Dartmouth School Committee Meeting, May 5 2025

001yellow. I Good evening everyone. I'd like to call the 20125 May 5th meeting of the Dartmouth School Committee to order. And those who are able, would you please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flagg 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. Um, welcome everyone. Uh, for your information, this meeting of the Dartmouth School Committee will be held well here at the media center starting at 6. Just did. Um, public is granted physical access. Um, we are live streaming this at youtube.com dhstv media. The school committee reserves the right to implement additional remote participation procedures and will notify the public if that so happens. I guess that was not entirely necessary. Um, this meeting is being

002recorded and will rebroadcast on DCTV channels 9 on the following days. Wednesdays and Thursdays at 5, Friday at 6, Saturday at 8, and Sunday at 2. The meeting will be rebroadcast on DCTV channel 18 on the following days, Monday and Saturday at 12 and Thursdays at 3. And you can check us out on YouTube as well. Um and now we have set aside time for public comment 10 minutes. If anyone is interested in speaking on any evening any topic on this evening's agenda uh please come to the mic state your name and try to contain your comments to three minutes. Hi everyone super wrapping up fifth grade at Potter School. Um, today, day one of teacher appreciation day, I um will also extend my appreciation to you all for the dedication that you have to

003our students of this community. I got to gush on your bride today, which she knows she's my my sensei. Thank you. Um, my teachers, as I've said in the past, are my village. They are my everything. And promised I wouldn't do that. It's a clearly a very emotional topic for me that we have to even fight for our teachers the way that we do. And we all know that the budget is a pretty tense topic these days. And I would just keep it brief and I will simply ask that we we just can't be losing our teachers. That can't be the first to go. They're they're what our students need. They our students rely on our teachers for emotional support, educational support, the whole all of it. as do our parents that we're all very

004connected to my village of people, our village of people. We're we're all in this together. So, thank you for your time. Let's uh I would I would I guess pose can we beg the school committee to please give us what we need to run the schools and and let's ask the school committee, you're the school committee, the select board to give us what we need to run our schools. So, thank you so much. And um my teacher appreciation week is all year long. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair, did we do a roll call? Um you we didn't. Sorry. Sorry to interrupt, but just wanted to Um, Chris Oliver here. Kathleen Emerald here. John Nunes. Mary Beckwith here. Best Coughlin here. If there's anyone else for public comment. Okay. Um, seeing no

005one approaching the mic, uh, would like to turn the meeting over to Dr. Sa Maguire for some recognition of students. Obviously, this is our favorite time of year recognizing our students for all the great work that they do throughout the school year. And one of the prestigious I think awards that we um award every year is called the MASS Superintendent Certificate of Academic Excellence. And MASS stands for the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent. And so this is an award that's given out in our uh 351 communities across the state. And when you think about that, it's a really select uh number of students who are uh chosen for this award. And Mr. Sheay and his team of folks recommended uh a couple of students who I recognize here. So, it's always fun for me to

006see those students come up and be recognized. And Mr. Sheay, the certificates are at the podium. And so, you'll be able to hand those out and we look forward to hearing more about our students. Yeah. Can I call Tyler and um Audrey up? It's a great pleasure that I have to honor these two recommend uh two um amazing individuals who represent the one dart motto and um I'm going to start with Audrey first. Um Audrey, it is with great pride that I present Audrey Kitcher as our nominee for the prestigious superintendent award of excellence. Audrey exemplifies what it means to be a student that goes above and beyond the traditional learning to represent something greater than herself. For years, Audrey has demonstrated excell ex exceptional dedication to scientific advancement through her work on a malaria

007vaccine in collaboration with a professor at Brown University. Undertaking this research entirely in our own initiative and time. This commitment to applying classroom knowledge to solve railroad challenges that affect millions globally is truly remarkable. Academically, Audrey has purposely sought out the most rigorous path possible, enrolling in every AP course that fit into her schedule possible across all subject areas through her entire high school career. who actually when faced with a schedule limitation for AP Spanish, she pursued a dual enrollment class at Bridgewwater uh uh Bristol Community College in Spanish 2011, showcasing her determination to challenge herself in every subject area. Audrey's talents extend well beyond academics. She's a valued member of our theater company. If anyone went this weekend, it was an incredible show. um an active participant in the dynamic show choir where her

008vocal talents shine with our students core program and has placed in a finalist as poetry out loud demonstrated her command for language and speaking skills. As a two season varsity athlete for DHS, Audrey exhibits remarkable discipline and team leadership representing our school with distinction through her entire academic career. Perhaps most importantly, Audrey approaches all her accomplishes with humility and genuine desire to improve her community. She serves as a member of the student council and as you know on the school committee offering a valuable student perspective while consistently demonstrating generous and respect in all interactions. Audrey shows sincere interest in bettering DHS for current and future students embodying the true spirit of this award. A student whose impact extends far beyond personal achievement to inspire and elevate the entire community around her. Audrey's going to leave

009us to go to John Hopkins University and u major in public health with a pre-med track with a Spanish minor. Ladies and gentlemen, Audrey Kutcher 50. I am also extremely proud to uh present Tyler Fer as our nominee for superintendent's award of excellent. Ty has distinguished himself through exceptional academic achievement paired with dedicated leaderships on technicals and discipline. Ranked among the top students in his class, Tyler has pursued the most challenging academic path possible. Undertaking an exceptionally rigorous course load, including 10 AP courses in just his junior and senior year alone, the most he's allowed to take while still ensuring he has time to meet the mass core requirements and also be in part of the band. This remarkable intellectual capacity to balance such demanding schedule while maintaining excellence across all subject areas speaks volumes

010about his dedication and abilities all while being an active member of the DHS marching band and music program. Tyler has himself as one of our premier STEM students mastering seven AP courses specifically in math and science. He has emerged as a standout performer in our first year of AP physics C mechanics course which I must say is probably one of the toughest AP classes we've offered here. um he has successfully integrated the advanced calculus concepts that are needed for that class um with complex physical applications. This demonstrates a rare intellectual versatility and ability to apply theor theoretical complex uh concepts to practical problems. Beyond classroom excellence, Tyler has shown dedication and leadership. Um is a four-year member of both our band and robotics teams. In these roles, he has taken on increasing leadership responsibilities, mentoring

011younger students and helping strengthen these programs for future generations. What truly sets Tyler apart is how he uses his talents to elevate others around him. Side note, I just learned this and I think this is connected to it is this must be him connected to being an Eagle Scout as well. And I think those characteristics come out. He's willing to share his knowledge with peers, serve as an informal tutor and mentor, demonstrating excellence and personal character go hand in hand for Tyler. Tyler represents the ideal candidate for this award. A student whose academic achievements are matched by leadership, character, and commitment to using his talents to better our school community. Tyler will be leaving us to tr in to continue his passion in the STEM field at WPI for chem chemical engineering. Ladies and gentlemen,

012Tyler Ferrer. I'm sure you'd rather talk to them. They're way more intellectual, as you can know, than I am. So if you have any questions for them, please the floor's theirs. Well, I don't have any questions, but uh on behalf of the whole committee, um we are all so proud of you and you reflect Dartmouth, Dartmouth High School and Dartmouth in a wonderful way. Um so kudos kudos. Anybody else? Yeah. No, congratulations to you both. Yes. Thank you. I was going to say something about the Eagle Scout thing. As a daughter of a scout leader and a sister of an Eagle Scout, I've always sort of admired um uh watching the two of you really grow from afar from Dartmouth Early Learning Center all the way on up. And so um yeah, you are the

013best of uh you know of and uh are such an inspiration I'm sure to your peers as was just noted as well. and um and amazing the work you're doing at at uh on your own time and and uh in science and research. So yeah, this is incredible. Welld deserved. Congratulations both of you. So we move on to the minutes and the chair will entertain a motion to approve the regular minutes of April 4th, 2025. So moved. Second. All in favor? I I. All opposed. Looks like it's unanimous. Um, I will now entertain a motion to approve the executive minutes of April 14th, 2025 with the stipulation that they be held till the matter for which they are intended is completed. So moved. Second. All in favor? I I opposed. Uh, all in favor? Unanimous.

014Um, next up we have the student representative, uh, Elizabeth O'Neal reporting on what is happening. Hi. Um, good evening and welcome. We have just come back from a refreshing April break and are gearing up for the last few weeks of school. Dartmouth High School's theater company had a very successful weekend full of performances for the High School Musical. Congrats to all involved. This past Friday, we celebrated the day of kindness at the high school. This event brought our school community together to focus on spreading kindness. Shout out to the following clubs who made this event a great success. The BSU and allyship club in partnership with the GSA, the Christian Fellowship Club, and the video game club, as well as the fishing club, the sunshine club, and several individual students. Junior banquet is also right

015around the corner and the junior class is preparing for a night full of fun. Information regarding the tickets will be posted this week in the class of 2026 Google classroom. The countdown for the last day of school for all classes is on. But before then, our students are preparing for their upcoming AP exams, MCCAST, and final summitives. May is a very busy month of assessments, so sending all good luck to all of our students as they prepare. And just a reminder, our after prom committee is hosting a wicked singalong here at the high school this Saturday, May 10th. Tickets are still available to purchase on Parent Square. And the 13th annual preK12 art show will be held on Thursday, May 8th, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Dartmouth High School. Each school in

016the district will have their students artwork on display. Thank you for taking the time to recognize us this evening, respectfully the DHS student representatives. Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you. Yes, May is a busy month. Um, and uh, you are welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting, but of course, uh, if perhaps you have other things that are pulling you away, please. Thank you. Um, next up, we have two consent agendas. um won the dig green volleyball camp and also the summer elementary enrichment program. So, I'm going to invite Mrs. Paveo up. Um she is going to talk about the the summer elementary enrichment program and some of the changes that we have had to make in response to um you know uh we've we've lost the ESSER funding that's funded the summer programming

