America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. This meeting is being live streamed by Chman Tele media and posted the CPS website for interested community
members to access and watch. Inerson public participation will be taking place tonight in accordance with the Chsler school committee public participation policy. Anyone speaking tonight during a public input portion of this meeting is notified the superintendent's office of the desire to speak and pro provided with these
guidelines request written comments received no later than 12 p.m. on the day of the meeting also be read and made part of the record of the meeting during the second public comment session. So welcome to this meeting of the cha school committee. Uh our first order of business is to approve the minutes from our meetings on June 17th and June 27th.
>> Okay. I make a motion that we approve the minutes of the regular school committee meeting of June 17th, 2025. >> Second. >> Okay. Any corrections? >> Okay. All those in favor? >> I or zero? >> Uh I move that we approve the minutes of
the regular school committee meeting of June 27th, 2025. >> Second. >> Okay. Any corrections on that one? All those in favor? I or zero. >> Great. So, we have no representatives yet. Uh any good news to share? >> Well, we had an amazing Fourth of July
parade that we were all marching in and we've all survived. So, I think that was a success. Very exciting. >> And the candy made it almost >> and the candy made it almost to the end. >> Almost to the end, but we had enough towards the end. And we had a bubble machine this year. I mean, that was a
new addition to our repertoire. >> Dr. Lang really loved that. >> Made my day. favorite. There was so many brought joy to children behind him trying to get the bubbles. I thought it was great. >> Yep. >> You did a good job. >> That was a great idea on his behalf. >> The weather the weather couldn't have
been better. >> Oh, it was beautiful. >> It was a beautiful day of the summer so far. >> Yeah, it was. >> Okay. Anybody else have any good news? Okay. Uh I don't see any people to speak, so move on to new business. >> Yep. And we'll jump right into it because we do have a lengthy agenda
tonight. Um we didn't have any public comments for before or after. Um so we're going to ask Linda to give us uh first couple items to kind of wrap up to last year 2425 before we start getting into uh the next year. But uh Linda has a little academic update for us that she's going to walk us through.
>> Yeah. Nothing sets up a meeting with, you know, data. Very exciting. Um so I know that we did have the DM group here at our last meeting talking a little bit about our strategic plan and data. This is just going to give you at least a better overview of how we ended up with our internal benchmark system that we
use which is I ready and how we fared as a district as a whole. So we're going to be taking a look at both the math and the reading and this includes kind of our you know what we use for placement data comparisons to national and state benchmarks and student goals for the year. So it's very helpful um process
for us as soon as as we start to look into like our next year students placement. Is there anything that we have to do and offer for services and stuff. So, it's it's it's good to have the beginning and the end of the year in front of you. So, we're going to start off with um student performance and instructional outcomes using the I Ready
data. And we always start off with the math. And this is not by design by me. It's actually by design by I Ready. They always start us off with the math. So, um maybe someday they'll switch it off with the reading first. So in this slide, we're just indu uh looking at the comparisons of our national and
Massachusetts year-to- date um benchmarks and how students performed in mathematics compared to how Chupsford students uh performed. So um in math, you'll notice that the overall Chumsford scores are higher than the national and the math norms. That is very typical. We
find this also with our state testing and MCAST that we always score higher than the Massachusetts information and also nationally. So, that's always a good thing. And then the next two slides, I'm going to be breaking it down. Oh, did that go over for you?
Yeah, it did. Um, this is just a comparison between um Chumsford students and the actual state averages and how we're performing base K through eight. So, it's these next few slides are going to break it down by grade level to give you a better idea of like where do we
see more success and in a grade level based on the state and nationally um compared to other grade levels. And this is helpful information for us in general. And we take a look at it to see how we're doing from beginning to the end of the year if it makes sense. And also spring to spring. So K through one
is here. Grade three through five shows a strong proportion of students at or above grade level with fewer students below grade level than the state and national averages. And then middle school math results reflect some similar trends that we've been seeing. Performance meets and
exceeds benchmarks overall. So, this is what we're used to seeing in Chumsford based on those normed that norm data as we continue through. Um, did that go through? Yep. Placements benchmarks. Let's see. Is
this not advancing for you? No, it is not. >> No, it is. Now, it is. >> Hold on. I might be lagging. That's why I'm like looking up and then looking down. All right. Here we go. Spring to spring. So, this is cross-sectional data and it shows um we're stable and you know improved placement levels over the
past three years. So, we're seeing that stability, but we're not seeing that movement on some of those lower ends. But in general, we tend to be stable and we'd like to see those three-year trends to see how students are actually performing. And when we break it down by the grade
levels, we're seeing that that most grades show that upward or consistent trend, especially in grades two and three that we're seeing. And remember in math we do have a new program that we've been using. So we expect to see some fluctuation, but it was actually nice to see in grades um two and three a little
bit of an uptick for those students that are in that darker green area than we've seen in previous years. And when you look at middle school, it's maintaining consistent placements. Grade seven showed the most growth of that middle school of grade five and six and
seven and eight. However, we do need to take a little bit of that look at that focus of that grade seven, eight transition and how the math instruction is being delivered because we do see like a higher performance in grade six. But then as we start to get to grade seven and eight where the math does become a little bit more complicated and
that's when you have your algebra one um courses especially in grade eight we do have to see you know even though it's stable why are we not seeing any movement in general beyond you know sixth grade. Seventh grade made that uptick, but eighth grade is another focus area that we have to take a look
at. And we can talk a little bit about that further as we go through. Waiting for it to advance. Don't know why we're lagging today. Okay, let me go back one. There we go. I have to kind of push it forward to go forward. So, this is um data that
captures individual student growth from fall to spring and a significant amount of students have moved into grade level placement or higher. So now we're looking fall to spring. How are our students doing in math? So at the beginning of the year, they're being tested on end of the year data like of
their standards and then are they making the movement that we'd like to see by the end of the school year and closing up that gap. So when we break it down by the grade levels, we're seeing some strong progress from fall to spring. Um particularly in grades one and three
this year. They were the highest of the two. K knocked it out of the park that they did a great job. Um but when we're looking at the new program really kicking in when they start getting into school um and some of those harder concepts that grade one and three actually made the most gains compared to
the other grade levels. And then breakdown of these placement changes a little bit for grades five through eight. And although we see the gains from fall to spring, grade five and six show substantial improvement from fall to spring with more students meeting grade level expectations. So we
are still seeing that lower gain when we get to that grade eight focus. And that has been part of our focus of our strategic plan and some of the work we've been doing. And we have to dig a little bit deeper in there to see what we need to do to push that movement forward. We're still trying to um watch
the students that have had gaps in their learning through COVID as well. So that is your sixth graders that are now going to be seventh graders. They were the ones that went home in kindergarten in 2020. >> I always have to go back and check. I >> No, that's fifth going to be sixth cuz my son was one of them.
>> Fifth going to sixth. You know what it is? Follow the Murray kid. So she's going to seventh grade. So she must have been the first to come back for the hybrid. >> Yeah, maybe. So we are still got we still have that group they're coming they're on their way but we are still seeing some of those you know gaps for
those students and hopefully we'll see those changes. >> So it's fifth to sixth. >> So the kids going into sixth grade in the fall were in kindergarten during >> kindergarten in 2020. >> Yeah. >> Well that's the year they got sent home from >> but the but it's the kids going into
fifth grade had that >> rear of the high. Yeah, >> it's crazy. >> 5 years ago. Think about that. It is a little crazy, but I think we forget about that. I'm not I'm not saying that we're not going to look deeper, but we do have to that is in the back of our head of like what happened to that those
kids and as they progress through. >> So, we're going to shift to reading and we're going to follow the similar structure that we did for the math review. And this is our placement for the national and state data as we go. It won't go. It won't pants. I don't know why I'm lagging today. So this is what
it looks like overall for the district in reading for the national and state data and how our students are performing. Again, performing higher than the than the national in the state norms. And then if we break it down by the by the primary by the grades, the primary
grades show a high level of students at or above grade level outperforming the state averages as per usual. And that's what we want to see, especially in those foundational years where they're getting those foundational skills that they need to solidify their reading as they go through um the system.
And that even includes grade three. So I always consider the foundational K through three. I know some people think it's K through two, but that third grade year is still a very important year um for students when they're learning to read. Um, so if you see grade three stands out for a strong performance this
year, which was great. And then you'll start to see that dip when we start getting again into those grade seven and eight years. That's where we see larger gaps as we go along. Again, still higher than the state and the national averages.
Just waiting for my lag to go forward. Doesn't want to go forward. There we go. Okay. So what does it look like spring to spring as a district in reading? Again, we showed some positive movement and some consistency in the reading in over the past three years, which is
good. We want to make sure that our students are continuing to read and and do well and move forward with their reading. And then if we start to look at this through the grade level, so again, this is three years of data, end of the year um testing. Okay? So it's not beginning
to the end. it's how have they been performing for the past three years. So, we're starting to see that grade one and three, they've made like the larger gains along with kindergarten and they're mirroring those math trends, which is great. We want to see that gap closing and we
want to see that darker green higher than even like the the lighter green is is still good, but darker green means they are, you know, some of them are above the reading level. So, that is excellent. And then as we progress through for those middle school years, again, we want to continue to focus on
when they start that transition into grade seven. And as a former middle school teacher, I can tell you this is where um you know, the rubber meets the road. They it's keeping them engaged and making sure that that reading is strong before they go to high school. So, there are some areas that I believe we could
be um focusing on for grade seven and eight as we go along. Again, consistent, but consistently still a little bit of a gap. And then if we look at fall to spring and that longer review of the data um
where you can see that obviously fall to spring we are making the gains that we want to see um from beginning of the year when they're tested at for end of the year standards compared to where they end at the end of the school year. And again breaking it down by your grade
levels. Um you see this is not that moved forward right. Okay. Um we're starting to see again those grade those formative grade levels which is that K through three those students are making the gains that we're expecting to see and then some in some of those grade
levels like grade three again notably kindergarten again walking in maybe not even having sight words sounds and their end of the year standards they're hitting them which is great. And then as we start to break it down again, we're starting to see grades six
and seven showing some improvement and um having that forward momentum that we need for those reading skills to be in place. So we're going to take a look at growth. So that we just looked at the performance that's share like how they answered the questions, how they did.
That's performance-based. Now it's growth because no matter where you are in your learning experience, are you making progress? Are you growing? is are the schools growing? So that's a very important part of the data that we look at. So if you look at the first graph,
it's uh compares the median growth and student performance by school. So you want to be in that upper quadrant of high performance, high growth. And you'll see that most of our schools met or exceeded typical growth expectations. I love that Center Elementary gets a little arrow there somewhere. They must be underneath the Harrington somewhere.
Um they didn't get a full dot. I was like, "Oh, that's interesting. That came up a couple of times." So for mathematics, you'll see that we are in that high performance, high growth area that we're used to in Chumsford. Some of them are teetering on those borders, but they're making that one-year growth. And this is a little different from MCCAST.
When I talk about MCCAST, 50 is one year growth. So that percentile is 50. This because I already works with multiple states and multiple performance areas. 100 is one year growth. So, we're all we've had one year growth, but then some of the schools have had one year growth
and then some, which is great. You want to see it higher, but you definitely want to see at least a year's growth, which is very good. So, just waiting for my lag and this to click over. I'm sure it's coming any moment as we speak. I could only sing in
between. You'd have some music, but there we go. Okay. So districtwide we are looking at 117% of typical growth um and which is consistent performance across the district. That grade one and two is on
that one year growth like to see that a little bit higher even that grade three but you at least want to have one year's worth of growth across the board for your grade levels. So we are focusing on three subgroups in our strategic plan which is our special
ed students, our L students and our um uh economically disadvantaged students. So I wanted to pull out that data for you to see what their growth looks like. So for special ed the overall for the district we're at 117% but special ed the when you see yes next to it that
means those are students that are special ed they're at 96%. Okay, so we're close to the 100% one-year growth. That's great. However, in order to see gains, if you're a year behind or two years behind, you need to make 100% plus
growth. So, you need your because otherwise you're just growing one year, you'll always be behind. You almost a year and a half, which is is difficult to do, but we need to be focusing on that stretch growth because one year growth is always going to keep students
behind, right? the gap will widen. So 96 I guess we could you know argue back and forth we're almost at the 100% but you would really want to see like 150% even 130% something more than 100 for those students to be able to close the gap because otherwise they're going to
continue going on with a gap. >> Now what's the no on that slide? >> Yeah. So this gets a little confusing. So um the way our so everything goes into I Ready through our student um information system. So, what is happening is special ed, yes, those are students that are currently on IEPs.
The no is students that may have been on an IEP before and are now off of it. It's just the system doesn't know how to pick it up as a clear yes and no and then not reported as somebody who's never been on. So, when I actually do out the math, I have to do a weighted
criteria to get the correct percentage. So when you see on the strategic plan those percentages that I give you, like if it's 56, 76, whatever I'm giving you, I have to just do a weighted criteria for special ed, >> okay? >> Because it's just the way our system works. It's how it's reported to the
state. So we can't change it. So the no is just a student. So out of the district there may have been 467 students that were on an IEP or recommended or came or parents pulled them off and they are no longer a special ed student but they were part of special ed at some point.
>> Okay. >> So very very simple to do but I have to do that math. You'll also see that for economically disadvantaged as well. >> So English learner you either are or you're not. So again, great. We're seeing 107% growth, right? In
mathematics, we'd want to see a little bit more if they were behind. You want to see that stretch growth so that we can move them even more forward. So we don't see that 43% in the one year below grade level, right? So if you want to push those kids
forward, they have to be there has to be more um growth than a typical one-year growth at 100%. And then for economically disadvantaged again you see that no part that means that they may have been at some point. Um yes they're making 100%
growth one-year growth but the 34% and is really you know that's a bulk of our students are in that part. So we'd want to see them making even more growth than the 100%. >> Is this the first year we pulled out these particular like >> No, this is our
second year. could be interesting to see how the how this was year to >> year. So we'll know after next year we'll have three times. So when we originally did this we didn't give I ready the access to our SIS like that because we didn't want students to be identified but then as we started putting the strategic plan together and
then we really wanted to break down the numbers instead of pulling kids on a separate spreadsheet and trying to do it that way we gave them the access to the students for them to pull it for us. >> Okay. So, >> so after next after this next school year, so 25 26 we will have three years of data
>> and then we can compare them year to year. Okay, >> we'll have the trend it's a trend. I mean we can pull two years >> but a trend is anywhere from 3 to 5 years >> and under the strategic plan this is the second year I believe that >> um well there's more access to I ready
by the special ed students. >> Correct. We gave them the access to the special for our um economically disadvantaged, our special ed students, and our um >> um L students. >> Those are our three big subgroups as a
district. Um we have we have specialized reports for ourselves like I have a title one report because I need that to report to the state for title one, but we don't have them pull it in in this fashion. We actually give them the students because that changes. Some students may follow the title one
services, some may not. They eb and flow in there. So that's a moving target. Um this is pretty steady. So this is our second year with that information. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So same format we're going to go through for reading.
