District Committee Meeting (05/20/2025)

001Can we stand for the pledge of allegiance, please? Mr. Jones. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the government stands one nation with liberty and justice for all. And can I keep standing for a moment of silence to remember our men and women in this service here and abroad especially our graduates. Thank you. Will not be joining us today. He is uh suffered an injury. Can we do a roll call, please? Miss Ferris, pres. Miss Dler, present. Mr. Jones, here. Mr. Mayor, present. Thank you. Can I get a motion to accept the minutes of the 22nd, please? Second. All those in favor say I. I get to students report. We have Yson, Maya, and Li. Who's going first? Um, May 20th district committee meeting student presentation by Jason and

002accepted students today. On March 3, the school counseling department hosted accepted students day to welcome our new Reggies. The event included Reggie leaders, cheerleaders, and a lot of DJ. New students also received a welcome bag that included a Reggie class of 2029 t-shirt of a fidget as well as cookies baked by our culinary students. On a on April 15th, DTS the GTS branch of the National Honor Society welcomed 78 new members including 22 juniors and 56 sophomores. Congratulations to our new inductees. GLS art club display. The artwork of the students and creative art club is now being displayed. Stop by and see the many art projects the club members have worked on and are are willing to share. The display is located outside the library across from the guidance office. The members all did amazing

003work and and are talented art artists. New pieces will be put out through June 1st. Youth sustainability fair on April 26. Daniela Herren, environmental science teacher, Sophia Evans, environmental science student, and administrator Susan Almono representing workforce development participated in the Andover Youth Sustainability Fair. The purpose of the fair is to celebrate and encourage youth led sustainability efforts. Skills USA state competition. 11 students earned medals at the annual Skills USA Massachusetts state leadership and skills conference. Julius Sanchez was crowned state champion in medical assistance. Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Zachary D Ro Thomas, Michael Michael O Sullivan, and Nicholas Marshall won bronze medals for the team. Ya Bay, Sophia Evans, and Alicia Mia Pental earned bronze medals for for career for

004the career pathways showcase, agriculture, and natural resources. Kelsey Lynch earned a silver medal in baking and pastry. Kayla Lynch earned a silver medal in TNT 5 [Music] occas earned a silver medal in prepared speech wellness events. Over the past few weeks, social workers, interns, and youth empowerment committee have organized wellness events where students can gain access to resources and talk to guest speakers during school lunches. Some of the topics covered by our speakers include substance abuse, dating violence, and mental health. On May 23rd, a wellness fair attended by more than 15 local organizations will take place in the football field and is open to students in all grade levels. Culinary attends day on the hill. Our culinary students and staff participated in the annual mask day on the hill on May 6th by preparing and

005serving food to the attendees. This event provides an opportunity for for school committee members to superintendent, students, and legislators to connect and discuss policy priorities. They did an outstanding job. JTS uniforms starting on the 2025 2026 school year. Current job specific JTS uniforms will no longer be available. Current uniforms will still be counted as a valid uniform shirt and will be sold for 50% off until the end of the school year. Medical assisting, health assisting, and dental uniforms will remain the same. GSA gala on April 17th, GSA chap Charlotte Jermaine and Rebecca Reyes as well as five GSA members attended the annual community gala and LGBTQ prom at Uber High School. Around 60 students attended to peer mediation forum. On April 17th, our JTS peer mediators attended the annual peer mediators forum in Math. At

006the forum, they heard from the award-winning 210 tennis speaker, life coach, and author, Maria calling Ritzer 5K. On May 4th, JTS students and staff attended the annual Colleen Ritzer 5K in handover with the team on the run. Great job for participating class. GTS cosmetology on Thursday 58 cosmetology seniors and juniors took a field trip to Andover housing. Our students gave back to the community by performing beauty services such as manicures and hair breathing. Through the through these acts of service, they gave hands-on experience while making a positive impact in our community. Club Memorial Day flag event. On May 17th, JLT students and staff were among 45 volunteers who honored our veterans by replacing roughly 5,000 flags at Elwood Cemetery as part of McLuan's annual flag replacement event. Special special recognition goes to our student Amelia

007Vasquez for helping to organize the event. Spring sports. Spring sports began on March 17th and is coming to an end. 450 students have registered. The sports in season are outdoor track, tennis, baseball, softball, boys volleyball, girls flag football, and boys and girls lacrosse. Athletics updates. Boys track Alzardo qualified for nationals and is ranked ninth in the states first place finish at handover boosters invitational. has now been done in over years. Boys 4 by 100, Anthony Menz, Lazardo Marciano, Angel Gonzalez, Gustavo Valer relay break the school record with a time of 43.41 seconds. They have qualified for nationals and are ranked 20th in the state. Girls track Haley Seir qualified for nationals and is ranked 40th in the state. Girls 4 100 Elise Gillson Beth for Jahi Ortiz Haley Sier relay break the school record with

008a time of 51 09. They have qualified for nationals and are ranked 34th in the state. Boys volleyball CAC League champions 134 Anthony Ruben Boston Globe player of the week recorded his a thousand career assists. Although ESL literacy the ML department led by Dr. Johanna Faucet recently celebrated their second cohort of parents and caregivers who completed a six-w week ESL program. The celebration included short English introductions by the participants and on awards ceremony. Special thanks to GLTS staff members Helen King, Carla Mahoney, Wendy Barrera, and Jose Bloquest for teaching the course. in control driving safety program on June 10 and 12. Junior students will have the opportunity to participate in a free 10 to 12 minute hands-on learning experience during their shop week with the goal of better understanding the dangers associated with distracted driving

009and how to decrease the risk of getting into these situations. Students must have permissions from their parents to participate. Senior job fair. On May 1st, GLTS held a senior job fair. Representatives from various industries talked to senior students who had the options to bring copies of their resumes which could be used to apply on spot. Senior events. Senior prom will be held on June 2nd at Castleton in Woodham, New Hampshire. Seniors will also have a senior trip to Six Flags on June 4th. Graduation Graduation will be held June 5th, 2025 at 8 at 6:00 p.m. on the football field. There is no gathering limit and anyone can come. In addition to the in-person ceremony, there will be a live stream to accommodate anyone who cannot attend. The live stream can be found there on the

010there's a link there. See you next year. Have a great summer everyone. Thank you guys. I understand Mirror is graduating. Yes. Mia, thank you very much for all your service. It's been great having you and you you've helped these two along quite a bit. Thank you very much. Great job. Happy graduation. We'll see you at graduation. Okay. Thank you. I want to thank the student representatives for their work all this year as well. uh they you've done an excellent job not only in presenting but getting the the scope and the report and finding out all the information and putting together on slides that were very exceptional. Uh you represent three students uh in a school of 1850 students and you're right up there in the top of some of the most respectful wonderful young people

011that we have at our school. you represent small portion of what it's like to be a JLTS student here at Greater Lawrence. So, thank you very much. Congratulations on all your great work this year. Thank you. Thanks. [Applause] All right. Uh Mr. Dano, you're up with the cash balance report, please. April 2025 cash balance is 4,241 192 deposits for the month of 5,37868. We transferred out a million dollar the MMDT account. Uh you see the unless the payroll amounts and warrants are shown leaves us with a an operating balance of 4 million25727. In our MMDT account we have 6,205918. To start the month we have uh interest of $29,999. and then receive the net of the 3.5 to 2.5 1 million come from operating account leaves us with an MMDT balance of 7,2357 and a

012total operating cash balance of 11,485744. Um one other thing I wanted to add um is that um we've made through MMDT uh almost a 1.5 million mostly coming uh from the la from 2021 to uh this point in time. So $1.5 million over the last four years. We started before that but obviously the market was not um as robust as it is today. But I just wanted to let the school committ me know. Thank you very much. Can I get a motion to accept the cash balance report as state? Make a motion to accept it. I get a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say all those opposed? Thank you. Consolidated cash is a handout that's in front of you. We have a revolving fund report which is in the packet and we have

013a budget report that is also in the packet. Any questions on any of those? We have in finance we have the audit from 2022. It'sformational. I would like to a small part of it. It says, "In our opinion, the accompany schedule of expenditures of federal awards present presents fairly in all material aspects. The expeditures of federal awards to this to the school for the year ending June 30th, 2020 in accordance with the accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. We'll see you speak to this please. So that's just the fiscal year 22 single audit. So that's just an audit of our um major federal grant. Um there were two findings on the audit that we had previously corrected. Um one was for time and effort which we added a procedure to our

