Dartmouth School Committee Meeting, December 12, 2022

001thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] good evening I'd like to call the Dartmouth school committee meeting for the December 12 2022 to order please would you all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay at this time I would ask if you have any cell phones electronic devices if you would uh kindly put them on silent or vibrate I would appreciate it also too I'd like to let you know that this meeting is being broadcast uh and live stream at DH our high school TV media and also being recorded for uh Dartmouth Community cable television channel 9 and 18 and as shown throughout

002the weeks uh on Channel 9 and 18 at different times and we thank them for that roll call please Wisconsin John Nunes yep Mary Waite here Kathleen Amaral Shannon Jenkins here Chris Oliver here thank you Ms Amaral is a little under the weather tonight and unable to make it we hope she gets well quick okay first item on the agenda we got a couple of minutes uh we'll take the approval of the minutes of uh November regular session minutes of November 21st 2022. so move Mr chair second by Mr Oliver second by Dr Jenkins on the motion any discussion hearing none all in favor aye opposed motion carries unanimously uh executive session for the same date I'll move where's for which they are intended are complete moved by Miss White second second by Dr Jenkins

003on the motion any discussion Chia hearing that all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously yeah we still got a couple of minutes here a little too fast unapproving those minutes there yeah we did you know it's you know it is what it is you know that type of deal all right uh I don't know if you want to do your rough day you've got a couple of minutes yeah okay and I know I'll have to add something later he wants to speak at the end but I can do all right I'll do a couple updates um just as a reminder we have a whole bunch of concerts coming up Etc one tonight matter of fact and one special one at the zyterian on December 20th the orchestra will be playing uh we had

004uh we we started our work for a profile of a graduate actually we're calling it profile of a learner and we had mentioned this before our work was starting with Envision learning so we had a full group come together um last week on Friday actually and we used the town hall but they came and and in person that was our first in-person meeting to start that work we had admin and teachers from every building as well as central office about 16 to 20 people came together to start that work and they'll be the uh people to bring forth that work forward to the schools and run focus groups so anyway it was it was really really a good session to have all levels there as a reminder on January 7th we will have the dedication

005of the Court the Steve Gaspar court so Andy crisofulli and others are working on that and today we actually had a virtual meeting with our attorney cat Lyons about the updated suspension law so we made sure our our admin team was fully aware of how to go about that along with any updated information on the bullying practices that Miss Townsend presented so we had a full complement of admin at that meeting today and also we've been sending folks to public relations and crisis management meetings as well just to keep people updated on how to deal with any kind of Crisis and those kinds of things so that's kind of it but as I said at the end I want to mention Rob perrotti wants to come up and say a few words during my update

006yep that's fine no problem any questions for the superintendent at this point no okay fine all right that being said I've got 505. so I will call the public hearing for school choice for school year 2023 2024 to order uh just so that everyone is aware um this uh was advertised in the New Bedford standard times last week for a hearing time of 505. I got up this morning with the snow one right oh my God but unfortunately it's gone thank you so that being said uh have anyone who wishes to speak on school the school choice hearing please come up to the podium and state your name please hello my name is Renee Vieira Dartmouth Educators Association president for too many years to count and co-president for the last this is a second second

007year I'm a bit exasperated this evening I will speak on school choice take care of the children that you folks vote in to be able to make a choice to come to Dartmouth schools but I'm asking myself right now why would you want to send your child here when you've got how many people 150 people are so Educators came in a few of us would like to speak and share and you close down public comment in the face of all these folks here behind you I have always done my best to be respectful when communicating with you folks in public every single time but I guess this is how my legacy is going to be Renee Vieira is going to walk out and she's going to make make a statement at the podium I'm embarrassed

008I'm embarrassed for my comments [Applause] thank you very famous you are more than here to do a good job for our students always but we do tell you that with school choice comes headaches okay it's not that we don't want to teach the children it's not that we don't want to educate others okay however our classrooms are overloaded at times we have students in some classrooms that are over 30. [Music] the agenda does not have public comment on it tonight nope not tonight choice because the choice is the chair and the chair decided Mr chair may I please this video if you're going to speak on school choice please do if not I will ask you to sit down Dr Mr Oliver so first of all we need to wrap up before I can comment

009on anything other than school choice we need to wrap up the school choice hearing because I am very dismayed myself Dr Jenkins included that public the public hearing I'm sorry the the public comment was not on tonight's agenda I did not see that thank you it I would myself as well as my colleague would have appreciated a heads up I know we should be looking through this however it's been on every other meeting agenda and I'm very distant there's been there's been no no there's been a few that I've been share that for whatever it was on there you took it off okay people can I speak no terrible so okay Dr Jenkins I agree with Mr Mr Oliver I'd like to finish the public Choice um the school choice and then I would like

010to have a discussion once that hearing is closed about public comment right this is a decision of the school committee right to take that off all right so I appreciate what everyone's saying I would ask that we just hold off until we can close the school choice hearing and then we'll have a discussion please [Applause] I have to say I was surprised in disappointed to see that public comment was not included it just was I thought it had to be an oversight it just it was unbelievable so you know I am disappointed as well and I you know I hope you get to hear from and we need to hear from everyone that's here thank you do you have anything else we are so I would just like to say recognizing how valuable is school

011choice is for the district financially and also for students who are able to attend Dartmouth schools let us just keep in mind the time frame in which students are selected I know this year at the high school there were some students that seemed to roll in a little bit late and then that causes them to be behind and us to try to have to sort of catch them up navigate them up to where everyone else is and also again um uh as I was trying to make my last statement we do have to concern ourselves with class sizes in some of our classes um at Dartmouth High School this year we really did struggle with some large classes so let's hope that even students with school choice that their schedules are made ahead of time

012so that you know we can better balance the schedules for for all students and and staff because it just it's better for everyone when we don't have classes of 17 and then classes of 30 for the same you know for the same subject thank you thank you [Applause] anyone else with a comment on school choice okay Mr chair will make a motion to close the public hearing on school choice I'll second that motion by Dr Jenkins second by Mr Oliver on the motion any discussion chair hearing none all in favor say aye aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously Simple Choice hearing is closed Mr Oliver thank you Mr chair just so the uh the audience members here can understand um I would recommend that maybe we look at other matters that may have not been

013anticipated to have some public comment during then uh your pleasure but that was my thoughts Dr Jenkins I would agree and I again this is for the for the audience here that we have to follow the agenda as it was published but there is a slot on the agenda at the end where one of us will make a motion to open public comment and we'll hear from everyone so I ask that you just be patient we will come back around to this great would you remind me of just making a note for myself thank you okay next item on the agenda is under rolled business is the uh superintendent search uh and pleased to uh welcome Mr Jim Hardy from masc Jim absolutely good evening everyone thank you for those that I have not yet

014met my name is Jim Hardy I'm a field director with the best association of school committees um and uh in a recent meeting the Dartmouth school committee voted to engage masc in the search for a successor superintendent of schools it's my pleasure to be back having facilitated the search in 2014-2015 and the information I'm passing around some of that is from that timeline from that time period and um just to show a comparison of uh the schedule since we're on a shorter time frame this time than last uh first let me say that as submitted in The Proposal I would be the lead person supported by initially Glenn Kutcher the executive director of MUSC but however uh when we get involved in a search it's the entire staff that that is part of that process

015the information that I passed around this evening for the first document is the timeline from 2014 2015. and if you hold it next to the draft timeline that I have provided you you notice that the key difference is the two-month uh starting component starting two months later by some by compressing some things in the schedule however we end up about three weeks off meaning the uh the date to appoint a superintendent instead of being March 30th would be April 24th um but within that time frame we would be able to accomplish everything within the uh the scope that the RFP included um so today would start us off December 12th with a with an overview of the process now some things that have changed dramatically since 2014 are the in-person focus groups mostly because of

016the pandemic and the consequences of of that however we still do offer them and would be willing to to uh to do those as well but we have our experience has found that we get way more participation in the online survey component um and I'll get to the survey in a little bit as well um on average focus groups generate about 45 to 50 people in attendance and that's including uh normal like when I came in 2014 I went to every single building met with staff when we had an opportunity to meet with staff I had one for parents I went to town hall and they went to Bush Street the street Bush Lane the street and you know the average in attendance was probably eight or nine people in each of those groups and

017I think the parent one there was two I'd have to go back to be more definitive but it was about 55 60 people total however there were 200 people that participated on the online survey 296 I believe um the last superintendent search I did which was in Sandwich there were 700 people that participated in the online survey and they didn't even do in they didn't want in-person focus groups because it was still too close it was 2021 it was still too close to the 2020 pandemic so that was a that was a factor I'm not ruling them out um uh I'll never say no if if you want me to do them it's just simply a matter of scheduling them um considering the difference in start time being October rather than December and then according

018to the RFP the ability to have someone here for July 1 and you wanting to make that appointment 60 to 90 days before before that start date and I understand the reason for that is because people have to if if it's a sitting administrator they have to give notice to the district that they're leaving and their contract would specify a specific time frame that averages between 60 and 90 days some are 120 days but you won't know the specifics of that until you actually offer the job to someone and find out what their individual contract so we just try to budget it budget that time the best we can so this this outline takes us every through everything from putting the initial uh brochure together the announcement of the vacancy which is all predominantly done

019online and in in-kind contributions um masc belongs to three online networks of which we host or allow them to post vacancies on our website and they allow us to put vacancies on their website many of the two of those are national uh Publications but predominantly when people are looking for superintendencies here in Massachusetts they look at our website and they look at the superintendent's website you wanted to do paid advertising the only one I would recommend weeks to be able to only be the online the Boston Globe online never had a candidate in 20 almost 27 years of doing superintendent searches I've never had a candle they tell me the only place it's not a knock against the globe it's just going to be saturate the market in addition there's about 3 300 letters and

