It is 6:32. So noting the hour and the presence of quorum, I call the Actton Boxboro Regional School Committee to order. Members of the public who wish to watch the meeting online may use Acton TV's YouTube channel, which is found at the top of the agenda. This meeting is being
recorded and will be posted on Act TV's website at acttontv.org. So welcome everyone. It's been a really busy three weeks. Um, feels like it's been a while since we've all been together. Uh, school's well underway. We have presentations tonight from CPAC um
on district goal number one. Yes, we're already talking about how things are going. Um, we'll get to talk about AB Forward and we'll take a look at our school committee goal and getting ready for the tri board meeting. Um, but first, we get to do some fun stuff. So, we are going to recognize Julia Zhu and
Daniel Sai, who's not able to join us this evening, um, for receiving the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent Certificate of Academic Excellence Award. Julia, come on up. All right. So, I have the distinct pleasure each year of granting two of
our students um certificates from the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent. Um and this is part of a statewide award that is given to two of students at every high school um in recognition of excellence. And so, you know, we have two students chosen. One was Daniel Zai and the other was Julia
Zhu. And what I'd like to do, Daniel couldn't be with us tonight because he's competing on the math team. Um, and so he has a prior engagement, but I'm going to read a little bit about Daniel first and then Julia, we're going to get to you. Um, so Daniel, um, I just want to congratulate him on his outstanding high
school career. Um, as you can see, you know, a hallmark I think that Daniel has shown is he has lots of extra time. Um Daniel is the captain of the science Olympiad team, president of ACT and Boxboro math competition, um head of the problem writing committee, newsletter editor um of Arcadia University math
camp, director of public relations for youthranked choice voting, act in Boxboro Music Talent Association publicity team, and AB Boys Varsity Tennis Team Manager. Um he's a humble and kind young man and clearly is not very busy either. Um, so obviously
congratulations to Daniel and we will get him his certificate. Um, and now on to you Julia. And I want to thank your counselor for providing us all of the kind words. Um, and according to your counselor, you are a true Renaissance woman, continually exhibiting insatiable curiosity and academic and
extracurricular opportunities, not because it's expected, but because of your innate curiosity deems it stimulating and necessary. Julia has been equally accomplished in STEM subjects as she has been in humanities. Her intellectual interests are wide and varied, and she seeks acceleration and
depth every time. Julie has been a member of MIT's Primes program for gifted high schoolers that work with MIT professors as mentors to review research and novel mathematical papers. Julia is a fabulously gifted pianist who performed a solo with the Grten Hill Music School's Symphony Orchestra um as
the piano competition winner. She's also a gifted violinist and cherishes contributed contributing to the strengths of AB's orchestra. Julia is skilled at coding in Java and Python and has taught it to younger kids through some volunteer work. She's also regularly contributing essays and poetry
to window seat and from your school counselor feels that you are one of the most intellectually brilliant students that he has encountered in his career as a counselor at AB in over 20 years. As a human being, he believes that you are one of the humblest, kindest, most
gracious and empathetic young women as well. So that is a stunning combination. So Julia, congratulations on a well-deserved recognition and we are pleased to give you the certificate. So uh we're going to do a quick photo and then uh and dad, you're welcome to
come up to if you want to do a photo. Um yep. And then um we'll see if you want to say a few words to the school committee. You have the microphone. Yeah. All right. Is this a good place to stand? Sure. Okay. Yeah. Um, so, you know, I'm a pretty frequent flyer at these school
committee meetings. You guys all have all seen me through years now. This is the fourth year. Um, I won't be here regularly, but again, big thank you to all of you. Really starts with you um, taking in what we have to say. Always appreciate us having us here. Um, all of
that. So, thanks to you guys. Um, next to my counselor, Miss P, for all the kind words that she shared with Superintendent Light, um, as well as with everything else she's done for me throughout um, all of high school really. and to my teachers. You know, I
can't name all of them, but they have all contributed so much to my experience here at AB. And yeah, lastly, to my classmates, to my friends, my best friends. Um, they've all been so so important to my time here at AB. Um, like this wouldn't be possible without
them, but I wouldn't be possible without them. You know, whether that's Daniel, who I've had in a bunch of my classes, too. He's um great classmate and very very intellectual as you know. Um or it's really all of my other friends and classmates that I have in class every day and orchestra and physics and
chemistry and everything that makes AB um what it is. So yeah, just a big thank you to everyone and thanks for having me. Thank you. Congratulations again. All right. Next, we're going to welcome our student representatives to come up
and share with us um some of the things that are going on with current events at the high school. So, that would be Tushar, Mina, and Diksha Matre. Um come on up. Have a seat. Okay. Looks like just sh you are on on all by yourself today. That's okay.
Welcome. We're glad to have you. Hello. Oh, so hello everyone. My name is Tasharmina and I'm right now a junior at Actton Boxer Regional High School. And some of the things we are having at
school is that first thing is that on October 14th, this Tuesday, we are going to have our community day. So the juniors like me are going to take the PSAT. The 12th graders are going to go for a college tour uh to UMass Dartmouth or UMass Ammerst. The 10th graders right
now will go to the Boston Fenway Park to have some fun and to enjoy. The ninth graders would be staying at the school but the teamworks community is coming to our school to have some fun and to uh make uh have some excitement and stuff.
Uh another thing I would like to talk about is that club fairs. So this time we had a lot of clubs like 2 weeks ago and during our lunch period a lot of students were uh going all around and were looking for the new clubs so they could meet new friends they could
experience new things and they could sign up for it. So that's one of the best things we had for our club fairs. The next thing uh I would like to talk about is the u student community. So this community has helped us uh reaching this far and helping us to build the
community days and everything. So that's one of the best things uh we do at AB here right here. That's that that makes us one of the best schools I believe. And last thing I would like to talk about is the homecoming. So this time our homecoming is going to be on the 25th of October. Homecoming is one of
the best things we do at AB every single year. And I believe that that's uh that makes a lot of our uh students uh do enjoyment stuff and everything. And I believe that's one of the best things uh AB has done so far. So that's it for
right now I have. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions that you'd like to ask? Any comments? Leela, I don't have a question. I just wanted to say welcome. Um, and looking forward to hearing your updates in the future as well.
Thank you. You too as well. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. So, next we will shift to public participation. And before we do this tonight, I want to give everybody a heads up for future school committee
meetings. Not tonight, but in future school committee meetings. Um, we are going to have AB Forward on our agenda for a while, at least through December and probably into January when we're planning to take that vote. Um, and so along with kind of what we did with the
steering committee that met on Tuesday night, we will shift all of our public comment that is AB forward related in the future to occur right after we have the AB forward update so that everybody's got the same information, not just what's on slides, but also what
you've heard in the meeting. For tonight, anybody who has a public comment should do it now, but just so that you know that that is coming. In addition, uh you may not notice on some of the seats there are there's a stack of nice yellow flyers. Um so that's the different ways that you can provide us
with feedback. Um it's how you can reach out to the uh the school committee via email. It's how you can reach out to the AB forward steering committee um using the public comment form there and how you can follow along on the website. So
thank you. Ah please note the yellow flyer that Adam is demonstrating. Thank you. That's what you're looking for. So, this evening for school committee policy beedh, members of the public are invited to speak for up to three minutes. Public participation will only take place at
this time during this meeting. Speakers must be recognized by the chair before speaking and the committee does not typically respond to comments during public participation. Would anyone like to come and talk to us? All right.
Three minutes. Three minutes. So go ahead and turn that on and uh then you've we will give you three minutes and uh you will get a 30 second reminder right before your time's up. Uh good evening everyone. We are
resource force the student le environmental advocacy team at the high school. We have come here to remind you of the updated sustainability policy which passed in January of this year. Hello. Good evening everybody. Uh we
meet on this very frigid evening. It's very cold. So first of all we would like to acknowledge and appreciate all that the school committee really has done. Um just like passing the sustainability policy which resource force uh we have been talking about in the last couple of
years. So thank you so much. We really appreciate that. Um we are just wondering because you know we have a revised sustainability policy that we passed along with mothers out front uh last year that we worked to elaborate on. U in this revised policy we asked
that the school provide us with an annual progress report reflecting on the efforts that our district has made towards decarbonization towards 2050. Uh we truly believe how important it is for our district to inform people like us about what is being done to reduce
carbon emissions, what our current situations and demographics are in terms of decarbonization and what your plans are moving forward. Therefore, we would like to know the state of this year's annual progress report as well as where and when we may
find it published to ensure easy and clear access uh for future reference. Thank you. We uh we appreciate your uh sorry, we appreciate your effort. It means a lot to us. We hope to hear back
from you soon. Thank you. Good evening. Um for the folks watching at home, my name is Mike Ballescu. I'm an Actton resident, R.J. a great parent and president of our district's teachers union.
Like everyone here tonight, I'm anxious to hear more about the proposed reorganization options under consideration for the Acton Boxboro Regional School District. As a teacher, parent, and taxpayer, I'm as invested as anyone in what the future holds for our
school community. I understand the financial constraints we're under, and I support the school committee's goal of finding a more sustainable path forward for now and the future. But as we begin a season of feedback, discussion, and debate, I don't want it
to be lost on anyone here tonight or watching at home what a district reorganization really means. Cutting staff for a fifth year in a row. I don't share this because I think there is an alternative. I don't share this because I'm unaware of the long-term benefits
this process could yield. I share this because I want the community to be sensitive to the talented and selfless educators who will lose their jobs and have their lives turned upside down if the AB Forward initiative is successful.
I anticipate the chatter here in this auditorium and on Facebook and on the soccer sidelines and in the aisles of Roach Brothers will be robust. I understand that families and community members will have strong opinions. Most of all, I understand that you as a
committee um have a powerful and challenging job to do to do as you decide what the future looks like. But as we debate and advocate and argue for what's best for our kids and our bottom line, let's not forget that every option under consideration has a corresponding
impact on someone's life and livelihood. I hope we as a community can do two things at the same time. advocate passionately for our preferred reorganization choice and also mourn the damaging impact that choice will have on
an educator somewhere in our district currently giving everything they have for our students. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? All right, Peter.
All right, thanks Tori. Um, I actually just want to start off by recognizing and calling your attention to a communication we sent out um, a little while ago to the whole district and really, you know, also sharing what Miss Dean had shared with the high school community a little earlier that over the
last couple days they have seen several really serious um, incidents of hate and bias speech that included racist and anti-semitic comments. Um, elements of that in terms of racism were the use of the n-word, um, targeted use of that as well as the the symbol with the
swastika. Um, these were all in uh, two different boys bathrooms. Um, some of the incidents yesterday were within a few minutes of each other, so we believe there's some connection there. The high school has been investigating it, but has not yet determined um, who may have
been behind it. Um, they have documented it. They've reported it to the actton police. Um they also um with our protocols, you know, engaged their school crisis team so that the the counseling staff and administration could come together and identify any vulnerable populations within the school
who needed support. Um and then, you know, we've been in constant communication with them as well as um our rabbi over at Beth Eloim. So um we're doing a lot of work in terms of communication around that. That's something that's going to be ongoing. Um, I just want to make a statement and
be really clear that it's absolutely unacceptable behavior in our district um to do things like that. That is not the values that we have as a school district. Um, and yet it occurred in our schools. And so that's something we take very seriously. We're working through that process and just want to make sure we're communicating clearly what happened and that the community is aware
of it. Um, we do have protocols in place for responding to incidents because we recognize the world we live in is complicated. Um, and so we, you know, sent that link out to families to make sure that everyone in the community knows what to expect from our schools as we work through incidents like these when they occur in our schools. So,
happy to answer any questions about that before we go on to other elements of the superintendent's update. I want to go ahead. I want to echo what you said about this being completely unacceptable and not us. And also something that I really
appreciate about the work that we've done thus far is helping students understand how to recognize this and support each other and helping teachers as well. Um, you know, the fact that this is something that is written and happening in a bathroom and that it's getting reported. It's important that
it's getting reported, but also recognizing that um we're working hard to be able to interrupt those moments when they happen actually in person, I think is really important. And I hope that we're continuing to lean on that as we move forward because that helps strengthen our community.
