All right, good evening. The time is 7:11 and we are returning to open session. Um, and I want to welcome everyone who's here this evening. And as a reminder for those of you who were smartly not here when we opened our meeting uh 41 minutes
ago, this meeting is being recorded being broadcast on Actant TV's uh website and on their YouTube channel. Uh so welcome to everybody who's joining us now. Uh a couple items uh I want to say at the beginning of the meeting for people who will not be with us at the
end. Um Project Graduation is still looking for volunteers. please reach out to the project graduation team uh to volunteer for that very special event um for our seniors. Uh secondly, while she's not here, we did just get to say uh a very big thank you to Beth Ped who will be retiring as our uh school
committee secretary this year. And I did want to say openly in a public meeting how grateful the entire committee is for Beth's dedication and support of the committee over these years. And then yes, thank you. And then lastly, a congratulations to Liz Folks who uh won re-election to
her seat in Boxboro was it was a tough battle. Yeah, I beat blank. You beat the blanks. Good job. Um all right. Uh with that, we will move directly into public participation. So, uh per our policy, members are invited to speak for up to three
minutes. Uh speakers must be recognized by the chair before speaking and typically the committee does not respond to the public. Anybody from the public here wish to speak? Please. Thanks. Yeah. Hi, I'm Leah Lai, a K1 teacher at Miriam. At the last school
committee meeting, it was shared that the district is receiving additional funds from the state. And I'm here to request that you consider using a very small percentage of that to continue funding reading assistance in each building and give back some additional hours to classroom assistance. All of
the positions that have been cut are extremely vital to the education of our students, but reading assistance and classroom assistance give you the most bang for your buck. We know that students who receive early intervention in reading and math have improved academic outcomes. So, I'd like
to highlight some of the many benefits of early intervention. It reduces the number of students requiring long-term special education services. Early success in math and reading builds self-esteem, and students are more likely to stay engaged and motivated in school. It's more
efficient and less costly than remediation later in a student's academic career. Early intervention helps to close achievement gaps linked to socioeconomic status, language barriers, and learning
disabilities. If we don't add back reading assistance to each school and additional assistant hours, the number of students who will be able to access early intervention in the elementary schools will be drastically reduced. With the many cuts over the last few
years, our MTSS model is nowhere near what we want it to be or what our students need it to be. Having a classroom assistant that knows the students and can support in the classroom is one of the necessary components we need so that teachers can
provide MTSS during our flex blocks. If Miriam had not had a reading assistant this year, more than half of the students who currently receive reading support wouldn't have. Many of these students performed well below their peers at the beginning of the year, but by the end of the year, we've
seen significant growth and improvement. I urge you to please fund these positions so that students that need these supports can continue to grow and thrive at AB. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, please. Hello, my name is April Sears and I am a reading assistant at McCarthy Town. I am speaking to you this evening in support and advocacy for the four reading assistant positions that have been eliminated from next year's budget. I would like to respectfully ask
if there is any way that some of the additional funds approved by the House could be used to restore these positions for the 2025 2026 school year. The reading assistant positions are an integral part of the reading intervention program here at AB and are necessary for helping struggling
students develop into fluent, confident, successful readers. In my role as a reading assistant, I provide direct reading services to half the McCarthy Town intervention case load. While this role has the title of assistant, I am not a typical assistant. The reading
assistants at AB are teachers. We provide direct, targeted, systematic, explicit instruction in the areas of fluency, phmic awareness, phonics, comprehension, and vocabulary within the framework of a multi-tered system of support. We work with students who have
trouble decoding, blending, and encoding, as well as with students who have trouble with automaticity, fluency, accuracy, and comprehension. The loss of four reading assistants means that many of these students will not be able to receive the intervention and support they need, putting them at great risk.
My typical case load is 22 to 25 students divided among seven groups K to6, but I have worked with more students than that this year as groups are flexible and change based on student data and student need. I'm sincerely worried about what will happen to these students without the availability of a
reading assistant. Reading specialists cannot absorb these students into their schedules as they have the same number of students, if not more. That's 22 to 25 students from just one school that will not be able to receive the reading intervention they need. Multiply this by
four and about a hundred of our neediest students across the district are losing access to important, targeted, explicit, need-based instruction. This is devastating. I also help progress monitor students and administer dibbles to all of our
students in grades K to three. Both are necessary tools for gauging the performance and success of our readers. We've been doing dibbles for the last two weeks at McCarthy Town. It takes that long to collect the data. Every student in grade K to3 is read with. Every student in grade K to 3 has their
needs assessed. Eliminating the reading assistant means there will be one less person available to do this sweep, which will make it take longer to collect the data to see who is at risk and who needs support. I've been working at AB for the last 8 years and have seen firsthand
that reading intervention really works. It is so satisfying to see the growth that students have made from the beginning of the year to now, especially when students that were in danger approach and or meet the benchmark. I love this job with all my heart. In
closing, I respectfully ask that you please consider using some of the additional funding that was approved by the House to restore the four eliminated reading assistant positions to the 2025 2026 budget. I think it would cost about $80,000 or so to do so, which is a
fraction of the total school budget, but it's money well spent, especially when you consider the large number of students who will benefit from having us there. Our struggling readers deserve to have their critical needs met. Thank you. Thank you.
Good evening. Um, for the folks watching at home, my name is Mike Ballescu. I'm an Actton resident, RJ Gray parent, and president of our district's teachers union. At your May 8th meeting, the superintendent shared good news about additional expected revenue in the state
budget, including more chapter 70 aid, more circuit breaker funding, and more regional transportation reimbursement. All of these increases will help our district. And as you know, these changes to state funding did not happen by accident. When this committee asked
teachers to write to their elected representatives and tell their stories about the needs in our schools, we responded. I understand that the challenge of the calendar means that this additional revenue is hard to incorporate into the FY26 budget since
our assessment to the towns has already been decided and the budget already finalized. Nevertheless, now that the state has done its part and made a good faith effort to respond to the needs of our students and our staff, it's time for you to do your part and find a way to
make these dollars count next year. It's not good enough to tell our educators that the revenue they've helped us win will be used to shore up END. That's not what teachers are worried about. That's not what keeps them up at night.
You need to find a way to use the funding we've pleaded for to make a difference for staff next year. I know that you can't restore every position we need to do our work, but you can pick one or two positions. You can restore something that will have
a positive impact on kids come September. For me, you're not going to find a better value than adding back hours for our elementary classroom assistants. I haven't talked to an educator yet who hasn't told me how important classroom assistants are to meeting the myriad needs of our
elementary learners. If not classroom assistance, then what about elementary reading assistants or other staff critical to our tier 2 instruction across the district? What about the faculty support center at the high school or additional staffing at Blanchard where the schedule is so full
that our overworked teachers don't even get a daily prep period? My ask tonight, my plea tonight is that you find a way to make our funding wins count. We have dire needs all across the district and we've done nothing but cut
staff for four years running. We asked the state for help and they've delivered. Now, your educators need to see a win. Your students need to see a win. find something to bring back into the budget and remind teachers that when
they speak, the school committee is listening. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Good evening. Uh I'm David Martin, acting select board leazison to the school committee. Last month, school committee members began discussing the
requirements for the FY27 budgets. I I approached some members of the school committee with my concerns that their approach would not engender the hearts and minds of Actton voters. Those members expressed confidence in their approach and did not seem receptive to my concerns. The school assessment
presentation at Actton's town meeting doubled down on this approach. So, I'm bringing my concerns here to the whole uh school committee. school committee members that I spoke with were taking the position that the school district must receive the funding that it requests whether it means that the act
municipal budget must suffer or act must have another override. Then during town meeting the school assessment presenter said we cannot continue cutting school services while the rest of town services remain stable.
Is that really the standard that the school district must be increasingly funded to the point of instability in municipal government? Let's go over the facts. For a decade, the AB school district assessment to act and has increased at 5% a year on average, 5 and
a half% including excluded debt. During that same period, the municipal increase was 3% per year or 3.4% 4% including excluded desk debt. The school district increases average 2% more each year than
the act. During the same time period, the school district's share of all expenditures in Actton went from 61 to 64%. While the share for Actton's municipal government went down from 38
to 34%. School committee members know that the budget drivers like health insurance and pension increases are the same for the town and the schools. That the town has also had reductions each year from level
services. That the town budget uh absorbed doubledigit increases to the minute man assessment over the past decade. that as part of an ALG understanding, the town postponed projects last year so as to smooth the
impact of the override for Actton taxpayers. And maybe the town will need to make accommodations to lessen the impact on schools next year. So, it's obvious that any implication that Actton is not willing to make accommodations to support our schools is misleading. Even
further, school committee members told me that they would oppose the acting DPW building unless the school district was assured of funding that they requested despite the fact that with a debt exclusion, a DPW building is not in directly competitive with school
funding. The implication was that the DPW building would be blocked until the school funding requests were satisfied. I care very much about our educational staff, but I care equally about Actton's public works staff. It's hard to handle
the implications that Actton's DPW workers would continue to work in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. I want to emphasize that I'm not the only one to hear it this way. A resident contacted me after the final ALG meeting to say that it was obvious to them that the school committee will
block the DPW building unless they get what they want. When I was first elected to the select board, I asked to be liaison to the school committee because I care deeply about our schools. I attend the vast majority of school committee meetings in
person. So, I'm well aware of the challenges. I've worked long and hard every year to support and pass the school budget, especially during the override year. I've always advocated for we're all in this together as an
approach to figuring out the financial challenges that we face. However, this new approach from some on the school committee smacks us versus them. The district's assessment presentation at Atkins Town meeting also said that we need a new plan. I agree with that.
Thank you. Thank you. Any other members of the public? All right. Thank you, Peter. Superintendent update. All right. So, first I want to offer some congratulations.
Um, Blanchard Brasswind Ensemble just earned a gold medal at um Massachusetts Instrumental and Coral Conductors Association. This is now the solo and ensemble uh festival. So, it's a slightly different festival. It's more small group oriented. So, congratulations to that group. And I
also want to congratulate um one of our high school students um Rahm Searammen who I believe you've met um but he actually just had a recent achievement at the International Science and Engineering Fair held in Columbus, Ohio. Uh Rahm placed first in the
systems software category and was awarded a $6,000 prize um from Microsoft. So that is huge. Uh Ram's project is titled HM Detect Murmur Detection and Classification Methodology using a novel C2LSTM architecture and multimodal
signal which Adam has agreed to describe to everyone. Um no, in all in all ser um I actually have gotten to see Rahm present really impressive stuff. Um, so, you know, I think what I want to note is that work doesn't happen um
without a lot of educators running behind them and supporting that work. So, you know, congratulations to all of the Blanchard staff um in the music department as well as all of our music staff district for supporting our students there and congratulations to all of Rahm's educators as well um for
being able to support his growth and development over time. Um budget and finance update. Um just as we thanked active residents for supporting the school budget, we also want to thank Boxboro residents um for passing our budget um at last Tuesday's town meeting. It feels like about 6 weeks ago
at this point, but it was only last week. Um you know, as you heard during public comment, um they we are looking at additional revenue that the House passed. Um so we have been trying to get a handle on that because the House and Senate versions of the budget differ at
this point and have not been reconciled yet. Unfortunately, that doesn't traditionally happen until almost well, actually, usually into July is when they finally set the budget. Um, so I would expect we're probably on that timeline. However, the fact that both the House and Senate have signaled $150 per
student in Chapter 7 aid um I think is a very strong signal that we can count on that aid. Regional transportation um is a little murkier. We're not really sure where that's going to end because um one of the versions of the budget was significantly lower than the other and would not really yield much in in
revenue for us. So that does require some watching. Um you know as well circuit breaker reimbursement um you know we don't really know what that's going to look like for next year fully yet. Um so some some uncertainty but we are zeroing in. I think the chapter 70 piece is a
reasonable place that the school committee could look. So, our administrative team has actually started work on a proposal that we anticipate coming to you on um a budget amendment um for your next school committee meeting that would have two parts. The first part is to reduce the assessment
to the two towns to free up money on the two town side of the budgets. Um, and that was something that you had agreed to in February when you increased your budget that the first pocket of chapter 70 money that came in would backfill that amount to the tune of about $150,000 to be split along the
assessment formula. Um, and then similarly, what we want to do is take some of that remaining money and come to you with a budget a budget amendment proposal um for your consideration of adding back um some reasonable number of staff. So, that is in the works. uh we will bring that to your next meeting,
but I just wanted to give you a heads up that that was coming. Um also, you know, and really in exciting news, um part of working with the department of elementary education is a public school monitoring process um that that they
have. And so we have now submitted our artifact part of is part of DESI's public school monitoring process. The process takes place every three years with an alternating set of standards being reviewed each cycle. This cycle includes a review of universal standards that address the areas of lensure and
professional development for educators, parent, student, community engagement, facilities and classroom observations, oversight, um time and learning and equal access. So we have submitted the artifacts. We've completed the self- assessment stage to the process and uh
we anticipate that Desi will be visiting us next year um in the spring. So more to come on that uh when they get here and we'll keep you updated. Um, some really cool exciting news. Um, Parker Damon building actually started a dog therapy program. I know you're
hearing from the elementary principles. Um, thank you to the two principles, Christina and Christy, uh, for bringing that program in. Um, that follows one of your policies around therapy dogs. So, um, you have a policy that allows for that and that started. So, um, really cool. It's amazing to see the students.
