join my own meeting. Good evening. Is that working? Yes, sir. I heard it. All right. I call to order the meeting of the Hamilton and Regal School Committee on Thursday, May 15, 2025 at 7 p.m. We'll begin uh to begin,
I will invite you to join us in the pledge of allegiance. [Music] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and
justice for all. [Music] Okay. I just like to remind everyone that this meeting is uh being recorded and livereamed on HWC. um on
YouTube and we will start uh with citizens comments um if any citizen wishes to speak before the committee they shall we'll ask that they identify themsel by name um and I'll ask
you to um spell your name so that we get it correct for the minutes um and we'll ask you to keep your comments to three Uh, Mr. Tracy, do we have anyone on Zoom who looks like they'd like to offer a public comment? We do not. Okay. Is there anyone in the room who'd like to
offer a public comment? Okay. Uh, looks like no. And, uh, we will close public comments at 7:02 p.m. Okay. All right. Um, all right. Let's see. Can I pass
that? Let's see. Can I pass that to you? And maybe can you pass that over to somebody that wants somebody? Um, all right. Next up, uh, we're going to have a reading of a portion of the school committee protocols. As elected members of the
Hamilton Regional School Committee, we including the superintendent accept the high honor and trust that has been placed in us to ensure that the students of the district receive the best education possible. To that end, we hereby commit to the following in the conduct of our business. Number two, the
superintendent and the school committee represent the needs and interests of all students in the district and place the students interests above all others in their decisions while remaining within the limitations of a voter approved budget. Thank
you. Uh next up we have a portion of the school committee mission statement. Uh the Hamilton Regional School District, I'm sorry, school committee's mission is to ensure our schools create graduates with a passion for lifelong learning
together with the critical skills needed to maximize their potential. The Hamilton Regional School Committee will lead and inspire a district that inspires all students to realize their fullest potential and feel a powerful sense of individual and collective bar
uh belonging. Thank you. Almost said bargaining. Oh, you did. Um, next up, I'm pleased to say that we have a student representative report. Uh, Whitney Fitzgibbons is going to give us, uh, some updates on what's been
going on in the district. Uh, hi everyone. I'm here today for I believe the last time to talk about some of the events currently going on within the district. Um, first at the high school, seniors just had their last day of classes yesterday along with an end of day
parade and AP exams are about to wrap up. The sophomores went to see the play McBth performed on the 8th and the senior art showcase and reception along with the spring concert were last Wednesday. And then as for sports and clubs, boys
and girls track are very strong this year along with boys baseball and girls tennis who are unsurprisingly undefeated as of now. Uh boys and girls lacrosse along with softball are also going strong. Um, as for clubs, DECA members
who qualified for ICDC, an international competition, went to Orlando over April break, and two members even placed in the top 20 in the world in the financial analysis category. Along with that, student government elections are to be held within the next two weeks, and
fashion club, Spanish culture club, and environmental club are all starting to wrap up for the year. Then moving on to the middle school, they had their spring concert uh last on Tuesday. The eighth grade DC trip is coming up on the 20th to the 23rd and
the one act play was performed the week of the 4th. And then as for the elementary schools, uh Winthrop is wrapping up with MCCAST. There was a field trip to the Cape Anne Museum on the 13th. The fifth graders are are going to project
Adventure on the 19th. Melody Miles is on the 24th and the third graders are headed to the Wind Museum on the 30th at Cutler. The first, second, and third graders all have field trips throughout the month to Appleton Farms. They are also wrapping up with MCCAST.
There was an author visit by Susan Tan yesterday. Uh the fifth grade talent show is the 28th along with a fifth grade field trip to Beverly Bootstraps on the 30th. The color cultural festival is on the 30th and the fifth graders are visiting project adventure in early
June. And then lastly at Buer, they're also wrapping up MCCAST. Uh there was a Friends of Buer plant sale on the 9th and 10th of May. Then there are also a lot of field trips this month with second graders going to they went to the Gloucester Maritime Museum on the 13th
and are going to the Ipsswitch River Wildlife Sanctuary on the 23rd. Third graders are going to the went to the W museum today and the fourth graders are going to the low mills on the 27th. Lastly, there is a Memorial Day parade on the 23rd, a spring carnival on the
30th, and the school play the Lorax on June 16th. Thank you all and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions? Um Whitney, I just had a question about
the DECA um results. I don't and I don't know whether Mr. Tracy, I think you said I missed what you said. Did you say 20 people 20 of the groups got recognized at the international competition? It was they two people placed in the top 20. The top 20 in the world. In the top 20. I was going to say, wow. I just wanted
to make sure that's amazing. So, we had two different different projects that um or groups that that placed in the Thank you for sharing that. Great. Anybody else have questions? Thank you very much. Thank you for your work. We appreciate it. Good luck at
Wisconsin. Thank you. Congratulations. Go Badgers. Um, next on the agenda, we have the consent agenda. Does anyone have any items that they would like to hold from the consent agenda? David,
I move the Hamiltonum Regional School Committee accept the consent agenda as presented in tonight's uh meeting agenda. Second. Second by Amy Kunberger. Um all those in favor is unanimous of the six members
present and the motion passes. Okay, moving right along. Uh next up is the um ESP valuation which is um uh an MOU for the to be added into the ESP contract. Correct, Eric? Yep.
