001um up oh are we on are we on I'm just proud thanks um Welcome to our budget Workshop we have upcoming meetings um we have another Workshop March 26 we will be at penel that's at 6:30 where we will have the first draft of the comprehensive budget presentation we will also be in at the new glester meeting house next week on Wednesday for our March business meeting and before we get into our um reports please join me for the black repblic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible Liberty [Music] probably should the [Music] mic unless you have a big voice like me okay so there's should be a mic on every arm of our U shape if you're speaking please grab one and turn it on when you're done speaking probably turn it
002off and we will get going with uh Middle School come on down no actually slightly in out of order there we're going to start with athletic sorry whoever wants all right good evening everybody uh thank you very much for your time this evening we're going to start the Athletics friend ation uh talking about the recognition and celebration we've had so far this year so our football team finished with a 5 and3 record which is the best finishing Market in the history of the program which stayes back to about 20 years Bill hockey program finished with 12 to2 record which is their best finishing Mark in the history of their program which goes back to the 80s uh we saw a successful implementation of eorts in the fall of 2024 we had 20 student athletes achieve
003Western Main conference all all academic recognition our cheer team won the Western Main Conference Championship Class B Southern Regional Championship and finished as Class B State Runners up this winter and gr basketball team finished with a Class A or as Class A south regional results of last year's goals uh we saw like I said a successful implementation of eorts in the fall of 2024 was P fall and our academic eligibility policy policy continues to be effective when it hold students accountable in their school work an update on this year's goals um we set out a survey to our Middle School back in the fall and we received a really strong response over 30 uh students who would be very interested in starting a Middle School indoor traffic field program uh so we're going to look
004to possibly add that next year the Middle School uh Ino track program is kind of in between season it runs during the month of March so really having a whole much of an effect on the winter season in the spring season um continued implementation of the captain course we've run several Captain's courses already uh this school year we'll continue to do so the next one will be in March and we we continue to offer one prior to each sport season so following next August then again November then again next march and so on and so forth and to develop and maintain avenues for student athlete recognition I think we do a pretty good job uh this right now through various means social media platforms Etc but we're going to continue to look at ways and
005develop ways to properly recognize the achievements of our student athletes so what changes are recommended to improve our athletic programs uh upgrades to the gym and Fields relative to the bond initiative I know that's that's pretty ongoing and also proposing to eliminate the payto play requirement that the high school and the Middle School uh effective in fall and what requires attention uh the indoor and outdoor facilities related to the bond our dugouts uh sorely you need some paint pretty badly quite badly um I have contacted and talk to our facilities crew about painting our dugouts at the high school in the Middle School uh so that's on the radar so we can get those done before um this coming spring season our baseball and softball scor boards need to be fixed I've also talked to
006our facilities here about this and contacted the manufacturer and we part the Outsourcing that work uh to get those up and repair for the upcoming spr season as well and then add a first team high school volleyball Sion volleyball in the state of main really it's growing really Nationwide in the state of main it's exploding a lot of schools will be adding a boys volleyball program next spring that's not something that we're really looking at doing at this time uh however with the the establishment of a middle school program program that's had two seasons now 17 kids participate uh this fastball at the middle school level and at the high school level we saw our numbers double from last year to this year um so it's really taken off and we just have two site
007positions now VAR City JB coach so in order to really best serve all our student athletes in the volleyball program having a first team snip and creating a schedule for first was help that for and it would help align our program with other other programs that we offer as well in our Partnerships there were currently leveraging the Gray recreation department uh new La Recreation Department our athletic boosters Patriot parents uh G&G and Raymond wood League Patriot Grand Sand Club Youth Basketball Association Nathan s bro takes all of our wonderful photos of athletic contests and athletes uh Patriot soccer club and a special partner with El basketball and that is all we have for our so turnning over C curriculum okay so we do apologize for the color screen it is a little bit challenging to
008see I know the PowerPoint that was sent to you all much different you see a new projector in our budget in a little while um so we'll start with high school co-curricular recognition um I think this may have been shared last yes the microphone yes thank you um is this better is this better um the community service Club um distributed almost 13,000 lbs of food last year which was over 10,600 meals to our families which is Absolut that is amazing uh our robotics team won the first judges award which is for positive aspects of our team uh leadership and also um collaboration with other teams and we were also one of two pilot teams for our unified robotics last year for the state of meeting our model un um Kylie TI Tibido earned an audible
009mention in the Clark model un conference and we also had Shelby Goodwin this past November earned best delegate award um as well the Philips edit model un conference Hartwood which I believe many of you have seen But if you have not it is fantastic um Hartwood um completed their largest book to date which had 52 different submissions um and it's a 79 page book so if you haven't seen it and you'd like to please let me know um it's fantastic um Patriot players earned a Class A runnerup and also a total of eight individual Awards um at both the regional drama festival and also the one act play so we had a lot of success with our clubs last school year there you all right uh so a few things that we did at the
010middle school our njhs is a very active chapter um we did a lot of work around donations for Thanksgiving baskets for families uh and Christmas toy items that we donated uh locally um we had seven vocal and two instrumental students uh that qualified for district 2 um and it was actually really amazing uh those kids having the opportunity to compete um we have a lot of increased participation in our after school PE classes um those opportunities for kids to be involved after school uh and and be engaged with our with their peers and the staff and then uh we have really strong participation this year in our inter Scholastics Miss um so the results of last year's goals uh for both middle school and high school at the high school we have two new club
011offerings um as I mentioned the unified robotics um following I the two teams last year here now six teams and it's growing throughout New England um so I think that's something incredible and a lot of it is based on again our team as well as souer last year um we also started technology innovators Club at both the middle and high school and the middle school also started a major space Club oh these are you want me to say okay update on this year's goals uh we're continuing to review the club offerings and make sure that we're uh adapting to meet the needs of our students um we've done a really good job of uh paying attention to what our kids are asking for so uh some interest in upcoming years um woodworking in a building