Okay. All right. In a very awkward pivot, um, you know, I want to actually do a congratulations now. Um because one of our newest additions to our high school staff, Gretchen Turner, uh was recently named the 20242
uh MIAA girls swim and dive coach of the year. What a incredible honor early in a tenure. Um so we're incredibly fortunate to have her on our staff uh both in the building and within athletics and certainly wish her uh and her team great luck this year. Um
I know we have a long agenda, so I'm just going to highlight a few things just to call the school committee's attention. Um based on all of our work on chronic absenteeism u over the last year we did send out a notice to our families just drawing their attention to school attendance. Um it's just a proactive communication with families
letting them know that you know what to anticipate from us around communication as we go through the year um in terms of student absences. So that was sent out. Um we are also in the process of now sending out um information to families um with the results of the MCCAST
assessments from last year. So, those will be going home shortly to families um and they can anticipate those coming in their um inboxes. It's also um principal month. So, you know, this is a month that we just get to celebrate some of our school principles. Um they have some of the
hardest jobs in education that exist. Um and so we what we've done is we try to feature them on social media. So this year um last year Mike Vto was an interim principal. He didn't get recognized. So he's getting recognized this year. Um he's a very shy person if
you haven't met him. Um so I'm sure he'll you know struggle with this. Uh but we also have two new assistant principles to us this year. Uh Julie Bababson and Jennifer Gust. Um and so we're going to feature them a little bit on social media as well and certainly welcome to them welcome them to our school district. And my last update for
you um about a week ago, it feels like a month ago, but it was only about a week ago. The high school actually hosted 60 students um from the Gaagashan uh science high school in South Korea. Um I was actually able to attend the closing ceremonies for that. Um and it featured
a student speaker. It featured a scholarship presentation that we were very grateful. They donated a $2,000 scholarship to one of our students. Um and a dance performance by some of their students. Um so I just want to thank all of our teachers and staff at the high school for hosting um students in their
classes. Uh I had got to talk to some of our students after and every student I talked to said is there a way we can do more of this stuff. Um I think it was a great opportunity for our students to get to interact with other students from around the world. It's something I certainly would support seeing how we can continue to increase opportunities
like that. So thanks to everyone including the Korean language club that we have at the high school and our jazz combo because they perform some music for them as they exit. Thank you Peter. Any questions, comments for Peter? All right. In that case, we would like
to invite up Abe Gutierrez, Amanda Bailey, and Kristen O'Neal to um give our CPAC presentation. Or perhaps just Amanda and Kristen Good evening and thank you for having us. My name is Amanda Bailey.
First time using a mic. Thank you so much. I'm Kristen O'Neal. We're here representing the Actton Boxboro Special Education Parent Advisory Council. Our third co-chair, Abraham Gutierrez, was unable to join us this evening. Unfortunately, he sends his regrets. For those unfamiliar, the Special
Education Parent Advisories Council duties under state law include advising the district on matters pertaining to the education and safety of students with disabilities and meeting with school officials to participate in the planning, development, evaluation of the school district's special education programs. While voting membership in the
CPAC is held for parents and guardians of students with disabilities enacted in Boxboro, general membership is open to all interested parties. So, welcome to all of you. We thank also and recognize our school committed leaison this year, Glenn, Lisa, and Vicram, and for their
curiosity and showing up and learning more about our families. And Kristen's going to share some of our priorities for 2025 2026. Thank you, Amanda. Um, again, thank you for the opportunity to let us share CPAC's priorities for the next academic
year. Um they include relationship bu building, improving outreach and engagement workshops and parent and caregiver education opportunities, community building, a long form survey that Amanda will talk more about, engaging in the district strategic
planning and reorganization practice, which all of you are well aware. Um and I'll note that these are priorities that we set out as a group last month in our September meeting. Um, and we leave room for whatever may come up over the course
of the year so that we can pivot and address those needs as appropriate. We really value the consistent collaboration with the district and look forward to building upon that this year. We've met with the special education administration and all coordinators to
share purpose and common ground. We also hold monthly meetings with special education administration and Amanda will talk more about that. So the meetings are between the CPAC co-chairs, the administration for information sharing purposes and then we bring back issues for discussion and decision-m to the
full group during our public business meetings. Um we really deeply value having our administrators present during those public meetings because that fosters trust in both directions. Um as part of relationship building this year along with all of our new admins, we're going to be engaging ongoing with the
school committee, all of you subcommittees, district working groups and initiatives as appropriate. We want to note that this is always alongside others. Rarely is there only one parent or guardian of a child with a disability in the room on a committee. Um for example, AB Forward, I think the
majority of the parents have experience raising a child um with a disability or in special education, different programs. Um our role is unique because we have the honor of representing all the kids 3 to 22 with all disability types and bringing that lens to the
work. Um, but to do so requires obtaining information from all the families that we represent in a variety of ways. And Kristen's going to talk some more about that next. So, one of our goals is uh working on a communication plan. This is something that you all are very familiar with, the
uh process of engaging the community in meaningful ways. Um so our goals and objectives here this year are clear, consistent and timely communication, ensuring all communication is accessible and inclusive and also facilitating dialogue and seeking that community
input, putting out the opportunities and allowing that to come to us so that we can um bring it to a larger forum. Um we took a look at our existing resources. Those include our website, our newsletter, Facebook, um a group email
chain, um surveys, feedback forms, workshop participation. We also have many other opportunities that we've identified um that we will be looking into and uh implementing over the next year. While we do that, our priorities
are to make sure that this um outreach is sustainable. we're volunteer um organizations, we need to make sure that um we have the bandwidth to do these things in really impactful ways. Um also that it's accessible and that is
representative as Amanda said um including all disability types. We will look into meeting attendance, social media, newsletter growth, survey participation, event attendance, um all as measurements of success. um and we
have baseline numbers for all of those. Another relationship that we value is um with the Federation for Children with Special Needs. The organization's mission is to empower and engage families and eliminate barriers to improve life outcomes for all children and young adults. Um they also, for lack
of a better term, are the governing body for Massac. um that is an or a group of uh CPACs throughout the state um and their guidance at uh the federation of both and they support both volunteer
parent leaders and district administration to build effective parent school relationships and partnerships. The district pays for our masspack membership and in the past this meant that we received a free workshop every year. It was advertised throughout the
district. It was a one night event. um this year. It is a different format that offers our families and um any interested parties the ability to sign up via this QR code which you can um see on the screen and that link. Um they
have monthly schedules all including the basic rights workshops that were always available as options for us to offer. Um those are now available multiple times during the month along with specialty workshops. So you'll see there was a bullying workshop on the 6th. um and
other uh like social emotional learning is at the end of the month. So um really great offerings. We really encourage folks to take advantage of this. Um it's been more of a challenge to advertise because it's not district specific. So we really wanted to highlight this important opportunity.
Internally, we're going to be developing an advocacy strategies workshop to share with our families and we're working on compiling anti-bullying and bullying prevention resources for folks as well. And we'll also use the survey to help pinpoint and develop other opportunities
as appropriate and as needed. So community building, um we have been really keen to connect with younger families in addition to our annual attendance of the ABFN, the Actton Boxboro family networks um kindergarten
social every year, which Amanda and I were at in June. Um, we've also been thankful for Joe Gibowitz's uh, partnership over at Early Childhood Program. Um, he'll be sending home some of our brochures to the families there. It's really important to connect with
those families as they enter the district for the first time and start their tenure here at AB. Um, and we were at Fifer Day Fifer Day. Thank you for um, the school committee's invitation. It was a lovely day spent with you all. Um, where we found the
most impact is at specific school orientations and open houses. That's where we're seeing our communities. Um, and reaching them in the most effective way possible. Um, I have been at so far all of the open house nights. I have to miss next week because of Box Row Town
Meeting. Um, but Amanda will be taking that over. Um, it's been really great to connect with a lot of our families and our educator educators across the district. This fall, we've also started bi-weekly support hours. We've called them office hours in our communications. Um those
have been held. Thank you to the Boxboro Sergeant Memorial Library and Director Pesan Bartley for their hosting of us. Um so far those office hours have been opportunity for peer connection and support. Um they have been during the day because that is when we've had
availability as we do our open houses. Um but we just announced um an evening hour and we'll see how attendance goes and see if we can offer those varied times. We want to make sure that there are multiple ways that people can connect um outside of our regularly
scheduled monthly meetings. This year we are also really excited um to partner again with the friends of ABCPAC. It's a 501c3 organization that raises funds to support ABCPac. And a huge thanks to Jamie Bermudez, Amanda
Toby, who's here tonight. Um, Lynette Castle, and Erica, how do you say her name? Bruises. Thank you. Apologies, Erica. Um, for their leadership and untangling of um
getting this up and running again. They are having a playground meetup on Sunday, October 19th, 2 to 4 at Gardener Field in West Actton. Feel free to stop in. um they will have snacks and it's just an opportunity to connect with other parents and caregivers um and kids
in the district. Um so we hope to see you there. Another one of our objectives this year is to publish a long form survey. While we've used feedback forms and listening sessions to quickly collect targeted information from families on topics like
absenteeism, inclusion, um we are overdue for a long form survey. It's important that this not conflict with the AB forward and uh consultant efforts. So we're putting this on pause for the moment. Um but the benefit is that is we will be able to therefore
capture input once a final decision has been made um to be able to understand what people's concerns are and be able to participate in the next phase of this process in a meaningful way. One of the topics we're going to address as a follow-up in the survey is
anti-abbleism, anti-bullying, bullying prevention. There's been an anecdotal uptick um in some of the slurs and language being used. You know, the perennial is sped. Um but there's more porative use of autistic being tossed around in the schools. Again, anecdotally, there's been an increasing
use of the Rword. Um the CPAC stance remains that the Rword should be treated as hate speech. We're going to be following up with a survey question regarding bullying, teasing, and harassment. Sometimes parents aren't always clear on the difference between and among those terms. Um, we're also going to be sharing again resources for
families and actions they can take. Um, we talked with a bit with admins and you know, they mentioned second step. That's really not enough. Um, so we do want to realize that our our kids and their peers are hearing this rhetoric right now all the time. And how do we do this in a meaningful wraparound way? How do
we leverage IEPs and the anti-bullying uh language within IEPs to help? How do we use the district resources, etc. We're also going to be addressing inclusion as a follow-up to our recommendations that were published last year and shared with you in the spring. We'll be asking about student and parent participation in the IEP process, the
sense of inclusive school communities, um stuff like that. And our primary focus right now has been engagement with AB forward. And we want to uh folks to understand that families of kids with disabilities are facing unprecedented threats right now. Um that
our families with kids in specialized programs who may have the highest needs or among the highest needs are are under considerable stress. Um we talked a bit in the spring at the mic about what that can look like in the classroom when kids are disregulated. You heard from educators who talked about what that can look like and how heartbreaking it is
for everyone. Um and it's a hard process and a necessary process to secure the resources to make this better. But this process is also shaking the foundation these families rely on day-to-day for their kids and for their families and that results in a lot of fear. Um we do share our deep appreciation for being
included as a stakeholder among so many others. Um we do see our current role in addition to participation as helping capture feedback from students and families by all the available channels that will be discussed further this evening. Um we will also be holding a listening session for CPAC families on
October 18th. Saturday from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. 10:30 online and we'll be discussing it again on 10:22 at our CPAC meeting in the evening in person at RJ Gray. So we are providing opportunities again to hear directly from folks and encouraging them simultaneously to contact AB Ford and the school committee
directly. Again, once a decision is made, we'll be able to shift into gathering input. And we've already established um an understanding with the coordinators that we have to work together to make this happen. That it's going to take communication, collaboration for this to be successful. So, here you'll see our meeting dates.
Amanda just reminded you of our next meeting, which is in person at RJ Grey Library on the 22nd. All meetings begin at 700 p.m. Um, we do an alternating schedule of in person and via Zoom to try to capture as many folks as possible and have as much meaningful conversation
as possible. Um, we encourage, thank you, Adam, um, for your suggestion, um, for your suggestion of reminding people to put these meetings on their calendars when they come out. We decide our meeting schedule prior to the start of the school year and start advertising
them. So, it's a good organizational tool to put them all in right away. And our sincere thanks to director of special education at Tal Cruel, Assistant Director Dan Miser, and yourselves for your ongoing collaboration and support. We welcome any questions that you have.
Thank you. All right, Lisa. I just wanted to express my elation for all of the workshops and educational opportunities for families. Thank you for empowering families with the gift of knowledge. Thank you so much for doing that. Glenn,
hi. And echo everything Lisa said. Um, what is the distinction between bullying, teasing, and harassment? Luckily, the district drew this all up. Um, and that defines it all. Um, I think the key thing here is the word bullying. People jump to the word bullying very
quickly, but it involves a power differential over time. So, one off being teased on the bus is not bullying. And so when people my child was bullied on the bus, they don't get the follow-up that they're maybe expecting because it doesn't rise to that threshold. There's a legal definition of bullying. And the
district has a set of procedures um that spell out all those different terms as well as policies um for some students in certain disability categories that are um socially vulnerable like autistic students. There are additional provisions that have to be addressed and considerations that have to be addressed
in the IEP. But bullying in a nutshell, and please correct me, any educator in the room, it's power differential over a span of time. Oh, you Well, before you disappear, I just want to say thank you for the fact that you are always there. Um, of
anybody in this district, we know you're going to show up. Whether it is coming to our meetings, whether it is coming to our workshops, um whether it is uh enticing people to come and visit you with excellent collections of candy and fidgets and always a check to make sure with the kids that their adults are okay
with with the chocolate. That's all good. Um and I really I am thankful to Lisa and to Glenn and to Vicram that you are being very active leaison because I think this year in particular that's really important. Um, so the work that you're doing to keep everybody looped in
with AB forward, we really appreciate that and let's just continue to work together and thank you to the constencancy is so important. I mean, we we're counting sort of again all the different changes at administrators that we've had and so having that consistent presence and the welcoming response from all of you is so key. So, thank you.
Great. Thanks so much. Thank you. All right, that brings us to district improvement goal number one. And I believe we have Gabby and Trisha and Kate.