Thank you. Uh as some people may know, not everybody, uh negotiations with ESP wrapped up last year. At the end of that negotiations, we had said that during the school year, excuse me, we would work on with a joint committee of the HWREA and uh the district to come up
with some new language around actually some some language around the evaluation process. There was no actual language uh related to the evaluation process and then clean up the instrument that was currently being used. So these documents here represent that work that was done
by the subcommittee. Um this the negotiations subcommittee reviewed it last week and approved it and approved it to be sent here for ratification. HWRA has ratified it. Nick told me uh that they're all set with it. So it's if
we vote it tonight, we'll send it out tomorrow. We'll be able to use it uh for this this school year. Um yeah. And then the only other um this did come to the negotiation subcommittee. David, I don't know if you have anything to share. So no, it was
pretty straightforward as far as that goes. Um yeah, a lot of what's here is just capturing what we've done in the past. We just never had a written document because they had up until last year, they never had a contract. So this just would be an addendum to the appendix of
the contract. Um, and I just want to add the the subcommittee did um review that and make a re voted to make a recommendation to the whole committee to approve. Anybody else have questions?
Uh, then uh do you want to make a motion? Yeah. I uh moved that the Hamilton Regional School Committee vote to approve the ESP evaluation as presented in tonight's exhibit. Second. Second by Amy Kumbberger. Is there any
discussion? Any other questions? Looks like we're ready to vote. All those in favor? That is unanimous of the six members present and the motion passes. Um, and Eric, thank you to you
and to the union for getting that work done. Yep. Thank you to the subcommittee that worked on it for many hours. Appreciate their work and their dedication to that. We will let them know tomorrow morning and launch it off.
Excellent. Um, all right. Next up is to you, Eric, where this is just a discussion item to talk about future goals. Yep. So two things are happening right now in tandem. Uh leadership team has been working on the district goals report for the 2425 school year. Uh we
started that at the end of April really just trying to capture the things that have been going on along the way. Uh we brought them into what we're calling a note catcher and each um school or principal has a segment assigned to
them. So they're currently working on that. Bringing in the data, bringing in charts. We'll so we'll present um that report at the June 5th meeting which will be just here are our goals and here are all the things that we did to meet those goals.
Um now is the time where I wanted to make sure people kind of had on the front of their brain some ideas start to think about some ideas for the 25 26 school year goals. Now, that process is really okay. Think about it now. Get it
going in your mind and then um we'll start to move as we move towards the summer. I'll gather uh from each of you any recommendations for goals for the district goals. We'll bring those back to the leadership team meeting team do the same work we did last year where we
end up honing them in a leadership team and a the school committee workshop that's scheduled for August 20th. hon them down and have them ready for the start of school year. So, between now and then, I will kind of shepherd through that process with you and send the form out to gather your ideas. We'll
compile them all into one and then uh bring it back to the leadership team to figure out what's going on. One of the things we do need to uh set as a priority is uh believe it or not, the strategic plan we wrote is uh ending in
the fall. So, we okay, we'll need to put together a new strategic plan um and determine how what that will look like, who the consultant will be, if we need a consultant. I'm not so sure we will, but um you know, kind of what the continuation is of the current strategic plan. So, those are some things I'm
asking members to think about between now and uh probably the 28th meeting where I'll just kind of collect information from each of the members plus the people that are on the leadership team, kind of compile like here's a list of things and we'll just start discussing them and try to hone
down into what we think makes sense for goals for next school year. So, that's all that really was. just I just want to get in the front of people's brains and let people know that we're we're starting that that work now. I have a question. Is it something that
we would also dive into in the retreat? Yep, that's absolutely. Yeah, we we um we'll go through um I run the retreat and the leadership team uh retreat at the during that same week, right? For that reason, so we can kind of clean it up, get it to the committee. The
committee will give it its final say. Uh if you remember last year we kind of reorganized some of the things so we'll do that same process this year so that when we kick off the school year we'll have them ready to go. Great. Um okay but you are looking before the
