being broadcast broadcast and Report good evening and welcome to the Thursday February 13 2025 meeting of the school committee we are starting with a special uh school committee Workshop uh from 6: until 7 and then we'll go into
executive session at 7 and we'll come back out for our regular meeting at 7:30 I would invite those who are here in the audience to please rise for the pled congatulations flag of the United States of America to the
Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right so for those who are watching at home the reason we're having the workshop is so that we can discuss
the uh profile of the ideal candidate for the successor for the superintendent of schools uh some people at home may have participated in the online survey or one of the the uh forums that we had so I we received the
nesq lengthy documents both yesterday I tried to get them out to you as quickly as I could um so it was a forward initially I did go back and put the document that we're going to be working on in a um in a Google box so if you didn't see that that came through that was this afternoon I was made that
transition I just thought it would be easy if we were all able to edit as we go through oops so that's the one you sent about an hour ago something like that yeah yeah I'm not on the Wi-Fi here okay so the it's
up there if you can see that well um it's the on the oh is it B9 robot B9 see on the corner of that window there below the on air sign you're good okay and just for folks
at home who may not know Sheena Martin is our uh Director of Human Resources and has been working with me as Lea on to nesdc to get things back and forth between nezda and the school committee so thank you very much for joining us to
get through this process so first question have people had an opportunity to look through um the documents that we received even on a short timeline the reason it's such a short timeline is that nasdaq's trying to make a quick
turnaround uh so that this can go be incorporated into the screening committee which is being launched uh on a week from Monday so trying to keep to a tight tight timeline so that we can uh
make sure that we have our candidate chosen in a timely manner and and get a jump on things I think it would be helpful if we just started digging in so in the draft document that says
the hopkington Public School Superintendent search successful candidate profile um I would suggest that we go Section by section um you can see if people see the
introduction I think that's was straightforward to me but did people have anything you want to okay that makes sense yes I think it's fine okay and that that's just to
us no it's to the screening committee to the screening committe the introduction to us to give to the screening committee exactly because it says respectfully submitted the H school all right so oh okay okay so the Hopkinton successful
candidate profile which is the next page so the three key areas they pull out are instructional leadership Community engagement and operations and fiscal management um and those are all from the focus groups in the online
survey yes and I think the thing that's challenging is that when you look at how many comments there are through that if we I'm looking more kind of at Trends and our ability to look through the lens and and see what makes sense from that because if we took every single thing
that was in the comments and in the feedback individually we probably would narrow it down to a pool of zero yeah all right so the does anybody who was able to attend the forms want to add anything about
that or about the feedback that you heard from Community or I administrators I you were both well both weren't you were you not at the online one I wasn't at the online one okay
um I'm shocked at how few participated yes um given that opportunity um the special ed Community truly came out and and expressed what they thought um
there was an opportunity where we had two different individuals giving opposing boot the appoints which was challenging I think you can some of those opposing viewpoints you can
see when you look at survey data and uh statements about it um okay so and I I think that's true throughout is there are sometimes things that contradict each other part of it I
was kind of like H some of these things are going to be tough to determine if an individual has I would agree with that I would think some of the themes that I heard were someone who is is um
engages with the community very well is very is one of the very important things that seemed to be a consensus what does that mean um they talked about being out into the community and um families in town
feeling like they knew the superintendent and that they had access to her to be able to express opinions to get to know um the super intendent
um I think that came out pretty clearly in in the survey results too yes um particularly in the in the comments that were made um so they really feel like they need somebody
who's thoroughly engaged with the community and communication and transparency are other big concerns that came out of those um communication with the community communication with the um
families we weren't in any of the teacher no but it did it the my understanding was that the teachers had a better number of people who were able to participate so well I it seems really odd I
mean the community particularly the parents have a rather large stake in who that SU superintendent is but for the teachers it's extremely po important who's going to be selected
to lead the organization and um I'm glad glad they seem to have a lot of um participation in their focus we we did get a good amount of feedback through the the service survey
so all right so do we want to just kind of go down through and systematically see what we like here if there's anything we want taken out and then see what there is that we want to add to it so the first
bullet that collaborates with administrators and staff to Monitor and evaluate special education services to ensure implementation of inclusive and effective Services as well as compliance with regulations at the school level and I I apologize because I feel like my
back's to you there are more people that way but I definitely would love to hear your thoughts as well this was a a big theme also as well in the in the feedback as Susan said the special ed Community came out um for
this and I know that they want somebody that can work and you saw a number of the comments works well with our um director of student services and really feel strongly about um supporting our special ed community in
town so I am for that is what I'm trying to say that wasn't clear the leads the implementation of evidence-based practices and a multi-tiered system of supports mtss to achieve and monitor measurable outcomes
for every student that seems like that's that's an obvious a given yeah a lot of these are like real obvious yeah um and things that we currently have like uh number three using data driven
approach that's something in Carol High used all along okay is open-minded creative and supports and encourages new ideas and efforts on behalf of students leads a districtwide positive culture of learning and
growth yes I think that's important so I know that is students are so go ahead oh I'm sorry I was going to say is the next one two simar number three data driven yeah because one's about students and
programming and one was about monitoring the effectiveness of programs and practices yeah those seem really similar I like the collaborates with administrators and staff if we could sort of combine these two
maybe I like that too and I think it really highlights that the superintendent it the collaboration with administrators is and staff is how the superintendent gets the job done because they're not going to be an expert in every single um aspect of the job but
they need to be able to work with and understand what the team the rest of the team brings to the table and to work to make sure it's all all the ORS are rowing in the right direction I also think that um evidence-based practices and data driven are pretty pretty much the same so if we
would take um collaborates with administrators and staff and put that up to the beginning of us as a data driven approach all right so so are we deleting this one that I just highlighted yes or or just ad
collaborates with administrators and staff yeah to use a day-to- different approach I think you could keep three and get rid of the rest of so identify address and monitor the effectiveness of
programs like you know what I mean like other I it's like all right English teacher what's really bad is I made all my comments in a different um oh program
I think oh because it came out initially as a and I so that's okay if you I use good notes a lot um do you want to read okay the sentence as it is and I would take yes collaborates with
staff to implement um okay we're looking at this one oh I thought we were looking at this one up here right but I'm almost thinking if we take the collaborates and
replace that in about this collaborates right not this oh yeah yeah yeah sorry okay um I think you can get rid of the first one to uses the third yeah I like I like um terms of
verbs I I prefer Implement to uses yes yes I do too it's more grownup it's a big old word right so we're getting so it's it's not just to implement though like we're saying we want it to be to identify
address needs and Implement [Music] mhh like that yeah I think you got rid of the eye no it's there it's hid under my okay yep I had a double eye for a second all right and then we can take
that one get the other one yeah because we don't need to it's each school at each program level yeah beautiful so I like I would wonder is open-minded creative and supports and encourages new
ideas and efforts on behalf of students I would wonder if we want to add something in there about students and staff because I think while our focus is is the students the bottom line the ability to have the
staff um in that supported with new ideas and efforts ultimately would benefit the students yeah I I'm happy adding in and STA and that's something that we
actually talked about in the admin side that I don't see reflected here very well because we are working with the person who went on so it's not really reflected so I would love if you have thoughts of things that we could add in
to incorporate that like if there are pieces that got that you feel not to put you on the spot right this second but if you feel like there are pieces that we've not that were not captured in the draft document okay builds a strong seal Foundation
districtwide by modeling teaching supporting and expecting these skills in adult staff and by working with staff to actively teach practice and support these skills with students in every level in program area that's
a hard to argue with how about somewhere in there because the superintendent isn't going to do all that work yeah that is accurate they're going to lead that well it's modeling right so I I think it makes sense to be
so maybe it's not teaching but it's modeling supporting and expecting these skills because maybe they aren't teaching directly but they're modeling supporting and expecting right we don't think that our superintendent will be teaching social
emotional learning foundations right so if we're just removing teaching in the two places y by modeling supporting and expecting these yeah that's a um I think something that Hopkinton has
done a lot of work on I don't know other than making sure the work is kind of moving forward there's always work to do but but how a candidate would I think it's a do they for the um screening committee is are they is the
candidate demonstrating a knowledge of it is that part of their is it part of their philosophy of education basically that's what it boils down down for me collaborates with staff to implement a comprehensive professional development program to support teachers in designing
and implementing mtss seal differentiated learning and any other areas the staff may deem necessary maybe instead of the staff may deem necessary any other areas identified yeah yeah
knows the C can speak knowledge that's basic right I mean that's not well right but like someone that's interviewing might not know the curricula of hopkington I I I would think or that's like what we're expecting after they start yeah I
would also hope that whoever wants the job will have an understanding of curricula gotten a look taken sat down and taken a look at the curriculum yeah it's detailed on the website yes yes that would be something that I would if you really want the job you've done your
homework you've done your homework right is a leader in the field of Education able to guide the district through Changing Times um I think that was probably put in there because there was talk about the growing schools and um the
different the the grades that are going to change and different things like that so I I know that in the administration piece we we were talking about that there there was a pretty lengthy comment comment and I think that
was from teachers as well right [Music] yes about concern the change when charleswood comes into play and yeah there's a lot of Shifting of grade levels and well and you you the changes that you don't know that
are going to come mhm well and having a vision for that even though it was not their decision even though it wouldn't work twise it seems to me that I don't know if we'd want to put
that in there but has demonstrated ability I like demonstrated ability yes would that be under desired experience that probably would work there yes cuz that's why we're talking in the
past tense more yes um so what do we want that to say if I scroll down before we lose that thread demonstrated ability uh oh let me go up to this one out you as fact change management I no
that's not what we want to say I miss with the first the what management to affect management no I was going to say it we're basically to say to lead through challenging times yeah but we need to say that in a better way you have has demonstrated leadership in the
