School Committee: December 19, 2024

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

0:02 Okay. I have us live streamed. I have everybody on as co-hosts. Let me just double check the attendees. Okay. I’m gonna call us to order. It’s six oh two. Welcome everyone. Marblehead school committee meeting on January, I’m sorry, December 19th. Um, 2024. Welcome. Um, we are doing this in webinar format, which is a little bit different. So for the folks that are there on Zoom, um, you are there as attendees, which is a little bit different. Um, I will be in a minute or two or in a moment, um, opening up for public comment. So if you are on Zoom and you’d like to make, um, a comment, you need to raise your hand. There should be a toggle switch that allows you

0:49 to raise your hand and I can call. The recording is lost. No, it is ‘cause we’re live streamed, so, okay. Um, and then for folks here in the audience, if you would like to speak a public comment, just if you wouldn’t mind, um, putting your, uh, name on the list and, um, giving us your name when you, when you come forward. Thank you. Um, okay. So let’s start with the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

1:14 I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Sorry. Um, do we have any commendations? Um, I have a couple. Um, so first of all, I wanted to offer accommodation to our performing arts staff. Um, we just finished up a week of multiple performances that range from band, choral orchestra as, as well as the Veterans School did their, um, annual musical as well. Um, they were all wonderful. It was, it was so great to see everybody coming together,

2:02 um, in a very celebratory way. Um, the students themselves played beautifully, sang beautifully, um, and it really seeing, you know, the comradery and the joy and the students’ faces, um, it kind of brought me back to what we often say is it’s not, uh, every, every kid doesn’t run in the doors of the school for, you know, their language arts or their math or their science curriculum. Although some, some definitely do. Some it’s sports that get them in the door, some it’s, um, plays and in others it’s performing arts or visual arts. And it’s really a great way to see how different kids find their home in different places.

2:48 Um, so I just wanna commend all the staff that worked, um, on those, on, on those productions, and to thank them and thank the students for performing so well. Um, I also wanted to give accommodation to Alicia Benjamin, um, at our facilities meeting this week. She had zoomed in and I had, uh, you know, when we were prepping the tech for that, I had said to her, do you need me to give you rights so you can share a screen? She said, no, I’m just here to show that the town supports the school and to show that we’re all working together. And I thought that was so great because it’s a different message than we have received at different, um, points in the past. If you go back several years. And it really shows that we have gotten to a point where the towns and the schools have come together

3:35 in a collaborative way. And I’m just, I’m really grateful for that. Um, there’ll be more on those updates and actually a correction too that came outta that meeting, um, that we’ll be, we’ll talk about later on. But it was just, it was just great to see that those two parties coming together to work. So thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Yes, I’d like to Brian, I’d like to thank Allison McMahon. She’s the person who’s been making our school committee minutes, and I think she’s done a terrific job. They’re the most comprehensive that I’ve seen in years, so I just wanted to thank her for all the hard work she does. Wonderful. Done a great job. Okay, John? Yep. Uh, I’d like to commend, uh, KJ Johnson, our METCO director. Um, K’s done a wonderful job of, uh, making sure our METCO students are, are feeling welcomed in our schools.

4:22 Um, we have, you know, some new, new students this year and, and students that have been with us for a long time. Um, you know, she and I meet regularly and, you know, she set up a luncheon here at the high school with myself and the Meco students, uh, this past week. And, um, it’s really great to see the relationship she’s built with the students. And I think, um, she’s working, I think, pretty well with all the, uh, principals around, you know, making sure that all of our, our Boston based students are, um, getting attended to the, in the way they need. And I just thought I’d, uh, take a moment to thank her for that. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. Okay. Um, all good accommodations. Great. I’m gonna move on to public comment. I’m gonna start with folks here in the room. Do you wanna go ahead? Hi, welcome.

5:11 Okay,

5:15 Good evening. My name is Deborah Noah and my child is in the ninth grade at Marblehead High School. As a proud member of the Jewish community, I am completely opposed to the possible idea of the scheduling of makeup days on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. In fact, I find that the suggestion of having days made up on Saturdays due to the teacher strike offensive and should have never been a consideration just as Sundays were not offered as an option on the survey out of respect for the Christian Sabbath. So should Saturdays never have been given as an even possible option for makeup days out of respect

6:00 to all of us that are members of the Jewish community. In addition to being a parent of a Marblehead school student, I am also a Hebrew school teacher at Sherod Haiyam, which holds a Shabbat school every Saturday. The purpose of having a Shabbat school is it allows for the strengthening of our Jewish community where entire families can pray and learn together. By assigning makeup days on Saturdays, you will be directly impact in the Jewish life of our students, families and community at Shira Haiyam and beyond. On another note, I wanna comment on a statement made

6:46 by a member of the school committee. At the prior school committee meeting, it was stated that only families should have had the opportunity to complete the survey since it was not the families that created this situation. I completely agree with this opinion and question the reason why this did not occur. Finally, in summary, Saturdays the Jewish Sabbath, our Shabbat should not be considered as a possible option to make up days that were lost due to a teacher’s strike. For it is the very center of Jewish life. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you for coming.

7:33 Anybody else for public comment in the room? Okay. I’m gonna go check anyone attending as online participants or attendees. I hope we’ve got one. Okay. Hang on. Is it Yael? Mm-hmm. Lemme see.

8:00 I don’t have her. Can you allow her to talk? Great. Yes. Thank you. I don’t have her. There you go. It’s, go ahead. Okay. Yael, can you hear us? Can yes, can you hear me? Yeah. Yes ma’am. Can we Turn it up? Thank you so much. Should I speak a little bit louder? That’s great. Right there is perfect. Thank you, Yael. Okay, welcome. Thank you. My name is Yael again, and I have a son who is a sophomore in the middle school, I’m sorry, in the high school, and a daughter in eighth grade at vet school. Um, I, I am Jewish, as many of you know, um, when thinking about making up the days,

8:47 I think that if we have to do it on a weekend, then it should be distributed equally among the religions. Um, Saturday is a day where our community gets together at synagogues in the morning. We have bat mitzvahs and bar mitzvahs that are coming up in the springtime. Um, if we do this four Saturdays in the next few months will cause I think, a lot of stretch in our community. Um, and if, again, if it need be, I think it would be best to do it equally. IE two days on Saturdays, 2 2, 2 Saturdays

9:34 and two Sundays that, that way we don’t have one group of of religious people in our town who are suffering, you know, due to, um, the makeup days. Um, I do understand that we do have to sacrifice. I mean, there are going to be kids that are going to have cheer meets soccer tournaments on the weekends. Everybody might miss something. Um, um, but, but putting the bulk of the people that are actually sacrificing their religious day on the Jewish people, I don’t think is something that we should do in Marblehead, especially in our community, that we have between 20 or 25% Jewish people in Marblehead.

10:20 Um, I also do wanna take this time, it was my understanding, and maybe I’m wrong, that the union has been pushing makeup days on Saturdays, not only in Marblehead, but also in other towns. Um, there, there has been an agenda from specific people in specifically the MTA in the unions to push anti-Semitic agenda, um, to make it hard on Jewish teachers. And now I guess they’re doing it to Jewish students to participate. Um, and either MTA, um, sessions or just really making it hard for Jewish teachers and Jewish students to, um, to take any action.

11:06 And I would encourage all the teachers that are listening to me to please, in the next few years, few months, please be active in the curriculum or anything that the union does per, specifically about Judaism or Israel or anything like this. Because there is an agenda, and it is our responsibility as parents and as teachers in our school to ensure that this does not infect our school. So again, if we have to do it on a weekend, I think it would be best if we divide it equally among, among the religions. Thank you. Thank You. Y’all appreciate it. I also have now, um,

11:55 Michael Schwartz, I believe is Rabbi Schwartz has his hand up. Yes. Welcome. Yes, welcome Rabbi. Thank you. Um, I just wanted to add in addition to the, um, the issues of principal, um, that make having, um, school on a Saturday problematic. And I think those same issues the principal carry through to Sundays as well. So I, in that point, I disagree with, um, Yale. Again. Um, I just wanted to, to also underscore what are the most moving parts as from what I could tell from the teachers about their concerns during the strike was their concern for individual students that no one should suffer from, you know, lack of, um,

12:43 lack of teachers and, and the things that they were fighting for. And it seems to me on Saturdays, the impact on individual students could be huge. If you think of a 13-year-old, uh, who’s gonna be studying to become Bar Mitzvah and needs to attend, uh, school needs to attend services and preparation, and all their families and their friends who are also from school, uh, being unable to attend, or that this poor kid would have to have their Bar Mitzvah without all their friends, I think would just be devastating for a child and for their family. Um, moreover, on that point too, I think it’s also, uh, back to the principal issue, um, a challenge that,

13:29 huge challenge that part of the, um, what makes our community is the informal getting together people. And that happens on weekends, whether it’s soccer, uh, games, uh, whether it’s church, whether it’s synagogue, whether it’s something like a Bar Mitzvah where people come together. And lastly, uh, back to, uh, you know, questions of impact on individuals. Um, I, you guys are the experts, so you would know better, but it seems to me, and having lived in a place where there is school six days a week, that is debilitating on children week after week after week, not to mention families. Um, so that would be hugely challenging for all the students. And I think they would be better served by having a shorter break, uh, in April

14:16 or whatever the other options were. We’re adding days to the end of the year. I know it’s a very complicated issue of managing the days. Um, so hats off to you guys for being able to, to work through that. I know it’s tough, um, but please, uh, consider all these principled issues as well as the impact on individual students as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, rabbi. I think, ma’am, did you have your name? Welcome.

14:48 Thank you very much.

14:52 I dunno,

15:02 I think I muted it from here. Steven, Sorry. My name is Janice Knight. I’m the director of, uh, the Center for Jewish Learning at Congregation Shi. Can’t hear her. Oh, in swamp Scott, Hang on one second. Just one minute. Sure. Did I mute the wrong place? Pardon Me? We just think we muted you. One second. They can’t hear you. One second. Ms. Knight. I muted. The unlicensed room was at the wrong place.

15:31 Okay. Sorry. I, it was being helpful and I muted you by Accident. Thanks Ms. Knight. Not the first time. Um, my name is Janice Knight. I’m the Director for the Center, uh, for Jewish Education at Congregation Shi and Swamp Scott. I am, however, a Marblehead resident. 40% of the students in my school, which meet on Saturday mornings, are Marblehead residents. I really do understand the, the difficult decisions that have to be made, uh, regarding our students’ education, but I really strongly urge that we not do it at the expense of the Jewish students, of my students. Our supplemental religious goal is there for children

16:17 to make community, to learn about their heritage, to attend, uh, services with their parents, to celebrate together. And as part of a very small minority, it’s really a critical part of their learning and growing. And to lose that even for five weeks, would absolutely crush my program. So I appreciate the opportunity to have to speak with you and to share my views, and I truly hope that we can come to some sort of solution that will benefit all of our students and not unduly impact one community or another. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Knight. Thank you for coming. Okay. Just double check one more time. Let’s know, I don’t see any hands raised, Steven.

17:07 I don’t see anybody. Okay. Great. Okay. Thank you everyone. Appreciate everyone’s comments and for taking the time to come out or to come online. Appreciate it very much. Um, as you know, this is an agenda item later on in the schedule, um, for tonight. So we will be talking about that. Um, topic, uh, let’s move on to student representative El Benedetto. Welcome. Thank you. Hello. These past few weeks of school have been hectic, but good as we get back into the swing of things and get ready to go and break on Tuesday. Freshman seminars have been up and running. And Junior Parent slash Guardian night is Wednesday, January 15th at 6:00 PM As Mrs. Fox said, the music department had a very successful winter concert last Thursday. And I’d like to thank again, um, Ms. Micum, Mr. Sceo and Ms.

17:52 Frees. Winter sports have been going very well. Girls Basketball is three and oh. Boys Hockey is two and oh, track has had two meets so far and has another meet tonight against Peabody and Gymnastics has their first meet coming up right after break. Additionally, girls basketball will be playing at TD Garden on January 11th at 1130, which is very exciting. And lastly, Mr. Wheeler has been organizing captain’s leadership councils during Magic Blocks, which are excellent resources for sports captains to better their leadership skills. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Yeah. Um, and if this is a question for Mr. Wheeler, let me know. Okay. Is there a central place where all the sporting events and events at the high school, um, are listed ahead of time? Like if someone in the community wanted to come

18:38 and join in and watch something? Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s athletics calendar. Okay. Where there all the events are posted. Okay. I’ll take a look. Excuse. And you can subscribe to that. So it’ll go, it’ll put it right on your own calendar as well. Okay. Perfect. Google Calendar or, Yeah, I just know it’s not on the district calendar. When I like click on it, it doesn’t say to me. Think we can link that over. Yeah, we’ll Link that. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you. We link That. Awesome. Thank you. I’m gonna move on to district updates. Superintendent ou. Thank you Madam Chairwoman. Um, district updates, um, I won’t go through the athletics. Ella did a nice job of doing that, so I can take that on my updates. Um, firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Marblehead Public Schools community for their support over the past six months, even though there have been a plethora of issues that have transpired in my short tenure, I have felt welcomed by our staff, parents

19:25 and community members, as well as supported by the committee. I appreciate the hard work of our administrative team and our educators and look forward to moving forward as an educational community. So I just wanted to say thank you. Uh, tonight you’ll hear our MCAS reporting from Ms. Ferrera and our principals. The presentations are meant to shine a light on the positive aspects, while also identifying areas of growth and development that will need to be addressed via specific strategies and interventions. So we look forward to hearing from, um, all our admins in regard to MCAS. Speaking of MCAS, although MCAS will no longer be utilized as a graduation requirement, it will still be administered in used for accountability reporting. Students who have passed the MCAS this year, including those who passed the retake that was just recently administered, will have met the competency determination those who have not passed this year.

20:10 And for students in subsequent years. What constitutes for fulfilling competency determination becomes a local decision. The DIS district has to determine with the school committee approval, what requirements students need to complete in order to demonstrate acquisition of identified skills. Competency determination is important to note that keeping the passing of the MCAS in place as a way to demonstrate competency is not an option. Um, work has already be begun to begin drafting a proposal, and this discussion will be continued shortly with the committee so that requirements for demonstrating competency can be decided upon. Um, we met with, um, Julia, myself, uh, Michelle Carlson, Lindsey Donaldson have already met to come up with some thoughts about how we move forward in identifying the competency determination.

20:56 And I’ll leave it at that for now ‘cause it’s gonna be a bigger discussion we’re gonna have to have at one of the next two, um, school committee meetings. Um, the discussion regarding makeup days, we’ll also take place in a little bit. Um, but I did wanna be clear regarding a rumor that is circulating. There is no such thing as if there’s less than 50% student attendance that make up day won’t count. That’s floating around. It’s not true. I’ve talked to Dessi directly, Rob Curtin, who is the one that is the one that manages that, and he said that it’s not a thing. So basically any of the instructional days that we’re making up are counted as the mandated one out of the mandated 180 days. So, you know, we expect staff and students to be here for the instruction, um, on those days. Uh, having some questions about the roof leaks here at the high school, um, with the excess,

21:41 and we’re gonna talk a little bit about this later on when we do an update, um, from the subcommittee, I believe. Um, but with the excessive rain and the, and the driving winds of the storm, um, this past, this past week, um, some of the areas that have been already been identified have been exacerbated. And some new areas have, have appeared with, uh, with the driving rain and the, the way the, the water gets pushed around. Um, you know, we know that the, the roof is failing and, and we’re aware of that. Our facility and maintenance workers, um, address the leaks as do our roofing company when the leaks appear. So there’s areas where we might have to cut out some tiles or some, um, you know, pieces of the roof to make sure that, that the water’s draining and we can get in there and dry out the areas. So, um, we don’t have other issues. And they also get up there and they patch the roof. Um, and the, and the roofing company comes in, in patches where we, you know, our, our our, uh, maintenance

22:28 and facility, uh, people can’t. Um, and we’ll continue to remediate those trouble spots and do so in ongoing manner as we move forward with, uh, hopefully the roof roof replacement, um, in fairly short order. Um, I will do a broader update hopefully in January, but I thought it was important to let folks know that the independent investigation into allegations of antisemitism is still taking place. Um, I did a brief update early on. Um, there have been many people that have been interviewed and many more people that have been, um, identified as needing to be interviewed throughout the investigation. I’ve been in constant contact with Allison Ker, who is doing the investigation for the district, um, as she navigates current and former staff members in their interviews. Um, it’s, it’s become a, you know, can you, you know, e introduce me this person so I can touch base with them

23:14 and then follow up with them and have the interview. Some folks did, um, um, decide to have lawyers present, which always exacerbates the situation, elongates the process. And I just wanted to share that. Um, ‘cause it’s important that, uh, folks know that it’s still, it’s still in process. It’s not something that has fallen off the off the burner in any way, shape or form. So due diligence is the primary factor and the length of time that it’s taking. And for some of those reasons I just mentioned, um, and fi well, almost finally, there is a narrative that people do not want to come to Marblehead public Schools. So I felt it prudent to share how we are doing with hiring staff, whereas we did have a significant amount of openings to start the year. Um, I came on board on July one as did a, a, a, a large amount of our admin team. And, um, to date, we’ve hired 94 staff.

24:01 That’s 94 staff since July one, which I think is pretty impressive. Um, that’s, uh, including six just prior to during and since the strike. So, um, I just share that ‘cause I think it’s important to know that people still want to come here and work in Marblehead. People still understand the good education that is happening in our schools and the educators that are passionate about the education and our administrative team that are making sure that our kids are being, um, a accounted for and made sure that their, their education is, is, is, uh, is up to, is up to par. So I just wanna share that, um, there is a shortage of teachers and administrators everywhere. So the previous numbers of applicants for open positions is no longer a reasonable barometer, um, for pre present and subsequent numbers

24:46 of applicants for vacancies. There’s a, there’s a lot of conversation about, well, we used to get a bunch of, bunch of applicants. That’s not happening anywhere. So what we do is we look to see who are the right people to fit the positions we have open, and we do that to the best of our abilities so we have the right people in the classrooms and in in, in the schools to serve our children. So I just wanted to share that. I thought that was important. And finally, I’d like to take a moment to wish our community a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season. Thank you. Take care and be well’s all I have. Thank your Time. Appreciate a lot of good information. Thanks. Um, okay. I’m gonna move on to our consent agenda, consent action and agenda items. The first is our schedule of bills. Um, Jen, Can I just ask one thing? Sure. We’re gonna make sure to update the calendar too, John, right? The one that’s online and, and maybe send that out as an attachment. So

25:32 After we, after this evening, when once it’s voted on by the school committee, my, my, um, plan is to send out an updated, um, email to both staff and to parents and community members around what the decision is, um, what the days make up days look like, uh, what the attendance issues are. And then, um, also an updated calendar that we need to, we just need to update one more time, um, based upon tonight’s discussion. That is my plan. And I’ll either go out tomorrow or Monday. So that’s my plan. Okay. Thank You. You’re welcome. What else? Okay, great. Um, so I’ll move on to the, uh, schedule of bills. I’m looking for a motion to approve the schedule of bills that were in. That was in your, um, drive. Um, it shows a total of $535,906

26:17 and 83 cents in bills. I’m looking for a motion. So moved by. Sarah, do I have a second? Second, Brian, any discussion, questions, comments, concerns? Okay, I’ll call for a vote. Um, uh, Allison Taylor

26:35 In favor By an ODA in favor, Sarah Fox. In favor, Jen Schaffner in favor. Four to zero. Okay. Uh, the next item we have is the North Shore Collaborative Annual Plan approval also is in your drive. Um, John, I don’t know if you wanna take a quick second. Yeah. I could Take, just highlight what this is. Yeah, very briefly. So, so we belong to North, um, shore Educational Consortium. Um, and as as such, it’s the same as a, an educational collaborative. So they need to make sure that our school committee as a member of the consortium, um, votes on the annual report. Now they’re always a year behind. So this is the 2020 3 24 annual report. I share that in the drive. Um, it just really goes through, it talks about, um, the different programming and their, their, um, where they are with their funding and, and their, and their financial updates.