Um when you look at reading for the district again, it's great. High performance, high growth. Harrington Elementary School got the little arrow this time. Maybe they have to sit in the um center. Um they must be neck and neck. Those schools tend to be neck andneck in a lot of things, but it's great to see that we're in that higher
part of the high performance and high growth for reading. And when you look at the district in general, we have 135% typical growth in reading, which is great. It's a very positive result that eighth grade is lagging um which is actually the same as
math, like for math. So, it seems to be running concurrently together. And that is definitely one of our focus grade levels that we have to find out what exactly is going on. And is it in fiction or is it in non-fiction? What what is part of the It seems to be in comprehension because it's not in phonics and phmic awareness. We know
they have um their foundational um skills, but what is it when it comes to the comprehension that they're not picking up? Is it academic vocabulary? What is it? So we can we're going have to dig into that a little bit further. And then when we look at special education, when it comes to uh that
growth, we have the district at 135%, special ed 113. Again, it's great to see it higher than 100%, but we'd want to see it a little bit higher to try and close that gap up for those kids that are a year to two years behind.
Same for L students, right? We're seeing that's great that they have 131%. That's that's excellent. But again, in order to really move the needle, we'd have to increase it for some of those students that are in that year to year behind. >> Can can you go back to the L's um for a
second? >> So, in this scenario, just to make sure I'm fully understanding, the nos are in this case are this is just anyone who is not identified as L. This is not people who were previously and are not anymore. >> You can't be a you're either identified as an L or you're not. So there's no
like I was on an IEP, now I'm not on an IEP. I may have been economically disadvantaged. I'm not anymore. You're either an L or you're not an L. So the the data is clean. But by that definition, what is somebody termed an L if they are currently receiving ESL or
other services? Or does that include people whose first language wasn't necessarily English, but who are >> Yeah, it's only students that are receiving ESL services. >> Thank you. They're not like flips or anything like that. >> To understand this percentage. So the nose is everybody else. >> That's all the other students that's not
an L student. >> So it's an actual comparison. >> Yeah. This is very clean data for us. >> So for a growth perspective, there's actually pretty similar growth between students who do and do not. >> That's great. >> And then economically disadvant. And
again, some people may be in two of these categories, right? Like you could be an L student that's special ed. you could be an L student or or an economically disadvantaged student that's also has a IEP. So, it gets a little, you know, complicated, but when we see the students at least as a
district, we're higher than the 100% that's great. I like the 121, love to see it at 150. It's hard. It's a hard that stretch growth is really hard to access. And that really comes down to like the instructional level. So, when you're with your students, you're looking at because teachers have this
for their students. this drills down. So if I open up my class, I can see how everybody's doing. So that helps me with my groupings, too. I would be like, these are the kids I really actually have to, you know, pull together and do some additional support. Or if they were going to go into intervention, these are
the students that we pull and provide intervention for. So although we're seeing it at a district level, it goes all the way to the school level, then it goes all the way down to the to the classroom level. So this is not like elusive information that nobody has access to.
And that is my last slide and I'm happy to answer questions go back. It it does get it's it gets complicated between this and then MCCAST has their own way of coming out with their how they present their data. So we try to stick
with those two for to keep it simple. >> Any questions? So in trying to figure out what's happening at that eighth grade level, what are we what are we doing? What in addition to what whatever we're doing as a strategic plan. So what else would you
now do? >> So they would have to do very slow. So now that students that moved on to the high school, right? So now you have your students coming up, >> what they will have to do is look at is there like a a common area that the students are not doing well. So even within I Ready, we can drill it down to
like the standards. So we could look at certain standards that students aren't doing well with and what they'd have to do is additional lessons to support that. So I would be looking if I had my students. So this is the team sitting down together. So the eight teachers,
right? We have eight teachers um sitting together and saying, "Okay, we're seeing something common. I'll come up with some more lessons here. Let's go into our program and see like what they suggest for this." And then you would be providing them with extra support. They might be um in need to be in a small
group. They might be receiving reading services if it's reading, right? Um so it's a matter of looking at the students and actually coming up with additional support lessons because they may already know something else. So you don't have to focus on that for as much and you would shift over to something else that they have to do. So, these eighth
graders are now all dispersed throughout the high school. >> Um, you know, deciding to take different classes and all of these things. >> So, how it's not the same as catching them when they're in the sixth and the seventh grade.
>> So, examining those lessons, do we now bring it down to the next two grade levels? Okay, let's say the comprehension is the problem. If comprehension is the problem, to solve that comprehension problem, we probably need to start two or three grades before
to figure out what's going on. >> Correct. You might or you it depends. It depends on what how they're instructing the students, >> right? Because the content gets more difficult for those high schoolers that are going in. They might be in the reading for high school class. So they they're not just go to high school, good
luck. Sorry you didn't make it. There is a reading for high school class that they would have that they would work. they would probably be assigned to those classes. >> Yeah. >> I'd have to look at the specific students and see, you know, who receive what. But if it is, right, if we see like a problem that's vertically
aligned, right, if it's some because in in ELA, it's a little bit easier because the standards are the same standards. You're you have your strands, your four strands. So, if there's a problem, you can actually vertically align it, unlike the math where it's like it's concrete sequential. So they would really have to
go back two years to be able to make sure those students had something, you know, some type of skill that they needed because they won't be able to go forward. So if they see something large, they would all be working on that. So it's not just like just eighth grade, >> but we're noticing that the if you look
back on the trends when we did the three-year comparison, eighth grade was yes, stable, but stable low, >> right? >> So I would be looking specifically at grade eight right now, >> right? So, but and it's been consistent. I I I don't remember a year of sitting
here and looking at test results uh and performance results at the end of the year where the eighth grade is not always a problem. >> Correct. So, I don't think it's two years before I I would be looking at eighth grade particularly in how the service delivery is.
>> Right. Because I often hear from parents the you know when years ago it seems like eternity now when my girls were going through middle school it was wonderful to go and go get books and do all the hard actual books to read and understand and all of that. Now,
everybody is on uh an iPad or that's how they're reading. And um I just don't think it's as easy to track what a person is reading or not reading or you know what they've decided to do with
reading at that age group >> um because of the digital part of it. >> Yeah, we still have the good news is we still have books. We we actually use >> Oh, I know. We have actual books. you don't use for we don't have ask them to read off of the computer, right? >> We actually have the actual novel
>> which is great but extra reading when you know when they come home and they want to read just for the sake of reading and there are some students who really love that. >> Um but they don't do it anymore. Most most students >> they get on their device.
>> It's all on a device and it's on the phone and so on. So thinking about that and having having bills presentation and so on with technology, one of the things is the kids who are disadvantaged economically or um even the EL students
who might need that equipment during the summer or when they go home at night instead of it in a classroom for the elementary kids having access to it I think becomes really important. And then thinking about that in line with what's coming up here with the federal funding
and cutting it from those programs that really impact these kids, it, you know, it's even more scary. So I think going back a couple of grade levels and saying, "Okay, this consistently seems to be the problem for the readers."
Comprehension, let's say it's one of them. Um, and I think also with comprehension, these kids are um less focused. They're the the way that they learn is more all over the place. They're doing two or three things at the
same time. >> Can't have silence or any of that stuff. So, even even that makes it more difficult. >> So, we got to begin way back in the middle school thing, I think. I mean, I wonder also,
you know, I definitely hear what you're saying. I wonder I was trying to think of like what distinguishes seventh and eighth grade and and it's it seems to be specifically I mean both math and reading. It's not limited to reading.
So, I think it's more than just devices or how the students are reading, although that's probably a factor. as they get older, they're more likely to have different temptations, let's say, with their time, too. Um, but I I am thinking about, you know,
I wonder if there has been any more macro look at the structure of the schedule at that age group. And I don't know if there's been some comparison between before and after the transition.
We've talked about this before. Um, and if we've looked at how many minutes of instruction students are receiving in reading and math in particular, the way that the eighth grade um, and even seventh grade schedule is structured, if there's any ways that we need to rethink
some of the kind of macro design, um, to just ensure that students are getting the time to make the kind of growth that they need to make. I want to add one thing though to piggyback on what Maria said about the devices themselves. You look at it as
does everyone have equal access? That's one piece of it. But I know that there's been a lot of research about the effect of reading say a novel on a device and its effect on your comprehension compared to reading in a book. For
instance, if you're learning about the sequence of a story, if you're reading a novel, you can literally say, first of all, you can see where you are. Are you in the middle or are you at the end in a device? You don't know where you are. You're just on the page they're showing you. When you have a novel, you can also
check back. Ah, they said something about that character probably about this part in the book and you can go look at it. You can't find that on a device either. So if the older they get, the more they're reading on a device, the less they're you they're able to access some of the comprehension strategies
that people use when they have a physical book in their hand. So that might be just something as they get older, they're using devices more often and it is helping them. >> Now, it doesn't explain three grades below. That's a that's a bigger issue to look at. >> But it's not just the access to the
devices. It's also how >> it's the very fact that reading on a device lowers your comprehension level for anyone. >> I think I mean I I think there's also way to teach students how to use the tools in front of them to read things in
multimedia formats. And that may be something to look at as time goes by and more students are um using multimedia ways of looking at literature because I know there's a lot of really great digital tools to support
students um sort of from a UDL perspective and with comprehension more broadly that I don't necessarily think students know how to use. I've only recently discovered some of them. And I think, you know, as time goes by, if that is going to be a big way that students are consuming texts outside of
the direct instruction they're getting in school and their explicit homework, it may be helpful so that they can better maximize the time that they're reading on devices, too. >> Okay. Any other questions or comments on
the report? Nope. All right. Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. I don't know if you heard today there was a report out about the the level of Massachusetts education. We got rated again as number one in the country.
>> Um uh which is great and this report overall is a good report. Um there's no question but it's just thinking about ways of making it even better for all the kids. Um which is great. >> Yeah.
>> Well, I appreciate that. It's nice to kind of take a look at that data. Obviously, we'll take another look at it when we get the MCCAST results later on this um summer and fall. >> Um but we always try to kind of bookmark and kind of close our 2425 before we start looking forward to next year and and some of the things we might be um
looking to take a peek at. So, thank you for that, Linda. >> Um second up tonight is the just a little year and review summary. Uh I'm not going to spend too much time on this. Um what we do each year is actually produce a little kind of highlight uh memo and this actually goes
into the town um meeting book. You can when we go to town meeting in the fall and the spring um it just kind of shares with the town uh meeting reps and the community uh some of the different things that we worked on over the course of the year. Um none of it's going to be really new to you but just to touch on the um this past fiscal 25 uh budget
which Joanne is actually um just just closed. So you'll get a final report at the next meeting. We'll do a preliminary one tonight. But um we had another very good uh strong financial year uh fiscal 25. We're again finishing in the black and we've been able to um put together some reserve funds to help us in future
years. So our um circuit breaker fund is going to have approximately 3.5 million in it at the end of the year. Uh which again is a contrast to to some years back. Um we do have that special ed reserve fund that we uh created and initially funded a few years back. We haven't put uh new monies in it over the
last couple of fiscal years, but just the interest in the fund itself has continued to grow. So that's at about $822,000. Um Nancy, when she was in here in June to do the year- end review and food services, um they've obviously been increasing their breakfast sales, increasing their lunch sales, which
generates additional revenue to us, and we've been able to use some of that revenue to offset some of the cost of capital projects, uh which is helpful. But they have a healthy fund balance of about 3.8 28 million at the end of the fiscal year. Um, which is great compared to a lot of other districts food service programs. And then, um, our school
choice funding, which we, uh, do earmark each year in the budget to offset the cost of the 101 initiative, um, is still kind of like a reserve fund for the school committee, and that's going to stand at about 3.2 million for next year. So, all in all, we finished fiscal 25 on a very, uh, positive note, uh,
down to the penny. As Joanna will report at the next meeting, u, the money has been, uh, spent and accounted for. Um and then we start to shift to next year. And as you know, we had a little bit of a tighter budget going forward for fiscal 26 than we'd had in previous years. Um but when we went to town
meeting this past um spring, Tom meeting was very supportive and did approve the additional uh 1 almost $8 million to support our budget, which will be at $75.5 million for uh for next year. I think the positive piece about the 26 budget, it definitely maintains the
services and supports that we um have kind of grown accustomed to and some of the incremental um improvements and enhancements we've tried to make in programming um through our strategic uh plan in 26. So, I'm looking forward to uh to continuing uh that work, but we we're starting the year in solid uh in
solid shape. Um I know it was just a couple of weeks ago, but um just to highlight again um you know the the importance and I think also just the um um the ability for us to actually ratify all four of our contracts uh before we
got out of the school year so that we really head into these next three years with contracts in place. Um, oftentimes if you don't have a contract in place, it can be somewhat of a distraction as you're getting into the summer and school year. But, um, I think the negotiations really with the with the different units went very well. Um, the
feedback I received from each of them when they ratified, they ratified overwhelmingly. The staff was appreciative of the school committee uh, work on each of those contracts. And again, it's just it doesn't often happen. But um being able to set and ratify all four of those contracts um
for us was a huge thing and really sets us up on a positive note going into next year. Um a lot of our work um this past year was really around uh setting ourselves up for the new school building project. So as you recall, it was back in December 23 that we initially got
invited into the eligibility period for the MSBA and we had the eight different deliverables that we had to come through on by the end of December of 24. we were able to actually do that and we got it done um early including the vote of town meeting in the spring of 204 to fund the
$1.8 million um feasibility study. So we got that done and then we kind of shifted into uh feasibility. So the MSBA board actually invited us in earlier. We weren't supposed to go until January, but they took us in December. Uh invited us into the feasibility study in the
first two major components of the feasibility study. The first one was getting an OPM on board and we had a procurement process and we were able to hire left field to be our OPM. Um they've been outstanding. We have a school building committee that's now meeting regularly to get that work underway. Um the next big step is the
designer. We have to hire the designer, the architectural firm that's going to help um guide the work. And uh we actually the proposals closed last week. We received six proposals from six very qualified firms um for that work. So, we're going to be going to the MSBA
designer review panel at the end of August and then we're going to have some interviews probably the first week or second week of September. So, by midepptember, we should have the designer on board. Um, so those are the two major um elements that happened between last spring and kind of going into the fall. And then I really do
think right uh right right after probably Columbus Day weekend um in for the latter part of the next school year, it's going to be getting into the true work of the um optionsbased review. So we've got the three different options to look at. We've got the one for one replacement of two grade level school
for Parker. We've got a three grade level school configuration of grade four, five, and six. And then we have kind of the mega middle school option of going back to a combined grade 5 to 8 school. So all three of those will be vetted next fall. There'll be a lot of opportunity for staff and um family and
community input. Uh that'll again start in the fall and our goal will be by the end of next school year to really pick which of the three options we want to explore as a town. um and get ready for the next step in the process of getting the approvals, getting schematic design underway. Um and ultimately still
looking forward to a spring of 27 um vote to hopefully approve that project and and keep us in uh keep us in play. So that those two items really did take up a significant amount of time. Uh they were both tied to the the work of the facility and operations um goal of
the strategic plan. uh good work just um you know very timeconuming and obviously um setting us up for future success. We did um have the Ed Davis group back in uh because safety and security is still an utmost uh concern of us. So that group had come out to do some uh
assessments of our buildings and our practices and policies back in 2022. So over the last two years we've actually implemented quite a number of the recommendations of their review. uh one being the secure entrances to the schools, another being the district-wide
um radio system that we're all on right now. Um so we decided to have them come back this past spring before we went out to do the additional five secure entrances to take a look at the two we had done, give us some critiques and recommendations and then we also had them on site when we did our final set
of um Alice options based um response drills at the schools to again be kind of a third party to watch us as we're working. So, we're able to debrief with them afterward and hopefully they'll be joining us this summer when the admin get together to do our retreat before we get into the course of the next school
year and continue to just refine our um safety procedures and protocols and responses. But they've been a very good uh partner. And then as this group knows because many of you are on the steering committee um but our work this last year, the third year of the five-year strategic plan was again guided by
district management group. We have a five different priority areas. a working group met every six weeks to update each other with regard to the um the progress we've made on all the different initiatives. Um and that's been reported out mid year and then at the end of the year with TM group um and lastly another
big uh project for us obviously was our work under the equity uh area with PAR educator the refinement of the PAR professional roles and responsibilities. Um we had a very good productive working group that came together to work on that and we're going to continue to roll that work out um next year as well. But those
were some of the major um items that we really focused on as a committee and as an administration this past year. Um, and I again just kind of transmit that to you and ultimately it'll be incorporated into that town meeting uh booklet to just share with the community what our uh focus was this past year as
we start to look going forward to next year. >> Okay, any questions, comments. I was going to say this at the end, but I guess a good time um a reminder that um we're also in the process of evaluating superintendent and this is
always a good document to use and and going through that that evaluative process of you know what's gone over the last past couple year last year or so. Um and so if you can use that as a tool, you can talk to superintendent individually. Um if you have any specific questions um and if you can get
that in by the end of the month, then we can get it ready for our first meeting in August. I I don't >> Yeah, I'll transmit the documents and everything to you tomorrow. Um I know you look forward to this every year. Uh so I'll get that out to you. Uh I'll get that out to you tomorrow.
