001good evening I would like to call to order the meeting for this evening January 27th 2020 and I just ask that you thank you so I usually have my feel that this is being recorded but I am here to let you know that as a pilot and if all works well moving forward we're live streaming right now so in that great you can you can actually watch live now with the volume down if you'd like right on the Dartmouth high school media YouTube channel pretty scary so with that said I just also asked if you are watching or even if you're not just to turn the volume down on your phones so to begin I guess roll call Kathleen Amaral yeah Chris Oliver your Shannon Jenkins here carol carol photos here John Nunes so we
002have allowed 10 minutes we're starting a few minutes early we are allowing ten minutes for public comment from anyone in the audience and I ask that if you do come up you speak on something that is listed on our agenda and just state your name if you so choose please don't be scared step on up good evening Renee Vieira Dartmouth educators association and on behalf of the DEA especially members of our bargaining units we would just like to thank the school committee for your support in recognizing the town Cross relative to health care and concerns that employees have and that we appreciate the dialogue that took place at the joint meeting with the select board in the Finance Committee special thanks to dr. Jenkins for your support in trying to get you know folks in
003town to just be aware and also on behalf of our bargaining team we'd like to thank mr. Nunes for attending our last joint bargaining session it was nice to have a member in attendance and we thank dr. Gifford for the dialogue that went on that day and we're looking forward to continuing bargaining and getting some things settled so again thank you all thank you nobody okay keeping an eye on the time because we do have at 6:45 we will be closing our public meeting to go into like a public hearing for school choice but right now I would I guess entertain a motion to approve the regular and executive session minutes for January 13th 2020 madam chair make a motion we approve the regular session minutes of January 13th 2020 okay and I will entertain
004a motion to approve the executive session minutes for that same date so moved madam chair with the stipulation that they be held until the matter for which they were intended is completed so moved second okay discussion favor I will abstain again one abstention okay we do have a new student representative if you would be so kind as introduced yourself my name is Brendan Rico I'm a senior at Dartmouth high school right now I am currently towards the end of my winter season of track and I'll be doing spring in addition to that I'm the president of the debate team and I'm on both National Honor Society and student council so oh thank you for being yeah so moving on to what's going on with students right now term to concluded on Thursday and semester to
005term three is officially starting as of last Friday so students into students who are enrolled in half your electives are now beginning the new coursework last Saturday January 25th 100 AP English students at for a mock exam with mr. Higgins miss Fifield mr. Vardhan cariann miss lassi students and teachers will receive the results from a sin site and they'll use these results to target their efforts for the remainder of the school year approximately forty DHS students will be pursuing the seal of biliteracy by sitting for the APPL exam in April this is the first time DHS will be offering this opportunity for our students the most multicultural Club will be presenting a Chinese New Year celebration after school on Tuesday January 28th tomorrow at a nineteen the couple be making traditional Chinese cuisine as part
006of the celebration and it will be the year of the rat and finally next month students grades 9 through 11 will be participating in the course selection process for the 2021 school year you are welcome to stay but you you don't have to let's go down to the consent agenda that's listed at 7:20 there are several so we have requests for the Dartmouth high school percussion and dance team to attend the East Power regionals in New Jersey we have the varsity color guard request to attend the competition in Pennsylvania and March and color guard request permission to attend and compete in the indoor color guard World Championships in Dayton Ohio in April and the indoor percussion and dance team requests permission to attend the World Finals in Ohio again the end of April so should
007we take them all together anybody have anything any no I'll entertain a motion I make a motion that we approve these consent agendas for the beard to go to these different competitions I'll second that any discussion I just okay no just dr. Gifford have any reservations oh absolutely not okay thank you so I went back more trophies I have no reservations about this but I'm gonna start doing this kinda after I just wrote a big check for Decca I think this is great I know the band does a lot of fundraising but I do want to point out that a lot of the stuff that our band does is paid for it's supported by the schools but it's also supported by the hard work of the Music Association who raises a lot of money and
008also the parents and the children who are going to these events who do have to pay a considerable amount of money to attend these things and I think it's important for us to continue to highlight these things that might normally come out of taxpayer dollars but that we are asking volunteers and families to pay for these costs know so at 6:39 let's see what can we take well there is something another five or six minutes I thought I read in the paper 6:30 it was advertised as 6:45 okay yeah alright and yeah I'm the standard times on the 17th which engine the pie saw it and I thought it was six I apologize okay no problem now it's 6:05 yeah why don't we yeah that would that's what I'm looking at - so you'll see
