Dartmouth School Committee Meeting, November 21, 2022

001[Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] good evening I'd like to call the school committee meeting for Monday November 21st 2022 to order we please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance foreign like to ask if anybody has any cell phones electronic devices if you would shut them off and put them on silent it would be appreciated also like to let you know that this meeting is being taped and is shown uh live stream this evening on youtube.com backslash DHS TV media and also rebroadcast on both uh Channel 9 and channel 18 throughout the week at various times and we thank them for all their support roll call please John Nunes yeah Mary Waite Kathleen Amaral yeah Shannon Jenkins here Chris Oliver here all right thank you welcome back Miss Gunther nice to see you okay first

002daughter of business we've allotted uh 10 minutes for public comment uh on anything that's on tonight's agenda uh I will ask you to uh please uh keep your comments the three minutes and I will stop at 10 minutes so if one goes over the other somebody's gonna get shot changed just so that you're aware okay thank you just need your name and who you are please and what you represent thank you good evening my name is Jasmine Olene and I work at the Mellow school I even wrote that part so I wouldn't forget to say it this is my 20th year being an educator and I started my career in Fall River and I worked in the city for nine years and I learned a lot 11 years ago I was fortunate enough to be

003hired into the competitive District of Dartmouth and I was so excited and it was here that I became a better teacher the teacher that I am today immediately I fell in love with the staff my team administrators and especially my students and their families I am confident to say that my students know that I care about them and I put them first making sure to address not only their academic needs but their social emotional needs as well I strive every day to be my absolute best for them and I will continue to do so but I am tired I'm tired of trying so hard and feeling like it's never good enough I'm tired when every year I make less than the year before because the pay increases don't even come close to covering the increases

004of health insurance I'm tired as I look around and I see valuable staff that are leaving the same staff that I learned so much from because our workloads continue to increase to amounts that feel impossible While others struggle to pay for their basic needs 65 percent nurses have designated and designed protocols and worked Around the Clock getting us through covid and they continue to keep us safe secretaries keep the schools afloat by supporting teachers and principals in ways that build the foundation of our schools teaching assistants they run small groups they cover classrooms and anything else Under the Sun that they are asked to do and they do it well but where is the appreciation where is the validation of the work that the people do people who all work directly with kids the people

005in those buildings day in and day out the ones taking care of dartmouth's children they are the ones that have built relationships your reputation and keep your property values up but we are tired and many of your District employees are struggling to pay their bills they are leaving I would like to also ask how come other districts are able to figure it out but we can't I have worked with the most tremendous individuals and I have learned from colleagues and I have watched many of them leave and go to other districts we know that you value the excellent work that the professionals at Bush Street do because they're compensated for it but when it comes to keeping the professionals who support your children directly face to face every day you need to reevaluate what you

006are doing to keep them here we are demanding a fair contract for all of our units the nurses the secretaries the teaching assistants and teachers make Dartmouth competitive again thank you [Applause] good evening I'm Heidi Spicer and this is my colleague Kelly Steele and we're both Preschool teachers over at Cushman school during the last school committee meeting we had waited in line to discuss our responsibilities in the preschool position however public comment had been cut off before we were able to come up and discuss our concerns um and we strongly do feel that you should hear the importance of making the teacher contract more inclusive to the preschool staff throughout the con the contract negotiation process my colleague and I have found that multiple times we've been saying things like what about preschool where does

007preschool fit how our common contract does not provide information pertaining to the vast differences between a preschool teacher and any other elementary teacher the preschool staff currently wears multiple hats we are a general education teacher we are a special education teacher despite the fact that 50 of the preschool staff are not licensed special education teachers we are also evaluators in the initial evaluation process our students are on many different educational levels we have eight peer Partners who are typically developing and up to seven special education students our needs our special needs students range and abilities from developmental developmentally delayed to more significant needs which mirror more the pals and past programs this means we are responsible to plan lessons and activities following the Massachusetts curriculum standards right IEPs progress reports and evaluation reports and provides

008supplementary AIDS and adapt General lessons for the special education students when looking at prep time in comparison to our elementary school colleagues preschool has the less time to prepare with additional responsibilities additionally we are responsible for the toileting assistance and diapering of our special education students which potentially could be up to seven students on top of the toileting and diapering we are also responsible for cleaning and changing the peer Partners if they have an accident this added duty is not seen anywhere for other teachers for other bargaining units that do handle toileting and diapering needs they receive a stipend as should any other unit who she has that added responsibility we hope for a contract that will include preschool and the uniqueness of the position thank you for your time [Applause] anybody else foreign we

009are the district RBT team and we are here to tell you a little bit about what we do and why we think we deserve a stipend increase um thank you for our time we provide students who have moderate to severe functioning levels of ASD diagnosis with intensive one-to-one ABA therapy API is a therapy based on the scientific principles of learning and behavior as District rbts we use systematic procedures aimed to increase necessary educational and developmental milestones this includes Improvement of language and communication adaptive skills attention and social interactions we also work to decrease any Behavior challenges that a child may have such as aggression self-injury endangerment or property destruction we are all thoroughly trained in behavior management techniques to properly help prevent manage and de-escalate any given situation our job our everyday job duties include

010case management of currently seven to nine students served three to five times a week daily inflammation of skill acquisition programs and behavior re reduction support plans management and acquisition of all programs and materials set up of daily data collection maintenance of cumulative and percentile data plus input and graphing of all data for each child on our daily weekly basis communication with teachers and service providers is also done every day to work as an a to work as an RBT in this District we are required to have at least an associate's degree although most of us do have Bachelors we have to complete 40 hours of training in ABC procedures and present principles modules pass an initial competency assessment which we must demonstrate Mastery of 20 different domains adhere to the bacba ethics code and RBT

011task list we have to renew our certification annually continuing to prove domain Mastery and pay reciprocation fee every year sorry this is through the behavior analysis certification board which is internationally recognized governing body for practitioners working in Behavior Analysis what we want to highlight is that there has been a huge increase in our caseload over the past few years um ending June 2020 we had 10 students which accumulated to 49.5 hours as of November 2022 we are now at 31 students 125.5 hours we are covering all these students and it continues to increase plus all the data the casework the program management it's all accumulating so we just think that we deserve a little bit more with the increase and recognition of what we do thank you thank you that's it alrighty thank you very

012much uh moving excuse me moving on to the next daughter of business the approval of the regular session minutes of November 7th so moved second moved by Mr Oliver second by Miss Waite on the motion any discussion chair hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously executive session minutes of the same night I'll move with the usual stipulation that they be held until the matter is for which they are intended are complete second second by move by Miss White second by Dr Jenkins very good you've memorized that well oh thank you that took some time on the motion any discussion cheering on all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously all right on to some more good stuff and we're gonna do the middle school first right I guess sure okay

013so I believe we're going to start with the Middle School plan tonight and um Mr Darren Doan principal will introduce his team who will then present the school Improvement plan foreign thank you for having us this evening I'm going to soon turn this over this evening to my success in Mr Rossi and I'm taking the easy way out but um it's again it's been a wonderful Journey for me but uh these goals initially are going to be theirs as they move forward and it's important that you know they have the opportunity to kind of uh share their thoughts and works and you know they work extremely odd and we also have Mr Madden with us who's going to um step into Mr Rossi's role February 1st sir I thought it was important that the whole

