[Music] Yeah, 6:36. Good evening, everyone. Today is Tuesday, August 5th, and the time is 6:36 p.m. And I'd like to call
this meeting to order. First on our agenda is to reorganize subcommittees, but we will wait and recircle back to that when George gets here to be able to have that discussion. Um, next is minutes for July 17th, 2025.
For those of you that were here, have you had a chance to review any any changes or anything? Uh, yeah. It all looks correct. I'd like to make a motion to accept the meeting minutes from July 17th, 2025. Can I have a second, please? Second.
All those in favor? I I will abstain because I wasn't here. I did read them, but I won't uh do that. So, next is warrants 82257 and 8, which I'm sure are in this
folder. Any questions or comments on the warrants? Hearing none, I'll take the motion. I'll make a motion to accept warrants 82 uh 00002005
00007008. How may I have a second? Thank you. I'll second that. All those in favor? I I Okay, what do we have next? Um, visitors comments. Any citizen wishing to speak before the committee must sign
in with the administrative assistant prior to the opening of the regular session of the school committee. The visitor will identify themselves by name and address and shall speak for no longer than 3 minutes. For anyone unable to sign in ahead of time, we ask that you clearly state your name and address so that this information can be included
for the record of the meeting. Do we have any visitors wishing to speak at this time? Okie dokie. Brena is not here. Um, all right. First up, new business is the um East Meadow Student Handbook.
Cindy Sykes, our East Meadow principal. come up to talk about the changes that we made for the upcoming year. Good evening. Even so, I'm just here to share our updates.
I believe you saw our notes on that. So, basically, um, instead of going through every single note on here, we're updating names, uh, the family letter that is going out with myself and Mr. Rosenberg as well. The title page if
approved. We have a lot of changes in names and staffing. So, we'd like to update those as well. Removing some names that have left. Adding the new calendar. One area. If you go down to it says page 14 is
dismissal is adding uh an area about the cards for parents to come in. So, we know who being a new administrator. I've got to know these families and I want to make sure it's safe. So, we're going to given them cards that identify numbers so we can have them leave in an orderly fashion and know who they are and match
the student to the family. So, that is something that's new is going to be added on there. Changing the marking periods, they were just off by a day based on last year's schedule. Uh adding Massachusetts regulation 603 CMR 26.05
in there. Uh just updating some times that the child study team meets. again, changing names and changing attendance letters. Any questions on any of that? I know I kind of went through it rather quickly. Well, seems pretty straightforward.
All right. How's it going? It's going good. I'm getting um met some students coming in for extended year. Met some staff. The staff are starting to come in and get their classrooms ready. The administrative team has been amazing helping me get, you know, acclimated and learning the new there's
schools are similar, but there's always new policies and procedures. So, it's been great so far. I love being busy. So, I'm pretty fired up for all the costumes. You haven't seen anything yet. We got some new things that just came in today.
It's all about positivity and making students really want to come to school and parents knowing that it's a great place for them to learn. Awesome. and a little stress relief for us adults, too. That's perfect. Um, any questions or comments on I do um
uh and music in the mornings for summer school. Yes. Did you see that everybody? I could not have um what a great experience for the kids and the parents coming in the morning and then again at pickup time. Um so congratulations on that.
Thank you. It's a team effort. It was a team effort. It's teamwork that makes the dream work and you could tell it was a team effort. So again, many thanks to everybody. Um I just have one request I guess of the committee and you
on this and that is um in policies we've been moving to make all the pronouns gender neutral and I'm wondering if we could do the same thing in the student handbooks so that folks feel included and valued. Certainly. Yeah.
Do we need to is that okay to just say yes? We have to create a policy on that. We already have this. Well, we've been doing the policy manual review and part of that includes changing um pronouns to genderneutral uh from
him, her, she, he to, them, their as appropriate. And it's funny, in some places the words they and they and their is used in the high school handbook. Um, and I didn't really I just got access to the
elementary. I didn't come back to it this afternoon. I apologize. Um, but I did see quickly that there are some heises in there. I think it just reminds all families that they're part of the process. Um, and students as well.
But if you want to if I guess if the committee wants a lot a bigger debate on that. We have been doing it with the policies as we go through changing children to students for example because not all of our students
are children. Some are 18 years old and over. Well in the elementary school they would be children. They would be children. Yes. So that's this city is talking. Right. That's just part of what we're doing with the policy work to sort of um be more mindful
um of everybody that attends the schools here. Is it it's saying something to be consistent with the high school as long as it's age appropriate? I mean, we can certainly look at that and match it up to what the high school is doing as well. They are children here for sure. Um but at the high school, I would
imagine um it's not uncommon. Well, and kids move on from the high school and transition out. Kids, students, they're still ours and they're over 18, right? But if you want to have a larger discussion about that, uh, Jen, we
certainly could. Um, I don't know. What does everybody else feel? I I'm having um computer issues right now, so I can't actually look at it in front of me. I
Uh, I really don't have a problem with it as long as we can do it through the year. There's not like a hard timeline on it, right? Just update as we go. Yep. Yeah. I mean, I think so. So, it's not like a set in stone thing, but as we proceed, I I guess we can just
knock those out. Okay. That way, we can focus on uh more immediate deeds first and then clean it up as we go. Yeah, I think that that makes sense, too. like we don't need to go back and redo it, but as as we're going forward, I think that that's fine.
