##VIDEO ID:ExMISdp5vSQ## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e andice thank you um we're going to call the meeting to order at 710 almost 79 minutes after 7 um welcome to this meeting tonight um the chair is running late at this moment so I doing the meeting for her uh but we welcome everybody tonight and um we're going to call this meeting to AIT so what is next um Veronica can you do the uh Ro call please Mr Gomez Pera Miss Alfaro Miss Hernandez is here Mr Oran here miss koves carav president miss balderas president Dr Neville here miss Enriquez and Miss cabal will be joining us um shortly so that's nine members present one absent I'm sorry eight members present one absent good evening everyone I'm very sorry parking near at the city hall is a lot of fun I really like it I don't know if I can get back in my car but it's parked somewhere um I'm sorry so we'll move on to um the minutes um approv to move the last last month's meetings of October 9th 2024 make a motion to approve the movements second thank you and now we'll move on to public comment is there any public comment here no okay thank you um and then we'll move over over to presentations and I'll hand it over to Dr ala good evening I need to turn this on good evening everybody um it is a pleasure to be here tonight and welcome to all that are here and I know you're here for U some very very special people um so tonight uh we are going to start off with our name strength and story Awards and the name strength and story Awards tonight are a group and so I will say why and then come up and just wait and then we'll do a a whole group picture so um the name strength and story award SOA Le tonight goes to all of our family [Applause] Liaisons and the reason why family Liaisons were selected is because they are incredibly committed to our families and will do anything for our families and um whether it's back to school uh back to school day they organize all of the back to school day get all the donations they work tirelessly on back to school day um and they do it with a smile and they do it because they love our families and our children uh they also I just got an email from one asking is it okay if we do the holiday gift shop again at the Mary SE Burke complex which they get donations of toys and clothes for families to come and and Shop all brand new stuff where they can come and shop for the holidays and they do it with dignity for our families um they also call parents regarding treny they're kind of like social workers and they're doing there's a nice overlap between between our family aison and social workers but all of them are bilingual they speak Spanish they're able to relate to our families and many of our family aison come from Chelsea and so they're just their hearts are here and uh one time I know rotary needed interpretation that night and I could call on Yolanda and she was like I'll do it and um I I drop a a hat she she'll be there and give up an eating with her rather than being with her family she's with our families so I our family asons are are our heroes and our families trust our family Le aison and we're just so grateful we're so blessed that um the way you serve and the way you love our families and our students is is beautiful and I just we just want to say from the school committee to me and from me thank you and so I'm going to I'll call your names and come up and um so the first one is Chelle [Applause] Oriana our second family Aon is Deli Mahia [Applause] Yolanda [Applause] VZ Johnny [Applause] Heraldo and for those of you that don't know Johnny teaches dance lessons um you need to learn Vivi and ke [Applause] is Ivon [Applause] cono zul Lima [Applause] Perez Angie Garcia Marlene [Applause] Garcia Jay [Applause] bz this is The Power Team and just just so you know they uh they did a webinar today for desie and they knocked it out of the ballpark um so um I think they know our strategic plan better than anybody um Olga [Music] Escalante and Yin yis [Applause] you're G to help me okay so s can you can you get a picture of all of them just together and then we'll come join them together m for [Applause] one [Applause] thank you Anna oh you're welcome Johnny where is Johnny so just and and thank you um Dr Blake KY is um when Dr Blake KY came to the district she always talks talked about family engagement and I I've known Dr Blake KY for several years and she was a principal and I watched her with her families and I said I'm going to place the family e on as directly under you because I know that you understand the connection between teaching and learning and families and so you have led them so LED everyone so beautifully and I want to thank you for your leadership with such an amazing group I know there like when IAL to Dr Blake canany she says you know what the highlight of my my work is is working with the family Liaisons and so she loves you and and we do too so thank you [Applause] can I just say a little something I just want to also say it's amazing how from when I first came onto school committee with Janette um the difference in the group that we have is the Liaisons and how it that that position has developed and how much of a part of the schools has become such a vital part and we can't the school committee can and I begin to thank you enough for you know everything that that you guys do from from grades 4 through 12 or I was saying there was um they grew from 4 to 12 yeah yeah we grew that you grew tremendously I remember when we first came in it was just four Liaisons and now to be up to 12 that's amazing so I we thank you all for all your hard work I did know I'm great well what are you okay yes great well thank you okay so the Dr yes I would like to sorry thank you um before we move along I I think um I can't move without stating the obvious as a mother um as a person within this role I cannot say this enough I know that I have told you guys personally within our meetings but I think I Echo the sentiments of most parents um the Liaisons are an instrumental role within our um district and they have already stated when the position started we started with four liaison the fact that the liaison position has grown not only does it State um the need within our community and I just want to express the fact that not only do they act as a bridge between our families our students students um our teachers they also help navigate as they mentioned privy POS privy situations very difficult positions they we talk about soft um skills right within the work environment and you just saw pretty much the continuous Dynamic that the team expresses continuously throughout your workday and it goes on through the buildings and it happens with staff members from all groups um we look at diversity and inclusion and it's not just the not the mirors as as we heard all all weekend long um the windows and mirrors right it's not just our faces but it's also the type of work that we do and that energy is continued through um our custodians our clerks our teachers our um specialty departments everyone and that is the type of energy that is continuously brought forth through every single one of those members all the times and it they if they don't know the language they will figure out a way to connect with those families not just within our school buildings but outside of the communities and it's not just with the Chelsea Public School um services but the city services which is very important because a lot of our families come to Chelsea without knowing um the language the school systems the district so it is really a massive part of really giving our students the fundamentals of belonging in significance and to me as a parent that is huge because that means that my kids' classmates are going to feel welcomed so it helps the experience collectively um so I cannot thank you enough [Applause] okay thank you I'm going to move on um and thank you for being here tonight um so our next presentation is the cell phone policy update that um I get the wonderful Fortune of presenting because our assistant superintendent is at a um out of state at a conference um so I'm going to do my best um I'm pinch hitting right now but we've got this do you want me I'll test it okay so we have been um working on a draft cell phone policy and it has gone to our subcommittee meetings and um we'd like to share a little bit more about our cell phone policy and so just some background last year one of our middle schools piloted a cell phone policy and it went really well and so later on in the presentation I'm actually going to bring up um zulima from the our family Aon from the brown middle school and our um Katherine Anderson our C president and teacher at the Brown Middle School to share a little bit of their um comments and what they've experienced as a result of the pilot cell phone policy at the brown middle school and then one of the reasons why we knew we we had to we're asking for a cell phone policy and to be a little bit more specific is because our our Middle School principles in particular were wanting an asking for a cell phone policy after the brown implemented that policy they came to me this summer and said can we have a policy or can we do this as well and I said oh time out we we really need to have a policy from school committee and then we'll we'll let you we'll move from there I I um so one of the reasons is it's this is coming from the ground and when I say the ground it's coming from our teachers it's coming from our leaders and so I wanted to just provide some some background about this and then why a new policy um and you can see there's several reasons um increased student engagement academic discourse and academic achievement and then decrease negative behaviors that are directly and indirectly related to cell phone use during school and then create routines for students and have a consistent policy in every class and then we want to build better relationships between students and their peers and students and teachers by removing the barrier that cell phones often cause and then help students develop habits and routines for responsible cell phone use now and in the future so the impact of phonefree schools um studies and legislation and feedback and Survey results underscore the impact of phone use on adolescents um our Surgeon General warns that social media May harm children and adolescents and then there was a report cited that there a profound risk of harm to adolescent mental health and urged families to set limits and governments to set tougher standards for cell phone use with adolescents and the nation's top health health official issued an ex extraordinary public warning for the public to fully understand the possible harm to mental health and well-being of Children and adolescents mental health so one one area that um cell phones are impacting our student mental health and a cross-sectional study of almost 500 adolescents found a positive association between social media use Andor Sleep Quality anxiety and depression this Association was even more profound for adolescents who had higher levels of emotional investment in social media and then academic performance and behavior um after a