014team was here but we have Mr Hayes our assistant principal Mrs dikis our associate principal and now I'll turn over to Mr Rossi so thank you thank you thank you Mr Doane it's been quite a run for you um good evening everyone before um we report out on our school Improvement plan I wanted to uh introduce Mr Sam mad and Mr Madden's with us tonight and although we are uh and he's going to be taking over February 1 and although we're saddened with the departure of Mr Doane we're very happy to have Mr Madden in his skill set join our team Sam's been at the middle school for 16 years and he is also a graduate of Dartmouth High he is also a Wordle and Words With Friends extraordinaire Mr Madden I apologize I lost

015my voice so I'll be brief but um as Mr Rossi mentions I grew up in Dartmouth attended Dartmouth schools and since I've been at the middle school for the past 16 years I've come to realize how important this town is to me how important the people in the school district are to me so I just feel extremely fortunate and grateful to have this opportunity to be a part of this administrative team thank thank you well done Sam and that's a great segue into a sense of belonging so what does a sense of belonging look like and what does it mean at the Dartmouth middle school with the help of learn launch we Define a sense of belonging as the feeling that one's authentic self is seen valued affirmed and connected to and by the school

016we believe it comes down to relationship building and finding a student's passion and giving them the opportunity to explore that passion further whether that be through academics the Arts music Athletics technology languages or drama Productions giving our kids a sense of purpose is the key to success so let's talk a little bit about the work that's already been done with a sense of belonging our guidance department has received specialized training with DCF and the crisis center our entire staff received SC training on lgbtq Plus guidance staff monitored School attendance and provided Outreach and support for families in need guidance also runs targeted social skills groups for kids within our school community we also identified and helped families in need during the holiday season which is a long-standing tradition at the Dartmouth Middle School all grade

017levels provided targeted lessons in social studies on humanitarianism and good citizenship through those efforts we raise four thousand dollars for the International Red Cross our after school program was able to run last year and we offered a wide range of activities from Orchestra robotics creative writing little green news drama club jewelry making weight lifting and sports we believe there's truly something for everyone we've been able to offer online academic assistance during that time frame as well our PBIS team planned many school-wide events including our spooky relay pink day Dartmouth strong day the rare fare our eighth grade class trip and our eighth grade class party and finally Mr Garcia our adjustment counselor started a unified basketball team that was a huge success we were able to have a home and away series with Fairhaven and

018a faculty game as well and I'd estimate that probably 85 percent of our student body came out for that home game with Fairhaven it was truly one of the one of the great days of last year at this point I'm going to turn it over to Mrs dikis and she's going to talk about great appropriate instruction hello everybody 2122 seems like a lifetime ago this even though it was just a few months ago um one of the things that we did last year is we realized that we needed a lot more options for modified assessments we found that the kids were learning at a much broader range of abilities so instead of having a modified and irregular assessments we have more they're more on a spectrum now so we that's one of the things that

019really came to be particularly after covid last year and a year-long of hybrid we also added pacing calendars into our curriculum planning time which really has helped us with the long-range planning and ensuring that the standards are hit you know throughout the year again it seems like a really long time ago but three quarters of the year last year we had a period of time that was called academic enrichment up until March of last year the kids were all still eating in their homerooms because of the coveted restrictions so we had a half hour that they were eating and a half hour of enrichment time during that time they truly was a to the best of our ability a time where they could work on reviewing or enrichment activities in really deep dive a little

020deeper into the various content areas the teachers worked really really hard in creating what we call Choice boards that we're still using now for review for enrichment activities you know thinking the science teachers created in our instructional technology so many in the eighth grade that went six seven and eight and that really helped them review all three grade levels for the science MCAS and they were able to do that during that time we found and continue to find as most of us realize when this choice it's much more engaging for the kids keeps them motivated particularly those reluctant Learners so those are kind of our highlights from from last year I'm going to turn it over to Mr Hayes just to go over the uh understanding um so as my secrets was saying it seemed

021so long ago um we had to spend some time in that school year meeting vertically to identify some of the possible learning gaps from our non-traditional school schedule that we had for the you know some of those previous months um we also use the pre-test and some other formative assessments to identify the areas of need and some of the strengths of our students right because you know we still had students excelling even though there were some areas of weakness there that allowed us to provide some just-in-time targeted interventions as well as to continue to challenge our students you know some of our Advanced Learners and to further their development I'm also through our various PLC teams because we have a number of them that meet at the middle school level we were able to closely

022Monitor and analyze the data from STAR testing from their MCAS scores benchmarks and some of the other assessments that we give to ensure that the interventions that we were using those targeted interventions were actually useful and to adapt those and our teachers did a wonderful job working really hard to adapt to those interventions to make sure that we were to the best of our ability addressing all of our students needs as well as their strengths so we really focus on looking at making sure those interventions were effective and making sure that we were doing all that we could could to address them into including our schedule changing a little bit as mysticas was talking about how do we fill some of those gaps and our I think our teachers and staff did a wonderful job

023doing that I'm going to come back with what we're planned is for this year with a sense of belonging um presently we've begun our first two sessions of our after school program in our unified basketball team is going to be expanding to unified bocce which should be pretty interesting I'm excited to see that our PBIS team continues to organize school-wide events we recently ran our spooky relay our pink day and this Wednesday kids will take part in our Dartmouth strong day with this year's theme being you guessed it a sense of belonging guidance continues to monitor School attendance Family Outreach holiday assistance in the running of social groups we were able to run career day for the first time since the pandemic and it included 32 guest speakers from the community this was targeted at

024our seventh grade population our kindness Cafe run by our pass and Pals programs was able to reopen our check-in check out and our step-up program continue to shape positive behaviors and build positive relationships with our tier two and tier 3 population our National Junior Honor Society will continue with its Beach cleanup initiatives its book drive with gifts to give and for the first time since covid they will partner with Dartmouth highs Honor Society for a Valentine's Day dance at the Council on Aging um finally over the summer we partnered with learn launch and they helped us frame our school-wide professional practice goal with staff which is to foster a sense of belonging at DMS staff is presently in the first year of that two-year smart goal at this point I'm going to turn it back

025over to Mrs dikis for more great appropriate instruction in addition to the professional practice goal that Mr Rossi mentioned our student learning goal is focusing more on stamina Independence comprehension areas that were identified by all of the different content areas we're really trying to Target writing across the curriculum as well as math fluency and science reasoning scientific reasoning excuse me I can't say enough about our special ed staff that worked so hard really thinking outside of the box trying to make sure that we met the needs of the kids that we have um they were very creative and very willing to try new things in as a result we have new courses that we are we are trying we have teachers that are teaching Cross grade level that we've never had before we have a

026lot more small group and individualized instruction as a result and they've done a great job and we really have a lot more confidence that we're going to be able to you know close those gaps at a faster Pace than we were before so I can't say enough about how much how hard they've worked to make that happen um some other good news that's came out of our STAR testing at the beginning of this year is that four the most part the majority of the students in September the reading level was pretty much on target with where they should be we do have the outliers and kids that need specialized instruction and they are getting that but it does reinforce for us that they absolutely should be getting grade level or even a higher level reading

027materials to continue on that path so we that was really something that we felt really good about during our curriculum planning time on a weekly basis week every single time we look at our scope and sequence we update it with any resources that we may have we really look at what our summative informative assessments are and they are live doc you know it's a live document we're constantly adding that in those in so that we use that document on a regular basis just recently we did add um actually that we literally within the last week started adding a reflective piece that we will add at the end of each unit if not more often and then the other thing that I'm really excited about is we have started working more closely with the high school

