001okay good evening everybody noting the hour and the presence of a quorum I call the act and boxboro Regional school committee to order members of the public who wish to watch the meeting May do so online using Acton TV's YouTube channel found at the top of our agenda this meeting is being recorded and will be posted on actant TV's website at acent tv.org a big thanks to the Acton TV team who were able to get the system up and running at the last minute was not working as of about 10 minutes ago so those watching online if the feed does cut out there might be a technical difficulty um just a heads up all right uh as we start uh with most of our every other meetings uh we're gonna have some recognition this evening
002so I think Peter we're gonna talk a bit about the Frozen Junior cast from the junior high right all right so good evening everyone um I'd like to see if we could bring up um Bethany dunakin who is the Drama teacher at the junior high along with uh one of the cast members from Frozen uh Katherine Philpot so if you'd like to come up so the junior high put on as it does every single year just an absolutely amazing musical and as you know we've been working over the course of this year here to just recognize different great things that are happening around the district um our students are absolutely amazing the teachers who help the students achieve these things are tremendous fantastic so dedicated uh we just wanted to recognize the hard work of
003all of the junior high Educators who contributed to this as well as the entire cast of crew just for a little background um there were four performances in early December there were 25 cast members 21 crew members and over 40 Ensemble members involved in this this is a massive undertaking and so I just want to personally thank you know you Bethany but also Margaret Herer Chris chig Jean buard ingred Joyce Andrew patod Moren Lynn and Allison Tobin for all of their time in supporting the cast and crew of Frozen so thank you so much for all you do amazing work amazing work as well um and we're actually going to see if you have a few words that you'd like to say but first we just like to present you with um a little bit
004of a certificate and congratulate Youk you all right so we'd like to invite you to say a few words um and maybe you can just tell the school committee and anyone who's here just a little bit about what you do and uh what you're proud of thank you um I'll be really brief because ironically even though I'm the drama a teacher public speaking makes me really anxious the kids like to make fun of me before I do my Curtain Speech like are you okay um so I just wanted to really thank all of you for giving us the opportunity to celebrate how important an experience like this is for our students uh we're really proud that um so many students are involved in the production but also how much the behind the scenes work is
005really in their hands and how we hand that over to them and by the time the curtain goes up uh it's really their show and the ownership that they take in that and the experience that they have of becoming this little family um many of them are over at the junior high tonight in the band concert so you don't see how many of them are actually in that family but there's really a lot of us and um to see them just experience what it's like to be part of something bigger than themselves um I think they take that experience with them so it's really great to be able to celebrate um the value that that kind of an experience in the Arts has for them so thank you for that hand it over to Katie
006hello uh as you know my name is already Katie I was I was in the cast of Frozen and the best parts of being in the musical were rehearsing funny scenes and just getting to be backstage it was fun getting to watch Adam the Duke of weaseltown Frolic around on the stage just dancing around having a good time and it was super fun being backstage with the kids and all the new friends I made but sometimes it was scary uh there were a lot of costumes and some of us had really quick costum costume changes and it was definitely also a big time commitment but I'd say it was worth it when I heard the first Applause from the a audience on opening night the show reminded me how much I love theater and it
007was fun to be back on stage in a real show after a few yearlong Hiatus thank you [Applause] okay next up we have our abhs student representative update I believe we've got Austin and Julia come on up have a seat uh at the front there and just don't forget to turn the microphone on on that button for us hello hello that works perfectly oh I just lean a little more happy rather late New Year school committee members I'm Austin a senior and a student representative I believe I last came three months ago so we have a lot to catch up on let's just get straight into it after talking with the student advisory Council earlier this month I I believe that having school on the Thursday and Friday after winter break was this year was
008great because it gets us out of school earlier since next year it would start on Friday I personally agree with the current calendar draft just wait until the next Monday other than than that it looks pretty standard with Thanksgiving April and February break so we don't have much to comment on that as for what's going on in school right now because it's nearing the end of term two Julie and I have lots of tests and projects but we're still happy to be here today as I am a senior my college apps are finally all in a little bit of procrastination and a bit too much copy and pasting I think in recent years the amount of college applications for student has been increasing at an unprecedented rate but the resources and responsiveness uh from my
009counselor Mr Cho and the counseling department have been felt have felt enough for me this cycle now before I get to the decarbonization resolution I will always acknowledge the wonderful efforts by the school committee and Affiliated faculty on the boardwalk campus and the climate leaders program over the past few years however because I was elected for climate action I must speak on this and I wholeheartedly encourage the school committee to pass it as soon as possible now on the decarbonization resolution in ongoing business which I believe many public participants will touch upon soon I still believe that is not only great but necessary to work work with the town of Acton and the state's climate and decarbonization goals I'd like the committee to understand that setting a road map with the resolution does not mean
010drastically using millions of dollars during a budgetary crisis rather it means replacing equipment with more sustainable and efficient Alternatives and investing in reliable and economically viable vehicles and Construction in the long term and it's incremental where the school committee can focus on small goals at one at a time have a massive impact on our community finally before I hand over the mike to Julia we as the student Representatives hope to be more involved this year uh and want to help provide better ways to Pro uh provide student input on school committee policies and hopefully draft or set course a few policies of our own now all right hi I'm Julia um I'm a junior at the high school and I have a few things tonight so first um the email shell that superintendent light help
011us set up with the edtech Department is working properly so um it's great to see that getting resolved and yeah like Austin said we collectively would like um to see more involvement from us and then more voices from the school being heard um at the school committee level this year and specifically dixa one of the other Junior um student representatives and I uh we've been working to collect student responses on a variety of social media platforms and we hope that this centralized account that we set up can make things easier in the future so for feedback um from students this time dixa and I reached out to a variety of mostly sophomores Juniors and seniors at the high school regarding their um opinions and any feedback they might have on the course leveling and this
012was at the request of um members of the school committee so hi guys um uh yeah so these students have experienced both this year um and previous years in the course leveling so both old and new and generally not to bring the mood down but the feedback I've received has been somewhat negative um I'll just read three specific testimonies um today so this first one was from a junior um they said that it reduces the ability for a student to take the class level that suits them from a second Junior uh this person says that we need more course levels in subjects like history since only AP and unleveled right now leaves too much of a gap and lastly from a third junior there's a lot of stigma for some families around taking unleveled courses
013but the jump from unlevel to honors in is insane so the middle AE level is necessary specifically they say that math should not be devalued or deleveled um I think that these concerns kind of are pretty um overwhelming among the student body which is that this Gap is um too big for them to be comfortable choosing either only unleveled or honors um yeah so I think that's the general feedback that I have for today and um do Let us know if there's anything more specific you'd like to hear from the students uh yeah thank you for bringing us to the table and see you soon anything else thank you both uh if you have a do you have another comment Austin uh no all right we does anybody on the committee have any questions or
014comments for Julia or Austin so I really appreciate hearing student feedback about things that we're looking at um it was a special helpful awesome for you to comment on the calendar and know that you've both looked at this and we like we don't have any issues with that that's good to know um I was wondering as we're thinking about the deling so reconceiving what that looks like is it's a process right this you know some of this is just being rolled out what other than just going back to what we had before what could change that would make things better you want to go first I honestly I think for certain classes it's really difficult I think for science for the most part it worked out fine but for math like what I'm hearing is
015that it's just like like initially in the past there's been like it feels like a huge gap between like honors and AE because like if it has this mindset of like if you're in honors you either you drop and then you just like stay dropped or like and you can never go back up and like with honors NCP only now it just feels like like a huge Ravine where it just drops off into a hole and you feel like you are on like a tight robe it just doesn't feel very great especially for math I'm not exactly sure like what way you could specifically fix like math in that area like I strongly believe that it really should go back to a similar like style um as for the other subjects I think there are
016other ways because there like there is lower essays or lot more projects but math just feels not so great in this current state yeah let me start with um the science and math stuff that you talked about I think science is at a strange position where there's kind of a builtin middle level already taking um I think what chemistry bio probably in virro as well these classes all have an AP level and honors level and an unleveled yes yes so there's still that three levels where it was four before but you can kind of see that there's still these three options instead of just the two so I think that science in that way has like a built-in buffer um yeah most of the concerns I heard were about math and history uh which would
017be us 2 and a push um and then last thing um I can't testify and say that this is definitely because of the course leveling but a lot of people have noticed that world language classes are huge this year um I'm a junior in Spanish three honors I think and there's like over 30 kids in my class uh this year compared to which I think is really almost double of what my class had last year in a similar um subject just along the road map of Spanish and I feel like this could potentially be negative for the learning experience and overwhelming for the teachers for sure hi thank you for your feedback uh my question is so for the students who feel there's a huge gap between honors and unlevel classes math science or history
018is it more center around the content of the course or is it a stigma or pressure from outside of the classroom okay since I haven't experienced like the actual like apes like new like um form format I can't really say like I know too much but from what I've heard from my friends it's more so the stigma in that area but in like math it just does feel like there's a huge gap in content like it's already existed but it just felt like it got a lot worse yeah I if that's something that you're you even specifically are interested in hearing more about I can definitely um survey the students on that as well um I don't think I can confidently say which one is more of like the issue at hand but I would
