I pledge allegiance to the flag >> of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Oh, good evening, everyone.
Beautiful summer evening. And we, um, are being televised because this meeting is always live streamed by Champs for Telemedia for our interested community members to access and watch. And if you are an interested community member who
wants to speak at the School Committee meeting, please email Dr. Ryan prior to 12:00 noon on the day of the meeting to be scheduled, um, for in-person input. And you'll be given the, uh, >> [clears throat] >> just of the rules at that point as well.
Thank you very much. Okay. We're going to start with our consent agenda, which is the meeting minutes from the June 2nd, 2026 meeting. Can I have a motion? >> I move to accept the minutes of the
School Committee meeting of June 2nd, 2026. >> I second. >> Okay. All in favor? >> I. >> I. >> Wonderful. >> Where is John? >> John's not here tonight. >> John is not here today. Um, >> [clears throat] >> all right.
Okay. Do we have any good news? Our good news person just walked out of the [laughter] room. >> [clears throat] >> But I'll I'll come up with one. >> Or if you'd like to start with one, go ahead. >> Okay, I'm going to start with one. I I was really really really happy at graduation. And I've been happy ever
since because I received many very nice comments from community members about the graduation. They really liked it. They liked the speeches. They enjoyed how the the graduates were, everything about it that I've heard. I don't know
if anybody else heard anything else. >> No, I've only heard positive as well. I think the the some of the sentiment among staff was this is the second year that we've actually invited staff from like the elementary and middle schools and high school to all join us. That's been very well received and a lot of the teachers
get to see some of their kids that you know, you you haven't seen in years. So that was a great event. The weather cooperated. It's always nice being at the song arena because it's indoors it's a little climate controlled. But no, I think the students did a great job. I agree with you the speeches were
were good. It's great to see the kids come across the stage and I give their diplomas and all in all it was a good night. >> Yeah, and it's always a reminder to us as a school committee >> [clears throat] >> that that diploma has a definite meaning to it. >> Mhm. >> Okay, any other good news as you walked
out the room doctor? >> I chose the perfect timing. It's awesome. No, it's it's a wrap. Today was the last day for teachers. It is over. So welcome the 2026-2027 school year. >> That's wonderful. Okay, anybody I was thinking the other piece of good news is July 4th is
coming. >> Oh, yes. >> We get to walk in another parade. >> Some of us. >> Some of us? >> Some of us will be in other places so we won't be able >> I'm away. >> You are not coming to walk in the parade? >> It's either one of your favorite places though. >> Don't worry, I'll be there Maria. I'll
[clears throat] be there. >> Okay, where's the candy? >> I know that I've missed but I'm I'm going to be on vacation a little further away than usual so I can't I can't come back. >> Is this allowed? >> [laughter] >> I think so. >> Oh, okay. >> You know what? We we have a we have a
cardboard cutout of me from COVID. >> That is an excellent idea. Let's do it. >> I heard the candy is already packed and ready to go so >> It's all packed. >> Yes, sampled it today. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Everybody has sampled it today. >> It might be a really funny parade. So, that's terrific. Okay, we don't have
anyone for public comment. All right, so new business, we have I'm going to turn it off over to Dr. Lang, the ratification. And we have um Mr. Souza joining us tonight. >> We do. Yes, so um if you recall, we had one contract in
the school department that was off-cycle from all of our other contracts. That was with our uh building custodians group. So, we met with um the building custodians in the district and their um collective bargaining uh group this spring for a few sessions. Um Maureen and Diana were the uh school committee
reps on that negotiation. And we were able to reach a tentative agreement. Um so, that's in your packet tonight. And um just uh way of history, um the town manager and John in this case serving as town manager um always sits in with the school committee for the ratification
votes. Um so, what I'll do is I'll walk you through the uh the MOA that was before you. Answer any questions that you have. Um the school committee has reviewed this in a little bit more detail um in executive session the last time we met. Uh but then we'll go around the room and do a roll call. The um
union did reach out to me just to let me know that they did ratify last week. So, uh they held the ratification vote. Um they were appreciative and the uh the agreement was ratified. So, this is a pretty standard um language. So, this was an agreement for a 3-year contract, which is going to
begin July 1, 2026 and end on June 30th, 2029. Um all of the language within the contract uh that isn't changed by this agreement remains the same. Um we have just a couple of uh date updates within the agreement itself.
When it comes to wages, um this contract was in line with the other contracts that were recently negotiated in the school department. It uh basically calls for a 3% Cola increase in year one, a 3% Cola increase in year two, and a 3% cola increase in year three.
Uh we did also agree to um add a step in the first year of the contract, and then to add a step in the second year of the contract. Um some of the staff in this particular group are um getting up in the salary scales, and there was a little bit of compression. Uh so that was one of the things that we did agree
with the union to uh add two steps. But pretty consistently, the colas are consistent with the other groups that we had. Um and then we have some different items uh language-wise. Um just to remind the school committee, um this is I believe the third contract that we're negotiating uh prior to having the group
actually come back as employees of the school department. The school committee at the time had outsourced the custodial cleaning services to a contractor. So all the employees did not work for the district. We um kind of brought them back. We still have some contract cleaning services in the evening, but we had to have a like an initial contract
with this group. So over the last couple of contract periods, um the group has requested and we've negotiated uh language that basically um aligns them more with some of the other employee groups that we have. Um so you'll see number six, the um article basically
just allows them to use um up to eight days of their sick leave each year to deal with uh family members that may be sick. Um it currently called for five. Eight is more in line with our other contracts in the district. Um we also have a 210-day cap on the accrual of
sick leave over the term of the contract. Um their contract had 100 days. Um 210 is the standard in the school department, so that was agreed to to have them go to the 210. Um we cleared up that uh at the end of a uh year, they accrue vacation time, so
they actually work year-round. Um so at the end of the year, if they actually have unused vacation days, um they're able to buy back uh up to five days uh as opposed to carrying them to the next fiscal year. We had a provision that allowed them to carry over five days. Um our custodians have some difficulty
utilizing their vacation time often because when school is not in session when you would typically think about taking a vacation is when we actually need them to do the cleaning to prepare for the following school year. So sometimes they do have extra vacation time at the end of the year and it's difficult to say you're going to roll it
because there's really not a time to use it. So that was something that was agreeable to us. We agreed to increase their annual clothing allowance from $750 to $1,000. And there was a one-time $500 payment to
each of the current members of the group. This is an 11-member group. So this isn't a particularly large group for us as kind of a contract signing bonus. So that's what's before you for ratification this evening. You do have the attached salary schedules behind which just throw the
333 and years 27, 28, and 29. So I'm happy to answer any questions you may have but I would recommend the committee approve and ratify this contract. >> Okay. Any questions, comments?
>> As usual thank the group for putting all that time in and it was a couple nights of work. >> [clears throat] >> So thank you very much for doing that. >> It was It was good. >> It was a good end. >> Me too. Me too. >> [snorts]
>> Okay. And so having no comments, could I have a motion for the acceptance of the agreement? >> I move that we approve and ratify the memorandum of agreement between the Chelmsford School Committee and the Chelmsford Federation of Teachers Building Custodians Unit from the period July 1, 2026 through
June 30th, 2029. >> Okay. >> Second. >> Thank you. So we are going to do a roll call. Susan? >> I. >> Diana? >> I. >> Mr. Sizer? >> I. >> Okay. Dennis? >> I. >> And for me is I.
So we've got a ratification of the contract. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> That's great. >> This is >> John, thank you for coming and doing that. >> Thank you so much. >> It's my pleasure to be here at the town offices. I hope you have a good rest of the meeting. >> You, too. Are we seeing you on July 4th, John? >> Yes, yeah, I will be there. >> That's [laughter] wonderful. Look
forward to seeing you. No cutouts. >> No cutouts. >> We will, you. >> [laughter] >> See you later. >> Take care. >> All right, so Parker Middle School. Don, is here on >> Yep. Um so, as you all know, we had our public forum last Thursday. Before that, we did meet
as a building committee. Um besides the normal approval of our invoices [clears throat] and things, um we did vote on a construction um delivery method. Uh we decided to go with what was called a construction manager at risk model versus a design-bid-build model. And I guess the
the model we're going with is just a little bit more flexibility when it comes to the construction phase in terms of of changes and things like that. I'm sure the superintendent can speak more to to the difference there. Um we also discussed um trying to get together some um a group
an advocacy group advocacy group um of people that are interested in helping us support the the building project. I mentioned it at the meeting and I had several people come up approach me. So, anyone who's watching at home and would like to be involved with that, you could email any of us or if any of us know anybody, uh to let us know that. And
then, I believe June 24th is when we go in front of MSBA the official board meeting to get our final thumbs up and uh go from there. >> Wonderful. Okay, any questions? Uh I Jeff, do you want to put any other in?
>> No, Don said No, Don said nice job. Um I think that was good. We picked our procurement method. I think there was unanimous agreement, so that was great to see. Uh the back next big milestone for us is the um June 24th meeting. So, the MSBA will hopefully invite us into uh performing the full schematic design.
That work has already um started. We've had some programming meetings that we didn't mention this, but we were able to grab staff from uh Parker and even some of the fourth grade staff in the district to come up to inform some of the discussions just before we get too deep into the planning over the summer. So, we're able to have some of those meetings before everyone broke. So, that
was a great. So, no, June 24th is our next big date. And then we'll be doing a lot of work over the course of the summer to be able to in September really have more of a final plan to roll out for the community. >> Yeah. >> That's terrific. >> Just to mention to you our [clears throat] public forum was taped. If anybody didn't get to go to it,
some good information. They did a lot of things looking at the outer part of the building and and possible designs for fields and things of that. So, if anybody's interested in seeing how things are running, you know, definitely tune into that. Come to the website and get more information about everything. You know, once we get back from the the
summer vacation, it's going to it's going to go quick. So. >> It's going to move very quickly. All right. >> Can I just say just another public thank you to Champs Telemedia. People doing learning and staff have been kind of wherever we go, they've been following us to make sure that we can actually get good recordings of the videos and then get them right up
online. They do great work. I know having to mobilize it whether it's the Elks or the Senior Center isn't super easy for them. So, we very much appreciate them doing that. >> Yeah. >> I would encourage people to really go watch it and look online. It was
I think it was really exciting to see the plans like how it will look on the space. With the cuz I know there's some options still for parking and fields, but I thought it was just really exciting to start to see what it will really look like. >> Mhm. >> It's going to change that area.
Substantially. Uh but in a good way. And the other thing is that we'll have to keep on top of what's for the committee. And to make sure that our community is well informed going into the vote will be very important.
Um all right. Thank you, Dennis. Um spotlight on the departments. We have world languages today and cultural exchange programs and Tanya Mahoney, right? >> Tanya Mahoney. >> How do How do you pronounce your first name? >> Dania, like Tanya with a D.
>> Dania Mahoney. Wonderful to have you. >> Thank you so much. So, I am the world language and cultural exchange coordinator. I've been in this role now for 2 years. So, I have some just general updates and some great Lots of good things to say. As you know, we have we start world
language here in Townshend in 7th grade. Our 6th graders choose their language in the spring. I met with all of the 6th graders and sent home some documentation about what our programs look like including a slideshow um that the for the students and then also
some additional information for families to talk about what world language programming looks like and why they're choosing in in 6th grade. And then at the high school, we have three languages ASL, French, and Spanish and they are
all thriving. Our ASL programs in particular are very highly enrolled and really engaging and and in a little bit I'll talk about some of the awards that we've um that the students earned this year and ASL was highly represented there.