028than we have in years we've already made plans for the end of this year for the Dartmouth High lead teachers to work with our eighth grade teachers and really make sure that that vertical planning is happening and then hopefully it will be our first annual but on a week from tomorrow we have our we are hosting a business Innovation and Technology day for the eighth grade they're bringing everybody down and they're going to be able to have the kids cycle through and really see what's going on at the high school and hopefully keep them engaged in what's the learning and excited about coming to Dartmouth High and you know kind of all work together as one District so we're really excited about that Mr Hayes um with that our our plcs have met with an

029increased focus on calibrating student work across grade levels with a real emphasis on increasing stamina for all of our students as we found that to be one of the deficits across the board you know for our students in sixth to eighth grade we've also continued to analyze data to monitor student progress and identify the appropriate targeted interventions and to develop some of some individualized intervention plans and some of the work that Mystique was speaking to has really been used to identify individualized intervention plans for you know whether that really be you know individual students or small groups of students you spoke to some of the the really good work that our special education department has done it's been phenomenal and really identifying specific gaps and helping students through those um and we also continue to

030provide frequent formative assessments and that provide timely feedback a number of our teachers are using wonderful softwares that allow them immediate feedback allow them to address students strengths and deficits immediately uh you know to to again help with intervention plans whether that be you know to strengthen students or to address some of the gaps that we've identified through those testings um so with that I think Mr Dome you wanted to the committee has any questions thoughts remarks Mr Oliver sure uh just a couple of brief remarks first of all thank you for the presentation everyone uh it was very informative what I'm seeing here is I'm seeing you know quite a bit of out of the box thinking and a lot some definitely some more collaboration across grade levels um especially with the high school

031I'm happy to see but overall you know I'll keep my keep it brief keep up the good work I'm happy to see all the uh the deep thinking and the the collegial nature of everything that's taken place so uh you know thank you thank you all Dr Jenkins I'll also say thank you um I guess my one question would be I assume by stamina you mean sort of time on learning task is that what you mean by that what we were finding is consistently kept hearing repeatedly that they um student would write a sentence is this right well you know it just there was no grit into in the learning and a lot of that they had lost that and so when we say stamina being being able to stick with a task or writing

032assignment for a longer period of time that kind of thing yeah that's just it's interesting you know we've been dealing with some of those same issues pushes up through the pipeline to us and you know higher ed and we've been doing some collective reading a book called igen and about sort of the impact on device usage on on issues of stamina and time on task and attention to to task yeah and so I've just never heard it called that and so it's very interesting to me um I think this is great and I love to see all the work that you're doing so thank you yeah at as my colleagues have said really the sense of belonging it's you know it's it's clearly your um you know practices around thinking outside the box and you

033talked about the um uh you know the special education and sort of working to kind of meet the needs of the students and kind of bridge those gaps I love what the the work that you're doing in terms of transition to the high school that's only going to you know reap benefits I'm sure uh and I'm just thank you I've always been a cheerleader and and of your thoughtful approach and welcome Mr Madden glad to see you part of the administration at the middle school so thank you for this um no again like echoing my colleagues it was great presentation you know thank you so much I think um you know I was I'm always really impressed by like the targeted interventions and really trying to you know bring those students up um I guess

034my one question and this is something I've heard feedback from parents you know maybe you know in the Middle School is for those students who Excel how do you like because I feel like I've you know I've heard from parents concerns that you know in some cases like they this could maybe get or you know how are you like trying to like meet their needs and address their needs it's just an issue that has come up as I've taught to parents across the you know over the years one of the things that we're doing is a lot of the book choices because we do have some kids that are reading at a pretty high level and so they they certainly would be steered toward books that are at a much higher level than some of

035the other one we're doing an independent reading or a book club they would be in a book club with groups it's one of the things we do with reading now is but kind of like we do as adults right they you know and they're in book clubs together and they are able to talk and so they are at a higher level we've got it what you do is in the Khan Academy a lot for the math programs we've got some kids if you know we do our formative assessment they're getting 100 on it we're not going to reteach them something they already know so they're getting differentiated and they're getting a different assignment that may be on Khan Academy or algebra one or a different lesson altogether so we're very mindful of that one of

036the things that we're really enjoying is we've been using a lot more of the edge elastic and that gives you pretty much on the formative right away we'll tell you and we'll say well these four kids so let's get them something else and so we don't even bother giving them the next assignment they'll do something totally different so that kind of thing right I think like the trend seeing that you're meeting again like that much more with the high school I think that's going to be like a great like transitional event like you know there's that vertical teaming and I also just like the plethora of like what you're offering to the kids after school um I think you know a lot of these kids struggle to find their place and their people so the

037more that you're offering it's great to meet them where they are so thank you very good I'm impressed with you know a lot of you know I heard the the comment out of the blacks thinking a number of times and that really means that you know we're trying something different versus a standard way uh just simple easy question how many students participate in your after school give or take and I'm not yeah approximately uh about 300 350 students participate in addition to that we do have students who take advantage of our online learning that runs from 2 3 to 4. because so we have staff that supports that thank you Neva with the transportation we over the past few years we know there wasn't enough Drive is still a lot for trembly so we were

038concerned administratively about how that would negatively impact but thankfully we still have a number of students who participate so the numbers didn't change all that drastically good good to hear thank you okay thank you thank you thank you very much just lastly um I was asked many years ago Mr Ross and I've been what since 2007 we have worked together in administrative capacity I stood in front of school committee members then I don't know if you were there Mr Nunes the previous principal that was high it chose not to take the position chairman of the school committee said we know Mr Dome will do what's right for the community and the students I didn't apply for the job and here I am 14 years later but my point being is I was asked if we

039were asked a few years ago what was our biggest strength as the Middle School and I had to give it some thought and then my biggest strength is that we're not complacent and that we are a very reflective practitioners when I say we it's not just us but it's our staff in general and I have no doubt that in the midst of Rossi's leadership and team that will they will continue to not be complacent to be reflective and to can at least strive to support students as well as staff and communities so that middle school is in very very good hands and I'm extremely proud of all four of them and having had the opportunity to work with a number of them for many many years so thank you you've left it in good hands

040yeah thank you thank you thank you [Applause] hi everyone we're uh two people because uh the rest of our team is uh I think fighting some high schoolers in volleyball right now as the National Honor Society uh there's a legendary high school team that is a teacher team that's competing so we have a bunch of our people on that team too so I have uh Richard chavier our associate principal here as well with me and everyone else is in the gym it's an excused absence yeah exactly I think they're having a lot of fun over there we have over 24 teams competing during this fundraiser so it's the most teams that we've had so far yeah good um I I want to Second a lot of what the Middle School staff said too I think

041we have a really great working relationship it started this summer at msaa where we kind of really bonded as as a two United schools and um we've worked a lot well um Rob perrotti is putting together a showcase day at the middle school just for the students and then we're putting working together as a showcase at the high school and we're going to talk about that in a little bit but I definitely want to Second what Sarah was saying on that is that it is a really nice partnership between the two schools um so we had a great year last year we really did um we were able to start to come back to normal and um we especially once we hit around March it really opened up and we were able to talk about

042that so Rachel's gonna uh they did a great job of introducing sense of belonging so we don't have to go through a whole Spiel on all of those they they did better than I could say it so um Rachel's gonna talk about sense of belonging well Dartmouth High I think is very strong with the sense of belonging we have so many things that go on with our band and with after-school programs but one of our greatest successes is our advisory which was created approximately four years ago and it really helped carry us through the pandemic and support our students and let them know that they were a caring sensitive adult in the building that wanted to connect with them um so the use of advisory to support students social emotional needs life skills instruction and