>> He's looking at me specifically on this >> because I know you don't like it. >> Oh, the form itself is a bad form. >> I don't need that. >> It's it's a funky. Yeah, >> that >> but no. And I will send that out to you. Um use that this um you know
individually if you'd like to meet with me. I'm more than happy to to talk to you and give you any input. Um I can and uh we'll wrap that up and then at the next meeting really start kind of focusing on 2526. >> Okay. Any other questions, comments?
>> I'm looking forward to >> All right. >> All right. Next up, I'm going to ask Juliana to review a couple of items with us. We have the preliminary fiscal 25, the year that just ended on June 30th um preliminary report. >> Thank you.
This is our preliminary quarterly update. Um, and as the superintendent said, we'll have the final numbers at the August meeting. So, you have a brief memo um about our budget for fiscal 25, which was 73,880,000.
You have the year-to- date budget report detailing all the spend in the different desi categories. You have a grant and revolving fund summary. And then you have the three student activity accounts, the high school and the two middle schools.
So we've talked about all the variances throughout the year and the committee um reallocated some of the funds due to favorable variances to a couple major things. the one-time purchases, um prepaying
uh special ed out of district tuitions, and then we did set up um some more reserve funds that the superintendent talked about in um school choice u primarily. At the preliminary number is um you
know, we've spent you know, 73 million. We have about 800,000 in open incumbrances and at the time this report was run we were you know still had $256 available. Uh the town accountant and the treasurer and everybody is working
to I believe they finished with all the posting to the ledger today. So um we that number at the next report um will be zero will be fully um expended. We will still have about 800,000 in open
encumbrances and that's primarily the one-time purchase items. the um at the July at the June 17th school committee meeting, you know, we said our intent was to spend uh the full budget and really we just made um two
entries that we hadn't uh I hadn't presented yet to the meeting uh the committee and one was to um fund the onetoone computer initiative from the local operating budget rather than school choice. So that was one entry we
made and then the other was to fund a little more coaching stipens from the local budget rather than the athletic revolving fund. So any questions on the operating budget? >> Um the next page is the grant and
revolving fund summary. Um this won't change too much in the final report. It was just some of the revenue that came in on the grants at the end of June. Um hadn't posted yet in the ledger. Um so
that will be really the only change. We knew what the expenses were. Um that number won't change. I do want to point out that a new item on this report we talked about earlier on the second page was the funds we received for the um
Princeton >> development. >> Yep. >> Oh yeah. >> So that is um on the second page I have a line item under 503 gifts and donations 255 Princeton Street Development. That's the 180,000 in revenue we received.
>> Okay. So, that's where I'll be reporting that. Um, if we choose to put any expenses against there in the future. Any questions on the grants and revolving funds? >> Just more of a general question. I know last year at the end of the year we got
extra money through circuit breaker. Is that something that we might get, might not get? Don't know. >> We know. Okay. Uh and I'll report that um more um we knew on the bottom part of the
first page. >> Yeah, >> I could see that the circuit breaker the fourth quarter payment of 82268 came in on um the end of June. Okay. >> But it just hadn't posted yet.
>> That 822 is slightly higher than what we were expecting. >> Okay. But then there was language that said it doesn't go towards your one-year cap. >> Okay, that that why I was asking the question. Yeah. >> Um so that little difference um it's not
that little. It's like 26,000. >> Um you can carry into the following year. Okay. >> So I'll I have a little way I keep track of all this because that cap is very important. Um and then I can present it to
>> Okay. Yeah. Because it looked like the number we're carrying was fairly high here. Okay. >> Y exactly right. >> Great. >> Okay. And then the uh student activity balances, it's just our standard reports by club or team. And this was through
May. The high school is at about 244,000, McCarthy 46,000, and Parker a little greater than 81,000. So, any questions on the student activity balances?
>> All looks good as usual. Great job. >> Yep. And like I said, I'll present the final final >> at the next meeting and we'll put that up on the website. >> Okay. To have the vote, I think. Yeah. Wait till the final close. Okay. Great. >> Okay. >> Okay. All right. You're up again, I
think. And the next is um a report on the federal grants. And you saw this format at the May 25th school committee meeting. And I just added um a column
to say what we know about uh fiscal year 2026. So we have um seven federal grants and then the food service um reimbursement from the USDA is also federal. So I
don't have any exact dollar amounts yet. Um, I just have what the commissioner put out, which is for the entitlement grants, which is title one sped IDA
and um there's a little sped early childhood sped IDA. Those they're saying are going to be consistent level with previous years. So, but I don't have a number. I will say though that the title one amount of
419,000 for fiscal 25 was the highest it had ever been for us. So if we get that again that would be wonderful. Um but I wouldn't be surprised if it was less than 419. And then all of the other ones so title
2A title three title four and then a sped program improvement grant. The words they used were uncertain, delayed, and under review. So, we're expecting it to be most likely
zero. But for right now, we're just using the language that is being communicated with us that the state knows based on the Fred. >> So, good. >> So, consistent with um the previous years means we're being funded for it.
We expect to be funded for >> expect >> but we haven't um we haven't received a number yet and the grant applications haven't opened up yet >> and say the uncertain ones don't come through at all. Do we have the capacity to pay for those
programs that those are funded by through other means through other grants or through general budget or >> so I guess I would look at it that on a positive note the two big ones the title one and the idea grants which is like our special aid grant those are the big
ones for us those do look like they are going to be funded it's just a little bit of a a wait until we're able to actually access the funds and do the application so I'm not you hugely concerned with with those so that was it because we didn't know which was going to be happening. Those ones that are
listed um approximately 200,000ish or so that uncertain I would not plan on getting um I I think in the end those are grants that are going to end up being withheld. Um >> originally I thought this was going to be the case even when we were talking with other local superintendents. Um,
federally it had been kind of messaged that these would be the grants that would be targeted to not be funded um, a year from now because the federal government's off cycle from us funding wise. So, this money for these grants has already been like budgeted. They're just not releasing it. We assumed that
it just wasn't going to get budgeted in next year's budget, like our fiscal um, 27 budget. But what they're basically doing is withholding the money now. So, uh, I thought we were going to have an extra year to kind of plan for that, but it seems like we're going to have to plan for it now. Yes. What'll end up
happening is, um, again, very happy that title one and the idea look like they'll be funded. We're going to proceed as if they're going to be. Um, the others we obviously have to go back at, take a look at service-wise is, you know, what was being done that's absolutely critical to being done. Um, can what was
being done on those grants be done, you know, anywhere else in the district? So, we're going to monitor that over the next week or two. There very well may be like sometimes if we had um tutors or interventionists and things like that. Um you know I I wouldn't recommend probably
to you at this point that we just reallocate local funds to to pay for that because ultimately that would be deficit budgeting on the local side. And so we're going to have to just take a real hard look at, you know, what those uh funds were supporting. Are there ways in the local budget to to fund them as
opposed to just saying we're going to earmark another $200,000 and replace it because that would be basically trying to find another $200,000 before we even started our budgeting process for 27. Um but we'll know more as we come. It's not it's not great news, but it's not um
devastating to us, you know, programming wise if those um don't come through. >> Is Massachusetts one of a state that's I think there's some litigation going on. suit has been filed already, right? We're one of these states. >> There's a there's a lot of litigation
going on. I think um for all practical purposes and you know, just how long it takes for litigation to be um you know, actually litigated and then appealed and things along those lines. And part of the whole process may also just be stall tactics so that you
get to such a point where you just you can't use the funding anyway because the cycles would run out. Um, it's certainly something that the superintendent association is monitoring. I know the school committee association is monitoring them as well. So, we're getting alerts, we're getting updates, we're participating in meetings to kind
of hear what's happening with it. Um, the new commissioner of education just came on board July 1st. Um, one of the first things he did his first week was actually have a conference call with um, superintendent group to kind of inform them of what DESIE was doing with it. um how you know they were going to be
internally planning to go forward with the grants that look like are going to be funded the title one the idea which is great uh that obviously they're looking at their avenues with the um attorney general's office on what they can do to try to um you know fight for some of the other funds I just don't know you know how successful that's
going to be or how timely it's going to be based on when we have to make decisions about what to spend not what not to spend >> but I'll continue to monitor it for you um if we get any updates or alerts you'll shoot a quick email, but you know, Joanna can always throw an updated memo on a future packet if we have to
and keep this kind of front and center of the discussion. >> Any other questions? And just one other given that one of these grants has to do with school nutrition >> and I don't know what what they did in the state budget. Are is this going to
impact what do we have to have students pay for lunches and breakfast next fall or >> we don't know yet. >> Okay. So, um we just to remind everybody it's um two reimbursements, one from the federal, one from the state. And this
past year, those two um covered everything and there was no cost to families. We're we don't know the formula for reimbursement for the federal monies yet. And that's that was the big number. um
that was 925,000 in fiscal 25 in the state budget. Um it was there was a state contribution. Um so and that wasn't part of I'm sure you all read the
little five-page summary of the vetos. Um but since that hasn't been finalized, you know, in theory someone could change that. So, I'm not making any grand announcements tonight that it's at no cost to families. We'll just wait until
the state budget is finalized to see what the U funding formula is. And just a reminder, what it used to be before it was no cost to families. There was um you know, free, reduced, and paid, you know, and
that's how it was for years and years and years. So um so as soon as we know um we'll bring it to the committee and and a bigger picture state budget there's they give more for minimal aid than they originally projected. Is that
true? >> Um yes. >> What impact does it have on us or on the town? >> It's not going to have any direct impact on like the council public schools operating budget for next year. But what it does is gives a little bit more in chapter 70 than the like Paul and I were
anticipating, right? >> Um so it would basically build a little bit of a cushion, you know, for next year. We would hope then, you know, if depending on how the budget talks go for next year, >> maybe that will be the baseline to then move off of for the following year because we had uh really kind of budgeted a low number coming in for
chapter 70. But um when it's not going to affect us for like this coming school year, >> but we'll monitor that. Um, we'll make a note of it when we have tri board in December. We certainly can talk about it. Um, I think it's good news obviously that it's it's going to help a little bit, but where our budget is already
kind of set for this year, we don't typically go back unless there's like an emergency and >> I just didn't know how it would impact the town and that >> it's going to be helpful to the town because it's basically a surplus, right? So, there's extra revenue that came in that wasn't earmarked, right? So, it's it's going to be >> went up from 30 to 150 or something. I
forget what the number the difference was. No, it was um I want to this is ballpark. I gave you the exact numbers. I want to say it was originally at like $40 a student in the governor's budget and then yes, it went up closer to like 150. Okay. Um overall,
so it was almost like three times what we were thinking. I think we were originally thinking it was going to be in the high twos or around $300,000 and it ends up being 700 something thousand. So it's it's a substant increase. I don't have the exact number, but I can email it to you. um and it will be something to to watch on for next year.
>> Okay. >> So, in that line of question, let's say that we don't get this federal funding for um some of these items that are really important to us because they impact those groups we were talking
about, right, and their performance. If that happens and we have that much more money this year in chapter 70 funding, we don't typically go back. But if we had to, is that a possibility? >> Yeah, you can always have the
conversation. I I think what we need to do is really kind of quantify what when we get the final numbers on the federal funding, we need to quantify what that loss is or where the gaps are and what we can't um satisfy in the local budget because even if we if we were to
allocate, let's just say the number is 200,000. If we were to try to find $200,000 in our budget, then again, that's just starting from a $200,000 hole as we build the next year's budget, right? If we allocated or asked for some of that additional money to be incorporated now, and it were, um, that
might help us in the short term, but that's adding another $200,000 into our base budget for the following year. So, it's going to have the same effect. You're basically adding another $200,000 of potential deficit into your budget going forward for 27. So, we just need
to be very um conscious of like what isn't being funded or what we can't, you know, cover in the current budget that we've been appropriated um because I just don't want to dig ourselves into a bigger hole. >> Oh, yeah. >> Now, as we're starting to look at budgeting, you know, because we're going
to be starting the budget in the fall, September, October for the for the coming year. >> Yeah. >> But we'll have those talks. >> Okay. Great. Any other question on the report?
>> Okay, thank you Joanna. Great. Thanks, Joanna. >> Um, okay. The next couple of items for you um were just some results I wanted to share, just preliminary results on the survey that we did right at the end of the school year before staff and
students left for the uh for the summer. So, I know um several of the community uh the committee members including uh Diana was really um kind of a push for this to take a look at some data around uh student cell phone use and social media use um so that we can have uh some
data to be able to start a conversation this summer and obviously into next school year. Um I think I had mentioned at a previous meeting and you know we still plan to do some work with um Jill Walsh who's a professor at Boston University who really focuses in this area. Um, so I reached out to her to
just say before we actually create like our own survey, if we're looking to get some some quick information on kind of where people stand for the time being, what would we have? So she actually had some surveys, which the other nice thing about her surveys is where they've been used in multi multiple communities. We
obviously don't have it now, but we can actually take a look at our responses against like regional and then any kind of national responses to the similar survey she received from other districts. So we can kind of triangulate on some of the data from that. But we wanted to try to get a sense for how do teachers feel about student cell phone
use and social media in the schools. And then a separate survey for it was targeted towards parents. Um we certainly got some parents. We because it was an open survey. Some kids took the survey as well. So that's not quite as pure as the one that went to the staff because we can control the staff
who received the email. The other one was a uh like a broadcast email that anyone could have logged into. Um but we got very good responses and tonight my goal is to kind of walk you through um just some of the overarching uh responses we got to the questions in the
end under each of the different surveys. Um what we did was take an initial um kind of grouping of the responses and there were several questions that both staff and parents were asked to respond to um in a narrative form if they wanted to. It wasn't just like a checkbox. Um,
so we summarized those responses globally by kind of all responses and then we we summarized them by level. So by elementary, by middle and by high school because things varied a little bit to at least have there be some uh data to uh again be kind of grounded in
um have it as we start to have the discussion uh moving forward. So the first one I'm going to walk you through is um on the teacher end um you know on the first slide we we got good response from teachers and again this was just a couple weeks prior to the close of
school. So we had 240 uh teachers respond to this and you can see their distribution uh grades uh prek through uh 12. Um cell phones don't seem to be a huge issue with chips. So I was very very happy to uh very happy to to see that. Uh but we got good good responses.