014um grants manual and then the other was for beginning balances which we created a procedure for and fixed that as well. The second report in there is a yellow book report. Um that's a report that that's an audit for your um your accounting standards and they just repeated the beginning balance finding. So on the last page of both of those audits, you'll find the um the plan to correct the findings. So we're in good standing. We're currently auditing the fiscal year 23 grants. We're almost wrapping up the fiscal year 23 financial statements, so you'll be getting those hopefully soon. Thank you. Anybody want to comment on that? Why are we getting an audit in 2022? We've just been so behind on the audits and it's a really long time to get through the fiscal year

015financial statements. Um, we're just kind of catching up. We're doing seven right now. So the audits for 2023 and on haven't been done yet. We're doing 23 now. Okay. For financial statements and for grants and then we'll go right into 24. Okay. It's normally at least a year back, right? Yeah. So you you finish the fiscal year and then a few months later you go into audit. So, it's usually like the next year you should have your your audit reports and your financial statements, but we're just catching up. Thank you. Next up, Miss Martell, you're going to do the removal of the charge point. The charge point is the electric cars stations. Y I know we have some up front and we have some back. Yep. So, we have 12 stations. Um, this is a

016contract. It's we're hoping to do a five-year contract. So, anything over a three-year agreement would need district committee approval. Um, and this is just for um maintenance and then there's like a dashboard and just oversight on the the station and we have 12. Yes. So, the total contract for 5 years would be about 34,000. And you're suggesting the five years? Yep. And that price was how much? About 34. Just over 34,000. All right. I need a vote on this. Uh can I get a motion for uh accept this Martell's renewal of charge point charging stations. Make a motion to renew I mean to approve the network renewing stations. I get a second. Any discussion? Yeah, please just start my we pay 34,000. So, it's a it's a service. So, there's like an online service and

017you can go on there and it it manages all the stations. Um, so I can call in for help or if you're charging at station, you can call in as well. But that's how I manage like setting rates on all the systems. I can see which ones are in use. If we have any like if there's any damage to the system, I just call them and they come out and fix it. So like we did that once last year and they fixed it. So it's kind of like it's kind of like an insurance plan and just an oversight on Okay. I'm not electric, but when they're plugged into it, they're just paying directly for the electricity they use or so we we set a rate like we set a rate based on like I look

018at what other um charging stations are charging so that we can figure out a rate to charge. Um and then we just set the parameters and everything and then um it it pays through this company and then they send us revenue. [Music] Is is it something that's like a break even convenience thing? Do we it cost us money to do it or we make money to do it? Um probably I mean we off we had it for free for a long time. We started charging. Um so we are making money. I'd have to look at it, but I would say that this it would be covered. Um, we're we're covering our cost for it. Okay. Thank you. All right. Can I have a vote, please? Any further questions on that? Vote, please. All those in

019favor? I opposed. Thank you. Donations We have 2009 Ford Fusion valued at 65.88 donated by John. We have 2007 Honda Pilot valued at 3225 donated by Steven Martinez also. And we have a 2014 Jeep Cherokee United at 7625. made by Wendy, Christina, Nunes, Delo, Santos of Florence. Thank every one of them. I believe these have all gone to the auto for the program. Correct. And we do we do send out thank you to each of those donators for their donation. Articles. We have a very interesting articles and two of our graduates um Jean Jimenez and and Rodriguez of station 8 I believe that's Lawrence I was reading it's two of our graduates I think they're both from the plumbing department and I think it was 2011 if I'm not mistaken we are fortunate at great

020loss we have a lot of uh graduates that go on to serve the police department and the fire department. It's nice to see articles like these two. Is there anything you want to say on that, Mr. Loy? Uh well, first of all, um it's not unusual for graduates to go out and do some uh service for their community such as uh the two that are recognized here. The work that they do are supporting kids in terms of uh safety, fire safety, and other kinds of safety through videos. uh um writing songs performing uh live shows and they're currently writing a book which is pretty exciting. Uh and they have as you read the article 24,000 subscribers to the uh due to uh uh station 8, what they call station 8 uh station uh that if

021you go on they listen to their work. Very good. Good for them. It's nice to hear public participation. I think it's the only one, right? And introduce yourself, please. I'm going to give you the We have a time limit of three minutes. Require the public speaker to limit their comments to the issues, not individuals. Board members are disallowed to ask or answer questions. All speakers must voice their comments and concerns with respect to the chair. So you can help me if you want. I will uh please state your name and what city and town you reside at. My name is Lenna and I reside in Lawrence, Massachusetts. I have done so ever since 2014. Just around May 27 when I came to Lawrence. Little background on myself. 20 seconds. I I came to Amesberry, Massachusetts

022in 2013 with my son, my only son at the time that I that was living with me and my wife. We were homeless in 2013. And I came to Lawrence because I saw a community that will embrace me and he sold me shortly. Uh 2014 I came to Lawrence. 2016 I became a homeowner in Lawrence. took me a year and 11 months, 27 days and four hours to become a homeowner. Now, having said that, um I am a colonel at a chaplain's organization here in Massachusetts. I'm a retiree from the Navy and I am also a uh school committee member at Lawrence. I have three jobs. I'm not going to name them. I do three things in the community uh for money. Uh and uh that's me. Uh let's let's let's talk about what I

023came here for. So what I came here for today is because there is a problem at DOTS that I want to address and he follows this. Ever since 2011, we have had uh the superintendent in office and it came to my attention during this reading and most of the complaints that I have received in three months now and I did not voice myself. My dad is sick and I wasn't able to come. I have many things to do and I wasn't able. So I came last month and I spoke to the superintendent and his presence. I spoke with him and I was concerning that $320,000 is what he told me that he was getting paid. And I asked for 340 or 45 at the time and he told me no, he get he's getting 320.

024Well, after finding out, I found out that he's getting 337 actually today. 28,000 coming in 2025, which will make it 2025 $365,000. In 2029, it will voice and it will raise to $419,000. In average, if we take an average of four years, we're talking about $387 to $393,000, which will make it way over $1.6 6 million in 40 years. That's what I found out with the paperwork that I have in front of me and the paperwork that I have in my telephone in my computer. All three of them. So, I don't think I'm going to erase those three. Um, I have a problem with $185,000 that is being paid to the assistant superintendent of the schools. And that $185,000 I think is worthless and it's not needed. You guys are spending too much money there

025besides the money that the superintendent is getting currently. He is worth something. He's a superintendent. He's been here for in 2011. You got you guys owe money to this guy. He needs to get paid. But I think $418,000 in four years that he will be getting paid. I think it's too much. This school needs money. I saw in the budget a deficiency. I see I saw many deficiencies in the budget that I will bring up to you at a later point because I don't have the time right now to speak. I only have three minutes. So this is my concern coming from Lawrence. I am nobody. I'm just a person from Lawrence who lives at 36 Columbus Avenue that's concerned and that has been seeing how manipulated you guys have been for 11, 12, 13,

02614 years, which I believe is a mistake by you guys to allow yourself to sign a contract that will give you the opportunity to pay somebody $418,000 to manage the school. That is my opinion. That's what I think and that's exactly what I came here to say. Having said that, you guys have a blessed day. I hope you guys continue to serve and do your job that I think you guys should be doing for your community, Muan, Lawrence, North Andover, and Andover. I think you guys all all of the communities the job that you guys are meant to do. So, having said that, now that I'm not going to be a politician anymore, can be because I almost died two years two two weeks ago. Hey, I said sorry. Lawrence didn't know that. They just

027found out. I'm sorry. So, this is me. I'm going to leave you at that and hope you guys have a good day. Very much. All right. Susan Armano, director of grants, is going to tell us about clean energy initiative and the workforce development. Was Penny up the call first? She was, but um should I go and see where she is? We're all here. Oh, okay. Switch the agenda around it. No, she's up next. Who wanted her? She had some information. Hi guys. Our principal Chad Jackson, Brandon Solivan. Excuse me. Sorry for the tight quarters, guys. Anybody? You're going to go up first. Yeah, you I know you plug in your computer. So, I'm connected to the Oh, I'm not connected. Can you do you have a presentation? Yeah. Can you show All right. While POTA

028shares, I'll introduce the members of our team that are here today. Uh Piona uh Aanellis, our director of teaching and learning. Uh Lauren Jones to my right is the I got everyone's uh title here. Yes. Director of career and technical education. Uh I'm there. Brennan Sullivan, our assistant principal for uh humanities. Uh Ryan Brown, blue right here, our assistant principal um for math and science. and Angela Bren, our director of admissions, counseling, and health services. Thank you. Thank you all for joining us. You just wait for the presentation that might have to go back and look at the visual. I want to welcome Penny Ulta to the meeting this evening as well and thank her for preh presenting tonight. uh what she's going to share with you is a lot of what's been going on

