Welcome to the Monday, November 24th, 2025 meeting of the Dennis Yammer Regional School Committee. Please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. 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. >> Thank you. Uh we will start with our uh the first item on there is the John and Abigail Adams scholarship recommendation. Uh that is going to be tabled to a future
date. We had some families and students who could not make it due to the holiday week. So that item will be moved uh and postponed to a future date. I think we have it on our updated calendar which is the January 26th, 2026. We will have We
welcome the students. Then uh next we'll move to our student representative report from Miss Drao. >> Good evening everyone. Um so we'll start with last Friday um the art Spanish and German national honor societies. We
helped the Haritch food pantry package over like 500 Thanksgiving meals which was a super fun and meaningful experience. Um I really feel like we're you know getting into the holiday spirit. um and continue with this holiday holiday vibe. Um the DIY craft
fair helped support the senior class which lasted from 10:00 to 4 last Saturday. I actually participated as a vendor which was really fun. Um we had a great turnout and we got to see a lot of amazing local craftsmanship and
community engagement. Um in musical news or sorry not really music oh yeah musical news. Um, there's a DY holiday concert coming up on the Tuesday. We returned from break. I think it's December 2nd at 7. Um, the NHS
inductions just occurred as well. So, um, we're welcoming many new faces, juniors, and some seniors to the DY NHS chapter. So, it's very exciting. Um, fall sports have pretty much wrapped up. Um, as I'm sure you've heard, the girls um, field hockey won the state
championship um, which was the first um, or sorry, the first being in the 90s and last was um, in 2018. So, this is a huge accomplishment for the girls and for our school. Um, winter sports will commence after the break. Um, basketball, hockey, track, um, which is all looking like
very promising seasons. And, um, the fall play also was this weekend. Um, I wish I'd gotten to attend Um this week we have a very short week um with a half day on Wednesday and that starts our Thanksgiving break. Looking forward to spending this holiday
celebrating gratitude and being together especially during a stressful time for a lot of us in the year. So that's all. Thank you. >> Thank you. We all want to know how you did in sales. Did you do okay? Was it did it go to the entire group or did it go to the individual or how did it work?
So basically like each of the vendors like paid their spot to like be in it and then like I think for students it was less like my rate was less to be in it. Um and then the sales go to like each business. So >> perfect. Thank you so much. A lot of
great things going on uh in our community and in our schools. So thank you for sharing. Uh next we have a MCCAST accountability presentation uh by Dr. Smith, Dr. Watts, Mrs. Pontius, and Miss Santini. green button. >> Good evening. There we go. See,
sometimes it's user error, just not in this case. All right. Um, good evening. I'm Mark Smith, superintendent, and uh, we're going to kick off uh, a series of MCCAST presentations over the next three meetings. So tonight, we're going to start by giving you the district overall
perspective. You're going to hear from the four of us. Uh we're going to trade off a little bit and we're just going to give you the 30,000 foot view of the district results or the results from the district perspective. And then over the next two meetings, you'll hear from the
schools. You'll hear from the L3 elementary schools and the intermediate school at the next meeting. And then at the the second meeting in December, the middle and the high school will come and present their results. And you'll again see some very similar format and structure. So tonight, we'll be laying a
little bit of the groundwork uh for some of the the data that you'll be seeing in a very consistent way over the next couple of meetings. So, I'm going to kick us off and I'm going to kick us off by showing you a very uh convoluted table, but again, you're going to see
this from each of the schools as we go forward. And what you have on the left is the district's what's referred to as the district's report card. So at the time that MCCAST comes out uh we also get uh it's part of a larger
accountability structure from the department of ed and the MCCAST is one measure upon which the schools get an overall accountability schools and district get an accountability rating. And so this is
the district's overall accountability for the 2025 school year. And this you can this is publicly available so this isn't a secret. If you anybody who's interested you can go right on you can Google um desi profiles or desi district
profiles and then just they bring you up a nice little map of Massachusetts and you click and it brings you into the into the region and then into the specific district. And then from here you can then drill into each individual school. And there's actually even even on this page there's a bunch of much
more detailed information. But for a primer, the way accountability works is there are five big areas that districts are rated get their accountability ratings for. And those are the five different colors that you see in the
chart. So the two that come from the MCCAST are the achievement and the growth factors. So the first two there, the light blue and the greenish colored ones, the neon green there, those come from your MCCAST, um, primarily from the
math and the ELA. But however, there are obviously those certain grade levels where you have the science and then the growth comes only from the ELA and from the math because they're the only the growth the way the growth is uh calculated is you have to have con years
kids take the test in consecutive years and the the way the science is spanned out it is that kids never take it in a consecutive year. So the growth is only calculated for ELA and for math. And then you'll see as you start to look at oh sorry I'll finish that. Then there is
uh high school completion and there are some sort of subsections for high school completion progress towards attaining linguish English proficiency. So that's for our uh English language learner population. And then there are what they call additional indicators and by
statute the uh and this actually is by federal statute that then states can pick additional indicators that and then in Massachusetts the current current two are chronic absenteeism and advanced coursework. Now you can imagine here at the district
all of this applies to us but depending upon the school that's going to present to you some for the high school pretty much all of this applies especially and and you're going to see a very similar chart for this for the high school because this chart's also broken down on
the right hand side you see uh u sections that apply to our high school age students and even though our high school is 8 to 12 they specifically mean 9th grade and above and anything that is non high school is anything from 3 to 8
and our high school includes 8 to 12. So they have both high school scores and non- high school scores because they have eighth graders who take the MCCAST and they have eighth graders who could be chronically absent and they have eighth graders who fit into all these buckets and they have 9th through 12th graders. So, they get scores in both
buckets. And our K3 schools when they're up here presenting to you, you'll they'll have they won't have any graduation information because their kids don't graduate high school until much, you know, because they're only in the third
grade. Um, and they won't have growth information because they only take the test in the third grade. You have to have backtoback years in order to have growth information. So they won't have a growth indicator, but they will have chronic absenteeism. They won't have advanced coursework because advanced coursework only applies to our high
school age kids, right? So you can see some of these things will apply to some schools and some of these things won't apply to other schools. But so that's just sort of giving you a sense of what it is you're looking at. And then I've asked each school then to look at at the overall picture and give you a sense of
what are some of the highlights from their report and what are the some of the areas for growth. and doing the same for the district. As we look at our our report card as a district, some of the highlights here are in the areas of growth. So across these uh and and the
way this report card works is if you drill into the very specific data that's behind all this and you can when you're online, they set benchmarks. So where were you last year? Where were you the year before? And where do they project you need to go in the in the following years? And then it's all about what what
progress are you making towards your benchmarks. So if you exceed your benchmark, you get a four out of four. If you meet your benchmark, you get a three out of four. If you make some progress towards your benchmark, you get a two out of four. And you can sort of see how the scores go down from there. Um if you make no progress or you
decline, you get a zero out of four. So for us, some areas for um some highlight areas for us are in the growth indicator across whether we're looking at all student groups, whether we're looking at the high school level, whether we're looking at the um non-
high school level. Uh we've we've either made some progress or made uh met our progress in all areas, both subject areas. Um that's a an area of strength for us as well as for our English language proficiency. Again, it's an
