e e now good evening and welcome to the Thursday February 27th 2025 meeting of the school committee I invite anyone here to rise for the pledge of allegiance toag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it
stands nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you do we have anyone here for a public comment um so we can move into recognitions does anyone have a
recognition to share um I was lucky enough to attend the science fair yesterday that Miss Murphy the chemistry teacher invited us to um and I wanted to recognize anush G and Dylan stre for their first place
project the Gage a transitional spectr photometric apparatus for non-invasive glucose monitoring and type 2 diabetes the projects were all fantastic and it was great to see okay so into new business I'd like to invite Mrs Ben benck and Connor Moore
up to talk about project 351 Jamie can I just while they're coming up I just want to confirm that people can hear me in the studio yes thank you hi I'm and benck I'm one of the assistant principles at the middle school and I'm here to introduce our
project 351 Ambassador Conor Moore uh project 351 is a nonprofit organization that brings together great 8 students from across the 351 cities and towns in the state of Massachusetts the Ambassador spend the year focused on leadership personal growth and while
making meaningful impact through Service uh project 351 is in its 15th year and recently they held their launch event um on Martin Luther Payne weekend uh which honors the legacy of Martin Luther King and K Scott King so Connor was selected
through a process in which all of the teachers at HMS and all grades and all areas nominate students um Connor was selected because he exemplifies all the quality of project 351 as well as our he embodies our HMS um mission statement of
a strong mind and a kind heart Connor uh teachers put forth their reason for selecting Connor and he was noted as a diligent student who remains focused and committed to his work which is reflected in his academic success he's thoughtful driven and eager to help others he
approaches everything with maturity and a willingness to take risks he's incredibly kind he treats one with respect and dignity he sets positive examples for his peers using his voice and actions to inspire those around him he was noted as being hardworking polite
and leads with integrity and some quotes from teachers in recent years I can think of no other student who demonstrate such natural leadership qualities as Connor Connor Moore is not only an exceptional student but also an extraordinary person and with his everpresent smile and great sense of
humor he brings positivity and light to to everyone he encounters we're really lucky to have Connor as um a student here at HMS Conor thank you congrats congratulations thank uh so I'll start us off just talking about uh our launch day that we
had uh that was on January 15th and basically we started our day off we were at the JFK Presidential Library um we walked in and we got seated with our service hero team um we then went
through probably about a one and a half hour presentation um with different speakers we had the founder of project 351 Carolyn Casey speak to us um and formally introduce us and congratulate us on being um ambassadors in the 15th
class then we were given um the opportunity to listen to Governor uh Mar Healey and the Ed the Secretary of Education Dr Pat tutweiller um we listened to them talked to us about uh
pretty much their mindset on leadership and how they would approach different situations we then moved um into our service sites uh for the day my service here team we went to Kos to CR in Newton
um Kos to CR is a nonprofit that is focused on ending uh clothing insecurity for children um our group after we were uh given a brief of what kosa cran was by their CEO our group we were assigned
to what is called shopping that's where um basically once all the sorted clothes they get put into different containers that fit the category which could be shirts pants winter gear um like babies
um all the different categories you can have for clothing they all get sorted into different bins and we had the opportunity to fill out orders that people would put in for what they needed and we were able to go around and find
all of the clothes um and other materials that they needed um for their orders so that was a really cool experience then came we ended our day by coming back to the JFK Presidential Library um we had a wrap-up speech from
Carolyn Casey and then we ended our day with a little celebration um down like a lobby area been a great experience yes very good thank you uh he will also be running a service project for the for uh cradles to crayons through the
hopkington middle school as a site so when will that be uh I believe it's March it starts on March 25th and is going to run through April 5th and you're looking for new and gently used clothing new gently used clothes um so and so we'll have a bin at the middle
school if anybody wants to be donating to that great uh Connor also participates in a Leadership Academy so how many that's like once or twice a week uh it's once a week every Tuesday night every Tuesday night it's virtual but it's a great leadership opportunity for
Connor is this Middle School able to blast out an email to all Middle School families to bring CL we will we we do a weekly um Hiller heads up so it will be through that yep we will once we have the official flyer from Connor will send that out okay right
great all right it's lovely okay congratulations thank you congratulations so much all right thank you very much have a great night thank you just go to the next item until he arrives um so we're moving into review
of policy add the criminal record investigation this is the first reading thank you uh So currently what the district does when we bring in I mean pretty much anyone whether it's you know a paid employee or even someone who
is a mystery reader or um someone who's working you know as a third party vendor uh we have them do a criminal online record check check and that's called a Corey and so in recent months we've been hearing from people in our job alike groups from our legal council that we
should be adding the sex offender registry it's still all one form um and that is called aor so the reason that you have this policy before you tonight is that we have simply added language so that we could include the sory alongside
the Corey and we did add um a little bit of language at the bottom about the storage of record just so that we are clear about what happens when someone goes and has a Corey or a and or sory check done um in the Hopkinson Public Schools so
this is a a first reading of uh the new language and happy to take questions I'm glad to see the addition of the coming into line with what we do at the department of Early Education and Care I know we've been in discussions with desie to come in line with us as
well yes so yeah I think that this is a trend that many districts are are now undertaking and I think it's certainly a good idea so will we bring this back for a second reading I think we should bring it back for yes I
agree great so then moving into policy a B fingerprint based CRI fingerprint based criminal history record information Chri checks made for non-criminal justice purposes first reading okay all
right thank you uh this one we took a look at simply because we were looking at the Corey policy and we thought we should also take a look at the fingerprint based um criminal history background information check policy as well and what we did when we looked at
it and I think that you'll see this on your agenda is that we um took a look at it but we found no changes other than making the pronouns kind of come into practice with what we do in all of our policies um so we are going to note on the policy that we reviewed it for
amendments um and we pretty much left it as is except for the pronoun changes and so this one because there are no changes you could vote it tonight hope you could bring this one back as well just because they are sort of sister policies so there's there's no change in
policy it's just language there's no change at all except for the pronouns that's correct y should we make a motion to approve this we could I'll make an appro can't talk tonight proposal to
approve policy addb fingerprint based criminal record criminal history record information checks made for non-criminal Justice purposes motion by Kyla is there a second second second and we'll do a roll call vote uh
Nancy yes Chris yes Kyla yes and yes for me okay we have learned that Chris Everly is in the zoom oh wonderful um so we can move to Chris Everly for the Hopkins project over Zoom how do we do
