One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. >> This meeting is being live streamed by Chelson Tele media and posted to the CPS website for interested community members to access and watch. Inerson public participation will take place tonight in
accordance with the Chelson School Committee public participation policy. Anyone speaking tonight during the public input portion of this meeting is notify the superintendent's office of the desire to speak and be proided with these guidelines. Upon request, written comments received no later than 12 p.m. on the day of the meeting will also be read, made part of the record at the
second public comment session. So, welcome this meeting until school committee. Our first order of business is to approve our minutes from our meetings on October 21st and November 3rd. >> Okay. I move that we approve the minutes of the regular school committee meeting of October 21, 2025. Second.
>> Second. Okay. Any corrections, comments, questions? All right. All those in favor? >> I. >> I move that we approve the minutes of the regular school committee meeting of November 3rd, 2025. >> Second. >> Okay. Any questions, comments? That was the workshop we did on AI.
>> Okay. All those in favor? >> I. Right. 5-0 on both. Okay. Next up, we'll hear from our Chelsea High School student representatives. >> All right. So, a lot is going on in the building as on Thursday we're going to start spirit week. Uh the first uh spirit day is going to be color wars. Uh
my grade has orange, so I got to find something orange. Um and then it's jersey day on Friday. That'll be very easy for me. Hat day on Monday, pajama day on Tuesday, and just school spirit day on Wednesday. Alongside these spirit events are are multiple other events
that go along with the dates of spirit week. them being the jelly bean counting contest from Thursday to Tuesday at lunchtime, a non-p perishable and winter clothing food drive ran by um NE anyhs. Uh karaoke during lunch on Friday and a
powderpuff game in the stadium on Monday at 7:30 to 8:30. Uh the pep rallies on Wednesday and following that the football team is going to destroy Billa in Rka on Wednesday on I'm sorry on Thursday they're going to destroy >> no legal way within the rules.
Um to continue off Patrick, uh the craft fair was last Sunday. It was a great success for everyone in the chunker community. It was uh held by the class of 2026 and I talked to Miss Sullivan who was the class adviser and she helped orchestrate the event. She was very happy with the results and I thought it
was pretty fun as well. Uh the CHS theater is performing their musical. uh this Thursday to Saturday. And the times for the shows are all at 7:00 p.m. But on Saturday, they rehearse twice. Once at 2:00 p.m. and then at 7:00 p.m. And then to end it, uh the homecoming dance
is next week, November 25th. >> Great. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. Anybody else have any good news to share? >> Just more of a public service announcement. Tomorrow is a half day for elementary and middle only. Sorry guys. Got to go to school tomorrow. Full day for the high school. So just keep that
in mind that the students will be coming home for teacher conferences. So see a lot of traffic at noon time. You guys need to stay in school. >> Yeah, >> I'll come visit. >> All right. >> All right. Any other good news people want to share? I'll just share on behalf of all of us
that the listening public knows that um last week um we all went to the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent annual conference where we were able to do a lot of networking and attend quite
a few really informative sessions that helps us in the work that we do. So it was good that we all able to attend get something out of that. >> Great. and where we learned that healthy conflict is very important to move things forward. >> Oh man, I agree.
>> Keynote speaker, right? >> Great. >> That was good. >> All right. Anybody else have anything? >> I just had one. I I received an email from uh Allori McCarron who used to be very active and Chelsea in the CPAC. Um she's now very active at the state level. She was just letting me know that
November was officially designated as CPAC awareness month by the governor earlier this month and that the color of CPAC awareness continues to be yellow. >> Absolutely. Okay. November is CPAC month. >> All right. Uh I don't believe we have any public comment registered so we can
move on to new business. >> We don't. Uh thanks Dennis. Certainly. Uh first up uh this evening is a spotlight on one of our departments. So I'd like to welcome up Abby Dick. Um, Abby is the top coordinator for English language arts in grades uh 5 through 12.
So, Abby, welcome aboard. >> Thank you. >> Hi. It's good to see everybody. >> Hi, Abby. >> So, um, I am here representing grades 5 through 12, which means I spend my time at Parker, McCarthy, and CHS. At Parker,
we have 17 teachers who teach ELA and social science. Um, we have an extra fifth grade teacher this year, so that's why they're 17 instead of 16. At McCarthy, we have eight teachers and at CHS we have 13.4. And that is because we have one teacher who teaches two
Englishes and three social science classes. And I always like to include the standards because I think when people look back on English, they think you read some novels, you talk about it, but there are a lot of critical skills that the teachers are responsible for teaching every year. And it's really
important that students make growth over that time. So speaking listening language, there's a lot. So one thing that we always do is have throughout the year regular data meetings to track student growth to find out who's falling behind and needs some
additional support. Um who's on grade level and who is ready for enrichment that they're performing beyond grade level. So we get that information from DESIE, from the I Ready, and from EXL, which we use at the high school level.
And something that's been coming up for the past 5 years or so since the MCCAST transition from short answer questions to longer essays is that we have a couple of concerns that students are struggling to show what they know in
their writing. Um, so students both in testing situations and in class when asked to write an essay are writing one or two paragraphs instead of four or five paragraphs. Um, they're struggling to generate new ideas to help compel
them to write those extra paragraphs. Um, so that is something that teachers have been noticing. And from the teacher point of view, we really struggle with consistency when teaching writing. So, um, when students move from fourth grade to fifth grade, the fifth grade teachers
think, I have to start all over. I got to teach them my system of ways to do reading and writing. And then they move to sixth grade and the sixth grade teachers think, well, I have my own system, so I need to take the time to teach them that. So, we all recognize from K8 and beyond that we have some
consistency issues from from grade to grade. So, this is the year that we really wanted to focus on idea development. So the MCCAST rubric has a top and a bottom. The bottom is spelling
um grammar usage mechanics. Our students traditionally do really well on that part of the rubric. What they struggle with is the top part of the rubric which is idea and topic development. So, they struggle with this because it's the hardest thing to teach and it's the
hardest thing to learn because you have to be able to integrate what you've read into a well-developed essay. So, idea development is comprised of having a thesis statement, having evidence and details from the text. This was a big
shift in our standards too that we moved from isolated writing passages to you have to read something and then respond to that thing that you just read. So, they need to pull evidence from the text. Organization, knowing that you have an intro and a conclusion and body
paragraphs. Um, expression of ideas or elaboration and awareness of task. So, students have to be able to write all sorts of different writing pieces in response to a type of task, informational, narrative, they have to write stories.
So students need to be aware of what the question is asking them to write about and how they should go about setting up that essay. So Kelly Rogers and I have partnered with this group that um we investigated called Think SRSD.
And SRSD stands for self-regulated strategy development. and it is an organization that is based on previous research into the science of writing and evidence-based writing practices.
And uh the hallmarks of it are consistent acronyms starting in kindergarten and moving all the way up. So um right now we have a bunch of different strategies for teaching writing. This really aligns those by using the same types of protocols.
