have probably been starting to drill today according to this this sheet. So um I know that there's some pipe. There was a there's an old pipe in there that they were aware of, but they they're they do uh they have to
013remove it because it goes under the foundation and it's I believe there's asbestous in the pipe. So they have to do some sort of it's an old pipe and when it was abandoned when it was replaced they just left the old one in there. So we have to take care of that. Um so but you can see all the different things uh that are going on. And then after that there's one that there's there's a page that's got some of the site pictures and the temperature and all that kind of stuff. And this is just an example. There's nothing really of, you know, anything too exciting on this page, but this is um, you know, I just got my update for today's work uh, two minutes ago, you know. So, these are daily logs that
014they fill in every single day, so we so we can keep track of of what's happening on the site. Um, so that's kind of a a good thing. So, there's, you know, a lot going on. Um, a lot of bidding getting done. Um, so far most things are coming in. Everything I'm seeing, uh, the most part right now it's trending under the projected budget which is good. Um never know there's always the little holes and contingencies and different things but at least to start off nothing is jumping out as uh totally uh uh off budget. So that's good. Uh the groundbreaking ceremony we did receive today a uh sample of sort of like a cover for our invitation and Kelly was working on the um making a more of an invitation. Our goal is probably
015send those out by the end of the week, at least electronically, and then we'll see if we want to mail some um just to start getting those those list out of of who we're, you know, want to make sure we get that on the radar. I already contacted um uh Representative Koin and Senator Cronin's office to get them to hold the date, but we'll send them another formal invitation. So, uh we're working on that and um and I hope by that point I think it'll be a little I know there's a lot going on. kind of too weird for a groundbreaking, but they're not doing much out there with kicking things down and moving a lot of dirt. It'll be hopefully by the time we get out there, it'll be feel like uh they're building
016up. >> Oh, all the money's in the dirt. So, >> I know you love reminding me that >> a really smart guy taught me that >> the uh the school sign. Uh one of the things that we talked about last time uh was I did show you a sample of the sign and we the question came up about the size of the electronic board. I did reach out to uh Phil Duffy because there was the town was hoping to maybe put a board up out here. They've run into some issues in terms of where they could put that board up here and and where it would sit where it'd be visible. So, they're not planning on putting one up here anymore. Uh which is good. At least I got that confirmed. So, I did reinfor
017uh uh the uh designer and said that, you know, I think there's not going to be a redundancy up here. So, we need to look at expanding that digital uh presence. So, they're working on that right now. So, that was uh something that we have came up. We have kind of addressed it. Uh so, I'll see what the next steps are and we'll start getting revisions from that back. Uh the last thing I had for you was the school building committee membership. We are trying the last thing under this. Um we're just, you know, every year we try to kind of update these. Kelly's reached out to a lot of the um uh individuals on here to make sure that they're organizations they still want to serve. Um the So right now, uh as school
018community members, uh we had uh Matt and Bill on here. Um, I'm assuming that I assume is that I don't if you want to make any changes to that or do you want to wait and discuss subcommittees or >> I mean I would I would like to stay on as long as the board's okay with me staying on just since we're now toward the you know heading towards the the piece of it where the building is being put up. So I don't mind continuing to to serve if that's cool with everybody else. >> I enjoyed the budget part but I won't enjoy this part. >> Okay. Well, I've been uh there's been two members of the board of selectmen on the committee as well and one of them stepped down so that we didn't have
019a conflict u with my serving there were three of us being present at the same meeting and being lesser school board representative but soon I'll be dropping off >> creating a vacancy but I'd like to stay on state keep it as it is for right now because I'd have the same problem or we would have problem another school committee member. Would that be >> free because you're still on there as because you've already been appointed as a select one represent. Okay. >> So, as long as our interests come first. >> Absolutely. >> So, we had discussion about that this afternoon. So if it's okay with the board, we'll keep everything as is. Uh pending any new announcements from uh from Bill and then when that has to be addressed will then address the shift of
