School Committee: September 22, 2022

Transcript captured from YouTube auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:03 is joining us via zoom and say oh got it and Sarah gold unfortunately wasn’t feeling well and is not going to be able to join us tonight um so I will move to accommodations Dr Bucky had professional teacher status recognition that he wanted to see yeah it’s uh an important milestone for educators in the district that uh after three years they’ve achieved a professional teacher status so I just wanted to take time to commend those Educators across the district and to read their names and hopefully if uh you have a teacher in that school you can give them accommodation as well so we have Sarah Berkowitz a culinary arts teacher at Marblehead High School Erin collegeman a special education teacher at the Village School

0:50 Lauren chuha a fifth grade teacher at the Village School Bridget Corcoran a special education teacher at the Village School Corey Dev special education teacher at the high school Andrea Evers a math and science teacher at the Veterans School Carolyn Carolyn Farren a special education teacher at the Glover School Megan Calvin a nurse at the Veterans School Kristen Lyons a special education teacher at the high school Michaela Lucas special education teacher High School Carla Rose an El teacher at the Village School and Kent wheeler a social studies teacher at Marblehead high school so congratulations accommodations to all of our professional teachers good congratulations does anybody else

1:36 have any accommodations they would like to make um I just wanted to make an accommodation to our crossing guards with the construction in town um that’s been going on the last few weeks it’s been more trying for them and they’ve done an excellent job and especially on a day like today it’s a boring rate so I just want to thank them for doing what they do to get our kids here safe every day that brings us to our student representative we’re happy to have you back again yes I’m back happy to be back um so as after all you know September 6th was our first day of school and as was Tradition at the high school the seniors welcome the freshmen and I wanted to give accommodations to all the

2:22 peer mentors for all their hard work both during the summer and on the first day of school for helping our freshmen get situated it’s really nice of them uh the school how to drive up to September 14th for the Massachusetts military Heroes fund on September 15th uh MHS had its open house and the parents were assisted by the National Honors Society uh most clubs have started up again and the club activity Fair ran on Friday September 16th and it was a great opportunity for students to join new clubs and get involved in over the 40 clubs that we have at the high school uh college visits for senior started this week oh sorry the week of 9 16 and are still ongoing

3:07 um and the seminars for series also started this week and there’s a parent night on September 20th also on the 20th the League of Women Voters ran a voter registration drive at the high school and that was a great success that table was like packed so hopefully lots of people got registered to vote and our picture day will be Wednesday September 28th in terms of the class news Freshman Class elections will be October 7th and the senior class has decided on the House of Blues for its qualification this spring uh for Sports football volleyball and field hockey all have games tomorrow good luck to all of them and I wanted to give a shout out to the field hockey coach Linda on 300 wins and she had an article written about her in Boston so congratulations

3:52 congratulations congratulations and we have our first Spirit day tomorrow thank you very much

4:02 um that brings us to our consent and action agenda items we had minutes in the Dropbox from 6 23 22 7 19. 22 and 8 29 22. so sorry are we not um opening up for public comment oh yes we are I apologize for that Megan um I would step back a step and ask if there is any public comment you can just raise your hands

4:40 it looks like there is none maybe okay um all right sorry about that we are back to the consent action agenda I um Lisa had noted there’s a few things that she’ll she needs to fix in these minutes um for instance just listing the members that were present and not present at um various meetings but other than that uh prepared to move forward on those as long as everybody else’s as well all right um

5:13 it was the eight 29 meeting that I’ll do separately Megan so that you can vote on the other two um so I’ll ask for a motion to approve the minutes from 6 23 22 and 7 19 22. so

5:32 I moved by Allison Taylor seconded by Emily Baron we’ll do roll call vote on that Emily Barrett yes Sarah gold is absent uh Allison Taylor yes Megan Taylor yes and Sarah Fox yes so yes is or Europe um and then I’ll ask for a motion to approve the minutes from 8 29 22

6:03 um and Emily Berry yes Sarah Golden’s absent Allison Taylor yes Megan Taylor abstain and Sarah Fox is a yes

6:21 um I used to want to turn my volume down so there’s no feedback I’m sorry about um um so that moves us we’re going to be tabling the appointment of School nurses you’ll see this continue on our agenda until we have someone to a point we want to put that on there we’re getting close um but I will continue putting that on there just so we always have that placeholder if we’re if we’re ready to go so for right now we will table that um and that moves us to the review of the school Improvement plans and Dr buckets you want to introduce instructions sure uh we will have the Middle School the veterans Middle School and Marblehead High School school Improvement plans as the leadership team

7:08 we’ve worked at our Retreat this summer to develop a template that aligns with our planning for success and so you’ll see coordination of goals through planning for Success down at the school Improvement plans and those will inform educator goals so we’re seeing some nice alignments firsthand this evening through Mr Fox’s presentation of course let’s go over the plan or the presentation good presentation okay this is

7:57 um um right

8:15 I just want to thank Emily because I don’t know how I felt Jason

9:14 that’s fine so uh our school so the presentation is a sort of an overview of it it wasn’t good at all the uh there are four main areas the second slide uh for uh for us to see a curriculum dial instructions um within those four plans though I gave you sort of a list of key Concepts because sometimes when people read these we don’t want to get stuck in some notification jargon um that might be different so we want to send a picture

9:45 uh so I’ll just quickly touch base in the scope and sequence you can see that uh on those Concepts Pockets that are tied to a calendar with the classroom a curriculum map it’s a document online standards and what’s being taught to assess um includes resources attachments bacterial interventions you guys can get sort of had a handle on that and just explanation there for folks to see it the one I want to focus on too is common assessments so that phrase for us common assessments what those are classroom based assessments that are used by multiple teachers so for example uh Mr Scholl and Mr pasakow are two seventh grade social studies teachers uh we’re on two different teams to teach two students but the experiences the students are having are so close they’re using the same assessments