It also features a shared system of the protocols and strategies and really clear explicit instruction to support all learners because teaching writing is very um it's hard to make it concrete for the learners in front of you because
it's so abstract. So the program is really a series of very explicit lessons that help build students confidence over time. So, it starts with a preassessment, which is really asking students if they know the academic vocabulary that we're
going to be using. So, if you hand students back an essay and say, "You need more evidence, you need more details." If they're not sure exactly what you mean by evidence and details, it's hard for them to revise their writing. Then they teach power cycles, which is
the writing process, which I'll get into. The next lesson is on modeling using exemplars from previous student essays that were successful and lastly scoring the essay and goal setting for the next essay. So those the basic
premise of the program. Um what we liked about it too is that these strategies will work with any curriculum program that you buy. As long as students are reading and writing, you'll have the materials to use these strategies. So, one of the first things students do
is they read something and they determine the gist of what they just read. So, the gist is a ones sentence um summary of what happened in the passage. We like this structure in this graphic organizer because not only does it get
students to capture their comprehension of what they just read, but it also breaks it into parts of a sentence for them to put together. So the problem with the writing instruction that we've been experiencing is that one teacher's calling it the gist, one teacher's calling it the main
idea, one teacher's calling it the thesis, one teacher's calling it a summary statement. So kids are going from grade level to grade level remembering one kind of sentence structure and they're not really putting it all together. And the heart of the program is really
what they call power cycles, which is basic um the writing process that all students need to know. You need to plan what you're going to write, actually draft it, edit and revise it. The R is capital and the E is smaller because revision is seen as way more important
than editing in this particular setup, which is um revising is really hard. editing is easy, having a checklist, but this really focuses on having students reread their work and revise it. And lastly, um scoring, but not just to get
a grade, it's to also help students set goals for what they need to do better. So there's the students should be able to see their own growth over time. So there's like a a metacognitive or um a kind of reflective process for the students in this process, which is
definitely missing. sometimes they just get the grade, move on to the next thing. This reinforces that um that strategy. Another big part of the program is highlighting exemplars. So students need to be able to take good pieces of
writing and highlight where is the thesis? Um where is the conclusion to this paragraph? Where did the student who wrote this get their evidence from? Um, it does involve a lot of highlighting which helps make it really concrete, the parts of an essay and the
parts of a paragraph. So, um, we're already on board and purchasing the highlighters and they're drying out and we're making sure we have all the colors that we need. And the end goal of it is the scoring um protocol which they have that's really
focused correction areas. So over time students can see um at the beginning of the year I didn't really know what to do in a conclusion and by midway through the year I'm getting better at trying out different ideas for a conclusion and by the end of the year I can clearly
identify a conclusion and say why my conclusion is good. So the scoring is both for the teachers and the students to make sure they understand where the progress has been. The title of the book um that we've been using for the program is called
Releasing Writers. And it took me a minute to try to think through like where does that title come from? And it's from the the gradual release of responsibility kind of model that the program does. So it starts with the teacher responsibility of doing it, then
guiding everyone through it, then having the students in groups working on it to them doing it independently. So slowly we're taking the really difficult task of teaching writing and moving it from the teacher responsibility to the student responsibility.
The last thing that I wanted to mention um was a few weeks ago we had our eighth grade formerly called eighth grade parent night now called prospective students night. Um and all of the coordinators we come and we talk about what our department has to offer. And
one thing that parents were really impressed by and that kept coming up was that we have so much advanced coursework in our department available for students. We have eight sections of APs um running and in those bottom four
courses we have 20 sections running where students who want DE credit can take those courses to get the credit. Um when the DE program started, we really didn't have any of that. And now the teachers have put in such an investment to getting their syllabi approved, um to
getting themselves certified to teach the courses. So it's been a real journey, but I think it's a real testament to the work that the teachers have put into building the program and that is what I had. >> Great. Anybody have any questions,
comments? Susan, >> I have a question. >> Yeah. >> Um, first question. Does Fantis and Panel go through fifth grade or is it sixth? >> Which grade does it go through? >> It goes through sixth grade. >> Okay. So, I am thrilled with the with what you're doing here with writing. I think it's necessary and it sounds like it's really got a structure for
everyone. My question was more about the texts. My understanding has been and we've had teachers here tell us that Foundus and Panel relies more on teacher read alouds. So is this writing program based on writing about what the teacher has read aloud or are the students actually reading the texts and then
doing the writing? >> So um we are in the midst now of creating some documents and resources of places where students where teachers can pull text from. So they can certainly pull from an interactive readaloud in
Fountain and Panel. Um, I would suggest that they take a portion of a story or a book that they're reading and the teachers would type it out and have it separate so the kids have it in front of them while they're working on it. But we also have um Scholastic magazines. We
have books of mentor text that we can definitely add into it. So um yeah, that was definitely a concern and >> because it's different skills. >> Totally. Yeah. >> Yes. Um, we have purchased additional
text so that students always have in front of them the text that they're working off of for these writing tasks because it would be really hard to base it just off the book that the teacher read. Um, so it's a work in progress, but we know we have plenty of resources,
places to find texts. Um, the next hurdle for us will be finding exemplars of good student work. So teachers are encouraged this year to pull the best essays from every assignment they do and so we can um collate those and make sure that we have them available to teach the
writing process with those pieces. But yeah, finding texts we we have some but we're definitely getting more. >> Okay, good. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> So this is five for you. It it's 5 through 12.
What the same thing though is happening in K through 4. Same exact thing. >> Yes. >> Okay. Good. Because I am so happy to see this. I am beyond
happy because I really think the way we're going here is that writing brings it all together. If you can't write about it, you don't understand it. >> Yeah. That's how I really have always
thought of thinking. You have to not only do it in your head, you have to put it down on a piece of paper. But the problem is that we are going towards that wonderful AI thing where voice and
speaking is more and more the way to go. And I'm hoping that we as a district really make sure >> that the writing is always in there because you really can't speak well and
ask the right questions and do the right inquisitions unless you've really put it down on a piece of paper at some point. Maybe not paper, maybe on a digital screen, I don't know. >> But okay, I think so. I am so happy to
see this, Abby. Um, and I think that this is going to show great improvement and and they need it. Our students need it because once they get beyond what we're doing here, >> Mhm.
>> they have to look at the college essay is always a big big thing for all our students. >> Yeah. You've got to summarize yourself, who you are and what you want to be in a piece of paper, one page long. I mean, really, it's it's the key.
