001foreign [Music] foreign [Music] good evening everyone I'd like to call the school committee meeting to get to water for July 25th 2022 please stand and salute the flag under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you just a reminder to uh if you have any cell phones or electronic devices if you would put them on silent vibrate shut them off it would be appreciated uh just also want to let you know that this meeting is being broadcast by our Dartmouth High School media and it is a live stream and it's also available during the week on both channel nine and channel 18 and we appreciate everything that they do for us roll call please miss Gunther John Nunes yep Mary Waite here Kathleen Amaral yeah Chris Oliver Mr Oliver unfortunately is on his
002way home and stuck in traffic so safe travels my friend okay uh first order of business uh We've allotted uh 10 minutes for uh any of the items that are on the agenda tonight if anybody wishes to speak don't all speak okay that takes care of that all right next order of business will be the regular session minutes of June 27 2022. oh I wasn't here so I'm not gonna move them hello so moved moved by Miss Amaral thank you second by Miss Wade on the motion any discussion share hearing that all in favor opposed extensions Dr Jenkins will have sent abstain and the executive session minutes for the same date yeah with the usual stipulation that they be held until matters for which they were intended is complete okay I'll second that and Miss
003Amaral will second them on a motion any discussion Chia hearing none all in favor aye opposed Mr Miss Dr Jenkins will abstain thank you all right old business superintendents uh before we do that before we do that my colleagues will indulge me for a second uh I'm just going to as I talked to Dr Gifford today I did say I was going to embarrass her and she said please not much but I'm going to anyway uh I just in all services want to congratulate our superintendent Dr Bonnie Gifford who was on it a couple of weeks ago by the Massachusetts Association of school superintendents which awarded her the Christus doulas award at their annual summer conference and uh recognizes one superintendent each year for making a difference in the lives of students particularly by using
004effective communication within their roles as a superintendent and as you go on and read the article uh it's it's interesting because Dr Gifford is saying you know she was on a committee that was Voting and everything else and everybody else voted for her so she kind of got Bamboozled and blindsided so you know which is which is good but in all seriousness doc congratulations well deserved congratulations thank you appreciate that thank you to my committee members for allowing me to indulge in that and thank you thank you thank you so uh old business uh superintendent's evaluation presentation committee comments now we did have uh a wonderful presentation at a last meeting uh by Dr Gifford and uh such and we're going to uh you know just continue if there are any questions for Doc to
005give it as such uh uh we had talked about of course Miss Amaral and I have the privilege of putting all of this stuff together and such uh in as I'm looking at at my schedule I'm going to be perfectly honest with you I think it's going to be September it's fine because August is August just blew up on me so it's like next week it's like next week yeah the next yeah but you know by the next meeting is not going to work so I did we can do that in September I did just put I The Forum just the basic form that you all used before uploaded that like last week into the drive so yeah yeah if you had that oh that's that's fine but I I don't know if there are
006any uh comments or any anything any other discussions Dr Jenkins I know you weren't here type of deal if anything you need to be brought up today technically everything is is available on the magic internet so I can get the documents and the presentation the only question I have so timing when do you want I mean as we've done in the past we've filled it out and then provided it to whoever is doing that do we want to do we have deadlines for that have we established that already we haven't we haven't established that I mean we've got a meeting August 22nd so I mean at that point in time we'll uh we'll come up with a a final deadline okay so that we can uh Miss Amaral and I can you know can meet
007and put everything together then meet with Dr Gifford and you know shoot for I think it's a September 11th meeting that we have so to work at that so we don't you know no disrespect we don't need to beat ourselves up at this point in time to do that if that's good with everybody okay very good okay that takes care of that other old business Mr Kiley welcome back update on maintenance projects thank you so uh it's been been a busy summer so far and working through the heat I think has been particularly challenging for our maintenance team but they've gotten a lot done already the things that we've made the most Headway on so far are the HVAC upgrades that we're continuing to make on the um on the control systems in the buildings
008big project where pretty well through most of it with the exception of the high school which was going to be is going to be what we're tackling next we are doing if you happen to drive by uh Town Town Hall go around the back of town hall you'll see that there's a big opening in the wall at the middle school we're replacing the freezer and the cooler there as part of some food service upgrades that I had mentioned previously so that's going very well and we're going to be on track for for the completion of those projects we're also going to be hopefully this week or early next week tearing up the parking lot in between the old and new building at the potter school so to the right of the main entrance and there's
