##VIDEO ID:gmOaetSpaX8## the for it stands Nation indivisible andice for all thank you this meeting is being live streamed by chel for Tel media and posted the CPS website for interested community members to access and watch iners public participation will be taking place tonight in accordance with the Chelson school committee public participation policy anyone speaking tonight during the public input portion of this meeting has notified the superintendent's office of the desire to speak been provided with these guidelines Point requests written comments received no later than 12:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting will be read and made part of the record of the meeting during the SE second public comment session so welcome to this meeting of the choun school committee uh we have a a lengthy agenda so we'll start off with our uh last minutes okay I move that we approve the minutes of the regular school meeting of January 7th 2025 I'll second okay anybody have any corrections right all those in favor I I'm abstaining one abstention okay three eye and one abstention yep all right next up we'll hear from our student Representatives all right so term two officially closes on January 24th uh students will be turning in all missing work as grades close we'll be sure to do that um senior wrestler masi Sadat recently made headlines on the Boston Globe documenting his story from fleeing his home in Afghanistan at age of 13 to now scoring points on the mat for the chumford varsity wrestling team um the council of chumford schools is in is inviting parents and guardians of chumford students to hear Katie Greer speak about the digital health and safety this is at the CHS pack on Thursday at 6:30 uh tomorrow night uh take the night off from cooking and join the CHS PTO at The Establishment D in or takeout um mention the CHS PTO flyer to benefit the after prom for the senior class um midterms will be held on Wednesday Thursday and Friday for CHS students who are taking halfe courses um there will be early dismissal on Thursday and Friday um last week on Wednesday during our pride block was reverse College day which gave current CHS students the opportunity to hear from CH CHS alumni about their college experiences including the challenges and successes of transitioning from high school to college students were also able to ask questions and get personal responses it was a it was great seeing the Chums alums and thank you Miss Cunningham for putting this together in the career center and last Friday our leadership in motion everywhere Club hosted in tune a musical showcase at the pack and tickets were sold during lunches and at the door with all proceeds going to the loal Humane Society and from the de Deca District conference 20 out of 54 CHS students who competed qualified for States this is double the amount from last year and congr congrats all and keep up the great work and I'll just name them cuz I'm sure they work very hard for this but I might mispronounce some of their names but pron Ava Buri Arvin REO Kush Patel on Patel Matthew lamb Matthew May Matthew San pav AA Shian badola pav sasan does sanos vene Moran Molly Zen rusik kundu Michael hun Ethan Jen aditia Pine Micah Thoren miles ring Cooper and Nathan Moore so I'm impressed you get all those names when the guy L leaves it does the graduation good job all right well thank you both very much any other good news that we want to share I mean good news for Dr Lang that the snowstorm came when there was no school so he's able to sleep in on Monday we're very happy for him um and this Friday marks the 90th day of school which is halfway there so looking forward to the days getting longer with the sun and we're heading towards the end of the school year anybody else have anything I just wanted to share I uh got to go to my first concert of the conc season last week um with a fifth grade band um sort of their initial performance followed by a jazz band show and I was really impressed um just really exciting to see how many student musicians um there are in chelsford and how much the kids learn in such a short time um given their ability to you know get four days a week of intensive work with their teachers so really great to see great thank you anybody else all right uh no public comment tonight no so we're on to new business we are going to jump right in because as Dennis mentioned we actually have a lengthy agenda tonight unlike our first meeting in January so we're going to make up for it tonight and uh we have Josh Black and Mark Souza the principal and assistant principal Parker middle school with a bunch of students with them tonight and we're going to hear a little bit about um Parker and all the good happenings that are taking place there this continues our series of every month having one of the schools in to talk a little bit about what they're focused on so Josh and Mark I will turn over to you thank you Dr Lang uh we're really excited to be here along with some of our awesome student ambassadors it is our second year at Parker together in the new configuration of the grade five and six school um we're happy to report that we're thriving at Parker that we're really jelling as a community our teams are really getting to know each other not only the students you know we have the entire fourth grade jellying for the first time and learning and meeting new friends but also our staff you know we had we we successfully melded the McCarthy and Parker staffs from a couple years ago to a Parker staff and we're feeling very uh positive about the change and and the momentum we've gained on that front um tonight we're going to be going over a little bit of overview of some of our Improvement goals uh for the year um a service project and some of our student ambassadors will be talking about and some of our tier two tier two interventions um that we've put in place on a schoolwide basis that we're excited about because we think it's it's going to make a big impact in helping kids earn success so going right into our Parker uh School Improvement plan our achievement goal is during this year Parker students will exceed 100% median to typical growth on I ready spring 2025 math Diagnostic and in order to try to attain that goal we're actively monitoring our I ready student usage our Benchmark data um student progress in areas of need are targeted with tier 2 interventions and support a Wind Block which we'll talk a little bit about more later in in um the presentation was instituted to create additional time for these interventions to take place throughout the school and I'm going to turn over to Mr Susan to talk a little bit about our tier two interventions so we focused our tier two interventions this year and our professional development uh on the tier two interventions pertaining to three areas of academics behavioral and social emotional these uh targeted interventions are basically driven by the teachers and staff and are implemented in the classroom either before class during class in the Wind Block that we'll get to um and they're usually carried out for about six weeks uh with tracking that goes along with it uh to see the students improve in whatever area they've uh been focusing on this summer we started this planning with uh creating in our schedule a Wind Block so we added a 25 minute period uh to the schedule every Wednesday and the windw stands for what I need it's a time where the teachers can utilize it for Target intervention have students doing makeup work enrichment basically whatever the students need in some cases it's an opportunity to grab a few students and um help them you know get organized or whatnot ideally we could hopefully down the road add a couple more of these throughout the week but we were able to at least get one in to start for this year so our professional development this year um we tried to utilize the Panorama platform to develop our tier 2 intervention groups and upload interventure plans and the documentations all right into the Panorama platform I'd like to give a special thanks before I move on to our mtss coaches Megan cologne Kristen Lions Shannon England Engel in our guidance Council Autumn Dolan and our computer uh tech support Sher paneton who helped us develop these uh professional development days and helped us present them to the staff and basically we started as you can see the four main categories with identifying we worked with the staff to identify and understand the various sources of data that were out there for them to use to develop their tier 2 interventions mainly around I two blocks and the Panorama platform at our professional development the teachers were able to determine a group of students that they thought would benefit from an intervention and then we worked with them during the professional de development to learn how to uh actually create those groups right in Panorama so they could be tracked and housed right on the platform uh from there the teachers worked on uh accessing and utilizing the Panorama intervention strategies library to develop and upload an intervention plan and create the documentation that they would be using uh throughout this intervention and again it would all be housed right in Panorama which I'll get to in a little bit um then they were able to take that plan back to the classroom and carry it out with the students um for the six- week period kind of changing and modifying uh as they needed to help students reach uh the end goal that they created for them um this again was all tracked in Panorama um so that not only the teachers this year but future teachers will have access to be able to see what interventions uh this each particular student went through and what the success success rate was for them we've tied this into our um kind of school reporting we've asked as again we kind of started out simple having them just identify like a smaller problem so they could learn all the documentation and kind of learn the strategies behind it and as we're moving into the year we're asking teachers is to before they bring a student to our student support team to try out one of these six- week interventions so that it's already there in Panorama and then once the um SST team goes through the process of trying to identify help for the student that whole SST is uploaded into Panorama under documents and again so that future um grades or when the kids move on to McCarthy in the high school those teachers will be able to see everything that was done prior to them and I have to um give a big shout out to uh Karen galski from over Harrington um she had done a lot of work with the Harrington staff on this so we kind of utilized her as a tool of how we could bring it to Parker and get everything up and running and it's it's been pretty successful and the teachers have uh really responded to it you want to add yep that's good all right so so we're going to keep this moving along our our the second Improvement goal that we were targeting tonight to talk about was our social emotional learning goal and that is to ensure that students have strong relationships with staff and their peers so students feel welcome included and safe in school uh one of the the big changes we did we continuing to use Second Step as our as our curriculum for social emotional learning but we changed when theal block occurred to the very first uh 25 minute block on Wednesdays in doing so we could cut the home rooms into half so each basically every staff member has been assigned 10 to 12 students so we wanted to make smaller PODS of kids to really have intimate conversations because a lot of these um you know the curriculum is is really important you know and kids are more apt to have meaningful conversations when it's a smaller more intimate kind of setting um and we're finding great improvement with that in terms of just the level of conversation just walking through the the building on Wednesday mornings it's wonderful to see every staff member kind of being part of this um schoolwide um initiative you know and something that we really believe in um coupled with that is our in trying to create a safe environment uh where kids feel seen and heard um we've also kind of embraced the idea of service learning and how much we can do to improve the lives of those around us um and how those having that service experience can affect you the person doing it as well in a really positive way um so one of the things we did in the month of December was something called The Parker be the change initiative and it's be the change you want to see in the world is a quote often attributed to Gandhi um meaning that instead of waiting for others to make positive changes individuals should actively take responsibility to create the change they desire in the world essentially to be the Catalyst for for that positive transformation um so they took on that challenge and each each um Team individually chose a service project that was unique to them that that they the kids and and their teachers decided this is a change we want to make in the world this is a positive impact that we want to make in the world so we had we have eight different teams four for each grad we have eight we had eight different service projects going on simultaneously in the month of December so it was very busy uh but it's very exciting and during that holiday season it's also good to have the kids really focus on others and not just themselves and what they may desire during that holiday season that kind of thing so it was it was really inspiring to see the kids um Embrace that um and it was it was just fun to to be a part of um on the screen here you'll see our one of our art teachers Ashley Norman and art students made a wonderful mural for the be the change project that still adorns our front lobby it's a mural of Anne Frank created by different students making one of the panels to create the larger Visage uh an's message of service and hope is compelling and uplifting as well um so without further Ado um we wanted to call up a student representative from each team to just briefly go over what their project was all about so I'm going to start um with the explorers and indir sangam she can come on up and sit and we're going to talk right here indir okay okay so indir is on the explorers and I'm going to let her talk a little bit about her project so be the change you wish to see in the world good evening it's a truly pleasure to meet you all today my name is andir Singham and I'm from the Explorers 5A and my team's service project was holiday cards our team worked to help provide holiday wishes to seniors and those in hospitals and nursing homes we also gave them holiday bags with beautiful handwritten cards by each person in our team with loads of all sorts of festive candy all in one bag we helped benefit a few places with our heartwarming gifts such as the Lowel General Hospital and the brickham hospital me being involved in this service project made me feel happy when writing these cards to seniors and hospitals it felt like I was helping the community by saying two small words happy holiday Hol to people who don't really get any messages and inspired me to do more like this for people who don't get much and I felt good and happy about what I did and I know it was for a good cause and I know that my time in Parker middle school I will have many service projects like this and a few words I wrote on my card was I hope you're having a happy and harmonious holiday season and I know that the upcoming year and I hope that the upcoming year continues to to bring you Joy my Christmas wish is for you to have an amazing holiday may all your holiday wishes come true have a dazzling Christmas and New Year and last but not least I want to give my deepest gratitude and a big thank you for Mr Black and miss and Mr Souza for making this project happen and giving us students a lesson of giving and how even small contributions can make a big difference in the lives of others also learning social responsibility and community service and thank you for my teacher for giving me this wonderful opportunity thank you everyone for listening all right and next we have for the voyagers team 5B is sahana bolu one up [Music] sahana hi my name is sahana bolu I'm a fifth grader on team 5B voyagers at Parker Middle School our service project was to create welcome folders for new students at Parker students decorated folders with things they like about Parker which included things like colorful pictures and words inside the folders We included letters from current fifth graders that welcome them to Parker and let them know what to expect at Parker we also created best of Trumps for lists with our favorite restaurants Parks ice cream and more something that we included that was important was a map of the school and a list of clubs and activities I hope that these folders will welcome students and make sure they have a good time at Parker great job [Music] s next up from The Navigators team 5c is Jeffrey long what up Jeffrey hi I am Jeffrey long from Team 5c Navigators um one thing we did in our service project was try and spread kindness through the community we wrote um kind messages on cards and spread them throughout the school another thing we did was we made holiday cards for senior citizens with me with kind messages we worked to help spread joy and kindness throughout the community of chumford th it this project made me happy because because we are spreading joy throughout the whole Community excellent Jeffrey thank you thank you well [Applause] done next up will be Grace with troba and that is from Team 5D the innovators come on up Grace hello my name is Grace woba and I'm on the team innovators our service project was to make care bags for the kids and Emerson Hospital our team worked to provide a little bag filled with little items such as Play-Doh fidgets puzzles crayons cars and little stuffies being involved in this service project make me feel happy I like helping others because it makes me feel good and hopefully the kids and Emerson Hospital will feel happy when we give them their care bags awesome great job that's our that's our fifth grade and now we're going to call up our sixth grade and the first team is 6a the entrepreneurs and that we have two represent atives we have Julia hervy Hurley sorry and James Dudley come on up guys James bring your chair up with you okay GL hi hello my name is Julie Hurley and I'm on the entrepreneurs team also called team 6A for the be the change project our team decided to focus on food in security by partnering with the chumford food pantry alongside meals of hope we had a food drive that provided money non- perishable food paper products and hygiene supplies when we finished all our class work we wrote