001foreign thank you [Music] thank you [Music] good evening I'd like to call the school committee meeting for Monday February 23rd 2023 to water if you would all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please one nation under God and indivisible with liberty and justice for all ah if you have any cell phones pagers bipas electronic devices if you would kindly put them on silent or vibrate or shut them off I would appreciate it just like to let you know that this meeting is being live streamed on the YouTube channel DHS TV media it's also being taped and broadcast later on over the next few weeks on both Channel DC TV channel nine and channel 18 at a number of different times so we thank them for that roll call please miss Gunther John noons yep Mary
002wait Kathleen Amaral here Shannon Jenkins here Chris Oliver here thank you uh Mrs Wade is uh unable to be here tonight okay uh that being said we've allocated uh 10 minutes on the agenda for uh public comment on things that are on the agenda so Dr Banks sorry for the opportunity to speak ongoing contract negotiations Dr Banks yes sir I just need you to say no disrespect say who you are so we have it for the minutes I shall thank you for those of you who do not know me my name is Peter bangs I am completing my 21st year as a teacher at Dartmouth High School and I have served for the past 12 as the leader of the science and engineering department while each Leader's experience is unique mine serves as an example
003of what it is that our lead teachers do my stated objective when I agreed to become the leader of the science and engineering department was to work collaboratively with a very talented and dedicated Professionals in my department to incorporate authentic science practices and tools to make science instruction at Dartmouth High School truly modern and reflective of the needs of the 21st Century towards this end this is what we have accomplished we have expanded our offerings to include aquaculture environmental science and sustainability robotics biotechnology organic chemistry crime scene analysis and forensics advanced placement environmental science and advanced placement physics we have sought and obtained grant funding from a variety of sources including a state workplace training Grant written by the superintendent's office our students now employ a wide range of sophisticated sensors 3D printers laser cutters
004DNA electrophoresis apparati and thermal cyclers to amplify minute samples of DNA we have a fully equipped engineering suite and a state-of-the-art biotechnology laboratory that is the Envy of any High School in the state and many undergraduate teaching labs our students are designing permitting and building a nature walk an outdoor classroom to be used by all departments they are establishing and maintaining aquatic ecosystems in a number of classrooms counselors offices and other public areas for all to enjoy they are introducing recombinant DNA into organisms and observing the expression of those genes they are extracting and analyzing their own DNA and conducting DNA fingerprinting experiments to identify individuals they are exploring antibiotics and antibiotic resistance in bacteria they are culturing their own microbiomes in conducting independent research on bacterial growth resistance to radiation damage and symbiotic relationships
005between bacteria and insects in the wild in short our students are doing authentic research-based science not just talking and reading about it every member of my department will agree that I have worked tirelessly with them to achieve these outcomes and transform our department for these efforts I have been paid 86.89 per week with not a pennies increase to my stipend for 10 years for perspective my son last year a high school student at the time earned more working a single five-hour shift at Chipotle's than I did for a full week as the Lead Teacher of the science and engineering department at Dartmouth High School we both had a good laugh at that but it's not really not very amusing it's emblematic of how this school committee has historically relied on and taken advantage of the
006Good Will and the willingness of Dartmouth Public School Educators to do what is right for their students no matter what it is regrettable that the school committee and the superintendent's office choose to shortchange those who directly impact the classroom while bolstering the superintendent's office instead this year despite loud claims of poverty from the school committee Dartmouth public schools has added an additional director of curriculum to The District administration while this will no doubt make things easier for the superintendent's office those of us who actually work in the classrooms do not see the need to expend well over a hundred and thirty thousand dollars on an additional administrator at Bush Street when our very hard-working teachers aides the ones who directly impact our students every day aren't even paid a living wage it is regrettable also
007that the school committee and the superintendent's office think so little of the contributions made by the lead teachers of each department then when we ask for an adjustment after 10 years of no pay increase we are initially offered a raise of seven dollars and fifty cents a week or almost enough for me to fill the fuel tank of my vehicles four times over the course of a school year obviously if you expect to have any lead teachers at the end of the school year your initial offer will be increased but the message has been sent you either have no real idea or simply no interest in what lead teachers actually do perhaps you don't understand that during that Dreadful hybrid year when we return from covid lead teachers were told that they would be grading
008all of the work done by students whose families had decided to keep them home and instead learn remotely for me this meant over 50 students including the children of school committee members resulting in over three hours every week grading the work of students that I did not know in classes that I did not teach all of this work was completed by me at home on evenings and weekends over three hours every week for 40 weeks is well over 100 hours of my time and my family's time for that as was true for every Lead Teacher I was compensated not one dime perhaps you also don't understand that this year we have been told that on top of our current responsibilities lead teachers will also shoulder the role of instructional coaches at the middle school and
009elementary schools these are full-time positions worked by coaches who are not directly responsible for students at the high school this is being put on the backs of lead teachers whose primary responsibility is the 60 to 80 students that we teach in our classes we are also responsible for developing and expanding our respective Department's curricula which further begs the question of why we need an additional director of curriculum since we already do that we plan organize and oversee departmental common planning time we analyze the results of MCAS and other standardized tests and use the data to inform changes to instructional practice we order receive and distribute materials and supplies for our departments we serve as sounding boards and offer shoulders to our departmental colleagues as they struggle with a very challenging environment of post-covered classrooms we
010serve as Proctors for standardized tests and we serve as substitute teachers when they're not enough to go around now we are also expected to serve as instructional coaches typically full-time positions and defined by at least one of our directors of curriculum as involving lesson observation and feedback co-teaching modeling of instructional practices collaborative lesson design lesson study learning walks collaborative problem solving and student work analysis this is patently absurd the only possible way for lead teachers to be in the least bit effective as instructional coaches is for us to devote less time less thought and less energy to the students that we teach every day this is the last thing that you should want from the leaders of each department yet this is the entirely unreasonable expectation that has put on us I have resigned as
011the Lead Teacher for Science and Engineering for two reasons neither of them being because I want to I'm resigning first because my family asked me to for too long I have donated my time on weekends and evenings and they have not been fairly compensated for my inattention and missed memories the monetary equivalent of one shift at a fast food restaurant per week does not greatly change the circumstances of a middle-class family of five and makes hardly a dent in the college cost that we are now facing enough is enough and my family has had enough second I'm being told to do a job that forces me to make an untenable choice I can choose to devote the considerable amount of time and thought required to Be an Effective instructional coach but that will undeniably make
012me a less effective classroom teacher and that's a non-starter for me my other choice is to continue being the best teacher that I can be and therefore by definition be an ineffective instructional coach because of the lack of time I choose none of the above it seems to me that you should too this model has been poorly thought out and will obviously not result in a functional instructional program at the high school so what is the point other than to be able to claim that we have a coaching program in place finally I respectfully ask that as you engage in negotiations with your Educators you consider the long-term aspirations and needs of this District I strongly suggest that you focus your support far less on what is happening in the superintendent's office and far more
013on the dedicated people who are actually doing the excellent work taking place every day in Dartmouth Public Schools thank you for your time [Applause] you got it so good evening my name is Taryn defries I've been an employee of the Dartmouth public schools for nearly 10 years I began as a one-to-one teacher's assistant I was a general education teacher and now I work as a special education teacher I'm also an alumni of the Dartmouth schools but tonight I'd like to speak to you as a mom I welcomed my first daughter in July of 2021 and recently found out that I will be having another daughter in June while my family and I are Beyond excited for a new addition to our family we cannot help but think about my impending maternity leave and the stresses
014that it brings currently the District offers eight weeks of leave this comes unpaid unless the employee has sick time accrued if we do we are allowed to use the days we have but once they are used up our leave becomes unpaid anytime Beyond eight weeks is unpaid and we cannot use our accrue time unless we ourselves require the further care of a doctor if we require this care and we happen to have daylight days left we may continue to use them otherwise we will not be paid regardless of medical need I'd like to compare this to the paternity leave that my husband receives through the state of Massachusetts a program that is not offered to Dartmouth employees he receives 12 weeks off at 80 percent of his pay without having to use a single day
015of earned time off he's able to use those 12 weeks in any way he sees fit within the first year of our child's life so it's not just the state that believes in a 12-week leave the American Academy of Pediatrics has also stated that 12 weeks should be the standard paternal leave due to the increased health benefits for both parents and children and the need for bonding however it seems that the Dartmouth Public Schools do not hold this belief when asked about extending our leave from 8 to 12 weeks still unpaid still using our time if we have it we were told no teachers belong in the classroom so my family takes a back seat to this job as other teachers have stated more times than I care to admit and I don't think the