017in for the past few years and so in response to that we've had to make some adjustments. So Mrs. Pavo is going to talk about Hey good evening everybody some of what we're requesting from you this evening. Um, so I hope you got the request over and as Dr. Saber Magcguire said, we've had um kind of a shift in the last se several summers about what we were able to offer our students at the elementary level and we were very fortunate through ESSER funding and acceleration academy grants to be able to offer some enrichment opportunities at no cost to families. Um, as you know, those federal funds are no longer available to us. And so we are proposing um a small fee to offset the cost of offering a summer enrichment in the the program

018itself is sort of a hybrid of the two programs um where it's an enrichment program for students entering grades one through grade six. So our students who are already in school um aimed at reinforcing grade level skills to sort of um help them stay in the groove, help them stay in the in the sort of routine for school. Um it's a 4-week program. It mirrors the dates and times of our ESY program. So students would attend um from 8:30 to 11:00 4 days a week for 4 weeks. I'm happy to answer any questions you have about that. Can you explain ESY? ESY is the extended school year program that our special education department runs. So students who um demonstrate um regression over the school year are eligible to attend summer school through the special education

019department. So this is outside of that scope. This is an optional program for students and for families who would like to keep their kids sort of in the routine of school um keep them kind of doing some academic enrichment work throughout the summer. And it is intended to um reinforce grade level skills. So our kiddos who are at the end of first grade, we will make sure that you know it's a reinforcement of those first grade skills. Make sure that those are solidified before we send them off to second grade. Okay, great. Thank you. So I'm just going to add again this is in response to the loss of ESSER funds. And when we think about that and we think about our budget and we start to think sort of holistically about our strategic plan,

020if you remember summer programming, afterchool programming, all of those things are part of our strategic plan and moving forward. The another reason for us to be having uh some serious discussions about the needs for the school department and how the budget is going to best be able to support those needs. But right now, in order to run this camp, we will need to ask for some um financial support on a sliding scale, of course. So, our students who receive free and reduced lunch would receive a reduced or free rate, right? Okay. Any questions? No, you just answered my question. Okay. So, we're voting on um the cost of the camp, which would be $200 for four weeks with the sliding scale. Yes. Um so, a motion to vote. I'll make a motion that we approve

021this program for $200. Second. All in favor? I I I. Anyone opposed? Unanimous. Thank you. Um, and so the other consent agenda is the dig green volleyball and you all got that in your packets for this week. Um essentially it's um a skills building volleyball week and um again there is a cost and so we must vote on it and that is $180 per player which is five days of instruction. Um I don't remember what the cost was last year, but it does seem like it's considerably more than the other program we have. Yeah. If if um you'd like, I can give you a little background on it. So the Dig Green volleyball camp um we we did not run it last year, the year before. Um we did run it uh during the Oh,

022Miss Lassie is here. Miss Miss Lassie is actually um you know running uh the dig green volleyball camp. So we had in the south coast my understanding is that um there was a point where um there was a need for high school um volleyball players to have a have a place to um you know practice their craft and and and get better. We ran the camp. Then New Bedford was running a camp and our students who were interested went to New Bedford for the camp. Well, New Bedford's renovating their gym, so we're bringing the camp back. Um, we have a wonderful coach who decided that, you know, we didn't want that opportunity to be missed for our kids here and kids from other communities to improve themselves. So, hence the return to the Dig Green

023volleyball camp. I don't know what the future holds in terms of long-term um you know long-term running of the camp, but um if you do have any specific questions, I'm sure Miss Lassie would be uh happy to help explain it. Any questions? I do not have any questions. No. All right. Then a motion to approve. I'd make a motion that we approve this. Sounds like a wonderful opportunity. Um and thank you. Second. All in favor? I opposed. None. Unanimous. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Um, next up, we have some school improvement plan presentations. Oh, that's wonderful. Right. Our favorite time of the evening. And I see that uh Dr. Thomas and I'm just gonna say Miss Y so I don't right from the Quinn and again like what I'm excite

024Oh are you having trouble reading her name? No, it's not here. Yalovich. Oh. Um, it's just how it's and so I just want to say as far as the school and I've had the opportunity to preview the school improvement plans that we'll see this evening. And I just want to say how excited I am to be able to see how the schools really have adapted the district strategic plan and aligned it well with the school improvement plan. and and I'm sure that as Dr. Thomas and Mrs. Yermalovich um how did I do that? Great. I thought so. U we'll talk through the school improvement plan and make those connections for us. So, thank you. First of all, thank you so much for having us this evening to talk about our school improvement plan. We're very

025excited to be here. Uh before we begin, I just want to say as a a newly principal, a new principal, um I'm I feel very supported not only by the district leadership team, um as well as obviously Mrs. Dermalovich, and also I just want to give a shout out to Melissa Mckenry and Elizabeth Coria from Dlo and Potter schools. Um this was a very exciting time for us because we were able to collaborate together. So some of the things you'll see in our school improvement plan, you have seen in Mrs. Mckenry's a couple weeks ago and you'll see next school committee with um Liz and so it was just very nice to be able to collaborate with them and we hope to do more of that as we move into next school year. So as

026Dr. Saber Magcguire said our school improvement plan stems from our district strategic plan which is very exciting and there are four uh focus areas um that we're going to be discussing this evening. Um and Mrs. This year Malovich is going to start with teaching and learning which is very exciting. I know right. I know. Hi everyone. Um so I'm going to take this opportunity obviously to talk about our first focus area teaching and learning. Um so throughout this focus area obviously we want to support students meet them where they are ex extend learning and do the best that we can to provide the best instruction. Um one of our first action steps as you know we are we have the exciting opportunity to implement a new curriculum next year. Um and we did have pilot

027pilot classrooms this year that did a phenomenal job. It wasn't an easy task. They had a lot of decisions. They had a lot of extra work that they had to put in, but they did a phenomenal job. Um, so I'm just going to highlight those teachers. Um, in kindergarten we had Christina Shiniggoy. In first grade, Lisa Nimi. Second grade, Missy Giosa. Third grade, uh, Casey Saunders and Taran Defryas. And she's here tonight. Thank you for that. Um, fourth grade, Kelly Rose. and also in fourth grade, Ashley Kapper and Jodie Paresi. Um, and in fifth grade, Donna Dara. So, these teachers not only took on took on the active of learning a new curriculum, they also opened up their classrooms at multiple opportunities for folks in their grade level to watch them get a handle on

028shared experiences and PLC's. Um, so that's another, you know, action step that we really that really went well for us that we want to be able to foster peer observation so that we can have teachers go into the classrooms of the pilot teachers and also the pilot teachers going into their classrooms and really looking and helping and supporting. So it doesn't seem like such a huge task at the beginning of the year. Um also we are going to continue to implement what we call our RTI block which is you know an opportunity for students to again have that tier differentiated instruction um and support them with with that different types of instruction as they see fit as they need it. Um also we are going to or our goal is to create and maintain an

029instructional leadership team as Dr. Dr. Thomas and I were working on this school improvement plan. We wanted to we both kind of came to the understanding that we wanted to have more stakeholders at the table so that everybody has a say and that we can um form a committee so the next time we do the school improvement plan it comes from a group of people. And um also throughout the year we are we really want to send out surveys. We want to get feedback. We want to make sure that people have a say. Um, and this would be done by the, you know, the year-long calendar of professional learning. Um, we do put that out at the beginning of the year, but we really work hard to make that a working document. As things change,

030we change, right? And we want to make sure that our teachers have what they need if they need it in real time. So, that's all for teaching and learning. I'll turn it over to you. Thank you. I'm going to click that one. Oh, I should have done that. That's okay. Okay. So, focus area two are safe and supportive schools. Ensuring that all students feel a sense of belonging and a social emotional well-being in school through the use of culturally and intellectually affirming practices. So, as Mrs. Weiss uh stated, we've kind of gotten away from some of our committees that we really feel passionately about about and we want to reestablish. So, we would like to reestablish a a SIP leadership committee. Um, we had put that we would meet three times per year. That could

031change. It might be more. As Mrs. Mckenry said in her school improvement plan, we don't want the SIP to be something that we discuss tonight and then we kind of put it on a shelf and we don't talk about it until next May. That's not what the SIP is supposed to be or the district strategic plan. It's a working living document and we feel very strongly that we should have stakeholders around the table discussing our SIP, talking about our action steps, talking about our measures of success. It's not just a checkbox, but really delving into what we've done during the school year, what we need to tweak, if anything, change for the following year. So, really having people around the table and and hearing their voices as this document is a living, breathing document that

032we want to continue um continuing our weekly meetings. We do meet once a week with our um outreach social workers. So, Erin Gomes, Melissa Sullivan, Kelly Bloom, Tiffany Martin. Um, and that really is a beneficial time for us. We talk about students. We talk about concerns. Um, we talk about if there's a, you know, a student who isn't coming to school, we'll talk about what can we do to get that student in. Um, so that hour of time per week or so is so important for us. It's critical to ensure that students are getting what they need. Um, and families are getting what they need as well. So, continuing that next year. The other thing that we would like to bring back is our Swiss system, which is the schoolwide information system. They call it

033Swiss data. Um, we've gotten away from that in the past. Um, and we tried something a little bit different with just a Google doc and documenting behaviors, but have come to find out that the Swiss program is actually extremely beneficial to us. um the data that we can get from that information um about students, settings in the school, days of the week, all the things that we can kind of look at together as a team and then determine um modifications or accommodations that we can change in our school for our students. So, that's something that we're going to have for next school year that we did not have this year. As we all know, we have an amazing fifth grade peer leadership program at Quinn. have come here uh before um under Tiffany Martin, again,