letters and decorated holiday cards to put inside the supply boxes at the town's food pantry the chumford food pantry benefited from our team service project by being able to give donations and supplies to people less fortunate this service project has impacted me and made me realize that not all people in our community can afford basic needs thank you oh God thank uh I felt really good to like donate all the food we had we feel like an entire truck with like lots of food and it felt really good and like inspired me to want to do it again good job both of you thank you so much all right next up for team 6B is emilyn Nolan from the engineers come on up em hello everyone my name is emilyn Nolan and I'm speaking on behalf of the team Engineers our service project was creating plac mats and goodies for table of Plenty our team wanted to provide a fun holiday touch to improve their dining and experience here in chumford and to create something they look forward to I know that I can speak for my entire team and that we hope that table of Plenty and everyone that comes along with that really benefited from our project this project inspired me and others to continue to help the the community and continue to move forward and work on bigger projects in school and possibly outside of school I know I'm am eager to try my best continuing this great work thank you to Mr Black and the Parker staff for giving us a great opportunity helping the community and I hope we put some smiles on people's faces and I hope they had as much as fun as we had creating good [Applause] job next up from team 60 the inventors is Carson Kim hello for our project we chose to raise awareness for awareness and money for an organization called water for South Sudan this organ organization was started by a man named Sala D who grew up in South Sudan during a civil war he lived as a refugee for most of his life faced a lot of challenges when he grew up and was able to he started this organization to help people in South Sudan have access to clean water he does this by going there and digging Wells we learned about this project from a book called A Long Walk to Water written by Linda Sue Park to help raise money our team did a few thing few different fundraisers that our teachers organized we CH we got to choose to got to choose to participate in some choices were a basketball shootout a read a rathon or running in the fitness room a readathon and a paint day to raise awareness about this problem some people made posters to hang up near the water water bubblers that talk about the importance of water and using it wisely our team raised about $1,200 that was enough to get us entered into a contest to have Salva come to our come to speak at our school we'll find out in the spring if we won excellent Carson great [Applause] job and next up our our last student representatives are from 60 The Architects and that is Carter Thor and Jack Davis come on up guys hello my name is Jack Davis and I'm part of the 60 Architects our service project is a book drive our our team our team donated two to 300 books our organization that we used is up with books they donate books to the less fortunate being in this service project made me feel good because I was helping other kids with no access to writing or reading kids who don't read at home will likely get learning problems hi my name is Carter Thornton I'm on the team 60 Architects our service project was a book drive we wanted to make sure all of our class could contribute so we made upwards of 150 bookmarks to go with the the books being donated the book drive made me more grateful for what I have and it impacts me to see how it feels to not have books outside of outside of school job guys all right well so that obviously the kids are amazing ambassadors for our school and they we're really really proud of the efforts they they LED they really um LED from start to finish and drove this um project so we're really proud of them and that's our presentation for Parker middle school tonight anybody have any questions can we make comment yeah oh my goodness first of all I love the name of the teams it's amazing too really really great secondly the thought about doing these service projects thank you so much for doing it because I think it's so important we live in a community and you are showing everybody in this community uh that we the schools are very much a part of them and that you're willing not only to receive but also to give back so I really really appreciate that you did that and that you were really our ambassadors in this for the entire District so thank you kudos to all of you um all the presenters you were amazing you did a great job for your team um and I just feel very proud to be on the school committee watching you today so congratulations anybody else where you I got Applause Susan all I got my microphone ready um thanks for everyone who presented I really think a mission of schools is to teach students to be contributing members of society and you all prove that you're getting a really good early start on that and really just helping the society and the communities that you're growing up in so um great work and good presentation so I really appreciate that um in terms of the other presentations I love what you're doing with theal blocks and putting that into the smaller group for second step I think that's a great idea to get kids feel like they've got a really nice cohesive team that they can feel they belong to so I think that was a wonderful U decision that you've made and I do have a question about the win block sure so does every single student have something to work on I mean because sometimes you don't think of tier 2 as being for everyone but you find something for everyone to do that's meaningful during that window there's always yet to answer your question not every everyone is involved in a tier two tier two intervention every Wednesday it really is what that student needs um sometimes if they're not doing that they might be getting extra enrichment from that to push them forward in their curriculum they might be making up a quiz or test or getting some extra help um in a in a duo or a trio with a teacher it really depends on the kid but yes it's it's they're with their home room at that time or their you know their their base teacher and that time is dedicated and the the teacher kind of directs what they will be doing that day um depending on what they need right so everyone's assigned something meaningful it's you know some weeks they might be all cut up and they might be able to even if they're doing wonderfully they might even be able to read for 25 minutes which is wonderful but a lot of times oh you had you had trouble with that this skill let's let's let's attack that cous sorry trying to make a suit call can hear me but also look at you um uh for all the students I just wanted to say thank you for sharing I love hearing directly from you all um as somebody who's spent a lot of my career helping to to help students lead service learning projects I know how immensely hard it is to to go through the whole process together of finding uh agreement on what to do how to divide and conquer and Tackle all the pieces of the project together um and make sure that you kind of have the impact you want to so um that's really big work for fifth and sixth graders to be taking on and um I hope you all feel really good about yourselves and what you and your peers have accomplished um I also had a question um just curious so I know that you mentioned that these are some shifts some of the the interventions and the ways that you're doing Wind Block and seal block are shifts and I'm curious um midy year if you're feeling like these were the right shifts to make if you're getting you know evidence that things may need to shift again next year um in terms of I'm thinking kind of the structural shifts you've made around how these are scheduled how students are divided or if you feel like it's The Sweet Spot at this point I'd say yes and no I mean I think it's it's a learning process um I think we're happy with we're definitely happy with how we we shifted when the was happening and it really carved out because we kind of cut that period into two we took basically the performance block that um meets every other day Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday and we split it in two and we made the first half of it um theal block and Wednesday first thing and then the Wind Block happens where their performance block would have been right we feel like we made uh good tactical use of that time and so far we're incouraged because more more staff are not only staff has always has have always done tier two interventions but we're documenting it we're we're and we're trying to put that data to use and then storing it so it can like Mr Suza said help inform future teachers oh they this student had this difficulty say with executive functioning this this strategy seemed to work with this student that kind of thing so hopefully I think we're we're on the right path but we'll see you know time will tell and has Panorama as a tool met what you hoped it would do in terms of supporting this work that you're doing I mean I think so for sure because it it's kind of a One-Stop shop we can use it to see all the student data um and learn a lot we use t a ton we use it every day but even more so the teachers are using it the resources it's it's becoming a utilized a more utilized tool every day it's becoming the go-to which is teachers are unlocking what how how much it can help us so we're I feel like we are taking advant of that um platform I know it's not a cheap platform but it's something that really kind of helps us meet the needs of the kids so yeah we're we're encouraged by yet for sure thank you not taking anything away from the adults great to hear about what's going on in schools but the students are that was a highlight of tonight and it's great not just that we can see it but other people in town can see it you know these meetings are filmed and hopefully other people can see all the good things are going on in schools not just reading writing R but learning to be good citizens and all that type of things so I really appreciate you came here here tonight and let us know what's going on and hopefully everybody else sees it as well so thank you all for coming oh I just wanted to add when I was your age I don't remember doing anything that impressive I stole one of your ideas I'm going to bring it to the high school C all right well thank you very much all right thank you thank [Applause] you it's good to hear the kids amazing a nice job just [Music] amazing really yeah know which idea and then there was one for the you can do that for Valentine's Day that's a lovely idea h Society great like fairly easy easy but high impact that's right inspiring test inspiring test I know I know we only see test usually head shots I surprise well uh second um report this evening presentation for you is uh Tess is here from District Management Group group and for those watching uh District Management Group is an organization that we partnered with um three or four years at this point they originally helped us put together a strategic plan for the district and then we've done a couple of different um offshoot projects with them we did a special education opportunities review a year and a half ago um they're doing some breakthrough results work with us at McCarthy Middle School um this school year so they're a good partner in what we're doing and um this year we decided to have a midyear update in January so Tessa is going to provide a mid-year update with regards to where we are already in year three of the fiveyear Strategic plan so we're moving along and then Tess will come back again um sometime this um summer and we'll do kind of the Year review but Tess I will turn it over to you to just give us a little update on where things stand with all the different groups and ahead of time because I know people do watch I thank each of the groups for their work uh they've been putting a lot of time into this uh implementation of the Strategic plan it was one thing to put it together but then another to actually uh roll it out so I appreciate everyone's work on this and um I will turn it over to you Tess great good evening all good to see you uh those were some big shoes to fill that uh I had to but it really was so great to hear from Parker and just a lot of the initiatives that are happening being very aligned to the Strategic plan so I'll make some of those connections throughout but really the work of the Strategic plan living every day as you heard directly from students um so two things I'm going to do this evening actually one so I'll give an update on the overall strategic plan implementation and then I'll dive a little bit more deeply into the par educator work so aligned to one of the priority areas and give an update there so just as Jay said want to thank especially these folks up here for leading different priority areas and really doing the work of implementing the Strategic plan uh over the course of the year we spend a lot of time over the summer and fall determining what actions and initiatives would take place to implement the Strategic plan I guess yes this is exactly halfway through two and a half years the Strategic plan which is exciting and then we continue throughout the year monitoring progress to make any adjustments uh just as a reminder so I know uh school committee has seen this but the role that not only the folks I shared who are part of that steering committee in the middle on the left uh each of them leads subcommittees as well of about eight people so 8 Time 5 about 40 individuals really leading this work and then others uh being involved but I think again what is most critical to point out is how it does trickle down to the schools and you can see that in the actions of Parker uh so this is the framework as you know that the Strategic plan is built upon tonight we'll focus on those goals and initiatives uh and I'll Pro provide some updates for each of the priorities uh so always like to ground I won't read it uh to you and Susan did a good job summarizing mission of the schools tonight but just mission and vision that guide all of the work uh the theory of action really focus on District leaders providing that direction principles creating the culture in the building and teachers fostering an inclusive learning environment to reach that Vision uh so now I'm going to jump into the meet of tonight you're familiar with this but just for others watching as well there's a lot on here so up top we have the metrics for each of the priorities so this is academic achievement which states the district will focus on mathematical achievement particularly in elementary and middle grades K through 8 to build a strong foundation for academic success in high school and Beyond so you saw this data over this summer the only new data point that I wanted to highlight is that first one percentile of students uh with adequate annual growth uh in math so this is student growth percentile uh last year you had a 52.4 student growth percentile on average as measured by mcast this year uh this past school year you ended at 55 so really just great growth uh this past school year on that so wanted to celebrate and looking to maintain that growth in the next year uh so that's one bright spot uh I'm going to report out and I have some notes just from each group in our last meeting we took some time to reflect on both bright spots this year for each priority and any challenges that were being addressed uh so that one data point was definitely a bright spot uh the other I want to highlight is so the three initiatives this group are working on are seen below uh I want to highlight that last one promote inclusive instructional practices within the general education classroom to meet the needs of students with disabilities uh this was really important to ensure that instruction or support for students with disabilities wasn't living in a totally separate priority but really embedded into academic achievement uh so there have been 15 uh PD sessions created and delivered around inclusive practices initial feedback from teachers has been positive uh and folks reported that they really liked the PD was specific to what they teach uh so bright spot one challenge that the group is addressing is that second initiative around the I ready program this year uh using I ready Pro which provides additional reporting and information especially for middle school students uh who are missing foundational skills but just you know teachers have a lot of responsibility so just learning this new platform to support this academic growth in the district so that is the summary from academic achievement I'll just pause here to see if there's any questions just on the target for for so that first one there the highlighted one um so the target for 25 is the same as what we had 20 is that because 24 was over the target yes exactly it was over the target so actually I should say the the target for 2024 we don't have this was 54 so you surpass the target y I was wondering why that wasn't the other one any else other questions on this particular item okay great all right so again a lot of data here uh so this is the equity priority the district will focus on achievement of students with disabilities as well as those who are economically disadvantaged in order to ensure Equitable outcomes across the district uh there just you can see student student growth percent tile uh was 49 this past year so a little lower than overall student average uh so just to focus on the initiatives there's a lot going on uh I'll call out a few so the first bright spot this group wanted to highlight uh around the implementation and roll out of the new par educator roles and responsibilities I'll talk much more about this but just they wanted to highlight four of the five development sessions for par Educators have already been uh administered and I'll review the results of those in a bit uh the second this is really exciting the roll out of the new IEP uh has been very successful and staff had heard both from parents and Advocates just how impressed they were uh with chelsford in utilizing the form and this is really important because the new IEP really ensures that the way student needs are identified and goals are written and services are very aligned uh so I think just to be complemented by parents Advocates on this is really something to celebrate it's been a lot of work for many districts across Massachusetts uh and then just one challenge I'll highlight around the data on student placements so the group has been pulling data to take a look at where