10:41 uh plc uh plc uh professional Learning Community that’s a team of Educators uh sharing ideas helping each other out talking about students uh on a way to create environmental supports our students a big word for us to see this data all this conversation starts with that um protocols again a lot of people use protocols these are just structured ways to have these honest competitions again about that and then windows and mirrors I think we’ve had this before um it’s a way of approaching Dei curriculum uh it’s so that students get to see um and experience our cultures and aren’t theirs and then I also get to see themselves

11:31 uh going into our first goal around curriculum uh working as as uh we finished last year this month uh we finished up our spoken sequence last year uh we focus on making sure that our Sunday and receiving schools we all linked up in our silver sequence um so that was those are the two sort of parts of that uh we set a small goal since we’re not going to do this entire year um so small 25 of Mac this year no later next year uh again this is where we’re starting now let me get down that uh the next goal is actually sort of two goals together that instruction um for us here we’re focusing on two

12:19 things we’re focusing tier one work with our students so that’s our instructional interventions that support all students include in the classroom um and then we’re also focusing on those common assessments and drilling into Data to help feed some of those tier one of the dimensions that we’re doing um the body starts working our very first faculty school year literally the first day of school and teachers we had teachers lead mini workshops for each other on tier one conventions and that I think includes the teachers the very first day um volunteer uh to do this or step up to volunteer news uh and it was really rich these aren’t these aren’t huge Monumental changes but sometimes it’s the small changes it’s regard to seeing the people

13:05 the people the people for example one of our science teachers you know talk about these things that blocks different tables on how she sets up her exemplars and there was like one takeaway that four teachers and I that were like never thought of that and then just sort of grabbed that and that’s me this is a simple thing that really sort of focus on students

13:31 um and then our data analysis um we started that work actually through work um with our lead teachers um our lead teachers are part of the supply chain uh led by Elementary coaches and it was outstanding and it sort of jumped into it um um and it really returned back to the protocols this is something that we done at our school 10 11 12 years ago 12 15 years ago um so our main teacher’s website um so we’ve already had some good meetings of art within our departments um using protocols to examine that Protocols of conversations so it’s no fun uh the next school um after that is our Dei goal uh we had a robust on the EI committee

14:17 a we had a robust on the EI committee last year so we’re going to reconvene that committee and uh we’re gonna announce them uh at our curriculum and sort of identifying those parts of our curriculum what we can bring in more experiences more better experiences

14:36 whether it be you know it Pei shouldn’t be an event it should just be something that’s just part of our culture and so uh that’s what we’re going to sort of work on so those are sort of a 10 000 foot overview of our partial group so any questions

15:00 I can you talk a little bit about assessments and have they changed at all this year um how you’re doing them or is that staying because I know that our grading at at the elementary level has changed a little bit but I don’t believe it’s changing no I mean we’re we’re shifting we do shift more into a traditional secondary type model for our substance things like that now this is the first time it’s it’s really serious breaks a lot of grades um so you know our grading approach is different than the high school no it’s different than it’s it’s an introduction the secondary model um students are taking tests to choose one that’s the desk encouraging poking

15:47 prodding providing that sort of thing because for honestly for me when it comes to grading every student hey that’s I’m fine with that the whole concept is it’s when you get aware of the standards and also stands

16:03 so it’s not really the assessments that are different this year or in our level it’s the way the assessments played out and that’s even set um you know we only have four semesters for elementary school so you know the the session is the first order the seventh grade year will look different than the last program here you know where there’s a lot more dependence guided Independence a whole lot more

16:32 so our approach to that is some unique problems it’s always stuck with me I heard you say it before and I actually now say it to my own trial whatever to say we there’s 360 days and what a change that happens in that time yeah there is and it’s it’s fun it’s fun I am I really like how you said that as well and I I wonder is there any discussion with the students or with the parents about a deeper discussion perhaps I don’t have kids at that age yet so I just don’t know um where we share with them how it’s going to be particularly the students how it’s going to be different this year um to kind of prepare them from that perspective from the assessment

17:18 perspective it’s more importantly about it’s not really the conversations about assessment it’s about how to prepare for assessments you do a lot of people do a lot of direct supports on how to study protests and how to how to do that how to actually be a second person so we we teach very specific skills to students not just a concept um but the skills of you know what type of review works for you we give them the gamut from flip cards online things it’s called notes new sheets you know recessions with teachers and we really try to teach them these approaches so that by the time really they’re in the second half of the regular year that they they are

18:08 as part of I

18:15 can like happening I really can yes they were making no cards for tests you know this last week or seven degrees you know eighth graders of now maybe gone with something online

18:29 they make every one of those 360 days um Emily or Megan do you guys have any questions

18:43 and I’ll just wait and do one motion to approve both at the same time

19:03 very good excellent how are you

19:10 there you go hopefully my wife’s not watching so just as um this is Matt described this is really an overview of our School Proven Plan there are many pieces that go into this um and it’s really helpful to link this to our planet for Success part so really just to find the key Concepts many similar to the Matt’s scope and sequence which is really the road map for our teachers to follow to ensure that the curriculum is in alignment um our curriculum app itself will is really the plan will Playbook to ensure that what is being taught the skills the assessments uh and the necessary materials are there to help our teachers right the model classroom really is just

19:56 an example of our classroom that can utilized as a resource for other teachers peer observations is a tool that can be used as well for teachers to go in and not a radical manner so they can observe and just gain resources I really feel our teachers are our best resource for professional development these are the experts in the field uh the PLC map or you can find that but we’ve begun that process of having our department feels meetings as well as a planning for success project-based assessment you’ll see in the plan really is just basically it’s taking an approach to um utilize an ultimate assessment uh to really allow students to get deep into the learning piece right experiential learning so they can actually process synthesize and then provide an output

