all right good evening everybody uh and welcome to the school committee meeting for April 10th 2025 uh we're going to call the meeting to order uh if you could all stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all introduction of members matt Catalano Milville charles Dunton Blackstone sarah
Larkin Milville dan Keith Blackstone carrie Goddette Blackstone jane Reio Milville joe Spagna director of finance and operations you want to go maya Gier student council president jill Pilgalerani assistant superintendent director of student services and Jason
Defalco superintendent student rep update so our spring sports are now in full spring with our track teams softball team lacrosse co-op tennis team and any other co-ops all having myriad of games
and practices and meets scheduled for the coming weeks we have some new special activities during Charger time that are beginning this week for the month of April with industry executives for career exploration in law enforcement EMT and firefighting small
engine repair and financial literacy which are designed to be more vocational and kind of give people a peak of what career options are out there so I am leaving my regional board position but I have convinced one of my great friends Julia Corenzic to run for my spot and
she will be launching her regional campaign next Wednesday at the CDMASC conference at Oakmont Regional High School in Ashraham and that will be the final regional conference for the year i have my first MASC executive board
meeting on April 12th at 9:00 a.m at the MSA building in Franklin mock exams are coming to an end with the last one being tomorrow with the AP World History Mock exams and it's going to be time to start prepping for the AP exams which start on
May 6 with AP Chemistry tomorrow night we have BMR prom it is going to be from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m at Kirkbr Country Club and Lincoln RARI but if you want to go to prom you have to be in school until at least 10:33 so you got to make sure to have your note if you want to leave
and you got to stay in school until then and that is all for today awesome thank you so much thank you uh this is our reorganization meeting so if some of you tuning in are wondering why the superintendent's open in the meeting it's because um this is our
first meeting with our um newly elected school committee members so congratulations to Carrie and Jane and uh we will uh start the reorganization process so uh we'll entertain a motion for the chair of the Blackstone Millville Regional School District
School Committee i'll make I'll make a motion that Dan Keefe um for chair of the school board second any discussion any other nominations any other nominations
all those in favor hi Dan meeting is yours thank you very much thank you uh for reappointing me to this position I think um okay next up for the reorganization is um nominations for
vice chair at this time I'll open up nominations for vice chair i would like to nominate Tara Larkin motion made by Carrie to nominate Tara Larkin second second by Chuck any other further any further nominations at this time I'll close with nominations all those fa in favor of
Tara Lockin for vice chair uh signify by saying I i i any oppo oppose the eyes have it it's unanimous next I'll open up nominations for district treasurer i'll nominate Carrie Godet a motion made
by Tara Locking to nominate Carrie Goddet second seconded by Matt Canalano any other nominations at this time I'll close the nominations and call for a vote all those in favor of Carrie Gordet for treasurer signify by saying I i i i it's unanimous
and finally I'll open up nominations for the district secretary nominate someone who's not quite here yet i willing to accept a motion for uh Tara Scobby for district secretary if someone is left motion made by Tara i'll
second that seconded by Chuck any That's what happens when you're late if you want any uh any other nominations hearing none I'll close the nominations all those in favor of Terasco for district secretary signify by saying I i
i any oppose the eyes have it it's unanimous congratulations to everyone and onward and upward for new school year uh uh school committee year um next on the agenda is consent agenda A warrants i'll take a motion to
approve the warrants so moved motion made by Carrie second seconded by Matt any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I i any opposed the eyes have it and next up is the approval of minutes
for March 6 2025 and March 20th 2025 so moved motion made by Tara Locken second seconded by Chuck any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I i all right i I It's unanimous i I will abstain and one abstension uh
from Miss Reio uh you want to do the I'm going to get the do the public forum or do Sure yeah okay all right and so we just for those of you here with us tonight we after public forum we're going to move the um agenda around just to for a student
presentation and just to uh uh move our auditors along so we're going to take them out of order after after public forum next on the agenda is public forum um this your opportunity to address the school committee um with any um any concerns or issues or or positive
things anyone may have so that the floor is up and open uh Melanie yeah and you can come right up in order good evening melanie Raino resident of Milville born and raised in this town um I did send an email earlier today to the
school committee addressing my concerns with athletics um spring athletics has been chaos i feel the athletic director needs some help and assistance um especially what she was brought into last year
um I myself took it upon I took it upon myself I'm sorry to reach out to the town of Blackstone yesterday to help fix the Roosevelt field that has been a mosh pit the boys haven't been able to play on that field correctly batting practice sliding to practice fully as a team um
the town took care of it right away these are things that need to be communicated between the district and the town for these things to get resolved um they don't have an LCRE so pitching is not done properly for these boys uniforms they don't have proper
uniforms they don't have pants but yet the varsity does we used to have three teams in this district middle school JV varsity where are these uniforms that we used to have how often are they purchased things we need to look at for the children we want these children to
succeed we want them to be athletes if we want them to stay in this district it's fair that they get everything um game schedules there's three different schedules there's Arbiter there's the school website and then there's Sports U
three different schedules on every site as a parent who works full-time who has more than one child that other does other activities trying to manage and get them from one place to the other it's stressful very stressful a game was just
added for tomorrow fine but again things need to be more structured and if she needs help we've got to get her that help please i want to be able to keep my second child in this district he's only sixth grade i'd like to see him stay
here he's a great athlete a lot of people on the school committee know who he is and how good he is as a player and I'd like to see him continue in sports he came home tonight he didn't play because we took varsity kids down to play on
JV so he sat there he's been practicing for three weeks didn't get a second of playing time so why do we have two teams versus three because baseball is the only sport I'm sorry basketball was the only
sport that we had cuts in there's 20 kids I think on the varsity team and I think there's 14 on the JV plenty of plenty of kids to have three teams to give every kid an opportunity it's all I ask
thank you thank you very much before you guys get going I'll just ask you to say your names identify yourself uh for the for the record all right maya Gier Ellen McCort Izzy Goddette and Kyla
Moore okay hi everybody thank you for having us tonight we are all juniors over at the high school um we are enrolled in AP classes we are captains of sports teams we lead STCO we're NHS members and so on um so in our position as student leaders we wanted to come
here and use our student voice to share some of our concerns about the new cell phone policy that's being piloted this spring so for us like at the end of the day the true purpose of high school is not necessarily to further someone's education but more so to teach them how
to be prepared for the real world through that furthered education we feel with this new cell phone policy that there is a lack of real world preparedness the students are not being t taught how to be self-responsible if I sit down and I go all right well I can either scroll through Instagram for 25 minutes or I
can get my worksheet done if I don't get my worksheet done I'm not going to pass the class i fail the class i don't graduate high school and it's that but when you take that ability of choice away from the students they don't have the ability to learn that your actions
do have consequences and that at some points you do need to say "All right I need to put this distraction away and I need to be able to get what I need to get done." And then as they move into the real world as they move to college as they move to their um jobs no college lecture says "All right
everybody put your phone in the box we're having a lecture." It's either you sit there and you pay attention or you miss out on the material and same goes with any job no one goes around "All right everybody turn in your phones." It's either you get the work done or you
get fired and we just feel that with this the students aren't being taught how to be self-responsible they're not being taught how to be self-motivated and it's just setting them up for failure and it seems that in this proposed policy we are disciplining every single
student in the high school for a couple of kids that just won't behave with their phones we all do our work we all like to have our cell phones but we're not the type of kids who are just going to sit on them all day we're not coming here from a standpoint of oh we want to use our phones to scroll on Tik Tok
during AP Lang during AP Lang for goodness sakes as well but we we find that this is disciplining everyone like a group punishment so like one kid misbehaves at lunch everyone has silent lunch we see this as kind of a silent lunch for everyone and we also find that
this is so much more than just a tool for distraction this can be an educational tool there are so many classes where you have to use your phone to really do the class we offer virtual high school classes at BMR and there are instances where you have to take a picture of your work and upload it and
submit it and if you do do not do that within 10 minutes that your assignment gets erased and you're not able to submit it and it gets marked late so phones can also be an educational tool as well the amount of times where I see kids with headphones in during study so they can focus or listen to music or
have something else in there so they can better pay attention or so they can better learn the material through their cell phones is very often especially in our cases um one specific concern we did have was about safety um we've had a
couple lockdowns throughout the years for kids with medical emergencies um specifically I think our freshman year there was a kid who fainted um and 911 got called by a student who picked up their phone and took that initiative um
and unfortunately with school shooter threats really just to say it plainly that is a concern and having our phone in our pocket or in our bag versus up in a box in the front of the classroom is
precious seconds that we can't afford to not have and although it is unfortunate to try and plan policy around a whatif it's a really common what if that we really can't ignore um we also just want to bring your
attention back to when we had yonder pouches at the middle school and just um see how that went over it it ended up only lasting a couple months because of um you know the logistic difficulties for administration um and us high school students have a lot of other factors
going on in our lives outside of school we have jobs we play in sports we drive cars things that require us to use our cell phones um so it's not it would if it didn't go over well at the middle school level how are we expecting it to
go over better at the high school level yeah and schools do not buy all of their students cell phones cell phones are students personal property so when the administration is taking them all away even if it's for increments of time that creates a liability on the
administration for one today we were test driving this in our Spanish class and Kyla accidentally picked up my phone that one's an accident but that presents the issue of people can steal people's phones if someone's going to the bathroom and doesn't get back before the end of class and their phone is left
there and that box is wide open some kid can easily pluck their phone steal it sell it on eBay and make a buck no I'm serious that's an issue and that also presents the fact that what if the teacher were to drop the box and the cell phones to be broken who pays for the cost of the cell phones who is
liable for that and what if the students like break their phones while they're putting it in the box or the box somehow damages a student's phone this week during the test drive of this process we actually had a freshman student whose phone case was broken due to the cell phone
box we also in any policy that is made we believe that there should be student voice we advocate for student voice all of the time but when it comes to decisions being made they're being made for us and not with us at this point we are old enough to make genuine genuine
thought and contribute to conversation in a positive and meaningful way and when policies are being made we need to be included there is nobody in that high school that understands what that high school is like better than the students who experience it every single day all we ask moving forward is that students
are included when policies are made so that we can have that interaction and that understanding of what it's really like um speaking of student voice we had our vice principal Mr ducharm come into our Spanish class um one of the classes
that is piloting these phone boxes and he told us that he was aware of plans for next year to be removing phones from study periods that kids currently they can do whatever they want during study within reason you can scroll on your
phone you can do your homework it's your choice to be productive or not but Mr ducharm told us that from his awareness from what he had heard that may not be an option next year that study may be taken away as a time to use our phones
um a big concept that Mr ducham especially has pushed up the high school is our time that there's breakfast lunch charger time study is our time to go on our phones talk with friends do whatever we feel like doing
and then there's your time staff's time administration's time to teach um and study has always been presented as one of these our times where we make the choice to be productive to do something that's good for us or not and I really
think that this idea of taking away study taking away phones from study I really disagree with it because I think it is taking away the need for students to make the
choice themselves to be productive because I need to be able to make myself focus on work and sometimes I can't whether I'm gonna scroll on Instagram or do a coloring page if I know I'm not in the head space to focus i'm not going to
be able to focus phone or no phone but sometimes I come out of my AP classes I come out of Spanish these difficult classes and I just need to turn off my brain and scroll on my phone for a bit and that's an option that having the
privilege of study we have the privilege but also the responsibility to make that choice yes we know that there is an issue a cell phone epidemic so to say within all of the schools where kids are using their phones where they aren't supposed to and they are getting distracted in
their coursework and something needs to be done but I'd like to bring up the concept of equality versus equity not one solution one solution isn't going to fit every single kid in that high school all kids are different not every kid is addicted to their phone
there are a lot of kids kids like us who rely on our phones for communication and as an educational tool so we can't have a one-sizefitsall solution in this issue and we do not believe because of that that this policy is a good fit for our
school because of the fact that it inhibits kids who aren't even part of the problem it actually creates more problems because we would have to find workarounds across our normal study habits i normally have my AirPods in so I can tune out my surroundings so I can
focus what am I going to do now it creates more problems for the kids who aren't part of the problem thank you good thank you thank you hang on hang on hang on one second are we uh we're just going to leave it at that for now okay
well you guys are a testament to the education here at BMI with that presentation i mean that was phenomenal whether people may agree or disagree with certain points I just noticed that you guys were were seamless um you did an amazing
job um I couldn't help but notice though you all referenced your phones while giving on your phones so to give you just a a a view into the future that if you're sitting here we're making policy and things like that if you look in the in
your phone when you're making policy sitting up here uh people out in the public can request what you're looking at on your phone uh so just just a just a heads up in the future but you you guys did a tremendous job and I commend you for that and you are there's a
reason why you guys are in leadership because and you've you've shown us here this evening so thank you very much thank you thank you thank you nice work all right anyone else for public forum okay we're going to just um skip down to
the um report of the superintendent mr superintendent the middle of the year data yes thank you so much uh I'm going to uh ask Mrs fowlis and our high school team to come forward um to our committee and to our community tuning in um at our last school committee meeting we heard
our middle of the year data presentations from Milville Elementary and uh from our middle school and as promised the high school team is here tonight um with uh members additional members of their student leadership um and uh a member of the school's
instructional leadership team the content leader for our English uh department Miss Roarge and so welcome um welcome ladies thank you so much for being here our all female team here yes power and fours and they're going to walk us through high school's uh middle
of year uh data this evening they have that all right do you have the clicker over there no we don't that's okay i I'm really bad at editing that's okay let me grab Let me grab it here we go we got it tim's got it i know but Tim I'm the clicker i forgot to
bring Do you want me to do the clicker you can do the clicker i'll do the clicker you do the clicker you make sure i'll do the clicker introduce um Yeah why don't we start with introductions i'm Clover Maloney i'm a sophomore jill Thou principal of the high school hillary Rober English teacher ivy Maloney eighth grader all right so we're
going to start with the ELA data um so you can see our um our eighth 9th and 10th grade data up on the screen here the majority um we're seeing we still have some work to do right so in our across all three grades you can see that
