001[Music] Heat. Heat. N. You [Music] Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [Music] here. Good evening everyone. I'm calling the school committee meeting of May 19th, 2025 to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. Miss Gunther. Chris Oliver here. Kathleen Ammerald here. John Nunes here. Mary Beck Beck. Best Coughlin here. Um for your information, this meeting is being recorded and will be rebroadcast on DCTV channels 9 on the following days. Wednesday and Thursday at 5:00, Friday at 6:00, Saturday at 8:00 a.m., and Sunday at 12 p 2:00 p.m. The meeting will be rebroadcast
002on DCTV channels 18 on the following days, Monday and Saturday at 12:00 p.m. and Thursday at 300 p.m. Uh, we now have reserved time for public comment, 10 minutes. Um, so if you wish to say anything that is on the agenda, please approach the mic, state your name. uh and try to keep your comments to three minutes so others can have a say. Good evening members of the school committee. My name is Megan Wakefield. I'm an education support professional at Twin Elementary School, a proud mother to three elementary age children and just a good job test. I'm going to start that again if that's okay by you. Y um good evening members of the Dartmouth School Committee. Uh my name is Megan Wakefield. I'm an education support professional at Quinn Elementary School, proud mother to
003three elementary age children who attend our public schools, and I'm a taxpaying resident and voting town member in Dartmouth. I'm here tonight because I care deeply about this district. I care as a graduate of the school system. I care as a parent. I care as an employee. And I care as someone who believes that a strong public education system is the backbone of a thriving community. But here's the truth. We who work within our schools are not okay. The people who support and teach Dartmouth's children, the teachers, the ESPs, the support staff are struggling. Many of us are earning wages that haven't kept up with inflation. Some haven't seen any meaningful raise in years. And even as rent, groceries, gas, and utilities have gone up, as the cost of living has raised significantly over the
004past 5 years, the premiums for our health insurance continue to skyrocket annually. In some instances, ESPs bring home less than $30,000 a year for full-time work, a number that speaks volumes about how undervalued their essential work truly is. And teachers, despite advanced degrees and years of experience, are seeing health care costs eat up any modest increase they receive, if they receive one at all. I know firsthand the hard work that goes into making our schools safe, supportive, and successful. Every day I walk through the same doors as our teachers, ESPs, support staff, and administrators, and I see people showing up for our kids with everything they've got. We love our jobs. We love our students. But that kind of dedication doesn't pay our bills. We are continually being asked to give more while bringing home
005less. So I urge you, please come to the table in good faith. Settle a fair contract that includes real cost of living, adjustments, and affordable health care options. Show us and show our students that Dartmouth stands for fairness, dignity, and respect. The people who keep our schools running shouldn't have to brace themselves when they look at their paycheck. They shouldn't have to work two jobs, leave the district, or leave the profession they love entirely just to survive. I'll wrap this up by saying that I am confident that one thing that we can all agree on here is that in our Dartmouth public schools, the students always come first, but that shouldn't mean that our educators come last. Thank you for your time. Good evening. My name is Michelle Lemieux and I have been teaching math
006for 30 years, 17 of which at Dartmouth High School. I am here on behalf of our math department to share our frustration with the direction to which the math department is being led. Over the past few years, we have been searching for a core math curriculum. Beginning in 2020, our stats curriculum was revamped using Stats Medic, which is a highly rated free college board approved curriculum that we've been using ever since. Our AP students have performed extremely well in these years, and our CCR students are finding success in a challenging fourth year of math. The creators of this curriculum expanded to the core math courses and created what is now known as Mathematic. The entire curriculum is free. We pay a minimal amount for professional training and an assessment platform. We adopted this curriculum for
007geometry in the 2022 2023 school year for 60% of our sophomores. These students outperformed the other 40% students in MCCAST growth by an average of 18%. The following year, we piloted this mathematic curriculum for algebra 1 for 60% of the freshmen and successfully completed the entire course. We also covered geometry and stats that year. Again, the students receiving this mathematic curriculum outperformed the other students not receiving this curriculum. In the past two years, we piloted two more very expensive options, HM and Carnegie Learning. We were not su we were not able to successfully implement either curriculum and found both to be inadequate to meet the needs of all of our students. But now it appears to us that Carnegie was not actually a pilot but it is one of the three-year it is one of
008the three-year contract that we are being I'm sorry let me start that again. It appears to us that Carnegie was not actually a pilot, but a year one of a three-year contract that we are being told we must use. We have to use it for a second year and possibly a third year despite the cost and the math department's unanimous assessment that this curriculum is not best for our students. We were also informed today that next school year our department will lose two teachers, which means a loss of 10 class sections. This will increase the average class size in CCR to the target max of 24, which we know can go as high as 30 students per class. This will now match our honors classes, which are already at the target max of 24 students.
