welcome everybody to the regular school committee meeting we're very excited to be here we have full house today it is April 14th and it is
6:01 first a little bit of housekeeping on March 29 2025 Governor Healey signed into law an act relative to extending certain state of emergency accommodations which among other things extends the expiration date of the provisions pertaining to open meeting
law to June 30th 2027 specifically this extension allows public bodies to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the public body physically present at a meeting location and to provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings the act does not make any new changes to the open
meeting law other than the extending the expiration date of the temporary provisions regarding remote meetings from March 31st 2023 to June 30th 2027 pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 38 section 28 i am hereby
informing all attendees that a video and audio recording is being made of the meeting and the meeting is being livereamed and run live on the city's community TV channel miss Lefave who said Oh
sorry go ahead roll call miss Feliciano yes mayor Garcia here um Dr rivera Cologne here mr sheen present miss Lefay present miss Lebron Martinez
here miss Tensey Williams a key mr zaza Mr here mr colmore here miss Wilson all rise for the pledge of allegiance united States of America and to the
republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so much now Miss Fave sorry about that no problem uh I request a
personal point of privilege madame vice chair so moved thank you so as many of you here on the board know but the public doesn't um I really want to take this quick moment to not only
congratulate my dear friend and colleague u Mr devin Sheen as he's putting Holio on the map as becoming the NSBA president for 2025 2026 so for those of you who don't know NSBA it's the National School Board
Association so he is the president for the whole US and um the US territories thank you hoyok is already on the map and we are here tonight to honor these six great kids from command school so let's just It's not about me it's about these great kids here so
let's move on to that thank you so much so today our student showcase comes to us from McMahon School we're gonna organize for a second take your time
you guys are so good at forming a line you formed it like we were going to walk so thank you so much for having us tonight my name is Carrie McDermott i am the principal at McMahon School and we have six amazing cheetahs here with us
tonight along with our music teacher Mr adam Brown adam has been the teacher at McMahon um for 10 years so he's been here quite some time he has all sorts of musical talents but he brought just one of the
our assistant principal is here tonight as well and he is going to introduce our Hello everybody hello we have six third graders from McMahon we have Luciana over here want to give him a wave we have
We have We have [Applause] Super [Music] califragilisticious even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious if you say loud enough
[Music] when I was [Music] little oh super [Music] catrailious even the sound of it is
something quite atrocious if you say it loud enough you [Music] always
[Music] Superisticious loud [Music] enough to [Applause] say carefully to change your
life oh super catrailious even though the sound of it is something cry atrocious if you say it loud enough you always superpocious okay for for Thursday
encore [Laughter] i want another one they were good they were good man jeez thank you everybody thank you come back soon that was fun oh yeah
the one with the pink the pink with the pink yeah my coworker all right all right i will say um that was amazing and I would be visiting McMahon
school on Wednesday for dragons and marshmallows we're going to be doing some science experiments so that's going to be really fun reinforcing the scientific method i had
to so next up we have our public comment and I have four people signed up for public comment as we have said before you each person gets two minutes and I
will do it with my trusty sand timer over here for the two minutes and it's not a conversation you get to speak we will continue with our agenda you're free to listen but there would be no conversations or discussions
first I have and I apologize because of the I don't know the names so I'm going to do my best to say them correctly looks to me like Kyle Chambers come on up and then please
state your name and address before you speak hi good evening everybody uh my name is Kyle Chambers 85 Lincoln Street here in Holio good to see you all again um oh is my time started okay oh jeez okay so my name is Kyle Chambers and I come to you as the parent of a
first grade student at Ian White Elementary School i'm also secretary of the Ian White PTO and have had productive discussions with a number of parents whose feelings I hope to echo with my comments here in discussing Desi's decision to introduce what they call a partial return to local control i
urge the school committee to push back on this as it creates a massive unknown variable in how decisions will be made within our local school system desie used MCCAST scores as the reason to put our schools under state receiverhip and since then Desi has only failed our
educators our parents and our students our test scores have had minimal improvements because they failed to recognize the socioeconomic and psychological factors uh sorry uh that impact our students and Desessie's messaging around the return
to local control has been frustrating confusing and inconsistent for parents whose uh concerns are being ignored holio is a unique community with unique challenges and I argue that the educators who work with our students every day are the people best equipped
to handle those challenges as they find themselves at the collective bargaining table i urge you all to remember that their working conditions are our children's learning conditions our students spend a third of their life in these schools and they along with their educators and support staff deserve to
have a safe working environment for me the educators in the White School know that what my son needs to succeed and I trust them to tell you and us what they need to build a resilient school system in Desi's push to partial local control
they're still not listening to parents or educators when we tell them what the that the extra hour of academics mandated by the state isn't doing our students any favors or that the MCCAST isn't the end- all beall metric for student success which is why you I and the overwhelming majority of those in
attendance tonight can I I'm almost done which is why you I and the overwhelming majority of those in attendance tonight voted to remove the graduation requirements in November further as all of us find ourselves under attack from the federal government's war on public schools this
is the time when our community needs to work together to resist those pushes to weaken and privatize our schools i urge the members of the school committee to fight back and to insist that anything less than full local control is
unacceptable the educators in our schools Thank you so much please finish your Thank you the educators in our schools and the parents of the city of Holio will support you in doing so i thank you for your time
thank you appreciate it note that the two minutes is not to censor anybody it's just to give the same amount of time to everybody next up we have Brandy and I'm not even going to try to do the last
name bell Chico nice thank you name and address please i'll just stand on my toes hi my name is Brandy Bellachico i live at 10 Smith Street in South Hadley i'm a teacher with Holio Public Schools and a foster parent of a student at Holio Public Schools and I'm
here today to ask the school board to make a public statement of support of full local control with no exit asurances and to express that the Holio Teachers Association expects to bargain with you our school committee in the 5 years I've known my child with Holio public schools I didn't know her in
preschool she has had eight special education teachers and this includes last year where she had no special education teacher for the majority of the year last year my general education classroom at Lawrence School only had three students who did not receive special education services which made it exceedingly difficult if not impossible
to actually meet every child's needs we are asking for a contract that is comparable to neighboring districts to increase teacher retention and we are asking for guidelines that ultimately protect one of our most v vulnerable populations our students who receive special education services
sorry you are the school committee elected by this community and it's your job to do what's best for our students support local control and join us at the bargaining table thank you [Applause]
next up we have Peter Duffy hi my name is Peter Duffy i live at uh 446 Appleton Street in Holio i've been an ELA teacher at Sullivan School for 5 years where I've had the pleasure of working with some of the greatest teachers I know and I'm inspired by my students on a daily basis it's
undeniable that there are fantastic things that are happening in HPS but I'm here because I'm tired of looking at the young people in my classroom and knowing that we could be doing more for them i'm tired of watching skilled and experienced teachers walk out the door in my first year a colleague said to me
"I won't lo I won't learn your name till you've been here for three years." In year three a district admin saw me and said "Wow you've been here a while." And each year my students ask if I'm going to be there next year and I stay and I got better with coaching and a lot of