those two lower categories of not meeting and partially meeting are still holding too many for us and like what where we would like to see so we really want to start to push we see small jumps between the not meeting to the partially meeting but we really want to see more of that push from the not meeting into
partially meeting but then on the flip side of that in that exceeding expectations there are a good chunk of our students that are sitting contently in that meeting expectations so we want to find ways to be able to push those kids as well into those exceeding
expectations um two things that we've seen across the board when we're looking at the data in terms of what skills are they really starting to struggle with or they tend to struggle with vocabulary is one of them um so a lot of the STAR questions will have something to do with vocab but the other one has to do with author's purpose and when they're
talking about author's purpose it's a higher order thinking skill um of going beyond just you know what does the text say um and answering those lowlevel questions but the author's purpose piece requires a little bit more of that inferencing that we're really trying to focus on in all of our classes from 8th
through 10th grade um we can see also this is our special ed data for ELA as well um kind of the same idea um right we're seeing a lot of the the not meeting the red and the yellows hold the majority of those kiddos and we really want to see them pushing into that blue that meeting expectations and then
higher um for the SGP we're not where we want to be in all of the categories we really want to hit that 50 mark or higher so in some of them we are um you'll see in our ninth grade those students seem to be progressing where we want them to be um our 10th grade is where we need to focus our attention the
most in terms of getting them to make that progress to make those jumps from one level to the next for ELA so the author's purpose piece when it came to looking at those skills that they're lacking in or they tend to struggle with um it kind of led
us into focusing on the writing piece with literary analysis because that's what they have to do it's more of an analytical writing where students are asked to make inferences about what the language is telling them so looking at literary elements such as diction um foreshadowing all these different pieces
and then taking it one step further to not just identify those things but then to also explain what is the author trying to show what message are they sending us through their language um so that's something that we've been really focusing on we've had a little bit of progress in their writing growth when it
comes to that again STAR doesn't necessarily have the writing component so we wanted to make sure we were adding that in with another assessment um but a couple things that we're actually adding into to really like push this even further um a lot of their warm-ups now are geared towards specific literary analysis so they'll get a prompt and
they have a quote that's we're giving to them um and they then have to take that and in a 10-minute span um at least a couple times a week they're practicing that skill um we're also putting into practice that tier 2 intervention um I know this past week I had a group of boys that might not have been super
happy to spend charger time with me but we sat down and we did some literary analysis during charger time um and we worked through the process together we looked at the quotes we looked at the language but the the group that I saw struggling the most we're going to take them back during charger time and really focus on where are we struggling and how can we make sure we're doing this the
right way in the future to kind of push them further with literary analysis i kind of just went through all of that that's okay um why don't while you're while you're looking at that do you want to speak first to English before we go to math and so some of the things you're doing we have eighth grade and 10th grade to just talk about what you're
doing in the skills in ma in English so right now um I know this week we had a test on we've been looking into the Holocaust and we've been reading a bunch of survivors poems and like writing about sharing their stories so the test and essay we had to do this week we had
to write about the connection both authors made to sharing their story and not letting people forget about the horrible and the horrible effects of the Holocaust that had on people so in our essay we had to compare and pick quotes from both poems and excerpts and compare them and like try to find the common
theme and the message they were trying to get out to the audience great um I'm in AP seminar so it's not a conventional English class but we've been working on developing persuasive writing skills and right now we're putting together an individual writing assignment which goes
towards part of the end of the year like college board grade and we've just been analyzing sources um checking uh credibility putting it all together to form an argument and finding different perspectives and lenses to look at one issue through
and they're working really hard in that class really really hard it's a great English class really excited to have that math yes go next all right so math um so math is in two different um phases so we have the STAR testing like we have
we have for um math for eighth grade they have the HMH which is their um curriculum so they have their um testing there so what you're seeing in this data is the um different five categories for HMH versus four categories for STAR um we're seeing you know we're at the 6040
as far as actually on grade level um we're in the 60 uh% with um uh on grade level and above with that 21 nice sitting there ready to do some work and and move but as we know it could go either way um we're moving in the right
direction you want to see the minus in the red and the yellow and the growth in the um blue and the green um so that's where we are for for eighth grade and you'll speak to a little bit what we're doing in eighth grade shortly for um algebra 1 and geometry in our ninth and
tth grade this was the first year we're piloting I would say piloting because we're learning a lot as we go along um a different type of assessment this is a they're still using our curriculum the Savage curriculum to create these um
questions but the exams themselves um are all teacher level and it's all on grade level so this is all content that is in the standards versus star sometimes it can drop and you can be depending if you get an answer wrong then you go into this category and this bucket and this bucket and this this is
all on grade level and the one thing that we did here that I just want to note is that from each one of the biggest things is you know you forget what you learned at the beginning of the year and you so we need to learn we need to go over that so the three um pieces that you see the three
topics that you have here for algebra 1 but also in the geometry slide those are the um standards that um were touched upon in term one and now they're seeing it again in term two and in term three um they're just reviewing that that data in term three right now so we are seeing
that we're able to do either via through intervention or through repetitive do now is where we're going to bring those skills back and build on that um we are seeing growth we still have again same thing with English we got a long way to go we've got places to go and people to
see as far as math is concerned but um we were starting to have that conversation because we do have math MCCAST coming up and so we're going to be looking at the math boot camp that we've done in the past uh last year we're doing that in the review um and just wanting to make sure that we
continue to push the rigor and the and the critical thinking um I think I'll uh have you both talk about what you do in math and then I'll kind of wrap everything up so what do you what's what's math like for you so um I'm in algebra 1 and we've been working a lot
on like MCCAST prep and things that are going to be on MCCAST in the future and in this year so we usually do like active things to get our minds working in the morning or like in the afternoon when we've been sitting in classes all day so we walk around and there's usually like I know my favorite thing to do is the station work people that have
different problems up on papers around the room and we get to go on our own with clipboards and solve them like with a partner usually and it's really easy to work in groups because it's you can get two people's opinions and you don't end up getting everything wrong if you don't understand the topic and you can get different opinions from each side
and it we've also been taking a lot of notes which as I know is something I haven't been doing in math before in previous classes and we've been taking notes at the start of every topic and like going through examples and writing how to do it correctly in your notebook along with the teacher And I think that's really helpful because to study
which I usually I used to be confused on how to study for math tests but it's easier to like rely back on my notes and know that these problems and their answers are right because we went over them with the teacher and I find that really helpful that's it um I'm in geometry and my class is like both freshman and sophomores since it's a
step away from algebra 1 which we took before and we've been mostly working with like it's like collaborative kind of cuz we'll have whiteboards around like on the different walls around the classroom and we'll just have to like show our work it's the same questions for everyone but we have to show how we
got there which I feel like is helpful because some kids like if you do it in your head then you don't remember how you got there and how you solved that certain problem and just seeing the ways that other people solve problems like differently it it might be easier for some people as well love that jill
before you wrap up can I just do a quick like a 30 second explanation i was going to do that too yeah if you're listening um to the different types of assessments that we're doing and you're and you're curious about that um as just kind of a refresh last spring we had students um
and members of our school-based instructional leadership teams and principles talking to the school committee a little bit about our assessment system and us kind of making some quarter turns in terms of how we were approaching that so uh as just a reminder STAR is that adaptable test so
it's in the- moment feedback to the student as the student is getting the you know as they're reading the passages and getting the questions right it's going to actually ramp up the level of complexity of the text the kids are reading um and we used to have a similar assessment that we use for mathematics it did the same so not only would it
show uh the students staff and parents you know how the uh the level in which uh students are reading on as far as their Lexile level or their grade level um but it also showed them uh showed us their their independent and their instructional reading levels so you may
say you know the results might have said we have a eighth grader who's reading at a 12th grade reading level um and as an independent level but their instructional level might be you know 10th grade or 11th grade so we get a lot of feedback from that piece what we did different and we kept that for ELA but
we added a writing component so we could actually measure their progress in writing um what we did different uh this year in mathematics uh actually is a is a kind of there's a little variation at each of the different grade levels um and so we heard from the elementary and
middle school the last time but um for today at the eighth grade level we're using what we call HMH which is just the name of our the publishing name for our math program into math and so at 8th grade the students are taking
essentially their diagnostic test and so it's that set of skills that they need to master by eighth grade and they're taking that essentially kind of similar test measuring the same standards across the year so we can see the growth on those grade level standards so it's not an adaptable test at all it's actually fixed it's saying here are all the
things you need to know by the end of eighth grade and then we're slowly measuring the progress as you go which was why you saw some pretty big gains in eighth grade as far as kids moving over to the um on grade level or above grade level categories because we're measuring those grade level standards multiple
times so you can actually see the kids mastering those as they move throughout the year um that's a really different type of uh assessment than an adaptable test that is actually measuring students real time uh abilities in that moment um
the other piece that uh Jill and the team were discussing at the uh algebra 1 and geometry level is actually different and so uh what we're doing at that level is after our first kind of diagnostic and looking at where the students uh
fell at each of those courses because again it's course specific it's kind of less grade specific and more course specific is here are the power standards that the students are going to see and Jill mentioned this like repeatedly they're going to kind of spiral back to here are those key power standards and
they're listed here exterior angle theorem parallel and perpendicular lines and uh transversals so these power standards that kids are going to keep coming back to so we keep assessing on these standards not only because the curriculum is cycling back to them but
the students in their um either their um they call them station rotation or some of their centers um that teachers are working on these standards repeatedly so we should see uh additional mastery as again as we continue to assess them
quarterly we actually have our Q3 assessments uh coming up that we looking at with our math department um and reviewing the data with them in upcoming uh professional learning community meetings so I just wanted to put that little plug in because it is different um and I remember the you know having the discussion with the committee that
we're trying some different things this year to make our our assessment far more meaningful to our kids and to our staff so yeah and it's been a challenge because we don't have we've got as I said we've got 25 pages of data for each class and trying to figure out what that
means instead of having a report it would have you know star you can hit a button get a report we like the report are you doing this for science too or we are just for math and just for math and ELA yep right now just for math and um and ELA although math the science department does have a team goal as well
but no and uh you know I will say uh just to give a shout out to um our 10th graders um and our eighth graders i know the vote for the state that MCCAST was not part of the graduation requirement had several conversations with people
after the first day that um didn't quite put the effort in that they could have but I it was nice to see that on the second day they were um we did have 100% of our 10th graders take the MCCAST and show up and do that and our eighth grade as well we've got math coming up we're
taking it very seriously it's uh still there for scholarships it's important to get the feedback from um our our our students uh you need that you need a passing uh grade on that if you want to get the seal of biliteracy which is a growing piece in our district as well so
um that's all really important and uh I'm really proud of the the work that the students are doing um I'm really proud of the reflective nature of my teachers the staff they they saw numbers that they were like "All right let's let's get in and let's get to it." And um and you know put pushing the rig the
rigor we were we did a learning walk today with our students who are saying we want to think we want to give us opportunity more opportunities to really think critically um and I think between these six young women that we saw today um you can tell I'm a very proud principal of
the building and good things are happening so thank you any questions guess not thank you thank you thank you very much and and Miss Fus told me this evening
that she still had to uh find a prom dress yes I do so remember that as our student representative said you have to be in school till at least 10:30 10:30 and they all know they get 33 10:33 and they get called down and then we have two lists and then we highlight them and
then we release them to go get their Mr superintendent the boys get their hair done yes make sure she doesn't go dress shopping before 10:33 tomorrow you're right on it Miss Fell all right thank you very much moving on to uh we're going to jump over to the
business office FY24 audit review gentlemen Good evening evening i'm Bob Brown and this is Sean Dorsy um we've been doing the audit here for four or five years now I
believe uh the audit went well the audit opinion we give is a clean opinion um u unmodified they call it um it's a large financial statement package um uh
I just wanted to walk through a couple of the statements um there's actually three distinct sets of statements in this package um page uh 19 has a statement and net position for
fiduciary funds uh the fiduciary funds in this district are postemployment benefits trust fund and private purpose trust funds um the page after it is a revenue
expense for that for those two funds uh this is the only place this information appears um and then going forward
page 14 has a a balance sheet for what we refer to as the fund level funds it's kind of on a cash basis it has a general fund which is similar to how the district would report um to Jesse uh
financial information outside of the general fund all the other funds special revenue grants revolving funds gift funds capital projects get combined into a non- major fund they condense it
um if there's one activity that constitutes 10% of assets liabilities revenue or expenses we have to break it out as a major fund and in this case there's a capital improvements fund uh that is broken out separately
this is pretty much cash basis it doesn't have fixed assets or oped liability or pension liability um so it's it's prepared on a different basis um this statement then is the the
starting point for the full acrual financial statements um these numbers are taken and modified um for full acrruel adjustments which result in a
statement in deposition on page 11 um this statement is just all the um prior statement combined in but then add in uh bonds payable pension liability
postemployment benefits liability acred interest fixed assets um uh very large full acrruel adjustments um the on page 11 the uh total fund net
position is in a negative 23 million um most governments are in a negative because current accounting standards require that you put your entire pension liability with the county in your financial statements and as well
as the postemployment benefits liability in your financial statements um about 10 years ago these numbers weren't in here uh they were being phased in and then they uh decided no more phasing in the whole liability hits the books it
doesn't didn't affect bond ratings because bond raiders always knew those liabilities were there even though they weren't in the statements um how it affects your bond rating going future is how you fund those liabilities
uh the county liability you're in a county system with everybody else so you're funding it in a structured manner um post-employment benefits is different each government is doing it on their own so eventually there could be moderating differences depending on how one
government funds their postemployment benefits trust fund as opposed to another government um uh the audit went well there were no actual audit adjustments to to note of