019assume it's both thanks for doing uh doing collecting the data but I was wondering this is more for Peter can we get this data in a more structured way so that we can actually look at look and interpret the data kind of more meaningfully yeah I could probably work with Adam to see what a timeline for bringing something back to school committee would be and then invite the high school principal and our our high school team to come present okay thank you uh superintendent if I could quickly comment on that I think that would be helpful for sure and also if we could get data on like what specific uh part of the student bodies impacted the most so for example are the people who are struggling um um with the new course leveling were
020they students that primarily took a um AE classes in the past were they students who took unleveled CP classes where they honors level students um like where uh is this effect being seen so I'll add in that there's quite a timely article in the globe about leveling at Newton schools um so I think uh I didn't get to read the whole article but the takeaway that I got was it's really important to collect the data to be able to measure the actual results and I think it's great to hear sort of the incidental feeling around that knowing that we're in sort of like year and one and a half of implementing it um and I think it would be really great to pair that with with data to see some of the results and then
021you know maybe also a reminder of what was the reasoning right why we chose to to Del um because I think that that would be another part to to sort of help interpret the data when we see it um so that was my one comment my question is can you share the new email address so if any anybody wishes to reach out to the student reps uh what is the email address that they can reach out to you at I think it's absc at student wait wait abcore student reps at abschools.org I wait let me check you know I should we'll send it to you um I we'll make sure it's published in the minutes but um I can just check uh superintendent lights um AB RSC underscore student uncore reps with an S at
022abschools.org I was missing one underscore close enough excellent uh any last questions for our student reps thank you both very much thank you for bringing us to the table today all right thank you Susan oh thank you sorry okay next on our agenda is public participation so as a reminder per our policy members of the public are invited to speak for up to 3 minutes public participation only takes place at this part of our meeting um and speakers must be recognized by the chair before speaking and as usual we don't typically respond to public participation um at the moment so if you are ready please step up to the mic give us your name and go ahead and the microphone's off so you have hello there you go I'm Gus and I'm joined by Alex
023and tesu and we're students from resource Force which is ab's student L environmental organization um and primarily we just want to thank the school committee for all the important work that they've done towards um climate action within the district for example working to get with the climate leaders program that's a really important step that um is laying the foundation for the future of climate policy and other things related to that in our district and we also are looking forward to the second read of the sustainability policies tonight which these two will talk more on so as Gus previously mentioned I'm TMA sophomore at ABS um just wanted to connect um this overall issue is something more current happening the California um fires that have been happening all throughout this week um according to a statistic
024from the LA Times the overall fuel for the fire has been accounted for one sorry over 1/4th of the fuel for the fire has been accounted for by climate change or in other words 25% of it and this will continue being an issue for a very long time to come and we feel that this resolution is very important to be passed because it takes it put it allows Acton to take further steps to combat climate change and it hopefully will continue to help Inspire others to create more change and at one step at a time we can combat climate change overall hi I'm Alex I'm a senior at the high school and I just want to highlight how what taju has said is being about how much important it is that we do something now
025cuz I feel like I've been hearing about climate change and having to fight climate change for like half my life now and it's 2025 and I'm graduating in 6 months and so it is super super important that we do something cuz I mean it's 2025 it's halfway through the decade already and we really hope that you vote in support of this uh sustain new updated sustainability policy because it's really just that important to start acting now unfortunately for us uh we won't be able to stay for the actual vote because a lot of us have a lot of work and I know I have a physics test tomorrow but just know we'll be watching uh on the live stream uh hoping that there's no Tech or no technical difficulties and um though we leave we'll
026be here in spirit and hope that you support uh the uh sustainability policy thank you thank you all and Gus has one more thing to say never mind oh okay have a nice night good luck on that physics test good evening for the folks watching at home my name is Mike balesu I'm an act and Resident RJ great parent and president of our District's teachers union at your meeting on December 19th you heard from Elementary staff for almost an hour about their disappointment and frustration with the cuts this committee is considering for FY 26 I expect you'll hear that same Anger from Junior High and high School teachers once secondary level cuts are discussed on the record but I'm not here tonight to advocate for more funding instead I'm here to ask that this committee
027take seriously the potential for Burnout your teachers are facing right now you've heard me say before more than a few times that our jobs have become more challenging and complicated since the pandemic now as we prepare for a fourth year in a row of budget cuts our staffing levels will be more anemic than at any point in my 20-year career in the district this committee owes it to our incredible Educators to make a commitment to reduce teacher workload next year to be clear I'm not asking you to Simply retire programs and initiatives that are no longer needed I'm asking you to take a hard look at everything we're doing as a district and let some things go not because it's the ideal decision for our kids but because in an era of austerity budgets we
028can't just keep asking teachers to give up more of their personal time and energy to accomplish every well-meaning goal of this school district I will say I don't think it's your job alone to figure out what stays and what goes the function of our district is complicated and identifying what we can realistically take off teachers plates is work that needs to be done in the weeds but what you can do as a committee is give our Administration a clear Direction Ive find things we've added to teacher workload in the past few years that we will have to do without find things that we're sustaining on the backs of Educators that will have to be paused or put aside this fall when faced with the impossibility of a level Services budget the school committee assembled the
029elementary budget task force to show the community how seriously you all take your commitment to carefully managing the finite resources of taxpayers what estate it would make and what a change it would represent if you make the same commitment to carefully managing the finite resources of our teachers thank you thank you hi everyone uh my name is Lauren donu and I'm the k6 art teacher at Douglas I've been teaching for 12 years and this is my sixth year here I also now live in Acton um since we were lucky and bought a house on Liberty Street this past May I'm here to speak on the proposed reduction of the elementary unified Arts educator positions which we know would likely result in the teachers traveling between schools before I came to AB I taught in Franklin
030Mass for 3 years where I traveled between three different schools I spent three and a half days at what was called my home school one day at another school and one morning at the third at the schools I travel to each year I was given a completely new set of students I had to create new curricula for every class and quickly attempt to cultivate our classroom culture I never had the time to follow up with Specialists or classroom teachers about student needs or fully develop my curriculum in those schools um Peter as you said this December you said that it would be feasible to make a common schedule across all buildings and that you've done this before in Franklin I did live that schedule you put together from 2016 to 2018 and I can state
031that even if it works logistically I didn't feel I had the resources necessary to develop the crucial relationships with the students outside of my home school students I certainly didn't feel like I truly belonged in those School communities either and I was stretched too thin um this was one of the main reasons that I left that professional status position and took a job in AB um and it was a long-term sub position so I took that risk knowing that no matter what I have the chance to work in a district where I could be at one school I've only been here for 5 and a half years but I already feel like an integral member of the Douglas Community this was able to happen quickly because I could fully immerse myself in the needs and
032interests of our students and families being at Douglas full-time has given me the capacity to be a member of our sworded core values committee help write our new Mission Vision and values of Douglas and serve as a culture responsive teacher leader for the third year in a row I'm able to plan and facilitate relevant PD which in turn impacts have students are learning in Equitable safe classrooms if we don't have unified Arts Educators as an integral as those integral community members and leaders in our schools how can we address the needs of the whole child we all know that building relationships and getting to know our students deeply is at the core of what we do and since the unified Arts Educators only see our students for 45 minutes once per week teaching them over
033those 17 sorry just seven years of elementary school is a key component to building and sustaining that crucial relationship Foundation I've heard from all of you that you value us but we need you to show us that you value our expertise and our community leadership by continuing to keep us in our school communities thanks for your time thank you hi I'm Judith arinstein uh with mothers outfront I'm here in support of the resource force uh regarding the sustainability policy but also to thank you for making the changes that were suggested by the resource force and mothers out front in particular um small tiny changes which really make a big difference uh decarbonizing by or before 2050 I think as the young woman presented earlier we're really things are heating up um that's mostly it I
034don't need to go into details I just hope that you're able to pass the sustainability policy thank you thank you hi folks Alyssa nichel I am a member of the act and select board but tonight thanks for the wave true I'm speaking for only myself I'm not speaking on behalf of the board um the board recently received a request that we send a letter to State officials and report of the safe communities act that is expected to be refiled this session she wrote to the board after being directed to do so by the school committee chair her first request was to the school committee to affirm a commitment to welcoming and educating all students regardless of immigration status or gender identity expression the chair declined to act on that request and suggested she contact the
035select board because immigration matters quote align more closely with the responsibilities of the police I want to take the opportunity rather than emailing the school committee alone to inform the public under state law established in a 2017 ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court police do not have any authority to assist with the enforcement of federal civil immigration law the select board already has an immigration policy that complies with state law moreover the Biden Administration expanded Title 9 anti-discrimination protections for gain and transgender students last spring the Massachusetts Secretary of Education recently confirmed that the state constitution allows schools to continue to afford enhance protections based on gender identity this public body you all does have a responsibility to safeguard student civil rights and asking the committee to affirm this is entirely appropriate I work
036part-time in one of the elementary schools so I happen to know there are students who have expressed anxiety in recent months about the prospect of deportation let that sink in 10-year-olds are feeling anxious wondering how much longer they will be able to come to school wondering if their families might be forced to leave the country consider how impactful a public affirmation of your commitment to welcoming and educating all students regardless of immigration status or gender identity expression would be I would go even further and suggest that the committee work to ensure that there are protocols um established for potential scenarios however unlikely they may be to communicate these to staff and families what are the procedures to follow if immigration officers show up at a school what are the procedures to follow if a parent