020emails that go up to all the city superintendents in Massachusetts in New England assistant superintendents as well as the placement offices of the universities programs in educational Administration so between the direct mail the online advertising and posting we pretty much cover the blanket all of the areas where technical difficulties being in the old days would show up on the screen um so that would cover the the advertising component of that at this moment no cost to the district for that um the brochure layout again we do that in-house so again it would only be if we had to you know the ones we have to print to include in the direct mailing but if you look at our website they're all in online formats the application forms are online formats where people can fill them

021out online they're like smart forms online so it really kind of cuts down postage expense for you and everything else but we do do some so I'm just making you aware of that and that cost was inside the uh the quote the cost proposal um I've noted the two school vacation weeks in my calendar simply because they're there and we have to acknowledge them and we really can't schedule things during those those two weeks [Music] hear me you can't really oh that one's on now hello okay um so um in in addition to uh that component of it I've set up the time frames where there are certain things that you as a committee have to have to do the major one being putting together if you if I'm assuming you're using one because it

022was in the RFP search committee screening committee whatever label you want to put on it the search committee Mr Keely was on it last time um but it was it had some you know it had a mix of people had parents had teachers administrators central office staff um it was about 11 13 11 13. 15 that's right 15. um and they worked really well together and their job was to take all the applications that come in all of them they get them all all the completed ones narrow that down to a number to invite people in for preliminary interviews with the search committee and then their job is to narrow that down to three to five names and those names would be presented to the school committee the search committee cannot send more that cannot

023send less than three well they they can't send less than two um they can't send one because that usurfs the authority of the school committee as far as hiring goes but by sending two names you run the risk of one person withdrawing or accepting an offer somewhere else and you end up with one so the committee is kind of left without a point of comparison it's always nice to be able to choose between a couple of different people by saying no less than three meaning the charge to the school Community being no less than three no more than five more than five is way more cumbersome on you than it needs to be um but three to five allows you to be able to function get through the time get the timeline for that process

024effectively and efficiently efficiently and then be able to make a decision at the end so does it that's identified in the timeline when that would have to be done that membership should be completed by your February 13th school committee meeting if you're going with the second and fourth Mondays that's where it would fall um so that I would have an opportunity to work with them there are certain things I have to do with the search committee by law I have to train them on the open meeting law I have to train them on conflict of interest law and they have to complete the online if they haven't already done so they have to complete the online ethics test um and I have to I have to provide them copies of the open meeting law uh

025what we need to do is find out from your town clerk is if they have to do they have to go get sworn in um and that I'm not sure every town every Community is different uh so we would verify that and they before they could even get information from me they'd have to complete all those tasks the idea being all that training is done before the application deadline so that they're ready to go as soon as the application deadline occurs we do it intentionally on a Thursday is the deadline so that we have Friday to kind of put everything together and get that information out to the search committee members they would review it and then come together um uh [Music] uh March 6th is the date um it's the it's a Tuesday after

026your I think it's a Tuesday after I think it's Tuesday um and um that way we would be able to uh have them review all the applications identify who they want to bring in and then on the week of March 13th to the 20th that whole week um they'd be conducting preliminary interviews and then making that final determination as to who to which candidates to forward to the school committee as a recommended finalists um so while this whole beginning part is going on uh starting from today through um the uh January 30th date um there's two things that need to to need to accomplish one is I provided you a copy of the brochure from 2014. now this was state of the art at the time and of course my color printer decided to die

027so all this was guess what color all this shaded area was that green okay um and it was a tri-fold because we mailed them to everybody I also included a copy of the sandwich one which was one of the more recent ones that I've accomplished and this is designed for online publishing um it ends up being two pages but it's an eight and a half by eleven because this is typically if someone's going to print it out this is what this is how it would print and again they have their colors and logos and pictures and so forth and we can do all the same thing for Dartmouth as well but what we need to do is update all the information on it obviously on the on this one because things aren't the same since

0282014. and the other component using a SurveyMonkey we develop an online survey and it's different than the one we used in 2014 because we've gotten better at it this one um and again the the copy I can show you online has the D in the upper left hand corner of The Branding you know the Big D that's on your website and that Banner is green too but basically it asks people to self-identify although they do not have to put names in fact there's no place on this where we ask for someone's name but we ask them to identify as either a parent guardian of a Dartmouth public school student or students an employee of the Dartmouth Public Schools a resident of the community without children enrolled in the Dharma schools a student in Dartmouth Public

029Schools or Dartmouth local official or town or town employee and then there's always other and sometimes other is I'm a parent of a student in Dartmouth schools and a employee of the Dartmouth Public Schools so that that's typically what happened or I'm a parent and I'm a school Community member or something like that then the second question and I'll explain why that's important in a minute the second question is select the most significant current or future issues that the new superintendent will need to address and out of this list of things this five you pick five meaning I'm asking people to prioritize what their most important things are here and that list includes strategic long-range planning collective bargaining Facilities Management curriculum development financial management communication with parents and community staff relations professional development school-based technology

030academic standards student assessment diversity of staff and student body of Staff evaluation social emotional well-being of students and staff School District culture and District Community Partnerships and then there's another so out of that list we asked them to pick the five most important to them them as an individual and then we further try to get them to clarify that to with the question three it's kind of open-ended what do you believe is or will be the most important issue facing the next superintendent um then you go on to the next question a list of positions that superintendent candidates may have held in the past which prior positions do you think would prove most valuable for the next superintendent of the dot my public schools to possess and you can check up to three again we're

031asking them to prioritize assistant superintendent in another District assistant superintendent Human Resources Director Finance director business manager building principal teacher curriculum scholarship the curriculum specialist special education director leadership position outside of Education all prior experience in education doesn't matter as long as the candidate has the right skill set um so that's again that would be up to three so we're asking for priorities and question five listed Melissa below specific areas of expertise the superintendent candidates May possess find it from your perspective how much weight should the school committee place in each of these areas and you you would check critically important above average importance of average importance below average importance or relatively unemployment for the following categories budget development management curriculum development evaluation goal setting strategic planning facilities management and development Human Resource Management staff

032evaluations public relations school-based technology and digital learning data analysis special education collective bargaining so out of each so that basically they could put them all critically important that's okay that's what their opinion is and that's why we capture number six listed below are specific experiences and skill areas that could be important when evaluating the superintendent candidates from your perspective how much weight should the school committee place in each of these areas again critically important all the way down um in a list of categories there and the last question uh listed below of personal characteristics that different superintendents could could possess and again the same ranking system it would be problem solve a Visionary strong communicative risk taker collaborative approachable empathetic assertive goal-oriented culturally competent or inclusive and then the last question is just open-ended any

033comment additional comments you would like to make on this question and the reason we ask people to identify the category that they're representing is we can then separate it this out filter it based on all of the parents all of the employees all of the in find out what the priorities are of each individual group because nine times out of ten is like four parents for every employee that fill out one of these surveys and while that might overall skew the total by breaking it down into subgroups we find out what the priorities are for each of the subgroups and that would include students that would include staff that would include parents each of the categories that are listed in the document and those would be all presented to you and presented to the search

034committee say here's what your stakeholder groups feel the most important characteristics to look at so when you sit down that day when we present you all the applications what are you looking for when you start looking through them well this is what you're looking for these are the characteristics these are the skill sets these are the past experience and these are the personal characteristics of what all your stakeholder groups have said are the most important to be successful in Dartmouth and that's how the survey is used is it's applied to all the applications it's like a lens that's applied to the entire thing it's real important that this starts as soon as possible so this is unless you want to make any changes to it and I'd more than happy to incorporate them but once

035I launch it it's really it's complicated to make changes to it because it skews all the people who might have already completed it because it's now it's like two different surveys but I can launch this to tonight when I go home um it's actually it's just one click of a button and it's live and I could send the link um I guess I would use Dr biscalius as the as the liaison because he's the one I've been communicating with with the Erp and you could get this up on your website and send it out with all your regular communication methods the one thing I do ask though is someone reach out to the town and see if it can go out through any communication method the town uses to get to the resident side who

036may not have children in the school system because the more data you collect the better off the entire process is um first of all thank you Mr Kyle Kylie Mr hardy yeah Mr Kylie's over there Mr Hardy's over here um we've had the opportunity to work together in the previous uh search committee uh with everything that you just uh brought up besides the online surveys anything that you need from this committee tonight um any other the brochure do you have some it looks like we're based on this timeline that you presented there is a little bit of time for the brochure right anything else that you need from this Committee just the permission to speak with Mr Keely to try to get the the data necessary I don't like to go to members of the

037staff without be okay to do so whether that comes from the superintendent yeah referring to the um updating the brochure updating the brochure and you get the data in that so that I can have that brochure ready for you at your at that meeting in January where you can take a look at it and say no let's tweak this we tweaked that and that way it's ready to go when we want to advertise okay uh besides that if you don't mind I have a couple other questions Mr Nunes besides that in your experience what are you seeing right now is if our candidate pulls um uh are we seeing multiple searches are we seeing um School committees going back to the drawing board how has that because I know you've recently launched some launched some

038searches on your website so I'm just curious what what are you seeing as you know this is the important most important decision this committee the school commit any school committee makes so what are you seeing I'm not gonna lie to you it's it's not great um the uh the the searches that have uh successfully completed didn't see the overall numbers but they had the right person in the pool they fell um while you may not have 35 applicants you may have 12 or 15 that that are good then that's what the aspect is okay so smaller pool still qualified it's still there's still good quality out there um the it's simply a matter really of a match someone who wants to come to Dartmouth as much as you want them to work here and that's

039what worked last time um and you know any other search that the superintendent see I don't consider research successful until the superintendents contract's been renewed at least once um because anybody can kind of fool their way through an interview and get a three-year contract not well I shouldn't say anybody but it's it's not uncommon that that's happened and then there's a quick realization that this was the wrong pick and people part ways but when you get renewed that tells me that that the relationship is working between the school committee and the superintendent the other dramatic change that we've seen that's really kind of um more uh telling on the future is that the turnover on the school committee is even higher than the turnover in the administration um you know last couple of years have