uh speak of and uh uh Joe is doing a good job and we look forward to next year and thanks if you have any questions I'm here to answer whatever they may be
i didn't have a cell phone in high school but you want to be an educator in 21st century and uh I think I was 28 in college classroom the total liability for the OPED is 98 9,800 is
that what you have there oh it's more than that 30 million um postemployment rel Oh sorry related to postmployment 30 362 couple above that page 11 yeah I'm
looking at it oh yep okay i saw the other related to the net liability for both OPED and pension essentially stayed the same uh there was not much change for the whole year um when you look at the number you
have to also take into account there's a deferred inflow and a deferred outflow th those change as well as the the liability number so the net of all those um for OPED just changed $729 which
was not a great plus because we contributed $100,000 um page 20 shows the activity for the postemployment trust fund we contributed 100,000 and had net investment income of
27,000 and employee contributions of about 18,000 you we'll see that number continue to all of our employees contribute from their uh salaries to OPEC so yep you'll
see that change over over time question oh sorry uh was that Oh I'm sorry yeah go ahead go ahead you you already got started sorry Dan yeah um that number for uh OPED was higher before um wasn't it yes and how did how
does that get reduced we uh which is great contribute uh well the district did start an OPED trust fund that started contributing contributing to it um I don't recall how many years you've had that trust fund going but three years at
least three or four how long have you last year four so yeah yeah so this is would be the fourth fourth year this town meeting right yes yes and we negotiated with all of our bargaining units for them to contribute uh and all the administrators contribute
yes so I think the combined towns were doing about 100 the towns the district was doing about has been doing about 50 yeah the district when when END comes back certified if the money is there the school committee moves that in and then the employees contribute close to 20,000 a year from their salaries and so this
will be so we're all putting everybody's putting in Yeah so this will be the third at least the third year of the district of 50,000 correct yep so so the town's put in will be 300,000 another 150 from the district and probably another 60 from the from
the employees fair enough thank you all right any uh any other follow-up questions so we have a good report Cod all right no find no finding is Yes
pretty good actually good news no finding is always a good finding yep thank you very much thank you very much gentlemen [Applause] okay back on track to the agenda school committee MSBA update
dr defalco defer to the superintendent yeah just very briefly um we have um our next meeting on April 23rd and that's an important meeting during that uh school building committee meeting we will be reviewing what is called you'll hear
called a PDP but it's a preliminary design proposal or plan um and uh essentially it's a very high level sketch um of um kind of a of a I don't want to say it's actually a
design of what is being offered uh as far as what will the feasibility study will result in but it actually takes a macro look at the different grade configurations that are being studied but from the perspective of you know
square feet um special education classes general education classes you know cafeteria space uh it's a very high level of you know what the different configurations might look like um I would argue the piece that's probably uh
equally if not more important than that is the education plan so the education plan is being worked on right now and that plan really captures essentially the vision of where the high school is going next so you are going to see things like our pathways and the
expansion of that work that's happening now uh laid out in that uh section of the uh PDP if you will uh you're going to see the high school uh draft schedule um you're going to see the uh portions of the middle school in there remember
the design that was submitted uh at least in the statement of interest was a 6 through 12 but we're studying 6 through 12 7-2 8 through 12 9 through 12 renovations the renovation addition new construction there's so many different uh models um so it's a very
comprehensive document that all needs to be submitted to the MSBA um the piece that's a little kind of wonky about the process is uh if you talk to the architects about this and we're all in agreement that really should come at the end of the feasibility study because that's that's really when we're putting
forward uh what the actual design should be um it feels a little bit of kind of cart before the horse or whatever that expression is to be doing this piece now um because we're looking at so many different grade configurations and we're looking at so many different types
whether it's addition renovation new build um it feels a little backwards um but that being said we're taking the education visioning work that we've done that we talked about at the last meeting uh and we are integrating that into uh
the education plan as well so um the school committee will have um that document at our May meeting and the school building committee will have it on April 23rd um to review before submission to MSBA
so quick update there any uh further questions or comments thank you Mr superintendent thank you next up Milville Elementary water update i get a feeling the town of Milville has
some good news on this matter they received today hi thank you for having us um should we introd because some people didn't get sworn in before the meeting details minor details minor details swearing in swearing out
richard how are you all you're still Oh no you're not vice chair oh did you get um So we got our update on our grant application today which is great so we are approved the for the $1 million so on Monday we'll be getting an email with
a packet to fill out and then that's it and then we we start buying stuff and we met literally yesterday with our water operator about the um equipment that is needed and they already have a supplier lined up and they're just waiting for the phone call that yes we're going to buy this so it should move very very
quickly um once the money is in the account and I brought the email and it just says and it's actually big enough I don't need to put my greeters on it says "Good afternoon our Boston drinking water program received approval from EPA today of your grant award in the amount of $1 million i expect you'll receive
the grant application forms from the Boston office email on Monday thank you for your diligence in pursuing this funding to continue providing treatment of the drinking water at the Millville Elementary School congratulations and please let me know if you have any questions
so it's been a long road yes jude's bag of money yes bag of money she came she said if I can bring a bag of money in next meeting yep yeah so I don't know if there are any questions I did bring the email in case anyone
wanted it for their records i printed off a couple copies but I think Peter also forwarded it okay so you have it already too okay I'll forward you i didn't actually forward it yet i'm going send it after your Oh thank you but at least you have a copy Dr defalco so that everyone else can see it if they
want absolutely thank you for that work nice work yes it was a long time is there any questions on that i guess I just What is the timeline or will we when will we have a timeline so the um
as I mentioned so yesterday I spoke with the water operator they basically have a vent a supplier waiting to sell the equipment and then there is um a pilot study because this is the first time we're using this type of equipment in Massachusetts so Milville will actually
be groundbreaking for water operations in the space um they're using the same equipment for the same type of issue in New Jersey i know in New York I believe um and it's just a chemistry issue so basically the water that we're pulling
from the well seems similar to surface water and so this uh apparatus will work on the iron the maganesees the total organic carbons and PAS so we'll actually be quite ahead in terms of the requirements for PAS and water at the
Millville Elementary School so and that's it's only like a one or two week pilot study i can get you exact details tara it's fast which I was surprised because nothing with this has been fast um but yeah so it should once we get it installed it's like 30 days basically
end to end is my understanding and I'll verify that and send an email to Dan and Dr mr chairman and Dr to Falco so you guys will know thank you i guess it's just um I I don't have the notes in front of me when we've gotten really deep on how this all worked but um just as a matter of results so we can make
decisions on so when you say the pilot study is one to two weeks they're expecting at the end of the pilot study the results to be Yeah positive forward that is quick good and then there'll be what monthly results that we'll track or how Okay so we do monthly testing now
yep and then um and then there's one number that they do that's the quarterly test all right so I've been essentially meeting with uh the chairwoman and Peter monthly I'd say at least oh yeah at least every week or
so some yeah and so and and they've been very upfront with uh your your current water operator kind of waiting for this so the the there was you guys weren't they weren't heavily maintaining the current
system knowing that you know they were just chasing the tail because this was coming so some most some of the recent results may not look will look what we the results for March are much much better because I told them that we need to maintain the water operations like
that's what we're paying them for so I know it might be more work now but this is what the contract is so they kind of stepped up so March is better i don't remember the exact numbers i don't have them in front of me and then they just did a water test recently in April too
and they expect that to be a lot better too so they should be coming back down but this is going to just take care of all that the issue has never really been cleanliness it's been consistency mhm and and um so you you
um Yeah so you have the uh the water the it's going to be the same water operator i mean and and this also helps you I you know you had to increase your water operations budget um and so this helps you actually this year with that
operations budget because the grant allows you for the operations with this new uh this new type of technology so that's that's a it's a it was a good day good news for the Millville budget today i know i can't believe when when Peter text like hey we
have the email i'm like "Are you kidding me?" Yeah so cuz she said "You can ask me every day." And I did ask her every day starting this week i'm like "You said." So I'm checking in i only ask once every week or two when I ask you so
um Well I do we do appreciate the We've come a long way in in the last year and a half with Yeah from beavers to a million bucks that's a pretty good turnaround huh yeah exactly so and so
you guys have uh voted on uh supplying bottled water y until this this thing this operation for all of next year if you want fully up and running yeah and you guys already committed to that yep for all of next year regardless of the
status of the water um just to provide assurances so we're back to it's your water system you're committed to providing the water bottled water until this is Yep um resolved till you're up and running and fully compliant uh the D is
fasttracking this which is good because they're giving you the money and overseeing sometimes these operations could take months or a year in licensing so so you guys are all ready to go as soon as you get the check in the bank yes essentially
so well that's wonderful well we will uh we will um I think we'll have we have to make some decisions on the next school year coming up anyhow u in the near future and this is kind of the news we were I know my I personally have been
waiting for and uh Jen knows that I've been waiting for that and I think Peter knows that I've been waiting for that news so I it couldn't have happened at a better time so I just um I I working with Jen uh she's been very um
uh committed and um and and consistent in her in the in the board of selectman's uh pursuit of this solution so I it's been a pleasure to this point thank you we had our ups and downs as a
committee and a board uh but we're coming to a a resolution hopefully that 30 years in the making so I I applaud applaud you guys for uh being consistent on on this and and and persistent so
um so we have some new information to look at and we will be discussing it and and uh hopefully moving in the direction uh north of this building is is in the very near future sounds good so I'll put
I'll uh reach out to our water operating timeline for the pilot program and just confirm it's one to two weeks that's what we've been told which I still find shocking um but so we'll get that and then when everything will be complete and like I said the vendor is just waiting to sell the equipment to us well
we have a our water filtration system in Blackstone and then we have a schedule on that and and the and the testing essentially is that the D is there for that short period of time so they're cons they're like testing on site and and so there it's they're very thorough uh with it so that's I think that's why
that period is of uh aggressive testing is so short so all right thank you thank you thank you very much thank you and congratulations thank you uh next up is to approve the amended
school year calendar mr superintendent yes again so we have a few changes to the 2425 calendar uh just as a result of uh some school cancellation um the new uh last day of school for this school year for Milville
Elementary and the middle school is June 17th that is a Tuesday uh and will be an early release and the new last day for uh BMR is June 18th uh which is a Wednesday and that'll be an early release day as well so uh the high school had one additional cancellation
day than the um elementary and middle school uh motion to approve the amendment of the 2425 school calendar so moved motion made by Tara Scobby second second by Chuck any further
discussion all those in favor signify by saying I i any oppose the eyes have it and then next we have the uh 2526 school committee car uh school committee calendar and so this of course is a
superintendent a tenative calendar which we which sets up the Thursdays yeah um and then just a couple of small changes uh to the calendar to the proposed calendar for the school committee for next year um the first is we added a second meeting in October so
the meetings would be on the 9th and the 23rd uh you may recall the October meeting this year was incredibly long because we had MCCAST and goals and school improvement plans and all the things with that so we added a second meeting so we could thin that out a little bit um and then um I actually
think that was the only real change on that the rest of it remained similar to this year's calendar and then of course the January uh budget workshop dates are always determined by the school committee on the 8th of January so that'll be the 8th of
January 2026 but other than that it remains uh pretty much the same as um this year's calendar okay any uh any questions on that matter okay i'll
take a motion to approve the school committee calendar for 2526 so moved a motion made by Jane second second by Tara Lockan uh any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I i I
any opposed the eyes have it next is a vote to reertify the FY26 budget mr superintendent yes um so in your packets we have a updated uh budget certification sheet um it it's all here
so if we want to do the readaround thing that the committee normally does to reertify um if the committee chooses to do that um but the um big change is um a $150,000 that we were able to identify
through uh actually Joe was able to identify through various accounts to try and get the assessments down to the towns i know it's not exactly what Milville uh necessarily needed but we did take another crack at that to try to get um the assessments down um that
$150,000 we would use to prepay tuitions uh for next school year for our at our students at our collaborative jill was able to work with the our collaborative to identify students and put up a prepayment schedule um to help with that
um and what the reertification would do in that reduction of $150,000 would bring Blackstone's overall assessment for FY26 to 3% right now it's at 3.9 so it would bring it down to 3% and it would bring Millville's uh overall
assessment which is currently at about 2.6% to about 1.6% um so it would come at about a percent uh savings to both um both of our uh member towns and so I don't know if the committee wants to go through and
and kind of reread all of the motions and do all of that and essentially what we did was we reduced the additional um contribution from both towns accordingly based on their percentage so that's kind of Joe i don't know if I missed anything on that no no
that's right on target uh is there any uh any questions from the committee so um Mr superintendent so um essentially we would um there must be just then two motions for the additional for one for each town
right yeah we could do a motion to adopt the gross operating budget because that uh gross operating budget is $150,000 less than the initial gross operating budget and then um I'm looking down i think both the assessments maybe it would be the two at the end right is
that the best way to do the is it the two at the end or the two in the middle they're not going to Where is it they're going to be the addition oh here it is yes my apologies underneath the um that the above reimbursement total those two pieces
underneath I think it's these two guys so one three and four one three and four yeah does that make sense the total gross and then the overall um assessments and none of the other lines changed right that's right
i no because the other um number motion number five is uh the revenues and then the motions at the bottom motion six and seven are the capital right Joe I don't think I'm missing anything right no one three and four are the only lines that
have changes in them and three and four the only changes are to the additional um amounts for each uh for each town And the last motion we don't have to meet we don't need to make to close it
off close it up because it's the alternate presentation would already do that no we're good i think we're okay i mean if the committee wants to we always can i can't I can't cause any harm how about we just to one three four we'll go right around the block
we'll start with you Matt if if if there's no objection let's just read them all and that way there we don't uh you know this happens there's some technical thing that shows up if it's going to show up on the day before the Millville town meeting or something like that we'll have to reconvene and you
know we know how it goes we it happens to all of us yeah well it would happen before Milville because they're first that's the only reason why I said that yeah so yeah sure uh I move to adopt a gross operating
budget for the 2025 2026 school year in the amount of 29,872,530 motion made by uh Matt second second uh we're going to go with the first second we'll go with second by Terara Kobe any uh further discussion
all those in favor signify by saying I i any opposed the eyes have it like to make a motion to uh move to apply the following reimbursements to reduce said gross operating budget for the 2025 202 26
year chapter 70 1280,08 regional transportation $856,952 school choice tuition 181,2 $234 and charter school reimbursement at $222,116 the above reimbursements would