043digital citizenship the mission of the advisory program when we first created The Advisory program was to provide students with academic advisement and goal setting personal Wellness Community Building and at the end of last year we started discussing with our instructional technology specialist Jen Thomas excuse me digital citizenship which is very important where students can learn how to persevere how to put aside the technology when they need to to be successful so this year we've added that particular strand to the advisory and we also have re-established our advisory design team which we had before the pandemic and of course that became unhinged and now we have a very solid group of teachers from every content area and we meet to plan The Advisory so it's a village it takes the village to create thoughtful advisories for

044our students and our next goal which is a little moving forward is to get some student input so we can hear what they need in advisory and to capture their voice last year we were very happy to return to Traditional High School events it was discouraging not to have graduation and prom and after prom and we were able to do that and the Silver Lining was that we were able to implement the senior Sunset which I think we're going to do every year now the senior stroll where the seniors go back and they visit their elementary schools so those are two things that came out of the pandemic that we're very proud of also we have been recognized as a unified Banner school this is our second time to receive National Banner recognition and this

045work started last year and the year before um it's a Special Olympics unified Champion school has an inclusive School climate exudes a sense of collaboration engagement and respect for all members of the student body and the staff so we have some phenomenal coaches and teachers that have just done a great job in creating an inclusive unified program so once again it takes a village and we're very proud of our accomplishments I think we're seeing the definition if it takes a village over here thank you Renee um so when we talk about great appropriate instruction we're talking about that return to blend in personalized learning the district with the Highlander Institute prior to the pandemics invested a lot we had three cohorts go through training we really last year focused back into that Blended in personalized

046learning some of the pandemic taught us the tools that we had in front of us modeled that structure where you can do you can do breakout groups in one side on a computer with an ed puzzle activity and you can do a small small group in front of you and then you can do a third independent group so you have like that enriched sustain and push forward model so that really has been that really was a project that we took on last year and focused on and that was really impressive to see continue and teachers wanting to get really back to that we focused on applying the tools we learned over the pandemic with traditional and in in-person mythology methodology and the instruction with um Ed tools and again Jen Thomas has been a really

047strength on that and then the other big one is that we've continued our partnership with mass Insight through our sustainability agreement that was last year we're still working with them as an A La Carte model this year but in last year they really helped with our project lead the way in our AP programming so they have been a really strong support for us I was able to go to two days to training this summer we sent teachers to week-long trainings this summer they were a really big partner that we were really excited to work with and continue to work with today my turn for monitoring of understanding we last year had our annual end of the year curriculum Summit where Lee teachers work with members of their Department in documenting curriculum looking at the pacing

048looking at assessments moving away from traditional assessments looking more at project-based learning or assessments and getting more creative with authentic learning experiences also teachers shared best instructional practices and spent some time reflecting on what they needed to do for just in time supports for our students the use of common planning time which has been built into our new schedule which we've had for several years now has been very successful we have departments that work together to review benchmark assessments look at the the data discuss instructional strategies that work and may not work State assessment data and just looking at the pacing during this time teachers identify oh I already said that so we can move on every fall and think this is thanks to the district we administer the PSATs to all sophomores and juniors

049and the use of the PSAT data helps us to identify potential AP students students very often believe oh I can't do AP that's only for the smart students and that's not true if a student has a passion they can take that 1 AP course two AP courses to challenge themselves and prepare themselves for college the PSATs also prepare sophomores for the SATs and they need that practice and we also for the juniors this gives them National Merit Scholarship eligibility so we use that PSAT data that counselors meet with students they look at where their strengths and weaknesses lie and they offer them different opportunities and suggestions to help strengthen themselves as they move forward so where are we going um we really wanted to focus on we take that sense of belonging really important at

050Dartmouth High School we really focus on an increased involvement I think our students are probably secret me here saying um the school day ends it doesn't end at 203 for every Dartmouth High School student I've actually called a boss one time to say give me one day a month please for a student we have worked with the idea of that you need to be more than just a 203 student so in the fall we had 400 students over 400 students go out for athletics over 110 students for band we have 46 3 46 clubs and activities um Andy just gave me the numbers about two hours ago for athletics right now we have about 260 kids registered for winter Athletics and that's a decrease in number of sports so that's still at that particip participation

051rate per sports that we're really looking forward to and just one thing I want to jump in and note um during the pandemic when we were all home and virtual there were students that would email me and said Michelle I have an idea for a new club how about this and we kept a lot of our clubs and activities going when we went through the pandemic and to this day students are constantly bringing new ideas so it just makes me very proud and happy to be part of that because they need that extra support they need that connection and if students I mean research shows if students are involved in after-school activities they are more successful academically Mr Coogan says often give me 10 students I'll find you at advisor just give me 10 friends

052and I'll get you an advisor um we supported connection through outside presenters and we're still continuing to do that I want to plug minding your mind on December 7th that is a parent uh presentation at 6 30 um prior to that we have a um a a showcase night of our school that's going to go from 5 to 6 15 team so hopefully parents can then travel right into the auditorium see a wonderful presentation on mental health and Trauma and supports and you have survivors talking about their stories that um we really want the community to come out for this it's really important we did it back when I was at my other school we did it here for the opening um session for our staff and how many of our staff came up and

053said we need this for everyone so parents we're encouraging you please come out to that and we're going to continue that with speakers based off of student concerns and and that comes from again our student leaders in our building and our club leaders that really say hey we would like to hear something about this and with our schedule it really helps having that pace period where we can bring in presenters and support that we've targeted instruction and connecting relationships to the one Dartmouth motto We Are One Dartmouth High School We Are One Community we are one together we really spent our first three days on building relationships we did three days of advisory we haven't done that before and the whole purpose is is that every student needs someone connected to this building um and

054we've also increased a student recognition through displays announcements multimedia and in-class achievements we really want to push our students that do well and we want to con and push not just the students that always get the recognition but students across the board that are getting recognition and it's been a focus and we keep talking about that especially at our lead teachers uh grade appropriate instruction as a district district leadership team we have done some work with optic which is a platform that provides our administrative team with the opportunity to calibrate culturally responsive look fors and to identify aspects of great teaching practices aligned to each of the seven Focus elements of the teacher evaluation rubric so just putting on that particular lens as we observe different classrooms and teachers and evaluate our teachers kind of

055helps us as an administrative team to be in line in sync so we can support our teachers and to bring out the very best in them they're amazing they devote so much time and we just want to be there for them so they can be their best selves for our kids using student supports to help students create a clear learning pathway this work began a few years back and students continue to create Pathways with their counselors plan out what they want to do for the next four years so that way if they want AP courses not doing them all junior senior year the kind of peppering them throughout looking at what their strengths are what their passions are and helping them to plan accordingly so they're not in the last minute hustling and trying to

056get courses in so we're very proud of our counselors and support and our student support team that meets on a regular basis to support our students and provide interventions for them we have homework hangout our Pace period has been a phenomenal addition to our schedule and it allows students the choice of where they can go where they can receive the enrichment the extra help and supports that they need continuation of Blended and personalized learning with a focus on student achievement before the pandemic we partnered as Mr Shea had mentioned with Highlander Institute we trained two cohorts of teachers and from that point on we've really had a focus on Blended personalized and project-based learning when I go into classrooms I see teachers using Choice boards station rotation and I think that's important for so students

057can not only have the choice but they also are provided with authentic learning experiences which we have more work to do with that but this is you know we're moving forward we continue to capitalize on the two cohorts of teachers that we had trained in the past and we would like to move forward maybe with a third to kind of just provide support to all of our students and all of our teachers in moving forward with Blended personalized and project-based learning we continually revise our program of studies and our class options we've included Pathways of study which include Project Lead the Way advanced placement courses culminating um different experiences for students to ignite their passion this year we're adding pre-ap AP pre-calculus and also AP music theory to our cost offerings along with that we

