Dartmouth School Committee Meeting January 25, 2021

001good evening everyone i'd like to call this meeting of the dartmouth school committee to order for monday january 25th 2021 could you please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge 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 please be seated well good evening everyone i hope everyone's doing well staying healthy and safe as a reminder per governor baker's order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law chapter 38 section 20 the public will not be allowed to physically act access this school committee meeting members of the public can access the meeting via live stream at youtube.com forward slash dhs tv media in addition the via the event will be rebroadcast on dc tv

002channels 9 and 18 on the following days wednesday and thursday at 5 00 p.m friday at 6 00 a.m saturday at 8 a.m and sunday at 2 p.m the school committee reserves the rights to implement additional remote participation procedures and will notify the public of these procedures as soon as practicable could we have a roll call vote please miss gentler chris oliver here shannon jenkins kathleen ameral here john nunes mary waite here thank you very much everyone i did hear from my call our colleague dr shannon jenkins and uh she wishes she could be with us this evening but um she's a little under the weather right now so uh we wish her well she feels better soon i just reminded please silence your cell phones for those of us who are in the room

003i know we don't have a live viewing audience tonight but if you could do that that'd be great and always a big thank you to our own mr parotti and his uh his class and students in dc tv at this time we typically allow uh 15 minutes uh 10 or 15 minutes for anyone wishing to comment on any of tonight's agenda items uh do we have any comments as of right now miss gunther we do not okay thank you very much anyone wishing to comment that is currently viewing uh our school committee meeting can do so by emailing our recording secretary kathleen genther at dartmouthschools.org and to be added to the public comment and we'll revisit that at the end of the meeting we're a little bit early for the uh our next item up

004for on our agenda is our public hearing on the school choice vote uh for 21 the 21 22 school year that is at 6 45 so we'll come back to that if that's okay with my my colleagues if we would circle back once we get to uh around that time of 6 45 with that i will enter chair will entertain a motion to approve the regular session minutes of january 11 2021. so moved second motion by mr nunes is second by mrs way on the motion any further discussion she are hearing none all in favor aye opposed extensions motion passes unanimously thank you everyone uh i'm not sure if uh do you think we can sneak in the spotlight on dartmouth high school before the uh the 6 45 public hearing or would you like

005to what's your pleasure mr tebow um we can i don't want to put you under the gun if you want to if we can we can certainly take up some other mat some other matters could you just because that way i don't rush i don't want to miss anyone absolutely oh it's fine many members okay thank you so um under old business we'll continue on with a covet 19 update i asked dr gifford if she could just brief the committee on just the the district's progress and um just how how the district is proceeding and how we're handling um you know the cases and the proven 19 as well as uh where we're at with our plans our hybrid plan i mean and remote plan so i'll turn it over to dr gibbs sure thank

006you so we don't have a lot of new things to talk about tonight but we will mention a few i mean nothing major and earth shattering has happened to shift our plans right now so we do continue obviously to meet with mr misha we have our standing monday meeting i think last week we had three or four meetings plus as we say our phone calls but this morning we talked about how some of the kind of a little decline in the numbers and nobody knows why that's happening i mean we're hopeful but we seem to have made a very good decision with the after holidays i think we did holding back a little bit and maybe we've gotten over that holiday spike if you will a little bit so as we as you know we

007continue to keep our dashboard updated every friday the nurses maintain an ongoing list we can look at every day as they add folks in we did have a number of cases over the weekend as as i've let you know and but things are in order and people have been notified and the quarantining is continuing i'll reiterate once again that we do follow procedures and protocols the nurses use their judgment according to the cdc guidelines of what symptoms how they could result in either the child goes home etc and but everyone has been absolutely wonderful and taking great precautions our plan right now of course is to return our high school after this week on february 1 back to hybrid method i think the kids are probably ready to come back and see their their um

008peers sports have been going well again um i did check with mr chris of fully today as you saw as you came in the basketball team was playing so fingers crossed that we can keep that going we have spoken with mr mishu as well i think i notified you before and we will be supporting the town for vaccine clinics here at the high school and he will be sending the information out about that we have one starting thursday night and it's obviously a very controlled phase one and those folks that should come will be notified and they register etc but we're offering a lot of support we've also reached out to our secretarial support and asked if folks want to help blogging people in etc so custodians i believe as well so we're offering a

009lot of help there and also i just wanted you to know that a lot of folks have been including mass including area we were just speaking about this round tables superintendent roundtables have been petitioning the governor to include educators in phase one of this rollout we still have a couple more months i guess phase two by the time we got to the teachers or so because the first group in phase two is over 75 then over 65 como bil bill i always say i say co-mobility all the time morbidity um so we did i as the president of our roundtable colony i reached out to my folks and wrote a letter on behalf of our group and we sent that off today just petitioning to see um what might happen so that's kind of um

010the covid world do you have anything other than that that's pretty much it the covered world but we're we're hoping as we said plans are for the high school to come back next week okay so to piggyback off of dr gifford's uh comment on her advocacy with her superintendents group with um really pushing the kobe vaccine i would i would just like to say you know i i've been doing as i'm sure all the three of you have been doing kind of keeping up with where we're at with the uh the phases with the covert vaccine vaccine phases and i i just got to say that i am truly baffled and bewildered that are that teachers are not included right now in in phase one i it just it boggles my mind i i was

011able to have a good conversation with glenn kutcher the president of mass association of school committees this afternoon and i wanted to get his perspective on it and he he said that their executive board has also voted to push it up to to request that the governor push it up do what they can to push it up to phase one um i i think as a as a school committee member and as a as a um an educator myself that it is really despicable that we are still we're pushing teachers and school department staff off to phase two and i think the state and and i think this um the office of the government of the governor um we can do better we can do better we owe it to our teachers we owe it

012to our staff um you know we there's a lot of there's a lot of staff members that i'm sure that some of you you know and this isn't unique to dartmouth this is across the state that the staff are just like parents and just like students there's a lot of nervous staff and like mr coochie was saying from masc is that if we if we want to truly get students back into the buildings full time in some type of normalcy in schools we have got to get our educators and we've got to get our our student in well on our staff at the very least vaccinated and included in the first phase i think that should happen sooner rather than later um so that's just my two cents um i have a couple of other

013things uh my thoughts with covid19 update but anyone else want to share anything uh mr nunes yeah thank you mr chairman uh a couple of questions uh in a comment um dr gifford with uh mr kylie with i'm assuming that we're going to be using the colin lynch activity center for that now we're going to have once it's complete we're going to have to go in and deep clean that and disinfect it there's going to be cleaning necessary yes so that'll we'll take care of that when that's done okay yeah it will uh just so you know from a financial perspective so we've we're working as dr gifford said with um with the department of the town department of health um to provide support both administratively secretarial staff and custodians those uh monies that they

014earn will be supported through the town's covitt grant so we won't be born by our budget it'll be our staff helping out and we're happy that our staff are you know seem to be very willing to you know to assist in this and and you know dr gifford and i have been trying everything we can to try you know to help uh in that process um as has the high school so um so but just so you know we won't i wasn't on the hook for the money i wasn't worried so much about the the the financial part of it it was you know the deep clean after and sanitizing and it's definitely an additional burden our staff are already especially our cleaning you know cleaning staff are already doing extra duty so now it's

015extra extra duty yeah so uh what just you know what time is that scheduled to run approximate that's the clinic the clinic yeah four to eight and then a set in the future they'll be doing more and more so they would be in the evening of four to eight and then they're planning on some saturdays as well and um he'll be push putting out that schedule once he's sure of that so what's what does that do to uh you know the schedule for the gym with athletics and music and besides throw a monkey wrench into everything yeah well we've had mr chris fully in on all the meetings and we've had to keep him calm a little bit but he's been really cooperative and working to use the middle school gym or whatever else that

016needs to be done we just felt you know it's it's something that we need to have happen the community needs and whatever we can do we will do so you know the band folks they kind of use up any other room anyway but um andy is is working really hard to reschedule whatever needs to be done okay yep and i would just add mr flint uh and i exchanged emails today um and his line was that they would be able to figure it out in terms of the music part of it so thank you and my last uh thing mr chairman at the moment is you were talking about you know the conversation about getting teachers and talking with masc and such and i'm just wondering if a letter was sent to you know the

017governor and you know to the governor and to the state department uh the commonwealth's department of public health from us just saying you know we you know to you know force not force bad choice of work urge urge the inoculation of teachers in phase one i mean sure there's an issue out there right wrong or indifferent you know who knows how much vaccine you know we're getting we're supposed to be getting we don't get you know that that type of deal but all of that aside i totally agree with you that you know the teachers and faculty staff custodians i mean just about everybody that works in a school should be on that first uh first round of vaccines so i mean if there was a letter from this committee sent to the governor and

018to the state you know massachusetts department of public health sure on behalf i think that would be wonderful that's a great idea you know so i i you want to almost do it like a resolution you know you know you know i'll make a motion that we send a letter to uh to the honor to the honorable governor charles baker and to the massachusetts state department of public health to urge that teachers and school employees be included in phase one i second that the vaccine okay thank you mr nunes i have a motion by mr nunes a second second by mrs amaral um to draft up a letter to to send to uh honorable child speaker as well as department of health um and um no i think it's important i think we owe it

