Acton-Boxborough School Committee Meeting - May 7th, 2026

001All right. So, we are returning from executive session, but I will note that any members of the public who wish to watch our meeting online may use Actant TV's YouTube channel at the top of the agenda. This meeting is being recorded and will be posted on Actant TV's website at actantv.org. And so, welcome back. We have a few new faces at the table. So, welcome to Dennis and Jake who are newly elected, newly sworn in, and at their first school committee meetings. Before we launch into the agenda, I want to pause to just um mention the recent passing of two individuals who've helped shape Actton in Boxboro in really meaningful ways. Um first, I think many people who um are in Actton or were at town meeting are aware that Steve Non passed away unexpectedly

002last week. He was on the act finance committee for more than 20 years and mentored many school committee members along the way in the complexities of municipal finance. I know personally I especially appreciated his partnership as we were explaining the pressures of what was going on with health insurance and the unexpected increases um leading up to the 2024 override vote. Something that, you know, I didn't have a whole lot of background in at the time. He had a really great ability to balance an attention to detail with a good understanding of the bigger picture. And you knew when your proposal satisfied his questions, you'd done your homework. I also want to recognize the passing of Sally Campbell, who although she shares a name with me, um is is not related. Um she served on this

003committee and was its chair during the 80s and um some challenging years up into the early 90s. She's remembered as somebody with a larger than-l life personality and the best kind of school committee member, somebody who held teachers and staff accountable while also standing firmly behind them, especially in difficult moments, including negotiations. People describe both Steve and Sally as deeply committed to their work and as people who built strong relationships that amplified that impact and they really helped guide our community through challenging times. And so we want to just take a moment to offer our condolences to their friends and families and hope that their legacies continue to inspire us all with the work we do here. So with that I would like to invite uh Ding Sha Matre who is a senior about to

004graduate and completing her final update to the school committee after four years. Welcome. Hello everyone. I'm Diksha Matre and I am a senior. So this is also as Miss Cample mentioned my last meeting with you all. So this is this is um exciting I guess. Um so for today's update I will go over some senior activities and some things that are happening in the school as well. So um around two weeks ago we had senior community service day. Um I was assigned to um some weeding in Boxboro to get rid of invasive species. um not my ideal idea of um [gasps] a day, but but I learned a lot. I was able to interact with um some of the people who who keep our environment safe in Boxboro and I I was able to learn

005a lot and I had a good day with my friends. So, that was that was definitely an interesting opportunity for seniors and a way to give back to the community. Um next up is uh prom. I don't I don't know if you have all seen the pictures. The venue is amazing. It's gorgeous. Our class leaders do a great job organizing it every single year as um as well as the adviserss. A lot of the community helps to organize and fundra this event and so my thanks goes out to them all and um it was a safe night well planned a lot of fun. Um some things that are coming up of course are graduation. Hope to see you all there. Um, and for some other things that are going on in the school, this is

006generally a time for some field trips. So, um, last week, um, AP Chinese had a field trip to Chinatown in Boston. Um, that same day the AP environmental science class, um, just the upper classman class. Uh, we had a field trip to the Asabet River where we did some sampling. Um, I have to say, um, taking Apes, as we fondly call it, as a senior was an incredibly unique opportunity. We know that a lot of freshmen take it, but, um, senior year, it's it's almost like a cumulative course where you get to incorporate physics, biology, and chemistry. So, that was something I valued in my senior experience, having that upperassman class. Um, it was it was a unique opportunity. Um, furthermore, the AP Spanish classes are taking a field trip to the Elhu restaurant um,

007next week as well. So, this is an exciting time for people in those classes. Um, something not so exciting going on. AP exams. So, guys, I had one today. That was rough. 3 hours straight. Statistics, never again. I'm done with that. Hopefully, I get my college credits. But, um, yeah. So, two weeks straight of those. Um, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, [gasps] so, um, definitely a stressful time for a lot of the students at AB. Everyone's so ambitious, so smart. Um, so this is, um, something that's been on a lot of people's minds, but, um, having to manage that with school work is something that students struggle with and are stressed out about. Um so this is this is I would say probably the most challenging part of the year for students. Um

008going on um another thing I would like to bring up is um we went through the schoolwide um workshops on interrupting hate and bias. Um this workshop was specifically about the history and the impact of the nword presented by members of the Black Student Union. I would love to give them a shout out today because they did a wonderful job. Um it takes a lot of courage to come up in front of your peers and talk about such a vulnerable important issue like that. So they did a very good job talking about that topic and um I commend them and um generally um talking to students after um the students found it very necessary. um they learned a lot from the workshop and I think it had an overall positive impact on the school. Um

009last but certainly not least, um on May 19th we're running the flex block. Um this is something that um is almost formatted like if anyone's been to the connections conference before um it happened it happens sometimes at Clark or a nearby local university. But um the format is that there's workshops run by not only community community members but also um staff and students about topics that they care about and topics that they think that the community should know about. So some of them are fun something like the history of ice cream or making mac and cheese together. But some of them are really important like um I think one of them is um about women in media, another is about learning how to be a leader. So there there's a whole variety of these workshops

010and it happens on the MCAST day. It's built in for all students to attend to. Oh, another one that I would like to mention is the Tus University prison initiative. Um so um Tus University has a program where they collaborate with formerly incarcerated people who are also students at TUS and um they they talk to students about their experiences and um things like that. And that is always what um we've heard is a highlight for students as well. And um that's that's pretty much it. Just wrapping things up for the year. Um making sure clubs are ready to go next year. We had elections for student council about a week ago. So um yeah, that's pretty much it. Um so I guess this is me signing off. Thank you everyone. It's been a pleasure. [applause]

011>> Thank you, Dixo. We really appreciate your perspective and speaking for myself and maybe some others up here, this is one of one of the presentations we look forward to the most is getting to your student voice. So, thank you, >> Dix. I just want to personally say congratulations. It's actually been awesome to see you over the course of your four years of high school. Um, and of all the students in the high school, I probably have seen you more than anyone. So, um, but in all good ways. So, congratulations. Thank you for everything that you've done for the school, for the community, just the passion that you bring to it will be missed and you're on to awesome things. >> I also wanted to add my thanks to Dixshire. Your thoughtful contributions over the

012past years in updating the school committee have been absolutely wonderful and I too wish you the best of luck in the next four weeks before graduation [laughter] and then the next four years as you continue your educational journey. So, thank you. So that might be a tough act to follow, but we are on to public participation. For school committee policy beedh, members of the public are invited to speak for up to three minutes. Public participation will only take part at this time during our meeting. Speakers must be recognized by the chair before speaking and the committee does not typically respond to comments during public participation. Would anyone like to speak? Come on up. How's that? >> Great. Uh, good evening everyone. I'm Dan Kieran, uh, acting parent uh, to a second grader at Douglas School.

013Uh, and I'm here tonight to request uh, more explicit commitment and clear timeline for review of classroom technology use in the district, particularly at the elementary level. I have been encouraged to hear comments from district administration um that they are monitoring emerging evidence around technology use and plan to discuss uh digital devices and screen time uh prior to the next academic year. I am concerned however that the magnitude of the logistical planning for AB forward will deprioritize that technology review and I believe that setting a target timeline now would help ensure that we continue to make progress on this critical uh topic. As we use the AB forward transition to develop new school cultures and routines, it feels like an opportune time to assess how digital tools are used across our elementary schools and align

014our practices with the latest research. There's compelling evidence to support handwriting and analog class for literacy development and foundational math skills. Simultaneously, there's room to look at the total amount of screen time that our students experience in the classroom. Um, particularly as it's influenced by things like YouTube movement breaks or videos during indoor recess. My expectation is that a review should not be burdensome um but an opportunity to establish consistent evidence-based practices across the district and support educational teams as they move into the new year. Uh I personally rely on our schools as a partner in providing digital literacy, teaching students about safe technology use and providing STEM enrichment. I want all of that to continue. I also want to balance those aspects of modern education with the analog class that provides foundational skills. Please

015consider this at your meetings before the end of this year. Um, thank you for your time. >> Thank you. It is um Greg Jarbo 5 Cherokee Road speaking as a individual but yes yes I'm a member of the finance committee and Tuesday night we are going to have a discussion a sort of a post-mortem on why this town meeting went so smoothly. [laughter] Nobody. It was It was remarkable. Let's in in in a long long long history of going to town meetings, this was the shortest I've seen that enabled us to get through almost 40 articles. So, I have a thesis that I'd like to share with you. So if you disagree, please come to the finance committee meeting Tuesday night and let us know what you think. I think one of the things that

