Dartmouth Schools School Committee Meeting Feb. 10, 2020

001good evening I'd like to call to order the School Committee meeting for Monday February 10th 2020 I ask that you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance so as you may have remembered from last week or now you've realized that we are live-streaming by our own Dartmouth high media department but this will also be broadcast through DC TV several times over the course of the week I asked everyone silence your cellphone's if you have them with you so that doesn't interrupt the meeting roll call please Kathleen emerald yeah Chris Oliver yeah Shannon Jenkins here Carol Karras John News yep so the first thing on our first item on our agenda is public comment and so we've allotted about 10 minutes for a public comment from the audience we only ask that if you come up

002you speak to something that's on the agenda and that you state your name and make your comments as brief as you can Joanne I'll run up the next thing on our agenda is the approval of minutes and so I will entertain a motion to accept the regular session minutes of January 27th 2020 so moved I also will entertain a motion to approve the executive session minutes of the same night January 27th 2020 so move madam chair with the stipulation that he be held until the matter for which they were intended is completed so next we have we're grateful to have Brendan here Brendan Rico he's our student rep from the high school to update us on what's going on here at the high school thank you so Darwin high school once again at several scholastic

003our Award winners silver key Award winners included Claudia Castro for photography paipa harrison for photography and Kenzel Kenzie wass quits for ceramics honorable mention recognition was awarded to Jonathan Daren for photography Nate Jakarta for photography Katherine Reno for painting and Kenzie wass quits for portfolio and drawing in illustration congratulations to all last week during the pace period the business and computer science department as well as the unified arts department met with each grade at DHS to preview course offerings for the next school year after vacation all students in grades 9 through 11 will begin making their course requests for the next school year last Friday members of the principal's Advisory Council met to discuss the 7 plus pace schedule this was the first step in soliciting feedback on the implementation of the new schedule all

004students and faculty members will be surveyed in the coming weeks as the year progresses on Friday February 14th at 2 p.m. members of the DHS National Honor Society will be hosting the annual Valentine's Day dance at the Dartmouth Council on Aging it is the biggest service project that NHS takes on each year and it allows DHS students to provide our senior citizens of the fun-filled events congratulations to the boys and girls basketball team as well as to the hockey team each is already qualified for postseason play also congratulations to the hockey team who won a 2-1 contests overborne high school yesterday at the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence on Saturday February 22nd the DSM a will be holding their annual indoor percussion home show both are indoor percussion as well as our color guard will

005be performing and we wish them best we wish them both the best of luck on Sunday March 1st from 8:30 a.m. until 12:45 p.m. the dance club led by Miss Kelly will be holding a dance convention fundraiser the event is open to dancers ages 7 and older beginner intermediate and advanced levels dancers will start the morning with the warmup followed by three dance classes the cost is $50 per dancer and anyone interested to call or email miss Kelly thank you so the best part of the night is we have a presentation by our spotlight on kids this meeting is Joseph de Mello Jamila elementary school and so we have Katie pave oh and list Korea here to present the spotlight on kids welcome I would like to invite our D'Mello friends to come on up

006my friends who are going to work with us tonight so good evening everyone mrs. Cory and I would like to thank you all for the opportunity tonight to spotlight some of the truly fabulous work that's being done at the de Melo school as this is a spotlight on kids my goal is to do very little of the talking tonight with that being said we'd like to start off with a video that will lead us into tonight's topic of writing but before I hit play or ask mr. Yosh what hit play I wouldn't be remiss if I didn't give a giant thank you to mrs. lizbo C who is our instructional tech teacher extraordinaire because she really was able to take the vision that mrs. Kouri had for these videos tonight that you're gonna watch and

007make them a reality so mr. Gallow Shaw whenever you ready I like Freitas workshops because I can write about anything I want and I think I'm better ready to send her I like Plato's workshop because I like the way fiction story will help me like right because you don't tell you I knew like right is where a shop because you could be really creative and because you can let your mind run free [Music] even though I've only been teaching first grade for three years it's incredible the amount of writing stamina that these students have developed these six and seven year olds are able to stay on task and write for a half hour straight and the most incredible thing is that they enjoy this writing and develop a sense of Independence so the writing program

008this year has really helped our students develop a love of writing they're more engaged they're willing to take chances and they are really proud of themselves to see their growth from the beginning of the unit to the end and I'm extremely it seeks to see that my students are able to structure and SS properly and to do it quickly and thoroughly we have really seen an increase in quality and quantity without their great writers students are given many opportunities to a flashdrive which allows them to practice different styles of writing for example are currently working on four spaces beaches students have experimented has played around with problems in our school class people around us they've been able to gather more information through research as well as creating and conducting surveys with our with other third

009grade classes and we noticed the both wrote when the students with their first flash draft in the first week per unit we just finished up a nonfiction they wrote expert pieces and we were blown away by the organization of the pieces and their use of transition words which we really focused on in the freezer unit we're really excited to see how much more they will grow at the apprentice one great aspect of our writing workshop is to share time at the end it's just a couple of minutes long but it's a great confidence booster for students to take pride in the progress we made in workshop that day one of the amazing things about Lucy Hawkins writing workshop is the stamina that kids come in from foot trade with us and watching them you can

010throw throughout the fifth grade year the amount and the quantity and quality of children's reading is something to people I've been doing this for those 20 years and to watch what kids are doing today is amazing I just want to share the amazing writing that my students do and they've grown so much since the beginning and it's amazing the kind of writing that they are producing each and every day [Music] I'm a writer [Music] I'm a writer I don't know I'm a writer we are the writers of the middle school [Music] [Applause] so as you can see from the video the addition of the Lucy Cochran's units of studies has truly helped us become a community where we grow writers and I use the term grow writers because that's truly what we do we take

011the amazing work that's being done down done down the street at the Cushman school and we build on it in a very strategic progression that's laid out throughout the units if you look at the learning progressions which I think should be up there that you've included in your packets you'll find that each grade level feeds on what the students have already done and learned and it helps them to grow further in that area and I've also included in your packet some of the checklists that our students use when they're analyzing their own writing with a critical eye to determine if their piece has met the grade-level expectations and mr. gaucho if you kind of flip through them what you'll see is if you zoom in on the first box under structure which deals with leads

012you see that our kids are growing on what they've done until they have a beginning in first grade where they are trying to write a beginning to in the fifth grade where they are showing what was happening and where and also is giving giving clues to what will later become a problem for the main character by the time they are they are fifth graders and while we've chosen to focus on the narrative unit tonight these progressions and checklists exist for all the units of study in writing and in reading that we take our students through so on to the most important people of the night tonight we've brought students from each grade level with us who are kind enough to share their narrative pieces from earlier this year with you we chose to share our

013narrative writing as very clearly clearly shows the progression of writing the growth over time that these students make from the time they are first graders right through to fifth grade we ask them to record themselves reading their stories as we know that standing in front of a crowd can often make for daunting work and we want to be sure that you can hear all the fabulous things they've written about they were gracious enough to join us up here tonight to help us be brave enough to speak to you and also to answer any questions that you might have after hearing their pieces we've highlighted the overall progression of each grade level before they come on camera and I think you'll agree that each of these students has very successfully executed the task with pride I'd

014like to ask each of our students to introduce themselves to you and then we'll hear what they've written I'm Bennett Kircher 2nd grade I am Lucas Sousa and I am in fourth grade I am Noah Kelly and I am in third grade I'm Ella MO and I'm in fifth grade juniper Poe gosh fabulous first grader all right mr. gosh I whenever you're ready one time I went to the zoo with my brother and my grandparents the zoo was called the Roger Williams and I saw cheetahs it was fun and there was zebras next door from the cheetah and it wanted to eat it looks like and Audrey here the waves crash against the beach as we walk towards it then the beach and the ocean coming to do I spring through the water let's go