experience there's no amount of PD district mandates Google surveys that I can compare to what I've learned through experience the students of Holio deserve experienced teachers in the same roles in the same buildings i say this because the only way we keep teachers in this district if is if we can bargain for a
contract that is competitive with with other districts the people in this room know better than I do that we have tried everything else and yet teachers keep leaving the longer we keep exit assurances the longer we have a contract that pushes people out good teachers will continue to leave for districts
with a shorter work year better benefits and fair pay and none of us in this room could blame them so why do I stay because I believe Holio is a great city i believe our students deserve a great education i believe the mayor when he ran on the platform for local control i
believe that every city and town deserves the right to democratically decide who is in charge of their schools i believe that a teacher can change a student's life and more importantly I believe that everyone in this room if we work with each other can change the life of every student in this city i believe
that everyone in this room understands deep down that the right thing to do is to tell Desi to tell the commissioner "Hands off Holio." They have had their chance to try and save Holio and they have failed us this is our chance to take our city back thanks
thank you so much next up Nick Cream uh hello Nick Cream i'm 7 Warner Street in South Hadley i'm an ethnic study teacher at Dean Techch and president of the Holio Teachers Association um so I'm gonna kind of off the cuffet because Kyle and Pete and Brand said things so wonderfully so I've got some questions
for y'all um we're still here we're gonna be here uh we're going to keep coming back we're going to keep asking these questions right please please um hear us when we say um that we want local control we want to be able to determine our own working conditions um we know our students our classrooms best
and we think that we should be at the table we know that we should be at the table with full collective bargaining rights um so are you willing to support the HDA members and demand a full return to local control that's my question for you all um we know this is best for our students we serve um so what do you all plan to
do to help us get there because we want to be in partnership with you and we are asking today would you come out publicly with us and make a statement saying that we deserve and we know that it's best for the students and the teachers and staff and all their staff here that it is best um for all of us if we have full local control with no exit asurances do
you believe that we should have full collective bargaining rights do you believe that we should be able to determine the working conditions which are which are as Kyle said also the learning conditions of our students if so then I urge you to push as other folks have said for full exit from state
receiverhip i'll just say it one more time i'm going to sound like a broken record um but we know our working conditions best so let us collectively bargain at the table thank you [Applause]
thank you everybody for your commitment and your time and effort do we have anybody else miss Pelisiano all right no all right thank you so much next up communication and reports
student reports holio kai well Mr sheen if the chair will allow I just have a general comment i'm not going to comment on any of the public opinion because we don't comment specifically on any one um public comment but um I just have to encourage
the people that feel this way and it seems like everyone in the room does and and I agree with many of the things that were said um tonight but also I hope that you are emailing the members of the board of elementary and secondary education and you're doing that as well
there's contact on the um dees dees website and you're also making your voices known through that mechanism as well because it's not it um I mean I hear you i think we all hear you but it also is making sure that the members of the board especially the people who sit
in Everett every day hear what's going on in Hoyoke and that's just my comment with that like just make sure that those decision makers also hear the same type of um comment because maybe they're here virtually but there there's no one here
in the room today um listening to those comments so I think we also need to make sure that voice is heard um out in Everett as well and at the board meetings so I would just encourage you to access the democratic process that way as well and make sure that you are
submitting public comment for their meetings and they have different rules around public comments so if you're going to speak out at their meetings make sure you read the website it's very different how they operate public comment um you must sign up must submit like it's not you can't just show up that's my point with it and there's no virtual participation um with it so at
least there wasn't last month so I would just encourage you to uh access that and and use those resources as well thank you thank you no problem
student reports Holioai North hi my name is Nicholas Rodriguez i am the student representative for Holio North this week students will be springing into theirmies as 10th and 11th graders are participating in a variety of field trips students are visiting colleges
such as Clark Bayath Westfield State Nichols Western New England University of Connecticut and WPI students in financial literacy are going to UMass there will be an art class trip to HCC and the theater company is going to New York City there will be a lot of field
trips happening this month students with all passing report cards on their term three report card were served ice cream sundaes at lunch to celebrate their accomplishments students in our ELS Academy who are taking intro to health and environmental careers worked with the YMCA earlier this month and all of
those students are now CPR certified we wrapped up our Holio High School March Madness last week and raised $269 activities included Mr maldonado Miss Colon Rivera and Mr bashard being pied in the face and our principal Miss McKenna being duct taped to the wall
um our March student summit meeting focused on our core values we are respectful we work together and we strive to do and be our very best students worked on identifying how we see these values in our school and some planning for how we will continue to use these as a school in the 25 to 26 school
year shout out to the cast and crew of the Holio School musical Little Shop of Horrors they put on an amazing performance at our high school a few weeks ago thank you thank you vice chair oh there you go
that's what it was okay so Mr kennedy couldn't be here today but as in true Mr kennedy fashion he sent the student report let's see on April 10th staff and
family attending the vocational student of the year award ceremony in Mechanics Hall will stir to watch senior Jaden Hilden Gunnerson received the prestigious award april Acceleration Academy looks to have a full house and is fully staffed they may even cook up
something good with their math knowledge we're enjoying spirit week which culminates with a staff versus students volleyball game to end our day this Thursday before vacation check out our Instagram account for pictures by Mr
crociolo we had an attendance rate of 98% for the ELA MCAST states thank you Mr kennedy now moving on well first of all that was awesome for both campuses thank you for your reports next
up we have superintendent report thank you Madam Chair and I I do have a team here in the back that I'm going to ask to come up to help with this presentation and then Irene I'm not sure if you could get the presentation up but
the uh the first uh item in the superintendent report is uh we talked about the alternative program that we would like to start um next school year and uh we're here to just uh present an update we heard loud and
clear there were a lot of questions the last time we were here um so we wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity to get in front of you and hopefully address all of those questions and and get your blessing to move forward with the rest of the planning so that we can
get this uh program going uh next year miss Lefave thank you so much Madame Vice Chair so just help me understand because this has already been approved um by Desi it
already has a program code so being that it's a said and done deal I mean you can present the same thing that was already presented we're aware of what the program was about but our decision means nothing at this point or it's already
done i see the letter it says "Hi Steve great minds and good news desi has approved the Holio application for the new Holio alternative program here's the program code and it will show as pending until next school year so when you say you want to hear so that
then to move forward on what basis yeah i mean we got their approval it doesn't necessarily mean we like I don't want to move forward without the school committee support this looks like it's going to happen even with or without the school committee support and I'll tell you one
thing just I'm just throwing it out there say we say no what makes you think we're going to get our schools back then so at the end of the day this is a madeup decision so we have to go along with it whether we wanted it or not do I think the program is great yeah it's a
great it's it's a great program because it's to help our students that are struggling in eighth grade you know moving into um the ninth grade and stuff but I don't know that's my personal opinion we could sit down and and hear
