Hi, good evening. It is October 20th, 2025. I'm Christy Budro, chair of the Hatfield School Committee, and I would like to welcome the committee and administration and guests to this evening's meeting. Um, as we call to order this evening, our first item up is
for public comment. And as we have some folks with us remotely and some folks with us in person and I and people have signed up to make public comment. Before we start that this evening, I just want to make sure that we reiterate um some of the policy around public
participation at school committee meetings in particular because it's a little bit different than some other boards in town and so we'll we'll just be refreshed on it. Um speakers are going to be called in order to present based on the order that they're listed. Um, and I'm gonna actually ask for those
who are remote if they want to go first when we get to that and then we'll get to the folks who are in person. Um, we're asking anybody that wishes to speak that they identify themselves by name. Um, we will give everyone three minutes. Um, we can extend that if it
feels like we need to and I'm I'm open to that because we are interested in hearing all voices. Um the topics of discussion are limited to those items on the school committee meeting meeting agenda for the evening. Um additionally
I just want to remind us all that improper conduct in remarks are not allowed. Defamatory or abusive remarks are always out of order. If the speaker engages in such the chair may terminate the individual's privilege of addressing the group. Um all remarks will be
addressed through the chair of the meeting. The chair will acknowledge public comments and receipt of eval and relevant documents and may seek clarification on the testimony, but the committee members here will not respond or engage in a discussion or debate with any anyone making public comment. Um,
speakers may offer such objective criticism of school operations in programs that concern them, but in public session, the committee will not hear personal complaints about school personnel, nor against any member of the school community. Under most circumstances, administrative channels
are the proper means for disposition of legitimate complaints involving staff members and the chair will direct the speaker to route those complaints through proper administrative channels. So, we welcome people's feedback and voices, but we do want to make sure that we adhere to the policy um and that
we're we're very consistent in doing that. So, um with that in mind, is there anyone with us remotely that would like to make a public comment tonight? Okay, seeing none, um the first person with us is Miss Hathaway.
>> Would you like to make a public comment? Yeah, you just get to >> not looked a little funny. >> Okay, >> thank you. Hello and thank you G for giving me this time to speak to you all this evening.
My name is Amy Hathaway. I have children that have been in the Hatfield public school system since 2018. A disturbing incident occurred on October 9th that put my first grader in grave danger. And I'd like to speak to the failings of the principal that
directly led my son to being allowed to leave school grounds with his father, a convicted felon that has multiple dealings with the school system in Hatfield, including two other parties requiring restraining orders. At approximately 11 a.m., DCF phoned the
principal directly regarding concerns about my first grader going home with his father that day. Simultaneously, the child's therapist, who's been working with him for nearly two years and has an established rapport with him, also spoke directly to the principal with concerns
about him going with his father that day from the school. The principal stated that she did receive these two important pieces of communication and that decided to call the non-emergency line for the Hatfield Police Department and then never
followed up with this matter again. DCF called the school at approximately 1:15 to touch base with the school employee that said that his father had signed the child out of school at 109 and left with him. I received a phone call shortly
thereafter from DCF that my son had been picked up by his father, an unlicensed driver, and left with him. While on the phone with DCF, the father violated the restraining order with my son present. I hung up the
phone, called the Hatfield Police Department emergency line, and they said that they had just received a voicemail from Principal Petra for several from several hours prior and decided to go follow up. They put out a warrant for
the father's arrest for violation of the restraining order at that time. After nearly eight fretful hours, just moments before the Amber Alert went out, my son was found and returned home safely, but was completely terrified. Sorry.
This egregious lack of oversight, poor judgment, and complete negligence for the safety of my child and for the entire school for that matter was directly at fault of the principal. She could have dialed 911 knowing the circumstances. She could have called
DCF. She could have called the Hatfield Police Department back. She could have called myself, but she did nothing. She failed to do anything to follow up with this urgent communication regarding my son's safety.
Had she followed through, this wouldn't have happened. Given the seriousness of this situation, I feel that the school committee and the superintendent, Dr. Driscoll, should strongly consider asking principal Petra for resignation
before another child is put in a heinous, inexcusable, and possibly life-threatening situation. Thank you. >> So, can I ask a couple follow-up questions just to clarify? >> Sure. >> Um, you said that DCF called Principal Petra at 11:00.
>> Is there a record of that call? >> Um, >> do you have a record of that? >> Do I have that record? I do not have it with me, but I can get it for you. >> How did you learn that DCF called? >> Because DCF called me as well. >> And they told you they called Principal Petra. >> Yes.
Um, and you mentioned that there was a restraining order. >> Yes. >> Is that something that pertains to the student you're asking about? >> It is. >> A restraining order specific to your first grader? >> Um, he is included on that restraining order. Yes.
>> And is that restraining order, was it current on the date of question? >> I appreciate you coming and sharing and clarifying for us. Thank you. >> Um, >> thank you, Mr. Zatna. Good evening.
Never actually sat and spoken to one of these mics before. I'm usually a stander, you know. You know, this whole situation is it's despicable. You know what I mean? It's it's something that shouldn't have happened and I don't think it's
something that should be brushed off or taken lightly. I mean Hatfield through for many many years has been known to have a rock solid education system. People buy homes people school of choice into this town
for their education system. Now me personally, I don't have any biological child in the school system, but I do have a niece. I do have, you know, stepchildren. I do have everybody that I grew up with has kids in the
system. And repetitively I hear how disappointed people are in this system, you know, and it's not the whole staff, it's leadership skills. We're lacking leadership skills. Not only are we
lacking leadership skills, but safety. I mean, this is unbelievable. I mean, this is the kind of thing that if you see this situation anywhere in a newspaper, I mean, there's not one person, I hope, sitting behind that
table that wouldn't go, "Oh my gosh, how could this have happened?" You know, what's going to be done about it? How do we prevent such a thing? How does somebody just nonchalantly just disregard this and and not, you
know, you've got an issue at hand? You know, you were notified by multiple people. You know, the situation and you just leave a message. You know, I mean, more efforts put forth into calling GrubHub than there was to actually
getting a resolution for this. I mean, at the very least, I mean, what you do is you say, "Nobody's going anywhere until we resolve this." You call the authorities, not on a non-emergency line. You know what I mean? You call 911, call the state police barracks, you
call somebody. There's no excuse for this. And I'm embarrassed for this community and I'm embarrassed for this whole school system to let this just go. I mean, has anything been done about it? Is there going to be something done about it? Or are we going to continue
down this road and god forbid see something happen to someone else or the same person and then how's everybody going to be left feeling about this? I mean, nobody wants to talk about it.
Everybody wants to push it under, you know, the rug kind of thing. It's not excusable. In the real world, in any occupation, you're held accountable for stuff like this. You know, there's such a thing as a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes,
but this is beyond a mistake. This isn't just a small little oops. All right? It's negligence. There's no other word for it. And if anybody in this room
doesn't take number one safety first, education second, seriously, you shouldn't be here. The other thing I wanted to say, I know it's difficult to schedule
meetings. I have to schedule meetings myself. But why would you schedule a school committee meeting on the night of one of the last sporting events of the year? There's a lot of people that are upset they couldn't get
here because they had a delay in the game. I understand too. So, with that being said, there's there's a lot of upset parents. You know, there's upset parents. There's upset parents for situations like this that have pulled their kids out of the
system. They have pulled them and gone other places. That's not the message we want to send to our community. Not at all. We want people fighting to get into the door. And whatever's happening here is wrong.
Because you go to Smith Vog, they take 160 students a year. Not 161, not 159, period. There's a list on them. People are waiting to get in there. They're excelling. They're building their sports
programs. Their students are excelling. And meanwhile, it's kind of lost here. You know, we had great coaches. We had Sherry Webb. Hats off to her. You know what I mean? She
promoted the field hockey teams through my generation were unbeatable. Banners to prove it. We got to get a grip on this. Get this together. This is falling apart. You can't turn a blind eye. Can't say,
"Well, you know, they're doing the best you can." No. We don't want to be second, third, fourth. We want to be the best. I think that's what we all want, don't we? >> Everyone's not responding because it's our policy. We don't. >> I understand.
>> Okay. >> But I want it to sink into everybody's head. You know what I mean? We all want the best. We all want the best for the community, the students, and to let something like this happen and nothing to be done about it. There is no excuse.
And it's shameful. shameful. >> I appreciate you coming this evening. Sorry if it took away from your sporting event. We don't always check the sports calendar before we book our meetings or book in August. So, thank you. >> Maybe it'll help next time.
>> Yes. Yeah. Okay. Um we would love to be in a meeting in that sports event too instead of sitting here. >> The second Mr. Bradley Uh, Greg Granick. Um, I have a daughter
in uh in the elementary school and the reason I'm here is I know what a an unhinged person Mr. Watling is and how he he is very dangerous. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a
school as far as I'm concerned. And I think that the people in the school know this and it is inexcusable that he was let in and all this was just
it was you know the choice was just to ignore it. Ignore the problem. Let him go and nothing will you know become of it. But I really think that uh you know every one needs to really
look at this situation and how lucky everyone is everyone in the building you know after there's you know Yes. when you have serious school issues like you know when you
read about you know you know school shootings and and all this crazy stuff and the question is always asked afterwards you know what could have been done to prevent this we're lucky that that wasn't the situation I feel with this man because
he is and you know what what what if you know I think that some this these things these matters really need to be taken more serious and it's very dis disturbing to me very disturbing
>> thank you pull you're not looking to make a public comment is there anyone else that's looking to make a public comment this evening okay thank you did anyone else join that
wanted to I will ask the question is there anyone else online. I actually have one letter to read additionally. Is there anyone else online that would like to make a public comment? Like everyone that's here earlier. Um so I did get one letter um
to be shared to whom it may concern. Um and this I'll tell you in in advance. This is from officer Monica Lavali, the school resource officer. to whom it may concern. I have been the school resource officer for Hatfield Public Schools since 2018 and a parent
to a current first grader within the district. I have worked through several administrative changes throughout both schools, building professional relationships along the way. I can confidently say that the school administration, specifically superintendent Dr. Connor Driscoll,
Principal M. Melissa Petra, and Dean of Students Jason Duncan have strived to maintain a successful working relationship with myself and the Hatfield Police Department. Principal Petra never hesitates to notify me of any concerns brought to her attention. With my part-time role, this
often means reaching me outside of school in real time to address concerns. I'm always happy to field thoughts and concerns from her and work to resolve the matter. Principal Petra is additionally open to suggestions that I bring to the school
from advanced trainings and updates. It is clear that Principal Petra puts the safety of her students and staff at forefront of her goals. I have experienced Profess Principal Petra go above and beyond, sometimes even overthinking a situation to ensure that
all parties involved are taken into consideration. We are fortunate at Hatfield Public Schools to coexist in a safe and approachable environment where the people are known on a first-name basis. Family dynamics can be difficult at times, requiring open communication
between numerous entities, occasionally at times, leaving room for error. No entity gets it right 100% of the time, but all we can hope is that we all show up and do what's within our purview with the information that we have at the given time. Principal Petra is someone
who shows up for her school. I hope in times of turmoil that we can remember the community we are part of and rise together to continue a positive working relationship. I will conclude that anyone at any time is always able to contact myself at the
Hatfield Police Department to discuss any matter. The sooner we know, the sooner we can assist. Let's keep our schools and communities something to be proud of. respectfully, Officer Monica Valley, school resource officer. And with that, we will close public
comment. Um, and move on to mission moments. And I will note to folks who have come to visit this evening that um, we are going to have a conversation about student
safety. It's one of the first things up on our docket. So, but before we get to that, as we do every month, we stop and take a moment to celebrate the things that are going well.