that thank you and I appreciate or my wife appreciates you allowing me to join you by Zoom this evening um so this evening's item is regarding security for the new Hopkins project as part of the project um we uh we have several
technology items that are owner provided items um originally some of these items existed within the Construction contract and we also have a separate construction technology equipment budget technology equipment budget is about 3
$25,000 and over the course of development of that budget um we find that it's trending below that amount by about $775,000 so at 250,000 through the course of design we um came to certain decisions both in
meeting with the design team and also meeting with the director of technology for the district and it was decided that it would be advantageous for particularly the Hopkins school because the Hopkins school is an existing School to use some of the existing vendors that
are publicly procured and have pricing that's based on competitively bid State contracts to do those vendors to use those vendors because they're more familiar with the equipment that it that the school uses and the systems that the school uses and they have access to
those systems and so when in the Hopkins project where we're talking about expanding those systems it really made sense to get pricing from those vendors rather than to make it part of the construction project it's one of the reasons that the construction project came in so much
under budget although a very small part of the $2.2 million below budget that we currently sit today um similarly we're also looking at procuring the network switches the network UPS devices uh through the state's e- rate program
which is also a competitively bid program that offers certain savings and we think that both of those decisions to procure this item separately as well as deal with the um Network switches through the - rap program will ultimately be savings for the uh school committee and for the town of hopkington
we were able to get pricing um that we unfortunately were not able to get you as far in advance as we had hoped but ultimately we did um provide earlier today the pricing that we're looking at this evening from BCM controls BCM
controls is an existing vendor and what they would be pricing is the camera systems the access control components um which includes various technical components to expand the existing access control system and they already are a vendor that provides this stuff so we're
really just expanding the work that they do as part of the project it would be covered within the savings from the construction budget that 2.2 plus million doar that I described earlier and the final proposal after uh we reconciled all the differences and
ensured that it was correct came in at 101,000 $446 so this evening we would be looking for the school committee to um make a motion to approve BCM controls in the amount of $1,446 cents and with that I'll open it
up to questions from the school committee about this topic thank you so much Chris any questions Chris I I assume like just about everything else that's involved with the project that um um there are bids these go out to bid to
multiple vendors or we get bids from multiple vendors so in this particular circumstance it's um it's a little bit different there's a couple of different ways that are all based on competitively bid prices with the Construction
contract um will often go out to multiple vendors with furniture and Equipment will often go out to multiple vendors but certain um contracts are put out by the state themselves to multiple vendors to competitively Bid And when
they competitively bid those contracts they multiple vendors will bid the same stuff and then you're able to go to those vendors and purchase at those bid uh prices which are Bid annually and so it's an it's one of the multiple options
that's permitted by the state that encourages competition and and arrives at competitive prices but also gives you the flexibility to choose your vendor for for those competitive prices so it's uh commonly referred to as the state bid list but it's really a collection of
contracts that are published for various items that you can purchase at those competitively bid prices is the state bid list open to any company that wants to submit a bid or these are uh companies that are approved by the state or have a relationship with
the state no you're generally able to um I don't know the absolute specifics of how open the system is they obviously have to be qualified they have to meet certain standards they have to be able to provide the work um but they are
competitively bid and that's really the the key piece the the whole point of of getting um quotes is that people are basing it on the same um basic scope of work and in this case they're basing the controls and the related services on
competitively bid prices that meet the wage requirements so that we find that they're fairly consistent from vendor to vendor competitively bid amongst this small group or competi competitively bid across an open bid process I mean I
guess my my Cur my question is this is costing us 100 Grand could have cost us 50 um if we could gone out to bid to anyone or we have to use these select groups that are kind of approved by the state and those companies all know hey we're the only ones who can provide
these Services we're all going to come in around 100 Grand but maybe it only cost 25 or 50 so they're not competitively bid locally on a per incident basis they're competitively bid over the course of the year against other vendors that also competitively
bid against the same prices so ultimately you're you should be getting a reasonably the same price it's possible that you could reach out to multiple vendors but similarly we could have also put it in the Construction contract and you would lose the familiarity of the system that this
particular vendor who is worked with the schools for a while brings to the table and in discussions with aoke um the director of Technology we found that that was actually advantageous for the town of hopkington in this instance because you're dealing with a security
system you're dealing with um existing infrastructure and so you're more likely to get a person who is familiar with your infrastructure scaling it up as opposed to bringing somebody who's going to be learning about it from the beginning and may have components of
their pricing that they don't include to win the bid but then you have to go back and pay for those extras that they didn't know about all right that makes sense got it thanks any other questions I would entertain a motion I make a motion to approve the
security vendor package by BCM controls for the Hopkins project in the amount of 100 $1,446 thank you second second by Chris we'll do a roll call vote Nancy yes Chris yes Kyla yes and yes for
me while we have Chris do you want to take a construction update out of order yes Chris would you be willing to do the construction update for us sure let me just bring up the um the slides that are in your packet head them open a second
ago um let see if I can get them full screen for us you able to open it yes there can every everyone see those okay oh yes they're there um so uh we
continue to make good progress on the Hopkins project um Commodore has been really great to work with um I'm very happy with the services that they've been provided um they've been a good collaborator and we continue to sort of be moving ahead um fairly smoothly um
some of the Milestones here we uh no new incidents but we did notify the um the town's insure after the slip and fall that we had at the tail end of December so we just wanted to make you aware of that um we continue to be on schedule we're starting to talk about
the finalizing the logistics sort of the micro planning for um both the end of the summer and also for when the turnover of the building happens so we're talking about things like how we're going to deal with food service when we um switch over into the new
space and also which elements of the construction are going to be complete and ready for the students at which milestones for some of the smaller um individual decisions that we need to look at we continue to be on budget and I think we're trending very well in terms of change orders overall um as I
mentioned here for FFN we are beginning to have those discussions with the um the school's director of Technology as I just mentioned for both the BCM contract you saw today and also some of the other technology purchases that we're looking to get to fit out the new portions of
the space like projectors on the wall Wi-Fi access devices things of that nature um construction site overview we continue to um I think work very well together with the students and staff um