009in your packet that the South Coast educational collaborative is in need of our vote or a seeking our vote on a membership request from New Bedford public school district and Westport school district so you know the language has been provided in our packet and so when new new districts come on board they have to redo same process we underwent and yeah it was about a year that it took us to you know get on and I've just started attending meetings and the board meetings but it goes through each school committee each of the towns the membership towns and then to the commissioner etc etc so this is one of the steps in the process yeah so I'll entertain a motion that we we edit our you know this for the collaborative to read it I'll
010move I'll move that the New Bedford School District join the South Coast educational collaborative as a member with full benefits privileges and responsibilities jump to the terms and conditions of the collaborative agreement approval by the Department of Education and subject applicable Commonwealth rules and regulations I further move that the chairman of the school committee is authorized on behalf of the committee to execute all appropriate documentation to consummate the committee's decision I further move the superintendent of schools as appointed as a district representative on the collaborative board okay I'll second that any further discussion so I'd like to make a motion I move that the West Park School District join the South Coast educational collaborative as a member with full benefits privileges and responsibilities and subject to the terms and conditions of the collaborative agreement approval
011by the top approval by the Department of Education and subject to applicable Commonwealth rules and regulations I further move that the chair of this school committee is authorized on behalf of the committee to execute all appropriate documentation consummate the committee's decision I further moved that the Superintendent of Schools is appointed as the district representative on the collaborative board I second that throughout the discussion I'll just ask dr. Gifford as being the our member our representative to South Coast what does this mean by having do they expect to expand programming and also I'm one of the big things that we look forward to is increased professional development sharing as well which they offer a lot like the sei courses etc yeah so that kind of thing but of course increased revenue as well having membership so
012it's it's a win-win for everyone yeah so the board hear it from these two schools and voted approval for them to join perfect thank you thank you we've got three more minutes we don't have enough time for our annual report anybody have any thing to discuss I'll do my update Guardi would you like to update I have a few things make sure it lasts for at least two minutes okay so we have our PD strands have been approved and curriculum office obviously is getting ready to send that out for early release day we'll continuing those strands once again the Dartmouth curriculum Council came together based on some feedback from previous years etc and student data and staff feedback and all of that so those are ready to go out and once again we will have
013some really tremendous PD offerings the curriculum instruction assessment group had recently met to really start talking about the social studies curriculum and standards and the shifts and all expected student outcomes and will be completing our k12 alignment in history and social studies with some of this work planning for summer reading is beginning already believe it or not and of course as we mentioned before we had started with the I stem clubs and they're up and running at all of our elementary schools and we're continuing the work with Highlander we've already talked about that and I know Michelle and Tracy have been working very hard in the schools with that with some of the walkthroughs etc and you might have seen on our Facebook page that kinder gotten a preschool registration is starting up so that
014information is on the Facebook page and our website for folks we recently attended the midwinter conference last week and of course the Commissioner was there which we're gonna kind of lead into a little bit of talk on the SOA in a minute but also we heard from presenter keynote presenter Jeff Lowrance who talked about the complex systems that we all are involved in and lead and and the landscape of public education today and how growing unrest and and the mental health issues and whatever and it was a wonderful keynote on that the aspect of leadership and also how leadership helps support their staff and faculty in the stress level that everyone is feeling and how we need to be kind to ourselves so self-care is a big topic coming forward and I think that is
015just stemming from all of the mental health issues that we're seeing not only in our students but our staff as well so that was a very good keynote that we heard from I guess some juniors are attending Dartmouth middle school tomorrow they're gonna be speaking to some of our students about the DECA program here so that's good we have had we have a partnership with our police officers as usual and officer Amanda Tavares who is looking to be an SRO in future years along with some of the dispatchers have developed a training for a small young children kindergarten preschool kids on the 911 one system so they met with some of our Prince principals this last week it's only it's Monday isn't and we'll be going to each of the Elementary's to present to the