are students receiving their services when they have IEPs uh this has been very intensive just in being to pull and analyze and so far um some of the data is not aligning to what the group expected so they're just digging into that to determine and ensure that the district has a really clear picture of our students receiving services in the general education setting resource setting Etc uh to be able to inform decisions that way so a lot going on here those are the couple I wanted to highlight but I will pause for any questions I do um a comment first I thought the descriptions of the PDS that are offered in this on this initiative were excellent sounds like that's going really well that part of it um I do want to um there was the identify the Continuum of educational supports to provide students with high quality instruction and then you just talked about really taking a close look at where students with disabilities are re receiving instruction and I want us to just always keep focusing on not just where but by whom I did print out a page like one of my very first school committee meetings was when John Kim came and did that special at Opportunity review and some things I don't want us to lose sight of are he had um presented us with a chart that showed the average um special education teacher spent 56% of their time supporting students and at some schools and levels that amount of time was quite a bit less and I would like to hope that at some point we review that and see that teachers are able to spend more time directly with students and that [Music] um there were some very specific um recommendations that the district might consider regarding special education teacher roles so how and how much time they should be spending directly with students so as as I said as we're looking at where students with disabilities receive an instruction I think it's really important to also keep looking at who they're getting that instruction from I just don't want to lose sighted that yep great I'm glad you're pulling that out I was going to say I just I appreciate you're bringing that up Susan and would uh agree that that is a valuable exercise um I also wanted to just ask um if you may not know the answer to this but that feels like an incredibly important exercise going through and figuring out where the instruction is happening from whom and I would hope it's happening in a way that kind of can be shared across the district and evaluated year over year and I'm I'm just curious where this data is being kept and if it is being made available to obviously in ways that Safeguard student privacy is necessary to other Educators and school leaders to be able to you know Monitor and intervene if necessary if shifts need to happen Y correct me if I'm wrong but the data is coming from EX to and then I think there's some cross uh cross functioning happening I wonder where the crossing yeah I know bill has been involved Linda I don't know if you want to add to that so it sits in Panorama but this is also coming from I ready so I ready Fe directly into Panorama and then we have our information in our sis as well so this this info about like where they're receiving instruction and potentially be in their sis X2 X2 Aspen yes yeah yeah okay so that's somewhere where Educators can access it and review it okay and I think this is a good example actually as an initiative that started that now is kind of I think what you're getting to turning in it's like okay we want this Insight around where students are being served and even more importantly what are the systems and structures to set up to be able to do that on an ongoing basis because it's not an easy task so I think like this is a very I'm not surpris that this is just something that maybe was taking a little longer instead of oh let's do this data pull once it's actually how do we take a look at the data we have make sure it's clean and easy to analyze to get uh those insights so yeah data coming from multiple places I also feel like there's so much value in exploring to make sure that there's you know parallel or like Equitable practices across the different elementary schools and that there's some understanding of how it's going to work vertically um for students as they grow through the district so I think there's a lot of a lot of value in it but a lot to also kind of turn into decision making and action yep make meaning yeah yeah make sure we're not just data Rich uh but information rich as well great um all right so seal and you heard a lot uh from Josh and the team tonight on what is happening on the ground very aligned to these metrics uh but again the social emotional learning priority is the district will focus on sense of belonging and relationship building for K through 12 students uh so one data point I did want to provide here just because you know a lot of the data points I've reviewed sometimes are once a year measures uh Panorama is used both at the beginning of the year and end of the year asking these same questions so if you see that green highlighted uh column you can see beginning of year data so a couple uh things to call out here sense of belonging you know pretty much right where you ended the last school year um for grades 6 through 12 sense of belonging really shot up from where you ended the last school year so we're not going to adjust any Targets at this point those are end of year but uh just can help inform and kind of predict where we may see ourselves at the end of the year uh and then those uh supportive relationships you can see those numbers just continue to increase and remain high at 90% 87% uh and again I think it's just a testament to the work that's happening every day in the buildings as you heard tonight so wanted to share just that beginning of year data uh and what we may expect later on and then the other thing just to talk about here the group wanted to highlight is around restorative practices um that has been well received uh the district is using a train the trainer model uh and using Community circles which are being implemented in classrooms and they've seen some positive outcomes there uh what the district uh excuse me what the team team is focusing on that again just has been uh work to put in is around the transition document so making sure that students as they transition between schools especially with the separation of grades in Parker and McCarthy that students are set up well and feel that sense of belonging throughout so just a focus of the year for this group I'll pause here and see any questions questions on this nope I just want to say again like those supportive relationship numbers really are just through the roof uh compared to other districts I work with and so being able to maintain those has just yeah been such a uh bright spot to see so great work uh great human capital so the district will focus on teacher prep Partnerships as staff development uh as well as staff development in order to ensure strong academic instruction for diverse student populations uh so bright same this this priority area has a lot of overlap with academic achievement of course you have to develop staff to get those academic results and so this group just talked about the PDS again that have happened to support diverse Learners around inclusive practices um just a continued challenge as in many uh similar districts in Massachusetts just attracting teachers and expanding employment of diverse Educators but the district did app apply for some grant funding under the new educator diversity act and so just hoping I don't know when you all hear from them but something that has uh happened to support that uh so again a lot of overlap with academic achievement but I'll pause here for any questions uh this might be more of a question for uh District administrators but I'm curious um so obviously I'm concerned about the very low percentage of Educators who feel prepared specifically to the differentiation items on the top um that's less than half of our staff um that feel that preparation for differentiation and I can appreciate that growth happens slowly but that does feel like something that the right support and training could make the future targets go up quite a bit I'm just curious what specifically is happening to support educ with that differentiation for diverse student populations and um and you know how that's going and if there's any potential of seeing bigger jumps um in that in the years ahead because I'd hate to feel like three years from now we still have less than half of the staff feeling prepared for that I think um and we had this conversation last year when the data came out that we have to really actually um Define what is diverse like because I think people look at that differently because it's interesting because when you get down to um culturally responsive some people might think a little right so it it's very you know that that's an important part of it but um regarding the diverse populations I do think that we still have some Educators that you know we have a unique set of students that are coming into our schools we also have um I think they're looking more like special ed how do we support those students right so that is those courses that we're running those opportunities for them to collaborate with their peers in order to try and understand okay this is how we would um teach and how we would have them in the regular red classroom so it does go with the academic one because we're trying to look at those inclusive practices so it's not like special EDS running this thing and then regular EDS running this thing and then they some kids take off and go and have some L services and speech and everything else how do they all work together because we have to teach all students and they we're responsible for all of them so hopefully with some of this PD that's going on and time for them to collect collate with peers we'll hopefully see some changes in that and find out what this question really is asking well you you brought up what was going to be part two of my question was which was I wonder how much of this may be semantic because I my I was hinging on the difference between the top two and the bottom two being the differentiation question but you brought up the other thing what do we mean by diverse populations versus what do we mean by culturally responsive and so you know I don't know if there is any work from the committee to explore different ways of sort of getting this data that might give paint a different picture than the phraseology because even as somebody who works quite a bit with surveys on this topic I'm not sure I would be very clear on you know how a teacher might answer that question regardless of how they're actually prepared right we'll be able to see the questions underneath the the main topic there to if that's what's confusing or is it just the actual topic that they're saying here that's that's confusing so we have to dig into that a little bit more I'm also curious if there's been any talk about moving beyond teachers um feeling of preparation and if there has been any talk of using you know observation you know supervisors using observation tools that look for um you know there's there's kind of peer reviewed tools out there that look for the Hallmarks of culturally responsive and differentiation focused teaching and learning um just to see if teachers feelings about their own preparation matches what's happening in the classroom um in the teacher evaluation um tool there is on desie set they have look for actually that's what they right that's so they could actually say these are the you know two indicators that we're going to dig a little bit deeper in and see if the look fors are there because I agree with what you're saying there's a lot of times like I'll have teachers but I I don't know what I'm doing I don't know how this is going and I go into their classroom and I'm like but you're doing it they just don't know how to name it and that's that's probably the nature of the Beast of teachers because we're always like what are we supposed to be doing I don't know am I doing the best that I can you know do for these kids so I do think that what they feel compared to what is actually happening a two different things yeah I just think it would be interesting to get that data as well um obviously aggregated right but like um what the overall picture that that is seen by observation is and how that may or may not align with the feelings of preparation I think that in the long run could be very useful as a as an a tool for better understanding what's going on any other questions on this part great all right uh and last but not least uh facilities so the district will enhance educational facilities to provide students with safe and modern facilities that support Innovative student learning um so a couple bright spots here so got accepted into the feasibility study phase for the new Parker middle school project and uh you all were able to accomplish everything ahead of time so getting a two-month jump start on that process which is great um and uh also first time all 10 projects submitted were funded by the capital plan group uh so and I think Jay add here you got a little extra than what you initially asked for correct I think I our Target was always around like the $2 million range and we came in about 2.8 million yep so we're above even last year's Target last year's actual which is good yep great um and then the only kind of challenge or just area that is uh being worked on a bit more this year is the work order initiative uh so that second one uh Town engaged to retool that uh product that has been used it's just taking some time and effort to get that retooled so significant l uh in addition to everything else going on but overall I think just some really great bright spots especially around the Parker Middle School uh building project and being able to uh stay ahead of schedule any questions here great all right uh so I'm just going to dive and I think Susan you have looked at this but just to ground in the par educator work again that is tied to uh supporting students with disabilities and IEPs so last year a group really worked to refine the roles and responsibilities based on the opportunity review and this year has really been focused on training and providing professional development on those adjusted roles and responsibilities of par Educators uh defining success and monitoring progress of that implementation and just over the course of the Year adjusting as necessary so here's the group working on this so we've got District leaders School leaders staff general education teachers special education teachers par Educators from every level to be able to provide input uh so really this is just happening throughout the year uh of the new responsibilities and monitoring progress one thing I'll call out is that that working group you just saw who met a lot last year is meeting three times throughout the course of this year so we've at once we'll meet in February and may just to make sure that as issues arise the district is able to address them this school year instead of waiting till the end of the school year to determine what was effective or not uh so this is the development that has been provided to par Educators uh I will call out first just the first two sessions which occurred in September uh so talking about the role of the par educator and best practice ices and adult collaboration to support students uh it wasn't only par Educators who attended that development but also special education teachers and general education teachers just given the role of the par educator does not just impact that role but also how they work with other staff members and then par Educators have received two other uh PDS around supporting the diverse needs and disabilities of students and supporting students social emot learning and growth uh and there will be one more in March around supporting student academic success and Par educator role in that so I'm going to now review just some of the feedback that we have gotten as a way that the group has measured success throughout this school year uh so as I mentioned that First Development uh the participants were general education teachers par Educators special education teachers and some related service providers as well uh across all of the levels uh and the feedback that we got uh at the beginning of the Year from all staff in September uh we asked them to rate on a scale of 1 to 7 one being strongly disagree seven being agree uh their belief in these following statements so you can see here I understand the refine role of the par educator in chelsford 76% of Staff saying age or strongly agree I believe the refined role of par educators will positively impact student outcomes 81% agree uh and lastly I understand how their fine role and responsibilities of the par educator may impact my role 75% uh so this was start of year kind of gathering that data from all staff and then just diving a bit more deeply into par educator data given as I said they have had additional PDS across the course of the year uh so we have asked these same questions throughout all the PDS as a way to monitor progress uh so you can see here September October January that question around I understand the refined role of the par educator has dipped a bit in October and January uh and so something the group will talk about next month you know I assume start of the school year Things Are running more smoothly challenges arise so not super surprised to see a dip but something we'll definitely explore with the group to address uh same thing here with the second question I believe the refine role is positively impacting students uh you see a bit of a dip in October and January kind of dip in October back up a bit in January but a little lower than the beginning of the year and then staying pretty consistent uh just collaboration with other special education teacher and general education teachers uh so as I said what's I think most important here is that we'll be able to review this data with that working group next month uh so that we can really understand why are some of these scores uh decreasing overall still positive but just want to make sure that as barriers arise we can address them now through the spring ahead of the end of the school year and then the last thing I will talk about uh is just we uh also got feedback on the actual content of the sessions uh Beyond just the refin role so the first uh one you are looking at is par Educators confidently being able to collaborate with others 74% uh the second one was around understanding the variety of disability categories 82% uh and lastly around having an understanding of social emotional learning and how