Okay, good evening and welcome. This is the November 3rd, 2025 meeting of the school committee. Call the meeting to order. 501. This meeting is being both audio and video recorded. And I would please ask that everyone rise for 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, liberty and justice for all.
>> Okay, roll call. Samantha, if you'd start, please. >> Samantha Velasco, secretary. >> Pamela Blair, assistant superintendent for business. Antela Gordon Smith, superintendent of schools. Gregory Thompson, >> Eric Jervski, Heather Brown, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and
Learning, >> Anna Flanigan, Student Representative, >> Amy Denta. >> Thank you, Amy. Okay, I have minutes for approval. I would take someone to move. >> Can I still make the motion? >> Move. You can do it.
>> Okay. I move to approve the October 20, 2025 regular session meeting minutes. >> Motion made by Antonor. >> Second. >> Second by Carrie. Discussion. >> Favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> I. >> Those opposed? Nay. Abstensions.
>> 301. Thank you Samantha for those committee and subcommittee communications. Intella, would you like to start? >> I don't have anything at this. >> Okay. >> I do not have anything. >> Hannah. Um, so our school is
participating in the Mayflower Marathon, which is kind of a contest with local schools to see how many non-p perishable items we can collect for those in need. Um, girls volleyball just won the Western Mass Championship and their first game of states, so they're on the second round. Um, our pink ribbon club
participated in the Razer of Hope Walk in Springfield. Our business club attended the Massachusetts DECA concert conference and Key Club held their annual Halloween happenings event and a lot of younger children from the community attended. >> So,
>> excellent. >> Do we compete against other schools in volume for the uh >> for what >> marathon? The um >> flower >> number of items. >> Number of items. Yeah. >> Number of items. How we doing? >> I started today. >> Okay. >> We'll see. in the league.
>> Good stuff. >> Mr. Thompson, last year we did not participate in this one, but last year Longmetal won. We know their number that they won with. Our plan is to just blow that one out of the water. >> Good. Yep. Good. >> We'll beat this answer. >> Important this year. Thank you. >> All our viewers know I was just going to say now all our viewers know the
strategy. >> Bring it. Okay. Good. >> Okay. Uh with that, let me have it. >> Amy, anything uh for Nothing for me today. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Pam. Uh we
have opportunity for visitors to address the committee. Being none, we will >> Oh, yes. >> Oh, yeah. Please come on up. >> Are you want me to state? >> The chair, have a seat, please. >> Thank you. >> Your name if you don't mind.
>> I'm Danielle Cresion. I'm a U. Do I need to state what I >> You could. That's all I need to know. >> You can tell me whatever. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Thank you for coming, Danielle. >> Thank you for having me. I wrote this down because left to my own devices, I talk too much and I wanted to get this in in three minutes. So, so good
evening. Uh, my name is Danielle Cresion. I am a chess instructor at the Mountain View Elementary School. I'm also the school therapist, but I'm here today as in relation to chess. I have 25 years of experience teaching
students from ages 7 to 22 with varied diagnosises from ADHD to schizopeeffective disorder. I have worked with more than 80 students which I do now almost every week. There's 83 kids at Mountain View signed up for the chess
club. Children who are bright, curious, they're full of potential. I'm here tonight to talk about what I'm seeing in that chess classroom. And it has nothing to do with the dedication or the skill of the teachers that are there. The
teachers are amazing. They're doing incredible work with the kids. The problem is bigger than any one classroom. I'm witnessing a generation of children who struggle to think critically, solve problems, listen, follow simple three-step instructions,
possess basic social skills, work through frustration, and on a more basic level, explain what they learn each week in the class. Many of them are giving up the moment uh something feels difficult to them. They want instant answers,
instant gratification, but not for the process of discovery. These are the very skills that chess teaches. Patience, focus, strategy, consequence, and reflection. And yet, these are increasingly absent in the
students I have for chess. We are not they are not being challenged. Now, I'm seeing it in their handwriting. While learning chess notation, which is an absolute essential skill in chess, many students will tell me it's not their fault. They're not writing
anymore. Their writing is messy. It's rushed and often illegible. Not because they don't care, but because they don't get enough practice putting pencil to paper for various reasons, not just school related. That small detail though reveals a great deal about how digital
learning and curriculum pacing are transforming the way they think, learn, and most of all retain the information. But this me coming here is not about blame. It's about awareness. The curriculum testing demands, but the pace of technology and the dominance of
electronics at home have all eroded a child's ability to slow down, think, and reason. They're living in a constant state of distraction with an attention span that I can see of about 35 seconds.
I feel that if this isn't addressed now, this impact is going to be long lasting. At least it will be for the students I have in chess. They will be less equipped to make sound decisions, resolve conflicts, or to think for themselves outside of the
chess class and tournaments. They'll struggle, and they are academically, but also emotionally and socially. I'm not suggesting I know the answer. I don't. And it's much more than a curriculum or parents.
I just if you would like to know I I know what does not work. I'm not necessarily Heather and I have spoken about this. I don't know what the solution is but I've never seen anything like this in my chess classes and I also
have taught at Tinkham Road. Um so if you if anyone would ever like to come to a chess class and just see what it is I'm referring to, you're absolutely more than welcome. more the marrier. It I don't have a lot of parent participation, but teachers do come in
and help out. And if you have any questions about what I've said, the statements, anything to back it up, certainly you can always reach out to me. And I appreciate the time letting me come and speak. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you. You coming tonight. Hi everybody. >> Christina. >> So I'm Christina Cooper and I am here today as a representative from the public library um to talk about something that was discussed at the last meeting. Um when uh we're talking about
the fall status reports for the elementary schools uh and um had mentioned what if we could uh reach kids earlier for literacy and the library does have a program already in place called a thousand books before kindergarten and I wanted to make sure
the school committee knew about this. This is a nationwide program and what we have is you can uh sign up online. We have a tracking uh thing that you can use or you can just use paper if people don't like to use it that way. And we encourage people from the moment their
child comes home uh start reading to them and start tracking how many times you read. Um we tell everybody it sounds like a lot but you're going to get it done so fast and the library has at least a thousand books your kid will enjoy. Um, so if the school community can think of a way that we can publicize
that to the parents who are preschool age and younger, um, we would love to we can accommodate every single person in this town to get a thousand books in their hands before their kids start kindergarten. So that's what I wanted to share. >> So they actually go through a thousand books.
>> Yes. And you get your picture taken. Yeah. >> You you get a when you sign up, you get a free book. When you hit a 100 books, 200 books, 300 books, you get a free book. And then when you make it all the way, you get your picture taken with a big sign that said, "I did 1,000 books." And you're on our wall of of fame. >> How do you advertise this now?
>> We advertise it uh in in the library itself when you're in the children's department. There's a sign about the thousand books like ask us about it. And we have it in our newsletter. Um so you have to kind of interact with the library first to know about it. But I
would love if we got people to even come to the library because of it. You know, they may not have a library card. They might not just know about us. So >> great idea. >> Very cool. >> Yeah. Thanks. I need >> Thank you for coming. You know, we added you to a committee, too. >> I do celebrate.
>> Great. Thank you. >> Okay. Excellent. >> All right. Moving right along. We have presentation of smart goals from Burland Park and the high school. Looks like
up. Uh This is the uh final presentate final two presentations of our fall status report and smart goals and uh we have Mr. Pearson and Mr. Ojunga Andrew ready to roll for the court. >> All right, good evening everybody. Good
to see you. We've got the whole team back together this time unlike the spring a couple new members. So I'm Steve Pearson. I am the principal. >> Natalie Ojunga Andrew principal. >> All right. Thanks for having us tonight. We have some things we would like to share with you. if we can go to the next slide.
Okay. All right. So, a little bit about our smart goals, where we were last year, where we are this year, and then supporting the whole child is the first one that's up, and that begins and ends with attendance. Uh the way to create, uh success long term is to have kids in school learning. So, um that's a big
focus for us. Obviously, um the DESIE target is 95% and as of last week when I sent this in, we were at 97.4% which is above the Desi goal. So, we're very happy about that. Uh, we're even more excited about the gains we made last year in attendance. If you look at
our accountability numbers from MCAST where we went from 12.8% chronically absent uh down to 4.8%. So, that was a smashing success that I have to give a lot of credit to my staff making that happen. You know, our student support team spearheaded by our student intervention coordinator last year,
Trish Pereira, who was just relentless in reaching out to families about not only absences, about tardies. my whole student support team, including my counselors, making sure that everybody had what they needed to be feel successful, whether it was mental health issues or struggles that the family was
seeing outside of school to make sure that we were getting kids here. And I can I could bore you with going through those same steps again for this year's um goals. Uh we're going to obviously repeat what was working for us, keep that focus on getting kids into school, reaching out to families, messaging the
importance of attendance. But I wanted to share with you tonight a kind of a different way we go about increasing our attendance because we want to improve even on even on that 4.8%. So Birchland goes beyond what's just in the classroom experience. We like to think of the full experience of middle school when you come to Birchland. A little bit of that
goofy middle school energy and everything that makes it such a special place. So a way that we get kids to come to school is to give them a reason to come to school. Yeah. Engaging lessons in the classroom are a big part of that, but it's the entire school experience which extends beyond 2:00 finish time as well. So we put a lot of focus on how
kids can get involved in our school and in our school community and that includes our afterchool club offerings. We review them every year. We make sure that we've got a plethora of opportunities for kids and we want to update them to add things the kids are interested in, you know, today that might not be the same as five years ago.
So our club offerings are frequently changing as I probably drive Pam crazy when I email her every year and tell her I want to make a change. >> So we do have a few new things this year including a small club. Um you got our NJHS that's meeting after school. All to give kids more of a reason to want to be in school, something to look forward to
at the end of the day, different group of kids to be involved with, adults to interact with, and to really look forward to coming to school so they can take part in those things. We have maker space challenges starting up again soon. But just to give that full well-rounded experience, and I think that that's going to go even further than just the
relentless letters and phone calls from me about kids that have missed so many days of school. We think that's going to bring us to where we want to be. So attendance, we had some great success. We don't want to rest on our laurels. We want to keep pushing forward with that and see if you know we can exceed our targets for the subgroup as well. We can
go to our next slide. All right, we have a little bit more to say about supporting the whole child from Mrs. Junga. >> So another way that we wanted to make sure that all of our students feel supported is by tapping into their social emotional learning. And so we're using our advisory program as well as some mentoring groups that we, you know,
piloted a few years ago and also some new ones this year to really make sure that all students have an opportunity to be heard and also to talk about some different important topics that they need and you know to help them be more of a whole child and their well-being and support. So the first part is our
advisory program. we have a an advisory where students meet with a a trusted adult every single morning but on Thursdays they have extended time and that's where we utilize um that space to really go into more social emotional learning topics um really helping them
be become more self-aware learn how to manage their time and you know aware about what's going on in social media and how to use that responsibly um also you know talking about relationship skills and how to handle those things and friendships and just making
responsible decision- making. Um the students get a lot out of that. We have activities, we have games, but then also deep rigorous discussions. Um the other area that we're trying to utilize is our middle school mentoring, our support group. So the last two years
we've been working with Maples Shade Elementary School um ser supporting students at the elementary level that have been identified by Mr. Martin and his team. you know, students that just need a little extra support and encouragement. Um, helping them feel
welcome in, you know, the Eastline Middle Schools, helping them feel included and also seen. And so, what we're doing is having some of those students come over to Barland and then we're picking some of our students who we feel can really benefit from um honing in on some leadership skills. And
so, they get an opportunity to serve as leaders and mentors to some of the younger kids. And really, it was been very successful. Um the kids that come into the sixth grade who were part of the mentoring program really have fond memories of that, ask if they could still participate. Um the mentors really
do a good job and you could just see the growth over time. So it's kind of like a win-win situation and when those middle those elementary kids come up they feel more comfortable. They know who we are. Um they see some familiar faces. So it just goes a long way. So we're going to be doing that again. Really excited
about that. We're also working in concert with um the academic leadership association which we've been working with for the last two years to create some affinity groups um in conjunction also with the new metcoordinator and making sure that some of our students who have traditionally maybe
not felt has have not felt um as included or have other issues going on that need some additional support being able to give them that support as well as recognizing any students who are new to the district. you know, you can always remember how it feels to be new students somewhere. So, we don't want
them to just throw them into a class and figure out how, you know, make their own way. We want to tap into them, figure out what's working, what's not working, you know, what do they like, what are some things that are coming up that maybe in a larger group they're not comfortable sharing. So, we do that in collaboration with the counselors as well. Um, so all of that is just to
really help students feel like they belong um and they're supported. >> You go to the next slide. >> I just have a advisory. Yeah. How is that curriculum created? Does every does every advisory do the same thing every
week or >> so every week? >> Yeah, every two weeks I send a lesson and usually no I you know I have several curriculums I could draw from but I like to wait till I get our >> some of our uh school wellness and climate survey stuff to see where our kids are at before I kind of set a direction. So we've done a couple um so
far this year facing your fears, building community, things like that. that um you know now we have this data uh you know I know next one's going to be on reflecting on on grades and decision- making and all that but I kind of have a discussion sometimes with my student support team about issues we're seeing at the school and so I will kind
of try and have a very versatile reactive kind of program for make sure those lessons are fitting what our kids need in the moment >> in the moment. Yeah. >> Yeah. But they all get a lesson from me. The entire school gets it. So I try and keep it so that they can all access it. Um and it's it's ready to go for teachers. There's not a ton of planning
or stuff. I've done most of the work and provided all the materials for them so they can just roll it out and have a good robust discussion with their kids around skills they need to build. >> Is it like 30 minutes every week? >> Yes. 30 minutes. >> Yeah. Every two weeks. And on the opposite weeks, that's for that adult to plan whatever bonding activities that
they want with their their advisories. >> Okay. >> So, it's not always just totally dictated by, you know, >> the leadership, but also, you know, they get a chance to bond really well and have a nice form, you know, tight group. And as you'll see later in the slide, you know, students feel like they they belong. and they feel like they have a
trusted adult that they can relate to which is we give that a lot of credit through our advisory program. >> Do they get a different advisory teacher every year? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> If you go to the next slide. So we have just a few charts here again. Do you have a teacher or other adult from
school that you can count on and you can see that over an overwhelming a majority of our students say yes and many of them they you know count to lean towards their adviser. But the good thing is that other students also go to like a favorite teacher, they come to administration, they come to, you know,
a counselor. So either way, we make sure that everyone has someone, some adult, every student has an adult that they can they can feel that they can rely on and they can trust, they can share. Also, an overwhelming majority um of students feel that they are part of the
community. So about roughly 92% or so strongly agree or agree in combination that yes they feel part of the community whether it be through the mentoring groups or after school clubs um just the way that they engage in the classroom. They feel that they're you know some
part of their identity is being shared and and and embraced in the school. So we really honor that. We want to make sure that we continue that in everything that we do. You can go to the next slide. Um sorry the little top part is cut off but the main piece to here is also we wanted to
share that students feel that this that our school is inclusive of all backgrounds and identities. We have so many kids from different backgrounds, nationalities, religions, you name it. Um just ideas, family histories, and we want to make sure that we showcase that. We want to make sure that kids don't
feel isolated in any way or afraid to be who they really are or share what's important to them. And again, overwhelming majority of students feel that the school is inclusive and embraces their their individual backgrounds and identities and we're really proud of that and want to make sure that we do everything to continue
that. >> All right. So, we're transitioning into teaching and learning and the district focus on the curriculum renewable and supporting staff and adopting those high quality instructional materials and make sure that we're supporting all students and all groups to see that success is a big part of what we're doing. Um, so you
can see the metrics we had there for reading and math last year. Um, you know, our goal and where we actually fell. We were a little short in our reading results. An interesting year in English where we were piloting a few different curriculums, sampling some different units to try to settle on one that we were going to use going forward.