016first three months of my child's life is a time they should have to come second since working in the district I've been told that I matter if I matter shouldn't I be given the chance to use my earn time to hear heal mentally and physically shouldn't I be afforded the same opportunity to bond with my child as my husband the request for a 12-week leave comes out very little to no cost to this District so on behalf of every parent soon to be parent working in the Dartmouth Public Schools I ask that you please take this request into consideration [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you also okay uh next item on the agenda we have uh the regular session minutes of January 23rd okay I'll move approval second moved by Dr Jenkins second by Miss Amaral
017on the motion any discussion chair hearing none all in favor aye opposed motion carries unanimously uh executive session minutes of the same day January 23rd uh a move approval Mr chair with the stipulation that they be held into the matters under consideration are finalized second moved by Dr Jenkins second by Miss Amaral on the motion any discussion chair hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously uh the school committee meeting of February 2nd 2023 which just for everybody's edification was held via Zoom just so everybody is aware a motion to approve those minutes second by Mr Oliver's second by Miss Amaral an emotion any discussion hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed I'm gonna abstain Mr chair as I was in that present yeah um passes three two zero I'm sorry
018three zero one my fault okay student rep report down below so just to quickly update you on how DHS is doing we recently had a presentation from rafaya Shadow I thought it was excellent uh it talked about uh how New Medford contributed to the Underground Railroad it was very nice I thought it was very well formatted for a public speaker usually when you imagine someone coming into the school you think of you know everyone's in a big Auditorium and they're on the stage it's hard to pay attention but in this case it was right here in the library and it was a small set of students that came in periodically I thought it was a very good setup winter sports are going very well hockey is going to compete in Providence and winter check I
019believe uh at least a few are going to States I think the whole team's going to States although a bit of a Shameless self-plug the robotics team had a very good weekend out of the 21 teams in the uh qualifier tournament our teams were number one and number two so one team would be it guaranteed advancement to States the other one probably but we're not sure yet so to talk about something a slightly more serious uh the with the print principal Shea's recent email about the cell phone policy I feel like it's a good time to bring up the student body's opinion on it and as you might have guessed it's mostly negative we live in an age where a lot of people depend on their cell phones and so being away from it for
020even an hour is a lot for some people now to put a personal touch on it I I personally don't I haven't been affected very much by it I I'm it's not it's not a huge distraction for me in classes but I can see the argument that in general it doesn't solve the problem that it aims to solve which is that cell phones cause distraction in classes and so by putting them in hotels in the room people will pay more attention when in fact I think we've seen out of every year I've been in DHS and I'm a senior now the most creative and exploitive ways to use Chromebooks and just other elements of students backpacks to slack off in class and so I think the overarching point is that kids who don't want to
021learn will likely continue to not learn even with their cell phones in hotels and so it ends up being more hurtful to the students who are actually hurt by this policy and not incredibly helpful to the students who were expected to be helped by this policy and so to end up end on a good note students are looking forward to February vacation so that's all I have to say that's the best part [Applause] thank you so I just want to say thank you I super appreciate you sharing your opinions with us these are good things for us to hear positive negative and everything in between well thank you thank you thank you thank you very much all right thank you okay uh moving on consent agenders yeah we should have folks here we're gonna do
022the Spanish the Portugal trip I believe Melissa lomba Jason Borges and Nathan Cavallo should be here to talk about that trip yes he is Benjamin where's Benjamin there it is I don't have a Mac Band how do I do this I'm an HP guy I don't do this stuff thank you thank you okay he's my student I can't survive without him uh so hello good evening I am Nathan Cavallo a Portuguese teacher here at the high school uh with uh Jason Borges another Porsche teacher at the high school and Melissa lomba Spanish teacher here at the high school uh and we're here just to talk to you guys about a trip we'd like to do April break next year so 2024 to take our students to Spain and Portugal I know Melissa has done it
023in the past I have gone on trips when I was in high school uh Jay have not so this would be his first and he's extremely excited for it so as World language teachers you know there's only so much we can provide for them in the classroom about the languages that we're trying to teach them and the cultures so what better way than to bring them there so they can see it firsthand so that's our hope so uh before you uh that's somewhere in here we just have a quick uh overview obviously there's a lot of tentative stuff um but this is basically what would be I would be a 10-day trip during April break Nexus they may miss a day of school which I'm sure they won't mind um but uh so we bring
024them to Spain first a few days in Spain and then we would end up wrap up in Portugal and then come back home so that is basically the plan so I'm sure you want to know the numbers um so we have been working with eftours which I know uh dharmouth High has worked with in the past I have dealt with them when I was in high school that's where that's we went through I don't know if that's who you used when you went so EF tour is very reputable uh company they've been doing this for years they have all the essentials that are needed so currently uh it would be uh 3 679 dollars for students but that is including everything that is flights there and back that is the hotel every single day that
025is breakfast and dinner every day that is transportation every day that is a 24-hour tour guide uh that is our ticket entries everything that's already all included in that the only thing that is not included in that is uh lunch so with all that in there it's it's relatively uh uh not as awful as it sounds um so um I was speaking with the representative from EF Tours today actually uh and she said you know as soon as uh we can get the ball rolling um all students need to do should have a parent meeting eating obviously first before we make anything official uh parents can ask their questions there get right from the source and then it would be a 95 fee for students just to sign up and then there's all different payment
026plans that the company has uh that could help them get that down we also came up with some tentative fundraising ideas obviously we want every student to be able to go um no matter their financial situation so that is definitely a goal of ours so we came up with a few whether it's calendar Raffles chocolates dinner sales at local restaurants um outdoor movie night which I know Melissa who's a junior class advisor did and it was a great success and any other ideas that we can come up with to make sure that it can definitely be done for all our students so that is our goal so I'll take any questions if you have any yeah I think my kid was signed up for one and then covet hit so um I hope you know
027fingers crossed you all get to go and have a great time yeah I would agree uh is this the first um overseas field trip since uh before cope prior to copen so I'm I'm thrilled that we're able to yeah I know there was one plan just before covet hit and him that guy yeah so no I'm very since I've been this is my second year here at Dartmouth so since I've been hired I always wanted to do this uh so uh and then I convinced him I will say that I think my child was on the one that was canceled and it was I think EF Tours and I will say they are very reputable and they were very good and they worked with the parents to make everyone whole so it's a great company
028that you've chosen and they have this new thing which I wish they had when I was in high school uh it's like GoFundMe but it's not GoFundMe is a whole different thing but it's through EF Tours itself where a kid can say you know help me get to Portugal and Spain and any family member or anyone can send the money and that automatically goes to their balance um and it's not like GoFundMe where they take a portion of it every ounce of it goes to there that's good which is a good thing yeah great opportunity thank you when you have the uh the meals at the restaurants of that please make sure that we know about them okay anytime I don't have to cook you know we'll bring a doggy back just for you 1-800
029reservations we call early for preferred seating so uh that would be but seriously you know to support the kids absolutely yeah absolutely uh Mr chair I'll move approval I'll second that by Dr Jenkins second by Mr Oliver on the motion any discussion hearing that all in favor aye opposed very good thank you so much have a good trip thank you yeah okay is Ian yep there he is the Flint we've got you're up there we've got the uh indoor color guide going to Philadelphia and then uh the uh world championships for the color God wins and percussion so this year we have similar trips to what we've done the past we'll be sending we're looking to send the color guard uh the percussion and the wins all the world championships in Dayton Ohio um this
030year the trip we were able to reduce the trip cost a little bit we're down to 900 as the toll trip costs for all three units um the color guard goes one week they'll actually be flying out to Dayton this year because the way the schedule worked out and the quantity of students it was pretty it was actually more affordable to fly them believe it or not because the busing costs so we'll be flying the color guard out one week and then during break week the percussion and the wins group will be going out staggered for their Championship weekend so it's three rounds of competition at World Championships so we hope to do quite well we have done well in the past so hopefully that turns out great the color guard this year uh we're
031not going to send the Windsor and percussion down in New Jersey for the regional that has to do with just saving a little bit of money um we had an alternative option in Connecticut so that's where we're going to be sending them just for a day trip to get kind of out of the local region um but the color guard their score counts towards their rankings going into World Championships so it's important we get them to a regional late in the season so that's why they'll be uh we're looking to send them down to Philadelphia for the regional any questions for Mr Flint now after looking over all the uh packets of paperwork I have no concerns and I wish you folks the best of luck do it all in one Fell Swoop can I
032get a motion to approve the world championship for the indoor color guide the East power Regional for uh the color God uh the WGI indoor percussion and dance team and also finals for the indoor wins so moves second by Mr Oliver second by Dr Jenkins on the motion any discussion hearing none all in favor opposed motion carries unanimously thank you thank you thank you okay all right okay okay so we have Dr Dale here for our Spotlight on kids for the Cushman School foreign [Laughter] thank you so much for having me here tonight um I have a sideshow for you with two embedded videos of children and they are speaking to you spontaneously off the cuff with no practice so I want to give a big shout out to Liz vocie who gave me a