037is not able to meet a first grader at the bus stop due to a workplace rate thank you for your time thank you good evening everyone my name is Courtney Stevens and I've been teaching at Blanchard for 12 years total of 16 years before that and I'm speaking on behalf of many of my ab colleagues tonight I'd like to address the importance of prioritizing equity and efficiency as we navigate the challenging cats ahead the academic and emotional needs of our students are increasing rapidly general education assistant are providing targeted support in classrooms ensuring that more children get their attention and guid guid they need so that teachers can maintain a consistent learning environment imagine a surgeon without an operating room assistant these roles are indispensable not optional furthermore these assistants cover classes while teachers attend
038IEP meetings and monitor lunch and recess who will ensure continuity in the classroom and keep School running smoothly during critical non-instructional times I recognize that budget cuts require weighing needs against wants want if we had to rebuild the school from the ground up what roles are non-negotiable for a school to run to function effectively with a multitude of directors and steam coach steam coaches for example that are wonderful they currently might fall under wants positions like assistance directly impact students and must be prioritized that being said I wonder what possibilities lay in consolidating administrative positions in schools that operate within the same building or roles in central office educators are often asked to do more with less and we do is it possible for these administrative roles to do so as well furthermore if Specialists
039like the one that was here before are shared across the district they cannot adequately meet the needs of additional schools without compromising the quality of their instruction Specialists are not just add-ons they are key contributors to a well-rounded education I ask that you learn from other districts that have chosen this model to assess the overall impact in conclusion if we don't support positions at the elementary level that directly address the mental and academic needs of our students they will carry these challenges with them into junior high and high school where the gaps will only widen thank you thank you I st Stella Co oh God 11 gwood Road acon um I just wanted to uh speak in support of the resource Force um resolution and I hope you'll follow the lead of our students and
040that's it thank thank you okay thank you to all members of the public who participated this evening I will turn it over now to Peter for a superintendent update all right thanks Adam good evening everyone um number of things I just want to highlight obviously we brought up the casting crew of Frozen so congratulations to that group one more time I also just want to highlight um some other student recognition because it's that time of year when um our students are out and about everywhere doing great things um if you don't know Isabella Tara uh received the globe athlete of the Year recognition for girls swim this fall um so that is absolutely uh amazing so congratulations Isabella but we also had a number of other students um who were recognized and named uh the
0412024 Boston Globe uh all Scholastic team so I just want to also recognize Satie ma Sati matys Khloe Heyman verun Murthy uh Isabella tashera Lucy Terell Carolyn Terrell and Katie Baxter so congratulations to all of them that is absolutely a testament to all of their hard work um I also want to congratulate three of our high school students you heard in the past that we had um a couple of students who had been recognized as National regeneron Science Scholars this year we actually had three students recognized as National reg regeneron science Scholars um so congratulations to sidarth uh nerar um anushri Paul and RAM Seaman um so congratulations to them on that recognition that's tremendous and I also just want to give a shout out to our quiz Bowl team uh because they have advanced
042um to the high school quiz show uh which is scheduled for later this month and they were um fourth place in the state out of 24 different teams so uh huge congratulations there um as you know we are going to be presenting our budget presentation to you um at the preliminary budget meeting on January 30th um and then we have our budget workshop on Saturday February 8th one of the things that we've done in response to you know some of the community feedback and your feedback that we've received over the last few years is we've actually been moving the budget Workshop earlier and earlier in the budget process so that it actually feels more like a budget Workshop instead of a final budget presentation that just happens to be extended um so what we're going
043to be doing is the budget presentation on the 30th is really the high level overview of the budget that we're going to propose and then the February 8th is when we're actually going to do the Deep dive into the budget um and go into all the details of of what we're presenting so I just wanted to frame kind of the process for you so you understood what we were doing um also exciting opportunity we have been in contact with an organization called inspirit AI um and we are sponsoring them to come in this summer um and do some artificial intelligence um programming for our students at the middle and high school level um so they are going to be bringing in Stanford and MIT graduates that have expertise in Ai and actually running a two-e
044camp for them from July 15th through 26th so we will be sending that out um to our families we held our initial kindergarten registration night um to give families kind of the overview of the kindergarten process earlier this week so thank you to Andrew Shen and all of the principles who do all the work to put together and we will be sending out to families the schedule of upcoming orientation meetings at each of the schools um we have a variety of celebrations going on uh we just had the high school um Community Service Awards night which is in honor of Dr Martin Luther King and obviously we don't have school on Monday um in recognition of that important holiday but we also um will be doing um I'm really excited this is a great thing
045if you haven't been to the Luna New Year celebration that act in Chinese Language School puts on um that is upcoming in the next couple of weeks as well um I think it's Sunday the or 26th um if I'm not mistaken um what a great event in our community and there are not a lot of communities in around the state that have that opportunity for for community members to come together and kind of think about the cultures that take place so I would encourage you to attend that um and finally I will just mention that we have um a really really great opportunity to bring in um a nationally recognized speaker for families uh we are bringing in Dr Stuart ablon um and he's going to be doing a session on titled from compliance to
046collaboration combining Neuroscience common sense and compassion so he's going to be exploring how traditional parenting models focus on compliance while his groundbreaking approach shows that behavior is shaped by skills and not just will of students um so we would encourage people to attend that and we'll be sending it out to families thanks Peter any questions or comments for Peter on the update all right seeing none we will move on to guests and presentations so we're going to have a presentation from Gabby Abrams and Maran young this evening on our multilingual programming review it's just all Maryanne that's what I'm hearing from the the cheering cheerleaders inside hi Maryann welcome okay so I am going to give you an update on um our district Improvement plan goal number three and our programming for multilingual students um
047sure Peter needs to give you the clicker so you can advance the slides oh sure so um the goal that we're working on is engaging stakeholders in selected Str strategic visioning opportunities to create a long-term sustainable vision for the district that improves access opportunities and outcomes for our multilingual students can't go to so my goals are to provide an update on multilingual student enrollment and also performance on um access testing to share the themes of strength and opportunities that came out of our program review that we finished in November and to highlight some recents and future actions or responses that we have to the growing population and um the review that we have um in this I just wanted to put some faces to some of the data so these are some of our students
048doing some of the great work um that they do in our school um an example from last year celebrating Lunar New Year with poems um making new friends at McCarthy town with Bob the bear and then some retelling stories with wordless picture books um so as you all know our ml enrollment has been um increasing nearly doubled since 2015 with 88.2% of students currently enrolled across the District um classified as multilingual Learners our kindergarten multilingual learner enrollment has doubled since 2015 um importantly it's it's um important to note that 80% of our multilingual Learners are in elementary school which is a little bit different than some of the other districts that are around us and then another big change is that half of our students now are at a beginning proficiency level of one .5
049um and that students are considered Fels or former former English Learners when they hit a 4.2 composite score um so that just shows you kind of the the growth that needs to happen um this is the percentages as of November um our our numbers changed constantly so I just want to make sure um this is as of November of students in different schools um you can see that our highest population right now is in the Early Childhood Program which means we have a lot of students coming up to us um and then Conan Elementary Blanchard and gates are following um also important we have 225 English language Learners that have enrolled in the district since June um 1st 2023 um this is just a pie chart of the different languages that um um that our
050students speak there's many that aren't listed um but about 25 in total according to recent count that I did our majority languages are Portuguese Spanish Russian um Chinese and Haitian or Haitian crle sure um so English is um included in there because we have a Homeland language survey that we administer and um often times people who have children that were born in the United States identify English as their first language even when it's not the language of the home because it's the language of the country um and then they would answer other questions saying that they spoke other languages at home which would lead to our identification but since that's the data that's entered in the system that's the data that comes across um full-time staff so these are our average case loads this is
051a little bit different from what you saw um in the report by the task force because this is current and that was in September and again our numbers are constantly changing so um our case loads now are ranging between 21 to 27 um important to know when looking at this slide that for elementary there is an attempt to try to balance case loads when new students come in that are multilingual the register will contact me we'll look for place um class placements to see where openings are and then also to see what case loads are and we do our best to to balance um as much as we can obviously RJ gray and the high school that's a that's a one choice option um this is timely we're in the middle of access testing right
052now um um but what access testing is is assessing comprehension and communication in English state to state it's a test that's um a you know Most states in the country use under the weda collaborative last year 55% of our multilingual Learners made progress um the state average was 37 and 26% attained English proficiency which means they were able to exit the program um the state average there was 12% um so then uh this leads us into what some of the findings and recommendations were for the program review um going to focus on Staffing scheduling high quality instructional materials IEP development and professional learning so Staffing um the positives are that existing staff are found to be deeply committed to the work that they do and um have mind-based uh sorry growth-based mindsets and asset-based mindsets
053when working with their students um something that I noted is when I started here seven years ago we did have some teachers with case loads of 60 or more students we have done a lot of program development since then as you just saw so that's another positive um and then also to note that it's difficult to quantify exact number of Staff needed due to variations in proficiency levels and what I mean by that is um if you're in a school that might have a large number of beginning level students those students need 90 minutes of support if you are in a school that might have more um students at an intermediate proficiency level they need 45 minutes of support so it's really difficult to give an exact number as to how many students uh teacher