019we owe it to do what we can to support to support our educators mrs waite no i was just saying if we can also you know send a copy that letter to chris markey as well i think it would be you know as our rep and you know certainly his you know spouse as a teacher in the schools and i'm sure he has you know just the same level of interest and you know kids in the schools but um you know he's our advocate so i'd like to see that letter going to be uh yeah yeah no i'm good all right thank you very much so on the motion any further discussion hearing none all in favor hi hi opposed motion carriage unanimously thank you everyone for that uh so let's uh circle back now

020the time is the official time is i have uh 6 48 so at this time i'd like to open up the the public hearing on school choice for the 21 22 school year i don't know if i need to gavel that mr nunes is that necessary no sir thank you um so during the uh the public hearing this is just to be typically um though if we had an audience or if we had anyone for public comment um they could they could have certainly sent this in was it posted um posted properly and and putting the paper etcetera it wasn't there everything was given proper notice and all that dr giffords yes i did see it in the standard times last monday yeah you still get the paper edition okay um and just uh just

021beautiful [Laughter] and just to confirm with our uh with kate gunther uh the recording secretary have you received anything in regards to the public hearing on school choice any input on that i have not received any public comment on that matter okay thank you very much so with that if uh i don't know if i should keep it open for a few more a few more minutes or is it even necessary we can we can if there's if there's comments that come in we can pick the comments up at the end you know that that type of deal i mean i'll make a motion we close the public hearing for uh school choice for school year uh 21 21-22 thank you so i have a motion by mr nunes uh to close the public hearing

022on school choice for the 21-22 school year and i have a second by uh mrs amaral on the motion any other discussion chia hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed abstentions motion carries unanimously so uh thank you everyone for that and now uh is the time where i will um i guess i'll turn it over to dr gifford and she can do the introductions for our spotlight on dartmouth high school are you ready i'm ready yes so we mr tebow is here tonight to talk about the high school we did have a little conversation with some of the principals you know normally it's called spotlight on kids and we felt um a little bit like they they weren't able to really showcase a lot of what was going on given the situation so i

023i told the principles i said just pick pick some things that are happening in the school no matter what it is how people are supporting kids with social emotional or the staff or the lunch program anything that's happening in the school so i don't know what to expect tonight or uh in the future when the other folks come we don't have any students here but who knows so mr tebow thank you uh dr gifford yes um yeah so the segment's a little bit different than it's been in the past in the past it's been a spotlight on kids and we've been asked uh the principles have been asked to select one you know group or activity within the school and really highlight um our students and so this being a little bit different way especially

024at the high school where we've been remote for two long stretches of time um you know rounding up kids uh would probably be challenging so we talked about as an administrative team really taking this opportunity um uh you know spotlight on dartmouth high school is kind of being like a state of the school address if you will because one of the things that i think um you know i was here in november and mrs amaral uh expressed that i looked like i had been through the ringer and certainly i think that a lot of educators feel that way this year but i think it's important that we share that despite the feeling and despite how hard it has been our kids are still experiencing a quality education and we haven't canceled a single thing some

025of the activities some of the experiences our kids are having might look differently but because of the hard work of the educators in this building our kids are still getting a quality education and so i think that's really the theme i hope to kind of present here today um i i tried to organize uh the state of uh of the school address here in five big buckets one being academics certainly the social emotional and school counseling piece being a second major one student activities and athletics technology integration which um has been critical uh you know this year and then finally highlighting faculty and staff um as well and then obviously i'll be happy to answer any questions we have as we go academically and dr gifford has mentioned this many times and it's really all

026aspects of school this year but it's that idea about being fluid and flexible um being able to kind of you know embrace the uncertainty if you will because that's the one thing that every educator can be certain about is that there is a definite lack of difficulty as we move through the pandemic so i'll talk a little bit about that we also again despite the pandemic we've launched new high quality academic programs this school year uh including project lead the way for computer science um we've also added to our ap uh programming with ap research um you know so so there's been a number of you know i guess my point here is we're not just treading water we are continuing to progress and again it would not be possible without the quality of educators

027that we have here at dartmouth high school and then finally in terms of under the academics umbrella uh record ap enrollment um which i know i presented on a few months back um but i'll touch on that as well so at the high school as you know we've had um you know fluid and flexible has been the name of the game we have our hybrid model um and the educators at dartmouth high school have been extremely flexible and open-minded you know you'll recall that when we started with hybrid we had a plan where it was going to be in person uh and then asynchronous and what we found very quickly and adjusted and pivoted was that you know with quarantining and with contact tracing and all of these different things um we we needed we

028felt we needed the ability to make sure that our students got live instruction every day and so um we're very grateful to the educators at dartmouth high school who have been able to do that balancing act and it is a balancing act to have you know 10 to 15 you know kids in front of you physically and another 10 to 12 remotely through google meet what we found as the numbers started to increase was that we had more on google me and less in front of us at times and i'm hopeful that as you know dr gifford alluded to earlier the director of health uh mr micho has said as the numbers you know the numbers are starting to come back down it seems like hopefully that trend continues because we want our students who

029are in that hybrid model to be in person when they're supposed to be in person we very much believe that that's you know having students in front of us is the easiest most effective way to teach our educators have been extremely flexible and compassionate uh towards students um understanding that it's been difficult you know and and with the numbers the need to to remain remote has occurred at times remote instruction which is what we're in right now um has most definitely been the most efficient uh and easiest way to um provide instruction this school year i've spoken to teachers i've spoken to students and it's just that ability to focus your attention on who you know um with all your students in one place is definitely easier and more efficient is my microphone off oh

030too close oh i'm sorry sorry mr galesha and then finally we we had to create a third model of instruction um which is our virtual learning academy and i just want to um when we were doing the planning in the summertime it was 40 students who initially identified we're up to 156 students who are fully virtual through ingenuity we have 156 students which is about 15 percent of our total student population and we've really been able to do it um we take pride in this high school that we're very efficient with how we've been able to service these students edgenuity i think provides a very cost effective option for us assistant principal mr gill all of our school counselors all of our lead teachers our librarian emily goodwin pam king as well as most just

031recently we added um support from a substitute mrs lenz who had been subbing in our building who's going to provide some you know uh outreach and coaching of kids through edgenuity but that's been it and all of those people are doing this work with their other full-time job still going on i think that that sometimes i hope that that doesn't get lost on members of the community i know it's not lost on anyone here on the school committee or at central office but those folks all continue to do a full-time job in addition to this third model of instruction that we call the virtual learning academy we do have a handful and only a handful of that 156 students who want to come back to hybrid so we'll be probably transitioning in the next week

032or so you know with the start of term three uh semester two term three will transition probably six to ten students it's looking like back to hybrid learning but that still leaves 150 um students in in the program and again we're very grateful to all the folks that i mentioned um for their work in supporting our students who are in the virtual learning academy as well this is really exciting and uh um again i think it speaks to the to the good work that goes on here at dartmouth high school on a daily basis we have 38 um students um that number actually is a typo i believe it's 58 students who are in the ap research class with mr higgins a couple of different sections there but ap research is one of the ap

033capstone courses what it does is students who complete ap research as well as ap seminar and at least four additional ap courses over the course of their four years at dartmouth high school that allows them to earn a ap capstone diploma which is just one more credential that our students have it's one more way for our students to strengthen their transcripts as they apply to colleges and universities across the country but more than that the quality of the authentic research that they're doing i have here just some of the some of the research questions that they're going to be conducting original research around to what extent is there a relationship between socioeconomic status academic success and the working habits of teenagers that's that's one example um to what extent are microaggressions prominent in dartmouth high

034school um to what extent does cellular devices affect a student's academic standing and what demographics specifically and every single one of these research proposals that our students have done are high quality questions that are of personal interest to them that they are passionate about and again that's very much in alignment with the district's uh push around personal uh personal pro uh blended funded personalized and project-based learning sorry i i usually have that in order there um but the research that they'll be doing is right in alignment with the push the district has had for the last several years around that so we're i'm excited uh to see the the 20 minute presentations that the students will have to give once they've conducted their research so that's exciting in addition to that project lead the way

035is another example of a high quality program that we've launched this school year i want to give a shout out to our first year computer science teacher mr bosworth who we stole from a neighboring district as well as a third year computer science teacher mr brian giat both of those two gentlemen attended virtual training through project lead the way this summer in order for us to be able to offer it and again the the benefit they have from being able to network with other teachers across the commonwealth really across the country uh is second to none beyond that there's a tremendous benefit to our students our students who complete project lead the way courses uh get the benefit of a strengthened transcript because project lead the way like ap is nationally recognized and you can

036be awarded college credits for completing project lead the way courses colleges also also offer uh preferred admission to students who have completed project lead the way um and you know so these are just some of the benefits that our students will be getting from from our launch of project lead the way um i want to thank director of teaching learning tracy oliveira because she did a lot of the heavy lifting with preparing the grant last year for for project lead the way and also obviously she's done a lot of the heavy lifting um pretty much all of the heavy lifting this year because we did um put in for uh projectly the way grant to expand to our engineering pathway as well so these are again just an example of a couple of the exceptional

037high quality programs we've launched this school year in the pandemic um again i i think context matters here record ap enrollment i'm not going to talk too much about this because i presented on this exclusively a few months back but again i wanted to remind folks that our continued push to students to stretch themselves to challenge themselves has shown up in the numbers and i did want to just mention that it's not just the same students taking more ap courses the number of students the number of unique students taking an ap course is increased over the last several years as well the other piece of data that i would share kind of to spotlight here is that one of our big concerns is always around making sure ap enrollment mirrors student enrollment so that you

