001Oscar get started i' like to call the meeting to order please please stand for uh the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence I pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America to the stands one nation indice uh please stay standing for a moment of silence um I'd just like you to join me in a moment of silence for a great friend of glts methan Mayor Neil Perry who passed away on Saturday he was a great friend to the school thank you roll call Su I mean uh CH please miss Barris here miss dla presid Mr Jones here Mr Mia present Mr Tabo Mr haam motion to approve the minutes of August 20th can I get a motion to approve the minutes of a August 20th please I'll make a motion to approve
002minutes second sh Mr toox M Ferris yes Miss dler yes Mr Jones yes Mr Mahia yes Mr haum yes cash balance report uh Mr Deano do you need a minute uh actually I don't um I think I'm all set thank you thank you uh cash balance report as of July 31st 2024 the account balance on June 30th was 1, 9333 in your packet you'll see a 2 million number that actually should have been part of the deposits so that number is um 3,177 14556 there's no transfer we in uh less payroll on July 3rd um for 45846 32 payroll on July 18th of 337 607766 16th 2, 338 56271 and warrant number 2 on July 30th of 86118 18028 leaves us with a GL balance at the end of July of to with a corresponding
003bank balance on the same day of 2,481 900 spot 54 in our mmdt account we had 4, 5755 interest for the month of 20483 13 and an ending balance balance of 4,345 0 um and a total operating cash balance of 5, 23054 thank you Mr DFO can I get uh a motion to accept the uh cash balance report please motion to accept any discussion sure Mr toox yes M Ferris yes M dler yes Mr Jones yes Mr Mahia yes Mr ha yes the finance report Consolidated cash it a packet any questions on that the revolving fund informational no vote um that's a packet any questions on that thank you budget transfers M Martel there's a few budget transfers um the first one was to move funding for Northeast Ark which was um a company that
004provided one to1 nursing services and the district decided to hire the internal LPN so I moved the funding um for that to the appropriate lines the next one was to add a line for nurse substitutes we didn't have a specified line for them we had to transfer from equipment to textbooks for a new medical assisting text that aligns with their Frameworks and certification exam and the last one was a transfer um from out of District placements to um assistive and inst structional uh needs for curriculum any questions on that can I throw one question in there on that page one it says guidance professional salaries can you explain that um so there was a little extra funding so I moved it uh to cover some additional costs we had for guidance counselors who work for
005DM days um over the summer so it's not contractual but it is past practice and I think they they can work up to five additional days so I put a note in the budget going forward so we make sure we have funding to cover that should we have a number in the uh budget for next year for that y I put a note in there for next year y okay thank you please it says buing homeless [Music] 300,000 you're just looking at the the regular budget yeah it's did you say busing homeless yes yep so we have some homeless students and the district has to provide transportation for them transfers right um it depends on where the student is coming from but we we add a line in the budget to make sure we we
006can transport them they come with in the full not NE I mean they not necessarily if they were within the four communities typically they could take our regular busing but um homeless students can be placed outside of the force sending districts yes yeah every every District um has to provide transportation student if the student has a a right to finish their their education you know where they where they started it so I'll need a motion for the uh approved I'm sorry go ahead I'm forgive me on on the um the transfers U medical Subs can I have a page in yeah it's um it's on the it's on the budget transfer transfer yeah one on the budget do we not have teachers there or is it so they wanted align just for nurse Subs so
007I took some of the The Substitute money from I I budget for all subs I I didn't break it out before but they requested to have a line specifically for nurse sub so I just made a breakout so we differentiate between regular day teacher subs and nurse hubs and Marie you all set y thank you Mr I just want to follow up on the same question and I understand what you said but um so this is now from now on that line is going to be on the trans if it's more transfer it's going to be um because two different accounts so can you talk into the mic please I'm sorry I thought I was talking on the microphone I couldn't hear you now I am I'm old thank you okay got it thank you
008okay so I just fore clarification on that medical s you you explained that you added that line as a request so that it's now it's more specific that this money is going into a sub directly medical right somebody you know we have a nurse and that's a substitute for the regular nurse so that's going to show on their different department now for now on that line okay yes got it thank you El can I have a motion to uh approve the budget transfers please discussion Mr Mahia yes Mr toox Miss Ferris yes Miss dler yes Mr Jones yes Mr Hayden this is budget calendar for FY 26 school year um it's in your packet is there any questions on that timeline see none do I have a motion to accept please make motion to accept
009the budget calendar as described discussion call a vote Please Mr Jones yes Mr Mahia yes Mr TX yes M Baris yes Miss tler yes Mr Hayden yes donations I don't see any donations Communications report you have an article in there from the Tribune on our football team on on our athletes uh from the eagle tribia public participation I see none and at this time I'm going to pause the meeting uh the superintendent's running a few minutes late he should be here within 10 minutes uh so at this time I'd like to hold a meeting all in favor motion to recess second all in favor say I anybody opposed thank you very much a good thing going there you'll be up when the superintendent comes okay e e e I'd like to call us back to
010order please at this time uh the superintendent has arrived so we can uh pick up what we left off at this time uh School website update Mr Victor woodr our director of it and uh superintendent lvo will update us the committee on the school website it's in your packet yeah so for uh for most of you probably have never met Victor before but Victor is our director of it and uh oversees the IT department and uh he's been he's uh as of well has worked last year with the principal on the website and has basically taken over over that project and he's going to give you a report on uh where we're at with uh getting the new website uh where we're at in terms of the progress and uh about how long it'll be
011before we can put it online okay thank you thank you sir I bring you greetings on behalf of the highly skilled and dedicated individuals of the great all Lawrence Tech information technology department as part of our project our major project over the summer in rejuvenating our website which is now 10 years old a lot of work I should say the majority of the work was placed in trying to update the content and devise a means through which we can keep the content up to dat so just going to advance here so here's our existing website it's a little over 10 years old now it's not a bad looking website though we're just going to modernizing a little bit so in working with our new website company which is final site uh final site has acquired
012our existing hosting provider which is Blackboard in a major acquisition about 2 years ago so as part of that acquisition we now have to migrate or transfer the plat uh I should say all of our content onto their platform which they're currently assisting us with so what I'm going to show you now is an early design template of where we're heading it's not definitive yet or finalized um we actually have a a formal meeting with the design company on October 2nd but they just wanted to give us a concept that we could present to the board to the committee excuse me so in looking at this I just want to go back I just want to give you a little little time to look at that could everyone see that okay um so in looking
013at this I'm just going to go back for a moment so again this isn't a bad looking website but more modern sites so when you look at the center of it you'll see that the you can see the property and that big picture and bringing that forward what we do or what we did was we shrank that a bit and what that allowed us to do and again sort to be all over the place I just want you to be able to see this you see how large the picture is and then if you look down you'll see the content buttons like the functionality buttons are in orange below the picture that could be a little inconvenient so in order to modernize that we brought the buttons up uh minimize the overall length of the
014picture and again just make it up more contemporary modern design uh again this is a very early design templates so just ignore the the text if you will though something to consider as well and I'm just going to advance forward another slide this goes far beyond the actual website this is more thinking or thinking how we actually communicate with our students and families so to that end what we're talking about here is a platform it's not just going to a website to view content we're talking about I'm just going to advance one because there another major aspect of this project is an app so students will be able to install the app un authenticate through their Google uh Gmail account which is provided through the district and from there they'll be able to do amazing
015things they'll be able to communicate with their teachers or or guidance counselors via chat um in addition to that let's say if School uh Mr Lavoy had to cancel school due to snow or in climate conditions they would receive a push notification through the app kind of like if you order um on Uber Eats or GrubHub and their drivers about to deliver your food you don't have to go to Uber eats.com to check the status of your order you get notifications through the app so it'll be um just as dynamic as that and then also for our ESL families for um Spanish speaking or Creel speaking families they'll receive those apps in their language so when you log into the app you'll choose your language preference and then you'll receive all notifications and Communications from
016The District in that language that's a major part of the project as well and now in addition to that this also integrates functionality again let's say if Mr Lavoy had to cancel school due to in climate weather they would receive a push notification through the app they would receive a phone call or they could receive um um a text message and you could opt into which one You' prefer that way you're not overwhelmed with um with Communications if that makes sense um do anyone have any questions can I oh sorry quick question all this texting it's all recorded through the school website everything is recorded yes thank you may yes so that in accordance with archiving and so on absolutely they'll be recorded um as far as timeline so we have our our kickoff call
017with the designers on October uh the 2nd and they assure us that we can get this wrapped up before the end of the calendar year so the goal is to have this I should say um if we could present something to the committee in a November meeting um just so that we could see it and we'll be ready to go for um implementation in the month of December any questions please Mr Vice chair so how is the the data in terms of conversations that are being held between parents the teachers and the students how is that going to be stored it's an encrypted through the school so so it is going to be encrypted it'll be encrypted the good thing about it though it's not it's a great question it won't be stored on District
018servers everything's contained within the platform so let's say God forbid if there were an incident that required us to um um produce those records we we'd be able to do so through the pl through the platform and how long is that data going to be stored for do you know I'll have to get back to I believe it' be a few years in accordance I can get back to and and the the chats is it just parents teachers and students or is it guidance counselors administrators how's that going it'd be a question technically they'd be able to chat with anyone it's just a question of how we would implement it thank you any further questions the chat is does it only work during daytime School hours no sorry oh no sir it would be all