016students so we were pleased about that I went to a peace rally last week at Cushman the kids did some singing and whatnot of course in honor of Martin Luther King Day we have kindness challenges happening and like talking slow enough or was still good I got enough time I have a little more to go kindness challenges this week in the elementary schools and of course I was reading Potter with a Super Bowl challenge and food that will go to the Council on Aging I'm sure our other Elementary's are doing it as well February 5th we're looking at global school day of play and this is a national movement and it prompted me to look at some TED talks and there was one by I found by Peter gray dr. Peter gray who's done a
017lot of research on this the importance of play for our students and we all know that sometimes it's hard to say we need them to play more and then still say you know we have standards and expectations there's a fine balance but he and others like him and I think we see a lot of talk now with the technology issues and the the screen and the kids are addicted and the mental health and the depression and he's there waiting play has something to do with it as well that the lack of play like a free play not adult directed it's something we need to really as parents as well as educators to continue to advocate for so anyway once you get on those TED Talks there's so many but I found this one to be
018very interesting to really let our kids play and I know we play it all the time you know out in the woods for hours let's see what did I write there today Michelle and I attended the fourth annual on social-emotional conference was a half-day conference at a Sabet and heard from a couple of superintendents who have done a lot of work John Sylvan Bedford and the Wellesley superintendent as well a lot of work around that really talking about biases implicit bias discrimination and we've been talking about about this in our leadership team as well and we've already booked our keynote speaker for next year is someone that really the staff is going to absolutely love them people that have heard Adolf Brown will know what I'm talking about he'll be coming here but really speaks
019to us and gets to the core of what is it about implicit biases and things like that so again another topic that we all really need to pay attention to and then I think my last piece right now and the leading I'm gonna let Jim talk a little bit about it you all know about the student Opportunity Act and the work not only the money that was came to some districts but also one of the things that we are all going to have to do with our which again Jim will explain really isn't any money we will have to create a plan districts are not receiving really anything we'll have like a two page plan this was stemming from the commissioners talk last week and but we still have to file it you will all
020have to be asked to approve it in March and then we file it by April but some of it can just be we've continuing the work we're doing around the social-emotional or whatever it might be but I asked Jim to kind of talk about that a little bit during this report so thank you done Gifford so all districts did receive something we received thirty dollars a student which amounts to a hundred hundred and five thousand dollars about a 1% increase in chapter 70 spending so we had had some discussion a while back on this and what it was gonna look like for us and the reality is that you know we are not one of the ones to really benefit from this we probably would have received the same exact increase if the legislation had
021not been enacted so that's unfortunate so the the with the governor's budget they came out with the cherry sheet which I which I shared with you which shows the receipts and end assessments and offsets that they come to the town and the reality is that there's a decrease to the town about $30,000 right now the town's looking at that there may be there may be a reporting issue with a number on the town side that may have a little bit of impact but not anything significant so that certainly does not help us over all the hundred thousand is chapter 70 funds and as dr. Gifford said it comes with all kinds of strings attached so we went from gonna get it anyway to now getting it and having all these strings attached so so we'll
022we'll take care of that and we'll do all the reporting that we're required to do and but again the overall impact is is only gonna hurt us answer any questions one of the things the Commissioner mentioned was thirty five school districts received eighty five percent of the money yeah which again it no some districts received seventeen hundred dollars a kit right we received thirty right John thank you madam chair thanks for this mr. Kitely I know I looked at some of them on the on the DL s local services gateway program and that and it was interesting to to see and it goes back to what I've said you know a little bit earlier and even at the joint meeting and I said when I met with Senate someone tick me and he kept saying
023what do you need what can I do for you I says we need money I says period that's what we need you know and as I've said before it's not you know if you took that you know you'd per say a million dollars per community for argumentative sake did a little bit less than that type of deal but when you look at you know what they did with the city and the Bedford the city of Fall River the amount of increase they got I even looked at New Bedford voke okay and this went skyrocketing okay and you know izes down it's come on people you know this has got to be fair and equitable and this is not fair and equitable I got it this is you know house 1 this is the governor's and
024it'll change hopefully to the you know a lot better as it goes through with you know the House Ways in the house of the House Ways and Means the Senate Ways and Means the Senate and the joint and that type of deal by the time we get to June but at this point in time this is this does not without the respect does not help us at all in my opinion audible sigh the nuances frustration this is just unfortunate for the town of Dartmouth that like dr. Gifford said that word mister Kylie said that yeah we were gonna get this anyway now it just comes with strings attached not helpful to us and it seems like every year we're fighting we're fighting this battle and it's getting tiring it's getting extremely tiring so I mean