Yeah. While they're getting set up, um just a bit of an introduction. Um if you recall this year in our district goals for the year, one of the things we wanted to do was recognize that we we want cohesion across the district in the work we're doing, and that was that focus on tier one instruction. But we
also wanted to recognize kind of the uniqueness of each school and that each school takes a slightly different path toward that. And so um we're structuring some of our goals updates to you so that you hear not only the district perspective but also kind of
school-based perspectives um on what this focus on instruction looks like for us. And so we're really pleased to be have able to have Gabby presenting to you along with Trisha O'Reilly, the principal at Conan and one of our absolutely extraordinary teachers over at Miriam Kate Chaveler. So um thank you
Kate for joining us. Um I you I'm sure you were like oh please me pick me. Um actually she was I actually was I'm really excited about this. Awesome. Awesome. But thank you for coming. Yeah. Good evening everyone. And what an honor it is to sit next to these
educators who are um inspiring to me and who um have so much to share as part of this conversation tonight. And anytime we have an opportunity to kind of remove ourselves from a lot of things that feel so outside of the bounds of teaching and learning and kind of get into the space
where we that brings us the greatest joy which is to talk about our practice, our pedigogy and our kiddos like we just want to celebrate that. So, as as Peter highlighted, we have focused a our primary goal for the district improvement plan on strengthening
high-quality tier one instruction for all students, including multilingual learners and students with disabilities. And as a leadership team, we identified four different strategies or pathways um through which to navigate that journey and through that that goal. And tonight
we're going to be focusing on the first strategy, which is ensuring consistent implementation of highquality instructional materials that embody universal design principles, support social and emotional learning, culturally sustaining pedigogy, differentiation, and high leverage
instructional practices. There's a lot of educational language in there that we really feel honored to share. I wanted to remind you of the four strategies that we selected that are part of our district improvement plan and just highlight that we'll be talking about strategy one. as I mentioned and subsequent presentations over the next
three months will give you insights into the work that is happening or some of the work that is happening in the additional strategies and then at the end of the year you'll be able to hear how we progressed with our plans and our work. So, as I mentioned, we're going to be focusing on uh that first strategy.
And I wanted to give you a little bit of background around what does the term mean, high-quality instructional materials, and what has been our history of investment and um dedicated effort with high-quality instructional materials. And then we're going to zoom in to grade six and talk about
investigating history, which is a curriculum resource that we have um adopted um as part of our student learning experience. And that's where Kate is going to step in because she is the person to talk about investigating history in grade six. Um, so just a
little bit of background information. So high quality instructional materials, we've talked about this a little bit before and I wanted to just kind of emphasize some of the messaging that I've shared previously. There are a few links to some um research articles that are associated here, but they're defined as standards aligned, researchbased, and
coherent to positively impact student learning. They combine um ED reports which is an agency that evaluates and vets um curriculum materials um look at it for look at those curriculum materials from the lens of standards alignment usability for teachers and
coherence across grade levels. So it's not just a one-year uh curricular experience for students but there's a through line of understanding from one grade level to the next if it's a multi-grade level curriculum resource like investigating history is or like e education and then just a quote that
access.hqqim HQIM is strongly correlated with improvements in student outcomes, particularly when paired with professional learning. We monitor implementation of our high-quality instructional materials um with pacing guides that we've developed across the
district so that we understand um when and where educators are facilitating the learning for students um and see through our classrooms and walkthroughs, our classroom visits and walkthroughs as well as surveys to monitor um implementation how things are going. Um
in active Boxboro Regional School District, we have adopted high-quality instructional materials in several areas. Um as you're aware, we have a program or a resource called illustrative mathematics in kindergarten through grade 8. Our EL education literacy curriculum is on grades K
through six. Recently, we adopted Second Step, which is a K through 12 social and emotional learning resource. And many AP courses are actually considered to be high-quality instructional materials because they're designed with a research base and with hundreds of educators contributing to their content.
So, I'm going to turn it over to Kate at this point who's going to talk to you a little bit about investigating history. So, I am excited to talk about this and I will be honest, if you asked me a year and a half ago if I would be an enthusiastic advocate of a new curriculum, I wouldn't have believed it.
Um, so we have been, this is our second year using this program. Um, so what is investigating history? It's free, open- source, comprehensive curriculum. It's grades three through seven. It was developed by DESIE in partnership with a lot of different organizations including primary source, which a lot of us
teachers really value and have done some great PL with. Um, teachers were involved, experts on the topics were involved. They had this tagline that the goal was to create the curriculum that teachers would create for themselves if they had unlimited time. When I saw that, I it rubbed me the wrong way because I kind of felt like, well, how
do you know? Um, and honestly, I do feel that way specifically for this curriculum. Um, before I was in teaching, my background was in archaeology and anthropology, and I was kind of feeling like, is this really going to be as good as what I've spent 10 years creating and honing? And
honestly, it really is. Um, so last year was the second year of public release, and I believe there was a number of us across grade levels who were piloting it, um, and who are now teaching it this year. So there's different structures um set up for investigating history. So the vision is that students work together to
answer um questions looking at a variety of texts from different sources, different perspectives. Collaborating with peers, that's a big part of it that there's it feels like a great balance of work they do on their own and then they come together to discuss drives them towards deeper and more complete understanding of past and present.
Empowers them to help shape their community's future. teachers position students as active particip participants in an inquiry process. It's very inquiry based and it's woven through the full curriculum. Uh sparks their interest and curiosity. It does a great job of that. Centers on students and their thinking
in this really deep discussion um and supports all students in accessing these test texts that at times can be challenging um and gives tasks that develop their disciplinary skills. And then the instructional principles um inquiry and investigation are a huge part of this. So, this is not a
curriculum where we're saying, "Here you go, here's the knowledge." It's really empowering them to access it themselves, develop those critical thinking skills. It's focused on current events and civics. Um, the curriculum for sixth grade starts 7 million years ago at the
dawn of our genus. Um, and goes up through for early civilizations, but it's not just talking about the past, it's it's grounding it in the real world. So, my students are learning about Babylon, but they're also learning about modern Iraq, and it's going to tie in um some global themes around things
like colonialism and historical racism. Um historical empathy is a big part of it, too. As a social studies teacher, it's really important to me that my students view this as these were real people with real lives, and what does that mean? And that ties it in. Um it's
also culturally responsive. I have not encountered any lessons um or any content that made me think like ooh that's problematic and I think it was um very well vetted in terms of that. So what are teachers saying about investigating history? Um the curriculum includes the most up-to-date information
for some topics that are frequently changing. If we think about historical topics um there's not that much about the Revolutionary War that's coming out that's brand new and groundbreaking. That's not true for something like human origins. um in a decade of teaching this content um there are species that did
not we didn't know about 10 years ago and so that was my big concern with a published curriculum was is it going to truly be up todate when I first started we had textbooks that were as soon as they were published they were obsolete and so this um they're really committed to using um the best resources they use
a lot of the resources that I myself have been using um things like the Smithsonian um a lot of the natural history museums and the authors of the program are really committed to continuing contining to update and I've had conversations with um a number of people who were involved with that at different PL. Um it's also very easy for
teachers to use and I think that most teachers would not say that about a lot of the um recent curriculum. So I I truly feel like I can get this lesson in front of me. It's visually easy to understand. It has a realistic breakdown of how much time it's going to take. Um and it does an exceptionally good job of
breaking down student needs. So, it has sections on it for our ML students, our learners with exceptional needs. Um, and it's it's very adaptable and the kids find it really engaging. Um, so when we decided we were going to do this, Gabby had asked me if I could
get some feedback from sixth graders. So, I asked the sixth graders about it. Um, I got a lot of great feedback, but it all was about our most recent lesson, which was about this really fascinating Neolithic mummy um called Utsie that was found in the Alps. And It's so fun,
right? So, if you're 11 years old and you learn about, that's all you're going to talk about. So, we had about 40 little sound bites all about. So, we did get some great feedback from sixth graders. Um, but I also reached out to my students from last year to see what they had to say about it. So, um, one of
my students this year liked the fact that there are questions we're trying to answer and we talk about them a lot. and he went on to talk about how we're discussing tool making as a turning point and this idea of our first unit is what are the turning points in early human history and just revisiting that.
Um I also got some great quotes from my seventh graders. So Arohi said uh I liked Mesoamerican civilizations. This was great because it wasn't just the normal they did this, they did that. Here you go. We got to learn all about their way of life like the sports, the food, trade patterns, myths and more. We did this for all of the sei
civilizations like Mesopotamia 2. I really liked our Mesopotamia unit because of the interactiveness. And similarly from Ana who said, "Social studies in sixth grade was really great. The Mesopotamia unit was so fun. I loved the videos and the way the unit was introduced with myths and facts about the ancient world. For the Mayans, I
loved how it was perfect for sixth graders. Like it talked about stuff we didn't touch on in other grades, which I'm assuming refers to that we it talks about human sacrifice a little bit, and that might not be the K through five." Um, so all of them just when I talk to the students about what they like, they
find it really engaging, but they also find it, I think, challenging in a manageable way. So it's it's pushing them to really think and answer these questions and go deeper. Um, and overwhelmingly the feedback from them has been very positive. Thank you. Nice to
um just about our implementation. Um, what's the storyline? How did we reach this decision to implement? Well, actually, I was so thankful that when I visited as part of my site visit when I was a finalist or maybe I had already I guess it was already I was already here because I was in March. Um, I visited
the district several times and I had learned that the district had already acquired a grant in the 23 24 school year from from Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to explore investigating history in grades five and six. And so on June 24th and June 25th
of 2024, I visited some fifth and sixth grade teachers who were exploring this curriculum. Um introduced their introduction of the curriculum. And then last year had an opportunity to talk with the educators who were implementing piloting for the first time. There were eight total, five um five sixth grade
teachers and three fifth grade teachers, I think. Or maybe it was four and four. My numbers might be wrong. Um five and three. Five and three. Yes, I had it right the first time. So we visited them. we we tapped um kind of their feedback and and their interest and Kate's enthusiasm was not only
contagious for peers who weren't implementing, but the whole group, every time I would go sit with them, they just couldn't say enough about how appreciative they were for a resource that they really believed was solid and supportive of what they wanted to see in social studies, history learning for
their kiddos. Um and so that was really really helpful um for them to kind of fuel that fire and that excitement. Um which led us to deciding um to move forward with full implementation in grade six this year and continue with a secondyear pilot in fifth grade. And the
reason why we chose to continue with an optional secondyear pilot in fifth grade is because there's such a significant lift with a lot of the other curriculum materials. So I asked all the fifth grade teachers who wanted to um continue with the implementation and 100% of the grade five teachers are
continuing are joining the the um implementation because there were only three prior and all have joined on. So there's about say 17 fifth grade teachers who are participating in um investigating history implementation. It's a little bit feels like a lower stakes for them but all of them are in
and really we couldn't have um made that decision. And I think they couldn't have made that decision if it weren't for their colleagues who had just spoken so favorably and supportively of the resource in support of student learning. Looking ahead next year, we'll be implementing fully in grades five and six. And we've already started actually
last year we started conversations with the junior high because the curriculum is um five, six, and seven currently. Seven actually completes the second year of the ancient civilization curriculum. It's a two-year um timeline sequence for sixth and seventh grade. So Kate described the first year. Seventh grade is the second year of that timeline
sequence um aligned to the 2018 history and social sciences framework. So the seventh grade is on board for continuing implementation. They'll be receiving kiddos who've had some who've had two years of experience with the with the practices embedded within investigating history and with the with the um with
the model of and grades three and four are coming to market. So um right now it's being um fields tested in lots of three and grade three and four classrooms and then next year it'll be in full pilot. So we'll start to explore explore that as well.
Just have so much gratitude. These are the sixth grade teachers who are implementing um this year and just so much gratitude to the history social sciences teaching team and to our school leaders because they've created and um space for these educators to collaborate and to engage in professional learning.
We've continued a partnership with a consultant who's um working with us both fifth and sixth grade teachers throughout the course of this year. Um investigating history is a a core resource that's also being supported by um the 18 Foundation which is a foundation that has afforded significant
funding to highquality instructional materials in lots of different content areas and they've kind of put their backing behind investigating history. So, we'll be now that we have so many educators, we'll qualify for um applying for continued funding through the 18 foundation, which is a great benefit to
to this work as well. Um when you have this this presentation, you can access the whole thing. Um it's completely open source. Feel free to feel free to navigate um the curriculum. They are updating it constantly and they are asking for educator feedback constantly.