In general, our world language program is based on proficiency model which came out of the world language frameworks that were um approved by DESE in 2019. So, we really focus on what students can do with language. So, if you're hearing from students or families what their language
programs are like, we talk about what is it the students can do with language. Can they How are they speaking and how are they um reading, writing, listening, speaking in their language or signing as the case may be. And our foundation comes from the ACTFL
standards which originated in 2012, our framework from 2021 and some of the approaches that we're using that you'll hear about are things like um using comprehensible input, free voluntary reading approaches to build literacy, um and lots of multimodal
approaches. One of the key elements of the world language framework is 90% target language use, which all of us are working towards in our classes, but the goal of that in the world language framework is that students are hearing and engaging with language from the very
beginning of their language learning experience. Um as we assess for proficiency, often you see this cone that identifies the growth and we try to teach this to our students from the very beginning that
learning a language is not just a linear experience, but there's some um incredible growth and it takes a lot of time to get there. We test in all of our domains. So again, reading, writing, listening, speaking or signing um and in sign language it's expressive and
receptive. So they have to they're assessed in both domains. Um and we try to make focus on um student-centered tasks. Many of them are on time. So for example, our testing is often untimed um because it's really what can you do with language
um as opposed to you have 20 minutes to answer as many questions as you can or to conjugate verbs. Um and the work that we're doing in the department aligns with state and national frameworks to support student
language proficiency. Um our resources are we're in the second year of using the uh Wayside um learning program with uh Entre Culturas for French and Entre Culturas for Spanish and the Aprendo and uh
they're changing out the AP Spanish programming um but we're using the Wayside materials there including their new aLingo, which is an online component, which is a little bit like Duolingo, but tied to our textbook.
In addition, we have reading libraries in all of our classrooms. Um one of the initiatives that all of the world language teachers spent time learning about this year is free voluntary reading, which is an approach similar to you might be familiar with
SSR in English. Free voluntary reading is a similar approach where students have independent choices for reading and assigned time every in some classes every day. Some of our teachers did 10 minutes of reading every
single day at the high school and had had their students fill out surveys throughout the year expressing interest in certain titles. And that, I think, has been a really effective strategy. Reading Reading scores have gone up this year, and students have shown a real
interest in this. Even students who don't necessarily show interest in reading per se have really enjoyed the routine of having a predictable schedule every day. They come in, they get their book, they get their reading log, they spend some time,
and it's a nice reconnection to their language classroom. Um and so you would see, and these are examples of pictures from Ms. Sanchez's classroom. Students reading She, in particular, had 10 minutes every day at the beginning of class. Students became
took on the tasks of sharing the reading logs, passing them out, making sure that everything was set, setting the timers. And then you can see in the back of the room she has a really robust reading library of both fiction, non-fiction, and leveled readers.
And every classroom now has a selection of leveled readers in the target language. All the French and Spanish classrooms. The ASL classroom does have a number of reader not readers um texts that are uh rooted in deaf culture, but they're
not implementing reading quite the same way because it's not as essential to language learning in American Sign Language. Uh the Massachusetts State Seal of Biliteracy is a real highlight of the work that we do um here in Chelmsford.
Um this originated from the Language Opportunity for our kids act from 2017. And Chelmsford was among the first districts that joined in that initiative. Um there are we recognize three levels of
awards. We have the Language Opportunity Coalition Achievement Award, which recognizes students who have earned an intermediate mid proficiency, which goes back to that pyramid that I showed you earlier. The Massachusetts Seal of Biliteracy, which is an intermediate high or better
score in all domains and um meets or uh meets expectations on the ELA MCAS. And then there's the Massachusetts Seal of Biliteracy with distinction, which is exceeds expectations on the ELA MCAS and an
advanced low in their language. Uh students can also earn the Seal of Biliteracy with AP scores. Um and we do have a couple of students who do that. Generally, if they're taking the AP through their high school course, they're in their senior year,
but they are eligible to earn the Seal of Biliteracy retroactively. So, when I get the scores in July, I will look to see if any of our graduated seniors have qualified for the Seal who hadn't already, and then I will notify them. And then we notify That information is
placed on their uh transcript so that it's a part of the permanent record. The exciting thing with the Seal of Biliteracy is that many state schools now offer up to 12 or more credits for earning the Seal of Biliteracy and six UMass [clears throat] Amherst, for
example, offers 16 credits for students who earn the Seal of Biliteracy with distinction. So, that really sets them up for great success in the future. Um the Seal of Biliteracy indicates that a student has a functional ability to use their language
in the in the workplace, in college, and the Seal with distinction places them at college-level achievement. Um that they could take a college-level course in that language. This year we had 72 stamp tests. Some
students earned the Seal or qualified for the Seal from last year, so the numbers might look like how did this happen? Um it's because we're testing both juniors and seniors. This year we tested 10 languages in grades 11 and 12, and there were several students who qualified for the Seal of Biliteracy
through earlier AP testing. Um I like to include this this I included the same data from last year, but you'll be able to see the the growth in the program. This year we had 72 students testing, but we had 69 awards
um between the three levels. Uh this year's languages represented um I'm not going to read every single thing on the next couple of slides cuz it's about to get wordy, but um it is exciting to see that we have American Sign Language, Chinese, French, Haitian
Creole, Hindi, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Telugu. Um next year we'll see some additional new languages with our juniors as well. And this year at senior awards night um at the end of May, we had 13 students
earn the LOC achievement award. We had 35 students earn the Seal of Biliteracy and 21 students earn the Seal of Biliteracy with distinction. What's exciting is that of those awards, five students earned two awards. So, if you see on the next list, we have
our LOC achievement awards, including many in American Sign Language. Um and it's worth noting that our achievement awards are largely, in this case, represented by our taught languages. So, it's not just home languages that are represented.
Um and now we have the Seal of Biliteracy, and you can see that it's both taught and home languages that were represented. Um There's the first half, and there's a second half. So, you can see a very large number of American Sign Language,
as well as French, Spanish, Hindi. Um I don't want to miss anybody out. Portuguese, of course. I think those are Seal of Biliteracy Oh, and Chinese, of course. Um and in particular, the student earning the Chinese Seal of Biliteracy award, he earned that from taking the AP
exam um several years ago. And then we get to the Seal of Biliteracy with distinction. Um these are all students at the highest level of language. In particular, it's worth noting the the incredible success of our American Sign Language program. These
students earn the Seal of Biliteracy with distinction after only 3 years. Most of these students are either going to be native speakers, in the case of Chinese, Portuguese, and Hindi, uh Haitian Creole, and Polish. Um but we also had a number of students who earned
the Seal of Biliteracy distinction in Spanish, as well. Spanish and ASL. Um There's one person in particular that I think is worth highlighting on this list, and that would be Maria Eduarda Godinho de Gois. She earned the Seal of
Biliteracy in Spanish, the Seal of Biliteracy with distinction in Portuguese, and she was recognized by the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association, MAFLA, with the Past Presidents' Scholarship for $500 that she can use for her work as she
matriculates to Merrimack College to study International Relations, where she intends to continue her language studies in the future. So, that's a real highlight for us, and she's a very deserving candidate. Our travel and cultural programs,
um this year we Oh, but my picture got a little bit smushed. Sorry about that. Um we the World Language Honor Societies inducted uh students earlier this month in the French, Spanish, and American Sign Language
Honor Societies. They work together. They each each qualifying student qualifies within their own language, but then they collaborate on things like fundraisers, um and supporting the community, um the Chelsea community with things like a food um
a food pantry drive. We have uh several teachers have a virtual Spanish exchange through um Prometour, which is a company we have worked with in the past for international travel, but they had a a
virtual exchange where they met with students virtually. They would share videos back and forth based on a a common question. So, the Spanish students would uh send videos in English, and our students respond in Spanish. We also had
a partnership with Lynn English High School this year, where about 45 students from Lynn English, who are ESL students, who are mostly Spanish speakers, came um and met with our Spanish 3 Honors students. Again, the Spanish 3 Honors
students um corresponded in Spanish, and the ESL students corresponded in English, and they had been corresponding all year. And we hosted them for a reception earlier in May. That was a real hit. The students had a really great time. They played games, they did cooperative activities, they
had learning tasks, um and they had lunch together. It was a very nice day. And that was mostly held in the learning uh commons at CHS. We had um several teachers in the world language department as well as other departments participate in the Fulbright
teaching exch- achie- excellence and achievement program again, um as we have for had for several years. Um including a presenter from Armenia, which I believe is on the left. Um we again hosted the Concours
Oratoire, which is a French uh competition. I don't know why my images are getting >> Probably because of the downloaded probably >> Oh, I apologize. I can >> No, we we'll have this fixed. >> We can see them. You can see them. Okay. I think what's happening is some kind of perspective
problem, but um I thought I had it frozen, but apparently I did not. >> This room? Um we hosted again with uh on behalf of Le Club Richelieu of Lowell. Um we had um a snowstorm and yet we managed to have
our competition um after school in March um with participants from Chelmsford, Tewksbury, and Andover. Um the winner advanced to the regional competition, which was actually at the establishment in Chelmsford, and uh the winner this
year was from Andover. Um we have partnered with CIEE Global Navigators program. Uh they came in to speak to our students in the fall, and we had several students um who were
interested. We did not have enough participation to move forward with the Spanish exchange ship ex- exchange trip this year, uh which was disappointing, but students it's an expensive um proposition, and
several students just really were not interested. I'm finding I'm trying to get a sense of what students are interested in with travel. So, this was a nice way to offer opportunities to students who are interested in travel. This is a
non-profit that's operated out of Maine, um, and they offer really substantial scholarship opportunities. This year, we had a number of students apply. Five students will be traveling this summer, including one to Seoul, South Korea for Korean language, one to Toulouse, France
for aerospace engineering, uh, two to Seville, Spain for Spanish language, and one to Berlin, Germany, to for a music, um, music production and engineering program. Last summer, we had one student travel
with CIEE, Eva Barber, who shared this slide with us and shared some of her experiences with the other world language students. an amazing time in Seville last year. Things like, uh, living with a host family, cultural activities, overnight trips, cooking
classes, free time to explore Seville, um, and it's a very well-structured program. I've worked fairly closely with them over the last couple of years, and really found that their programs are very well-structured, particularly to support high school students. Um, they're very
well-equipped with that. I will say, on a personal note, my own child is studying with CIEE in Florence right now, as a college student in one of their college and an internship programs, and she's having an amazing uh, college opportunity, and was provided with some scholarship
opportunities through them as well. So, it's been a really productive, uh, relationship. And I think it touches on some of the cultural exchange opportunities that we haven't been able to offer. It personalizes the travel for students. Uh, we had an ESL visiting day. Our
students went to Northeastern University um with several hundred students, but our school was most was the most represented district. Um, they did activities throughout the day and unfortunately you can't see the picture, but um I believe it's the husky uh was
signing with the children with the students um and it was an all sign day. It was a really amazing opportunity for the kids to sign with people from different um from all sorts of districts. There were activities such as um learning how what
it's like to do uh to be deaf-blind and signing for a deaf-blind person. It was very interesting. The students got a lot out out of that. Once again, we had the Quebec City tour for our eighth graders. Um, they just returned. It was the first week in June.
Had an amazing trip. Um, a wonderful experience and our travel partner there um was really highly regarded. The students loved it and the teachers couldn't say enough. So, it was a great three-day experience for our eighth-grade French students. Next year we have a trip um going to
South Africa with a service learning component. We currently have I believe 17 or 18 students signed up to go. They have summer reading and they're making some plans as for um the work that they're going to do next February. And they're traveling um with Dr.