27:22 Um, I, I’m a part of the board. I, I’ve, I meet with the, um, NEC board. Um, we’ve gone through this, uh, this report several times. Uh, they’re doing some capital improvements and things that are part of the part of, um, in the report. And everything looks really, uh, really great. Uh, Fran is, uh, the, the executive director is great. Um, she’s been doing it for a long time, and I’m really happy with, uh, you know, the way that n um, serves, uh, the communities that they serve. So, you know, I can go through specifics if you want, but it’s just really, it’s really more that we, by regulation, we have to vote here at the school committee. I have a quick question, just because we are approving this document as a whole. Mm-hmm. And, um, I just wanna confirm that any images were okayed

28:07 and that they don’t violate anybody’s ferpa. ‘cause these, these are, are these are special education person? Yes. So, so typically what happens is, um, when, when, uh, consortiums and educational collaborators put pictures in there, they’re not always the kids from the consortium. So they, they’re, sometimes it’s Stock photos, they’re just random Okay. Stock photos. And if they’re not stock photos, they absolutely have the, um, I just wanted to make sure before we approve Place. It’s definitely Okay. Probably either a combination of both or one or the other. Okay. But there’s definitely consent ‘cause I had that same question. Okay. And do we wanna Mention just in general, just for the, for the public, um, consumption? The North Shore Education Consortium is, um, uh, Yeah. So, so they’re, so they’re, yeah. So they’re basically an education collaborative. They provide, um, services for students

28:54 who have special education needs that may be greater than what we might be able to provide within our school district at whatever grade level for a plethora of reasons. So, um, they generally, most consortiums or collaboratives have specific programming for children who may, you know, have, have just, we’ve exhausted every option that we can within the district. And the best, uh, educational placement for them would be within the, um, consortium, uh, based upon their, you know, the way they staff things differently to, to a degree, um, the expertise level that they have and the resources they have. A, a lot of times it’s like kind of a level up from, um, from public school, um, uh, you know, programming. But, um, you know, that, that’s why kids get to the consortium. Uh, but it, you know, and then, and then what happens is as soon as they step in the,

29:40 the doors of the consortium, the plan is always to get them back into the district. So we, we put things into place to say like, okay, we’re, we’re, we’re, you’re taking care of the child and you’re making sure the educational needs are being met, but we’re also working to get them back into the child’s district. Like right away it’s kind of part of the, in, you know, intake to, to kind of get them back to their least restrictive environment. Does that make Sense? Yeah. And the location, it looks like there’s a couple of locations for their programs. The main one that I know I’m familiar with is the one in Beverly. And this one serves most of the communities on the North Shore. Most of the communities in Essex County of students in Essex County. So I just think it’s important, the actual report, which is actually quite good. Yeah. I read as I read through it the other day, um, I suggest folks take a look when you get a chance. It will be available in our package of information just to see, you know, the programs that are available.

30:27 Um, and um, and it does include the budget and the cost associated because we are one of the communities that participates and contributes. Yeah. And, and if you do go look at the report again, it’s from 2324. So the names that may be in there, like, my name’s not in there ‘cause I wasn’t in, but there’s other names that are not accurate now. But other than that, the, uh, all the numbers are are, are good and solid. Okay. So I am looking for, um, a motion to approve the North Shore, uh, consortium annual plan approval, North Shore Collaborative annual plan approval. So Moved. Think it’s Consortium. Consortium. It’s, I had the, sorry, north Shore Educational Consortium. It’s a North Shore Educational Consortium. Okay. Annual plan approval. I’m looking for Motion. So Moved. Okay. And a second. Seconded Brian. Okay. Um, any other discussion, comments, questions, concerns?

31:14 Okay, I’m gonna do a roll call. I’m gonna start with you Allison

31:20 In favor. Brian OTA in favor, Sarah Fox. In favor, Jen Schaffner in favor. So that is four to zero. Thank you. Okay. We’re gonna move on to the school committee communication and discussion items. Um, one question I wanna just throw out to the committee for your consideration. Um, we do have both the MCAS and the FY 25 financial update coming up is the first two items. Um, and then communications, um, presentation. You given some of the public comment, I didn’t know if it would perhaps be the will of the committee to move the discussion of the school calendar up to this point in the agenda. Or would you like us to continue? I would like to see d, e and F, which all pertain to the calendar and the change in Des moved to now, so that, um, anybody who is, um, geared for that

32:08 or whatever, if, if they have other things they need to get to, they, they may do so. Okay. Brian, your thoughts? Yeah, fine Allison.

32:18 Yeah, that’s fine. Okay, great. Thank you. Appreciate that. Appreciate the consideration of the committee. So let’s move, um, John, we’re going to just, we’ll cover those items and then go back. That’s fine. I just, yeah, I just wanna be mindful of everybody, but that’s Fine. Yeah, I am. I think because I think, I Think these will Okay, that’s fine. So, um, quickly, um, or not quickly, but Allison, you had, um, uh, very kindly gone forward and helped organize with John the survey of parents and staff on the, um, the makeup days for the school calendar. Did you want to go through that for with us? I know we have a few slides. Yeah. Appreciate that. Um, do you want me to share my screen? ‘cause I did update one slide. Just Yeah, you should be able to share your screen. I’ll just put a little bit more detail on one slide.

33:06 Yeah. I don’t think we have it. So we need to have yours anyway. Oh, it’s on the drive. I think it’s in the packet. It should be in the packet too. Okay. I,

33:19 Okay, here we go.

33:23 Do I have the ability You should Share,

33:31 You are a co-host. Does it, does it allow you to share a screen? Oh, there it is. Okay. Came up. It wasn’t there before, but it’s there now. All the matters.

33:52 Okay. Tell me when you can, let’s see my screen.

33:59 There We go. You got it? Okay. Holly, will,

34:05 I can go into presenter mode. Um, Google Slides is like the worst. I know. So is that big enough for you guys? It’s fine. You just go. That’s fine. Yeah. Or you can go to slides show at the top there. Probably show up better. Oh yeah, if you do. What Slide? I I just hate how do I to the other side? Yeah. Okay. This one I hate. Google Slides terrible. There you Go. There we go. Perfect. Thank you. Um, okay. So first of all, thank you to everybody. Um, that completed the survey. We, we had a really, really great response rate. We had over 1400 parents and over 300 staff. Um, I’m gonna address some of the comments that I’ve seen. I tried to address as many as I could online, but I’ll address some of the ones from, um, from tonight as well. So the, the purpose of the survey, of course, is because the pressures and difficulties from the strike way

34:51 heavily on our families and working with our families as we make important decisions is critical. Um, we recognize that all of these options present challenges. None of them, um, are, are good for anybody. Um, they are a requirement. Um, we did try to see if days could be waived, made up remotely or any other option. Um, as superintendent, uh, robo mentioned, and they were all denied. So taking the temperature of our parent community and understanding where their priorities were was important to the success. Um, you know, I, I did agree that it would be a parental focused survey. Um, our superintendent wanted to make sure we offered to the, um, to the staff as well.

35:38 So we did have a separate link for that. So those pieces of data are separate. Um, and you’ll, you’ll see that in a minute. Um, some important reminders, again, these are all things that we’ve talked about, but I just think it’s important because the questions keep coming up. I keep seeing a lot of the same questions on social media. I keep, you know, getting questioned, um, when I’m out and about or through phone calls or what have you on things. Um, we do have to have 180 days, which means adding time onto our existing school days is not an option. All requests to waive, et cetera, rejected. Um, 11 days was how long the strike lasted. We voted to swap a PD day. Um, and due to the limited amount of makeup options, upcoming holiday breaks, um, and, you know, kind of the emergency of getting back to our on the books to meet DESI requirements, we voted

36:26 to add 1223 as a full day, um, and February break, uh, which left us with five additional days that we needed to make sure to make up. The state statute requires that high school graduation be no more than 12 days prior to the last day of school. So some of the, you know, um, suggested makeup, um, options could potentially affect that. And obviously if we have any snow days, that’s going to affect, um, things and we’ll have to revoke that as well. The last day of school that we can utilize for 24 25 is June 30th. Um, and all NPS schools, just to be clear, will adhere to the same schedule. We did ask the question, um, you know, just to see whether or not the data was dramatically different. It really wasn’t. Um, so here are the survey results

37:13 for the parent responses. Um, it was 1423 when I made this. There was one other one that that came in, so 1424. But, um, it was pretty clear that the first choice is April vacation for our parents. Um, again, I wanna stress that all of these options are gut wrenching and heartbreaking for everybody involved. Um, but it’s very clear, you know, more than, you know, 10% difference in that. Um, almost 10% difference, I should say from, um, April vacation to June with Saturdays definitely taking a dramatic, um, third choice. Um, personally I didn’t wanna include Saturdays either. Um, and it was asked to include it. So, um, I, I support

37:59 not having Saturdays or Sundays as an option. Um, and then for the staff, it actually worked out to be kind of the exact opposite. Um, their first choice was Saturdays at 44%. Um, their second choice was June, just like ours at 43. And their, um, their third choice was April vacation. It’s kind of remarkable to see that they were exactly the opposite. Um, and again, these are, this is all online and, and folks can go ahead and, um, look at these and look at the pie charts on it. Um, seeing the comparison, um, you can see 620 people, so 43%, um, from a parent perspective, we’re looking at April vacation

38:45 second came in somewhat close. Um, not entirely though. Still there’s still a good 8% difference there. And then obviously the Saturdays being so low and then you can see the reverse, um, for with 140, um, over twice as many people, teachers wanted. Staff, I should say wanteds, um, Saturdays instead of April vacation. So, um, that was somewhat interesting. It was fun, right? So it’s clear April is the first choice. Um, from a parent perspective, one thing we had kind of been talking about is the potential of adding one more day in June and taking three extra days,

39:33 um, from April vacation. So instead of taking just June 23rd, we could take June 23rd and 24th and then give folks a four day April break. Um, I wanna also kind of address one thing that, you know, we got a bunch of emails on as well as, you know, why were there only these options. Um, we wanted the, the survey to be very simple. We didn’t want it to end up being laborious with all 800 concoctions of combinations that you can make up. Um, because we wanted to it to be a very clear and concise, which I think it is with, with what our parents want here, um, in order to make up these days. Um, great. Any questions? Thank you Allison. Appreciate that. Appreciate your Hard work. I have a question for either John or Michelle Carlson. Can someone tell me the day of graduation? The sixth?

40:22 The sixth? I did. Um, it, you Can ask that question. Okay. In what day is, this is gonna sound like a crazy question, but what day is the prom scheduled for the senior prom and the awards night? That, I dunno. Michelle, do you know the prom award night? It’s usually that week. Yeah. ‘cause I’m just trying to not manipulate the, the seniors. Yeah. I asked that exact question, um, already to John and from John’s, um, response to me, you know, before bringing it up to the larger group, um, was that it should be the 24th should be the drop dead date before we have to move anything. Yeah. So that would move, make it so that graduation safe. But would we be sending kids to the prom and making them come to school the next

41:08 day? No, no. They’re Done. So the pro, like, in other words, that’s all Before. Yeah, I know. That’s what I mean. Like, if we start moving stuff, ‘cause I’m counting back 12 days from the 24th and I’m getting into this week. So

41:23 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Yeah. So they would have to come to school on the fifth the day before graduation, or at least in the fourth. The 12th. No graduation can’t be more than 12 days before the last day. They, their last day of school also. Their last day of school. No. And graduation. It, it just says, um, DEI says graduation cannot be later than Or Okay. Earlier than 12 Days Since. Okay. ‘cause I thought we gave them their last day, a couple days before graduation. No, their last day is the week before. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Desi told me it was the graduation date, not like Yep. On The last day of school. Yeah. Okay. So the 24th of June, if that is the last

42:12 Day of school. School. So my, yeah, if my that’s 12 calculation’s correct. We could do 23rd, 24th and still not have to move graduation. Okay. And then that would, we Wouldn’t even have had this discussion if it Okay. All right. We’d still be able to steal a day. Like one last, As long as Desi told you that I had pulled, um, the statute mass general law, and it had said the last day of school for seniors cannot be more, I talked to Rob per, he said the 12 days, the graduation can be no earlier than the 12th. Okay. 12 days before last day of school. All right. I just wanted to make sure we weren’t sending them. And, and can I just make one other comment if, if folks don’t mind. So the other thing is, is snow days. So if, if there’s snow days, right? Um, and there’s, we’re not dealing with makeup days and say there’s a ton of snow days. Uh, that’s an, that’s a time when you could have a waiver from Massachusetts.

42:58 Um, elementary, secondary education. Um, ‘cause I know that came up. Can we wave the days? We are not, if it’s snow days or emergency, you can apply for waiver, but because these are days making up for a strike, they will not allow it. So if we, whenever we decide tonight for the makeup days, that’s what we do. And then if there’s extra snow days, we have to look at how we, how we address those. So we, if we only have three days left at any, we have to use those. If there’s more snow days, we have to back ‘em to April vacation. So I just wanna make sure that, um, people know that if we have an extraordinary amount of snow, we have a whole nother conversation at the end. So I’m knocking on wood that doesn’t happen, but I just wanna make sure that people understand there could be another conversation if there’s a ton of snow. Okay. Any, um, else Brian did a question. Okay.

43:44 Um, Allison, did you have any questions or, you know, obviously not comments you made The presentation? No, no. Just, um, from, from walking through it with John, I just think that it would, you know, um, and I think we talked about it in our, um,

44:01 agenda meeting as well. I just think it’s, it would be great to give them that four days In April. In April. Okay. Barring any unforeseen blizzards. So that looks like we’d be, our discussion point would be talking about taking April 23rd, 24th and 25th. June 23rd and 24th. Yep. That’s the motion. Yeah. As Ds Okay. Yeah, that preserves a little bit of going One more questions. Do you want me to make a motion and then we can talk about it? Sure. Yep. Um, I, I, I dunno if I’m gonna do this right. Probably not, but Sarah, you can correct me on make a motion to, um, in order to vote for the additional five days

44:48 that we need that we take April 23rd, 24th, 25th, June 23rd, and June 24th.

44:59 Um, Just make, that’s a motion. Okay. Um, so we can discuss it second. It, I’ll second It. Second it. Okay. So Allison made the motion. Sarah seconded. Okay. Now we can discuss That. So can just, I don’t ha um, I’ll check my calendar on my phone. I wanna make sure there are no religious holidays on those days. Um, well I think if there were, we would’ve already blocked them off. Yeah. Because I mean, there’s Easter Good Friday, but that Easter is the 20th of April. Good Friday would Be the, okay, I just wanted to make sure. 18th, which I think is a half day, it’s already Half day. Yep. Mm-hmm. Before, I’m not aware of any Jewish holidays. Easter starts the Sunday before break Actually, that would be Passover starts the 12th. Yeah. It looks like it was not the April break. Okay. I just wanna make sure that we’re not,

45:45 And we don’t usually have school off for passing. We don’t have Passover off though. Well, I wanna make sure that I’m being cognizant of all religious holidays. Yeah, we look, I mean, we looked at Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just double checked. So we’re good on that. Um, I mean, I like the idea of allowing for people to have that four day weekend in April. It’s a really, really long stretch for folks. Um, we just need to be aware if we, if we have, um, snow days, that that Tuesday will be the first thing that’s will probably go after The Tuesday of April Break. Yes. Yes. Um,

46:28 and that will push the last staff day to June 25th, Barring snow days. Okay. Yeah. With the, with the configuration you just mentioned. Yeah. Last day is, yeah. For staff. Fifth, June 25th. Okay. Mm-hmm. Um, Brian, did you have any No, I’m good. I just wanna make a couple of quick comments first. I, I appreciate the folks that came, took the time out to come in person tonight. Janice. I, we had, uh, had some emails earlier today. Rabbi was on the phone. Um, and I just, I appreciate the comments and you know, for me, and again, I’m speaking only for myself, um, I felt very strongly that the Saturdays would not be a viable consideration. Um, and, you know, we did actually hear from clergy, um, in the form of an email came to the superintendent and the school committee from several of the local rabbis,

47:15 which was much appreciated. And the point was made and, and I think also Ms. Noah made it as well, um, that Sunday wasn’t considered right and for, you know, whatever reasons, you know, Sunday is sort of the defacto, um, Sabbath for other, for Christians, you know, um, in our country and in the world. And that, um, it was given our community we have here. And we’ve been, I think very tried to be very respectful of our Jewish community. Um, that, that the Saturdays really were not, in my opinion, I was not gonna consider that. So I just wanted to sort of make that, And my original version of the survey did not include it. Right. Um, so for me, I, I don’t support any day in the weekend

48:01 for a multitude of region reasons. Um, the religious observances are one. Um, they’re also for, particularly for our students going sixties in a row, particularly our younger ones who, you know, quite often are toast on Friday afternoon by the time you get them home. Um, it’s a lot. They really need those two days to, to recharge, to be with family, to, to, you know, engage with our community. And then for fiscal reasons also, um, our staff, our custodial staff or administrative assistant staff, they’re not scheduled on Saturday and Sunday. When we do have our custodial staff come in for events, that cost is offset by rental fees that pay for that.

48:47 So we, we would be incurring another cost as well, um, to pay these individuals, which is not in our budget. Um, so the, the nothing, there was nothing making sense, um, for the weekend that showed that it was a benefit to our community at all. Um, so you, you know, I, I think what was hard is when people start to grasp at straws trying to make sense of how we can make these days up. Um, we, you know, people can convince themselves for different reasons. This one fits better in my life or this one fits better. Um, this is, this is a hardship for everyone involved and there is no perfect answer. And I think we just have to get, um, as close to tolerable as we can. And I think what we have on the table right there now

49:34 of April 23rd, 24th, 25th, and June 23rd and 24th is probably as good as we’re gonna be able to accomplish. Um, the other, another really big deal for me, and I’m, I wanna give the kids a four day weekend in April, but I’m having a very hard time with adding anything in June for our students at the high school that are taking AP classes because we have a later start than other communities on the national level. Um, they’re, they’re testing again on a test with some students who start in August, early August, some of them. So we’ve heard for many years from parents that are saying, um, not just in the state, but on a national level, their several curriculum days behind their peers, uh, that are taking this. So to, to take more curriculum delivery days away from them

50:22 and add them at the end, puts them further behind when they take those, um, nationally ranked tests so that those June days are weighing on me. But I, I think the kids and the families need to at least be able to have four days. Okay. Okay. And Becky, I saw your question under the q and a thing, which I think is so cool. I didn’t know was that either, um, so for December break we did take the 23rd back. Um, so the 23rd is, is still a full school day. That’s, we voted on that last in our last meeting.

50:58 Right. Okay. Um, if there’s no further deliberation, I’m gonna call for a vote. Alison, I’m gonna call you first. Allison In favor. Brian. Oda in favor, Sarah Fox In favor? Jen Schaffner in favor. Four to zero. Okay. So we got that, John, we’re all set with that.

51:18 And the attendance, I’m sorry. You just wanna make sure you’re all set. I just making sure that Julie can update that calendar Tomorrow. Okay. And then I’m gonna loop back to the middle one, which was our school attendance policy, which was also part of this discussion as well. Um, and this had come up, um, in just general discussion in the last school committee meeting about how attendance will be handled, um, during or because of these makeup days. And we’ve had actually a number of parents, um, reaching out to us via email and phone, um, and text, um, concerned about attendance. So, um, I just wanna open that up to the committee to deliberate. Um, John, I don’t know if you have any comments you wanna make, but I think committee members have some feelings about this. I, I will acquiesce to the committee members’ feelings.

52:04 Thank you. Do you, Anything you wanna say on this one? What, on the attendance rate, if they miss school because of scheduled vacation mm-hmm. Will that count against them? Right. Will be an excused absence or not on Well, that’s what we’re discussing if we want to, um, make any changes. ‘cause that is a school committee decision in terms of the policy around attendance. But it’s just for this particular year. Yes, Yes, yes. For those particular days. I would like to suspend the attendance policy for this calendar year. I think it’s been, um, an anomaly of a year. Um, I think everyone can agree to that. Um, I think that this is going to be a very long stretch for people, even if you have children

52:49 that don’t have any special need. Um, this is a very, very long stretch for folks. And I think given you know, how we got here, I have a very hard time holding students’ feet to the fire and families’ feet to the fire for showing up and, um, and coming every day when, um, when we’re in this situation because of an illegal strike. And I, I think that we need to extend the grace to the families and the students for this year. Again, it’s an anomaly. I’m not, I’m not by any means suggesting that we get rid of our attendance policy long term, but I think we have to allow these families to decide when their kids need a break because that, that span of four months without, um, an extended break, they’re going to need something.

53:37 And, um, whether we assign it that the, there’s 11 days that can be floating excused if needed. I don’t know how we, how we monitor that, that becomes a little cumbersome or if we excuse it as a whole. But I think that we’re going to have to understand that students are going to need possibly some type of break. Um, and that if there’s, um, you know, one thing that might come out of this this year is, um, you know, for for not every family, um, parents schedule and, and whatnot lines up to take those breaks that maybe families can take a few days this year to regroup, um, off cycle if you will.

54:22 Um, so that, you know, everyone may be in, in opposition to that, but I think we should, um, suspend the attendance policy for the remainder of the year.

54:37 Ask, um, nope, we don’t have, we don’t have open comment right now. Allison, do you have any thoughts? I mean, I definitely think it should be way, uh, without question. I think it, it, it should be waived for this year. Okay. Um, I mean to, I mean, Sarah listed the myriad of reasons. I don’t need to, to re-list them and make the meeting longer. I, I know I feel strongly education is important. Um, I am hopeful people aren’t going to take advantage of it, but I do think that it is going to be a long cold, hard winter, even if we don’t have seven feet of snow. And it is maybe one of the small things that we can do for our families,

55:25 um, to give back a little bit.

