001[Music] so [Music] thank you good evening i'd like to call the may 23rd meeting of the diamond school committee to order you please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i would ask if you have any cell phones beepers pages electronic devices if you would either shut them off or put them on silent and vibrate please also like to let you know that this meeting is being taken by dartmouth youtube television dhst media and it is available for rebroadcasts on dc tv channel nines on the following days wednesday and thursday at 5 p.m friday at 6 saturday at 8 and sunday at 2 p.m it's also broadcast on
002channel 18 on monday and saturday at 12 noon and thursday at 3 p.m and there's usually some other times that they also put it in there we appreciate all the tv time that they give us uh roll call please miss gantham john nunes yeah mary wait here kathleen amaral here shannon jenkins chris oliver here thank you uh dr jenkins is a little under the weather tonight we hope she's feeling better so doing that okay first order of business uh recognition mr tebow the principal of dartmouth high school has a couple of uh presentations that he's going to talk about thank you mr nunes each year dartmouth high school is tasked with selecting two students to receive the superintendent's excellence award in order to make this difficult decision we ask for input from the two student
003support teams who nominate students for consideration based on academic excellence as well as contributions in leadership made to dartmouth high school the first recipient of this year's superintendent's excellence award is a young man who is well known throughout the dartmouth high school community as a polite respectful quiet young man who leads by the power of his example joshua moniz is an exceptional student leader and has been for four years at dartmouth high school joshua has excelled in many of the most rigorous courses offered at dartmouth high school including such courses as ap english language and composition ap calculus bc project lead the way slash ap computer science a and ap physics and that's just his senior costly joshua has also successfully completed ap united states history and a dual enrollment pre-calculus with trigonometry course at
004a local college while josh's academic excellence is undeniable it is as i alluded to his leadership in service to the dartmouth high school community that is truly commendable joshua has served on the student council for four years and is currently the president of the student council additionally joshua has served as a student representative to the school committee a member of the school council a member of key club he's a student representative to the southeast regional student advisory council and is a member of the southeast regional student advisory council's diversity and inclusion subcommittee josh also serves as associate editor to our school's award-winning student newspaper the spectrum wager hush finds the time i'm not sure but he's also a student musician and a student athlete as well josh is a member of the unified track team
005one of our student volunteers for the special olympics day games which we just posted again on friday he also serves as a percussion section leader in dartmouth high school's national championship marching band and is a member of the stage and concert band as well for all of the reasons i've listed josh was also selected earlier this year as the francis w galishawa scholarship recipient and josh will definitely be missed by the dartmouth high school community but we wish him well as he continues his education in the fall at stonehill college where he plans to major in computer engineering so while joshua is exceptional so too is our second recipient which is mr evan garcia evan is both an outstanding student academically as well as a quiet and effective student leader who similar to to josh
006leads by the power of his example evan has taken and successfully completed many of the most rigorous courses offered at dartmouth high school including ap statistics ap environmental science ap human geography ap psychology and again those four ap courses are what he's taking currently this year alone in his senior year he's also successfully completed ap world history ap united states government and politics ap english literature with ap research ap united states history and ap english language with ap seminar as a result of evan's academic commitment and drive evan has been named an ap scholar with distinction and is eligible to receive the ap capstone diploma in keeping with a similar theme evan's academic achievement is certainly noteworthy but the leadership and service contributions that evan makes and ha and have made has made over the
007past four years are truly what distinguishes him from his peers and makes him deserving of this recognition evan has been a four-year member of our unified athletics program a member and current president of our best buddies chapter which just hosted for the first time a friendship ball a few fridays ago in addition evan is a member of the student council and has served has served i believe two different times as the student rep to the school committee evan is also a student athlete and at dartmouth high school he's been a member of the indoor winter track team each of his four years here at dartmouth high school and most recently this past winter season served as captain of our indoor track team in the fall evan will be majoring in political science at the college
008of the holy cross i believe i can speak for all members of the dartmouth high school community when i share that the void created by these two exceptional young people in their graduation we will miss them for sure and we're confident that other leaders will step up but they deserve all the recognition they receive and dartmouth high school is certainly indebted to them so i'd like to congratulate both evan and josh and we look forward to presenting them the award at the scholarship and awards evening on june 1st [Applause] thank you mr tebow well deserved for those two young men any comments from my colleagues chris sure i'll just say uh congratulations to them both two outstanding individuals uh we got to know i've gotten to know them both um so no best of luck
009in their college endeavors yeah as my colleague just stated i mean i'm not surprised they're two incredible young men uh who i've been fortunate to interact with you know in my work here and my service here uh so i'm not surprised and i wish them all all very you know the best in their future um i look forward to hearing what's to come and i'll just um just uh you know pay back on what my colleagues said i mean i've had a lot of fun just like watching them you know grow through like their middle school years into their high school years and you know i can you know speak to their leadership i know just uh besides just sitting in this room you know i've watched them out with my like own younger sons
010and so as well as my daughter's a senior and it's you know they are just really truly nice kids and those are the kinds of kids that i'm just really proud and humbled to be you know seeing on their way and graduating from dartmouth high school i think we have a lot to be proud of and you know certainly they're a product of a really strong and heartfelt community that supported them so um i i think that we're really lucky they're both staying in massachusetts for a whole lake crossing it's total so um you know they're gonna rock this world so we're really lucky i have no doubt about it both both fine young gentlemen and you know i agree with what mr tebow said and you know where do they find time to do
011to to do everything you type of deal with you know the class the the class load that they're taking and such so my heartfelt congratulations to both of them i wish them nothing but the best as uh graduation comes up in the next couple of weeks and they move on you know kind of as i always say you know come back and see us and make us all proud okay next right it's great nighttime this is what this is when somebody says why do i sit here and this is things like this that really make it special uh our next uh recognition is our special education parent advisory council and i looking for miss townsend and ms august good evening everyone the dartmouth special education advisory council known as the cpac is a parent organization
