Now is an order. We stand for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge of allegiance. Madam Secretary, >> Miss Treup here, >> Mrs. Roberto, Dr. Marlin, Mr. Sheay, Miss Pimento.
Oh. That's okay. As long as you didn't adjourn, >> I make a motion. This is to notify you that a regular meeting of the greater veteran regional vocational
high school district committee will held on Tuesday, May 12th, 2026 at 11:21 Ashley Boulevard, New Bedford, Massachusetts at 6:00 p.m. in the
student forum. comments. We have any public comment? >> No. >> Okay. Reading and acceptance of the minutes of the April 15th and April 28th, 2026 meetings. The committee members
have received copies of the minutes of the April 15th and April 28th, 2026 meetings. Request an approval. >> Second. senses. No.
May we vote? I'm on no call vote. >> All right. All in favor? >> I oppose abstensions. Super me.
>> Okay. Our reports. Approval of bill. Included in your backup material is a copy of warrant 26-10 in the amount of 56,225.33 for your approval. Request approval.
>> Second. >> All those in favor? I oppose. Any abstensions? None. We'll move on. Okay, one of our favorite parts of the meeting, our
student reps report. Student Amelia Nar will bring members up to date on the events taking place amongst the student body. >> Okay. When we were together on April 15th, I was given some homework.
>> So, I want to start with just I have just two things to tell you before I get into what my report would normally be like. So I want to begin with the cafeteria. I've had people come up to me within now April and now about something
that's in the cafeteria specifically our spacing. We sit so close together this way and this way that you're we're shoulderto-shoulder and out the back of our chairs, these are the chairs that we use in the cafeteria are touching the person behind us, which one makes it impossible to get up to throw our stuff
away, which is a result of a lot of trash being left behind in the cafeteria. And it depends on the day. It's not like this every day. It depends on what we're having for lunch, the our attendance for the day, or which lunch shift you have. So, that's just
something, especially with all of our new freshmen coming in, it's just something to be mindful of. And one thing that I wanted to talk about was my program. I couldn't end without talking about my program. We pick our shot. We learn criminal justice, the justice
system, laws, and a million other things that if I named them all, we'd be here all night. So, I'm going to choose not to. And we could do so much more if we weren't confined to four academic classrooms in a lab that we have to use for storage because we don't have room
to put anything else. And I just feel not just me, everybody else that's in my program, freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior, that we could do so much more if just if we had the room. I just couldn't end without highlighting my program specifically. And those are my
two things that I want to talk to you about. All right, now it's time for my normal report. Our pep rally is Friday the 15th. We're just finalizing our details. Me, Jordan, he is our senior class president and Mr.
Rivera and Mr. Methia. It is going to rain on Friday and our pep rally is outside. So, I'm hoping that it changes between today and Friday. And if not, everybody better suck it up and bring an umbrella because we're going to have it
outside anyway. >> And next week, as everybody in the building knows, is senior week. We are very excited. We just finalized and sent out our spirit days for senior week. On Monday the 18th is senior citizen day.
So every senior is gonna come dressed like a senior citizen which maybe maybe not because >> I didn't just show up. >> We Well, maybe maybe not because that also might be our senior skip day, but you didn't hear that from me.
>> Tuesday the 19th is teacher student swap day. So teachers dress like students, students dress like teachers. And a few of us have gone up to a specific teacher and me and my friend that's also a representative did this. We went up to two teachers and asked them what their
favorite colors are and we're going to choose an outfit based on their favorite colors. We're excited. Wednesday the 20th is anything but a backpack day. So, we bring anything but a backpack with our stuff with some restrictions. Mr. Rivera had told me that you have to be
able to carry up the stairs on your own and it has to fit through one door. We shouldn't have to go like over to child care and open the double doors. So, it has to fit through one door and you have to carry it on your own. >> Yeah, that's too
>> Yeah, that's that was a hard one. People wanted to bring animals. Okay. And in the midst of all this, we have our normal senior events, our cap and gown, senior rose and yearbook pickup, senior sunset, which we're going to have a movie in the auditorium as
well. We're excited. We did that for a few years and it's always fun. Senior cookout is Wednesday. The senior car decorating contest is Wednesday. And then Thursday is senior sign out. Also, I completely skipped this. Thursday the
21st is college tra college trade decision day. So, everyone wears t-shirts or sweatshirts representing where they're going next year and so on and so forth. And we decided to do that on the Thursday because it's senior sign out day and everybody comes in with hair
rollers in because prom is a few hours after. Everybody comes in with hair rollers in and all like dressed as comfortable and it's sure to be fun. We're all very excited. We're excited. Prom is next Thursday and after prom, I was just telling Dr. Marlin before we
started, we exceeded our goal for after prom. I had told you on the 15th we were nervous that we weren't going to reach our goal and we weren't gonna have enough money to pay for our raffle prizes. We our goal was 25,000. We're at
26 or 27,000 now which is exciting. We were sweating for a while but we got there. And before I wrap up I just want to take a moment to say thank you. With this being my last committee meeting. It was an honor to serve as your student representative for this school year.