015boogie boardin I shouted it as at dad as a ramp toward the water splash splash me and dad jumped into the water we swim out to where the big waves work here comes a big one dad yells hmm I started to say but then splash I am crash I hit the sand heart can we go skimboarding I asked surf employed dad but then something caught my eye some creature of the deep I want I wondered toward this thing it was a horseshoe crab Wow I muttered to myself those things have been here since dinosaur time the horseshoe crab was carried out to sea by wait dad came back with this skimboard then he can place the skimboard on the wire and say you first I balanced myself on the skimmer board splash a weight lifted

016this can board off the ground and into the water then dad pushed me with o is mine Yahoo I yelled as I stand across the shallow water then my board slowed to a stop it's almost time to leave yelled mom from a distance time for a last and best way dad said we went into the deepest part of the water and waited five four three two one rush eight waves came speeding toward us and before I knew it I was going from tip to talk we talked to top of the wings one of the wings was facing the wrong way I fell off my [Music] it was a hot day in Turks and Caicos come on come on I shout to my family going inside and slip those could take to you all the flippers

017are too big my sister claim shouted in reply I'll help you might call back and right around the pool to the closet the small bowl had dim lighting in all the stuff you would need to have a good time at the beach in pool stick up paddle board panels to enjoy his life jackets and of clothes slippers my mom and I help my step sister find the smallest pamphlet was in the closet we hide back outside to the busy tropical Sun like the cool breeze reminded me how hot it was in the closet I stepped slowly into the pool into the pool but at the same time whirlpool I saw my slippers tried to float up to the surface of the water and they started swimming tell me my face dropped under my shoulders but

018back up to the top oh no I haven't sitting up the shop what uh can you help me I asked a rock show she said come on over iCloud really have some half walk over to and my mom was dating I tried to get my like the right way and my mom told me what to do there's still so much what place let me wash his clothes of mine I was having a hard time too who's going to teach us they asked of course the answer was in mom she had us go to the side of the foots in a hole but I'm kicking out like what's next I asked it at that second Oh dad can you deliver for watching water elements I know close javis teaching me the lifeguard so that's what it

019was our dad was the lifeguards along with the surveillance entity and Clara Island students the next step of swimming lessons are swimming across the shallow end of the pool but the flippers up my sleep shop draggy and I tried to take them across the pool there was so much harder than it seemed when I came up out of the water to take a buddy I saw my dad float across the shin myung-hoon bought it when I pulled off it so hard - so much luck with that I know and don't 500 foot other tracks we kept going again and again until I finally got the thing is fluently I want to try to solve across the whole pool and the deep tendon back I said okay try it out by parents agreed I tried it

020out as I got closer to the deep end my feet started to feel groggy my head popped above the water food buzzes in like up I kept my head above the water and tried it water for a few moments and then don't back under my own slice to the water as they got closer closer to the wall when I got to the wall I put my feet against to in pushed off I hadn't realized it but my feet won't feel like lying anymore I was learning how to do it it was now I came up for bed guys I shouted I can do it I know how to use flippers then I talked back onto I swam back to the starting point the shallow end of the turquoise waters crash this was very scary Fred

021in max let me tell you what happened ed and Max had packed had packed everything they needed to go on a trip to Florida they were at the airport are you ready to go to Florida on max question debt yes explain max a little while later and did not step in the plane Wow said max these seats are comfy they share our side and back the plane will start to lift off buckle your seat belt the calm said in the plane took off and in max first I was sleeping crashed startled both of the brothers startled both of the brothers woke up what just happened max said confused I don't know replied it then both of the brothers stepped close to the door and opened it oh no since oh my god yelled max is

022the brother stepped out we are stranded and said back the plane had crashed in the earth and they were stranger on an island what would we do now sand that's a little worried how are you supposed to get get off this island now the brothers were worrying a little more then that saw something under a rock and picked it up oh my god it's going max it's a walkie-talkie and turned it on in the both heard up is anyone there ed yelled into the walkie-talkie then they heard are you guys one of the survivors from the deadly plane crash the voice said yes yes we are send max into the walkie-talkie okay or comment to pick you guys up then the voice hung up three hours later help has arrived yell dead both of the

023brothers hopped on the rescue plane and the rescue team brought them both both brought them to Florida the rescue team dropped them off by old mats over the spinning propellers when they were gone said next time can we drive and head agreed exhibition addressed by Ella but they don't understand is that if you are afraid to go on a ride an animal kingdom you don't have to go yeah learned that the hard way we've had an exploring animal kingdom for a while but one though the biggest ride ever came into view the older brother max just had to say can we go on an expedition a tryst hmm Marsten will you be afraid to go on ask my mom physically if you are we don't have to go on send my mom pointing to the

024huge ride I would say I was scared too I would say I was too scared if I were you Martian is my little brother no I will not my dad put on his hat and said okay then let's go get in one I stared at him and said first where is going they're gonna find out he said it looks like so much fun I wanted to cut the line to go on the last time we went Larsen was a baby and I was too scared to go on so I had to wait outside with my grandma while my brother and my mom and my dad had the best time ever my life goal was to go on that ride and have a good time he walked around for ages to think for that one then

025we saw it it looked short from there but boy we were completely wrong I I was actually glad it took a while when you waited in line because we proved that the Sasquatch was real I wondered why they put it that there I was pretty sure if it was just for entertainment anyways we went through the old mountain climbing shops their jackets were up strawberry fitness hats in snow pants you watch TVs they had them best line ever he finally got to to the front of the line I walked up to cart number seven actually want to sit with me I asked a pen I've done worse pants right max did you know you could fall off and you're stuck in the cave forever ask max that's silly you can fall off I thought he

026then got ready to sit in our carts they looked like old line carts for when people minding Kate they were old and dirty for you the whole casting dad sat with barson and mom sat with a random boy this is how it starts they're super excited to go on and then you're completely terrified my stomach was in a knot I wanted to ride it all the way back to Massachusetts but it was too late we started moving it made a loud screech and jerked felons we started slow this is not that bad I thought we started climbing that when I heard screaming ahead of us please stop moving please stop moving so what was rolling down my cheek I couldn't tell if it was from being nervous or from the heat he went from being

027slow to stop him wait my wish had worked I thought now he was really starting to get hot the order I got the more worried I felt I put my hands on the rail to see how high we were but it burnt my problems ok it's not that high if you don't want to go on this ride jump off I whispered to myself hello did you say something these miles are you scared no anywhere it was either jump off and hurt yourself or be scared when I say she was jumping off we started moving again and shouldn't we make any facial expression my eyes were locked on to cave we were going into it was dark you could hear bats and a slight creak I started getting started getting faster and faster we stopped at

028broken tracks but I looked around there were so many elastic bands and pennies from the 19 hundreds or thank goodness we stopped I should talk to these blacks and calming down that's why they're broken tracks I asked I haven't been on this ride in a while maybe the Yeti broke down yes there was a friendly smile there's a Yeti - that explains all that Sasquatch footprints all of a sudden it jerked backwards at full speed speed we were going backwards oh no oh no I know I let you down all I was scared of was losing my hat I put the bag in front of me and press their feet on it I was still afraid of the ride but mostly the hat all of a sudden I felt like I was going into looky-loo

029my head was of course still down I tried to look to my head but I couldn't I started screaming I can't lift my head I also scream something - max I do hope he heard it not she did tell me it went backwards did you say something Ellen I can't hear over how much fun I'm having I learnt just up a squirrel down his throat of course I didn't do it must have been her in a cave and there were no squirrels in my reach I closed my eyes so hard almost as if I was tight I was tightening braces all the sweat was flying off my face I felt bad for the person in front of me they were in the splash zone thanks blue around my brain why did I go on this