012that focuses on bringing support and information to parents and families of students with disabilities while many of their speakers and topics focus on supporting students with disabilities dartmouth cpac meetings have and always will be open to the public and all families parents of students with and without disabilities have provided positive feedback after attending one of the cpac meetings this year in addition to the annual basic rights workshop the cpac sponsored sessions focused on anxiety in children and adolescents secret lives of teens and tweens and healing post pandemic i would like to take a moment to sincerely thank kathleen amaral and deb august for their roles as cpac executive board members they've done a tremendous job bringing in relevant high quality presentations to all parents and families and especially this year focusing the presentations on the
013mental health needs of students and families i will be turning the microphone over to mrs amaral and mrs august who will share the names of students and staff that were individually recognized in our own annual cpac survey sent out to parents but before i do so i would like to formally recognize all of the special education staff in dartmouth for their dedication and commitment to our students and families to all of the general educators special educators related service providers and teacher assistants who support students with disabilities i sincerely thank you for the incredible work that you do this year and every year and now i would like to turn the microphone over to mrs amaral and mrs august for their recognition thank you get nervous standing on this side over here i used to do
014it often as you guys remember before sitting on that side but um it's different on that side it is different i just got a little whoo my knees got a little wiggly uh so yeah we um deb and i have been at this for many a lot of years and uh the best 11 years oh my gosh it's about 11 years it's been a long time but it's like it's like it was yesterday and we love this part so every year the department of elementary and secondary education or at least every three years when they do a tiered monitoring process they ask us if we've engaged and they asked our how our relationship with the district has been and they sort of require us to kind of get a pulse on what parents their experience
015is and so each year we survey parents and guardians around you know their previous year's experience and we share that information with the school committee oftentimes you know there are themes that arise and deb will present those findings later on in this meeting but what we also do because we recognize you know the the the pretty uh intense and uh uh coordination and effort it takes to support you know our students my son your son and our community we like to add in some recognition to the survey so we don't want it to be all this is what you're doing wrong we don't want it to be you know we certainly don't edit any of the comments you've got them all unedited but we like to recognize both staff as well as students i think
016you just peeked at this paper in the district yearly okay good uh and so i'm gonna first start off by naming the staff who are nominated from each level and i ask if it's okay chair and if we if when you hear your name i know every not everyone was able to make it if you come on over to the middle here so that at the end we can get a photograph of everyone if it's okay with you so i'm going to start off with the high school and so just to backtrack again because i'm nervous is that we ask parents and guardians to nominate a staff person who has gone above and beyond to make their student feel supported and safe and valued and has given you know the commentary has ranged from just
017extra support checking in you know to make sure that the child in checking in at home and being you know having great communication those sorts of things and similarly with the peers we ask for those students you know a student who has uh also gone above and beyond to make your student feel welcome and included and you know just uh just the kindness and the leadership shown so it takes a lot to be nominated and not everyone you know we have fourteen percent participation in this survey but everyone answers the question that they want to nominate someone and many of the folks that were nominated were nominated multiple times so when you talk about themes that kind of bubble up but then of course there are other folks that aren't nominated that does not mean
018that they are less deserving because we have a great community here so without further ado i'm going to start with a little surprise and get it out of the way because my dear friend and colleague deb august was nominated not by me but deb has done a lot of those of you who know we did sign this one no you didn't that's okay so deb was nominated those of you who know deb know the work that she does um uh for all students so i'm gonna backtrack a couple years and when my daughter didn't even have her in class and needed some extra help in math deb welcomed her into her class before after school i don't think emma took you up on that often but the door is always open and in terms of
019our students with disabilities deb has coordinated bowling clubs and filtered that in from the high school to the middle school and has volunteered her time with the best buddies and is just just an incredible person i'm not going to cry so i just want to hand this to you first you don't have to go stand here because i need your help and i just want to say that um this mostly goes for the kids not me it's all about the kids and it's not about me yeah absolutely yeah yeah they make it amazing yes it's talking about them so i'm gonna name you're very welcome well deserved so i'm gonna name folks and and i know some people aren't here but i do want to name them so from the high school we have brian
020crowley was awarded for having made an impression on students and melissa fitzgerald has also been nominated and awarded for also being super helpful and um you know to her students so please take your award and go towards the middle oh stay right there stay right there don't listen to me listen to the man the boys okay and so we have deb brian and melissa from dartmouth high school thank you and if you just stay there and now i'm going to move to the middle school and again these are staff who have gone above and beyond for their students so much so that parents and guardians have filled out this and added some incredible commentary around what these uh this these staff do for for the students um elizabeth dufault please come on up um i'm
021going to keep it in the family now i'm going to call mr bill garcia up here for the incredible work you do uh francis gothier anthony martin susan pelick and kim rio please come on up for the incredible work that you do so stay there please he's not yeah he was unable um and so now we're gonna move to quinn and sorry don't worry wait till i'm in here wait till we swap i'm not that coordinated it'll be done uh our first nomination uh from quinn elementary is lisa aruda mary thank you mary bolton is not able to join us today but she was awarded el canessa was awarded i don't believe al was able um ashley couture pozzo was awarded excellent caitlin defaria was also awarded and again the commentary that has come in
022for all of these teachers really ranged from patience and guidance and support and just all good stuff rebecca kelly was awarded from quinn desiree meta was awarded melissa sullivan is awarded lindsey vavitas was awarded and mrs fiera laura vieira hey this is the best now we're going to squish together more as we add mellow staff i believe everyone's here from demillo but andrea migno was awarded from de mello melissa nunes was also awarded mrs olean jasmine oleen right there and danielle santos so that's demelo now we're really going to have to squish together as we get to potter although a few folks were unable to make it we do have more that's great you gotta stop me in such a great district stop being such great so teresa baird from potter i don't believe she
023was available which is understandable paul schwinnard is nominated and awarded darren floren carrie gregoire caitlyn callback melissa lawrence the nurse is in the house [Applause] last minute unable to make it i believe yes uh lori murphy jenna reese and tricia weaver and i did that out of order because also rick porter was also nominated for this award he's here and i am so glad that you didn't say oh no this is for all the because this is for you and i'll share i'll share with each of you what what folks said about you so that's potter for real and we're going to move to cushman margaret collins was awarded christine fastori was awarded i think lisa perry was also awarded make a great team uh and julia emilia julie there you are there you are