Thank you for listening to me every month. I hope I made you laugh. I pride myself. I love to make people laugh. And I hope you just enjoyed my reports. And that's all I have for you. >> It was a pleasure having you. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. two sides to just um we've had some good people in the last few years especially and I think it set the tone and I think the tone that you've set for this year is going to help the future. You were very kind. Uh you had good thoughts and
um you were you were fun to be with. So thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> Yes. You can tell that you have a passion for what you were doing. um you were very informative and I appreciate you completing the homework assignment as
um and we wish you well. You carry yourself very well. I'm sure you will have a very bright and very bright career future. So congratulations student. Thank you for serving this year. >> Thank you. >> If you think you're going to get a little emotional now, wait till you
cross the stage. >> Okay, that's it. All right, moving on. Superintendent shout out just a few minutes um to let you know we had the mass CTE uh Southern chapter
award here last week and I I you know on behalf of the the school's administration we want to extend our congratulations to Crystal Verino, one of our culinary arts teacher who was recognized for her exemplary work with kids. You might know Crystal's work in the culinary arts program but also as
our cheerleading coach. I mean, she puts her heart and soul literally into everything that she does here. Um, and she was nominated by several members of our administration and our mass CTE building reps. Um, basically recognized for her excellence in the CTE classroom, her positive impact on on students, her
innovation in program instruction, and her leadership in helping to move the culinary arts program forward. And so, uh, I'm pleased to kind of recognize that again tonight, uh, in addition to the celebration that was last week and and to, uh, commend her for a job well done, uh, as she continues to grow as an
educator at our fine school. Happy to present our artisan report. I'm just going to wait for the presentation to come on up and we'll get started. >> Feedback. Check. Check. One, two. Much better.
All right. So, here we are with our May 2026 artisan report. We're first going to start off with academy C, our transportation and technology academy automotive. So, we have we'll go to the third slide. So, we have our seniors out on co-op.
They're working at Toyota of Dartmouth, Kia of Dartmouth, Freight Ford, Mac Autoes Mac Auto, Colonial Chevy. We've got juniors out on co-op as well since the beginning of the third trimester at Tire Warehouse and Navigator Auto.
And our sophomore group, they are exploring common drivability concerns and identifying diagnosing related issues around balancing and alignment. So, they're off to work. And now over to the collision repair program. We have our juniors and seniors who are doing
some dynamic work around um learning the paintless dent removal. And you'll see if you look closely, they are in um a state-of-the-art collision repair shop in Washington DC. That was a convention that they went on. If you look really closely, amazing trip that they went on.
Actually JK, you're probably wondering, I didn't approve that trip. That's actually our collision repair shop. The beautiful work that was done just last summer. State-of-the-art. So they were learn they were learning the paintless dent removal work right there in our own shop and it's really come come a long
way from the 1970s. So our kids got to really get that done in a state-of-the-art facility. So moving on to cosmetology in the academy C program. We have our seniors who are at work um all getting their working toward their licenses. We have seven out of 23 students who are
licensed. Illustrated there we have Vivana who's uh doing foil highlighting. And then we have Kelly and Shayana who are practicing salon style services. In our diesel services program, we have our seniors who are completing their
ASSE certification exams. Also with our for for additional certifications, we had 11 out of 12 seniors who earn their T4 medium heavy duty brake certification, T2 diesel engineert as well as a T5 suspension and steering certification. um again pushing forward
with those IND industry recognized credentials in that program and freshman sophomore students they're involved in the tear down of one of the Caterpillar six-cylinder diesel engines as you can see illustrated in this next slide great work going on in diesel moving on to the
information technology program and web design program students are completing their senior year capstone project you see illustrated off to the right students were tasked with recreating the cookie clicker game and develop veloping their own variations with additional features. They also presented their capstone
projects in a formal setting, demonstrating both their technical proficiency and communication skills, which is super important for when they go off to college. Marine technology, juniors and seniors in marine technology are actively engaged in completing
customer work within the shop. um a a deck and center console rebuild in collaboration with carpentry students take is taking place and also a hole repair which we see illustrated here on a CAB Catalina seal boat that will be used for the summer programs right in
our south end of New Bedford. Also we have juniors and seniors that are on co-op at various locations such as New Befford Yacht Club, Concordia Company, Westport Marine Center. We have kids at Chris Electronics for Haven Shipyard and Neimic Marine. So, they are definitely
out and about in the community. Moving on to our stationary engineering program, we have 13 seniors who have successfully earned their Massachusetts second class fireman's license. That is a big achievement for our students in that program. We also have an uh we have
six seniors who are out on co-op um at various locations such as Joseph Aboud, a Christian public schools, Weaten College, National Grid, and FW Web. And finally, final reflection. Take a look at this gentleman here. My shop
teacher from back in the day. Um, a highly looked up to administrator who is leaving us. And he leaves us with a couple of words. And I'm going to read a couple of lines in his own words. After 15 remarkable years, and again, why am I speaking about him? Because he led this department for the last 15 years. So
after 15 remarkable years of writing and submitting arts and reports for both Academy C andy um and with this being my final submission, it is difficult to put into words what this journey has truly meant to me. What began as a responsibility
became a privilege and ultimately a deeply personal reflection of the heart and soul of Greater Newf Tech. Through every story, I have had the honor of witnessing something extraordinary. students discovering their passions, overcoming challenges, and growing into
the to into into individuals they may not have yet realized they could become. As I say farewell after 30 years and as a proud member of the class of 1980, I do so with immense gratitude and a full heart. Though this chapter comes to a
close, the memories, the stories, and the people who made them unforgettable will remain with me always. Thank you for allowing me to tell your stories. It has been the honor of a lifetime. It means a lot and it's an honor for me to say those words that he used. So, um
we will miss Mr. Sheepard and we will properly um see him out on retirement at our retirement presentation in the second week of June. So, that is exciting. Um onto our co-op program. Oh, sorry, third week of June.