029here in GSTs soon uh the school year 2022425. I think uh a lot of her work and all the members that are here with her that are supporting her tonight uh represent some uh strong leadership and high quality uh support of teachers that is making a huge difference in our school. I will say as a team, they're exceptional uh members of our administrative team who uh 52 years that I've been in this business, I'm highly impressed with the way they connect and work together as a team and have and are making a difference in in not only the the climate and culture of the school, but the performance of teachers and as a result is helping students learn and uh achieve at a higher level. So I couldn't be more proud of this group. In

030fact in January um when I was here last I shared how our newly formed administrative team uh was focused on a few things including building a culture of we uh grounded in collaboration uh some clarity and consistent support for our students and staff. Um, at that time, Penny Yoda and Isabelle uh presented on MCCAST's accountability uh in data-driven initiatives uh that were shaping our path forward. Uh, tonight we're here to share that the work has continued involved. Uh, you'll hear an end of the year update on our progress in teaching and learning. Um, along with a preview of our priorities for next school year. Uh, while not all of our members of our team could be here this evening, uh, this work is a shared leadership and collective efforts of our entire team. Um the

031presentation will reflect our deep commitment to providing highquality curriculum, thoughtful instructional support and responsive intervention to meet all of our students needs. Uh you'll also see how we are using multiple data sources, uh internal learning walks and educator collaboration to build a more coherent and student centered instructional system. Uh our work is guided in the belief that every student deserves access to a rigorous relevant learning opportunities and that every adult in our system plays a vital role in making that happen. Um thank you again for your continued support. Uh we look forward to sharing this update and welcome your questions and reflections at the end. Uh so hopefully I I filled that time for pan. Perfect timing actually. Um so thank you again. Yes, last time I was here was in January. Um, a lot

032of this is really going to just be updating you on the progress. Um, you did feel like it was important to have um at least some of the team members here because we do, you know, we're we're a pretty new team. Um, less than a year uh we we've been together, but um we're working really really cohesively and collaboratively and we really have a common vision, approach, um purpose. So I want to tell you a little bit about that. Um so one part is like where do we even fit into all of this? Um this is how we look at it. So obviously the students are at the center of every single thing we do. Um and um we make sure that we don't let other things distract us from that purpose. Um teachers, counselors,

033they're that next layer. Um they are really on the front lines. They're building relationships with the kids. They're making sure that their learning environments are they feel safe and belonging and and that they're learning, you know, they're delivering curriculum, they're adjusting instruction supports and all that. Um, school level administrators, we really what we do is we we establish those systems and procedures and support um all the players so that we can let teachers do the teaching, okay? that they're not distracted from that and students can focus on the learning. Um, and then we have a layer of district administrators who figure out the resource allocation and policies and aligned initiatives. Um, so that's really that's how we all work together. Um, again, students um, you know, I've I've seen in other districts um, frankly that

034they're um, people can get kind of drawn to different areas of focus. We always make sure we are centered on the kids. Um and how do we do this? So this is our approach. We don't believe in making decisions in a vacuum. Um we do not know everything. Um it's important that all of the perspectives are um considered when we're making big decisions. So we have this feedback that we do. So, um, we have our instructional admin team, our executive leadership team, but we're also we have our coaches, we have our data information team, the full staff and student body. So, we do when we're putting together either a new project or we're or we're trying to improve something that's not going quite right, um, we go through this whole loop to make sure that,

035um, what we're going to do is actually going to be um, have an impact. Um and something I wanted to highlight too if up there are teacher action teams. So we have um some teacher action teams put together this year um in a few different areas that have been really really important to try to move the work forward. So we have for example our MTSS team um really focused on how we use data um our equitable practices team. So really looking at our equitable grading policy put a policy in place but um I'm sure you all know how it goes. you sometimes you put something in place and it's like all right well what's going on with it how is it working um it's never perfect on the first try so um they really are

036looking closely at how it's working what tweaks do we need to make etc so that's that piece and then the other piece is we want when we're looking at data we always want to look at multiple data points we cover district and local assessments but you can't make all of your decisions based on just MCCAST for example um we have lots of assessments we look at we have external reports that we look at and we're always gathering data internally like Chad said we're always doing learning walks um and getting that on the ground data as well um this was something we showed last time MTSS um I think you may have heard a little bit about it last year multi-tered systems of of support there's a lot going on there what it really is is

037it's a framework that helps us think about how can we meet the needs of all of our learners um put pulling them in and out of different supports as needed and having the systems and structures to surrounding them to actually make that learning happen. Um, and so at the beginning of this year, we had shared these are all the different areas of focus at the school. You can see there's a lot of them and that's that's actually not even everything. Um, but we've done a lot of work this year to try to to make it very cohesive. I also wanted to um um mention um so Angela here always um so um Angela here so the student support team um we had system in place last year um that wasn't in place at the beginning

038of this year um she acted very quickly to um put a temporary solution in place and now we're working on um putting something um more sustainable in place going forward. Um, but that's really to catch like when kids start to struggle, right? We don't want to wait till they fail. We want to put um supports in place before um you know before the kids feel like it's too late. So um that's what a lot of that work is. This shared back in January. So um with all those areas of focus kind of looked at all right, what's our plan of action? We have that tier one. That's our core curriculum um that um we really want to focus on strengthening. Um what we know from research and data out there in the field of education

039is that um having vetted curriculum is a key piece to the the recipe. It frees up teachers to um be working on actually um adjusting things for the kids in front of them. So done a lot of work in that area. Obviously, I'm not going to read through all of this here, but um I just wanted to highlight um there were a couple of different um curriculum rollouts going on at the beginning of this year. What we've done since then is create a detailed plan for all content areas and also cohesion in terms of how it's rolled out. Um and one of the big things that have couple of things that have come up through this process, it's been key to have teachers a part of the process from the beginning helping to select the

040materials. Um the other piece is where science was the next content area up. Um Brian and I have worked really closely to pilot um a process. We've looked at different processes out there and kind of pulled together what makes sense for us here that we're going to be able to take and replicate in other areas going forward. Um so that's that piece. Now there's a lot we could talk about here but I want to highlight um just a couple of specific things. These are we're very early on in implementation. Math has been um is the furthest along um and we're starting to see um some progress already. So we wanted to share that with you. I'm going to turn over to Ryan to talk a little bit about that. Just want to say thank you

041for having us here tonight. It's great to be able to talk about number one very excited about some of the results that we've seen. Um so math was math department was the first to sort of go into this um adoption curriculum in this whole journey. Um we've done a tremendous amount of work through uh classroom observations collecting data on those observations throughout the year to monitor the progress of this implementation. And so this visual here you'll see and I'm abbreviating because there's a lot of detail um but core action one excuse me core action two and core action three are identified instructional practices that are um measuring how student centered the learning is measuring the learning that's happening in the classroom. Um and then the other columns looking at the teachers. Uh the two right

042columns there are survey data that we collected from teachers at the beginning of the year of this process and toward the end of the year. And so what we've seen is teachers growth in the use of student- centered learning practices as well as a change in earning an increase in their beliefs that students can be successful with this curriculum. um as well as um believing that students can meet the high expectations that the curriculum puts in front of them. So, it's been a success between you know when we started this and beginning of the year to now. Ryan, could could you give us a little more uh tell us a little more about students sending learning? What does that really mean? Just so the committee has a better understanding absolutely what that kind of practice

043really is. So um going into a classroom and a teacher's asking questions, it's very easy for a teacher to say, you know, what is the answer to this particular solution? And then the child or the student says, you know, it's whatever the answer is, just recall versus what we're measuring in this work is to see are the students having conversations about what they're learning? Do they understand why or how they got to the answer? Um maybe it's a a situation where the students are presented with a question of what formula would be best to use to solve this particular problem. There's discussion that the students are having and then and then the selection and then correct answer. So more uh detailed conversations that we could observe the students having in class as opposed to just

044the simple recall yes no uh x to the second you know something along those lines. Thank you. Um, and so math, like I said, further along. Um, ELA is, um, about a half year behind, I would say. Um, and I think it would be great for Brendan to just share a little bit about what he's been seeing so far. Good evening. Thank you all for having me here. Haven't had the pleasure to meet most of you. Brendan Sullivan. Um so yes as Penny was just saying the English department we are in the first year of implementing a new curriculum resource it's called HMH into literature it is the um it's by the same company that um created our math curriculum so it's on the same platform um about six months behind implementation in from the