>> Yeah. >> So, I am really thrilled. I was so happy when I saw this. Um, and I can't wait to see the examples. >> Yeah. We >> just a quick followup. Excuse me. You said the students need it. The teachers needed it, too. I've heard from so many
teachers they needed something more structured. So, thank you for helping find it. >> Yeah, we um so we pulled at least two pilot teachers from grades K through 8. So, they've gone through like more extensive like two-day long kind of
training, but then every teacher in K through 8 is going to go through it. And I involved a few nth grade English teachers as well, just because we don't get the chance to collaborate that often. But my hope is by next year they're going to be some of that is going to be trickling up to the high
school. They're going to say all the kids are saying gist or they all know what a supportive piece of evidences or so I want to make sure the terminology moves up through the high school as well >> because if I remember this correctly and you guys can chip in on this but once
you get into high school it's not really a writing course. It's writing as part of your assignments. It's you've got to come up with an essay or whatever about a book you read or those type of things. So it's not about actual writing
really truly. >> Yeah. >> And so if you haven't gotten it by that point that you need a thesis statement, a conclusion, your reasoning, all of those things, it makes it very difficult to do all of your assignments. >> Yeah. And I've noticed this in my classes. is I know in uh history class
freshman year, we did the writeups and it was the exact same way of writing with this with this power setup even in the way that you highlight your thesis um your evidence, your analysis and then tying your analysis and evidence back to
the thesis and the whole way that we planned it. This is the exact same way that we write in the high school. >> That's terrific. >> Yeah. >> Okay. That you get to that level, right? Do you feel the same way? >> Yeah. I remember um like my English class last year, we did
like pretty much the same thing with the highlighting and everything and I think it's great >> to get there and already know it is fantastic, right? >> So great. >> And it's really building blocks like kindergarten, grade one, there's songs
that go along with this. They're writing sentences, then to paragraphs, then by seventh and eighth grade really detailed full essays. But by high school, you're writing three, fivepage essays that aren't just by paragraph essays, but you still have to know the structure of what
an essay entails and what's required and what makes one successful. >> Yeah. And life just isn't life for a parent without some of those essays with all the phonetic spelling that you have to try to figure out yourself once they show it to you. I mean, that's
absolutely great. Okay. So, I I just am so happy to see this. >> Yeah. Great. Um, I just want to first of all echo that I I agree this is great and it sounds like it's been much needed for a while. Um and um I have an
unrelated question actually which um is from your perspective have you ever noticed since so much writing is now happening on computers are students uh typing abilities
supporting or causing challenges with their writing conceptually if that makes any sense. Like I'm just curious because I know my kids have done preuncter learning to type, but it's never felt like it was quite as systematic as when
I was younger and learning to type with home keys and things like that. And I know I hear frequently from kids in Chsford and and their parents that their challenges typing continue to cause challenges in writing fluently or
becomes a distraction. And I'm just curious if you're hearing that from teachers or seeing that or if I'm seeing anomalies. >> Yeah. Not so not really at my level. Um I think in five six there are some students who types more slowly and their
ideas um can come out. Um I do know we've experimented a lot with um voice to text like different tools that kids can use to get their ideas out more quickly. Um, I haven't heard too much about that, but I do agree that it's
definitely a concern. Um, >> it just struck me as a question mark, right? Like as we lean more into using technology for all of our work, not just the writing. >> Yeah. >> I want to make sure the skill the hard skills are keeping up with it. >> That's true. Yeah.
>> All right. Any other voice text is not allowed in MCCAST, right? >> Um, >> right. In the testing. No, it's it's not allowed. >> It might be an accommodation of like a scribe or something, >> but not in the regular. You have to type >> for sure. You have to type. Yeah.
>> Yes. So, my question would be what are we doing about teaching typing? But I know that's not at your level. Okay. >> We do teach handwriting without I mean handwriting type um keyboarding without tears. So, the students do receive that, but I think that stops at grade three or four. Don't quote me. So,
>> it was fourth grade. Yeah, fourth grade. I ended it up until fourth grade. It was like drilled into us just how to >> we we did that a lot in >> Wait, I just said keyboarding without tears. >> Keyboarding without tears. There's this other dude where goat told you how to type and stuff. >> It was it was
>> Yeah. >> Do you feel like you two have do do you both feel like you can type adequately? I'm just curious. >> Yeah. At this point, yeah, I I did have trouble in like elementary school, but as we just kept on doing all these drills, I was like, "Oh, press the J key
like 10 times and press the Q key like 10 times." I thought they were stupid at the time, but then I realized that I could not even look at my keyboard and I'm just looking at my screen and I can type words. So, I do think um at first obviously I was very slow typer, but I
think now that I'm a high schooler, I'm able to go through go through it at the pace that my brain is going. And same thing when I was in like middle school, I didn't I wasn't as fast as a typer as I am now, but my my uh thoughts and my
the complexity of what I was typing wasn't up to like a speed where I needed to be typing as fast as I am now. >> Thank you. >> That's fair. All right. All right. Any other questions? Right. Well, happy Thank you very much. Thank you for having
Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. >> Happy Thanksgiving. >> Um, second on the agenda this evening, just a couple of updates for the uh community if they're watching. Um, we are going to be hosting our second uh community visioning session on the Parker Middle School building project
this coming Thursday. So, just two nights from now. It's going to be at the Chelms Elks Lodge, uh, 300 Littleton Road beginning at 7 o'clock. So, it's open to really anyone in the community that's interested in hearing an update with regard to the, um, the Parker Middle School, uh, building project.
Again, Thursday, November 20th. Um, there was a flyer in the packet. We've been putting that out on social media. There's a little QR code on it. If you click the QR code, it brings you right to the website that talks about the project. So, we're hoping really anyone that has any interest in um hearing more about it, getting an update on where
we're at uh project-wise. The fall has been very busy. Uh November has been a very busy month and really between now and January, there's going to be a lot going on with regard to the uh to the project. So, um stay informed, feel uh feel welcome to come. Chsel media is
going to record it again. It's not uh shown live, but they record it and then it's played on a played on a loop. So, um, we can do that on Thursday again. >> I'm wondering, are these flyers of, um, able to be translated into the top
languages used in the district? Because I just want to make sure that, you know, the full diversity of our community can be represented at these forums. Um, and I everything I have seen in terms of outreach has been just in English. I
didn't know if there were I know our newsletters can be translated presuming people know how to translate them but I didn't know if these flyers were offered or even just writeups in social media were offered in other languages. >> So these flyers to my knowledge are only in English. However, we do include them
in the newsletter if parents are getting the newsletter and I do believe um the the words in the newsletter are translatable if you use the translation function within the s'more setting. I'll verify that after the meeting, but um that would be how they would be like
quickly and easily translated. But I can follow up and see uh because we do traditionally use um Spanish as the second primary language, we do traditionally um translated into that as well. >> Yeah, I was thinking the top, you know, two or three languages that aren't English. I think it would get us better
and more representative attendance if we could, you know, in social media have one or two messages go out that are that include direct translation. Um, just as a way to ensure that everyone who's going to be impacted by this has a
chance to show up while while there are still these open for. >> Yeah, let me check on the current functionality just to see like what we're we're currently doing and then we certainly can do that for um going forward. I did list the um the December meeting date on there as well. Um and the flyer in English is in the packet.
