Good evening and welcome back to the Thursday, May 1st, 2025 regular meeting of the school committee. We have just returned from executive session and I would invite those here in the studio to rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. So, first thing on our agenda tonight is public comment. I do not see
anybody here uh for public comment. Uh so we will move into our uh public hearing for school choice. So I would seek a motion to open the public hearing. Motion to open the public hearing. I'll second. Okay. And all those in favor? I Okay. So we are um Do
you want to talk about school choice? I sure will. Um so I did create a slide on school choice for this evening. Um, each year school committees across the Commonwealth have to decide whether or not they're going to participate in a school choice program for the upcoming school year. If you're already a
participant, you don't have to vote annually. Um, we in Hopington are not participants in school choice, nor have we ever been during my tenure. Um, so if you are choosing not to participate, then you need to take a vote before June 1st. After you take that vote, you have
to report whatever your decision is to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and you have to give a reason for your decision. So, tonight it would be my recommendation that the Hopkins Hopkin School Committee vote not to participate in the school choice program. um simply based on our what has
been pretty um substantial en enrollment growth and the fact that we are you know kind of building buildings all the time to accommodate that enrollment growth so we really just have space issues. Any questions? I one question. If we
opted in and 50 kids in other districts wanted to come here, we have to take them. You can actually set a cap of how many kids you you're able to take. Yeah. But if you take kids in in first grade, you have to let them stay. You know, you if you say we're a K to8 school and you
take them in grade one, you have to keep them all the way to grade eight. If it's a K to8 school. So if we accepted someone in K, they we'd only have to keep them until one. No. If you said we were going to take kids through K through eight, like you didn't, right?
You said we're not going to be ever have school choice at high school. We're just going to do K to 8. If you admitted a student in grade one, you'd have to keep them through the eighth grade. I interpreted the the K to8 school. Imagine like, oh well, our schools are two or three. Okay. What I'm trying to
say is you can select a grade band if you wish. and Hollist does neighboring districts that opts in are Hollist and Mendon Upton. Do we I'm just curious. Do we know how many um students Hollist takes in from other
districts that they have? No, I don't know. I I don't but I do I remember when I right around when I moved into town there were a significant number of kids from Hopkin choicing into the Hollist schools. I had
heard that that that there was a point that a lot of kids were going there. Our schools have had come a long way in that period of time. Do do they have um the enrollment issues? I mean our schools are all stuffed. Are do they
have empty seats? I don't believe they have the enrollment issues that we have. Okay. And it would not be financially beneficial for us if we could find a few seats. I don't think it would be financially beneficial to Hopington to do that.
Okay. So, we're not voting on this until later in the meeting. It looks like unless is there any reason not to move that vote up just to keep it with the discussion. No, I think once you close the public
hearing you can vote. Okay. So, it does not appear that there's anybody that wants to speak on um school choice. I agree. I would entertain a motion to close the public hearing. I move to
close the public hearing. Motion by Jamie, second by Susan. All those in favor? I. And the um hearing is now closed. I move that we do not approve school choice because of
population problems. Okay. So motion by I'll second. Second by Kyla. All those in favor? I. Okay. So, we will not be uh participating in school choice for the 2025 2026 uh
school year. Right. That moves us into recognitions. Are there any recognitions that we have tonight? Anybody? All right. Um then we can go into reports. I don't know. Are you are we expecting anybody else on the trails?
Um is our athletic director coming for that as well? We're early. We're probably having a second member show up. Okay. So, we'll hold I don't I we will hold for that then because it's not scheduled until 7:30. So, split the difference if we
want. Is Chris ready? You know, should be early. All right. Okay. Very good. We do not have a student council uh member here tonight because she's off at a school related athletic contest. Do
we want to go into I is that Susan scrolling? Do we are we waiting on the construction update and I can I can do the construction update. Okay. Okay. So this is the um project
dashboard for the month of March for the uh Hopkins project. And just jumping through what you normally here safety, there were no new safety incidents this month. Schedule running right to the bottom, the final completion, school
being ready for students is slated to be August 21st of 26. The project is on budget with no issues. Our commitments to date is at 87%. And in terms of FFN technology and
security, um we have are in the process of procuring network switches, access points and the classroom technology um through Dr. go and the proposals for the removal and reinstallation of projectors and access points um will
take place during the summer of 25. Just again looking at our site um the yellow is the existing school and the play area and you can see the red around the construction fence around the
active construction site. some of the activities to see. Um, you can see the progress along the west elevation as well as the roof decking along the north elevation in these
pictures. The CMU uh block wall inside the gym and the roof membrane um on uh at the top of the gym. uh the air vapor barrier on the exterior walls of an outdoor classroom and more
of the CMU installation in progress in the interior. Uh the view of the MEP mechanical, electrical, and plumbing roughins and the metal stair pan starting to frame the different floors.
So the progress this much this month um continuing the light gauge metal framing for both the interior and exterior walls uh the exterior sheathing installation the air vapor barrier installation the roof membrane installation at the gym
the MEP ruffins at both the first and second floor the CMU block wall installations seismic clip and bracings as well as the metal stair plan stair pans. Um, next month continuing that air
vapor barrier uh window installation will begin. The brick facade on the exterior will begin the light metal gauge framing um at the first and second floor. more of the MEP roughins, the
fire protection, piping installation, and slab prep work and slab- ongrade concrete for the gym and the multi-purpose room. And the concrete for the stair treads and remove the temporary stair tower will all happen in
the next month. Looking at the change order update, you can see the change order total requests for the month were $32,000. Um, consisting of site lighting adjustments and um the addition of the
rectangular rapid flashing beacons, which are those flashers for students or anyone at a crosswalk, they can press the button. um the total conti construction contingency um current pending and estimated change
orders from January is at 8%. So the budget update looking at the architect's expenditure to date is at 71%. Our owner's project manager expenditures to date is at 38% and the construction contract uh
less the retainage is at 20%. Moving into Charleswood, there was a meeting with the conservation committee this week for a discovered stream. The project is trending 8.6 6 million under budget as of the February
estimates. And the next major milestones, uh, the bidding of the building on May 14th, following by the construction award, construction will begin in June and July of 25. Street improvement bidding will begin in June
and July, and that actually will take place in the summer of 26. And looking again at this uh schedule which has not changed which is always good news when the schedule
does not change. That's the update. I have a question about um said Charles with a stream was that discovered what? So, it was uh a stream along some of the neighboring
houses. They have an underground drainage pipe which then was discovered at the access point to Charleswood. Um so, they went back to the conservation commission with their plans around how to work around that stream. Will it
increase our costs? No. Okay, good. Yeah, Susan, the quarters are a calendar year. Yes. And the conservation committee did accept. Okay. The meeting was Monday or Tuesday of this week and they did accept
um because I can't remember time we were doing interviews so we couldn't be there. I um I somebody was telling me about it was like the They knew. They knew. They knew. I told them and I I think yeah, I don't think
they knew or they that would have come up in discussions. Yeah. So they did everything the right way. Very transparent. Back to the conservation committee explained exactly how they would work around. Excellent. And so and the conservation committee voted voted
favor favorably. So Charleswood is January 28, correct? Okay, we can move into is that move into superintendent report. Well, thank you. Oh, is he trying to looked like he was
trying to talk? Hi, Chris. Hi. We see you, Chris. We can't hear you. Can you hear me as well? Now we hear you. Yes. All right. Awesome. Do you want him first? Happy to answer
them. Does Bob need me to get off of that television? No. Okay. Very good. All right, Chris, we're going to let you go ahead and retalk through um what you presented at the last
meeting that will allow the committee to take a vote. Okay. Um did you have the slides or do you need me to um put them up? Hold. Please. I I can do either way.