And so the edits that they're making are in direct response to what educators have shared as well as just normal iteration that um around you know formatting changes um you know increasing text. The other piece that uh investigating history has done a really
nice job of is they've created um with partnership from primary source and other scholars, they've created professional learning videos around background knowledge and background content so that educators who might not necessarily have Kate's background as
being an archaeologist and historian can they can learn the content and become familiar enough with it so that they're also continuing their learners as historians as well. We're happy to take any questions that you might have. Andrew,
thanks. Thank you for the presentation, for getting into all this. I'm really excited about it. One of the key words in the goal is differentiation. I was wondering if I could get your take on that and then how that's enacted throughout all you're talking about. Yeah. So, what I really love about this
program is it's not a script to follow. It's resources and a plan that you can adjust. So, even with the three classes in front of me during the day, um when I'm planning a lesson, I might be thinking, you know what, this group has a higher percentage of kids who are going to need maybe some one-on-one
support for this. So, rather than having it be um five independent small groups, maybe I'm going to break it down into smaller groups and um thinking about things like group size. Um it also has um details in there about um ML
specific. So, um for ML level one, here's what you could do instead. It has some modified vocabulary. Um, it has kind of guidance in terms of this is what you should prioritize, which I think for upper level content, um, is so important with kids that we don't want
to just overload them with information if they're not able to access all of it, but we also don't want to lower our expectations for them. And so, it's really detailed about just what's the key information? Um, how do we address that? Um they're also in some of the resources that they use um which are
from um it's the big history project. I can't remember who the publisher is, but they often have um multi-level text. So here's the text that you're giving for students, but here it is at a lower level uh Lexile level. So it still has all the content information, but it's
going to maybe um define the tier 2 words or um go into more detail on some descriptions. So I think a lot of the leg work that we as teachers do around differentiation this is either done for us or or helped for us to do but I think the biggest thing is just that it's not
lock step you have to follow it and so it's really easy for me to adjust based on the needs of the kids in front of me including in the moment like if I just see this group needs a little more help with it I can adjust easily thank you it was it was really I I don't
have words to say it's amazing. Uh so couple of questions on around so we do see the kids are more engaged they learn more they retain more. So do you have any numbers in terms of uh what we
usually have in classroom very passive learning throw the content at them and by the time few years later they remember nothing. I can tell from my own myself right. Um so do you have a comparison of this mode of learning to
practice to the regular practice? What what are the advantages we have? And question two is how do we extend this? I mean social science is the best best one to start with but can we extend this to other subjects and is there effort
underway to do that and if so what what are we looking at? Happy to take that. Thank you for your thoughtful question Lakshmi. Um I think that what I hear from educators is that um oftentimes science and social studies especially at the early elementary
levels often time the time uh you know they face the sacrifice of time and so literacy and math are so very important and I think a lot of the reasons that I'm also told is because even if I have time for science and social studies I don't have great stuff. I don't have great materials. I don't feel like the
units of study are that are very engaging or they're really high interest for my kiddos. And so we've been having those conversations. Investigating history is kind of the first step into that space where we've now delineated um time on learning documents and how much time kiddos are going to be engaging in
social studies. And these have really good it's a great framework from which to drive from. We're dipping our toe in. The other thing we are dipping our toe in is another curriculum resource for science called open sed. We're very very much slowly dipping our toe because there's a lot of there's a lot there's a
lot of new there's a lot of new Kate's also looking at open sedum that similarly really does um raise scientists you're you want to walk into a classroom and you want to see kid students investigating and doing science
and really engaged in science. Um and this particular curriculum resource is very similar to to um investigating history in that it is an inquiry based um curriculum. It is designed for student exploration, student voice, student discourse. Um and so those two
curriculum resources I I believe are moving us in the right direction. It's just slow because to really really honor the um I think the heartbeat of these curriculum resources. It just takes time because it's not it's not what we've experienced in the past. It's not what
educators have felt was has been they haven't had these kinds of materials before. And so they've wanted them and now that they want to explore them, we have to build them up to be able to facilitate them um beautifully. And and I think that's that's just going to take time. But I do I do think we're moving
in the right direction. Leela. Yeah. Um, thank you for being here and talking about some of this. Um, I was digging into some of the inquiry maps and really appreciated what Kate was highlighting kind of around questions that elicit some empathy and not just kind of like this happened. Um, I guess
that's what the students are saying also. Um, and then connecting it directly to kind of the through lines in today's experience in the world. Um, and there's no question here. I just wanted to appreciate learning more about this example kind of in the context of a
district goal. Um and then being able to see kind of the direct through lines to um the vision of the graduate work. And so just yeah, wanting to name that it speaks to the way that you presented some of the information, but also that um the way that educators are kind of
stretching and shifting and using new tools to really do this work already um in in a way that engages our students. So thank you for that. Thank you, Yenchin. Thank you very much for presentation.
Um, I took a quick look of the teachers guide and I find it very interesting because I went to school in another continent some like 30 years ago. Um, and it's the same cave paint. Uh my question is given this is a relatively new curriculum uh what is the
realistically like the prep time that the teachers will need to prepare each unit especially I assume like if you're a more veteran teacher it's probably less but for new teachers coming to the district or it's a new curriculum given to them like what's the prep look like?
Um, one reason that it's harder for me to answer that as sixth grade is this is my only subject. So, I can devote a much larger chunk of time to it than my colleagues who are doing this and math and literacy. Um, comparing to I think prior to this um when I taught I've
taught third, fourth, fifth, and sixth over the years. Back when we did use other curriculums, often it felt kind of peacemeal. So, this was the lesson, but you had to find the textbook and where was the copies and what were the resources. Um, I think what's great about this is it's all digital. So, I can open a folder that has the slides
that I need that are prepared and um I don't tend to modify the slides. I I like the way they are. I think um they're not too visually busy so my students can access them. Um the videos are linked, things like that. Um I can open another one that just immediately make 75 copies. Um so I think some of
the busy work around that of finding the resources, making the resources, that's taken care of. Um and Gabby spoke to that the background brief videos that's huge. So being able to say okay this unit is about this topic. Um how do I get that knowledge? So for me um some of
these units I had a lot of background knowledge on. Uh unit 3 was subsahara and Africa. I did not do any background with that. So that was something that for me I really wanted to explore those resources. They have the videos but they also will say here's a podcast that has information on this. Here's further
reading. So you can really go as indepth but it's right there at your fingertips. Um and again the differentiation piece that was big just I think with other curriculums it was here's the plan. Now I then had to say how will I differentiate for this group for this group for this group. Um and this is
much more built in. Obviously there's still a lot of leg work that teachers need to do around that. Um but it's it does a really good job of of setting that up for us. Adam, thank you. Um so earlier today, Lisa and
I went to the Mass Municipal Association's fiscal summit. Um and we had a superintendent there who was speaking about um sort of the finances of the district of the schools and how it was affecting towns. Um and he brought forward this concept of the highquality instructional materials as both an amazing benefit but a sort of a
paradigm change in how districts are budgeting. And so you know you you kind of mentioned it in a couple places. We used to buy a textbook and it would last 10 years and we'd keep it for 15 or whatever and that was a capital expense. Um, and the high-quality instructional materials are all online. They're
updated regularly. Um, but they also tend to get built to us as a subscription. So, I will first say when you said free and open source, you totally had me. Um, but I think it's something that we, you know, we need to consider and and probably continue to communicate out to the community that we're not going to buy a one-time
curriculum resource and it's going to be good for a number of years. we're going to have to subscribe to a high quality resource that is regularly updated um and provides as case shared just a wealth of additional resources and
differentiation and all of that um support that our students need so that we can um really make sure that everyone is is seeing some improvements. So again, no question here, but really that that thing that sort of ticked off in my head today was there's a there's a paradigm shift in how we're preparing
the materials, but there's also as we think about the financial implication and how we're budgeting for that, I can't take money out of excess and deficiency one-time funds to pay for curriculum materials anymore. We have to think about how we roll that into the annual budget every year. Just one comment on that if I may. Um,
this is very unusual. So Desessie is not typically in the business of curriculum development, right? This this was a little bit of a innovative outside the box idea. I mean I I've actually presented with um the former head of the social studies department for for DESIE on investigating history because I have
experience prior to act in boxboro when with its first initiated implementation and um it's quite unusual for a state department of education to um move this work forward in service to but I think it's really a smart innovative way to
think about state education um industry really expanding to that because of all the things that you mentioned many you know open site is also an open-source curriculum but we did you know the teachers all wanted their teacher materials printed they wanted a copy of
all the it's much less cost than having every single workbook and things that like e education is pretty costly I am you know illustrative math is very costly and you're right the subscription costs evolve over time but we are fortunate we are always looking for um
efficiencies and ways to adopt curriculum that is going to be sustainable because the fact that this is updated on the spot and it's so easily accessible. That's definitely a priority and we are mindful of the school responsibility all the time. Lisa, I just wanted to say thank you.
This is so phenomenal. It almost made me emotional and I could feel um all of the emotion coming from the three of you and how excited you are. And I just want to thank everyone who worked so hard in launching this and took all of the time,
the blood, sweat, and tears. I can I can feel it and I can see how much thought was put into it. And I just I'm so excited for all of the students to get to experience this history in a new way and to really feel like they're interacting with the the past and tying
it into the present and um really just getting to connect with the material and the people and you know I love that we're asking new questions and we're asking the students to think about things in a new way. So thank you.
So I'll wrap it up for this one. Now, um, we also have another presentation to go here. We need to make sure that we have time to hear what Trisha has to share with us. Um, but I just want to comment that I taught Western Civ at West Point to freshmen and the amount of time I spent teaching them how to use primary sources. And so, of course, when
I saw this link, thank you for putting it in there, you know, that I spent some time looking at it and I was as wowed as I hear you expressing. But to tie this back to Leela's comment about vision of a graduate to be starting this in elementary school, that's amazing. we are really working on
critical thinking because um I haven't noticed that AI is particularly good at evaluating a primary source. Just saying. So, thank you for that. We're pleased to turn it over to uh Dr. O'Reilly who's going to share how high quality instructional materials and this
strategy is coming to life in her school improvement plan at Conent. Thank you. I got it. Yeah. Thank you. and I promise I'll be quick. And I'm sitting here thinking, gosh, I wish I taught social studies right now. You're welcome to come hang.
Thank you. Uh, so I hope I hope I can inspire the excitement like Kate did, but I'm here to talk a little bit about how we are taking uh the first strategy in our school improvement plan, in our district improvement plan, and what it looks like at Conan School. So as um
Gabby mentioned, this is the first strategy from the goal. There are four strategies and my colleagues will um I get to kick it off uh but my colleagues will be here in coming weeks to talk about the other uh three strategies. Um
it's I'll read it to you. Ensure consistent imple implementation of highquality instruction materials that embody universal design principles. Support social emotional learning. support culturally sustainable sustaining pedagogy differentiation and high level instructional practices. And
when I read that, I I say yes, that's what we do. That's what we do all the time. Uh that's what we get up in the morning um to come to work to do. The reason why uh we're focusing on it this year and and the reason why I'm excited to do that at Conan School is because we
really have put a lot of energy in the last few years into tier 2 and tier three focus. Part of that is um functional, you know, how do we make it work? Where's the space in the building? What time are we doing this? Does the schedule lend
itself to that? Who who's our who's our resource for that? Um certainly we're talking about materials at Conan school. We worked very hard two years ago to really come up with a protocol for our data team meetings that allowed as many people as possible to be in the room
because they all had something to contribute, but to use that time efficiently because there's not that much time in the day to be able to really review the math and the literacy um achievement of every single student in the building, which is what which is
what a data team meeting is. So uh and and we feel like we're in a really good place certainly with the protocols. Um we have embraced forefront over the last couple of years. Now everybody is using it so we have a place to to keep all of our data to analyze our data. We also
last year in terms of tier 2 because we had our tier one instruction for second step implemented uh for SEAL. We started to play around with what does it look like to have data team meetings for social emotional learning and what do those groups look like and what are the resources and what other protocols are
involved in that. We continue to do that. So we're continuing to work on tier 2 and tier three. Uh we worked on the the walk tolearn model during flex from kindergarteners through sixth graders. They can do it and they do do
it. Um, so we have um and and we implemented the professional learning communities last year in Conanit where we're able to meet as a grade level team once a week uh as a grade level team and as anybody else who connects with that
grade level whether it's a a guidance c or counselor, school counselor or special educator or a English language development teacher. We know that there's a place to go where we can talk about kids. I just went to a couple of the PLC's this week and in first grade
the ELD teachers were there. Here's the list of all the uh multilingual uh learners in your grade. This is their level. Here are the kids who have filled out. Here's what these kids need. Oh, isn't it interesting that reading usually comes first and writing second,
but for this child, writing came first and reading came some. Is that something we need to look at? is that is that just interesting or is and so all of those conversations can happen during PLC's. So I also had to talk to or had to
explain this to the staff last week cuz you know I said to them, "Yeah, we're going to focus on tier one." And you're all probably looking at me saying, "What do you mean we're focusing on tier one? But we did do so much work on tier 2 and tier 3 that it's a luxury really to be able to go back and say is our
foundational component of MTSS as strong as it can be because of course the stronger tier one is hopefully expectantly the less lesser need there will be for tier 2 and tier three. So um
this year at Conan there are really three parts of this that we want to focus on and one is and the biggest one really is the targeted use of our instructional coaches. Um also we're looking at districtwide we have looked at reassigning our district-wide
professional learning time which typically happened on a Wednesday um and happened with where the entire district came together. Lots of benefits in having the whole fifth grade together. Lots of benefits having the whole kindergarten together. Takes a lot of
time uh to get there, to get settled, to organize, but also once you've started to implement curriculum, people are not in the exact same place. So, it can be really tricky to meet specific needs of grade level teams or even classroom
teachers when you're one of 15 or one of 18. So, we're reassigning the district-wide uh professional learning time. And then the third thing we're really trying to focus on, which is uh what I hear all the time, not only from teachers, but from teachers particularly, is we just need more time.
Uh so, so we're looking at everything that way as well. So in terms of the targeted use for instructional coaches, as I mentioned, we do have our our PLC's, our professional learning community times, and our coaches are um
they sort of sign themselves up throughout the year to meet with teachers at specific times in the units or in the curriculum. They know that something's coming up and this will be a good time to meet with the grade level team. So we're using our PLC's that way.