We have currently over 280 students who are out on co-op right now between juniors and seniors earning to this point up to date 1.4 million collectively. That is really amazing. And we've got um over 300 work permits that have been given out to students or
students have attained and placement students to date are almost 300. So we have a lot of kids out and about in the community making a difference learning those skills along um professionals out there. So, that's amazing. And something that's brand new to our school that'll be taking place this school year, this
Thursday, is the class of 2026 career signing day. Much like the athletic signing days that you see, um students and employees will sit at a table and have a symbolic signing solidifying their partnership moving forward after graduation with our students. So, that
is led by our co-op um director, uh Mr. Henry Deg Grace. He's put that together. We're really excited about that. So going beyond the sports but taking our vocational, you know, excellence to that next level and highlighting it. So really looking forward to promoting that out to the community so they can see
that great work. And then finally, our office of diversity and equity and inclusion. Um, a lot of things going on throughout the school community. We had spring community resource fair. Who's that in the bottom left corner? Is that in the suit? What's he doing over there?
>> Man, having too much fun with the kids. So again, Maria Dlo does a great job with Yolanda uh Dennis to put together these events. They also have the multicultural day. You'll see the two illustrations in the middle, top and bottom. We have our kids, our youngsters taking pictures with their um ethn
ethnic and heritage based flags and um you know, regalia as well as the signs that they have. And then over to the right, we have autism awareness and diversity month that was celebrated. So again, we high we love to highlight those things because one of the great
aspects of our school is that you know we are a melting pot. Um and that's always highlighted constantly by the efforts of the DEI office. Um and with that said actually moving on from that I want to just close out by mentioning Skills USA.
Um Skills USA will be going down to compete in Atlanta this year uh in just a couple of weeks in the last week of May. And we have James Edminster from the architectural drafting program who went gold at state who will compete down in Atlanta. Michael Silva uh from
carpentry who will compete. And then we have three dental students, Alyssa Serpa, Sophia Sorbal, and Laya Vieira who will also be competing. And then we have two national voting delegates, Dennis Ibrahim, who is a sophomore, and then Virginia Uldrid, who I believe is a junior. incredibly proud of these
youngsters because any of you who know anything about Skills USA competition, especially at the state level, it's very difficult. It's it's very intense and those youngsters did a great job and I'm proud of them. So, with that said, I y back and thank you for listening.
>> Picture by your stockings. Knew that was you in the picture by your stocking. some kind of socks on. They were colorful. >> Thank you. Good job. >> Question. >> Question.
>> No, we'll start questions. >> No, just for Guy Shepard, you know, again, I think it's great for the people to hear. >> Um, when I was a phys teacher, I had him as a student. known him all the way
through from as a student on to a rookie here and then leading to administration and I think all the kind words that are said here today by you and I know it it's in your heart too. He he he's a special individual and and he's done this school greatness throughout the
time. So, I do want to put my hats off to him and I'll be here for the, you know, retirees, you know, time to say it, but um people that are listening to this, you know, not everybody gets that level of, I think, respect that he has
earned. And I just want to say that he enjoy retirement. And I won't tell him about retirement because I failed. But, uh, I'll just tell him that he's enjoy he should enjoy every minute of retirement. Thank you. Anyone else?
>> Thank you. Okay. Parent communications. Superintendent Watson will bring members up today. >> Weekly uh surveys. Those are available for all four grade levels uh and highlight the results of the last two
weeks since our last meeting. >> Okay. Also include uh the updates to the staff. just two newsletters that are in your packet, right? We just met two weeks ago. So, these are the most recent two updates that were sent to staff on
Monday mornings. >> Just a quick question for the committee as we move to next year. I know we put these on the agenda. These have now become pretty much a staple. Um, and if it's okay with the committee, I'd like to include these asformational um as we move forward. And if there are any specific items that need to be addressed, I would raise them at that
time. But rather than keep this my my speech on those two things is pretty much the same thing. It's m mainly to make sure the committee is kept informed of our communications and if it would please the committee uh Mr. Fett would include those information beginning next school year. Okay. >> Yeah.