Do you want to jump off? I sure will. Yeah. All right. Do you uh Dr. Kavanagh will jump off if you want to put them up? Okay, Zoom isn't loving me this evening. So, uh contributed to my delay. So, just
bear with me one second. There we go. Right. Um, are you able to see that? Yes. Can we get There it is. We go. So, um, see it, but we can't read it because the it's very small. Yes. It's very small. So,
um, some of this is a repeat, so I'll go somewhat quickly if you'd like me to expand, um, on what I said last time. I'm happy to to recover it, but in short, last time we talked about the differences between the, um, the ways in
which we send you information. So, this is a snapshot of the budget that you receive every um, month with the invoice package. when it's included in your um warrant package, it highlights where the overall Hopkins project budget is at.
And as you look through it, um the really important thing to take away at a high level is really the bottom line. And when you look at this bottom line, it really talks about the different parts. So the total project budget that was authorized by the town of Hopington,
you have um any transfers that have occurred. That's always sort of neutral as long as we don't have new funding sources. Committed is the contracts you've already entered into. Spent is how much of those committed costs have been spent so far and left to spend is
how much of those committed costs remain to be spent. So this available is really how much you have available to pursue something else. But I want to sort of there's some caveats associated with that. So when you break that down as I
have here across the various categories, the ones that I show in yellow, so the owner's project manager, the other administration, architecture and engineering, miscellaneous project costs, and furnishing and equipment costs, those are really things that are
still reserved for specific purposes. And I could go into great detail about what those purposes are, but that's not really what tonight is about. What tonight's about is to discuss the two blue areas, which are what's available to really pursue something else. And I talked last time about the
different ways that we forecast risk as it relates to a project. So these are the same slides I showed you last time. We have a change order log that we look at um every month and we include it in the monthly report that we give to um the school administration. Um and that
estimates both um pending change orders that we've received from the contractor and our ballpark estimates of change orders that we have not yet received from the contractor. But it's been indicated that there could be costs associated with that. So those are costs
that are associated with actual line items that we can identify. We also have to do a little bit of fortuneelling. And so we do what I call ballpark estimating. And that is to assign a value to something that is I want to be in the ballpark of how much it's going
to cost. I might be too high. I might be too low. And generally we have a fairly good track record of for everyone that's high we have something that's low. And so we end up in the general area. One of the ways that we'll forecast something like change order risks. So those are change orders for things we haven't
discovered yet is we'll take a multiple in this case 6% of how much remains to be spent in your construction contract and we'll say that's the potential that could come up in terms of change orders as we move forward. We find that there's certain activities in change orders that
are more risky and certain activities where that are less risky. So more risky would be something like when you're doing foundations, you might discover an unforeseen in the ground and that might have costs associated with it. We didn't find as many. So we're able to low that
lower that forecasting percentage from where it started down to 6%. That 6% is just of what remains to be spent on the construction contract. And we find that that's a fairly useful metric for looking at looking forward.
We also met with the school administration and discussed some other risks that we think are out there. We know that as we get into some of that concom compliance, we might have to do a little bit of extra work. And so we we assigned a line item there to cover some of that extra work that could come up.
That's something we've seen in the past with Marathon and um other projects that have concom issues because you can't always see how that will fall. We also know that tariffs are a real thing. So, we took the owner's um technology and
other budgets and we assigned sort of a a 5% value of that budget for potential tariff costs that could come up just so that we're not committing that available money to some other purpose. We want to make sure that if something comes up, the money will be there to spend. And
then finally, um a potential budgeted overage. And I'll want to revisit that in a second. So, when we look at all of those in big numbers, there's about $2.1 million of potential known risks. These aren't costs that are going to happen, but when we're talking about spending
some of that 5.3 million that's available, it's our conservative placeholder to make sure that we don't commit to new spending and potentially overspend. Any questions about that?
So, moving on with that remaining amount, that 3.2 million, there's a couple of things out there that we expect to move forward and there's a couple of things out there that we in our discussion with the school administration think are
beneficial to move forward. So, last time we talked about the temporary kitchen to keep us moving. the committee um authorized up to $130,000 but um asked us to come back tonight to revisit this item as a motion
for approval. So this would support the period from when the addition opens and the kitchen in Hopkins is taken offline so that we could provide meals for the student. We discussed multiple options coming to this solution and ultimately
we're looking to authorize um this $380,000 of contingency to be authorized by Susan Rothermitch um based on our recommendations and her um approval so that we can move forward
with a solution for temporary kitchen via a temp trailer that would be outside of the multi-purpose space that we're going to use as a temp cafeteria. area. It eliminates the need to prepare meals in other schools. It eliminates the challenges that we were having trouble
overcoming in terms of transportation costs. And also, as a part of both of those challenges, it allows a wider menu because there's certain food safety issues that would very much limit the menu that you could have available. you would only really be able to serve
packaged food um that you bring from one kitchen to the place of serving and you wouldn't necessarily be able to serve within Hopkins without providing some additional facilities that are very challenging to to enter into the mix. So, what it does is it gives you a temp
trailer um that is basically a full working kitchen, connects to the utilities in and around Hopkins, and allows us to serve from that for about 5 months. That would allow a fuller menu, and it would allow us to accommodate ver
um a much wider offering. and we really feel it's the only feasible solution to cover this period from February 26th to June 26th when the existing condition is offline and being renovated. As I said, this is ballpark
estimating. So, we don't anticipate we're getting all these numbers right, but we think when when we take our conservative approach, add some contingency, we think a $380,000 um budget is a reasonable budget for all of the things that go into this. And um
earlier this week, I received some initial pricing and we found that the setup and removal as well as the kitchen trailer itself was on pace to be about $140,000. We still have some other items that we could have under bid in the same
ballpark estimating um perspective. So, we're currently for those first three items, the 40,000 for setup and removal, the rent for 5 months at 130, and the 15,000 for the platform and access. I think as we are currently looking at it,
the pricing we're getting back is falling um rather healthfully below that amount. So, I'm very confident that 380 is the right number. And I think we could probably in the future as the rest of these costs come in um we'll we'll
find that this should come in below what we're we're telling you today. But the 380 would be the contingency that you're authorizing Susan to approve once we get the full change orders for all of this scope. It covers utility connections. It
covers um the some additional loose equipment that'll be necessary for the operations of serving within the space. And um our next step in this is to approach the health department and make sure that we're meeting all the requirements that they would have as we
begin to enter into contracts to um to use this solution. Any questions about the temp kitchen before I move on to the next item? The next item would be an item that is currently on your 10-year capital plan and it would be to do a full depth pave
of the um loop road. So beyond the scope of the project for Hopkins back to where it meets the driveway that heads to Hopkins. And what this would do is it would go in, it would pulverize um the asphalt that's there. We'd regrade it.
So all those bumps that you get driving along that road, we'd be smoothing those out. We'd be replacing the asphalt curves, repaving the road, also repaving the sidewalks and restriping the road. Um, we would not be tackling the parking lots as part of this, and we would be
looking at this as a summer 2026 completion. It removes that project from the capital plan, so it's something you don't need to do in the future. And at this point, we would only be asking you to authorize the design and engineering and permitting that's required, which is
that 150,000. We did get prices for three options, sort of a full um rehab of the drainage and the road, just dealing with replacing the road in kind um with a full depth pave, which is what we're proposing. and a lesser option
that would be a mill and overlay which we would not recommend because we feel like at the end of doing all that work you would still have a lot of the challenges with that road um because some of it is in the grading in the base because that road is really um original
to the building. So you're looking at you know almost approaching 30 years. The estimate from Commodore is based on what the site contractor provided to do this work in 2026, but we would need to vet that through the conservation commission because we cross multiple um
wetland areas with that road. And so we did add a little contingency there just to make sure that we are covered if something comes up. The initial um information I've received for excuse me from Perkins Eastman is much lower than that
$150,000 right now, but I haven't received all the elements of that and in the same ballpark estimating. I think ultimately I see this as being around that $1.45 million number, but so far the costs I have gotten in are coming in
below that. We would bring the cost for the actual construction back to the committee as a total cost package after we make it through the permitting process. So that permitting process would all would be the only thing I'm looking for the committee to authorize
tonight at that $150,000 level. The third one we covered last week for those who weren't able to attend um was the move of the modular. This is a placeholder. It's just to make you aware of that cost at 1.5 million.