033hand with this and also to Alicia Frick our new Outreach social worker so we are the Cushman crayons and um this is a picture quickly of our new Sandbox which has a roof over top and benches and the kids have just been having so much fun in the sandbox and with our do Feinstein toys that went along with it I will say we had a little incident last week where the sandbox is currently closed a little friend got sick so we're gonna figure that one out yeah so I wanted to put this quote in you know make the most of the best and the least of the worst we are in challenging times right now and I have some challenges of my own at the school with some challenges here at the district but the
034teachers together with with myself we're trying to focus on positivity and looking at all the things that are good and we have a lot of great things going on so I want to spend some time sharing with you how kids play and how kids have fun tonight so before we get there some challenges I want to say that at Cushman School some of the number one challenges are the Rolling enrollment so at age three if you have multiple disabilities have gone through the eligibility process you can come into a classroom and for our teachers and our teaching assistants that is very challenging because you have your classroom set up you have your routines learned already and next thing you know you have a new friend coming in just turning three and the whole apple cart
035can get you know tossed over that is a challenge and it happens to us every week we have new friends so um just wanted to bring that up the needs of our students that are coming in are also very very challenging now we are seeing children with complex complex profiles and we accept them on day one and learn more about them as each day goes on the needs of our teachers within the building they are they have two hands and the the teaching assistants have two hands and we have two spots left left in our preschool so that means of the preschool sections at Cushman we have most of our classes at 15. so you can just imagine what that is like with the with the two adults and with the complex challenges so I
036am in full agreement that we have a lot of challenges going on right now at the Cushman school but we have some some plans on how to bring some support in to help each other and then the biggest challenge of all is just how much we want to accomplish in any given day there's so much that we want to get done with our three-year-olds four-year-olds five-year-olds kindergarteners and you only have so much time in a day so that is that is always a challenge but our strengths are their amazing School community and when I say School Community I'm talking about the teachers the teaching assistants the related service providers talking about the district office I'm talking about the school committee I feel very supported and I feel that I know we have the challenges but
037our family is our PTO our CPAC Our Community Partners all of those things are good and and they bring us resources and and knowledge that really should be celebrated and and I'm happy to say that we have a great school Community the popularity of our program just the wait list alone is continues to be from last year we're still at 40 or 50 on the wait list we just opened the window for the new preschool this year and we already have the applications pouring in so the popularity of program is is a strength the resources that we've been able to bring into the schools whether it's through the District budget or through to our partnership with Alan Sean Feinstein it has been amazing and I I know that we say that every time we come
038up but in less than two and a half years I think we're at thirty one thousand dollars that we have brought in through Feinstein and with that I just want to kind of ramble off some quick resources so you kind of where's that money going so if you came to Cushman and looked at the the playground you would see a brand new Sandbox you would see the brand new Early Childhood play structure in the classrooms the teachers we constantly brainstorm what is it that we need we have sensory items fidgets chewies alternative seating crash pads and bean bags all kinds of sensory equipment for the kiddos sound reducing items we just got things for the bottom of the chairs trampolines dividers nap mats software for communication purposes headphones storage units we just recently got multi-cultural
039resources and crayons um we constantly are looking like how can we spend our money and how wonderful was that to be able to um think that way so here's how we have fun most recently last week we had our 100th day of school children in elementary appreciate and count each and every day that they come to school and the 100th day happened just um last I think it was the last week or the week before and here are some friends that dressed up to look like 100 years old we had other friends count 100 things and put them on their t-shirts we were friend counting dinosaurs on his and another friend that says 100 days of bugging Mrs Condon and he's got bugs all over his shirt and bugs in his net so um a
040fun day the kids love these kinds of days we had the opportunity to host the Special Olympics young athlete's day and we had Mr Capello and Mr paveo Miss Phillips we had the high school unified team and our SRO officer along with some local police all come together and supporting our preschoolers and it was an amazing day just two quick pictures I wanted to share with you a little friend going through an obstacle course another friend climbing the climbing wall and I love this picture with Miss Paula our newest custodian because there was a former meeting here where she stood here and everybody said everybody knows Miss Paula and then how lucky we were at Cushman to have her come and join us and that is absolutely the case everybody knows Miss Paula she is
041on it the minute something is requested of her she jumps in she helps out wherever she's she's needed and I think that smile just shows you that I think she's enjoying Cushman as well some more friends at the unified day where we have officer Amanda helping a friend with Mrs Spicer and we have some related service providers there with some high school support people it was an amazing day and I said can we please do this again in the spring because it was just so much fun so I wanted to share with you um a little bit of one of one of our community meetings looks like and I want to tell you that this community meeting was to celebrate our Bucket Fillers which you've heard about before through our PBIS program but also we
042wanted to focus on character traits of Bravery sharing caring and kindness and at a previous staff meeting the staff and I were I had given them a task where they were getting together in groups and they were acting out the skit and I thought that I made it clear that we were going to do it at a community meeting and the day of the community meeting all of a sudden I hear that teachers don't want to do this they have no desire to get in front of the kids to do it I'm like oh no today's a community what are we gonna do so we switched it on a dime and we just said we'll just see what the kids can do so you're going to see a little bit of some kids trying to
043show what bravery would look like and caring and sharing and also we had these very special capes which was new to our community meeting and one of our teachers had suggested at a staff meeting that we needed to kind of like up it a little bit besides just coming up and getting your certificate let's do something more celebratory so you'll see what the teachers came up with oh [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] whoa all right turn around you guys got your bucket filler awards today can you each tell me one thing that is kind by can you tell me first um Adrian you got a bucket filler award today what was it for [Music] you did you get it for kindness yeah are you a kind friend yeah [Music] my
044house you're so kind and Kennedy what does your cape say let's see oh yours says kindness too do you do kind things for your friends do what's your favorite kind thing to do my cousins recognize your case oh those are amazing you were just recognized for being a bucket filler for sharing can you show us your amazing sharing Cape whoa that's awesome all right turn back around what kind of things do you like to share with your friends [Music] that's amazing can you do that Superhero pose one more time whoa I'm super sharing [Music] so we hold the community meetings once a month almost once a month the last Wednesday of the month see if I can see okay so we are Feinstein Leadership School I've mentioned that now we're going to hear some students
045and this is not scripted at all and they're going to talk to you about um Feinstein some of the things that we do this is our kindness tree um they're going to talk to you about coins they're going to talk to you about being Bucket Fillers and what they like about the Cushman school they're also going to talk to you about global play day playing is very important at Cushman preschoolers play three times a day and kindergarten plays twice a day but we had a day where we just played all day hi my name is Phoebe hi my name is Kylie hi my name is Jackson welcome to Cushman we're going to tell you all about our school um when you get a kindness coin um you help other people when they fall down um
046or they have a bloody nose you can go tell their recess Monitor and if they fall down then you can help them pick them back up when we are not we when we do kind of Deeds we earn them because we do kind why is it important to be kind because that's really that's taking that's a bucket filler and taking care of others and taking ours taking care of our school wow care of ourselves you're right is Cushman a very kind school yeah do you have kind teachers and kind friends yes that's fine because I have friends and and and I got away from my house for a little bit and I and sometimes when I fall my friend Isaiah and some other friends help me up and I'm really I'm I'm really proud of
047them and I want them to be all Bucket Fillers wow can you tell us about your teachers my teachers are always awesome and and they and they keep and they they take care of us oh do they make learning so much fun yeah what kind of fun activities do you get to do we get to do GT and we get to do this we actually do and then we get to do we um and then we have recess do you play games I play football oh fun and then I want and then and then that's all I want to say that's great Community meetings tickets for being kind um and being hopeful and Dr Dale sees um those people on the cameras and she's like oh why don't that person get a ticket and the
048other one wow and do you learn about things at Community meetings as a whole school yeah what kind of things do you learn about what are those words that we saw on those capes do you remember them oh I know no I just don't want to see them oh go stand with her you can tell us all together let's see what we can remember kindness sharing sharing [Music] braveness bravery good job and this one that's fine right yeah it starts with a C Karen caring great job um it's called the kindness tree because you deserve being kind I'm gonna get out of the line and we have Kylie um Vivian no that's Henley oh yeah Kenny Vivian Thomas is somewhere we have animals how do you think it makes These funds feel when their names
049go up on the on the kindness tree oh Jack Johnson yes do you think one day your names might be up on that wall for making kind choices yes and the cut it's because there's a tree right here and and then these are Hearts oh and can kindness grow like a tree yes we can grow kindness how do we grow kindness we be kind to others yes we actually do and these are falling leaves but they have names on them they're beautiful so um on Google School play day you get to play all day um but you still need to eat lunch and go out for recess but you get to play all day and you don't have to do phonics and you don't um and you don't need to do and you don't need