Are you okay with that, please? Yes, I am. I think uh from what I've seen, our families are respected, and so we should reflect that in our written documents as well, right? Any other questions or comments on the um
Oh, no. All very pertinent, straightforward changes. Thank you. And uh yeah, looking forward to the start of school. I heard some very cool things will be happening. So, I'm uh fired up to hear my kids talk about it when they get home. Do you need a motion on this or are we
just we're we're fine because there's no substantive changes here, right? Yeah, we still need to have I think we still need to have the vote on record just to accept those changes. I'll make a motion to accept the changes as presented. Uh second. All those in favor? Hi. Hi. And then if someone could just get
me access to that so I can actually see the um see them. I've requested it twice. It's not come through. So, um thank you. Okay. Next is the um high school.
Hello. Hello. Good evening. even everybody has ours. Yes. Right. Okay. So, I can kind of go through. We have a few different changes. We're just updating some language things. Um, so I
can kind of walk through it. We have a drop block we've been utilizing and now we're adding to the handbook. So, students that are already have achieved the requirements that's now just going to get added on there. We have some liability things statements wise for the workbased learning. Um I was going to
hit we have two new grad requirements that we're adding as well. So we have the freshman seminar class which has been offered for the last couple years. It's now a graduation requirement as well. So and we're also introducing the first aid and the CPR is a graduation requirement as well now. So that's in
there. Um liquids. So we have two different things. So, we're removing the language that prevented students from having liquid and foods in in classrooms that was prevented before. We're removing that. Students can now have that in the classroom as well. Um, couple different
things. So, in terms of tardies and attendance, we have a few different things. So, for privileges, we're moving it from 5 to 10 in a semester. Once they reach 10, the there's a loss of privileges for students. There is a warning once they reach five, though, so
they'll be notified of that as well. dual enrollment, just a little bit new language there. Um AI, so there's a document in the summary page for the AI GA guidelines. We're still working through some of those things. Um to summarize it, essentially we're just
trying to give people some guard rails to follow when they're using that in the classroom. Um the biggest thing for us is obviously still kind of emphasizing the the plagiarism aspect and how that plays into it and how we prove that. So, um, myself and Sue Craiggo, we were
looking at a tool also to kind of help our our teachers in terms of AI and stuff in the classroom as well. So, I know we're working on that as well. Um, credit recovery, we do have a change coming to it. So, um, students that exceed 35 absences in a class can no
longer get the credit for that. So, for instance, we had a few students this summer who exceeded 35 absences in one specific class. They came back um from for several days in the summertime. um and they were able to get credit for that course. Um once they reach 35, they won't be able to do that anymore.
The curriculum opt out from the attorneys in there. And then for our tardies, um we had the pol we had the what we're following was we're doing three absences equals one or three tardies equals one absence. Um now we're doing five as a Saturday school. This previous year we brought Saturday school
back. Um so we'll use that. 10 is another one. And then 15 would be a day of in-house suspension as well. Removing the application for attendance recovery had been used for quite some time. Um and then what else? We ran into this
especially this last year. So previously we were only allowing students three days of bereavement. We're removing that because we had several students this year that unfortunately had extenduating circumstances with some loss in their family and we kind of saw firsthand how that impacted them and that they needed
more time as well. Um, for the college visits, we also had some students this previous year that were in the previous graduating class that were going into the workforce. They needed to leave for uh training purposes for their job that they're going to be entering. And our handbook didn't allow for that previously. It actually docked them to
go and get skills that they were going to use once they left. So we added that as well. Um and then finally we also have uh the field trip. We were preventing students from accessing field trips previously which we were denying them the opport access to that. So we we removed that as well. So those are kind
of the main things. I'm happy to answer explain any of them if anyone has any questions. Um if students show up late on our bus transportation not marked as tardy, right? That's on the schools. Yeah, we have a um there's a specific code we were using last year in the system and I believe we've already
created in the new one. Um it's an excuse tardy for we had that happen a couple times last year. So we just put I think transportation tardy. Um so if there's a bus issue or anything like that, that's that's fine. They won't be docked against them or anything. All right. Um just as long as we're working with students to provide
solutions. I know a lot of times transportation falls on the family and there's extenduating circumstances that are outside of children's control. Yeah. So, it'd be, you know, double punitive to their situation and not assist in potentially finding a solution
outside of punishment. Um, which I'm I'm sure everybody's well aware of. So, um, hopefully we can head that off and we won't have to send anybody to additional Saturday school. Yeah. Uh, I did like the personal finance Yeah. class. That is
I saw that I was like, that's great. That was for last year. So, yeah. I'm just thinking I haven't I haven't seen if Mayor takes that. She's class of 2027. So I don't know. She I guess she still has this year and next year. So is that an elective one? Is it
half year or a full year? Um full year. It's going to be full. So I guess she'll be taking that senior year. A lot of our seniors took it last year, senior year. That was the math that a lot of them elected to take. They can double up on the math to a senior if they really want for college or anything.
Okay. Um, is the dual enra enrollment language update what we voted on just recently or is there additional changes that I'm not I'm not seeing or not recognizing.
I believe it was just an update to what was already done previously. I don't think there's a major change. We don't to my knowledge there's no major change that we have to our dual enrollment that we're you were doing or anything. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that's all
any other questions on the high school. I just had was there any there were different highlighting like some was in red, some was in green. That's no um so typically we uh anything getting removed is in red and then anything we're adding that would be new. We're just highlighting in green to try and
because you kind of get lost in the weeds after 10 and something. We're trying to make it easier. Thank you for the color coding. I'm big on that. Are you all set, Trevor? Yeah, I just I couldn't I was trying to
make sense of where that was. Um I ag Thank you for bringing up the tardies, Mike. Um with you, kids don't um have control when they get here, unless they have their own car and still then if they're living with parents, it can be dicey. Um so appreciate you
working with families on that. Um 35 absences is an awful lot of absences. Um but I guess having the option for Saturday school and summer credit recovery is good. Um I'm sure you're
already looking at kids with medical needs and that kind of thing and the 35 would be fall under a different category. Um, so I I appreciate that or likely have some sort of a 504 or IEP anyway if they're out that much.