009Therefore, we are having our CCR students pay the price for our inability to adequately budget for their education. And as we all know, it is this group that includes our students with all our learning disabilities. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Anybody else? Seeing no further people wishing to speak, we will move on to approval of the minutes. Seeking a motion to approve the regular minutes of May 5th. So move, Madam Chair. Second. All in favor? Oh, excuse me. Any discussion? No, no. I was going to say who made motion by Chris Oliver and seconded by Amiral and uh any discussion? All in favor? I I Madam Chair, I'll I'll abstain as I was not here. Okay, that makes it four eyes, one abstension. Um and I am now seeking um a motion for
010the executive minutes of May 5th, 2025. So move madam chair with the stipulation that they be held until the matter for which they were intended is complete. Second motion by Mr. Nunes, second by Miss Beckwith. Any discussion? All in favor? I I Any abstensions? I'll abstain madam chair. So four eyes, one abstension. And next up, we have the student representative reports from Jordan Rosenberg. Good evening. We've been busy at Dartmouth High School as we finish out the school year. We want to start by sharing gratitude for our teachers and staff in the district. We recently celebrated teacher appreciation week and are so grateful for the amazing educators our district has. We thank you for all that you do. Two weeks ago, our unified arts department hosted their art show. The talent displayed was incredible. Congrats
011to all involved. Last week was a busy week over at Dartmouth High School with several exciting things happening. We hosted the Special Olympics on Friday, which was an an amazing experience for all, and the class of 2026 had their junior banquet as well as wrapping up with AP exams. This week, our 10th graders take the m the math MCCAST. So, good luck to our students. Spring sports are wrapping up in the upcoming weeks. We want to shout out all of our athletes and coaches who made the spring season a success. Lastly, we want to celebrate our class of 2025. As there are only a few more days left, we want to remember all of the amazing experiences we've had at our time at Dartmouth High School and cherish these moments. As we look forward to
012finishing out our classes, prom and then graduation, we want to congratulate all for such a great accomplishment and wish all grad graduates m much much success in their future endeavors. Thank you for taking the time to recogn recognize us this evening. Thanks, John. Thank you, Jordan. Um, any comments? No. Thank you. That was great. Thank you, Jordan. Um, and you are welcome to stay, but of course it is a busy time of year, so if you'd like to leave, that would be fine. Take care. Um, say it again. Next up, we have a consent agenda. I'm going to turn over to Dr. Saba Magcguire. So, um, this is, uh, an item that's been on your agenda for many, many years. And uh this is that we're recommending approval um for SMMEC to lease one classroom
013at Dartmouth High School and they also have a small office space as well as two additional classrooms at the Quinn School for the 202526 school year. Any questions? Stand at housekeeping. So I have one two questions. One is um how do we determine the increase in uh rent? I can certainly answer that as being on the board. Okay. The smack board. Uh that's something that is voted on um by the uh member districts every year and I believe this year um well I don't have it in front of me is a 3% is a 3% increase. So, uh, Katherine Cooper comes to the executive board of SMMEK, which is made up of school committee members of about a dozen or not dozen but maybe 10 member districts and that gets approved upon all gets approved
014by all the members. Terrific. And then my second question is where does the money go? Does it go to the school? Does it go to the town? So it goes to a um use of facilities revolving fund in which we can buy supplies for the school or even make some modest um repairs or improvements. Uh this year it'll be 34,000 but for fiscal year 26 it'll be $34,162. Terrific. Any other questions, discussions? Um, we don't make a motion. We just vote. We need a motion. I need a motion. I'll make a motion that we approve the FY26 leases for the uh Southeast and Massachusetts Educational Collaborative in Dartmouth. Second. So motion by Mr. Oliver, second by Miss Emerald. Any further discussion? All in favor? I I. Any opposed? Madam chair, I'll since I'm the treasurer
015of Smeck and I was involved in the uh budget present budget. Okay. Of this I will abstain. Okay. So four eyes, one abstension. And next up we have a presentation of a school improvement plan. So I'll pass that along. Thank you. Um so I would invite I see Mrs. Ka making her way to the podium along with Mr. Hill. Um, and I think this this is our final school improvement presentation of the 202425 school year. And what I think that uh the look fors here are and I hope you're able to clearly see how um aligned the not only the elementary schools are but the elementary schools with the middle and the high school and how we're really working toward strategic initiative which one which is the alignment of our curriculum prek to 12. How
016are you doing there? Good. Okay. I'll turn it over to you. Thank you. So, I want to start off by thanking you for this opportunity for uh Mr. Hill and I to present our dlo school improvement plan this evening. And I feel like I'm going to give a lot of shoutouts and acknowledgements today in this presentation. So, I'm just going to start by shouting out Dr. Thomas from the Quinn School who gave Melissa Mckenry and I a shout out at her SIP presentation because we have been collaborating together on developing our SIPs. And she mentioned at her presentation that it was wonderful to be able to work with other elementary uh principles in the district on this important work. And I just want to like I said shout it back out to her and Melissa
017Mckenry. She's waving at me. uh and thank them for their support and their input on the SIP we're about to share tonight. I do want to acknowledge that this is the last uh SIP presentation, so you have probably heard quite a bit about school improvement plans. I'm going to try not to overwhelm with um any new acronyms or or things that um that you might not be too familiar with, but um you will see some common uh goals, some common action steps in our uh school improvement plan that look a lot like Potter and uh Quinn School's action steps. And that is because one, the principles did do a lot of work on this together. But two, it is really because all I'm trying to advance this, Mr. Hill, how do I advance this? Yeah.
018No, I did it. I figured that out. All of our work is driven by our district strategic plan. Mr. Hill and I affectionately refer to it as the north star. Yes. And so it will sound familiar. There will be some some common threads throughout the presentation. Um so we will be talking about all four strategic focus areas today and uh here comes another acknowledgement before we begin with focus area one which is on teaching and learning I'd like to acknowledge and thank our dlo silt a silt is a school instructional leadership team um and simply stated our silt is the engine that is behind our school improvement e efforts at dlo Uh so our team many of whom is uh seated right here with us tonight is made up of uh educators throughout the building.