058have a newly established business and Innovation and technology department we're very excited about the pathways that Mr perrotti has created for our students in that particular department and we we see great things ahead yeah um we're gonna present you guys that on December yeah so I gave you a little it's yeah it's not no no it's it's not something we want approval we want to be open about the changes that we are making and they're not massive changes but as we do change some morning we're going to show you guys that in December um when we talk about monitor understanding um feedback is one of the most efficient ways for for student learning and to gather student learning we are taking a massive focus on feedback our last faculty meeting focused on feedback we're going

059to continue to talk about what feedback means and how to effectively do that as a teacher I think it was one of the best tools I ever learned was to how I was giving feedback and that's when you get that paying for the Bucking the time and the effort and all of that so we're going to continue to do that um we're going to use the mtss and RTI models to support and identify students at risk we use that during um we actually have a spot and B planning that we're using it we're using some of our support staff really those tier two interventions so instead of jumping right up to tier three interventions we're really looking to see where we can support our students as as a quick intervention and a support getting back

060on track track and hopefully keep them in that like 85 percent of that triangle support model just a note about the feedback what's what's important not only for teachers to allow students the time to read their feedback and to learn from it but student reflection another emphasis that we we have this year is giving the time student to reflect on their learning to to show what they've learned to express what they're struggling with giving the students the time to do that as well as our teachers after their lessons to kind of debrief and talk about okay what went well what didn't go well and how could I do that better yeah reflection reflection reflection is I think one of the best things you can do as a as a teacher and a student as a

061learner um and then lastly it's that strategic use of that CPT time we're lucky that we have a significant amount of CPT time for our staff um and and it's an excellent to work on those data cycles and really to drive that student outcome learning we have a really strong Lead Teacher team and they're really focusing on using that time to make educational decisions and and supportive in that environment so um I want to thank you for your time we're really we're really happy about what we've got going on at Dartmouth High we've got a lot of options we're really focusing on building a building where students want to be every single day making that learning appropriate and just continue to make sure that we're doing what's right and that's been our Focus so far

062this year and building on that partnership with the middle school I think is really important we do the orientation in the summer and every year it gets better and better and we're just very excited because if we can create a solid transition with the Middle School our students will come and prepared and they'll they'll know it they need to do so do you have any questions okay this is what we'll start with you I just want to say the first thank you you know you're doing such a great job I think just uh coming in from this year I again no Mass just to return to normalcy just it just feels exciting to be here the kids seem real I mean just look at the gym I mean you're walking by like it's just uh

063so it feels great I think you guys are doing such a you know again you know third job of really trying to you know bring these students in and you know I I think there's like a new forensic spot I mean again all the different clubs that are out there and you know person I'm so excited to hear about AP music theory yeah since my son was asking about that so you know so lots of really exciting things and uh again lots of different avenues for different kids to find their place and their voice and their people so thank you thank you yeah thank you very much um you know again that sent that sense of belonging I I just really appreciate it I love uh Mr Shea when you talked about like the school

064day doesn't end about that 203 that's just that's you know poignant it really um struck me uh and so I thank you for that and I thank you for your receptiveness to my my input um in all of this and you know I I love I love to see um you know the all the students get um you know motivated to support like the unified you know be in our school award um but I wonder and I hope and I would um would probably bet the fact that you know your focus on increasing um participation in after school programs and that sort of thing that that that there's a focus you know I'm not sure there is on all students and I think about the pass and pal students and you know the you know

065the theme of Special Olympics Unified sports it's like we're more alike than different and you know all students have interests and strengths and um and this isn't a criticism at all it's just to kind of think a little bigger I think of a colleague of mine uh Dr Rossetti he um he's a sibling of a young man with disabilities and he talked about his brother Todd um and I may have shared this story over the years but you know his brother Todd was very popular in school he was a student with cerebral palsy and um you know everybody knew Todd but that didn't equate to getting asked out on a Friday night to you know to join the crew and and you know this can be said for all students and you know it resonates

066with me personally um and I'm always mindful of you know not not just leaving it being part of the high five Club you know we don't want our kids to be high-fived in the hallway and then not leave their four years of high school without a friend um and I know I trust that you have this in the back your mind because of your receptiveness and because of your background and because of what you know conversations that you know that I've been in with you and just not to forget all those students yeah we were talking with our unified team and when I got an opportunity to talk to them early in the season I said the most impactful presentation I've ever seen was in a small group a parent came into us and said

067how many of you all get a text message from your friend every kid raised their hand and the parent then said my son has never got a text message you know Reach Out be connected find a way to be connected and you know that always sticks with me you know who is not being heard who's the UN who's the students that yes I think the high five club might be the best way to describe that is yes you're a part of our school community community but again our Dartmouth High doesn't end at 203 it is almost eight o'clock at night and we have a full gym right now you know like every student should want to be a part of that every student should be connected to dharmouth High I don't matter about abilities or

068disabilities or who wherever you fall on that Spectrum you're you're you have a place here thank you thanks so I'll maybe give Dr give her a heart attack by saying you know if I had my druthers we wouldn't end at 203 but that's a conversation maybe for when Dr Gifford's like don't talk about school start times and time because that's a we won't bring that up right now I think it's great that we continue on but I love to see it not start at 7 30 in the morning at any rate um I just want to say I I like the idea of helping students find a clear path through their learning um you know we deal with this too that oftentimes they see their classes as a series of sort of check boxes that

069I have to check this and I have to check that and I have to check this and they don't they never get a sense of how that all comes together to put them on a path I also you know I think this was difficult during the pandemic and both of my kids really graduated during the pandemic but I'd really like to see us focus on um continuing to develop that sense of path beyond what happens when you leave Dartmouth High I think it was difficult to manage that during the pandemic because a lot of the stuff is done face to face in that you know Common planning time or the pace period that sort of stuff I'm in higher read I found the process of applying to colleges with my school somewhat baffling so I

070can't imagine what it's like for kids who don't have parents who are in the industry so to speak or who are not involved in that process and so I really like to see us to to to really focus on that building that clear learning path not just stopping it when you're done but where does that go and how do you do there and to give them the tools and the supports that they need to to take that next step whatever it may be and very often students they don't see like you said that the courses that they take in high school are preparing them for their experience After High School and we're trying to get them to think about what is your interest is it do you want to work when you graduate do you

071want to go to college what what are your interests would you like to enter the world of service so we're kind of having those conversations with them now and during advisories and presentations so they can connect those dots because very often they don't realize that until they're a junior a senior and they're like I wish I had done it differently so we're really trying to focus on that that's great and on that too um I I talk to students often too that we have an incredible offering in unified arts and in our bit program and to explore really who you are you know right now if I was to go take a photography class in the Bedford VOC I'm paying out of pocket right now Morgan Boswell throws me has an amazing teacher downstairs that

072has a full art full photo studio where you can develop film or do digital film you know it's we offer so much to find out who you are and what your interests are and we're really focusing on encouraging students to make those choices and really helping guide them to say what am I interested in maybe I'm not super interested in something and I might find out about that later on in life so again we're really working on that student and that whole student of where they are and where they are currently and where we want to see them go and what we can hopefully a future cost so we can take off their plates and they don't have to pay out outside later on today certainly paid off for us we went on vacation this