030ride I don't want to fall off you have a strap your fault this is all your fault man he stopped going in a way for me stuff I would say feel better stop because someone is including together in the cart but someone didn't have trouble getting on a cart that if spotlight was on the table then it appeared in the spotlight sasquatches that shadow the power David suggested to the ear-splitting shriek the shadow broke rails like they were twins we started rolling phones so many twists and turns too many to count we were now in the center of the cave there was a giant Yeti with the red eyes it's breached I lifted my head and with fear in my eyes it looked like that Larson thinking hard died and left me scared to death

031you know I thought that through about two seconds she wasn't scared at all he had the most serious face I had a person I could tell he was paralyzed and bored I thought more I looked back at the Yeti it's for swinging around I closed my eyes shortly after I opened them because I felt daylight there was a daylight but we were heading for a huge drop and that moment I didn't feel fright I felt happy excited I couldn't scream I could have drowned all I could do was smile I put my hands in the air the Dropkick it reminded me of the ride Splash Mountain we are heading for a huge drop my mom pointed up a disney castle it so beautiful that cool ah right in the middle of the sentence from the

032drop King and who screamed so loudly I laughed so hard that day today I was laughing the same way all of a sudden I wasn't scared I was happy and excited I realized I had fun the whole time I just let my imagination ruin things that are supposed to be fun I could feel the wind in my hair cooling me down I stopped worrying you could only think how amazing this ride was we stopped I was sad it was over that day I learned you can't live in fear because it doesn't actually protect you from anything we have to change chances you guys want to go on again in fact when the spider on his face yeah let's do it I said then I knew there was plenty of sunshine coming my way like I

033said before the hard way as you can imagine we are so incredibly proud of our students in the writing they've done you can see that they certainly expand on the volume of writing that they do as they grow but that the actual stories tend to zoom in going from an entire day at the zoo to a multi-page story about just one ride and a very full day at Animal Kingdom so I would like to thank our students one more time for joining us here this evening and also a special thank you yes I would also be really miss if I didn't think mrs. Jenkins our literacy coach and mrs. Lisa Wright says who held that rule before her for all the hard work that they've done with our teacher to rule out the units of

034study over the past several years these units are incredibly dense and they are certainly not something that you can just glance at and do they require a tremendous amount of preparation and I'm so grateful to our teachers for the work that they've done with mrs. Clooney mrs. Wright's us to get us to where we are as a writing community today and with that I would like to turn it over to you if you have any questions for my writers or for mrs. Corey and I thank you great job that is you know when you follow what you gave us type of deal it's obvious that they're following the outline by great and how it expands from you know a day at the zoo - you know the trip to Animal Kingdom I know I've been

035the animal kingdom a couple of times I haven't been on Everest either so don't know thank you again no that's beyond my realm no but my congrats job well done and thank you for coming in you know having the courage and the fortitude and the ability to stand up there and do what you did I'm very proud of you all of you excuse me mr. news boys and girls what a great job you did tonight and I know you're just a representative of many other children in your school excuse me thanks to you and your teachers and your leadership at D'Mello school for continuing to focus on the importance of writing I'm so glad that Lucy Calkins work is being continued in the schools and I love the progression how we could see from a

0361st grade to a 5th grade how children progress and this doesn't just happen it has to be in you know intentional and before I lose my voice I just wanna say thank you thank you great job so I'm glad to see the strong writing tradition continuing to mellow my kids become great writers and kids keep at it um I believe in fourth grade my youngest did a persuasive letter to the thumbprint on principal complaining that the fifth graders got all the fun the fourth graders should have some fun too they should have a talent show which I believe is so an annual tradition at D'Mello so are your writing can take you places and it can change things so keep out it it's really great to see you doing such good work so each and

037every one of you should be very proud for being up here and sharing your descriptive wonderful descriptive writing in fabulous reading as well you got you all of you should be very proud of yourself I got to say I can definitely see the progression and what what you're sharing with us in what we saw tonight is just amazing to the eye connected most with the the mount the exposition Everest ride I'm like my colleague mr. News I did have a chance to ride it a few times and I could actually I was actually there listening listening to the the descriptive writing so but all of you great job and I'm sure this is just a small snapshot of what's going on at the de Melo school so thank you all very much in to your

038teachers as well I mean I go what my colleagues have stated I'm so proud of you for coming out here just being in this room in front of all these strange people and sharing your you know I start to sweat before I have to talk and so I just really kudos to you for being so brave to be here in this room and hearing you share your stories was very inspiring and wonderful work so thank you for being here all of you when we ask kids when the kids talk about what they like about Writers Workshop I when I first watched the footage that mrs. Posey had collected I said did you help them with that and she said no I literally we gave them a sentence for him what do you this is what

039I like about Writers Workshop and they were so articulate and so I said this could be like a video for like to sell Lizzy Caulkins because the kids really but they really do love the Writers Workshop the whole part of it I think and I was so grateful that she just talked about the share and all the different parts of the workshop because I we see our kids loving writing and and we've always had a strong writing but I don't know that it's always been the case that our kids have loved to write but our kids really truly by and large love to write and so we're so grateful but I said I'm gonna have to like say that that wasn't script because it sounds like we said what we want you to say but

040truly we just said what do you love about writers workshop and that was what that so thank you all very much for letting us come up tonight and show off okay [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] yes so you're you're free to stay again like we told our student rep but you're also free to go and enjoy the rest of you I don't know what that was so after all that fun I understand that there is wait for some shuffling around yeah I was like Oz I was like the incredible odds [Laughter] so that was fantastic I would like to follow it up I understand that we have some news to share it has to get for it if you wouldn't mind making a few announcements yes thank you a little out of order here but as

041you just said we're so happy to see the writing that our students are doing and I have to give a lot of thanks to mrs. Oliveira for really introducing the Lucy Caulkins model working very hard with our teachers as we've said it doesn't happen overnight the teachers have engaged in a lot of professional development a lot of team work etc to make that happen but those stories were amazing and I think it just goes to speak to also the fairly talented not only our staff but the leadership that we have in the district and with that we are going to follow up with announcing some other leaders that will be taking over so as you know mrs. Heidi Brooks will be retiring at the end of this year and while this is not about her

042tonight we will celebrate her retirement and years of dedication to the district yes I D it's not about you tonight sorry but her dedication to the district we are going to be announcing and I'd like mr. Porter and miss McKenna me to come on out for a minute please [Music] [Applause] so we are announcing as you know that mr. brick Porter will be assuming the principal position at Potter school and he is delighted to have chosen mrs. mchenry as his partner as assistant principal she'll be transferring from the Cushman School when we were considering who to put in following Heidi's wonderful reign I did visit the school let them know whether I'd be visiting the school and I invited the staff to come on in and and talk to me about what they saw as

043the important pieces of leadership how they saw the school progressed etc and I would say the entire staff even the custodians came in to talk because they wanted to talk about not only mr. Porter and his leadership style but the partnership that Miss Brooke Brooks and he have created over at Potter and I told them that when I visited their staff when we decided it's a no-brainer you know Rick will be the principal they talked a lot about the culture and climate that these two have really really developed over at the school and to a tee every single one of them without being unsolicited said we'd love to see Rick Porter take over as the principal so we were very pleased to see that Rick's been a wonderful obviously partner in our leadership for the

044district his passion and dedication to education and the children is next to none and it was really a wonderful wonderful choice to make and with that we he then consulted with me about mrs. McHenry who is also as you know whether Cushman crayons fantastic job as the director of early IDI over there same thing her partnership her work with our leadership team is that they're just a wonderful group of people and the dedication the rule-following to make sure that every T is crossed and every I is dotted to bring the best service that we can for our students so they both decided they've worked together before I'm gonna let them talk a little bit about that but we're very very pleased to announce these two as taking over at Potter's so I guess I'm like