019the time that could be all the time else Mr superintendent you want to uh finish up anything no I'm good Victor thank you very much for coming we really appreciate seeing you I told uh told you earlier I didn't recognize you without your hat please where you hat next time thank you for coming thank you next up is school projects uh Lance Hamill is unable to be with us today he's uh at the airport Mr Lavoy will take it over get my computer for right so um right now we are our uh first big project our first project that uh we're looking at right now is the uh Aviation building one which is the uh building that about $560,000 uh they are now they've poured the foundation on that particular building and we start erecting
020the steel next week where they'll start putting up steel columns and um after that they'll put in the uh web trusses uh which will really get the project on the go but I have a couple pictures here I can show you of the foundation oh you can see uh the rebar and the foundation um that is where we're at right now can see that um Notch there is where one of the steel columns will go up where the the two Bolt the four bolts are sticking up in the middle there um and that real nice safe looking ramp they got going over there uh then what you're looking at here is um we had a change order uh from the town request uh requiring us to put a pump in for the Sor line uh
021was after the fact I think I might have talked about it that the pump is right here this particular uh I don't know if you can see that but that pump uh was a change order for the project of about $150,000 so it was substantial change that the town required us to do um you can see where this where the shorelines coming into the building there uh up there it is there right right in there that's a huge pump that's inside there where the sore will uh the seage will come in and then get pumped out out of the building um so so that building uh right now that building scheduled they uh the uh calendar uh shows that that building should be done the end of January completed by the end of January uh
022we had to uh put in a uh request with the the state and the and the federal government for an extension on that Grant because uh in order to have more time so both the state on our skills capital and the uh on our S Grant both uh approved us to move the uh extension till uh June 2025 uh the funding will uh hold until then so that's where the funding for that project's coming from about 2 million from the skills capital and about 2 A2 million coming from the uh uh essr Grant in order to pay for that particular building any questions on that particular building y yeah it won't be brick because they can't match the exact brick so it'll be a a a a block that comes very close to the uh
023yeah it's masonary in between the steel comp SS yep exploratory so right now we are running uh the one day exploratory they're taking uh Department of Ed will not let us run the onewe exploratory program because FAA hasn't done a well FAA is coming in the end end of October to do a final inspection of the space and the equipment and everything the last week of October uh once they've done that inspection uh all the paperwork everything else is already done and completed that's the only thing left to get final approval but uh I requested the department V to come in and do a final inspection and get approval for the program uh beginning in November and they said they won't do it until June so they're holding up the uh program until June uh
024so we can't can't start the full program till June so what in order to uh try to get 10th graders in what the plan is is after we get approval from DSC in June to run a summer exploratory for any kids that may be interested ninth graders at the end of this ninth grade class if someone if any of the students are interested which I think we'll have quite a few we'll run one week exploratory program so they can uh go through through that and then we'll select 15 students from the summer exploratory to start the 10th grade program next year which will be the first Aviation class so those students won't lose that opportunity is what we'll do y any further questions are we one of the first in the state to have an
025aviation uh we're the second Westfield Academy out in I mean uh yeah Westfield they're the first yep I think they've been in about four or five years now they've had a program we've uh one of the instructors from Westfield has been our consultant through our own project and has you know uh done an enormous amount of work helping us with the paperwork and the layout of the facilities and everything uh I don't think we'd be as far as we are had we not had his help he's been very very he's been terrific yep after they complete here do we have to go to a secondary school continue cation no when they graduate from here they should have a certification to work on frame the frame of the plane which means landing gear um any of
026the um the techn the uh electronic technology all of that the only thing they can't what they won't be ready and trained for is uh to repair uh powertrain which is the engines which will be the second phase of the program so we're getting the frame approval first and then in two years years will go for the powertrain that was recommended by both FAA and uh the consultant we have that that would be the most appropriate way to go uh otherwise it would be another two years before we could get the program off the ground Juniors and seniors you get correct y yeah uh Aviation building uh two is complete and 90% of it set up that's the building the FAA is going to come in and inspect along with the Freshman building that inside
027the school there uh and they'll go out to the airport and look at The Hanger those three buildings they'll come in and do the inspection when they come out in October that building is totally done it's got uh all the safety features in it uh it's got everything it's been uh inspected in uh and we've got the occupancy permit from the town to occupy the building so it meets all the safety regulations for a school and uh it's got a compressor system in there it's got uh be able to do a a a welding uh so it has everything we need to run that program and uh that's I would say 90% set up in terms of equipment to School cabinets everything is in there uh ready to actually start a class and the instructor
028has to show FAA he knows how to run all the trainers and the equipment as part of that inspection in October and uh the other the next project we have is a landscape uh building uh which is the frame is complete on that it's roof it's closed in and uh the electrical the plumbing underground work will be started uh was supposed to start sometime this week but the students aren't the students are going to be doing the electrical work in that building and the plumbing uh and so they haven't started yet but we expect them to start next week we've ordered all the materials necessary for them to do the project uh most of it uh should be in sometime this week but then the students will are going to be doing uh that phase
029of the project cafeteria the lower cafeteria the new cafeteria uh is uh set up to be used temporarily uh just for seaing and we'll we have hot hot ovens and cold Refrigeration so we were going to be serving down there students starting uh in uh I think it was O November November 1st and uh while they're doing that we put up temporary walls so we'll be completing the kitchen area of the of the new cafeteria so we hope to have that completed sometime in Jan uh towards the end of January any questions yeah the cafeteria might be like a sign only a certain group go or you just pick the way you want no they'll have assigned uh classes that'll go there a lot of the shops will go in the lower one because that's
030where a lot of the construction shops are and so what having that second cafeteria is going to um help with the uh crowding of the uh hallways because we'll have students going in different directions so it's going to help the uh help that a lot quite a bit as well not as well as reduce the crowded the overcrowded in the cafeteria now any else and uh the uh I we we we did receive a grant uh notification of a grant it's not public yet but we did receive an award uh that will allow us to expand the uh autoc collision shop uh the autoc collision shop uh is when you go in there you'll see it's very crowded with the students in there so we'll be able to put an addition on it that's going
031to be about 30 by about 50 ft uh and it also will provide for a new um painting Booth uh that it's more technology that will allow us uh paint electric and uh hybrid cars which we're not able to do right now with our existing painting Booth but we are we just got notified that we we will be getting that Grant so we put into that last May so we're pretty excited about that that will help that program quite a bit um but I can give you more detail on that after the governor announces all the grant recipients which will be in a couple weeks uh and then the last uh thing is field uh field number four which is the furthest field out which we're trying to complete um we do uh have a
032request from um the um Soccer Pro the Lawrence soccer program um Beyond soccer let see okay so right now we have it um we have a request they would uh which uh Mr toox uh has a relationship with that uh start helped start that program many many years ago Beyond soccer which is a program for youth as a youth soccer program for the for the kids of Lawrence mostly and uh they would like to uh the school committee to consider uh allowing them to put a turf field on it in exchange for a contract where they would uh we they would get a lease for uh anywhere from 5 to 10 years based on um to utilize the field as second to our own students utilizing the field so um I'm going to send the
033uh committee more details on that uh so that we can you can take a vote next meeting whether you want to go into a contract or not with them so I'll have more details about what that contract would look like which I'll send to you as well so I'm going to send you more information uh we did meet with them uh last week to uh they requested a meeting with me to see if we'd have if there's an interest on our part to do that because they are in desperate need of fields for their programs in Lawrence uh so I'll get you more information that so that you'll have some time to look at what the um proposal would look like to make a educated decision of whether it's something you think uh that you'd
034be interested in allowing to happen that's that okay can I back you up one second there Mr Lavoy you might have said it but I didn't get it how many uh students fit in the new cafeteria downstairs the downstairs cafeteria when it's done should hold about 225 students thank you uh at this time we'll go to the safe report superintendent lvo is going to uh tell us about the safe office if you look at the bottom it has an attachment with the date on it September 3rd to September 19th I believe we're going to be getting a report once a month yeah so uh I did um chrisa Gillis or bill aogo will be uh back next meeting to answer any other uh concerns or questions but I did want to uh just quickly go
035through uh the document uh the data that I put in your uh packet uh we'll provide you with similar data every month so you can see uh uh how it's going with regards to the amount of safe visits and issues that are going on so if you see there um student absences and uh and tardy so the appes actually look high but basically right now we have a 90% uh rate so not we about 5% of our students have been out per day which is really a good rate um so that's going pretty well and when I was meeting with them on this particular issue because I felt like it seemed a little high but they uh told me that the beginning of the year typically can be high because a lot of kids are
036still on vacation uh and from the uh different islands and they get back late and uh so then our it's tends to be a little higher and it starts to level off after about 3 weeks back into the school year so um but basically it's been at 95% which is really uh a good rate so uh doesn't it it's not as bad as it might look there uh safe off visits um we've had three vaping in incidences one suspension four in the past and so far far we haven't had any issues where we've done uh uh a restorative justice and any peer mediation so it's it's a good start but we'll keep you up to date on an ongoing basis so that and then we're going to ask uh the uh safe office to come