area in which we have as a district in in totality have made great strides. And then finally in our advanced coursework indicator, another area where you can see we exceeded our benchmark. Uh get a four out of our four points there. And then looking as a district for grow for
areas for growth. While at the high school level, we did well in the growth area, our achievement is still not meeting the levels that we want to. again. And when we look at the high school, we're talking specifically nine and above, even though we have eighth grade in our high school. Our graduation
rate is still an area for growth for us at the high school level. And then in this, and you'll see this, it shows up in every school's report, but chronic absenteeism, I've talked about this already in some of our previous meetings that it's an area for focus um in our
you saw it when I presented about this year's strategic plan. This is where a lot of that's dri driven from one of our action items this year. But a chronic absenteeism for us as a district is an area for growth for us. Um and and has been a focus for us right out of the gates uh so far starting this school
year. All right, I'm going to turn over. We're going to get into ELA and mathematics specifically. >> Good evening. I'm Sher Santini, director of humanities. Um the data in this slide represents the incremental progress made towards the percentage of students
meeting and or exceeding expectations on the 2025 ELA MCCAST. There was a 5% increase overall from last year and an increase of 10% to grades three, six, and seven. The implementation of learning walks to inform decisions regarding curriculum and professional
development needs, providing targeted feedback to teachers, a focus on writing, and the completion of the curriculum review process at both 6 through 8 and K to 5 all contributed in part to the data that we are now seeing. Hello, Betsy Pontius, director of STEM
instruction. The data in this slide depicts the percentage of students who are meeting and exceeding expectations. And you can see this over time. The overall percentage for students meeting and exceeding expectations in 2025 went
up 2% from last year to 32%. What is interesting is when we begin to look at grade levels. Our grade three results show that 51% of students scored in meeting and exceeding expectations, surpassing the state grade three
results. Grade six is nearing the state averages meeting and exceeding percentages coming in at 37% this year from spring data. This data is an indication of positive momentum reflecting last year's strategic work instituting learning walks and
calibrating observation and feedback among district leaders. As already mentioned, there are multiple ways to look at the data. In this slide, you will see a deeper dive into student progress over time. There has been healthy growth at each of the elementary schools. Ezra Baker Innovation saw a 13%
increase in the percentage of students meeting or exceeding. Margaret Small increase by 6% and Station Avenue Elementary saw a 10% increase. The middle school also improved their performance by 11% over the previous year. With the implementation of Amplify ELA at grades 6 through 8 and the phased
implementation of inter reading at grades K to 5, we are optimistic that that progress will continue. When we look at the percentages of students meeting and exceeding by school, you can see that nearly every school has met or surpassed the previous
year's results. The school byschool data alongside the overall math results clearly demonstrates that we are solidifying core academic skills in our foundational grades through our deepened curriculum implementation efforts. Consequently, as our students progress
through Dennis Yarmouth, they will be increasingly prepared for the rigorous work required by our high school math curriculum. Our strategic actions are beginning to show tangible and positive results across the district, paving the
way for sustained student success. So as we've looked at the data both in the total aggregate as a district we see slow and steady improvement as we look at it over time school by school we see some some pro we seeing slow and steady
progress again as Miss Pontius just left off at every school uh both in ELA and math the data shows us that we're at or better uh percentage of students that are meeting or exceeding than last year. And then the
next way for us is to then look at we're looking at the data by the cohort. Um and we're noticing some trends and patterns at the cohort level which is then focusing our work for this year which as we look at the data this way. And so this is looking at it for ELA and
this is looking at it for mathematics. But what we notice is some consistence consistency in when we follow groups of kids as they move through the system, we find particular points within the system in which their data either is bolstered as they pass through a particular grade
level or tends to dip as they pass through a particular grade level. And so that helps us determine where additional resources may be needed andor uh additional professional development may be needed in order to
ensure that uh that pattern does not continue moving forward. Um so like as you look at these these are two two different ways of looking at the same data. So if you were to look at um take the chart on the left uh that and you
look at the middle right there it says current eighth graders. So the 24 25 school year that is their when they took the test that 20% that was their seventh grade MCCAST right so you can then follow them backwards. Well how were
they when they took it as sixth graders? How were they when they took it as fifth graders? So on and so forth moving backwards. Um then the other is looking at a grade level year after year after year. So in order to see the same group of kids, you have to sort of move diagonally from down and left to right.
Um it's just the data sliced a different way, but it is still the same data. Um but again as we look at this and our job here is not to publicly call out a particular group but we are looking at this data in a way to say okay so how do we support any particular areas where
kids um uh because it's the same group of kids. So it's not about the kids it's about the system and how is the system maybe not supporting a group of kids as a group of kids pass through the system. So how does the system need to bolster itself so that if a group of kids has
35% meeting and exceeding in one year and then becomes 20 or 25% the following year then something in the system is not supporting those kids because it's the same group of kids. So their proficiency as a group should not drop by 10%. As they move through the system and if that happens year over year then it says
there's something in the system that needs support. It needs boosting and bolstering bolstering. And so this is a this is all a new uh data platform that we put in this year that allows us to look at the data in all these different ways more easily. And we could do this with
spreadsheets last year but it was very very difficult and cumbersome to do. This allows us to do it with two clicks. >> Good evening. My name is Kate Watts and I'm the director of multilingual learner education. It's a pleasure to be here. Um, so I just wanted to give you an
overview of our um, ML department. And so when you look at the slide, this past year there were 554 students that were tested um, with the access test, which is kind of like the MCCAST for multilingual learners to show
proficiency in English language proficiency. Um, so this past year there were 554 students. Back in 2021, um there were 277 students. So, you can see that the number of students has
doubled in the last five years. For this group of students, 36% were taking the test for the first time. Um meaning that 64% were taking it for the second, third, or fourth time.
This past year, 57% of the students made effective progress against their target. Um, which is excellent news and um is in line with the strategic um objective of having students be at 65% by the year
2029. 17% of the students attain proficiency and were able to exit the English language program. And um the high average median student
growth percentile was 63 which um is also showing their effort and um their growth over time. So when we look at the highlights of the data the participation rate was 100%. We're looking for at least 98% so that's
in line. Eight out of 12 grades exceeded the district's um progress goal and all grade levels obtained moderate to high levels of growth percentile as I previous stated previously stated um
ranging from 44 to 81. When we look at areas of focus, we um see that we would like to increase the percentage of students gaining proficiency throughout the district, especially our level 3es that need to obtain a 4.2 to exit the program. Um we
would like to see the percentage of high school students making effective progress increase as well. And then when we look at the different domains of language, writing and speaking are the two domains that we would like to put extra effort into.
Our response um is a phased approach. Since I'm new, I would just like to give you a little snapshot of the things that we're thinking about. Um in year one, we want to see a more consistent implementation of the model benchmark testing which is in progress. We are
looking to do um a lot of what is already happening in math and in English with the unit in lesson internalization. In year two next year, we would like to focus on SEI strategies for content area classrooms. These are the classrooms
that students are in every day for math, science, etc. to help those teachers support multilingual learners in their classrooms. And then in year three, we would like to deepen and strengthen the components that we already mentioned. Thank you.