054is able to work with um but those are the factors that we look at in terms of how much service time is required and how much support is needed the recommendations um that came out of the report were to hire more ESL teachers to get to our recommended minutes um we are closer than we were last year to meeting recommended minutes but we still are not at a place where we are meeting minutes at um any of the elementary schools for all students so we are able to meet minutes for some students based on scheduling and different um you know whether or not they need other services but not equitably for all students yet um at the high school and the junior high we are doing that so that was one recommendation another was to
055consider um hiring a shared staff member between the twin buildings so that they could support both schools um and also to look at some co- teing to hire a coach for the secondary for the high school and um that person would be to assist both ESL teachers and general Educators and then um the last Staffing recommendation was to hire a dedicated family liaison and intake data manager um to help with family engagement and also the accuracy of some of the data so you know we wouldn't have that many students identifying as as English speakers and and other such things um around scheduling one of the findings was that inconsistent scheduling practices limit Equitable access to service and high quality instructional materials um for those of you that that don't know I'm just going to Define
056what they mean high quality instructional materials are um curriculum that is research based that has teacher professional development um tied to it that focuses on equity and inclusion and is vetted by experts in the field to align um with content standards um and then another Finding was that MLS with disabilities often lack access to ESL and special education services and that is again often due to schedules and scheduling practices and trying to fit everything into the day um recommendations were to look at Master schedules and this is pretty specific to the elementary um in the spring to maximize possibilities for collaboration of staff to co- plan um to look at possible um clustering of students with the same English proficiency levels in classrooms to see if we could do more co- teing um to train
057all staff um ML and otherwise on what sheltered English instruction is and to avoid the misunderstanding that ESL teachers are solely responsible for the English language development of students and then um another was to make sure that students are not pulled or multilingual Learners are not pulled from Flex block for English laort um and this goes back again to the high quality instructional materials um so around curriculum one of the findings was that use of materials considered to be high quality are um is it varies that the world class instructional design and assessment that's the weda that I keep saying 2020 standards um are not consistently aligned with curriculum and the waa 2020 standards are the most recent just so you know um gaps in high quality instructional materials for the junior high science Junior
058and high school science and social studies um hinder English learner access to rigorous standards based instruction um was another Finding and some of the recommendations were to um schedule English Learners and content courses using high quality materials to provide professional learning on Next Generation ESL and WEA 2020 to develop a curriculum adoption plan for ESL and to teach disciplinary reading and writing not just comprehension um what that last one means is for in um general education classrooms to focus on the language of the subject area so if you're in math to focus on teaching the language of math and the way that you write about math as opposed to just asking comprehension questions that don't need quite as much development um and then multi- teared systems of support so one of um the positive findings
059was that there's a great commitment by faculty and staff to best serve the students in front of them um they also found that there's need for stronger tier one and tier 2 practices in general education classrooms um to integrate language and content developments and um because we need more professional learning around culturally and linguistically sustaining practices in tier one some um multilingual Learners may be overidentified as having a disability because of the difficulty of teasing out disability versus difference when looking at language um the recommendations were to revise mtss processes to include multilingual Learners and align interventions with linguistic and cultural needs um to use English learner success plans as part of tier one and tier two so let me just explain that a little bit um English learner success plans are plans that we
060create if there is a student who doesn't meet a state identified goal so every year the state sets an expectation of how far they expect a student what what scores they expect a student to achieve on access the following year if they don't meet that Target they are coded as not having made sufficient progress and then we are um tasked with creating a plan um and those are integrated into mtss and should be um as part of the solution to that um also to work on creating cultur uh culturally and linguistically sustaining and collaborative IEP development practices which is kind of how happening naturally as a result of the new IEP in the section for um collaboration that is on there and then also to ensure that IEPs for MLS include access accommodations and align
061ESL and special education services again um that's something that's naturally happening right now as a result of the the new IEP um professional learning the finding was that current professional learning opportunities did not f address specific needs of elel some of the recommendations were to implement a three-year plan to equip teachers with curriculum literacy and best practices for MLS and to Leverage The expertise of existing coaches and content and department leaders to lead professional learning it's like a train the trainer type model next steps so um some of the things that we have recently done is we just launched elevation strategies pathway way which is an um kind of self-guided on online um learning platform where teachers can take a pathway that we created focusing on newcomers and S students and earn their 15 credits
062for recertification and also an inservice credit and so far has been very successful I think we have 67 classroom teachers that have signed up and are going through the training and we just launched it so it's very exciting um we also have two grants that we are using to support work with multilingual Learners um specifically new newcomers looking at curriculum and and technology and other things um and we are also collaborating as a department um to enh to look at our curriculum mapping and enhance curriculum mapping and instructional practices um some of the next steps that we are in the process of um working on right now are looking at professional learning for the high school department leaders and coaches so that they're able to share that learning and pass it down to their departments
063and then um exploring professional learning for English language development teachers about the the new standards and implementation of them questions it's a lot of information thanks Maran questions or comments from the committee Le me in the numbers you uh show in one of the slides does that include um the students who who are multilingual but can speak English very comfortably and hence no they don't need any help no those numbers are only students that are currently identified as multilingual Learners um right now which means they need help which means they need help I 24% of our district are uh students that you know spoke another language other than English but that doesn't mean that they currently are in multilingual support or have ever been um these numbers are just for students who need support hello
064um I think a lot of this Did You Know cover the questions that I had around like how is time used um and sort of like when are students able to access this help um it you know it's hard when you hear 45 minutes a day for a student that probably you know spends a lot of the day wishing they had somebody that they could ask questions of um I I guess sort of you know then my lingering question is do those students at least have access consistently to somebody in their home school um should they need throughout the day um could they you know if they really had a question would they be able to go to that person at any time and have that question answered so I think the the mult multilingual
065teachers are kind of that link for students there's often people who drop in in between classes or during passing there's also a lot of communication and collaboration between teachers and between general education teachers and multilingual teachers where um they can address things like that there's also um for newly arrived students a buddy system that we have in place that helps them acclimate um if they have questions about school culture and and you know things more related to that um and I don't know if I mentioned we have 433 students right now can I say something through the chair if I may also just add on you know as as you were asking your question which was such an important one I was thinking about when I started my educational Journey as a teacher I started
066as an elementary trained educator in a middle school and was quickly um instructed that every teacher is a reading teacher it is incredibly important for me as an educator that was my Mantra that every teacher is a reading teacher and I'm beginning to believe that every teacher is a multilingual learner educator and so while that time that Service delivery time that specific English language development what I would say is that and the Highlight in the report about our Educators having such growth and asset-based mindsets around this work is so true every teacher every all Educators that these kid ozic are are working with throughout the day really are are multilingual learner Educators definitely true I'm going to ask mine and then I'll go over to you Tori so um two questions one I think is
067more of an observation but the case load numbers that you showed us those are case loads irrespective of weeda levels right so those are averages yeah okay great um and then you know the the discussion of the program review is really helpful I think the part that I maybe missed was who participated in the program review did we have someone outside come did we have was this all done internally mixture like who were the participants in the program review sure so we hired someone um her name is Kelly Cooney from edquity which is her company and she came in um and did interviews with you know ml teachers General Educators coaches the whole um gamut and spent a couple of days here and then also had access to a lot of the data that we
068have around growth and access and and all the other components excellent thank you Tori thank you covered most of my questions that I had earlier I appreciate that um I think one of the things that I'm having a hard time still wrapping my head around is the velocity of this challenge um and you've got some incredible work here in thinking about what opportunities are out there what what can we rethink um but it just feels like it is moving so fast that even just thinking about what what do we do next year to keep things going I'm wondering are there any really big things like couple years down the road that we should have in the back of our heads as we're thinking through what do these next couple of budget cycles look like I
069I think that's a little bit hard to answer because our numbers are fluctuating so rapidly all the time but I think we can count on increased growth and we are um looking at creating kind of a long-term plan based on the findings and um some of the trends that we've recognized and um you know I think it's it's reasonable to to think that Staffing is going to need to increase as we go forward um you know it that's definitely something that's going to happen um and right now the purpose of the rest of this year is really to look at the program development very seriously and deliberately and come up with a plan that works best for students Amanda Bailey is representative of the CPAC and in their advisory role to the school committee she
070may have a couple comments or questions thank you Adam and yes speaking as the CPAC representative so thank you Maryann so much and I just want to say having been at the back to school nights and seeing the English learner Educators multilingual greet the families and how the kids lit up and introduce their parents and it was so beautiful and just the effort is phenomenal couple questions starting with the Early Childhood Program 20% none of the staff are on that slide allocated to the early Childhood Program and I know why and you know why I wonder if you could share with the committee why that is but we also know that they are Consulting and they are helping so if you could speak a little bit about that hidden workload with the Early Childhood Program