016helped us get through town meeting more efficiently was all the work that was done before town meeting. And I think I would like to publicly acknowledge the work of your liaison Lisa, but also there was another liaison Glenn who worked with the select board. Adam, I think you were at more meetings in Boxboro than some of the elected officials were. But I believe that that unacnowledged communication kept everybody on track. We understood that things were changing rapidly. We understood that the options were complex. But guess what? We were as up to speed as possible. We felt included and when necessary, you might have seen more than two uh finance committee members here because we said this is a meeting you're going to want to attend because it's a big one. So going forward, I hope

017that continues. Um and hopefully next year's town meeting will be well maybe not as fast as this year's, but at least there will be fewer bumps in the road. >> Thank you. >> All right, Peter, are you ready? >> All right, good evening everyone. Um, you know, I I actually will just start off with a thank you and an acknowledgement to the residents of Actton who are at town meeting uh for approving the budget. That's an important step in our process and we look forward to uh presenting our budget in Boxboro on May 19th. So, thank you to everyone for being there and thank you to the residents who were voted. Um, lots going on in May. So, this is a a longer update, but it's certainly celebratory of all the things our students and

018faculty are doing. Um, we have multiple members of our community who have been honored recently, and I want to share that with you. Sarah Turner, one of our high school teachers, was recently recognized by the Girl Scouts of the USA uh volunteer excellence award, uh which is a testament to her dedicated service and commitment to young people. Girls swim and dive coach Christy Pachillo earned the title of dive coach of the year at the EMICA banquet and awards celebration, reflecting exceptional leadership and expertise on the diving board. Coach May Shoemaker received the prestigious Priscilla Davis Silver Service Award in recognition of 25 years as an EMSA Hall of Fame swim official. That is a remarkable milestone. So, congratulations there. And athletic trainer uh Peter Mr. Catiola, I'm sure many of you have heard that name

019um and always in a good way. Um has been named the MSSADA district 4 Yoshiaka Ando Athletic Trainer of the Year. So that is uh in honor of his tireless work keeping our student athletes healthy and game ready. So congratulations to all of those individuals. Um, our next big AB forward milestone for our families and caregivers uh will be Tuesday, May 12th at 7:00 p.m. Uh, we are delighted to be able to share with you that Juliana Chen um who is the chief medical officer at Cartwheel. Uh we'll actually be presenting um homebased strategies to families to help children navigate the transition with confidence into the new schools. Um she'll be there. We will certainly record that session um and then post that for any members of our community to be able to see. Um

020Dixa mentioned this um so I'm not going to get into it, but we will certainly let families know, but the interrupting hate and bias work at the high school um was really wellreceived. I just want to thank Principal Dean as well as all of the members of the faculty and students involved in planning that um that was a tremendous undertaking. And Miss Dean, just like me, knows that when I say Miss Dean, that means actually all of her team and all of the staff that work behind the scenes. Um, we have a number of different May holidays. Uh, we have Asian-American and Pacific Pacific Islander Heritage Month, uh, Jewish American Heritage Month, Memorial Day, um, and Eidhada. Um, so lots of things coming up and we will be sharing information on those with families. Um

021and then um kind of exciting news on April 15th, representatives of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Mass CEC, and Frontier Energy VI visited AB to tour our new electric buses um and Netzero school building. Uh the group boarded one of the electric buses for a firsthand look at the boardwalk campus, then participated in a Q&A session with district staff. Visitors were impressed with the district's accomplishments in clean energy and sustainability. Um, and then we also just want to make sure everyone knows of the Douly Atamian um, campership program. If you don't know what that is, um, that is a program that provides scholarships to summer camp and activities and classes for students and children in Actton and Boxboro based on family income. So, we'll be sending out a little bit of information there. So, um,

022thank you very much. >> Thank you, Peter. Any questions or comments for Peter? Adam, >> sorry. I just wanted to make sure you saw my hand. Um, Peter, I I noticed it wasn't in your update, but usually this is the time of the year where the um project graduation team is looking for volunteers. Um, so I'm not sure if we've heard anything about that, but >> I have not. Maybe uh if before the superintendent update goes out to the rest of the community, if there's someone from Project Graduation who needs some support, we can get that in the update as well because I know this is usually the time of the year where they're screaming for help. >> Peter, I had gotten an email um because I had previously um volunteered for project graduation. So,

023I can forward that to you because that's got the person who's the chair. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> Good catch. All right. With that, it looks like we are ready to move on to a excellent presentation on the NEAS accreditation. And we welcome Joanie Dean, our high school principal, to come tell us all of the good news. I am okay. [snorts] All right. You can hear me? Okay. All right. Great. Um, so I wish I could tell you or repeat everything Dixa said or that that could be something that we just say to NASC and they're like, "Yes, you're awesome." Because, um, Dixshire represented the high school really well and we too were excited to share all about the high school with our accrediting body um, NEASK, New England Association of Schools and Colleges for

024our 10-year accreditation. And this was a process that lasted over two years. And so tonight, I'm going to share a little bit about that. And I'll just give you a spoiler alert at the beginning. We did get accredited. So that was great news. Yeah. [laughter] Right. All right. So again, this was a 2-year process. This has shifted a little bit. Peter actually knows this um even better than I do. um instead of just one visit in which you create just one big report for and then they come and they kind of review you which I believe is what we did back in 2010 the last time actually we were accredited because with co and some other things in the way um it wasn't every 10 years this time it was more like 13 years now

025what they do is they come for a collaborative conference um 2 years prior to the dennial visit. So they want to come and see about your school and then review the standards and foundational elements that were newly created within the spirit of um highlighting um I would say student engagement, instructional practices and really collaboration with the school instead of just like a long laundry list of things to do. And so our process there, we formed our committee in spring 2023. We wrote our self-reflection report. Then in October 2023, the first visiting committee came. There's about six members. Then they shared with us um many commendations and then some recommendations. And that's when we then kind of sprung into action. We we agreed with their recommendations and I'll share them in a minute. And we had

026about a year and a half of school-based action that was really collaborative and kind of meaningful and productive and successful in our school. And then they came back this um November and now they issued a final report and gave us our accreditation. The NEAS standards and foundational elements that they they look for um again have shifted over the past decade and there's really four buckets and you see them up there. learning culture, student learning, professional practices, learning support. There's many thing that go many things that go into each of those. The ones that I have highlighted underneath are what NAS calls found call foundational elements. And if they notice that there is something lacking in those foundational elements within each of those standards, they will tell you that you do not meet that standard and

027you really need to work on them. We knew before the visit that we were going to need to work on a documented written curriculum and we're actually still working on that and that work has been really collaborative and inspirational and Gabby Abrams has helped us a lot with that. Um, additionally, our the core values, beliefs, and vision of a graduate. We also knew we didn't have a vision of a graduate. We did have core values and beliefs, but we've been working on a vision of a graduate, and we now also have that. I'll share that in a minute. Um, and then there is um there was a recommendation for us around safe environment just in terms of physical safety with entrances, exits, and uh attendance pro procedures that they also really wanted us to work

028on. And I'll show more share more about that later. After that first visit, um they gave us many commendations. It was a great visit and I've listed the eight main ones here. So collegial supportive relationship between administrators and faculty. Um a wide range of academic, social, emotional, mental health supports programs. commitment to fostering um an understanding of diversity, equity, inclusion, teacher leadership, and autonomy. Our use of data to inform our practices. They highlighted our course releveling work, which was the creation of a more heterogeneous program that actually started in 2022. It actually is going to finish next year. Pretty proud of that in terms of promoting equity and inclusion and advanced level opportunities for our students. And then within instruction, an emphasis of depth of understanding of course over a breadth of knowledge and then

029our use of technology. Then the priority areas that they really asked us to work on um you know in the two years that we're going to have between this visit and the dennial visit are listed here and I've shared those a little bit with you um already. One of course was developing a vision of a graduate and that was a foundational element. So it was pretty much required that we do it. The second one um a written curriculum and that is really our our curriculum mapping work that we're we're working on and and that also was a foundational element. So we did not kind of meet that standard as we didn't in priority area one and then we had to do some work on it. Priority area three was not a foundational element that but

030they really heard this from our teachers um that they would like increased opportunities for collaboration, reflection and professional development and we did do work on that. And then priority four, I would say, was a a little bit of a surprise when we first heard it. Um, we weren't expecting it when when they came, but after their analysis and sharing with with me and the team what they thought, um, I understood and we understood that they really needed us and they did put this as a foundational element that we didn't meet. um that we needed to develop and implement supervisory structures and procedures that addressed significant concerns around absenteeism, tracking attendance, and the management of our open campus model at the high school. I'm pleased to report that they were very pleased with our significant improvements

031in those areas um when they came back. This is just a highlight of in each priority area what we did. Um, Gabby, forgive me. This is not as nice as your visual that you have created. Okay, I haven't revealed it yet. Excellent. So, I'm not like [laughter] showing the secret, but there is a a much better presentation of this, but being the math teacher I am, uh, this summer, I just put it in grid format. [laughter] Okay, so that's what I could do. Um but the vision of a graduate it it really I'm I'm showing it in boxes but it was an incredibly like um I would say collaborative evolving uh community centered um kind of process to come up with this vision of a graduate starting with surveys um a committee um having many