it again yeah I appreciate um those thoughts Miss Lefave but uh the the at the last meeting one thing that I heard loud and clear from this committee is that they would not approve any program without DESIE approval so we went ahead
and tried to get some approval from DESIE to hopefully satisfy that big concern that the school committee had about making sure that there was DESIE approval and uh you know because of the the center for excellence that had
happened um so we have some information to share on that there's a section in our presentation that talks about you know this not being like the center for excellence um but the the intent of including that in the packet was really
the highlight like you know this this committee asked expressed that they would not approve any program unless they got something in writing that approved this this uh program in concept and we went ahead and got that approval
um it is it is not true that if you know if if this committee decides they don't want this program in Holio that it will still move forward um we you know I've expressed to the committee all along that I want to work in in concert with
you and like this is an important decision for Holio um and we would not be moving forward with this program if if the desire of the committee is not not to approve this program mr faith I'm sorry and just to go on record the only thing that I said is
that I did not want this to become like center for excellence what happened because number one we were sending students there on their IEP it was saying separate classroom can't be a separate classroom when it's a separate school and we were constantly sending
all the kids on IEPs with behavioral disorders and I said "If at that point you wanted to build an out of district behavioral intervention school then apply for it." But nobody wanted to apply for it because it was too many pages and too much for the
application so as long as you got the approval in the sense that this is going to be considered a separate school now is it going to be like it's a program not a program not a school program well it's technically going to be a school because it's not like the school's going
to be run with other students there it's going to be basically for this alternative program or what else are we putting in there anything else it's just going to be that yeah this would be a separate program not a separate designated school
but the school will only be for students in that program i mean uh our our desire would be to house it with the opportunity program um another program that we have in Holio public schools so it would kind of be
under that family and within opportunitymies we have the success center we have lighthouse we have uh gateway um so this would just be another another arm of the opportunity uh program that we have and it would
have a separate program designation with desi will we have a different name for for the school or Yeah I mean that's it would it would be part of opportunity academy so um you know we didn't want to go ahead and
create a whole name and do all that until we you know until we had this meeting and got the committee's blessing to move forward miss Lura Martinez i'm sorry can at least we get the presentation and see where we're are here at this point and then consider I
know that we got the package but it's nice to at least Yeah for courtesy purpose to have them go and I have some guests here so I'm just going to ask him to kind of huddle in the corner over there and and share a mic whoever is going to be going first and second um
but I can start with just framing i think that I think we kind of framed everything but uh Irene if you can move to the next slide um you know I I I did share you know our main page which which shows our
our vision and our mission and I think uh at the core behind developing this program um is that students are at the center of everything we do which is one of our core beliefs and one of our core beliefs that every child in Holio can
and will learn um you know unfortunate there this program is designed to to support some students where where this core belief isn't really uh coming to life so we hope that this program could help support some of those students uh
next slide please and you've all seen our priorities and I think when I think of this program uh the priority that that comes to mind the most is providing students access to social emotional learning mental health supports and opportunities to explore their passions
again you know the throughout our entire um throughout our entire strategic plan you've seen little bits and pieces of of these priorities but starting this program and launching it um will will hopefully live in that priority of
supporting the whole child i'm going to move on to the next slide and let uh our colleagues it looks like Lori McKenna principal at Holioai would like to go over this slide want to start
and let's try that again um so um this program will allow us to get at one of the challenges that we're facing um in grades 7 through 10 and that's the students who are not ready yet students um these are students who are seeing that they have a history of a low ac low
academic uh performance that might be a variety of things some of that just motivation some of gaps in learning some of them not seeing themselves as a learner um some of that is chronically disruptive behavior significantly underdeveloped social and self-regulation skills and general
education services are just not enough to support these students and resolve this this would allow us to get at how do we prevent these students from getting into a negative spiral oftentimes what will happen a student who has some of these major challenges
um and often it's these three that are bucketed together um and this then ends up with them having a they fail at something they fail at something else they fail at something else there are no wins and something like this would allow students to be able to have some targeted supports um in a smaller
setting that would allow them to get some goal setting to happen um get some wins feel like a learner have that change of mindset and be ready to be placed back um at their ascending school um I think one of the things that we talk quite a bit about at Hoyoko High School and I know that Dean does as well
about being on track and on track is being able to graduate in four years because you're passing your core content classes and this would be something that would really help to change that mindset for these students if they don't see themselves as a learner if they have some of these struggles that get in the way really helping them to get that
mindset so that they can graduate in four years and us to support them to be able to do that we um uh we've had this challenge it's not a new challenge this year it's a challenge that that we've had for the past uh few years um and um uh we began
in earnest uh last spring uh with the current with the then principal of uh Opportunity Academy Jeffrey Schmidt to really think through what an alternative program would look like for students who currently um are too young for the uh student profile for success center
generally speaking the success center is for students who've hit their junior and senior years and are underredited and overaged um and so we uh Jeffrey and I started a process and and that continued again this year uh with the partnership with Serita Gralin and and Felipe
Johnson we engaged students and teachers uh we uh uh talked uh extensively um with the alternative education uh uh department at the department of education and we put together uh a design team of teachers and counselors administrators uh to really think
through what a a good program would look like from how kids uh entered to how students uh left and what they would encounter and experience in between um the feedback that we got from the committee uh uh at our at the last meeting was really important in helping
us um return to some of the history um of alternative education in in Holio and make sure that we were uh learning from successes and from mistakes so that's our process um we felt really good about it uh we're actually the the folks at
Desi uh commended us on uh the amount of uh um revision um that we brought to the table after hearing their initial comments so with that I'll turn it over uh to my colleague Serita Gralin oh Marian Courier there he is
all right hi everybody i'm Maryann Courier i'm the chief of people services nice to see you all um and so like superintendent stood referenced um at the beginning and one a a important part of the process was looking backwards um and looking at our lessons learned from
the center for excellence which was our previous alternative program in the district um that did in fact house um a number of special education programs um there were issues where students were not able to be integrated with their typical peers um and as as most of you
on the committee know um that alternative program was disbanded um since then the district has put a lot of investment in building our own programs for students with disabilities um we have substantially separate programs within the district um we partner with
opportunity academy with lighthouse um and we utilize a number of out of district uh school placements um for our students that have more significant needs um so as we were going through this process um we needed to make sure number one that we did have that collaboration and receive that approval
from DESIE to be able to create this program um that our focus is on students that uh will be successful in this model including students with disabilities i know it's not on the slide but I but I want to assure everyone on the committee