038don't have certain populations of students who are left behind it's an equity issue and so i'm happy to report that in the stem related ap courses we offer our black our hispanic and our asian student populations are all at or above the actual um their actual enrollment in the whole student population so uh again that that's promising um and it really shows that commitment that we've uh embraced over the last few years to really push all students who are passionate and want to um take on the challenges and support them to make sure that our ap enrollment mirrors our student enrollment our the second big umbrella here that i want to talk about was our school counseling and support services um certainly one of the hidden uh challenges of dependent you know we talk about

039covid19 and we talk about physical illness but the mental toll that the pandemic has taken on students um goes unnoticed sometimes um you know and i know it's something that the school committee has talked about um the last few times and it's something we're certainly mindful here at dartmouth high school and again i just want to give a huge shout out to our school counseling staff our school counselors as well as our school social workers and school psychologists they are very much aware of the impact that the pandemic is having on our students and they've really taken some steps um enhanced community outreach um and also i'll talk in a second just about you know kind of a creative and unique way to address social emotional um wellness here at dartmouth high school which is

040going to be to introduce a therapy dog um over the next several months so just in terms of the enhanced community outreach mr mcgrath and mr wright have taken um you know the school counseling site under their kind of wing and have looked to enhance it this year kind of streamline it clean it up so if anyone out there would just go to our school website under the school counseling tab at the top you'll notice it's kind of a one-stop shop there's um online appointment slots you can use students can use while they're remote to sign up to meet with their school counselor right from the school website there's also you know the program of studies there's a host of different resources that are up on the school counseling website which mr wright and mr

041mcgrath as i had mentioned had been working collaboratively to kind of revamp but also um the school counseling department provides an update as part of the dartmouth high school community update every week so weekly they're sharing out information breaking it down by class um you know and i know sometimes communication is difficult and challenging but hopefully members of the community are aware that that that um update i send it out every friday between 3 and 4 30 and every friday there is information from the uh school counseling department it includes um a a padlet which is just a digital you know curation board if you will it it has resources that you go to that our school social worker workers and psychologists kind of put these different resources that can parents can use students can

042use to help support social emotional wellness they're right there and readily available again we're in the midst of a pandemic and i think sometimes when we start to say okay just one day at a time we can lose focus of kind of the big picture our students are continuing even though they're going through a challenge there's no doubt about that and even though it is a struggle for many of them they are still very much thriving and excelling um our students are being accepted to some of the best colleges and universities across the the country here and this is by no means i couldn't fit 50 different college um logos up on the screen unfortunately so i just put a few up there to kind of give a sampling or an idea but we have

043you know university of oregon on the west coast you know brown university right in providence and and in between everywhere in between uh the nation um we also have students in our senior class who are planning to join the um services so go into the world of service one student in particular that i'm thinking about is tracking towards the coast guard and potentially the coast guard academy um you know so our students continue our senior class continues to to be very much uh very busy planning post-secondary their post-secondary lives which is a good that's normal right that's what we would expect seniors to be doing at this this time of year so we're very proud of our senior class we know that this has been a year unlike any other for them um but where

044we know that they are rising to the occasion persevering and that they will be successful so this is augie um and um auggie is a therapy dog he um was adopted by mr gill uh assistant principal gill and uh last spring so actually right around when the pandemic started was when mr gill adopted the dog and the um auggie underwent training um private training lessons um he has earned uh or passed his um good canine citizen course and then there's a number of visits that the american kennel club requires in order to become your the you know earn your therapy kind of like student teaching if you will um so auggie has has visited school on several occasions already but with faculty um you know and again that's the other piece our faculty have have

045worked extremely hard this year but the pandemic's been a grind on them as well um and so they you know we've had auggie visit a few afternoons um particularly particularly on fridays and also on our half uh early release pd days and our faculty have absolutely fallen in love with him i joke that i want to come back in another lifetime as a therapy dog because everyone clearly loves loves them so um we're excited for augie to be taking the next step soon though which will be to work alongside kathy thomas on select days it won't be every day but on select days and um you know kathy has really stepped up and and is excited to be working with augie and to really start to use augie as a therapeutic support for students with

046anxiety with stress with all of these different issues that we know through a lot of different research studies that that dogs have profound calming effects on people that you know just the act of petting a dog lowers your your blood pressure and it and reduces anxiety so we're excited um there are a handful of schools in the state that you you know high schools that have therapy dogs already in play and we are excited at dartmouth high school to be able to start using augie as well student activities and athletics uh again these look different than what they did in the past but not only are our student not only are athletics ongoing music theater company um the fine and performing arts they're all they're very much thriving um you know as we continue sure

047adjustments have had to be made particularly with athletics and music but our students are are continuing to rise to the occasion and have experiences that are similar if not the same as um they were pre-pandemic terms of our performing arts um you know our band didn't miss a beat um in the fall it was virtual they didn't have the same experiences unfortunately of being able to travel down to metlife stadium obviously that's an experience that can't be replicated other than to go there but nonetheless they earned a national championship through u.s uh bans the same the way they would have um you know had it not been a pandemic year um our theater company stepped up and did a performance of a wonderful life a virtual radio show so again the easiest thing in the

048world to do would be to sit there get stuck pout and say this is lousy but that's not the kind of kids we have it's not the kind of educators we have at dartmouth high school and they've continued to innovate um and to inspire quite frankly as they figure out new ways um to get things done our indoor percussion season is well underway i know mr angst is uh working with with uh our student musicians and preparing for that um and we're excited we're excited for those opportunities as well as uh you know as we move forward here our clubs and activities um which uh fall under the direction of our associate principal miss javier chavier uh i'm excited to share that you know this fall we actually introduced five new clubs so again we're

049in a pandemic but our students continue to be engaged and continue to look ways to connect to dartmouth high school beyond just the traditional school day some of the clubs uh include things like the diversity equity and inclusion club the stock market club we have a political science club that formed what else am i missing here uh oh esports how can i forget esports so esports is uh huge across the the state um it's probably unfortunately going to be more work for mr galashar as we continue to to go down because it's more technology uh you know it's specific to gaming but again the passion that our students have for it as well as mr bosworth um mr ghiat and mr peratti who have come together and kind of collaborated and have this grand vision

050for our esports offerings down the road is tremendous so again i highlight that beyond that we've continued to do things like spirit weeks it just means double the fun so if you've never worked in a high school you can't truly appreciate what it's like to wear your pajamas to school particularly when dr gifford shows up at 6 45 in the morning and it's the one day you've actually jumped in and said you know what i'll wear pajamas today and then you shake your head and say oh no so i had to explain to dr gifford that morning why i was in you know plaid pajama pants um but the students appreciate when the faculty and staff participate you can see some of the pictures up there of of uh students and staff participating and it

051just means hybrid model just means it's double the fun because we get to do it for each cohort of students so beyond that um we some of our popular traditions uh are coming up you know the senior superlative it's not gonna be a dance um for obvious reasons but the senior superlatives are gonna be showcased and highlighted it's gonna be um virtual it will be through collaboration with mr pirati and the dhs tv media production program um it will be kind of like an emmy's show style um that they're producing and will be premiered i believe the date is february 26th um that the the premiere of that showing will be but i know that our senior class officers along with mr peratti our senior class advisors um are working extremely hard to to get

052that up and and going so shout out to mrs bringham and to mrs taylor for their work in making sure that that that gets done athletics again i have to give not that he needs any more credit i think uh he gets a lot of it um but my good friend mr chris foley our athletic director of the year here um he gets he deserves a lot of credit because in the summer time when things weren't opened up yet and the state was releasing guidance you know it seemed like every day and there was different guidance every day he really put together a plan dartmouth was one of the first if not the first one of the first high schools in the area to offer strength and conditioning for our students and that got you

053know people forget had been really shut down and our students were able to get outside get moving and get active see people all while having a lot of um enhanced safety protocols in place so we appreciate that very much and then that kind of led into a very successful fall campaign our we had seven competitive teams that were offered in the fall along with three organized team activities including um you know we provided um one of the organized team activities was unified basketball it was important to mr christophole and i um that you know if we're setting up athletics um for our students that are we not forget our unified um athletes because that's just a very tremendous part of our school community and so that was one of um the organized team activities that

054was offered in the fall we had two very successful teams in the fall as well our girls volleyball team um finished the season perfect was an sec champ conference champion uh and our girls soccer team was also the sec champion this year as well so the fall was very smooth with a very few covid related issues and winter athletics is underway we did have to pause that's more because of the surge in the community and and not to do uh with you know in team transmission or in school transmission but again we've resumed winter athletics it's underway going smoothly at this point with plans for fall 2 and spring athletics in the very near future so tech integration at dartmouth high school as you can imagine [Music] we wouldn't education wouldn't be ongoing right now

055if not for technology that's one of the silver linings that i think will come out of the pandemic is that all of our teachers uh have improved their ability to integrate technology into their instruction tremendously um you know we we probably made a 10-year leap in 10 months time and that's not an exaggeration um there were a number of teachers in march who weren't using google classroom i can tell you now we have a hundred percent you know and that was very quick um but beyond that they've also integrated other tools like flip grid and kahoot and quizzes and neopod and play posit you know there's there's too many to list but there's a tremendous amount of digital tools and resources that our teachers are using um thanks in large part to our our its