55:30 Okay. I, I, I wanna just make sure that we understand that there are still laws, there are still rules as far as ex what constitutes excessive atten. We’re not talking that you can just not show up for school and it’s excuse for forevermore. There’s still rules about truancy. There are still rules about, um, what is defined, uh, as excessive. Yeah. Can I make a cut? Can I make a comment? Yep. So that, that was kind of where I was gonna start the conversation in regards to that, because if I understand that, I totally understand where the committee’s coming from. I think operationally, if we just say you’re absolved from attendance for the rest of the year, we will have truancy issues more than we already do. Um, our accountability to the state is gonna be in the,

56:17 in the toilet one. Um, two, I don’t know that, that’s in my humble opinion as an educator, I don’t know that that’s the best way to address it. I, I think that maybe as a suggestion that for the 10 days that we need to make up, maybe we absolve a, a attendance policy for those days. Maybe that’s a, maybe that’s a consideration. The, um, committee has, I just, I think you’re giving carte blanche to, to kids and I understand why, but carte blanche to kids to not come to school and we already have a lot of attendance issues. I mean, our, our counselors and administrators are fighting to get a lot of kids to school in general. And if they hear that message saying, yeah, we really don’t have to come to school because It’s been a tough school. Yeah. That’s not, that’s not, I know that’s the intention we’re saying, we’re saying that,

57:04 But that exactly will, that will exact, I’m sorry, didn’t interrupt. Yeah. That will be the message that they hear. So I just, I just have to say it out loud, but that you’re, it’s up to You. The days that you would be taking as breaks are, can be. So, so my point is, um,

57:21 that this was a lose lose for our community. Mm-hmm. There’s, there’s no way to, to sugarcoat that this was a massive lose lose. If there’s one potential win we can give is that maybe for a family that, um, whose, whose parents may work in a sector that they don’t get those days off instead of taking the, you know, their four days at February. Maybe they can take their four days at a time. Their family could, could go somewhere together. So, I’m not saying there’s no attendance policy, but I have a hard time saying the four days in February, excused, but not any other four days. I’m not saying all the days of the year are excused, but, but quite frankly, we absolved a lot of

58:07 behavior, behavior of adults and, and we, we, we need to, we need to allow some grace to, I Just, I just wanna be mindful, I just wanna be mindful of the fallout of that decision. ‘cause there will be, there’ll be fall. They we’re not thinking about, but the truancy rules in the letters we sent home that say you have, you have this many absences, those would, all of that stuff would still happen. But we as a district believe school is the best place for our students. Right. We want our students in school. Mm-hmm. So do we, we believe that we can support them best when they’re in front of us. So if we are making decisions beyond, like with attendance policy, then I just don’t want that to contradict the message that we’re just about to send with our mc CA presentation on how much value we’re placed on the academic success

58:53 and how much we’re doing to support them when they’re in school. We understand that, but the actions of 450 adults that lead them every day contradicted that message. I’m putting the students first on this one, and I, I understand that’s why i I am making this policy is that our students need, may need a break through this. Um, and now may Have to go from January to May April, um, April. So can I, can I make a suggestion? Um, so one thing that we could consider in this motion is to, to John’s point, is that the days that the, or the makeup days that, that the attendance policy would not be, those would be considered excused absence or I don’t know how we would define that in, in the case

59:39 of those 10 days. Um, and that maybe we find a way before the next meeting that we can try to operationalize how we could possibly do this. Whether this is something on a, you know, case by case basis. But, you know, if, I mean, I’m just suggesting this Sarah, um, you know, that a, that a family feels that they need to, you know, this child needs a break, that they would have a conversation with their administrator, um, or appeal it to the superintendent. Yeah. And I think, I think, I think having some, I I mean I would, I would feel better at least hearing from the administrators around what, ‘cause I just wanna make sure that we’re not making a decision that’s impacting their day-to-day operations in a way that we haven’t thought of yet. And I wanna make sure it would be nice to have that, be able

1:00:24 to have that conversation with everybody and say, what, what impact does this have in your school in general day to day? And who’s monitoring it and who’s managing it and who’s tracking the kids down and who’s actually true and who’s not true. And becomes even more of a challenge than it already is. So I just, I throw that out there just ‘cause I think I understand the thought process. I just think there’s ramifications that I’d like, I’d like to at least have the opportunity to talk to the administrators about. But that’s, again, it’s up to you. Our current policy if, or handbook, our current handbook states at the high school level, high school, if you miss more than three days per quarter, excused or unexcused, you’re not eligible for credit. So even if we excuse these a absences, those students will be ineligible for credit. That one of the things I have a problem with is if you go

1:01:11 beyond the 10 days and say, if you are feeling your child needs a break, give ‘em a break. That means the teachers also have to figure out how to cover those kids when they’re gone, when they come back. Yeah. Are they gonna make up the work that’s more work for the teachers? I I think that it’s 10 days for the, that we scheduled. Is it, if they’re going to have a vacation, that’s when they take it. It’s un that’s excused. However, if you want to give some other break arbitrarily picked out the sky, I don’t think we can do that because people with chronic absentee rates will take advantage. I guarantee you, you know, Allison, I mean, they’re gonna take advantage of it anyway. I don’t, I don’t think that that matters at all. And I think that, that, that additional work, unfortunately is, is, you know,

1:01:58 a repercussion from the strike. So it, it’s that, that’s why it’s ultimately all happening, why we’re here having these discussion. Um, a piece of this too is that during these makeup days, during February or December 23rd, the February break, the April days that, I don’t know know if it, we need to memorialize it in a policy, but a temporary one year policy or whatever, but no assessments c should be given during those days. Um, and all work including, um, lectures and slide decks should be available on Google class room or whatever platform is being used. And our work can be made up. Yeah. Okay. Because we can’t have assessments happening during

1:02:43 These days. I can, I just, can I just chime in? Yep. Again, I think that’s operational. Um, attendance policies, attendance policy. I think the rest of the operational stuff is stuff I think I can work out with the principles because I agree, but I don’t think we can just make a blanket conversation Because we’ve had outreach from par. Uh, I’ve had outreach from three parents saying that that’s fine. But I just, yeah. Kids are given assessments next week on the 23rd. I, I think we just need to be mindful of those punitive, I think we need to be mindful of when they are based upon when the kids are in school and, and how we operationalize that. For sure. I just think, I don’t think that, don’t take this wrong, but I don’t think that’s the school committee’s purview to, to dictate the assessments piece. I’ll certainly have those conversations. ‘cause I think they’re important. And I, I would agree that we shouldn’t have assessments there. I just, I just wanna make sure, you know, the attendance policy is absolutely purview.

1:03:29 I don’t think, uh, establishing when the assessments are is, I don’t mean that in a Yep. Fresh way. I just wanna, I just wanna be, I mean, any, ultimately any assessments or tests should be done on original calendar days. Uh, I I agree it’s operational, but that it would be disappointing if a decision was made or approved and okayed otherwise. And, and I, and I think, honestly, I think we have professionals here that will understand that and not say, well, you know, okay, well you didn’t come in that day and we’re gonna, you gonna miss the assessment, da da da. I think, I think we have those conversations. I think they will be mindful of that. I just, Yeah, That’s how I feel. Okay. So don’t believe we have emotion on the table. Right? This was just a discussion on attendance.

1:04:13 So, um, does anyone wanna make, I’m happy to, but does anyone wanna make a motion?

1:04:22 Well, I think what I, I was remiss, I should have made the motion instead of the statement as we discussed. So the motion would’ve been to dismiss the attendance policy for the remainder of the 24 25 school year

1:04:36 Would’ve been. So that’s not your motion. Second. Oh. Or are you making a motion or No, I made the motion. You made the motion. Okay. Second. Okay, so this is the discussion, which is, hang on one second.

1:04:49 Sarah and Allison, This does not supersede state law or any other mandates for days.

1:04:59 Okay. Hear motion. What was that? What was the decision? We haven’t, we, we haven’t made the decision. We, we have to make the motion and then the second and then continue the discussion. I think it’s, the family just couldn’t hear the motion. The motion was to suspend this attendance policy for the remainder of the year,

1:05:16 but that does not supersede state law or any other guidelines from Desi.

1:05:25 Any other discussion? Alright. Um, so that includes, um, the makeup days as well as my only concern is how we are operationally this to, to John’s point is how we are operationalizing this. So if we vote to approve this, I, I think John, we’re gonna need to come back and have, um, an explanation on how this is gonna be operationalized. Yeah, and I think there’s, you know, at the high school level, I think there’s some different considerations that we can work through, which is one of my original conversations is I think at the high school, there’s some ways that we can kind of make sure that the students aren’t extra, you know, um, affected by absences. Like, you know, Michelle and her team can work through some of that. So again, I’d like to have that in depth conversation with her so I can speak intelligently to her.

1:06:12 I think there’s a little bit of wiggle room where we can do some stuff around the absences. Um, clearly at the other levels, it’s, it’s different. It’s not affecting credits, it’s not affecting, you know, um, athletics and, you know, extracurricular activities, um, if the kids are missing X amount of days. So it’s, uh, it’s really, a lot of it has to do with the high school level, but You can amend the motion if you’d like. Um,

1:06:43 Do you wanna amend it with, with a caveat that in, in our first meeting, in our second meeting in January, I don’t know how long that’ll take, John, I want to be mindful of break, um, for you and your team as well, that

1:07:01 you’ll come back with a plan on how that is operationalized. I would, I would like, I think, I Think you’re not here then Alison. I think what I, what I would like to consider is an amendment to, um, to have the makeup days be the attendance policy relaxed for the makeup days, and that the superintendent come back at the first meeting in January with the recommendation for how we can adjust the remainder of the year to families to accommodate the hardship that this has placed

1:07:37 and that we could then vote to expand the relaxing of the attendance policy at that point. So What is your amendment? So I’m amending the motion to include the relaxing of attendance policy for the makeup days alone, including Monday the 23rd of December, and the other days that we have voted, um, to relax the attendance policy and then to have the superintendent come back in January with a recommendation on how we can meet the expectation of relaxing attendance operationally for the rest of the year.

1:08:14 Do I have a second?

1:08:20 Okay. So the motion is on the table that Sarah’s original motion. I’m gonna call for a vote. Brian Oda Not in favor. Sarah Fox. Uh, we didn’t get a second on your amendment. No. Are you sure? I Can second? I think you want, I think you want a second. Her amendment, if you’re not in favor, Sarah Allison just amended it. Okay. Alison, just second my amendment. Thank you, Allison. Okay. So that, uh, then the amendment, I real Like I, this needs to be a operationalizing that is a priority for me. Okay. So that supersedes that motion. The amendment is on the table. So I’m gonna call for a vote for the amendment. What’s the amendment again? So The amendment is, I know this is, I’m sorry, Brian. This is, um, everyone, this is complicated.

1:09:06 So the amendment is that we are voting to approve the relaxation, relaxing the attendance policy for the makeup days that we have voted. The 10 days, the 10 days suspend beginning Monday, suspend Suspending It on those day suspending, suspending it on those days. And at our January, next January meeting, um, superintendent ou will come back with a recommendation to us on how we can oper how he can operationalize the relaxing of attendance policy for the re remainder of the year. So we can discuss it still. Correct. I have a concern about that. Putting that onus on the superintendent. Okay. He’s gonna have to try to justify why somebody’s three x extra is not the same as somebody he’s going to die. I think, I think that’s just an unburden that he shouldn’t have to take you either excuse the 10 days

1:09:53 or you don’t, you know what I mean? It can’t asking these superintendent come, come up with a matrix that says this parent’s request for a vacation is valid versus this one that is not, I think is, is almost impossible for you to put together. So don’t think, I don’t wanna speak to, I don’t think that’s what we’re asking him to do. We’re asking him to come back after conferring with his administration administrators and recommend to us how that could po how that could happen operationally. So that outside of the, in, in, outside the attendees Making, I think the, the motion is actually simpler. I think the motion is to suspend the attendance policy on December 23rd,

1:10:31 February 18th, 19th, 2020 first April 23rd, 24th and 25th and June 23rd and 24th.

1:10:42 Those are the 10 days Yes. That we already approved. Yes. Now we’re suspending the attendance Policy. That’s fine. I don’t understand the second piece of that. That was just a narrative. It wasn’t part of the motion. Well, right. It it, What’s an expectation though? We may have John come back and provide options to us if it’s the will of the committee to consider additional relaxation. But right now, yes. Technically that is the, that is the 10 days fine. Okay. I’m gonna call for a vote then. Brian Oda in favor, Sarah Fox In Favor? Allison Taylor In Favor. And Jen Schaffner in favor? Zero. Um, and when you report back to us, can you report back for clarification that those days will have no bearing on credit? Yes.

1:11:29 No, I appreciate, I appreciate, uh, the allowance for me having that conversation. I just wanna make sure that all bases are covered. Okay. Please. Thank you. Um, one, one more thing is we were remiss in not fixing this. Um, so I make a motion to make, um, June 20th a full day of school. It’s currently listed as a half day because it’s in the middle of all this. Right? Could we please move that to the last day? Yeah, We’ll just shift the Last day to the half day. Yes. That June 20th will be a full day. And the, and June 24th will be a half day. Is that do? So my motion is to make June 20th a full day for students. And June 24th, a half day for students. Um, do I have a second? I’ll second. Second, second. Allison Taylor. Okay. Any discussion? Okay.

1:12:17 I’m gonna call for a vote. Allison Taylor In favor? Brian Oda in favor? Sarah Fox In favor? Jen Schaffner in favor. Four to zero. Great. And I just wanna apologize to that housekeeping piece we really probably should have done, it’s too soon for childcare to do it for this coming Monday, but we really should have made this coming Monday a half day as well. ‘cause the 23rd has always been a half day, um, for us, but for housekeeping purposes, we’re just too late. So I apologize. Okay. Um, all right. So I appreciate everyone’s, um, allowing us to move that out of, um, out of order. And so now we’re gonna go back to the MCA review. Wonderful. Thank you. I’m gonna just share my screen.

1:13:01 Just

1:13:16 thank you. Thank you. Um, first thank you for the opportunity to present. Um, tonight we have several presentations around the MCAS and data analysis for the Marblehead Public Schools. Um, thank you to John and our school leaders and our instructional coaches for their feedback and contributions to the presentation. Um, I will kick it off for us, and then we will be hearing, um, specific details from our school, uh, leaders. Um, and I just wanna say thank you to the school committee for your commitment to our students and their achievement as well.

1:13:51 So we’re gonna begin with an overview. So the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, it’s one data point that provides our educators and administrators insight into student performance on a yearly basis. Analyzing this data helps our educators create effective strategies to support our students. MCA data indicates, um, from the previous spring, indicates a consistent performance level among students reflecting our commitment to their education. And we do see, um, and you’ll see in our presentations this evening, we have strengths we wanna celebrate in areas of need of improvement that will be addressed through our MTSS. That’s our multi-tiered systems of support.

1:14:31 So the following slides are, um, again, whole district right from the Office of Teaching and Learning, looking at it as a whole district that’s grades three through 10. Um, and looking at the MCA achievement levels and scaled scores. And that tells us how well our students mastered those grade level standards. In last year, taking a look, first at our English Language Arts data, overall, we had an average of 60% of our students meeting and exceeding proficiency standards. And this is in the spring of 2024. That’s 18% higher than the state average. Our average scale score, um, across the whole district remain pretty steady from the previous year and is consistently above the state level. Um, we scored in the average, moderate

1:15:17 and average growth range, um, for our ELA. Um, and we want to, uh, note that this is, um, momentum that we, it’s we’re maintaining momentum. Julia, do you want questions as we go during or at the end? Um, what do you prefer? Um, I’m open to either if I could just finish the slide, like, you know what I’m saying, and then Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Yeah. Um, so we have, we’re in multiple years of implementation of high quality instructional materials and curriculum. That is that tier one. That is what we truly believe is making a difference and going to continue to make a difference for our students. Um, again, that high quality instructional materials that we’ve adopted over the last few years. So there’s a few areas of concern here. I, well, I see that we’re above

1:16:02 The state average with our socioeconomic standing. Um, and knowing that we have a lower population of what’s called at risk due to that we should be exceeding, um, just from, from a demographics point of view, we should be exceeding in that fourth grade. That one particularly is a concern to me. ‘cause what it says is the majority, 52% of our students are not meeting or are par only partially meeting ELA. Um, and you see that gap between where we are in the state average is, is the most minimal there of the whole area. And so as we go through, um, any information you can give about how we’re targeting particularly that area, um,

1:16:50 as far as this slide goes, will be helpful. And I just wanna give kudos to the eighth grade ELA, because that is the biggest delta. You see where we are the furthest from the state average, furthest ahead from the state average. Um, so if you just look at it from that graphic point, um, it looks like the next biggest area that we are ahead is the third grade. If this graphic is, you know, but that, that eighth grade is pretty substantial as far as how far we’re ahead of the state. I mean, the state bar is pretty low. I don’t think it’s, This just is so concerning. Julie, can I just give clarification? These, these, this paragraph is inclusive

1:17:36 of all students in Marblehead that took the MCA. So sub subset groups are included in this. So it’s general education, not Our, our students that would, um, in their IEP qualify for the alternative MA assessment. This is all students that took the MCA assessment. So, But there are subgroups, right? That this or At-risk students are in here too? Absolutely. This includes our high needs students. And we’ll get to that. And what the, yes. Mm-hmm. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m using the wrong word. It’s high needs High. Sorry. All right. Moving into math. Um, what we have here is we have grown to an, uh, a 21% above state average. This is an upward trend for us now four years into a evidence-based math curriculum adoption. And, um, that spans K eight. And we have invested in the professional development and curriculum in our high school algebra

1:18:22 and geometry courses. Um, additionally I’d like to show, like, highlight that we are seeing growth, um, in cohorts. So we break down the data and we’re looking at it from year to year. We are seeing a lot of growth amongst our, our cohorts, um, in which we’re very proud of there. So just in noting trends, again here, it’s still that 4, 5, 6 grouping that seems to be where we are the closest to the state average. Um, so I’m assuming that you’ll have some information how we’re gonna target that. But that, that seems to be a trend in both math and ELA. Those are the areas where that delta isn’t as big as the other. And again, we’re seeing in the eighth grade, it’s the biggest delta between where we are ahead of the state average. So there’s definitely a trend here.

1:19:09 Something’s happening in the eighth grade, and then something’s not happening fourth, fifth, and sixth. So I think fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh would be K 1, 2, 3, 4, which would be like critical years for reading and math fundamentals. And that was covid. And that may be it. But, but, but that would affect the state average everywhere. What I’m talking about is the delta of the areas where that eighth grade is. We are the furthest surpassing the state average on both the ELA and the math. And I’m more talking about where we’re surpass surpassing the state average. ‘cause the state average will normalize kind of those covid years, but four, five, and six for both the ELA and the math is when we were the closest to the state average. Therefore, we’re not as per outperforming it as, as much

1:19:57 as we are say, at the eighth grade level. Um, I’m gonna add just, I mean, I, I just think that the state average is so low. It’s not, you know, fif only 52% of fifth grade is meeting for math. That is, it’s not. Okay. So I just wanna add anecdotally, and I’m gonna talk more about the interventions and the system that we have in place through the MTSS, but I was actually with our, uh, fifth grade math PLC yesterday, and our teachers know the standards inside and out. They could probably memorize them and share ‘em in their sleep with you. Um, you know, MCAS is a moving target. Sometimes there’s different questions and stuff like that. So we wanna keep that in mind. Um, but that last year was our first year of having, um, a dedicated math instructional coach that we utilize, utilize Title one funding for, um, at Village School. And I do feel that we’re gonna continue

1:20:43 to see an upward trend, um, as that continues to, um, you have some great progress.

1:20:50 Where do, where do will there be? And there may be a slide coming up on this, on where our trends are from last year in the, the, the, the this in three years prior. Give me five slides. Okay. Okay. I’ll go. All right. In our science data, so in, in Marblehead and across the state, we have fifth, eighth, and 10th graders taking science. Um, on average 18% above the state average. We are, this is our re our review year actually for science. So we’re engaging in a curriculum review. Um, and we wanted to share that. Um, we have done a lot of professional development leading up to our curriculum review year for science and the technology and eng engineering standards. Um, because fifth and eighth grade, it was a new test. It was a pilot. Um, they’re gonna pilot again this year,

1:21:36 and then it becomes, it becomes fully in place the following year. So I do want to show that we are really not comparing our science data in fifth and eighth grade from previous year because it was a new test this year.