009an underground storage tank that we're going to be removing when we used to heat with oil and then we'll be Paving that area which needed to happen anyway that was on our Paving list it's a real mess so we figured while we're doing that we'll take care of the underground storage tank so you'll see that coming up we're also working very hard on the grease trap replacement which is way more complicated than I even I knew how it was going to work but I didn't know that in spots we had 19 inches of concrete on top of these these old metal grease traps and it's really just it's quite a task and a lot of it is hand work by people and it's um so we're getting a lot done though the other thing that's
010happening is the stadium storage building we have the foundation in so that's good progress we'll be moving forward with that as soon as we can from there we had received a request from one of the members of the select board to pull together a meeting of the committee that hasn't met since pre-covered that um had been working on the stadium Renovations so that had been your representative had been Mr Oliver to that group um so I assume that we're going to continue in that direction unless you folks tell me something differently uh Mr tattlebaum Mr Mickelson were representing the select board I think intend to continue Mr McGinnis was involved and Miss ham was was also part of that so she would certainly invite her and basically they just want to have a discussion about
011moving that project forward and what that would look like as as a as you know the bid that you know we we received for that the low bid that we received for that project was really out of this world that you know almost six and a half million dollars so that that isn't viable but I think I think there's still an interest to hopefully accomplish that project at some point so I think that that's that's the the motive for the discussion anyway which is certainly worthwhile having um so I'll be pulling that together in the next couple of weeks for that and that's uh those are the the big items there's lots of smaller items that we're working unlike the library here which is now entirely freshly painted in a light gray which is going
012to match the new furniture and and new rug and everything when when we get to renovate this which will actually be completed during the school year perfect have you been able to do the tennis courts so um I I was speaking so I I met with Mr McGinnis today about um about um several things and one of the things that they that he is talking to the select board about is the um if so it's it this is in relation to the tennis courts in case people didn't hear so um he is so that was slated to come out of um ARP funds so I think he was seeking clarification from the select board as to the allocation of those funds so I think it's going to be on track from what I understand so
013it looks like it will be and um so then we will move forward as soon as we have a source of funds to do so so yeah that would be nice that's on our plan we have a lot on our plan still but we have you know we're doing pretty well considering good yeah that's excellent any other questions Kathleen Dr Jenkins so related to uh you had several improvements related to cafeterias grease traps freezer um you know the state just in the budget put forward the proposal to make meals free for to continue that what impact will that have on our budget and our operations did we plan for that are we going to have to change things are we gonna have to Pivot on that it's great for us so um you know it's
014great for the kids number one most importantly um and families and and supporting everyone I was surprised but um you know very pleasantly surprised uh by by the move um by the state legislature so they do deserve a lot of credit for that um it's going to be a positive result in terms of the the cash flow into the cafeteria program for the year now it's a temporary result um and it's not something that will you know support us beyond that unless unless you know the legislature State Legislature or the feds decide to act on it down the road but from a temporary basis it'll have a significant um significant financial impact which is why we're targeting things like replacing these long-term assets like freezers and coolers that have been in place since the schools
015since those sections of the schools were were constructed so in a lot of cases you're talking about 50 years 50-year old equipment or more in some cases so it's been nice that we're able to address that with this but we also have to consider you know operational costs and looking at things like Staffing and immediate needs in those areas are a little more complicated to address with these funds because they are sort of one-time funds unless we have some indication otherwise which we have none at this point so can I also ask in terms of operations and I'm not sure the extent to which this was a pandemic thing or a free thing if I remember correctly I get some feedback from my kids about limited options in the high school cafeteria in part because
016right when you're giving everyone free you can't have five selections some things are more expensive than others um I don't think I think it's safe to say that wasn't entirely popular with the kids so I'm just that's I'm sort of interested in how this is is there going to be like one free option and then kids can select something else are we going to continue with limited choices how is this going to impact the sorts of choices that are available and that's particularly I think at the high school where they have the sort of the most choices for lunch yeah I you're right it certainly impacts this building more than the others but it does have an impact everywhere and and to be honest I I don't have a solution as to how we can