019So we have our math and our literacy coach uh coaches. So that would be Jen Fitton who is here and Lori O'Neal who is not pictured. She wasn't here on the day that we took the picture. Uh we have our interventionists. So we have two reading interventionists, Dr. Lisa Masion and Lisa Writes. We have two math interventionists, Deb McGillic and uh Kelly D Ambrosio. We also have two of our special educators, Megan Maniglia and Melissa Maderas, our ELEL teacher, Carrie De Jesus, as well as classroom teachers, uh Leslie Gamash, Cheryl Cam, Robin Colbeck, and Sarah Sand. Sarah's also not pictured in our silt team photo. So, our silt team meets over the course of the year and over the summer. uh really to guide our instructional vision for DLO school and we do this through
020analyzing data uh identifying strengths areas of strengths as well as identifying areas that we want to work on as a school and the action steps under focus area one are largely a product of this team's collaboration and Gabby Dearis I should have acknowledged you also she missed our last meeting and is also not in the picture um but this is uh the work that I'm going to present Then under a focus um standard one uh focus area one is largely uh a product of this team's hard work and their commitment to strengthening both teaching and learning at the dlo school. So focus area one teaching and learning uh we all know is about meeting our students diverse needs through highquality instruction and vertically and horizontally aligned curricula. So, our first action step uh in this
021area is one that we share with Potter and Quinn, and it centers on a strong and supported implementation of our new literacy program that I'm sure you've heard a lot about. So, I know you've heard about the process that the district undertook that led us to the selection of CKLA, uh, which is the name of our program, and I'd like to acknowledge the teachers in our building that served on that district team of educators in piloting and doing the hard work in selecting the right program for our district. and they are Cheryl Cam, Kelsey Grant, Melissa Pickering, Robin Colbeck, and co-eing teams Amanda Deppen and Megan Maniglia and Lynn Baker and Sarah Kudo. So, while our goal next year is to ensure that our teachers receive the supports necessary to implement CLA with integrity, this
022group of educators that piloted and served on this committee has already stepped up in our building to bring their colleagues into the work this year. So after CKA was adopted, um our piloting teachers continued to teach it and almost immediately they opened their classrooms to their colleagues throughout the building for learning walks to observe CKLA lessons. And by the end of May, the end of this month, each grade level team in our building will have conducted at least three learning walks, some more in various classrooms. And this has been incredibly helpful to our teachers across the building. uh who've had the opportunity to observe different components of the program. They've seen writing, they've seen the reading instruction, but they've also seen the assessment uh aspects. I feel like they've gotten a really strong picture of
023what this program will bring. Um and it's it is really um thrilled our teachers for the most part. The feedback is so wonderful and we continue through our first action step uh to uh support our teachers uh next year in learning from and supporting one another in the full imple implementation of CQLA in the fall. All right, moving on to our second school-based action step. Uh we are establishing a schoolwide focus on developing academic um discourse across all classrooms and grade levels. So this action step um is a continuation and a broadening of some work that we started this year in bringing academic discourse to classrooms at dlo. So when we talk about a academic dis discourse, we talk about kids engaging, questioning, reasoning with their peers in the classroom. And it's so necessary to
024promote critical thinking, uh collaboration, and deep learning in classroom environments. And last fall, under the guidance of our EL teacher, Carrie De Jesus, um we had four teachers who volunteered to start working on integrating academic discourse in their uh classrooms. and we are hoping to get together over the summer and work on bringing those four teachers along with Mr. Jesus uh to the table to develop some PD for the fall as we launch this schoolwide initiative. We really want to be able to walk into classrooms and see our students engaging at a high level and digging in. We think that CQLA is going to be wonderful for doing this. Um we know our math program is also well suited for this and we just want to make it a focus throughout the building. Um, our
025third action step under uh this area is to reestablish and strengthen our multi-tiered systems of support. We call that MTSS. And you might be wondering what that is. It's a schoolwide approach uh simply stated to meet our students academic and behavioral needs through multiple levels or tiers of support. Uh so next year our school uh instructional leadership team along with the social emotional learning team that um Mr. Hill heads will coll collaborate to strengthen and refine a streamlined process uh and protocols for more effectively using data to inform the decisions and the interventions that we're providing our students at DLO. Moving along and our fourth and final action step in this area um is to establish a schoolwide focus also on providing our students with more opportunities to work with uh meaningful relevant and challenging
026math in the classroom every day. This action step was drafted in response to the work that our silt has done uh looking at math data and it's also come from our interventionist our math team as they work with students across classrooms and buildings. We'd like to see students digging more deeply into math at DLA school. We we had a schoolwide focus all year long long on being a math person and bringing math to everyone and getting students to understand that they can all be math people. Um and we want our students to grapple and to engage in productive struggle in meaningful ways that will build their proficiency and their confidence in math. Uh this action step is really rooted in the standards for mathematical practice which are part of the common core state standards for
027math and the standards for mathematical practice describe how students should engage in math not just what they should know. When we think about the standards we just think about the concepts that kids need to master. The the uh standards of mathematical practice really tell us how kids get there. And uh for the upcoming school year, our teachers uh are going to focus on two specific standards of the eight standards for mathematical practice which really center on building students ability to make sense of problems and persevere through solving them and teaching students to construct arguments and critique the reasoning of others. And this kind of does dovetales really nicely with the work that we'll be doing on around academic discourse. Uh if you move ahead in focus area two um there is a goal that's around
028designing professional development. Um and we will seek to provide our teachers and staff next year with professional development and collaborative opportunities that support strong instruction and personal growth. Earlier this year we sent out a survey asking staff to identify areas of professional development that they were interesting in pursuing. And Mr. the hill and I will work with the silt and the team in using the results of this survey to fine-tune PD opportunities that are differentiated and meet the teachers needs in a format that they find engaging and motivating. So that is all for focus area one and I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Hill for focus area two. Okay. So to focus on the safe and supportive schools, I thought what I'd do is I would read for you what the action steps
029are and then kind of summarize in my own words what what what we'll be doing at dlo. So to collaborate with a behavior specialist to expand the use of proactive behavior management strategies, fostering social emotional learning and provide targeted supports to students needing assistance in developing appropriate behaviors. This year has been a wonderful year where we've had the opportunity to work with um Miss Lisa Gibson who is the BCBA newly hired to Dartmouth um shared among um the other elementary schools and she's done uh she's just been a wealth of knowledge for us as she's um not only taught us strategies again proactive strategies but she's also modeled those strategies for us and continuously is working to train our staff on how to best meet the needs of those kiddos from a social emotional standpoint.
