001To the flag of the United States of America [Music] standy and justice for all. Please remain standing for a moment of silence for Robert Champagne, father to Jodie Lamb, father-in-law sister to Lisa Champagne and Jod Champagne and grandfather to Samantha meeting to order for 19 2025. Please questions on this conversation. Fantas Okay. So, tonight we have uh normally new students and staff of the month. Tonight's a little special. We have students of the month, but we're going to recognize our retirees this year. Um, we are going to start with the students. I'm going to have principal Surac up to recognize the high school student of the month. Good evening everyone. Um, so the May student of the month is Michael Barentos nominated by a staff member. I'd like to read what the staff member wrote.
002Michael. Okay, so it reads, I would like to nominate Clinton High School junior Michael Barendos for student of the month for his exceptional initiative and leadership. While working at the CHS blood drive, Michael discovered an and applied to the CHNA9 Youth Advisory Council, earning a spot as one of only 11 selected students. The council advocates for critical issues including mental health awareness, homelessness, and educational access throughout Massachusetts. Recently, Michael volunteered to deliver a speech on diversity to an audience that included Congressman Jim McGovern and several state senators and representatives. With support from his teachers, Mr. Moisen, Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Elliot, and Mr. young. He overcame his nervousness and represented our school admirally. Michael exemplifies initiative, courage, and dedication to positive change. He plans to apply these new leadership skills to help meet CHS to help
003make CHS an even more inclusive environment for everyone. All right. And uh principal Stephie from the middle school is unable to be here tonight, but he's asked uh Principal Silio to give out his awards and then she'll give out the elementary school award after that. All right, the first student that we are recognizing from the middle school is Grace Rick. So come on up. All right. Mr. Stephie says that Grace shows leadership as she participates in student council and is a PBIS ambassador. She shows great responsibility, time management, and work ethic. Some things haven't changed. Her academic excellence and intrinsic motivation is evident every day. She strives to do her best on every task that is given to her. She is patient and kind to all her peers. She works hard to teach other students
004who need her help. Grace wants to be a teacher one day and is well on her way. Lastly, Mr. Stephy would like to add that she is an asset and a leader in the classroom with her insightful comments and thoughtful participation. She exemplifies all of the qualities we value here at Clinton Middle School. [Applause] Another student, Riley, come on up. All right, we have Riley is an outstanding example of a student with dedication and drive. She consistently works hard and never backs down from a challenge. She is a motivated student whose positive attitude and willingness to help her peers make her a valued member of our classroom and school community. She is truly special. She has every characteristic you would like to see in a sixth grader. Again, another This is so nice. She works
005hard, is so kind to others, responsible, respectful, hardworking, supportive of her peers, and so well-rounded. She's a role model to everyone around her. She is smart, witty, and just an allaround great kiddo. Riley is going to do amazing things in this world. Congratulations, Riley. [Applause] And now I'm going to do the elementary school student of the month. Sawyer, are you ready? Do you think you can come up? All right, come on up. This is Sawyer Breast. Sawyer. Sawyer was nominated by a team of teachers at the elementary school and these are the things that they said about you. A team of teachers nominated Sawyer for student of the month to represent Clinton Elementary School. Look at your mom for May 20 for the May 2025. And on May 14th, I got to have lunch in
006the cafeteria with him and knew that out of all the hard choices of nominations, it had to be him. Sawyer is a very hardworking and humble student that takes all of his academic responsibility very seriously. At the same time, he is always willing and ready to help other students when asked. He is very patient and has skill to guide other students. His friends feel comfortable asking him for assistance and he will readily take the time to help. So often when one walks into his classroom during our wind block, one can find him quietly sitting next to another student and guiding them through a question that they have asked. Sawyer clearly respects that all other people have challenges in areas where he can provide assistance. Sawyer himself has been with us since preschool and he recognizes
007his own challenges. He has worked so hard to develop his own strategies for success and is so willing to help others to be successful. One year ago when he was in first grade, he approached one of his service providers and expressed that even though things can be hard for him, he wanted to learn to persevere and learn to work through those challenges. I remember that conversation in the hallway with Mrs. Town. I think in the past year, he has clearly worked steadily on that exact plan. In second grade, it has been so fun to see Sawyer with such a deserved confidence in himself. His whole body language, interaction style, and willingness to try new things is a joy. He is now willing to take academic risks, even when he's unsure of himself, and he perseveres
008through situations, even when they are challenging for him. At the beginning of the year, Sawyer would become easily frustrated by small problems. He can now identify the problem and use self-regulation skills to help him navigate the situation. Some adults can't even do that. He has gained confidence to independently navigate throughout the school. This was challenging for him at the beginning of the year and now he's a confident second grader. He consistently demonstrates respect for school routine teachers. He's kind, helpful, respectful. He is a role model student. Sawyer, thank you for demonstrating leadership at the elementary school and for setting a meaningful goal for yourself to show us what it means to persevere and achieve success. We are very proud of you. Congratulations. [Applause] There you go. Congratulations. Great job. Congratulations. All right. So, normally [Applause]
009Normally I have some little gifts that I give our students of the month, but I made a mistake and forgot. So they will be coming to like a home room near you pretty soon. Okay, we'll get them to you. Um, and now to start uh with our retiree recognition, M. So start by recognizing our retirees from the elementary school. And we also have Representative Phil Coin here. Why not? She's going to uh share citations. Do you want to you want to share what the citations say? Sure. Why don't we do that first because they all are very similar, but however you guys are running the show. So No, go ahead. Why don't you share that and if we can get one out? Get one out. Bear with me because these are packed types. There we
010go. So, hey everybody. Uh for those that don't know me, I'm state representative Mike Hill, uh the representative for Clinton. Um I'm this is my third time, fourth time coming here maybe, but it's always a joy to come and honor the retirees and all the hard work they put in in their career for the students here and it's always a treat to see all the students of the month. So congratulations to all of you. Uh it's such a great recognition and I think I don't even know do you have a month left in the school year? Just under. Just under. So it's really if I recall uh when I was a student it's it's hard to get uh when you're so close to summer concentrate on your school work. So congratulations to all of you.
