hi good evening it's February 10th 2025 I'm Christy BRD calling to order the Hatfield school committee meeting it's our February business meeting and as we um come back in from executive session uh we want to go straight to public comment this evening and I think we have someone with us for public comment welcome just speak into this okay please do and if you'll tell us who you are that
would okay I'm Briana Yaga jinsky the mom of Brinley yiny she's a student at Hatfield Elementary prek um and the reason I'm here today um is to discuss Brinley moving up from prek to kindergarten um Brinley has completed two full years of prek and has demonstrated clear academic and social emotional readiness requiring her to remain in prek for a third year would
not only be unnecessary but could also hinder her continued growth Brinley is fully prepared for the academic expectations of kindergarten she recognizes letters writes her name follows multi-step directions and actively engages in learning activities socially she builds strong relationship communicates effectively and thrives in structured settings most importantly she has already formed friendships with peers who will be moving on in kindergarten and keeping
her into pre while they Advance could create unnecessary emotional distress and just disrupt her sense of belonging one of my greatest concerns is brinley's ongoing speech therapy research consistently shows that language development is best supported through peer modeling particularly with age same age or older children if she remains in prek she primarily would be surrounded by younger students with less Advanced speech patterns which could slow her
progress instead of supporting it as a parent my priority is ensuring that she continues to develop strong communication skills in an environment that challenges and nutures her growth additionally I recently met with both brinley's teacher and the principal who expressed concerns that Brinley is a follower rather than a leader however this observation does not align with the criteria for kid the garden Readiness leadership is a
skill that develops over time and being a Cooperative engaged learner who follows instructions and interacts well with others is equally if not more valuable at this stage her ability to participate meaningfully in classroom activities and navigate social interactions demonstrates her preparedness for kindergarten I understand that policies exist to provide structure but but I urge the committee to consider whether rigid adherence to a cutoff date is the best
interest of children like Brinley I am also aware that there is an existing policy allowing certain children on an IEP who begin prek early to advance given that Brinley has completed two years of prek and has an i IEP I respectfully request that this policy be expanded to include students with late summer birthdays who have demonstrated kindergarten Readiness a flexible approach would ensure that children are
placed in environments that best support their individual development Brinley is at a pivotal stage in her development holding her back to an arbitrary date rather than her proven abilities could have lasting effects on her confidence social emotional well-being and educational progress I urge you to consider this request with brinley's best interest in mind and allow her to advance to kindergarten where she will be appropriately challenged and supported I really appreciate your your
time and consideration in this matter thank you for coming to speak tonight um and I appreciate it's it's a lot to come forward in a public meeting and I I know you have to go um and there's a conversation so public comment just as a reminder to the committee and to those who are tuning in our public comment is never a discussion period um it's a chance to hear um and then later this evening we do have some stuff on our agenda to have a conversation about
policy JB on insance age okay and so um that'll be later in the discussion okay and anyone who wants to tune in can watch us on uh YouTube okay perfect thank you thank thank you um so and I don't see anyone else joining us through Zoom so we can end our Zoom portion of the night thank you we are zoomed out and with that we can turn to Mission moments if we have things we want to
highlight where we are meeting the mission of our district I just came from a mission awesome um so tonight was senior night for our girls um basketball team and we celebrated three seniors uh this is their last home game of their of their career well until um tournament so last scheduled home game uh and it was wonderful we had a huge turnout of both Community m and students um so the the zoo crew was alive and well and it was
really nice others yes we have um at the elementary school for grades three through six unfortunately none of the seven eight of us who are offering an after school club um but I did have a lot of quite a few staff reach out and ask about being able to conduct an after school club so we're doing an 8-week session starting right after the uh February break and I'm exced excited to say that we have a lot of interest in um the many offerings that we have this
this school year and can you tease us with what clubs are coming um we have Dungeons and Dragons there's an acting Club a knitting club um a rock band club a math club a board game club I think there's a sport one and sports club thank you right yes kids were my kids were super excited I need to send their stuff
with them tomorrow that's awesome um and I guess I want to also just give a little Mission moment shout out um to Riley this week I don't know if anyone else saw just the she got a little emotional support certificate from a student this last week which was really touching because that's not previously technically part of her role but certainly is something that she delivers to the district year in and year out so I was glad to see
students appreciating that as much as I think we all do so thank you Riley um anyone else have a mission moment tonight okay so um with that you'll notice that the consent agenda has two months worth of minutes on it anything that needs to come off of that great so December and January business meeting minutes are approved and there was a student representative report you had a chance to pre-ad and um unfortunately
our student is at work this evening but we thank Emma for putting a report together who is our student rep Emma um oh my goodness it's l when you go on it it's in the she put it in the heading it's in the heading okay Emma tale thank you thank you so I didn't see it it's heading the top yep sorry about that um so with that we will move straight in we have sort of a dual presentation tonight
in a way we had scheduled a check-in um about our sort of year-long look at umal stuff but we also had um bumped our district mental health uh presentation last month to talk about student services and so we decided they're kind of very um commona and so we could have one big presentation this evening and with that I turn over to Dr Driscoll for introductions sure let me just pull the
presentation up here Mr Sullivan could you close that door it's really loud
it's how was it shared to you because I haven't it was shared through email and I thought I had added a shortcut in here earlier today nope right John is there I can stop sharing my screen while I open my Nobody seeing it right now the YouTube isn't seeing it
just we're seeing it so we're all going to look away so you can check your email yeah thank you yeah I got one earlier I thought I had I had opened it and thought I had put it into the ating my eyes that's all right or just stop sharing hopefully you just click that [Music]
is sorry about that I really thought I'd put that shortcut in there earlier today okay all right so um tonight uh can everyone see it on their thing tonight we're talking about
uh well two things how we are doing with oural um our oural initiatives this year uh and and how things kind of are are going culture-wise and um you know Behavior wise that that kind of stuff in our schools um so I'm going to turn this over to uh F to start with um when you're ready for me to hit the next thing just let me
know all right great I'm going to have to look over here because my laptop decided to take a break for the evening just to start with um uh and I know we have kind of some limited time so the presentation itself got some other longer things in I'm skipping through some things but just start with just a question for everyone is the percentage of teens who live with a severe mental mental illness what would be your gu if you said a percentage um so at any point in our in our given classes folks they
guess I promise 40% 40% okay great great any other guesses I would have gone for 205 yeah yeah it's actually in the United States it's 22% so that means in any given grade that we have 25 students we can expect that five of our students are you know at the level where they need to receive some kind of um uh Medical Care
around oh you're G to switch it out Sor okay might I also have just gotten over about of leitis so it could be my voice don't wow and and for more information just at the bottom what i' like to do is give a little resource and that's our resource through collaborative that does a lot of work with us um and so there's there's one um if you wouldn't mind clicking cuz I can't so uh just I'm not going to go over this but I just wanted to list out the number of Staff um you
know that we have that um all participate in this we have folks who umcl and mental health um supports are built into uh their presentations but we also have folks that support and you can see it's really everybody um everybody at Hatfield has a shares a piece of this um so so while I'm speaking to this I have a huge number of people who are doing amazing stuff and um I'm just a the very tip of the Iceberg right now um so we did a trauma inform school training uh for Smith Academy staff uh
and that was in September um and the topics we kind of covered you can see here were adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress folks have probably heard of fight flight and freeze response um those have been looked at in terms of responses and there's also a couple more flop and fawn um which we're which are which uh won't get into here but are other things that we recognize when folks are really overwhelmed and in a point where they can't really make make decisions well for themselves um that these are things that we see uh I
we know child resilience is so important to remember and we talk about executive functioning supports collaborative collaboration with our students in problem solving mindfulness um and positive relationships are so are just really important uh parts for our kiddos our students and uh we also uh did a youth Mental Health First Aid training and these are for folks who um who support adults who work uh in this case work or
support youth um and that was one session of about 30 folks and really what that took a look at was learning about risk factors think learning about early intervention and how to help um an adolescent or youth in a mental health crisis or a mental health challenge um and then there's a model on the other side which I can I'm happy to talk about at a later time and then we also did dub Tales into that as we did team mental health first aid and this is with our 11th graders and what we spoke with them about is again looking to identify signs early warning signs how to support their
peers and then when to get an adult involved and and the different ways they can do that so again trying to like connect these pieces which are so important uh we also have um a signs of suicide class that we run um it's actually just run in January in the high school it's for seventh and 10th grade and um again this is a through the I should say all of these are are um uh Grant funded that we managed to find
different grant funding for so this is through the Department of Public Health and is available uh to high schools and middle schools in Massachusetts and um and so this is something we just did and again it helps to very specifically helps um speak to our students about how to identify signs possible signs U of suicide um in their peers and again who to turn to and where to get help uh we're also coming up on actually we
did one um in the fall I'm going to do another one um that's espert screening brief intervention and referral to treatment this is our substance use screen um as we know um substance use and mental health challenges and crisis are tied very closely together and so this is something that we do in our seventh and ninth grades again this is usually run through our our nurse with support from our counselors um but what this really does is identify students who are at risk um so we're looking to see at risk and how we can support them and then how uh how we can support them