032meetings with different stakeholders to figure out what was really important in our community. Many of you may remember it. And we came up with the four or sorry, excuse me, five uh competencies. And then the I can statements seem to be really um significant and I would say unique. Um, since our visit, the chair of the NEAS committee, Bruce Pontybrand, who who was the chair for both of the visits, has um referred other principles to us who were going through this process because of the way that we did this process and how he felt and the committee felt when they came to visit our school that it was really embedded in the culture of what we do and how everyone was able to speak to it and they kind of saw it living out and

033just the process being so community oriented. So, we're proud of that. Um, priority area two is our curriculum mapping. And again, um, Gabby's helped us work on this with our leadership team. And, uh, we did a lot of work yesterday, last year to set this up for this year. We are working on ways to be able to uh consistently write what we do in each class um while embedding vision of a graduate objectives enduring understanding essential questions. This is the unit, excuse me, the course overview template that we decided on as a leadership team that we're going to do for every course in our school. by the end of the year this year that will be done. Then um after that there are it says at the bottom each department will choose which of the

034three templates that follow. I didn't include those here because it was just too much um text but you can click on the link before when you get these slides to see them. There's unit maps that then for each unit of study we're going to be completing. And again, while this looks like written and formatted, it's really it really helps spur collaborative conversations of teaching instruction among educators around student learning. And it also has been pretty productive and inspirational. This is just a snapshot, please don't read all the words of half of one in intermediate French 3 that I'm just showing you here that was completed this year. And again, we're creating all these course overviews this year. So that was priority area two. And then priority area three um was increased collaboration. And I've indicated

035four examples of how we've tried to provide some more collaboration time for uh for teachers and staff. One is in faculty meetings where we meet um between departments in collaborative conversation groups. We we do that during our faculty meetings and discuss topics around school culture and teaching and learning. This year we were able to create common departmental lunches so that teachers could have more time if they wanted. In each department we were able to have um plan common planning periods and we intentionally put those in the program. And then of course our early release collaboration time on Mondays for teachers. We were able to give those all to teachers this year to use as collaboration time. And then fourth, um maybe not as inspirational or as exciting, but certainly very very important in terms of

036safety and supervision of everyone in the building. Um we took pretty seriously what NASC said to us. We consulted with Actton uh police and um we tried to make some improvements on on uh kind of the management of the building. And while I think that every person in the building would probably tell you they feel safe, there was there is a real um like porousness of the building um just in terms of the layout and even the number of doors we have. So we did a number of things to kind of tighten up and we're still still working on that. The first thing last year is we implemented staff duties. So staff now are are asked to one time one period in every seven days be in a specific location, cafeterias, outside um bathrooms, uh

037near doors and hallways uh to increase presence in supervision. And while that does take teachers time away from planning um and working on the many important things they have to do, it really has increased presence in the building. It's actually increased connection among students and staff and staff and staff in other areas of the building who they don't normally see each other. We were able to reduce and it did take a little bit of work the accessible doors for students from 26 down to two. So students were able to punch their codes in and go in any door. We now have staffed the two doors at the front and the senior parking. And um there's a uh you'll see the next bullet, a monitored student check-in with IDs and a sign-in procedure. Um we also

038have our students put their cell phones in cubbies in classes and that has actually helped us know where kids are and be able to have them where they're supposed to be and and be a little safer. And then a major change was a new attendance policy and follow-up procedure. We actually were able to decrease our class cuts by 42% over the last year and a half, which is a significant amount um just by following up on attendance in a daily basis when students aren't in class. We actually have them talk to the teacher first um and then follow up with conversations with parents after that. and it's really helped and brought attendance not um and not into just being like a logistical checklist or something punitive but a conversation with a teacher and someone they

039have a relationship with. Um so we feel pretty proud of of all of this this work and NAS certainly noted a significant improvement. Now fast forward that was the work that we did in those two years. We had our accreditation visit this fall. I basically told you all of this already. Our committee worked during those two years uh on that collaborative schoolwide work and then we submitted a report. Then the visiting committee came in November. Um there was many meetings uh central office probably remembers those meetings. There was tours. There was classroom visits. The student showcase was actually a real highlight and um the accreditation team noted how wonderful, authentic, um independent and kind of high level our students talked about the work that they um had been doing in we chose students to talk

040about different projects and different initiatives. anything from vision of a graduate to their projects in their statistics class to their science research projects to the student spotlight series just work that they had been involved in and we did a showcase in the library um and that was a real highlight of the visit and then I would say takeaways from the visit which I'll share with you in a minute in terms of commendations and recommendations were significant in terms of the improvements that the team noted and it was a really positive um visit for everyone involved and um then we got our report and we were accredited. So the recommendations finally that now we have been given as our 10-year um report are as follows. They have suggested that we continue our curriculum mapping work which

041we are excited to do. Um there's some sub bullets there but one thing that we do want to do is incorporate language objectives especially to um include and support our multilingual students in that work. Um they asked us to continue the improvement of our safety systems and structures, possibly implementing a digital student check-in and checkout system, which we do plan to do next year, and possibly incorporate a hall pass system. And then for instruction and learning, they asked us to continue our focus and improvements in student centered learning. So more of the student um kind of showcase work um embedded that that I talked about that we talked about in the library that they saw embedded in all classes. um choice for students, advanced uh level opportunities for all and that is really our major

042work going forward and we're excited about that. Um and then they gave us a a lot of commendations and that felt really good for the staff, the team and the students. They noted um an incredible culture of care uh towards students from all staff um dedicated and effective leadership um that there seemed to be or or sorry I I won't say seem they noted um a significant improvement in what they described as culture and a sense of belonging of students in just the two years from from when they had been there in fall of 2023 to um the fall of 2025. Then of course the work that we had done with the vision of graduate curriculum mapping, the student work presentation that I noted and then the real improvements in the um environment physically of

043the high school um which is a very large building and just having it be more structured, safe and tethered um they noted and we felt good about that. I'll say that um I am presenting today and it was really an incredible team effort and so we had two NEAS chairs Jen Hagopian and Allison Silver and so we owe a lot of this work to them and the committee they formed and everything they did over the two to three years to make this possible and then the accreditation team was um really great to work with as well educators that gave up their time to come here and again that was led led by Bruce Poniban from Boston public schools. So, thank you for listening. Um, it was a really great process. I'd say worthwhile and meaningful

044and we feel pretty proud. So, I guess I'll open it up to questions. [clears throat] >> All right, we'll start with Lisa. >> I was going to work my way around in circles. So, Apparently I'm the only one who gets to talk. Um uh >> oh [laughter] the system >> check check. [laughter] >> Thank you. We'll just pass the mic. Can you try it now? [gasps] >> Testing. They work now. >> Now it works. >> Thank you, David, for saving the day. [gasps] >> Now that we have a working microphone, thank you. >> Um, so going from uh 26 points of entry or exit to two is quite an undertaking. Are they still is it still possible for students to exit from those points or it's just for entering? >> So that's a good question

045and the answer is kind of yes and no. Students of course and every person should be able to exit any um door at any time like I that's probably legally required. Yeah. Yeah. Um so that is possible. We ask students who are leaving for normal reasons to leave at the front and the senior door um to check out um and so every once in a while we'll catch them not doing that but we try to talk about the safety around that. Um students used to be able to come in with their codes anywhere and now they're not able to come in with codes or badges or anything. Teachers are >> okay. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thank you so much. And then um has there had to be some sort of informational campaign to students just

046to make sure like adding a bunch of signage or um talking to them a lot about it just to help them understand the reasoning because you know students it's probably a big change. Yeah, students were pretty good about it. And in fact, I think uh teachers really understood it too. And so that's actually the most effective means of communication. Not my Rev report or the morning announcements or even standing at the doors, but actually having the teachers who they care about and see every day and have relationships with just talk about the safety of it. And so it didn't take too long. In fact, we may be moving to one door next year if we can logistically make it possible. >> That's incredible. Thank you. Mhm. >> Great. Thank you. Um, first and foremost, the

047standardization of the course curriculum is really a great positive step moving forward. However, as somebody who deals with internal controls on a daily basis, it seems like at work, what controls will be in place to maintain the course overview so that they don't get stale and to keep them current and up to date to reflect the curriculum that teachers are teaching. Well, you can have some professional learning with Gabby Abrams who talks to us about it being a living breathing document. [laughter] Excellent question. So, yes, that is one of the um possibilities that you don't want to fall into, right? And so, we really want to keep these um documents dynamic and not static. And so, that's going to really rely on the leadership and the kind of continually evolving them and checking them and