field of education and able to guide um and guide the district through Changing Times how about demonstrated ability to [Music]
lead in a challenging no in a changing environment changing environment Dynamic environment Dynamic like that that's what I was looking for a good word like that that's a good word all right thank you so supports supports
extracurricular activities and understands their importance in the education students I that may have come um I can see how that statement may have been developed out of like things that we heard in the focus group where parents were saying that they you know hope for
a superintendent who shows up to a sports game every now and then shows up to a concert every now and then um and supporting those things that our students are doing visibly in the community and provides that
encouragement I think I could I think and there was also a significant comment about Athletics and their importance that and they the need to see the higher echelons of leadership not just building
principles at districtwide events I think so um would demonstrate support of extracurricular activities um there's something about how that's
worded that doesn't feel like it it feels like an outlier that there's maybe a better way to Express what's being said because what I took from it is not really what you're what those who are at the focus group um I was thinking support through
making sure that they're that they're there and they're done they're budgeted that we haveed financial piece and and I think through the the um survey comments that's where that came out much more far
more clearly I think than focus groups m um I I would want to see something I think more along the lines of understands the um the importance of extracurricular activities in the education of of the
whole child of like a of students and educating the whole child that's not the cohesive way to say it but um because I I guess the phrase that I'm struggling with is understands their importance in the education of students I do think extracurricular activities
are important in the education of students and I would want the superintendent to also know that but I don't feel it captures understand the importance of exra curric activities um it in
the um it's not just academic success that I I think it gets in the education well it's under instructional leadership so that's why I thought we should like educational success I mean it's under the like I
think part of it too is that when we think about the um focus group comments that we're talking about showing up to things that will be captured under Community engagement you're exactly right making sure that we're like holding to the categories will make this Tighter and easier for the selection the
screening committee to go through it yeah we could take that and put it um I don't think it would be a bad thing to have a superintendent who um a better word than understands the importance of extracurriculars in
education but and then move supports down below and instead of understands the importance let's use values I like values should I remove the inial St I yes I think that values the importance of extracurricular activities in their
contribution to educational success how about values extracurricular activities and values their contribution thoughts it's a lot of values it's are there two values in there that's two
values okay supports or understand understands the value of extracurricular activities um and works to support in the growth
um as a part of the growth of or um part of the growth of educating the whole child like I and their contribution in the
education of a whole child student instead of a child sounds a little education of the whole child the education of whole child yeah boy I'm glad you like to type this document is a guide that the selection
committee is going to use yes exactly is there anything else that you think just from your the lens that you've had should be included in that section not in this section no okay all right let's move on to community well that must mean she has other
sections probably at the end all right so Community engagement a superintendent who leads through engagement and collaboration with the school and wider Community yes yes MH celebrates and appreciates the value of
a culturally diverse Community yes that's extreme important knows and understand the demographics of hopkington yes could we change the second one to celebrates appreciates and values and values the values a
culturally Community our yeah all right so I would take out the the and over here yeah what do they call that o I'm very Pro Oxford comma oh I love the Oxford
comma I do too puts into practice their belief that creating and maintaining a great District takes a community effort and the collaboration leads to better schools I like to keep it is a person of Integrity who is open
honest approachable and engaging someone who earns trust and who treats others with respect a person who follows through on conversations and decisions very important has demonstrated an equity mindset builds relationships Fosters
connections ky's though leverages expertise I think we need to change his demonstrated for parallel demonstrates an equity mindset yeah for parallel sake [Music] picky but we value your
grammar builds relationships Fosters connections leverages expertise seeks feedback and ideas and builds the capacity of staff I like that mhm should we add trust in there like
builds trust yeah trusting relationships love that yeah Fosters a sense of pride in the school Community for the meaningful work of educating students who are our future builds and and maintains morale and school
spirit it's fine creates meaningful formal and informal opportunities for staff students and community members to have input and an impact is in the schools in the classroom rooms at community and athletic events meeting with parent
groups such as the special education parent advisory Council and Community groups such as Town leaders meetings is is there a formal thing such as Town leaders meetings so yes so I mean it's not I just wanted
to make sure I don't but it would be like the meeting with she the superintendent meets regularly with uh the town manager along with the um superintendent for finance and the town um Financial person they that's
Financial yeah there might be a different way of saying it makes it more clear but it's not fine yeah okay builds and mentors a strong leadership team with a common focus on student learning
MH practice is transparency in communicating issues to the community mhm would we want to add in there I don't know if it came through in the uh comments but not only uh transparency
with the community but also with the um staff so community staff community staff put Staff first and do we need to have have the word issues in their practices transparency and
communication with um staff and community and the community I think Community is I think that communication is more than just when a big issue comes up exactly and that comes up uh in some of
those comments in the survey and stuff builds and mentors a strong leadership team with a common Focus on student learning seems important to me practices transparency and communicating with this with staff and
the community that feels we're repeating ourselves yeah yeah that's just what I was going to say so just take that one out take one out yeah communicates in a culturally responsive way and and on a consistent basis to seek and share information to
ensure that the community is kept upto-date and informed about school vents goals issues and successes uses multi multiple media to communicate mm speaks well writes well and communicates clearly and in an audience
specific manner appreciate the Oxford comma advocates for and represents the schools with municiple [Music] leaders H Municipal leaders shouldn't be
capitalized yeah it's not a hires people with expertise in their area and leverages their skills and knowledge for the benefit of students supports and retains talented staff areas needs plural do we want to also uh
add the ability to delegate as appropriate to that that kind of um yeah came out as a theme would that be a separate entity du ability to delegate I think you want that all the
all the above like little get one in all in one place yes has strong negotiation skills and conflict management skills and can navigate a district with high expectations for parent involvement in input I like that
one can we put demonstrated in there demonstr demonstrated strong negotiating no demonstrated strong negotiation skills okay all right anything from your okay I feel like you got something
big to drop on can we put de has demonstrated strong negotiation and conflict management skills yes I like that because the repe repetition of skills is okay operations and fiscal management
a superintendent who collaboratively developed short and long-term plans to equitably maintain facilities ensures that the premises are well and regularly maintained we don't need a comma after spills I'm sorry we don't need a what
and the last one in that Community engagement we don't need the CL after scho okay sorry I was not that anymore that um two different things yeah what it it feels like a unrelated pieces but
yeah okay collaboratively develops long-term facilities use plan to ensure that all students have Equitable access to the space and resources needed to engage in meaningful learning mhm has successfully guided a district through a facilities build and or the
relocation of classrooms and programs so the the piece with this is that I feel like that's assuming that we're definitively hiring a a sitting superintendent which may be the case but
without seeing the pool of c um I would want them to have an understand maybe not have guided it but um potentially participated in um
major facility projects but it could be in a different role as a that would then have led them to be a strong candidate for superintendency so how do we say that I would
say instead of guided I would say participated or um has experience has parti or something to say that they because if they come from a district that hasn't done that hasn't done that
that puts somebody at a disadvantage who might be a strong candidate otherwise so it's a very strong person who comes from a district that has the opposite do we need to make sure they have all is a preferred characteristics versus we're not going to be able to right like I
think that's part of it right we're not necessarily going to be able to check every box on a paper it might have something more to do with the general presentation or the you know someone who's the best candidate might not check every box so why don't we put that in desired experience instead that's a good
idea good TR okay okay then overseas the district's fiscal operations Works closely with the district's finance manager I mean I would say in our Cas case it's the superintendent of finance and operations
I think it's important to name the so maybe collaborates with oh I like that I like that too is financially literate and has strong financial skills including a including budget development and management can
track costs in the use of resources I would say that's important I think that we don't want a superintendent who has no budget experience I really like this with made tough choices and tight Financial Times
yeah okay engages in long-term financial planning to forecast future costs is proactive in overseeing the district's finances so that feels like it could be combin combined with
the one ahead of it or it could even be added collaborates with the assistant superintendent of Finance to engage in long-term financial planning yes I like that maybe even add in there on making
tough choices I'm okay with that one having its own little okay spot all right desired experience oh wait did you have something El on the one before no okay preference will be
given to candidates who are licensed or eligible for lure as a superintendent of schools in Massachusetts that seems like an absolute must um ex when I asked about this because I did ask um it was basically if somebody comes in from a different state
and doesn't have their superintendent license yet but is eligible for it that's a good point mhm is eligible liced or elig cuz if they came from Rhode Island or something but never been in Mass before or something like that right but they would be considered
eligible right so I don't know that and from reading through the comments this was not a strong theme that I could see the experience as a superintendent preferred the last two superintendant we hired were assistant superintendents and there
might be a great person who's out there that is not a superintendent currently or it might be a superintendent it's hard to know experience as a rator yeah yeah I almost want to say administrative leader
upper yeah like C well not I don't know I could say central office but I don't know I would say experien as an administrative leader because that leaves it to the screening committee to to interpret I mean I would I would
think I would doubt that we would have a principle that we would put into a superintendency you you never know I mean you don't know I mean it depends on experience and of our own other skills would you want preferred out completely
because they do have to have some sort of administrative I think that referred right I think it would be unlikely that somebody who has not been an administrative leader would come in and be able to demonstrate the budgetary skills and other things that we need um
experience in special education preferred so maybe with instead of in yes experience with special education I think is a and and it could simply be
implementation knowledgeable about knowledgeable about it does not necessarily have had to have been a special educator to at one point but has to have you know a good understanding of a good ability to
work with um somebody like the director of student services with firsthand knowledge of special education which significant time in the field of Education in various roles we don't want someone who's been