ban on cell phones in high schools students in the lowest cortile improved by 14.23% on stand of a standard deviation and then Banning cell phones could be a low cost way for schools to address educational inequality so you can see there's just a quote here about it and then regarding legislation and policies since 2018 all legislation highlights mental health as the main concern when focusing on cell phone use and Adolescence the impact is global and so is the growing conversation and so just to go over some of our procedures uh the what the procedures um we are recommending would be our phones are not allowed to be used during school and every student would be signed a personal Yonder pouch um students must bring in their pouch to school daily and keep it in good working condition and a pouch is just a uh a covering for the for the cell phones that um keeps it from uh actually working um daily process as stents arrive to school they will turn their phones off they'll Place their phone inside their pouch and secure it in front of the school staff and then they'll store their pouch and their backpacks our locker for the day at the end of the day the students will open their pouch remove their phones and put their pouch in their backpacks students must bring their pouch to school with them each day and then students arriving late or leaving early would pouch or un pouch in the main office it sounds kind of interesting but that's the vernacular um so here's an example of what uh Yonder they're called um yanders the company that makes the pouches and here's an example of what a pouch looks like um so you can see that and then here's the impact is and this is from uh Yonder this is from y and it says we've received responses to our annual surveys from over 1,200 School partners and after implementing the Yonder education program 84% saw a change in student engagement 70% saw a change in student behavior and 68% saw a change in academic performance that's um so basically what they're saying and here's a um a a quote we've reclaimed the classroom learning environment kids spoke to one another in the cafeteria we had two lockdown situations and without student phones we were able to deliver critical information to families without misinformation being spread we've also kept building more secure and the our buildings more secure and calm because of it my CEO said it was her most important purchase of the year which is pretty awesome and so what I would like to do now is call up um it's zulima our family aison from the brown middle school as Katie couldn't be here tonight so and Z Lima if you can share just your experience with um the cell phone free policy at your school hi everybody hi this is more of a surprise in the [Laughter] certificate I'm a little nervous Katie said you're going to be here tonight so yes she asked so um at the brown we we piloted it last year um it's a lot of work I'm not going to sugarcoat it it is a lot of work it's teenagers and their phones um we did see a lot of changes in their students um when we started asking for their phones cuz we're not taking their phones away we don't want the kids to feel like they are being taken away from them but they are actually turning them in for a good reason so um we saw kids actually playing around with each other instead of being on their phones we saw kids more interested in class um we saw kids in the cafeteria actually enjoying some oneon-one time with their friends instead of everybody on their phones um after covid it was really hard for students to come back to school and not only um talk to peers or enjoy the company of others because it was kind of scary but also um they just stuck to their phones and their computer so now we're taking that away from them we didn't start by just automatically taking them all out we explained to the kids why we were taking them and why was it important um some of them are totally okay with it we even had some kids say I feel better without my phone I'm not worried about social media I'm not worried about my friends sending me messages um so it helped a lot in that way also um um students weren't taking pictures of each other's unwanted pictures there's also a lot of size to the phones the kids have in their phones so the pictures stop a lot of bullying happening online where students are taking pictures of others when they don't posting them on a lot of social medias that we have seen around so I feel like that stopped a lot also um it's not all easy um the help of the parents is really important when it comes to this policy because if the kids know the parents are telling them you need to turn in your phone they do it it's not just us asking them but also a parents so that's a big big part of this policy is the parents to understand how important it is for them to turn in their phones and how it helps their students there's also parents who are also worried because they want to be in communication with the kids everything going around and we understand but like it says we want to give them the right information we don't want them to hear from the kids cuz the kids don't know what's happening so um we also make parents aware that there's a a lot of ways for you to communicate to the school there's a lot of ways for you to get in contact as family leaz they know where could call us we'll find their student if you need to talk to them so it's a lot of making the families feel comfortable when it comes to this policy because they are the biggest supporter when we call home students not turning in their phones next day their phones is there cu the parents agree with us so we have to convince the families before the students are okay with it but we still have we're still learning when it comes to phones but um it's a big difference we see kids asking us for basketballs for footballs instead of just going outside and hanging out so we did see a big change and I don't think we could go back as a school we see the kids um learning and wanting to be in class instead of being on their phones even in the bathrooms we're like who where is this person in the bathroom on their phones um um posting on Snapchat became a lot and the kids either asking each other to meet each other's in the hallway so we have that sto a lot of that stopped at the school so it's still hard it's still middle school but um the students are more connected with their friends they're still having their issues but it's more issues as friendship like kids and more kids than grownup or fighting in in social media when involving strangers into this so I'm all for it I love the policy um I wouldn't change it it's something I'm really excited my principal started um a lot of work it takes everybody so it's not only the main office it's teachers everybody has to be okay with this policy and work together because there over 500 kids 500 phones that you need to work with but at the end of the day it's worth it at any always no matter what thank you thank you and if I could call up um Katherine Anderson to speak of her experience from teacher perspective um hi everybody good to see you hi everyone um so my name is Katherine Anderson I've been a special education teacher at the brown since 2013 so I've been there as cell phones have become increasingly popular more and more over the years um and I have to say that the the policy we've had for the past two years has done the most to help kids focus on their learning because everybody is on the same page so families understand students understand and every adult in the building has the exact same expectation the last few years before that we had really inconsistent expectations so one grade level would have one policy one classroom would have a different policy and so it made things really hard to enforce with kids because the rules were confusing and different in different spaces it made it hard to communicate to families whether or not they could expect to hear from their kid during the day and whether or not that was appropriate so having something that's consistent across our school has been really helpful if we have the same thing across the whole district for that age level I think it'll be even more helpful having students at the brown and the right in the same building with different policies can create tension because why am I not allowed to do this but this kid is allowed to do it can come up a lot so I think having a districtwide policy would be really helpful for that reason as well so everything's really miss said in terms of this increasing student Focus student academic achievement and social situations amongst kid is absolutely true um the number of different bathroom and hallway issues and like app pointments and dates that were being set up in the middle of class have gone significantly down um and you've seen kids able to engage in the work better and also they're not waiting and worrying about when they're going to get a message from a friend or from home kids understand that like they are there to learn they are there just to be kids throughout the day so when you're in class it means your job is to be a student when you're at recess and leip means your job is to be with your friends and not to be worrying about what messages you're going to be getting from elsewhere you can just be in the moment and we're taking away that developmentally inappropriate Temptation for kids in the classroom um the communication with families was absolutely important to making this work out kids get really really nervous about not having their device with them so making sure that families understand how to get in contact with us has been able to reduce kids anxiety around it um and as an educator seeing what kids are able to do in the classroom when they're more focused and the fact that I don't have to worry about that anymore is incredible um and since there's a schoolwide policy the I think there's three times I counted so far this year that I've seen a cell phone and every time the kid has like followed the direction of turning the phone in without it being a significant back and forth and being able to maintain that relationship with students and not get into a power struggle back and forth over something that's so important to them has been really really helpful in the classroom and especially for their learning so I want to say thanks for giving me the chance to talk about this and I'm really glad that we're looking for a policy that includes the community and also is consistent for all of our kids yeah thank [Applause] you and any questions I have a question for Katherine because I know you came to our policy and procedure subcommittee to talk about this um can you expand on what you meant about um developmentally inappropriate expectations because I think you explained that a little more clearly in the subcommittee it's a really good point yeah so as middle schoolers our kids are really really susceptible to how exciting cell phones are how addictive they are how much you want to be in touch with your friends and stay on top of what's happening on your phone and as much as we want kids to be developing the self-control to not be taking out their phone in the middle of