I will say some of the teachers who responded even at the younger grade levels like the chips and the you know K1 where cell phones obviously aren't an issue they responded from a parent lens because they have kids in the uh school system and and whatnot. Um we asked them which school they currently work and
again this data it's just it's a lot of data. We have not been able to to go even deeper and kind of break the responses up specifically by school but the data is there for us to be able to do that going forward. You can see um who actually responded to the survey. Uh they were asked um you know some
examples of digital platforms that uh kids may be using during the school day. Um you know they were asked how often do you think they're using them? Um you know always sometimes rarely right down the right down the line. So you could kind of get a teacher perspective on what type of um platforms whether it be
you know being on YouTube or video game or you know Instagram things like that during the school day. Um and the first real question they were asked to respond to was do you think students uh phone use is a problem at your school? Um 42%
said um yes they think phones are a problem during the school day. Uh 28% said uh no, they don't think they're a problem. Um and then you know 28.3 said um I think phones might cause problems for some students during the school day. So there was a big mix and again this is
additional data that over time we can kind of dig a little bit deeper into because again when you're going to see the narrative responses because after each of these big questions they were given an opportunity to provide a narrative. Um you can obviously see like cell phones aren't a huge issue. I was joking earlier but like at Westlands and
even at the elementary school level it's more at that level. like the smartwatches and things like that that are problematic. But as you get into middle school and high school, um the cell phone, uh being an issue certainly was more prevalent. Um they were asked, you know, do you know what the phone usage guidelines are from the student
handbook? Um you know, 76% said yes, they do. 58% said no, they don't. Um do you think students know? This is asking the teachers what the uh phone guidelines are. uh and this was uh less and I would assume based on use uh but
they responded uh about 30% said yes I think students do know almost half said no I don't think they know and uh a quarter of them also were unsure if they knew or not um another slide about do you know the social media policy outlined in the school committee policy
manual half said yes uh third said no uh another 20% or so said unsure um do you think technology ology addresses. Do you think school addresses technology issues that arise with students effectively? Again, this is kind of a mixed bag and a response. Uh
32% said yes. Uh 43% said mixed. Um and then they were also able to give um a response in a narrative form to why they felt the way that they did. Uh and then the big question, and again this is actually uh there's some state legislation that's pending right now that we're watching very closely, but
the attorney general's office did file legislation to basically have there be a bell to bell ban on students access to uh cell phones during the school day. So this is something we're watching. Uh and and they said just to teachers even outside of that, you know, would you support a a cell phone ban for students
during the school day? Um overwhelmingly 76.7% said yes. Um 18% said they need more information and a handful said uh no they uh they wouldn't support that. Um they were then asked you know if there was if there was a ban to be in
place you know when do you think it should be because there's a lot of discussion about you know over half said like bellto bell they shouldn't even be there you know others said just during academic time itself. Um others would support a ban uh during like academic time but like in a public space in the building like during lunch or something
like that. they didn't have an issue with uh kids having access to phones. So truly kind of a mixed bag. You know, majority supported uh or vast majority supported having there be some type of a ban, but I think depending on what the ban would actually look like or when it would be uh implemented is um is where
the discussion point uh comes. Um and then the question for the teachers, do you think students having access to the phones during the day impacts u morale? and uh 63.7% said yes, 12% said no, and a quarter of them didn't uh didn't know.
So on on this one, uh again, we did get actually um I thought a very good teacher response just knowing that it was that last week in um before school actually um got out. Um
teachers were very thoughtful in their narrative responses and sometimes you put a survey out and people will answer the click questions, but they don't take the time to answer the um whatchamacallit, the narrative questions. But uh the teachers here actually uh did. So in the memo that I
provided you behind the PowerPoint just so you can have this. Um and then at the end of this I'm also I'm open and I would love to hear your opinions. I plan to send um this information because it's a public record out to the staff myself to just let them know this was kind of the results of what the survey was. Um
here are the slides. Here's also some of the um questions and and summary information on the parent side. Um, I think it would also be valuable to send a link to the um, survey because I have had a few parents ask me, you know, we took the survey, what are the results? Um, I could send a message out to the
parents just say, you know, thank you very much for responding. Here's the summary. You know, this is the information the school committee and the administration will be looking at over the next, you know, number of months as we take a look at this process. But I'd love to get your feedback on if you think that would be a good um, uh, a
good uh, exercise to go through. Uh but again, and I broke this down for you. So you can actually just see uh the responses to the question. So if now you have to think about this, when they responded, they only wrote a narrative if they responded yes to a particular question. So if you didn't think this
was an issue and you said no, then there was there was no need to write the narrative. So you're getting the narrative basically on just people who said yes, I think cell phones are an issue and here's why. So if you didn't think they were an issue, you didn't have to write a narrative. Um but you know the key I'm not going to go through this entire thing but I'm just going to
give you the keys. You know pretty consistent across the board. It was just noted to be as a distraction from learning and academics. It impacted uh students social interactions with one another and behavior. Um there were issues and challenges enforcing the actual policy and getting um all staff
and students to to buy into it. there was a consistent theme among staff that they really felt sometimes the staff member themselves having to enforce the policy damaged their relationship with uh students. Um several students particularly when you got to the middle school and the high school level I'm
sorry parents I'm sorry teachers cited uh parental interference as an issue and um just I was a little surprised by this but uh just in conversation with some teachers um how often students are actually interrupted during the class by
te parents uh texting like during the school day was very surprising to me but uh it seems to be pretty common place that regular conversations are just happening during the school over non-urgent things. Um so that that was a little little surprising. And then obviously the concern about uh you know
the addiction to social media and um the negative emotional and mental health impacts that that can have. Um and again a little bit you know specific things about at the younger grade levels, you know, the smartwatches being a bigger issue than phones because the kids typically don't have the phones and that is the kids get to be middle school and
high school. They get to be a little bit more creative in how they hide and utilize their technology. So, you know, earbuds and things like that are more common. Um, and then just for flow, I kind of broke this down each of the questions by this is the global responses, but when you actually want to
take a look at elementary, middle, high school, um, you have that feedback for each of the questions where the respondents were asked to provide a narrative. Uh, and again, overall, they really did a very nice job of, um, of doing so. We tried to sum this up as best we can to uh come up with the
common common themes that kept emerging in the in the responses. Um now again this was 240 responses from teachers which was um you know very kind of comprehensive to put together but when we get to the parent survey in a little bit that was
thousands of responses. So uh again that's um really difficult to go line by line and tell you what people were thinking. So we did try to come up with the common themes that were emerging through the different uh through the different text. But um this is the uh
the feedback on the uh staff one. Um not sure if people have any um questions or uh thoughts on this particular survey and these responses just as a data point um before I review the parent one with you. I have a lot of thoughts, but I feel
like I I feel like I would love to look at both together before diving in. Um, in part because honestly in my review of this before this meeting, there's a lot of commonalities. Um, there's there's obviously some specific things came up
in one, not the other, but >> Yeah. >> Right. So, I'll go to the parent one if um >> if no one has an issue with that. All right. So, parent uh responses, our parent questions um very similar to I'm sorry, the questions were very similar
to the to the teacher questions. So, again, as Diana said, there are some common themes. We had just under 2,000 responses um to this survey, which is a very good number of responses. Um again this is largely parents u but you did have it was open to family members so you had um you know some aunts and
uncles and kids themselves got a hold of the survey and gave us their feedback. So um there is a good good mix of um things in here and again I think that's why the themes are important but a little under 2,000 responses and we also asked people here to identify which school they were kind of reporting their
comments from. So we have that on the next slide. Um parents were also asked um about the different digital platforms they think their students may be using and to indicate if they think their student uses them uh during the day or not. Um relatively um you know
consistent with regard to like the video games and the YouTube and things along that lines. Um I would say I was a little surprised that um parents didn't think that their kids were on Tik Tok or Instagram or Snapchat quite as much as um is probably happening. So that um was a little
interesting to u to me but uh again that was the parents perspective and the other thing is this this is truly the people taking the the survey whether it was the parents or the teachers this is their perception of what's happening this may not be actually happening but
uh I didn't um you know do a deeper dive other than to say this is at least perception of what's happening between what they think their kids are doing during school and then what um they're actually doing could be a little bit different. Um and it would also >> one thing that is worth noting is that 40% of the people or probably more than
that um who took this are parents of elementary or younger. >> And so it doesn't surprise me too much that more of those kids would be accessing something like YouTube or video games than a social media app that a lot of parents have a little bit more
capability to prevent them from accessing. And we can if we want to kind of dig deeper and even like call out the data by responses by school, but um this was just a very high level based on based on what we had back. Um so when we asked the parents, do you think your um
do you think students phone use at school is a problem? Um 28.5% said yes. Uh they think it's a problem during the school day. um slightly more 30% said no, they don't think it's a problem during the school day. Uh and then 33% said I think um
they might be a problem during the school day. So there's really a three-way split with regard to um parents, you know, perceptions of whether phones are a problem or not during the uh school day. Um, we asked them if they know what the uh the phone
usage guidelines, this is spec specifically towards the phone uses and about 60% said yes, 40% said no. Um, do you think your student knows? Um, a little under 50% said yes. Uh, 28% said no, and 25% were unsure. That was
similar to the responses we got on the teacher uh side. Um, and like you know, something like that actually just kind of helps us reinforce like when we do issue the student handbooks this fall and things like that, we can definitely in our messaging both like in my messages that we send out weekly or even like the schools when they send messages
out, make sure we're actually kind of highlighting where these policies are, what they are to make sure that, you know, no one doesn't know where they are or what they are. Whether they adhere to them or not is another thing, but we can at least make sure that the policies are being shared. Um question on do you
think your school handles technology issues that arise with students effectively? Um a third said yes. Um majority didn't know. Uh so I'm assuming these are parents who probably just didn't have an issue with their their child's um uh phone usage. Uh 18.2% said
mixed. Um they handled some of them things well. They didn't handle others well. So this was a little bit of a mixed response. Um, would you support a cell phone ban for students during the school day? Um, half said yes. Well, 30% said no, and
20% said they need more information. Again, this was a slightly lesser number than the teacher side. The teachers were more supportive of cell phone ban than the parents were. >> Do we have this breakdown of this particular answer by school level? I >> I can get it. >> We do.
>> I we have the ability to dig deeper into that. I just don't have it at this point. Okay. >> Because it was 2,000 responses >> because I think that would be important. >> Yeah. Um and then we have some narrative follow-ups on these two. And I I think as Diane mentioned, like you'll see some consistent themes in the narrative responses for the two. Um and then on
the parent side, if you do support a a cell phone ban in the schools, what would you want to see? Um the majority, the 35.1 said full banto ban uh bell in the morning to bell in the afternoon followed by um people saying they didn't
support a a phone ban. So I don't know that they necessarily knew they weren't supposed to answer that question, but um they made it clear that they don't support a ban. Um 22.5% wanted to see the ban during academic classes only. Uh there are some schools that have implemented that. And then
others um wanted to have it be an in academic and public spaces but um basically weren't opposed to kids using um a phone during like a certain identified time of the day if need be. Um, and then again on this one we have
the narratives from the parents which again pretty similarly align to theme-wise at least the um a lot of what was reported at the U
staff level. Hang on one sec. I'm moving too fast. Uh so again uh themes were pretty consistent. Uh the the people that did see or the parents or family members that did see phones as a problem cited them as a distraction during academics
and learning time. Um they were very concerned about the negative impact and social development of their uh students citing the lack of just face-to-face interaction and um a lack of social connectedness within uh buildings. Um,
you know, they saw bullying and inappropriate content being used to create issues both within the school day, outside of the school day. Um, they acknowledge difficulty in kind of managing a classroom and and some of the struggles that can happen with enforcement of the policy. Um, they're
concerned about students addiction and the just the fact that they're they haven't fully developed to be able to know about like self-control and when to properly use a phone and not use a phone. um concerned about, you know, anxiety, depression, uh those type of mental health and well-being type things that
uh that come from potential phone use and at really young ages. Um digital platforms obviously the impact on the classroom teachers um we again broke this down by school level and I
think we can go back in and break down some of the question responses by school level. I just didn't do that. we just broke down the narratives for the time being to again kind of tell you grade level by grade level um what we were seeing. But I think even in the end a lot of the um recommendations both from
the teaching staffing and the parent staff were pretty you know consistent around uh what people might like to see. Um and that's what we have. I'm curious. Um, so to me, this is a pretty overwhelming
sense that this is a concern for a lot of people holding two very different roles, cell phone use in general. It's not as obvious what the solution is. Um, but I think there is one of the things that did seem
to thread really clearly throughout both parent responses and um, educator responses were concerns around inconsistency both of enforcement both from school to school and um, in terms of expectations different
educators themselves held for what students would would and would not be able to do. And my concern coming out of that is although it is it feels very premature to try to take an action step around a
ban or something that um big. The next thing we're going to be talking about I think is student handbooks. And I'm wondering, you know, from your perspective as superintendent, having looked at this data and ostensively talked to some
administrators as well, if you cuz I was surprised to not see any shifts really around smart watches, for example, which seemed kind of universally to be a problem at the elementary level, or anything changing at all around,
you know, consistency around cell phone usage schools and I'm curious if you anticipate the need for you know more immediate action in this area. >> Yeah. So um two different things. So we
did the survey and we got the results obviously like right towards the end of June. >> So this hasn't been information I've even shared with the administration yet. Okay. Because we've kind of broken for the summer and people are on different schedules and things like that. So this is one of our topics when we get together for our summer retreat that
we're going to um talk about. So when I mentioned I'm going to send this to the teaching staff, I'm obviously going to send it to the admin too so that they can start to think about this. I guess the way I was thinking about approaching it um in the short term when it comes to like our student handbooks and things like that um we typically when issues
like this come up and in the back of my mind I'm also thinking I do think it's premature to do say like a full ban or whatever. I don't think we'd want to be out there um leading or reacting to whatever potentially could happen statewide because I do think that there
is um some momentum one way or the other that something's going to happen statewide and then we would have to just basically adopt or follow or modify whatever comes of that. So I think it would be best for us to sit and kind of wait on the bigger picture to see what's going to actually happen on that front.