Cavarood and Ms. Ferranetti from the high school. And if anybody is interested in that, there are still opportunities to join that trip. So, I've included their contact information in case anybody's interested in learning more about that trip. Uh, so what's next? We are going to
continue promoting the Seal of Biliteracy. My goal is to try to get more engagement with some of our home languages. Um, hoping to connect with some of our educators particularly um either paraprofessionals or teachers at the high school to offer some um
informal home language tutoring. For example, we have a really large population of Hindi and Gujarati speakers, but we have no capacity within our own teaching program, our teaching our world language teaching staff, to support those languages. So, having an
opportunity during a pride block, for example, to do some tutoring um um we have had a teacher in the history department who is had worked with our um Haitian Creole speakers, and two students have now earned the Haitian
Creole Seal of Biliteracy um just through a little bit of mentoring in a way. So, I'm hoping to build that up so that we can um really capitalize and support our students with their home languages. Um we are participating uh continue to work participate in the world language
advisory team through the Department of Education. That's work that I do to help support um data analysis and looking at how to support our programs and considering potential heritage programs, for example. We are looking at future travel
and exchanges um some local trip more local travel such as an Hispanic trip Hispanic culture trip to New York City may be coming your way. And um we're looking at a trip to Puerto Rico or Martinique for the for 2028.
Um and then we're going to be continuing our work with the implementation of proficiency approaches with our textbook series and and really digging in to really making the aiming for that 90% language use and continuing our focus on free voluntary reading to support literacy skills in first and second
language. And I think that's everything. So. I hope hope I did not run too long, but I felt like I had a lot to say this year. It was wonderful. I mean, it's really comprehensive what you've said. That's going to be my comment. That's wonderful. Um
I was struck by a couple of things, so I'm going to say it and then I'll put it up to everybody. First, I was very struck by the fact that the students were sitting there with books just reading. And in a language that's possibly not their native language, which I think is
absolutely phenomenal. And um the other thing is how many languages are represented. It is quite a few. Um one thing I'll say, I know that there are some people who might say that the fact that you're
trying to mentor in the home language or do anything with the home language, why when these students are supposed to be learning English. But if you've never learned English as a second language, then don't say it. Because if you are
proficient in your home language, you are going to do so much better in learning and acquiring the English proficiency. And I speak from experience on that. So I'm really, really glad to see you do all that.
>> In the fall I reached out to our data um our data person [clears throat] for the district and just asked, "What are the languages that are spoken?" And there are over 80 languages spoken spoken in Chelmsford, according to the school district's data. Um and our top languages are Spanish, um Portuguese,
Gujarati, uh Hindi, and Malayalam, I believe is number five. So our Indian languages are very highly represented. And one of the things that the particularly the graduating students said when I was speaking to them about the Seal of Biliteracy and testing for
the Seal of Biliteracy, many of our Indian students, Hindi, um Gujarati, Malayalam, um approached me and said, "I wish that I had known about this sooner, because I really can't read and write." There's a lot They're very, very capable of
speaking and listening, but the reading and writing in those home languages is not um something that they practice because there was no real I don't want to say no real benefit. I think there's always a benefit, but but it was not what was expected within their the school, right?
So, this opportunity to earn the seal and something and to have time to practice. So, at the 8th grade parent night, I shared this information with the 8th grade parents to say, "If you are a speaker of another language at home, now is the time to start thinking about how to reinforce those skills."
And you know, maybe take a course. So, something um to promote that and the mentoring, it would be possible to very easy to do where I could provide a sample proficiency question. For example, the school committee is offering
a fundraiser or offering to provide some money to improve the community. What is your proposal? How would you make the town better? How would you make the school better? And what would you do with that money? That's a type of question that the students would answer in a proficiency setting.
Um and they could then answer that in their target language. So, given a question in English, how would they address it in their home language? Um and then talk about that with their peers in their home language. It's not super hard to advance those skills if you already have them in the reading and
listening, but you have to plan and put the effort in. Um so, I do know there's a couple of students, one student who in Hindi and one in Arabic, who are planning to go to their home countries this summer and are hoping to retest in the fall and may earn the seal from that
increased experience and exposure. >> Perfect. >> [laughter] >> Anybody else? >> Hi, thank you. Um this was great. As the um uh kind of selfishly as the mom of somebody who's going to be in 7th grade this year and getting to embark on this
journey, um I'm probably more excited than he is cuz I'm huge proponent of language and culture learning, but um I uh was curious. So, it's one of my questions was going to be one that you were sort of just discussing, which was
are there any plans to expand opportunities for in areas of language that aren't currently offered in full scopes and sequences. So, not French or Spanish, but say Portuguese or Gujarati. Um
are there any plans to find ways to offer supplemental supports or additional opportunities to learn those other languages that are important culturally in this community. And I think you somewhat answered that, but I didn't know if there was anything else going on
in terms of seeking opportunities whether it's through you know, multimedia online connections to learn some of those languages or anything like that being offered to students to kind of learn some of those [snorts] home languages.
>> So, a lot of the online programs that exist out there that are really AI-driven are not necessarily going to be the most supportive or engaging. A lot of Some things like like Duolingo has really moved to an AI model and that becomes
it really reinforces vocabulary, but it doesn't really build up those literacy and communication skills. Um which is why having a kind of a peer relationship or a mentor relationship may be the more effective strategy. Um as much as I would love to consider
Gujarati or Hindi, I do not believe we have a licensing path in Massachusetts for those languages. So, that would be a really challenging a challenging task. Um If we were to consider additional languages or expanding languages,
it would be wonderful to consider, for example, offering ASL at the middle at McCarthy, but we don't have the staffing and it's very very again licensing for American sign language is very very difficult. So, having that foundation of of French and
Spanish in 7th and 8th grade is a really great opportunity to build up those fundamental language skills and then if a student does want to switch, most of our students almost all of the students last year, I think only two students weren't able to fit ASL into their schedule who wanted to try to figure
that out. So, and sometimes that just happens with schedules that choices have to be made, but some it would be very nice. I think Portuguese is a language that I think I would like to kind of keep in the back of my mind as we look at our population. Another thing that's tricky about
meeting the needs of a community is that community needs >> evolve >> vary with evolve and and move fairly quickly, whereas developing a language program for a public school is much slower path, but Portuguese is one that may be something
that we could consider in the future and I do know that that some of our teachers at CHS have had some Portuguese experience. So, it might be possible in a few years, but again that would we would be looking at um probably investment in staff, which at
this point we don't have that. >> Yeah, and to be clear I wasn't thinking necessarily about building out an entire new scope and sequence. I was thinking more, you know, are there clubs or a slate of resources being suggested for students who want to deepen their
understanding in a home language or who want to learn a language that others in our community speak more than I was thinking about building out a whole, you know, new uh pathway. >> Um >> I also wanted sort of relatedly to ask
if there I know that we are now an early college uh district, um which I was surprised didn't come up in the good news. Um because I was really excited about that, and I was curious if Maybe it was last time, sorry. Okay. Um,
I was curious if through either early college or some of our other partnerships with local universities or or community colleges, um, there had ever been opportunities for students who wanted to pursue, let's
say, um, advanced language offerings in subjects to take those, um, in some some of the >> We offer concurrent enrollment or currently dual enrollment enrollment, but next year concurrent enrollment in uh, French and Spanish at the upper
levels. Um, we've been looking into American Sign Language. Our current, um, college partner is Middlesex Community College and they don't offer American Sign Language. So, we've been working, um, kind of behind the scenes with, uh, Northern Essex. They do have an
interpreting program. Um, and we have students who have taken classes there, um, independently, but we're looking to see if we can develop that partnership. It's a little bit trickier because we already have a standing relationship with Middlesex, but that is something
that we've been looking into. Um, Northeastern does have a very strong ASL, uh, interpreting program and Boston University has both interpreting and ASL teaching. So, we have connected with them, but we haven't developed a close partnership with them yet.
>> Cool. Thank you. I'm very excited by all of the things you shared. >> Thank you. >> So, I'm going to make one last comment, which is to tell you that I think you have, um, you provide a lot of information about the knowledge of the students in the
programs and so on. So, that means you're really involved in it, and thank you. I appreciate that. >> that. I really have enjoyed working with the kids. The comments >> Susan, they want to know if >> want to thank you for sharing the names of the students who, um, achieved the, um, Seal of Biliteracy Achievement Award and the Seal of Biliteracy so that we
can honor and recognize those students. When you find out which graduating just recent graduates also do, will you please share the names with us so we can also recognize them for their achievements as well. >> Absolutely. I'll make sure that recognition. >> There were
there are only a handful of students who haven't already earned the Seal who also tested um different colleges accept the Seal of Biliteracy differently or the AP scores. So some of the students will end up with the Seal of Biliteracy already and earn higher AP scores to qualify for college
credit, for example. >> I just like to recognize them publicly as well. Absolutely. So thank you. >> It's wonderful. Thank you so much, Dr. >> You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me. >> Thank you. Okay, that was really wow. Um
>> K. >> Strategic planning. Wow. >> Maggie's here. >> I'm here. >> How are you? >> Good. How are you all? >> We're doing okay. You're doing okay, too? >> I'm all right. I'm good. I'm good. Excited to be here with you all this evening. >> Summer, does that change things for you
guys a little bit? Not at all? >> Not even a little bit. >> [laughter] >> They get around. They get around. But no, >> We go right through the summer. It's >> [clears throat] >> the time when a lot of folks are planning for the next year, so we tend to stay just as busy, but excited to bring you all tonight the end of year
report on the strategic plan work that has been done over the course of the last as a reminder this was our fourth year of a five-year strategic plan, so we'll be heading in to year five in partnership with Chelmsford Public Schools in this coming school year, but want to want to share with you all today
an update for where we landed both on some of the data points that I know that we track over the course of the last four years, but also some anecdotal successes and some things that are on people's mind as we head into do last year of the strategic plan. Um so no changes here to the folks that
have been doing this work over the course of the last 4 years across those five different priority areas there. As a reminder of how this typically works from year to year, this is broken into two phases. So in June of last year
all the way until really the early fall in October, we spent some time looking at what happened over the course of the previous year, which targets were met, which ones were not quite met and what that made us think for initiatives headed into the next year and then making those action plans for each of
those initiatives. That's how we kind of spend the summer and the fall. And then once that is all the groundwork is laid, really just spending time tracking and monitoring the progress of those different initiatives and action plans throughout the course of the school year. Come together about every 6
weeks to share out where we are at on those action plans, problem solve, get questions from the broader group that you just saw on the previous slide. And then also do any kind of reworking initiatives, pulling more data as needed to make sure we fully understand where
each of those initiatives is at and whether or not we're on track to meet the goals of the strat plan that year. Just as a really quick reminder for the structures for how this works. Obviously DMG spends a lot of time in conversation with district leaders, Dr. Lang and Dr.