>> Through the chair, we'll take any questions. >> Is that a hand, Phil? Mr. Morris, >> it's useful to have it pointed out by the presenters verbally since it does not lend itself up to a quick read. But
then again, you're going to be gathering information and reporting it out for a large cohort. You don't want to be you can easily oversimplify or mass areas that lend itself to review. I'm
impressed by the amount of work that went into reading the the cohorts and maybe a maybe a bigger bigger printer would help in terms of some of data, but
this is an entirely different picture from the MCAST uh annual dog and pony show. So, I'm favorably impressed with the data that went into the thinking that went into showing what
we were looking for and glad that you're reporting it back to somebody like me who needs all the help we can get. >> Yeah. You know, I I've I've I've said I think probably since I start shortly after I started, you know, we have a we
have a long way long road still to go as a district, right? I don't think any of us are comfortable with you know numbers as a district where we have 30 in the where achievement meeting and exceeding percentages are in the 30s as a district
as a whole right and as superintendent on the other side of that I can't be anything other than pleased with the fact that we're making progress if we were stagnant and had those numbers
numbers, I would be doubly upset. But we're this is the second year in a row where we're making consistent progress in every single grade level. We're better off than we were or at least equal to or better off than we were the year before in the two main subject
areas. And we're and then it like there are other signs where specifically in the area where we've had curriculum in place for a long time where it's moving its way up through the system, right? Some of these things do take a little bit of time. I'm not typically a patient
person. Um and um I have to remind myself to be a little bit patient. So there are some positive some other positive indicators uh in the data as well. uh does none of us are resting, but it's also okay to
stop and you know celebrate because the the the staff have been working hard. You know, the teachers in particular uh we've asked a lot of them um and they've risen to the challenge. >> Thank you, >> Miss Landers.
Um, on the first slide, the report card, and unfortunately, I tried to look at this on my computer today. I tried printing it out. I tried it on my phone. Like, there's um glasses on, glasses off. There's no way to really see these numbers. So, I don't know what other
format this is available in. >> I can share the link with you. Or yeah, maybe just >> plus I think I think I said it before um you were able to get here, but this is right on the Desi website too and you can drill into all of this. >> All right, I'll try looking because I'm
really struggling to read these numbers, but on the very first slide on the report card, I just these are going to be dumb questions. High school completion, all students, high school grades, points earned. We
earned zero out of 12 points. >> Yeah. So, so it's all about uh progress towards benchmarks, right? So the way the the it works if you were to go on and again I was trying to keep the um
presentation reasonably in length but if you were to go on to the um the DESIE website again this is all publicly available information and then there's a um there's a tab forget exactly what it's entitled but it says something to
the effect of like detailed indicators and I might be getting the wrong name slightly wrong But and you click on that and then it gives you all the detailed information behind all of these indicators. And what the what the department does is it sets benchmarks.
So if you're let's say and I'm I'm going to start just randomly making up numbers, but let's just say for the argument sake last year the the average ELA score at the high school on the MCCAST was a 489.
Then they say and the year before it was a 488. Then they project and they say okay well then the next year it should be a 4896. Right? So they set a benchmark for how far you should grow. And then the scores
on a zero to four are based upon your progress towards that benchmark. A four out of four is you've exceeded your benchmark. A three out of four is you met your benchmark. Two out of four is making progress. And and then I forget exactly what the one and the two are or the one is, but the zero I know is
either you did not meet it or you declined um on your benchmark. And it's the same for that's what those achievement markers are. Growth is the same. They give you a uh an average uh growth score. The
growth is on a percentile from zero to one to 99. um the four-year graduation rate, the extended graduation rate, the annual dropout rates, those are again percentages on 0 to 99.99. Um chronic absenteeism again as a on a
percentage of uh the percentage of students that are chronically absent. So you want a lower number, you know, you you want ideally you want zero. um our district averages hovers around 20 just
below 25%. >> Right? So I mean to state the obvious right this does not paint a very rosy picture of our district zero I mean so the all students non- high school grades
6 out of 12 out of eight you know but at the high school level I you know I I recognize that five out of eight on the growth and I came in when you were talking about that but you know zero out of 12 on achievement women and zero out of 12 in high school completion. Um,
yeah, it doesn't paint a very rosy picture of this district. Um, and the other slide I the other thing I wanted to draw attention to and just sort of question was um,
you know, so I'm I'm really interested in the cohort data um, and then also the testing over time. And if you look at the math testing over time,
the is that the current 10th graders or is that last? It must be last year's 10th graders. >> Are you this slide or the cohort data? >> District data, math cohort data. Yeah. So down at the bottom on the right
hand side, grade 10. I mean, whether it's last year's 10th graders or this year, it's got to be last year's 10th graders. >> Yeah. So, 55 52 44 27 27.
Um, you know, we're we're going in the wrong direction here. >> Yeah. And you'll see it when we're here when the high school is presented. and it's the the and that's indicative of what you see in the high school data. It's again it's and and it is one grade
level, right? So there's a um but what you'll also see when the high school's here to present is what the the high school stabilized where the rest of the state dropped. So, what you're going to see, I'm gonna spoil Miss a little Miss Bennett's presentation, but where the
state saw with a with the change of the CD, um you saw a 6% drop in the state, >> um that our high school actually saw a 1% increase. So, we're back bucking the state trend. So, there's it's a little
bit more nuanced. Again, none of that or over a fiveyear trend. Am I excited about any of that? No. But we were heading in the wrong direction and then that where the state fell, we didn't fall. So there's some signal there that we're we're installing
some things that I'm hopeful that the following year we're going to now start to move in the right direction. But where the entire state when all of a sudden Amcast no longer counted as a graduation requirement, the entire state fell by six, it did not
in DUI. Um and then in the math year overyear um by school. Am I reading this right? So that dotted
line in the middle is the state average at what? 41 is that? >> Yes. >> All right. And so state, intermediate, middle, >> and then what you have the gray is the
the prior year for each of those schools and the green is the current year for each of those schools. >> Right. So So what we see there is growth at all the schools except for the high school. >> Yes. Yeah. By two percentage points.