we haven't had any major issues reported to us and we've been able despite all of the really challenging weather lately um been able to continue to make good progress on the building and um have no major incidence between students or
staff um I I'm really happy with how that's worked out overall um just some progress photos we've been able to get the first and second floor slabs down at this point so for about 50% of the building the first floor floor slab is already in place
underground utilities and those areas are already in place um the roof trusses have been going up and are starting to get are are basically fully erected um on the building now I think if you drive by the building it's really beginning to look like a building
um we also have the Mason restarting this is from um about a month ago but at this point the walls are anywhere from 8 to 20 ft tall depending on which wall you're looking at so it's it's really beginning to take shape in terms of the superstructure of the
building this is some photos from the day that we poured the uh slab they basically come in with a boom that drops the concrete where we need it and then um we were able to complete most of that work within the um limits of of the workday we were worried a little bit that we might go a little late but the
team did a good job of making sure that they completed within sort of the allowable time um just some major Milestones I mentioned some of these the roof trusses are delivered and unloaded most of them are installed at this point um underground plumbing is largely in
throughout the building we've been able to pour the two decks and at this point they're beginning to frame the like gauge metal framing that makes up the exterior walls of most of the building and also the masonry that makes up some of those walls we still are working through some issues on the building permit it's down to a single issue that
we're having a meeting tomorrow um as it's related to school security with the police fire building department and the school administration that we hope to resolve and at that point the the building permit will allow us to move forward we're going to begin putting the roof on the building continuing the
block wall um installation as well as beginning to do some of the temporary fire alarm and other um ruins for MEPS and exploratory work as we move forward we were able to get into the fire tank over the February vacation understand some of the issues that might be causing
some of the water leakage that we're seeing there um and so we have a plan in place to that we think will address the the issues that we're seeing we're also beginning to do some of the reing and some of the electrical work is going to begin um fairly soon there is a mockup
on site that's slowly coming together um we've tested the window that was put into it the mockups really there to make sure that the construction details are um going to work together from all the different trades and so everybody goes into the situation understanding their role that goes into all the trades
working together to design the building envelope change orders continue to be trending really well we did have an additional change order um this month for 71,3 339 um I think we're still continuing to
see a uh very Cooperative contractors working with us as these issues come up as I always remind people anything um under 2% of the overall price is really industry um within industry standards
you aim for 1% and we continue to overall be on the trending well below that and there's still considerable bid savings one of the things we're going to begin to look at is things along the way um that are things we didn't pursue for
budgetary reasons and we'll hopefully in the course of probably the next two to 3 months be coming back to you to discuss uh potential items that may be Revisited because of the um the bid savings these aren't things that are on wish list
these are things that provide qualitative improvements to the overall construction and so we'll um come back to you with that information um we haven't had any major contract updates um recently we continue to be good on that front the
Construction contract continues to um to come together well the 1% there for Approved change orders to date is a very very much rounded number so um I wouldn't get concerned about that um and then on charleswood we actually have
some really great news that we shared with the esbc at our last meeting um we've reviewed the results of the 90% CD estimate with the committee on the 11th um we've finished the review with the Conservation Commission on the street improvements and they've um voted to
approve the order of conditions so that's really the the last major permit um that allows the project to move forward we're going to submit the or we just submitted um to the msba for our 90% CD which is really our last major Milestone with the msba before we go to
bid uh we voted actually two nights ago to approve the pre-qualified contractors who would be um permitted to vote on the or permitted to bid on the project and the result of that overall budget is that we're trending probably more than
8.6 million under budget versus our previous estimates so um the project continues to be in a really good budgeted or budgetary place and similar to what we saw with Hopkins I think the town of hopkington has really um found a
really advantageous time to hit the market with both projects because we're seeing really good pricing versus what was approved for both projects so up coming we're finalizing documents um we were able to finalize with concom um we expect to be bidding
the project beginning in late March and concluding at the end of April into early May um in May we'll award the construction and I think you'll begin to see activity on the site as early as June or July of 2025 and just to refresh where we are
overall with the construction schedule we're really in uh this final um part of quarter 1 as we begin to start the construction the construction will continue until um probably around September October of 2027 and will open
to students in 2028 for charleswood compared to that um Hopkins is continuing to be on schedule and we're looking at the um completing some of our uh work in the addition around February
vacation occupying that opening it to students while we continue the major building Renovations and the site work that remains so that ultimately Hopkins will open to students um at the in the beginning of the 26 27 school year and
then we'll um return a year later after we've um in this summer of 2028 after Elmwood has been opened and we'll look to bring the modular over and that really completes the plan for the um the Hopkins lower Middle School I think
we're in a good place especially with both projects trending so much under budget to be able to absorb any cost related to that modular modular relocation as part of the project so with that I'll take any questions if there are
any I'm good any questions Nancy no I'm good thank you very much Chris for all that great thank you Chris that was really great news I appreciate that thank you everyone have a nice
nighte night you too good night okay that moves us into the Wellness Plan Mr LeBron all right good evening everyone um tonight I uh am requesting of you the um approval of the hopkington public schools revised
Wellness Plan now this is an atypical request because we don't typically seek the committee's uh vote to approve a procedural or operational document that supports the policies that you that you vote and oversee however um with regard to the Wellness Plan there's a little
bit of nuance that I'd like to touch on really quickly um so the school committee has policy JLA which is a wellness policy which calls on um the district to enact and maintain and operationalize um the policy through a Wellness Plan so we we have done that
the interesting thing is that the USDA and in concert with the Department of Elementary and secondary education has a different set of expectations and the USDA does not separate out a policy and a plan and is seeking uh full school
committee approval of our of our plan um which again operationalizes your policy um in order for us to maintain uh compliance with USDA to continue to receive the funding that we receive for our uh Universal school lunch and
breakfast programs uh it is important that we we check all these boxes um so tonight I I seek your approval of the Wellness Plan while I'm on the topic I will tell you that this plan has been in the works for well over a year uh and the district actually participated with
