001[Music] good evening i'd like to call the uh school committee meeting of the diamonds public schools for june 27 2022 to order if you could uh stand for the pledge of allegiance all right just like everyone know that this meeting is being televised live stream at www.youtube.com backslash ehs tv media it is going to be rebroadcast on dartmouth community television channel nine on uh wednesday and thursday at five friday at six eight wednesday and thursday at five pm friday at six a.m saturday at eight a.m and sunday at 12 noon and then on channel 18 on monday and saturday at 12 noon and thursday at 3 p.m and usually sometimes there are other times that they manage to get things in and we greatly appreciate all of that excuse me uh at this point in
002time we have allowed 10 minutes on the agenda for public comment for things that are on tonight's agenda okay that's solves that roll call misconception please john nunes yep mary waite here kathleen emerald here shannon jenkins chris oliver here and uh dr jenkins is on a scheduled vacation her reason for her not being here hoping she is enjoying herself and the family all right at this point in time uh i'll turn it over to the superintendent for uh some good stuff some good stuff so tonight i'm pleased to welcome and i know you want to formally recognize some of our new well veteran people who have taken new positions leadership positions in the district and as i stated all along the way every time we had a position come up i always find it really
003impressive and speaks highly of the district when we can move our folks that are already working here into leadership positions so it says a lot about how we grow our leaders and have a lot of faith and confidence in those people that are already working so i'm going to introduce them once a time and invite that person up to say a few words i don't want to put anybody on a real spot but i'm sure you have something you can say so first of all we'll have mr ross tebow who will be assuming the position of director of teaching and learning for the secondary level thank you dr gifford and thank you members of the school committee i really did not prepare any remarks [Laughter] but i would like to say that i'm very excited
004to take on this new challenge within the district i really appreciate the opportunity to serve uh the dartmouth community i have absolutely enjoyed um my time as the dartmouth high school principal over the last five years and am looking forward to you know being part of there's a number of challenging issues certainly uh facing the community um that i think that the two directors will be part of and so i'm looking forward to to that aspect of it but really i'm looking forward to being able to focus on teaching and learning um i think that's why people get into education and and so i'm excited for that so thank you for the opportunity thank you congratulations and good luck congratulations thanks thank you you can save all your questions for the end yeah [Laughter] don't
005leave next up if we have a secondary level director of teaching learning we have to have one for our elementary level and again we thought going in this direction was the right thing to do for the district so those folks can really focus on those various levels so we'll welcome katie paveo into that position hello thank you i'll echo so much i guess of what ross has said um i just it's kind of humbling to me it's my 20th year i just finished my 20th year working in dartmouth public schools and it's gone by really in such a blink of an eye but it's such a privilege to be able to be part of this community and um you know i wear many hats here i'm also a parent my kids go to school in
006dartmouth public schools and so to be able to give back to this community is really something that i don't take lightly and it's really i just consider it such a privilege so um i will echo so much of what ross said there's a lot of great work to be done a lot of great work teaching and learning um we're at such an interesting time i think kind of hopefully putting some of the last couple years behind us and really being able to focus in on teaching and learning and what our kids are are doing and really taking a good hard look at where we want them to go great that's good thank you thank you thank you and ross and katie have already started transitioning with miss aloe vera having meetings to kind of figure
007out who's going to do what and how we're going to take do our next step so we congratulate them so we have to have a replacement and at the high school we welcome ryan shea as the new principal of dhs good evening everyone thank you um i too didn't have something prepared but the same thing as the sentiment is it's an honor being a dartmouth grad and never came in this building but um being part of this community is really important to me i think if you look at my kind of career path was always within a goal of being in this being able to be in this position and being ready for it so i'm excited for the challenge as an amazing crew of people behind the scenes that are doing tons of work
008too and we're lucky to have be part of the school so thank you everyone congratulations i like you did you graduate ryan 0-1 0-1 okay so just welcome back thank you welcome back thank you very much i appreciate that thank you and and ryan um no you don't have to stay i just i'm talking about you but you can um before we had the interviews for the principal job at the high school i did meet with the high school staff numerous times and they have pledged their support in the transition so brian's already set up a schedule of meetings throughout the summer with with staff and some of the topics you'll be discussing and yeah so we um the staff has been incredible um from again top to bottom that everyone realizes coming out of
009the last two and a half years is going to take all hands on deck kind of one dartmouth high has kind of been our motto right now and we're working towards that but um yeah we're lucky that there's been more volunteers than i can imagine and people wanting to be be a support and understand that we've got some challenges we've got a great student body a great faculty and got all the pieces in place so we're lucky all right thank you thanks ryan thank you and of course we need a principal over at demelo so liz correa will be replacing katie pavello and and she's also done a circle and come all the way back so liz hi thank you this year wrapped up my 22nd year at de mello school 17 years as a
010classroom teacher there five years as assistant principal my heart and soul belongs to that school i'm really looking forward to moving us beyond the pandemic back into a lot of the work that katie and i have been uh setting forth for the past few years and kind of got derailed a little bit i can't tell you what an honor and a privilege it is to work for the school in this district and i'm just ready to roll thank you thank you and last but not least we as you know mr dome will be retiring after the new year and so we have already uh replaced him with not that we said here's your hat and what's your hurry right [Laughter] but um obviously yeah it's not the truth not the transition and so mr peter