teaching for five years yes um I would say I don't know that the various roles is important to me because I think if they're an administrator they had to have started at something before that I don't think anybody comes out
of comes out of you know their graduate program and immediately becomes a nor do I think people that people would hop field like somebody who has been in a
leadership leadership capacity in an educational organization not uh School District um is going to hop and want to be the superintendent I don't think I'm trying to imagine how that
would make the how that transition would even work um there's something in the back of my mind that we've seen a candidate like that somewhere I think it happens more in the municipal side that people go from the private sector into the municipal the
town Municipal not necessarily to like a superintendent position and there definitely I've seen second career Educators who were um my daughter had a phenomenal math teacher one year who had been in like a finance indry before that
um but I I I think significant time in the field of education is adequate I don't know that we need to say various roles but I don't feel they also feel like the selection committee
can yeah make a call on that too experienced classroom teacher and administrator so I think it feels like it's a repeat it does you can take that one out we can take that out yeah skilled negotiator demonstrated ability to lead
in a dynamic environment that's the one we built from earlier and then this is the wording that we discussed successfully I think we talked about like part like participating like some kind of word shift
that doesn't seem to lock out non super um has successively played um a significant role in guiding a district through through through a facilities
build or Capital Improvement do we need the word signific or successfully in there well they were unsuccessful well if they're going to be unsuccessful we don't want them that's what I mean yeah oh my gosh
unsuccessfully but we want somebody who has played a role in they got fired based on doing they would here they are now here they are I'm glad you're all oh they tried to build the school and it yeah was there
was there something else like through a facility build Capital Improvement project or major Capital Improvement project or they were over budgeted I like the the major in there yeah like I I wouldn't want something like they
had water fonts installed or something like that to count is the that the spirit of it would be something we build a we buildt a bathroom Wing listen bathrooms can be expensive true um okay are there other pieces that
we want to have the screening committee give preference for I think they've got their job cut out for them yes they do is there anything Sheena that you think from an HR
standpoint we've missed or experience with working who are a license experience these have to be past tense past tense exper because we've got licensed y experienced experienced we
need a verb in significant time um probably just spent um paralleled that last one doesn't work but do we want to say something about having successfully built teams like a
demonstrated ability to build teams in their past yes CU that's relevant to the the skill set yes sorry I missed that where do you want that just new bullet yep new bullet and
sorry say that the demon demonstrated ability to build to have built successful teams in the past or something something like that in Prior roles in Prior
roles want to say prior leadership in Prior yeah prior leadership prior leaderships because if they're coming from a place and everybody hated them mhm and it wasn't going well we probably don't want that person either why
right and as we kind of move through the next phase we might talk about whether or not we want to do site visits to look at it C the finalists with their teams that think of that I we did it in both the prior superintendent searches I
personally would I like that idea to kind of get a sense because we won't have that sense without doing that I think we should also engage a special agent undercoverage so now we're going to spy on them spy
all right is there anything else that um people would like to see added to this changed no these I think they're pretty solid okay um could we change this the next the
last one to played a successful role yes that's just to keep parallelism that's word right word that you're um this is up here oh okay yeah played a successful role I could do it okay are you okay
I'll do it trust me it's never going to be me you're working with a oh I want to get rid of the a played a successful role in guiding a District through US facilities build major Capital Improvement Andor the relocation of classrooms and
programs I think that's good so we going in I wish I hadn't missed the um CPAC education on bullying oh it was pretty good I completely is it one of those ones that so tap if nobody has anything else to change or add on this I would
seek a motion to accept the ideal candidate profile what about this T and challenges in year one are we oh address you know what I yeah okay we don't have time we have to make time we have to finish it do it let's do it okay so I I
really don't like the listen listen listen I think it's yep child where are we at task and challenges okay got it click from one thing to another one Liston and we only need one build what
if we say actively listen I like AC actively listen yes I like that and then or listen actively actively listen to understand is that where you want or actively listen to staff parents and students and then it's to listen to understand yeah we have another sense we
got to combine those yeah what if we just deleted how about to understand that yep in say what sorry do we need two like to understand and gather information we don't need the second one I don't like do your research before
suggestion changes um I want to say like make changes based on evidence and data or something suggest changes based on evidence MH can we say in the the first line of
this build Bridges and relationships yes if we say that build Bridges and relationships um do we really have to say get to know our staff like with our staff and Community build Bridges and
relationships with our staff and Community like that yeah or get to know um staff community in order to build
Bridges and relationships I hear you I don't know that reworking that is necessary I think when you're building a Rel a relationship you're getting to know a person so it's kind of yeah I mean I'm fine with the first
bullet good I like the second one it's a little repetitive to what we already have but I think we're pulling out issues that on the third bullet I think we want to be not as specific about get in front
of issues that's use of AI I think we want to be proactive about issues um I'm sure there's more issues on the use of AI the wor slips my developing issues you know yeah
emerging that's it about emerging issues I like that so I think we can then I don't even C Curr in the future can come out there you go and you could put emergent
emerging educational issues yes they don't have to address environmental well there are some do some ways they would yeah yeah um I I think I was going to say I
think the other how about get rid of a dress bullying and just put it lead created a problem soling around bullying yeah M yeah so the last one it's very specific it's it's been a yeah very
active Community concern and it continues to be with the last one we're saying our reading and literacy programs are not evidence-based this
comment I'm not sure we know that to be true there's unbalanced use of different but that's programs I I think we want
to them to be proactive in curriculum this but also in looking at at other areas of the curriculum too yeah cuz I didn't I didn't see anything in the F hear anything in the focus groups or see
anything in the responses to the survey that specifically targeted reading focus group I like they got they developed this from that yeah but I I just don't recall that there was a
somebody that said that they thought we had a that the teachers wrote All Over our curriculum which I don't believe that they do what all over the teachers wrote all of our curriculum yeah so but I do think
we we want something that's saying that we want to be evaluating our curriculum that's in tuned with current research and evidence-based practices I don't think this assumes that a negative approach a negative
comment I like that too because it's inclusive of other areas yes delete like I know they're already looking at math to make sure or we can move the yes that I I think is important too
delete that yes I think yes because I think it's a piece of the other stuff but it's not the whole delete yeah okay and that other piece is is something that can be talked
about oh yeah I think well and often times the new superintendent will do like a listening tour around the community as they begin and they'll hear some of those pieces that are because we
know this has been an active uh segment of our community a decent Siz piece of it uh but I I think that piece will be important for them to to hear the new
once we've hired somebody for them to actively engage and that's something we can do as part of our when we get to the other side of selecting oh our expectations I was thinking it was longer but I think all so stop today being mindful of
our pack agenda make a motion to approve this to approve it as amended approve the what are we calling it Public School Superintendent search successful candidate profile as amended motion by Kyla second by Susan all those
in favor I and it is approved I will get that back to NASDAQ nezda so that um it'll be ready for the screening somehow I thought they were going to be here and work I thought so I thought so initially too but they so what they had said is because they're on a tight line to get
this into their materials for the training they um needed it either today or tomorrow for us to get this through and I wasn't sure everybody wanted to spend the Friday night doing this so why not but so we need a motion to enter into executive session I move to enter into
executive session to comply with theor under the authority of mgl chapter 30A section 21 A2 for the purpose of discussing strategy with respect to the collective bargaining with hopkington Teachers Association because discussing an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the school committee's bargaining position and adjourn to return to regular meeting okay amen
Jamie is that a second yes second yes yes Susan yes Jamie I'm a yes and we are entering into executive session at 7:05 um thank you for everybody who tuned in and thank you very much for coming up I'm glad you're
here e e all right so I want to uh check just check with Bob to see are we live again no de so I just want to welcome everybody back uh to our Thursday February 13 2025 school committee
meeting we did have a meeting at from 6:00 to 7: with a workshop on the ideal profile for the superintendent candidate so if people are interested in that they could go back and watch the recording uh and we have just also returned from executive session so we will move into
um public comment I do not know if there any people that have a comment they'd like to make as a member of the public um if not we can move into recognitions are there any recognitions okay then let's move right
into new business um we have uh Pathways after graduation we have uh Mr Bishop Dr Martin and then Dr kavar thank you welcome uh Mr Bishop you've become a regular fixture I feel like you have pass welcome very nice to see you in
person Dr Martin nice thank you we've heard a lot of great things about you we're excited to talk tonight about the pathways after graduation I'd like to take a second just introduce Dr Judy Mark uh Judy has been in the field of Education uh specifically educational
research for for many years we talked about not saying how many years and she's held roles such as the Director of academic services at Buu a part-time faculty member at BYU she's worked in admissions register our at multiple universities but her primary
focus and passion is around research and kind of looking into longitudinal data and so uh that's been something she's been doing since 2009 uh she's been investigating studies for high school graduates in Suburban communities to kind of get their experience when they've left High School uh most
recently at West Bar so when Dr kavar and I were talking a little bit about trying to gather some information from from our students and the best way to do that not only to hear about their experience in college but or or military or work but also how to improve the experience at hopon high school we
thought Dr Martin was the perfect person to to communicate with and get in touch with and so we've been uh probably about two years now we've been we've been working together um to kind of formulate the survey and get information that we want she's been meeting with faculty and uh students and has done a really nice job and so we are about a year into our
work so we have surveyed one class the class of 2023 so they're actually about a year and a half out of hington high school and so tonight we're going to talk a little bit about those results and answer any questions that you have so that without further Ado I'm going to turn it over to Dr Mark well it's nice
to be here thank you I me I look forward to talking to you about this day this is something I'm very passionate about um and so um so I thought I'd just go through some of the report gave you some highlights from the report you all got a copy of it I think um from the
superintendent and then at the end if you have questions but then a couple of things I mean I um the principal just mentioned you know the primary goal was to get feedback from graduates to find out if they were prepared for their life After High School you know whether they went to college the military to work