Um, we exceeded our goals in math, which we're very proud of. A lot of hard work went into that with our math people. So both our stretch goals and our um typical growth goals were exceeded in math and we want to keep that going this year by really supporting our teachers and using the curriculums that have been
approved. All right, so we can go to the next slide here. You can see where we stand. So we're focused on the high quality curriculum. So uh we're kind of in different places depending on our department. Our ELA is starting reading reconsidered which they uh voted to select last year from the ones that they did pilot. It is high quality
instruction materials recognized by the state. So, we're rolling that that out this year, going through the growing pains of using a new curriculum and all that that means. Um, math a little further along year three of their curriculum and as is science. We've been doing open sed for a few years now. Even
though our grant is done, we're still with open sedies. We kind of had a shift with our sixth and seventh grade. how we did that to get their um the new kind of curriculum in PE P place and we're in fully in place this year up and running with it and uh we're excited to see how that's
going to impact you know teaching and learning for all of our students. So that's a big part of what we're doing this year trying to support our teachers wherever they're at with the curriculum includes some learning walks by us and some district folks including Superintendent Smith and Miss Brown. Um, so trying to get in those classrooms,
see it in action, see what kind of feedback we can give them, be available for them during counterpart times to answer those questions. We're looking now at perhaps going to visit some schools that are doing the new reading, excuse me, English curriculum that we're doing now, see how that's being rolled out in other districts and what we can take away from that because there's
going to be some growing pains and we want to make sure that we are giving our students the best we can give them. Though, another big part of what we're doing is our school-based PD. Um, every year we have a a focus in our building of what we're going to work on and we have a monthly professional development series that's delivered either by us and
admin or our instructional coaches. So, we want to build on what we've had in the past. We've done UDL co-eing. Last year was a focus on revisiting the instructional block, making sure that we had all the components, but with the new things that we had in place like um the
regulated classroom and all these new practices, making sure that we're not losing sight of the instructional block, but we're weaving new best practices into as well. So, we saw a lot of success with that last year. I think that contributed to some of the uh improvement that we saw on MCCAST, which you'll see shortly. So, we want to take that this year and build on that. And
this year's focus is a deep dive into datadriven instruction which is more exciting than it sounds I promise. So we have some new tools at our disposal this year as we've moved from Panorama to open architect and we're really focusing on people looking at the data they're collecting be very
cognizant of what am I collecting how frequently am I collecting it? What am I actually doing with that data once I've collected it? All right am I collecting it just because I've been told to or is it actually actionable data? So, we're in the nasonent stages of that right now, gathering all that information. We want to get to the point where data is
not something that people are scared of. We want to have kind of a consistent, I would say, culture of looking at the data and using it as a aha moment. I can use this to improve my instruction. And um Mr. Jung will talk a little bit later about engagement surveys. I know they're using at the high school as well to also
try and tackle that issue. But we don't want people scared of their data, whether it's perceived, you know, good or bad. We want them embracing it and looking at as an opportunity to improve. So that's what we'll be focusing on this year. Okay, if we can go to our next slide. So this is where we're at with um
I Ready. We took a diagnostic in the fall and you have the last three years on display there. And you can see that we're, you know, it's within shouting distance. We're we're largely pretty much the same as where we were with a few percentage points difference either way from year to year. So pretty satisfied with that because usually at
the end of the year we end up in a pretty good spot. We can go to the next one. You can see that we're pretty well ahead of our peers both at the state level and on the national level with how we perform on I Ready in the fall, which is a good place to be. And if you go to the next slide, you're going to see
similar stuff with math. Again, within the last three years, we have fairly similar numbers. And when you compare us on the next slide to the state and the national, we're a little bit ahead of them as well. So, job there.
All right. So, here we are for MCCAST. Um, last year we had some pretty good gains with MCCAST. See, uh, both with progress towards the achievement goals that they set for us, but particularly with our growth numbers, which we're always really proud of. We don't set the
goals the state sets, which are based on kids sometimes we don't have anymore, but I really like to put the focus for my teachers on what we do with the kids that are in front of us right now, and how do we move them? So, we're always happy to see very high growth numbers. Um, and of course we got excellent score for attendance, so that helped as well.
But the number I'd like to really draw your attention to there at the bottom, the annual criterion reference target percentage. We went from 36% I believe in 2024 all the way up to 52% last year. So a lot of positive gains there. We want to build on that momentum and
hopefully see more big steps as we push through this year. Excited about the stuff we have in place. >> Next slide. Thank you. All right. So, here's the one again I like to really harp on with my teachers is when we're looking at growth. What are we doing with the kids that are in front of us?
We want to meet our typical growth goals, but we want to be on the typical growth high side. So, if you're looking at our ELA numbers, we hit the high side in every single category except two. And one of them we missed it by half a percentage point and the other one we missed it by less than two points. So, a
little bit of room to improve there, but we're pretty excited about the high growth numbers considering we were also piloting some different units last year. Looks like some of our interventions worked, what our classroom teachers were doing at the tier one level was being effective. So, we're pleased with that. We're doubly pleased with our math
scores, which we did really well on. We hit high growth or exceeded growth in every single category. You know, I would like to say that our math department is probably a little bit ahead of the rest of our group with the data driven instruction. We've really been pushing this looking at the data, tracking data over multiple points to see how kids are
doing in math from year to year and which program we're going to recommend them too. So I think that you're seeing that play out there and we got to keep building on that momentum as well. So we're really thrilled with the math progress. >> How I have a question. How are the math
teachers with the curriculum? because that you said this is the third year that they've >> had the new curriculum and this is year one for English. Y >> how many years has science had open sad? >> SIED was before me. So I think their fourth fourth year into open sed. Yeah.
>> Um and in any of your data walks or data collection have the math teachers or have you seen the math teachers be implementing the curriculum more? >> Yeah. Well, that's the that's the push that we're doing. We go through there
and sometimes it's a mixed bag. They've been using it for a lot of years, so they're pretty opinionated on what they think works and what they think doesn't work or they want to go back and retach something. Um, so I was just at the math department meeting to discuss this very topic uh for this month's department meeting. And it's a it's a work in
progress. I mean, they're getting results, but we want to see fate to the curriculum because it is a much bigger push about how we think about math than just pushing the scores. And this is one of those things around data that we're trying to think not make it weaponized and they're scared that they're going to see a dip in the scores if they stick to
the pacing guide. So a lot of conversations about why they want to mix certain things up, why they got to be off because they need to go back and retach things because they feel the students didn't get it. But I am putting a big emphasis this year on illustrative math and making sure because this is also something that's going to carry
over from elementary all the way up. It's about developing those thinking skills, those habits, those mathematical approaches and it needs to be consistent rather than we do it most of the time here and then it's a little bit different here and it's even more different here. We're trying to get a little bit more continuity there. Well, I say say they've seen some nice gains
and they have, I really want to see that the we're in lock step with what everybody else is doing in the district. So, it's a work in progress. >> I wasn't sure if there was anything that the math teachers were doing or if they had like more planning time or anything like that. Well, we have a lot of time.
>> More progress in math. >> Yeah. I mean, we have a lot of time and we have an excellent department share there. I mean, there's not a wasted minute. So, like when we're tracking kids throughout the year for the large data sheet where they're tracking everything from ready diagnostic scores to MCCAST scores historically going back
three years, mastery check scores, attendance, term grades, all of that to kind of get the full picture of where students stand. So, we say, are they ready for algebra? Are they ready for pre-alggebra? So we have a lot of data points that we can rely on. Uh when they have map department meetings, they are constantly doing item analysis to see
where did we struggle against the state. Which areas did we see our gains? How we taught that? This is something that was taught at what point in the year, which is why they want to mix up some of the pacing sometimes to have certain topics hit right before MCAST. They seem to come up more frequently. So they are
amazing at looking at data. I need to get those practices spread everywhere, but they are leading the way with that right now. We want to build on that. And I think that goes a lot towards the gains that you see there. But again, this is a a process that is district-wide about mathematical thinking. And it's beyond more than just
coming up with the right answer, but it's about the process and how we persevere and how we tackle problem solving that we need to do. And it needs to be consistent all the way through. >> Okay. >> Right. We have one more goal. Mr. Johnson, speak too.
>> Last goal is on inclusive and supportive culture and climate. um you want to make sure like we've mentioned briefly earlier that we want to make sure that all students feel included um and as a part of the community and some of the steps that we're doing again I'm not
going to go too deep into it again I mentioned the middle school mentoring and the support groups um as well as the affinity groups with the ALA um and the new student groups just to make sure that everyone feels belong as a part that they belong in the community at Birland but we also want to hear their
voice I think a bigger part of this piece is is that we want to hear the student voices. So really get their feedback and then act on that feedback. Um the same thing we're doing in the student council diversity club. We want to make sure that we engage with them. Not just they have their meetings and they share out what they want to share,
but we actually hear what do they feel what's important and what is it that they want us to learn about and you know and to make our school better. Um because of course the students have to live it every day. So we want to make sure that they share their their feedback. And then the the last piece is
that we're asking this is will be new. We're excited about this is that we're going to start giving um twice yearly surveys to students in classes. The teachers are going to administer this so that the teachers can get immediate feedback from their students around the level of engagement in the instruction
in the classroom and then they can act on that. Um as opposed to you know coming from us. This is coming directly from the students. we're not involved in this and this is something that instead of having it blended in like an overall co um wellness survey but the academic
piece kind of merged in you don't really know is that does that have anything to do with my class what I'm doing or is that because what you like happening in art class or whatever this way each teacher gets their own feedback and then they can take action on that so we're really looking forward to that
you know can impact the instruction that we see when we do our walkthroughs and also engage with our teachers and department meetings and things like that. >> Now, we had a lot of teachers already doing this kind of stuff on their own, but again, we want to get a culture >> school of doing this and making it a habit to get this feedback and not only get it, but then act on it. So, there
will be a reflection piece when they're in the department. You know, we're careful to say that we're not evaluating on they're going to work on that with their department chairum to get that feedback and think about what they want to do with it. And then when we get the numbers in the spring, they can see if their plan was successful or not.
We're pretty excited about um the ownership that tagen because that was something that came out of our leadership retreat back in August. The challenge will be given that the feedback's going right to the teacher is how we report out on it to all of you. Um because they're going to get their
feedback, the department chair will get more of generalized feedback. We might be able to report out on some of that, but we really wanted it to go just as uh Mr. Pearson was saying and Majunga Andrew were saying um to the teacher so that they can start to act on it and
that they're not seeing it as evaluative from us >> standpoint. >> So you guys don't see the student feedback. >> Nope. Unless they choose to take a picture of the results and put it in their teach point. No, I've stressed that you know we're not going to there's a lot of fear that it was going to be evaluative. So
>> had our department chairs met. They looked at a bunch of sample questions decided would be most effective. them good feedback and they're already set that they're going to deliver it every teacher and every single class out get that feedback and it's on their agenda for the next department meeting to look
at their results and do a little bit of a reflection piece on. >> So that will actually be one of the the greatest benefits too is that they will be able to in a general way discuss it at an apartment meeting where they seem to all feel pretty comfortable >> sharing that. That's that's
>> Would they have to upload any reflective practice in their in their seat or anything like that? >> They'll have the option to. Again, I'm telling them I'm not looking over their shoulder to see your numbers, but if there's something you're proud of or something you want to show as progress towards your goal, certainly you can add that to your teach.