034one of our outreach social workers. Um but expanding that fifth grade peer leadership program is something we're really looking to do, keeping what they're doing. Now, I just had two peer leaders come to my office today to talk to me about a school spirit day where they want to raise money for uh children at Boston Children's Hospital so they can buy some books at the book fair coming up. Um they're always thinking about how to make the community better, how to make Quinn better. So, we want to keep that that great boost in school morale um in that student engagement. But again, listening to my colleagues talking with even Melissa Mckenry about, you know, some of the things that she's thinking about with peer mentoring and social skills and having the older kids help with

035the younger kids. So, really talking and collaborating with other schools about what they're doing and maybe adding something onto our peer leadership program that we haven't tried before because we have had it for quite a number of years now. I want to say maybe like 8 to 10 years where we're kind of doing the same thing, but maybe there's something we can expand upon. So, that's something we're really excited about. Um, as far as aligning safety practices, we would like to create a Quinn crisis management team. This kind of stemmed from our district crisis team that's being led by the amazing Kim Redlon. Um but really getting together with our peers and colleagues um as administrators and leaders and then bringing that back back to Quinn and having our um educators and other stakeholders in

036our school to come together reviewing um feedback especially from our safety drills that we do talking about we just did that at the last um staff meeting really debriefing about our safety drills but doing so by looking at data and having um our staff fill out surveys and having that open, honest communication of how they feel those are going and maybe things that we need to tweak or change or just discuss in a forum. Um, so that's something that we'll be doing as well. Again, ensuring all students and staff participate in regular safety drills. It's so important. Um, we've done a really great job of that at Quinn this year and ensuring that we're doing that um, consistently. Um, so that will continue and will ensure that we have a safety drill schedule for next

037year. and again collecting that quantitative and qualitative feedback that's so important um through the thought exchange platform that we're um using here in Dartmouth which I think will really be beneficial for us and for our our uh educators. So those are some of the areas for safe and supportive schools. Now I'm going to hand it over to Mrs. Y for family and community engagement. So, in regards to family and community engagement, we're always looking for ways to strengthen the interactions. Um, the way that we talk to families, the way that they are in our building, the way that they can give us feedback. Um, so obvious one of our action steps is going to be to increase family communication. I think we've done a pretty good job of communicating with families. Some things that we're

038going to add are monthly newsletters, some targeted bullets of dates, always making sure that people have a heads up. We could be um so we'll do that through the monthly newsletter. Continue to support everybody to use the parent square platform. Um the majority of teach our teachers do do it and they find it very effective, but just to make sure that we're supporting those who want to get going with that. Um, we also are going to restructure our school council. We really want to make sure that everybody at that table led by Dr. Thomas has a really clear picture of what happens at Quinn every day. this as she mentioned the safety drills, our procedures, our protocols, um that they can bring back to the community when they have conversations with different people or suggestions

039how we could change if that's something that you know um we want to work on. When before COVID, we had a robust volunteer um amount of people who wanted to volunteer at Quinn. Then when COVID happened, we kind of moved away from that. And I think that it's important to us to bring that back to life and make sure that if there are parents who want to come in and help the teachers in any capacity or help the school, whether it's organizing helping organize the library, um anything what that would look like. Um we really want to push and get that message open. So with that we would do we do do trainings and um you know we have conversations so that everybody knows you know the inner workings of what happens when you volunteer

040at Quinn. Um and also we just want to continue to expand our partnerships with different stakeholders and organizations in the community. Get them into Quinn know that they can access the school as a hub for um anybody who needs it. students, families, teachers, um, and just make sure that we they know that our doors are always open and I will pass it on. Okay. And our focus area four, budget and capital improvements. As again, a new principal, this wasn't something that I had a lot of expertise in when it came to the budget. Thank you, Mr. Kylie for answering all my phone calls when I would call you and ask you questions this year. Um, I really appreciate that. Um, and also a huge thank you to Carol Hart, my amazing secretary, who has also

041been just amazing with helping me with all things budget. Um, some of our action steps to continue the work of the playground committee. This is something that we started this year in the fall. Um, and I had a great committee. we would meet monthly and talk all about how we wanted to um make some outdoor spaces at Quinn um more accessible to students and we are on the right path. We're going to continue that work into next year, but it's really exciting work and um something that we want to make sure we do the right way. um when you're talking about a playground, you're talking about a significant amount of money. And so we just want to make sure that whatever we do create at the Quinn School is something that makes sense for our

042students and also is what we envision at the end. So that's going to be exciting as we move into next year. Um collaborating again with district leaders and school stakeholders to develop a comprehensive plan when it comes to our building needs at Quinn School. um their impact on student achievement um as well as solutions. So again, ensuring that the budget reflects the needs of the building and supports our school improvement plan and the district strategic plan and then creating a meeting schedule. Um we have been doing that this year again with myself and and Mrs. heart, who's amazing, um to ensure that we're reviewing the school budget and looking at our line items and making sure that we're um efficiently planning and making sure that there's there's anything unforeseen or anything that comes up, we

043have what we need in our budget. So again, big thank you to Mrs. Hart as well. Terrific. Does anybody have any questions? I have two. Sure. Um, how does how do you select the uh institutional leadership team? How many people do you have on that? So, we don't have an ILT at this time. So, that's something that we will be doing for the fall. Um, I think first and foremost asking for volunteers. You know, we want to definitely embed leadership in our our educators and we would love to hear everyone's voice. Of course, you can't have everyone at the table, but hopefully something that sparks an interest knowing that we're going to have multiple committees next year that we haven't had before. So, maybe somebody would want to be on the ILT, somebody would want

044to be on the SIP team, um, somebody would want to join. You know, we have still our PBIS committee and our playground committee, but just hoping that it's of interest and that it's something that they feel strongly about that they would want to join in helping us kind of grow Quinn and make sure that it's a place that we all want to be. Great. My second question you've referred to is what is SIP? The school improvement plan. Oh, okay. Yes. So, really looking at our school improvement plan. That's okay. No, we have so many acronyms in this. Yeah. So, yeah. So, really looking at our school improvement plan a few times a year and just making sure that what we're talking about this evening is something that we're continuing to do and tweaking as needed.

045Great. Thank you. You're so welcome. Anybody else? I similar to um when Melissa was here um and Rick, I just it's really beautiful how the strategic plan is woven within every aspect. Um and just from a lens of recognizing the unique needs of students and teachers, right? And having some of that data to help support decisions that are made is is wonderful. Um I I don't really have anything. just look forward to hearing as this rolls out. Thank you, Chris. This is a great school improvement plan. Um I think overall it reflects uh certainly Quinn's needs, but also um the collaboration with the other elementary schools is certainly uh shown here. My only question I have is I'm just curious as to what was the reason initially why Swiss was abandoned. Um and now we're

046looking because you were using at one point I'm assuming and then um I think for us we were trying to find a balance with Swiss data along with any data you're inputting. It does take time. Sure. Um, so when you're inputting the behavioral data and the setting and the time and that, you know, we were trying to see is there a better way, a more efficient way than Swiss. We really weren't sure. We were trying to kind of figure that out and come to find out we haven't found that. We think Swiss actually is the better way and that's okay. Um, so I think we tried something new kind of homegrown just to see um, we kind of shared it out with who we felt needed to. So there were some benefits of having kind

047of a Google doc that you could see in live time and kind of go back to. Sure. Um but at the end of the day, I think it was more the data collection and analyzing the data that Swiss just does so much more for you. You know, you can print out those reports, you can look at um kind of the data that it gives you and you can go to a meeting and have these great discussions where it's a little bit harder. It's more work to kind of do that when you're just looking at a Google doc. So, I think we decided that we wanted to go back to that and we had the uh the blessing from Mrs. Dianio to do so. So, we're very grateful for that. Great. Thank you very much. You're

048welcome. Dr. Steven McGuire, did you want to make any comments? You know, I just I I hope the thing that excites me and I know I'm so excited that um Dr. Thomas and Mrs. why I feel the same way and other school folks that are involved in in develop the developing the school improvement plan is that the district's strategic plan is driving the school improvement plan. And because of that, it's not about checking boxes or making it easier, but it's about making it make sense and not having those documents that literally just sit on shelves. And we want to be able to talk to, you know, our educators and our community about what the work is that's what's actually happening and then what's the impact of that work. And and as we move forward and

049we work through the strategic plan, we look forward to coming back to the committee and having the conversations about what the impact of the strategies, the initiatives and strategies have been on student outcomes and on on obviously how our teachers are feeling about the resources we're bringing into the district that they've helped select. So, we I'm very grateful for how well it's been received and um and thank you. Thank you everybody. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I don't have any questions, but good work. Um and do we vote on this now? Separately from Yeah. Okay. So, uh looking for a motion to approve this motion to approve the uh Quinn Elementary School improvement plan. Second. All those in favor? I I against unanimous. Um and next up, the second school improvement plan. Uh Mr. Rossi.

