001okay Sue uh when you have a moment could you call the roll call for the purpose of attendance please Miss Fitzgerald yes Miss disler Mr Hayden yes Mr Cirillo Mr Lamonte present uh the minutes of November 7th and November 15th can I add a motion to approve I have a second discussion changes comments all those in favor anyone post Mr DeStefano could we get a cash balance report please sure I'm having internet problems again you want me to come back here no no I'm doing it off my phone that's fine okay um cash balance report as of November 15 2022 count balance on October 28 2022 is 2 million 185 805 spot 14. we had deposits from October 29th to November 15th of 647 425 spot 21. uh less payroll on November 10th of 1
002million 130 0.97 Spock 59 less warrant number 15 on November 7th of 856 742.38 wallet number 16 on November 8th of 12 7 13 20 and want number 17 on November 8th of 198 230 leaves us with a book balance on November 15 2022 of 6 35 537 spot 18 with the corresponding bank balance on the same date of 2 million 182.73 in our mmdt account balance on October 28th was 8 million 846 359 12. we had interest uh in October of 29 454 spot 43 um and um additional interest uh in November of 24 338 81 leaves us with an mmdt balance on November 15 2022 of 8 million nine hundred thousand 152 spot 36 and an overall total operating cash balance of nine million 689 spot 54. okay Jared would appreciate a motion
003that to approve his given discussion all those in fact all those in favor aye and you want to pose thank you very much Mr DiStefano there's a handout for the Consolidated cash Reconciliation Report evolving funders in your packet and budget reporters there any questions or comments on any of those documents okay moving on best part of the meeting uh student report Murray everyone I will be discussing our recent Student Activities clubs and our upcoming Sports um so over the past two days students have been competing at the skills USA fall leadership conference this is the first normal overnight competition that students have competed in since fall of 2019 so it's been a while our students competed with over 500 other students from around the state in areas of leadership workplace skills personal skills and community
004service so we're glad to report that each student who attended left with a positive mindset and skills that will benefit them in many ways so students from medical Metal Fab electrical HVAC Cosmo and dental have received their leadership awards so we have a new dance club that's starting they're going to be meeting on Mondays from 2 45 to 4 30. they will learn different dance styles from different cultural backgrounds such as salsa modern and Hip-Hop this club helps focuses on dances and helps students become involved with glts to increase student engagement and school spirit they hope to perform at glts events and other community activities and most importantly have fun students don't need any Dance Experience to protest to participate only commitment to learning to dance so our GSA Club will be attending a regional
005meeting December 8th from 9 A.M to 1 p.m at Whittier Tech it's a great opportunity for people in the club to create a community with others in the Northeast region as well as learn about topics like how to create an inclusive GSA and more during student council's meeting today we decorated boxes for a food and toy drive so there's going to be a bunch of decorated boxes placed around the schools pretty soon so be on the lookout for Creative boxes and donate if you're able to so to participate in sports students needed updated physical being good academic standing and register through family ID with a parent or Guardian so we offer girls and boys basketball from November 28th to March 11th we have girls and boys indoor track from November 28th to March 11th we
006have cheerleading from November 28th to March 18th ice hockey from November 29th to March 5th swimming and Diving from November 8th to March 11th and today is the last day to get your basketball Reggie gear they have some awesome items like long sleeve T-shirts joggers shirts hoodies and more you can visit the link at the bottom and you guys also have it on your paper copy if you'd like to visit it later we have our Thanksgiving game coming up so we're hosting our annual Thanksgiving game here at glts it's Reggie's versus Wildcats it's tomorrow at six there's a pre-game ceremony for our senior football players as well as cheerleaders at 5 15. um staff and students get in for free and our concession stands will be open due to rain on our original date October
00714th we've rescheduled our pep rally for tomorrow November 23rd and fifth and sixth period so there's going to be a ton of Reggie Pride recognition for those in sports and clubs and games like musical chairs tug of war and a relay race so it'll be outside on the football field and it should be a ton of fun and this concludes my presentation um thank you thank you thank you very much any questions uh for Murray yes Mrs uh Fitzgerald will be nice I have uh two questions two different items on the dance club um is it a faculty or staff member that will be doing the teaching or students such as yourself um yeah so it's going to be um I believe it's two teachers from Cosmo that are going to be the advisors for
008it okay thank you and the second question was about the toy drive in particular are they looking for new wrapped toys unwrapped obviously in the package whatever do you know um I think that they don't need to be wrapped but they should be new thank you very much of course any other questions yes um not necessarily a question I just wanted to comment I received an email um father s thank you for dancing and so um shout out to the students that actually petitioned and advocated for themselves and shout out to the staff members that stacked up um not working um really excited for the pep rally and I will just do a little commercial teaser there's also going to be an exciting surprise from staff tomorrow so stay tuned okay anything further Marlene do
009you have any oh I'm sorry um yeah um the pep rally is fifth and sixth period and then we have our Thanksgiving game at 6 pm okay thank you anything further you have any questions for us for me have a nice Thanksgiving oh yeah um one more thing uh we are um taking any volunteers for a second student rep so there might be a new face in here pretty soon um we have gotten a good amount of people interested in the position so along with yourself though right yes yeah um good all right thank you very much okay [Applause] uh donations done articles uh great Lawrence Technical School uh students honored uh Commander sergeant major of uh Franklin Del Velez no public participation this evening has seen them uh on the school busing we had