050to do Gigi do you think your brain is still growing even when you're playing yeah and you're having fun and we get and we get um we get to skip um Gigi and um and we get and we got to play with new things that we never played before like um games and um and the hot cocoa stand and and one time it was a half a day and we did that so it was even more fun because we yeah we even got to go home early yeah on the play day and just like we dress up like old ladies on the 100th day and then we get to have some fun how special there are so many great things going on at this school so we love our school so that was really I
051mean it's not it was not really practiced at all and I thought it was just lovely and I thought that if I brought them here they might clam up and not be able to to speak as eloquently as they did I think that you know the The Talented committed and dedicated hard-working staff that we have at Cushman School tries to keep the smiles on the kids faces every single day and I think that they're doing a fabulous job at that and I think our kids are happy and I think we celebrate you know playing as as we should at our early age and thank you thank you thank you any questions from Miss Daly no I just really enjoyed the presentation yeah hearing about everything Cushman little ones are good okay good thank you Dr
052Daley okay next on fun stuff FY 24 budget Mr Kylie thank you Mr Nance it's a tough act I was just going to say you get to follow this I think I need those three to present this budget would be a much more entertaining presentation for sure give Ben a minute here perfect thank you Ben appreciate it um so thank you all for the opportunity to talk about uh the fy24 proposed budget so we prepare the budget in collaboration with the school committee subcommittee on budget uh all of the the schools and departments it's a need-based proposal that was is a process that was submitted by the schools and departments and then compiled into a big picture look at what we need as a district and then we've been you know obviously have to prioritize
053that um the wrong way there you know at the end so just to remind everybody the mission that drives Us in this budget preparation is our mission statement which is to provide quality education for all learners we try and balance that with a number of guiding priorities that you'll see reflect our actual proposals I'll just briefly talk about these so to maintain and enrich quality programs and support services enhance the use of technology and teaching and learning maintain reasonable class size enhance curriculum instructions and assessment support all Learners address social and emotional learning and mental health and support staff professional development to enhance student learning so this is sort of our big picture where we are with this budget proposal so for fiscal year 24 we're proposing a budget of 51 million 913 526 dollars
054you'll see the breakdown there the Big Green Piece of the pie is the instruction category it includes salaries of teachers principals teaching assistants substitutes other instructional staff instructional technology professional development special education services books supplies that represents 75 percent of our budget oh are we okay there Ben thank you the other services portion is the next largest percentage it's oh it's the purple piece of the pie there that is includes Transportation attendance Health Athletics other co-curricular activities again 12 of our budget next largest is the yellow piece and that is maintenance and utility so that would include our projections for utilities our custodial services and maintenance of the buildings and grounds it's seven percent of our budget the next largest piece of the pie is actually out is outplacement tuition so that includes special ed
055tuition payments that we're projecting for next year that's four percent of our budget that's the uh kind of RNG sort of piece there the last piece is Administration so that would include the District administration administrative technology and legal services that's two percent of our budget so we're pretty consistent with um these categories in terms of where we were last year in the fiscal year 23 budget of the current year but this this will show you both the change the change from fiscal year 23 to 24 in our proposal so instruction increase is 5.4 percent two million sixteen thousand four hundred and sixty dollars in our proposal so that includes contractual obligations like things that are um already going to happen regardless of our collective bargaining which is ongoing so things like teacher steps longevity um
056things like that that's about 524 thousand dollars that's about 1.1 percent of the overall budget we also have a provision for settlement of the collective bargaining agreements for fiscal years 23 and 24 included there we have some savings from retirements but a very low number of retirees this year which people just people want to uh want to stay I guess and and keep going so we appreciate that we have our proposals also 10 are mostly all included in this line so I'll talk a little bit more about those afterwards the administration increase is 6.7 percent it's 58 745 3.4 percent of the 6.7 is in relation to projected legal costs for next year 3.3 percent is related to contractual obligations maintenance and utilities very small increase point four percent fifteen thousand eight hundred and fifty
057five dollars we're really banking on the fact that the town has some favorable agreements with utility companies and with the solar agreement to sort of control our costs which benefit us certainly more than the the resident um you know who who doesn't have those long-term contracts so we're banking on that and all the efficiency work that we've been doing to really sort of hope that we're essentially level funding maintenance and utilities for next year other services this is our our second largest increase nine percent increase this is in relation to transportation for special education and homeless students right now we're lucky if we can find someone to provide transportation for a new student so it is a very challenging environment for school transportation there's you've probably heard there's just there's no bus drivers and it's
058just really between that the the fact that Vehicles vehicle replacement has not you know they're just not available um and um gas prices as well they have really unfortunately impacted that area of the budget mm-hmm tuition so this I'll talk a little bit about we've level funded this but part of why we've been able to level fund this is in relation to a proposal I'll talk about on the next slide that we're we're excited about so the overall increase in the budget proposed right now is two million five hundred and thirty thousand one hundred and twenty dollars or 5.1 percent sounds like something good just happened in the basketball game yeah um budget recommendations so we have recommendation for one ell teacher uh built this is built into the instruction category previous slide I'll let
059you know a little bit about why we've proposed that so we have there are different categories for English language learners based on their needs we have 35 foundational level ell Learners they are supposed to receive they're recommended to receive 90 minutes a day of service we have 26 transitional level ell students in the district who are recommended to receive 45 minutes a day of of service that is actually it does sound like a lot it's actually relatively low incidence then Dartmouth is a low incidence Community but the fact is that there is no way that we can meet those recommendations with our existing three ell staff in the district in fact adding the CLL teacher will not allow us to be fully meeting these recommendations but it will be a step in the right direction
060and we prioritize that here I mentioned the tuition category on the previous page so we in Dartmouth we have a responsibility for students up until age 22 with special needs and we are proposing a program to serve those students in-house we've not done this before previously students would be tuitioned out to one of the one of the programs in the area typically a collaborative program we for a number of reasons we think that an in-house program with opportunities for inclusion and an environment that students and families are familiar with would make sense for us we believe that next year we would likely have four students in this program there would be a savings that's not why we're doing it but there is a savings the tuition out would be somewhere between 55 and 60 thousand
061dollars a student we would be proposing within this budget to hire a teacher and to teacher assistants to operate this program we'd also have materials and other costs and and modification of space would be housed here at the high school which again offers great opportunities for inclusion we really uh really are are prepared to focus on this it's been a few years in the making it's been a discussion going going on now really even during the pandemic that we were targeting it so we're hopeful that we can we can get support and move forward with this we also um in relation to what Dr Dale was discussing have a priest a new preschool class proposed so Dr Dale mentioned that we have two slots open in preschool right now we have between 6 and 13
062students reaching age three between now and the end of the school year and we only have two slots we need to have room for those students and because of the numbers we absolutely need room for those students for next year so we're proposing to add and add that class in fact we've already posted for a position just to try we've actually posted for teacher assistant and teacher position to attempt to figure out what we're going to do for the rest of the school year because we have we have some time like I said we have 6 to 13 students that we believe would qualify at some point um you know during the next few months so we've built that in here and we've also built in a 0.2 that's basically one day a week physical
063therapist into the into the budget our current physical therapist has a caseload of 52 and 52 students and we are hoping to be able to uh change that this is always kind of the sad slide um it reflects the requests from the schools and departments that weren't incorporated into the budget so included in this list are requests that absolutely would have a positive impact on students we're confident of that but at this time we were weren't able to um fit them in to the to the budget request if we had our budget request would be an 8.8 percent increase we are proposing supporting quite a few of these positions um and and initiatives through alternate means we're fortunate still to have Sr funds available to us through September 30th of 2024. it will be available
064for the entire fy24 budget and then expire essentially at the beginning of the fy25 budget and really not be much use to us in fiscal year 25 in reality we have 16 positions currently funded and or partially funded with us or funds and it was originally our hope that we'd be able to find a way to begin to incorporate those positions into the the fiscal year 24 operating budget you'll see that that was a common theme in the in the requests from the schools unfortunately we weren't able to do that so they're still in Esser for next year we recognize what that means and it's going to make the fiscal year 25 budget that much more complicated um I won't read everything on the list but these are not wish list items these are things
065that would make a difference we wish we had them but we really need them and um unfortunately at this point they're not incorporated into the budget so I guess what I would say is that this is our best effort at providing you a budget for your consideration for what we absolutely feel like we need to do for fiscal year 24. we would love to be able to do more but we are realistic and we've had preliminary conversations with the town side of government regarding our funding I think that our request you know it's certainly certainly substantial we are the biggest budget in the town and we understand that we also serve the most people directly every day and it's important that we have the funding to to do what we need I have provided you