were they prepared and just to sort of get a picture of what graduates are doing and what the hington high school could have done to help them make make that transition better so that's the primary thing there are some limitations in the survey it's a voluntary survey so
if they decide they don't want to do it they don't have to do it's not a random sample and um I can only contact graduates BAS Bas on what information they provide me and at the end of their grad when they gra just before they graduate we ask them to provide contact information they if they choose to do
that and if what they give me actually works in terms of a g an email account or something um then those are the people that I can get in touch with um so uh they were sent just basic methodology May of
2024 they were surveyed they were sent eight reminders throughout the summer um all of them were % individually they all have a a unique ID number so that nobody knows who they are I mean I could figure it out but nobody actually knows who they are um and I can provide more details about how this survey was put
together if you want at a different time please feel free to ask so if you have any questions as I go through please keep them in mind and ask me at the end um so with that I'm just going to go right through I know you've got a lot of business on your uh on your plate so the
first page is just sort of the sample profile um I think Carol are you going to sh you're going to okay great the sample profile um there are two percent one of the percent of the graduating class it's it's 31% of the graduating class answered this it's 38% of the people that I actually had contact
information on so the the actual um return rate is 38% but in terms of the whole graduating class it's only 31 um the rest of the information is on that front page is um you know just basic about ma male female where they're attending how many attended School and
so on and on the second page we did ask the question about where they went to school what what state and part of that is just you know we want to know how far away from home they go and um so this is just to give an indicator of that so I think when we get into some of the data I think the overall thing is it's good
news I mean I think the you know the the district does a a good job of educating and preparing their students for um Life After High School at least based on what these people who have completed this have said but then but so in the first
set of academic preparation there are general questions you know how prepared were you do you think in general how prepared were you compare to your peers ma in general in math in general in science so these are general questions then the next chart has to do with very specific academic skills so were you
prepared for college science labs were you prepared to write a research paper um and and that changes so I think that you can by showing the chart you can see okay so develop a research paper you know some of them didn't feel competent enough to to do that some people didn't
have to do one so that may have been part of the part of the issue as well too so um that's what these charts are then we moved into like if they what could graduate what do they think they could have done in high school that would have
better prepared them academically for college so this is the set of questions that was given to college students first and I probably should say at the beginning that if you write down in the first page I did not go to college you don't see any of these questions it skips over all of them and there's a whole set of questions at the end of
this that talks about people who do not go to college um so this gives you an idea that like 57% of the the people who responded said that they they wish they'd study more or learned had better study skills and this I will show you another place in the survey people
mention study skills or they mentioned they went to um the study skills or tutoring or whatever so those are kinds of things to look at the pieces of information together the other thing I want to bring up is anything that was an open-ended question one not everybody is going to answer it and I've always told
you how many people actually answered the question so that you you're aware that some in some cases it's a very small number um then we asked about language requirement the and math requirement the two things that of note 55% of the people who responded don't even have a language requirement where
they go to college uh and on the other side 55% of the people who respond and said they have to take a math course in college to meet their requirement there's no way that they got out of it um so advanced placement about 90% of the people who went to college had taken at least one advanced placement class
and I just wanted to explain what a little bit about this so these lists you'll see for let's look for example in biology there are two numbers one is 17 and one is 35 they 35 means 35 of these people told me they took AP biology but
only 17 got some kind of waiver or credit or whatever from taking that class so that's just gives you an idea of whether it helped them advance in their college career in some way shape or form um and
then if they were not offer offered AP credit um we asked them why and those are not broken even though it says 50 9% did not get a high enough score I did not break down by what courses they took I can you know I can figure it out but
that's I that's not reflective in this data um question about midterm and finals that was something people wanted to know whether it was helpful but then did if you if it did not prepare you for the exams why so that gives people an
idea of you know it's harder in college there are some things that you know they're just not going to get may not may not be able to change um Music Theater and art again I just wanted to put something in that area but we don't know if these respondents actually took
a class in music Arden theater I just know that you know some of them were not prepared the IEP um question uh there were 11 respondents who said they had an IEP at some point during their years in at the high school but if I'm not
mistaken I think Dr kavanau you said that it was um that's about the percentage 11% of the popul of this survey it's about the percentage of the district not bad we have fluctuated between about 12 and 14 so we're very close I think very close so that is so
it's representative yes so this is where the sample is not representative and I think it's important to sort of point that out um we're topheavy um people who are more academically High Achievers were more likely to complete the survey than those who were not and the way
these are divided up in terms of um the ranges of the GPA I took all the GPA of the people who graduated and I took 20% made cut a line and that was the first 20% 20% 20% 20% so we have doubled the number on the
high end but I am encouraged by the fact that at those who had the 3.3 to 3.7 that's 18% so that's close to the 20% of the population of the school of the people who graduated so that's what um
that's what I was trying to make sure that people kind understood um so the next things are just you know know what they did in college you know did they were they Physically Active to engage in community service um drink alcohol the paid employment is 26% I know from past
research that um that tends to change over over the years like it starts out at like 25 to 35% people are working and by the time they're seniors it's like 70 to 85% you know so it's we'll see if that's the case with this group or not but that
tends to be the case they not their first year but they tend to add on work later on um and then clubs and activities um the health and wellbeing um just two things to bring up here um the budgeting uh your money in college
those that seem to be one where people had some trouble and managing their time and you'll see throughout the survey that when you ask opened questions and there are other questions that are somewhat related to this this comes up those two things come up often so um you
know going back to both questions is is helpful um campus Services mental health services you know and and regular Camp Health uh campus health services and then stress um this particular stress question is the exact same question
that's asked on the Metro West um survey that's done every year or every two years I guess it's yeah every two years so if you wanted to go back and look how this this group of students how their what their stress level was when they were in high school and now
when they're in college that's also um something and then what are they planning to do so these this is the next one is an um open plan to do in the summer the open-ended question this is pretty far down in the survey and about half the people decided they had
something to say so I sort of feel like when people make an effort to actually write in a survey that they really have something to say so there were five sort of General themes of CH the challenges they face in transitioning and time management here it is again um being
away from home uh you know living um and uh the new challenges you know just living daily living and organizing their life they're you know it's a challenge for them um so the next set is a group is the next section is students who decided not to go to college and there
were nine people in the survey that decided not to go to college um and they did they either worked when military service some took a gap year um and you'll notice they don't all add up to nine and that's because some people
worked and took a gap year or worked and like did some kind of military service so it's kind of like there's a people answered both because they're separate questions so that's why it doesn't add up necessarily um and then I asked them the same questions about stress and prepared for finding a job because most
of them were looking for jobs physical activity and interestingly all n of these people are going to go on to some kind of education next year so they took a year off and now they're going to go um the next set of things I think this
is something the high school has with personal competence sort of personal competencies that they have in um and so we ask them about solving problems and you know confidence in their academic and personal success and organizing and so on so these are um things and I'd say
they did pretty well if me I mean these were your goals to have the competencies um for their um in their high school years um and then whether they were married single and the primary language in their home spoken in their home is just something um that people like to
track in general married pardon me 2% are married yeah I know which I think really only amounts to like maybe one person one and a half one or two one or two people um but it it's not that unusual to have a few people married
right out of high school I mean there are still people still are um and there so then asked about the technology and the computer skills so asked everybody about that and if you add the Excel and the Microsoft applications it makes a
100% so so I think people really wish they had learned that um before they went um life skills emotional social learning skills um not many people answered this question so I just gave you the number of respon respondence so that um but again here's that financial
literacy coming up again um study skills coming up again time management so again it's that so looking this I always find is an interesting question If you're looking back on your years and the high school what was the most challenging aspect of being a high school student
and and it and it's different by high school so here we have the the most the highest ranked ones were the competitive culture and then social stress or um you know problems just social and U emotional
problems uh and then the the other question the next two questions are open-ended you know any so this again these are way at the end these questions and so I just picked out you know what some of the quotes that represent what people said at the end because they I if
they're still if they're still in in this you know 70 questions in then they have something to say so um and then the next page is about people who stopped out or or transferred from college uh either halfway through
the first year or the next or completed a year and plan to transfer or stop out for the next year and this just tells you why they didn't and the reason I ask I let them check everything ask the question once and then I kind of force them to list the top one or two reasons
so you get a better indicator um and then why didn't they so but what are they going to going to do next year uh you know three are going to go to another College three are going to work and one's going to go into milary service so um where am I going next so
so um so in May of this year I'm gonna send the same survey I we'll tweak it a little bit if people want to add things or they want to you know they want to clarify things a little bit um that will be sent to the class of 2024 uh for a year one and then I will
send a year 2 survey to the class of 2023 and that's a much smaller survey I I mean it's still pretty long but it's not I'm not going to ask them anything about preparation and all of this long involved things that I asked them because I don't we already know that and
we're we're out a year so we don't need to I do repeat some questions about academic skills because one of the things I learned is that people don't take like a they don't take a lab science their first year but they take it their second year and so they said not appli a the first year so you just
want to catch all those people also I will um if you didn't complete the survey this year it doesn't mean you won't be asked to complete your two so I will continue to ask these people as long as their email doesn't bounce back I'll continue to ask them to do it and