We would not need to take any action of this because this would be at earliest a summer 27 project, more likely a summer 28 project depending on the uh Charleswood uh schedule. And so ultimately this is just something to
when you look at the total numbers um we're really looking at do we have enough money for this? And so that 3.2 2 million. Um, we'd be spending within $20,000 of that 3.2 million that's
available. But, as I said, already with what we're seeing come back on the temp kitchen and the design for the loop road, um, it's promising that we could be under those budgets and so that current deficit may completely disappear by the time we're getting to considering
something like the Elwood modular move. The other thing that I'll say is as we move forward through the job, there are other things in the contract that are likely so far with what we're seeing likely to be credits back to the owner such as the CM contingency that's
already within the GMP and certain holds and allowances that are already within the GMP. If those are unspent, those are also credited back and still part of the budget. Um the only other thing that I would note is that so far um part of the budget was to cover um some of the
mechanical replacements within the building and we have found that the pricing of those items is listed in the schedule of values um exceeds the portion of the budget that was made up of previously authorized um MEP
replacements. And so thus far, we're still in an extremely healthy place and all signs point to that continuing to be the case as we move forward. So with that said, um the and I had another slide that sort
of talked about the the items that are in the um in the budget now. So, we're almost at a um 60% of the um what our forecast change orders would have been versus what we've actually seen. So, we're that's promising. You can see there's a
significant amount of money. I think it's about $2.1 million of G GMP holds allowances and contingencies. So, if we continue to track below those targets, that's credit that potentially comes back. And we are looking at other items in the future such as the replacement of
the existing boiler, cleanup of the existing um conditions in the classrooms, some of the ad hoc um wiring that was put in to support some of the technology upgrades and cleaning that up so you don't have as many extension cords or loose cables in the classrooms.
And potentially, if it's an option um when we come back to do the modular, you could have enough money remaining in the um budget to address something like modernizing the elevator, which was one of those items that we looked at early on, but we chose not to pursue because
it was VE at the time. But if we continue in this positive um uh trajectory that we've had, there could be money that remains to pursue those. So, we Vertex continue to track those items so that we have this we have opportunities available should the
school committee choose to pursue them um to take items off their future maintenance needs. So with that I would I'll stop sharing and if there's any questions I'm happy to answer them. Yeah, Chris, I had a question on the the 150. So that's
about 10% of the spend on the loop road paving. Is that typical that permitting and design is about 10% of a total spend on a project like that? It's it's probably a little higher, but um the 10%'s about where an MSBA project
overall falls um when you look at it holistically, but it does increase the smaller the project gets. The loop road has some uniqueness to it. If I was just talking about um surveying and designing the road, then I'd be much lower number.
But because um we have the concom permitting, I have that a little bit higher to deal with the potential that there's some wetlands regulations that get us into trouble there. I've already gotten some of the numbers that I expected to be higher in, like the
surveying come in um under 30,000. I would have expected that to be a little bit higher. the civil number I believe is going to come in a little bit lower and I think the concom's going to come in a little bit lower. So I'm really just I'm trying to set a target that I think is reasonable to cover what's
going to be out there, but ultimately this is going to be based on the actual costs that we're continuing to negotiate with the designer and Perkins has had on both projects a very reasonable approach to those additional services. They haven't been, oh, you've got this money, so I'm going to make sure I'm going to
spend it. They've been giving us fair prices for um the scope that we've been looking at. Got it. Thanks. And and this was Susan, this may be a question for you. This was part of the capital plan to do the loop road, correct? So, this is kind of outside of the Hopkins
um expansion and addition. That's right. It was it was an additional ask. Um but when we talked about it, there was a discussion that hopefully we would be able to cover it with the Hopkins. Hopkins budget. Okay.
Okay. And do we I mean spending 150,000 on design and permitting I know in the scope of the whole project is is minimal. It's almost nothing but is that typical that I mean are we would we not go through with it?
I mean I don't want to spend 150 if we're going to sit there and say hey there's a million problems or Yeah. We I we would go through with it. It It's something that that has to be done. That that road is in dire need. Okay. Yeah. And the And the sidewalks, they're they're in terrible condition. I How old
is that road in those sidewalks? Um well, that's original to what a 1999 building. Yeah. 20 27 28 years. Okay. Yeah. Maybe a little little older. And that whole loop road is solely the
responsibility of the school. It is technically a driveway. It is not a public road that the town is responsible for. Does that go all the way up to the where the HCA and it goes to Hayden? Correct.
Is are those roads built to like state standards for roads or they just so I I don't know the answer to that because um they're not they're not technically built to state or it would be town standards. Usually, usually the town has
a standard for a road that they'll accept. Um, and you a town like yours is very familiar with developers who build roads that aren't quite up to the town standards and that town meeting doesn't necessarily want to accept. Um, we would not be trying to replicate town
standards for a road here. We would be trying to replace in kind. One of the cautions that you should be aware of is that if you try to expand the scope of this road, we also potentially are gonna I think we cross the wetlands or are
adjacent to the wetlands in at least three locations, possibly much more. And so the more that you are exceeding replacing kind and creating something new, the more that you're likely triggering the current um wetlands regulations with the work that you're
doing. And one of the things that's necessary is for us to study this from a wetlands um requirement perspective. The price from the contractor is based on some assumptions they made, but they may not have assumed all the things that would
be required by the Conservation Commission and the Wetlands Protection Act in order to move this forward. So that's um I'm building in a little bit of buffer there just in terms of readily being able to approve new things that come up by setting the budget as I did.
So the number of years we got out of those that road is pretty good. You know again I would say that we have to keep in mind that it it is a driveway as opposed to a public road. So yeah, because all those heavy buses, but one
of the men from the conservation seems to want to say something. U Peter Loy, 21 Hayden Rose Street. um speaking as a former member of the planning board back in 1995 when we prevented the road from
being two-way traffic from Hopkins back to the school. Um that was done because the road had to curve because of the wetlands that he's talking about. And one of the issues I have is perhaps it'd
be a good time to take a look at seeing whether you could make that one way. So that all the, you know, especially now in, you know, we're worried about green energy, you know, having cars drive an additional mile every time they have to go to Hopkins. It would be nice if they
could go back and forth. We precluded it at the time because you couldn't have a bus and a car pass in those curves that they were requiring. There was some back and forth between Concom, the school committee, the school building
committee. it was kind of a political mess. Um, I think it might be a good time to kind of relook at that that whole issue and it might be better off overall. Might actually leave the driveway as it is and and put a road
where you need a road there. Thanks. Thank you. And the the the replacement is um sorry, sidewalks and the driveway, correct? Okay. All right. Got it. Thanks.
And it's replacement in kind. We're not seeking to expand or contract the road at this time. Um, one of the things that we need the design team to confirm is how much we can affect the drainage structures before we trigger modernizing
the drainage structures. And that has potential to create significant increases in cost. And but that's based on a a designed and engineered study, not me just sitting here saying, "Oh, yeah, we're going to do that or we're not going to do that."