And we do those with mission moments. And I'm imagining with homecoming and everything else, we have lots to share. So, that's what >> I've been doing many assemblies with each of the different floors. And this past week I had done one with grades three, four and five where I presented to them our student council and all the
information around student council. And you could have heard pin drop. They were 100% quiet and attentive. And then one of the teachers later on at lunch had asked how many students were interested in in running for student council and she said more than half of the students raised their hand. So I'm extremely
excited at the prospect of our elections that will be happening on November 5th for student council representatives for grades three through five. need to mute your speaker. >> Okay, other mission moments for tonight. >> I have a quick one, which is unusual.
Um, >> shocked. >> I know, right? Um uh my kids both attend afterare on Wednesdays. So a special um shout out to Jackson Williams for bringing the hayride to afterare. Um both my kids had a blast on the hay ride. Uh and it sounds like all the
other kids at Afterare that day did as well. So thank you to your brother Jackson. >> Appreciate it. >> You stole mine, but I was going to have to go based on photos. That was awesome. >> I'll speak for the Williams' who also enjoyed it. Uh, I also have one today when I don't
usually speak up about this, but regarding Smith Academy, I attended the Smith Academy open house earlier in October. I have attended it before. My parents have attended it before. Their parents have attended it before and it's never been well attended ever, like in
the living memory that any of us could think of. And when I went to Smith Academy open house earlier this month is currently muted on Zoom. >> Ah, there we go. Uh, anyway, I was amazed. It was packed. Like the house
was totally full. I went home. I asked all my relatives, "Have you ever seen Smith Academy open house so full?" No one had The vibes were very, very good. Um, families super engaged, staff super engaged. I think we ran out of cookies. >> It was great. It was like a It was just
like a really good feeling because even in recent years I have been to Smith Academy open house and it's never been met with so much enthusiasm. So it was great. >> That's awesome. Yeah. >> Before we give yours away, >> we had homecoming this weekend. It was it was wonderful. We had
>> um hund hundreds of people there. There there was uh a ton of people, great sporting games, perfect weather. Um, the floats were movie themed, so each class chose a movie. Um, the Titanic won it and they the kids were all >> Yeah, the kids all had their own uh like
they were the they were the exhaust >> smoke stacks. Thank you. >> Yes, they had some of them also had life jackets. They did. It was great. >> In fact, we had a life jacket that was still there this morning. Um, but it was it was just a wonderful community event. Um it was and it was just really nice to see everyone who came out students from
from uh that had graduated alum who came back. Um yeah and to to celebrate um Bill Anglehart for winning the homecoming award >> which is my mission moment. I'm >> thanking everybody on behalf of Bill
that he got the homecoming award. Uh he is thoroughly and completely embarrassed by it. So mission accomplished. Um, and uh, getting past the embarrassment, he's decided to roll with it. Um, I was
saying at before the meeting started that he's going to take his plaque and attach it to a chain and wear it around his neck like Flave Flave wears the clocks. Um, >> I'd like a picture of that, please. >> Yeah. And prayed around Holly Shed doing
that. Um, but, uh, he was very humbled by it all. And uh one of his sisters is here from Texas. Uh she was in town also for celebrating her class's 50th
anniversary from Smith Academy. So that was a nice little tiein to homecoming. It's awesome. >> Well, it's recognition much deserved for decades of work with Boy Scouts. That's really sweet.
Any other mission moments? Okay. Um, we have on the consent agenda tonight one item minutes from our last meeting. Is there a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Mr. Sullivan. All in favor? >> I I hear five voices. Um, you have an
opportunity to read the student representative report. Um, she Miss Gman regrets that she could not be with us tonight, but I do think she's going to be making reports and um, joining us going forward on many occasions. very much appreciate having her report and
it's nice having a student representative again want to hear >> very much is >> very much >> um but I I would like to move swiftly on to a conversation about student safety um something that we take very seriously in the district um and so I'm going to
turn it over to Dr. Driscoll and the committee will be able to ask questions after he makes his statement. >> Um so so I just wanted to um take this opportunity to talk a little bit about what we do in our schools to ensure that
we are um you know maintaining a margin of safety for for all of our students at the elementary school and at the high school uh middle high school. Um now when we do that when we talk we won't be talking about specific you know specifics in in terms of incidents but
kind of general generally how we you know how we structure things to to um to maintain that safety. Um so we we train throughout the year um our staff we we train for lockdown drills for shelter in place drills we train for health
emergencies. Um, at the beginning of every year, we we have a a meeting that includes the fire department, the police department, um, school health officials, and school administrators to talk through what the emergency response teams are, who's on those, and what their roles are. Uh, we train staff for,
um, you know, the the pieces that I just mentioned, as well as, uh, reunifications in case there was an event that we needed to evacuate the school. Um, we train staff to uh to and and students truly, but but staff to not
let people into the building. The only people letting uh folks into the building should be front office staff. So, they should get they should be buzzing people in um throughout the the way that that typically works. um you know we we generally are in a place that
that we're fortunate to know uh most of the parents of students who come to our school. So uh usually we recognize parents and we're able to welcome them in. Um sometimes they will have called ahead and said I'm you know pick my child up. Sometimes not. Um sometimes
we'll call them say hey you know Connor is sick. You need to come get him. Um, so typically we are, you know, we're we um we're expecting them to to come in and do that. Uh, in the event that we don't know someone who comes to the door, that's when we we stop in the uh
front office staff ask screening questions. You know, how can I help you? Um, do you have an appointment? Um if we typically the folks who come in that we might not recognize uh typically they are contractors and they're there to do
work and they will call usually ahead of time and say hey we're coming between you know just like at your house coming between 10 and two um to work on the you know work on the boiler to work on the roof. Um, and so we'll, you know, we'll
recognize them, then we we bring them in, they sign in, get visitors passes, um, so that they're they're known in the school. Um, yeah, and in and in the event that we are aware of of
something, so if we get a call from the police or we get a call um, you know, from from someone that says, "Hey, this this is going on. you need to be aware of it. Um, we would work with local law enforcement to kind of determine what the what the right play is. If someone
were to come to the school and we were concerned if they um, you know, they were presenting as as inebriated or unstable or um, you know, otherwise not in a in a kind of expected expected way.
Um then we would have them wait outside and we would we would probably contact law enforcement and say, "Hey, this is what we have have going on." Um and have them have them come down. >> Can are there specific questions that the committee has that we can can
>> I have a few, but I don't need to go first. >> Anybody want to jump first? >> You do yours. Maybe yours your mine. I was going to say I also have some don't need to go. >> Um, can you talk through specifically how do
we train staff that the door open? I know that's only office staff. I have actually experience that it's only office staff because I have had a teacher who knows me be like, "Yeah, sorry, I can't open the door for you." Which I applaud. Um, but can you talk about how we train office staff for
that? Yeah. And and that's something that we've been discussing that we can the state police have volunteered to come in and do some training and I think we're we'll be doing that with them. Um but typically we we have them ask certain specific questions. Um and it's
it's not a not a big formal training but it's you know how can I help you? you know, establishing that that that that person who's coming to the school has a purpose to be there. Um has a um has a a child in the school or has an
appointment that that is is coming up in the school. Um but that is an area that we've we've talked about that we could we could expand on the training. >> Is it the practice that if they know the person and know the person is a guardian that they buzz them in? >> It has been. Yes. Yep. Yeah. So someone
if we know that a a parent has a student at the school um we'll typically invite them into the into the unless we have reason not to uh we would invite them into the school and to you know sign their child in or to talk to us. Sometimes they just want to come in because they have a you know a question
that they need an answer to. Connor forgot his lunch that kind of thing. Um, >> is the office staff apprised when there are changes in who is able to um take a student out of school?
>> Yes, they are. Um, so that would come the the folks that can make those changes are the legal guardians of a student. So, if I I'll use my own daughters as an example. Um, so my my wife and I, um, if either of us were to
call the school, saying that they went to our school, if if if any if we were to call the school and say, "Hey, listen, um, you know, grandpa's on the emergency contact list or, you know, on the pickup list, they can, you know, they they've been able to pick up uh,
we'd like to take him off." A legal guardian can make that call. Um, and then at that point, the front office staff would be made aware, okay, um, you know, grandpa's no longer allowed to pick Connor up from school. Or if it was a family friend, that family friend is no longer. Likewise, they can also put
people onto that list, too. You know, the a legal guardian could call the school and say, um, hey, Connor's getting picked up, but you know, this per this person is is picking that up. A guardian can make that call. What are the circumstances that the
school makes a choice to change a legal guardian's standing to pick up their student? >> A a school cannot make that make that call. Uh a legal guardian unless there is a um unless there is something from a
from the court saying that that this illegal guardian no longer has has custody or guardianship or educational rights. They wouldn't be able to do that. The only thing we could do in the event that a legal gate guardian came um would be to to call the police if we had
concerns about someone's state of mind. Uh at that at that point, >> uh I have one last one and then I'll turn it over. Um, I I know we've read uh Officer Lavali's comments, but I just
wanted to ask really specifically, have we had any concerns from the police about our procedures in the district or issues raised about the behavior of our staff as it relates to student safety? >> No, quite the opposite. Um, >> we run through all of our practices and
procedures with them. >> We we that's part of what we do at the beginning of the year. Um, that's that emergency planning meeting that that takes place. Um, you know, there's always things we could do better. Um, and we can work with them to to bring that bring that training in. Um, but
they have, you know, the feedback we have gotten from them, um, about kind of the the formal training that we do, those lockdown drills, shelter in place drills, um, have have been, um, you know, pretty pretty good. Um, and then you know the the informal stuff that
Officer Lavali talked to in her letter. Um, just reaching out. Um, they I know we have a a good work working relationship with the police department. >> And I guess I did have one last quick one. Sorry. Um, when when there is an event that calls into
question, what is your practice as superintendent to follow up? >> What do you mean? If there were an if there were an incident where safety was raised as a concern, >> what would your standard practice be as superintendent? >> Do you follow that up
>> after the fact or >> after the fact? >> Yeah. So, after the fact, I would do if if there were concerns about student safety or an incident that occurred, um I would do an investigation into the matter. Um talk to folks that were uh were were part of it. um look at any
documents that were um would have gone into decision- making that that kind of thing. >> Okay, other questions? >> I just had a follow-up question about u guardians being able to pick up their children.