024was also awarded from cushman and so thank you all [Applause] thank you all very good much so i'm gonna turn it over to you all right miss this is august okay did i lose my listing no you had it organized all right so we're going to start with recognizing some students we're going to start with the high school and we've got evan garcia [Applause] and jacob kearney [Applause] from dartmouth middle school we have uh olivia arrougeo [Applause] from potter school we have julian amaral [Applause] lucas aguiar [Applause] congratulations now from uh quinn elementary school you have jeffrey sylvia [Applause] we also have landon velozo [Applause] we also have eva seemos [Applause] elsie smart [Applause] uh jayla conward johnson and tegan carter [Applause] from demelo elementary school they have keegan lopes [Applause] liliana paveo [Applause] avery
025imbo [Applause] reese rem x and eli friedman nice and from cushman we have sadie thomas [Applause] thank you congratulations everyone thank you [Applause] thank you very much no problem thank you thank you [Applause] now that that part is done uh we always love to have an audience but we also understand students have homework so we'll hang tight for a minute if you guys want everybody needs to leave we're good with that [Music] we'll talk thank you mr galashaw awesome later they're great okay at this point in time in the agenda we have uh set aside 10 minutes for public comment as to anything that is on the agenda tonight so if anybody is there and has any questions or concerns about the agenda items you may step up to the microphone don't all rush at
026once okay that takes care of that next on our agenda is our wonderful junior student representative uh naina thank you mr nunes hi everyone to start off advanced placement testing has now concluded dartmouth high school students completed ap exams in nearly 20 different courses we would like to thank all of our teachers as well as our ap coordinator mrs chavier for helping prepare for success on the ap exams throughout the year our grade 10 students completed the mathematics mcas last week our students demonstrated their commitment and perseverance in our 10th and our 10th graders have now all completed their testing requirements our grade 9 students are busy preparing for their biology mcas exam which will be administered on june 6th and june 7th on thursday may 19th the newest members of the national honor society
027were inducted into the dhs chapter of nhs we would like to thank mrs enixon mrs fiera and the nhs officers for their leadership and hard work in putting together the ceremony on friday dartmouth hosted the special olympics day games with nearly 100 dartmouth high school students volunteering to make this powerful day of inclusivity possible we would like to especially highlight the efforts of mr bro mr capello mrs coker pierpoint and all of the support staff that make the special olympics possible additionally it would not be possible without the support from our community partners like like the dartmouth police and the massachusetts state police finally we want to wish our seniors well as their last day of classes is this friday end of year events are set to kick off next week and each one of
028you will be greatly missed thank you thank you thank you any questions comments no thank you very much thank you very much it's amazing it's the last day for seniors already oh my god another year i won't cry this is so quick here you go thank you thank you all right keep them right here okay all right back to continuing on with the the good stuff that we have tonight i'd like to call up dr justine dale principal of the andrew b cushman school and their spotlight on cushman students oh and sorry lightning i apologize i didn't see them miss o'neill well thank you everybody for the opportunity being here tonight so we have myself and our literacy coach lori o'neil and we have a number of slides we're going to fly through them there
029were some videos that were embedded that i don't think are working because of some technology glitches but we'll do our best to get through it okay so i thought it was important that i share a little bit about how special ed students come into the cushman school as three-year-olds so we work closely with the early intervention partners and we get a notification saying oh these students will be turning three and next thing you know we get a referral and that means that i will be attending a transition planning conference with those partners and i'll have an opportunity to meet the family and meet the child and then after that meeting i will put together an evaluation of the various assessments that need to be done for that child we'll have those assessments completed the child's
030brought to school now they're only at that point maybe you know two years nine months old and then once the assessments are completed we'll have another eligibility meeting to determine whether or not they would qualify for special education slot so i want that cycle just to be known as that's how our special education preschool slots are filled at cushman so we have the integrated preschool and in the integrated preschool we have eight peer students and seven students with special needs up to 15 in the classroom and the peer students come through us through the lottery process that was held in march and this year we had 110 applications for 49 peer slots so we have a lengthy wait list at this point and we have spring screening that will be taking place actually it's taking
031place starting tomorrow and we will screen all the preschoolers not only the ones who who were able to get into the program but those on the waiting list and any other child in the community that is approaching three years old or three years old and that also we will do screening that will tell us if that child needs further evaluations in any of our areas otp speech and language at cushman school we are so lucky to have the related service providers at the building so together we work together in supporting our students in all of these areas and when i came to dartmouth i was so excited to see that we actually had our support people in-house and what a what a opportunity that is to have them right there with us they're in-house we're
032able to utilize the resources of the building and also do some cross content areas here is a friend who's playing in the ball pit in our motor room with one of our speech and language tas and it's just so much fun to see how much this room is used you'll see it in some other pictures here's another picture in our motor room with some of our friends using a swing and any child can go into the motor room doesn't have to be a special needs child it can be any child it just needs to have some energy output when it's especially when it's winter outside here's another uh picture of a support person in our speech and language department integrating literacy into the services that she's providing and to kindergarten now at cushman we have
033four kindergarten classrooms and two tas and this year we had two co-taught classrooms and in those co-taught classrooms of course we have students with ieps and in kindergarten they have art music pe library along with technology and that brings me to why i have this wonderful lady here our students are supported through our literacy coach and she is going to speak to you about the reading and writing and phonics that takes place in kindergarten so we teach reading writing and phonics instruction in we deliver in a workshop model sorry so here are some just some snapshots of the kids working both with the teacher individually and uh the far one on the right is the mini lesson so there are three parts to a um workshop model and it's really an instructional practice it's just
034the way we deliver the instruction and it helps students um we will deliver a mini lesson at first and the teacher really models a skill or a strategy then there's independent practice where students get to practice that skill individually or in a small group and this is really where the teacher moves around the classroom offering conferences and targeted feedback and finally we have the share where the students come back together and as a whole group for reflection or debrief so this is just i don't think that we can see the book but she's in a reading workshop and really the goal of a reader's workshop is to teach students strategies um for reading and comprehension the um the model the workshop model really allows teachers to differentiate and meet the needs of all their students
035so students are not reading the same book they're not working on the same level but um they're just they're receiving feedback and just moving up the ladder as they go so it really helps to foster a love of reading and gives students a chance to practice their reading strategies this was a little clip i don't i guess it's not going to work right so he was just reading and you can really hear the humming of the classroom in back of him it's not quiet he's reading as though he's alone and you can hear the teacher you can hear the other kids reading their book and he happens to be working individually there are small groups going on there are partners going on this guy was reading a piece reading a piece of his writing so