Hirsch to make sure that we continue to keep the group on track throughout the course of the year. But that steering committee is really the group that comes together every 6 weeks to keep the keep the the car on the track if you will. They work to support one another to understand what each other's work
is and how it intersects and provides feedback and ongoing support that way. And then those subcommittees, they meet independently with one another to actually do the work to ensure that initiatives, action plans are still happening, to just course as
needed Um, then they come back to that subcommittee every 6-weeks to get feedback on that as well. Um, our our role throughout that as a reminder is just to provide that project management support, um, to provide all the materials and resources that are needed, um, to send out reminders, to bring that group together as a steering
committee and facilitate those meetings, um, and then have meetings, uh, intermittently throughout just to problem-solve as needed on different initiatives. Um, as a reminder for how we got to this implementation work around those initiatives and action steps, we initially drafted the mission, vision,
theory of action, and the priority areas. And so, our implementation work has focused on those orange and red boxes you see at the bottom there, those initiatives and action steps. Um, just as a quick recap at this point, you all are very familiar with the mission and vision of Chelmsford Public Schools, um,
but it is here to reiterate again that every time we're talking about the strategic plan and its implementation, it's towards this. This is the North Star. This is where we get in the weeds a lot with strategic planning, but this is really ultimately where we're headed. Um, and the other thing that we always try to keep in the back of our mind as
well is this theory of action, what we really think's going to lead to change in Chelmsford Public Schools. So, this was a theory of action that was also drafted, um, initially with that mission and vision. And then those five priority areas. And so, tonight we're going to focus on an
update for each of those priority areas. I'm going to share three things. I'm going to share first where each priority area landed with their target metrics for the year. I'm going to share some wins, some successes that folks are celebrating related to that priority area, as well
as what else is on their minds, either related to a challenge that they have encountered over the last year, or just something that they're excited to continue to tackle in the coming year. And then for three of the groups, I'm going to do a little bit more of a data deep dive so you can see what the data has looked like over time. I think it's helpful to look at it in a different
way. Um, so we'll start with academic achievement. So, just to orient you to the slide, I know you all have seen a version of this before, but as a quick reminder, on the top there you can see those are all the metrics that we track related to that priority area that help us to understand whether or not we're
meeting the goals of the priority area. You can see the data for the last three going on four years now. Um, and then the very far column there you can see what the outcome of those metrics are. A green circle means we met the target this year. A yellow circuit means A
yellow circle means that the target was not met in many cases by just a percentage point or two, um, but the growth was made over the the previous year. Um, and then red is that there was not growth made and we did not meet the target. So, just as you're looking at the different colors on the slide, and
at the bottom you can see for each priority area are the list of initiatives that they were tackling this year and the status of each of those initiatives. Spoiler alert, everybody completed their initiatives this year. So, not won't spend a lot of time on that for each slide, but we'll talk over a little bit of the data. Um, so you can
see for the academic priority here or the academic achievement priority, the district will focus on mathematical achievement, particularly in elementary and middle grades to build a strong foundation for economic success in high school and beyond. So, that is the priority area that you can see the metrics that we're tracking towards um,
are aligned there. So, for this group they made growth in all areas that we currently have data for. Um, they did not quite meet the target for those first two, uh, but you can see experienced growth from last year's um, uh, proficiency levels. As a quick
reminder, these targets do not cohort students, so these are measuring different groups of students year over year. So, that's a bit of a limitation in the way that the targets were set. Um, and so that's definitely something on our minds moving forward is how do we look at the growth that students in individual cohort cohorts are making as
opposed to just overall proficiency from one group to the next year over year. Um, a couple of wins here to share. The first is really around, um, all the teachers that were trained. Over 120 teachers were trained on the reading and writing pedagogy that I know um Dr. Hirsch has shared about in the past in
in school community updates and really all that goes into the planning and logistics for training that many teachers towards some of those reading goals that you see up there as part of this academic achievement priority. Um this group is really thinking about what I just mentioned about how do we
make sure that we are able to look at growth for groups of students over time so that we can really strategic about where we put resources in terms of supporting students academically. So really understanding what the data is really saying about what each individual group of kids needs as opposed to what does it say year over year proficiency
wise. Just to have another view of this data. This is what this data has looked like over time and it a little bit of different ways so you can see where growth has been made given that there are some areas where the target is not met for this particular year. I want to
call out eighth grade math here because and Dr. Hirsch might disagree with me but this is where many many many resources have gone over the course of the last four years and you can see the results that that has yielded over 10 percentage points of growth from where they started in 2023.
So I think that this is really just a testament is where you put your resources and where you put your time and your effort is where we are seeing the most growth when it comes to the academic achievement priority. I'll transition now to talking about the equity priority and this is really focused on closing gaps in those same
areas that we recognized in the academic achievement priority. Want to recognize the need to close gaps between students with disabilities and students who are economically disadvantaged. So you can see there the outcomes of their targets there on the far right. A mixed a mixed
set of outcomes for for equity here. You got a lot of growth in a couple of areas specifically for third graders across all of those different student groups. They experienced growth in third grade but not necessarily always meeting the target for this year and
then the eighth graders those eighth graders with disabilities not only met their target but also experienced growth and then some pockets there that I think represent some areas for focus in the coming year specifically around eighth grade students who are economically disadvantaged as well as
third grade students with disabilities in math so some areas where the target was not met sometimes just by a couple percentage points and other times by a bit more so that will be where the group had next year in terms of problem solving around that want to call out one win here around initiatives this group spent a lot of
time thinking about paraprofessional or paraeducator onboarding over the course of the last year and are excited to get that off the ground one area that they're also focused on next year is around making sure that there is consistency in inclusive environments for kids so they've seen
some wins in terms of creating more inclusive environments and making sure that students with disabilities can get their service in the least restrictive environment but have noticed that there are some inconsistencies across buildings around that so wanting to focus on that next year as well. Again want to show a little bit
different view of the data here so on the left you can see this is the target metrics over time for students with disabilities and on the right there you can see those are the target metrics for economically disadvantaged students couple of things to call out here metrics related to students with
disabilities have grown the most and most notably in those eighth grade years so again where the investments have been made we're definitely seeing some growth and then for students with students who are economically disadvantaged it's a bit more of a mixed bag here they started out with overall higher
achievement as you can see then then students with disabilities but they've had fewer areas or fewer metrics that have experienced that that same growth over the course of the last three years as well so just another view of the data you can see what it has looked like over time.
For the social emotional learning priority, um this is the district focusing on both a sense of belonging and having supportive relationships for students across grades 3 through 12. You can see here that they experienced growth in three of their four metrics, those last three that you see there, and
met the target for 6th through 12th graders feeling a sense of belonging. I want to call this out because this is actually quite challenging. This nationally is the hardest group to to see success with with that particular question on the Panorama surveys. This is incredible that they met their target and continue experience growth there.
And you can see for the two areas where they didn't meet the metric, um they are very very very very close, um far beyond the national standard for those as well. So, didn't meet the target, but those would be Those Those should be considered successes um in terms of how many students named that they have a
supportive relationship in grades 3 through 3 through 12. Um and they're obviously thinking about how they're going to problem solve around that sense of belonging in grades 3 through 5. One of the One of the challenges that they're thinking about next year is how they continue to bolster that particular feeling among students in those transition years. So, as they transition
um out of elementary school and into the two other buildings, how do we make sure that those transitions go smoothly and kids continue to feel like a con- a continuous sense of belonging um even through a couple of transitions as well. Um in terms of wins here, one thing I want to call out is that they started
doing a This group started doing a mid-year Panorama survey, which is great for the purposes of our work in terms of strategic planning, but more importantly, it's really helpful for them to triage student need sooner rather than later. They don't have to wait till the end of the year to see if students were making growth on some of
the social emotional learning standards, um but rather can put some of those tiered supports in place even earlier because they've got that middle of the year data. Again, just want to show a different uh sort of cut of the data here. You can see it a little bit differently. These are these two questions that we ask
students. Um so, on the left there, that do I feel a sense of belonging?" and then on the right, the supportive relationships question. And then the bars, the lighter blue are the third through fifth graders, and the darker blue is the sixth through 12th graders. Um so, you can see what this has looked like over time. For supportive relationships on the right there, that's
just been really high, um always. So, I think as we're thinking about heading into the fifth year of the strategic plan, and then thinking about the next iteration of the strategic plan, this probably doesn't need to be a focus area. This is probably something um that you all can say you've been able to um tackle really, really well over
the course of the last four or five years of the strategic plan. On the left there for sense of belonging, wanted to just call out the tremendous growth that you all have seen in that that metric that I mentioned at the beginning. When we first started doing uh this work around strategic planning, the survey results were that
only that 53% of students um in grades six through 12 felt a sense of belonging. So, just a little over half of kids saying that, and now almost 70% of kids saying that they feel a sense of belonging. So, want to call out that growth that you all have seen over the course of the last four years.
Um um for human capital, I won't spend a lot of time here. Their survey closed today, so they will have their results prob- tomorrow, literally. It's very quick. Um so, we will hopefully be able to share those in a future meeting once we have that data as well. But, we are awaiting their data. Um you can see
their initiatives complete um across the board there. A couple of highlights for them are just one highlight for them this year was that they're really proud of the continued partnership they've had with their fellows. They already have fellows lined up again for next year. Um and the expansion of that program is heavy on people's minds. Um and then in
terms of what's on their mind next year for initiatives is really being able to matriculate as many staff as possible from all of the hiring fairs that they're doing, um taking them all the way from when they had that initial interaction at a hiring fair to actually hired and working in Chelmsford Public Schools. So, making sure that that
matriculation process is yielding really great, qualified candidates that are actually in our buildings. And then finally, the last um priority area here around operations and facilities, so enhancing educational facilities to provide students with safe and modern facilities that support innovative student learning. I know you
all hear a lot about this given everything that is happening with capital projects in the district, but want to highlight here that this group continues to meet all of their targets around um just capital budgets approved and projects approved, um maintenance work orders, and that level two 100% of
effort assessments um at that level two achieved. So, continuing to meet the mark across all three metrics here as well. >> Great. Open it up to any questions. >> Um I just have a comment to make. First of all, I think participating in these progress
monitoring the way I do every not every 6 months, I mean every 6 weeks because we have to trade off. It's definitely been one of the most valuable things I've done as a school committee member to really hear from the people who are actually doing the work day-to-day as
they share the progress toward these um goals and initiatives, but I also think the fact that during the meeting, we get to ask questions of each other, which help us fill in the gaps of our knowledge, but it also helps advance the thinking. Like we're not starting out to think about as we go through the fifth
grade, what is a natural outcome for what the next strategic plan might cover. So, it's been really valuable to do this. And in those discussions, I just want to point out something we've talked about a lot about the achievement piece. It's tricky because each year, it's actually a
different group of students. It's not like it's third grade, did they get better? Did they get better? It's a whole new group of kids coming in. So, it makes it so tricky to really understand what that means. So, one of the things we talked about is maybe we
start to look at how um at the progress and the growth of a cohort rather than just did this grade hit this target. So, those are the kinds of things we're looking at doing because it will really give a better thing whether a group of students is
making improvements and making progress. And that's the thing people don't really see from that report, but it's behind the scenes talking that's happening all the time. So, this whole process has just been really valuable. Mhm, for those reasons. >> Anybody else?