What I'd like to see happen with us is consistency with enforcement of whatever we actually currently have as a start for our um policies. So I know um and again like I do think smart watches need to be uh identified but what we try to
do is the um what is the name of that acceptable student um >> the student empowered digital >> yeah the empowered digital use policy is not technically the handbook but the handbook will link off and kind of reference that. I think that would be an
easier document to pull some uh administration together, some teachers to get some feedback around what needs to get beefed up in that particular document because if you approve later on the handbook or whenever we approve the handbooks, that basically is a link off of the handbook. So, we can modify the
digital use um policy, whatever we call it. I keep forgetting the name, but whatever that is, we can make an update to that and then basically the the handbook is going to link off to that. So that could be kind of fresh with what we have. But I think whatever we end up um having because I do think there are I
did hear and there some good things that happening is some different schools with regard to just you know you can have a phone but it has to be off and it has to be in your bag, it has to be in your locker, things like that. I think we need to be very just consistent in the messaging of that and the actual enforcement of that and setting the expectation of the administration and
the staff in the buildings that this is what's going to have to to be and kind of hold ourselves temporarily to that as we talk through what some of these bigger changes may be based on whatever the pending legislation is. Yeah, I wasn't I I definitely wasn't proposing
we make like a gigantic shift tonight on the on in on the handbook, but I was thinking that there are some smaller things that do feel like they're absent from the handbook. And so maybe that other digital use guidelines is the the place to do that, but I what I don't
want to do is clearly this got a lot of interest. We had a ton of responses to this >> and we got a lot of data and although there's mixes in certain like what action steps to take there was clear concern that seemed pretty consistent vast majority. What I don't want to do
is say thank you for your information. We're going to do nothing about it. We're just going to sit on our hands. >> Um and so I am just trying to think timing wise it's not ideal, right? So what would be ideal is if we still had four months before student handbooks were coming out and things like that. We
don't. So, I'm wondering are there mechanisms that we could use and I don't know if it would be you or Dennis who might know this if there needed to be a shift midy year for example um either reflective of a state law that changes or
um you know after additional meetings and conversations we decide action needs to happen midy year or is the student handbook set in stone and we can't make a shift until next year? >> No. So when you approve the student handbook, you're basically kind of blessing it for the start of that school
year and then that's the document that's updated on the website. That's the document that's disseminated to parents. >> But laws change all the time. You know, you may have a shift in a policy or a procedure that you want to implement. So you would just need to have a public session to actually discuss and
incorporate that change into the the handbook. It is then just amended. So if you amend a handbook like mid year, we would just then have a duty to notify the parents that something has changed. So if you amended something in October based on because I do think we also need to have a discussion with say parents at
like PTO's or council of schools or you know whatever ends up happening on this to kind of gain some um hopefully some buy in or some education or understanding of why this is important to the um the educators who completed the survey too. If we ultimately did um change something or make some kind of a
a shift, we would just need to do like a revote um obviously amend the the handbook online and then just send a message to folks saying, you know, has been amended. This is what's changed because you don't want someone to have to read the whole handbook all over again. Um and just call it out. But that certainly can happen. In a similar vein,
if if there legislation does go through and they're saying you have to do X and we are going to have to develop a policy that goes with that and then when that policy goes in place then that links to the handbook to begin with. So >> and not have so to my knowledge I have not been here since we have actually ch
made changes in our own policy manual. Would that happen through >> we did it right before you got on a big >> So it would happen through the policy subcommittee. >> Yeah. We did a big review two years ago, two and a half years ago. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I mean, yeah, I'm not necessarily I'm not saying tonight we make a new policy.
It's more that I just want to make sure we're >> This feels, like I said, like a really strong call to action to me. And I just want to make sure we have an action plan for how we're going to be >> responsive and and yes, adaptive to like what may be shifting in the coming
months, but also thinking very seriously about, you know, what we can do as soon as it makes sense um to kind of interrupt some of the challenges that are happening. Frankly, the fact that teacher morale is
impacted by this according to such a high percentage is is a real concern for me, let alone what impacts it might have on student learning. So, I just want to make sure we're not looking at appreciating the data and then moving on. >> Right. Yeah. I don't think we're doing that at all. Um, and again, I think it was good to get the data to at least
have that like over the summer and as we engage with um Jill to figure out like how we want to roll some of this discussion out for next year, it'll be a good starting point for us. I definitely think, you know, the parents were split 50/50 with regard to, you know, they'd like to see a ban, they don't want to
see a ban. Um, but I didn't really see anyone saying, even if he didn't support a ban, we don't think there should be consistency in the practice or the implementation of what you currently have. I think that's something that we can kind of, you know, seize on and start to educate people. Um, and I think
maybe also once parents had an opportunity to even just read the results of the survey, maybe that'll help inform their um their position a little bit. It may, it may not, but I I do think um I I had planned unless you tell me otherwise to share this with the um the broader community just so that
they can see what we received as a result as well and know that um this obviously was a hot topic. I mean, to get 2,000 responses is um is a pretty good number the two weeks before the end of the school year. I would just want to make sure I I do think that this should be shared. I mean, it's obviously public
now. It's in the meeting, but beyond that, I do think it should be proactively shared. I just hope that it is proactively shared with messaging that we will continue to dig into this and and you know, consider based on the context what actions may need to to
happen. Um because again, I don't want parents to see, wow, you know, only 20. So, it isn't really 50/50. 50% of parents say they do want a ban, 20% need more information, >> and only just under 30% said no. So, I
think that need more information group >> may want to see what other parents are saying, what teachers are seeing, too, cuz there was a pretty high percentage of parents who said they don't know if it's a problem during a school day, right? >> Um they don't know how things are being implemented. So, I think the data is a
starting point, but I think messaging it that it's a starting point and that we're not just ignoring the issue from here, >> right? >> I think what could help us frame that though is if I had a better plan working with like Jill to figure out like how we're going to maybe roll some of this discussion out for the fall. We could um
let people know this is great data that we're going to use to start this conversation. Here's where the conversation's going. Um so, I just need a little bit of time to to do that. And actually, again, it was a ton of data. I want to dig a little deeper into some of the individual um school responses. Um
and we'll do that. >> Okay. >> I I just I want to make a comment. I think that was interesting to me is the number of parents they're saying are texting as you mentioned, and I skipped ahead right now. The handbook, it's really clear that all cell phones should be off while in school unless and use
for instructional purposes. than any student using a cell phone for non-instructional purposes while school is in session will have that cell phone confiscated by administration. It's right there in the handbook. And you have parents who think they should still be able to contact their child when the rule says your child should have that
phone on. >> The the loophole is that it doesn't specify smart devices. And I think a lot if I had to guess I we haven't seen the breakdown of this data. If I had to guess, it's some of the younger kids who have the smartwatches who are getting texts from their parents potentially.
kindergarteners necessarily, but maybe >> high school kids are getting them too. >> But my point is the the manual does or the handbook does not mention anything but cell phones and and so I feel like the text could be coming through that. I know >> anecdotally
that that is happening for several people that my son is acquainted to. So yeah, I mean I know it's happening >> in order for that to happen. Oh, I guess they connect their cell phone to the Wi-Fi. If you don't have a phone, how do you get >> You can have cell service on a
>> Oh, yeah. Those smart devices. >> Sell service for their >> parents. Oh my. >> The parents pay for the kids to have I mean, a smartwatch is not dissimilar in terms of like you pay for the service just like you would for a phone. >> I don't even have cell service on my own.
>> I know. But if you a lot of money, >> if you have a if you're a kid and you're not going to have a phone, the parent can pay for the cell service for the smartphone. And a lot of parents think of this as like, oh well then my kid at least doesn't have social media. They have just a smart device. It's limited for me to communicate with them. But I
feel like that might be the gap. That is actually going to be the one recommendation I make tonight around the handbook is that there be explicit language adding and smart devices such as smart watches where it has cell phones listed.
Smart watchers also I believe have a tracking mechanism which is one of the reasons many parents want the younger children to have them is they can track. So um I you know I I think that one we
need definitely a greater breakdown here in terms of leveling the grade levels and so on. The other thing is what's do we I haven't looked lately what's going on with that legislation. how quickly that's moving along. >> Um
I I definitely think it's being fasttracked more than just your regular bill, >> but I mean it's still they're breaking for summer session at this point, so it's still not going to be taken up until the fall. >> It won't be before the start of the school year. >> And I I mean the the House seems to be
pretty um supportive. Okay. I don't know at all about the Senate or where it could go from there. >> So that means >> it advances in the it's advancing in the Senate. That's all. So that for the beginning of this school year, that means that either we're going to change
what our policy is currently, which is in the handbook, or we're, you know, and advise people of that initially at the beginning of the school year, or we're going to be putting it off totally uh
until the legislation decision is made. Um, I would think at a very minimum that for the beginning of the school year, we have to make sure that each student who can read the policy
>> is asked to sign off and read on the policy. uh maybe even at the beginning of the year and also the parents uh and the teachers everybody >> uh needs to sign off on the policy so that it's actually read and people know
what it is. >> Do they have a sign off? >> They really they don't >> for the parents. >> Not for the parents. >> Parents and students don't. >> No. Uh I mean the teachers sign off on our um like the employee uh sign offs
each year. We have that we provide the handbooks to the the parents and we hope that they would actually like look at them with their students. >> We can like kind of callull out and really um push a particular policy or practice if we want to, but we don't have any leverage to make sure someone
signs them or not. >> Um that's the u that's the problem. >> Yeah. And I remember at the beginning of the year we used to get so much paperwork. Yeah. >> That it's like okay and I'm doing it. >> Right. could have a sign off, but it doesn't necessarily mean somebody >> nobody actually reads the thing. >> I suspect a lot of people don't read
this handbook at all. >> The teachers don't either, >> right? Unless you have to unless something happens and you have to look at it. >> Maybe the importance of it is that when we public make this public in the sense of we're doing it now, but also at the same time maybe making it a part of our
website or whatever. Uh in terms of the information, we also put this is the exa what's in the handbook. >> Here it is. uh you don't have to go look search for it in the entire handbook. Here it is. >> That even like in our messaging like
that would be something where I could just hyperlink like the uh the digital use the acceptable policy things like that and really kind of hit it on the messaging and I can ask the principles of the individual schools to incorporate the same into their messaging to parents. If there's like a hot button issue that we really want to make sure
gets highlighted, we certainly can do that. >> Yeah. Because one of the things we found during the year when you reported to us what was going on at each one of the schools is that actually it was communicated very it wasn't consistent how it was communicated and it wasn't
consistent what it what was communicated. So maybe that's another step is to make sure that that messaging is very consistent. >> Right. Any other comments on this? Everybody I feel is comfortable with
releasing this to the public. Both the teachers and the Yeah. Okay. Just requesting us. So everybody's >> Well, I mean it's it is public. But I was just going to make an actual special email like a message to just again frame this and provide and provide the feedback because there are some parents who are going to be interested, some
parents aren't. But I I they the ones that at least took the time to look at it >> and and respond. I want to make sure they at least know what the results were. So, I'll work on um I'll work on framing that. Great. >> Great. Thank you. >> Okay. Um
next, actually, I'm going to ask Linda to um review the student handbooks and the addendums for next year with us. So, um, in your very large packet, which, um, I'm assuming the handbooks took up a lot of that room, you'll see, um, both the family and student
handbook, which is the K through2 handbook, and then CHS has what we call the addendum because there are other rules that are applicable for high school only. And rather than convolute, the larger um, handbook, the family handbook for K through eight parents,
they use that handbook in addition to the larger handbook. So, um I was actually surprised this year, and I was talking about it before the meeting started, um a couple members that there was a lot of changes by the attorney's office this year, but when I started to look at those changes, a lot of them
were, um obviously laws, but there was a lot of like just quick language cleanup, which makes it look like there's more than what we're typically used to. Um so in the family and student handbook there were some you know tweaks around discipline and due process, academic
integrity, transportation, um student conduct and behavior, dress code, and some of the emergency procedures that we have. Um and then some bigger um law changes around like hazing. Those are the big ones that we really need them to look at because last year we had a very large overhaul of our
handbooks to make sure that we had the student discipline in in um in place which they made those changes and that was significant last year. And then in the high school addendum again any of those changes that were made in the family one that are clickable such as
hazing or anything like that you'll see in there as well. But then they had just some of their own tweaks that they've seen over the year that they needed to um address which was some of the um the dual enrollment expansion, the innovation pathways, some of their block
clarifications around their plus block, their pride block. Um some some attendance and parking revisions. Again, these are not like the law pieces. The the big thing is the law, but it's some tweaks that make the high school run better. It goes, you know, a little bit easier. some um field trip policy
enhancements, um conduct and discipline. Um there was some changes around gender identity and anti-discrimination updates, extracurricular um athletic eligibility, safety and security revisions and communication and contact um contact updates. That's just like who
who do you call if something happens. So in terms of like the law, there wasn't huge law changes for this year, but just some language cleanup. I actually like some of the stuff that the attorneys did to like just kind of streamline the handbooks because sometimes we get a little wordy and it's easier just to be
like, you know, refer to the special education laws, right? Instead of writing all the laws. I think one of the things um we're going to probably this um upcoming year, we did it a few years ago to just streamline some of those smaller things to just put together a small handbook committee of the administrators to just clean up some of
the redundancy or some of the ones that could just be an easy link like please go to this link. Um we typically go into the handbooks. I know we have people that read them. We typically go in the handbooks like if there's a question, right? That's when you refer to a handbook um over some of the bigger
items. So, it does look like a lot, but a lot of it's just quick language changes that we were in agreement with. So, we're open to some questions. >> So, in the track changes, like the blue text, is that stuff the lawyer has changed? >> You see, you see his name. I think it
was um I first name. Um you would think that that would be the first thing that pops up, right? Um Oh, that's Steve. >> The blue is the lawyer. Blue is the law. That's that I just can't see. Mine's different. Mine's all in. I have his name. So I have his name and
>> Okay. Yeah. So and ours is just blue. Okay. >> So like all of a sudden in like the attendance there's a huge like three paragraph thing that was Yeah. We didn't write that much. If you see something in another color. >> So he's saying we should put that in there because of some sort of loopholes
we want to try to avoid or Okay. >> Clarification or link that you need to go to. So I didn't realize that it came up in a different color because I think you turned it into the PDF. So if you're saying that the blue is the attorney. >> Yeah, >> that would make sense. >> Yes. >> Yeah, >> I can tell right off the bat just on
that first one that he just showed me. >> So it's not like a strike through, but he just add this all of a sudden now. >> It might be he removed it and then he wants you to add this in. >> I mean there are some words that are stricken through. >> Yeah. But chance if you happen to look at the page 19. >> Yeah. >> At the bottom. >> Um
>> yeah, there are some strikethroughs. I know that >> strike but that's him as well. Yeah, the blue is the attorney and you can see he struck through some words and he added some words. >> Yeah. >> Um he took out a legal reference. Um but yeah, the blue is basically all coming from the attorney's recommendation.