20:41 which he feels real life experiences combining standards um smart goal is just a way in about a teacher can be evaluated they set a goal for themselves in terms of what it is and how that would be accomplished uh We’ve linked um our school plan for uh Circle option for educators as well and understanding by Design is a formatting bat basically backward planning and we utilize a lot of this supplier and we have a lot of resources and that’ll come into play when we talk about our curriculum map so uh we have four key areas curricular instruction assessment and diversity equity so the first tool is based on curriculum where we have not finished our spoken sequence a lot of work has been done in

21:28 that area so we’re going to spend the first part of the Year completing that um and once that’s complete by December then we’re looking for the alignment with the with the Vets so we’ll work with the Vets on that inner period and then begin the curriculum mapping within the curriculum mapping we’re going to take an inventory of the current we have lots of data that we’ve had and lots of mapping the EVD model that we’ve already done a lot of that work so we’re going to maximize um and really value the work that hasn’t done before so the plan to be 25 which really would be a quarter of the year so we’ll see so we’re very excited about this one

22:09 so for an instruction assessment we have two that really align with themselves uh the project-based assessment as I described the earlier so our goal is for each course to have one product-based assessment uh in in for the suite and the nice thing about that is in the lines of the scope and sequence um you can utilize multiple talents and really that’s real world learning and it really ties into the next goal which is for all forces to have a common final assessment you could use a project-based assessment as a final assessment that’s why we said assessment not exam right because really if you are going on a Collegiate Experience you may have multiple ways of ending a course you may have a traditional file you may have a paper you may have a project so that’s

22:55 the mode we’re going for and we really try and tap into our Educators into their strengths to really bring out the best of our students and the last goal is our diversity inclusion which we’ve begun that process uh last year a lot of work was done within our school and our staff really feels we’re at a point now to take the work we did last year now bring it into practical applications things that can be utilized in the classroom so they didn’t really want exemplars and they want models that they can Implement so we have a planning for Success PLC of Dei that has already met so their charge is to develop techniques strategies everything that would help teachers learn great resources we bring into the classroom of

23:41 cultural response teaching classrooms so the goal is by the end of the year to create a survey just to see where they are and for the work we can do but in the middle is creating that model classroom and long opportunities with teachers from peer observations so we’re excited about the school so that’s really the Harvard High School school plan I love the goal the gold one Project based assessment for per class um I think that’s that’s wonderful um any questions Megan so I also love the Project based um assessment our teachers getting any kind of professional development on how to do that because I know to be done

24:27 successfully but also get not done as well so I’m wondering because I know there’s like a

24:37 that’s a very good point so right now our priority is open sequence so we’re building in time with our departmental plcs as well as all the voting fat for meeting time four opportunities to work in this area so just just over my course of time here I’ve seen great pockets of project-based Assessments and as you say they vary right they vary levels some larger they may incorporate multiple standards some may be in the smaller step but we want to work and I’m really working with the Departments to create more common between some of some of the subjects that may help and provide the resource because some of the teachers may have not did other places others and we want to create really a bank an exemplars to utilize I think that’s

25:23 really important we’ll break that down by subject we’ll have that in storage so our teachers can utilize that and I’ll provide time to work together online as well and hopefully have some of our teachers be able to work bring and share out I think that’s really important this is essentially the senior project is a student driven project -based learning experience it is without um

25:57 for success for success going out to the real world especially whether it’s you know a job or college so I think that’s great

26:10 um and Megan and I just want to make sure she has any questions my questions have been answered thank you

26:47 cerebral to absent um Allison Taylor yes Megan Taylor yes and Sarah Fox and Carries

27:01 um so that brings us to the superintendency report if I was just giving them the signal that they could go wow first up we have a busing update you’ve had a memo in the packet from Michelle Todd that provide you some information on eligible ridership those taking advantage of being eligible writers to pay uh to ride the program um the bus routes we are currently running so I’ll pass to Michelle if she wants to add anything to that or just open it up for questions so people have after reading them today I don’t have anything um to add in addition to the metal um

27:47 I do want to say that it’s our transportation is going well obviously um I’m happy to say that we have 137 Riders basically on two buses so a lot of my complaints are some parents are saying they have seen empty buses going by or best it’s not a capacity um our bus number one is at a capacity of 73 students and our bus two and three combined are at a capacity of 64 students so those seats are reserved whether those students ride or not each day really is up to the student and the parents but we have to provide those seats because those are registered students that either work we are required to offer transportation to or

28:32 they are the 12 theater rights and we had originally 51 registrations or requests to register for the paid a ride some of the initial students are still writing but since then 11 seats had opened and been turned back or refused so we have continued moving down that wait list so our weight loss is only 28 students we are working actively to attract bus drivers we thought we had another large bus drivers to solve our issue for this wait list um unfortunately she moved out of state so that did not solve that problem right now so we’re still actively trying to travel um and just to build on that I know we had heard the other day when we um we met for our planning meeting for this

29:20 that it’s at that had actually gone through I believe it’s the number so we would have added 71 seats so we would have been able to take everybody off the weak list and then also at the school Community level we would have been able to talk about next steps of what would we want to add and how so I think the ultimate goal here is most certainly we need to expand our bus program um and once we’re able to fill the the and the vacancies we have we’ll want to talk about what makes sense for adding additional roles in in the budget and to grow it further it seems counterproductive to add additional drivers when we can’t fill the ones we have um in a way it feels like we’re telling the community we’re growing our program

30:08 when we we’re trying we just we literally can’t we don’t have the drivers um until we get those drivers we can’t we’re not able with any Fidelity to make next steps to the community and where I mean right now we’re offering the positions that are top step on pay scale we’re not starting at the beginning step that we would normally um so we’re trying to do different things to attract drivers and we’re also undertaking a revenue of all the pay rates this coming year which will be available next year for um negotiations with you because again there’s a shortage everywhere so it’s how do we make ourselves become the employer of choice and it’s because it’s it’s a unique position it’s not as easy as just