071and how those students needs are also being addressed and the special Educators running that special educated Pro education program are being supported with those students that's like my first piece sure um so under the regulations that desie produces there's no requirement for Direct Services to preschool students um there is a requirement to identify students and to um consult with their Educators so aside from the numbers that I showed you the three .5 multilingual Educators at Boardwalk screen any students that come in to the preschool um that they are notified about usually through the director of the preschool they um also have blocks in their calendar to consult with any of the special Educators that are requesting support and also do conduct observations or things like that um if requested and offer strategies to help support
072the teachers with the multilingual student but those students aren't captured in the headcounts of those case loads right they're not they're not in the head counts of the case loads okay thank you for that um my next question is around the uh the Dual identification of multilingual Learners and special education needs or having that IEP and guest that is embedded in the document for those preschool students how does that look when it's embedded in the document and I'm also wondering about when we have our multilingual Educators how much time do they spend in IEP development and IEP particip in that process um well this year with the new IEP they're spending a lot more time um attending all of the IEP meetings where there's multilingual students and helping to support and complete um the section
073of the IEP around multilingual strategies and also around access testing it's very different school to school to quantify that obviously um schools where there's programs there's sometimes a higher number of students on IEPs where there's more um time that is spent um and then with the preschool uh are you talking about the identification the IEPs for the preschoolers who are dually identified yeah it would be um the same thing it would be based on the consultation that the teachers have with the preschool teachers that they would respond to what the language needs are and or observation if that's something that the teachers deal jointly is necessary thank you and then my final question is about the lpac and the status of the lpac I know there have been heroic efforts to establish and get engagement
074there I'm just wondering what the status of that is and how that might factor into some of the action plan sure so we are having our next elpac event the first week of February um I'm conducting a poll with the teachers to see whether it's the Tuesday or Thursday but it's definitely the first week um changing from like a a more formal setting to something that's more interactive and family based we're going to host a a game night with teachers from all of the different schools and um you know whoever we can get to come so I'm hoping that with the change in the structure we'll be able to have more families attend um thank thank you so much thank you Adam thanks Amanda any last questions from the committee comments right maryan thank you
075so much for the presentation we really appreciate it okay moving on to new business it's our Beloved School calendar there it is um so I know that there was a a quick uh adjustment to the calendar that was made today because we I'm assuming we found that we needed one more day to meet our requirements was that what what happened Peter yeah evidently the superintendent is SL attempted to slide in 179 day year um but'll come up in your that doesn't work um no we we did a second double check of this and and actually Sher brought to our attention that there were only 179 days in the school year um so we had to add the 180th day which did push it the corrected version is in the packet and it's posted to the
076website but we also emailed it to you directly just to to draw your attention to it um you know when we develop the school calendar we develop a calendar that's based on the past practices of the school committee um and then present that to you for your approval um you know I will say the school committee has made adjustments to calendaring over you know the last seven to 10 years um in response to different interests of the community um feedback that the committee's gotten uh but the calendar that we've had we've had for a few years now I will say this is the first time where I think it's every um observance that we have chosen to recognize falls on a weekday um so you know we knew that that would happen every certain number
077of years uh but it definitely does stress the system um a couple of things just to knowe you know we cannot bring our Educators back before the 25th that's in our contract um so that is the earliest day that that our Educators would come back um you know we have the two days before school starts so we really are starting school about the earliest day that is possible um and then you can see the various observances there um if you catch an error you know we have many sets of eyes on that but if you see something that doesn't look correct please let us know um when looking at the winter break uh we did come in um on the 22nd and 23rd we have not traditionally had school on the 24th um I've talken
078to a couple of superintendents who have done it in the past and um they were one-year efforts and chose never to do it again uh based on community feedback um the 1 of January is a holiday the second technically is not um in the calendar we proposed to you we didn't feel that it was really of of large benefit to bring people in for one day before another weekend um so we've chosen to take that that break and then um you can see kind of the overall impact of that is the last scheduled day of school is the 18th um June 19th is a Federal holiday so just keep in mind that any um snow days that may come up during the year essentially that mean we are into the week of the 22nd so
079just happy to answer any questions on that and otherwise I would just turn it over to you for any comments and feedback any questions or comments L me when are we going to talk about what we want to kind of propose are we kind of sticking with this I know last year you said we will talk so I think that um we have some time now we can talk I think any significant change in terms of sort of strategy around what we're observing and what we're not um sort of whole cloth is probably something that needs more time I think that you know the community is going to want to have some feedback on that so you know I think that what we want want now is feedback on what we see and if there
080may be some small changes that seem doable then let's consider those and then I think following this if the committee and the community feel strongly about reevaluating our strategy around the calendar then we need to spend some time doing that we also need to balance that with other priorities of the committee in the coming year in terms of big activities that we want to undertake okay oh wow since I was looking over here I apologize we'll go with Tori next and then we'll come to this side just a quick question um so is there any impact on things that have to happen over the summer by having this late end to the year and then you know presumably we've looked at what the next year might look like but for summer school activities Etc no
081we don't necessarily think so I mean the summer school activities typically are starting in kind of that first week of July umun 30th yeah just want to say I strongly support this calendar which is reflective of our community as a whole uh not only does it recognize Rush Shan yum kipur but also Eid and the Lunar New Year and so on and so forth so kudos to the staff for finding a way to recognize and squeeze in all those holidays while committing to that 180 day year school year thank you I have two questions one is uh is the have they locked in on Wednesdays CU I know people were talking about can we move it to Fridays or any other days um actually Andre I'll ask is that a contractual I think it might
082be in the contract that it's Wednesdays is that correct Mike Wednesday is not in the contract it just needs to be one day for week okay so for people who couldn't hear Mike because he wasn't at a mic Mike wasn't at a mic Wednesdays is not in the contract but one day per week is for the elementary schools right so I guess there's a possibility we can talk about possibility moving it to Friday or we're not going to open that jar um you could well I would say it's actually the school committee's calendar so you can do anything you want um I would be a little bit concerned about Fridays from an attendance standpoint uh that you know it might end up being viewed as not a real day um and that that could potentially
083have a negative impact on what students do and and how we get everyone here that would be the only concern but you absolutely can do it um the second question is that there are a lot of days off and I know we're looking at all revenues right like possibil of BR more money so can our Community Ed Department have more programs for those days so that we can offer people options but I also understand that ties into Staffing and hiring and all that yeah so Aaron has definitely explored that um sometimes the impact is her staff is relatively reflective of our community as a whole too so often times staff are actually celebrating holidays um themselves so I think from Erin's perspective staffing has been the primary barrier to EXP standing programs um but she
084is you know the entrepreneurial wing of the district and so anything that she can do that can generate Revenue she pursues very very aggressively so you know for her the only limitation is can we actually get adults here in order to supervise kids and she hasn't been able to expand so far this is actually a question that deals with this year's calendar and how we may be able to use some data from that and understanding some things coming up in next year this past year November 1st was a day off for Dali um November 4th was a Monday that was a Friday Monday was a day on for school and then the fifth was election day creating what could have been a five-day weekend for many people do you know off hand or can you
085look to find what our attendance records were for that November 4th day of this past year because my concern is as we look at some of the things in particular the 22nd 23rd of December leading into Christmas and that break whether we're going to have families attending or we're going to have people actually here we can bring that back okay so this this I think I wanted to talk about this last year itself so I think I saw a concern from B Blanchard parents as well a blinded ptso saying that they really would like to see only bring back only the federal holidays when my kids were in elementary school especially what I preferred was I didn't care about cultural holidays even if it was mine I want I used up all my time off
086for taking care of my kids when they were sick I could not find any other time where I could take more days off to celebrate these they were they were really taxing so I think we create more hardship when we try to appreciate certain groups in the in the community you should really think about that and when you talk about generating Revenue we're not in the business of generating money here we're in the in the business of trying to develop kids so I think we should stick to that all right so I I will tell you personally I'm struggling with this um and and a lot of it is because I think we want to be responsive and respectful to our community but at the same point we have as a school committee responsibility to
087our students and continuity of learning um and I feel like we're getting into a a you know lose lose situation so we're we're going to start early and we're going to end late so that we can observe all these holidays which means that we're going to have people talking to us about air conditioning in schools at the beginning and in the end of the year we're going to come into May we're going to go to Memorial Day then we're going to come back for a day and then we're going to be off for a day we're going to have people talking to us about consistency and learning and being able to build routines the flip side of that is that there are any number of very engaged community members and Community groups that should we
088open this Pandora's Box we will have a line out the door of public input um and so I think at some point the committee does have to make a decision what is more important and we have to come with some fortitude around that when inevitably we're going to be uh making some interest group upset um you know I think that I I think we came into this year's calendar and and I thought this was probably the worst one in terms of how many breaks in time and I think next year's even worse um and I would really love to dive into this and I would love to I don't think we can do this L unless we have a a public session to do it at the same point as I look ahead at what
