This government meeting is brought to you by Eastworks and our local cable subscribers. Good evening, East Hampton. Uh we are going to call to order this regular session meeting of our school committee. Uh we are going to roll call in as one
of our members will be joining us uh remotely. Mayor Salem Derby >> present. >> Bonnie Atkins >> present. >> Erica >> here. >> Megan Harvey >> here. >> Uh Sam Hunter >> here. >> Linda Marque is ill and not joining us
tonight. We miss you, Linda. We will see you in August. Uh chair Laura Scott present. So we're going to move on to our consent agenda. in the first place. >> Just do one motion right at the time.
>> I think you do the first one though. >> You I believe can move and then just abstain. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> I make the motion to approve the finance and other consent agenda items below as written. >> We get a second. >> Second.
>> Thank you, Sam. And we are going to keep my roll call. Mayor, >> yes. >> Bonnie, >> yes. Eric, >> yes. >> Abstain. >> Abstain. >> Megan, that's okay. >> Yes. >> Uh Sam, >> yes. >> And Laura Scott, yes. So, the consent
agenda is approved. Moving on to announcements. >> A donation. Um a $1,000 anonymous donation to East Hampton Public Schools was made. So, that's >> cool. >> That's awesome. Wonderful. >> That's a very lofty That's very l Yeah.
Um, I move to suggest motion for the accepting of the donation from anonymous in the amount of $1,000 to be deposited into the district gift and donation account. >> I get a second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Sam. Uh, Mayor, >> yes.
>> Bonnie, >> yes. >> Eric, >> yes. >> Megan, >> yes. >> Sam, >> yes. >> And Laura Scott, yes. Thank you so much. Anonymous. You think it's the anonymous? That'd be crazy. Uh at this point we're going to open up
the floor to public comment. Anyone who is joining us in person or remotely if you would like an opportunity to share your thoughts ask you to either step to the podium or to raise your virtual hand. Give that a minute. Okay. Seeing none,
>> we are going to close public comment and move to our superintendent update. >> Julia, there's a remote for that. Should be on the It's the bitty remote. Wait. >> Mhm. >> I'm too far from that TV. Do you want that one on?
>> Okay. Well, I turned it on and off at the same time. Was that a trick idea? All right. Good evening, school committee members. Um I am here to present to you um some of my evidence um to support my goals
for my evaluation for this year. So um in I believe it was November I presented my goals to you as a superintendent. Um my first goal was around strengthening data informed instructional practices.
My second goal was around my participation in the new superintendent induction program um including sort of my entry plan, my coaching sessions and some of the reports. And my third goal was around the successful implementation
of parent square as our sole unified family and community engagement platform. So when you receive this deck um and when it's posted on the website um this link at the bottom actually will bring you to all of the folders that
include my actual evidence in there. So you can see the artifact collection there and it is sort of organized by goal one, goal two and goal three which I just discussed and around the four
standards of uh that the um superintendent is evaluated against the DESIE superintendent rubric. So the first one is around instructional leadership. The second one is around management and operations.
The third is around family and community engagement. And the fourth is professional culture. So you'll see my evidence associated with each of those. But in my presentation, I'm going to give sort of a highlight of some of those some of the things that we
accomplished this year. So when I presented at the beginning of the year um sort of fleshing out what those goals looked like um that data informed um instructional practices and that we spent a lot of work as a leadership's team trying to you know what is the data we're going to look at over the course
of the year. It was the focus of our leadership team meetings that we had monthly. So, I've attached some of the agenda so you can see that. And we took a look at a lot of um student discipline data and attendance data. Particularly at the high school, we really focused in
on attendance data because they had made some schedule changes and to see if those schedule changes like switching that advisory um block um did that improve attendance? Did that sort of cut down on some of our truency issues that we we had. So, we took a look at that
and we also looked at referrals. So student discipline referrals and you know what are we seeing um sort of the most frequent discipline referrals you know what are so what are our restorative practices to get really a landscape sort of analysis on that that
was the focus of our leadership team but not only did we do that we are also looking at our star data assessments we are looking at our MCCAST data but as a leadership team we really wanted to focus on attendance and discipline through that and you know we we that was
our focus throughout the year. Um and we saw that the changes to the high school schedule did decrease tardies and that we did see improved attendance for students at the high school and we saw some progress on our star assessment
data. So we conduct STAR the beginning of the year, middle of the year and end of the year and it is one of our measures that sort of informs how we are going. It's a predictive measure on how we may perform on our MCCasts. So, a couple of like real important changes
that we did this year. Um, one, we sent out the star reports via parent square this year. So, kind of hitting two goals, right? And that was really important for us to make sure that parents were getting timely communication that they were aware how their students were performing. They
didn't have to wait for the parent teacher conference, but we sent it out in advance of that. So if parents wanted to discuss how their students performance was on the STAR assessment um they could do so. We also looked at MCCAST data. We're still looking at
MCCAST. We will still continue to do that. So we did a lot of work sort of around understanding what we were looking at, how we were going to measure and what change we were going to enact because of that. Um and our second my second goal was around um sort of that
commitment to high standards that participation in the NISP and that's where my um entry findings came out of. So those listening sessions um that data analysis and the report of my entry findings was part of the NIST program.