We'll be sending out some photos um, in the update tomorrow to families. but just amazing reaction by the kids um to having the therapy dog in school. So, we're excited about that. And we are sending out uh one of the most exciting things we get to do every year is send families information about the last day
of school. Um so, we will be sending that out in the update as well. That is scheduled for June 20th. Um keep in mind, uh June 19th is a federal holiday. It's Junth. Um so, we are not in school that date. So, we have, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of the week. We have Thursday off and then we come
back for Friday. So, we'll be sending that information out to families. Any questions or comments for Peter? All right. Thank you, Peter. Uh, we are going to move on to our guests and presentations. Tonight, we have a MLY crew. I mean, a wonderful looking uh
group of administrators from our elementary school. So, I'd like to welcome you all up um to give us the elementary school update. We'll have two mics on each end. Where you going? Thank you. It's been a long day.
Unless you want to speak to the ice cream. Presentation would be nice. Yes. So, we're just going to start on this end and work our way down. Um Allison Warren, principal of Gates Elementary. Christina Gavin, principal of Miriam.
Larry Walp, principal of Douglas Elementary. Michael Vado, principal at Blanchard. Christine Neielen, principal at McCarthy Town, and Trisha O'Reilly, principal of Conan School. Alison goes first. Why do you
like I feel like I have a loud enough voice, but um if we can click the clicker didn't make it. Okay. All right. We will get this together. Our shared goals. Um we're here to basically talk to you a bit um
highlights about this year, but we all have shared goals that are wrapped around the MTSS, our culture responsive practices and social emotional learning. These goals also support the strategic plan. But we are just going to highlight a few things that we're proud of and it's going to look different in each of
the schools, but all of it is these three goals or is the foundation of the work that we do. So, first and foremost for Blanchard, I'm going to talk about um our implementation of year two with uh EL on our language arts curriculum. Um our
teachers have done a great job of implementing three modules this year across um 1 through six our in grades 1 through six. Um with a strong level of engagement with the complex texts, our non-fiction topics and evidence-based
writing. I've had more parents comment this year on what their kids are coming home talking about and learning about in EL. And then piggybacking on that with MTSS, we've done a great job. We've continued to do a very good job of expanding our data-driven reading and
more math support this year across tier 2 and tier three support for students across K to6. Thank you. all this technology. Uh I'm I'm really excited uh to talk a little bit about Second Step, which is the SEAL program
that we implemented across all the elementary schools this year. Um we are on track um to fully implement the entire program in all seven grades, kindergarten through sixth grade. Um that included the bullying units that
were uh one of the one of the driving forces of us embracing this curriculum. Um the bullying units were all completed before the end of 2024. Uh and the rest of the year we we continued with the program. Um we don't
have right now a lot of uh subjective or rather objective evidence of what the program has shown us. I can tell you that every one of us and every assistant principal can tell you many anecdotal pieces of evidence of
how it really has improved the relationships between our students, their ability to reflect, um their ability to see outside of themselves, and this is straight from K through 6th grade. It's had a really positive impact on our community. And one of the things
we're actually really excited about is starting next school year knowing that all the students have had one year of foundational work with second step. Uh we have had teachers tell stories where where they're they'll go through the bullying unit and there are students who
say things like oh when I was doing that to my friend that was bullying and I I need to pull back on that a little bit a little bit. So it's really it's really enriched the conversations in the classroom. the teachers have uh really embraced it and um we're we're really
excited to continue it. And then the other thing I just wanted to highlight at at Conan this year is as we also continue to sort of broaden and deepen and refine our uh MTSS process is something we tried um that is not
perfect um but we implemented professional learning communities which essentially meant means that during the school day grade level teams get to meet to talk specifically about kids. This includes times where we have data team meetings, but it's in addition to the
data team meetings. And the agenda includes uh one week perhaps speaking with the school psychologist, one week speaking with the English language development teacher, one week speaking with the math coach, or one week speaking with the literacy coach. And all of those people uh obviously bring
different expertise to the grade level teams that can support them kids specifically. So again, first year a little bumpy sometimes, but overall um the staff has really received it well and uh certainly the folks who get to visit and work with grade level teams
are really appreciative of of the time that they're they're able to do that. So we're we're excited to continue that as well. Thanks. Uh so I also have chosen to talk a little bit about second step and it's really successful implementation this year not only with the anti-bullying
unit, excuse me, the bullying prevention units but also uh just really the use of language that happens each and every day. You can hear that the students have uh have have learned and figured out how to use it and and are using it very
successfully. Uh when you're having conversations when you're having restorative conversations with kids, you you often hear them use the language. Also, the implementation of the DESA screener. So that's a social emotional screener that we do on all students. That's actually happening across all six
elementary schools. Uh so we do it right now the beginning of the year and then we're just wrapping up sort of the end of the year and you see you know growth within different discrete social emotional skills. Um so that's been great and from what I understand next
year we're going to add a winter benchmark in there as well. And then finally, a bit more Douglas specific. Um, we've had sore values of showing perseverance, offering compassion, acting responsibly, and respecting each other, ourselves, and property, but they
hadn't really been operationalized, and we hadn't really done much with them. So, uh, this year we um implemented a recognition system. And it's important the students know these are not rules. These are values. And when we see them exercising the values, uh, they get a
feather. And there's not there's not a trinket at the end of the rainbow. It's just knowing that you did the right thing uh and that you were doing the very best you can. And then finally, culturally responsive work. Uh we've done a lot not only uh with our staff, but with our families as well and
figuring out how to operationalize welcoming those students and those families who get here. Not it's really easy to do it in August, but it's a whole lot harder to do it in January. So, we've now finally come to a point and it's nice that sort of the district is doing some of this work through the
multilingual department and um you know sort of piggybacking on some of the things that we're doing but you know you come to Douglas Elementary School you're going to get a tour from an administrator um once you're enrolled you're going to meet your teacher you're going to be walked through how to use parent squareear and all the things that
we kind of take for granted that you're not going to know. Uh so in addition to that, we've actually now taken some of those newcomer families, people who came in January, just a couple of weeks ago, we interviewed them and said, "Hey, what is it that you wish you knew that you don't know as a result of the onboarding
process?" And they've said, "Hey, here's X, Y, and Z. So some work for next year." So, at Gates, one of the things that we really um that we focused on this year, and this has been probably the biggest piece of what we've been looking is defining our purpose, our vision, and
our values. And that's been started at the beginning of the year, and I feel like it's just starting to land the plane. Um it's been a real event making sure that we have student voice being included in this piece. We've had staff
voice. All a professional day was um devoted to this when we were looking at our values along with families. We had a committee that we brought together to help us word smith but also looking at what is what is the true purpose um what is the missions and then the values. The
most interesting story that came out of that is um three values came up for the staff and the the families and it was and when they came out it was the exact same thing which is kindness, respect and inclusivity. It was the exact same
for both sets. Um, and we've spent some time this year doing some art to represent those values which is going to be uh at our art show is if anyone's looking. Gates art show is coming up soon. But we are going to reveal what
kindness and respect and inclusivity look like on art panels. Every single staff and student did it and we're going to put it on the wall. So that'll be exciting thing to share. The other piece that we have continued to focus on is responsive classroom and how that
creates the environment with which everything that we do, how implementing the secondstep program, the EL curriculum, our IM, everything that we do all starts from developing the routines and relationships within a classroom. So responsive classroom
continues to be an area of focus. We focused in our all school meetings. We were talking about relationships and ways to embed that as well as through our unified arts, art, music, PE and library. How can we be intentional in talking about relationships and quiet
time was one of the routines that is part of responsive classroom that we really pushed big and having it appear in all the classrooms and that could be after recess lunch and for some classrooms it's been supportive to have it after unified arts as well. Thank
you. Um, at McCarthy Town, we're going to just discuss social emotional learning and multi-tered systems of support. Um, in both of these goals at McCarthy Town, there was a lot of staff leadership around them. So, I just want to thank the teachers and our mental health team
for leading a lot of this work. Um, as far as social emotional learning, we refined our response to behavior matrix. Um, this matrix has been a work in progress for a couple of years. And this year, after some professional learning with one of our counselors from our
Compass program around trauma-informed practices, we learned a lot about how our own nervous systems as adults impact how we're interacting with students who may be disregulated. And for all 484 students, they'll have moments where
they're dregulated. and the grown-ups learned about how their own nervous system could impact the students when we're responding. We then took that work and added a belief statement to our response to behavior matrix so that we were working and thinking about what are
the adult mindsets that go into the work of responding to behaviors. And we came out with um with Ellie Lion's leadership, our counselor's leadership, thinking about behaviors in three buckets of mental health needs, lagging
skill needs, or a behavioral need. and trying to have our teachers kind of think through those three lenses as we respond to behaviors was a really helpful piece of work to add to our response to behavior matrix. Um, and in multi-tered systems of support, our
focus was tier one instruction. And again, like many of us have set up here, building out the consistency of those practices in both language arts and math. Um, at McCarthy Town, we really noticed, and Trisha said something about this with Second Step, we noticed that
as the years go by where we're using consistent programs, the vertical alignment is really supporting student learning and student mastery of skills because what they learned the year before is coming into that next year and is really giving them the confidence in those skills. Um, and again, I would
just give a lot of thanks and praise to the amount of work that the teachers have to put in to do all of this change at Miriam. This year we have spent a considerable focus and we have centered our goals on inclusion and
belonging and we have noticed that our students are telling us that for the majority of our students they're having they're having a positive experience and there's a small group of students and students who are not having an equitable
experience and we wanted to do something with that. So, we've worked with a equity coach. We've partnered with uh Michelle Shannon and we formed a group called Elevate this year and it's comprised of families and staff and
we've been working together all year and it's been an extension of our efforts to deepen our awareness, understanding, and our skills to interrupt hate and bias. And through that team and through that work, it's been very powerful because we
have brought our families and and staff together and they're coming to meet after school hours, after work hours. It's a volunteer committee. And through that work, we have decided we really want to amplify the student voice. And
so we're at the stage of getting to better understand the student experiences, their perspectives, and through what they're telling us, we want to take that and we want to shape the values and shape our next steps. And um
we have also spent a considerable effort around the professional learning for staff. We are working with all of our staff, including our paraprofessionals and our assistants in order to better equip us to be well practiced. We want to respond to these
events when they happen, but we also more importantly want to create a culture where these events are less less likely to happen. And ultimately, we want students to feel that school is safe, that they feel seen and heard and known and understood, that they can be
themselves, and that school is a joyful place to do their best learning. And another focus that we've had at Miriam has been on positive behaviors. And second step has also been a huge success at Miriam. the students
are using the vocabulary and we are anticipating that as the years go through that that cumulative knowledge and vocabulary will continue to inform students and strengthens relationships. And we've also continued to deepen our
work with responsive classroom and restorative justice. And MTSS has also been a focus at Miriam as we continue to extend our practices with academic, behavioral, and social emotional tiered supports.