Correct. >> Thank you. Miss Beus. >> So if you think about your strategic plan, there's goals there over within we're in
year two. Um what do you do with this information? Does anything change? How I mean other than dissecting it, reporting it out, how is it shared with either the middle school or high school in particular? Uh what happens next? Do you
reallocate where services are or instructional coaches are? Is there anything midcorrection for this year? >> Yes. So part of it informs uh what we're about to enter into. So part of it is short-term, part of it is
longer term. So you know, and part of it is reaffirming. So part of it is affirming the strategies that we put in place. As I mentioned, you know, when you look at a slide like this one, whoops. And this one, well, this this is more of a multi-year
effort. We can see the results of a multi-year effort when you see the three through six data. And then we look at some of our internal data on the K to2 which obviously they don't take MCCAST but when you see the implementation of multiple years of of um
coaching um multiple years of curriculum study working its way up through the district. You see the influence of that on the uh on the data as it move as the kids move up through the system. Right? you know,
these are kids who've now had multiple years uh of teachers who've had that training and and it sometimes it takes a little bit of time. The and then it informs where do we need
continued focused support um and that part of that is also then looking at the cohorted data. So part of it's affirming the strategy that we've been using and then part of it is saying um going forward and in this year where do the
folks behind me need to focus some of their time u and when you have the remaining teams come to f to present on how they're focusing uh their energies at the school level
and uh again we have seen some patterns in the cohort data around particular areas where as kids, you know, pockets of groups move through where they tend to have consistent dips. And that's been, you know, we were just on learning
walks today um and last week. And those are some of the deliberate conversations we're having there around what's the feedback that needs to happen in those areas in order to boost um the support in order to ensure the instruction is
consistent so the kids don't move uh through pockets in the district where maybe they aren't as supported, aren't getting the instruction and the curriculum delivery in a way that uh ensures stability u and pro is in the progress that we want to see through the
curriculum. I know this is the first year that all the schools have a longer school day, but um as the schools begin to report out, uh I've been looking at the website and I know it's about to change and I
don't have a real good sense right now of how many hours uh of instruction and English and math and of course the upgrades adding on science. So I'd like to have a better sense on a typical schedule day, you know, what the amount
of actual instruction is. Do you want us to answer that question right now? Because we can >> for all of the schools. >> Yes. Right. We can do Yeah. So, sorry. Literacy. Our K3 buildings
have 120 minutes for um their ELA block. 45 has 90 and then 6 through 12 has 60. And that's in line with the curriculums that we're the one we adopted at 6 through 8. And what we're looking at, what we're implementing right now for
K5, the inter reading. I'm trying to listen and write down fast. I might love this in a follow-up email at some point. >> Very similar for math except um in K to 5 the math block is 60 minutes which is the recommended amount by the curriculum
and then um at the high at the middle school um the periods are 50 to 60 minutes and the recommended time is 45 for a lesson. Um, and then at the high school, I believe the blocks are 65.
Any other questions down at the other end? I can't see. Thank you, Mr. New. Um, >> all set. >> I I heard you. Um, obviously the same things that Jenny points out, it some of these slides are very hard to read, but a a zero out of 12 is very clear. Um and
then looking at it, you know, looking at the trends from 2021 to this year, state versus us, um we're clearly below the state. You know, we had a huge dip last year, which was concerning to all of us, uh specifically
in ELA, um and it caught back up to 2023, but still not at 2021 numbers and still uh below the state. Um, and I know you said this is on Desi's website. Is there a way to compare us to
other Cape schools? Like, can is there a way for us to look at that? Because again, there's 355 schools and municipalities in the state of Massachusetts. You know, I would just be curious of how we look across the Cape because, you know, in a way that's
who we're competing with, right? And you know to us it's we're curious to see I I would be curious to see how we're looking towards other schools in on the Cape. Um >> yeah so I would so to answer that question and then to go back to um the
the comment. So yes again anybody can do it. I'm happy to produce something for the school committee if they'd like. Um but right on that same there's the the wealth of publicly available information just for the public to know is unbelievable at this point on the
department's website. on that same if you again if you just Google de Jess desi um district profiles it'll bring you to our page and then across the top you know you click on this tab would be accountability and then that brings you to our report card and you can drill
into all this information but there's another tab on the top that says dart dart t uh district analysis something tool um I should know what dart stands for but there's too many acronyms for me to keep them all in my head and the dart
tool tool allows you to select of the all the districts in the state of Massachusetts. It allows you to select whichever ones you want. So you can pick the all the cape tool all and it allows you to compare across a bunch of things including your MCAT scores, but you can do it across financial indicators. You
can do it across all sorts of stuff. Um, but the Dart tool allows you to look across um, again, you can pick I think it's up to 11 different districts um, to compare uh, your school district up against all the other ones. And then the other thing that I would say is is I
just don't want to lose sight of the high school, you know, has a high English language proficiency score and a high advanced uh, coursework participation score, right? So is a
little bit of a sort of a bifurcation at the high school where the work and principal Bennett and I have had this conversation. There's a there's a group of students who do really really well. We have one who comes here and presents to us and it's about how do as a school
and quite frankly this extends across our entire district. How do we help ensure that everybody is moving across um the finish line successfully? And so we, you know, we send kids to some of the top schools every year. Um so we have a we have we're serving our top um
end students very very well. Um it's just sort of how do we make sure we're closing the gap to ensure that um we don't have sort of that real separation between who's accessing really well and and who's not. >> Spis, you had a follow-up. >> Uh a comment and uh yeah, I did play
around because I like Jenny, I couldn't read any of it. So I I did go to Desi today and looked a different place and and that is correct. The percentage of students who take advanced coursework is comparable to uh our neighboring
communities. Um and then here's a I'm probably asking a dumb questioning. Um I still don't understand what high school completion rate means. Does that mean the percentage of students who graduate within four years and it could be
different for us or I mean >> it's an awkward CRO to >> Yeah, it's a gra again it's and it's it's your it's it's all about progress towards what they set as your next benchmark. So if our graduation rate was 87.8
and they say now the next step is 88.2 how much progress did you make towards getting towards the 88.2% graduation rate? And then the other number is the extended graduation rate which is the number of kids who graduate within five years because you have some students who they take an extra year for whatever
reason to graduate within I can't get the slides to advance hitting wrong but whoops wrong too far. So those two um and then sort of the inverse of your graduation rate is your dropout rate. It's not although they're not directly correlated
um because your dropouts leave the system entirely where your four-year graduation um rate and your extended graduation rate um kids might not graduate in four years.
Um they might take an extended period to graduate. Some of them it's like that summer um they have to do some credit recovery um but they're they don't make that four-year um cohort but they end up in the extended um graduation cohort
>> slenders. >> Um I also wanted to look at the ELA yearoveryear um by school. So from 2021 to 2025, intermediate school goes from 40% over 5
years to 27%, middle school from 46% to 38%, high school from 44% to 33%. We see a little bit of fluctuation with moderate improvement, I would say, at the elementary schools.