Um and I think that really helped um set the groundwork for the work that we had to do over the course of the year and that we will continue to do. So um you'll see in my evidence, you'll see that NISP entry report, you'll see the dates of the listening sessions, you'll
see the data analysis that came out of those listening sessions and um how we actually used um that entry report to inform our strategic planning work. So not we had this document and it was a great sort of resource for us and you
know sort of this culminating what what are people saying in the district what d what is the data telling us and where do we have to strengthen partnerships. Um and then we took that and we said all right now we need a strategic plan. Um so we created a strategic planning
committee which was 25 people coming together. This team is an incredible group of brilliant people um who really helped us shape sort of our strategic plan which we've called our strategy for district improvement and I'll highlight
some of that in just a second because I'm really excited to share that work. But that again was a very iterative process coming together to identify our pillars that are shaped and defined by our core values and then our theories of action. if we do this then we anticipate
this and that work is going to guide us for the next three years in the district. So super excited about that and I could not have done that without participation in NISP and sort of learning alongside other firstear superintendent and sort getting the
guide book on how this work gets done and what you should do as your as a first year superintendent. So, I met with my coach twice a month during this time, got feedback from him, Kenny, who you've met. Um, he he's been
instrumental in helping shape sort of my work and, you know, helping me as a first year superintendent. So, really excited about that work and completing that first year of the program. And then the third the third goal is around the parent square successful implementation.
And we look today and we have 99% of our families have registered contact in parent square and are regular rece receiving communication updates. That's incredible. And you know I think you know when I first started it was we
didn't hear enough. Now it's like okay we are hearing a lot. how do we, you know, sort of identify what are the important pieces and then working with teachers to identify, you know, when should we communicate and we'll do that work over the course of next year really
coming up with a strategic communication plan. So, when do you expect to receive communication and how frequently should we be reaching out to families? But it's a really good problem to have and you know there are ways that parents can sort of limit that but really proud that
uh parent square is the sole platform that we're using to communicate with parents and seeing so many parents engage with us. Um and I think next year it's going to be focusing on that two-way right it's we're sending out a lot now how do we you know make sure
that it is two-way communication with families but we're off to a really good start. So around the student learning goal, you know, I sort of talked about this. This is right here. So sort of the cadence of this this PowerPoint is I out this first
slide is what I presented to you sort of in November. This is what I thought my evidence would be to support my goal. Um and then so on the right hand the left hand side you'll see the evidence I said I was going to present and then you'll have my artifacts on sort of on the
right here. So all of these documents are linked in the folder. So you can take a look at the actual PDFs um and the documents to support the artifacts here. So you'll see those leadership team meeting agendas. You'll see our data collection. Um a lot of our sort of
data analysis I could not upload because it is has student identifying information. But um you know sort of the highlevel data pieces. The presentation from Julianne and myself around MCCAST from last year is in there. Um and
you'll see sort of the high-level data pieces. Um and then you'll see um the school improvement plans. We made some great revisions to school improvement plans were sort of midcycle this year. Our school council um gave us really
great feedback particularly MVS very strong school council. I was able to participate in that gave us great feedback on goal setting and how we are identifying sort of our student outcome measures and really pushing us to think
about it at every level looking at subgroup data um and we made revisions to our school improvement plan um because of that feedback and I think that really highlights sort of that partnership and that leveraging the voice of our families to help strengthen
our systems. Um and then you'll see some um documentation of the what I mentioned the STAR BOI MOI EOI beginning of the year, middle of the year, end of the year data sets. Um and then I think you know it's always important to not only have some hard data, you'll also see
some information that came out of our student speakup summit. Um which is some qualitative data around sort of the experiences of students. Um, and I think it really speaks to that trans transitioning the middle school experience piece.