045Katie that's okay I'm like Katie who said tonight she did not have a scripted moment when you came we do have a scripted moment would say thank you to dr. Gifford for her confidence in me as we make this transition of leadership I actually started at The Potter's school will be 30 years ago this coming September I started as a fifth grade teacher there so so as I'm entering the very last part of my career it's it's it's humbling and it feels like coming full circle that I get the opportunity to be the principal of Potter's school on when it came time to pick an assistant principal dr. Gifford you mentioned it felt like a no-brainer it felt like a no-brainer to me as dr. Gifford alluded to Melissa and I worked together as assistant

046principals at the Quinn school and for two years and I felt it was a very successful partnership melissa brings a load of experience as an assistant principal early childhood and she's going to be a fantastic partner to work with but as dr. Gifford also mentioned we have big shoes to fill Heidi has left an indelible market Potter's school her devotion to the community to the kids to the staff is going to be a tough act to follow but I feel that with Melissa by my side we'll be up to the task so thank you again thank you as the rule-follower difficult a lot more difficult not to have a script ready but but I truly feel blessed to have this opportunity to work again with Rick I enjoyed my time with him at the Quinn

047school as assistant principal in Kenton and consider him a mentor I really learned so much under him and and we were both assistant principals at the time but he really just I feel like my administrative style is a lot to do with Rick so I feel honored to be back with him and and working again my kushman friends I take the love of early childhood with me to Potter and look forward to working with grades K to five but I have appreciated my time working with the little ones at Cushman and we'll continue to check in with them and and make sure all is well and we'll miss those little ones running around but I feel blessed to work at Potter and look forward to meeting the staff and getting to know the wonderful culture

048that I here is over there so again thank you for the opportunity to transfer it over and looking forward to next year I met some college friends earlier today I guess we talked too much I just think it's wonderful and I first of all to quality quality people who will be joining forces at the Potters school my feeling it's always been we should be training our administrators and promoting from within instead of bringing in new people all the time I think we're doing that now and I think we need to continue to do it it can't always be the case that we can promote from inside but when you have quality people like we do in our system like this is a wonderful opportunity for these four people to see that if they really want

049to do something different within the system those opportunities are there for them so thank you and thank you to both I'm Rick and Michelle and Melissa and I've been doing that you are going to be missed I missed you when you left me to go to get lit sue Potter but you will be missed by so many so many people so we'll talk about that later I'll just echo dr. Karron photos his comments that I'm just thrilled that we're seeing more of growing our own talent and promoting from within there was that period of time prior to dr. Gifford coming on that we saw a lot of you know movement from outside of this district and I agree it's not something that you know we can always do however if the if the shoe fits

050and it it works for us and in this case I have nothing but respect for mr. Porter as a parent who's to two students two daughters gone through went through Potter's school they had nothing but a wonderful experience with mrs. Brooks and mr. Potter and I know like everyone else's it was the right choice and I wish you nothing but the best and congratulations to you as well yeah no I think I'll just echo that as well and I just wonder if Melissa will get ready to be up on the roof or out somewhere and you know with fun and building up the you know the excitement of the kids doing some kind of crazy high jinks and I look forward to seeing what that'll be but certainly Heidi will be missed but I have

051no doubt that Rick and Melissa will just do wonderful things so thank you for taking on this opportunity so thank you [Applause] so next on our agenda we have the mr. Kylie will be talking about our fiscal year 21 budget and presenting the some things that are anticipated coming you know you gave us all our binders and we've looked at those but you could kind of talk a little bit about that with us teaming up on this presentation it promises to be let's say probably more exciting than approval of minutes and public comment but everything else pretty wonderful so dr. Gifford all right so we just obviously we start every time we talk about the budget with the idea of what do we do to get it going just so folks know and again we'll

052just breeze through this quickly as this is our first draft and we have more work to do of course but as you know we always meet with our teams of folks just trying to get that out of the way because I can't see where we are but so we always bring folks back to the idea of what our mission statement is and our core beliefs okay beautiful the core believes I think are important to remind folks because everything we do when we talk about the budget and what decisions we have to make come back to those things about developing our work ethic in the with the students the academic excellence engaging in open communication etc as you know we have a lot of good things going on and we still keep that saying up there

053strong schools equals strong communities and some of the things we always like to highlight some of the things that we feel we're most proud of and right now we have a 99.4% highly qualified teaching staff that increased a little bit as you know we have a rich program of studies and the arts theater our language programs are physical education and health and our athletics etc Advanced Placement the increase that we've tried to increase the number of students taking Advanced Placement our programs for our students that are struggling students might be struggling with disabilities or social emotional issues etc the increased involvement that we've had with stem over the last few years we continue to educate our English language learners and of course a full-day kindergarten ah'd everybody has that and the rich rich offering that

054we have for professional development the number of offerings the vast array of topics that we cover etc and of course our award-winning music programs our program you just heard tonight about the art students etc the nationally recognized spectrum uncle I could go on and on our focus on our math and deca programs and our robotics and Legos and engineering our teachers work very hard with the PBIS and RTI models to try to support student success we have a lot of therapeutic work going on in our district once again to focus on the social work and the mental health issues most recently we've added again this year as you know a BCBA just added that person some are Beatty and ABA services and we continue as you can see when you hear the school's talk about

055these kinds of presentations the community outreach that they have or the connections that they have formed with folks in the community the PTO etc we've been really strong in our creating more efficiencies in our processes our paperwork trying to reduce that and Shell's really good at that and we've been working hard at securing some grants most recently the Project Lead the Way grant in the computer science area and the financial literacy one so with that said you know we have had our strategic plan in place over the last four years really because it took the first year to really get started our focus areas or our goals we're teaching and learning access and equity and community engagement we continue to focus in on those three major areas updating our initiatives each year we will be

056starting our new strategic planning process once again not to throw the baby out with the bathwater the but really take a hard look at what we have been doing and make any adjustments necessary enhancements and see what else we need to do to continue the work in that area so we will be just as a little announcement we will be starting that process March 10th with a meeting an all-day meeting we even let the principal's know we had to cancel the first meeting and they will be inviting folks from their schools to join that process and we'll be getting that done we are also will be sending a survey out to the parents that will be coming out shortly in about a week or so to give us some feedback on how they see us

057working in the schools and anything that they might think that would be a good idea for changing what we're doing or at least enhancing so with that said I'll just go over the guiding priorities right to let mr. Kiley talk about the really important stuff I guess is how do we get there how do we make it all work thank you dr. Gifford it's challenging for sure it's gonna be a fairly challenging budget year this is FY 21 we are proposing a budget of forty five million five hundred and eighty six thousand seven hundred and thirty six dollars seventy-five percent of our budget is spent on instruction so that salaries of staff principals teacher assistants substitutes instructional staff other instructional staff instructional technology professional development special ed services material supplies so that's seventy five percent

058of our budget other services which represents the next biggest category which is 11 percent of our budget is transportation attendants health athletics and other extracurricular activity maintenance and utilities is what it sounds like custodial services utilities maintenance to them of our aging buildings and grounds that represents about 8% of our overall budget the administration section includes district administration administrative technology and legal services that's about two percent of our budget tuitions is about four percent of our budgets and those are tuition payments for out of district tuition and really when I looked at this they're fairly consistent I'll talk a little bit on the next page about a couple of things that changed so if you look at the top line on this next page instruction so instruction increased about 3.8 percent so that would be

059primarily due to contractual obligations for salaries and Department of Ed the Department of Ed reclassified administrative technology and they change the account number structure so you'll see on the administration line it looks like a thirteen point two percent decrease that is largely between really a bookkeeping adjustment by the Department of Ed to move funds from that would have been included previously in administration into the instruction line maintenance utilities pretty stable again just about $4,000 increase over last year other services a hundred and twenty one thousand dollars primarily due to special needs transportation and some contractual obligations and tuitions up about thirteen point two percent two hundred thousand dollars so that is based on our projections for next year for for tuitions so for a total budget increase of 3.2 percent 1 million four hundred and