011That's a huge achievement. Um, but to turn to the our retirees, um, I wanted to, one of the best things about being a state rep is being able to honor, uh, you know, incredible community residents here in Clinton of the work that they've done, um, and the achievements that they've had and and certainly all the teachers here who are being recognized have done so much throughout their career to help so many students learn and grow, um, and really plant those foundations and seeds for their future. So, um I'm going to read this off just they all are the same thing with um the names of each of the teachers and the years that they've served. But, um in just in the interest of time, I'll read this off so you can all hear it. the
012Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the House of Representatives. Be it uh be it hereby known to all that the Massachusetts House of Representatives offers its sincerest congratulations to teacher in recognition of the joyous occasion of your retirement after the number of years of your service. Um, and the entire membership extends its very best wishes and expresses the hope for future good and good fortune and continued success in all endeavors. Given this 19th day of May 2025 at the state house in Boston, Massachusetts, it is signed by the speaker of the house and myself, Megan Kilcoin. Um, and this is what it looks like. And uh, it's hopefully a small token of of all the work that you've all achieved. And I'll turn it back to Dr. Meyer now. All right. So, Megan, go ahead. All right.
013This evening, I have the great honor of recognizing four remarkable retirees from Clinton Elementary School. Each of them has dedicated over 20 years to our district, except for one, but dog years, maybe sort of. And I've had the privilege of growing alongside of them in my career in Clinton, starting as a substitute teacher and then continuing into my current role. So, first I would like to recognize Shelley Eert. [Applause] Hi, Shel. So good to see you. I haven't Shelley had um retired earlier this year and she has did 21 years of service as an instructional assistant. Over the years, she supported students in kindergarten, preschool. She worked one-on-one with students who needed extra care in classrooms. She even worked in my classroom as a teacher for a while, and she concluded her career in our
014ABA classrooms. Shelley was deeply committed to her students and was always dependable, collab, dependable, and collaborative member of our CES team. We want to for her dedication and we wish you all the best in your retirement moving forward. Thank you. Congratulations. Congratulations. Do a picture photo op. Watch. She loves pictures. Want to take a step in or out? Here. Why don't I hold this for you? Thank you. Okay, here we go. Congratulations, Shelly. Thanks. Congratulations. All right. Next, we have Congratulations. [Applause] Um, Janine uh retired right around uh the Christmas break and walked into her forever summer and her absence was deeply felt. She retired after 25 years with Clinton Public Schools. She is a talented professional who always knew know knew and knows how to lift your spirits especially when you needed it most.
015I was fortunate to work with her early in my career when she served as a title one assistant. She supported reading instruction in my classroom forming strong trusting relationships with students and staff alike. Through her many roles she did what she could to build the confidence of her students. Janine had a nurturing motherly way of guiding young educators like me. and I'll always be grateful for that. I miss our cats. Sometimes all it took was a glance in the hallway and she'd be in my office knowing I needed a word of encouragement. Janine, thank you for the years of service. I hope your next chapter is filled with joy, family, lots of cooking and baking. Don't forget to bring me some. And all the things that make you happiest. The sub list is always available,
016too. [Applause] Thank you so much. Congratulations. All right. Then we have Susan Landis town. Congratulations. Come on [Applause] up. Um, Susan will be stepping into her forever summer at the end of this school year after giving 21 years as a speech and language pathologist to the town of Clinton. Susan has made a profound impact on countless children and families, and I'm confident she remembers every single one of them. Her belief in her students is evident in everything she does. She is their fiercest supporter and cheerleader. Susan has also contributed immensely to the growth of her colleagues and her presence will truly be missed. We wish her a retirement filled with nature, running, dogs, and quality time with her son and daughter-in-law. [Applause] Very nice. Very nice. Very nice. that you as well. Shake your hand.
017You already divided. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. One more. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. Finally, we have Maggie McN. [Applause] All right. Maggie joined our CES team in in 2016. She comforted staff, mostly me, and students, and has taught us most about life. Maggie showed us that life is better with a four-legged friend. She always listened and she kept the best secrets. She showed us that when life throws something at you, you should definitely chase it. And she showed us love and loyalty. Maggie is missed at CES, but we hope she enjoys retirement with the McN family. And it is filled with beach days, tennis balls, and endless cheese, ice cream, and whatever else you want. Please join me in celebrating [Applause] I'll take that. What a great picture. Too low of profile for me.