um the same is true for you know the next group of class of 2024 I'll just continue to ask them until you know they're tired of hearing from me or they block me on their email I don't know so the Pags lady yeah that's right
that's right so so do you have any questions initial questions I don't have questions so much as I I really appreciate seeing this data it's interesting to to look at and to break it down and I imagine it it probably has implications for things
that might be considered for the high school absolutely yeah we've talked a little bit about this terms of kind of looking at the data and what we could either add to the school or change whether it's program or studies based is's a lot of different things we can do based on some of these results so it's
really really helpful uh we had a good conversation with the department heads about adding some questions around Ai and how that's being used at the college level uh just so we can kind of get a sense of you know how students are are embracing it how they're using it uh or not using it at the college level so if
we're preparing students for for that next step we want to be able to have those conversations with our kids so that's going to be a question that we had for the class of 2024 um and a few others that we've talked about different groups we've met with parents students and staff to get some different ideas but yeah overall I think this is really
helpful data for us yeah in working with Dr Martin 10 years ago one of the things that I felt was really helpful when you get your data it just starts to generate conversations and so it's really nice for people to just reflect on their practice and sometimes you make a change and sometimes you don't but you know
hearing the kids voices really gives you some insight into what you do every day and some of the I mean you some of the questions I asked are specific to departments so I didn't include all you know everything in here so like one of them was a question about what advice would you give to students who are
applying to college now and all that information went to the guidance department so that they can provide they can share that with the students who are now um applying to college what are the advice from you know peers not adults you know I think that that's thing the
other thing is this whole this work that I do is designed as a longitudinal study so I think that it gets more meaningful as the years go on so you'll see if there's any change between this group and the next group um but also if you
make it if they make a curriculum change or you make some kind of change in what you're doing did it impact um the students when they left and was there something they can say about that so um hope it's
um I did provide at the end of the report my email address you're welcome to email me if you think of a question you want to ask or you want to ask something about what I've just you know provided for you then please feel free at any time to email me I'm happy to um
clarify a lot of what I've been doing okay thank you great thank you thank you appreciate that okay and Mr Bishop we have you up again for the uh inton high school program of studies okay all
right well believe it or not it's uh that time of year again where students are going to start to pick their classes for next year uh and so when we return from February break uh the process begins where staff will go into power school and start recommending students for classes for next year and then the week after that students will start to
then pick their classes so we wanted to come in front of you all tonight and and get your approval on some some changes to the program of studies as well as some additions to the program of studies uh I think it's important to mention that there's no funding increases to any of these asks uh the way it works is that we uh we run classes solely based
on student interests so they'll going to be plenty of classes within our program of studies that won't run uh if they just don't have the student interest we don't take them out of the program of studies we keep them in and so that's always kind of how we've gone about uh doing our program of studies and so we have a few new course offerings we have
some additions some some name changes uh and then just a few important things I wanted to note so I thought I'd just go through those and then answer any questions that you have so uh I thought I'd start with the new course offerings uh which we're pretty excited about this comes about through feedback That We Gather from students we like we just talked about from the the
the pag survey but also students who are currently at the high school as well as our department heads and teachers uh we always want to offer classes that students want to take uh especially as things change and so this first class we're very excited about it's going to be in our business Technology and Engineering Department called digital
citizenship and media literacy it's going to be taught by our media specialist in the library Miss Abraham she's very excited about that uh it's going to be really kind of focused on helping students prepare and navigate and thrive in the increasingly Digital World topics such as the impact of social media on Mental Health the
evolving role of artificial intelligence like we just talked about digital citizenship your footprint online those things are all really important it's also going to talk a little bit about online research as well as guided inquiry resign as well as privacy and security so a lot of really interesting topics that I think students are going
to be interested in taking it's also open to students 9 through 12 12 and it's unleveled so really open to any student at the high school another class in our business Technology and Engineering Department I've worked pretty closely with uh Doug Scott our department head in that uh that department who does a wonderful job of
trying to add some additional computer science classes I don't know if you remember a few months ago I came in front of you all with the budget and asked for additional computer science Staffing so this class would be one of those classes that this new person would be teaching it's called embedded programming it's kind of a beginner
entrylevel programming class uh kind of part of our suite of computer science classes very Hands-On uh we hope it'll be for students who have had no programming experience or or even if they had some experience to be able to kind of fine-tune their skills and get immediate feedback from the teachers so
very excited about this class as well uh the next third of the four classes that we're adding is called sport in American history this is going to be an elective in our history and social science department it's at the college prep level open to grades 10 to 12 and it's really designed to look at themes in American history through the
the lens of both amateur and professional sports uh and use the study of sports to create a richer understanding of the US History um we've been starting to talk to students about some of these potential offerings and I can tell you this is one that the students are very excited about potentially taking for next year so it's just one of our probably 8 to n
different history elective that students can take at the high school in the fourth and final new potential class is called the literature of leadership uh it's going to be taught by one of our English teachers who also is in charge of our tutoring center who does an amazing job um it's open to grades 10 to 12 so it's
going to be one of our English elective classes open to all levels and abilities and it's the idea is to kind of build on students leadership skills and explore how leadership impacts different organizations and settings uh they'll be reading multimodal texts across different genres uh and also coming up with their own leadership plan for each
student during the class and kind of self-reflection so it's something we're really excited about so those are the four new classes that we're hoping to add to the program studies this year in regard in some additions first is the competency determination I know we've talked about that a few times here uh so I think you're aware of what that looks
like that's just going to be put into the program of study so students know what the expectations around um determining competency will be and we've also explained that to the students at class meetings recently the other is a work study which is underneath our alternative Pathways programs uh we have a work study program at the high school
we've had it for a number of years now uh currently we have six students doing it usually we have anywhere between five and a dozen students that do work study but we didn't actually have it in our program of studies it was mostly through communication from a student's counselor maybe a teacher maybe a liaison if we thought it would be right for the student uh but we really want to
kind of put it out there for all students to be able to participate in this and basically it's an opportunity to earn credit by completing 90 hours of real work experience and that would take place of taking an elective class in the building so again not a lot of students take advantage of this but we're trying to kind of explore those alternate
Pathways and we think this could be something that we'd like to kind of publicize to all the students at the high school so this is something that we've been doing for a while we're actually just putting it into into our program of studies name change just really quick is for ninth grade uh uh some of our students who are involved in the science
fair have taken what we call honors intro to chemistry with research methods so if you did the science fair you had to be signed up for that particular class we're going to be doing things a little different with the science fair where a lot of the work is going to be done outside of that particular class it's going to help with schedule flexibility and class sizes so um we're
just going to be calling it honors intro to chemistry so any student can take the class it doesn't have to be the ones that in the science fair so we've emailed all the students and families they have an idea what that's going to look like it's just a small minor name change for students as they come into the high school and then important to note I know I mentioned this when I came
to talk about the competency determination but we are leaving in all mcast related remediation courses so if a student is struggling we identify some areas of need whether it be through biology math English we're going to keep those remediation classes in our schedule and make sure that we offer those supports to those students even
though that the determination has changed a little bit we still think it's very important and very valuable to have that in our program of studies so so that's kind of the additions changes and um updates to the program of studies for next year so I'd love to answer any questions that you may have about it thank
you any questions great not all sounds good it's all good thank you always appreciate uh all the details of the the changes it's exciting I really enjoy this this part of the process and getting the feedback from the students and staff and seeing the excitement and you know picking classes for next year
it's it's a nice time stressful I think you do a great job of reflecting what is expressed interest of students and making sure that the courses are reflective of what their needs are so and I appreciate the mcass remediation still being in there it's very important
the digital citizenship course sounds really valuable I hope they take advantage of it me too yeah I I'm I'm very excited about that one in particular yeah so looking forward to it but thank you for the support take that leadership L course to
oh yes so we do need a vote to approve is there somebody who would like to make a motion I move to approve the HHS 2025 to 2026 program of studies okay motion by James second by Kyla all those in favor I awesome great thank you and if you're looking for something to do tomorrow night 5 o'clock it's Savannah's
senior night hockey game oh thought I'd pass that 5 o'clock tomorrow night yep she got practice tonight that's why she can't hey all right m still f welcome good evening nice to see you good to see you everyone than thanks for
having me um I really have pretty minimal changes to our program of study so I thought it would be fun to just do a quick update from HMS would that be all right yeah I can do it in like 90 seconds 90 seconds time in you so we are approaching the end of
trimester 2 uh it's an exciting time of year we just wrapped up our winter sports season so we're looking ahead to the spring um we're busy in rehearsals for for Beetlejuice which is our uh spring musical we're about to tip off our inaugural HMS unified basketball
season um with the help of the hpto we're bringing in a guest speaker after February break his name is Anthony Valentine he is a motivational speaker uh he'll share with the students um his personal Journey a message of resilience uh messages around positive self-image
he'll actually be on campus with us for two days we're excited about that so um a large a large grade level assembly with each grade followed by visits to um classrooms um we're about to have our sixth grade Home Room challenge that's a
little ways off but it's a it's a fun night for our sixth graders um it's a social event it's Guided by our eighth grade student leaders which is called our ignite program so we're looking forward to the spring but a lot of exciting things going on at HMS that's great thank you for sharing that you're
welcome um so um for the program of studies uh this year here I had three bullet points um in the menu in the uh the menu I haven't eaten dinner yet sorry um in my uh in my memo um so a refresh of
the um letter at the start of the start of the document um each year I kind of just reflect upon the mission statement of our school growing an active community of strong minds and kind hearts and um just reflect upon that in this letter so you'll see some um edits