to support students there 70% so overall I'd say the topics of these sessions really have resonated well with staff uh which is good because time for PD is limited and so important to get this feedback on the content as well uh so before I wrap us up with next steps let me just pause for any questions on the par educator work are you finding that it's a challenge because this group the par group um um tends to change we see you know in our reports resignations and new people being brought on how do you how are they ensuring that continuously the role is defined for any new person that comes on board and so how is that working yeah that's a great question and that's actually U Massachusetts desie just put out a bunch of modules for onboarding for par Educators and so that's something the group is going to talk about is how to utilize those resources for new pairs coming on in addition to obviously the work that the group has done uh but that will be by the end of the year just what does the onboarding plan look for par Educators in addition to looking at retention rates just to see have those changed at all that's great um because that to me was a concern the other thing is have you been able to track um whether the pairs really get to be pairs versus being in the classroom as um Subs I know that's data we're working with Joanna on pulling that sub data because y thank you yep I I'd be interested in that any other questions on the no great that we we're making some progress you know we talked about this for a couple years now so we're just want to tell you too that um today we have a presentation by Parker but we've had a couple of other presentations by schools and each time I am truly impressed by how much people are within the schools are focusing on the Strategic plan and uh I think that it's the group the team that was brought together is includes you know administrators and teachers and so so every the whole team has been able to do that at every school that we've heard from so far I've been listening for this to try to see and I think to me it's been obvious that they are working on it yeah well it definitely the Strategic plan does not uh sit on a shelf in chord as I say it is living yeah great I wanted to add that I think that's really evident here that this strategic plan really is being followed and constantly updated and being involved in that the zoom groups with the subcommittees has been very helpful to me and I think to the other people who participate to just always keep focus on what the Strategic plan is I hear the principles at the PTO meetings will talk about things and the presentations we hear are always linked to it so everyone's really looking I think it's really helping to align everything so that everyone is aware that the district as a whole is looking at these goals together and I think having DM group for people who might worry about the cost of something like that of paying for a Consulting Group has really paid off I think you and your group have really helped to keep everyone on the right path with that and really to facilitate those meetings I really feel like it's been money well spent in the development of the plan but in the implementation as well it's definitely been worthwhile the school Improvement plans too I mean it's right they're all aligned and I think it's been a very worthwhile um Endeavor to spend the money on that great thank you well thank you all thank you and yep so we will uh see you again this summer but in the meantime the groups will just continue on all the work they're doing so thank you well thank you as always yes thank you very [Music] much all right continuing on with the agenda the third item um Joanna do you want to put your plug in for um reminder if a kindergart registration so at the end of the month the 28th and 29th um families will come in to register uh for kindergarten for next fall um they can go online and book their appointment so they'll come here and have about a 15minute appointment with their um School clerk then and get all the documents together right then and there so then we'll get a good sense of how many um new kindergarteners were coming I do have an update um I was we've had 2117 appointments in those two days so that's wonderful it's good to know early on uh who's coming to school next year right thank you very much wow thank you Joanna um next up on the agenda I just have an update for you maybe a month and a half or so ago I gave you a schedule of the different school presentations and we hadn't yet fit in the department uh presentation so just wanted to put it back in like one cumulative document for you Linda was able to work with each of the Departments to um schedule their presentations through throughout the course of the uh school year uh just so you can kind of have it on your calendar to know uh when different groups are coming to uh to present that's the uh second column on the right um so more just for your planning purposes are we going to have technology is B going to come in at some point yeah these are the the um curriculum kind of departments but the um the regular central office departments like Bill usually comes closer to May or June um because he'll do his year in review and then he'll talk about some projects um Amy Reese from special education uh will typically come and she'll do a little update for us as well um those can be scheduled whenever I wanted to get the biggest the kind of the curriculum departments on here with the schools just so that we could know for planning our agendas but um yeah you'll certainly hear from U from Bill and Amy as the year goes on great any questions on the updated schedule we're flying uh moving along now uh Linda is going to actually share with you a little update with regard to where we're at and I know this was a topic we've been talking about the high school the competen determination since the U the election and the question pertaining to mcast so we'll turn that over to Lind hey um was a good mcast presentation from me so um yes we want to talk a little bit about the competency determination um I did this um set up more like almost like a Q&A because that's what's happening these These are the questions that come up to me all day long so like is mcast going away no it is not going away we are still administering mcast we're actually putting in all of our documents now to run the spring mcast and we're actually um doing the retakes that are still happening this law that went into effect as of December 5th is only for the high school competency determination it does not affect the other grade levels it's only for CHS so it's not going away and we are going to be doing mcast as we normally do but High School will not take them at all though no high school is taking the mcast okay could it just said 3 to eight yeah yeah 3 to eight and then the high school's underneath it okay so high school is taking their mcast it's just that the competency determination is not going to be mcast anymore so what is a competency determination it's always been mcast so according to Mass General law and also through desie we it is a condition for high school graduation we have to show some basic competency in mathematics Ela and in science Technology and Engineering and what you see up there now is right now the focus is going to be for the class of 2025 and the class of 2025 those were the competency determinations for those students and then for the class of 2026 and Beyond that's when they made the change in the competency determinations for proficiency were a little bit higher so the the new standards that are standing in there for students so that's why we're seeing some types of little upticks for the other classes but right now our focus is for the class of 2025 and in addition to meeting the competency determination there are also High School requirements to graduate high school and we follow the mass core requirements which is actually beneficial for Chumps and I'll explain that a little bit as we go through this presentation so we do require the four years of English math three years of science that are lab based we also have our hit social sciences history classes they have to have at least three classes in that two consecutive years of World Language F and Performing Arts practical Arts PE Health wellness and their other courses that equal to at least 240 credits I will tell you most high school students I get 270 credits because they take about 70 credits per year anyways as they go through but the minimum requirement is 240 credits meeting all of those requirements which for social sciences has to have us history 1 and US History 2 so quick question I'm pretty sure I know the answer but I want to make it clear for everyone no one could ever graduate just by doing well in mcast you had to be attending your classes and doing your assignments and getting the passing grades to earn the credits an mcast alone was never going to give someone a diploma right it's part of the graduation so the M part is going away but we've already had correct this has already been in place for us correct okay just the competency determination piece is that how that's being determined as shifting right correct yes correct they had to meet the and then this doesn't even get into our um attendance policies and everything else that goes in but you they had all students have to take this but they've had to that part has not changing correct for us correct the only changes in graduation requirements that happened is when the mass Court came into place but we were pretty much that's been a long time and when you see only the 30 credits in science and in history our most of our students take four years we these I'm sure the students that are sitting here can attest that they take four years of Science and four years of History so it's that's just the minimum requirements right thank you y no that's important so what the change was for the gradu for the competency determination and this was the language that actually came right out of that question too was they had to demonstrate that Common Core skill of competencies and it was always measured through it in section one is actually mcast so the change now and what was put into place was that it's going to now be the competency determination that is completing the coursework that's certified by the school district that shows that they have those competencies in the standards from 2023 in ela Math and Science Technology and Engineering interestingly enough and we'll get into it a little bit later it also says as determined by the board this is not completely over yet this is there's three tiers to this for the um for the Department of Elementary and secondary education which is really the board of education so right now it should just be within the coursework that proves that the students have met that competency it is a little tricky because what is happening right now it's like a little football in the air every school district is doing different things so mcast which used to unify us is now being a little bit of a divide because one school right now is presenting to the school committee something different than maybe perhaps what I'm presenting to a school committee and everybody's just a little bit all over the place so it is problematic especially if you have students that are coming from other school districts into your school district and your requirement is different there were some school districts and I don't know if Jay if you knew this if they actually voted on it um that we're going to keep mcass is their competency determination so I I don't think I'd go down that path but I don't know if they actually passed it or not well there was some that actually had that already in their um their uh handbook that was one of the requirements right um so challenge now though well no but somewhere Sumer we're still going to keep it as an option because you're going to be it can't be the only thing but it potentially could be a uh Factor so if you did that you wouldn't have to do something else it needs to be more of like a menu now it just can't be that but um I do think the the Board of Education I mean the Department of Education is going to put a group together to take a look at this to try to figure out like longer term what we can do to kind of streamline things Statewide but we're all kind of on our own for the spring of 25 so we need to take care of the handful of kids that um that didn't pass the mcast so that's what Linda is trying to address now and that'll give us a little time to look uh at the classes of 26 and Beyond because I think with the question it got a little confusing for people because I think they just thought okay no more mcast it's over you still have to have a competency determination and this it's now up to the school district to figure that out which is what we've been doing and we have a we have a plan but again focus of the class of 2025 and then now we can take some time to move forward past the class of 2025 I think that opens up you know kind of Forum Shopping type of thing where you know I don't like what chumford does so I want to get a degree my diploma so I'm going to go to I don't know name another District um that's potentially I don't know it's hard because you're going to have to move and all that makes it much more difficult so there was a standardization there I think now it puts a greater hus on us to make sure that what we require is really going to meet the standard the student is going to be able to move on from here and do what they need to do in the world correct um so that makes it much more difficult actually and I feel like it also just could open up a can of worms in terms of evaluating the rigor of our grading systems which I think we definitely have the course of studies we've had that for many many many years but grading sometimes can seem subjective whereas MKS granted it was because there's a writing component but it was less seen as less subjective and we have to be careful that we have a way to be sure that we have a uniform system for grading so that when kids pass a class it's the same you sitting in on I'm meeting to you sure you read that so what does this actually mean so anyone any students right now that passed mccastle we're just going to talk about the class of 2025 right now and 2026 any of the students that passed the mcast up to the retake so we had retake sessions in November for ELA and math and if they've met mcast if they passed it even if they were on an EP they earned the CT CD to graduate so you'll see the good news there that we most of our students passed it so as of right now the only classes that could pass mcast as a CD requirement for the District of the classes of 2025 and 2026 seniors and juniors at chumford high school students that did not pass mcast the class of 2025 in all future gra uh graduating classes can no longer earn a CD through mcast alone okay they cannot do that that we we can't put that on them and they must earn a CD through the new law and the important pieces of that new law is we have to have language that allows districts to demonstrate that the students have met those requirements and those requirements again are the 2023 standards in the Frameworks from Desi for math Ela and um science it has to be voted by the board hence tonight while you have a you're going to have a vote in front of you and then shared with all the families and Guardians obviously within the native languages and you know posted in in a variety of places but for tonight's purposes we're only going to be looking for a vote for the class of 2025 because we still need some time to find out what the next steps are going to be and not just rushing into something um for future classes because we're not sure how this will all pan out as we go through does that make sense so um what is mcast applicable now because I have a lot of people that are like so why have mcast if we don't need it anymore why have it well we still will have District accountability right we're going to receive those accountability ratings from desie we do use it for certain course placement we do use it at the middle school and high school as like part of like a multi criteria of you know grades mcast we have I ready EXL test to help students are you going to go into honors are you going to stay in a CP class are you going to take honors in grade eight so it still be part of our larger um place process because it's worked and then for high school scholarships mcass is part of the Abigail Adams scholarship that's the money going to state school for at our UMass system the CX certificate of Mastery award and then the seal by literacy mcass and Ela is the second testing piece for students to earn the seala by literacy at chelsford high school so they'd have to take their um we usually use the stamp test through a vont so they have to take their language test and if they pass that piece and Ela mcast which they have to have a 486 or above they would receive the seal by literacy so mcast is not going away for any of those scholarships or Awards so that's why it's still important we also have to see how students are doing from an outside governing test that's not created in schools so the good news is for the class of 2025 there's total of eight students that did not meet the competency determination in some combination of ela Math and Science two of them were moveing students so it's really six of the students so we have two brand new seniors to chumford high school welcome to chumford high school normally they'd be taking the retakes and then receiving their competency determination so of those eight it was six that did not pass it in ela four in math and six in science total and that six is really four because we have two new students and and the math is really two because the two movein are proud of those numbers does that make sense so the the movement the movein don't count no so we have no they would count but um what's happening is that so when you see the six for ELA right really the students that actually took mcast in chelsford was rarely four students because now two more than movein because they came from another dist they came from another state so and they St those movein are still impacted by yeah they're very much impacted but the students that actually took the test that didn't if we didn't have the two movein you would see numbers of four two and four up there so they were from another state where they didn't have a test not like they may had the estate test but MC but they didn't come from like another city in Mass where they couldn't pass because then we yes they they didn't have mcast results at all correct they no mcast results at all they would have been they would