011rossi has been appointed as that again like the rest of us i greatly appreciate the opportunity i want to thank you for that um replacing mr doane won't be an easy task but we've got a great student body and a great staff and i look forward to the challenge as a former student of dartmouth i grew up here i just finished my 25th year at the middle school but uh growing up here if it wasn't for uh teachers and coaches really taking an interest in me um you know the outcome could have been different so i'm very appreciative and hope to pay that forward thank you thank you thank you thank you and uh both um liz and ryan have been uh working on the replacement for the ap positions and we'll be able to
012announce those soon i'm sure when that those processes are finished so once again we want to congratulate them all and we're really happy that they've all taken on these leadership positions thank you all right congratulations congratulations congratulations all the best thanks for coming you don't have to stay although we always like you too i always love to have company okay uh any i think any comments from my colleagues before we move on okay good christmas yeah i'll say i'll say a few words actually uh you know i'm thrilled to see all these faces here tonight um i think we have a uh you know a great pool of talent here and this season some very seasoned educators as well as some dartmouth alumni so i'm thrilled to see it come full circle that says a
013lot it speaks to a lot of the uh the school system in the town and i'm really looking forward to seeing where everyone is going to take us over the next several years um you know you certainly some of these are new positions and some of these are you know you're replacing others but i am looking forward to seeing um all the possibilities and opportunities um that we have especially with the two new positions so thank you everyone congratulations [Applause] everybody else yeah i'll just say you know again i'm i'm so excited i think you know first of all i've been a big fan of these new positions for a curriculum i think it's much needed and i think we have the perfect people in those positions to you know really make a difference i
014think you know giving um the folks in the elementary school more time like with you know someone rather than being divided over all the schools i think is really important and uh just that that leadership and that focus really now that this is such a turning point and i hope it's really going to be like a positive and i feel that positive energy with the kids that they want to get back to there's some some normalcy and you know and they're excited about coming back i think they're more school spirited than ever because they really treasure what they missed before and uh so i think we have a lot of excitement and you know i i have to say like i look at liz and think you know my daughter was in her last class
015that she ever taught at demelo and now she's graduating now you're coming in to as principal so it's just it all just feels you know i i'm very very excited for the team i think that the staff is as well so congratulations very good congratulations and all the best all right moving on next we have approval of regular and executive session minutes of june 6. so i'll take the regular minutes first so removed we'll find this weight second by mr oliver on the motion any discussion hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries four to nothing uh executive session of the same date june 6 2022. um so move mr chair with the stipulation that the matter in which they were intended be held thank you get a tattoo of that you know
016i know i still can't get the wording right yeah after a while it just rolls off after how many years john 32 but who's counting all right moved by mr oliver second by miss weight on the motion any discussion chair hearing then all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously all right uh next order of business is the superint superintendent's evaluation presentation okay say that three times just pulling up one thing yep let's see because one of them i didn't print out yeah just one of the goals so i got all that so okay so thank you and um just as i'm hoping everybody was able to access the link for the shared folds there's a lot in there so we can just go over a little bit of that but i'll just present
017the highlights for the work that we did this year so i i thought along and hard on how to uh title this years and so of course i just started as embracing the transition back to continuing to become normal if you will so before we do that as i'll just say we always like this this we call the summary grid or progress monitoring whatever you want to call it because it the entire team will add to it in the various areas and we've kept these over the last six or seven years so it continues to show a history of all the work that's gone on but then we for this night we usually then keep like the red is from kind of last year or so into this year and then the new in the
018blue so just so you know and then the goals are there i also included the work that the schools have done as i asked them to just provide a little update on how well they did with their school improvement plans because as you know our work was focused on those four areas fostering relationships etc and then i provided you with a narrative it's like how many ways can you explain the same thing a narrative of some of the highlights the major points and with the documents that are attached that you can link into so hopefully you've been able to find pretty much everything that you you'd be looking for so we talked a lot about over the last i would say two years or so about how resilient the staff and students had to be
019to really survive if you will and and continue to press forward during the pandemic so i always like to put some kind of description of the things that we felt were important during those times and of course we focused on the community we had a lot of compassion we continue to think about those mental health issues that staff and students are also struggling with had struggled with confidence that we our team could move forward obviously commitment to doing that and centering centering what we like to call our true north what's the true north and really doing what we can the best that we can keeping students at the center of that work so i just wanted to remind you about um the thing when we worked with desi this year in the beginning of the
020year we talked about and even last year we started to talk about not so much at as closing gaps we didn't want to say that everybody had fallen behind as much as we were finding ways to accelerate that learning and if you recall which i think i have in here later some of that work we started off actually with our admin leadership team in the beginning of last year with the deci explaining to us about that acceleration learning network and pathway and then we asked the schools to really think about that as we move kiddos forward and one of the things i think really the important thing was about taking them from where they were and moving them forward with the right scaffolding and supports rather than say what did you miss what did you