But we also have uh sort of an internal schoolwide goal. And um I have challenged the teachers and they're actually excited about it. At least that's what they're telling me. Um that every single certified staff member in our school will work with an
instructional coach at least three times this year. And uh they can work with them individually. They can work with them as a team. um the professional learning that they um experience together. Could be observing a lesson, could be demonstrating a lesson, could be
studying a specific student, could be observing a colleague. Last year, we started to dabble in uh uh visiting other classrooms, teachers observing themselves, which might sound very easy, but it's actually quite a complicated thing to do in the middle of
the school day. Um and there was a lot of excitement around that. Um I I I had to sort of convince the coaches that this is possible because they're like, "Whoa, that's a lot of people." But um they are already the classroom teachers are already and the specialists be are
are already thinking of really exciting things. the when that meeting was over, I had a reading teacher come up to me and say, "So, I would love to go into um a session that a speech speech and language teacher has with a student who
I share because I don't know how much of what they're doing in speech and language is impacting what I'm trying to do as a tier three teacher in teaching this child reading." And I looked at her and I was like, I could hug you. Uh this is exactly the kind of thing that that
we're looking to do because this is tier one. This is taking a look at your tier one practice and getting very individualized professional learning. And that's what our coaches are when used in the in the best possible way in my opinion is they offer individualized
targeted uh professional learning. So for a firstear teacher or a teacher who's been there for 25 years, they can name what it is that they would like to look at or what they'd like to study and they're able to do that. I'm very excited about this if you can't tell. Uh and then the um district-wide
professional learning time uh we have done somewhat of the same kind of thing except in a different format and that is on those Wednesdays we are having 45 minute sessions with very small groups uh meeting with our coaches. What I have
here on this side is just an example of our first Wednesday um where for 45 minutes the fourth grade worked with our literacy coach on planning for the updated module for EEL um which had some
new literature assigned with it. Um and then um you know after that grade 1 was also going to talk about EL the same time simultaneously we have our steam coach who's talking about a structured numeracy um sort of program if you will
that she's been working with grade 2 about um and grade six wanted to talk about the upcoming unit in math. So there's a lot of very specific things going on and teachers are able to name this is what I want to work on in this time and here are the people who are
going to help me. And then the last component of this is just good old-fashioned time. Um, one of the one of the things that was super helpful was the uh um teaching and learning team worked on a time and learning um
document last year that really gave us very u reasonable um but very solid understanding of how many minutes we really should be spending on each thing during this school day. And so um when I went to build the schedule this summer, that was that was what I used. Um, and
it was very helpful in making decisions because not everything fits. Not everything fits. There's a surprise. But, uh, when you know what the priorities are, then you make it fit the best way possible. Um, our B-level meetings we're using for a lot of grade level um, collaboration and we're also
kind of flexing it uh, so that teachers can um, meet the needs of the or get the work done for the kinds of things we're asking them to do. for example, forefront uh where we're putting all of our data now where we're housing it
where we're we're analyzing it. It's you got to sit down and put all that data in and when does that happen? So B meeting might be a time that that could happen as just as an example. Um we have uh our staff meetings. Um we are uh looking at
our um cultural proficiency group again offering teachers a different kind of opportunity to think about their tier one instruction. Our cultural proficiency study group has been around for a couple of years. This year we're pivoting to videos. Uh we used to hand
out articles and people don't have time to read anymore. So we're we're we're giving them uh podcasts and videos and we think maybe that will help a little bit. Um and all of our building based professional learning um all of our
Wednesdays will be focused on on tier one. So that's it for Conan. All right, questions. Glenn, one question I um and thank you for all this. Uh, one question I had is just,
um, so we've heard about how kids are just overall having a more difficult time focusing than maybe just a decade or two ago. Um, and one thing I'm wondering is just if you could talk a
little bit about being able to um, in with adjusting with being able to take a higher level altitude view of the curriculum. um if you're how you can work on being able to balance depth with accessibility
um and being able to make sure that when you do individualize and target students that are maybe behind in some subject. Um it's not like they're all behind in the exact same way. Um so I just wanted to hear more about how that could be
implemented from like a resource perspective or just things you need um stuff like that. Yeah. So um our data team meetings um are the place where that happens. Um the the kind of data that we collect for students whether it's literacy or math
or social emotional learning um is is not just are they behind in reading as much as is it a um a phonics issue, is it a comprehension issue, um is it a letter identification issue depending on the grade level. And that kind of data
allows us not only to support the student in the way they need it, but also allows us to make small groups of students who have similar needs so that they that can be addressed in the small group. There's no point in in having a child who's struggling with
comprehension to be in a letter naming group, right? They've they've already got their their letter naming. And the same is true for math. um we break it down into specific skills and that's what many of the tools that you've talked about here before offer us. Um
and and so we're able to, you know, we want to put ourselves out of business when it comes to tier 2 and tier three, right? We want our tier one to be so strong. Um, and we're always going to have kids who struggle for whatever reason, but if we are targeted enough and um, we are we have the right
materials, that child will not be in tier 2 forever or or tier three forever. It's about getting identifying the specific skill and getting them back into being able to do it without the support. Does that make sense? Lisa,
I'm really excited for these professional learning opportunities. This is fantastic and I'm really excited that there's um a place and space for collaboration within that. I think that's so important and I really loved the uh example you shared. Thank you for
sharing that. Just shows how important it is for people to get together and talk and share best practices and it's wonderful. Thank you. Thanks, Lisa. Thank you, Yen. Thank you, Trisha. Um, I have a question on the chart that where the teachers get
to meet with the coaches. Yeah. Um, my question is that my understanding is that for sixth graders, their teachers are more specialized. Is that correct? They the the children the students do move classrooms for different subjects. Yes.
Right. So for um first grade through fifth grade, do the teachers have to do um meet with the coaches for both ELA and No, they can they can pick the coach. Okay. So if so the the the challenge is at least three and you can do all three
for literacy or all three for steam or one and one and I said and if you could identify somebody else in the building as a coach you know maybe maybe there's somebody else who has an expertise you could use that person as well
this is a question for AC across both topics So when we adopt this kind of instruction um and practice right um there's something I mean something gives which is the kind of standardized testing we
do to see how how we have prepared our kids for saying they they really did well in school they're prepared for future careers right I think that that has to match up with this kind of practice
And what happens if it doesn't? Uh do you worry about those? Well, we worry about everything. Yeah. I think it's such it's such a thoughtful question. I think that as educators through and through, we want our students to be assessed as
authentically as possible because we want them to demonstrate their knowledge through humanity and and in service to fields that they they want to transform. Um there is not an easy way if if there were then the states state department
agencies would have found them. There is not an easy way to um assess students authentically on floor not ceiling expectations. So when I think about state assessments or standardized testing, I think about them as these are the minimum expectations that we want
students to reach. We want all students to reach minimum expectations and then we want them to soar way above that. And so the the way in which to capture that currently it's not perfect. I think your your point is is beautifully taken. Um
this may be a naive statement, but I do believe that if we engage students in deep learning and we allow them access to rich instructional experiences, they're going to fly on any assessment that we put in front of them. if they
deeply know the content and if they're deep thinkers. And so I think we are trying to cultivate thinkers and trying to cultivate creators and trying to cultivate communicators. And I think that if we do that well, they should be successful on any type of assessment um until the day then when something else
is um comes out that more authentically evaluates those things. Yeah. No, I I agree 100%. I I think also what we have to keep in mind is it is everchanging. We are never going to get there. Um, you know, Glenn mentioned,
you know, 10 years ago, kids are perhaps a little harder to focus this year than they were 10 years ago. That's probably true, but 10 years ago, teacher said the same thing about kids 10 years before that, right? Our kids are constantly evolving. Their needs are constantly evolving. I don't think you'd meet a
teacher today who wouldn't say that having kids have critical thinking skills is just absolutely a priority and I know that was a big part of the vision of a graduate. Um and I think the the kind of lessons that uh we were
describing for uh the new social studies curriculum does that exactly. I I was I I happened to go to a workshop where that was available. I went in as a sixth grader to and this particular lesson just had these photographs all over the
walls and the first 10 minutes was just you had to not talk to anybody but look at every photograph and try to figure out what was in what the photographs had in common and what the photo what was the difference and and then the discussion started after it got that kind of rich experience is going to
benefit a a student no matter what they do after high school. being able to think that critically and make those connections and then be able to express themselves afterwards. That's true for science. That's true for math. That's true for literacy. Yeah.
My question is more on that is definitely unquestionable that what we gain from that. But will the real world passing these standardized tests I mean AB is on steroids in terms of how well our students do? Look at these numbers,
right? Would we match up when we adopt this kind of stuff is what I'm talking about. I I'm not I don't understand your question. Do you do you I do I mean I think the assessment has
has evolved. I do think that when we look, you know, when in 1994 when um ed reform or first passed and we started looking at those first state assessments, they were very much more wrote and memorization and they are much more reliant on kiddos thinking and
thinking critically and analyzing text. Um, I was just in a classroom today at MCT and there was a experience that students were engaged in a writing task where they were presented with unfamiliar text and asked to analyze it
for purpose and that's something very similar that they experience on our state assessments as well. Um, so I do think that that the assessments have evolved. I don't think it's perfect. It's still not an authentic experience of like really seeing kids dig in to
like plan a project or collaborate meaningfully. Um, and I I still do believe that we can be successful, highly successful in those areas and do the right thing by our students with our values and our visions.
All right, I'm going to wrap us up because we have a lot to go and we still have another presentation. We were supposed to have gotten in before 8:00. Thank you both so much. That was really a wonderful presentation. The fact that we all want to keep talking to you says something,
Andrew. So, we'll have the uh annual staffing report next. All right. Good evening, everyone. Uh, as Tori just previewed, I'm here to present the annual staffing report. uh this year it will have sort some of the
typical features but then in addition to that have two new features where uh I give a little bit of a summary of a new exit survey that we started implementing last spring for those uh staff members who have uh left the district and then
providing also um a a more um an overview of of staffing uh decisions that we made over the past four years in terms of additions and reductions uh that I think will just certainly guide us in terms of some of the other decisions that we might have to make not
only around reorganization but certainly just around um budget planning as we get into that in the winter and spring. Okay. So um this year some similar features as previous years in terms of uh a healthy number of new educators
being hired and joining the district uh and running the the continuum of roles from counselors to classroom teachers to specialists all grade levels. I would say this year, uh, a little bit heavier on elementary positions and high school positions. Um, not as many at the junior
high. And then we have six new administrative positions. Uh, excited, as you know, to welcome Natalia Carroll, the director of special education. And then Peter mentioned a few of our new assistant principles as well and some new special ed coordinators. Before we get into the certified
positions, um we also continue to staff and work hard to um maintain a strong staff in our other support positions, whether it's paraprofessionals, uh transportation, food services, and certainly substitute teachers. Those are areas where um we continue to have uh
mixed results. It continues to be a landscape where um we not only have to compete with other industries uh but certainly other other districts for positions that um that aren't always easy to fill. We have a decent staffing for bus drivers and yet if anybody out
there wants to be a bus driver, we will happily uh take you on because uh we continue to always need those. um substitute teachers a little bit better than in previous years and yet we still uh will find ourselves on some days where um fully filling unfilled positions can can be a challenge at
times. And then paraprofessionals is definitely the area where we have the highest kind of annual churn uh in terms of individuals who uh some will find other positions that may have more hours or uh different compensation. Um others admittedly I think when they enter those
roles especially at the elementary level where some of the hours have shifted um realize that the hours that that they're having don't necessarily line up with with the goals that they have for their for their daily schedule. So that is definitely an area um of a little bit of vulnerability for us.
The other area I would say that um is an area of concern and vulnerability is our continued goal of staff diversity. Um, we continue to struggle in this area. There's no other way to to put it. Uh, last year we were around 5% overall. This year we're down to around 4.7%.
So again, uh, going in a different direction than we would like. I think some of the challenges that we have had continue to to persist in terms of um just overall a competitive pool uh, within the industry. So I would I would say not as an excuse but I think the
challenge that we have is not we're not alone in this um and and yet uh admittedly and and fully transparent that that it's an area that we have not continued to um generate sort of a pivot in terms of that success.
Uh, one thing that I feel pretty good about is we budgeted this past year uh for open positions at a master's step six. Uh, and our overall average salary was pretty close to to that target. And um, and so I feel fairly confident that
as we move forward that that's probably the right uh, placeholder moving forward where um, we were able to be competitive. We were able to recruit teachers that we feel really good about bringing into the district. uh and it it involved certainly finding a range of teachers that we were excited about that
were at the beginning of their careers and so their compensation is is different and then certainly there are certain areas where we knew we had to be more competitive for veteran teachers uh and we were able to be. So to that end this is that slide where as you can tell we certainly were able to find um a
healthy cohort of teachers who uh were in fewer years in sort of the beginning of the steps and lanes. Um, and then that also allowed us to when we needed to be um, recruit teachers who had more years under their belt and therefore their compensation um, was at a higher
level. And so for moving forward next year, I think it's it's an appropriate placeholder. This just shows you that I think fairly consistent to previous years, uh, the number of newly hired staff, there's no sort of bubble or anything like that. Retirements's uh, roughly the same as
last year, a few a few less. Um it's not an indicator of what we're going to experience this year or next. Um but certainly in the past two years they've been in the the low double digits. Um and then we we do have a few more teachers on leaves full leaves of absence uh this year for various uh
reasons. Um and so that will that will be something that we'll monitor in terms of the decisions they make whether they choose to come back or or transition to other roles. Okay. Um this is a a new frontier that we've entered and and hopefully offers us just uh additional data points to
just be reflective and thoughtful about the work that we have not only with the teachers um who are with us and remain with us but also can we glean anything in terms of uh our continued efforts to recruit teachers to join active box bro. So we implemented an exit survey uh to
departing certified staff uh including retirees and um hoping that some of the questions and the feedback that is provided to us will just offer us either validation or uh new food for thought. So in terms of the primary reason for
leaving act in Boxboro uh we certainly those who responded um we certainly had a high cohort of those who were choosing to retire uh for a variety of reasons but certainly beyond that um there was a range of reasons that people gave some that are specific to act in boxboro and
their experiences and some that had nothing to do with acting box i.e. my family's moving out of state or um I am, you know, I'm I'm choosing to do something that is not an an indictment or a reflection of of my experience here. And then others that that are um I
will note and and acknowledge that uh there were two individuals who um did retire but noted that their decision of timing also was a reflection of of some of the challenges that they feel have uh evolved within the teaching profession in the past few years. Excuse me.