037back next meeting for any other questions you may have regarding uh the safe office and they'll do a a small report on uh our uh discipline Pro protocols and procedures uh for situa diff different situ different situations that might come to them regarding uh issues that teachers may send students to the uh safe office and how we manage and handle and how they manage and handle some of those specific issues so they'll do that the next meeting Mr Jones yeah um like where it says 472 for the ties that counter like students out five days is that would you be five out of those 472 or is that just 472 actual separate student individual tardies yep over the period of uh what four 3 weeks three almost four weeks I thought the numbers were high
038I just not used to see this is what we yeah so if you if you divide that by how many days and how many students it's you know percentage wise it's not as bad as it looks okay yeah all right and the is that like some get a ride or School Bus shows up likees school bus Tardis don't count okay yep those are all uh uh kids either driving themselves or parents dropping students off if you come by here in the morning the traffic is pretty backed up there's a lot of parents that bring kids to school today you'd be amazed yeah so uh what's pass that's the program where we send students to uh instead of um in-house if a student has a uh an issue uh different issues uh discipline issues that we
039think that they should be out of school for a day or two they're sent to a special program uh at the Y it's a why a y program in Beverly y any further questions Miss Ferris yeah I mean I'm not going to ask any specific anything here but I mean I just want to refer to what Brad was saying SE can you put that mic a little closer September can be a tough tough month with absences and and tardies I mean I I'm I'm hoping and I would keep an eye on it that this definitely improves but this is very typical um uh The Vaping the three instances I mean it's no biggie but I see one was suspended and one and then there's four pass I don't I don't know it it you know
040whatever yeah what the specific incidences are I wouldn't be able to tell you no no no I know that yeah um are you offet Mr yeah he's going to take sorry go ahead would The Vaping scuds be sent to the past so you can't tell us that either is that how they get taken care of so speak uh it they could be okay yep any further questions I'm all set all right moving along Capital Improvements I'm sorry did I miss you all um thank you m Mr Lao um I like to see this you're right this is a good start um and obviously I mean I'm I'm not even concerned about ASM because that's not a that's something that's easy easily it should be easily controlled when um School continues right y um The Vaping
041and the suspension those are the ones that are going to be more critical to keep um to keep the you know to keep on those one so this is a nice reporting but I I I just don't want it to get back to as a reporting with numbers so more so you know the safety of the students and the communication with the parents again um all these this is just the beginning of the school right with these little numbers it's going to it's going to grow that's natural it's going to grow so how we controlling every incident um how the communication with depents it's within those um different situations is what we need with within this report to be reported to us well that's my request but it's something that I want to see more
042than just how many of these and how many of that so if you if you could just email me uh specific questions you'd like to be reported out every week I mean when we do the report I'd be happy to do that if there's any major incidences that happened we'll I will keep you informed about anything that's real important appreciate that's exactly what I'm looking forward for this committee to understand how we how um the school ministerial are actually taking care of every single incident yeah um and you know the plan that is being taken care of we don't need details obviously but we do need to we need detail Within the different um numbers to say how they are being handled and how the communication went through to the pents um so so I'll
043when uh Christa comes either Chris or Bill comes next time they come we'll do some uh presentations that'll outline when we're how we communicate with parents on a regular basis when there are specific issues that happen so when do we call parents when do we feel like that we have to have them involved and our parents let me just give you an example I know and I'm I'm I'm glad because we get that all the time you know yeah this is how this is the polia that we go for this disciplinary action fine we know that we can go read it Y what we want what we want to make sure that we so what I'm say this incident it happens we have vaping going on the student was suspended it went into whatever program
044whatever however the disciplinary for that is um it's um it let's pretend it's three it's three weeks of disciplinary on on some type of program the student went through that the panents were informed at this point this and that this is a reporting and if we had that handle all other the problems that are going to come your way are going to be handle because you have a very clear process and it's and we understand it it doesn't matter when we see the number we already know you know what's coming next for those and You' be you'll be surprised these numbers will probably you know not going to grow to an a a um how do you call that when the numbers go out of control okay yeah okay you know okay so that that's
045simple it sounds simple I know it's not that simple yeah but that's what I'm that's what I'm looking for okay thank you welcome you'll make that request to the superintendent by email would you I will do that would you also CC me so I can follow it through absolutely thank you no problem thanks anything further moving forward Capital Improvements um if I could superintendent I just want to explain what the Capital Improvements are and who's on the committee the capital approvement is a subcommittee of this committee I am the chair and we just um sh G hide Mr Jones to join for his construction knowledge I just want to tell you who's on the committee it's Mr Lavoy myself Lance Hamill Brad Jones Lauren Jones and Melissa Martel and we try to put things in
046order as far as needs emergency needs where we're going to send that Capital Improvement money to um where it's going to be best allocated um okayy so uh the capital uh Improvement committee helps to make decisions uh that uh on what are the capital needs of the school uh every year or on a regular we meet we'll be meeting once a month and either I may bring a project uh before the capital Improvement committee to consider funding or we may have ongoing projects that needs to be uh funded or completed uh there may be special equipment requests that let's say a piece of equipment cost $50,000 it goes before the capital Improvement committee to vote on uh whether to uh purchase it or not uh and then it comes to the school committee for a
047final vote so the capital Improvement Committee just makes recommendations to the school committee to take a final vote on whether to fund the projects that are brought before them um as step number one the uh funds uh the capital Improvement funds comes from our cities and towns as one of the line items non uh uh non uh capital and non uh Foundation uh budget line item and uh the last three years we've assessed our cities and towns a million dollars each year which they've accepted so um throughout this year we'll get payments from our cities and town that'll total a million dollar that goes into this fund the fund Capital Improvement project uh for the scope uh so uh the capital Improvement committee met uh on August 28th uh in order to look at where
048some of the funding needs to uh requests are and most of it is uh you'll see the requests are to complete projects we've already started uh right now uh in our Capital Improvement uh budget I'm not sure let's see no about how much is in our budget right now there's about um $2 million in the account and then we budgeted 2 million an additional 2 million for this year so 4 million yeah so we have about $4 million of uh funding funds in that particular budget which is the healthiest we've ever had more than we've ever had uh in the past but in any in any case um right now where we're looking to what some of the items will looking to get funded you want to vote on each one individually time I think
049we should yes yeah so the first item we'd like you to vote on is we want to allocate $100,000 for the schematic design for the roof project so we put in we put a request to msba to uh fund uh a new roof uh our roof needs to be redone uh it's probably about a I'm going to say $18 million cost somewhere in that range $18 to $20 million and um we have to hire an architect to do the architectural design for that and uh the committee has to vote to do that um before the uh msba will approve it we've been put in the pipeline uh as a request that we're going to be heard uh it's going to be go before the msba committee in October which is real they've already been out
050to uh look at the roof uh so we've actually very fortunate we're at this far line in it it's our first year request um but we're uh at a point that it's very possible they're going to vote to fund this project for us so we have to show them that we have the money to do the schematic design that's why we need a vote to fund that and I don't think it'll cost that much money but we're just uh uh projecting an estimate after discussions with our with our architect what kind of money we should put in in the budget for that so uh we would need a a vote of the committee to to approve that why don't we do that now can I have a motion for the first one for $100,000 schematic
051design for the roof project I'll make a motion any further discussion on that one I have question please I'm not necessarily on the on that but do you mention members of the committee members of the subcommittee you want me to read them again yes please Mr LaVoy myself Lance Hamill who's in charge of the maintenance department Brad Jones Lauren Jones vocational director and Melissa Martel business office so that group was put together and was not approv here right this group just suggest what to bring to the committee to vote on we try to do priorities that's not my question okay sorry this this's um committee members in that committee that that wasn't brought here to be approved part the chair I'm on it automatically the chair invited Mr Jones because of his business knowledge in
052construction I could have shanghaied you too no no I I don't I'm not interested in that um that's not why I'm asking okay so that is something that doesn't get approved here is that's my question is that something that needs to be approved on I'm sorry I don't understand that's what we're doing now is approving it she talk about the members about the members yeah about the members yes so I can complain the I just wanted to I want to know how you came out with that group of people to be part of members of this committee that is going to be looking up on the capital Improvement budgets or grants that's my question because you're making decision but how the meet the members of the meeting came out because I don't remember talking about
053it here so what you're telling me is because you are the chair automatically you decide is that what you're saying yeah this has been in process a lot longer than I've been here okay okay I I have questions and it doesn't sound right but if you can show me where that it's part of the process I'm I'm okay with that yeah so I can explain the process thank you yep so the capital Improvement committee has been in existence for a while uh and um the the superintendent typically on the on the on on the committee um the director of of Finance is always on the committee because of her knowledge of the finances and um then the director of uh facilities is always on it because of his knowledge of the school and and any
054projects go through him and then um the the director of vocational programs is always on it because of all the equipment we purchase and stuff and then typically two school committee members are on it so Tommy has been on it for a while and he's the chair of the committee so he's typically on it uh and so when Leo left we needed one more member on the committee and uh Tommy suggests that we have uh Brad because of his background in construction but I would say that if there's another Committee Member that's interested in being part of that committee the school committee can vote to put another person on if someone else would want to serve on that I'm more interested to that's how it all happen and that's that makes sense and it makes