>> Teach point. Yeah. >> Any questions for us? >> Are you still doing um the coaching because I know that you guys were >> Yeah. Well, we've had to scale back a little bit, but we do have coaching. Yeah, unfortunately, we don't have the coaches with us full-time, but yes, they
are still available. They're still working with teachers on request. They're supporting us a great deal in the curriculum and trying to get people, you know, in line with pacing and making sure that we're doing it with fidelity. Um, but yeah, there's a little bit of a scale back. We miss them a little bit because coaches are were essential to
everything. We're different. Still working hard. Got some good coaches. we still go to um our teachers counterpart times and so >> big part in our learning walk >> with us every week our leadership meetings so it's really good that we still have access to as much access to them as we
>> and they still help us uh deliver the on data driven instruction they're kind of doing those um professional development sessions with me yeah they're they're still essential they're just now stretched across three buildings yeah so sometimes oh can't be
here today we'll do it next week Any other questions, notes? >> All right. Well, thank you so much. >> Thank you very much. Presentations up on the big screens behind me. And we have High School. I think we're we have Mr.
Wright and we have Mr. Paige. Miss Blaine, I believe, is home sick. >> I manage it. Is that fine? >> Yeah. >> Um I just asked because I was going to go through and see if you're if I'm the one doing it. >> My pleasure.
>> Taking control. >> Sounds good. >> Uh co conference or conference 2 conference. All right. So, um, for the high school's presentation, Gary's going to start us off. He's going to talk about, uh,
supporting the whole child, which focuses primarily on, uh, attendance and chronic absenteeism. and then I'll take us home on goals two and three, which will also hit on um the high school MCAST data. We get into goal two.
>> Short-winded goal here is to get all of our rates below 10%. Um feel like we made some good progress with a couple of areas with our chronic absenteeism. Um but we want to see everything below 10%. The biggest way that we're doing
that is really it's uh direct communication between parents and generally speaking it's Ann or myself. Um we're layering in accountability and then we're scheduling opportunities for parents and students to meet with the support staff that might be appropriate
for that situation. And so, um, it's a very straightforward approach, um, really information seeking, um, information sharing, and then offering support just to get us to a place a place where all of our groups are are seeing their their chronic asthmatism
rate below 10%. Um, go to the next one. So, at this point, we're about 2% above where we were last year with daily attendance. Um, pretty identical numbers. Um anecdotally
we are seeing an impact of our work last year with our period by period attendance. Um we had oh I think it was around 1,200 different warning emails that we sent last year around attendance. Um and that we've concluded the first quarter and I can say it's
anecdotally it feels considerably less. We're not we aren't informing parents as much about the policy. we we field a few questions, but generally speaking, um we've inserted the kids a little bit more in the front lines where we talk with them about their attendance before we even reach out to the parents and
that's helping a little bit. Um so parents are more informed this year, so we haven't had as many questions. Um and I think the kids really understand that how how closely we're monitoring their attendance and so we we just we see kids getting to class more consistently. So
we'll have some numbers for that later this year. Okay. So, um second goal is focused on teaching and learning. Uh this is something that we've been building towards for the last few years where um we uh we run administer our uh
diagnostic um three times a year um similar to what you see at the elementary schools. We started doing this with grades 9 and 10. Uh the first one that we we ran this year was um back in uh the month of September um for all students in grade nine and this year for the first time
all students in grade 10, not just the one in standard level offerings. Um and uh this first slide just outlines or highlights um how our students performed on that first diagnostic. Il did tweak their diagnostic format a little bit this year from uh from how they ran it
last year. Um uh but for the most part um this does give us a snapshot of where our students um uh currently stand in grades 9 and 10 um in terms of uh being either uh at grade level above level
grade level or significantly below grade level. Um so obviously we can see that we have some work to do. Um uh however I will say um we do see um the goals below as achievable um based on last year's
data and how our students performed um uh by the end of the year. So when we ran that diagnostic with our students in grade nine at the end of the year last year and also our grade 10 students um when it came to the math data we were sitting right around 60%ish
um uh of our students um achieving grade level proficiency. Uh this year we want to stretch that and push it to 70% for both grades nine and grades uh 10 for uh achieving that proficiency level. in um in what we're focusing in on next year
um is the specific strands the content that they're learning during that grade level. So when students in grade nine focusing on grade level proficiency in the algebraic strand which is the course that the majority of the freshman take grade 10 that uh grade level proficiency in geometry which is the course that
most sophomores take. Um, so, uh, we want to make sure that when they get to the end of sophomore year, traditionally, you know, they have all the skills required for one, prepare them for the MCCAST test, then also two, um, prepare them for their next level of math, which is typically algebra 2.
>> I have a question about >> Yep. >> So, the 10th grade, just I just want to make sure I understand >> their um, fall math test, it was only on geometry.
Uh, no, it was across the board. It was on all It was on all strands. So, if you look at the um the levels on the right, that's Oh, >> it shows it right here. >> So, you can see how they performed on each strand um uh on that right side there. So, you
have geometry, stats and probability, functions, algebra, and then uh numbers and quant quantity. >> So, these 10th graders were ninth graders last year. >> Yep. And was this the the end of year result
as well? >> So the if I can jump over here >> because this is if I'm right I just want to make sure that 86% of students are below grade level. >> So last year this is I I can't explain
it. I wish I could. Um but if you look at the algebraic strand, so we're focusing in on what kids were performing in that um in that course like all year, right? Uh 69% of our students according to the LL data were at grade level in
May. By that number is so significantly below in the fall. I don't know what happened summer. I I don't think the system is going to jump them from a 9.9 to a 10.0 and it's significantly different. Um, but you do see that significant drop from where they performed on the algebraic strand in the
spring to where they are performing on it in the fall. I don't have a great answer for that one. It is >> that's why I was like, >> yeah. >> Do you have comparative data to like other schools who use this to see do they have the same kind of >> This is a new assessment this year.
>> Yeah, they they have tweaked the assessment so I don't have that comparative data. Um, and unfortunately it doesn't exist in a system where I can naturally pull it. So, um, but >> thing we learned with the I Ready though is that the green are kids who are
coming in with, for example, 10th grade skills already. The yellow are kids who have those ninth grade skills and are ready for the 10th grade. And then the red instead of being far below are probably a year below. So everything shifts with the color coordination in
the year. So it it looks a lot more frightening often in the beginning of the year and like um Frank said that they turn it around. >> Can I ask a quick question? >> Yeah. >> Heather Heather, just based on what you know, I know we we don't have any data
right now comparatively speaking to other towns, districts, etc., But um would you say that other towns are would be experiencing same the similar numbers like this? This seems really concerning. >> Yeah. So then if you look at our MCCAST
data, not obviously last year was hard because of the change in the law, but if you look at the DART dashboard and look at the trends in terms of districts that are comparable to us, we're in pretty much in the middle there. So, uh, in
terms of comparative districts, we're not too we're not far behind. We're not extremely ahead. Um, and for the MCCASTL is is hard to measure because, um, >> so, and I do >> they don't have that comparison data. They don't have norms for this either. I
asked they only have it for younger kids. >> Yeah. And I did pull some information uh on the math MCCAST data, which I I do see as a positive. Um I I did not put in the presentation because like I was hiding the accountability data.
Um but I think there's some information that we can definitely highlight where we're seeing some positive um students when it comes to some of the strands in the standards >> um that I'll talk about when we get later into the presentation >> despite the fact that >> it dipped.
>> Yeah. So yeah. So, I was trying to come up with a way to take that variable out of the equation and try not to look at year-over-year data because it's obviously skewed when you add such a huge variable in last year. But I think there's information that you can pull
data which um does show well. So, >> seems interesting given the previous presentation of growth staff at the middle school level also. Um, >> yeah, it the to what Antel is uh is
talking about. It is odd. I don't have a great explanation for why students on the algebraic strand in the spring, 70% of them were at grade level when when we left in May. And then when you look at the algebraic strand here, it's sitting right around 20% in September.
>> We're also comparing I Ready to EXL. >> Well, I'm comparing to Il. >> Well, he's n 10th. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. That's Well, that's why I asked. I was like, "Was this only on geometry skills?" Because that's what they take in 10th grade. So, I was like, "Maybe it
was because of that." But >> Mhm. >> they're they look at everything the same. They look at the same things. >> So, that that yellow bar tell So that's typically one grade below. So, that yellow bar is a cohort of students who are still performing that grade nine
level in some capacity. So, they're either 9 through 9.9 um grade level. >> Is the math department taking a look like drilling into this survey and the instrument and sort of seeing if they can identify
buckets of things they can work on or >> so I will hit on that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll get into how we're going to be utilizing ESL and healthcare so far. >> Mr. Paige, may I ask one more question, please? >> Yeah. Do you think part of it is kind of like a cultural thing at the school?
Like, you know, MCCAST was no longer kind of at the forefront of kiddos minds last year just because they they knew it was going going away, you know, um for graduation requirement. Do you think it's kind of like this culture of kids maybe rushing through the test or maybe it's, you know, could be a little bit
skewed because of that? I'm just wondering, you know, there's such a huge discrepancy there and just maybe thinking about how the culture of, >> you know, taking a test like that can move in a different direction in East Long Meadow just because this, you know, I don't get as concerned about MCCast
data to be honest, but this kind of data I think can be really useful. >> Yep. Um, >> except Sorry to interrupt, except that the on the ELA side, you don't see the same sort of results. So if it was similar, I would say then maybe it could be attributed to how they're the testing
environment and how they're treating it. But >> yeah. Yeah. And that's uh so when we jump to the ELA, the numbers are obviously much better. >> Um and when you break it down um with some of the specific courses and even the specific we have some students who
are performing really well. Um it this this one I I I've struggled with in terms of trying to fully understand and explain how the kids um performed on it. And when I've had these conversations with the math department and um which I'll I'll jump back to that one, but um
but Mr. Lens, I don't have a a great answer on on that piece of that testing environment. Uh but that's obviously part of the conversation uh that we can look at as well. >> Do they take this in their math classes? >> Yes. >> Yep. And is there any kind of messaging to
the students like what is the message to the students about these tests? >> Uh so we explain it to them it's it's a diagnostic. >> Yeah. Uh so it's an it's an idea of getting um you know where they stand in the course and where we can both um
assist them both on an individual level but also as a cohort in terms of areas where so the system will give us those uh those trouble spots it calls it where there's um you know cohorts of students who perform weak in certain questions or certain types of questions. Um so it's informative for their teaching
practices. Our teachers use the program a lot beyond just with the diagnostics. So the students do know um you know how the program uh works before they go into it. It's not like it's just like one time test and then then that's it. Teachers use as activators. They use it
uh for homework uh class activities. Uh so it's definitely a supplement to the reveal curriculum beyond just um that one-time diagnostic. I jump to Ela. Yep. Um so uh so ELA data does look better.