045math department but this past year the English department has really been working hard to learn the career curriculum, learn how to use the platform. They've been piloting some of the units with students, um getting feedback from each other, sharing ideas, seeing how the students do with it. Um and they're really um they're really invested in it. Now, the uh 9th and 10th grade are both doing a Shakespeare unit um in HMH. So, I think going into next year, we're in a very good position where teachers have have grown tremendously in their knowledge of HMH over the last six months. Um, and I think feel a lot more comfortable with the platform, understanding how to adapt it for the students in front of them, how to make sure we're getting everyone what they need. So, we

046should be in a very good position for the start of next year for year two of implementation. Thank you. Just a quick question. Would you say that the new curriculum that we've been using, how does that compare to our past in terms of rigor and in terms of student performance, our students struggling? It's a it's a it's a very rigorous curriculum. Um there's a great uh a great variety of reading selections in there. One of the nice things about it is that there are parts in each unit that are fixed. There are parts in each unit um that teachers have choice to try and match the interests and the needs of the students in front of them. But it is a very rigorous curriculum. Not having been here last year, I don't want to, you

047know, I don't want to make any guesses as to where it it it compares. But it's definitely a very thorough, very rigorous curriculum. Thank you. Before we go much further, does anybody have any questions so far? What do you attribute being uh delayed a half a year to where the students are coming in or co? Oh, no. In terms of implementing the curriculum, yeah, a part of it was just um timing. I didn't start until after I started on September 16th. So, it wasn't until after I came on board, got acclimated that we could really delve into the work. So, um, everything was set and they were kind of ready to go. They just needed, you know, someone to come in and help facilitate and get it moving forward. One of the things I'll add,

048Tom, just on that, too, is um, the teachers getting that feedback based on, you know, opportunities to engage in that curriculum at the start of the year. um wanting to be thoughtful in being consistent in implementing it, rushing that kind of coming in a couple weeks in and then having it maybe not go as successful would put our students back. So I think going in there allowing them to use their common planning time to go in work with Brendan um develop some of the initial units before having some extended time maybe over winter break where we invested and kind of give us some teachers some time there allowed for them to kind of go on be consistent and really push the standard for where our students can get the curriculum. So um but that's why

049the way while you're on the role explain career readiness course to me. Well, I have Lauren here for career readiness course. So, our career readiness course is um in the it's implemented in the ninth grade. It's a new course this year that was developed and refined over the summer. Um and it it encompasses um uh I would say what we mostly refer to as soft skills, but those are those career readiness skills in terms of um communication, collaboration, um even job readiness. So um we have incorporated lessons that um you know student help students identify their career paths, what their interests are and then um built out you know what would their resume look like, what would those experiences look like. So again it was um so all students in ninth grade um were enrolled

050in it. So it it coincided with their experience in exploratory and um and so really prepared them for making those choices um when they did their shop selection. And now for the for the remainder of this year, it is building upon those skills. After the shop selection, this is when they're in their shops. This is um so it's all ninth grade and it's it's on it's the whole rotation. It's the whole rotation. Yes. Yeah. So it's not geared to any specific career that they're in. Thank you. I'm sorry, Ryan. Continue. Yeah. Well, that was a good good because next we're going to talk about CTE. So, we just talked about curriculum implementation in academics, which there's a lot to it, a lot to it. But, um, what's easier about the academic side, I would say,

051is that there's a lot of curriculum out there that's been vetted and there's, you know, so much like nationwide, so much emphasis on that. Um, and then you turn to CTE. We have 21 programs. Um, and where's the vetted curriculum out there for those different programs? Well, we have searched high and low. Um, and um, actually Brenda and Lauren and I went to the national CTE conference earlier this year and that was one of our main goals was to see what is going on in other states. Um, and um, we talked to people at like the very top in different places and they're like, well, no, there isn't really something out there. There isn't an organization to say we're vetting all this to say what's best. Um, now that being said, there are career areas

052that do have curriculum out there um that they can pull from and we have career areas that are using that curriculum and we have others that don't have anything. Um, so we realized of when there's there was nothing out there, um, like I said, bring it all together and we said, you know what? Well, we want it. Nobody's leading the effort. Well, let's why don't we do that. Um, and so we decided to take that on. Um, so the CTE curriculum process looks completely different than the academic one given that information. So, um, first thing, and this really goes to John, Superintendent Leavoy's, um, you know, what he always says about CT and the curriculum and, you know, really wanting to make sure it's important to have that documented curriculum that helps guide, um, the

053whole process. So, um, what we did this year was an indepth curriculum audit of every single career area. So, um, Lauren and I supported the the CT coordinators. They really did a lot of that work on the ground. They met with every single department, combed through everything, and then we were able to see sort of the spectrum of different places that different programs were at. Um, and from there, we designed professional development tailored to those, you know, each sort of stage that that departments were at. Um and um we had one of our instructional coaches also help with that process. Um and so that's that's in progress. Um the audits are done. The beginning of the PD is happening. Um and we're going to continue that through next year. Um another piece of that is

054the scope and sequence refinement. So you know this is now very general statement because again there are 21 areas. everyone's at a different place, but in general um we found that um there was a need for more alignment from grade level to grade level. So that's another focus of ours. Um looking at curriculum resources, what's out there, that's more of a next year and beyond piece. Um but um we have already started looking at that. Also want to highlight a couple of other pieces. Um, these are initiatives sort of within um, it's it's funny because um, they're initiatives that are unavoidable because of our where our society is and where it's going. Um, so the clean energy initiative, I'm going to save that for Susan. She's going to talk about it in a bit, but

055um, that is a huge um, push that we're looking at from all different perspectives, looking at where um, it fits within our CTE areas. Um, it's also been put into the um that career readiness course um for piloting that curriculum, but again, I'm gonna save save the rest of it for you after. Um, and then generative artificial intelligence. Um, you might hate the idea of it, you might love the idea of it. Um, but we decided pretty early on as a team that we can't avoid it. It's there. And really it's our responsibility as educators to make sure that we teach kids about it and how to use it appropriately and safely and all that. Well, we have to learn it first, right? So, um, a few of us have been doing some really really

056indepth learning about it. Um, and we're rolling out learning for the rest of the school, the rest of um, the teachers and the students and all that. So, that's that's going to be coming. But we're rolling that into everything that we're doing. Um, and the other piece to also, um, I want to make sure to bring up with this is when you think about the learning, the career areas, um, these industries are potentially going to be changing because of artificial intelligence. So, we want to make sure that we know what those changes are so that when our kids graduate, they're ready um, and they have a leg up that they know what those tools are, those approaches. So um and then want to turn over to Lauren to highlight a piece of very um a

057wonderful piece of data. Um so thank you all for having us. Um it's really exciting to be here and I'm really excited to share this um data. So um you might have heard the superintendent um talk in the past about um our student staying within their career paths. Um and so as Pyota mentioned um when she began the presentation, our our focus is really looking at data and making data deform informed decisions. Um and one of those those uh decisions actually happened um several years ago. And sometimes when we implement an um a change, we don't really see the the results of that right away. Um and so what you're looking at here is actually um our our positive placement rates. And so if you're not familiar, as part of our Perkins report, every year

058we survey our graduates. Um, and what we're really looking for is are they staying within their career paths, are they um and and what what are our unemployment rates? Um, and so in 20 the class of 2023 was our first graduating class um under a new policy that you um some of you here were involved in implementing. Um, and that really prioritized students first choice, their shop selection. Um, and so we prioritized that. We we looked at our data and our enrollment numbers and um really wanted to emphasize students and and and supporting them in what their what their selection was for their career path. And um and so in our graduating class of 2023, you see this significant rise in placement where we have a 95% now positive placement. Um, and our unemployment rate

059has dropped from 14% to 4% which is aligned with our state and national numbers. So, we're really excited about that. Um, and as you could say that 2023 and our graduating class of 2024 um that those numbers are sustaining it is it's awesome to see like a new policies put in place. Is it going to make a difference? Like it it is amazing to see that. Um okay just a few final things. Um so another piece of our focus our plan we so we just talked about our core curriculum right in academics and in CTE. We also have these other layers of support um for students who um who need specialized support. Um and the idea is as much as possible you want to give them support and then remove the support as soon as

