001[Music] good evening everyone I'd like to call this meeting of the dman school committee to order for Monday June 3rd 2024 would you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all please be seated well good evening everyone and welcome uh to our meeting for June 3rd after a successful uh senior graduation from dmouth high school uh yesterday great job by all uh this time could we have a roll call please Miss gther Chris Oliver here best Coughlin here Mary Beck here John Nunes yep Kathleen Amaral here thank you very much just to reminded that this meeting is being videotaped by uh Dartmouth High School media and is being re
002rebroadcast on DCTV channels 9 on the following days Wednesday and Thursday at 500 p.m. Friday at 6:00 a.m. Saturday at 8 a 8: a.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. the meeting will also be rebroadcast in DC Channel TV channels 18 on the following days Monday and Saturday at 12:00 p.m and Thursday at 3 p.m. reminder to please silence all cell phones and other electronic devices um at this time uh I'd like to turn it over to Dr Sab Maguire for some recognition wonderful so first Mr noons as we promised early on in the school year we have our Sports captains joining us this evening I want to thank them for being here this evening since I think um most of them graduated from high school yesterday and they're taking the time out to join us
003here this evening um I'm inv inviting Mr t-bolt up to introduce our captains in place of Mr chrisa foi who had been called to jury duty in Boston uh so he wasn't able to get back here quite in time thankfully I just heard that he did not get selected as a juror and I'm sure he's happy about that too but I do want to say before uh before Dr TBO um speaks that I had the Good Fortune to sit in on one of the newly formed Captain's committees or Captain's advis advisories that Mr Chrisi put together and I'm so impressed with the leadership insights I heard from these students and we certainly have a very talented group of athletes here and school leaders so Dr t-bolt Dr s McGuire thank you um so in the
004spirit of the evening as Dr sa McGuire mentioned I'm pinch hitting uh for Mr chrisop Foley um you know and uh he definitely wants to to be here but as Dr Sabre McGuire said he had uh Federal jury duty up in Boston um and those of you know who know Mr chrisop hly know he would not pass up an opportunity to talk or present so I assure you this is certainly me pinch hitting um uh it's a pleasure for me to be able to do this though honestly because uh as a former High School principal teacher and Coach um student athletes and leaders hold a special place in my heart and so I was happy to kind of step in um um at the end of the day I know Mr chrisop Foley and many
005of the coaches here at darmouth high school would agree that being a captain is not about being the most athletically gifted individual though certainly all of our captains here tonight are certainly gifted in their respective uh Sports these student athletes who we uh seek to recognize tonight are respected by their peers for their work ethic for their commitment to Excellence and their willingness to take on additional responsibility to ensure that uh their teams were successful captains are expected to serve as the link between the coaching staff their teammates and the athletic director and they often encourage their teammates to work out during the off season to participate in summer leagues um they lend support both physically and emotionally to their teammates and they consistently set the standard for all other members of the team to
006to follow um this year our captains and Mr chrisop Foley um as Dr s McGuire alluded to established a captain's advis Council which met periodically throughout the uh school year during the pace period the council focused on different topics related to leadership and to the unique role of serving as Captain and different uh leaders were invited in to speak with the group I know Mr Shay and Dr Sabre Maguire were among those who were invited to meet with the the Captain's Council throughout the school year um in closing our captain should take a tremendous uh sense of pride in knowing that this year every single athletic team at Dartmouth High School uh qualified for postseason play at the state level um in talking with Mr chrisop Foley um he's not aware of any schools recently
007uh that has done that because it's very easy for just one team to have a a you know a season that's not quite doesn't quite hit the mark and and then you can't say that but for Dartmouth High School we should take tremendous pride in knowing every single one of our teams this year may uh the postseason and that would not be possible without the leadership of our student athletes and captains behind me um we still have five um teams that are competing um this spring uh in the tournament uh that includes baseball softball girls and boys lacrosse uh and Tennis as well and so we wish them the very best of luck um and at this point I'd like to introduce the captains who were able to join us tonight starting with uh Josh
008Carrero who uh is representing football Lindsay kleene uh who's representing winter and spring track Nathaniel Wentworth who's representing cross country winter and spring track Owen Carter representing soccer Nicholas Sylvia representing soccer um Megan Aruda for softball Emma green for soccer Haley Ms soccer and basketball Hunter Matson basketball Brooke Davis volley ball winter and spring track cat cheesebro basketball and soccer and uh Tyler maderas soccer winter and spring track that's it that's all I have I did tell them there may be questions you know but Podium so if anyone uh would like to uh say anything comment I'm not putting you on the spot but I kind of am uh you're welcome to or you if you're good that's fine too I would just like to offer just you know congratulations on several three great Seasons
009it sounds like the uh spring season is still not over um so we wish those teams the best of luck but uh each of you should be proud of uh the position that you hold as C that you held as captains and uh for your commitment to Dartmouth Sports so I personally thank you and if any of my colleagues have anything else to share um down there yeah no I I I love how also you know tremendous accomplishments uh for the teams that you're representing uh but I just love that you having you here and having Dr tibo talk about you know exemplifying even much more than athletic accomplishment um it certainly is an indicator of your potential as leaders and so I look forward to seeing how you all flourish in your lives whatever
010Avenue that you're going into um and so congratulations thank you yeah I'm the reason that you guys are here deal so you want to yell at me you're more than welcome to but in all service I think anybody that knows me you know if I get we as a committee get an opportunity to highlight our students that's what we're all about that's what I'm all about type of deal so uh I started this in November when all the fall teams made the uh all the fall teams made tournaments and such and you know as I said that included track because track cross country you know the track those are all per se individual you know an individual person you know has a fantastic time in the 50 Y dash or you know in the three
011miles that you're running in cross country and such so I'm very much aware of that type of deal but you know when you follow it and such you just just get into it type of deal and and I really appreciate it and just and I'm I apologize I'm just going to recognize Hunter for being the top high school sport basketball score type of deal and that and then miss cheeseboro for scoring a th points so you know as a junior correct yes so what about next year to go so but I mean seriously I thank you for being here uh I applaud you and congratulate you on uh three fantastic seasons and all the best uh as you move on to a great college career thank you thank you I won't say much but I
012just want to thank you all for coming tonight because I know uh most of you have graduated already so uh to come back so soon after is great and um and I just want to recognize um your hard work because to have all these teams go to playoffs is uh pretty unusual and outstanding so I thank you for your leadership and um those of you who are moving on um take those leadership skills with you to to the next place you go well I think they all said it but um know that the dart Dart Community is proud of you all and uh yes Superior athleticism um but team building um it takes two things to win tournaments to move forward and I hope that you all will participate in sports As you move forward
013I think it's a great Mind Body Connection there's this uh Synergy there that um allows you to do better in both excellent thank you thank you to my colleagues thank you all uh Dr TBO if you could take a picture before they before they sit down or actually leave oh they don't want to hang out with us this evening we do have a lengthy agenda so urge you to stick around you bring sleeping BS they did ask if they had to they were more than welcome yes thank you [Applause] all Fant always nice to see our students and we do this why right yeah that's right seriously agreed uh next up on the agenda chair will'll entertain a motion to approve the regular session minutes for May 13th 2024 so second motion by Mr Nunes
014second by Miss coflin on the motion any other discussion chair hearing none all in favor I I I opposed extensions exension motion passes 4 to zero with one exstension next up chair we'll entertain a motion to approve the executive session minutes of May 13th 2024 so move Mr chairman with the stipulation that they be held until the matter for which they were intended is complete second motion by Mr noon second by Miss Coughlin on the motion any further discussion chair hearing none all in favor I I I opposed extensions thank you motion passes 4 to zero with one exstension next up on our our consent agenda request for Mr chairman you forgot public comment oh I'm thank you for that I skipped right over public comment for some excited about the I know I thought
015we did it before uh for some reason before the recognition so my apologies to those of you that are in the audience uh at this time the uh school committee always allows uh 10 minutes for anyone wishing to speak on behalf of any of tonight's agenda items if you we have a a microphone set up and uh we ask you to keep your comments uh brief around three minutes anyone wishing to speak on any of tonight's agenda items I'll take that as uh I think we're all set but thank you very much for that I would have uh certainly been remiss if I missed that uh next up uh under the consent agenda request for DHS marching ban in colard to operate the food concession at the Dartmouth living Memorial Stadium for the 2024 football
016State uh season so moved second uh so we have a motion on the floor by Mr noons a second by Miss Amaral on the motion uh any further discussion you should have all received that in your packets she seeing none all in favor I I opposed motion passes unanimously thank you very much uh next up we we have let me get back there we have a presentation I'm going to turn it over to Dr sa Maguire so that um is a nice segue right into our next agenda item where we have Mr Ian Flint here as you know our director of music and he is going to give us an overview of the district's music program and I'm sure has some really valuable information to share with us this evening so thank you Mr Flint
017excellent thank you so um last year I presented on our program and I did kind of an overview on that and you know we've had great progress with that uh some equipment that we were able to purchase we have a lot more Equity across the program and our elementary program so thank you to the school committee and uh acquiring helping to acquire a grant for that um so right now when we look at our Elementry program we see three schools or actually four schools that have the same equipment across the board so if your student goes to Potter or D or Quinn they all get access to orph instruments and ukuleles and all the different kind of things that we want to present in the elementary program so that's been a huge success um today
018I really want to talk about our performance ensembles um in Dar Public Schools so came with like kind of some facts actually kind of surprising to myself you know you kind of realize there's uh a lot of people involved in this and a lot of things that happened in the school year and it's it's nice to kind of reflect on what we do but a lot of the things we did this year are just what we do year to year it's a looks a little different depending on the year um we do special events the year and I'll kind of talk about those um but but for the most part you know a school year for us involves a lot of different performance so uh we have 21 unique performing ensembles Dartmouth Public Schools so