066with backup information uh on this be happy to take questions now or take questions over the next couple of school committee meetings we have an opportunity to deliberate at the next couple of school committee meetings in March and then um and then hopefully vote at some point in April on the budget we don't currently have any State numbers um so the the we have a new governor as you know um we are anxiously awaiting that but we're also somewhat pessimistic that it's it's really going to help Dartmouth much I'd expect a a very modest probably certainly less than what where the percentage we're asking for um increase in Chapter 70 funds probably to the tune of one percent for chapter 7A that's about a 10 million dollar program which we'll probably get 100 a hundred
067thousand dollars out of that so that's not going to save us so I don't see that you know making a major difference from what the governor has has initially sort of previewed to communities but we'll uh we'll keep in mind and keep you informed as um you know as more things develop on the state side of the budget we will continue to be meeting with the town side of government making sure that we're on the same page in terms of communicating our needs and keep you informed of those discussions as we go and I just we've you know we've gotten great support in the past I hope we can count on it again we certainly need it so many questions Shannon you you too I'll start with YouTube only because of the fact you were
068on this so yeah sure I guess I'll go first um thank you Mr Kylie uh we're hearing this seeing this for the second time um it's an unfortunate reality of the uh the budget increase um certainly concerning um certainly something though after you know thinking about it myself having conversations with Mr Kylie that I I think at the very least it's worth pushing through um the the overall budget and uh I'm hopeful uh that we'll find the support um what's more concerning to me is uh all these user-funded positions that are being paid for with sr3 right now and we're going to be we're gonna have a serious significant problem for fy25 especially as things um you know nothing's getting cheaper right now these days for sure so I'm certainly in uh Mr Kylie's well
069aware of my concern um my other concern I I brought to him and it you know um I think it might be worthwhile to have a conversation or maybe have someone from special ed available is the um the possibility of a new program for the um Transitional services um I I I think it's worthwhile I think it can be if it's done properly um I I think it's a you know it can work however I do have reservations about that and I would like to hear some more from special education about what the overall overarching plan is for this program that would be uh my two my two cents on that um yeah I'll stop talking now no no that's fine thank you Dr Jenkins so I have a question and then a couple comments
070I want to reinforce from our meeting I can't find in my files the 5.1 percent increase is that the same number that we discussed because I thought I remember that the request was a 4.4 percent increase but I may have transposed the numbers originally what we were talking about so our original budget subcommittee meeting right which was not a budget proposal right I just wanted to make sure I know I know we haven't approved the budget yet I just want to understand where the numbers are it was it was not a budget proposal it was we were talking about the fact that our Baseline before we consider doing anything else was 4.4 if you add the the exact difference is the difference of the things we're proposing yeah the ell the physical therapist the preschool
071classroom okay and then to then I I wanted to say a couple things for the audience and from our meeting right I mean one of the things we talked about is the things that we're requesting are not even nice to have they're things that we have to do to meet our legal obligations and so yeah we're requesting 5.1 but even if we only got that level funded budget we still have to do the things that we say that we're going to do we can't not serve students who are entitled to preschool services so yeah we're asking for some additional stuff but the additional stuff is to meet legal obligations and I think that's sort of important to point out the second thing I want to reiterate and I want to amplify what you said so
072it doesn't get lost Mr Kylie because I think in the current atmosphere that 6.7 percent on Administration might raise some eyebrows but I I want to note right that the Personnel levels in central office now we previously had two assistant supers and one curriculum director we now have a super one assistant and two curriculum directors and so the Staffing levels are the same so that 6.7 doesn't represent increase in staff represents increase in legal costs and increase in in our contractual obligation so it's not like we're on a hiring Street there we're returning to normal Staffing levels in central office and then the last thing I want to note is you know we talked about this in the budget subcommittee meeting and you know I think we all share the concern about um the s
073or cliff and I think you know as loath as I am to use sort of non-recurring revenues for recurring expenses I think we're going to have to look at some of those to ease us off the cliff um because I don't think we want to go from a million dollars in this to zero in one year that's going to be hard and so I think we're going to have to look at some of that non-recurring Revenue to potentially roll us down as we can sort of make progress in building those into the budget over several years and that's what those sorts of funds are are typically for but I think we need to prepare people that we're going to have to look at that to to really do that because I know I know there's
074rightly a lot of hesitation to do that but I I just don't see any other way around it I mean we can't just lose all those positions that serve students it's going to be it's going to be challenging for sure that's it okay thank you Dr Jenkins Kathleen thank you um I just want to thank my colleagues for all their points and not to be repetitive I do agree and concur I too have some reservations about the transition program you know transitioning our special ed director new superintendent potential new vision you know to help you know fill in some gaps and move forward perhaps in this way or another way I just feel like I just I'm really uh you know working in the field and seeing it not work well and seeing that we
075had a program at Quinn that didn't quite work well you know secondary transition if you just you know starts in Massachusetts the age of 14 right and here um from the age 14 until a student graduates it turns 22 students on IEPs receive transition services from the public school um defined in federal law there it's a coordinated set of activities to signed to be within a results-oriented process to facilitate the student's movement from school to post school activities transition services are based on the individual students needs taking into account his or her strengths preferences and interests and these these Services help young adults to live work and participate in the community and go on to further education or training as independently as possible when they leave high school that includes travel training that includes job
076trialing that includes connecting to resources and government benefits that includes a lot more than what I can just visualize one student and two Tas doing never mind the potential repercussions if a family and a student are not open to say transitioning into our turning 22 program at the high school I do have concerns about it being within a physical building having 13 14 year olds and 22 year olds in the same building I would I don't want to make any assumptions I'm sure there's been good planning I've heard let's you know it's been kind of mentioned but I didn't really quite know when this would come into fruition or it could be something great but I would hate to put something into place that's not going to be great in in practice and I would
077like to hear a lot more about it and um just to be sure because as it stands one teacher two etas I don't feel as adequate to support the needs of students with this level of nuanced coordinated services that change from year to year and really are unique and how do you get the kid to the college campus and support the other three in the classroom and how do you know I have a lot of questions um and so I would love to see a presentation on it um um because you know in other districts you know having kids work in the cafeteria and bus tables that really to me is subpar and categorizing it as a skill post-secondary skill I I um it can be part of it but I feel like I just
078have to be vocal about this and express my concerns thank you Mr Newton so we'd be happy to get you more information about it and maybe you know set something up for the March 6th meeting we do anything else Kathleen that's it no no no we've kind of gone through all of the other depressing Financial stuff that we're yeah you know thank you Mr Kylie and all the administrators to Chris and Shannon for your time on it type of dealings you know not easy not an easy test type of deal I kind of agree with Shannon I had you know you know the note on the 16 you know the falling off the cliff type of deal it has got it's not pretty uh it's not pretty at five percent because you know you know
079I'm not hearing much from the state at the moment I mean I got an email today about you know I just made a note on it you know the opioid settlement is about you know how much how much is Dartmouth going to get on that and how much is you know are they gonna you know give to Dartmouth and you know get included in the budget I don't know I mean you know no disrespect we don't have a budget and finance director no disrespect to Gary at the moment so it's you know things are a little bit up in the air there too so uh but thank you for all of this I mean again I go I always go back to the budget requests not funded it's these are not pie in the sky
080this is this is not loyal geez you know you know let's have some fun type of this is not these are all you know middle school after school programs you know Cushman was you know Quinn teaching assistants that type of deal technology increased the expense budget I mean it changes all the time so thank you very much for all of that and I again this is going to come back uh two cool questions that I have on blindsiding you I apologize you haven't heard anything from uh cap CIP on a meeting with them not yet not yet and again when you have a date from the fincom to yes I I will present this sure aside from March 16th that's the only my only bad okay okay um I will just let you know that
081we did receive a fairly extensive list of uh requests information requests from the finance committee so we're in the process of putting that together for them so okay foreign anything else okay old business superintendent search and screening committee update sir okay you passed good evening um just to give you a brief update as to where we are at this point the superintendent search committee met on initially on Wednesday February 8th and we I facilitated a training for them in regards to the requirements of the open meeting law with the search committee and the conflict of interest statute something I'm required to do by Guidance of the Attorney General so we did that they signed and returned to me confidentiality statements so that we maintain the confidentiality of the process then we met on Friday February