040been brutal on everybody involved um and uh they just in on everybody involved I'm not leaving anybody out and uh it's you know teachers are retiring at a higher rate um you can't buy you can't find bus drivers there's a lot of you know there's a lot of things that were impacted over this last two-year period and um um it's it was not funny but um before my mom passed my mom's a retired first grade teacher and um but she watched what her some of her colleagues some of her friends that still were still working during 2020. and she said thank God that didn't happen while I was teaching um because just because of that and um but the uh I couldn't tell you I couldn't never guarantee a number to you of course sure

041I just couldn't do it I appreciate it you know it's challenging it's you know we we take extraordinary steps to get the notice out to as many people or many Avenues as possible um yeah uh the administrators could tell you the mail they got and the emails that they've announcements of vacancies that sometimes it's like go away leave us alone kind of thing if I'm happy there um but we have to do it because we have to let people know that the vacancy exists and then you know if they you know if they Peak an interest and they send me an email asking about it then it's like we start talking about it but sure um just as you know once once we work on a district and bring a superintendent in we would never

042actively recruit them away number once did I call Dr Gifford and say hey are you ever interested in this other position because that's unethical and I would never do that and it's just as much an interview for us as it is for them that's an important point it's one I try to stress with search committees is it's a dual evaluation process um a candidate is sitting there going I'm feeling successful in where I am and did a pretty good job is this a place I want to come and a lot of it depends on the interaction with the search community members that are the search community members engaging are they hostile they uh horrible body language communicators like they sit the whole time like Mr Nunes like this and and kind of shut down or

043are they are they more open you know they do they make eye contact and it's kind of a misnomer people are afraid to make notes during the interviews like oh I can't write anything down I have to keep eye contact now if you just sit there and not write anything down the candidate's worried so yeah take notes be engaging just be personable be yourselves so to speak well hopefully and um you know in if it's if they walk away from that experience that's a great group well you made a very positive impression on someone so when if in fact they are a good fit for you they're excited about the opportunity to come go into the next step um if it was a horrible experience um it's like you know what that Shanks but no

044thanks uh this they have a lot of options um you know one challenge was um I was doing a superintendent search in Scituate um in March of 2020. and we had just started the preliminary interviews and the world came to an end and we very quickly had to transition from in-person interviews to online platform and we it took a while for the my both myself as a facilitator in the search committee to get comfortable in that format and we did a couple of practice runs before we actually brought candidates into it and it was just a whole new whole new experience that way I hope I never have to go back to it thank you Mr hardy thank you Dr Jenkins no thank you very much thank you welcome a couple of cool questions I

045have for Jim uh you talked about uh if we get the if we were able to get that brochure and send it to town hall to have them put it on their website would that work link to the survey it's well that's what I'm saying initially if I can I could send Mr guilds yeah that's the link tonight when I get home because it's ready to go um and the sooner we can get that out there and talked about um each school could put it on their website just put a little blob on superintendent search survey click here and it brings them to the Survey Monkey um the website which is the host of the survey I do I will say that you know while um while the survey is live I'm the only person

046who's going to see it um the people who complete the survey won't be able to see the results like some surveys do because I don't want it to influence any future people I did make sure I shut off the the feature where you can only take it once from each computer because I know there are people who might be at home and they have one computer and there might be four people who want to take the survey and the same is true uh you know maybe in the schools too but um so and yeah I mean that sets me up for maybe somebody trying to sit there and fill the survey out 40 times and try to skew the results but on average it takes about six minutes to complete this survey so if you've

047got you know four hours to fill it out 40 times go right ahead okay um I know one of the things we talked about the last time was the fact that each applicant is a complete separate application the other is a five apply if someone's applied XYZ place and they you don't transfer they apply to Dartmouth yeah they start apply to mesc they apply to the Dartmouth Public Schools so each application is individual to this District and other than that the only thing I would when you put it all together is uh and having done this numerous times you see somebody with a letter of reference from 60 years ago type of deal I would like I don't know instructions are no more than three years old okay three throws a reference no more than

048three years old if they can't follow simple instructions on them and the other thing too is we ask her for a personal statement on how they feel their management staff would fit given the information that's included in the brochure about the Dartmouth public schools and if in the second paragraph it says I really think I'm a good fit for XYZ community and they forgot to change the name you know do the search Global search and replace and change the same letter uh personal statement again that's kind of one of those things that you make note of it you don't automatically discard it but you make note of it and you know that's when I talked to the search committees about it says you make note of something like that and it may or may not

049influence your decision on whether you want to bring this person in or forward the person to the school committee but they they'll see it you know very good I don't edit the the only ones I don't send are like because we go online we get a lot of like one page resumes for building superintendents like no apartment building superintendents or business building superintendents because of the words you know the keywords yeah those I'm not going to waste the search committee because they didn't fill out the rest of this stuff right that's very good I'm good everybody good I'm good so all right all right so I would like to entertain a motion that we uh go about and hire masc as the consultant of record for uh the new super the superintendent search so moved

050second moved by Mr Oliver seconds okay I apologize in this uh second by uh Miss Wade on the motion any discussion Jay Herrington all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously thank you Jim much appreciate it thank you thank you thank you very much yep uh Mr noons oh my goodness something out there tonight Jim something in the air [Laughter] under under superintendent search Mr chair yeah are we are we ready to take up interim superintendent piece here yes please Perfect could I uh just do you like to go first oh go ahead oh there you go it's all right never mind no problem so you know I had some more opportunity to to think about what I brought up at the uh at the last uh one of the last meetings if it

051wasn't the last one the meeting before um I also had uh I also had a couple of um emails from from District staff members that uh that supported um my recommendation of um Mr Kylie uh is interim superintendent uh through June 30th and for all the reasons that I I previously stated at my meeting someone that is clearly vested in this District someone who knows our staff knows how we operate and you know I'm starting to come to the realization and concern for that matter that I don't know if um this uh if our bargaining unit contracts will be ratified before Dr Gifford leaves so I think it's very important for consistency purposes that we have Mr Kylie in that role and he's just respected all around all around respected and with that I will

052I will make a motion that we a point Mr James Kiley interim superintendent of Dartmouth Public Schools effective March 1st 2023 through June 30th 2023. I'll second that okay excuse me we have a motion by Mr Oliver a second by Ms Waite to appoint Mr Kiley who is our assistant superintendent of budget and finance as interim superintendent March 1st 2023 through June 30th on the motion Dr Jenkins so I'm in support of the motion I just want to be clear about this this is not about the content of the motion it's more about the process and I'm just a little bit concerned because we posted superintendent's search on our agenda we didn't really post that we were talking about the interim uh the interim superintendent appointment and I I do like to be a little

053bit of a stickler about that because I do want people to be able to comment on that I'll also note that Ms Amaral is not here and I would like for her to be able to have public input I'm okay if the rest of the committee wants to vote on that tonight I do intend to vote in favor of this I just want to be respectful about open meeting law in the process okay one of the things that we had talked about it though thank you Dr Jenkins I understand where you're coming from one of the things we had talked about at our last meeting was talking about an interim superintendent so that it has been on the table the past couple of meetings and I did state it was you know we were going

054to have you know continue that discussion tonight I'd like to look at Mr Kylie and get his look at you his his comment his thoughts if you want to wait till January especially we're good with I think no disrespect Chris understand understanding what Shannon's saying type of deal so I I just say Obviously in terms of the the particulars of whether it's on the agenda or not um it doesn't matter to me if it's postponed that's fine um I can understand that I I can just say that you know it's an honor to be considered and like I said at the last meeting I'd be happy to help in any way I can I will say that it's not going to be an easy task for four months to do two jobs um so uh

055you know that's that that's that's it's going to be a big Balancing Act for sure and I just want to make sure that you know the committee understands that um that uh you know it is two full-time jobs so um it would be something that I would consider in terms of trying to hold down the fort for four months and make it a good transition to the to the new superintendent I think you know what we have going for us is a very good group of individuals in our in our building that Dr Giffords you know been working with and and so I mean it wouldn't be a one-person thing I mean and I have talked because you brought it up I have talked to some other people in our office and I know that

056they would you know Assist and support um through that process so you know that that makes me feel more confident certainly in trying to do both uh both tasks but um but at any rate whatever you decide in terms of the uh the formality of it is uh fine by me we have until March so um leave my committee how you want to handle it I'm good either way I am um you know my only con continuing with the discussion my only uh thing concern would be is you know I know we're getting the next meeting is until after the first of the year so as long as the committee is okay with that I appreciate uh Dr Jenkins um you know comments on procedures so I I could withdraw I'm happy to withdraw the

057motion um or just move forward with it I'm I'm good either way yeah I am as well I mean I understand I mean if you want to wait for and again I totally understand I would personally like to wrap it up tonight I think for everyone for everyone's sake yeah that's fine all right so we have a motion we have a motion and a second on the floor any other discussion hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously thank you Jim thank you thank you Mr Kylie okay that takes care of that okay moving on I'm Cass IE there's Katie presenting that I just couldn't see them back there yeah I thought maybe they left so I don't know if we should congratulate Mr Kylie right now but congratulations to Mr Kylie

058um I just want to we want to thank Dr Gifford and the school committee and members of the community uh and all of the educators of the Dartmouth Public School uh tonight's presentation really um reflects the hard work of so many individuals our students but certainly our dedicated Educators as well and so we want to make sure that we you know thank them for their efforts because as we've seen from or heard from a number of speakers tonight already covid-19 has really upended a profession over the last two and a half years and I think tonight's presentation kind of speaks to that so we want to make sure that we give credit and thank those folks who are on the front lines each and every day and doing great work with our kids so we