019quite a uh quite a few things from whether it's Elementary courses to High School uh small ensembles groups that travel and perform uh in competitions across the country we have 1,168 students that participated in those performing ensembles across our district um and I'm talking about these are just people that got on a stage or went somewhere and performed where uh people were able to see them perform in an ensemble we had 82 unique events so that could be concerts competitions those are things like the parades that we do in the community um so a lot of different performance opportunities and our groups traveled over 10,000 miles this year so quite a bit of travel that goes into this um and it's spread across all kinds of different ensembles really depends on the year for the
020groups but uh I'll kind of when I talk about the individual groups for this year we'll see how that travel kind of pans out so I did this kind of chronologically we started school year with our Marching Band program this year our production was uh entitled stencils at an Alleyway based on the music of misorski and it was uh pictures at an exhibition right so we took some classical music and we turned it on upside down and did a modern take on it and we did the art of Banksy so instead of doing pictures you would see at an art gallery we did street art right with the modern take so we had 92 members we did 15 performances with the marching band program uh once again us bands group five national champions I think
021um this is the 12th one that we've won um we are also for the second time the boa the bands of America and New Jersey Regional Champions um and we attended bands of America grand national championships for the first time so at Grand Nationals we made semi-finals we were the smallest Ensemble to make semifinals that had a qualifying number so the way it works is it's done by school size and all kinds of different things but uh ultimately there's a certain number cut off that qualifies you to get in semi-finals and we actually got special recognition for that we're the first group under 100 to uh make semi-finals in quite a long time and the first one in 20 years from New England so um that group traveled over 3,000 miles last fall quite a
022bit of travel um it was a special group we had a great senior class we were really excited to do something with them that was unique and wasn't a one-year process you know anytime we're doing that kind of travel with an ensemble we built up for the after covid for three years to build an ensemble that was able to take on that kind of a task so quite a special group they did excellent all the performances and and really were notable um uh had a notable season and you know ready for next year it's going to be great the next thing we did was our winter concerts winter concerts occur in the month of December and January in January we have our fourth grade chuses that perform so this is new as of last year
023we started we used to do fifth grade concert in J uh December and then one at the end of the year this gave us more access to students experience what course is like at an earlier age so by going to fourth grade course we have that in January for them and then we do the fifth grade later in the year also in December we have our Middle School band chorus and Orchestra programs do their first concert of the year and our high school Ensemble does their Pops concert holiday pops which just gets all the high school ensembles in the gym together to do kind of like a festive holiday concert um the one special unique thing that we do is after that concert the Potter School travels over here and we do a concert for
024them during the school day you know really a great opportunity for younger students to see the high school students they're really excited you know it's just a great um performance and the high school kids are excited to anytime they could perform for the younger students it's a really fun time for them now we get into some stuff the spring gets really busy for us right we spend the first half that school year just kind of developing skills mainly in our classes but in February we saw our Orchestra did a special project this year with a composer and conductor uh named sunnii newold um she's from California and this was a multi-day clinic and there was a composition aspect because they played all of her music that she's composed original music compositions and then she conducted
025The Ensemble so got to work on her compositions but then interact with her as a composer it was our whole string program from 6th to 12th grade and they did two performances of that um at the end of the week so that was kind of their special thing for the year every group we try to do something with that's maybe unique and different and that's what the orchestra did uh back in February we move into March and we have our full High School uh music department does their March Pops concert kind of like our annual tradition you know it's kind of aun concert once again for the students and uh gets all of our high school together this year we honored Yeet Nunes who is a longtime dsma uh volunteer uh she's I don't even
026know how long with the program but very long time and done a lot of different things but most recently she's done uh like assisted with the treasur aspect she was the treasurer and then immediate past treasur and is really a wealth of knowledge when it comes to the financial aspect of dsma and how we kind of managed the whole operation of the program so she was our Honore for this year and now we get into March into April where there's a it feels like there's an event every day in April for us that's really like the big part of the year so our concert ensembles this is our third year participating in the Micah uh State uh concert Ensemble Festival we've kind of built this over three years we took the high school concert band
027the first year second year we took the high school orchestra and the concert band and this year we took the Middle School orchestra High School orchestra and high school concert band so it's our third year participating in that all three ensembles received a silver rating actually a high silver rating so really close to to Gold um but not quite uh it is the standard the Massachusetts instrumental Coral uh con uh not Coral condu the uh concert band and coral Association uh Festival it's kind of the gold standard every state Festival is kind of built off of what massett been doing for I don't know 60 70 years now um so really high standard you're you're adjudicated based upon what you're trying to achieve so a good example is the high school band we played a
028colleg level piece and it's hard so they grade the music one through five one through six we played a grade level five piece which is considered Collegiate level and we actually on that piece we received a gold we received top rating the other two pieces were also really difficult near Collegiate level and they were silver so our overall rating was silver um but excellent performance so all three groups kind of had that where they had one piece that was gold but you know maybe the other ones are just not quite there um great for like upholding that standard like what are we doing in our classroom and how does that fit into the curriculum so it goes beyond like the competitive aspect but really gets in there with the students and then they have um
029at the end of the the festival they have kind of a a half hour clinic with one of the judges so really really great experience and keep expanding that every year um one of the newer ensembles we have at dmouth this is their second year is our show choir um they're 18 students in the show choir uh they did five festivals this year their show was entitled The Odyssey so if you've seen indoor percussion or you've seen the color guard or the marching band it's kind of the coral version of that right it's a 15minute long production where they you know work on it for six months and they put this together and they compete around the region and in the mixed division for a small ensembles they were third place in New England and
030they received at the end of the season a silver rating so um excellent performance for them at the end and you know really took the next step as an ensemble in their second year and the the groups that everybody's probably really familiar with with here at darmouth Public Schools is a one of those is our Winter Guard program uh we have two winter guards uh the first one is our Varsity guard that had 15 members 10 in rjv um The Varsity show was entitled unwrapped and it was kind of like a candy shop thing and modern music and you know Willie Wonka a little bit of that and then the second one was a little genius So based upon uh uh it's like kind of like a classroom kind of thing for students right that
031was our JB color guard and so they had 17 performances between the two ensembles this year um the Middle School the JV guard is in the Middle School class for nesba and they were nesba Champions and the varsity guard was open class nesba Champions which is in in WGI in that there's a open and world class would be the top uh classification in WGI finals in Dayton Ohio uh they qualify for open class finals so the first time in quite a few years that they've done that uh you know at that competition there's 400 groups there and so they were in the top uh 15 in the open class so quite it's quite difficult to make finals and they did excellent we had a great Color Guard this year and uh you know had a
032great season our win a percussion their show was Gallery x uh 46 students participate in that we have a huge Ensemble with the dance team and all the percussionists um they did 15 performances they were New England and New Jersey Regional Champions it sounds like the same record every year with that Ensemble um also nesb Champions and uh they were fourth place in the world class uh for WGI this year here um so you know it's really close to that metal uh they were right behind but uh excellent you know the ensembles in front of them are from California uh two from California one from Indiana so um really considering the size of those schools are over 3500 students uh that we can even be in the conversation with those ensembles by far we're the
033smallest school that's in the world class most of those high schools are well over 3,000 students in those high schools um every year they do the night of percussion which involves our sixth to 12th grade percussionists uh districtwide and one unique thing they did this year is that we presented at the all state music convention uh so we did a hourlong clinic so basically we put the percussion Ensemble out there and kind of went through our process and uh you know it's for music educators so quite the audience there um professors from the universities all across the state things like that percussion professors um so we were able to present at the All State uh conference this is our third time doing this in 25 years um so it's always great to go up there
034and kind of show what we do to music education across the state and the final thing we have for the year is our spring concerts you know these are really the academic aspect of what we do in our school day you know it's a process a lot of what we do in the classroom you know we everybody sees the concerts but it's about that that growth throughout the school year right and so we have the objective is to get to a level where they're able to perform on a stage but that's a really slow process through the school year so we really look at these spring concerts as our like professional culminating event for the students um 10 concerts fifth to 12th grade uh we have three more this week so our elementary concerts are
035Tuesday Wednesday Thursday night this week um and I like to say it's our Showcase of learning right this is where we show off it's entertaining but really shows with the students who were able to learn that school year um also at the end of the year we have a Memorial Day parade for our high school great represent or middle school and high school bands so we had three bands in that performance for the Memorial Day parade and then yesterday was a graduation uh I thought the band played awesome yesterday so it's always great to end the school year with a great graduation so um quite a few events you know like I said 82 events in our school year it's it's a lot you know there's a lot going on and we go through it
036it's it's always about giving the students opportunities right so the more performance opportunities that we can give the better um students really respond to that right and uh for us it's you know it's why we do it as music educators right we're doing this because we want to see them just grow and be great at what they do and we kind of want to show off you know what they're able to to learn right um so it's it's it's Unique thing watching that process of the the especially with the Performing ensembles they enter into one of the um on the Middle School ensembles in sixth grade and see where they get to by the time they're seniors it's something special so um it's kind of an overview of the year for us you know obviously