1:21:49 Um, I wanna highlight, um, each year the department of Elementary and Secondary education, dsi, they use a rubric to score districts. And, um, I wanted to highlight our, our schools in the district. So across the board, the district, um, we’re making, as you can see in the middle column, we’re making substantial progress towards our targets. The great news is we are, as a district, not requiring assistance or intervention. You can see going down in the middle column, the, um, LUCRECIA and Joseph Brown School, 88% meeting or exceeding targets. Glover School, 47, moderate progress towards targets Village school, 54% substantial progress, marblehead, veterans middle school, 87%, meeting or exceeding. And Marblehead high school is 68%. And that’s substantial progress towards targets. However, we did have, um, a, we are in the category,

1:22:35 and this is important for the school committee to know, um, we are requiring assistance or intervention at the high school. And it’s specifically because we had a low participation in our Hispanic and Latino rate of taking the MCAS assessment. Are they opting out? Um, it’s, it’s a very small population that is in the 10th grade. Um, so there’s a variety of reasons. Okay. Um, but they just don’t take it. Yeah. So I’m talking like, it could be one or two or three, you know, I mean, it’s a very small, um, And if you don’t meet that, that basic thing, they mm-hmm. They, they drop you into that category. So Yeah. Are we looking here at the Glover school too? ‘cause the other areas are substantial meeting progress, substantial meeting. I see the issue there that you’re talking about the high school, but at the Glover school it says moderate progress.

1:23:21 Mm-hmm. I mean, it is, you know, progress, but it’s not what we’re seeing in the other categories such as substantial or meeting. Yep. And so what they do is there’s a whole rubric behind it, and it kind of factors into many things. And one of them, which is growth, um, which Glover doesn’t have that ability to show growth because they only test in the third grade, um, attendance. Um, and then el um, our English learners, um, proficiency on the access test. So for Glover, there’s not as many as, um, like data sources for the accountability as it would be for a high school. Well, but the brown schools at 88%, so. Correct. Absolutely. No, I mean, they’re exceeding targets, so it’s the same demographic if they can do it, so can Absolutely. Thank you for bringing that up. Mm-hmm.

1:24:07 Um, as we were just speaking of attendance, this is a really big focus for us. Um, and a credit to our school principals who, um, really made a push last year. And I had to, I happened to be at the open houses and seeing in the newsletter, and I really appreciate the principal’s efforts. You know, chronic absenteeism that’s defined as a student that misses 18 or more days of school at based 10% of 180 school days. You know, we believe our students, um, it’s best when our students are in front of us. So, um, you can see how we did decrease our absenteeism at the non-high school level. We exceeded our target. So that’s excellent news. And then our high school, we declined. And I know, um, Dr. Dr. Carlson has already started this year knowing this information and made, has made pleas through open house and her newsletters and communications with families about how important attendance is.

1:24:52 So that’s something we will have to report to Deion. Okay. And that factors in with our ranking more heavily than test scores with their new rubric. Right? Yeah. That’s a very heavy weight. Okay. One question I would have rhetorical question for both John and Julia, when it comes to the, um, chronic absenteeism, the, the definition, chronic absenteeism, if we have families, regardless of what grade level the student is, you know, families may have particular circumstances that are either challenging or what I, whatever it could be. So to me, you know, looking at data and, and, and, and looking at, you know, the, the gross level is one thing, but, you know, rhetorically, do we have resources in place with our administration

1:25:38 and in our, in our buildings to help outreach to families to try to work with families to understand what might be what they’re facing? Yeah, I think, I think Around to do, I think communications from the, from the administrators in the ongoing way. One, we have, you know, layers of counseling and everything else. So when there’s kids that aren’t coming to school for whatever reason, there’s the outreach there. We’re trying to, you know, gather information as to why the kids aren’t coming to school and trying, trying to come up with ways to get them into school. Um, it, yeah, it’s just, it’s tough because, um, you know, the absenteeism piece, I mean 10%. And if you look at it in like quarters, you know, it’s, you know, each quarter 10% is not that many days and you hit that chronic absenteeism rate. Um, so it’s difficult. I mean, I’m sure there’s other things. Um, those are things I can think off, off the top of my head

1:26:24 that in ways that we address the chronic absenteeism. Yeah. A credit to our, um, administrative team, especially a lot of the system principals work with our families and our school counselors, um, social workers that work really closely with families to support them. Great. Thank you. I’m, I am curious, I don’t know if our system gets, is easy enough to get down to the granular level, but I see, you know, December and, and February is it that one day of the week is higher during those winter months, perhaps Friday We can see it. We can, Sarah, we can go down to the day with the, with the data. It’s, it’s really awesome. I don’t know, I, maybe not everybody is into, I, I, I’ve said this before, I really like data. I think it would be very helpful. And speaking of data, one thing I think was very helpful in, you know, sitting in an audience, you hear a lot of like aha moments from folks.

1:27:10 Um, Matt does his whole little presentation on where he, he makes it real when he talks to you about it. If you are this many minutes late each day, how much in your lifespan, how many days of education you miss. If you miss one day a month, how he really brings it down to, at the end of it, I’m gonna screw it up. So now I’m gonna try, but at the end of it, if you do this, which seems very minor, you may miss six months of your education over the span of your time here. And I think seeing it chunked out like that, um, really, really makes students and parents aware more of the loss to their, their educational opportunities, which is also Probably tism, is that a word? I, yeah, I have, I have a whole chart. I have a whole chart

1:27:56 that we look at and for that, for that as well. And I think, wait, did you That Not Matt? No, it’s, well, I don’t, John did just did it recently as well with the Team as well. Okay. So yeah, it is probably both things, but you know, yeah, even 10 minutes a day equals X amount. So it’s, it’s important. It’s important to have the kids at school. So Thank You. I’m gonna go into more of the yearly performance trends right now. So looking at it, um, and this is really important, especially if you go to our A lot animation. I know it’s a lot going On. It keeps you going, it keeps you interested though, right? Um, so if you, especially if you go into our professional learning community meetings, this is where, um, our educators are really focused on how students are progressing and looking at the data over time and, and how we’re supporting them through the multi-tiered systems of support. So we’re now gonna look at 2019 to 2024 performance.

1:28:42 So you can see kind of two sides of the screen here, right? How the, um, in for, in terms of English language arts, how our students performing year over year. Um, is There a way to zoom in on that? I, I mean, is this, is this showing we’re at our lowest points, even pre covid, like even during the height of covid? Are we lower than we’ve been at all? ‘cause that’s kind of bearing the lead a little bit. Well, what I wanna highlight is that our trends are mirroring the state trends. And I think there’s something to be said. ‘cause as I said, the MCA assessment itself is a moving target. It does shift and change, and the questions are not the same year after year. I think it’s interesting that we had a dip in 2022, a sharp increase in 2023. And then like the state, we did have, um, a decline in 2024. Again, though, I’d like to highlight that we are

1:29:29 above the state level, but I do think that is an interesting trend of how we are perhaps seeing some trends with the assessment itself. So I just wanted to Ours look more volatile. I spend a lot of time looking at growth charts, so I’m always told to kind of like, look at it as an aggregate. Mm-hmm. Um, ours seem much more volatile. Oh, 22 Is, Yeah. But even our decline in 24 is steeper than the state average. I think it, I think on the graph it looks, it looks different than it actually is. ‘cause it’s a smaller sample size. It’s, it’s so that the line’s a little bit more flattened out. Yeah. But it, it’s, it falls the same trend. And, you know, um, what, what we talked about as, as, uh, admin across the state around the 2022, clearly there was,

1:30:14 you know, ‘cause of covid and everything else. But then also there was some, they found that there was questions on the test that all students struggled with across, across the co uh, Commonwealth. So they looked at those, those actual questions as Well. Thank you so much, John. I appreciate that. And I wanna show, I wanna just touch this is the percent a meeting in exceeding overall though, for English language arts for the district, our average scale score has only declined by one point. So the scale score itself has not changed that much. And I think that’s also, again, another data point of where the state is setting benchmarks with the assessment. So we are down, uh, negative 2.8 growth percentiles and only down one, uh, point on the average scale score from the Year. So this is the

1:31:00 largest percentage we’ve ever seen. At least going back five years of not meeting, we’re 33% higher than we’ve ever been with not, or not exceeding portion. The, it looks like the highest we saw was 6% and we were at 8%. That’s a 33% increase in our not not meeting. And then it looks like we’re at the lowest percentage of meeting. Um, prior to that, even in 22 coming outta COVID, we had 50% meeting and now we’re at 47. We did, you know, we are, we are maintaining that 13% of exceeding. But that 8% is, is very concerning growth. I know eight, it looks like a 2% increase is small, but when you look at it as percentage drop off, it’s 33%.

1:31:49 And as one data point, it does identify areas of growth for us it does. Moving into math, um, we are at 63% of just students in the district wide at our meeting and exceeding our expectations. Um, you can see the, um, with the provide is as we look to provide targeted interventions, reflecting areas of need, additional support and resources, um, that we are able to, um, we’re gonna continue to support our students. This right here, we are very, um, consistent right here. And what we’re gonna look for is with all the work that we’re doing to see an increase our average growth, even though it looks percentage wise the same, we did have a plus 1.2 growth for our, um, student growth percentile. Um, and it’s very steady performance.

1:32:35 There’s, there’s not much, um, difference between, um, the previous, uh, year, um, post 2022

1:32:44 We had an improvement in exceeding. Correct. Okay. Here’s for science, and again, this is just fifth, excuse me, third, fifth and eighth. No, excuse me. Fifth, eighth, and 10th grade. Um, again, I did mention before we did have the new assessment for fifth and eighth grade. Um, and that is gonna be fully operational next school year. So, um, I want to just note that we are not really comparing, um, apples and oranges there. No. Not comparing apples. So apples to apples. Yeah. Thanks. Will this be usable data moving into next year? ‘cause what I’m hearing is now that there’s, this isn’t links to a graduation requirement, students may not be taking this as seriously. So how are we gonna use this for,

1:33:32 to really apply to our, you know, our MTSS model. What is the, does the margin of error in this data become larger? And if so, how do we implement that in a way that really delivers MTSS with fidelity? I know we use other markers, but this really was a very good equalizing factor. That’s a great transition for us. ‘cause as I go to our next slide, I’m gonna be talking about how things are gonna be changing for us just as you identified. And it’s also not only student, you know, involvement in the assessment itself, but it’s also family and parent, um, perception. And we saw that through the votes that came in to change the MCA requirement, right? So, you know, family values and, and, um, what they put into this, you know,

1:34:18 we we’re gonna see some differences. I do believe, and that’s why it is one data point. Um, what we’re really focused on is, um, as we are every year is closing that achievement gap. Um, our gap between the state overall achievement and our district’s achievement has widened in the positive trend. So we wanna celebrate that. We do need to continue to closely monitor our high needs students. That is per dsi, right? The high needs is low income English learner or former English learner and student with disabilities. And I presented the same to the committee last year. And this is the continual focus and why we are so dedicated to our multi-tiered systems of support. Um, our principals will be able to share a little, a little bit more at the, uh, non-high school grade levels. But we did have high growth rates for high needs subgroup in both ELA

1:35:04 and math in those, um, grades three through, excuse me, it’d be grades four through eight. Um, and then we exceeded the target for progress toward attaining English language proficiency growth for our nine high school students. Um, so I’m very proud of the work of our educators with that. And then, um, what I’m gonna do is now take the, the presentation because I do strongly believe that mc a s is one data point. And I wanna use this opportunity to highlight what is happening, um, in our district to analyze the data, um, to support our students. So, um, in general, we’re talking about MCAS, but this is what we do, right? We, as educators and administrators and instructional leaders, we analyze data to support our students. Um, we have strategically developed our multi-tiered

1:35:50 systems of support over the years. That includes, um, from, um, setting up professional learning communities to supporting, um, stipends for teacher leaders to supporting professional development and implementing high quality instructional materials. Um, and I am, you know, our, our students are, are really fortunate to, um, have the teachers that dedicate themselves to looking at how our, they’re doing at the most granular level as with the second grade team at Brown School today. And they’re look literally looking question by question and what they can do and if, if a student’s missing a question to help support them through the wind block, um, and I think they’re doing, um, that’s great work through the MTS s structure.

1:36:31 All right. So you can see this was actually the second grade team OS with today. Um, we, we rely within the school district on our common assessments and other, um, assessment tools like iReady, IXL and M class, which is dibels. We’ve adopted, um, under my, uh, purview, we’ve adopted IXL as a pilot at Village School, which is going very well and we’re collecting data on. And we also adopted dibels, which is the gold standard for literacy screening and assessments, um, at the elementary level. So very proud of that. We also look at access, which is our English learners, um, the annual assessment they take every January. And of course our MCA data, this should look overwhelming on purpose. We, this is what we are doing to support the students

1:37:17 we are doing for a small district with the resources that we have allocated to us through the, the town, the state, and through federal grants. We are doing a tremendous amount of work to support our students. So, um, I did this intentionally to show the vast amount that we’re doing. Um, and then this is just what I actually could fit on this slide. We’re gonna, I wanna pause though. Absolutely. It’s there. Let’s look at it. Um, while we’re, while we’re looking at it, can you talk a little bit more about the high needs, because that’s something I really wanna know more about. And I, I don’t see Lisa Marie here, um, but I would like to have, she’s online. Okay. I we can use that. I’m not gonna spin this on someone though. Yeah. Um, I would like, hopefully maybe when we come back in January to have a presentation that really

1:38:04 zeroes in on our high needs students, their, their growth, um, and their trends that we’re seeing in the Mc CA because that’s something that came up last year. And I, I want to just make sure that we’re continuing to look at that, particularly on what came out of our assessment for our special education department last year. I know that we made tremendous growth on addressing, um, the areas that we were out compliance or needed better compliance. Um, and so I, I really want to see, you know, I’m a big believer that you can’t fix a problem until you have identified it. What are we seeing in the MCA areas of those at risk, um, or high needs students?

1:38:49 How is that correlating to the groups that, you know, may have come up in this assessment? How also does it correlate when that, um, assessment comes back for our, um, student services department that the, the school committee ordered and then look at all of that data together? What picture does that give us about what are our needs in student services? And I think those three buckets together are really gonna be important, especially as we lead into the budget cycle. Because, um, we already know that our, um, out placements grew at a faster weight than we thought. I think we’ll be hearing more about that. But I would like to see a high, uh, a high needs MCAS presentation that focuses on that in addition to what we’re

1:39:35 Doing here. Yeah, I’d like to second that because I think Yep. We can make that happen. Yeah. ‘cause one of the things I was gonna be asking about after the new year was just that, um, and so I think it would be a, I dunno if you do this in a later slide, but dis-aggregating the data and Scott Silberg already asked the question out there. Um, you know, and again, I don’t know if there are confidentiality issues. I don’t imagine there would be, um, that we can disaggregate the data and look at it and just have a whole section of a, of a meeting agenda item focused on our, our, um, student services department. I would like to add that, I’d like to add more than just MCA because as I just mentioned, I was gonna go back, but, um, we have so many other measures. I think the one critical thing to highlight here is all of this is, is a lot. It’s tier one and that is all students. Yeah. Right.

1:40:20 And, and high needs, part of that group is students with disabilities, but it’s also our low, uh, income and our English learners. And I think what we have done to strengthen the tier one and what we have done to integrate win, we now have WIN K 12 in our district. This is the first year of that. And I wanna highlight that this is the first time we’ve had an opportunity for an enrichment and intervention block for K 12 for our students. Um, Is the ninth and 12th, is that the magic block? Correct. But we haven’t, this is, we added seventh and eighth grade, so now it’s the first time for a continuum when Just Oh, that’s just read. We are offering it during just read. Yep. So for students who don’t get just read, they might not, they don’t get, some of our students don’t get them. Correct. They are in their, um, performing arts at that time.

1:41:06 Okay. So that, that’ll be another topic we can cover another day. Yeah. And I’m glad you made the point that it’s a tier one. ‘cause as I was looking at this, I’m thinking there’s no language based classroom talking about, like that’s another level. Mm-hmm. That isn’t wit wisdom. It’s its own Set of curriculum. And I think just, I wanna highlight one other thing. One thing that Lisa Marie and I have been really collaborating on is not having things happen in silos that we have seen sometimes that, um, we want to have at a collaborative effort because students with disabilities are all of our students, right? And so when we go to, you know, when you go to meetings, um, it’s the general education teacher with the inclusion teacher, um, you can see in some of these pictures, like they are literally in the PLC meetings together, looking at student data. So we are really as a, a district, um, and with the instructional leadership looking at, um, how we can continuously have

1:41:52 all educators collaborate together. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I think one of the things when we look at that, just so you can prepare for the meeting, is what I wanna see too, is I wanna see our high needs students at each test, sub test subset and how they compare to the overall aggregate. So if we have, um, if we have say, eighth grade ELA, um,

1:42:20 we’re outperforming the state average by say 24 3% at the overall aggregate at, when you look at eighth grade ELA for our high needs, are we, is it, is it comparable or does that shrink or does that grow? That will give us an idea of are we addressing those needs of those students better or worse than we’re doing our general education students. Great, great. There’s just so much data in this test that we can dig into. Absolutely. Absolutely. And in addition to all the other things that I think that will give a good picture as well. Okay. Um, like some of the, um, the data that we’re getting for the through the DIBELS has gotten, has allowed for conversations at different levels with our educators, which has been really nice. So, um, just as I start to conclude here, I just wanna emphasize how MTSS, um,

1:43:07 does rely on data analysis to support students, um, and how we’re using that to plan our both intervention and our enrichments. Um, we also have a newly integrated social emotional learning curriculum, K 12 wayfinder, which the school committee approved, and it’s going really well. And I just wanted to say thank you for that, um, approving that we are, um, really excited about the results that we’re gonna have integrating that because the, the data, the research does show that we’ll have, um, it can increase student achievement as well. So just finally, um, very proud of the work of our educators, our instructional leaders have done to strengthen our MTSS adopt evidence-based curriculum and implement assessments that help us monitor student performance on a continual basis. Um, and I just wanted to say thank you again to the school committee, and I’m really excited to bring up our leaders next to dive in a little bit more at this school level.

1:43:53 So thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Julia.

1:43:58 I’d first like to, we’re doing this by, we’re doing this by building, right? Correct. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So as we switch gears here, um, our school leaders have put together MA presentations. I’d first like to bring up Principal Mary Maxfield for Brown Lucrecia and Joseph Brown School,

1:44:13 Er

1:44:19 Okay. So I’ve got some, uh, some overview and Then I’ve got, uh, a few details as well. So you can see that this year, this past year, we scored, um, 64% overall proficient or exceeding in ELA and 61% in math. Um, as compared to the state, it’s uh, 64 for us and 45% in ELA. And Julia, you can go to the next slide. Thank you. Um, we’re consistently and significantly above the state average. Um, I do think it’s important. I probably even more significant at our level. Um, we have no, um, we have no cohort data

1:45:07 ‘cause we’re, we’re ground zero, right? Um, we don’t ha we don’t even have the fourth grade. Like we can, we can look sort of how they go from year to year, but in our own school we only have the one test where the, where, so when Julie was talking about all the other data that we look at, that’s significant, um, for us, um, and I appreciate what you were saying about, um, our u most at risk kids, um, because we’re looking at their growth and development and we have to really look, it’s the first time they’ve ever seen or asked to perform on an assessment like this. And very often those kids with high needs, that’s not the venue in which they best perform. So, um, it’s interesting, I was just looking at, um,

1:45:53 attending this UDL uh, workshop and really and truly all the choice that we give kids and that we should be giving kids in tier one. It’s not an option on the MCAS, so it’s really hard, um, for some of those kids with high needs. Um, our math trend line is on point from, uh, 22 to 24. It’s gone from 46 to 53 to 61. So, um, I am, I’m hoping that that is because, um, we’ve had significant professional development in the area of math and the new curriculum and it’s firmly in place in addition to a math win time as well. Uh, in our low income group, we’ve gone from 35% to 65% overall, and that’s subgroup. And then our ELL consistently improving.

1:46:40 Um, they actually are much higher, but again, it’s not really statistically significant because it’s such a low number. I mean, we’re talking about eight to 10 kids out of a hundred. So when we say they outperform, um, the peers who are non el, it’s, it’s a little, it’s a little skewed there. Um, we are, I wanna thank Matt can for helping me. Oh, go ahead. Can you define an English learner versus a non-English learner? English is not their first language For a non-English learner. Mm-hmm. Correct. And an English learner Is where English is their first language. No English learner. I’m sorry. The family has identified on the home language survey that they either speak another language at home or that their first language acquisition for the student was language other than English.