073year and my son who had taken the digital photography class took some amazing pictures everyone was like was that a professional photographer and I was like no he's trained at Dartmouth High yeah it really did wonders for him so thank you thank you thank you so I just see after this presentation a lot of growth potential I I think that it's always been here obviously covet knocked us down several steps um but I I stopped I'm starting to see it come back I'm thrilled to see that as a district we're really focusing on sense of belonging I said that I think at the last meeting when the the primary schools presented but it's just so important especially especially at the high school level when it sometimes things come to head or come to fruition you

074start to recognize a little bit more so I'm thrilled to see that and I'm thrilled to see that we're growing new Pathways I'm looking forward to that presentation because that's always been business technology that's always kind of knows um so no just a job well done uh presenting and just giving us uh giving the committee a a real um high level overview of of what this year is going to look like um and you know just I I love to hear you know everything that that's going on after school now and I know it was happening before um but just the fact that we're we're normal sick keep stressed and we're so lucky to have amazing people Ian with the band Andy with Athletics you know Graham has overseen you see OC in clubs activities

075which Rachel did before and I did that too we've got a lot of people that are in really good roles doing really great things so we're very lucky to have such a strong strong team around us that is really pushing our students to to be connected in in our essence of belonging you know what thank you for bringing that up Mr Shea because I couldn't agree with you more that we we certainly do have a large group of talented Professionals in this district and that does not go unnoticed yeah so thank you yeah we're lucky Dartmouth is a special place I I'm biased but I I love Dartmouth it's a special place there's a lot to offer the staff is incredible we have amazing students amazing students amazing staff you know there's so much great

076here yep thank you very much thank you thank you thank you very much Mr Shea Mr [Applause] it just occurred to me as you were talking about the unified Arts you know program because it is so amazing if there's any way I would love to see that showcase a little bit more like on this floor I just I feel like when you come in you don't we don't see enough of the art so the photography or those like samples except for like at the art show um where we see music you know some of the other comments it would just be great to see that more like centralized like you know in some in some oh absolutely and I appreciate that feedback thank you um I was going to say too one more thing please

077spread the word that our showcase night for 7th and 8th grade parents is that December 7th five o'clock we know it's starting a little earlier that's why we're trying to get the word out as soon as possible but we really want to tail it into the mind in your mind so we wanted to bookend everything together one night for families but really if you can spread the word get the word out it's going to be a great night we're going to have the school Dartmouth High is a special place you guys sometimes we see it in this time of the day when it's not as as exuberant because it's the end of the day but you felt it coming in today I our goal is the whole building will be bustling like that and have

078a lot of energy in it for everyone to see all the incredible offerings at Dharma Thai and we can compete with any other school I really believe it great thank you so much thank you thank you thank you good job okay okay uh that being said uh the chair will entertain a motion to approve the Dartmouth Middle School in Dartmouth High School uh 2022-2023 School Improvement plans so moved second moved by Miss wait second by Ms Amaral on the motion any discussion hearing none all in favor aye opposed motion carries unanimously thank you all right well we're behind the eight ball but that's all right it's been good stuff we'll take it anytime anytime okay uh old business superintendent search uh oh Mr Kylie you sent out those requests yeah Mike would you like me

079to share so I I prepared a request for quotes for a search consultant for the superintendent position issued that to three organizations that commonly do that here in the Commonwealth with a due date of November 30th which I thought would be Fair time and gave them two weeks to be able to prepare their proposal and then uh obviously for the next school committee meeting you'd be in a position to make a decision so as soon as as soon as we get the submissions back I'll uh sort of organize those for you and you know hopefully they stick to the format which is in my request for quotes is pretty clear as to what we're asking them to do and once they do that I'll provide that info to you and you can decide whether you

080would like them presents on the 12th um for questions or a presentation or whatever works for the for the committee at that time so thank you questions okay one or the other okay one of the other things that we are going to have to uh put the bed very quickly and by the next meeting have a decision is whether or not we want to try and get an interim superintendent in here I know we had some discussion on that the last time I gave you my two cents on it type of deal but we are going to have to uh take a look at that I know I gave you this looking for a leader from Mas that masc handed out at the at the conference and I went through it over the past week

081and there's some good stuff in there type of deal so you know take a look at that and and let's let's make a decision because we're going to have to move on this and the other thing we're going to have to think about is uh and on the superintendent on the actual search itself is the number on on the committee and how we want to break it up type type of deal you know you know administrative School committees you know faculty you know anybody outside that type of deal Dr Jenkins can we dig up what the search committee looked like last time I think that might be helpful to sort of informing us I mean I think it went pretty well last time and so there's no need to reinvent the wheel we can start

082yeah I'm not trying to reinvent no I know you're not but it's just if maybe I don't know if Kate or someone could dig that up and just sort of share it with us that might help us sort of think about um slime what that looked like and we could start from there as a discussion starter yeah we can do that that's no problem thank you thank you that's easy enough to do Mr newsc has a um document too that we can share with you about the decisions that you're going to need to make in that search process which I'm not sure the one that you have probably has some of that information in it but yeah um they also Jim Hardy just sent us a document um today okay that uh is sort of

083a decision-making timeline thoughts okay perfect thank you Chris uh in regards to the interim superintendent Mr chair I was just wondering if Mr Kiley had an opportunity to to think about this or um you know that what would be the next steps or I'm sure he's probably wondering or in whoever the interim might be is what is the expectation of the school committee for an interim whether it's Mr Kylie or someone else but I do agree that um you know I I think for the next meeting we should become prepared to have those conversations um that's kind of it's kind of where I'm at right now you want to answer you want to I'm happy to help in whatever way the committee you know sees best for the district so whatever in whatever role that

084is I'm happy to have you know happy to be a part of that so I've been a part of it before I thought it went pretty well last time so it's been a good uh it's been a good group and obviously we have a good team in place so yeah okay anything else with the superintendent search okay thank you everybody much appreciated uh excuse me new business Mr Kylie FY 24 budget timeline aren't we still in 23. I know this is the time November right where it starts to get confusing right so we're we're thinking ahead to 24 we're still looking back at 22. we have audits that haven't been completed yet we have um quite a quite a bit of work still to do on that end of things um in fact the town

085audit from fiscal year 21 just recently got completed so that was way behind schedule by the way but at any rate um uh you know where and we're living in fiscal year 23 right now so there's there's a lot of moving Parts this is sort of the first public part of the fiscal year 24 process uh is to take a look at the timeline and uh our goal would be that we do all our internal work which we're already working on um and be prepared to bring a some thoughts forward to a budget subcommittee meeting likely towards the end of January and then and then bring forward in February to the school committee a budget proposal for consideration Mr noonson and I had a brief discussion prior to the meeting about what uncertainty there's going

086to be out there at that time when we're ready in you know mid-February to make a budget proposal and we are not going to have anything to go on in terms of the state finances at that point the good news is I don't I don't see the state finances getting worse from an educational perspective for us so I also don't see them getting dramatically better so but at least they should be somewhat predictable um that the town side of government might be a little more volatile on the state on the state legislature side so we'll have to keep an eye on that and see what that looks like um but you know obviously there's uh there's a number of uncertainties that are going to be a part of this process along the way so we

087need to be planning ahead and flexible and thinking about the um you know the grants that are going to be going away certainly being cognizant of that um and obviously we're still in negotiations so um you know we have that out there that um you know hopefully we'll have resolved by February but by the time we you know we publicly present we also have things like school bus transportation bid that is going to be um that is that is going to be coming up and uh we'll have that in time for the for the budget proposal but it's going to be significant um another major factor is the is inflation and and how that is playing a role in our costs in terms of um a number of things but particularly the operational services division