017avoid having some impact there um it's just I mean we've been producing more meal well first of all with essentially the same staff we have produced a significant amount more meals than ever before which is kudos to the staff but um I don't really see a solution given the logistics of our kitchens and Staffing that we can provide some level of service where you know there's lots of choices for everyone given that we have to be able to serve everyone so it's it does have that impact that's true I'm fine I just was curious I was curious about that because I think that was places their last few years of high school yeah we still always want that feedback and and I know um you know Gene Sheridan our director of nutrition is always open
018to ideas and feedback and you know actively involved and and you know trying to provide the best um the best options possible but but there is some realistic you know limitations because of this for sure and correct me if I'm wrong but that goes back to some students not being able to get doubles at lunches that yeah because of the fact that there's a limited amount to what they can I think we also had some we're Str we we didn't have as many choices yeah true right because because you're serving so much more you can only you can only find so much you can handle in terms of variety you only cook so much in in one in one setting type of deal that's true yeah that's good okay anybody else anything else on maintenance
019and such thank you Mr Kylie new business South Coast educational collaborative motion and vote on a capital reserve fund Dr Gifford sure so at our last board meeting uh obviously this was brought to us um the executive board and it was passed unanimously for us to bring it to our respective School committees and as you can see the collaborative wants to set up a reserve fund for those kinds of projects such as what we just discussed so this uh the initial deposit was 25 will be twenty five thousand dollars which was in the budget plan for this year next year and would require two-thirds of the District member districts vote a positive vote so we bring it to our school committees for that vote questions comments okay I will let my committee members know that
020I'm going to be voting no on this uh personal preference to sit here and set a capital reserve balance for three million dollars in my opinion and this is just me is a little out of the ordinary I mean if you know 25 000 a year they'll never get there number one in in all services and number two to to have a a capital reserve of of that amount uh just again to me does does not make sense I mean I don't know what they have in what their opeb liability is or anything of that nature uh but you know that it may be better yeah like everybody else uh you know they they may be better off also putting you know some money towards that so uh I as one person I'm going to
021vote no just so you guys are aware Dr Jenkins so create this fund right can you walk me through talk a little bit about how decisions are made to say we get up to five hundred thousand dollars in this what what are the how are decisions made to expand from this Capital fund I'm just there's you know pretty extensive checks and balances on the expenditures of capital funds here on the town side um what sorts of procedures would there be for the collaboration come before the board which is all superintendents and whatever project there is but as Mr so it's only it only requires a vote of the superintendents once it doesn't have to come before the Committees once that is established right it would be it would be that board yeah I mean yeah
022I I don't have I don't necessarily have a problem with establishing a fund to um to you know to save him for a rainy day in case we need to do these things but you know one of our responsibilities as a fiduciary of this district and I I just have concerns that um that substantial outlays of essentially you know schools money um would be expended without sort of some checks and balances when we approve you know capital projects it's got to go to the capital committee and then it's got to be approved by the like the finance committee and then town meeting right there is a process that puts checks and balances on those expenditures and for me personally I think that's good right I think having multiple layers of review is good so I
023I will say that as proposed I have some issues with this I don't have issues with the concept but I think there needs to be greater checks and balances on the expenditure of that I don't have a problem with with the like I don't have a problem with the concept of the my my concern is I want to put three million you know up to three million dollars in into this fund and that's where we both have concerns they're closely related but not the same not the same I mean if they wanted to have to have a capital fund is fine I have you know because you're gonna you know as you read you know for for what it is and if they've got to have money to buy Vans and things of that nature
024I'm good with that I totally understand type of deal but to just say I'm I want to have three million you know up to three million dollars in a capital reserve fund uh you know doesn't quite no disrespect doesn't quite sit well with me in in this in this area type of deal I'm open to being changed my opinion being changed but at this point in time I'm not I'm not there I guess I would just follow up to say again you know my reasoning is a little bit different right yeah but I'm not ready to support this at this point in time I think it needs to go back to the drawing board to create those checks and balances on those expenditures if and I'm just give this is feedback to Dr Gifford with
