001a moment could you call the role for the purpose of attendance please miss Fitzgerald Miss disler Mr Hayden cyrillo right now is absent miss Mama Mr taubox Mr LaMontagne hi president uh chair would appreciate a motion on the minutes of September 12th discussions all those in favor anyone opposed Mr DeStefano would you be kind enough to give us a cash balance report please sure cash balance report um actually as of August 31st uh the account balance on July 31st was three million 522 109.60 we had deposits for the month of 5 million 465 966 37 those were Assessments in chapter 70. we had transfer out to mmdt of a million five less payroll on August 3rd of 349 954.99 payroll on August 17th 487 370 86 and payroll on August 31st first of 1148 422.99
002[Music] uh warrant number four on August 1st of 35 604 warrant number five on August 8th of 2 million 224 365.99 warrant number six on August 27th at 646 800. warrant number seven on August 29th at 509.91 and warrant number eight August 31st of seven thousand leaves us with a book balance at the end of the August of 277 000 oh forty seven twenty three the corresponding bank balance of three million 362 726.91 in our mmdt account we started with eight million three forty one oh twenty nine ninety two uh year-to-date interest um was fourth 437 854 81 on a total of eight million 778 80 884.73 and the transfer from the Eastern operating account of 1.5 uh monthly interest of forty seven one thirty four forty nine leaves us with a mmdt balance of
00310 million 326.019 22 and a total operating cash balance of 12 million 403.066.45 jail accept the motion discussion all of the favor in order pose uh he hand down to the Consolidated cash Reconciliation Report revolving fund report and budget report any questions on any of those documents okay budget calendar uh Ms Martel will update the district committee on the fiscal year 225 budget calendar so you have the 25 fiscal year 25 budget calendar in front of you I made a few changes to the process this year if you look at the calendar most of the work for budget process happens in October and November last year I felt like we didn't have a lot of discussion time around budget so hopefully this calendar kind of builds that in for the district committee I'm hoping to
004have an update on the budget on December 20th these are like the three things that the district committee should note superintendent will come and just give a quick update on what our budget status is and what the priorities are um in January I'll come and I'll do our full budget presentation to the district committee we'll have time for discussion after that we'll get the governor's numbers hopefully on January 24th and as soon as I get those I'm planning the next day to send the assessments to the member town so they can have the numbers to put into their budgets I'll incorporate any changes from our conversations any updates from the governor's numbers I'll have everything put in the budget book which I'll bring on February 13th and at that point we can vote the final
005budget you agree with those uh those dates this time the chill except emotion to accept the calendar as presented we have a discussion all those in favor and you want to pause thank you very much budget transfers Ms Martel please yep um so I've included all the budget transfers that I've been working on to get everything sorted out for the beginning of the school year these reports that you have in front of you there's ton of them I'd like to just kind of start including these reports they're straight out of the system these are the budget journal entries that I book um so if you I don't unless you want me to I'm not going to go through every single one because they're kind of self-explanatory but if you look at the top it gives
006a description of what I've done so the first one is just to correct an account number and as you go through you can see specifically what it's for some of them are just taking the budget that we had left over and positions that we didn't hire and reallocating it to positions that we did hire we had a lot of Staffing changes this year so I had to take overages and some positions and move them where we didn't have enough budgeted in others but going forward I'll just start to include these just like the budget report and the revolving account balances so if you have questions on them I can answer them but I think that this is good to keep us transparent and just so you have all the information of what's going on Mrs
007Fitzgerald I just want to make a very positive comment by putting the memo at the top for the purpose of what is happening with the transfer um it as you said it kind of says it all and rather than just getting a sheet with all of the budget numbers and where it went this is the purpose of it so I'd be happy if you presented it like this forever joyla you have a microphone please this is very helpful um I do have a question even though I see a little different I didn't see that before I see two transfer for Early Child director at least our instructions and one is so what's the difference um are they it looked like they are going from the same account to the same account but the two different
008transactions so if you if you look at the long account code um like the three digit the two four seven and the 220 we created it's a department number so we just we changed the department number so I just corrected the account number okay okay thank you anybody else have the motion for the budget transfers discussion all those in favor and you want to post thank you very much Miss martial uh donations uh two two two tool boxes an engine crane floor jack and various hand tools donated by Ms Barbara Voss of end of a mass so you know articles here no public participation and uh October calendar is in your packet any questions on that any comments on it John the admission policy please documents that represented the entire admissions policy with some new
009changes that were looking to implement uh going with the next uh into this year's policies for admissions practices for admissions this year oh I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry the changes to the policy are highlighted in red for you to and I'll I'll read through those every the rest of the policy is consistent with the policy that was approved last year so I would need the committee to uh vote on the changes that have been that are being uh presented before you this evening I'll start off with the first one which is on page two of twelve that's highlighted in red and it states non-residence applicants must submit a non-resident student tuition application to their home school district by April 1st a non-resident applicant must be accepted by jlts in the ascending District must approve