Uh that's on December 17th. That's going to be a Wednesday night instead of Thursday. We've traditionally been meeting on Thursdays. So if people uh can't make this to uh Thursday, they're welcome to put that on the calendar and join us in December as well. >> Yeah. Sorry, just to to finish my thought though, aside from the
translation to get people there, I'm thinking also it may be worth considering um if we are recruiting people in their native languages, we may want to think about how we can provide accessibility for those folks to understand what's happening and
contribute their ideas in the forums themselves. I wouldn't want to invite someone in their native language, have them show up and then feel like everything is in English if they needed that translation to engage. So that was the other half of the thought would be and it may be that we have just a
special forum in Spanish or maybe there's a third language that's similarly prominent um that would be sort of you know a targeted one that would include a translator but I just want to make sure people who aren't fluent in English
aren't limited in their ability to contribute. >> Okay. All right. Let me check um feasibility and can certainly report back. Now, I know you're not putting this on. It's it's left field day. Do you know if if the focuses of this meeting is going to be different than the last meeting,
what they're going to >> Yeah. So, it's my understanding that this meeting is going to be um kind of less interactive like the first one was. Um but this is going to be um kind of we're already at the history where we're at, but this is going to detail all the work that's occurred um this fall at the
site when it comes to current building assessments. kind of like where we're at. Again, the different options we're looking at. We're going to get a little bit level deeper into even like what's going into the code upgrade of the buildings, what would be considered part of the ad rena, what would be the new
school. Um they have had all of their different um contractors out doing even like the um assessments of the actual fields. We had to do like borings, things along those lines. So, this is going to be just a complete update with regard to like where we're at, excuse me, now. And then what's going to be
happening between now and December and then ultimately December to January is when we're going to need to hone in on trying to refine which of the three options we're really interested in exploring further because that's going to be the work from January to May. Um, so it'll be more um informational, less
interactive from the members. But um again, I think that'll also play a little bit better to the recording and just folks that are going to be watching it from home um because when we were doing the interactive exercise, it was tough for people at home to be kind of uh following what was going on. So, this
will be more presentation format um certainly question answers and things along those lines, but um more presentation format from um from the group both AA3 and left field. >> Great. Any other thoughts, questions on
the workshop? Yeah. Okay. Great. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Um, moving along, the third item on the agenda tonight is a little bit of work we're going to do on prioritizing the um, capital planning. So, in your
packet, I had included information um, with regard to uh, the town's capital planning process. Um, Dennis, and you certainly can say it, but attended the first meeting of the group um, last week. What we ended up doing is um we always put together a list of school
department projects. Every other town department's putting together their um topics that they would like to have considered. It comes forward to the capital planning group which is a um there's community members on the group. There are elected officials on the group as I mentioned like Dennis represents the school committee in it. John Souza
does a nice job of pulling it all together for the town. And um typically the town has about $6 million at this point of town funded money uh that we actually allocate towards these projects. That's outside of any kind of like bigger debt or in the budget
process. So um at the previous meeting I had given you the working list of capital projects. Some have been completed, some will be coming off and what we have prioritized over the next um three years. What I did was I broke down the projects that um I felt were like the the biggest kind of bang for
our buck at this point as far as uh need priority that fell into either the 26 projects that were deferred or that were going to be slated for fiscal 27. Uh made sure we verified uh project amounts and then um I provided the eight projects uh to you at the last meeting.
Um and then this is what's going to be going forward to the uh the group tomorrow night for further discussion and consideration. So, what we'd love to do is get a little bit of um feedback from you with regard to kind of like what's your priority um order for these so that we can present them. And if you'd like, what I could do is of the
eight projects uh that are before us, I could give you a quick little uh description of what the uh the projects are and then we could just entertain um a little bit of dialogue to kind of figure out where they should um fall. Um I'm obviously very flexible in this. I
had given some uh recommendations to get us started, but we can talk about pros and cons of what and make any adjustments we'd like. I will then take whatever our adjusted priorities are, communicate that to uh John Suza later tonight. He'll send that out to the planning committee so they have it before them tomorrow night and then
bless you. Uh when they meet, we'll um we'll review the projects with them. >> Yeah. >> So, would it be okay if I just review? >> Just to put it in perspective, too. So, see Jay said, we had the first meeting. Um, you know, we have about 6 million that we're thinking that we we can invest in capital projects. They're
about $9.8 million of requests. So, that's why it's very important for us to come up with our priority list because, you know, while we'd love to get all these done, you know, we want to make sure that the ones that we think are most important are at the top of our list and they definitely get across the the finish line. So, as we go through,
you know, we really want to make sure that, you know, whatever we think, you know, is most important that that we get that out there. So, >> great. Um, so again, in no specific order, I just have them from top to bottom. The first one is a um a
replacement rehabilitation of the parking lot um the entry area at Biome Elementary School. This includes u replacing the granite curbing, adding ADA exterior improvements um to the parking lot. So, if you recall, I think it was four years ago or five years ago
that we actually reconfigured the front loop of Bay. We added some parking spaces into the loop. That area is good. I mean, that's in very good shape, but the driveway leading in and then the loop that goes behind the school is in really poor shape. Um and again it's not
up to speed as far as ADA accessibility with the proper um like wheelchair and accessible um curb cuts. So um that's a project at Bay and it's um budgeted at about $700,000. Um the second project or the next three
are actually listed under u building safety and security upgrades. Um the first one would um be at Baym in South Row and this would be uh the second phase of the replacement of the clock intercom uh public address systems u
with an integrated ENS system and ENS stands for emergency notification system. Um this is the system that we implemented um and installed this past summer at the Harrington Elementary School. So it would be Bill Silva's group replicating that at South Row and Bay. Um this is going to be something
where again it's a very uh significant um dollar amount almost threequarters of a million dollars if we were to do this in all the different buildings. Um staffing wise it's very labor intensive to do. Um it's something that we're going to try to knock off a couple of schools each year. We just don't have
the bandwidth to be able to uh do them all at the same time. Um it makes sense to um perform South Row this summer because we're going to be doing the roof project at South Row. So the roof and the ceiling is already going to be exposed to have to run the wires. It's all intensive cabling inside the
building. Um the second school uh from a budgeting standpoint that made sense was Baym and Harrington share the same footprint building-wise. So we know the exact budget cost of Harrington because it was already out to bid. Uh so it's just very easy to replicate that number
at um at Bay because we had the Harrington number. And then in subsequent summers, we would do, you know, probably one middle school. Um, you know, we'll pick up a center along the way. But that was the recommendation for the upgraded ENS system at those schools. Um, the third series project
again under building safety and security is um an upgrade to the building intrusion system in the fire panel systems at our schools. This is very similar to some of the work we've done over the last couple of years where we've seen like elevators had to be upgraded, boilers had to be upgraded. Um
the security uh systems inside the buildings and even if you remember like sometimes when you come in for a meeting here the fire panel might be beeping uh in the in the hallway. Um it's just because some of the um fixtures are really outdated and need to be uh upgraded. So um again in fiscal 27 we
actually had over a million dollars u because we had multiple schools included in this. We realized it's unrealistic to do all the schools in one particular summer. So um the thought process on this is we actually have done uh some of the tie-ins with the doors with build
security system already. A lot of this again is cabling which is just very expensive but we already have access uh points touch points on some of the doors. So, it's not going to be as sophisticated as some of the initial quoting for the project. So, we feel the $400,000 will um get us through Bay and
Harrington. Um again, the reason Bayern was selected on this one is, excuse me, because we're going to be doing work on the ENS system over there. It made sense to have the technology group where they're already there integrate the system. And then Harrington as well because we had completed their system
last summer to just go back and be able to finish this second piece. This again would be phased. So next summer you'd be seeing a similar project at a couple of schools and it would continue the uh the summer after. But um this would again the intrusion system and the fire panel upgrades at least in those two schools.