Uh we we do have that same benchmark. We're trying to at 70% above um grade level by the end of the year. Obviously our freshman came in scoring really well. Um have them at 63%. Um you know so that's a great starting
point for our students in the fall. Um, and then obviously our students in grade 10, um, a lot of them are at grade level, which is great to see. And but we do want to continue to push that other 51% um, to try to move them, uh, to that proficiency level by the end of the year
as well. Um, and just because conversation came up and this why I asked if I could just take the screen over for a minute. Um, just understand and explain to people how we're utilizing. Uh so um so I think there's a number of different ways it's
being utilized and it's not just as a diagnostic. Um diagnostic gives us some great information. Um but obviously once you have that information you have to do something with it, you know, or you're just testing the test. So um so what I just wanted to do is jump into uh how
the program looks when you log into one of the teacher accounts. you can see what their dashboards look like. Um where it will uh you know give those recommended um skill plans for students to work on both at the classroom level and also uh the individual skill plans
which you see on the right. Um so what I have there on the right side of the screen is u snapshot of um a student's skill plan where they took the diagnostic and it tells them where their levels are um tells them uh how they scored in each strand. It also gives
them a recommended list of skills to work on in order to improve their standing within the course. Um, so teachers can assign that. Uh, a lot of times we use that and it gets assigned in our foundations courses, academic skills courses. Um, uh, and at times our
our teachers who are teaching those core content areas like algebra and geometry are also utilizing that as well. um where they might see uh a topic or an area of deficiency where they'll assign a specific skill for the kids to work on until they get to that level of proficiency uh within the system. Um so
uh so if I just jump in and I did talk to Miss Go first to let her know I was going to be um using her account. Uh so she is one of our English 10 teachers, but she's also uh a co-teer in our academic skills course for that targeted group of sophomores who were identified
at the end of last year who might need that additional layer of support uh in math or English or both. Um and um just looking at the screen, you can see the suggested skills. So those suggested skills um
>> I'm so sorry the door. Uh so those suggested skills can either be assigned by the teacher or they can be assigned by the system based on uh you know the students diagnostic and how they're performing. Um the teacher can also create uh what they call group jams where students can collaboratively work
as a class um on uh on a specific skill or topic. Um and then if I look at their analytics piece too I was talking about the trouble spots before. Uh so after the students complete the diagnostic these groups of students which I had on
the slide um which will show you areas where you might see that uh uh cumulative weakness um whether it's a small group of kids it could be four or five it could be a group of 20 or 25 that the teacher can assign and uh and
work on those skills to build it at grade level. So the ELA teacher, she's using this data. >> Yep. >> But you also have the that foundations course as well. >> She teaches both a English 10 course and
also uh the foundations and typically the kids who are in her foundation. Well, for the sophomores we call it academic skills. It wasn't MCCAST prep. We moved away from that name and we switched to academic skills when the state took away that accountability piece. um uh she co-ees that with a math
teacher. So one they alternate between math and English on on any given day. Um so the students that she has both in her standard level English courses some of those students are also in that academic skills course to remediate and work on those skills. So um sorry I don't know
if I answered your question. So I guess I'm asking is the main purpose of th those foundations classes y >> is it to narrow the gaps like to use this data in there so that >> in an ELA class or algebra 1 class
they're still able um to stay with the curriculum >> because this stuff is getting handled in the foundations. >> This is a plus more for the for the foundations and the um the academic skills for the sophomores. is that core plus more model where they they take their traditional algebra class and then
uh the math and the English teacher who are co-eing that course with that identified group in the freshman sophomore year um are trying to close that gap for for that group of students who might need that. >> Okay. >> Right. So, um,
yeah. So, uh, so that just generally outlines how we're use utilizing the ISL program. I just want to stress it's not the curriculum. It's a supplement to the curriculum. Uh, we still, um, um, are obviously using that real curriculum that we've we purchased and, uh, put into place for algebra 1, geometry, and
algebra 2. Um uh but this I think has been a great supplement and I think it does help build those proficiency skills for those skills of our students to proficiency levels. So, >> and does everybody have access to this dashboard?
>> They do. And um I uh I did request this last year and I appreciate the district uh stepping up. We've actually purchased this district for the entire school this year. Uh last year um we only had it for grade all of grade nine and a portion of grade 10. Um um but our teachers saw the
value and they were asking for it for all English students and all math students. Um so we're now have access to it in grades 9 through 12. It does go all the way to AP calculus. So it's not just uh no rudimentary math program. I mean this is this is the benefit. I
mean, at the end when we look at MCCAST, we're just at a situation where we're seeing the data after afterwards and the kids are already moving to the next grade. >> This gives you an opportunity to actually correct the problems before they get to the next grade. >> So, I I can appreciate that much more than just taking a test and we'll wait
till they send us the >> could part of it also be like a disconnect between the curriculum and what it's assessing like >> uh so obviously is not the real curriculum, >> right? do have skill plans binded to the
state standards and uh if our teachers choose the reveal curriculum. So if they're on like say lesson 3.4 for in reveal. Um, and they're trying to hit on uh I think that one's um I was just it's not functions but anyway
when they're hitting on that uh on that uh that lesson go into and say okay let's go to the reveal part of the curriculum and assign that skill of what we're working on today work on that skill until you hit the proficiency level. How that works within the pro um
within the system is students will answer questions. When they get it right, they get three points. When they get it wrong, they they lose eight. And you just keep building all the way up until 80%. You know, so uh so when the students are demonstrating that they know it, they'll keep building that number until they hit that 80%. So so it
is uh it can be aligned and uh uh is aligned to that reveal math. You can also use it proactively and figure out the prerequisite skills that they are going to need to be successful in that unit and then assign those ahead of time.
>> Do kids get any kind of grade for completing this or do anything with this? >> Uh for the diagnostic or for just using the program? >> Both I guess. Um so we try to avoid using uh
a grade for the diagnostic but the teachers do utilize um the program and do get grades for the program in the foundations course, academic skills course and sometimes also within their core content classes. >> Just cuz I'm trying to think of like is
there any incentive for these kids to really try on on this? >> Yep. even if they just got a completion grade >> or or something like that. And also would that so are they getting grades
for in their foundations class for this or their ELA or math class or both? >> Both. Not for the diagnostic but they do for some of the other assignments that are assigned. Mhm. >> And do the other classes like ELA or
algebra 1 um do they have common assessments that they also might look at that are standardsbased and >> math or English? >> Oh, >> so yes to both. Um
uh in algebra 1, geometry and algebra 2, they do use the same uh exams. um not just you know final and midterm exams but also each test is the same. >> Um in English with the Odell curriculum now they also do have those cumulative assignments that they're all um commonly
doing in each of those classes. Um and then if we're also just going to hit on science um they're doing the same with their assessments as well both in tests and also with labs. So, and I just bring that in just because that's another MCCAST topic
>> because I'm just curious if we would be seeing the same kind of data looking at those kinds of assessments as well. >> Yep. >> Would we be seeing that >> this many kids are at grade level or or not or they're able to complete the
>> assignments? Yep. >> You know, like looking at what their student work is actually showing. though. >> Yeah, I will say um and I really struggle with that first round of diagnostic data and and how to um
analyze it for math. Uh but we've had some students who have gone through some level changes and students might have been struggling and I've pulled some of the LL data for those individual students and it's been spot on. Um based on some of the stuff that we've been seeing um and I'm saying that anecdotally it was like four kids. Yeah,
>> we're not talking about the entire cohort of 400 in freshman sophomore year, but um where we've seen kids who are struggling in certain content areas, we're seeing um performances in these islands. Well, >> uh so um as I mentioned before, um I
have some other information that I I think will uh help us better understand some of the accountability data, but I didn't want to not put some of this information up. Obviously, we saw some um progression in our uh our achievement in our growth data this year. Um where
uh we also did not earn uh the points that we've earned in the past um towards that accountability data, which is frustrating. Uh I'll just say I'm personally frustrated that the state still held this level of accountability to a test where changed on us terms of
its um accountability with the students in the middle of the year. But it is what it is. um >> especially if you were a school of recognition last year. >> Um thank you Adam. Uh so it it is frustrating looking at the the
information and how they rated us. Uh but um at the same time I think there is some value in some of the data that we did receive even if it's not necessarily you some of that year-to-year data when you add in that new variable of uh uh of the MCAST test. Um, so, uh, just jumping
over to the achievement data for ELA. Uh, so this is one where I think we saw the biggest drop. And when I dug into our performance against the standards, uh, when we're comparing ourselves to the entire state, um, I think out of the three content areas, this is the one that we probably have a little work to
do when it comes to our our MCCAST data. Uh, so overall, our students performed above the state average uh, on this past spring's MCCAST. However, when it came to the questions that were open response or writing is where we fell below the state average, and I think that's one that we have to look at. We're about
five points below the state average. Um, so um so this is one where we also saw the most significant drop from 202 uh 24 to 25. And it's also the only one of the three where we're below our 2023 data,
which is interesting because that 2023 achievement did still have that test count, you know. So, in math and science, we were right at our 2023 levels, which I'm I'm okay with. Um, but this is one that we're actually below that 2023 level. So, this is one that I
think we have to really dig into. Uh, math again, you see the drop from 505 to 501 overall, and you saw you see some drops in each of the uh the subgroups. um when you look at our performance against the state uh that
and the reason I'm looking at those numbers is because it's hard to make those comparative um uh conclusions from year to year with that variable being introduced last year but you can make those comparisons with some of the state data. Um, so if I'm looking at that one, just jumping to a
how many here? Um, I want to highlight this on map because I did see this at uh where was it? This pile. Sorry, I got two piles here. Um
uh so on the math uh we're uh above on all items um against the state average. Uh so all types of questions uh in the three different question types we're above the state average. Uh in the 16 domains we're above the state average
and then in 32 out of the 35 clusters uh we above the state average you know. So all those things I see as a positive for us on the math side and also we were 0.1 off from where we scored in 2023 where our data was um obviously counted. So so I did see some positives on the math
side. Um and then when I jump over to science that last group um you do see the drop from 2044 to 2025. Uh but when I look at us against the state averages uh we actually that's the this is the content area where we perform the best.
We're almost double digits above every almost every area in the um uh in the science MCCAST. So nine points above the state average overall. Under question types, we're at uh constructive responses 12% above. Select responses 9%
above. You look at the clusters, four out of five categories, we were four out of five categories, we were double digits above the state average. And then the scientific practices, we were 10% above the state average. So, um, so this is one where I'm looking at this, try not to look at the 2024 data. I'm trying to look at us against the state and also
where we were two years ago. Um, I'm I'm feeling okay about it. Um, but it just it's frustrating when you just see those zeros on the right. Um, that you don't get that kind of recognition when you're you are doing so well against the state. So,
>> okay. Before I go on MCAST questions, >> questions. >> Yep. >> Um, >> these are props. Yep. >> Um, and I'm looking at the ELA students with disabilities.
Um, and it went down 15 points. What does what does that program look like? What does our how are our sped students scheduled? Like what kind of supports do
we have in place for that or >> so are you are you comparing to the 2024 data or >> Yes. >> Yeah. So when I'm looking at this one I where I had the most frustration was where we saw us performing uh the lowest against the um state average in the
writing content which is I think what dragged down our scores. Um, and I know that's an area where we have to improve. Um, but are we looking at specific special education programming in our English courses? >> Well, I'm just looking at like the students with disabilities. It went down
15 points. >> Yep. >> So, what what does our program look like and how are we supporting those kids? >> Yeah. So talking about students with disabilities who are in our ELA courses, uh we have um we have an inclusion
model, right? So we typically have either students who, you know, they have B-grid pair of services where we have pair professional support in those spaces. Um or we also have um that co-taught model where we have special educators who go into those spaces as well. Um
we are again utilizing the uh the Odell curriculum. Um and that's what's uh you know we're in that this is that third year of implementation. Two years ago we started the process. Last year we started that partial implement implementation. This should be the first full year of implementation for Odell.
Um what I do like about Odell is you do want to have that uh that common experience for our students. So whether you're in, you know, teacher A's class or B, they're going to have that same lock lock step approach where at the end of that unit and typically assessments
are the anchors to ensure that uh curriculums are commonly taught. They do have those um those anchor assessments at the end that typically have that writing component to it. Uh because when I'm looking at our scores um I'm seeing writing as our area of weakness, you
know. So um so that focus in Odell on writing it for that cul cumulative task where it's no longer just a test but it's a some type of writing assessment or project I think is where um I see our students hopefully benefiting from that and and seeing these scores improved
because writing is the area where I would want to focus. >> So are there any action steps in place right now? like do ELA teachers or or math have any time in the schedule to analyze data or
>> oh yeah part of the day is is working on that but yeah we usually use release days right >> yeah it's also built into departmental time um you know at the October uh department meetings I met with both the
math and the English departments to uh analyze the diagnostic data and talk about how to utilize in their classes. Um I have not met with them to break down uh the um the MCCAST data yet. Uh
my focus was on diagnostic in October. I mean I long standardized tests for all students but students disabilities like I guess I would want to compare how that looks like across the state but like you can disagree >> significantly across the state and
>> and you can disagregate the excl data to look at students with disabilities to see how they're performing to see if there's anything there any any equity gaps not just with that population right? >> Yep. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There were drops in ELA across the state. There were
drops of the ELA across the collaborative. There's drops of MCCAST across the collaborative schools. All seven collaborative schools. Um, and I will just say I've looked different ways to try to analyze this data to have something where I can make sense of. Uh, and for me the big takeaway from what I'm seeing in all of the different
scores, uh, our focus should probably be on writing. So that's for all students, not just students with disabilities, not just our high need students across the board. We we have to um find a way toate that more in our classes to improve those skills.
Uh so last slide um just some of our survey data. Um I'm a big fan of utilizing this data in over the years. Uh but obviously we switched programs this year. We went away from Panorama and we're we're doing it more
inhouse. Um uh so I see this as kind of that reset button and using this as our baseline for for some of these questions. Um but I will say that for our first data set uh I'm happy with the results that red bar uh and and the two charts on the right is actually a positive. Um, so if you're looking at
the questions, you know, do you have a teacher from the school who you can all count on? That was at 90%. Uh, my school is inclusive of all backgrounds and identities. Our students responded to that one at 90% and I feel like I am part of my school community. Uh,
students respond to that one positively at 88%. Those numbers are we had those same questions on the survey last year. um uh and all those percentages are above uh what we scored last year, which is great to see. Uh obviously, there's
always work to do. Um we have a lot of different committees and groups in the school. Uh try to give students an opportunity to provide feedback and feel like they're included and um um also engage in leadership opportunities because I think that's really where they feel fully involved in the school. The
one thing we are doing uh that's our biggest action step on this goal that's different this year is the um uh those departmental surveys whereas they're getting those student engagement uh uh that student engagement formative
feedback over the course of the year. We used to always task our departments with doing surveys at the end of the year to see how the year went. That's just an autopsy. It doesn't help the kids who are in front of you now. Uh so the two surveys that they're going to be completing are going to be in November and March where it's affirmative things
going in our spaces. Um I've tked our departments to come up with surveys that are uh short quick hitting so the kids aren't because obviously they take a lot of classes like three to five questions. One of those tests be openended. Um and the idea behind that is just check in on
how kids are doing. I call them like state of the unions you know uh state of the classroom. How are things going? So, um, but just like Mr. Pearson said, uh, these are not evaluative. We're not collecting this data. It's not a gotcha for our teachers. It's an opportunity for the kids to have a voice in the
class and provide feedback for how things are going. Pretty good. Competence Right. Thank you both for coming tonight. Grant, but you can go. Okay. Want to stop sharing?