025some greater checks and balances I I could be convinced Mr Nunes maybe not but I think I could be brought on board if we have a process to ensure right maybe you have the district's vote over a certain amount but there needs to be some check on the expenditure of large amounts of money I mean I I share this so I don't know what their schedule is or what uh Miss Pendergrass or Mr heinbecker's schedule is but you know are they available to come to meet with us to explain I'd have to speak yeah yeah if you if you check with them and and that type of deal so how about if we don't we just table this for now okay and we can get more information get more information for us that would that
026would be fine I appreciate that but that will uh that's fine rather than a flat out no or a Thai vote which would be a no I'm good just good at that it's fine okay all right so that that's fine thank you ma'am how about that huh it's one of my God wait ahead okay superintendent's update okay I gotta get myself together here that came too fast okay so a couple of things um actually I'll first I'm going to ask Jim to report on the parent app that we have and then I have a couple other things thanks Dr Gifford so we have an exciting development in our transportation department we have rolled out a parent app um that amongst other things uh provides the GPS location of your students bus and can send push
027notifications so that a parent will know when the bus is about to arrive at the stop so you can you can has some variable settings so you could say you want a um you want an alert about five minutes before you know your uh the bus is going to arrive at the stop that way um that way you know students can get out there don't miss the bus um very useful it also yeah it's it's going to be nice and it also allows us to send notifications uh to parents a little bit easier relating to specific buses so if there's for example a maintenance issue or a traffic issue or a weather issue that's holding up a specific bus it'll allow us to send push notifications to parents so you know obviously when parents are
028out waiting for the bus they're probably not looking at an email or you know and and for us to be calling everyone is difficult in some in some situations so for us to be able to push out those notifications quickly like that is going to be a real benefit for us and I think improve our communication with parents there's other added benefits to this in that we are going to have all this information that we haven't had before and the schools are going to have it at their fingertips we we have very good communication right now in our transportation system but um this is really just only going to enhance that and improve it so we're really excited about this it's been quite a bit of work getting it up and running uh and but
029we're going to be ready to go for the start of school it's free for parents and Care Group caregivers so everybody can just log on we've already had we sent out the email to parents and caregivers on Friday the 15th we have more than 700 people already signed up which is pretty good considering we're nowhere near the start of school parents can request Transportation changes through this as well so uh you know that's an another added uh piece of it um there's in addition to the email that that we provided the letter that we provided to all the parents which had a QR code which was you know easily scanned and and we'll take you right to the app we also have information on our website about it so that's all there and it's on
030our website dartmouth.school under the transportation tab there's a little bus at the top right hand corner click on that it's right on that page so we're hoping to get as many people as possible signed up and I think it's going to be a great tool good great Dr Jenkins so this is fabulous I just want to say thank you um I do have one question though and this is was a recurring issue I'm not sure if anybody the first week of school tends to be a little bit chaotic in terms of I know like a lot of times our bus was like 15 minutes early on the first day of school um hopefully the app will help with that but can we also ask our bus drivers like if you show up 15 minutes early
031and no one's at the bus stop wait till the time that's posted on the schedule and then maybe we can make adjustments based on what we learned for this app I know the times are a guesstimate but it happened to us a couple first weeks to school where our bus was really really really early and you know the bus drive would stop open the door and we'd be running up the street way so I think that might be helpful if we could you know ask them on that first week of school to wait you know wait until the posted time because people may be you know using that to hopefully this will help avoid that you'll see the bus is coming but yeah and not only in the way that um that 15 minutes early
032that's the thing right right there no it'll definitely help in a number of ways you know obviously the parent can see where the bus is student can see where the bus is by the way we can you know obviously you know high school students and maybe some middle school students uh you know may find that to be um you know a nice feature but it also will help us to identify these issues because right now we have to go through a communication process to figure out how this all works right and now we will know 20 phone calls we don't know exactly whether the bus you know was 15 minutes early or it wasn't um so it's it's going to be a lot of data uh but I think very helpful you know solving problems