Other questions? So, looking for um down because this is down item B. Uh, somebody would like to make a motion. I move to approve the budgets for the temporary kitchen estimate of 380,000
and design, engineering, and permitting costs to repave the loop road of $150,000 and to authorize Susan Rother to approve the final proposals. Motion by Jamie. Is there a second? Second by Susan. All those in favor? I. Okay. So,
thank you for bringing that all back again um this week. Appreciate. Happy to. Um and if you have any questions about either of the two projects that I'm I apologize for missing your your recap, but if you had any other questions, happy to answer them. Otherwise, enjoy your evening of
uh committeeing. Great. Thank you. All right. So, let's um go back to to bring the trails forward. Mr. Lugoy, if you want to come up in, Mr. person and you okay
we have plenty of room I sit comfy chair okay not your first rodeo is that what you're saying here once or twice he knows his chair so welcome and thank you very much for reaching out to us to to come have
the discussion today yep so I'm Peter Lgoy um 21 Hayden Rose chair of the trails committee the newly formed one trails committee for Hopkin. Um we're here tonight really for two purposes. We've got a project that
we're looking to get started and it's on school property and it's been in the works for quite a long time. I think probably most of you weren't on when it first was started. So I want to provide an introduction to that project or some information and and answer any
questions. And then also as um part of our work, we do have some slides um but probably not necessary unless you've got them. But as part of our um new committee, we want to start doing
listening sessions with folks who have an interest in trails. Um both positive and and if you have concerns that as well. There we go. Yeah. So you can go to this the second slide. Mhm. Um, and the other thing I want to
mention just briefly is there's fitness equipment that we're looking at putting in that again your quote unquote clients, students and faculty are the ones who are likely to be using that stuff. So, next slide. And this is going to be a
somewhat hard to read map. Um but basically we're looking at putting a trail in going from beside field 11 um which is near the um probably 100 yards from the center
trail and then that will go through to the new Chamberlain Street extension that's going on. That will be a stone dust path. We're in the process now of doing the notice of getting the notice of intent ready to go to the conservation commission. Um, which is
sort of was the prompt to get in front of you folks because I didn't want to go in front of the concom with you folks going, you know, wait a minute. Um, the purpose of the trail is to allow residents from that area to walk through
to school, kids to walk through to school and then also provide a walking path. um for the town. There's another section of trail we're doing at the south end of field 13 which is off the
what's the center trail there that goes down to Chamberlain Street. So there's a trail going from that center trail over to the new Chamberlain Street extension on the south end of field 13.
Um, and that's that upper sort of orang-ish trail. That trail is going to be attempt to replicate like an old cart path, an old farm road. So, we're not surfacing that at this point, but the
idea is that the cross country team will find it. We'll use it. We're actually putting in there's two bridges that need to go in there. They're going to be a little wider than our standard 32 in wide bridge to accommodate, you know, um the large cross country teams that we
have in Hopington, which is a nice feature. Um again, this will provide a loop for folks to walk as well and walk and run in areas that are off the road, separated from cars.
Um, so any questions? Any more detail you're looking for on that? When I'm looking at the map, um, like when I look at the key, which ones are currently in existence? Like are they are these all in like you know what I mean? Like which ones are current? Which ones are
planned? It might be. You might need to yell. True. True. So this is the loop row. This is field
13. This trail over to And this dirt here is now actually built road. This trail is dirt, but it's been put in, but two bridges need to go. And this
is the part that will be the woods trail slash old farm road cart path. This orange is what's going to be built and that's we've got a notice of intent that we're going to the conservation
commission with that will ultimately be a stone dust path leading over to here which is near the um the terminus of Chamberlain Street extension. There are these other trails
in here that are already existing. We're moving a couple of them slightly. Um, go back here was a requirement on the part of the developer to put some of those trails in. Um, some of it, for
example, the stone dust. The idea is that they could have put sidewalk down Chamberlain Street to get the kids down to the the existing center trail and have that be a route to school, but thought it was better in everyone's interest to put it in this location.
From our perspective, it's a poss it's a possible entrance to get us into the Berry Acres Woods, which is the woods to the um to the west there and down to the Lumber Street uh business district. So,
again, you know, I see that being something be valuable for families, but also the kids, the cross country kids find these trails anyway. They already run down there, but it'd be a little nicer running path. And again, it keeps
them I I know like right now they run on Lumber Street, which I don't even run on Lumber Street anymore because it's squirly, but they do. So, you know, the more we can move them off, the better. Solid orange
line is what you want to build. Correct. and the striped orange line that goes from field 13 down to Chamberlain then up through the woods back to the
new trail. The striped orange is kind of there and you need to fix it a little. It's kind of there. It's designed to be as a woods trail. Not a woods trail, but more of a cart path. It needs to be have some couple of bridges built. It needs
to be graded a little bit. Gotcha. And beat down a little bit. It's It's a bit of a working bit of an experiment because farm trails, old cart paths were there because they had, you know,
hundreds and thousands of cattle have walked over them over the years and tractors have driven on them and carts and so that the ground is really packed down. Things typically won't grow in that. Well, we're trying to create that in, you know, a year time frame. So, how
do we So, we're we're working on figuring out how exactly where on Chamberlain Extension does the new built solid Orange Line Trail, where does that dump out um on, you know, I know Chamberlain and
then in the middle of Chamberlain, what's the other one? They have in the middle there's probably not a fence, a gate. Is it kind of It's about a hundred yards up from that. So toward the school. It's it's actually we actually
built that already. So that end that is already built. Okay. Um it was far enough away from wetlands we didn't need to go to Concom and I wanted to get it in before the neighbor neighboring houses got built. Got there's actually an old seller there too or an old seller
hole. So there's a historical feature right there as well. Um, for my orientation, field 13 is the one if you go out past Hopkins at the end, there's a little parking lot. Is that the field? Yes. I think it's
nicknamed the swamp. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Because your wet lions like right across, right? We have a lot of Yeah. Gets wet on a lot of our fields. Yep. Yeah. It's appropriately named. Any other questions on that? So, you're
mostly here to talk to us about the that solid orange solid lounge, right? Going from the 100 yards south of the terminus of this Chamberlain extension development going up past field 11 towards up to Loop Road.
Correct. Yeah, that's that's the piece that we're going to the conservation commission with. We've already got gone to conservation on the other on the other ones the other pieces. Um who pays for all this? Um they're CPA funded
projects, Community Preservation Act. Um next slide. Moving on. briefly just wanted to point out um we through the town's participatory budget we got fitness equipment
um location for that equipment is across from where the middle school trail comes out in center trail. So again about probably 200 or so yards down on on the the first
center trail. um that three of the pieces the the balance beam is not in. That's backordered. Um but there are three other pieces of equipment that are already in. Uh Scout did that on Thursday, Friday this week. Um after
spending what a substantial amount of time in Tim's storage, he didn't even yell at me too much. I was very appreciative of that. Um but that's going in. We're working on it. Yeah. Doesn't it look nice? Yeah.
So, the next step is to put um working with Alex Danahe to make sure we can have it accessible, but then put a uh stone dust type path down through the center of the equipment and then uh the rest of it will be just wood
chips. So, that's in progress. Not quite there yet, but on the way. The final thing and we can go to the next slide is um really the last item here, ideas and concerns.