018We'll get We'll get it over to you. Oh, yeah. Uhhuh. Yep. I see that. I see that. [Applause] Go back here so you can give her a pet on the way back. We have uh two more retirees. Um, the next one is not here tonight, which is good because that way, uh, he doesn't have to follow Maggie. U, but I did want to recognize Dave Vass. Dave Anass retired on December 13th after 40 years of service at Clinton Public Schools as a food service director. Uh, food service is a difficult and often underappreciated role in the public school system. And while it's impossible to make everyone happy all the time, Dave always tried to make sure he did what was best to take care of the kids. This really showed during co when Dave and
019his staff found a way to get meals to students during that difficult time. Dave Vass or Vinnie and school lunches have been almost synonymous with each other in Clinton for many years and I want to thank him and recognize him for his service to Clinton public schools. All right. And then we saved our best for last. Come on up, Marilyn. So our last retiree is Marilyn Tierney. [Applause] I can't believe you're actually here. Every year was like this might be the year. This might be the year. This year she did it. So Marilyn started in Clinton public schools on September 12th, 1988. Right. She's wrapping up her 37th school year in the uh in the role of central office. Over the last eight years, Marilyn and I have worked closely together, and I've really come
020to appreciate her attention to detail and the care that she puts in her work. I always say the easiest way to make employees mad is to mess up their paychecks. And one good thing about my time here in Clinton is that I could always count on those being prepared correctly by Marilyn. Marilyn takes great pride in being accurate and on time. She spends a lot of time putting together retirement paperwork, ensuring that retirement contributions are made and recorded with the MTRS and made sure that all your retirement contributions were taken care of. Marilyn's also very close with her family. We'd often have discussions about her grandchildren, and you could tell how proud she is of them as they progress throughout the school system. Marilyn, you'll certainly be missed. That's why I'm hoping we can keep
021you around a little bit after your retirement. I want to thank you for your service to Clinton Public Schools and congratulations on your welldeserved [Applause] Congratulations for you, two I'll give you I'll shake your hand. You're not going to leave us that way. I mean, saying hi to Bernie's the highlight of your day. Congratulations. All right. So, this is usually the part of the program where we can invite you to stay for the rest of the agenda, and that's not normally anything anyone takes me up on. So instead of doing that, we're going to take a 10 or 15 minute recess. There's some refreshments in the back uh right hand corner for you. Feel free to take pictures. Congratulations to all the award winners and our retirees. We appreciate your service. And uh we'll pick
022up the program in about 10 or 15 minutes. Okay, we'll bring the meeting back to order and we will open up to ask if there's any public comment for this evening. being none. All right, student rep. It's our award winner. Double duty tonight. Uh hello everyone. Um so for today's meeting um firstly on Wednesday April 16th members of student uh of Clinton High School student council had the opportunity to attend Central District Massachusetts Association of Student Council spring conference. Um it's pretty much a conference. It was hosted in Oakmont Univers or Oakmont High School. Um and it was there were engaging workshop sessions with over 15 options to choose from. Um and each activity encouraged teamwork, collaboration, um leadership and other sorts of development. Um and then in total there were seven CHS students who
023attended um and it was the very first central district conference um that Clinton has attended or one of the first and we just are hope to attend more in the future. Um and then on May 9th, Clinton High School had a guest speaker come and talk to Lake Clinton, the entire um school about the importance of mental health awareness and getting rid of stigmas surrounding mental health. Um we partnered with Kyle Cares, which is an organization whose mission is to promote honest um communication about mental health challenges experienced by teens and young adults. Um and then we had a guest speaker named Mallerie. Um she was a great her with lots of energy. She expressed challenges in an open environment while keeping everyone engaged and listening. Um after the presentation, there was an engaging activity
024that everyone broke into in classrooms. Um that included um putting a green bandan on one's backpack in order to promote and to identify mental health. Um and then students also participated in a brief survey and debriefing session within their classes. Um the student council is al also looking forward to continuing their partnership with Kyle Care. Um and there was a lot of positive feedback from the both the faculty and the students. Um thirdly, on Saturday, May 9th, the student council partnered with the Massachusetts DCR for DAM day. Um big deal for Clinton obviously. um students volunteered and participated in a guided walk proctored by the DCR and Satie Mendes who is a member of the senior class student council um was given the honor of unlocking the dam gate for all to enjoy. We hope
025to keep this partnership with the DCR continuing and helping with coordinating DAM day for years to come. And finally, the nominations for the 2025 to 2026 student council um are now like open and the speeches will take place next week. We want to thank all the senior council members for their hard work and service of their class of 2025. Um especially President Julia Penzo, Vice President Chris Bayard, Treasurer Ricky Walsh, Secretary Satie Mendes, and Representative Ella Asin and Alexis Octavius. We wish you the best of luck and thank you for obviously all your hard work and thank you guys. Anything from the CTA this evening? Thank you PTA. Hey Emily. Hi Matt. I missed you. Listen, welcome back. I kept all my notes for tonight. Oh wow, that's a lot. Do you plan on reading
026the whole thing before? Okay. Okay. Sorry. Good evening everyone. Uh okay, so our quick update for today. We currently sit at 174 members. Uh we still would like to see 300 by the end of the school year, which is in a month. We won't give up. We're still going to try. Um our PTA scholarship application closed on April 30th with three applicants and the committee has chosen recipients and is in the process of notifying the winners. um they'll be presented during their award ceremony. At our May 7th PTA meeting, the board and PTA members voted unanimously to support the funding of a booster thong glow run at CES. The upfront cost of the fundraiser is $2,000. And earlier this month, we had a local business step up to sponsor that upfront cost in full. At
027this time, they wish to remain anonymous, and we will send our thanks to them. Um, we are excited to work with the CES staff and the booster thon to host this event in the fall. The CES book fair was an amazing success. Um, I can't believe it was already almost two weeks ago that we started it. We processed over $19,000 in transactions over four and a half days. All teachers and staff were given $30 to spend at the fair and were highly encouraged, if not told, to spend it on themselves. With the use of Scholastic dollars, we made sure that any child who did not have funds to spend still received a book of their choice. We covered numerous orders that had extra tax or books that were slightly over budget. We also covered dozens