025I don't disagree it would be nice to get more money from the state but this is a reflection of the fact that our tax rate is one of the lowest in the Commonwealth right when education reform Act was passed back in the 90s right the idea was that communities would pay based on their ability to pay our tax rate is set lower than what the state calculates is our ability to pay other communities have higher tax rates our taxing themselves at higher rates than we are therefore the state says right when we they look at where the money's going to go that's what they're trying to do they're trying to get people to the place where you're at your ability to pay which is based on income levels and property property values and all of
026that so I don't disagree that it would be right a good thing to get more money from the state but at the same point in time Oh be a broken record about this we have to step up to the plate as a community and meet our obligations to the children and our teachers and our town employees in this community I agree okay but unfortunately when 5921 C came into effect in 1989 which is proposition two-and-a-half that it's the low tax you can only go up to two and a half this new growth but this community at least said no to opportunities to increase that I totally agree then they're done that each other it's more out that way I got you so it's my understanding that I believed that this was going to be on
027the Select board's agenda tonight the the two and a half talking about the override and I would hope that they would at least have a good discussion state good conversation around an override and in considering and at least considering to vote and put it turn it over to the the voters in town with that but that being said I think it's also interesting to know over the past several years do we know I know we spoke earlier mr. Kylie or on the economically disadvantaged population that the economy continues to increase I'm sorry for putting you on the stand okay no it's yeah unfortunately in the last five years it's increased about four and a half percent and students with disabilities have increased about 2.8 percent in the district so you know it's more and more
028need right you know to do that with than a 1% increase from the state is a decrease right it's it's not keeping up with costs and inflation so so we can't hope for that and yeah we're trying to do more with less just continuing to try and do that thank you thank you very much anyone else I said no thank you well now we're ready late to when I have to close out this meeting before no no so I'm just gonna just open the hearing just open the school choices yeah at 6:00 56 57 I would like to open our public hearing on school choice so they snuck up to the podium and state your name and try to keep your comments brief we're not able to answer you but we're here to listen to
029you and later on in the agenda we will be discussing this topic interview and taking a vote so please don't be shy good evening again Rene Vieira president that educators association also a teacher at the high school here where your discussion of school choice is you know affected as a high school teacher I would just I probably have said this a number of times before but I would just like to remind you that there are some classes sizes at the high school that are quite large when we look at average class size is overall it's not too bad but we do have some class sizes that are quite large and the concerning ones are the M cast courses these students need to pass freshman biology they need to pass in their sophomore year ela or
030English and math so it is a concern that some of those classes tend to be a little bit higher and so we just want to ask you to keep that in mind when you think about enrolling new students into school choice those are the two critical years for an outside test in supporting students to be able to graduate also just in another consideration is that numbers of the number of students in our code talk classes has gone up in the last couple of years and though there are two adults two educators in the classroom those numbers have gone up with changes in schedules and and faculty you know staff availability so just ask you to consider both of those when you have your conversation this evening thank you thank you anyone else and any takers
031you need a motion to close it motion to close the public hearing okay I closed it what's seven oh two seven all right well next we have yes I'm part of the night we have our presentation for this meeting is a spotlight on kids we will have principal Kyle grand fields will come up and do a spotlight on Quinn elementary school so good evening and thank you for the opportunity tonight to present our spotlight on kids here at the Quinn school so tonight we're very excited to highlight a few of the enrichment opportunities that happen at Quinn all of these opportunities are on a voluntary basis and which is very proud of the amount of students who consistently want to participate so tonight our presentation is geared to highlight these initiatives that are highly engaging
032to students obviously we were we are unable to recognize all the students who will participate but we've been able to put together a video that showcases student interviews capturing students working and we're fortunate to have a couple students here tonight that will be sharing their experiences with you all so we'd like to start by recognizing that this year the Quinn school has won the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge for the fifth consecutive year in a row winning the challenge winning the challenge is a combined effort culminating minutes from all 681 Quinn students students logged their minutes throughout the summer before or after school and they can log minutes throughout the day as well although this is a school-wide initiative it is also optional we're proud of our students for taking on this challenge all throughout this