1:47:26 English, thank you. English Learner is a student that is, um, a designation in the state of Massachusetts and across the, uh, nation, and they receive services based off of, uh, the level of need. And that’s where they do, in addition to MCAS, they take an access test each January that shows specifically levels of English acquisition. Thank you. So I’m gonna say that an English learner’s probably more fluent than a non-English learner. Is That No. An English learner is somebody who perhaps might speak Spanish. Spanish is our Oh, so a non-English learners is someone who’s not in that category. We’re not teaching English To us. Correct. It sounds backwards, and I think I actually said it backwards. English learners are people who are learning English. Yes, correct. It Used to cause English language learners and it’s actually more, it’s easier to, Right. So the subgroup is consistently improving and outperforming the, so they’re still probably below,

1:48:12 but they’re outperforming Yeah. In terms of their Okay, Got it. Yep. Got it. Their growth for their growth, their growth Is tremendous. But their Raw score is not outperforming No, no, no. It is proficient or above like mm-hmm. So if you took the per, if you took a percentage, uh, the percentage of our English learner students, right, they are, they have a higher percentage of them are, um, perform in the proficient or above proficient range than the whole third grade as a group. Mm-hmm. Let’s pause there. I see a happy face, Mary. So, but that’s not, that’s a problem. Well, I don’t think so. I really don’t. When I look at how our kids are, so how our kids are performing overall,

1:48:57 I think we’re all doing pretty well. But our, our, our children who don’t have a language barrier are performing at a lower rate than Students with a language barrier. It’s not statistically significant because they were talking about eight to 10 kids not talking about a hundred. So the sample isn’t comparative. I thought it was important for you to know that those kids are making really good progress, which is amazing, but when we compare that, it’s not, it’s not as a large enough sample to really compare the two groups. Okay. I learned lose that dot then, because when I see that dot, it’s, it’s very concerning to me, okay. That a child who has English as a second language is outperforming native English speaking students as a, as an aggregate,

1:49:46 I guess you do Need to disaggregate these numbers to which, so what’s going on? So that’s a point that MCAS and Desi points out. Ann, when I was looking in the data and I wanted to include it, and then when I included it, I, my, my sort of thing was, you know, that’s really not statistically significant for Okay. So, which is why I put it on the bottom there and start it so that people wouldn’t be, so it was part of the overall data. So I thought it was important to include. Okay. But, but I wanted you to take it with a grain of salt. Okay. If that makes sense. Um, I wanna thank Matt for helping me sort of identify the K three schools. There’s a, he has a, he’s amazing with his spreadsheets and trying to, even though they don’t point this out, he knows how to get there.

1:50:32 And so, uh, we had some time recently where we could spend some time, uh, working on this. And we are in the top 14% of K three schools for ELA and the top 25% of K three schools for math. And that’s all students, all schools that have K through three in them. So they may be some K five schools, um, but all of them serve K through three. So that was good news. Great. Do we know what we were in previous years? And can we find that out? I don’t, but we can. We can. We absolutely can. Yes. Can you Email us that? Absolutely. Yep. We can certainly do that for Each. Um, do you want me to do it for the subject areas? Like, yeah. For Yes, please. Math, you got, So, um, some of the areas of growth that we’re working on in terms of, you know, trying to really pull up, you know, well, yes.

1:51:21 Pull up the numbers, but also just really make sure that our kids are making continuous growth is it’s year two of Wit and Wisdom. Um, so we’re looking, we’re already including more curriculum and, and the work that the teachers are doing together in their PLCs for pacing, understanding, planning, um, and implementation has been phenomenal. So I’m, I’m really excited about how much more growth there’ll be this year. Um, increasing our knowledge and understanding with, you know, with regard to specific needs, understanding MCAS, uh, I’m sorry, M class, which is the digital platform data, all this kind of thing that, um, Julia’s already, uh, already really talked about, closing the gap between students with disabilities and non-disabled peers.

1:52:06 We need to do a better job of that. We need to figure out, and how are we gonna do that? But honestly, um, including special educators in our PLCs and having them report out on the progress that those students are making, as well as their non-disabled peers. Um, early intervention we started this year And we started that this year. Yes. Yep. So that is a, Yep. And, and understanding that those groups can be flexible as well. Yeah. Um, if, you know, if kids are making, uh, progress or, or not so much, um, tier one and tier two, strengthening that for early intervention, developing a progress monitoring system in our cycles, um, actionable steps. Um, the four questions that we focus on in A PLC are, what do we want our students to learn? How do we know that, that they’ve learned it? What do we do?

1:52:52 How do we respond when they don’t learn it? And the fourth question, which it often gets neglected in, I would say elementary schools, is how do we respond when students already know it? Um, they’re just, doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day sometimes. And I think, um, while we try to meet the needs of kids on the, on the complete spectrum of achievement, um, I think that, I think most, uh, elementary educators would agree that that’s the hardest one to, to tend to sometimes. But we’re really working hard to do that. We’re piloting a program where we have, um, trained some volunteers. We had, um, working with the literacy coaches, uh, trained some volunteers in both math and reading small groups. And they’re going to be running some reading groups, some book groups, and some challenge math, um, activities

1:53:39 with some of these kids in second and third grade. So we’re gonna start that the second part of the year. Um, I think Julia really, um, talked a lot about this. Sorry. So I don’t wanna go on and I don’t Yeah. And we have a long way to go. Yeah. So I really don’t wanna, but you can certainly read some of the things that we’ve already done, triangulating the data, uh, making sure that we’re meeting the needs of all kids during those wind blocks, making sure we have data pro protocols in place. Um, we’re doing this at both Brown and Glover, so it’s important to know. I mean, um, Frank can just say ditto when he gets over here. ‘cause we’re, we’re really trying to, um, make sure that we align the, the schools and, and, uh, implement these things in both schools. Thank you. That’s Mary’s last side.

1:54:25 Any questions for Mary? Yeah, Any other questions? I just jumped in as we went. I did, I didn’t have time to do, um, the dart, uh, date. I mean, we didn’t include the dart data, but I thought it was interesting that, um, where we’re compared to, we’re, we’re smack dab in the middle of the district. So it, they range from in ELA from 39% to 71% proficient, um, in ELA. And we’re at 56% proficient. So we’re kind of right in the middle there. Same for math. They range from 39% to 75% proficient, and we’re at 59% proficient. Where, um, do they give the data of where the darts are with the, um, not meeting or exceeding

1:55:16 or it would just be the subtraction From, so it would just be, yeah, they’re, um, are We, are we higher or in the middle of that as well? We’re right In the middle because it would just be the opposite. So those are proficiency levels, so whatever’s, so we’re, if they’re we’re 59%, Well, they, they break it down into four areas. You talked about meeting, there’s meeting exceeding. Well, This is, no, this is a percentage combined meeting or exceeding. Okay. So it’s not the book. I can dig in further. So the rest is the people who are not. Okay. Thank you, Mary. That make sense? Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Mary. Anything else? Thank you so much. I’d like to bring up interim principal Frank Kowalski next. Thank you Mary. Um, who’s gonna present about, um, Glover School, um, m cast data. Welcome Frank,

1:56:04 And thank you Mary. And, um, thank you everybody, especially, um, for this opportunity this year at Glover. Uh, I never thought I would love elementary life like I do. Um, being a neighborhood school, it’s so much fun. You know, parents walk to school every day and the kids walk and it’s, it’s a nice environment and I am enjoying myself. Um, it’s hard not to me see five, 6-year-old smile every day. So with the MCAS, I’ve learned a lot about elementary MCAS. And I, you know, looking at the data of the shift without Julia in, in my team, uh, to my right club is doing well. 63% of the students, uh, meeting seating, um, in ELL and 58% in math. Um, which Mary explained a little bit.

1:56:53 The strengths I wanna highlight, uh, your attention to the 12% growth and meeting are exceeding from 2021, 2024. And I really believe, uh, with the start of the school year, we had this year, I really believe this year we’re gonna see a, a big jump in the growth of the students. Um, on the ELL, uh, English language outside from 2022 to 2024, the scores increased from 54% to 63%. And one of the things that we’ve done at, uh, Glover so far this school year has been like, we really believe in the neighborhood school model by building relationships where I want all the staff to know all the children. And by doing this, it helps alleviate with absenteeism.

1:57:39 Uh, teachers, teachers would not leave of absence for any reason. So I want all our kids, because as you know, they’re 5, 6, 7 years old. They need a connection, right? So if the kids have connections to many adults in the school, they learn. And a lot of the learning they do is social skills and first time test taking. And when they feel comfortable in school, they know the adults, uh, at all levels. I have my, my, uh, general ed teachers meeting with the, um, high language, the high risk students as well. So I want all the students, and we meet the kids outside in front of the school every day. So when kids come to GLO at school, they know everybody. Which I think really helps with our school is because the kids will feel, feel comfortable when it comes to anyone talking with them. ‘cause I know from firsthand when I had my first conversation with a student that I’m six foot four, and the,

1:58:26 and the students two foot two, uh, the kid would not look at me. He looked at the locker and I’m like, okay, this is not high school anymore. So you gotta understand that we’re dealing with little, little babies. And when you’re dealing with babies, they gotta feel comfortable. So we really try to make them feel comfortable in school. So areas for growth in the school, you know, we want to continue to move all students to proficiency, right? And we have, we wanna close the gap. And I know we talked a lot about closing the achievement gap from a, from a high end learners to our low end learners. But the most important thing about raising the gap is get pull, get pulled from the bottom right? Uh, uh, uh, tier one learners, they’re learning because they have a lot of opportunities to learn at home vacations and other ways they can learn, uh, low end learners, they don’t have those same opportunities.

1:59:12 So we have to teach them and try to catch them up to the middle. And that’s how MCAS gets raised by bringing the low to the middle and keeping the high and, you know, and keep working with the rigor for the high end students. Quick question on this one. Um, so can I? Sure. Sure, Sure. So, um, your ELAI see you, you highlight here to continue to look at essay rating to lift student results. Um, is this an area we’ve identified as a weakness in wit and wisdom that we’re gonna try to strengthen to, to work on that? Well, wit wisdom’s only, Actually, that was the focus this year from last year. So the last year’s implementation plan included the focus of writing this year. Um, so we’ve had to reschedule, but we do have the writing professional development

1:59:59 happening at certain PLCs, and then it’s gonna happen all K six, um, with the WIT and Wisdom experts. So we’re very fortunate that, um, with our literacy coaches, K six, they’ve been doing the work. And then we have had, um, sixth grade was an area, so we’ve, they’ve been working with sixth grade specifically. And then we do have a three hour session coming up with K, all K six. Okay. Um, ELA teachers, um, this was part of the plan. And, uh, wit and Wisdom is, um, has a great writing program. It was just, we knew that this was gonna be the next year of the implementation of focus. Um, when you say reschedule, We did have it planned. It was gonna be on the January Professional Development day. Oh, okay. So we’ve had to reschedule it. So it’s postponed a little bit, unfortunately. Um, it will still happen. And I’m determined that it will still happen though,

2:00:44 because that’s what we, we have to do. So, yeah. Thank you, Julia. Thank you, Frank. And one, one of the other areas we talk about when we go to, um, the m the MTSS is the data cycles. It’s so important how we, we, we try the best with the data cycles to find the students that identify the students that are at risk, and then they become tier two learners. And we really try to focus in on, on the, on what they need to improve on. Um, and we have tremendous teachers as, as I think everyone knows here at the table, but our support staff is equally as talented. We have amazing tutors. The coaches, you know, we have meetings all day long. If you walk around Glover, there’s not a student in that building unless, unless there’re a lunch. There’s not actively learning something. And it’s kind of cool to see, like when I walk

2:01:30 around the building, I, I can’t, Ima I can’t believe the amount of attention these students are getting at all levels. So, you know, and I really believe with the work we’ve done thus far this year, that the, the scores will improve and the experience will improve. Awesome. Any questions for Frank? Questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Frank. I really appreciate it. Next, I’d like to welcome our village school principal, Scott Williams.

2:02:01 Good evening. Uh, my name is Scott Williams. I am the principal of the Village Elementary School. Thank you for this opportunity to present to you this evening. Our performance on the MCAS assessment for 2024. Uh, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge and thank the hardworking staff at Village for their achievement levels. I was not there last spring. Um, and so I, I really have to give a kudos and shout out to the tutors, the special educators, the teachers, all the special education, uh, team, everybody. It, it takes the proverbial village. So I would be remiss if I’d not acknowledge, uh, their hard work and dedication for our students. Um, I’m gonna walk you through five slides this evening. The first one is our, um, success. Um, some areas of consistent strength. We have some pockets of growth

2:02:48 and achievement that we need to address as a school. And then our action plan on how to get there. So, uh, this first slide, uh, some of this will be redundant at this plate place in our presentation, but as you can see, our first, um, slide shows meeting and exceeding targets in our, uh, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. 48% of our students last spring, uh, she, uh, met or exceeded in ELA, uh, 56% met or exceeded in, uh, grade five, and then also 53% in grade six. Um, in the other content area that our students are tested on in mathematics, 65% in fourth grade met or exceeded 52%, uh, in fifth grade, and then 58% met or exceeded in that content area.

2:03:35 In the next slide, you’ll see our fifth grade science and technology results. And here, um, as, as others have stated, this is only at, at village tested in grade five, 57% of our students, um, exceeded or, uh, met those expectations for the state. The next slide I’d like to, these are areas of strength and celebration. I want to emphasize that we are comparing, um, apples to apples. These are cohort groups of same populations of students year to year. I think that’s important to see growth and achievement over time. In, in my mind and in my opinion, um, MCAS is a very important assessment, but it, as, as Julia stated earlier, it is one data point. We really look at a repository of our district assessments,

2:04:21 all of our benchmarking, all of our achievement that we’re doing, um, throughout our grade levels to get to this place. Um, class of 2032, fourth grade math grew from 55 meeting and exceeding to 65% and increased the state differential, which is great. Um, ELA achieved student growth percentile, which was also significant at that grade level class of 2031. Our fifth graders, ELE grew from 50% media next city to 56%. Um, we also are doing a great deal of, of focus on writing specifically essay components, structure our unit designs of how to write. Um, writing is not only a skill that our students need to develop in the classrooms, but in life. So that is something that, um, we are in our second year

2:05:07 of implementation with the WIT and Wisdom curriculum. Um, so we’re working very hard with our grade level teams at our PLC meetings, our data team meetings, working with our instructional coaches to make sure we’re addressing those data points for growth and achievement. Um, essay writing, again, uh, idea development grew from 32 meeting and exceeding to 43%. And then in sixth grade, uh, celebrating the class of 2030, math grew from 50% meeting and exceeding to 56%. Um, math grew from 6% exceeding to 12%. And of significant note, I would say is ELA grew from 7% exceeding to 19%. So in those high achievement categories, um, that’s significant in my mind.

2:05:54 So congratulations to those children. Can we go back one? Absolutely. So just to circle back on, when we looked at those areas of where the state landed and where, you know, we were, as I said, it’s, it’s expected that we will be above the state average just because of our socioeconomic makeup here in Marblehead. Um, and in the way, you know, we, we know that excuse things. This was the area that we had the, the least amount of delta between us and the state average. So I would like to see that, you know, and, and this is information Julie, I think can give, give me, um, I’d like to see all this data for here

2:06:40 and looking back at the three to five year trend, as well as where we are with our dark communities. Um, and then again, where we had less than 50% in the fourth grade ELA meeting. I think that’s really important to see how your, how your PLCs and, and how your, your various groups that really address the MTSS model plan to address that for that group That’s now fifth grade. As well as finding if there’s any specific areas that perhaps that wit and wisdom curriculum had a hole or something like that. Because I know a few years back, we identified when we brought that new math curriculum in, we identified a hole in the curriculum. They were really able to patch that moving forward.

2:07:27 So how are we gonna address that for these fourth graders, as well as giving the scaffolding to those current fifth graders for those skills that we see that they, they didn’t have, that they needed. I absolutely understand that, Sarah, and I think that’s a valid point for us to consider as a community at Village, because I do feel strongly that we are doing very good by our children, but clearly we have some area of growth. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Um, our next slide, areas of growth. So these are areas where I, I’m going to be very transparent and clear that we, we have success at Village, but we also, as a reflective practitioners in the field, we need to look at where we need to grow. So, uh, we we’re looking at our schedule because scheduling is a, a big component

2:08:12 of the operational execution of curriculum. And how do we staff at appropriate pockets throughout the day to meet those children where they’re at. So we’re looking at our schedule, um, for the fall, there will be some restructuring of that, working with our coaches, our special education teachers, addressing the, the entire spectrum of developmental needs from our emergent learners to our on grade level earners to our high flyer achiever students. That’s crucial for any teacher to differentiate and they do at village. Um, it, it’s not just one teacher’s responsibility, but a collective group of teachers, a team of teachers that would include tutors, literacy coaches, instructional coaches, et cetera. We have vertical alignment. We’re also looking, um, to include our instructional coaches and our special educators as a, as a voice to your point,

2:08:59 Sarah, about meeting those needs to improve those, um, at risk children, if that makes sense. Our professional learning through great minds reading. I fluency writing GR four through six. This is something that has enhanced our experience for our kids at village. Um, science. There’s new, uh, STE standards. I met with Angie today and she explained it to me. So it’s, it’s more of a engineering process where children, when they take the assessment, they’re actually applying engineering, um, approaches to problem solving in a multi-step problem. Um, that’s something that we need to look at and examine as a learning community to prepare our kids for that reality. So that is on the radar. Um, specifically for, for areas of growth, fourth grade,

2:09:45 class of 32, overall EL scores went from 64 to 48. This is concerning, this is concerning. And something that we need to work on. And we will at village school, fifth grade class of, uh, 2031 math decrease from 61 to 52%. Um, this is ironic and timely because I attended the fifth grade, grade level meeting this week where they were specifically working on fractions and numeracy and operations and math fluency. So I can attest that this is being addressed at the grade level. Um, working with our instructional coaches to achieve that. And then sixth grade area of growth for 2030. That class overall, ELA, uh, that decreased from 60 to 53%. Again, we need to revisit

2:10:31 and focus on the importance of writing conventions, voice topic development, grammar. We want to prepare our students not only to write in an academic setting, but in life, it’s a critical skill. Can I just ask a quick question on the classes? So, so fourth grade is last year’s, fourth grade. It’s this year’s fourth grade, correct? Mm-hmm. Okay. So that’s why the class all, that’s why the class. Mm-hmm. I know this, this class of is making literally in my head about it load. ‘cause I’m doing the math in my head. I know. I was like, oh my gosh, I’ve been telling my son he is 2032. What is no, that’s, no, no, no, no. This Year is fifth Grade more for me. Like I’m here for a long time, folks. Um, but when I see this, first of all, thank you for breaking down these areas of growth. This is really good. Do, when you compare our areas

2:11:18 of growth to, ‘cause I know you can get down to the question level. Yes. Are, are our pockets of areas of growth similar to what you’re seeing statewide, which would be more indicative of something like Allison was saying, you know, are are there areas of weakness due to what these kids lost with the pandemic? Are they specific maybe to a new program that we’re using? And then we can target those. What trends are you seeing In, in my, in my experience as an elementary leader, um, it, it’s, it, I know we don’t want to be complacent and, and settle for, you know, we’ve beat the state average. That’s not what I’m saying. But it’s always been my consistent experience that if you look at any item analysis over time with any MCA assessment, most districts do correlate to the state performance

2:12:03 with data points, if that makes sense. It’s very, the, the, the, the any district I’ve been employed in, it’s very consistent. Oh, they dipped on that question. Mm-hmm. That seems to be, I think my colleagues would agree with that. Yes. That’s, That’s Happening here too. It’s very, yeah, it happens everywhere. The every district tends to emulate what the state experiences. So fractions in geometry, does that correlate with a math facts scale that these kids would’ve missed out on due to learning loss in the pandemic? Potentially is, I guess that’s my question. I, I’d have to go back to the standards during those times and see how, what a focus on geometry, but, um, we can come back to that. I’d be happy To go to, because that may give us an indication of, of things that need double dosing at different grade levels as we move forward.

2:12:49 ‘cause each kid, each grade missed a different pocket. Some missed social emotional development, some missed math facts, some missed Different. So we’re looking at that, and I know that’s happening at the grade levels. And then I was actually talking to, um, a high school educator who was talking about, they were looking at the math assessment and there were several questions on like, box and whisker plots. And that was something that they, they felt like they didn’t cover, but there were like three questions on it. And it’s like, so that’s, you know, it’s, it’s, that’s why it’s a moving target with the impasse, you know? Okay. Um, so, but that is happening. And, um, a credit to our instructional coaches that help, uh, work with hand and, you know, side by side with our teachers, um, to look at that. And as you said, you referenced like we do. We really do. And have done that for years. Look at where we didn’t do well and try to remediate immediately, so, mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

2:13:35 And then my last slide will be a little redundant based on what my colleagues have already presented. We’re in our second year of implementation, uh, with WIT and Wisdom ELA curriculum, we’re increasing critical thinking, consistency and alignment, vertical alignment, K to six. Um, uh, we are in the fourth year of our illustrative math program. Um, I, I, by chance, I also attended a grade level meeting this week where we were looking at how are we gonna align that curriculum. Um, I, it’s been my experience that it takes a few years to really get deep into a curriculum to make those adjustments, to meet the needs of the, of the spectrum of learners. Scope and sequence has been adjusted, pacing has been aligned. And, um, our PLCs are a vital component of collaboration at our grade levels. And then lastly, just our, our multi-tiered system of support.

2:14:21 Uh, my colleagues that presented this already. We have our wind block, our professional learning communities. There are many enrichment opportunities available to our students. Um, we have our newspaper, thank you to Liz Pruitt who runs that. We, we published our latest edition today. Um, Jonathan Heller at our sixth grade level, he’s working with his students on the olympiads. This is a national assessment. It’s a competition where students are taking five tests, paper and pen. And, and Jonathan please step in if I misspeak. But, um, this is an opportunity. Really, really gives our marblehead children the opportunity to see how they perform at a national scope. And then if this is successful and continues, well, I’m sure we’ll introduce this at our lower grade levels. So Is that something that’s available to all sixth grade students?