30:54 saying we will give a bonus or this or that it doesn’t have to clear through the union but um we want to continue those discussions and bring that as far as we possibly can absolutely

31:08 yeah that’s one thing are we um part of the MBTA Charlie park for schools we are from the medical program um

31:22 and that’s something that we could look into because it’s a reduced rate and I mean the roots goes I think it starts with old town and goes through so it doesn’t accommodate everybody but there is a large portion of middle and high school students didn’t they in the last few months step that route back though he’s already talking the one that comes past of Franklin Street yeah it still doesn’t okay yeah all right so I thought that they had MBTA had said they were pulling back one of those no it’s still stuck at some of him okay they stopped like a 20 minute break yeah okay um and then it stops right in front of the high school and there must be a stop by facts

32:09 um so we should look into that because it’s not accessible to everybody against yourself to pay but if there’s a way um do you like like the reduced free lunches or somehow help everybody to be able to absolutely

32:36 absolutely I should not be an issue with that transportation is available

32:43 I think they make it very easy to get the program and we don’t currently have any staff that’s employed perhaps in another area of our schools that we’d be willing to go that is interested in going through this process is taking on the drive correct we have asked a few times

33:06 we did just hire uh a new bus driver with a 7D license to a small school vehicle we are actually she will be gone to the drinking program program

33:22 availability availability we’re working on that that um so I just have a couple questions so we have the registered students we don’t have or do we have numbers on how many are actually taking the bus every day to be not I know you know how many are doing the pay to ride presumably because they have to pay we do not right now they were just working on bus passes last week to confirm that only students that are registered are riding the bus um every student that is registered was given a little bus pass similar to our cards um so they were doing that so right now in a lot of the students don’t use it at this time as soon as the weather changes you’re going to see a lot of chores starting to yeah right with us

34:10 and so I’m sorry part of the issue I think too is we’re you know people around town see an empty your bus or it keeps coming to my shop which is empty by law we if you’re you know case for six if you’re beyond two miles we have to offer you the seat you can refuse to see and then it can go back in the pool but if a family chooses to not refuse that seat yet does never sits their child on a bus not one day the whole year legally that seat still has to be maintained for that child we can’t say we’re on a 100 day 172 if you haven’t used it like if they want to hold that right they get to hold it and we have no legal recourse to say you’re not using it’s it’s not a use it or lose it proposition

34:58 right no and that’s unfortunately yeah something I guess it’s their legal right but and will well fingers crossed that we get a second bus driver or that we find a program for the new hire to attend and and pass out over whatever the correct word is graduate from uh if we have a second bus we’ll be able to expand it because I my understanding is that the way routes were configured for children to be able to walk to school um changed within the last couple of years and people that you know there were a number of discussions around people that were eligible for not being eligible now would it potentially open

35:43 that up to them as well it would potentially open more students and we would also look at the distance from school right now it’s two or more miles um you know whether we look at a mile or more or one and a half miles that’s when we look at initially for k-6 students to try to reduce the congestion at the elementary school yeah

36:08 um although sometimes the bus comes um would would the route the suggested route potentially be looked at as well for a particular absolute families okay it would depend where the students are yeah right now we have um some additional students that are on the wait list for pay to ride that we would have to add additional stops for if you know once they come up to um dealer route yes yeah the bus takes absolutely I was talking about the um for families that you know are kind of on the cusp there that end up they would just go to existing stops potentially most mostly yes it depends on the distance between Oklahoma stops

36:54 and the safety concerns right and how so for from a safety concern perspective how what is the process there for a if there’s a Community member that has those concerns certainly bring to us we bring them to the police department and we work through them we can’t set a stop or hold a stop without involvement I just think that’s good for everybody thank you very much um and then John back to you uh superintendent goals um I had talked about um a subcommittee for goals for evaluation I just wanted to kind of close the loop on that um so so I said as a committee

37:39 um one of the things that I was I would like to see is for you to come to us with some broader ideas of goals and and if we want to give you some feedback on how we want to you know zero those in um for myself personally I would just my request is that any goals be clearly measurable and um be presented in the way of how they affect students all I think all this work affects students but I think it’s really good when we can articulate right from the get-go what is the outcome positive outcome for students by through this process

38:26 um so I just like having that tied up beginning um and then I’ll open it up for discussion

38:37 I mean I I like the idea of you bringing us the broader goals or even some more very specific ones if you have them in mind I’m sure you have ideas that you want to work on or that you would like to work on or improve or add to your existing you know skills and I think what Sarah said about making sure that they are measurable making sure it’s something that can be accounted for and that you know people can track towards that we can track towards and that the community can see the progress will go a long way and I think that’s something we should strive for as well um and one that I talked about during the planning meeting that popped into my head was I know you’ve been doing um your instructional rounds which um it’s good that you’re out in the

39:23 schools and out in the community if there’s some if we can use this year to kind of focus on the action items that come out of those rounds so that we can understand in the community under can see you know this isn’t just you know you you go into watching it’s the action items are coming out of this so if there’s a way to articulate that the goal that I know even some things that you may have learned I think just from a sharing perspective I think it would be nice for the community or even I would be interested to hear about some of the things that you’ve learned the great work that our educators are doing with our kids because you go in you know for all grade levels my son can tell me when Dr Bucky comes

40:10 in to say hi in his grade but that doesn’t help me understand how you see it and what you learn I think that would be a great way also to provide feedback um you know not necessarily goal setting but just to provide feedback on them because I think that that’s how great part of what you do um and then I don’t know if I want to make sure that we give um Emily and I get a chance to if there’s something you’re you’re specifically City or um I think it would be helpful if we talk about the goals in a public meeting so maybe by our next meeting you can give us time to look at what you have so that’s