class I don't it's I don't think that it's that's quite appropriate to actually expect a 12-year-olds a 13-year-old to just put their phone in their pocket and not ever look at it when messages are going off all day long they've done studies and kids are receiving upwards of like 70 notifications an hour it's no matter how great your self-control is that's that's too much to expect our kids to just be ignoring so having something where they're not getting the notifications anymore is helping them focus and is appropriate for for them yeah I hope that explains that better thank you so I also W to um thank everybody for so far the presentations um I do want to say that we we've had the cell phone policies in place for a while and I do I do think it's important to um as you said you know the why why do we have to follow and not that and when we did the code of character um that and we've had multiple sessions and as you as you mentioned um support comes in different ways and I think this is an additional way um of fine cming fine tuning to just um reinforce right that we have been continuously trying to make rules and be consistent within our rules um it's very easy and as as Suma had mentioned um it doesn't just go as it's not as simple as just saying like oh well just leave your cell phones at home there's a reason why parents have their children bring the cell phones um to school because they are walking to and from school and there's other situations that we want to um look after and plus as a parent every parent has a right to to baze their children as they see fit and realistically speaking this are the these are the times that we are living technology as a part part of our children's lives we have to also be responsible this is just simply giving our children the opportunity to be safe going to and from school but also holding them accountable we're teaching them to be responsible during the course of the day that is in their handbook there's the student responsibility the parents responsibility the Educator's responsibility um I do have a question I think during some of the rollouts when we were initially talking about like the Yonder pouches and stuff I see that now the different es um that we were saying that maybe we were discussing about just either lockers and terminals um and one of the uh I know that we had multiple sessions uh throughout this um conversations and then the last uh subcommittee that we had we said that there was going to be potentially either a substation that would be more permanent or um a locker rollout thing that seemed to potentially have included more labor but if we do have the backpack situation what would be the cost factor to the families um if we're doing the voluntary handing in or if like the Yonder pouch uh were to be misplaced or any would it be more like a I'm I'm guessing because potentially since they're already doing the Chromebooks there seems to be more of an accountability um already in place with the with the families but just to while we have the conversation going um just to it's a similar process so if a student loses a Chromebook then there's a small fee and this would be the same way the the pouches are free um if if they lose it then there might could be a small fee or something we haven't figured out the amount yet and I think just to add on to that at the right now with the Chromebook policy if families aren't able to to pay there's we lots of Alternatives that um the School works out with the family for restorative policies instead so that kids are still being accountable for the fact that they have a you know multi device that they're carrying around all day but that you know we understand that we don't want families to feel nervous about getting Chromebooks fixed or addressing things just because the cost is prohibitive thank you and I also want to I just also want to reinforce too that as as you guys mentioned um when we do fill out like the um press release forms and everything as a parent um we do give consent for pictures for um social media policies so if imagine you know middle school begins at fifth grade there's children that already have cell phones at the fourth grade level at younger age groups so um your child might not have a cell phone device at certain age groups but just because they don't doesn't mean that the next child over doesn't so again it's just building consistency so that's something that we're just trying trying to be proactive and start to instill those situations so that as we get um older the kids are a little bit more aware so um I have a question thank you so much for um your testimony Katherine and our family L on I sorry could you remind me of your name Suma thank you so much for your testimony um I have a question I have two questions um um I maybe I'll start with uh you Katherine since you're at the podium yeah um so this might be getting too into the weeds but I'm curious to know how this actually plays out um at the brown middle school so looking at the daily process um on page four there isn't a slide that corresponds with that right now but it states that the second stage is to sort of place their phones inside of their pouch secur it in front of school staff is that what actually happens at the schools like is there what is the system and how much time does this take up does this take away from actual instruction time are students expected to get there early in order to facilitate that process it's a lot of kids like you mentioned 500 yeah um so just wondering what that looks like no that's a great question and it's going to look slightly different because we have a different approach right now under the pilot program than we will under the Yonder pouch um but right now kids turn in their cell phones in their home room or their first period class and that takes I don't know like up up to five minutes but it's during The Home Room time before the academic part of the period has begun um and they each have their own pouch in like a tupperware bin that that's then locked away for the day and then cell phones are redistributed to their sixth period class kids travel in home rooms at the brown so they're with the same group of kids all day long that's not true across all three of our middle schools so that that approach has worked with that grouping of kids at the end of the day we have a 5 minute period where kids get their cell phones back that's also when teachers have what we call after school conferences with students where we have restorative conversations about things that might have happened during the day um so and that again is a separate time in the bell schedule that's not part of the academic period for six period so right now it's not taking away any time for those individual classes obviously making time for those periods like technically we could have five more minutes I guess of academic time time but it would take it would add one minute per class period without those five minutes at the end of the day um the new policy that's being proposed kids would have the pouch just on them and it would get locked up by a teacher I don't know exactly how long that'll take for locking and unlocking but I'm guessing it would be built into those same procedures which have been part of we've had a Home Room a morning Home Room the entire time I've been working here the afternoon Home Room we've had off and on kind of depending on the schedule um and so it would just kind of be a part of the like housekeeping part of the day that's already a typical part of the middle school schedule the high school schedule the similarly the kids obviously aren't in the same first period class as they are fifth period so they would have to carry their phones around with them and have them but the teacher just has the one tool that works sorry that was a long answer no that's super useful um thank you so much for that I'm asking because my experience at the brown there were certain procedures like uh random searches but that would cut into your instruction time which is unfortunate so like I would lose time because I needed to be searched um so thank you so much for that um level of depth my next question is for um our family Liaisons any of them who might have had this experience but looking at this presentation uh certain line stood out to me uh that was during yonder's impact this is on page five um where [Music] a high Charter High School in New Jersey someone from there is being quoted we had two lockdown situations and without student phones we were able to deliver critical info to families without misinformation being spread I'm just wondering if that has if any situation like that has similarly happened at any of middle schools where this is being piloted and what the response has been from families and I ask I recognize that this policy is not meant to stop like gun or anything like that but that's just something on my mind many families minds and maybe one of the reasons why they might want to be in contact with their kids um so I'm just wondering how families have responded to um situations like that because I know that a message is typically sent out by uh superintendent uh beta and that provides context but just curious to know if any families have reached out after lockdowns so we had parents who questioned that like have a lot of questions about emergency situations when it comes to thankfully we haven't had emergency situations at the school we it's almost like practicing either F and stuff like that so we practice how we're going to communicate to families so I am in charge of making sure that message goes out as soon as we're the emergency is over we know that this message needs to go to our families and also letting them know they can um contact our school real quick we also have a this s right here who helps us a lot with Communications with families but um just I feel like you connecting with families and letting them know how it works at the school it takes that fear away knowing that the school will react fast um getting to know teachers and your principle knowing that they care and that they here for you I feel like the families know if anything happens I will get that message thankfully we have um parents Square who has been great to us at the school so contacting the families all at once is super easy um for us so one message will get delivered quick to all of our families to let them know this happened then we have people who are in charge phones the phone's going to start ringing real soon after we send this message so everybody's hands on there um I know there's families who still feel like if there's um a lot anything happen shooting off a bit anything like that happens at the school house my students going to call me but explaining to them that it's best for a student not to have their phone at that moment um and then understanding that this is not the best situation for a student to be calling a parent but we also have SRO at the school we have a lot of people who are will take care of the students right on the spot for them to feel safe so just I feel like just keeping the families um in the communication and letting them know before we do something it then they