New business. Superintendent evaluation highlight. um obviously the evaluation time for administrators and teachers for all submitting artifacts. I know we'll have a brief conversation about that uh here. We're in the process of compiling all of the artifacts related to the strategic
goals that we set in August um for you folks um as well. Uh but I wanted to take a couple of minutes to kind of highlight a couple of key pieces of information. Really proud of the team and their work. um Kathy Rebello and the CT administrator, Sue Demurs, um you know, Greg Haley and his new roles as
the strategic initiatives administrator um to kind of give you some samples around how we intend to back up some of the goals that we've looked at. This one in particular is the analysis that was done regarding the the exploratory process. So, uh just I'm going to be very brief today with you, but just to
kind of highlight that, I wanted to leave it with you. it'll be included in the artifacts. But what you see in front of you uh are the selections of students who went through this year's exploratory process. Um about 73% of students received their first choice. That's the
second line down. You can see it kind of highlighted uh on the screen there. And that's because the way we compute the selection is by points. Those were the points that were earned. We are running a several different scenarios to take a look at whether or not this is the best way to make sure students get access to
the choice of programs that they look at including what their interest is as well as a combination of interest and point selection. So what you see in the top column of that graph along the blue lines. Um sorry, can you go back a second please to the summary?
Oh that's okay. Just on the Yeah, summary page. Yeah. So you see in that top along the blue is sorted by total shot points. So uh this year and again one year doesn't make a trend but uh students who if if first pick was awarded by interest 81% of students
would have received their first choice. Um so I just want to point that out. It's something that we charged in the beginning of the of the smarty goals this year was to do a thorough analysis around exploratory and how students are placed in their shops. Many of you will remember this conversation that we had uh in August or September. And what we
intend to do with this artifact is to kind of close that loop around the data analysis and the work that's happened this year. Uh we also ran it as I mentioned with how we actually did it with the points first system that's been in place as well as what it would look like if all first picks were given by
interest and then second through sixth by points, first and second by interest, third through sixth through points, first through third through interest, and fourth through sixth through points. So you see all of those percentages kind of broken out along the top of what would have happened. As we slide further
down um into the pick detail, please um you you'll see the numbers of students that were put that would have received their first choices uh if there was done by interest, if it had done by points or if it was done by interest first, points two through six, so on and
so forth. Um, as we go further down, I just want, and this is again, I'm going to be really brief tonight, but what we did is not only look at this through the lens of all students, but also through each individual student demographic profile, students with disabilities, uh, language learners, etc. You'll see that
there are 99 students, if you look at that table 2B that's on the chart there, there are 99 students with disabilities that are included in the freshman class. 70 of those students, roughly 71% of them, received their first choice. So, we want to look at whether or not those numbers would be impacted if we went to
a choice-based system or if we went to a point-based system or if we went to an interestbased system. Uh, and as I said, the the real careful piece is whatever the data says this year, we don't want to just make a decision on one year's worth of data. So, one of the things the next steps for us over the summer uh and into next fall is to look backwards over
the last two or three years and to run the last two or three years freshman classes through this exact simulation platform that has been built uh and then run it again next year with no changes. So that we're actually looking at a four to five year window of data analysis in the last 2500 kids that have gone
through the exploratory process before we were to come forth or implement recommended changes for a course of action. So tonight it's literally about making sure that I uh and this is what you'll see in the artifacts really for every one of the goals that we outlined is the kind of data analysis and backup
that we've put towards each of these initiatives with some kind of an explanation as to what we're trying to do uh in order to make recommended changes in the future. So I just want I I want to say that I won't dive into this any further tonight. U certainly madam chair I can answer any questions related to this if folks have it. Uh but
this is an example of what you'll see in the artifacts over the next couple of weeks towards our strategic goals. >> Questions? The only other thing I want to raise uh with you is around a new uh system called Aubrey that we're looking to
implement uh beginning next school year. Um so Aubrey is a system that tracks u students performance both from a grade perspective, discipline, and attendance. It pulls nightly from our Aspen system, but we use it, we're going to use it to kind of track into our students uh support-based teams, our assistant
principles, guidance counsels, and school adjustment counselors. You may be aware uh during the realignment last year, we now assigned a grade level dean andor assistant principal with two guidance counsels and a school adjustment counselor to each grade. Um this is the new platform, the new system
called Aubrey. If you could just hit the uh MTSS, please. Yeah, we're just going to keep it at the top. I'm not going to reveal any student names or any identifiable information pieces, but uh what you'll see here is this this graph is currently pulling three different pieces of data uh into the equation. A
students performance with grades, their discipline, and their attendance, and it's categorizing students according to MTSS tiers that the district has set related to whether interventions would be required for specific students. So, you'll see students in each grade level. If they're green, they're meeting all of
the tiers. If they're yellow, they're approaching some of the conditions where intervention might be required. And then those students identified in red tiers that are not meeting some of the benchmark datas, they now become candidates for the SST team to be able to intervene and try to remediate uh gaps that are happening with a student, whether it's related to attendance or
grades or different disciplinary factions. So uh over the last six or seven months and this is of course in the strategic goals we've been building a lot of the backend work around this data collection getting this stuff to be synced up with our Aspen information system and we're starting to see the benefits of this now emerge as a
platform. It's something we intend to look at with the administrators over the course of the summer and to roll this out on a much bigger scale uh in the fall. But I wanted to take just a few minutes and I'll certainly answer some questions related to this as well um to kind of give you an idea of how we're looking to use some of the power of the data that's before us to help drive some
of the instructional decisions that we make with kids every day. >> Yeah. Go back. >> Yeah. >> On the bottom it said the tears. >> Yeah. >> Threshold. Is that tied to your student handbook like for grades attended?