055sense for all the things that you said and the people what they are um under what the title I obviously um but we have members so we have one more one more than one member of the committee as part of this committee and things are coming here for us to approve so if I understand the process correctly just the being uh members of the committee to be in that meeting should be approved here first because you know what I mean it it just can become a a problematic so it's been an ongoing Committee of Interest yeah I I would say that uh any having a vote um once a year would probably make sense to see at the beginning of each year to see if there are members who are interested in it but it's
056always been an ongoing committee so I would say uh what you say makes sense but for example Mr Hayden was not a Committee Member until recent years so if if he was part of this before I suppose he was part of it before he was committee yeah so he would amount correct I'm not sure did you take did you say he was yeah so he took Leo's place when Leo left cuz he was so he wasn't part of the committee like you mentioned no that's what I'm saying he took Leo's place as a chair but not as a committee Mar Marland oh and oh and you oh yeah Marilyn used to be on the committee okay so my point we needed to we need to approve that here yeah and I mean if you disagree
057with me just let me know that I you know why and what's the reason why disagree but I believe we need to approve that here before you even move on to all this yeah there's nothing to disagree with this committee has been in existence for a long time no no excuse me no Mr sh let let me correct it again it's been going on for a while but you guys are bright new members of this committee right now and there was no approve here so don't with your with um your respect this is not new it's new the process but the new members is not new I mean it's not it's hasn't been from before it's that's brand new you just gave gave us a list of members and you are new to the committee
058so to the chair for that reason H to the chair also that's fine good um so I'm I'm just trying to make sure that we following through everything and I believe because this including the share if we have more members to be part of this which I don't disagree with um it needs to be approved here so so up we second oh go ahead just I'm understanding a little bit of what she's been saying so just to clarify is she's saying that normal school committee policy were to be that the school committee and it's the subcommittees that are under the school committee they need to be appointed and approved by the school committee they can't just be selected by an individual person that's what she's that's what I'm understanding what I'm understanding is because I
059know now that it's a subcommittee of the school committee it needs to be appointed by the school committee and it needs to be approved by a vote that's that's what I'm understanding yeah so and and I agree with that because that's that's listed in the school committee's policy I have no problem we just want to make sure we're following procedures this is not you know it's great that we have these people that you know the individuals that are on the committee should be on that committee and remain because of the expertise and the needs of that subcommittee but we just need to make sure we're following the procedure now if that means we need to take a vote and formally approve those members then great but the procedure is and now that I'm recalling is
060because it's a subcommittee of the school committee we need to approve those members all right so we'll need to post this for next meeting and we can do it that wayo no that's fine I think that um in all the years I've been superintendent we've never brought up we've never voted on the members of this committee they were always in existent when I started and then any time there was replacement it was done by someone volunteered to be on the committee but I think your point is well taken and accurate and so I think it's fine if we want to uh uh next meeting we can next meeting we can uh bring candidates for a vote who would want to serve on that committee I may um please as long as you have you have
061the names of the member we can approve that today um I mean everybody to approve that today I can read the names again yes okay can I have a motion to do that I just want to make sure everybody's on the right yeah I just want to put a motion to enter this as a formal item in the agenda yes I second that yeah to it's to approve add on to the agenda add on to the agenda the approval of capital Improvement Committee just do yes if anybody has any opposed zoa seconded okay motion's been seconded um I'm going to read off the names and the positions if that's all right for the third time pardon me I'm going to read the names before we approve on it yes everybody agreed to it yes uh
062Mr Lavoy is superintendent Mr hayam is chair Mr Hamill as the um maintenance facilitator he's the uh yes what's his correct title oh he's the director of facilities director of facilities Mr Jones what's his name Lance ham Mr Jones Committee Member from methan Lauren Jones who's a vocational director and Melissa Martel who's the business director Finance director Finance director thank you did I give you a promotion or no no she's always been the finance directed motion to approve can I have a second any further discussion sure miss TLA yes Mr Jones yes Mr Mahia yes Mr toox yes M Baris yes Mr haam yes all right can we continue with the uh vote for the 100,000 did I have the first and second on we do it again can I have a motion to uh
063accept $100,000 for schematic design for the roof project I make the motion to accept second by Mr toab walks any discussions all in favor all right opposed and did you want to explain about the 90,000 we keep going yep um I know everything right there yeah all everything not on here from what we voted the other day there's some missing items but I'll I'll do the 90,000 so the uh looking for a $90,000 to be transferred from Capital Improvement into the S3 grant for learning loss so the S3 Grant requires a certain percentage of that both funds be used for learning loss uh because of the huge project we uh were short n utilizing what was left of that that Grant to fund the uh Aviation building one uh we have a shortfall of 90,000
064so we have to move cap 90,000 from Capital Improvement back into the S3 Grant to cover that requirement of the S3 Grant of $90,000 can I have a motion any questions on that while we discussing it so let me get this straight there that is a grant had money in it right and you you've taken money from the Essa grant for something else now you want to put back yep the Essa Grant which was I don't know somewhere 6 million 7 million somewhere around there um we funded me many things from that Grant and one of the things that you have to fund is items for learning loss so we spent uh a certain percentage of the grant has to be saved for learning loss which we put a lot of money into educational programs
065but when we estimated all the money that we had spent on uh on educational programs we were short 90,000 to meet the percentage we needed to spend on learning loss but we had already moved the money into the project so we were short 90,000 we could take the money out of projects 90,000 but then we'd have to spend we'd have to we would be voting on putting 990,000 into the project so instead of moving money out we said let's just put let's just fund the 990,000 with short into the Sessa Grant so it's just a moving money around I'm okay I'm okay would make a motion to transfer that money any other questions for okay make a motion I have a question please so we had a we already approved some money transfer why wasn't
066this in that why is this different this is different because this is not coming from operational money this is coming from our Capital Improvement we're taking Capital Improvement money so Capital Improvement to Capital Improvement we don't have we don't get reports on those on the uh for transfers no that's unusual for us to transfer money out of capital Improvement into a specific item like that that's not something we typically do we can do it there's nothing wrong with doing it but it's not like we would do a ongoing report on that this is a onetime situation that's a onetime situation okay yeah thank you I have a motion do I have a second second any further discussion all those in favor say I I opposed thank you so there are two other items that aren't
067in here that voted for not a capital Improvement I'm doing the items that are on the paper yeah okay we'll have to put it on next budget next month yeah uh Mission policy uh assistant superintendent assistant superintendent give you a report on the uh update on the admissions policy and the changes that need to be voted on we have to submit uh our proposal to the Department of Education by October 1st so in your packet um I included a copy of des's regulations um and section six under number four um that specifically talks about the admission of students and the role of the district committee what's that oh I'm s yeah sorry all right thank you that better um okay so it it talks specifically about the role of the district committee um so as
068uh superintendent Lavoy said we do have to annually submit our policy to the Department of Education so that's on um October 1st uh first it comes to the district committee to approve because the district committee is actually responsible for impro uh approving selective criteria that are used in the policy so District committee approves the criteria um if it's passed the superintendent submits the form to Desi and we upload our new policy Desi doesn't actually approve our policy it's all done here at the district level um if the data shows we do an annual data collection and if the data shows that there are inequities that are found and not address then desie can recommend changes to our policy up to in including a lottery and there's still very active um conversations going on at the
069state level about Admissions and and potentially um having all schools move move to a lottery but at this point it's still up to the local level um so we'll also be submitting this year's data um sometime in October um which will become typically available in the spring for for us to look at to to identify any inequities um and you can see on des's website the data there's a what's called a powerbi and a data dashboard for every vocational technical school that submits their policy um what we have found is that um starting around the 22 23 school year so after covid um applications to vocational technical schools across the state started to go up significantly ly and since that time the Gap has widened for our students with disabilities meaning the the percentage of
070students that we accept in enroll who are students with disabilities is below the state average and it doesn't really accurately reflect the numbers of our students in the community who are students with disabilities um we've increased our number of ml students multilingual Learners um and I but I think because of the increased number of applications there's still a a slight Gap there but not as significant as our students with disabilities So based on that data um the changes that you'll see that are reflected in the policy um all of the changes are aimed at decreasing that Gap it's um considered an equity and access issue um so we're hoping that the changes that we enact will help to increase the number of uh students with disabilities as well as multilingual Learners um so the committee
071that uh met and looked at the dat and came up with a recommendations for the policy so it was myself along with our new director of admissions and counseling that's Angela Lawler brenon our Equity access liaison Betsy Gomez our admission specialist Madison Puerto Royale our director of CTE Lauren Jones and our student Information Specialist Isabelle Joya so we met we looked at the data made made the recommended changes and brought it to to the superintendent for his approval and review so the specific changes we um did try to leave everything in there so you can see what's changed we did uh striking out over anything that's being removed or modified and um I think we added in red the the changes so one of the changes is with the criteria for grades so previously A's
072and B's um students would get 30 points out of 30 if they had an A or B average we've change that to include A's B's and C's will all uh be the same 30 points um and D's instead of 10 points we increase that to 15 but by um making that one band um students with disabilities and multilingual Learners um should be more equally represented there particularly we have found with um a lot of the Lawrence Public Schools have standards based grading and that seems to have a significant um impact on those students in terms of the sending School recommendation um a couple of years ago we had increased that from 10 to 15 points because what we were hearing from the um the middle schools was that they know the students and they want