40:55 so that’s so that’s six the sixth also for that meeting you might review them ourselves and then come with questions did that seem yourself yep I can upload them next week I’ve drafted okay so if people have feedback prior to the sixth okay I think that would be great and like I said for me I with the goal if you just want to talk about and how would this goal be met like what are the metrics we will measure this whole thing just um

41:35 I know Megan likes us to take time so um I was thinking can you present them to us on the sixth then we’ll have then we can wait two weeks or you can like take our feet back on the six come up you know

41:52 fix them up and then you can get them represented on the 27th and both of them does that work that certainly works for me

42:05 it does seem like to me okay but I can upload them next week okay and people can provide feedback up through the sixth yeah and then we would certainly discuss them in the public meetings

42:20 um sir can I just um I think that sounds fine I mean I think what we did last year with John kind of presenting his um his goals and then us kind of adding any comments worked fine and I think that sounds like what we’re gonna do here but I would just encourage all committee members to reach out to John in advance if you’ve got something that you really want to make sure that’s in there if you have comments on when he uploads so that we’re not kind of like you know so that we can have those conversations and he can adjust if necessary beforehand yeah so I guess that’s why I was you know extending it so that if we do want to make adjustments there’s just time to do it not that night but then

43:05 so we I will I will post it as a possible though um because it may be that what John shares with us there’s just a little bit of a discussion we’ll we’ll be prepared possibly to vote but also the understanding that if if there needs to be more movement on this we could push it out everything uh all right that sounds good

43:31 I would love a school yes dual enrollment is a program that we used to be included in with Salem State and several years back um they wanted to provide uh districts with more need the opportunity to have increased off options for Google enrollment so Marblehead and some other communities were dropped I Know Dan Bauer and uh Christine tchaikowski the guidance Department here uh lobbied significantly I think I have reached out to Salem State and I think that they are reviewing it for the spring semester um in terms of dual enrollment we count the credits that students get for dual

44:16 enrollment but those are not included in the calculation for GPA and so a student right now can take a Salem State class at the cost of themselves which is what we’re hoping to change in the spring and we will put it on the transcript but it is not calculated okay is there any what what do other schools do about that do some schools include it in again this is a million years ago when I was in school um but it was dual enrollment was accounted for in your GPA when we took classes we did during coven okay count it in the GPA because of access to uh courses right now they don’t and schools I think are fairly split okay on that

45:01 whether they counted in the GPA or not because of the waiting of college level course is that person so when you get into GPA calculations GPA is very important it comes down to hundredths of a point and who is the top student in the class but certainly I could have Christine and Dan come talk about the calculations are done okay yeah because it’s I would just want to have the conversation and maybe we land on it it continues to make sense to not have that accounted for but at the same time if students are pushing themselves and doing that I I also would like to make sure that they’re having that county for it as well

45:47 um thank you very much for looking into that I know that this is something I’ve wanted to to get back to for many years and I’m happy to hear that hopefully um Salem State is at a point where it might be bringing us back into the world now just to move us to reach Beyond Salem State perhaps to you know Endicott as well

46:13 I know we take several of their fellows each year um my thought would be anywhere that we have a relationship with perhaps we can do some type of let’s pass

46:31 any questions on Google do you know what we’ll know if we can do it I’ve seen somewhat non-committal to a specific date and time but are continuing to be encouraging email correspondence is the expectation that they’re reviewing it and we’ll get a response from the spring so that it could start summer fall or I the sense I’m getting is that it would start for the spring so that’s right but I don’t have to commit to that sure sure well the early bird gets the worms so if there are students that might think they want to do this familiarize yourselves with what you might want to do and be ready um because in all things I’m sure when we find out

47:16 um it’s exciting so planning for Success update yeah um just giving you kind of an overview for the year we have identified those uh priority initiatives uh the Strategic initiatives that we will uh be working on in year two um we have a lead person assigned to each of those initiatives it would be my goal that we would do regular updates to school committee on the work that’s being done Ruth uh came this summer and we developed the action of planning templates for each of these initiatives so when presentations come to school committee they have those budget drivers that are included in and they have those benchmarks of how you can see the work being done is achieving the overall that’s excellent

48:03 that’s excellent that’s excellent um and then we’re gonna I um asked that we and again I couldn’t come up with the word so I thank Lisa for kind of coming up with this diversity Equity inclusion combating incidents of hate we all know in our community that we have continued to experience uh various incidents of heat whether it’s graffiti or or just various things that that are inappropriate um and I had asked Dr Bucky to speak a little bit because I know that our district is is doing things you know whether it’s targeting what our summer reading is or having speakers come in or professional development but I think if you

48:49 are in a position where you’re hearing about this more often and you’re in the community and what you’re seeing and you know you’re reading that these are happening you might not realize that we are in fact taking action on a regular proactive basis I know Dr Bobby and I believe Emily went um to presentation that the ADL did was it this week or last week Monday it’s been Monday at Salem State so I just I was hoping you guys could talk a little bit about what proactivity we’re trying to do as a district

49:21 um timing is everything uh we actually had an author visit today uh and the village PTO when I was at their meeting it was interesting the students felt how did this author know what happened at our school and write a book so quickly about it so I’ll dish over to Nan because she was able to attend the presentation today and talk about it it was wonderful first the kids were so enamored by seeing somebody that they had read their texts so a lot of kids at the end stood in line with their books that they had brought with them for Signature from the author but it was a lot of really good conversation around incidents and how did he come up with it and based on experiences and things that

50:08 are happening in the world and trying to process things like that himself and how do you help other people understand the right way to react and behave in those situations so it was it was nice for them to be able to read a shared text so everybody had this the same understanding of what the author story was and then to to kind of talk about how that story developed and came to me and um I feel confident that the kids will still be processing tomorrow and so the conversations will continue um in the classroom and in peer groups I know my girls are really really excited this morning