056jen thomas who's been phenomenal in supporting and coaching um our teachers up but again the credit belongs to our teachers for taking the risk and not being afraid to say to our students let me figure that out i am not sure what's going on you know and and i think that that's important for students to see as well that we are lifelong learners and that it's okay when we make mistakes or when things don't quite go as planned and we have to figure those out that's part of of being a learner uh one other just to back up one other second i do want to also thank mr galashar and all of the tech support folks because we continue to upgrade the technology infrastructure at the high school as well as the you know hardware

057that they use um this past this current year rather where you're able to get smart tvs like the one we're using for this um meeting here and i think that there's enough of the public who hears tv and they think movie and that's not you know the tv is really a way to to chromecast to project instruction there's a lot of different uh ways that the tv can be used it's really an instructional tool at this point and in many cases it's cheaper than if we were installing a projector um you know by the time you mount it and all of that you know um replace bulbs and whatnot so we have um outfitted the entire english department um with with smart tvs like the ones you see here where they can project you know

058students co-constructing paragraphs and writing peer editing and things like that so thank you to mr galashar on the tech department because i know um every additional tech comes with additional work you know so it's not lost on us i wanted to really thank the faculty and staff they are our number one resource by far our most precious resource our teachers um the pandemic has been challenging for them in addition to the anxiety that um they have about the virus being present they also are learning new technologies they're not sure what uh model they're gonna be in in a week you know so their world has been turned upside down and i don't think we can thank them enough um you know and i i also want to acknowledge no one pushes them harder than me

059um and so i recognize the fact that um as i'm thanking them you know tomorrow i could be asking them to you know look for a way to improve on something or a way we can support students more that's not lost on me um though the tremendous job that they are doing uh and the commitment and effort that they've put in i want to particularly recognize our our support staff they've been our unsung heroes and by support staff i'm talking nurses secretaries our counselors and our school social workers um our security monitors and our custodians our custodians have been phenomenal working additional hours um you know the question can devote well we have to deep clean our custodians deep clean every day pretty much they use the the uh electromagnetic sprayers every single surface that

060gets touched in our building gets washed pretty much daily um you know so when when there's nothing more satisfying than when you hear mr misho talk about there's no evidence of transmission in the schools because that's what i view as our number one job is to keep our students and our faculty safe and the fact that we can say that is in large part because of our custodians keeping the buildings clean but also our nurses and secretaries and all of the support staff really working together um you know throughout this pandemic so we appreciate that and then finally i i just think you know again our our staff is not living they are living day to day get through it one day at a time but they're continuing to progress as well our its gen

061thomas was just certified by google um as a as a google certified coach she's already a good google certified educator um you know uh we have teachers like melissa pavlik who this summer understanding we were going to be in a remote learning model went out and got credentials as a ck through 12 certified educator again just a couple of examples rachelle lemieux and marcia vieira our ap stats teachers putting in extra hours virtually through our partnership with mass insight so it's them and the author of the ap stats books because the rest of the teachers in massachusetts are tired and tapped out but our teachers are going to those workshops and have you know tremendous access so um again a huge shout out and very appreciative of all of the effort that the educators here

062at dartmouth high school are putting in and if you were to ask me you know i would say that the state of dartmouth high school has never been stronger and i am very proud of the work that goes on here on a daily basis even in spite of the pandemic and so with that i'll answer any questions no thank you very much mr tebow for your presentation that was uh very very thorough and uh very very informative informative um thought with you mrs waite any thoughts yeah um you know first excellent you know it's so great i have two students a freshman and a junior here so you know another one will be up in two years and um you know i'm thrilled you know i i can't you know say enough by you know

063the attention the um just you know the compassion you know my else freshman struggled a bit you know and and i feel like the patience and you know just the hands-on approach the diversity of the lessons it's just it's it's been great so i i'm really you know i'm you know i'm really grateful to your staff and to you so so i'll start with that and then also say you know you're bringing in the juniors tomorrow for the psats and i you know i know that was you know not part of the presentation but you know one part was talking about the seniors who you know and all their accomplishments i think in the context you know i'm starting the college search with my daughter and i just you know i know what you know

064these seniors have gone through you know they haven't been able to see their schools in many cases um you know they're applying and and the teachers also have been writing recommendations you know i'm sure many of these teachers are writing you know 30 40 i know i was in that position you know recommendations helping these kids um you know so it was a to get these seniors through these accomplishments was not you know was not an easy task for the for the seniors themselves or for your your staff so that's you know they have to be really you know really applauded i think you know more so than most classes that go through because it was it was a tough game and then you know for the psets tomorrow i'm so grateful so you know

065thank you you know my daughter will be taking those um you know a lot of these kids it's been hard they haven't had a you know a psat or a test since you know sophomore year some of the seniors couldn't get sats you know i've heard tales of kids flying you know the different cities so um yeah it was great that they you know the whole school is making that you know that everybody's coming together for that because it's these kids are nervous they haven't sat for a test and you know it's uh it's something so so thank you um and then um i think i'll say the research you know again i'll get back to that one of the things i love that mr higgins is doing is not just about those students it's

066really including all the students in the school i know that my my freshman son got a flurry of emails that he can kind of participated and think about these questions and i think so it's not even just for the research students themselves but to be you know a part of that and thinking through you know what about my cell phone use and you know wait my opinion matters which freshman loves their opinion mattering so again like so many things you know considering continuing to see that the training that's going on with all the other burdens that you know the staff have had and that they continue to be excited about you know their profession is you know it's it's it's really means a lot you know and the kids they feed on that and you

067know i can see you know again everything from you know different things are happening it feels like a very given the circumstance an active campus i mean the dogs coming into the school i mean that's you know i think my dog was like you're so cute like i mean my daughter was so so it's just you know so many um it feels very alive um and active and you know it's it you've done a great job here and your staff so um thank you and i guess the only questions i would have would be you know looking at the head and i know it's hard to say because we don't know what the landscape is you know with covet in the next months but um as you think about those culminating senior activities in the

068junior banquet the prom what is the planning i guess you know around that and what are the thoughts right now are we thinking that there will be because i imagine that there are members of the class who are starting to think about those things and parents and they usually have their planning for the all-night party and so i'm kind of curious about concern so we've we've met um ms chave myself the senior class advisors and the senior class officers have met a couple of times um for different things uh but we scheduled for the first week of february a a meeting to exclusively discuss end-of-year activities um you know i said this to the senior class last year and i said it to the i will say to the officers this year as well these

069activities are about them they're not about me um they're not about you know any of the adults really here it's really about them i mean and and obviously their families who have supported them through 13 years of education so we try and do everything we can to to tailor to to what they want within the guidelines obviously you know if there are limits of 50 people on social gatherings it's not going to be a dance i mean that's just not it's not going to happen um and our seniors know that our senior officers know that um you know so so that's not a surprise to them so they've been thinking what might things look like i will say this that um the parade was a huge hit last year um i think regardless of whether

070in a pandemic or not it's a nice event for the community i got several emails not just from senior class parents last year but from you know um i don't want to use the word old timer because i don't want to offend anyone but it was class of 1958 i want to say or it was it was a it was a while ago it was well before i was born let's put it that way um but he had watched the parade from his front porch and he emailed me to tell me you know what pride he took in seeing the current seniors um doing that so i think there are a tremendous opportunities if we use a little imagination to still honor our our kids and still honor their accomplishments knowing that you know um

071and if we can have a full in-person graduation that's the preference because trust me you know when you're as large as i am and out of shape as i am you don't want to be standing in the same spot at the podium for 12 hours for three days in a row which is what it took to make the graduation ceremony so personalized last year so if there's an easier way to do that i'm all for it that's great well thank you i appreciate it you're welcome thank you mrs wade mr nunes that it was a friday the first day we filmed last year was a friday because the saturday i mean you don't think of it when you're standing straight up and down on the same spot sure yeah 12 hours yeah your knees too

072it's a lot thank you mr news thank you mr chairman i don't think you left any stone unturned you know very very very well done thank you very much for doing that a couple of questions i have uh i kind of miss and i don't know if we still get them or they but you used to have i like on the bulletin board out front like the students college acceptance letters and i always used to enjoy reading those to you know see where they where where our student not so much who the student was but the different colleges that they had applied to and have been accepted at so we don't do the college letters anymore we've switched it a little bit we do a pennant with the college logo on it um and we

073do we also include students who are going off to the armed services their branch of the armed service and put that up there as well as any student who might be going directly into the workforce who you know um wants to be recognized um and we do do that in the spring um last year was up when the pandemic started and so i know actually mrs flor was working today she's got the artistic flair there she's the one who creates the um the the penance and so she was working on them today so that those boards will be getting updated in the very near future um with with that okay i just yeah again i just love to see you know they're not only going to colleges around here you get the university of houston's

074the you know ucla you know argon state oregon university type of deal notre dame so i always enjoy watching those uh i'm glad to see the use of the smart tvs and no we're not watching movies so that is good question i have uh the students that are totally remote via ingenuity type of deal and and this is not a knock or anything of that nature but how are they doing academically i'm glad you asked that question so the students who are putting in the hours are doing fine they're doing it they're doing very well the students who are struggling if there's a direct correlation between they're not putting in enough hours and what their grade is that's why i had mentioned we added um you know a qualified you know someone who we have