020Bill's participation being more from the select board perspective and then us fulfilling his uh success his succession point for someone from school committee >> and we can we can change it any time. Yeah, we just got to send that updates. >> Cool. >> All right, great. So going to remain the same right now. >> That works. >> Good. >> Uh just a few general updates. uh federal grants update. I put a memo in here. Uh it's on the desktop memo from uh Dussy. Um and I know uh Jan reached out to me, so I think I was quoted in the paper talking about this a little bit too, but the uh you know, it's kind of what we had heard. Um Title One um the IDEIDA uh the you know, they're they're kind of level
021funding those um which isn't isn't great, but that's not terrible, right? I'll take level funding for those. Um, and we haven't got our official allocation. So, it was level funded to the state and then the state will have to figure out how they're allotting it. So, we don't know exactly, you know, they'll they'll have to look at the formula and everything like that to see how our our actual allocation goes. But, if the federal government's um level funding it, it will probably be very close to level funded, I would guess. and the title 2A, title 3A, title 4 A, which are ones that we get um right now the federal government is withholding until I think they review their priorities for those grants. Um but that's those are all the we we had, as I
022said, I know I said the paper, but the uh this is kind of what they were projecting uh when we were doing the budget. So we've kind of already most of our plans have been built around this. Uh so I don't think it'll have any major uh immediate impact on us. Obviously if we if some of that funding comes through it's going to help us. Um but the uh it's you know we we kind of built our plans around this assumption. So um so it is what it is. Uh we'll just keep keep following that. Um early college designation. I put another article in here and I think maybe did we slip this? >> Yeah. So you should have got a I was wanting to get you this letter and we didn't have it by
023Friday. So, I'm like, "Okay, put the article in." And then this thing came like Friday at five o'clock. So, um, but I just wanted to share I know I think we alluded to at the last meeting maybe there was a vote coming like the next day or the two days later. Uh, so our early college program did get official recognition. Um, a lot of the work by uh it was done by Katie Ball and Principal Surac and the team up here at the high school. Uh, so it's great to finally get the official recognition for that. Uh so this year really we are you know we we got a innovation pathway and early college program recognized by the state which is great. >> That's awesome. >> Um the administrative summer work uh just kind of
024giving you a heads up that we are planning on getting you a lot of reading for the next meeting. Uh the next meeting is when we plan on presenting handbook changes and school improvement plans. So the goal will be to try to get those approved on the 11th. And then that way we have them so that by the time school starts on 25th we can uh we have the you know well everyone was back 25th school start on the 27th but we'll have them uh ready to go. So uh just a heads up on that. We had an admin meeting um pretty much all day today and we did a lot of that reviewing the handbook changes making sure that we were uh because those get in really the process for those starts with the
025school councils. school councils are charged with reviewing the handbooks and then we also kind of look at it from our uh for legal changes and for some consistency across the district. So we were doing a lot of that today. >> So sorry y so we have to we get them on the 11th and vote the same night or >> we'll get them to you in advance in the p we'll get them electronically so if I and if I get them a little bit early even if it's just those ones I'll get them to you but they'll come with the cheat sheets that'll say >> you know changes are on page 1631 and whatever. Um, but we'll get them in the packet. Y >> the Washington DC trip uh for 2027. So, we had some inquiries
026about that. Uh, I did speak to a couple parents. Um, I spoke to one of the uh tour company and um we are planning on I talked to uh principal Stephie about it. Our goal is to probably try to schedule a uh a parent meeting u basically kind of like right when school comes back. Maybe even doing a little pre-interest sort of survey or information blast before school comes back to get that on the books and just to try to try to start gauging the true interest of it um with some of the some of the you know costs and transportation options and that kind of stuff. So So it's still kind of an exploratory but we're we're exploring. Um, and I think that's all I have. >> Perfect. Um, in your packet, uh, you