and everyone that's watching um for any student with a disability that would be considered for the alternative program that would not happen without a team process so we do not make any changes in students educational programs without a team meeting where an IEP is developed and we would ensure that the IEP
developed could be um serviced within the alternative program before we would ever place a student um on an IEP in the alternative program um we are committed to maintaining the um grade level and core academic program
um within this alternative program which was another concern um that was addressed by Desessie um about the center for excellence and that we would also maintain access uh and support for our students to be able to participate in all extracurricular activities um that
their grade level peers would have access to um school related events along with um all access to college and career readiness and planning which is we know is very important especially for our students who are leaving middle school and entering into a high school program
um we also will have very clear um entrance and exit criteria with that transparency um about that process so that it's clear when a student is to enter and what students need to do to then exit the alternative program and return to um one of the other um
settings whether it be a high school campus or a middle school campus thank you and now turn it over to uh Felipe Johnson good evening felipe Johnson principal Opportunity Academy so the program has four uh primary goals the first one
being to address behavioral root causes and prepare students for social emotional success in general education setting uh the intent is for this to be done through daily support uh through structured morning and afternoon circles a dedicated SEAL course and consistent goal monitoring uh additionally
individualized behavioral supports uh including a primary person model which we currently use at OA uh check-in checkout system and regular case conferencing uh additionally there will be small class sizes and a trauma-informed approach uh students
building trusting relationships uh that encourage self-regulation conflict resolution and emotional growth uh and finally a clear entry and exit uh criteria framework which you'll hear about uh later the second goal is to close academic learning gaps created by
low engagement low attendance and behavioral disruptions uh we intend to maintain grade level aligned curricula which we'll hear about later targeted academic interventions built into the schedule and then uh you'll notice that the schedule has daily instructional blocks that are intentionally scheduled
to align with peak focus times uh to support attention and stamina and then finally students engage in monthly goal reviews uh the intent here is that student led conferences to reflect on academic progress uh supported by families and staff uh third the the
third goal is to maintain student access to health and fitness and the arts so daily instruction in health and fitness and the arts will be part of uh the daily schedule along with uh the schedule intentionally includes creative movement based courses uh we also intend to have some of the electives and science and history courses to implement
some of the project based learning that we currently have at OA and the fourth goal is to maintain student connection to middle school and high school extracurricular programming uh students will fully be eligible to participate uh from their sending school um and the
school schedule will mirror the those of Dean and North and other middle schools uh to ensure access to e access to extracurricular and after school opportunities so I think it's in whole uh the program is not a punishment or last resort uh it's a purposeful
assetbased uh intervention designed to meet students uh where they are and help them grow into who they can become uh family involvement is central here uh with quarterly studentled conferences and an exit process that includes students and families and then finally the program is flexible uh it's meant to
be personalized and strategic aimed at supporting the whole child keeping them and their peers and community and future opportunities in mind mr sheen so you had mentioned uh maintaining the ability for students to participate in
extracurriculars um at the schools they're being sent from please go into how that's going to be accomplished uh currently I mean with OA our current students have that opportunity um we actually currently have a student right now that's on the
track team so it's communication with the athletic director at North um and you know similar unlike OA the schedule be will be aligned to the high school so in terms of having the availability and access that would still remain but OA is
the students still fall under enrollment at the high school though right cor but this program they wouldn't so they wouldn't be able to participate in athletics because you couldn't co-op them onto a so they couldn't participate in high school athletics um the the program is a
part of opportunity academy which along with dean and north campus are considered a unified high school campus so these students would would they be students at Hoyokai or would they be students in a separate program they would be stu they would be students at Holio High School in as far as
eligibility for incalastic enrollment enrollment we subenroll students but as far as the state is concerned they are Holio high school students if they're in ninth and tth grade school yeah so if if we expand it we don't want to start next
year with seventh and eighth graders but the goal would be uh to be able to support seventh and eighth graders okay and do we provide transportation for those students get back to their schools for after school programs we would be able to so we've we're
creating a budget that creates a bus a daily bus from this program to any of the middle or to the middle school or high school yeah i mean so it it it all depends on the the unique situation of the student some of the students that are at opportunitymies you utilize the
PBTA bus to get to the north campus but in in the and those those passes are provided to them um but if we do have some students that uh need to uh access some some programming after school we
you know we do have uh uh vans that that are available to the school so we'll do everything that we can to support that but we're going to do it right because I'm hearing everything we can and I'm not hearing concrete like I I mean if a student wants to participate in the drama club we're going to get that kid
from their from the program to wherever they're practicing if if that's a need if that's a need yes okay sometimes some kids will have their parents bring them and they don't need our support so currently under the umbrella of OA is transitions academy uh in which they
have three vans those three vans based on the time in which they're finished with their uh activities for the day would align with when we would need to provide transportation so there are vans available if there are students who are interested in participating in
extracurricular extracurricular activities okay Mr willahan thank you um what's a typical class size that you envision so starting with uh next year with a
10th grade um we're anticipating no more than probably 15 uh students to start the year because the intent is to start with 10th graders mr asa have you uh established a goal or are
you able to establish a goal as to how many people what percentage of the students will actually return to the regular programs uh I mean is that possible at this point or at this point estimating how many we would want to return to their sending kind of a goal you have for the
percentage i mean I I think it truly depends on the success i mean 100% would be great but you know if they're in a small setting there is the potential for students to continue on to success and if they're finding success in that small uh setting you're telling me that your
goal is 100% that would be great but you know I don't I think it just depends you know it's going to be a pilot year i know it's a difficult question m Martinez thank you for the presentation so my question um how do we know we have
15 and the second question is why Holio High School how do we know already that it will be from Holio I mean from north um north campus it could be from north or dean um either I I didn't hear Dean as much okay and that and that's going
to be part of the process of identifying students who fit uh the profile and having those students start the year I think the intent is learning from what we did with the the the previous school of excellence and learning from that and starting small is the intent
and we have another presenter who's who's up next is it Serita serita Gralin our executive director of school leadership hi there thanks for having me um uh alternative school programs I just want
to name are near and dear to my heart before coming to Holo Public Schools I worked as a teacher and a school leader in the Springfield alternative school programs for 13 years and I've seen um how the alternative school programs how a smaller u more intimate and structured
setting has really supported a group of kiddos that struggled in large schools um so I'm here to talk a little bit about the entrance criteria in the Holio public schools we have teams of folks that are constantly looking at data that
meet weekly and monthly to talk about kiddos if they're doing well if they're struggling and how we're going to support them and every single time our teams meet there's always a handful of kiddos that are really really struggling that we don't have an answer for and