075full confidence in um mrs uh lens who had been subbing for us she's working with mr gill and we've shifted to a um a daily report so we get daily you know mr nunes did not log in yesterday mrs lens calls that house the very next day and says what happened um we had been doing it weekly week you know um but a week is a little bit too much time um but we've you know when we're doing the outreach we do find things had a fully remote student who had covid that went through the house so he didn't log in at all that week that makes sense to me um you know so so we have um outreach in place now to make sure that we're monitoring them um because we still have plenty

076of time you know that's that's the thing is we have plenty of time for for the students who are not where they should be to still catch up um you know but we're finding that students are putting in who are putting in 25 to 30 hours which is what you know they'd be putting in here yeah those students are doing remarkably well um it's the students who are putting in less than 20 hours a week who aren't making enough progress it's almost you know you you know you put in the time you're doing fine if you're not you know that type of deal okay thank you very much sir you're welcome thank you mr chairman thank you mr news ms emerald yeah um you know i i certainly could sit here and and like have

077a laundry list of wonderful things that you're doing i i i'm quite impressed a fan of of your leadership of of your administrative team of the sort of equitable compassionate approach that you have with each student i have um all the faith in the world that when it comes time uh you'll you'll let those voices of of all of your students kind of speak to what can be done for those special you know ceremonies um i love the fact that auggie the therapy dog is here and mr gill is again i said the the your your whole administrative team but he's he's he's wonderful um we do have to work with him mrs amaral so and i know he's home watching right now so he's funny he's and i wouldn't say through the ringer i

078think more that emotional kind of drain that i was feeling it was like that mirror i was sort of seeing myself in you so but um but yeah no i um just thank you for your leadership and uh we're lucky in dartmouth to have you at the helm here at dartmouth high school and so i really don't have anything else to say i certainly could go through i did make some bullet points but it's just wonderful great job and and thank you for all that you do and thank you to your staff and thank you for thanking your staff and pushing them as well you know it's it's they they are certainly more than deserving we're in it together this is you know we're we're here for you and them and um yeah it's just

079our community is in this together so thank you that's it well said welcome thank you mrs amaral there's not much more that i can add that my fellow member committee members have uh already said just a couple of notes uh here that i have yeah i'm really thrilled to see first of all really nice over really nice big high level overview of everything that's going on at dartmouth high some of the things i'm really happy to see you know the fact that the clubs are still going we had introduced you introduced five new clubs um you know i'm thrilled that um we're at the place that we are with technology in the diamond public schools especially at the high school i have no doubt that was a big undertaking with mr galesha and his crew

080as well as you know just uh working in conjunction with you and your staff and to make things uh as successful as possible especially with um i believe i i believe there's you have an integration specialist here at the at the high school level so i'm sure they're playing a huge role in trying to work with work with your staff and i just i really i'm thrilled to see with the with my background and technology the investment not only with the monetary investment that is being made but also the investment with the professional development with the working you know working amongst uh colleagues and bound i know there's a lot of collaboration going on so i'm really thrilled and i'm happy to to see that that's taken place because i honestly don't think that um

081a lot of what we're doing right now in some way shape or form i think is going to be around in the long for the long term i don't see us going back rolling back too much uh with that so so you know i'm really thrilled uh to hear that once again uh the the fact i love the idea of a therapy dog you know i think we this i don't know if you were on the committee at the time yeah um that when we approved the policy we uh this is the campus yes so it was uh that we recreated a policy right therapy for therapy dogs and i'm thrilled that we're able to do that and we're continuing that and i think it's just as important you know as it is for the

082for the students but um yeah you know i i i'm really concerned um for the most part i know can you speaking for my daughters as well as um you know just a lot of my um my daughter's friends in generals and just speaking from as an educator that kids are for the most part they're resilient students um and a lot of students are resilient um but i do have concerns about the long-term impact that this pandemic is is taking on on you know the adults um and you know not just not just teachers and faculty and staff in the schools but just parents every everyone so i think anything that we can do to support and i want i'll echo um mrs amaral's comments data you know i thought it was very i thought

083it was really nice and um a nice gesture of you to to recognize all your staff because this truly is a team effort um just a couple of questions here first question would be i know last year during when you presented i don't know if it was your school improvement plan or something else in general but there was a program in place that you had i don't know if it was the flip program um so you know i talked one of the things they just wrote here what types of safety and i know you talked you spoke a little bit about that tonight mr tebow but what types of safety nets are in place for those students are that are really struggling um and you know and what will happen and you know what are

084we doing to support them so yeah so that's a good question so we still have the flip program in place we usually start it up right around this time because it's it's the end of first semester which is when we start to be able to forecast you know uh someone's not looking like they're going to pass for the year in a year-long course so i i've already met mr mcgrath is uh the gentleman who oversees the flip program for us along with uh special education teacher um mrs catherine moniz they're both um interested in doing it again and they've they've met a few times already to make tweaks to the program but that uses ingenuity um and one of and i think this speaks to mr newton's question but edgenuity is a fantastic uh curriculum

085but students require um pushing a little bit because it's really you it's the motivation piece if you're motivated and put the time in you're successful i the the program itself has a lot of built-in accommodations you know for students who might have learning difficulties but it's the motivation piece and what i've found in multiple school districts is that when students know there's an adult who cares about them who's monitoring them they are more successful and so that's the the role that mr mrs moniz and mr mcgrath playing the flip program is that they get the kids set up they build out their individual pathways and then they monitor them as they progress and follow up and sometimes it's you know what kind of like pulling an elephant across a stage with dental floss but you

086know you do whatever you're gonna do to get that particular individual across um we've had kids who we've extended into the summer time to do that uh and certainly again we appreciate uh mr mcgrath and mrs moniz you know because that that means they're also extended out you know into this into the summertime as well so that's that's one of the safety nets in place we also um obviously this school year as well allow for retakes and revisions and and um you know that that's not uh you know that that's a pretty significant change um and it's one that we put in place because it's again a matter of equity you can't have one you know u.s history teacher allowing for retakes and another u.s history teacher not allowing for it then it's a matter

087of luck of the draw who do you have so that's the reason why we really pushed for the school-wide policy but again that's a safety net for for kids you you didn't do as well as you had hoped that first time you have a second time you have to self-advocate you know and many of our students do and are and have taken advantage of that as well excellent well thank you for that one last question is i know back when we were in august september when we were talking about our different plans and all that that we were going to look to allow and i know we've been kind of very fluid with this and maybe i'm not sure if this is a question for you mr tebow or dr gifford um and you know

088specifically i guess we can just ask the high school right now um the intercession is coming up semester two is going to be starting soon have we been flying no we've to some extent we've been flexible with allowing students to come in and out of or not come in and out but transfer from say ingenuity at the high school at techer from at the middle school level um and coming to a hybrid situation is that still the case so we have not denied anyone coming going into the vla okay coming out of we haven't had like i said we've only we have six to ten students and we held to semester um two which starts february first um as the starting date it just makes more sense grading and everything so okay um you know

089that's that's kind of the the plan and um like i said we've had more want to go in for a variety of you know reasons and we've been able to accommodate all of them i i think that's wonderful and you know i think that's a great thing that we're we're willing to be that flexible so uh i thank you on behalf of um everyone here on the committee thank you for your presentation and um great job well done thank you thank you thank you next up i'll turn it over once again to dr gifford for an introduction i'm excited to um to hear about this of our new town youth advocate um so uh doctor giffords oh she's there yeah let's see i've been eating popcorn i know oh yeah there she is hello hi

090everybody can you hear us i can hear you doctor okay all right i will introduce you so i'm really delighted to introduce our youth advocate dolores joseph uh we did hold two meetings so far with her zoo meetings one with our secondary leadership team and one with our elementary leadership team just to break the ice get to know each other and hear from dolores about her ideas of how she can help our schools and also be able to now set up some she will continue to move forward and and schedule meetings with counselors etc so she was a delight to meet and um we heard about our 15 year old son in the background doing his work so with that dolores i will turn it over to you all right well good afternoon everyone good

091evening it's not afternoon anymore it's just been a long day thank you so much for inviting me um my name is dolores josephs and i am the new youth advocate so i've been in this position maybe a month and a week and a half or something like that so um getting used to it but enjoying it so far so a little bit of history about me and my background i've been doing social service work for over 25 years so i am kind of dating myself but i do love it i have worked in the new bedford area for several years at child and family services i was the adoptions director at one time i also worked for the csa program which is the community service program that does wrap around work um for youth under

092the age of 21 in the area i also did a little stamp with dcf so i was an area program manager with the local dcf office here in new bedford um stepped away just a bit from this work and decided to just do some substitute teaching because i was still debating whether i wanted to go and get my certifications to be a school adjustment counselor while debating that and still wanting to work with children and families this opportunity was presented to me um i applied for it and i am so very happy that i did i love advocacy work i love working with youth and families connecting them to resources in the communities providing supports to them even trying to do some groups i know in the wake of cove but things look a little

093different and we have to think outside of the box as far as how we want to present services um or programs to youth and families so um working with the school department and other community partners i'm hoping to within the next month or so to get some of these things off of the ground to start offering groups or support groups programming to youth and families and dartmouth so the position says youth advocate and i think we had a discussion about this on friday that the title is a little deceiving even though the title is youth advocate my role and responsibility is to provide supports advocacy guidance and services to not only the youth in dartmouth but also their families so it doesn't necessarily mean they have to be attending a dartmouth school because we have