50:56 um because the king of vets and Village and I believe yesterday we’re at another school in town at a charter school as well um but and which I think is great so when these kids you know do things like have soccer together or this they they have these shared experiences where they get to hear these really important messages and talk about it at the corn Dutch level but no my girls are really excited this morning going into school and they were really happy about how it went I’m not sure man someone just said this but this was the summer reading book yes yeah yeah so I thought that was so smart to have it as a summary great to see them

51:44 what could you provide yourself maybe some of the community also yeah it’s called late I forget okay um and my daughter or the k um when she got in the car and she told me about her so that was like

52:05 and if I don’t butcher it just to give you know high level it’s you know this the same general age Democrat demographic and all of a sudden graffiti starts to show up in the it’s in the school correct and so there’s a lot of parallels and it talks about you know who’s involved and how and how this really touches us all and it’s not just it makes the kids aware that it’s not it doesn’t just affect a few people yeah um I will say every year the summer reading books have been really great for what’s going on now um and I’ve always enjoyed that um so thank you for that report and then

52:50 was there anything so any big takeaways from your community on Monday yeah I I think the focus is we’re working to be proactive this year and having these conversations and not reacting that something happened so Nan and I have twice met with a national organization called Stand with us uh that has a lot of access to resources and speakers they have been working with the Marblehead high school student uh this year on acts of anti-Semitism and having conversations early on in the year I know veterans has done some shifting of their social studies curricula to address things earlier uh in the year the ADL presentation focused uh on Monday on what had happened in Danvers

53:38 and so how the legal ramifications of issues of type 9 and bias and discrimination so I think being as touch out in front of it because we can’t be rather than waiting for an incident

53:59 Kenneth by Dan and Matt in the plan for Success includes that as well

54:07 the meeting was great at night s from listening a couple things that they talked about one demand I don’t know

54:21 said how how these things are not going away the better thing just going to be more and more because they’re so cheap right now so that was pretty powerful um it’s something he talked about was Community standards I only have them at Seattle State and where most colleges um issue with someone college and I was thinking as a district we should do District provide Community standards as um you know like overarching then you can come down make sure to speech School in a classroom test there how to behave but like Community standard somehow as a district I think everyone should conduct themselves

55:10 so that was something that we talked about and they did talk a lot about media first incident and um doing a lot of work with the sports the coaches the director but of life let’s start doing that as well very special thank you for them I’m dealing with this kind of stuff yeah I would love to at some point this year um hear hear from Greg especially on the heels of what just came out of Danvers what what PD are called Chiefs at goes through if he’s going to be augmenting that at all um you know I would have to assume whatever the upswing to terrible censorship

55:56 situations like this often is there then becomes more peaky out there more more out there to get ahead of this so are there new things available new trainings um because again I think we want to make sure we talk or about what’s going on in our buildings during the school day but our extracurriculars are very very important and that you know were instilling in these students and these players how to build each other up um and how to move move forward and be stronger as a team rather than you know you know

56:42 tearing one down to get yourself yourself that also they talked about training captains

56:52 because it’s great to train the adults but also the players and just knowing what support they have yeah you know exactly remind if something does what support they have do we require any type of training any type of stance you know commitment to standards for any of our captains and I don’t expect you to be able to necessarily answer this off the cough so it’s okay if you need to speak to Greg and get back to us but it is a a question I think that it’s their credit MIAA has been pretty proactive uh in this Arena of providing um training for captains um I’m not sure if our student cabinets have participated in it or not but I know at the state level uh they have

57:39 done trainings for captains on leadership so okay because I would I would like to know what that training entails and possibly make it a requirement to being a captain I think that’s what danversy that start yeah and let’s be proactive on it I don’t want instead of react

58:08 that brings us to finance and organizational support in everyone’s packet there was scheduled bills so I will ask for a motion to approve the identified schedule of bills totaling 459 837.50 Subway Subway second

58:32 okay roll call Emily Berry yes sir hold absent Allison Taylor yes Megan Taylor yes and Fairfax yeah zero um school committee and or discussion items we have on here our goal setting discussion we had started a couple years ago I believe Megan had brought this to us that she had wanted us to set um school committee goals it is something that had not been done in the past um and we want to talk about is this something that we’d like to do again to share my assumption is yes but you know I want to make sure that everybody is on board with that and Are there specific goal areas that we want to talk about and identify

59:26 um um people want to think about that a little more and we can put that on a future agenda if anybody comes up with a specific goal that they would like included in the Dropbox um or or theme that we can do that for the next meeting as well sometimes sir sorry can I just add something um I think we should do goals I think they are important to keep us accountable as well I think the one thing we should make a real effort to do is similar to John make sure that they’re smart goals and then have it make sure that we are having a checkpoint Midway through the year um because I think that’s one thing that we didn’t necessarily do previously and I think it’s important um so that we can make sure that we’re on track or if we need to adjust we can do so

1:00:18 the measurable the measurable oh so yeah so

1:00:27 DL thing or the meeting they talked about school committees and what are they doing this and learning how to respond and what to say and get trained on some di work but also when things happen what can’t say what you can’t say what

1:00:54 because I’ve seen different trainings they have but I haven’t seen one specifically for committees I know m-a-s-s does a lot for superintendents I would assume that masc has subdivision maybe Dorothy all right we can ask Sarah masd has definitely done trainings on it before I know when I first joined I sat in on one of the conference ones so I’m sure you can get those slides from them they I’ll have a look through my stuff too because I might still have them on the look that would be great and if you find those slides um and a lot of times masc reuses some of their stuff if they don’t have the updated one we can we can put that in our Dropbox as well um um

