it being 6:30 p.m. on Monday February 10th uh hereby call the regular meeting of the gardener school committee to order and hereby ask the clerk to call the role Rachel present Ann present joher is absent Shannon Leon present Jennifer pin present Robert WS present May Nicholson pres Dro pres stent is
andp and here all thank you very much please rise if you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and J for all the first item on our agenda this evening is open
time for the general public uh we'll note that there is another public meeting happening this evening in the uh Perry Auditorium that has the podium that the public would normally speak at there is a microphone here that we took the chair out so if you'd like to speak uh that's the microphone to uh speak at uh if you are any if there's any member from the general public here that wishes to be heard this evening is there anyone here from the the general public who wishes to be heard all right that was easy enough uh seeing none moving on to item
C recognitions by the superintendent for the district PBIS and Fe Mar so I thought this was uh long overd um frankly I talked a lot about um a c of of the mpss programming that we have in schools um but our team the social emotion learning team um has just done a phenomenal job when it comes to mtss and Amber chaos is our um director of mtss program so I'd like to invite of the mic
and to just introduce a few of our team members who were able to come tonight as well as talk about some of the accomplishments that they completed yes so before I get into kind of the successes that our team has had really what's been like since 20920 so like the last five years so I do have quite a few successes for the team um I did want to shout out so we have uh Dr Stephanie St Joseph um we also have
Christina DWI and Rebecca losavio here tonight um and then other members of our team also include Sher jinus Megan Wilson Edie Stevenson Colleen coin Hannah Thompson Johanna Tino Joshua tacket Lauren jepsky Nicholas Roger uh Sarah Rowland Robbie Scruggs Shannon Marcado Christin Martin Lindsay Peterson Cummings
and Chelsea moan so we have quite a big team uh that makes up our district uh positive behavior intervention supports and family engagement team and this team kind of functions under as Mark mentioned our district mtss leg um focusing on multi-tiered systems of support so over the last 5 years we've had some external recognition where the team has been awarded the gold status in the
Northeast that PBIS positive behavior intervention supports District recognition program and that's a really big um award because only two districts in Massachusetts received that have received that award and we were one of five in New England to received that award as well and that was really for our commitment to positive predictable effective and Equitable learning communities in our district we have also been asked to present at local National and
international conferences a number of them over the last five years um based on the outcomes that we've achieved as a district we've also had several other school districts actually reach out to us myself Mark uh Joyce West um based on our student outcomes and based on the systems and structures that we have in place for either consultation to their District um as well as opportunity to come out and just observe and see what what it looks like in our schools
some of the successes that this is all this external recognition kind of stemmed from have included improved attendance rates specifically we have decreased chronic absenteeism rate as a district by 28% we've decreased chronic absenteeism rates for our marginalized subgroups including students with disabilities by 23% are multi bilingual Learners by 24% um our uh latinx communities
by 30% and our black African-American population by 56% additionally we've been able to reduce our Equity Gap so the disproportionality kind of between um us and the state um and by significantly for all all subgroups we've even been able to reverse the Gap in disproportionality between us and the state um by 17 points so now we're actually lower for our
black African-American for chronic absenteeism than the state which is a huge huge jump for us we've reduced in school suspensions by 83% and out of school suspensions by 36% from the fall of last year to the spring of last year and we've continued to see reductions um going into this year at both the high school and the elementary school additionally for suspensions we've been able to reduce that disproportionality for all subgroups including our highest risk ratio which is our students
with disabilities and we've been able to reduce that from students with disabilities being 4.55 more like times more likely to receive a suspension down to 0.85 so now they're less than one times as likely as um their PE we have also seen Improvement in like Fidelity of implementation um so looking at we've had increased staff student and family
p perception through our climate surveys um specifically at the high school level we've also had improved Fidelity of implementation at tiers 1 two and three for all schools so when we're putting in place our systems our data and our practices how well we're doing that has improved um for all tiers at all schools and we've had increased opportunities for Family School Partnerships in two-way communication which a lot of these have also resulted in a reduced
um R risk ratio for for our office discipline referrals so we've seen our office discipline referrals for all subgroups including students with disabilities um across all schools go down and we've also had a decrease in the use of timeout calm down rooms as a result of the work by 75% over the last 3 years um and we've also had a decrease in the number of restraints at the elementary school by 9% from last fall um as compared to this fall so these are kind of what I