010the application for tuition in order to attend glts so this is uh required to be in our policy it's a state policy uh regulation and we didn't have it in our policy so we're just adding it even though we typically don't accept non-residence applicants every year it's unusual but there could be a case brought before you at some point so it needed to be in our policy um the next change is in under home school students just give me one second this is Fitzgerald yes if if I heard what you said about it being a state regulation but if we are a non -choice School different different this is different than non-choice different than choice okay so we just have to have it in there even though we don't accept students from we do other
011districts yes okay thank you uh on the homeschool students uh there was we just added a couple sentence in there to give Clarity on um understanding there that they've completed the eighth grade up to the eighth grade level of work so it states a letter from the local superintendent attesting to the successful completion of grade level standards as evident by the students work completed in addition verification of successful completion of the school year and promotion to the next grade level may be requested additionally homeschool students will be required to participate in an interview process if formal attendance and discipline records and or school-based recommendations are unavailable the next change is found on uh any questions on that particular the local super nintendent means wherever they finish their where they're coming from yes yeah um on
012page five of 12 for applicants for grade nine fault Mission the application should be submitted either electronically or paper copied by the priority admissions deadline of February 1st to change applications for grade 9 will be accepted no later than June 1st for fall admissions the only exception to this deadline will be those covered under the McKinney vento homeless education policy or other extenuating circumstances if approved by the superintendent so you can see it's a major change from our past where we had open enrollment right up until the opening of school we've moved it to June 1st um because the committee has had concerns in the past taking late applicants and bumping out students who are already on the wait list we we believe it's a fair process for those students who are applying at an
013earlier date and also it's very difficult to manage students trying to apply in the uh in the summer and has an impact on trying to prepare the opening of school for not only a placement of student in particular programs but as well as trying to do scheduling for many late students when we do accept very late students so we believe this so is a more Equitable process by doing it in this way good any questions uh Vivian I don't know if I'm speaking too early on this but um John and I feel like I've always brought it up in terms of like the deadlines and like even now with these changes I I feel like it it further highlights certain confusions that I have and then parents may have um because in one token we're
014saying that the deadline is February 1st but then um on the other hand we're saying but if the application is submitted before June 1st it's like I don't see the difference when an application is submitted before you after February but before June it's still holding the same regard right well oh wait if you apply by February 1st then those are the applicants that we're going to review first and uh get back and give notice to those students who are accepted and you're more likely to be accepted if you're doing it by by February 1st there may be minimal space left by uh if you wait to after um February 1st to turn in your application you salsa you don't did you have a question sorry well a question on the SE earned so when is
015admission deadline February 1st remind me when are we sending the asset the accepted letters typically we accept we start sending them out in March towards some middle to end of March early April yeah so is this saying that after June first no more applications are coming in exactly we're not accepting any more applications that coming school year yes yep continue John please uh number two uh on 512 uh it is the responsibility of local school guidance counselors or principals designee to upload all required documents and complete all required parts of the application as soon as possible after the notification that a student has applied so that's a change we're trying to get um as much information about the students who who have applied as early as possible in order to start the process earlier and
016and that we were able to accept students early if we have if we have all the information we need sooner than having to wait often we have to wait for information in order to make uh and it can hold back the application process of so the next the next policy references uh application for grade 10 or 11 applications for oh wait a minute this is the late applications applications for grade nine received after February 1st but prior to June 1st deadline we'll be evaluated during this be evaluated using the same criteria as other applications so regardless of when it's you turn in your application we use the same grading policy protocols and procedures for acceptance thank you um nine on page 9 12 reviews and appeals upon receipt of the required documentation the director will
017schedule a hearing with parents Guardians and students and will send a decision in writing within 30 days if an appeal is denied the applicant parents Guardians can pursue a final appeal with the principal following the same procedure that for those students who appeal being denied oh sure so if a student is denied and requests requests a review or an appeal um it states that upon the receipt of the required documentation the director will schedule a hearing with the parent guardian and student and will send a decision within writing uh within 30 days so once you've made the request and we get all the documentation necessary for the appeal um the director will notify the uh the parent or Guardian within 30 days all set no okay continue John please and that's it this time the
018chair will accept a motion to the changes in the uh admission policy as presented by the superintendent discussion all those in favor anyone opposed okay John moving on superintendent will update the district committee on purchasing of the Elks so over the last couple of years we have looked at um and talking about whether to uh do an after dark program during the day and in order for that to be possible we would need to have another uh building which we've been looking at purchasing or hoping to at some point be able to purchase the Elks we've been uh can have been considered by a couple of Foundations to help fund that uh and I've spoken to two different Foundations at this point uh and I would say that it would be a lengthy process many