060you can as soon as they're ready so that um they can continue moving forward rapidly. So we shared this earlier in the year in January um that these these blocks um on the academic week we knew that they needed a lot of work. Um so one of our teacher action teams um and we I also I want to give a shout out to to um Becky Webster. She's um lead teacher here and helped to head up this process. Um we gathered data from across the school, all the students, all the teachers, what's working, what's not working. We also did learning loss of our own. Um and we found that um what was what we called enrichment block um that that needed a lot of work. So um again without getting into crazy details here happy

061to answer any specific questions but um highlighted in red anything that um sort of is changing or has changed significantly. So reading intervention in general um that we started that program this year. We're going to continue to expand it next year. Um we have some kids who were reading on a kindergarten level and then are now reading on a second grade level which may not seem like a huge thing but it is really really huge. Um and um our special education services, those were being delivered during the win block, what I need block. That was really hard for kids um on IEPs because they weren't getting the time with the academic teachers that they needed and wanted because they were getting the services done. So we're moving that into this new block that the teacher

062team has rebranded to extension block. We're very excited about this name. Um but so it's inclusive of all these services that are going to be given during this time and it's about 40ish% of the kids who will be receiving these services and then the other block there the semester based content courses they're data driven. So right now kids go every quarter and kids who aren't receiving those services they quarter in math quarter in English quarter in science quarter in social studies. We're changing that. Semesterdriven courses and we're going to place them based on what their needs are. So kids who needed more accelerated um experience will be in that. Um and then other kids who need those literacy supports will be in there. So um so there's that piece. You talked about the literacy initiatives.

063These are all moving forward um at a at a pretty good clip. Um and wanted to just highlight the schoolwide literacy team. feel like we're finally g gaining some traction here in terms of literacy and I think big piece of it is making sure that the team driving the work is representative of the whole student body um you can't just do literacy work in English class um it's literacy is everywhere um in everything that we do so the team is a mix of CTE teachers academic teachers specialists counselors and administrators um worked this year to develop a a schoolwide literacy vision um done learning walks, analyzed student data, um done a lot of learning together, and um started to put tools together um to to share with staff. We're going to continue that work next

064year and go more in depth. Um the the passion and excitement within that team, especially the CTE teachers, is amazing. Um and they're using the strategies in their in their career areas and seeing seeing progress. So, that's really great. Um and then last piece here. So with all that being said, so that's that's where we're at right now. What are we looking at going forward? So we really wanted to make sure that because we do have lots of things going on that we have a single focus that will bring everything together. Um because as you know, if you're doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of something else, um you're not going to really see that progress. So um did a lot of work in looking at, okay,

065we want to make sure it's grounded in data. We want to make sure because there's lots of things that could work, but what's our highest leverage strategy and also what's going to be most relevant schoolwide. Um, and what has come back time and time again from all these different data points. Um, it was very clear to us that this needed to be the focus was the question is who's doing the heavy lifting? Um, is it the teachers or is it the students? Now, the teachers are working really hard and they're doing a lot of heavy lifting. um we want to transfer that to the students. So like Ryan brought up earlier about the student centered learning. Um we want to create learning experiences where kids do have that opportunity to take greater ownership of their

066learning, be more active participants. Um be able to un to answer why. Why are you doing what you're doing? Um, you can you could build a house in carpentry and go through all those steps, but if you can't explain why you're doing certain things and you're just following instructions, it's not the deep learning that we want to get get to. Also, especially in the counseling side and the CTE side, um really making sure that kids are informed decision makers for their future. Um so beyond yes they have their career area but what are all their options like really feeling ready and confident to do that. Um the other piece literacy practices we know that that's a need. Um and we know that literacy through the content is the way to go um at the high

067school level. So that's going to be a part of this um and we're also looking at broader off access to varied coursework um in CTE and academics. So, so that's where we're at right now. We basically this time of year we have it's it's a it's a tricky time for admin. Well, for everyone in schools because it's we have one foot in this year, we have another foot in next year. Um and as we get closer to the end of the year, um we're we're starting to really ramp up our planning for next year. Um and um you know, a lot of that work is going to be um rolled out during the summer. um we're going to have teams that are going to come in and work on different pieces of this and be

068ready for the fall. So, um so we'll be looking forward to coming back um next school year and giving you updates on where we are with all of this. Does anybody have any questions? I know you mentioned that um you keeping track on those job positioning that is 2023 or 2024. How how do you guys keep track of that? So um so each year uh we compile a team um and the team is you typically teachers um who will apply for a stipended position. And so what we do is we take all of the graduates who graduated the previous year um and we reach out to them. So we'll start with um we'll start with putting on um our social media posts that we're looking for information about what they're up to. um what are

069they involved in, where are they working? Um and then from there we'll look at and so it's a series of um of rounds of which we collect the data and um then we'll reach out to their the email that they provided upon their graduation um and we'll collect some additional information you know from from those students and then if we what we're trying to do for the Perkins um report is collect responses from 65% of our graduates. So that's the that's the marker that we're looking for. Um and so we use a variety of different methods. Um the most successful that's been in the past has now been our connected call. Um so that goes out to all of our graduates. Um and they'll they'll respond in that way. Um and so really and then

070it then it comes down to like cold calling and we will um you know leverage our our lead teachers. Sometimes they make the call, like I said, the the teachers who who apply for the statement, they'll work to to make the calls and um we just try to make those connections with families and get in touch with our graduates um and and find out what what they're doing um so where they're working um and and whether it's aligned to, you know, what the career path they were in when they were here or have they gone on to, you know, get additional um you know, education. um are they enrolled in the military? Um so so that's how we so it's a it's a it's a very um cyclical process. It takes um Susan's a part

071of it as well. Um so it takes takes a month or so um to connect with as many students as we can please. Thanks for So how far is this just um the most recent year or how far back have you gone so that you can make a comparison? So go back to that slide. There you go. So this is the data over the last five years. So this is five five cycles. Um so back to 2020. Um Perkins changed in 2020 uh the way that they're reporting. Um we can within our portal go back um to 2018. we have that data that's in the desi portal. It doesn't quite report the same way. Um, so we have these five five cycles that are are are pretty consistent comparisons, but it's based on how many

072people students. Oh, it's always 65% of the graduates. How how much? 65% each year is what we're trying to to connect with in the way that I described. Susan, do you want to No, I think you did a wonderful job explaining it and and I think it's also that's exactly the issue that um Lauren's even bringing me into it because grants and everything that has to do with programming um is integrated so that I'm working on the grant side of it of writing the grants and managing the grants which is Perkins um but there's reporting to be done and of course program implementation. And so we work together on these things. So you know what percentage we obtained this year in reporting did we just over 65% just Mr. Jones had my questions Mr. No,

073I just want to comment on uh in these 14 15 years I've been in this row. This is the first time we brought a team together to talk about their work and emphasize uh what they do, what they've been doing all year. And what I uh really is impressive, I think, is that you have a team that support and work together and collaborate really well together. And that kind of collaboration and work will present great results for us over in the future and even this year and it's like anything else I think they've built solid foundation in which to continue to work. uh you know they've talked about a lot of the data the very basic data that now they have that starting point of uh what to work from in terms of where we

074this year and where what what are the outcomes we're looking for and we can you'll see I I would that my uh career that you're going to see a growth in student performance if we continue this kind of work and continue having a team that works like this together. So really I'm 100% believer in that. One of the most impressive things about their work this year that I think has played paid huge dividends is the learning walk. So when you have they're out and about the school a lot and they're out working together and and talking about what they're seeing. So they're they see different things. They get to talk about what the value of what they saw was. And then the other great thing about that is they're building relationships. They're building relationships with

075teachers. teachers building trust and building collaboration with teachers that they feel comfortable talking to their uh supervisors in a way for we want to learn from them and that they bring feedback to us that makes us better as a teacher and I think that's the important role that administrators play and so it's their work is to support and help teachers become the best they can be. It really does start with professionals who know what we're where we're trying to go and what we want teachers to be able to do and that's the work they do and that no one has done this year I've ever worked in terms of and I don't and I truly say that from a place that has worked with administrators my whole life. So thank you for your support. Yeah.