>> Sure. >> Unless you'd like to share something else. >> I got nothing else, but I know we talk about grants. >> We do. Uh grants coming up after uh yeah, second one recognition. Should I stay here? >> Yeah, you can stay there.
>> Stay there and I can sit back. >> You're good. >> You'll be right up. Go ahead. >> Um, we have a recognition of food service director Lorie Paul for the Massachusetts School Nutrition Association volunteer of the year, the Snammies. >> Isn't that nice? So, Lori's very, very
involved with the um school nutrition association. A few years ago, she won director of the year. Um, this year, she won uh volunteer of the year. Lori runs a great program. Unfortunately, she couldn't be with us tonight. We did invite her here, but she wasn't um able to join us. And what they do say about
Lori um is that she has been a devoted and dependable member of SNA of Massachusetts, always ready to lend a hand whenever needed, whenever serving in an official role or volunteering behind the scenes. She's one of the first to step up and support events, committees, and fellow members. Her dedication and positive spirit embody
the best of SNA of Massachusetts. So again, we just wanted to let everyone know about Lori getting this award. >> Yes. >> Thank you, Lori, for all you do. >> Very cool. Thank you. >> Congratulations. >> She was um actually honored and she did attend uh their banquet which took place
in Worcester back on the 21st. You have a snippet from the program there from the Snamies. >> Right. Isn't that cute? >> You have a speech. >> I don't believe she had a speech. I don't believe she did. Not not for this
one. I think when she won the director >> Oh man award that year. >> Yeah. Cool. She >> does a great job. >> Yes, she does. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Okay. We have up next the acceptance of the connecting activities grant.
>> Y invited uh Mr. Paige up here. It is a high school grant. So I'll let him talk about it for you. >> Yeah. So uh this is a great opportunity. Um, we were reached out to back in August where uh workforce
>> Yeah, I've got it here. Uh, Mass, Mass Hire, Hampton County Workforce Board. >> Yes. >> Uh, so they actually received this grant on behalf of all the schools in Western Massachusetts and a loted money to each of the uh the different districts. Um, they basically just said, "Hey, we have $4,000 for you." Which is awesome,
right? Um so then uh Mark Mr is the one that we tasked with this as our career counselor. Um and uh he met with them to find out exactly how the grant worked and what we had to do to receive money. Um so basically the the whole idea is to find different opportunities for
students to engage in workforce uh in the Western Mass community. Um what we have found in in talking with them the best way to utilize this uh because a lot of the a lot of the places that we can send kids to are free and some of the different trainings and tutorials uh
are at no cost but it's about getting them there. Um so the big chunk of this grant is going to be uh utilized um uh for transportation. Um so if you uh I know Anna spoke about the uh the DECA conference that some of our
students attended last week which is a conference for aspiring entrepreneur or entrepreneurs students going into marketing uh potentially finance. Uh so we had a group of students who attended that and uh we're using this grant to uh pick up or cover the transportation for that. Uh next
Wednesday uh Mr. has organized a field trip to Porter and Chester um where any students who might be interested in going uh there as a trade school um they can sign up. I think we have somewhere around like 10 or 15 students currently signed
up to go explore that um but the biggest chunk of the grant how we're planning on utilizing is for getting kids to these different spaces to give them the opportunities to hear about um these different programs. Are >> we getting buses for that? How does that work? >> Yeah. So, uh, through the collaborative.
Um, yeah. >> Okay. Any other questions? Massire Hampton County workforce grant. >> Uh, yep. >> Unrelated to the grant because I was just at Massire for AEA pathways training. I was just cur made me think um are we I think we ought to be using
MEA pathways by 2027. So, >> and they're through. So, I was just curious and there's also they talked a lot about the different career pathway programs. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, uh >> a long answer. I just the innovative pathways you mean?
>> So, uh MEPA the state started the uh talking about the myap. >> So, they started the my cap program a couple years back. Um what they are rolling out now is their
version of Naviance which we utilize. >> Um right now we are planning on sticking with Naviance which functions in a much in a very similar way to what the MYAP program is. >> Um a big part of that is because uh right now Naviance al manages a lot of
our uh our college um application process. Um, so Mark also attended a training on the MYAP recently and when he tried to get information about which districts might be using the myap program and how it might be getting utilized,
uh, they were told there might be one district on the other side of the state who might be using it. So, we're not ready to to jump into the myap um program yet. I think we feel confident is a lot of the things we are already currently utilizing
Naviance for. um is what is in the MYAP uh four-year plan. >> Westfield High is piloting. >> They one of them. >> I'm doing it. >> So, they're piloting the curriculum which starts in like sixth grade. Um
>> and Desi um if you remember the middle school pathway, >> right? >> Uh just a few meetings ago, uh we adopted >> Desessie slid my cap in there. >> Yeah. as almost an aside, >> right? >> As they were presenting that this is
something that all middle schools have to adopt, >> they never mentioned that my cap was sitting in the middle of their template. was uh that caught um the superintendent's attention and uh we were all discussing it as we were putting together that middle school
pathway because some of our guidance counselors at the high school level had started to get some training in my cap >> but almost zero guidance counselors at the middle level at least in the LPVC had any training on my cap now. So
that's something we're starting to look at and start to embrace. Does Westfield utilize Naviance? >> They did. So, but they have a career center, a designated a guidance counselor essentially that they have three pathways like a health one, a CJ1, and >> and we don't have
>> engineering. Um, and so that's when I saw this grant, I thought about because they would obviously be using that to get them to the various sites and and that sort of thing. But um >> uh we're I'm working on developing the curriculum for 10th grade proactively to
get them all in there, create a profile, um start to do the interest, values, surveys, put all their goals in one place, um it's just another tool. It's not cumbersome and and there really is a builtout curriculum. Yep. >> For all the different modules and so
it's just like putting it into a PowerPoint and coming up with some activities. Yeah. >> Yeah. uh if it I mean it would be nice to save the money of what Abiance costs us. So >> as a free tool I mean every it links to ONET and a lot of the things that are
also free. I mean I think there's some other type focus you know if a student's really undecided inventories for fees that are maybe a little bit better but in terms of just like a free platform and they're really open to a lot of feedback. So I think if you had like
some one person who maybe is wanting to play around like they're building out things based on the feedback >> that they're getting. So any not to derail but >> will it eventually be potentially be able to utilize as that college application process? Is that their plan?
>> I think so. And it's supposed to link up. I mean it it is nice >> link with common app and >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. and they can search, you know, all links and then links to to various different colleges that have the programs and >> Yep. >> Um, you know, I'm sure if you're paying for
something, you're going to get a few more bells and whistles, but it's not a bad tool for >> Yeah. >> And the idea is really the interaction that, you know, because of the tool that the guidance counselor is having with the student too as well. >> I think the challenge will be the
switching over from Naviance. >> Oh. To my cap. Yeah. the guidance counselors, not just in East Long Meadow, but I think >> I can speak for say the LPVC, but it's probably even beyond that, are firmly entrenched in Navvian. >> Yeah. >> Um as are our students. And so
>> it was interesting how Desi slid that into the middle school pathway to almost >> Yeah, exactly. to force that >> migration. Well, you have two years. initially to get the pathway we had two months.
Yeah. So, but um so I think we we've started discussions at now I know we've started discussions at the middle level and in talking with um our department chair at the high school they had done some training a few years back but >> it first got piloted. Yeah.
>> Correct. Not on the entire program. And so now it's seeing how we start to align. We felt pretty confident going through the my cap uh that four-year plan um that we we hit on a lot of the things that they they have. Um uh we're just I don't know if we're
ready to commit fully to the to the program itself. >> I think gradually they're going to ramp up the pressure to slide us over. >> I don't think we're going to have a choice. >> Yeah, it was delivered. But I think the advantage of having someone if if someone can start to play around in it
is that you can have a say in building it. I mean you now's the time to give feedback once I think that once it's a you all have to use it. It's going to be like and we're done. Here's what >> everybody's in. >> Yeah. >> So it probably makes sense not only for Mark but uh maybe Shelby as well
>> start to look at that. >> But my guess is you're going to have workg groupoups within the LPVC. >> Everybody's going to be in the same boat. >> Yeah. And I I mean like anything you sort of would scale up. So you can start if you're going to start to use it, start to play around with what you might what the guidance whatever they're doing
in ninth grade is maybe where you start trying to you know start with one group. Yeah. >> Okay. That's it. >> I just need to clarify. >> I would take someone to move to accept
the 2026 connecting activities grant from the Mass Hire Handen County Workforce Board in the amount of $4,000. Please >> move. >> Motion made by Intel. >> Second, second by William. Discuss. All
in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed? Nay. That motion carries five to zero. Thank you. Paige Joe. >> Great. Thank you guys. Paige Ev, it's growing on you.
Okay, moving right along. We have um discussion of the new superintendent search. Uh everyone got that email. Tracy. No. Okay. So, we did get as we asked
Tracy to uh ask for people that would be interested in joining the committee, she did uh do the process and has forwarded two names to us. Those names are Leslie
Morrison who is a parent of students at the middle and high school and Christina Cooper who is a community member and librarian at East Sino Public Library >> and with us tonight >> who's here with us tonight. Yep. Uh and also the high school went about its
process here in central office as well and appointed Anna Flanigan uh or requested >> give you some feedback on that if you like. >> Yes, please. So we did uh we did a um a form a lot well we started with a form
and um soliciting response from the ELHS student body. Ultimately we had 10 students who responded and um thank you to the incredible technological skill of Miss Samantha Velasquez. We did a
digital wheel >> and we put all 10 names on the wheel and Anna was the first name selected and then we did just in case but I know Anna's committed having spoken with her earlier this morning to all the dates
but we have two individuals as alternates. So we have alternate one alternate two just in case. >> Great. So, it was good process, but I did want to make sure that uh people recognized that it was a an objective random selection. >> Nice.
>> Excellent. >> For the work that Tracy did, do we know how many people filled out the form? >> Oh, the survey. >> The survey. >> That I don't know. She did not mention >> I know it went out. >> Yes. And I saw in various places >> and it was up on the web page
>> down forum. That's I think all the um PTO socials had them out. Yeah. >> Yeah. She didn't she didn't mention how many, but she did say she would be contacting those that did not get picked as well.
So, any other questions on that? If we could appoint those three, I would take someone to move that please to uh confirm Leslie Morrison, Christina Cooper, and Anna Flanigan to the
um superintendent screening committee. >> Still moved. >> Second. >> Motion made by Antella, second by William. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. >> Those opposed? Nay. That carries. Five to zero.
Are we done with that? No, we're not done. Uh the final two spots we have um are for school committee members and we've allotted for two slots on that.
So with that, who would be interested for one of the two slots? One, two, >> two, three, >> three. >> Okay. So, how
>> Okay, I'm going to use a rand random. I can do it right now. >> You have it? >> Can pull it up. >> I would actually like to make a motion, please. I'd like to make a motion to nominate myself and William Strawther to the committee to select a superintendent.
>> Second. >> Okay. Motion made by Amy, seconded by William. Um, I would have preferred a random process myself. So, I'm gonna actually vote against this one, but I just had to state that.
Um, motion made and seconded. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. I. >> I. >> I. I. I mean, >> what? >> Sorry. I I >> I oppose. Nay.
>> Nay. And we said that carries three to two. Okay, that solves that. Um, so I would entertain um Well, I guess we just did. Okay.
All right. Thank you all. Um, so we have our full committee. We'll forward that to Tracy. >> We can do that. All the emails. Okay. Thank you. All right, new business. We have a discussion on the federal SNAP benefits
being frozen as of November 1st. This Pamordon [Music] Gordon was >> It was actually uh you had asked to put it on, but I can tell you what we've done. Um >> go ahead, Greg. >> So, we I had sent out a
just a notice. Uh I think everybody's been talking about the government shutdown um and how it's starting to impact various things. Earlier I think people were talking about how it's impacting air travel. Um but last week
going into the weekend, it started to impact uh many more individuals across the country and certainly individuals in the state of Massachusetts uh because the SNAP food assistance program is now impacted and was stopped stopped halted
uh as of Saturday there. We also know that um if if people are following it in the news that there is a court um decision to utilize the contingency funds which may bring it back that's going to take some time to get it back
on track for at least a month. >> Right. Um the notice was basically just uh letting the ELPS community know that um that is happening which they probably already knew but
also where there are resources for them to utilize. And in terms of students, uh, one of the the nice things right now that has not been impacted is that all our students have the ability to have a
free breakfast and a free lunch. That um should not be touched at least through November and probably December. Can't speak beyond that, but uh right now we know that that's going to be true through those months. We also in um the
discussion that we had the other day as we were setting the agenda, we touched base with all five schools because generally right around this time all of our schools get involved with food drives. Um one which you heard today they um I think Anna mentioned that the high
school had already committed to the Mayflower Marathon. Um so there then that's certainly um an incredible event and it I think it uh goes to the Springfield Food Pantry. Am I correct in that? Do you know? >> I'm not sure. The flyer didn't say so.