feel comfortable with letting us move on with a policy like this it's just they want to be part of it they want to understand what's happening and what are we doing and then they just help us out throughout the year honestly I don't know if you want to if I could make a comment um I think that not I think I know that the big the biggest tool that any district school district can have is the communication between the families and the schools and having the the same communication is so vital and keeping that and I think that's one of the things that we've worked very hard at throughout the years trying to get to this point where we are now where this school committee is trying to get a lot of the same policies in all the same schools so that the same communication is going to everyone um I don't think that there's truly uh a need for a child to have a phone during the day if there is an emergency going on in school a child calling their parent is not going to take care of the issue if anything is going to cause more chaos and more stress on the parents I can't imagine my child calling me mom there's a shooter in the school now the what could I possibly do um other than go completely out of my mind so I think that that's why I think we're going trying to find or or prepare the best policy to ensure that all of our schools are working the same way and building this strong relationship with our parents so the parents feel secure with us having their children and and also the parents helping us while we have their children because it has to be it's it's a marriage between the two and we need to have a strong relationship between the two between the parents and the and the schools sorry to interrupt I have a question um what is the consequence If the child do other student doesn't want to give the phone because I mean I have heard like you know like you said that um in different rooms and different classrooms sometimes they have a different you know policy um but um I know that that's a great idea to put every single you know school from Chelsea to have the same policy so everybody have in their mind that anywhere they go any schools they are prepared if they coming from middle school to high school they know that it's going to happen the same thing but I mean I just curious what is you know the consequences if the child do oh the student doesn't want to give the phone yeah so in previous years when kids wouldn't turn in their phones different teachers would sometimes just kind of like give up and just have let the kid keep the phone because it wasn't clear exactly what the next step was um we've in previous years I've had like people have had to call security much more frequently to come in and have security come help enforce the cell phone policy because kids would refuse to give the phone like I said with the clarity I haven't had to call security over a phone this entire school year I I'm trying to remember if I ever did last year either um the three times I've had to ask a kid for a phone this year they they gave it to me there were you know we talked for like a second but they they didn't say like yes immediately but it took about 30 seconds of talking to them and reminding them about the expect ations um so I haven't had to enforce real consequences um if a kid isn't turning in their phone then the there's a phone calls home about the fact that they're not turning in the phone the family L on and the administrators help take care of that so that the um teachers can keep focusing on teaching so we're not losing classroom time to just one student not meeting the expectations um and I'm gonna let zulma talk a little bit more about what that part is yeah so we don't I don't want to we don't force the student we everybody knows what um the expectation is um a lot of the students know if they don't want to turn it in we're not forcing them but we tell them if we just don't want to see it if we see it then we'll take it if it happens we'll take it the teachers will call us hey I have a phone they usually turn it in if we see it and we'll call the parent and usually the parent will be like stay with it till next week I'll pick it up in over the week like like they are work they work with us so some there's a parent who's like can you keep it in the safe until I could go so they really are once they know what's going on they help work with us so that's really important so um the students know that if we have it the parent is not going to pick it up so um we have parents who also come and pick it up um after school they're like hold it I'll go to the school and pick it up for them and they don't give it to them so they start learning it's been a learning process um but I feel like once the parents see the difference in the all all for thank you yeah good evening everyone sorry y' technology good evening everyone and my apologies again for coming in late but I just want to thank you all for um and the district for preparing this cell phone policy and I just wanted to continue to reiterate our emphasis and our commitment to creating a safe and rigorous learning environment within our schools for all of our students and one thing I've been really impressed by is the way in which the district and particularly as we pilot this program um in the brown is just how um much engagement we got from tabling at orientation um at the back to school night ensuring that there's messages sent through parents square and letters sent home to ensure that there was Clarity on this policy before the school year began and we want to ensure that this um you know similarly how we rolled out the policy at the Brown Middle School it would uh we would similarly do so in many of our other schools in our middle schools particularly so I just want to commend our efforts of our Educators um our parents and Guardians that are partners partners with us in this work um and I want to thank our students as well I know we had a student testimony in one of our subcommittee meetings it might have already been brought up but ensuring the positive impact on our student learning so I want to ensure that bottom line we're creating this cell phone policy to ensure that it can improve student learning within our district so I just want to thank our all of our Educators um within our district that um and supporting us in this policy sorry um I'm like I've been have been patient thank you um and my turn thought um I just want to remind everybody as far as the drills are concerned um we have numerous drills throughout the um school year and it is imperative that we just go over the handbooks because in our student handbooks and that's in our Chelsea Public School website if we need to go and um just review that it um reinforces our commitment with the schools the um police department and the work that is done it the drills cover everything for run fight hide um and there's a lot of work that goes into it in those crucial moments it is nerve-wrecking I'm speaking as a parent right now because there's no other way that I could possibly no matter how I want to look at it I can't possibly just disengage and and look at it any other way so I can't imagine having to sit here have the conversation as you know educator staff members and still remain calm and think that you might have to encounter having to worry about everybody has to do their part in those moments and we have to trust that because we are being proactive Ive instead of being reactive in these cases that our work will pay off should the need for it arise so we need to trust that because we're taking these steps ahead of time if it happens then we'll be okay um I know it's a big gamble but at least we are being proactive not reactive um that's number one number two again our student handbooks every school has their principal that's basically the person that takes the decision making right within that school and then there's the chain of command within that um principal assistant principal um Deputy superintendent superint um and then superintendent then we bring things to the table we have you know candidate conversations and we have a delegation process that is how how things work but the point is we make sure that we work together collaboratively and things are better um the rules are made they are decided once they're decided they begin to be enforced the whole point of us having the conversation is so that they're clear that we've had the rules we just haven't been enforcing them we're just having a very clear thought out process so that we can once they start being enforced everybody knows what to expect again the code of character and um code of conduct has been rolled out with a student um handbook that has a pretty good understanding of what our restorative justice and our expectations of everybody are um and I invite everybody to just take a deep dive into that so that we know what the potential um conversations might look like just so that we know what's expected of everybody um and then that will make every body's job easier because nobody wants to lose instructional time nobody wants to push and pull and we've had uh testimonies from students parents um and Educators so I think it'll be difficult at first but once we start having everybody work on it I think it'll be great potentially one last question over here I was just going to ask um well first of all thank you for your response to my first question um Katherine you mentioned that uh sometimes Security will be called upon to sort of enforce cell phone policy I'm wondering if there is a tier of sort of like escalation before it gets to the point when security has to be called um I asked just because calling security as someone who's had that happen to them while they were in school um now looking back at that and reflecting on that is kind of follows a punitive or carceral logic I would like to remove that sort of experience from our students to like move them away from the school to prison pipeline like logic um so I'm wondering is there a prescribed standards of okay like first it's like a verbal like could you please give this in give this to me the second one is like asking again last and final um warning would result in asking or calling Security in order to enforce that just to make sure that there are those Equitable sort of like parameters in place to make sure that it's not up to the whims of I guess a teacher who might be having a bad day mix that in with like maybe some implicit bias or something like that so yeah I'm wondering if that's something that's being discussed amongst teachers or what is the process there no I think that that actually highlights why having this policy is so important because in the past that was happening with like not frequency but there were times where kids were engaging in like pretty unsafe behaviors with their phones um and like there were even at like there were many steps before security would be called in those instances there's we still very much operate under um more of a restorative lens and having lots of opportunities for kids to make different decisions to reflect on their decisions um and I think that one of the big impacts of having something that's really