088at the state issued a a rate of increase for a special ed outplace programs at 14 percent and we don't know how that's going to impact us whether the state's going to intercede and attempt to um you know decrease that number in some way to make it more manageable for us or provide additional assistance to us it'll be interesting to see how that how that plays out so this budget process would then you know once we have an opportunity to start talking about it with you folks in February you know it'll be an interesting one from there moving through the town process and they have a new um you know they will have new Finance leadership over there too which might make it interesting so it's a lot to a lot to think about in

089this one a lot going on Shannon so can you remind me um where we stand with us our funding does it does it bring us all the way through fiscal year 24 or do we hit the cliff during fiscal year 24. we hit the cliff during fiscal 25 25 okay so um it is available into fiscal 25. okay at this point and they haven't there's there's been discussion about extending that because there has been some concern about spending the money at the federal level and at the states the different states levels but um but they have not done that and I don't think they're going to I think September 30th of 2024 is going to be the end of the use of that so it's a precarious position from a budget perspective we've been talking

090a lot about it on our side so it was Emerald I'm just thinking about um you know that s or cliff and then also considering you know you said you don't foresee or I would agree with you in terms of like the educational side of it in terms of legislative sort of support like lack a better word but then I think of SOA and which is incredibly important you know education equity and all that in the formula but remembering that we were held harmless right and and we're seen as a town that doesn't um contribute tax wise as much as we're perceived to not contribute as much as we could therefore don't get the support that we could if we did and so do you sort of worry or any any talks or or what

091are you hearing around that implication are we going to be held harmless we will be held harmless okay and I'm I'm pretty certain that that will not be you know that we won't be in Jeopardy of of that happening but we also won't be benefiting so um you know through that SOA process but it'll be interesting to see you know the the question one passed in the Massachusetts ballot so it'll be interesting to see how those funds are allocated too so I have a feeling it won't be to us but yeah you never know maybe maybe it will we certainly will have an opportunity to lobby for that with our legislators excuse me Mr Oliver thank you Mr chair uh just a quick question uh actually more of a request hoping that um my colleague

092Dr Jenkins and I can uh fit in here somewhere a budget subcommittee meeting I'd like to I'd personally like to hear a little bit more about the answer positions what are we doing you know as far as uh new positions um attrition all that some I'm thinking somewhere in between the individual meetings with principals and directors The Proposal review and then um between the the 13th and the 26th of January somewhere in that one that was kind of what I'm thinking this way you've had the opportunity to meet with everyone that's fine right right now the budget timeline shows a budget subcommittee meeting on February 6th but it's not to say we couldn't do it a little earlier than that I kind of like I would kind of like to have a little a little

093more involvement in in this I think is where I'm coming from I don't wonder if whether we're thinking about maybe because that February 6th meeting it looks like we're meeting with the principals and I don't wonder whether the meeting you're talking about is us with the administration it is so two meetings instead of one yeah we could do one towards um even our second half of January I think would be a good time for that we would have already uh you know we would be well on our way to developing what is you know the draft budget at that point so great that'll be fine okay any you don't need a motion on this Jim this is this is just an FYI correct correct yeah any other any other questions and again I would think

094that this also was a fluid document yes it always changes I don't think I've ever done one that didn't change I don't think so either um but in all my years we'll be flexible like New England weather wait five minutes it'll change okay group is the superintendent update okay gave you some information that was on my list but just to go over a few more the Middle School actually all of the schools have been doing some fundraisers where they continue to support needy families throughout the holidays so I ran in Middle School in Quinn last week they were doing a couple of fundraises with hat day and all of that so that goes on throughout the district all the time parent conferences for Middle School is right around the corner I know they were sending

095out information on that and Mr Doane he did mention today but he also called me today and had me mention asked that I mentioned that the uh the after school clubs really had a lot of participation they were very happy about that um Quinn had their big name revealed today for the lion so that was Leo oh miss Thomas sent me some good pictures so we'll get those up and the district was able to get from Desi they passed out more covid tests so we had them picked up last week we put them in all of the schools for all of the staff to take home a couple and they're going to be sent home to parents I believe tomorrow the schools were passing those out to the kids again it's just voluntary they were

096free so we took took advantage of that um as Mr Shea mentioned once again that we are having the minding your mind two two dates for that and one will be at the middle school and one at the high school but I just want to make a note that the one at the high school in the evening is for any parent it's not just High School parents any parent in the district that wants to attend that as you know Matilda is coming up the play so that's December one and two and three so you should have information on that um Thanksgiving game of course is going to be it for a Haven at 10 o'clock on Thursday and I did want to mention also Mr perrotti was once again doing crazy things but um on

097December 10th he's hooking up with DCTV and they're doing a live Telethon from Target from the target where they have the fill the bus with the police department so um we have I have here two senior students Hannah Lima and Ryan Aruda will be hosting that so I'm sure you'll be able to stop by and bring your toy for um for that event so he said it's the first time they're doing it and we'll see where it goes so what does it do for that again uh that's December 10th and it's from 10 to 2. thank you okay that's all I have beautiful thank you uh a couple of things uh Dr give a talk about Matilda so that's good uh congratulations to our unified basketball Unified sports teams on the banner that they received

098uh week and a half ago the day before November 10th the day before Thanksgiving uh the Veterans Day I should say I was fortunate enough to be here and boy what a great time to see these young men and ladies uh participating and the students that helped them out there it is uh just wonderful to uh to see these students and the smiles on their face and the students in the the high school students you know they had all the students and and you know cheering them on was just just wonderful to see uh I went to sports teams that were going to kick off uh Monday after right after Thanksgiving to move from one end to another so good luck to them and last but certainly not least congratulations to uh girls volleyball team

099for their semi-final run this past year they lost to Westborough last Friday night but they had a heck of a season and my hat's off to them and again to their coach Rachel Lassie for being uh coach you know into the Hall of Fame so congratulations to her you know it's Miss Wade yeah so the only other business I had is um as you may well know Heidi Brooks was our um is oh is our excuse me school committee rep along with me on the charter Review Committee and just a few things have come up so I just wanted to and I I did send that on I apologize for like the lateness but just I just wanted to gather like opinions since we are your you know Representatives um should I read like that

100okay so one actually uh and again in this group the charter review actually um reflects whether or not there's a proposed change in the current reading in the current language So currently the language says and it's about coordination between um really like multiple member elected committees as well as a select board so it says notwithstanding and I'm going to skim down notwithstanding their election by the voters for the purpose of coordinating the work of all Town agencies the town officials named in this section shall be subject to the call of the select board or of the Town Administrator at all reasonable times for consultation conference and discussion on any matter relating to the respective offices or multiple member bodies now at one point there's a part talk that that we would accept the school committee

101I don't know where do we land again hiding on that it was that something we were still coming and I'm sorry um yes at the charter committee we're going back and forth does the school committee belong as a part of a multiple member body should I get up through the town I think your primary or um are they exempt and one of the things we talked about is the school committee has always worked with the select board and the other boards finance committee when you need to or the Board of Health so we felt that you were already doing it but do we need to have it formalized in the charter so it is currently it again the question is do multiple member bodies like again they were accepting school committee at one point so

102again does that I think that was the question too like are we like referring to multiple member bodies with the exception of school committees or are we removing that exception I think somewhere else we're removing it so we were and Heidi is also the chair of the charter review Community that's right I thank Mr Oliver for suggesting um me to the committee now two years ago I know our terms were supposedly up in September yes I also got that so I need to look at that but we are really being quite thorough yes and um what has come about is is the charter does the charter reflect how we're doing business or should the charter reflect how we're doing business and that's the struggle that we're having now what does it mean it was what