here at school and then sometimes how we can support them out of school how to get connected for those folks who are really struggling with substance use uh one of the terrific things we're able to do this year is many many things but this deep uh dph grant that we did with folks worked so hard on um and we were able to access that and that provided us um with a ton of things um some of of the things we highlight at our second step curriculum which I'll be talking about a little bit uh part-time
um uh social emotional learning mental health assistant who's at Hatfield Elementary School um as well as supplies and then our Swiss Chico technology which is actually um what that is is that sounds very U very fancy and and a little uh a little European but really what that is is american-based and what that's about is uh having Behavior Support plans and what we do is the these are Behavior Support plans that are available um for all students who
may need those we have a process that we go we access it through the BST and it's something that can be done um where instead of having a student that might have be on um seever like a couple different students in a classroom that have very different Behavior plans these are all pretty consistent so that teachers get familiar with them staff get get familiar with them and folks can really um be supportive in that way it's something where students get immediate um feedback during class time as well as connecting with somebody help support
them um using strategies to address things so again a pretty um a pretty neat thing that we're we're able to act we're just literally just starting to access we got this I think two weeks ago we got the software and then we've been collecting some data for about a month six weeks month all right the next slide is a behavior tracking form this is new this year that we've been utilizing with staff we specifically called it a behavior tracking form because we've been encouraging both staff and esps to
complete a write up of this um that they share with me um and then um we meet every Friday as a team to begin talking about ways to strategize to help students so you can see that in September um and and again I staff can fill these out if they want um and share them with me so if they have fill them out and not share them with me I wouldn't have this data but of all the ones that have been shared with me you can see that we had some and September we started to have a higher number of ones in kindergarten in first in which
we began starting to put some things in place and then you can see a considerable drop in the number of um Behavior tracking form completion papers based on some of the things that we had put in place for both kindergarten and first grade students because those numbers then significantly began to decrease and that's what the numbers are looking like right now and if I might just add here before I move on I think it's really important to note that um you know those of decreases don't just occur um that that's a result of the hard work of the
teachers at the elementary school and and the team here um and and quite honestly the um the priorities that we we set in the work that that has been um been aiming to address that we heard last year and toward the beginning of this year that one of the challenges that uh folks were um were concerned about was some of some of the the um Behavior at the elementary school and you know since things have been put in
place supports have been put in place for different students um we're we're seeing now that we are are seeing the benefit of those plans not that there's not more work to do um but that you know when we put interventions in place uh they work can because we're here I just want to clarify is it optional to turn in the forms or are we asking staff please turn in Behavior tracking forms because we want to capture the data I just I want
to just understand that clearly can you clarify if it's a request or just it was provided to all staff as far as an expectation that they could be using using this and that the only way that we can get information to move forward is if it's shared with me if they wanted to hold on to it and then have a conversation with parents they could do that but for the most part majority of them are coming to me if they even choose if it even if if a behavior even Rises to the level of them needing to fill it out I just want to
double check that we're not there's not a bunch of stuff that isn't showing up because someone's withheld back the form or we're changing the the impression through not having the data I just you have a question as well I yeah I simar finish yeah I also I had that question and I I'm sorry I don't know if I missed it is is there a specific behavior or is this just like any Behavior
just no what is what exactly is being reported any kind of disruption physicality um there's like a whole laundry list of things that that stuff that could possibly be on it I just want Clarity on like what people were actually reporting so things it would result in a referral to the principal okay it while I know you don't know if somebody didn't turn something in is the sense that this is reflective of kind of all that's going on or do you think that
there's more data somewhere that isn't getting turned in um I know that the upper grades there are definitely as you can see there are even some fourth grade teachers who have filled some of this out the fifth and sixth have not so much but I know I also know that there haven't been as many detentions I didn't ask them for specific hard and fast data on the amount of detentions that they have provided this year as opposed to last year here but I don't know if every time they've offered a detention because a student hasn't completed work or there
was some type of like um oppositional attitude thing where just like a refusal or just a flat out I'm not doing this is that the kind of thing that they would have filled this out just to give me the heads up that that was happening and then oh by the way I've implemented A detention for that student that I haven't had a conversation to find out if that's truly the thing but again if staff are filling these out and providing them to me then we are reviewing these when I'm we've got the the group together every Friday so that
we can then make plans to move forward with how to support students how to support staff yeah I see a lot of benefit to having good data that's consistent and so I'm glad it's getting collected um this kind of moves into um right we so I think I think one of the things too that we're sort of talking about is we've been trying to build in um training um and also accentuate kind of support um for for our for everybody
in the school but for a teacher as opposed to just a couple people everybody figuring out like what's the escalation um we had on the 21st January we had what we call kind of a booster plus and I I want to shout out too like we have this resource and that we have safety care um and we have an instructor here who's wonderful and we have folks who who take that um as take that train full training and really that's for um when we're talking about physical management of students like absolutely at the at this end where it's really
safety and we're concerned about it but part of that training which is so great is there's all of these deescalation pieces that go in um and so what we actually sat down and did and I think this is the first time we did this is we looked at our gcn review which is the deescalation that all teachers take every year in the beginning of the year and we reviewed that in the meeting and then we had our safety care folks build on that and offer their their um their ideas around um how to build up with that with u more specific Str strategies
help prompt weight for interesting and kind of addressing these issues one of the things that we did do in that meeting was we did collect um data on the different um and I don't have that in front of me but on the different um referrals that we had from the B Behavior tracking pieces and one of the things that we definitely saw was the big thing that was coming up was these power struggles it was disruptions in class or like you know Authority issues those were the ones the teachers sort of were
most concerned about when we were asking them as well as the data whereas the safety pieces you know where we're talking about physical aggression towards adults or peers or threats and those things were not um were not as much as these other pieces that people were reporting on the tracking we were able to do that so that was again I think talking about this idea about deescalate folks are getting in earlier identifying things earlier so that things don't escalate up to that point where um you know where we have I know it does at some points but not not the
same um I think where we're slowing that down with the deescalation it's a great job really that folks are doing um and this is uh uh we also you know again this is great work building in tiered Behavior Support so thinking about this not just as like you know oh this is either a classroom issue or you have to have an administrator involved but like rolling this into our tier one two and three interventions um so looking at this for instance going over Fidelity for take a break spaces in the
classroom understanding that that everyone understands that that our students understand that like being able to take that within um and then through the BST process and consultation like moving through in terms of tiered interventions about when more support might be needed but uh in that way giving the proper amount of support for students and allowing them to learn about their behaviors and um and then um giving them the the opportunity to learn how to
regulate um this is uh our check-in checkout which I mentioned before tier two it's again tier 2 intervention um and really it's broken down so that throughout the periods of the day students are given feedback on how they're doing um we have our our this is built on our three um positive behaviors that we look at um which is safe responsible and respectful right those are our three that we have um and so we look at those and we start those out and we give feedback on those and
then for some students we might Define those much more specifically for them what safe looks like them what respectful or responsible might look for them as we go in the tiered piece and then we also think about like how are we giving them feedback how are we supporting them and a lot of this is how to do that positively this is not a punitive piece it's a way of looking at Behavior identifying it saying how are we going to collaborate together you and I in order thinking about how to move this forward as opposed to being in this punitive piece of like NOP you can't do
this now you can't do that because then what happens is then right we're not really our our students who might be struggling with some regulation stuff around this aren't really participating um and then our second step um which is our social emotional curriculum uh and so that is at ATS K through five um all all of our all of our teachers are teaching that um those basically all four in at one time and
then on top of it all what um folks are starting to do is to integrate that into the projects and stuff that they're doing so for instance if we're talking about conflict with a friend um then some of the some of the academic topics might be like centered on that like talk about a time that you had a you had a conflict with a friend like what are some things that happened within that so it's a way of backing this up but again this is happening on um on what what turns out to be a week um uh a week what what averages out to be a weekly basis um and then um right
we have there high school students and middle school students are also um getting uh having part of that instruction happen and it's not so much through second step sum but also Cassel which is another social emotional learning curriculum that we that we use for middle and older student students which is sort of more age appropriate um this is is at ham at um sorry at Hatfield Elementary this is the nest um and so we've identified a nest a
spot um it's like a calm room or a coolout space where students can go terms of De uh checking in using their deescalation and regulation skills um take it also can be an alternative spot for learning spaces so again our students who may not be able to access the take a break in the classroom might go and then learn that in the smaller in this smaller space um um that's again that's available to everyone if they if they need it um and and then and then an
addition what we usually do around if it's if there's a regulation issue is showing that students ready to go back to class through like doing some academic work making sure they're regulated and and then coming back and following up with that and we're tracking these things as well so that's an example of one of the interventions that we had put in place earlier in the year that has had a pretty profound effect on uh student regulation and and um behaviors yeah yeah I think we I think we that that was