retreat. You're hoping to get feedback. I'm going to send out a form a Google form to all the members here and the leadership team uh with some very kind of pointed questions like what are some things that you're thinking about related to X Y and Z. So we'll just and
it'll be open piece too like okay I think we need to do these things as well. So then we'll have to coordinate what we can manage and that will you know be dependent on what happens with the school vote and few other things. The the um field project will fall off
our workload for for next year because that's due to wrap up in uh late July and be ready for the start of the next uh school uh fall sports season. So that'll be that'll kind of fall off our list of what we've been doing every week. So be good to get back to some of
the school stuff. Excellent. Um, anybody have other questions? Okay, thank you. We'll look forward to getting that uh document and we'll uh get back um we have nothing on
finance and operations this evening. um to committee reports. Uh capital finance. I don't think we've met since the last meeting or something. That sounds right. Yeah, it is. June 2nd. June 2nd. All
right. That's okay. Um policy. We are having trouble um getting a date to meet. Oh, Fridays work for me. Fridays are fine. Anytime Friday or like up 2:30? Yeah. Okay. I meant to sorry I
know it's okay. Okay. Um so that's pending but we have on my agenda is to work on the voting threshold document. Excellent reference. Yes. Yeah. Um thank you. Um all right. Negotiations.
Uh we met last week and yeah brought it forward. Yeah we have I think we met. Yeah we we discussed what we just voted on the ESP evaluation. Um, so, um, all right. Uh, back to you, David.
Secretary report. Um, you know, we actually did some work on it, but I didn't clean it up. Okay. I'm like so behind this week. Okay. Um, I'm sure I owe minutes somewhere in there. Yeah, we'll work on it. I know
negotiations. We just did a bunch of minutes the other day, so I just have to go in and We did I Yeah, I So I did we did in in the negotiation subcommittee we kind of cleaned it up. I think we're pretty good. Yeah. One of them was from you. So we like I had it but it was from
you. Um yeah. So, and I think um I don't I I just want to I've said to David I want to say to the rest of the committee my dream is that if we do have an executive session between now and the end of the year that we would have all the
executive session reports all the um executive session minutes so because they need to be approved in executive session. Um so that would be my dream is that the next time we have one we'd be able to get it together by we I say me.
um we can just stick an executive session on just for the sole purpose of Yeah, I mean, you know, but as long as we have them all in one place, it's easy enough to do. All right, that's that's a me goal. Okay, thank you. Um All right,
to you, Eric. Okay. Well, as Whitney stated, the senior's last day of class was yesterday. They had uh still reporting to school, though. They have today uh tomorrow and then uh final exams next all next week. Um today I got
to visit the patent park and see the humanpowered amphibious vehicle race which is always fun. The fabrication class at the high school works on um designing, developing and actually building vehicles that hold one or more
people that uh they can that are humanpowered. So generally they're all pedal pedal based and they have to uh ride pedal and ride through a track uh which leads them to the pond at at the park and they have to go into the pond
with the vehicle and get across the other the other side. Uh most of them made it to the other side in various ways. Oh uh the winner was was amazing. They were in out and across the finish line and everybody else kind of just trying to figure their way across. Some
flipped over, some had to be pushed, some had to be pulled, but they all made it out of the water and everybody was safe. And I want to thank the the uh our first responders went on police and fire who always help out there. They had a boat in the water for us. They had fire trucks and police officers available to
direct traffic. So fun event lasts about 15 minutes. If you've never seen it, put it in your calendar for next May. It is It's a lot of fun. um seminars uh today and tomorrow, senior seminars, and those are always interesting because they're things that you don't generally learn in school like how to get along with your
college roommate is one of the seminars or how do you change your tire of your car. So, just uh short 35 45 minute uh seminars where the kids rotate around and and just do some things differently uh as a class together. Their final
exams will be next week. We also have uh scholarship night. Annual scholarship night is next week. That's always um a fun time um to watch and see who who um gets what scholarships and then we also learn where everybody's going. So, it's always always a nice event. Um the 22nd
I will be offering another public forum for the elementary school project 6:30 at the high school. Um, this is going to be really addressing some of the issues, the big questions that are out there, not not going back through the information um that we've already shown