As you can hear in this presentation and probably in last year's and hopefully next year's, we really are trying to hit the balance between having a shared vision with the district goals and the school goals, but also being able to meet the context of our individual schools. We plan to continue doing that
process next year um around a goal of strengthening and refining tier 1 instruction in literacy, math, and social emotional learning and also support the strategic visioning and the restructuring of schools work that we will all be doing
together. We're happy to answer any questions. Excellent. Thank you all so much. Questions from the committee? I'll go with Ben and then it looks like Tori is ready to ask a question. So earlier or not earlier on but just
momentarily ago um you mentioned that uh the elevate group in terms of discussing about um meeting after school and helping amplify student voices. What sort of topics are being sh what? Oh I'm
sorry here. Can you hear me better now? Okay. Uh could you speak more about the Elevate program and um speak towards what you're actually discussing in terms of amplifying student voices? What sort of topics are being raised and shared
and what kind of impact has it had in terms of the involvement so far? Thank you for the question. Elevate is a symbolic. I um I met with the equity coach and we started brainstorming,
visioning and what do we want to call the name of this group and we could have called it so many different things and it really is a group focused to look through an equity lens, you know, an anti-racist lens. We want to focus on inclusion and belonging um most
certainly and we could include those in the title. So we we thought about it and we started talking about what did we want to to vision and what did we want to see and we really wanted to lift up the morale of the building for the students. We wanted to lift up student
voices. We wanted to be doing a little bit better than we were before. Um we know we're not going to be able to solve racism with this one group or solve all incidents of hate and bias, but we thought, you know, could we do a little better than we were before? could we go
a little higher? And um that was kind of the the spirit or the symbolism of it. And through that trying to surface the student voice because uh we did get a little bit of what students were telling us. And some of what they told us is this is only the half of it. You don't
even know some things. We're not reporting everything. So that kind of told us we need to create the conditions of safety for kids. And so um how do we do that? And so it has been exciting because we're bringing together parents and staff together. It's been highly
collaborative and I am so grateful that people come every single time because we're tired. We all work. We all have so many things on our plates and when I come to the meeting and I look at the people around the room and I know, oh wow, we're all here on a volunteer basis
because we care about these topics and these issues and we care about the kids in front of us. that energy is so contagious and um we learn about the brain. We learn about what happens when we go into that fight or flight or freeze. We learn about child
development. Um and we also talk about, you know, developmentally appropriate ways to handle it when kids mess up. Uh we all mess up. Um and then we're we're right now in the process of survey. We've surveyed every single student um in developmentally different ways
because sixth graders are going to need something different than a kindergartener and we we've defined the problem and we're asking kids why do you think this is happening and what do you think we need to do about it and getting their input and so we're at the stage
right now of where we're going to look at that together. We've surveyed every student and we're going to dream big for some next steps. Great. Thank you so much for that very important work, Tori. I love getting to hear more about how
MTSS is evolving. And something that I feel like I heard a number of times that I'm curious about um when we were working through the elementary budget task force was I heard a lot of people saying we're on the right track, but it could be better. We're not implementing it as intended. So, I'm curious about
what you would like to see that would make it stronger. I didn't know if you're handing it to me or Well, you reached as I reached I I think some of the comments from the public this evening talked about MTSS is
really an idea that an entire school is wrapped around looking at data together in order to meet the needs of individual students. And we have the the kind of seeds going where we have we're working on the tier one and strengthening that. We have tier
2 happening for some students with specialists and with classroom teachers and with our coaches and we have tier three happening. I think the pieces that could be happening more is if we had more of that staff and as time goes by
and we grow teacher capacity to understand different ways to do small groups. Um, but really that staff piece is I think what we heard a lot in that elementary budget task force that was focused on obviously the more staff we
have the more the deeper the work we can do and the wider more widespread the work is I'm going to add just real quick you too I think that it's also just looking at the tiers so tier one tier two and
tier three and thinking of MTSS and it's their social emotional component, the academic component. There's all MTSS covers it's it's a huge framework that we're working from and all of us are in different places. And just this year we
were meeting with Heather Stouch, our our SEAL director here and we're looking at how do we define tiered um our tier supports within SEAL and really starting to operationalize and think about what does that look like
within within the schools. So, I feel like there's so many. You start to peel the onion and then you keep peeling the onion. And then I think we're going to be peeling the onion for a very long time. Thank you. Yeah, I agree with everything and support everything that's been said.
I think that um our kids change every year and we have to be responsive to our students. So, even if we were to ever arrive at the perfect MTSS model, we'd get a whole new group of kids and we'd have to look at it all over again. Uh but I think specifically one of the
things um that I would and and we've all talked about next year really focusing on tier one is really getting our coaches in front of our teachers as much with as much time as possible because that is where the professional learning
happens. I'd love to think that as principal I can help everybody with tier one instruction in my school and I can't. Um, but certainly our coaches are in the position to do that and our coaches are in the position to bring uh teachers together to learn from each
other. And so I think that's something we're thinking about how can we use that better. I mean, we always want time and money. Uh, that's an obvious ask. However, I think thinking about what we have and how we can use it better. And that that's one place that we're thinking
about. I think you can keep the mic right in front of you. Uh, regarding MTSS, uh, my understanding is that I have an elementary school student as well. Like I hear a lot of assessments going on, there's a lot of data collection and I
think it's very interesting because when you know the principles came to policy sub and we start getting a peak of your day, what does it look like? I'm kind of kind of curious like because data collection and analysis takes a lot of time. I'm just kind of curious like what
is the impact of um a teacher's day? Like what does it look like? When do they squeeze that in? That that's that's a great uh question um in that I would love to talk about it forever, but I'll try to summarize in two minutes. I won't. Um so
there's there's assessment going on from the minute a child walks in the door, right? You know, it's formative assessment. a a kid who's typically very cheerful and happy today isn't. So that's an assessment a teacher notices and maybe puts it in the back of her head or maybe approaches the child. We also have formal assessments. We have
end of unit tests. We also have benchmark assessments where we're taking a look universally at all the students in the grade across the district and are they meeting certain benchmarks that are are related to our standards. And then we have our formative assessments that
teachers might do at the end of a lesson or a couple times a week to see uh where students are in in new learning. So all of that is happening all the time. Um so in terms of the I'm guessing your question is more about the more formal
kinds of assessments and that kind of analysis. I was just curious how do they like pack in like trying to teach the students getting to know them being there for them and do all that. Yeah, it sounds pretty full, doesn't it? Yeah, it is. Um, it's amazing what teachers do.
Um, I wish we could put a little procam on every teacher for one day. Honestly, I don't think people would believe it. Um, however, we also try to have systems to support teachers, right? So, our uh we we just finished something we call it
different something different in all our buildings. We've called it a sweep, a swarm, a flood. We we've had a but that's where we kind of get all hands on deck and we have a schedule and we say okay for we're going to spend 10 days on this and we're all going in to assess
together. The principal, the assistant principal, the coaches, the interventionists, the classroom teachers, anybody who knows how to use the assessment and they're they're fairly easy to use will go in and get this done. So we are we are trying to share that. Um and in terms of the
analysis, our coaches do a lot of the uh pre-analysis or initial analysis and then our data team meetings are the places where we're doing the analysis together both as uh classroom teachers, interventionists, administrators. And I think we're all I think that's a pretty
standard practice in all in all six of our buildings. Was that helpful? Okay. Thanks, Lea. Thank you all. Um I appreciate the commitment to our schools but also like public education in a time when I think
our schools are expected to pick up so much um from and with students and families. Um on kind of a personal note, I have a request and then I have a question after. Um, my request is that I went to the steam and literacy evening
at one of our elementary schools recently and it was super helpful to see families so engaged um and to see the relationships that staff very clearly have with students. Um, and so my request is invitations where appropriate to the school committee. Um, sometimes as someone who doesn't have kids, it
feels a little awkward to walk in without students. Um, cuz I'm just like, "Hi, I'm a random adult walking into a school building." Um, so an invitation could be helpful. Um my question um as so I'm on policy subcommittee um and as we keep talking about kind of
integrating restorative justice into policies um later we're going to see it in the high school handbook um in a perfect world like right we would all want the people implementing the policies that we write or the handbooks um to have the tools to feel like they're doing it in a way that
feels comfortable for them. Um and so my question recognizing that there are fiscal constraints around that given our budget um is like what um professional learning or kind of formalized opportunities have there been for you all or for staff um to to do some PL
around restorative practices and or like what is in the pipeline to come if anything. So, we actually started the year as an administrative team. By that I mean everybody in central office and the building based leadership uh doing a very full two-day restorative justice
training. Um and we've all taken it back to our school sort of in in in bits and pieces. Uh I know like for a fact some of my colleagues spent half or the entire like November professional learning day with their uh you know with
their staffs doing restorative circles uh teaching them along the way. I know we actually had some work we did sort of an unconference style of learning where um teachers sort of get to choose their own adventure based on what they said they'd like some learning in. Uh we had one teacher who actually had been
trained in restorative justice. she led a whole workshop on it. Um and and and I think it's it's also, you know, it's not just the training, but it's consistently doing it, right? So, um when you have a conflict, you know, a pure conflict between two children, how are you
addressing it? Are you using the the restorative questions? What happened? Why? How did it make you feel? Tell me more. And I think the more that we're doing that, there's there's learning not only going on for the children, but the adults as well.
Yeah, I think the um the two-day training for the whole staff was really quite inspiring to to all of us and I think we've given the constraints of the budget and time have approached it differently. I know um at Conan I have taken 10 minutes of every staff meeting
just to do a little snippet of restorative practices either a video or um a list of values or a a list of questions just to sort of keep it on people's minds. Um we also had I think other people here have taken tier 2
individually. So some of us are tier one and tier 2 trained. Um, I think a number of us have had our assistant principles trained this year. I know I offered to a handful of my classroom teachers that if they were interested in being trained either over the summer or in the fall
and and many of them are. I think um a great place to start is with our mental health staff, with our school psychologists and our school counselors, but also there are classroom teachers who are who are probably pretty much doing a lot of this and just didn't know that that's what it was called and would
love to learn more about refining it. So, it would be fantastic if we each had $30,000 to train our whole staff on one day, but we know that's not going to happen. But I think we're all pretty committed to making it work. Sort of jigsawing it. Yeah.