All right. And around professional practice goal two, here is, you know, sort of this participation in the NISUP induction program. Here is the evidence that I thought I would collect at the beginning at the on the left is here's what I said and here is what I'm presenting to you. sort of the listening
session dates um those entry findings uh the strategic planning committee creation how we identified who would participate um those sessions that we have you'll see the decks that I put together for those sessions and then you'll see some of the work in the iter
iterative process of it we did some um padlets where we got feedback and we sort of revised it was such a great um great group of people and now that that group So that work isn't done, right? We've sort of created the shell of our
strategy for district improvement. That group, we've asked them to now become our district ILT. >> So um families, um school leadership, parents are going to now be part of a district leadership, instructional leadership team, which we haven't had.
So excited for them to help us progress monitor our strategic planning work. So, we don't want it to be something that sort of just sits on a shelf now that nobody looks at that I report to you, you know, sort of once once a year um the work that we said we were going to
do and did we do it, but really meeting um quarterly with family and families and leaders to identify how we're doing and then we can make sort of midcourse adjustments. We don't have to always wait till end of the year data to make
changes. >> That's great. So district improvement plan um the goal my third goal around family and community engagement and when I think about um when I was uploading my evidence for this there was so much evidence um to to upload here just
around you know how we're strengthening communication because it is something that you know when I stepped into the superintendent role um which was only a year ago and I think about like this very impressive body of work that we've done together. Um I I I was like, "Wow,
we've accomplished so much together as a district and really proud of that." Um so here is what we I the evidence that I thought I was going to collect and here are is some of the artifacts. We had a really robust assistant principal
interview process that was um really thoughtfully done. We had students participating in the process. We had families participating in the process. Proud of that work. um those listening sessions. We did um the school department did a a presentation to city
leadership. They did a city leadership academy. We were able to present to members of the city council about sort of who we are as a school community and the budgeting process. We launched our first survey this year. We had 122 responses which helped to inform our
transforming the middle school experience and we hope to see that number you know sort of grow every single year. So we have a baseline it's 122 but we use that data for many different purposes but it was it really
helped shape our transforming the middle school experience. So, I just want to thank everybody who took the time out to respond to that survey, and I hope that they saw that we did use this survey to to make change in the district. So, I would encourage everybody next year when
we launch it. We're going to launch it in November again to please participate. And I could use everybody's support in getting the word out um on completing that survey. Um we did a lot of work around student belonging. Our partners at with CES helped us launch a survey
about belonging that was to teachers and students and we did a really in-depth analysis as part of our equity committee around how students see themselves in our schools and what we need to do as a school district to improve that sense of
belonging and that work is still ongoing. We have um we've done sort of a a lot of sort of spin-off work with that and we will continue to build on that. We launched a central office presence plan which includes me being at a school
two days a week. Um I've up updated sort of the schedule. Gene Libby is going to be spending two days in the school. So our family and community engagement person will be located in the family room at MVS. It's going to be great, right? It's the way it should be. We
shouldn't be, you know, we will have space here, but we should be in the schools. And that's sort of, you know, the vision, the long-term vision for that. Our IT department deployed to the schools, right? You can find one of them walking around the school or helping a teacher out. It's so great to see. Every
time I'm in a building, I'll run into one of our technicians helping out with technology. It It's the way it should be and I'm very happy with that. um district communication samples in there, things that we've p, you know, put out on parent square, other district communications that we've had to do. Um
our strategic planning committee, we have our parent square dashboard results there and like I had mentioned before, those digital we send out report cards digitally now and we have those assessment reports digitally just all a way to help strengthen how we
communicate with families. We still have a long way to go, but we're getting there. Um, and three pieces. The next three slides are work that I'm very, very proud of. So, we have our core values here. Who we are. This came out of the listening sessions. This came out of feedback from the community. This
came out of survey results. So, we now have established core values as East Hampton Public Schools, who we are as a district. And it's so nice to keep continuingly pointing to these. Um, and we have a new district tagline. We were a great place to learn and grow, but now
we're a commitment to learning and a community of belonging. And I think that truly represents who we are and again informed by the community, informed by students. Um, so proud of that work as well. We have our refined vision and mission, right? We had an old strategic