2:15:07 It’s, I, I know that it, Jonathan, is this your classroom? No, it’s all, all four students. Okay. So it is all the sixth grade students. Thank you Mr. Heller. But we sat down at data and we, we did chart the groups students that were exceeding those expectations now. So there weren’t, we focused more on those other tier interventions. We didn’t have, we started something last year as well. We did this, we just competitions. We focused on it come January, February last year. This year we started back in September. We did enter the competition. Um, and the PTO got all these t-shirts. They weren’t able to do the competitions.

2:15:52 Uh, we have prizes, reward certificates for them as well. And they come in three times a week. We work on the assessments. We have different strategies we go through. And then they do those competitions once a Month. This is similar to Liz Pruitt’s Program. It’s the enrichment level, uh, within MTSS. Okay. Correct. Mm-hmm. And then my, um, my last, uh, talking point is, uh, Wayfinder, which is, uh, as, as Julia mentioned earlier, it’s our tier one social emotional learning program. I always go back, academic achievement is critical and that’s why we here, we want our children to achieve. But I always go back to the classic Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Is the child getting what they need at the bottom of level so we can achieve in the, in the holistic sense in the classroom. Um, this has been a very success.

2:16:38 I was part of the committee over the summer, and this is definitely a variable that we need to consider for our children. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Scott. Thanks Scott. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Now we like, like to welcome our Marblehead Veterans Middle School principal, Matt Fox for his presentation. Good evening. Um, we have a lot to be excited about this year at vets. Um, you know, the one thing about, about these charts that, you know, we take a look at that we’re missing, and it’s something I’ll show you towards the end, is the scatter, the scatterplot behind this, uh, what Covid did with schools and districts, is it shrunk the scatterplot. So when you were talking to the last three or four years, when you talk state average, it used to be this wide scope of, you know, here to here. And what’s happened is it sh it has really shrunk

2:17:25 that scatterplot. So more schools now are scored near the average. So that’s something to show. And I’ve even got some data from pre and post for you, take a look at. I, I didn’t have it prior to this. I’m sorry. So I, I just brought it tonight. That’s great. So going to the next slide. Uh, we have a lot of our two slides. Sorry, uh, just wanna jump right into it. Um, I’m gonna walk you through some whole school and then some specific grade level strengths that we have. And some celebrations. I’ve, I’ve color coded this. Uh, the, the red is we’re talking not percentages anymore, we’re talking numbers. Um, so what I’ve done is I had to disseminate all middle schools out of this data. ‘cause middle schools are lumped into the state data with anything. It’s a non-high school. So we had to pull out first all the middle schools from the data

2:18:11 and then go through and, and, and look at our data. As, uh, Julie already mentioned, our cumulative progress towards our goals was 87%, which tied us to the seventh highest in the state. Uh, our annual progress towards goals. Now this is, you asked about, you know, some of our lowest performers. Uh, the way the state calculates your annual progress towards goals, they take your whole school and then they take your lowest 25%. And so those are combined together in two different categories. And so you’re essentially graded on meeting your goals of moving everybody forward as a school and then moving your lowest 25% forward. So they actually count for you essentially twice. Um, we at our school have 44 points possible in

2:18:57 that process, and we earned 42 of them. Um, that includes attendance. You mentioned attendance. Um, you know, two years ago we had 17.4% of our students chronically absent. That’s missing 18 days or more of the school year. Last year, we made a concerted effort with our families as you were there to, to witness. Um, and we dropped that in one year to 11%, which is outstanding. So we went from earning zero of our attendance points to earning all of our attendance points this past year. So that tied together with earning all but two of our achievement and our growth points is what led us to here. And so I did that and I was like, wow. Fourth highest in the state. That’s, that’s pretty good. Uh, so I contact the state just to make sure my numbers are right and they’re right. So meeting exceeding, uh, this is again, as a whole school,

2:19:46 uh, science, uh, top 17% of middle schools in the state. ELA top 12% math top 11%, um, average student growth. So for ELA we had the, we were tied for the, well, no, the 18th highest student growth in the state for our ELA students, um, for English. And then in math, we were the 10th highest as a school. And that’s student specific growth. What that student Specific growth That’s, that’s specific growth. Yeah. Our average student growth in those two topics as a school, were the 18th highest middle school and the 10th highest middle school in the state. Our high needs subgroup for ELA, we were the, we were tied for the seventh highest growth percentage in the state for our high needs.

2:20:32 And for math, again, for high needs, we were tied for the eighth highest. And this is demonstrated, and I’ll mention this really quickly, but it’s demonstrated in other assessments that we give within our school. So we do a benchmark progress, uh, testing that we do. And Julie has been in those i-Ready, um, meetings with the experts that come and train our teachers. And those have said how shocked they are at the way our school moves. All five levels of achievement at the same, at the same level. So what they usually see is a slanted line. It’s, it’s easy to move students ahead that are already mastering things. And a little bit more difficult if you’re, if you’re working with students with, uh, some learning challenges or learning gaps or something like that. Um, our is, our school’s not the norm for their experience.

2:21:21 So that’s the, the school as a whole. Some of the data there. There’s so much data, it’s hard to sort of, some of the highlights. Um, at the subject level, our seventh grade math, our student growth was tied for the 17th highest in the state. Uh, our eighth grade math, our student growth was top 10%. Our meeting and exceeding was top 7%. And our special education subgroup, their growth in eighth grade math was the seventh tie for the seventh highest on the state. You mentioned eighth grade, ELA. Um, eighth grade ELA, um, is a strength for us has been for years. But, you know, and our eighth grade ELA teachers, all of them are outstanding. Uh, but it’s also accumulation of all the work that we do. Um, you know, it’s akin to, to building a house.

2:22:06 You know, if our seventh graders are subcontracted to build a bedroom, no one cares about the bedroom until they look at the house. And so when they’re leaving our school, this is what they get. So meeting, exceeding, we’re top 7% in the state. Our, our student growth 17th highest in the state. And here are our essays. Again, I talk, I’ve been talking about our essays for, for the last few years. Uh, for the essays in the eighth grade, there are, there are four grades you get for the two essays. Uh, you get WC is writing convention, uh, ID is idea development. So how well you follow conventions of writing, but also how well you still have a voice in what you’re writing. So we were the fifth and seventh highest in the state for writing conventions, like how to write. And we were 10th and 11th highest for performing it for our students, putting forth their ideas.

2:22:53 So there’s, again, there’s so much data available in these tests, which I think is so useful. And I don’t mind sitting down and getting some of this offline. But one of the things I really wanna dig into, because that what we’re seeing in eighth math and ELA is very impressive. I’d like to to sit at some point, um, and and see is that something we’ve seen trending in the eighth grade over the last five years? Is it something we are seeing trending with this class of whatever it is trending? And if it’s that it’s trending always in the eighth grade, what is happening there? It’s Not because we need more. Seventh grade math is top 18% in the state

2:23:41 for meeting exceeding Yeah. Top 11% for student growth. No, you’re, I mean, so there’s more data here. So it’s Actually, that’s the class of 2028, right? So they, yes. So that would be, so when they’re in third grade for math, they were at 52% fifth grade, 58%, sixth grade, 57, seventh grade, 65 and eighth grade 69. And I, I, I don’t wanna get lost in this before I say one thing. ‘cause if you can say you’re number one in the state something, you should say it like six times. Our special ed subgroup and eighth grade ELA was number one in the state for growth. Okay. Our student growth percentiles outgrew every other middle school state for special ed subgroup. And that’s just, that’s unbelievable the way we’re moving all of our students along. It doesn’t mean it’s a, it’s a perfect approach. Doesn’t mean we don’t have areas, big areas for improvement.

2:24:28 Um, but there’s so much data there that points to where we’re at now. If we wanna pause for a second on what’s on the screen and I’ll, I’ll hand out a handout here if you don’t mind. I will you do that. I have a couple more things on this one. Lemme just try to keep them time. No, I understand that. But this is really important information. Like our MA stuff Is really, I’ve important. So what I’ve is, I, I took all of those numbers that you see in front of you and I pulled up the 2019 data of the exact same numbers. So in other words, like where did we fall on the state for our average student growth or ELA. So I just created a chart of what you see up here and what you see here. And this is where you’re gonna see that numbers like this. Um, that’s not what we were getting. Even though our, our scores look the same,

2:25:14 We have continued to have, we’ve outgrown the state in recovery. I’m just gonna say it. That’s what I’m gonna say. We as a school have outgrown the state in recovery. That’s a bold statement to make. But if you take a look at where we’ve progressed from 2019 to where we are now in relative to the state, I mean, lemme just pull one number. Seventh grade math student growth in 2019. We were 150 third in the state. We are 17th in the state now. Hmm. So when we talk about recovery from the covid loss in learning, things like that, there’s not many schools that have done better. And I, and I, and I say that humbly, but I say that with the data. I mean it’s, I’m not here to brag

2:26:00 ‘cause I’m not in that math class. No, I mean this is, your data is, and that’s the point I’ve been getting at this is strong data for, when we look at the aggregate of the whole district, this is very strong data. I would like to see the next layer of data to see, you know, ‘cause I, I believe we have great staff throughout our district and uh, and we’re, we are investing in professional development and we may or may not have more or less money to invest in the future when we have talent in house, where can we draw on that and train the trainer model type of thing. Like, I would like to really draw into this data and see what is the trend, what is happening. And I don’t mean to focus on that one grade above all others ‘cause there’s great things happening, you know,

2:26:46 in other places too. But when you see how far we are above the state average on that and that very clear visual eighth grade is a solid place where we are outpacing the, the state average at a greater rate than we’re at a far greater rate than we’re doing it anywhere else. What is happening there? I’d like to know what’s happening there and if it can be recreated elsewhere. So I I get that we, I don’t wanna sidetrack us for another hour, even though I could could with all this data, but I would like to, you know, touch base with you guys and get more information on this. We Talked about some of our areas of growth too. So some of our areas of growth, of course, common across the entire state are the gaps between the subgroups. Um, but you know, as we, um, as demonstrated by some of our student growth numbers, um,

2:27:32 even though the meeting exceeding numbers aren’t, that’s where the gap exists, to be honest, is the meeting exceeding numbers. Um, and, and so that’s, that’s what we’re working on. That’s what every school’s working on. We’ve got our inclusion classes, we have target interventions. Um, our small group classes are just unbelievable. Now. I was sitting in a, a language based math class the other day. They’re, they’re learning equations just like in down the hall in, in Miss OSA’s room in seventh grade. And they’re should be just being taught a different way, you know, with different supports. But they’re still during doing the standards. And the, so, you know, the, the, the curriculum that we deliver is really, really awesome science. We had huge gains this year. We went from top 57% to top 17%. So we jumped 40% in the state. Uh, we’re still gonna continue

2:28:18 to build vertical alignment with village. Uh, ‘cause remember this is a test that covers three years in two schools. Uh, it’s sixth, seventh, and eighth grade curriculum. And then of course we also look at individual questions and standards. Just like you asked, like, where are we, you know, how do we deviate by question? Agreeing with Scott, you know, most of the time that if there’s a deviation from the whole state, then if there’s a dip, we’ll probably have a relative dip. You know, to be honest, we take a look at any question that we don’t score depending on the test, 10 to 15% above the state. That’s an area of concern. That’s like an area of examination for us as It should. Yeah, Yeah. We’re, we’re realistic with it. We’re not gonna just say, Hey, we’re 10% above, we don’t have to grow anymore. Um, so that’s typically a tipping point depending upon which test we’re looking at. And then MTSS, we brought this up. Uh, we, we rolled out our, our we’re,

2:29:05 we’re driving, we’re flying the planes. We’re as we’re building it, uh, we, we have a wind block now in our just read it is teacher driven. Uh, we’re looking at interventions and enrichment. We’re doing a little bit of both. Um, some of the examples here, we have data-driven groupings for assistance. Like, you know, i-Ready and i-Ready math and i-Ready data and MCAS, uh, it was in a social studies they were doing pre-teaching experts. So they had students that maybe had struggled on the previous. And so what they were doing is pre-teaching students. And so when that class comes around for that topic, they go to Johnny who was getting some pre-teaching. Now Johnny’s an expert. And so not only is it helping Johnny with the content, it’s also helping him have that sort of SEL moment of, of feeling like he’s, he’s ahead of the class. And so there’s, there’s that basic skills, reviews,

2:29:50 writing groups, book groups, mindfulness or health teachers have been doing mindfulness as an enrichment. Uh, their small groups have been loving it. So it’s a little bit of everything. Uh, you know, we’re, I’m trying not to say no too much to, to what we’re doing. So Any questions for me? Can I have a, I have one question. Where the, uh, eighth grade special ed student growth percentile land Again, Number one in the state. There you go. There you go. Nice job. Thank you very much Matt. Yep. Thank you guys. Matt, thank you very much. And I’d like to welcome our Marblehead High School principal, Dr. Michelle Carlson for her presentation. Go Back to follow that. Do you have 1%? Because Matt may have. We’re not sure.

2:30:32 So I do wanna thank Matt or first place that won’t be who is a huge help with, um, getting me data like he gave out. Um, and so I’ll just get to it. It’s getting late, right? Um, and I need to use these ‘cause I don’t have my glasses so I can’t see that far. Um, so these are numbers that we’ve already gone over, but on here you can see for ELA, um, we’re at 78%, well above the state average and math 76%, or sorry, 76 and 76 above the state average. I would like to point out too that, um, we went and we looked at this cohort and how they scored in the eighth grade to see how they were progressing. And um, we did show growth. So in the eighth grade they were at 74% meeting

2:31:19 it and exceeding. So we went up two points there. With math, they were at 65%. So we made a lot of growth there in math at 76% science. Um, we are at 73% and we don’t have anything to really compare that to. Um, for the ninth grade. Uh, then we looked at our strengths and obviously our weaknesses. Um, so looking at the strengths, we, um, scored above the state average. So state average for ELA was 57%. We scored at 60 76%. That puts us at the top 16% of all high schools. Thank you Matt. Um, and at math we scored in the top, uh, 11% of all high schools in the state. Our math increased, um, in exceeding expectations by 7%.

2:32:06 Um, and the, uh, standard growth per student growth percentage increased by 4.2% in math for last year. Um, science meeting and exceeding was at 74%, which is above the state average also, which was 49%. And that put us in the top 13% of high schools in the state areas of growth. So as Julia mentioned, um, we are, um, listed in need of focused and targeted support. And that does have to do with our attendance. Um, so one of the items which is not on here, I think I just have it, that we’re focusing on school attendance. But what we’ve done is we’ve created, or in the process of creating a tier one, um,

2:32:51 intervention needs assessment on school avoidance and absenteeism. And we’re working with our social workers and psychologists on this. We’re also, um, reviewing evidence-based interventions for tier two work with resources, um, using authors like, um, CUNY and albino from Oxford. And the, we’re using the Bright Network for our, um, students. Wayfinder of course. And Wayfinder does have some great resources on absenteeism and some PBIS initiatives. Um, we’re gonna be including a parent education component with this as well, when it’s ready, which should be fairly shortly shortly. Um, so that’s how we’re looking at um, our, our attendance and trying to reduce our chronic absenteeism as well.

2:33:37 Um, we are also, um, have done item analysis for all the questions and focused on identifying between three and five standards that we have already started working in ELA math and science with students to um, hopefully increase our numbers for next year. Um, and they have identified a few areas where, like you were saying in math, they may be taught it after the test was given. So we need to move that before the test is given. Um, let’s see. We, um, also have our PLCs that meet, um, monthly. Um, and in those PLCs, uh, that is where the data is examined and they are looking at those item analysis and standards.

2:34:24 Um, and we’re also looking at the gaps between subgroups in the whole school and in the overall achievement. Um, doing some targeted interventions in the inclusion and the small group classes as well. So things that we do need to work on.

2:34:40 So, Um, the other things that we do have in place, and we’ve had them for a few years now, is magic blocks and how we’re utilizing those magic blocks with academic assistance, two of the cycle days and then the student driven SEL and or academic one day per cycle. We have three RTI courses that focus on English, math and science specifically for students that do need that extra support. Um, and this year we have implemented wayfinder and um, seems to be going very well. We are just in the initial, um, rollout of that right now, um, for the SEL curriculum this year. And we have found lots of uses for some of those different lessons in our school.

2:35:27 And we’ve added the data and intervention and coach who’s been, um, very, very helpful with, um, helping, uh, work with teachers to identify those standards that we do need to work on for going forward. We’re the magic block, which is this the third year of it? No, uh, I think fourth. Fourth year. Okay. Yeah. Um, where that’s self largely self-directed. Mm-hmm. Um, and you now have the data and intervention coach. Is there discussion about making some of that less self-directed? Um, and really in, you know, it’s hard at that age ‘cause you want them to kind of identify for themselves where they need those areas of growth. Um, or is there at least data collection on, are they correctly identifying those areas that they need

2:36:12 to be directing themselves and is that showing up in their academic achievement? I dunno, that’s interesting to look at. We do use a program so teachers are able to lock students into their particular classes if they’re seeing that they need additional help or support in those. Okay. Or if they have work that they need to make up ‘cause they’ve been absent. Uh, so then the students are unable to self-select at that point. Okay. They are directed right into where the teachers are placing them. So that is something that the teachers are doing. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. You’re welcome. Thank you very much. That Was it. Thanks. Great. Thank you Michelle. Thanks Michelle. I just wanted to say thank you again to all of our principals for their great presentations this evening. Thank you so much. Um, also to all the educators, the staff, um, at the schools that are supporting, um, all of our wonderful students.

2:36:58 Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you Julia. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Um, do we need a break or do we wanna keep going? I’m torn. I Wanna keep going, but, Um, okay. We’ll move Into the, um, FY 25 financial update. Kill you Mr. Ble. We’ll get you all for a period. I know he ran away. Thanks. We’ll get you in and outta here.

2:37:28 It’s earlier than it was last couple Weeks ago. Hi, good evening. Hi. Thank you for having me. Uh, I did put in your packet, sorry, I got a lot of paper here. I did put in your packets. Um, the current financials through Wednesday, uh, for the district and also a overview of what I’ve come to realize in my short time here so far. Um, as you know, probably close to 80% of our budget is in salaries. So I was, um, able to encumber back in September October the salaries that I knew and then I had to undo that and redo that again for the new salaries based on the collective bargaining agreements that were settled. I was able to finish that up, uh, late last week, early this week, run some new reports.

2:38:15 I waited for payroll to hit this week and then, um, provided the update, um, with the, uh, the payroll. Our system, fortunately we only have it for another six months to a year off, right? Does not automatically encumber salaries for us. It’s a manual process. So I had to open up pos uh, to bypass that inability within the system, uh, to encumber everybody’s salaries for the remainder of the year. And then I have to close those pos after every month. So, um, I will be, I I open six pos versus 52 or, or whatever, whatever would’ve been left in the year. Uh, so that, that has been done. Uh, hopefully we can get a good trend on it. It’s one of the things as, as soon as I encumber pos or encumber salaries, I like to watch it for a month or two just to make sure that my encumbrance is,

2:39:02 especially since it’s a manual process right now, um, I didn’t miss something. So I will watch that trend. But as of right now, um, I show that we had an unencumbered balance in our accounts of about $3.8 million. Um, not anything that I am jumping up and down about, um, happy it’s 3.8, not 0.8. And um, I’m also excited that it’s not $10 million ‘cause that means we probably didn’t miss too much on the encumbered balances. There are a lot of things that are still not encumbered, um, supplies, contractor services throughout the year that are gonna spring up on us. Um, we expect them to come through. So, uh, 3.8 right now is not a large, uh, number, but it’s also not a, a scary number for us either that we’re gonna get to the end of the year and, and be running out of money, not in my opinion,

2:39:49 after five or six months. The, uh, the other, the other big, one of the other big factors for us is special education audit district costs. I did highlight that in in our packet. Um, I think our administration in the special education department, uh, has done a phenomenal job trying to unravel what’s there, what um, what they, what they found when they got here. I believe that they have found covering the microphone, not, I believe that they have found, um, some placements that were outta district that were not planned for in the FY 25 budget. Um, we now have them encumbered for this year and in our draft budget for next year, which I’ll cover in a minute, but in our draft level service budget for next year, they are there, the numbers that they,

2:40:34 to the best of their knowledge, uh, for the kids who are, uh, out of district at the current time, um, that number does exceed what the budget was. And not only does this exceed the budget, but it exceeds it by quite a large amount. Fortunately, at the end of last year we did, we, I wasn’t here, uh, the administration with the school committee’s blessing did encumber or did prepay, I’m sorry, $900,000 worth of tuitions for this current year. We have gone through that 900,000 or we are projected to go through that 900,000 plus an approximately another $200,000 above that. So in my draft level service budget for next year, I have accounted for that also. So, um, when I share that with the superintendent and we’ve had an opportunity

2:41:20 to scrub it a little bit further, it was a first pass, um, I’m sure we’ll be meeting with the finance committee to, so if we Hadn’t have done those prepayments, we would be $1.1 million behind. Correct. And That’s for, so that 3.8 would be 2.7 and That that’s for out of district placements that were not accounted for in a previous administration?