consistent and clear and um like readily enforced in the same way across the same spaces the kids know what to expect and they've had the chance to understand why it's important to their learning they've had the chance to understand all of the different structures that are in place to make sure that there's still opportunities for communication with their families all the like they understand the policy and their families understand the policies more I haven't seen that like even need to be used at all so it's something that I think part of the reason part of what I think is so important to restorative justice is making sure that we're setting kids up for success in the first place and in our old policies where things were really inconsistent and kids didn't know what to expect we weren't setting them up for Success we were setting them up for a situation where they were constantly testing boundaries and seeing what they could do where and a whole bunch of other other things and now it's clear we've explained the importance and it's not something that's come up like last year or this year at least it from what I've seen I don't know if that's different for you what I want to add is that the students they connect to different people at the school so maybe the teacher is not the person they connected with and that's okay some kids just connect different with other people so we know who is the other person that maybe they'll hand it in to me and not to her so I'll come in and I'm hey and they'll give me the phones there's times I stand in the hallways and I'm like this and they just put their phones on my on there and I'm like I wasn't asking for your phone so just connect knowing who connect with the students and who can get that phone from the student in a positive way um I understand call in security feels also like too harsh but then there's also students who connect more with the security guards who will just give it up to them real quick and no problem um like I said we don't take their phones away from the kids we we just tell them hey we see it we you got to give it to us we'll call your moms there's students that would not hand it in will call your parent and they'll be like okay just give it here like so there's different ways and we know who we like oh so who's who's cool with this student like come on and help us like we try to find that person they connect with so they don't feel like they're being forced to because we don't want them to feel forced because if the kids feels forced they're not going to do it so now that they see that it's helping them and it's something hey I'll give me your phone I'll charge it if you want me to charge it like I have a charger I'll charge it for you okay Miss make sure it's fully charged like it's just different ways to connect and it's not that we give it into them but we want them to understand that this is a positive change not a negative change yeah thank you so much for elaborating specifically on the point you know with students potentially having um amicable relationships with uh security guards I do remember working at the high school um some students just like chopping it up with like security guards in the hallway and that can be you know a positive experience so thank you for mentioning that um yeah so to be clear you said that there were instances where security had to be called before you had the the cell phone policy in place and then after the brown had it that that stopped so that's that's really great yeah yes so what happened before is that we'll get a call from a parent hey there's a student sending pictures to my um my student right now in the bathroom and I'm like what so it's like all hands on like hey can you guys check who's in the bathroom so we came to that a lot we were like all right so so and so posted a picture the parents already calling us telling us the student send the picture they saw it because the kid is home and now we're looking for the student hey um this was a parent call you send the picture can we see your phone no because they know what they did so that's when it was a little a lot of issues but now that there's less phones in the school we don't come across that anymore yeah so I just thank you guys so much for this conversation and um thank you to Kathy cabal for I think I think you were the one who suggested at our policies and procedures meeting that we should bring this up for a presentation at the full school committee meeting so that the community has the chance to hear about this policy um we're not voting on it tonight um we're just we're still working on it um so I really want to invite the rest of the community to uh you know keep reaching out to us with feedback and um your thoughts on this policy we we really want to hear everyone's thoughts from teachers from parents from students from everyone um but I I have found this um conversation really enlightening and um I think that it's really important that we have this at a district level policy because what I've heard is that in some other places you know the the problem is when you have a cell phone policy that isn't um doesn't uh have have equal buyin from everyone at every level of the schools so you know admin cares or doesn't care and the teachers care or don't care and then if you know every is not on the same page and it's not successful so by having these conversations Now by um passing the policy at a district level um then we'll be able to have equal buyin at all levels of the school I hope and um I also just want to point out that you know a policy is something that should be like like General enough to be able to apply to all situations and but still leaves the flexibility for the school the individual schools to decide how to implement it and what procedures to use so like for the policy we're not going to be saying we have to use Yonder pouches or we have to do it this way or that way um but it's about the the um the principles behind it and and what we want to see um what what we want to see in in the schools happening so um yeah I would say um please I want to keep keep listening and I look forward to this conversation continuing and I just want to say something the last I think it's good to have you know the consequences too writing on the policy because that kind of like make a a mind and a sense that this is what's happening if you don't do it and that way you know people not going to have oh no you they don't tell me or whatever but I think that's a great you know to put the consequences but also to say um the policy but to write the consequences so they know what's going on so you put a more that's what I think it might work better my volume on that's technology you know um I think that we've gotten enough information to help us really fortify this this policy more and make it more specific and fine-tune it um and hopefully we'll end up with one that's going to be great uh and work for all the schools and for all the staff and the parents and the students and everyone maybe we'll get the one time the policy that's going to work for everyone and everyone's going to love it um I think that that's our goal to to obtain and I think this is a very important policy I think it's going to be a like like you both have said I mean I think that the change the difference that it'll make in the schools is going to be great so with that great thank you I just want to say thank you you both did an amazing job than you did actually um Anna before you before you move on so um hypothetically speaking the subcommittee is tomorrow if it were to be um let's say if we did enough work on the subcommittee tomorrow and we were able to move it for vote on the December meeting um because you know I'm in the budget and finance uh and if any purchase needed to be made I know that we were considering um cost so I think we how so that we could roll it out and get it the ball rolling I think we can I think we can talk more about this at no I know but but policy's tomorrow so it's on the policy it's it's on it's already on the it's already on the the agenda for tomorrow so we can we can discuss it tomorrow and fine tune what we need to do and then we'll probably have discussed it also in budget and finance timeline okay perfect but it a very good thought thank you everyone and congratulations well deserved she's so oh she's so cute so cute Monica do you want a clicker or do you want to control it over there okay all right so our next um presentation for tonight is actually gearing up for budget so um budget will be here before we know it and we wanted we recently um submitted a student Opportunity Act update to desie at the end of last year that was approved and then but we wanted to provide an update of where we're going as we are beginning to prepare for our budget season and um Monica this will probably be one of your last presentations to us as a um Executive Director of Finance business and finance and so uh just want to publicly um thank you for your work in the last what six years seven years six and a half six and a half years um you will be missed um but we're not saying goodbye yet so um I'll let you go ahead and um take it from here but I wanted to start the budget season just a tad early while we still have Monica with us so um here we are thank you good evening I'm Monica lamboy executive director of administration Finance um I do appreciate Dr AA asking me to put together this presentation because it really was an opportunity to reflect on the past five or six years um of our financial circumstances um so we'll talk about what is the student Opportunity Act how have we um how do it affect the revenues for the district how have we used those resources and a little snapshot of the outlook for 26 and 2027 um what is the student Opportunity Act it was it's the name of the state legislation that changed how the school funding was calculated um it acknowledges the costs of educating low-income students English language Learners and special education special needs students it had a seven-year implementation cycle from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2027 I will show you that it was not evenly allocated across those 7 years and desie has front-loaded the revenues to the districts um and Chelsea Community really played a huge role in the adoption of this legislation I know people in this room went up to the State House our students advocated um really recognizing how um the cost of educating kids with special needs um looking at a general fund history before and after the student Opportunity Act um this is a bar graph that shows um our revenues general fund revenues over from 2017 to 2025 what you can see on the left side with the line is really the slow growth of new monies that was coming in between 2017 and 2021 and um in 2021 when we started with the student Opportunity Act which was the first first budget cycle after the initiation of the pandemic um here we can see that that trajectory changed um that the year-over-year revenue growth was substantial um but I also want to caution that that trajectory does not continue at that same angle that we are seeing on this graph um when we add our pandemic money our