have had to have taken the ret that we had I'm curious how this compar like for the class of 2024 what were the number of students that didn't meet competency after retake I didn't those numbers but I will tell you that um we had um I think it was two three students that didn't they walked across the stage but received a certificate of attendance so I don't know if there were more that just like some of our students move outward after the fact but I'd have to get the full numbers for you so it's only a few more students than that that are currently in the position of not yet meeting conferen typically in Chelmsford our students meet mcast we we don't have large numbers of students that are not meeting mcast in this District that it's going to be the the other districts in your your cities that are really impacted by this we typically tend to run around like you know seven to 10 students each year and then with the ret students but it's a small number correct and that's with the retakes for the class of 2025 the class of 2026 I have not gone through we just received those retakes res results and I do know that there was like several students that pass so those numbers are probably even lower in ela and math we just didn't by the time this presentation went up we haven't gone through all the retakes because everything's been on these on the class of 2025 and then the number is higher and one of the questions I had for the high school and it's a little you know it takes a little time to do this is there 24 students now the proficiency level went up higher for the class of 2026 so that could be one reason why there's 24 students the other question I had for them to look into is how many did we have originally for the class of 2025 and the how many of the retakes canceled out that number so for example were we at 20 I'm making up numbers right now let's just say was there originally 20 that didn't pass it in the spring of um they would have taken this in the spring of4 20 no 23 23 um was it then they took retakes and that's why we're at eight I don't have that answer for you I do believe that the number is higher for the class of 2026 because the proficiency ratings are higher so naturally if you if you bring it up closer to the ceiling you're going to have more students the class of 2027 um I wrote it a little differently so many of those students um were on honors biology and they would have taken that class freshman year so there was4 students that actually met the mcast in science because they took the mcast with the sophomores in the spring of 2023 so that makes sense but the remainder of the students it doesn't matter anyways because they're not elig I put the I put total numbers all because none of them are eligible to receive the CD in um in um Ela or math because they're current sophomores right now and same with class of 2028 none of them can take they will take the mcast but it's not eligible as their CD requirement so in the immediate concern we just want to make sure we have something in place for those eight students for that class of 2025 and then really look into this a little bit more deeply before we make any final decisions and change handbooks and all of that because we're going to have to interestingly enough you only have one policy that is that talks about mcast so there's not like big policy changes a lot of the changes are going to go into the program of studies and into the handbooks that's where we're going to have to see the changes good with the those classes okay so we did go through a review process so Desi does have their three-part CD approach so shortterm they told us all make sure the seniors are all set set and then medium-term they're going to be looking at the rest of the high school students and then there's a longer um term plan which all students that are not in high school right now and looking at the legislation and what the board of Elementary and secondary education requires so there are there's still more to come it's not over so that's why I would not bring forward something that's like you know wholesale change because I think this is going to change as we go along and then um obviously like I said we've been focusing on the current seniors so as the administrators we sat down so it was um the high school administration and then the three coordinators and myself that are impacted and we looked at the um that the language that came through the FAQ through desie to make sure we all had a common understanding what was happening attended the webinars to see okay what additional information is available and then we looked at all of the current students like we physically looked at the students right not just okay let's just pull off the numers let's pull up all the information to Panorama look at the sis who are these students what's happening you know let's get some more details so and we did look at what other districts were doing so one of the interesting things that came up is we've been here before boys and girls because we had covid and students couldn't take the mcast so what what did we do then and how are our students doing and they're doing just fine so we actually looked at all of the covid protocols to see how will this help us moving forward which was extremely helpful if we're going to talk about Co that's one good thing that came from it we have some back language to go back so there was a lot of different languages around the waivers around mcast so in looking at all of them we just did our own adapted version of it like adding words like f year credit because that was not in the desie language and making sure that they were appropriate curriculum Frameworks and AD adequate classes so we came up taking that language as our framework we came up with the language just for this class requiring a vote tonight that would allow us to apply our own competency determination something we feel comfortable with for these eight students and the two students that are um new to the district we we end up doing like an alignment document for what courses they took compared to our courses and this is the language that we were looking to move forward just for the class of 2025 for this year and we went through so desie during that Co time gave us a list of approved courses that would apply towards the waiver back when covid was happening so that we could graduate students and we aligned it to our Desi course codes so that's the column that you see on the left that is the course code that we use in our district desie has a name for the class I'm telling you the CH the Chumps High School name for the class and that does it meet the CD requirement and then we decided that they did so for ELA though you would need to pass both English and N9 and 10 so 9 and 10 10 is um one of our special ed courses that meets the Desi course code and the English 9cp and honors is what you would see the majority of our other students in classes which meets the same desie code and then for um oh for ESL which was important so we have beginning intermediate and Advance it depends on a students's weer level and then we also have a class called ESL skills that meets the Desi course code we use the same course code when we report to the state on our classes which meets that code and we were saying yes that meets that requirement and we'll review the transcript of the students that came in from the um other other states to meet those Cod codes I'm going to ask a question I think is just a quick answer um I saw that the language up above the recommendation said and has demonstrated competency in that subject does demonstrate Inc competency for for our purposes right now mean passing the course corre okay does and then math has something similar yet different because they have algebra and geometry if they're in the general math class for 9 and 10 they have to pass both of them and they would have to pass both algebra and geometry algebra one even being for like if they took it in eth grade because some of those students might be in Algebra 2 because they were in eth grade they took algebra one and then for science it was the three by the three lab classes plus our projectly the way introduction to engineering design and those what desie has for course codes course names and I'm giving you the equivalent that's in our program studies and all of those meet that so what do we do now so we have to apply these same um City requirements for the class of 2025 we're going to review their transcripts which we did we actually have this like I have a spreadsheet of these students and I can tell you exactly what course they've taken if they've met it and I can tell you all of them have met it which is actually the good news here we don't have one of them that has not um and we would issue the diplomas and we would um we've actually had two former students contact us already to receive their diplomas because what we're doing for the class of 2025 we'd like to apply that to class of 2024 and and I was going to say what's the luck back I mean how many we have to go back to 2003 if 2003 yeah but if the students request if the students requested a lot of them went and they did some high school equivalency um the earliest we've heard so the two one was from last year and one was from 2016 I was like okay so that's fine we would we we have to go back into the transcript and make sure everything's all set but we would issue them a diploma okay but we are supposed to go as back back as as 2003 but I mean it sounds like we're in good shape we have all the cours workk in place um it was just a matter of putting the language in being sure that we have standard measure of defining it but we're in good shape to we're in good shape to put in this plan I think we there's more work to oh I understand there's work to be done funny about theing practices because that is like one of the biggest things up that's a big philosophical piece too but in terms of what shord high school offers we offer what the state says students need and and in the short term it sounds like we're in a good position if it's looking like those eight students who didn't meet their competency determination through mcast will meet it through the proposed to shift right so obviously we're going to continue to focus on this class review additional guidance that come in um we're going to investigate what to do about the CD requirement moving forward because I you know if you look at the language closely you should have something in addition to we're lucky that we do follow the mass core you believe it or not many high schools don't you would think that they would and I just assume they did but a lot of high schools have not adopted the mass cor as their requirements and then um based on we do moving forward so I would not recommend going in and changing all of our current documents but what we decided to do moving forward for 20126 we're going to have to change our handbooks and our program of studies because the competency determination is everywhere I did go through the um school committee policies and it's only mentioned once um and I'll get you the the policy it's um only mentioned once in a policy and it's not even really talking about like we are saying it has to be the competency determination it's wrapped up into another piece and then um obviously make sure that this is communicated with everybody including the guidance counselors that are monitoring these students um you know academics as they're going through parents because people want to know what's going to happen and I know we've been doing questions as we go along but we can ask more questions and then I'm going to be looking for a vote and the vote just to to get clear is to potentially adopt the recommended shift for the class of 2025 specifically yes or would it be 2025 and prior Court classes no um I don't know they really have to I don't you probably have to have some standard I don't think it'll hurt yeah it's not going to hurt because the students are no longer students with us so it's they have transcripts to look at so you're still being the same kind of review yeah that would be my sense would be since if there's already asking if there's already students asking from prior classes it would probably be important have a policy in place that would impact them it's not going to hurt okay too bad but we're really just looking at this one page with the language requiring a vote is what you're asking for today the language and then those those will be the classes that we're going to use yeah for those three contents areas okay so you want to include um prior classes prior class 2025 in before or in Prior classes prior class yeah okay 2025 and earlier yes and ear prior before earlier and prior classes leading back to 2003 I think if you say in earlier or before we can apply because prior to 2003 there wouldn't be students who had not my senses is we because I think we would have heard from a lot more people I mean there could be a few more that show up but a lot of these students have met their competency like their high school equivalency in different ways or they're not planning on doing it okay yeah cuz my husband graduated the year and earlier classes all right right everybody good any question before we make a motion all right okay um I move that the school committee that we approve the adoption of the updated competency determination language for the class of 2025 and earlier classes which includes the identification of specific coursework in ela Math and Science SL technology SL engineering that meet the 2023 standards as the graduation requirement in accordance with the new law I second all right any other discussion on this right all those in favor I I four Z to be continued the high school great great thank you for doing that to thank you uh next up this evening is an update for you on um some of the the information that was requested around the use of cell phones and policies and procedures and things like that that we have so I took a little time over the the holiday break to kind of call through all the different documents we have in the school department um it was a relatively quick search of actual good night good night have a good night it was an actual quick search of policies because ironically um we don't have any actual policies that pertain to cell phone use at all uh there was just one reference in the policies and it actually um was directed at staff as opposed to students so I did include uh what was written uh there for you and then when I went through another document was the CPS staff empowered digital use guidelines these were revised this past summer again they had the same reference to just staff obviously were no students in that one the um the overall student handbook for the 25 um sorry 2425 school year as a paragraph pertaining to uh phone use and I Incorporated that at the bottom of the paragraph um and it I'll just read it for the for the viewing audience it says if students need to contact home they should see their teacher administrat to receive permission to use the phone uh in the classroom or office conversely if a parent needs to speak with a student the parent should call the school office all cell phones should be off in school unless uh in use for instructional purposes any student using a cell phone for non-instructional purposes while uh school is in session will have the cell phone confiscated by Administration the first offense will lead to a warning uh and the administrator will return the phone to the student at the end of the day second subsequent offenses will result in the phone being returned only the parent inor further disciplinary actions so that's in our kind of K12 Global uh student handbook and then the high school uh addendum that's an additional handbook um that we have just pertains more than 9 through 12 students also had two references to cell phone use in a section that dealt with consequences that were a little bit different so instead of writing that all out I just attached it as appendix C for you um and then I just had a general conversation early on with the principles to kind of get a sense of exactly what was going on and Elementary so K to 4 the Four elementary schools um really didn't um find or report that cell phone used by students was really significant at the elementary level at all which kind of makes sense most most kids do not have cell phones ironically they were having a little bit of trouble with uh the smart watches that the kids now we and I really didn't a lot yeah I didn't really think of that but um so they've been having more issues along those lines but whenever a cell phone or a um the Smartwatch comes up um the students have been Cooperative parents have been Cooperative so they really haven't had any significant issues at the elementary level but excuse me I think we're going to see an uptick in that I know many fourth grade students who received cell phones for Christmas this year so I think there's going to be a big uptick in that four going to fifth is usually a year when you start to see them because they're getting ready for middle school so this may not be a problem this school year but I think it in a couple of years they may see a big increase of fourth graders in particular yeah and my and my first grade son told me quote some of my classmates have become zombies because they're always staring at their smart watches until the teachers tell them not to so I do think that there are issues and he said that on his own to me so I was like oh boy um at the middle school level um fifth and sixth obviously that is when students start to get more kind of across the board um cell phone use at the seventh and eighth grade level most kids it's um would have access to a cell phone during the day both schools have a policy where your phone is just supposed to be off ideally left in a um a locker at the time and they do have the consequences and I provided with you just some of the messaging that the different schools have given out but basically you know keep your phone in your locker keep it powered off of the day uh first time is a warning you take it away you get it back at the end of the day next time your parent has to come in and get it after that there would be more uh consequences but both schools didn't report it as um significant as far as kids of families not cooperating with them and then similar at the high school as well um they have a policy where again just um phone should be off um phone should be in your bag um a lot of the the rooms when you walk in kind of have the little telephone hanging racks now um You can certainly power off your phone and leave it in the rack um and that's what they've been doing at the high school so I wanted to kind of provide this as an