028of books for teachers. Miss Falconer was able to choose over $600 in new books for the library and add them to this to the library right away. Miss Sylvio is getting a new bookcase for her birthday books and many new additional books for the shelves as well. We had new volunteers and they are excited to return. Every every student also received a free bookmark in partnership with Macaroni Kid Lemonster Clinton. Dr. Meyer's support was so gracious. Um he ran the cash register for the pre school classes next to my mom who had never run a cash register before either. So that was a very fun act for us. Um, we want to remind everyone that volunteers must have a current Corey on file and attend a volunteer training for CES opportunities. So, as we continue
029through the next year and you start to see those opportunities to attend the training, we highly recommend that you do that early because now we're into chaperoning season, we have a lot of folks who have not taken the training and cannot chaperon. So, we want to make sure we get that out. Now, um, teacher appreciation week was also a huge success that same week. We held a raffle at each school and all teacher PTA members were eligible to win. And we had new members join just to be entered to win. Uh we would like to thank our sponsors including Nothing But Cakes, Raising Canes, the New England Botanic Garden, Scholastic Books, PTO Today, and the Massachusetts PTA for their support of that effort. And Nothing But Cakes also worked with us to have mini bunt
030coupons at each school um for all staff as well in their mailboxes. For nurses day, we supplied fruit trays at each of the schools that were very wellreceived. I suggested chocolate. I was over um overturned on that one. Um PTA was also proud to support Mr. Stephy during his rooftop camping trip, dropping off snacks and supplies. Our content that was on Facebook was also uh shared by the Massachusetts PTA and they extended their congratulations to CMS and Mr. Steppy for their MCCAST attendance. We are still gathering all the dates for the year for the PTA calendar that will be put together over the summer because why not. Um it's expected that we will have a $1,500 cost for that and we'll be reaching out for sponsors um the next couple weeks. Our last meeting of
031the year, which does not close out what we do over the summer, um is June 5th and obviously all are invited. Emily, didn't the league sponsor that calendar last year? Yes, they did. I think I've reached out to uh Mr. Veracus about that on the renewal so far. So, um we'll see. We'll Okay. All right. That's about it. I think ne next year if I'm going to have to be a cat a checkout guy for prek, I need to go in the week before and do a lesson on how sales tax works. There's a lot of that uh extra. Yeah. And that's why we covered a lot of it because kids come up and the book is $9.99. and they have $10 to spend and everybody gets apprehended. But it it was great and you
032guys did a great job in in between the whatever there was the scholastic dollars button or something like that that we could just kind of Yeah. It's like okay there's a little little bit missing. We'll just cover it right there. That was good. So it was it's it's uh it was you guys do a lot of lot of work with that. It was it was it was fun. We didn't even make a dent in the scholastic dollars that we already had even with all that we spent. It's like just keeps going. We spent it and it just added right back. So it's amazing. We can order great products and stuff on there that we use for the Halloween walk. We do it for teacher appreciation, obviously, books for the library and equipment and it works
033out very well. It always strikes me when I hear things like there was three applicants because I think like the Clinton community does such an amazing job making money available. Like people fund raise and they put money in the bank and say, "Please apply." And I don't think the kids realize like just how much money is available to them and how expensive it can be to go to school. So, you know, it's probably too late for this deadline, but like and there's probably not a single child at home watching this right now, but apply for these scholarships. The money's there. They'd love to give it away. We would. And it's in the budget every year. So, okay. All right. Thanks, Emily. For now, anything from CPAC this evening or LPAC? I will hand it over
034to you, Dr. Meyer. All right. Thank you. I got a uh text from Mr. Zapantis that he was going to be late, but he didn't realize it was uh retiree celebration, so his tennis bus got here. Did you guys at least Did you How'd you do? Lost in the third set. All right. Well, it was only 37 degrees and windy. I'm sure awesome. That was awesome. All right. So, uh uh Mr. Zantis is starting to lay the groundwork for a 2028 trip to Europe. And I know that sounds early or it sounds like far away, I guess, but the uh plan is to get it approved now so they can start signing students right away in the fall so they have a longer if students want to commit they have a longer uh time period
035to stretch out the payments. So if you want to talk a little bit about the trip. Yeah. Uh this trip coming up. Just some background for the members who might be new. Uh, I ran a trip last year uh to Europe that was pretty successful. Uh, we're running one next year, 2026, that's sold out. And I just want to get this one, you know, off the ground early next fall uh for 2028. Uh we're planning on flying into Switzerland into Zurich, going down to Lousern, going through Northern Italy, uh Chinquteri, over to Monaco, French Riviera, Aignan, France, and then ending in Barcelona. So, uh one thing about my trips, I like to squeeze a lot in. I I think the kids like that as as well. Uh they don't get bored of one place. Uh
036and we see a lot. Uh the reason why again we postcoid Mr. Surach and I spoke about you know trying to get on a good cycle a two-year cycle to give families time uh to pay for these because like everything it's the cost is creeping up and uh just to give families as much time as we can to pay for it. I think it'd be really beneficial to get as many kids on it as we can. So, uh, we're going to be using EFTours, who the school's used for many years now. They're probably one of the leaders in educational travel. Uh, so some of the itineraries there, that that price is a little high. Uh, it has some things I'm going to cut out uh along with they also give you like a $200 uh
037discount when you sign up early. So, it'll probably be closer to around 4500, I would say. And then over the two years it's I think around $130 per month. So just trying to keep it affordable. Yeah. So even though this normally these these trips do typically run um right over the April vacation, it is essentially kind of school sponsored travel. Uh so we do according to our policy need a vote from the school committee to uh approve it before um he's supposed to collect any money or have kids make any deposits. So that's why we're here tonight. So, if you uh are uh okay with uh Mr. Zapantis uh starting to get this out there, uh I'd look for a motion to approve the trip. Second. Any questions, terms? I'll just say from a comment