>> Would um a guardian be able to call about another their guardian and take them off like legal guardian? >> No. No, that would have to come through the courts. >> Okay. >> Yeah, we would have. So you usually ask the parents for the latest legal
agreements in >> and we Yeah, we would need to get that from from the the parents or guardians. Um the most up-to-date information. >> Okay. And the doors are um like the doors as of now are always locked. Like there's no issues
>> in the last I would say few months. The doors are good. Like they have to they're not unlocked. You're in school. >> No, they're not. >> With the actual door mechanisms, you mean like locking? >> The mechanism where you do have to be buzzed in. >> Yeah.
>> To come to come in. >> Well, we had changed some things in the beginning when the custodian would first come to the building, he would open up both doors, the inner and outer door because so many staff would be coming in. But staff were saying that there were some times when people would be in the building that the parents for example particularly even with um the
box morning program. Yeah. >> So we decided in order to ensure safety we would lock that front door and we would be locking the the box door that we have somebody standing at that um entryway. So >> okay thank you. >> How are the gym doors at the elementary school? >> The gym doors at the elementary school
are not uh new but they do lock. They they can be secured. Uh, and we just heard this week from our contractor that we're looking at um the Thanksgiving uh recess for the the install to be done. So, while students aren't in the building, so if there's any reason for
it to that it wouldn't be secured, there wouldn't be students in the building. >> So, they're finicky, but they work and we make strides to make sure they they catch when they close. >> Yes. Yeah. >> Yeah. The gym door wasn't so much the issue as it was a community door. That one was the one that was tended to be
you really had to push it hard in order for it to latch to catch, but that has been working fine so far. >> Um, may I ask, so the the front staff are the only people who are allowed to let folks into the building. They get
buzzed in and if they don't and they ask screening questions. Is there like a list of questions that they have? Is it like formalized in any way or is it just >> right now? It hasn't been really formalized, but that's part of the the training that the state police have
offered. >> That was the next question I had was like, is that the kind of thing like what exactly are the state police volunteering to help train? It's specifically in like >> entry procedures. >> Yeah, it's so it's it's entry procedures. It's a kind of a script to do that. It's sort of what to look for.
Okay. If you know in the event that someone is presenting as um not quite themselves, I guess in visual screening for weapons as well. >> Okay. Is that scheduled? >> It hasn't been scheduled yet. No, but it will be.
>> Are the videos now I know we've replaced the video equipment so that we had better visualization. >> Is that equipment such that we can see everything we need to see? >> Yeah. at the at the high school. It is um >> the elementary school as well.
>> Um >> sorry, that was just a timely one. >> Yep. And now I almost lost it. Hang on, it's back. Um, I can recall some occasions where the two office staff,
one might be out, absent. The other one may be doing work in another part of the office, going down the hall, having lunch, whatever. And somebody else is covering the office. So when somebody is covering the office, are they also
trained or are they just sitting at the desk and buzzing people in? >> So the the folks that we have typically it would be the same people that would be covering and they would have have the same same kind of training. And again, right now that training hasn't really
been formalized or or official, but they would still have the same process of, you know, hi, how can I help you? Oh, you're you know, I recognize you. or Connor's Connor is dead. Um, you know, come on in. Or, um, in the event of a contractor, you know, they may they may
not know. So, they would they would talk to the administration at that point and say, you know, these guys from from Greenwood Roofing are here. They're do they have an appointment? Say, "Yep, supposed to fix the leak." >> I do want to add that I'm in there a lot
and as I walk up, Michelle can look out her window. So, I hold up a container of >> the medication that I'm dropping off and she usually buzzes me right in cuz she sees me through the window. But there are other times that there are staff in
the lobby area that see me coming and open the door for me. >> Yeah. >> I mean, I know they know me, but >> they're getting better treatment than I do. Just gonna say, >> "Sorry, Ben. I've been around longer, >> I guess." So, >> and and we'll refresh that training, but but they should not be doing that. I
don't mind pressing the buzz buzzer and waiting and saying, "Hey, it's Kathy. I'm bringing meds to the nurse." >> It is kind of nice to be in a community that knows you and knows your children that you can just
come in and they have the information. This is uh this is one I think for me at least it's one of the positives about living in Hatfield and being here like my kid can try Spike to school and if he
gets hurt uh you bandage him up >> sometimes >> and then when I come to school um I they know me as his parent. Um, obviously when there are times like he forgot his backpack the other day when he rode his
bike and my mom is here, so she rode her bike. She took his backpack. So, um, she had to go through the process. She's like, "Yeah, they asked me who I was and you know, they let me in and I gave the backpack to somebody that got it to him." So,
as far as that, I'm glad you're you're training, but hopefully we won't lose the community feel, >> which I appreciate at least. >> What about when multiple people show up at the door this simultaneously? So, I show up, Dr. Dell shows up, I'm
first, they buzz, Michelle buzzes me in, and you know, like he could come in with me without declaring that he's there to to meet with Miss Petra. Is there a policy on that? Like is the is Michelle or Jackie supposed to say like, "Hey, can you step back until we clear you as well?"
>> Yes. Is um I think I think that that is the the the policy. Whether or not that's the practice, um I don't think that happens every time. And I I don't know that that is um you know at
that point you're also asking parents who are coming in who probably know the person coming in right after them not to hold the door for them and not and >> it's a awkward social moment. >> It is it creates an awkward social moment. Um
but yes technically they should be buzzing them in one at a time. Yeah, >> I I have been in that situation actually where I came in, buzzed, waited while another person came in, signed in, and like I think the person talked to both
of us before they buzzed us both in. >> Okay. >> So, if that makes like a real life example. >> Yeah, there you can see that there's two people in the >> Yeah, it was both of us. Like I just walked in and buzzed. The person walked right after us and we were both talked
to and told to come in at the same time so as not to make it awkward. I don't know if that happens every time, but it did happen the one time. >> Is it worth sending communication out to families to say, you know, like, hey, granted, like, you know, we're all taught to like hold the door for the person behind us, but in this scenario,
school safety is paramount. >> Please let the door close behind you and let procedures follow. Um, >> I'm even thinking we could put like a poster or some kind of signage in the vestibial too for that. >> It's not a bad idea. >> And same, you know, and for students as well, you know, they get buzzed in and they they hold the door for someone.
>> Correct. >> Now that we have cameras, working good cameras in both buildings, is it less of an issue that people come in and don't report to the office? because I know
that can sometimes happen that somebody gets buzzed in especially on days where in the elementary school where we have something going on in the cafeteria and the people coming in know that and they don't always go in to sign in. Um
we've been trying to get creative with that by actually placing a table and or a desk out in that entry area and assigning either Kit or Michelle to stand there with the visitor signin. So they're both right there or one of them is right there to actually do just that. >> So that's when you have an event. But
are there >> other times that somebody will get buzzed in and the office? Yeah. They skipped going into the office to sign in and and the staff is like where'd they go? Where'd they go? Does that happen anymore?
>> They're watching the cameras and Okay. >> I would think that would be more challenging at Smith Academy because the office is a little further away. >> Yeah. So typically we'll know someone's coming in. If they don't come to the office and we don't see them coming down the hall, we'll we'll walk out to greet
them. Say, "Hey, we're offices down." >> Does that happen frequently? >> It happens occasionally. Yeah. Yep. >> How's security at Box and Afterare >> as far as >> your eval? Like do you feel it's it's sufficient? I I don't know. Like I don't
use Box anymore. I don't remember. I don't know what the check-in process is like. Um, and you said it had changed as far as like there's somebody kind of guarding the door >> and then the door is locked by 8 by 7:30. >> Okay. >> Where previously it was left open. >> So, as far as who can sign out their kids
when I go to pick up my kids at afterare, the the side doors open the next to the gym. So, I go in, I go to the gym, I sign it out, I go and and grab my kids on the playground. But it doesn't seem difficult for a kid to like it's possible that my kid like the
kid could be like in using the bathroom and I never see Miss Lannabil or any of the of the other supervisors. So I could just grab Owen from there and leave. So if I'm a parent or a guardian who no longer has custodial rights, I could just, you know, obscond with the child. I'm I'm just wondering if there's any
holes in the process at afterare that should be evaluated. We could look at I mean at this point there haven't been any kind of issues with the afterare pickup but we can definitely look into that too. >> Okay. >> I would say the only thing I have to say about checking in if you have somebody
at a table uh when there's an event it gets really backed up. Uh, so maybe having multiple signing sheets just so people don't have to wait long to get
in, especially when it's that busy and there's a lot of people coming through. So people actually don't circumvent the signing in thing because that could happen when there's so many people coming in at once. That would create another confusion if
they have to sign out though, >> like if they're coming in at 9:30 for an all school meeting and then leaving and they have to sign out. >> There's not that many parents at an all school meeting to make >> No, that's true. But I think it's just like for parent teacher conferences
maybe or the open houses. >> Uh those are the ones that get pretty >> concerts. Busy concerts. I don't >> remember signing in a concert signed in a concert. >> I feel >> signing your child out at the end. >> At the end.
>> Yes. You don't sign in. >> You don't sign in for the concert. >> It's like a open community. >> So, >> anything else we want to talk about on safety? Anything else administration would like to talk about on safety?
Um and I will remind the committee that we have an executive session this evening that we will come back after related. Okay. Um with that going to administrative reports and
my apology to nurse Jean if we lost her in in this conversation. Um, I'd like to actually move her report up to the front of this. >> Thank you all for coming. Still here. >> Thank you.
>> Is she still with us? >> She is still with us. >> Jean, if you can hear us. >> There's Jean. Are you with us? I see her. >> I am not muted. >> She is muted.
>> There she is. >> Maybe not. And the screen isn't available to all those watching. >> Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what sometimes
This is what should be up. >> Jean, are you with us? >> Do we have the ability to text? There's Je >> there. It looks like there's something in the chat. Maybe just check if she had put something down.