And I put these others up just because these are topics that you may have heard about have come up at other times. And so there was talk about a trail going from Hopkins up to EMC. And I know part of that actually got built
um you know what I talked about earlier. It'd be nice to be able to extend this trail that I presented all the way down to lumber. I think there's some value there. Been talk about other trails, but our real purpose here is to to be kind of a listening session as we're a new
committee now. Um there's been some issues with trails committee. So it's like, okay, how do we move forward? So part of that is is going out to different committees and saying, you know, what ma matters most to the school committee with regard to trails and what
value how can we best benefit the committee and just sort of hearing any thoughts you may have on that the value of trails for for your user groups, students and faculty basically. So thoughts,
two thoughts that popped up that you touched on already, but um that I really like. One is um increasing the accessibility to walk to school. I love also speaking of true accessibility that you're working with Alex Dana. The other piece is the cross
country teams. Uh and and as you mentioned, we do have a lot of kids who do cross country and having these trails more official trails. I like that. I have a question. If kids can walk these trails to
school, will we have any kind of security like cameras or something on those trails? I don't know. As a parent, it would be like really great idea to walk through the woods to school. But then apparent in this day and age you
wonder just it just popped at my brain. I was I was thinking about so I think security is something that we are we've always been concerned with uh in in relative relativity to the trails. Um, I
guess some of our concerns is, you know, we're hanging signs to not use school property during school hours. U, we do have a lot of people that work that walk the loop road and, you know, use the trails now and stuff and we're trying to keep people away from campus. Um, is
there concern about adding more trails to campus leading people in direction? Uh, the concern for walkers, uh, I go right to inclement weather, right? So we don't maint the schools don't maintain the trails. Um so in the winter time if
they decide to continue to use those trails it's kind of at their own peril you know hopefully not peril but you know what I'm saying. Great place for snowball fights. Be a great place for snowball fights. So those have, you know, and I think the schools are a supporter of trails, but those are
always kind of our concerns is how do we keep our campus safe from, you know, it's great for our Hawkington residents to use it, and we encourage that, but um these as these trail systems grow and connect, it brings in, you know, there's a lot of outside people that will want
to come in and use those trails. You know, I think another concern of ours would be um does this become kind of a hub for parking? If I'm not familiar with trails and I'm looking for a place to park and I'm I look on a map, it say school's got to have plenty of parking,
right? So, those are the concerns that really Yeah, good luck to them. They better get there early. But those are the concerns that we we in the school district kind of talk about as we're we're talking in our you know monthly safety meetings and and things like
that. Um I did have a chance to talk to uh Deputy Chief Inro and then and Matt Santoro and I think they share some of those concerns security-wise children walking on the trails without any real supervision from from
the school. So um those are some of the concerns that have come at least in my direction as these things have come about. I would say the trails are a lot safer than walking on Hayden Row Street. I mean however people see you see see the kids on Hayden Row if Yeah. So I
think because I'm thinking about that really really horrible element in our world. Yes. And I think that's the way that I would I would probably suggest that's the way our police department would look at it as well. the really horrible element, the worst of us. Yeah.
Um, so those are the things that have come at least in my direction when talking about these trails. I think our um athletic director would support trails in the schools. I think, you know, he has uh busing issues to the state park where they're running now and
things of that nature. To be able to run cross country on the school property would be, you know, I just talked to him prior to coming to this meeting. he was in support of it if the trails made sense for him to run on. So I would even suggest having, you know, a conversation
with Ricky Andrade to, you know, to make sure we're, you know, we suggest it to make sure it works for him. I mean, it would be really great for kids to be able to walk through the woods to school because that's a Well, it would help our traffic concern, but it's also a really
wonderful experience. It is. Yeah. Yeah, cuz I used to take my students out on the trails and then we'd rude transendentalists and stuff. Yeah, we're utilizing one of the trails now as the Hopkins project goes on. Um that trail
that comes out at field 10 now. Mhm. So, we've gone through and kind of made it a little wider or safer without removing anything. just kind of moving brush and and uh leaves and stuff like that. So, it looks like a walking, you know, a
place you'd want to walk with a group of children. So, and I have fewer concerns about um like the safety or like sudden access for the older schools. Um I have a little more concern about um easily accessible trails right next to our younger schools. Um because I know one
of the the items on the list is like around Marathon and Charleswood. So, that would be something thing that I would worry about more than all the trails near the middle school, high school, Hopkins. No, I I put that out because I remember that was the topic of discussion and so I sort of wanted to
get a feel for where the committee was and you know I think heard the concerns before. So keep that in mind. Are there any ways that have been thought and thought of in terms of mitigating some of the safety
concerns? I don't I don't know other trails that may be near schools or I Well, I would start off by saying that it's a high perceived risk. Yeah. And a very very very
low actual risk based on the evidence that's out there. Um you know in falls into two categories. People are get very concerned about that with regard to school, in regard to kids, but typically um bad people don't like being out in
the woods. It's not their favorite place. Um you know, you you we see that a lot too with a concern about, you know, what about trail going in near my house? It's going to increase access to crime. It's like, well, again, no.
people who use the trails in the morning are not seeing criminals walking with flat screen TVs going by them. It just it it's not a concern. Having said that, we did have an issue on Echo Trail, which is away from the school. So, slightly different issue
um dealing with someone who was tagging a bench that we had out there. I can't remember what he was writing on it, but it wasn't particularly appropriate. And after washing it off three times, I finally talked to the police and they put a camera on it. So there are ways of
doing that. Yeah, you catch culprit. No, we didn't. Um although I did get a panic call from my son who was going down there to fish, which you're not supposed to do, but he's older to say, "You know anything about that camera?" Actually, yes, I do.
Um but you know in in the case of a trail if certainly if a kid walked down and and felt at all uncomfortable or you know hey there's this person there I think I think that would get some pretty intense attention fairly quickly and you
know that could be that could be addressed at that time but as I say I think in actuality it's not it's it's much less of a concern than the perception is. I think if we were, you know, if we were going to talk about trails around Marathon and Charleswood,
you know, one, we'd need to really know all the ins and outs of the design and we're not quite there yet. Um, but also just understanding all the logistics around what barriers are in place, like what's the fencing, who maintains it, um, all like those questions that could
eventually come up and I agree with you. Yeah. I Well, the one that is been used is the there's been a cut through from Blueberry over to EMC that's very close to and that is that's
going in as a sidewalk. Okay. So, I mean that'll be between two houses maybe I mean maybe a little patch of woods that it goes through but yeah mostly. Yeah. That was last town meeting I think right? Yes. Two two town meetings ago. Two of them. Where's the cell service
out in the middle there? Like if you got into that. Cell service is typically fine. Yeah. Yeah, that was crossing my mind. A lot of kids would have cells. Well, I was thinking if somebody tripped and fell or, you know, just
ability to access emergency services or, you know, yeah, pretty easy access. They're none of the trails are particularly long. When I when we first put them in, I had a discussion with Ken Clark, who was the safety officer at the time, and we kind of talked about it and
said, "Yeah, I don't see it being an issue in terms of access to anybody who who had any sort of emergency out there. It'd be really easy for them to get to that person and for people to be able to call for help."
Yeah. So, any other things that you'd like to see trails do? I mean, concerns was my next question. We've kind of gone through a bunch of that already. So, um for the it's sort of a concern. Um but also something I'd like to see done,
especially if we're encouraging the kids to be running, if the trails are labeled clearly so that if someone gets injured, they can say, "I'm on versus I'm on a trail in the woods." Um, so if they're named like biomarkers almost or something like some kind of
identification system so that it's easy. Yeah. If they have a way of contacting that they can express where they are. We're looking at naming trails um the ones that go over to Chamberlain Planning Board or maybe Open Space has the primacy on on the initial
names, but we'll be working with them and then bringing that to the select board to get them officially named. But yes, that's you know in Part of the process is getting names for the trails. Um the one I call the middle school cross country course. Um I was told by
the middle school by one of the one of the cross country coaches that the kids all call that the um Fern Glenn Trail. So that will Fern go. Fern gully. Okay, that's right. Yeah. So that will go as its official name.
Yeah. Um, so how can we best communicate you with you going forward? Um, these type of meetings if we're if we're the idea would be if we're thinking about something, I'd want to be able to kind of prelim preliminarily bring it to you folks to kind of say, "Hey, what do you think?
Concerns, good idea, bad idea, and why?" So I I would say the best way to communicate with us as an entire group would be to to reach out and get which was scheduled to you to bring you know whatever the presentation would be that you want to discuss in a meeting like
this just because we can't talk opening law outside of the meeting. And if I could, I would just suggest even prior to that, if we could connect somehow and just kind of go over what you're looking at, that way when they bring me here, I know I can anticipate
what they're talking about. All right. Um, one final thing is just wanted to again at the 10,000 foot level talk about other I think trails that may be of interest or issues that may be of interest to the committee. So, for
example, um we're considering putting a trail in at Legacy South, and this would be this is out probably a couple of years, uh walking trail, probably a mile trail. But one of the really cool things about Legacy, and Peter Mes, we've been working with him on on doing the walk.