076Thank you for giving us the space to to do what we need to do. I'm going to add a little bit to that. I know we've taken away from your families from you being here and your in your life and I'm actually very impressed that Mr. Jackson the principal is sitting behind you or sitting alongside of you uh speaking up for you. Mr. Lloyd, the superintendent always keeps us surprised of all these things, but I would rather hear from you guys to be honest with you. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Yeah, we're always excited to talk about our work and the kids and everything. Thank you. I do want to introduce Sulano. Oh, do I need to disconnect? Director of grants, but she's far more than that. Tyler

077says she's director of grant workforce development. And what does that really mean? Well, if you look at, you know, particularly the last 10 years where we were 10 years ago with work development, where we are today, we 10 12 years ago, we had zero workforce development programs. Today, we have probably the most in the Commonwealth of any vocational school. And that is so important. Why is it so important? Because we have the highest one of the highest unemployment in the state. And so what we do for workforce development and her work in particular, she is the one that gets the grants and helps develop all the coursework and hiring the teachers, working with industry to find out what the real skills that are necessary, what kind of program should we be offering, working with the

078state to get the funding. All of that is having a huge positive impact on our community. That's what we at GLTS is all about, training, preparing people for the workforce. And that's a big part of what we do. And I don't think that the public understands or realizes that work that we do there. And so it's making a impact in that. You'll see that every program we run. So if we run a 250 or 350 hour program when they finish, we Susan always has a graduation party for them. And uh and it gives us a chance. First, I get to speak at every one of these. She invites me to speak. And I love speaking at them because you're seeing adults with their families and the difference it's going to make in their lives and

079the work that they've now trained for something new in their life and they have new opportunities. So we've trained hundreds of people uh in these programs and that the trajectory of that and the success of that. A lot of that is owed to the work that Susan's done here. So I thank her for that. Well, you're welcome and thank you for having me here today. Um, as John introduced me, my name is Susan Almano and um, I'm the director of grants and workforce development and um, I'm here to talk to you today about a specific initiative that we're starting, but I want everybody to also see the connection. You know, as John said, I'm workforce development for adults, but also workforce development in terms of looking at the economy and where is our economy going

080and making sure that not only that we're training adults for that, but also um looking for funding to help us train and looking at how we can use funding for our high school program as well. and everything that we heard from our administrators. Again, it's working as a team to make sure that we're preparing students academically and in the technical skills for the economy of the future. And so that's really what we're here to talk about today. It's that um we're starting an initiative that's a clean energy um career technical education program. And we have a big vision for it. Um, it's to make GLTS the number one public technical high school in Massachusetts in preparing our students and our area residents for clean energy technical careers. And then a goal that's a little bit

081smaller um is to make sure that our students and our adult learners are aware of clean energy careers. They master the concepts and the technologies in the their CTE area and that they prepare to um pursue clean energy employment. after graduation. And um go on to the next slide there. And so the thing about it is is that um you know we we don't do this just out of the blue. It's because um there's all kinds of guiding documents and programs in our state that are helping us see that there is um at least in our state um a clean energy economy of the future and we don't want to leave our students out. So for example, there is a Massachusetts 2050 decarbonization roadmap and in that road roadmap put out by the state um

082they are setting things in place to um reduce emissions as low as possible by 2050 and then those that they can't um remove um they have different ways to absorb emissions and they're looking at um a couple different sectors to do that. the building sector, transportation, non-energy emissions, and also carbon sequestration and all of those areas of moving forward to lower emissions. They're technical careers. There's a lot of technical work in those. And um also, I think everybody's familiar with the incentives that we have in our state. First, of course, the mass save program um that's really driving a lot of employment um in energy efficiency and in heat pumps. And then you might not know that um just being rolled out right now there's a program called Renew right here in Lawrence Andover in

083North Andover. This is a program that's funded with um money from the fine on Columbia Gas after the gas explosions. And this is funding to for families with 120% of um median income and lower to receive solar panels, heat pumps, um what we call barrier removal, and um energy efficiency measures like insulation for free. So there's millions of dollars for that right now in our area. So again, it's looking at how we can connect um our students and the employment opportunities that are happening right now and over the next years. So um there's let's go on to the next one. And then there's also um the Mass Clean Energy Center put out a clean energy workforce needs assessment. Let's go to the next one. and um they talk in that report about how to make

084sure that we're prepared for this clean energy future in our schools. We need to be doing clean energy career awareness. Um we need greater training capacity. We have to make sure that this training is available for everybody. And 65% of the jobs that are becoming available are in 20 occupations that are mostly technical areas. And we want to make sure that we're designing this for our region. And um even fossil fuel workers um there's not going to be a lot of displacement at this point. And we don't really have that in our area, but it's another area that they mentioned in the report. Yeah. Go ahead. And um what we're looking at is just oh between now and 2030 there's an expectation that um clean energy workers will grow by about 30%. So that's significant.

085Um let's go to the next slide. And you can see that here in our region what we're looking at is um a growth of 20% between now and 2030 28%. And the jobs that are mostly growing are things like electricians, solar installers, construction workers, um operations managers. Um you can see for yourself a lot of those are the jobs that we train for. The last one there is HVAC installed. So you know looking that's just again the four pillars of of where the state is working in in decarbonizing the economy. Again, just looking at all of those areas are um things that we train in transportation, energy efficiency, clean energy, carbon sequestration. Yeah. Go ahead. So, I want to tell you about again um my work is a lot of grants and this kind of

086work is not something that we can do without additional funding. So, I want to tell you about the funding that we brought in and how we're incorporating that into our programs to be able to help our students learn about these careers and prepare. So, we did win a million dollars from um the Mary Mel Renewal Fund, which is administered by the Attorney General's office, and that is again the funding that came from a fine on Colombia gas after the 2018 gas explosions. And so what we're doing with that funding is career awareness on clean energy careers integrated into the career readiness program that um Lauren was talking about as well as um you know we have a lot of curriculum development that needs to be done and and it's not so much that we are

087going to develop all kinds of new curriculum because all of our trades it's the you still need the basic skills but having an orientation understanding how a clean energy career is also integrated into that technical area. For example, um as you know, we have a hybrid and electric vehicle um wing on our automotive shop. Well, let's make sure that when back when we're learning about car batteries and things like that, let's make sure that we have curriculum integrated in at that point about electric vehicle batteries. So, we're looking at things like that just to make sure that um these concepts are in our curriculum. We also have funding in this grant for a wage reimbursement program for our graduates um so that as they leave GLTS, there's funding available for clean energy employers to uh

088hire our students and have the first three months paid for. And lastly, we don't feel like we want to do this all on our own. there's funding to get guidance from industry experts and um a project management facilitator to help us move all these pieces forward at the same time. So, that's what we're doing with that funding. And then also we received a $750,000 um clean energy equipment grant from the Mass Clean Energy Energy Center that we're going to use in our new barn building to be able to set the equipment up so that all of our different shops will be able to go and um learn about the different new technologies. We we're putting geothermal heating in there. Um trainers in wind, solar, geothermal, and heat pump technology. and also u more trainers in

089heat in also heat pump technology. And we're also looking at this funding will be used for a model home where it'll be a hands-on um place for our students. You know, they go out and every year they're building a home. This will be with all high performance building standards. So, they'll be able to learn that and uh construct and deconstruct so that we'll be able to use this building over and over. as well as there's funding for solar panels and um we also want to make sure that there is equal access to clean energy careers. So that really goes on to talking about our adult learners and we do have funding available for um we've run two cohorts so far so far on solar installer technical training. We're coming up on building maintenance technician training

090which relates to how buildings are now operated which is everything's automated and so it's a very different way of operating buildings. So we're helping our um adults look at that and start on that career pathway and we there's continue to be funding available. So we have also submitted additional um grant proposals to help upgrade our building and our heating system. um especially for our pool and our new cafeteria area to heat that area with heat pumps and not need to use our large gas boilers. Um and we've also submitted for another grant to continue doing solar training. Um and the thing is that we do have more grant opportunities available to be able to when there is um equipment missing or extra training that's needing needed, we'll be able to do that as well. Um,

091so I just wanted to let you know all the different things that we're doing to um integrate clean energy careers into our um day program and into our building. um you know it's a it's an issue of not just um for example doing the curriculum but it's also doing the career awareness making sure that we have the right equipment and making sure that our teachers are up to speed with everything as well. Um, so that that's what we're trying to do with all of these different funding sources and connecting with employers because in the final analysis, what we're looking for is to help our students um get employed in this um changing economy that we're in. So, thank you. So I do want to mention that uh I think the clean energy center sees us

092as one of the leading uh trainers and becoming quickly one of the experts in clean energy uh arena. So last week the clean energy center did a summit where they've invited over 250 experts in the construction industry, clean energy industry and Susan was one of the keynote speakers of that because of the work that we've done and the respect that clean energy center has for the school and footwork the relationship building that has gone on over the last three or four years with them. uh they asked her they invited her to be uh keynote speaker at that summit last week. So goes to show you that uh how important this work is extremely important to us that it impacts every one of our our careers careers here at GLTS and we just want to make