plan. It was from it ended in 2023. So we have sort of who we are, our beliefs sort of stamped in there and we can keep referring back to those. Um, and we've updated the website to reflect this. We center all of our meetings on these vi
on this v vision and mission. And now the the unveiling here of sort of our strategy for district improvement which was helped which was designed by our um strategic planning committee. So, you'll see our pillars here. Um,
academic excellence, inclusive culture and belonging, family and community engagement, and consistent and equitable experience are our pillars. They're aligned to our core values there. You'll see the vision for the pillar, and then you'll see our theory of action. And
this went through, I don't know, 50 edits. Um, and it's still not done. It's still a draft. We are going to publish this to our website to seek feedback from the larger community. So we will be seeking feedback on this. Um but really
proud of this work that this is sort of the highlevel overview of what we're going to focus on for the next three years. So really proud of that and when you get the slide deck you can take a look at it. Um but we'll be also working on this
in our leadership um team over the summer. So in August we have two days where we spend time as a leadership team sort of digging into this and then we're going to identify sort of pillars that are going to be pillars of focus for each school and when we do our next um
school improvement plan they're going to be aligned to the strategy for district improvement and aligned to our core values. So it'll all just fall very nicely and then when you see my goals as a superintendent and you see administrator goals, they will all then
be aligned to the strategy for district improvement. So we'll have a nice cohesive system in which we are all referring back to. So very proud of this work. Um and it came out of many conversations, data, um and just a lot
of time spent by awesome people trying to help build this So thank you all for participating and I had mentioned sort of evidence that occur for each of the standards. So a lot of these are sort of redundant because I did identify goals
that were aligned to standards. But here you'll sort of see what we have. Um I I did it by standard. So instructional leadership in there and this is a little bit more granular. This is sort of CKLA implementation updates. So our HQIM we
spent a lot of time looking at classes imp looking at the implementation how is CKLA going you saw the presentation from Jodie but here you'll see some data to support that work management and operations we did a complete overhaul of our bullying plan we did an overhaul of
the reporting forms for that we did um an overhaul of not only like our anonymous alerts our website so it's really in and the letters that we sent home to families and that was all based on feedback that we heard from families. So proud of that
work as well. Um I can't um I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about all the budget presentations that you all heard here um and the staff the communication to staff and families. Um we I've also included theou with Smith College
because we didn't when I step we didn't have a solidified reunification site. we now do with an established with Smith College and theou um to start our Head Start programming for the next year. So,
um those are some just some management operation things, family and community engagement. Um I I kind of went through all of those already. And then professional culture, my school committee reports that I um do monthly and you know our student showcase was
such a nice addition to um our school committee meetings. Um again um that mission and vision. We refined our district wellness policy. I got to chair that this year. Um and then again establishing those core values in our district tagline. So those are sort of
the more additional pieces and some um duplicative pieces of the standards um that I chose already. So you can see here when you go in here um there's also links here as well for each
of the goals. So the blue the blue um underlined words are links. So there's three places you can identify the evidence there. Great. So let's take a moment to explain to the public that this um the evaluation of the superintendent is a
process that is required in the commonwealth and it happens annually. Uh so this committee will be about to undertake that uh there it is very you described it well by saying that the DESI has greeted this rubric and we follow this it is it's given to us step
by step and we're asked to um evaluate the materials that are sent to us by the superintendent and then offer um feedback and assessment. And so what will happen is we are going to schedule two meetings with the full committee uh
to begin and complete that work. And then each individual school committee member will submit their individual evaluation to me as chair. I will colay all of those individual evaluations and create one master evaluation that we will then share with the public. My
anticipation would be that we'll be prepared to share that with the public in September. Um uh stay tuned. it will just be um we just have to get everybody together for two meetings between now and then. So, thank you so much. Does anybody else
have questions? And Megan, I'm not forgetting about you. I I'm assuming Megan at least wanted to say something because this felt like Megan's dream come true watching that presentation just now. >> You're muted. >> It's great. It's really great to hear
all this. It's great to see the collaboration that went into all of it. Gemma is really excited about this. Um, so just thank you for the work that went in and the amount of collaboration that happened to produce this. >> Thanks, Megan. Sorry to put you on the spot. Thank you, Gemma.