08210th and reviewed the completed applications that we've received and have begun the process of scheduling preliminary interviews with the search committee which will take place on Tuesday the 28th Wednesday March 1st and Thursday March 2nd um at which time they hope to complete that part of the process and have for you um a number of candidates to be considered finalists for the position that you would then begin to take over the process the following week so things are going well the Committees in the in the process now of uh submitting questions for the interviews I will put those to documents that put those together in a document share them back with the committee and then we will finalize which questions are going to be asked during the 75-minute interviews for each of the candidates so
083that's where we are with that and uh Chris did I skip anything with that part of it I think so Mr I don't think so Mr hardy uh just back away a little bit here no uh we we had some some good conversations some good discussion uh unfortunately or fortunately we're able to fit in a Friday evening meeting and I do want to thank all the members of the screening committee for willing to come out on a Friday night just because of the the the condensed timeline and trying to stay competitive with the other school school districts that are interviewing superintendents we felt that it was really uh it was either our choice was either that or Valentine's Day so uh we opted Katie and I opted to go with uh the Friday night so
084and thanks to Katie who's hiding around the corner there for all her uh her work on the committee as well um no what I will say I don't know if now is the time to do it but we did have two members of the screening committee withdraw I'm not sure if everyone's aware of that but we had a parent member withdrawal as well as a teacher withdraw both due to time comp commitment and scheduling conflicts so one of the things that we brought up in um we thought it was important to share with the full committee was whether or not what was your the Committees the school committee's pleasure on filling these positions clearly we've already made the decision the group to who we're going to move forward for preliminary interviews um so if we
085were to fill these positions they would just be part of the interview process personally and I'm only speaking for myself and Katie please come up share with you what your thoughts are personally at this point in time I don't know if it's particularly necessary we've already started the process Mr Mr Hardy's already gone through the training so you know as much it was very it's unfortunate because I thought we were pretty clear with what our um you know what the time commitments were and what we're expecting but I do understand that things come up but my my thought would be to not fill those those two positions at this point in time Katie thanks Chris I would agree with that I think the team is a though we've only met twice a well meshed team
086there was good discussion had I think it might be difficult at this point for a new person to come aboard um but you know as Chris said it would be just for the interview process so really the the decision is yours since again again only me at this point just run with what you've got that type of news because other than that you've got a you know reinvent the wheel you know nuts that all over again but you're going to have to put a little bit more time in the way because this these two people would have to go to the training and all that you know so just run personally run with what you've got I mean people knew coming in we talked about it enough sorry Shannon yeah no I absolutely agree and
087you know it's we talked about maybe filling one but you can't really feel one because then you end up with an even number and you can't really have an even number and so I think just the challenges of having to go back to the pool and talk to people and confirm if they're still available and retrain them um just makes it too difficult at this point so it's unfortunate but I just think we just have to move forward with what we have and if you listen to the finance committee meeting they thought we had too many people on it anyway so you know I won't go there Kathleen no I think yeah I agree I'll do it yeah there we go run with what we have awesome thank you outside of of this well like
088it's not really a downside but the the reality is both of those groups are still represented there's still parents and there's still teachers on the committee so it's not like we're not having representation from those two groups as well and quite honestly if you did decide you wanted to fill them unless you did it tonight we'd have to delay because they have to be appointed by you so if you didn't do it tonight it would have to we'd have to push the whole thing back until after your next meeting but I didn't want that to be but I think the group the group worked really well the two nights together they asked really good questions uh they were very respectful of everybody's opinions which is always a very good a good sign um it would
089didn't pull any punches but it was all done in a very civil respectful manner so that's very that's very encouraging moving forward because we have as I told them we have to remember this is dual evaluation process candidates are evaluating Dartmouth and the experience that they have during the interviews as much as you're evaluating them so it's real important that the interviews State you know stay a very positive experience and we did chat about that with the search committee as well body language you know the unspoken language sitting like this when you head down it's kind of a negative look uh at least pretend to be engaged uh to to even though you may not like what the person's saying but uh it's real important that uh it's a positive experience for everybody involved because
090at the bottom line you want them to be here as much as you want them to be here so like I said it's a dual a dual process um the other reason I think I was asked here to come tonight let's talk a little bit about the survey um you should have all received a copy of the summary document as well as the full the full survey with all of the open-ended responses and so forth um I was really happy with the total number of responses it was exactly 400 I was looking at it the morning it closed on January 5th and I was looking at it that morning and I was like oh 397. I need three more and then like 12 59 one came in at 112 one came in and then about
091three o'clock that number 400 came in so I was like all right so we if it was 401 or 402 I would have been happy to but I was glad we got into that 400 range so um I know you've seen it but for the for the benefit of the people here um there were 181 people who participated who identified as either a parent or guardian of a Dartmouth public school student there were 157 people identified as employees of the Dartmouth Public Schools uh 26 people identified as a resident of the community without children enrolled in the Dartmouth Public Schools 12 were students of the Dartmouth Public Schools six were either Dartmouth local official or town employees and then 17 identified as other um and just to give you an idea grandparent of an enrolled
092no we have a grandparent of a Dartmouth public school student former School employer employee and currently have grandchildren attending former employee to school secretary in Dartmouth and also a parent of three children who went through the department system retired employee of the Dartmouth Public Schools connected to community Through extended family grandparent employee and Resident so I guess there was two categories a grandparent with an enrolled grandchild parent of a child who will be in DPS in a former teacher in town parent of Dartmouth students and also employee of Dartmouth retired employee of the school I am both a parent and Dartmouth School parent of a Dartmouth School child and an employee parent and employee employee and Resident without children employee and parent employee and Resident without children and Resident with child that vocational school who
093went to Dartmouth middle in Demello School so that made up the 17 and that's almost always what happens is that people have two roles so instead of picking one they just click other and put in both titles but they are their results were calculated in the total as well so the the very first question again asked to identify themselves but question two was um do I ask the participants to identify the five most significant current and future issues that the new superintendent will need to address and I listed the top sub the reason I listed Seven rather than five is because after 131 there was a big drop to the next category so and the difference between five and and seven was only seven votes so I feel just list seven but they were number
094one social emotional well-being of students and staff and there was 197 people identified that as one of the five most significant issues curriculum development instruction was second with 187 responses District school culture was third with 162 collective bargaining was fourth with 161 Communications with parent and Community was fifth with 138 financial management building a budget development was 136 and strategic and long-range planning was seventh with 131 and then I said the next number eight was like 118 it was a pretty significant drop what's really kind of interesting with this is um there are a couple of like questions that are very similar but they give you different it's a different context and a different response but um one of the questions later in the survey uh asked uh listed a series of specific experiences and
095skill areas that were important when evaluating superintendent candidates and then it says how much weight should the school Community give each one of these skill sets and the rating scale was from critically important above average importance of average importance below import below average pardons are relatively unemployment important so I I'm bringing this up now because social emotional well-being students and staff was the number one current of future issues identified when you think about the skill sets necessary for a superintendent to maybe address those issues um supportive work environment was the number three item listed under question six social emotional well-being of students and staff was 12 out of 15. and promoting our response promoting Dei was 14th so when you think about what the social emotional well-being of children and then the school culture climate
096the skill sets were down here yet the priority was here so there was a little bit of Disconnect between those two questions and I bring it up because quite often we see when that's a high priority those are highly ranked skill sets to do that here it was a little off um and then um under question seven um personal characteristics um a a a strong Communicator was ranked third in like communication with parents and Community was right fifth in the other one so there was a connection to to some uh similar characteristics um there's breakdowns for each of the categories I provided for you I don't know if you want me to get into all of that I will but you have it and you were able to review it uh question three was an
097open-ended question and um what do you believe is will be the most important issue facing the next superintendent and which is a little bit different than the second question because it's open-ended and people could free-form with that one but um of the 338 responses to these questions the word students staff and teachers appeared in over 54 of the response responses in a positive way um student comments included concerns over learning loss lower expectations in school climate those were some of the negative things that came from the Student Response side staff and teachers appear to be in the same category as that response but many are focused on retaining qualified staff and collective bargaining challenges and then I provided you a full list of all the open under responses and four identified 10 positions that a