012club uh through the high school uh speech and debate a chess club and then a continued expanded technology uh which was a maker space that this year we're doing that as a work agreement um it's not a full stipended position so we want to look at potentially adding that for next year so that we have the opportunity offer that as a more full-time program and what changes are recommended to improve um as Rick reference be constantly reviewing our clubs and modifying so it may not be adding additional Club but if we have a club that doesn't have participation for a year or is um we feel another club may meet the needs of more students really assessing which clubs we want to run and making sure that we're constantly looking at meeting the needs of
013all of our students um High School uh updates to the cafeteria and stage area and also the gym um and Middle School feels it' be beneficial for a larger venue for music performances challenges um challenges scheduling um conflicts due to limited field and Stage availability um again that's at both of middle school and the high school um increase dues and fees across the board for clubs for officials um and Middle School challenge is gym space in the winter as well we um actually just to touch on that as far as the gym space goes so in the winter we have two boyss basketball team up three boys basketball teams going two girls basketball teams uh and then youth basketball comes in so trying to find practice time for all those people is pretty challenging uh
014we'll have a lot of times they'll be two teams at once practicing in the in the gym having to share that so sorry just wanted to tie on tie into that uh so Partnerships being leveraged with the high school they partner with uh the good shepher food bank caring communities Patriot parents and SE Change Yoga you talk to that just a little SE change short SE Change Yoga there was a request for yoga after school um we had an organization a community organization that offered to come in um at no cost and work with our staff so we have staff members that oversee the supervision and someone certified for yoga um to work with our students and we have on average about 15 students um twice a week after school participating in yoga uh and
015our Partnerships at the middle school the grey W Department grey Rec is now offering an after school program out of the Middle School uh which has been great uh it's offered a couple different um I guess avenues for students one is there are students that are there virtually every day and it also allows students or their parents to register them and have students attend uh if they're doing sports so they can participate in an athletic program until go to the rec program and be there until 5:30 uh when they shut down so that's been a great uh addition for our school um caring communities for us as well and Patriot parents are a huge support for us in our co-curriculars moving on to high school all right High School recognition and this is always a
016slide putting together that brings a lot of Joy I think sometimes in the day day you kind of get in the weeds and to sit back and just reflect on all the wonderful work between our students our staff um is really rewarding um so as one of our goals we've brought to the board a few times is just to increase students earning our diploma endorsements um we had a 57% increase in the graduating class last year with endorsements we went from 15 endorsements to 26 um so for those newer to the group um endorsements are basically a student who earns their high school diploma and then does something above and beyond so it's an honors diploma we have six different categories currently we have stem which is science technology engineering and math we have a
017Humanities endorsement which is an English and social studies combination we have visual performing arts career and Technology education uh distinguished studies which is like the umbrella for all the content areas so they have to achieve in each area um then we have a seal by literacy which is the state of main endorsement the next is 151 students were enrolled in at least one international balette one of our IB courses uh it came to 46% of seniors last year took at least one course and 45% of Juniors took at least one course 88 students were enrolled in at least one dual enrollment College course uh we last year offered five dual enrollment courses we had through southern main Community College uh we had chemistry two English courses a math course um this year we've added a
018u Math course through Central Main Community College and also a career exploration course that just started this semester through the University of M Orno and the one you're really proud of um is we've reduced our students who are chronically absent by 6.4% which is equivalent to 38 students which is absolutely amazing um so we are very very proud of that as well and we'll touch upon that so looking at our goals um from last year one of our goals was curriculum development um as a result um our teachers completed the district curriculum guides that have been brought to you all they modified digital binders and had a lot of vertical alignment discussion um all the way from working with U Middle School 8ighth grade teachers to make sure that we're building that curriculum and that
019needs are being met all the way through and engage in a lot of we started the process of integrated curriculum um an example would be our English teachers collaborating with social studies to see what standards they're meeting can they to develop a unit together and just build upon that work together our second goal last year increased student participation in diploma endorsements which I referenced earlier um a lot of this work was done um by just making sure we're educating families and students about all the possibilities with the endorsements and also with our Pathways so if we wanted to make sure they knew about the IB offerings they knew about dual enrollment Early College AP just giving them that if they didn't have those courses they wouldn't have the opportunities to be endorsements and also with
020paths is a great a great option as well one highlight that I wanted to touch upon with the endorsements is last year we had an incredible number we had 17 students complete the seala by literacy in seven different languages which is amazing our third goal to improve State assessment and participation outcomes in reading and math um we last year completed above 95% in both tests par participation this fall we had 93% in reading and 94% in math so this spring we're going back to the above 90% um we use advisory cohorts to really engage those conversations with students to make sure the setting was comfortable to make sure that they really knew how we use that data why it's important that they try earn those assessments and making sure that we were sharing that information
021with families as well throughout the year the fourth go um to improve the academic outcomes and Community connectedness we developed we saw a lot of students coming into nth grade and they were put into for example like a foundations English course um instead of the college prep and we learned it were very few skills that they were missing to be able to be successful in that college prep class um so we developed and implemented a grade n intervention course for a semester that was really targeted on those specific needs and last year we had two sections of that course and we had 100% of those students successful in that college prep class um we also continue to use a flex block which is a 30 minute block three to four times a week that really
022can Target interventions it can also allow teachers to work with students on enrichment opportunities if they excel in science they can work with a teacher in science art so it really gives that targeted time for either intervention during the school day or enrichment on opportunities our mtssb coaches provided support monthly on trying to focus and support that positive behavior that we see for our students um and we also continued with the town hall meetings which are students from every advisory every grade level we have a certain topic it can be a concern that's presented from the student body it can be a concern we have as an Administration or as a staff um we bring those themes and ideas to the advisory they have discussions in their advisory and they send at least one if