036in for writer's workshop students work on informational pieces narratives and arguments he was writing an argument about not running in the hallway working really hard to reread his writing and he was very successful he could read everything he had put down so he the students really have come a long way from the beginning of the year to this this point of the year um we have them write authentic pieces for real audiences and um and and they really they really believe that they're changing the world with these these arguments and finally in um in phonics workshop oh this was a clip yeah that's too bad it was good um the teacher is so the unit that they're they're working on right now um in phonics is really that you can use phonics in of course
037your reading and writing and that's that's of course why we we study phonics but she was trying to get them to to add like um the unit is asking students to add things like uh magical magical words um and so the really they they're just they're they're not real words they would just they had to come up with a word in order to um create a magic spell i think it was and then the students were working really hard to um to write those words and these two little friends were going to turn the cafeteria into a chocolate factory and they were writing their magical words and it's too bad you can't hear the video but it was so sweet and they were saying the magical word and the other friend was that a t
038or was that a p sound they were like correcting each other it was so sweet so then i wanted to i was going to go over the bridges because i know you've been hearing a lot about the implementation and it's been happening at cushman as well and preschool and in kindergarten and teachers have really embraced it and doing a great job but i wanted to share some unique things about cushman school here is an outdoor community meeting we have three expectations take care of yourself take care of others and take care of our school very simple and we use that language and the children understand that and we are feinstein school and i'm so excited to say again this year we have the kindness tree and students are really understanding now what it means to
039be kind to be kind at home at school and in their community they write kind deeds they bring it to school they or draw a picture of what they've done their name goes up on a heart or a leaf and goes on to the tree we take pictures we celebrate it and um i just i just adore this here is an example of the feinstein junior scholar keepsake journal that we pass out at the beginning of the year each student gets a journal and on the cover of your journal you have your golden ticket which is a cherished thing that you want to hang on to every tuesday um the golden tickets are selected by the feinstein foundation and they are advertised on the news and and facebook page and this year we had claire
040worley receive a golden ticket which means that she receives 500 for a non-profit agency of her choosing she chose buttonwood zoo and with that she was able to get a close encounter with a red panda and the school wins five thousand dollars and i um with the school together we did a a big drive for gifts to give and i was able to take some kindergartners there with their parents on a little tour to see the foundation if you haven't seen it it's it's worth going to look at it is amazing and these children were able to leave with a stuffy of their choosing and a book of their choosing also through the feinstein foundation we uh receive free shows and things like that and this is the birwana iguana show that we had and
041um the children were entertained with a variety of reptiles and we had big boa constrictors and it was amazing and the kids loved it one of the things we do at cushman is that we really we want to go beyond awareness of different disabilities to acceptance and this little girl's shirt says it all we were celebrating diversity and um looking at autism and accepting autism and also the little girl on the right you know she has a sibling that has down syndrome and she had a beautiful handmade family shirt that we just were celebrating and we do that in a variety of ways one of the things we did we had a spirit week and on the spirit week one every day was a different day and this day was comfy clothes day because we
042wanted to have a sensory friendly friday where we would teach the children about children having sensory sensitivities and we all were able to wear comfy clothes we had the classroom lights shut down and just use the natural light and we also wore sunglasses if we wanted to wear sunglasses just to kind of calm our bodies and here's another day this was celebrating neurodiversity and the beauty in the diverse spectrum of the human mind we were all wearing rainbow and tie-dye clothes finally our newest edition of cushman we're going to end with that is our new little playground some of the feinstein monies have gone towards this playground and um you'll see the picture there all the students were watching it be installed they just naturally set themselves up like that and i said oh my
043gosh what a great picture and then obviously the next site is uh enjoying it on the first day so we are building our playground slowly at cushman school last year we had our fence our field fenced in this year we got the structure and now i'm looking to get a big sand house sandbox with shade for next year and here we are this is our um what would you call this our logo and this is put together by hannah roberto our art teacher and this year we were able to get this on sweatshirts and have spirit where cushman so thank you any questions thank you thank you ma'am great thank you any questions no it's it's it's great and i will say it's so great to see a playscape there like finally for these because
044i know they always are looking over the fence but i mean just everything you do it's just like you know speaks so much about like warmth and kindness and it's just uh i mean my my son went through there and i can just you know it just emanates from that that building from the people that you have working there so it is a great team so we're really i'm really grateful thank you thank you this is amarillo yeah no thank you for sharing um and appreciate you kind of talking about that timeline because it is it is you know cumbersome and it's a process in terms of students filling peer slots versus students needing or being found eligible for special education i'm wondering i think i asked this last time too it are the early
045intervention sort of referrals coming in on a manual you don't have much to base it on pre-covet but is it has it been uh smooth or are they coming in um as expected or are there i'm just worried about you know the state of the last two years and students you know with even eohs sort of like changing around keeping kids on eligibility for ei versus transitioning you know during the pandemic is that kind of coming into a routine that seems it is it's really falling into place now we did have an influx there for a little bit because they were children that weren't just turning three they were already older and it was a little breakdown right there so um beginning next year we probably have about half of our spot spots filled already
046so um depending on what the pace well it's a ruling enrollment so it's a hard one to to pinpoint as to how many you're going to come in very good um and yeah just a plug for like the cpac it's always a resource for young parents who either want to learn more get support through about special education with the parent advisory council or step into a leadership spot on the c-pac and sort of take the reigns i think that's when they got us right um but yeah and so i'll probably connect after maybe we could even do something where we kind of have a night to talk with young families about what the cpac is and how we can help support and alleviate some of the questions they have for you in terms of just
047you know the role that we feel in that way so okay thank you chris mr oliver thank you mr zamora thank you for your presentation it's great to see the students enjoying themselves all the special events that takes place there it's also nice to see some some type of novelty back in there back in their lives and back in the education environment i guess my question is i actually have a couple of questions one so when you when you talk about the referral process well the referral process early intervention and all this this is also um the one includes the one classroom over at potter as well or is that like separate i'm just curious is it just do we consider it all one big preschool program in dartmouth or yeah it is um and