Yeah. And I and I'll say like especially last year like we did a because of our size, it's one of the nice things we're able to work with kids. So a lot of times myself or Ally know exactly what's going on with the student and why they're out so much. Um, so yeah, we try to do the best. We had that a few times
last year. Especially with the tardies too, like I especially for our junior high, seven, eight, nine, you know, into nine. Um, it's not really on them a lot of the times unless we hear different. Sometimes we hear different from the parents, but even then, is there still the tardy ramification for sports?
Yeah, that's still the plan is to go forth with it. Yeah. So, we used it throughout the year. We saw an increase for the most part because so many students participate in the sports. So, our tardies were down for athletes. So, myself and Mr. Debuke were mainly the ones looking at it every day and then
Miss Lacass would help us out too. So the plan's still to do it again this year. Awesome. Yeah, I saw the opt out for curricular offerings um as long as um I think the wording was there um around held
religious beliefs. I would imagine you're going to Good luck with that. Number one, I don't think anybody really knows what they're doing with that in many cases right now. Um um and a lot of districts are going to
feel their way through that to see what happens. It would be interesting I I would think to everybody on the committee if at some point maybe after the first of the year, maybe after a halfway point, if we can get some not just numbers, I guess idea of what's
happening with that. Um, I think everybody's going to be interested in knowing that across the Commonwealth. Um, particularly since our governor and AG have a bit of a different opinion than what seems to be happening nationally here.
Yeah. Um, also I guess a reminder there that while a parent has the right to opt a student out, if a student of a certain age wants to participate, they absolutely have the right to do that and schools um have a responsibility to
protect those students rights, right? Y does that fall under FURPA? uh it would fall under student records in any case and it's not the kind of thing we could know about on a student by student basis. I'm just wondering about numbers in terms of parents opting
out and um um you know I think the Lello case is settled right in terms of going to the Supreme Court and saying the school is right to protect the child's rights which I wholeheartedly agree with. Um,
it's a difficult situation for you all to be in and I really do feel for you around that. So, good luck. Thank you. I think we can I mean we can probably look at it. We can maybe track like the overall cases or opt outs that we get um like a total number that we get in the
school year. We could probably do that pretty similar to the sex education. You can opt out of that as well. That's that's required even under the Massachusetts Constitution. But even Mary Jane, it might not have to be something we discuss here at the committee level. even if we could just hear about it separately, right? Um it
just it's it's a tough situation for people running schools. Not that the work is easy anyway, as I say all the time. Um I always dreamed of being a teacher and then I realized I wasn't cut out for it. Um otherwise, I
don't see anything in here that um is troubling me. I would just ask the same thing. And I think in some cases you had done it with the gender neutral pronouns and in some cases which seems very reasonable the his her she is still in there. So over the course of time we
should look to get that corrected. Thank you. If there are any other questions or comments I'll take the motion. I'll make a motion to accept the changes to the Graanby Junior Senior High School student handbook. Second. All those in favor?
I. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up is the new curriculum. I'm going to have our um director of student services, Mrs. Nicole Haru, talk about a new um curriculum we're putting in place for our students in the social
emotional classroom. So, she's going to talk a little bit about that. It's just something we want to make sure that uh our students are getting the services they need. So, this is here to talk to us. Hi, everybody. Um, so when I first started last year, um, in the district,
I went around and reviewed some of our programs and some of our most significant students had no design curriculum that they were using in the classroom. So it was very challenging um because these are students who have
severe needs who are a lot of students are non-verbal who really do utilize our BCBA and ABA services throughout the day. Um so in my past experience I had very a great amount of success. So I'm
talking about our rise program and our pathways program. So, it eventually will go down, this program that we're using is going to go down to the preschool level. Also, um the program is is highly used for students who have communication
disabilities and aren't able to communicate. Um it's designed by a BCBA. We're able to fully fund this program through a grant that we are using to help um support our students. So, not only is the classroom teachers and paras
going to get training in it, also our service um providers also the it follows the Massachusetts curriculum framework. So, a lot of times our students struggle because they're able to go into classrooms for part of of academic programs and they might not totally
understand the content because way it's it's being taught. So what happens is we can bring them back into the rise program or the pathways program and really have a modified but they're getting age appropriate curriculum. So that's what I really like to see our
students be doing because they're educ they might have a communication disability. They might have to have their curriculum in a certain way for them to access. So it's also always about how they're going to access the curriculum. So, it really works on it's
designed for developmentally delayed, autism, or profound students. Um, it follows the Massachusetts standards. It measures their academic goals, life skills, social language, and behavior. It also has a really nice social skills
programmatic program for them. So I think it's really exciting that our and our teachers are excited because um one is a very new teacher in the program and she to have her come into a classroom and say to us, you know, what do you use
for curriculum and at that time they are peacemealing it? They they are trying to, you know, they're making the it work for their students the best they can, but it's a lot of work to be able with students with multiple disabilities to not really, you know, have a foundation
to build upon. They're not going to use that only, but they're also going they're going to have that as their foundation which they can build on it. Um, it's it's all for inclusive learning. So, it's not we're not segregating. So if some a fourth grader
who has a profound disability, we want to include them in the classroom inclusion in a in a typical fourth grade classroom. We can introduce the topic to them and then have it explained more fully in a way that they can learn. Many