>> Anyone else? >> I um I have some questions. >> Go ahead, Sam. >> Um, so first of all, I really appreciate this presentation. Um, I thought it was really well done. I I've been we've all been kind of following this progress over the past year and it was just like
really kind of powerful to put it all in one place. >> Um I was wondering just about um the the um sorry I had I had written some questions out. Um can you just explain a little bit more about the instructional
leadership team and like kind of what we've done in the past and kind of how that's different now? Yeah. So, typically each school has a school-based like Mountain View will have an instructional leadership team and East Hampton will have an instructional
leadership team which is made up of administrators and teachers. >> Um, we haven't had a district um instructional leadership team. Um, so this is a new um a a new committee that will meet and if anybody is interested in participating, you know, the door is
open. I think the the more um we can share in this work and get people sort of familiar with what we're doing in the district and how we are, you know, trying to improve student outcomes, I think is really important. Um the focus will be on instruction. Um and we are
hoping to do some learning walks in the school with this district ILT if people are available. Um but typically it has been school-based. Um there are two sort of there's the um instruct there's the instructional leadership team and then
we also had um after school we had Melt meetings. So um it was the Mountain View um >> Mountain View leadership team >> um would get together and there would be sort of representatives and that would
be district run. So we would sort like and they would report out we would break it up to middle school and elementary school and we would look at our data and we would you know try to make instructional decisions but I think having community members is very
important to the process. So um excited to launch that and to repurpose the strategic planning committee because it is so strong >> that I just think that is such a great East Hampton specific idea like we are really lucky in this community that we
have so many um really engaged folks who really want to have input into that. Um so I'm excited that um that's going to be more available. I think there's going to be good feedback from that. Um, and I was just also wondering, and we can talk more about this as we're doing your
evaluation. I'm really interested in the attendance and discipline um, data from the high school. So, I my I understand like there's the actual data is in those um, in that evidence, but at some point it might be good to just do kind of a report like kind of a report out on just
that. That's just something that has come up in the past. >> Great. >> Um, but yeah, I thought this was great. Thank you very much. I'm very I'm really looking forward to going through all those folders. >> There's 11 in there. But yeah, no, it's it's all like when I was putting it together.
>> No hyperbole. >> No, it's not hyperbole at all. I really am. >> It's genuine. >> I was like adding it. I was like, "Oh, I forgot that we did like I mean it's like override, right? Like it was just this thing that happened." But I was like, "Wow, we have done an incredible body of
work together as a district this year. >> It's unbelievable." >> Yeah. Well, that we is doing a lot of work, but yeah. Um, anyone else have comments? >> Uh, I was just going to add I I appreciate obviously the presentation. I like that I'm already seeing things that have happened. Um, so it's like it's one
thing to have goals and I think it's >> they're going to be ongoing primarily because it's just forever changing and morphing and moving, but already seeing things that are changing in the middle school already and things even administration roles for for the new incoming admin and at the at Mountain
View and seeing things change shape and kind of become because I think with all of our new buildings, I've always felt that >> they they need time to become themselves and I think these changes are going to allow that to happen and as more
students come through it'll be more of it's Mountain View in the high school and this is our community and schools and this is what we know us to be. So I really appreciate that. >> I think our next level of work right so the e um the high school has very strong eagles values and their nest vision for
students and bringing that to MVS. So you can look forward to that work um as part of sort of our profile of a learner for East Hampton Public Schools. Yep. I would love to say something. Um
the the comprehensive um not only presentation but the work that has occurred this year is phenomenal. Um it's so multi-layered and connected and very much beholden to community as well as educators and that
is so important. um something very noticeable in the override. The work was continuing during the override. It was amazing what people would come up and and start talking about what they were seeing, the changes
already that they were seeing and their concern that without the override that they wouldn't be able to continue. And you know something that was really important is when people started talking about well if it doesn't pass the
override we actually have in place such integrity about the values and where we're going to go from here that regardless um there is definitely a a precedence of
learning belonging all of the values And it was really just about making sure that we could continue to do the work. >> Um, people literally came up and said, "This has been an amazing year. How did you find her?" Like they I mean,
people asked me questions like that I actually couldn't entirely answer. Um, and it was mindblowing. And so I just this year has been extraordinary. Um and there is a a restoration in faith about
where the school system is going >> as a district um that real movement forward. And so you know this is evidence clearly um of this path and I thank you really and the entire
community for really being invested deeply. Um, I get so much feedback from the community about things that we need to change and you know it's all right. How are we going to do it? It's, you know, it's my job to figure out how we
make this happen, right? To use data to make those decisions and use the research and best practice and evidence um to support those decisions. And I think the transforming um the middle school experience, I cannot wait for that um to launch next year. So excited.