048making sure that they're up todate. And I'm sure that Gabby could answer it even better, but that is something that we are very aware of that we need to do in this work because we don't just want them sitting, you know, in a folder on a, you know, shelf. I think actually with technology it helps a little bit because you don't have shelves and folders anymore. You all can be connected to the same Google Drive that Gabby has shared with us. [laughter] So that that is work in front of us. Thanks, Joanie. You did great. Um, yeah, I would absolutely echo so much of what Joanie said and and share that um, we don't even use the frame or term curriculum mapping when we're talking about this because it sounds like something that's very stale

049and sounds like something that's very disconnected. So, I've um we've all talked about documenting the student learning experience, which we're hoping is is going to keep us anchored in really what this is all about, which is the students who are sitting in front of us and how do we make sure that we're monitoring what that student learning experiences and adjusting based on the kiddos who are showing up today in our classrooms and what we have visions for them for the future. So the team's been really um open to that reframing and really collaborative and this approach has been um a really great collaborative effort as Jon noted. >> Great. Thank you >> Glenn. >> Thank you for this. I think this is excellent work. Um I think there are some things that we've addressed upon

050addressed on in previous meets but I do think bear some repeating for those for community members and those listening at home too. So, we're actually bucking the trend about how nationwide a lot of students are reporting poorer mental poorer mental health, but in active box, it's actually their self-reporting and improving mental health, which is f which is both amazing and fascinating. >> Could you spell out briefly a little bit of the work that went into those two years of that improvement trends because that is not at all something that can be taken for granted. Um there's a lot that goes into it, right? >> Sure. And I would say that I even before the the visit in 2023, we were we had uh and we have a very robust um mental health support system and

051programs in place and that work um they highlighted as accommodation in the first visit and so we've continued and sustained that work. But I think everything from connections and of students advisory to our signs of suicide kind of presentations to our IST processes where we monitor student progress. Um I think you'd be hardressed and I say this often to find a student who the individuals and the adults who work with them from teachers to counselors don't know them individually. And I think that's a pretty special thing to say about such a large high school. And so um it is embedded in everything we do as starting with our counseling and psychology and special education in case manager staff. Um we feel very fortunate with the groundwork that they put in place and our students feel

052well cared for. >> Thank you. So, I'm also really appreciating the long view right here. Um, because I have a 23 grad and uh one still in the high school and I'm thinking through how these things have evolved and you know the original squeaking that came back from they're closing down the doors to like where this is now and and this is incredible. Um the work you've done is phenomenal and it's great to see this great recognition in the uh NEAS report. I also really want to highlight vision of a graduate. Um I think something that is striking to me there when when we produced that was that everybody in the community can see themselves in it and you can see what a unifying document that is and how foundational it is. It's you know

053something that's reflected in our strategic plan. Um and it's something that you've highlighted among the students as well. I love that you have awards that recognize students for having those moments where they are showing what is possible in terms of the vision of a graduate. And I think that's a wonderful way to to make that feel like such an important value. Um because these aren't always these aren't always things that people get recognized for and they're really important. Um, one thing I was curious about, so it's nice to get to talk about education stuff instead of budget stuff for a change. Um, I noticed a little bit in the reflection on student learning, there was some questions about >> some great practices that were occurring in some places but not necessarily in others. Some inconsistencies

054kind of across um just how we're meeting students where they are and and best ways to engage students. Um, and so I'm kind of curious about what you took away from that feedback and how the school committee might be able to help give you what you need to continue to grow there. [laughter] >> Well, that's a million-dollar question. Um, yeah. Um, yeah, I think that's that's our work going forward and I think that that's really exciting work. I think um when you see pockets of that happening, leaning into when they're happening and highlighting them um is is one way to start um in addition to creating systems and structures so that you can then manage it consistently for everyone. So you have to kind of come at it both ways. So, I think that our

055um documenting the student experience and curriculum mapping work is one way to make sure that we're aligned and collaborating and that everyone's having similar experiences and that we're going unit by unit and talking about the projects and the advanced level coursework and the objectives. And then just highlighting kind of daytoday what's going on really great in every class and making an exemplar of those teachers in our collaborative conversations and the work that students are doing. um so that that teachers can understand what's possible uh in all levels is really important. Two of our department leaders after we we got this recommendation created a look fors rubric based on that feedback and um it was you know it had items like studentto student discussion right um choice opportunities um independence autonomy uh highlevel um kind of

056work and so a bunch of like um check check boxes that they thought would represent what Nias asked us to do. So I think that's a little bit of a pilot. They went into classes and it was interesting. One of the um uh department leaders came back to me and this was non-evaluative in any way um but just kind of like what what can we notice and how can we encourage what NASCA is asking us to do? And they said it actually seemed a little bit chaotic and and um like kids were talking a lot when they saw all these things that sometimes can seem like uh is out of control, but it's not out of control. It's really like students taking ownership. And what the chair of the NEAS committee said to us is

057like your students are ready to do more. They're they're ready to take more of the cognitive load. And so I think teachers agree and and we just want to work on that in collaborative ways um that are that's possible. Teachers have so much on their plates. So trying to put all that together is is kind of our work next year and beyond. I mean if you were to ask me what what we need to do all that, I'd probably say time, money, resources. um you know getting to know our students incredibly well, having fewer students in classes, uh having more teachers, having more opportunities uh to learn, having more time to do that. But not all of that is possible, right? I think something as as simple as even furniture in our desks, uh sorry,

058furniture and desks in our classrooms and way to kind of set up our learning spaces in more collaborative ways is things that I know that Peter and I have talked about. even are there ways for us to partner even with the community to find different grads grants or initiatives to even do something like that so that our classrooms aren't as traditional as they used to be. So >> I love the idea of look force. Thank you for that. >> All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing this with us. >> Thank you. I want to keep talking about the high school, but I realize my time is up. Well, you know, I mean, we we we've set some records for long school committee meetings. >> Sorry. [laughter] >> In that case, uh we are

059moving on to the attendance policy. I'm going to note, Adam, that we are right on time right now. >> We were 10 minutes ahead of schedule. >> Well, that was worth hearing. [laughter] And so we're going to invite um Heather Stout and Jennifer Favor to come up and tell us about um their work with attendance. Good evening everyone. I'm Jen Faber. I'm the director of access and engagement and this is and I'm Heather Stuck. from the coordinator of and mental and behavioral health for the district. Uh thanks for this opportunity. Uh in your packet you already have the memo outlining our draft proposed policy update for the attendance policy. The original one um had few words and um so it definitely needed some updating and so we're going to give you a little bit of

060context um to this proposed policy and where it came from as well. So Heather and I co-f facilitated the chronic absenteeism task force last year and that was inclusive of administrators and families and teachers. Um, and one of the things that we talked about, not just creating a framework for intervention and as well as reporting absences and all the things that entail around absenteeism and attendance policy, but we also needed to draft a policy or at least update it because when we started looking at the current one, it was it was pretty brief. Um, so tonight we're just going to talk a little bit about that. One of the things, one of our purposes or goals around the update was that we wanted to align the policy with DESIE guidance as well as state law.

061And we wanted to really provide just clear definitions and expectations and interventions. So, we also want to thank the chronic absenteeism task force who helped us with this policy and we're here representing and sharing the information. So I'm going to talk a little bit about I mentioned that the update was needed because there was I would say few words in the um current policy and so we wanted to give um some clear and specific language as well as some inclusive language um to the policy. So we changed and now have you we use parent and guardian um for inclusivity. We've also defined excused versus unexcused absentist. That's something that families um always ask us about. So, we felt like it was really important to include in the policy. We also expanded the term illness to

062include mental and physical health. Um, and also mentioned that we're counting all absences, excused and unexcused as total absences. That's also something that we talk with families about. And there's also an a note or um sort of some wording around the impact on academics and extracurriculars. We also wanted to mention the attendance tracking that needs to happen. Um and so therefore we needed to define chronic absenteeism and Heather and I didn't define it nor did the task force. So that's a definition that we're getting both from the state and from DESIE. And that is obviously 10% or more of school days. And we wanted to really standardize how we monitored um our absences across the district. There were some inconsistencies and so now we've brought that um consistent practice across the board in our district.