010asked the uh excuse me the busing update we had asked the uh the CFO CEO of the busing company and he did acknowledge but is out of the out of the area it will come on the 6th of December 6th so he's not he wasn't able to come but he did acknowledge that he will come superintendent Capital Improvement um for we got the also on the bus to English course well sorry just just one touch base on that sure we have we um we have uh had some connection with them your microphone John please uh we have had some uh conversations with them uh regarding this course and I think we're pretty close to coming to a contract agreement for offering the course to uh 30 to 40 people from the bus company that are
011interested in taking this course so we're working on breaking it into the different levels of uh abilities as speak English so uh looks like we're very close to finalizing an agreement with them to start this program so we're happy about that uh Frank you can't answer this question but um just perfect even get that result um [Music] yeah I can I can get a I can meet with the superintendent from Whittier and take a look at their how they uh Implement their bus program there and see the financial cost and the other kinds of responsibility that come with it and I can do a report for the school committee on that any further Capital Improvement fund oh I'm sorry pardon me let's go back there the god service Mary Mac Valley so we got a
012um we got a we met with the uh company the Merrimack Valley guard Service uh Tony who owns the company they are closing up shop and as of uh December 15th they will we will be no longer provided their services I mean December 13th uh we they no longer will be providing services to us so Melissa and I have been meeting to to look at ways to uh figure this out so number one uh reaching out to Tony to meet with his staff to see if they would uh work for us part-time on temporary basis until we can put out a new RFP uh to provide different Services also looking at there are companies that are on the state business so we're looking at that as well because we might be able to get a
013Service quicker but yeah regardless we are working on a situation because December 13 is just around the corner Mrs Fitzgerald did we have much warning about this well they only have to give us 30 days notice so they notified us uh looks like November around November 15th or so November 13th uh yep anything further okay now John to the capital Improvement funds please so when the capital Improvement committee met the other uh a couple weeks ago one of the items that we didn't bring to the committee on last Tuesday because it wasn't as urgent they also approved for us to expand the roof system over the garages out in the near the football field there's six garages up there and what the plan is is to raise the rear and the rear side of the
014roof and put a dormer in and with the front uh Gable Dormer on the front end of it that has six foot window so we can move items we're desperately in need of more storage space for all kinds of items and in order to provide get that space what we're looking at is expanding that space up above with the way of accessing and putting stuff up there we have a new fork truck that's come that's due Jane the first week of January that will allow us to utilize that space back using our new Ford truck and moving things into there so and it also gives us a project for our seniors and juniors and carpentry as we don't have a house project this year and the cost of the material to do that project is
015forty thousand dollars so I just need a committee to approve the spending of that forty thousand dollars with the capital Improvement committee voting uh to move to to the full committee we have a recommendation from the superintendent so moved discussion yes Vivian have an understanding okay I'm sorry did you ask but that's okay so if you if you look at the front uh for you know where the garages are out near the football field as you enter just before the fields on the left of six garages out there do you know do you know where they where they are calls who are left to the left to the left of the fields there's a there's a fence and there's a whole bunch of garages in there yeah so if you look at that those garages
016and you look at the roof basically what we're going to do is take the group The Garage uh roof was slanted at a 10 10 12 which is about a uh probably 35 degree angle we're going to reduce that angle of the garage roof and make it about a 10 degree angle and then what that allows and then we have to put a wall in front so it raises the roof so now we have space underneath it and above so we basically make a second floor out of the garages and that way we get more space to store stuff so it gives us an enormous amount of space that we don't have right now so by doing that so the kids will what they'll do is they'll Shore up the game will end take the
017roof Rafters off the roof and rebuilt put a new wall up in front of it and then put new Raptors on top of that and then that'll make more space and give us more space okay uh Frank everything will be done by students is for them all the materials yes we did on the lumber we got three quotes on the lumber yep are you awesome this is Fitzgerald yes this has nothing to do with the Dormers but the three mics over there seem to not be working at all is there any Tech person that we can get I will address it let's just get through this issue okay thank you request support yep okay all right now back to the back to the Dormers any other questions comments no I think it's just her but
018that's cool all those in favor any word opposed okay out of state travel uh out of state travel for the senior class of 2023 to travel to uh Brownstone exploration and Discovery Park in Portland Connecticut on the June 1st uh 2022 at a cost of three buses which is four thousand two hundred dollars grab a motion on that please I'm sorry okay it was just I think the funds it's just you can see the money that's that's in there okay back to the out-of-state travel have a do we have a motion second discussion questions comments all those in favor and you want to pose a mission reports uh are in your packet you have any questions on the admission reports report I'm sorry yes okay until this is just our first admissions report for the
019new admissions uh process uh and it but this report was after it had been open for two weeks we already had 766 applicants so we're going at a record Pace in terms of applicants fast a lot faster than we were at this point last year we had way more applicants than we had at this point last year Vivian [Music] um is the influx of applications would you say that it's due to any improvements of Halloween where um conducting business with other guidance counselors from uh from this from our exactly from sending communities of middle schools because I know we discussed Improvement plans um in regards to how guidance counselors and the students from 7th and 8th grade I'm not sure if that's currently the practice now with seventh graders or is it just eighth graders