048the potter uh program generally fills up first so we we go from there and fill up our slots but yes it's one of so it's seven preschool classrooms as a district program okay great and my second question is how are you finding because i know obviously with the budget we're responsible for the budget um in every year we hear about you know needs that arise i'm across the district and we keep hearing about um related services how are you finding um are the students coming in more needy uh because of the pandemic and because of covet and i you know i believe in universal but i would love to see universal pre-k um i think it's a you know there's a lot to be said about that and i think that a lot of the
049research speaks for itself um but i'm just curious as to are we seeing um the needs increase yeah um yeah i i have a spreadsheet that um just kind of shows everybody who's come in and where we've tested and what the diagnosis were or what not if they qualified or not and um beth townsend and i have had numerous conversations with regards to why we see so many children with autism coming through if the doctors have been maybe you know over diagnosing it because these children have not had the opportunity to socialize they've been at home and they are you know stilted because of that so i don't know but i will tell you that the kids that are coming in are are way more needy than what um than what i saw last year
050and what i've seen in my my career the need for speech and language overall is the number one hands-down area that really needs to be a priority for addressing the needs of these little three-year-olds okay thank you very much great presentation thank you good questions thank you [Applause] okay this is august your turn you get to talk about this cpac survey results you're useful that's right thank you all right so um this is based on the survey that was uh sent out to the community i think we had about 83 uh people respond i'm just going to start with a little background for the cpac and then i'm just going to report out the data that came through right so special education parent advisory council so we abbreviate that as the cpac okay this is
051our dartmouth one every problem every public school district in massachusetts is required to establish a cpac massachusetts state law assigns both an advisory and a participatory function to cpacs membership is offered to all parents of children with disabilities and other interested parties so this is kind of a little plug to you know to get more members and to get more people letting them know that we are here to help all right um we are a parent-run group our mission is to help inform parents of special needs kids we try to help educate parents on their rights and inform them of the many resources available we sponsor many workshops workshops events throughout the school year the most significant is our annual resource fair we are thrilled to bring it back this huge event it is scheduled
052for september 25th mark your calendars this resource fair helps us raise money which we donate to support a variety of school sponsored events sports activities we also sponsor professional speakers to lead workshops for our parents and community examples of such events that we support um is the unified bowling club um the dartmouth best buddies chapter um and we also just recently had a webinar on depression post-pandemic so that's been a couple of things that we've put our money towards all right so starting on some of the results of our survey so services children received again we had 83 responses and and that's pretty much throughout the whole thing will be the 83 responses so uh two children for ei services which about 2.4 percent of our survey iep services are 67 children out of the
05383 responses 80.7 504 plan accommodations 13 children 15.7 percent and iep or a 504 that's in process we have five children in that area at six percent so children's uh placements uh early intervention would be the the blue i don't really have a number there so uh pre-calc either pre-calc oh i was just doing the br the math is in the brain that's right so pre-k either cushman or potter it looks like 9.6 percent pre-k private school um we've got the like a light orange in there i don't see it so pre-k out of district would be the green 18.1 percent i think my colors are a little bit off on this i think the quinn is the 18.1 percent demelo's 13.3 percent that was grades uh k-5 parter school grade k-5 is 14.5 percent
054i would say the pre-k either cushman or potter was the 8.4 purple is a is less than the one-third i'm assuming like the colors aren't really matching all right that's a breakdown there all right details about children's placement we have uh 12 responses smec the tlp that's the transitional living regular education placement related pull out speech therapy at potter these are just comments as to a children's placement greater new bedford vocational technical high school pre-k at cushman the pals program smack in rochester iep for speech services uh grade four i don't know what the asterisk meant that's how they put it cushman kindergarten suffers anxiety and has adhd receives help with reading so those were just a couple 12 responses that we had a special ed eligibility and referral process was smooth and efficient they
055were asked to please rate and at the bottom i did put how the rating went if it was closer to one if they disagreed and closer to six if they were in agreement so two were in disagreement 2.4 percent four um we had a 4.8 so then we had six responses at 7.2 percent 11 13.3 percent were starting to be more agreeable 25.3 percent and then 39 to 47 evaluation reports were explained clearly and were easy to er to understand again closer to the disagreement we have two response responses two point four percent a little bit more towards the agreeable two at two point four percent right right in the middle uh three at three point six percent four a rating of four is seven eight point four percent rating of five twenty people responded
056at twenty four point one percent and in total agreement forty nine fifty nine percent the components of the iap 504 were explained in detail we didn't have anybody in disagreement a rating of two five people six percent rating of three two people two point four percent rating of four getting kind of closer to the agreement eight nine point six percent rating of five twenty one people twenty five point three percent and then a rating of 6 47 56.6 if you guys want me to slow down i will we're good all right parents concerns were addressed during your child's team meeting so we have uh two people with a rating of one two point four percent uh one person with a rating of two one point two percent uh rating of three was five six percent
057rating of four six percent sorry six people 7.2 percent rating of 5 18 which was about 21.7 percent and then um in total agreement 51 people 61.4 percent and parent concerns prior to and after a meeting are addre addressed in a timely fashion we have four in the uh disagreement with a rating of one one person at a rating of two 1.2 percent a rating of three five people six percent uh rating of four ten people twelve percent rating of five getting closer to agreement sixteen nineteen point three percent and then a rating of six 47 people 56.6 and then uh covert compensatory services were considered so we have 33.7 percent were saying yes 22.9 uh had a rating of no and then not applicable 43.4 percent okay and if kovid compensatory that's a hard
058word services were needed were service services provided and or a plan put in place that is being followed 83 responses again not applicable 62.7 percent yes this happened 19.3 percent and no 18.1 percent so almost like split on the yes and no there and we're getting close to here to the end do you believe your child's placement and service delivery is appropriate so we had three people each with a rating of one two and three then we had thirteen people with a rating of four fifteen point seven percent this again goes with the disagreement to agreement and then 18 with a rating of five 21.7 percent and 43 people with a rating of six 51.8 percent and does your child experience bullying as a result of their disability 74.7 percent said no 9.6 percent is
059not applicable and 15.7 was a yes if you answered yes to the previous question has the bullying been discussed with school addressed and remedied 79.5 percent was not applicable 10.8 percent was a no and six percent was a yes and strengths i am happy with the services dedicated and educated staff staff has good communication they genuinely love my son was this part of it i would i mean i'm gonna hold off on that yeah yeah that's in the other part not that we don't want to hear the strengths but right i think that was part of that [Laughter] and i'm like it appeared all right any any questions questions mr oliver sure i'll start first of all i want to thank both of you for your great presentation that you did earlier to recognize our