this year and pretty it was It was kind of in place and then it was really up and going like by I'd say early mid October um and that's one of the places that we saw I think that we were in the terms of the data like being able to help help with that we know how frequently students actually utilizing the nests um I we have that data I don't know off the top of my head I'm kind of like going to look look at yeah yeah I mean at this point we have students who actually anytime they use it um they're actually signing in so there is a
complete log of the amount of time both the student who enters the adult who may be with them and then the duration the time that they're checking in and the time that they leave so we can we have all of that data and we're trying to look at doing that electronically as well so kids could actually just click a button when they enter um on a an iPad so we can easily track that as well so is there a staff member assigned to the nest any given time of day or do that does the student have to like have their we have two two members two okay yeah am I right that the
nest used to be part of the teachers staff faculty room yes so our staff willingly gave up their faculty space no it was it was previously our a special education room before then it was but then I got transferred into being a special a reading interventionist room and then I got moved to being a special education room and then we moved that position downstairs to the first floor so that make left that space empty and
that was originally the place where we were going to put Jane wits and buer anyway as the behaviorist um it just seemed like it made the most sense because it was a place that was big enough that it was a good a size space but small enough that it wasn't such a huge classroom because there's definitely things in there that kids have access to yes exactly we used it the other day for meeting so yeah for negotiations it used to be the teacher work room they had cop there and supplies and other no I was just thankful for them to give up some space for having this I thought that was great
and I wanted to say with this Su this is definitely it's both a um if you will like a reactive place in that if a student really needs a space in that minute that's an option for them to go to but it's also proactive in that like students who have um some students have scheduled breaks in in terms of that will go to that room or scheduled check-ins with folks too so it's a multi-use room it's not just like someone some can't be in class so they're in there that's like used in a lot of different ways which is one of the reasons we have two staff there for
it's basically like one staff full day and then uh four hours for our second staff who's in there right and I don't know if you want to do Desa I can do you want to yeah oh okay um so the Desa is new this year and it's a computerized program in which the teachers are um answering questions on each student and then it gives a score and that score then shows us whether or not we have students who are in need of
additional support in the areas of self-management self-regulation um and this right now at least at the elementary school um we're looking to do this three times throughout the school year fall winter and spring we've had teachers do this in the fall we're about ready to do the next one in Winter after the break but we've taken this data and we have now sent out um a list we have students and grades K through through five in which we've identified students approximately 20 in total um that were below the cut
off which meant that they were in eligible for some tier 2 instruction so some small group with a peer model um and those letters have gone out so that we can start those groups after the break and likewise at Smith Academy um students or teachers of students have completed this as well uh and we use we use this as a similar kind of uh tiered approach so when students um score at different you know in the tier one tier two tier three levels we can use that
data to help support them in ways that that that work for them um so you know one of our goals is to set up um kind of similar to what has been done at the elementary school up here mentoring model like a big sisters Big Brothers kind of model uh where we can have um you know students who uh might excel in one capacity work with students who might you know need a little devel specifically younger maybe middle school students um peed with like a a high
school role model um so so this this gives us uh similar to what we've done what we've done academically with literacy with math this gives us actionable data about um social uh social emotional competencies for our students um and and really so teachers who see the same student as they're doing this they kind of talk to each other about you know are we all seeing this across the board is this a class specific you know thing and really get into conversations about well okay this
is only happening in in Mr Driscoll's English class so you know what's going on here that might be different um is it instructional is it um have to do with with topics um does the student just really not like to read um you know what what's going on um it allows teachers to kind of distill a little further in that respect we also um again we we continue to partner with River Valley Counseling Center which has been terrific as folks
probably know um right this is uh they provide Community Based therapy at school um so this is terrific in the way that it's accessible and convenient for our students familiar they're easy to collaborate they're L right literally the persons right next door to my my office in the um in the uh in the elementary school um and we can get quicker there's early intervention um as well as quality uh and then quality care we have you know um we have mental health professionals trained mental health professionals in our school
settings helping to support our students in that way so it's been it's been really successful I know it's been both at the elementary school and and at um Smith Academy and is um it's been a terrific resource I know we're we're looking we're we're looking for some more so uh so we're um working really well yeah and I will add um EP at Smith you know one of the things that I that didn't include here um was similar kind of behavior data that we're tracking um and and we've seen a similar Trend with
with um kind of declining severe behaviors that result in office referrals uh one thing that we're seeing this year and I don't know that it's it's um it's more this year but it you know it it feels feels big is that we've seen kind of a a number of students with more significant um um emotional needs that are arising in their lives whether that be happening at school or at home and brought into school we're not
talking about like disruptive behaviors but you know students that we have pretty pretty significant concerns about with with regard to um their their mental health uh and so having this partnership allows us to pretty quickly identify those students and pair them up with uh with outside counseling because that's what this is this is outside counseling that takes place during the school day so the student doesn't have to you know leave you know choose between sports practice and going to see a counselor they don't have to uh find
Transportation after school to get there um this is this is is kind of outside therapy sessions that occur in the school building um at a at a time that works for the student so it really allows us when you know we have a student who you know our our responsibility for the student is certainly when when they're at school um but if we have concerns about a student that go beyond beyond the school day and their mental health and their mental wellbe being we can pair them with a counselor they can meet during the school day to help meet those needs in a in a in a kind of more um wrapped around
wrapped round way than we could do just operating as a school really yeah and they meet year round um and it's been really really beneficial for the the students that need it um and their families quite frankly and then this is um this is something new the youth awareness solution Squad um so this is something started at Smith Academy um and what this is is a group of students that um
we're partnering again with spiffy and it really is a is an advocacy group um in terms of looking at things and um one of the big projects that happens they they created a course feedback survey um uh that teachers would administer and they get course feedback for teachers in terms of classes and things like that this is this is something that's like very specific for the teacher it's only for the teacher it's something that um has to do with any kind of um evaluative process but it's information so there's
a kind of give and take in terms of between the students and teachers about talking about their classroom um teaching as uh teaching as well as like culture and what it feels like to be in your class so it's sort of some um again first round on doing this uh again it's supported this isn't made up this is supported through spiffy so there's been a lot of evidence that suggests that uh um this is e EV evidence-based in terms of doing this and how to do this and what kind of questions you know they're not just pointed at people and like
really gives a positive way in terms of feedback um around that collaboration and again finding a way for our students too to have a voice um a voice in their education which is just great yeah and I'll add to that too that the um you know one of the my quite frankly one of my concerns with this was okay we're collecting feedback from students I you know we can't have this be any kind of evaluative measure whatsoever that would that would kind of go go against the contract um so we worked we we worked with spiffy um in in Yas and and the
teachers to kind of develop a way that it would be kind of kept confidential but also compiled by someone uh or or not not the students but by spy outside of the school um to give that that feedback to the teachers and it was optional teachers could choose to um you know they could choose to take part in it or not um and I think we had all teachers decide hey this would be great to collect get data on how like you know how how things are going from perspective of students um and I think
all teachers did it uh so they you know they get that feedback that goes specifically to them it does not come through the office we don't we don't see it at all then it allows them to kind of make any changes that they they might think um would be beneficial to their students the other thing that that um that Yas did I keep want to call them spiffy they not spiffy they're Yas um the other thing that that Yas did that I thought was pretty neat was they they pulled students um to kind of see what
what interests they had or they might have in um additional courses you know what what courses that they'd like to see us offer and this is something that we have done kind of yearly anyway um and we were able to take some of that that input that they had um as we looked to develop the those uh Vermont State University partnership courses um and so we'll be able to for courses that were kind of in in high demand or high interest from our students um through that partnership which will be which
will be great all right and this is our closing question here which which is um I think where is it if you pop it one more time I think it's basically what is the most consistent protective factor for a youth I'm not going to accidentally hit it and give it away this time anybody know protective meaning like when we're talking about mental health the most consistent like when you look at all the research there's one thing that always Rises to the top is being the most consistent protective
Factor anyone anyone want to take a take a guess okay I'm still interpreting that question yeah you want to give us multiple choice multiple choice if I give multiple choice they give well you think a protective factor for a youth right might be like playing sports right um that could be like their their access to community could be their friends group right right all of those things you know any of those things those are some
examples I'll say family very close school one one trusted adult one one trusted adult doesn't have to be family doesn't have to be school-based can be Community one trusted theol that that resilience piece it's amazing when it does for all the risk factors and so often I I put that there because often sometimes like we talk about these things and it feels so overwhelming it's like what can I do and I always offer like just go look in the mirror CU like you really are the answer to this like
taking a time to like develop one you know a trusting relationship with with one youth means tons to them and it's just very very clear um so that was my that's my close out for this um and then I think we just have questions oh and I forgot the resource for that at the bottom because I always do that is Hatfield Public Schools so that's our resource for one trusted adult committee I'm betting you have some questions um I had one about the