Chuck Joseph and I have been working with Peter. Um he's very interested in the educational aspects. One of the things we have here is because that's an old nursery, there's a spot that you can stand there on this where this trail would go where you can see eight different conifer
species which is pretty unique. There aren't a lot of places you can do that in Massachusetts and and obviously there's other nursery stock and wildtock sort of in these areas. So there's some educational opportunities. So, you know, I think that might be of interest. We're
also um looking at putting in not fitness type equipment. We can't call it exercise equipment because that wouldn't be allowed under the conservation restriction, but we're going to be putting like logs and things
for younger kids to crawl on and walk on. And so the thought is to do that out in the Hughes field at some point. Um so again, things that we'll keep you aware of but won't necessarily bring to your
attention. It's not directly on your ground. So that's it from my perspective. I think what we heard is, you know, concerns and and a little bit about access and security and just be careful when we're when we're looking at the
trails and and putting stuff in to make sure you're aware of what we're doing. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much, thanks. We are going to circle back. I did want to just say for folks who are watching at home
uh that the discussion on the high school principal is actually going to take place during tomorrow's meeting. Uh that we have a scheduled meeting for tomorrow at at 3 p.m. It is posted on the town calendar. Um but just logistically that we had changed that um
for it's a Zoom meeting at 3 p.m. So it is um you know will be recorded and whatnot for people who can't uh watch live. But um I want to just in case anybody was holding out for that. All right. So back to the superintendent report. All right. Thank you. So this is the superintendent report for May 1st,
2025. Before I start, I want to talk about the origins of this. So over vacation last week, uh Mr. Bishop and I were both working and um we were talking about working on you know an entry plan and then talking about what you know
your entry findings look like and I thought I'll go back and take a look at my entry findings which I did. So, um, this, you know, I obviously started in July of 2018. And so, there were five things that I had in my entry
plan findings that, you know, we talked about really working on. And those were uh to meet growing student enrollment needs and develop budgets that that support increasing enrollment. To create a plan to expand school physical plans to accommodate increased enrollment in
Hopkin to determine curricular and instructional changes to meet the needs of all learners, bearing in mind PD overload because there are times when know you start too many initiatives and then your faculty and staff can't keep up with them. um supporting students
everchanging social, emotional and behavioral needs and then offer mission and vision statements that drive the school district's goals over the next uh three to five years. So starting with the first one, meeting our kids enrollment needs and um developing
budgets to support that enrollment. Uh, one of the things I did was I went back and said, how many kids did we have in the 1718 school year and then how many FTEEs did we have at that time, full-time equivalents of teachers and then I kept going all the way up to the
23 24 school year. And one of the things that I found that was kind of interesting is if we took the teacher ratio teacher student ratio for each of those years um at its lowest point it's 13.7 students to one teacher and it's at
its highest point it's 14.4 students to one teacher. So really we're not even talking about the difference of a student. Um, so I think that as we've added teachers over the years to kind of keep up with the enrollment, it feels, you know, pretty solid the decisions we
were making about adding teachers. And I think that also speaks to being fairly conservative with the budget. Um, then I looked at our per pupil expenditure for FY21, FY22, and FY23. Those are the ones that have sort of been certified by Desi. And it's gone
up $1,500 over the last three years. So in FY21 it was 15,870 and FY23 it was up to 17,372. Um, interestingly that still keeps us in the bottom 25% and we do
this all the time at town meeting. We look at um a bunch of different school districts. We've been using the same 33 for the last I don't know seven or eight years. I think we chose them because they were either schools that you know wanted to be like us. We wanted to be
like them. we share a contiguous border. Um, Desi says that we are demographically like them, whatever. Um, but every single year we land down here at either number 31, 32 or 33, uh, we
are always vying sort of for that those bottom three uh, spaces with both Shrewsbury and Ashland. This is FY23 data. Um despite uh where we are there, it feels very good to still have those rankings. You know that we have had
years where we've had the best teachers, been the best school district and the best place to teach. Um most recently in 2025, we were number one of 233 in terms of our the quality of our teachers. Uh we were number five out of 217 in terms of best school districts in
Massachusetts. And best places to teach, we were seven out of 237. And then um our most recent US News and World Report rankings. These are for high schools in Massachusetts. There are 306 districts and 405 high schools. If
you take a look, the only other public high school um ranked higher than Hopkin is Lexington High School. Yes, there are exams at schools in charter schools. Um but then you get down here to number seven. So we are sort of technically the second ranked public high school, which
feels very good. Um the second thing in the uh plan from 2019 said to create a plan to expand school physical plants and to accommodate our increased enrollment. Um so it's kind of interesting that this is also happening on our evening of school
choice because you can see how many classrooms and what we have been doing with renovation and new school. In 1920 we added four classrooms to Hopkins. 1920 four classrooms to Elmwood. 1920 six still sticku classrooms at the high
school 2223 four sticku classrooms on Marathon which opened in 2018. Uh we are building or getting ready to build the new Charleswood which will be a 234 school. Uh it's estimated that there will uh when it gets reaches its max
that there will be about 1,200 students in that building and currently a big renovation addition to the Hopkins school. Determine curricular and instruction changes to meet the needs of all learners. So Mr. Lead and I sat down.
We've gone back through sort of our old district improvement plans and we thought about some of sort of the big pieces. Uh we've done things like we had a dyslexia screener before the state required that we were supposed to have one. Uh last year we engaged with the
state to create a dyslexia action plan. We have foundations in K to3 Heggerty prek to one UFly um which is the uh University of Florida uh lit literature institute um and they have a program for
kids that helps them with um phonics and phmic awareness. it grows their decoding and then ultimately grows their comprehension. Um, geodess decodable that's not although it's not um created it's it's not sold by Wilson it is
linked to foundations in terms of content disciplinary literacy 6 to2 we've done a ton of work uh Shelley um Moran has done number corner for us and I think you'll see some really great growth in math night last year we started for the first time middle school
math 6 plus done a lot of work with specially designed instruction with co-eing um in grades K to 8. We did a renovation of the White House. We launched MTSS. We've had the CVTE grant several times. We are now implementing
curious science grades K to five, which is a nice program because there's literacy embedded there. Um and curious science is really roll up your sleeves and also do the science and you know the MCCAST test has changed to measure that. Children discovering justice K to5 also with literacy embedded uh in Mr.