023not two students to meet with um the assistant principal myself and we just have the conversation so the students all have a voice every student is welcome and we want to hear again their thoughts on these topics once we discuss kind of the concerns then we sit down and brainstorm either with that group or our student leaders on ways that we could problem solve and we did that with even attendance and things like that like what do you think would encourage students to come and can we work with that more engagement and just hearing the feedback directly from them especially at this level was really beneficial this year's goals um we're focusing on three main areas continuing the work with curriculum assessment um teachers are anal they're really um analyzing student performance so they're analyzing
024the assignments the summatives the assessments to see again where are those gaps and how can we make sure are filling those gaps and we're putting targeted interventions specific to those student engagement the next two goals U we're doing a lot of work with great schools partnership which I know we brought them forward a few years ago recommending them it has been extremely beneficial at the DAT um so they help us focus on these two um goals so far as a staff um really focusing and giving teachers support on creating more interactive supportive learning environments um to focus on teaching methods real world connections with students um and just again that opportunity for that feedback loop as we know students who are motivated to succeed when they're actively participating in their learning so really figuring out
025tools and strategies to increase that we're also looking at fostering student pride and involvement so we're using data such as participation in co-curricular activities focus groups surveys um again meeting with small groups of student leaders and also through out different classes as well to gather that feedback and student safety and belonging um again if we can have those two if students feel engaged if they feel safe if they feel the belong they're more apt to come which again increases academic growth so we've been reviewing Behavior reports um suspension data emergency audit plans and really focusing and targeting where where's our need and what we need to do to grow we've also looked at student climate surveys to continue cultivating that sense of belonging um looking at our absenteeism which again we've had significant growth we
026want to keep that moving forward um we have weekly support team meetings and we're really honing in on our process so what are we doing to use advisors what are we doing to use school counselors teachers and also making sure we partner with the families and continue that communication with them with any of these goals we're constantly monitoring evaluating and just figuring out ways to grow and get better changes are recommended to improve um one area that we've received feedback on from colleges and Workforce is technology courses specifically some upper level technology courses uh next year we are hoping to offer an IB Digital Society course which again would give those students that opportunity here to be able to take that and also increasing a few options um for technology and as well as career
027and college readiness courses having students exploring interest resumés um and that course is now being done through the University of M Oro and being taught here at school in order to teach that class next year they gave us about a twoe window and said you have to teach it this year if you want to teach it for free next year so we were able to put it together um Miss nether did an amazing job of of Gathering that and putting the cripping together and now we will have that as a free opportunity for all students here next year as well um we're going to continue partnering with students and families to improve attendance uh and also increase opportunities for grade level feedback in collaboration with our advisory program um the the strong benefit of advisory
028is one teacher to between 10 and 15 students so it's that teacher meeting multiple times a week connecting with the students whether it's on grads attendance and again being able to share all of this information with them a small group um what requires attention it's kind of similar to what Mr PRI shared earlier um a lot of the areas referenced multiple times to the bond project um that would again for the educational experience as well as our corporate gr Partnerships that are being leveraged currently uh great schools partnership which again has been extremely beneficial we've had two wonderful coaches um our International boret Shaker Village uh LEL all which was a program to really um help support all students and families from the next steps with College and Career Readiness um we were one of
029the first schools to Pilot it and now there are many all over the nation um main School Safety Center Athletic boosters uh Cumberland County admin team C and then the three colleges that we referenced [Music] earlier all right uh so our Middle School uh recognition and celebration a few things here um first of all again we had a lot of increased student participation in those co-curricular programs uh our NJ is bigger than it has been uh right across through our inner Scholastics our in murals um our kids are engaged in the school again uh and as you know s talked about a little bit talking about you know school safety and that sense of belonging uh these programs do that for our kids it gives them not only a class group or an Advisory Group
030to be connected to but that sense of belonging that that they have to the school with other groups of kids um so really important um our restorative ENT Tech uh Megan Hutchins uh has been just a huge impact on our lost instructional time uh she has been able to intervene with students that are having behavioral issues um and making sure that we are putting the ownership on the students and helping them to process through um I think it's important to understand and one of the premises of restorative practices is that most students don't behave for fear of consequences they behave because of relationships and it's really important that as part of this restorative program that we're building and then we're reinforcing those relationships with staff with students um and then we just have a ton
031of Staff this year I mean the the since what October November have been bigger changes um and and more recently Mrs de taking on you know the halftime role in the curriculum and assessment um which has caused changes for our building but we had a lot of people step up uh Mrs habber Mrs Brooks are our two interventionists our reading and our math interventionists have just been doing tons of work not only with individual students but with our staff uh to make sure that that you know we are on we are keyed in on what we're doing uh Mrs Kenny stepped up again uh Mrs Cunningham just recently stepped up as a teacher leader for us um Miss Cosgrove is doing a lot of work with um co- teing our special ed uh with regular
032classroom teachers that is really big for us we're seeing that our kids are feeling um you sometimes special ed students when they have to leave the classroom to go get that extra help feel a little bit isolated right it it just makes us think that you know they they don't always like that so what we're trying to do what we have Mrs Cosgrove doing right now uh is we pushing into classes and doing a lot more of that work within the regular class but providing that additional support within the within the class and we can still break them out at time so uh it's been really big for us uh Mr Ward who is uh a g& grad uh he has uh been a longterm sub for us in three different positions now uh and
033has done a really great job uh and Mr Bishop has done it just an outstanding job of increasing our numbers in band there are more people but those are my highlights for you uh results of last year's goals um last year the first goal was a we wanted a 47% redu uh sorry a 25% reduction in Lost instructional time due to negative student behaviors again that's Mrs Hutchins uh stepping into a lot of that um and we actually reduced that by 47% um so our kids are in class more uh and not losing that instruction time um our second goal um we set it as we were shooting for 80% in both reading and math that our students would make anticipated projected annual growth in both reading and math and that's based on the nwaas