desie in a coaching program um to get our our Wellness Plan really um up to up to Snuff and then some interestingly we were um quasi released from the coaching plan early the coach program really and we received compliments that our plan
was really there wasn't much to grow in um and we felt really honored by that so um we scored well in our self um our self-study um we expanded our plan over our previous plan um to
um to uh we did a few different things uh we were able to remove some ambiguity we updated some practices we also infused social emotional well-being uh which hadn't previously been part of most District's uh Wellness plans and finally we we really memorialized a lot
of of what we had to do so um I'd be remiss if I didn't thank our uh Wellness SML Debbie Gorman our nurse leader Sarah Patterson uh as well as our our food service director Michelle kakis and Don alcot from Hopkinson Youth and Family Services for all of their work in getting this plan to where it needs to
be as well as our former nurse leader Kathy Bane who actually uh contributed to how we we crafted all of this so I can stop there and again seek uh yeah again my objective is to seek the approval the vote the positive vote of the um school
committee any questions how does the Wellness Plan how is it executed so that's a great question and you I almost wish you were a plant because I can then now talk to you about um The Wellness leadership team uh so I'm sorry like a
you say no you're the you're ask no you asked me a great question okay so um uh I'm glad these things don't get recorded um or or on TV or on TV that would be terrible um terrible so uh every
District in addition to having a Wellness Plan also has to have a wellness team um which is which is in charge of overseeing the policy and implementing it one of the nuances of the new guidance is that um each year you should have a an improvement plan within your plan uh to make sure that
you're continuing to advance the objectives of the of the plan so right now out in the community there is um an ask and an invitation for people to sign up to join the wellness team if that's something that they would like to do it's a representative body of uh administrators staff community members
and parents as well as high school students um so we will meet quarterly to go through and make sure that what we have on paper is is what we see in our buildings I appreciate that how do I take advantage of the
Wellness Plan or how to St it's primarily for students so there's nothing really in there that one would um take advantage of per se so so it really outlines how we as a district ensure Wellness is is a priority so for
instance uh there are guidelines about uh minimal uh minutes at For Recess at the elementary level minimal minutes of of PE Wellness that take place as part of our curriculum uh the you know things like do we make sure that all of the appropriate licenses are in place for
our nurses and our food service staff perfect understood got it all right great I'll make a motion to accept the wellness what's the uh Wellness Plan sorry Wellness Plan the second
y someone need just do a roll call vote uh Nancy yes Chris yes Kyla yes and I'm also a yes thank you much that move us into school committee feedback on Dr kav's goals and
indicators yes so you know that I have presented them to you left them with you and I wasn't sure if there was anything that um wanted to offer in the way of feedback that perhaps uh when we revisit them again in May for the final iteration um something that you might
like to see can you go over them again even I knew very open um I had some questions that have come up okay um so in the
1B where you talk about students with disabilities I was concerned about the budget proposal to cut a Paras who support all students in a classroom which includes supporting students on 504s and IPS who may not have a pair of written into their service grid and how
that would impact supporting students with disabilities sure so that one will be answered when we meet again uh in two weeks and we talk about the budget um the three building principles whose buildings will be impacted so that's one a par at Hopkins one at Elwood and then
three at the high school they'll explain to you what kinds of roles those particular Paras have and then Mrs deau is also coming so that she can talk about the the role of the parrot Marathon so that you can sort of rece the disparity between them so we'll be answering that
one under uh 1f and also 3B under student learning we're in the in the rubric in the indicators in the rubric right now yes okay um the dyslexia action plan was
linked has a vendor been identified for the professional development do you the answer to that one so we're we actually by by nature of our um new director of Elementary literacy were're able to now do that in house because she
happens to be a professional developer yeah prior to coming to the Hopkinson public school she worked for the hill for literacy oh great yeah yeah yeah for a few years so she's was wonderful yeah it's very good very strong and that work is already underway
and has been ongoing all year which is which is great great um is there a is she looking at a reduction in using fontas and panel products and lit like their literacy products that are not evidence-based moving
forward yeah we are we are reviewing our our our reading curriculum right now yeah great um and then I was curious on page six of the dyslexia action plan it said that we do not report data to families on progress monitoring for kids
in the 25th percentile so I I wonder if you're talking about um star reporting that might be that might Poss yeah we use that internally as a a as a tool to help us make instructional decisions and intervention plans oh I
see what you're asking sure but why would we not be reporting that to families what we do is we send if you are in the uh lowest quartile we do I mean we're required by law to send something to say that your child's in the lowest quartile we don't necessarily
report the actual star or CBM scores that come out but anytime a parent wants to know anything about their child's score they have the right you know obviously to you know anything you want to know if your kid takes a math quiz you get to know what the results are if they take a star early literacy test
they get to know what the results are so any parent can ask so then the not reporting in the dyslexia Act plan just means only report if asked I think that that might be a good way to phrase it yeah we're required to send the letter and we do we just don't
send the actual report as well okay we just send the letter and the letter says that they can ask if they have more questions I have to go back and look at it it does just because when I read that I was like that seems really strange yeah we're not keeping any
secrets um in the replacement in 2E the replacement School staffing needs um is that already folded into our budget [Music] process I'm not sure oh you on the still
on the dyslexia plan is that what you actually no in back in the uh rubric the 2E which is in your goals and indicators fiscal systems that's where you are to e fiscal systems leads the
administrative team Y and what was the question again um it linked to the school replacement uh staffing needs and so I was just curious if that has been part of our budgeting process um or not yet
because we're not at the point to be there yet is this for when you when charleswood comes online that's what I I was looking at yep so that's one of the things that we are already thinking about so we now have school adjustment counselors at the elementary level so that you you know if you're at Elwood
there at two if you're at Hopkins there or two because one of the things that we promis the community is that when we had a 2 three4 school there would be an assistant principal and a uh School adjustment counselor for each one of those grade levels so when you start getting into the you know you've got 400
kids at a grade level you want to make sure that you know they have the appropriate counseling services and that they have an appropriate um kind of administrator ratio as well so yes we are thinking about that and I know that when you know we and and
I've been in uh meetings with you know our town partners and they do ask those questions about what is that going to look like budgetarily another thing just maybe this is a sort of a a side note but when we talked about the fifth grade um remaining at Hopkins and the sixth
grade moving there the sixth grade right now has a very robust related arts program and the fifth grade simply has art music PE wellness and you know sort of library right so if we were to take those related arts and expand them into the fifth grade that's obviously going