covid um 19 our Easter funds which is in blue you'll see how unique the last four or five years have been in terms of revenues available to the district it really has been an extraordinary period of of Revenue of of regrowth after the loss of the pandemic and um I do think we've use those resources wisely but those also have come to an end September of this year was the end of our eer covid funding um this table shows a lot of numbers but I just want to kind of highlight the different um subsources of monies that come to the district we have our Chapter 70 which I talk about every budget year um we also have a mandatory contribution that the city of Chelsea is required to make desie determines what that mandatory contribution is and then the city provides a voluntary contribution on top of that if you look at 2019 to 2025 really just at the bottom line the the growth is Stark the increase in the overall Revenue picture but it varies among the sub area um specifically Chapter 70 went up by 55% over this period um the Chelsea mandatory contribution went up by 25% and we know that the city council thinks long and hard about how it invests its money and we recognize that we are a sizable portion of the overall City budget um the voluntary contribution went up by 5% really The Lion Share of that in the current year that we're in in 201 25 when we received a million voluntary increase from the city of Chelsea to help us balance our 2025 budget uh overall change of 45% increase in Revenue um that growth has not been linear um this is a new graph yay um that really shows the year-over-year increase instead of looking at it as a stacked bar we're now looking at the year over-year increase and we can see 2019 2020 2021 was an increase but it wasn't very large um and then 22 23 and 24 were really significant years of Revenue growth for the district also those same years where we had the pandemic monies um in 2025 we really turned a corner uh we still do expect to see an increase resulting from the student Opportunity Act but the fact that the state front loaded in the first three years is really evident I think in this graphic so that we know that 26 and 27 are not going to be the same as the years immediately preceding us um how have we used those Investments I'm not going to go into everything but this is a people business um we've always talked about how we need people in our classrooms we need our security we need our custodial team so not surprisingly how we have been investing has really been in the people um teachers par professionals computer technicians um in 2021 was our first covid year so on the right side you can see some of the Investments that we made off of the pandemic money more teachers more parent professionals nursers nurses aid director of equity and inclusion in 20122 still trying to grow the workforce right our students are back in the classroom but they need additional support from our Personnel we had been extremely lean um in the Years prior to the pandemic prior to the to the um student Opportunity Act so adding more resources to our classrooms predominantly um more teachers speech language Pathologists also in fiscal 22 and we opened the Chelsea virtual Learning Academy that year um we also started moving gradually positions off of the grant onto the general fund because we knew we talked about the fiscal cliff for many years we knew we could not in one year successfully transfer all the grant positions off of the grants and onto the general fund so we started to do some of that in 22 uh we adopted the Easter 3 plan that was our $2.9 million Grant where we invested heavily in high quality instructional materials we invested in our buildings um cleaning supplies when we had temp agency remember back when we were buying many thousands of masks um per month from our pandemic funds um we also increased funding for mental health counseling it was something that we didn't have really at scale before and expanded our after school program and our extended day summer school program as well moving into 23 again still trying to strengthen the the adults that work directly with our kids our teachers our counselors par professionals um and a little bit of investment on the grant funding um some of our major cost drivers include tuition special ed tuition Transportation those will be here you know on and off different years um and our health insurance fiscal 24 which was really that top of that graph that I showed you um again investing in our classrooms um parent workers our parent layons who are here um and our HR department which really launched the diversity our PA professional to to teacher pipeline a lot of that was all growing in this time period and you need people to manage those programs that have really borne such great fruit over recent years um we did add a few more Grant funded positions in 2024 um and here you see was really a big leap where we moved people off of the Easter money onto the general fund so we had to set aside general fund money to be able to accomplish that in fiscal year 2024 and now in 25 which is the year that we are currently in um we added very few new positions we had a net zero increase of new positions um as we mentioned in the budget presentation we we reduced a few positions in order to create Deans at the middle school which was a high priority for our schools our elll coordinator and our Outreach worker um since budget adoption as a result of looking at our classrooms and our unique needs of students we have had to add a few more special education Personnel um including a few teachers four par professionals um we've added security at the high school to make sure that that feels like a safe environment so that the kids can focus on learning um and a new office of success planning um but really important was the number of positions that we brought over we brought over 42 positions that were funded by one-time money the last bit of our eer position positions um that our principles asked for we brought over either onto the general fund or a couple of them went over onto our title one so we were able to successfully um stabilize the organization um use the growth that we had and to make sure that it was consistent and was going to continue in our schools um overall this is a chart that shows the total number of positions by type um in fiscal year 2020 was the first budget that I worked on for the district uh we had to cut 10 teachers at the high school that year was very painful um and the reason that we had to cut 10 teachers at the high school that year is that we had cut every other grade level in the Years prior and there literally was no place else to cut in order to balance that budget so I know that was really devastating to Dr Burke who was here at the time and to the members of the school committee and to myself um but look at what the trajectory has been subsequent right we have added 139 teacher positions over 5 to six years 45 PA professionals five clerks um administrators we've enhanced our health unit our buildings and grounds and other school positions so this is a tremendous I think success story um for everybody that's in this room that has participated in this process of identifying our kids' needs identifying our school needs and trying to fill those with the resources available to us um if we look at it by bargaining unit 74% of new positions were within the Chelsea teachers union Group which is our Educators our PA of professionals and our clerks uh 4% was in our administrators group 6% is in the asme which is our custodians and our security um 1% for nursing and 11% for non-union um and I want to talk about the nonunion um we really focus on positions that we're working directly with our Educators our computer technicians our parent workers um building substitutes are in the non-union um a few positions in the business office HR and parent pick um special education and the CV admin um what's the Outlook going forward um we do not expect increases of the mag magude that we have seen in 2024 and 2023 um per a presentation that a few of us went to by mass budget um the quote was that 26 and 27 should look a lot like 2025 um which is the year that we are in which is that low end of that um line graph and the inflationary formula that many um members of the committee are advocating for is probably a few years out right it is going to require substantial advocacy not just by Chelsea but other communities in the state um this is to ask the legislature to recognize that the rate of inflationary growth over the last few years was higher than the percentage growth that they gave us in the student Opportunity Act super valid point but not everybody is on board with that yet um we have I'm going to announce had a reduction in enrollment um it looks like from last school year to this school year um we had a small deduction reduction between 2024 and 25 but because enrollment at the Northeast vocational went up overall net Chelsea kids did not go down um with this reduction of 38 students is um there is potential that will be our first year where we have a lower enrollment overall in Chelsea we won't know until the Desy numbers are done and we won't know um until the governor's budget comes out in February what that means in terms of dollars but we are seeing a change in enrollment um we don't expect the city to add a substantial leap to its voluntary contribution um they've been fabulous in terms of capital projects that we're working on including our County Road Project um for which we need for the Chelsea opportunity Academy um no large grants are on the horizon either just trying to sorry point a little bit of gloom and doom but also reality of where we are um and our traditional cost drivers that we really have um avoided in 2025 are going to come back um that includes our special ed tuition our transportation our step increases um our health insurance pension Etc are going to come back um so where are we now U looking at the time I've been here um we have hundreds of new new needed positions that we have added across the district we' have over $2 million of investment in high quality instructional materials at all grade levels we spent millions of dollars in classroom technology including um Chromebooks laptops for staff um built-in projectors screens Etc we expanded our after school summer school and our acceleration Academy offerings we've invested over $20 million and school buildings in recent years and we have a new building open at Webster and a new building on the horizon at County Road these are huge accomplishments right that we've done together um and I really want to emphasize this because this is the lens with the stability right every investment we have made to date has been stable we made choices to continue to um fund things that we knew we had had money behind some districts made different choices with their one-time money where they added a lot of staff and then they had to reduce it um that's not Chelsea's story I think we really should be proud of what we have accomplished um just looking around the state I think we really do stand out for the stability that we have provided to our kids our kids want to