019year process if we were to try to pursue it that way so it's not on not inconceivable that we could get partial funding if we were to try to purchase it so at this if the committee would um consider another Avenue which would uh require us to possibly go for a bond or seek other Alternatives I would like to look at having conversations with our state legislators with our City municipal Leaders with our superintendents to see if there's an interest in supporting some kind of a bond and then sue the idea of a possibly a breakfast where we could bring everybody in and give them articulate more what that really would look like if you're interested if you're if you're truly interested in starting a after dark program during the day which we would service
020about 600 students let me explain just a little bit what that would look like so an after dark programs during the day would mean uh yeah so it's it's a program that would be designed similar to our after dark program where you we would take in 11th and 12th graders um so uh we would take in our sending high school students 11th graders in the morning for three hours from the high school to the Elks and give them uh three hours of training every day and over a period of two years they would get 900 hours of vocational training which is the minimum required to receive a vocational certificate and then in the app they would be bus back to the high school for their academics and then in the afternoon we bring in 12th
021graders and give them training and then in the morning they would go to their regular high school so it's a similar to the after dark program only we'd be doing it during the day which has advantages in that students could continue to do after school activities like sports and clubs and and things of that nature um so if the committee were interested in um pursuing the idea I would do more work with our communities and seeing if interest is there and helping fund purchase of the building and then we would uh for any of the renovation work that we would seek mspa funding um to do the amount of renovation so it would be the idea would be to start approximately 10 Technical vocational technical programs we would Target we would try to Target some
022programs that we do do not have a jlts and expanding some of the programs we do have that have a high need for employment skilled labor so at this point here I would just like to get some sense some feedback from the committee if they like the idea uh and if they like the idea to for me to pursue it more I would do that or would you like me to give you a more in-depth presentation about the idea Vivian um your mic please about this I wanted to understand how would the daytime program work um in terms of like how would it affect their um their academic work with the their school do they have to stay afterwards to make up for that work um the programs I was gonna ask if we were
023offering uh the same programs that we're offering in in the after dark but you said 10 so that means we're adding additional programs how how do you make the determination as to what programs you're planning on offering yeah and um so yeah let me let me allow you to speak go ahead John so um the way it would work it right now right now students who are in the after dark Program start school later then the regular students so they're not putting in the same amount of hours at the high school so it'd be putting similar hours that they do now for the after dark program only um so that in lieu of electives or in lieu of some other programs they would still get their core subjects at the high school English math signs
024the ones required by the state in order to get their uh high school credits the rest of their credits would come from their vocational programs they would graduate with the same amount of credits only half their hours would be spent in a vocational program so they would still receive a high school diploma as well as a vocational certificate and um so that it's similar in terms of the hours that they they do now and the um the heights I've had conversations with a couple of superintendents already about the idea Lawrence certainly loves the idea and seats a lot of benefits to their students at their High School uh it's I've spoken to the commissioner about it his he thinks he believes that if the um he likes the idea but he thinks it really we'd
025have to have a real commitment from our sending superintendents and high communities to make something like that work plus we'd have to have a lot of meetings and other uh make other f have other opportunities to meet with the Department of Ed and possibly the Board of Education because the funding would be have to be more uh increased from what we get for after dark now because you're basically operating another school and uh so yeah so there's it'd be like a satellite school but definitely more cost involved in order to operate run such a system but it offers great opportunities for a lot more students who don't go on to college now so I'm uh does greater Lawrence went up go down that road path would be very different and unusual but just another way
026of of uh offering more seats providing more access since there's such a great need for more access that we're not be that we're not able to provide this is just possibly another way of providing more access uh well right now uh what we certainly look at programs that are in the after dark now we wouldn't have to do the after-school one we've moved some of those programs into the into the uh to the Elks and then we would add such that we could add programs such as masonry we could add programs such as a labor Craftsman some medical Pathways that we don't offer now like pharmaceutical some um oh other areas in the construction industry that we don't offer now different Pathways Pipe Fitters so there are other skilled labor Pathways where there's good demand
027low voltage which we offer now but we could offer specifically in a in a setting like that so that would be some of the things to look at and consider so Mr Hayden avoid three hours a day the best they can get is a two-year vocational certificate am I right it gets uh 180 it gets three times 90 is 270 300 600 gets uh I think it's 7 hours 700 hours any whatever the minimum we would get them in enough minimum time to get the certificate I try to remember if it's 700 hours or 900 hours we would they would have to get the amount of hours required so it may be three and a half hours a day they'd have to go so but that still wouldn't get him a four-year certificate not a