So are these the sort of points that you're talking about. You mentioned before that we've got points where you can see I mean why are we sort of holding steady moderate improvement at the elementary schools but trending
consistently downwards at intermediate middle and high school. And I'm listen I know you can't answer all these questions right now and these are sort of big questions that I want to ask everybody. And I'm I know it's hard to stand up here and
all of you and and sort of figure out what's behind these numbers and try to defend in a certain way these numbers. But, you know, these are just questions we all have to be asking right now after, you know, five years of of ups
and downs. >> Yeah. And I, you know, the the team has used this, you know, I guess, let me back up a sec. So, it's not been a, I don't think, a surprise to the committee and I've been talking about the
achievement data since I came in. It was a big part of my report entry findings and the work that we do fairly regularly is to look at these patterns and trends and then well, what does it mean? Going back to Miss Beimis' question, like some of this for us out here in this public
meeting, it is not our first rodeo with a lot of this and it's quite frankly like I don't want to say it's old news, but it's it's informed decisions that have already happened. So, you know, Miss Santini's been up here presenting
around curriculum changes in ELA. Well, the impetus for that drive and that change to get the groups together to have conversations about the curriculum is based upon looking at this data which you know you could actually add years going back before COVID and you can see
trends and patterns that extend before this. We could go back six, seven, eight years and you can see trends that um signal that there was a need to do something different and so so yes, we agree and we're putting
things in place and you know 68 was the focus for this year for ELA where we have I always screw it up phased implementation phased implementation I just get want to make sure I get my phrasiology correct um for in curriculum pioneers. Thank you
for um K to 5 and as we get ready to present to you for the budget for uh for FY27 we present to you the plan for full implementation for next year but it's all to address this right um and you
know Dr. Gills is going to present on some grant information which going to show you some of the ways we're spending some of the grant money to help support some of the um professional development activities that the folks uh behind me have been implementing. So again, it's all of those decisions are being made by
what you see up here. >> One question leads to another. Uh I know during the COVID unfortunate years, I wasn't there one year either 2020 or 2021 where the MCAST was abridged or
different or could that be an a skew? Was it 2021? >> No. So, well, 2020 MCCAST didn't happen. >> So, 2021 it was an a bridged test. >> 2022 is when they changed. That's what I was just looking up on my phone because
I couldn't remember what the year was. >> So, there was a significant change to the ELA MCCAST for the 2022 year. If you I don't know if you remember in years past, we talk about the long composition in grades four and seven. Um, and that's when they graded not just their ability
to write over time, but also they look at conventions. Um, there'd always be a prompt and the the kids would take all day and we would have practice prompts. And then in 2022, they changed it that all of the writing was textbased and that conventions counted for every time
kids wrote. Prior to that, if you were doing um what they called an open response, so you read a text and they gave you six or eight multiple choice questions and then there was a prompt um name two qualities of the main character, you could bullet it, you could write a incomplete sentence, you
could just answer the question and if it was correct um you got your points. They changed that. Now everything is now um scored not only for its content but its conventions. So there's a significant change across the board and again it's
not an excuse. It's just there was an significant change in that um the 2022 MCCAST year. So it taken time to adjust all the way through make those adjustments. The curriculums that we
have now do give that um the grading expectation is built in to the platform. So you get your content and you get your convention score and feedback. So and it mirrors what MCCAST looks like. So the kids are getting used to that uh smaller
screen. We've had people have questioned well if they they have to toggle back and forth or the the writing screen is only this big. It really doesn't impact the score, but now they're practicing it regularly. All of their writing happens on the platforms. Well, think I know we all probably have
more questions than now that we'll have time to play on the website. Um, and then unfortunately for the school principles and vice principles when they present, we'll have a lot more questions. Um, you know, but uh thank
you for again the the overview of the district and then again I said we as each principal presents we'll I'm sure we'll have plenty more questions directly for them. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Uh next we have information on uh the CTE recruitment admission retention
policy uh second reading as well as a vote and I believe that committee is Miss Beimis. >> I think you've seen this before. So I'm just going to move that we adopt it as printed.
Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Any questions or discussion? Seeing none, all those in >> favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstain? Motion carries
unanimously. Uh, next we have uh, as Dr. Smith alluded to, we have information on some federal entitlement grants. Um, an overview and a quarterly process report by Dr. Gilson. Thank you. Uh I always enjoy presenting
at school committee meetings and I wanted to say this first slide is actually for Mr. New uh who who asked a wonderful question and it kind of launched me on a a thinking process and I think that as I present leading up to
the budget, one of my goals for all of you is to really help you become functional with reading. If you remember, I gave you like 49 pages of account lines. And so my goal would be to have you get to some degree of
understanding with those. Mr. New's question was actually um you know how as a as a music teacher, you'd been looking at your budget and um trying to buy goods and services for the music department. So I'm going to start very
small. When you are looking at the operating budget, all of those account lines that I will be giving you for the quarterly reports will have a 150. Okay? So, if you go back and you uh were reading the account detail, you would
find that every single one of those has a 150. Now, um I will also uh be giving you this information um again. And so this is the next two uh line or the next
two numbers represent the location of where um the spending happens. So like a 57 uh refers to station avenue elementary. So, if you were a music teacher at Station A Elementary, you
would be using a music uh writing requisitions for music supplies and all music supplies at Station A would be under this account line. If you were um going with the next uh where where do
you think the location is for 65? Which school? If you look at this >> middle school, >> great 100% A+. Okay. And um yes, there you go. You know, and I'd be happy to give you certificates of fiscal literacy
at the end. Um you know, and so again, 731 150 um 73, which school is that? >> High school. >> That's great. All right. So, um again, I always appreciate questions and I um try
to in fact I enjoy questions. Um so um different um than the operating budget, we have something called federal grants and um everybody that presented tonight um Sher Centini, Betsy Ponius, um Kate
Watts, um and Maria um Lopes. Um we're all a part of a team. They write for federal grants. The another name for federal grants is called entitlement grants. They're they're monies that we're eligible for, but they really do
uh require enormous amounts of work um from the whole team. And so the purpose of those federal grant monies is to reduce what is spent in the operating budget. A lot of what you heard tonight um with that part it was part of the
MCCAST presentation the federal entitlement monies are applicable to helping DY improve on a consistent basis um towards um making um improvements in academics growth and
behavior social emotional and um there so they're purposely directed towards continuous improvement. Okay. Um, now I also intentionally used when I described, if you remember this, do you remember this? Because it I referred to
this as bedtime reading, >> okay? >> But I did that intentionally and because I knew I would be using this again to talk about um and and so um basically our auditor, we we are required because we receive federal grants that are above
750,000. it requires us to be audited every single year. Okay. And so um one of the one of the recommendations um was to really improve our processes
um with federal grants and prior to this year uh there was not really a lot of communication between the business office and the grants writing team. So we have um I've looked at this whole
system um I in in um FY uh for this year we getting if you look at this um this is all the information uh on the screen that we all the monies that we're getting from the federal government $2.1 million
and so um we have different grants that add up to that um and the IDA um they're the special education entitlement grants. Um, and then you have uh the title grants. Improving
basic programs means that money is applied to basically reading and math improvement. Um, title two building systems of support. You heard Sher Cintini talk about um, HMH reading and
Amplify, which is the middle school uh, program for uh, reading. Um, and so then you heard Kate Watts talking about the success of the English language acquisition um, and academic achievement
program. And so um, there are lots of monies in there. I will tell you about um, where those monies are being directed to make um, the continuous improvement um, that we are trying so hard to make. Um, and then there's the
student support and academic enrichment grant. Um basically that's the comprehensive um monies to improve um so you might find like civics's um education in that grant but there it's all they're all excellent ways to look
at um improvement. So right now um we have started because we have to um take a look um as part of our audit recommendation we have to create a centralized tracking system. I thought long and hard about how I was going to
create that tracking system and um we um began our process there. We sat down. We're going to repeat the same procedure over the peri over each month through June. One of the reports we're going to uh look at I have everybody on the um