probably 25 times. So, people have seen the information that that's available. So, we're going to actually hit some of the kind of top 10 questions that are coming out. And then, um, prom is also next week, which is which is fun at the end of the week. And then on the 23rd,
we do our annual Memorial Day celebrations at each of our schools. Um we have a number of representatives that come from the uh Legion in Winnham and volunteer their time to come and speak and teach the kids about what Memorial Day is all about. They do a very short
presentation at each school. Uh the elementary they do a little bit of Q&A and and I think at the Buer this year they're going to do a small parade um as part of it. So, it's it's a good opportunity for uh kids to learn about and understand what Memorial Day is all
about. And then um we're also doing a lot of work with with our uh staffing. We've had uh three different student shifts that have caused us to have to come up with a number of uh FTEEs
because of onetoone requirements for uh the complexities of uh the students that have you know we have one move in and two that uh came in of age. So, those are uh things that we're wrestling with at the the district level with our leadership team to try to figure out how
to um get what we need out of what we have. Uh so there may be in the future uh some of us coming back to request uh increase in the FTEEs in the budget for next year only because these are these are unanticipated. they're kids who
turned uh three and or or have moved into the district with um high level needs. So, we're we're trying to address that right now within what we have. We're making some moves, shifting some programs. Um so, just want to give people a heads up that we are working on that. We may be back here uh sooner
rather than later to make that request. Other than that, it's exciting time of year. There's something going on, I think, every single night between all the schools and all the boards in town. There there are tons of things uh happening. So, it's a great time to get out and about and enjoy the end of the
school year. It's coming fast. It's actually amazing how quickly it's going to be over. And um certainly I'm looking forward to uh graduation. Uh graduation's in May this year, the 31st. The calendar is a little more a little unusual. So, Saturday the 31st at 10
a.m. we will graduate our seniors and that will be um be an exciting day for all of our seniors and their families and it's right around the corner. So, thank you. Thank you. Does anyone have questions for the superintendent? I had a question about the senior
seminar. I just curious because years ago the Wenom used to do one of the senior seminars was about local government. the wenham. Yeah, I'm just intrigued about whether that's still. As far as I remember, they don't have I I don't remember seeing on the list. I got to go. It was I mean it
was several years ago, but it was really fascinating to watch like I don't just being in local government. Yeah, it was it. So, just every year it changes, you know, because they even have a panel of kids who are currently in college who who came back who did
their, you know, just finished their freshman year to come back and answer those questions like, okay, what's it going to be like? Uh so think it changes every year. They have uh lots of different activities for them. So very cool. It's a unique way to end the year.
Excellent. Um all right. And nobody else. Anything else? Um all right. I have a couple things on uh the chair report. Um I Eric I know Eric was there but he didn't mention I also got to go to the senior symposium which is
different. I knew you were gonna talk about that. Um it was uh really fun. You get to go see um you know like brief presentations. All the seniors did their research andor in or internships. I got to learn about AI in finance. I got to
learn about um youth burnout in youth sports. I got to learn about tariffs. I got to learn about um kids that had done internships in um like custodial positions in an elementary school and in
an auto body or auto repair. Um it's just great. It's like amazing to watch and see what our seniors It's um if you ever get a chance to go. It's not at a very convenient. It's right in the middle of smacking. Um but um but anyway, that was great.
Um, so just so that just for information, both Hamilton and Winnham have scheduled their special town meetings for June 9th, which is a Monday. Um, and both uh town meetings
have uh the elementary school building project on those agendas, although I think neither one of them has the warrant disclosed yet. I think uh I the I don't think I think Wenom did. Okay. I
have a draft of there. Okay. Um anybody have any questions on that? Yep. Um superintendent evaluations. Um do you want to talk to that or you
want me to? Uh sure. I can't. Excuse me. I um hadn't seen it on tonight's agenda, so I slipped my mind that it was due. However, I did get it done uh because Dana actually asked me about it yesterday. Um I have it done to send out
to everybody. I spoke to Dana because I I sent it over to Dana today and then we spoke. So, I'm going to send it to everybody tomorrow. Um there's one thing I just wanted to do first before I send it out and I did it slightly different.