020um but I'm just curious if you would deem that um that the results of the applications that we are receiving now is due to the Improvement plan of how we are communicating with our with our middle schools I think it's various reasons so yes one of the uh reasons for it I think is the work that our present guidance counselors and our director of guidance has been doing with the sending Community guidance counselors and principals the other thing is the visits we've been making to the schools I think are video and our presentation is much improved and that's having a big impact in it as well the open house I was a big success and I think that also made a difference and I think probably what's making the biggest difference is the quality of
021our programs and the reputation that we have amongst our communities in that the school is a safe school that students are performing well in the MCAS and that students are graduating with great opportunities for different careers we're placing more and more kids to work so you know combination of all those things are making a difference so I mean we actually have 977 applicants right now but we haven't processed all of them uh the numbers I gave you were basically how many we've processed but right now we're at nine almost a thousand applicants and we just started are we currently doing tours uh like the middle schools are they creating any type of appointments um with um with us in having students come visit um during the school year around their seventh and eighth grade and
022if so I'm also curious as to you know what is this what are we doing now that we're having an influx of applicants but yet our school has not expanded um so do we have a plan in place and how we're going to mitigate um this this many applications and we're not going to be able to take every student so we we had a team of four people or a committee of four or five people who spent the summer um and into the first couple of months of this year looking at our admissions policies and process which I presented to you to try to build better to ensure equity for all students who apply that was one thing we've done to try to make sure that all students have Fair opportunity the other thing in
023terms of expanding each year for the last 10 years we've continued to expand including this year we took in more students our plan to expand is based on the new we are trying to get three new programs approved and that's part of our expansion plan because that'll allow us to take in over the next four years another 300 students but that also means we need more space so we put in five million dollar Capital skills Grant if we get that Grant then that'll allow us to put on three minor additions which will give us more classroom space allow us to build another cafeteria and allow us to develop three new spaces for our program so that that will then allow us to bring in those 300 students and make it so we're not overcrowded but
024that is the what we're actually working on last question is and based on the the five million Capital skills Grant what like where is this projection where do you see this um when do you see this happening so we're going to know um the first we expect to know I should say these uh first week of December is when the uh Awards will be uh presented or announced uh so we'll know in a couple more weeks we're going to know if we got that Grant or not uh and I feel very good about that we'll get that Grant I really do because I think our application was outstanding there was a lot of time and effort that went into that application with a lot of people putting effort into it CT directors coordinators teachers and
025of course suamano did an outstanding job developing it and writing it with all the input of people so there were several meetings so I think our application is extremely strong and what makes our application very strong too is the number one criteria for getting the grant is expand number one having a lot a large wait list which we have probably the largest wait list in the state second a plan to increase access so we're increasing 300 students which is a lot of students for a five million dollar capital investment that's a lot of students to increase so I think those and then the plan itself of expanding in career areas where there's a job need where the where there are Industries looking for for help also makes the grant strong so I really feel good
026about the grant that where we should be very I think we'll be very successful I would be surprised if we weren't so I feel I'm feeling good about it it's only a couple weeks away so once we know that so with that if we get that Grant we've also Revisited our Capital skills Grant we haven't spent some of the money we expected to spend on certain projects because we've been able to do the projects for less money or and we've been able to move money around from other projects so we are projecting we to about 1.5 to 2 million dollars left in that that we can also put into the 5 million for seven million dollars we had an initial a set of drawings done by an architect for the three areas that we want
027to expand uh and we got a quote they he sent it out for a quote with uh with a reputable contractor and we got a price that came in about 7.8 million to do those particular projects which is in the realm of what's possible for us so if everything works well then I think we'll be in a good position to increase our population to 2 000 students yeah but the question at hand was um once the the the grant has been received you know that'll be the the best news ever when would be the completion of the expansion when do you uh see this completion happening to it's a five-year projection plan no it won't take five years so if the grant gets five years is a long time not when it comes to an
028expansion if well this is not our this is not a msba project so it's a lot different msba projects take a long time to get get done and get through this is a lot different process so if the grant gets approved then we will immediately hire an architect to do construction drawings for those three projects we'll put it out for an RFP and see where the numbers come in and then we'll do a schedule once it is so the hope is to break ground this summer putting in a foundation and get the project started and and we would expect the project should take about a year do you mind remind me one of the three programs so the three programs are Aviation programming and child care child care and child care space is already going