033summer on a voluntary basis the students are motivate to log their minutes and eager to beat the school-wide total each and every year secondly something new this year that was presented to our fourth and fifth grade students was the opportunity to write letters to authors who have inspired them in some way in order to participate students knew they would have to give up their recess time in order to participate you'll see in the video that we're about to show how many students still wanted to be involved in this opportunity and lastly we would like to highlight that we have the ICM program that's occurring in Mesa on Wednesday mornings along with I stem centers that are presented to all students monthly mr. Costa miss powers and miss Leary work collaboratively to work on these STEM
034centers to all the students and in the library media center during library block anything STEM related continues to be a huge hit with all of our students in grades K through 5 and many of these opportunities are made possible by utilizing our library Media Center in the support of Miss Kate powers I would personally like to thank Kate and recognize all of our efforts in regarding to the summer summer scholastic Reading Challenge mrs. power supports and motivates students to discover their love for reading and we appreciate all the time and effort in supporting these students and logging their minutes and at this time I'd like to turn it over to mrs. powers good evening everybody thank you so much for having us here in October when we found out that we had won the Scholastic
035summer reading challenge for the fifth time mr. grant field asked if we would present something in January sort of showcasing all the awesome things that we do in the library and I definitely wanted to talk about the Reading Challenge if you know me you know I will talk about it and talk about it and talk about it to the point where we should probably talk about something else so I wanted to definitely bring up letters about literature which is the program where students would write to an author of their choice explaining how something they wrote influenced them in their lives we sent 29 letters winners will be announced in March so hopefully we have some winners from Quinn and of course I wanted to talk about all of our I stem initiatives and I would
036be remiss if I did not mention Trish Leary who is sort of my partner in STEM crime she makes an appearance in video as well before we play the video I do have to apologize in translation we did have some student interviews that might not have sounds that you can hear very well but for the most part you should be able to hear what's going on so before we talk to our fantastic student representatives I just put together a brief video of the library initiatives [Music] so I apologize that you can hear all the audio some computers you could and others you couldn't so it's kind of 50/50 feels good work tonight so now do you want to go first all right so we're gonna have three of our students all three of these students
037actually are involved in more and more than one of the activities and we're willing to come tonight and courageous to stand in front of you so hi my name is Addison Thomas I am in third grade I participated in stem and I was one of the top readers my favorite thing in stem is what I like in stem is AI stem what I like in AI stem is the VR goggles I also like the iPads I like the VR goggles because it gives me a nice view when I'm on a roller coaster what I like about iPads is doing toca Boca hi my name is Quinn Raisa I am a first grade I love summer reading and azzam because they are so so so fun what I love doing is all the fun stuff I
038love building robots in AI stuff hi my name is reka Reza and I am in fourth grade I do all the things mr. gray I feel just said bye my favorite one of out of all three is stem because you get to work together celebrate fail your different activities and keep persevering until you get it right thank these three awesome kids for being here this Addison Thomas Reagan reset and Quinn race' so I just wanted to thank them so much for you kids I could ask for it we thank you and be happy to take any questions if you have any questions for any of the students they write to any of the author's now have they heard back from them or is that something that's gonna be in March when they hear bet you'll
039hear in general you find out if any of the letters made it past the first round in March we sent 29 first of all congratulations on a job well done and you've been doing it for several years now over at Quin just something I read the other day online and I'm hoping it wasn't fake news more people more people are visiting libraries and attend the theater and it's probably because of the high cost of attending the theater but it just shows that even with all the electronics and technology out there people are still going to their local libraries and it's wonderful and the other thing I just wanted to mention was how great to see all the different activities that are taking place in the library and it's not just a quiet zone it's a
040very busy zone and so congratulations that's wonderful great job thank you thank boys thank you to the young ladies here to dr. Kara Fotis I think you see a lot online people say oh why do we need libraries but libraries are just as vital as ever before in schools and in our communities and it's great to see the kids you know getting into going the libraries hopefully they continue that to be lifelong learners and readers so it's great to see that starting now so by far the the best part of the meeting as usual so thank you all three of you did a wonderful job very nice congratulations on the five years in a row now that's amazing and just seeing the how libraries media centers have evolved over the years into a real active