of our students, for example, um at the high school level, they if they're reading Romeo and Juliet, for example, it's a challenging those words are difficult. They don't understand it. But they understand they they're smart children. Just because they have a
disability does not mean they can't succeed. So we might have graphic novels that we are able to use not only in picture form but in words where they can understand. So this is what the program's all about. But I really think
it's really exciting for the classrooms to actually have a curriculum because they have not had a curriculum that they've used. So this is something new for the district. They are going to um the teachers and the pair of professionals are going to be getting trained in the program on one of the
first days of school. The training will last throughout the year and we have consultation time to work with the people who developed it. So this sounds wonderful and I don't mean to be uh abrupt but how are we paying for this? Through the grant. There's a grant. It's all grant funded. And honestly it was
it's a very um It was reasonable. It It was very reasonable and there's enough on the grant to to carry to cover the whole thing for more than a year. Yep. Great. It is. It's all grant funded. That's that um that's why I wanted while we had
the access to this grant and it can continue through the grant. So the training occasionally they'll need more intense training throughout years to follow that will call cost addition. But this will track them also throughout the years also. So the kids transitioning
where we can lose some some things, it'll transfer with them to high school. So yes, it's all grant funded. Well, I think that's wonderful. Really excited to see this implemented and uh it's great when it teachers are really excited, too. Yeah. And uh I guess it's double good
that it's it's paid for through the grants. So really, there's nothing bad to say. So cross our fingers that these grants don't go away. So thank you. I um read through this and was quite excited myself the way the scaffolding
works for different uh students and the different differentiation takes place depending on their needs. Um I looked a little bit at the company that provides it. They certainly do seem to be a solid and you're right well accepted. Um I don't know I did not get
to curate to see if this was in curate but it does align with the frameworks. Very impressive. Um and more and more um our students are coming in with varying needs. And I think just for the average
new teacher um who isn't prepared to doesn't know what scaffolding is, hasn't um encountered that yet and hasn't encountered the various kinds of students that are in the classroom every day. I think this is a a big win. And
I'll tell you, the first kid who we lost to an out of district placement um because they weren't able to succeed without this kind of um training. Um boy,
that would be a big loss as well. What I also like is that our teachers, not only the teachers, but the service providers can access it too. Like it's not only going to be held in one classroom. It's not just going to be the teacher. When they go to OT, they're going to be able
to when they're going to speech, they're going to be able to access everything that they're learning. So, we really have, you know, it's a win-win for these. It looks very exciting to me. I hadn't really heard about anything like this before, so I just Yeah. Don't tell my boss.
Our staff is very excited to actually have some guidelines to go by. It's very hard when you're trying to hire a teacher and they say, "What's the curriculum you use?" And now I can say, "Oh, we are using Teachtown and um numerous schools." So the other thing
also, Jen, the nice benefit is um I have a partnership with a lot of the directors around. So sometimes when they're offering a PD where they're having they have a little more um funding for grants than we do because we're small Graham, they have invited us
when they have workshops that we can go to their workshops. So I think that's really exciting. We also started a this is not the same but um we started a partnership with Belchuretown last year that our our our preschool teachers because we only have two and they only
have two they meet collaborately to talk about curriculum and what they're doing so on common days. So we're trying to do look at all the resources around us and network with our surrounding communities that we can share resources. Those are
wins that small districts have to do to survive. Yeah. Good for you. Thank you. If there aren't any questions, I'll take the motion to accept the report. It's it's a new curriculum, so we have to accept it.
Well, um it's paid for, so I guess yeah, I'll make a motion to accept the report and the on the um Sorry, I'm not on the I'm not on the cover. Teach town. Teach town. It's not a report. We're accepting the
use of the curriculum. If that's what you want, that's what we can do. I believe that's what we're actually doing, right? Sure. Great. Well, sure. I think I was reporting and asking for the curriculum. I think I was doing both
because it says vote on here and it's a new curriculum. So, I mean, it's great and we used the funding, but if someone had strong things and it didn't get voted in, you wouldn't be able to continue because the school committee said no. Right. Correct. Okay. So, I will take the motion.
Oh, I'll make a motion to accept the new curriculum teach. Great. Can I have a second? Second. All those in favor? I I thank you. I'm excited about this. This sounds great. Thanks. Okay. So, adjourn to subcommittees is
next. George is not here, so there's no policy. Yeah, I've gone through section E and have it notated. So, whenever George is ready, we can meet on it. Okay. Um, do you want to talk with Trevor about it or do we want to hold on
that and we can have Do we have stuff for finance? just uh just a brief update. So, do we um we'll take a quick sub. Well, Trevor, are you Trevor's not a member of policy because we haven't
reorganized reorganized. So, the other thing I could do, um, Mary Jane, is if our friend Jenny has more of these sections ready to go, if she could just give me access, I could start moving
forward and getting them um, go through them and make notes so that at our next meeting we can go through more than one if we're able to. That sounds great. Sure. And my update can just be part of my report. isn't anything that's um really needed for subcommittee level.
Okay. Are are we all in agreement then we can push off subcommittees to not the next meeting but the meeting after? That'll give us time to reorganize at the next meeting and have discussion and then plan for what we want for the meeting after.
And just one more thing I did drop a copy of the version that I notated in the folder. So if anyone had comments, they could certainly go in the document and leave comments. Oh, okay. That's cool. I saw it, but I didn't think about Do you know the second September of the
month or the first? I we've been doing second meetings two meetings. Yeah. But that way it gives us time to make sure that we can actually reorganize next time or try to reorganize next time and then it'll give us This one's August. Yeah. And the first September one. Yeah, we'll do first.