073to have more um ability to sort of influence the the students who were coming because they they felt that they knew the students and who really wanted a vocational technical education um so we've looked at the data for a couple of years and what we have found um is that you know there are differences from one school to another one Community to another um it is um a more subjective criteria and we found that it was somewhat inconsistent um from school to school and when we look specifically at students with disabilities um they seem to have somewhat lower recommendation scores at times if you compared if they had say equal um attendance and grades um you know compared to a student who is not on an IEP or a student with a disability um more
074students with disabilities had lower recommendation scores which we felt was problem itic um so we're hoping that this you know will help um in that area and what we decided to do is to take the Five Points that we were taking away from the recommendation and create another another category so this is a new criteria um that we haven't had in the past and at this point we're calling it a Student Activity but basically a student can submit um something to express why they're interested in coming to glts why Vocational Technical education so that would be up to five points um they can submit it in English or you know if their home language is something other than English they could um submit something and in any language it could be something written they could
075do a a video um an activity but basically um anything to help explain why they're interested in glts why vocational technical school um so in in the um revisions there as well you'll see we came up with a rubric for scoring that activity um so that will be an um an additional um responsibility for the admissions team to to be scoring those we'll have to look at the rubric and make sure that we calibrate it and whoever's scoring that um Student Activity that there's consistency there so it's not um there are no discrepancies and the the discipline and the attendance are remaining the same so before I just go on to the other piece about program specific admission are there any questions about the changes to the criteria well I mean I'm just wondering why
076the you know your new your new um section here the Student Activity why wouldn't the application be considered in why wouldn't the the application be considered incomplete for students who choose not to complete that portion uh we don't want to hold up their application if if they choose not to submit it but it's it's to their benefit it's it's in their best interest to do that um some schools where we don't interview that's where a lot of schools are able to really um get to that more personal um you know Factor Why the students interested why they're applying for some some uh schools it's as much as 40% of the application is based on the interview so that's something that we've talked about and we could potentially move to in the future but we didn't
077think that we could um make that change and put a process in place all of a sudden um that's it it would require a lot of work with, 1600 applications just for the incoming freshmen but we we would definitely reach out and try you know reach out to the the student the family the sending school um and maybe try to provide support as well through the admissions office to make sure that every student um has an opportunity to submit that I mean I personally think it's it's been official you know the student actually is doing nothing to apply to the school you are inundated with applications um I think it's a benefit to everybody to know why the student actually wants to be here mhm and it doesn't have to be long either actually the
078shorter the better but you know something that is you know something that kind of reflects them and their I mean I particularly like the end here I need glasses um yeah okay why are you interested in and how do these their choices align with their future goals I mean it be it it's it's begs the question with the student you know they must have an interest in this type of education and kind of is important for them to identify and and verbalize you know their desire I I think and I I mean it's even more beneficial I think than an interview yeah and we do have sometimes students parents will email us of course but even sometimes students will email us they'll send a letter we'll get you know some note from the Middle School
079um from the counselor or teacher and it's great information to have but at this point we can't score that it's not part of the criteria and this way we we will be able to use that am Marie is your concern that it's a it should be a requirement before we score is that what you're saying yes it is okay I know it's an extra burden I mean somebody's got to read these right I mean it isn't yeah and that's not an issue we would definitely make every effort um to reach out to try to make sure that they get completed and to make sure that they understand that this you know the Five Points can make a huge difference yeah I mean I think it's if you if you wanted to make that a Rec
080you as a Committee Member you can make that recommendation that change from what we're submitting here to you we have to approve it want that's up to the committee yeah okay I'm going to make that recommendation for Mar first yeah um I'm going to get to what they both are agreeing on before I get so she has two people have a recommendation what's your recommendation I mean we got to meet I me we got to meet halfway I mean you know you have one and she has a different so how can we meet Midway what's what do you think a couple of things um couple of concerns that I would have about making it required one it is possible you could have a student who say scores you know perfect score at every other category
081say they end up with 70 points that could be high enough for them to actually be accepted um even without that Five Points so you don't want to hold that student up from being accepted that may be an exception to that the other thing is at this point the Department of Education um has a serious issue with um us reporting incomplete applications um and if that is the only Factor that's not complete I think that that might be sort of a red flag for them or something that they might call out um you know the other thing is if we are going to weigh it right for the student who really makes that extra effort um they go through the effort to do that and to submit it that's to me a sign that maybe
082you know the student really is very interested in the school um you know if we make it required then they just had to do it um but for a student who really wants to to get accepted and to have that that control over that extra five points um I think the students who really are interested in invested I think that they will make the effort to do it but I agree with you we we do want to make sure that as many of them as complete are as complete as possible and that the students and families understand that it would have an impact But ultimately that's definitely the the committee's decision Okay so yeah know I had I had another thing to that so going back to the Scholastic achievement I know you it's formatted
083with the letter grade system but I mean as you've said a lot of the districts especially in the marac valley have switched to more of a standardized grading policy so is there a way that you know to make it easier for everyone else to understand what standardized grading is and what a letter abcdf is uh you know to include the standardized grades of how how the points would go about with an esnu which would be you know excellent satisfactory not you know meeting needs Improvement whatever the case is you know how would you approach that because it's four versus six five letter grades I don't know how you guys would approach that so we have sort of a conversion scale that we use that uh we had um worked with Lawrence Public Schools as well
084just to see what they use because they they do a very similar um you know application and scoring for students to be accepted to the Abbot at Lawrence High School and we compared what we use for our criteria um and it was very similar to what they use there are you know there are different charter schools and other schools that have different systems so for some it's exceeding um meeting partially meeting not meeting but there are different scales that some you know I I don't know exactly how many different grading scales there are um we could make a note in the policy about the the grading and that there would be a um you know for standards based grading that we have a conversion process for that yeah I think it would be good to
085include that because a lot of a lot more districts are going to be heading that route so I mean at some point maybe in two years I mean abcdf probably won't even exist in the four communities I mean who knows you know so just a note so that it's easier for everyone else so just a general note yeah I mean if it was just one grading scale you don't have to put the whole conversion scale in the policy but but just note that there you know noted that you know it would vary if it were a standardized grading or if it was a different alternative grading policy CU not all of them are going to be esnu or you know positive or negative check plus whatever the case is right um and then the other
086thing is sending School recommendations so are we not using the scale the four the four rating scale of exceeding meeting and partially meeting for the different criteria as like expectations mindset so that's just being eliminated what is that being replaced with no so that's still going to be used and it's 10 points now instead of 15 but we added a different an updated scale um just to make it 10 points um so that was added on I believe that's at the end I only asked because it was there's just strikethroughs on all of them yeah so there's an addition this page here it says uh R revised revised uh so yeah so that's just to make it add up to 10 instead of 15 and what we did was we combined the meeting and partially
087meeting into one category there MH and all of the changes to the policy will be explained to the um sending school counselors and teachers who come to the the breakfast in October um and the other thing is program specific admission what is the reason for adding um the participation in career Discovery so um that's an it's a required part of the admissions policy um program specific admission so last year um we changed how students were placed in exploratory and did shop placement so that has to be reflected in the admissions policy so um this is really just kind of going back and modifying that um so it's the same as ranked right so the students will have three options in the application and they'll rank them so on the application itself um when they do
088the online application they they choose their top three um shops but for incoming freshmen that's really just information for us it really has no bearing on their placement so all students go through a one-day pre-exploitation freshmen that's what they're doing now at the end or towards the end of the pre-exploitation the Clusters that they're interested in so and we only guarantee the top three shops and the reason for doing that was that we were trying to help students to really understand how different careers are interconnected so sometimes their choices would sort of be all over the the map right and if they don't get into their Top Choice then they're in something that they maybe are really not interested in for the future so for example a student whose Top Choice is uh Plumbing um
089if they choose cosmetology and culinary arts for their second and third um they may not end up in a career where they can go on and continue when they get out of high school and have an easier way to get into that plumbing pathway so um they're looking at the career clusters and they can see that construction is closely related to Plumbing which is their Top Choice so if I don't get into Plumbing maybe I get into metal fabri fabrication or HVAC and what we did find the results looking at the data of placement last year that students really did end up being placed more frequently in something that was related to their first choice even if it wasn't their actual first choice so we want to make sure that that um placement process was