>> Yeah, just um so, we have one more year at the cap. Is on all these things that the initiatives complete, complete, complete? Do we all come up with brand new initiatives or use the same ones and add to the What's the What's the plan from? >> Yeah, Dr. Herscher and I were just talking about this this morning. Um this is the time of year where we
take a step back. We do a deep dive on all that data and those priority area groups look at their initiatives. They decide which of our initiatives do we want to continue and iterate continue to iterate on, which ones do we feel are complete and we can sunset, and where is there an opportunity for new initiatives
based on where we still see gaps in the data. >> Okay. >> The other thing cuz I've been part of the the strategic plan thing too for all the the years, in this last meeting that we had, it was really great to hear
uh leaders in the different groups say, "Okay, we are now feeling comfortable enough with what we're doing that we're able to now collaborate more with what other groups are doing and bring the initiatives to." So, for example, in the
equity area, that needs it a lot and it has disab- students with disabilities and also the economic disad- economically disadvantaged, which is very hard to get a grasp of um because you're not really going to
ask those kinds of questions that immediately identify who that student is and that that might be the student that doesn't stay as long as you would want them to in your district and so on. So, in any event, it was wonderful to hear that that there's going to be they're
ready to collaborate even more than they have it it to date. Um so, I think that this has been really really great for the district and I think you meet over the summer, is that right? >> We We do. No, it's been a great um partnership and relationship with DM
since the beginning. I I echo my um colleagues' comments that um keeping the 6-week meetings really kind of keeps us all on track and keeps us focused and provides that good opportunity to make sure that we're um not letting too much time lapse before we um adjust or make
um adjustments as needed. Next year is going to be, I think, very interesting cuz it's first time we'll be doing this, but we're going to be going into year five and really kind of closing out a lot of the initiatives that we've done in our five areas. But, almost doing a mini kind of reassessment of the district to kind of figure out where are
we at next year to draft a whole new set of initiatives and they're likely going to be different than they were this current five years to kind of guide the next three to five years. So, in parallel, we'll be running, you know, year five of the first strategic plan and between the fall, you know, probably right up through early winter, um we've
kind of finalizing what our next plan is going to be and we wanted to do that so that it actually kind of lines up with the budgeting process. Um so, I'm I'm looking forward to that work. But, Maggie and and the folks at DM have been great to work with and um I think we obviously value it. So, we have our
little admin retreat on Thursday to kind of wrap up the school year. So, we're going to go a little bit deeper into like where we're at with all the different initiatives, start to talk about where we might want to go for next year so that when we get back together at the end of the summer, um we'll be in a much better shape for you.
>> Okay, great. Anybody else? Any other thoughts, comments, questions? Just want to thank Maggie and the collaboration with DM Group has been terrific. So, thank you. >> Thank you all. >> Hope you have a good summer. >> Thank you, Maggie. Have a good one. >> Thank you.
>> Appreciate it. >> All right. We are moving right along. We have our K through 12 technology update. >> Yeah, uh Bill's not here right this second. Can we uh move forward with that and then we'll come back to you? >> to our next one. We'll go to um through our goals. >> Yes.
>> Okay. So, we have got Um the first the first is going to be our own school committee year-end goals. >> Do you want me to just provide a little context for you? >> Sure. Absolutely. >> um each year as we put together in the fall what our like school committee and
our superintendent goals are going to be, um they're very much aligned to the strategic plan work and the initiatives for the year. Um but then we kind of track um our progress towards our goals when we might talk about things publicly at school committee meetings or um you know, whether we have public forums.
There was a lot to do this past year with the school building project. So, we go [clears throat] and kind of document that. And then our practice has been we obviously report out at the end of the year. Um we post those documents up to the website so the viewing audience can kind of see what we're doing. And um this
year uh Dennis was still very helpful in putting together the school committee's kind of tracking of their progress towards the goals. He helped me assist me in putting uh the superintendent progress together. And this is really just an update for us with regard to kind of how we're closing out the year. So, the first one before you is the school committee goals.
>> Yes. And I want to uh re- just add stress that. Uh Dennis did a lot of work on this and he's So, this is his work, not really my work. But reflected here, okay? Um next year, hopefully, I can add to uh the end of
the year some some year >> [clears throat] >> a summation. All right. So, do we want to go go goal by goal? Do we want to just get input, any additional input? What would members like to do? >> Mhm. Have you had a chance to go through it?
Do you feel that >> a slightly general overview. We don't I don't feel like we need to go >> Yeah. >> We'll go by goal, I think. Um have you had a chance to see if we included everything that >> Just to to put it in perspective, I basically, you know, as we're going on,
I just make notes of when we're addressing different things, the dates of the meetings, what was discussed, and that things. And then So this is Superintendent Harsh kind of boils it down into a nice little format like this, so. >> Okay. >> All those dates are the dates we we discussed those things at the meetings, and some have more than one date, some
overlap to more than one area, so. >> Mhm. I went through it, and I thought that the things we had done in order to put the goal into, you know, take action steps on the goals, were included.
>> Seeing the dates is really helpful >> [clears throat and cough] >> with each piece to make sure that we really did meet the goal because we have a date >> Mhm. >> Um to indicate when we addressed it. I think that was really helpful way to present it. >> And like the things we just said, these are all work in progress. Like, you
know, working on policies, you know, we did address certain policies, we still have other things to look at, so. >> Yes. And over the >> continuing forward. >> And over the summer we're going to uh be meeting. Um Don- uh Dennis has already started working on the policy review.
Um okay. So, if we're okay with this, I I we accept the report as presented here. >> I just want to say thank you for the work that went into this. It's uh it's a nice retrospective of the various different things we covered in
our many meetings and other activities over the course of the year. >> Yeah. It was actually a lot of activity. >> Mhm. >> Yeah, I was really impressed with the amount of um of the amount of follow through we had on each of these goals and then to have it narrowed down by date is actually really just gives you a little bit of
insight. It sometimes at the end of the year it's all kind of blurry and then you get to look back and be like, "Oh, we really did do all those things." I appreciate it and I appreciate the work. >> Okay. >> I'm sure you're not sad about not having to >> [laughter] >> manage it this year. >> I'm so happy that I now better be tracking this stuff. I
just [clears throat] knew it. >> [laughter] >> But I do want to thank you very much Dennis for doing it. Okay. Anybody So, we're going to move on to the superintendent's goals and review of those. >> Thank you. And Linda helped me with this as far as just kind of formatting and
keeping track of all the different initiatives that we had laid out for the year. Again, I think the nice thing is that it really does align with the strategic plan work and all of the different initiatives under that. But we tried to be consistent as we did with the school committee goals to just create to leave like dates and different
deliverables that that came from the various items. And then in the end I did try to do between here and then I didn't want to be totally duplicative with the the next report the CPS year in review. But a significant portion of our time this
past year was related to the school building project. So, I tried to detail a lot of the different activities with the school building project which was one of my professional practice goals at the on the last slide. But again, just listing different dates of when we met and and deliverables at that point. But
it is good to be able to kind of go back and just see what you have accomplished what you might need to kind of work on going forward. And again, we'll use this even on Thursday when we're kind of planning as an admin team of what initiatives we really do still need to kind of target and focus on what we might need to tweak a little bit and
then how we want to move forward for next year the last year of the strategic plan. >> Mhm. Uh and that's another thing to think about is that all of these goals were created and we put it together based on the
strategic plan. >> Right. >> So, we'll have to think about that for the coming years goals as well. Um any questions, comments for Dr. Wang? Okay. So, thank you very much for all that work as well and for reminding us
of every single thing that got accomplished here. Quite a bit. >> We did. We got a lot done this year. >> Okay. And I believe that we now have Mr. Silver with us. Is that right? >> Yes, we'd like to thank Mr. Silver for joining us tonight. >> Thank you for joining us.
>> on, the year we when you finally retire, we're going to do the Gatorade bucket for you. >> Okay. We'll have to do that in the parking lot. >> Yeah, >> [laughter] >> don't want to get Brian upset with us. >> want to get IT or anything valuable. >> So, if [clears throat] it's June, it must be technology update. >> That's right.
>> All right. Here we go. >> I am uh very sorry for throwing off your agenda. I was in the office [laughter] and >> That's okay. >> I thought uh >> You were testing me. >> I was. Yeah. >> That was good. >> Okay. Well, it's good to be here. Uh nice to
see everyone. Thank you. Um take you through a quick overview of sort of all of the uh happenings in the tech department. Well, not all of them, but you'll just get a uh quick overview so we're not here until 10:00 p.m.
Um first, I'd like to give my team as always appreciation. Uh I've, you know, absolutely the the best staff um that you can possibly hope to have. Um they're very committed and they give it a thousand percent every single day and um
very happy to have them and very appreciative for all that they do for our our staff and students. We'll jump into some of the highlights. Um as you might recall at the Harrington, we put in an updated system which consisted of clocks, uh
new PA system, and then it ties into the emergency notification system. So, that went live this year throughout the through every classroom at the at the Harrington. Uh went very well, very well received. Um and so, we're going to continue that at the rest of the elementary schools
this summer. We'll be doing all three. Uh so, they'll all have new clocks, new PA system, uh and be totally tied into the emergency notification system. Uh last summer, all of the rest of the vestibules were built out, and that also
included um making sure we had visitor management uh in every single one of the check-in areas. We went with the visitor aware system. Um it's quite a system. It does background checks, and we can even pre-screen people if they're
invited to be guests uh ahead of arrival. So, all of that screening can be done um when they walk into the the vestibule. It's all done on a little kiosk, and it prints a badge out for them, scans their ID, um and then the main office staff can uh
can let them in. So, that's been really nice. It also works well at the high school. Uh it does import all of the the students and their schedules and things like that. Um so, if they happen to arrive tardy, which we hope they don't often, they can
check into the system, and it prints them out a little badge so that they can head to class with that. All right, these are some of the additional enhancements that we'll be adding either this summer or through the course of the year or we've completed. Um
we did have an agenda to finish all the interactive panels to be refreshed over um like a 4-year period, um but I'm happy to let you know that all the interactive panels have been refreshed at this time. They were
completed in April during vacation week. >> [clears throat] >> The PAC received a whole new sound system. If you've been in there, it's night and day compared to what we did have in that that space. Um so
fantastic sound. Um and that complements very nicely. We had redone the um you know, rear projection and all of this a couple of years ago. So, uh that whole whole area is all updated. Works very
nicely. And uh thanks to Tom Peterson. He had, you know, played a big part in um working with our vendors and making sure uh that everything came out nice in the end. Um this summer new intrusion systems are going to be going into every single building.
So, that'll include uh changing out all the keypads and putting new um uh motion detection throughout the at least the first floor of most buildings. And they'll also be tied into every single door contact that's an exterior
door. So, those will all report to the system. It will also tie in with our card access management. So, if you have the right credentials, you can arm and disarm disarm the building using your badge. Uh and you don't have to remember pesky codes anymore.
All of our voice over IP phones are being upgraded. Seems like a lot. >> [laughter] >> Um we'll do it. So, all of our phones are going to be upgraded this summer. Uh the current ones we have are
probably about 18 or 19 year-old uh Polycoms. They were good phones. They've seen the last of their firmware updates. So, now they sort of become like a security risk if we leave them out there on the network. The fine arts labs and and TV production lab at the high school
are going to be completely refreshed. We haven't done those for about six or seven years, so it was time to update those. When we do those labs, we also update the fine arts teachers throughout the district who have one Mac in their room. Um just because they have specialized
software that runs on those, so those will all be done at the same time. This next one is a a great one. So, we've been um trying to sort of refurbish libraries uh one at a time. And this year it's Salthill was turn. And if you've been to
Salthill, you know that at one time the library took the space of the current library and the computer lab that was next to it. Um so what we worked with the administration on at that building was to find a place to put the computer lab.
And I'm happy to let you know that we're going to be removing the wall in the middle of that library, and now everyone will have a full-size library at the uh the the Salthill. And that's sort of just a little mock-up of what it will look like on the screen. Now, it should be excellent.
>> I just I'm sorry. Where is the computer lab going to be? >> They're going to move that into one of the pods that was just being used for um a couple small intervention groups. And if you see in the photo um sort of the back left, there's a couple of small meeting areas. Those are
going to be used for the intervention folks um to bring the kids there. >> Cool. >> Nice. >> Um and then at the school store, it's you know, it's a classroom um on the third floor of the high school right now. They've got uh a real influx of all
different kinds of equipment over the last several years. Um and it's a space that we've needed to do some updating to um because there's some real high-end equipment and um there just isn't there have there haven't been great work spaces in there for the students and things like that.
And not that they haven't done a great job with what they had, but they should have better. Um and they will. So, this is what that space will look like. Uh it'll all be updated uh either hardwood tops or uh stainless steel tops on on everything.