021miss what did you miss but kind of close those gaps in an acceleration manner okay once again as a reminder you had the schools came forward and did the school improvement plans and they focused in on these areas which were the overarching priorities so as i said i provided you with in the in rather than try to just recount it and summarize it all of the schools provided me with the progress they've made so that is in your the drive as well so as you recall we asked everyone how are they going to do what were they going to do in their schools to foster that sense of belonging and partnership among students and families how are we going to continuously monitor students understanding what methods where would would be using and ensure that strong
022grade appropriate instruction as i said a minute ago with just-in-time scaffolding and the proper supports and strong instructional practices oh that's kind of small but that's a little small i may not even be able to read that myself let's see so some of the things and again this is just highlights and and the rest of the work it the rest of the information is in that drive so under standard one instructional leadership and i won't lead everything underneath it of course i'll just highlight a couple of things but as i just said the use of the acceleration map and thinking about how did we provide training for our team what the school improvement plans went ahead and focused on those priority areas and one of the highlights i think also is the grade 8 civics
023and humanitarian studies which you you would see in the middle school synopsis that i put in the in the drive of course we adopted the bridges math program and that started with some research into various programs math coaches working to look at those and then rolling that out with pd et cetera in in the schools and um we actually had a leadership meeting this morning and they were talking about how one of the principles saying how they were happy about the amount of pd that we provided and especially through the math coaches that were helping teachers learn about that that program because a lot to it a lot of manipulatives etc uh and of course the alignment of the elementary literacy curriculum units of study as you recall we've had the cia teams and the
024l3 teams working on these kinds of things um beefing up the phonics area for that area as well some of the secondary updates continuing to vertically align the content areas thinking about long term especially that vertical view if you will and the social studies curriculum as i said the middle school especially with that humanitarianism and just some more updates to how are we and implementing things in the classroom the focus on pre-tests the feedback the targeted interventions and some of the work about continuing the work that we had done before with highlander and the project-based work it throughout the schools that was important for the folks to think about as well and then some of the updates to the evaluation system what we kind of mean there is we had taken a little bit of
025a less structured approach to evaluation in the covert years and um that was with agreement with um the union as well as the leadership and then so we really got back into because people weren't here sometimes as we know got back into what evaluation should really look like just a few highlights in in standard two with management and operations once again even though kovid was coming to an end we still had to work to make sure and jonathan misskellshaw and his team continuing to take care of all the technology devices we have in the district and the repair replacement et cetera and as you remember we still had deci with the cdc guidance still coming at us in the early part of the year we we were implementing the test and stay program and that
026that was a big transition we then had the test to give out take-home tests so there was a lot of organization through all of those things and i put transition to normal school and thinking about technical versus adaptive because we had the technical pieces where we started to bring back for example lunchrooms looking the way they were taking away seating or having all students in at one time having them in the specials things like that those movements around the building and of course the mass came off but the adaptive changes i think are are as difficult for folks because as we know the the pandemic really took a toll on people's emotions um just all of that and the anxiety so think about that adaptive piece where okay you're now masculine is there still a
027pandemic is there not how do i care for these kids how do i care for myself so trying to be supportive for folks in those areas was part of our work as well and just recently we've updated finished updating the comprehensive emergency management plan so we involve the schools in that our nurses etc etc we sent it off to our fire department partners and our police partners and um we're actually waiting for one signature on that and those that will be going out and for um publication and for us and then of course we're planning for days of training right off the bat in that area with our staff when we get back as it says drafting plans for that analysis and shifts just support in the personnel are folks that are for example the
028speech and language would people coming and going or not finding people but we feel we're in a good place now but that continual analysis of who we have and who do we need and how do we get those people on board of course successful grant writing you recall we had the academy acceleration academies jonathan got a big technology grant and of course essa jim is still struggling with i guess or managing i should say um we made another uh round of team chair training this year so because we felt it had been a couple of years ms townsend's crew did that for us and so we had veteran people who had had the training in a couple of years ago uh had a different schedule than brand new people that hadn't been in dartmouth and
029and received that training so that their their training was a little bit more extended and then of course personnel issues the ongoing whatever it might be through human resources um whether it was people's leave for for covet or or resignations or whatever it might be just handling all of that so china uh standard three increasing family and community engagement we found that one i guess benefit from kovid was the ability to have virtual team meetings in for various areas and uh we've taken advantage of that and and especially team meetings with parents we've found that they've been being able to attend more readily it's they have more access to it so that was good and collaboration with organizations such as smack they provide webinars they provide some pd and they're always connecting with us on