033and making other making our system more efficient awesome thank you yeah Kathleen uh I I may have been one of the first ones to sign up it was very user friendly that was my uh my experience it seemed very straightforward clear easy to understand codes there right away boom you're on I did have one question that um this came to mind is uh does will this also have the capacity so I received it for my indistrict child and I have a child who's out of district and I am in great communication I love Tremblay bus my son has iPads with GPS and I know exactly when he's why he's going around button you know where he is and so that's helpful but if his iPad dies it will will is there capacity to also add
034on or and maybe I missed it students who are out of District who are taking um trembly yeah we're current we're currently working on attempting to get it on all vehicles um there's some complications because the the the the GPS units the the equipment we're actually using is designed for the regular school bus and not not you know bands um but we are working on that our hope is to have all School transportation vehicles have have it on it and um yeah I can't see I don't see that as you know being a problem it's it's something we need to solve but I think it's solvable for sure so yeah it'll be great it's it's going to be good nice I think it's great I think it's going to be tremendously helpful for the individual
035secretaries too who get those calls like day in day out saying like the bus is five minutes late and all that so I'm hoping it will ease the burden you know on the staff as well so I think it'll be cool so yeah are they including yourself and Lauren yeah okay question quick question that I have is is there a can like if grandparents are picking students up at bus stops now are they able to yeah it could be caregivers yeah that can set it up so that um multiple people can you know have access to it yeah you know whoever's caring for the child to you beautiful okay good thank you sir all the things we have going on we just received notice that we received another seventy two thousand dollar grant for the
036acceleration Academy like we did last year so we actually posted today for the coordinators for that and the teachers and that will be running the week of August 15th it'll be a for K-2 literacy and then entering a rising two through four with math and eight through ten with math so I'll be a one-week program this this year so 72 000 so that was good and um I also have we've been meeting we actually met today to really form our agenda for our August 4th uh administrative Retreat so some of the things I know we want to talk about the allergy policies and practices as well as updated Safety and Security Etc so when we have the August 4th Retreat we'll we'll get some information and what progress we've made and I'll be able to
037report back in our August meeting on that some of the other things we obviously will be embarking on another update to our strategic plan because with covet and everything that kind of is outdated if you will I mean we we obviously last year we used the acceleration roadmap from Desi to guide what the school Improvement plans were with the fostering relationships monitoring student understanding Etc so we'll be using those priorities continuing and just enhance and develop new and updated action plans and action steps with with those priorities in mind but I did want to just mention a couple of the things that we already have in place with our allergy and and protocols and policies if you will and then obviously after the August 4th meeting we can open that up for discussion and see
038what else we need to do but just some of the things as you probably know you've probably looked we do have a policy that is existing uh whether the committee wants to take a look at that that will be up for discussion but right now it just says you know that food in the classrooms is strongly encouraged not to be had like for celebrations Etc and if it is if people bring it in principles and other items should know about that especially our nursing department we do have the nurses you know work with our staff as far as the epipens and all of that there's medical emergency plans put in place for students that have allergies so there's a lot of things in place I was talking to Katie I love the idea of the
039elementary does the potty in a box kind of thing so if they do food that the kiddos can bring in they bring in their own that are packed by parents kind of thing but there's always certain more that we can do some of the things we're thinking about it's just more allergy awareness and more allergy education for staff especially one of the things simple things we think we're going to just um do right away is is signage you know more than just we usually say like peanut free zone but allergy kind of thing so we're open to um looking at what else we can do to enhance the knowledge that everybody has and awareness so yeah just just quickly you know because of course I have a son who has an allergy so like I'm
040referencing that and I've had like great relationships with the teachers and I like specifically went in and made that a point to meet with the teachers I don't know if that's necessarily something that's Universal but I think it would be helpful for the teachers and the parents you know whether it's virtue or something else to have those conversations just like an IEP kind of thing I think just you know just for full clarity and start that conversation so if you kind of start to embed that yes and it does happen um and I'm just like one for example during the first two days of school like the nurses will review those plans that we have with teachers Etc but and we certainly would encourage any parent that really has a heightened awareness and heightened um