would say is like the top highlights of all the work that the teams have done over the last 5 years and there's many more and so I'm excited to be able to come and share these with you guys tonight do have any questions I don't have any questions but I did want to say been a disability advocate for a really long time and I'm a special education surrogate so I get to go to districts to represent students and we are so on top of this stuff and it's amazing to listen to
you and thank you to all of you who are here because there are other districts that are just if you look at the numbers you're talking about you know suspensions and people of color and the those gaps are out there and and we you know nobody's perfect but we've done an amazing job here not we me asn't me no but it just
I I just I'm so proud of this piece and thank you no thank you m I read your report and I listened to your report and I thought it was outstanding of the progress that we've made uh through all you you and your team's efforts um I I especially like that the city of God or the school system is being recognized for the work they've done
in PB and being invited to national conferences to share your good fortunes to our successes and I think that's really outstanding and great that the city of God gets recognized for things things like that so thank you a lot of hard work building team are where it's all that's where it all happens it's a lot of very very hard work a lot of thought goes into it but ultimately the rubber
gets the road it wasn't easy to get everybody to sit in the same branch of the tree same uh committee will be in recess
out
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committee will come back to order at 6:43 p.m uh if there's no objection because we have some guests who are also presenting this evening we'll take item number 3669 uh out of order that's the school Improvement plans for Gardner middle school and Gardner Elementary School school there our presentation uh with these uh so with that said um Becky which one of you would like
to go first start with the middle school so I asked if I had to do a slideshow and they said no but then Earl did one so I to go first so bad um so I know that you all received a copy of the draft of our school
Improvement plan um so I am just going to kind of highlight some of the elements of it and why we are focusing on some of the goals so a big part of our school Improvement plan was based on our district priority um which I know you all are aware of at this point we're we're going to implement tier one lessons using um high quality instructional materials with Fidelity um etc etc won't read the whole thing you have it in front of you so we really based all of our goals off of that District priority um so our first goal
around in an academic um sphere we had the implementing of the high quality instructional materials currently we have uh three of our four core areas have high quality instructional materials um we just added Ela this year with amplify which has been very exciting to watch that implementation um next year we are looking to implement science we're looking at open scad um so that we'll have that fourth one in place hopefully by next year um overall in this goal we really are looking to just increase our rigor in the classroom um we want to ensure
that we're meeting the needs of all of our students reducing our gaps especially with our students with disabilities on multilingual Learners um and and a real focus on um tier one instruction because if we don't get our tier one instruction um we're not going to be able to help any of the other tiers so a real strong focus on those tier one um instructional strategies um this this year we've already seen a lot of growth with our teachers during common planning time um with really utilizing and um the high
quality instructional materials and planning together um for instruction so it's been really it's been it's been good to see for our behavioral goal um we will you just heard from Amber um so we're going to be working closely with our mtss and our PBIS teams um again a focus on tier one behavioral supports and interventions um are a real strong emphasis on that um we are looking we actually in excuse me implemented this year um schoolwide expectations and routines if you've been in the Middle
School recently um you'll see we got these nice beautiful giant posters everywhere to remind us all of what our expectations are um we are looking moving forward to kind of balance some of our consequences so we're not just relying on traditional um uh approaches to discipline but really include some more um restorative practices as well especially um you know around areas of bullying and some of those areas for social again that kind of goes along
with that same theme um again we're going to be focusing a lot on our mtss team um to improve our social emotional learning um we currently are using character strong as our uh curriculum for social emotional learning during our advisory block um we are currently our mtss team um and admin are evaluating whether or not that is the best curriculum or if we want to switch to another um strong seal curriculum so we are evaluating those those um excuse me those curriculums now um we've been working
um on all of our tiers in this in the social goal um we actually recently saw an improvement with um I just wanted to to brag a little bit from my team um we have uh 68% of our tier three kids in the last two months have showed significant progress um so that's that's impressive so um finally the final goal or area was around families and Community I felt like this was an area that we when
I started taking over last year was We were particularly weak in um I couldn't even figure out who was on the PTO didn't seem like we had one our parent Council was very weak um so we're really trying to strengthen our family Partnerships Our Community Partnerships um I do have this year a um small group of very active parents um that are very active with parent counsil and PTO so I'm really grateful for them um I also have implemented or started a student Advisory Group last year um where some students from each