060sixteen thousand five hundred and fifty seven dollars so when I look at this budget I think that it sort of represents a level service budget there's really not and we'll talk on this page budget recommendations about what we're changing what we're proposing changing but really we're looking to maintain all the good things that we that we do now as best we can and really you know focus on that level service some of that is because of the we'll talk a little bit about what we didn't build into this budget in a minute but I won't get ahead of myself so budget recommendations it's become evident to us that we really do need to support technology in the district better than we are you know we've gone to the one-to-one initiative it's Jonathan's doing an amazing

061job trying to keep it up and running but the the fact is that we just don't have enough people to manage all the technology that we have it's a good problem to have that we have the technology but we're very reliant on it it's it's a great tool that kids use and you know on a daily basis and to be able to support it we really needed to focus on that so we've built in an increase of one FTE for a computer technician and we have proposed a reduction of two teacher assistant positions so they they basically offset those two those three positions basically offset in terms of overall cost the next page is what we didn't fund so there's a lot that you know where we're fortunate we have very thoughtful administrators in this

062district to put together great proposals for us to consider and they spend a lot of time on it a lot of energy in their buildings you know coming up with what they could do to improve it's hard for us I think I can speak for all of us that you know it's it's challenging when we're not able to support all of those increases or any of them in some cases unfortunately but there's a list here and I won't go through every item but there's some very valuable things that we could be doing that were you know not able to fund in this 3.2% budget increase the total requests not funded who were seven hundred and eighty thousand four hundred and ninety dollars I'm sure the principals could have come up with another seven hundred and

063eighty thousand four hundred and ninety dollars without you know blinking an eye that would have been valuable things for kids on top of this so they're really selective when they put when they put forth proposals and thoughtful about it so it is it's difficult for us to not be able to support that and so I guess you know in summary I think you know this is the first step in a fairly lengthy process you know we're working with the town to try and understand exactly where they are with their budget process but at this point there's still some moving parts on there and we're definitely above where the town thinks thinks we should be in terms of but they like I said that is a bit of a moving target in your binders there's lots

064of backup detailed budget lines obviously I don't want a bar put everybody to sleep and go one by one through that but certainly tonight on March 9th March 23rd when we have our public budget hearing and we can also have you know budget discussion and you know all the way through till Town Meeting we can have more discussion about this and I anticipate we would there's a lot of uncertainty right now you know built into this budget obviously we you know there are factors that we have yet to determine in terms of collective bargaining agreements so that would be the the biggest single item of course that you know needs to hopefully get ironed out at some point in this process but I'd be happy to discuss any of this with you at any time

065thank you dr. Gifford Thank You mr. Kiley the presentation Jim when do we do we expect the final number or a closer number from the town side I know it was just after our last budget subcommittee meeting you had just recently got I think a number and you know that that numbers fluid right now I had a number last Monday a number that changed on Wednesday when we met for the budget subcommittee and then changed on Friday when I put your packets together so three times last week and I believe that the town is health insurance percentage increase I'm assuming it's an increase not a decrease is going to be finalized tomorrow so we'll have an idea I we've heard some numbers that you know are not the worst I think I had maybe mentioned

066in the past that it was going to be something in the range of 0 to 8 percent and I think we're going to be below really from what I hear so so that you know it's still gonna be an increase of course but so so there are things there besides the health insurance there are other things still that the the obviously the legislature although I think the chapter 70 portion will not change significantly because of the Legislature's involvement in in you know creating the the chapter 17 reform I don't think that'll change a lot but there are other factors that could change the chapter somebody just didn't do us any good it no no it was gave us $30 per pupil and as we found out last week we have the student Opportunity Act that

067we now have to fill out right and we were already going to get $30 per pupil so we got more paperwork and no benefit oh yeah right that's unfortunate but so you know I don't want to sound the alarm right now however you said somewhere you know worth hundreds of thousand dollars apart is that that's correct that's correct to me that's so scary because hundred thousand hundreds of thousands of dollars in reality is you can only make up so much with you know supplies supply items you know maintenance costs ultimately it's going to come down to you know I don't want to say it but positions oh it has the potential so a couple of things I I just want to mention and put out there to everyone in the audience at home and in

068the audience here is that after our last budget subcommittee meeting I had Terry him the chair of the fin column was there her and I had a good conversation you know and I brought up my concerns so to her that Dartmouth does enjoy a low tax base of low tax rate and based on the numbers that we're looking at year after year after year I am seriously concerned about the long-term impact of continuing to fund this aya I don't think this is sustained these these increases based on what we're being offered in this town for little little new growth now what is the new what is the new growth what are they estimating that it's minimal its I don't actually don't have an estimate I hate to say it but I don't have a current

069estimate it's gotta be some number though right asking for 3.2 so is new revenue growth less than 0.7 percent it's less than points yeah and you know you gotta you've got to remember too that there are increases in other areas that are more than two and a half percent so right right so if there's 3.2 percent revenue growth and we should get 3.2 and they should get 3.2 right that's what I'm just wondering what that numbers is kind of important yeah it is but so if health insurance goes up whatever you know 4% that is more than the increase in the overall budget so it reduces the amount that can come to us in theory New Bedford voke is going up 5% so that reduces the amount that can come to us we're still Aggies

070going up 202 percent they're building it's a small number compared to the other education budgets in town but it still is going up 202 percent right yeah it is it is yeah it's just the long-term prospect is concerning to to me and I don't know what the answer is and you can circle back to me at the end and I'm sure my call other colleagues would like to follow up so I have one I would like to see a mr. Kylie if it would be possible some of the percent changes in those categories as you said a reflection of moving things where they're reported around it would be useful I think for me and maybe for the public to see what are the real changes like if we kept it the same do you know

071what I mean some of the changes look artificial and so if we had kept things categorized the way they were what Howard spending change in each category which I don't need to see that now but I think just conceptually that might help me and I don't know maybe some other people understand I want to reiterate mr. Oliver's point right is just document notes we're in the bottom 13% of per pupil spending right now if we were at the state average we'd have about 10 million dollars more all right even halfway there right gives us a lot more breathing room and I agree that I don't think this model is sustainable right now and I'm seriously concerned about about I mean we're doing the best that we can with what we have but you can only

072get blood for I mean there's only so much blood you can get from a stone there's just not anything there I have a few other questions but I'll let everyone else okay good yeah okay yeah it's yeah it's exactly what it is so the per pupil is $2,500 and you've you're pretty close to the 10 million shannon i could no no i use the calculator too because that cuts the big numbers but eight million nine hundred sixty-eight thousand three hundred and ninety nine dollars and 64 cents you know so but that's that's the difference if we were at the state average okay you know we wouldn't have to we wouldn't have to sit here and have all these wonderful discussions we would be it would be wonderful we need help as dumb as that sounds

073and and and such and that I think it goes it goes to places it goes to our state legislatures and I'm a broken record on this so I won't say too much about it but that you know 1.5 billion dollars and I talked about it a little bit at the last meeting with you know where the money all went to the other you know the Gateway communities and such and vocational schools and we get nothing type of deal and also I think you know in all seriousness I think that town fathers need to need to do some looking at how they budget things you know with receipts and in that type of deal I know which you know I don't not trying to shoot ourselves in the foot you know comes up you know September

074October at the fall town meeting with what they're able to do with the surplus revenue and capital items and everything else and I greatly appreciate what what we get but we have to be able to operate on a day to day basis with you know staff and pens and pencils and things of that nature type of deal so I think they need to do that and I think in just a personal opinion a couple of the expense things that they do I think they have to look at kind of putting it to the wayside I mean to you know be increasing the opah have liability funding every year i mean we're putting money into it that's great you know but we've got to be able to operate to so I did a drop in a