038perspective, uh there's a lot of talk about your trip already for next year. Kids are super excited about it. So, thanks for all the work you're doing on that. Um, let's talk to the AD and let her know how many spring athletes are on your trip to make sure we don't have games. Yeah. April vacation next week, next year because you have a lot of excited kids and I think they all play something in the spring. And that's something I think more and more schools are are seeing, you know, that kids are busy during break. Uh, last year in Germany, we ran into Tingsboro and their AD was in the airport with us. That's awesome. Uh, they get it. They get it. No, kudos to you because the kids are psyched about it and it's
039a great way for them to see the world. So, awesome. That's awesome. Thank you. Extra shack roll. I was going to say at this point in your travel habit here. We'll go with you. All in favor? All right. Thanks, Paul. Thank you all much. Thank you. All right. Um, so the next couple agenda items just kind of give you some feedback on or some wrap up to this year. U the there's an end of year goals update. Um I won't read you all of that but there's just similar to our midyear goals update with some updated numbers in terms of um you know some observations and meetings the uh learning walks the uh sessions with commonwealth consulting um a lot of the the data teams the co- talk classroom so I think we continue to
040make significant progress on these goals um trying to uh highlight you know all the things that we've identified as a uh or address all the things that we've identified. Um but I do want to um right after the goals update, there's a couple other items wrapping up this year I want to go over. One of them is the letter in here that you got about uh the high school's designation as an with innovation career pathway in advanced manufacturing. So this is something that's really exciting. It's something that we've been working for trying to get these designations and this year we were able to have our uh early college and career counselor uh Katie Ball who's been working on it. So she's here tonight to share a little bit about the advanced manufacturing innovation career pathway
041and and that process and I'll let her talk. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. Thanks. Um, so I'm excited to share some updates on our advanced manufacturing pathway at Clinton High School aimed at ensuring students are both workforce ready and prepared for college. Clinton and the surrounding towns have numerous manufacturing facilities, creating a strong demand for skilled workers. Establishing this pathway within our district will greatly benefit both our students as well as the broader community. After receiving an imple implementation grant, we partnered with a consultant to develop a comprehensive pathway utilizing the classes we already currently offer at Clinton High School. We submitted part B of the application to Dusty in October and we're we're thrilled to be invited to move on to part B in December. After submitting part B in February,
042we received wonderful news at the STEM summit on May 7th from the Lieutenant Governor Drisco um Lieutenant Governor Driscoll and Secretary Totteeer that Clinton High School has officially received designation for our first innovation pathway. This pathway requires students to complete two technical courses and two advanced courses. The technical courses include engineering innovation, which is a class that the majority of our freshmen already currently take, and then engineering design. The advanced courses are pre-calculus along with the choice between AP computer science A or project leadway computer science essentials. These classes are designed to provide students a strong foundation in STEM preparing students for careers in the advanced manufacturing engineering fields. In addition, students will engage in a 100h hour internship or capstone project. We are grateful Mass Hire um for to Massire for helping us to
043secure partnerships with two industry leaders. Both Nitro Mold and Jville have agreed to partner with us. Their senior leadership visited CHS back in February to discuss collaboration with our team including me, Superintendent Meyer, Principal Surmac, and CHS teachers Steve Hilton and Kathy Curry. To further strengthen these partnerships, our engineering design classes classes visited Niper Mold's facility in Clinton and Jville's facilities Devon this school year already. Mass hire reimbursed us for the transportation for these field trips as well. As part of this pathway, students will earn industry recognized credentials including ocean on on shapes certifications ensuring they're workforce ready. Additionally, by taking the advanced courses, they'll be well prepared um for those who decide to pursue higher education. And then finally, I'd just like to highlight that newly designed innovation career pathways programs are eligible for
044up to a $75,000 grant, which will further support our efforts. Thank you. That's great. That's great news. Let's get that question Scott gave me. I was never mind. I just wrote it down. So Katie's done a great job on this. Has been a lot of work and every every step that you know I've been included on uh has been you know great. Uh we had a really nice meeting when you had the um industry uh partners up here. I thought that went really well. So, um, you know, we were very excited to get this designation and we're crossing our fingers on the early college one still, right? I think they're doing that one in June, right? So, we'll see. But she's been working on both those and she does a nice job. And when I
045send her random grants and I say, "What do you think about this?" She's just like, "Sure, let me look at it." So, that's good. Um, all right. So, that was that's uh exciting news. Uh next in your packet is it says OLA TFM feedback. So OLA is the office of language acquisition. Um so TFM is our targeted and focused monitoring report. So they um every three years they come and this year this is a bunch of the uh this this summary has the indicators that they looked at. Um and overall if you get to the uh you know almost all of the indicators we scored as implemented one of them we scored as partially implemented uh that was on EL5 which are program and services and we had a meeting so we're working on our
046um they call it a simp continuous improvement monitoring plan uh so that we and look at addressing some of that. And we'll be doing some of that work over the summer. A lot of it will really be looking just at our our um access data, uh which is the testing that our English learners take. U trying to triangulate that with some of the other classroom and MCCAST data and uh also looking at their schedules and making sure that we're um delivering those services. But overall, you know, one partially implemented is not bad. So, we'll be able to work on that. Um, and then the next one is the special education TFM feedback. Um, this was sort of a summary that I generated because we don't have the official report from them. We kind of have
047a draft report and it was 33 pages. So, I tried to sum it down summarize it down to two for you. Uh, there were two indicators for the special ed that were identified. Um, both of those had to do with timelines. So none of it was really the process in terms of what we're doing. Um it was just that when they do like a record review, we had a couple that we didn't get the determination of eligibility within 45 days or we didn't get the determin determination of placement provision to the parent within 10 days. And we do know that some of that might have been uh attributable to the fact that we beginning of the year we were um we were shifting IEPs to infinite campus and then we weren't happy with that and