041learning space so it's it's just amazing and thank you great job presenting to both of you yeah no I'm really not much more to say oh just to really reiterate what my colleagues have said and the three of you were so eloquent and you read so well very impressed but yeah it's really nice to just see what's happening in the schools I love Quinn I love all of our schools but it's just great to see all that you're doing and thank you for coming here to highlight it tonight let's do another one of those I like something fun okay so under new business should we just go right to our school choice vote discussion well yeah any of my colleagues have anything that they want to you know we certainly want to discuss this I
042certainly have supported school choice even more so now when we look at how our budget is and the list of the many activities we've been able to fund through this special funding however I really would like us to be very cognizant when we're doing I know you are class size it's really important we don't want that to to go up any more than it has and if we can bring it down I'm not sure how the scheduling is done but I know people at the last minute come in you could just have two or three people added to that class and so more than you would expected so that's all I really need to say thank you thank you madam chair so first of all I'd like to hear from dr. Gifford or mr. Kiley
043regarding any what your thoughts are school choice and then I I'll have a couple points I just like to bring up sure I'll just as you know each year we've been looking to accept approximately thirty students while we sometimes get the thirty students over the course of the year often times students will withdraw whether it was not the right place for them or you know they're nervous whatever it might be so currently we have a hundred and three students enrolled throughout the district we have twenty eight in grade nine twenty three in grade ten twenty four and grade eleven and twenty eight in grade 12 so it spread out pretty pretty evenly with that we also you know we've been talking a lot about this we're seeing a continued slight decline in enrollment with grade
044with the 28 students right now we only have 233 students in grade nine which is pretty good that's with 28 no school try students so and but to most Vieira's point one thing we do look at is how our class size is going the high school has the students choose their classes but then there's a lot of hands-on there's a lot of human contact as well as they're monitoring needs etc or making those choices does a student have a lot of conflicts where they can't take another class so sometimes some of those classes do get up there but as you see by the data we've given you it's it's pretty pretty good numbers across across the entire school so with that we do continue to keep look at that I know the Department Department the
045guidance department as well as the administration at the high school is along with the lead teachers make a lot of decisions human decisions if you will it's not just the program that schedules kids you also receive your the money that we've taken in an account of that as well as what we've expended upon and also what we've reserved for future issues such as you just saw the eye stem we've been able to fund all of those stipends for teachers to hold those after-school programs and as of this day almost $27,000 so let's see powder preschool set up you know those kinds of things we've been able to fund some music stipends the music supplies it's all there of course many of the items that you see in the Innovation Lab aside from the money that
046we had received from the grant obviously one of our big big ones was the one-to-one computing and we are going to work with mr. Gallo Shoah to analyze that from year to year and see what are we using for school choice what are we leasing etc so we'll continue to do that we've also kept we've reserved at this point you just saw miss powers talking about our library some money and because we are going to be working with our various libraries to provide some flexible furniture things like that to really keep up with the times if you will so with that other than if you have any questions I would recommend working with the high school admin again between 30 and 40 students this year again we monitor that closely if we were to see
047let's say 40 students from grade 9 were coming in all those application we had nothing else we would monitor that back down so I know you never vote on the number but we have kept to about 30 and as I said right now we have 103 which if we had all 30 be 120 so sure question from grade 8 to grade 9 you said that there's how many students enrolled in grade 9 right now yeah where did I have it 236 236 versus how many students I'm just curious in Wheldon great sorry I'm pulling my other Michelle this story gives me this yeah so 317 okay so we you know we know it babies that make their choice sure so I want to just reiterate follow up on something you said if we had in
04830 we up to 120 but we have 28 students in grade 12 right who presumably will be graduating that's right so we would only be adding essentially 10 on to our current total essentially no yeah so we would be going from 103 to about 113 yeah yeah which I like I said if we had 30 every year right I just I just want to make that clear we're not making I think it's really important to know a couple of things that since school choice was voted in in the district we've brought in school choices the reimbursement program has brought in almost 1.5 million dollars to the dime with public schools and like dr. Gifford said we've been able to fund a variety of programs a variety of materials and you know things that otherwise we