If we determine that there's more money available after we finish those two schools, we might then be able to uh attack the next school, the third school, but we then also have a a much better budget figure after doing a couple to know what it's going to cost as we try to project out the rest of the schools in the district for future
years. Um the next project under a security upgrade is actually in partnership with the police department and this is to install u an basically a birectional antenna system um at McCarthy Middle School so that our radio communication the portable radios that they use with
the first responders works better. Um one of the issues that we have in several of our buildings is just because of the age of the buildings and the and the structures. I mean a lot of them were kind of built as bomb shelters. Um so it's very difficult to get signal through uh the buildings and um as you
know close as proximity as the police station is to McCarthy, it's still difficult sometimes to get radio connectivity within the building. So uh this would enhance the um the radio system within the building. Um it was something that was identified again in partnership with the with the police department. Um so we'd like to be able
to implement that this summer. Um the next project relates to a continuation. Again, this is going to be a consistent theme. you see over the next number of years um roof work that's needed within the within the district. So um at town meeting we actually allocated the additional money that's
going to be necessary for the McCarthy roof which is the rear of the building. Um so that will take place um this coming summer but uh we still have from the cafeteria forward um at McCarthy uh that needs to be done. Um the Harrington school was on the list to have the roof
uh replaced in the very near future. And then the big one is the high school and that high school uh roof actually has some active leaks in certain areas of the building in particular up in the front of the building in the student cafeteria. Um we have some active leaks which I'm sure you can attest to. >> We have confirmation that
>> we have confirmation. So uh so roofs certainly going to be a theme and I think if anything we've seen just the tremendous cost uh of the roof uh projects is going to be something that we have to phase over over the years. So um what this uh project would do is
actually um twofold. It allocates about a million dollars to be able to be used to make um portions of the high school roof which are actively leaking um obviously remedy those. But it also funds the um phase one assessment for the entire high school, the entire
Harrington and the remainder of McCarthy to work with a designer to actually design the specifications for those bid packages to do the formal cost estimating so that we have good hard numbers to be able to then go to a future town meeting or if we have free cash at the end of the year, work with the town manager to allocate some funds
to be able to um to put towards future roof projects. um ballpark. You know, the Harrington roof when we go to do that is going to be somewhere in the three to$4 million range. You know, the high school roof is easily going to be in the 8 to10 million range. Um the rest
of McCarthy is again probably going to be in the 5 to6 million range. These are all projects that are going to be coming due and need to be done um in the very near future. there's an outside chance that the McCarthy project it's not leaking actively leaking in the front
section that's not done um that's in the early to mid 20 years of age that may last long enough to be able to qualify for the MSBA um roof project the non-core project the accelerator repair last year they funded projects that were 29 years and older so we're kind of
creeping towards there that might be one to try to kind of keep going if we we know the high school and Harrington are both in the 20 to 21 year range. They're never going to make the 30 years before they have to be done. So, we're going to have to pay for those um you know, through town funding. But, um this would
at least be able to address the immediate needs at the high school and $100,000 will fund you know the true uh cost estimate, budget work, design work for the roof so that once they actually the funds are allocated, you can immediately go out to bid and try to have the work performed.
>> Can I ask a quick question about this? Is there uh a strategic reason for grouping together all of these different roof projects in one item here in terms of trying to get them approved because obviously it's by far the biggest ticket
item on here I think um that we are asked that we would potentially be asking for and I'm just curious if there's any chance it would need to be broken down like we can fund these but not these. So there's there's two components to this. And on the town side, they actually do have it broken down into two different pieces. There's
a $100,000 that's allocated for the assessment, the design, and the cost estimating of the three roofs. And then there's a million dollars for the very basic phase one actual repair of the high school roof, which is actively leaking,
>> right? So, um, you know, technically, if we wanted to split it out, I could certainly do that and have $100,000 for the assessment and the million dollars for the repair. I honestly don't see how we don't do both, though, because um the magnitude of the the budget that's going to be required for this. It really makes
sense to spend the $100,000 to have a a good cost estimate done, to have the design work done so that the the projects are basically ready to go to bid. And um again, we have an active leak at the high school to not allocate the million dollars is only in the long term going to be harming the building
and harming the experience of the kids and the staff that are there. So I don't see in the end how we don't and we can even talk about perhaps prioritizing that higher in the list. >> Um I don't see how we don't do that. >> Okay, one more question on that. For
these assistants, do they have a deadline? like they they expire after the design, whatever they're going to do, they're going to do an assessment of what's needed >> the roofs. >> Yes. For the roofs. Once they do that assessment, does it expire in any way?
>> They have to review it for code or anything else. >> Well, I mean, if the code were ever to change, I don't think we're going to be dealing with with that kind of work. So, this would be to actually hire um like the design firm that would likely stay on through the ultimate construction, right? So they would do the assessment
of what's happening with the roof. Uh they would actually prepare like the if we were going to go out tomorrow and try to have it done, they would prepare the bid documents and they would also have a cost estimator, take a look at what they truly feel that the the project is going to cost so that we would have a hard number to be able to fund. So then if we
get the funding for it, they would then finalize the construction documents and it would go out to bid. >> The because of the size of the projects, we'd likely have to hire a project manager like an OPM to actually oversee the work. But I anticipate this would be the designer because it would already
have been designed that would stay in for the they call construction administration phase to just see the work be done. >> So when you put something out to bid, this assessment that's been done, let's say we're putting it out to bit five years from now. Yeah, >> it's still valid.