037we have General music classes at the elementary middle and then we have for the high school we offer guitar this year for the high school we actually had a music technology course that we offered for the first time ever and then we offered AP music theory at the high school too so we had quite a few students participate in that I think it was I want to say it was 12 students or 15 students in the AP class so um yeah it was our first year doing that and so to have an AP offering at the high school is you know something new and something the students they were excited about it right to see like oh I'm really interested in music and I have an AP class I could take now so yeah so
038that's uh kind of the overview of what we did this year we got lots of plann for next year super excited we're already in the process I was saying we had marching van rehearsal after school the strings are on the St right now getting ready for their trip to Spain next spring uh so you know it never ends for us you know really you know we use the end of the school year right now to kind of prepare the students for next year and uh they're excited and we're excited too so thank you so much awesome just awesome to here uh we'll start down the enter of the table um wow do you have any time to eat and do the students have any time to do anything other than music yeah um it it's
039really impressive hearing you present it's really impressive seeing them perform um to me they should have won Gold every time every time I hear them play I'm I'm like I know we didn't sound like that in high school so um I recognize the hard work both that you put into it and the students put into it and the creativity of the programming um and choosing the pieces to the ility of the students is just phenomenal um and I think it just makes dmouth so much more valuable as a educational institution so thank you very very much here one actually one thing I forgot is we have 12 12 full-time Educators here in D Public Schools but we have about 25 adjunct people that come in and work with these students too after school so we
040quite a few people dedicated to the After School portion of our program you know put a lot of hours in for not not a lot of money you know but a lot of them a lot of alumni that come back they want to see it be great you know so that's that's super exciting when we have people that are like dedicated year after year I mean a lot of the people at night they've been here for 10 15 20 years you know and they have other day jobs but they want to be back here coaching working with the students that's great yeah the the depth and bread is so uh impressive and that it you know goes well beyond the the school day um the one question I had is for the middle school and
041high school stud students is it typical for them to be involved in more than one Ensemble or do they tend to specialize yeah so we in the middle school they're specialized because in the sixth seventh and eighth grade they have to choose one of the ensembles um because they have it every other day um so it's just the way it works in the schedule by the time they get to high school though we have quite a few students that mix between the groups um so we see it a lot in the orchestra to the band so there might be a student that's like I play bass in the orchestra but I'm going to do the Jazz Band program or we have a lot of students that do the marching band aspect maybe that play a
042string instrument um one of the students in the band is in the show choir right so not able to take the High School chorus class but able to participate in the coral program and be a member of the band program so we see a lot more in the high school great um and students are always interested in kind of doing a little bit of both it is difficult at middle school though um they really that's where they're once they learn one instrument though or you know whatever they're learning and they specialize in that it's easier to learn a second or a third sure great thank you Mr n yeah thank you Mr Fint uh I think everybody knows uh my involvement with the music and everything else but you know Ian and I have talked
043a lot of on this but you know as as I always say too when we go to these different especially in the in the fall and even with the uh the indoor percussion and you know last year to the indoor winds and that and you get you know we're unloading the truck and people are coming over you know what time you guys practicing and warming up I mean we're a fixture and everybody's watching us type type of deal so it's really really great uh I appreciate and I appreciate everything you know you've done it's been this way and it continues on so keep it up thank you yeah thank you great presentation um I'm curious about like numbers for the high school next year like are you anticipating more less I know there was a
044call for for um signing up you know during the Spring concerts and my trumpet player is not going to be I thought maybe she would be my chance at the band but she's not going to continue in here in high school sadly but um so I just went thinking to myself when they were calling for folks to sign up like how can a program like this need advertising it sort of sells itself so I'm wondering if you do have a lot do you ever have to turn students away or are the numbers next year what are you anticipating for next yeah we don't turn students away so you know the thing is it's a big commitment right obviously so a lot of times that that can scare some students off they see it and they
045go wow I don't know if I can do this um I'll say for the marching band we were 92 members last year uh currently we're looking at you know high 80s low 90s we have 95 signed up but you know the summer happens and uh so you never know but uh it looks about the same uh for the high school class enrollment looks about the same for next year so every indicator I see there um the challenge is that the schools are smaller right so there 1,200 students at Dartmouth it was it was less recruitment we didn't have to work as hard now we're reaching out more right because to get a 100 piece marching band you know when I started here in 2006 was pretty easy like you want to be the band they're
046like yeah sure you know but um there's just not as many students right so there's a lot more things going on too you know we acknowledge that as music educators there's a lot of opportunities outside of the school too so um you know we need to provide a program that's appealing at the same time a program where um it's available to everybody you know like like like they want to be part of it and but you know it's been great we have a we have a lot of interest at the middle school level obviously Middle School ensembles are very large right now um so it's just getting them here to the high school making that connection uh that's that's always the secret yeah I and I also my not necessarily well the I love the
047um it sounds as if Potter has a field trip every year is there any like trying to reel in the other schools to do the same and yeah like I mean we're always open to those kind of things it's you know they fit into the auditorium I'm not sure Quinn school would fit in one shot in the auditorium but that was just one thing they were like hey can we do this it happened years ago so um we we did spend uh send ensembles to schools this year so like the strings went to all the elementary schools and a little tour like courses done things like that um so sometimes we send ensembles out to the schools um and that's just you know it's a little bit of a recruitment or a little bit you
048know we like the students to see what the program is so there's a little bit of recruitment in that but at the same time a little bit of that's just we want the the elementary students to see music right they want to see their older uh siblings or cousins or things like that y excellent thank you that's all I have thank you everyone thank you Mr Amaral so I'll just uh close by saying you know I I think that the uh the community at large is aware that Dartmouth public schools has a great music program but it it it's certainly worthwhile with presentations to like to this or like this that uh really puts facts behind it and allows uh you to present um and share with the uh the few of us that are
049here tonight as well as everyone that's going to watch us on YouTube and uh maybe Dartmouth weekly picking it up but it's just so important to actually put some put some facts and data behind exactly what you do it's very impressing very impressive uh you know 82 events uh over 10,000 miles of travel I it's just it's hard to Fathom so um you know to I can't say much more than what everyone else has said but um you know I appreciate the presentation I appreciate all the work uh that you put into it because I I have no doubt that uh there's not a lot of downtime during the year for you um and for your staffs and for those parents that are also participating in the music mus Association so uh you know keep
050up the good work and uh we look forward to hearing what next year will bring exting thank you thank you very much thank you everybody thank you very much that was great uh next up overview of District technology uh Dr Sab McGuire quite a segue from the music program overview to District technology update but I know that Mr gashaw has quite a bit to share with us so turn it right over yes um Mr Fint mentioned about the digital te uh music uh lab that we put in this year we're moving we're expanding it putting it into another room but it was very popular and digitizing music and the kids take to it very well so that is one of the projects of summer when we change the rooms and expand hi my name is
051Jonathan gisher I'm the director of technology for the school District here and uh I just wanted to talk about tech the state of technology and uh the future plans that we have for the summer uh technology can be dry and uh boring I could speak hours about it to you but I'm a Humane person I won't do that uh but I will uh try to liveen it up AIT let me come out there okay Che y Mr par thank you thank you so educational technology is two pieces uh uh operational technology and instructional technology when we talk about operational technology I just want to give you an idea of the magnitude of what the hardware that we deal with uh we deal with Chromebooks laptops servers desktops printers Networks security cameras telephones and intercoms we
052have many of those things we keep them updated and clean we move them around the district to maximize the use of them for resource purposes we integrate new computers every year into the to the fleet also refurbish them we have hundreds of cameras uh hundreds of access points around here too um and thousands of laptops Chromebooks and such uh we also have 101 switches that run the network around the district and about 44 servers that house the information uh from Financial systems to files and such uh we also have thousands of users uh for software and email that we maintain we also maintain software both uh technical software administrative software and then instructional software we do evaluations of those softwares we also check them for data privacy to make sure our data is safe um
053we develop curriculum for classes for instruction and training of that software and we do evaluation of the use and performance of that software the instructional side is probably the the real magic that happens with technology uh we align with standards curriculum uh for students teachers we talk about computer safety and the care as well as cyber security internet safety um and the Mastery of software uh that we purchased and we or we we uh subscribed to to maximize the use of that some of the projects will be working on this summer uh completion of a phone system upgrade uh the importance of that is to make sure all phones are connected to IP addresses which will allow for reverse 911 and other services so that uh people can be found if there's an emergency uh
054or where the emergency might be as I mentioned the creation and Recreation of labs around the district uh mostly at the high school I should say also an audit and inventory of what we have and the condition of everything we have uh Chromebooks we do updating and cleaning of them getting them ready for next year and there's a new Financial server that we're trying to we had had a little glitch it's a little slow it's a new server but we're working at trying to perfect that uh Mr Mr Kylie has cut me off until I fix that but uh we'll get there Mr Kylie uh somewhere between the communication of the two uh databases on the server our future plans for next year uh there's a huge shift in the state and around the country
055especially in education for the importance of cyber security um Mr Oliver is also aware of this for his district uh data privacy always um and also as we've talked to Dr s McGuire in regards to communication we think that's something we can focus on for the in the year to come uh whether it be the new website or also the use of um parent Square to communicate with our families uh trying to do a single source of communication a common source of communication so we have a consistent form of communication and also the always the Remake the redoing and the the publishing of policy are plans uh Ai and others that are coming let me introduce you to the tech department first we have Tracy bis who's the secretary in the department she does that