041anxiousness about their child's safety with that to have those kind of meetings so anyway we'll have more to report on in August but we're on it I just wanted folks to know that um that that will be some of the things we're working on again as along with the Strategic plan um I also have I invited um Ryan Shea here tonight just as a brief as you know he's been working hard throughout the summer meeting with staff staff has been coming in they wanted to come in to kind of talk about some of the practices that have happened at the high school and what they would like to see changed and enhanced so one of the big things is our cell phone policy and practice which has been a real issue so I just asked
042Ryan the reason I asked Ryan to come tonight to give a brief a very quick synopsis I'm going to ask him to come back in August once we have more details to share but I wanted you to be aware of what was happening because we do want to send out information to parents of some of the updated things that are happening so I asked Ryan to come and um I think we have yeah and this is yeah so this was not on the agenda but but it will be high school practices that are shifting for next time but I just as I said it's important for you all to know because we are going to be sending information out to parents so they'll be prepared of the shifts some of the shifts so Ryan yeah
043so um the big first and foremost is I want to thank the administration and the teachers staff that have come in we've had about 23 people the last two sessions we have one tomorrow too um really we're just looking at our practices and saying is this working and is it not working and if it's not working let's see if we can change and do better we owe that to our student body um so we updated our cell phone policy and I'm going to tell you quickly why and I promise it won't take you some of the major highlighted facts you're going to see their stats are based off our students um the interesting one I the third bullet on the teen side is 52 percent of students want to take a step back and they
044can't they're afraid they're addicted we see the addiction constantly um a prime example as I remember Mr Martin and I were meeting with a student and I said to the student can you give up your cell phone for a week and I think Mike looked at me and said let's start with an hour and you can see their fear and the students face too of just like that possible so we it is a concern um this is why we did it we also want to clarify that we had an old expectation and a new expectation our old expectation was good but again everything we look look at from a lens of if it's not working why we keep on doing that so um the older like policy was referred um teacher teacher control and teacher
045discretion and it would be considered in subordination a break of it we wanted to clearly Define to our students what that truly means um so as as a school we we came together and said the first suspend the first offense in the classroom is that um the teacher will take the phone and it will be a five minute after session the reason why we want that five minute after section is that reflective practice it's not going to make you fully miss your boss it's not going to make you behind but it does give you a conversation with the teacher of check in and say Hey listen this is why it's important you are your grades they can make sure your grades impacted of it they might show your peer relationship it gives that connection to
046the teacher and the student right away to say this is impacting your life in the classroom the second offense is when it becomes an after session with the teacher for 30 minutes third offense is when it gets put to the AP 60 Minute after session in the fourth offense is a parent meeting um how are we going to do this though because that's a lot of that's a lot um what we're going to do is in every classroom we're going to create a cell Hotel um if you think of like shoe racks behind your closet door um we have they're a little classier than that I would say but that's the idea of it they're numbered in the classroom um students check in they drop their their their phone in it or technology to we're
047including earpods as well um one of the things that we've noticed this year is that's a form of cheating as well because you can put the earpod and you can text the answer to your friend and you get the the Siri reading the answer to you in your ear so we want to be cognizant that there are many ways that we have to help our students and and support through this these years um and the we also are aligning with the other schools the middle school and the elementary school they all have policies that are keep them in the locker keep them away from you we know that even if it's docked on your desk it's just as distracting as if you're looking at it that's I'm going to talk about that next week or
048next month but just so you know that's how we we're we're doing it um teachers if you teachers if they're using it for a lesson they'll weren't encouraging it we talked to Miss Dr Bings talked about how he might want students to take photographs throughout a lab for their lab report encourage it go get it out of your number take a picture go put it back we also have it in the classroom because one of the concerns we know parents are going to say is what if I need to what if there's an emergency in my kids nearby that's why we're keeping it in there we also encourage any other communication though we really prefer that you call the front for to get in touch with our students like when we were in in school
049as well but we don't want them taking our eyes off our learning because every time we get a text or every time we get an alert or every time we get a buzz I Rise go off our learning we miss part of the lesson we come back so that's kind of the the reason for the policy and that's a quick synopsis I promise there's a lot more in depth there's a lot more science behind it and again it's been it is not an admin team it is not a teacher thing this is a Dartmouth High School approach together with everyone on the same page so um Mr Shea just a quick question because I know like looking you know back at the end of last year another issue what were the kids you know leaving