060staff and students thank you and i i've had the i haven't been recently obviously because of covet but years ago i had the opportunity to go to some of the cpac meetings and um i think that's where i actually got to know mrs amroll and i thank you as well and um i just can't say enough about the cpac and the dartmouth cpac and how it's run in the time and the effort that i know all this takes and the dedication um so for for that i thank you both yeah um for your for your dedication to this because it it means a lot and obviously um you know you're always looking you're trying to recruit people to to take over i i see where this is going um so um i'm hoping that you
061know more people will more parents will step up and you know help out with that you know i think this phil's definitely fills a need in any district to hear even though it's a very small percentage to hear parents voices um and diamonds no different and i appreciate all the data that you shared with us um i think it's very helpful um you know and um yeah it certainly lets us know where we stand as a district and we're with with this so um i thank you both exactly thank you thank you no i just thank deb she she does she does look great she does a great job and we um all those like you know well but we we go on the road with this show we're a lot of fun um but
062i won't mention any names right now just but we we also so cpac is open to parents and other interested parties so um not only do we have uh parents from other districts pre-covered more so but even during our virtual events attending our meetings um like we see like miss townsend says from we have liaisons from schools and we have one in particular who is out caring for you know her beautiful uh daughter um who they're right in the mud with us and helping us coordinate events and organize um you know things uh they keep me in line because i can be a little bit of a chatterbox and all over the place and we each have our skill set but um you know there are a lot there are other folks that that are
063in the mix with us including staff and you hold that dual role so it's really valuable that's i don't have anything else to say okay yes well i'll say like speaking of dual roles again thank you and both of you you know again i have to echo what my colleague had said is you know excellent presentation you know it's always really informative um you know it looks like just from like statistically you know again i know it's a relatively small sample but it seems that for the most part we're doing pretty well and that people certainly seem to be feeling like that they're being advocated for and their students for the most part are receiving the services that they want they felt like again there are exceptions of course but it sounds like i know
064i went through the 504 process like recently you know it it feels like you know those just you know looking at the evidence most people feel that they're being they're understanding the process and that that itself is really important because it speaks to accessibility and language um so i feel really good seeing that i mean anytime we see bullying connected to you know disabilities it's always you know whatever that percentage is like one is too many so that's always a concern i did take note that in that case we have you know parents it looked like they hadn't followed up you know again i'm just trying to like you know parcel through so um you know but but that aside you know certainly and just the testimony of everybody we saw come to you know
065be you know this morning or that smart excuse you know in the presentation that people feel so supported by their staff i mean the numbers of people that we had you know it says especially you know looking back over the last two years we know that you know these children in particular have had an you know very hard time you know with kovids so the fact that they're feeling supported and connected to staff and to the point that parents are writing that is is really a testimony to um what's happening in our schools so um thank you very much i mean one of my questions i did have that was how many people do you tend to have attending your meetings and have you found a change you find more parents now that you're when
066you've worked on a virtual platform i must imagine that depending on what you're offering there's a shift but you have a lot of people regularly attending like how does that i think it fluctuates i think before covid um it would fluctuate i'd say sometimes it'd be 10 sometimes it'd be 20. when we had the zoom meeting that i'm one of the first ones it was in october or something we had like 30 something there right so and then on this last one i think we had 20 something okay i'm trying to yeah i think would you agree yeah those were the numbers yeah i don't have the numbers but i mean yeah yeah i think we got actually got more post cover than pre right and again like everything you've done around anxiety and depression
067like i just have to think you know thank you that's such a you know there's such a need you know there across like you said not just for students who you know maybe like qualify as a student who um has a disability but you know across the district we just see that you know over and over again so you know certainly appreciative and i would imagine for um child care which is something we all struggle with having the zoom platform it's you know as an option we always offered yeah so it's great to bring in the gym and get some energy out yeah no it's great so thank you thank you for everything thank you and i just want to say with everything you guys are saying communication is is the key between you know
068all the parties that are involved in the team definitely so thank you thank you thank you thank you i'm good i'm good no i'm fine i'm good she was like i'm done i put you up there not missed the news i spoke for john that's good that's fine i'm good all right uh next on our agenda is the approval of the regular and joint session minutes of uh our meeting on may 9th so moved by mr oliver second by ms waite on the motion and discussion opposed motion carries unanimously and uh entertainment uh the executive session minutes of uh may 9th also oh i need that language so moved with the stipulation that they be held until the matter for which they were purposed uh yeah that's what i was going to pretend second there
069you go that is always the problem when i consider that's what i was struggling with okay don't worry about it we'll get it through it all right so we have a motion and a second motion by mr oliver second by miss wait no miss amara thank you miss amaral i'm sorry on the motion any discussion chair hearing none all in favor aye opposed motion carries unanimously thank you all right okay uh next real easy a couple of consent items okay we have a request from the dartmouth high school marching band and color guide to operate the food concession at the dartmouth living memorial stadium for the 2022 football season so can i make a motion yeah okay so i make a motion to approve that request yep all right motion by ms wait second by
070ms hammerl on the motion any discussion chair hearing on all in favor aye aye opposed and the chair will abstain since i'm a member of the association i am too but well no but my wife's the treasurer okay all right i'll route that way okay that's good i think that's bad you're fine okay uh all right next something we always look forward to finally again we can have is a request by the dartmouth high school unified arts department to hold their 2022 summer arts camp yes and we received a fantastic uh breakdown from uh mrs cronin with uh what's going on and you know the post things that they look for and what the courses are and registration and everything else any questions on that that's great okay no i actually i would just like
071to see um how enrollment is um just want to see if we got our kids our students back so yeah after after the registration deadline closes yeah and that's fine so i have a motion to approve motion notion by mr oliver second second second by ms white on a motion any discussion chair hearing on all in favor aye aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously all right um new business smack quarterly report i think we're gonna hold that yeah i asked um miss gentler if we could just uh hold it to the next meeting just because we have ours we have our smec meeting coming up on the 31st i believe and uh there's a number of things that we may be discussing including the first read of the budget um so yeah looking forward to