grade level um meet with me periodically to voice concerns provide feedback and I find that to be invaluable I think moving forward we do need to continue to work on our Community Partnerships we've started a couple in a couple different areas but um that is definitely um an area of I I think need moving forward um as far as like the outcomes it looks you know of the outcomes go along with the goals in general there's one particular outcome I know that Amber talked about chronic absenteeism improving in many of the
schools I do feel like in the middle school we are not seeing that same growth and so I really definitely need to focus on that my hope is that by focusing on all these goal areas so if we're working on our academics we're working on our social emotional or family Partnerships that our chronic absenteeism will improve through those those means so um that I just wanted to point that out because it's not in a direct goal but I'm hoping it's an outcome from working on all of these goals because that is definitely an area that you know we did not meet our
targets for the state this past year so I'm hoping we can make some growth there um I don't know if anybody has any questions I know a lot of you read this any questions from the committee on the middle school report thank you for the resort and it you know it's very honest and appreciate everything that you do Middle School is not an easy to if you ask most people they never want to go back to Middle School well you know I mean everybody
you know I'm not going back to my school I'm not no the kids you know they're changing they're figuring out who they are they're you know and they're starting to become more you know self-sufficient and that's when you start to see some gaps and things and so thank you for taking such good care of everything thank you very much appreciate itk you Mr
Martin I know these slides better be good I don't know if it'll live up to the height I mean you've already got a little art in there so good um oh good we have a screen back there uh so you you're going to hear a lot of similar themes to the middle school and in part it's because our district has really done a nice job outlining the
district uh Improvement plan and so we as schools uh really worked hard to align our vision mission uh and practices with the district so there's a lot of uh similar Focus poye the um uh the mission core uh core values and and uh Vision did not change uh they've been similar you know in particular the uh well our core values you heard the message from Amber about PBIS these are our
values that we live uh every day we practice every day we teach every day and we reward every day for those students who you know do a great job so uh that safe respectful responsible and kind is is is our big Focus the vision is the same you you know and it sounds like a catchy phrase that that doesn't have a lot of meat behind it we strive that by the end of uh this school Improvement plan uh our community members will experience Joy achievement and
care and there is actually concrete objectives we have around that and so in terms of joy we we uh seek we do a survey at the end of the year and we we seek that uh uh 90 uh plus% of our kids coming to school that's our hope uh the survey is very simple so even elementary kids can fill it out in terms of the the care we have a lot of uh data
we collect around our social emotional Behavior you heard Amber talk about restraints we have a lot of PBIS data we have a lot of uh calm down room data but we also um look at uh the survey data and our survey data is that uh uh 90 uh plus% of our students will be able to state that they three adults in the building care about them and there's a lot of research around when adults when you as a student feel like adults care about you it it's a sign that that you're going to
have a more successful schooling experience so so that's our care piece and uh and then uh our achievement is obviously a big focus and so we seek uh you know to look at data around achievement uh academically and and even socially emotionally uh we're looking at um achieving there and so we have very concrete goals around that as well uh much aligned to a lot of the district goals and that 15% of our uh students will grow in terms of meeting or
exceeding um or fall into that category on mcast uh we have a lot of goals centered around shrinking um our gaps with our students with disabilities um our multilingual Learners um who have traditionally been uh a marginalized but also have had gaps in their academic achievement in our um school so we're we're striving to uh do better at that and then as uh Becky said and as a major goal we very much are looking
at improving our literacy and looking at our achievement data around kids reading uh we know there's so much data centered around the idea that if by second grade they're reading at or near grade level they have a great chance of experiencing academic uh success and have a positive academic trajectory and and frankly a life good life trajectory so we're we're hyper focused on that and you can see the so these are our strategic objectives you can see the joy care piece you can see the academic achievement piece uh and then the the third category the green category centers
around data and so I I highlighted some of our data points uh but you know we in all all of these categories except for the the family one center around our multi-tier systems of support this is how we do school as the superintendent has mentioned and so so likewise we at Gard El very much focus on uh the multi-tiered systems of support actually want to go back one Mark I just want to touch on something real quick and so you see it runs
through there and I want to say that uh you know I like to say that it's not a system unless there's data that we're looking at and it's really also not a system though unless we're checking the Fidelity of our practices that's that's what makes something a system and so as Becky mentioned uh we are looking at um our fidelity how well are we teaching and so we are are hyperfocused on that tier one which is what every student receives uh