103we're looking at was written in um 2010 and I mean our first struggle was everything was still taught uh putting you know being posted on a bulletin board you know paper and Thumbtack as opposed to you know we're trying to incorporate what does it look like in this digital media world but we do want to make sure that in the charter that we reflect um the work of the school committee and the work of the school committee working with other boards yes Shannon so I'll just know it I mean I think we had a little bit of this conversation last time about this allows the select board to call the school committee into a meeting but it doesn't allow the school committee to call the select board into the meeting it allows the select board

104to dictate the terms of the agenda so oftentimes we go to meetings where the agenda is not entirely relevant to us and so I'd like to see the charter reflecting the select board and the school committee is co-equal branches of government and giving us the authority as well to to call the select board and to meeting with us on occasion where we set the agenda and the things that that we may perhaps want to talk about with the select board and that was my feedback and the committee as well I mean my two my two senses you know usually you know we know for a fact that most of the time we're gonna have two meetings a year with the uh the select board and the finance committee and as I've said before sometimes no

105disrespect ID it's you know not beneficial to us because whatever the board and the finance committee wish to do uh you know you put those two groups together we're outnumbered so you can say it's black we can say it's white and we're going to lose type of type of deal so that's the problem that I have sometimes is that you know whatever you want to talk about has probably already been talked about and discussed we don't get the information until that night so we're Flying Blind that's been fast practice so maybe things will change maybe things will change so but that's my two cents Chris yeah so under the authority of the child Review Committee I don't know if it's possible but I do agree that I think it is important that the school committee

106has a mechanism to invite the select board into a joint meeting with us where where we set the agenda I do agree with that because there are certainly been some times throughout my tenure here that that would have been very helpful instead of sitting through a lot of back and forth on topics that really don't pertain to us yeah yeah yeah just like the conversations I mean what some of the language they actually for me like actually was a little concerning was Shelby subject to the call because again I think it put us in a um subservant role like a bit you know and again I and again to your point like I think you know we shouldn't be expected to work together but again subject to the call was you know something I I

107felt you know stood out for me and then again the question is it says of the select board or the Town Administrator which is another I think we were talking about taking removing Town Administrator from that statement um but again I that was why I wanted to bring it you know it could be the Town Administrator at the request of the board of Selectmen too so right if you through if you threw that and it might not be too bad because the Town Administrator works with a board of Selectmen but I do agree with you you know I mean if we know far enough in advance we you know if you had sat here and said if the selectman said hey we want you guys here tonight we've got a packed agenda you know and

108we both meet on Monday nights and we both meet on Monday nights and sorry that doesn't work you know so all right so I think we so clearly we need to revisit that and then you know if we can you know and again we are anyway but I just want to yeah no thank you we need to speak and then you know so we'll revisit that work on the language if if that works for you Heidi and then um you know I mean if there's other language that we come up with maybe at our next meeting we can address that and then I will bring it to the Charter review and then the other issue is the mode of election and um you know again this came up in our last meeting so there was

109a lot of discussion around the fact that whereas no select board you have someone running for a particular seat that's not the case in the school committee and if we have two seats up for election it's and we have three people running it's the two people who have the highest majority of course like when those two seats um so the conversation was about you know should we change the mode of election for the school committee to be in line with the select board and other groups so that you would run for a particular seat and that formula of you know how they'll be done like c one two two so if there were two seats that were you know up for you know election and uh you know and I was running against John John

110could be the non-contested seat and someone would run against me so that that was the other question about whether or not that's something that we should go through as a change now that would be a change so just to clarify real quick the first piece right now is the current language okay so we'd have to adjust that to be more reflective of what we think the second piece is a proposal for a change from the current Dr Jenkins so I'm a political Scientist by training and political scientists have things to say about modes of Elections and particularly multi-member districts which is essentially what we're talking about versus single member districts so I went today when I got this and I dug up some of the research and there's there's some mixed findings but essentially multi-member

111districts increase the diversity of the representatives who are elected to government generally speaking it's positive for electing women women are more likely to be elected to office in multi-member districts it's a little bit more mixed for candidates of color but multi-member districts single member districts have advantages for candidates of color Over multi-member Districts when minority voters are geographically concentrated so when you have a majority majority minority District those and those sorts of districts will be more likely to align candidates of color we do not have sort of a geographic concentration of minority voters in Dartmouth so at best I would say that that multi-member districts are Awash for the representation of minorities and the research is pretty clear that it's positive for the election of women I just want to put that out there for

112you because there has been a lot a lot a lot of scholarly research about this question I'm happy to come talk to you all about that if you wanted some meeting but this is not sort of just opinion this is let's look at when we make changes from multi-member to single member or back and forth or let's compare electoral systems like in some State legislatures there are multi-member districts some that are single member districts we can compare and so it's pretty clear that multi-member districts leads to to the increase in diversity of of people who win elections so I would say I'm a fan of it I think multi-member districts are good so I would be opposed to changing that okay anybody else I'll give you I need some time I need some time to

113do some research my my thought on it is leave it as it is because other than that you know if you put if there are two of us running all right it's two two and one type of deal so the one possibly can have somebody more than one running for that position for those of us that are two and two type of deal he's got a personal opinion you stand on your merits okay it's not a popularity contest and such or somebody that's been here a long time or a newbie or anything of that nature I think what it is is somebody that has to stand on their merits so to leave it the way it is and we all run we're all equal it's perfect we'll take that information back to the committee the

114committee then makes a decision about which warding they're going to go forth but the process is not done at this committee we then need to present it to town meeting it then goes to Boston to the legislation review and then may or may not be able to be going to uh a full-time election on these changes so and just you know when I was thinking about this too is that if my memory is any good it's the select board and does uh the only ones that have staggered terms per se of more than a possibility of more than one person running for re-election you bought a health your planning board you know Parks and Recreation Library Etc you know I believe they're all separate you know one at a time because of the length of

115terms my memory is any good some five member boards serve five years some five-member boys serve three and those are the boards that we're looking at right we're also looking at the number of boards should boards continue to be appointed I mean elected or appointed and that is not something that we're looking at at school committee school committee by stature is an electrical position thank you Mrs Brooks appreciate you very welcome yes thank you for all your time thank you so much I would you know it might be helpful I mean it would be very helpful I think to have her you know perspective again just as coming in as political science because we've been looking for you know at the research for some other pieces too and I'll send you if you don't mind

116I'd like to send you a few questions because again we're struggling with some other you know components of mem like the amount of um people in town meeting you know membership so thank you thanks a favorably all right that being said anything else from the new business okay our next meeting I had sent everyone an email uh regarding uh our next meeting on December 12th if we could start at 5 or 5 30 because I've got my grandson's holiday concert which only which is here but it works for me at seven o'clock does it work there's fine with me five o'clock work for you Chris I know you're coming from born uh yeah that should be okay five o'clock okay so let's do five o'clock boyfriend I thank you very much thank you all right

117so our next meeting is going to be December 12th at 5 p.m I know we have school choice on the die cut that night so in Capital Improvements in capital Improvement look at that huh money we don't have and hopefully the town does very good can we put a new school or a new roof a new roof wouldn't be bad what's that night too yeah okay that's fine very good all right so our next meeting is December 12th at 5 p.m uh with that the chair we'll entertain a motion to endure into executive session uh for an update pertaining to collective bargaining with Union personnel and to discuss potential litigation so moved moved by Mr Oliver's second by Miss weight on the motion any discussion hearing then roll call vote please miss Gunther John news

118yes yes [Music] yes yes thank you very much everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving and be safe [Music]