total 13,340,310 the total operating budget for 2025 2026 is $31,94,716 a motion made was that $718 oh sorry yeah $718
thank you Chuck a motion made by Chuck second seconded by Tara Scobby any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I i i any opposed the eyes have it i'd like to make a motion to move to
assess the amount of 11,941,486 to the town of Blackstone to be applied to the operating budget for the 2025 2026 school year which includes $8,980,523 for the minimum contribution
$1,145,28 in exclusionary costs and 1,815,935 $5 in supplemental investments motion made by Terara Scobby second second by Tara Lock any further discussion all those in favor signify by
saying I i any oppose it's unanimous i move to assess the amount of $3,813,963 to the town of Milville to be applied to the operating budget for the 2025 2026 year which includes
2,845,313 for the minimum contribution $374,585 in exclusionary costs and $594,65 in supplemental investments a motion made by Tara Lockan second seconded by Chuck Dutton
um any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I i i any oppose it's unanimous i'll make a motion to apply the following amounts to the gross operating budget for the year of 2526 excess and deficiency
485,696 medicaid 190,000 revenue from user fees 82,000 revenue from gate fees 15,000 revenue from classroom rental 100,000 uh revenue from prek tuition 395,233 second uh mot I made the motion seconded
by uh Carrie any further discussion you said 485696 it's actually 458696 just reverse the numbers oh that's all all right so u just to clarify my motion uh my motion uh the first excess in deficiency is
458,69 uh6 as corrected by Mr catalano seconded by Kerry any further discussion thank you Matt all those in favor signify by saying I i any oppose the eyes have it
like to make a motion to move to adopt a capital and interest budget in the amount of $339,98353 to be assessed solely to the town of Blackstone which includes $99,5203 for the JFK boiler windows project
$149,2425 for the roof projects and $90,5395 for the BMR high feasibility study motion made by Carrie second seconded by Ed Shane uh any further discussion all those in favor signify by
saying I i any oppose it's unanimous i move to adopt a capital and interest budget in the amount of 163,983.99 to be assessed solely to the town of Milville which includes 67,68929 for the Milville boiler project
$66,675.75 for the roof projects and $29,618.95 cents for the BMR high school feasibility study motion made by Jane second seconded by Terrace Kobe any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I i any
oppose the eyes have it i move to certify the alternate presentation of the total budget representing only monies moving into and out of the general fund this presentation will be used by the department of revenue in the calculation of excess and
deficiency a motion made by Matt second seconded by chain um any further discussion all those fa in favor signify by saying I i any opposed the eyes have it uh and that's the last vote right
understand that and uh just coincidentally um every Millville motion was made by a Millville rep and every Blackstone was made by a Blackstone rep i know how that went around that's fine um it's a good night for Millville i think you saved 60 grand on your water operations and
another 40 almost 40,000 um on your assessment from the district so we're moving in the right direction yeah I still have some comments actually on the budget uh on the new budget we on the newly
accepted budget yes come on up you don't have to let No come on up it's we have it on the agenda so I appreciate the changes that were made to the budget like that was really good um but it's still a lot for us um
if you look at where we were on the we tried to pass an override to kind of close our deficit and it failed and it was spectacular in failure like there was people don't want to pay more taxes in Milville so we really have to tighten our belts and I think one thing that's difficult is that I did see a member of
the school committee advocating against the override which is fine but then we can't come to this meeting and then raise the budget i know it went down a little bit but it really does need to go down more um and for examp um and I know we haven't always been collaborative and
there's been tension but for example on the feasibility study I voted yes on that and it passed in Millville and that was because I wanted the data to make a decision to vote and I think the community should have access to that data um I know some people will say no
regardless um and but I had mentioned that we could use stabilization to cover that cost and we can't make that recommendation anymore we're going to have to pay for that in another way so I appreciate the
effort but I just want to make sure that if you if we're fighting an override that's okay but please don't come to this meeting and then raise the budget when you're not allowing for the override they should be an alignment in activity so but in closing I do want to
say I am very appreciative of this when I saw the post over the weekend from Carrie I was like I can't believe this is happening i really did not expect it so I don't want to seem unappreciative but in Milville we do need a little bit more help well I'll I'll respond to you there so
our our increase over last year for the town of Milville 1.59% now it's down to which is 62,000 on um uh 3.9 uh around 3.8 uh 3.8 million
um and so we can keep that growth rate for the next couple years well yes yeah yeah yeah yeah i understand and and I understand your maybe your frustration um this wasn't this year well yeah so and by the way Milville is not the only
one with certified free cash in this district so that's and and that's common it's not an uncommon thing um stabilization fund is to one of the things is for your bond rating and to be secure if you have big
issues that may come up free cash I would assume you would anticipate using to fund the feasibility study um well we're going to be using it to balance the budget yes but ideally you would want to use that
to sure fund the offsets yes that the feasibility study that Milville voted for so I I do get the the concern on your on your end and I will say if the growth rate keeps at this rate and then taxes can catch up it will that's also
works for us if we can keep the slow increases going Mr chairman you've needed it you've needed uh the water situation fixed for almost 30 years you've needed an override for 20 how about that that's the reality of it
yeah yeah well no well it failed spectacularly so they don't there's not a desire for an override in Millville it wasn't no it was no so well I commend you on those efforts as well yeah you sound like my husband good
job Jen yeah you you Well they cannot No one can criticize you for not giving enough information i will say that thank you and thank you so thank you this was honestly I was surprised and really happy so I hope I don't appear
ungrateful because I I really really am really really surprised your voice is always completely unexpected welcome to be heard here i may not always agree with it we may not always for the most part long as we're civilized that's what matters thank you
very much thank you for and good luck to your uh newly uh well almost newly formed board of selectmen once they get sworn in this year congratulations on your re-election Richard thank you okay can we just uh take a motion to adj
We have to do this evaluation now let's end on a good note like Milville got their water like Whoa whoa whoa whoa we're going to end on the best note you've ever even seen all right let's have it actually you've seen all the work that's in here already frankly because yeah it's the work we're doing
who's writing those notes by the way i'm going to grab the clicker i'm not getting up and walking out i'm grabbing the clicker well maybe some of you are just like "Yes he's leaving." No we don't have to sit through this where's the audiences they'll lock the doors behind them
so this year um I have a special guest who is going to be presenting with me uh Jill and I are gonna actually Sorry to interrupt if I would have known that I would uh Jill and I are going to tag team this um and uh we are doing so because um
you'll notice that these are not just my goals these are the district goals so um this work happens because we've got a great team that are that are pulling the wagons as we heard tonight um and that team frankly includes our students and one of the things that I hope the
committee was able to see in the last two meetings um was that our students are plugged into this work um Joe Fowlis mentioned a learning walk that happened today that um we have a team of folks that are heading out of state going to Arizona uh for a week to study other
high schools um and our students are going with parents and administrators uh to go in to see what other promising practices are happening um across frankly across the country that we'll be bringing back to the high school um and so um the students are very much
involved we heard from some tonight about you know you know not being fond of a particular pilot that we're that we're doing uh and that's okay it's it's good right this is good stuff we want students uh to be very much part of this uh process so uh you saw some of that
you heard some of that in the last couple of meetings and uh tonight uh Jill and I are going to walk through uh just some quick highlights um on um the goals as far as where things are at um very similar i know many of you are
used to this format but we did uh Jackie sent out yesterday the um slide deck um with all of the evidence hyperl so um really easy to navigate you can just click on the actual piece of evidence it'll come up and next to that evidence
as we've done in the past it shows you the focus standards um that the evidence is being used to uh to highlight and so uh these are the standards uh that the school committee approved in October underneath uh each of the four areas um
on which uh I'm evaluating u I won't read through the goals i know the school committee is very familiar with the goals uh it's also very small font um so I actually can't read that unfortunately anymore but um the student learning goal is
really broken down into two pieces there's a curriculum focus and there's an instructional uh focus uh and again this all anchors directly back to our district um strategy or u known also known as our
blueprint so uh there is a variety of evidence here and I'm going to Jill and I are going to talk through uh certain pieces and Jill's going to tee us off uh Tim uh we met with before uh the discussion this evening so that he could actually pull up the evidence so this will flow a little bit smoother um but
we are not going to walk through every single thing that's on here and look at that evidence but rather just highlight a few key pieces that are helping us move towards uh meeting the goals that are outlined so I think Tim is going to be pulling up and again this is in your packet we're going to get to this in a minute it's a tool that we use as part
of the work that we're doing with our learning acceleration network we refer to it as LAN um this was um we got it was grant funded it's through DESIE um and it supports our district leadership team in setting and achieving certain goals that we put out there and this
year um our team is we have our middle school principal Jenny we have our high school principal Joe myself Jason and our lead instru um coach uh Mary Colinino a part of this work we are working with a consultant from the learning acceleration network and we've
identified our focus going into this is the ELA area so what we've been able to do which was really great if you look at this chart up here what we did was picking ELA but we have certain standards that we look at so before we started this work we were as a group doing a learning walk and we met with
our consultant and you can see on here what we did um and Tim if you can scroll up just a little bit more too just so they can see the whole form we had to calibrate our understanding of what all of this meant and which what what does a four mean what does a one mean but you know what does it mean that when we're
seeing in the classroom not meeting and there are different areas that we're looking at and the work that we're doing here is to help our to support our principles and coaches to build their capacity so then they can support our teachers in building their you know the teacher capacity so the form that we're
using now and this is to collect patterns and trends as we go through classrooms we do this as an entire group so although we have regular meetings with our consultant Mickey um to talk through what we're seeing our goals do we need to add do we need to make quarter turns we're also as a full team
going into every single ELA classroom at the middle school level and every single ELA classroom as a team at the high school level and we're using this form to develop that what we did find on this form just to um our preliminary results is our culture of learning when we go into our classroom it actually comes out
really well we're strong in that area and also the high quality materials we're using so where we're focusing more on a team is the questioning and the tasks the high quality that rigor and also the amount of responsibility that our students are taking for the work so we're focusing on that the other thing I
want to throw in there we're also doing um which really isn't part of this but I think it's important at principles and myself we're all participating in a program for our English language learners in this form we're kind of revising get to also look at those kind of you know um in the classroom so this
has been a really a great process i know you all work know that we worked with focus school in the past this is just kind of pushing our work forward um so it's really been a great experience we're really hoping to be able to continue with them um in the future and it is collecting patterns and trends and our principles are actually collecting
those patterns and trends so when we meet them on a with them on a weekly or bi-weekly basis they're showing us what they're seeing in those classrooms and we're able to address those amongst the whole faculty and just to build on that that's one of the helpful things so when we meet with our principles they actually pull up their Google sheet they
drop all this data into a Google sheet it's anonymous so they're not saying which teacher is what but they just put it into this document to see I was in 18 classrooms here's where we ranked out for culture of learning here is we ranked out for um uh students being responsible for their own thinking in
the classroom and one of the things we heard I mean I just want to make the connection that we heard directly from the high school team tonight is that this is an area that they're working on and I think during the learning walk today the students had some conversation uh with Miss Fowl about this like we need to get the students thinking deeper
and thinking more and we need to get the teachers doing less work the students need to be doing more work um and the teacher work should be happening during preparation time right that's where their sweat comes in the students sweat equity so to speak should be coming into the classroom where they're actually
carrying the water instead of the sage on the stage that we all went through the teacher up at the white we know this teacher up at the whiteboard or a blackboard for us probably we don't think we had whiteboards but um right doing all the things and you're just sitting there taking notes and at the end of the period the teacher's
exhausted right fyi that really didn't work well for us either just putting that out there um and it's not working for the kids the students need to be doing that work so that's what Jill's really talking about is capturing the data that's helping to drive that forward and we heard a bit about and this isn't a surprise teachers have this
they know what we're coming in they know what we're looking for so they understand you know when we're going out to those classrooms so um any questions on the land great great um and connected to land I just I'm going to jump into the next piece of evidence um Tim I believe it's
the our thinking cla uh classroom i don't think I don't know if we have a slide yet but when we're talking about students taking ownership of their learning um I Mrs ramka kind of spearheaded our thinking classrooms um but you'll see in your evidence there there is a video in there um that tells
you all about what the thinking classroom is all about um and also some video u some clips in there of our staff that actually did this activity did activities during one of their PD days and the thinking classroom is for all classes um and it really is and you're
going to see this again when we get in um to a a later piece of evidence because remember all the things that we do even lay in and thinking classroom is throughout and what the thinking classroom is is um it's taking taking the um the stage on the stage it's it's
giving the ownership to the students um and we got to watch it in action too and I know our leadership team also did it together and at our principal PLC which will bring up they got it there's a problem that's put up on kind of a whiteboard okay it's got to be erasable and the kids are put into groups and
you'll have one student who has the marker who can't speak who's just working through the groups when the other kids are telling them how to work through it they're having conversations and no one can hide everyone has to be actively engaged so it's going from what they call in this stud being a student in studenting you know just kind of
sitting and take it all in to being actively engaged and thinking you know as part of that work so that started again it was it was uh started at our middle school there's work being done with our staff there and I know our other principles they're starting to work on that as well um at our high
school and in our elementary schools um and the kids seem to love it when we did our ILT they came and talked to us about it and they said we really do like it and kids will tell you in the past I could just sit there and not say anything in what we called group work they actually are thinking and have to take an active role in all of this so
this is again another concept that we're moving forward and it it seems to really be you taking off the kids are really enjoying it and if you want to learn more as Jill mentioned we actually put um I think it's about 45 minutes but we put a video link in the evidence where uh the author of the research
uh in the text actually runs through where this all came from the significant uh very significant study that was done to lead to and it's just so interesting the actual percent of students um that are actually thinking and applying their thoughts in class versus what we might
think when we walk into a classroom because again we all sat through that right in rows with our notebooks and all the things and he talks about that like we actually was a very small percentage of us that were actually engaged authentically in the learning many of us were just transferring notes uh and when you think about the different levels of
questioning and the different levels of thinking we want our kids to do and the type of problem solving they need to do transference is at the very basic level it isn't bad but you can't live there and so um the author of the research uh does a really nice job of explaining
that um and then essentially kind of laying out what the strategies are to use in the classroom to combat that um I went to a training with uh a uh seven sixth seventh grade team um and it was great i did the training with the teachers um and partnered actually with