094several youth who attend schools that aren't located in dartmouth so i wanted to be extremely clear in getting my message out to as many people as possible to let them know that i'm here to be a support to residents of the town of dartmouth so that's my lunch bill on that i'm actually going to be meeting with the school department with the outreach staff on friday very excited about that to hear about some of their ideas working with the previous youth advocate and what they would like to see moving forward in this position i love collaborating with different community partners and because i've worked in this area before i've gathered a lot of resources i want to be clear i am not the person to actually do most of the work my job is to

095connect to services but i am able to do some bridge work for youth and families while we are looking to connect them to services so case management connecting them to mental health i'm doing check-ins with families talking them about the crisis center maybe going to the crisis center with them following up with them after they've had visits to the crisis center and seeing what their needs are and what the next steps are i also want to showcase and to let people know that there are other resources that are outside of dartmouth that families can take advantage of too that's for free my goal is to try to keep the youth advocate website updated on the town of dartmouth i know it's slow moving i'm doing a lot right now but i have posted some things

096on the sites that i feel could be beneficial to our youth and families in dartmouth and the school department has graciously offered their web space to promote some of these articles trainings or um food pantries for our youth and for our families so i'm looking so forward to this collaboration i have great ideas for the future i a lot of lofty ideas and i know things take time but i just wanted to get myself out there because this position has been open for almost two years so you know out of sight out of mind so it's getting people to know that there is a person located at town hall if they have a question um need support not know where to go they can always reach out and call me i may not have the

097answer right then but i promise to find out for you in return calls or try to figure out solutions for youth and families i think that's my little spiel for now so any questions well first of all thank you very much dolores this is chris oliver the chair of the committee so i want to thank you and for taking this opportunity and this time to introduce yourself i know um i think what this is just a wonderful support service that is offered for the for the town of dartmouth and i'm thrilled it sounds like you are a very collaborative person and i can only imagine that um you know the the school department as well as the town the town in general i i hope that we can use you as in as another support

098to to continue to you know support the families and support support the youth of dartmouth so i hope this is the beginning of a long relationship uh with you and i'd just like to welcome you to the uh the town of dartmouth and thank you for taking this opportunity uh to me to speak to the committee as well as reaching out and setting up meetings with the um with uh dr gifford and her team so i'm going to turn it over to my colleagues now for any questions or comments this is amarillo yeah hi dolores so thank you time to i've had the fortune to work with dolores in other capacities and you know your warmth and your knowledge are are an asset to this position and anyway uh when i heard that you were

099you know you you took the position i was thrilled and i just think it's just any way that we can out of the gate sort of build bridges build partnerships and help our community is is um is a good thing and i'm just you know glad that it's you and and look forward to the partnership as well so thank you thank you mr nunes thank you thank you hey dolores i'm john nunes and uh welcome to the town and uh wish you good luck and one question i have uh put you on the spot a little bit but what do you see as the biggest challenge right now facing guy youth one of the biggest challenges faced right now um with this pandemic um the fear of you know the unknown what the future is

100gonna look like this vaccine that is getting ready to roll out and people um having maybe some reservations about whether they should or shouldn't and also for our young people i was talking to my 15 year old and they got a different couple the other day he goes to vote um asking him about what are some of your fears what are some of your concerns you know being a young person and this is so unprecedented and his response to me was that he wasn't really concerned about himself but he was really worried about his peers and if they were to contract um covert 19 what would be the outcome so i think that is one of the biggest fears but also something that we don't really talk about a lot there's a lot of food

101insecurities that are going on right now people may not be talking about it but that is a huge issue especially for our young people if they're doing hybrid or remote models some of the food that they would get during the day has been eliminated because they're not at school but i'm so happy to know that dartmouth and some of the other schools too are providing programs that children are able to get meals but food insecurity not knowing what's going to happen with this virus and with the vaccine i think are some of the big issues in trying to provide information to the public about the vaccine what it is what it doesn't do who should get it who shouldn't get it which i don't want to say who should who shouldn't that is a personal

102choice but i think being very transparent with people and letting them know um the ins and outs of it i think that is one of the big issues once we can get past that and get back to some sense of normalcy which i'm gonna be honest i think that the way that we are doing things now is going to be incorporated in the future and that we've learned a lot now that we've had to use a lot of technology to get information out to people and to educate our our youth so i feel that's one of the positives that has come out of this if they're we can say a positive is that we've learned to think outside of the box as far as how we present services to people how we get people more

103engaged so i can see some of these things being carried over oh excuse me my allergies have runny nose being carried over um into the future so food insecurities and the fear the pandemic and the virus i think are some of the big things right now thank you good luck thank you thank you i'm sorry thank you i apologize hi dolores my name is mary waite first of all i just want to say i'm so grateful that you're here and i'm so thrilled i know that we had some conversations i'm a member of town meeting um you know there was a real commitment you know by a number of members to make sure that we still kept this position and i'm so glad that you're here you know you couldn't come at a more important

104time you know for the kids in this town i mean we know the you know the the stress that this pandemic has had on so many of our families and so many of our kids um you know and you pointed out you know just you know so many of the factors food insecurity you know and things that we don't they don't talk about among themselves in simply you know coming back and trying to socialize and finding spaces and not and feeling you know can i even socialize with someone when i you know i have a math and my safe and so there's there's so much anxiety there and you know to have someone you know you know as um kathleen mentioned to be a bridge you know you know to create that connect that connection

105to um and for families who don't always feel comfortable necessarily going to the you know school counselor to have someone else to theirs of support you know who you know maybe they feel you know is more neutral that can kind of you know report you know send them the resources and make those connections for them i just i think it's great and you have you come with such a strong reputation and clearly such a strong set of skills that yay thank you thank you thank you so thank you very much to all the uh my fellow colleagues do you have any questions for us or you have anything else you want to share we thank you once again for giving us this opportunity uh to listen to you no i think that is all and

106i'm so grateful that you've allowed me this opportunity to speak before the school committee i am like i said looking forward to our continued collaborations i know this is only the beginning so i'm very excited about this role and also what i didn't mention but dr griffin and i we had a conversation um with some of the other leadership is that during the day i know the schools do a lot my husband works for the school system free time league field so i do understand about the responsibilities and everything that you have to do during the day and now with cove extra things you need to do so i'm here as a support so when school gets out i'm still here so know that you can refer families to me if something happens at four

107o'clock five o'clock because the counselor or a school member is not in the building people can always come to me at town hall also what i want to stress to you and which um everyone here probably knows as far as confidentiality i don't want people to be afraid if they come to me that i'm going to just tell everybody about john doe came to the office today things that happen stay there unless it's a matter of safety and i need to report that but i'm very clear up front when i speak to people that what we do here is confidential unless it involves safety then i have to report or say something to somebody so i want people to feel comfortable coming to me not to think that i am going to let their neighbor

108know or one of the teachers at the school no unless there's some type of communication between us and they've said it's okay for us to collaboratively work to try to provide them with resources thank you all right well thank you thank you once again nice very nice meeting you dolores we wish you the best thank you thanks delores thank you thank you everyone have a lovely evening thank you guys bye take care bye-bye seems like a wonderful uh yeah she does wonderful asset to the community so looking for breath of fresh air yes yes well uh well very much needed yes very very much so so that's exciting so thank you for making that happen dr gifford next up under new business we have uh our school choice uh vote to participate the 21 22

109school year um before we get started with that i'll just ask um ms gunter have we had any uh emails come in regard from the public hearing side none have been received on the topic thank you very much so before we get started in any kind of discussion i'd like to turn this over to dr gifford or mr kylie and whoever wants to share some of the numbers and uh what we're doing here and what your thoughts are and recommendations i'll talk about the numbers that we have and then i'll let mr kylie talk about the the money and the financial of what's been going on so currently i believe you did receive this but just in summary currently we have 110 students enrolled in our school choice program and i'm looking and seeing that

110it seems 25 of those are in senior class so when we do take the vote i know we've never set a number and etc but um with seeing that 25 would be going out i would like to then be able to um we usually take 30 or 40 a year but i would like to build that number up to make sure that we still have around 125 students or so so just to look at that that there'll be some going out and then hopefully we get the applications and and folks come in so that's all i really say about that and kylie can talk about the finances sure uh so i provided you with a little detail that talks about what we've spent through the years through this program i i think probably the most

111important thing though on that list is that i can't imagine where we would be in this pandemic if we had not had this program and been able to invest in one-to-one computing now the town as i've told you has been very helpful through the pandemic in terms of uh you know providing some of their grant funding to support uh technology purchases and other purchases that we've had to make but we weren't starting from scratch you know and and mr gallashaw through the last you know few years has has put together we started in a pretty good place during this pandemic technology-wise now they've definitely come through and supported us and put us over the top so that we can continue to offer high-quality education um despite the challenges but um i i just don't i

112don't know if we would be able to do that without having done this um so i just think that that's you know illustrates how important it is thank you mr kylie so as from looking through uh the uh the finance sheet here since it's in inception um i think it's actually really very impressive um the amount of money we were able to take in and some of the some of the items line items that we were able to um to spend it on and i i would wholeheartedly agree with you as far as the one-to-one computing that i don't know you know where we would be without it um and i don't know if that's something that we could even remotely afford right now um i without school choice funding so with that i will

113turn it over any discussion any comments questions uh that anyone may have um before i give my final thoughts yeah i just actually had more of a you know a question because i agree with my my colleague mr oliver you know i i think the resources are needed you know this is just a reality you know and i guess but a question i had as i think about the students that we're bringing into the school you know looking you know through the four years how many students do we send evoke um staying in other schools from eighth grade because again like i think that's you know another consideration is that you know we're also paying out you know so so how i mean staying we're not you know that's that's a different story but you