059thought we'd just real quickly talk uh briefly about what MCAS is and why it's important and so as you know we all know the Massachusetts comprehensive assessment system MCAS is a standardized assessment uh administered annually in English language arts in grades three through eight and then again in grade 10 mathematics in grades three through eight and then again in grade 10 and science at in grades five eight and then 10. and so it seeks to assess whether or not our students are exceeding meeting partially meeting or not meeting standards in each of those content areas according to the mass curriculum Frameworks while our students are progressing as compared to other students in the Commonwealth it's also used as part of the accountability system for determining how well a school in a district is performing and

060I will stop here though for just a moment and reiterate that MCAS while it is important for the reasons just mentioned is only one point of data and therefore should not be viewed as an end-all and be all and that's something that we've always appreciated the acknowledgment from this committee we know that much we get a much more complete picture of student growth in real time from regularly administered benchmark assessments as well as formative and summative assessment data that's collected in our classrooms throughout the year what MCAS does do is it provides our families our schools in a community a snapshot from a moment in time on how our students our schools and our district are doing at that moment as Mr Tebow likes to say MCAS has never cured cancer it will not put

061a man on the moon and most importantly we know that it does not help ensure that we've developed good human beings but what it does do is it provides us one Vital sign one piece of data that can be used to see a larger picture and to that end not to be lost is that final bullet on this slide which reminds us that at the high school level our students do need to pass the MCAS in order to earn a high school diploma and so just in thinking about tonight's the trends that we're going to talk about tonight Statewide as well as here in Dartmouth we thought it would be important to really take us back to the timeline because MCAS has shifted over the past several years so we'll go back to when things

062were normal back in 2019 before covid prior to last year that was the last time a full MCAS was it was administered to all grade levels that was our last normal if you will whatever normal is but that was that last normal school year and then in 2020 as we all know you know March 13 2020 schools got shuttered across the state there was no MCAS at all if it wasn't for the pandemic I'm sure folks would have been happy with noemcast but um you know the the pandemic is really quite disruptive in 2021 as we got back into the swing of things half of the MCAS was administered meaning a shortened test right show and exam was administered in grades three through eight again our high school students were held to a full administration

063of MCAS but again I think it's important to note that during that school year you know at the high school level alone there were six transitions six different variations of the schedule between fully remote hybrid learning in-person cohorts of kids some kids coming every day so it was extremely disruptive and I think that that's important to know and then last year finally pull him Cass was administered to all grades and also for our science students at the high school level it was the first administration of the Next Generation MCAS assessment for biology so with that note um the state is using uh the results from 2022 as kind of our new Baseline for moving forward so before getting into looking at our performance at the district level we're first going to look at some Trends

064from across the Commonwealth um MCAS Trends across the state mirror what's been reported Across the Nation covid-19 most definitely had a negative impact on student learning despite and I think this is the really important part despite the heroic efforts of Educators from across the country in fact without that that effort and without those Educators especially here in Dartmouth I think that the data that we are about to look at would have been even more drastically impacted so across the state um in ela our scores across the board declined from 2021 writing scores were lower than last year in grades three through eight uh and the steepest declines occurred in grades three through five which really just um reiterates and emphasizes to us that the challenges are occurred in early literacy so our littlest Learners who

065went home and experienced learning in a completely different way were absolutely impacted in math and science the data across the state is a little more encouraging scores actually improved across the state in the area of mathematics compared to 2021 the percentage of students in grades three through eight who were scoring in the meeting or the exceeding category actually increased by six percentage points grade 10 did decline by two percent which was the smallest decline in the first year of the pandemic in science again scores improved since the 2021 administration of the test then the percentage of students in grades five and eight scoring in that meeting or exceeding category increased by one percent and um as Mr Tebow alluded to 2022 marked the first year of their high school students were taking the Next Generation

066Um exam in the area of biology and so another reason that we lead with Statewide Trends is because that the data in isolation when we're just looking at our town really holds less meaning so um when you're looking at our Trends in Dartmouth um we look at in the ELA 48 of our students in grades three through eight are were meeting or exceeding the standards and that was seven percentage points above the mean for the state uh it is a five percent decline from 2021 which we said across the state the the ELA scores declined in um grades three through eight but it was a slightly smaller regression than the state in our high schools 67 percent of our grade 10 students are meeting or exceeding the standards again that's nine percentage points higher than

067the state um and the regression really was identical to the state trend for grade 10. shifting over to mathematics if we had 53 percent of our students meeting or exceeding the standards in grades three through eight which is 14 percentage points above the state and it was a 12 percent increase from 2021. so we outpaced the state in our increase by six percent which is a lovely statistic to share 57 of our grade 10 students were meeting or exceeding the standard which again seven percentage points above the state it is a three percent decline from 2021 but that is um only a one percent change difference between the state differential and in the area of science we had 43 of our students meeting or exceeding the standards in grades five and eight again one percent

068above the state that's no change from 2021 um at the state and District level and 57 of our students taking the high school biology MCAS were meeting or exceeding and that is 10 percentage points higher than the state and again in the first uh administration of the Next Generation science MCAS so we've provided kind of Trends in the state and here at Dartmouth but we thought it would be interesting and um you know important to kind of consider how are we performing comparable to like school districts so the Department of Education in Massachusetts provides a tool known as the dart tool which is the district accountability and um I'm sorry it's want to get it right um where is it here I'm sorry it's the district analysis review tool Dart um I know we use

069acronyms in this profession and I don't want to confuse anyone so Dart what dark does is it Compares Dartmouth to 10 other districts that are similar in terms of its student enrollment data so similar percentages of students with disabilities similar percentages of students who are experiencing economic disadvantage and so on a similar ell population for example and so this chart here shows dartmouth's performance for grades three through eight in terms of meeting or exceeding standards which Mrs paveo just spoke to grade 10 grade 5 and 8 for Science and then it also shows the student growth percentile and at the bottom of the chart you can see the mean as well as the median for all of the districts that are considered like districts you can see that Dartmouth you know performs quite favorably when

070compared to similar districts in a number of the uh areas so we thought we would speak to some of those to again honor the work that our educators are doing with our students into and as well to honor our students performance so looking back at that grades three through eight Ela and math data when compared to our Dart schools only in ela we were only outperformed by East Longmeadow and again our very strong performance in math is really shown here outperforming all of our Dart schools and that percentage of students who are meeting and exceeding the expectation um and Mr Tebow alluded to our growth percentiles so I think it's really important also to highlight that our growth and comparison to these other schools looks good um you remember that growth looks at students who

071so who score similarly on past exams and how they perform with other peers who have who have scored similarly in a past test so I think for people who don't live in nerdville like I do and love numbers like I do it's hard sometimes to think about our kids declining but still growing and when we talk about the student growth percentage we're saying I'm comparing how kids who have performed let's just for round number say around an area of 500 on the MCAS last year did this year and so while they may have declined your growth percentage can still be higher if you declined at a slower rate or at a lesser rate so when we look at growth growth is really a basket where we put a lot of our eggs because we want

072to know how our children are performing compared to those who performed similarly to them in past um administrations of the exam so when we look at our growth data in ela and in math again remember that expected growth is 40 to 60th percentile so we're looking at a 52 percentile in ela a 58 58 growth percentile in math so we're on the upper end of that typical growth scale which is encouraging as we move forward so for grades five and eight in terms of science meeting or exceeding the standards you can see from this from this graph here dartmouth's performance is right it's more in line with the median performance of similar districts so we're right in kind of the middle of the pack um and again grade 10 was not included by the state

073in this comparison I believe because it was the first year it was Baseline data so that's why they didn't include the grade 10. but um as Mrs devayo and I kind of looked at these numbers Mr Beverly will talk to the importance of looking at the elementary level how are we prioritizing science um you know we know that um you know unfortunately when we have to provide intervention to students at the younger levels oftentimes science and social studies are the areas that we pull for some of those interventions to take place um you know so just kind of having an ongoing conversation about um how can we tweak that because we want to make sure that our students are getting the interventions that they need but we also want to make sure they're getting good

074quality tier one instruction in all areas including science and social studies in terms of our grade 10 Ela and math meeting and exceeding standards again compared to other uh like districts you can see dartmouth's performance is extremely strong um that 67 meeting or exceeding standards for ELA for example while slightly um a slight decline overall you can still see that in those 10 districts we are still performing at the top of those like districts for math again 57 puts us second in that uh in those 10 like districts so that's again we think a strong performance by our students and our teachers and um you know should be honored an area where we wanna take a closer look at and kind of dig deeper into the data and ask some some challenging questions in terms

075of why is around our SGP for English and math at grade 10 because it is um you know lower than what we would hope for it's in in both cases it's in the middle to high 30s and as Mrs paveo alluded to you know typical growth should be between 40 and 60 right so we're just outside of that typical growth window and we do want to make sure that you know not only are our students achieving but they're growing at or either at or higher than like students from other districts as well that's certainly an area we want to kind of dig in on so part of our presentation tonight is to really think about learning loss and think about you know how covet has impacted us and and quite frankly what do we what

076have we been doing about it and what are we planning to do about it and so we'll just start with kind of where we've what we've already done um and when I say we I mean all of the Educators in Dartmouth um you know especially none of this work could take place without you know all of our teachers and and the Educators um but you know it started with last year streamlining our school Improvement plans and that work and really adopting that accelerated roadmap that the state had promoted and so at the elementary level what that looked like was creating and and the other thing I should know is that these strategies we're talking about might sound familiar because they're they were highlighted by the building principles two weeks ago or a few weeks ago