030point, behavioral standpoint, and our goal for the next year is to continue to work and collaborate with her and have her sit in on um team meeting, provide professional development. All of that has been um it was wonderful this year and and we're looking forward for that for next year. All right. Um number two, action step number two is to implement schoolwide practices to promote neuroirming learning environment through training staff in neurodeiversity informed strategies, adapting classroom structures to support sensory and cognitive differences and fostering inclusive mindsets that validate all learners strengths and needs. So I thought I thought I would start by just giving a quick um definition of what neuroaffirming means. And what it essentially means is recognizing and val valuing the diverse ways the our the brains function rather than viewing differences as
031a problem to be corrected. Um so our hope and goal for next year is to continue the collaboration of the number of teams that we have. We have anal team. We actually have two PBIS teams, tier one and tier two. Um, and our hope is to provide PD um, to our staff members focusing on strategies that will enhance our staff's ability to meet kiddos where they're at. And that could be behaviorally, cognitively, through sensory needs. So, and one thing just to point out as we are all continuously working on this, academics, like academics behavior is skill-based. Um, and if a child does not have those skills, they're not going to be at their best and most available for learning. So, um, what I wanted to just quick quickly say, an entry point into this into
032this action step is step one is to connect with our kiddos, which is something DLO teachers, all of us pride ourselves on doing. But the hope and goal is that with continuous collaboration, we'll we'll have a deeper understanding of our kiddos's needs, our student needs, and um focusing in on those supports, specifically behavioral supports, um it's an and it's not an or. So if we can focus those behavioral supports, then essentially we'll see our students thrive academically. So that's um action step number two. And then number three is to collect staff and student feedback after each safety drill to assess the effectiveness and update protocols as needed. Um you know gaining input from staff and students is so important. Um, you know, we've done a number of practices this year and you know, it can
033be scary right at first for our little ones especially to um to to practice these drills whether you know they're they're um reverse evacuations or you know a number of of the the drills that we're working on. But we're practicing them through different times of the day. Um you know evacuating during lunch is was interesting. But the more we can practice, um, the the better they'll be, the more confident they'll be in the event that it's not a drill. So, um, getting, you know, just updating those protocols and and hearing feedback is, um, essential, and we continue to do that. All right. So, that was pretty quick. You were much more elaborate than I was, but you did. Okay. Do you take it on three? All right. Great. On three. So for for f focus
034area three which is on family and community engagement um to strengthen family and community engagement we plan to deliver family centered events uh in the evening and during the school day. So, our math members of our math team were here this year. They planned a bring your family to school day, six different ones, one for each grade level. Um, and invited parents sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, and families, any caregivers into DLO school to learn math games that would promote their students uh foundational skills in a fun way. Um, and I was um concerned about how the turnout would be and we had an overwhelming number of caregivers come to each session. It we have a couple of more in the pike and I anticipate they'll be well attended. And when we
035talk to parents uh and caregivers, what we learn is that it's often easier to take an hour, an hour and a half out of your day, your work day to come to school for an event than it is to get everyone home, get dinner on the table, bring this one to sports, bring this one to dance, and then try to get the other to a school event. So, we would like to explore offering more opportunities during the school day for families uh to come in and engage. Um and we're looking forward to planning some of those events over the summer. We will keep our traditional evening events, but I would love to have a hybrid um of both going forward. Uh next year we would also really um like to partner with our PTO as
036well as local uh community groups um to bring some uh caretaker uh uh focused uh work um to DLO school. We'd love to have family nights, caregiver nights where um people can come in and learn about some critical issues that we think they, you know, we need to to educate um the community more about. From um you know, promoting literacy at home. We want our kids to be reading a lot more than they're reading in some cases to um exploring how screen time affects uh student development. So, the PTO is very excited to do this. We're already looking into some names of some uh people in the area who we might be able to bring in through the PTO to uh deliver um some of these. And what we'd like to do is have a
037live in-person um event each time, but also have a virtual um component to it and then record it for parents who aren't able to come virtually or in person so that they have access to that information. Uh and that is it for focus area three, a lot shorter, so I'm going to turn it back over to Mr. Hill. Okay. So, budget and capital improvements. I'm essentially just going to I'm going to read you the action steps, and that is to collaborate with district leaders and school stakeholders to develop a comprehensive plan that outlines the building's needs, their impact on student achievement and operations, and recommend solutions. Action step number two is to explore all potential funding sources including district funds, grants, and community partnerships to ensure necessary resources are available to support uh student and
038learning success. Questions? Thank you very much. Yes, questions. I will say if no one's jumping right in there that I love that you want to expand educational nights for families on things that affect their kids deeply and um I hope that when you make the videos for them to watch that they will also be available for the whole community to watch. Yeah. Anybody? Yeah. No, I'll just say great presentation. I appreciate once again the alignment with the the district strategic plan and certainly see that through all the schools that have presented. Um and no, I I'm excited to see uh what next year brings to DLO and your SL team and everything that you've you've put together here. So, job well done. I mean, a great uh I might go down the the road now.