That's what I was asking. I was thinking we it was later in August than it is. It's only the 5th, right? So, I don't know which Can we do either one? I just want to know what's the August goes by like this. Why don't we try for the first and September and we'll see where we're at.
Okay. Fair. Got it. All right. Either way, we're just skipping along. All right. So, we don't need to do that. Um Yes. Um standing reports.
Okay, starting with me. I have a couple of updates, some grants. Um, Mr. Dorman is going to have some updates about federal grants, but I do have some local grants that we're working on. Um, right now, again, we're applying for the world language grant again with Ammeris, Hatfield, and Hadley to provide services for our students to take that uh seal by
literacy test again. So, we've um hopefully we'll get that again. That will be great. Um and then right now I'm also working with there's Hav and myself interested in looking exploring some chapter 74 program that goes with our IT and I know that we heard Mr. um Frener
talk about AI. So one of the things we're looking at is to take a look at the AI um pathways and hoping that we could offer a some sort of AI certificate program for our students and that's what we're looking to explore. Um we have to get the grant first but that's what we're looking to do. Um,
we're also going to be training teachers, just to let you know, um, in October and December on AI and how to use it in the classroom. So, awesome. That's going to be part of that as well. Um, Graanby grows green. This is an initiative that was brought to us by our new elementary principal um about um
compost collaboration. So, this is about um creating a compost at the elementary school and the high school with the community um to provide a service to the community. So, she wrote that grant and hopefully we can be get a garden going and and talk to the students about um
those types of things. So, is there still remnants of the garden in the courtyard here? Yes, but there's Robin the raised beds are the raised beds. They're not both. Exactly. Right. But there's there's already space, right? So, that's cool.
Yep. So, hopefully we'll get it. Fingers crossed. And you know, she did a great job writing the grant. extended school year is now over. We had 29 students in grades pre-K through six and there was a four-week program focused on skill development to ensure that you know our students who need those ESY services don't regress. So, um that just
concluded the end of last week. We are making progress with our staffing. These are the few positions we have left. We're looking for a physical therapist, a prek teacher, special education middle school, and then a couple of pair professionals. But we're making progress every day. Sometimes it's a step forward
and then a step back, but you know, I I'm confident that um we are going to be fully um staffed. A lot of districts are really struggling, but I think we're in pretty good shape. So, I think I'm pretty good about that. New teacher orientation will be held on August 21 and and two Thursday, August 21st and
Friday, August 22nd. Um from 8 to 3. Um items on the agenda will include you know meeting their mentors, working with officer Gilly on the Alice training, um Cammy training and meeting with GA and doing some lesson planning and you know getting their classrooms ready and such. All staff returns to school on Monday,
August 25th. So I can invite you and I will send you all a copy of the agenda for that day but you are welcome to attend. It will be here in East Meadow starting at 8:00. There'll be a little bit of refreshments from 7:30 to 8. Um and uh that will be on the 25th. Um, if
you are available, I believe, do you all order t-shirts? Maybe beginning of the year. So, we'll be taking a staff photo on Tuesday. So, I'll send that information out, too. If you did not order a t-shirt, you may have gotten one. I No, I haven't. I will. Oh, you didn't get one either. I'll send Jenny to send you the list.
Yeah. No, we didn't order. Send me the list, too, because honestly, um um I have five years. I asked you to send to everybody, but I will make sure we do it again. It's just a grand. It's cute. They're cute. So, we're going to give everybody t-shirts and take a picture with a with a drone outside so that we can be part of that.
Um, do you do you want me to do a welcome? That would be great. I would love you to do that. Okay, great. Um, I've also included a link to the MASC bulletin. I've noticed some of you get this MASC bulletin, but everybody does not. So, I I just gave you that link um for you to take a look at um
that legislation that um we had talked about for the new Mass General log. Part of the information is in there. So, that's kind of interesting. I thought that would be a nice resource for you to share. And if you're interested in getting that, I think you can click on it to order order that by paper. Our school choice drawing was held for
grades 1 3 6 7 9 10 11 and 12. Letters went out to families. We are still receiving letters back. So at this point, we don't really know who's coming. Um they have till this Friday to respond. And then beginning next week, we're going to send the second round out for the people that have not responded. Um but it looks like we have grade one
and grade three filled at this point. So we're just looking to fill additional slots in. Um, and then athletics begin next Monday, August 18th. Just want to remind any parents who are watching this that there will be a parent meeting on Thursday at the Junior Senior High School at six o'clock.
Which Thursday? This Thursday coming up? The 7th. That is the 7th. Correct. Yes. Okay. I should have put there 7th. Yeah, I should have said that. And then busing information will be sent out to families soon. I am meeting with the busing coordinator tomorrow and bus company.
So, you'll be getting busing information within the next week or so. And that is my report. Thank you. We got you. Um, question. Yeah. Um, I'm excited to hear that you
have a grant for students with world languages and we hope that it continues. If there's anybody we can write to about that, I'd be happy to or call. Um, I'd be happy to do that. Um boy, it's a great opportunity for our kids here in Graanby to get to see it last year. We shared it with with
those other folks. This would be our third year. Great. It's fantastic. Um who's going to be doing the AI training? We have Oh, I know you're gonna um Mrs. KGO has somebody Rebecca Majour and somebody else will be doing that.
CES CES. Okay. The collaborative. Thank you. I was going to say I know Rebecca from CES. I believe she's doing it. And somebody else that I came with presented, but it is out of the collaborative. Good. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Todd, you're up.