trauma informed training you did at Smith Academy is it going to be done at the elementary school yeah we're looking we we have um yeah we have some I think we were looking we're talking about doing it in the spring I'm going to kind of flip some things too and do um one of the trainings in the fall that was done at the element Elementary School we're going to do um um up at Smith Academy so I think we're talking about flipping those in the spring it's just a matter of we we don't
have enough training days and then how how do we um ass assist and inform new staff that we get with the trauma informed training or with restraint or deescalation um you know this year this Collective staff is getting this training but if we get new staff members
next year how are they going to get on board with that information that's a great question I think one of the things that we've talked about as a admin team as well as with with our schools uh when it comes to professional development is getting into kind of a cycle of PD that um makes sure that teachers get because because this this this training it also satisfies the PD requir PDP requirements excuse me that Desi sets for relationship um and so as we as we do this you know part of the goal is
to make sure that um we we we're doing this in a kind of a cyclical way that comes back so that after five years go by staff have their 15 pdps in in each each area that they need um and that that need is identified kind of by by staff every year like okay this year you know we're looking at um at at the high school for example um elll training so students who for whom uh
English may not be their first language you know that was seen as as kind of a need and so that's happening this year and will happen you know again in a couple of years with something like trauma informed teaching um that's done you know it's not like uh you know we're doing it once and then we'll do it again in five years to you know just satisfy that rotation it's more ongoing um and it may be something that you know rather than spending one year getting your 15 pdps in in ell training you may spend you
know you might get uh over the course of five years you may do three hours every year uh with that so that it's it's more you know it it it comes back quicker and better learning process PD tracker track all that stuff it does and the other the other piece is that you know when we have um a more acute need that's identified you know we can have we have those full day day sessions or we can we can kind of cater what we offer um on some of those
sessions to um to teachers who may be you know for for whom that might be a real um urgent more urgent need um just just adding oh sorry oh no I I was just going to add about the trauma form stuff is at the bottom of one of those is um it's the Massachusetts oh my gosh I'm forgetting the issue but it's the trauma informed website on Massachusetts specific and what that has actually built in there is it's got two two books on trauma informed care and it has lessons that
are broken down as small as like 15 minute videos that then are broken down in discussion so it lends itself to um both um to to adding to these briefer or smaller moments that we have for staff training on these things I think that are really important um the thing I wanted to say too I know one of the things just in terms that that um we heard at that at the Elementary School is we figured we would do the deescalation booster training in January halfway through the year and the feedback we got was it's great can we do
it earlier in the year so it's like oh great of course yes like maybe do it two or three months in and then look to you know again um looking hearing from teachers what what they're hoping for and what's effective for them as we're trying to kind of figure out like having these discussions and not wanting to overwhelm folks but also be like we want to provide support so sorry I that's I wanted to those pieces actually totally fine you kind of answered my question I I was mostly you know the
whole first part of the presentation was about these different trainings and my question was going to be about the feedback or data we've gathered on the trainings and how we are knowing that they were successful or well received um but it sounds like people liked it yeah I have a follow-up question though about new hires new staff do is there some mechanism that you check with them on trainings that they have done or how do you know a new hire would
need this trauma training or the deescalation or the restraint training like yeah and that's a fair question and truthfully right now we do not have a good mechanism for that um you know even if someone comes into the district with a wealth of knowledge and and a background in some of this stuff you know the goal would be to have them on the same page as as as the rest of the staff too so it's possible that someone you know someone may come in with having
done um some kind of trauma informed training that might be slightly different than what we offer and we just we want to be able to make sure that we offer our our own training and our own onboarding to them so that they're using the same language that you know students going to have the same experience when they go from one class to to another um even even if that person has had has had that training um so that gets to a couple a couple of things that gets to uh our onboarding process during the school year um so okay when when someone
joins our team um you know are we are we front-loading some training for them are we you know we you know if so if there's a mid-year vacancy and someone comes in we want them to kind of hit the ground running and get started um but the risk in doing that is is getting started and going you know quickly without having that kind of Baseline um the flip side of that is of course that that the trainings kind of you know if someone's here for a decade you know the trainings
compile over time and so it's you're not going to get a decade worth of of PD in the first two weeks of so that someone's on the job so really it involves kind of trying to prioritize what you know what we feel is most important identifying the time that is going to be able to get that that new hire up to speed or as close to up to speed as possible in a short time um and the other piece then is for and this is something we've been we've been looking at and working on um is for for teachers who are in staff who are hired over the summer uh for the following year having some kind of
orientation that includes uh parts parts of of this training and this work um so that they really are ready on day one to start the job with you know at least kind of a baseline understanding of what we do why we do it and how we do it here thank you so this is kind of a silly question following on to this the stuff that's the materials that are a aailable to pull through when you want to go find it and you you as opposed to
what we're pushing out um whether they're physical or digital do all those things live in a shared space so if you had somebody who was going to go look for it they would know where to go and it would all like there's a theoretical I say I think again right aspiring aspirations aspirationally aspirations I think what our big aspiration like we looked around today like not today we looked around this year and we went okay we have all these analog ways of collecting data how
can we start moving to more digital ways so that's some of the things that we were looking at doing like creating Google forms for instance that of just paper forms getting this um check-in checkout da data for instance and so I think we we have noticed that and we're trying to move towards that but for for example the check-in checkout data um is is is is I think it's almost or on the cusp of being completely available for the entire school system so in other
words all of that would be anybody would be any you know um you know we'd be able to get data for everybody on that so those are the kinds of things we're trying to do aspirationally um I think I was even just thinking about the training materials themselves yeah so that if you if we've paid for or given a training that we own that we might come back around to that that those materials are together and available so it's doesn't walk away if somebody leaves the district or there's there's ways that
people can find all of that is that I know at Smith Academy we have a shared drive folder uh not it's not a drive it's a folder it's a shared folder and within that folder we have different different subfolders of trainings past trainings that that kind of thing so we have those materials there um I truthfully don't know how often they're accessed um but I'm happy to Point people that direction um if if the occasion arrives together if they want
it other thoughts I guess I just want to share that I'm I'm reflecting a lot tonight hearing all of this back many years I spent part of today looking at some materials I was looking for budget stuff I will confess and I went back into like stuff that came out of 2020 and um I can't help but sit here tonight and look back at the conversations Becca and I were part of a few years back and how
much we were like we really need to talk about seal and in the massive shift and the growth that the district has put towards this is really impressive and so we're always going to look for more we can do and I appreciate that too but it also I can't help but feel like wow we've come a long way baby you know it's just like this is a big step forward and I think the the
data Melissa shared at the beginning is like reflective of of the work so thank you all for that I appreciate it is it's I agree I'll just like cosign what you just said this is It's really this is great huge shift forward in the right direction absolutely so thank you um and Dr Bill if you wanted to
leave you would understand you don't have to sit through the whole meeting that would be okay I mean we're really fun though no we didn't even bring snacks or anything the laryngitis that I had this the last week I unfortunately gave to the rest of my family so I was able to go home that might that might alleviate some of the guilt that I'm feeling about that little baby have like little raspy PR oh it's bad yes thank you for joining thank you so
much appreciate it thanks okay so it's 8:30 I just want to check in with the committee there's some very uh insightful reports that have come in do I think we might want to have we probably have some questions for admin reports this evening can we T take some highlights and some questions I just have a broad question of how are we doing on school choice and preschool applications
for so uh school choice we have uh 15 now uh 15 applications and we have our Lottery coming up on Friday if we need it um and you know how many we have I don't have I don't know I don't have a number off hand but I do know that we have been compiling them and I know that this Friday is the deadline so I can definitely send something out tomorrow just as a quick friendly reminder I keep seeing Heather blader come in every day and like put another one on the current preschool so we know exactly who is still coming back from next year but we have been I I haven't had a chance to
ask Michelle what an Upstate number is are you saying 15 for Smith Academy 15 15 districtwide kindergarten through 12th grade school that students but under understanding that preschool piece is really key right now if you can help them gently remind them that whether we have one prek class or two prek classes right we really like to have two it
would be lovely yes um but we've got to have the tuition to support that I was wondering if if Dr J if you've established kind of like in your mind where would be the cut off between having one large preschool class or two classes and and like you know where would it end up we like okay we're just going to go for one and we'll have a lottery for the one and we have 25 applicants which doesn't quit support to know where your numbers are yeah and I it would change depending on how many were tuition wouldn't
it well yes and no if we didn't if we had I mean it would it would really you have to have um as many students who are are high school students are not on IPS as you do who are on IPS you you want to have above a 50% ratio um so the the cut off would would be tuition based for financial cut off but um I I think it was I wanted to I want to say it was 24
students full-time like full-time equivalent students so 12 in each class um would be would be at least a break even Point um for two classes for two classes yeah um okay it it was 14 you're right um thank you yeah so it would it would be 28 28 24 but depending on the number of kids that were applying that had IEP like