077when they presented their school Improvement plans and talked about last year's highlights that's where this these strategies are coming directly from so lots of Indian uninterrupted tier one instructional time at the elementary level in particular in particular with designated time for intervention for ELA and Mathematics at the secondary level really focusing on implementing Blended personalized and project-based learning is core instructional strategies leveraging existing structures like at the high school Pace to provide intervention those are all parts of uh part and parcel of the strategy to kind of accelerate learning and to recover some of that learning loss strategic leveraging of Grant funds is an important note here as well the state has provided significant additional support to districts Dartmouth applied for and received several acceleration Academy grants again staffed by teachers during things like vacation

078week and during the summer as well but but where we think these academic these acceleration academies really impacted MCAS for example would have been during February and April vacation of last year where we ran mathematics acceleration academies as well as in the summertime A literacy one but we served you know 93 students I believe it was during the first mathematics acceleration Academy in February of last year we served another 63 during April vacation we served 71 students at another one of the acceleration Academy so significant numbers of students were able to take advantage of additional intervention through those acceleration academies we've also though you know we think it's important to highlight that this is not just about preparing for a test though right it's about really building a school system that encourages a sense of

079belonging and so we've used Grant funds for that towards that end as well with the creation of the after school programming at Dartmouth Middle School to help create that sense of belonging we've also continued to kind of grow and expand after school activities here at the high school I want to kind of give a shout out to one of them our Esports team that start started about two two and a half years ago now just this past weekend competed at Gillette Stadium I'm sorry at Helix at the Patriot Place in the finals and so examples like that where we can continue to provide plug-in points for our students and create that sense of belonging when they feel committed to a school system Beyond just the traditional day they're more engaged and they're more successful academically

080so we see that really as part of what we're doing to address learning loss as well and then finally um focused on monitoring for understanding the use of pre and post assessment data to Monitor and inform instruction as well as the use of a variety of data sources to provide scaffolding and just-in-time supports and again leveraging existing structures like the pace period here at the high school to provide intervention and support as necessary so what are our next steps so tonight we're really talking about a high level 30 000 foot view of our District's performance on last year's MCAS but we always want to dig deeper into the data because it's where the impact occurs uh where the impact occurs as we all know is in the classroom level and it's between the teachers and

081the students and so we continue to review student results on all of our assessments by subgroup this work is important as it takes into account the issues of equity in education are all of our students performing similarly or do we have subgroups that are not performing as well as the student subgroups and if so what are we going to do about it our mission statement is about a quality education for all and this step of examining the data when it's broken out by subgroup is important to us because it keeps that promise to all students so we've talked about the aggregate all of our data tonight is our aggregate but when we really dive deep deeply into the data we need to really make sure that we're not leaving anyone behind right so when we

082talk about that quality learning for all just that that all means all in that it doesn't matter how small this a group we make sure that our kids have what they need to be successful and we're going to continue to monitor for understanding so I talked a little bit about those foundational literacy skills that our kids we know our kids lost out on so we're continuing to try to make sure that we are putting evidence-based curriculum materials into the kn2 class okay to two classrooms to address phonemic awareness that's been done across all schools our L3 teacher team is piloting the foundations program to address direct phonics instruction which is another area that our data tells us we need to work on we're working with our coaches to identify the gaps and the changes that

083need to be made in our tier one curriculum you know if we have a large portion of our kids who are not meeting or exceeding the standards we always say like that's a tier one problem because our tier one our tier one program really should be reaching you know 80 of our kids if we're if we're maximizing it and getting out of it what we need to in July of 2023 the Massachusetts dyslexia guidelines become law they are no longer just to suggestion the good news on that is that we are already meeting the requirements of screening of our students in k-3 and it's really the first step in the larger multi-tiered system of support you'll hear mtss mentioned a lot throughout that guideline and that's where we're talking about identifying and preventing struggles with

084with reading in our our youngest Learners so it's the catch them early not responding but rather being proactive and really trying to identify those students early and get in there as fast as we can to clean up some of those gaps um and it just you know the obviously that the point of data analysis if you're not someone who just loves a spreadsheet like me really is to identify Trends and to inform and adjust our instruction so that we can give our munchkins what they need with that we're happy to answer any questions we throw a lot of numbers hey Mr Oliver the first spot so feel free you know I was just going to say thank you and also like in addition I do want to say that this is you know we have

085so many of our staff here tonight and I do think it's really important to say that this is a testimony to their hard work and dedication to our kids so um you know there's there's been a lot of hardship over the last few years and teachers keeping that everything going in the classroom and and being really creative and you know the fact that our students are continuing to grow and grow in different ways um you know and they've been our students have been flexible our staff have been incredibly flexible so I think we all as a community I mean part of this is community hearing this too is that uh we're really lucky with the staff we have and the kids we have so so So yeah thank you again this is really good data

086the only thing and maybe Dart doesn't do this but I would love to see him a little bit of broken record on this um per pupil spending um in that table to comparison districts because again is a little bit of a broken record we're in the bottom 10 of the Commonwealth in terms of per pupil spending and so we do a lot with a little here in this district and so I would I would expect that a lot of those districts that are getting similar or not as good results from us are spending more a lot more money than we are and I think it's important for us as a school Community to continue to reinforce we get really good result Returns on what we invest and we should be investing more in our kids

087and our staff foreign [Applause] first of all thank you I appreciate the data I appreciate the presentation um with that being said we spoke a lot about learning loss a lot about the acceleration academies and you know I'm not sure where the district is I am on the budget subcommittee so I kind of have an idea but are we is the hope of the school department to continue to offer some of these learning loss programs we are well I'm well aware that Esser is coming to a close pretty soon we're hitting that financial cliff so has there been any discussion in in the in the district around these types of learning loss programs continuing so just to the acceleration Academy I will say that it's been a very historically quick turnaround that we don't find

088out about them um the August one that we ran we didn't find out about until the second week of July so my my supposition would be after the first of the year we may hear about some of those grant opportunities for um for like the for the vacation acceleration academies which we have run the last year um and if I could I mean speculation of my part but when we saw the commissioner speak at the mass mask conference one of the strategies he did tell was the acceleration academies so I'm hopeful that the state will continue to provide those grant opportunities um you know it does provide uh for a pretty intense intervention for our students and again we're fortunate to have staff who step up because it's during their vacation weeks as well absolutely

089and so we're fortunate for that for sure I think the other thing to keep in mind is that we are very fortunate um that we have instructional Specialists um at our levels who do provide some of that intervention work and that that's not necessarily something that you see in other districts where you have interventionists um who are who really dedicated to providing that intervention that's we have separate coaches a lot of the districts that Ross and I um collaborate with one person holds a dual role in that in that regard but we do have interventionists who are providing some of that where I work for our kids um especially at the elementary level and I think we're we're very fortunate to have that agreed no absolutely one last uh just point as far as the

090MCAS scores go you know I I have no concerns about what what Dartmouth posted this year um you know once again Testament to to all the staff um with that I know that the state has coming out with new MCAS graduation their graduation requirements for the MCAS could we just could the committee just hear and maybe this is more of a question for Dr Gifford when do those take effect um is my understanding that it's not going to be for several more years so I I just want to I just want to hear that that's my understanding too is that it's a it's a couple of years is there a date set in stone yet I'm against it I will say that right for 2025 please don't quote me I'll have to look it up

091but it's it's in one of those years I believe um it's disheartening that the state decided to go this way at this point and at this point in time but I think yeah and I think it highlights the importance of staying on an accelerate you know staying on and in an acceleration kind of mindset and continuing to your point to look at leveraging funds to provide these interventions because they're going to be necessary because just getting back to where they were where we were in 2019 is not going to be good enough um you know and again while I'm not a huge proponent of MCAS it is a requirement particularly at the high school level to earn your high school diploma and so if for no other reason than that we owe it to our

092students to make sure we put them in a position to be successful thank you both thank you very much thank you you're fine thank you all right takes care of that all right new business sure so I guess she wants to give it a brief overview of some of the changes they're making to the program studies in the highest we'll be very quick I understand we've got some music shows going on tonight and a lot of stuff um first if everyone introduce uh Miss Bridget Silva she's our director of guidance she's done all the yeoman's work on all of this she's met with all the lead teachers she really has been the face of this so as much as I'm going to talk a lot more Bridget's done a lot of the hard work um

093we came to you today because we wanted to talk about some changes that we're doing and we want to just inform you as well as the community and keep people up to date about our thought process and what we're still doing at Dartmouth High School and some of it is to help support the MCAS learning loss some of it is just to help that student experience and help our students make decisions that are proper that's not what I want to do Rob told me this was going to be easy top I see green got it it hurts yeah okay all right we might have to go from this side can we go from here do you all see it all right um so we're just updating our program of studies this year we've done a

094lot of work behind the scenes we met with all the stakeholders um like I said Mr Silva met with um each Lead Teacher they put together their class offerings they met with their departments and their cpts and really discussed it so it's kind of been like a trickle up effect almost where the teachers and the cpts Met then we met with the department heads and went from there and a lot of the feedback was on where what classes were offering and how we're offering classes and the number of classes we're offering talking about some of that balancing out those 30 classes to like those 12 classes and help balancing that out to make that a optimal learning environment for all of our students um as you can see this is um this is we're going

095to be changing our credit requirements for graduation um you can see on the far credit that's our current one and I'm going to examine I'm going to bring it bigger for you to see the major changes we had but with the development of our bit Department that was kind of one of the input like the first steps to make these changes so the real changes come in three areas um our unified Arts are going to go from a half one and a half from a half Credit One credit to one and a half credits we're increasing it all of this will be from the class of 27 and above so our current 8th grader so we are rising freshmen and above so we'll be working on two credits for the next four four years really

096or three years as we introduce all of our students um we had a computer science credit with the Innovation and business technology department we actually added another half a credit into that as well so it's a one and a half credit on business Innovation and technology and one and a half credits of unified arts for a total of one additional of required credits for our students so if we go back to here here you'll see our minimum credit requirement is 24 credits across the board we want to help structure some of the choices that our students make and see the wonderful offerings that we have at Dartmouth High School and especially in like our areas of unified arts and I use the example we talked last week month about um if I want to go