039Uh great work. I I agree with uh my colleague like nice alignment to the district strategic plan. Um I really appreciate your um outside of the box thinking around engaging families in in a unique way. Uh and I also really um uh appreciate the work that you're doing uh with the neurodeiversity and you know I always I believe you know having having a a having uh three children all very unique um in preparing for the most difficult the most challenging in a proactive way. Um, having those tools in your toolbox as an educator can only help you for when any any child or a colleague comes into uh into work having had a bad evening or something you know go on that when you have those tools and that ability to kind of um think
040about what you know Lisa Gibson or someone else has imparted the wisdom that they've imparted to you and thinking um in ways to support students and your and your your fellow colleagues. I think it's it's a win. So, um it prepares us for the bigger picture. So, I just really appreciate your your focus, all of what you shared, but those two things in particular stood out to me. So, thank you. Oh, I agree with my colleagues and and thank you very much. uh you know it was the uh question that I have is your uh your BCBA is she the one that came up with explaining like the uh how the brain works and that type of deal or is that just a science is she the one that came up well I think it's
041a collaborative effort where I'm looking over here at at Dr. uh Heather Noise FET who also um did a a professional development you know learning about the neurodiversity and neurirming approaches and whatnot. So it's actually started there but it's certainly um carried over with what Lisa Gibson does and again she focuses on the research base and you know what what research says is something that we take very obviously we listen to her and she she helps guide us with that. So we're really fortunate to have the Lisa Gibson's the Dr. Heathers uh really everyone on staff has something to bring and we've learned a lot a tremendous amount from both of them just this year. Right. Very thankful to have them. Thank you. Great job. Appreciate you know they've all been super this year and
042how they've lined up with uh the strategic plan. So thank you. Yeah. I wanted to know too the neuroaffirming um training that you're doing because um to see neurodeiversity as strength is really important and as we're seeing a wider range of neurodeiversity in students we're seeing it the higher ed level as well. I think it's really important to learn to adjust to the individual which I know is difficult to do in a classroom full of children. So, um I'm I'm impressed with that and um great. We'll be anxious to see next year at this time. Yeah, we're certainly excited for it. I was going to say we would love to have you visit us and talk more about it. Okay. I definitely will. Thank you. Dr. Sab Magcguire, you have something to say? I do.
043I just want to add that, you know, you before we talk about your school improvement plan, your reference to the Lisa Gibson position, and I know that's been really wellreceived. But I want to thank the committee because that was the position that you approved for us last year. We came to you, we told you that we saw a real need for a position that could be in the district on a consistent basis. And not that we didn't have outside supports. We have folks now out in our our schools doing that work. But that was a position that we brought in knowing that our educators were searching for more consistent and timely support and that position has certainly paid off for us in lots of ways this year. Um so that social emotional learning piece that
044we've committed to at the district level, uh this is where you see evidence that it is in fact having real impact. So, I just want to thank the committee for supporting us with that position last year. And then as far as the school improvement plan, I mean, what what I'm so excited about is there's a plan. I mean, there is a plan and you can hear and I thank all of our school leaders and our school-based folks because um when when um Mrs. Korea talks about the school improvement leadership team. Those folks when you come to the table, whether you know it in that moment or not, what you're sharing and that work that you're doing together is in fact informing the work that we're doing at the district level through the schools because after
045all, we can have the best district strategic plan on paper. Um, and it can look pretty and it can sound good, but at the end of the day, it's how the schools are using that plan that I remind people was informed by the folks in this school district. Um, so I'm really excited to see it all come together. Um, and as I think u, Mr. Oliver or someone said, "We can't wait to see like really as we start to be able to report out to you the impact that these plans are having on teaching learning." And I laugh when teaching and learning is the longest part. There's a reason it's the longest part. It's because that's actually the work that we do in our schools and everything else supports that most important work, which is
046teaching and learning. So, I just I thank you for the hard work that you've all done. Thank you. And I thank the committee again for your support because you when we want to be able to come back to you and say look this had impact and you just got to hear that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So moving along, we're on Madam Chair. Oh yes. Make a motion that we approve. Oh, we have to approve that. Sorry. The Joseph Dlo school uh school improvement plan. Second. A motion by Mr. afternoon. Second by Miss Beckwith. All in favor? I I opposed. Passes unanimously. And now we move on to old business. And I will turn it over to Dr. Sa Maguire to talk about and I'm going to then turn it
047right over to I know Mr. Kylie has a a few slides that he wants to share with you. and you know he's been involved with the long-term capital plan long range capital planning team for uh for well I think a two years now and what I'm excited about what he's about to share with you is that we're really starting to see more than just a plan formed but something on paper that I really do believe we're going to see some action. So thank you Dr. S Maguire. So, the presentation that um the long-term capital planning committee uh has proposed is scrolling through the screen right now. I'm not sure why it's scrolling, but you can't blame me this time. Fairly rapidly scrolling through the screen. Might be hard for me to keep up with that.
048I'm um so so this is, you know, not my presentation. This is a presentation that was created by the long-term capital um improvement planning committee and uh the town moderator has been gracious enough to give that long-term planning committee time at town meeting. Um when the capital improvement planning the capital improvement article comes up uh Mr. Tattlebomb will be presenting this presentation. It'll be a fairly brief presentation. I think about 8 to 10 minutes. You'll you'll you know we'll take a look at some of the school relevant pages. Now it's it's 10 pages in total including the including the cover book. Um what is particularly important is um that um if you look at the top projects that are identified on this list um this includes possible start dates and it has the Dartmouth High
049School roof and windows um as number one over there on the left uh with a possible start date of 2026. Uh the DMS replacement is number four on the list with a 2028 start. Dlo and Potter schools are number seven on the list with a 2030 and 2035 start. Quinn is on the list at number eight with a 2040 start. And Dartmouth Memorial Stadium is also on the list and at number nine with a TBD let's see what we can do type plan. Um I think that's encouraging. I think that this group is made up of um folks that the selectmen um you know appointed to this group and and I think there's a recognition amongst everyone there that that the schools are an important um investment that needs to be made and it can't
050be made 10 years from now. It needs we need to move this for this process forward. So I think that's reflective of the of the list here. There are other priorities in town that are also going to require investment. Um and it was important we we everyone worked together to to make sure that that was um you know represented in this for instance drinking water and waste water and so forth. So so there's a slide about public works. I won't really get into that. As I mentioned, the schools um are are indicated here. Um the stadium will be on the next slide. So, we'll we'll see that in a minute. Um again, the so these just have a very brief description of the individual situation with uh each of those school buildings. We've sort of