2:41:44 Uh, I think, I think when, yes. I think that there was a lot going on last year. I wasn’t here to observe it, but I’ve heard, you know, stories about, you know, special education last year and who knew what and who did what. I, I I wasn’t here. I don’t know the players. I don’t want to make assumptions Fair enough. But that’s, that’s what I understand. And I think, I think there was some special education students that went out of district late in the school year last year, and then a couple at the very beginning of the school year that needed to be accounted for and worked. I think from some report I read over the last period of time, we also had an uptick in the number of out placements. Yes. And um, you know, they also did the OSD rate went up by 14%, was that two years ago? And then another four point something on the top of that, so mean and those Well,

2:42:29 That would’ve out yet, right? What’s that? Those projections aren’t out yet. There’s some early numbers. They’re not, they’re not, they’re not 14% scary numbers, but they’re not what we, you know, historically saw two of two, three, 4%. Right. Yeah. I will say that, um, there is an opportunity for us to apply for extraordinary relief, uh, because of this $1.1 million. There’s a high likelihood that we will qualify for extraordinary relief from, from the Department of Education for Circuit Breaker, which would bring in some additional money for this current year. Extraordinary Relief helps you in the current year instead of having to wait for it as a reimbursement next year. Um, so certainly we will be fully exploring that opportunity and applying for extraordinary relief.

2:43:14 Okay. Um, so the, I I, there was a bunch of things in my, in my report, um, not high level things, uh, but I do wanna touch base on the FY 26 budget preparation. As I alluded to earlier, I have done a draft level service budget. Typically, um, in my experience, I like to do three budgets. I like to do a level service, which is most important to at least keep going in the same direction we’re currently going in. Um, I also like to do a increased services. What are we missing that, what are our students need? What do our, our faculty need? Our principals, what do they need in order to, uh, you know, bring progress even further? And then unfortunately, I always have to do a, what’s it look like if we have to make cuts

2:44:00 Or level funded? Level funded would be a worst case. And, and I can’t even imagine doing a level funded budget. Usually there’s, there’s some increase always somewhere, you know, so, but yes, a level funded would be a drastic, uh, a balance Budget if you’ll, Well, a level funded Would be a level funded would mean I get the same money next year as I got this. No, I understand that. But you’re saying your third budget is a balance budget. What funding do we have and what does that look like? Implemented into our system? Cor Correct. Yes. With projected growth. Correct. I’d have to factor in all, all increases. Uh, collective bargaining increases, contracted services, increase, utilities increases. I’d have to factor all those things in. Uh, and if we had the same money next year that we had this year, how do we make those work? And, and obviously we’re 80% of where 80% of our salary, uh,

2:44:46 budget and salaries, you know, that that’s one of the first places you need to look at when you, when you need to balance, balance a budget. So on December 11th, the town had some projections that brought us out three years. And I, and I think there’s been a little bit of change since that presentation was made, because there was some additional, um, interest income that is, is now able to be accounted for. So, but, so the number I’m going to list is without that new change, but within three years, we were at a $14 million deficit timeline, but That wasn’t revenue growth. Right. So there’s still projected revenue growth. That deficit was based on Expenses. Expenses Town wide. Yeah. So including the schools a

2:45:31 Big number, including The schools. I mean, I, I am fortunate. I, I feel like I’ve been welcomed very openly from the town. Alicia has been, uh, phenomenal. Very good. Um, Alec and Molly have been very welcoming mm-hmm. And supportive. Uh, we’ve shared a lot of data back and forth. I think we’re all working towards the same goal. Yep. Uh, I think they appreciate that. I certainly appreciate that. Um, you know, with things that have come up, I’ve had conversations with Elisha and she’s like, don’t worry, we’ll get through it. We’ll figure it out. We’ll get there. Um, so, you know, I just love the collaboration between the town and the schools right now. My goal to keep that moving forward. Yeah. Awesome. Alright. So that, those are the, the highlights from, from what I’ve ob observed, um, we do have, um, our SR funds are all fully expended. We’re still accounting for those as far as, uh,

2:46:18 making sure they’re in the right buckets and that we can report accurately when we have to file that final report. And, uh, as you know, the town’s ARPA money, it needs to be committed by the end of this month, and then they have two years to expend it. Uh, so we’re helping them in certain ways expend some of that, or I’m sorry, commit some of that. Um, unfortunately, you know, we, we wanna use it for one time expenses. So things we’re looking at, um, some resurfacing of playground, some, uh, some gymnasium equipment. Um, yeah, curriculum. Curriculum. Uh, Julia’s been helpful on, on, uh, getting some PD and some curriculum done. So we’ve been helping, you know, they’ve come to us and said, Hey, I’ve got a little pot of money here. How can, how, you know, can you guys spend it with it before the end of the month?

2:47:03 And I’m like, yeah, sure, no problem. My answer’s always yes, probably to Allison’s ears. Yeah. Right. Um, but yeah, again, all due to the collaboration, open, open communication, and I think that’s been really important. Have They given you a target number yet based on the December 11th projections, or not yet? They have not. And we haven’t given them any projections either, so, okay. I haven’t given them a level service number. And we’re Talking about scheduling something that first week, that first, I guess, um, Mike, if we could, uh, schedule a budget subcommittee meeting the first week back from vacation and his, Um, the answer was no. His, No, his answer was perfectly Mike, um, amusing. He’s like, oh, the February or April meeting, like, gimme a few more months. I’m not quite there. But, um, it was great about making it work and, and we’re just coordinating schedule. So we will be meeting at some point, uh,

2:47:50 that first full week back to, to start talking about budget development. Mm-hmm. Okay. Great. Yeah, I, I’m, you know, you and I have some conversations to have, but, um, I’m sorry, superintendent, Roberto and I have some conversations to be had, um, just on some assumptions, you know, assumptions that I put in the budget, and he may say, no, those assumptions are not where he would put ‘em. So certainly just, Yeah, some fine tuning that we haven’t had a chance sit down to do, um, just yet. But we will. And I think in a perfect year, if we had, um, if we were in a, a new team, which I, I guess am I love being part of this team is phenomenal. We support each other a hundred percent. Um, but in a normal year, we probably would’ve started this a month or two sooner. Mm-hmm. Uh, we certainly would’ve had more collaboration from our budget leaders, from our principals and our directors.

2:48:36 Our, um, you know, I’m not sure because of the timing of everything we, I know we spent three weeks in a room locked in a room together. Um, that was time that we lost that we could have been developing budgets and things like that. Uh, so while we still will solicit feedback from the principals, I’m not sure that it will show the same way as it had in the past, at least this year moving forward. That, that would be our intentions just to solicit feedback from the principals as well as the community. We also will need to consider if we need anything on the warrant within the next, you know, probably the first meeting in January. Yes. Okay. Yes. So it doesn’t have to be an amount, but if we are gonna go forward with A placeholder, we need to do that. And typically going back to 2019, we’ve put placeholder. Yeah. We put, um, two to three placeholders out, and I can pull up those, that language

2:49:21 ‘cause it’s in my inbox from all those years. And then as we get deeper into developing the budget, we know whether we’re gonna indefinitely postpone those or not, but we, we put them on. Um, so that would Include potentially, possibly general override and possibly any specific capital override. Yeah. The three we, the, the, the two we’ve done every year so far have been, um, one for a general override, one for capital expense override, which we haven’t needed to use. Um, and then I, I anticipate us putting one on, um, about giving, giving property back at surplus. But that will come later in the agenda as well. Okay, great. Um, Mike, for the special education

2:50:10 where you said you were over, I think I read it in your memo, where a percentage of 17%, um, is that what we’re over this year, what you’re projecting that we’ll be over next year? Um, Where did I pull that number? So right now, we’re not over, we’re over by $200,000 or so. And that is strictly, you know, it would be much worse if we didn’t have the, the, the $900,000. Well, I mean, we still would be over on what we were budgeting. It’s the prepayment. That’s Right. Right now we’re 6.6 right now we’re 6.6% over budget. Um, okay. And it would be much worse than that without the prepayment. So, um, yeah. So next year, I don’t know that I had given a 17%. I noticed

2:50:55 17% somewhere, well, less about the percentage and more about the co The, the next step of that question was, um, what is the rough number that is being floated out that the, that we think the, the state is going to allow the outer districts to go up by, because like you said, it’s, it’s prob it’s not, hopefully not gonna be the 14%. So they, they came out with a three point something number and then they revised it to 4.6. 4.4 0.7. Okay. So it’s still, it’s not what we’d hoped for, but it’s not catastrophically. Yeah. I mean, again, it’s not what we’re typically used to seeing in a municipal environment where we have, um,

2:51:35 we have the same costs that they have, except they don’t have out of district students. They have tuition coming in for those students. So, you know, if their salaries go up by three, three and a half percent, 4% and it’s 80% of their budget also, why do they need 4.7? And, and I’m not questioning why, why a outta district school a, um, special education school. I know that they have far different needs and, you know, more staff I’m sure to address those needs than we do. But, you know, why did they go from 14% down to a a four point something to another four point something? Um, you know, we have to live within a 2.5%, um, tax levy over tax levy allotment. And if our utilities are up by seven or 8% and our out district tuitions are up by 14%

2:52:20 and our custodial supplies and our classroom supplies and our teacher’s salaries are up by more than 2.5% at some point, it just, it doesn’t work. It just does not work. Um, are you expecting the same volatility in the out district transportation? Um, yeah. I would say that, that that market is continuing to skyrocket. Um, I, I can say that there seemed to be, when it comes to out district transportation, it’s usually, um, minivan service, things like that. It’s not big bus. So it’s a lot easier to, um,

2:52:59 It’s a lot easier to find vendors who have the ability to do that. They don’t have to buy big yellow buses, which are, you know, one to two years on back order right now. Uh, they don’t have to have a CDL license. They have to have a seven D license, but they don’t have to have a CDL license. Uh, the insurance requirements, while still very strict, are not as strict. Um, you can have somebody work on a, on a seven D vehicle who is not specifically trained to work on diesel engines and Okay. You know, so we, we can identify places we are. And that’s one of the places that we look at is a lot of these smaller vendors who, uh, you know, really just trying to target into a niche market and say, Hey, I I want to drive, I’m located in Marblehead. I wanna drive Marblehead to Beverly every day, you know, and I’ll do it for a set rate. Uh, I know in my previous district we had a couple

2:53:44 of taxi cab, taxi cab companies who would actually convert their vehicles to 70 vehicles because it supplemented them during the day to transport students during the day. And then after hours they could run as a taxi after school hours, they could run as a taxi service. Um, so it worked for them. ‘cause they were, they didn’t have to charge us for the, for the full cost of the vehicle and the full cost of, of the insurance and everything. They could balance that between two different business models. We’re, We’re also looking at transportation, you know, specialized small van transportation is always something that, you know, collaboratives and consortiums always look at to say, how can we, um, share rides? You know, maybe if, if a kid from Swamp starts go into the same program and a kid from Marblehead is going, can we share the ride mm-hmm. Between the two districts and, and, and share the costs.

2:54:30 So we, we always look at those efficiencies as well. Um, so those are all always things. And the, um, neck is, is looking at, um, a broader way of doing that. Like, um, internally. So, you know, there, there’s some, there’s some conversations about the special ed transportation ‘cause it’s just so expensive. Um, there is some reimbursement now that there never used to be, so that’s helpful. But Okay. I think, I think fortunately we do have our own in-town transportation. We own our own vehicles. We have our own drivers. Um, that is a huge, huge savings. Huge, um, just from the standpoint of where general ed transportation or big bus transportation has gone over the past 10 years. Um, but I think we need to look at our, our equipment and identify what you know is, is our equipment,

2:55:16 are we planning properly to make sure that we can sustain that model here in model ed? Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you. Thanks Mike. Thank you very much. Sure. Um, any other questions for Mike? Okay. Um, let’s move on. Do we anyone want a break?

2:55:33 Um, Brian, are you prepared to go forward with the communication update? Thank you.

2:55:45 Do you need to share your screen or? Yeah, I can figure out how to do it.

2:55:57 Take a quick, take a quick break too. Anyway,

2:56:11 We on break?

2:56:16 Oh, we’re waiting. Or, Um,

2:56:21 I think they’re just using the restroom. If you wanna proceed, you probably can. Mm-hmm. She chose not to go with a recess. Oh, okay. So if you wanna proceed, you Can.

2:56:35 So the subcommittee has been working to resolve a lot of the issues that were brought up on the survey we did. Mm-hmm. And, uh, so one of the first things we did was update the frequently a ask questions page. Mm-hmm. That’s been in the, uh, Dropbox for months. And I’m not sure how you want to go through these because it’s mostly language. So I’m just worried about, do we wanna go through each section of the fact page or cover at a later date? Doesn’t matter to me. You know what I mean? It’s like, It’s also nine o’clock. I just wanna be my check. Uh, So I know that, you know, there’s some of these that I have some feedback on. Like for instance, when he says, I have a problem with my school, it’s a school community,

2:57:21 the appropriate body to address it. There’s a narrative here, but the, the real answer is there’s policy ke and that’s, that’s how we, we have to be very, I think if there’s one thing that I’ve has really been highlighted over the last year, it’s really to keep referring back to policy ke and that what that talks about is it’s the hierarchy. If a, if a student or a parent has an issue, they’re really supposed to start with this teacher. If they don’t have it resolved there, they can go to the principal or the building director, then up to the superintendent. And it’s really important that when we get these emails, um, from parents, which we, we get very, very regularly, I think every school in the country or world does, um, parents first initial thing is, is sometimes just to go

2:58:09 to the school committee that we’re responding back with the link to policy ke and encouraging them to go back to the teacher first. Mm-hmm. Um, and then follow that chain of command. Okay. Because, because I really do think that most times that that’s where it, it can be resolved and there’s should be very, very few, if any incidents that come all the way up to us. That’s true. Um, and then I don’t know if people have other feedback in other areas, but, um, I love that the idea of having the FAQ and I’m very appreciative of the work that you and Al have done on this. I do think the actual narratives below the FAQs,

2:58:54 um, could, could use some development. And I’m not sure what the best mechanism for that is, is ‘cause it’s, if anything, maybe a workshop model because we don’t really wanna sit here in a normal, That’s what I’m saying. Yeah. Typical meeting and wordsmith and go through it. But we also have to be cognizant of the open meeting. So, um, maybe we look at a workshop for FAQ development

2:59:21 I just noted about, I had a concern about this one here. Yeah.

2:59:28 Okay. We can set that up. Okay. Because as I said, there’s so much language in here. It’s, you know, everyone has their own way of phrasing things. Yes. Okay. We also are in the process now of getting ready to update the school committee webpage. Um, I just talked to Steve before the meeting started, uh, Al and I took a lesson with him on how to make all the changes. But now that we’re actually gonna do ‘em, I think we need to sit down and do it again. ‘cause I don’t want to erase something and have a real problem. So, um, yes. So I think everybody agrees that there are sections of the webpage that need to be updated. Like we need to add a new section in there for where the school committee newsletter will go. Um, there’s all kinds of pointers going on, so I think if everyone’s comfortable with that, we’ll start making the changes.

3:00:15 I, I thought what we had decided is you would guys would identify the changes and Steven will implement them. That only Steven should have access to changing it. I thought that’s what we, am I wrong about that? No, I thought we had talked about that. Um, so like for instance, if you have a screen that you want changed, take a screenshot, mark it up, send it to Steven and he can implement it. But that he should be the one in the page. Okay. Yeah. You’re comfortable With that. I did do some stuff. That’s what I was doing during negotiations. I would tell him what I want or send him an email and he would make The, so what you want me to do is prepare the next time we meet to at least list the things that we’re gonna have Steve change. Yeah. Yeah. And, and he’s very quick, like when we’ve said before, can you do a quick button for a survey here or quick button to put the budget here?

3:01:02 I mean, I don’t even wanna say it’s, it’s not even 24 hours. Like it’s right away. Yeah. He’s really good. I feel bad setting that idea that he’s gonna do it for you Right, right away every time. ‘cause that, well that is an unachievable goal, but, well, it’s Certain things. I think if it’s just wordsmithing or, you know, deleting a section, I, I don’t really know if Steve would’ve to do that for us, but it’d be like if there’s major changes, the format, the page itself, that’s something I wouldn’t want to do on my own. Well, I think it’s more of a, of the website itself. Yeah. I’m not sure any of us should have, I Don’t think we should have access to that. Okay. That’s my concern. I don’t think we should. I, I, I I dunno. I mean if you wanna bring that back maybe to lan, you guys can have a conversation. I just, you know, school committee members come and go

3:01:49 and you want, I mean, you generally don’t necessarily want us to have actual access to the website. That should for I think in general for security purposes should be with one person in the IT department. And then we can just keep Becausecause. I don’t even even think everybody in the IT department has access to, I wouldn’t think Just you right, Steven? Yeah. So yeah. Okay. That’s not a problem.

3:02:18 So, uh, part of it is we’re asking to, um, do some work on our communications and teamwork as a school committee. I contacted Alicia and, um, she’s able to hold some of these workshops for, and so I think we’re just looking for the dates that she had given us. And the focus will be on teamwork, communication skills, and anything else that we feel we need to focus on right away. Okay. Uh, we published school committee goals and everyone accepted those. So we’re moving on with that

3:02:51 turnaround times for the school committee minutes, I did meet with Allison and she really is working hard. She had a backlog when she took it over and she’s almost switched. She told me by the end of winter break we’ll be running on schedule. So the following school committee meeting, we’ll have the minutes minister approve rather than trying to figure out what we did two months ago. Mm-hmm. That’s wonderful. And I just wanna point out too, just to give her a little bit of grace, she’s also in charge of payroll. So there’s a been a lot of changes in payroll in the last three weeks because everything Soft Rite is such an outdated system. There was a lot of extra work that needed to be done in payroll, um, to kind of make up for the changes that are happening. So she’s, she’s doing double time on both fronts.

3:03:37 That’s why I said there, I wanted to give her a combination. That was wonderful. She’s great. Appreciate. Um, we are working now on improving our relationships with the media and I have met with, uh, the current and the weekly and they’ve agreed that they will give us space on the end of the month when we wanna publish our school letter, uh, school committee newsletter and perhaps any special articles we may come up with. For example, we are looking at trying to create a primer on budgeting because I think as we go along, it’s gonna be very important as, as the money becomes tighter and we want to start looking at some future, uh, increases in our budget. I talked to Mike this morning a little bit while about, um, some of the things we can work together on. I don’t want to overload him now while he is working on the budget.

3:04:22 That’s most important to, gets to the budget started while he’s already started, but to continue his work on, I don’t want to dilute his efforts to his primer, but I, I really think a primer are very important to get out. And it’s not just the primer for the parents. That’s the smallest number of voters in the town. What we wanted to get this prime route is to the rest of the, we wanna be able to say to the town, over 60% of the town budget is the school committee’s budget. And so we need to make sure that they understand how we create the budget, why we create the budget this way, and how we can get funding for what we need. I think the budget subcommittee could work on that. Yes. I think in the goals, that’s who we attribute to it to. Yeah. Great. Okay. Great. Uh, the other thing I just wanna mention too is that we, um,

3:05:10 have been working closely, particularly during the work stoppage with MHTV and had done some interviews. So I’d like to also, you know, see there may be some opportunity, um, and I can wait also reach out to John Caswell, um, and just, you know, talk about whether maybe we have the opportunity to do some, um, periodic interviews on the headliner. ‘cause it’s just another, it’s multimedia. Another option for the Yes. I haven’t been able to make contact with him. I think I can help you with that. Okay. I can help you with that. Um, I’ll skip to the newsletter until the very end public comment. We had originally been taught ask what we should do about Palm of Comet because they have been fast and furious over the last couple of months. And we think it’s important for us to, to have a po a

3:05:58 policy, or not a policy, but a, a procedure for how we want to deal with some of these comments. So we don’t wanna make a comment during public comment, we should not responding as right after a person gets done with their public comment, we should not respond to it immediately. That’s something we should back off on. And I’ve noticed that’s sort of been picking up lately. We sort of jumped right in. And I really think we need to go back to a Rod, uh, Roberts rules of water and not comment, uh, as people speak. Now, if the topic, however, that they’re speaking about is significant enough and something we’re already working on, then I think we should have a, uh, one topic discussion of future school committee meeting to address that because it’s part of the overall planning.