048we kind of shifted them back to Eastbed and in that there are some records I think that threw off some of our timelines. So um but overall that was uh another one that was very positive. Those are easily correctable um to go through. So, Steve, is the long-term goal to still get those into Infinite Campus or did we just decide it wasn't probably the appropriate use of doing it that way or I think the long-term goal would still to be to try to get it in Infinite Campus, but we need I think at this point we need to wait till the infinite campus module gets a little bit more developed for the Massachusetts IEP. So that's I think what we found was it wasn't quite you know Massachusetts just went through a new IEP process
049and all that kind of stuff and and it really wasn't quite um you know infinite campus is not more than just Massachusetts so they hadn't made all the kind of tweaks for it. So I think someday obviously yes the more I can house everything in one system the the better but um you know right now I don't think it had all the functionality we had hoped it had. Okay. Um, all right. Then we had some uh plans for FI26. So, just kind of, you know, we just like to make sure that you're aware of just things that might change for next year or that are our schedule to change for next year. Um, not a lot in the elementary school as far as what students would really notice. It's a lot of it's continuing our
050work and improving our integration, those types of things which are I think it's just a testament to the amount of of work we've been doing at the elementary level the last few years that we're really in that sort of implementation phase, not sort of a you know the new phase. Uh at the middle school, we'll be introducing Spanish as a trimester for grades seven and eight. Uh there'll be a new physical education and wellness curriculum, the democratic knowledge project history curriculum in grade 8 to enhance the civics our civics curriculum. Um, we'll have some more co-eing sections in grade six. We're looking at increasing the time on learning for science and history in grade six. Uh, we will be using next year uh at the middle school instead of right now I think the younger
051grades using I Ready and the older grades are using STAR or some combination of that. Um and uh what we're doing is shifting to EXL. And part of that is EXL has some more content specific uh areas that we're think are going to work well with the structure of the uh like wind blocks and stuff at the middle school level. Um and they've been working on establishing their leadership team. So, you know, uh Principal Stephy's had a year to kind of look at things and start making some plans. So, I'm excited to see how next year rolls out. uh at the high school. You just heard about the advanced manufacturing pathway including including um some of the project lead the way uh courses coming in um in the early college we're working on that freshman
052experience course uh changing so with freshman and sophomore experience we're changing a little bit um to try to make sure that we're addressing some other areas for example in in the sophomore experience course uh there will now be a financial literacy component, which is one of the things that the state wanted to start implementing. And for freshman experience, we're adding a course called spreadsheets, docs, and AI, basically trying to get students to use u focusing on sort of the computer appropriate use of technology. Um they're continuing with the STAR testing, a couple other uh new courses including AP pre-calculus and AP seminar. And uh one of the other ones too that we talked about before is they're going to be taking biology as freshmen for science, which is something with our current staffing we can
053we can account for. So all those things will be uh tweaks that you'll see next year. We always want to share those so that um there's not any surprises when kids come back to school. Steve, quick question. Yeah. on the increased time on learning in science for the middle school. Are we I mean if if that's like if that's a an iterative goal that like we we'll do more in science more in science. Are we taking that into consideration? We're thinking about you know some of the sort of the design and furniture things we're buying for the middle school like are we do we have areas that will support that you know specifically thinking of curriculum to to sort of like classroom space? Yeah. I mean it should all be STEM like a STEM wing
054or something up one of those floors right? Yeah, we have we'll have our STEM rooms, we have uh science labs for seventh, eighth grade, we'll have the maker space area. So, there should be plenty of of opportunities for that. Um, yeah, it's really just kind of shifting, you know, I think the the vision I think was to really have like if you could think of it in sort of the um five period five, let's say there's five periods in a day of kind of core academics for uh the middle schoolers. The vision was that you would really have like a full period of history, a full period of science, and then like one and a half of math and like one and a half of ELA, right? So they'd get a little extra time math
055in ELA. But sort of in practice, the way the schedule has kind of followed it ended up becoming more like a double block of math and like a double block of ELA and sort of like shoehorning science and history together. So, we're realizing that we need to kind of pay a little more attention to the science and and and social studies or history components. So, uh working on that and then and to your point, those are things and that's something that we've discussed is um with the middle school is, you know, really our I think our one of our primary goals next fall is really going to be looking at that vision of what will the school the new school look like? because it won't be the next year, but it'll be the year after,
056but to make sure that anything that we're doing to progress is feeding into what that's ultimately going to look like. Thanks. Um FY26 budget version C. So, there's an updated V budget version in here. Um I'd say at the end of the day, we didn't change the bottom line in terms of what we're asking for from the town. Uh we did increase the amount of circuit breaker we're going to use by probably well $46,000. Um we had to account for um some increase in special education costs. We had um just about $800,000 increases in special education um for students who um basically we became financially responsible for this year. So there people that there students who weren't in the district but either due to moving or different residency type things um we've inherited their financial
057responsibilities. So um and they are you know they're not just we are working with all of them. I was on the phone with our attorney this morning uh working on the the agreements for one of them. Um, so we had to adjust that in the budget. Um, so we did end up cutting, I think we cut $300,000 or somewhere along that line. Um, most of it was in um most in the changes. There was some things like sick leave buyback. We did that to reflect actuals. There were a couple tenative retirements that we thought for next year that we um don't think are going to happen next year at this point based on our new information. Um another big one was uh some of the placeholders that we had in like subs. We had some