090clear in the admissions policy as well okay and I see here that the weight list process would be the same again this is just updating what's already been done so the the weight list process the the only real change that we made to that so because of the change they made with the exploratory and Shop placement last year um it used to be that students would just choose their top three and if they didn't get placed into one of those three they would automatically go onto a waiting list for one two three so we had a a relatively smaller number of students on the waiting list when they did the shop placement this year they instead of just choosing one two three they had to rank order one through eight so what ended up happening
091is students would end up placed on a waiting list for anything that they weren't placed in so there were some students who were added they didn't get into any of the top eight it's not frequent but some so they ended up on those eight waiting lists and then they might have chosen a couple of other shops so when we went to accept our students some of you may have noticed that it took longer than usual to start accepting our transfer students this year that's because it took so much longer to go through those internal waiting lists that we had because we always try to offer spots to our in students who are already here and didn't get placed before we offer spots to transfer students so even though we knew that we had approximately you
092know 10 seats available for incoming sophomores we didn't know where those seats were because we had to go through all the waiting lists so the the change that were really trying to make is um you know at the end students will be placed on those top choices they'll if they didn't get into them they'll automatically be on those lists but instead of leaving them on you know 8 to 10 lists we're going to ask them to let us know which list they actually do want to stay on so that when we do the um transfer decisions in the fall or in the summer it it will be hopefully a lot quicker that was sort of an un unintended consequent consequence of that new system okay thank you um yeah no so I am going to
093go back to what was already recommended in terms of the requirements for the Student Activity so let's just put into perspective we we approve the recommendation that was made by uh the committee woman um you know would we be able to offer guidance to guidance counselors the sending schools and to parents to make sure that you know that students are fulfilling this requirement because it is it is personalized by the student it gives them more of a voice uh in the process uh that way we don't result in those incomplete applications you know we're following up with the parents because that's you know parents want to be followed up with the sending schools you know the students want to be followed up with so if we were to do that would we be able to
094do that to offer that guidance so I'm not 100% sure if I'm understanding the way you're saying it so are you saying to still keep it um not mandatory to have a complete application but just making sure that we're following up if we were to recommend it be a mandatory piece of the application so I mean I mean obviously nothing's guaranteed on their end but we can do our part we can make every effort and if that's the decision it's in the policy we can just say that they have to submit something or the application's incomplete okay um again the the the problem that I do see with that is um if we say we have out of, 1600 students you could have a couple hundred students who for whatever reason they decide not to
095do it um even if you know we reach out we document those attempts um I think it could be problematic if we report to desie that we have that number of incomplete applications okay that's what I have for comments for now yeah thank you Mrs okay a couple of questions how why wouldn't it be complete I mean if I mean I'm I guess I'm old school now how how are we um accepting these applications online or conventional way mail so um well it's an we've been using the online system and we're actually working with the company it's called go-to Solutions we're working to find out if there's a way that the student and family can upload something um to the portal so right now that's how the sending schools send all of their documentation in
096they upload um so we're trying to find out if the student and family can also have that option to upload something because if not it would you know it have to be either uploaded by the sending school or they could email it or they could you know mail it in drop it off we could offer all these different ways uh but we are trying to find out if they can just upload something themselves okay I guess I'm trying to understand why if this is part of a an application I wouldn't think of sending an application in without answering a question you know what I'm saying I mean I I I it's not an addition it's not like gee if you have five minutes can you do this it's it's part of the application so I
097guess as a compromise I don't know um you know they would have to answer it some way either with the their personalized as uh like what you said uh voice MH or I wish not to answer this question choosing not to submit something this question yeah that might be a so that way it makes me happy that at least it's a requirement and I would I wish that they would answer it because I think that it gives you a little bit more in-depth on the student but I think just an answer or complete the the assigned question right so okay so I don't know how to put that yeah but I want to make that motion to make that a required answer question so discuss just to finish that conversation what um she is talking
098about if you make the um required in the application but giving the choice to the to to the applic to choose not to fill it out and make a check mark they need also to know that they losing Five Points so you need to choose how you get that done because they need to know okay I'm going to choose not to fill it out but I'm going to lose five point of the total points that I'm going to be great at on in order for me to my application to be accepted so I just want to finish that sentence for you mhm Okay so that's one thing now and and again I mean you you guys that been here longer than the new people that you guys know that I have a problem with the
099admissions from day one I've been here I don't know six year already I don't remember um not enough yet to know a lot but I have a problem with admission total so just so you know what I'm getting to um I want I have a question when all these changes were made I want to know in order to get you I believe you mentioned October 1st these need to be uh submitted did you say October 1st to Department of B October 1st and now if it's not may may I please and it's September 24 and again not I just want to make an statement of where I am with this um I know I didn't go through this so that's my fault because this is very important to me I was out of the the
100the state for this whole last week and the weekend and so that's my excuse I not I I mean I just want to put it there but that's my that's my problem I needed to read all this and be ready I'm not ready uh to approve this tonight um obviously it needs to be approved tonight in order to go somewhere um I think I don't know so making changes on this um for me is important I want to read through it I want to make sure that we are covering a lot of situations just like simple as the one that was just discussed for the last 20 minutes um so I just want to put that out there okay I do have a problem and again back to the same just to the same sample
101where we need to be very clear of how we telling people people you know here you're going to apply for this this is what you need how soon they need to know all this again it's based on the whole um admission process a student needs to know from from seventh grade that are they going to be the grade are going to be looked at and there's a lot of things that goes into the admission so um that's just my two cents right now so if the committee decides um not to approve it tonight we can request an extension oh that sounds great I like that I mean I mean if the committee if the committee doesn't want to make a decision then we have no choice but to ask for an extension yeah sorry I
102didn't see who raised the answer this going say the same yeah I mean I'm just going to be very Frank this was presented to us months ago I know when I first came on I read the policy I know it's already been talked about that that the policy is going to be updated so I know this has been a month's long process so there's no point in all this time and then now we're talking about an extension because you know we didn't like maybe one piece of it or maybe something's wrong with it we didn't have time regardless I know this has been a few months in the process if I'm not wrong um and the last thing that we want to do is wait and go apply for an extension that again is not
103guaranteed because desie is desie so um you know we could just continue the conversation I mean these are simply recommendations to us we're the ones that have to approve it and the idea here is to come to Common Ground not you know my way or the highway you know superintendent assist superintendent making a recommendation we have different ideas then let's meet at in the middle and get this through um I mean this is this could always be changed next year this could always be changed in the future but you know they're the ones that work on the front lines with the admissions department and the families that submit applications so there are reasons why these changes are being made um you know to to your point about uh requiring students to submit the Student Activity
104if we were to go that route there's positives and negatives to it but the main part of it is if students want to come to jotts they need to show the effort for it you know you're not just going to submit an application with your name and last name and answer a few questions like sheets said check boxes to just get it through incomplete or not if the student wants to come to GTS they should fulfill the application and its requirements um so that's that's those are the comments that I have for now I don't recommend an extension I do not want to add more burden to the school to go to Desy for an extension um that's that's my opinion that's thank you Mr yeah I'm in agreement with um Mr Mahia I I
105am not in favor of a an extension I mean we did get this packet Friday it's simply you know these I mean you have to have trust in the Personnel that's here I only had that question because I felt that the students should have some stake in in applying and and voicing why they want to be here um it's not like we um going on the street looking for students to come here we certainly have an overload um but I mean I don't I don't like the fact that um anything will be held up so to correct that maybe they just answer it they wish to Forfeit those five points or they answer the questions so I'm not in favor of of sending this back for postponement so a couple things I think we can
106clearly note on the application uh that the question is required if you so choose not to uh answer the question they should simply make a statement to that effect the other thing is when we get the application if that question is not answered we can notify send it back saying this question was not answered you will lose five points do you want to reconsider so we can notify them so they have they've been notified a second time so it's clear that they're uh clear that they need to answer it if otherwise lose five points so we can uh make note of that to the parents or uh as part of the applicate both to the school we can notify the school and the and the family that it's required so everybody's been notified and so
107everyone's had every chance to answer the question CH before I'm I say what I'm going to say maybe I could maybe you could answer this question so if we were to approve the policy with some of the adjustments that we've recommended um in exception to what's been recommended for Student Activity they were to accept it October 1st correct okay so what if we you know after this year's admissions process would we be able to update that policy and send it to Desi if we so do so next year let's say it's a yearly approval okay so if we just go with the recommendation that has been made by the superintendent and the former director of admissions I mean she's you know um next year you know we could get a report of how many incomplete