instructionally and so we have high quality instructional materials we're very fortunate there but are they putting them in practice well is it are they teaching well are they making decisions as a team to uh ensure that every kid is getting good instruction so we're we're doing a lot with that that I'll get into and then the purple one of of course our our work towards uh building those Community relationships so um so this is just some of the data and as you know
from my school committee reports I I basically put uh information into how well we're achieving in those four strategic objectives on every school committee report so this is a recent one I think I put in there and this is also um one of our social emotional goals that center around reducing our office discipline referrals uh and you could see this year is our orange and it it follows a similar pattern every year uh every year in September we get to know our kids uh different kids are struggling
October similarly they're they're still struggling and then at that by the time November rolls around we figured out plans to help them we've looked at some of our data to proactively uh assist students who might have social emotional behavioral deficits and we see a big drop and you can see there was a huge drop um in our most recent month and just a sign that we our systems are working uh now our goals center around decreasing this overarching number of referrals from year to year throughout up to 2027 uh
similarly and Amber and Becky alluded to this we're hyper focused on attendance data as well because that is um if kids aren in school they're not learn here is just uh again literacy reading is a hyper Focus we're very fortunate the district purchased this this really great data tool that called open Architects and it's a little small there but we're looking to shrink the red that is what we're looking to do
that is kids who are struggling uh to to read that grade level so we're really working hard on that and I have concrete goals around that so my goal is that that red will shrink to 15% um and so we've made gains this year from beginning to middle but we're also have made gains really um over the last seven years so we're hoping to keep to keep that Trend going despite co uh We've we've we've still been able to make gains and then um you know we talk
about this mtss pyramid um that tier three there um that should really only be 1 to 5% so again um last year we hovered around 28% so we said the best way we can have the largest impact is to really focus on that tier one instruction that every kid that every kid gets particularly as it um relates to literacy um and so the next slide Mark um yeah s there's that 28% and
then sorry one more yeah the the biggest impact um but so this is just a snapshot we uh uh do checks of how well the teachers are implementing their uh uh high quality instructional material to teach foundational literacy teaching kids to read uh we use a a a curriculum called foundations you can see it's labeled foundations there so our goal is to check to see how well they're implementing that and then provide PD
for and so we just actually provided some PD based on our data to some teachers who weren't quite doing it right we realized they never actually got that training when we offered it however many years ago and so it was really beneficial for us to look at that so that hopefully they'll be teaching in the same way that the research-based curriculum says will work and so this is some of of our um data centered around that um and we were happy to see a lot of twos but obviously we we don't want to see the orange um and so that's something we're going to be continually focused
on to ensure every kid gets a very high quality reading uh instruction and then the other biggest lever we're looking at in terms of monitoring Fidelity the way you have high quality instructional material for all kids centers around making sure all teachers are putting into PR Place good practices and so we're uh very focused in our common planning time and also monitoring their effectiveness of running and facilitating a meeting that will enable all teachers to to teach well and so
those are some of our uh real concrete um practices and goals over the next three years questions well the kids that are struggling with the reading is it probably due to them not reading at home or their parents are not reading to them yeah it's tough to to
discern exactly what the fact is we really hyperfocus on what we can control which is what we know is is our instruction um but your Point's a good one there's a lot of research that say if the students are being read to at home from and really it starts even before we see them in schooling uh there's a big impact to that but uh we're just you you know we we still want to grow our partnership with families so for example uh next um uh during February break we're doing a
a challenge for kids and families to to use our footsteps to Brilliance a software reading software and we so we can monitor how much kids are reading on the software at home so we're doing that and then it's leading into uh March first week of March which was read Across America month and we're doing a similar type competition um in which we're having we're going to have families take pictures of them reading at home send it to us we're going to on our projectors in our school the the TV screens it's going to be a rotating of
kids who we drew as winners but also just pictures of these kids reading at home to just continue to emphasize that because you're right that's a huge that's a huge piece so we're just hyper focused on what we can control and continue to encourage that reading at home I do enjoy your reports by the way oh thanks I do read them yeah thank you I do want to say in the district too we had a um recently um our el director had a um Family Book night it was a book Bingo night and it was you play Bingo and everybody walks out with with books so