And then additional reasons beyond the primary reason. You can see um a continuum here. Again, some that had nothing to do with acting box row and some that do uh whether it's their uh perspective about compensation or benefits um advancement in terms of interest with uh adjusting their their
roles and responsibilities. Um and then obviously again things like working conditions uh and and other features of of their work experience. So, I'll give you a moment here to to just see that so I don't rush through it. Some um responses in terms of what would
have made you consider staying. Some said nothing because again it wasn't about actro. And then again there were some other areas in terms of how they viewed uh compensation or benefits. Uh there are certainly one or two comments around things uh more specific like parental leave uh and options around
that and then some did mention uh things related to professional learning and growth. Some narratives around primary reasons for leaving you know obviously it's hey time to retire. Uh I will say that I think although I think it's probably in
the next slide, uh the continued financial tenuousness of our district I think weighs heavily on people in terms of whether that um creates vulnerability on their parts, whether it's the beginning of their careers, whether they don't have professional status, whether they think uh that the positions that
they're in may be reduced. So understandably, I think that that um looms large for a number of people. Um, and then I think certainly as we've seen in multiple data points, including this one, just the feeling of of um wanting
to do the best that one can for students and yet feeling that the conditions just continue to um to be challenging in a variety of different ways, whether it's from a resource perspective or or structure or or other things that they feel are specific to their experiences.
That's certainly been cited. Shifting a little bit, we wanted to also say, hey, what did you like most about working at Acton Boxboro? I think you'll see themes that are related to their colleagues feeling that they were surrounded by individuals with whom they enjoyed working with. So, that's certainly heartening. Um, and then
certainly mentioning students uh being in a professional environment where they're around other people who care just as much as they did about doing the best that they can for uh kids and families. I think uh was was a common theme. And these are just some uh
samples. Again, just noting that um I think they liked being in a district that they felt was able to draw talented and committed individuals so that they were surrounded by others who uh had shared commitments about the work that they were doing.
And then challenges. So here we go again, right? Um and I I don't say that in a in a glib way. I think you'll continue to see uh sort of key words around um sort of doing more with less complexity of the job. Uh and again in a
in in a resource thin environment I think uh is is a pattern. Um I I think you see that there's a commitment to the the professional obligations that one has and yet uh the degree to which sort of the the the landscape um doesn't
always shift with those with those goals and expectations. So some broad takeaways you know again the recent phenomena of the past four years and the themes that we see I think are certainly um emphasized in the exit survey certainly an appreciation for the
professionalism and quality of their colleagues that the tenuous financial landscape can um continue to have an impact on our ability to retain um and then certainly I think there were some people who who had some suggestions and thoughts about compensation whether that's in the form of you know salary or
benefits or or other things. Um and and as we get ready to to engage in negotiations that that those things may emerge as as themes and topics for us to to discuss. Okay, shifting to this last chapter uh to offer you a year-to-year staffing
overview uh for the past few years. We thought since we had this information, it would be good just to um start making a habit of annually providing kind of this year-to-year review. What I'm about to show you is um
how do I say that? Small font. So, um so if if you have it on your computers, you can certainly zoom in there. I do sort of zoom in a bit just to give you a sampling of what you'll see. Um but just to acknowledge those who are watching elsewhere, uh you you may not be able to
see it because it's like for font. A couple of things. One is I think what is important and what has been useful as an exercise for us when we talk about staffing uh contours of our staffing both in terms of additions reductions is to distinguish in a few ways certified
versus non-certified positions because there are changes over time that are different um positions that are focused on instruction versus things that are more operational and sort of uh support around just the technical pieces of being an institution. um classroom teaching positions versus intervention
and case load positions and then general ed support uh staffing trends versus uh special ed staffing support trends. So with that in mind, a couple of highlights and takeaways over the past four years. The net reduction uh in staffing is a little bit under 40 FTE.
Um the greatest amount was certainly classroom teaching positions. Uh there were some increases, net increases in terms of support positions. Um instructional support positions, operational support has reduced significantly as has general ed
instructional support. So here's I'll zoom in this for a second, but just for those who have uh a copy of this, this is just the change over time by um school year, but then in those different categories because there are clearly very different trends uh
that speak to not only uh a responsiveness to uh enrollment, but also the actual needs that we see within our students. So enrollment trends are the reflection is certainly in the classroom positions has gone down uh proportionally with the 23 reduction but
you have case load increases of about six or seven net increase because there are needs within um you know within multilingual education and other things like that. Again, we've reduced, as you all know, in terms of instructional assistance in uh the elementary school.
And yet, in terms of our instructional support within special education, we continue to increase uh at a steady clip uh to be responsive to the students who who we see in front of us. So, here's a zoom in so you can sort of see it a little bit closer uh over the
course of the past four fiscal years. And then again, you know, administrative leadership is down a little bit under 8ft FTE. Um, and then operational staffing positions, administrative support, office support, custodial, things like that. Um, we're also down.
And then here's the part that none of you will be able to see, but you can zoom in on your your your lovely laptops. Uh this is just a listing of every single position by year if you wanted to see an actual breakdown and then by category. So I zoom in a little
bit here just to give you everybody who's at home a bit of a a uh a sampling. So you can actually see this is the 1.0 position in this category. Here's the 3.0 positions in this category. So on and so forth. Things to consider. As I stated in this
slide, I'm stating a bit of the obvious, but we'll just say it anyway. you know, as we think about staffing and priorities, certainly how we think about class sizes, certainly for classrooms and then for certain um uh situations, whether it's case load or classroom,
will have uh will have an influence on how we make decisions. Um in a world of finite and limited resources, how do we prioritize um what roles we try and preserve and what roles we might have to either consolidate or eliminate? Um and then
again shifting to to the needs in front of us and then again there's also this operational piece versus instructional piece. I think we would always want to prioritize instructional positions for obvious reasons because they are direct student facing. At the same time, the you know the orbit around the classroom
still has to function in a way that uh allows for other things not to fall apart. Whether that's from a facility standpoint, whether that's from an administrative standpoint, whether that's positions that support the staff who support kids. Um at a certain point we we can't um fully eliminate those as
well. We have to pay the bills. We have to, you know, do accounts payable. We have to do all sorts of other things as well. Okay. So, I went super quick, uh, intentionally so, but happy to answer any questions or or things that you might have.
Yen, thank you, Andrew. Um, I I just have a question. As I go through the um PDF that you have attached to the packet, there seems to be a sizable accident from one of the elementary school particularly in the special educators.
Is there any particular reason that Yeah, I think um certainly at McCarthy Town there was uh we have we hired a new cohort of special educators. I think there's a couple things. One is I think the if at least from my understanding
there are certainly those within what I shared with you individuals who made decisions about you know that had nothing to do with the district that there was either um career advancement or a desire to work closer to home things like that you know that being said I also think that there's probably
um individuals who made decisions that they wanted to do to have a different setting in terms of uh the experience you know McCarthy town has both the compass program as well as learning learning centers. I think sometimes um you'll have individuals who will see things differently in terms of how best
to to structure programs. Um and so I think individuals made those decisions as well. I do feel pretty good about the individuals that we've we've brought into there. I don't I don't discount the fact that changes like that can can be um
it can make one nervous. Um but I I think we've done a nice job of creating some stability there. So I think it's a combination of things. I think there's individual choices that were made and and I also think that that people made decisions that that it wasn't the match for them either,
Glenn. So, thank you for all you're doing. And um I do think our last data gathering on staff stress levels was from a few years ago, so I'm hoping that can be updated within the next um reasonable time frame.
Yeah. Um, with the diversity hiring challenges, I'm wondering if there are any other comparable districts that are doing well or better in this regard that we could perhaps reference or just ask how they're doing. But you did mention that this is like yeah, pretty chronic. Yeah. Also wise. And then um regarding
prioritizing staffing, like if you're in elementary school and then a kid doesn't do well in elementary school but does well enough to advance, like the the problems from earlier grades can like bubble up throughout the rest of the year. So like is that a consideration when prioritizing staffing levels? Like
maybe like more intervention, the earlier the intervention is in grade levels, the easier time the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders will have perhaps. And then last thing, um, are there
what certification like are there enough certified staff that can like do things like administer medication on field trips? I'm not sure how often that comes up, but Glenn, I'm going to ask you to pick one of those questions because we are 20 minutes behind where we need to be.
Diversity, please. Yeah. Um I don't have concrete uh data around comparable districts. I think that's something that I can certainly try and capture. I will say anecdotally I feel fairly confident that um some of
the the patterns of challenges that we see are not uh unique to us. Um and I think there's a there's a nexus of a number of things that are either similar in terms of um competitive salary. I think just in general what we all share
is a small pool um of of candidates. And then certainly, you know, the the degree to which someone wants to drive out to this region versus a region that might be more densely populated, might have a bit more diversity within its community, things like that. So, um so I'm happy to try and and sort of check in with with
our peer districts around if they've seen any uh different levels of success. Um but overall, I do think that the trend is fairly similar. not an excuse, just simply an observation. Adam, uh, quick observation and then I a kind
of a question request echoing what Glenn said, but the observation first is, you know, we've come to town meeting several times and we've shown a big slide of 80 plus positions that we've eliminated year-over-year. Um, and I would say that when we when I looked at this and I saw, well, we're only actually down 38 FTE.
Um I think as a school committee we need to think about how we put that narrative out because clearly we have reduced those 80 plus positions. Um but there's also been needs and there's been areas where we've added back. So there's you know there's the nuance with all of this stuff. Um so somewhere between we've
reduced 80 positions but we've only reduced 40 FTE is kind of the the way I'm thinking about that. And then second is the the request. You know, I think as we've been doing some of the AB forward stuff and taking um educator voice into some of the consideration there, I do feel like we're we're a little behind.
And as much as I'm loathed to ask for another survey and ask people to answer another survey, I think that, you know, some type of educator engagement survey would be really helpful for us on a regular basis because I think a lot of what you're doing on the exit survey is is reactive and I almost want us to be a
little bit more proactive and see where we're going. there's a there's a limited value in an exit because they're on their they're on their way this way as opposed to I mean and that's where people talk about stay surveys, right? I think that's what you might be sort of referring to is for those who are remaining what are what are things that might be high for them to try and
continue to have them feel like this is a place that they want to want to remain. So yeah, thank you Leela. Yeah, just appreciate you pulling some of this data. Um, and my comment really isn't even directed at you, just kind of
a comment. Um, I think in all of this budgetary crisis ongoing for years, um, it feels like some of the kind of pieces around like who make up our our district and how does that reflect our students
has like we haven't been able to put as much time and energy into that. Um, and so it's almost making me want to bring some of this to when our legislators come in front of us. Um, because I think the thing that stood out
to me was that not only that less than 5% of our total staff um, actually identify as folks of color, but that the 5% in comparison to the 50% of our students who are students of color um,
feels quite stark. um especially as we think about how important developing relationships with adults is. And not that you can't develop relationships with folks who don't look like you, but that that could be helpful. Um so yeah, that is just something that I was I was
noticing. Thank you, Andrew. Really appreciate the details you provided. Oh, I like the Legos. All right. I just noticed the Star Wars Legos. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. All right, Adam has just volunteered to
give our AB Forward update. Wonderful. Thank you. Um, so the AB Forward steering committee met this past Tuesday. Um, and we had uh an amazing turnout in the audience. um as well as the full uh steering committee there. Um and what I will say is I actually bring
up the slides. We started with a real sort of a acknowledgement yet again of where we are in the process. Um as those reorganization options had been put out to the community early on. Um, Peter and Tory did a great job of sort of reminding everybody again that there is
no decision made, that this was the first time that those options were put out there, that the steering committee made no decision about which options they might put forward in the future. Um, and so I think that really did a great job of setting the stage in terms of what was going to happen. Um,
following uh following that introduction, we sort of uh turned it over to DMG. They sort of gave us a recap. Um and what I will say is we spent about 10 minutes um reviewing uh the strategic plan um which we had spent the first half of our time with DMG on
in in our engagement with them. Um and you know they had taken the feedback that we had given them the first time we saw it. They had incorporated a number of those changes really helping to sort of broaden the theory of action and the strategic plan to to each student in the
district and a very they they they did a very sort of discerned um usage of the word each student versus all students really making sure that that each individual student um sees themselves in that plan.