056and so much more uh Pam King is a technician that's a a poor example of calling her a technician she's able to repair thousands of Chromebooks and so much more Tom farz does our data Chris Branco does our servers but as I mentioned they do so much much more we're currently in the market for a network administrator it's difficult to hold that position uh it's very marketable out there so we're working at that we have a currently ad out there and we'll be looking at applicants hopefully very soon for the summer and as I mentioned the instructional technology people uh sander chica who's at Potter instructional Tech and uh Temple Mitchell is at the middle school and you've seen some of these people introduce these people during their Spotlight on technology and Kate powers does
057quinnn and Liz vosi does Dello and kushman uh we're hiring we just hired a person for the high school we were absent for having a person there so Jessica briningham will be returning to that POS to the high school she used to work here as an English teacher uh she'll be returning to that position so we're excited about that they are the Marvels that keep this place running with technology there a lot of Hardware you saw there a lot of instructional you know as it says it takes a village yes you you've heard that before it does for us too um we've become so dependent on technology sometimes from our perspective The Village looks like this but that's a that's a whole other story I'm just kidding we have very passionate people and we do
058uh a lot of people do uh are very passionate about the technology they use and that's as I promised a very quick synopsis we push technology to the limit and uh when I saw Mr Flint talk about some of the programs that we're doing this is kind of the nuts and bolts presentation I would like to be invited back in the fall you've seen some of the spotlight on on schools but I'd like to bring the instructional technology people back because the Marvels that they do in the classroom are really really amazing the stem and steam maker space green screens AI we're using Blended flipped data driven decisions um but it's amazing what they do with the technology so so there's that is my presentation I promise short and sweet thank you go back all
059right thank you Mr gashaw thank you for the comical comic relas I I certainly appreciate you bringing a a little bit of light-heartedness to the presentation for sure but I I do think that you are being a little modest as well uh with what you do and what your department does here um I'll I'll St down there and then I'll I'll I'll close it off uh I don't have any technical questions because you are not speaking my language I do not know anything about technology uh but I uh will just I just appreciate all of your work um uh in your responsiveness and and your humor and cander um throughout all I don't even know what you do like I you know like I it's just a lot right we just we just turn it
060on access it and it and it works um I have been a family in the past few years whose child has broken their Chromebook and uh you know very quick responsive the the processes that you have in place and the proed you know are you know very clear and again you're very responsive I uh one of my uh student one of my uh children um does uh communicate utilize augmentative communication and um or not so much anymore we've Ted talked about that again responsive to the need and uh very helpful um at with with with any ask that I've ever had so um I just appreciate that I will turn it over to the next person who may have more um specific uh tech tech questions but that's beckworth because you know you guys you
061guys know my technical expertise type of deal but no seriously uh thank you for that wonderful information uh I'm not quite sure when you know you somebody made a comment about Mr Flint when you know when the students when do they eat and sleep that that that type of deal when is when do all of you know with everything you've got going on here you know same thing type of deal I eat plenty so I'm fine but that's different when you I didn't realize we had that many Chromebooks and computers in this this the district you know I mean I know we had to buy quite a few with with Co and and that type of deal but when you seriously when you talk about cleaning a computer what what are you doing uh both
062physically and internally uh because uh Little Fingers can be very messy and uh we've had some with bananas stuck in them or M&M's but it's okay so we can get that done but internally that's just the tip of the iceberg yeah but but also uh internally we'll do updates because they'll be updated or we'll do what they call a power wash inside and and it it takes a machine it brings it back to factory settings so it performs much better than uh a year of use you know so a lot of times it does that so we'll do that over the summer to all the computers uh the ones we collect uh we don't collect the high school students they stay active the middle school students we do uh the elementary schools as well so
063we we do the whole Fleet there so okay I I was just curious about that so thank you sir it's always tweaking uh like a lot of the closets that run the networks and um we do heat maps for Wi-Fi so what you do is you move through a building and you find if there's any dead spots so you add additional Wi-Fi there so we've done a heat map of the building the buildings I should say yeah so we'll add additional things in the summer we love the summer we love being here in the summer there's no one here I know there's programs here but we get so much done because it's hard during the year it's like when you're working on it it's like changing a flat tire of a car moving 60 m
064miles an hour it's hard to do um because it's every they need it today yeah you know thank you sir all I would say is it's astounding to me of what you accomplish with with the size team that you have and you know from removing the M&M's from a Chromebook to you know dealing with data points and and servers and all of that it's it's it's just astounding so thank you In fairness they were playing M&M's not peanuts so uh they were a little easier to remove than if they were a peanut they've done more damage um I'd like to thank you for keeping our students safe on the internet um yes which is a big deal challenge yes it is a challenge um I'd like to thank you and your team for keeping everything
065running and keeping us up to date um because to be a school system in the modern day you need that we would be behind without you so thank you very much I think uh in regards to keeping them safe I think the instructional technology people do a great job showing the kids the dangers because I think we're all very casual in how we uh were on the internet and there's no anonymity you're being tracked all the time they wanted to see where you're buying things and so on and uh so that the children are aware of their digital footprint in the world so uh it won't haunt them and that they won't be exposed so um I know up in Potter I recently saw a program that uh Sandra chicka did with the art teacher
066building the characters and and they're in the hallway the characters that you find on the internet the the sneaky ones the the the people that are after you so they they built the characters it's great part of the Common Sense Media program that they use so it's exciting that's great it's very important thank you thank you Mr I can't fool you Mr Oliver no you can I can fool most but not you I do have a couple of comments and uh I'm going to share uh some things that probably uh you didn't share and the fact that there are constant growing threats every single day in what Jonathan does with this very very small team when you look at K12 Ed technology education and the support staff versus private sector or the health care sector
067it's really a skeleton grow um with with the technicians and the and Mr Branco who oversees the servers um we're really running and this isn't unique to Dartmouth this is kind of right across the board across uh at least Massachusetts um but it's certainly concerning when we I just had this conversation with Jonathan not that long ago that there's cyber liability plans out there there's the recommendation is somewhere between three and5 million that a school district should be carrying for cyber liability insurance what these cyber liability insurance companies are doing is they're saying well you need to prove to us that you have X Y and Z done on your network um and it it's a constant uphill battle and the job that Jonathan has done since uh since he came on board well over
06810 years ago well over a decade ago there's nothing short of you know phenomenal I know you like to joke around Jonathan but you do you you you've done a great job so I think that needs to be said uh that you know know and I've said it before at school commit I I I add levity to it because it keeps us sane but I take my job very seriously I know you I just on the outside I like to to joke around just to keep it light because it's important that people do that no certainly agreed but I guess what I'm getting back at is the the funding sources right we talk about funding sources um and shrinking budgets and you hear every once in a while of districts cutting technicians or cutting tech
069people those are not the places that we should be cutting in school districts uh technology is something that is used every single day students really can't learn without it teachers can't instruct without it uh can't take attendance can't make telephone calls can't you know pas cameras copies everything is done on the network so I would just hope that um we could have a discussion further down the road that uh increases uh somehow uh your Staffing levels um you know I know money's tight but I think that technology should be a a a priority that's what I ran for school committee on almost 12 years ago was my uh my platform and maybe it's time for me to bring it back because I I I don't know how you do it Jonathan I really don't no
070it it uh the team is really amazing um but it does you know I do worry about the Cyber threats as you're talking about constantly and we've had good Network people work in our ranks here Julian uh Jesse Martin spent many years here did a lot of work behind the scenes uh protecting and blocking and you know putting up where they could but um yeah no it's it it does it does wear on you I'm 25 years old so look at me this this is what it's doing to me so well thank you for all you do and take take that thank you back to your team oh thank you very much thank you thank you Mr gashaw I got to get back to work over there see how they are without me The Show
071Must Go On sure any moonlights as the floor director for school committee meetings I enjoyed that uh next up on the agenda under new business CPAC parent survey update okay so we're going to invite U Miss denisio up and Miss August am I saying that right m i mean just perfect right that's like my name right June just like the month um so um before they get started and sharing the uh the annual apparently the the results of the annual survey I do want to say that recently I was able to attend a sort of recognition night that the CPAC um that they hosted and I have to say how impressed I was and it was really um it was inspirational to see that that group of folks uh recognizes the Educators that are out
072in the field every day doing the real work uh that goes into supporting some of our most vulnerable Learners and Mrs Emeral um I know that you are a catalyst for making sure that that happens as well and so I just want to make sure that everybody realizes that uh that we are taking the time to honor our Educators and just want to make sure that that's recognized and thank Mrs denisio who actually received a a recognition oh I'm sorry that's okay all right I'm done talking thank you thank you for thank you for always calling me out I really truly appreciate you well I'm just a little bitter because no one's ever offered me a handheld mic before so need to write a letter about that I think um so up here with me
073tonight are Deb augus who is the treasurer for cek um Steph mellow who is the uh staff liaison and Kim um redlon who is the assistant director um so in special education we get a lot of report cards um as we are in the compliance business there are a lot of people who like to tell us what we're doing right and wrong and what we can do better but I think that this is probably the most important p report card that we receive because it's from the parents so just a little um explanation CPAC is um a mandated group um and the point of the CPAC which stands for special ed parent advisory council is to work collaborative collaboratively between um families and School administration um and District administration to make sure we're meeting the