everybody on the team now has access to what I call a grants management report. They can access that in infinite visions. Um and the grants re uh management report um I've sat down with point people um they're going to bring
the data to the meeting and the data that they're going to bring to the meeting basically says what we're spending um what money is being reserved for spending and that's those are the incumbrances and then um after that uh we sit down and we see if it's if we're
aligned with what the grants writing team said they wanted to spend the money on. Okay. So very simple um and um straightforward. Uh we met for the first time and we had we found we had a much better time than everybody thought uh
because we were learning new things um that we didn't know before. And so the other thing that I, you know, I also think say is that as you build like your your understanding because I want you to ask me questions as you um start
learning more about this as we go. Um the basic categories is all about processes and patterns. Um and so I started to introduce patterns to you so you can start recognizing them in the account detail. Um, and then there's
also categories that are a part of each grant. They're pretty consistent. So when we, you know, when we talk about reading and math intervention, and I said offset, the federal grants are used to offset the operating budget. What that means is, you know, we're looking
at um reading and ma math intervention, looking at salaries for coaches, whether they're building level or district level coaches. Um stipens for the mentoring teacher mentoring program. Um stipens for DY teachers that delivering parent
ESL classes. Um liaons that support uh translation into Portuguese, Haitian Creole, um and Spanish. Um and then um contracted services, those are those are professional organizations that support
our learning and we look to um employ national professional consultants like for literacy we're using a company called empower um and we talked about uh systemic change and um the al also um
for math we're using a a a recognizable program through Carnegie There are programs that are about positive behavior intervention and we draw on the May Institute for that and Leslie University to um encourage more
trauma sensitive schools. Um we are also can use some of these funds to go after the high needs uh high needs resources in terms of teachers or um you know we were looking for registered
behavior technician supports. You can't find people who do that anywhere. Um so or the or or the BCBAS which are be um the behavior uh BC board certified behavior analyze analysts. Um so they're
very challenging. Again Sherry mentioned HMH into reading. That's our pilot uh program that we're doing uh to build reading skills and and also include the science of reading um which is a a
recommended approach um that is um teaching kids to read in the elementary schools. Amplify um illustrated math was funded at one point and the district has now absorbed that cost into the operating budget. Eureka um actionbased
civics um middle school through high school there's something called generation citizen. So these programs are critical to the learning and they're coming from the federal grant programs.
So um so I wanted to make that I thought that was important points to make. Um I also have included a um a memo And I'm only going to go through this very briefly, but I just want to highlight the key points of it. And the whole goal
is to have better coordination between the grants office and the business office. The business office needs to know um what the grants office has intended for the purchase of goods and supplies. And um to create a central
monitoring plan, what I did was I looked at um a um consistent. Oh, I want to just like open this up, but I realized I don't have a trackpad to expand it and make it bigger. Any chance you can do something or not?
Okay. And if you can't, I'm just going to go Oh, stop moving the mouse. Okay. Um All right. Cool. All right. Yay. All right. That's really, really good. Okay. So again, um what I talked about was um
anyway, grant this is the 240 grant and again you look at patterns all the 240 grants um you see 240 right here in um and it goes right down through every 240 grant account line and 40 is for federal
grants and 26 is the year of the grant. These are the amounts that this is the amount of the 240 grant. It's $976,000 for the year. Then that's spread out by our accountant um in terms of what the
grant was written for. And so these are all the different amounts. And if you look over the the key points of the narrative, um I broke down into um you know all that people would need to know if they're um filling out a purchase
requisition. Like the first the first one in the narrative points says staff stipens for attending PD outside of the school day. So that's you know when we want staff to go to prof professional development beyond contractual hours. um
that means that uh we have to pay them to attend. And then if you look at um you know we have other the other important thing to know is that um we have off we have some unintended
expenses that arise throughout the year. Like right now, um we are um working with Desi to see if we can apply some of the 240 um uh equipment um to purchase
and that brand new playground has a we go outside. Right. It's a It's a um It's a um accessible um wheelchair and accessible um it's it's like looks like a merry ground if you drive by it. And
um it's really a lot of fun. and I was there today and I the kids were climbing all over it and in it and um so um there are ways that we can work with the grants and we write an amendment um to see if we can work with um the the
funding to buy some of the things that we need if our needs change during a year. So so that's good. Um and um I talked a little bit about in incumbrances too. Um, so if you see the yellow section that's up on the screen
here, um, this yellow section, um, I I have worked with everybody to basically, um, identify a key person outside of the business office that can go in each month and, um, and paste every, uh,
everything that's been spent out of the account lines, everything that is about to be spent. And that's the same thing for every single month. So it will be a good tool for our auditors and for the department of education to say okay yes
there's communication that's going on and then um you know everybody that attends those meetings um will be signing um what I call an account detail report and um to identify and review. We
also using an account purchase order history report will bring that to the um to the meeting. And if you look here at this thing at the at the top, this is what an account history uh detail report looks like. Our accountant will bring
that. And if you look at the top, we talked about coaching um executive coaching for the district. That means we have somebody coming in from Texas um to provide us with uh re to really look at
our um our literacy and to really see um and give us some e expert consulting s suggestions on how we can continue to um promote reading um reading growth across the district. So, if you look at up top,
there's $50,000 that's budgeted for that contract. And right now, if you also look up at the screen, there's incumbrances where um the $50,000 is waiting to it's reserved because we know we're going to spend that money out.
Okay. So um you know and um the last the last part of the meeting is going to involve um one of the key leads that is a grant writer not the business office that brings in um what the GEMS's budget says because the GEMS's budget um oh I
don't have permission to view that file right now but um that's okay. Um, in every grant that is written, um, the Department of Education has a a draw down spot where you can actually see, um, all of the amounts that have been
drawn down to be applicable to every one of the grants. So, um, so a continued goal of the meetings, we're going to just, uh, try to be on track and try to optimize all the spending. And so, um, you know, if anybody has any questions
at any time, if I can't answer them now, I'd be happy to bring something back, too. Yes, >> Mr. Morris. >> Do I detect something that seems to be unheard of for the average school
committee person, meaning we're having business and financial operations being laid out in a way that they as as we see here as opposed to putting out material
that is supposed to be used in the classroom for the individuals in cohort students. This doesn't actually meet uh criteria for individual students. This is something in internal to the
employees to the sta to the staff people on the financial ends. >> Yes. >> So this is a this is a new way of or a new presentation of accountability. >> Yes. Exactly right. You know and I will
also I I'm a teacher always at heart and so therefore I would like people to understand what I'm saying. So, so and always you get more questions u when people understand. So that's my goal
>> with the national news not going to be part of my discussion except to say that decisions made on concepts that are not proven are become into status of legally
binding because no matter how well we teach somebody may think that person or that group, that cohort doesn't belong. Here we're looking at a decision whereby
we must provide proof that what we purchased has been used for what >> what we said it was going to be used for. We have, you know, the the purpose of writing the grants is to make sure that we're accountable to how we're
spending our money. So that was the recommendation in terms of where we could improve and so um part of the um auditor's need was that we provide quarterly updates to the school committee and um I'm also having to do
the same thing with Jessie um and this was previous to it was actually the the report came from FY24 and it was had happened for a couple of years And so we are asked to now be very
consistent with our practices and to encourage more communication between the grant writing team and the business office. So um you know I I I happen to know what we're buying. So that makes me able to make better decisions but not
everybody on the business side and not everybody on the grant side um know. So, it's kind of it's it's interesting to me to to actually um I had to think about which reports to use and put this together. So, um so in my mind, I see
everything all as one. Um you can't do anything without a budget and you can't raise the quality of um the academics and behavior and social emotional growth unless you have systems in place to do
that. I see the difference there have been the traditional decision making on balls. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Anyone else?