Mr dwolf uh he and I were had to do the vertical learning together and uh it was a really great experience the key is making sure you got the right question and so again the teacher's challenge is looking at the content that needs to be taught and developing those really challenging questions that lead uh to
real kind of deep discussion uh and rigorous thinking around that and just one of the quotes I pulled up to finish on that it was and this isn't a presentation but it's the gold the goal of building thinking classrooms is not to find engaging tasks for students to
think about the goal is to build engaged students that are willing to think about any task so kind of summarizes it really does think classroom um thanks Joe y um the next piece of evidence that is uh just up uh for
review and again there there's many other pieces in um uh your evidence for this particular goal but is our vision statement for our literacy work um I think just some of the highlights here that are really important and all the details are outlined in the evidence um
we took a different approach to our curriculum uh review and renewal process for this year we actually uh separated out into a two-year goal so you'll see literacy again for next year um with a very strong emphasis on writing and uh
we have a um a team of teachers from across all three buildings developing writing expectations that are both horizontal across the grades but are also vertically running through all of our um through all three of our schools
uh they are using an anchor text called the writing group that is a researchbased text that is helping to guide and steer that work that's all outlined here um but for next year uh as the writing committee is continuing their work and by the way you'll have an update from
them and from our assessment committee in May um both groups are coming forward to give the school committee an update which is uh which is great they want to share their work uh because they're really excited about the progress that's being made in our classrooms um but um a more kind of immediate change you'll see
next year is we are replacing as you know through our budget process we are replacing the middle school um literacy program and we're changing it to study sync uh we're doing that because that is the program that is at the core of our ELA work at the high school so we want to make sure that our 6 through 12
literacy program is aligned um so we are leaving our elementary program uh wonders in place so that'll be PK through uh five jill brought that into the preschool as well um and then 6th through 12 will be u the study sync program although when you get into 11th
and 12th grade the courses are are real unique like British literature and some of those other courses they're not clearly using Study Sync but the core um core grade levels for literacy at the high school are using that as their core program um so you'll hear a lot more about the literacy work particularly as
it pertains to writing um at our May meeting but there's a lot of great information that actually outlines the timeline the process and what's still to come um in your evidence for uh for this evaluation
cycle um and we'll go back to the slide deck and we'll move to the next goal we haven't found a seamless way to do this yet but Tim is really becoming an expert at this um our next goal is focused around student health and
wellness so I want to start and take you back to the fall on Rachel's challenge so you'll notice in your evidence is actually a link to the website um but remember Rachel's challenge just as a quick summary is um it was a program um
presentation that was presented it was after Coline um in memory of this one of the students Rachel Scott who lost her life that day and it was a program that was presented across all of our buildings in the fall and of course it was you know presented at grade appropriate levels we had you know our
high school who heard more about the story and our littles heard more about you know the the kindness aspect um of it so it really focuses on that kindness compassion and positive school culture and it's not just a one-time thing there was a presentation and I asked you know to get some additional feedback to share
with you that our buildings how they're moving forward with this um if you at Milville Elementary School if you ever walked into the building you might see a chain um you know with the construction paper chains and actually the students earn those chains for showing different acts of kindness um and it's hung around
the school and um Christina mentioned to me that they their goal is to get all the way back around the school and she does anticipate they're going to be there so we're recognizing kids it's not just talking about it but when we're seeing that um they're doing that um we're also um they do review the
concepts as part of their guidance program because Rachel's challenge also gave us resources to help do that um at the middle school I know that the middle school they're in different classes they're working with Rachel's challenge whether it's their enrichment and guidance um they've made some kindness
quote posters um they've done some activities for kindness and you know nobody eats alone in the cafeteria um they're doing kindness quotes that they're actually presenting you know in the in the morning announcements um they've done some empathy stations when it came to the guidance classes and
they're also using our program um this year we have able to purchase this through a grant our Nagant 360 which has a social social emotion component and we also have that threat assessment on that but they're using those lessons that um connect to Rachel's challenge for
empathy compassion kindness and action um and then we also had the um what their seal team is doing they're actually putting a challenge together um again to create their chain across the school and at our high school they all signed all the schools had a banner that
they signed um that you know to make the challenge to for change and to be be change during the advisory the students are also um doing lessons related to you know accountability appreciation kindness um they did a Rachel's challenge um lesson about paying it
forward um which focused on empathy um and during the month of May they're going to be a lot of lessons of acceptance for all so it definitely is a program we brought it was it was um very emotional for some um I will say at the I went to all of them and our littles
were so loud in it it was great they got them going they got them yelling they got them really excited but it was just to take away that message about kindness and compassion you know forever for all the students um here the elementary students uh approached us and asked for
buddy benches um so if you're not familiar with that um that's where if you have a student at recess who's looking for a friend um they can sit on the buddy bench and and you know a classmate will come by and sit with them or maybe pick them up and say "Hey come
you know come you know play football or or shoot hoops with me and that kind of thing." So we did we did put buddy benches here to help them with their goal of increasing um kindness so we're really proud of the kids for advocating for that um some other things uh some other
pieces of evidence here uh before we jump into the men's and women's leadership piece um student focus groups this is something that's been really important um we have just a snapshot summary of one of our focus groups here uh but um Jessica Sinclair HR specialist
and I um have been having um uh various meetings throughout the year in all of our schools uh with just students and with our staff and so we'll talk about the staff one um in a few minutes but the student focus groups have been really uh really helpful uh in terms of
sharing with us kind of what's working and what's not what they're looking for um and they're holding us accountable um we were talking with our Millville students about some of the um clubs and activities we have and actually Elijah who was here uh for the MOI presentation
uh he was very quick to remind me we mentioned this to you the last time you were here and so we did put some of the clubs in but they weren't all the things that that u that the kids wanted um so they sent us back with a task list uh of getting in the other second half of the
club so we working with the PTO the PTO put in place quite a few different clubs Legos and some other things uh for the students to be able to do but I am anticipating I will hear from Elijah and friends when we go back uh that it still isn't enough um so that's okay uh we are working on that we actually have a
survey out right now um do you want to talk about that Jill quick sure we have we did have some interested members of the community who are interested in expanding our programs after school for Milville so we did get together a survey um for not only our parents to ask them what would you be interested in what are
the interest areas what are the hours if there was a fee um you know would you be interested in a program um just to kind of get a sense of what people were looking for and we also sent a survey to our staff because we want to know staff interest of do you have any interest in presenting any clubs what is your
availability what is your interest to do this so we're hoping to get all that feedback it went out I think about a week ago so get that all back just to see you know are there some additional things that we can do for um our Millville Elementary school school students and if we have any Milville families that are tuning in i believe as
of Sunday we had 40 uh folks who had taken the survey from Milville Elementary so just keep beating the drum out there we want to get uh parents insight on what are the things they'd be looking for if we were able to expand after school um opportunities and so um
we're definitely hard at work on that um and then uh not hyperl here but in front of you this evening is the afteraction review from our tabletop with the mass emergency management administration is that Mima
something like that yep um and um so that is for the committee's uh review uh we did not want to link that uh because this will be posted um on our website and of course you know issues of safety we always keep um so um one of the
things that I can share as a highlight um our uh work with the local police departments from both communities local fire departments um and you'll see the results uh bore out uh so strongly that uh MIMA actually
handed us off to Homeland security they said "There's really nothing else we can do to help your district you've done all the things." Uh so we just had a meeting with Homeland Security believe it or not uh who their homeland security office uh in our area came out and we asked them
to uh essentially test us come to our schools and tell us uh what we can do better and different so they were out Joe was it Tuesday this week joe was with him all morning I think on Tuesday uh touring the facilities so uh more to come on that um which I know test us it
wasn't give us a test it was look at our facilities tell us what we can do better to do a right yeah it was not a tabletop drill thank you for clarifying that um so we'll get some feedback from them uh which we'll share with the committee in executive session um as the committee
knows and I hope our community knows we spend a a significant amount of time on school safety uh we don't talk about it publicly because we're not supposed to um all this information is you know is is open to public consumption uh and we
keep our uh safety plans uh confidential to protect the safety of our students and staff uh and we will continue to do so but I would ask any of our families who are listening if you have questions or things you're wondering about I will meet with uh anybody um at any time to talk about this work i know Jill will I
know Joe will as well our school resource officers are also deeply deeply involved uh in this um work so but wanted to make sure that the committee had um the um draft feedback from MIMA um but the other just piece of evidence I want to highlight
here and Tim will pull up uh is just a real quick snapshot of the men's and women's leadership group um one of the things um that I heard from the school committee in my end of year evaluation was you know the work we're doing with our men's leadership is is excellent but
we need to expand this to our young ladies uh so we did and I will say the addition of our athletic uh director has been wonderful because she has been actually um spearheading this work with myself and Mr ducharm um and so uh just
a few photos here uh our students are not only doing service learning uh locally at our uh food pantry but also again in Worcester at the uh PRA um community center uh but we also have expanded that to career and college readiness um taking them on a tour of
Wester State was awesome i can't underscore the importance of showing our kids uh what's possible and helping them develop a vision for themselves it may not sound like a college tour is you know all that significant it really is
and getting our high school kids on a college campus and letting them see that they belong there if that's something they choose to do is really powerful um running parallel to that equally as powerful uh we are bringing them uh to the BV Blackstone Valley Ed hub to give
them a crash course in all things careers from welding to manufacturing uh and looking at what the different career opportunities within the Blackstone Valley are uh so um our boys went uh already and our young ladies are going next week i'm sure they will be uh in
the welding equipment and doing the virtually welding which is really awesome to see um but we're excited about um the work continuing and excited about um the young women's leadership group that we started um through this work um with
that you also heard Maya mention earlier um this week we teed off um our an expansion of our charger time with uh members of our local police fire um Scott is running our small engine repairs which we'll hear about later and
then uh the vice president of marketing from Dean Bank um was also present this week for financial literacy for just our seniors so all the seniors uh took the financial literacy class i think tomorrow is the last session of that um and so we are looking to expand that
even further so if we have other partners that are listening we will be reaching out to Southwick Zoo we are going to be tapping on our own um early childhood educators and asking them to run an early early childhood course uh through charger time for our students um
as well as continuing to work with with police and fire it I will tell you one of the coolest things was going in and seeing one of our alumni from last year um in our who now works for our fire department teaching our current students how to actually put on the fire
equipment um really awesome you talk about it kind of coming full circle uh these are our alumni now coming back that are not only serving our community uh and keeping our community safe but are now teaching our students how to do just that mrs fowl has said um the
feedback she's getting from the kids has been amazing uh that are taking the police fire and the small engines uh a small engine repair group i did I might have learned how to change the oil on a snowblower from Scott on Monday not sure I can do it yet Scott but you might have
learned it was pretty cool yeah it was pretty cool to see um moving on to the next goal we'll wait for uh Tim to kick us along here next we are going to be talking a little
bit about our staff support here we go thanks Tim oops um so our staff development and support goal uh we have a significant amount of evidence in here there is we
are doing so much work in this space to try to help um grow and support our educators at every level and Jill is going to review a few pieces sure just a few I just want to bring up there um the first one is what we we started this year is some lesson studies um it's more
of a um a different approach to professional development temp i think we have a the a little chart for this um and it's really focusing on teaching practices and student ach um student progress um we have teachers who would teach in the same grade or in the same
content area who meet with the team by the team i say it's the teachers our coaches whoever's coaching in that building and our lead coach and they actually identify a lesson that they're going to teach they do this together okay and they they plan for it one of the teachers then takes that plan and
they teach while the rest of the team is observing after that's done the team gets together and they talk about what worked what didn't work how can we tweak this um are there different interventions um they debrief and they revise then and it has to this is done
quickly and right in a row because then the teacher who didn't teach the first time then takes all that feedback and then teaches that lesson to her kiddos then they come back together and said "Oh look this worked this didn't work." It really is helping refine their practice and why this is great is this isn't just for our new teachers we have
very seasoned teachers who have done this work together and you you get something out of it because you're you're having a conversation first you're implementing it then you're having an opportunity to go back and revise and the next teacher is able to go in you know and change some things up so we're doing this at um I think the
high school is coming up they have some lessons that are being there we've done that a lot in Milville and also at the middle school so we've done it for grades and we've also done it if you know two science teachers or you know two history teachers so we're doing that as well and again it's it's we are looking at as professional development
but it's a different approach to it it's a collaborative approach and it's going really well the feedback from our staff i know people in the beginning were very hesitant and a little bit nervous especially some of our seasoned teachers but after they went through it they did find it was really productive jill do they all get an experience with that
not all of the teachers have um but there has been you know teachers it could be some of our newer teachers that are doing that and some of our seasoned teachers it would be great for everyone eventually to do that absolutely um but our coaches are also involved in that but it really it really has worked out well it's open to everybody though it is
absolutely open to everyone we encourage you know people who we really think could benefit from that and some of our amazing teachers are you know are doing this with with other teachers as well and they're getting that feedback i never thought of that you know cuz think about it you're in your classroom and we
have a coach go in there but having your colleague with you too you really be able to give that feedback to to support each other as you go through this yeah so it's working out well and some are strongly encouraged yes yes mhm um so the lesson study I just wanted to touch base on there's also some um evidence
that you'll see in there um I there's not a specific slide but you'll go in we um have our two program that for our two and three-year-old me not three-year-olds two and threeyear um teachers that they um uh engage in a mentoring program with other stu with
other districts we actually um connected Bellingham it's Bellingham Oxbridge and us um and they do meet it's you know they have three formal PD sessions altogether and each ho town hosts one of those but what it does is it gives those teachers the opportunity because it's a