050There he is. Mr. Rossy and his team. I see all here. Well, good evening everyone. And that is a uh tough act to follow. Fantastic job by Quinn. So I I do I think we're the last school to present our SIP plan tonight and staying in line with the district plan. Um we're all here to present. I'd just like to introduce the team real quick. We have Sarah Deas, our associate principal, and our assistant principles, uh Sam Madden, and Mark Hayes. And we're going to present to you our four focus areas. And when it's over, um we certainly welcome feedback and any questions. So, I'm going to get out of the way and Sarah's going to take over with focus area one teaching and learning. Sarah, good evening everybody. What's up? My notes in the

051parking lot tonight. Um, so we did really tried to align this uh best we could with the Dart uh the district improvement plan and our first area of our first focus area. Guess I should move this for you. There you go. is that to ensure the vertical and horizontal alignment of the curriculum and instructional practices um that really align with Dartmouth's portrait of a learner. This year we rolled out um a new curriculum in science and Spanish the or world language specifically Spanish. Um we did one unit in each grade level of the open sed and we expect to do at least one and two in each grade level next year and it was not without its challenges. It was very difficult. Um a lot of the teachers were going in with limited PD but

052they were very willing to try it. Again it was not uh it was not easy. It took a lot of time and a lot of effort. It requires a great deal of collaboration across all three grade levels and within the grade levels. But I think they do see the value in the long-term goals and adopting it and the philosophies behind it and truly making students um work and learn in the same way a real scientist does. Um the Spanish classes adopted the SOMOS curriculum along with Dartmouth High School. And all three of our teachers are are really enthusiastic with the increase in collaboration that they've had with Dartmouth High, particularly this year, and um looking forward to working with them next year and adopting more and more of the lessons that align with the new

053standards. Uh Ross and the lead teachers at the high school as well as the coaches at the middle school have um pretty well established ELA and math teams at this point, vertical teams. I think they've really been mutually beneficial for you know 7 through 12. Um I would say math has been meeting for a little over a year now and ELA we're coming up on a on a year. Additionally, we have several staff members that have joined the recently uh put together curriculum uh team that's going to be meeting after school. And the goal at this point moving forward will to continue in that uh realm with the elementary level. So that it's it is going to eventually be K through 12. The and I had mentioned as well that the world language teams are

054also meeting with the high school levels and and that's going quite well. Um, I just wanted to touch on our common assessments. That's something that we work very hard on for both pre and post tests. Um, we have them in all four subcontent areas as well as our world language uh program. The ELA math worked um hard this year and so they have sort of a home for all of the assessments that are easily accessible in one document which is in addition to our regular scope and sequence. with the changes in science, they're working on new uh assessments. We did find that with the new curriculum, the assessment piece is a is something that we feel we can improve on. So, that'll be part of that process. Um, and we do a spend a lot

055of time during our CPTs really reviewing the data that comes from the preassessments, the post assessments, and discussing what we may need to do to revise them. So they're always living documents. They're not sort of there and that we just use them year after year. It's they're something things that we really work on. Our next area I wanted to touch on is looking at student voice and choice and making sure that they're available in all of our learning experiences. I think they can be very challenging for teachers. We're so used to sort of having the control over our classrooms, but when they let go and really trust that process, they're almost always very happy with the results of what's going on and what the kids are are truly able to do when we let them

056go. some of the examples that we currently have that we will continue to work with. Again, the new science curriculum, the students are running science circles, the civics projects in social studies, the poetry and the ELA program, project invention, our career days. They're all areas where kids really are taking lead based on their own interests. In the science circle, sometimes kids will make a wrong hypothesis, but we don't correct them because so do real scientists, and they'll go through that whole process and be like, "Huh?" So, it it's really important that you you let the kids do the learning. um the civics projects and I think this year in particular we're really proud of the work that the kids did because we really took the time to let them do the research and pick what

057they wanted to pick um which is required. the Massachusetts standards do not want the teachers to tell the kids what the topics are and and they really ran with it and they they really took it to another level this year which was a great thing to see. I think evaluation season is as stressful for us as administrators as it is for the teachers. Um but there is a piece of it that I enjoy. Um and it because every time I do an evaluation I learn something new from our teachers. you it it's hard to be in the classroom every single for every single lesson, but when a the teachers excited about something that goes really well. Last week, uh, one of the special ed teachers was telling me about a lesson that she put together

058that each kid got to pick their own recipe. Could be anything they wanted, but then they had to scale it up in math so that they could feed the whole classroom. And the kids loved it. Um, another one they were telling me today she was working with uh in one of the world language classes she was working on a short story and the kids weren't engaged and the kids decided to turn it into a play and they each played a role and they loved it and they were engaged and they did beautifully. So it as hard as it is as hard as it is as and challenging as it can be I think um that's that's the good part of it. And lastly, um, just wanted to talk a little bit about trying to make

059sure that we we target our professional development for our middle school educators. We as a team feel the most important thing is to get the input from our staff in order for that PD to be successful. If we just sort of tell them what we think, it's not going to work. We also recognize that we have a lot of experts in our building and we tap into them as much as we possibly can. This year we had the math teachers teaching um the staff that needed it on pair assessment, also known as Edgelastic. We use it for all of our common assessments. So everybody's at least familiar with it, but it's a platform that can do so many different things that people had didn't weren't aware of. So we took some time and we had

060them work on that. That was a very successful one. Another the special ed teachers um part two of our special ed teachers that had gone above and beyond and really done a lot of the PD training took that training and taught the rest of our staff and really helped them learn about the new IEP. That's been quite a process. our another one that we worked with the teachers, the AIPD, we had a social studies teacher, a special ed teacher, and our tech teacher, tech coach helping people to learn about the new platforms and the responsibilities and and trying new things. Um, and we find that we get a lot more out of it when you it's peer-to-peer and they can uh learn from each other. That being said, we also recognize that there are um

061times when we need help and that we, you know, particularly with, you know, again, with the open side curriculum, um we were fortunate our teachers were able to go out and visit some of the local schools that are already have already adopted it and observe lessons and talk to the teachers that are involved in it, going to community days. Um Ross is working on having some um professional development again for them in the fall because it's a very difficult challenging curriculum but also very a very good one. So we try to keep that balance. We try to keep make sure that we will continue to ask for our teachers input and and make this a successful PD. Um Sam is going to start you off with safe and supportive schools. Good evening. So, I'm going

062to speak to maintaining a strong inclusive school culture. We are a PBIS school. So, our goal is to promote and celebrate positive behavior. Our PBIS team is one of the stronger teams we have in our building. We have over 30 members of our staff who are part of that team. And we really try to focus on three areas. We have our check-in checkout program which is a tier 2 intervention where we try to match up a student and a staff mentor where they're meeting at the beginning and the end of every day and that staff member is just an extra layer of support for that student throughout the day. Um, we have our rare cards where every teacher has rare cards that they pass out to students when they're exhibiting rare qualities in our in

063our building and students can later cash those rare cards in for some some sort of a prize. And lastly, we have our rare celebrations, which these are more of kind of the big events where the entire grade will get together typically in the gym, sometimes outside, and we give every single student that goes to the event, they have an opportunity to participate if they feel comfortable. Now, typically some of these events to give you an idea are we have relay races, we have basketball shooting competitions, we've done musical chairs with the entire grade. The kids actually really really enjoy it and they really look forward to it. And we get a ton of help from our um not only the PBIS team, but also our fizzed staff as well that kind of really helped to

064organize and run all of those events. again with the whole purpose of celebrating positive behavior and if and if students are doing that they get to be a part of those events. Uh moving forward we'd like to increase the number of students on our check-in checkout program. We have plenty of staff members who have volunteered to be mentors. So I think we can find more students in our building who we can help. And sometimes it's not necessarily a behavioral issue, but sometimes just to have that social emotional support from a staff member, which can be really good throughout the throughout the entire year. Um, and we also want to try to increase our rare card distribution. Um, again to increase positive behavior, student leadership opportunities. Uh with the help of Ross Tibo, we have partnered

065with the Boston Celtics and Project 351 to participate in the 2025 playbook initiative. Uh we had an eighth grade student, Maya Barry, this year who was the ambassador to Dartmouth for project 351. And what Maya did is throughout the entire year she met with other students across the state to um discuss community service projects. and she actually organized in some of our uh schools through throughout the district collection bins for clothing and she later then collected all the all those clothing uh children's clothing and she donated them to Cradles for Crayons. So, um big shout out to Maya for all her hard work in that because that was a whole year-long thing for Maya. Um as as I mentioned with the playbook initiative, we had 37th and eighth grade students who participated in the who

066participated in the playbook initiative which aims to increase in inclusive communities and they met four times throughout the year. It was led by two Dartmouth High School students and they just brainstormed ideas on how we can increase inclusivity in our school and in our community. We have rare reps for seventh and eighth grade home rooms and they really help us with some of our fundraising and our collections when we have donations. We have uh moving on up day coming up in a couple weeks. Our our current seventh graders who will be eighth graders next year are going to help with that moving on up day because they will be the leaders of the building next year for those incoming sixth graders. Um, moving forward, we want to find more ways to get our rare reps

067involved besides just doing fundraisers and and collecting money. So, we're looking to get we're looking to find more ways to get them involved. We would like to continue with project 351 and we'd like to take some of the ideas that those students came up with u in the playbook initiative and put them into place next year in our school. Lastly, I'm going to talk about our unified program which has really taken off in the past couple years. Big because of Bill Garcia, because of Temple Mitchell, because of Jeff Gar uh Carrerero, and and this year because of Amy Guile. Um we currently have unified botchi, we have unified basketball. This year we added unified cheerleading with the help of of Amy Gule. We had over 400 students sign the pledge to promote inclusion in our

068building. When we played Westport for unified basketball and unified cheerleading, we had a very very big turnout with our student body. So, it's it's clear that our unified program is very very important for our students and they really support that program. And it's not just the members that are on the teams, it's our entire school. Um, we've also h had the opportunity to have some outside events. We had the unified botchi team go out to eat for pizza after their um jamboree and just this past Saturday, we had a bowling fundraiser where we get some of those students together to bowl as well. Um, we have started to reestablish the learning partner program. We currently had we had 12 students this this year who kind of helped out with some of our students as locker

069buddies would also help out in some special areas and gym class. We're looking moving forward. We'd like to build on that. We're actually going to make it into a class next year if it fits in some student schedules where we can get more students involved. They can have more responsibility and they can help more of our students out. And the other thing we'd like to do is have more outside events like those pizza parties, like bowling because it not only gives those students an opportunity to connect with each other socially, but it also gives those families an opportunity to connect with each other. Um, so we'd like to we'd like to see that moving forward. All right, I think I'm going to pass it over to Mark. So just in continuing to speak to our