Glenn. Hi everyone. Um, I wrote down lots of thoughts, so I'll do my best to not be too rambly here. Um, but one thing that's on my mind is that um, 10year-olds today were in lockdown 5
years ago during kindergarten. And I think that definitely has some my my guess is that as educ as as people on the ground in this you probably see some effects that probably took years to really come to say like oh that's what
that does. Um, so I'm just I I was hoping that you could offer a bit more a bit more discussion about like what are some of the unique challenges that maybe just m let's take sixth graders for example or fifth graders
like how how is the classroom different with these kids than it was just two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. Um, one thing I'm wondering is that if you've mentioned that there's anecdotal evidence for how SEAL learning has
really helped these kids. Um, I'm wondering is there things that that besides anecdotal evidence that and this could come this will probably come out later but too but like can you point to like hey there are less outbursts now for example if there are some kids that
are having behavioral issues maybe those things that um maybe those things are getting better um and do I have any other notes here those are the big ones um that's kind of open-ended but if you have any
thoughts I'd be happy to hear them. Good question and I think one that we often have in the forefront of our minds and the further we get away from it the less it is get brought up but really it's still having a huge impact. So thank you for that question. Um as Trish
talked about we all are using second steps. So that gives us kind of a foundation. We also have the our mental health team led by Heather Stout has done the work to write our own district-based can do statements for each grade level that are a way for
teachers to start looking at what is the kind of typical developmental social emotional learning skills that kids can do and using that as a baseline to then be able to say how many of our kids aren't there yet and how many kids are more than doing more than that right
Now, um, just anecdotally, we also at McCarthy Town use Chip Woods Book Yard Sticks a lot, and I'm sure other schools do as well. We often hand it to parents. Um, and he did a lot of research before the pandemic around the developmental
milestones for social emotional learning and academic learning. And what we've been doing after the pandemic is if we're we want to think about fourth graders, there's literally a chapter that's like 9year-olds. We tend to read the eight-year-old chapter, the nine-year-old chapter, and the
10-year-old chapter instead of just that middle place because we're seeing some of those differences. And almost always when we're in these problems conversations and then we read that chapter, we're like, "Oh, they're just a little bit of a lag here. We need to
read that 8-year-old chapter and apply it to what we're seeing in the next grade." So, we do some of that work in our problem solving conversations. I also just think at the ground level, I think our teachers and our staff in our buildings are extremely adept at being
flexible and seeing what's in front of them and adapting on a daily basis, sometimes minute to minute, day to day, hour to hour on what's happening in front of them cuz the amounts of dysregulation haven't gone away. They've definitely dissipated a little bit here and there, but our teachers just have to be on their feet and on their toes and
they've become like masters of every craft, not just like their ELA craft or their math craft, but they've become masters in SEAL as well right now because of what has happened over the last 5 years to your point. Thank you. Uh I just have a a quick
closing comment. I love hearing about the fact that we're rolling out SecondStep as a sort of a district-wide seal. And what I'm really excited to see is how that gives our elementary students tools as they advance into the secondary level. And you know, we talk a lot about advisory at the junior high and high school. And I'm really excited
to see how the work that you do now with Second Step sort of helps evolve those programs as our kids move up. So, thank you. It's really exciting. And thank you all for coming to present to us this evening. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we are going to move on to
our new business. Um, so we're going to take six principles and replace them with one amazing principal who's going to share with us. A riveting topic. Anyone's welcome to keep Joanie
company. Uh, all right. So, we have a a first read update to our student handbook. So, we do have to vote our student handbook. Um and it's typical for us our practices to um see policies or handbooks once have an opportunity to ask some questions, send some feedback, and then this will come back to us um at
our next meeting because obviously we need to have the handbook in place for our our seniors as they're coming in. So with that, I'll hand it over to Principal Dean. Great. Um so I'm excited to talk about the handbook. I also want to congratulate our over 400 seniors who
are at the end of their journey. Um last night we had our scholarship night and the community um generously supported over $155,000 for our graduating seniors. It was a wonderful celebration of their accomplishments. Next Friday is their
last day. So we have five or six days left with the seniors and then we will clap them out. We will all line the sidewalks that you see there as they leave the building and that will be our second annual um clap out. And then graduation is on June 6th on Liry Field. So we're very excited to celebrate the
class of 2025. And now on to handbook. Okay. So, um, if you take a look at these slides and click on all the links, which I'm not going to do here, but we're in
your memo, you will see our handbook from last year, and then a link to our new proposed handbook, a memo that highlights all the changes, and I'm going to show you an overview of what those are tonight as well.
When you look at the proposed handbook, there's some notes about text. The what we're proposing to change, which is actually quite a lot due to some reorganization, um is read and and struck through. And then the blue text is what we're proposing to be
new. And here are changes that we would like to propose. So the first um bucket is in our graduation requirements, which you all know about. We um have an additional arts elective which you approved for the class of 2029 and beyond. So that is now in there. We have
some program of studies alignment language which you also looked at and approved I believe in March. And then our new competency determination um now that the MCCAST requirement is gone. So that is all reflected now in the handbook. The second bucket is our open
grade book language. So, we are going to be opening the gradebook for the entire school year next year starting at the beginning of the year. And so, you'll see language around that. Um, and that power school will be open for students
and families. And that's explained in that section, page 15. Uh, cell phone policy. We're enhancing our cell phone policy, which we also added to last year. You'll find that on page 67. We want to ensure that the instructional
time in classes is really phone free. Um, and we're going to ask that students put their phones in the cubbies that are in all the rooms. Some students already do this and some teachers have students doing this. Um I think we want to
provide um asurances that the classroom is phone free, distractionf free um and that there is really engaged learning going on in the classrooms and um you know with all the research that we see in best practices that we know what our
teachers know what area schools have done we do believe that this will be helpful in the classroom to keep the phones um out of let's say temptation for students uh maybe in pockets or near
their desks. Of course, a stu if um teacher wants the students to use them, that's fine. They'll be right there in the classroom with them. Um and I would say that teachers overwhelmingly are in favor of of doing
this for instructional time. Um, I will say that cell phones will still be allowed as they always have been for the past many years, maybe ever since we had the advent of cell phones, during free periods, during lunch, um, in libraries,
in common spaces, in cafeterias. Um, so feedback we've heard from from teachers has been overwhelmingly positive from students and families. um very happy about uh distractionfree um classroom time and the possibility of
more engagement. There were some concerns around um being able to use phones in an emergency and and uh students will still be able to use their phones in an emergency. They'll be right there in the in the classroom.
um questions around would this provide or um create more stress for students uh not having their phone right on them but still in the classroom. And I think evidence and research that we have seen
shows the opposite in terms of what teachers and we all see in terms of the pull of cell phones and and the effect on students health and their stress. And so we really feel that stress will be alleviated by not being pulled to
stressful possibly um conversations or using cell phone electronically. Um the third concern was around uh possibly cell phones being lost or um you know not being able to find them and that um
we feel like we can mitigate and has not been a problem for when they've been used um in the past. um students uh misplace things several times a day in the high school and it's it's pretty easy to find it and and everyone is very helpful in doing that
and so we feel that that won't be an issue and once the habit of using the cubby comes into place that that would work out just fine. And then the fourth bucket is reorganization and clerical updates. And so when you see a lot of red in there and um a lot of blue, we we
reorganized the entire table of contents. We eliminated some sections because they were completely redundant and found in in other areas. Um and so that is it. All right. Thank you. Looks like we have a very eager question over there from
Vicram. Yeah, it's it's more logistical question and regarding the cell phones and and keeping them in cubbies. Could you elaborate on is it sort of like there's a bucket, everybody throws their phone in there or is there sort of like everybody's designated cubby with their names on them or pictures or So almost
all rooms in the high school already have these. So if you if you walk into a room next year, you'll see it. They look like um shoe uh like hanging shoe uh racks, right? And so there's about 25
different spots, 30 different spots and a student would just put theirs in there. Many of them do this in several cases and then when they walk out of the classroom, take it out. I'm I also want to say that that regarding stress, I think there'll be initial uptick of stress like where's my
phone? But as as they roll into it, it'll be much better as he said and and a lot of things in life happen that way, right? and and that is actually a good strategy for resilience and coping. Ben, so I know the Massachusetts Senate along with uh other lawmakers are exploring a
cell phone ban within our schools. How would this help or potentially hurt you as an administrator in terms of ensuring that the high school and all of our schools are phone free? Well, that's a million-dollar question.
Um, I wouldn't say I would be totally opposed or that the staff in the high school would be totally opposed to a complete ban. Um, I think we also as educators and human beings want to teach our children and ourselves how to use technology responsibly. And so I think
there is a tension between being able to do that and then completely eliminating cell phones completely. I am more and more convinced over time in with the advent of co unfortunately that technology especially for younger brains has a real addictive
pull. And so if you ask me today, I would probably say we would comply and there would be a lot of positives and that would be okay if Massachusetts did that. And at the same time, I think we would need to figure out ways to also
teach our students how to use technology responsibly. Are you asking how it would couple with the cubby policy because it would just it would just take over and then they wouldn't we wouldn't have cubbies because we wouldn't have phones, right? My question would be um
essentially you just mentioned that there is cell phone allowance periods if you want to call it that during free time. Yeah. So yes, I know I need to be closer. Sorry, Angen. Um, how would this impact? Obviously, it would eliminate cell phones alto together in the
schools. Yeah. So, then we wouldn't be able to allow that and we'd have to follow the state guidance and laws on that and figure that out. Peter, I'll just add, you know, one one thing I did share with the state in some feedback was another unfunded mandate
that we're going to be monitoring. And uh you know the districts that have gone entirely cell phone free have spent considerable money on yonder pouches, things like that um that can lock devices, but that means every time a student comes into the building, someone has to be giving them a pouch. They have
to lock it for the day. They have to have a way to demagnetize it. Not only at the end of the day to access their device, but then they also have to demagnetize it in emergencies and things like that. And so like the mental health side of cell phones there there's no
doubt in my mind that it's problematic for kids. And I I also, you know, at this point have seen so many mandates come out of the state of new things that schools are required to do or monitor or execute
that don't come with it the infrastructure and support. Um I think you know over the last couple years I think I gave it out at budget Saturday last year, right? all of the administrative mandates that have have taken place over the last 15 to 20 years
for all they're all well intended and all require something else of educators and administrators in schools and so I you know certainly would support something that moves this forward and we need help with it too is what I would
say. Thanks Jenny. Um, I have a quick question and then maybe a longer one. My quick question I could just keep talking and not frame it like that. Um, was the tier 2 door propping stood
out to me and then I had to Google it in the like what infraction is it and what tier of um like a behavioral response. Yeah. Yeah. And so I just didn't know what the heck door propping is and so I Googled it and I just want to double check that are we referring to like
where students are leaving external doors that are supposed to be like latched open. Okay. Like propping a door open with a door stop. Yeah. And is that happening like um maybe this is a separate question. It happened at the beginning of the year
when we had our new door policy. It doesn't happen anymore. We have alarms that go off when the the um doors are open so we know right away and we followed up with those students. So it's it's actually not happening very much at all. Okay. Um and then maybe the longer question is I think to be candid like
the lens that I'm looking at this through is primarily vision of a graduate just because that's been on my mind today. Um and this idea that like we're setting students up for like wherever they go after high school. Um, and it makes me think about how neither co nor work
expected me to like put my devices somewhere before like engaging in that setting. Um, and so I was curious if you have any thoughts about some of this to help like round out my perspective on it. Um, in terms of this like preparing students for postgrad life. Yeah. But
also being seem seemingly far more restrictive in high school. Yeah, I hear that. I the policy is not that much more restrictive than we have right now. Students are supposed to just keep it in their backpacks. So actually students who are doing
that are not really seeing a difference too much between that and this. It actually they've shared with me wouldn't feel like there would be even any pull or temptation to use it. And so what you're talking about when your brain is
a little bit more fully formed is being able to rationalize and not use your phone, but there's that addictive kind of pull, especially with younger students and teenagers. And so we want to develop students and adults into being able to use phones appropriately.
Sometimes what we'll see is students being able to use their phones in class, most likely when they're not supposed to, and then kind of leave, use the restroom, have their phones, and now they're not actually engaged responsibly in the
class and they they kind of have their cell phone with them. So, we want to create habits that are actually rewarding the students who are making the choices to keep their phones away. and and we think that being able to put the phone in a designated location is
going to help create that habit and then show a benefit for the student to be able to do that on their own. And so we believe that that's kind of where we're at right now in terms of the learning. And I want to acknowledge that we do want to teach our students how to use
cell phones reasonably and responsibly. So there's some growth there, too. And I cannot agree with everything that Peter said more about the yonder pouches and trying to have to manage something like that. So 100% agree. That would be
incredible for 1650 students. Andrew, thanks. I also want to bring up the cell phone cubby policy. Um, and actually I'm concerned the policy affects consequence before a bad action because assuming we have a policy in place currently around the use of cell
phones in class. Why do we need to demand removal of phones from the control of their owners? I think the act of mandatory placement of phones in this common space at the beginning of each class creates an opportunity for theft or damage or even bullying. It's hard
not to imagine taking the wrong phone, dropping someone's phone on the ground, otherwise damaging this property. And when the phones are damaged, who's going to pay for them if they have to be placed in a cubby at the at the order of the school and they are damaged, the liability would seem to sit with the
school. These are hundreds of dollars per phone. And that's before you think about the damage you're doing to somebody else's property, just the replacement piece. I think that if we have a policy in place that's already stating phones can't be used in class that apart from approved uses that policy includes an escalation of
consequences and we can achieve the same result. Someone takes a phone out in class faculty tells them put it away. Second time faculty tells them put on their desk third time somebody puts it on your desk. Aside from the potent potential like theft and damage and bullying that can come from this policy,
just this consequence though of bad of consequence before bad action is wrong. As Leela was talking about teaching our students to self-regulate in a world of technology, we don't let them use AI. We let them use Grammarly. We as a district
will use AI to build our presentations. It's it's this scale that we won't allow them to do these certain things even though the rest of the world is leaning towards doing all of these things. I think policy works when prohibition
fails and with that in mind I'd request a shift, an adjustment, a change, a revision to this policy. I don't think it's going to achieve the greater scale that you want it to achieve. Do do you want me should I Okay.