093sure kids are well prepared to to uh for the future in this particular area. Any other questions? So, I'd like to thank you very much again. It's good to hear from you. Know we've been a long one question. So, before you leave and I know it's going to be a big number because you do a fantastic job for us. Can you tell us how much grant money you brought in this year and name the program fiscal or or calendar? Okay. Well, I say fiscal year. Give me a synopsis. I want I do know and I just want everybody else to I would have to go back and look. It's that you know our grants. So our grants are are in different categories. One thing we have the entitlement grants that um Melissa was talking about

094that are audited every year. And so that's grants. They call it entitlement grants because it comes to our our school. Um we just have to put in the application and we will receive it. So that's probably about a million dollars right there. And then we also have grants that are um you're going to call the skills capital grants and those are ones for um infrastructure. It's building or equipment. And so this year we were disappointed. We only brought in 750. Um the previous our previous grant was 4 million. Um so you know it depends and I can't remember we have other so other equipment grants like I mentioned the 750. Um, and then there's a number of grants that are for our um, day program and I work very collaboratively with all our other administrators

095to get those applications in. And I'd say that's probably a couple hundred thousand every year. And then the workforce development grants, you know, we probably it's a million dollars that we bring in a year. And, you know, it depends. Sometimes there's more funding. I mean, when there was ESSER funding, our last ESSER grant was $4 million. Um, but you know, so I've been working on grants here for about five years. And and I think that um being successful in um grant applications, what it's really all about is a team that executes, a team that can make it happen. That is what funders are looking for. And so that we have a fiscal office that can keep track of those funds down to the penny and that's what funders want to see. We have a team

096that can make funding comes in and we use it. We use it as we say we're going to do it. And so that's why over the last five years we brought in at least 20 million. I'd say a lot of money at least we I think it's a lot of money. Um, but it's an issue of of GLTS is very well respected. We do what we say we're going to do and so that's why we're successful. We just wanted to congratulate Susan because she had the after dark uh graduation ceremony last week. So, um, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend that. How many graduates did you have? We had 56. 56. Um, it was great. So, you know, the students were there and their families. representatives from all the sending um districts

097and it was great to see the excitement and just you can see the connection with the students who are graduating and the the CTE teachers. It was it was pretty amazing. So, right and that's a it's a great thing that our school can offer the afterdark program again because we're as Sean was talking about expanding access to the community. You know, we all know that there's such a waiting list for ninth graders to come into school. Well, what can we do to make technical education available for more students? Well, the after dark program does it. That's for 11th and 12th graders to come from our sending schools and they're here from 3 to 5:30. So, that that's one way and it was a fun graduation. It's very nice. Susan oversees that program. She the director

098of the after dark program. So it's another big hat that she wears day in there which is no easy development is a big deal which no it's no easy task and you're talking about seven seven technical programs with you know kids from our all of our sending high schools and they come with all kinds of skills and knowledge and drives and motivation some not so much motivation but you would be amazed when you see the kids how engaged they are how much they love and I have the super I remember calling superintendent last week uh for a meeting to figure out other ways to expand access to vocational education. We're looking at two other possible type programs which the state has uh said find some other programming. We're looking at funding which in fact the

099state has put $100 million into this year's budget uh which is going to committee for Frank Mar put in u to help fund new vocational programs. Uh but that after dark program is just one of those programs that allows us to provide access. But we're always looking for more ways because we know how important it is to help kids who don't have a career and want to have that opportunity. So we we look for every way we can make that happen soon. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. All right, Mr. Superintendent. Summer projects going to give us an update. Well, in terms of summer project, we have a few going on that we know of at this point. There will probably be more to come across the table before get to the summer. Right

100now, we're going to be uh putting in uh four new classrooms into the facility. Uh different areas of the school uh that have become either vacant or available. Uh we're going to transition them into classrooms. One of the classroom is actually going to be space that the maintenance department owns. We're going to turn a part of that space where they have storage and we're going to uh convert some of that uh into a classroom. Then we have three classrooms going in where the freshman aviation program was. Uh so we're going to be building which is right via the new uh cafeteria. Three new classrooms going in there because we're bringing in some new staff. We do need uh some new classrooms. So uh that will be one of our projects. Uh we um we'll be

101completing the new cafeteria this summer. Uh Lance has been uh putting together all the subcontractors and uh we're as soon as school gets out ready to to uh go to town and get it done, which includes opening up the road and putting in sewer lines and uh gas lines and water lines. Uh so we expect that to be uh operating when school opens up. Uh we're going to the uh we have uh the completion of the clean energy research and training barn which is the big barn that we you see that's in the back of the building um which has a geothermal heating system but because of the work we're doing around clean energy. We need a space in which to put all the new equipment, trainers uh and a place where all the u

102construction team uh chops can come in and work together as a team learning a lot of those new uh techniques working as a team not just individually. And so that'll be a space uh which will be this first of its kind in Massachusetts which we're really excited about uh because that will be the the foundation for continued work around clean energy training again just and along with uh a new you uh heard that we're also doing a u high performance uh mark house on the lot on our property uh which will which we're working with a a specialist a company out of Newton who has who will be our consultant on this project. Uh will be the latest technology in high performance houses. everything from the u mechanical to the actual construction of the frame

103uh weatherization uh which will be in uh uh the uh installation of the new theories and things that they learn in the barn to actually apply it on a real project uh will happen with that particular building. Uh then we're also upgrading our fire alarm system uh throughout the school this summer. Uh uh we are replacing some of our rooftop HVAC unit controls about half of them. We're doing half of them this summer uh that are in dire need of replacing. Uh we're also uh the IT department is replacing about 130 Wi-Fi routers throughout the school which we purchased uh earlier this year uh from f from our federal uh funds. Um um rate. We get a pay rate uh every three years. We get close to several million dollars in pay rate money because

104of our uh we have so many low income students and that money goes towards technology. It's funds that uh you know when you pay electric billing you always have to pay a little more for government use. Well, that's where that money goes to. Phone, electricity, and other utilities pay into that fund and and that fund uh we capture some of that money. Uh we qualify for some of that money. We take advantage of all that money uh to upgrade technology. Uh so we use utilize some of that money because we're in dire need of upgrading our Wi-Fi routers because it's not keeping it's not does not have the latest technology to connect with other hardware that we have in our network system. [Music] Um and I think those are the main projects that we'll uh

105be embarking on along with a list of about 30 pages of ticket items that Lance has gotten. everything from painting to upgrading some electricity, electrical work and changing and putting in some new uh TVs and monitors and stuff like that. So, we'll have a lot going on this summer as we do every year. Any questions? Any questions, Mr. Superintendent? Please just I just want to ask about this room going back to the main because this is very uncomfortable and we haven't had any not so um what's going on with that? Yeah. So the reason we haven't gone back to that room yet is we we are waiting to move the camera. The camera needs to be moved to the side because of the lighting. Uh, and we hired a company to do that and they

106haven't come out yet to do that. Uh, they're on our they are expecting to start soon, but they haven't done it yet. That's what's keeping us from using that space because we can't we can't stream out that easily without because the camera that we utilize for is at the very top at the end of the building. I mean, at the end of the room, which the lights are in the way. So, we're moving into the to the left side. And so, we're waiting for that. The company that installs it to come and reinstall. That's so we used to have meetings in another room and then we couldn't I mean that one is better this is very crowded and people are uncomfortable even presenting and everything and we've been this thing too long already where not

107even an update so we could move to 709 at the committee would prefer to meet in that room which is the room that we need more space we have the cameras so They'll be they won't be mounted, but they'll be we could bring in a couple of uh TVs on carts. We could bring a couple TVs on carts. The quality may not be quite as good, but we could do that. I don't know how sound would be, but yeah, we can we can move to 79, but eventually we will be back for eventually we'll be back in four. So, no dates yet. We don't know. Well, we next meeting put in 709. Sure. All s any other questions? Can I throw one in? Where are we going to fit a mock house? We're out of

108room here. Where would you put a mock house? Oh, you know where um where the shot put uh the new shot put uh area is outside the tennis court when you go No. Yeah. up to the left of the tennis courts when you're going up into the new baseball field. Right to the right of that there's uh you'll see there's a some block that has sand and right to the right of that there's a that's where the where the house is going where the jungle where the uh they say jungle gym there jungle gym used to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's going right there. Telephone poles and y one other question. Are we confident we'll be done all of this for the summer? I feel returning. Well, I feel confident we'll have the barn and

109the and the two most important build. The most important is the uh classroom cafeteria and classroom. Yes, we're actually going to be starting classroom work before we've got a u uh HAC unit uh an air exchanger in that space right now and we're waiting for the have the HVAC company that we're hiring to come in and remove it so then we can go ahead and start the renovations in that space. But that's the only thing holding us up. Both back one. There's one in the cafeteria and there's one in the in where we're putting in the classroom. So, we got to get those two things removed and then we can go count both spaces. But we plan on doing that hopefully before you know early June and start some of that work. Anything else, Mr.