034um one thing that we discovered last year and that we're kind of living in this year is that the test isn't really exactly the same in the fall and the winter as it is in the spring because in the spring they're looking at it for more for like grade level standards versus uh NWA traditionally is is intuitive it moves the the the level of the question based on how well the student does so the tests aren't exactly the same but it's still NWA still quite similar um um it's still a good reference point for us so this year's goals uh we said a couple one was to have 100% of our uh classrooms uh have implemented restorative circles at least once a week in those rooms uh we're right now we're at about 25% of
035our classrooms doing that there a couple reasons why we're a little behind um we did have some uh conflicts of scheduling with uh the Department of Education uh they have a couple of coaches for us that are working with us this year um all free they come in they help us out with making sure that we're we're putting these things into place at our school um the second goal we set for this year we tweaked it just a little bit and we did lower again we're looking at growth we're trying to look at annual growth for our students because if you one we can't really gauge where kids are coming from right you we may have a student move from another District uh or something like that where you have a student that may be
036four grade levels behind if that's the case the idea of getting them up to grade level achievement is really difficult but we owe them a Year's worth of growth they've got we've got to get every one of our kids in a Year's worth of growth so that's what our our Target is um we just finished up the winter nwaas and our numbers are a lot lower than we'd like them to be that's okay what that does for us is that tells all of our teachers that we need to look at who these kids are that aren't making growth and what do we need need to do between now and June because we still want all of our kids to be able to make that grow so we're adusting that work an example of how we're
037addressing that um today I met with every single language arts teacher reading teacher and Mrs Haber our interventionist and we went over their student data so that we could look at who's making their growth goals who isn't who's lagging in achievement as well um and then talk about what are some of those things and what are their plans to address those um so that's been good feedback for us um changes recommended uh to improve touched on this already uh touching Club offerings uh matching Club offerings uh to our student interests uh we just want to remain a little bit Nimble uh we generally we have kids that come to us with different interests every year um Mrs uh Miss Carter who's a new sixth grade teacher for us she's actually just volunteering because she had
038a bunch of kids interested they're doing a Dungeons and Dragons Club um Heaven had that interest for a few years but we have kids interested now and she is just it's a very small group um but she has some interest in that so she's doing that with kids uh the technology club right and Miss greish touched on that as well um we want to remain flexible with our students um continuing to develop and enhance our use of student data to increase that academic achievement uh we use EXL as well uh which is a diagnostic tool uh and it also provides us with some uh very targeted instruction like they'll do like um mini lessons almost on the computer around a specific skill uh that kids can utilize that outside of the classroom so or during
039our our wind time so that they can look at uh a specific skill that they may be lagging in um if the teacher is not readily available for them because the teachers are doing you know they got tier two kids they've got tier three kids they're they're constantly popping around around their room um and then the full implementation of restorative circles in all classes that's something that we need to make sure that we have in place and again it's that safety and sense of belonging that we want to make sure all of our kids have um what requires attention um again falling back on that we need some increased um capacity for our performances I don't know if anybody on the board has been to a music program in our school uh but particularly the
040Winter Music it's standing room only um and you'll see them crowded around the outside of that um repairs to our building um some primarily some entrances Sops grounds some fencing and guard rails went over this when we did the facilities tour in the fall those of you who were there um some of that work is being done now uh Tom emailed me actually Tom ban email me this morning and said we're on schedule for two exterior doors to be replaced this spring um so we are moving forward with those things but I think it's an important thing to remember um our athletic fields are in better shape than when I got here I can tell you that much um but they still could use some attention um and I've talked with Nate quite a bit
041about that and then some outside lighting upgrades our outside side lighting if you if you haven't been through the middle school in the evening as of late we've lost a couple of those poles uh one was run into by I believe it was the porta potty company it was and then a second one when we had that really heavy winds um was it December November anyway it one another one of those polls just went over uh so we do need look at replacing those doing some work around that and then uh again Partnerships being levered leveraged um the Great Schools partnership Works uh with all of us um the high school high school staff High School administrators uh we also use level all with our eighth graders and some of our seventh graders we're working
042on expanding that uh main School Safety Center is part of the group that also uh does the restorative practices with us um the Central Bank Community College we actually have seventh graders going there for a career fair um April I'm drawing a blank on exactly what it is but it's coming up uh our Patriot parents uh the path program we got a chance a couple years ago to visit um we we'd love to get our eighth graders to have an opportunity to go back that's limited by them um and I think we've touched on this before great Gloucester has a really great number of students who are engaged in the paths program and kind of for that reason they're not so worried about getting more gr who lost their kids unfortunately uh but it's good
043for our kids to see that and we're looking forward to uh getting back there uh Big Brothers Big Sisters it's kind of an up and down for us uh right now we have one pairing um but it's kind of based on uh right who's volunteering is a big brother and U who we have at the high school that can also um fill that Ro for us um again greay wck uh the district mtssb teams they all work together about um you know our our successful Behavior plans uh and then the Cumberland County Middle School administrators uh we are at a group that we wrot questions out problems out to each other all the time and and try to come up with Solutions together boom all right [Music] thanks all right just a reminder uh questions
044and comments use the mic and I think we um had pretty good luck last time taking being them in order and just going around the table especially when we get a past mics around um so chesa we can start on your end anything for sports or co-curricular and if not I'm [Music] good um can we talk with the Athletics uh more about the elimination of pay to play and what you're talking about there and what that situation is how much it would cost us that kind of thing yeah absolutely so right now Bry ler requires pay play for our student athletes uh $25 per season for athletes to participate with $100 cap um this is something I've been thinking about for a couple of years now this District's G pay to play for quite a