Um I can explain it a little bit more um when we look at it together at the next meeting. However, everything's on my work computer is really the most important part of it. So it's sitting open on my work computer. Um and the one thing I need to change I have to go into
work to actually do can't do here or else I would have emailed it to you guys already. But um well I'll send it to Dana tomorrow once I fix that and she's excuse me she'll send it out to everybody just to look it over and then um at the next meeting we can actually
discuss um everything. But yeah, for the most part other than the fact that I completely forgot I said I would do it for today that it was pretty uh pretty standard. There wasn't anything.
Um, so just so everyone knows that um I I'll send it out to all of you. It'll be a draft. It's marked as a draft. Um, and just for for open meeting law, it'll be I'll send it to Janelle as well. She'll
have it available on her desk so that it so that we all get it and the public has access to the draft. But again, it's a draft. Um, and I think David already said, you know, please take the time to review it so that when you arrive at the meeting, the next meeting that you'll
have your own notes um ready so that hopefully we can um review that and uh and get it um approved at the next meeting. Um I know you wave your arms. It's not even
that late. Me at first getting darker. Um, I think it's done. Um, okay. Anybody have any questions on any of that? Thanks, Steve. Thank you. Um, next, uh,
Trent, uh, let me know that he wanted to, uh, speak to the group. Trent. Um, so June is going to be my last time with the school committee because I've accepted a position um at a university
in Connecticut. So we're going to be moving out of town. So congratulations. Thank you. Um so it's where in Connecticut? At Quinnipiac. Oh, nice. I love awesome. We're all excited.
But um yeah, that means that my my time on the committee will come to an end whenever our last meeting is before we we adjourn. Um and it's been a pleasure, but I'm not done yet. So, how do we what happens then? Um so,
first of all, congratulations and um and thank you and you will be missed. Um Trent and I did talk briefly and um the you know the FY Trend will be able to stay throughout the rest of this year which ends at the
end of June. So um there's a stopping point there. Um and then to your question we have a process we it's actually how you got here and how Trent got you guys. Um so um
yeah we will initiate that process um for um getting a replacement for the remainder remaining one year of Trent's term um and we can address that moving
forward. But thank you thank you for that and excited it's for a good reason. Um, we just sent you our validictorian too. Oh, to act. No, it was she must go to
Nor Easter. Um, all right. Does anyone have anything else? Questions for me? Do we have topics for future meetings? I just have one. Yep. So, I was reading a
um some website news story that just sucked me in um about um tablets and um laptops that are given out by schools. And there was a particular story of a kid that got themselves into
trouble. Oh, no. That the the fire thing that's a that's a whole other thing. Oh my. Uh though this was a a um family that was really struggling with trying to keep their kid off specific websites on the internet. Um and the school had
blocked websites and they had it at their house but the device itself did not have any uh parameters which meant any Wi-Fi at Starbucks at anything was able to and this was a a gambling issue. Yeah. Um,
and so I took the liberty of going and looking at my kids device and discovered that lo and behold, they also do not have any device specific locks on them despite the fact that we have Wi-Fi blocks at home and then the school does.
So, I want to bring that up because it seems to me like we are demanding as a district that work is done on these devices, but it's also a um a a a safety issue that's being
created because Wi-Fi is ubiquitous. Um so, anyway, I bring that up as a phone they could do at their hotspot. Yeah, there's there's a whole bunch of different ways you could do it. And um having a device specific block seems to be I mean everything has a workaround
right but it seems to be a way that is able to prevent that. Um but what I was you know I I have an end of two my end of two did not demonstrate to me that we had device specific blocks on the devices that were given out. So I posed that to the group. Okay. It's a great so
question. So yeah, it's a topic bigger topic is like um effectively using technology or to be thinking about how to more broadly or more specifically about how to sounds like we're blocking
particular websites only on the Wi-Fi, not Yeah. So yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Well, Ellen, come and visit us. Yeah. No, that's an interesting topic. And yeah, um, can you send me that article so we can send it to our tech? I I can try. It was one of those
things that like popped up on a feed and I was like, "Oh, let's read this." And then another feed. So I I'll have to go find it. Probably because you were reading about the exploding, right? Thought of that as a way of starting a campfire.
Perfect. Perfect idea. Um, all right. Any other topics? Middle of a marketing class. Happened to me last week. It's cold in schools, did it really? Yep. Oh boy. Any other topics for future meetings? No. No. Anybody have anything else?
Just a motion to adjourn. Hey sec. Second by 7:33. 7:33. Second by Amy Kberger. Um, that's going to be a new record. All those in favor? And that's unanimous of the six members and we are adjourned.