3:06:44 Do, do you understand what I’m saying? Mm-hmm. Like a forum, if you will. Yes. Okay. Or what a town meeting or whatever we want to call it. Mm-hmm. But, you know, um, we, That’s in our goals too, right. I Mean, I don’t just, I disagree with this, but that’s fine. Um, it’s the will of the committee, but we’re, it’s in our goals to have multiple forums so there can be more conversation. Yes. Yeah. And the only time I think we should respond directly to a public comment the following meeting is if there’s misinformation being passed out that’s, that’s absolutely incorrect. I think we need to be able to correct some of these misconceptions that fly out during public comment if they’re severe. Okay. So the only comment I’ll make about this is that public comment is believe Allison is one

3:07:31 of our, in our protocols, It’s a policy Actually policy. It’s a policy and a protocol. Right. So I I think that, so, you know, I’m gonna read this as a suggestion by the sub comm, the Communication subcommittee. Um, and I do think that, and we can Revisit it. The Policy subcommittee can revisit that because, um, yeah, I think we can commit to doing that. I know that there have been a few times over the last year and a half where, um, actually it was a little bit for

3:08:00 maybe about a year, year and a half ago, not as recent as the last few months, but we ha legal had us pull, um, our public comment policy and reviewed it not this past summer, but the summer before mm-hmm. And felt it was a, a strong policy and a good policy. And, um, if anything they said you can read the policy at the start of, of the meeting to kind of remind people. Mm-hmm. So I think, I think that’s good. I think what, what I’m seeing here is the reaffirmation of multiple of our goals, which is nice. Mm-hmm. Um, and then it just reminds us we have to get back to our goal. We not back to, we, we just started them two weeks ago, so we were selves a little bit. Um, but you know, that we can wanna continue

3:08:46 to focus on those. And the communications subcommittee had one goal. The budget subcommittee had one goal and then the, um, policy subcommittee had one goal. So, um, I think some of these are reiterated here and I just kind of read them as reminders that those goals, Um, that’s correct. This is the communication of the goals that we have already set. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Alright. So this monthly newsletter, I have a sample here. If I can figure out how to get out of this. You might be able to just click on your hyperlink. You have is a link Actually there? No, that’s not it. Say again? No, it’s not That hyperlink. It’s a, a small newsletter I think. Oh, okay.

3:09:48 I don’t know if you still wanna screen share right now. Nope. Yeah. Where did I go? Here, here.

3:09:57 That’s not it either.

3:10:03 Um, it’s the second one down Brian, or I’m sorry, here we Say again. It’s, Um, if you go to your files, just ‘cause I can see your screen right now, it’s the third one down all the way on the left that says s’more access. If you, um, minimize that and just go back to your home screen and you have a touch screen here, minimize all that.

3:10:28 So if you click on right here that says s’more. Oh, here, right. Is that showing? Yep. Yep. So this is just a draft that Al and I were working on. It’s not the final format or anything, but it’s giving you an idea of what it could look like. And, uh, I’ll be honest, I couldn’t have done this s’more without help and Julia, I’m in her office a lot trying to figure out how to get something done because it’s not exactly simple to use. But I always thought that, um, we should always start off with

3:11:04 Our mission. Yes. Our mission statement. I mean, I, we have to constantly remind everyone what we’re here for. Mm-hmm. And then we’d have it done by month. So this was like a draft of what the December would look like and the plans for December was that we would, um, focus on the 24 25 budget, improve our communications and improve the, uh, school community goals. Alright. So that would’ve been if we had started this at beginning of December. Okay. Then there’s a section that we covered in December, the negotiation with the MEA and that just stated what happened where you can find all the bulletins is the link right into the bulletins. Mm-hmm. And then the last section of this says the contracts negotiated and approved

3:11:50 and it was a little discussion at the meeting at the school committee with custodians. But once that was addressed, we approved the contracts and then they were ratified and signed. And again, there’s the link that gets you right to the contracts. Then I talked about the fact that last month a group of us went to the MS MESC conference with the MSS conference and these are the people that went to it, a listing of some of the courses that we took while we were there. They were a lot more than I have listed here, but these are just a sample of what we did. And, um, you can see that the examples of the courses that we took are very relevant to the work that we’re currently doing, doing now whole things on the budget, communications, equity, um, and DEI

3:12:37 and all of those type of topics.

3:12:44 So we presenting our findings today and what we’re saying, one next section I had, we had thought would look, um, would work well, would be subcommittee updates just to, under each one of these subcommittees, if, for example, we’re gonna talk about the coffin school, that that would be listed here as one of the topics subcommittee we talked about, and then link it to wherever the notes are for that. And then the last part is, um, a summary of the actions for the previous month. If we said we were gonna do these things, here’s what we’d do by the end of December. Now the only thing I can’t figure out is how to put the Zoom on here. The zoom I, I can’t figure it out. Oh, the video. Yeah. And the, this is here. Marble at ice is the next meeting. Oh, the link I wanted to put in here that it’s a Zoom

3:13:30 and live, but I couldn’t figure out how to put, ‘cause every time I put the link in it puts it above it, it puts it in a weird figure. We’ll figure it out. Plus we may not always have the link. This is just a model to show what we could do not for content accuracy. Right. Correct. Okay, Perfect. This is just, it’s Great a Form and if you like this form then we can start going and finalizing it. Yeah, I think that’s great. I think it’s a good form. Yep. Allison, any comments? You okay with it? No, I think it’s a great start. We can, you know, this can be in our workshop too, right? Yep. Absolutely. Okay. That’s it. Great. Any questions? No, that’s Great. Thank you. Thank you for the work. This looks like a tremendous amount of work went into this. Okay. Awesome. Really appreciate that. Alright, so we will have more work hopefully. So this might be potentially launched

3:14:16 in January would be the goal. Yep. Okay. Um, great. Thank you. Okay. By the way, is this some more format for the newsletter? Okay. I mean, just The way we, I think it’s what parents and families are used to because it’s what everyone gets use it. Teachers use it. Yeah. I’d like to add also I may that, um, when you receive it, you can translate it into any language. I Think that would be really helpful. Oh, that’s one thing I To get families, and that’s one of the reasons and, and Steve and the program that he brought in, like we all have access to it. So It’s Track industry. Well, Mora also has analytical tools that I forgot to mention, for example, we can find by looking at the results, which section parents focused on when they read it mm-hmm. And how long they read it. So we get an idea. We don’t want this thing to be more on the two pages ever. I mean, it should be very short. Very sweet.

3:15:04 I thought, I thought from some of the newsletters that have been published in some more, the average read time’s about seven minutes. Mm-hmm. So that’s maybe a page, page and a half too. So that’s the idea is to keep it short, simple and understandable. Yeah. And I think it’s, it’s a more user friendly format than some of the things we’ve used in the past. Just, you know, as an end user of it, I find that I read the smores more frequently than other previous newsletters that felt a little bit clunkier to work through. Yes. Great. Thank you. Yep. Looking forward to it. Awesome. Um, okay, moving on. We have the coffin school surplus status. So, um, I, this is where the com subcommittees working together works. Um, Jen as, um, a member of the policy subcommittee

3:15:52 had queued me off to look at policy FCB, which is the retirement of facilities. It talks about a retirement report or am I calling it the right thing? No, it calls for a, um, a study, a closing study, a comprehensive closing study for any building. Yes. That may be considered service. So we can go through a, a lot of these, um, because, uh, we have already stopped, we stopped housing students in coffin when we moved them into Bronx. Some of these, as we go through doing the stu uh, doing the closing study, we’ll just have an item next to him that is not applicable. But I think I do think it’s important to go through and create the document. Um, so I can work with the facilities subcommittee and Mike to go through this.

3:16:38 Again, I think it’s going to be a, a brief report, um, because so much of this is gonna fall under not applicable. Um, but I, I think it’s a good, good document to have. Um, and again, it Historical content. Yeah, I think, I think that’s good. Yeah. Well and adheres to our policy. Yeah. Which is that we require it. So, um, and, and again, as we said last time, it will be, it is the recommendation of, um, the facility subcommittee that we do this closing study and then take it to the next step, which would be, um, talking to the town about putting a warrant in article, if that is the will of the committee. So do we, um, alright, so we, I I mean, I’m trying to be a little conscious of time, literally tonight, but also, um, time in regards to this. Do we want to take a provisional or take a vote tonight?

3:17:25 Um, or do you, are you recommending that we, The warrant’s open through the end of January? So we have two meetings in January. Okay. To address this in. I think that from a a, a workflow perspective to have the closing study when we take the vote seems appropriate versus putting the cart before I, I think we, we could guess at the outcome. Yeah. Um, I don’t think, you know, it’s a mystery, but I think just for following the steps, it would be helpful to, to have the closing study documented in our Dropbox and for the public so that if people wanna make public comment, they have that opportunity and then take that vote. Okay. John, you agree? Yeah, I think I, I think that’s a great way to, to go forward.

3:18:10 Yeah. Okay. So there’s no question. Okay. Alright. So do you, will you be prepared to have that for the next, for the next Meeting? Um, our next meeting, we have to find that one, but we can talk about that. Our next scheduled meeting is, um, immediately following the holiday. And I’ll be honest, no, I will not have it for then. Okay. Um, I, I anticipate being able to have this, um, absolutely in time for the warrant. Okay. Um, but, but it, it would not be reasonable for me to tell you. I’m gonna have it the, that, that, um, first week back. Okay. So we will, the plan is to have it for a meeting in January. Um, letting the public know at this, this point, we’re expecting that we’re gonna have a closing, comprehensive closing study presented to us, um, at the meeting that we will expect to take a vote there. So there is sort of, you know, forewarning to the,

3:18:59 to the public if folks want to come and speak about it, there will be an opportunity to do that and that we will have time to make this, uh, take this vote prior to the warrant closing. Um, okay. Any other questions on that? Okay. Um, let’s do, um, quickly, can we do subcommittee and liaison updates? I think Brian, you just did your communications one. Yes. Okay. Um, budget will be meeting, as I said, that first week back, um, or we’re finalizing people’s schedules right now. Um, facilities had a meeting. Our last, we have had two facilities meetings in the last week and a half. Both are up on YouTube to, to be fully viewed.

3:19:44 This last one we had RDA and left field come and do a presentation on the roof project at the high school. That entire presentation is uploaded and you can, um, see that via the YouTube discussion. Um, one correction to that is when we are, when Mike was giving a little bit of the history, he talked about, um, the date on MSBA submittal we are currently. I I went back and asked Mike to pull some data. Um, following that meeting, I have also gone back through and re-watched the meetings. And, um, the good news is it was became very clear that, um, it’s not a transparency issue there. If you have the time, which I understand a lot of people, you know, may or may not have the time, you can go back

3:20:32 on our website in conjunction with the YouTube and look at old minutes going back several years meeting agenda, um, the agendas, the minutes, the packet materials, video. I was able to access videos and watch meetings from 2021. Um, I have significant amount of time in the last two days fact checking that. So I do encourage people, um, they have some time with their hands and wanna look that over to look over those old meetings. But what we were able to figure out was, um, a more finite timeline on the submittal for, um, MSBA reimbursement was done in March, uh, about six weeks prior to the town meeting vote.

3:21:18 And then we heard back, um, I found the, did you see I forwarded you some of the stuff I found? Yeah, Mike, so you had it too. So we can add it to the timeline. Um, there was an October 26th, 22 email that was dated talking about, um, the, the reply from the MSBA and then in, ultimately in December of 22 was when the MSBA came back and said they would not engage at all. I finally found that letter with the high school roof because it was less than 25 years old at that point. Um, so long, long story long, um, all those, all those meetings are available online.

3:22:04 And we’ll be adding to that a comprehensive, um, overview of the timeline. Um, I think I, I think I had, I had the MSBA submission date off by one year. I had said in the meeting that it was 2023, but it was actually, It was 2022. And then we heard back from them in December of 22 that they would not take it back. Then. I, I, I sent you a link to a meeting, you’re probably ready to kill me from the spring of 23, where, um, we’re talking about at that point that it was gonna be about 18 months out, um, how long the ordering takes and that the roofing material and so on and so forth. Um, ultimately this is where we are, Leftfield and RDA did a really, really good presentation of explaining what our options are.

3:22:50 Um, Mike has been working very closely with Alicia. They feel, um, we’re doing the final closeout on the Brown School Pro Project in the MSBA reimbursement right now, but there should be about 1.6 million left in that give or take a little bit. Alicia feels, um, confident, or at least this is my takeaway in saying when we are done with that final closeout to present to town meeting, repurposing that money to help offset the additional cost. Um, really where the big delta comes in in the cost is it was never put out, it was never projected that we were going to replace all the HVAC units. I know there’s been some misinformation floating around the community. Um, what was noted at town meeting was the high school

3:23:39 roof, the d winging roof and one unit on the field house. It was never the, all the units on the entire roof process. And when they got up there and got boots on the ground on the roof and really started to estimate is when they were able to identify the amount of rust, which they feel was, um, exasperated and kind of sped up by our proximity to the ocean. Um, and, and the salt air rotting out those units. Um, so Anyway, Everything, yeah, so everything’s on there. I I am not gonna make you all sit through the additional hour, um, presentation, but I encourage folks if they’re really interested in it, to look at it and we will be coming back

3:24:24 with more information on, um, how, how we best think to approach the, the, the process. Thank you. Um, negotiation subcommittee. Um, we still have contracts that have to be finalized in contract form. We have the memos of agreement, memorandums of agreement up on our website. When those, those contracts are slowly coming in, we’ll be working with the MEA, um, the co-presidents, um, to make sure we’re all set both sides on those final contracts. And those will eventually be signed. They won’t, they do not require a vote. The vote took place with the MOAs. Um, but when those contracts are completed, I’ll get them out to the committee. Everyone can take a look at them and we can, um, we can sign them from the negotiation. It’s important to note for people who,

3:25:10 who all this contract stuff isn’t their native language. Um, at this point that those contracts are in play. We’re not further, they’re, they’re ratified, they’re good to go. It’s really just integrating them into the thick, you know, however many dozens of pages pack it. Okay. Any other updates? Did you have any other Updates? Uh, c Ppac, uh, they were very happy with all the work that Lisa Maria’s been doing. Oh, good. I mean, she’s cleared up a lot of the dsi, uh, concerns and they’re very pleased with the way the district is approaching this. Great. So that’s good. I also attended the district safety advisory and I’m feeling very confident that everything is being done to make sure our schools are safe.

3:25:56 I even asked the chief before the meeting started how he feels about this information that shootings and schools have gone up since Covid. And he said, yes, but he’s confident we’re doing everything we can here prevent something like that from happening here. And they’re also, tower School has having an ALICE training that they’ve invited us to be able to send people if we want. So it’s, uh, I think that there’s a lot of focus. Everyone’s done their drills, everyone’s done their fire drills. So I think we’re moving in a very positive safety focus. We’ve also, just to add, um, we’ve added more cameras that we noticed, um, you know, whether there was blank spots. We had some more cameras in just looking at facilities in general around some other safety concerns. But yeah, it was, it was a good conversation with the Tower school and charter school and the two chiefs.

3:26:44 Uh, there was a lot of good collaboration going on. So I’m, I’m really pleased with how, how things are going. And those cameras were part of the capital campaign or capital budget improvements last maybe the year before last. And it really made a difference. ‘cause I know a few years back when we looked at security footage, I think it was a glover from a broken window or something on a roof. You couldn’t, you couldn’t tell if it was a child, was it a six foot five man? There was no differentiation. And now when we’ve seen camera footage, it’s very, it’s Very Specific. Steve. Steve’s doing a great job with making sure, you know, work with Todd and everybody to make sure, um, that those cameras are where they need to be and they’re operating properly and there’s been updates and yeah, they’re all So lots Great. Lot, Lot. No, that’s great. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Um, okay. Um, any, I have, I have a couple items for new businesses.

3:27:30 Any, any of the members have any items under new business? Um, I had one item. Um, it, it pertains to student services. We have this audit coming back. We’re do a lot is happening in student services. And I think that that momentum has been great. Um, we’ll, we’ll have this audit coming back. Um, Lisa Marie has been working with her team, um, both at the district level and at the school level to really fix the areas of concern that were highlighted from the state. But one area that we had talked about last spring that I kind of wanted to revisit was, um,

3:28:10 we, at le at least I want to figure out if we have a, I, well I know we do not have a letter of engagement with our special education attorney that, that came out kind of during things last spring with one of, with an incident at our lower elementary schools. When we were looking at some data, um, I had asked to see the letter of engagement and at that point, attorney mc Voy had informed me we didn’t have a letter of engagement that we’d been with him with for multiple decades, but we just had no letter of engagement. It’s best practice that you do have a letter of engagement with any law firm you’re working with. So in light of that, you know, I, I want to either get one and possibly look at, um, going through the, the, just my understanding is best practice every few years, you know, looking at who is your legal counsel

3:28:59 and for special education, um, you know, just reaching out to our administrators and at least finding out we’re, We’re gonna make a recommendation about that. Um Okay. From the student services side of things. Yeah. And it may be that we say with that it’s just if we, if you’ve been with a firm for decades and we should at least like revisit it and have at the very least have a letter left. No, at least Maureen and I have spoken about that. We’re gonna make recommendation. Great. Okay. Great. Thank you. Um, the last thing I had, um, just quickly, we are scheduled in, uh, two, uh, meetings coming up first in January. We’re, or first meeting is scheduled for January 2nd, which is the first day back to school after the break. We do have a couple of administrators that had some conflict, um, from central administration, um, on that. So I’m, I’m wondering if the committee is open to moving that first meeting to January 9th, Thursday, January 9th.

3:29:47 We’d also have one on the 16th. I actually think that would be very beneficial. ‘cause there’s not, I mean we’re going on break. I think people are, have things going on. We’re not gonna have anything new to report really, or new work product. And we also work together the second in the week leading up to the meeting, um, or the days leading up to the meeting. And, um, I am myself, I’m not necessarily gonna be available. So we’ll have a much more substantial, um, at least finance subcommittee update ‘cause we’ll have had a meeting. So I I that makes sense. A lot of sense to me. And for that month, does it make sense? ‘cause there’s actually five, the ninth and the 23rd, We could do the ninth and the 23rd. There’s Five. Yeah, there’s five Thursdays that month. So do we wanna do the ninth and the 23rd Deal? That would, that would keep it, that would keep it in line

3:30:32 with what we normally do every two weeks. Spacing it out. Yeah. Yeah. Ryan, how do you feel about that? I’m fine with that. Okay. Allison? Yep. Okay. So we’ll do the ninth and the 23rd. Everybody out there in TV land. Um, the other question I had for the committee, um, to consider, we don’t even have to decide this tonight, but normally in February our meetings are usually the first and third Thursday of the month. And when we set the calendar back, um, in the, well in the spring and then in solidified it in the fall, we had February 6th, um, which is the first fe Feb, first Thursday in February. But normally we would have February break on the 20th, um, which is the third Thursday. So we had our meeting scheduled for February 27th. So I just wanted to ask the committee if it, if it’s something you would wanna consider since we will be having school that week.

3:31:18 Um, do we want to keep February 6th, the first Thursday and move to February 20th, which would be the third Thursday? I mean, that’s a possibility. One thing I would just like us to kind of, if, if people are okay with waiting to address this, um, to, we’re at least have that first budget meeting. Sure. Because during that time period, we tend to have more, um, more frequent meetings at some point. And we’ll be having in February, our budget workshop Okay. Which tends to be two In the past it’s been two nights. Okay. So why don’t we keep the sixth and the 27th and then if, as we needed, if we needed to, uh, like a budget workshop, maybe a Monday or Tuesday, if for some reason how that falls, we have at least have the flexibility that we have that week, which

3:32:03 Is, yeah, historically it’s been two nights in a row. We start earlier. Mike’s looking at me.

3:32:10 He’s no longer talking to me. Okay. February 6th and 20th, um, speaking. No, We’re gonna leave at the 27th, Brian, and then we’ll wait and see to Sarah’s point, because we may need to actually add that as a meeting. So let’s leave it as the sixth and the 27th and then we’ll see how we are doing with budget. And we may need to To add that. And actually, while I was going through all the past meetings, I came across some, the previous budget workshops as well as the budget hearing. But the budget workshops may be different than what people are used to. So if, if, um, it’s helpful, I’m happy to take that link and send it out to everybody. ‘cause I know many of our principals haven’t done that with us and, and you guys haven’t seen the model that we’ve used either to kind of sit and I wouldn’t watch the whole thing. I would fast forward through the six hours to get an idea.

3:32:57 It doesn’t have to be six hours. But would it, would it, the format in the past Is this, is this an opportunity to like revisit the Yes, I believe I’ll say we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on how transparent our budget process has been. Each of our principals and directors present their budgets and then answer questions to the public. So what it’s allowed us to do is really streamline the budget work or the budget hearing. Um, and then people know that it’s, we’re not just rubber stamping a budget that we’re really, um, explaining what it is we’re funding for education in, in environment. Great. I can’t look at my, Um, okay. So any other, um, any other items? No. Okay. Allison, y’all set? Yep. Okay, great.

3:33:43 So I’m gonna take, um, ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Allison second for the motion to adjourn. Oh, Sarah, you can just adjourn without a motion. You know that I, well, I like to. Okay. Brian. Order in favor, Sarah Fox. In favor. Allison Taylor. In favor Jen Fe in favor. We are adjourned at 9 36.