045while I sent out a survey to in the state of Baine and every school in the state about 70 something respondents uh we very much the minority of still requiring P to play uh there's only a handful of schools out of the 70 that do require it uh very much different demographic what we have here at Green laer um I think it's just I think requiring our students to pay of play is another obstacle for many of our students to participate um I just think that it's an Antiquated way to run an athletic program I don't have an exact amount maybe David can help with that number and what would cost but we had had some Journal discussions about that I think we could get that on the parking lot I think be great yeah
046we'll we'll be bringing that to you as part of the budget process um I will say what's a little odd about this particular one is it lives on the revenue side so it's not necessarily part of a budget proposal it comes in when we talk about our Revenue like we talk about Ed 279 we talk about other Revenue this is one of those items that lives on other Revenue it's looked like it's around 15 ,000 give or the year that we're bringing in um on this program we don't feel like that's an amount that is so significant that it's worth the barrier that it potentially puts out for families to participate in athletics particularly given we're one of the only uh districts AR continuing to do it um and then uh this is more of
047a parking lot uh question or you know we we generally ask this question you know every third year or so which is about Trends in participation we've talked in the you know board in general that you know in terms of our Athletics program we would like as many kids to be playing as many sports as possible and you know whether it's in the budget process or in general I think like you know making I know I think it is in the annual report document or whatever I just want to make sure that we highlight that in our budget process as much as possible because I do think it's one of our calling cards as a district you have a huge participation I think in general we do a great job in keeping kids on our
048campus and when you know we're talking about our spend on Athletics I think it's always great to have you know and 75% of our high school students participate in one sport or whatever it is so it's it's more just a comment on when we get into the actual budget proposal great time those numbers available yeah we do track that too so I can important [Music] would be nice if we see that if we have that in both Athletics and all the co-curriculars across middle school and high school I think we usually do see that annually I think it's a good thing yeah grouping together yeah in front people yeah I've got a couple of things excuse me uh you mentioned technology innovators club uh space makers club and uh Community uh caring communities what's uh
049could you kind of elaborate on exactly what uh what those clubs are what kind of things they do and the the caring community's uh relationship with that really is yeah sure um I can touch face on the technology innovators from the high school perspective um Mr lamro was really we had a lot of students interested in how can we even promote what's going on at school how can we highlight the success that's going on whether it's clubs Sports um when you walk in the main entrance uh you'll see when you come in like a TV screen a program and so teachers can highlight light videos things that are going on in the classroom pictures Athletics um and it's just really to keep that communication loop with them right now it's at a smaller scale within
050our school Community um the goal is to again really work at promoting that in the broader Community um but being the first year they're really focusing on that they also have 3D printers that they're using so they've done models like the Shaker Village um and they've done different models with the community using that um so it's definitely a starting year with that program um but so far I've had a lot of success and um as you can see it's pretty much on a weekly weekly basis that that information has being updated and changed thank you uh the innovators club for the middle school is a it's a little more of a stem extension I guess a stem program extension it's where kids have a real interest in pursuing those technology pieces so he does work
051with SPI uh which are robotic balls um that they program and they work on those pieces with uh we also have some 3D printers that the kids are uh exploring and working on um and that's Mr Bon court for us and they be for us it's every two weeks they beet all right uh couple other things was the ID courses uh one of the most popular courses that are Stills okay all right okay okay hold that thought we'll go all the way around again um I just have one one question made about the um well I have several but they been answer um the Middle School gym space how is that scheduled is that scheduled like like any other gym space to to your office yes pretty much well Dana Welch um you talking about
052tight tight scheduling you you talked about the three different boys basketball three different girls basketballs plus youth um is it the youth basketball that's getting short changed on that I assume that PRI the prioritization is there six school years corre and whatever is left you fills in on exactly so they end up generally speaking with the late time slots really whatever whatever's left [Music] guess um on the slide that talks about updates on this year's goals and they you list um continued implementation of Captain's Course what is Captain's Course yep so uh Susan Robins before that director before I started started Captain's Course uh something she brought with her from her high school I kind of stole her idea brought it to moris high school and it three my own verion that there um upon
053coming to gr bloster had a lot of requests from students to restart that after she had left so brought the Captain's Course back kind of a different spin on it from what she taught essentially a leadership course it gives uh student aens the opportunity to learn about leadership um different ways to him F different conversations different scenarios we do a lot of group exercise kind of scenario based discussions talk about different styles of leadership um there's an online prerequisite and then the end person course is like two two and a half sometimes 3 hours depending on group of the kids we have so uh it's been really effective it's very effective in the school I that before uh we FR three sessions here had 60 students participate already so that's also a requirement for students
054to become a Captain if they want to become a Captain they must take their course their coaches not if their school counselors not can be used on transcripts things like that so um my two questions are answered already so I'm going um so turn it um so on the upgrades that you were speaking of um do you have a a prioritized list of uh what needs to be done first second and third um what areas and that type of thing is that going to be com into the board with the numbers is that the idea as far as facilities I'm sorry as far as facil or yeah Fields you have here Jim Fields outside and inside y i me we've talked a lot about that through the bond process um right now the priority is
055you know the bond process is kind of unfold for now as I mentioned getting the scoreboards up and running painting the dugouts just getting some things ready to go for this upcoming season actually FR do you want want to hang on to that and do the high school we'll go back we'll go this way you have high school questions High School yeah um um yeah restorative Circle that you're doing thetive Circle could you explain that I understand that's in the lower grades but you also have an inal and high school so Middle school. High School that the Middle School a middle school one Middle School not high school we have restorative circles in the middle school they don't have them at the high school oh they don't ni job could you explain a little bit
056more about what's happens in that Circle should we save that one for Middle yeah we're on high school right put mic [Laughter] my I'm all set um so have one that I see the seven languages that have um the Seal of bi literacy yes how does that happen when your course catalog only lists the Spanish and the French sure um I actually had feeling a question would come up with that so um I did say the list we had um we have students that are also um English media second language and so they are allowed to test through that as well um we also have kids that are interested in other languages that we may help them connect to a dual enrollment or an early college course of a different language um we have Arabic