028four year it would be it would be strictly by hours yeah and I can see the problem with the sending schools not wanting to give up to students three hours a day even though you're saying they get all their Core Curriculum done I can see that being uh stumbling block for us well it's actually a benefit for them because they don't lose any funding they still get funded under Chapter 70 for those students so the their school's on lose a penny but then they their students get the opportunity for some to develop some skills and um it's a real benefit to the school also because they'll need less academic teachers because some of those those students are going to be coming to a vocational school and not have to put in that until you think
029hour for hour they're going to need less teachers in their system but they're going to get the same amount of money uh for this for their students that's the way after dark works now the schools do not lose any money the Lawrence or any of the other schools don't lose any money or they wouldn't want to send the students so it's a program that the schools wouldn't lose funding oh Mrs Fitzgerald well yes I have about 6 000 things flying around in my brain right now but I'm gonna keep it down to a few here um the first thing is um how active is the Elks right now in looking to sell their property so I've spoken to the Elks a couple times they'd be willing to sell their property for the right price if
030we were willing to help them find another location okay that answers question number one question number two and uh if Going Back In My Memory Bank a long time ago when Emerson when they sold all of that property other than the actual land the Elks and parking lot is on um when they sold it to Emerson College and then MSN College backed out and I believe the city took over all that land so in the arrangement of all of that does the city have the opportunity for first refusal in purchasing that and I'm asking that because it's a very real possibility because of the deals that were made at the time with Emerson and everything and then them backing out um so you answered my question about who have you actually met with um I
031don't know whether you would mentioned this before and I forgot about it the I feel a little bit like if you're asking us to take a boat here tonight you're asking us to put the cart before the horse it smells a little bit to me like a charter school and I would be vehemently opposed to uh Charter School type of operation and I know Department of Ed is pushing that so I just feel that there are so many Avenues do they have a realtor for status I mean is that how active they are and looking or are they just looking for us to do their work for them so okay I'll stop so the city well the city is aware that we are actually looking at this because I have spoken with the mayor and
032he's actually well here's here's a rub with that a little bit is there is other interests in uh Corporation purchasing the Elks so the city's torn between well do we want them for an educational ins uh institution or do we want to for jobs and tax dollars so there's a little bit of that that's to be so you know um until the ability to actually make the offers there we won't know so we may be this may never happen but I don't want to continue to work towards something that the committee has known I'm not asking you to vote nay or yay I really want to get a sense or a feeling for in this conversation more of a conversation to understand where you where you sit on the idea and you don't have to
033do it now we can think about it and talk again again more before I start to bring Representatives other peoples into the picture I would certainly do a lot more work and research but I don't want to do any more work towards this until I know where the committee sits on it because if if the committee doesn't like the idea I certainly would not pursue it Mr tabox yla the idea sounds very promising in terms of um get acquired more um real estate because we actually need more real estate to expand so my question and that will be after all the questions are answered in terms of whether we can purchase the um the elves um what's the difference between doing an after-school program or a day school program or just us after having that
034purchase real estate adding more shops and more academics for our own youths I think the big difference between day and night is that you'd have way more I believe you'd have way more students interested students don't want to give up after school activities in order to pursue something um here at glts and so that makes it really difficult for students who want to to want to to pursue a program like that and I think that um they in terms of the difference in terms of GLT it would be a school that would still be part of glts there would be a an Annex there it's not I don't believe it's it has um I mean some people think greater line technical school is similar to a charter school and the way we operate and this
035is would have some different flavors to it than we have now but it would not be a charter school would be under our would be under your uh governance so the school committee would still be this school committee that would be governing that that uh school and and the way it operates it doesn't operate is still under the uh governing body of glts which is our glts school committee so that wouldn't change no I'm just I'm just I know you answered her question do you answer my question I don't oh wait a minute well did I miss one of your program like if there's a difference my question is if we like I said if everything else is answered and we are able to acquire the IELTS and instead of going for it and uh
036extra after after that program can we expand our jobs can we expand to use it for our own programs yeah so just yeah I think I understand so you're saying can we just expand great along technical school as it is and offer the academic programs and because now we'd have more space yes I understand yeah there you could certainly if we wanted to um expand and continue to offer academic programming and all that yeah I mean we could certainly look at that as another way of doing it um it would be more costly to service more kids than it is doing it this way this way is less costly and the advantage to this too is the our sending communities high schools could maintain theirs some of their students and kids would like to continue
037at their own high school and still have this opportunity just another uh I don't think the vocational World in Massachusetts would love the idea so so my and someone I had spoken to someone about it before and why would I want to do this the reason I want to do it is so that we can help more kids get skills it's about the kids not about the adults no I'm glad you tapped into um the the reasoning why um having this building uh be more of a service to students that are in other schools as opposed to admitting more of uh you know admitting students because we've had challenges um in not being able to accept every student that wants to be a Reggie um so thank you for clarifying because I was trying to