058increases in the subline. We decreased that uh with the athletic director. We kind of went through that budget, took some out. um the uh advisors and the oh since we finalized the teacher contract and we sort of have a tenative agreement with the unit D contract we updated those salaries to reflect actuals of the new agreements. Um so all those changes are in there so it's a you know it's more accurate I think overall you know we ended up cutting oh the other big one we cut we cut about $100,000 out of Chromebooks. Okay. And I know it might seem counterintuitive um that what's happening right now is with some of the uncertainty and some of the tariff stuff that was happening, a lot of Chromebooks, they either you couldn't get them or the prices
059went way up. So, um, what we decided is we're instead of trying to replace two grades worth of Chromebooks next year, as of right now, we're planning on trying to just replace one. And even with that, Chris thinks we might be able to hold off. Oh, actually, no. I think what we did is we were trying to order get an order in now on one of them. Um, so that we could pay for it right in July 1, so we could try to get them since a lot of them are out of stock. But the uh the idea was since the price went up a little bit, not to add more money to that line and do two, but to just focus on one grade and cut it back. Um and then and he felt
060comfortable with the current state of our technology that we could we could handle that for a year. Uh so the so overall that was you know we had a meeting and tried to just go through and see where we could find some savings. Um it's not great to count to tap into the circuit breaker like that. that's why it's there. Um the other thing is with our out of district tuition cost going up so much, uh we will probably qualify for what's called extraordinary relief next year, which means we should get sort of additional circuit breaker funds back that we can hopefully use to um basically extraordinary relief has to be used in the same year. So it essentially means we would tap into less of this because we would get those funds to um
061to offset costs next year. So, uh, so overall, um, it's not a panic. It's just, uh, we got to see how things fall into place and we'll, uh, we'll adjust based on just like we do every year when we see who who's actually here in September. We'll we'll make our adjustments and we'll we'll figure it out. So, um, any questions on budget version C? Oh, I think I should probably have you guys take a vote to uh approve it if you're comfortable with it so that when it's at the uh uh town meeting um it's school committee approved. I will entertain a motion to approve budget. Thank you, sir. Second. Any discussion? Great. All in favor? I thank you. Thank you. Uh, real quick on the director of special education search update. Uh, we had
062a screening committee that met last was that last week? It feels like I don't know when it feels like feels like longer ago than that. uh met last week and we uh did our first round of interviews and moved uh forward uh three candidates and we are bringing those candidates um into the district this week and one uh one of them is actually here today and uh hopefully we can get all those second uh finalist kind of interviews together and my hope is that by the next meeting in June that I would have a candidate to present to the committee because since it is special ed director, that's usually one where I recommend and you appoint as part of the um uh checks and balances like finance uh uh business manager and assistant superintendent. So
063um so we'll hopefully have a candidate for you at the next meeting. Um we'll see how that goes, but we were um hopeful after our interviews. I think we have some good potential candidates there. Uh I did include a self assessment. I do this every year. I kind of try to give you a little update on sort of what I think uh based on some of the stuff that we did this year. And typically you guys kind of look at that and maybe share some feedback with the chair and come up with something so that we can uh have an evaluation for me that we need to uh share. We have to share our evaluations for all of our staff, all of our licensed staff with the department of ed over the summer. So we
064like to try to get those evaluations done. Steve, what's usually the date that we try to target? Is it like that second week of June that we try to have this done usually for you? Um, I think a lot of times I mean that would be great, but I know that that's, you know, just a couple that's our next meeting really, right? So, um, because we have the town meeting and elections and all that kind of stuff. So, the um it's fine if we I know I think our uh we have a July like 13th meeting or something like that. That's still within the data reporting window. So, if it needed to be finalized at that one, I think we've done that in the past where maybe uh you know by however long it takes
065you guys to kind of compile that. So, can can we I think we did this last year, but can can you make sure you get the digital copy over to me of that, too? Yeah. So, we'll get a we'll get the file to you so you guys can just edit it easier. Y place some notes in that I can collaborate with these guys and then come back with something. Okay. Um superintendent contract. I just put that on here. here. I know I've had some informal discussions and uh uh about um about my contract. I'm in I will be entering the last year of my current contract starting on July 1st. Um, so usually kind of when you get to that last year of your contract is uh when you or you know right around now
066is when you kind of want to start if you're going to have a successor agreement to start uh talking about that because don't want to wait too much longer or then you get nervous and you're going to start applying other places. So um so the uh so I know that I I know uh I've talked to the chair a little bit about that. So I don't know what Yeah, I mean I just say that I mean it goes without saying that we're very pleased with Dr. Meyer's performance and our hope is to have him here for a very long time. Uh we've had a couple preliminary discussions. I do have some details to work with the board. But I think at least my goal from a chair perspective would be to come back with something
067and see if we can't finalize something over the next you know two to three weeks from that perspective as long as all goes well. So, I think ongoing, but uh the board will report out once we uh reach some sort of preliminary agreement. All right. Um the last one on here, the next one on here, uh CPD training at the middle school. Um so, actually, I was trying to look over tonight to see what I could see. There was a there were a few cars over there. Uh I did send out an email this morning to try to remind people. Uh it came up at our sa it came up at our safety meeting the other day that the uh they're doing their um you know I think they're technically called active killer drills but