there is right yeah that's the part where it starts to become specific to right the needs of your class yeah and so you know if you had if you had 28 students who applied and 14 of them were on I APS because that's the 50-50 ratio we wouldn't be talking about a break even point then um with 50% not paying tuition but we would be required to have that that number but we might break even if we had a lower number ofs so there's a little yeah so that may be the 12 and
it also depends on um how many you know what sometimes students are there Tuesday Thursday versus Monday Wednesday Friday so it's we're talking full-time you know full-time equivalent so either one student Monday through Friday or one student Tuesday Thursday another one Monday Wednesday Friday combined to make one full time and I suspect the school Finance subcommittee would take a look at those numbers and there's a point at which like 12 versus 14 right you give a
little and and we also we want to be careful when we're getting you know because the the law is around preschool is a little gets a little tricky so if you have fewer than five students on iaps you can have up to 20 students in one classroom with a teacher and an aid um if you have if you go between five and seven students then you that suddenly that drops 15 the cap is at 15 with one student in one Aid um and that can change throughout the year so you know if you start the year with five
students all of a sudden you have uh student move into the district or become become eligible for an IAP then all a sudden you're above that ratio and you have to have to figure out how to finagle that um so it's you know there it's it's preschool itself is is more nuanced in that than any other than any other grade level by far uh in addition you also have three you know three age groups that are going into preschool um three three kind of what we would call
grade spans um going into it other questions um I just want to clarify is the district posted any new jobs lately yes we posted last week um we posted so we had a really great meeting with our special ed department and teachers and this follows up from John's presentation um about some of the challenges we've been experiencing in special ed and it
became uh it's become clear that we need some more support um at the elementary level for for a special ed um uh at this point we're not able to support that from Smith Academy by by sharing staff because we did reduce uh one special ed teacher at Smith Academy last year um so we did make the decision to post a an additional special ed position at the elementary school as of 4:30 this afternoon we had had no applicants yet um but we did just post it on Friday um
so we'll keep you know we'll keep pushing it and reposting it um it's a halftime position we we post it as a full-time position okay um to try to get as many uh many applicants as we could figured we would get more by by doing that um but it's a position that at you know as we get towards the end of the year and we look at needs for next year we'll be looking at you know if we're going to uh keep it or we're not going to keep that position because with the changing needs at the elementary school and bring sixth grade up to Smith Academy we'll have to just kind of
reassess so it's just a temporary position right now it's for this school year correct the through the rest of the school year other questions for administration did you have something earlier I did thank you totally forgot um tell USA the eight week classes that yes are going to happen
um am I remembering something about kids that are in after care participating in that and the fees or I'm not sure what I remember because as it stands now to do those classes cost $404 and so if a student in after care wanted to do one of these classes are they paying the parents paying an additional $40 for not so the only time
a parent is paying for it if their child goes to after care is that the course offering is on an afternoon that they aren't already attending okay otherwise it's we're not asking parents to double dip or double pay that doesn't make doesn't make sense we didn't do that last year either I didn't think so but I just wanted to clarify and in case any parents were wondering about that I did share that with and talked with Julie Lille about that as well in case she feel that any questions from F from parents as well awesome thanks
great then students after that are if they don't have after care they just leave like there's no bus correct or any they either have to be picked up or there needs to be arrangements made for pick up that's my plan ride their bu home or walk yep okay okay thank you you're welcome the I ready learning walks so it was just a representative from I ready just coming in making sure the teachers are comfortable with the software and everything correct they spent the entire
day and our reading interventionist um went with them so they went into classrooms and then once the classroom observation kind of like hang out with in the teachers space was done there was set up 15 to 20 minute debriefs afterwards in which the person was like Hey I noticed this is what you were doing and this was all great and wonderful and know by the way any kind of specific questions for me let's take a look at your data um they were there as a resource um I was not present so that teachers would not feel like it was evaluative and therefore would be free
and making sure they were honest with either things that they were still were struggling with or areas in which they were looking to get some more support that's part of the fee for the um purchasing of the I ready program they offer professional development um and I definitely at this point I was already using something for fall and then again they don't offer something that's just half days so I just felt like a full day of having someone just come in and setting it up in this way where they
could do learning walks and debriefs made the most sense to ensure that staff actually were able to participate how was the feedback from staff did they appreciate it I believe so I mean it's definitely that's one of the things we had uh spoken about at one of our plc's was that you know they were coming you know what are some of your big questions concerns beefs with the program um you know a lot of staff had shared with me that I and I was hoping they would share with the consultant was
the things that they're covering in the day-to-day lessons doesn't always reflective in the assessment and that was is a huge disconnect to them they're like I don't understand why I spend all of my time teaching this and then the question of the assessment has nothing to do with what I've been teaching that it makes no sense to me I'm like that's a great question to ask the consultant when they come in so those were definitely areas that I could Shar that I would you know wanted him to talk with them about but again I wasn't part of those other than they did participate and I'm I'm hoping they found it to be
valuable because it was definitely an opportunity for them to get questions answered particularly when it came to our upper grades teachers sharing that the typical growth I mean usually a lot of our kids who come in in the green or blue don't travel much they just stay exactly where they're at so the bigger question is why why are we not getting if nothing else you would figure that the students who seem to be most capable in math should be the ones hitting their typical growth score why are they not they just seem to Plateau um they'll make a little bit of gains but they
don't make that expected typical growth gain so we had conversations around whether or not we need to do more enrichment with those students and really kind of push them in small group rather than always looking at trying to kind of like fill the hole fill the Gap fill in um for other students so I'm glad to hear that's happening oh yeah which is part of the reason why Mr um Mr wner is offering a math club that's good I have a question for Dr s please Dr s yes it says you had a
CPAC meeting yeah did would you like to elaborate it was a meeting we actually have actually a um membership to Massac and Massac actually through the Federation offers different virtual trainings so we have what we're supposed to do every year is a basic rights training and because we don't actually have an organized SE P I have applied for a waiver uh to the state but one of the things we have to do if we don't have an organized CPAC is to provide
like three different trainings so this would be number one out of three okay um was it attended it was attended by three adults and myself oh okay yeah and we did talk about I took the opportunity before things got started and at the end of it uh to try to encourage folks to let me know if there was any interest in folks organizing our own CPAC and I actually did follow up with CES just to talk to them I could not make it to the advisory meeting but
I did ask them to put on the agenda if there was any interest in putting together a regional uh CPAC I gotta believe that'd be a good idea I think the question was some legalities about it yeah I hear that okay anything else okay well we're going to turn on to the fun conversation of school Finance sub report Mr okay um so starting with the fun
light-hearted stuff Dr Jal informed us that Esports will be starting uh in the spring and uh it's budget neutral so we like that um and it's GNA have Mario Kart um so I just highlighted that um I looked up what Google thinks are the best current Mario Kart drivers and it says that Yoshi and Wario are the best um but I tend to use Tanuki Mario or KC um uh we discussed facilities costs um we have almost fully uh spent our entire
facilities repair budget for the year um the numbers are there in your report we had budgeted $50,000 and we're we're pretty much there um hoping to have fewer HVAC uh issues because Dr tris's knocking on wood he got our two HVAC repair Partners we'll call them they together to try to coordinate things work um together between software and mechanics um so hopefully actually miss Petro our
rooms our temperatur is better balanced at the school I can say I at least have heat in the office area so people aren't walking in freezing anymore it was so nice to have them all playing nice in the sandbox together wow are our classrooms not 90 degrees anymore I can't say that that's not true on the second floor that's quite warm however um at least areas in the building that we're not receiving heat are actually getting heat um I think there's still some work to be done with trying to better temper the second floor so it's
not as warm but at least the places that are now we're complaining of being frigid are no longer frigid so that's exciting okay um still more costly repairs coming though even though we spent most of our budget but the entrance way uh at the elementary school if you have possibly noticed um is in need of repair it's being supported right now but it will be fixed over winter break still on schedule for that I believe so um I'm expecting to hear back this week okay to confirm uh and the uh Elementary Gym doors will be
fixed hopefully over winter break but maybe spring break looking it's the doors are not in yet spring break I I got an update today about that um that they uh the the new vendor because what happened the doors they were ordered they never came from the vendor so the contractor canceled that order got the refund and ordered them from a new vendor um he said they're about four weeks out there's yeah there's a business opportunity in the door business
clearly that's um we touched on that project is paid for though okay the door project is paid for so we the labor and the parts yes so that won't that will be a budget neutral okay project uh we touched on this last month but just kind of following up that we are going to probably at our next meeting have an update to our fy2 budget um because it were spending more than we had budgeted for out of school choice funds um reasons for those overages primarily uh due to increased costs in student
services um and uh the unbudgeted tech costs that um we missed in our budget um and then the additional posting for the special ed teacher at the elementary school that I noted there as a halftime but apparently did is a full-time now I think that's my fault I had it in there as a half as well we talked about as a half yeah um in a full um and um the additional uh ESP or Pera increases that we identified over the summer last year after we had already made the budget um going into next year Dr joll
and I met with town finance and he presented our budget draft for next year and we discussed our Capital requests um we have asked the town for an additional two and a half% increase in their funding uh to our budget um and our pres our presentation to the capital committee hasn't happened yet but uh looks like the finance committee is amendable to our requests um so just highlighting those uh we are asking for a new roof for the elementary school