>> I can tell you we didn't like we meaning you see like Steve Murray and I sat through the high school addendum one. Um anything that's in the family one other than this blue is me. very minimal changes like like a missing comma
spelling error like there was nothing big that we needed on our side. >> Yeah. So these >> primarily the just his suggestions of here's how to make >> Yeah. Some of them you have to because right or we had the wrong information in there. >> Okay. >> Some of it was his suggestions like I
did like how he wrote the the response better than what we had. So it's really it's saying the same thing. It's just he wrote it a little bit better. >> Right. Okay. Yeah, because like you said, I didn't expect to be a lot of changes like this, but you said it's a new attorney, so he's probably looking for new eyes and >> correct,
>> new ways of stating things and Okay. >> I think some of the things became just more general. >> Yeah, a lot of them were general quick >> changes and that's probably either him or me just like this. Let's fix this sentence and make it clear. It didn't
change the law. For the attorneys, it's important that they're, you know, fixing anything for the law like that student. So the student discipline that was big last year our handbooks were not up to date prior to the beginning of the school year. So that was a lot of changes. >> Yeah. The one that stood out there was like a search and seizure one where our
current our other policy is if you're there we can go in your luck and now says no we can go in your lock into your lock that is >> that was a little more >> it's it's more um direct maybe perhaps it is we are go we it is our property. We are going to search it. We're going to search you back.
>> Right. Right. And I and I reread what he had and we were in agreement. So both Steve Murray and I sat and went through the high school one. I was, you know, the sole survivor of the um family and student one and I was in agreement with what the attorney said. And if we're not or we not sure we called them.
>> Okay. >> I am going to ask this question on page five >> on the student. >> Um I printed this thing out. Sorry. It's page five on the print out. >> What's the little page number on the bottom right?
H it says it's under absences >> and the discouraging of absences. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, and it points out very distinctly family wishing to return with their children to their native country
for personal or family business during business during the school year must adhere to the provisions of the schools committee policy. Isn't that obvious? I mean it's whatever whatever you do uh if you decided that you wanted to leave with your family for any reason to
any country it doesn't do you know what I mean it >> yeah we do have some um some situ we have that in there because we do have some situations of um families during particular times of the school year leaving for quite a long time with
expectations from the school district. >> Okay. Why does it have to specify it's their native country? They might just decide we're going to go to Spain for, you know, six weeks because we feel like it >> or six months. >> Yeah. >> That's not what's prevalent. It's it is their native country. The request is to
their native country. >> So they think that if So what you're saying is if the family believes that going back to the native country would be an excused absence. >> Correct. We we actually have families that because they feel like they're doing that, they feel like they should be able
to do like online schooling or like remote schooling while they're gone >> and then just come back >> and come back and we haven't permitted that. Like your point Susan earlier like the the paragraph before that that just talks about like the vacations, right? >> I think would be more like the discourage piece. >> Um the vacations are typically like
short-term. We still discourage them, but I mean vacations typically weak. It's the um and we do this happens every year. People do and they identify it. I don't know why as needing to return to their native country to take care of family or legal business and things like this, but they're gone for like weeks
and months at a time. Um, so perhaps that's why it's it's called out that way. But you do actually have a policy about that >> because I I think it would be any absence over whatever the number of weeks is. >> Um, it the policy applies and it's not
it's not an excuse period. So, >> do you know what I mean? So there's we're just at a time I think in our socially in society where this has a lot of meaning. Um
just I don't know it it it doesn't harm me in any way uh personally but I'm just thinking it could be to any country or any state. If you move the child out of here and go anywhere for a certain amount of
time, period, that applies. >> There is a limit like after a certain number of days, they could be withdrawn. >> Disenald. >> Yeah, disenrolled. And that is in there, the disenrollment part. So, I forget how many days it is, but >> if you're not showing up, >> they can say >> they're disenrolled. 10 consecutive period. >> 10 consecutive days.
>> Yeah. 10 consecutive days. So, there's that. There doesn't matter where you go. If you're not there for 10 days and no excuse and no, >> it really doesn't matter. >> Yeah. But is it in the handbook in that way just to make sure that it's very clear? >> It's in the handbook chosen to do that.
>> This isn't a new ad. This has been happening. >> Um, yeah. >> And we do, I don't know why, but they phrase this. We do get these requests from parents because they're going back to the native country and they for some reason think that that gives them like a special exemption type thing. >> I had students in the past who had to go back for a family wedding. Yeah. and
they would be gone for many, many weeks in a row >> because they had to go back for a family wedding if they're going to go that far away. >> Committee together, we can like revisit and say, is it redundant? Is it this? I mean, it could be um but in general,
we'd like to have that in there as a handbook piece as well. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I mean, I wonder if frankly to me this feels more succinct and and less like you're calling a subgroup of our students out if you say the paragraph
above where it says parents are strongly discouraged from taking vacations uh while school is in session. I think you could add to that from taking vacations or you know traveling for family or
personal business while school is in session because to me that is covering >> scattered into that >> what >> that's true >> to me that is covering both things without I would agree that the way that it is currently phrased reading it in a 2025 context feels like you are calling
a subgroup of our families out in a way that feels targeted. And I'm I know that was not the intention, but I'm worried that when somebody's reading this, that will be the impact. >> Do you It's in the context of
>> I'm Yeah, I'm not I'm not weighing in on something like that because I didn't write this partly. This has been inaccurate. >> I I think you're pointing out something really important because I am sure that there are um people and and culturally I think that has impacts too.
um you know on decisions of whether to take children out or not take children out but it could be vacations or it could be for any other business personal or family businesses >> paragraph above. >> Yeah. >> I just I feel like separating them into
two separate paragraphs to me it it's a it's a semantic difference perhaps but I do feel like it feels like a call out. It is for this some reason this year it really stuck with me as I was reading through it and it's highlighted and
everything and I think it's just it's a particular group. >> It's highlighted because it's new. It's from the attorney. >> Yeah. Yeah. The attorney and the attorney reviewed it and didn't see. >> Yeah. So we didn't write that he wrote that >> with that. >> Yeah. Um,
I guess my question is in the high school one there's a either a new section or new stuff on the course levels programs is that like so 60 pages 60 to like I don't know 80 something are
all red line you know >> that's the that's probably the path is that the pathway I want to >> it well it has levels it has stuff about levels that wasn't there before or if it wasn't it's It's red. So I didn't ask I would assume it was you or or Steve if it's all red. >> Have to go to the page.
>> Yeah. You got to go all the way to like 68 >> page >> 68 in the in the high school one. >> Yeah. It looks like there's a new course level. I had a question about the same one. >> So but that whole those the next 10 pages are mainly based it's all new stuff on levels and programming.
>> Yeah. It's Yeah. It's not new that those are our levels. >> Yeah. Okay. But just all red, >> but it's all it's connected. It's all connected to the pathway grants like to all the pathways that we're doing. >> Okay. So, the those levels descriptions haven't changed.
>> They haven't changed. They just have put they put >> That's why I didn't know why they were red. >> That's why I come up. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I get the pathways part of it. But >> yeah, those course levels have always been there. These are our course levels. Nothing has changed in them. >> Okay. That's >> that's really important. That's why I'm
wondering if they cut and p cuz he didn't even he didn't even I had the principal I had principal Murray flag like all of his different changes >> and he didn't he didn't change all that. I wonder if they cut it out placed it like something >> okay so maybe that's it back in by
accident. I can I can confirm with him but these are our levels. >> So those are all the same descriptions that we've had. I mean, it's got a couple formatting things on there, but >> um >> I think what they did is they put the levels back in and then it's just a
matter of how they do their schedule changes. >> Yeah. And then but no, exit strike through after that though, too. >> So, they definitely did change something. >> But, you know, if you pull something striking through, I >> Which page are we on right now? >> 6869 and this high school one. >> Yep. >> I think it's because they changed their
procedures for how to add and drop a class. They may have cut and pasted out their levels and then threw that back in. Like they may have cut them out and then put them back in because they changed their um uh policy and program change consideration. >> I see that one. Yeah, that's got a bazillion things on it.
>> I'm wondering if they cut out the levels by accident and put those back in because the changes are really actually around his um policy and program changes. So if you want to change your schedule, you need a level change. >> Okay. what's going to happen when you
put your ad drop form in. If you go underneath that, it's all about >> Yeah. No, I see that section. I just didn't >> And then how to appeal the denied schedule change, >> right? And then then you have your >> I wonder if they I don't think that those are our levels and that's what they received. So I can I can totally
verify that. I think they got cut out and put back in when they went to >> So a few years ago we we took out one partic honors. >> You took out level three. took out honors like it was honors and then honors two like there was honors one and honors two
>> honors yeah cuz this is this is a big issue right now with many people you know parents especially and I don't know if you you've seen like Newton is one of the districts that's having real issues with the percentage of people that are
leaving the district uh there was a big story I think in the globe this this past week >> that are leaving the district um in going to private schools. And the reason they are is because many are saying that uh the coursework is not um difficult
enough >> for the students who perform well uh in the district and it's because of the leveling of the courses. Now this I believe remains exactly what we've had now for these number of years after we
changed uh that honors one and two. We have not changed our levels though. AP, honors, CP, and there's a CP2 level in some of the content areas. So, those have not changed on mine. I can see that Steve's the one that made that change on here. And it looks like he made a format
change. So, it may have highlighted the whole thing. >> He did not change the the >> So, the content is the same. >> The content's the same. >> And >> it's the change for him is they're just they had cleaned up their policy for program change consideration. So about
allocation of staff, room, courses, if a child needs to change a level, >> what the process is? >> Okay. And is the the the three tiers of early college access that new? >> That's new. >> That's new. Okay. So that because that's red line obviously, too. But but that's all new. >> What page is that?
>> It's 80. >> They wanted to add that information in because it was not in their handbook now that we have the college pathways. >> That's all additional information >> I'm trying to get there. Yeah, I know that's a problem. >> I'm See, I'm working off the red like the because I need to know who did what.
So, I'm on only on page like 67 because I'm going to reformat. >> Okay. >> All right. Those are just two sections that I >> No, that's that's added. >> So, that whole section's added. The other one I think when he when he formatted the um levels, we never changed the levels.
>> Okay. Okay. Um, I would just spring up page 20 of the student handbook, which is page 151 for those looking in their digital. >> Are you back on the family student handbook? Okay. >> Page 20 of the family student handbook
where it mentions phone usage. I would strongly request that we change it to reflect what we are hearing from schools and have been consistently hearing through the survey that smart devices
more broadly are also implicated here. So, you know, where it says all cell phones should be off while in school, it >> my perspective, >> I'm still trying to get Hang on a second. What's What's the page 20 >> again? page 20 of the student and family
handbook which is 151 on your PDF >> under phone usage. >> Y >> yeah. >> Okay. Where are you again? >> I can no longer find >> the third uh scent. >> That's so I said where it says all cell phones should be off while in school unless used for instructional purposes. My thought would be that it should say
all cell phones and other smart devices should be off while in school blah blah blah. And then any student using a cell phone, again should say any student using a cell phone or smart device such as a watch for non-instructional purposes,
etc. >> The only confusion I'm going to run into, but and I I'm not disagreeing with like I I know what you're trying to add in there, but if you say smart device, we have kids that have iPads. We have kids like the kids will be like I can't use my computer. I'm just >> Well, it says unless in use for instructional purposes.
>> Yeah. So, it's all self if it's if we're like targeting just the this is why I think we were recommending like looking at that digital usage piece because what do we I don't know what the right term to call it if we're really kind of targeting those like the smart watches with that have like the actual cell
service in it or other means of ways of communicating that they shouldn't be doing because they should be focused in class. I'm just trying to think of a like the name for it. >> For instance, I don't agree a smartwatch should be turned off. It's still a watch. A lot of kids use the fitness um
um information. So, you don't want to take the watch off 100%. We need to deal with >> the usage of it for texting or phone calls is not allowed. >> Well, then maybe it's not that first line. Maybe it's just the second line
where it says any you student using a cell phone or other, you know, smart device such as a watch for non-instructional purposes while in school while school's in session, blah blah blah. I I worry that if one of the
issues is consistency and this particular issue seems to be the thing that we have zero mention of in the handbook. I just worry about that oversight. To me it doesn't feel like it's a drastic change just to mention
that that is umbrellaed in as we talk about phone usage. >> Yeah. I'm not again I don't dis I hear what you're saying. I just don't know what the right like >> put maybe add in a link to the digital usage thing there. >> Well, but that's not it's not in that part either.
>> No, but we'll have to that group or get some guidance on what you call it that doesn't preclude >> like you you brought up you brought just brought two things and we're not even like with kids having this issue, right? Like so I'm thinking well what how like you don't want a loophole, right?
>> Yeah. I don't know what the white >> I mean if you have every that I mean I get what you're saying because watches have different so you can turn it into school mode for example but it's obviously very tricky to enforce whether or not a kid's smartwatch is in school
mode or not but what I think >> if I'm thinking about the thrust of what we're trying to say is parents should not be texting their kids smart devices any more than they should be texting their child's cell phone during the school day and similarly
there should not be an expectation that children are texting. So maybe that's what I'm specifically thinking about here is the texting access. I don't know how to exactly to articulate it. >> Cell phones are text text >> or other texting devices.
>> Other text, right? Other texting because >> texting or phone calls because you can get a phone call texting SL a lot of slashes. I just don't >> Well, that's where you come back to phone usage, which I think is an accurate term, but I just I don't because it specifically calls out cell
phones. To me, that implies it is limited to cell phones. And that is probably part of the rise of smart devices. >> I 100% agree that address the issue about smart watches, but you can't tell someone to turn their watch off. >> Yeah.
>> I I don't I'm going to um I don't know enough about the smart watches to to know about the modes and things like that. But again, I get the gist of what you're saying. I'm almost wondering if there is a way for the smartwatch to be in like a school mode or safe mode or
whatever you want to call it. So, it's still working as a watch, but it's not doing anything other than that. If there could be language that just basically says um smart watches uh need to be in school mode or safe mode or whatever during the day. And if they're basically
being used for calls or texting or whatever, then they would be treated the same way like a cell phone would be and be confiscated. >> That Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And and I feel like it could be accomplished very I mean, you don't even need to call it a certain mode. I think it's just saying smart other smart devices such as
watches should not be used for calling or texting purposes during the school day period. Like I feel like that additional sentence takes care of that concern without necessarily policing whether it's through the mode that it's
in or whether it's off during the day or you know what I mean? Like I think >> those details might be part of a broader policy. >> One more thing. >> Are are students able to would a student
be able to send an email to a parent through their computer? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So I think this whole paragraph >> Yeah. This whole paragraph right here should actually be um more broad and should be about communicating with a
student uh during class time, during school, >> what what is allowed and what isn't. >> Well, in some ways this is addressing two concerns. One is contact during school day, which is the beginning of it, right? >> And then the second is the consequences
specifically around what they term as cell phones, but I would say a device being to put it in there. >> But I think you your first sentence is basically saying if a student needs to contact home, they should, you know, go to the office to make the call, >> right?
>> If the parent needs to talk to the kid, they should call the school office to talk to the kid. That's second sentence. I mean, those that's basically how you want it to work. If you're I mean, we can't stop someone from sending an email. um if someone's using their phone or if they're using their watch and they
shouldn't be, I think that's when they've kind of violated the spirit of what we're trying to get at. Um let's the even the concept of contacting home, it's not necessarily that. I mean, a student could be texting the parent at
work or anywhere >> or may not be a parent. I mean, that's >> or may not be a parent. Exactly. >> So, it's just communication with a student. uh and the outside world essentially
>> um during school can be done because the student can go to the office and ask to use the phone or contact the parent some other way email my father or my mother or whatever I need to touch base with them um but
you know it it they shouldn't be emailing texting or doing anything else >> unless It's a necessity. >> Communication device. A cell phone/communication device. >> Yeah. >> Like >> it's almost like a phone. Your watch can
be used for any of the passive Yeah. >> um >> applications. >> Exactly. >> It has but nothing that they have to actively engage >> communicate like if you in the first few sentences it is about like if you need to if your child needs to talk to you or you need to talk to your child, go to the office, get on the horn, don't be
interrupting. But your kid can't use your smartwatch to arrange a a visit to the bathroom to somebody else either. It's not just about text somebody else. >> No, but we shouldn't is I think the point it's not just about cell phones or slashcommunication devices. >> Yeah. And that is one of the comments in the survey.