074needs of students uh build Bridges and uh make connections in the community so uh the yearly survey was sent out to families um and caregivers Who reive special education um to Garner feedback and inform future planning 73 responses were received all of the responses that we received were from parents of students on IEPs um I kind of joke that we might have burnt out our families on surveys this year because we did send a lot of them so this is about an 11% response rate which isn't terrible but um it isn't great and just for clarification all the responses that we receive are Anonymous I'm just going to keep doing this oh sorry um so this slide is just showing the representation of the parent groups that were surveyed all parents from all of our
075district schools were surveyed but also parents of homeschool students private school students who receive special um Services through an IEP as well as our Auto District student uh parent as well okay when concerns arise um who do you reach out to so classroom teacher um 40 responses special education teacher uh 25 responses maybe 26 related service provider um eight responses building Administration seven responses school counselor say about 12 responses that's a good number District administration um I'd say about three responses and out of District resources about five to six responses from the 23 so most most families reach out to their classroom teacher or special education teacher so for special education El eligibility and referral process was smooth and efficient if applicable most families said that they would agree with that we did have about
07614 out of the 73 responders disagree with that um but the majority did agree fully all right evaluation reports were explained clearly and were easy to understand if applicable um again most of the families agreed 50 about 53% um so a little bit more than half agreed on that and we only had maybe six responses that disagreed that the next question said the components of the IEP 504 were explained in detail the ma majority of the responders um agreed with that there were however some that disagreed the next question parent Guardian concerns were addressed during your child's team meeting and I say this was the most response here uh at 53 uh% uh agreed where a few disagreed overall we're rocking this process uh the next question said parent Guardian concerns prior to and after
077a meeting were addressed in a timely fashion again the majority of the responders did agree that the district is addressing their concerns and next one uh do you believe your child's placement and Service delivery is appropriate um this one's kind of spread out a little a little bit more so about 42% agreed 19 being pretty close to agreeing and I would say about 11 disagreed so the last question was has your child experienced bullying related to their disability the majority of the responders said no out of the ones that said yes um there had been did they feel as though there had been a resolution upon addressing the bullying um the majority said not applicable so I'm not 100% sure what that means um but those who said that their child was bullied out of
078that percentage 88.2% said yes they felt that the um bullying had been addressed you guys um and so our final slide is um showcasing what Dr Sabre Maguire was talking about earlier with that recognition night so as part of the survey parents were also asked um to nominate not only staff members but peers who went above and beyond for their child um this year so you can see 24 staff members were recognized as well as five uh student peers as well that's it that's it that's it so I agree with uh Miss Miss Melo we are rocking this process but we will not let good be the enemy of great and we will continue to um make improvements with our communication with parents um and the process as a whole thank you thank you thank
079you thank you very much not so fast uh any questions for the presentation is that down here go ahead sure um so really important survey boy do I wish more than 11% would respond um so how do you send out the survey and do you do a second push is there any way that we can increase those numbers yeah we sent it out to the parent backpack it was on the website um we did the parent Square notification and we actually extended the the uh the deadline this year I do think it's a t a difficult time it's open for a long time which is good but no one does anything until the last minute in life any anyway but um I do think that because we had superintendent survey there was just a lot
080we were asking parents this year and this is probably just one more thing so but I agree with you I would love to increase that number so if we can do it more personally we went back to handing parents paper um registration for esy this year because we were feeling like we needed that so I don't know if you know even handing them a paper with a QR code on it might be a better way to get more involvement yeah um um go I had two more things one is the bullying you know I wish there was no bullying anywhere in school out of school um but it seems like it is handled well uh an interesting thing to see would be um what this survey shows versus the rest of the student population is
081it different is it really more I mean I know there are vulnerable population but that would be an interesting thing to hear and lastly yes recognition thank you you all um I love that the peers were also recognized um because they're really an important part in the education of our special needs kids that was the best part and it was from elementary to high school that peers were recognized so it was very cool yeah very cool thank you for the work that you do um when is the survey administered what what point in the year S I think it was February or February February ail all right yeah so it's a it's well into the year which is good right U but it's also probably you know parents have already done several surveys at that
082point so yeah yeah yeah but I like the QR code idea someone should write that down so I don't forget for next year yeah yes from there yes good idea Mr news yeah thank you Mr wonderful presentation thank you very much uh on the ones that were not satisfied and again I realize they're Anonymous type of deal but is there is there a reason given or is there a way to look at it and say boy good point this is what we need to fix or this was the problem and how we can take care of it type of you know what I'm trying to yeah there were there is room and in every question for comments so we receive some comments so that even though it's Anonymous we can look at those comments and
083and um yeah gain information from that moving forward okay thank you thank you Mr chairman you're welcome all yours I want to thank all of you I want to thank my two spe particular partners in crime uh Miss melow uh who who was also nominated uh by a parent um this year and Deb August is always there for uh she we're always you know game for um pre-co we were a little more exciting and we did a lot more things um and uh but still we're here and I just appreciate this the collaborative energy uh I I also uh I want to thank the the administration just always being so supportive of our ideas and our um plans for events and those sorts of things again we haven't been as active um as we have
084in past years but um what else can I say the yeah it's it's 11% um we have had years where it's ebed and flowed but again it probably was just having the oh I already did that survey um and it's also just getting parents back postco and recognizing the uh the benefit of getting involved in the CPAC uh is tremendous because it allows parents to um and I'm looking at Miss ham who's here represent well she's here uh who who knows this to be true and I've sat at tables where she is in her her tenure uh in her professional career has been a partner as uh Lori um and Kim and uh it's such a incredible opportunity to not only understand your rights but to have an active voice at the table um and
085when we started I think I've been a chair for many years and um I I've been part of the CPAC which wasn't really active back since 2007 when my son turned three and started receiving services and I don't think I was an active chair until 2012 2013 but um it you know it's scary where you think you're you're um you know you want to partner with the school district parents also who might have answered that they're experience has been less than um excellent in their opinion and their perspective uh they might not want to partner in that way but I just appreciate the culture that we created to say that when you partner when when you build that relationship when you build that trust you can share the hard times um and you can celebrate
086the good times and um it's always about learning and partner you know I I I have not had had a situation where I have felt because of my participation in the CPAC that I couldn't share the hard times or question those specific things that have you know always been able to meet at the table to to work through things and joining the CPAC and being part of a culture that really is collaborative and and really um promotes that partnership uh will help you get there and so it's just I just hope that young parents um as my guy now is 21 going to be 21 soon to be leaving special ed in in a year and a half or so um I would love to see people uh step in and uh you know continue
087the uh the reign of such a great you know other districts look up to us and have who have attended our our meetings and uh value what we what we offer um and they trust us and there's a wealth of knowledge here and um anyway that's it but yeah that but that recognition night was excellent because you know to hear you all staff just just from all different um positions held within the district uh um being honored and giving specific reasons why and everyone this year filled out why last year we didn't really have everyone fill out exactly why they were nominating the person um but it was just beautiful to hear how the impact that um you know an ESP had on or you know a par professional had on a child's day or
088Administration uh building leadership teachers um support staff were all nominated and the students having gone above and beyond to uh you know as Leaders to um bridge that Gap and befriend other students who um who are you know are are are vulnerable and struggling and and may not be as easily able to uh develop friendships um to to sort of come across that aisle and and facilitate that and to be honored by that from the families that really speaks volume so now I'm really done thank you thank you Miss Amaral um thank you for as always for the work that goes into putting the survey together and for sharing the results with us it does uh certainly uh tell us a lot about even though it's a small percentage that responded it certainly does tell
089us a lot about what's going on um with our special education services uh in the tap Public Schools so uh thank you all for your uh for your presentation and before you go I I am going to put you on the spot Mrs dnco um because I don't see any I don't see any other time um I'm going to she'll be back okay um I would just ask you very briefly uh as your first year is coming to an end uh how how has the year gone you know that Elton John song I'm still standing um no it's been a whirlwind I can't believe it's been a year um it really did go by so fast and I've learned so much um and that's thanks to an office staff who's been there for a long
090time who could teach me that's thanks to ladies like this who call me and send me videos of happy things um and that's thanks to a superintendent who reminds me every day to slow down um and that uh it'll all get done so it's been an amazing year it's been a crazy year um and I'm ready to say year two because I feel like you know that means something so I'm still standing thank you very much thank Youk thank you thank you good job hold on get it all right next up under new business revisions to the student handbook Dr Sab McGuire great so I I will do my best Mr denisio not to put out a survey that conflicts with your survey I promise you that um so revisions to the student handbook so
091you know it it's it's been a little bit of a a challenging Time For Us in looking at the student handbook and Mr Oliver you certainly um have brought this up very recently around looking at uh reestablishing our subcommittees and one of them being the policy committee and we've had lots of conversation internally about uh making that process really clear moving forward I know we'll talk about that at some point this evening I do want to say uh Katie Pavo who's here um has really taken the lead on taking a look at the student handbook this year I want to thank Mr Nunes who did bring to our attention that we had a couple of uh edits that we needed to make and that is that we needed to update uh one of the names
092of one of our leaders and that we we also need to address uh the fact that we are in the process of District strategic planning and we're developing mission and vision and so the mission and vision that are stated in the current handbook will will very likely and not just likely will uh be modified to some degree this this coming year and so we going we are going to make note of that but I want to invite Mrs poo up to the microphone because I see her standing there and you know ready to talk about some of the work that she's done no you did a great job um I you know I think that this being on the agenda after Jonathan and that is to talk about the riveting student handbook which fantastic student