>> Yeah. So, >> yeah. So, we'll show you that part of it is isn't going to reveal anything for for students, but you can see the year-to- date attendance rates are basically tied to the chronic absenteeism tier, right? A student is automatically in tier three if they're chronically absent with attendance below
90%. Uh, we set the tier at 94% internally. We could change that if we wanted to, but we we feel as though 94 95 or better percent for attendance. We have that kid categorized for attendance in the green zone. Kids that are between 90 and 94 are trending towards chronic
absenteeism and so they would fall for the attendance category into the white. What happens the white the yellow sorry what happens from there is we assign a weight to the attendance factor the discipline factor some of the student grades the rating the reading star stuff
um all of that is tied in with different benchmarks if you scroll down just a little bit Marciel not too far you'll see how those tiers are established for each of those percentiles and then a student is then categorized and the algorithm combines all those three factors together to put the kids in the green yellow or red for us
>> all right so Is there a email or a text blast that goes out to the parent or contact person saying >> if they're SST >> they're in a yellow like saying they're in >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So though some of those details Erin I don't think that or Wally I don't
think we've quite we've scoped out all of that. This is just backend stuff that you're going to see. It's not being fully implemented right now. There are SST team meetings meet uh that are underway but primarily with students that are in trouble around some of those tiers. Uh the nice part about this system that we liked when we saw it over
a year ago is it closes up a lot of loose ends with some of the educators. One of the more frequent criticisms we we hear from teachers is, you know, if there's a discipline infraction that's happened, they don't ever get to see what the back end of that looks like. It goes to the administrator, the administrator deals with it, but there's not necessarily some fall through the
teachers. This is going to start to close some of those loops for teachers, too. So, I I want to be clear about this when you'll you'll see this in the packet. This has not been rolled out with the full faculty. It is not in full implementation. Uh but it has been built over the last seven or eight months and is directly synced now nightly to our
Aspen system and pulling data. Uh and over the last several weeks or months, our folks have been monitoring the changes in that data to make sure that this is ready to go live next year. >> But it's more tied currently tied to chronic >> it it's tied to all three of those indicators, tied to the discipline, the
absenteeism, and the and the grade performance indicators that are listed there. >> But it can be built out. It'll continue to be built out over the course. There's other insights into this. I'm not going to get into them tonight, but portrait of a ninth grader. Um, so as we start to see some of these changes that are happening statewide around what a
portrait of a graduate would look like, um, we're going to be able to build some of those own credentiing things. Wally mentioned a few minutes ago about IRC's, some of the industry recognized credentials. There are there's been discussions with Aubrey about building that data board, that dashboard into the system. So that's pulled individually for every single student as well. So,
what we're trying to do is, and you can see the portrait of a graduate that's up on the screen there, but these are some of the different platforms that are there. Um, we don't have them all each of them. It's a complicated system of credits that you have to purchase. But we are we are building out some of those boards that we think are going to be
most advantageous to us to be able to intervene and put kids on the right path. But you start to see we are building out the portrait of a nth grader, which is on your screen right now. >> Any questions? This is just an observation grade level bioraphs
>> just looking at the freshman there's a significantly higher number of students is that because the enrollment was higher this year >> because they left now they may different
>> tell me again the question I'm sorry I'm strugg Yep. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> That's pretty big. >> Yeah. >> What did the number of 12th grade look like? How many
>> 565 565 >> That's correct. >> As freshman and >> that's correct. And that is exactly one of the things that we talk about we're looking at. Right. So the data the collection of this is going to help us. But um one of the pieces that we are striving to make sure of is that we don't have those kind of gaps, right?
That that's something we noticed a couple of years ago um because we don't want that to be the case, right? There's a there's a huge wait list for vocational education. The last thing that we want is to take 575 or next year 625 all of a sudden to see that number at 538 when they're seniors, right?