070student services, our student support system, um our RTI team continues to meet once every six days, so once every cycle for us at the middle school, uh with a real focus on um providing interventions for students. Um, and really our most recent focus has been on coming up with effective progress monitoring that we can use to follow students as they move through the middle school and beyond. Um, in an effort to make sure that the work that's done on behalf of each one of these students stays with them as they continue to move forward. Uh as a leadership team, we've been working with the Lynch Leadership Academy on equity affirming practices with the hope that as a you know, as a leadership group, as we develop these practices and protocols, we can pass those along

071through our buildings um to our instructional staff as well as the entire staff in the building. Um and we also continue to provide afterchool programs. We have upwards of 20 programs that we provide for students after school um between our fall and spring offerings. Those offerings are all driven by, you know, some by teacher interest. Um, but also by student interest, right? If a student is interested in coming up with a club, if they have membership or a population of students that are interested, we've been able to put those clubs on for those students and run those after school programs. I'm going to pass it on. I'll be right. It's awfully crowded back here. Lot of moving around. I'm going to um specifically speak to emergency preparedness um in this part and I know she

072got a shout out, but I do want to give a shout out again to the great Kim Redline for her work with the district uh safety committee. I think it's been great to really align everyone and get the schools there. And when I talk kind of specifically about some of the drills that we do, um it's important to know that, you know, drills at the secondary level are going to look a little different from the drills at the elementary school level. Um, speaking of drills, I I can't say enough about Craig Pimemental and his team from the Dartmouth uh PD and also Dartmouth Fire. I'll give them a shout out. Uh, Craig has come year after year. We usually start off by doing a drill specifically with our staff and he's always great with feedback

073and and we're very fortunate with the SRO we have, especially ours, Dave Tvar. They're always on hand. They time the event. Um, we've done enough this year and we continue to where our kids have an opportunity. All of them have had an opportunity to take place in a barricade and also take place in evacuating. And I know these are um some kind of hard things to talk about, but this is necessary that we are prepared and I I do feel as though we are prepared and will continue to be. As far as PD going forward in this area, actually tomorrow and Wednesday, we'll be at the New England School Safety Conference. Um, I've been going for about 15 years now and I've I've heard uh and again heavy topics but but important ones. I've had

074an opportunity to hear the principal from Colbine speak. Tomorrow there's going to be some people there from Sandy Hook law enforcement. Uh there's going to be a parent from Parkland and it's really important to learn from their stories um and be prepared. So I I think we're in a good spot where it comes to that emergency. We're now going to move on to and I'm going to bring Mr. pays back to our third focus area, family and community engagement. All right. So, the first part of this uh for us is creating and offering engagement opportunities to families. And so some of the ways that we do that, we certainly want to survey our our families um and get their input on what they need in order to help them be engaged with our school and

075our school community. Um we continue to offer our open house um twice annually with in-person options and with virtual options so we can try to include as many people as we can in those events. Uh along with holding our new parent orientation for our new families to the district at the beginning of the year. Um we also hold some family and community events including our bingo night. Um our drama productions which are always a huge hit and and those students and staff always do an amazing job. Um our career day which I'll speak to a little bit more in a bit. Um along with our literacy night. Um and then we're always open to offering, you know, the opportunity for our families to be engaged in our parent teacher um organization. Uh they do the

076the crew that we have now. They go above and beyond. They do an absolutely phenomenal job of supporting our building, supporting our students, supporting our teachers, um a number of different events and and that's been a wonderful opportunity for people and we continue to offer that. Um, we also want to be connected to the community itself. So, uh, spoke a little bit about our career day. So, we've been running, we've been able to run career day with the assistance of our community for over 10 years. Um, with this year having over 36 speakers to come and address our seventh graders about possible career opportunities. Um, and I think and we think, you know, the one of the important piece of that is these are the people that they see every day. These are the people

077in our community who are there in front of them to talk about a number of the different opportunities that they will have in their life, you know, should they choose to pursue some of those pathways. Um, we've also been able to host a number of guest authors. Um, with the great assistance of Laura Gardner, our school librarian, we've been able to bring in authors of books that our students seem to love. I can tell you I haven't read a whole ton of them, but the students seem to be super interested in them and super interested in the authors that come to speak to them and that's been a wonderful deal. Um, and then Mystique spoke on touched on a little bit our civics showcase. Um, students did a wonderful job of choosing topics that affect

078them in their communities. And we had uh we were able to have 17 groups of those students present to the staff, present to other to members of the community who were able to come and visit us. Um particularly members of the community who had specific interest in the topics that the students were presenting. Um and then from there, two groups of students were chosen to actually present at the statewide showcase. So they'll continue to do that. Um and and also students who want to affect some specific change in the middle school. when we actually have had a group that I don't know if that's all entirely out but has been able to create some change in our building you know coming forward. So I think students did a really wonderful job with that. Um and

079then lastly just making sure we have open communication with our families. So we use a number of different avenues which includes parent square which you've heard about. Um and we're looking to increase the usage of that throughout the building. Um we send home parent letters, emails and phone calls obviously. Um and then also as a middle school and I know at the high school level as well, we use Aspen to share data with our families particularly as it comes to um students like grade data, assessment data and such. So these are just some of the ways that we are looking to connect to families and make sure the lines of communication are always open between us and our families in our building. And I'm going to pass it back to Mr. Rossy. All right, we

080got one more to go here and I'm going to take us home with um budget capital improvement. Um we talk about facilities, we talk about uh I I did want to touch a little bit on recruitment and retention. Um I'm really proud of the staff that we have. I think they've created a culture where um people feel valued there and they want to be there and I think we attract good candidates every year. And I I think um if you show me a school where teachers are are happy to be there, I'm also going to show you a school where kids are learning. And I think that's something that uh is certainly something we value and we don't take for granted. As far as our budget goes, um I've been fortunate enough to work pretty

081much my whole admin career with uh Mr. Kylie. He's always honest, he's always transparent, and he's always very straight to the point, and I certainly do value that. Now, if we get to facilities, I can't say enough about m uh our um custodial staff. Um they do a fantastic job. Um we've had a number of facelifts at the uh middle school over the year, but if I talk about what we really need, um we do need a and I say this with great respect, but we need a uh we need a change at 366 Road. I think it's really time to maybe think about and seriously think about how we're going to get a new building there. Whether it be Dartmouth High goes there and we come here. This is a beautiful facility, but I

082think the kids um the kids in the town are ready for it. I also think they deserve it. And again, you're talking to someone who spent pretty much uh the majority of my life at 366 Sloum Road. I've loved every minute of it. But if you look at the plaque in the lobby, it says 1955. And again, a lot of people put a lot of hard work into keeping that building up there, but uh I think it's time to uh for a change there. And um we'll leave it up to questions and feedback at this point. Thank you very much. Excellent presentation. Um any of my colleagues have questions? I don't know if it was mentioned uh but for those people that may be watching at home uh can you talk a little bit about

083what RAR means because we heard RAR brought up several times the acronym what the acronym actually means. So the acronym is respect, accountability, responsibility and esteem. So, you know, when we when our staff members pass out those rare cards, they're passing them out when they see a student exhibit one of those rare qualities. I know it's been around for quite a while now. It's been around when I was in school. So, it's full disclosure, it was a Darren Done creation. I thought it might have been. Thank you. Other than that, great presentation. Um, I certainly appreciate uh everyone taking their sections and uh some of the uh some of the action steps that you'll will be seeing in the upcoming year. If we're going in order again, we like to go in order here. Um

084yeah, I great plan. Great. Um I you know I I as I said with Quinn and others um and I'll echo with the middle school plan is that it's very clear that the strategic plan is woven within. I think that um I appreciated all of all all of which all of all of the information that you shared. Um, in particular, I'm just curious, um, when you talk about the new curriculum and I think of the middle school and I think of you as ever evolving, I I I do appreciate not unlike the other schools, but um, I remember uh, I think talking about Darren Don, but within all of your time, uh, your school was, and I'm using the wrong words, was like a model, very innovative of in terms of um project based learning.

085I think the Highland Institute and you think about the middle school uh and the work that you do that I've witnessed with my children in really individualizing and scaffolding um uh lessons and when I when I'm just curious uh if with testing out the new curriculums um I know at the uh at middle school uh as you're getting older kids are more worried about their grades. grades and I didn't know if there was any um uh I'll just call it out. So at the high school there was a math curriculum uh and there was some growing pains. Uh my child experienced shock and awe of u of those growing pains um the beginning of this year and my understanding is maybe that curriculum doesn't allow for say some scaffolding and some individuality that you might

086need for students. Um have you found that there have been any similar sort of growing pains on a middle school level with students saying hey I you know the ways in which it it is is you know what I'm asking the short answer would be yes okay um but it doesn't tell you the whole picture so we we are taking this very slowly we only did one unit but when I say one unit what would you say Maren it took 10 six weeks minimum oh finally eight weeks to do one unit. Um because we did go very very slowly. Um the the teaching requires that teachers were learning and we went into it with let's not worry about grades. Let's not worry let's let's all learn with the kids. Um and there absolutely there are

087growing pains and we knew that going in. Um and some of the feedback is we need to take now that we've done this once we recognize that there does need to be more scaffolding and that was one of the things um again I evaluations are not fun but this is my opportunity to say okay well what did you learn from that and and um we always ask our teachers to to do a reflection for us and so part of that and I think Mark and I share the science people that's that's been coming up is what was difficult about this what what was needed And that's come up a couple of times is I we need to be able to scaffold. So the the PD days and the early release days and things like that

088are going to be very important for us next year because we know that going in and and like you said, we h the staff is phenomenal. Um they're working really hard at it now that they recognize that they know that. But they we kind of took the grading off the table. Um did we assess them? Of course, but it wasn't the end goal. The end goal was to have them learn the science process and learn how to what what it's like to think like a scientist. So, does that answer your question? Totally answers your question. I think my daughter wishes some of her grades weren't counted at the beginning of this math this math curriculum. We just we didn't think it would be fair to, you know, agree and at the end of the day,