Uh, I've got a mix of news for the committee. Um, it's never good when you start. I have already established that none of the things I say are ever good. Um so the town um has and we've informed our
employees the um the Hampshire County uh health insurance trust um is doing an additional 20% increase um in health insurance. It will take effect October
1st. Uh payroll deductions will begin in the first payroll of September. Um the town representation was there, the uh town administrator, select board chair uh were on that call. Um the health
insurance trust is in dire straits without this additional increase. So there was a 18 to 20% increase for the new fiscal year and having another 20% on top of that. Um so that is going to impact the town's budget. We don't know.
It hasn't been communicated to us how that will impact us. Um that is typically through our inind expenses or inind charges. Um so I'm still waiting to hear what that will um mean for us as the school district. Um
I think I mentioned at our last meeting that the uh final approved budget um there was a reduction in rural aid. The state level funding is cut 50%. Um our rural aid was cut about 25%. So it's
about $25,000 reduction in that grant from um FY25. Uh on to some positive news. What does that mean for us though? $25,000 reduction um that we use. We've
used it for salaries. We used it for a number of things over the past couple of years. Do we have to do anything drastic or is it too early? it's still within uh something that we can manage. Um that's not great. Again, it's it might be an extra item
that we're not purchasing or uh an offset that we're we're transferring into revolving or something like that. So, and how does the additional because we're holdless here, the additional 150 per student that will help us somewhat
to it it increases our um our total chapter 70, but we had budgeted. It's not a ton of money, but no, but we had budgeted at that in our original Okay, good. U budget we had voted on for the town or
had the town vote on, but we had that original offset at level funded for rural aid uh when the town voted. So, that's a reduction from what was voted on by the town. Mhm. said the chapter 70 and the whole
harmless and uh how they're funding uh the student opportunity act is already accounted for. Well, you know, there's so much happening at the state level now and there certainly has been a big push by a number of rural districts around the funding and and um there has been
agreement that that at the state level they'll take a look at how that affect how chapter 70 and the student opportunity act affects rural schools. That'll take two years to get anywhere, right? Um
and maybe the rest of the good news is that since the governor does seem to have some commitment to rural schools and with what looks like um a release of federal money um it with no I mean there are some cuts. We don't know yet what
they'll be to Massachusetts. There's no significant like drastic cuts. So hopefully some of that will pay off and we'll be able to maybe see that backfilled in some way. Optimistic. I love it.
I hate finance. You see me ringing my hands. I try very hard on finance, but it's not my thing. I just love that you're like, "Oh, they're going to find it." I think that I think that the budget so the the state budget passed before
we heard that the federal money was going to be released and I know everybody's walking was walking on eggshells about that and it didn't look initially from what I read that there were huge I mean nationally
huge cuts like 14% cuts here 9% cuts there certainly it will impact people but right so on the better than 100% cut, isn't it? Right. Definitely. So, on our federal grants,
um, title one came in, uh, a little bit over 11,000 more than we originally estimated. Um, title 2 is $1,000 more. So, our out of our title one, two, and four were about $12,700
more than we originally budgeted. budgeted with a conservative reduction. Um and then um our idea are about 12,700 over what we had estimated for uh the
bud for the budget when the budget was passed by the town. So in that sense we've kind of got a wash on that rural aid. Um still still minus 10,000 roughly. Well, 24,000 that between IDA
and Title One and the 25,000 we lost in Yeah. rural. So, man, what a way to start the year. Kids aren't even back in yet. Brutal. And so, so that that was a positive piece. We got those um title grants and IA IDEIDA grants last at the end of last
week and the beginning of this week. So, we're able to fill those numbers in. And the charter and choice tuition, I know that is reflected in kids who have left and money that has been taken from the budget by the state, but that number was up this year and I'm not really sure why.
So, um, and which aspect of that is up? The reimbursement we're getting from the state. I was just looking at the latest cherry sheet, right? And that will affect the inkind expenses and what the town charges us. Okay. Because that money goes directly to the town. Okay.
So, Oh, good. It's going somewhere. Yeah. Yes. And then the last thing I did, uh, and I put it in the folder for last meeting. Um, I had gotten a write up from the general contractor on the
progress of the kitchen. Um, well, actually, let me finish with the kitchen because that's positive. Uh, there was a lightning event on campus on July 20th. Uh so we have some systems that are under repair. The adjuster uh insurance adjuster came out yesterday. So I met
with the adjuster. So we're uh assessing the damage. Uh the majority of it is to this building because it has so many more modern electronic controlled functions. Um and they are susceptible to this kind of damage. Um, in our
capital article as part of the generator repair, I I did try to build in for campuswide search protection. Um, the big process to get this done. I obviously I missed the summer window to try to prevent lightning. I didn't have
a long enough pole out there to get hit first. I thought we did I thought we did like a whole bunch of grounding stuff and everything. Everything is grounded. Um the buildings the buildings have lightning rods and they have those things. Um it's just
we're not sure exactly how the the theory is that it the strikes aren't happening to the buildings themselves. The strikes are happening in the field and they're following the water lines in. That's the prevailing theory. Um because none of the buildings have been directly hit
yet. I am. We're not. Just so we're all clear. As long as I am the kind of the what am I the share when there's a bad storm, we're leaving. We're just going to vacate. I'm just not worth it to me. No, we're safer in here. The schools
don't get hit. We go in there parking lot. We're We're in shast. Uh so I worked with the town administrator. We said we initiated an insurance claim. We will Do we lose cameras and stuff or what do we lose? Uh, I'd rather not say how
we're doing on all of our systems. I'm fully We're still fully assessing all of our systems. So, so was any of the stuff that was damaged in the original lightning strike that took us two plus years to fix? Uh, there may be some gun repairs.