072sharing some hopefully some exciting news if we can um close on a real estate deal yeah that would be tough but it would be nice all right dr gifford superintendents okay i have a number of things that the schools have been up to so i'll just read through a few of them the middle school has been working a lot with great eight grade eight civics projects and some of the examples are homeless kits that they've put together for personal hygiene items and socks and and they would donate it to a homeless shelter and as well as food pantry donations another group is working with the pal students and uh to beautify the grounds they're working on the cleaning up the courtyard so it's a nice way for them to participate as well as some vocational
073skills that they're working on the national junior honor society always has their clean up the beach day and um fourth over four thousand dollars has been donated to the uh red cross and this was after lessons from the social studies classes and that which were aligned uh to the current standards sixth grade did a lesson on refugees seventh grade literacy and human rights and historically in countries around the world in eighth grade focused on humanitarianism and what it means to be a good citizen and they've done some book clubs in being introduced in the sixth and seventh grade after um they saw how successful it was in the eighth grade and uh working on more literature and of course a seventh grade trip to patriot's place and the eighth grade has the end of year
074field trip coming up and of course um the uh i was going to say graduate promotion uh coming up soon as we all know for grade eight quinn and all of the other elementary schools have been participating in art shows as we know some did them at their own school and some participated with the district one quinn also had a block party community event on saturday and they had all kinds of things happening bouncy houses and vendors and face painting so it was a nice a nice event once again to start to get the community involved um with the events that are happening at our schools potter obviously as well they've had their pre-k through five art show which was in may may 12th and um it's again it's one of the first time since
0752020 that we've been able to have folks in the schools and really participate so we were real happy about that especially the grade one students which families never really were in there at all and um the potter staff about 90 percent participated in that and they also had well over 100 participants in a bingo game bingo night that they had i also want to mention that the mental health series with the cook center as kicks off with our first session if you will on june 7th the brochu poster has been put out it's about social media protecting our children by staying aware and involved so that's on june 7th and people should see that poster on our facebook page as well as send home in the backpacks and register for that uh virtual event also
076over at demelo they had their boost-a-thon fun run and and they as well as other schools have been doing the junior achievement day in their schools and something special over at demelo the dhs robotics team was working with the grade five on an engineering project so that was kind of cool and they've also been participating in people getting their field trips kind of done if you will lloyd center the ymca in the whaling museum and last but not least i did let you know that we did uh we are promoting um miss liz carrere i always say career but i think she really wants it correa how does she pronounce it katie yeah and i've always known that name is correa so anyway she will be taking over for katie paveo at the mellow school
077as principal so we'd all like to welcome uh welcome her into that position and and wish her the best and she's very excited you know she started dartmouth left and came back so it's been a full circle full circle for her and she said you know demelo's her home and she's really excited so we'll be posting for the assistant principal position this week and finally uh mr mr kylie would like to provide some updates as well thank you dr gifford i i was pleased to see that the finance committee um supported both the the budget and um the capital improvement plan for the town i think the the it was unanimous the vote on the capital improvement plan was a split vote on the budget overall from a town perspective but you know they did
078vote to support that so that's a good sign hopefully for june 7th i did just want to update you on the dartmouth memorial stadium renovation project so we had a very disappointing bid opening um on the 12th we had three bidders uh for the remainder of that project the low bid came in at six million three hundred and ninety thousand dollars uh we were i was optimistically hoping somewhere in between three and four million so um but being realistic given the uh economic climate that we're in and the inflationary environment it's that's i think that's what this reflects so at this point in time we're going to put it on hold we don't have the money anyway and you know reevaluate and see if there are other options besides the obvious option which is wait
079till things sort of normalize a little bit in terms of supply and demand and inflation and economics um it appears that you know people don't exactly need to be low bidders on a job like this they may already have a lot of work i know that it's very hard for um people to find good employees all around and everywhere in the in the economy right now so i'm sure it is in construction as well so i think that um you know at this point we need to we need to regroup a little and and uh take a look at it see if it's worthwhile trying to split it up i don't really think it is um i i think it's best to take a pause on it but that's that's where we are with mr
080kylie yes mr oliver thank you for that um i want to say dismal update but a frustrating update as the you know the project continues to move at a snail's pace because of covet obviously not through anyone's fault but just to confirm we did um award the bid for the storage facility we did we did do that that actually seems like i think the timing of that was such that i think the economy didn't quite understand where it was going to be now and i know that the contractor regrets regrets bidding on that project the way they you know sure because of the cost um i mean he's come out and said this is horrible for me but but they're honoring it and they're yeah that's good that's what i was going to ask they're
081honoring it so and what's the time frame on that uh we actually set up a fence today going to be breaking some ground tomorrow so and just to confirm because it's been years now since we originally uh started with this project just to confirm i can just for everyone watching at home and for the committee where's the where's this building going so the storage building is is going to the uh let's see to the northeast of the um of the stadium area to the northeast of the visitors stands so um so if you're looking at the stadium from slocum road the back left corner yes correct correct and um so that'll be going there that was necessary so that we could then reinvent the existing stands to provide concessions and bathrooms and things that really
082are in dire need of right you know so so we'll have that we'll begin positive i guess what i'm saying is that a positive it is progress it is not what we were looking for but it is some progress so um yeah i'm confident that that will be completed certainly that is also taking longer than we expected uh but it's it's a step in the right direction and and again hopefully better days are ahead at some point we can revisit i guess at this point i would like to ask if we could reconvene the the turf field committee um and i know that hasn't been um appointed we haven't been uh reappointed um all the uh members of that including for i'm not sure if you i know you were on i'm not sure if
083mary was on um with it's made up of the select board members um uh sean uh mcginnis um i don't know who's our director of development now do we have a director of development that would be cody yeah cody haddad um it's made up of a number of individuals so i think based on the results that you received from from your bids that i think at this point i think it's it's worthwhile to reconvene so we can have some more formal discussions as to what because obviously we need we definitely need the support of the town um on this project one way or the other i think it's safe to say that the money that we have allocated that tau meeting has allocated um one way or the other whether we wait a year or