the kids had a lot of fun and there were some kids there from elementary school all the way up to high school um playing so they had a really good time but they're able to bring these books home and some of them are actually bilingual as well books yeah we're really grateful to uh we bought in um you know what they call decodable so when we teaching kids certain Foundation reading skills want to practice it and practice it at a level that's going to challenge them a little bit but also not overwhelm them and so the district has invested a lot of money in
those decodables um and our library our relatively new library has been a great uh thing for those uh for our students in terms of practicing their reading um and then we have the book vending machine which is a really cool it's part of our PBIS program when they earn points they can every Friday go down and and get a book and so we have a lot of of those books we continue get uh donations for grant money for um and it's and and the PT our PTO has
been doing some great work in terms of uh buying books for us so that was the Rockwell grant that got the uh yeah the Rockwell grants were got the vending machine in the to start so yeah that's been great thank you yeah sure um I just wanted to know you said that with the CU right now obviously there's a lot of news articles out there about the covid gaps and yeah and and so you're saying currently you guys haven't really seen that no um you know it's interesting that the the the years where they
were impacted tend to underperform a bit by the um uh from the other years but I will tell you so I cited that 28% in the red when I started seven years ago we have at like 48% and so now that number has has shrunk significantly um and it's been really to see because even when I started and I used to show up in a first grade Common planning time meeting and I would show them the data and you know we do it three times a year so the beginning of the year the middle of the
year and the end of the year and the amount of red would sometimes grow each time because the test does get hard because they expect more skills but it's what I would always convey is it's a norm test meaning they make those predictions of how much they should know based on National testing and so I would push back because our goal is to be on par with what the na nation is doing in terms of helping kids to read um and to the teachers credit they had a growth
mindset and they adopted some of our new things and every year we've been building on that um and so now you know long story short we just don't have we don't use excuses to say why kids can't read we we have that focus on Equity to get kids what they need when they need it on kids who need more get more and and and that's helped us to kind of close the gap but I would say the last couple years has been a bit stagnant and that's um why we've really hyperfocused on our tier one looking
at our you know because we've hovered around by the end of the year between 72 and 75% of the kids are either at or close to reading at grade level we really want to shrink at to or increase that to 85% or more so yeah any other questions thank you very much than you thank you to both our principles presented tonight uh we're moving back up to the top of the agenda now item number item d uh the consent agenda this
is included in your packet uh for review We note that the consent agenda includes a $100,000 Grant acceptance for the support student social emotional learning and behavioral and mental health and wellness Grant uh it also includes a uh creation of a scholarship with a $75,000 donation from the First Congregational Church closed uh on Green Street is there a motion on the floor for the consent agenda motion made by Mr spart seconded by uh Miss Ward uh
to accept the consent agenda as uh presented is there any discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor say I oose nay motion carries next item subcommittee reports the finance subcommittee Mr LR thank you Mr Mayor um subcommittee met on January 30th um as us usually went over the uh expense report um it was noted that while the district uh tuition for collaboratives was in the negative out
of District tuition for private schools is very much in the positive uh there were no other negative line items uh the we went over the projects like uh Garden High School auditorium work is wrapping up and the staging is being removed once the staging is is out some painting will be need will be needed um and along with a lot of cleanup uh some more commands such as
the sound booth but the majority of the work is complete it might probably by now it's even further along so um and then we went over some donations uh accepted donations is $75 from first 75,000 75,000 thank you uh from First Congregational Church of Gardner uh to Gardner High School to be used uh to provide scholarships um and that was it thank
you thank you very much any questions comments concerns thank you Mr chairman next item the policy subcommittee Mrs har uh we met on uh January 22nd and um tonight we have uh six policies for first read and 14 for second so polies yeah uh we'll uh note that we can't do item f as Miss Morris is not available here this evening so moving on to
those policies Mrs Hearst uh with item number 3666 uh first reading of policies for information policy AC the non-discrimination and harassment add d-r Corey policy for adoption with a reference to add background checks BBA school committee powers and duties J f- proof of residency form LBC relation with non-public schools those are the policies here
for first reading there's no action being taken on those tonight until next meeting uh these are for first reading second reading will be next one item one uh item 3666 second reading of policies there's a vote required on these item jlc student health services and requirements jlca physical exam of students jlc B immunization of students J J LCC communicable diseases JL CD administering medication to students jlc food allergies jrd student photographs