Yeah, I can barely hear. >> Yes. >> All right. >> Is our sound that that good today? Nobody can hear us. Oh, you know what? My volume has been off. That's why we haven't been here.
>> Okay. >> Okay. Conor, thank you for the chat message. I'm sorry I need to keep everybody on delay. >> Not at all. >> Thank you for hanging with us. >> We can and we can see your presentation. >> Hello.
>> Hello. >> Good. Thank you. I'm gonna shrink my screen a little bit. I have um a dog and pony show to share with all of you. So bear with me. Let's see if we can get this to work. >> Um >> Jean Dr. Driscoll is able to share your
presentation. >> Oh, he is. >> He is. And it's on and it's viewable to those who will >> chime in later. >> Thank you. Um let me get you guys back on. All right. Well, first of all, um,
thank you everyone for giving me this opportunity to talk about health and safety services. Um, and give you a brief report about last school year. Um, and if you can move on, Connor, to the
second screen. Uh, I can't see what you're doing, but I can see what I'm doing. Um this is what we aspire to which is from NAS which is the National Association of School Nurses. Um you may be interested to know that um school nurses in
Massachusetts are the largest public health workforce in Massachusetts. So, uh, we're pretty proud of that. And this framework talks a little bit about what we we aspire to do. Um, care coordination, especially in the last 10,
15 years, has involved much more collaboration with other school staff, um, administrators, counselors, um, certainly with families. We could not do what we do without the support of the families. Um, we are constantly looking
to learn and improve. So, it's appropriate that we're in a school setting where all of you try to inspire students to learn and grow and develop. Uh, next slide, please. I'm hoping that you see school year
2025, the numbers. >> Yes. >> Um, we are asked every year to report Department of Public Health the number of encounters. Now, this may include things like band-aids and boooos, but mostly it includes some other key areas that you
hopefully see on your screen. Um I'd like to point out um that some of the information I uh for the purpose of student privacy um I consolidated if you look at endocrine GI and genital urinary
those aren't usually lumped together but um it's a handful of students who we worked with last year who required frequent um usually brief nursing care um often more than twice a day. Um and
again just to protect their privacy, we kind of link them all together. Um sometimes the work we do is simple, sometimes it's complex. Um it may be as simple, for example, as students who come in and say they're hungry, uh and they forgot their snack. Um so we have
spare snacks in the health office versus the student who comes in who has persistent abdominal issues. Um so we work very closely with families with the primary health care providers uh to coordinate care and to manage their
cases. And one case in particular I can think about a few years ago um a student was having some issues and wasn't gaining weight. Um and after a few weeks of back and forth phone calls and working with the provider, this particular student was referred to a
specialist and they found out this student was living with celiac disease. which explained a lot about how much they had been suffering. Um so we were grateful to be a part of that. We were especially grateful to the family for all that they did to follow through u
with the professionals. Uh next slide please. >> I'm being told that the it's not showing on Zoom for people at home. >> It's on YouTube. You don't have >> It's not going to be on Zoom. It will be on the the
>> YouTube channel right now. Okay. >> So, just to reiterate for those >> slide should say special health care needs and diagnosis. Yes. >> Unless she said >> thumbs up on that if you see it. >> Good. Thank you. Um so over half the
school population has some type of medical diagnosis. Um, many of these are students who often have multiple diagnosis, but 44 of those students qualified as having special health care needs. And you'll see the definitions there. These are students who are
learning to live with chronic health care needs and yet have success in school. And that's what we're all about is being helping them to have success in school as part of a team. Uh, next slide, please. Something we do on a routine basis each
school year is the health screenings. And you'll see last year the numbers. Um parents are given the option of opting out of some of these. Um a biggie for us of course especially in the younger grades is vision. Um and of these some
of those uh vision screenings actually turned into referrals for new eyeglasses for students. Um so we're grateful again uh for the families who allow the students to participate um and to help the students you know be able to see and have success in school. Uh next slide
please. We've done some special activities and in the previous slide you'll you saw the dental hygienist visits. They came twice. That's thanks to uh support from the state department of public health. But in addition to that, last year we
had the flu and COVID vaccine clinic open to staff and students. Um our annual puberty lessons which are coming up soon. Um as well as um something special for us. We invited Officer Lavali to come in and present uh uh
special training on urgent situation response uh especially related to eent care uh medical care. um and she did a fabulous job of packing a lot of important information into a brief training for key staff. Uh next slide,
please. In addition to that, um we do annual staff training and we're grateful to uh the administrative team for allowing us every year to provide um uh an overview
uh for recognizing we're responding to urgent first aid situations. And these are the numbers of staff who've completed different trainings each year. Um note that 20 over 20 staff people um volunteer to complete the CPR AED training each year. Um especially
noteworthy uh last year, two things at the bottom of the list. um the medication administration for unlicensed staff. um we were able to um quickly um identify and train key uh staff people
at Smith Academy who could then provide medication administration support during outofstate field trips um especially to New York State um where yours truly was able to get her own nursing license um transferred uh so that those field trips
could still happen. uh and thanks to their support, we were able to make that happen in a timely fashion and families could enjoy having their students participate. Something new for us last year, um something that we've dreamed about doing for a long time is having
first aid teams in each school and um three staff people in addition to your school principles uh volunteered to serve on those first aid teams. And uh they've uh really uh taken on a role in helping us when the school nurses are
tied up with uh an urgent situation. Uh next slide, please. Um the grants we've been very we were very fortunate to have three grants last year awarded to us uh through two through the department of public health
and one through uh mass desi. Um the fresh program is farming reinforces education for school health. Uh CSHS is comprehensive school health services and SBHE is school behavioral health
expansion grants. um these funds and you'll see where we primarily used the funding really enabled us to step up um social and emotional learning to step up um first aid team development and training not only for staff um but last
year um thanks to Crystal Bole who teaches uh health education at Smith Academy, she completed the American Heart Association instructor course and is now including heart association training for Smith Academy students,
which is pretty exciting. Um, and on the Mass uh Desi fresh grant, um, unfortunately, we we were we just found out that we were not funded for this year, and this is mostly because the state had to, uh, greatly reduce the
amount of funds that were available to schools. Uh, it was very competitive to begin with. Um, but, uh, this, uh, grant last year allowed us to offer weekly tastings. We partnered with Prospect Meadow Farm. They were great. Uh they
even did a farm tour uh for older students last year. Um and the grant allowed us to buy um some badly needed kitchen tools uh to help our food service director, John Halpin, um assure that food was prepared in a timely
fashion. Um, I'd like to add that um, John Halpin and I would like to thank not only Prospect Meadow for their ongoing support, but some other local um, farms have been helpful to us over the years where we've applied for other grants that unfortunately were not
successful, but they've always been welling willing to step in and help us with our grant proposals. Uh, in particular, I'd like to thank um, Belden Farm uh, and Jillian Miner for her ongoing support. She's often she found a
grant for us on her own a few years ago at the elementary school where she bought grow bags and seeds and introduced kids to seeing how plants grow and where they grow. Um so special thanks to her and more recently um the
local CISA group has been willing to partner with us and helping us to develop proposals. So, we're hoping um that we can continue to seek out and find proposals to help promote health and wellness in the school, especially uh in partnering with our local farms.
Uh next slide, please. >> Um hopefully your slide says uh looking ahead. >> Yep. >> And um this year um we've recently received notice that our school behavioral health expansion grant will
be funded. Uh so we have purchased a um program called DESA which we started through a prior grant. Um DESA stands for the DERO student strengths assessment survey. Um this is an
evidence-based tool used all over the country to help identify and support the social emotional needs of K through2 students. So, its goals are to help students develop help awareness, social self self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and decision-making.
That's a mouthful. Um, and it really helps the staff, especially the counseling and administrative staff to identify students who may need some extra supports in critical areas to help them ultimately have um improved student
engagement and have success in school. So, we're excited about that opportunity and we're also excited to have the funding to um continue supporting um a parttime um social emotional learning staff person at the elementary school. Uh we are still waiting to hear from the
CSHS end of the funding, but um I know that's in process at the state level with Department of Public Health. Um this year, our goal is to really zero in on screenings and trainings. Um, and then finally, um, just something that
all of you may want to be aware of, in August, the Department of Public Health, um, updated the, uh, 105 CMR, which is kind of the place that rules what school nurses may and may not do in terms of medication. There is so much coming down
the pike, so much out now for nasal rescue medications. Um, for example, you've probably seen the commercials for Nephi. Um, we don't have it in schools yet. Um, but we know it's coming. So, um, we are preparing hopefully with the
state to, um, train staff on using, uh, uh, upcoming rescue meds that are delivered either nasally or through other means um, to help keep our students safe. Um, and then finally, um, we're looking forward to working with,
um, again with John Halpin, who met with, um, both building principles and me last spring, uh, to do, um, a review, um, and an audit. And, uh, we're looking forward to working with you to, uh, look
for additional funding for health and wellness and the policy reviews. Next slide, please. So again, I'd like to thank all of you uh for inviting me to speak. I'd especially like to thank um Connor,
Melissa, and John uh who have been very supportive of me and of nursing in general. Um we nurses know that we can rely on the administrators uh for help and guidance um for help when we are busy and overwhelmed with
more than one visitor. And sometimes that happens or with an urgent situation that requires extra help. Um I know I can rely on any one of them uh to step in and help us uh help all students be
healthy and safe and ready to learn. And that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> So great. >> Anybody have any questions? I think that was pretty thorough. So,
>> it was very thorough. >> Greatly appreciated. Um, so we're going to move on um and sort of back up a little bit. And at this point, anyone who's still with us via Zoom, I would encourage you to actually tune in to the Hatfield YouTube um you can find that at
the top of um our meeting agenda and you would be able to watch the rest of this meeting, but we're going to take the um Zoom down. Great. >> Thank you guys. Okay, with that we're going to move on to administr administration's report
starting with our district report. >> All right. Um, so district report. Uh, we just heard >> hit the highlights. >> All right, I'll hit the highlights. Um, so, uh, if we skip down a little bit, we
can go to safety. We'll start with safety and building report. Um so roofers and boilers uh sorry the roofer and boiler installers or um the the group doing it planning it uh was at Hatfield Elementary last week the week
before. Um they went up in the lift. They were looking at stuff up there. Um so they are uh confident that they'll be able to do the boiler project uh mid year so that they they can run the system off one boiler while they put one new one in and then switch over and do
it that way. Um, so that way we they they were a little concerned about if if one of them were to go down um getting parts because they're so old. So they're looking to do that. >> Um, >> did you say midy year? >> Right. Like >> like now. Now.