084two years we're going to need more money is is the rea is the reality that's correct yes this is white yeah so just just one thing that seems to be like i know having been there you know for multiple band competitions and of course everything else and i know that now that we're having to delay this we do have the issue and i know it's going to come up when we are talking about our you know the dei community about accessibility so we have a lot of um people are coming in elders in wheelchairs and things like that and i know i just struggled just even as a parent saying like where do you go because we you know we're doing our we're selling our like raffle items or something so just if i think
085if we can kind of come up with or someone can strategize just a clear place that i just don't know where those places are as a parent to direct and i don't know if other people feel like that where i can direct people with wheelchairs to say like because it's it becomes a little bit of a challenge so you know in this conversation if that's because i know that was part of the thought around like this um you know construction piece is that we're gonna make it more accessible but even just to try to like say you know look with you know middle school graduates or whatnot like this is this is a plan and this is a space that we can you know set aside like you know free of encumbrances that would be
086helpful i think for us so just a thought we do have that fire aluminum bleachers that are handicap accessible with a wheelchair ramp and everything else that are there i mean right no disrespect if 500 people show up in wheelchairs we have a problem but there is that handicap area set aside it's i think it's like a deal that they put up a number of years ago yeah right i remember that yeah well it's kathleen to to your point john um yeah it is far and it's behind the it's behind the speaker but it is something but um to your to your point john i don't know if there's an answer to this but that was partially funded at the time i was a member of the disability commission in town which you know i
087stepped away from because it really was when mr mcginnis came in they sort of reformulated how they were but they recently have um appointed somebody to chair that again and i know historically that they're i know this is small money but uh there's some part of the ticketing you know parking in a handicap without a placard or that sort of thing there you know that fee if they collect that was supposed to be sort of earmarked for the disability commission and i i don't know if it's something that we could you know previously we've partially funded that that piece we've also done things for voting with visual vision i don't know if there's money in in that capacity to sort of help with with with uh with the overall project yeah i mean we could
088use every dollar we could i don't know where it stands now it's been a few years since that's a good point right it was yeah back 10 plus years i guess at least 10 years ago i would say when we put in those stands um and that is that's at they're actually the stands that are closest to the main entrance so yes it's it's on the southwest corner there of the stadium um accessibility is it it's one of the primary reasons we were trying to do this project um so hopefully yeah we can address that on a longer term basis someday soon no agreed so i just asked the committee for the committee support to if we could just reach out back out to that tower to everyone and see if we can reconvene back
089on back on board i can reach out to mr mcinnis and we can try and coordinate that sure that'd be great thank you thank you thank you for your stay i'm i'm i know i think you have some more i cut you off i'm sorry mr kylie no no no that that's that that's okay that's uh i think that's enough um but yeah we're uh so we're we're hopeful for town meeting at least you're not so hopeful for the this project but yeah get one one thing at a time get through town meeting and we'll be good there all right anything else no doctors gifford mr kyle are you all set i am okay uh anybody have anything before you know mr oliver thank you mr nunes uh just really quickly i don't think i
090had the opportunity i don't know if it was um if i brought it up i don't i don't believe i brought up the last meeting i had the opportunity to attend a a field trip with mr peratti and his students to university of rhode island and he extended the invitation to mrs waite and myself a couple months ago when we were checking out the new new studio back there and i got to say what a great group of students he has we were well represented um and just to see the some of their faces light up when we walked through the campus and look looked at the communications building so once again every time i come here i'm amazed at little additions that are added to to our meetings uh the little live tv we
091have there now so um no just uh props uh just a big shout out to mr peratti and um his students you know when they redid that a couple of months ago it was nice when we got the tour before the meeting and that and you know it's kind of sometimes you know when you watch a sporting event and they'll show you the the the uh the trailer that has all that you know and yeah all the guys you know they've got you know 50 people in there with all the different doing things and you know one person in check and see what these students have got it's it's it's unbelievable what they're going through just what they're learning just to put it into perspective um the the television studio at uri they actually broadcast
092for espn plus i believe a lot of their games i mean it's they they hire students to do that and they actually have very some of the same equipment that we have here um so and they were talking about what a very high caliber program that we offer here so i think it's worth i think it's worth mentioning that they you know they were very the some of the professors there the department heads were very impressed one of our students that graduated from here last year was in the program and such i think is it emerson this year but he was on a saturday afternoon uh lacrosse you know on the field with the camera type of deal okay and they had pictures you know his mother was saying you know they had pictures of
093them you know taking you know film on the field and everything else so that's great it's where it's it's unbelievable even for that but they have even for that extension i know that that same student still talks to mrs peratti and says we have this here like you need to get this like back you know so it's neat to see that he's established like such a warm relationship with kids that it's you know it certainly doesn't end you know yeah i'm just going to add let the the dsma is having its uh arts and music well it's a craft fair and music festival coming up on june 11th so they're planning that just uh you know they're trying to they're bringing in some vendors i know they're organizing musicians hopefully trying to get in some
094students not just from dartmouth but also possibly some groups from other schools as well so i'm kind of excited to see that it'll be around the stadium so it's in the it's in the process still of being planned but i think it's going to be a really really fun you know great great day and you know snuck in between you know different you know graduation and other events so excellent yeah that's it uh playing anything you all set no okay i mean the only thing i have an ulcer and and i know our student rep was kind enough to talk about it you know our seniors are leaving this week and you know it's graduation time not only for our students but all the students in in the area and you know prom nights and
095after proms and things of that nature and you know please be safe you know use with all due respect use some common sense you know and you know we want to see you back you know number one we want to see you at graduation and number two we want to see you back here next year and the year after letting us know how you're making out and how you're doing so uh you know please be safe and and be thoughtful and just i know it's getting to the end of the sports season and our teams are you know winding into the tournament so just wish them good luck type of deal and with that our next meeting is june 6th and uh after that our next meeting is june 27th and just kind of keep
096in mind uh you know usually in the summertime we start at 4 30 5 o'clock so just we'll talk more about that at our next meeting type of deal but if you know versus starting at 6 30 if we you know the situation arises that we can start a little bit earlier would be you know would be good so and with that being said the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn into executive session for an update on negotiation with union personnel and a discussion on school security and uh not return to open session thank you bye miss waite second second by ms amaral on the motion any discussion chairing on roll call vote please ms gunter john nunes yes mary wait yes kathleen ambrose yes chris oliver yes thank you very much everyone happy
097memorial day be safe [Music] you