057Russian um Hungarian Spanish French Korean and German so those were the seven languages that our students were successful in last year um but again some are second languages as well as um family members interests and we again would help them connect with an early college course if that's was needed sorry my high school um you talked about um adding some classes as you know keeping the course catalog essentially up to date with interest and um we've also talked about the enrollment and sort of right sizing things with the district do you see that having a um impact on the other side of things removing some classes that are maybe not as popular or um have less enrollment yeah absolutely every year on our program of studies we put out courses that may or may not
058have members so really just to gather to catch student interest and then we assess that way so there may be courses that are on our program of studies that due to student interest we don't run for that year um but depending on the next year we may put that course back on to see if it has student interest so there are years that we're constantly reflecting what are the needs there are also courses like with for example art having two teachers that we do we call them popup courses so it's every other year they run so that way students of every grade get an opportunity to take the course so it's not the same offerings every year um so we're constantly looking at reflecting and Gathering student feedback on interest and um kind of assessing
059and adjusting but it would not be an increased to staff to provide this those CH cles uh could you talk a little bit more about the um IB digital Tech you talk about adding an IB class potentially so I can get more information on that course um we used to offer that exact course that had a different title it was IB in today's Digital Society so it's changed a little bit um the Dynamics that has a little bit of a coding um perspective that didn't have prior to um but we're in the early stages um we have a teacher that is going to be trained probably at the end of April early May on that course um and it's going to be a virtual training just to make sure that again we want to make
060sure we have student interest before we're having someone trained on that um but I can definitely get you the specifics on that course it is listed in the program of studies as well description so I can pull that as we're asking politicians to get that uh you ask if I followup was what other going to be able to uh make use of existing staff to teach it yes so there won't be an additional person do there will not be great the other question I had is uh rck mentioned that uh Little Resistance to additional graded bloster kids going path at least in the lower grade are we finding any of that with the with our high school population no we are not um just wonder if we should be exploring bu a little bit as
061an alterate option no we do use Westbrook occasionally if there's a program that's not offered at paths um and so I know we have very few students maybe two to three a year um for example if there's a trucking program um or certain program that they don't offer it's much more challenging Westbrook does morning and afternoon sessions differently than past so it's really challenging for our students to get their sport content here while attending westbr but again if there's a need we'll make it work with students um but right now we have not we've had great success with PA we still have the second highest member attending pass um I just want to clarify to that there isn't any resistance with paths taking our kids they just don't feel like they have to work as
062hard with us I know I understand I just didn't know if U the population uh that we're providing them with it might be an easier conversation if we had a secondary Place said something I was just curious I some of the neighborhood districts use both yes and and we do use both okay great thanks and Gary just to kind of pigy back on the Digital Society we do have Mike lamro who is a tech integrator for the district and he is now going to be 0.5 teaching some classes of the high school um thankfully and I think that's a huge Plus to Mike lamro as he's done such a great job working with our teachers working with our students and really getting them prepared to be able to use the technology in the classroom so
063now we can kind of step back from that role and have more student facing and then if we see there's a need for that staff piece we'll increase that but um he he has a certification he is um very interested in teaching the sports and I think will be a wonderful opportunity for his so the thought is that we don't need the integration quite as as much at the moment okay great thank you yeah yes okay my IB questions uh what's the most Market of course how many people are taking it what's second place was third so I do have a chart with all the numbers um we currently have uh 36 course offerings um we have 393 seats being occupied in those classes um I do I know theory of knowledge is one of
064our top courses here um it's kind of more of that overall perspective um and just kind of having kids think globally I know that's our number one course I can get the information of like the second and third um we do have a high number of students in biology our biology um course is very high in both level SL and level one and two okay and my next question or last question is uh uh could you put a little bit more meat on the bones on the um uh absentee is I think you said 6.4% represents 38 students uh how's that calculated I mean how many students days have we have we have we improved what is what was it before what is what is it now yeah absolutely um so the chronically absent is
065a student missing 10% more of the school year so it all depends on when you assess like at the beginning of the year if they miss one day they'd be considered chronically absent depending on how many days we've had um so we at the high school across the state Across the Nation there tends to be a higher level of students who chronically absent um one reason is even for college visits if a students anytime time they're not here whether it's excused or unexcused it's still considered not present for school um so we may know exactly why a student is is missing um but again that would affect our data the same if they're gone to a sporting event per day um or anything like that if they're not present in school they're considered carnally absent
066we have a very small number of truant students which those are the ones again that are unexcused absences um we did have the state data we were about 5% different with or more in the past and we've now um as of last year the new data is were 3% different than the state average so we've definitely significantly decreased that Gap um definitely there's still a lot of work to do and we feel like if we can pull in the engagement if we can pull in the student kind of safety and belonging and just get them to want to be here to be active participants um then naturally that brings up that attendance as well um if it's specific numbers um I can definitely get that information well I think the I have kind of a
067similar question because 6.4% if it's 38 students 38 is 6.4% of 600 so there were 600 chronically absent students at the high school no 38 is our change from last school year to the state report so there's 38 students that that 6% it's 38 students are now attending school or not electronically absent right but through the whole District or just the high school through the school we went up six 38 students no longer on excuse me I mean it doesn't really matter I'm just saying that 38 is 6.4% of 600 so if the change was 6.4% and it was 38 students it would be I put 38 in the numerator divided by percentage and I got trying to figure out how many I just don't understand the math I think the math is were 38