So, next year, you mean September? Sep. >> I know. I know. I don't want people. I'm trying to slow down the summer a little bit. Um, we have some dynamic hires that we I cannot wait um to see this come to
fruition. And then to see the DESIE's graduation requirements and frameworks come out and I was like, we are so aligned to that work. It's incredible. the financial literacy piece, those Compass Core classes that felt like, you
know, sort of a dream months ago are are happening and we have exceptional teachers going to teach our students about digital literacy and financial literacy. I I can't wait. >> Yeah. >> And world languages. >> It's awesome. >> Jess, do you have anything you want to
add? >> I don't think so. I think everyone summed it up pretty good. I think all the work that you've done throughout this entire year has really like I don't know. definitely put ourselves on a good track and a better track, especially with the whole scare of the override. I think definitely like what Bonnie said,
working through that was like really cool to see and not like slowing down or like stopping work to see what would happen. Just like keep going. >> Well said. Mayor, any thoughts? >> I think it's been said. Nicely done. >> Thank you. Uh Dr. Bosch, do you want to
touch on the district wellness policy? >> Okay, you're going to hear from me for just a couple more minutes. Okay. All right. excited that we did some wellness policy work. Um, our wellness policy hadn't been updated since uh 2013. So,
um, it was a little old changed since then. >> Um, but excited now that we have a page on our website here that talks about the district wellness committee. I'd like to thank um, Eric for being a part of it. Hope Gardener the extraordinaire um, was
a really great part of our committee. Ken Lea Page from our food service provider and Amanda Jud um who really were instrumental in helping us um not only just put together a revamped policy but have it speak to sort of the whole child to talk about staff to talk about
to incorporate mental health in there because wellness isn't just about food um and physical activity it's about you know your whole self. So how are we creating well adults um and well children. So excited that we really aligned um some of this work. So just
sort of a quick little overview of the revised wellness policy. It's a short eight pages. Um but what we did is we again it's so great that we have our core values and that we can lean into that when we're creating our policy and talk about how you know food access is a
matter of equity. It's a matter of belonging. It's shared responsibility. Um talk about who should be on the committee. This is all on our website. It's posted if you ever, you know, sort of want to read it. Um, our water filling stations that we have. Um, what
are our standards for, um, food and nutrition? And again, this year was about changing the policy, right? We still have a lot of work to do about enacting the policy. How are we dealing with um, fundraisers and healthy choices and food incentives? There's still a
huge body of work that still needs to happen, but getting the policy in place was the first part. um nutrition education. Hope helped us sort of shape the school garden program. We got that grant for um revitalizing the middle school gardens. It's beautiful. You go to MVS, you see the gardens first. It's
gorgeous. Super excited about that. Um you know, talking about fundraisers as a matter of equity, talking about um celebrations, rewards in and in incentives as a matter of equity and grounding in our core values. um what does it mean to have access to physical
education and physical activity during the day? Talking about social and emotional health, talking about that staff wellness and then family and community engagement through our wellness policy. So, we're going to be launching in September sort of revitalizing the district wellness
committee. This year's work was to really just revise the policy and then next year we'll be setting some goals around what are we going to focus on? what is the one thing that we're going to focus on relative to school wellness? Um we had to do this for you know desi
right it's a policy revision but now how do we make sure that we are living our wellness policy sort of agenda here. So um it is on our website here you'll see our timeline here um and we had to do sort of a reflection on where we stood
with our wellness policy and how well we're holding to it. So, just really excited about doing all that work this year. Um, and I thank everybody who participated. Um, we met after work when everybody was tired, but they all dug in
to help um, draft this eightpage wellness policy. >> I think Amanda is joining us online, too. So, shout out to you, Amanda Jud, um, for her incredible contributions and work on that as well. >> Okay, great. >> Awesome. >> Any other questions about the wellness
policy? It's exciting stuff. >> It is. The gardens are gorgeous. We may have been taking advantage of the Mountain View parking lots to do some driver instruction. >> So, we've gotten a good look at all the gardens and it's it's really incredible. It's a great parking lot if you all have
to take your kids out and get those 40 hours in many circles. >> Uh we're going to move on to the business update. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Uh first item on the end on the business
update is FY26 endofear information. Um at last month's meeting I asked you to grant me permission to make all the necessary end of year transfers to close out the FY26 budget. Um necessary transfers and reclassifications have been processed to complete closing the fiscal year and the books have been
closed. Um, in your packet there, I've provided a quarter 4 report which shows that all of the FY26 general fund budget has been expended. Um, the school department did end the year with a deficit in the general fund budget. Um, the amount of that deficit was
$577,61616. Um, the deficit was addressed by using additional funds from Circuit Breaker and School Choice, which are two revolving funds that we have access to. We spend an additional $440,116.116 from circuit breaker and an an additional $137,560
from school choice. Um also in the packet um there is an end ofear summary which includes details about the deficit and um the categories of expenses. Um in general right the deficit is due to utilities, special
education transportation and special education tuition. Um, and those are costs that we talked a lot about throughout the year. So, this deficit isn't a surprise to any of us and we all sort of knew about this and were planned and prepared for this. Um, the um,
school committee finance subcommittee meeting did meet yesterday and we talked a little bit about the impacts of spending down those reserves in order to address the deficit. And that's something that we will have to keep in mind as we work through the FY27 budget and as we plan for the FY28 budget.