>> As soon as they can, >> which I got to tell you is a huge step forward in the last month because the last conversation I sat in on a meeting where they were selecting vendors and it was like, >> "Oh, we'll do it in the spring." and I kind of had a panic attack in the middle of the
>> meeting to ask about this topic today. >> And so when you said mid year, I didn't wasn't sure >> where that fell. >> So they're going to do it as soon as they can. Okay. >> Um but yeah, this they'll be they'll do it for the winter. >> Good.
>> So we have we have a contractor. We we picked the person or the company that's doing it and >> the mechanical engineering firm that's specking it out maybe not >> the person who's selling. >> Yeah. The there because of the scope of the project we had to go and this is
>> new to me. >> Uh we had to go we had to get a project owners manager. Yeah. >> And then a design firm and then design firm after it's design will choose the vendor to do the install. So, right now we're in the design firm phase or the vendor phase. >> Yeah. >> Vendor phase. Y
>> and all of those had to be put out to bit like >> Yeah. You have to go through the bidding process. >> Oh, this is a big improvement over the September update though. >> Yes, it is. >> I'm >> Yeah. Yep. And likewise the roof. Um >> my panic face.
>> The the roof. I think depending on what the roof um designer says, they may be able to do part of the flat roof um over the winter too. the the worst parts, you know, it's not it's not like one giant roof. It's, you know, several different sections. So, they may be able to do
some of those sections um mid year, too. The ones that would, you know, they're not going to be pounding nails on top of classrooms because that's disruptive, but if there's stuff that they can do on the flat portion with memory and they would do that. >> Is there any concern when the boilers are being done for, you know, just disruptions to the kids school day?
>> Not that I don't think so. Um, you know, most of the most of the time that whole section is over by the art in the music room. So, that would just be limited to that section. Um, but I I they haven't said that there there would be. >> Okay.
>> Um, yeah. No, they have they haven't. >> Feels more disruptive to not have heat >> for sure. So, >> but hopefully >> and I think everyone had a lot of exper like just looking through the process and who they were reviewing, everybody had a lot of school building experience they talked to. So,
>> it won't we won't be their first rodeo. >> Um, good. >> And an update to the safety and building report in the last point. Um we heard back from the contractor that it is looking like um that Thanksgiving holiday when they'll be doing those the
door install at the elementary school which is wonderful. Um >> homecoming homecoming was great this past weekend like I said. Uh we had a combined dance uh and it was wonderful. We had a space for middle school students that they could hang if they wanted and then we had to dance for the
for everyone who wanted to be part of that. Um it was very well attended. Um it was really just really nice. It was a whole community weekend. Um and uh school uh kind of enrollment
update. Um right now we are uh 300 we our full enrollment right now is 305 uh which is we're two we're two students off from last year districtwide. Um so and we already have we already know of one student who's going to be starting
in sixth grade uh in Jan on January 1st. We have a we had got an application school choice application for that and that parent is very excited which will make make us uh one off from being flattened two off from slight increase one student. So
hopefully we'll we'll get there for the winter. That's what I have from the district level. >> Any other potentials that would be joining in January at either school? >> Uh, right now it's just the one that we know of. Um, but there I mean there
there could be more potentials. Did we have a conversation last month about potentially more than one student who was going to join in January um >> into the eighth grade? >> It was
>> we did hear something about that >> and they one was coming and they were going to bring some friends with them. >> No, they they they started. >> Oh, they already started. >> They got it before the October before the October deadline. >> Okay. I was thinking they were starting in January. So,
>> we had those two new students begin at Smith Academy, right? They're they're rocking and rolling. >> Good. >> I knew I remembered something. >> No, you were you were correct. >> Um, and then from can I go to the Smith Academy report? From the Smith Academy
report. Um, uh, the one piece I wanted to highlight, I think I've highlighted it already, but I I just I'm going to keep pounding it because I think it's wonderful. Um, the dual the concurrent enrollment program that we started this year um at Smith Academy for students to take college
level courses through VSU, but taught by Smith Academy staff. Uh, we currently have 77% of our juniors and seniors enrolled in a college level course, which is huge. Um, I can't think of another school that can boast that level of um, college participation. So, that's
that's pretty pretty wonderful and quite a feather in our caps, I think. >> And that does or does not include AP classes. >> That does not that is simply that is strictly the concurrent enrollment classes through VSU. Can I just add that this statistic and
this information was presented at the Smith Academy openhouse and this slide elicited cheers from the audience. It was great. >> That's right, too. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think families are very happy with this.
>> Yeah. And and I started the conversation with MCLA, too. So, they're not quite as far along as VSU in terms of doing this and getting it accredited and everything, but they're very interested in doing it. Um, and if that were the case, those credits would would certainly transfer to any state school
in Massachusetts if we could get it get it um accredited through MCLA, >> Mass College of Liberal Arts. >> Yep. Yeah. Formerly North Adam State. >> Just in case anybody at home that's following not getting the acronym. >> Yeah. >> That's awesome.
>> Yeah. Any questions before we move on? >> Keep highlighting that. >> I pounding that out there. That is >> such a good thing to be proud of >> and the concurrent enrollment. >> Perfect.
>> Okay. Principal Petra, you want to make any highlights? >> Sure. Um, all of our teachers at this point in grades K to five have participated in their first of two of the SRSD writing trainings. this coming week actually is starting round two um for um our upper grades. Um October 1st
we actually did backtoback drills. We had um bus evacuation drill for all students even irregardless of whether or not they take buses just to ensure in the event that they're ever taking a field trip and are taking or riding a bus even though they might not be a typical bus rider. um the um safety
features of the bus and how to get off the back of the bus and the other um windows and the roof one, though students clearly didn't get out of those areas, but at least they were explained to them while they were on the bus. Um and then right after that with local and state police, we also conducted one of
our first of three announced lockdown drills this school year. Um that went off without a hitch. And uh the mini assemblies are actually doing really really well. Um, we've done some kids to the point now where they actually are asking when is it time to do the mindful
lunch. Um, both grades for both lunches have gotten used to the notion of having it nice and quiet. Kids actually for the most part are actually looking forward to actually having it quiet and being able to actually eat their lunch. So, >> are you still doing lunch with Miss
Petra at Fishtails? >> It's okay if you're not. No, not this year. But, you know, it's interesting that that is one of the things I was really wanting to talk with student council about as far as like different ways that we should be showcasing. I know I did that with the I Ready minutes. Um, and that definitely was a big hit back in the day, but I wasn't
sure if there was anything else the student council thought was another way that we could highlight or showcase. I think it was exciting for kids if they won, but then we started to notice that there was a dip in the number of students that were actually getting their minutes because they felt like, well, if I'm not going to go, then why
am I going to bother? So, I need some other ideas from our student council. I could potentially do something similar. Um, but maybe it's just ordering out and bringing in because it was definitely a time consumer. But still, if it was a motivator for kids to do their minutes and at least a way to cheerlead that
effort, I am definitely open to doing that again or something similar. >> Anything else? Dr. So at beginning of the year since we started we've had 41 related and I did point out in the
numbers that a little less than half of that have been new kids to us uh basically prek elementary all the way up into secondary. So I I think this kind of like shows a high number of new students coming into the district uh with special ed needs and uh truthfully
very nice to get the chance to sit down with families any of the review services that they had in previous districts and in some of these meetings we've actually started to reddraft or amend the IEPs. I I am also glad or happy to uh say that
the rest of my report 60% of it is wrong and I am glad to tell you why that is. Uh so the submission that we did back at the end of September relevant to our corrective action plan for a team focus monitoring review, it came back and
basically said, "Hey, we're still go into the website and you can see what your progress is." And so I looked at all five of the points that we had and all five were still listed as partially implemented. So, there was one that I really couldn't get my head around at
all because some of the language that I was reading on the website did not seem to match what I had actually sent in. So, I did reach out to the state and said, "Just doesn't seem right." And they basically said, "Yes, uh, what we're seeing on our end is that you're
actually completed three out of the five." So the two that are not completed are the licensing which the staff member currently has appending uh in ELR for desi for an advancement of their license for a broader area. Uh and then the only
other thing was oh the bias review which we are partially implemented and I know that we've got some more work across the district uh to do the uh the bias review. Bias reviews are basically looking at all literature that we have and looking for biases in it. And those
could be in the form of pictures. Uh it's not just textbook related. It could be novels. Could also be pamphlets that we have uh relevant to any school adjustment counseling or guidance pamphlets that we might give out to student to make sure that any of the information in them or any of the images
did not promote a certain type of bias. As an example of that, in another district that I worked in, we did have um a pamphlet on bullying. The image on the front really could depicted a group of students bullying another student. Uh
the group of students depicted though uh were essentially of a specific race. Uh and um the the student being bullied was was essentially a white student. Uh so we basically looked at that as as part of our bias review and decided to omit
that from uh literature that we would actually pass out to students any any further. So hopefully by the next within the next couple of months or so, I do kind of expect that at least the bias review to to be completed and Jesse and
El um not sure how long they'll actually take to to review, but I think we might be able to do some things to help that process along. >> Two questions. one the thing about the handbooks um did that get put in there or was that
>> so Melissa and I sat down today and started to look at and it's kind of like so this language and because I know I reported off a little while ago that hey I sent examples of of our language and got approval back and I was kind of like
wondering did something get missed here did we send did did I send them like the wrong copy somehow and I wasn't really thinking that was the case and Melissa and I sat down to look at adding this specific language, but then we came across the language that I it's kind of
like it's all in here. And then it was literally probably less than an hour later I got the reply back today from the state saying, "Yeah, you're approved in this." So >> I was like I read that I was like I know that's in there. >> I know. I was like I I felt a little like personally
that's how I felt. Um, so my other question is kind of to any of the administrators. When you said that you've done 41 meetings, I was thinking how many days of school have we had?
>> So this was as of Friday. >> So how many how many days of school have we had? >> 37 I think is >> So some days got more than one. You've only had 37 days of school >> and you've done over 40 meetings. Good
job. >> I mean, >> well, cranking. >> You are. Yeah, you are cranking them out. >> Wow. >> Good job, but also sorry. >> Yes, exactly. >> I'm not sorry. We're taking care of our committee. >> Yes. Sorry for them.
Totally. >> November meetings already scheduled. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. And so we do have like an an evaluation and meeting tracker meeting every two weeks and the last one occurred uh actually this morning. So we went through everything that we needed
to do to make sure that it's ready for December making a couple different tweaks to our procedures relevant to getting consents out. But essentially we went over every student or every family that uh to make sure that we were on track for getting these meetings done.