098candidate for superintendent position may have held in the past and participants were asked to identify their top three choices of experience listed that would be most valuable to the next superintendent of schools in Dartmouth overall and I'm going to do this one through ten teacher was the number one response with 229 responses or 57.25 percent superintendent in another School District 202 assisted superintendent 189 building principal 164. and as you can see we go from 164 the next one 74. so there's there's a significant drop between four and five but from there it goes special education director 74 Finance business manager 60 that's probably because you have a good one and it's not an issue uh curriculum specialist 51 leadership position outside the district 45 prior experience doesn't matter right fit was 44 and Human Resources
099Director was 24 or 6 percent but you can see that the top four responses which is what drove the language and the brochure about you know superintendent experience preferred and administrative experience preferred in classroom teaching experience required those that's what drove that information the brochure as far as the minimum qualifications foreign the next question talked about 11 areas of expertise that a superintendent Canada might possess in this question the participants were asked to rank each one again as critically important above average of average below average importance of relatively unemployment and the top vote yet is here were goal setting strategic planning and implementation with 309 and what the 140 and 169 numbers represent is the first number represents someone identified it is critically important and the second number is that above average importance so those
100are the two numbers that drove the higher ranking budget development management was 3 308 with a 140 168. curriculum development and evaluation 301 with a 159 142 special education was 296 with 123 141 and collected bargaining was 282 with 141 141. and you can see with the breakdowns uh the the difference between the parents and the employees numbers broke down as well as the town employees um in fact when you look at the Town employees there was the number one response was goal setting strategic planning and implementation and then there were five others one tied with five votes and those were budget development curriculum development facilities public relations and collective bargaining those are the five we talked a little bit about question six already but again experiences and skill areas it would be important when
101evaluating superintendent candidates again critically important above average so forth and the number one item was ability to develop and direct an effective administrative team with 366 votes or 259 and 107 259 people thought that that was critically important for the next superintendent of the schools uh to have that experience or skill set understanding recognizes good teaching was second with 362. successful creating and supporting work environment 360. these are very close success in achieving High expectation and outcomes for all students 347 then again it dropped there was a gap between these two and if you look at the breakdown of each of the groups with one exception each of them have this two of the same things question seven again Wade personal characteristics the superintendent of schools May possess number one was a problem solver 373
102combined votes approachable 357 strong Communicator 352 collaborative 347 and empathetic 329 and I wanted to point out that the absolute last number 11 skill set was risk taker and it received the most relatively unimportant skill sets out of that whole list so that should tell you something that people don't want a risk taker um and the other the next one was assertive that was number 10. so I think it's real clear that people are looking for someone who's collaborative approachable good communicator again that's what drove the um the characteristics that were listed in the brochure uh and that's again question eight was a opportunity for people just to provide additional input and you have uh you have the list of the full responses um should be noted that about 77 of the 77 percent of
103the responses were were identified as either neutral neutral meaning they would need a positive nor negative um and most of those comments were uh thank you thank you for allowing us to participate and then there were some that were advocating for um Mr Kiley and then there were some who were advocating against other people um which I won't mention but um and then you know some of the issues you might expect that were brought up there was there were as many people talking about the need for more work on diversity Equity inclusion as there were people saying get CRT out of our schools and it would be about balance off it balance out each other but um so that's a quick summary of the uh the survey um I can provide you the breakdowns by
104a group if you want um so you can see what the top when I keep the whole summaries of all of them if you want I can do it um so it's electronic now in Excel so it's up to you but um but the results of that the survey is what drove what was in the brochure which was what drove what the high applicants highlighted in their application packets so um this had this survey had a direct result in impacting uh the skill sets that people are looking for in the in the applications it served two purposes it's good plus it provided people to opportunity to provide an input that otherwise they wouldn't add right and 400 people took it took advantage of that that's right which is nice yeah yeah the second highest one
105I've received wow wow excellent wow I appreciate you know appreciate the fact that this you know they took the time to to do that uh also it's you know it's incumbent I can't I can't send the survey to people I don't have their email addresses and so forth so it was you know it was very helpful that Mr Kylie got to get the word out get the word out to the town got the word out to people put it up on the website made the link real easy to find from from what people tell me it was real easy to participate the average time it took somebody to complete the survey was seven seven and a half minutes from start to finish that was the average some people skip certain questions so not all 400
106answered all questions but in some of the last the last question the rest of the respect to Simply thank you thank you thank you so funded yeah after that yeah so that's good thank you sir questions no thank you uh thank you Jim for coming out I appreciate it appreciate it so we're working on the schedule for the week after school vacation week for interviews um I've contacted the people involved and I'm waiting to get confirmation back that they're accepting their time and that they don't have conflicts excellent Perfect all right as soon as I have that I will forward it to the search committee thank you thank you thank you Jim all right thank you any other questions thank you Jim all right much appreciated safe travels hey yeah yeah so you will all
107right Mr Martin I'm sorry I welcome him but I am prepared to we we drew straws service administrator screening committee update so um uh Mike and I Mike Mr Martin and I are co-chairs of that committee and we have met um through Zoom a couple times and we're looking forward to having a you know thoughtful and organized transparent process with the utmost respect of everyone's time and making sure that we're sort of maximizing our time together so uh we've met um Mike was uh good enough to utilize his skills in the Google and sent out to our committee a form that included in confidentiality statement was embed in the in the form for folks to sign and return to us before our first meeting we also we actually um we reached out to Mr Kylie
108and instead of Reinventing the wheel we thought we would begin with sort of a framework and then once we meet with our group formally you know more specifics but Mr Kiley was kind enough to forward us some uh of well a very organized um information as to how we proceeded last time we were in this situation and he provided us some great information to help us with this process and also Kate has been incredibly helpful in central office with responding and actually helping us figure out best ways to move forward um Mike sent out a with that confidentiality statement we we had a bank of questions that were used in Prior you know they they really were well a wide range of questions um categorized um you know in a certain way and so we
109thought we would use that as a a draft and we asked our um our committee members to share their yeah well we asked them first to let us know their availability to meet um this week and time you know day and time which we decided upon you know an average most folks were available we're going to meet in person on Thursday in the afternoon at Bush Street but we also asked them what qualities characteristics and experience that they would want to see in an ideal applicant as a way to you know provide and it was kind of neat we reviewed today the responses and I think we consensus as to what folks are on the committee are hopeful that we will get with our net you know our applicants and what we want to look
110for so we thought that having that word Ward bank right that visual of all those words that folks kind of submitted as ideal an ideal candidate would um would be and that would help us as we uh do the work on Thursday and that work is going to be we're going to convene we're going to review the applicants we're going to come to consensus and finalize questions and Our intention is to you know again with the committee building consensus with the committee Our intention is to begin interviews the week following vacation so that's did I miss anything Mike so that's it okay let me ask did I miss something because I saw oh was there a Bank of questions I was yes I got the I I got that one that was on the that
111I filled out and sent back I was just you know with my wonderful computer skills I'm figuring I missed something like that yeah okay yeah that's fine but like I said it was it was nice to see that it seems like most everyone had uh you know there were a variety of things that folks wrote in but you know they all sort of were in the same you know um similar in terms of uh the qualities that we wanted we want to see so that was good already to know what we're what we're up against meeting on Thursday so that's right John's on the committee too with me fun time okay any comments for uh Miss emerald and Mr Martin thank you terminals no we're good okay thank you alrighty uh superintendent update this is
112quick um we had a phoenix talk about the high school information so I don't have to go over any of that uh Potter sent some information about I think one of the really great things that they're having tomorrow at a staff meeting is um Dr Carolyn mccurney will be working with the staff you might remember her name from the south coast collaborative she's worked with us for many years um working on de-escalation techniques behavior therapy et cetera Etc so that's happening it's as we had the Super Bowl most of the schools are doing the canned good collection for the soups soup collection and so that's been ongoing and we'll be going continuing PBIS rallies are happening and Potter was saying they were having a on Tuesday that featured a dance act by some fifth graders
113and the Highlight was a will be a visit from the high school kiddos that are coming so that's good and they're also having some family fun nights today was at the middle school I think tomorrow the having it as well I ran over there today the greater New Bedford Regional refuse Management Group had a presentation for the sixth grade is all about Recycling and the landfill and all of that so it was it was very informative information and demelo was talking about celebrating the January student of the month today and all preparing for the read across America as well and I also just wanted to mention that last week we did have a district meeting as well again with the district team that's working on the portrait of a learner we did use the um