089we you know, there's lots of ways to assess them and that wasn't the most important thing. Yeah, I appreciate that answer. Thank you. That's all I have. I have just one question about the learning partner program. You talked about making it into a class. Can you talk a little bit about what will be included in that class? So, Mr. Garcia works closely with kids and what um he started experimenting with this year, he he's done it before, but with our within our program was um the kids apply to be a learning partner. They actually he's he's done a really nice job where it's not staff picking them. The kids it's a staff have input, but the kids actually go through a an application process just like a job, an interview, and then he helps to

090match the kids up. And so the learning partners um are very involved. They will go into classrooms, push into a classroom, push into a gym class, push into the life skills program and um be a peer model or a coach to help those kids. So during that time um Bill had asked me, geez, can we can we actually put this in a kid's schedule so that you know we're not pulling them out of another class or you know they're in you know if someone's looking for them. So, we created um a section like a trimester level so kids can do it experiment and do it a little bit at a time maybe and so far it worked pretty well this year. So, that that's the plan for moving forward. Great. Thank you. Yeah, it would

091be Yeah, he just it's during a special area time so maybe they wouldn't have a math lab for a term or an academic support or something like that. Great. Thank you. Sure. Um I guess two things. Um, I got to see the civics showcase this year and I was totally impressed and it was a great um, voice and choice um, component for the kids and I was really really impressed by that. Um, you're talking about check-in and checkout and wanting to uh, expand that. So, do staff and teachers choose the students for that program or do students volunteer and say, "I want that." Students are often um referred and it could be for a number of different reasons. It originally it started off as a behavioral program, but it it can be a mentoring program

092right now. And one of the great things is as Mr. Madden mentioned we have a lot of uh staff members that are trained as mentors and one of the things is the kids do not have them in their schedule. It's apart from that. So it's an adult in a different part of the building and it's kind of a free judgment zone. So it's it's it's helped and um we look at kids who may be struggling in a number of different areas and refer them to that. So they check it out obviously at the beginning of the day and the end of the day. So you're saying that that you have room to expand it? Yes, we have room to expand it with the number of trained mentors that we have because um as Mr. Madden

093said, one of our biggest committees that we have is our PBIS committee. We've got uh over over 30 teachers on that committee. Terrific. And a a teacher wouldn't necessarily pick an individual student. it it more more often than not would go say through the RTI process or you know uh a team that knows the child and the adults so that we ma we kind of match them um as opposed to oh I think I want to work with that kid and that way we have and again to his point we feel that it should be somebody that is completely neutral they don't you know they're not in any classes with them together and that that's been our pretty effective model terrific thank you yeah just a a couple of just quick notes that that I

094took while you were talking. I want to say I I was at um one of your unified events, the basketball, and the gym was packed. And now it was packed with staff certainly, and we're so grateful for our educators for showing up uh to support the kids, but it was packed with kids, too. And so there there wasn't a seat to be had in the bleachers. And so you've really created an environment, a culture where you do see that support for inclusivity at the middle school particular impressive. One of the reasons why we wanted to showcase that about a month or so back and again uh the team that puts that together uh phenomenal and and the the rare events I've been, you know, able to drop in on a few of them and again

095the level of participation of the kids has is just tremendous. And there's just an excitement that is palpable when you go into the gym. And for the folks like I think it's usually um Rachel Lassie who's got the um the megaphone and she doesn't but she does such a great job getting the kids, you know, really into what's going on. And a lot of that has to do with the relationships you've all built with the kids because they're pretty free to express themselves and what you really excuse me when you think about middle schoolers how they're can can be somewhat reserved and and you really do see quite a bit this there's just there's literally joy in in that space. Um, but I just also want to mention the open sad and thank your teachers

096and you Sarah. I know that was a lot of hard work for the last couple of years and you really invested yourself in it and I did have the opportunity to visit a few classrooms while the teachers were engaged with that resource and there was both like a mixture of excitement and trepidation, right? because the teachers knew that, you know, this was definitely a different learning experience for the students and for them. They they literally shared. It was it was kind of scary for them to give up some of their the their control, but at the same time, um there was an excitement about what they were seeing in terms of student engagement and even their own engagement. And so that was really fun to see the project 351. I mean, again, this is your

097second year. It's a lot of work to get those things off the ground and to involve all of those students and to think about the impact, the ongoing impact that that's going to have on students, not only at the middle school, but as they move on um to the high school. And and I'm glad you mentioned uh the two leaders from the high school because they did just such a tremendous job. It's such a benefit for all of us. And then just finally, I just want to mention the collaboration 6 to 12. I know you've really invested in that and we're looking forward to growing that so that we really see that vertical that vertical articulation prek to 12, but it's about the folks that are out in the buildings, you know, Dr. T-Bolt working

098alongside um yourself, Sarah, and I know at the high school, but we're looking forward to really watching that grow. And then I'll just finally mention to you, Mr. Rossi, I agree. We need a new school. All right. We need new schools. Need new schools. Agreed. Schools. And I think um real quick and I we'll get out of your way because I think we're over on time, but um Dr. Tibo is going to take the playbook initiative team. I think they're going to come here. Correct Dr. Tibo? And present. And um there are there are 30 members. Um, and actually we got to dwindle it down a little bit because 17, I think we're going to have five come here, but 17 actually volunteered and and want to. Um, so again, thank you very much. Thank

099you. Thank you. Excellent. That was great. Does anyone want to make a motion to approve the middle school improvement plan? I'll make a motion that we approve the middle school improvement plan. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Unanimous passes. Nice. And now we're in old business, the FY26 budget. Dr. Sabin Magcguire, would you like to start us off? I would like to do that. Thank you so much. So, first I I think it's really important that we begin by reaffirming, at least for myself, personally, professionally, and on behalf of the committee and the district itself, how deeply we value our teachers. If there is a perception that the recent budget and particularly the reductions at the classroom level reflect anything less than that, then I acknowledge that's a serious shortcoming and the way that we've

100communicated that to the school community because there's nothing more important than our educators who are forwardfaced, studentf facing and with our students um every single day and we recognize the importance of that throughout the past two years. We have consistently emphasized that decisions to eliminate positions, they're not made lightly. Those are really difficult decisions and they're not in conversational tones. They're hard decisions made behind closed doors. And we recognize that these decisions, they affect real people. There's a person at the end of the decision that we're making and we know that that affects their families. And I just want to be clear, we approach this with great care. It's we we approach it with gravity and with compassion. Um our responsibility is not only to those whose positions are directly affected but also to the

101impact that those kind of decisions have on school culture at the school level, at the classroom level, and really at the district level. And we know that. Um and I just want to acknowledge that I understand the concerns that are raised and I and we all take them seriously. It's important to us that our community knows that every budget recommendation that has been made is grounded in what we believe is in the long-term best interest of the district and the people it serves. And that doesn't mean that this year's budget reflects what we believe is the long-term best interest of the school. We believe that that's the short term and there is a long longerterm goal here. We recognize that this budget does not meet all the needs of our schools, our teachers, and most

102importantly, our students. We know that that's true. I would like also and importantly to address some recent comments that have implied that certain segments of this community might not fully appreciate the the importance of our schools and suggested that some residents may not see the need to invest in them. And while it's appropriate and indeed it's necessary for us to examine our budget with care, it is equally important to reaffirm a core truth that defines this town. Dartmouth is a community that I believe deeply values its public schools. What I've learned in my time, two years here in Dartmouth, is that there is in fact a great deal of care and pride here. And that regardless of one's place in life, whether you're raising a young family here, you're enjoying your retirement, or you're just

103beginning to establish roots, there's a shared understanding that the future of this community is shaped by the legacy that we choose to leave. Our schools are not a separate part of Dartmouth. They are the heart of Dartmouth. We are proud as a community to invest in children. That's what our schools do and that's what this community does. Not just because it affects or benefits our students today because it reflects who we are. Forwardthinking, united, committed to building a stronger future for all. Schools strengthen strengthen our local economy. Many of our educators, as a matter of fact, live here. whether whatever position they hold are people who are working in our schools. They support property values. They the our schools do attract families and businesses and they foster the kind of civic engagement that make communities

104thrive. And that's what we want for Dartmouth, a thriving community. I would also respectfully challenge the idea that there's any community, especially not Dartmouth, that doesn't understand the value of public education. Again and again, I've seen this town show up. I've seen this town show up for school con concerts, for musicals, for athletic games, for budget hearings, for classroom events. The people of Dartmouth understand strong public schools are not just a benefit for some. They are a public good that strengthens us all. Maintaining the integrity of our budget process is important, and we need to uphold the community's trust. The residents of Dartmouth have shown their commitment to schools over time. And while it's necessary to review our budget with care and diligence, as I believe that we do, that the committee does, that um

105I certainly know that Mr. Kylie does, and I have the utmost faith and confidence in in the budget that's been developed here. At the same time, do I think it 100% meets the needs of our students? I do not. Um please make no mistake about it, though. when we make difficult decisions that impact people's lives and in turn the experiences for our students and that is true. We know this and we do all we can to protect our students because they're our most important asset. Um so this isn't about balancing numbers but numbers have to be balanced, budgets have to be balanced. It is about safeguarding our students. We're entrusted with this community's resources and it's our responsibility to use them wisely, but not just for today, for the generations to come. So, I just

106like to continue to have open, respectful dialogue and um felt that it was necessary to address some some um comments that were made about whether or not the residents of Dartmouth or all the residents of Dartmouth really truly valued um the public schools here. And I just from what I've seen um I just don't believe that to be true. I would say that there is a huge investment in this community, in our public schools, and and as far as, you know, the recent eliminations of some of our teaching positions, um those those hurt. They do. They're painful. Um and at the same time, I know the committee feels feels that. Uh none of this is being taken lightly. We care for our teachers. That's what we're about. our teachers uh care for our students and