Um it's going to really um enhance that room. So, So, the teacher is very excited and I think it's going to be great. You may have also heard we're rolling out a new uh family communication platform. So, Connected, which we've
used um since probably inception, um was bought out by another company and they've been slowly trying to get us to uh migrate off of it cuz we're probably one of the last uh districts on it. Um but we researched several and landed
on uh Parent Square as a as the choice for the new communication tool. Uh many districts have gone to this. Everyone seems to really rave about it. Um it's a web-based or you can have an app on your phone.
Um all parents, we've actually already invited. You may have received invitations. Um and you can register your account. So, everything will come through this um whether it's phone calls, uh texts if you prefer to receive those, newsletters, and then parents can also
decide how do they want to be communicated with, when do they want to receive this messaging. So, if you don't want it exactly when the district's sending it and you just want a summary once a week, you'll be able to choose how you want to be communicated with.
Some other nice things to this. Um we'll be able to schedule parent-teacher conferences through it. Um we can do field trip permission slips with it. And then one big thing at the high school has uh for years has been how coaches communicate with teams, and
there's all different platforms and there was sort of nothing that was super cohesive. Everyone kind of did their own thing. Um and I met with Dan Hart about about this. He's really excited. So, uh all coaches will communicate with their teams through this platform now.
>> That's good. We have parents who were concerned about that, so it's nice to um bring it all together. >> Yeah, it's going to be great. >> Yeah, it's kind of scary that Dr. Long's going to be in the newsletter or on an app. >> [clears throat] >> Wow. >> We're going high-tech next year. >> You're going to have to be careful how
Dr. Hirsch dresses him up. Okay. Yeah, that's where she is, isn't it? Yeah, I'm done. I'm done. I got it. >> Okay. >> Um one piece I didn't mention about this is that in Connected, teachers never had access to that to communicate to parents.
Parents Square does give classroom teachers access to communicate to parents if they want. There's also a um you know, we got Smore the newsletter now. This has its own Smore type uh newsletter built in. So, I I and teachers have asked to use Smore in the
past. We just never had licenses for everybody, so I think this will be uh something where it really improves um parent communication from the classroom, which is important. >> I was at a workshop and a lot of the people at it were in city districts
who've been using it and they were all raving about it. How it's just made their communication with their many different groups of parents just so much easier. They really were raving about it. >> Great. That's good good to hear. All right. Um
I'm going to give you a little Gen AI update. Uh so we did some a lot of work in Gen AI this year. We did a lot of professional development around it. The full in-service day we had um Amanda who you you've all met out to to
speak to the staff. And then we wanted to do a little bit deeper dive. So we did some surveys um in March of this year. They went to parents, they went to staff, and they went to students in grades 5 to 12. Um and we kind of just wanted to get a
sense of where everyone was at with AI, uh what was on people's minds, what the concerns were, and um and sort of that would help us uh guide our next steps and and we were ultimately hoping to get to a set of um staff use guidelines and student use
guidelines. So we got the surveys out, we got the data back, we reconvened a work group in March, and um we did get staff guidelines created, and I don't expect you to be able to read this, but in the report there is the whole um
set of guidelines for staff. They're nice, they're concise, and the thing I liked most about um how they came out is that they have a very specific do this, it's okay with AI, and don't do this, and that's really
going to be a focus uh for for the teachers as they, you know, continue their use of AI. So now they'll have some some guardrails and some some guidelines to follow. I do also want to share with you just a few of the data points.
Um so this was who responded. There was uh 612 parents that responded, over 2,100 students and 302 staff. Um so some interesting data points. 18% of parents said to us that they believe
that their child uses AI for school work. Students said 84% of us are using AI. >> [laughter] >> Cool. >> else. >> And these are some of the um the These are where students are using.
So, the primary place they're using is on their phone. Uh second highest uh spot that they're using is their home computer. And then what they're doing with it, most of it seemed to be personal uh {slash} entertainment.
But research and school assignments made up 71% of their responses. So, they were definitely um utilizing these tools to complete homework. Um small fractions, but uh
important to look at nonetheless. Uh mental health guidance was 9% of kids responded with that. And then AI companionship was 4%. So, there's a real need to teach about AI uh certainly and
what it should be used for, what it shouldn't be used for. Um and we know kids are on it and while they may not be accessing it while they're on our devices and network, um we have an obligation to to teach them. Uh parent concerns, the top concern for
parents and this was a kind of across the board was loss of critical thinking. Um [snorts] which I think everyone has a concern about. And then parents were um really intent on the fact that they want to be notified when AI is being used.
So, that appears in teacher guidelines now. And then 38% of parents that responded said that they do have a distinct trust that the district will implement well. >> [snorts] >> These are things that parents are okay and not okay with uh when it comes to AI
use in their students. So, tutoring concepts, 50 almost 50% said that they were okay with that. Brainstorming and editing writing that has already been done by the student. What they have no tolerance for is for AI to write the first draft of an essay,
to give mental health advice, or to be an AI companion. Um and kind of just to prove that the uh you know, sort of um what parents had said here with the loss of critical thinking. Um these were two students in the high
school. Um one said that students really need to learn the impacts of AI on the environment. That came up um a lot with students. And also for our learning development, it's a helpful tool when used correctly. Um and you need to be taught how to use
it correctly and not just to cheat. And then uh 12th grader said AI is a tool, not a person. Children and teachers need to understand this before they lose independent thought. And then I'll give you a few snippets from the teachers. So,
educators uh on the whole, 54% did not feel adequately prepared to teach AI responsibly. So, that kind of um gave us pause and that has also led to next year's PD uh
focusing once again on AI for staff. And this isn't something that's just going to, you know, there's a finite timeline of training on AI. It's going to continue to evolve, but we do need to get teachers to a point where they're comfortable. Um so then ultimately we can use it with
students, but we're not at that point yet. So, for next year, students will still not have access to AI through their CPS devices. >> [snorts] >> Bill. >> Yes. >> Um not that you have to show it again, but that one chart you had that showed
where students are using it. >> Mhm. >> Could you share that page with us at some point? >> Yes. because >> we need people to see that it's it's the things their parents give them that they're using, not our school devices. >> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We'll share that with you.
>> Um and then these were the top spots where teachers began using AI this year. So, it was instructional content, lesson planning, all the places you'd think that they would kind of go to. I think um the one that will really grow will be differentiation. I think that's
kind of the low-hanging fruit that folks haven't um caught on to yet. Uh that makes sort of meeting IEP uh needs and things like that very simplistic. Cuz they already have good lessons. They're good teachers. They do a good job. But
how to get everything perfected to to for each individual student is something that, you know, is a is a monumental task and AI can certainly help in that endeavor. And then uh finally, uh 51% of teachers said that they need a moderate or
significant tech support. That being said, I did ask >> [clears throat] >> in the their survey how often they met with their building TIS. 77% said that they didn't meet with their TIS about AI. So, that was a
concern for me and the TIS group um because that should be their kind of first line. That's who they go to. That's why we have them in the buildings. Um so, TISes are determined that next year this is going to be um you know, aside
from training on Parent Square and this and that, this is going to be their main focus and they're going to um really ramp up how often they're interacting with teachers. We're almost done, I swear. >> This is great stuff. >> It is. >> Yeah, really. >> All right.
This I just wanted to give you a quick snapshot um because this has come up not just in Chumash for both, but pretty much globally at this point is how often kids are on tech. Um, and so I wanted to just give you a breakdown. And this is a snapshot of
just this school year and how many hours per week we've tracked students in various grade levels, um, on on their tech. In no way, shape, or form are students sitting all day on their device. Um,
and I don't think most people believe that, but this really helps prove the point. So, like in kindergarten, students spend less than, uh, 1 and 1/2 on their device. The top applications, iReady, Epic Books, Keyboarding Without
Tears. It's These are the things that you would expect, and it does it grows and it, you know, obviously becomes more significant as you enter high school. Um, they get up into that 7-8 hour per week mark. But, that doesn't seem highly
unreasonable with, uh, you know, >> Yeah. >> uh, an hour of homework here and there throughout the week, research, um, you know, and, you know, different group work and activities that do happen at school. I think, and, you know, uh, you probably
heard me say this many times, but like our technology use at school is not "Hey, I have nothing to teach you today. Sit on the the technology." We have fantastic teachers. You know this.
They use this to enhance what happens there. They use this intentionally for very specific purposes, and it's not that there's no thought given to it and they just put a kid on a device. So, I'm pleased with the way our teachers use technology,
and I'm pleased with the amount that they use technology. Some places I think you would see, you know, quadruple these numbers. That's not what we're looking for. We're looking for very intentional directed use to enhance what's happening in the classroom. And that's what we see when
we walk through classrooms here. >> Can I just ask a really quick question, which is how do you get this data? Does it come is it logged on the computer themselves how often kids are on the computers? >> We log pretty much everything that
happens with technology, but this came from clever. So, this anytime a student touches any type of EdTech tool, it logs the time that they interact with that tool for. And then you can pull a spreadsheet of you know, grade by grade or the whole district or whatever you'd like to look
at. Uh and then finally, this was our service request for the year. So, we did almost 8,000 tickets this year. Average response time from from the group was 6.3 hours. And average closure was 2.1 days, which
was down from 2.3 days last year. So, like I said in the beginning, I have a fantastic staff and they continue to prove that each and every year. Happy to take some questions or comments. >> So, I have a question about the usage. Um during the summer when these fifth
graders have their Chromebooks at their homes with them, every time they log in, it's going to continue to track what they're doing? >> Yes. >> So, if someone starts to go somewhere they shouldn't, does it literally start to shut them out while they're home without a teacher supervising that?
>> Yes, that will they're filtered no matter where they are. So, they won't be able to go to any place that they shouldn't. Um and it will track if if they're on it. The only grade levels that um really wouldn't have access to that. We do make the eighth graders turn in their
devices, so they have no device until ninth grade, yeah. >> Yeah. I'm going to just the data and the information that you gave is really important. Um the screen time is per week and that's really important for people to focus on. That's not per day,
that's per week. Um I think a lot Sometimes when a person is talking to me and is talking about the screen time, the student might I think they see it the way that the student themselves interacts with that person. So in other
words, at home, maybe when a child is small, you basically they take your phone and they look at it and that's screen time. >> Mhm. >> In school, it's not the same way. It's going to be an intentional use of that screen >> Yes. >> for an intentional purpose.
>> Right. >> The other thing that really struck me was the comments on AI by the students themselves. >> Mhm. >> And the way my 22-year-olds have said it to me after going through college is you
don't want to dumb yourself down intentionally. >> Right. >> And so the way I look at it is I don't want to be part of a school system where we're dumbing it down. And I think that that's what we
intentionally here are trying to accomplish is eventually a policy that you know, it's So you're already creating the guidelines, but just to clarify and make sure people are aware. Right now, it's only for staff.
>> Yes, that will only be for staff next year. Uh students will not interact on our network or our devices with AI. They will, however, start to receive lessons about what AI is, you know, proper use, this and that.
Um kind of like digital citizenship or, you know, data privacy type of things. They will start to have those types of lessons embedded in some of our tech classes. >> So, if we were to we don't have that policy yet, but working on policies over the summer. >> Right.
>> Um we're being guided by the Association of School Committee Members to basically um say, "Hey, no policy until a law passes." We're trying to see what the legislature is going to do. The
legislature takes eternity uh sometimes to get to an end point. But, it sounds like we here are taking it step by step. And so, that we would be ready um when when that becomes a reality.