that's what this program seeks to provide a solution for those kids so in the spirit of datadriven decision-making um the goal for this program is to make sure that we're looking at multiple data points when we're making decisions about
who's eligible for this program uh we're going to look at behavioral and social needs so it might be the number of referrals it could be suspension data we're going to look at academic needs so it could be kids that are struggling to pass their classes um and we're going to
look at kids that are just really struggling to show up to school and to stay in class and that's going to really that those sort of all of those data points are going to drive our decision-m making for who enters this the program um and of course we always want parents
and kids to be on board right we want them to see this as an opportunity um to go and to learn and to grow um and to get better at a handful of of data points that they're struggling with so that they can return right we're looking
for 100% so that they can return to their um referring school next slide hi I'm Rebecca Thompson i'm the executive director of academics and we have a sample schedule to share with you
that shows um the students day would mirror a a normal school day so that students are in school for the same length of time as your high school students your middle school students um the schedule as Mr
um Johnson shared is broken into ensuring that we are one um maintaining our academic rigor and students are meeting the grade level standards so that when they do transition back into their traditional
um setting that they're able to engage in the classroom and in the learning um in the same ways the schedule is set up a little differently in that um most of our schools actually start with um like a breakfast in the class classroom morning circle this will have a heavier
emphasis on the social emotional component um and then we'll still utilize the same curriculum that we are using for our high school math and ELA classrooms and there will be um the enrichment opportunities for students
engaged to engage in as well as um an opportunity for students to receive what they need so that could be um further enrichment and a push for students who um are able to move beyond and there's also opportunity for intense intervention for the students to be able
to close learning gaps which may be um some of the causes for this uh in the first place and so those are there in addition to the afternoon circle where we'll close up at the end of the day check-in checkout components
miss Densley Williams thank you for coming do you have any idea what the breakfast will be like the breakfast yes the breakfast in the classroom will be the same that the rest of the students in our district receive for breakfast in the classroom do you have any idea of
some of the breakfast that the kids have had bagels cereal um graham crackers that type of breakfast french toast there's um juice and milk that comes with it as well fruit okay thank you
for breakfast Mr sheen so if the goal is a students here probably about a year right is that Yeah um and they're transitioning back why not run on a block schedule similar to the high school uh because a block schedule is not
necessarily going to serve the social emotional needs of the students who potentially are not engaging well in a block schedule at the high school to begin with because of the length of the course um and so it allows for more frequent changes in um what they're engaging in and it allows for those
social emotional breaks throughout the day and learning throughout the day okay in in order for us to fit that in the block schedules would not Yeah I I would actually say block scheduling is probably detrimental to all students that need that type of break throughout the day um yet we're still doing it and
not necessarily caring for the social emotional needs of all of our students by having the block schedule so I mean it might be maybe we need to look at the greater problem that we have a poor schedule at the high school by doing block scheduling and then doing an alternative schedule for this program where we could serve the needs of all students at Hyok High School by changing
the schedule to meet all of their needs um with it so um are students going to have the ability to access uh vocational programs or exploratory um that is not a Yeah they wouldn't be able
to if they're in this program though so if a student was at dean and need to go into this program they abandon their vocational training if they were to transition back they would have to transition back to the high school then and not to dean since they would be behind in all of their vocational skills right
depending on when they transition back yes yes i I think we need to find some sort of pathway with that i mean that seems like an ill-thoughtout process with this miss Lefave
I was going to wait till the end but okay because there's a lot to this so number one alternative program tip program therapeutic intervention pro
it's the same thing serena you talked about the alternative programs in Springfield right it's a therapeutic intervention program that's what you're creating we already have it we may not have it I guess for the upper grades but
we have it already in our system for middle schoolers my question is you're trying to create this whole thing you keep talking about that it's it's not going to really be geared towards students with IEPs or 504s but even and this is why I was
going to wait till the end exit criteria it's achievement or progress towards personalized goals including IEP goals that's one of them so what exactly is going to be different about this
program that we couldn't be doing within the school because when we're talking about all students the whole child social emotional learning and you want to bring this these other
um I had them here a minute ago um the curriculum why aren't we doing that now all students versus again singling out because even when you mentioned that dean students I knew right then and
there if a dean student is referred that's it for their um career technical their vocational aspect so if they're in the nursing electrical whatever program it is that's it that was something that
maybe that skill was something that they were going to move on with and now we're taking that away because of verbal disruptive behav or whatever everything is based around behavior which at the end of the day again we are
singling out the students that suffer with mental health that to me is discrimination itself you're not going to go ahead and send somebody else or refer them to that program is going to be students with mental health disabilities going right
back to Center for Excellence state as it is it's an alternative placement whether we want to you know you don't want to do out of district i get it it's costly so now you're creating the so-called program
which we already have should have just extended it and provided it within the schools rather than getting a separate code you keep saying one year what is going to be in my world is called the
care plan the problem intervention and goal what exactly is it that you're looking for and how can you say that it could happen within one year miss Graveline you mentioned that some students do thrive in these programs i
know for a fact I know it out of personal um they do thrive why because it's smaller classrooms the the teaching is more like intimate like you
know and the students build relationships with one another why don't you look at a program for when students are hospitalized and when they're coming back as that transition model versus constantly pulling within our system provide them the supports
that they need right now in order so we don't get to that that's all I'm saying but does anybody want to Maryanne you want to talk about how this is different than tip so the the biggest difference is that the the alternative program is meant to
service students with and without disabilities so our therapeutic intervention program in the district is a substantially separate program for students with disabilities who have an IEP that call for a separate setting um to meet their special education needs
that program is not available to a student that is not um designated as a special education student on an IEP um so that's why we're looking at this type of alternative program really to meet the needs of students that would not be eligible for the therapeutic
intervention program um that's why we're like our commitment is to continue to provide those programs for students that have disabilities that need that level um of support whether it be therapeutic intervention program one of our other um substantially separate programs again we
have a number of students that we place in our out of district programs um so so that's how we get at meeting the needs of our students with more significant disabilities that need that type of support um we would anticipate that most of the students that are attending the alternative program are students that
are not on an IEP um or students that are on an IEP that do not need that level of special education support that could be um in a setting with their typical peers um so that that's the biggest difference between the alternative program and a specialized
special education specific program miss Leav Miss Courier I truly respect you i do and you know I love you to death love you too Mildred but no I'm only playing let's be a little bit honest here
number one a student just doesn't decide that they want to be disruptive and um aggressive verbally whatever like that is just someone who has never had one diagnosis maybe it's because it wasn't