We've missed that opportunity. So, we want to be able to identify the students that are at risk to not have success here early on. Um, and then make sure that we're providing those supports to keep them enrolled here. Right? There's a reason why every single student who's no longer here >> is no longer with us. Now, again, I'm
not going to I wasn't going to get into this tonight, but one of the platforms that we've rolled out is called Thought Exchange. You've seen some of them. What we want to do is move away from some of the paperbased systems. for here. We had exit surveys from staff who've left the district or students who left the district, but it's on a piece of paper.
And so, if I asked to see why 75 seniors are no longer with us, I would probably get 75 pieces of paper, which then I would have to thumb through and analyze. The thought exchange platform, if it's done in the same format, will AI generate responses and start to build themes as to what the reasons are that
students and or staff, we're doing it for both now, uh might be leaving, might be leaving the district. that will help us to make on the spot decisions about trying to reverse some of the impacts of that. So, there's a lot of back-end system work that's underway right now. Um, unfortunately, that stuff takes a
lot of time to not only build with the vendors, first of all, identify the vendors, but meet with the vendors, sync that stuff to some of our internal systems, and then begin to collect and process that data. But the good news is is that we're on that trajectory. We're on that pathway. And so while there might only be five or 50 entries today,
by the end of the decade, we'll see numbers like 500 or a thousand. And that will begin to paint a much clearer picture as to what the reasons are for exactly that kind of decision. >> Perfect for me as long as everyone's good. the subcommittee >> you're gonna do
>> is to uh schedule a meeting of the subcommittee of the evaluation uh committee and and during our premeating and I'll you you can take it madam chair. >> Yeah. Well, I'm speaking with Kimberly and superintendent the evaluation now is
this notebook this big and I really would like to recommend that we computerize it. I think we're the only ones that have paper. >> Everybody, every other district has it in the system. It's going to be easier
for everyone rather than having all this paper. It's going to be easier to fill it and it's going to be easier for the superintendent and for all of the school committee here. So, what is your pleasure? >> Time.
Yes. >> Do you have a means? >> You have the means. >> Oh, yeah. So, uh, you know, there's two different ways. I explained to I Yeah. No, Carol and I, the chair and I spoke about it ahead of time. I I'm the only employee in the district that's producing the artifacts by paper and it is for my supervisors, right? Everyone
else is submitting artifacts through the frontline professional development system. That those artifacts are uploaded and they are evaluated online. I like that better because all the records are stored electronically. uh for me I have to carry the evaluations on a piece of paper. I have them in a folder somewhere over the last four or
five years. Um but my preference would be that they be stored electronically as well. So um we would need to look at how we would do that because unfortunately for me not my evaluator is not an employee in the district so you don't necessarily have access to the frontline system. At an absolute minimum we could
upload the artifacts to your emails. you could go through that with the with the rubric and and that and that's there or um we will have conversations about how we could create a district level uh frontline account um where the chair could then go in uh after the the other
members have given their evaluation and insert that into the record. So we we're going to look into that. Uh Mr. Ferment brought that up to me tonight and we're going to have some follow-up conversation around that. Um, on item B on the agenda tonight was about establishing an evaluation subcommittee date so that I could produce that art
those artifacts to members if that's what the committee's pleasure is. Uh, Mrs. Fet and I are in the stages of putting together all the artifacts and plan to distribute them to all members the uh, Memorial Day week because we would need to be able to do my evaluation uh, the second week of June. So, we want to give you a couple of
weeks to look through those artifacts as well. >> It's going to be a lot easier for Maria also. >> We agree. We agree >> with all that paper. Yeah. So, we don't have to take a vote. >> Nope. We don't need a vote. Does the uh
school committee want to have its evaluation subcommittee meet with me prior to >> Okay. Who is on the committee? I know she Kimber. >> Sure. be yeah I'll >> be on until we leave. >> Okay.
>> So I'll I'll schedule a meeting with Mr. Olivera Mr. Shay and Miss Benton Court u to review the artifact materials in the next couple of weeks and then we will distribute the uh all of the artifacts the remaining members later in the same week.
Perfect. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Okay. establish uh the district treasurer school uh search committee. So we're requesting that the members
establish a district treasurer search committee. We have pleasure. We would like to establish a a subcommittee of members of the school committee to evaluate the district treasurer's position. Do we have any one
interested that would like to be on the committee? Come on. Okay. >> Free. >> Yes, we can. >> Yeah. >> All right. One more. >> Cindy. >> Cindy.
>> Cindy. Paul. One more. Okay, >> that'd be perfect. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Okay. Vote to approve the 2026 27 student handbook. Quote, including your
backup material is the copy of the 2026 27 student handbook for your approval. Request for approval. Motion approve the first. >> All those in favor
>> oppose abstensions hearing none. Motion passes questions. Okay. vote to transfer to the
transportation reimbursement fund based on time and effort of unexpenders not to exceed the chapter 71 reimbursement amount. Pamela, >> every year it's for any funding that is
available from the chapter 71 reimbursement after the transportation expenses and it goes into the revolving fund that carries over into the next year for transportation only and it has to be used in the first 90 days of the
school year which is really only 30 for us because school isn't in session in July and August. >> Okay. committees a vote to transfer to the transportation reimbursement fund as requested.