see the same adults in the classroom they want to see the same adults in the hallways outside and we have provided that through the way that we have have managed our resources so with that I'm happy to answer any questions Monica thank you no I was gonna ask if there was any questions I have my questions ready um thank you so much Monica for that presentation super uh profound or I guess lot lots of Rich data there um I just wanted to ask a question about special education tuition in a couple of slides back you mentioned that those are sort of the drivers of CA um and there is one figure that stood out to me in fiscal year 2022 I think it was 220,000 um is there an estimate for how much we can anticipate will be needed for fiscal year 2026 and that I'll I'll stop there before I get into my next question sure um I don't have the numbers at my fingertips but I'll tell you the process if I might of How We Do It um so history is is typically the most helpful thing to look at when you're trying to forecast fast forward so um I have historically worked with the schul education department and Lori Gardella our business managers been participating to look at our current enrollment um and they know you know how many students are likely to potentially transition back or who might need higher level of services so we literally look at a student by student um what their Outlook looks like um then we apply an increase Factor we don't know what the tuition is going to be but we try to estimate what the growth in tuition will be um and that overall is how we forecast for the next year um I would like to add since you asked the question we do have a substantial investment this year in our prepayment um we have grown that investment from 20 fiscal year 2020 to today um that is part of what's happing helping to balance 2025 is we have such a deep investment we did not add new dollars general fund dollars to tuition in the year that we're in so that we could protect the 42 positions that came off the grant next year you are going to need to put some money into special tuition I do anticipate some additional general fund money is going to be required thank you for that and sharing some of that process and uh looking back right to sort of like be able to forecast um and I guess building off of that uh your response I'm just wondering in the year 2022 um does that tuition for each student is that roughly the same or does it vary greatly um yeah just I know that some students might need more support and maybe that means a higher cost of tuition in order to meet that but just trying to get a sense of what that looks like sure it it's a composite so there is an amount of just general tuition that each school is allowed to charge us that desie evaluates and desie establishes what the growth factor is year-over-year for that base tuition but then you're right certain students might need speech language therapy they might need some occupational therapy those are typically on top of the annual um amount and so that's where there could be some variability if a child has higher needs or or whatever issue might be progressing that they need more support that's where you'll have some variability as well gotcha okay thank you does anyone else have any more questions yes go well I just want to um share very briefly just want to thank you so much for this presentation this was really great to see um just how much we've accomplished in these past um five years um and again want to thank the city for their contributions and um residents who have continuously advocated um for an investment in our youth um um as well as our District staff that really make all this um happen and all the magic happen in the classroom so um Monica I want to wish you the best uh in your next Endeavor and thank you so much um for answering all of our questions I also want to thank you Monica and hopefully we'll have um many more chances to keep thanking you and saying goodbye and celebrating you but um I just want to I was thinking during this presentation about how how much less I understood School Finance one year ago and how um the presentations that you gave during budget season took a it took a while for it to sink in and I had a lot of questions but um by following along with you you've um really taught me so much and um it makes us better Advocates um so on that note um uh you know I I we we were all at that mass budget presentation that was held in the green Roots office where they um where they explained um some things about the student Opportunity Act and we talked about the need for um to to to start organizing amongst Gateway cities to ask for this inflation fix and um Senator saldi Dominico was there and he encouraged us to take that sort of an approach a multi-city approach to advocacy um and Colin from Mass budget agreed and vity from ma agreed and um this past weekend we are at the Massachusetts Association of school committees and superintendent conference and they like unanimously more or less passed a resolution saying that you know we have to get this inflation fixed um so I I would really like to um my my goal for the next week is to get that rolling and to start organizing um with you guys and with Partners in other cities so um please please join us and and uh we'll be working hopefully with our partners definitely in hail and in lawence and and other places and we'll see what we can do um so yeah yeah we started in back in February so yes yes thank you um I just want to say thank you um Monica I had uh the opportunity to to work with you in the past in terms of when I was a school committee members and I had the opportunity to be also in the challenges that we had in the U um the time that we struggle with the with the budget uh that we have to let go those teachers at the uh cha high school that was really hard um for all us when when we we have to do it because of the budget restrictions that we had and I also had the opportunity to to work with you in terms of the uh budget fin uh subcommittee and I'm really pleased and satisfied how long we have come in the years that that you have been with us it's been like a really this presentation tonight it really shows the tremendous work that you had dedicated uh with the with the budget so thank you so much and I wish wish you the best for for whatever you're going forward thank you um I just want to say thank you too because um I really love the way that you playing everything and um I think this presentation really clear us more to see the difference from one year to another and see how has been you know accomplished a lot of things and I think I think like you say we have to be feel proud because uh in those conferences where we went there were people who are suffer a lot for money budgets so I think we're lucky that um we have a stable and um we know that we need to do more changes but I I know that we going to you know work for it like um Sara says we are getting together so we can fight for that money and uh go to the state house because if we don't say nothing um nobody's going to do nothing so uh we asking to to anybody who are in in parents or students who want to enjoy us to do this hard work I think is worth it because uh we did it the St or not and I know we can do this one too and this is all for the city of Chelsea too thank you thank you min me thank you Monica thank you yes thank you great so we will move on to um our indicators thank you yes such a nice way to deliver the message that we're not adding we're going to be adding much next year um so we'll now move on to our indicators of success with Dr tomarrow Blake KY thankfully we only have three indicators of success to share out tonight um again it's important for us to share our indicators of success as they are aligned to the district strategic plan um it's also a way of us as Educators holding ourselves accountable it's important too that we continue to look at um various data points so that if we do need to make some data informed decisions or need to Pivot so that we can better service our community we are able to do so um our first indicator of success is it's aligned to Priority One which is rigorous and culturally relevant instruction for all of our students is our attendance rate as you know research shows that um attendance is really important to students outcome along with family engagement so thank you for um highlighting and lifting up the amazing work of our family leaon tonight in terms of students attendance from prek through 8th grade we do have have a um above 98 percentile of daily attendance rate um for [Music] grades 9 through 12 we are at the mid 80th percentile but what is important is that as a district we are at 90th percentile so that is still amazing our second indicator of success tonight is our um high school dropout rate we are currently at just 1.8% for the month of October we've only had um three students who have withdrawn one from the ninth grade one from the 10th grade and one from the 11th grade our final indicator of success for tonight is our Mobility rate at the end of October we had 40 students and in and 90 students out that is a difference of 50 when combined September and October we had 357 students in 200 22 students remaining with us that is um a difference of 135 next month I will share with you our high school um first quarter marking today is the final day for markings to be reported so that would not give us enough time to have the data ready for you so you will hear more about that in December thank you so much any questions or comments any questions or comments no thank you so much you're welcome and great work thank you good okay so next we have our student representative updates and I know you've been waiting so thank you first good evening Dr ala chairwoman and all the rest of the school committee members um we're here to talk about like what's going on under School how's the senior life and how it's impacting us um recently seniors have applied to all their early action and early decision um deadlines which is like ranges from November 1st to November 15th so we'll get our results in by December um first quarter is done um a lot of student students have been facing a quite a bit of challenging coming from like summer to like now to adjusting to the school system but um yeah all our grades will be available for students and Guardians um starting tomorrow on Aspen um for the spirit week it went very very well a lot of kids were very enthusiastic and exuberant to share the school spirit um we had a lot of competitions between the costumes for Halloween and um we got to play a lot of um fun games on pep rally which can include musical chair scavenger hunt mummy rap balloon pop and pieing some of our teachers in the face um moving on to freshman elections freshman elections were held on October 11 and the following students were elected as class officers for the class of 2028 um the president is Aiden vice president princess danan secretary Lydia Castillo Treasurer Alex R and historian Jamari Guerrero um on behalf of the senior night it went very well for the following Sports Cheerleading football girls and boys soccer longdistance running girls