063We also wanted to improve the communication accountability piece of absenteeism and attendance. So we've um mentioned in the policy that families will follow all the student handbook. There's student handbooks at the elementary school, the junior high and the high school. And so therefore families can connect with those student handbooks to know the specific information that they need um for reporting absences and so forth. Um, we also wanted to create this homeschool communication piece as well. So, that's noted in the policy. And then another note that I think is important is that um, schools will notify families within 3 days of unknown absences. That's also pulled directly from the law and desi guidance. Heather will talk a little bit more. I love to talk, so I'm going to give Heather some space um, to be able

064to share more. >> Thank you, Jen. Um talking is not my favorite thing to do. So we balance each other well. Um so the other um the second half of the policy are really the addition of three new sections that we're proposing. Um they all are in alignment with the um Massachusetts state laws and also the DESI guidance around attendance policies. um they include the student absence notification program, uh the dropout prevention section, and then also we added a section around handbook expectations from the district level. Um in terms of the absent notification program, it pulls right from the state law that five unexcused absences would then lead to a collaborative meeting between the school and the family to help do that problem solving conversation. Um it also w sets a stage for um early

065intervention and supportive nature of the collaboration rather than a more punitive response to student absences. Um we also did articulate and this again comes straight from the law some of the legal requirements that we have in response to making sure that a child attends school. So really spelling out that um we may call [snorts] on DCF or a CRA or some of those legal um compliance mandates that we have. Those are in state law but not listed in our policy and we thought it was important to articulate that with families. Um the other sections included the dropout prevention outlines exit interview and unenrollment policies. It's all pulled straight from state law. It's just not in our current policy. Um and the student handbook outlines some of the procedures and supports and expectations um both that

066Desi recommends and also that we think are important to be reflected as a baseline um inclusion practice within our student handbooks that Jen had just described. Um, so overall, I mean, there's we're moving from a very bare bones um, current, which we actually couldn't find when it was written, but it was a long time ago, um, to a more robust proposal for an edit to the current policy, um, in order to support the more collaborative nature between families and the district to get our students in school. Then, we're happy to answer any questions that you have. Adam, >> thank you for this. Um, I I appreciate the more detail that's in here. I think over the years we've we've talked about attendance, particularly as it relates to the high school. And so that's my first

067question, which is this is a far more detailed policy now, and there's a mention of the student handbook in here. How well does this policy align with the work that we've already done on the high school handbook side around attendance expectations? And you know, we'll be seeing the high school handbook at some point soon, but are there significant changes that they're going to have to make again to the high school handbook? >> So, our current handbooks align with baseline law that we may put more um stringent Yeah. Yeah. um policies into place or practices in place through our handbook. So it shouldn't take us backwards in that way. Um one thing we did ask is to clearly outline for families what the response is um at a school level when there is an absence in

068in terms of reporting practices when we're going to be um meeting with families and all. But that's all the work that we have done through the task force and is represented in some of our other policies and practices already. >> And I'll also add that um we work closely with the assistant principles who do a lot of this work around chronic absenteeism and absentis. And so I've worked with the assistant principles at the high school around, you know, class cuts versus like a full day of school miss and things like that that are the nuances of the high school student learning experience versus what's happening elementary and junior high. So that's the work that we've done at the high school specifically so that it aligns with state law and as well as knowing that there's

069some some differences that occur at the different levels. >> Um, thank you. And I I have just a sort of a follow-up comment that you know I I appreciate the additional detail that's in here when we were on the school resource officer task force and we were sort of talking about what does it look like to have an SRO in the building and are they the truency officer? Are they going out and dragging kids into school? Um you know there was a perception that that might have been the sta the the case. obviously on the on the task force and in that that group, we sort of we heard about what the experience is through the collaborative nature with with officers and particularly a lot of the work and outreach that the school staff are

070doing on that. And so I appreciate that this really details out what that looks like and that while there may be engagement with public safety, they're not the only ones and they're not the ones who are going and enforcing all of this work. So, I think this does a really nice job of sort of laying out some of the expectations around, excuse [clears throat] me, how we engage with public safety when it comes to managing attendance and absences. >> If I can just add and I appreciate you mentioning that because this is the policy, but there's practices that have occurred, right? And that has occurred because a lot of the changes that we've made through the chronic asthmism task force framework around what what are the interventions and one of the things that we really

071talked about and highlighted at the task force and I want to also share publicly is that there's a story behind every single student. Um and so we need to know those stories and so we work with the families around that. Right? So it it may not work that we're going to have an SRO in that in a certain case and we're going to have an assistant principal someone else. So each case is individual and so we want to make sure that we understand like their stories behind all of these absences and we're trying to get to those and we have interventions and a framework in place to be able to do that. So the practice and the policy are working together. I know tonight's about policy but I wanted to make sure I share that.

072>> Liz, uh thank you for the work on this. It was I think it's very thorough. Um and I am really happy to see uh all that you guys have produced here. my uh operational hat is on and I do have a question about the um follow-ups. There's a couple of places in here where um you know the superintendent or principal or whomever would have 3 days to notify or 3 days to um provide a document. And my question is uh and potential suggestion is um are those calendar days or would they be school days? I'm just thinking if there was um either a weekend or a vacation and where that leaves a little bit of vagueness um you know for subjective so that text is actually directly taken from our law as worded and

073so we put it into the proposal as state law states. um you'll find in our handbooks it's better defined and you know for for instance at the elementary level it is not our practice to wait three days to let a family know that a child has not arrived and so it will say that in our handbook um it'll say that in our handbook like what the expectation is around that communication piece what we are proposing in the policy that we're following state law but then we actually put other things into practice that are in better alignment with our beliefs. >> Yeah, Lisa, >> I just wanted to take a minute to um appreciate both of you for all of the work that you've done. Thank you so much. And um I'm sure this was an

074undertaking and also I appreciate the fact that it's um there we're seeing some alignment with state law and DESI expectations. So that's great, too. We want to make sure we're in compliance and I understand that. Um, I think one of the things that I um that gave me a little bit of pause when I was looking at this or because I'm tight uh concern that I had was um just thinking back to um some of the barriers to attendance that CPAC had uh identified. Um I'm the CPAC liaison and um have the privilege of getting to sit in those monthly meetings and um back when uh March of 2024 when the student opportunity act um there was input for that for beginning a lot of this with uh looking at chronic absenteeism. Um there were

075a number of identified barriers to attendance that were looked at. I'm sure you guys looked at this as well. And I think one of the ones that really stuck out to me was um medical appointments and therapies um you know if somebody's driving all the way to Brooklyn going to Boston Children's for different things and because I was looking into well what qualifies you know as an entire day and it's you know for elementary it's like half the day or more and you know some of those appointments can be lengthy and I think I just had a moment of pause where you know I'm glad that it's going to be looked at you know student by student and what can be done. But I guess I got a little bit nervous thinking about that reporting

076that happens um you know to um you know department of children and families um you know after only seven full days um or 14 half days. And so I think I just I was just hoping that kids with medical issues wouldn't be, you know, flagged for DCF and not that's just one example, but I know that there are other barriers and there are other, you know, things to think about um you know, such as kids with anxiety and refusal to go to school. And so I just wanted to know if there was some sort of mechanism in place or something that was being done. I'm sure there is, but I just wanted to hear about it, you know, for things like that. Um the policy is not actually that we report to any state agencies

077after seven days. The seven days is connecting with the with the family and working with the family. Um it is we would use something like that in practice. We would use that something like that at the district level. um as a last resort. That's after many uh communications with families, lots of collaborative problem solving, lots of um you know meetings. Yeah. A lots of meetings trying to support the family in any way that we can. Um and building plans to help support the integration of the child within the building. That's not a seven days first step type of approach. >> Okay. I would imagine not, but I just I saw that and I just wanted to confirm um what I had, you know, and then I just also wanted to call out families with families

078abroad um you know, and visiting, you know, those international trips that sometimes aren't always planned if there's, you know, if someone passes away or an illness. So, I just, you know, calling out those things when I'm thinking about how excused and unexcused absences can total up and just wanting to acknowledge that. and I'm still grateful for your work and thank you >> Glenn. >> Thank you. And so you mentioned some you mentioned a really important point that I just want to reiterate that each kid has their own story around this stuff cuz if you have a very high altitude view and you're just looking at paperwork all day and you see like well there's one kid who missed seven days and then there's another kid who missed seven days they must have the same story.