068kids better than last year in terms of who's in school not out of how many kids are at the high school right how many were absent last year 6.4% better yeah that would be okay 6.4% or 600 type thing I don't know what the 6.4% means did we move our percent of kids who were chronically absent we did we had 30% originally and we brought it down to 23 okay so that's a different thing so we didn't change it 6.4% it's what it doesn't matter 38 kids who work I we use 38 not the 6.4% that's all I'm saying that's not a way to use that whatever and a big Trend also is is a little bit of a decrease as when students were sick they were saying stay out for 5 days stay out
069for 10 so that automatically if a student was out for those days they were automatically tent I mean sorry just doesn't ready it that's all about I'm good yeah I'm good are we going back this do you have a school question sorry did she have a microphone just hang on um I noticed has the population decreased at the um High School this past year yes we went from 601 to 574 okay um so some of the things that ran through my mind was that you know maybe early graduation maybe moving out the town you know um you know that type of thing um can you add any more to the reason why yes we graduated um over 160 students last year and the incoming class was3 so it was we had two C- boards we
070had the last year students graduating seniors in the class before that were about 30 to 35 students more than the incoming 7th and e8th grade so we are pretty much the reason right all right Teresa you want to start Middle School I'm good with middle school all right uh I guess with the Middle School um it's not so much a question it's a parking lot thing is um something's wrong I mean the 50 51% is not good the 60 61% is not good um and I feel like we need a proposal for how we can deploy resources to improve that we can't just keep doing the same thing uh it's the middle school has been where we have seen the least success since at least the pandemic and uh I I don't think we can
071just keep trying harder I think we need I I want to hear a proposal for another teacher a reorganization something uh cuz something just isn't working we can't have we can't tell the public that 61% of our kids see a onee Improvement we just can't do [Music] it question you guys don't have to you never know um you had talked about Partnerships being L one of them being the rack department and it kind of taking on the role of an on campus type of partnership uh could you talk about the kind of handoff between our liability with our students to another department or whatever um how do we give our students to somebody that's also using our facility and obstain from also giving up all the responsibility of our students if they have their own
072insurance policies to cover their their activities uh and Rec programs use our facilities all the time uh they're in for all right Athletics um so it covers all of their insurance covers that and what do you mean like pH hand off I just was wondering how oh you guys got it yeah okay yeah there sorry is is that really like we're just like you got it from here um we do make sure that the kids we have their their staff shows up before dismissal and meets those students that are in that program and brings them to the space that they're using so it's like right after yeah oh yeah it's a direct hand off yeah little bit of a picky question I think um I think I actually Echo Sam's sort of concern and request
073so mine's a little in the weeds but you talked about RL you know there being some usage there I know I'm familiar with it from a diagnostic perspective is there a way to see or know how much the kids are using in terms of utilizing those internal like we know they're there but our kids actually using them in a way that's meaningful or we can pull that y we can pull all of that data and part of the meeting that I was in today with all of those reading teachers we were also looking at theirl data and looking at the growth of those students from September to now uh they had [Music] diagnostic January um so that was their last diagnostic there and um so we could look at every student where they were where
074they are uh and how much they grown in terms of that [Music] program but if you want more if you want more data we can come up with more in terms of um if you want to I don't know if you want to know student time on program or average student growth we can I was just curious if it was useful to the staff in ter you know like how useful is the EXL and mostly hear kids complaining about how much I hate I I am curious I have recommended oh there a little video you can watch but like can you know are the kids actually taking initiative to using the additional tools inside of it um that I know the Diagnostics are useful it it varies I I will say that some teachers and
075some students I I think struggled more with uh getting the most use job um but we across the board we do as a school every teacher is using it um to make sure that our students were you know we're checking and and making those adjustments I have two questions the first one's a rather quick one is the restorative edtech is that a full-time position in the Middle School yes yep that was added two I yeah two right and the next question is a little bit more diving into the annual growth for reading as well as math but on slide number 24 versus 25 I'm seeing two different numbers the 61 62% for reading in math versus the next slide has the NOA with 51% 50 % so what's why can you explain the discy between
076one was last year's growth so we went from n wbas from Spring to Spring last year and then the second slide is what we where we are right now so from fall to winter testing so that's a halfway through this year okay thank [Music] you I mean so NWA those the growth goals are are nationally normed and that's part of what we're looking at too is right that includes a a Cape Elizabeth of Beverly Hills it also includes a Chicago and N La so right it includes all of the places that use nwaas they Norm that data so you know 50% tile is average for the United States do I think that's good good enough for our school and our kids no I don't and that's why we have set that as a as a
077higher standard um is there a goal then for the new because I see that for um you know for the where we're at 61% 62 it's in um parentheses that it's the 80% is the goal for each of those content areas Y what is the goal do we have a goal for middle school kids um for the newa results for the growth for the growth yep uh we do we still have that last year we had that at 80% okay we lowered that yeah okay yeah thank you my note echoed Sam as well those numbers were alarming um but then also in addition to getting that parking lot question answered is how do we compare with our neighbors is everybody seeing a decrease not that it's any of it's good but where are we compared
078to where we at that was kind of to piggy back onto that um just to get all the numbers yeah and that's in addition that's a really good question um so we took a focus on growth um and wanted to look at that generally when the state puts that data out they're looking at achievement level um which is our achievement levels are higher than our growth I can tell you that so our winter numbers uh we have a in the ballpark of between 12 and 15% higher on our achievement levels than we are on our growth but we need every kid to grow it I mean there's just no way around that we need to make sure that our kids are making that growth because if you're again four years behind the idea of making
079it to you know if you're at a third grade level the idea of getting to fourth grade in 10 months is right if that's astronomical to think that anybody could get there but we can get them better than a year and that's what we need to do because if we can gain a year and a half two years every year we'll get them CAU we'll get them where they need to be and every kid deserves a year whether they're gifted or they're you know receive special help everybody kid deser every kid deserves to get that to be clear on what Miss's asking all the parts of that question is how are we how are our middle school students doing compared to our neighbors yeah and I think yeah and that's why I went there because
080I think what we're going to get for information is what our achievement levels are not our growth levels but we'd like to see that too sure both our achievement and our growth yep um that's restore to Circle yes what is yeah so restorative servant so it's really born out of the criminal justice system and it's actually for um and it's been tweaked into the education system and it what it does is uh it makes student you what you do is you put kids together or individuals together so if you want to think about it in terms of Criminal Justice you take an accused a perpetrator and a victim and you bring them together in order to try to um make sure that that perpetrator gains understanding of the victim and the impact that this had