038like struggle as to why um when Marilyn said she she didn't want this to be like a charter school my mind went to the fact that I saw this more of uh like one of our campuses but I thought that this was like ow you know it's it's our building where we're able to service more of our students by expanding our shops and creating uh you know admitting more students uh especially to those uh top shops where we're not able to give every student their top pick um so um thank you for clarifying John um so I guess my question is um do you have to in order to purchase this building and and I'm for it by the way as long as we I'm for it regardless if we're doing it to Service uh
039students from Lawrence High um Andover um I think it's a great opportunity to continue to help even though they weren't able to be admitted to the school uh on a full-time basis but um in order to make this project happen do you have to have to make a decision on whether it's solely uh a program where they're coming for the day and then some are coming in the afternoon or are you able to have like a mixed use of the building in terms of like I'm not sure if you're understanding makes use in the sense of like a portion of the building would be to serve to do that specific program and then a certain portion of uh the building would be used to expand our current shops and um that we currently have yeah
040um I think that would be a challenge to do that because of the academic programs and the connections and um we I I think um no I don't think that would work well because now we'd be trying to manage day Pro regular programs in another building in another facility as well as trying to manage another type of uh Paradigm of uh teaching vocational would be a real challenge okay confusing for kids as well they would not connect I don't think they connect with each other as well how many total students you said you would be able to serve if this well we would Target about 300 in the morning 300 in the afternoon all right I'm all set thank you Mr tab box John could because the hours are cut by half or two you
041know the numbers of hours in the in the setting is different um would you select technical skills that are unique for that you know a short period of time so those these graduates could get a job in that area possibly yeah okay so you I mean I would probably be targeting programs where I don't have to bring in big equipment and heavy you know less costly equipment but still offer opportunities and Pathways that would prepare them for some real skills that could be crossover skills to some of what we teach also uh you know it could be a path when I talk about medical uh programs when you talk about pharmaceuticals uh it's a pathway off some vocational schools are offering Pharmaceuticals as a pathway so that's something we don't offer that we could offer
042that doesn't take a whole lot of equipment but you can get a partnership with a CVS or one of the other pharmaceutical companies that would help fund it and put it together because they have done that in other schools so those are the kinds of things I would be seeking to get some support from industry as well to see where where the real needs and and the programs you pick have to meet the Northeast uh blueprint Target for where the job market is so the department is not going to approve programs that don't meet that Target because we're not going to train and not have jobs for kids I used to hate him one more time Mr Lavoy again this is not a full certificate it's by ours so the kids that we graduate will
043only have equivalent to a two-year vocational certificate I'm not sure why would we want to pay for another building and land why do we want to pay to renovate that building why we want to pay for the extra teachers and the administration not to mention the nurse the cafeteria the safety officer this is a big endeavor for what I'm calling a two-year certificate I'd rather see I'd rather see that time and effort brought back into this building it's not big enough well some of the services that we offer here you wouldn't be offering there in terms of your um guidance Department would come from the sending High School some of their special ed services some of the services that uh we wouldn't have to offer we'd be more a skilled training center and not offer
044a lot of the other services that you would up we would still have to offer some support for Yale students so which we do with our after dark program anyways and special ed students to make sure they get the support they need to be successful in their vocational programs um but the cafeteria they could have it could be scheduled around lunch so they're not having Cafe until they don't have lunch at at the training center um so that may be may not be necessary I mean the cost will be different also some of the um um Personnel you could have crossed over to some degree as we do with the after dark program now where we have some administrators so we have um part-time people are working part-time hours to cover the administrative work but
045it definitely would be much more costly than a after dark program would be but it comes down to if the department of Ed is looking for alternative ways to provide more access it's an it's an idea and an alternative way to provide more access uh for less money than it would cost to try to put a major addition on our building and expand you know and that would have a huge I think trying to expand much bigger than we are now we'll start to impact our climate we always see some change in our school culture and climate it's been very still very positive and it's been really really good you know but I don't know how much larger we can get and really it's not uh see more struggles in terms of trying to meet
046the needs of all our kids Mrs Fitzgerald well I want to start by commending the superintendent for never letting his brain rest there's no end to the things you're able to think of when you're supposed to be on vacation or resting or whatever else but we are up to just about 1800 students now I believe and when you came on the property I think we were maybe at 1300 12 1300 so we have seen phenomenal growth and I know that you want to service more kids but I think that in the past two years with the expansion of our new vocational technical areas um with the many new people that are in our fold in terms of family teachers students that um we haven't really had a time to catch our breath and see if
047we are right where we want to be and you just said that things are starting to be taxed a little bit so while that property is really close to us and it's really a big piece of property and it is worth looking into I think that it there's just so many questions starting with what are they looking for and I think the most important one that I asked earlier is to find out if the City of Lawrence has first refusal on that and I have a feeling that it might have been written up that way when everything was done but anyway um you know I I commend you for thinking so for opening up your funnel so wide so that Lots comes in there but I think our first obligation is to take care of