Bishop's school. vision of the graduate, the high school senior capstone project has evolved. We've hired a K to5 literacy director, K to 5 math director, a 6 to8 literacy director, K to5 and six to 12 special education directors, especially for curriculum instruction
and assessment, and a director of English language acquisition, equity, and access. All of that has happened. Um, so in terms of supporting our kids social, emotional, and behavioral needs, I think that this has been a super strength for this district. We've done an awful lot of work. When I got here,
um, a couple of the buildings did have SEAL goals. Um, since I've been here, every single one of the school buildings has had an SEAL goal. Uh, we've brought in the holistic student assessment survey and that helps us to know where kids are um, strong and where they're struggling. We always do the Metro West
adolescent health survey. We use that data. We have um implemented positive behavior interventions and supports PBIS, lots of SEAL, um an empower program, a bridge for resilient youth and transition programs for kids kind of
coming back from hospitalizations or kids who might be um school avoidant. We have the right program, culturally responsive indicators and observable practices, the cryup, which we've talked about many times. restorative justice training that happens over and over again and that has been entirely grant-f
funded. Uh this will be the first time we do a pride month celebration. We have lots of support for our multilingual families at the high school. We've implemented flex blocks and we have two policies that the school committee has approved. One is JBD, gender identity support and the other is JIC. You'll
remember we did the Kurpan weapons in school. So that all felt pretty good. Um and then we offer a vision and a mission statement that drive our school district's goals. Um this is for the 2024 2025 school year. And I know that
Mr. Bishop and his team will be working to um really dig into that this summer and think about looking at a brand spanking new vision mission um district improvement plan. And I think that's really wise for an incoming superintendent to kind of assess where
we are and where you want to go. Um, so our vision statement does say that we aspire to be a community of educational innovation where children are challenged and inspired to reach their fullest potential, afforded the agency to define who they will become, and celebrated for their human kindness. Our mission is
that we ensure equitable access for all students to academically challenging curricula in a community that supports their social emotional learning, ultimately guiding our young adults to create their own pathways, engage in citizenship, and foster respect for self and others. So that's something we have
had um in place now for several years. Every summer we revisit it. We have three big buckets to fill and that's enrollment growth, meeting our students needs and making sure that we are fostering that community of respect and collaboration. We have defined all of
those and I won't read them to you aloud, but we have a rationale for each of those buckets. And when we build our district improvement plan in our SIPs, we make sure that they are always in line with this. So what does the data say? How are we doing? Um, I start here
with grade three, four, and five mathematics achievement levels. And you can see where we've been from 2021 to 2024. And it feels really good that our scores are going up every single year. Um, the growth that we're seeing from
say 21 to 24, uh, when you look at grade three, 76% of our kids are here and 66 65 were there. Uh we've hit the 80 mark here in grade four and we've hit the 81 mark here in grade five. That feels
pretty terrific. Um and so when we look at grade six, I thought it might be interesting. So grades six, seven, and eight, we're seeing the same great growth in math. And you know, we wondered, well, how do we compare when you look at other districts that we
would consider to be high-f flyers? So we kind of look at we very frequently in Massachusetts we joke about the W's um and that would be like West and Wayland Welsley and we say what are they doing? So when we look at our dart comparison in mathematics Hopkin is the orange line
it feels good that we're really keeping pace um with our counterparts in Welsley for example in grade six in with Wayland in grade seven for example and with Weston in grade eight for example. So, our math scores are way beyond where um
maybe we anticipate anticipated they would be. The instruction is really at super high levels. Um if we transition to ELA, you can see that by the time we get to um 2024 in grade six and grade 8, we are
really having sort of our best year ever. That feels wonderful. Um, if we look at grade 10 in both ELA and math, we're sort of having our best year ever. And I want to point out here that I don't think that's ever happened historically uh before, especially since
the launch of the new MCCAST. But in grade 10 ELA, we reached 90% proficiency. And 90% proficiency is pretty unheard of. Um, you know, just given the fact that, you know, it's very natural for kids to have reading deficits, for people to have reading
deficits. Um so getting to that 90% feels amazing. U and I want to really thank the English department I think at the high school um and the math department all the departments because with through disciplinary literacy and through the investments that they have made in looking at student learning data
and kind of redesigning instruction and thinking about drilling all the way down to individual kids. That's how you get these results. Uh I don't want to not talk about grade seven. um grade seven, we looked at 2024 and we were really taken by surprise because the year
before in 2023, we thought, you know, wow, look at look at how we're doing. We had we hit that 75% marker when, you know, before we were not even hitting 70. And then in 2014, it was a really tough year. And so we said, well, what happened to other districts? And so if
we pulled in like a Welssley score or if we looked at a Weston score, you can see it was kind of a tough year for everybody. So, I'm not sure what happened with that seventh grade test, but lots of the scores were, you know, our kids that we thought would be over the 500 mark, which is the proficiency mark, were coming in just under. I'm
sure that must have happened in other districts because their scores are mirroring ours. Was there a call for them to look at that part, that test? I don't necessarily know that Desi looked, but there was one question that only 23% of the entire state got right. So, I
mean, when you have a test question like that, it's there had to be something confusing about it or something not taught about it. Uh, but I'm sure that that's, you know, something that influences those outcomes really.
Yeah. Um, and I don't want you to think that there are not areas to work in because there certainly are. Um and so the things that you know if I were um thinking about what to work on for myself next year and you know I know
that we're not doing that evaluation but really the growth and achievement scores both of those for our students with disabilities in ELA and math. Um and I think that we we know that because we already have been working on it. We have implemented those new curricular programs, foundations, Heggerty,
Geodess, UFly that is there for um you know all of our students but they are particularly helpful for our students with disabilities um who may need additional help in um in reading. Uh we have the instructional coaching from the
K to5 elementary ELA director and I should have included math director because that fits in there as well. our K to5 director of special education for curriculum instruction and assessment and specially designed instruction and improved co-eing all of that is happening and then also just growth and
achievement generally for elementary K to5 literacy u are our scores um bad they are not bad I wouldn't want anyone to think that they are um but these are places where I think that there could be a 5% growth for sure um and that would
make us uh very very competitive. Not that we're not always already very very competitive. Um and of course I want to thank our teachers, our special educators, paraprofessionals, nurses, related service providers, all of my fellow administrators and the support staff who have made those kinds of
scores possible. Um the the vision that we all share in this process has been amazing. Um, and when I wrote those entry findings all of those years ago, I don't know that I had quite imagined what the last seven years would look like, including a pandemic. Um, but it's
it's amazing to see what has been possible. And I always like to compare our per pupil expenditure with, you know, the towns that we are good competitors with. And we are spending $17,000 a kid where other folks are
spending 31 and 27 and 22. So, we have an awful lot to celebrate and I think we owe that to all of the people who work so hard and our families and our kids who also work really, really hard in the district. So, it's been kind of a nice trip down memory lane looking at all of
this for me and thank you for indulging me. This isn't your last meeting, is it? No, it's not. But this just came up. I mean, a lot of meetings I and I had time to think about it. So, it's really kind of because you didn't have to do all that planning for next year. Yeah,
that's right. and it was vacation week. So when when there are when you know when teachers and kids aren't here it's a lot quieter. That's all. Great. Thank you. Any questions? Okay. That then moves us into the school
committee chair report. Uh payroll warrants S25020 and S25020A have been approved. Do people have liaison reports? They've got a pizza party for CPAC this Saturday. Saturday. Yeah. Great. 11
o'clock. I think they have an indoor and an outdoor option in case it's raining. Yeah. I think the indoor option may You think it's raining? You know what it I I feel like it we have these beautiful weekdays when people are in school or at work. Um and then we get to the weekend.
It's different story. Good thing we're building outdoor classrooms. All right. So, we have done new business items A and B. Um, that brings us into item C, which is the Hopkin High School
drama scholarship. Dr. Kavanagh. Okay. So, there is going to be a great series of these. And what we are asking for is the school committee is requesting um uh that the town treasurer allow us to authorize payment for uh two drama
scholarships. here. They are $500 each, but we'll be doing that all the way down with all of these scholarships. So, okay. And we do this annually. Yep. So, do you want us to vote each one as we go? We do need to vote each one individually. Yes. Unfortunately. All right. Move to authorize payment two
drama scholarships for $500 each. Second by Kyla, second by Chris. All those in favor? I move to authorize two Mary Roach scholarships for $75 each. Second. Fabulous. Do you want to say anything about that before we No, I just think
that this is a wonderful one where it is here. It historically it was the highest GPA for the students when they were at the Elmwood School, but since we no longer know that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. All those in favor? I
Okay. All right. That brings us to the Lou and Kathy White scholarship. Move to authorize payment of the Lou and Kathy White memorial scholarship in the amount of $500. Motion by Jamie, second by Susan. All those in favor? I brings us down to item F. Move to
authorize payment of the Annette Joyce floor memorial scholarship in the amount of $500. Second. Motion by Jamie. Second by Kyla. All those in favor? I. And that passes. STEM scholarship. Move to authorize payment of a STEM scholarship in the amount of $5,000.
By Jamie, second by Kyla. All those in favor? I. Uh and that brings us into nurse nurse negotiations. Okay, so you know that there's only one bargaining unit left with which um we need to establish a successor agreement and
that's the nurses. Um hopefully we can get started in on that process very soon. U but we do need one school committee member um to sit in on those negotiations. Right. Um do you have any preview of when those might be taking place for people to think about
scheduling? Um I don't. We I did talk to um HTA President Becky Abate um recently and she did say she had a lot on her plate. Um but I'm hopeful that we're going to get that started prior to the end of the school year. You know that their contract technically runs into
August. So they wouldn't be working without a contract. Um but it does feel good to get things underway at least for now after that. Yeah. But likely after after school in the afternoon time when we typically would Yes. And the one thing that we might also want to think
about is that you know that u I finished on the 30th but so too does Abby Hanscom who oversees the nurses. So there will be a change in student services director um maybe in the process or if we are fast
about it not in the process. So I don't want to dump that on to a new student services director. I was going to say if we could possibly get that done um get moving on at the end of this month in the next couple weeks at least so that we could it usually doesn't take a
lot of meetings because it's a different contract than the teachers association. Um is there somebody who would specifically like to do that? I'll do it if nobody else. Okay.