It just said to those is need >> greater Springfield or maybe it's the Western Mass Western Mass >> Western Mass food pantry which certainly serves all the Western Mass. And so that's certainly um going to be beneficial. Then um Mountain View had already
committed to raising and doing a drive for the vet veterans association. Three of our schools, however, uh last week committed their drives to the East Long Meadow Food Pantry that's run out of um our Council on Aging. So, those drives
are beginning either this week or next week and for the most part will go Thanksgiving. Um so anyone um in our audience or who received that uh message last week will be starting to collect
food items non-p perishable food items at all schools and depending on where you want to or maybe you would want to hit all schools hit Mayflower support Mayflower Marathon Mountain View you can support the veterans and at um Maple Shade Birland and Metobrook you can
support the um East Long Meadow Food Pantry which runs out of the Council on Aging. You said we're in jeopardy of not having funding for breakfast in two months. Is that what you said? >> Uh we don't know what will happen after. We can speak through the end of December. So we don't know. >> They said that the reimbursements for
>> based on the government shutdown. >> Basically >> if the government opens up then we will not. Okay. >> Yeah. So we've collected reimbursement through December. >> I see. And even if they get started, is there still that delay needing to to
restart everything? >> We haven't heard about that piece. I don't um hopefully since we're good through December, any delay would be if they can get started maybe this week, next week. >> Gordon. Yeah, I'm >> always hopeful. Um we would see we would
see less of delay. >> Um >> are they even in is Congress even in session? I don't think they're in session. I think they're back in session a week from today. >> Yeah, >> they're back in town. Bums. >> They're back in town. They're back in town to be in session. >> Yeah.
>> Hopefully tomorrow being election day, maybe that will generate some >> Yeah. >> Anyway, >> um aside from the general email, which um our district was the first one to send it out um to other schools, I started asking what they were sending.
Um, are we able to do any outreach to students to families that we, you know, students that we know might fall in a category where they are losing? >> Certainly, that's that would probably come through more of each school itself where they can start to break that that
down a little bit. Um, that's a little bit harder, but it is something that we can start to talk about. Yeah, absolutely. Uh we do know um through food services a good deal in terms of who is eligible for certain services. Um
we utilize that not only for food services but we also utilize it in terms of any user fee for athletics. Um and certainly for any kind of transportation that we might be looking at. Um so that's something that we can start to look at and discuss as a leadership
team. >> Yeah. I mean, I think the longer it drags on, right, the more people it's gonna impact, correct? >> Yeah. >> And we have a pretty good fund in food service as well. Not that we're looking at that yet, but
>> so if if folks out there if their situations do change and they want to fill out, although we are a free we're a SEP district which um makes us free and you know free meals for all of our students. But if somebody falls off of of that and they need additional help
such as and when I say this, it's transportation costs that could be reimbursed. It's athletic fees that could be reimbured if they wanted to uh call central office. I think it's on our website as well. There's an alternative uh funding form um income assistance form that um actually they those types
of forms can no longer go through um school lunch um departments. They have to go through central office. So it's um it's me looking at those um with Gordon and making those decisions. So if folks need help then they need to let us know and we can do our best to try to do
that. I think what's really important in the message that Greg spoke to us about last week is that, you know, your neighbors might need some help and it's it's one of those things that are really difficult. I mean, I made I made some food this weekend and I delivered it to a few people in my neighborhood that I thought this this probably affecting them. You know, you don't you're not
going to talk about it, but it's but it's there. And I don't know, just for people to just be aware of that and I think collectively what any of us can do to help. >> I didn't notice, but your email had the the community resources. Is that something that can go out through the through the social media like the town
or is it in other places? >> We could um >> I think uh >> as I talked to Council on Aging, they have it up on their web page. Um but we can put it on our web page and I'm sure that Ryan Kumi can send it out through social media.
>> Yeah. Because I know the other spaces I have been in, I you know did a quick search and it doesn't it's not always easy. >> A great idea, Carrie. Yeah. I guess we were just thinking of getting it out, which is Gordon was the first one as you said. >> He was the first one. >> He's He's good.
>> I made sure everyone knew it. My district's better. >> Everybody was talking about it. I can't take full credit of that. Um, we do have a at least an LPVC superintendent chat and so we were all talking about it. I acted on it faster.
>> Yeah. Well, and props districts have a much higher percentage of students who fall. Um, and so that's why I asked the question >> Westfield 46%. >> Yeah. So the whole >> surprisingly we're um not surprising to me and um
>> right. >> Yeah. We're we're getting close. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And so yeah, that made me think like we sent messages out to families to have kids in schools, but you know, had to get it out all >> Yeah. You're right. Great.
>> We'll work on getting uh the resources uh posted as many places as we can. >> And for the food drives, people can make monetary donations, right? Directly to food banks. I know that they were saying that that's sometimes better. >> I think it would should go directly to I
don't know that the offices want to get into collecting, >> right? Yes. Yes. No, I'm not suggesting that. But I know I saw somewhere that in some cases that's >> for the food banks they can get >> senior center >> council on aging >> council on a food bank >> food bank >> and that would be the check.
>> Um I I would call there's a number that I put out that I would call to speak with them and ask what how it specifically could be designated to that. It' be similar I would think to say when someone is looking to donate money but they want it specifically to go to say the music program, right? And
so we ask them to make it to the um East Salon Meadow Public Schools, but then in the memo indicate that it's for the music program and then it can go to the gift account with that destination >> because they're often able to then produce and you know other things that you know are needed. So that's why I
just brought >> That's a great point. >> Okay. A lot of interdep departmental connection in town as you can see. Yeah. All right. Thank you for that discussion and uh we'll continue bringing it up in
the setting because that uh that was helpful. >> Yeah. No, it's important. So glad we're on it. Okay. Moving along, we have 7.2 superintendent individual education educator plan for 25 26 school year. So, in your packets, um, I put together, uh,
my plan for this school year, which is more or less a culmination of a lot of what you've heard over the last few meetings. Um it does incorporate all the district goals, but then it also gets into some specifics around um well in
this case making sure that this construction project stays on on uh schedule and moving forward. And um we don't advertise as much uh with the exception of when we're presenting sort of at the beginning, the midcycle and so
forth. But we're also in the um uh in the Mass School Building Authority accelerated repair program right now for a roof replacement at Maple Shade. And so that is currently at the um point where we're finishing off developing the
schematic design. We have to submit that in December to the MSBA um with the hope that they prove it and then if they approve it at a board meeting in February, I believe February I believe it's February. I think it's February. They don't have a January
board meeting. Um then we would as a town go back to the town council and um we would appropriate uh vote to appropriate the full amount. However, right now, I believe our
reimbursement rate is very similar to the project uh that the we're in with the high school about 56.5% of eligible costs. uh they'll re-establish that as we get closer so that we'll know exactly what it would be
for this project. Uh those are those are the highlights really of the I could go page by page if >> you're welcome. >> Yeah, I don't think it's >> a page page burner.
>> Page turner. >> Thank you. I'm sure it is. >> Um, I take someone to move to accept the superintendent individual educator plan for 2526 school year, please. >> Made by Antella.
>> You're just saying it everything that you're supposed to. >> I'm out for you. Second by William. Any other discussion? Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Okay. carries five to zero.
>> Thank you very much. >> You uh item 7.3, we have an eighth grade MIA waiver for winter sports. >> Yeah, unfortunately um in there's anformational memo in your packet. Um in
the last few years, we've had to do um waiverss. uh and uh Mr. McGee has been uh very good at tracking this to see how many uh folks say from 8th grade have actually utilized the waiver. So you can
see say for swimming and diving on the boys side we just had um one in 2023 but then we had five last year in 2024 and on the girls side one in 2023 zero uh
for last year. skiing is where we have our our lowest numbers. That's that's been challenging over the last few years. And um wrestling actually is has come up. If you remember probably five years ago, maybe six years ago now, we
almost didn't have a wrestling program. We had uh two or three wrestlers total. Uh so we're we're excited that it's coming up, but uh unfortunately we're down two from the previous uh or from the recommended number.
uh cheerleading. This that's a first one uh first that we've had cheerleading on here and um that's uh something that uh Mr. McGee is also starting to track. And then finally um ice hockey. This was JV
only and um you can see last year we used four individuals in the eighth grade took advantage of it and previous year five individuals took advantage of it. Okay. I just don't know what the kids are
doing or are they all in like club sports, >> you know, it >> outside of skiing, which uh I think it's a combination of lack of snow and the amount of time that uh you have to put in uh in terms of practicing. But um
swimming it seems and certainly Anna jump in if you have greater insight on this. Um, swimming. >> I didn't mean to put you on the spot with that. It's been in terms of discussion that you may have with fellow students. Um, swimming, I think they're
swimming for private programs and then what they may take part in at the high school that still allows them to run indoor track. >> So, we do see a lot of doubling up with that type of thing. Um, wrestling has
been up and down over the years and um, >> hockey is just a a unique sport, I think. Um, >> a varsity team. >> Yeah, they can always field a varsity team, but uh, it's it's challenging to
to field the JV team. >> And I we know that uh, our hockey families, they're playing probably on multiple teams. Yeah. To keep keep going. If we don't get uh some numbers in specifically skiing, not run the program
at three and four members, >> we would have to look at uh going to a co-op most likely >> where we would join. >> Yeah, we combined with another another >> school >> school. >> That's actually what we do with uh women's hockey right now. We're in a co-op co-op program.
>> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. Uh, Long Meadow and um Oh, >> Pope Francis maybe. >> And uh there might be one other town that joined us. >> So girls from all four of those schools
can all >> that team. Yeah. >> I don't think it's called the Spartans. >> Has their own team. We don't go to them. We go. >> Okay. >> Sorry. >> Thank you. >> I don't even know.
So she knew hockey not >> in the Pope team. So >> generally when you um co-op Yeah. Just as Anna explained there um one school is your foundation school. So are the Lancers. >> Yes. Yes.
>> It's really painful but we are. >> They get to play. >> That is true. They do get to play. [Music] >> We need to move to approve it. Please. [Music]
>> I move to approve the eighth grade MIA waiver for winter sports as presented. >> Motion made by second. >> Second by William. Discussion. All in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> Those opposed? Nay. That carries five to
zero. >> Let Mr. G know so we can proceed. >> Item 7.4. Review policy revisions for the following policies. JF school admissions and JFABD student experiencing housing insecurity
enrollment rates. >> Okay. So in your packets um we have versions of both of those policies. The policies we're looking at this evening the policy subcommittee has reviewed and made some recommendations
on. And this is in conjunction with a recent um audit that we are undergoing with um the department of elementary and secondary education around um student support services and civil rights. Uh so
their recommendation as they were reviewing policies was um to update these two policies and then as we get to the agenda item that's coming up next um add a policy which we did not have
around concerning students or children in foster care. So with school admissions, the only thing that um we really need to update is the yellow the cross references to other policies that
we have um in our policy manual. So it's adding which currently we do not have on the policy and the policy manual. is adding those cross references to JLCA, JLCB, JFBB, JFABD,
um, and then JFABF. >> Uh, we'll do one at a time. Questions on school admissions file JF. If not, I would take someone to move to approve the revisions.
>> I move to approve >> the policy revisions for the following policies. JF, >> that's one. Just the one. That's the only one we so far. >> I'll go through this one and >> school admissions. >> Yep. Thank you. Motion made by Antella. >> Second. >> Second by William. Discussion. All in
favor say I. I. >> I. Okay. >> Those opposed? Nay. That carries 5 to zero. >> Thank you. >> Uh so the revisions um this actually had a really good discussion at the policy subcommittee meeting. Um we looked at we
had a policy that was um I think originally termed homeless students uh and enrollment rights and services. And as we were discussing it, it came up that um maybe it's more appropriately and um more respectfully stated students
experiencing housing insecurity. Uh so that was one um element that was changed throughout the policy. And then what I tried to do for both the policy subcommittee members and all of you was just show where the policy was in its
first um or its original draft and where things were changed. And that's where you see some of the green writing if that's making sense to everybody. And the big part of this beyond the um changing in wording around homeless
students to um students experiencing housing insecurity was really reorganizing it to make it a little bit easier to go through and understand. So it was the structure where you picked up headings such as students remaining in
schools of origin, students enrolling in district where sheltered or temporarily residing, dispute resolution and so forth. A lot of the meat of the policy remains. It's just now reorganized.
>> There's a couple of typos. >> Thank you for catching those. And um >> use AI to find them. >> And I I know typically people are using unhoused and I you see I see like
collectively homeless students like I don't know if what's consistent in the state or >> so actually in looking at the policies that are online with the Mass Association of School Committees >> kind of all over the map.
um some have changed the language in this way and some have kept homeless students >> but uh we're open I think uh and certainly any members of the policy subcommittee that's um Mr. Strawther uh Miss Denta and Miss Blair and Miss Brown
and myself are on that committee so anyone can jump in and offer thoughts. I mean, the language worked for me. Um, and I agree. I actually did a little AI searching and I kind of felt the same
way that the the language the the homeless just didn't seem right or doesn't work. Unhoused. Um, >> certainly at the collegiate level, I would say it's it's we refer to students as being unhoused.