079Like it's I just really want to spell this out for people listening at home. This is an incredibly complex issue. Like there's a big difference between a kid being like, "I get panic attacks when I think about walking into the classroom versus, my parents made me go to Disney World." Like, can you just spell out a little bit for maybe someone who's doing the dishes and listening to this on YouTube? Like just like what do people need to know about this about chronic absenteeism as like a a condition and what are some of the tailored interventions and frameworks that go into place to address it? >> Um I I appreciate you bringing this up. As I mentioned there there are stories behind them and one of the things we also have to talk about is

080that in you know we talk a lot about absence but the opposite of that is presence and so what are some of the things that we have to do to get our students to be present in school and so therefore there are interventions that we have to do. We've actually created an intervention um plan template that any administrator, any um counselor can use so that they can provide some interventions for specific families that need that support for their students to come to school. We talk about the barriers and how do we support them through those barriers. Um so those are some of the things that we've done that aren't in this policy. um that I just want to make sure that we understand that we have collaborative meetings. That's something that's in here. And in

081the collaborative meeting, we're really talking about those things that you just mentioned that it is a a mental health condition. We're not going to penalize someone or punish someone. There's no there's no punitive consequence for that. What then happens is we provide an intervention plan and we talk through what are some of the things that we can do to support you and your family so that your child can come to school and that you're not penalized for that. So, in no way is this about punishment. It's about how do we collaboratively work together to make sure that your student is present, right? We focus a lot on the absences, but we also need to focus on how do we get them to be present. So, I'm going to wrap us up here. This was a

082first read, folks. Do we have any final policy feedback? I just want to articulate you've done amazing work taking something that was data driven because I remember looking a little skeptical when you said our uh annual goal was going to be working on uh our chronic absenteeism numbers but we knew that our district was not bouncing back when others were. That has translated into a study the chronic absenteeism task force a lot of good work a lot of great procedures and finally a policy that captures all of it. So thank you so much for all of that good work. We appreciate you. >> Thank you. Which brings us to draft revisions for enrollment and transportation policies and procedures. Andrew, this must be you. Just um while Andrew is getting seated and can talk to you

083about the substance of these, I think you know, one thing we wanted to approach a little bit differently um with our enrollment and transportation policies and procedures is to provide all of it to you in one single package um to move forward and traditionally the school committee does not approve procedures. However, I'm actually inclined that I would like you to vote these procedures for the first time so that you're really making sure that you're comfortable with the level of alignment between the policies that you do vote and the procedures that come out of it for the first time knowing that because you're voting it into procedure that does mean that the administration may update it from time to time um and then provide the flexibility. But I do think given the significant transition we're in

084as a district, there's actually a benefit to you actually voting this um at this point to get us going on this direction. >> Yeah. So, thank you Peter. Just to provide a little bit more context, a reminder of what's in front of you, there are four sets of documents. Uh two are related to um proposals for enrollment procedures, enrollment policy and then enrollment procedures. And then uh separate but certainly related is transportation policy and transportation procedures. Uh in within those four documents, you've certainly had exposure um more to the enrollment policy uh and the enrollment procedures. In terms of the enrollment policy, we actually did uh an initial discussion either last meeting or the meeting before. Uh and actually the current draft that you see in front of you has a little bit of um

085revision based on that feedback. I know Andrew Schwarz had mentioned in the last one wanting to preserve at the very least the um the phrase if I can find it around striving to provide high standards of ed educational excellence in all of its elementary schools. So certain sort of an aspirational statement that we didn't want to lose. So sort of reinserting that. Uh and then the enrollment procedures in its current form it's your first time. Uh but hopefully a lot of it seems familiar because it's basically adapted from um the work that we did with Dillinger in terms of trying to explain um how we would utilize the geographic zones and the proposals around flex and etc etc. So I would say 90% of the language that's in the enrollment procedures uh is already um

086previewed in some way shape or form but certainly warrants a little bit of review in its current form. So maybe we start with that and then we can shift to to transportation. >> Andrew, >> thanks Andrew. Um I was looking through this and I wanted to see if you could go a little bit deeper on the proactive balancing that you talk about in the first part of the standard placement of methodology. Um one of the things you talk about in this section are reassignments that can occur year round to balance operational priority. Could you talk a little bit about what that means and how you how you're planning on looking at that? >> Sure. Uh what that means is the it's an acknowledgement of the reality that we enroll new students into the district and

087unenroll new stu and unenroll current students out of the district when they move uh 365 days a year. Student uh families come and go based on their personal needs. Uh and so therefore there could be shifts not only in overall school uh district enrollment but then individual school and grade level enrollment. And as a result of that uh we have to be aware of potential trends uh if for whatever reason there happens to be a cluster just simply randomly uh at any particular school and grade. And so again I give you that example that we might have mentioned a while ago trying to compare utilization of a school versus class size. You could have uh 10 students move out of a school uh at all sorts of various grades and you could have 10 students

088move into that school, but if those 10 students who move in happen to be clustered in the same grade, utilization's no different, but all of a sudden we have an issue with class size. And so if that were the case, uh the operational priority piece would be around um preserving and maintaining that priority around class sizes. And so in that scenario, we would entertain for the students moving in if they are in a flex zone um saying because of the cluster, we would then exercise the discretion to um flex them into the the assigned alternative school. Uh so that would be the primary the primary example. And if you want to add >> just add one thing. I think one worry that I think someone might read into that is that we would move a

089student from one school to another at some point during a school year because we're operationalizing that. Just to be clear, that would never happen because the overarching piece is once a student is assigned to the school unless they have a change of residence, >> they stay in that school. >> That was the concern because as written, that's what it says. As written, it says reassignment. >> Can you show me where it is? And >> uh yeah, uh let's see. Elementary school placement uh section one fourth bullet proactive balancing placement as a dynamic year- round process reassignments is considered for current class size deviations it does not speak to >> newly enrolled students >> that doesn't speak to that I I think it's important for for that part um because that that [clears throat] changes it

090and I do have just one other question I know we talked about this when we were talking about defining flex zones but inside this um in section V5 Uh, bullet point two, moving between different flex zones. We're saying, I'm a Radam talking about this, that if you move from one flex zone to another flex zone, you also have to change schools. Is that an accurate read of what's here? And if so, why are we why is that operationally beneficial? Moving between different flex zones. Families moving to a different flex zone are subject to the flex zone policy. a flex assignment to an alternative campus may occur based on the determination of operational need. >> And I mean that simply because you're moving a a family, but you're not moving a student. Like they're still at

091that school. >> I I think there's say a a family moved, say they lived in that eastern section of Boxboro that is technically a flex zone, but we know is challenging right now, right? and and so they're attending Blanchard. If they moved to the flex zone in the northern side of Actton, we wouldn't be able to keep them at Blanchard necessarily because the flex zone doesn't include Blanchard as a school. So there's it it's I I don't think our goal is to try and move students unnecessarily. Our goal is that if we are moving across town to a flex zone that no longer serves one of those two schools where it would have been that that's where the application of this would have to take place. >> So Andrew, what you're saying is if in

092a scenario where a student is in a particular flex zone, but they but they move to a flex zone where the alternative school is already the school that they already attend. Are you subjecting them to potentially be moved? I agree with you. The answer is why do that? >> Yeah. I think Peter scenarios where if the flex zone is not does not include the school to which they already attend then they would be subject to it. So I think your point is to try and make that more explicit. >> I've been spending the last 3 weeks reading contracts and looking for precise language and the imprecision in this can cause issues later on especially as we don't have a policy for appeal. Like we saw some emails come through requesting stuff and bouncing between who

093was going to answer it. We don't have a policy for appeal for these things. To make it as clear as possible in these documents is going to make it easier for everyone to manage them. >> So maybe adding language where it says if you move to a flex zone of which your current school is not an is not an optional school, then you'll be subject. But if you are flexed into a if you are moving to a flex zone which you which includes a school to which you are already enrolled, there would be no movement. >> Something along those lines that speaks more specifically to what would occur. Yeah. So that's actually a piece that I was going to suggest as well, not just the flex zone piece, but it actually never says it here

094explicitly that if during the year you are in a geographic enrollment zone and you move to another geographic zone that something would need to change. So if you lived in a zone and you're you were supposed to go to boardwalk and you moved into the Parker Damon zone, it doesn't say anywhere what would happen. Doesn't it say >> Third bullet, midyear move options, immediate transfer. Families may elect to transfer the student immediately to the new geographic placement or current school maintenance. Families may elect to keep their child in their current school for the remainder of the active academic year. >> So the reason that confused me is because the first two bullets talk about flex zones. So >> Got it. >> Yes, that would help just clarifying >> create clarification for the third bullet. >>

095Okay, >> Adam. All right, my my opportunity to ask for some clarity. So in in item in uh heading one, the third bullet, we talk about operational priority. Um someone new to this process would read this and say it feels like that at any time the district can choose to move me anywhere. >> And I think the intention there is around flex zones. And so I think again more clarifying language, more sort of guard rails on that topic. Very similar to the proactive balancing that just provides a little bit more clarity that what we're talking about when we're talking about uh you know operational prioritization. Um and then my second mildly nitpicking topic is five, six, seven, eight. Section 8 second bullet point around the definition of siblings. Sounds like Lisa's got a same same

096going on there. Um I think that we we need to um add an additional qualifier to siblings at the same residence. Uh because we know we've got lots of blended families and lots of different steps and halves and all of that. And so I think a sibling should also be considered at the same residence because what we're talking about right is keeping siblings together. And if they're not living together, I think there's an argument to say that maybe they don't need to be at the same school together. And if they do want to be at the same school together, that's something else to consider. But the clarification is siblings need to be defined as residing at the same address >> using the same legal residence for enrollment purposes. >> Got it. >> Thank you. >>

097And then finally, I will just say thank you very much. I think this document did a great job of taking the FAQ and the discussion that we had and at least putting it into something that was tangible that we could do more. >> And I think the feedback as well because the point's well taken where let's be as precise as possible given the variables that exist. Yep. >> All right. We're good on that one. >> Transportation. Okay. So, let's move to uh transportation. So, the transportation policy um just to provide a little bit of uh explanation for how we approached it is as you can tell that the the draft revised transportation policy is a little bit more of a narrative whereas the original had all these subsections. I think what we did is we