I think that um so we haven't noticed any um like breaking of phones or issues with there being stolen phones, but certainly if that happens then we would have to reexamine the policy. Many area schools
have done this and it has worked well. Unfortunately, and students um recognize this as well, students are using their cell phones and we can't see it or notice it and they want help
stopping. And so, um teachers aren't able to see it and when they're out in the halls, we can't monitor that when they're going to the bathroom. And so I think that we're trying to put things in place that that students actually are willing to try to and I hear what
everyone is saying in terms of being able to um teach students how to reasonably use electronic devices and I appreciate that. I want that too. With a short amount of time between classes and the difference between four or five people reaching for the cubbies and
20ome people reaching for the cubbies, the opportunity is very easy for mishandling. Um, I just think about like we have speed limits on the road and if you go over the speed limit, you get a ticket. But you don't get a ticket every time you go on the road expecting that
you're going to speed. And I think we have to offer that same level of respect. I understand that it can be difficult but if the understood consequence exists that is escalated in the same way we escalated for all the other things like the the door propping and you show you've shown that the door
propping policy worked I would think to show them the respect to show them the opportunity for self-regulation and to again return some of the authority of the teachers to say no you can't do that put that in Jony's office would allow
you to have that measure of control without seating control of personal property at the beginning of every class causing additional opportunities for mischief to happen. I think that is what we're doing this year though. Joanie, I think we're I think we've got this topic
covered. Lots of people want to make comments. So, I'm going to go to Tori and then Lisa and then Glenn. So, it was interesting to me to read this because it's almost exactly the policy my school put into place this year. And I will tell you as a teacher, it was lifechanging. Yeah. and no longer have to spend time fighting with kids
about putting their cell phone down so we can actually teach. And so I hear what you're saying, Andrew, about about a lot of things. Um, I would say the nuance that we had is it's our policy is a little different depending on age. Our middle schoolers put them in the pouch and they stay there all day. They don't
get to touch them unless they go and talk to somebody at the front desk to get access to their phone. Um, our nth and tth graders, they're in the pouch. They are allowed to access them during lunch and breaks. our juniors and seniors, we do actually allow them to keep them on their person, but if you catch them with them out, they get
busted back to middle school level privileges. Um, so there is a little bit of a nuance, but I will tell you that it also took a roll out, very clear discussion about expectations. When we started school, we let all the parents know it was in our student handbook as
well. And then getting those things out of their hands for the first week was terrible. And after that, life-changing. We have teachers who do who do it for all students right now and and there aren't really that issues in terms of
getting the phones. Yeah. Lisa, I just want to take a moment to echo what Tori said. uh somebody who has spent an enormous amount of time playing whack-a-mole with the cell phones in the classroom is honestly the best way I could describe it because the exorbitant
amount of energy spent on just trying to like referee the technology in the classroom when I might be having Chromebooks open and they're supposed to be doing something else and then they're on their cell phones and then somebody's giggling about something on social media and I'm like, "Oh my dear goodness, is
there potential bullying happening? Are they joking?" And it like brings into other issues into the school that could be problematic, especially if there's social media use on the cell phones during class time. That's not, you know, appropriate for the time
unless they're like doing, you know, cahoot or something to do a classroom quiz or something. But that being said, um, yeah, I just there's a lot of energy that could be better spent as a teacher teaching the class and working with students. And um I really applaud this
effort. Yeah. Over well over 85 close to 85% of our teachers are exceptionally in favor of this. I think it's very hard for them to teach right now with this. Um all students have Chromebooks in front of them almost most of the class.
So they are getting to use technology in that way. And the consistency is key too because as somebody who was a teacher where I was like you're the only one that does this like no everybody doesn't and that's important. Glenn, well I'm going to shift gears a little
bit from the cell phone policy just super about I I think that you you mentioned the addictive part. That's the part that I I find concerning. I do I think that generally like the less temptation there is in the
classroom for that just being and not having to have all all that referee effort being spent on that I think is beneficial for learning and in helping kids develop the brain that they need to go out and regulate in the future. Um but so this is tangent to the cell phone
regarding social media specifically. Mhm. Um I mean Peter just mentioned that like guidelines without like without like practical hands-on support pretty difficult but like would I noticed in the handbook there social media itself wasn't explicitly mentioned
too too much? Um would guidelines around like platform specific things be beneficial at all to educators or would that just sort of be like okay great we have a document now what like cuz there was Snapchat Instagram like we mentioned
how a lot of these with the social emotional learning anti-bullying guidelines they're great but there's still stuff that like teachers aren't going to know because a it happens online and it be it follows the kids home. Um like years ago you would get
bullied at school and then you'd go home and that was that. But like now it can follow you home on Instagram. It can follow you home on Snapchat. So like would are there is so perhaps I'm just gesturing towards a concern I have more than a practical
question that I was hoping you could speak to a little bit. like would how does would social media guidelines spec platform specific be beneficial at all to educators or would that just be like an unhelpful document? Jody, I'll jump in on that. I think it would be outdated in a minute.
So yeah, I mean I think it's outdated. I think um there are actually states that have talked about, you know, minimum ages for different social media accounts and things like that. Anything like that, you know, what's on a student's cell phone is not what the school can regulate. Um, and you know that because
otherwise we're policing individual devices. We just don't have that capacity. I think if the state took something on that would be between legislation and the social media companies to have to then implement policies around ages and restrictions and things like that. But that that
aspect of it is probably outside of our scope. When it impacts the school, then we have to look into it. But we can't really police it as as Peter is saying. I would like to move on. Glenn, you got one question. So, we're gonna we're going to move on to our next topic. Now, if there's no other comments on the
handbook, we have the opportunity to write some written feedback. Um, and it would be good to get that to the administration probably by tomorrow so that um they can put some edits in if if there's something there that's supportive. And then we'll be voting this at our next meeting in two weeks by
the administration. Do we write to Peter? Peter. Yes, please. To Peter directly. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much, Joanie. All right, we are moving on to ongoing business. Um, approval of our strategic planning and reorganization steering committee membership. Peter,
you want to give us an update on sort of where we've gotten to in the past few weeks with our strategic planning and reorganization uh steering committee? And and I will say that I'm very actively trying to remember to say it's not just about reorganization because the really important work is coming up with our
strategic plan. Yeah, thanks Adam. Um, so there's some information and memo in your your packet, but one of the things that I wanted to do was have a hub for information for members of the community, families, um, to be able to
gather information about the strategic planning process and any reorganization that we're considering as part of that strategic plan. So on the district website, there is now um an icon where our FY26 budget information was that directs people to a central location for
strategic planning. It's just at its infasy right now. Um but what I've done is put the timeline of events that have taken place to date um so that people can see with transparency what actually has happened or what hasn't happened, right? Um I think that's important. Um,
I also put in the full text version of the school committee's message to the community, um, so that there was a consistent messaging around why we're actually undertaking this process. And then I also put in the, um, the steering
committee's meeting dates as well as all of the topics that are going to be discussed at each of those meetings. Those meetings are open to the public. Uh, those will be posted meetings. Um we welcome members of the community to come sit in whether they're are educators, whether they are, you know, families um
or just interested members of the community certainly follow along with that. But what we wanted to do was really be transparent about what the process looks like and how that's going to unfold. Um we'll be sending that out tomorrow in the superintendent update so families can follow along and staff can
follow along with that. Um, another thing, you know, we've started to work with district management group and they asked us to identify some people um to conduct one-on-one interviews with or even one to two interviews with um to
just get a handle on what the process should look like and some initial considerations so they can wrap their head around next steps. So, you know, when we last met, um, the two school committee members, I think initially that had been, um, appointed to that
were Adam and Tori. I actually rethought about who district management group should talk to. So, they soon will be reaching out to all of you to schedule, you know, like twoerson at a time kind of interviews to just understand what you're thinking about as we undertake this process. So, just something to look
for from them. Um and we also included, you know, some community organizations like the CPAC, um to talk to initially just to, you know, upfront understand some family concerns. Um we have some administrators in the district. Um and then, you know, we've been focused a lot
on developing the steering committee roster. And one of the things when we initially filled out the roster, you'll see that it actually has grown to about 18 or 19 people. Um, as I'm thinking about staff communication and one of the lessons we learned through the
elementary budget task force is we need a really strong communication vehicle back to our educators in each of the schools. Um, and particularly our elementary schools have expressed a really strong interest in participating in that. And so I did go back out and if
we had a school that did not yet have an educator identified, we have now identified an educator. Um, so you'll see Blanchard doesn't have one. I do have two potential educators now as of like right before the meeting, but it's just not going to happen tonight. Um,
so, you know, I I do think it's really important to have that. We did get good um parent representation across all of our elementary schools. Um, we did not get great representation in terms of the diversity of our community. I want to name that and I something that I've
already talked to district management group about about how we're going to make sure that we do that. Um, one of the strategies knowing that they're going to be doing um, some small group um, you know, stakeholder interviews um, in different groups is I want to use one
of the methods we had previously used where people who are interested in be part of a small group interview can apply and we can get them enrolled. But then we're also going to randomly identify individuals across our community um, and then invite them to participate in a small group interview as well. that worked well on the
elementary budget task force getting people to apply to things. I think one of the things I thought about with this initiative in particular where we are focused not just on strategic planning but also the reorganization side kind of the geography of the committee also
meant a lot and that we really had to make sure we had representation from each school I think was really important so that the perspectives across the district were were heard in that way otherwise I think we're going to really leave ourselves open to you know a lot of feedback that we didn't hear from a
certain school or something like that and then we made decisions based on that. Um, and I think that would be really challenging. Um, it's certainly a limitation of the group that we're presenting to you tonight that we know it's not representative of the diversity of the community. Um, but we do have some ideas in place to make sure that as
we go and we collect feedback, we're going to actually create some metrics around making sure that we get get that representation in the feedback we collect. Thanks, Peter. And and I'll just add, you know, as as we evaluate reviewed all of the the people who submitted interest
in supporting the committee, um just amazing um backgrounds of people and it's part of the reason why our our steering committee grew as well is because there were it was a hard choice um to really get the right representation and um you know get the
input from some of the the the highly skilled folks in our community who stepped up. So, I do want to say a thank you to everyone in the community who did raise their hand to volunteer for this. Um, I hope we'll be using that list to go out as we build our small group so that um, everyone does have that opportunity to to provide their input.
Yeah. And Adam, just to add to that, and I I thank you for reminding me of it, I did reach out to any individuals that were not selected for the committee and offered to hold their names for participation in a small group meeting. Um, so that if they might not be on the steering committee, they will definitely
have an opportunity to contribute. Yeah. And then you'll see in the memo um our first meeting for the steering committee is next Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. It's an open meeting open to the public. Um so if if anybody in the public is interested in joining, please feel free to come and attend that meeting. Um and
in saying that, I also want to just sort of um share with the community that we've not done much as a steering committee because we haven't met yet. Um so we've been talking a lot about this work of strategic planning and reorganization. This meeting will be sort of our first time meeting as a steering committee hearing what district
management group has done in the interim. So we we don't you know we know they've had some interviews but they'll be presenting to us and then mapping out our path for the future. So you know I don't want anyone to feel like they've been left out or anything's been sort of done you know under the table to date. Not a lot has been done. District
management groups getting up to speed. Um but the meeting next week is sort of our big kickoff for all of the work that we're going to be doing. please. Um, you know, also one of the things that I've I've started thinking about and and thinking in my mind about stakeholder mapping um and making sure
that we have a good communication plan um throughout this process with stakeholders. One of the initial communication vehicles just to share kind of my thinking about the cadence of communication from my office is after every steering committee meeting um we will take on summarizing that meeting um
and probably within you know 24 to 48 hours we'll send out the summary of the meeting to all of our educators to all of our um community members um so that people know what's going on and that would be a summary of the meeting that just happened as well as previewing what
the upcoming meeting is anticipated to talk about. Um, and then from an internal communication standpoint, I'm also going to be offering a staff Zoom um, like early the following week to just do a quick check-in. What questions are there? What do people need to know?