114know bristol aggie you know so how many students do we have you send elsewhere that we're also you know subsidizing i don't have the number in front of me do you i don't either no we could certainly provide you with the bulk and aggie and role yeah i know so there's also school choice yeah i was just i was just doing other districts because it's not just that some students let's go there yeah right so we do have a sheet we usually keep on all of that and and the trend each year and how many have gone out from eighth grade so we'll get that to you and i think just as part of the conversation you know if you know we also have to you know say hey you know we're we you know

115we high school is a different entity than middle school right the way it's set up and we you know we're running a lot of very diverse classes and you know in order to run those we do need to have the population in the seats and you know we're in a you know a dip a little bit you know population-wise so at least in the high school right now so again you know just uh you're thinking through this i mean i you know my daughter being you know in dartmouth has liked meeting some new kids and you know especially actually she has met um some of the students that are in her class she had you know met before through theater programs and you know and that's so she knew them coming in you know from

116westport and new bedford so again she's actually liked having some you know some of those students in in her classes adding some ideas so just you know another you know a little bit of a silver lining there too i think so anyway but um no i i you know i i support this so thank you thank you mrs white mr nunes anything dad no not really mr chairman i think everybody kind of knows where i stand on this anyway so which is just me personally i mean don't get me wrong i absolutely thank you for this mr kylie the uh the revenue and i think you to to go back and look at this is you know it's all student-based yeah this is everything going to students you know school setups ice stems innovation you

117know the innovation lab i mean i remember when we got right that grant from the state we were one of two or three high schools that got that that's right public schools yep you know type of deal public schools again the rest were you know private vocational and colleges type of deal and we needed you know the rest of the money to to get it up and going and that's been a godsend and that's fantastic and and such so it is great to have this me personally again it's philosophical and my vote is no but that's me fully fully respected mr nunes thank you this is amarillo you know that um i i do you know the value in the um what we have here in this this you know very um i had the

118word just escaped me but this you know all the projects that we've been able to to fund as you mentioned uh most notably most costly the one-to-one computing um and yeah i just that you just can't underscore that enough that this money is needed and we wouldn't have it otherwise so yeah i don't really have anything to add i have uh i know initially in in my pre-pre-uh on the school committee tenure it was quite controversial and yeah and and all of that and and some folks felt a certain way about students coming in and occupying spots on teams and i think if uh i don't know that there's been much of that in the last years and and these students are they're good kids and um they just want a good education and um

119agreed i've i've uh i've i've not witnessed anything negative and and i think they're well received and well recep you know like you said it's the one they're just one community and i think it's wonderful that we can we can give that to them um so that's all i have to say okay thank you very much yeah but you know separate from the financial standpoint and the the fact that this is a great opportunity um to bring in some more revenues to help directly support our students it goes right back to the students i think it's also a nice opportunity to um for more diversity and more inclusivity at dartmouth high school so that that's really all i have i am i am in support of this again uh with school choice so uh the

120chair will entertain a motion uh to approve school choice for the 21 21 21 22 school year second i'll make a boy so you got to make the motion of it make a motion i'll make it much more confusion i s i'll second the motion i have a motion by and a second by mrs amaral to approve school choice for the dartmouth public schools for the fy uh 21 no i'm sorry fy22 school year which would be next school year beginning in september any other questions yeah quick question mr chairman do we need to put a a number of students with this week you don't usually we don't usually okay i i i'll be losing 25 i have 110 so i usually want to bring it to 120 125 somewhere in there that's fine so

121i'll just that's fine and i think you know i think it goes without saying with the simple fact that you would have let us know that um mr tebow and his team is comfortable with continuing with these types of things you know once those kids start coming in and they do a nice job to spread them out throughout the classes so as you've seen in the past the classes haven't become overly large sure through any of this so yeah okay we need the kids now very much on the motion any other discussion it's your hearing none all in favor aye aye uh opposed me abstentions none so motion passes three to one good thank you we've already had people call okay uh next up uh dr gifford i'll turn it over to you for the

1222020 annual report yes i i hope you've all read it um you need to yes but once again i just want to thank the entire team for their contributions for the annual report and i think it showcases the district's work very well um similar to what mr tebow did tonight i didn't say anything to him but it was a fabulous report so you would have to vote on accepting the annual report and um that will go to the town perfect any questions for dr gifford in the annual thought chair well entertain a motion to approve the uh annual report so moved second motion by mr newton seconded by mrs wait on the motion any further discussion it's a nice job yeah yeah honestly yeah detailed and i'm pretty detailed good uh i agree good point

123i know that takes a lot of time enough for it miss ganther pushes the group so yeah it's a lot that's a lot of questions it's a lot of collaboration all in favor aye aye aye opposed all right motion passes unanimously thank you for doing that that was thorough thank you next up on the agenda in a new business is just a quick little discussion on mcas i'm i asked archer gifford to add this to today's agenda i know that we kind of spoke about this a little bit in the past but once again uh in speaking with mafc um you can see that uh i sent you i asked dr gifford and ms genther to include the resolution language i'll just start off by saying when i first found out that the department of

124education was looking to even have mcas in some way shape or form in the springtime i was just appalled our teachers and our educators and our administrators have more than enough to do during this pandemic between the safety between the anxiety uh between all the stress and emotion that's going in right now it just i i am bewildered at the fact that we're still that this the department of education in in the um legislature still would like to move forward in in in this as well as commissioner reilly and the department of education so i asked um reached out to masc once again and i asked what their thoughts were and at their um the annual um the annual meeting uh they they took a vote um to uh pass this resolution and you can

125see that the um with the delegates in attendance at their annual meeting um where they stand and i would just like to just get this committee's thoughts on this and whether or not you this is something that you would like to support once again this would be something a resolution that we would vote on that would go to um our congress our our congressmen as well as our senators and um as well as governor baker and commissioner riley um so uh just uh i am i'm absolutely opposed i know they're looking at correct me if i'm wrong dr gifford a um a cut back version or a different little bit you know um not as in depth and but i'm honestly not sure how much um data they're going to get out of this um

126and and i think it's just an unnecessary burden um on our teachers on our students um in as you can see with some of the language here that you know i think at least once again for this year and really moving forward there's a lot of controversy around this type of mcas and high stakes testing i know that um from what i'm hearing and dr giffy can chime in is that their concern is that and i think this has actually been made public in the in the um in the media is that if we were to do away with it for another year is that they're afraid that it wouldn't come back yeah so i i i think i think there is a lot of politics at play with this um those that's just my

127thought um but i'll be happy to hear from my from my committee members and um your thoughts uh i don't know if you want to sat down on this end yeah sure yeah no i'm i am in support of of a root of us sending a resolution like this just to send the message like you said how much data is really going to be obtained i know their plan is like you said to stream you know changing it up a little bit but still going forward with it uh but i would love to see them uh students in the graduating class who missed the the 10th grade to do similar to what was done last year you know it's not just giving people a free pass it's sort of like looking at those students and

128seeing what the trajectory was what their grades were teachers know administration knows their their their transcript knows how they've done or their potential and then making that competit you know modifying that their um whether they're graduating or not based on like a different set of like determinate factors not solely on the mcas like having a son you know with with uh significant disabilities anyway a separate conversation it's always just been so foolish to me to to his worth in you know taking and you know anything other than auditing classes in a higher ed you know situation because he can't necessarily obtain a diploma you know is just ridiculous and it's it's uh anyway um so yeah i'm in support of of of this it's mr nunes thank you mr chairman i'm one who from the

129get-go has not been in favor of the mcas testing not everyone tests well okay uh and to hold uh students accountable at any time uh you know for testing you know do you pass do you not pass you know are you gonna graduate you're not going to graduate what's your diploma going to look like et cetera is wrong more so than ever at this point in time with what's going on i mean you know we've been talking about mr tebow was talking about and you know mrs thomas mrs joseph i'm sorry was talking about you know the social emotional issues that the students have because of the pandemic and such you know and not knowing what's going on you know in 10 minutes never mind come march when i've got to take you know in

130this the mcas test and how are you going to administer that test because you have a hybrid situation what do you do with the students that are fully remote how do you handle those students type of deal there's too many balls in the air as to the logistics and that and along with that i mean i think we have to look at not only the mcas but i'm not sure what we're doing but i think we have to look at all the different testing that we're doing with our students right now again you know you know most of them are in a hybrid situation some of them are fully remote and i'm talking middle and elementary levels type of deal i mean do they you know is their education complete that you can give them

131any type of a test that is going to completely identify how well they're doing this year i don't think so i mean you know it's been almost the year that this has been ongoing you know i mean they lost three months of school last year you know and then this year you know they were late getting in just because of trying to get everything going and then come back you know and they're in every other day which is fine and then we've had situations where classrooms and we've shut down for two weeks because of the spread of the virus you know these students unfortunately i do not think no disrespect i know our teachers are working diligently but i don't think it's fair to anyone whether it's mcas the star or whatever it is abcs

132to be giving our students any type of testing that says you're either going to graduate or you're not going to graduate you're going to promote you're not going to promote in this type of a situation so yes thank you mr news sorry guys this is wait stole my son so no i mean i you know i i wholeheartedly agree and i think you know when i look back and uh you know dessi's argument was again diagnostic that they thought this was gonna be diagnostic and all i'll step back and think you know the culture that's been you know created in every school around mcas is that we have a big you know in you know we take the teachers are talking about it for like months ahead of time you know we're sitting kids down