098took this opportunity to try and also clarify what's really should be in policy versus procedures. Uh and so I think we again uh focused on the policy piece in terms of our our obligation overarching obligation to provide transportation um both in terms of what we want to do but also as a regional school district what we're obligated to do. Um and uh and also explaining a little bit of the the philosophy and approach and then in the procedures be more precise in terms of this is how we determine X Y and Z. This is how we would determine roots. This is how we would determine um sort of default uh locations by which you would be picked up. The the one piece that I do want to highlight because I appreciate fully um the question

099that definitely has been out there uh amongst the community is the practice of families that um children who um live in two different households within Actton and Boxboro um due to uh divorce and blended families. A couple of pieces. One is the policy and the practice have not changed but the actual implementation does have um will shift simply by virtue of the geographic. And what I mean by that is we have always said that we can provide a formal route to a student um based on the legal residence that they list for enrollment. And so that's a a single residence. What ends up happening, however, is because, as you all know, in our current system of of open enrollment, we have buses quite frankly going everywhere. You just by not by intention, but just by

100the outcome, we kind of had a mass transit system across Actton and Boxboro. By virtue of that, what families can do is after they have their uh formal stop identified is they have made a request for a a permanent bus pass to the transportation office that says and in addition, can my son, daughter, child uh also attend a bus when they are at this second residence? And more often than not, they can grant it because of what I just previously said. That uh approach is still the case. And yet I think uh practically speaking there will probably be more situations where there may or may there may not be a route that is immediately available. And so the practice is not that we would intentionally create routes where students would have formally more than one

101stop. we would continue to provide that second stop if and when it is uh available and we would certainly want to do that when it is available but we cannot explicitly create uh additional routes and stops to accommodate um two two formal um bus stops. So I do want to highlight that. So the policy and the practice have not changed but certainly the availability of multiple bus routes that go across towns to different schools I think as you can all imagine um will be will be somewhat different. So I think that is something that that is worth highlighting and and also want to hear um sort of your formal thoughts and take because I do think you will get some questions you already have um but may continue to get some questions because that does

102have practical implications for families um who are trying to navigate that and and very um just let us say I think we're all quite um empathetic to that reality um especially in this day and age where um families have shared equal custody um it it may feel like we are benefiting one over the other and that's not the intention but that's certainly how um it could feel. So welcome to answer questions or other observations you might have. >> I'll just say I think this policy and procedure did a great job of capturing the nuance and it's quite clear about the opportunities there should the stop exist. So uh I appreciate this one. No notes. All right, seeing nothing else. >> Okay. >> Do you have what you need? >> I think we do. I think

103certainly for um the enrollment, we've got some feedback and I can bring that to policy next Friday the 13th. Oh goodness. Friday, no, 15th. It's Friday the 15th. Not Friday the 13th. Friday the 15th. Um and then certainly for transportation, we can take one more look and see if we have to tweak language, but I think we're good to go. So, I think we'll bring it for a second read and a possible vote. Um, >> 21st. >> I would also suggest, you know, from a substance standpoint, we want to make sure the discussion is happening in here, but if you see something in the language that needs a technical adjustment because it's just not clear and you want clarity, please just send an email to Andrew. Yeah, that makes sense. >> Um, you know, preferably

104when's your next policy meeting? >> Friday the 15th. So, next Tuesday, Wednesdayish. >> Yeah. All right. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. All right, so we are getting an end ofear district goals update, Peter. >> Yeah, so um you know I talked to to Tori about this um in our weekly chair meeting and we're there are times when I've done a long presentation and you've seen extensive goals documents um and we made the decision that we're going to take a little bit different path this year. Um, one is that the schools are not coming to school committee over the course of the spring with annual school improvement goals updates. Um, you know, you heard from Joanie kind of the NEAS report for the elementary schools. I think on a variety of levels that just does not make

105sense to make them come and report school improvement goals. Um, and in terms of the district process, we're really trying to streamline it. I mean I think we had this conversation as a school committee at the beginning of the year that you know we need to be really focused on a few key goals rather than a lot of different things right now. Um and so you know I think for me obviously the bulk of my work has been around the AB forward process. Um we talked that that was going to be a very challenging process. Um I remember when we did our workshop I think it was probably last spring um when we made the decision to enter this um and you know we talked very candidly that this was going to be a challenging

106process. it was unlikely to result in a high degree of consensus. Um, and there'd be a lot of challenging trade-offs that needed to make sense make um to happen in order to try and move something forward. And I think we obviously saw that realized. Um, that has been the bulk of my work. For those of you that have been on the committee, you've obviously had a front row seat because as much as it was my work, it was your work as well. Um, and so I think hopefully, you know, I'm not going to go into great detail on that and and share that with you. I think we've probably lived that experience um over the course of the year and you know you certainly have enough knowledge of that that I don't have to also

107go into detail during the meeting. Um in terms of the second goal, this was really more of a of a personal goal. I wanted to start telling more of the stories of the people around AB. Um you know, we set I think the original goal was to get four or five podcasts done over the course of the year. We ended up getting eight. Um we actually had really good um I was gonna say viewership, but it's not really viewed. It's not readership because it's not read, listenership, I guess that's a word. Um, but you know, we had over a thousand downloads of the podcast which exceeded my expectation. Um, you know, good feedback anecdotally um through the process. What was neat is actually when and I think I provided some data around viewership to you,

108but it was pretty balanced across the different episodes. Um, and so I think people were interested in hearing more stories about the people who are behind Act and Boxboro. that is something I do want to continue next year um and and really just continue highlighting people's experience within the district as a way of building community. So, um that was a a second goal. And then the third goal, teaching and learning. You know, I I'm going to be really upfront. My focus has been almost singularly AB forward um out of necessity to to to really make sure we're paying the right attention to that. Um, I got to have have to give all of the principles, Gabby, the entire teaching and learning team. It's it's Heather, it's Heather's Heather, [clears throat] both Heathers that we have

109on our leadership team. Really an incredible amount of work. There were some really cool nuances. Gabby, I'll see if you want to say a couple words. One of the really interesting things um that we tried as an experiment this year that I'd highlight for you, um, you know, we've worked with district management group, but they had something called a breakthrough results process. um that we've been watching for a couple of years evolve and we've been intrigued by because it's really about how to how to use the really the existing skills of all the educators in your system to really be laser focused on student gains um and how to improve conditions for students at schools. And we had a couple of schools who said they'd like to try that pilot and were willing to to

110give it a shot um based on some data that we see we're seeing in student learning. And the gains that the groups of students made just so far outpaced what we all thought they could do in a short amount of time. It was really remarkable tribute to the educators involved in that um and the work of that process and the teams to to really make the gain. So Gabby, I don't know if you know you could say a couple words about that, but maybe highlight anything else in the teaching and learning side of this that you just want to make sure gets a little bit of air time. >> Yeah, thanks Peter and thanks for mentioning the DG work. So the committee remembers that when we we looked at the the um MCCAST data and

111the fall data for um readings specifically, we had areas of um surprise in areas that we really wanted to think outside the box about um how to address. We had inequitable staffing models just because the um the staffing models were fairly stagnant across um all schools, but we certainly had areas um specific grade levels and specific schools where we knew we had double sometimes the number of students who needed um care and intervention and a different kind of something. So the um I really give credit to to Peter and um for introducing us all to DMG and their work and also to the schools for taking on something that was so new that had um two purposes really which was to um both give give a little extra to students but also allow us to

112engage in some professional learning around practices that are outside of our normal um scope and sequence and like how can we enhance our work through this learning experience with DMG. Um, and you know, as as as busy as this year was with AB Forward, I think the the highlights for me were those moments where the teachers and the um administrators could kind of escape from the logistical conversations and the the um all of the noise around all of that what was happening and just sit down and talk about teaching and learning. And I really found it to be a respbit for for so many people. this is why we are here doing the things that we do. And even though it it felt like sometimes there were wiggly times to do that and there were

113other things that were priorities, it was very comforting for educators to continue to come together to talk about ways that we can do this work better. So, lots of really good work happened. I mean, we had um we did move to a new edition of our EL education literacy curriculum because they came out with a new addition and hopefully they will not forever um again do that because that was a lot of work. We had a couple grade levels who were engaging in completely new unit modules in um e education. Our grade five, sixth, and seventh grade teachers all engaged in investigating history. We just launched with seventh grade last week. You remember hearing about that from from the remarkable Kate Sheebler earlier this year who talked about the sixth grade experience. Seventh grade launched