030that and of course the new one which you know about is the partnership with the cook center so that's taken off and we had a webinar on that and quite a few folks attended we know there are a number of folks that have taken advantage of the private counseling yep so that's good and of course our ongoing collaboration with town departments especially around the budget budget time when as we know this year they once again the town was very generous i would say very supportive of our budget requests and just the rest of it that the normal the week we continued with the weekly backpacks and all the other communications that we had initiated prior and then the conversations we're trying to have and have had some with our um our native american folks and
031once our directors are on board we'll get that going to the best of our ability as well okay professional culture same kind of thing professional development as i said with deci we've taken advantage of some of their things as uh example was the acceleration road map and other webinars that they've provided the cdc um excuse me the um i can't even think of the covet now the group we worked with along with desi had numerous webinars as well so maintaining our knowledge in that area ongoing support pd support for the curriculum special education technology all of that mental health and um just skipping down a little bit as you know we've we are now in negotiation sessions with the all of the units and of course we've handled grievances and other other things other issues
032regular dea dlt and cult meetings and um let's see oh uh one good one with the professional culture as well is just really looking at our school libraries and enhancing diversity with the book choices that we've had and always inclusive budget meetings and as i mentioned just the hiring practices where even myself if i don't meet with them like i know like the principals now that are hiring their assistants always reach out to the staff and have folks help out with those processes so that's kind of a high level highlight and once again i always like to end with quotes right so we're not a team because we work together we're a team because we respect trust and care for each other so with that as i said that's kind of the highlight i one
033thing i didn't give you which i'll i'll get tomorrow and send also is the the forms do you remember we did the use those forms for the summative so i did not put that in the in the drive so i'll do that and um oh there was one more thing i was going to say so that i got everything else in there the improvement the one improvement goal that one goal we did not you'll see it we really didn't do what we said we were going to do and it was um because one of the district was the acceleration it was the one when we thought we were going to be able to update the professional development tab that we had started uh offering different things we did we actually started it during covid so
034people would have access to that we really didn't do a lot on that to be honest and um the other one was the district the comprehensive audit that we had so that's in there with some of the documents for that so that's it so i thought given we will have a meeting in july that usually i guess would be you and mary would get together once folks submitted so you can set a date for what you would not do it actually it was was it mrs amarillo i can't remember yeah okay yeah kathy kathy and i did the last one so okay that's it somehow down the line we volunteered to do it again so whatever you want to set as a date that you would expect your colleagues to submit their write-ups to you
035and then um i think we could have it ready for the july meeting what's the date of that july 27th oh that's yeah that's plenty of time yeah any time july 25th i was close okay i was close the oops yeah and i want to thank karen scorpio in the office for helping do all the little links and attachments because that's where i break down sometimes at least you can move it through it i wouldn't even know where to start okay uh questions comments mr oliver thank you mr chair uh so while i do have um several comments and questions um i think i'm going to hold off uh personally if we could just talk about the time frame i guess talk about the time time frame of course first there's obviously a lot here
036today you have to digest um and i'd like to see and this is just my sole thoughts on this is for the july 27th that we say july 22 july 25th meeting that maybe we could come back now that dr gifford has pre has preformally presented everything publicly if we could come back just and ask questions at that time um i'd like to see maybe a meeting in august where we put together our you know by then have the responses sent and then you you have the um the shared um evaluation report ready for the for the august meeting um that's just my thoughts on it just because i'll be honest with you i haven't had a lot of time and probably vacation right july yeah with vacations and everything else going on i mean
037i was gonna i was gonna think about that because i mean you know dr jenkins is is a way everybody is right you know it's summertime no this is probably a good idea you know if you kind of did some in july and you know even if this with all due respect bounces to the first meeting in september type of right it would it would be good that way i mean so nobody's stressing themselves out over the summits relax recharge the batteries go at it that way that's that's my opinion okay yeah again yes i understand what you're saying i appreciate that yeah no just my two cents on yeah i thought if we can just so i can't enough give this okay if i can just give this the time yeah that it deserves
038and yeah no absolutely i i do want to thank dr gifford for for the presentation and for all the information yeah and i think the last the last slide sums it up regarding the team that um you know it's kudos to to you and your team yeah it's absolutely a team because it does take a team especially during these past several years so thank you yeah i mean i've said it before and you know you you have done um with the help of karen and her you know hyperlink uh uh yeah help and and everyone that has helped in this process you uh oh god my voice is echoing it's so disconcerting um anyway thank you for this is a lot i mean you you you bring us what we've witnessed and what we know
039and what uh you know we trust and we're you know proud of um i wondered you know with we talk about that accelerated learning and the messaging through desi which i thought i i understand um but knowing like parental fear around well what did my kiddo miss out on the last couple years uh it might relate to management operations relate to like family community engagement do we have a formal mechanism i mean i don't know that we do but perhaps we could and i and i know we don't have like maybe the person to sort of do this but to feel those kinds of so you know parental fear stems from miscommunication yes we communicate in multiple ways um but that doesn't always reach families we've we've experienced that feedback from from the community during
040the last two years i wonder if like the cpac we we do welcome comments and commentary and i meet with uh beth townsend you know month well we try to meet monthly we met this morning and maybe i should have asked her some of these questions that i have but we had we've had a very productive meeting but you know i would love to find a way and i don't know what that is to be a little bit more um a mechanism for to allow for parents to be part of that loop in a in a more in a more meaningful way like we i feel like we do a lot of telling them what we do and they're not there are not maybe enough opportunities yes we hear them we we i hear from