Um there wasn't much additional feedback on that, but the strategic plan will get rolled in with all of the reorganization options, all nine of them, um and presented to the community over the course of 32 focus groups, three uh 32
focus groups, three listening sessions, uh a number of engagements. Um, and you know what I found really interesting in this was just all of the outreach that DMG have done already in getting to the point that we're at now. Uh, as you might imagine, the bulk of our meeting
was looking at the nine reorganization options. Um, and uh, having Joe from DMG sort of describe each of those in some detail. I'm not going to say exquisite detail. Um and I think what we saw at the end as the committee started to sort
of give feedback and add questions was we all want more details. Um and so there was um I think there were a lot of questions about as we move forward these are the types of things that we want to see. Um and another big takeaway that I I took from um sort of the conversation
that the committee had was that while we have this simple to see financial sustainability score of red to green um you know everybody around the table said that cannot be the only measure by which we look at these reorganization options and it's not and there are lots of um
other metrics that DMG is considering but they weren't broken down in as an easy to view scale and I think that was some of the feedback we gave um and And I would say that we ended the meeting about 15 minutes early to allow for public comment. I want to say there were
probably 25 30 people in the room. Um and we had about 15 people who wanted to make comments. Um and we had some really great and constructive questions from the audience as well. Um so uh you know personally I will I will want to just share my appreciation for the entire
community who was there who did not come up and say you guys are absolutely nuts. Don't do any of this. there were lots of really good thoughtful questions that um everybody wanted to be able to dive deeper into those options and the and the expected outcomes from that. Um and
so you know like I mentioned we are about to go into a very busy month of collecting information from all sorts of stakeholder groups all sorts of community members. Um what they're going to see is not very different than what we just saw as a steering committee. So,
all the questions, all the details that we asked for, um, it was my understanding and I think it was made pretty clear that that's great stuff. Those are good questions to ask, but what we're going to what we're going to have everybody respond to is the same set of information that we've all seen that's been out sort of put into the
public already. Um, and so that feedback will come in and then uh in a month's time, the steering group will uh reconvene and we will synthesize all of that data. Another really good point that DMG made is no weight, no difference in waiting will be given to
any feedback type. So, if you're a member of a seven-person focus group, if you're a member of a 50 person listening session, if you send an email into us, if you answer the survey, all of that information will be brought together and looked at equally um as as DMG sort of
refineses those those options and we start to as a steering committee um decide how we whittle the whittle those down and and come back to the school committee uh which as a reminder, we are ultimately the ones who are making the decision here. Um, so they will come back to us with that recommendation for
us to ultimately choose. That's that's how I recaped it. Uh, Tori Yansion, it's a good recap. Um, if I could ask Peter to talk for a moment about handover um the uh the additional research we're going to have done and then Yenshin, I would love it if you
could share your closing remarks because I think they really wrapped things up well. Yeah, thanks Tori. So, you know, one of the things that we were thinking about is is how do we help the steering committee, but also eventually school committee and our
community who's giving feedback also ground decisions we make in some information that's already exists around things that work or don't work well for kids um and school systems. So I actually reached out to handover research which is a a nationally
recognized kind of gold standard research organization um to develop um a set of research that we can use um to help guide us along a number of different areas. So we ask them to look at you know kind of grade level
configurations and any research that exists on you know either pros or cons from a student uh family lens. Um we asked them to look at that on you know both academic and social emotional impacts on students of different organizational options for schools but
also family engagement um was another consideration and we also look asked them in all of those areas to think about how specialized populations can be impacted um in that um they will also help advise us around how to create a transition plan um into whatever we're
doing so that we can be thoughtful around that um based on whatever final decisions are. Um help us think about how to communicate some of those opportunities and changes with families along the way. So more to come. They will have that available for the steering committee's November 18th meeting. Um which is the next time the
steering committee meets and actually will start to talk about this. I will just say one thing I tried to reiterate in addition to the research component of this was this was intentionally designed that DMG would share an overview of the options with the community. But before
the steering committee starts to kind of vet those, we're actually going to get community feedback around initial reactions for all of those scenarios so that the steering committee, you know, look can look at kind of what does the research tell us? what does our
community tell us and what do the stakeholders sitting around that table, how do we process that and come up with ideas of of what we think could work for our community? Um, I will also stress that, you know, we're not doing this, we're
not in this situation because we, you know, decided we wanted to change kind of how the district operates. You know, we are perfectly designed right now for the outcomes that we get. Um, however, we are in the position because we're resource constrained and we've been resource constrained for multiple years
now. And so, while our decisions need to be grounded in what's best for students and families and educators, we need to also understand that there are boundaries to what we're able to think about because in the finance is going to be a boundary on on any side of what we decide. And, you know, it's just a
reality we have to go into and be realistic about how we're thinking about that. But yet within the boundaries, we need to be really prioritizing students, families, and educators and and what we know is best for for our district. I'm going to try to remember word by word, but otherwise it's on the minutes,
right? Okay. Um I what I shared at the end of Tuesday's meeting was that as I was going through the slides and every single options in the packet um I feel like a huge sense of loss. Every option
carries loss of the environment we know this possibility community we know but the other side of me also knows that I'm an immigrant. Um, I came here, I left my home, I learn a new language, I build a
new life. So, I think humanity, humanity is resilient. Um, I ask that we all look at these options, go through those slides, remember that, you know, this could be great opportunities for us to
build a new AB. It is not, as Peter just said, a time frame that we want to operate within. It is not um this is not something we would love to do right now, but it is something we have to do. I do
believe that with care and thoughtful um process, something very very good can come out of this. So, I just ask that communities can keep that in mind as we go through this process together.
Thank you, Yen. All right, I hesitate to ask if we have AB forward questions. Can we keep them succinct and to the point, please? Thank you. I'm wondering if, as we're considering the plans, if any of them
will could possibly be better than others at helping lay the ground seeds for full day kindergarten. not necessarily in the near future, but just we'll add that to the list of questions not to be answered right now. Thank you. All right, I'm going to push us forward
here because we have some work to do and we're not going to go upstairs and do Sorry, we are not going upstairs to workshop. So, um last two things on our to-do list. Uh, I would like to toss out
um kind of a putting together of our April goal work in coming up with the AB Forward um elevator speech with the really intense discussion we had about communication
um about three weeks ago. And where I'm going with this is um we as a committee have had a a a communication goal for much longer than I've been on the committee, but I see Adam nodding his head. It's it's we know this is a thing. Like this is the thing we all do. We
know we need to be good at it. We know it's part of our purpose here. But also this year what we communicate is really very heavily tied to AB forward and the budget. So, it was interesting that I got a couple of phone calls on Friday morning after our last meeting with a
boy, we really got into communication and wait, isn't there something else big that we're doing too? And how do these things go together? And so, what's in your packet is an idea of how to tie them together? And I think it gets after
where we need to be going as a committee with AB forward and the budget, but also the other things that we're doing. So, I'll read it because um it's in there, but you may not have it pulled up. So, what if our goal looks like and develop a multi-year plan to bring our finances
under control and preserve core educational opportunities while supporting stability for staff, students, and the community. And then it's supported by a number of lines of effort. Sorry, I I go into military terminology. I can't help it. This is how I think about it. But communication
and engagement, we talked about that in depth last last time. AB forward, which we just talked about. Um, budget sub, which is bringing home kind of the near-term. What are we doing this year, negotiations falls into this, where we
go with our negotiations has an impact on what the next three years look like. Capital sub has got a piece of this because we've got all of these buildings that we have to keep going in the short term and in the long term. And then
supporting all of that is thinking about how do we work together? How do we communicate internally? How do we advocate outwards to the state? How do we advocate with our own community and with our other boards? Um I don't quite have great answers on what Policy Sub
has to do with this, but I'm sure Policy Sub can support this in some way. And then just in our own focus, we talked about remembering every time that we are thinking about things that we need to do that this is like the thing we have to get done this year. And so knowing how to ask ourselves, is now the right time?
I mean, you just heard CPAC come up and say, we know we need to do a long form survey and we're going to wait until we're through AB forward because we have to get that done. Um, so let me just pause here and hear what you think about kind of this big picture
packaging of things and direction. I got a thumbs up out of Glenn. Okay, you can talk. Really, Lisa? I think this is really good because we're focusing on the big picture and everything that's ahead and all of the
things that we'll need to be successful. So, I think we are in a really good place with that, Glenn. And I I do think that regarding how much thought and deliberation we've been putting into
being more thoughtful with communication and outreach, I a I think that's pay that's already paying off right now in really good ways. Um and B I do I really do one thing that Peter mentioned earlier in the update way back at the
start of this meeting was like highlighting um different principles and um I think leaning as we're going forward throughout this whole process and building consensus and buyin with the community we're serving. I think
highlighting sto continuing to highlight stories like that can really be useful to the to our mission here. So there's a framework in technology enablers, capabilities and use cases. And enablers is like the the baseline technology like email is an enabling
technology that allows you to be able to communicate. The capability of that would be like contacts and archives and twos and CC's and all those things. And the use case would be to have a conversation about what you're doing on Thursday. communication in the lines of what
you're talking about here is an enabling technology. It's an enabling concept that needs to go underneath everything. I wouldn't tie it to a specific goal. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a goal into itself. I would say it's part of everything we have to do. It does play into policy because you've got to be
able to communicate to those that have to enact a policy, those that have to approve it. If we're trying to legislate above us, it's something that we have to align to through other frameworks of communication from identifying audiences, identified conduits,
identifying, you know, a compliance with law. I think it's important for us to do this. Um, but I would also look at I would not look at this as tied to one particular goal. I think it's something that needs to go across everything that we're doing. Everything we talked about
today, the conversations that came here, this is all methods of communication. And if we can consolidate and build our own framework for communication, we can have a better and more um easily understood way of connecting with our audience, connecting with our
constituents. I think I just heard the volunteer for the uh leading the communication effort. Good job, Andrew. Thanks, Lakshmi. I'm wondering if we have to put this in kind of practice to actually figure
learn or learn what works and what doesn't. I mean there's one more dimension to it. You have to identify your segments, right? Who are we communicating to and how do we communicate? And then you come your broad broader principles, right? But without putting into practice, this is
going to be a hard one. And there's no nothing that's perfect, right? You can't specify a specific goal that you can attain. This is a work in progress that we keep improving on year after year. Okay. So, I'm noticing we're back to
communication again. And I want to share that communication is a tool. A goal is something that has an actual outcome. Okay. Uh okay. I I understand where you're going with that, but yeah. Uh you you probably want to set up short-term
goals on what you want to accomplish in terms of comm improving communication. Right. Right. So, what's in the packet that I'm proposing here for a goal is actually Yeah. develop a multi-year plan to bring finances under control and
preserve educational opportunities while supporting stability for staff, students, and the community. That is the thing that only the school committee can lead. That is the thing that only we can do. And communication is absolutely 100% a piece of this. But if we don't do
that, we can communicate well all day long. and we will have failed as a group of leaders trying to keep our district strong and resilient. Could you repeat your goal? Yeah, it's in the packet actually. I can send you down and
yeah. Uh just a clarifying question. Are you hoping the fruits of our labor of this discussion will yield a specific measurable um portion of this goal? I'm actually just hoping to get for concurrence that this is a direction that we feel like articulating because the next step that we're going to go to
is talking about our tri board letter um and the the preparation we're doing for that because one of the things we need to be able to articulate to the other boards is what is it that the school committee is trying to do this year and I think we might have to tell them
about AB forward. Okay. I I see the goal as why we are here, right? The goal is basically defines why why we are a committee to begin with, right? So I thought communication was the issue that we started with.
So in April, do you remember the uh the day we wrote the elevator speech? We all went up into room 23 and we figured out why it was that we needed to even talk about reorganization to begin with. Kind of vaguely remember. Sorry.
Yeah. So that was that was our big commitment as a group saying that this is something that is important because you don't just walk into having a conversation about reorganization for fun. People are I listening to our community
like there's there's huge change we're talking about. People are worried. It's a scary thing to think about and we as a group came together and said we know that if we don't do this the alternative is even worse. Oh yeah, I think I remember now.