Um also in that committee meeting um yesterday we looked at um one of the school committee policies which is um budget transfer approval and we did notice that in that budget policy it says that all spending from the school choice fund needs to be approved by the
school committee. So I've provided a motion language to Laura um so that the school committee can officially approve the spending of school choice to balance the FY26 budget. >> Can I do that now? >> Sure. >> Great. I will entertain a motion to approve the use of school choice funds
in the amount of $137,560 to be used to address the FY26 budget deficit. >> Uh second >> and you so move. >> So move. >> Thank you, Sam. Can I get a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Bonnie. Um we're going to roll call. Mayor, >> yes. >> Bonnie, >> yes.
>> Eric, >> Megan, >> yes. >> Sam, >> yes. >> And Laura Scott, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. >> Um the final pieces for FY26 closeout have to do with um grants and revolving funds. Um some of the our grants or FY26
grants have run out deadlines through September um because the federal grant year doesn't always coincide with our fiscal year. In fact, it never does. Um, so more information forthcoming about sort of what the rest of our grant revolving fund balances and I will be providing
more information um because all of that has to be collated as part of my end of year report. All right, which is a required um fiscal audit that we provide to DESIE that I will be working on um or it's due September 30th, right? So um fi final information about end of FY26 will
be provided at that point. Um FY27 um is open and rolling. Uh we opened the books for FY27 spending. I think I gave people approval to start entering POS yesterday. I think we've already processed over 50, right? Um because over the summer is when our schools
purchase a lot of things so that they have them in the buildings, new curriculum, things like that. So we are uh rocking and rolling on FY26. Um the summer food service program um has begun is currently serving meals at Mountain View. Um additional information will be provided as the program
continues. So, I anticipate being able to give you an update on sort of meal counts and how that program is rolling at the next meeting. Next item on the agenda is a grant update. Um, East Hampton Public Schools has been awarded a genocide education grant in the amount
of $80,000 from the state. The grant will be used for curriculum development and professional learning partnerships with facing history and ourselves and the collaborative for educational services. It will also be used to support intergroup dialogue and other student voice initiatives across the district. Right. Um, so again, the
school committee needs to approve the acceptance of all grants. Um, so I've provided motion language for you. >> Okay. Uh, I will entertain a motion to approve the acceptance of funds in the amount of $80,000 from DESIE to be used for curriculum and professional development. >> Uh, so moved. >> Thank you, Sam. Can I get a second?
>> I'll second. >> Thank you, Bonnie. Uh, Mayor, >> yes. >> Bonnie, >> yes. >> Eric, >> yes. >> Megan, >> yes. >> Sam, >> yes. >> Laura Scott, yes. Motion carries. >> Great. Uh last item uh on my report is the personnel report for the month of
June. Um during the month of June, we did not have any new hires, which is not surprising at the end of a school year. Um there were 22 separations, which includes retirements, resignations, and non-renewals, and there were no transfers of staff. Um the personnel report is included in your packet. Okay.
Thank you very much. Anybody have any questions, comments for Julia? >> Well done as always. Okay. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. We are going to move on to new business. Um, we don't have any that I'm aware of.