which the town kind of approved last year but that was contingent upon the solar from the state which we ended up being ineligible for so we'll have to go again and do it all on our own um and the two boilers for the elementary school and parking lots at the schools might actually make it to town meeting this year which would be exciting don't hold your breath on all that parking lot you know how long the parking lots have been I'm assuming that um the parking lots at the high school are about 42 years old so at least 20 years parking lots have
been on that list I want you to say they were on there before you started the committee because that would really speak to well it's been a while that sink at the dent in the back of the elementary school when you make that UI coming around the back that is that is tough um other budget considerations for next year uh considering um putting the Academy band teacher back to full-time when sixth grade moves up um uh student services is where most of
our cost increases have been over the last couple of years and for next year as well um so while Dr jll's looking at adding a full-time sped teacher for the remainer of this year we would like to try to budget that for next year as well um um we have significant outof District tuition costs uh we're budgeting $340,000 which present kind of worst case scenario we haven't quite determined where all of the students will shake out and what the costs will be um but that's our worst best estimate
best worst estimate um for what those costs will be uh but bear in mind anything over $50,000 circuit breaker kicks in so we get 75% back after that we have to kind of budget for the full thing up front um and then just a note there on showing how much circuit breaker has increased for our town over the last several fiscal years uh so in fy20 we were at just about $23,000 in circuitbreaker reimbursements last year we were at
$15,000 that's a reflection of just how much we're spending on student services on out of District transportation on the whole but the whole load and um it continues to grow and the student service costs are clearly it's not just Hatfield by any stretch um so there's a lot of conversation across state with school committees looking at those costs I know that Walpole put out um a survey that I responded to and so because of the
survey it kind of forced me to do some of the math the costs between what we spent on student services in 2023 fiscal 23 and what we're projecting to 26 is up 54% and we have 15% fewer IEPs so the the cost per service but continues to Rise um on the upside that um circuit breaker
reimbursement rate finally got over 6% of our student service needs because back in Pre pandemic era it was less than 2% of reimbursement for our budget so small steps forward but next year we're anticipating that student services will be about 30% of our budget which is High um it's historically been closer to like 22 23% of the
budget so just it's the needs that are so when we look at what's driving our budget increase it's the needs that we have so um questions to school Finance thanks for the numbers it's you not me we're having fun so I keep telling
Adam so with that we know that there is not a report from policy subcommittee because you guys didn't get to meet in your meeting um soon in March but we did schedule a conversation to talk about policy JB the entrance age um as we've had a request for an exemption to our policy um and so there an opportunity for the committee to discuss that tonight um can I ask a clarifying question please are we talking about an exemption
because I heard her say she wanted an expansion of the policy to change um I think if the committee would like the policy to change the committee could have that conversation tonight and my my take as chair would be to redirect that back into the policy subcommittee so if the committee said tonight we want to re-evaluate this policy then we could take that vote and then we could have that would then direct it back into the
subcommittee who could then have discussions and bring it back I'm not an attaining changing the policy in tonight's meeting that would be inappropriate um because it wouldn't give the subcommittee an opportunity to do their job there is an Avenue for the anytime we we CH we exempt someone from a policy it would have to come to the full committee for a vote um we experienced
this on a unrelated subject um a few months back it would require someone from the committee to make a motion to have an exemption it would need to be seconded we would have conversation and there would be vote um and so that is a possibility for tonight as well before we would do that in there or part of the conversation after was on the table I think we would hear from administrators who have I believe on multiple levels have spoken to the family um and to the
teacher who's had a chance to share how things are going um currently everything is completely above board and following the policy as I understand it so there is an opportunity in preschool for students who have um clear needs and have an IEP that they may start when they turn three and it's it is a policy as I understand it and I'll look to the policy subcommittee to to not along or
correct me but as I understand it we have that in our policy because students with needs sometimes need more time in that sort of I think if it it's like golden sunlight in prek it's a beautiful space and it's a great opportunity that they get to develop those skills and so kids who need a little bit more help have more time so we have allowed for an Avenue for them to have that time by
starting when they turn three that is the only place where kids get to come in early otherwise there's a really strict C off date and then the policy for preschool is they have to be 5 years old by the 31st of August kindergartenart Excuse me yes for kindergarten they have to be five so there is this little there is this little exception for some students who would by that by
those two definitions spend more time in prek but I think that was by Design not it's it's a feature not a bug so did this student start at three so any student that would be I I guess I don't want to get too specific about about any particular student but I would say if a student was spending more than two years
they started when they turned three okay okay anyone that that would occur to that would have the case and I thank you for um jumping in and make sure that as we're having this conversation in open meeting that um you know we heard from one parent of of a student um but we really need to make sure that we're not uh not identifying students during during our our conversation um or needs of those of any particular students or families okay so I can tell you as part
of the policy subcommittee this weekend I did a little homework and checked all our neighboring districts and what their entrance age policy is to see if you know anything was different I looked at Frontier Regional which has five elementary schools and then an additional four um
and half of them had the date September 1st and the rest had August 31 that um a student must be five years old by and in some cases in their policy must was capitalized um and and some policies said no exceptions so I just wanted to see if other districts
had different dates than we did there's a couple of districts I'm just scrolling through the list right now on Desi that there's still a couple of December 31st out there but like three certainly nothing local yeah no Brock in and stuff yeah so none of the other policies that you guys reviewed when establishing our policy really provided words for wiggle room it was like this is the date not like here's the date but here's the Avenue for getting around the
date well when weed this we also got direct input from Administration and from student services um who and we did look at a lot of comparative districts I will say that yeah that is what c yeah um there was from the administrative side um a strong desire to have kids all starting
on the same age first Cycles going forward and there was some parent input that they wanted the chance for kids to start at three and so I think that's where we kind of found a little a path that spoke to kids who were three only if they had a plan and otherwise
waited yeah you're speaking about the prek policy the prek policy not the kindergarten we kind of looked at some of that in conert really they were revised together and I will say that um the major revisions and clarifications occurred to the preschool policy and the fact that when you pull up you know the um the kindergarten entrance age policy that was updated and to the best of all my recollection we only changed it
because previously it stated that you had to be five by the first day of school of kindergarten which is like a different day every year and that felt weird so we made it August 31st to align with the same age of the um of the preschool policy but you can see it was revised and it the substance was simply clear right is there like wiggle room in our policy so uh like historically no and
I'll I'll ask to the best of your Collective knowledge have we made exceptions to this in past no partly because again there's a hard and fast date for reason and it's challenging and It's Tricky when you have a birthday that falls past that but everybody understand understands because when they go on and they see the policy they understand then know that that's the expectation for the most part it's not been something that I have had many
families come to me and stay to place or make a plea which is why when this particular case came forward I said I that this is out of my hands this is already a policy therefore I'm not going against what the policy states y I fear if we made exceptions or allowed for wiggle room where does it end right you know you start with somebody okay my my kiddo has a
September birthday and if that had been an exception what's to say somebody after that then comes and say well my kid's birthday is October 1st you know yeah oh it's only two more weeks then it's like oh it's another two weeks right you're gonna constantly have somebody say well you did it for them and mine is only this far away from that and it I think it's easier to have a date and and stick to
it you can't get your license before you're 16 and a half can't vote before you're 18 like there are there are deadlines for things and and it's it's not just about kindergarten it's just it's that development sta development stages happen all the way along their educational path right so it's right now it's kindergarten Readiness but then
it's like first grade Readiness or what about ready to go to Smith Academy at sixth grade like all these little things all these little Milestones are there's a reason why we set an age like it just keeps all the way through and I'm sympathetic to amilies who who want to be ready um so I I I don't diminish that or or having connections and and
making good friendships like I think that's fantastic but also preschool is wonderful and that you have kids that stay and kids that go every year because there's always a couple ages um I'm not I'm not hearing the committee make a motion is there anyone who wants to give any voice to I mean unless we change we vote for
the policy to be reviewed to change the date we can't then we can't make any ation Cas by Cas you can make them a Committee Member can make a motion to make an exemption a specific exemption to the policy I have never um been involved with the committee when that's happened I cannot think of an examp example where we have chosen that route but that does not prohibit us from making that choice would an exemption be
for a like for the general public or for a case by casee basis I believe an exemption would have to be Case by case to be an exemption andse you're changing the policy otherwise it's changing the policy in which case if it's changing the policy it goes back to policy 7 I know it's messy yeah I'm just trying to clarify because if if we do because I I am sympathetic I have a kid who you know like started not
here started kindergarten because their birthday is November so um I can see where we need to be sympathetic but I don't know the entire picture so would I I have a question to Administration that that might set us up in a different way yeah um thinking through policies there is an opportunity for student who was found to be Advanced and and needing to
move forward that there is a path for that correct and I shared that information also that down the road first grade that could potentially be a conversation we could have if we felt that the teacher in data was showing that a student was emotionally ready as as well as academically ready we have made that move I've made that move already and said that that could potentially be an option but until that
such time as that is showing to be the case our policy is such that what you're saying is in JB entrance age um number one is children entering kindergarten must be 5 years old by August 31st of the year they are enrolling and number two is initial admission of children to the first grade or other grades will involve a consideration of both chronological age