029to be is almost already there programming we need the extra new space to uh to be able to bring in the program uh and we need the extra space Also in order to move a few shops in order to be able to put in a new cafeteria and so that's a it's a major plan and it's not just impacting the expansion for new programs but also moving some programs around and re-uh allocating some of the space to in a in a new way that will allow this all to happen so we've worked with the architect on all these plants to figure out so we have a plan in place that I can um if once we get to Grant I can bring in the drawing I think I gave you the drawings the preliminary drawings
030already I did that we sent in I didn't okay so I'll I'll bring all that together after the um after not the next meeting but after the holidays I'll pull all those drawings together and lay it all out for you where all the changes are in the building space Mr solo because no she didn't but go ahead Mrs Fitzgerald way earlier anyway I think we were still talking about the admissions and then got off on the um grants and so on but I have to totally agree with the superintendent when the original question was asked what do you attribute the large amount I think the reputation of the school over the past years has grown to the point where now it is almost an automatic that there are many new families considering this for their
031children but I also remember seeing I think in the past week or two the report on the middle school guidance counselors coming here and that it was successful I could remember the years when we had to pull teeth to get them to all to come and we would go to them but it from the looks of the report that I saw or the it was on I believe I read your website it looked like it was very successful and the timing of open house and then having the um breakfast I thought was very good so I I'm looking at Sue when I say this because I'm assuming that that came out of your office thank you Mr Cirillo you have to wait a year for 20 years come in here app but quickly Dimensions um
032numbers of um we have to look in they're moving in that direction um the aviation originally originally there was five programs there was um Aviation there was programming child care there was um uh postgraduate for metal fabricate I mean for Machine Tech and then the fourth one was I want to say low voltage electrical I'm trying to remember the name but that's basically was we pulled the low voltage electrical program because the department of Ed was not comfortable they felt as though the job market wasn't strong and we were getting the sense that they wouldn't approve it and so we pulled that one so we could focus more on the ones that we really thought were critically important and the reason we pulled the postgraduate program one is because we are meeting with Northern and
033we we were supposed to have a meeting with the Provost from northern Essex to look at postgraduate programs that align to associates degree so they would get 30 credits of vocational training and then 30 credits of of academic uh college level programs and come out with not only with a postgraduate certificate from great Lawrence but also in Social and so where working on that for Robotics and automation right now and we wanted to tie Machine Tech and any other postgraduate program moving forward so we're trying to start a new paradigm where we can offer kids coming out of the high school and our own students another opportunity for more growth Within These career areas at a higher level and so that work is just beginning with Northern Essex so we felt like we're not ready
034for that yet and we really wanted so that's one of the projects that we have going and I've got one of the main players in that is Eleanor's working with me and and Lauren Jones director of CTE on this initiative and along with particularly guidance director Brenda Richardson so we have a plan in place and we'll present that plan to you as well after the holiday so you can get a better understanding and it's part of our five-year strategic plan that we're working on to move the school forward in in another direction that will offer great opportunities for all of our our our high school graduates in particular ly because the last time I was there was like yeah so the automotive project has greatly improved the uh they've doing amazing if you drive by
035there you'll see almost all the block is up now and they'll be starting the brickwork and getting their actually some of the Steelers coming in and they've opened up the space between a new space and the existing garage and put in a large piece of Steel in there and so we're waiting for the uh roof joists the rafters and ceiling joists to come in which is steel we're they're supposed they're due in early in December so they once that's in they can start laying that so the Project's moving much better started anything further okay see none okay uh in the past it's a customary that this committee uh goes down to one meeting in December uh we would be having the December 6th meeting and we would be tabling or canceling I should say the
036December 20th is that the wish of the committee or would you like to do I need a motion on that second discussion all those in favor and you want to post okay uh Sue principles report please thank you good evening um this evening I just wanted to share a few updates um uh first I'd just like to update the committee on uh quarter one quarter one is behind us and as you know this is our first year of our new schedule with some new elements including the seminar and Wind Block so I just wanted to share with the committee where we are so um in terms of quarter one results I'm happy and proud to report that we have a large number of our students on honor roll both High honors as well as honor
037roll almost 800. we also have students with a one or more failing grades so I want to share that and um I can say in comparing it to former years the numbers especially for the ninth grade and quarter one are pretty similar one of the things that we're noticing that a lot more of our students are failing just one course some of the students that you see that may have multiple failures we are already working with pretty intensively in different ways I want to highlight our grade 10 we have a lower number of student failures in the grade 10. so part of our response to this is as we're we're moving towards instead of being reactive to failures we're really moving to be kind of proactive with some of the supports we're putting in place
038but we are right now working with students out of our special education office out of our English office of English Learners as well as in the academic side to kind of dig into the data to find out you know the root cause of some of those failures we're really trying to partner with students more because we want students to have kind of a voice and a say and we want we need to hear from students so the administrative team is working right now on getting to the root cause of a lot of the failures and partnering with students to see how we can support students in moving forward we also as you know have the seminar I think I reviewed the different seminars that we have each grade level has seminars in all the content