[Music] All right, that's great news. Do you have anything like super positive? You want us to read this? Is progressing very well. Uh as I reported uh at our last meeting uh substantial construction
will be completed by August 15th. Uh punch that's next like 10 days from now. Yeah. The week of the 15th. Yep. Okay. The punch list is anticipated to be completed the week of August 25th. Um I
believe we will need to bring in um a crew for deep cleaning, a few other things to get the kitchen ready for service. I don't believe we'll be ready for service for the first couple weeks of school. Um, but we will be, you know,
we're so far ahead of the game of where we could have projected this project. Um, when we kicked off in August, I mean in June. Yeah. So, we are well on our way. Um, they are I went through it today. The grids are
in for the ceiling tiles. All the duct work is just about insulated. All the mechanical air handlers and um ventilating units are all installed. The rooftop unit is installed. Um they are making substantial progress. They are doing a great job. And so we are we are
on track uh to have that project completed. That is so exciting. So I'd like to conclude with that today. Um this is I think it's your question, but I'm going to ask anyone. We're still free lunch this year. Yes. Okay. The
state has continued to That's what I thought, but I universal free lunch and breakfast. You know, sometimes I I I'm embarrassed to say where I get some of my news and I thought I read something that contradicted that. So, I was in Massachusetts. It's free. It's states other state, right? Okay.
It's vary from state to state. It's from the state. All right. Um, that's great. Really was. You know, you hit you ended on a high note, Dad. I appreciate it. Trying to reorganize for that as quickly as I could. Um, Liz, do you have anything for CES?
You know, I do not because they haven't met. I missed the last meeting that was gosh, a couple months ago. I just actually, well, I was looking at that, emailed the chair to be sure that I didn't miss something, but I didn't see anything. They usually are fairly slow
in the summer anyway. So, well, they're going to ramp up to be replacing their executive director. He left at the end of beginning of July. Yeah. Mhm. Okay. Um, anything that we want for our
agenda for next meeting? Is there a list of meeting dates that I'm Because I don't have them all in my phone and I usually do. Yeah, I I one of our meetings I will send you a copy. Oh, come on, Jen. I count on your list. I know. That's why it's it's honestly Jenny that does it for me and I put them
in my I don't know what mean. If you go into the folder though, um, the shar subfolder, right? The dates. It's in that. Is it the primary folder at the very bottom? 25 26. It has all the dates, boulders for all the dates in there. Got it. All right. I'm trying, Jen.
I tried to use the same folder. She didn't let me let you use the same folder. She had to give us a new one. All right. Perfect. So, our next meeting is August 26th, the night before school. Um, is there anything that we want to make sure is on the agenda for next time
besides reorganizing? I don't think next time, but maybe the second meeting in September or so if there's anything that we want to hear about with regards to any uh collaborations with uh select board and any other
There's going to be a meeting on uh September 15th. Um I got that in the lesson. Yeah. Um so I want to make sure that I get I say it correctly so we don't have um uh we're not quote quoted incorrectly.
Um but Tammy Martin, who is our town administrator, reached out to um um someone at DESIE to um discuss regionalization
and just have some conversations. So, um, a person by the name of Michelle Griffin wrote to Tammy Martin, "I write in response to your July 29th, 2025 email, and that, um, the August 4th meeting would be too close, so they are
going to be, um, discussing it at September 15th, a select board meeting, and um to about exploring regionalization. So, I did speak with um Mark Bale about this on my way here and he said that it just it's the
appropriate way to um begin exploring the topic. Um there is I want to be very clear there is nothing that's been decided. This is an exploratory conversation. We will be getting an invitation as I understand it from the rest of this email
um to to attend that meeting. I don't know if we will be in the audience or at the table. It's not clear to me at this point. So, um, at least we're we got the heads up. They, um, sent this to Mary Jane, who forwarded it along to me.