1:01:42 so that brings us to subcommittee and liaison updates um in your Dropbox was a presentation that Nan and cerebral gonna do on the curriculum support um Sarah was unable to attend at the last minute uh she fell ill so she had asked that we table that which I think she’s done a lot of work I think we should um table that until the next meeting and then have you guys present then um I just uh I went back and watched the Beverly um school committee presentation or their committee and I was extremely helpful um just to get an understanding of what and

1:02:28 um what you can get out of it so I if everyone can just I only listen to like 15 minutes of it just to kind of get the idea yeah that’s really it’s helpful to um we’ll come back we’ll talk about it but I know again I I know that um Sarah and Jen are going to be in a much better position to come to that discussion so um so we had a our first Finance meeting as well as our first facilities meeting yesterday two days ago I feel like this is a wash um we talked about uh for first was our facilities meeting we talked about the work that’s being done um on our Capital Improvement items those

1:03:17 are underway or have started whereas the groups we’ve started those discussion points one of the items is um we’re unable to enter into the msba program for the high school they’re very strict 30 years or older anything beyond that they will not even look at and they will not seem to feel process so the high school route is off the table for that the vet’s roof is still can potentially still be in play um Todd is working on estimates what has come in so far I don’t know if I can just

1:04:01 very low low number to the point where it would make no sense to send a project by at least a year to go through the msba project process to have a minimal reimbursement um so we need more estimates to come in for that before we can really decide if you’ll want to put and play the msba but if they stay in line with what has already come in it just it does not with escalation costs would outlay any msba reimbursement it would not make any fiscal sense to put off that repair nor would we want to continue then um encourage them to our build uh the high school roof is over the threshold I believe of

1:04:46 um I think the state threshold or needing no PM is a million dollars were over that so we would require an OPM on this project Michelle is working on that process um to to put out a proposal to get some bids on that um we will just run that project through our existing facilities committee um with the with the addition of Dan Bauer it’s a high school um it’s not anywhere near the school of the building project that the brown school was so we don’t need a giant committee for that um so that will just you know go through go through the facilities

1:05:32 um we also talked about how if we’re following our facilities master plan plan with Fidelity which we’ve all made a commitment we will not do any more to bird maintenance that

1:05:49 our annual asks will be more substantial for the capital overrides in the past we might have gotten 160 170 000 um Emily you did a lot of work with us last year on establishing that Master Plan you know that each year those are those are big numbers we’re talking you know million two million so which if you talk to anybody in the facilities management management industry for the size of our properties that is exactly what you would expect it is not an outlier at all so we’re really in line um so we’re going to need to start having larger Town conversations about that we need to have an annual investment in our Capital asks to keep up to date on you know our buildings our

1:06:36 technology we were very fortunate with that cares act money that came in because we’ve been deferring technology for so many years that when the pandemic first um hit we we were woefully ill prepared to handle that um and if we didn’t have a influx of Sr money we would have not been able to educate our kids quite honestly so we need to keep having these continual Investments and upkeep and and just say where we need to be with that stuff um Segways into the finance meeting we basically were talking about we’ll use the seminal structure of the years past we’ll come up with our calendar um we need some dates from the town side

1:07:24 to kind of fill in our information next um one thing that we talked about doing slightly different this year was um where the leadership team has come two three years ago they came in February last year they came in December which we decided might be a little early but we’re going to meet that in the middle probably the January range um what we decided was John is going to have the leadership team come to our meeting at the end of probably October so that right when they’re about to start that work where Michelle hands out information and they really start digging in with their staffs on the budget we’ll talk to them

1:08:10 prior and ask for kind of give our Direction what we want as a school today Jonathan said you know he knows of other districts that do this in this way where we give them my words are family but budget directives um so we’ll try to do that for you know high level for instance you know that when you present your budget please have a narrative at a state and I’m just you know coming up with this one that states how does this affect student work and student achievement um so so it’s not just the line item and the budget that they’re we’re giving them a directive on how we want those narratives presented I think it will make that ultimate

1:08:56 presentation in January much more fluid and if there’s areas of focus the school committee decides they would like um that would be the time to do it versus coming back at the tail end of it and saying well we were really hoping we see we’re going to see more growth in these areas I think it’s better to tell them up front what we’re looking for so that when they present their work it’s um more productive conversation so um if there are one of the discussion points was that as budget Liaisons myself and Allison we’re going to do a working meeting that would obviously be a posted public meeting uh what what those directives were but I’d also like if if we want to have that as a workshop

1:09:42 of the larger committee I am perfectly happy to have that be a workshop of a larger committee um so give some thought to that and if you if you know right now that’s what you want let me know if not you can just shoot me an email uh it’s not it would be deliberations just saying I would like that larger meeting and then I’ll find a date that works for all of us to have that that Workshop if you will to come up with those threats

1:10:12 is that given questions on that or Megan did she follow

1:10:27 okay okay so the pressure’s on him I just think it’s more productive and tell them what we’re looking for oh do you have a sense if you would rather hear the directives that we kind of come out with and then tweet them or if you want to promote it yeah I don’t have a preference one way or another um

1:10:56 oh like oh like the only thing is if you come up with them but then you don’t like drastically different but then also like and I don’t think we need we should not be getting granular right they should be you know hot like a high level like we’re not going to tell Stephen that we want him to I don’t even know what I would tell you soon

1:11:31 but maybe if we know that we would like to start to move closer to being a one-to-one that could be something

1:11:43 give it some thought I’m gonna get back it’s fine it’s a lot of pressure okay

1:11:51 um all right so do you have any feedback on any of your disease policy we scheduled our meeting for not next Tuesday but the following Tuesday okay then I think we’re gonna do it second Tuesday of every month okay try to get on that schedule um

1:12:20 and then I met with um Keisha Johnson who’s our New Mexico director for last week uh just to introduce myself uh be careful see how she’s doing and she seems to really you know she came in and just started