pursued okay maybe the child hasn't been diagnosed yet but you can't tell me that it's not there i've been a psych nurse for 30 years i understand the mental health world i've been working in it for all these years
so we are dropping the ball because then we're not helping the family to then navigate services that they could get for their child outside of the school to help them with dealing with those
behaviors because if it's happening in school it's happening in the community it's happening at home and families just need that level of education and help and that's something else that we've always struggled here we don't help our we don't empower our families we are not
providing them with do we have parent groups where families are learning about how to deal with disruptive behaviors like some sort of you know family family night this is who has a
struggling child at home you know what I mean and providing them with resources and having a fair with with the different organizations that can help families that doesn't cost anything like the support network at the end of the day those
students will now get the services that they will need i just keep going back to the fact that we're trying to say that this is not for a student who has who has a diagnosis at the end of the day they do they just haven't been diagnosed because
again and then we should have been addressed that way from the very beginning when you noticed it not wait till it gets chronically disruptive how chronic does it have to be in order for them to then be referred history of low academic
performance how long was that history are we looking for three-year regression fiveyear regression i don't know and significantly undeveloped social and self-regulation skills what does that
mean how significant because then obviously that's the student that's getting suspended a lot to my number two if they're having that much disruptive behavior those are critical incident
reports I'm assuming because a disruptive behavior better not be this right because we weren't going to be nitpicking so what is the level of disruptive behavior are we talking about physical aggression are we talking about verbal aggression towards others self
harm towards self or harm to others like y'all really need to get the what it is your criteria what is that level because if not we are going to be referring a whole lot more than 15 your classroom is not going to start at 15 i'm going to
tell you that right now okay so that's it i'm not gonna say no more thank you for your comments Mr fave um we you know we we appreciate your comments and um you know at the end of the day we're looking for students that we think can be successful and thrive in
this setting uh that haven't been successful in in in their you know their sending school so I you know I heard I I appreciate everything that you guys said about the dean opportunities so that that would have to be something that we work into our entry criteria right
that's one of the things that we have to consider before we uh you know uh send the kid from from Dean to that program um but just like Lighthouse just like Gateway just like the success center we are doing everything that we can to try
to support the needs of our students that that are may be struggling in a traditional setting and that may benefit from a program like this um but we do have a couple of more slides that that Rebecca was going to share before we close out
felipe sorry thanks i have two school committee members who have been very patiently waiting so I'm going to acknowledge them first and then you can continue mr calmore yes a question I have is are any of these students being
able to participate in athletics yes provided they meet the the criteria that all athletic students have to meet um you know it's in the student handbook if in order to you know play participate on any of the athletic teams you um you
know Lori can get into more details but you know uh these students should should they meet all the criteria um they they'd be able to participate for sure thank you Miss Dley Williams I'm not trying to put words in her mouth
but um Miss Lefave I totally agree early intervention is very very important and we cannot wait until they weigh up on the scale we have to notice right away because like she said at home charity
begins at home and spreads abroad but early intervention is very very important my mom had 10 of us children and boy they checked us out early so that helped me because in December I was 80 years old and the things that I
learned growing up is helping me now in my old days so that's you know let's jump on it let's don't wait until the kids are just so out of hand that oh my god it's jail time we we don't want to do that so jump in the boat early anything we can do I'll come into the
schools and help you if you need me my number is on channel 12 so just call me and I'll do whatever I can as Arbella grandmother whatever and I'm here for the kids and my motto you know is if you mess with kids you mess with me thank
you guys for listening thank you all right might have to take you up on that offer uh so moving on to the social emotional learning uh we're going to open up with morning and afternoon circles the point of the morning circle is to kind of set the stage uh for the day where students are checking in uh
with their primary person uh looking at any goals and just making sure that they're all set uh for the day the day will end with the afternoon circle where students are reflecting um on their day celebrating any wins and reflecting on any challenges that they had throughout
the day uh in terms of the adolescent and uh psychology course we plan to adopt both uh the trails lessons that the district currently uses along with another curriculum uh called seeking sorry I lost it here oh
skills streaming uh that will focus on building those social emotional skills um the alternative program we intend to adopt the primary person model which we currently have at OA and we found uh great success with that uh along with some of the school observations that
we've had with um Springoint and that's a big highlight where students have a trusted adult within uh the school that they are connecting with on a daily basis uh finally studentled conferences that's another thing that will be adopted from this program at O0 it's called a case conference so students
have smart goals that they're setting both reflecting on their uh their wins and their challenges and then finally is a behavior incentive system uh next slide please and so the point of uh this
system is that we intend to focus on progress and not punishment uh students advance by demonstrating growth rather than being penalized uh on moving backwards the focus uh the system builds on academic behavioral and personal skills through clear structured steps uh
and then each level has specific goals and milestone milestones tied to self- assessment goal setting and leadership um and going through we'll reflect on positive behavior personal growth and selfacountability so I talked about the entrance criteria
as part of that entrance criteria there's going to be some really clear goals that we work with kids and families to set um and those are the goals that we're going to talk with kids about and and work with students um to make progress towards throughout their um time and the alternative school
program um as they make progress on these goals we'll talk about um and the entrance criteria or the exit criteria so as kids make as we're as they're attending school um consistently as their behavioral and social emotional
goals are being met um we'll have we'll be talking to students about exiting the program um we'll also be talking with parents about um coming in and having a conference and we'll be conferencing with the school so if it's a kiddo that was a North student and is going back to North we're going to invite those staff
from North to come and meet with the kiddo talk about their progress and what the plan is for exit um we want to make sure that as kids exit the program we also are not just it's not just a stop and go to North right we want to make sure that transition is really smooth for the kiddos so that um it's really
seamless they know what their goals are they know what supports they need when they go back to their referring referring school um and and again I talked about the role that data is going to play here data is really going to drive all of our decision- making so as the data says the
kid is doing well the data that we look at weekly the data that we look at daily the data that we look at the kid at with the students then we'll talk about um the plan for exit thank you everyone thank you Mr sheen
so I'll just say when when this first came up my biggest challenge was the the differences with this of what the center for excellence is and I'm not necessarily against this idea or concept at all because I think there's definitely merit and benefits for
students that need a different environment i think there's still the whole issue around vocational education i also do have concerns about students be able to access extracurriculars um because we were told 10 years ago that students at Dean would have no
problem accessing extracurriculars back and forth between Dean and Hoyokai and we failed at that um as a district appropriately um we were told there'd be transportation there hasn't always been transportation we've gone back and forth with these promises that we make and we don't fulfill um so I think that's
something that there'll be an expectation to fulfill that i guess what I want to hear and this is probably from Mrs career again uh on the hot seat but you were here with us not in your role in special education when we were