>> Great. Thank you. Thank you for laying it out so it's easier for us to understand. Um, you know, someone who does a budget for a business, seeing GL codes just give me anxiety. Um but uh it's great to see where they are and and how to how to read those
large reports. So thank you. Uh next we'll move to subcommittee representatives leaison report school committee leaison the select board. Um anything from the town of Dennis. >> Um I did attend last week's select board
meeting. Uh so the first thing is the recreation department or commission or committee sort of was tasked I mentioned this before with looking at the possibility of a community center in Dennis. We know one of our students
presented about the need for that and you know there's been a lot of community discussion to have a multigenerational sort of place to go. um looking at the bigs land that we now know as the former
Wixon property. Um but uh so they did their first presentation. It's a rough draft. It's an architectural rendering of a community center. Um they were asked to keep it
so many square feet. So, this rendering so far, it's the beginning of a long process, has an indoor basketball court, uh potential pick indoor pickle ball court, um training and athletic rooms
for different kinds of activities, a music room, uh meeting rooms, game rooms where, you know, different people and different ages can gather and do games or activities. So, um it's the beginning of their first presentation. They're
still soliciting input. Uh but the process has started. Um, and the other quick thing in the spirit of Thanksgiving, um, the select board of course are discussing the budget season in Dennis
and the potential of being more creative about the tax rate and perhaps which is a word we haven't used in Dennis and override. But, you know, this is all formative. It's just starting. Um there's a lot more information to be
gathered before there's any decisions or recommendations. But at that meeting, one of the things that was said by uh select board member John Tero, I'll thank them all at some point over the next month and a half, but what he said literally was, I think the members of
this community understand and support uh a change in the tax rate and perhaps even uh an override because what do we know about our community? We have excellent teachers, a great school systems, but we can't comm compete with
other school systems. Uh we thought we were doing okay, but recently other school systems just increase the salaries and and what are we going to do? We can't have good staff if we can't pay them or support them or give them a
chance to live in this community. >> Thank you. Um and then for the town of Yarmouth, uh we had our Yarmouth town meeting and uh we we successfully was voted in for uh $1.5
million for the feasibility study for Emmy Small, which we'll talk about uh two times today. Well, I guess three. So, the next is MES school building committee. Uh we met uh last week. uh we
shared the good news of the hard work of the uh team um Dr. Smith and all the team who submitted all the paperwork to the MSBA. Um, and then the open house that was done at Emmy Small to the
community so that people uh who are unaware or wanted to see in person uh the state of uh some of the property our electrical system um at the open house there was a slideshow of pictures that um were at that have been on the Cape
Cod Times or on our website. Um there was opportunities for tours of the uh rain spouts. Um unfortunately it did not rain and Yarmouth Fire could not put a hose over the building. Um but the
visuals were still plenty to see. Um school building committee will not meet next month uh but will meet in January. Uh December 26 is the date uh the next step. So, we have all of our paperwork has been submitted and it's a waiting
game uh to see what the next steps will be. Um the town clerk has certified the vote from town meeting. Um so that was sent as well so that uh the MSBA knows that the the town has voted to approve
the possibility of of getting the 1.5 million. the 1.5 million will come from free cash from the town of Yarmouth um versus us having to go out and get a loan. Um so great news there and then more to come in a few moments. Um next
we'll move to the superintendent report. >> Thank you. All right, it's going to be the uh stolen thunder superintendent report. But let me start with a recognition of uh donations. So there are um the committee has four separate donation
actually no five separate donations in uh the packet to approve uh and so I just want to give some public thanks uh to the donors. So first uh there's a $100 donation from the praapati family uh that'll go towards gift cards uh here
at the middle school as part of their uh PBIS rewards program and another $500 donation from the MarkX family for the exact same purpose. So for both families, a a big thank you. I know the middle school is very appreciative as a
way to help incentivize their um PBIS program here in the school. Again, without the support from the community, um th those are in in addition to the grants programs, it's it's these types of additional supports that make uh programs like that, those extra things
that we do here just able to happen. In addition, there was $300 donated from Ernie Ray on behalf of the Mount uh Harab Lodge to the Baker School. This was for playground supplies uh over there at the Baker School. In addition,
400 sugar pumpkin cookies were donated from a combination of the uh Baker PTAC as well as Heart Farm Nursery. That was so that each student at Baker uh was able to get one to be able to bring home. Did I What did I say? Pumpkins. Sugar pumpkins. Sorry, I can't read my
own handwriting. Um, and then last, but uh certainly not least, uh, the there was a $10,000 donation made from the Mariel L. and Mary Francis Kylie Foundation to our food service department. This came um at the time as
I'm folks sure folks were aware but when SNAP benefits were not available um due to uh the um shutdown at the federal government and so uh someone had reached out to Rooney Powers our food service director basically was like what can I do to help right so our food um service
program takes care of kids during the day we feed two meals a day every day but there's obviously weekends nights and so somebody's really looking to try to help as best they could to fill that gap. And so that went to supply supplying families in need uh with with
gift cards for food um and other items that you know we don't supply, right? Because SNAP benefits take care of other items as well um that uh the free meal program doesn't take care of. So again, just you know, I've said it before, I'll say it again, our community uh steps up
in so many different ways to support um those that are less fortunate. And these are just another set of uh amazing examples. Uh moving on, I'm not sure what more I can add that uh the chair didn't already speak to, but on Monday uh the 17th, the
feasibility study uh the money for the feasibility study was approved by the Armouth voters. Um uh just to reiterate, the the study will examine three main options. It will look at either a standalone renovation or
replacement of the Emmy small school as a standalone building or it'll look at or and I shouldn't say um it's not an or it's an and and it will look at two different consolidation options. So, one would be a consolidation which would uh
bring Emmy Smalls population of students over to the Station Avenue Elementary School with some type of addition and renovation to the Station Avenue Elementary School. And then consolidate the second consolidation. So, option number three in the total options would be consolidation of both elementary
schools. So, closing both schools and creating some new third school on some other site. Um, so it's going to study all those options. What are the prices involved in all that? what's the scope of all that? Where would the site be? It'll do environmental testing on that site if there's going to be a proposed
site. Um, you know, what what are the future cost needs for Station Avenue Elementary School because that school is 30 years old, so it has some costs. You know, we're working on a capital plan. You know, we already have some estimates, but it's going to give us a better idea. You know, if you open up that building to do a renovation, what
do you have to do to bring it up to a certain code? You know, it's going to examine all those all those items. Um, and then and it'll pull in uh the enrollment data, etc., etc. Um, and then traffic flow. I mean, it's going to look
at all all that stuff. It's going to study all the things so that we don't get down a road um that is going to be too costly um or doesn't consider things like future costs and then present all that information back to the building committee to make a recommendation to