089some of the big challenges are going to be for us for for years you know next few years this is a big one but this is the the tip of the iceberg of the things that as a committee and as a community we're going to have to resolve I I don't I don't know how to solve this one because I would love to just make a unilateral decision I think you'll hear only from very local members of the community I don't I think we are not considering the rest I think most of them will go over taking care of the hardship rather than worrying about the holidays they celebrate I think we should consider going back to what it was and I think we don't need to be in the appeasement business here we care
090about school student development and that's all we need to focus on I'd love to hear some oh hey look this side of the room has some feedback so we'll go back to jinny and then Ben hi um I think we're in sort of a tricky spot because the federal holidays are the Christian holidays and none of us can do anything about that but that is a larger you know question for just how we run things in general in this country you know we're supposed to not have a federal religion and yet these holidays are sort of just perennially there um it's hard to say what the right answer is I I think I feel you lack me that the only days that I have available for me are my vacation and the days I need
091when everybody's sick because inevitably that happens so it is a lose lose situation um but I think yes this needs to be a community decision I don't think there's anything scary about that yes it can be a little a little bit intense sometimes when everybody's coming together to give their opinions but that's the way all of these decisions should be made uh I do want to say though I I worry about introducing things like you know well maybe it'll be too hot or you know continuity learning because I think there's always a discussion around summer is that break too long is that a good idea to have a break or to kids forget everything um and some of the hottest days that we've had unfortunately were like in September you know so I think that's
092just climate change which again sort of brings back that climate Force resolution that we need to get on so I just want to say for those of you who haven't been here when we have opened up the calendar um you know I I I would not recommend that you that we do so lightly without considering how how timec consuming that's going to be because it will be um I do want to say that there are many federal holidays that are not religious holidays in any way shape or form and and they could be um you know maybe the majority I think with the exception of Good Friday which I personally have never really understood why we have the day off for that um you know it leaves us uh because we we do have Christmas
093um but I think it leaves us in the position of trying to decide which holidays are more important than other holidays and and I think that that's an impossible position um I'm willing to entertain that if that's what the committee would like to do and have this discussion again but as Peter said we also have Educators who celebrate these holidays and we have learned in the past that um you know even if we were to hold school on those days we would have to have a lot of substitute teachers um and then finally I just want to ask and we may not know yet but what does this do with regard to the summer vacation because it looks like if we don't get out until the 26th of June we're looking at an8 week summer
094vacation which is really really short um so um you know that's that's something that I I also think is hard for families so and as a as you know someone who always worked I understand how difficult it is to have these um you know days off when and the rest of the world um seems to not have those days off and finding a place for your kids so uh through the chair to L me um when you mentioned that there's a hardship for families who are not able to find their kids activities there are also very much hardship for families who have to make the difficult decision to send either their kids to school or to have them observe these very important holidays I don't think it's fair for you to make a determination or
095make a statement which says well these are all hardships for All Families each individual family goes through various different hardships and I don't think it's fair for the committee nor yourself to make um an inference like that okay I really would not like to get this to be personal Ben but what I meant to say is it's a hardship for people who don't celebrate and if it is so then it should be declared a Federal holiday let's fight the battle at the right place not here in this community and the other thing is this is not a competition Christian's got a holiday I need to get a holiday as a Hindu I don't think that should be needs to be a competition I care more about my kids education and if I definitely need to
096celebrate Diwali I will keep my kids home and that's how I look at it so I I you know well we'll go to tor if we were to explore this I would want to look at and I have no idea how much work this is but I'd want to look at attendance data because honestly people vote with their feet and we know the most vocal people will come in and talk to us but I mean we've done this both ways right in theory we ought to be able to take a look at when the calendar was this this is what attendance looked like and I just said if Adam I didn't say we should do it well no no I I actually I don't want to respond to the if I want to respond to
097the fact that you know we had a really strong Outreach from the Hindu Community saying we need to celebrate Dali and what they said was we value education and we know that if this is not a day off from school our kids will be here so that the attendance data isn't necessarily A a true indication of whether or not people are going to come or they need to celebrate their holidays and I think the same is for for every Community you know there there may be folks in the the Chinese community and in the Jewish Community who say I know that when I miss school it's a lot and I'm going to have to make that decision and what we have as a committee have decided in the past is we want to represent that
098as much as possible and we've we've bent both ways in that we've written policy around homework and assessments and all of that to make sure that students aren't penalized and that they can ask for extensions and get their tests po postponed and all of that and we've gone and try to represent every community's special day um and we're getting to the breaking point I think is is where I'm at Ben sorry Andrew and then Ben sorry couple of points one I'll reiterate something I said last time we were dealing with this but before I get to that it's very easy to look at education as if it's a job for the students and it's not the students that are here are here to become the best versions of themselves to do it across math and
099science and art and music and play and friends and life and a big part of life is more than what you find in textbooks it's important to Value the education that they get but damn it it's important to give them some joy and some life too the part that I'll reiterate from last year I'm a Jewish guy I grew up Jewish I grew up in a community in a town in a time lock for me as you said where they did not reflect the religions the culture the space I came from which meant at beginning of every year I would end up being two days back I would end up being two days back for math two days back for language two days back for for Science and I'd have to catch up but not
100only was I left two days back for that I was also disregarded by the community that I was in for the person that I was and we're not a community that disregards people we're a community that respects the numbers of people that are here and it's easy to say you know if my kids were in school from 8:00 in the morning till 6 o'clock at night I could stay at work all day if my kids were in school all day on Wednesdays I'd be able to get more stuff done if my kids clocked in at 8 and clocked out at 5: they must get more education that's not what we're doing this isn't a factory this isn't a job it's a school we got to remember that we're doing more than just stuffing their heads
101with numbers we're giving these people people the fuel will be great in the future before I go to Ben I I do want to respond to that because I I hear what you're saying however what about the families that can't can't cover where their kid needs to be on that day and can't put food on their table they're the ones who can't come here and advocate for us and they're the ones who don't have the ability to get their time off to to represent that and I recognize what what I want us to recognize is that we can hold both of those truths at the same time we need to represent and celebrate all of the diversity in our community but we also have to represent and understand that changing demographics in our community as
102we see it in all of our graphs that we are more and more a community of people who have greater needs and where I worry is that if we hold a line very hard and fast around this and say if you don't give me my day off you're a terrible person we won't get that feedback from people who can't come here who who have been working all day and maybe are on their second job who can't come and yell at me and say you're a terrible person cuz I can't put food on my table if you advocate for greater quality of life for the kids that are coming through that does allow you to hold both in your head at the same time but it's super easy to sound super strong by saying no I'm
103not going to listen to anything but what's federally mandated if we walk in and say we're going to throw away everything but we absolutely have to do we're going to disregard opportunities for our kids and our families to learn holding both is what we need to do and making sure that we are pointing our our focus on building great people yeah and I struggle how we balance that because I feel like our scale is going too far in One Direction and I do want to hold both but I I want to I want to find a way to balance that that's where I struggle Ben thank you ad I know a few years ago there was a survey that was circulated to uh our community to vote which days are important to them would you
104be able to recirculate it to this group here so that we can revisit that data there is in our archives the um school committee calendar I forget what it was called um but I'll I'll look for all of that stuff is up on our website in our archive so I will look for it and I will send the link out to the school committee shell because yeah we've we've we've been through this before exactly and I was thinking by recirculating that data internally here then that will better prepare us for a future discussion on whether or not which holidays we cut which holidays we keep or how we move forward I just wanted to ask if it would be possible to sort of uh run the numbers quantify um how much it would cost to
105make sure that there was a spot for every student in um you know the after school program that sometimes runs on vacation days um because I think the answer to the conundrum here obviously is funding but having an affordable child care option available would satisfy everybody's needs yeah we're happy to to connect on that so I I want to be honest about some challenges we're going to have here one you can see the level of disagreement among 11 or nine people um that you're not coming to consensus on this issue and you know the calendar for a school is very much a community calendar um that reflects the values of the community and because there's no right answer like there you know it's not a math problem um and so what I think might be
106productive in this is less to think about how might the 11 people in the committee solve this but what's the process that would need to take place for the community to be able to engage in a dialogue around the calendar um that actually consider considers all the different perspectives because we are talking a lot about family perspectives but our educators are going to have perspectives as well this actually was just a topic yesterday in the educator round table that I do um and you know really feeling like you know in at all levels actually talking about feeling like it's hard to get going um with the calendar that we have and that that's an honest answer it doesn't devalue anyone but it's just an honest answer about how challenging the teaching is and at high
107school level in particular because we also don't do any assessments before after these holidays um and in some other days so from an impact on students what ends up happening is assessments tend to pile up um on on fewer days and that doesn't mean that I don't believe in what we're doing right now right so I think that's the the conundrum of all of this is It's a complex issue it needs to be you know really well thought out I think the challenge that I've seen over you know seven years of doing this as a superintendent is if the full school committee tries to tackle that deep of a problem knowing that you also have all the other business that goes on you don't have the time and energy to be able to allocate to