dealing with the center for excellence I think you were principal of man's school at the time but explain to me how this is different so the the biggest difference is that when center for excellence existed those substantially separate programs that I talked about which you
know now is a therapeutic intervention program um but those programs didn't exist in our schools those were housed at center for excellence so students did not have the ability to remain in their local school if they needed substantially separate special education
setting those settings for middle school students were all located at the center for excellence so there was all students went there so if you were a general education student that needed an alternative you went if you were a special education student that was an inclusion student um that could be
supported um within the alternative program you went to center for excellence and if you were a student that needed a substantially separate setting you also went to center for excellence and those students had no ability to integrate with their general education peers and that was the biggest
issue at Center for Excellence so it would be like picking up our therapeutic intervention program at the middle school or high school level that currently is at um Sullivan or at Holioai and removing it from the school and putting it inside this program and having those students be within that
program without the ability to integrate and be a part of um any any um uh general education uh you know with with their peers um so that is the biggest difference and that's where we're committed to maintaining you know our continuing of services our substantially
separate classrooms will remain in our schools where they have been located that is not going to change we are going to continue to um you know support students that need you know a placement at opportunity academy success center at lighthouse or in an out of district um
setting those things won't change so that that is truly the biggest difference i think this will be quick in my last why is it then that the determination is being made and I guess I even wonder it too
for OA that we have a separate program code and not work this as a different school so these students are actually physically pulled out of the high school and put in their own separate school setting when you talk about the technical aspect of it with reporting to
the state because that's what I mean when Miss Grlin talked about Springfield Springfield doesn't keep students in their home schools they are pulled out into a separate school and it's a totally separate I mean the student is enrolled at one of the other schools not
counting in the accountability and data from in this case would be the high school or peek or what why are we making that what is the reasoning for that determination I would say that that comes largely on the recommendation of
the alternative education uh staff at at Desi um that they um they really encouraged us to look for a program that was nested within the high school uh uh program so that's that's where that came from and that's why we we you know went
with a a program instead of a school and we've had a why like what's the purpose well I think uh part of the purpose was that when uh we've always considered that um as a school committee member asked Felipe earlier that we want to
have 100% of the kids who engage in this program be ready and able to choose to return to the gened uh general education setting be that at uh Holio High School on on uh North or uh or the Dean campus um and whether that's after a year or
two years uh within the program um or less in in some cases we initially when we were looking at timelines uh for students we were initially envisioning you know on a quarterly basis you know considering um return to uh to the
sending campus and and the folks at Desi were pretty strong about the experience across the state uh that uh students needed to have some kind of stability for a year for programs like this to work and so they really encouraged us to be thinking about return to uh after in
in yearly uh increments instead of uh quarterly increments it doesn't mean that that won't be an option if there's students who are ready to go um we're not going to you know um you know say like you're here and you can't move until next September um if they're ready
to go they're ready to go but how would being a separate school prohibit what you were saying about being ready because none of the supports would be different i mean a student wouldn't even know they're going to say "I'm going to school here rather than going to school here." So I guess I want to know the
technical reasons as to why this is being set up as a program and still falling under Mrs mckenna rather than being a separate school under its own building leadership as a separate school when it comes to accountability and
everything like all those types of things yeah and I'm happy to to find the answers to that and get that to you all you know as soon as is possible Miss Lefave okay so now I'm really
confused and that can happen really quickly so help me understand this part because now we're talking so this program is going to be housed inside of the polio
It will be in the med yeah that's what I thought so again separate school courier you said about moving students into another school that's what we're doing we're removing putting them into another
school because obviously we were looking at METAF to do the um success center at the success center and the opportunity academy so however you're looking at it you're removing from here you're putting somewhere else are you having behavioral
interventionists in the school uh we will have uh yeah we'll have a student support team along with uh uh therapists along with teachers they'll have access to an adjustment counselor to the our mental health uh partnersh
and uh you should know that um the supervising principal will actually be Mr johnson Felipe who will be in the building with the success center um which is where he houses his office for coordinating the the the OA programs he'll be the principal for all of those
the principal yes programs correct exactly how is this still not center for excellence but hey that's just me still have the same type therapeutic inter um behavioral
interventionist the therapist i mean it just I don't know that's just that's just what I will say is if if it is the will of this body to move
forward with this um we could certainly uh you know uh whatever would make the you know we could certainly provide you know either quarterly updates or as regular updates as as you all need on on
how successful the program is um and and address any of the concerns that come up throughout the year um we don't have to wait you know years and years uh we can we can kind of put some bumpers in place to see like how is this going and and
see if if the committee has any concerns or questions that that we can have the team address on a regular basis i have one quick question and maybe you answered it last time I just don't remember how are we staffing this program
through our operating budget and we have already all the people that we need uh we haven't hired anybody but we we have kind of a staffing model that we're thinking which uh uh Dr mahoney just alluded to and um it's currently
included in our budget right now um but no we haven't staffed the program we haven't found the people yet because we're looking for approval first so that makes me think when we are trying to staff our regular plans that
we have done of getting more people in the classroom and getting our small class sizes and doing all the paraprofessionals that we need and all of that we don't find all the people that we need and we post for a while and
we wait and we hope to find people what are we going to do differently to be able to make sure that we have all the people that we need so that this program actually works successfully in the way that you want because that's like what Miss Lefade was saying about
asking all the people that need to be there since it's running as it would be a school you're going to need a lot of people no it's it's starting off really small so we're looking at 15 kids so it's not going to be a large staff and I
don't think we'll have a hard time there's going to there's definitely some people out there that are just super p passionate about supporting a program like this um but you know I think uh the majority of our staffing challenges right now are in special education um
and uh itinerant service providers specifically but um you know that that would be part of the process is trying to you know try making sure that we can staff the building we we haven't we haven't even posted the positions or anything like that i saw a hand up over
there is that No oh sorry thank you Mr sodto miss Tensley Williams um would it be a conflict of interest um Mrs lefay she has um Oh she can't do it too much
because she has she has this for years she's been involved in this and there any way possible that maybe you could use her for half a day i'm just I'm just got you a job i don't know good at it so I don't just ask Miss Leo
Martinez i forgot my question i'm sorry no and it and it was I'm I'm telling you like I really wanted to say I get people jobs here so I'm like crazy okay thank you Mr wellahan
thank you thank you for the report it was well thought out i thought um I think we have a lot of lot of questions i'm not sure whether we want to accept the report and refer it to a subcommittee that would be my recommendation i'm not sure what your timeline is but that's my thought i'm
not sure what subcommittee maybe the either the policy or the leadership accountability and measurements mr sheen so I mean I think it's fine sending it to a subcommittee but I also think we