081on them um because I think in the end again it's about relationships so it's understanding how you damage that relationship and then how you need to repair um so what we do is we start out with um advisory groups and then expand that into our classroom groups so the kids have an opportunity to practice that and then through that practice it should make those harder discussions a lot easier uh it should allow our students to be able to own that a little bit better how much time during the day is that done I mean um well it they're really fairly quick it only takes I mean in in terms of whole group like the ones we do with advisory in our classes those are like five minutes they're really quick and they're designed to try
082to build the process for that um when we get to the point where there are harder discussions um those we deal with individual students uh so we will meet with an individual student or both individual students I guess again perpetrator victim we would meet those kids individually and then we would bring the two of them together to have that discussion so that we have an opportunity to kind of Coach them up and make sure that they understand we don't want them to be surprised blindsided by a question right um and so that helps that go much better uh dun school is the other school that is also doing restorative practices I think I go along with the be board um it's hard for me to understand if we hard for me to understand if we
083put a lot of time and effort in you know introducing kids into school and teaching them how to get along and all that and then they leave the gr school went to middle school um aren't they carrying some of that with them and so that you know that would not be such an issue in the Middle School well this is yeah this is the first year that we're doing the restorative practices at the middle school and at dun school it's new for both of us the idea is that yes that that is going to build and that's going to make it much easier as we go up through um you know and involving the high school at some point that's a wrap I'll give everyone one last chance anyone call something exciting okay actually I
084have one last question uh it's more of a parking lot question um sorry byee my bad more of a parking lot question than specifically for uh the middle school but the middle school made me think about it is um right now we have a job Des description for every stipended position and we fund basically all of those stipended all those job descriptions right um and I you know the idea of like tweaking or options you know I think one you know we never fill every stien imp position in the schedule B you know I think one option we could do is we will fund 17 sitiens this year and then they can shuffle through which job descriptions they want to you know rather than budget for every single stipend every single year and then not
085spend 20% of that or whatever maybe it makes more sense to fund a certain amount of stiens and the administrators decide which ones we're going to offer this year I don't know it's just so that's what we do now actually so in our budget our budget does not include a budget for every single statement that exists in schedule B um the the administrators are sort of prioritizing from year to year the number of Cs that they intend to use um with that funding there's also then sort of this other piece around what we call work agreements and so those are places where um we might not be ready to bring something forward as a club as an official stien program because we want to try it out first and dual flexibility so um we have
086the opportunity in the teachers contract to do what's called a work agreement which is uh where we hire a staff person for a set number of hours for a specific task so in this case um like the Dungeons and Dragons is a great example we said we'd like you to explore the possibility of having this club and learn a few things and these are the parameters by which you will do it um once we kind of get an idea of yes this is something that we want to introduce long term it's worth putting it into the contract it's worth having the board act on then we bring it to the point where it becomes sort of a set STP end um but every year as we're setting a budget we're kind of getting an idea
087we know we know about how many kids we have we know we have an idea of what they want to participate in and so we're we're budgeting an amount of what we think we will need for stend but we have every year where we have stend that we don't end up filling but there isn't student interest or in some unfortunate cases there aren't staff interest right okay I just I'm not sure that's ever been transparent that you know this this year there's 17 stiens at the middle school and 32 at the high school or whatever um as a lever that we could tweak um so I maybe it's just how many of those are actually used you know as a as a Pary L question of the budget how much do we spend on sniping
088and is it is it something that we can tweak you cuz I actually kind of assumed that if there was a job description and someone and there was kids and we funded it so I didn't know that there was that in the bud actually [Music] have a quick question um I don't know if this is the right format to ask it but I figured it was would be in with the high school I had a question when the um leaders came to our school board meeting last year last meeting and did their presentation um one of the gentleman's there was two complaints that a lot of the um I don't know the group um but they would come to the leaders to say um suggestions that kids wanted to have in the school system have
089at High School and the gentleman mentioned one thing that a lot of students are asking for to have back is their salad bar so is that has that been convers I know it's food related I know this is not curriculum but I don't know what else to bring it up because if it's High School related didn't know if I know food service is completely different but how do how do those things happen if there's a request that all the kids kids want is that being addressed so I just figur I'd bring it up and did no one else to do it yes unfortunately it's staff Staffing so we staff and staff would love to have a c bar back and our food service as well and as many students and I know that's what a
090[Music] discussion yeah this I guess made me think so a rested at Tech is that does the restorative part add a s to it or is that just that's just a title so would that maybe potentially fall into the category that we had talked about um seems like that's a pretty important and impactful position that's filled by one person that's making a big difference that also seems like it would be a hard job to do whether I didn't know if that would be like a multiplier potential in position where there's a higher risk of bur now or it's that important um I don't know um to go along with like our special services and stuff uh great question so uh none of our contracts currently have any opportunity to offer multipliers or uh Hazard pay
091if you will if they work with particularly difficult positions that has been something our special services director has brought up um and I know we've had sort of light conversations with the collective barting units about that in the past um I think that would would be something we would have to address through the collect Department process yes we would have to reopen we would have to reopen contracts to do something like that yes now whether this position would be considered part of that or not I think maybe it's a different conversation but um yeah colletive marketing last J okay um thank you for coming and for all that information um before we we actually I do need to hear a motion to enter into executive session pursuant to 1M RSA subsection 4056 D to discuss
092contract negotiations so so moved second all in favor great so we will um go into that session and we will not be returning and there will be no action to follow thanks for watching okay