027have a summary of the of Dr. Meyer's review. So, thanks for everybody for your conversations, your input, and your commentary so we could put this together. I won't read through this line by line by any stretch of the imagination. and we've had uh conversations regarding some of it. I would just like to say in summary that, you know, I think we're super lucky to have Dr. Meyer leading the district. Um I think I said at the front end, I think he's equal parts professional, professional, personable, and strategic- minded. And I think that's a rare thing today. Um and we've seen this year over year for the many years that the majority of us have served on this and had been fortunate to serve together on this with new faces along the way. But being from
028corporate America, I look at Steve as the CEO of our schools and I I don't know how else to put it other than that. I think he understands the important the importance of his effectiveness both for academics for the culture of the community and the school system as well as just the economics of of it all which can often be the piece that he probably doesn't get enough credit for because in academia we don't often talk about the economics of it and how it rolls up to the town and how we need to be a really good partner in that process and um and I think from that perspective that's super important to our credibility for when we do have asks um so Um I went on to say that I I we went on
029to say that um you know there's been a lot of initiatives in this last you know handful of years and we're talking about whether it's budget planning and negotiating with all three of our units. uh the Clinton Middle School project of course and then and the continued progress and growth just in our in our academic program offerings whether it's the you know the new health and wellness curriculum the democratic knowledge project some of the stuff in the middle school and some of the things we talked about today with the work with Katie and the you know innovation pathways the the pre-ol stuff and and some of the vocational stuff that we're doing with Lester too there's a lot of things that we've been able to address and give options s to our students. And I
030think I I got to believe parents appreciate that. Um I think Dr. Meyer is very modest when it comes to how he rates himself in some of these areas. And I want to say that I appreciate the board's feedback on areas that we found exemplary come back as a rating versus how Dr. Meyer had himself proficient. I I I think that showed across the board with communication that came back to me in in regard to how he communicates with the the community, the staff and the students. And we've had some trying things happen, you know, in a short amount of time, whether it's, you know, political landscape changes. You know, the term ice rates becomes concerning to some because some don't have as much education on those things happening than others. So, being able to
031just calm, re-educate, and let students know what's going on is important. And certainly you never want to uh be in a situation where you're losing a student. Um so these are these are very sensitive subjects that you know communication sort of found its way to the top around where we find Dr. Mario to be exemplary in his leadership. Uh as well as the culture he's creating for our community, our staff, and the students. So those are some of the highlights for me um and for what was shared to me. I certainly would like to open it up for any type of commentary from from our team here. Um because this is wasn't not singular in nature by any stretch, but um we appreciate the work, Dr. Meyer. Um you do a great job and we're
032certainly happy to have you locked up here for the near future and the long term, as Bill would say, all six years that we plan on you serving. >> He signed the contract. >> He did. Yeah. I think you asked for lifetime if I'm not mistaken. Uh, I just wanted to know because I don't want him to outlast Bailey senior duly noted that >> but I thought it was a great a great review overall and I'll turn it over to my team for anything that they'd like to add. >> You didn't leave much room for addition, >> but you said it extremely well, Matt. I've been impressed in the time that I've been here with Dr. Meyer's performance across the board. Uh but significantly I was one thing struck me early on when I first
033came on board. He was already planning ahead projecting into the budget the next couple of years of of the downsizing of of the federal not not because he predicted the the uh change in administration but he saw uh the COVID funds and the various grants that were related to that. He anticipated that and planned for that in the budget development last year and this year the year even the year before and I was particularly impressed where other communities are panicking right now. Uh we were able to weather the storm this year. So I I really do appreciate that forecasting and planning well ahead instead of waiting till the last minute and figuring out what we got and how we're going to cut. >> So I was impressed. Thank you. Thank you for all you do.
034>> Um, you might I think you might need to >> uh just vote on that. Just >> I'll make that motion accept. >> Second. Any discussion? Further comments.