108applications there were from last year and into the new effect of this policy and if we see that nothing has changed and you know there's more incomplete applications then we update the policy to reflect something different but if we see something less then we're good with the policy it's working that's just my piece of it sorry Mr okay um was 70 the the normal average number that you're looking for or it just moved it to 75 so are you asking if 70 is the the score that students needed to be accepted yes um this year it was 68 okay I guess what I'm I would look at is if 70 is the magic number to at least be accepted for consideration if you list the Student Activity as bonus points you're going to get the
109overachievers they're going to say yeah I want the extra five points it might help me get in instead of making it totally mandatory but give them the option whether you write in the listing that you know extra bonus points like you know there's always that extra question on a test that's just my opinion on it Tommy I don't think that would be accepted by DSC cuz that's not Equitable or fair for all students so I would see that as a major problem that's my uh thing on it yeah and I think there for five points that could actually impact hundreds of students a a band of Five Points so really to say that it would be just a bonus would definitely be misleading okay yeah more CL I need to make more clarifications first of
110all I said that I am not going to approve this tonight but I didn't mention that it should not be approved to that tonight everybody is I mean this is a committee and it needs to be approved by the majority of the vote so I want to make that clear second yes we have been talking about this but these changes in red we just got it on Thursday as usual and another thing that I always have been proud with where we get these things 3 days before a meeting so just want to make that clear and the other thing that I want to make clear is the trust yes we need to trust but we also need to do due diligent to make sure that we approving the right thing at the right time so
111trusting unfortunately doesn't get us to the um to to to do the things right that we know because we just trust people I'm for yes we need to trust but we also need to understand that these things are very serious and we know need to know what we approving every time I said no here because I'm not you know I'm not 100% in accordance it's because you know that's how I feel so again I'm one member of SE uh of um seven n and I want to be clear of this the um the the choices that I made and the things that I approve here for the reasons that I always you know I need to do my due diligence like everybody else should do the same I can trust anybody but I need to
112make sure that yes I trust you but I want to make sure that you're following through the right way so everybody is um well equipped to do what we need to do every day here for our community for our students so I want to make that point clear because I don't want to be accused that we putting things behind just because of my comment I'm making a comment for myself so that everybody knows why I'm taking the the the positions that I take every time this is not the first time I do this I always do this um for the past six year that I've been here thank you yes so I just to respond to the committee women so I agree with the fact that yes we we did get this information just a
113few days before the October 1st deadline um and in that case a mistake happened it shouldn't happen again this shouldn't happen again we have the policy I mean I read through it you know that's that's understandable but you know because this is an annual thing you know next year we don't want to fall into the same trap where we're few days before the the the due date and we can't make necessary changes because we have hesitations as to due date so I understand that part of us getting information not in a timely manner um so that's just in resp response to to your comment any else like to make a statement is oh I'm sorry please changes made every year or do you get like past year where it does not necessarily A change every
114year but every year we have to assess if it's an equitable uh policy based on some data that we collect because we're required to ensure that so if we that our special ed and our El student is dropping off in terms of the numbers of of uh what is consistent with our sending communities then we have to look at our policy and try to make uh make it more Equitable and that's what we've done that's why we've made these particular changes particularly in the scoring and in that and in that last uh section where we were requiring some uh input by from the students is to try to build more equity and more opportunities for all students regardless of uh whether they're special ed or whether they're so it's not impacting uh specific uh uh
115groups from uh getting in we got to make it more Equitable what's the definition of a special light student a student that's on an IEP I just want to make a statement it's not not a discussion it's just a personal response I don't think we're giving our kids and their families enough credit I really don't I think they really want to do this application they want to do it the right way they're just having problems getting through it please don't think our kids are just throwing us on the side thank you can I have a motion to approve this submitted it's not not we not done no I think uh Amy wanted to make a motion as submitted with one change am I wrong is that what you were trying to say family yeah I
116make a motion to accept this admissions policy with the Student Activity section um being an option for completion I I don't know that's not good either an requirement or no an option oh an option that's what it is now to make an optional uh that's what it is now well I do want it to be a requirement but I want them to know can make the statement okay I mean I think you know what I'm talking about right I mean I want it to be a requirement but I want them to opt out if they don't want to do it yeah requirement with an OP without uh State Clause okay yeah without losing points well you wouldn't get the points you wouldn't get the points but you wouldn't lose you would still the application would
117still count but you but you wouldn't get the points yeah and and again I just want to clarify because I feel as though my fellow um committee person is upset it's when I say I I I trust the people that are doing this um I'm I'm the most probably the most skeptical on this committee so but there are certain things and certain requirements that this admission policy has to abide by and I think that I think that it is an equitable document and I think that it has to be otherwise it won't be accepted so things like this no I feel as though I do have to defer to the people that are in charge may I answer that I'm I'm done do I have to restate that motion I just wanted to hear what
118you just said I remember Mrs Richardson saying very clearly that the the final is done here internally so it's not Desi that's going to decide on the polica did did you say that yes they don't they don't approve it so whatever we say here is going to stay here whatever decide in this polic that is because we decided to do that and they need to approve yes because we need to go into a guidelines but at the end of the day is what we decide here so again we should not take the this approving so slightly just trusting somebody that's my that's my point um again we we have I mean I still have students that call me or pents that called me because they didn't make it to the they made it to to
119the list to the waiting list they don't know why they transfer Miss richon knows I sent her an email the other day about student transfer which it didn't go well by the way because he was given a choice of no choice of what he had he CH he had a choice it was a transfer I understand what she just explained to us about um you know why it took longer and all that I suppose she was answering me some somehow but anyways we have so many inconsistency that we have with what with the policies and the approval that we have here that you don't want to take those slightly so yeah I sound upset because probably I am upset because you guys are making this as you know we come this it's like this is
120a play place where we come and say okay we approve approve approve everybody go home it's not that it should not be that simple I don't take it that simple I want to go through this I want to when I said yes I approve it's because I'm 100% sure that's separate from trusting I trust that we have a very outstanding uh Administration that is try it's it's doing the best that they can but we here to approve things to make sure that those things those polic are being follow so and and again I'm not trying to offend anybody but I want to clear CL clarify why I make choices and in this case particularly it's the amission that I have having problems since day one I explained that from the beginning for the same reason
121because I'm going to when you go approve all this I'm going to say no and I want everybody to understand and it's in minute why I'm saying no I'm not saying no just because I was um I was in a trip and I couldn't read all this but guess what this is what I've been doing for a while and I read my stuff so I just want to make that clear thank you um again um that yeah I'm almost say can you read your motion back maybe sh has it you read the motion back accept this admission policy with the Student Activity section a requirement with an opt out statement that's good I'm sorry hand yeah uh two things I mean the statement we want to make sure it doesn't it does not sound inequitable
122as the superintendent that we don't want to say you will lose five points if you don't do this you know you you know this will impact your application I don't know what the wording is what the wording would look like maybe Super T give a better idea and the second thing is is I just want to make sure that the note on standardized grading is included in that policy did you get that that one just sobody on the same page please and include standardized grading um yeah because I know Brenda would do that yeah is included that's standardized grading is is noted noted that standardized grading is included way it would say is that standardized grading will be changed to using a a conversion chart I believe yes okay well uh yeah standardized grading any
123any grading system other than AB C and D will be transferred will be um converted converted to uh uh that system yeah the ABCD that's for the second yeah that's my second Point um AB yeah standard ABC D I don't know and then going back to the first so yeah we have an opt out statement um what would the opt out statement be we just want to make sure that we're also approving something that's Equitable and we're not just saying opt out statement so what what kind of statement would you want you decide to recommend it yeah I would simply say that uh if you choose to opt out of the statement it will it will have an impact on your final score okay it will have an impact on your application yeah I mean
124I don't want we wouldn't want to let parents know about anying that's going to impct their score okay yeah that's your motion do I have a second second any further discussion call please miss Ferris yes Miss dla no Mr Jones yes Mr Mahia yes Mr toox yes Mr hayam yes moving on the admission report admissions this is where our kids come from right Mr so admissions report oh yeah that's from that's actually the numbers from last year not the new applications those were the final numbers admissions numbers from last year that you got there in front of you that report shows 1,59 n students applied last year that's our present ninth grade class and uh then you have a co-op report there report is next right now we have I think 10 I believe we
125have 109 students that are uh on no 106 students that are presently on Co-op may be a few more than that since this report was written so we're probably closer to 110 which is I think actually the highest number we've had this early in the school year and we have a lot of students that he's working on getting placed so we have many um job requests uh corporations looking for students to come to work for them so it's moving very quickly and growing uh quickly as uh you'll see for instance dental assistant all but one every senior's on Co-op except for one student um and health assistance so the numbers are moving quickly in terms of students going out to work this year we have a a good senior class and we feel uh your