All right. Thank you, Susan. Did you want to do it? Okay. All right. So, they're getting a $5,000 pay increase. Um, my sister was a nurse. So, is there a motion to appoint Susan?
Um, I would uh move to appoint Susan to serve on the HTA unit C Nurses Negotiation Committee. Thank you. Motion by Kylo, second by Jamie. All those in favor? I. Okay. And that brings us into the um we already did the vote on school choice, so that brings us into the vote
on custodians union contract. All right. Thank you. Um so the custo we have uh successfully negotiated with the co custodians and they have ratified um the uh memorandum of understanding and so tonight that's what we're looking for you to do also is to uh ratify that
contract. Um maybe just a couple of highlights. Um one is that um we have increased the time for uh people to make a grievance from 5 to 10 days. That works both ways. They have 10 days to file the grievance. we have 10 days to
respond. Um so we kind of appreciated that. Um there was a little bit more flexibility in terms of work hours on on our behalf. So the new contract will say that um full-time custodians work an 8 hour shift Monday to Friday, but we have
the opportunity to schedule them in that eight hour in eight hour period anytime between 6:00 am and 11 pm. So um that's that's helpful or on the weekend between 7 a.m. and 5:00 pm. So that's very helpful I think to Mr. person um as he's working um through things in buildings.
Um there has been a very slight increase to longevity payments. um their um clothing allowance uh for their work uh has increased to $550 I believe and
um in terms of the wage scale uh they are getting a 5% increase over all three years and that is because when we took a look at a a really nice market analysis of what other custodians were making in similar communities ours needed a bump
to be you know at market. Okay, great. Any questions on that? Is there somebody who would like to make a motion? I move to approve the Hopington custodians contract for 2025 to 2028. Motion by Jamie, second by
Susan. All those in favor? I. Uh so that is unanimous. Uh and many thanks to the custodians. Um and brings us we did um I had mentioned earlier we are doing the Hopkin High School principal uh discussion tomorrow
at 3 PM on Zoom. Uh that brings us into the superintendent summit of evaluation which we did discuss at our last meeting. Um but the evaluation process for the end of the year for superintendent is lengthy. It takes several it takes really three meetings.
um but also a lot of work in between and what we had discussed was um the DESIE requirement is that if we um put forward that Dr. Kavanaaugh is proficient uh that we can just move the evaluation like that the typically we
would do an evaluation u both for Dr. Kavanaaugh's uh benefit to help in shaping next year, but also for you know our benefit to be able to um kind of have feedback into for next year. But where Dr. Kavanaaugh is retiring um I'm
not sure that our feedback would be super helpful for you. Well, I move to accept the superintendent summitive evaluation is proficient for 2024 2025 school year. Thank you. Motion by Susan, second by Kya. All those in favor? I.
Okay. And that is unanimous. And that brings us into student services director, which I think there are probably people watching that have been waiting for this. Okay. Um, thank you. Uh, so before I begin, I do want to say that
Mr. Bishop and I have worked very closely on this. Um it's really important I think that as a new superintendent he's able to kind of establish his team and um you know as as you're going through
that process um you have you know a central office team you have uh building level teams and one of the things I say to the central office folks all the time is that we work in service of the buildings and so this is an important hire because not only is this person
servicing children um but also making sure that teachers have what they need and making sure the building administrators have what they need. Um so it's really an integral position and I wanted to be sure that uh whatever the outcome was Mr. Bishop felt very comfortable with it and I think that when I speak tonight I'm speaking for
both of us. Um the process began quite a while ago. We uh started with some screening interviews. So as résumés came in, we reviewed them and then the folks who work in central office and Mr. Bishop um
interviewed those candidates who were sort of credentialed and and had the experience we felt to actually do the job. Um and then you established a subcommittee and you went through um a very large panel interview and I think you may have seen five folks. Is that
correct? Five. Yeah. Can't remember now. Um and so we had a lot of feedback from that day from all of you. Um and that was very very helpful to have all of that written documentation. Some of it was quantitative so that on a liyker
scale you could rate them but also there was you know a lot of information that came to us that was qual qualitative as well. Um then two nights ago we had a public forum. So parents and faculty
members, staff, um taxpayers, anyone in town could come out and meet the candidates. There were three people who were there as part of the public forum and they did a brief inter introduction and then they kind of were got that barrage of questions and I think that
all three of them did a really lovely job. Um they were able to answer all of the questions um indicating that they had a lot of passion and expertise. um and the school committee simultaneously had an opportunity to meet individually with um the three
finalists for the job. Um I will say that the depth of experience for all of these candidates, you only make it to that final round if you have very rich experience, if you have that passion, um and if you really have that commitment,
I think to children. And I will say that all three of them did. All three of them we believed could um certainly have served the Hopkin public schools very very well. Um when we uh sat and reviewed all of
the feedback documentation, whether it came from the school committee or from the panel interviewers or from the public forum, um it felt like uh we were all in agreement that having someone with um the kind of uh experience where
they had done the job like it it kind of came through. you know, when you asked a question about working with a great big budget or something, you know, it felt it felt good to have that kind of expertise. Um, and so while again, any one of them could have done the job, I think tonight, I'm going to recommend to
you on behalf of myself and Mr. Bishop, uh, Jessica Bey as our next director of student services. Thank you. of um thoughts. I think it's an excellent
um recommendation. I I was really really impressed with with her and her knowledge. I agree. I think it's a great choice. The screening committee felt very strongly in the same um aspect um we
discussed. Um her answers and responses to the questions were over and above that of the other. She was thorough without talking forever. Um, I didn't feel like any of her responses were lacking substance and and she was really thoughtful.
Um, the other two candidates were also very thoughtful. Um, it felt like Jessica's approaches fit more naturally in with Hopington. I would agree with all of that. I I did think all three were excellent candidates and appreciate all the work
that went into the screening committee to to bring those three forward, but I also felt very strongly that um Jessica rose to the top of that crowd. So, is there somebody who I would
like to move to approve uh Jessica Bey as the student services director contingent on successful contract negotiations? Motion by Jamie. I'll second. Second by Kyla. All those in favor? I I and that is unanimous. Uh so
we will um look forward to hearing uh on the contract part of that. All right. So we do not have uh old business here. We have the items by consensus. Okay. The superintendent, I recommend the school committee approve the items by consensus as outlined in your agenda.
I move to approve items by consensus. Motion by Jamie. I'll second. Second by Kyla. All those in favor? I I uh and then I would seek Oh, I have one thing. Um yeah, go ahead. For our next meeting dates, um May 15th is actually before the election. That is correct. We
actually had that conversation. Okay. I was like, it's still here saying it's on it's reorder. So it it will not be a reorg. It'll be a regular meeting or the following meeting after that will be when we reorganize. So um and and our next meeting date is actually tomorrow which was not known when this agenda was
put together and um Monday and Tuesday and possibly Wednesday but we're hoping not Wednesday but next week I feel like it's a two-day town meeting. Uh okay heard it could be less. That would be lovely. I I would be shocked if it was a one later but me too. But all right is
there a motion to adjurnn? I move to adjurnn. Okay. I'll second. All those in favor? And we are adjourned at 8:38. I do want to note that we came in ahead of our our schedule here. So that's it was a little sketchy there for a while, but we Yeah,
I felt like we were a little behind there for a bit, too. We just we kind of It's It's always nice to be concerned. Well, we we were thoughtful on the things that needed thought and the things that were
um need Oh, we've lost a couple of them.