039areas this is a placeholder for elective and so we I had the students surveyed after first quarter of their seminar to find out what they thought about the seminars we also surveyed staff that are facilitating those so I just wanted to share some highlights that the assistant principals put together all of our surveys all of our courses you can see received overall high ratings from the students all courses received a rating of over a three out of a five experience in their seminar course which again is brand new for students overall out of the 614 responses students are reported that they had a positive experience with their and again this is the first quarter they had an excellent or a good experience in the survey some of the responses that we got because what we
040really wanted to get to is some of these courses where they're aligned to standards and aligned to content we wanted to ensure that they're engaging interesting and students had an opportunity to work collaboratively which we feel is a great soft skill so you can see for the most part of the respondents the students found the matters interesting engaging and they had opportunities to work collaborative and also they highlighted Choice um so some of the things that we pulled out of the survey which I think is going to help us work towards developing electives in the future what student what students really and these are responses that were repeated they liked working in groups completing projects they liked writing um a lot of them did shout out their teachers films choice and collaborating on different topics
041um we also asked them what they would change and some of this data that they reported about change really aligns with the idea of building electives uh students reported that they would change having just a seminar for a quarter they wanted to have it run longer like a semester they also want Choice like this year because it's a placeholder each student has a seminar in all four academics but students are reporting that they really like to choose throughout them they want more projects and one of the things they changed they said the class sizes were large I did check in today the average class size of a seminar is 24 but that just goes to show that students are used to smaller classes and we also found this interesting these are the ones that we
042put here also repeated students reported that the seminars and additional offerings that they'd like to see are art drawing creative arts debate criminal justice forensics current events world world cultures and foreign languages so this is the voice of the students after the first quarter um so um we thought that was encouraging and we plan to in order to kind of keep moving with our plan we will look at quarter two we'll also be working with our teachers in the next professional collaboration day each team is going to get their individual results so all the 9th grade math results will go to that team they'll kind of look at it a little deeper and that way we can move forward with both student feedback and staff feedback and how to build electives at greater Lawrence um
043another thing that I've talked about is our win what I need um one of the concerns last year from both families and students was well what if I don't need anything like what if I'm up to date what if I don't have anything to make up what will I be doing in that so we're really trying to ensure that the Wind Block number one is for supporting students and for students to get direct instruction learning they can do it supervised the other offerings that are listed here are all being offered by our guidance and Social Work team I'm pretty excited about this there is meditation movement journaling there is stress managing stress there's all kinds of different offerings there is also um some strategies for success we're also going to be adding to these with
044our we have additional staff in the Special Education team social workers that are either going to be developing even additional offerings so if a student is caught up on all their work and they don't need to go see one of their academic teachers there's some choices built in some services that they might need around all these topics so it's pretty exciting good hold one second Mr Cirillo you have a question of course yeah it's not linked the survey the um where you head up there oh yeah that's just a link here yep I can send that to you thank you and put them on some of these some of the conventions make sure he's meeting the thing how are the parents reaction or collaboration with the school on his according to someone else because I'm
045looking at the um students um yeah that's great so we're definitely wanna and that's my next segue so thank you for seguing into family involvement um so anytime a student is in danger of failing or failing a course parents receive a letter from their guidance Department this year we've updated it to talk about the wind the wind opportunities also out of our special education department as well as our um language English learner Department they're actually offering like meetings whether a parent can join by Zoom um where the the student is at the table the parent is at the table the director of special ed and any other people like that really kind of talk about like what is the plan um so anytime um that even a student is in danger of failing there should
046be contact with a teacher um the teacher should contact the parent um in terms of partnering with win one of the things I think a goal of ours is to to have more information about it so that could be a conversation at home like what are you doing with your win block because again we're trying to use when as number one a support for students that can make they can have during the day we want students to be able to Advocate and choose for themselves where they need to go we also know what's new and that's a level of maturity so we have to as staff members every staff is a win advisor and their job is on is to kind of look with the student okay where are you going to go this week
047where do you need to choose to go well let's look at your grade it looks like you have maybe an opportunity to increase your math grade let's select you with math so we're it's all new for us but I feel like it's getting better as we go making sure um also making sure you'll be holding the kids accountable work um I'm looking at that right now um can you give me the numbers from last year for the first quarter on affiliate rates I can send those through the superintendent's office I didn't have a chance to like I didn't block them I can tell you they're very similar um of course our hypothesis with win is that numbers of failures would would be reduced however there's also many other failures and I would say they're very