075bucket which was a 50 plus million dollar liability I got listen it's still better than I wasn't Fayette in Fall River but that's beside the point but I think what you have to do is you know you got to be living for today I mean we've got things that we've got to do today and you know we're trying to hold a budget together with baling wire and chewing gum and we're you know I think very shortly and we're going to be in big trouble trying to do that I commend central office administration in the all the administrators for the work they thought they get I appreciate the conservatism I without a doubt with what mr. Kylie said that 700,000 could have been a million and a half a two million dollars without batting an eyelash

076and with you know we're not getting anywhere so we had a long row to hoe here I think thank you for the work it is appreciated does not go out and unnoticed very appreciative I don't have that much to say except how discouraging it has been all these years that we've had to fight every time for money for the schools this isn't anything new this is historical and I don't know I know we've in the past we've put out their information and chats but it seems like we need to keep on doing that so people can see where our spending is compared to other communities our size because I was just looking at social media before I came out tonight which finally wasn't a good thing to do arguments again and again you know that

077why would teachers need more money there's no appreciation really by some people of what teaching really is and the sacrifices our teachers make and our administrators that anyone that works in the school department to provide quality education to our students and I just hope there's a way we can get the information out there I think there are certainly more parents today that understand the needs and probably 30 years ago or 40 but it's a continuous problem and when you look at if we only could get to the state average what a difference that could make so I want to thank our administration and our certainly our staff but and and also mr. Kiley for the way you put a budget together because you know there are some business agents who are just looking at the

078numbers but you don't just look at the numbers you look at the people and the students and that's the same for you know all of our administrators so just thank you for all the work you've done yeah I'll continue going so the way I see this I agree we need to do better we need to do better for our town we need to do better for our kids we need to do better for our staff and the schools and diamonds you know you could very easily tie in property values to the wonderful school system that we have in Dartmouth that being said there's two ways that we can we can fix this the state can come up with a different formula we can get more money from the state right or we could ask for

079and as much as I would love to see an operational override several years ago I'm sure mr. Nunes remembers this this town voted to close schools then go for an over so that is concerning to me but the reality is we cannot continue to operate the Dartmouth public schools long term that's my just speaking for myself my personal opinion looking at the numbers the mr. kyliyah shared long term with the revenue that is being offered to us from this town I wish there was an easy answer but there there really isn't we've managed to help out a little bit with school choice you know take the edge off but that's nowhere nowhere near nowhere near enough from where we need to be and I agree that I think it's time that town government really takes

080a hard look fundamentally at how we're operating this town so I mean I agree I do think there are two places we can look and I agree with mr. Nunes you know proposition two-and-a-half came in and locked our property taxes in at a low rate and then as form came in we're just reformed now you just reveled right and so I mean ultimately we can say we want more money from the state but it's not gonna come from the state because we are not putting in the effort that the ad reform bill expects communities to put in and so the way they're getting communities towards where they should be with their effort is to give them lower increases as compared to other communities so that they step up to the effort that they should be

081making um it's unfortunate that we're between a rock and a hard place because we're not gonna get it from the state legislature and you're right I don't you know it's frustrating I don't know what to do I do have a question related to and I'm trying to remember dr. Gifford mentioned full-day kindergarten right now everyone has that and it's I remember the creation of that way back when but it's just kind of part of what we do now is that stab fund still there you know it's not gonna help our operational right sort of problems but I don't know why we still have that Stabilization Fund one I can't imagine any of us ever voting to get rid of full-day kindergarten or just start charging parents for that I just it's just part of what

082we do to whatever's in that Stabilization Fund would get us through for a year before we were faced with the same hard choice again right I mean there's what six seven hundred thousand dollars in there about three hundred and that's I mean I don't know why it's like sitting there kind of doing nothing and I think that's something just waiting for this year it's again it cannot be moved into our operating budget because it's a one-time source of revenue and we set us up for disappointment if we build that in but I do think we ought to look at getting rid of that Stabilization Fund and moving that money into capital or whatever for whatever purpose is because it's just I mean I don't I just don't really know why it's there anymore it's a

083symbol and in this day and age I don't think this community can afford to just have symbols I think we need to I think we should put that money to use so I'd like to see us maybe explore that topic I don't know with the Select board or the town manager it's I just I just don't think it makes much sense anymore through you madam chair no mr. Collier the dr. Gifford to follow up on Shannon's that's out quote-unquote that's our money our Stabilization Fund so it would just take a request from us to like in the fall when this does this the town does all its capital stuff to release that 300,000 to give us some capital money to do something I think this is staying out of keeping it out of the operating

084budget I think it would require a town meeting it would require a town meeting vote there's no doubt on that but we should be the ones that we would be able to ask yeah is the board I think that's correct yeah yep I can I can certainly ask the I can certainly at the next committee meeting provide the language of the formation of the the Stabilization Fund itself which you know might help I think I think it might help clarify a little bit but but yeah I think it would be up to you to do that I mean I would definitely not recommend it the only thing that it could be used for would be you know if something really bad happened economically you know you could bridge a gap over a year at some

085point never a year we're making the same bad right right it doesn't there's not enough in there to really do anything to get us through a recession no after one year of a recession maybe most recessions last longer than it yeah so our public hearing is March night on this and then she said tomorrow they're gonna have actually our public hearing is March 20 signing 23rd so our next meeting okay so yeah so our next meeting will be just for discussion you know for the consideration or anything that you think of along the way that you'd like to you know like me to look at and get more information for you if you think of something between now and then I'd be happy to put it together and bring it forward for you and I

086would assume that I will have a revised estimate because I had a estimate from the town of their financial projection but I didn't include it in your packet because I knew by the time I was putting your packet together that it was incorrect and I didn't want it it wasn't right to include it so I'm awaiting that but I'm assuming with the whole health insurance numbers coming out we'll get one hopefully quickly following that that moving target is that typical or is that just more moving this year than in past years always a moving target of course the legislature sometimes yeah we're actually probably closer to the number legislature wise than than usual just because they were involved in the whole root the whole reform of the chapter seventy number whereas that's not usually the

087case and that's some debate between you know how far they're gonna get away from the governor's number but so that number is probably better health insurance is a little late this year in terms of the number that doesn't help us but and there's a few other things I think that are out there I usually have a pretty good number at the governor's you know when the governor comes out I usually have a projection from the town that's fairly close and sometimes even before that but not so this year so next on our agenda we have a Senate consent agenda where dr. Gifford is recommending approval of the field trip requests that you have in your packets one is for the Dartmouth high school music Department permission to participate in the Allstate Music Festival in February

08828th or the March 2nd was that correct date to 2020 as Symphony Hall in Boston and then a request for the Dartmouth high school to participate in the YMCA Youth in government annual motto motto legislate model government conference to be held at the State House on March 18th through March 20th so moved second any discussion on that good luck so next on our agenda some old business we had brought up before John Nunes and I met with dr. Gifford recently to go over this paper here the discuss like indicators that would be included in the superintendent evaluation okay so with one of the things we discussed was we went wrong we looked at the goals that you had all approved prior from the four goals and then we just chose indicators that would best represent

089accomplishment of those or at least progress toward achieving them if you recall when we went to the conference presented by death scene it was recommended that the committees choose six to six to eight when we chose them we went a little bit over because it's kind of it's kind of hard to pull it out and even though we choose them that kind of the focused areas but you can always we can always talk about anything else so anyway so we we chose under standard one under B student engagement and meeting diverse inner needs seniors someone's give up be one and three understand - we chose under the whole see everything and see about time for teaching and learning and time for collaboration and standard three student support and family support under B and understand it