049wouldn't be able to do that the money just wouldn't be there especially the one to one program in addition to you know looking to put money towards the stadium towards projects that really benefit the the whole district or the district as a whole I think it's also important to note that when you look at when I was reviewing the cherry sheet that where the table of public schools is actually you know we're losing about two hundred thousand dollars in school choice to other districts so you know I think that's that that's important to note that that's that's two hundred thousand dollars that other districts are receiving so I I am once again in favor of this I appreciate the data that you provided with us dr. different.i I do agree with my colleague dr. Cara
050Fotis that you know just continue to monitor a it seemed like there was a some classes the largest being I think around right around thirty several and there were there were some classes that were also had six or seven students in them as well so that being said you know I I'm I'm in favor of it and I think we're able to do a lot of great things that we otherwise wouldn't be able to do so thank you yeah so I would echo what mr. Oliver said you know highlight one that he didn't highlight with the strength and conditioning coach down in the new room downstairs my kids come home and say we need a bigger one it's just so popular right there's so many kids there who want to take part in that and
051to have those weight room classes I think are really popular as well I also you know share concerns about class size and I do appreciate miss Vera's comments about that but I do think a lot of this is the function of trying to get kids the classes they want to have so like if you look at the biology honors we have a biology honors class of 29 we also have two of nineteen right and a lot of this talking back and forth with guidance with my kids right when your kids have particular classes they want to take particularly around AP courses or things like that where we may only be offering one section of those because that's what enrollment demands we end up having to have a few classes that are larger because we don't
052want to say to someone no you can't take an AP you know statistics class or an AP English class so I do recognize that but I think part of this is really driven by trying to give our kids the classes they want and that meet our interest so you know again I do I'm appreciative that we're aware of this but I do want to make it clear that a lot of this is driven just by trying to give students what they want no I'm not going to change it seriously I appreciate the information that we received in our packet for you know the revenue when the expenses and what it's covered and I it's fantastic what it does but and it's great didn't we're gonna have another 30 students and you know we'll net out
053ten more next year and that's fantastic type of deal but for me it's just a fundamental and philosophical choice type of deal I mean to sit here and say you know you know talking to Jenkins talked about the you know the strength coach or we look at stadium renovations or instructional technology the one-on-one the whole you know the whole list of things is yeah we couldn't do it if we didn't have those funds and I totally understand that type of you but again with me it's just you know you know philosophy and philosophical and just what I believe so I think we all respect that absolutely I just probably silly question and I think I know the answer this but I'm gonna ask anyway the nuts are the numbers on the side of the parentheses
054number of choice kids in the class okay and so it still fluctuates you know we're looking at this yeah I could Shannon with dr. Jenkins you know mentioned there's some masses with some very very low numbers and you know I was going through and just highlighting some high numbers but I'm just thinking in my own experience and dr. Jenkins also going last again everyone kind of takes your comments but thinking about my own daughter and my own experience and you know we have new schedule and fitting kids in where they want to be and and I you know just I know the work that they put in just with my one child times how many students in the school so I there's a lot to be said for working to get kids in the classes
055that they need to be so I think that's all I really wanted to say I wrote notes but they didn't seem to save on here anyway yeah we're losing those seniors so we're losing that those 28 kids moving on to bigger and better things hopefully and yeah there's really in my mind it's hard to it's really hard so just not taken to count account all of the projects it's really hard to look at this list of where the money is spent on the stipends on the AI stem professional development the Innovation Lab the one-to-one initiative with the Chromebooks and the strength and conditioning coach the renovations you know some money lots of money that was just some money pocket change and just the high school and the middle school library on eBay it's really hard
056to not look at this list and say how could I not agree I just I am concerned about the numbers I don't have the answer for that and just I guess my my feeling is you know just being cautious of those numbers and continuing to kind of monitor I would hate for a child not to be able to be placed in a class that they either need for credit purposes or aspire to be you know as far as the AP classes so yeah just I think my well I know my feeling is just being very cognizant around those numbers I would I would be supportive of of the additional yeah it has brought in so many good projects we always say it's just nice to be able to say yes yeah yes I just like