041them in the community i get letters as a school committee member and as of today my town email works so you can email me from the town of dartmouth and i will receive it after all these years yeah yeah i gave up on it but i decided to reach out to sarah in like two days from her vacation she fixed it but um so i don't know if there if there could be something i'm happy to help out with that i certainly feel those myself but i i there's nothing to lose and there's much to gain from allowing the parents to be more of that team or i don't making them feel that their voice is heard more than just saying we read your email that sort of thing i don't know yeah no let
042me um chat with the principals because i know we've done various things over the past but it might be a nice idea like you said since we're kind of really returning to normal and and kind of how folks feel that transition has been and um because i know like you s we have done surveys in the past and we get some pretty good responses we did a number of them so even i mean maybe it's not impossible yeah maybe i'm on the loop maybe the the parent yeah councils at each school could be a mechanism for getting a little bit close to i don't know i just i just think it's important and i think it can do that help in building you know coming together again and seeing one another again and um getting
043ahead of it rather than being you know sometimes it comes off as a defensive or well we are doing that and we are doing that but we always can do better but thank you for that um sure and then just a question about the emergency management i know we've had a forum and i know this is do we plan would that be something we could have a presentation or perhaps mr i don't know if there's plans to sort of get that out to the community in a way again maybe not a public forum but we try to be careful like exactly i know some of that's confidential yeah i know that yeah i think what the community will like to hear is when we have a schedule of more regular uh drills etc things like
044that i think that's because they they've heard from us over the past couple of years even from when we had that big forum that time you know some of the things like the camera updates the monitoring of that the ability of the police department to look at all of our cameras and see if there was an emergency they could see where this person might be or what's going on those kinds of things that we have done the emergency management plan of course addresses numerous issues and how to respond and who should be involved but i think i think knowing that we have that updated but that we have a meeting with our police partners etc and that we have some training plans and because that's what we're doing now is right off the bat what
045are we going to do because yeah i mean once kovid was there and then we were out of school in school and then we kind of just you know get relaxed in a way absolutely so so i think that will be helpful yeah i know i found i found it helpful yep you know i having a child who you know does have significant disabilities and um i i was reassured during a presentation of how that is handled and i know going into it i was sort of like how are you gonna you know sure there's no way you know my kid was to say i'm here you know and i was reassured in terms of what that means and what the data and the statistics around that so yeah um just thought yeah thank you
046i don't really have anything else all right at this point just thank you for all of this okay information yeah so i i have taken some time to look at this but i certainly agree with uh you know chris mr oliver over here that i wouldn't mind a little bit you know certainly i appreciate to kind of delve a little bit deeper i do think it's you know it's so clear as we look at this you know how much we did around covin and the pandemic and how you know we shifted and i really think that as a district we did a great job yeah you guys did a great job our staff were flexible our students were very flexible um you know at the end of the day you know now it's time for
047them to kind of you know focus on those other skills and i think it's great to get back into that norm and we have a lot of you know positive change that i think that's coming in among our staff so that's uh you know i i give a lot of credit to jim um mr kylie because again everything that was involved in the buildings and coming back and you know crazy pushing seats apart put pulling back together so i think you know to me like that part speaks for itself and we've been hearing that over the last few years everything that we've done and you know i think our staff you know all the change that they made and you know i mean the learning curve with technology and the fact that now we're one-to-one
048it's just really it's it's astounding the progress so i think that is you know astounding and again you know job well done there um detective mr news and so many things but uh i do agree with um miss amaral though that i think as we start the year since we are focusing as i look through so much around the garbage of accelerated learning i think you know if we can explain that to our parents just to you know really get that out there and say like this is what that means and it doesn't mean that we're not providing you know these other fundamentals but i do think that that would be helpful for folks just to understand what we're talking about you know that this is a this is a positive step and you know
049we're we're targeting we're making sure that students are learning at their age appropriate curriculum and their access that they have full access to that curriculum and we're making that happen so yeah again those are you know i think again as we i think that's really positive language and i'd like to see that continue but it just might be helpful to interpret that for families but uh but again like to re-access this through the summer i think it's great thank you okay i'll just i'll just echo what my colleagues have have stated and uh as i was watching the presentation and everything else i think there's a few more things i have to go print out because i did print out some of them but i think there's some behind take a peek in that drive
050the behind the scenes type of deal but i did i'll take a look at it and it was a lot i'll yell if i need help i know mrs oliveira is always very helpful yeah so all right so in in all seriousness uh we'll circle back on this in july to have some more discussion on it and we'll shoot for uh our august meeting or if not our august meeting again depending what schedules are in august uh to uh you know into that first meeting in september if that's again if that's okay with it that'd be great no okay that's fine all righty new business mr kylie maintenance custodial summer projects fun times thank you mr newman's it is fun times indeed it's uh it's busy it's already been uh five days since the end