090for you chose D continuous learning of staff and administrators and a shared vision develop and if you look through the whole packet we sent you we've had it before anyway the entire rubric they give examples of what that looks like as you know you've been through this before so we don't really need a vote per se but a discussion if you want and just a consensus that folks would focus on [Music] there anything in just in addition to or that you see that might as dr. Gifford mentioned we were going through them looking at the goals and sort of one kind of leans and the other and so it was a collaborative process it was kind of you know this just came out of our discussion and I always emphasize that I feel very fortunate

091that a lot of what we're doing hence with the spotlight on the students and people coming in and talking that the administrators come and talking about district improvement plans and school improvement plans we're really privy to that information as it has it throughout the year so it was easy to kind of think of things related and yeah and but by all means if anyone sees an indicator that you feel I just noticed I did miss under for a two mission and core values yeah I forgot that one well I attended a meeting where deci and the mass Association for school committee did a great job talking us through what each men and I still feel overwhelmed because it's it's a lot but it's really it's really simple it's really what you're doing and exactly what's

092coming out of what we're doing and that's the other thing we talked about was these kinds of meetings you see what's happening so you know it's like a check yet we're doing that we're focusing on this we're focusing on that so it's helpful these meetings I think so no vote per se just okay very good thank you let's see so a new new business we have the policy revisions assistant superintendent Michele Roy is here to kind of go over policies jb j f ABD and j fa b f yeah okay so you might you might remember last May we undertook the review of some of our policies related to educational stability homeless foster care military families in advance of the desk review that the Department of Ed was was doing of those policies so they

093suggested four minor tweaks so on the equal educational opportunities I don't know if your scan has color so in the third paragraph included in the groups right after homeless they suggest we add foster care okay on the second policy related to homeless students and I think this is my mistake they had actually suggested extra curricular activities and I think for some reason I had missed adding okay in the first paragraph and in the paragraph second paragraph from the bottom homeless students continue to be enrolled in their school origin and received transportation we do that that's that's that practice they just added it as an explicit edit to that policy and in the third one which was a new policy students in foster care when we got the feedback on this they wanted us to add

094preschool and so we added it to the title but they suggested we also in addition to the title add it to the first paragraph so appropriate public education preschool through high school graduation so those are the four minor tweaks they like us to update based on the desk review okay and this is just a first read first read only the second read they did say that they would take the policies as implemented pending your vote so okay well in alignment with their timeline okay abd I've never seen extracurricular activities is there supposed to be an are there no I've never seen it as with an a always a curricular I've just never seen it that way so I googled it to see if I was wrong like and I couldn't find it on Google either

095so maybe they have a special way of using that word but grammatically I've never seen it without the Ru PluralEyes activities that yes dropping the are to make extracurricular plural so I just want to check that could be just the state's way of doing business okay the the homeless students receiving transportation that's basically the mckinney-vento on my correctness the only thing they did was separate recently probably in the last year or so students awaiting foster care are no longer considered homeless separated them out that's the only change they made to them it can have been to act under Elsa yes one more for mr. Kylie I'm just thinking not that they probably happened is the state fully funding mckinney-vento no no I didn't think so much I was all I was hoping I was hoping

096okay by not fully funding what would that percentage be mr. Kyler next year you know I I'll get back to you on it okay but it's like I didn't mean to blindside you I follow it is yeah I was actually gonna ask what our what our numbers are do we know what our numbers I believe we have two that are who live in district who attend Dartmouth home schools in 16 that we cost share okay well thank you all right next on our new business we have mr. Kylie will talk about the Stabilization Fund discussion and vote thank you so this is really for your consideration we had when we built the FY 2008 built in a provision for settling collective bargaining agreements we have not settled some of those collective bargaining agreements if the

097funding if the agreements are not settled and by June 30th the funds would be returned to the town at that point it would require if we were to settle some contract at some later date it would require going to Town Meeting and requesting funding that seems risky to me we have the funding sitting untouched in our FY 20 but and what I least like you to consider is asking for asking the town to create a Stabilization Fund in which I could deposit those funds directly into that Stabilization Fund and if so if we settle before before then I won't deposit the money we can withdraw the article if it's before time meaning if it's if it's voted at Town Meeting and then we settle and it's still not June 30th I don't need to deposit

098the money it so we have some flexibility to still hopefully settle this contract before then but the the important issue with discussing this tonight and probably only tonight because March 9th I think is probably too late is that if it's not on the warrant then it's not going to be created so if it's not going to be on the warrant for Town Meeting this can't be created and then the money just goes back to the town and it would be uncertain as to whether we could ever you know get that money back so it would be a it would be to settle contracts with the DEA and DAA so reserve funds for that purpose so we create a Stabilization Fund specifically for collective bargaining settlements for the schools there's some discussion that I've already had

099with the town side of government they have a Stabilization Fund that they created to settle collective bargaining agreements it is specific to the town side of government we're not quite sure whether it makes more sense to have Town Meeting vote to expand that existing Stabilization Fund or have our own the downside of combining it is that the monies combined I trust them and I don't think that that would be a problem so but that's still to be determined but basically tonight I'd like you to consider requesting a article be placed on Town Meeting to create a Stabilization Fund that would fund a future collective bargaining settlements thank you so mr. Kylie we're essentially voting to send this to the select board to be placed on the yeah my neck yes and my next step would

100be that if you were to do so tonight to talk to the town administration tomorrow let them know and we I'd work with them to craft language that would be you know placed on brought before the selectmen and then hopefully placed on the warrant for Town Meeting how would deposit what's the mechanism for taking it out assuming that we would like to settle yeah no I'm just require a vote of us or footage Town Meeting how does that money choirs a vote a town meeting that's the downside okay I think yep but I mean I mean accessing any Stabilization Fund requires a border town meeting so the timing of that settlement would then if we were to settle July first it would have been a benefit because it would have read it would have reserved

101those funds in place for that purpose however we might not be able to access them until October but you wouldn't be the end of the world because you're just spending out of a salary account and that salary account would endure in the year well the problem that I would have yeah is that I would be unable to spend 2021 funds so I would have a 2021 budget right but I can't spend that money on the 2020 settlement so okay I can't float it like that okay I actually need the Stabilization money in order to to do that wouldn't be appropriate to spend 21 money on 20 so I think there are some problems with it but I think that those difficulties away the fact that town and we essentially lose the ability to control that

102funds income has a reserve fund like how does that work and can we set up a mechanism like that instead right because that just requires a vote enough income to to spend that through the year we can't do anything like that no there's no legal mechanism by which we can we can do that I like the idea commitment from the town but I'm just worried right that we settle in August and we've got no way to get teachers there back pay it's contingent upon can right but we tell meeting doesn't happen in October right so now they've they're they're stuck without back pay if we settle in August just for you know giggles talking about that right yeah I know but there's no way to know we wouldn't be able to we wouldn't the money

103in the in the fin come reserve fund is appropriated by Town Meeting at at the annual town meeting for the operating budget it's specific to that year it's we can't transfer money to them and like and put it it's not a reserve account either it's operating budget of money so we can't really this is the only means that I can think of to have any control of this money beyond June 30th that's why I think it's worthy of consideration but I just don't think there's much choice we have I think we have to vote to do that I mean we don't want to give the money back to the town right Carroll's feisty tonight yeah I agree with the with mr. Kylie and Central Admin to set the set up and but make it a

104separate one under the school bye sorry at least we know what it what's there and it doesn't get cold mingled and accidentally overspent so would that madam chair if you'd like I'll be glad to make a motion that the school the school committee requests the Board of Selectmen to set up in place on the June special Town Meeting warrant an article to set up a Stabilization Fund for the school committee in the amount of up to six hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the purposes of not unsettled collective bargaining agreements second does that work Mr curry leave that works perfectly yeah very little hopefully we won't have it long yeah any other further discussion any abstentions thank you thank you okay next we have superintendent's update good okay so just a couple of things as