and the Readiness of the children to do the work of those grades so that's exactly what you're saying right there's an opportunity for the principal because I believe it sits with the principal to to advance a student should they be get there and and shown that they are ready correct so when we're having data meeting in the fall and we're looking at data and we have looked at a student who has heads and tails showing evidence that their Dibbles and their Dr and everything else is way higher than
everybody else and then we're almost looking at wanting to put them into a different group and a different grade because that's what they're ready for we then start thinking is this student globally then is it not just Ela is it math as well because if a student is globally ready for all of those academic pieces and they're emotionally ready we've we piloted a student we kind of push them into a class tried them for a little bit had that conversation with the parents who were like not really 100% sure that this is okay but let's
give it a go we'll try it for a couple of weeks and then the kid went home and was like love it this is fantastic I'm having the best time and it was like I think the move is Mak makes sense and we did and we made that move halfway through the year Based on data based on staff input and the student piloting that that opportunity so there is an opportunity for that if the student is TR truly ready so okay was shared with the family well that meeting and I will add just um you know for for what it's worth for the community the research is
is very clear about um about age in in in in entrance um and it really supports old you know students you as old as they can starting in kindergarten um being set up as uh you know for success that's one of the one of um one of many factors but but a really significant factor in um student achievement has has correlated with when uh when how old they are when they enter
kindergarten um and it really has supported that um students who are are older going into kindergarten um tend to T tend to tend to achieve achieve more at least at the initial initial grade levels before it before it evens out which makes sense I mean if you think of it you have someone 5 years old versus uh you know that one one year is 20% of their life so that at that point that's a lot of different development both um
physical and and mental development thank you I I read up on districts who have like a who struggle because so many parents want to like red shirt they're their kids so they're so they are the oldest ones going into kindergarten they like hold them so that's it's interesting and just like in my son's class there's a there's one student who is either September 1st or September 2nd
so he he's the oldest kid and um you know then we have kids who are born in August so there's like a full year basically of difference and you can notice you you can see the the developmental difference you know in in preschool and kindergarten first grade now second grade it's I'm growing up two of my best friends one was the start of SE September and one was end of August and all the way through Elementary School like there was this Gap and it it was probably high school by the time I
won't name names if Daryl's watching in Arizona that he finally like kind of caught up but you know those of us with September birthdays were driving ahead of everybody like there was a lot of benefit to being oldest I was the September baby because that was before there was a deadline oh so I was there were people there you you know over a year older than me in my class but look what happened I know right okay I'm not I'm at one last
chance okay so the policy will stay um we have an opportunity tonight to make a recommendation for a member to join the Hatfield 240 implementation committee um so you remember we we did the 2040 committee which Becca served on um as the representative and that committee has finished their work they've made their report and now
they're looking to form a new committee to talk about an oversee implementation of that work which is designed to be some people coming back and some new faces and um I with the approval of the committee I would like to see if Miss bench would be willing to serve again steart on thank you thank you is there a motion I'll make a motion okay appoint Miss
bench I'll second all in favor I I any opposed was that a five o sure okay I was like I kind of just abstain but it looks bad in the minutes if you you need a vote on subcommittee assignments you just wanted them it's actually in our policy that we vote it is and this is not a subcommittee it's an appointment appointment represent but we have to name somebody that then gets
yeah approved so I'm just making off I will say that I very much enjoyed our work on the 2040 committee so I'm happy to I'm glad that they're as our represent watching implementation because otherwise it's just a plan right I'm glad we have representation on that committee so thank you thank you thank you okay also tonight for a vote Mr Driscoll would you like Dr Driscoll would you like to talk about the trip to New York City sure if I may um before we do that
and I'm I apologize that this is out of line but I realized that the LA last couple of items on our agenda are A Smith Academy related F trip in my um Med year report um recognizing that Dr SOS has a long drive um and Melissa Miss Peter has an early morning wondering if we might um be okay with our our rest of our admin team you're welcome thank you thank you have a good
night and thank you for being here [Music] for thank you okay so I have these for everyone um this is the kind of fin last
pie luxury oh these are gonna be busy kids yeah so this is a um extra one here so as you can see um this is a fullon uh packed din for a field trip we start at 7 o'clock in the morning we meet all the students get uh get everyone together make sure everyone's here hop on a bus and drive to New York
City um so at 11:30 that's the projected kind of arrival time uh so we give ourselves a good cushion there to get down uh we stop at the uh Museum of Broadway take care of a good night um and we spend some time there uh then we have a little bit of time for lunch so the two lunch days um those are times where students will be with their groups um going to different different areas finding lunch there's plenty of places to eat there um and after lunch at 3:30
we visit rise New York which is uh these are all kind of in the same area the same general general area uh rise New York is um what I understand is kind of an immersive ride experience where it's like a 3D ride where you fly through New York oh um following that we will head to Bubba Gump to eat dinner together as a big group that's included with the the cost of the trip uh and after that we will
head to um see an Juliet and that is at the Steven sound time theater on Broadway um following that in the evening we'll head back to uh Lindhurst New Jersey at the Courtyard by Marriott and we'll have um security at the uh at the Marriott with uh keeping an eye on the hallways and stuff uh for um for the duration at 7:30 we wake them up we get breakfast at the hotel that's included
within the cost um and then we depart for uh the Statue of Liberty in Ellis Island um so all the ferry costs are included so the the bus will drive us down to uh I believe it's Battery Park um Liberty Park um so and then we'll take that out to Ellis Island we'll stop at Ellis Island um and then when we finish that we'll take the fery from Ellis Island to the Statue of Liberty uh we did not get into
the crown of the Statue of Liberty so we're not going to be able to climb up inside unfortunately um but we will have time at the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty uh following the Statue of Liberty visit we will um well during that time we'll have time for lunch there's plenty of places to eat at both Islands uh and following that we will head over to um Battery Park and we'll walk from Battery Park to the 911 memorial which is a short work it's it's not very far away um from that point um
after we go to the 911 memorial um we will uh in museum we're heading to the One World Observatory so it's one World Trade Center um it's an observatory at the top of the uh top of the skyscraper with the kind of panoramas around the around the city uh following that at six six o'clock we head down and we meet our coach bus and everyone falls asleep on the way home because they're going to be exhausted hopefully yeah uh and there
will be a stop on the way home um at the ardy Ard hards Lee Travel Plaza um that's that'll be like a rest area for dinner if students are hungry so how many meals are not included with the two two lunches in the rest area stop okay so three
meals so I supposed to bring put money with them to the begin yes yeah we and we'll have a a recommended amount I think it's going to be like 20 or $25 okay for each meal or no no total because the places that maybe $30 but the place is down by Time Time Square they're not it's not like they're going to be going to restaurant there's a lot of like street food a lot of yeah a lot of lot of stuff to get quick quick lunches there and the Bubba Gump restaurant is included as well as
breakfast at the hotel and can you talk about chaperon yeah so chaperon um we get included uh in our um in our price one chaperon per 10 students I think we're going to extend that a little bit um so right now it's looking like we're going to be able to have for Middle School uh groups of either five or six um students with a Shao and for high school groups of
either nine or 10 students with a shopo so we'll keep the uh keep the kind of ratios small um and Shon will be responsible for their group uh we're also looking into making sure that we have a nurse on the trip as well um that nurse would be responsible for any kind of significant medical needs as well as medication um dispers it is it looking like the chaperons will be staff or uh right now it's looking like staff if we need to open up to
parents we would how many sh rooms are you looking right now uh we're looking at seven chaperon uh including the school nurse we may we may need to bump it to eight but I think we can do it with seven what's the budget impact for subs and stuff back at the high school it shouldn't there shouldn't be uh much of an impact with the number of students that we have going on the trip we'll be able to arrange coverage internally so what will happen to
students who don't go they'll have school I mean they'll have either um classes with their teachers where they're they're doing stuff uh or assignments if their teacher is not there to work on um I anticipate prior to the trip um maybe some project stuff happening uh so that students can continue working on that during the day they're not there are they going to feel penalized for not going on a trip I don't think so um no I don't
think that's pretty typical with with trips um students either have to make up work or there's work when they're there okay it may also I mean we when we've done it in the past to where um assignments that are given during that time are considered extra credit assignments so they may replace in a a lower grade if students got or um just you know add higher grade to the the mix of points at the end so you previously said 47 students
yep that's about half of population about half yep and we're still there we're we're I think today so that was with the interest survey now with the commitment survey I think we're at 40 I want to say 44 students as of this afternoon and the commitment is due by Friday because that's when the um that's when the first check is or first deposit is and we had to order the tickets today
what grades is this again this is the whole school 7 12 7 to 12th grade yep I thought 7 through 11 because 12 is having their own field trip that's what you told us before that it was 7 through 11 you're correct we did talk about that um I'd have to check and see if any seniors signed up um because they do have their own trip I you know I I would have to check on that but they all know they have the
senior trip they do all know they have the senior trip yes absolutely so if they are signing up for this it would be an addition to that um you know honestly to be quite honest if a senior is really interested in going and I I'd like to give them the opportunity I don't know that they've had it before at Smith Academy um yeah as long as they know I mean if they want to do two trips why not yeah we also have the band trip going as well so I mean that's that's the other
another piece so there we have students some students doing that as well how do families know that there is financial aid available with need we we let them know yeah so when whenever a communication goes out about a trip and about the cost we let them know that we do have H resources available and if it's a hardship to please reach out to the school and I I cannot think of any time where we have denied that any other