051of school we have 43 days left before we start you know before we have a school full of uh people again so we've got 43 days to accomplish an awful lot on this list and it's going to be difficult for sure i'm not going to go through every single thing on the list i provided you but i'll talk a little bit about some specific projects that are exciting and also just want to remind everyone that a big part of what we're doing in the summer is the routine and preventative stuff that makes our buildings last and makes them look a lot better than you might think they they would given their age so um you know obviously a big part of our focus is is on that routine and preventative maintenance but also we're not
052complacent and what we have isn't good enough um we always want to improve and so we have some specific projects that i'll highlight um library renovations here at the high school so if you look around you'll see a few things starting to change in here particularly in the area over we're starting in the area over there we essentially are gonna are going to upgrade this entire library as we move a little further into the project we'll come back and talk to you about what that looks like in terms of funding at the moment we're okay we haven't ordered furniture or anything like that but we we are in that process and we hope that school choice funds we've actually mentioned that when we've presented on school choice previously to you folks included in an estimate
053in there but school choice is a great use of funds to upgrade this library and we'll be talking about where right now we're taking things off walls and painting but we're going to be replacing the floor replacing the furniture really making it a user-friendly space for kids and so yeah we're excited about that project so that's a big one for us we're also working on the auditorium lighting and sound systems which have been on our list for a long time um we are sort of in the in the planning process still though on that um but our hope is that we actually have real movement this summer to at least begin that process we do have capital improvement funding to support part of that hopefully all of that but we're waiting for on prices and
054things of that nature and specifics before we move forward hvac maintenance and repairs we have we have a project that we've been working on in conjunction with the green communities funding that the town has in place and some of their some of their federal funding related to covid so we've been upgrading our our energy management systems we're going to be working all summer on that we've been actually working all spring on it and going to continue with that and really just we you know everyone's seen how important hvac you know has been um and obviously our our old buildings need attention and and we're continuing to address that there um security improvements we're going to be doing a variety of of things and assessing exactly what we need focusing our efforts on you know doors
055and securing facilities making sure that everything is working properly doors windows so we're going to be doing that this summer also i just wanted to mention although in terms of cost this isn't a big item but we're always focused on installing energy saving appliances lights we're going to be doing a fair amount of that throughout the schools this summer it's just one that i always love to do because it means that we'll save a few bucks for something else down the road um so um you know we're we're again focused on that another big project probably our biggest project is that we're working on refrigeration systems at multiple schools so we've targeted some aging equipment at the middle school the quinn school hopefully the potter and the mellow schools that really really needs replacement both
056for efficiency and just operational continuity down the road so we're um we're in the process of of making that happen it's a pretty complicated project actually and uh lead times have proven to be a challenge already on that project another one that is not a glamorous project but i think is worth mentioning is we had a number of problems over the last few years relating to our sewer connection at the cushman school we're going to be addressing that with a more long-term hopefully semi-permanent uh solution this summer so that we don't have anybody having to climb in and out of the sewer on a daily basis oh and hoping that we can make it through the school day um so that's that's a it's an exciting one for us believe it or not um and
057we're also working on some things like grease trap replacement which i've talked to you about so i think it's worthwhile mentioning and the town of course was generous enough to give us funding for that um and we're moving forward with those with those uh projects as well so we we have a lot on our plate um it's a lot to juggle and i think that it is generally a more challenging time to be doing um school improvement and renovation projects than we've ever had before given the availability and the price of the price of products so so it's it's going to be a busy time but we've got 43 days left we'll get it done any questions chris thank you mr mr kylie how are you with staffing because i know uh the last um
058last time we spoke about maintenance staffing um there was a shortage there were some unfilled positions um do you have any positive news in that we we do i mean we i guess what i would say is and which i i think we we said uh previously it was very challenging to find highly qualified staff we have a full staff right now um we're excited uh that that we've been able to to hire for all of our positions currently and everybody's working hard and has been um we filled on uh i believe it was may 23rd was was um we had two people start on may 23rd and that that filled up our our maintenance staff um and if any i'm sure people noticed at the different events at the schools the year-end events we
059really uh john bernard our facilities manager really focused on trying to get the the buildings in good shape and ready for all these big events um we've gotten a lot of positive feedback about the condition of the buildings and grounds for those events so um so yeah the community was very supportive which which goes a long way for um the morale in the group so we we love that um but but yeah so we're we're in good shape and we needed them because we're uh we're straight out now no that's great so we're back to the original our original fte account from we are the one had we are moved around yeah okay no that's great thank you very much for your update i think you're welcome samuel this is white also no just thank
060you thank you you'll be working hard that's good we've got alan's replacement i know he knows next week we do it weeks alan yeah we are we actually brought in um shane swansea who is uh alan braley's replacement um who allen after 30 you know um is retiring and he's retiring in a couple of weeks and um so shane came in on may 23rd okay one of those yeah and he's doing an unbelievable job very knowledgeable guy um on the ground side particularly so we were lucky to find him you know and it did thank you and you know you look at what the maintenance is is doing per se but you also you know you've got the custodians that are you know moving furniture out and stripping floors and waxing and you know that