048the students that are here right now like I said I don't think there's any question that we are taking care of the students that are here right now uh John I'm going to ask this uh for a vote just to move on just to have you move on because it doesn't sound like if it doesn't go through don't waste don't spend there spin your wheel so at this time huh he's going to make he's going to make a recommendation okay that we move for I have no idea no idea you want him not to move forward on it so okay yeah I guess yeah I I want to put it out for discussion because uh I want to get what's in my head out there to see get feedback on your own thinking okay you
049don't have any idea exactly how everybody feels no but I I feel I feel like people have been able to express a little bit what they're thinking but I definitely know you need a lot more information or more I don't see I don't feel like you're saying oh this is a bad thing thing it could be a good thing but again as Marilyn says not at the expense of our existing programs in our school of course not yeah right no um no not at this time you know but just he's got the feeling of everybody if he wishes to move forward I mean I think we should vote on it give them whether or not we want him to investigate further not even move forward to do it but just to investigate further uh you
050know rather than to uh rather than to just take and have him spin his wheels if he has a 5-2 vote here against you know but if that's not the wish of the committee it's not the wish of the committee more questions well the way Leo phrase it's probably pretty good to investigate further and bring back more information not to buy it let's just start hiring teachers you know just to investigate I mean it's a we had 1400 students apply to this place last whenever and we took 470 or 450 all right there's a thousand people out there that want some vocational education okay uh we cannot fit them in this building it's physically impossible chances of us getting probably 190 to 210 million dollars to build another building out back it's probably going to
051be the cold day somewhere okay so um I just think it's a good way to offer and I I think the communities will go with us because they won't be losing funding we've had we've had that problem before trying to do this where the communities lost count lost numbers and it meant dollars to them if that doesn't mean any dollars enough it's going to be a win-win-win situation for us for the communities and for the kids that we're going to service I know they're probably just getting a two-year certificate but let me tell you a two-year certificate if employers out there will be happy to take somebody that has two years worth of formal education they will be happy if they don't because right now kids that come out they're expected to when I hire
052somebody and I've hired children I've hired students for the vote I'm expected to teach them and I expect that that I'm going to teach them Vocational School only teaches them so much so I think two years is better than nothing and that's a I mean if we can service another 600 students and give them a vocational education in whichever way in whichever Department because I know we can't do all 21 22 departments we have here I just think it's a win-win situation if uh if we can I mean I'd love to build a building out back and take another thousand kids but I just don't think that's feasible myself personally you know it costs a couple hundred million dollars to do but but so if you don't want to vote on it I'll have the
053superintendent get back to us um with some Direction that just uh anything further on it okay moving on then uh Craftsman labor program um I just wanted to get committee a heads up we are looking at um is this a program that we should pursue because we will have once we finish up everything we're doing this year a barn that will be a actual learning space we can put it in there but I would not again I'm I wanted you to know we're looking at it we're going to put in uh Department of Ed uh possible seeking of the program but we're not ready to totally commit to it we're just doing a feasibility study right now because I you might hear that we're doing that and I don't want you to say what's he
054doing now uh I want you to know that that we're looking at it and I've already scheduled a meeting with the business agent or looking to schedule a meeting with I've called them a couple times uh a meeting with the laborers uh Union business agent to talk about because they would be they would absolutely have to be a partner in this in order to ensure that there are good job opportunities for the kids because laborers are mostly employed in in the union more so than in non-open shops there are some open shop opportunities but mostly Union shop open opportunities so we want to see what the demand is under the department of vet Fields is a big demand because they're now promoting this program so I thought it's important to take a look at it
055and see if and it seems like the kind of work our students would love we tend to find these are lately our construction programs are in big demand are are the most popular programs in the school so it I thought it was worth pursuing so I want you to know I was doing that and here for me not from somebody else any questions for the superintendent little reggies so you just have some information in your packet about how the opening of the uh Child Care Center has gone this year has gone very well we have quite a few students that are already we have 26 students enrolled in the program which is more than we had expected I think if you see the kids you can see why parents who work here would want their
056kids to be part of the program the kids seem to really love it here and the space is great and if you see some of the pictures you can see it's pretty pretty awesome seeing them around the school it gives a helps the culture of the school a little bit seeing young people around so I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the John getting some feedback on it when they sign up for the little registers it required they come here as Freshmen yes that is uh that's the new rule that's the new rule that's a new rule yeah okay good yeah and unless they cry too much oh okay any questions do they have the essentials for the picture or do they just wear them every time they're here they only wear them once