It's good to hear. >> Okay. Any more? >> Can I ask a quick unrelated to your report and you might not have this information at hand? I I was having a conversation with someone about how many uh dedicated pair of professionals we
have within the district and it seems like we have a fairly high number. Do you know what the number is? >> Absolutely not. >> We have 13 at the elementary school, two of them being RBTs. So we have 11 ESPs, two RBTs. >> How many are dedicated though? Oh, I mean is like assign oneonone.
>> Yeah, >> like oneon-one with this met. >> So that is kind of a mixed bag because some students do have full day one to ones and some of them have partials. So the partials after their assignments are
done with the one to ones might go and and do something else. So we do have and I couldn't give you the exact number of how many partials. Do in in your opinion do you think we have an overreiance on that role? >> I well two places 2010 I really do feel
that everybody has an over reliance. Oneto ones can be a benefit or a detriment. And they can be a detriment if they if the student becomes too too dependent on the onetoone. And one of the best examples and I've seen this
after I heard it was if oneto ones are like reading answers to a question and they might say the options here are A, B, or C. they're kind of drawing the student to
the the correct answer just by by tone of voice. So in that way yes they want to see students do well but they're becoming too dependent on the adult for for the the level of support. So back in 2010 what was actually going on was the
associate commissioner of special ed at that time said there's an overreiance on certain services oneto ones being part of that. So there was really an encouragement for us to start either fading the services out or backing away from it or rotating staff through so
that we weren't having like one person. I know we've we've talked about the fading for some of the cases. Uh I know Melissa does a really a great job talking about like rotating uh like a couple of different pairs with it with a student. Uh so I think we're trying to
back off from that as much as we can. The problem has always been with an IEP that if a parent does not agree with fading or backing off from the service at all. Uh we can write it in an IEP and they can reject it and it becomes a stay put. And sometimes I've seen stay put
IEPs run for several years >> which is not a good thing either. So it's people feel that sometimes it's it's a comfort level or they convince themsself it's what the student needs but it is also fostering dependency on a
particular service instead of encouraging the student to be more dependent independent I should say >> is it generally the family that requests the need or is it the general education teacher that that >> sometimes it's the team that really talks about the need of the student and
the need for like a onetoone and if the usually If it's a behavioral issue and it's so severe that the student has like severe sensory issues and their responses are more behavioral, things like that might lead to to a onetoone. Uh folks will, you know, sometimes look
for one to ones relevant to attention issues. We try to steer those conversations relevant to here's inclusion. We've got a couple staff members in the classroom already. Uh, so let's not actually assign a onetoone to a person when you've got somebody who
can read the IEP and do check-ins with the student to make sure that they're on track, but just kind of keep track of whether they, you know, need extra assistance to uh actually uh follow multi-step directions or complete a task uh just to make sure that they're, you
know, doing those things. Is it the case that there are some folks that the perception is that there the ESP is a onetoone when in fact that staff person is sort of got a group of students that they're supporting in
similar ways just they happen to be in the same classroom. >> So if if um we try to be as specific as we can in the IEP relevant to the minutes. So and we're getting I think better about this. We're trying to break up services so
it's very there was a lot of academic support writing in service delivery grids like last year and we're trying to basically say let's break this down so that we can say what it actually is because academic support in the B grid
might have been something like 5* 45 or 5* 90 but it wouldn't be broken down into how many minutes were actually devoted to a particular or particular classes. is so we're trying to get into like well it's going to be more like a
5* 30 for math and 5* 60 for like reading uh services of some sort. So if if it's broken down just using that as an example in that way then we're talking about like minutes of support but in the B grid if we're not
identifying it as specific onetoone we're trying to identify it as a group service then the staff member is actually helping out more than one child. If we were going to identify it as one to one specifically, we would put one to one in the notations in the
service because it would be great. There's probably additional information as well. We've also been really fortunate that our BCBA actually has a great depth of knowledge in being able to support the training of ESPs. And I think that's another big piece and component to that
notion of trying to phase out support and or knowing when to step in and when to give more independence. Um, it's a balancing act, but it's definitely one that we have a handful of staff that are, you know, ESPs that are just phenomenal at doing that. And others are just newer to the profession and or
newer hires and just need more support and knowing how to do that. Um, so that students have some independence but yet have the support when they need it or have that ability to take that break and and leave the classroom if they need it, but always know that they have to come back and do that work.
I'm just thinking that from a parent perspective asking that question, I don't know how they would know if the person was a onetoone on paper versus someone that was in a B-grid service who
was who was giving direct support for a plan but also like gave support to me but also helped Connor like you might not know that they were helping both. >> And I could also say that last year,
this is one of the problems that I actually found when we were doing school choice increment and circuit board training >> is most of our IPS did not identify small group, individual or large group settings. And so this year I I really
kind of reinforce with staff that when we fill and you as parents they probably will not see those notations unless they're actually made in the location piece but they are in ESP to let us know that it's a group identification and
that helps when I do school choice incident or or certain record filings. Anything else? Um, so next up is a conversation about the district improvement plan update. >> I think everyone has a copy of the uh
revised draft based on our last workshop. Um, you know, the biggest biggest change was that I took the PD goal. Uh so there had been three goals, one around PG, one around um school culture and climate and
one around um academic rigor and I um broke the PD goal into the other two to support those two goals specifically. Uh I also reordered the goals. So the we stop start start with a uh goal one rigorous academic programming um and
then goal two is the increased um in increased belonging in school culture. So um I know everyone's had a chance to look at it so I'll just open it to feedback that folks may have. Um, I just wanted to remind you in goal
two on one C >> that we amended that to include the arts and not just sports. >> Yep, I can make that change. >> Yeah, it was just >> I had that note, too.
other notes. I I would really challenge us on goal one instead of talking about what we're going to offer which is sort of a binary thing to rephrase that goal so that we're looking at as a resultsoriented so
that it's academic growth or like just that offering the rigorous programming is the way we get to the result that we're looking for. But that the goal should be the result that we're looking for. Um, and that
the next time we take a look at this, I would really challenge us to say, okay, how are we going to measure these two goals? I don't mind that it's down to two goals because I think you folded in >> the the PD stuff appropriately because they're they're part of how we get to
the achieving those goals. Um, but I think the the next step I would love to see how we're going to measure for that. >> Yeah. And so as as we think about how to phrase that goal about seeing growth on the academic front, what would that look like? How are we
going to measure for that? And and can we start to look at some metrics that we're striving for? How will we know when we get there? Yep. Anything else? So I I as we get to your superintendent
goals, we'll talk about the timeline for that because I think that's covered there, right? Um >> if other people are going to be reading this district improvement plan, I'm still looking at that equal to uh
6C, which is just >> it's all acronyms. >> Yeah. Um, for anybody else that any parent or you know somebody that's going to look at this, let's not talk in code for them. >> Yep. >> It's minor, but
just before we Yeah. >> put that away for now. >> Yeah. Absolutely. >> Yeah. Same thing on on 15A Dibbles Desa BST. >> Yep. >> Yep. >> Yeah. just to help anybody that might be
reading it. >> Yep. Absolutely. >> Okay. >> And get to talk about superintendent goals, which is something we need to vote on this evening. Betty, >> would you like to present your goals?
>> You bet. Yeah. So, um I've uh I think everyone's had a chance to take a look at the goals. There are um five kind of broad goals and they all align pretty directly with the district improvement plan which is good. They should um
the first goals around strategic planning. Uh so last year the uh part of the the new student new superintendent induction program uh was about creating an entry plan and doing sort of a lot of data collection and analysis. And this
year the shift is in um strateg taking that and using that data to uh help plan strategically which is lines up perfectly with our new district improvement plan that we need. Um so goal one is really around creating the
district improvement plan um and using last year's data that was collected through the entry plan to do so. Uh goal two around is around um professional practice and this is a continuation of last year and it's
participation participation in that new superintendent induction program. This is year two. Uh so it's a two-year induction program. Um and and again the the goals of the program this year are really about um
planning and and action action plan based on last year. Uh the third goal is related directly to our um district improvement plan, its academic rigor. Uh and the key actions that you'll see in there uh really
relate directly to some of those initiatives under the district improvement plan. So there it's it's a little more kind of parsed out as to what exactly will be done. Um >> I want to speak to those just to highlight them quickly for people who are listening in. >> Yeah, you bet. So the um so the the goal
three around academic rigor is to develop systems to increase academic achievement for all students. Um the first key action is to explore ELA curricula for K3 alignment. Uh, one of the things we have noticed, uh, both in terms of student performance on on
MCCAST and and state metrics as well as just what we've heard from our teaching staff has been a real um desire to have some more aligned ELA curricula. Right now, things there's some really great stuff being done uh, in ELA, but it it
feel it has felt a little disjointed at times. there's you know different parts from different curricula that have have come together and there there are some benefits to that but I think looking at looking at a moral land curriculum um the second key action there is to to support the development of enrichment
opportunities for uh HS and Smith Academy higher achieving students again one of the pieces of data that we've seen over the years um has really been a trend towards uh moving students to proficiency uh But really, we we also
want to make sure that we're taking our proficient students and moving them um to, you know, to exceptionalism. And that's that's where we want to uh spend some some time and energy is making sure that we're pushing those those higher achieving students further as well.