126your the reflection of the uh of the C numbers uh suggests that and then you have uh grading for Equity policy that we went over last time um is highlighted in the report uh the final report if you look at of this document I think you didn't have any package I want to give you this document [Music] this is the green I just want to reh highlight some of the discussion we had on the grading policy last last time last meeting um good just to get I think uh the biggest change on the policy is um where students uh for their students will get a and in the grade book will show the actual grade for the assignment that was completed which is different from where it was last year last year every the lowest
127score you could get on any assignment was a 40 under this year under the new policy the actual grade for the assignment will go in the grading book so that we will know it better tell better indicates what the students know and are able to do based on specific assignments and the in the curriculum and then at the end of the quarter when the grades are average the lowest grade you can get is 40 uh for that particular quarter so this the particular change I think uh gives us Clarity to where the student need has gaps in the learning where before it was difficult to see where the gaps were because they were getting 40s in the grade book which was not really reflective of what they were able to do know and be able
128to do so I think that's the biggest change in the in the changes in uh in the grading the grading policy um and they have the other uh change is students now um must communicate within five days uh a schedule for uh making up doing uh doing makeup work it needs to be completed by the end of the quarter in which the work was owed uh in order to get credit for that work so that's another change those are the major changes in the new policy oranization CH was please so um we re kind of redid the organizational chart so you could see more clearly who's reporting to who so if you look at the legend on the bottom there so you have the district committee at the top of the of the uh of
129the uh organizational chart and then the superintendent whoever reports to the super uh superintendent is done in uh kind of a pinkish color so um I think some of the changes some of the changes uh in uh who reports to who uh the principal uh reports to me and um and all the other administrators most of your administrators are reporting to the principal other than the assistant superintendent and the director of uh of um CTE uh and in when as far as admissions is concerned uh the director of guidance and admissions uh reports uh regarding admissions reports the assistant superintendent regarding the work of the guidance counselors themselves reports to the principal so split into two different people that they report to depending on the work that's that that person is work doing at any
130given time any questions reports of the committee District Community priorities policy BGE poliy dissemination this is for the school committee uh book I get a motion to uh accept it discussion page the statement between school committee policies we do a little bit sure uh what was the change from this cuz I I know there's a I I looked through it and there was a change but I just want to double check what was the change no know there was no change this was printed right from the book yeah there shouldn't have been any changes all poliy [Music] okay I mean in the the original policy I know that there was something here about it being uh public record and this one does not include [Music] that I mean I know this is a policy but
131you know we're going to approve it but there was a minor change I just want to know why I'm not aware of any change but I can go back and if there if there is a change if you want to hold off on voting for this I can check with uh my assistant to see if there was a change from uh the last the any previous uh policy regarding this particular uh uh policy and so we can hold hold off on voting and I can double check that yeah I mean that's up to the committee I'm just I'm just making a comment CU I I did look through everything before holding off on this and just doubling up on it get the next one next month and we'll do them both at the same time
132yeah you can do that okay not that new business uh Mr Jones you have the dress code in there so the dress code uh so we uh we're putting a committee together to review the dress code uh so it'll be made it's made up of faculty and uh administrators and then we're also going to put a committee together of uh students and faculty to uh look at their uh dress code as well to give the students some input into that uh and so the next meeting uh I will have a new policy both for the student and the and the faculty for a dress code thank you be two separate uh policies questions on that Personnel considerations um resignations and we have the dates as requested by Mr here I don't know why they disappeared
133last month but they're there now Joshua mlet coordinator of curriculum effective 8924 Jennifer DeStefano assistant principal of humanities effective 8924 Michelle Roda child care assistant effective 63024 Kimberly Bachman cosmetology instructor effective 63024 no leaves of absence no retirements appointments uh Dante kurora LTS physical education par effective 82824 uh Marina E yeah sorry Marina long-term substitute effective pantia uh aanas director of teaching and learning effective 9924 Amy Galvin reading specialist effective 2724 noren lefur reading specialist effective 8 2724 Caitlyn lejoy licensed practical nurse effective 9324 Kelly travarus cosmetology instructor effective 93024 Brendan Sullivan assistant princip principles Humanities effective 9624 Bridget grenman grenham child care assistant effective 8 2724 uh job posting two cafeteria utility workers help with preparation and serving of launches to students new position effective 9 2024 see the attach job description which is
134the next page I'll need a motion for that motion to accept second discussion Mr Lavoy do we have a rate of pay in here for the uh Melissa can you look up their rate of pay Melissa 30 something doll an hour I believe they really they have have sa they have to be a they have to have the ability certific Li says you have to take it and get certified have to have it so is this really a cook's position no necessarily cooked they do some uh cooking making of uh lunches and stuff and then they also do serving so depending on their skill set their assignments will be driven by that two people yes it is safe sir is it a is it a cook did you say a cook for uh the uh
135cafeteria utility worker I mean I don't know I don't know where you put that on it would be in the cafeteria contract but I'm yeah would be in their contract but I believe I looked at it the other day and it was somewhere in the $ 303 a little over $30 an hour but I can send you the exact uh hourly rate well I'll email it to you I'll email to the whole committee we call a vote please I'm sorry so it is a union position this is a union position yes it is and what do it classified as cuz I you have the contract right they're classified as uh cafeteria workers okay anybody else please Mr tabx yes Miss Ferris yes Miss dla Mr Jones yes Mr Mahia yes Mr haam yes we do
136have a need for an executive session yes there's a future agenda future agenda items have something you want to add something to the Future agender items yeah simple for now so there's like a half a dozen parking spot that are for day here so it's it possible that we add a extra um note there that said the time frame because right now I'm parked illegally outside because you know it's a day care parking only yeah we can absolutely do that good suggestion thank you all right that's to change the just to put the hours on the signs that are out there for the child care and we do have uh a need for an executive session uh on contract discussions yes or no yes yes you have more down there than I do yeah okay
137all contracts that's fine can I get a motion to enter into the executive session please motion to enter executive session all in favor I all opposed I just so everyone knows I asked the director Finance not to attend this meeting because we'll be discussing her contract so motion to enter without the Director of Finance yeah motion yeah I think we should yeah motion to enter executive session without Director of Finance second all in favor opposed motion to enter without the Director of Finance yeah motion yeah I think we should yeah motion to enter executive session without Director of Finance second Mar all in favor opposed motion to enter without the Director of Finance yeah e e e back in session please Mrs Ferris and like to make a motion that uh we reconsider the vote
138of the non reps um that was taken back in May July okay have a second second discussion motion there was three motions so we need to be clear one we're going to do one at a time that's this one no no no this is the motion that was we have three motions she's taking one to for consider you're taking only one yes okay so we need to say which one because there was well the motion that was taken um to the vote that was taken back in July regarding nonre Merit increases increase for the one second second any further disc discussion all those in favor I opposed second is there another motion I make a motion that we uh vote on the nonr Merit raises uh of 1% for the vote 1% for the under
139new contract for this year ear contract early contract per contract per contract so it's 1% Merit increase for this year yes for nonre yes for nonre we have a second comment second com second with discussion with discussion discussion so I think we're missing things up here you don't did we vote twice no this is the second no I don't think so she's voting for The I mean she's bringing a motion twice this motion is for the early contract no it's not it's not we just reconsidered the considered and now we're taking a vote to issue the 1% Merit for the nonre that's what that's what my motion was all right we got that we voted on it right we've already voted on that one to rec consider so that's not the second motion because already
140done can you lay out the second motion so we voted to reconsider and now this is the the the vote right okay may I please there's two motions that we going to make one motion is to reconsider the motion that we made on the meeting on May about the non ref to get a what on the contract based on their um their um Merit increased evaluation so you're you're voting to resend your previous vote exactly Merit raise to the bringing that mtion back yes so basically you're to resend the vote that was ear earlier to not give non a percentage increase AER that's vote and then you're going to vote to give them one two separ votes okay so I am making a motion to resend the vote of July July regarding um nonre Merit
141raises that's right that's right but we already voted for that one say that Sor we already that was the first one that she did that was voted on okay so now the second motion what's your second motion to approve 1% yeah to approve a 1% increase for nonre um okay so I'm making a motion to approve a 1% non a 1% increase for nonre Contra that's the other see we need to vote now on the cont to approve to approve the extension of the Director of Finance contract a year sooner uh and award a three-year contract with an increase of 25% I mean 25,000 the first year 5,000 the second and 5,000 third year a motion we're good with that motion Mr I'm still on the Merit one we have to take a vote yeah
142we haven't take a both let's have the vote on the first one before we get confused on the second one what are we voting on Merit right you want to vote on the Merit one yes let's get that done are you voting on a 1% increase for % Merit increase for all nonre contracts second yes second it oh no it wasn't propos that you're seconding it now you just got a vote Let's do let's do this one at a time real I can help you with the language Mr Mia yes Mr tabog yes Miss Ferris yes Miss dla yes Mr Jones yes yes Mr Hayden yes want me put the other motion out there and you guys can yes support your recommendation anyways so yes for the Director of Finance to um give her a
143three-year contract a new three-year contract starting July and starting July 1 2024 with a $25,000 increase for the first year of the contract five for the second and five for the third contract good so I make a motion per Mr Lavoy statement recommendation second second discussion all those in favor I oppos just do a roll call for the do a roll call please okay please thank you Mr Jones yes Mr Mahia yes Mr TX yes M Ferris yes M dler yes Mr haam yes motion to adjourn last one CT Lanson controller a new threeyear contract starting July 1st 2024 with $25,000 so we broke them down individually oh set of both of them together okay I have a motion for that a I'll make a motion second second discussion's this one time too Miss V
144yes Mr Jones yes Mr Mia yes Mr tabx yes M Ferris yes Mr Hayden yes yes good night everybody