little bit different than our first year mentors which is you have an individual mentor you do have coaching you have all that support it's bringing those um staff members together as a whole and they may do they do professional development they do learning walks as a group within each building so they're seeing the other districts they're being
able to talk about that they're able to give some feedback and they also work on things like um which is in your packet a problem of practice it could be that one of the teachers in another district or in our district may present may be presenting something this is what I'm seeing there's a template of how you do
that but they're able to talk through it you know as colleagues what do you do what would you see what are better ways to approach this so it's been really nice to do it we do a lot of work within our district with our teachers together but having other districts come in with us and in this case it's Oxbridge and
Bellingham it you know it kind of broadens what you see we're able to go to their schools you know and walk around around and see what's going on there and have those conversations and they also come to us so it's really nice to have that so we've been doing that
um and then finally which I we enjoy doing this as well this is our second year i think our mentor the second and third year teacher mentors are in our third year we also have I think you know within our district we have um PLC's our professional learning communities amongst our teachers in the grade levels
with the courses but and we also have three principles in our our district and sometimes you know you think about it they're a single principal in a building so for the last couple of years we have joined forces with Bellingham and Hopedale and we have regular meetings with them and myself Jason their
superintendents and directors also attend but it's an opportunity for those same types of things um we do you know professional development principles bring what kind of topics our principles actually also present information um at these PLC's and one of the ones that I
mentioned before are um thinking classrooms Jenny actually as a principal presented that to the entire group um and there's a her whole slideshow is in there and we actually she actually had all the principles get up and engaged in an activity I think it was about was it about cats or I don't remember what it
was but cats and rats cats was a Yes so many cats yeah catch some rats but they were up there trying to you know have conversations and figure it out and follow the rules so um that's really been great and it it does it good connections with other schools and other principles um who are there when we do
that and we do we meet on a regular basis and it's great into this piece um the u our three districts were asked to present this summer at the uh state superintendent conference this model um because there are many small school
systems like ours um and our collaborative approach to how we're trying to get and develop and build leadership in this kind of PLC professional learning community format um is being recognized so we were selected and um asked to present at the
superintendent conference uh this summer so uh we'll be sharing this really good work with our colleagues from across the state um and then just a couple of other uh quick pieces on this um as I mentioned
the student um focus group so we also have our staff focus groups so you'll see a piece of evidence it's just a summary point uh we've had two meetings um with our staff and we ask the principles to um identify uh our friends and colleagues
who are not shy uh and so they have done a great job of getting our educators in the room with myself and uh Jessica from HR to give us the straight and direct feedback uh and they are they are uh very happy to do so and so that I really
do appreciate those conversations in each building uh because you know these are educators they're working very hard and they will tell us what they need more of less of and you know how we can um work best to support them so uh
you'll see just a summary uh from one of our visits in there for that and then the last piece I just want to highlight quickly um I linked in here for uh the committee is our staff spotlight um one of the things that it and it can be sort of easy to miss because it's at the
bottom of our web page but every month we actually have a new staff that we're highlighting from each one of our schools and really kind of bragging and showing off uh very welld deserved but you can see the we just linked the uh the spotlight form so you can see what that looks like and then we um linked
the April staff spotlight and if Tim if you wouldn't mind clicking that um it should bring us to our three April uh spotlight folks one from each building let's see if it comes up hopefully it's here yes Jason with you saying that the
spotlight I did notice it as the bottom of the website and you don't notice it so maybe we can tweak that website can we post it to on the top of the district Facebook page oh yeah that's You might be able to yeah i have to see how it would interface with that but yeah yep
um and this is great and we have so many faculty that frankly could these four folks that were picked this month and now they're getting picked on but that could be up here they're getting recognized yes they are getting recognized you were getting paid on this there you
go um but um we're proud of all of our staff but you know this month we're highlighting and focusing on these three uh individuals and so um each month we we select a three that come from the schools um and there's always a nice little kind of summary and a nice photo
of them so um we'll see if we can move that around somehow and get it um kind of get it rearranged but we're very proud of our staff and um and it's all staff not just teachers it's all staff yeah yeah yeah we've had folks from Matt
Walker that were you know highlighted to some admin assistants to classroom teachers to IAS it's awesome so it really gives us a chance to celebrate our our staff we talk a lot about the like you know the professional development and the support and the mentoring and all those things are good things but like this is great you know
we we also have a variety of staff breakfasts uh we actually have one coming up um um National Administrative Assistant Week uh is next week nope the April vacation week sorry but next Thursday we're doing coffee and dessert at the end of the day with all of our
admin assistants at central office so uh we don't talk about those things a lot but we do those uh we do those types of activities uh to celebrate our staff as well and I think the staff enjoys when we cook them breakfast yes Jill and I also do breakfast for them uh I will say Jill's a little bossy in the kitchen but
that's okay y absolutely I am i will try to make the you know pancakes and she comes over and it's too much batter there put more chocolate chips in that yeah so that's a lovely experience i own it absolutely um so we do we a couple times a year we
make breakfast for uh our our staff various groups of our staff to thank them for what they're doing so Scott I think you love the French toast correct that I make absolutely i was looking at Scott thinking he's waiting again does he get
something hint of cinnamon in there um so we're grateful for our staff and and definitely take the opportunity to celebrate them when we uh when we can but lots of information there for you to review in terms of how we're working on that uh particular goal that will also
we hope help with retention um so we did go back and look our fiveyear uh sixyear staff retention is right around 80% um so you know certainly want to continue to push that higher but that includes um retirements as well just as an FYI so
and the last two goals are actually really easy we can kind of breeze uh right through those um the uh next one once this comes back up uh these are all super familiar is our district strategic plan and Jill's just going to touch up
there so you know we're we're finishing up with our blueprint 2.0 0 and we're going to be moving on i guess we'll call it our Brooklyn 3.0 um but it's you know I think um Tim I think we do have that we've started with again we know the charge away our promise is still there um but what we've tried to do is look at
our goals and we are going to keep the same focus areas we're looking at curriculum instruction the whole child in the community but we're looking to really refocus those goals based on the work we've done now and the data that we have back um what I do want to mention which is most important about this is we actually are going to be having a
community forum um um it's going to be Tuesday May 6th um it's here in this um media center here at the middle school it starts at 6:00 from 6:00 to 7:00 um because we want community input we want to hear from our parents our community our community partners town governance
um we just want to have a discussion be able to gather that input and feedback just to see where you know everyone's ideas are where we're going now I have a question how are you besides presenting it right here how you putting that out to the community when can you just clarify your question when you what do
you mean by putting out to the community like how is that conversation going to go we know that it's happening oh um email Facebook okay yep but you remember when you That's okay we bring up the blueprint all the time and
this is something we always go back to we call it our you know our northstar and everything that we do is anchored back to this blueprint so we want to make sure we get it right again so if you're tuning in please join us on May 6th 5,6
there you go yes and then the last goal um is on our feasibility study um and so I know the committee is very well verssed in where we are in that but as as far as evidence is concerned um there are two different uh pieces
that are linked here um the um one of them is the actual timeline itself so um when you have a moment take a look at the feasibility study timeline um and then the other that is linked here and I know you had um copies at our last
meeting is the education visioning work just as a FYI I did ask the architect for I said put this 65 pages and five slides uh and then those five slides we're going to take that on the road um on the road what does it mean it means
board of selectmen it means finance committees it means public forums it is everyone and anyone we can get in front of senior centers uh and we'll be having that conversation with the school building committee uh because as we know this really is a community uh piece so uh everyone's got to own their little
part of it and and get in front of different groups but um this is really important because this kind of thing can very easily get shelved and no one ever talks about it um who's going to look at 65 pages of just narrative so um DRRA uh
did very quickly boil that down to five slides uh and sent it to me this week uh so we will be taking that show out uh on the road to get feedback from our communities and to give them a sense of what our education visioning um um
individuals had to say about where they think the high school should go next so that is it as far as um our midcycle evaluation happy to answer any questions not just now but of course as you're going through um the evidence uh
between now and our next meeting in May um that you might have or if you want to meet and go through it together happy to do that as well any questions on the superintendent i'm just going to go back
to the um the MIMA study um the results of the the tabletop exercise and um earlier in the meeting we had to red we did the school budget a school um calendar because of a situation that
took place and that's why the high school didn't know the date a day a day after and and and I people do not understand how extensive our security and efforts are in our cooperation with the towns that's
intentional because uh we want to keep it secure but no in that situation um there was a a a post on social media the next day suggesting that the uh the
complex had you know no security after dropping a parent dropped their their children off and so that's the worst thing to say uh on social media suggesting there isn't any security there um but the idea of the police
officers and the and the security that we had there is sometimes not always to be obvious and but there was plenty of coverage in in that building that day and the other thing I wanted to point out is uh especially in the last couple of weeks of
um you know information that goes around the uh the internet and social media as far as I mean the school I suppose we can always do better in our communications but I I don't know another um institution in the two towns
that provides as much information and attempts to provide as much information through these platforms whether it's the website social media and it's even recognized by the Massachusetts um emergency management agency that the
school has extensive system and protocol in place to get messaging out to parents and families regarding any incident and and any information these protocols allow for multiple persons to disseminate uh messaging quickly and we
use these platforms yeah we do and and this by the way platform is one of them but and this is probably the least monitored form you know from people at home but it it's the information's out there if you're really seeking it
um seeking accurate information so I just wanted to add those two points and and thank you for the presentation any other questions regarding the Does anybody regret not adjourning before we start all right we'll move on to the business
office joe the floor is yours thank you for not adjourning you'd be missing all of this um well we're we're sticking around for Scott that's right that's right did say we're going to end on a high that's for Alaska
uh for budget journal entries you'll notice in your packet that there's only three this time around um the first one is mainly just an adjustment to break out the um medical and dental expense for an RBT from the salary line it was co-mingled so it stayed in the same fund
the second one was to set up a new grant the innovative schools uh learning excursion grant that was just awarded it was just initial setup for that grant and we need to on the third one allocate some funds to do some calibration on our audio meter account with the under the
nurse repair so it was just a small adjustment there to cover that expense and that was all for the past month or so unless you have any questions any questions for Joe on the budget journal entries i I'll take a motion to accept the budget journal entries presented by
Joe so moved motion made by Carrie second by Tara Squared any further questions all those in favor signify by saying I i any oppose it's unanimous so the next item is the personnel report you have that uh in front of you to be
placed on file just indicates the two new hires and a couple of retirements and resignations and then the expenditure report is the next item um I keep I keep finalizing my projections they're getting a little bit
more accurate as we go through the end of the year one thing I want to mention about this report it does not take into account the $150,000 additional prepayment so when you look at the projected ending for the year well roughly you subtract $150,000 from that
number um I don't there's nothing surprising here we do I will have continue to do my reccalibrations to cover some individual line shortfalls with the uh surpluses and other lines but you'll start to see those budget requests coming forward as we move in um
we've started uh preparing for FY27 by doing the purchasing to build up our supplies that we can utilize in the next fiscal year you'll start to see that start happening here too uh and we look like we're in great a great position and I I I I expect the number at the end to
climb as opposed to reduce less than 150 obviously as we draw to the conclusion of the year does anybody have any questions on that report and that concludes that for myself joe while we have you um we you
did give us an update on the national grid yes but I did put in front of you um when you came in on the um football field lighting i got in touch with the company that's looking into doing the proposal for us and one of the things they were trying
to do is they're were incorporating EV chargers into that proposal because they felt they could take some of the incentives and uh granting opportunities that come along with those and build it into the football field lighting to create some savings mainly around a power supply that would be brought in
for the field those are gone it's dried up no longer available so they've gone back to the drawing board to prevail proposal without that included in it um so unfortunately I don't have any really good news right now but it is being worked on hasn't been forgotten i did
include in that piece of paper I asked them just to give us some kind of an outline of what they're thinking of when they talk about the lights and you'll see in the picture they're showing the power supply coming in on the red line and the four lighted posts where they're estimating those will be placed and that's what they're basing their
proposal on that's really all I have for that at this point in time working on it thank you very much all right we'll move on to the facilities report [Applause]
what do you I don't know why you're excited about this because it always cost money you know I was thinking about that when Jason said we'll end up high i'm like no we really won't every time I come here it's it's it's love to come one day and just say I
have nothing this building's great we'll get a new building hopefully all right so the high school um there are several damaged floor tiles in the cafeteria what's happening is um due to the extreme cold weather we had
that's a cement slab that's on the ground so when it got really cold that contracted and the expansion joint that's in there spread open cracked all the tiles um I did cons confirm with UEC our asbestous consultant that those
tiles are not asus they have been replaced once already so we have to go ahead to go ahead and change those out so hoping to get that done over April vacation um the baseball and softball fields that we're responsible for maintaining are in good playing
condition but that being said if you get heavy rains and the field gets soaked there's no place for the water to go and it is our responsibility to make sure that these athletes are safe last thing we want is somebody blowing out a knee or achilles heel or anything so unfortunately sometimes we do have to
call the games um track and field the shot put nets were put up and the discus nets and I know those have been up for a while but we haven't had a meeting since um all the lines have been painted for the competitions um I did ask that the high
jumps get blown off and weeded out um and that has been done to the best of my knowledge uh we did move several bleachers off of the football track we put one bleacher by the softball field one by the baseball field and one by the tennis
courts um the beginning of March we had a drain valve in the boiler room that somehow backed out don't know how that happened but it was leaking pretty severely um I was away on vacation but when I got the
phone call and the video I made the determination with Joe that we needed to get a company in here ASAP that could fix it and in the past we have used a Customs plumbing and heating and um they were able to come right out and address
the issue other companies that I spoke to wanted to shut down our heating system drain the whole system to replace that valve and it is the only way you can do it because the valves on the heating system are so rusty that you can't turn them without possibly