to come with a price tag as well so we've been having those conversations great thank you um my last question is under 3B I don't remember the title but 3B um under student support the Metro West
adolescent Health survey is mentioned M does that include the data on substance use in our school population it sure does yes yep great so um does that get reported out to us whenever it's oh we can certainly so it's very interesting
that you ask that question because they'll actually send you here's your Hopkinson kind of cheat sheet so you get what is the equivalent of an 8 and 1 half by 11 and it will break it down into small boxes and it will talk about everything from you know who says that in the last 20 days they used alcohol
how many kids tell you that they're vaping um how many kids have had ideations of suicide all of that is printed on one single sheet so that absolutely we could bring that to your attention great thank you so much you can just let us know when you'd like to
see um I know I just asked a lot of questions any others or was it just me I just to follow up on one of your questions we started talking about uh review of literacy I think that would be a great topic to bring up at another
school committee meeting um several um community members have mentioned it to us in passing um wanting to know what's going on with our literacy bre that maybe the new director
would yes even come with our expertise yeah anything else great so project shark donations all right okay so we have four of them and you just have to um accept each of them
because they are in excess of $100 so the first is for enrichment supplies at Marathon school and the amount of $688 I make a motion to approve um the r supplies from Marathon School in the amount of $618 182 motion by Kyla can we
approve all four of them at once it looks like they need to go individually is that right I think that they probably do because they're going to different schools and going into different account no problems second sorry about that motion by Kyla second by Chris roll call vote Nancy yes Chris yes Kyla yes and
I'm a yes all right the second is enrichment supplies for the Elwood School in the amount of $32.76 I moov to accept the enrichment supplies for El School in the amount of $132 $72 second motion by Kyla second by
Chris Nancy yes yes yes Chris Kyla me yes the third enrichment supplies for the high school in the amount of $294 48 I'll move to accept the enrichment supplies for the high school in the amount of $294 48 motion by Kyla second
by Chris Nancy yes Chris yes KY and I'm a yes all right and the last is enrichment supplies for the 18 to 22 program in the amount of $18.44 I moved to accept the original supplies for 18222 program in the amount
of $118 44 motion by Kyla second second by Chris Nancy yes Chris yes Kyla and I'm a yes thank you I'm thrilled by all these donations to the project been wonderful program that was just conceptualized and
doing great um may I ask that we take the superintendent report out of order just because our head nurse is here Sarah Patterson and it would be wonderful if we could send her home because her day begins tomorrow at the high school very early I would love to okay would you like to come up thank you so much I'll go on that side and sit
with her so that do I sit here yes you do first time welcome thank you for having me I've lost audio I don't know if you guys can hear me but I've lost the audio from hcam oh no we can hear you
Nancy oh good all right well thank you so it's very unusual for me to have a co-presenter but Sarah Patterson who is the um Head Nurse for the hopkington public schools has agreed to help me out with this tonight um I know you and I
spoke earlier this week and I know that you were interested in thinking about like what are the sort of Health protocols in the public schools it's the season for influenza and all of those other things so um it feels like this is very timely so let's go right into
slideshow and I think we're ready all right so tonight we want to update you on our illness protocols in the schools among other things oops hold on Bob we attacked atted I think we
are Iceberg Iceberg oh I'll try again thank you oops I just undid myself sorry there we go okay all right so I'll start by citing Mass General law part one title 12 chapter 76 section 1B and
this really speaks to how we report absences so mgl says that the school committee of each City town or Regional School District shall have a pupil absence notification program in each of its schools the program shall be designed to ensure that each School
notifies a parent regard guardan of the child's absence if the school has not received notification of the absence from the parent or Guardian within 3 days of the absence I mean that gives you a lot of leeway we don't quite take that much that much leeway um and so
I'll ask Sarah to talk a little bit about this but our question here is how are absences reported by parents and Guardians so we um we collect uh parent responses through a Google form um as
well as phone calls and emails usually to the HS office or the um the nurses direct all right and on that Google form because we have to conform to to the law so we do ask parents about things like um all kinds of symptoms everything
from cramps diarrhea vomiting fever nausea headache cough GI things uh respiratory things all of that stuff is there however there is no regulation that compels parents to report an illness um or the symptoms with
specificity so I wanted to show you this and at first I had all the schools on there and I thought okay that's kind of a lot so I reduced that and I just pulled out the middle school and this is the week before vacation so it is um February 10th through the 14th on the
14th it was the last day before we broke for February vacation so interestingly you can see there's not a lot of Wiggle with the numbers of kids who are sick so on Monday 2 3 kids parents reported they were sick then it went to 20 22 19 18 so
there's very little movement there however if you look at the bottom row and you see the total absenteeism number you'd think oh my gosh 108 kids were out of the middle school that day but when you look at the parent number of parents who reported their kids out for vacation
the number grows each day of that week and that's logical because we're heading into February vacation so some people get a little jump on the vacation week um and so you see that it goes up to 14 on Wednesday 32 on Thursday 67 on Friday
and that's that's a good creep up but there's also a category in there called other and I think maybe Sarah that's a really good one for you to talk to because there are so many other reasons why kids are out yes so um hopkington is
a very diverse Community between sports uh religions uh extracurricular activities uh uh field trips there there are so many different reasons why students can be absent um including you
know family issues personal days um any type of mental health days that they feel that they need so when parents report absences it not it's not necessarily that they are sick it may be something else going on within the
family Transportation issues um or outside commitments that the you know they just can't attend school so uh interestingly Elwood school on that same Friday when you saw them Spike at the Middle School uh there were 73
kids absent from Elwood school where there are only two grades and 41 of those families reported that their children were on vacation uh we do work very closely with our Public Health Partners so um Sarah I'll let you talk a little bit about the communication that you have ongoing um
with our our public health nurse yes so smone Carter is our um very supportive public health nurse and we've been working very closely together to get an idea of what's in the community um and what she's seeing on her end um and
working towards ways to communicate and you know make sure we're mitigating and taking counter measures within the schools to keep people as healthy as possible yeah and if there ever is a time when um when there is some kind of an outbreak in our schools uh we still
have all of our covid equipment to go in and really do a nice deep clean at the time we bought something called a protexus gun and it would like kill everything so we still have those all right um I can read for you
that definition of clusters or outbreak because I think those are words that you hear sort of thrown around in the community quite a bit um and the way these are defined uh the occurrence in a community facility workplace or region of cases of an illness clearly in excess