>> We have a second >> second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Abstensions. It's your pleasure. Okay. We vote to designate equipment as surplus.
Including your backup material again is the copy of the list of the equipment to be designated as surplus. Request for approval. All those in favor? Opposed? Abstensions?
None. Motion passes. Okay. Report of personal appointments, retirements or resignations to be received and placed on file. Early notification of retirement Kevin Manise from his position as
groundskeeper effective June 30th, 2027. Notification of resignation Michael McConnell from his position as marine technology instructor. effect of the end of the 202526
school year. Okay. Informational. I'll read them all. Communication from Murphy Blamir and Murphy PC. April 30th, 2026.
Senior prom after prom party. Thursday, May 21st, 2026. Senior Awards night, Tuesday, May 26, 2026, 6 p.m.
Graduation, Friday, May 29th, 2026 6 p.m. Skills USA National Competition, June 5th, 2026. Retirey recognition June 17th, 2026,
11:00 a.m. Last day of school, June 23rd, 2026. Okay. Committee discussion do not. Yes,
>> chairman. Uh, I'd like to thank uh the superintendent. He wrote a really wonderful letter to Westfield Tech um about a couple of weeks ago and um that was a that was actually a learning
environment that we had toured a few months ago. Very very impressive and the superintendent asked in detail about quite a few questions that we have all reviewed during the the process of the last few
years. Um, one of one of the significant um, questions that he did ask was at what point should we look into a consultant um, and I really wanted to kind of bring that back to the committee again because
I feel like we've been kind of spinning our wheels a bit and um, unfortunately many of us don't really have the expertise to design a mechanic aviation program. So, I think that it might
possibly be time to really look at that. Um, I think this summer is a perfect time for uh the committee to perhaps hire a consultant. Um, and I did speak to um Gayen Wilson and
he's the lead teacher at um uh Westfield Tech and he said that um he was working on the superintendent's extensive letter. Um but there there were a lot of questions in there and I said, "Well,
what do you think? Are we ready? do you think it might be the summertime might be a good time to engage some kind of a consultant? And he said that he would get back to us um hopefully before the next meeting and perhaps we could
discuss some type of a consultant. Um and that's that's about it. Wayne's on that committee pretty active with me. Um Wayne, did you want to add anything? I think are getting to or at a crossroads where
even when we try to make decisions, we don't know if the decisions are going to be the right ones because we don't know about the program, >> right? >> So like when we talk about space or or the curriculum, we can talk about it, but we have nobody to bounce it off of that really knows
anything about the aviation program. So I I think we're at a point where we need to look at at least a part-time consultant. um you know somebody to answer some of the unknown questions that that we have uh you know just on a part-time basis. I don't know if that's
um you know what the process that we could start that would be you know to search for somebody um you know set some parameters and um you know some hours how how this would all work um you know if that's something we can have discussion on but I think we're we're
kind of there if we're going to keep moving forward on this >> I think we're at a point where we need to bounce some of these questions off of somebody more qualified than than just us >> we're certainly not qualified Let me start with a couple questions. I did speak to Dr. Mau. So, first of all, the
answer to that is yes, as I told Dr. M on the phone. Um, we earmarked funds in the uh in the line item that I mentioned during the budget presentation. It is that is at your pleasure. If you're ready for us to move forward with a consultant in that space, and I think it was 60,000, we'll double check that
number. Right. We could put together some scopes for some kind of a a bid for for someone to come in to to try to address that question. I do agree with Dr. Marlin and I I believe Mr. I do think it makes sense to wait until the June meeting. Hopefully, we will get a response to some of those questions.
Uh there was a lot there and I can share that with the rest of the committee. I'm happy to do so. But similar to what we heard from the student representative today, one of the big issues is space, right? And these renovations cost millions of dollars. Uh the CCL space
we've talked a lot about is largely grant funded. um overwhelmingly grant funded from the department, which you now know. It's public information that this school received a $3.75 million expansion grant. As you know, I'm working with other agencies outside of the district appropriations. I just was
notified of a second potential uh contributor as well that I'll be meeting with in the coming weeks. Uh but I agree with both M. Oliver and Dr. Marlin that for us to be able to tackle some of these questions related to aviation, um we're going to need somebody in the aviation space. Not only do we know that
the FAA is a hurdle itself, um we have to tackle some of these other questions, right? Because we really can't get serious about the conversation if we don't even know what we're getting serious about. And so I I would just urge that the committee will direct Mrs. FET to note it tonight and we put this
on the June uh school committee agenda in the hopes that we will get over the next three or four weeks answers to some of those questions which we will send out to all members uh tomorrow so that you all are aware of of what I worked on with Mr. Oliver and Dr. Marlin and what we sent both to Gayen Wilson at uh at
Westfield Tech but also to the CTE director and staff at Greater Lawrence Tech which we visited in the same trip. think it's a good move because I mean we've been talking about it and talking about it and if we're going to do anything about it we we need to move forward
>> again just to that you guys go >> ahead I'll wait >> no I I think when we did marine industry many years ago know again we had advisory committee and they worked for years before we kind of got to where we wanted to be and I think this is the
same way as you know so nobody knows how to do that and it may be like I said a gazillion dollars to you know build what we need but we got to hear that and know that. So I think I I think it's beyond our understanding. So, I I support
highly that, you know, put some money aside, talk to someone and and put the money out front and say, "Listen, we don't expect you to volunteer $100 for free." You know, we want to because when you pay someone, you don't get a product. And I think it's time to to do
that. And sometimes it's great because there are people that are available that would love to get a part-time job who's already been in this field and mistakes they made, they'll tell us. So, I support that getting someone on the board.