volleyball and all other their senior nights for the past couple weeks it has been very really nice to see and warming as a senior to see how like all my fellow friends and peers have done so like gone so hard worked so hard in their senior nights and seeing them connect with their families and connect through just school spirit is just amazing to see with one another many students who were looking out for the Futures took the opportunity to take the sale of by literacy test during school hours on October 24th and um for the cafeteria update I just wanted to personally um thank principal Morales and Miss lamboy for the beautiful cafeteria that was built students were very delighted with the new cafeteria many have expressed that it's very helpful to be able to get together without having to deal with going outside especially under the tents where it's super super cold um I did also want to highlight um how like beautiful they installed it um it's literally I don't know if you guys know but like the Mean Girls like yeah it's literally like the Mean Girls where you walk in it's like a beautiful cafeteria like everyone has their own click of people their own Niche and like there's the huge round table in the Middle where like basically all the popular kids in it's just literally like Mean Girls And yeah and we have amazing new bathrooms in there which is perfect which is really accessible for people who on the first floor I know it's really troubling to find floor like bathrooms all over the floor but it's really accessible so thank you we appreciate it one of the aspects that many students love about Korea is the increased seting which makes it possible for friend groups to sit together sit together personally I love the new design because it looks aesthetically pleasing which is like wow you know and it's very more it's very much more organized than before the floor tiles like alternating right and the lights look very beautiful and are very uh visually pleasing to the eye and moving on to National Honor Society National Honor Society has recruited 23 new members eight of which are seniors and 15 who are Juniors they're all very enthusiastic to be able to serve the community Through community service the National Honor Society will also be having uh will also be selling candy bags from December 1st to December 18th on the aspect of uncoming events at CHS right Chelsea High School um this Friday November 15 Chelsea High School will be hosting a career in no a College and Career Fair for students to go and um Talk interact with colleges and jobs right um many students are also looking forward to Thanksgiving break which will start Wednesday November [Music] 27 and we invite you all to watch uh to come and watch uh drama club snow angel play which will be starting December 5th so next uh school committee meeting and we'll go through December 7th and so you all know my birthday is December 8th noted it's all in that weekend candy bags coming right up yes thank you um I just want to say thank you you were so thoughtful about how you exchanged between each other you can tell you plans and um thank you for being so thoughtful and u a shout out to Monica and Miss principal Morales about the cafeteria and that was really principal Morales came to Chelsea High School several years ago and said this cafeteria is really small we need a new cafeteria and I'm just looking at him like okay how are we going to do this we and and um Monica's like Monica we need a new cafeteria and so we just made she we made it happen um and the city also generously helped us with funding for the cafeteria so um we're so grateful that you like it and um now I'm going to have Mean Girls in my head that table that's I know what table you're talking about so don't eat the granola bars thank you so much for she's going to go sit at that Round Table find sitting at the round table thank you so much for um letting us know like everything that's that's coming up and I and one thing it's it's it's really helpful for us to know about any type of fundraising or um activities that you guys do because we Love Actually supporting you guys um we know that um there's a couple of events coming up um that we we do and I know that some of us are support in spirit while other us um support in physical form but but um we like to know so definitely bring it up to to the table all the time so that we can you know buy the candy bags we want to be able to be as involved as possible in all your activities um we enjoy being there and I think I hope that the students enjoy seeing seeing us there um we feel a little bit of part of of where you're um The Journey you're going on again we relive High School all over again okay so thank you I'll go ahead and move on to our Personnel report so this month we've hired 35% Caucasian 60% Hispanic 5% black and 0% Asian Pacific Islander and then our school enrollment report the final numbers are on the back if you're looking at the page with me um we're currently at enrollment is at 6,139 so I would like to commend these two reports for the record and turn it over to our chair thank you um we'll try to make this as quick as possible I'd like to um first and foremost we'll move on to our subcommittee reports and um do we have any we'd like to commend the committee report motion second second perfect um we'll move those on and then we'll move on to new business let's start with um our first item consideration and action to accept donations for the annual back to school event in the amount of $500 in financial contributions and approximately $12,500 in donations of items such as backpacks food beverage Etc in support of the of the event can I get a roll call Mr Gomez Pera yes Mr hernanz yes Mr orrian yes Miss koves carabo yes Miss Valderas yes Dr Neville yes Miss Rodriguez yes Miss cabal yes that's eight in the affirmative and one absent a in the affirmative one absent motion passes next item consideration action to accept the gift of an upright piano with an estimated value of $6,000 from Frank and Alice Falone of North ring Massachusetts roll call Mr Gomez Pera yes M Hernandez yes Mr Oran yes Miss carav yes Miss Bas yes Dr Neville yes Miss Enriquez yes and Miss Cabra yes that's see in the affirmative and one absent in the affirmative one absent motion passes next item consideration and action to accept the gift of baking supplies from King Authur Baking Company bake for good program in the estimated amount of $924 roll call please Mr Gomez Pera yes M Hernandez yes Mr rean yes Miss koves carabo yes Miss Bas yes Dr Neville yes Miss Enriquez and Miss cabal yes see in the affirmative and one absent a in the affir a in the affirmative one absent motion passes next item consideration and action to accept a gift of 60 boxes of toilet trees with an estimated value of $600 from the quanis club roll call like to make a correction there it should be the Chelsea kanana Club just want to highlight that okay and I'm a proud member so I had to reiterate that thank you Mr Gomez Pera yes Miss Hernandez yes Mr Oran yes Miss kovas carav yes Miss Valderas yes Dr Neville yes Miss Enriquez Miss cabal yes that's eight in the affirmative and one AB a in affirmative one absent motion passes next item consideration and action to accept the gift of six $50 gift cards from zo Zoda Club roll call Mr Gomez Pera yes Mr Hernandez yes Mr orrian yes Miss koves carav yes Miss Valderas yes Dr Neville yes Miss henriquez and Miss cabal yes that's eight in the affirmative and one absent eight in the affirmative and one absent motion pass passes and with that we end our new business um does anyone have anything that they would like to comment or speak about before we close the meeting I have an announcement yes um I just wanted to highlight that the Chelsea Community Connection coalition's e8th annual Chelsea codes for kids is happening uh November 12th 13th 19th and 20th of this year from 10: to 2: p.m. um it's an inperson event with no registration required each family can receive one or two children's coats they have children's coats from sizes from newborns to 18 so if anyone needs that please hit up Chelsea Community connections thank you very much um I just recently attended a session with the am Church on Bellingham Street um discussing the um slavery Coalition slavery Legacy Coalition and is a really insightful um film around Harvard's history um and um legacies of slavery there but also unpacking how um that's connected to Chelsea's history as well um and the different ways we can continue to honor black history within our city and so I encourage you all uh to continue to um seek out the slavery Co um Legacy coalition to learn more about um how we can uplift these stories um particularly those of our um black residents here in Chelsea and so I just wanted to highlight that recent um event and I know um Dr Neville also attended that with me and I'm sure she'll share her her insights as well um and then I also wanted to give a reminder that um November 23rd at 10:00 a.m. we have the Red Devil Turkey Trot 5K and run so if you want to come run with me cabal for Chelsea um we love to see y'all there um to be um the contributions of this 5K do go to support our student athletes in an amazing scholarship that I actually was able to benefit from as a Chelsea High School um student and so I would love to see you all there whether you're walking running or supporting uh we would really appreciate um your support thank you thank you very much and good luck my cousin's also running I'm run real slow then I may be able to walk with you um yes it it was a lot of fun it was there last year and it was it was a lot of fun um but thank you everyone thank you for all your comments and all your contributions to everything that we' discussed today um I think that it was probably one of the most rewarding um school committee meetings that I've had in the 15 years I've been here I think we really um worked very well together today towards this and that makes me very happy um and I want to thank everyone who was attend attended attended the conference with me this past um last week I should say and when I say attended the conference with me I'm using that term loosely I was not I attended the conference the first day but everybody helped me um get better and um I hope everyone had brought back a lot of information to share with me so thank you so much um for everyone's support and everyone's um it was great to see so much of Chelsea at the conference and to be able to look into the audience and and see so many of my peers there with us made us I think very very happy and made us feel very supportive we I had several people approach me with so many positive comments about Chelsea and things they've heard of Chelsea and asking for advice which listen in in 15 years I have to say I have not got in that approach many times so that made me feel like we are truly doing good work um so thank you everyone because I think this is definitely a team effort and with that I say good night and thank you for coming meeting is adjourned oh motion to adjourn the meeting motion to adjourn I will second that motion thank you I think we were I was so an it's teamor it's e for