>> And the other the other reality and I think this is the subtleties that we will have to get at later >> is that just receiving notifications is incredibly distracting for kids too. So, I think that is where even if the child
is not actively saying, "Hey, I'm going to text my mom or I'm going to text my friend." >> They're getting an alert >> that they then look at when they are not >> focused on what is happening. Um, >> you know, my younger son has even talked
about peers of his who have been like >> struggling to focus because of this. So, I know that this is a thing. I don't necessarily think we can or should get into all of the weeds tonight um as we talk about this handbook, but I would
recommend there be some language in here around communication channels, including things other than cell phones not being permitted for non-instructional purposes. >> Anybody I mean a communication device I mean what if somebody walks in with walkie-talkie? I mean
it happen >> they're going to start putting walkie talkies in. I mean, they shouldn't be using any of these for non-instructional purposes. >> The other um and then on the other one like underneath >> just that last sentence where it says, you know, first offense will lead to a warning and the administrator will return the phone/communication device to
the student at the end of the day. Second and subsequent offenses. Oh, that should be me. I got to get rid of Will. Sorry. I don't know why that was there. >> Yeah. So, can we call it a communication device? Would that be clear enough what we're talking about? >> Because the issue is phones. Like the larger issue is phones. It's just they
want to incorporate these other communication devices without precluding like somebody said >> I mean for the for the purpose of trying to get the handbook approved you could do cell phone/communication device for the time being >> you could further define communication
device in the acceptable use policy. >> Yeah. >> And then when we revisit this we all know what the intent is and we revisit this the next time if it needs to be clear or change something we can do that. >> Okay. I think, you know, my mindset here
is this is like obviously a many part conversation. I just want to make sure that if we're talking about consistency, if families are receiving communications in mailings every week from their schools about how they should not be communicating with their kids through smart devices,
including watches, they're calling that out in communication to parents. Then I want to make sure our handbook lines up with that, particularly since that is our intent. >> So, everybody okay with that change? Add the slash communication device. >> Yeah, that would do it. >> I am. As long as they're not told they
have to turn their watch itself off. That one sentence. >> Change it in the high school addendum as well. >> That one sentence about them being off. >> That's okay. >> Yeah, that's fine. >> For purposes of a motion so far, >> I've got the communication devices thing on the phone.
>> So, any any reference to phone in the phone usage paragraph will be cell phone communication device. >> Okay. I already >> Yeah. And I think where it says off, it should say off or communication disabled >> because yeah,
>> I think one of them >> Susan's opposition is that she does not want to say that they should all be off. >> Where is that? Where are you? Where are you? >> The sentence that says all cell phones should be off while in school. >> So, okay.
>> Communication devices slash communication devices. Well, they're not using it as a communication device. >> Yeah. Off or disconnected might be the better way to say it. Off or disconnected while in school. >> I mean, you can turn the Wi-Fi and you can put it in airplane mode and you can
turn the Wi-Fi off on a watch, >> right? And or like I said, there's school mode in several of them too, like the Gab and um the other like the one that a lot of kids use. Can't remember the name. >> The young kids, but the older kids are going to have like an Apple Watch, which does not have that
>> turned off. And if Susan doesn't want to turn the watches off >> because they may be using this is the only watch I ever use. No, I get it. And if I get a phone call, which it sounds it's going to ring. >> Interpret a communication device as like if somebody didn't if they didn't shut
off their their texting or phone call piece. That's >> Yeah, that's true. If you're if you can shut off the communication >> Yeah. We didn't say shut off your >> without shutting off tracker your >> but it's just >> and I think some of this comes down to
and making sure that educators know what the the intent is so that the enforcement is the way that we want it to be. Yeah. >> All right. Any other things in either handbook that people
found? >> All right. Any other >> one too? Yeah, I'll change it. >> Okay. >> Changes that size of communication device thing. That the only other >> thing we wanted to add or change >> my page five.
>> That's what I was going to say. Maria wanted to change something on page five. So, I don't know. >> My family's thing. >> Yeah. >> Turning to the native country. >> It's kind of not necessary because all the rest of it already tells you can't be out for more than 10 days without >> I guess what how would you want what do
you want to change it? How do you want to change it? I guess the question >> remove it totally cuz because honestly it's already part of it. I I think I I can understand why you have it there >> because people can't you can't remove it totally because people are going to say I'm not
going for a vacation. I'm going for >> so if it's not business >> so just add it up here to uh the after vacations or for family business purposes. What does the policy say?
>> I don't know. >> Well, parents are still discouraging from taking their >> students out of school. >> Yeah. >> It doesn't I mean I think you can even leave out vacations. >> It's just from taking students out of
school while school >> while school's in session. >> Yeah. >> Don't call it a vacation. So whatever your reason is, it's not okay unless it fits one of the excused >> and and and then what follows applies to either case, either a vacation or a
family excuse. So a written request for trip absences, etc., etc. >> Yeah, I think if we just don't call it a vacation in the first place. So, families removing their children out of school for personal or family
business during the school year must adhere the provisions of the school committee. That's it. >> You can call it on a business and or personal trip. >> Okay. >> You don't have to call it a vacation
trip. You can call it a personal trip. >> She didn't call it any trip. What? How did you say it >> at the top? From taking business or personal trips, right? >> Well, the problem you have like in
reading this is that you say it's discouraged, but then we're like, please put in request. I almost think you need to if you're going to take a change, start with time out of school can be harmful to a child's progress and success in school because the the main purpose of this was like don't expect us to suddenly because people come in and
say, I'm going to be out for two weeks, my kid needs their math, their English, their like no. So if you start off with, >> you know, time out of school can be harmful to a child's because nobody listens. >> Yeah. So if you start anyways >> if you start with that paragraph if you
start that paragraph with time out of school and then you take the sentence that says parents are strongly discoura the first sentence of that paragraph parents are strongly discouraged from and instead of say
taking vacations saying removing their students from school for any reason >> while school is in session to me that cover because there. I mean, other than sickness, I guess maybe. >> Yeah, you got to be careful. Or >> so, you know, maybe we say for family
business or um vacation purposes or something. >> But personal family business or vacation purposes. >> Yeah. >> Mhm. >> Or just on business or personal. >> Yeah. Business. >> Vacation is personal. >> Or or travel purposes. I don't want to
say personal cuz I worry that personal implies religious holidays aren't accepted which we do not want to do. So I think >> business or travel purposes may better >> encompass what we mean >> that will cover it.
I'm just reading before. >> Yeah, I was going to say you want to have it moment of silence for a second. >> Yeah, >> I'm trying to read the policy too and see what it's linking to. There is nothing in I I read our our policy vague. >> There's nothing in our policy that calls
out, you know, travel to a native country. And there's nothing in our policy that I think conflicts with the potential rephrasing. Can >> do you want do you want to read aloud? Um, >> yeah. What do you got?
>> Okay. >> So, I would like to start with the sentence of time out of school can be harmful to a children to ch to a child's progress, growth, and success in school. >> Good. Parents are strongly discouraged from take from removing students from school while it's in session. Period. If
a student accompanies their parent, I put I change the word to if because if they're doing it, this is going to happen. If a student accompanies their parent/guardian on a business and or vacation trip, the student uh upon return is responsible for contacting
their teacher to discuss miswork and makeup procedures. The teacher is not obligated to provide assignments while the student is not school. Upon uh return to school from an absence, the student is required to present um to the attendance teacher. We don't really have an attendance teacher. Um or deem a
dated note signed by the parent or guardian indicating the reasons for the absence. And that's because we have to decide if it's excused or not excused. >> You're in the high school one. >> No. >> Are you because there's no mention to there's no mention to dean here. Is there >> is there is there
>> it says or dean. So that could cover that. >> It covers all of them. >> Mhm. And then I think that the following paragraph could be so you could remove the families wishing to return sentence except I would say you know
all you know families must adhere to the provisions of the school committee policy in this handbook. if we wanted to call, if we wanted, we could still link the handbook. But I think otherwise we could delete it. >> And even if that's the case that upon returns, we don't need a signed note
from the parent because we're going to already be calling them anyways because they're going to school for x amount of days. You could go right for um >> families must adhere like you could go you get rid of all that and then just your phone is ringing. Mhm. Um, >> I just wanted to say I just wanted you
to understand what how this >> families must adhere to the provisions of the school committee policy and the sandbox. >> Great. Period. >> Yeah. >> Period. >> All right. >> I think that that's much better. Thank you. >> I'm going to cut and paste this and send it all to you. Is it Is this the same
that's in the high school one too or is it even >> No, this No, the high school's very different because their attendance is even more strict. >> Yeah. I don't Yeah, I don't want a note because you should have been in school. This is what I'm saying. This is why I wanted to put together a handbook committee because like some of this
stuff is kind of, you know, antiquated. >> Um, we'll get rid of that. >> All right. >> And then >> I think we I think we know the intent of what you're looking for. So, Linda can kind of concoct the paragraph and email it to you after the fact just to give
her one final blessing and then um >> go from there. And just to move on, can we approve or vote to approve with suggested changes? >> The two suggested changes and then if you could >> Yeah. And then as long as you Yeah. >> All right.
>> All right. So we have to approve the two different ones separately. So >> Okay. >> Is the >> um >> district one, right? >> All right. So I recommen I make a motion. Are we ready for it? >> I believe so.
>> Yes. I move that we approve the 202526 student handbook um has presented with the amendments >> with suggestion changes. Yeah. >> I'll second. >> Okay. Everybody comfortable with that
motion? Okay. All those in favor? >> I was zero. >> Okay. And I move that we approve the 202526 student head and Chumsford High School addendum um with the recommended changes.
>> Second. >> Okay. All right. Any questions on that one? All those in favor? >> I. >> And then we have one more handbook. >> We have one more. Hopefully this one won't be too controversial. This is the um approval of the staff handbook for
2526. Um Diane Kerry had put this together and um it has very few uh changes in it. I just laid them out on the cover pages. Really nothing of substance. Um you know dates were updated to 25 instead of 24.
The pages had to be reumbered because of the table of contents and the way the different things laid out. There was a renaming of one of the um the policies that came from the attorney. Uh and they added a hyperlink to the civil rights procedure that's already posted on our website. >> Um the only thing that we didn't have
currently is the new contracts that we just executed. I got to get them up to the um the new website and then once they are the hyperlinks at the back of this just have to redirect them to the new contracts, but it's not a substantive update. So there was really nothing um substantive in this. It's
just minor little updates for the year. >> So we'd recommend this for approval. Any questions on the employee? Do you mean in the employee handbook? >> I just didn't look for the word para educators versus >> we changed it. >> We changed that last time I think. Yeah. >> Oh, and I changed it in the contract
document throughout this year. Okay. So, we're good on that. >> Wonderful. Thank you. >> Anything else on the employee handbook? >> Okay. Take a motion. >> I move that we approve the updated employee handbook. Um, as presented.
>> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> I >> was zero. >> All righty. We're flying. >> Oh my goodness. >> All right. This was a kind of big meeting. We had a lot of stuff to to get through tonight. Um, next item is number
nine. Um, this is the private school approval process and then a request for consideration. I know a few of us have had some um some discussions about this. So, at some point last winter, um Linder and I were approached by individuals
associated with a new um school venture uh that wanted to open up in town and operate as a private uh school. At that point in time, uh they were kind of just putting us on notice. Uh they had given us a draft proposal. Um I think they had tried to open the school similarly in a
neighboring community a year or so prior and just didn't get legs, so it didn't open. but they shared that proposal um with us and talked about how they were looking at a couple of different locations that they needed to kind of finalize, but they wanted to um give us a heads up and talk a little bit about
what the approval process is. So, um, when a school does want to operate, um, within the confines of the town, they do need approval of the school committee, even though they're a private school, to basically say that the type of education that they're going to be providing is
similar to the education that the um, kids would be provided in the public school. Um, your current policy and even the MASS policy is pretty u vague with regard to um, kind of the approval process for this. Desi has a checklist
that they suggest you um look through to make sure the different criteria are met. So I took the application that the group had um given us because at this point in time they have, as it's my understanding, secured a location, but they're still going through the process
of having the space being kind of renovated and retrofitted. So they don't have the necessary permits and things like that to operate the uh school yet. That's one of the key elements that they have to ultimately provide to us before you can take action on it. But I went through their current proposal and each
of the different um criteria based on the DESIE checklist that they need to uh meet um to give you a stance for what's the criteria, how does the group propose to meet it, and then have they met the criteria or not. So um I thought this was we don't do this often. This doesn't
come up often in communities. So I thought this was the easiest way of just kind of going through and to do it. Um so the first element that they have to reach is a clearly defined population to be served. Um they do outline that within their proposal. Um so that criteria was met. Um they is a criteria
that talks about the physical plant, the safety issues um and how they're going to handle health issues within the school. Um they laid out how they were going to do that, but this is one of the criteria that they haven't met because they do not have the um the necessary permits to open up as a school yet. So
if they had all the permits they would meet this criteria. Um they have to meet certain curriculum standards. So in their proposal they laid out all the different curriculum that they propose to use. Um so in my opinion they've met this uh criteria. Uh educational materials they have to talk
about what again they're going to use again curriculum wise manipulative wise things along those lines. Um so again in my opinion they've met that criteria. uh school staff. They have to talk about um who they're actually going to um have working with the kids. They have to make sure that they're going to comply with
different ratios that they're going to be Corey checked. Um all things along those lines, excuse me. And based on what they submitted in their application, they appear to have met that criteria. Um the sixth one is the administration of the school. Um just talks about who's
actually the governance structure, who's in charge, who the board is. Um and they provided that and met that criteria. Um Jesse has certain records requirements that are required. Um they had to talk about how they can be in compliance with different laws with um student data. Um
if people come asking for records, how long they're going to maintain them, very similar to um to what we are also required to keep in the school system. Uh the only thing at this point when we met with the individuals, what they re um what they mentioned to us is they were looking to open up uh one grade
level per year. So they were looking to enroll incoming um kindergarten to first first grade students for this coming school year a cohort of up to 20 and then each year they were going to try to grow by the 20 students. So in the application eventually they are going to
try to get up to grade eight. Um when they actually have students in the building that hit grade um six through eight, they are required to have a hazing policy. Uh and that's something that would have to be on record with us. They didn't have that within their packet, I believe, because they probably
weren't counting on enrolling grade six to eight kids at this time. That's a pretty easy one to clear up, but they technically didn't meet that um criteria. So, that was one that was noted for followup. Um under nursing nursing and health services, they have to talk about um how they're going to
um address the different uh student discipline and different screening eligibility um health care for the students, including guiding guidance and counseling support. Um this is one criteria that they didn't um meet because they're not proposing at this point having a dedicated guidance council like we have in the buildings
that would deal with um student issues. Again, if I'm them, I could see their perspective if they're only going to have up to 20 kids in a particular year and they have enough adults that may be their um their way of not having the the counselor. But um that could be an area
that you want to inquire a little bit further on. um special education. The ninth criteria um they do have to um just ensure that they're going to comply with um special education um rules and laws and regulations and they do indicate that they um are going to do
so. So that's not an issue. Uh financial report um they didn't fully provide um the typical budgeting uh financials that you would see, profit loss statements, balance sheets, things along those lines. So that's an area where we could
request additional information just to make sure that they are fiscally solvent um and able to operate. I think this would be because you don't want to have a family enroll in the school and all of a sudden they go one to two months in and the student doesn't have a place to um to go. Um the 11th criteria is around
student learning time and they do propose a day which meets Desessie's guidelines. So they have um met that particular criteria. The 12th one was around student performance assessment. um they had to talk about the different um tools that they're going to use to evaluate student
growth and progress monitor. Um they have provided uh sufficient detail for that. So that criteria was met. Um and then notification of a private school. So if they ever were to close, there are certain things that they have to provide to families and to Desi and to the school district. Um and they indicated
that they would do so. So they've met that criteria. So when you look at all of the criteria as far as the program approval is concerned, um they've met all uh most most criteria. The first one is probably the biggest one around physical plant. They just haven't provided us with the certificate of
occupancy and different permits to operate the building. So that would be one I would recommend the school committee would want to um follow up on and they'd have to provide that after they have those certificates. You couldn't grant approval prior to that. Um, you could also request uh on my back page here financial um support and some
financial evidence of their ability to um to operate. Um just get it out of the way now the hazing policy. Have them give us some certification that they are going to apply comply with the hazing rules and then you could pro if you wanted to a little bit on the guidance and counseling program to just make sure
that the kids would be supported um like they are in our school. Those are really the four elements that are kind of missing or at least are open for review. Um, so those would, if you agree, would be things that we could potentially message back to them that they would have to include in the final uh packet
that would come before you. And then aside from that, um, you know, you certainly could go to the site and do a site visit. You could do a group site visit, you could do an individual site visit if you just wanted to put your eyes on it. Um, and then behind my little summary, I just included the
checklist from Desi just so you could see the different elements. it. That was my first kind of pass at this to just give you a kind of a starting point to work from. >> I guess another concern is their their application is based upon enrolling grade one students.