114Town Hall again and unfortunately the facilitator ended up getting sick at the airport and had to go to emergency so they virtual they remote it in and all was well Ross facilitated that meeting with the the group but we're just in that moment now where all of the schools have worked on characteristics of the portrait of valerna so all of that work is coming together from the entire district and as it proceeds one of the things the comments that came out was it's the time we'll be taking from poster to practice over the rest of the year and then rolling it out for the new year that folks really know what does it mean to be a portrait of a Learner in Dartmouth so that's that's the work that's going on in the district right
115now I'm done any questions for the superintendent uh a couple of things first and foremost I just want to thank uh Gene and her crew in the cafeteria tonight for a beautiful reception for Dr Gifford thank you to Jim and Chris for helping facilitate that much much much appreciated uh the uh and I realized some of this is coming is down the line but um March 18th uh um going to the music department is having their annual uh went to Home Show percussion color guide wins type of deal at the moment starting at two o'clock uh JV caller guide is on at 2 15. awards are at six then at 6 55 the winds are on and then at 905 his percussions were the wads right after so I'll be sending out an email looking
116for presenters you know at six o'clock and also you know 9 30 on that that Saturday night just so everyone is aware our Varsity color guide will not be performing that's when they're going to be in Pennsylvania that's that night that they've got to go to Pennsylvania to to do that the music Department's annual Pops concert is uh going to be March 9th uh Thursday night and uh every year for scholarships and every year we honor someone and this year we happen to be honoring Dr Gifford uh unfortunately she's going to be on vacation but that's okay you know well we will mention her and we'll have someone hear from her family type of deal but also the night of percussion on April 6 when all the groups get together and I understand there's some
117possibly groups from Pennsylvania that are going to be in the area that are going to join us type of deal and we will give you your plaque and could Do's that night type of deal uh that being said I think we all know so I have from the board of Selectmen that has arrived uh town of Dartmouth official select board citation be it known that the diamond select board hereby extends its congratulations to Dr Bonnie giffett and recognition of your selfishness and dedication as superintendent of schools and wishing you the best for an enjoyable retirement and it is signed by all the members of the Dartmouth Board of Selectmen so Bonnie thank you very much anybody else have anything they want to add yeah go ahead no go ahead [Music] I would just like to
118take this opportunity to uh thank you Bonnie Dr Gifford for uh your many years of service to the Dartmouth Public Schools like I've said in previous meetings it seems like yesterday that we were conducting a site visit for you um and we're interviewing you and certainly time does go by rather fast it's been a heck of a past three years um for for you for the district for everyone but certainly for any superintendent of schools so I just want to thank you for your dedication to the students and staff and it's been a pleasure working with you you know the certainly uh we're always very respectful of one another and um we sometimes didn't agree but that's all right that's what makes uh that's what makes it um you know it's exciting so um thank
119you and I wish you nothing but uh happiness in retirement yeah I'll also extend my thanks and particularly my thanks for not retiring during the pandemic I can't imagine having to transition and do a search during all of that so super appreciate that part but but also your your overall because I'm sure it would have been easy to be like that's it I'm done this was it was hard times and we appreciate you staring us through those Hard Times um and also um the good times we've had so thank you and enjoy your retirement thank you very much yeah it's just the same thing thank you um it's I just can't believe how how time flies but um much um success in your retirement fun and and uh relaxation yes looking forward to it thank
120you thank you all but again I I don't want to repeat myself but we've had a number of little meetings without DLT or our district leadership team and central office Etc and just let them know it's really been a privilege to be here and and if you're going to end your career in a district it's a great District to have done it in our team worked so well together and as you mentioned through covert and everything uh the late nights we also I don't know it was terrible really but um we did make it and I think we were in Shell Shock at that moment so nobody could retire and it's just like where are we but um it's been a great place to work and I wish obviously the next superintendent the best of
121luck and I know with the leadership team that we have and and the the work that's going on in the schools that it'll be it's going to be in a good place so again I appreciate everything thank you [Applause] enjoy the warm weather and there's still some students that would like a snow day before you leave but I don't think that's happening looking at the looking at the long range forecast this week yeah yeah I don't I don't see that happening all right with that being said our next school commission yes um can we also take up Mr Kiley emailed to us that we have received an open meeting law complaint so perhaps Mr Kiley can sort of take over and fill us in on that one sure I'd be happy to um so we
122received on Thursday afternoon a open meeting law complaint it complains that our minutes do not contain a list of all the documents and other exhibits used by the public body during the meeting so I guess the first thing I would say is that our minutes do list the documents that are utilized by the school committee during meetings they do not have a separate list so depending on how you interpret the law and I included the law in my email to you um it may be interpreted that there should be a list of documents not just that they're listed kind of a finer point but we've received that complaint it's easy enough for us to comply to Mrs gethner does an unbelievable job with the minutes um and I she has already indicated that um she'd
123be adding a separate list in addition to them being listed in the body of the the body of the minutes when they're referred to by the committee so we're prepared to respond to the complaint and I think but the complaint does require that the school committee review the complaint if the committee agrees with our suggested resolution if you just would authorize myself to respond to the complaint I'd be happy to do that Shannon so I have a question this may be a dumb question but I assume the list of documents is so that people can foia them in case they want to see them and I don't want to create more work but is it just easier to include the documents with along with it or are there reasons not to do that I would
124just say that there there is no legal requirement must be included and incorporated as part of the minutes and I think when we're talking about documents that are hundreds of pages potentially it may not be practical we're happy I mean we're certainly those documents are available whenever someone would like so um but we're happy to comply with certainly your wishes or or my suggestion in terms of just including a list yeah I guess just from my sense my this is my personal opinion um I'm a big advocate for openness and transparency and so to make those sorts of documents available to the public the same as they are to us I think would be good practice I don't want to suggest we do that as a remedy right now we've got 14 days to respond
125and so let's just do that and be done with it but I do think it's good practice and open transparent governance to have the documents that are available to us available to the public so that they can view them at any time so that would be my first point and maybe that's something that we can discuss at another meeting it's not it doesn't have to be the response to this the other thing I was thinking about in thinking about documents and also watching Phoenix over there scrambling to take notes on some of the stuff can we include our student represent on the circulation of documents that are not confidential so obviously you know executive session minutes or grievances or contract negotiations or any of that I would not want they can't be included on that
126but I think it would help him be more informed about what we're doing and what we're talking about if he had access to the same materials that we did so I just for me it's about being open and transparent and what we're doing and making those materials available to people I don't want to create a lot of work so I'm not saying that we should respond to this one and this way but I just don't wonder whether we might think about that as a general practice hmm of course no I think it's worth having a conversation let's find some point about that that's fine but I'm yeah I was just going to say I I agree with you uh Mr cauley's recommendation as far as how to resolve this this complaint so why don't we
127just make a motion so it's in the minutes and he can fire that off to the attorney general and that type of deal so do we just need a motion that we delegate the resp I'll make a motion that we delegate the responsibility to respond um to Mr Kylie um and that Mr Kiley will Mark to include in the minutes of January 19th all of the a list of all of the documents and other exhibits used by the school committee within that the body of the minutes and that future minutes of the Dartmouth school committee will include a list of all the documents and other exhibits used during the meeting at the end of the minutes second Jim you referenced January 19th January 9th sorry okay would you like us to revise the minutes that
128you voted those minutes already or would we just be acting moving forward why don't we just move forward from from you know yeah to you know that's fine thanks meeting minutes forward February 13th forward does that work yep okay sounds good we don't need to hold another motion right just use the language that Mr Kylie used in his email not the one that I thought out loud all right need a second second all in favor aye aye opposed motion Gary's unanimously and before I forget to of course Mrs White's not here but she does wish you um thank you all right just one quick quick thing because we're not meeting before this happens um the special apparent advisory Council uh is hosting a zoom meeting on February 28th at 6 and the topic is we're
129bringing in Massachusetts advocates for children and they're going to go over the anti-bullying law and we've had them years past I just thought it would be a good idea to bring them back and revisit that around school strategies to prevent bullying of students with disabilities and the folks can find this flyer on in our backpack our electronic backpack as well as on our um the cpac's Facebook page and again it's Tuesday February 26th at 6 PM would via Zoom excuse me all right no problem okay our next meeting is scheduled for March 6 2023 here at 6 30. at this point the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn to Executive session for an update pertaining to collective bargaining with Union personnel and also have two level three Grievances and not return to open session
130so we've moved by Dr Jenkins second second by Miss Amaral on the motion any discussion hearing none roll call please Wisconsin John news yes Kathleen Amaral yes Shannon Jenkins yes Oliver yes thank you very much enjoy the evening and Happy Valentine's Day and please be safe on school vacation [Music] foreign [Music]