Yeah. But isn't that what Andrew said? Communication is a vehicle, right? Yeah. To achieve that. So how do we effectively do that is a So you have a sub goal on how to effectively do that is what I'm trying to address. Yes, it is. That is right tucked up
underneath it as the first primary line of effort. 100%. Yes. And I really we had an awesome discussion about communication last time. I really don't want to go there tonight because it is already 8:46 and I'm going to get no end of grief from Adam about my failure to hold us to a timeline. So, are are we
Thank you, Adam. Are we are we okay with with laying this out here that this is something that we think it is important that we do this year? Can I get like a Oh, Adam, hi. Um, you know, I think when when we've talked about this and we've talked about sort
of communication being that enabling thing, um, the the other sense that I get from all of us in in the time we've done this is that that and everything that we're doing feels like the 500 lb elephant that we're trying to figure out how to eat. And I think part of what we've got in here under these lines of
effort is how are you as an individual or as a subcommittee member or a committee member going to contribute to the overarching goal which is to develop that multi-year plan all of all of that stuff. So we're all going to provide some level of communication and engagement. AB Forward has a mission to
go do some of this. The budget subcommittee has a mission to go do some of this. And so I think negotiation subcommittee should think about how they're going to support that and the work that they're doing. the capital subcommittee same um and then as your roles as liaison sharing with the the
groups that you liaz with again it that's that's sort of the that's the small C communication of what we're trying to get out about what our goal is um I think that the the thing that I struggle with um is to be able to hold each other
accountable for the goal I think the next step is to sort of dive in and find out what is the what is the measurable or tangible component that each of these groups are going to do so that we can look back in 3 months and 6 months and at the end of the school year and say we worked
towards our part of that overarching goal. That's a great point and we have to figure out what that way ahead looks like. So can I get kind of a thumbs up, thumbs down at where everybody is on this? Um,
are we okay with this being our focus for the moment as we continue to evolve it knowing that we are going to work on our communication skills within all of that? I'm seeing some head nodding. Okay, let me move you on to the next one. Then is trio board meeting is
coming on October 22nd and we owe Julie a packet. Well, actually I owed it to her at noon today. So, um, we're late. Um, I I noticed my other liaison in the audience. Um, in that packet, we So, the concept of
how we're doing this discussion this time is that instead of talking at each other the entire time, we're hoping for everybody to provide read ahead materials of kind of where you are at now, knowing that most of our boards really haven't figured things out. We're in October. Um, and then to be able to
have a questionbased discussion. And so, what this ends up looking like is, um, we'll have the big the big rectangle set up in here. We will have the finance committee from both towns. We'll have the select board from both towns will be there and we will all provide reads and
I there's in the packet there is a letter that lays out effectively what the budget situation has been, what the impact is on all of us, all of our community. um that we are doing our darnest to come up with a not just a solution for this budget year but a
long-term solution that we are doing this through AB forward that we are doing this through all of our subcommittee and leaison work because this is a great time to talk about liaison when we're all in the room together and then it has a timeline for all of the key information presentations
discussions and votes again liaison this stuff's really important Um, I think it needs to include the Dewali Fest flyer because that is a great one-pager that has a lot of links to everything and everybody can see very quickly where are your opportunities to provide input.
Um, probably needs a copy of Vision of a Graduate. Um, I think those are probably the things we can provide at this point in time. I don't think we really have anything else that we figured out because it's October.
Does that feel like the right stuff? Is there something else we're missing? Yin. Um, I was listening to the select board act and select board meeting the other day and I think I heard that they're very much looking forward to the tribal
meeting and getting to know the other boards better where they will be able to develop some sensitivity but maybe not sympathy. Can we work on the sympathy part? Absolutely. Actually, we had a really great So, the chairs got together to
just talk through format um last night and we had a really good conversation about potential questions and originally in our packet there's a potential discussion question list and we were supposed to submit one but the people in the room looked at looked at the questions that we had there and they
liked enough of them well enough that I would be inclined to just push them all forward and then maybe have us pick whatever our favorite one is and pick it closer to the meeting because if they're all in the read ahead packet then everyone can think about it and then we can decide which one we want to push forward as a group to discuss. Um, but
there's a lot in there about how can we work together, where do we have opportunities, where do we have overlapping challenges? Um, that I think would be a really productive discussion. Adam, um, I I think in the case of read ahead and prep, less is more. Um, I very much
like your synchronization matrix because it's not a kitchen sink. Um, and it's not sunken. Uh so I think that and our letter is probably ample to send to the the boards to read ahead in the hopes that it does get read ahead. Um
but I I I don't think I would want to sort of inundate them with anything more than that at that point. I think as we saw in our conversation with the chairs last night, um so much of this is going to be about the oh my gosh, we have that same problem too when we're in the
meeting together. And so I I don't think there's any amount of read ahead that sort of will prep us for those in the- moment sort of group building bonding opportunities that the trib will get us. Okay, that's fair. Glenn,
would it be appropriate to designate some time at the at the top of the tribe board meeting for just two minute go around the room introductions? Cuz there like I've not like Adam, I've known you for months and I still don't really know why you got into school committee. But for example,
well months, it's about 40 people, 30 seconds. We do have introductions on the agenda. Yay. All right, this is known as wear everybody out and nobody really protests that much. So um sounds like we are
looking at sending forward the letter in the planning timeline um which does have links to all the websites. So I feel better if because I really do like that uh Dewali fest flyer. But that's all right. We're going to hand out a lot of them. It'll be awesome. Okay, did you confirm the date?
Yes, October 22nd. Um, it is at the bottom of the uh update that you received from Julie. If it comes from Julie, you should read it and respond to it. Head nods. You sent an email, a meeting invite out there. Yeah. And there should be a meeting
invitation on your calendar. Okay, let's move to subcommittee and member reports. Adam, tell us about budget sub. Um, budget sub has met the the past two times we've met. We've spent time on our budget development calendar. Thank you
to Peter and Sher for cleaning that up and and putting that in place. Um, and then we've had some really good conversations about our budget guidelines for this year. Um, and a very uh, you know, I think we're we're moving those guidelines forward and really trying to strike a balance between, you
know, what what we want as the school committee to give the district as their guidance in terms of how they build the budget. And again, I think that's really important when we vote budget guidelines. Um, we are giving direction to Peter and and
the rest of the administration. This is how we want you to craft the budget for this year. Um, and I believe that this year's budget guidelines will feel a lot different than the previous budget guidelines because um, there's been some consensus amongst the the budget subcommittee that we're we're done cutting um, we need to maintain uh, a
level set of services. So um, I'm excited to bring that to the full school committee uh, in a couple weeks time. Um, and other than that, we did get confirmation from Sherry that we have taken ownership of three electric school buses and they're in the midst of
getting um all of the ancillary equipment added to them and then we're also waiting for the chargers to get placed in the back of the high school. Um, Andrew and Yension, anything you want to add to that? um finance committee met last Tuesday I
believe and they are discussing and working on their point of view. I think the finance committee and the se act and select board has to work out how their POV is going to be presented this year as I think there's some things they need to work out. Um I have set up uh regular
meetings with the chair. So just keep them appraised of the AB forward as well as the school committee um progress. Awesome. Leela, would you like to tell us about
policy sub? Sure. Uh we met last week. Um we kind of just talked about what the next of the upcoming school year would look like. As much as we can tell in this moment, um there our next meeting will be next
Friday at 8:00 in the morning. That's it. All right. Um, we don't have Ben here. Can Can you jump in on capital? Um, capital
committee met um on Wednesday bright and early. It was 700 a.m. So, I really don't remember what day it was. Um we talked about the 20 FY2627 planning as well as um the presentation
that capital no the facilities department will come to school committee to present on November 6. Um I guess Sherry is not here so that's all I remember. Great. Thanks. Can I add one update? Sure. Just wanted to update you board of
health. Um, so the the battery project over at Boardwalk has been pending with board of health for, you know, better part of say 15 months maybe. Um, and so the other night, you know, Nexamp did present to the board of health um, seeking approval and it was denied
unanimously. So that project, we don't know the status of that. Um, but the the battery project at Boardwalk is not moving forward in that that manner. Um, so we're going to meet with Nex AMP and, you know, kind of figure out what if any next steps. Um, my gut is that will
require a new interconnection agreement with Eversource. Um, we knew that. So, you know, there's going to be financial impact to that potentially because we had some money tied up from the building project that we would have gotten back. Um, but we're also going to re-evaluate what the goals what the goals could be.
uh because I think a lot has shifted also in terms of like the how energy projects are being funded and by federal government things like that and so we just don't know much right now but that's certainly something we're reevaluating and I just wanted you to know what the status of that was.
Thanks Peter. Yeah. Can you tell us why they denied it? I can't um I don't know. Um, we don't have information about that, but I I think David might I do know that Nexamp the board of health had imposed 31
conditions on the project. Um, Nexamp met those conditions um and had worked with the fire chief on another safety audit and everything else, but um maybe David, you have more information. They were really concerned about just one thing that it was too close to the building.
Okay. Um Glenn act and select board. Yep. And Yangshin, you hit the nail on the head with your thorough analysis. Um uh the part the select board has been very busy with quite a lot of things. I
think the part that's relevant to us right now is um what uh Dean mentioned about what they're thinking about the tri board meeting. Um he so reading materials ahead of time
that was that was mentioned. Um 90 minutes is going to be a pretty brief window for that many members but um everyone agreed that there's still plenty we can talk about there. Um they're thinking for reading materials
um perhaps the ALG spreadsheet that's most recently updated. Um, and Dean mentioned that the big budget drivers for at least a town were like health care costs rising for both active duty and retirees and the DPW building. Um,
and the last thing uh was uh perhaps some more clarification on the goals of the outcomes of the tribard meeting beyond getting to know you, but it sounds like on like that is perhaps the bulk of it. Um, so I I think that's what's most relevant for us here.
Thanks. Um, Adam, can you update us on both the fincom and the select board? To the fincom, but I can give you an update on the select board and box leadership forum. So, select board met. Um, I would say that most of the box elected and appointed officials are
running full speed into next week's uh town meeting. Um, this is a town meeting where we are looking at some zoning changes to allow public safety in uh different zones. Um and then also a whole bunch of sense of meeting uh questions around um location and costs
and sustainability aspects of the new fire bu firehouse. Um and then there's also a zoning question for the uh MBTA communities act. So, we've got a bunch uh so most of the action activity in in
Boxboro is around that town meeting and then we've got very quickly coming up in December another town meeting um potentially looking to get uh design funding for the firehouse. Um and we have had we've begun to in the um box
leadership forum discuss the financial situation. Um there is a extremely strong consensus that there will be a a requirement for an override um for next year's operating budget for the town. Um and uh to use the word that the chair of
the finance committee used last night, if we don't pass the override, the cuts will be draconian um to the town and therefore the schools as well. So, uh, we're still waiting to get some guidance from the finance committee in Boxboro, but you know, we'll be again looking to the administration to prepare an A and B
budget, and I am not positive at all about what the Budget will look like. Not good news, but thank you. Yeah. Can I just clarify when you say the next year um around the budget, you mean the ne the coming fiscal year? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Uh,
Leela, I jumped over ALG, you or me. Um okay so ALG met for the first time started looking at the charter and we're talking about um you know based on the uh challenges we had last year coming to consensus over the long term but being having consensus in uh in just the next
budget year. Maybe we're going to end up making that kind of a two-phase process so that um so that everybody feels like things are represented better and also looking at the multi-year financial model being presented in the warrant after the
fincom um message which provides some context there. Um didn't really nail anything down but it was a good conversation. Um and then we just went through, you know, updates and starting to look at the model. Really nothing significant to report on that one right now. Um Andrew, anything with HIT?
Yeah, HIT met last week and reviewed the latest claims and credits for the the the account. We continue to run out with the small charges monthly. We've completed our runout with Harvard Pilgrim. Any new charges based on old claims will bounce. It's no longer our
responsibility. Blue Cross Blue Shield has provided us with a rebate check of $150,000, leaving about $500,000 on hand. And our next meeting will be around the third Thursday of the month. And who wants JPTSO? Um, so we met on Monday night of this
week and it was primarily providing um updates. Thank you so much, Peter, for that. and answering questions and um really just um talking to everyone about you know letting them know that hey we're here for you to support you and getting to hear all of their wonderful
updates was nice. Okay. Um, CPAC so CPAC uh met a little while ago uh September 10th um and the next one is going to be the 22nd of this month which is the same regrettably the same time as
our tri board meeting unfortunately. Um however, one of the primary focuses of our discussion was around how to increase engagement in the community and to uh raise awareness of all of the things that they offer and the joint partnerships such as friends of CPAC.
And they also did want to spread the word that there is an opening for um a position within CPAC. So please uh inquire if anyone's interested. All right. Did I forget anything there? Okay. Consent agenda. Items on the
consent agenda do not usually require discussion and are approved with one vote unless any member would like to hold an item for discussion in a separate vote. I will read each item and if a member would like it held, please say hold. Members do not have to have attended a meeting to vote on the minutes. So we have item A is approval of ABRSC
meeting minutes from 91825. Item B, Blanchard PTO proposed budget for 2025 to 2026. Item C, automated external defibrillator donation. Item D, NYDMC, $2,000 donation to the
ABRHS local scholarship program. Carol Hubner, this is item E. Carol Hunner early childhood program proposed budget for 2025 2026. Item F, approval to transfer $5,382.11
from the defunct Foreign Exchange Trip Club to ABRHS senior high gifts revolving account. Item G, approval of warrants is presented in the packet on 10925. All right. Given that no items were held, is there a motion to approve the
consent agenda as presented? So moved. That would be Leela and Adam. Doy. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? No abstensions? Great. That passes unanimously.
Peter, are there any items you'd like to highlight in the FYI? Um, the Francis Parker Charter School report is in there. Just as an FYI, there are students from Actton and Boxboro that attend the charter school. They send us the annual report, so we just included it so you could take a look. Um the other just FYI, not in the
packet, but just so you know. Um all three of the community forums, we're going to post those as school committee meetings as well. Um as or the possibility that you would have a quorum for those. I'm sure many of you are planning to attend, you know, one or possibly all of those forums. Um, so we
just wanted to cover you from a open meeting law standpoint and we'll just post those. It's not new meetings for you. It's just the the possibility that you could attend in quorum. Thanks. Go ahead. I did just get an email asking if those could be in the act and exchange
calendar, too. Um, yep. I'll talk to Julie. We'll figure that out. Thanks. Move to adjurnn. Second. All right. That would be Adam with the motion, Leela with the second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? No abstensions. Great. Go
home. Thank you.