1:12:43 digging in and learning and it was really exciting to just like talk to our shoes really good not what she does she’s like out with the kids she’s playing basketball with a student she’s an opening to every school meeting all the children or the family she’s really trying to build those relationships which is what

1:13:07 so yeah so it was really nice to um and we talked about having her come to some school committee meetings to kind of give us updates um and she said that she’d love to do that um and I think that would be good just to

1:13:26 put her on the agenda so she can anytime she wants to go just let me know yeah because there’s a lot of things that she’s going to be doing she has some real great ideas okay okay sounds good um so that brings us to Forum topics in dates discussion now we had hoped um that John was going to be able to use thought Exchange to to glean what our topic should be we were going to put a question out to the community what would you like to what what discussions would you like to have um because of some things going on in District in town the in-service on that had to be canceled so

1:14:11 we’re a little bit it’s happening Friday okay so

1:14:20 I’m I would really I was really really hoping that we could have a forum sometime in October um we may have to percent to November depending on how quickly you can get that got exchange out um so just do you think that it’s possible that you might be able to get that out in the next week okay um because I I would like to know what the topic I don’t want us to just arbitrarily pick something I would like to know if the community wants to talk to us about stomach um um is there a sense of if you guys would like to see the first one in October or November

1:15:05 November November I think it would be nice to see the first one the last video October I mean we get could get the thought exchange email I’m assuming was that through email on by the 30th and then give people

1:15:25 I feel like people that want to respond to right away um give them a week to respond okay and then so maybe we’ll look at that last week yeah um I know that we wouldn’t have it on a Friday anyway but I know there’s a big District event on that Friday the that goes underground school yeah Monster Mash is the 28th so I I just want to make sure that we’re cognizant when we book it I want to make it as accessible to people as possible I don’t want people to feel like they’re they’re double booked um

1:16:20 I think if we can commit to having the email up by the 30th responses in by the seventh we can still commit to a date we may not know the topic right we could do that um

1:16:36 I can commit to doing it that week I want to make sure that they can be there as well yep um so I’ll just we’ll commit to that week and then I’ll I’ll go into people’s schedules but for anybody in the public who will be having you Forum the week of the 24th um

1:16:56 Tuesday Wednesday given the Thursday’s monster lunch um all right so I’ve more to come on that um I under oh so another update there was some concerning question about new business and correspondence I reached out to Dorothy Professor I spoke with Dorothy and I’ve been playing phone tag with um Colby who is our attorney so Dorothy’s feedback on the new business items first of all um she had said different committees do it different ways some committees have an item on their agenda that just says something to be backed up items people

1:17:42 can bring up that they want on future agendas she says some just do it under new business and and it’s really how we want to do it to me it makes sense if there’s something someone would like in a future agenda to bring it up under the business and say you know this we’ve received a lot of Correspondence on

1:18:07 XYZ can we have this on a future agenda um not bringing up necessarily for for discussion because we don’t want to you know we want to give our Administration time to prepare a presentation and do the research and give us the actual information make a fruitful conversation but um I personally think that under new business it’s appropriate to ask for if there’s something wrong and at any time anybody can call me or I think where it came up where we’ve gotten several emails on the topic earlier of the day of a meeting and then that someone said obviously I’m getting a lot of emails to talk about XYZ so that was the feedback I got from Dorothy was we can label it something

1:18:54 else in addition but I’m not inclined to just add another agenda item there if it’s here and then as correspondence goes she says she’s seeing committees um enter none she’s seen committees enter in every single email they get um it kind of runs the gamut so that I’m waiting to hear back from Colby on um and I hope to be able to connect with her so um

1:19:25 because really the my thought process is I would not be inclined to to include it for everyone if someone doesn’t ask so I do think some people email the school committee because they have a concern but don’t want the entire I I just want to put it out there so everyone knows everything you email us everything you send to us is a public record it it it’s at any point available to anyone in the public do not think by emailing us is a private conversation it is not um so I don’t want anybody to think that is but at the same time including the correspondence packet you know if a parent emails that they’re concerned about a policy and they might not want be comfortable

1:20:11 pushing it out having it be able to be foilable and pushing it out in the community are two different things so that’s why I’m hesitant to just say anything anybody emailed us gets pushed in there also that could be a lot so yeah so some weeks it could be um but at the same time I think some people want what they have to say to be part of memorialized record some people can’t get to meetings some people um aren’t comfortable public speaking but are very well written and might want their top might want them to be part of the packet they want their voice heard on the topic they’re more formal way so I I do want to give them the opportunity for that as well if people

1:20:57 want to request you know please enter this under four seconds um again if if people feel strongly on that I would like to hear I think if someone specifically says please enter this as correspondence then absolutely be included under the assumption that we all know you know we’ve cleared up any confusion anything you email yeah regardless of what you say or ask is included as a public record it’s just not going to be in the packet it goes on the website but it’s linked to yeah we do get some emails that in the past have gone your correspondence just like so business ones like for instance someone emails us that they want the stained glass windows

1:21:44 that absolutely should be in there um we get I get ones from masc that come to me that really should be disseminated to everybody that should be right um business one okay business ones that are asking us to take action absolutely whether they request it or not if they’re asking for Action like that then or like a vote or something then it should but as far as the you know I don’t like the dress code and this is why I don’t like the dress code if someone wants that to be part of it then fine but they may have a very personal reason why they don’t want to push it out into the public interview as well but again having that you email us into public record um all right so I think we put that to that now that being said is there a new business

1:22:30 business business and people look at me because I’ve always left does it no I don’t have anything to say and that well knows why I don’t constantly have it now

1:22:42 um correspondence I that there was nothing that requested to be in here and I don’t think I had anything or anybody um um so that brings us at age 23. thanks to Jordan