061type that type of deal that i know they've already started working on so you know everybody's uh busy beavers as they say that's good thank you for the update sir anything else on this okay all right superintendent update thank you so speaking of acceleration academies and pathways and everything desi once again i think it was friday night they put a grant opportunity for our next to sell acceleration academy um so miss oliveira did get that done so we've applied for that grant it was due like in the week you know the kind of thing but that will be for that august two-week camp that we had last year um it will be for the ela they're telling us it has to be for k through two which is a little bit a little bit funky
062if you will because we have to submit data and we really don't have data on k you know it's hard but we'll we'll get the grant i'm sure and and all of that and then um the math will be grades three four eight and ten and i think last year last year we had about 120 students that participated so we'll see uh if we get the grant we should know and then we'd be able to advertise for that the curriculum summit was last week and we ran it first grade 6 through 12 this year and we had 58 people participate um working on the curriculum areas health in particular did some really really good work so and those units will be put in a rubicon etc but we're happy that people really want to really
063want to participate in that curriculum summit they want to be together they want to get some things done and so that's good uh the credit recovery is is going as as you know our regular summer school and then esy starts next weekend we'll have 100 miss townsend estimate 140 to 160. she's waiting for people that said maybe but have you know kind of thing students that will be participating in that continuing our hiring the schools have been filling positions either they were vacated from people leaving or just retire whatever it might be and then internal movements in the schools so which the principles do so that's going well and uh last week we had secretary training from all the schools we um nellie alfonso and karen karen and and actually our special ed department that
064participates as well uh just updating people on how to input data into our systems make sure everybody's on the same page make sure everybody understands like the aspen and all of that so we had that last week and and that's kind of it right now just it's normal anything else any questions comment doug just a quick question and thank you for your update dr gifford just a quick question around the curriculum summit piggybacking offer that with the two new positions that we've created um i'd i'm not sure if it's in your thoughts or whatnot is there any plans to re-establish a curriculum advisory committee or some kind of subcommittee that that involves different you know different stakeholders we actually have continued that we haven't used it a lot because it hasn't been a lot to
065uh like if we purchase books or anything like that miss oliver has worked with those groups but i'm sure mr tebow and miss pavail will really want to dig in and have a nice committee for that sure that'd be great yeah because you know i i'm here in rumblings regarding the the correct me if i'm wrong the purchase of a new lucy calkins program reading program that there i just want to make sure that we are including all voices at the table um at the curriculum table when we're when we're making large investments in curriculum we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars so i just want to make sure that all all voices um have a have a stakeholder yep and mr tebow's sitting here so he heard it i've already given them another task
066the first order of businesses we had to uh we have to revise our strategic plan so that's going to be one of our um but yeah we'll we'll make sure that happens yeah that's good thank you anyone else ms white i guess i was just wondering just with that you know again just to go back into that um a little bit as we've talked about the our education around the native american or local history where are we and again since you have the curriculum summit what is the next step i guess now because i know we talked about once we have these folks coming in you know you know i'm i'm really you know curious i know when i ran into mr title bomb he wanted to you know come in and talk to us
067so i'm so i'm just you know just to you know speak to the community because i think that was the one thing we all agreed what we wanted to see right right we'll definitely be doing that as well i mean they have they have a lot of work to do already but i mean obviously i will be helping um dave mr tattlebaugh did come in and meet me oh we did okay not last week probably the week before and just we chatted about our next steps um he does want to come in at some point and just chat with the committee um a public comment time or whatever and just his thoughts about moving forward from their perspective right so i think once we get started we can put um that topic on the agenda
068so that he can be able to do that great yeah okay yeah he is gung-ho for sure anybody else kathleen all set was hammer good okay all right actually mike i just i i don't really have um uh any like specifics but i met with miss townsend today and we have secure dates for next year's special apparent advisory council meetings in person our thought is to take a tour around each school each month so that a particular topic relative to a certain age group might hopefully be hosted at a different you know school each month um so more to come on that uh just wanted to share that rich plans for next year already okay sounds good all right port of the chair that's me i guess okay um a couple of things uh number
069one in all seriousness a special thank you to uh town meeting for their support on our budget and also our capital items that we had there and and such uh it went real quick so yeah that was great it was it was yes it was great you know and again you know maybe that's the way you have to do it sometimes is just concentrate on a set number of articles that you know and nothing that's going to take you know no disrespect a month of sundays to go through type of deal so that was uh that was really a great day and it was good that it got done and we just move on now uh congratulations to all our spring sports that were in the tournament especially the girls lacrosse uh getting all the
070way to the elite eight i believe i went to that uh burlington game that they had at the stadium that they won in overtime and it was like you know i aged about 20 years and that day i was talking with somebody and it was funny because you have the discussion when you you know watching sports in the games of nip and tuck and you sit there and you go the last one to have the ball is going to win type of deal and it went to overtime they controlled the face off and that was that so that was that was great if you go by the uh middle school on july 4th or july 5th uh don't panic when you see uh two box trucks three tractor trailers six motor coaches and about 150