>> Okay. instead of students experiencing housing insecurity. >> Yeah, housing insecurity would also be could be fine, but I saw a couple I mean I think you'd made change it, but there's >> list is still in there is what you're saying. >> Yeah, under this third sentence collectively home. I don't know if you're if that's there because you're
referring to how it was previously or >> I did leave that because that's exactly right. Yeah, that's how the state was still referring to it or uh defining it. Yeah, no one is using home homeless, >> right?
>> I think they changed it and then they went back to it, right? >> I also think it's appropriate because um unhoused I think you know it lists all these different ways um in terms of housing in security. I think um even
kids who are living with somebody else's family, but it's not a stable environment. They, you know, they don't have their own housings, but they're still in a house. You know what I mean? >> So, just kind of being >> all-encompassing in terms of switching it for every time homeless is being
used. Um, in some cases it works, in some cases it's challenging because Jesse still refers to our person uh, in this case for ELPS it's the student uh, the director of student support services
who is our homeless liaison. I I can't change that designation to something else. However, uh I do see in other areas I can >> right like information regarding a homeless students living arrangement. You know, there's a couple I mean if you
just control F for homeless, there might be spaces where we that >> happy to make those changes. >> So you're asking for any reference to homeless to be changed to unhoused except >> or for some discussion because I just
think it's becoming antiquated to use homeless. >> Yeah. No, I'm agreeing with you. I just It's the way you're proposing. Yeah. Any other comments, questions, >> Anna, how you doing timewise? Homework, right? Good. Okay, we're almost there. I
promise. >> If at any time you have to leave, you just wave and Okay, thank you. >> I'm thankful that you're here because you corrected me on the hockey. >> Oh, yeah. >> If you only knew about swimming, >> skiing, which one I swim,
>> she'll do her homework. >> Um, all right. I would entertain someone to move to approve the changes to JFAB D including the amendment to
modify the word homeless to unhoused where appropriate. >> Still move. Motion made by it's not second by any other discussion. All in favor say I. >> I. >> I. Those oppose nay. That carries five
to zero. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Okay, moving on. We have a review of the draft of a new policy, Educational Opportunities for Students in Foster.
So, this was um policy that we actually did not have in our manual. Uh so, we did discuss it at the uh policy subcommittee level. something that um certainly Desi would like us to have in our policy manual and it does capture
practices that we are undertaking in the district. We just never have had an overarching policy regarding these practices. questions, comments, >> the language from this come from like similar policies that other >> this is uh directly from the MSSE model
policy. Yeah, >> you're welcome. You >> do a first reading typical. >> You're certainly welcome to do a first reading and second reading on something like this. Absolutely. It's the just this is our first video run through
it. >> Yeah. I mean typically we do a first reading we can bring it back but if you if you want we could accept it too. It's not very controversial. >> No it's not. >> So I'll take a motion if you want or not. >> Okay.
>> What's the body? Oh I mean I'm I'm What's the body want? Does the body want a second read? >> Yeah. No, move it. Get it off the agenda. >> Oh, and it's written as such that, you know, they're going to make a best determination. So, we're going to keep them in the district if they want to stay or they can choose to go wherever
their foster home is. So, I think it's fine. >> Right. I make a motion that we approve the education opportunities for students in foster care file number JF. >> Motion made by William. >> Second.
>> Second by Carrie. Discussion. All say I >> I >> those opposed nay carries five to zero. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. >> 7.6 review and discuss the 2025 2026
capital plan. >> Okay. So in your uh packets there is a a multi-page five-year plan. Most of it
you've seen in terms of projects that um have been on the plan for a while. However, there are some new projects that um have emerged as we work with Department of Public Works and we work with um uh each school. There are
projects that have jumped up in terms of urgency. For instance, um um Mountain View is probably the best example. One that had not been on the um on the uh 5-year plan, but now is
actually the number one um project for Mountain View is repaving the access road around the school. That's not only because the access road was beginning to become in disrepair, but also because we have broken ground
on the modular replacement project. Part of the access road is now gone. >> Right. >> So when that project finishes, we will need to have uh an access road that is repaved around. Um so we got a cost estimate on that, worked with the
Department of Public Works. That's $151,817. Um what I tried to do in for each of the schools is give you their number one and possibly number two priority. Um let me just highlight for you some of the other
new items. Um last year at Mapleshade the um as they were going through somewhat of a security audit as we um plan different safety and security drills, they had um discussed the idea they have so much glass in the front of
their building. Um but all of their all the windows um around the building obviously could use this tinting and so they did go get a price on um window tinting a film that not only tints but also increases the
>> none of our schools have this. Why are we spending 38,000 on tint? >> Just something that as each school goes through their own safety planning um come together. >> It's just something that they would they would like to do. No tinting. >> And
>> it seems >> bullet impact >> like >> anyway, I'm just giving you >> What about the stick bill? Is this a new thing? Why is this on here? $3 million for the maple sheet. >> That's been on there. It was >> We don't have enough space. >> We're never going to get that though. We're never going to get 3 million for modulars. Why would we put this on the
list? >> What's been on on the list? >> I know, but we're never going to get it. >> But don't we want to show what our real needs are? I mean, aren't we I mean, >> we're definitely at Maples Shade because it's the smallest in terms of square footage. >> It's a million and a half per classroom.
There's no way they're ever going to get that. >> We need a different strategy. >> Okay. >> I think I just don't think it's futile. >> Can I >> the council and Oh, you have more. No, I just >> He's got funding, so never mind.
>> I don't have funding. I just I just need you to know the urgency of some that are new. >> So, if you go to Birland Park, um when we came out of the inspections at the beginning of the school year, end of August, right before school start, um
their fire alarm system is now 25 years old and struggling to get parts. So, the recommendation, although it's working, is that that um be replaced. And so we did go ahead and get a quote on that.
Um, and that's $100,25. You know, that that one I I say even that uh the urgency and the emergency element of that was one that the committee should certainly look at in terms of prioritization. This will
obviously come back. You don't have to finalize this in this meeting. We'll come back in. >> How much money do we have? It's really up to the town in terms of uh how much money >> typally it's a million dollars a year and typically we get about half of it
but that's overgeneralizing but just as a point of reference. >> Oh that's why and like is this uh VCT floor tile thing new? The 498,000 BT removal and replace 28. >> Um
>> that's I mean that's been on there. That's it's not something that they're seeing as urgent >> that bad. We have a half a million dollars of tiles that need to be replaced. >> It we're just we're tasked with making sure that people are aware as aging as buildings continue to age
>> what will need to be replaced at some point. >> Bird maintenance just gets more and more expensive, >> right? But it goes back to my point. So we get a half a million dollars a year. That one will never get funded. Never. It will never be funded. >> Is there is there um a fund for the turf?
Maybe we should start wash. >> Um just to finish off uh the last one that's highlighted um the district-wide bleachers, we did uh through Senator Alivera's office um have a um
uh supporter in terms of uh asking through the supplemental budget last year um for 150,000. They had asked um a few different districts uh that Senator Alivera, State Senator Alivera
represents for capital projects that have been on their capital plan for numerous years. And if people remember the stadium bleachers on the visitors side were actually part of the 2011
field replacement project that and it couldn't be accomplished in terms of trying to match the homeside bleachers with bleachers that are similar on their wayside. That never happened unfortunately. there were um elements of
that project that had to be um set up in a contingency if there were funding available at the end of the project that they would then fund those things. And there were a number of um items that didn't get funded. This is one of them. Uh so we do have 150,000
that um has been approved that we can put towards it and so Mr. is um working on that as to how we utilize that grant. The 148,000 is actually last year's price. So, we're getting pricing to see what we can get
per 150,000 and make sure it can fit on the way side because there's a small area of concrete over there and you have um not a great deal of space between the outer fence and then the field itself,
interior fence. I think I hit all the ones that I needed to bring to your attention. >> What's the strategy for the turf? Do we have one? >> Um the strategy uh initially was
hopefully that that was something that the the town with the help of possibly the um >> community preservation >> community preservation. However, you have to be very careful with asking for community preservation funds because it can't go directly to the replacement
carpet itself. It can go to um as far as I understand it's sort of supporting cost. Do you know how much that would be out of the 911? >> Not a good deal. A good amount of that. Uh most of it would have to come from capital.
>> Are we picking these things tonight? >> No, this is uh your first run at it. Um, and I do have to state that uh at the end of the day today, I received an email which I will then add to this from um GPW
>> indicating that our inverters at Birland um that deal with our emergency lighting. So when you lose power, your emergency lighting comes on. >> Um three of the sections need new batteries. What I'm hoping DPW will do
with us is separate the one the areas that need new batteries versus the area that needs to be fully replaced. Um the way the email read this afternoon, they want to wrap it all into one project which would then make it a capital
project because it would be over the $20,000 threshold. However, my question back was if we're dealing with emergency lighting and there are sections that we can bring online now when you are in need of you know that possibility. One
never knows when your power will go out. Um the hope would be we could do that with maintenance funds this year. So I have to get that that >> what budget >> well DPW has our maintenance funding. >> They would have the less than No, that's
why I'm >> Well, I mean, that's exactly what it's for. And so, they want to push it up to a capital project, but shame on them. Like, let's fix what's there with the money we have. >> So, because we're not going to get it as a capital project. >> So, that was my email back was um we
need to discuss >> um that how do we not combine these two, but separate the two. And I know that their budget generally their maintenance budget gets um pretty well exhausted
close to at least 50% just coming out of the summer into September. Um I think we're beyond 50%. I think we're somewhere uh >> talking 15 grand 60%. >> Uh that's a hope 10 10 to 11 back. I
have done in um past discussions when they're starting to run through their maintenance budget is we look at where we might be able to pull from say custodial or other building accounts to supplement. >> Not this year though.
>> This year will be a little bit more challenging because those accounts are being um depleted >> bolstered by school choice money. >> Uh this is not good stuff. So, it's a it's a longer discussion, but I did want to bring that to your attention because that came at 3:04 p.m. I did mention
that I can't just add something to the capital plan. >> Well, and what needs to be done is not worthy of a capital project, right? What needs to be done is less than $20,000. What needs to be done, >> you do have a system that needs to be
replaced in there. Um that's going to be over uh that's going to be somewhere around 27,000. >> But >> in addition to the >> replacement of batteries, we can probably get those three sections. I think we can get done. >> The system needs replacement as well
>> in one. >> That's what they're saying. >> One section. Yeah. >> Yes. >> Break down the cost of batteries, >> right? >> Yeah. No, I have it in two two two projects. So, the full replacement for that one section is $27,000
and the replacement of the batteries is $10,787. So, I I had emailed back saying that can we do the battery replacement out of maintenance and have a discussion around that and then put the other one if
it's not going to impede safety um on the capital plan. So that discussion I'm sure will probably take place tomorrow. >> I felt since we're discussing capital plan that you all needed to know it.
>> Thanks Gordon. >> Um >> I like to bring all the good news that I have. I'm just curious um in terms of like the window tinting like are there grant opportunities around
like safety or proactive measures that >> there are um smaller grants for that type of thing? generally not to the level of 37,000, but yeah, there are in years past we've gotten generally it's it's um smaller grants that we maybe
would get from one of the local banks, >> you know, that might fund give us 5,000 towards doing something. I didn't know if there's things like through I don't know Sandy Hook Promise or whatever that we could >> I haven't seen grants of that nature but they definitely want you to utilize their systems um and they may give you
support >> but I've never heard of hinting windows. Have you heard that? I have not, but I'm not I I'm just curious is I'm not I'm understanding what you're saying, but I'm also thinking that something like that seems like something that there might with a
lot of the different notprofit agencies that are out there. >> It's too big of a ticket item. I think >> from a grant perspective, not as a capital, you know, >> we can certainly look into that, >> but I mean it's but I I think we just don't want to glare over the fact that it's not just tinting, it's actual
>> impact resistant or it has some kind of some kind of bullet resistant or >> Yeah, I would. >> It's a waste of $38,000 if you ask me. And I'm not a professional on security, but we're building a brand new high school. We're not putting any of this stuff in it. >> I was just going to ask that. Is that something that >> regular E is now?
>> Just ask the question, Pam. It's regular e-glass. So, this is somebody who's like, "You know what you should do? Tint all your windows and spend $38,000 as taxpayers money, which will never get funded again. We'll never fund it." >> And I'm not necessarily suggesting we
are. I'm just curious. >> I know. Well, and then and we should take the the modulars off. We're never going to fund that. How will we ever fund that? >> Well, they're making it their number one thing. >> But reality, here's reality. never going to get funded. Zero chance of that ever
getting funded. $3 million for two rooms. >> I mean, it took a took a long time, but we did get it. >> We wouldn't have done it at Mountain View if we had the this price that we got now. >> So, you're just committing to large class sizes. >> Yes. Or another solution. But building two rooms at a time is not the way to do
at 3 million bucks because A, we won't do it, and B, it's a lot of money for two rooms. $3 million, not even the size of this. Who's going to They're not going to fund it. The town will not fund it. We fund a million dollars a year, half of it to the schools.