So, um, that will be September 15th. Um, so Mark said that based on some conversations, he apologized for um, forgetting to loop me in early. Just he kind of thought it was doing the right thing, which it did. Um, Tammy reached
out to us. Um, so we will be hearing something about that for the 15th. So that will be our September one and then I'm sure there'll be some actions and um discussion following that. Um, and then also we've been trying with Kathy
Leonard to kind of coordinate a um a meeting with the select board. We just haven't been able to get a date. Um, so Mary Jane and I need to touch base on that um so we can the same topic. No. Uh just just to have like a department head meeting with um
the finance committee and the select board. Um so we've been we've the last minute. Yeah. We we haven't been able to coordinate that. So that's also in the um in the works and um I when I was
speaking with Mark before um they don't have a named liaison for the school committee right now. Um Mark is hoping that we can get back to a previous state where um we feel free to call him or any member of the select board if we have
questions. And so far it feels like Tammy has been fairly responsive um and it's a different board. So he's doesn't have a named select board at this point, a select board liaison for us as I understood the conversation. that doesn't mean that they won't
revisit it, but if we have questions or whatever Mark says to reach out to him. Um, so if there's we'll try it this way for a little bit and if there's if we're feel like we're not doing that, we can, you know, he said we can revisit that. So that's all that I have as far as
Thank you. that goes. I did call Mark today in fact. Yeah. He said he's like, "Oh, I talked to Liz just a little bit ago. I was just like, geez, a lot of time has passed and I haven't heard anything." And of course, in case there are actual people watching this, this is not a fast
process, right? Um, and if anybody from the select board is listening, this should be a joint process. This is not a select board. So, I understand that the select board um has the ultimate authority to say, school committee, we want you to pursue
this, but we should absolutely be talking together about this, right? And we need to look like we're together on this when the Desi rep comes in because tied to that is is the you know you definitely want DESIE to give you some regionalization and planning funding to
do all the the work the pre-work that before you can even ask the town right if they're interested in sharing or combining or regionalizing or what have you. um there's probably a year's worth of work before that even
happens and somebody's got to pay for it and it absolutely should be desy. This is not a small endeavor that we're talking about here, right? And also it's um minimum of a three-year planning process before you know by the time you do your
year-long and then then by the time then then you make that decision after 3 years you it's not instantaneous because then you have to figure out it is not regional agreement has to go through desi it's like a it's really a five to sevenyear process that's the safe that's
what we've been told we had been told previously by the column center out of um mass that um does that just to be on the safe side. It's it's not instantaneous. Also, Mark and I were when we were talking about it, it needs to be um understood that that vote will
be at a town meeting. It's not something that goes on the ballot. Yes, it's on town meeting floor. So, we would um you know, there's we're not I don't want to put the cart before the horse, but No, no, there's a lot of work to be done and that includes and I don't even know that there will be any of the follow- on work. This could
be a a very simple conversation when they lay out how it all works and how expenses work and all of that that it may not be necessarily something that the town of Graanby the select board even wants to pursue once it's actually explained to them how how a regionalization agreement might work
because there is some miscommunication and misunderstanding about the dollars and cents of it all. There's not everyone is on the same page about what grades like when they say regionalization to some to some people that means prek to 12
to many people when they're talking about regionalization in Gramby they're really talking about the high school. So you might it's more like a superintendent union or something that you're talking about it that it there's a lot of things to consider and I know it's not a quick process. Um,
it's an exciting process and a frustrating process to be part of, but there has to be funding. And Desi has to see us together, the select board and us in a partnership over wanting to pursue it so they can fund us wanting to pursue it and
collecting that data and getting someone who can analyze it, turn it out in a way that folks will understand, right? That's not something any one of us is going to do. Um, thank you for that report. I'm glad to
hear that. But I hope that the select board um understands how important it is that we work together in a transparent way on this. So for to be perfectly this is an exploratory conversation. This is not there there are the way I'm
understanding there are no decisions being made. just it's like setting the what the expectations and level setting because there is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding of how agreements work. Um so you're not likely going to save a
lot of money but what you will do is have um a much broader much more rich um experience for the students through this. Um, but saving money is probably not at the forefront of any sort of
effort like this, right? So, so it's what you want for your kids really. Um, sorry. I do I get I I have worked with a group that's been doing this since 2015
and it it's never easy. Um, it's an emotional topic for people. A lot of people back out for that reason alone. Um, but boy, the things you can do for kids if you can get a community on board, like if you can be transparent enough, if you can get good enough
information, if people buy into it, there's a lot of ifs. Yeah, I know. I I want to be clear that the main objective that we're doing this is exploratory, number one, because I don't want this to be miscommun misconstrued. And secondly,
the town is looking at this as a costsavings measure. Yeah. Not going to happen. It's it's a it's a way to solve the problem of the high school. Well, future costs maybe. Yes. It maybe they'll expend less because they won't
have to build a new high school, but um I um Thank you. No, I find the whole thing um I know it's just exploratory. It should be just exploratory. back in the early 2000s um when I was on the Hatfield
School Committee, we talked with uh well we didn't this was a part this was a problem with the process. The two superintendent put their heads together got a grant did a study and said great we're going to regionalize no one else was involved in the conversation. How do you think that went
over in the two communities? Not well. Well obviously it didn't because Hatfield was not regional. That's right. So anyway, that's enough on that topic for now. Um because I don't want the more we talk about it, the more real. Sorry. Thank you. I won't talk about it anymore. Appreciate it.
Um so anything that we want on the agenda for the next time. Just reorganization and whatever pops up. Okay. Hopefully no more lightning strikes. Oh god. Um okay. Uh with that, the school committee will now vote to enter
into executive session under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 3A section 21 part A3 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union
personnel. The school committee will not return to open session. We have to return open session. I will for the custodial. Oh, okay. Apparently, we will uh return to open session. Okay. We will. Apparently, we will. Um so,
do you want to do the other piece first so everybody can go home or we have to go into executive session first and then come back and report and then vote on theou in open session. And so, but we have to say what the unit what the non-union personnel andor unit
is that we're going in for. So, if we can say that, name that. I'll make the motion. So, the the union personnel is the custodial unit. Okay. Okay. And we have non-union as well. Would that be the superintendent? Yes.
Okay. I'll make that motion. Can you do the roll call, please? Don, Mr. Augustino. Um I Miss Leon. Yes. Uh Mr. Dar. Yes. Miss Barton. I Okay, we will return momentarily.
Okay. And we're back. So Todd, do you want to do that or how do we proceed? I'm not actually I'm not actually clear. So I think there would be a motion made to approve accept theou between the
custodial unit and uh the school committee. Can I have the motion? Uh make a motion to accept the memorandum of uh agreement for custodial unit as written. Second. All those in favor? I
and signed. I'll put it back in the folder for you. Thank you. Uh can I make a second motion for the employment agreement between the Grahamby public schools and Mary Jane Ricken superintendent
uh to ratify it as accepted? Can I have a second? Second. All those in favor? I. That's it for us. Thanks everybody. Have a good night. Thank you. Motion to adjurnn. Oh, second.
All those in favor? I