>> The roofs are never going to get any better, right? So, I mean, >> no, not the roof. The assessment that was done, it you can still bid against it and you can still do you know what I mean? If it's going to take another four or five years for
us to get to the project itself >> and be able to have funds in the town for it, right, >> then have we wasted $100,000? >> We haven't. This is a necessary step to even just analyze, you know, and properly like document and write up and do some cings to demonstrate what you
physically currently have and then if it's a year or two years or three years before you go out to bid, you know that that roof didn't get any better in the two or three years and it's still made of the same materials. So, no, it would not be a waste of time. Um, again, I would assume that designer would stay on
for the next phase. Even if they didn't, someone would just pick up that piece of the work which was already done and then they may have to update a cost estimate if something is like two or three or four years down the line, but they have a much better basis to work from and we'd have a much stronger um kind of number that we can back up to go to
capital or to go to the town meeting if we had like extra revenue. I'd feel a lot more um solid in that ask. >> Okay. >> All right. >> It it definitely would not be wasted in any way. >> All right. Um the next project was um switch gear
rehab and I think you heard Christine Clancy talk about this. Um we upgraded the switch gear at um or we're going to be upgrading it at South Row Elementary School this coming um summer because of the rooftop project with the solar panels. Um and this is something we did
McCarthy last year um that a lot of these systems are just very very old. So, this isn't even a complete replacement of them, but it's basically just rehabbing the system that's there is properly cleaning it to maintain its life because if one of these systems ever went down, it's not like a a local
store, even regional store is stocking these kind of parts. Sometimes they have to be actually made um to fit the system. So, um the rehab basically just maintains the system a little bit longer, but the thought process would be to try to do um Chsford High School. Again, we know that's going to be a big
number. We know that whenever we do the roof at Chumpswood High School, there are solar panels on that roof. We would definitely be kind of fooling around with the electrical within the building. You wouldn't want to have the switch gear um go down because of the um the solar panel work. So, uh so that one
makes sense from facility standpoint. Um the next project is at Harrington Elementary School. We have been kind of slowly going through uh we did all the kitchen upgrades at the two middle schools and the high school. Uh but this would be replacing the kitchen floor at Harrington Elementary School with a code
compliant non-slip floor. This is in the serving area for the kids and also in the prep area for the staff. Um we had done kind of a more of a poured floor at Bay within the last year or so. It'd be to replicate that. Harrington is just next on the list to have the the floor
done. Um and then lastly, there was a project that was in the fiscal 27 category of about $600,000 to do some work at the Chelton High School. Um the student locker rooms, the boys and the girls locker rooms need kind of a redesign, a refresh um for better use.
Um the project had been budgeted for 27 again over half a million dollars. Um but there have been different kind of concepts that have been talked about uh for the allocation of the space and even the redo of the space. So, I wouldn't be comfortable going forward and even asking for the 600,000 unless we had
kind of an updated design and a a use survey done of the space so that we had a solid number and backing to be able to go to the capital planning committee with. Um, again, this is not a life safety issue. It's more of just a functionality and an upgrade issue. So, what we're asking for is $30,000 to
basically um fund again like a little assessment, a little design, and give us a true budget cost of what uh the project would entail to then come back on the capital is likely a year from now and be in consideration to have be done, but have a more solid number and an
actual um design and a schematic concept of what the space would look like after it was worked on. So, these eight projects add up to um just a little over 2.8 million um dollars. Um again, I I think these are the most uh pressing. When I went
through the the list of projects um typically, you know, of the $6 million that the town allocates to um to capital, about half typically uh funds, bless you, school projects, about half go to um town projects. Um, but it's
kind of our charge to figure out priority-wise what we might want to convey to the capital planning committee as um kind of the school committee priorities for the for the funding. >> Okay. Any questions, thoughts >> from what you've shared? To me, if we're
thinking about this in terms of priority, I'm surprised that the roofs are number five because I heard the most urgency around the roofs, particularly thinking of active leaks happening at happening at >> Chsford High School. And I'm curious if
there was a reason why that fell comparatively far down on the list. Um and why for example Biome's um parking lot and curbing and things like that felt more urgent or a higher
priority or is that right now not in any particular order? >> No. And and again that's where I'm open for kind of talking this through and um and having that conversation with you. I think when I was originally putting this together, biome has been something that I've been talking with Christine um at
DPW about and I know it's it's kind of a priority for DPW um as well just because of the kind of concerns and complaints that we get from over there. Um it's also a project that's likely if we get funding in April that we could actually because like putting a bid package
together for a parking lot is relatively easy. You know, we've done a lot of those lately. you can turn that around pretty quick and we could likely get the work done in the summer going back to the fall. So that was in my mind um you know the roof even the high school um repair if the funding gets allocated in
April it's highly unlikely we'd actually be able to um really truly do that work before next winter. So you're still talking like a year out. Um and that that's kind of what was in my mind at the time. I will say um you know typically the building safety and
security stuff always rises to the top for me and you know we definitely should have a conversation about two three and four um you know because you can easily say if it's a building safety life safety type situation maybe those go to the top um you know perhaps you know
even if it didn't get um you know performed so that we could you know demonstrate that we we do truly feel it's a priority we could allocate the high school roofs before the the parking lot. I wouldn't have a problem with that and I could certainly justify that. Um I was just thinking in my mind as I was
probably putting this together that was a little bit of the rationale of why it probably rose higher. >> One of my my thoughts um this is a public forum so I'm maybe disclosing a strategy here. But I feel like putting our biggest line item further down the
list, if we wind up being in a situation where there's pressure to limit >> how much spending, I think there'd be questions like, is this really needed at all if it's this expensive and it's this far down the list? Um, I also I mean I do understand the benefits of
all of the things you've recommended and I don't I I think you've identified the right things, the things that I would agree make sense to include as the eight recommendations, but to me it's hard to imagine.
I I understand that there would be a delay before work could be done to the high school roof, but it's hard to imagine it not being one of our very top priorities to fix a roof that is actively leaking in a high school that serves everybody in our town. >> Other questions, thoughts?
>> Um just a general question. You said the town has about $6 million total for these capital um improvement um projects. and hours being close to closer to 3
million, is that kind of what they're likely to a lot to the school department? >> You can't you can't really say because again there we have like 9.8 million worth of requests and a lot of them are continuations like HVAC at the library. They started it, they need to finish it
up. So things like that. So you know I went through the first session and it was everybody but the schools and I went out of there going those are all have merit, you know. Um so you know would it be nice if we get all 2.8 million of yeah but you know I think that's why we have to be very careful how we
prioritize in case that's what I said >> basically comes down to all right you know it's you know you know the the ramp at the McKay library or it's the you know the high school locker room type of thing. So you know um that's why I think you know I agree with the super I think we we we should definitely prioritize
the safety ones first like 2 three four >> I think for us that's one two three because everybody understands school safety and then it's a matter of whether whether we say the roof because it's leaking or the parking lot you know at at four um >> you know um so I you know I definitely
think 2 three four should become one two three um and then you know you could definitely make you know even though it's number four I I think you can make an argument if you have an actively leaking roof that that should be a priority and you know and then then we could talk about you know from there on
where we want to put things but >> just my thoughts and I've looked at it for a while. I >> I support that Dennis. I think that first of all looking at the entire list anything that has the word safety and security in it or leaky roof in it would
have made this list for me as well. So this is good. Um but I think that um one two three would be those three items. They add up to about 765,000 bucks and then move I would put the high
school thing as number four and the other one as number five >> parking lot one the parking lot. And I feel really bad saying that because I've heard a lot of things about the biome parking lot >> at the back loop especially. >> It's all right. >> It's pretty bad. I walk on it like every
night. I took my And you're still >> Stop walking on it so much. >> I know. I know. I really should. I walk my dog on that that path. But no, the back is kind of It's beat up. >> It's beat up, right? >> Yeah. >> I mean, I definitely think we should really push to hopefully get it done, but I I just feel like of the two, the high school roof feels more critical.