057in a while for special events especially like future time yeah yeah I love them anything further that's it okay uh principal's report please good evening um just a few things to update you on this month we've had a busy week last week we had both back to school night for our caregivers and families and we had our school-wide summer reading day last Friday and I also want to share our data and mcasen accountability with you so for back to school night we this is our second year we did it a little different last year as a first year and we stuck with that this family and caregivers follow the student's schedule and we have an amended bell schedule so they have a very quick um quick turnaround to get to visit each classroom and shop
058and have a brief presentation and Q a with the teachers it's really great to see the the teacher the family caregivers get the experience of running around the building getting lost like their students do but it's you know for a while we didn't do it this way but we found it to be more effective and it's great because all family caregivers get to meet with each class as well as the shop we it was well attended our new parking lot although it wasn't paved and it was paved but not lined yet was full we had a great crowd we did try a new schedule we learned from last year last year we tried to have two like an orange week and a black week schedule and it was a little confusing for people so this
059year we just had one schedule and that seemed to work a little bit better we had our Reggie leaders all over the building and they were helpful in directing and supporting we already we already surveyed our staff and we got a response rate of about 52 teachers that said overall they felt like it was a night that where they could connect with caregivers and it was timely and benefit beneficial information we moved this night it used to be mid-october and moving it to earlier in the year seemed to work well so far so we've already gotten some feedback on how to adjust for next year but it was a great day and a great turnout um summer reading was Friday summer reading also was a school-wide event and it was great to just stop everything
060and read um we had our students discuss their summer reading books in their career areas or their academic areas and at the end they all participated in a Jeopardy game which students and staff really enjoyed each grade level had their own book selection list and each grade had six different selections to pick one we try to make sure that all genres are represented and there's multiple ways to access the books including audio digital or actual books which are my favorite one of the ways that we we supplemented the program this year is we got a Laura Bush library grant for five thousand dollars and we were able to purchase a lot of books and hand them out to kids so that really opened up access so it was also a great day I also want
061to share with you um briefly I won't go too deep into it but I want to share with you our accountability data you may have seen that the department of Ed released all of the accountability last week so none of it is embargo embargoed this is actually we haven't had accountability since 2019 prior to the pandemic so this is something that we haven't seen in a couple years so I want to start off with our mcath data and first I want to just give a comparison from 2019 to 2023 we used to have a long historical data for many many years but as a reminder we're now in the Next Generation MCAS and the test prior to 2019 was a legacy test so you can't really compare it's not Apples to Apples just looking at
062the achievement letter levels for many we think of MCAS and we think of proficient exemplary and the categories now are a exceeding expectations meeting expectations partially meeting expectations and not meeting expectations so if you look at our Ela data again this is just historical data from 2019 returning to the pandemic and then 2023 you can and I'll dig deeper a little bit into the the actual 2023 data a little bit later in this presentation you can see in terms of our categories and achievement we did have kind of an increase in the not meeting in ela and I'll dig into that a little bit so here um it just we talk about our student growth percentile and this is achievement that changes from prior years to current year and it Compares other students in the
063same grade who performs similarly in the past so our average SGP stayed the same 2021 and 2022 and we've had a slight decrease this year or last year this is our comparison from glts is in the orange compared to the state in red and are sending districts as well as a comparable CTE school and another district is listed in Gray moving on to math we have the same comparison for math you look at math and you can see in the partially meeting expectations we are steady we have seen a little bit of a a slight slight change in the not meeting expectations but not much our SGP for math is a little bit different we have we go from 21.2 in 2021 to 40 and down to 35. one thing to note of math the
064math test has kind of been recalibrated the ELA test has not been recalibrated and our incoming freshmen this year will be the first students next year to take the test that's a recalibrated version but math has already been recalibrated so here's our SGP comparison to the state as well as our sending community and finally our biology results biology looks a little different because during the pandemic in 2019 and 2020 the MCAS biology was not administered so last year is our first data point for math I mean for biology sorry and so just really briefly looking into this is achievement Levels by subject for all three tests just to to to put it in context with some numbers we had 431 10th graders that participated in this test of those 431 students 60 were students with
065disabilities 31 or multilingual Learners and eight of those students were duly identified so that's those percentages are the numbers so in terms of English results we had 24 students or six percent exceeding expectations 197 students that met expectations for a total of 52 percent that were either exceeding or meeting so a little bit more than 50 percent we had 187 students that partially met and 22 of our students did not meet expectation of those 22 students only three of them did not meet the competency determinations and will need to retest in November so for math we had four students that exceeded expectations 116 that met expectations and so 120 of our students are exceeding our meeting expectations in math we had 276 students partially meeting 34 students that did not meet and of those 34