>> Given enrollment trends in the size of the middle school, is there ever possibility to have swing space since they're in such close proximity to each other? >> Good question. >> Um I just think in terms of planning, I I I don't know. I >> I mean, the challenge children, I'm not
sure at least there might be a period of time where that's a band-aid of some sort. you'd probably have to do something around um some of your less frequently meeting >> right >> elements. Um the modulars right now that
are on there are regular classrooms. So they're they have a home room classroom. They're you know they're meeting throughout the day. Um but we could look at space for other things. um say music or some of the other specials maybe.
>> I just think we should be re realistic on what we can get. That's what we should ask for. We shouldn't ask for $5 million of projects. >> I'm I'm certainly >> No, I know. I know, Gordon. I know you're just putting it out there, but >> that's their wish list. So we get we we
have to >> you ask her what the wish list is >> uh between this meeting and the next meeting where I'll have more information on the inverter stuff. Um we ultimately have to or you all have to prioritize what you would like me to
present to the town and then I package that up, present it to the town. >> We're going to have to come up with an idea on the turf because it needs to be done. >> Yeah, they >> What have other districts done? I mean, this is an expensive project for
everyone when this happens. Are there like, you know, sponsors or >> um I haven't seen a lot of that. Generally, they'll just go through the capital planning. Um, you know, we have sign it on the scoreboard.
>> Yeah. >> Put you on the replace challenging. Um, you know, West Springfield probably will be the next group up because they're rapidly, you know, when did they have their building project? It's, you know, it's
when they get that turf >> and then it goes into your capital planning. >> Holio, uh, >> project. >> Holio was one of the first school systems to have a field um, that was um,
an artificial turf field and I think it took them 14 15 years to finally replace >> old is ours. >> Ours was put in in 2011. What's that? >> We're there to Yeah. >> Do we have anything in the revolving
account for rentals? No. Rentals now. >> Yeah. Well, >> what are the guidelines around that? There must be at a point where we can't play on it because it's not >> um basically >> the only field is somewhere >> just I mean I I'm only familiar with
global just is somewhere between 12 and say 14 years. But with a maintenance program which we do utilize um we're constantly patching and establishing uh areas that are identified as
>> I mean I hate to say it but that should be our number one priority. >> Yeah. I I think last year taking that field offline would be absurd the day we open this building. >> Right. Here's a brand new high school. By the way, you can't use the field.
>> You would ever build it into I mean, I know it's like on budget and it's annual, but like it's a big expense like you know at at a >> I don't know. >> We don't have a million dollars in the building budget. >> A field fund. That's right. That's what
I'm there's a certain amount of money that comes out of the budget every year. So then you know that in 15 years you're going to have the money. >> It don't work that way though. It doesn't work that way. We can't put money like we can't put money >> well we have a revolving account for this >> but we've just used it
>> for but other things for other things. >> Well we have a revolving account for >> rentals >> rental >> rentals but people don't generally rent it to >> not like they used to right >> and no in terms of other schools nobody else they just come up with a million when they need it or whatever. No, I
think it takes them it's similar conversations. I don't think they get it in the first year of asking um but they put it on their capital plan and it's >> then it'll take these years >> these type of discussions that uh >> more gets pushed out then it's another year.
>> I think this gets more interest um when it gets into the town discussion because wreck uses it as well. So it's something that is going to be a need. >> I think that the correct and I think that the um the discussion the last two
years has been well let's not do anything to take it offline while we're going through this project. So it didn't rise to the town's capital planning as the number one project but I think it will soon. >> Well that's building goes online. I
guess I'm not discounting it's important, but since it's not just for the schools, I think >> it's a larger >> it's problematic that there might be things in the instructional environment that need to be addressed and we're going to prioritize a a field.
>> I agree with you. >> And then would turn around and say, well, we're going to put that much money into a field. Then what would be >> we don't have huge class a larger class size just seems >> we got floors that are damaged and somebody an actuary would say that
that's a that's a problem >> I mean >> one there's one thought to take care of what we have versus to add more right so they add more modular classrooms is an expense on top of an expense we have to take care of the field >> right >> I'm looking at like fire sprinklers I
mean I think that there are things here that are >> yeah no I say we keep that one >> and I'm Not saying that the turf isn't, but uh >> No, I think we keep the the turf on there, the the fire suppression, the
access road, which whatever. >> But even with the turf, where are we, you know, we look at like the the fire suppression and various things? >> Yeah. >> Have we looked at like where is the turf at right now? Are we at the point where we're totally at the end of >> life? I mean, the the recommendation is that
um we look to renew soon. Um but the group that does our maintenance um is keeping it going. You know, there they give us uh different packages, if you will, in terms of what they can do to
revitalize it between the end of play in the spring and the start of play in the fall. And depending on what we have left in our athletic budget, we commit a certain amount to do that. >> But I agree with you, Greg. At at that point, how do you open a building up in
the end? We can't use a field. >> Yeah. That >> Well, and part of the issue is going to be though, if we do fund it, we can't really take it offline until these fields are done. Right. >> Correct. You can't take it off. >> Why they didn't want to get into putting
it as the number one. This was now the town Once, so everybody's aware, once the school committee prioritizes and each department prioritizes their capital plan, then it all gets submitted to the town manager and then uh the town
capital planning committee calls in departments one by one to discuss their priority list for the ne next fiscal year. Um, we've always had the field replacement on there, not necessarily as number one, but we've had it on there
and it always gets discussion. Last year's discussion was more about this is probably not something we should take on while the high school is being built because fields are offline now. We're utilizing that more so than we ever have and we'll need to do so through at least
one more seasoned. >> We are going to put the two fields back online building, right? Correct. That's the plan. >> Yep. >> So, those will come on in >> hopefully the fall of uh >> following year. >> Did you say fall of if there's if they're sided? Uh possibly the fall of
26, late fall or spring of 27. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Could be. >> I'm just curious. Um you're right, Greg. Town council typically just is like a million million five for capital projects, but they also
have free cash, a pretty substantial amount, which is for one-offs, right? Like they don't want to use it for the operating budget. They don't want to um and understandable that's not best practice, but couldn't some of these very important things be talked about with the town? I mean, that's to have
those discussion. Maybe they would allocate x amount of that free cash for these projects. I think it's going to have to be for the turf, right? Yep. >> Carry question, Pam. Is is this the right year though, right? So, if we push
for the funding, >> is it free cash 13 million? >> Yeah. No, it's the right year for free cash. I agree. Is it the right year to go after the stadium now in order to fund it? >> It's worth a discussion >> next fiscal year. >> Yeah, but we don't >> but it's in time, right? So, if we push for funding, we get funding. It's It's
We'll still be on time, right? It depends on how long it takes them to replace it. Uh >> uh because you wouldn't be able to. So it' be July one would be the first chance you have to touch that money. It would be faster obviously if it's coming
from free cash because all you have to do is set up uh a capital account. >> Um but you really have then July to the end of August to get that field. >> Well, we're not getting it done this summer. >> How long does it take? >> I'd have to find that out. Um,
>> I mean, I see most of this is just facilities master planning and knowing when like how how much money we're going to have and how to prioritize some of the facilities issues that we have to ensure that we have a safe environment for >> Yes. >> Yeah. which is why we
>> I would hate to see that like you know a major one-off project deters what should be strategic facilities master planning so that then something else becomes >> but it can and it does I agree with you we shouldn't >> I guess I don't I would still ask for
things >> well but I think Pam's right we have to go after the free cash for the turf and the rest out of the operating budget yes >> we will uh just put a plug in that um We're going to need help with the regular budget given that we have
$450,000 from school choice money supporting our supply line accounts. Um >> so yeah, so we should keep capital light relatively,
right? But I think the strategy is to push for the turf, the alarm system, the access road, and the metal.
We probably want to get that. We're way over. I mean, we're going to get the turf if we get it. 50/50 out >> the free cash. >> Yeah. And probably the fire alarms. So that covers the whole
I bet that's what we got and that's it. >> I don't know over a million dollars. >> Yeah, it's over. >> But you said a million five sometimes >> total though total town. We get half. The schools usually get half. >> That's the entire Yeah. >> And it's usually millions.
>> They did create a capital planning fund, didn't they? >> Last year. >> Don't start on that either. >> Sorry. That's a mess, too. >> You know, like >> I just don't I'm sorry. I don't get >> They built the fund to only you like you're either going to use it or not use it, right? So, once they use it, it's
empty. Like, I don't get the point of that fund, but they're not going to use it. >> Okay. Neither here nor there. >> Thank you, Anthony. >> Carrie, did were you going to say I was just going to say like the Meadow Brook fire suppression system and all like we we know the lifeline or the timeline of
whatever you know, at what point do things become urgent, important crisis and not just aspirational capital projects, >> right? So, I think you know with um say the Mountain View modular replacement,
they're probably because there is a sprinkler system going into that um those two new rooms that are being built, the town's probably going to have to look at um moving at least Mountain View's fire
suppression system up from say FY 31 to something sooner because that's um they already had to ask for a waiver on that so that we're not outfitting the entire building with a suppression system, just
construction. >> Well, we're not deciding this tonight. We are not just for we are not in good discussion. >> Let us know if you get any more emails. Okay. >> Try to bring back cheery news next time.
>> Oh boy. >> All right. >> All right. Okay. Moving on. 7.7 appoint school committee represent representative for pair professional negotiations. Who wants to do this?
>> I wouldn't mind doing it. If if someone else wants to do it, they can do it. But >> okay, >> didn't we just do their >> feel? I was like, >> what we did do was we were very
successful in moving that contract from um a really less competitive contract to a much more competitive >> remember that >> three years. >> That's what I remember. >> We are >> feeling good about that. remember it was a >> I'm sure that there will things that we
get into discussion on but um we are feeling like we're much more competitive when you look at our pair of professional contract versus other pair of professional contracts we have to put together that whole portfolio again but uh >> I am too close to that to do it I think
>> elliptical no I confused that ear Okay. So, >> yes, no one else wants to do. >> Okay. And take a motion. Please >> make a motion to appoint Antella on the
um >> before the school committee representative for the par negotiations. >> Motion made by William. Second. >> Second by car discussion. All in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed? Nay. That carries five to zero. We're still in the very preliminary
stages. They're putting together their team and as well as we're doing our research right now. So, generally you start either late December or early January. >> All right. >> Yeah. >> I know. I can't believe it's been three years already. >> Time flies when you're having fun and
you're building things. >> Okay. Hey, finally on our agenda tonight, this was an addition to the agenda. Many of you may have noticed it was added late. Uh but because it is a timely issue and it um >> is out of state
>> is out of state. It had to come to the school committee, the date is November 7th through the 9th. Yes. >> Sate. >> Yes. >> And I'm going late to go. >> Not yet. You know,
>> we do uh have to apologize because um >> these should be more timely. This um any field trip goes through um nursing in terms of looking at the roster and potential nurses that are needed and
meds that might be needed. It also goes through the building principal and then um it goes through um here in central office looking for cost estimates for transportation. This was submitted it um I learned about
it on Friday unfortunately but uh it was submitted back on the 1st which when I finally saw that that date I was a little bit less um excited as I had been when I originally realized that we had an out ofstate field trip that was not
brought to your attention before um this meeting. So um the other piece that was somewhat of a mitigating circumstance at least for me was the fact that generally the model UN and model congress they've been hosted by local colleges whether
Springfield College or AIC or Western New England. I think this is then correct me if I'm wrong Anna you have been great tonight correcting me. Um I think this is the first time we're going to Yukon. >> This is the third year we're going to Yukon >> and you go all weekend. Yes, we do. It's
um it starts at like 5 at night on Friday and then it ends at 10:00. We have to be back at 9:30 on Saturday, ends at 10:00, back at 9:30 on Sunday, ends at 10:00. >> Wow. >> What transportation are you guys using? >> All car pooling,
>> but there's only like >> did estimate buses for you. >> There's only like 15 of us and half of us drive, so it's not really a problem. >> You hear enthusiasm? >> They give you ice cream. They do. Yeah, we actually we get our lunch through the student union. So >> Oh, fun. >> Yep.
>> Sweet. >> Mhm. >> Oh, all right. I guess >> Yeah. >> You didn't have Anna here. >> Yeah, >> I know. >> I make a >> I make a motion to approve the Summit High School field trip to uh Yukon.
>> Motion made by Carrie. Second by William. Discussion. All in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed? Nay. That carries five to zero. >> We expect a full report when you next meeting >> awards. >> They're
no >> what awards. >> Yeah. For like we have to all write papers. We have to go there's like 10 committee sessions. They're all like two hours long. >> It's pretty. But it's also a learning conference. So like kids who first like it's their first year. Like it's like
really it's really good for them too. >> You went last year. >> I didn't go last year. I went my sophomore year. Um, but it was like so fun. >> You done model congress before? >> Yeah, I've done four years. >> You've done model congress?
>> Yes. I went to AIC my freshman year, Westfield State my sophomore year. Last year I had some circumstances I couldn't go to anything. >> Yes. Yeah. >> Have a great time. >> Thank you so much.
>> Okay. Okay, with that we have come to the conclusion of our meeting. Thank you Anna for being here. I would entertain someone to move to adjurnn. Please >> I move to adjurnn. >> So second car second by William Alden. All in favor say I.
>> I. >> I was opposed. Nay. That motion carries five to zero. Thank you. We are adjourned. >> Yeah. Send.