>> People agree the roof four on the list. >> Yeah, I agree with exactly the order you said to move the parking lot down and put the others the two three four. >> So, one, two, three, safety, safety, safety. Yes. >> Four is the roof. >> I agree. >> Five. >> Five is the parking lot.
>> Yeah, >> that's I >> And then do you want to I kind of like the order 678. I mean, those are fine. Switch gears kind of, you know, electrical system is good. And then the other two, yeah, it would be nice to be able to get the the kitchen finished off
and all that and locker room started, but I think priority wise, those those aren't >> Yeah. To me, I feel like if we can push really hard on the first five priorities, >> I I agree. Not that I think the other ones aren't also important, but if we walk away with the five being funded, I'll feel like at
least we got the ones that feel the most critical. >> Yeah. >> And I'm sure superintendent will do a good job, you know, trying to push for all of them, right? >> Just in case push comes to shove in there and all the projects we saw the other night, you can definitely make an argument that, you know, they're needed. So,
>> and these are things we've heard about. It's not like you just dumped this on us >> um recently. We know that we've been talking about talking about so we know they need to be done >> right. So does that the call the kind of orange you call column make sense then
>> safety safety safety >> roof >> roof >> parking lot >> keeping the last three >> y >> I think that's >> that's wonderful. >> Okay. >> Would we want to make a motion to um support that prioritization? >> All right. Let's see. I move that we rep
prioritize the um uh what are we calling this? the capital plan requests as discussed. >> Okay. Can I have more information for the >> I'll give you a blur. >> Oh, here I've got my notes here because that's >> So, do you want me to say what it is? Number one,
>> as long as I'm going to get it. >> I I'll email her. Okay. Little thing as discussed. >> Yeah. Second. I'm in a second now. >> I don't know what's happening, but yes, I'm seconded. >> All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Any other questions, comments,
concerns? All right. All those in favor? I >> I. >> So, we'll present this. You'll present this tomorrow night. And uh >> sometimes you just got to throw that second note in hand. Yeah. Lance. >> This is like the writing exercises. You >> what'll probably happen is tomorrow we'll we'll have the superintendent do his and then all the people on the
committee will get sort of our own list and we'll prioritize itself and and hopefully sometime in December we'll come down to the final list. So, >> thanks for doing the capital improvement. >> It's a great committee actually. John does a great job. Good people on it, you know. Yes. >> Um, and like I said, you you you see all
the things going on in town and all the needs. >> Yeah. >> I mean, and the 9.8 million is prioritized. I mean, it's not that's not all the capital needs, but it's it's the ones that came to the forefront. So, >> so can I just ask about your role is your role to look at all the projects.
>> All the projects. Yes. Not there. >> Nope. I'm a member of the capital committee. I am not as member of Yeah. I am on because I'm on the school committee, but my role is >> Your role is to look at everything. >> Yes. Yes. Not just to vote for schools. Yeah. Oh, you have to balance it out across. >> I have to balance it out. >> That makes a lot of sense. >> So, okay.
>> I trust you. Very good. >> Thank you, folks. I appreciate the conversation. >> All right. Uh personnel. Is that it? >> Yep. Uh fourth item on the agenda is the personnel report. Uh this is just the activity for the month of October. Um just a couple of new hires in the PAR
professional world. uh few resignations and um just one uh retirement became effective in October, but we had known that Diana Fredo was retiring. So um just sharing that with you. >> I did have a couple quick questions about this. Um the library teacher
listed as McCarthy Middle School. Is that the is that a split role with Parker and McCarthy? Because I know I heard that Parker had lost a librarian, too. >> Yeah. So, um, Parker has a a full-time librarian that remains, but the first two periods of the day, several of the
special teachers at McCarthy go over to Parker, just the way the schedule's configured, to work. So, this particular individual worked, um, kind of half her day at McCarthy, and she always started her day out of Parker. So, um, she did resign to take a job in a different district. So, we've, um, advertised for
a, um, replacement. I can find out for you where we're at in the process, but it's basically someone to teach at uh Parker in the morning and then they go over to McCarthy in the afternoon. >> In some ways, I'm I'm relieved to hear that because I was worried we were losing multiple librarians all at once. So, I'm glad it's one person that splits
the two schools. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Um my other question is, did we ever get an answer on whether the is there a reason or a strategy around the interventionist not being included? >> Sorry. Yeah, I as I forgot to tell you. Um I asked um Robin this. So in this
particular report, we only list um full-time people in the school district. So like the full-time admin, full-time teachers, full-time paris, any of the um kind of support roles or part-time roles have never been on the um on the personnel report. >> I wasn't sure because I didn't know if the pair professional roles technically
counted as full-time by >> Well, they're full-time employees. Yeah. >> Yeah. So that that's why they're they're on there. I apologize for not communicating that to you. Yeah, that was fun to f figure out the full-time equivalency on that negotiation. Yeah, that was interesting. >> Um, question.
>> Yeah, we kind of switched. We called it full position equivalent instead of full-time equivalent. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So, question for you on I always forget when do we get uh the list of who is going to retire?
>> So, um people in the district have to give like an intent to retire. So they've done that at this point. >> Okay. >> And then they have until sometime in January. >> Think of January. >> January to decide if they want to rescend or if they're going to retire. >> So like we're in the midst of budget
planning now. So at least I have a sense of who could retire. >> Um I still leave them as if they hadn't in the budget book. And then after January, if they actually say they're truly leaving, then I go and make the change. I take a deduction and pay and things like that. But for right now, I
at least have a sense of who's in who's told us that they're planning to retire, but they can withdraw right up through uh January. >> Okay. And I'm going to ask this question, but I'm not sure that it's part of this. It's just because of the
library um position that I see here that brought it to my my mind is we haven't gone over um position descriptions or uh roles of you know different um folks
throughout the system and I know that for example the library a person I think now does substantially different things than they did, you know, maybe three or four years ago. I don't know. I I it just would be interesting to to know
that role, the computer specialist role in the elementary school, just to see what those folks do in the system. >> Okay. >> Um the typing brought that to my mind as well because I remember when my kids were in school, it was the computer
specialists who did the uh typing thing. I don't know what's going on with that now. So just wondering where those um >> Yeah, there's definitely like a little bit more blending of um roles particularly like in the library role. A lot of it's you know kind of media related too and techreated
>> but we could maybe ask Bill when he comes in to do his because they all fall into Bill and technology. >> I could ask Bill to maybe touch upon it when he comes in. >> That would be great. So the library role falls under Bill and technology. That's interesting because reading is becoming more and more
>> uh digital. Okay. >> Yep. And the tech people do too. So he could he could really probably be the best person to talk about it. >> And he's at the end of the year. >> He's sometime in the spring. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Would that be >> wait for Bill's report on this? >> He'll be very excited to to report.