105we've talked a lot about all of this already but we just want to send a big THANK YOU to the bus drivers and maintenance department for last Friday once again they and the principals Manning the booth said at school and walkie-talkies going and we got everybody safely home it took some time but the trees falling all of that but once again they did a nice job for us continue to keep your eye on the facebook page as we continue to put some nice things about our students one we had Emma Sousa and Jack Sullivan honoree student athletes for Southeast Conference were recognized and students other students were recognized Erin good Lindsey Oliver and Sarah Walz waltz and that was for girls and women in sports day so just a couple of nice things just as

106I said continue to watch the Facebook page this is all there and I decided to take a leap and started doing a podcast with the help of mr. Perotti so we posted our first one on the YouTube channel that they use and where we've invited folks to give us ideas for topics to talk about and a name for the podcast so our next guest will be mr. Tebow we've already promised that he will have a spot in our next podcast so we're gonna do a couple of month but it's fun and I guess mr. Perrotti told me that he we had students editing it and one is already inspired to do their own so that was good we did something good pre-k applications are out as we said and available for folks and K registrations

107are open so those are starting to come in as you know we had our PD early release day last week and that went well as usual lots of our teachers and and other admin folks presented some of the PD sessions some of the topics innovation and technology innovators mindset engaging all students special education inclusive practices responding to child abuse no such thing as a bad kid on SEL so tons and tons of sessions folks had the opportunity to attend I'd let you know that we secure the financial literacy grant and I don't think I told you that we would just awarded the Project Lead the Way grant for our computer science pathway so that will involve some professional development in that and we're excited for that we had applied for the engineering as well but

108we didn't get that one and we kind of heard that folks that applied for two they were only granted one but we'll try again next year Camp Invention registration is open it's already fast it's quickly filling up and as you might not know but we have started the direct the process to hire a new director of music and miss Roy is leading that charge and the team which includes mr. Nunes met already to review the applicants and the interviews would be taking place soon and obviously we will be doing the same with Miss McHenry's position now that we've made that public that will be getting posted shortly and this morning I met with I was able to come on into the high school and students signed up during the pace period like they do so

109I decided superintendent chat so I had some sign up and mr. Tebow I just wanna let you know I had students email me after found out about it and I'm looking forward to the next one so well city so we had a good time chatting about things and that's it thank you very much next on the agenda is a report of the chair I really don't have anything to add between what Brendan Rico described was happening around the high school and around our community and what you've shared but I did want to bring something up under other matters something that came to my attention after the posting of the agenda and as a chair I just wanted to bring it to you and I would be open to discussion around us considering as a school

110committee related to an earlier topic around override that if we would entertain and I know possibly Shannon might be willing to add a little bit more to this but discussion around considering a vote to support us as a committee potentially voting to sending non-binding referendum to the Select board that they consider an override for health insurance yeah I wholeheartedly agree and support that time is running short if they're going to do anything I finally got a chance to watch the portion of this their meeting that they had the discussion and such at their last select board meeting and all they talked all you know mr. Bynes and mr. McGinnis talked about and did a very nice job talking about what the cost would be and the amounts they needed and that type of deal but

111there was no other discussion from the board and they just went right on you know next item on the agenda waterways and a way they went type of deal I mean they're meeting tonight it's not on their agenda they're not meeting now till beginning of March I don't know what they're doing I honestly don't you know we need the town needs you know everybody needs an answer are we going are they going to put one on are they going so maybe this letter will kind of push them in that direction to light a fire yeah Shannon so I would support such a resolution the only thing that I would say is my one concern is is I think that is insufficient right as an override as we've talked about our schools are not sufficiently funded

112my concern is don't get me wrong I wanted a percent support this but that if we go to the well on this then the well will be dry sort of long term in terms of what the true needs of the schools so I don't know like you know what I mean I want to support this and I think we need this I think we need to give an even bigger override I mean I think there are there are other issues that we need to address that having been said I think I would vote in support of this with perhaps a note that we need to consider sort of also the long term along with this short term measure yeah I'll just I'll just add to dr. Jenkins that um I think I would vote in

113favor of this as well I see absolutely no harm in putting this out to the voters in town I don't see why we waited why they've waited so long the little little to no discussion that took place at the last meeting I think it was frustrating to many of us and to be quite honest with you I do not see the harm with putting this out to the vote isn't what the voters decide I do agree that you know I wish I wish it could be more but I think at the very least we've gotta at least try to get this through to support all the staff in town support something like this I just don't know are there any other options is there anything else that can be done it seems like that's the

114only way we can go is it over right [Music] and mr. Nunes alluded to it is you know looking at a shifting of priorities in terms of expenditure we do not we do not know it's definitely the town side of government's responsibility so we don't but then again we don't really have control over the override either so we could probably I mean I think I think the School Committee is a very important body in in town and you know I'm sure that the select board and Finance Committee would be interested in you know whatever you have to say so I if an override isn't something that they're you know going to entertain and then maybe a shifting of priorities would be it wouldn't hurt to try I guess no I just yeah and you know

115shifting of priority is it just you know we're yeah we're grateful for what they give us but I too have been stuck in that perusing the social media and it's really discouraging to see comments around the use of technology as being a babysitter for students in the classroom and it's so far from what's actually happening I would I would interject that it makes teaching more complex and complicated and that topped with trying to get students to a place where they can achieve their greatest potential using those tools are necessary and the times were in you know this isn't 60 years ago seven years ago I mean education has changed and shifted in no easier much more complex to really maintain system in a classroom that allows students to learn and achieve and so yeah I

116think it's really important that there is in that focus a shift in priorities because we need this money we are in the lowest of you know in the very low percentage of what we pay you know we talk about Dartmouth pride and we talk about you know all of our students matter and it's the you know any future leader starts as a student in a classroom anyone and so I just don't understand the reluctance to really accept the fact that we have a low tax base and yes not everybody makes a lot of money some people many people live week to week you know life is complex but our students are our future and I guess that's my comment to this and I would certainly support this and I hear what you're saying as it's

117it I wouldn't want it to be limited but Shannon go ahead so I'll make a motion that we will pass a resolution to request that the Select board at their next meeting take up the issue of and support a request for an override so the town can increase its contribution to health care for town school and town employees second thank you that's something we want to individually sign I think so I mean what versus I mean where they're coming from was do you want it if we just all individually signed it you know when it's ready type of deal we missed tonight's meeting so it's gotta be from before the next meeting the next meeting is much third a month I'm not sure any I think I might I think it's March 3rd oh is

118it yeah because they taking I think they cancelled the one like two weeks from tonight and then they're going back-to-back so I think they're going to march through it a march 10 okay well thank you everyone for that and with that since I didn't have a report does anybody else have any other updates on things two quick things madam chair number one good luck deca students are headed to the states at the end of the month the 28th 29th 27 28th and 29th up in Boston it is 32 or 34 of them and you know hopefully they'll do as well there as they did down in Hyannis the beginning of January and Brendan was kind enough to mention ayran to a percussion in college I'd show on the 22nd doors will open at noon time

119our junior varsity goes on at 128 our virus city goes scheduled to go on just after 3:30 and the Vice Calgon Awards will be right after that you know quarter of four type of deal and then the percussion groups will take over and our percussion closes out the night just after you know seven twenty year or so and awards will be right after so you know come and enjoy the kids there's some thirty last time I looked over almost forty groups between the two the two groups coming so have a good safe vacation next week vacation that we've all been sick I lost track of the week so our next meeting our next regularly scheduled meeting of the school committee is Monday March 9th 6:30 here streaming live and with that I will entertain a

120motion to entertain a motion to adjourn into an executive session to provide an update with respective collective bargaining bargaining with union personnel not to return to open session so Chris Oliver yes Shannon Jenkins yes yes thank you