107and that's our job to do the best we can to protect them. And at the same time, I just want to emphasize that this is not the perfect budget. We knew that when we presented it and if somehow we didn't um project that publicly and I apologize. That was not our intent at all. We deeply value the educators in this school district. And so I just wanted to make that statement and um and share that with the committee. And again, I so appreciate the committee support during what's really been challenging uh budget season. And Mr. Kylie, I don't know if you want to add anything. It's it's tough to add much to to that. And we we really do feel that way. Um Dr. Save Maguire and I attended uh the joint meeting of the

108select board and the finance committee last Monday. Um it was an interesting meeting. We were invited to attend but really had no expectation as to you know what the rationale was for us attending. Um, we made essentially like we made it to the podium once relating to uh grant um a potential proposal to add a grant writer um for the town. And then um we responded explaining briefly the fact that we didn't uh you know that that that wasn't something that we would propose from our end. We we do write our own grants and you know have several very talented people some of whom are in this room um who really take the lead on on a lot of the grants that we write. Um so other than that they didn't ask us any questions

109was kind of interesting. Um but my understanding is that from here uh the finance committee and select board are making recommendations to town meeting regarding our budget the budget that that you voted. Um, and my understanding is that there'll hopefully be support of of that budget. Um, you know, including the $245,000 and the plan moving hopefully moving forward. Of course, this is only the first component of that plan and it'll require quite a bit more commitment moving forward. But, um, my understanding is that that they understand that plan. So, while as Dr. Save Maguire mentioned that plan doesn't solve a lot of problems. It does solve one big problem. Um and you know ultimately saves hopefully 11 jobs and and um other programs. So our hope is that they continue to support that. Um we'll

110know more June 3rd uh at town meeting. So, um I understand there's lots of new town meeting members and we hope that all the all the established town meeting members and the new town meeting members are interested in supporting schools and um hopefully we we find that out on on the third. something it just is there a is there a reason this year that were you thinking this? No, go ahead. I'm um I am Go ahead. every year um I guess except this year uh we've had a joint meeting where we were we would open our se in in in open session there and were contributing members of a larger meeting with the finance committee and the select board. Did they offer any I mean they invited you uh who can speak about certain things

111but certainly not you know for the whole committee. Did they offer any um did they even comment as to we're not doing that this year or it just didn't happen? No they didn't. Um, as you said, we have had per, you know, for for a number of years have had a joint meeting of the bodies. Um, and for whatever reason, they elected not to have one of those this year. Um, we actually really weren't even on the invite list. They did have a list of invitees at the end of the agenda and it wasn't us. So, so we went and it was fine. and I'm glad we were there, but it um but at any rate, no, they they didn't uh didn't express interest in in in a joint meeting this year. Wow. Chris, thank

112you, Madam Chair. So, I was really optimistic this year, this budget cycle, that we were making some progress uh with the other town departments. Uh, so I have a couple of I have a couple of questions that I'm going to try to stay on the rails for. Um, the first being I'm just curious, Dr. Sab Maguire, you you were very passionate when you spoke this evening where I'm are you able to share with where some of these comments are coming from? Well, yes. Um well, some of them came from that evening and then there was another finance committee meeting held in April um that I watched some of and heard some comments made about you know um the school department um and and the suggestion that we needed an outside a third party auditor and

113that uh that perhaps we needed that. Um and that um I also heard uh one of the members talk about whether or not we have given uh equal voice to folks who may or may not uh feel the strong need to support schools. Okay? And I'm not and I'm paraphrasing so sure know that. So, first of all, as a 12-year member of the school committee that just got reelected for another three years, I'm not going anywhere. So, through the chair, I would like to make um a suggestion that we demand a joint meeting with the select board. I would ask that the school department reach out to the chair of the select board, Heidi Brooks, and I'd like a joint meeting set up with both boards, cuz this is un unbelievably upsetting that the largest

114budget in this town was left out of the financial planning process. It just blows my mind how the same voices year after year after year asked the same questions year after year after year and continued to question this school department and this committee as if we're doing something wrong. I'm fed up with it. I'm fed up with some of the comments that are made. I thought that's where they might be coming from. It is extremely disappointing that this is the road that we got to go down. But I am I would like to request I don't know how the rest of the committee feels, but I want a voice to that table. I need to have a conversation with some of the elected and appointed officials in this town as to where where these comments

115are coming from and why are they being made. I'm seeing heads go up and down. So there's an agreement there. Um I think then we should ask for a joint meeting um so that we can address those questions before town meeting and maybe okay help them see it our way. I just know that I'm personally getting extremely tired of the budget cycle and nothing to do with the school department here or or the way it's operated. Mr. Kylie, Dr. S Maguire does the you know certainly do a fabulous job here, but it's the same antics that are pulled year after year, specifically coming from members of the finance committee. Yeah, I did listen to that finance committee meeting and um the question of bringing in an outside consultant to look at our budget um it

116was only made by one person and there was push back by other members so I don't feel it is a reflection of the whole committee. Sure. Um, and also the comments about certain segments of the Dartmouth population not caring about education. That was one member of the committee, a different member. Um, and I don't believe it reflects the entire um, Fincom's opinion. Um, but that is too, you're right, that is too too many. Yeah. Um, so I do feel that last year at this time we had a better understanding of how both the select board and FINCOM felt about our actual budget and this year I don't have a firm grip on that. Do you, Mr. Kylie? No, I I have a sound understanding of how the town administration feels about it, which is better

117than where we were um, previously. Um so we have that. Um I I do believe that um you know that there is support but it obviously the the boards act um you know as they will act and I have no communication from them as to um you know their level of support for the plan currently in FY26 or or moving forward. um as a as a body. Was there any indication at that meeting at the TW? No, last last Monday. No, no, the agenda for that meeting really wasn't about the school budget. It was about the town budget and projections of the future. I think that we thought something was going to be discussed, but we just didn't get there. It's just extremely disappointing. I'll leave it at that. Um, so I've only been on

118this board or committee two years. Um, and I know last year we had a joint, but I don't recall the year before whether we did and has that been something we've always done. It's been past practice. Okay. Been I don't think it's unreasonable to request. Yeah. feels exclusionary this year. It feels pretty bad. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Had a better word for that. But any other comments about budget? Okay. Um new business. They're going to talk about the last day of school. um which will be Friday, June 13th. That's an interesting day to find out. So, I believe that uh originally it was going to be on the 12th and it was going to be a half day, but we had uh a school cancellation day. We had the dreaded snow day. So, we are proposing

119that Friday the 13th, 2025 will be the last day and a half day and a half day. That's correct. And we need to vote on that. Motion to approve the last day. I'll make a motion to approve the last day of school, which is Friday, June 13, 2025. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed. unanimous. Um, also in your packets, we have a school committee meeting schedule for the entire next 12 months, which is unusual. We only do it like usually six months at a time, but um, no harm in planning ahead. We can always change it if things happen. Um, has everyone had a chance to look and is there are there any um, conflicts that you know about? Yes, Kathleen. Uh I certainly don't want the committee to shift on my behalf,

120but I the earlier um times in the summer, um while I I'm not saying that I won't make an valiant effort, I I just work till 5 and I do work in Boston on Mondays and even when I leave early, um I barely make it back to town by 5:30. So, um I will may I if the committee at the if the committee decides to start at 5, um as long as you know I'm not sherking my responsibility, I may or may not have to be late to on account of my employment. So, um I just want to add that I understand the intent being the summer. Um I just don't have the summer off and it's I'll do my best. Okay. Um, do people want to move it to 5:30 or do we want

121to stay at five? Are you able to do 5:30? Yeah, I' I've been able to. And And I may be able Well, five is cutting it. Y unless I Yeah. I mean, you leave. I mean, I I work until 5. Yeah. Yeah. So, I can I've been able to make it for 5:30. Um, five is going to push it for me, too. Okay. I think that we should change it. Is 5:30 okay for you? Yeah, I should be able to get here by 5:30. Okay. All right. That's fine. We're all good on 5:30. Okay. Um, any other qu comments, conflicts? Okay. I will say um Mr. Mr. Nunes is not here this evening, but he has informed me that he will not be able to make June 23rd. Um, as long as he's the only

122person who can't make it, uh, we can still hold that meeting. Um, but if other conflicts arise, uh, I just need to know. So, we will have know if we have a quorum or not. Um, also not on the schedule, but a thought is, um, perhaps we would do our summer retreat on August 18th as we only have one meeting that month. Um, we don't have to decide on that tonight, but because you didn't have time to think about that one. Um, so other than switching the times to 5:30, I don't see any changes from what we've written down. So I don't think we need to vote on that. Or do we? No. All right. I think that'll that'll work. Um, so how about superintendent's update? Great. Um, I'm actually going to start off with

123by inviting Mrs. Denisio up. She's going to share some information about what's going on in the early childhood world. Excellent. Hi, everybody. Hi. Um, last time I was here, I think I was talking to you about some changes in the preschool program. So we, you know, decided to institute half-day preschool for three-year-olds and um remain with the the full day for four-year-olds. So it was a little bit like planning a party and then you don't know who's going to show up. So um we had preschool um applications and we did our lottery and people showed up. So it was very exciting. Um I obviously it was a big change and families had to sort of adjust to that, but um not too many complaints so far. We had a total of 69 applications. Um we

124were able to fill 18 three-year-old peer partner slots and 25 um four-year-old peer partner slots. Um there is currently a weight list of 14 students and those are all four-year-olds. So in the past our four-year-olds used to get priority and now because we opened up the three year old classroom it was sort of um made for a little bit of a more equitable experience which was a change for families but um I think a good change. Um, so screenings took place this past Thursday and Friday. 46 um, little students came to Kushman School to be screened. Um, they had balloons outside. They did an awesome job. It was a very organized and calm and welcoming environment for those families. Um, and as you know, all of these changes sort of coincided with um, a new