048similar but I'm happy to provide that comparison so you can see it by grade level and by number of failures let me do my subject if that's what you're requesting yes and I'm looking at these Support Services I love this because a lot of kids might have already completed their their classes but definitely can use somebody supported on Services yeah yeah I'm pretty excited about a lot of these I think that um you know even you can see and it's not anything that they're locked into for like forever right but they can go like one of them like the strategies for success that's going to help students um um and I love it it's like join this group and be your own superhero right how to manage stress how to stay healthy how to resolve
049conflicts how do you fight I mean I might have to sign up for this not a fight procrastination right um but there's um I also love how the team that's developing these is also um trying to integrate a little movement because sometimes that's what kids need and we found that last year with some groups that we did so this one here strong on the inside strong on the outside um 10 spots available you're able to you know lift weights do some journaling and sometimes that might just be what kids need so yeah thank you for the questions nope so these are and I should have segued in this so the seminar classes are quarter long courses that are in English History Math and Science and I think I discussed those last month I'm happy to
050share also the topics so we have a six period day so all students take the four content areas they have a quarter long seminar and our sixth Block it's actually our fifth block is called when what I need and it's a shorter time it's on the academic side only right superintendent yes yeah tried but that is where students go they have a choice of where they're going to go um they have a choice or their teachers choose for them so if I have a student in English class that has um that I think needs more support or maybe has missed a test I lock them and they come see me on one day no the seminars are the um that's called when all of these are win win blocks yes okay so these aren't the
051seminars these are seminars here the seminars are by and I can share the list of them um yep I think it's in the last I brought them to the last one but I can repeat it I I could have um so um in grade nine there's like a poetry unit there's a spoken word one but I'll send the list of them because some of those classes I'd like to take as well um sure um you're saying that they look the same the same but I think they were lower so thank you yeah no I and and I'll say we're not it's not that we're not concerned because again like um I think everything is going to take it take its turn um but we're looking at these numbers um by grade level like your microphone
052thank you please oh there he is okay so it will be nice to see to dip into these failure numbers and see where the majority of the failures are because you know we might need to tackle them differently than um I can share through the superintendent also our plan because they our administrative team met last Thursday and the only focus was um this quarter one data and there we we all have they're all searching it but we can do that man I'm surprised that you didn't bring the compressor because you're very good at that yeah my apologies anything further bring it continue one please thank you um so the final thing I just want to report which I'm pretty excited about because I do think that um it all kind of works together is our
053family and Community engagement um we know or I'll at least I'll say for myself as a principal I feel like this is an area of opportunity for growth for our school and for me as the principal um our administrative team participated in a two-day workshop and the team actually selected family and Community engagement to work on and we're doing a lot of Universal Design for Learning so they we learned together we looked at resources on how to ensure the events that we offer are designed and planned around University design principles of Engagement representative and presentation the whole idea of that is how do we improve access for our families and how do we get them to engage because like if we keep doing the same thing and getting the same results we're not moving um
054so they choose they chose the topic to learn about the first session was like learning and then the second session was more about applying what we learned into planning um so what was great this was last Friday and um our leadership team they're currently working on a lot of these events so they were able they're able to try to apply the learning so it's a special education parent advisory Council the English learner parent advisory Council we have Middle School Parent presentations coming up we have these connect parent and family engagement events just today the athletic director was working on a winter sports family meeting and we have in the fall in the spring coming up our shop selection parent meetings so really trying to to as a leadership team we're trying to take the learning
055that we're asking our teachers to do and apply it um so this was one of the things that we looked at and the consultant that we worked with asked us to kind of look at us look at where we are so in terms of like kind of saying where are we in terms of family engagement it's one thing to inform like you're just informing you're providing information which I feel like we're leading towards Proficiency in that but we don't want to stay at perform we want to move to like getting Consulting involving with the ultimate goal of Empowering Families so we're at the blue and we're going to move but I just wanted to share that in terms of our work that we're doing in um I also want to share that we had a
056parent connection organization um and excuse me for one second had another question before we go oh sure if you don't mind I'm sorry no Mr solo sorry I didn't see you Frank that's okay um family and Community engagement a little bit um it's great we'll bring families to school business and I want to kind of going back to one thing the um fundraisers bringing the schools out to the communities that week there was a parade you have to win and over I think that's what I have my parade and so forth or um events like these are opportunities a week bringing the schools to these places I've been walking into parade and hanging out fires or whatever um great time to really connect with um communities I don't know if you guys are thinking of