kbba non-custodial parent rights kcd public gifts to the schools kdb public rights to know kha public solicitations in the schools and khb advertising in the schools JQ student fees fines and charges KDC Community use of digital resources is there a motion on the floor a motion to accept these policies I'll second motion made by Mrs H second by Mr Fry to accept the policies as read uh for second reading
is there any Comm uh any discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor say I I nay motion carries next item on the agenda item K uh item 3 667 policy kcda computer donation policy this is a vote for removal uh policy has been found by the Massachusetts Association of school committees to be redundant are unnecessary and should be considered for removal from the policy Manual of the school district I'll make a motion to do that second motion by by Mrs her second
by Miss Ward to remove the policy kcda has presented is there any discussion on the motion all in favor say I I oppose nay motion carries making me get my work here Mr I telling you luck getting done uh next item item 3 668 the program of studies this is included in your packet for information Dr P um this is a program of studies as it stands I think um Paul was proba here last month
yes presented right um on this so um nothing new to say We'll vote on any questions comments concerns I did notice this is a draft one there another one right behind that's finalized there were significant changes that were made and I'd say I say they certainly positive changes yeah and we are um one thing I do I do want to mention um is that we are working on the um
competency determination um that the state's requiring of us now that mcass is out we need to have some type of compet determination so we are working on that that will be part of um the book and so you will be voting on that as well later on any other questions so when is when are they requiring that to be done by is there yes um they they got they got rid of mcast and then they said EXC me they gave us some guidance on it but we're
really supposed to have it for this year so most of our students have have already passed um I can checked with with um Paula and Carolyn but I think most of our students have already met the competency determination so I don't really think it's um an issue at this point because isn't it is it sophomore or Jun sophomore year is the last year where they take like the bigger mcast right the laa and and whatnot so if they it's only if they don't pass it and that they need to do anything in Junior and Senior year and yeah but going forward yeah it can't count at all so you
have to have taken the mcast before um December 12th whenever the vot whenever their vote was they have to have taken it and passed it before December of 2024 okay the three portions math English and science any other questions comments concerns we've already done item number 3669 so moving on to item 3670 the 2025
to 2026 school choice acceptance vote Dr um school choice this is just a mandatory um vote that we have to have each year to say that we are um willing to still accept students um school choice from other districts right now we aren't accepting any students as you know we don't have the room in the elementary school or the Middle School um so it's just a high school and alternative school that do have school choice that are open there a motion on the floor move to accept school choice motion made by believe in second by Miss Ward to accept school choice as presented in the packets is there any discussion on that motion
hearing none all in favor say I I oppose nay motion carries item number 3671 the 2025 to 2026 school committee schedule of meetings this is in your packet for information is there a motion so Move Motion made by Mr Schwarz seconded by Mr lrer to accept the calendar of meetings as presented for the next year any discussion on the motion continuing with the second Monday of the month at 6:30 here in the council chambers all those in favor say
I I oppose nay motion carries item 3672 the 2025 to 2026 and the 2026 to 2027 annual school calendars this is included in your packet Dr No we just decided to do um two years out because I think it helps parents and um staff to plan a little bit better for the Summers so um I think this will be um well received any is there a motion on the
floor I'll make a motion wait accept the calendar motion made by Mrs H second by m lenia to accept the calendar as presented is there any discussion on the motion all in favor say I I oppose nay motion carries item 3673 director of multilingual Learners update this was included in your packet for information is there any question comments concerns from the committee members item number 3674 curriculum coordinators update this was included in your packet for information there's
any questions from the committee members thank you Dr gold item number 3675 Grant administrators update this was included in your packet for information is there any questions comments concerns from the committee members item number 3676 director of mtss PBI s update this was including in your packet for information and we had a presentation earlier in this meeting is any questions comments concerns from the committee members thank you
Miss Cas item number 3677 special education update this was included in your packet for information is any questions comments concerns from the committee members much moving on to item H Communications Dr pelo the only thing I have to say is that um you know we're off I I can't believe it's already February January seems to have flown by good um but I'm I'm really excited with the work that's that's being done um Amber talked um obviously about the um the mtssl and PBIS all these different