Um, I'm working on a rotation with all of our principles of being able to attend staff meetings at each school. So, there's an additional opportunities to ask questions throughout the process. Um, and then I'm also anticipating adding parent coffees to that same cadence along the same lines where we
send an update and then a few days later there's a a a parent coffee that people can, you know, come virtually, show me a picture of their mug online, ask some questions, learn what's going on, um, and really stay informed. Um, I think
the communication coming out of the the committee is going to be incredibly important to make sure people are updated about what's going on and they know what's happening transparently. Um, we will share what the communication cadence will be upfront so people know when to anticipate communications from my office. Um, and then we'll just make
sure we stick to that. I feel like we're paying ping pong. So, I would add two things. one is this community, this committee here, super important for us to get this information out to all of the folks who we talk to day in and day out. So, we're going to be, you know, upfront sharing
the information. Please do share that broadly. Um, and then before I turn it over to the committee to ask any questions or make a motion to approve the the committee. Um, I just want to point out that um, if you're having trouble finding the link, not only is it under that um, uh, picture on the
homepage, but you can also go to um, district and it's the first item under the district heading. And I only say that because as I've been searching on the internet and Peter says, yeah, it's there under the the compass rows. I'm like, I don't see any compass rows on my applications are different, web browsers are different, but if you go to district
strategic planning reorganization, right at the top there. I was struggling with that for a while, just so you know. Uh any questions or comments from the committee? Thanks for your vulnerability and sharing that you were struggling gladly. Um I am appreciating you Peter and your
kind of forward thinking approach to communication and engagement. Um looking forward to our school committee also putting in the effort to like go places, talk to people. Um, my quick question is
around where the L or ML pack falls into this. Um, appreciating that Amanda Bailey is on the steering committee as a CPAC rep. Um, that was the one thing that stood out to me. Yeah, I think
probably the biggest challenge in all of that is we still don't have a formal LPAC. Um you know the we have tried multiple times but the the feedback that we keep getting from our families is going through the process of establishing bylaws and having kind of
that formality to it has not been an interest of any individuals to kind of serve in the official capacity. So what we have traditionally done is kind of hold meetings with you know we hold regular meetings for our ML families where we will present information talk
with families about their experiences let them experience some different things that take place in our schools and that's been of more interest than having a pack and so you know we certainly want to get to a place where we have an LPAC but we just don't have a formal one right now
to be able to include like an officer of it. Um, one of the things I did think about, um, that I'd like to see us do, and I I have yet to talk to district management group about this, so hopefully they're just watching it online and learning about it live. Um, but I'd actually like to set some
metrics for, you know, when we collect survey feedback or participation in focus groups around representation of families of students with disabilities, of representation from families who students receive multilingual services, things like that. and obviously overall
representation just to make sure that we really are connecting with the community that we serve and not just some elements of the community we serve. Hi Liz. Um I have a quick question and I know that it may be farreaching especially
since the first meeting is on Tuesday but just in thinking of you know ways to communicate especially with the other um you know demographics that we have in our two communities uh or unified one unified community two towns um is there
a place and I'm blanking because of course I'm thinking in Boxro we have the um sort of like sandwich board there that they have for announcements that's in front of the church. Do we have something like that that we could put, you know, just have a quick posting, you
know, public meeting on um it's not reorganization, strategic planning, strategic planning, uh public strategic planning meeting, you know, on Monday, May, insert date here. Um that type of thing. Is there some place that there could be just like a line of sight when
you're driving on 111 that could catch people's eyes? Absolutely, yes. And as soon as the Kelly's Corner project is done, we will pull it out of storage and install it wherever we actually have space. Uh, no, I mean I that's a joke obviously, but unfortunately we had that
message board um that we could use easily for things like that, but um when they started the Kelly's Corner project, they had to take that land to do the project. So, we still have the sign and they actually paid us to remove it ourselves. We didn't hire a contractor for it. We just did it. Um, and they
gave us money and then we're going to reinstall it once once the project is over. So, um, it'll probably still be a year or two, I think, probably before we get that sign back in. But that's that. I think one of the things we will do and we keep on our our lists for all of our news items now are both Boxboro News and
um the Acton Act news that goes out as well. And both of those organizations have been absolutely tremendous that when we give them information to publish, they're absolutely getting it out to the community. Um, I think there's an opportunity probably to also go to the senior center um and do some outreach in both towns that way to make
sure they know what's going on and are informed. Um, so yeah, we're we're trying to keep track of all of that. Yen, um, to answer your question, I was just wondering, can we just print out flyers like the list of dates and then post them in like acting coffee house and the
library bulletin board? I don't know about anywhere in Boxboro, but we have a library. I know. Like in I said libraries other than libraries like other places and we're just going to have to put it where people are going around hanging
around. I also think if we're doing that it'll be important to set expectations around what those meetings are because those really are working group meetings. Those are not public forum workshops. Um, you know, there will be opportunities for public forums and collecting feedback
and doing everything else. But what I want to make sure is if we're saying like, look, we have meetings that are open to the public. Some members think that that means, oh, it's a public workshop where I get to go participate and do everything else. And you know that like it it's similar to a school committee meeting. times during the year
where you actually hold a hearing on something like you have a budget hearing, you have a school choice hearing where it's very specific to that meeting for the sole purpose of collecting feedback that you can consider. Whereas your other meetings, people can come and attend and oftentimes you have a public comment
period, but it's not like public dialogue back and forth throughout the meeting. So, I think it's just good to set expectations as well early about what the meetings look like. Clint So, I I just want to offer to this
committee that I really do think that Facebook is going to play a pretty I I feel it should play a role in just getting the word out about what the steering committee decides. Um it the Acton parents Facebook group in particular has I think nearly 5,000
members. Not totally sure how many of them are in Actton, but 7,000. Okay. Quite a lot. Um, and obviously social media, it's its own dumpster fire in many ways. I also think that it's where the eyeballs are
right now. Um, and I think that being able to navigate that space like I I think it's if we've mentioned we've mentioned signs, we mentioned cafes, we mentioned libraries. I really do think social media has to be part of this
equation. Um, not I wouldn't recommend it for like let's have a discussion about deliberating and this and that like on the Facebook group. No, but just for like it I think there are parallels to public health messaging honestly. Um,
so I I just want to voice this saying that I I really do feel that it should play a role. Um I think that short videos in particular would be effective in being able to say that for instance like hey
we've decided X now let's tell everyone we've decided X there are ways to do that um I do have an area of an expertise in this I'm happy to talk offline with people about this but I just I voice this I really do think social media has to be a part of the
communication strategy with the wider community It's too big. It's too import. It's I feel it's too important to ignore. So that's my thought. Thank you. Big room. I I have to say I concur with uh with Glenn over there on the Facebook thing. I'm curious why have we not done that to
date or why hasn't that been a larger part? I I don't think we have the time or the energy this evening to go into that. Um we've we've dabbled in social media in the past, particularly during the pandemic, and in the past the chair has engaged quite deeply. Um other chairs I
would say have engaged quite deeply. It can be challenging. Um and we've also tried as a committee to look at what our social media policy would be or procedures would be for us as a committee. It it it is a it's a difficult topic that um we haven't been able to crack that nut just yet. Does it
feel that could you turn your mic on? Is is there a sense that perhaps we could open the door a little bit on this particular topic? I mean I think what we're hearing is there's some feedback on that and um particularly around this topic. So I think um best bet is for us to to take this you know Peter and I to discuss it a bit and then particularly
with the with the steering committee to see what there's a an opportunity there and then the committee as a whole. I can give a short answer that we would post our updates to the district Facebook page because we do have a district Facebook page and then we also have an Instagram account. Those are our two
primary social media sources that we use and two probably that get most of the parents based on generation trends. Um, yep. LinkedIn, um, is also a good source for some people. Um, uh, and then what I would say is, you know, we
don't post anything to closed groups. Like actin parents Facebook group is a closed group. There are me people in the community who don't get that. So, we don't do that. However, when we post to a public page on of our own, people can then send that message and repost and do things like that. So
Lita, can I move to establish the strate strategic planning and reorganization steering committee and to appoint the individuals recommended below to serve as members of the subcommittee? Second. Second. All right. So that was Leela with the motion. Thank you very much. And Vicram with the second. Thank you as
well. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That's unanimous. Thank you. All right. We're moving on to subcommittee and member reports. Um, we're going to do a quick policy subcommittee update and we might
as well just roll in the second read at the same time and then if any other members have anything super pressing that they want to add. Uh, I just want to remind everybody that we still have to go through our reorganization meeting which can take some time as well. But I'll hand it over to you now Liz. Uh
yes, we did meet last Friday and discussed, updated, and have brought forth to you a second read of the policy JQA. Andrew, anything you want to add to that? And seen. Yeah. So, uh
transitioning to the actual second read of the financial assistance policy, as you recall in our last meeting, we brought it for a first read, um and we received, uh some written feedback, mostly from Adam. Thank you. And during our meeting, we incorporated um some of those comments which were appreciated
somewhere just about sort of being clear about sort of the scope and purpose of certain statements and and organizing it in certain ways. We also did um include some a substantive change where we wanted to make clear that um the athletic fee cap the family cap would
also be um adjusted according to sort of the um the eligibility in terms of if you receive you know 50% or 75% reduction the family cap would be adjusted accordingly. So we thought we wanted to make that more explicit. Um but that was the only changes there. The
one thing I do want to add is you may uh have read some feedback from uh John Peterson just about readability which is well taken. What I would um pause it to all of you is I think um the readability piece is most important in my mind for the for the sort of the procedures and
the language that is helping families access um the process. And so what I would say is I do think policy language agreed should be as readable as possible. And yet because it's policy, it also has to withstand scrutiny from a variety of different lenses, some legal,
some otherwise. So that may not always be available in terms of um vernacular language or or simplified language. However, the website that we're planning for the financial assistance, the financial assistance application form, that is very fair feedback and expectation around making it
userfriendly, making it as accessible as possible. So that feedback I take in terms of those materials that we would move forward with if and when this policy is approved um and just to reassure that that that piece of um feedback was was received with its the
intent that I think it was sent with. So with that happy to answer any questions and then hopefully we can move forward. Thanks Andrew. Any other comments questions? Andrew said quite eloquently what I was going to respond to about readability. I think there's a challenge
to balance specificity between readability, but we know John likes us to be readable. I would just challenge him to scan some of his own means for readability, which he might have done in the past. He's not here to defend.
Leela, did you have a comment or your mic's just left on, so would you like to make a motion? I can. And I had a comment. Oh. um next year it would be helpful if there's any like noticeable fiscal impact of this policy to hear some of
that feedback. Um but I can move to approve JQA second Tori. Thank you. So that was motion by Leela to approve policy JQA seconded by Tori. Any further
discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That's unanimous. Thank you. Um so quickly around the table if anyone has an update from a um subcommittee or a liaison ship that they would like to share. Starting
with Tori Andrew. Yeah, we're going to go to community goal update in just a second. So, why don't we save that comment for that? It's on there. Item D. Um, I'll share that we had the joint
PTSO uh meeting this week. Um, great um feedback from all of the the PTSOs um around a lot of their end ofear closing activities. Again, another call out, please, if you can volunteer for um the project graduation. It's an excellent
program. Um and we will have one more joint PTSO meeting the last week of school. Um from budget, uh we have basically canceled the our meetings for the rest of the year. Um there will be obviously some budget
topics that will come, but they're really for the committee as a whole, which we'll see uh at our next meeting. Um and yeah, Boxboro had a three night three full night town meeting. Um, lots of topics discussed and I'll leave it at
that. Liz, good. Hansen, anybody else? All right. So, now we're on to school committee communication goal update. Leela, did you have a communication topic you wanted to bring up? You can almost read my mind. Um, yeah, I just wanted to let
folks know. Um, so I contextually was in a communications cohort for local electeds. Um, and one of the things that the staff had said was like one of the most helpful things that you all can do as local electeds is the ability to convene folks. Um, I let me stop there
and um, I know that there has been um, an interest from folks around like what do I do when there are might be federal agents in our communities? Um, how can we keep our community
members safe? Um, and so not as the school committee, I just want to be clear for anyone watching at home, um, but myself and a couple members of the select board, um, are hosting kind of an information session on Sunday, um, with
some information from Lucay, which is the statewide hotline that has come together, um, to protect our community members and some kind of next steps. Um, it will be at Actton Town Hall this Sunday. um 6:00 to 7:30 in room
204. Um feel free to email me if you have questions. I think that's it. Thank you and thank you for taking the leadership on that letter. It was it was I was happy and proud to be able to sign on to it. Other comments, Liz? Uh we will have
a booth at Feifers Day, which is going to be Saturday, June 21st. Uh, I'm going to put together a like Google spreadsheet to see if there's, you know, anybody that can come and um set up that booth. I'll be there all day. Uh, but just to let you guys know, I'm hoping to
have some, um, you know, materials, information, and whatnot, particularly about the strategic planning as that's going to be our kind of our big ticket item for the year. Thank you, man. Uh, the Memorial Day parade is on Monday. Uh, I think the parade kicks
off. Not I think I know the parade kicks off at um the high school at 10:00 a.m. I'm just curious like are any of us going to be there because I plan to be I'll see you there. I'll be at the Boxboro Memorial Day parade which starts earlier at 8:30.