051lumped Dlo and Potter together because they're kind of lumped together. They were built at the same time. they um are in pretty much the same exact condition and um you know should be addressed at approximately the same time. Um so those are those are listed here. Um community what what we're calling community services. Um they've incorporated Memorial Stadium on there with a couple of other projects. Um, we have a timeline showing the dates that are really reflected on that priority top 10 priority sheet. Some discussion here related to schools and payment options. It does reference the MSBA and our the nec the necessity for us to move forward and and do that. So, I may have mentioned this before, but I do think that in the next regular MSBA cycle, it would be time for
052us to um initiate a statement of interest for the Dartmouth Middle School property. And so, we'll we can talk more about that, but um I you know, I think that that would be something next year uh to do. And then finally uh that group is hoping to have a series of uh forums in which folks can come out and learn more uh about the projects and ask questions, have some dialogue. Um there are no dates here. We're talking about in September. Um September's a a busy month shockingly for us, right? We're just getting back to school. We have two school committee meetings on uh September 8th and the 22nd. Um we have all the back to school nights and lots lots of lots of stuff going on. Um I was looking they like to publish
053a date when they make this presentation. So, we can take a look at our calendars and see how that um maybe the third week in September um looks because that would be in between school committee uh meetings and after um back to school nights. So, the week of uh September 15th is a Monday. It doesn't have to be on a Monday. In fact, I think they're shooting for Wednesdays. they're talking about or Thursdays kind of midweek. Um maybe Wednesday, September 17th. But if if um over the next I mean we have until town meeting to pick this date, but town meeting's coming up pretty quick. But if we can schedule it tonight, that would be great. If not, we can um you know get back to them with with with some date. um at that
054I would I would assume that we um what we are going to do each so we'll prepare some sort of presentation and we'll have to work obviously with the school committee before we before we um are ready to present that in September uh highlighting the the issues that exist amongst those facilities just so that people have something to take a look at and can understand what we're dealing with with these schools and um and then have an opportunity for people to ask questions. So, and that's the plan. It's a plan. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, it's long overdue. And and I've got to say, I mean, you know, I know M Mr. Tattlebomb was a major factor in driving the creation of this group. Um I I I we I had received some feedback from
055you know a member or two of the school committee about um rep school committee representation on the group and and I think that is 100% welcome. The select board appoint created the group and um my understanding is that the town administration is going to be bringing it back up to the select board um after town meeting to add members to the group. So there would be some school school committee member uh sitting on the group. So I think that'll be helpful um you know to sort of spread the word and and have um have a representative on the group because while while you know I live in these buildings all the time it it would be nice to have one of you um there with me too advocating for us. But um but yeah so
056it's been a great group. they've made tons of progress and um just the fact that they recognize that this work needs to be done is a huge step in the process. So questions, thoughts, comments, I can offer feedback to the long-term capital planning committee too if you have some. Mr. Nunes, thank you madam chair. Thank you Mr. Kylie and to the capital improvement committee for this is in a nutshell this is a start I think as to to what we need uh number one just personally the uh at at the moment the week of the 15th of September is wide open for me so I'm good you know I would not knowing what and again just it makes sense but probably be a home football game on the 19th on a Friday night. So, but
057other than that, uh that that week is fine. Uh have they attempted, you know, pie in the sky, you know, spin around three times in a chair and pull a number out of a hat as to what uh the costs of some of these projects would be. So, type of deal. Yeah. Yes. Uh so initially um and and we're not ready to publish that and that's part of this I mean projecting the cost out to 2040 for the Quinn school right now is yeah impossible right um but um we did look at it and what was important to note is that there's a great deal of borrowing capacity in the town currently. um you know we're not we don't have much debt on the books. Um so we have the ability to move forward and
058actually complete projects right now. They would require you know a large project obviously like you know a middle school project or an elementary school project would require a debt exclusion vote and it would you know be a long-term borrowing but there is uh there is capacity to do that. Um we also feel that it's not unaffordable to do if you if if we space these out enough. Um it's possible that that you know we could accomplish something in the next 50 years where all of these things are taken care of. Some can't just can't wait. But some will have to, I suppose. But but um but yeah, it's it's it's not it's not impossible to make this work. I mean, if there's if there's debt capacity, I mean, you know, put my finance hat on
059for a second. you know, if you retire debt this year, you should replace it with debt only because if you take that money and throw it into a general operating, then leave the when you go to put the money back to debt, you're in trouble. So, exactly. That's level debt service would be, you know, ideal, right? And I and I think that there's an acknowledgment that we got, you know, for a while that is sort of what we were trying to do, I think, in town and got away from that a little bit. Yeah. Um, and obviously the high school came off the books and yeah, you know, that was exclusion. So, that's all I have. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yep. Anybody else? No, just I think my my comment is similar to what I'm
060hearing is that it's just it's a plan. It's it's a it's a step and uh you know, it centers the the needs of the whole community. Um uh and it it seems to incorporate all of the needs. So it's it's encouraging and uh it's a first step. I would agree. Yeah. All right. So we don't meet before town meeting. So can we all look at our calendars and see that so that we can give them an answer before town meeting? I'm on board with what Mr. Non said 15th. Same uh Wednesday better than Thursday. But yeah. Yeah, we're talking. Yeah. I mean, if you you look at, you know, 16, 17, 18, 15. Are they looking for three separate dates? Oh, yeah. But just one for us. Okay. One date for Great. the schools, one
061date for public works, and one date for the other projects. Although I suppose that we need to be represented at the community service thing too in terms of the stadium. So, big deal. They have Wednesday up there. Did they wanted want Wednesday or does do you think it doesn't matter? I mean, if if if another date is better, we could do a Tuesday or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I mean, I think we'd stay away from Friday probably. But yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, everybody's good for the 17th or Yeah, the Wednesday's fine. The 17th. Wednesday the 17th. Okay. Thank you all. I'll let them know and um let them know that you're encouraged by the progress. So I appreciate it. And ongoing budget FY26. Yeah. Okay. So um something that I think is important and it's related
062to budget is that we know we can't ignore that we have our faculty and staff who have been obviously outside and um holding signs and coming to town meetings, school committee meetings, and we just want to acknowledge and validate how important that we believe that is for our staff and faculty as a group. Um, and we also want to acknowledge that we really don't want you to have to do that. We shouldn't want our faculty and staff to have to advocate for themselves by standing outside of meetings and holding signs and having to come to um to public comment to uh make statements about why it's so important to value your educators and your staff. But something that I'm just going to focus on for a couple of minutes is related to negotiations in that