108a really thorough discussion of a topic and so this is something that historically and I think which is appropriate if you want to do it it's the formation of a subcommittee to look at it um where the subcommittee is actually you know maybe a couple school committee members but really bringing in a broader swath of stakeholders across the community to then think about how we're going to make change so I think you know the the the reality of the current year is people are making plans right now for next year already and you know we don't have a month and a half or six weeks to think about what changes to make to this calendar right it it kind of has to be done because people are waiting on us to say here's what the
109plan is um but I do think if you want to engage in it I think there's an opportunity to think more in a subcommittee model and move that move that forward and and I think you know quite honestly when you have a subcommittee devoted to it who's actively collecting feedback you actually also not only dig deeply into an issue but you have an opportunity to take the temperature of the community down because there is an opportunity to have dialogue about something all right so we're not voting this tonight obviously this is our first read um any big feedback or I don't want to say any feedback should come through uh to myself and Peter um and it will come up for a vote next time uh I just want to close by saying I appreciate
110the conversation that the committee has I mean this is what we're somewhat elected to do right is to have these difficult conversations and it is clear we're we're sort of a broad representation of our community at least in this opinion so um none of my conversations or exchanges are meant to be personal they're all meant to be respectful and to to further the conversation so I do love you Andrew don't worry um but I do I I just I'll reiterate I really appreciate being able to have that conversation with this group okay ongoing business should have been at 810 it's only 8:33 now um it's all mostly Financial business so Sher got some stuff to share with us um this is carry over stuff from December 19th that we couldn't get to so some of
111it is a little outdated so you did get the draft audit reports we have received the final audit reports nothing has changed so the draft really is kind of the final we had no findings the three comments that they made for last year two are resolved we have fixed everything with the sales tax at the school store and we have already had the school committee vote on adopting the cash and investment policy I am currently working on the internal controls and at a future meeting I'm going to bring it forward to ask for the approval so we can also submit that does anyone have any questions about the audit I know it's riveting 75 Page information not a question but I always love seeing no findings on an audit report so so do I nothing
112else okay no next hit update um the information that was in the packet was really from last month not much has changed the Harvard Pilgrim had a balance sheet that was holding almost 21,500 from fy4 they've given that to us so we were able to add that to our balance as of today even though it said 999,000 it's really 97,2 12 we're still on target we have plenty of money Blue Cross boo Shield is still holding on to the funds that we had prepaid them they will hold on to them until June of 26 but I believe they will also have enough money any questions on hit OPB OPB okay you all received a copy of the portfolio review that was as of November 30th our opep balance is approximately 9.8 million the biggest thing
113to note is that although in FY 24 we had to withdraw a little over 2 million for health insurance costs our balance is actually up $5,000 from when we took out the money because of the Investments and how we have them that leads to kind of the next thing which is the proposed investment strategy changes on the scholarship accounts so as I just stated or actually I didn't state but we had 17.74% increases for our opab account for the scholarship accounts we only had 5.28 because the way that they have been voted in the past to be um invested according to the advisors that we have the scholarship accounts have no equity exposure or long-term returns so under the proposed which I believe I put the paperwork in the packet from last month under the
114proposed prudent investment rule it gives the folks the responsible for managing the trust a way to ensure that it can continue to benefit those that it was originally intended for utilizing a more Diversified portfolio by allowing us to follow the more modern version of this investment practice it will allow for the possibility of more scholarships to be provided to our graduating seniors and will allow some to continue even once there is no living family member to provide funds for making a scholarship ho the language for the motion I believe I put in the original memo so we were kind of looking for the school committee to vote to accept the provisions for The Prudent investment Rule and to change the scholarship the way that we invested thank you uh first any questions or comments on
115opab oped uh sorry okay so I just want to make I just want to reiterate the oped report that as of November make this very clear our account balance in OPB is where it was before we had to withdraw money to cover the hit shortage so we were very lucky that the market performed so well last year um so yeah we could have been a lot higher but we also could have been a lot worse so I think that that was that was really great news um and I'm I'm really happy with the investment team it's monitoring that for us okay now any questions or comments on the proposed investment strategy changes or motions uh I do have a question and it's a little bit both both um for our investments um like our team
116of advisers that we're working with do you know how often they are doing rebalancing or how often like we are like what's the Cadence that we're engaging to re-evaluate is it kind of just like in this case where we didn't have enough growth so they're saying oh this you know we're recommending these changes ches to the investment strategy or is this more of an annual conversation they're giving us quarterly reports so they're re reevaluating quarterly and looking at everything okay but this was and is this something that they came to us and said like we think that you should be a little bit more aggressive in this strategy and here's why yes okay it is we had a um our annual meeting and they brought that forward specifically with the scholarship accounts and how we
117should really look into reinvesting it differently okay Sher wasn't there also a change in mass legislation that allowed us to use this new investment strategy that previously we didn't have yeah it's under Mass General Law chapter 44 section 54 b c and d yeah so I think part of it was before we had been restricted to a specific set of accounts by NGL and there was a change in the law that allowed us to use this prudent investment rule which broadens the portfolio that we can invest those funds in and I wholeheartedly support it I just wanted to make sure that the information was out there for people who may not necessarily understand the Cadence of how the Investments um are I know for example the town of box bro just recently and I think
118that they still haven't even completely voted on you know the changes and there's a lot of like hesitation just because of not fully understanding so I just wanted to make sure that I that I am specifying out you know we are meeting we are looking at this quarterly you know this isn't like somebody's just taking all our money and running with it I am in full support of this yeah I I can say as the the member of the OPB trust um we do meet annually um and I I actually asked this year if we could have those reports sent to us quarterly because I do think it's important for us to keep an eye on the on the um the progress of that um and I I do believe that the the The Advisory
119team that we have is actually the same that the boxboro town of boxboro uses um so they're they are a good team we're very happy with that with that is there a motion to accept the provisions of mg chapter 44 subsection 54 uh Parts b c and d to allow the school district trust funds to be invested in accordance with mgl chapter 203c the so-called prudent investment rule so moved second so that was Ben and then Tori all those in favor I any opposed extensions that's unanimous thank you okay we're on to finally the second read andoss vote of policy adj uh G uh Liz do you want to give us an update on that uh yes so we this is a little bit what was going to be my policy update um for it
120later but uh we did meet at our last policy sub and we really wanted to be thoughtful and take into account the input that we had gotten and the feedback on the initial read and um we're very happy with what has come out of that um we hope that everyone is in support of the sustainability policy and um we really want to thank Kate Crosby and uh all the members of the resource Force for the partnership in this it's been absolutely wonderful thanks any questions or comments or motions Tori so totally in favor of this I just couldn't find the new version in here I don't know if I had a completely diligent inept moment um I don't think it was attached to the agenda but I'm going to um add vate that we move
121to approve policy adg that was seconded by Tor Tori I have this problem where I say the name of the person I'm looking at seconded by Jenny um is there any discussion now that we have discussion what did we change uh pretty much the the things that the uh public had thanked us for changing there were a couple of tweaks such as um we will and of course I don't even have it in front of me which I should um but one of the I guess bigger of the small changes that we made was that we would were committing to decarbonize um before or by 2050 any further discussion the other change I believe is I think that we um took out like specific we we're not necessarily naming electrification because we don't necessarily know
122what the future's going to hold that type of thing so we made it broader just like for decarbonizing and sustainability any further discussion all right all those in favor I any opposed extensions that's unanimous Alex can go back to studying for physics now congratulations and thank you to the resource force and everyone uh it was a it was a long road to get there all right we're on to subcommittee and member reports and my goodness we've got a lot of quick updates that I would like to get we'll start with policy we met apparently three times since we last had an update or at least that's what it says on my agenda that's extremely possible um we have been going through a lot of different uh policies there will be more to come uh the
123this past meeting which was on January 3D at 7:30 a.m. we refined the uh sustainability policy based on that feedback and uh we'll meet again Friday January 23rd 7:30 via Zoom excellent thank you budget uh uh budget sub has also met a number of times since uh We've last spoken um and I think it says the 13th on here but wasn't it actually oh no it was the 13th I wrote down the 14th um so yeah we met at 2m on Zoom our normal time I'm pretty sure all of those meetings um we mostly had talked the last few meetings about um the budget task force recommendations um and you know you know messaging around um presenting the ultimate budget to town meeting um and today you know we heard from Sher everybody already heard
124you know those updates um and we mostly talked about um the upcoming budget presentation and budget Saturday plans um you know how the agenda is going to go and you know what sort of information we're going to present uh we're going to meet again on the 27th at 2 pm on Zoom um and that'll be our meeting uh right before the 30th school committee meeting where we do the high level overview as Peter mentioned before thank you Capital sub Ben so we only met twice not three times um back in December we met to discuss the FY 25 project updates including progress on the admin building the roofing project specifically the boxboro well chlorination project the high school chem lab ventilation the tennis court resurfacing and critical needs for the Parker Parker Damon building Chiller
125failure and Junior High School controls issue the FY 26 plan was presented to this the uh subcommittee on the 19 or excuse me the uh the 26 plan was presented to us the school committee on the 19th prioritizing tier one and tier 2 projects as well as a long range Capital planning approach into 27 and Beyond this morning we met uh and we reviewed and approved the minutes for December um uh we also went over additional fy2 budget updates and uh discussed FY 26 and focused on the briefly on the 10year capital plan thank you all right uh we'll do some very quick leaon reports I'll just run around the room if anybody has anything really pertinent that they want to share about their border committee that they Lea with if you don't have anything