there um to that effect um in the um English language arts section we're excited to add um two book titles uh to the program of studies this year um seventh grade did a um a whole grade read of I am Malala most of us know that
coming of age Coming of Age story um that was very well uh received by students um and in 8th grade um we piloted um in one English teacher classroom of the novel before we were free so this kind of um fits into our
eighth grade Ela content of relationships Justice um facing adversity this is a story um out of the Dominican Republic um if you look at like the good reads uh synopsis of it refers to it as like a modern-day Diary
of Anne Frank type type story it was a great book and the students who read it this year um enjoyed it and um so that will be open to the 8th grade teachers to choose from next year and then the uh third bulleted item that I have here is
just some changes that um were made in our math department of moving some things around to make the make it more sequential and and easier to read so really just some just some edits there that's what I have for you tonight any questions on the middle school thank
you is there somebody who would like to uh make a motion I move that we accept the program studies for the hington Middle School okay motion by Susan second by Kyla all those in favor I I all right thank you
very much thank you than all right so that then moves us into the disproportionality report this is handsome right hello thank you for having
me um all righty disproportionality so you have a memo that provides you with a quick overview um of the recent actions we've taken related to our uh finding from last year of
disproportionality um and so just to review at the end of last school year we were notified we had become disproportionate for white students who had been identified for special education in the C category of specific learning disability and we were here in May the
end of last school year to kind of overview that since that time uh we completed a process through desie of a root cause analysis and produced a document that went to them and then was returned back to us on um June
26th uh with kind of our plan for this year and so the timing on that was a little tough because the teacher had left already for the summer however we used the summer to plan and then I included for you um a smattering of bullet points from multiple groups and
departments and constituencies of the work that the district has done on this topic and so um everything from looking at our Universal screening tools through our curriculum based measures um to specific professional development that
the school district has sent identified groups of staff to um had a occurred either in the summer or into the early fall um additionally during this fall we worked very hard as an administrative Council and team to begin to draft a multi-tiered systems of support
flowchart that could be further refined and used um Across The District student services had a specific set of um to-dos in this in this world and that um related specifically to looking at how we assess students for
this category of Eligibility so we've purchased additional um measurement tools that help us to refine our assessments and we've worked with um a particular subset of the desie literacy folks to um create a template for what a comprehensive evaluation looks like and
provide that coaching to our teachers so that's all very good work in the fall uh throughout the late fall we've done a series of parent workshops so we hosted our parent Outreach um basic rights workshop and uh chosen collaboration with CPAC the one that targeted
eligibility in specific and so that meant that the speaker really focused mostly on how does someone get eligible for special ed what are those categories why are those categories the categories there um and the hope there was that we're helping families participate in the eligibility process with as much
knowledge as possible um additionally um the literacy Department um has worked very hard through general education to help with supporting General Ed teachers to build lesson plans that support a wide variety
of Learners and are sound uh in the research base for teaching reading um and I appreciate very much the collaboration um with our general Ed partners for that um and in specific you know um Sher Kent who's our literacy director has really been out there um on
the front lines coaching and supporting teachers gen EDS special ed par professionals as well um on the the best practices in in research-based Reading on on our PD day uh a large number of teachers went through a very specific um
professional development training specific to Neuroscience the brain and how the brain reads and I think that's the type of investment um we've been putting into this conversation and then finally all the way to January we just covered the new IEP with CPAC and we spent a lot of time
talking to parents about what the goals are how do you read them what does it mean answering questions uh the next steps for us will be to continue to raise awareness in the larger Community um both of folks who maybe are already
involved with special education but folks who are not and I think that was a big message we got from the original um Jessie findings and we're currently monitoring our this year data for who is becoming eligible for the specific learning disability category with the
goal of knowing by June if the disproportionality has been impacted by this work so I'll pause there for a second comments questions anybody questions or comments so just to
go so there were too many white students that were identified as students with learning disabilities or they were not
enough per the community population so um identif there were more students who were white than their uh percentage in the community would would would say was 70% of the community's white there was 80% okay gotta okay so okay and um the
department of Ed has an algorithm for this is called a risk ratio that's based in like meta statistics for the country um and we you know re receive that but then we have to customize that information to our community um we last
year um had a thoughtful conversation about we weren't really sure if that number was too high or too low right perhaps it wasn't representing other groups as well and that was causing this and so we're really trying to stay open-minded in this work and I've thought a lot about it that what we want
to do is find any student for whom they are eligible eligible independent of the category and do a good job evaluating and that approach has worked so far this year so the go the goal is I assume or the practice is probably more
importantly any kid I don't care what group he's a part of that should be getting special education services is going to get them correct and they should be matched to their needs that's determined by testing by thoughtful
assessment exactly great and every student is thoughtfully assessed yes and there is an evolving literature on the assessment of Dyslexia in particular that we are tapped into okay so now we go to part two right so now we're on to the new year and so in
January of this year we were informed by the department of Ed that we will be disproportionate in a second category this is a entirely new category that category is specifically titled placements of Asian students in
substantially separate settings and so we're going to take just a minute and kind of overview that and I'm going to caveat this by saying so we're very early in this conversation we haven't had the root cause analysis time yet and the department of Ed has
actually hired an outside consultant company to help people this year and so we'll engage with them but broadly speaking uh what's important to remember is that families self-identify as Asian upon registration when enrolling their children and there are more than 10 countries and I gave you guys a
demographic link um across the globe that are categorized as as so this a very very large um group of of people um additionally what's important to note is that a student's amount of time out of
gened is part of their IEP process and their parents are part of that but also people consent to IEPs and so um this category is basically saying that they're appears to be greater than the percent in our population Asian students
who are having increase special education services outside of the General Ed setting so that's the finding we now go right back to the beginning of our process that we did with sld where we'll do a big demographic look at our town
and our data we'll make a plan we'll send it to Jessie they'll send it back and then I'll come back and tell you what we found comments or questions what do they want you to do do they want you to have
fewer Asian students identified well I think that what this is is a reflection of the desire to always make sure that students are placed in the least restrictive environment and there's a history of kids of certain racial groups
being more pulled out and so they're guarding against that whether or not that's being overidentified is not NE is not baked into this equation at this time and we're going to look look into those questions there are other factors and we'll we'll take a good honest look
at all of them that helps a lot over identify yeah okay so when I hear outside consultant from the state that you hear kachin well no I'm wondering it sounds like the state is paying for that they sure are um and what I would say is it's
a it's a good thing our experience last year was that we had very thoughtful sophisticated questions and we would have liked to have been able to engage in dialogue with someone who knew more than that than we did about it we're looking forward to that conversation I think that's phenomenal I think it's
really exceptional that um it has funding attached to it as sometimes things from the state do not have funding yeah yeah this is complicated stuff and I appreciate them taking it seriously thank you so much thank
you all right so that actually brings you for preschool you were getting up preschool tuition I waited patiently but I didn't know okay all righty so preschool tuition you have a memo in front of you um that was
in response to a request um that came back to us a couple weeks ago that you were looking for some more data about the Hopkin integrated preschool structure tuition um with the question behind it is perhaps is it time to make any changes to the tuition so you have
the memo but very briefly speaking hopkington has three preschool structures and I think that's the big idea there structures um we have a what we call the three-year-old am class we have a four-year-old pm and then we have
something called the four-year-old full day which is not full day it's four and a half days but as you're about to learn in talking about preschool everything is a little mushy and it also is has very cute little names attached to it so we're going to kind of go through
together and walk through through um so what we did first was we identified the communities that we wanted to look at for comparable preschools so in this instance we used the um 20 uh communities that make up Tech or
accept and some of them overlap so we had 20 communities to look at we then through the very thoughtful efforts of um Shannon overall the preschool director and Bri muzy for at the preschool called emailed and um web
investigated all 20 of those preschools to get their most current tuition information and make sense of the names of their programming and the layers you have a chart that kind of shows you all of that work and I very much appreciate the work they did to create that chart now that we have that that is a great
tool for future um looking it's important to note that every different Community had different names different structures for their preschools and they were all based on historic program evolution and those local community needs and that there were almost no
programs that were exactly the same as ours so once we had identified um all of the program we clumped the ones that most looked like are programming together and then we created a common metric so you could compare the costs
and we did that by creating a common per hour rate that is not to say that it anybody's getting paid that rate per hour that works there but it's a common denominator that you can then use across all the programming to um rank them and to
compare so we did that process you have three graphs that um show you where the Hopkinton integrated preschool falls out in that ranking um and for the three-year-old program broadly speaking they're right in the middle um you can see there's some stacking Out Underneath
It of um programming going out if our average hourly rate and this is $9 their programming that goes all the way up to $13.55 um we looked at the four-year-old there were fewer of those which is why that bargraph is so much thicker and
there are fewer options that was a less popular option um and again we came in at about this $9 rank in the middle and there were programs that went out to about $12.60 and some that were down around 750 um the more striking piece of data
that we came across was that for the four-year-old full day which is 4 and a half days about 22 and a half hours a week hopkington had really kind of Fallen back and was in the early like third of that ranking of schools and that was surprising to us when you think
that that's probably like the flagship structure when you think it's the larger structure the most time um and it's the Preparatory structure to kindergarten so I thought that was notable um so uh what we then did is we kind of took a look and we said well
what would happen if the um tuitions were raised they were equalized to each Comm INE approximately the same number and um and what would that do across these three programs and broadly speaking it would move all of them into the top third of communities cost at no