of the number of cases usually expected so we would never just say well it's an outbreak because there's 20 or there's an outbreak because there's 120 it just is you know whatever you sort of see as an average number if it goes up kind of markedly above that then you start to
say oh my gosh do we have something here that that resembles an outbreak um the number of cases indicating an outbreak or a cluster will vary according to the Infectious agent so we've talked to like Mrs deau who's worked in a school before where there was a norovirus outbreak and
eventually the public health officials in that Community shut her school down for three days but she said you like kids were going home left and right and they were violently ill um so I think that's a little bit different from if
you have know three kids who all work together in a second grade classroom and they get stressed you know that's that sort of difference um the site conditions the hazards uh size and type of population exposed previous experience or lack of exposure to the
disease and time and place of occurrence outbreaks or clusters are therefore identified by significant increases in the usual frequency of the disease in the same area among a specified population at the same uh season of the
year so it feels nebulous that definition so here's a great question people have said oh my goodness is there you know have there been clusters of the flu has there been an outbreak of stress of stress of STP stress yes STP May no um
so that to answer that question you know have we seen clusters outbreaks or excessive absenteeism the answer to that is no and I'll let Sarah talk to this slide because this is the slide where like she's living and breathing this every day yes so um the Mass Department of Public
Health uses a recording system called the Massachusetts virtual epidemiological Network which collects all the data all the testing that's done in medical facilities um and that information goes uh directly to the public health um both local and
Department of Public Health so they have um all of the data that has been um diagnosed um and even tested with with you know negative results but having said that um I did reach out to uh the
epidemiologist at the Department of Public Health on Wednesday who reported to me that there were no clusters um or outbreaks reported in hopkington public schools um I do want to say that the maven database is um all of hopkington
so the schoolage children those include our homeschooled our outplay our private school so having that picture you really need to go deeper to see you know were those kids you know public school students were they out um outplaced Etc
um and were they in schools so to be able to say you know that these cases are reflective of what's in our schools is a little bit misleading so yeah and we should also say that our Public School nurses cannot contribute
to Maven they don't have access to Maven so you really got to be a public health official someone at the state level uh pediatrician to to have that that access yeah so based on the data that the nurses have collected and analyzed there
is no um evidence to suggest that the absenteeism that we are seeing this time of year is any different than any other time of year um you know from a parent perspective especially in the elementary schools I can understand when you see
you know a um number of children out it can be a little bit alarming but between experienced nurses experienced administrators this is what we see at this time of year so this from our perspective is not necessarily um
excessive absenteeism and again goes back to the what is the cause of the absentee um ISM re because it's not always um sickness related and parents do are not required to disclose um their reason for absence do
have the right for privacy so and really when it comes to testing the schools don't do testing either so if you go to your pediatrician and they test and you test positive for strep or you test positive for flu your pediatrician can enter that inter information into Maven or they can share that information and
Maven shares that information obviously back with your public health officials but the the schools just don't have the the power to do that kind of testing and don't have access to Maven so we take whatever information is given to us and we act upon it so um and that goes kind
of two ways so it's also very challenging for our School nurses um to be able to share information we can say that we think that you know we have one single classroom where there may be a a cluster of flu and we would share that um obviously with our Public Health
officials but uh we are subject to furpa and so we could never say and the four people who have the flu are Savannah Chris you could never say that so it just you just have to be careful about how you share
things um so I'll let you run down the obstacles for School nurses because they're big yes so there we have quite a few obstacles for as School nurses um and Carol touched on a few of the things already um so School nurses do not have
the diagnostic tools um that medical facilities and PD uh or doctor's offices have to test for diseases there we cannot diagnose we can't say definitively this student has um influenza a or neuro virus um so that's
challenging for us we rely on parents to provide that information um and ped or pediatrician doctor's notes um that are submitted through the parents um so uh as Carol said we do not
have access to uh Maven which um is is challenging in itself um because as I said the uh information there is um you know includes the homeschooled private schooled and out of District students so
um for us not to have access to that information it makes it challenging us for to monitor um cases that are known because we don't know um so we appreciate it when parents tell us things very much so and so we we've
touched on this a little bit to uh parents don't always provide a reason for students absences um which can be to various factors including religious practices travel Family Care responsibilities appointments that can't be made outside of school
hours Student Activities mental health concerns weather conditions Transportation challenges and other personal reasons and again they are not required to disclose this information so uh and we we really do rely heavily on
pediatrician parent communication and the public health officies for the guidance and information um and again they are as well limited by confidentiality laws so again that sharing of information can be a bit challenging and we do rely really
on the parents um to be that the point person there and so this is another very important topic that we have not touched upon yet but nurses are held to um exclusion criteria for illnesses I andan
it is very specific so um nurses can't just send Johnny with his runny nose home um the criteria is really you know having a fever over 100.1 or actively having you know GI issues including
vomiting and diarrhea so um so we're restricted in that and there are certain times that it is frustrating for us because clearly the child is not well um and we feel they should go home but we can't send that child home without parent consent unless they do meet the
um the uh exclusion criteria so all right uh if you get an email from our nurse S patteron at the bottom of it you will see that um there are resources and so there are links to uh neuro virus
influenza Corona virus and all that through both Mass Department of Public Health and the CDC um and so we included that here so when we post this on the website if parents want any information they can just click on any of these links over here and that's what we have for you so
we hope that this was helpful to kind of understand you know where the school's sort of authority ends what our nurses do every day and I'll tell you what the numbers of kids who are out and making sure that we comply with mgl and communicate with families I mean how long do you spend on just the phone
calls with you know attendance exactly attendance is very time consuming in terms of you know figuring out who is here who's not here you know the reasons for for their absences when we have that information available um and certainly if we you know if we have concerns for a
specific classroom or you know we're seeing um alarming numbers of specific illnesses we are certainly going to report that as appropriate so that's not a lot I'm sorry that's not all automated the absences and you have to manually
kind of so it it comes through different sources between parent phone calls parent emails and then the the Google sheet so collecting all of that data from all of those sources we then enter it into power school as well as into the um the