need to give some um ability for the superintendent and staff to start moving forward because it's April i was about to say it's March so they so the subcommittee can answer can dig in and answer some of these like lingering questions but I think there needs to be
some sort of uh I hate the word like provision there just work needs to get done and the staff needs to continue to do some of this so it by going to a subcommittee I just think we need to give them the ability to move forward um on some of it and to start making those plans if not if this is going to be
something we're going to do for September if it won't happen and I think the point about staffing was like the the big big one is that so this is Anthony sorry Mr sodto um
okay you can call me Andy no respectfully Mr sodto um no it's not that I don't think we need this program absolutely we do need an alternative type program i just don't want another lawsuit civil rights lawsuit okay the
other thing is is um is a nurse going to be a part of you're gonna have a full-time nurse in there yes okay all right so then we need a motion what to to approve
hold hold Rosalie give Give me one moment miss Tensley Williams give me a moment make that motion okay Miss Lero Martinez I just want to ask a question how is it that the center school collaborates with us in regards to some intervention that has to do with
some behavior issues how does that work can somebody answer that yeah I mean we we do have the center school as an out of district placement for some students and we do uh they do offer they provide us with uh therapists and they provide us with behavior intervention
specialists uh to support the TIP program i don't know uh Maryanne if you want to add to that but um they've been a great partner in in providing us with trained staff uh to help run support and run the TIP program and they've also been a placement for for kids that need
a little more than than the TIP program you you've pretty much summed it up um but so uh it's the um positive regard network um is the is the parent company um so school-based services is one piece of that um center uh the center school
is a private out of district day school um for students with disabilities but schoolbased services is our partner um and they provide staff to our program specifically for the therapeutic intervention program so we have staff at Lawrence Sullivan and Holioai North
Campus to support the therapeutic intervention program they provide um a floor manager as well as behavioral interventionists um so the floor manager um helps uh supervise the behavioral intervention staff um that collaborates with um the program staff at each of
those three schools my other question so do we see many of these students coming into this particular um model or no so students that are that are in the therapeutic intervention program would not be a part of this alternative program that is
that's that's not um that's not the path okay thank you you're welcome mr isasa I guess I just move that we uh authorize the superintendent to pursue planning and implementation of this program do we have a second miss
Chancellor Williams seconds discussion right all those in favor i any opposed abstensions motion passes unanimously mr mahoney don't look so surprised
i saw those eyes you were looking at me wondering what I would say thank you everyone for for joining tonight um uh the the ne the other parts of the superintendent report uh I'm you know one of them is just an FYI on the
middle school workg group that has been happening all year and the recommendations that they made in my response to them so I've included that in your packer forformational purposes um only and we continue to try to plan for a strong middle school experience next year and then uh the the counselors
and the high school did bring forward uh a recommendation to change the way we do class rank so to do away with the traditional uh you are ranked fourth in your class or fifth in your class and to move towards a a class rank that you
know uh that groups kids and you are in the top 10% of your class top 20% a lot of communities are moving into this direction i think the there's a lot of reasons as to why but one of the biggest reasons is um you know uh we want students to be collaborative and and
when with class rank involved it it tends to create an environment where it's super uh competitive and and sometimes kids might choose uh classes based on where what you know like they might choose an easy class and and shy
away from doing a hard class because of their fear of um of of the impact that that would have on their class rank so there's a lot of information in there i am hoping that that this uh could be referred to the appropriate subcommittee so that we could have richer dialogue on
it uh but that information is in your in in the superintendent report as well mr fif motion that the school committee vote to move the class rank proposed changes to the leadership accountability and measurement subcommittee
seconded by Mr isasa discussion all those in favor I any opposed abstensions so moved thank you so much and that concludes your report yes that's
good so next up we have vice chair report evaluation plan um this is as part of the what's it miss no um madam vice chair I I ask that we
um remove that the withdraw the recommendation um we will be using the current desi model for this evaluation thank you so much Miss Lefave so next up we have out of state
field trips and we start with the New England Air Museum make a motion second seconded by Miss Laave all those in favor i any opposed abstensions so moved next we have the Brownstone
Outdoor Adventure Park second all those in favor i any opposed motion passes unanimously next up we have approval of meeting minutes motion that the school committee vote to accept and approve the meeting minutes
of 11:21 and 1217 for the finance and operations subcommittee meeting seconded by Miss Dennis Williams discussion yeah thank you Mr will thank you for your patience um these are from
2024 so we're uh we're catching up on them okay thank you good job good job all those in favor i any oppose so moved
and then we had an order by Miss Wilson so I would like to take a motion to postpone this for our next meeting motion to table uh the order introduced by committee member Miss Eleanor Wilson at the receiver superintendent gather
information the following and present back to the school committee at the next second seconded by Mr sheen discussion all those in favor I any opposed any abstensions so moved moving on to
updates of committees policy and governance subcommittee that was Miss Wilson she's not here today anyone from the committee wants to say something no okay finance and operations
subcommittee mr will oh she just wanted me to say that oh Miss Feliciano go ahead sorry that the policy and governance will be meeting April 23rd um it will be a three-hour one because they want to catch up onto the policy
thank you so much Miss Feliciano mr willahan thank you uh see our next meeting for the finance and operations is going to be on February um April excuse me April 17th
uh this this Thursday at uh 5:30 at central office it will not be three hours i will bring my gavvel make sure it's not three hours um we're talking about the budget um still have the
budget gap that we're reviewing i know there's a special committee um that's also meeting on Thursday uh that um Mr sodto put together um again to address the budget um
deficit for FY 26 and so um be working hard on that thank you thank you Mr willingham do we have any updates from the joint city council school committee no not this all right thank you Mr calammore log on control
subcommittee it's a fave i'm still waiting to hear back i did hear back from Miss Woo Jennifer Woo um that I should be hearing from Lauren Woo uh to hopefully schedule um an in-person
meeting in April with the um interim commissioner who's also the Secretary of Education um on exit asurances um I'm still waiting it was supposed to be hopefully for April i
almost at the end of April so I don't know how that's going to go once I hear something I will let you know thank you so much ongoing business nope you missed i'm sorry i just skipped you by accident
updates from the leadership accountability and measurement subcommittee mr sheen just want to ask a request to the committee and I'm on the committee m I I think we need to meet even if the state can't come too we we have a commitment to meet and go over the plan and make sure we're on track
and if they can't come I think we just need to schedule and and bow forward miss faith so just to just to set the record straight the local control subcommittee will continue to meet the exit assurances was not going to be at
at the local control that Oh that's a separate school that's coming straight here to the full board as a special meeting not to local control but we'll still meet mr shan you're still up nothing no okay
we just got something tonight so we'll have a meeting soon sounds good so next up we had the policy updates motion to table second discussion all those in favor I any
opposed extensions so moved and we have announcements mr sheen i will make a motion to enter executive session not to return to open session uh because discussion could have a detrimental effect on the public body with topics of
collective bargaining and non-union uh contract negotiation second and for that we need roll call yes sir oh sorry that's right i got maybe Miss
Rosalie you start first oh Miss Tenzy Williams yes mr isaza yes mr wellahan yes mr calmore yes miss Wilson mayor Garcia yes dr rivera Cologne yes
yes leave yes mr lebron Martinez yes