>> Yes, 100%. >> what we need to do. >> Yep, so staff staff training is paramount. They they've asked for it. They'll continue to receive it. >> Mhm. >> We do have the guidelines. You all are working on policy in the background and while wait waiting for legislation
legislation. So, we'll be ready when you're ready. >> I'm sorry. I just want to make sure I understood you correctly. Are you saying we are not working on a policy anymore? Cuz that was the understanding we were. >> has not put out a policy yet. Is that what you're saying? >> Oh, okay. >> They have not formally put out a policy.
They're still waiting themselves. So, >> Right. >> and South Portland. Basically what you're saying. >> But, we don't have to wait for MASC to put together at least something simple that would Okay. >> The guidelines are already here. >> Right. >> So, that that's good. But, yeah. So,
basically yeah, we have AI. It's being used by the staff in accordance with the guidelines right now. Students will not have access for the coming year >> Right. >> for certain. >> Right. >> And that's important.
And no dumbing down. >> Nope. >> [laughter] >> So, well, thank you very For me, thank you. Anyone else? Any >> also thank you for all the safety upgrades in the buildings, you know, that something that we know the last couple of years we worked on to have everything in place across all our buildings. I
think that's that's important, so. >> Just one comment. I don't think a lot of people realize that you're just not just IT, right? Like the audio visual, hanging up the clocks, like getting those modernized. And just a lot of just a lot of credit to you and your team. I think you guys do much, much more than
people think. I'm actually really excited about What was that that new software that we that you're talking about there? The Our Parent Square, that sounds interesting. >> It's going to be good, yeah. >> Yeah, that sounds really neat. >> Thanks. >> I signed up. >> I have not, but I'm going to now, yeah. >> That's great. Communication tools, and
hopefully ones that work really well. Bill, thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> It's much more than a computer these days and how to use it, huh? Thank you. All right. Um, we are moving on to our next agenda item,
>> Well, thank you. >> Thank you so much, Bill. Um, our year in review. >> Yes. So, um, you have a memo before you tonight, and we prepared this each year for a couple of different reasons. Um, one is obviously, I think it provides a
nice summary for the school system, and this also gets posted to the website to just detail some of the larger scale activities that took place during the course of this past year. We also use this as the narrative for the town meeting book. All the town meeting all the individual departments within town
contribute to the town book, which gets published in the fall that details all the activities. So, it's a great way to to do that. And then also, I know sometimes you find the information helpful between this and the goals review and things like that as you're putting my evaluation together for the year. So,
I'm going to go just kind of quickly high-level through this. There's a couple of items that'll come up later on tonight. Linda, leave the temperature alone. The >> And I'm never cold. I just I'm never always very hot. >> [clears throat and cough]
>> The So the first we're going to get actually enjoying and we'll share it in a few minutes. The fiscal audit for 25 was done. We had another great audit year. No fiscal findings or recommendations with that audit. As we'll mention, Joanna and her staff really do a great job of keeping
us all organized financially. I think the fiscal 26 budget went obviously very well. You receive your quarterly reports. We talk about the various transfers from time to time that come up. I think the overall again our reserve funds are in
great shape going into next year. We have reserves for circuit breaker and special education specialized funds that come up. We have that extra special ed reserve if we ever had to tap it. Food service fund is in great shape. Not all school systems can say that. And we do
still have the over $3 million in our school committee school choice fund. We use that to pay for some of our one-on-one initiative, but obviously that is also a special reserve for the school committee. If an unforeseen circumstance came up that we could tap. I think the fiscal 27, I think you'd
agree with me, budget was probably the most challenging budget we've had in the last number of years. I think town wide it was a very kind of lean year, but we were able to work with our manager Cohen before he left. We had a couple different numbers that kind of went in our favor as far as the out of district
tuition and things like that. Circuit breaker went up, tuition went down. We were able to have a level service budget with a $2.5 million increase. Again, I thought we had a successful town meeting this past spring. A few members asked some very good questions, but overwhelmingly our budget
was supported. Which again hasn't always been the way. So I think that was a a good a good indicator on the school department and how we're managing our finances. As I mentioned earlier, a significant amount of our effort collectively this past year was on the Parker School building project. We are really kind of
flying through the feasibility study at this point in time. If you think about it, this time last year we didn't have the designer on board. So we had just hired LeftField to be our owner's project manager, but we actually had to pick AI3 to be our designer. We went this whole fall and
winter through educational visioning. We narrowed down, I think it was 16 different options to, you know, three different sites and was it going to be a brand new building, add reno, all the different options. And finally this spring we arrived at the single
grade 4 to 6 configuration at the current Parker site. We had a very successful PDP meeting with MSBA in April. And now again, as we mentioned earlier, we're on June 24th for the full board submission. Huge milestone at that point. And
hopefully we'll then be moving into full schematic design, cost estimating, and have a final product ready to present to the public in October. So time is is moving quickly. Just again as as a side note, October we would have the full design cost
estimates. We would have from October to January to basically be educating and communicating with the public about the desire. We look like we're going to have a special town meeting in January, [clears throat] likely followed by a ballot initiative in February. And then again, hopefully
all is is well and then we're off to full design. So This year was marked if you had to ask me on one particular thing, I'd say Parker project. You know, took a considerable amount of our time. The other area Bill actually mentioned, so I won't go too in-depth to it, but
both the school committee, the school administration, the staff in the buildings really spent some time on generative AI. Exactly what the implications were going to mean for policy and practice in the schools. We had workshops obviously with the admin team, with the school committee. And
very similar to even like some of our DEI work, I do think it says a lot that we're all working at it at our different levels to make sure we again have common language, we're all on the same page with how we want to roll something out because it is very important, and I think that is going to guide our work
for years to come. So, that would be it probably be the second most um uh kind of time-consuming area where we put a lot of effort. And then that lastly, we always like to note that the uh strategic planning work with the M Group, and uh Maggie was here earlier, so I won't um
I'll get into that again, but we're at a great kind of a great point. We're going into year five of the five-year plan. We're going to be able to see what we really accomplished in those five years, and then set the stage for the next three to five years. And that'll be our work uh for next year. But uh happy to kind of uh share this with you. Again,
just provide a little bit of um kind of context. Uh I think we'll be able to share this with the town through that town meeting um uh book in the fall, but again, it just kind of gives a good um indication of what we got to accomplish over the course of this year. And it was a very busy and successful year. >> Mhm.
Um that any comments, input, questions? >> It's always good to reflect on the year. It's been a busy year. This has probably been one of our busiest. >> It must be quite >> Yeah. >> Now, just as a reminder cuz you brought up this
and we have to do your eval business, we need to get that to Maria by >> it's the second week in July. >> I'd like to thank you for that, [clears throat] Don, cuz I was just going to say we're not going to see each other, I think, for 6 weeks. So, what I'll do is I'll just remind you. I'll
send an email, a reminder, um in in within a few days of the deadlines that we set for ourselves. >> out tomorrow. I'll send you out your tool and template and everything. >> Can I ask about that? >> Yeah. So, you'll get that tomorrow, and then I believe we said by Friday the
11th, you'll try to get the which it gives you like 3 weeks, we'll try how get them back to Maria and copy to me. We can sit and put them all together, write the cumulative narrative. About a week and a half later, you're going to get a draft of what Maria puts together, and then it would go on the next time we meet, which is July 28th. So, we do have
quite a quite a distance between the meetings, but we'll make sure you're updated. If you have any questions, concerns, as always, reach out. We can chat. Um but we'll make sure we email everything tomorrow so that you have it. >> Great. Okay. >> Terrific. Thank you so much.
Anybody else? Logan? >> [snorts] >> All right. We are moving on to the DESE end-of-the-year audit report and Joanna. >> Joanna takes the floor, right? >> Yeah, Joanna's got the next couple of
items. >> Yes. Thank you. Once a year, we have the external auditors come and audit the end-of-year report, which I submitted last October 1st.
And we had a new auditor this year. Um Um Cliff CLA there. >> Clifton Larson. >> Yep. Which was also the town's auditor. >> Okay. >> And um they've submitted the re-
the report. It's in your packet, and there were no financial findings or financial reporting recommendations. Um and I just wanted to thank um my team and all the district leadership. Um I say this every year. It comes this way
because every day, everybody's paying attention to what they're approving, what they're sending to my department, what we're processing through financially, and this is just the end of how we report it all. So, the end um we wouldn't land where we did if if the
beginning wasn't right by all the departments and all the schools and all the people. >> Mhm. But it always takes leadership to get that done. Um so, we appreciate that very much. Um, you don't want to belong to any
organization or any committee where the money cannot be accounted for. >> Amen. >> And so, I truly appreciate all the work that goes into this. And I know that when I go in to sign warrants, and I don't know how others feel, but, um, I
realize in that room where people are working, they're doing it intentionally, with dedication, and, um, you can feel it. Just basically, that's the truth. >> Thank you. >> Okay, so, thank you very much. >> My father was an auditor, so I grew up
with kind of knowing what that was all about. Um, and I'd hear him talk about some of his audits where things were not in place, and I think it's a very tightly run department here. We're very fortunate, and this audit proves that everything's being done the way it is expected to be, and
I'm just grateful that we have that, so that we're always in solid standing. >> That's >> I agree, and I also like say I like this format for the audit. Actually, it's very easy to follow compared to some of the ones in the past. >> You like a good spreadsheet. >> I like a good spreadsheet. I like to see everything lined up the way it should be. Yeah, so. >> Okay.
>> Nice. >> I think we should take a vote to accept just the report as presented. If I If I could, please. >> Sure. Um, I move that we accept the fiscal year 2025 Massachusetts DESI
end-of-year audit report. >> I'll second that. >> Okay. Um, I'm going to take a roll call on it cuz it's about money. All right, so, Susan? >> I. >> All right. Diana? >> I. >> John? >> I. >> And Dennis? I. And, um, I'm trying to follow the
rules that were given to me, which is really good. >> That was a good one. >> [laughter] >> All right. Now, we're going on to the budget transfers. >> I just want to mention also on the audit, we have one more coming. Um we're uh auditing the student activity account.
>> Oh, gee. >> And they're uh almost done. We've sent them everything. They've done their sampling. I think they're just writing up the report. So, you'll be seeing another audit um in a hopefully within a couple months.
>> Thank you. >> Sorry, go ahead. Budget transfers. [snorts] Okay. There's uh two budget transfers in front of you tonight. And then also um I just want to highlight, since we're not going to be meeting till the end of July and the
fiscal year end is um it's June 30th, but you have until July 15th to get everything all uh buttoned up. So, I just want to remind people about our uh overall budget and our um some things that will be happening at
fiscal year end. So, the first budget transfer is to request $5,500 um be transferred from the salary reserve cola account to the salary account for custodians. As the superintendent mentioned earlier,
there's a one-time uh $500 payment to the custodians upon ratification of the contract. >> Okay. Um there's a a typo. It's missing a five, but that's okay. On the just on the wording, in case people go back to it. So, the
amount is $5,500, okay? All right. So, could I have a motion on that? Is there any discussion? Anybody any questions? >> Well, the the $500 is per person. >> Oh, I got it. Okay. >> people. Oh my gosh.
>> And then um so, that's a total of $5,500. >> Thank you. Sorry about that. Okay. >> Okay. Um I move that we approve the fiscal year 2026 local operating budget transfer of 5,500
dollars from the account noted to the custodial salaries account as presented. >> Second. >> Okay. Susan? >> I. >> Diana? >> I. >> John? >> I. >> Dennis? >> I. >> And for me is I. Thank you. It passes.
>> And the second one is a budget transfer um to for 17,000 to the special education legal expenses and we're taking this from another special ed um account to the legal services account. >> Okay.