093handbook is important when it's important as we all I wasn't sure if you had any questions or um Dr McGuire really said all that there is to to be said but it is an iterative process it is a living document it is something that needs to be Revisited um and we appreciate the com in to looking at some of the policies and looking at some of the things that need to be updated so um I did was just here really from moral support or to answer any other questions that you might have questions comments from the committee it was a tone my husband said do do people read this and I said well I don't know if the students read it but I think some of the parents do yeah I I definitely think parents
094read it I'm not sure if the students read it um it's all very important things I noticed like three little typos typos but three in that that's great send them along because it's one of also one of those documents that when you have revised it several times it becomes a little bit like white noise to you and you miss things like that so I appreciate any of any of that feedback um like I said we really just tried to make some technical updates knowing that a a bigger revision along with a strategic plan needs to happen no great great work so I will just ask that obviously a lot of the um student and family handbook is tied around and that's why it comes in front of school committee around policies um and I would
095just ask that have we any policies that may have referred to or are embedded within the handbook uh have we looked at those or are they uh the language up to date the mgl um those things so so there are some live links because it does live on our website and it will take you to certain Live Links um it'll take you right to our website to the school committee page that has the policies in them um so some of those live links are are the live links that are in there are still updated to be to the correct policies some of our policies certainly do need to be revised and updated um and that's you know as we alluded to we're appreciative of that that subcommittee commitment to making sure that that happens um
096and I think you know like we said it's it's unfortunate that it needs to be an annual document because there's a lot that goes into doing that and your work throughout the year will be some of that so we will keep it as up to date as we can obviously noting that if we need to um make updates for the following year we will but also we can acknowledge that sort of on those live links and in the website if it's if there's an updated policy perfect so is do we need a vote on this tonight or is this the first time um in front us seeing this we need a vote I think you do we need a vote want to take a vote on it we if if this is safe for the
097grammatical change you know that type of deal then you fine with that we basic we basically need to we've always voted on the student handbook oh I agree we it needs to be voted on but it should it be brought back if you want to bring wait and bring it back I'm good with that too I don't mind either the the reason that um would be helpful if it if you did bring it to a vote is because we do have we are on boarding new students right now and part of that process does involve the families uh as they're registering signing off off on the student handbook it works for me so we can just make the mo whoever makes the motion with just with the uh just add the edit language in there
098yep I'll make a motion that we approve the uh student handbook for uh students and families uh as presented for uh school year 2425 uh pending you know with the necessary changes grammatical changes that need to be made second second who wants it I have a motion by Mr noon the second by Miss Beckwith on the motion any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously thank you uh Dr Sab Maguire thank you uh Kate for uh putting that together uh next up Mr Kylie FY 24 end of year authorizations thank you Mr Oliver so um at the end of each year I ask the school committee to vote to authorize me to transfer F funds from one area of the budget to another um in order to close out the fiscal
099year so each year we um spend down any remaining funds that are estimated from things like you know utility bills and things that are you know slightly different than what they um you know what they were projected at and we utilize those funds um our priorities are first uh to prepay special education tuition for the following year so we're allowed to do that by by under Massachusetts General law that gives us a um sort of a little bit of wiggle room in the upcoming fiscal year and we do that each year approximately the same amount so it really doesn't have any impact in the overall amount of expenditures we have in any given year because as long as we continue to do the same amount each year then the overall expenditures are approximately the same
100um but it does give us the um the the option to um not prepay in in a year and if we were to do that um it would place a burden the following fiscal year because the budgeting does anticipate that we will make that prepayment um but it's it's wiggle room in the moment that sometimes you need when you have a couple hundred, expense um we've been fortunate to continue the process of making approximately the same amount of prepayment um year after year so we haven't had to go into that um that sort of temporary Reserve um any other funding besides prepayment will be focused on instructional materials and technology so we're in that process now you know got a little less than well about a month left uh to finish up and we normally
101um give back you know $10 or so at the end so we get down just about to the to the to the penny as much as we can so depending on what's in transportation yeah yeah yeah I I hope to not uh you you know we certainly have plenty of needs so um and as we know uh you know in the upcoming fiscal year fiscal year 25 we're going to be utilizing a lot of one-time Reserve monies so anything we can do at the end of this year to help in that regard we will be a good positive uh development so that's what I'm asking is for that Authority and you have the school committee policy in front of you which um talks about that thank you Mr Kylie questions comments I'm just curious um
102from year to year when we have extra cash does it always come from the same departments or does it move around it no um I I mean typically there's certain areas of the budget that are more volatile than others obviously some are pretty easy to predict um some sometimes not so no easy so easy um you know things like substitutes for example um can be somewhat of a challenge um like where you have maternity leaves that you know you can't predict obviously in advance so um things like that or long-term absences can play a big role um most of our budget is Staffing so that tends to be the area where you'll find you'll find things from one year to the other that change a little bit sometimes uh utilities can be we've been fortunate
103to have few warm Winters here in a row but that hasn't always been the case um so that that has uh some fluctuation as well and I mean the most volatile area of the budget is um special needs so um just you know we have um students that that have a variety of needs and um sometimes those needs for our existing students can change and also um we can either um have students that move out of the district or into the district and so you know can be pretty significant the um you know the cost impact of those those tend to be the most volatile areas thank you anything else Mr chairman make a motion that we authorize year in budget TR the assistant superintendent of business and finance the uh authorization to make the
104necessary budget transfers for school year uh 2324 in accordance with policy [Music] dbj second have a motion on the floor by Mr NES a second by Miss Coughlin on the motion any further discussion just the we can get as usual we get our usual yearend report that what got transferred type of deal that'd be wonderful oh I got one other quick yeah go ahead I just and I apologize I'm blindsiding you are we getting any um solar credits electric credits you know how sometimes we get those from the town well we pay for um energy so the town has contracts for the solar Farms that are existing in town and um so a portion of the of the energy that the town utilizes large portion um is is contracted through those agreements with those solar
105Farms um we actually pay uh for those at an agreed upon rate um as does the other departments in town that utilize um those contracts so um we it that can that can be a little volatile as well um sometimes um we don't we don't know exactly what those are going to be until after uh we are already closing out uh the fiscal year so that can be a little a little tricky um to estimate but we we do our best we have some history to to fall back on hopefully uh hopefully history um is a good predictor and we try but thank you sir anything else cheing none all in favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously thank you all thank you Mr Kylie uh next up superintendent update Dr sa McGuire great thank
106you thank you Mr Oliver so um every month or twice a month when we come to school committee I say oh this year is going by so fast but this year has gone by really fast it's been quite a whirlwind and I have to say the last weekend alone was so action-packed um so you know I'll talk about that a little bit later on but it has it has truly been a whirlwind of a year and lots of good stuff um but under teaching and learning I'd like to first uh bring a couple of things to your attention one I'm going to invite Dr tbolt up again um he's going to share with us a few of our data points from our recent access scores as you know access testing is required for our students
107who are identified as English language Learners and that data or that those assessment results are meant to inform us as to how our students are progressing toward their acquisition of the English language uh we do want to point out that at some point um I think last year uh prior to me getting here desie was in the district doing an audit and one of the things that that they cited or um you know required the district to do was to add additional ESL support to the Dartmouth district and that did happen and now what I hope you see as as Dr t-bolt shares some of the access scores with you is that you're able to see that there really truly is a direct correlation between our staffing and our student outcomes and I think it
108was uh quite impressive and really um obvious in this data so Dr tal thank you thanks Dr s Maguire um so just as um Dr Sabre McGuire alluded to last year um during budget season you know we did not add uh many new positions last year but one of the positions that the committee did support which we appreciate was a additional ESL teacher so that we had four ESL teachers and the impact of the additional teacher allows um you know I think the the impact kind of shows up in this data loud and clear because it allows the teachers to focus rather than being split between multiple buildings as every one of our ESL teachers were prior to this new teacher being added we now have teachers who can uh who are dedicated and can
109be at one school obviously with the exception being our secondary level um Mrs Dart is split between the Middle School and the high school but uh at the elementary level um Potter for example uh has their own ESL teacher as does um Quinn and then Dello and and kushman do still share but the the numbers are are much lower and the schools obviously are in very close proximity um but the the access test uh really centers around the weda can do descriptors around listening speaking reading and writing and it's meant to assess English proficiency and what the state does is they set uh targets for each of our English language learner students uh and the targets are designed so that within six years of entering a Massachusetts Public School the student has acquired English proficiency
110and so in the data you can see that um you know we were able to where it says number of uh L students exited that means that those students have met proficiency not just that they've met their targets but that they are considered now to have enough uh skills in English in Reading uh in listening in speaking in writing to be proficient in Access the the curriculum the same as you know native of uh English speakers so that's exciting what this data doesn't show you though in addition to those 21 who we can now exit from ESL Services we have 21 I'm sorry 33 additional students who met their target so they're on track to achieve proficiency within that six-year period and then we do have 12 students of the 66 who um you know