point would they be the highest um but they would not um at least that large uh four and a half day program would definitely rise up into the top third of tuitions um we shared as well what the impact would be for families if you were
to do an incremental tuition raise um to approximately this $10 an hour metric um and broadly speaking it did increase the tuition for the three-year-old program uh for families by $400 a year for the four-year-old PM by $500 a year and for
that largest program the four-year-old full day um by I think $880 a year if I remember right um the last thing we did want to say is that we looked back and as far as our records could go the tuition at the preschool has not been increased in the last nine
years and I do think that that is striking as well for this the committee to just have that piece of information um finally um this information is important to know in in budget context but also to understand
that uh it would go into the preschool revolving fund and it really wouldn't be available to the following year as an offset and I know you know all about that but I just wanted to say that kind of out loud that these um receipts if you were to change the tuition really have a followon impact not an immediate
impact um questions comments thank you for all the work um of everyone working with you to pull together all this data it's really helpful thank you and what I would say is um now that we have the structure we could turn around an analysis much
quicker to you um in the past and the only thing is this is just one look at fee and it is an isolation I we didn't look at how it relates to other fees in the in the larger picture of the district does the
tuition cover the cost of the program no I I was going to look to Susan but we know the answer is no it is a yeah what's the Delta between tuition and cost of program do we have a general idea
that we are putting 320,000 um towards the preschool and I'd have to look up the total cost but 320 in tuition 320,000 of tuition is going
against the preschool cost the piece that's important to remember is that the students who qualify in by virtue of their IEP needs do not pay tuition at all so it's and we receive reimbursement from the state in special education fees
to help for those students not What proportion enely but um give a we did do math on if the increment went from that $9 to $10 what that net would do it's it would bring in
approximately $25,000 year-over-year so we get to what did you say 320 so 345 I mean is there a reason why we haven't raise the tuition in nine years can I
ask go ask one more question before we answer this are are applications for spaces for these children who are tuition paying still significantly higher than we're allowed to take yeah so thank you for mentioning that we just had the lottery and we had
you know more than double the applicants for the slots available um which leads to think it's a the quality of the program and B it's a good deal yep um and all of these analyses uh assume that every seat was filled as
well I also am noting I a question relative to private preschools um I just pulled up for comparison because I I know that our preschool is very highly regarded uh and that there are people for as long as I can remember who were not able to get in um because they
didn't get into the lottery but private preschools a a popular Private Preschool that a lot of students from hopkington go to to for a three morning a week program costs about $6,000 so they even though this feels like probably a big jump to families that are paying this
their alternatives for other preschool programs are not and that's not even looking at like a a full day program or a four day program so I would I would just offer that I've had an opportunity this year to observe in every one of the preschool classrooms and the quality of
instruction is excellent you're you're dealing with classroom teachers who have some cases multiple licenses multiple master's degrees they're some of them are duly certified across early childhood and special education and um the integration of the service delivery model can't really be replicated
anywhere else so it's quite a model is there a cap there obviously is a cap on the number of yes students accepted and is that cap um we have students in the preschool
that are kind of IEP and then there are so many other slots for yep M PE yeah and what we call them peers peers
yeah okay um increasing the number of slots would require a hefty increase in the cost of the program correct cor yeah so that is not under discussion at this time and that's a much larger um Inc and also
there significant space issues yeah just asking even if we wanted to open additional classrooms we have no classrooms just to be fair Chris are you gonna say something yeah um I don't have any historical context
but these increases seem modest to me given we haven't also raised the tuition in 9 years M it's been an expensive nine years yeah yeah yeah yes and we've opened a new school for this
program I mean I think it's time is there are we going to raise it you guys information to help you have a discussion so we're providing you the information I think we know that the
conversation so looking to raise it up to the $110 an hour is the proposal well that was a suggestion to give you a starting place to talk about could we get I'm curious what that Delta is between it's well over it's well over 300,000 is it a million it's well over a
million for the program just in Staffing and this increase is going to it's a net of 25,000 I mean does that do anything you know I mean for the most part what you have to consider obviously you know when you review fees you look
to the market and so what they've done is look to the market they're not looking to be the highest program they's they're still in the middle to the upper upper third so the $10 an hour kind of to Market get you back into that upper
third tier hello to Nancy's point we're not competing against other school districts we're competing against the private preschools it is interesting to see what like constructed programs are charging and that that's the only metric we could
really identify that was um comparable yeah yeah and I suppose if there's another $225,000 available to offset something in the budget it's nice to have it does your reimbursement from this we get reimbursement for students on IEPs
is that correct yes it's not substantial at the preschool those guys are still very little um however that is part of the um the possible you know yeah I was wondering if if we increase the the
cost if it will also the state would reimburse no at the same they have their own algorithm does the state's contribution average $9 an hour or is it six an hour or probably 15,000 do we know what that is Susan so it's all
wrapped up in the Chapter 70 formula which is a very complicated structure um and you couldn't just pluck out preschool and paid directly to the town and it's paid directly to the town there are some big deficiencies in the
preschool Chapter 70 formula I'm just saying that that's what I deal with during my day job yeah and certainly we um have done a good job of circuit breaker claiming to a a high level so certainly if we also
continue to do that it maximizes the investment as much as possible other thoughts were you looking to go higher than the what's proposed or were you no I just okay I mean we have it built into the budget so
an extra Buck an hour 25 brand that's great I mean yeah dollar raise over nine years doesn't seem impactful to me but if everyone's comfortable if you guys are comfortable with that that's dollar seems to work
well and again no one's getting paid that dollar it's a metric but I I want to say I think it's about a 10% increase you know year-over-year if you think of the tuition rate and that seems important to families especially of young children so I think that was a
balanced idea okay and I would assume some of the three-year-olds are going into the four-year-old program yes and we did the math based on the roll up of everybody who we knew so we could work with some accurate uh forecasting for next
year um okay so I would make a motion to increase the rate um hourly or as an hourly rate yep uh to the preal to $10 an hour
right like there's no wording so the in the agenda it says to review the preschool tuition rates so to increase the preschool tuition rate to $10 an hour I think your specific to review the
preschool tuition rates as um asend I think we want to accept these as the 25 26 annual monthly tuition rates as 4,000 5,000 each 8,800 that might be the cleanest yeah
yeah thank you I second that okay great in favor all right thank you very much for that that thorough review thank you everybody all right that brings us into the my cap Grant still abroad all right uh thank you good evening everyone uh
tonight I am requesting the acceptance of the hopkington school committee of a my career and academic plan or myc cap planning and implementation competitive Grant which was awarded to the hopkington public schools from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary
and secondary education in the amount of $330,000 uh this grant provides our district funding to support the development and implementation of a mycap program in grades 7 to 12 um for background this grant comes on the heels
of a similar competitive grant that we won last year in the amount of $1,000 last year we used that money to establish a postsecondary planning task force that group uh was able to put together um they did essentially a survey of the landscape of the work that
we do in various buckets bringing that together and so the intention is to use uh the funding this year uh to put a similar group together that will work to begin to operationalize um the plan and recommendations that were um put together at the end of the last school
year sounds great any questions okay is there somebody who would like to make a motion make a motion to move to accept the myap Grant and the award of $30,000 okay motion by Chris second by Susan all
those in favor I and uh that that's great thank you for bringing that and then brings us to the FY 26 budget update Dr C all right thank you uh so you will recall that on January 23rd you did in fact vote the hopkington public
schools FY 26 budget um in the last week we have received a directive from our town manager um and what she has asked us to do is to close that gap between the anticipated expenses and revenues um
so that the town is able to arrive at a balanced budget and as of the time of the letter that she sent to us the town was 1,1 151,00 1862 from a balanced budget and so what
she asked is that um the school department budget requests to be reduced by $415,500 75 increase year-over-year from FY 25 to FY 26 they came up with the number 5.75 as
it represents an average annual increase in the school's budgets over the last 5 years and so I do want to thank um all of the directors I want to thank Mrs Rik Mr lead and all of the building principles who sat in a room for about 4
hours this week and we really went line by line through everyone's budget and thought what is it that we can live without in order to get to that $415,000 was every group that has a budget requested to reduce by the same
amount you mean Oh you mean townwide yeah I don't know the answer to that um one of the things that she had said is that the other municipal departments were able to come up with just over a million dollars collectively so back on the the slide before
the 1.51 862 million doll Gap um the million dollars that got trimmed was that before or after that Gap that was before this Gap and so today when we
had a budget advisory meeting they indicated that they were just below the $1 million Mark at this time so we're talking like 999,999 kind of just below so when the schools um if the schools
get to the place where that 400,000 comes out they'll be at a $600,000 yeah and I know there are still some unknown Lo from the town um free cash has not yet been certified right and I know they're still working to get the
insurance number fir yes that's right U so we recently had a teacher of esol English for speakers of other languages um resigned she'll be leaving us at the end of February and So the
plan is to cut that position for next year uh we have talked to to Jennifer suker who heads up that department and she does think that with some of the reduced student numbers for next year and if we increase some of the teachers case loads we will be able to cut that
position and that teacher's salary was 105,000 so how big of an impact will that be an increasing their casely I don't know the answer to that off hand yeah we would have to look that up um but they're going to do it from
now until the end of the school year and so we'll see just how tenable that is um at the high school the Hopkins school and Elmwood we are reducing the budget by 5 a par professionals these are not special education par
professionals their salary is roughly $30,000 a year so those five positions equate to $150,000 what kind of pair of professionals are they um they support general education services mostly yeah
but they support students who are like I don't love that um the a professionals are supporting students who need just a little help and maybe are not on special services but
they're supporting the entire classrooms right aren't they part of the mtss programs multi-tiered system of support so one of the things that happened in and so that we're not talking about like Marathon here um and there are
still significant numbers of other airs but when we opened Marathon school when when they were at Center School everyone in the kindergarten for example had their own apara and when we went to Marathon we had um one AAR for every two
classrooms and so yes they do all kinds of things and sometimes they'll walk a child somewhere sometimes they'll go to the L ating machine sometimes they'll do you know math problems with a kid in a classroom they can do anything and they