questions no looks like fun to me you need a motion or I do I'll make a motion to approve the Smith Academy all school trip to New York City is there a second I'll second all in favor I I any opposed okay all right happy travels thank you you get to go I I may it depends I I would love to
um and do you like to sh but yeah I also don't want to if someone else on staff would like to go I don't want to take that think that's popular um all right so I am again recognizing it's 9:23 I do want to hear I do want to talk through your update but you could you
could be brief that and let the committee ask questions new absolutely good news is I I made it pretty brief um so let me open this up so this is a kind of a A View From 10,000 F feet it's I'm not going to go uh at at some point in the next couple of meetings I will prevent my present my uh report of Entry findings that's not tonight it's kind of a global view of what those findings are looking like at
this point um but here is the midyear review as it relates to both my goals uh for evaluation and uh well really as it relates to that because that includes the in stuff so go first goal um to remind everyone was by late spring the district will have a broader agreement with key stakeholder groups about the district's most critical needs how those needs will be addressed most effectively and how we will measure progress towards Meeting those goals those are all components of the entry plan um to the new Stu superintendent induction
program uh so far I've had conversations with multiple stakeholders uh staff families Administration students uh we've met as an enrollment task force that will will continue to meet uh with that talked with fifth uh fifth grade families about the sixth grade move staff meetings um when I started this position last year uh I also talked individually with a whole host of teachers about kind of the State of Affairs and what they you know where they saw things and where they'd like to see things things things go and I had
those conversations at both schools and I I talked with every staff member who reached out um and many who didn't reach out who who I reached out to um so as a result of those conversations and and data that has been collected U I've really identified kind of six really broad stroke themes that I think will um will kind of characterize the entry plan uh first as we've talked about here is the ELA curriculum cohesion U maybe uh there may be a need
there to look at some additional resources or new resources around Ela um the second broad theme is that we have a very supportive town and community in Hatfield of the schools um that has played out in uh recent years and I think um you I think we we continue to see the benefits of having a supportive town and Community uh the third uh major theme is that among our students uh and I would add staff here too but primarily the data is about students is we have a very strong sense of belonging and support um that has come across in
spiffy data and vocal data uh in in many of theal Assessments that we have have done um students really feel the benefit of having a small close-knit community um there is a sense for the fourth finet here that we have uh maybe need to reconnect with what I call our North Star so um there has been a feeling uh described to me by by a number of folks in different context as um but I would say is being a little bit rudderless of not kind of knowing uh necessarily the
direction that we are are going um and so really need need to reestablish like hey who are we as a district how are how do do we ensure everyone knows who we are as a district and how do we make sure that our actions reflect those priorities and those goals um and I think really that has the sense has been that really since the co kind of recovery year that that has been a little bit lacking um so I'd like to work on reestablishing that uh another major theme that we've seen and we've
talked about even tonight is the increasing costs especially related to special education that's a theme that is uh Statewide and I would argue Nationwide as well uh and the sixth major theme as we've talked about numerous times here too is declining enrollment um and so stemming sort of the the loss of that in and bringing enrollment back where it belongs the next steps is going to be um a report of Entry so a detailed report of the findings and the data that we you used to arrive at those findings uh and then working collaboratively with uh
with stakeholders on generating the next strategic plan so our district Improvement plan runs through this year um and so it will be time to generate a new one another summer meeting here we go uh goal to the second goal I had was a professional practice goal and his participation in the new superintendent induction program which I have um been doing um there's not much else to be
said for that I've attended those meetings both virtually and in person um and also conduct been working with the administrative team here to implement some of those things we've talked about in terms of joint joint observations calibration on what we're looking for academically um and kind of honestly mock um debriefs you know if we if we see something in the class that we're we need to you know we we we agree that there needs to be some kind of critical feedback about processing how that we'll look and what those conversations would be
like uh next steps uh there's really just two is continuation with the nsip program and also forming uh and presenting the report of Entry findings and the entry well already did the entry plan but the report of findings and next steps uh the third goal I have was focusing on relationships connections and belonging uh so in terms of progress we've had a number of shared opportunities between HS and Smith
Academy uh a couple examples of the homecoming pep peep R jollyball the band performances which included students from both schools at each performance this year uh we've made social emotional learning a focus at the district and school levels with with our district team as well as our school teams um and I won't rehash all of the uh presentation from before um and also developing uh coursework responsive to students interests and needs um which we had talked about a little bit earlier tonight as well uh next steps um really developing
and and putting kind of uh putting together that um Mentor program that stands for Big Brother Big Sister is um between HS and Smith Academy so both internally at Smith Academy but also expanding you know we we may have uh I think we have a really unique opportunity to have some of our our older students act as peer role not peer Role Models but but Mentor role models to our younger students and I could see a whole lot of benefit from that um for
a number of our students and also develop similarly different developing a family Mentor program um for new school choice families and I will say we have we have really tried started to do that a little bit um it didn't really take off in the way that I had thought it might um I think a lot of our school chice families find things are going pretty well and they find people and they kind of do
that organically without needing um hey you know you're from this town and your this family is coming in from this town we'd like you to be friends um they kind of oftentimes the folks that we're getting in are from Word of Mouth from their friends telling them that so they kind of have a relationship built there already um but I would like to do that for students or for families and students that may not have that previous connection to make sure that we are you know we're bringing people in uh fourth goal uh is a student
learning goal here is again uh to maintain the focus on academic rigor and instructional Excellence uh we talked a bit about our joint walkthroughs those have been really helpful um you know it really what what we do is we calibrate we go through and we we both we all you know because typically it's three three or four of us uh we observe the same exact lesson we um and we debrief about afterwards about what we saw and we see if we're kind of on the same page as each other um and those conversations
excuse me excuse me um those conversations have been really really beneficial um you had data meetings at both HS and Smith Academy those have revolved around um both academic and social emotional data that we've collected um and then we've also been um kind of keeping tabs and keep holding the administrative team I would say uh has been holding each other accountable for administ uh for evaluation in that
process um and we are on track um for this year uh we review it weekly at administrative meetings where we all are um this week I'm behind a little bit but I'm going to get caught on and then uh next steps um for academic rigor uh developing more high level high interest courses aligned with our new in-house dual enrollment partnership we talked about those um so right now it's looking like next year we we're going to offer psychology uh food science leisure studies and possibly a
um pre-cal uh with applications so possibly four uh four different courses that students can choose from for next year what is Leisure yeah that's my question too Leisure leisure studies is and that aligns with our um our track for adventure leadership and so it's really um about recreation in truthly about recreation in the United States so how how that has changed over it's kind of part History part business um how
it's changed over over the history of the country it involves public land use as well as kind of private Enterprise um it's kind of neat I'm I'm working with the Development Group on that is it um taught out of history is it taught out of we haven't thought exactly where that would fall into yet but I think it would fall into either history uh yeah I think it would fall into history um because it really it really work looks at kind of how you know what that um really what
the the recreation industry has done over time and how you know how it has how is evolved and what kind of areas there are now and that align that that's a uh specific course from VSU that aligns uh with our with our adventure leadership course interesting never have come up with that no yeah um and then uh again again to
continue following the evaluation process and rubric for um administrators as well as uh staff and that I told you it to be quick committee do you have questions yes yes um kind kind of for you more than Dr Driscoll um because here it says continue to follow evaluation process and the the front slide said
superintendent evaluation are as you know there is a midyear evaluation as part as the superintendent evaluation so are we we're allowed to do it as a check-in we could choose to do it formally and it would not take a lot to to put that together what's would the committee like the opportunity for doing a more
formal survey or can we just do that in May personally I'm fine with this as a check-in it was very informative and using this information in addition to more information in May will yeah be wonderful so I just wanted to kind of clarify if you were setting us up to do an evalu I was not planning on doing
that unless the committee would like to do that and then we um I think I would like in May to repurpose our tool that we used last year that made the evaluation our own for it took all of the material that desie form has and put it into a Google survey that allowed us to populate all that and do those ratings and so Dr Driscoll and I will prep that
together so that it all of this then fits into what desie would like us to review it'll take a little okay so my question then is you said May would we actually be doing it in May or reporting it out in May my interest is in that anyone who sitting on the committee through this year does this before any
election season because what I want to do is make sure that all of the data is collected before elections so that if there is any turnover perhaps there won't need to be any turnover but should there be any turnover that we're not putting someone new into the spot of having to review someone they weren't around should see right that so an early May meeting we would get assigned to do the
evaluation in June we would in June might be when it was back but the collection would happen sounds like excellent timing I like that plan it was a little weird when like my first meeting was like so we're doing Dr Wood's review and it's like oh yeah so we're going to try and avoid that okay okay um with that I would like to I'm going to make a motion to go into
executive session um with no intent to return into the Open session for sub to master and Ro Law chapter 30A section 21A um to discuss the strategy respective to collective bargaining um is there a second and this is a roll call vote so I will say I Engle heart I bench ey green I Sullivan I okay thank you all appreciate it and thank you