097to Bedford revoke and take a photography class I'm paying a lot of money now and we have a we have a photography studio here that's pretty impressive so we want to help our structure our decisions that we made with our students um the basis was we met with the stakeholders we updated significant language in the program too we wanted to use a Common Language where that's some of the things that we're trying to do in our schedule and in our program of studies for everyone we really want to Spotlight all that we have to offer and we're going to help understand their progressions through High School one of the things that um we're going to talk about in our next the steps is on through our students course of study plans is really we want

098to help our students understand how to navigate High School a little bit more supported um the basis of the decisions were um focusing on our students needs focus on the students emotional academic Health again some of that unified Arts can really help in our students across the board as well we want to emphasize how our students think critically um and the choices they make and we use Mouse core as a foundation so that was where we started from so most of those requirements are straight from Mass core as well because that's where what the state is telling us they want us to use um you to for sake of time those are just our program of studies that we offer and what the course trajectory students can take in in all of the classes that

099we offer um but what else do we have to offer at Dartmouth High School we have 26 AP classes we're adding two additional EP classes next year AP music theory and AP pre-calc um our Sila by literacy and um our AP capstones are some things that we take a real pride in uh we're actually celebrating both John and Abigail Adams Scholars and our syllabi literacies on Friday um and that's what 170 students so I keep getting the number wrong every time we met I change the number it's 70 it's 70 students that have achieved those honors so we're really excited about it um what's helped me through this year is our Partnerships with mass Q Mass insight and Project Lead the Way um they've been a really strong partner of us and we've been all

100of those have really helped us through this the redesign bit department is with that computer science pathway and really focusing in that language um side note I didn't realize it until way too late but I love that it's like it's our computer base and it's called bit and it took me a little while to realize that but that's okay um and then our science department has really started to focus the conversation on sustainability and what does that look like and how are we going to continue with that um so the next steps that we're going to do with this is um our guidance department and we have a really strong partnership with the middle schools we've talked a few times so our guys our whole guidance department is going to go down to meet with

101the eighth grade students go over the course um course catalog with them and really help structure their choices that they make um and then the other part of it is our guidance counselors are really going to work with our students on their own plan of study every student will be working on off of their own plan of study what their plans are now they can they're they're a live and breathing document and that's the biggest thing about Google Docs is that they can grow and they can change and I know who I was as a freshman was different than I was as a senior but we're giving them a we're giving them a path and some answers to what do I do next and how do I do that next and if I want to

102get here how do I get there um we're going to use our advisory of course to help promote that um the course offerings and we're going to encourage students to take classes outside their comfort zone I think one of the things that I truly regret is I never learned of like my um my artistic side of myself until way too late in life and I think we want students to step outside of that comfort zone and really see what every what courses have to offer and maybe help some students find different career paths that they never thought they would find like I said I didn't want to take too much of your time but we did want to update you all on what we're doing and why we're doing it so if people ask you

103why or you hear why we want to keep you all in the loop of like the changes that we made they're not massive significant but they're enough that we felt it was really important to inform you as a committee in the community as in general so we'll take any questions thank you Mr Shea thank you Dr Jenkins oh I get to go first this time so this is I this is great I don't have any objections to the the changes that you're making I just want to say is having you know had two kids recently go through this and also working in higher ed you know I found when I was working with my kids the program of study was sort of my main entry as the parent to understanding the curriculum and one of

104the things I would like to see us maybe to think about not my for now but moving forward to more clearly communicate that these are the graduation requirements but in many instances the expectations for institutions of a higher education are more than that right and talking about getting kids out of their comfort zone well I've done my three Sciences I'm done I'm good right well yes but good schools are going to be looking for four years of science right I've done my two years again yes but right and so I'd like to see some of those expectations about that pathway maybe put into the program of studies because I knew that because I work in this industry but I feel like there's a lot of parents who might not realize that and only see okay

105check you've met that and say not maybe push their kids to do some things that are outside their comfort zone um so I just that's something to think about but otherwise I think I think it looks great I appreciate that thank you Mr Oliver yeah thank you both for your presentation thank you for all the hard work that you've done on you know putting this together and and playing working behind the scenes uh I'm just thrilled I'm happy to hear happy to see the communication just being open transparent with the committee what's happening the pro the steps that have taken place so yeah I have um I have no other questions so thank you both uh just uh the same I think you know this is excellent I also like the fact that marching band

106is actually going to count as a you know is this a credit for you know I'm gonna be careful with that that is out there there's room is out there I I want to be very clear I was just looking on here yeah um so marching band there is a law in Massachusetts that there are some things that can count in replace of P we're only doing that for students as a last option and we're telling our right now we think it would affect only three students in our building it's usually a student that is um traditionally might have academic support and band that really crams their schedule so we're talking about right now it's three students in the entire building that might even impact that um and and we're doing that for the sake

107of that I I believe in PE I was I wish I was a PE teacher and I think it's really important and again on the mental health side of things I think it's a really great outlet for a lot of our students so we want to be really careful with that so when we say this and we've we've communicated this to our guidance counselors who are doing the career path with our students is that this is not an option for every student this is a last resort and like I said we're talking three students at Dartmouth High that this would impact this year okay I appreciate that clarification now I know it is tough for those kids just to find informative because it's a fine room in their schedule for some of their electives that's

108sometimes where you know I feel for them you know yes it's just the I mean again they have a huge sacrifice and I'm like happy to do that and then again I value certainly value as well absolutely no and I'm glad for the clarification on that as well thank you because this is not a this is an option where we're gonna have like it would be approved by admin like this is yeah so it's you can talk about it but the admin has to say yeah thanks thank you very much for for everything good question that I have uh on the courses you know when you went back and you had you didn't you get with glance over which is fine but you know when I look I look at it I look you know

109for discussion purposes English and it's in all of them it says uh ccro honors what is CCR yep College and Career Readiness okay yeah thank you so the the three I don't want to use the word levels but the three the three we can you a student has to to take is a CCR class which is college career ready recognized by universities as preparing for college honors than AP God bless acronyms yep exactly I still haven't learned them after all these years so I I appreciate that uh and again I think I agree with my colleagues I think the uh the communication down you know the eighth graders and over the next couple of years is going to be uh key for everything but thank you very much for all of this thank you and

110just to jump on something Dr Jenkins said like even here it says two years for foreign language we encourage three at the minimum like you know we talk about getting into that pool yeah it gets you into the pool what makes you stand out in that pool yeah I just like to see it I think you know as a parent we're not part of those conversations with guidance or whatever and you know I have two boys they're not always best about communicating what conversations they have high school boys so writing it down somewhere you know for parents to see is part of that communication effort might be great yeah thank you thank you okay thank you no I know that yeah okay next on the agenda is uh school choice vote and discussion I'll turn

111it over to Mr Kylie thank you Mr news so I provided um a sort of financial summary of what the school choice program has meant to us from a funding perspective um I I think you know the future with Federal funding um being uncertain moving forward you know the school choice funds offer a potential way to buffer some of the some of the reductions that might be ahead so certainly hopeful that that's the case we've focused on a number of things through the years it's it's uh the biggest item that school choice has funded through the years has been technology so it was originally our primary source of funding for our one-to-one initiatives uh thank goodness we did that because it it allowed us to get ahead of of of things and allowed us to

112transition when we did have the disastrous pandemic to sort of support support kids as best we could with remote learning and without that funding I I don't know what that would have looked like but it certainly wouldn't have been nearly as successful as it was uh we also fund stipend amounts for programs that we likely would not otherwise be able to fit into the budget to support the music program after school programs strength and conditioning programs it's been a major source of support for Teacher develop professional development um and we've also used it for instructional materials and capital Improvement projects like the Dartmouth Memorial Stadium project several years ago I set up with a preschool classroom over at the Potter School The Innovation lab right here and the improvements that are to come in this

113room right here with with the library and media center overhaul that we're going to do so it's it's been valuable um right now we're projecting approximately 685 thousand dollars of Revenue this year so significant amount of money uh our projected expenditures are about 386 thousand dollars for this year so we'll we'll Bank a little bit of uh a little bit of savings there that can be used in the future so that's um sort of a a summary of what we've used it for I'd be happy to answer any more specific questions questions Chris thank you Mr Kiley so I'm thrilled that we're you know we're at a point in which we have school choice in Dartmouth especially with uncertain times I think the money that we've spent um you know for the most part all

114one time one-time expenses uh with the exception of a couple of the uh I don't know about the strength and conditioning program that's been reoccurring or not I would just add that I would be very cautious you know as far as using and I know I think the the committee said some kind of limit as far as what you can spend before coming to the committee about ten thousand ten thousand that's what I thought that's what I thought it was as far as using this for anything other than you know one-time costs that we you know you're certainly very very cautious moving forward during these times so I would just ask you know I think this is great I think we should continue it it certainly fills um fills a need in this District I

115wish our budgets I wish we were funded in a proper level but this certainly gives us the flexibility to offer some of these programs and some of these devices such as the Chromebook so thank you Dr Jenkins yeah you know I would agree with Mr Oliver I think our policy has been good so far to to not use these potentially non-recurring revenues right to fund recurring costs but you know quite frankly if things don't change I think we're going to have to revisit that to help ease us off the cliff um you know I don't want to I don't like to do that I'm reluctant to do that but I mean if the choice is to fall off the cliff or to use this to help us ease our way through that I think I

116think we will have to revisit that in the future agreed Mary um no I didn't you know I can't say that I have anything you know else really that is something I feel like we need to continue just um for fiscal reasons I guess I did have one question more if we look at just the towns the sending towns are we seeing now that westport's built a new high school did we see any change in their numbers coming in or is that above consistent the number of applications we get okay all right okay thank you that's all thank you yeah I uh and again I'll be a broken record but I'm the one I won't they'll disrespect to my colleagues it's fundamental for me I don't vote for the school choice I don't I like