111are are not meeting their targets yet um but they'll have a l success plan and will be monitored and supported so that we can hopefully get them on track as well but um this data to me shows that when we invest um and support our students that you know they're able to achieve great things just to you know you can see this obviously Compares us to ourselves but also at the state level um just three years um since 2020 um was the high water mark at 18.7 % were proficient for students who took the access uh and then it it dips to 15.3 and then 14.1 across the state so you can see we're doing you know at 31 just about 32% that that's pretty significantly above you know the state percentage of of students
112meeting proficiency the other thing I just want to take a quick second to highlight is the context in which this data comes in you'll remember we had 30 additional newcomer students who um entered dark uh in October November um and I'm very proud of how the community welcomed them and supported them and then they were you know unfortunately relocated um in December that has some impact as well right and so our teachers were incredibly focused on supporting them um and I'm glad to see that it really did not impact in a negative way our ability to support all of our multilingual Learners so very proud of the efforts of our ESL teachers but also as we've talked about in the district this year um English language acquisition is really the responsibility of all teachers um
113and it really takes all teachers to to have data like this so happy to share this and answer any questions that they might just apologize that you didn't have these slides in your packet um so I wanted we we added them uh because we thought it was important to have a visual but we will share this slide with you uh thank you Dr tbolt for bringing up the newcomers I just jotted myself a note because I think again in this one short year uh we have had uh you know a number of challenges and we really couldn't be any prouder of the community at large but certainly the school Community for the welcome and the support that they were uh that they offered our newcomer students um it's just it's really when I think about
114it it's a little um hard to believe that that was all that all happened this year one year um so thank you for highlighting that you're welcome any questions any questions no great no thank you for the presentation thank you thank you all right and thank you and continuing just under teaching and learning I will always bring up kindergarten registration and it continues to be underway at this point we have 100 completed um regist ations we have some more that are still in the process of being verified so we're expecting that number to increase shortly and I want to thank our families because what what I'm hearing is that that we are making significant proc progress in in ensuring that folks are registering their students so we want to keep messaging that and I want
115to really thank Jen masado she has been tenacious about working with families to make sure that they are completing their registrations and she's reaching out she even has is keeping track of census data to see if the students that are included in our census data have registered for kindergarten in addition I want to mention that we did have our elementary schools hosted our kindergarten showcases over the past week and I'm hearing and by all accounts and I know Mrs Pavo was able to visit quite a few of them that there were happy teachers parents and most importantly and I verified this today with Mrs Gentner is that the we have some happy new students who will be our class of 2 you ready 37 that's our incoming class the class of 2037 oh frightening um
116and I know that you'll still be here on on the school committee Mr n no doubt my mind um I also want to mention under teaching and learning that the strategic planning team's next meeting is coming up it's on June 10th and we're looking forward to making some progress here so we're at kind of like the midpoint of working with this team and we're really hoping that in the very near future we're going to come to school full school committee and share some of the outcomes that uh we expect to see in the next two months and so under personnel and HR um I'd like to take a moment first to recognize that we do have uh some folks who've retired from the Dartmouth public schools and those people are just want to name them
117we have Robin Mayo who is a PE teacher who retired from the Quinn Potter uh we have lri Bill who has is a was a grade eight or is a grade eight teacher um at Dartmouth Middle School we have Catherine G Golab Golab at the Quinn School in ESP we have Karen mariso at the Quinn school also an es and that we've also had some retirees who left us earlier in the year but we want to recognize that Lisa Aruda who was a Grade Three teacher at the Quinn and Justine Dale who was our early childhood Hood director at the kushman so those are our six retirees this year and we just wanted to take a moment just to recognize them and thank them for their service to the Dartmouth Public Schools thank you Dr
118s mve by I do have a question around our retirees if you don't mind I know at the uh the beginning of the um the school year uh that the de is it the DEA or is it the administration that recognizes the retirees um don't they bring it that first day the um when uh the staff yeah I know what you're saying I know what you're saying yeah the convocation the convocation yes thank you are they recognized then as well and is that by we haven't done that in a few years I think I think if I if I remember correctly I think it was last done preco that we um offered an opportunity for retirees to come back I think and was that the administration or is that the union it was it was
119uh an effort by uh the administration by the administration to offer that okay thank you for clarifying that if I may I would love to make a recommendation to this committee um and thank you for bringing that up uh that we start some kind of tradition um that the school committee uh not only does the superintendent recognize recognize them by reading their names but I would love love to see some kind of recognition that the school committee does um to to address and thank our retirees for their years of service to the Dartmouth public schools at one of our meetings um almost like this this almost like what we did with the captains tonight correct type of deal we could do with we could do with them for say just about our last last meeting
120before school somewhere around in June before in June before before school lets out because there's a lot of them I mean you know and I don't blame them you know school ends today and tomorrow they're on a that's right they're they're gone someplace for the summer type of deal so we were meeting next week they they wouldn't be which is fine I understand that but you know to give them their proper du so I I wholeheartedly agree with that you know I think we've done it with some administrators and some other staff but I think let's I I've been thinking about this for quite quite a while now you know why not yeah I think we have some very talented and um longstanding tenured um Educators and faculty in this district and I would love
121to give them the opportunity to be recognized if they would like they don't have to show up um but certainly um you know in a small I I would be happy to take it on from the school committee uh level um some kind of token of our appreciation for their service to the students so um Mr Oliver school committee I think that that's a wonderful idea and I think that that's that's something that we can work with with our team to come back to you with a plan for what that could look like that'd be great be great thank you Dr Sim all right so that's a a good I've had lots of great Segways this evening so um I just want to say that I'm pleased now to introduce you to our new Early
122Childhood director who again it's one of those things where I promise you and promise you and promise you and and we do have our new Early Childhood director joining us this evening and I want to thank luri denisio and her team for having such an inclusive selection process and invite lii to come to the microphone she's already here very well prepared to introduce uh Kelly money who's going to be joining us shortly so Kelly money comes to us with many years of of experience in education in a variety of roles including School psychologist building based special ed administrator and a central office special ed administrator um lucky for us a desire to be back in a building with children and a passion for preschool has brought her here to Dartmouth so we're very grateful for
123Kelly to join us in the fall y very happy to be here thank you thank you very much would you like to just say a few words about uh I don't mean to put you on the spot but you've been here waiting patiently all night long so if you would like to share a little bit with us about yourself sure sure um Laura gave you a bit of my background I'm a mom of two boys um and as she said eager to get back to building connections with families and staff and kids um and really excited to be able to join the team at kushman to really set the tone for families and Kids First typically first experience in a public school setting I had the pleasure of going out to visit last week and
124just fell in love with it the staff was so welcoming I'm just very very eager to be part of their team and be a part of the D Dartmouth team awesome well welcome to welcome thank you thank you hey we're really excited to have Kelly join us so and I told her she wouldn't have to say anything this evening so thank you Kelly um so as you already heard spring season spring Sports season is still I was going to talk about it but it's still ongoing so um you know we look forward to seeing what our teams are able to accomplish so I am going to talk about the spelling be for a minute um we did have the spelling be and I know that Mr TBO Miss denisio will join me in um acknowledging
125that it was a little tumultuous tumultuous was the word one of the words that we got out on it's an embarrassing because we all clearly know that there are three use in tumultuous um so we'll be much better prepared next year uh so uh but nonetheless uh very positive event we did have 27 Educators who applied for Grants and as a matter of fact just today as a team we were able to look through some of those proposals and lots of really strong proposals uh from our Educators across the district and we also want to just say how grateful we are to de for their continued support of our schools because remember the the def th those grants really do support uh teachers uh wants and needs beyond what the regular school budget supports and
126that's something that we're grateful to be able to offer to our Educators each year so grateful to the de for continuing to support that um a Unified sports I just want to mention it because it did happen um back in May 20th uh it was at the soccer fields it was held at the soccer fields next to the high school and it was a fantastic location from again hearing from the organizer organizers there were over 450 student participants from area Stu area school districts I want to thank uh again so many people involved in making that happen but certainly Mike Capel Mike Capello John bral and all of the Dartmouth Educators for being involved in making sure that that is a a special event that in Dartmouth is widely recognized for it just a special
127shout out to Dartmouth Youth Soccer Association for their partnership here um and again by all accounts from the folks that organize this every year it made a really big difference in being able to use that soccer field in terms of space and just how they were able to set up for the different events so thank you to them and again all the organizers uh the Dartmouth High School prom after prom I have to mention Mr I'm sure Mr Nunes will mention it but it was my first prom in Dartmouth and I have to say wonderful success I can't emphasize enough how clear it was of the the hard work and dedication of the staff and students that put that together um kudos to Mr Shay his administrative team they really did work together to create
128an unforgettable experience for students and I have to mention Mrs Lassie and her team of teachers be class officers if you walked into that and I know Mr nun you can verify into that space where they held this uh the prom it was incredible I mean you there is no doubt in my mind that there are going to be job offers for Mrs Lassie and her team because the decorations there were first class I mean you could have been walking into a black tie event with the way that space was organized and dedicated and decorated and I think the students realized it and actually the hotel event coordinator I did have a conversation with her and she told me it was the best that she has ever seen and she said other folks that were
129setting up for different proms came in and they were feeling a little less than adequate when they saw what had been put together um so again really amazing uh again yesterday was Dartmouth High School graduation uh my first official one uh I have to share again I know broken record but impressed organization the pageantry of it the hard work of the high school staff can't the facilities people enough for all the work they did to beautify the grounds I mean I was driving out of here I think on a Friday night and there was uh John was out there mowing or just the work just never stops and and people here are so committed to that and especially the custodians who not only set up for the graduation but also I think the morning before