110Jones? The energy house u said deconstruct. How much it's going to be on a foundation? Yes. How much deconstruction do you go in reverse for the next year? How much? How how much deconstruction do you do of that house for the next year's training? Oh, they'll be mostly interior uh re redesigning the interior and the weatherization work and everything and some of the siding work. So, that'll change. And then uh periodically we'll do uh one one wall section where we're going to frame differently each year so that we can take collect data and see what the impact on different kinds of insulation are from one uh system to another. So that'll be an ongoing uh learning tool. Okay. Because it's a learning tool, it still has to be inspected. Oh yes. Every time it's taken

111apart back. Yes. Every time. Yeah. which will be another learning experience for the kids to have the inspector come out and uh and then of course the drawings be different every year so the kids will be able to uh utilize the drawing. So one of the major uh important aspects of this particular project is is the use of uh blueprints for each student will have their own blueprint. Each student is going to be expected to work from a blueprint uh which as you know is one of the key skills that is so critically important when they go to work for a contractor like yourself to be able to read print and understand pull material off that print. So that's one of the one of the uh advantages in this particular project is we're going to

112have every student has their own print. will be working from a a print desk consistent both for electricians, plumbers, and they'll be able to see their own symbols and how that applies to their own career area, their own uh trade. Okay. What grade level will the house be for? Uh 11th through 12th. Okay. So, will that replace the house building program offsite in the future? Yeah. Yeah. So, the house building off site, which we do with the great large resolve loan fund, uh is looking to close shop. They want to build house. They don't want to do that partnership anymore. Uh the bankers and the people that are on that committee. Uh so, we'll still be building houses for the Andover Community Trust. So when we have uh when they have a lot we have

113house build that's where we'll be doing our actual offsite house construction. Okay. Yeah. They had pretty high standards I recall. Yes. Y thank you. Anybody else? Good. Uh graduation update Mr. So you heard the graduation update from the students earlier. The only thing I want to uh uh bring to mind on that is that everyone's invited to the uh four wins for a lunchon at 5:00 for an hour before graduation. I just want to remind everybody that I don't think it was in your invite, but Susan's going to send out an invitation to everybody for something to drink like we do every year. uh perform guest speaker and I guess your wives or your husbands are invited to come as well or if you want to bring a friend. Thank you. Skills USA. We also

114invite for that lunch and we invite guest speakers. I mean, the guests that are on the stage here, the mayor, some of our representatives, anyone who says they'll be coming, they're also invited to the lunch. I'm sorry. Skills update. So, you got a skills update from the students. Again, another thing I I uh I do want to uh emphasize that the success from Skills USA uh really starts with the instructors uh into the program first encouraging students to participate because the more students you have, more likely put you're going to have your best student participating and then working with them once uh the student that they've selected to represent their shop. uh then has to do month a couple months of preparation working at uh being with their teacher working at school also doing some

115work during uh school time. The one thing we emphasize is that Skills USA uh doesn't replace curriculum. So they they still focus on their regular curriculum. So any preparation for Skills USA for the most part happens after school. saw those teachers work with the students. We had a a really successful uh showing this year. Um and a lot of that contributed to that that factoriness and students that are trying to get our best students to participate. One of the challenges a lot of times the seniors who are your best students, they're out on call and they don't really want to get involved. also encouraging kids and getting them involved at a young age keeps them active and interested throughout their career here. So, and then uh last Friday we had a uh we had a

116superintendent lunch and for all the medal winners and their teachers in the four points just to for thank you and uh also to honor their accomplishments. Okay, superintendent's goals. We have a handout. So, I'm just going to give you the handouts for my goals. You can read through them. Uh, and then we can talk about it next week. I mean, our next meeting. And I'm also going to send you packet. That's right. That's just what I gave you last time. These are the reports. Here you go. You want to touch on this real quick? Uh, I just broke it down. There was two goals there and I uh highlighted the things that uh that I worked on with particularly with our administrative team and some of some of the results of that work and the

117impact which you heard some of it tonight from the administrative team uh the impact of that work and and so any questions and we can talk about it at meeting when you have a chance to review it. Everybody has a copy. Everybody has a copy. And I I'm going to send you also I'll email you some um uh evidence uh documents that support what I have on this page here. I'll email that to you uh between now and next week. Any questions there? I think there's a packet for evaluation. So you have in your packet the same form we've used in the past for my evaluation for uh each of you to complete and um submit to I think we submitted to the chair last year and then the chair um Susan usually then collects

118them all to make sure we have them all and then she does the tally which if the committee could with that we do the same thing this year. Um, can we perhaps give everybody a seal envelope if they're turning it over to me? I want to see what's we'll uh we'll get that out. Any questions on that? Yeah, if you have any questions on anything, feel free to call myself. Um, and there's nothing on the end of the page here, but the only thing I would say is feel free to add any specific comments you want to any one of these standards on separate document if you'd like questions. Sure. When are the evaluations due? I think so. Uh, typically by if you can get them to Susan a couple days before the last meeting,

119then she can do all the tasking and get it back to the committee to review. We want the information before the last meeting so we don't have to call another meeting to go over all this compile information time for the next meeting. Our next meeting is what the 17th 20th that should be enough time for us. Oh yeah. The next meeting is on the 20th. Y 17th 17th. Yeah, that's Tuesday, right? Yeah. So, have they been sent out to everyone yet or no? Have the evaluation forms been sent out to us? Um, you want if you want to do it online, we can send it to you electronically or you can uh we'll send you out We'll email you or you can use the form that's in here if you would prefer. Uh or we

120can send it to you electronically if you prefer to do that. Really to electronically so you can do it right on the form. We'll send it to you so that then you can go type whatever you want to type. Okay. In fact, I was looking at I was looking at the form today. Type print and put it in the envelope. type print or just send it back. Send it back on her form. She sent me. So either way, I'm going to email everybody because I was just looking at the form before it came in and there's not a lot of moving typically space make comments if you want. So I'm going to send you form gives you more space. You can either do a comment or type it out and hand it. I mean, print

121it out and handright comments. Why don't you put a date on that when it has to be I'll get it out. We'll get it out to you tomorrow. Okay. So, you like to send back by the 12th days. Put a date on the paper. Make sure. Yeah. I'll put that I'll put it on there tomorrow. I'll get it out to you tomorrow. All right. Any other questions on that? out of state travel. Miss Mary McConian athletic director will travel to the National Athletics Association Trainers Association I think right? Yes. Clinical symposium in Orlando Florida June 19th through the 28th. Uh 2025 June 19th is a holiday. Total estimated expenses is 170765. The paperwork is attached and the out of state form has been filled out. Um, can I have a motion on that please? This

122is a yearly seminar for our athletics. Okay. Can I get a motion please? I'll make a motion for myself. Can I get a second? Second by Mrs. Harris. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Second one is for two teachers. Mrs. Brook Le, Miss Allison Lor and student just Lisa Sanchez will travel to Skills USA National Leadership and Skills Conference on June 23rd to June 28th, 2025 being held in Atlanta, Georgia. Total estimated expenses is $7,875. I have the paperwork that has been filled out. There two teachers and a student signatures on. Can I have a motion to accept this? Can I get a second, please? Second. Any discussion? Is this the students competing or this just a seminar? This is a skills conference. So I would say it's a seminar. Okay.

123Any further discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? The national She made it to national. So it's not the medical student. Yeah, that's a it's not just it's not a conference. No competition, but they do some they do some learning things too. Not this not this particular event but some events, right? So that's why the students going there'll be some problem. And if I'm not mistaken, that that young lady has a long history of family coming to the school from when it was all health. Okay. Yeah. That name I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Yeah. Like decades. Okay. Moving along. What's the committee? Old business person school psychologist effective 63025. That's a visitation. Miss Jillian Shannon, health assistant instructor effective 63025. Also another resentation of absence. None retirements. We got a hold on that

124one. So there's none. None. and job [Music] postings agenda items. Can I get a motion to enter the executive session? All right. Did the second any discussion on that before? All those in favor? Opposed? Can we take a five minute break before we go