opportunity to you just to kind of have everything we have on file with related to either policies the procedures what the communications have been and um again I worked on this over the break so I'm going to be um sharing this with the school administration the next time we meet I haven't circled back around with them um to show them what we've been able to come up with but I wanted to at least share with you what I had so far as far as what was in writing as far as policy procedure from the district level gross yeah I um I appreciate your gathering this this is exactly the information I was hoping to see um something I'm thinking about and I'm sensitive to the fact we have a long agenda tonight so this may be something to um postpone further discussion of until maybe you hear more anecdotally from what Educators want to see and until we have a chance to to dive in on maybe a less crowded meeting but I would love to have a conversation about ensuring that ideally um we're really thinking about this in a consistent K12 way and making sure there's alignment in terms of consequences for violations that we're clear on what the violations are um consider including smart phones I'm sorry smart watches and other um smart devices in the conversation particularly as we're thinking about elementary school I have heard from elementary school Educators and parents that it's getting to be quite a big issue at that age um because in part there isn't districtwide guidance um and the schools haven't previously needed or felt that they needed to um so anyway I would love to think about if there's a space for I don't think it's a dramatic shift in what what's already sort of out there but just making sure that we can um put out the kind of guidelines that could help um create consistency from school to school and more predictability um for parents students and Educators one of the things that came up that I really didn't think about ahead of time saying on the smart watch piece and I think one of the schools kind of just folded it into their messaging to parents because the handbook talks about phones but it doesn't actually say smart watches but they took the step to say these are equally distracting you shouldn't be those either but when we go to put our um handbooks together for the year like that's something to certainly include and I'm sure there's going to be some other new technology that comes out within a couple of years that we'll have to go back and add to um but yeah we I mean I'm going to bring this back because I do want to just talk to the admin and kind of let them know what we found that generally there does seem to be some pretty consistency in at least the messaging and how it's happening um I can ask you know just for their feedback as far as if if they think um you know kind of firming up the um the handbook a little bit would be helpful if maybe some kind of districtwide messaging U would be helpful even by level so that you know all say Four elementary schools are receiving the same messaging um I can kind of get their feedback for you and if you want to put it on for a um like another discussion or something we certainly could do that some night when we have a light agenda um and talk about where to go with it I'd also love if you could get feedback from them on one thing that I think would come down to I think it would be a relatively small budget item but it would be a budget item is whether there would be interest in what I know some districts have done in consistently having a space in each classroom for students to at the middle and high schools for students to drop off their cell phones as they enter and pick up as they leave um rather than having it be you know kind hidden in the kids bags or lockers or whatever um I know lockers are problematic at Parker students can't lock their lockers right so like they don't want to put them there and right throughout the day so I guess thinking about a space that is wondering if the Educators would like there to be sort of a a a phone storage spot like I know say l High School is used right now yeah I can ask for feedback on that and bring that to the conversation when we go back to it any other questions or comments on this so we don't have an actual policy no we have a handbook policy the handb approve the handbook and this this handbook policy applies to everybody but sometimes par don't read the handbook right yeah I mean I sorry go ahead I was gonna say I mean um most parents are actually going to read the handbook before they're going to go looking at what the school committee policy is so I think the the key document to have it in is the actual handbook so it is in the handbook um I think it's a matter of just enforcement consistency across the board and messaging um but when we go to do our handbook Updates this summer again like the Smartwatch thing was a good catch so like that'd be something good to add um we can look around to see what other communities maybe if they have something else we haven't thought of yet you know that's in there we can do that but I'd be more concerned about it being in the the handbook as opposed to the policy just because again people aren't normally jumping on the website to see what the policy is it's a new thing now smart glasses you know glasses little display screen glass hey I think there is um I I definitely think there's more to discuss and find out and I appreciate the info we have so far I do know that there has been chatter on masc fora about this about what different districts have for policies around cell phone use so it may be something that on our end the school committee's end we could look and see what some districts that may be similar to our size districts are doing in terms of policies um because it might be helpful to review those and make sure there's not something we're not thinking about and that could be an issue if we don't look at policies as as I was going to say the handbook though I mean it is pretty clear cell phones should be off they should be put away and any student found use using the cell phone well session will have that phone call confiscated so it's there it's just a matter whether it's really uniformly um adhere to or not yeah I think my my big question mark is if we need to be clear about what we mean by a way um because is that in the students own in possession in their backpacks is it in a place is it not do we need to be consistent around that and I don't I don't know what the answer is right now but that's my question mark I guess right that can be a low Tech solution though it doesn't have to be these fancy boxes that get locked and literally be a shoe bag on the back of the door I mean yeah for sure i' I've seen that that's what the high school is using that's what I'm saying it doesn't have to be a big high seems to work fine yeah y when the digital implants come out we don't want to be here that's I don't think I'll be here okay but I I at least I pull that all together over the break so I just wanted to at least get that to you thank you for doing that so you have you have everything together thank you next we're going to ask Joanna to share the second quote of financials with us thank you uh in your packet you have um a three-page memo talking about the variances from the operating budget for fiscal 2025 you have the actual year-to-date budget report you have the Grant and revolving fund summary and then you have the uh summary of Student Activity accounts for the high school McCarthy and Parker middle school so first we'll just talk about the memo um from our fiscal 2025 operating budget it's 73 m880 th000 not too much has changed since the report in um that I gave in October because remember about 80% of our budget is labor and we know our labor variances um pretty much out of the gate they have um some of the variances have grown a little more favorable um primarily because um the unpaid leaves approved unpaid leaves of absences are really starting to become more apparent um in the school year as you know teachers need to take that time off so the classroom teachers that category is favorable by $265,000 again for the same reasons as reported last quarter hiring people at less then um Master step three and approved unpaid leaves of absences and the same is true in the specialist teacher category that is favorable by 204,000 um a new variance that kind of became more apparent in the second quarter is in the medical and Health Services category um I'm anticipating that to be favorable by 84,000 for the year primarily because um two of the items we budgeted in the local budget were eligible for the Esser 3 Grant which is now fully expended um those were the contracted Mental Health Services for car Solus and cartwheel and then we had also hired a um RN at a little less than what was budgeted the employee separation cost is still favorable um that was the retirement incentive we just paid those out in January so it's not in this report um but I anticipate that category to remain favorable by 94,000 in fiscal 25 the outter District tuitions um it's unfavorable on this report um because we record all of the tuitions in this account and then take the offsets at the end of the year to the circuit breaker fund so another way we've been presenting this is just to look at um our Auto District tuitions we budgeted 6.9 million of tuitions we said our circuit breaker offset was going to be 2.5 million uh a credit Valley C collaborative for 300,000 so the net amount on the local budget is 4.1 million so that's what the budget was when we said it last February if you go to the last page of the memo this is where special ed tuitions are going to be where we think they're going to be this year we prepaid 1725 million of fiscal year 25 tuitions in fiscal 24 because we had some favorable variances in 24 we've encumbered 5.4 million so we're at 7.1 million so that's a little higher than the 6.9 we originally thought way back a year ago when we did the 25 budget we know the offset is going to be just a tiny bit higher on 2505 million to Circ breaker we got a little extra funds there we know the valley collaborative credit is going to be 24,26 and then in the end we think this category when you back out the uh prepaid tuitions again is going to be favorable by 1.52 million it's primarily linked to prepaying tuitions last year so the committee will you know will bring forth recommendations when I do my um projection for this year looks like we will have an opportunity to possibly prepay fiscal year 26 tuitions in 25 if this variance holds and then the last section is um the school choice revolving fund we used to use this as an offset to special ed tuitions we're really not doing that this year at all so but I'm still just reporting on the fund we're using it for the onet toone computer initiatives so I anticipate that balance to be um at the end of the year about 2.8 million in the school choice fund any questions on the local operating budget any questions I had two um first one is I see the special ed tuitions are up about you know 100 200,000 any is it we new students move into the district or is it that fees are higher than we expected what's kind of driving that in talking with Amy it um it is some movein okay so just a reminder on the movein law so if someone's at a collaborative and they move into your District you take on that financial responsibility right away if they're in a private placement you don't take on that um re Financial respon responsibility because you couldn't really budget for it and it's usually a big number so that number takes into effect in April so am Amy's always waiting till April 1st on her movein number um she kind of wishes her fiscal 26 budget would be due after that but it's not possible so it's primarily um movein um but again at a collaborative level and then if a student um one of our exist students had to be placed out of District at a private placement so those are the two main reasons okay and the other question is kind of simp vein is we have good favorables are there any things we're concerned with any accounts that that looking in the other direction that we need to be concerned with going the only one and that it's kind of apparent is a special ed Transportation but it's still kind of early um that could and you you don't know what's going to happen with your homeless transportation and you don't know what's going to happen with your Foster Transportation so those are really tough to uh forecast utilties we do have a um our plan would be if that category goes over we would likely recommend that um we take a larger offset to the regular education big buses because we have that revolving fund that's sitting at about 900,000 so we could take a bigger offset for the big buses and then that category um for special ed would be the the save the offset to regular aded to the revolving fund buses would then make room for the going over if we go over and Foster homeless or special ed transportation and all those now I'm getting in the weeds all those are not uh net School spending eligible so you kind of that category um that's how I kind of look at it to try to solve a problem within that category if you can and utilities are good until this week but it's two degrees out uh yeah so far utilities are okay um we're also going to see um in the grant once we get to Grant reballing fund um I haven't taken the offset to eate yet um so that one of the utilities that that helps fund is telephone internet that kind of thing so um we'll see that favorableness too great thank you yep thank you okay the next um one is the two-page Grant and revolving fund summary so the top portion um are pretty much the entitlement grants uh the middle portion is some of the other funds and the private grants and then the last page are the revolving funds question on any of these for me we can't ask questions about s grants anymore we're all done we're all done 30th all done right so we good yep right a couple motions I don't think just kind of a report and then just the the Student Activity accounts I thought there were some transfer transfers that's the next category but then just a reminder the Student Activity of account Balan high schools at 215,000 good night night good night the um McCarthy is at almost 38,000 and the Parker is at 69,000 and then there's all the little clubs beneath them any questions on Student Activity accounts good great thanks Joanna thank you Joan um so yes the next item number eight is just um recommendation for a couple of smaller budget transfers yes go ahead okay thank you so just two um the first budget transfer is for $828 in the software category uh moving from the instructional software into the administrative type software and uh we learned um Bill learned very recently that Microsoft Office is no longer going to be at no cost of school districts so he really didn't budget for that in the admin software category the you want me to stop or you let's do one time you want to do motion we didn't see that one coming they've always been uh free so we didn't see that one happening it's interesting I recommend the SCH uh I'm going to recommend that we vote to approve um this fiscal 2025 local operating budget transfer for the 8,280 from instructional software account to the administrative software account as presented I'll second okay any questions on this transfer we have to do roll call Diana hi Susan I Maria I I okay and the other one you and then the last one is uh this budget transfer is for $672 to the uh Capital land and building account this is where we are funding finishing up this high school art room and science lab Renovations and the retirement uh sickle buyback account is favorable we know that's going to be favorable by 94,000 so that's where I'm recommending the funds come from okay so I move that we uh vote to approve this FY 2025 local operating budget transfer for $672 from the retirement sl6 Sick by back account uh to the local Capital land and building account as presented a second any questions is this the end on these two projects they done I think so we think so it's been in a punchless mode for for quite some time little things just come up as you're closing out a project but uh the at rooms are officially done this point and the science lab I do believe is as well so okay these little little fine fine things straggled in but no we should be done okay great all right any other questions okay Diana I Susan hi Maria I I thank you a big thank you to Joanna always always thank you Joanna um next item on the agenda number 9 is just a little update for you uh more verbally just on the budget preparation so I've been uh working hard with Joanna and the staff of the business office to uh put the recommended budget together for next year that's going to be the fiscal uh 26 budget which will start on July 1st we are still um you know on target to present at our next school committee meeting which is the first meeting in February the um Town manager budget usually comes out the last week in January U because they're going to have a special time meeting that Monday night um that's going to kicked one week so the select boot is going to meet the following Monday and he is going to present his budget then um I've had a couple of discussions at a meeting with him to talk about kind of where we're at budgeting wise um we're waiting on a couple of key elements a lot of things will come into place um this week so um last week we uh kind of get a little sense of what might be happening from the Governor State of the um Union address or the state of the Commonwealth address um she didn't get as specific as she sometimes does so honestly that wasn't that helpful to me but um tomorrow is when the governor's budget by Statute has to come out so uh we will see the governor's bud come out tomorrow and that'll give us some high level detail about what will be happening with um local Aid so the couple of key numbers that I'm going to be looking at is the unrestricted General local Aid is the kind of the big number for the town Revenue uh Chapter 70 is obviously big number for the school revenue and then we'll also get an indication for us what's important is um the circuit breaker and where is the state going to be uh funding the circuit breaker amount so the budget will come out at some point tomorrow and we'll get just a ballp idea with those two big bigger numbers are Chapter 70 in in the um uh unrestricted local Aid then within about 24 hours so I imagine coming into work on Thursday um we'll have what they call the Cherry sheets so the Cherry sheets will actually show you what the actual allocations to the town are for all the different revenues and what the offsets are on the expense side because you do have to kind