130or the they had just broken down the after prom so I mentioned the after prom because I know again Mr Oliver might mention that so I won't steal his yeah because that again a thing to behold um so I just want to thank the families the community and especially the folks at the high school everyone who is involved in putting together a graduation ceremony that I think the students I mean the fact that our seniors showed up here tonight shows that they they still have a real connection here in Dartmouth so and that is oh I have one other thing I want to mention I didn't forget you Mr Kylie I almost did but I didn't um Mr Kylie is going to talk about town meeting so so thank you Dr sa McGuire tomorrow is
131uh is is the spring annual town meeting here in Dartmouth um we have a couple of things on the agenda I think the first thing that will be heard will likely be article 10 uh which is Capital Improvements so we spoke about this in May so I I won't I won't dwell on it but just a quick refresher we have a few things on the list fire system upgrades for $50,000 to do design work at the potter and Dello schools for the fire alarm systems we have $200,000 for flooring replacement um I really hope we get that because I've already basically booked the contractors to do that um for the summer uh technology infrastructure structure improvements $100,000 to be used in conjunction with uh Federal eate funding um that's sorely needed that Mr gashaw will
132be working on um a vehicle for the 18 to 22 Atlas program uh and two maintenance vehicles uh to replace old rotted trucks that are more than 10 years old um the total of those is $65,000 the recommendations the recommending boards have been to support this um this the overall Capital Improvement plan including our requests so I hope that that goes well tomorrow I'll be prepared to speak about it if uh there are any questions the other article um that typically gets sort of pushed off and then taken a little later in the meeting will be Article 13 which uh is the schedule a the the actual fiscal year 25 budget um as you know we we have a 3% increase slated for that that uh you know resulted in the cut of 11 positions
133here in the district so um hopefully that goes smoothly um and you know we receive at least that that 3% funding there's one other thing that I just wanted to mention so there's an article on the special town meeting warrant that relates to financing of the Memorial Stadium project so a number of years ago there was uh town meeting fund funded um that project through borrowing the town didn't borrow all the money um and currently um they are looking for a way to pay for that so they're asking for the town to approve um 300 I can't remember it's more than 300,000 um to come from free cash in fiscal in in uh the current fiscal year so um there was some discussion about an assumption that there was an overage in the project and
134now we're asking for more money I've clarified with the finance committee that we in fact are not asking for any more money we have more more than $1.2 million remaining in the stadium project um article that's available to us and that this is strictly a a financing issue with the town so the town is deciding how they are going to pay for that and that's a function of the Town Administration and Treasury and nothing to do with us so um that might be I think it was confusing for some members of the finance committee and I don't think they um were fully briefed on that so I had clarified that with the chair of the finance committee and I think he understands that um so if there are questions about it tomorrow I'll I'll address
135it but refer it to the town Administration so and that's it for town meeting tomorrow okay and I'll just mention that today was the moving up day for fifth grade so that's a big deal for fifth graders who are going to be moving on to middle school and I'm so happy that we do things like that here in Dartmouth those are the kinds of traditions you want to keep in place and again gives kids a chance to feel some connection to their you know their next school and that's a big deal moving from elementary to middle school so I'm so glad they have that experience and then just one final just small thing I went to the Dello today and the third graders were presenting a third grade class Mrs Karen's class and they their
136families were there and each one of them had an opportunity to get up and stand behind a microphone and speak to an audience they had their own slide that they had created regarding you know a different um a research that they had done on a different animal and the beauty of what they were doing is not only were they learning learning how to just at third grade eight years old eight n year olds doing research reporting out on their research working on speaking skills and think about standing in front of a microphone and speaking to an audience full of people so really building that kind of confidence in students at a really early age is so important and I I just I didn't I was a little envious of the third graders because not one
137of them was even a bit nervous they went right to the microphone and had no problem um just speaking to what was a pretty sizable group of people so again there are things like that going on all over this school district right now and it's just such a busy busy time wonderful celebr ations going on throughout the district that's my report thank you for that report Dr Sabre Maguire and it's so nice to hear all these little things going on uh reported the chair so uh very quickly uh someone who's been on the committee for going on 12 years uh I had the opportunity to watch my gra my daughter graduate as you did uh your son uh certainly proud parents and um you know Kudos and congratulations to the dmouth high school senior class
138um and it certainly you see we hear about it being on school committee year after year but when it's finally uh your turn and to see what goes into it uh like you said um it's it's just absolutely amazing the the amount of work time and effort that goes into senior week and everything that goes along with that from the uh from from the senior prom the after prom the graduation the senior stroll everything all these little things that um you know we hear about uh but you finally really get to experience as a parent so uh what a wonderful job I can't say I can't say anything congratulations Mrs Beck with and Mr Oliver you agreed a wonderful job to uh Mr Shay and his staff um certainly should be very proud of uh
139all the work uh that was done there so that's all I have um as far as uh I do want to touch a little bit upon um some meeting dates if that's okay with the committee I know that in talking with Mr Kylie I might as well just talk about the the two budget subcommittees I mean the two subcommittees um that when were you looking at uh having a budget subcommittee uh Mr Kylie well I wondered if it well I think it may coincide with your discussion regarding school committee meetings but um whether it might make sense to have one sooner rather than later um possibly June 24th but I'm flexible too I can do any day of the week um perfect so yeah one of the things and uh thank you for that Mr
140Kylie one of the uh the topics that uh Dr Sab McGuire and I had discussed uh last week at our meeting was that the agenda is looking fairly light for our next school committee meeting in June um and we both felt that uh it would be fairly reasonable and it would be uh within well within reason to um to cancel uh the second school committee meeting in June um does anyone have any uh concerns with that um anything pressing uh that you would like to see there are we okay so I guess we'll we'll go ahead and cancel uh that meeting on the 24th of June um which will then in turn um look to schedule a budget subcommittee on the if that's your pleasure at what time we what's your well I don't care
141I'm just asking what time whatever time works for the two of you is fine with me yeah I can do either early in the morning or later in the afternoon I'd prefer later in the afternoon if that's okay with you pick a pick a time all right well is that 5:00 or uh 4:30 4:30 okay 4:30 on the 24th great perfect thank you and then also um in regards to policy Subs um having a conversation again uh with our superintendent that uh we were talking about trying to set up moving forward standing meetings um and um I know it's you uh Mary and Kathleen yep um so you know certainly um we can set something up today for your first meeting whatever the pleasure is um and what are your thoughts well um Mr Oliver
142and I had talked about the idea of using Mondays as sort of the day of the week where that's where our school committee meetings are on Mondays so on those off Mondays those could be our standing subcommittee meetings so we thought we could calendar those out and we could use them where needed and if we didn't need it we wouldn't post a meeting but we would at least um put placeholders in for those Mondays year MH yeah my I mean my my only preference would be very early morning or later after 5 um if possible and I'm fine so just whatever works great all right so we'll put some dates together for you and send them out great wonderful thank you both thank you and am I missing anything else the uh to bring up
143I think I covered everything I think so all right uh any any of my colleagues have anything that they would like to uh share Mr yeah thank you Mr chairman I just want to piggyback with uh What uh you and Dr sa Maguire said you know talking about the prom and the after prom uh I'd be remissed if I didn't let this committee know uh what an unbelievable administrative team we have in a District starting with the superintendent you know our Learners you know our high school administration and such we had a you know a student have a slight accident type of deal you know waiting and calling the parents and everything else well it was right at dinner time type of deal and in all seriousness they wrote the our administrative team rotated between
144you know you know grabbing a quick bite to eat and staying with the student while the others could come and finish eating and that type of deal and just you know the way I was just sitting there you know kind of beaming being very proud of what was going on and how how it was being handled type of deal by everyone type of deal so that was great and yeah you know the after prom uh I had no idea what it was the type of deal and uh I walked in and you know it was like yeah you're going you know TSA and hop on a plane and you know the different amazing unbelievable the different countries and you know I ended up uh with another parent the Twister the the you know the bouncy
145house twister type of deal it was a you know worth the price of admission type of deal but did you anticipate no no no no no no no I I understand there was some roller skating as well yeah they were doing yeah they were there were there was they had a floor down to do roller skating with and and such there was you know thanks to thanks to all the parents and the the teachers and faculty that were there um the area businesses that you know donated the food for the students I mean you know after what they ate at the prom and what they were eating you know God bless them type of deal they I hope they didn't go hungry I can't imagine they did with the am there but in all seriousness
146it you know probably 350 students here that night you know again they were there they had a great time they weren't out on the roads any place type of deal so it was just a just a wonderful evening thank you for that thank you for that report and sharing that anything else nope nope all right so that means uh our next meeting uh is July July is 22nd July 22nd perfect so the next regularly scheduled meeting of the Dartmouth school committee is Monday July 202nd Mr chairman yes in all seriousness uh and I'm going to make an assumption there are going to be warrants that need to be signed you know between now and then and specifically before July 15th because that's the end of the fiscal year when they've got to be in so
147Mr Kylie that that's correct um certainly the last warrant will be um in that week leading into July 15th um and we'll probably have to have some signatures before then but we can reach out and figure out what the best way is to to you know accom accommodate your schedules to get those signatures thank you all right with that chair will entertain a motion to adjourn into executive session for the purposes of an update on pending legal and Personnel matters not to reconvene so move Mr chairman second we have a motion by Mr Nunes a second by Miss Beckwith on the motion any further discussion roll call please Miss gther Chris Oliver yes D Coughlin yes Mary beckworth yes John Nunes yes Kathleen Amal yes thank you everyone meeting adjourned s