133you know we're having rallies and do your best you know here's gum this you know you know all of that you know so if we tell the kids this year i mean beyond the class time that this is a waste of class i mean every moment that our kids can be in the classroom and their teachers i think this year is precious you know so i don't want to see it sacrificed to this but also if it's just diagnostic so then what are we telling how are we going to frame that to the kids so you don't take it seriously this year or we stress you out by saying you take it seriously i mean it just doesn't you know and then and if we say it's diagnostic it's not serious spending they're not going

134to take it seriously so it's not diagnostic anyway because they won't take it i mean the whole thing just seems an exercise in futility really like and it's a it's an unfair burden you know that i can't imagine many staff are saying please let me test my students and go over how to interpret you know it's just not you know i haven't been a high school teacher i can see there was a time you know if you have 10th grader you want to make sure i understand the philosophy behind it you want to make sure that they you know pass a certain yardstick it's not just reliant on what you know there's a big argument that you want uniformity and all that and and i get that but we are seeing a trend away i

135mean right now sats have dropped the essay questions i mean that just happened i know my daughter was like that well i see the essay question the subject test as well um and there's some move question about you know whether or not sats are you know in the college board we talk about you know what is behind the college board is panicking you know i mean there's there's that but um a lot of schools right now are turning to be test optional and you know may continue so i know tufts and many other you know institutions so again like i think you know we're entering a new phase maybe that and at the very least i think this year we've gotta honor the reality that's in front of us so that's that's awesome excellent way

136to yeah to read it with that um be it resolve that masc rejects the call for the students of 2022 who missed their 10th grade mcas testing to be required to make it up in the 2021 school year or ever we demand those students be held harmless for not taking the mcas and that their graduation requirements shall be determined by locally controlled voices of the school committee in school administration within the remaining graduation requirements of the commonwealth of massachusetts additionally additionally we reiterate our call for moratorium and all high stakes testing for the 2021 school year so all students can benefit from their time being focused on direct instruction and we urge the legislature to enact a moratorium on high takes high stakes testing of three years chair will entertain a motion to approve that

137resolution so moved second motioned by mr nunes a second by mrs wait on the motion any further discussion j herring none all in favor hi hi hi opposed motion carries unanimously we could just ask um your office dr gifford if you could just drop like we did in the past draft up if we could have um miss guenther draft up some letters and we'll get those um signed and off to our all the appropriate parties okay thank you thank you uh you're going to sign them or not you're going to sign them i'm certainly signing them the letters that we've talked about tonight yes second to uh on our behalf for both just to confirm uh for both the mcas as well as the um the vaccine for moving up teachers bringing up the teachers

138yeah vaccines yeah i'll be happy to do that so much about mr news the second that motion taken by mrs amaral on the motion any other discussion all in favor aye aye thank you thank you thank you mr nunes for bringing that up no problem uh next up uh superintendent's update dr gifford a couple of things in addition to everything we've been talking about tonight but the district received well if you recall we do a tier focus monitoring the old cpr audit etc we have to civil rights special education etc and we've been on our last pieces of civil rights and one of the things that we had to do was show that we are providing professional development along the lines of racial equity discriminat inclusion nondiscrimination etc so what we did was we and

139then we'll have to do more i have a feeling this will become part of the mandated training before too long with everything that's going on everywhere but for now it's up to the districts but deci required us to do something so what we did was we sent an article out to the staff we provided staff time either through a staff meeting or a cpt meeting etc read the article about implicit bias and then take it's from harvard the impact association test just to self-reflect and i mean we don't collect the data or anything like that obviously it's just the results you know go to desi and they saw i i don't know if they'll compile the whole thing across the state or whatever but anyway we've done that this this week or so and and

140the schools are providing time for folks to do that pre-k and case screening we've been organizing that i think i updated you on the other day and um the k th the cuneigon portal will be opening for registration in early february so folks can be looking for that and we look at our numbers of the number of students that what we think the trend has been of um over the last three years or so of the decrease in the number of k students so we're going to have to see what happens whether folks will opt to put their student in k when they should have been in k this year or if they're age appropriate go to first grade we hopefully recommend that they do go to k because there's so much learning that goes

141on and with this year of craziness that we don't want them to miss but anyway we'll be looking to that and see what people are going to be doing as far as registering for the kindergarten and i just wanted to mention one more thing and then i'm going to turn it over to mr kiley if he has a few updates as well but you'll hear more about it on the february 8th meeting we invite the student that was chosen for the francis galicia memorial scholarship in honor of mr galtrow's dad over at the south coast collaborative and unfortunately we couldn't have a luncheon you know we did a nice celebration last year the superintendents go the principals and talk about the student that they chose um the students get a one thousand dollar scholarship so

142we've invited i'm i'm waiting to hear from mr tebow if the student and their her parents can attend our some way the february 8th meeting to be recognized and it's it's a nice award so we did a virtual ceremony and it's what we did like everybody else but it is what it is so that's all i have for tonight thank you dr gifford so just speaking quickly to um food insecurity jean sheridan and the cafeteria staff have been doing a great job i just wanted to update everyone that they're continuing to do food boxes weekly so it's on thursdays now while school is in session so any students who are learning remotely or are quarantined for some reason or you know unable to be in school can uh collect a seven-day food box at the

143middle school we've added evening hours so we have a daytime hours and evening hours for our families so make it more accessible and they're continuing that program so you know we're trying to address that as much as possible and we're continuing now as we you know we've come back into the hybrid mode to send students home with food for the day when they're out of school so that option is still available so i just wanted to make sure the community understands that that's still you know still out there and we're trying to address that food insecurity as best we can do you find our students at the middle school level are they taking the you know i think that was a little bit of an issue before where they weren't necessarily all taking the food

144you know do you find that most kids are taking the food it's a mix it is a mix you know i mean students have particular tastes and you know it's sometimes they don't eat all day even yeah right right but there are a lot of students who are taking it yes yeah and is it every week that boxes go out yes every week seven day meal box that has uh fruit vegetables juice um breakfast lunches lots of different types of things some hot options cold options you know pizzas pancakes french toast uh hamburgers cheeseburgers stuff like that really just just a lot of food i know because it is yeah it's wonderful and just out of curiosity uh about yeah a ballpark of what do we give you yes so right now now that we're

145coming back into hybrid uh we're you know estimating less than 100 each each day um each week sure um when we were just fully remote uh we were give we gave out 400 and something boxes um so that was significant for sure but we're still we're giving out more food now than we were when we were fully remote obviously because now we're giving it out in school to kids so um yeah it's it's been successful and it wouldn't be without um you know the effort of gene and and rick ferreira and his team assisting with the logistics and of this whole thing it's it's been good effort there's a i just you know i i see it um i see there's a lot of great collaboration going on so it really is you know that's

146an all hands on deck situation and everybody gets it so yeah yeah no it's good that's excellent i just had one other yeah sure brief item um just wanted to thank lauren pusey in my office she was been working with the um with the town's energy consultant kathy stanley and we just received the check for eighteen thousand dollars for uh air purifier rebates so yeah so they so we just got that and uh so i was pleased with that a little little discount on those air purifiers that are all over the place we'll take what we can yeah wow that's great is that ours or does that go back to the toilet i have i have a exploratory email that uh hasn't been uh responded to yet i'll let you know [Laughter] fair enough mr

147kylie thank you uh under report of the chair i really don't have anything um to add um i know it's gone a little bit longer than uh on the agenda so uh no i i that's all i really um i really don't have anything tonight anyone else i just have um that you know we just got an email from um miss kane that deca results are in so they're they haven't announced yet but i guess they're going to announce on wednesday um you know who's i guess the top seven finishers go to state so i have two kids who are very excited so let's see but um yeah so something to look forward to on wednesday she will announce that she said um at 2 15. right excellent anyone else yeah just real quick and

148talk about stealing thunder i should have figured no that's okay because i mean in all seriousness you know this past week uh i got the students i was assigned to judge virtual and everything else and it was interesting to do and it was great to see how well prepared even virtually that these students did you know with the assignment that they had and you know i was judging a marketing type of deal program and you know how well they did and you know there were a couple of dartmouth students in there too and they did they did very well but it was just overall to see you know students you know taking a unfortunate situation and just making you know doing a you know step forward in in doing it real well remotely they were

149all all dressed properly it was done from probably their house their some from their home some from school i would think but you know the way they did it was just really and my hat's off to all of the students that that did that so that was good and thank you mr kylie because i had written down here food service and you talked about that and i was gonna look for an update on that but you did that so thank you i'm good mr chairman thank you anything else all right uh the next regularly session a regular meeting of the school committee is scheduled for monday february 2021 to be be held right here in the library media center at dartmouth high school at 6 30. it's a reminder the public can access us via

150the dhs youtube channel at this time chair williams attain a motion to approve into executive to approved a motion to go into executive session uh to provide an update with respect to collective bargaining with union personnel and not to reconvene so moved second motion by mr newman second by mrs wait on the motion any other discussion chair hearing none all in favor uh actually roll call please chris oliver yes kathleen ameral yes john nunes yes mary wait yes thank you very much everyone this meeting is adjourned you know what there's a lot of good stuff i know i was thinking the same thing