of go a little deeper and look at like school choice um you have to take a look at Charter School reimbursements things along those lines so by Thursday afternoon I'll have a better sense of where we're at and Paul and I agreed to um to talk on Friday and then we carved out some time on Monday to sit down and really kind of see um where we're at overall uh budget wise so um again I I will shoot you an update uh probably early next week just to give you a sense of where we're where we're Landing um I'm making good progress on um you know budgeting overall um we do know the fiscal 26 and I just wanted to kind of flag for you I think 27 are going to be tight years um you know we have been actually adding to the school budget for um the last two or three years we've really done some good investing I think in special education programming a lot of different things that align with our strategic plan I think this is going to be a little bit of a leaner year uh 26 and 27 but um we'll obviously um do what we need to do to keep our momentum on the programs and services we put in place um the kids are going to be there the staff are going to be there uh regardless of what happens budgeting wise so um we're working to really have this be as least impactful on uh classrooms and schools as possible so um overall I'm I'm fa happy with where we're at we are going to be looking to maximize Revenue wherever we can so when it comes to circuit breaker using different offsets that we have um to make the budget work for next year we'll be doing that and uh all signs at this point in time indicate that um I'll have the recommended budget to you for that first meeting in February and we'll also have an idea whip alls at with the town and hopefully we can have a consensus budget something that the two of us can agree on and like I said I said after we have uh probably Monday even into Tuesday next week to work that through I'll shoot you an email just to give you a sense of where we're at but then plan on having that recommendation at the first meeting in February any questions um are we still approaching it with the thought that we're going to have from based on what you originally pictured are we going to have to cut that Back Down based on what came out of the tri board meeting well um our level service budget which includes all the staff program Services we're currently offering now next year with an addition with a set aside basically for contract negotiations is that $35 million increase that we were talking about um that didn't change what we're hoping is going to change is being able to utilize a little bit more circuit breaker funding for special education than we normally do that's a revenue offset and we got a little extra circuit breaker money this year than last so you'll see an adjustment there um I'll be curious to see see if we get any indication of what's going to happen with circuit breaker for next year and we're not going to get the actual dollar amount but we're just going to get a sense of whether the governor is proposing um fully funding circuit breaker are they proposing um circuit breaker tuition and transportation because we got full um tuition but we only got a portion of Transportation so those are numbers I just need to kind of wrap my head around a little bit when I see it but um you know certainly as we we're going through this process I don't want to forecast too much tonight it's it's going to be lean but um you know those those numbers didn't change we're just hoping that we're going to be U benefited by some of the extra Revenue that we're going to be able to allocate to it and uh being a little bit uh tighter when we're doing forecasting for um um staff and replacement of staff and things along those lines we do have a handful of retirements that going to help us um typically we always see a positive offset with with that um but we'll we'll make it work I I just want to put the word out to any who's listening you know residents who look you talk about trying to save some money by looking at Staffing and um I just hope people will be really supportive of the amount of money we really need because why we may be able to eliminate some positions if someone happens to retire that's not really ideal so I just want the public to know that some of these programs are essential and that Staffing makes a huge difference in how well our schools do so as much as possible how much money we need for our schools so brings very important point the other thing I I think is very important for us to know is what is happening truly happening with that Princeton project because every time I pass by and I I don't know if everybody's had a chance to drive by there lately but it looks like it has going to have a big impact on us and so it would be very important to us to know what's happening for this coming year the other thing I think we have to have an answer to Is We Are we have some allocation of money in that contract I am looking into that for you to make sure when we're going to get that because if it's in the middle of next year right um so I think that that that's going to be a big thing yeah and uh I haven't been able to confirm this but anecdotally what I'm hearing is that um the development is actually on track to open um that it could be as early as between April and June when they actually start to not everything but when they have phases where they start to um to lease out uh properties so um we definitely could see some impact uh in the fall for that yeah and one concern I have is I think the housing crisis has gotten worse not better since that development was um was basically approved and as a result um and I remember that we were given numbers that replied only to two bedroom units and three bedrooms and so on none for one-bedroom units and in fact when our folks came in and did and presented to us on historically what's going to happen or going forward in um the the study that was done about the number of students that could come into our district they talked about the fact that they don't consider the one bedrooms either but I think that what's happening is people are having to uh use those wor bedrooms for families and because they don't have the money available period so that has a pretty big impact on us going forward any assumptions that may not have been correct right exactly yeah we'll be able to monitor closely we'll we'll be able to see um cuz we'll the new addresses but we'll be able to track anyone registering from that um complex to see when they're actually coming into the district so at least be able to identify who they are great well thank you for that yeah just a quick update for you thank you um next on the agenda this evening we're looking for um approval of a contract for on Call Engineering Services do you want me to give a little background and then you can do the specifics all right so um one of the things that's been coming into play um quite a bit over the last couple of years particularly with um internal projects that we fund ourselves through like the one-time funding so in the springtime when I bring forward recommendations for our own kind of capital projects um we need this the assistance of like an engineering firm to really go and look at a job to help us put bid specifications together sometimes to come up with stamp drawings um that will then get through permitting and things along those lines so we don't have um one company that we call when that comes up we usually have to kind of shop a job around to a couple of different places and see who's um who's available and it's not really um TimeWise economical um sometimes I think we'd be better served if we actually had a relationship with the the contractor that we just call when we have a number of projects so a lot of communities actually have these what they call on Call engineering service contracts um it's a blanket contract we're not committing a specific dollar amount now but we're doing a blanket over 3 years of up to $200,000 it would still be um Project Specific but we would actually have a contract with the firm so when we're doing the build out of like the um the secure entryway at McCarthy like what we would do because we know now we have actually got six that we're going to be trying to work on the spring we would call a firm and the firm would actually put together the documents for us they'd still they'd come out they'd have to give us a quote for that particular project but we'd already have a contract with them we already have agreed upon fees and they would come out and actually do the work for us we wouldn't be shopping around project by project we'll have a relationship with someone um we've got that that's kind of on the agenda we've got a um the doorway project at the high school but we want to add the doorway to the state well again this is a firm that would come in and actually put together the bid specs for us and all all those kind of things so we went out we issued a request for um proposals um Joanna conducted that and she can kind of walk you through what happened we ultimately interviewed uh candidates and we selected a firm that we would like to contract with um and again we're still going to need to allocate the fun funding to the projects that's going to be a piece of this we don't have that yet but we're going to have a contract in place for the up to $200,000 over 3 years to be able to contract with one particular firm to do all of our bid specifications drawings uh administration of the work if we need it on site so that's what that's what this is tonight would you want to maybe talk a little bit about the procurement process sure so the um the way we went about requesting this um information is way back in September we put out the RFP and we advertised and then we got 20 requests for the packet and four of those 20 uh sent in proposals that's a kind of a small number so we invited all four in uh to talk to them and they could give a presentation and our committee could um have a little Q&A and we did that um from from mid October to mid December and then we selected uh nv5 planning and design um and they happen to be not too far away over and and over and as the superintendent said it'll be a three-year contract of up to uh 200,000 total um and in your packet is uh this summary the contract that our uh legal firm helped us with and then the RFP that went out in September and that firm's uh response questions is there a minimum amount required to be spent in order for the contract to okay okay so it's only as needed it's as needed gr go to basically on call right on call engineer and how will this be accounted for in the budget going forward now well so um like let's just take a look at the um the secure entries that we're going to do this year so when we put that together we have an allocation for someone to write the bid specifications for us and to provide the stamp drawings we're just not going to have to shop that around put out a little mini RFP at the time that money will just be actually part of the 200,000 here so um that's where the funding is going to come from it's already going to be allocated to the projects we're just going to now contract with this one company to do the as oppos to having com through Capital yeah we' kind of preone this or like this spring if we have extra one time money and we do a project on our own there'll be an actual set aside in that project there always is for some to prepare the the bid documents and advertisements and things like that so it won't have to become a new budget item going forward like for next year it's not it's not a budget item in our budget it it's always going to be tied to a capital project um and there's just always a piece that goes to some firm to do this we're just now we've gone through the process ahead of time and we've selected Ed The Firm we're going to work with so we would just always go to that firm it just streamlines the process for us do we use combis to get proposals um we advertiseing comy um the proposals we had them come here to this building by a certain uh date and time we don't have them uploading there or anything I'm I'm just curious um you mentioned four wasn't that many I'm curious if this is less than we usually get for similar um needs or was that just like a reasonable amount I think four is uh we're fortunate to have four we don't go out that often for rfps that when you you get 20 requests for the package you get that was a really good response and you would hope that um more of the 20 would have submitted we're happy that four took the time to yeah I'm curious how many because the request for the packets could come from agencies that ultimately decide that they want to prioritize only guaranteed money or larger projects right like in theory would they I guess I'm just curious is it is it new for us to have sort of an established relationship like this that's not attached to a specific project or is that typically how we this is first for us we don't have this we don't have the vendors who are providing proposals they they don't have a track record to go on out with us either so to them this could be $0 or it could be $200,000 that's what I was wondering so I'm wondering if that's what the difference was between oh let's see if I'm interested and then only four ultimately applying but four is still a good amount to be choosy no and they were relatively um I think three out of the four relatively local too what was interesting is when they came in for the interviews um one of the firms in particular talked about how they have this contract but they honestly don't get used a lot so I could see them being a little disappoint point to going through the whole process getting a contract in place and it's only an up to amount so if they're not getting a bang for their Buck out of it and they're not getting the service maybe they don't put the effort in the next time but I'm wondering if if we do we now have a good relationship with someone and they can see a track record of us spending the $200,000 over three years maybe we will be more attractive the next time around but it's going to give us consistency in I think you know kind of quality someone who's really going to get to know us and timeliness also like we're going to be able to you know kind of move quickly on a project as opposed to a have the month to two-month lead time of getting um quotes and proposals on every single project yeah separate rfps for every single project would be a lot yeah so this is this is going to be I think very helpful to us okay great anything else other questions okay take a motion yep I move that um we v um vote to enter into a three-year contract with nvs planning and Design Inc as proposed uh to provide um on Call engineering consultant Services I'll second just to clarify it's nv5 right nv5 oh I forgot the five NV it looks like an S it does look like an S I agree okay sorry nv5 nv5 all right so we have a motion we have a second we have a correction any other questions all right uh Diana I Susan hi Maria I I was y um next J do you want to walk him through theou for the Foster Camp Joanna's got a busy night she does yeah okay um in your packet is a requests to we uh have our foster care Transportation um have the opportunity to request a partial reimbursement through a federal Essa funding model and this could uh reimburse possibly 20% of our foster care Transportation costs in a school year but in order to apply for this funding you have to have a memorandum of understanding between your um school district and these four parts parties involved in this funding and this mou has to go before your town meeting so um this request is really asking this body to bring this forward to town meeting in April and then theou is attached and then if town meeting agrees with this then we send the contract uh back to this Essa group and then they get the other signatures um between the other three parties um Jessie DCF and uh executive office of Health and Human Services and then once that mou is in place the following year so it' be fiscal uh 26 at the end of 26 I can then submit our foster care Transportation cost and see if we are eligible for any reimbursement any questions so it's to get money back why do you have to get it approved just that's what the law says that for this particular it's not costing the town anything it's going to bring money back in yeah it it's it's a little strange I've never seen this before but um when the the group approached us about this if you you want to be able to qualify for this you just have to have you almost have to go through this pre-approval process and actually have it be uh it's almost like setting up a um like a special account to be able to do this so uh but you have to only do it once but if we do have theou approved and everyone signs off on it then um we're not going to have to do this every year but uh any year that funds are available for the Foster reimbursement Joan is going to be able to apply and we're potentially going to get money so there's really no downside to this worst case scenario if there's no funds available we're not going to get any money but if we do qualify for anything in any given year we can apply for it and um and get some reimbursement so there's there's no downside to it it's just more of a procedural thing I did um um mention it to the top manager he's fine with it and there's we have plenty of time to get this on the yeah well I told him we would take action tonight just to make sure you'd support this and then if you do um I'll forward this over to him and he'll include it as a warrant article um in the spring and then we'll just be there to support and answer any questions that may come up but it's kind of a no-brainer it's just potentially giving us money we just have to go through the process to get everything in line is this a new program or is this I had heard of it before I don't know um it's not that new it's been around for a few years um I think what happened was you know for homeless Transportation there's a little bit of reimbursement from the state and then districts were asking well is there any opportunity for foster care transportation and then desie did some digging to see is there any way we could get any money and they found it would be eligible under this Federal Essa funding which I think DCF was aware and helped say hey there might be some funding there because they obviously have more um of these type of costs um in their regular budgeting um so I think it's been around for I want to say maybe six years okay you know don't quote me on it all right any other questions on us right we'll take a motion okay um I move the we uh vote to approve um seeking partial reimbursement for Foster Care Transportation