063we are continuing to emphasize the importance of arriving at a fair and a sustainable agreement. And this is an agreement that does need to properly value its professionals. And we need to acknowledge, and I think we do, that our professionals and our supporting staff, they are the backbones of our student success. And that's true every single day. And we did hear one of our ESPs talk directly to that this evening. The current health insurance infrastructure right now, it's just it's a significant financial hardship for most employees who take the insurance in this community. And this should be unacceptable. Health care should be accessible and it should be affordable. Um it's not only a basic need, but it's a critical factor and it does indeed affect recruitment. It affects our retention and our overall sense of
064well-being in our community at large. Educators and staff should not be forced to make difficult choices about healthcare. and we're fully supporting working toward a contract that is fair to our employees and fiscally responsible for the district. And that includes advocating for improvements to our benefits package, especially related to health insurance. Um we're committed to prioritizing this work in partnership with our school committee, in partnership with other town departments and the residents of the Dartmouth community as we continue long-term planning. As you see, we're talking about long-term capital planning, but we're also talking about long-term planning designed again to support the education of our young people, which is of course of primary importance in any community. We have faced some adjustments this year, but we do want to focus on a path forward. Specifically, how
065can we work together to address these crit critical concerns over time? Because it does need to be over time. It didn't happen overnight and it won't be solved overnight, but we do want to work toward creating sustainable solutions. We share the same goal. All of us share the same goal and that's to create a work environment that values staff that supports our students and strengthens our schools and the greater community. We appreciate our educators for their advocacy. We appreciate our staff for their adv advocacy. and we support you in pursuing more affordable health insurance options and improve compensation as we move forward. That's a goal that we all have and I think that we can and I know our team I know in talking with members of the committee individually we all share the same
066goal and it's about how we have a put together a plan that allows us to get there. Mr. Kylie, I don't know if you want to add anything about where we are in the budget process because we are in turn grateful for some of the movement that the town has made to address some of the significant concerns that we had around the ESSER funded positions. Thank you, Dr. S Magcguire. No, I'm just pleased to report that the select board and finance committee both unanimously supported our um 4.4% budget proposal. So, that's great. So, and that's reflected on the on the schedule A for the town meeting warrant which just came out today. So, excellent. And and I would say I'm also pleased that our budget was um recommended um but being mindful that our budget
067requests were not all funded. We didn't ask for them because there was there wasn't the money to fund them. Um, and we the committee are mindful that our health insurance benefit package is not what it should be. Um, but I do believe that the high deductible plan that the town worked on several years ago is a real step in the right direction. It just needs to be more accessible to all of our employees. Um, so a hurdle is money and I don't think that we're going to solve all of those issues without money. But um, we are, as Dr. As a Maguire said, moving hopefully towards supporting all our teachers and staff, educators, um and hopefully we can get the whole town behind us with more monetary support so we can meet those needs. Um,
068and anybody else on the budget questions, statements? I said my pieces. Yeah, me too. Okay. Um, new business. Superintendent's update. Great. So, um, I'll mention MCCAST because believe it or not, I feel like I've been talking about it for a few a few months and I think that people, the educators and the students and the parents and the principles would say, "Yeah, it's been going on for a few months." And um, and I just want to thank Jonathan and his team for the support they are out there giving to the schools on an ongoing basis. Our technology team, our coaches, I know I mentioned this last time, but this isn't just a oneandone. This really does take a significant amount of time. I'd also mention the National Honor Society. Um I'm pleased to share that
069this year's ceremony was my first here uh in Dartmouth and it was um it was quite an event honoring the character, achievement and character of 70 outstanding students who were selected based on the pillars of scholarship, service, leadership and character. and it was truly a memorable evening and I enjoyed being there. So, congratulations to all of our new inductees and their families and staff who have supported them along the way. Uh, we already talked about budget and capital improvement, but I will give you an update under what's going on with human resources. Uh, the first round of interviews for the parter school assistant principal and the Dartmouth High School associate principal have taken place. We will be conducting final interviews this week. So, we expect by the end of the week or early next week
070be able to be able to share uh those folks that have been selected for those positions. And again, it a lot of time goes into this and I want to thank the folks that took time out of their really busy schedules to um participate in these interviews and give their input. As we know, hiring for those positions are really critical to the success of our schools. There are some other positions that you see that are being posted pretty much on a daily basis as we um respond to movement that's happening across the district. Whether it's content teachers at the high school, middle school, special educators. I mean, we're hopeful that we'll be able to fill those positions. We're happy to have those positions advertised as early as possible because we do want to capitalize on
071folks that are sort of this is hiring season for us in our field and we want to make sure that we're we're able to attract uh the best folks uh that are the right fit for Dartmouth. Um, so for family and community engagement, you know as well as I that there's something going on just about every single day as uh Mrs. Koreah referred to uh every single day and every single night here in the Dartmouth schools. These school if you drive through town you'll see the parking lots are really busy places um and I expect that only to increase over the next couple of weeks. Uh we celebrated teacher appreciation week. I cannot uh not uh acknowledge the PTO and the staff uh the leadership staff out in the schools who really do so many
072creative things to honor the faculty and staff in their buildings. There were quite a few lunchons that I was I keep up to date on what's going on across the district who's getting what. And I have to say um there were some good menus out there for people to enjoy throughout the week. And then just on behalf of central office, we sent an ice cream truck to each school after la the teacher appreciation week because we knew they would not be able to indulge in any more um treats during the week of teacher appreciation. So we just want to um again just let our educators know how much we appreciate everything that they do every day. We want to recognize Mass Hire. Uh, Mass Hire has generously benefited our school this year, our high school
073with fif over 15,000 in grant dollars in f grant funding to help cover transportation and field trip related costs. Um, thanks to their support, you hear some us update you on some of the uh, experiences that our students have been able to participate in. And in particular, Devin Rabbitali, I hope I said that right. um who is our contact at Mass Hire and of course Mr. Parade whose support makes all of this happen. So we're really grateful for those opportunities and again those are like the small kinds of grants that make a big difference and what we're able to provide for our students under safe and supportive schools. I want to highlight something from our middle you many of you uh were able to participate or to visit the civics's um school I mean the
074middle school civics presentations and really exemplified the power of student voice and civic engagement and action. Uh Mr. Mr. Kylie and I uh had an opportunity to sit with a group of eighth grade students who and I would say across the board students were serious about the presentations that they made and that they made a connection to being able to make realworld changes um using their voices. One in particular, I'm just going to mention, we had a group of eighth grade girls who met with us and they passionately advocated for the availability of menstrual products in the girls' bathroom throughout the school at the middle school level. And when they presented their rationale, it was so incredibly logical that we looked at each other and said, "How could we have missed this for so long?"