>> I just want to add on to that. I mean, I we've been on this for a few years now. It's not This didn't just happen yesterday and a lot of the questions over and over again. And I hear about space and money and all that, but we really do need somebody in here. I don't
think that we need to even if we did this that it had to start off with some big thing with an airport. We have what what bothers me is that we do have an airport that's right down the street here. When we started Marine, we were
way down at Fort Taber. All right. So, there's offsite things that are possibilities like using space at the airport for for parts of it. We have a a shop here. We're talking mechanics. We're not talking about a full-blown thing here. And I just think we're kind
of I feel like we're beating a dead horse over and over and over again without getting to something the meat of this thing. And I think we really need to bring somebody in here and there and and let them look at it and see what we can do to even start something like
this. And like I said, I don't I don't look at this as we're going to start a big program and have a airspace out here and all this space and all that. And I hear heard what you said earlier and I I we'll talk later because I want to ask you something about that. But um I think
it's a good idea. I just don't want to keep prolonging this. It's either let's do it or we're not doing it. But we need somebody to come in here now and at least direct us and give us what the alternatives are. I could be wrong, but I think just even
one of the practitioners from Westfield helping us during the summertime when they have spare time might be a way to go because they've done it once, they've done it twice, they've helped the other system in Massachusetts get through all the hurdles.
We've been told that there's a couple of part more partners that we could have joined and I think I think uh Rita's correct. We need to either figure out where we are we going to take the step or not. >> I can see if it's feasible,
>> right? >> Yes. >> So, I I think that being said, um and everybody can help me complete the the thought, but um what I'm kind of thinking is that we direct the superintendent to start a search for a consultant sooner than later. We're
already in the middle of May. If we wait till the June meeting, that puts us almost, you know, we're into July. The summer is going to be over. Um, so my thought would be in in the form of a motion to direct the superintendent to
start searching for a part-time aviation consultant. Uh, and once we get the answers from Westfield, then we, you know, we don't have to hire until obviously the June meeting. But I think in the in the meantime between now and the next meeting, we start looking at
who potentially could be a consultant, where we would get that person from, what they're looking uh for hours and for money and and put all that package together and have that ready for the June meeting. >> I'm sorry. >> Like a scope of service.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Scope of service. Um >> it's a scope of service. >> Yeah. There you go. I knew you'd help me with that thought, so um no, and if anybody else has any any thoughts on that, but I think sooner
than later, um because if we're going to try to get the summer, you know, the summertime staff who has some availability more so than once they get back into the school year. Um I'd like to move on this um you know, now.
Is that a Well, I >> I'll make that and I'll put that in the form of a motion that I guess we direct the superintendent to draft a scope of service uh for a part-time aviation consultant and have um have some information
available for the June meeting. >> Second. >> Excuse me. All those in favor? >> I >> I >> opposed abstensions. Why you
>> That's the last question. >> Okay. Motion passes. >> Okay. >> Okay. Now, wait. >> All right. One thing under the uh category of what may probably come before us. Um and I'm going to speak for the whole committee and we talked enough
about our student rep. Yeah. >> Please come up here, Amelia. right between the chair and me. >> That chair. >> No, we again uh give you all all the accolades we can because you have done
outstanding job and we appreciate your honesty. We appreciate that you prepped for these and stuff. So we wanted to give you something that's from the school committee now not from the school itself because I think you rep you were part of us and so I take this here to
give to you is from all of us up here and again we want to say thank you thank you thank you the best on your journey forward. >> Thank you. Okay, I was walking up right now. Show everybody
>> been hours and hours. >> I was about to buy mine on Friday. >> Thank you. Sorry. Enjoy it all from all of us. Okay. Executive session
under chapter 30 section 31 to meet for the purpose of discussing strategy with respect to collective bargaining negotiations with the GNBEU unit D where discussion is open sess in open session
would have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the school committee. Yes. Okay. Roll call vote. >> Yes. >> Yes. Okay.