nurse um snap which is the nurse um electronic uh documentation system so yeah yeah there are some days they'll tell me it takes up to two hours to get that work done I bet with all the different mediums I I assumed that it was all Google form and I was always
like when I knew you know if one of my kids had a strap diagnosis I was like okay I have to remember at 8:00 the form opens because I can't put it in the night that they get the diagnosis I have to wait it is it's very challenging and from our perspective we're like why
can't we streamline it um into just one um and the Google form is very very uh reliable and convenient because all of that data is there where phone calls are you know oftentimes broken up you know hard to hard to kind of hear um and the
parent emails as well um and the technology not all families have technology you know in terms of accessing the Google form so we do still need to you know take the parent phone calls accept the high school email because that's more convenient you know
so everybody has their own different um preference as to how to report the the most important thing is reporting the absences um and you know being transparent with the reason especially in the case of illness um so that we can
have this data and act appropriately if we have if we're seeing concerns so and so if a family has the ability to be flexible in which way they report into you the Google form is the best because it gives you all the information that you need in a concise way yes in my
opinion because that's you know that's very objective um and the parents fill it out and it's check mark marks and it um it does give a a section for was your child diagnosed um with a specific disease so it's really a wonderful tool
for us so that's great um parents are taking that under advis I know all of our audience if you have access to that that's the best way um my mother was a public school nurse and so I have so much appreciation for all the hard work
that you do and all of our nurses um they're wonderful that I actually used to work with Simone too um so I I know how great she is I'm glad that you all work together so well um I do have a question that so we don't track the
illnesses but we would um you would hear from Simone if there was something in Maven because we don't have access to that as a school nurse so that's where we would get the information of if there was something concerning because it's not something you're able to track because we don't have that information
right that's correct um the the poppington Board of Health does have access to Maven and they monitor for um increases in cases um and if they do identify you know a certain age group they can let us know and we can take the
the um the counter measures between cleaning um you know upping the education for families um in order to kind of mitigate the spread of it so yeah that makes sense is there any way
we can get that form to open earlier than 8:00 that is that is a technology that is a least card imag I imagine it could happen earlier than I'm sure I'm sure I know your time is Precious too as parents and families and mornings are
hectic and when there's other kids I think like I have missed it and then I don't send it in until like 9ine and then I feel guilty because I know that they're looking for the kid that's homesick yeah and ultimately you know the attendance process is to make sure your your child is in in school and safe
um Absolut if you sent them so so it's yeah yeah I assume that's a simple setting in the document right that could be sure changed to 6:00 a.m. or that would be amazing like cuz all the parents who like one's going off and the other's wrangling the kids it becomes
harder to that Duty having that info earlier is that helpful as early as possible right yes cuz um the School nurses have full full days too so not not not only attendance we managing um
but we're also managing students every minute of the day to see the nurse all right let's have that change by tomorrow morning you got it I'll go right up there and email Mr ghost Dr goost Dr ghost let's go so just in addition to the
slide not home yet no excuse so just a few more just in addition to what are we doing as School nurses and as a school Community um to help mitigate illnesses not just you know the Norovirus and influenzas um but
we are you know Co taught us a lot Co taught us about respiratory hygiene and covering your cough and good handwashing and not sharing food and drinks and we have continued that that dialogue with students and staff um so you know the
wellness Department the curriculum there addresses you know Healthy Lifestyles between sleep hygiene um you know overall good good diet habits exercise things like that um continuing to
encourage parents to keep their children home if they're sick with fever or GI illnesses um because oftentimes you know Child Care can be an issue and that's challenging for families and we acknowledge that um so you know just
being very diligent about that um is is tremendously helpful for the entire Community um so in terms of the nurses office is you know we see the sick kids we see the healthy kids um so we we do make a a very uh strong effort to
separate those as quickly as possible um just to kind of keep the healthy kids um from being exposed to those sick kids so yeah so Sarah I just want to thank you um you've done a tremendous job I
appreciate you coming tonight but also just in keeping our our kids safe over the past um many years that you've been um working at the high school and and as a district nurse leader the Google form I know um is the
most helpful I do think there are some parents who maybe aren't as aware of it if they don't use our website and that's that's an on us kind of an issue um maybe making that more public notice for people to be aware of that uh the other piece I just
wanted to comment back on was the exclusion criteria I did not realize um what that was is that set by the state uh yes that is like CDC um resp respiratory uh illnesses and
GI illnesses that is the standard so thank you any else anything else thank you so much oh my goodness thank you so much I'm very invested and passionate about this so I appreciate the time that you've given me yes all right thank you
for your work on this worked very hard thank you thank you all have a great night and we are still slightly ahead of schedule because we have taken things out of order even though now we're it looks like we might not be um um moving into Old
business um a superintendent screening committee consideration oh yes so do um let me take that since I had asked that to be put on the agenda so if people remember back when we went through the nesda uh
through the contract with nesda nesda is not um they don't sit in on the interviews for the first round uh through which is what's coming up we had our screening Comm committee uh met both tonight uh as well as on Monday evening
and NASDAQ was present for both of those meetings um but nzq will not be for the interviews that are starting to come up over the next couple of weeks one thing that had come out of a conversation with NASDAQ was that it is common to have the
HR Director as part of the conversation and that can be something that either takes place as having the HR Director be a member of the committee either as a voting member or a non-voting member uh and wanted to bring that here because we're looking at a you know a very
committed group of volunteers that are working on the screening committee but I think it would be helpful uh and prudent in the eyes of of NASDAQ to bring on our HR Director um who's been there as a guest both tonight and on Monday but to
bring her in as a more formalized role and she is very helpful in the committee in providing contacts and support so I highly approve this which do you um which do you lean towards Kyla
uh her voting or not voting I think she she should be a voting member I'm comfortable with that you've been in the process I appreciate your perspective I'll make a motion to add any concerns Chris
nope the Director of Human Resources to the super superintendent screening committee second motion by Kyla second by Chris ncy yes Chris yes Kyla yes and I'm a yes thank you so much and that brings our screening committee up to 13
members which is what we had initially kind of we were looking at 12 or 13 but just because of the way the screening committee uh went uh we wound up with 12 adding uh our HR Director will put us at 13 so I also did want to thank both
Chris and Jamie for your work in selecting the people who are on the screening committee thank you okay that moves us into the Dr kavana final intent to travel to Spain okay yeah and this is a trip that is
coming up quickly it seems um so they will be leaving on April 20th 2025 um and coming back on April 26th and this is uh beun by Z Hernandez a teach of Spanish at the high school and you can