125administrator at Kushman School. So I said, "Okay, Stephanie Ricardi, this is what we're doing now." and she has um taken this and ran with it. Her and the staff have been very busy um working on program descriptions and expectations for three-year-olds versus four-year-olds and sort of what that day is going to look like. So, lots of good stuff happening at Kushman. The lottery um and the application process was a success and we are ready to move on to um the 2025 2026 school year. So, good stuff. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much. A couple other things that I'll update you on. One is um MCCAST. It's still going on. I'm sure Mr. Oliver, you're aware of that since I know that that's a focus for you and your district. Um, but I just want

126to say that our students, our staff, families, everybody's doing such a remarkable job with a new program. And special thanks to Jonathan, his technology team, I mean, they have really been working hard to uh support the schools on really a daily basis. I mean, just the other day, we had a um we had a a wif-fi disruption as students had uh some many students had just begun the testing process. And of course, you know, everybody from our technology coaches to Jonathan who was in jury duty or he didn't get selected maybe because of this um because he had to step out to deal with some of of the challenges, but they were able to get things up and running. And again, I think that Wi-Fi outage, what was that related to? I think it power

127outage. Power outage. So, there was a power outage. And so, those are the unpredictable things that happen that we have to contend with. And I'm just really grateful to again the school-based folks who just they just I mean, they take it in stride and they're just really incredibly flexible. And I think that um you know, it's really commendable what they were able to manage. Uh the middle school alluded to their literacy night, but I have to tell you, I was able to attend the literacy night and listen to students who were finalists have um get up to a microphone or a podium and read their poetry out loud. And there was such a wide range of emotions expressed. I mean, there were some that were humorous and there were some that were really moving pieces

128of writing that you begin to understand that even with middle schoolers who we think or sometimes people joke um maybe don't have a lot going on in their they do. There's plenty of of thinking going on and and what a wonderful way to give kids who might not otherwise have that opportunity, those quiet students who are quietly writing their thoughts or being creative and some of what you know they're experiencing in the world around them and they were able to put the their probably pencil to paper isn't the right word because I think everything's typed but they did go to the microphone and they were really proud and it was really wonderful to see kids who had that kind of opportunity for self-expression and some of the folks involved in that. I just want to

129mention because there were again our educators there to support our students. There were probably I don't even I I'm not good at estimating there had to have been about 30 kids who read poems and there was some artwork as well but Laura Gardner, Daniel Leafrey for well I can never say his name right. Lefay uh Stephanie Kamar Susan Tullson Paul Lante Susan Peach pel peel Mike Mlan Erica Palatroni Lauren Seagar Vicky Varicus they and Sarah Deas all there to support our students that night and it was really wonderful and the kids were excited. Um and then the very next night was the um the junior honor society and the induction of the at the same school and probably with many of the same people and other people helping to support that event as well. Um,

130from what I understand, there were 64 seventh and eighth graders who were inducted that evening. Both evenings the DHS string ensemble performed. So, sort of as a as a welcome to the event. So, that was really lovely. Um, I'll move on to budget and capital improvement. Jim, Mr. Kylie, I think we've talked a little bit about it this evening. Yeah, I mean I I think we've talked budget. the in terms of capital improvements. Um the town had indicated that they had uh expended the free cash at the October town meeting so had very little to um to move forward with in in the spring. Um what that meant for us is that they have placed a of our technology request that was $250,000. they have um moved forward a $50,000 recommendation. And then for our

131um the other the project that we the biggest project that we actually have in the works right now is we have a bid that'll be opened on Friday for the fire alarm repairs at the Dlo and Potter School. they didn't have the money and uh so what there will be is an article on the town meeting warrant to move money from the long-term capital stabilization fund of which last year they put a million dollars in to fund this project. So, it'll be a separate item, not included under the capital improvements, but obviously, you know, it's an important project and we're obviously well on our way to being ready to complete it um with the bid opening this Friday. So, hopefully that bid opening will be successful. We'll be able to get the funding on June

1323rd and we'll move forward and do that this summer at both of those buildings. The other um capital improvement related item is um the the MSBA. Um we we've as you recall we we filed a statement of interest for the high school roof um and windows. Uh with the MSBA, they have not acted yet on their accelerated repair program um projects. And they do have a meeting on they just had a meeting this uh past week. Um, but they do have a meeting on on May 28th. So, I'm going to watch for that as the agenda comes out and see if that's going to be when they consider their accelerated repair projects, but I'll uh keep you posted as to progress on that. So, thank you. And so, under HR, we are hiring. Um, we

133do have some, you probably have seen them if you um you're getting our Dartmouth email, but we are in the process of interviewing for leadership positions. I want to say the interviews for the middle school I had mentioned to you in my Friday update are com for the assistant principal ship are complete and we're pleased to share that Justin Zexter has been uh appointed. He's a longtime well Dartmouth educator and a wellrespected math teacher. And so we're excited to be able to have him join the middle school team. And so you'll see in turn um that the Potter and Dartmouth high school positions, the associate assistant and and associate position respectfully respectively have uh you know uh been scheduled for next week. And so we look forward to hopefully at the next committee meeting being

134able to update you as to where we are with that. Again, lots of people involved in organizing that. I'm really grateful to um Mrs. Pavo, Dr. T-Bolt, our principles, Peter Rossy, Ryan Sheay, Melissa Mckenry, and and many educators have been involved and it really does it is a time commitment for them. So, we appreciate their input because we do believe these are important hires and we want to include as many voices as we can. On the same time, at the same time, we're also now, as you can see, we're advertising for our content positions. So, you'll be seeing uh even a few more job ads coming out. Um, under family and community engagement, I don't know if you got to chance to see High School the High School Musical, which was High School Musical. So,

135I love saying that the High School Musical was High School Musical. Um, so for those of you who got to see it, I'm sure you jo um joined me in saying it really was a spectacular event. It was just so fun and it was so uplifting and the whole theme of the show couldn't have come at a better time. We're all in this together. I've been like singing that over and over and over again, you know, just to ground me and remind us all. Uh but the theme was about different groups, athletic athletes, academics, uh theater kids, and just represented from many groups and how they came together. Uh, and from what I heard from the director, I did get a chance to talk to Dennis and he said it was just such an interesting

136experience and new for him and unique in bringing just that um just different all those different student groups together and to see the relationships that they formed and then what they produced that night was just really it was just so fun um to see and and again corny I'm just going to say but we're all in this together and it was like an opportunity to say like we are one Dartmouth and it was it was obvious. Um and then under safe and supportive schools I would mention the day of kindness organized by Christina Fon Callahan at the high school. I know uh Mary Beckwith had a chance to go and see what I don't know if any others did, but there were multiple clubs, groups, really fun activities that the kids had set up at

137their tables to talk about sort of what their club was about and at the same time to engage their fellow students. And I saw lots of students out there interacting and visiting those tables. So, and I don't think it was all just about the candy. I don't there was some good candy. There was some good candy. But I mean those are the kinds of things that we really think are when we talk about safe and supportive schools, right? There's the safety that kids from a really diverse um diverse backgrounds were there and they were like talking about themselves in their groups and and really went along with the theme of High School Musical. Um so I understand there was a 5K race here on this past Sunday. I wasn't able to make that. I don't

138think I would actually make a 5K race. So, I'm not sure that would have been a good idea anyway. But from what I understand, the community really showed up. And one of the things I would mention about the musical is I was here Friday night. It was packed. And talk about representation from the community. It wasn't just students and their families. There were plenty students and their families, but I saw people from all age groups at that musical. I saw people who did not have kids up on that stage and they were there to come out and enjoy what truly is just a wonderful opportunity to see talented stu students from their own community and it was just it was just so much it was just like one of those it was just really fun.

139You left there feeling this sense of just hope. Um so that's my report. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's great. Um I believe we all got a email about the athletic department updating their policy handbook um or yeah the handbook. Um so Mr. Nun did um show some interest in doing that and I just want to make sure that nobody else wanted to arm wrestle him for that position. Motion to approve John. Second to approve John. Okay. I don't think we have to vote on it, but I just wanted to make sure that everyone was happy with him representing us for the revision of the book. Okay, very good. I had a minor interest and then I I realized, oh no, that's a John thing. He's That's good for He can do that. He

140responded so quickly that mine. Okay. Okay. We support him. Um I also wanted to just mention that the joint conference of uh mass school committee and superintendence the dates are November 12th to 14th. Just put it on your calendar and think about whether you're interested or not. Um and really that was all I had. Anybody else have any updates? Oh my goodness. I have one more thing. Oh my goodness. Time is up. Unbelievable. I'm sorry. It's teacher appreciation week. Oh, that's I just want to say we I I know I had a note, teacher appreciation. So, we just want to say how much again going back to my budget statement, how much we appreciate our teachers. Sorry, I I think I talked over out of turn. So, but I had to go back to that

141because and and we have our um new uh edition of the Dartmouth Compass coming out to I think tomorrow and we will recognize our educators. So, thank you to all our teachers. We appreciate you and I believe the entire school committee would like to reiterate that. um you're the bedrock and um our students can't learn without fabulous teachers and our students are thriving. They're doing really well with a lot less than other communities and we owe that to the teachers. So on behalf of the whole committee, I would say thank you. Yes. Um, next, our next regular meeting of the school committee is scheduled for Monday, May 19th, 2025 at 6 PM in the Dartmouth High School Media Library Center as well as via liveream at www.youtube.comhstv media. Um, we I will now accept a

142motion to adjourn to executive session to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining where an I should say pursuant to MGLC 30A 21A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining where an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on school committees bargaining position DAA and DEA. A motion to adjourn to the executive session. Is set. Second and not to return. Right. Please. And not to return. Oh, and not to return. In session. Sorry. That's good. Chris Oliver. Yes. Kathleen Emerald. Yes. Mary Beckwith. Yes. Best Cofflin. Yes.