066students that did not meet all 34 did not meet the competency determination and we'll have to retest so both the ELA and math retest is in November for all of our students for biology we had 12 students that exceeded expectations 157 students that met expectations and so we had about 39 percent or 169 of our students that actually exceeded or met 211 students partially met and 51 students did not meet the expectations yet for biology out of those 51 students 40 of our students will have to take the test again in February so also just to share our plan of action and speaking with the superintendent and the administrative leadership team we proactively took all the students that did not meet expectations yet and have to retest they're scheduled into supplemental support courses already all
067teachers are will be provided with item analysis so they can help Target their instruction if they have these students in their classes and we are offering after-school tutoring either small group or individual for all students we're trying to be a little bit more proactive and so this year we have our current 10th graders and some of those 10th graders are already getting scheduled for are getting support in literacy and biology one other change that we've made specifically in math is we're transitioning to the use of high quality instructional materials in math we've transitioned to illustrative math in grades nine and ten and we're really hoping that we'll see a lot of movement in math as a result of that plan so moving on with the accountability data again accountability we have not had accountability any
068accountability data since 2019 and so that was due to the pandemic accountability is progress towards Improvement targets that the state sets for us we don't have a say in it and the account accountability percentage for 2020 and 2021 is determined from 2019. so all the numbers that you'll see some of the indicators that are in accountability include MCAS data from the previous two years access data which is our data on multilingual Learners proficiency chronic absenteeism Advanced coursework four-year cohort graduation rate the annual dropout rate and then extended engagement rate and what that is is they look at four-year cohort graduation rate and extended engagement as any student that we retain and have them graduate after four years and so in terms of accountability the Department of Education classifies there's two accountability categories one is districts
069and schools requiring Assistance or intervention and the other one is not requiring assistance so in terms of calculations not to make it too complicated but just to so you can have some context to understand a little bit a lot of these points are four points in order to get points if you go down in a category you get no points if you stay the same and there's no change you get one point if you improve below Target if you improve but below your target you get two points if you meet your target if you get three and if you exceed you get four and so that's the the point categories again here's our accountability indicators and points earned you can see the points earned versus total possible points and the percentage of weight in each
070category so for achievement which is actually MCAS achievement we earn two out of four possible points for ELA we earn we did not earn any points in math yet and science we earn two points so we we achieve we earn two points out of a possible 12 for achievement for growth in both English language arts and math we earn two out of four for eight Ela and one out of four for math and for the other indicators for high school completion we earned four out of four for graduation four out of four for extended engagement and three out of four for annual dropout rate but that three just means that we met our Target but did not exceed it um our we earned three out of four points for our attainment for our English Learners
071our multilingual Learners and their proficiency and then those extra indicators are chronic absenteeism a four out of four an advanced coursework completion a zero out of four and advanced course coursework completion that zero just again means that um we it's not that we don't have any advanced coursework but the number of students in advanced coursework declined so our classification is not requiring Assistance or intervention we had a 51 percent we've made substantial progress towards our Target and our overall accountability percentiles 39 percent that's why I put that in green um and so in terms of our progress towards the target again the number 29 is the same for 2019 2020 and 2021 because there was no accountability so they assigned the same numbers and this year uh we are at 51 percent so in terms
072of percentile it's the same here you can see our percentiles remained it was a 27 in 2019 so it was assigned last year it was 34 and this year we are at 39 percent and just a quick progress towards our Target comparison again these are to similar districts but only at the high school because some of these are comprehensive districts so their targets are different for high schools and then our accountability percentile comparison so I know that's a lot to digest but I wanted to at least share it and you have the information also I can send through the superintendent a link to the Department of Ed for additional information but I'm happy to share our accountability and our MCAS results and I think that we are slow and steady making substantial progress there's lots
073to think about here because we have return we're still continuing to see the impact of the pandemic we're monitoring also all of our programmatic changes our schedule changes our time on learning minutes our curriculum to make sure that we continue to go up thank you I have one question not on your report our student Representatives how do we how are we doing with that yes thank you I'm sure you they would definitely not give you an accountability report so that'd be good so um there actually I'm meeting with them tomorrow and their first report will be at our October 10th meeting very good report thank you very much thank you okay um District Community priorities policies section b b e d h public participation and school committees she'll accept the motion to accept that vote
074discussion all those in favor anyone opposed okay new business see none is there any uh of these table matters we want to take them off the table John not Jeff okay personal considerations resignation Peter Murphy Plumbing instructor effective 9 6 of 23 leave of absence non-resignation retirements excuse me none appointments uh Ian McKennan Plumbing instructor effective 9 18 23 Christine gray helped a sting instructor 925-23 if Patrick holding a plumbing instructor 10 2 of 23 no job postings this evening future agenda items I see none there will need be a need for an executive session for the purpose of um possible litigation from a motion to go in executive session please all those in favor anyone opposed will you call the roll when you have a moment please alumni yes we will be coming back
075thank you you're right oops jail accept a motion to adjourn do I have a second all those in favor anyone opposed sure you can sure you can