071students working out in the uh in the immemorial stadium uh the cadets from allentown pennsylvania are going to be here for uh that day they're coming in about at the moment they're due in anywhere between midnight and one o'clock on july 4th uh they've got the parade in bristol in the morning and then they've got one in wakefield at night that that they may be going to and then they'll be around uh all day on the fifth practicing up in the stadium and such uh then pulling out on the fifth headed for delaware so they're going to be here so you know you'll hear some music i don't know what official schedules they're going to have but that's what i've heard in my discussions with the uh the travel coordinator so we've got that and
072the last thing i have uh since we're not meeting until the 25th of july and wonderful little mgl says june 15th i'm assuming you'll have some warrants for us to sign down the line mr kiley between now and then i i will have a date i think it's going to be the 13th yeah um but i'll uh i'll have a date i'll just i'll shoot it in the email swing by so just so everybody's aware all you know the year-end warrants that they have to process and such so all right that being said anything else chris thank you mr chair uh just a few things um i'd just like to throw out there for the committee to consider um one in as well as the administration one i you know i we keep hearing reports
073from from our wonderful chair regarding the through the years about our marching band what i'd like to see someday is a presentation some kind of presentation on our nationally recognized marching band to see exactly what goes on i'm i'm personally very curious um you know i've been to shows i've been to i hear them at the football from my house practicing as well as at the football games but i i'd love to just to see um if mr if ian um you put together something i'd i'd love to see something sometime next year about what goes into um the marching band yep yeah there was actually one of the students wrote in the uh high school paper she did a really nice article just just as kind of a foreshadowing all about you know everything
074that the spectrum thank you all about you know the what what the amount of work that these kids put in because it is really it's until you get into it and then when you know it it's just what it's like going into the competition and dating we approve we we approve these things every year i just i i just think it would be nice for them for the community to be made aware of that in addition um one of the other things i'd like to see a set up in a gender setting meeting maybe in august or september um so we can set up some agendas because obviously between the the um the dartmouth indian the native american piece um as well as um just everything that's going on um i think it's important you
075know we keep talking about the facilities master plan um so i i'd like to see something along the lines so we can set some agenda you want to do that more so as a workshop as a workshop as a workshop you know we can meet at bush street and yeah and do it exactly like we've done right yeah right yeah that's fine i think that would be great yeah um in in addition just so the committee's aware i asked along with dr jenkins that we the budget subcommittee meets uh more regularly so we're looking at having meetings like every other month just so you're aware of just because of we felt with the the whole esser piece in that ledge that we're going to fall off eventually someday um just to be where we're at
076and provide regular updates to to the budget subcommittee in which you know things that we want to bring to the uh the full committee um you know so just making you aware of that and last but not least one of the things i just i'd just like to ask and just bring to you know i'm sure we've all received everyone's received the email um that we the committee was recently made aware of a medical emergency in the district regarding anaphylaxis and i know that you know certain things we need to work on so i'd like to see that on the the following agenda hopefully in the following agenda it's certainly concerning to me um and and i think we need to have a discussion um in you know and give parents the opportunity to to
077speak at that meeting regarding allergies and anaphylaxis so um i would just ask that the committee entertain that uh for the next uh agenda you want to do that in july i do i do too yeah i'd like to see it in july if not possible thank you mr chairman anybody else i don't have anything else other than i that workshop i had i i'll do that then some ideas around topics yeah i guess you know i just would like to piggyback on what mr oliver said you know i think there's a couple you know things that you know we did get another email around accessibility and i think it involved more um miscommunications between like a parent you know and possibly staff when it comes to accessible seating but i think it does bring
078into a question of you know if we have procedures in place are they communicated to the public so i think um you know i'd like to have a conference that added into the conversation of you know talking about our medically fragile children as well as you know thinking about you know is there a place where we can have for someone who's coming to into an event you know on our website frequently asked questions for accessible seating i think that would be a pretty you know if i'm going to the potter school and i'm in a wheelchair is there what would i do like what you know so those kinds of things i think just a conversation about how do we make our facilities more accessible we know that that's a long-range plan for our stadium
079but that's not something we can do right now so is there signage just you know again just to give folks some guidance because i you know as a parent and graduates i you know after the fact i was able to see that you know looking through that there was something that came out after but it wasn't you know a lot of people weren't aware and so they were out there you know what 10 am sitting outside and you know luckily it wasn't too warm but i think that could have been avoided and they did there was seating available it just you know those folks for whatever reason weren't aware of it so that's that's one thing but again i i want to get back to what mr oliver said i think it's really important that
080we you know let these you know let this parent come and speak in these um to the um anaphylaxis and and see if we can work together to make our schools a safer and more um equitable place for them that's all i have all right okay all right our next meeting is july 25th at uh 5 p.m that'll be here the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn to executive session uh for an update on negotiations with union personnel and uh not return to open session so moved second move by mr oliver second by mrs white on the motion of any discussion chair hearing none roll call vote please john nunes yes mary wait yes kathleen ameral yes chris oliver yes thank you very much enjoy and happy fourth of july [Music] my