acronyms that we have to create that positive environment so kids are ready to learn um uh but we're also doing a lot of work um on the on the academic column of mtss and we're really excited about the work that's being done um uh the the state's asked us to do a couple presentations um and presenting at Mass the conference um on the work that that we're doing because it's a lot of other districts aren't doing this to the level
that we're doing it so I'm really excited to have the team and the folks that I have working so hard to make sure this gets done and as you heard each one of my principles pushes this in their schools um because this is how we do school um but that's all I really had to say any questions comments concerns moving on to item I final to the school Committee Member Lord hi thank you so much um just there was a lot of reports especially and I was especially impressed um Miss cant with
your report about how SE is being implemented and used in our district um it's it's such important work and it's really I hearing those numbers especially because we have faced Co and what has happened um to The Learning Experience of a lot of the kids it's really impressive to see that we're still able to meet those goals to give every child what they need as far as an education and a learning experience um I'm just really proud to have my children attend in this District where
that is value that everyone gets an education that they deserve no matter where they're from what they look like anything um so just thank you so much for that presentation it was great to hear more about the mtss program and um I think that's all but H happy Black History Month Mrs Hurst um I'd like to thank you again too because um I I don't think people realize how important this is and how it's not
you know everywhere we're very lucky that we have the people that we do the leadership and um I even listening to the reports tonight from the um principles I mean they'll tell you there there's still work to do um it's not perfect but they have the support they need to get our students there and I work with so many children who don't get these kinds of supports in school so it's great to see that
it happens here in uh this District I also just wanted to say you know we need to be really mindful of mental health right now um there's a lot of things going on in the world and people have really high anxiety and we're just bombarded all the time with social media um and things that in the even the news on TV just is keeping people in that high anxiety mode um I know
with my son I've had to do a lot of work with him um as far as his anxiety um and um you know there are a lot of kids out there who have differences and um you know they need to feel safe and support and um you know I just just check on people it takes a minute to just smile and ask
if you're okay thank you thank you Mrs um so when Dr peligrino first started as superintendent I remember one of the things that he mentioned was that he wanted a system and I think now we're finally seeing like over the past couple of years that systems really come together throughout the district and that includes the social emotional learning and all the other pieces um and you know I know like I was looking at the dibles reading assessment which was obviously
referred to by um Mr Martin as well that like the in the amount of increase each year for the students is remarkable I think because I can tell you I go and work in a lot of different districts with different um students that I get assigned to and it's amazing to like even mtss is not even terminology that's used everywhere um when it should be um but it's they just don't have those systems and I just think
you know I think back to when that it was the sort of the amazement around the fact that there wasn't a system and the fact that we were going to get there and how much How Far We've Come especially since you've started here in the district so um and again every time there's a presentation we see they're aligned with each other and what they're talking about what they're working on um and that helps obviously because as a student coming through the district you know what's expected of you then you can perform better and you know that expectation is set and it helps the
child reach that expectation so I I think it's great everything that's happening thank you Mr Schwarz did I have nothing to say all right Mr Le Fria I don't want to repeat everything they said but ditto on all that that was great um and again yes with great leadership and everyone that's implementing everything like this all the the hard work that goes on in these classrooms and everything it shows and like
like she was saying um you talked about few years when you first got in and now it's all happening and it's fantastic to see but thank you thank you Mrs Cormier I would just like to thank everybody for their presentations as well um they're very informative and it it reminds us all the work that's done in the background that we don't see we really appreciate appreciate that um one of the things that was mentioned I think was Mr Martin but I could have been could be wrong that I I always like hearing is making sure that every student has at least one adult in the building they feel safe with and I think that's huge for the kids they might
be coming from a background that they don't feel safe and to know that there's always an adult smiling at the door waiting for them I think really brightens their day and puts them into the mindset for learning so thank you for reinforcing that thank you uh I have a couple of comments this evening at the previous school committee meeting I talked about the city's Insurance account um um we've sat down with our advisers from Blue Cross our insurance brokers and our internal team that oversees the city's insurance plans um
that's made up of our human resource director our city auditor and our city treasurer uh in reviewing the procedures that were done in terms of uh reconciling the accounts with the payroll deductions that were done there were a couple updates that were able to be made to the process and what those updates found is that the reconciliations were being made on a quarterly basis rather than a monthly basis uh when that quarterly went into a monthly report and we got to see real-time data on what the fund was actually at what we thought was a $350,000 balance in the account ended up