117the money don't get me wrong but I'm just not one and I did that rant a number of years ago so I won't do it again but uh you know I I think this is this is great and yeah I I agree that uh Federal uh Ursa funds and everything is uh Clift is coming real quick so we're gonna need to be ready for that so with that being said any other questions okay Mr I guess before we take a vote uh what are we thinking for for our enrollment or what are our Roman numbers looking at like and are we going to um stick with the um I think approximately about 30 new students 30 to 40. we have around 140 students right now it K updates me on we get we lose one

118we gain one that kind of thing if someone moves out of the you know they leave things like that so it's around 140. that's what we've kind of had over the last week do you know what the enrollment is currently that's what I'm saying it's a route I thought I said I thought I saw her somewhere oh there we go thank you 42. 142. so you're comfortable making that recommendation that we stay right around there Dr Gifford yeah same numbers as previous years and and to be honest when we get our application then we go through our lotteries and a number of folks will back out I think you know they're covering all bases they might want to see if they can get into a private school or okay vocational school so it usually ends

119up almost everyone gets in so far right we'll see okay all right so you need a motion to continue with the school choice if we so desire move by Miss White second second by Dr Jenkins on the motion to any discussion so that is to carry forward with school choice for school year 23-24 with approximately 5 30 to 40 students and everything whatever it turns out to be okay chairing on all in favor aye aye opposed chair will opposed just because I said I do thank you so it passes three to one all right just come back on yeah okay uh yeah Dr jenk uh my apologies Dr Gifford that's fine so at this time I just want to recognize Rob perrotti he's coming on to give us a little update on a couple of

120things that the department has been engaged in yeah he said he'd be quick now from behind the scenes tonight so all right so I just want to announce that uh we're congratulating for the um CS leaders award um you left your post oh yeah I had in the back room [Laughter] yeah all right so um on Monday December 5th we started out with the press conference uh there we go you got it done thank you we got Ben in the back working the controls all right so on Monday December 5th we started we had a press conference where our department was awarded um the 10 000 Grant from code.org uh in that meeting we had um two visitors on that night uh on that day rather Hannah Wiseman who was the director of policy from

121code.org and Deborah boysberg the executive director for computer science from Mass Inc uh came down to the high school and uh they were given a tour of our facilities they took a look at how students are using uh computer programming coding whether it be a robotics computer science courses and then Ryan Aruda also had them on uh his episode of ryanology which will be out this Friday and he talked to them about various aspects of what the department is doing with computer coding um during the week of the hour of code last week Wednesday and Thursday we had a school-wide hour of code event where students actually participated in learning how to do various coding and they had uh about seven uh experiences that they could go through and learn what computer coding was all

122about and it was a great success and you can see our big check also went around to all the classrooms uh also during that week our bit Department had several presentations one being with the robotics team where they talked to all of our students in our classes about how computer coding works with our robotics team and what they have to do to actually code the robots to actually work and drive and compete and it was produced by the media program and all the bit classes actually watched the video and then we ended the week with a school-wide survey where we got various data on such as uh what our code activities were the students favorites um what classes have they taken here so far for computer science and what classes would they like to take

123in the future so we got a lot of great data here for the end of the week that we can use in our department other events that occurred in our department last week this past week for the first time our media program hosted a live filibust Telethon which we partnered with Dartmouth Community media and the Dartmouth police department and we actually broadcast four hours of a live Telethon at the Target store here in North Dartmouth and we were able to help fill two large buses full of toys as well as this year supplement that with um with funding we had a QR code where people could just go go right to that QR code and donate money to the program and so far we raised over three thousand dollars that actually will be in addition

124to the toy acceptance at the Target and uh it was a great success we had entertainment from the high school bands we had the High School dance team performed we had various singers throughout the event perform we we had various interviews Dr Gifford was there as well and it was just a great success the kids all did a wonderful job and uh we couldn't have done it without them and again we had an after party afterwards and they were they were quite happy of how well it went uh other other things that happened this past week we had uh an Esports team that that won the semi-finals for the State uh and it was their Super Smash ultimate team that ranked second out of 52 teams in the playoffs they Advanced to the final four

125were able to compete at a lot live playoff event on Saturday at on Patriots Place and uh it was this was the first time that our team had gone this far so that was a great thing um our engineering students built a state-of-the-art news desk for our media program so I'd like to congratulate these students that you see here Aiden Medeiros Argy Ben Azevedo and Sophia geosa built our brand new news desk that we actually this is from today we actually use this today filming today this is our holiday edition of our Dartmouth High news program and as you can see it looks great we actually have a video wall that will be put behind them we have a six panel video wall going up in the studio uh within the next couple of weeks

126that will replace the curtain that you see behind them so it's going to be a state-of-the-art look for our new new set at the DHS TV media Studios downstairs uh also in our media program Bob's Discount Furniture donated two thousand dollars for new comfortable seating uh the students spend countless hours editing uh and we want to give them it was this was actually the student's idea to write to Bob's Furniture to see if they would donate some money for new furniture and lo and behold they agreed we got two thousand dollars and the students picked out all this furniture and you can see they are now quite comfortable for when we uh edit in the classroom so that's it for this week that this was predominantly all this week in the bit department and that's

127only one week we have much more to come but uh I don't know if anybody has any questions I don't want to take up too much of your time um I do have to get back to behind the scenes work fantastic anybody any thank you Mr President excellent yeah great job okay thank you thank you thank you Miss perrotti oh that's great I think it's a pretty much guarantee that we would not have a media at Dartmouth High School would not have a media program as well respected and well run without Mr perotti and I mean if you think about it too when uh just go back to the tail end of the Fall Sports Seasons with us students Ben being one of them you know doing the doing the broadcast with the volleyball games

128or the uh the basketball not the basketball but the volleyball and you know field hockey and soccer and that type of deal so it's been wonderful to to see them do that gives them you know it's gotten them out of their comfort zone I guess is where I'm looking and they've done a fantastic job uh the only thing that I have the only thing I have is uh you know our athletic department is uh back with their uh went to sports the basketball girls and boys basketball team has already started and they both won their first game so congratulations to them so you know more to more to come on that I know the hockey and uh track teams will be uh hitting the uh the athletic complexes very shortly so wish them well all

129right well okay so what I'm going to do is we've got I'm going to give you 10 minutes for public comment and that's what hey well that's the way it is I'm sorry I apologize I didn't mean it that way okay but that's what we have so good evening my name is Catherine golub and I'm a teaching assistant at the Quinn school I have been a resident of Dartmouth for over 35 years in September I marked 25 years as a teaching assistant in Dartmouth I began my career working at the Demello School library then I moved to gidley and eventually to Quinn when I began this job I was the mother of two elementary school children and the hours in my love of literature made it a great fit last June I received the distinguished

130ESP award from the DEA I speak from experience I'm here tonight because I am worried about our schools at Quinn we currently have two fourth grade teachers who are both Tas before finishing their teaching degrees hiring Tas who are working toward teaching roles is a win for Dartmouth schools as we get intelligent and invested Tas who learn our curriculum and are ready to hit the ground running as teachers last year however we lost two of our rock star young teachers I'm at Quinn to more money the sped teacher to more money and a smaller caseload this year I've seen promising future teachers come and go in ta positions they couldn't afford to work at the pay rate what goes on in the day of it what does a day in life of a TA look

131like I am currently assigned as the third grade ta at Quinn and I spend my day moving between six classrooms I begin my rounds with fluency drills in one classroom supporting foundations in the next a reading group in the third Ela support in the next followed by fourth grade lunch duty in the afternoon I support math centers then two classes in writing I conference with the students then I support science and social studies in my last two classes this is the schedule my team worked hard to plan by identifying where they needed my support the most in reality I'm rarely able to follow this schedule for more than three days a week in practice my real job is to support the school's Administration wherever they need me I expect to cover for my third grade

132teachers when they have meetings and this seem a seamless transition because I know their classes and their curriculum I am often pulled to cover for teachers and other grades as well in the past two weeks I have substituted in the fifth and the third grade when I was covering the fifth grade there was a conflict as I was scheduled to administer a test to a third grade class whose teacher was absent that day without coverage while the sped co-teacher had to pull her kids that meant that another ta had to cover fifth grade each time that I am pulled there is a reading group that doesn't meet there is there there is one I'm sorry a pile of work to address with students one-on-one that is set aside and one less person at lunch duty

133last Monday 50 percent of our cafeteria staff was out so I helped serve lunch that is what Tas do each day thank you [Applause] each day when the FYI email comes out it is a roadmap to who is being pulled to cover for which teacher these Cascade down to whether we have enough staff in the cafeteria at parent pickup and dismissal Staffing at the schools is tight and this is what worries me I feel as if our coverage is lace and it stretches to meet the needs of the school there are more and more holes to fill a co-worker at lunch told me that she had been contacted by a principal in a local Town asking her to change school systems with four more dollars more an hour as she is a single parent we

134may lose her I am worried for the Dartmouth schools that they will not be able to compete in the market for staff money that's what it comes down to years ago my husband and I sat down and decided that we were okay with me working for less money that to me the gift of my job was the lives that I touched today I see a system that is on the edge we are stretched to the limits of time I worry that we won't meet the needs of students on IEPs and Bible Force because we are short of staff I worry that a child May choke in the cafeteria or have an allergic reaction and there are only two sets of eyes in the cafeteria I challenge this school committee to say not on our watch

135for you to take the steps to turn the tide on the outflow of talented staff and return to a school system that nurtures future teachers thank you and please any one of you come and spend a day with me at Quinn I would love to have you just show up thank you foreign my name is Kathleen Baldwin I'm an occupational therapist in the Dartmouth School System for over 25 years I have been through four superintendents in first bed directors so I have a lot of history and a lot of knowledge of where we are right now I'm going to address Mr Kylie Dr Gifford Mr Nunes Mrs Waite Dr Jenkins and Chris Oliver by name because I want to see your eyes looking at me in the hope that your attention has been secured on