057that or even looking at that but I think that's something we should really start looking at we've only been that's a great suggestion so the last thing I just want to talk about is um as I mentioned we had a parent connection group um it was running strong we were developing it we had a lot of senior parents that were this was prior to the pandemic we had a lot of parents that were involved that actually their son or daughters graduated we had the pandemic not that I'm making that as an excuse but one of our goals this year and one of my goals is the principal the superintendent I agree is that we really need to kind of like go back to focus on how we engage parents and families and so out of
058the um out of the office of discipline until we change that name I have uh Krista Gillis partnering with our new student engagement officer Glenda Cruz working with members of our teaching staff our support staff as well as our administrative staff and um we are there they've come up with a new Mission and they've renamed it instead of parent connection to the glts parent and family engagement their first event was the family game night they have an upcoming they had a zoom last night with parents there was not it wasn't a large group but we had a couple parents come and they gave some great suggestions on December 1st their next update is a X2 or Aspen training so we're going to have I believe over 20 staff members teachers coming and they're going to
059sit down one-on-one and make sure that family parents can sign into our portal and that they know what they're looking at whether it's grades whether it's other assessments we're going to be offering dinner and we uh they that group got a Chromebook donated and so we're going to be raffling off a Chromebook for uh someone there we also have an upcoming event on February 9th around drug awareness and prevention and this group plans to offer two more events after that so one of the great things is that instead of us deciding what programmings that we're offering the idea of last night's call was to ask families or parents what type of events they want so we got that input so I'm hoping our ultimate goal would to be have to have those families those parents
060actually help plan the events for the rest of the year that would be what we're going for and then finally because I feel like I'm long-winded tonight I mentioned that um we are in the process of doing an equity audit and we are on step two step one is just a data collection step two is a panorama survey that we surveyed students staff and family members and I just wanted to share so far the survey results we get a pretty good student sampling we have 1300 students that took the survey in English 38 that took it in Spanish there was an option we have 92 family parents that took the survey in English 32 that took it in Spanish and we have 146 students I call them students but they're not faculty members that took
061the survey so we I would like to see the family surveys a little bit higher so we kept that open for an additional day or two and we actually just sent another message we've sent it out a couple times we sent out a couple reminders so we're really looking at different ways and how we can get the results one of the ideas of like actually doing the survey when we have families in for some of these events that might help but I just wanted to share that and I'll be keeping the committee through the superintendent updated as we go through this Equity audit which should take a couple months um you mentioned that most partners that participate in the family engagement are seniors patterns of seniors did you say that I think what I what
062I meant was the parent connection group we had a large number of those parents right before the pandemics and they were parents of seniors so they graduated and then we had the pandemic so it was much more difficult to engage like freshman parents last night I'm happy to report that the parents that did come were freshmen parents so what we're trying to do we want everybody we want senior parents Junior parents sophomore parents but if we can get parents at the Freshman level then we could have them for all four years that's exactly why I'm asking the question yeah because it is it's important to get the patterns involved at the beginning so they can go have you know involvement with their child and through this all these school years yeah yeah so that's really
063our goal and I'm pretty excited with the new team because it shouldn't be one person's idea but now we have a team that are really coming up with some great ideas and the ultimate goal is is we want to have parents introduce like meet other parents and that way they're connecting and we want parents to be kind of help telling us like what they need to learn about so we're moving towards that thank you anything further yes uh superintendent yeah so I I just want to take your Mike Jones please I want to take a moment to point out and recognize the uh tremendous growth in the use of data due to the our principles hard work in making change in the school and as a result of this data we're being more informed to
064make change both in how we work with students how we work with parents and has increased and improved the collaboration of months not only parents but staff within the school with administrators and teachers and I think her leadership in this particular area is making a difference in the school so I want to recognize that just so that um and thank you personally for the thank you tremendous work that she's done in such a short time can I close out on a positive note as well sure all right um I also on behalf of the superintendent want to share um I think we mentioned it some of you may have seen it at the open house just on the screens I want to share our new video that we're using and now that I say that
065hopefully it will work um I should have tested it first but I want to share the new video with the committee that we're using at the guidance like for our admissions [Music] um people and students have not only two different educational paths with vocational as well as academics but opportunities to grow and learn and become leaders on the fields in clubs and after schools activities so there's much to offer they really afford them to explore their career and ensure that that's what they want to do and whether or not they go on to foreign thank you test test test test [Music] test testing test test testing well the Lights Went Out test testing medium backing session please okay um District committee priorities policies uh section B section BDF advisory committees to the school committee any