>> we actually had enough in the legal category at the original budget um between regular legal and special ed legal, but in a prior budget transfer um we had transferred that out for I think one of the one-time purchases and then
closer to the these last couple months um we had some um cases where we needed more legal support, so that's why I'm bringing this um forward tonight. >> Okay. Questions? Comments? We're good. All
right. Well, turn it >> I move that we approve this fiscal year 2026 local operating budget transfer of 17,000 dollars from the account noted to the special education legal services account as presented. >> Second.
>> Okay. Um Susan? >> I. >> Diana? >> I. >> John? >> I. >> Dennis? >> I. >> And for me is I. Unanimous again. All right. >> And then that last uh couple paragraphs are just, you know, a a reminder that
our budget is um 75,650,000 and our intent is to spend 75,650,000 um so if we're still favorable in some of the categories such as um labor or
textbooks or whatever. Uh our intent is to do some transfers between the um things that were recorded on the revolving funds and bring it to the local budget. Um so that we come in right on budget. So we've done this in prior years. Like for example, maybe
bring some of the coaching stipends back on the local budget rather than it being funded from the revolving fund or bringing um the one-to-one computer initiative which is funded through school choice and bring it to the local budget so that um so that we land on budget. >> And we don't need school committee
approval for those, right? >> Well, that I'm that's why I'm writing uh to you about it now since I don't have a meeting before July um 15th and I don't have an exact dollar amount because we're still only at June 16th and I have 2 more weeks to go.
Um but then at the July meeting um we'll bring forward uh what we did kind of um the letter. Uh I wish I had a meeting before the 15th of July, but I don't. >> Yeah, we we do this annually. It's um and we're we're pretty much on target,
but it is a big budget to manage and something is you know, you might have a PO that's open that you liquidate. You've got a little money left in. We want to make sure that we're spending down everything. So we'll do all those details. Um again, you're not going to save any major that we haven't already talked about and then Joan has always brought the final report in July. So
we'll do that. That will detail all the transactions. >> Sounds good. >> Mhm. >> Wonderful. Thank you so much, Joan. And you're still you've still got the floor, I think. >> Okay. The next one is the
um salary increases for fiscal 27 for the non-affiliated >> Mhm. >> um people. So we bring um we had budgeted in this fiscal 27 budget
a 3% increase and this list is are they non-affiliated people who would receive that increase and it shows their current salary and then the 3% effective July 1st, 2026.
>> Okay. Questions? Comments? We're good? Could I have a motion on this one, please? Susan? >> I move that we approve the 3% increase to the annual salary
or hourly rate of pay to the non-affiliated staff as specified at the school committee meeting. >> Okay. If that's okay. Are the effective dates all right here? >> Effective date. >> Just if you could >> Oh, effective
July 1st, 2026. >> Okay. All right. So could I have a second on that? >> I will second that. >> All right. Susan? >> I. >> Diana? >> I. >> John? >> I. >> Dennis? And it's I for me.
We are unanimously passing this. Okay. And now >> The last one you haven't seen this report in a little while. This is requesting an increase for the community ed hourly rates
for the summer programs and for the before and after school programs during the school year. So the last time we brought this forward was in the beginning of fiscal 25. So I put that column on there. That's the
first column. And then the next column would be effective July 1st, 2026. So that's fiscal 27. That starts in July 1st. And then I went
ahead and put forward um you know, talking with the superintendent one more year out because we know that the um professional support contract has already been approved and that that was a 3% increase. Went ahead and put the other year out
and then that will help with um next February, okay, and March Community Ed will be posting for that next summer program. So, she'll have all her rates in place and then they also won't have to come to the
committee. >> Okay. >> So, um that's the goal was 3% and I we did uh round um a little bit to make it a nice like even 75 cents or whatever. So, it was just kind of easy numbers for
these um summer programs and for the before and after school programs. >> Okay. Questions? Concerns? All right. So, we'll entertain a motion if you would. Susan? >> Uh I uh move that we approve an increase
to the hourly rate of pay or stipend for the non-affiliated employees in Community Education as specified effective July 1st, 2026. >> Okay. >> Second. >> All right. Susan?
>> Aye. >> Diana? >> Aye. >> John? >> Aye. >> Dennis? >> Aye. >> And for me it's yes as well. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And we are at the personnel report. >> Very exciting time of the meeting. We're at the personnel report for the month of
May. Uh just detailing a couple of new hires, a few resignations, and a assignment change within the district. >> Mhm. >> Um so, you'll actually see the um much more activity when we get together um in July because we'll have the list of all
the new teachers and staff that are going to be joining us for September. But, uh this is just the month of transactions that happened in May. >> That's great. >> When do you typically start your hiring in the summer, or do you already start? >> For the next school year? >> Yeah. >> We started in March. We're about done. >> Oh, that's great.
>> So, yeah, we're um I mean, you we're always going to have some um positions. Someone might leave you at the last minute. But, um we're down to just filling our last couple of positions. We're in pretty good shape. >> Oh, you start really early. That's great. Okay, thank you. >> And that's the luxury of doing the budget early, because when you approve the budget at the end of February, um we
immediately post like the first week in March. Um and we're really hiring the bulk of our staff before April break. And a lot of the other towns near us aren't even starting until after their town meeting. Um but, we get a jump start on that. >> We'll keep doing that for you. >> Yeah, it works. >> Yeah, it's super.
All right. So, do uh a vote on this? >> You could just do a vote to accept the report if you want, but you don't have to. >> Just We haven't seen the retirements. Why is that? Because they're not really effective until the end of >> Well, you you saw the retirements Well, usually they the retirees tell us by
November if they're going to be retiring at the end of the year. But, I believe you would have seen them like around the November-December time frame. >> Okay. >> Unless someone added late, but uh they would have already been in there. >> Right. Right. I don't think we had a very large number. >> I think there were nine. Nine-ish.
>> Yeah. >> I'll double-check for you, but I do believe that would have been like in November-December. >> Okay. So, a motion to accept the personnel report for May 2026. >> I move that we accept the personnel report from May 2026 as presented. >> Okay.
>> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Wonderful. All right, no field trips. >> No field trips. >> No field trips for right now. Liaison reports. >> I can go. I um was able to attend the last Parker and
McCarthy combined PTO meeting of the school year um last week and it was a successful meeting. It was uh full of good news about successful end-of-the-year activities for students
um about a really positive response about the staff appreciation activities at the end of uh the teacher appreciation month. Um those schools do it a little later because of uh the timing of MCAS.
Um there was [snorts] a lot of talk about how difficult eighth graders have it with testing at the end of the school year um because they have uh civics assessments, they have uh the MCAS for science as well as the
math and the reading. So, just a lot of assessments happening all at once um and they just acknowledged what good sports the eighth graders were. Um there have been some really great successes throughout the year. I won't detail all of them, but I will note
um man, the spring recycle day collected $16,000 for McCarthy and Center, which is just a real that is quite a success um for fundraising. A lot of junk around Chelmsford that people are taking
advantage of that opportunity to uh get rid of. Um and lastly, they they really are trying to find um a few more parents to uh volunteer to be part of the board and overseeing some of the activities and
have opted to wait until fall um to complete the elections for the Parker and McCarthy PTOs. There are several parents who have stepped forward to take key positions, but particularly um
for a few of the positions, they're waiting to see if there might be a little bit more interest with the start of the school year instead of the end of the school year for folks to step forward. So, they're they're experimenting with that and spending some time this summer with a few folks who are assuming roles um to rewrite
bylaws um to for example ensure that fall elections can happen and things like that. So, it is a really uh important role that PTOs fill in ensuring so many important activities for students and families happen. So,
>> Anyone else? >> I did. Um I attended the Chelmsford Friends of Music um meeting at the beginning of the month. And it's really an interesting group because it's the through the efforts of parents and students that they're able
to support so many of our music programs, both our vocal and our instrumental programs. So, I just want to give the students credit too for a lot of what they do. They do some kind of just fun things to gather people in the music community together like a
night at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, um a night at the Spinners. They organized and supported the Showboat Talent Show for the middle schools. Um the a really big thing that the Chelmsford Friends of Music do to help
bring money in is the bottle and can drive. Um they are they it had stopped for a while, but it is back in full force. It is the second Saturday of the month from 10:00 to 2:00 p.m. at um McCarthy Middle School out in the parking lot there.
Um they really encourage students who are involved and hope to benefit for some of the music programs to show up, bring your friends. Apparently, it's a lot of fun to sort out those cans and make sure they get a good deal of money from doing this though. Um some of the things they
were able to do at the end of this year is they were able to award two um called Caleb Flori scholarships. Four more scholarships from the Chelmsford Friends of Music. They spent $950 to help with music camp
assistance for students. And there was about $3,000 helping different music groups participate in various um festivals. So, they're really able to use that bottle and can drive money for a lot of things. So,
for the public, save those bottles and cans and bring them to the McCarthy School. And if you're a student who is part of the music program, come help out. >> That's wonderful. Okay. Um I attended one meeting which was the uh high school PTO one. They had
172 students participate in the after prom. And they were That's quite a large number of the class. So, they were very, very pleased. The night went beautifully. And they um They do like At this particular meeting, what they do is they
exchange ideas with each other about what could change for next year and so on. So, they did all that. Um the other thing is they always have a report um by Principal Murray. And he actually talked about the uh filling the positions at the high
school. There were only three. And uh I believe they were just about all filled, which was really great. Cuz he was concerned because one of them was um a Spanish teacher who She's been terrific at the high school, but she commutes from Maine, and things have
changed for her. And so, she was leaving, and he was concerned, and they filled this position. Um the other one he was, I believe, concerned about was um the head of the business >> the One of the business teachers. >> And that position has been filled.
>> He's full. >> As of what? >> You know. >> And >> The high school's full. >> There's no There's no more at the high school. >> No more openings and um there was one more position. It's somebody the coral the coral director is he he was able to find
we were able to recruit someone whose background is acapella groups from another state transferring to Massachusetts. So, that's really pretty wonderful. Okay? So, we um that was it for me.
Okay? So, I'm going to move on to new items. And if I'm going to start you off with today, I know there was a conciliation reached rec- reconciliation on the bill for the early literacy legislation.
>> I saw that, yeah. >> The agreement was reached. So, that should be coming out in the next week or so for signature by the governor. It is um so, I'm wondering if we can put that on the agenda in the next couple of
meetings just to see how we where we are and what we have to do. There is time limits on the whole thing. I think we've already started some of this work. Um and you Dr. Hirsch gave us a report
on this, but just to update us on how we stack up going forward as a district. >> I'm eager to see where they came out in some of the things where the House and the Senate were >> I read some of the things today, but it just This is >> [clears throat] >> an item and it'll be good for us to see
where Do you know what? I ran an I query which asked how does Chelmsford stack up against the um and it said we stack up very well. But this is AI, so don't >> [laughter] >> rely on any of this. This is >> And then you go to the source. >> It was just for fun. All right. So, here
we go. Um anybody else? Any other items? >> You beat me to it. So, I was going to bring up the same thing. So. >> It's great, right? Um they finally did their thing. Okay, any >> I'm kind of hoping, to be honest with you, because they're going to be breaking for summer session soon.
There's several bills that have been like languishing between both sides. So, I'm hoping over the next like two to three weeks we're going to actually see some action on them. And um we'll be able to report something at that. We're meeting kind of back-to-back. So, we have the July 28th, then we got the first meeting in August.
We'll be able to report on a lot of this stuff then if something happens. >> That'll be terrific. Okay. >> Great. >> Well, good. We'll entertain a motion to adjourn. >> I make a motion to adjourn. >> Very entertaining. >> I second that. >> All in favor? >> I. >> I.
>> I. >> Thank you, everyone.