breaking something and in this case you couldn't even turn them at all so they were able to just back it out enough put some thread tape on it screw it back in and it stopped the leak um however I did get an update from Industrial Burner today that they will be coming out to
change the circulator pump that has I know you don't want to hear that name um they made it they are coming out to change the circulator pump um April 24th so at that time they have to drain the system down and replace two shut off valves and I'll have them replace that
one at the same time um so that's that also um one of the compressor heads we have a big compressor down there that has two heads and that compressor maintains the pneumatic systems for the heating systems in the classrooms and all that
um it's always run on one head it alternates between the two compressors so um that will be repaired by&m compressor um middle school uh we got an alarm that
triggered saying low water temperature um inside the generator there's a heater block for which is required for diesel engines it keeps the water warm so extreme cold temperatures diesel starts up and runs um seeing how we don't have extreme cold temperatures right now it's
not an issue generator is functioning as it should um this is something that will get ordered and I'll replace that myself it's only like a half hour job it's very simple i replaced it once already um also we had a thirdf floor restroom
sinks in the faculty bathrooms these sinks are back to back go down one drain it was clogged pretty good um head custodian actually took the sink off tried snaking it and after several attempts we were able to get that cleaned out so that was done in house which saved us some
money um same thing j JFK Maloney um had a back compressor motor that was just the electric motor that has been repaired that's up and running during the week of February vacation the 28th 24th through the 28th
complex experienced two power outages when that happened the boiler stayed running but for whatever reason they were drawing a lot of electricity and these are fairly new boilers that shouldn't be happening so I did confirm with FM generator they're going to come
out um I believe this the 24th as well and do what they call a load test they'll start the generator up shut the building down and just run on emergency power and that'll tell us what it runs for one thing and if there is adequate power or
if there's an issue so that'll be done April vacation as well uh Nova Elementary School last Saturday uh I received a phone call around 10:00 a.m that there was an alarm coming from the generator and that turned out to be a low water level alarm
um I was able to silence it and just take care of it the following day and BMR charger time small engine repairs i was lucky enough to be uh get nominated to teach this class [Laughter]
scott that is a lovely way of saying that but I will tell you I enjoy it i I think I missed my calling i I should have what you're doing i shouldn't have went into teaching but I should have stuck with automotive no just kidding um no it's been a blast i
mean small class which is good it gives us enough time to to really work you know one-on-one hands-on hands and each one had a machine to do um what we did was we gathered up all 10 snow blows from the district brought them to the high school and I taught them how to
drain the oil refill it to the correct capacity check double check make sure the oil levels right because you don't want to blow an engine up um greased all the fittings located showed them how to locate all the fittings how to grease them uh check the
internal belts for wear and tear we haven't gotten to that yet but I'm hoping to do that tomorrow it's just a matter of tipping the snowblower upside down taking the covers off showing them where the belts are and it's a blast um and then add the fuse stabilizer to the gasoline to make sure the gas is good
the carburetor stays fresh and it's ready to run next winter when we need them not that we're going to need them but if we need them then I would have also like I'm going to pull a spark plug out and show them how to read a spark plug because if you take a spark plug and look at it it can tell
you so much just by the color the uh carbon that's built up on it if it's running rich running weak uh lean um so stuff I'd like to teach him uh unfortunately this stuff isn't taught anymore
i love it i love that Joe is doing it with you too yeah so I want to mention that too um in addition to myself I pulled in Joe Mali he just has such like a great relationship with so many of the students in that building but he does he really does i I He knows every student
it's unbelievable awesome what viscosity motor oil are you using on snowblower oil changes 30 weight HD okay 5w30 in the winter dan do we need
to put you with Scott charger time there isn't much difference between 5W30 and 30 30 weights in the summer when it's heavier it's either from Okay moving on right next I'll be your next class okay before we let you go back to
the track yep uh the boards on the runways for the jumps they need to be replaced oh okay you pull one out and just maybe measure it and you can put it back in so they not difficult no I'm sure you got the
I'm sure just got to get the right thickness yep it's just plywood plywood and a like a pine frame or something yeah okay thank you noted i was just giving you a hard time in the motor oil
so yeah i'm familiar with where all those snow throws came from yes you are remember a time you don't give me a hard time it does but no I really enjoyed the class it flew by i can't believe you know in just
a half an hour it's two and a half hours 10 snowblowers that's Oh we can get you more to change oil i said we can get you more if you want to do oil changes i need a weed whacker fixed small yeah small repair small engine
repair there we go we can have a class on just stringing a weed whacker i think we all can use that i know i've done mine hundreds of times teaching them to start i can never get the thing to come out of the other thing if that makes any sense you know you put the screwdriver in you
try to pop it technical the technical term the thing into the other thing with the screwdriver out with the screwdriver with a flaad screwdriver yeah something like that got it thank you Scott thank you i really appreciate you doing that thank
you a blast thank you for that yep you're welcome addition for the kids for sure facilities use requests few of them one recently added right from the parks and arts yes that was uh in should have been in front of
you uh and that's your seat this evening there are three dance performance and the school the dance step of greater oxbridge the uh PTO and then the pox and
wreck as a backup in case there's a rain issue for the Easter egg hunt the egg hunt make a motion to approve all three requests as presented motion made by uh Tara Lockin second second by Jane any
further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I i any opposed the eyes have it and surplus items IT department yes there's a list of uh items um Chromebook
shells keyboards four monitors uh 20 mice three computer shells and three broken printers the IT department to get rid of I said we have mice oh that we got rid of you said yes did those mice escape from the snow
from the cat and rat display that wasn't getting away without something scott did you release mice from the snowblowers you haven't checked the belt yet that's where you're going to find them make a motion thank you it second motion
made by someone and seconded by someone tara all right tara S or L or both yeah tara L made the motion seconded by Carrie all those in favor signify by
saying I any oppose the eyes have it so um Mr superintendent we going into the executive session yes so we're going to do school committee forum and then we're going to go be going into executive session i would not be coming back in
front of the camera to adjourn so uh school committee forum uh anyone yes Tara um I would like to address the students who came tonight um their concerns about the cell phone policy um
I did see that there was a policy subcommittee tomorrow it looks like that's on the agenda i don't remember it coming to us at all to this group right we didn't hear anything about that it's not a policy it's a pilot it's now it's a pilot right so it's a pilot um do we know like where did it come
from like was it just like a policy someone thought of it or what did staff or administration ask for it yeah do do you want to touch on that matter or go yeah so this was pretty much born out of the recent events that we've had
um stemming from cell phone usage and we're just trying to look for a way to maybe curb that you know and hearing from the educators and the admin uh in the buildings um they're all seems to be at their wits end with the cell phone
usage and there's a lot of from their point of view is there's a lot of um different tactics taken by the teachers some teachers have it under control some teachers don't we're looking at this from a perspective of trying to support the teachers in any
way so we are just really looking at this uh we sat with the principles of the uh buildings and you know it was thought of to use this locker as a as a pilot um so it really just kind of was born
out of that did I miss recent events i don't know what the lock the the threat made to the school was okay use those as the correct okay yeah um the other there's no way sorry I
mean no way ever to stop all of it you know but we but I would like to correct a couple things that they said um I know that they said that in college there nobody removes their phone and that is not correct i sat in on a class at an Ivy League institution and all of the
students put their phones into lockers when they walked into the to the classroom there are multiple discussions on multiple higher education sites about that there's a new not not new but relatively new novel about an anxious generation and um and the phone use and
the you have read I have yeah read and and I would challenge those four students and actually any other students to to read that because it just really is significant the other point that they made was that you know in the workplace people have their phones and that's not a correct statement either there are
lots of work places that have priority where you you put your phone in your locker before you enter or or where you are automatically dismissed you know because of the you know nature of what their business is or whatever and what they were saying about that is like you
as an an adult or responsible person maybe you know they're not adults yet like you know the repercussion you use it you're in trouble you don't That's what I took away from that yeah but but I guess I'm just saying if you're going to make a point make a point with correct data and information um because
I think the world is changing the way it looks at cell phones higher education is work workplaces are um even families are um and I don't know what the policy or the
pilot is and I think it's important that as a school committee if it becomes a policy we have input into that we always have had in the past um but I also think the students it's a great learning opportunity to really see what the studies are out there and and not just
their own reflection of I want my phone i don't think the students necessarily were saying that they want their phone it's more that it that there was no repercussions done we didn't do the if your phone is out it's being taken if your phone is out twice it's you know
now it's being stored in the office it went from your own personal responsibility to it is entirely being locked up and following on the heels of the disaster experiment with the yonder pouches i mean that I don't even
know how long that lasted at the middle school to now be and that was done through grant money now we're looking at something that will be done I'm assuming with our budget money so much like the yonder pouches we talked about that i mean that was the first thing that I
brought up too because again I'm not sold on any of this we It's the process the process is you try things if they don't work they don't work and you you take an honest approach to it i appreciate the process got mixed up when the word policy got thrown out i so I
appreciate the the students coming tonight and I agree with a lot of the things that they said because this isn't a this isn't a you know policy says and it the policy committee says and it's done we know that it's going to come to the larger committee anyway and we're just trying to figure something out we're hearing the feedback from the
educators from the admin we're trying to just you know we haven't and this was really just myself and um you know Jason having a meeting we haven't this hasn't even been sused out with the policy subcommittee either so this is not a policy it's not even to that point
though it was introduced to the students as a policy it was emailed to the families as a policy it was specifically said to the students as a school committee policy make a piece on that policy means something to us it really doesn't mean anything to anybody out
there they call everything a policy they literally everything is a policy i'm constantly correcting people like that is not a policy that's a procedure that is not a policy this is a pilot that's not a policy that's a rule you know in the handbook the school committee policy
means something very specific to this governing board and it should but your average kind of Joe Jane no offense Jane on the street it it doesn't it doesn't mean the same thing to them everything's a policy and it's not we know that I
just wanted to and I think it was it was corrected that it should not have gone out as you know sold as a policy cuz it's not it's not that at all we all know that we're we're all here on the same committee we haven't voted for it on it you know so we should all understand that um and that's just not
how the process works as we all understand can I ask a question as to how the staff were chosen that were running the pilot because I know they were asked if they were staff that were interested and so some of them do the um the challenge we have is some uh it's a
bit of the wild west some staff do nothing and then some staff enforce the school rules some staff don't with cell phones because they don't want to get into it with the kid student and some staff bought the little slips so some staff use the slips you come in my room
you put your phone in the little like the little shoe slip thing um and so you know the idea came from that kind of you know what could we get that would kind of replicate that um and could you know at least test it out in a few classrooms and see how it works the staff
volunteered so from what I understand the administration at the high school asked you know staff who would be interested on that and five came forward and volunteered so some teachers were already using a slip in their classroom yep they weren't the little cases but it was
like you know like the shoe rack thing that you put them in so yeah so when you when you walked in the and you can see them you'll see them hanging in the classrooms uh and it just was a total lack of consistency which was another issue uh study hall too i would challenge uh I don't think that's what
study hall is used for it wouldn't count on time on learning either just FYI uh if you walk by a study hall you will see every student in that study hall just scrolling through their phone it is a epic waste of time and so I would challenge and push back on that too that is not that is not them time that's
actually student learning time that counts towards our hours of time on learning if reviewed we would not have that qualify for t time on learning i don't think kids need that 4550 minute break to scroll on their phones like I just it's an epic waste of time
i I just want to clarify one thing it's not the policy committee meeting with that group of faculty though erin and I are in the policy committee we're not meeting with those faculty it's you and Matt that's all I want to clarify
with the I was looking up some I was looking up something with my phone but for the purpose of something else um okay i think everybody got my response to the parent did Did I do that right okay yes so so simple yeah okay um
I have other question i'm not sure if I'm getting the BMR SDSC emails i don't know if they're getting they're getting to me but that okay for another but so the um so this came I think to a
surprise from us over the weekend right did I someone brought it up to me over the weekend or maybe Monday on I think you addressed it in your Yeah was it Friday it was weekend yep thursday or Friday i think Terry Well if you sent it an email then I it brought to me over
the weekend then so um yes um it was Thursday so this but this is a pilot in five classes and [Music] um and so there's some miscommunication on a policy but there is there is no
policy approved by the by the school committee but the administration can implement these pilots so I mean I you you kind of emailed us saying you know I it went out ahead of the school committee but Yes yeah
um sorry dude and and and this is a pilot to see what what the effects would be and immediately we're having effects and and I think the the girls did a great job tonight and you know they did a phenomenal job i did
there there were a couple things that I didn't fully agree with but the overall presentation and um was professional commitment to to their their argument was was phenomenal you know and and um but it's like I responded back to that
parent it's just a pilot we are going to take that data like we do every with everything else it'll go to the subcommittee it'll end up coming you know you guys will consider what to present maybe nothing maybe everything to the school committee for its
consideration and we'll we'll make a determination there but we are getting feedback immediately on this and and uh that's a good thing i just think definitely was an issue last year with parents with the yonder with the middle school kids so I can imagine high school is probably going to
be a bigger deal if this I don't think there's disagreement among anyone in this district that the yonder pouches were were an absolute but I feel like the kids are going to do the same thing they're going to throw an old phone in that box and keep their real phone like we're going to end up there's a million thing there's a million things that anybody can do i mean you know back when
we were going to school you couldn't chew gum either and you know you used to stick it to the roof of your mouth there was ways that you got to way around the rules at all times so you know newer tables there's no gum if if we can't recognize that having cell phones is a distraction we know this i mean on every
level and every facet of life cell phones are a distraction they really are so you know and to the students points very well taken that it is not it is an equity versus equality thing and you know it's you know the end you know we
don't punish everybody for for the few i completely agree with that but we also can't leave the few behind that can't control themselves because we have an we have an obligation as a school district to make sure that everyone succeeds so we have to we have to look at every every option and on the safety side and
this is where you know we talked about this just a few minutes ago you know it doesn't relate directly but I mean there the problem was a cell phone being used in relation to the school which drew the school as a target and we
have to recognize that we have to recognize that that's that's a that's a truth so how do not saying that that's what you know that it's the larger body of students but I if that's a a symptom of the you know of the disease then we we have to fix it I don't think that's