057to add I think would be one thing maybe I'd have a you know if we had them if we had the revenue and we had the money and our numbers we had more eighth graders you know moving up into the high school I may be you know obviously with the with those numbers I have maybe have some different considerations however until you know we get the enrollment back to where I think it should be at Dartmouth high school and I know we can you know if we continue to grow the programs that we have there and continue doing the great job that we're doing in this district that uh who knows what the future will bring but until then until we find one or another revenue source or another funding source and two we were
058able to keep more students in this district I see you know I think it's important that we we do our best to find that balance between class size and then being able to you know receive this money through the reimbursement program each each year since we've you know each year we have we either approve or not school choice has there been any consistency around who you get applications from I mean are they mostly ninth grade eighth graders going into nine are there nine and ten you don't say the majority nine but then ten and then it you know it decreased obviously is right I really want Sturge yes where they are yeah yeah usually the nine and ten of the two biggest grade levels okay yeah good point yes anything else I also want to
059add just one thing if you noticed that as we've given you the list of classes we've been very fortunate the high school to offer a huge variety of classes again speaking to what students need ou want that's incredible and as we said before it's the the kids are given the classes you've all said it already but the scheduling is done to meet their needs to the best of our ability and we don't want to turn a student away because it's we can't fit them in so a lot of times those decisions to put that extra student in another class is because of that there's a great variety of classes like film critique and you know those numbers are higher but that's great that's some right students passionate about that particular topic and wanting to go
060through that pathway so yeah I'd like to make a motion that the topic schools participate in school choice for the 2020 2021 school year all opposed mr. Nunes okay thank you thank you for all the information yeah next we have the annual report that's in our packet hmm it's great reading yes everything that's been going on Madame chair make a motion we approved the 87 page annual 87 the annual report for the Dartmouth public schools I'll second that any discussion I would just like to thank everyone that was involved in putting this 87 page together I'm sure it wasn't just say I'm sure the administrators the department heads a lot went into into this okay it's very good at getting it out early and warning them although I think some of them don't read their
061emails so the last minute I didn't get that email so just thank you thank you to everyone yeah yeah my thanks to everyone on this and seriously you know reading this and then going through it you see all the little things that are going on in the school and you know what you know what's happening at all you know the elementary schools the different projects that are ongoing against you you know here at the high school in the middle school in Cushman and that and it is just really the different clubs to to see what's going on and the people that are involved and you know you get into the weeds but it's really it's the good stuff honoring our retirees and singing a jolly he's a jolly good fellow and a month's a month
062on all the schools yeah it's really really neat to see hard work put in so [Laughter] ya know I you really covered it all I was gonna mention the kindergarten information preschool information on the website does anybody else have anything else that they would like to add with yes mr. Nunes thank you madam chair just a quick note and seriously thanks to the stain of times over the past few weeks they've been talking about local athletes from the different sports with the past for the past decade they've been a number of diamond faith school athletes that have been mentioned so it's really good you know it brings back some memories let's see nice oh my god you know or an outline since that person was here you know so and you can remember some of
063the things that they did so congratulations to them and I guess there's a couple of our athletic teams that have already qualified for the tournament so that's you know good luck to them as they go forward and I would just like to take a moment to recognize mr. Perotti who's in the control room they are there was a nice article in the Dartmouth weekly I believe this past week about the the television production program at that but the media program growing in its you know it's it's through mr. Perrotti that we're able to livestream school committee meetings now and I know it takes a lot of time and effort not only to do what you do mr. Perrotti but also just set this up it seems like every time we come into here there's a
064new piece of technology boom cameras I guess they called this is getting to be a pretty serious production I'm sure the I'm sure the students appreciate it and they're getting a lot of great experience and and I'm sure that there's some of them I know there's some of them that are going on to the communication field into the video production field so I just like to take its out take the moment to recognize you in the great work that your students are doing [Music] I apologize so the table sorry livestream we would get that prior to the meeting but at the last hour so our next meeting our next regularly scheduled meeting will be scheduled for Monday February 10th 6:30 same place here at Dartmouth High School in the media center and with that I
065will entertain a motion to adjourn into an executive session to provide an update with respect to collective bargaining with union personnel not to return into open session so moved Kathleen Amaral yes Chris Oliver yes Sharon Jenkins yes Carol Carol photos yes John News yes thank you Kathleen very good no it's remember the roll call yes I did be it alive really good