068that's uh they're doing doing those responses. Um so they're trying to do each shift unit um together. So they're doing this afternoon uh tomorrow evening and then Wednesday afternoon. and just we wanted to share it with people as much as we can because we don't want people, you know, we know there's academic awards tomorrow night. There's going to be uh the gradu there's a graduation rehearsal tonight for dad the gradu graduation on Wednesday. So, if people see police and fire and stuff over at the middle school, it's it's part of a scheduled training. It's not a uh there's not anything going on. So, um, and we're we welcome them to do those trainings so that hopefully they never need to use them, but we try to be prepared. So, um, all right. And the last
069thing on my list is the middle school building update. Uh, continues to move along. It's amazing. Now, the emails all of a sudden are like, we're, you know, we'll be starting construction in just a couple weeks. and you're like, "Wow, we are going to be not construction, but starting some movement." Um, I know they are working on uh looking at the soil still for that and I do think they I do think they are going to go to conservation commission and they are looking at a way I think something I saw today in the email. I think there was a way with the way those that current drainage is that they can do connect them or something so that they can fill the whole thing in. Um, so they're so they're looking at that. Um,
070and so that's a good update. But the more important one, uh, September 5th at 11:00 is going to be the like ceremonial groundbreaking. Um, when is that? September 5th. So, we're going to do it right when we get back to school next year. That's the one where you'll have, you know, MSBA reps and um this is like hot off the press. This came in Friday at 5. So, uh we had to work with the MSBA for a date on this. So, they got back to us. So, it's going to be September 5th at 11. And that'll be the one where you know MSBA will be there. I'm sure that you know um other uh officials, elected officials will be invited. and we wanted to kind of wait till the school year started again so we
071could probably have some student representatives there as much as we can u because it'll be during the school day. Uh so there'll be work going on over the summer but a lot of what they're going to be doing over the summer isn't going to be that exciting. It's going to be like digging wells and clearing dirt. So we're hoping that really by that September groundbreaking. It's kind of like we're really starting the school um not just the site work. So um so you can mark that on your calendars and I think that's all I have right now. I was getting concerned. We had gone a couple of uh meetings without talking about dirt. Yeah. I but I would like to thank Bill Connley who in our last meeting we kind of you know it's nice
072to know that this the advocacy for the folks that serve on our permanent building committee along with the folks that are looking out for this project that there's various degrees of people that have been in the business and and pushing just pushing the envelope a little bit on asking questions about where money goes because it's really important that we spend every last dollar on a value multiplier for the town. Taxpayer dollars are important. the taxpayers came out and and supported us overwhelmingly uh to do this. So, it was uh it's kind of like set in stone. We were going to do something with dirt and then it was like no, not anymore. It's not. Um so, I want to thank Bill for that because he he sort of pushed that a little bit and got
073people to just bring up a conversation that I think they thought might have been over and I think it's ever evolving. So, I think the good thing is it's good dialogue. People are open-minded and that they're all trying to do a great job on building this amazing school project that we have. So, thank you for that sir. Well, the whole committee pushed that along. Yeah. And I think it's gonna be great. It's going to make that more of a, you know, if it all pans out, it's it's a win-win because it should be save money from hauling dirt away and it should fill that area and to make it a more usable space. So, seemed like the obvious solution. It's great. For a million dollars, I think it's worth it. Might be slightly less. Maybe
074some tree removal. I know. Uh anything under advisory committees in the near term? No, I think just the safety committee met and I gave you that update kind of as a training and obviously we're ongoing with negotiations with two out of three completed. So yeah, um old business I just had one we did have one um typo on those dismissal times we approved last week. So I just want to make sure people have the correct dismissal times. They're the same dismissal times we have had since I was a teacher here. The last day of school will be it's the high school at 10:30, the middle school at 11, and the elementary school at 11:30. I think it I think the middle school the elementary school might have been listed at noon um inadvertently in the
075last uh school committee packet when we did that. So, I just wanted to correct that time. Awesome. Anything under new business? Yeah. We need to uh look at a date for um meeting next week. We talk about Steve's contract because this week it's tight and the following week, next week's pretty over, but the week after that leads into graduation and town meeting. So I don't know if there would be an executive session initially and then come into open meeting to but I don't know if you need a date right this second but not this week but the following week. One of the things that uh Steve and I had talked about is trying to look at just to be respectful of everybody's time is look at the date dates that will be up here for
076events anyway. And I think Balorat is it is is a date that's is that next week or the week is it the fourth fourth. So thinking that maybe if Balorat for example is is it at 6:00 or 7 maybe we set a meeting for like 5:30. Okay. Because we're going to come up anyhow if that maybe works for folks. I wasn't playing on I guess I will now. That's right. Trying to give you what you're asking for, buddy. But maybe something like that. If that works for folks, we can do that. If not, I'm open to any other date. Like, I'm open for anything. No, that's fine. Um, then we can figure that out. Yeah. So, we just we uh when that topic came up, like you like you said, we just looked at it
077and said there might be some other events that we're all getting together for anyway. So, if Yeah. And then just one other note on a new business. Um, prom just happened uh for the high school and I just wanted to say thank you to, you know, the various staff, the adviserss, the after prom committee and the parents. Um, I got volunt told I was going to do the after prom volunteering and the immense amount of work, donations, time. I think it took me two days to recover from being at the WH overnight. But, uh, the kids were awesome. They all looked great. They were well behaved from all indications. Everything at Devons and the and the prom went awesome. My daughter's a junior so she attended and she was very happy. Had a really good
078weekend with it. So just kudos to everybody. I know it's an immense amount of work. It doesn't happen overnight. It's like a whole year worth of planning. So uh thank you to everybody and uh just always appreciate what you're doing for our kids to give them great experiences. So thank you for that. So moved. Second. [Music] With that we'll adjourn the meeting. Thank you very much for coming. That's probably our longest meeting in