That's early. If anyone is interested in walking the parade, it's lots of fun. And uh you would meet before 10:00 at the high school by the baseball field. Okay, I have a couple quick updates. Um, first is one that came in actually during our meeting. So, again, um,
positive results of our community advocacy. Um, we're hearing now that the Senate has unanimously adopted Senators Lewis's, uh, reddraft amendment number 665, which establishes a chapter 70 study committee. Um, so we're very happy to hear that. Not 100% done yet. This is
the Senate vote. Still needs to get reconciled and needs to get voted um by everybody. But another step forward and thank you to everyone for your advocacy there. Um next lots of reminders. Um our next meeting June 5th uh is our meeting
where we are celebrating our district retirees. So we will have a reception here in the lobby at 6 p.m. Um and then our meeting will get called to order 15 minutes early at 6:45. Um and that's so that we can hear some wonderful stories about the retiring staff members. Um
reminder that the superintendent's uh evaluation is due tomorrow. Um please uh do your best to get it to me. Uh I recognize that it's a holiday weekend and either you will have nothing to do or you'll be quite busy. Um I'll be doing both. So please um try to get
those to me as soon as possible. Tomorrow would be wonderful. Um, and then finally, a discussion I do want to have with the committee around um, a late spring, end of school year workshop. Um, so I've I've sent a message out a couple times to folks looking for some feedback around whether
or not they're looking for some feedback on availability. um you know the the point of the workshop was really to sort of um close out the year and particularly with our new members just do some team building activities and I think even with our existing members have a chance to reset after what has
been a a difficult year particularly around budget. Um unfortunately I have not gotten feedback from everybody and I have not found a consistent date where everyone is available. So, two questions. Is this something that the rest of the committee feels would be good to have? And secondly, are we okay
if a couple members are not able to attend? Leela and then Vicram and then Lisa. Just wondering if a hybrid meeting would allow more members to attend. I I don't know. Just tossing it out there is a question.
Potentially. I think it depends on where they are. or if they're unavailable, if they're hiking in the middle of a mountain somewhere, probably not possible. Lisa, oh, obviously I'm for this and I u thank you so much for trying to put this together. I do really appreciate that
effort and yes, it's okay, but and even if myself, you know, if it works for the majority. Okay, Tori, I'm wondering if depending on what you're thinking about here, I'm wondering if it makes sense to try and
do something August Septemberish instead if that gets more of us. Yeah, it's it's a good point there. We're already planning some sort of early September workshop. Um, and the plan for that was to focus more on a summary of what's
happened on the strategic planning and reorganization process. Um, so we come back into the school year and sort of dive into that work. And really what my gut was telling me was we need sort of a decompress from this year. So it was more about team building as it was about
sort of like a business related workshop. Other thoughts? Vicram, I was going to say that I I do think that we should have it and I think it's okay if a few people can't make it. Um, I think it's important that, pardon the phrase, the newbies are
there. Um, uh, and and I would like to I'd like to do 22nd, but I can't because it's a it's basically a rain day for my son's birthday party. So, it's a possibility, but I didn't want to say anything at all about that date that you added in. Okay.
Um, so it sounds like there's some interest in moving forward with this. So my my plea is in addition to getting me your superintendent evaluations, that's item number one on your priority list. Item number two is if you have not responded to the doodle poll, um please
do so so that we can see there is one um time slot that is showing up as the um one where most folks are available um unfortunately someone will be hiking in the woods somewhere. Running in Italy. Running in Italy, which sounds far more exciting than hiking in the woods. It would be in the woods. The woods of
Italy. There you go. Um, so if possible, uh, please, if you've not, uh, replied to that, uh, do send me, uh, do answered the the doodle poll. I've sent you a couple reminders on that. Um, that's all of the updates I have for the
committee. That means that I get to hand the gavl over to Peter uh, and we go into our, uh, reorganization process. You do you have a calculating spreadsheet? He's prepared. Um, and I'm just gonna go on the hope
that I can do this without needing a gavvel. U, but but that that's more your responsibility than mine, but the gavvel's within reach just in case. Um, so I included in your packet the policies and procedures around
reorganization um because it's a pretty prescribed process. So my only role at this point is to get you through the point of selecting the chair and then at that point I will turn it back to Adam as the current chair to run the rest of this process. Does that make sense? Um
and so the way this works there's a few different steps. The first is getting nominations um for the chair and then there's a voting process to that. And so um what I'm going to do initially is open the floor for nominations for the position of chairperson for FY26. You
can nominate someone else, you can nominate yourself. Um, and there is no second needed at this stage of the the process. Once we have nominations for the position of chair, we will vote to close the nominations for that position.
Clear on that questions first. Do you have to nominate the city seating chair? You can nominate anyone who is elected to the committee. But I mean like does the seated chair have to be nominated as well? Okay. Yeah. No. Yeah. Well, excuse me. If if the if someone
wanted to consider the seated chair, they would need to nominate them. They're not by default nominated, but you don't need to nominate the current chair to continue. So, maybe your your question is what happens after the vote happens? No, my question is in terms of nomination, does somebody have to nominate you specifically? That Yeah.
So, right now it's sort of like an open seating. You're like the de facto and then Okay. His hat's not mine. I'm in. Okay. I got it. All right. don't want that. Now I see the visual the visual thing that that helped me. Thank you. You need to pick the next person. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think that the other point is that the vote for chair and vice chairs don't become active until August 1st. So the the current slate of leadership take continues on until sort of the August time frame and then we hand off.
All right. So nominations are open. Um Vicram and then Yang and then Liz. So one more. Oh, are you allowed to nominate more than one person in as an individual? Yeah, you can nominate whoever you'd like. Yeah, there's no restriction to nominations in
the numbers of nominations that I make. Correct. So, in theory, I could nominate everybody. But remember, I have this sir. Yeah, it's the only time a year, Vicram, I get to. So, absolutely. Um, so yes, you can nominate anyone.
With that being said, I'd like to nominate uh both Adam and Tori. I want to nominate Tori as the chairperson for ABRSD. I would like to nominate Adam as the chairperson for ABRSD. Okay. So, once
someone's already nominated, there's Yeah, there's no additional like Well, they're nominated. They're in they're they're on the ballot. Yeah. No, there's no seconds. Sorry, Liz. Yeah. Are there any additional
nominations? So I have two nominations. Adam Tori going once. Going twice. All right. So if there are no additional nominations, I would entertain a motion to close the nominations for chair of the school committee. So moved. Second. Okay. All
in favor? Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right. Do we want to explicitly name who moved and seconded for Beth? Yes. So, I made the motion to close nominations and Ben seconded. Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you, Leela. Ben and Leela reminded us to name the people. Good job. Add that to the notes. All right. Um, so we have two nominations for chair. U, we have Adam and Tori. Um, first I just want to ask, you know, each of you, are you interested in accepting
the nomination? Yes. Yes. And yes. Okay. Um, so what I'd like to do is give you each a chance. Um, I want to make sure I'm doing this. Each nominee is given a chance um to speak and then members may speak. So
Tori, why don't I give you the first opportunity to speak. So thank you to Vicram and and Yenchin. Um, I think what I appreciate the most about this group is that we all come in
here believing that what is most important is the best education for our students, the best environment for our educators, and the best system for our community. And that
doesn't just mean having absolutely the best district, which is obviously what we all want, but it also means that it has to be affordable for our communities. Um, and we're all feeling what that feels like. Something I really appreciate is that we all bring a lot of different
perspectives to all of our conversations, a lot of different experiences, a lot of different skills, and we don't always agree on everything, and that's a good thing. Um, you know, I I walk out of every
interaction a little bit wiser with a little bit broader perspective and a deeper understanding because of the conversations that we all have. When we all come together and we bring our best to the group and we speak with one voice, it is incredibly
powerful. Um, you know, I think about town meeting and where we started with a bunch of pieces of paper and a lot of words on them and some of us might have used AI and some of us might have composed a song and um, a lot of us went old
school, but where we brought that to as a group was really cool and I think that is the part that resonated with people the most from town meeting. Um, clearly we have some more work to do on the rest of it. Um, and it's going to be a challenging year. We've got
negotiations. We have we have strategic planning and reorganization. We have to do everything that we normally do as a school committee. So, that's a lot. But, this is a group that is really tight. We have
two new grade additions. And I think what is really going to be important going forward is how we work together to make that happen. Um, so yeah, I would like to be a part of that. Thank you, Liz and Vicram. I'm I'm
excited to see how Vicram votes considering he nominated both of us. Um, but I, you know, I'm I'm honored to be considered again for the role. Um, serving the role of chair this past year has been both challenging and deeply rewarding. Um, I've appreciated the
opportunity to help guide the committee through meaningful discussions and important decisions. Um, I am especially proud of our collective advocacy with our state leaders for the additional funding. Um, it's a clear example of how we can work together um and make a difference for our students and our
schools. You know, what motivates me to continue um is a deep commitment to our students um and the outstanding staff who support them every day. Um, a strong and and a strong belief in the importance of our governance role. Um, I strive to lead with openness and consistency, uh, hoping that all voices
get heard while keeping our work focused and productive. Um, looking ahead, I'm excited about supporting strategic planning and reorganization. We may need a shorter name for that because it's about a mouthful to say every time. Um, but my goal is to ensure with that process that we listen well, um, we
engage broadly and we balance the needs of both the communities and our students. Um, I know this role doesn't come with easy answers and I won't get everything right. Um, but I hope it's clear that I I do like to uh lead uh with fairness, integrity, uh, and focus
on thoughtful and inclusive decision-m. If chosen to continue this role, I'll remain committed to setting high expectations for how we uh, do our work together uh, and especially uh, as we take on another year of significant work uh, through our long-term planning. So, thank you again for the opportunity and
the trust. Okay. So, now that they've had an opportunity to speak, um, we do open the floor for any other member of the committee who'd like to speak to either of the nominations. Um, and the language is members may speak in support of a
candidate as well. So, uh, Yang, were you first? Yeah. Um, I really appreciate, Adam, your leadership for the past two years when I was a newbie and a newish member. Um,
the reason why I nominate Tori is not only because I have seen her for the past two years. She's always there for the committee. She's always there for the community. Um, I will say I don't love every single minute that we spend
together, but I think that you are a person who can accept um, constructive feedback very well. I think you think deeply. Um, I think um, you will be a very good person to lead this committee
for the next year. The other reason why I nominate you is because I think as a committee, we have to think broader than just the good leadership we have right now. Looking to the future, like I don't think any of us can guarantee we'll be
here for the next 5, 10, 15 years. I think it is really important for our committee to have a healthy um succession plan. And I um that that's that's my reasons.
Liz. Um, I would like to start by saying that either of you would be a an excellent chair uh for the next coming year. That being said, the reason that I did nominate Adam is because especially with all that we have going on that we
are anticipating for this next year, I think that uh time and expertise are going to be big needs that we will have from the helm and I know that you would do a absolutely fabulous job. I do know that
Adam understands deeply, you know, the time commitment and, you know, what needs to happen chronologically. With that being said, if you were to not be the uh school the chair for next year, I would definitely love for you to be in the
seat of vice chair. Glenn. So, I want to echo that either of you would be an excellent chair. Um, both of you have demonstrated excellent leadership.