066motion on that please hope your second discussion questions comments all over the favor and he would opposed new business table matters she's nothing here to come off nothing's coming off the table Personnel considerations no resignations no leave of absence no retirements appointments Ms zorita's Jordan executive assistant to the principal effective November 28 2022 and Mr Kurt Madison uh a comptroller effective December 5th 2022 uh the following a job postings which need to be voted on John let's take the first four right here special LED down to the ell paraprofessional please okay so we're looking for a special ed a special ed transition microphone John please special ed transitional job coach uh the rate is 35 to 40 an hour it's part time it's a new position you should see the attached job description um then
067the evening adult carpentry and HVAC instructor this is an annual position evening adult Advanced manufacturing instructor this is an annual position and ell paraprofessional for evening adult manufacturing annual position does that have a motion please so moved give a second okay questions comments all those in favor and you would opposed Kate John the last four please ell teacher-free ell boot camp annual position OSHA 10 instructor for evening Advanced manufacturer training annual position a math instructor for evening violink bilingual Advanced manufacturing training Event Annual position Advanced manufacturing after dark substitute instructor replacement position have a motion please discussion questions comments all those in favor anyone opposed future agenda items ongoing projects do you want to touch on those John or what um I can touch on uh some of the projects just um where we're at
068quickly on the ones that we've been continuing to work on so the cosmetology project pretty much wrapped up other than a a small list of small items that have to be completed the Four Winds and the Reggie Cafe the Reggie Cafe we're just waiting for the uh pastry refrigerator to put that in and waiting for the glass wall movable glass wall that's coming in the middle of December and then that's totally done then that project's totally done uh and then the Four Winds new restaurant the doors came in Monday those are in process of going in that was for the new bathroom in the new storage room it's in that space and we're still waiting for the outside exterior door once that comes in that project will be complete we had our first event in
069there the uh the guidance counselor breakfast we had last week in there that went very well was really it was nice to use it it worked out very well and we're actually very soon there we were inspected by the health department for Andover was were approved to open and utilize the space for serving people is and we're only waiting I think probably after the after Thanksgiving we should be able to open up the Reggie Cafe and start serving the staff again it's you know the balls in the uh in the programs Court when they feel ready to do so they're it's ready for them to go ahead and open they have everything that they need to do so we did have to put in five new boosters on all the sinks in uh in the
070kitchen because they weren't meeting temperature which in the last 40 years I've never had a problem with that but I don't think they ever checked it but in any case they checked at this time and so we had to kind of really kind of rush around and get it done so we could have the guide to breakfast in the building but thanks to the electrical department and the plumbing department electrical department in particular for doing a great job making it happen wouldn't wouldn't happen without them so a big thank you to uh Charlie Kennedy and his students for doing uh really going out of their way to make make that job successful um and then the child care center um they've pretty much are wrapping up the ventilation system uh we're just about ready to
071do the ceiling so the goal really um is to try to open uh for services right sometime in January at this point so everything's in we had the crane here and we put the new ventilation and heating system on the roof with the crane on Saturday we're working on the playground as well so everything looks good for sometime in January opening um we'll we'll put I'm actually meeting with John archenel tomorrow to put a uh a a time schedule together so we can give an exact date to the staff when it will open so next meeting I should be able to share that time schedule with you on that particular project so those are the major projects that we've been and then of course I talked about uh Automotive project already Mr saral you have
072a question yeah okay I want to make sure for free to generate items that we add the um comparison of the what what it does for their busting uh for next for our next meeting and also the financial impact we receive from having kids here um almost two hours because I know we have to pay for lunches for the our dinners for them in staff for our next meeting okay do that uh yes one second Maryland okay yes you want to comment on that I just wanted to say that um we did get some reimbursement for the month of September on busing not a substantial not I would say enough so it isn't I didn't meet with our attorneys in his hands he's looking at uh strategies in ways that we can uh he's looked
073at the contract uh and he's looking at ways in which we can held them more accountable for uh if nothing else more financial gain or a reimbursement for non-services so um I'm still waiting for his final report but we are on that aspect of it as well excuse me Melissa not to put you on the spot would you know what the amount of that reimbursement would be by any chance would that come through your office you don't okay thank you Marilyn yes going back to projects um during the break I made use of the women's locker room facilities and on the way by I saw a lot of construction material plus cabinets outside and everything what is happening down there is that heading down towards the pool okay so um in the weight room we
074put a new we expanded the weight room we actually did that over the summer we took a wall down and what we finally uh were able to get the floor finally came in so we put a new floor so that the weight room is more than twice the size it was before so the company this week we painted it we just recently finished painting it it's coming to put all the equipment back where it belongs in the reopen and it'll be a lot larger and more spacious and we have some new equipment so the weight room is going to be uh much improved as well so that's why that stuff's out there I thought maybe you're putting a three meter board or something in the pool thank you very much okay anything further on any
075of those items get this time the chair will appreciate a motion to go into executive session for the purpose of collective bargaining all those in favor and if you want to post uh Sue would you call the roll would you have a minute please yes Miss Fitzgerald yeah miss disler Mr Hayden Mr LaMontagne yes we will be coming back here to adjourn oh [Music] um foreign on that