075Because of course, that's the exact age where you want young women to have access to those kind of products. And so with uh Mr. Kylie and others, we were able to immediately in the in the moment uh respond to them and and they were just so excited and really an example of um student voice making a tangible difference in the community because that came from them. um special Olympics this past Friday at the high school. I was able to come over again. The number of our staff and educators who are out there on those fields supporting our students is really remarkable and it is uh really I think validating to see the other communities that are coming to Dartmouth to participate in those kind of experiences and and with people like Mike Capello, John Brol
076and others um you know Lori Denio and Kim Redlon I know along with our special educators and really I can't tell you the number of of people that I saw coming from the elementary schools just to be able to reconnect with students that they had prior. So, it it's such a meaningful event and just the energy and the spirit of the event is um one that I'd say is is the best way to describe it is joyous and and those are the kinds of experiences and opportunities we want our students to have. Not just our special ed students, but the students who are here in the high school who are out there on the field supporting each other. That's what I think that when we talk about creating inclusive environments, that's a shining example of
077what we mean by inclusivity and just our students feeling that they really belong here. And so that is my superintendent report. Well, thank you. Thank you. Um so new business. Um I did want to mention that last meeting we had said we wanted a meeting with a joint meeting with the select board but due to the fact that they did um support our budget. Um the feeling was we did not need that but next year we'll look into it. Um, also, uh, we talked briefly last week or last meeting about, uh, a goal setting retreat in August and we were thinking of maybe putting aside August 18th. Mr. Nunes wasn't there, but I was wondering if people could just look at their calendars and say whether that works or not because we're meeting the 25th,
078right? Yeah. Happy birthday. August 18th. You said that is correct. What time? Uh it would be 5:30. Does that work? Yep. Works for me. Okay. And it works for you. Yep. All right. Um would that be here? Uh it would be at um Bush Street. Bush Street. Okay. Yeah, that sounds okay. Um and then along the lines of we have the town meeting coming up and um of course we're happy and hopeful that our school budget will pass town meeting. I did want to mention one other warrant item um which is asking whether the town wanted to allow um people who have the training and the um license to open carry to be able to do that in town owned buildings not including schools. Um, prior to this, all of Massachusetts didn't allow that, but
079our legislator just legislators just changed that and is allowing towns to exempt out of it. And so there's a warrant to allow people who have a license to do that to carry in town hall, in libraries, um, not schools. Um, I just wanted to share that I do not think it makes our children safer to have guns in our public spaces. Um, also many of our townowned properties are close to our schools or close to playgrounds where our children are. Um, so I just wanted to say that that is a warrant item and I do think it affects our children. Um, and so I hope that town meeting members will consider that when they vote. Anybody else have any updates? Yeah, madam. Yep. Mr. Thank you, Madam Chair. uh as far as like a meeting
080with I know I wasn't here at the last meeting but I did catch bits and pieces and that and uh yeah I for one was not pleased that uh we didn't get the invite to the to that meeting but that's water over the dam. Uh but depending what's going on in October, maybe we ought to look at a possibility of something then dep you know and you know depending what we need and what's going on in the town at that point in time just to I'll just you know as you say put it out there and and think about it. Yeah. Let's be proactive. Yeah. Yeah. You know that type of deal. I know uh Dr. disable Magguire talked about Mass Hire and I'm just wondering if you know between the gentleman from Mass Hire
081and uh you know Mr. Sheay and Mr. Parate if they can put you know at the next meeting put some type of a a presentation on that together and I'm sure Mr. Paratt's listening back there and he's very excited and would love to have that you know opportunity you know just I mean and number one we as a committee can say thank you to Mass Hire and you know put faces to names as they say. Anybody else? That's it. All right. Um, our next meeting, regular meeting of the school committee is scheduled for Monday, June 9th, 2025 at 6 PM in the Dartmouth High School Media Library Center as well as via live li live stream at the DHS TV media. Um, and I am looking for a motion to move to executive session pursuant
082to MGLC30A 213 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining where an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the school committee's bargaining position DAA and DEA pursuant to MGLC 3A21A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining where an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the school committee's bargaining position Dartmouth Education Association and pursuant to MGL 3A21A2 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-UN personnel move second and not return to open session um motion motion we adjourn with executive session as you have described and not return to open session a motion made by Mr. No, second by Miss Beckwith. Roll call, please. Chris Oliver, yes. Kathleen Emerald, yes. John Nunes, yes. Mary Beckwith, yes. Miss C, yes. Good night. Thank you.