050and certain students being in the bathroom like multiple times throughout the day and I when I think when we heard from Mr Tebow and we had talked about and this might be coming into what you're talking about at security on your August 4th Retreat have have you looked into the Easy Pass or something akin to that for the fall just or or is that going to be part of the conversations I guess as you head in about how to mitigate that and I would say it seems to be extreme with the bathroom issues in particular but I'm just kind of curious how we were navigating through that and what your thoughts are yeah absolutely so all of that is exactly where we're at so I'm glad we're on the same page with us um we
051are looking into the the um e-haul passes as as an option or piloting it or going full in um that is one of our conversations of topics as well too was about monitoring it um we would like it we would like it for the whole school but we're going to look at all of our options for that I agree we would say that as with Mr Martin and his APS cell phones were behind every issue we had whether it was whether it was a texting issue from from the bathroom to another to another student whether it's I use this example with Dr Gifford today is that when I was in high school if I was in class and I tripped and I fell everyone laughs like a round of applause and I kind of go
052home at the end of the day and it's gone now it's recorded it's shared it's memed it doesn't end and that's why you see like depression rates across the board because you cannot Escape it you used to be able to go home and that was your safe place and now you can't escape it my belief school should be a safe place and that's one of the ways we're going to make it a safe place is we're going to take that out of that control back and as Ryan said this is just one of the topics that the school has been coming together and during the summer to talk about and yeah a lot of people are giving up summer days for us nice Beach days and I appreciate it anybody else I mean I I
053just look forward to hearing more um and I just want to say to you because we didn't really get to and I haven't met with you yet until we've reached out I really appreciate your approach to um you know reaching out to all of your stakeholders and really from that inside out kind of stepping into saying how how can we work together you know I I love your approach and I think it's going to work well for the Dartmouth High School community so I don't I that's a lot but I look forward to hearing more I appreciate this meeting yeah Jim I don't have anything I think it's great at the moment yeah yeah I had a meeting with Mr Shea last week and he was kind enough to brief me on some of the
054things going on and this was one of them and I wholeheartedly support what he what he's doing so good luck here to support you thank you very much Ryan thank you that's it that's it all right any questions for the superintendent I do know um just for us as well do we have to again like review our masking policy it's something that we're going to continue to have optional next year are we going to encourage students not to wear I'm just curious is that something as a policy that we have to come back and revisit because it seems to be optional now we're going to maintain that or yeah I I can't even remember what was the policies like whatever your comfort is yeah no we don't need to take we only we only have
055to vote if we want to read if we have to reinstate because we had that big discussion you know if we had to you know reinstate it comes back they're welcome to wear on that type of deal so okay that's fine thank you okay uh me uh just a couple of things uh the New Bedford stand at times has started uh with their spring athletes their uh super teams and honorable mentions and things of that nature and we've had you know several of our athletes in the different sports uh you know Sarah Lawton for one is is the top lacrosse player and which was great and we've had some of our other our other students get in with baseball and boys lacrosse and girls lacrosse and that type of deal so than the girls softball
056so congratulations to them as they go forward We're not scheduled to meet till towards the end of August Mr Kylie you're going to have any warrants or if you do let us know I will I'll keep you posted um you know there's as you can tell by by the warrant you looked at today there's a little bit of a a lull in that we're really just now ordering things for the new year um and we don't and we had done up what I would say a pretty good job of cleaning up the old year stuff so we don't have a lot of that stuff to pay yet any of the remaining items so but I'll keep you posted it is almost a month away till that next meeting so we may need to to do
057one at some point okay let us know thank you that's all I have anybody else have anything okay that being said our next meeting is scheduled for August 22nd which is a Monday at 5 pm here so with that please enjoy the rest of your summer be safe especially to our students think before you act and come back to what's safe in uh in in September by the time we get back going here at the end of August and such we'll be having football camps and band camps will be going and all the fall Sports a little school will be back and going so that's it all right so with that the Cheryl Entertainer motion to adjourn move by uh move by uh Ms Amaral second by Dr Jenkins oh nurse wait whatever who cares
058it's there that's right any oh chair hearing none all in favor aye oppose motion carries unanimously thank you very much and enjoy your summer okay [Music]