see that she's got four other chapon with her uh and they'll be bringing 31 students to Madrid Toledo Grenada and um Seville so they're just looking for you to do um a final
approval I'll make a motion for to approve the HHS trip to Spain on April ail 20th through the 26th 2025 second motion by Kyla second by Chris Nancy yes Chris yes Kyla yes and
I'm a yes you love to join that's I know that sounds like a great trip is nice and uh Nancy the superintendent search the this is our standing one just in terms of things that have shifted uh the one thing I know that people we're
quick to respond to I appreciate is the March 19th meeting that we've added in uh which is going to be a workshop with uh Carolyn Burke who is our nezda uh consultant and that is going to take place by Zoom because there were a couple people who can't be there in person it seems like it's easier to do
either all remote or um all in person uh at that time uh we're going to announce the finalists from the uh initial interview so we should get down to three or four finalists at that point uh and then School committee members will receive the confidential link to the um
applications for the finalists uh and then we'll prepare for the school committee interviews and the candidates days in the district do we have a What's the total number of applicants do we have that am I allowed to say that publicly you can say how many yes because you're the only
one here I think that knows that there's there were 30 we moved 10 forward tonight for interviews got it thanks that's fantastic um and a question that I know I had brought to
Nancy was whether once the finalists are selected um if nezda would be able to give us some information about the breadth of the field generally not any specifics on anyone un um our conversation brought up that our
applicants are confidential that's why it's only our screening committee who knows um but having the context around information about people who did come forward in general so that we have some context yes and I think that was a great um will provide us with great
information just kind of looking at uh who applied not specifically but what um what types of what types of people applied what kind of qualifications and then kind of move forward from there and it sounds like we have a lot
to celebrate that we got 30 it's pretty remarkable I believe in talking to to um colleagues who have served on superintendent searches in their own community no one's gotten quite that many that's fantastic great and that
moves us are we ready to move on I am okay um into reports is there any report from student council we know the two hockey teams lost oh my goodness don't look at me
okay I wanted to start off by talking about some of our class meetings that occurred over the past couple of weeks so freshman and juniors had their class meetings prior to break and then the sophomores and seniors had it this week freshman talks about choosing their classes for next year and how to choose
a schedule that's both manageable but challenging Juniors talked about standardized testing in addition to the regular discussion about postsecondary plans because I believe the March sat is coming up um sophomores discussed some of their upcoming events such as spring semi
which is for all underclassmen but is run mainly by the sophomore president vice president treasur and secretary um it's their last year of taking mcast which I'm sure is pretty exciting for them and they also talked about choosing classes for next year seniors had our
meeting today where we got to discuss both schoolwide events and Senior specific events coming up for the next couple of weeks for school events we have the honors Art Exhibit on March 4th in the HCA at 600 p.m. we have ifar Night hosted by the HHS Muslim Student
Association from 4: to 7: on March 5th to celebrate the holy month of Ramadan the drama ensemble's production of Peter and the star catcher which is showing March 6th through March 8th and finally best buddies is hosting a Polar Plunge on March 12th to celebrate inclusion
while supporting Special Olympics unified Champion schools and the best buddies program so that's a lot of events for senior specific events we discussed our May and June calendar which can be found on our class of 2025 Instagram page and
we focused on senior Capstone so those applications are due March 10th and in our guidance counselor seminars um counselors and Miss Sol Laughlin gave us a bunch of resources and opportunities to talk about college
scholarships looking back at the last few weeks HHS diversity Club hosted Multicultural night on February 7th where students were welcomed to participate in and enjoy performances food from around the globe as well as inside to different cultures that were very lucky to have at
HHS that day was also National red day so we had a bunch of students and teachers repping red shirts and red pants to raise awareness for heart disease which is the leading cause of death in women I personally think that schoolwide activities like this which are very easy to participate in are great to have and it made me really
proud as I walked around the school to see a bunch of people wearing red shirts we also celebrated Valentine's Day the week before break class of 2026 raised money for their class by selling flower grams gems Club did candy grams and the American Cancer Society held a big sale outside of the
auditorium next HHS has officially added a new Honor Society to the mix so the Spanish Honor Society application deadline was two weeks ago and members will be completing community service hours through T tutoring helping out with Spanish club and other language
Department related volunteer services finally winter Athletics have started to close out so everyone got to have their senior nights which we're very sad and we are now into playoffs so boys basketball had their game tonight at 6:30 um and the girls face off Lincoln
Sudbury on Friday at 6 I don't know if does anybody know if they one or not oh there was a lot of cheering when I left the high school so it was a way they were doing well oh no oh there's something cheering in that somewhere I hopefully they didn't have brothers on the I was losing and
and then the sisters celebrate but when a sports ending also means that spring Athletics registration has opened as well as signups for unified track and field that's all I have for you great thank you so much Savannah and that brings us to the chair
report Nancy okay so I had two emails I just wanted to call out first um the first was an email we received shortly after our last uh our last meeting which was just about sometimes background noise gets picked up I thought that was good feedback from the community uh and
then we received another uh email this week on negotiations which I have not responded to I in the process of responding to but just for folks at home uh we started our teacher negotiations back in October we had a training early in the month and then um we started our
first negotiating session uh towards the end of October and those negotiations are ongoing going with the Hopkinson Teachers Association then in terms of payroll warrants s255 s251 5A s
25016 s251 6A s251 16b have been approved and warrants s sorry warrants 25- 073 s and 25- 074 s have been approved all included in your folder
thank you so much and Le is on reports uh esbc had a Chris mentioned on the his report that positive news so everything continues to uh move forward and be positive great I had a budget advisory meeting earlier today um just the town
is still does not have the final final uh numbers on free cash and they're um nearing the final numbers on their insurance but so we are going to be discussing the $415,000 uh that we've been asked to
take out of our budget at our next meeting um so um the youth commission um is meeting in the week that I am away um on the 19th oh actually I think we're we'll
be meeting that night so never mind I was going to ask if anyone else wanted to attend but that's irrelevant um because I'll be waking up to join a zoom never mind okay and then Dr kav ready for
items by consensus I sure am as superintendent I recommend the school committee approv the item it by consensus is outlined in your agenda make a motion move to approve the items by consensus I'll second motion by Chris second by Kyla Nancy yes Chris yes
Kyla yes and I'm a yes and that brings us to the end of our agenda seven minutes early is there a motion to I'll make a motion to adjourn second Nancy yes Chris yes K LOVE yes
and I'm a yes thank you so much thank [Music] you have a good night everybody good night good night good night Nancy in the car I realiz might make