114um on the 28th and they're going to be um pling again on May 28th. That day went really really well. lots of um lots of great feedback from from the team. Um we had an opportunity for elementary teachers to dive into one of the things I haven't spoken with you a lot about is that um we haven't looked at our science education curriculum in in quite some time. Even some of the modules that we currently have, which are all um they're all really thoughtful teacher developed, district developed um curriculum explorations. um some of them aren't fully aligned to the 2016 frameworks and some of them are um outdated and part of that is because of the leadership transitions that have had to happen over the number of years and the reduction in the teaching and

115learning office that Peter's talked about so much. So we had some teachers pretty excited on their own to voluntarily participate in some piloting of some a high quality instructional materials and science. We had a whole bunch of that going on as well as um piloting of um I guess that was it just that yeah throughout grades um grades K through six. So educators had to make a deal with the coaches and they partnered and had some planning time and and we were able to give some professional learning um some really good feedback there. So we're looking to expand that over the course of um next year and lots of different things with leadership and governance. I mean, I'm so grateful to this committee for really being so supportive of the the work that we've brought

116forward and the needs that we've candidly brought forward around um maybe reducing a little bit too much in the teaching and learning area. This year was the first year with a K to8 I'm sorry, K to6 um elementary curriculum coordinator and you afforded us the opportunity to add a position to the teaching and learning office to to rightsize us a little bit. Um I'm really thrilled about that and we actually just hired uh for that position. we have a a um leader coming to us from the Newton public schools who served in a very similar role. So, it continues to be um quite an honor to support this work and um to really be empowered by Peter and and um and Andrew and the rest of the team to to do really good work for

117kids. So, we'll just keep continuing that. looking forward to bringing you some updates later on this month, both in person around our AI working group work and also with our AB forward work around some coherence and consistency practices and um intentional screen time conversations. So, I appreciated hearing about that tonight. So, thank you. >> Yeah. And for those of you that have been on the committee for a while, you know that typically throughout the year, you're hearing much more detail about all of these different initiatives. I think that is obviously time is one of the casualties of the AB forward process that we engaged in that we've already done four and a half hour meetings. We can't just keep making our meeting six hours and so something in the process had to give. So you

118have not gotten the deep dives um quite honestly which is is sad in a lot of ways because it's actually what brings us all the most joy. Um and it's the reason that we do this work. Um, and we also know that if we don't allocate our resources appropriately, no one can do the work that's really important for kids. So, um, you know, it was certainly a necessary trade-off, but it was it was a conscious trade-off as well. So, thank you. You know, happy to answer any initial questions that you have about that, but at least some bullet points for you in the the packet. >> Dennis, >> yeah, thanks for the update. I did have a question. It completely makes sense you're not doing elementary school goal updates this year. Have you started to

119think about the fall about goals or objectives for how well the new schools are getting established? >> Yeah, so you know, I think this is actually something that we have started talking about um with our leadership team. Um and we will likely be sharing some draft goals with you probably toward the very very end of this school year for a little bit of school committee feedback. Um, I think that in terms of capacity of any individual elementary school, I think you're likely to see a very unified approach. We tested that thinking with the principles the other day in the leadership team where, you know, really having consistent goals around things is is going to be important. We will use the framework of the the buckets of the new strategic plan to draft a lot of

120those goals because quite honestly, it is the work that we're going to be doing. Um I think you know there's you know the first bucket was really around the coherence of teaching and learning. Second bucket was how are we supporting our educators and the third bucket was how are we creating intentional school cultures. So um if that's not really what we've done through the AB forward process then we'd be we'd be offt target. So you'll definitely see some school goals they're they're starting development. Um, I think we realized we needed to get far enough along operationally because, you know, while there's a lot of adaptive work and goal oriented work that needs to be done, there are certain levels of the operations that kind of are do not pass go signs that if they're not

121in place, nothing can function. So, that's been our initial focus and now we're transitioning into goals and continuing the operational development. Sure. >> All right. Thank you, Peter. >> Sherry, we're on to quarter 3 budget update. >> Okay. Well, you all got the quarter 3 budget report in your packet, so I'm not really sure if anyone has any questions. One thing I just wanted to point out is we're anticipating getting extra reimbursement for transportation. So, what I did mention in here is that the school committee can approve and I'll probably come to you in June when we get our final revenue to transfer the excess revenue into a revolving transportation account that we have. It's not the stabilization. It's just a regular revolving one. And the rules are that we have to use it next

122year and I will probably come to you in June once I know what the final revenue will be. And when we did this report, we were about 93% of spent in encumbered. And I just checked and we're 95.62% now. I don't know if anyone has any questions about anything in there. Adam, >> yeah, I just have a a quick observation and just sort of a more a point of attention for the committee. Um, if you look through particularly on the revenue side, we have a significant amount of additional revenue this year. um you know it's it's tracking at a million dollars of extra revenue. Um and in the past a good portion of that and potentially even for this year it could have been additional chapter 70 revenue that we had not used because we

123didn't know what the final budget was going to land at. And you'll notice that that line is zeroed out for this year because we did take a vote at the end of last year to take the additional funds that um the state finally voted to give us on our budget and apply that so that we could use it this year. And for those who are following, um, we're looking at record per pupil increases. And by record, I mean we're going to get a whopping $160, um, per student. But that's a significant amount of money. And I know that there are already plans in place or we we had considered for some of that. And I think as we sort of evolve towards the end of the year, I'd love to see a plan as the

124state budget lands to be able to use as much of that as possible. Um, because we still continue to have outperformance on our investments. we continue to have additional revenue coming in from reimbursement programs that come sort of as revenues come in from the state and we get additional funding there. Um and so all of that money at the end of the year will just flow to END and if we can if we can before the budget happens make the vote to actually put it into next year's operations that helps us out in many many ways. So I'm I'm amazed to see, you know, I was thinking about in the past we used to push the finance department for what's our turnback going to be and that turnback was a total of both revenues and

125expenses and we were always sort of thinking about a million and you're telling us that the floor right now looks like the turnback would be a million. So it's a there's a a significant amount of cash coming to us and I just want to make sure that we're um utilizing as much of that as possible both at the end of this year and then as we're thinking about how the budget will land for next year. Um, if I can just remind when we did the assessment and the table six that we did, we decided at the time that we thought chapter 70 would be at 150, even though we originally budgeted for 75. So, we took that money out of END and we knew that if we got to 150, we were going to change

126the END to a million and then put it in chapter 70. What we didn't know is the extra $10, >> right? and our plan was to move that into um OPED funding which we knew that we had cut for next year already. Right? So, we we have a plan for it all. We've talked about all that. And I think I just want to remind both the committee and particular our our town finance and select board members that there's probably going to be a budget amendment that's going to come towards the end of the year to move the money around based on what we're finally landing on from our state funding. >> Thank you, Adam Glenn. So, this is excellent news. Um, and I'm very glad to hear about this extra revenue and I think and

127a lot of that's excellent. And I'm also just very briefly I just am I just have image burned into my brain from town meeting of people standing up in unison saying we need more money from the state. I think this is a really this is a great this is progress. Um, I think that over the next year we have to take we we cannot take our foot off the gas with legislative advocacy. >> All right. Thank you, Sherry. So, that brings us to subcommittee and member reports. Um, anything from who would like to speak for policy sub? Anything from policy? >> Nope. Okay. I mean, we've we've gotten to see lots of policy tonight. Um, anything else? You heard Greg's kudos earlier. Keep up the good work. Leaison are important. All right. Consent agenda. Items

128on the consent agenda do not usually require discussion and are approved with one vote unless any member would like to hold an item for discussion and a separate vote. I'll read each item and if a member would like it held, please say hold. Members do not have to have attended meeting to vote on the minutes. Item A, approval of ABRSC meeting minutes from 4926. Item B, budget subcommittee meeting draft minutes from 3226 and 31626. Item C, recommendation to approve budget transfer per policy DJB. And item D, approval of warrants as presented in the packet dated 5726. Given that no items were held, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? on. >> That would be Glenn. Is there a second? Seconded by Adam. All in favor? >> Any abstensions? That would be

129Ben. [laughter] >> Welcome back. >> All right. Our consent agenda is approved. Thank you. Um, anything you want to highlight? >> Um, I would just say, you know, as we approach from here to the end of the year, take a look at the FYI section of the agenda. We'll be adding different reports that come up. Um, knowing that we have limited time with the full school committee to do presentations, we do want to draw your attention to some different things. Um, and so the 202526 wellness report is in your packet. Um, and then also importantly, just so you can mark your calendars, next year's school proposed school committee dates are also there. So, um, if you see any issues with the proposed school committee calendar in particular, if you could email me and Julie, um,

130maybe Tori right away so that we can address any concerns that come up. Um, otherwise we want to make sure that we're we're moving forward because we have a lot of work to do to get set up for next year's school committee work, too. >> All right. And with that, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >> Second. >> That was moved by Ben, seconded by Lisa. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Great.