>> He loves speaking. >> Okay. >> Yeah. He's probably cursing me right now from home. >> Any other questions on the personnel? >> All right. And we have a couple of field trips. >> Yeah, we have just two field trip requests. We have the annual seventh
grade uh students from McCarthy looking to go see the performance of a Christmas Carol >> Connecticut. >> It's uh just a one-day trip, but it's over the border. And then uh we also have the um high school um band members in grades 9 to 12. Um just a day trip to
the US Coast Guard Academy, but it's in Connecticut over the border as well. So these are not overnight trips. These are just day trips, but they do cross the border. So asking for your permission to approve those field trips. >> Okay. >> Okay. Take them. >> I move that we approve the McCarthy Middle School grade seven students
viewing of A Christmas Carol at the Palace Theater December 19th, 2025 in Manchester, New Hampshire. And that we approve this. >> Are you doing both? >> Nope. You got a second. Okay. We have a motion, a second on the McCarthy Middle School. Any questions? >> That's good.
>> All those in favor? I >> I >> I move that we approve the field trip by Trumpsford High School band members grades 9 through 12 at the to the US Coast Guard Academy on March 7th, 2026 in New London, Connecticut.
>> Second. >> Okay. Any questions on that one? All those in favor? >> I can I ask a quick question for Patrick and the student represent? What would you do if you like you showed up and you were on a field trip and we just voted no on it? Would you be like mad? I I would I'd be I'd be pretty mad. >> Yeah, you should say this is a public
forum. >> If I was a middle schooler going to see a Christmas Carol. >> Yeah, right. All right. >> I don't think we've ever voted that. >> We've never voted one down, but I was just What would happen? What would >> Thanks for that warning. >> Public forum that we'd get that opinion right away. >> Quit. >> All right. I believe that's the end of
>> that's the end of it for me. >> All right. Anybody have any liaison assignments? >> You raise your hand first. Go. >> I I do. Okay, liaison didn't >> um since our last meeting I did go to the Harrington school PTO meeting and just a couple of things to report on
them. Uh one thing um the principal did report to the um parents who were at the meeting um that that emergency system that they have emergency notification system is working very well and the
teachers um appreciate how well and how clearly it's working. They're able to use it. They used it um for their first Alice drill. Everyone really had a clear understanding of how um to manage the situation. So, they're really happy with that system there.
Um the PTO's got a few things going on. They have a reading readathon coming up. Um it's it's happening this month. Um and like last year, they try to put a lot more focus on the reading than on the money raising part. It is a fundraiser, but they really try to get kids involved even if they're not able
to raise a lot of money. They this year they have a game board challenge. I'm not really sure how it's working, but it's something to do with how many books you read and you move along in a game board fashion. So, you can win prizes even if you don't raise a lot of money.
Uh they participate in dying to donate. The next dying to donate coming up is on January 13th at the establishment if you would like to come. Um that's going on. And I did talk to them about um once again about coming to
the um Parker new Parker Middle School um visioning sessions and they were curious. They had a lot of questions about it. But one in particular, I think I might have mentioned to you Dennis that they did ask about what the experience would be like for students
who were who would be in the current school while the new school was being built. Because these parents of the kids who are in elementary school now, their children will be attending the old school while a new school is being built. And if it's on that same piece of
land, they're just really concerned like what will it be like for the kids in the school? What will happen to their recess time? What will happen with the field use? Will the noise be affecting them? Those are just questions they have and they just like to hear more about it. >> Great. Um,
I've gotten questions like that, too. And as the parent of a second grader, I share some of those questions and concerns. Um, the uh two leas reports I can share. So, I was we were at our um
train the AI workshop a few weeks ago when the South Row PTO met. So, I missed that meeting. Um, but I did get an update from the group um that um they have been as always very busy um beginning to think about end of year
activities even for fourth graders working very hard on preparing for teacher appreciation events coming up um and always a busy slate of schoolwide activities. Um there's a lot of work happening within the schools on within the school on tier 2 interventions
specifically thinking about that MTSS model and supporting students who could benefit from small group targeted interventions. Um Parker and McCarthy met last week while we were at our conference so I also missed theirs but got some updates.
Um and uh the recycling event that was um shared between McCarthy and uh center school um was phenomenal. I believe it was on the 8th of November. I believe it
earned net amount at least of 17,281. >> It's amazing. Um, there were about 280 cars that came through and things from size of TVs to refrigerators were were dropped off. Unlike last year, they felt really good actually about the amount of
volunteers they had this year, which was good news. Um the other things I heard um were that the sober truth enrichment program at McCarthy was really wellreceived this year as was uh pizza paperback and pumpkins at Parker which
is very illiterative. Um and um at both schools after school activities are underway and very well attended. Many uh programs are kind of maxed out in terms of student interest. So there's really high interest in those after school
activities and both drama programs are actively running and going well. Um the last thing I'll share which is not an official liaison excite um assignment or anything but I just wanted to share that um Saturday was the transgender day of
remembrance um which was held at the CCA. I was unable to make it um but was given some information just to share that the transgender day of visibility in Chsford will be at the CCA on March 29th from 2 to 5. Um and they're really
asking for community members to show up and support some of the um bright but often very vulnerable members of our community and show support. >> Okay. So we were at the conference
for both of my uh CHS and for the center school uh PTO CHS sent me uh notes. I I did a report in writing to both of them for us um and their uh for CHS their
teacher appreciation event went quite well. They are moving forward with their plans for the after prom and they're getting very excited. They did a uh overview of doing it at the Elks and that went really well in this last time
and they want to say thank you for the um support again this year. They were very excited to hear that u that was CHS and then for center recycle day was uh a topic of discussion because it really
was quite an event. It's it's amazing. Um, I know that uh somebody who came at the first beginning hour 8 o'clock in the morning, they were already cars in line waiting to come in and there was a police officer over there. So, I think that that's something
that they were discussing as well. Um, and their events keep on going and it was really well attended on their trunk or treat. >> Great. >> John, anything? Nothing. >> Okay. All right. Um no I missed the hall not the whole thing the um alumni
association because at um the conference well uh we have capital tomorrow night and then we have before the thing we have a building committee meeting on Thursday >> you know so >> be busy another busy week for everybody. >> Yeah. >> All right. Um I don't think we have any oh any new items. I'm sorry I missed
that. Anybody have anything? >> My class size stuff is coming right. Yep. >> Yeah. >> Press meeting. >> Not Bill. Not Bill. Okay. And I'm only kidding on the well I attended one more thing the wellness I had to miss it
again because it was during this all of my events were during this um this thing but they're working on the fair. So if the wellness fair this year for March it's right at the beginning of March. If anybody has any ideas or wants to see
any particular folks there let us know. Great. All right. Any other new items? Okay. No public comment that I could see. So I will take a motion to adjurnn. >> You making it? You going to make
>> You're actually going to say it on. You look very happy. You look very happy about it, but you >> Okay. Motion to I move that we adjourn. >> Second. All those in favor I had already.