136this topic when I first started in Dartmouth in 1997 we had three programs three special education programs one at the elementary one the middle one at the high school you know anyone guess how many we got now nine that doesn't include all the code talk classrooms every grade level has a code talk classroom or two at every grade level in every building and we also have a pre-k program that house fifty percent of disabled children the needs of these students in the programs are severe these days severe from academics to life skills to self-care I know you've heard the needs of the Tas in those programs the social and the behavioral demands one fact that I don't think many parents know and I am reaching out to parents today through this media through my social

137media and I will continue to campaign to get as much parental support on this as I possibly can before I retire in June one one thing that I don't think many parents know maybe staff doesn't even know and maybe some of your school Community Committee members don't even know is that I'm the backs of therapists the occupational therapist the physical therapist and the speech and language pathologist we bring in over four hundred thousand dollars a year to the town I know Mr Kyle you and I have had discussions about this where does that money go I've had discussions with Finance people at Bush Street I get it's that and a straight line item to the schools it doesn't really work that way so I'm not sure where the money goes but when I ask the

138Medicaid coordinator if we can use that money directly for the school the answer since Pat demanche was the special education director is unequivocally yes we can we don't we still struggle in Fight to get a TA for one two one for a non-verbal very artistic child who needs a one-to-one who has life skill challenges who has self-care challenges we need help and we need these positions filled the other time this year I wrote a a letter in email to a technology coordinator or sped director in our building people to ask for three iPads I'm kidding you not three three iPads with some software we got one I think the four hundred thousand dollars maybe could have covered two more maybe I'm sorry to be quite I'm frustrated to the fact that the so uh the

139public comment was so Dishonored by you Mr Nunes that you just pushed it aside [Applause] the other issue that's coming up and I know has been in our negotiations and thank you to our negotiation staff who have been working tirelessly with you I've sat in those chairs myself it's not pretty um looking at Walter Smith over there it's not pretty and it seems almost not respectful at this point a hard no on language that cost you nothing our time is your dime Dartmouth our time is your time we are negotiating to receive back this 8 45 to 905 time that we had we have had that time for between regular education and special Educators to consult between therapists to consult with the special Educators now many of those Consultation Services are in IEPs in quite

140frankly we're not we're not doing what we should be so we're not in compliance with those laws so I would ask you to reconsider that I understand that there's been some miscommunication and misinterpretation of what principles think is working okay or not okay that's all that's all in the weeds I get but I wish that you would reconsider us getting back the 845 to the 905 time that we so rightly deserve yes Mr Nunes I will thank you for your consideration tonight please reach out to me please come see the sped programs at Quinn school on a day sometime and even look at an Eiffel for sure thank you good evening my name is Corey Diaz and I'm the occupational therapist I've been in the Dartmouth schools for 17 years hi my name is Erin

141manafo and I have been an occupational therapist in the school system for the past three years my journey to Dartmouth started when I was a student here I was overwhelmed by the dedication passion and effort put forth by the staff who taught and mentored me some of them are still in this room today it made the decision to come back to Dartmouth easy now that I'm on the other side of that dedication passion and effort I'm disheartened in the lack of recognition resources and compensation we receive for our expertise and knowledge I stand in front of you tonight as one of the staff members who did not cover Dartmouth extended school year program this past year for the first time since being employed here instead I put my dedication passion and effort into a school

142system that compensated me over ten dollars an hour more than what Dartmouth offered for the value I brought to their students what's even more concerning to me is the willingness of this Administration to hire external contractors who are not familiar with the families staffs or students to fill those positions rather than reasonably compensating the staff that's the same position that I could have fill not given the disparity in compensation but if reasonably compensated would have been proud to do so this is only a sound bite of a systemic problem that this 10-minute open forum is not adequate to cover if your lack of conference concern for your staff's benefits and compensation is causing your staff across the board to question their value and worth how do you think this model is sustainable for retaining Talent

143how do you plan on continuing to advance the Dartmouth education system and support families if you can't support your staff [Applause] my name is Sandra alpum raposo and I have been a speech pathologist here in Dartmouth for seven years last year I had the experience of supervising two other speech staff members taking on this additional responsibility of supervising these staff members medicos to me and to my students but at a cost savings to the district the current contract does not have additional time or language allocated to adequately meet the ethical and Regulatory supervision requirements which would allow therapists to maintain their current caseload and fulfill their other professional and contractual duties to comply with state federal and credentialing regulations and mandates for all involved the speech pathologist must take on additional weekly duties which may

144include direct and indirect supervision observation of their therapy sessions assisting in the development of clinical skills conducting performance reviews co-signing and signing documentation and ensuring and this is per the regulation which we stand by ensuring um that all the laws and regular regulations governing the practice of Speech Pathology are followed just to name a few by choosing not to include language within the DEA contract that acknowledges the increase in workload and provides adequate time for supervision all those involved suffer within the when the supervising speech language pathologist or any therapist it can include otptm the rbts when they don't have adequate time they must choose between providing adequate supervision or providing adequate therapy to their own students ultimately the students of Dartmouth pay the price as they are being provided Services by a service provider

145who does not have the time skill or supervision needed to provide their services with efficacy and fidelity the district currently provides stipends for Club advisors Building Technology coordinators and other positions that are not responsible for the direct supervision of other staff members how can the school district feel it is reasonable and just not to also compensate speech-language Pathologists who directly supervise staff with a stipend for an increased workload which not only allows the district to fill high demand staffing needs but also Saves The Districts The District tens of thousands of dollars it should also be noted that most of the contractual language we were we're seeking would come at no cost to the district um Dartmouth students deserve better and so do the hard-working therapists who work day in and day out to make sure

146that their students have the highest quality services to meet their maximum potential thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] there we go all right our next meeting is set for January 9th 2023 Dr Jenkins I'm sorry so you know I know it's not common for us to address you know public comment we take a public comment um but I want to be clear this is probably one of the hardest parts of the job right um I want to be clear that I think everyone sitting at this table everyone on this committee is sympathetic to the demands that you're placing let me speak please you had your turn you've had your turn we are sympathetic to the demands I have worked so many overrides in this community to try to get more funding for our schools we are

147at the bottom 10 of all districts in the state of Massachusetts for our poor people funding right I keep bringing up the word override and everyone tells me no no I'm not going to be afraid to talk about that because that's what's it's going to take for us to be able to do this and we need to work together to put that message out to the community because we can't get blood from a stone right there isn't a big pot of money in the town of Dartmouth that's hanging out that is not being spent right I am the child of teachers I am a teacher myself right I am sympathetic to this I just don't know where to go and it's hard I know you it's hard for you it's hard for us too we

148are sympathetic to what you are saying we hear you we're trying that's all I can say Mr Oliver thank you for your comments Dr Jenkins which I wholeheartedly agree with you know what what's really frustrating to me is 10 years ago when I first came on the committee that we had this type of rhetoric going on we certainly have this rhetoric here today it's been going on for quite some time and like Dr Jenkins said I'm in education my students went through the I have a junior at Dartmouth High School I started off in this profession as a paraprofessional 20 years ago I was a paraprofessional that's how I started that's how I got my foot in the door so I can certainly appreciate that for those of you who are Tas esps I know

149the language is looking to be changed I can certainly appreciate that and I respect all of you what I will say is that there's no we're not career politicians up here not one of us is a career politician up in Beacon Hill whereas sitting at this table looking to do what is right for not only number one our students and number two our staff I hear you I certainly hear what you're saying I respect in value what you do every single day covid has just made it twice as worse but what I am seeing across the state is I am seeing a lot of ramped up rhetoric that I don't think needs to take place that almost just becomes counterproductive I am here tonight saying that I will do what I can to work with

150you and work with the members of this committee and the members of this town I reached out to the vice chair and the chair of the select board I want to sit down with them I want to have a conversation to understand what is the story with health care in this town why can't we support it why can't we look to Alternative means than what is currently being offered this is all I got in this role because I wanted to I wanted to do what's best but this is all just volunteerism this is what it comes down to I am we are working I know some some of you may not believe it and that's perfectly fine but believe it or not I can at least speak for myself that I am working on this

151town your behalf especially our parents and students behalfs so I'm optimistic that moving forward together we can only do this together that we can make things happen it's not going to be easy at some ex to some extent we may have to talk about is that a change in split and I'm I I have no place no business talking about this but is it a change in Split is it a change in health insurance or is it employees or staff I don't have the answers I'm willing to work with you I'm willing to work with my colleagues to get the answers but in closing we've got to do this and work collaboratively together that is the only way that this school system is going to come out on top which I know we can we

152have a nut we have a top-notch school system and it's because of you it's because of all of you so thank you I wish I could come to negotiations we I'm I can't I would love to come spend the day with you I don't have enough vacation time to do that I'm sorry I have to be honest with you to Mr Oliver's point this is a volunteer job for us we have nine to five jobs I can't I'd love to I'm sorry but I have to work to support my family as well all right okay so do I so does Mr Oliver so does Miss wait we're all working we're doing the best we can okay so that being said okay anything else I would like to see on the next school committee agenda a

153discussion about related services I'd like to I'd like to hear what our current related services are our case loads um I would like to I'd like to have an update on related Services that's fair thank you thank you we can do that no problem all right so our next meeting is January 9th 2023 at 6 30 here I wish everybody a happy holiday and uh we'll the chair will entertain a motion to adjournal Executive session for the purposes of uh collective bargaining with Union personnel and not returned by Dr Jenkins second second by Mr Oliver on the motion any discussion roll call vote please yes yes yes all right thank you and merry Christmas happy New Year safe holidays [Music]