The um the third piece there is looking at the possibility of really thinking outside of the box um and creating what are called innovationmies at HS and Smith Academy. So, uh really to to look at what we do instructionally, uh what
our student needs are and if there are kind of larger changes um programmatically, structurally that we want to make that would help us deliver um better instruction in in better ways. What what kind of um what tools do we
have our at our disposal to make that happen? And uh creating an innovation academy kind of like a school within a school sort of model is one of those tools that uh exist and we can you know we're we're small enough that we may be able to utilize that in a you know more
efficient way um to really target some some instruction there. Um and then again to to utilize data to support differentiated instruction at all learning levels uh not just those students who may need intervention to and a boost but also um differentiating
higher. How do how are we making sure that our students who are at or above grade level are continuing to uh get pushed to um you know to to excel. >> Thank you. >> Uh the fourth goal is around uh
belonging and around school culture and climate. Um and it's really just to increase the feeling of belonging and positive school climate across all of our schools. Uh and so looking at how we are getting our students out into the community and bringing the community
into the school uh through uh events that we have and through volunteerism um kind of kind of ways that our students can get out into the community really celebrating what we're doing. Well, that's something that I've heard um you know, a number a number of different
ways and through a number of different different um avenues is that there's a lot of great stuff happening and nobody knows about it. Um, so how can we make sure that the things that we are doing and the things that we're doing well are pushed out and put and and so when
people um when when people think about Hatfield Public Schools, they they they first think about the great things that they've seen us doing. Um, that's that's what we want. Um so making sure that we're we're we're really celebrating those successes uh including um and then
the next action there is to increase student voice uh in school-based decision- making. Uh so that will look differently at different levels. So that might be uh you know taking student uh student input on new courses that we're developing. We're looking at those VSU
and concurrent enrollment courses that we're developing. If there's a particular group of students that is really interested in a certain area, we can sort of cater what we do to their their what they would like. Um and and again making sure that that
information is getting out there because once again, you know, we I've I've hit it for the third or fourth time now that 77% that's a a statistic that needs to be out there. Um, and that is a direct result of the programming and the
opportunities that we have at Smith Academy. Again, we need people to know that. We need that to be out in the community. We need that to be kind of the the discussion point that people are having. Um, and it's not yet. So, we need we need to need to do that. And that kind of dubtales directly with goal
into goal five, which is just around communication. Um, and this may even be um communication is one way to put it. I think PR is another way to put it because this is really it's not just about um communicating. It's not just
about about developing a communication plan. It's about implementing it. It's about improving what we do with our communication. So, making sure that that the methods and the ways that we're we are communicating and and showing what what we do that that those are
effective. um that they are getting the message that we want out there and that they're getting the message where we want it to um to go to. Um so part of that is cataloging the key the first key action they're cataloging what we do. Uh
making sure that we have have sort of a plan in place that like this is how we communicate, these are the the means by which we communicate and these are the the timelines to that communication. And then looking at that and saying okay well we realize that um you know we have a couple gaps here and here. We want to
fill those gaps. Uh and then and looking at how effective they are and what you know what we can do better and what we can do um to make sure that we are we are putting out what we um what we need to get out there.
>> Questions or comments? I hope you >> I I would like to challenge you on goal number five >> to again in to sort of elevate that to be
about improving communication not just to develop a plan that the that the developing the plan would become your first key action. >> Yeah. But that the goal is really to improve communication with students, family, and community.
And I would further challenge that it's not just districtwide, but school and classroom level communication as well. And that is a more challenging and robust goal. I I I appreciate that it it would be um
and that you would likely need some key actions about gaining teacher buyin and participation and and that's a great example of how the district improvement plan which is what we're creating here will sort of shape and and drive the each individual
school improvement plan too. Um because that's, you know, that, you know, as we as we as we kind of get into the more specific grade levels and and schools, that's where that communication plan would really come out to and say, "Yep, this is how we're going to do it in
preschool, kindergarten, first grade." And so we can break it down really really in a nuanced way through those two >> because that's you can inspire it at the top and there's certainly a district component to it.
>> But if it doesn't implement all the way through, it really won't do what it needs to do. And I just think we just should write the goal to reflect that. Just piggybacking on that like so many of the issues that we've had in the last
several years have been communication related. >> Yes. >> I will say that um I feel with this new program teacher ease that I've received
more frequent and better communication. Um and in fact even today I got an email from a teacher giving positive feedback that was with the heading of it. So um
that's a good start of >> you know it but if it goes through every classroom in that way um that would be terrific. the >> the consistency and amount of communication, good, bad, or
indifferent, between various grade levels is so dramatically different, it's like >> it's shocking. And then when you get somebody that's really good at it, it then the next
person who isn't as on top of that, it you really feel the difference. you feel the loss >> or gain >> or or the or the opposite direction after having a year of not a lot of
communication and then you do it's very dramatic and noticeable. >> Yeah. >> But if it was really spread out that would be nice. >> But there's definitely some good best practices out there. It's not like
>> so >> I don't mean to be picky picky but I have a question about um goal four >> the first benchmark volunteerism lists of opportunities and students can can you >> I can reword that. Yeah.
>> I didn't know if you meant you're having one list of available opportunities and a list of students who have stepped up to volunteer and there's going to be some way of matching them. >> Yes. both of those is to really to create a um
the the volunteerism list would be and the opportunities list would be just kind of a a bank of hey here are all the things the community has said that they can use volunteers for um and getting that out to students so that they have kind of a menu of ways that they can get
involved that they can choose from. Um, and then we track and to track those students that have taken taken part in those. Um, and we do that currently. Um, but I think having that in a way that is again celebrated and put out there like,
hey, you know, congratulations Melissa. She just hit her 100th hour of community service. Way to go. You know, some something like that. So, it's not just um not just in a binder on a shelf for the graduation requirement. Um but it's really something that's celebrated and
and and done well >> or maybe even getting communication back the other way like you know having the people for whom we volunteer share their experiences. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> There's your social media post right there. It's the feedback
>> testimonials on the website. >> Yeah. And I know we're speaking of volunteerism and those kinds of opportunities, but I have heard and seen on social media families that are
looking for somebody that can babysit or looking, you know, to hire a couple of kids to do some yard work or something like that. And I don't know if that really fits in with this. It's not volunteering, but it is connecting with the community. Yes. other districts,
they can call the office and say, "Hey, do you know any kids that do babysitting?" >> You know what? Some student could put together like, "I'm going to put together a babysitter bank and have a list of students that can be on call." They could organize that so that it would be a resource or students that
could do >> project maybe. So, >> I've had it in a previous school where the PTA had put together a list of babysitters for the community. So there's um just
>> thoughts of something other than just volunteerism which is great but there is another need uh for community members who would be willing to pay y >> for some services and help a student out >> provided that we are not like creating
it validating that they're would be good at like no >> just uh Yeah. Yeah. Some some communities do that. They call the high school and say, "Hey, we're looking for >> Yeah.
>> Yep. >> couple football players to move my couch or Awesome." Okay. Anything else on the goals that we would want to talk about? Is there a motion to approve the
superintendent goals or are you looking for them to come back again? Uh, I'll make that motion to approve the super superintendent goals of 2526 as presented or with the >> with with the amendments >> with the amendments given tonight.
>> I'll second it. >> Okay. All in favor? >> I Any opposed? Thank you much. Okay. um school finance
and we have a vote tonight on transfers requested. Mr. Sullivan, is there anything you want to call out from your report? >> Um our circuit breaker revenues um came in lighter than expected this year uh by
about $26,000. Um, we had an ESP leave at the elementary school and we're not going to rehire and and we have an unfilled so far ESP position at the high school. Um, so between the two, we're kind of covering that. Um, and and not rehiring
the parah the ESP at the elementary school, we're still they've done some finagling to still meet all the the needs of the the students down there. Um, so we're not out of compliance with that, but um, it was an opportunity to save to recoup that money. Um our school
choice revenue for the year is coming in lower than expected uh in comparison to on a per student basis how we've done in the past. Um so we're getting around $6,100 this year per student versus in the past it's $7,200.
Um sometimes we get a a lump sum at the end of the year but we're we don't know if that's going to happen or not. Um so we're just being mindful of the accounts. So the difference, if I can predict your question, the there's always a flat fee per student, but then
if they have um student services, those get those come back. So all of the special education spending that we do comes back from the sending district. It's not like circuit breaker where we just get a percent. We get all of it,
but it's a year late. And on occasion, those get tracked a little wonky. So, our eyebrows are raised at this significant difference per student because that 72,000 is an average over a lot of years and that's a pretty big difference.
>> But we have had years where they go through the whole year and they pay pay the same rate every month and then like three months later there's like a little update. We're like, "Oh, here's an extra 272,000 that >> and that comes from the sending
district." >> Those Yeah. They come through the state, but they get it's like it didn't all get accounted at the front. But to Adam's point, we don't know whether that will happen or not.
>> Something to look into or Okay, >> there's actually before I proceed, I have two questions for Dr. S if I can um bug you on those two points. The circuit breaker coming in lighter than expected. That was just an accounting error on our part or just
>> No, we uh actually didn't have internally we only had like one student that breached like $20,000 in in total cost. So that didn't even close to being half of the the foundation amount to even start to claim circuit breaker. So
really the only entries that we had were out of district tuition based >> okay returns. >> Okay. But when we did the I'm assuming it's because when we did the budgeting we made assumptions about what the rest of the year was going to be and it the
needs didn't turn out to to be that is that which means we probably saved some money last year >> maybe. So, I I'm not sure what the numbers or the discussions were on that, but if there was something like not accounting for one of the students that
was out of district that was actually graduating, that could have impacted the numbers that you were looking at. Not sure if that's accurate or not, though. >> I I think we have to double down on how we forecast. >> Yeah. And then as far as the school choice
revenue per student coming in lighter than we're used to, um how are we sure that we're billing appropriately for student for school choice students who have who use student services?
>> It's based on what's in the AP. So with the school choice increment, all the students that actually show up on the claiming lists, I have to go into the IEP and actually verify that the services that we're claiming
are actually listed in the service delivery grid. Now, the thing that I mentioned earlier about individual, small, group, and group, that makes a big difference. And truthfully, I'm not sure how that was looked at previously. Um but if it's not identified in the
service delivery grid, my experience has always been to we have to default to the group uh monitor. So group is not going to pull in as much reimbursement as individual services. But if we get audited and somebody said
prove that you were giving this student individual services, I couldn't by going to the grid and the grid really is probably the primary thing that they look at when they do audits relevant to a circuit breaker or a school choice in agreement. Um, so that's one of the
reasons that I made sure that we're focusing this year on getting the small group, the individual and the group identified clearly in the service delivery grid and trying to make sure that any entries relevant to staff. This is another issue that again I'm not sure
what past practice was relevant to claiming but if you have special ed teacher paraprofessional you have to default to the paraprofessional as the reimbursement rate not the special ed teacher. So during meetings I've been
making sure that is it the special ed teacher or the pair professional that's actually providing the service. If it's the special ed teacher, the reimbursement rate will be higher than the pair of professional. We want to make sure that we're accurately claiming those funds, but also clearly
identifying who it is in the service delivery that is actually providing the service. So, I think those two things uh may have impacted, you know, previous the fact that I am trying to be very specific that if we get audited, somebody's not telling us, hey, look,
you shouldn't have claimed it like this. you owe us money back and this will be taken out of the next claiming session. Want to make sure that things are accurate and that we're not if we get audited that we're not actually being put in a position where the money is going going to be taken out on future
planning. >> So are you saying it's possible that the numbers that we're getting because again the school choice money that we get this year is for services rendered last year. So that it might be lower than the previous year because your practices are different than the previous person's practice. Not saying you're doing it wrong, you were perhaps doing it better
and more accurately than done previously. >> Differently about that being because if if there is a difference in numbers, it's either we're not claiming enough and I don't see how I would be doing that by going over the service. This process takes me
for doing school choice increment probably about three weeks. And I'm not talking about like an hour a day type of thing. I'm talking about full days to get the entire process done because I am going through each individual IEP and making sure that um and and it's not
just one IEP I'm going through. It's the current IEP and the previous IEP that probably occurred for part of that year plus extended school year services which it's all part of the same form but it's going through each version of the IP. So
if there's previous IEP and then a new IEP was written in January, then there's the new IEP for that time period. If there was an amendment done, then there's the amendment that's also looked at along with extended school year services. So it's it's a timeconuming
process and trying to be as specific and accurate as I can be with the entries. >> Is there a reasonable way to calculate how much the district should expect over and above in some of that 5,000 per student? Like are you like are you able to say
like I have build through school choice for x number of dollars. So we should see that much in excess of the 5,000 per student coming back in the next year as like a double check. >> Yeah. Uh because school choice increment is done really in May. If I speculated
now, I'd be speculating on new IEPs that haven't been developed yet. So I I could if we're assuming like if I took every active IEP right now and I went through school choice increment billing and I came up with with a number that would be
based on the assumption that all services are staying the same. >> Okay. But can you take I'm sorry to jump in the middle but can you take what was turned in last May and verify that what we're getting from the state is what you would have expected based on what you
recorded in May. Yes. Okay. >> Can we get that number? >> I don't see why not. >> Okay. >> Because I mean we can extrapolate the 691 time n number of students and know
what the excess is. So we can see if that 191 time n number of students actually matches roughly what you would have expected and we can know if there's a a glitch that we need to look into or not. Thank you. Um, sorry for the tangent.