Anyone? >> No. >> Some school committee updates. Um, policy subcommittee. >> Yes. >> Sam, do you want to take that because you just met this week? Yeah. >> Yes. We just met um yesterday. We're going to be meeting again um before the next meeting here. Um we've set up a
calendar of meetings for the year. We're going to be meeting every Monday of the week prior to school committee meeting. Um so that way we've got like a whole week between our um policy subcommittee meeting and >> the larger meeting. Yes, I think it'll work out well. Um and so that's going to
be Mondays um at 4:00 generally. Uh but so we've set all those up and I've um set out calendar invites so that none of us can um have other things come up hopefully. So, um we also uh we did some work on the um uh restraint and
seclusion uh policy that we need to have in place um over sometime over the summer. It needs to be passed. >> Um we're not quite ready to bring that here yet, but we have been working on it and um Michelle is uh going to be working with um the special ed department on some of the language in
it. >> Okay. And >> so as a reminder to both of us that we have a meeting on August 11th and we are not required to do two readings. >> Okay. We're not required to do two readings of that policy specifically or of any policy. So the other thing I guess I just want to put out there is
that like that's a pretty like I I've done a lot of research into like what other communities have done with that particular policy. It's a long policy that um was written in a in um it came out of a desi memorandum that went out a couple of years ago. Um there's a lot of
pieces to it and it's also like a really um sensitive topic. Um and I will say that myself as somebody whose student is in involved in special education and you know this is something that I think is really um hard a lot of times for parents to um it's it's a lot to trust
the school with is what I'm saying. So I want people to feel like you know we're taking it seriously. We're welcoming input. So we need to have a policy in place per DESIE. I don't see this policy that we're going to be bringing on August 11th. That's not the end of this conversation. And we've already um
talked about in our last policy meeting, you know, I had well, we all had some feedback about kind of what was in there and um making sure that it actually aligns with our practices and also with our values as a district. I think that maybe what we should do on August 11th is pass it for adoption pending that
that can be retracted at a second reading so it gives us a chance to implement it. Um >> we have it in place because we need to have it in place before the school year starts but I'm not I don't feel like we're quite done and I would really like I'd like the CPAC to have more input and I you know I'd like to hear more from
the um the teachers in the program. So, um, so yeah, so we'll get we'll get something um that meets the um the legal requirements in place at that meeting. Um, and then but that's not the end. And I, uh, I, uh, say that like to the whole community, like I really mean that. Um,
we're going to keep working on it. So, um, so we did that. Um, I have, we do have a couple of things that, um, I was hoping to do a reading of tonight. The problem is that, of course, we had the meeting last night and I couldn't submit them in time for them to be posted. So, I have to like read the whole thing or
we could just bring them all back on August 11th and read them there. >> I think that's probably the best bet. And here's where we're going to make a note. We're going to remind the public that um we initially had planned when we passed our original budget in March. We had anticipated beginning on a policy project beginning in June in a
partnership with MASC, but that was a cost to the district of $3,500 a year. That is one of the things that we sacrificed. So we are now trying to reccalibrate and figure out how we can do this work
>> at a lower cost and that that conversation is ongoing. So if it feels a little like we're on our back foot, we are. We are trying to make allowances for tighter funding than we had initially anticipated in March. >> But I think and you know I I feel like we've we've if we can get into a rhythm,
I think we'll be um we'll be good. Um, and I was trying I was thinking last year I was like why didn't we have like why didn't we do a lot of work on policy and I was like oh yeah I was involved in the override and I was doing the CES stuff and like a lot of things came up last year it turns out. Um so there's a number of things we need to catch up on.
Um but I am feeling um I'm feeling like we're going to get it under control uh one way or the other. Um the two updates for tonight or for for next time was just a small change to our school choice policy um which is isn't actually anything that's going to be um impacting
anybody in a huge way and just a a policy that states what our parent advisory councils are. Um so those are both non-controversial easy things we're already doing. Um so I'll bring those on August 11th. will post them ahead of time and um there will hopefully be a
couple of other things that we can add to that >> and we will try to do first and second readings for most policies but just again reminding the public that sometimes um we don't have the time because we are required to implement something more quickly and so we do have the option to wave that second grade
>> and we can always and and I'm always happy to hear from the public about you know if um you have concerns about something or if you >> you know don't like the way something sounds I'm I'm happy to talk to pretty much anybody Policyy's never dead. It's always open for >> policy is always open for revision. Um and I uh I'm happy to happy you to help
with that. So >> wonderful. Uh finance subcommittee update. Chair Harvey, >> we did meet yesterday to discuss um all the things that we've already heard about in this meeting. I don't have any further updates beyond that. We don't
have any other meeting scheduled at this time, but we will keep our eye on you if we need to. >> Okay. Thank you so much. And >> all I got It's It's a nice break. It's been a lot of >> finance talk recently. Um CES update.
Linda Marquee is our um member for the moment. Also unclear is whether or not we are continuing our membership which we do have to pay for for the CES. It is one of the things that we are taking. We are just it's unclear right now. So this is another thing that's in motion. So,
not only is Lyndon not here with us tonight, but our um our membership in CES is um at question because of money. So, we will hopefully have more information for you on that in the fall. Um our next regular session meetings, we've already alluded to the next one
will be August 11th. Um and then we will be meeting again September 8th and September 22nd. At this time, uh the committee is going to move into executive session in the back room. uh we will be adjourning the meeting from that executive session. So if
you're watching us live, this is the last you'll see of us tonight until uh we are back here with you on August 11th. Um I will entertain a motion to move into executive session per mass general law chapter 30A 21A to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining and to adjourn in the
executive session. >> So move. >> Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Uh Mayor >> I. >> Bonnie I. >> Eric. >> Yes. Megan. >> Yes. >> Sam. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, Megan, we're gonna cut you off
here. I will call you from executive session. And good night, East Hampton.