>> Yeah. >> Now they're advertising two to five. So what I you know I need some clarification on what because you know I correct me if we said yes grade one that doesn't necessarily mean we're saying you know you can do all the way up to
middle school. Does every year they have to come to if they're going to add another grade level year, would they have to come to us for grade two? And and if that's the case, you know, we need to know what what their what their plan is, >> right? >> Yeah. To me, that contradicts the need for them to have a clear target population, >> right?
>> Um >> which is one of the requirements, >> right? >> So that that first that so that means they don't really meet that first criteria. obviously criteria too they you know if they don't have all the permits for occupancy and all that they
you can't open a school um >> so I mean when they messaged us they were originally talking about just the grade one and that's what they had talked about that's what their application supports >> so certainly that's another thing because I have seen the public postings also that's another thing we could ask them for
>> um you know they could change their final application and actually ask for approval of up to one to five and that would be what you have to consider but I And um I could highlight that one as well. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I think they need to make that clear. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And I and you know I know they have enrollment projections in the sense that
they in this say 20 first grade students. Um, but I I would want to hear if that is, you know, it says they need they they did share I saw a laid out specific admissions criteria,
but I think um having a sense of like a timeline for when they will be um making a final decision about their population and enrolling students would be also helpful information to have, particularly if they are going to be
shifting um the target number of students in each grade if they are opening it up to additional grades. >> Yeah, I think based on the application that they gave us u they've already missed the date dates when they were supposed to kind of notify families. So >> which makes me wonder if you know if
they haven't got this done and this done are they even viable to open in the fall? Is this something >> I don't know >> you know that maybe they they need to think about maybe next fall and just get all ducks row beforehand. I'm really concerned for the parents who may be applying and and being told the school is going to open,
>> right, >> when there's certainly no guarantee of it all. And how many families have they enrolled whose children are expecting to be going there >> at the end of August, >> right? >> It's a month from now. >> Yeah. >> And the financial plan, I think, is
extremely important because I mean, if we're going to approve something that's not viable, >> um, then we're doing a disservice to the public. period. So I think that that is >> Do you Does anyone disagree with the four elements I laid out on the back
page? >> I don't disagree. >> The physical plant, the physical the financial support, the hazing policy, and the guidance. >> I would just add the admissions target. >> No, I can I can add that. But if you agree with these four, I could submit a copy of this report that we put together for them to say, "Here's where we're at.
We we think you've met these. You certainly have to provide more information on these four to make sure they're covered in your final proposal. As well as your proposal specifically says you're targeting 20 kids at grade one, but your advertisements are saying you're doing now grades one to five. So
what is your real target audience for the fall? Make sure that that's included in the application. And then truly where I mean you don't have to tell us, but like where are they at this point as far as enrollment is concerned? How many kids, what grade levels? Um because this really if if they're going to do this,
in my opinion, they've got to get this back um complete by the first meeting in August for you to really consider it because if it waits until the 20th, that's a week out of out from school. I mean, that's not going to really give them enough time to do anything or to Susan's point, if a child has actually
enrolled and they think this is going to open and then all of a sudden it doesn't. I don't know like what their drop dead date is for letting people know. >> Yes. So I can communicate those four and then also the grade level certainty we need from them. >> Okay. >> Yeah.
>> And question generally after they get going on this plan this whole thing are we monitoring this? >> No. Um it's this is basically like an initial approval. >> Okay. >> If I were them what I would be doing is
submitting an application for us that's going to cover the extent of what they're asking for. I mean, at this point, if they're only asking to grow from grades, say even 1 to five, they could just have their application process be grades 1 to five, that's at least going to cover the next five years for them. As they start to approach middle school, they could come back and
say, "We want to extend our grades." >> But there's technically nothing stopping them for asking for the approval from grades 1 to 8 at this time if they want to. They just have to provide a lot more information on, you know, curriculum and things like that. But um their original focus when they talked to Linder and I
was just grade one. So I was a little surprised when I saw the ads. >> Yeah. >> So everybody agrees they need we we need more information. >> Yes, please. >> Kind of a related thing I know in in starting to look at this. I did look at
our policy and I gave you a copy. Our policy is very very very very vague. Um, I also put the MSC policy was a little bit more specific. And this is what I mean what MC say is kind of what we're following, but maybe to consider maybe making a change, maybe not tonight, but
in the future in case it ever happens again that that um, you know, >> yeah, it's very very general >> and it does reference the checklist that we're using. So, you know, again, our policy is is it still fits because it just says that they have to meet certain
criteria, but it doesn't really >> it basically just kicks it to Desi's right policy. So, >> we didn't even do that, you know. So, our policy didn't even do that. It just says it has to equal our public school and thoroughess. That's that's it. So, that's and then the MSC one does I think I said you that. So, just something to
consider maybe future meeting just to kind of to I it's much more comprehensive, >> right? So that if somebody ever did want to and they, okay, I got to do this, this, this, this, this, this, if they were to look up our policy ahead of time and say, oh, like I have to
>> um, >> would you like me to kind of ceue up this change? >> Yeah. >> For like a future meeting? Yeah. Just to be able to look I mean, it's sub it's substantially >> the same what we're doing. So, it's not going to affect I don't want people thinking we're going to try to change a policy to affect this
>> application. I was same way and it's exactly what we just discussed and it's the exact same checklist that you just posted in the packet. >> Um, >> but it's much more >> because the the MS also is followed by the checklist which I didn't put on here because it was more paper. >> Um, but just
>> substantial changes the school must seek renewal or >> Right. Exactly. >> All that. I think that that's >> so maybe cue that up for next meeting or something. I can >> Okay, great. >> Yeah. because it was a bit scary to read an article that basically said there was a new private school in town and
there was an article. >> Yeah. >> About this in a newspaper, >> right? I don't remember. >> It's posted on many of the town social media platforms. >> Right. Right. I'll I'll convey the the report and um the request for more
detailed response to these four as well as the grade levels and then if um if any I I'll try to also just figure out like where they're at um for the fall and can communicate that back to you. If it is something where they are going to try to advance for the for the fall,
I'll also urge them to get the full application in next week so that we can actually look at it at the 5th when we get together. Um, is there any interest of committee members to go visit the space at all? >> I would say yes. I would I would look >> Yeah, I'd want to go see what they were. >> I would want it before. >> Exactly.
>> So once they have otherwise met the requirements to me that would be a step to approval. >> Okay. All right. All right. I believe we have one last item. >> We do. This is just a personnel report from the month of June. Um again
detailing if you see everyone with an effective date of 8:25 that's our first day of school. So these are our new hires um coming to the district uh teachers um bunch of specialists. We have some nurses, psychologists. Um so hiring is going very well uh for the current
school year. We had a handful of resignations on the second page and then we had a few uh people whose retirement dates were effective June 30th. So, um, we knew these people retiring in June, but this just kind of closes out their, um, service. Um,
at the very end, we just had a couple of current staff members who, uh, transferred to different positions within the district. Um, just a little tally for you to kind of show you where we're at. And when we get to the first meeting in August, I'll give you a report of all of our open positions. But overall, we're doing very good for the
uh, for the hiring for the fall. >> Any questions on the personnel report? No. Wait. Okay. >> All right. Uh any liazison reports? >> No, not at >> this time. All right. I superintendent
already mentioned it but but um the you know in terms of building committee we we did get six proposals from designers and we are currently going through those and um you know we have to kind of look at all the different criteria and then at the end of August we'll meet with
MSBA and look cut it down to two or three and then interview them. And so we're definitely moving along. It's getting there. I think we meet again next month as a com whole committee. Yeah, we the whole committee will meet I think it's the third Thursday. Yeah. In August.
>> We took July off and then um yeah, the last the week of the 25th of August is when we have the um the first designer selection panel. That's when we talk about all six firms that actually submit it. And with a discussion with the MSBA
panel, we narrow it down to either two or three to invite in for interviews. So then that happens two weeks later. So we'd actually interview the individuals and then um from our perspective it's myself, Dennis and Paul Cohen are the three town reps and then there were 13
um MSBA reps. So we're a little bit outnumbered a lot of people. >> We're going to have to be on our game that day. Um but that's the way the process plays out. So hopefully by that first meeting in in September when we meet with the designer selection panel, we'll have the designer on board and
then the contracts a standard contract. So the contracts executed within a couple of days and um the work will really get going. >> And a related note, the South Road project is all good to go, right? >> Yes. So that's good to go. We actually we got all the final paperwork on that.
So town meeting uh did approve the additional uh funding for that project. Um it does seem like a a big amount of money that they approved, but the town's portion in the end of what is going to be spent would be similar to what they were going to spend originally. It's
just that um we have to actually bond for the full amount of the project which is closer to 4 million. However, the town's only going to end up paying 2 million. It's about half of that. But uh instead of just showing 2 million on the books, you actually have to show the full amount. So that was um that was appropriated. All the final paperwork
was signed. MSBA approved everything. So um the designer is actually um in process getting that ready to go. The goal is to get that project out to bid later on this fall um early winter because the lead time involved um there's a lot of relocation of the existing solar panels. There are new
solar panels that have to be added. So, we need to get that queued up so that it can happen next summer. That has to be a summer project. So, um we'll keep you in the loop on that. But, um it's all the paperwork is done and the design is underway. And >> the elevators got approved too. >> Yeah. So, those are also moving into the
design phase and uh those I think they were hoping to get those uh out to bid at the end of the summer because there's almost a year's lead time to get parts on some of these elevators. So, um that is also going to be a um hopeful project for next summer.
>> Yeah, elevators tough. >> Elevators are very tough. >> There's the old ones. >> Yeah, there's not a lot of companies that really do the work on them. >> Absolutely. The servicing is very difficult and for us we only have one elevator in a school. So we can't afford to be down an elevator with staff and students who require it. So it has to be
a summer project for us. And of course every single school district who's putting an elevator in wants to do it during the summer. They don't want to do it during the school year. So um there's a window we have to kind of hit to be able to get that done. But uh no elevators are expensive. Not a lot of people work on them and you're kind of
tied to whatever group bids the project. You can't do it during the school year because not only is it disruptive, >> it wouldn't be in operation and therefore those kids who anyone, right, >> anyone in the building who needs it would not be able to access the building. >> It wouldn't be in compliance, >> however long it takes. Right.
>> Right. >> And an elevator when it goes down, it it takes, you know, >> at least six to eight weeks to get a new elevator in. So, it's it's a lot of downtime. >> Absolutely. Um, we have other projects ongoing during the summer, right? the
entries and all of that. Well, you'll probably provide us some update at some point in August. >> Take a tour. >> That's right. >> Go for a tour of the summer. >> Yeah, that's good. >> We will certainly give you an update in August. Um the five uh buildouts of the
secure entryways, they're all underway. They're in different uh actually Senate hasn't started yet. They holding off Senate till the very end in case you hear anything because of the summer school being over there. So, um, and that one's probably the most intrusive because we're also having to move the office doors. We're having to move the
fire doors. >> So, uh, that one's being held off until the very last second that they can. Um, but I was over at, um, Harrington and, um, Parker and they're all already framed. Uh, they're just waiting for inspections before the stuff goes up. So, those should be, um, in good shape
for the for the start of the school year all around. But, I'll give you a full report. >> That's terrific. Right. Any new items? >> Any update when you can on um numbers for students enrollment?
>> Yeah, I can try that for the next meeting for you if you'd like. >> Particularly if we did ever wind up with any new students from that new complex. >> Yeah. Are they moving in yet? >> I don't know. >> Have they started moving people in over there? I don't know yet. >> We're not We're not seeing people registering from the address. Wow. Oh, I
I don't know what the status of the people moving in are. Supposedly the the at least the town houses when you drive onto the property on the left, those were supposedly leasing as of May 1st. So, >> they look complete. I drove in one day just to look around. They look complete. >> I don't know. But we're not we're not
getting inundated yet. >> Okay. >> Okay. My only thing was and it came up in the um and I'm taking Maria stealing me thunder in the surveys for the cell phones and it comes up in with the
handbook the AI policy if we could maybe get a working group together >> to get the policy sub committee maybe sit down with Bill I know I sent him a couple of possibles y >> from very very general to very very specific and and I know there's a working group going >> you're working on AI even if some a
little different from that okay >> would you know, and maybe try to come up because it did come up and all. >> Not stealing my thunder at all. I think it's it's a very important thing for us to deal with, >> but I know people work behind the scenes. I know this group's going looking at it. >> I may have some resources to pass along to the policy working group as well. My
uh new organization for my day job is doing a lot of work this summer around AI in schools and is bringing in some experts to lead workshops and things like that that I'll be able to attend. So, I um I hope to be able to have some stuff to share. >> Great. Perfect. That would be great.
>> All right. Anything else? >> Well, this is a short meeting, so I think >> Oh, yeah. >> Oh my. >> We'll take a motion to adjourn. >> Oh, yes. I move to adjourn. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> I >> Thank you. >> Thank you, everyone.