costs through a federal Essa Essa funding model uh for a portion of our foster care Transportation costs uh and request to vote at the spring 2025 town meeting that authorize the chumford public schools to enter into the mou I'll second the motion very nicely done all those in favor I I or zero right thank you uh next up is just the Personnel report for the month of uh December um just a couple of uh new hires a couple of resignations um no sign no significant action where it's the middle of the year we lost a psychologist yeah is that one of the new ones that we had hired or yes yes um that was a new one that um started here I think in September um so they're in the process of um while posting an interviewing I know they did some interviews I don't know if they were successful finding someone but um in the inum just you know we're always going to have IEPs that need to be administered we're always going to have testing that needs to get done so um anytime we have a bridge like this for psychologist um sometimes we would look for like a parttime individual to come in and do some work sometimes we have to contract out the work the work still has to get done one way the other so it will but um I know they're in the process of trying to find a uh a full-time permanent replacement I just don't know where they're at in that I don't think this was expected you know because the person just started in September yeah all right any questions other questions on Personnel right last item and last for me uh Valley collaborative um so this is your quarterly report of business from the collaborative this is one of the requirements that we provided to the school committee so that you can monitor and um have information on um what's happening at Valley again I'm your representative on the board of directors of Valley um the copy of the newsletter is here copy of the treasur report is here that actually just sent along a copy of the approved budget for the year um so I'm going to just forward that to you via email uh before the end of the week um but you have the valley um brochure in front of you for the year so just it's just a communication U it would just be a motion to accept the report place it on file okay a familiar face there in a picture I was going to say a very nice picture on the front of the newslet it is there is our own uh our own sty k um just just looking at that proposed but looks like they're Surplus is going to be going down their Surplus is going to be going down over the next couple years it looks like what they're um I mean just what they have there in that a little bit oh I yeah it depends on how much this is a conversation we have every year I I think for next year's purposes we're going to probably be flat so you know they've been turning around like a million to you know sometimes $2 million um we have been investing more money in um because like we didn't actually purchase Vehicles during Co you couldn't get vehicles so now we're they're actually able to get vehicles again we're doing a bigger investment in vehicle replacement we put more money in infrastructure so um the reason they have excess money at the end of the year is if you don't invest in these things but um we've actually been doing a little investing so I'm going to guess our reimbursement is going to be about the same about 300,000 from them for next year but um we're doing much more as a collaborative investing in programs um technology uh facilities and veh Vehicles yeah I just saw the drop and wondered if that's going to affect us you know in terms of our budget because we we've been having budgeting in that 200,000 I think we're still going to be inove the $300,000 range for next year about the same oh you want me to make a mo sure be great I move that we uh accept the quarterly reports on the collaborative business for fiscal year 25 second quarter as presented seconded okay any other comments questions all those in FA favor I was Zero all right and that concludes my stuff okay any leaz in AO um I attended uh remotely which is very nice because I was sick um the South Row uh PTA meeting and on the 13th um I got to hear about the new the about the math specialist roles from one of the Specialists and some of the new work they're doing um to support reveal math and supporting staff so that was really great um Family engagement night is approaching for South Row um they pulled parents to find out what topics parents and family members and caregivers were curious about and wanted to learn more about and discuss and the the winning topics so to speak are digital safety and ADHD and other similar student needs so um those topics are going to be sort of disc discussed among staff and family members that go to that night um kindness challenge month is approaching and the student council which as we've heard is is huge this year um is going to try to take the lead with some coordinated service learning related work that month and um I think that was that was those are the big takeaways great anything um unfortunately I had a conflict and I couldn't attend the chips PTO meeting um that was kind of a last minute thing I missed so I apologize for that I did attend the Harrington PTO meeting they've got some nice events coming up um that the PTO is sponsoring this coming Saturday they have a movie night they're showing inside out too and it's one where parents can drop students off oh to you know so the parents kind of have a a night out so they've got all kinds of appropriate volunteers to make sure it's well staffed and the kids are well supervised a very very specific sign in sign out procedure to make sure it's safe but um that you know they're looking forward to that um the Scholastic Book Fair is going to be held the week of February 11th every day during the school week the kids will go during their Library time they're also going to have something after school on Wednesday I don't remember the exact time but it's when families can come in and Shop um for the book fair so those are two things that the PTO is doing and then the school not just through the PTO but the school is holding a cultural diversity night on February 12th from 6:00 to 7:30 and as a way for kids and families just to share their own fam's cultural experiences and traditions and they're hoping for a great turnout for that that was February 12th February 12th 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. SRO is doing that as well I think in March I'll get the date for that as well cuz that's always a fun event wonderful and then I'm continuing to regularly attend meetings for the town strategic plan steering committee we're getting closer and closer to coming up with our um finalizing this strategic plan we're at the point now where we've got the mission statement the vision pretty narrowed down the the strands that are important I forget what we're calling them is but you know the strands like the school committee has and now it's just matter of really working on exactly what the goals and their performance measures should be but we're I think going through the third rendition of it so we're getting closer and closer to getting that finalized and we'll be able to share it um with the school committee the the select board and the community one thing I just wanted to give this group a heads up on is that under the strand for Effective Government there is going to be an objective about collaboration between the school committee and the select board to meet twice a year um just to support Effectiveness on both sides that was a the a lot of the feedback had to do with schools schools being good and schools being work and as a part of a measure for Effective Government it was just thought that there needs to be just greater communication between these two committees at first it was worded that that was going to be the select board helping the school committee to enact the schools strategic plan and as I put forth it needs to be a two-way street it needs to just be conversation about what's good for the town as a whole so it is being reworked that the goal will reflect that better that it's not just select board coming to oversee the schools it's a two-way street and how we can share ideas and just make things better for everyone in town so we'll see how that will play out but that looks like it's going to be a goal for the town right I really appreciate that that shift I I am curious um is there currently a liais on so I know we have a liasis on to the select board is there currently a select board who is like the liaison to us yes yeah there was Virginia it was I don't it still it has been Virginia for the last couple years but she doesn't come to the meetings no unless it was you know a reason for her like something related to the school selectboard they would go just like if there's something related schools I'll go to the school so you don't regularly go to the select board meeting right I'll look check the agenda see if there's anything school school related okay know got it okay thank you yeah a lot of times I also I follow it on the televised you know meetings too maybe they do as well I look at their agenda every agenda that comes out just to see what's going on you know but thank you very much for that input that was great um I I attended two meetings uh I went to the high school PTO meeting um because it's John but he couldn't make it so I went to it um they have an after prom date June 4th that evening that whole night in morning uh the fundraiser they've come up with for the prom that they they like to make it into an annual thing is a pickup ball tournament so I thought that was pretty good because we have the quartz you can enter right pickle ball Pro here pickle ball um it really good and they have somebody one of the folks who's been attending the meeting regularly who is a player and has been in tournaments before and so on they're opening up to the students and family community first and then they're going to uh open it up to um the community last and so it's students families and community and then you can sponsor a court for $100 uh as an organization or an individual if you like I thought it was great um then this way they W don't have to go at the last you know at the end of the year asking just the senior parents to contribute as much for this event uh their December gift cards a fundraiser made over $800 which was really good and they're doing grab and gos from all of the um donations they got from parents and families at the beginning of the year so they're doing grab and go throughout the year for staff and they have one big event coming up for staff um this coming month so that was the CHS PTO and they are very active and doing an incredible job there um Council of schools was my other uh meeting that I attended this one was by Zoom Dr Lang was there Dr hsh was there all the way to the end right Dr H to the end because they moved that agenda item all the way yeah quite interesting wasn't it okay so um they are also in my opinion doing an incredible job um very well organized the meetings are very well run um and they're doing a lot of work but one of the things is they're working with Dr Lang and and uh Administration to get a micro site going under our website and that's going really well and I believe that um Jenny is the director of communications and media for us is working with them to get this done she's very nonchalant about it but she's been doing a lot of work on this um the readin is scheduled for March Community readen is going to be March 3rd through the 7th I forwarded a couple of emails to you all where you there's a link there if you want to sign up and so on me directly just yeah just to give you some information in case you didn't get it that way and then finally as Patrick mentioned Katie Greer's coming uh on digital health and saf safety it's a presentation at the pack one on the 23rd at 6:30 starting at 6:30 she's going to this Thursday it's this Thursday and she's going to be coming back to the district they're trying to line up for an additional date I think some date in April right so that's great because that's one of the topics South Row is very concerned about there so terrific as are all parents concerned about deal safety before I start mix doubles I think you two mix doubles I think that would be outstanding I would sponsor that court and that's how I got fired all right um we had our first meeting of the Parker building committee um a couple weeks ago uh so main focus of this meeting was pick a a subcommittee to select an owner project manager for for this um you know it was nice we got into the the feasibility study earlier and we were on a pretty tight timeline we were supposed to get everything done by April um unfortunately or unfortunately we got pushed to May um so we actually have a little bit more time to to do we I think we're still going to try to get things posted if you want to yeah so um originally uh four districts got moved forward to the December board meeting instead of having to wait till the end of February which was great we were one of those four because we were done everything early so um part of the process is the first step is to secure the owner's project manager you have to issue like an RFP it's called an RFS um there's a whole long process with that and then once you go through that process you have to bring your recommendation to the msba has a special OPM review panel and we originally slated to go like the first week in April for review um we end up getting bumped from the first meeting in April to the first meeting in May which again you know in the it would have been a little bit nicer in some respect to be able to just get in there in April because then that lets you get on to the designer a little bit quicker but at the same time time it was a very um tight timeline for responses to firm so this might actually benefit us a little bit it was going to be a two-e um response time which is really quick for um to put a full proposal together so we're going to keep the original advertisement date so we're going to go out with the other two districts who originally advertising for the April date but we're going to relax our schedule a little bit so we're going to give three weeks for the response and then we're going to have three weeks for the review instead of two so then we're still we're going to go in May but um all in all I think it's going to and to be fine we're still going to be advertised early so people will know that our project is there and they're going to have a little bit more time to put our proposal together so um but that's the first step and then I see probably between May and August will be uh the designer so that'll be um getting the designer on board the process is starting to go so yeah it's going to pick up and then really next fall it's going to hit heavy with um Community participation School participation things along those lines so we'll meet again I think end of March beginning April as a committee yes so the subcommittee will review the responses and then bring a recommendation before the full committee which ultimately that'll probably be sometime in early to mid a April is that then has to go to the msva for May and then the other thing I have Alumni Association is supposed to meet tomorrow night supposed to meet tomorrow night so we we'll see um but they usually meet at 7 o'clock in the high school so all right anyone have any new items no the only thing I wanted to um see if if it's at all possible on that schedule of departments present thing if there's any place in there and a possibility of adding in um the Specialists some of the specialist groups so for instance we really haven't had an update on what's happening with languages or um what's happening with uh health education and so on they were in there they oh they are in there that I miss this well I I think I call it World languages they're in there how health health and fette they are in there yeah okay great I missed it double check if there's a group that's not on there that you want let me know and we certainly can add them but that is all the specials the only ones we have to add beond that as Dennis mentioned are the two departments so like Tech and spit but all the other ones are on there okay sounds good thank you right anybody else I just want to remind people I think we start negotiations Monday next Monday next Monday the different groups are going to start to meet I was going to say we are only supposed to physically be at the ones we are correct yeah so so I go to the ones that I'm already aware of that we've been correct okay y I've just been communicating just directly with the people for the sessions I knew there was something on Monday but I hadn't heard more details and I don't think that's one I have to no that's the one yeah you two are Monday is the so John and I are I'm not either different the ad yeah so I just want to remind people because I know sometimes that gets kind of lost um the other thing I just just to put a plugin this is more of a general plug um lots of open town meeting rep seats um so anybody watching at home that's interested in getting involved um you know nine you know part of the town and you know schools are part of the town so you know any kind of support there so um you can just get I think go to the town clerk uh I think you have a couple more weeks to do that all you think you needs five or 10 signatures and 10 signatures right um this was something Dennis to that Dr Lang uh did raise with with the council which was really good and I did too um because right there we have huge leadership among our parent groups right at that Council of schools and one of the things that came up was to see what the openings were by the precincts that um match up with our schools um because you know for example some of the are full they they have enough reps but some have no reps at all that they really need only one or two of the precincts are full so about anywhere in town yeah there's a lot of a lot of opening I know that they put out some feelers try to get more people involved so just want to throw out there since you know people are watching so yeah yeah and to let people know that um it's a big commitment twice a year but all the rest of the year it's not a big commitment so it doesn't take as much times people might be worried about so L Lear L do learn a lot you learn a lot but it's not a huge amount of time in terms of commitment I think we're all time meeting right so not yet oh that's right um all right so uh no public comment no nobody had emails so I believe we can take a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn seconded all those in favor I right thank you very much thank you a little bit more than for