126that's absolutely fine uh just that alg's 20 fiscal year 25 is going great fiscal year 26 the model is down to about a $200,000 deficit which is pretty remarkable um which is current currently reflecting a level Services budget for the town and the 3% budget from the schools um still continuing to figure things out with the DPW building and um if we have any inputs on uh you know future Capital planning that we want to share let us know thank you yeah please the Tor just noted that the AL plan there was a current deficit of about $200,000 um based on the last meeting we are not anticipating that we would be asked to to do anything with that thanks Peter going down the line update uh Sher did most of the work for the
127ACT in health insurance trust we met just last week on January 9th we're in the runout phase which means most of our bills are getting smaller we'll stay hybrid for now but we'll probably switch to Virtual shortly um our transition to May has had some friction but we've smoothed out the process and our next meeting is going to be on February 13th at 8:15 a.m. thank you li uh the only item of note from the boxboro finance committee meeting which was just this past Tuesday um is that they have decided to participate in the um revamping like re there's a word there starting Constitution thank you of the uh boxb leadership Forum thank thank you and I'll report that from the select board meeting in boxboro on Monday they also discussed and are eager to
128re constitute the boxboro leadership Forum I would say that this is a really important Milestone that everybody on the committee should understand that up until now boxboro leadership teams have not been sort of coordinating in a ALG style or a you know small group section um and with some of the budget constraints that are coming up for boxboro particularly with regards to the potential new fire station and uh hitting their Lev maximum and our budget challenges it's really important that we get to have some working time with the rest of leadership in box Pro to begin to to socialize that and work that out so I'm very excited to have that uh Acton finance committee they met this past Tuesday as well um and the one thing I'll add to what Tori had shared already
129is that um it sounds like they're feeling good about our progress here um that we have clearly shown um you know our interest and creating a long-term sustainable budget and we're taking seriously um you know all the financial implications of um different you know abuse of tax funding there was also a mention of um possibly looking at the change in the percentage of the overall budget that is allocated to the schools and one member mentioned that it's possible that um you know maybe our um demographic shifts are causing us to spend more on seniors than you know we possibly should be right now so that felt promising thank you Jenny any updates I was unable to attend the CPAC meeting um last night but and I haven't watched it yet but I will do so
130thanks and I apologize I wasn't able to attend either Yin any updates um I think this is just a request that I've heard from the public that they'd like to be able to comment during the meeting instead of having it in the beginning I've heard it over and over again I just want to bring a message to the committee thank you B select board met recently and the town manager presented the FY 26 Municipal and operating budget Municipal operating budget and capital budget there well done uh all right we're going to move on to the school committee goal update um yeah uh I was going to talk about that right now so my lead into the school committee communication goal update um first Lea apolog Oles for not being able to attend this evening but
131I will share with you that she has reached out to all three of our um state legislators um asking uh first of all highlighting the feedback that we've gotten from our Educators over the past few meetings um and asking for their support they're all very positive in their response to us um and I think uh Peter you probably were also contacted by Dan saa's office so I'm going to give you a second to to um talk about that but I would continue to ask that anybody in their opportunities to Advocate with the legislators um if there's any other ideas we have around um uh Outreach to the legislators um please bring those to in particular Jenny and Leela so that we can continue to um put this forward I would say that you know hearing
132the speaker's um discussion of her goals um there was a talk of Chapter 70 we're hearing a lot more conversation around Ed funding um at the state level um but also just know that that is a really slow process so um won't save us for this year that's for sure hopefully I don't run a foul with this but um I was at a meeting based off of the congressional districts of a particular party to which I expressed as a member of the school committee the need to advocate for more funding under Chapter 70 without stipulate which party that is thank you Peter do you want to give us just a quick update on some of the work that you've been doing with Dan saa's office yeah sure um so you know I was contacted by
133representative saa's office um because I have been in touch over the course of the Fall with all of our legislators around the need for additional Chapter 70 funding and if you recall over the you know fall when we met with legislators there are some really specific asks that I think we need to be making one is to reexamine the foundation budget because there are elements of the foundation budget itself that are just flat out broken so you know for example you know the foundation budget um has a category for special education costs we are currently spending 400% of our District's Foundation Budget on special education um in order to provide the services and supports we need in add of District tuition so you know that is a critical area obviously but the whole Foundation budget
134um needs review and so we would encourage the legislature to open up the foundation budget for another review um based on what's currently going on that is going to be a multi-year process it's not going to result in any short windfall um so the other thing that I was working with um representative saa's office on recently he's going to be filing some legislation I believe tomorrow um to increase um minimum school aid and I suggested a three-year window I don't know what's going to come out of that but I'd like a three-year commitment on minimum Aid to be increased to $150 per pupil um it's currently at $30 a student is um what has been the standing practice of the state um as you know know that results in less than half a percent of
135increased state aid coming into our schools um year-over-year um that is absolutely not sustainable it's putting too much pressure on the community to have to figure out how to fund the schools and there has to be a better way of doing it especially given that the millionaires tax which is you know largely devoted to education and transportation has been vastly overperforming um expectations so I think there's an opportunity um I did a little history of um chapter 7 minimum Aid funding um in 200 it fluctuates wildly um and its lowest point it's been set at zero for multiple years but in 2001 minimum made was $175 per pupil and somehow We've Ended at $30 a pupil um in recent years I will say and I would certainly thank the legislature and the governor for increasing
136minimum aid over the last couple of years late in the game but the problem is for school districts we set our budget and the towns vote our budgets um you know we really need to know what our Aid is um in January and February of a school year not in July uh it just doesn't work because we've set the budget we can't spend over the budget even if we end up getting more Aid it just has to Flo to reserves um and it's not a sustainable model for us so I'd like to get a three-year commitment from the legislature the minimum Aid is going to be set at 150 that would allow districts to actually start to use that Revenue um that would result in probably about a 7 to $800,000 increase in state aid
137for us every year um but I actually think it's not just an act in boxboro issue I actually think it's a Statewide issue because um going back you know multiple years there are maybe a couple dozen communities in the minimum Aid status that we're in it's now 212 communities that are in minimum Aid status as the start of this year and we're seeing School B budgets melt down everywhere School budgets right now are going up 4 and a half% on average that is absolutely what's happening we cannot sustain The Bu buget the way it's currently been it it's you know we're going to present a budget to you I have to tell you our staff is reaching an absolute point of breaking um you know and that goes from for every staff member in this
138district is reaching a real point of frustration that no one feels like they can do the job that they need to do for students um we can't sustain our schools on a 3% budget increase and we can't expect the communities to have to keep funding it when the state is bringing in additional revenues beyond their their expectations so I'd like to see the state do that um representative SAA was going to file the bill today um in the end after Consulting with mass and his office um we also know that on the Senate side Senator Lewis who is the chair of the education committee on the Senate side is also filing a similar bill I believe what we ended on with rep SAA is they're going to file uh parallel language in both the House
139and Senate um so if you have contacts with legislators whether they're ours or with other legislators in the area I would encourage you to reach out to them um and see if we can get more people signing on to these two bills because I think they're going to be incredibly important for us um we know we're in a really constrained period of resources right now but we just can't we cannot do this next year we cannot do this next year um we are on the verge of having things Break um I don't know how else to say it but we we need to to try and also exhaust resources at the state level so sorry for the longwinded but I really feel strongly about this if you can't tell thank you Peter I think you
140you um segued us perfectly into what the school committee needs to be doing as part of their communication and Outreach now but you know I think we will work together as we prepare the the budget and we will prepare some talking points um but we are definitely in a dire situation um and so as we continue um through the budget season and into the spring um we all need to be going out in every opportunity organized or otherwise soccer Temple Church stop and shop or donin's or Ro brothers and whomever we see stop John Peterson in the grocery store if you must and share this message with everybody um I you know I I I will Echo what Peter is saying that after this year and including you know this year we're at a breaking
141point so um Ben I see you have a comment I just want to close um if there's any structured opportunities for um community outreach that anybody knows about please um get with yansin um and yansin I know that we sort of took a break over the winter holidays but let's plan on coming back now as we get into budget season and putting some more structure around how we reach out to the community I know that it's really um quick notice but box Bros Winter Fest is going to be on July uh January 25th I have a prior commitment so I can't do that day but if anyone is able to put stuff together I do have a blue um table cover we can use at steel farm and there's food and beverage because I heard
142the select board vote the liquor license Ben real quickly um Peter do you know the bill numbers by chance I actually don't think they've been filed yet so no speaking of public gosh I can't speak speaking of Engagement with Community I think the science fair is tomorrow so it's a good time to showcase our students and teachers and also chat people up about the budget thank you all right any other quick uh school committee goal updates from Members seeing none we will move on to our consent agenda remember if there's something that you'd like me to hold as I read through this just say hold otherwise um I have to get the language at the beginning all right the consent agenda is there a motion to approve item a approval of the abse minutes of
1431219 2024 uh Mark Lawrence photographers Inc donation of $3,187 to RJ gray Junior High School Gates PTO donation of $1,633 33 for rigging and flag hanging at the boardwalk Campus Commons Boosters club donation of $2,789 39 of a donation to the girls ice hockey program for shells and socks and item e approval of warrants as presented in the packet of January 16 2025 so moved there's a motion a second second that was Tori and then Ben all those in favor I any opposed extensions that is unanimous um I will just point out that there is an update to the abhs class siiz memo um from the principal of the high school in your packet in the FYI um she does sort of respond to some of the questions that we had regarding um some of
144the extraordinary classes and some of the smaller sizes for the special program so uh it's definitely worth a read with that is there a motion to adjourn move to adjourn that was is followed seconded by Ben all those in favor I any opposed extensions thank you all very much