going to help that kind of fully because if they can do that after school absolutely they can do they can I mean it can happen yeah there's then there's no stopping anyone from using any cell phones for video or anything on public grounds anyway so I mean we can't
stop it completely Um but we can we you know if we can figure out a way to to make it better the other challenge that may come uh down is um to every school district is the attorney general attorney general's bill that was filed to ban them like straight out ban cell
phones K to 12 they're a no-go no cell phones so this whole discussion may end up being um you know kind of a moot point if that law if that bill passes yeah i think part of what irritated the students that presented tonight though
was when it was presented to them in one of their classes it was "Oh we know you guys won't have a problem with this you're you're the good kids you won't have a problem with this just put your phone in the box it'll be fine." And to your point there are ways around it the kids who can put their phone away during
the class period are the kids who will just follow the rules and stick it in the box the kid who can't control that urge is the kid who's going to throw an old phone in the box and still have their phone in their pocket so I think a piece of what they wanted to get across was
that why are we not working on consequence policy as opposed to the everyone stick it in a box approach the turning off before class starts doesn't work that's what they're supposed to do then they don't do that
no and then what are the consequences for not doing it you do they're taken and you if you go to Linda see Linda Salom's office we enforce that if the kids keep doing it but go look at Linda's desk it's covered in cell phon and it and it's a it's a it's not an
issue to to BMR it's not an issue to BMR it's an issue countrywide statewide and hence the attorney general saying they just need to not be in the schools period and and even then the kid's going to find a way to have it in their you
know the shoe phone whatever the case may be but the plain fact of the matter is we not only have to look at a student's perspective we have to look at the teacher in the room perspective it has gotten out of control you know no I
don't have my phone but I've got my earbuds you know the hidden ones that are in the ear and I'm listening to something that's you know put away in my backpack or thrown in the box but still turned on you know I it's just if if the mission of the institution is
learning yes we have to learn how to control and how to follow guidelines and have consequences for not doing that but we have to make sure we have an environment where the education material gets across and it's not getting across to somebody watching a movie while
you're trying you know while they're supposed to be doing their group think and and and doing their their group projects and their you know interaction it's not just a a student perspective it's a teacher perspective it's a learning perspective it's an outcomes
perspective we just looked at you know what are our outcomes how are we doing well part of the outcomes are impacted by the people who aren't following the rules or are are lost on their cell phones so you're right the the higher level kids who who know how to manage
and know how to use it as an educational tool are usually the ones who are most impacted by a a policy but all means all and it's our mission to educate the students not to get them to watch a
video or chat with their friends or or be scrolling so the policy subcommittee has a meeting tomorrow anyhow okay so you guys can come back to us with
that atara do you have anything else to add for good and welfare i do all right now let's go to the mom the parent who came about sports um her issues are valid someone breaking in scott's
probably finished scott's probably found another snowblown yeah he's next project um the town field is and the the wetness how do you control that we don't have a
doa stadium yeah I I I don't think Well yeah the town's usually very good at taking care of our fields i think her point was that the town didn't even know there were games scheduled oh and then she just uh uh Don it's u Darlene darene
she needs a little more time to get things under control yeah and that's what I she seemed to be saying asking like how can we help support her more so I know when we talked earlier in this spring season you did say that you're trying to give her more support yes um
the multiple schedules there still are some ongoing issues that Is it okay to can I Oh please address some of the concerns cuz I so I spoke um that I don't know if the email went to the school committee or if the mother the parent So the parent called the high
school the one that came this evening um and uh asked um the admin assistant of the high school will you please give me all of the school committee email addresses and you know Linda said um you know hang on a minute look so she called over to my office and said "I think
there might be an issue." Is that I don't know it's a little loud over there oh Joe's check joe's checking on the Yeah did everybody get that email that Jason's referring to i did okay okay it did come to the school committee maybe you're not on the I'm not on the school committee okay i don't think I am either
it doesn't show on the breakdown um I had a conversation with the parent and asked her and she shared her concerns from the email jackie forwarded the email to me so I had a copy of it so I could talk to her about all the specific concerns um and then
um had shared with her of course you know by all means you know you know please feel free to come to school committee night and share your concerns with the school committee um is okay it's our director of facilities banging a door trying to get it to lock properly oh okay good um I asked her how the
discussion went with the athletic director um she had said the athletic director's got a lot going on right now um and to which I I you know affirmed and said yeah she's very busy you know did were you able to share these concerns with our athletic director with the administration at the high school um
I didn't get an answer to that question so my assume my assumption was no that there wasn't an discussion with her maybe there was um but I didn't get a direct response to that which is okay um so I did discuss the concerns with the athletic director so uh I will just
share with you um what she shared with me um regarding the parents concerns uh the uh varsity coach had offered to move the LC screen down for pitching and just hasn't gotten around to it yet which is fine that's okay it's not his responsibility so Scott's actually going to take care of that i know that was one
issue that was brought up um the scheduling piece that was mentioned um Arbiter automatically syncs with SportsU uh so those both will match um but what Darlene shared was when a game is canceled because of weather or the field
was frozen which was the case uh before they update on the website she tries to rebook the makeup game and so sometimes it takes her and the ad she said upwards till you know 2 3:00 in the afternoon of that given day to try to update so she said they're not going to match
immediately arbiter and Sports You will say it right away when the game's taken off or the meet's canceled whatever i guess it updates immediately but our website won't match that so we just have to make some decisions if we want to keep using those you know ven those different venues or not um she shared
for JV um that JV teams only received the jersey tops that is what they have had for uniforms over the past few years um so you know she said she's happy to do something different she just wasn't aware of that do we still rotate purchasing of
uniforms kind of sort of kind of when they aren't lost and have to be bought and then found the it's just being different it's not her fault schedule of Right that's Yeah a beautifulation forms literally so those are just some of the concerns that
So Scott's taking care of the LC screen um Oh and on the scheduling issue this this was an important one um so Scott and Adam from the Blackstone do the field lining together and so she thought Scott was giving the schedule to Adam
because they line the fields so she didn't realize that she was supposed to give Adam the schedule uh so she did she gave it to him and she's like "Well now I know i just thought because they were lining the fields that Scott had given the schedule." Scott get her schedule she They meet every week scott Joe and
Darene which one does Scott follow i'm sorry i'm wondering which Yeah because some because the schedule's like the one on the district is different from like you said for your points that you said to Arbiter so which one does Scott get he follows a SK so she Darlene updates
that schedule sometimes daily depending on the weather you know if games get cancelled she updates Joe and Scott and uh the high school administration when there are changes so Scott works off of what Darlene tells him the schedule's going to be that way printed schedule
right not he's not looking at a website no no no yeah no cuz Scott would maintain the ball fields at the high school I imagine and and then and then him and Adam work together to do the Yeah pretty much does the Yeah adam will prep the field i think Scott does the
lining with Yeah yeah so she just thought that Scott had given Adam the schedule that's all and that schedule is going to keep changing because we're going to get rain and I don't know we had sleep the other day when I got off the highway coming up here so I mean we're going to keep getting weather
events so that's going to keep shifting um so the uniforms the bottoms for JVS they just don't they just wear their own baseball pants and that's been the case for several years with my experience with my kids um varsity has
pants but not the right sizes another issue not really a anything we can control every kids every year they're going to be different sizes so you get what you get i would think it's probably easier when you supply your own pants at that point than especially pants a jersey you can
make work one of the players actually decided not to play so Will is now out of a men's large and he's in a men's medium he's in eighth grade it's a very big pants just kind of funny you can't take them in for He cinched them up he He made them work you can't do anything to
them because they have to be returned i can't do no custom tailoring um what was the other some updates on that yeah I guess just um as of this
afternoon the the website still didn't match towards you so um but that was just the varsity baseball and that was the only reason why I was asking what Scott gets i didn't realize she meets with him weekly but if he's looking at that it might not match that he actually meets twice a week i meet with the all
of them on Thursdays scott does usually meet on Mondays also just him and um and Darlene and we have Darlene is on our central office leadership team so every Monday our core team Joe Jill myself Mary Scott Darlene we meet every Monday
morning at 8:30 like you know clockwork and we run through our priorities for the week we cross you know kind of cross check with each other to make sure the right hand knows what the left hand's doing it's it's a really structured um meeting dan Saltzman our tech consultant's also there so we have the
entire team around the table doesn't the um so our school uh schedule doesn't it's not linked to arbiter so Abiter and what is it what you call it abiter is linked to sports those are
linked together so why don't we eliminate the one that's causing the problem let's open it down cuz it may be the most accurate no oh and that's the say it's those are on a daily she she's changing those and you're you know it's
just not getting updated quick enough on aer which you there's you can't make it any faster there's no control yep again why the kids use their phones in schools they check their sports schedule for the day they actually get a
notification well they might not we see it as parents so I'm sure it goes to their phone too because they have to download Sports U but they actually got a notification during the school hours that the JV coach was informed that the game was not was am I saying it right
not away and it was home or vice versa change of venue yeah it was back it was at home it was not at midmon yes yes so that notification gets to the sports app during the school day it's probably from aer it's because it
was a message from the coach saying he was just notified from the I'm not the familiar with it familiar with aer but not the sports you and I'm just I my email went to my
junk junk so my BMRSDC email so I mean in the uh in the um I never in the email Tara just pointed out to me access to the restrooms at Roosevelt so um now that they have the schedule they can do it
yeah and and so and and I'm sure Scott knows this but Celeste is very responsive as well so like whatever you guys need on these things um but I think now that it's all um yeah there has to be a a line of
communications with the town and the district and and I think this exercise is cleaning that line up and I think darling getting familiar with the offdist sites now um assuming that Scott was making that that communication so I
can assure you so the pox and racks and blacks on in the last two days with my communications have been very responsive to you know to um help out the district and I even saw the superintendent there this afternoon hanging around the town hall
carrying the baseball carrying a duffel bags and baseball i may or may not have taken a picture of that oh god and he stopped me from responding to a Facebook post regarding the override in Milville so I may have you may have saved me some political points there too
as well see the face was missing and I just had one more i don't know jason have you heard anything about the school lunches with the whole um federal stuff like will we that continue next year as of now yeah all systems go for
now um for the universal free that's state law but I didn't know if it would impact trickle down yet there'll be no impact whatsoever the budget the state budget picks up the difference of what the
federal budget doesn't pay for well well the state budget the taxpayers pay for those lunches in Massachusetts yeah they're reimbursed the It's a reimbursement man so we that's a law in Massachusetts the legislature would have to go back and repeal that law i thought
it passes a law some yeah and so in 2023 I think the summer of 23 so there is no way the legislature no matter what happens and the federal government is going to say "We changed our mind and we're not giving kids lunch." But the budget line is the difference between what the federal government does not cover what it costs is that's all I was
trying to say yeah oh yeah no I'm I'm I'm agreeing i think it was 3.4 million uh for the entirety of the state on on the federal contribution so that would challenge that was going to school children to
begin with so anyhow moving on getting back to the uh the other thing though we had discussions on on on and knowing that uh Darlene had her hands full coming into this year we do have survey do we
we we do we have surveys we you know after was it mentioned after the seasons and have we gotten any results from those on on on the two seasons we do player parent surveys
on the season okay so we did the spring uh fall and winter seasons we should have results from those surveys it's Yeah it started with winter i I'm not sure where the survey we did fall ones too we did okay so that's just par is
parents and students not coaches nope there's no Okay can whatever tools we can give her for feedback or whatever I am all in favor of it and any support that we can give her um it's a learning curve just coming
into the district never mind the nuances of Blackstone and Milville mhm and then now the the parks the facilities in Blackstone and and and Blackstone owned and Blackstone and District owned so even as far as the uniforms I mean I
went in and saw what I thought was one storage space of uniforms and then discovered that there literally there were pieces of uniforms shoved in numerous spots all throughout BMR
like there was nothing that made sense and it might be like three softball jerseys over here but six softball jerseys were in a different closet and then there were three pairs of baseball pants like there was no rhyme or reason to any of it so yeah so that's not on
Darlene like that's what she came into so So hopefully though I know she has said that there's like that's she's got like bins that she's trying to now track the seasons in so hopefully that won't be an issue in the future that it's there are no retro uniforms available
that you cleaned out all these now we'll be able to go in and see we may not have to sell them we can reuse them they're back in style they will be oh boy uh uh Tara Lockan do you have anything to add for your good welfare that's my
three for today for the whole last year my promising future i want to circle back to the surveys we're going to we're going to move on to now Tara Scoby's going off no we we do get feed the she did implement the surveys for parents
and players and they are anonymous maybe we do get a coach one maybe we that way they can give some input on what the district they think can improve or offer support yeah yeah
all right well we can if that needs to be an agenda item i don't know i can I can ask her to put one together okay um and thank her for being here this evening too by the way yeah yeah I did see her yeah i think people should know
that she was here if there were any she's working very hard yeah very very hard um okay is anything to add to that chuck you might as well throw in something nothing you already got I figured you'd
top it off chuck's easy he just wants a couple pieces of plywood uh Matt all set anything to add over uh Carrie or or Jane just happy to be back i'm we're happy to have you back h nice to see
your smiling face back on the school committee thank you very much looking forward to it okay hey I'd like to thank the student representative the student presenters this evening both um in in in good in in
um I always say public forum as well as uh with the uh principal of of the um high school and Miss Rober is it yes um and the town of Milville's success with the acquiring that grant our
auditors uh for giving us a clean bill of health uh you um Mr superintendent and and Jill for your lovely uh presentation this evening and um the engagement with
everybody and um I look forward to a good productive positive year congratulations Carrie and Jane and I also would like to thank uh Lindsay for putting her name in there and running a campaign uh in the interest of the district
um uh thank her for her efforts and bringing attention to the school district um and the all the good things that we do so with that said we are not going to adjourn here we're going to go into executive session and we'll we're not coming back to TV we will adjourn
coming out of executive session it's now when we tell Tara that she was Yeah I left her a note when she came in i got a note passed so I wish I came with a notebook but Oh no you don't it's recorded all right so we'll move into the we roll
call oh yes all right well the secretary interrupted me when I was on a motion so I'll take a motion to uh um go into executive session with the to discuss the strategy respect respect to collective bargaining and not to reconvene over to the session motion
made by Matt second seconded by Chuck i'll do a roll call jane I kerry yes tara yes Matt yes Chuck yes Tara yes Dan is a yes