being a $1.6 million balance in the trust fund uh which makes it so that we're at a lot more stable of a footing that we're at um and basically what it is is the health insurance increase that was implemented in the last fiscal year hadn't been reported because of the quarterly reporting that was done so with that increase that took effect on October 1st and that reporting that was done when it came in that was able to make that account a able to see that it's actually at a stable spot in addition to that too we actually
had some uh called stop-loss Insurance um reimbursement come in stop loss insurance I I call it insurance on the insurance where if an insurance comes in over a certain amount we actually have insurance to cover part of that after a certain amount we ended up getting around $450,000 in uh stoploss payments there too so we are still monitoring the overall situation of the city's Insurance uh the city council will be having some presentations before their finance committee on this because the Departments that oversee the main portions of well all of the portions of payroll and the financial side of the
health insurance uh plans that we have here report to the city council not to the executive branch uh so they'll be reviewing that going further on a more uh basis but I know that that's a process that's now being done on a monthly basis rather than a quarterly basis to make sure that uh we get more realtime data but in reality was the biggest part of that was that the inre that was done on the health insurance plans this past fiscal year took effect October 1st and that reconciliation had not been done uh at that time so we're in a lot better footing uh than we had originally thought the processes are improving
and again the city council is going to be taking the further look at that because all of that falls under their purview uh through their departments that they have here but I just want to follow up on what we said on that last month we are still looking at every option available in terms of do we stay self-insured do we go fully insured uh what the plans look like and things of that nature for the next fiscal year because our current um Insurance year is going to end on June 30th with that change normally we went October 1st to September 30th uh we're going on a more fiscal year basis now so that we can better plan for it in the
budget that way uh but that's the uh way that the executive branch of the government is working with the legislative departments uh on the implementation of the plans that are approved through the financial side of it that's done through the legislative side of things so it's this is a full real-time check and balance and working with the separation of powers in the different branches of governments that's there uh so it can be a little confusing on that way but I just want to follow up on that and say that uh we're in a good spot with that and there'll be more information on that coming from the city auditor and the city treasur at the finance committee meetings uh coming up over the next couple months uh
additionally uh speaking of the city council's finance committee meeting at the state of the city address I announced that the new school building project did come in under budget by just over $8 million and that we were looking for certain 30-year projects to reappropriate those funds to uh over the course of the the coming months uh the plan is going to be submitted to the city council's finance committee meeting this Wednesday at 4 p.m. that meeting was posted earlier today uh there are plenty of uh about 44.5 million
dollar of school department related requests in that reappropriation going towards reimbursing the school choice account for the work that was done in the auditorium uh replacing the storefront at the middle school the Middle School roof replacement project and a couple other projects there the new locker rooms at Gardener High School um so all of that will be reviewed by the city council's finance committee meeting this Wednesday at 4: and then if they're okay with it it'll go to the city council after that uh for a final vote there uh there are restrictions on what the fund could be used for the original loan that
was taken out was taken out for a 30-year lifespan uh so our bond Council which is our lawyers who review every time we take a loan out for the city had to uh review each individual project and have an engineer with a PE stamp stamp that each project had a lifespan of 30 years uh by both warranty and the general laws so the general laws of the Commonwealth say that any equipment can only be uh a 20-year life loan any Paving can be a 10-year life loan and any outdoor Recreational facility can only
be a 15-year life loan so there's certain things that just would not have been able to be done at all uh with this funding so that's why I had to go to specific capital projects that were basically building upgrades that had a minimum 30-year lifespan per the engineers stamp that's on that so all of that's been cleared uh and that's going to the city council's finance committee meeting this coming Wednesday so I just want to put that on the radar too and lastly before our next meeting we'll also have our Rockwell committee meeting so I saw the applications came in um we'll see what we uh are able to do with that after the committee meets on the 26th uh and we'll go from there
hopefully with some good news at our next meeting but that is all I have for this evening on my end uh there are no executive sessions our next meeting will take place on March 10th at 6:30 p.m. right here in the council chamber and with that is there a motion to adjourn so Mo motion made by attorney pan second by Mr lrer all those in favor say I oppose nay motion carries thank you very much see