Um, I will be supporting Tori. Um, I think Tori has demonstrated impeccable integrity, uh, a mountain of character, uh, coolness and composure under pressure, an unwavering commitment to public
service, and a deep well of kindness, compassion, expertise. I think she has the strength, commitment, and resolve to help lead us this charge through these difficult times. and two master's degrees in education from Harvard certainly doesn't hurt
either. And um I would follow her into some pretty deep trenches. Vicram um I would say um Adam I think you've been absolutely fantastic chair. I I know the amount of work that it takes to do all this and you've just done a stellar job. No question about
it. Um, but I do feel in working with Tori that she also displays sort of exemplary attention to detail and and subtle nuances and things. Not you that you don't, but I also feel that as a as a committee, I think it's good to shift
the chair. Um, and so I think I will be uh supporting Tori. Does anyone else wish to speak to one of the candidates? Not to them, but to support the process. I just have a quick question as a
newbie. Sorry. Um, how many times in a row have you served as chair? And how Tori, have you served as chair before? Sorry. So that back whoever's first. I have not served chair of this as chair of this
committee. This is my second year in a row and third time total. Thank you. I don't see anyone else. Um so what I would like to do is we're going to do a roll call vote. So the way the procedure
works is I silence myself first. Um um no, the way that this works uh it's a roll call vote and each member we will go around the room. Um I'll actually start with Lisa and then work our way around the table this way. Um you vote for one of the two candidates.
Um I will record that vote. It is a weighted vote of the school committee. Um and so I actually want to make sure we're only missing Lakshmi. Correct. Let me share what the links are.
Yeah, I just want to get that recorded first. So, the reason that I wanted to do that, um, so acted members have a weight of 2.5 per vote. Boxboro members the weight is one. Um, and that is not my decision.
Just to be very, very clear. Um, that is per the regional agreement. Um, I very much value my time here, so I want to be clear about the decision-making process. Um so without Lakshmi here though the weighted votes are 20.5
um and so the majority of that is actually 10 and a quarter. All right so you know I'm which is not particularly helpful but probably 10 and a half would be the to to get a
majority. Um and because we have the 0.5 votes that's a reasonable assumption. All right. Any questions on that? Can I go last? Can I say something about that? Going last can actually be really
painful. Okay, never mind. It Yeah, because there's the there's the pressure on being the tiebreaker. So, all right. So, Lisa, do you want to go first or
Sure. Okay. All right. Um, so Lisa, um, um, and I can come back around if you want. Please come back around. I'm sorry. Vicram, do you know? Uh, Tori. Adam. Oh, hold on one second. Ben,
because I'm recording these as we go. Adam. Okay. Yangction. Tori. Liz. Adam. Adam, me, Leela, Tori, Andrew, Adam, Tori, I'll vote for myself this year.
Glenn, Tori, Adam, sorry. All right. So, what I have right now for weighted votes, I have Adam at 9.5 weighted votes and Tori at 11. So, based on that, Tori, congratulations.
You would be elected [Applause] chair. All right. So, the role starts August 1st, just to be clear. Can I say one more thing? Yes. Really, the only reason I felt comfortable doing this is because, Adam, I know you're not going
anywhere. Yeah, exactly. I'm going a couple chairs to the left or right now. Oh, so then I guess it comes back to me now to open nominations. Tori, you want to try this? use your
No. Okay. Uh so I will um Thank you. I will first nominate Peter to record the votes for vice chair. Uh I will open the floor. Can I make a point of order? Can I make a point of order, please? If um Adam, you think you might
accept a nomination for any other position, you should not take the candle. Yes. So this is an interesting point. So yeah, I am going to defer this work back to Peter in case I should be nominated as vice chair.
Here you go. All right. So what I will do is open the floor for vice chair. Are we going to do one town at a time? What's that? Are we going to do one town at a time? Excuse me. Vice chair from Actton. We
will start with There's one more. Yes. Two vice chairs. Yeah. Surprised. Yeah. All right. Tori, I'd like to nominate Leela. I think
it's I don't think there's just to be clear, I'm looking at our policy. I don't think there's anything in our policy that says it has to be an actin member to nominate a vice chair from Actton because I saw your hand up. So, I just wanted to That was going to be my next question. Yeah. I don't I don't believe there's anything in our policy
that restricts who nominates from each community. Oh, okay. Vicram, uh I uh nominate both Leela and Liz. Well, uh only Actton right now. You have to be a resident of Actton to be the vice chair from other than Leela.
Yes, that's Anyone else? I move to close nominations. Thank you. I made the motion and Tori seconded that. All right, Leela, would you do you want to accept the nomination? I hope so. Well, seeing as there's a
plethora of candidates and David might be making another point of order. Sorry. Uh, you didn't vote on closing nominations. Thank you, David. He's out of practice. Yeah, I don't do this very often, David. Thank you. All right. Um, so we have a
motion. Did we get a second? Second. All right. Adam made the motion. It was Tori who seconded it. You already seconded. Tori seconded. Um, all in favor of closing nominations. Any opposed? Any abstension? No. Great. Thank you. Okay, so Leela, I'll turn it
over to you. Well, as I was saying, seeing as there's a plethora of candidates, I'm happy to accept. I appreciate that. All right. So, Liz knows what this feels like, right? Running on a post. Yeah.
But, um, we will just the the process actually is still a roll call vote. Um, does anyone want to speak to Leela's candidacy before we call a vote? I do. I think Leela is going to do a wonderful job. I think you're a strong
advocate for many people in our community and I think you represent our community as a whole excellently and uh I'm excited to see how you step up in this role and balance it with your own professional life because I know that can be challenging sometimes. But I
believe in you. Thanks. There are a few people I know who can both have the passion you have for the world around you and the snark you have to deal with and I really appreciate that. I think you're going to be fabulous in this and my condolences that you get the part Tori
Leela I have really learned so much from you in the past how many months have we been working on advocacy? It hasn't been all that long but you have some tremendous skills and we need that. So, thank you for being willing to do this. Vicram,
I just want to say I really admire your quiet strength and your strong advocacy for those who really really need it. Um, all right. I don't see anyone else. So, we will do a roll call vote. We will go around. Lisa, I am going to start with you this time. This is really tough. All
right, Lisa. Yes, Leela. Vicram. Leela. Ben. Leela. Yang. Leela. Liz, Blake, I mean Leela, Adam. Leela, Leela, Leela, Andrew, Leela,
Laxmi is not here. Tori, Leela. And Glenn, Leela. All right. And let me tabulate this. Yay. Congratulations, Leela. 20 and a half votes. Victoria Tory in the vote count. Just saying.
So we are now on to nominations for Boxboro. Um so the floor is open for nominations for position of vice chair from Boxboro. I nominate Adam Klein. Okay. Any other nominations?
I nominate Liz. Any other nominations? I move to close nominations. Okay, we have a motion by Adam, a second by Vicram. Um, all in favor of closing nominations for vice chair from Boxboro. I Any opposed? Any
abstensions? All right. Very good. David, I get it. Nice. You want to say that was unanimous? That was unanimous. Sure. Um, so, um, Liz, I'll start with you this time and then I'll let Adam talk. Thank you
very much for the nomination. Um, I'm looking forward to sitting on that side of the table. Uh, so I will respectfully decline being chair for this year. Vice chair. Oh god. Chair herself.
So, if I decline being vice chair then I'm just kidding. Uh, thank you for the nomination. Um, I'm uh happy to sit next to Tori and support her in her continuing education
of uh running at a school committee meeting. Uh, it' be my pleasure to continue to serve. Would anyone like to speak after to at this point Liz is withdrawn so it's really just speaking to Adam's candidacy?
So I'm expecting elbows and and and kicks under the table. But um no, seriously, I think something I have really appreciated is watching you lead and model what this can look like and how well you listen um
and can answer questions when it gets confusing from this end of the table about what's going on. Um, and I really value your perspective and I really look forward to continuing to have you as my teammate. So, keep me
straight. Leela, I just wanted to say off the cuff um that I really appreciate how many years you have decided to wrangle a group of adults. Um,
and done it really thoughtfully and I think I've seen times where I know I'm pushing you and you've just like received it and I've really appreciated that. Um, and I am looking forward to keep continuing working with you. So, thanks.
Thank you, Vicram. Adam, I just want to say that uh I think you have been an absolutely amazing chair and the amount of work that you do for all this stuff is, you know, we all know it and we all see it and I I especially know and deeply respect the
amount of work that you've been putting in, you know, and I know you're going to continue doing it anyway. So, with that being said, anyone else? All right, we will do a roll call vote. Lisa, you're going to start us off again. Adam.
Adam. Adam. Adam. Blank. I mean, Adam. I was going to say blank. Adam. Adam. Adam. Adam. Adam. All right. And Adam, I'm not
going to bother tabulating for you. It appears you have it. Thank you. And I I hold it as a badge of honor that for every elected position I've ever applied for, I've always run unopposed. Well, for your for your next Thank you for allowing me to continue that. For your next campaign, you can use this round of
Adams as your like the jingle in the background. Secretary, right? Yes. Okay. Let me just catch my place here. So, we um we need to appoint or vote actually a
vote to appoint a new secretary and a treasurer. Um, as we mentioned earlier, Beth Ped has retired as our school committee secretary. You'll see in your packet there is um not e included in both the policy language around uh school committee organization, but
additionally there's a job description of the duties that the secretary to the school committee provides. Um you'll see that's a fairly extensive list of tasks. Um, and I think it was important to highlight that um because the person who uh will be serving in this role will
have a great deal of work to do to support us and we're very grateful for her support. Um, that being said, is there a motion to appoint Julie Laumi as the secretary of the school committee for the 2526 school year? So move gratitude.
Yeah. So Leela motioned with gratitude and then a cacophony of members and I I would love to have a name plate that just says cacophony. Um we we'll give it to uh Ben on this side over here uh made the second on that. Uh
we don't have to do this as a roll call vote. So all those in favor I any opposed? Any abstensions? That is unanimous. Thank you Julie because I know you're still probably watching right now. We appreciate all the work that you're doing to support us. Uh
secondly, we have to vote our ABRSC treasurer. Um Stephanie CR has been serving as our treasurer, doing a wonderful job with that. And so I would look to see if there's a motion to reelect Stephanie CR as the district treasur. Second for the 2526 school year. I got to get through the motion
first. So moved. Second. Was that Were you with moving? All right. That was moving. All right. So Andrew made the motion and Vicram made the second. I can't even catch who says it because I'm still looking at the words. Um so Andrew recognize our voices by no cacophony. Uh
all those in favor I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Also unanimous. Getting to the hour with which we become less productive. Um we are now at our consent agenda. Huh? I said okay, Jenny.
Wow. I look forward to serving in that capacity in the coming year. Um, items on our consent petition don't usually require discussion and are approved with one vote. Unless any member would like to hold an item for discussion and a separate vote. I'll read each item. If you want it held, you say hold. Um, you don't have to have attended a meeting to
vote on the minutes. Item A, approval of ABRSC meeting minutes of 582025. And item B, approval of warrants as presented in the packet 5225. Seeing as none were held, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?
So moved. Second. Ben made the motion. Leela made the second. Thank you very much. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? No. FYIs, there are a couple things I need you to take a look at since we were talking
about checking your schedules. We have put our school committee meeting dates in uh the calendar. They are in uh the FYI here. Please take a look at those. Actually, I think you all a couple days ago got inundated with calendar invites from Julie. Um, please make sure you
copy those over to your personal calendars as well, which is something that I needed to do. Um, so all of those dates are in there. Um, and it will be up to Tori to make sure that you're actually in attendance. Um, and I do want to highlight, and I apologize I did not do this at the beginning of the
meeting when we returned to open session. Um, but I just do want to highlight that in our executive session today, we did vote uh a a very long list of meeting minutes. Um, we were a bit out of compliance um, with regards to voting minutes on time. Um, and so we will endeavor to do better. Um, this was
some housekeeping. Um, but coming into next year, we will be um, far more efficient in voting our uh, executive session meeting minutes. With that moved. Was there anything else in the FYI besides? Yeah, there's calendar. A
few important things. Um, fall open house dates are in the FYI. I do want to point out um the MCT date actually is incorrect in your packet. We ended up moving the MCT date um because it conflicted with one of the um steering committee meetings and we thought it was important not to exclude, you know,
people who would want to be at those. Um and then actually Kirsten Nelson did a really nice job of putting together a summary of food services work. Um, I would highly encourage you to take a look at that and, you know, feel free to share that with members of the community who might want to know all the great work that goes on.
Move to adjourn. Second. That was Leela and Ben. Quite audible. Thank you very much. All those in favor? I. Thank you. We are adjourned.