all the respective boards and ultimately to the legislative body which are the uh taxpayers. And then um there are a couple of small items that uh before the 26 that I still need to accomplish. I actually still do need that certified vote that needs to get but that's the
town clerk was on uh at a conference last week. So I'm just waiting to get that certified vote to send along and then there's one enrollment thing that the state needs to send me which I need to certify and send back to them. So I'm just waiting for those two items and all needs to be accomplished before the 26th
and then we'll move into the next phase which will be the feas feasibility phase um which will include um the hiring of a note there was a whole bid process but include the uh selection and hiring of
an OPM the selection and hiring of a designer to uh do the feasibility study and so on and so forth. Next, uh the on Saturday the 15th, so not this past Saturday, but the Saturday before, the Station Avenue Elementary
School held a grand opening event for the new playground. Uh it was a great turnout on a brisk fall morning. the uh actually had a guest appearance from the original uh uh principal uh Sharon
Hartley uh and uh as well as a huge turnout from parents, existing and former staff, town officials uh and uh and it was just a great little you know uh principal Kelly uh did a nice uh
uh introduction to the Kot Times. I don't know if folks saw the pictures in the paper, but some nice uh pictures um of the event and she did a lovely uh introduction and then a lovely little ribbon cutting and opened the space up and the kids poured out into it. It was excellent. And I just really just want
to take this opportunity to thank start with the station PTO. They're the group that sort of germinated this whole idea, I guess, for lack of a better expression years ago. Um started the fundraising effort. they got this project off the ground and then um to the town of
Yarmouth who helped raise over four or helped provide over $400,000 of funding through the CPC and the CIP over the last two or last year really. Um and it's really just a great example what happens when different groups all come
together uh to work in the best interest of our students here um in DY. So, you know, it couldn't have happened if all of these groups didn't work together in order to make it happen. Um, and then last, going back to sort of the stolen thunder, but they've already stole my Thunder, but uh, as she mentioned, uh,
we are state champs. Um, which is awesome. Um, it was also on the same brisk fall day. Uh, took a trip up to, uh, gosh, where were we? I totally lost where the game was. Burlington, thank you. Thank you for somebody having a better better memory than I did. Um, the
DY field hockey game played a game game against Frontier Regional. It was a close game. It was 000 at halftime. Um the Lady Dolphins scored first in the second half, but Frontier scored like within just within a couple of minutes. So, it was right back to a 1-1 tie right up until just over two minutes left in
the game when the the Lady Dolphins scored again and then were able to hold on till the end. Um so, it was really like I don't know anything about field hockey. Like I don't understand when or why they blow the whistle, but I can tell you I was into it. Um and and I
happened to be up there. my um my wife and I went up, we made a day out of it because her high school was also in they were in just in a different one of the divisions, right? So, we spent the whole day up there, went out to lunch in between the two games, but and I've said this to to the Kender Ben Bennett, the
high school principal, and a couple other folks, when you go and watch two different high school games, like you actually take some things for granted until you see a different state championship performed by a different school, right? our when I'm up there DY
like all the DY families like there's a huge kid presence right and they're all together all cheering like doing the traditional like you know chance like that you know school kids do and the not only out onto the field but like kind of the back and forth you know that goes
back and forth between two schools like I don't know kind of like 50 sock copy stuff like like but like really kind it was cool it was just really cool to be a part of and I was just like oh of course this is like I've never been to a state championship game before. I'm like, "This is what happens." And then when the girls won like just like the sheer
joy and the cheering and the they all came over and everybody's like cheering and the music's playing like the you know the stadium's playing we are the champions and everybody's like dancing and swaying back and forth with them and everybody's like congratulating and that's like and I was just like of course right. So then I'm there for the
other game. Unfortunately my wife's high school didn't win but but the whole game the kids aren't together. or there's no like cheering. Everything's kind of spread out. And then when the other team won, there was some cheering and some celebration, but it was nothing like, and this is just something I've come to
experience like when the Best Buddies basketball game happens at the high school, like the inside of the gym is pandemonium at the high school in a good way. And so it's just something that I think I've come to take almost take for granted that the DY community like
travels like that and is like the DY basketball if anybody's been to a basketball barnstable DY game. It's again it's it's crazy up there. So and I don't know like go to the encore um uh performances for the marching band like it's the same like the community shows
up and shows out right. So again, it it shouldn't have surprised me, but until you sometimes you see those two things juxtaposed against each other, it you don't realize that it's special and unique um for your community. So I just wanted to I don't know, point that out.
I guess >> great. Thank you. You know, the the DY pride is strong. Um and it's it's a great thing to see. Uh next we have school committee business. Um we're exciting to announce that we have a new member joining us. Um me Margaret
Marshall uh or Meg Marshall um will be joining us in replacement of Mr. Glenn. Um she's traveling for work overseas today. Uh so she not will not be with us. Um I believe she will be back in time for Monday the 1st uh to welcome her officially. Um and then next we have
the consent agenda. I did notice that the uh $10,000 I did not see on here. Um so we'll table that for next to approve next we can add it. Could we we'll amend the consent agenda to include the
$10,000 uh donation um from the Mary the Kylie Foundation. So we'll amend the consent agenda. So anyone want to move that with the amended? >> So moved. >> Okay. Have a motion in a second. All those in
favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstain? Great. So, we'll have that in there. And then we have the minutes from that include the minutes as well, the 6th and of 29th of September and October 6th minutes. U bills, requisitions, and payrolls. I
know today a new email was sent out. So, make sure you check your email if you have not yet today. Um there is um some bills to be signed for that. um school committee topics and calendars. Um our topics have changed a little due to the
topics haven't changed but we have uh updated what's going to be discussed um or who's going to present I should say our next meeting which is Monday which will be here before we know it. Uh we'll have a presentation of our new website. I know that Miss Beis alluded to that. I
know she's excited for the new website. I think we all are. Um huh launches tomorrow. So you'll have plenty of time to look at it before uh our December 1st meeting. Uh then we'll have uh the MCCAST presentations for elementary
school. Following meeting will be by the secondary uh schools and then uh information on our rental facilities, our FY25 summary. And then January starts our budget FY27 budget presentation which we've again we've
already had some meetings and discussions of that. uh just waiting for uh the state to give final numbers for that. Um and then we discuss the calendar for this week. We have a half day on Wednesday for all schools and then Thursday and Friday there is no
school. Perfect. Um public comment. We see a large crowd. Is anyone in the crowd looking to speak at public comment? Please do not pan over. Seeing none, uh, I will take a motion.
We have a motion to adjourn and Phil second it. All those in favor say I. I. All oppose. We'll see you in a week. Thank you.