Moving on. Um, >> it's the value of a teacher or two. Like we're we're not letting little things go because every dollar counts. >> Yeah. >> I also wanted to understand why. >> Um, so just an update on our school
choice funds. Um, for this year we budgeted um over a million dollars. a million $1,70,617 to expend from our school choice revolving account. Um
uh we are then adding in an additional uh sum of money because our special ed costs uh tuition and transportation are $315,710 more than we budgeted for. Um, so after any adjustments and transfers, we're
going to be adding almost $260,000 from our remaining school choice funds to the current year's budget, bringing total choice spending to a little over 1.3 million for the year. Um, which is going to put a sizable dent. Um, and that sum is, you know, the amount that's
rolled over yeartoear plus whatever we're getting throughout the year. Um so with the increased spending this year which is substantial and um you know the lower rate that we're getting this year on a per student basis u for choice
reimbursement we are going to reduce our forecast for how much we're going to get in choice next year even though we have more choice students. Um and that's um we're forecasting it to be our total amount to be about half what we had this year available to use. Um which will
necessitate changes in spending for our budget for next year. Um the town is in their own predicament with finances with in particular with the insurance increases of about 40% in the last five months. Um so their ability to help us
make up any deficit will be probably very limited to behind. Um and at the bottom there's just some highlights of how much our uh special ed costs have increased. So last year um you can see on the chart that we had
just a little under $300,000. We had $275,000 was our tuition budget last year. This year we budgeted 401,000 but our forecast is now just shy of 680,000. We don't really expect those numbers to get better next year.
>> But what we can expect to get better, the silver lining is what we get from circuit breaker next year. >> Yes. >> So >> with the caveat of how well is it going to be funded? >> Yeah. We we all need to do whatever we can to help encourage our state
representatives to make sure that circuit breaker is fully funded. Um because if it's not, we're that would be a significant issue for us. So um we we could be looking at you know
and about 500,000 more in circuit breaker next year if it's funded. which will help some of which will help offset part of those school choice funds
because we're spending school choice funds this year to cover special ed costs that then gets reimbured through circuit breaker but it's going to still leave a gap and until and we're working to put
the FY27 budget together early as in the next several weeks so that when we come back and talk to you in month, we will have more detail, but we don't want it to be a surprise. So,
different this year than in past, we're looking to do transfers early. And this is one of those like it's a better budgeting practice because it allows the um school finance subcommittee to track dollars after after the shuffle has
happened. So the bulk of our expenditures are in salaries. That's you know that's how things work. And every year anytime we have to hire someone that came in they may fall in a different place on the grid. And so
there's lots of little tweaks to manage for salary adjustments with the staff that we actually have, not the staff that we had it a year ago when we budgeted. Frequently, they're close, but there's always a little bit of change. And by making transfers now, it allows
us as we go through the year to better track that we're we actually have the dollars left that we think we do because the system will then report out like, oh, you're at 40% of your spending and we're like 40% of the way through the school year. Makes it a lot easier than like, oh yeah, we're going to have to
transfer at the end of the year. We may still need to do some transfers at the end of the year, but this will help it be more transparent if we have hiccups coming um or funds left over. it'll be easier to see >> from a school finance perspective. It's much easier to do that rather than in
October have it say like, "Oh, we've already spent 110% of that account's funds, but we'll just figure it out in April." Um, >> it makes for a lot of panicked meetings and less sleep because feels like a little bit of a roller
coaster when you do it that way. So, um, the transfer summary, the front page shows you here's it. It's a little bit different than how we've looked at it in the past. You've got the line item, what the what the projected costs are based
on everything we started the year with, what we budgeted for that need, and then what the difference is. Um, and the flip side of that is here are the receiving accounts. here's what here's what we the actual need is. Here's what we budgeted
and all of those are are deficits. So, one page shows the here's where we had extra funds. We budgeted a little bit more than we ended up needing. And the other side is here's the places we need to fill some gaps. And then you can see the big gaps are special ed tuition for
171,000 and a gap in special ed contractual services for 140 transportation for 30 34,000 44,000. So we didn't have enough
in where we were over to cover all the gaps. So there's additional choice dollars that help fill in those gaps. So, we're really looking for two votes tonight. One to approve the transfers for 579,754.91. That's just shuffling between lines so
that we get them in the right places. And then a second vote to shift funding out of school choice reserves and into the FY26 budget. So, that's essentially what we're short in our budget.
And we're fortunate that we have it in school choice reserves right now to be able to do that because in past years when we hit this point, we would be we would be reaching out to town and asking for funds, questions, >> anything you wanted to add?
>> Nope. I'll make a motion to approve the transfers of 579,754 and 91 cents as presented. >> Is there a second? >> I'll second.
>> Thank you. All in favor of making the transfers as stated? >> I. Any opposed? Okay. And is there a second vote? Second motion
>> to approve the shift of additional funding from school choice reserves to the fiscal year 26 budget of $258,870 as presented. >> There a second. >> I'll second it.
>> Thank you. Green. All in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Okay, moving on to the policy subcommittee um who is sharing with us student contact on school buses.
>> So, um boy, we felt so proud that we accomplished so much and then I see everything the finance committee did. >> I know >> you should still feel bad. Well, I'm also mindful that it is after 9:00. So,
um policy continues to work on um updating and aligning all of the policies related to student conduct. So, that was the major work that we completed um this last year and was voted on over the summer. And now
there are all these other policies that are related to conduct that we want to make sure are um updated and in alignment with sort of our intentions. So today we have for you student conduct on school buses. Um there is a clean
copy in the policy report and then the link leads you to the track changes copy. Um I want to just point out to the committee that policy JIC the current student conduct on school buses is very short policy and then there is an
attached procedure JIC-R. Um as a committee we've been trying to eliminate some of these procedures um and move them into a procedure manual. That work is ongoing. However, when we
started reading the JIC-R, there were some really important points that we did feel belonged in the regular policy. Um, and actually most of what was in this procedure was not really
procedural. It felt more like policy to us. So that is um you know if you're looking at the track changes copy um this whole section on expected conduct aboard the bus is modified from the
previous procedure and the section regarding notifications regarding misconduct and like our process around misconduct that also is modified from um the old JIC-R.
So I hope that makes sense. um policy is happy to take any feedback or comments about our work. >> Are you anticipating this will come back? >> There's no vote on the agenda. >> Correct.
>> So it will come back. Okay. which is why this is you have anything you want to say about it, let us know so we can make your make >> and when it does come back for a vote, we will be voting on JIC as the current, but we'll need to
eliminate JIC. >> That will be our plan. >> Gotcha. I'm appreciative for the updates. They look good to me. >> You just meshed them together and >> clarified some things. Anything else,
committee? >> Okay. Thank you. >> We'll see you in November. >> Thank you both. >> Yes. >> JICC. >> Um and if anyone from the public has issues about school bus conduct, um very
quickly tonight, uh just a little housekeeping, there is a Lions Club graduation award. There is a long-standing agreement. It's just been updated about the timing. all it did. Um, but because it came in as an
amendment to the agreement, it wasn't something I could just sign off on. So, um, I'd like to make a motion to accept this amended agreement um, from the Hatfield Lions Club, which continues on the practice that they have had in
supporting our students, and it's much appreciated. They just want to update the timing. Is there a second for that? >> I'll second. >> Okay. >> I have a question. Okay. Open. >> Um the change is that
the annual award will be given out at the commencement exercises to past awardees as well because it's or is this isn't the one that is
for four years that they do. No, that's the trustees. that do that. I'm sorry. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> This is just But they weren't giving it at the with all the other stuff. So, this just shifts it in. >> Okay. >> Folds it in instead of doing it after the fact.
>> So, all it did was change the timing. >> Unless you know something else. >> Was it being done at the lion's banquet before or >> I've only been to one lion's banquet and I I don't think they did they didn't do a word there. I think it was happening after graduation. Okay. Which would
suggest no. I'm not 100% sure on that. So, I apologize to the Lions Club if I've got that wrong, but Riley and I talked about this a while back. We just didn't have a meeting like it was like right after our last meeting. So, all in favor of the amended agreement,
which you've had a chance to read, say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. and I'm signing and I'll pass it through. Um, with that, I'd um like to make a
motion to go into executive session with the intent to return to general session. Um this is pursuant to master neural law chapter 30A section 21A to discuss the reputation, character, physical condition of mental health rather than professional competence of an individual
or to discuss the discipline or dismissal of or complaints or charges brought against a public officer, employee, staff member, or individual. This requires a a second and then a roll call vote. Is there a second? >> Um are you inviting anyone in?
>> Actually, I made the motion. I'd like to make a motion to go into executive session and we will will we we will have one guest with us. >> Okay. >> You say that >> I thought you did who you're inviting in because it has to go on record in the minutes of who is invited in.
>> Okay. And uh Principal Petra is invited to join us. >> I'll second. >> Um Udro I. >> In Englehart I bench I >> Sullivan I. >> Okay.
And so with that, um, we're going to go downstairs and we will be back.