are not attached to a particular student um but rather they are sort of there to support an entire classroom why are we 15 for historical and and I'll just be honest like when we think about them at the high school some of them are there to um do like student Supervision in the
library for example so that might be a high school use of an a par aars do almost anything in our district right so that we're looking at losing five of them yeah three are at the high school one at Hopkins one at
Elmwood I have a question I should have asked earlier in the slides if you go back the deficit 1 million1 151
$862 and if the town departments have trimmed a million doesn't that just leave a deficit of 151,000 something no that 1 million was trimmed before we got to the 1,1 151,000
okay yeah at one time we were over $3 million apart okay um at the district level PA professionals who are B and C pairs so these are special education Paris we would be transferring a portion of those
salaries there's obviously millions in salaries there but we would be taking 125 of that and transferring those salaries to the Ida Grant so those would be paid for out of a grant as opposed to out of the school's operating budget um at Hopkins Mr cter had
requested a reading tutor in the FY 26 budget and he requested that position at 1.0 if we reduce it to a . 75 position the savings is $10,000 so when you add up all of those positions on the top they add up to
390,000 and then if we look at other Revenue sources we just talked about the additional 25,000 um from the pre- tuition if we add that in that gets us to the $415,000 that the town was asking us for
and so you can just see that delineated for you on that slide the Staffing cost reductions were 390,000 the new Revenue sources were 25,000 and so the total reduction is 415 so if we're looking at the revised
FY 26 budget uh we originally had you approve a budget for 67 m1906 if we take out the 415 that goes down to 66,67 5,630 and we still have the special
education reserve and I'm going to ask Mrs Rother just to talk about this quick change in capital as well so the other piece in terms of uh contract negotiations um right now we are out of
balance in terms of what we have in our salary reserve for negotiations so one of the strategies was to take a the one-time expense that is in the budget which is the uh
textbook licenses that Mr lead talked about and move that to the pay as you go to be paid for with free cash however um free cash has been appropriated the estimate of free cash
has been actually over appropriated so we're unable to add this article and so the only way to do that would be to swap out and so we're looking to swap out the storefront the entry doors and push that
out to a 27 ask so that again we can balance what we foresee um the budget being and put those licenses as being the the request instead kids can't go without those textbooks yeah yeah
yeah and yet we have leaves blowing in the middle school we Le into theid School go back right there is that what you want to one more now it's snow belowing it Middle
School sorry oh I know what I wanted to ask I guess it would be a few slides back when we start talking about fewer pair of professionals are we laying people off yeah yes it's a reduction and force so
how many people are we laying off five five we did let the par professional association co-presidents know that this morning because we wouldn't want them to see that for the first time this evening and um I'm meeting with them tomorrow morning
so I have two questions specific to the a pair of professionals it it seems like maybe a year ago we had trouble filling those positions is that was it the a pair of professionals I think it would be pair
of professionals sort of just general it was tricky to fill uh the other piece is are there any anticipated retirements or something that could be looked at well that's the
thing when we communicated with the par co-presidents this morning um the there's a lot of movement in the par Association sometimes an a becomes a b sometimes two B's leave so there I mean I've gone a long way maybe to say that there are very frequently
vacancies and so the other thing that their contract says is that when we consider who will work where you we want to play to a par professional strength um and so you know there may be people who are working now in the high school who would be thrilled to go to the
Hopkins school there might be people in the high school who would say I would stay in the high school and become a b par so that's the kind of thing or there may be people who would say I I'll just move on so and there's riff language in the par
professional contract that would dictate how that work the rift language would be the the pair professionals we we added pair of professionals this year correct B pairs
because of special education needs are there any open pair of positions right now one is there one there a longm which is a change and I two thoughts on
that one is um on the one hand I'm going to contradict myself just for highlighting up front on the one hand um we have operated with fewer a PA of professionals or pair of professionals in general um on the other hand um we
also know that the positions are difficult to fill and that is there concern that if we reduce by five we may come back kind of in some point next year and need to add
some back in but have difficulty filling those positions I have that concern I is that or is the market changed is it not as difficult as it was is that a piece of I think that it's not as difficult as it was um and we really are
talking about one a par professional at Hopkins school one a par professional at the Elmwood School and so I feel like those positions would be fillable what is the um there were other new positions um
so Marathon has one vice principal we discussed and approved a new vice principal at Elmwood yes assistant assistant vice principal or assistant principal assist sorry not VI sorry I know what you mean so what if we put that off a
year well the we can't anticipate what the FY 27 budget is going to look like like next year the town could tell us absolutely no positions right and we did weigh that so just so you know all of the building principles are together in a room and when we thought about the value of an assistant principle and the
kinds of things that that person would be able to do in terms of evaluating teachers supporting instruction supporting special education helping with discipline issues we felt like that
position might be more needed at this time than the a par position and I don't want to say that to an any way be dismissive of the work the apars do they work so hard and they are good for our school culture um at this point in time
what the town is asking us to do is to weigh all of these positions and see what kinds of things students will get as a result of keeping a particular position or not keeping a particular position would
any assist somebody who' be interested in an assistant principal's position would they be interested if it were not fulltime 3/4 or half I would imagine someone out there
is of course then again if it's if it were somebody from the if it were someone for the faculty how would that impact the budget it would you then we'd have to hire for the faulty
position yeah and I think I mean I'm guessing I don't know what anyone's financial situation is but to leave the classroom and to become a halftime assistant principal you would certainly be taking a sizable pay cut okay it it seems that in some some cases the
assistant principal position as a compared to a teacher on a higher steps in Lanes would be pretty comparable fulltime for each um so this they sorry when will they know you said they're waiting the town's
waiting to get a confirmed an insurance the insurance quotes in that was one of the things that the in the numbers that were put in for the budget were high they were anticipating a a large jump in the insurance but they're also looking at other options they haven't um made a
determination when will they find that I guess what I'm driving is let's say insurance comes back and there's Savings of 200,000 can the school raise their hand and say okay we want ours back we want our par we're going
to my recommendation two Paras instead of five or my recommendation from my experience going through this in other years is that we not revote this budget until we definitely not tonight potentially on
the 20 7th we would have clear information to make a both to to hear from the community and to understand kind of let let this all sink in because it's a big a big deal we voted a budget that we i' vote no on it if we had to do it
so understood I I think the piece that comes that will will there be more clarity from there will hopefully be more clarity I would prefer not to revote a budget until there's more clarity because at least all the pieces are on the table and we're looking at you know hearing from the community and
what where they stand with all this but ultimately if that number doesn't shift and we can certainly vote the budget that we vote but the the town has the ability to not fund to what it is that we'd like it to be um in the end so we
do have to these things are just the a the PA professionals are just critical in many ways you know they so maybe we would want to hear more from principles over what that impact is
like or something that you want to bring back to us on the 27th um specific to the buildings that are we have two I I know I hate to put them on the spot be more the piece um because it also isn't representing two seats right here it
well so so the middle school just sheet Middle School does not have a single Middle School does not have an a pair of on he has no do R but so I would want to have to be fair not just to put
the high school principal on the spot but to also hear from because it is oh but it's so much fun to put him on this SP it it is but it I I wouldn't want him to have to represent all three buildings that would be impacted um and and they'll be impacted very differently because at the different grade levels
you use your AP Paris very differently will we know in the next two weeks if some Paras are retiring if they would prefer to move to a b and
maybe some of this gets sorted out on its own I guess most of this will get sorted out on its own so that's what I would guess but would we know that in two weeks in in terms of are you looking to find out if someone is actually going to be laid
off I'm just curious we got to cut five par professionals if three people are like well I wasn't going to come back anyways great there's three the the CH the churn rate for par professionals at least five will be gone at least so the
other piece that I would want to have and the reason the middle school does not have one up there is they don't have any a pairs yeah so just to give you an idea how so on a given year there's three High School Paras who
leave are there all the time okay so they only make, without putting him on the spot it probably will be fine I know from from a budget standpoint I understand maybe from um having enough coverage for kids
that's I get that's a separate question can we request also some information on how those positions would have the coverage for those positions how they currently used well how they're currently used and how they other positions might be able to how that might be filled by other people in the
buildings because that certainly might make a difference if we could understand what it is that um right yeah I mean a pairs very often are in the lunchroom you know they do a lot of student supervision and that would be something that would happen both in
Elmwood and at Hopkins and we don't use I come from a place where teachers had to do lunch duty we don't do that here we do not oh well at the middle school and high school they do they I
was gonna say gee they got walk out tomorrow K to five they do not just clear k to five does dismiss all stuff okay everybody's got their own little yes and that's what I mean by these positions are just so different at
different levels yeah yeah all right are there any questions that people would like to have answered at our next meeting regarding this other comments and things that we would want to bring back before we're able to um
make a decision down on this I would I would appreciate understanding options that were discussed and decided to not be the right choices I would like some more context around how these were decided as what would be presented y
okay all right so I I appreciate the probably you said four hours it probably was a um a long four hours that was put into this and having this come back to us we'll sit sit on it and hear from the
community and and vote on it hopefully on the 27th assuming that the numbers are the information is all clear at that point in our budget we're adding a full-time French teacher there is a 1.0 French teacher in
there and a portion of a comp sign and a special education intensive needs teacher across two buildings if we only hired the top half of the um French teacher only part we need um if we were
to only do a halftime frch would that mitigate the part of the problem we actually talked about that as well yeah that's why if we have the that'll help yeah we had a good conversation I think
about whether or not a 1.0 French teacher a 6 a point4 and in the end it was decided to keep the 1.0 okay and my recollection I don't have the numbers in front of me is that the high school the eighth graders that are
coming is a bigger class than the graduating seniors so that that was part of why that was yeah that's and we do have to remember that going from e8th grade to 9th grade there's always some attrition because some of our kids will go off to ke Tech or a private school so
you lose a few kids along the way okay all right so okay conversation to be continued that brings us into uh policy EF School Nutrition department civil
rights and this is a third reading it is our third reading oops I think that you will remember we um I think we thought that the last time we were together we were going to be able to push this policy through and
then we realized that we were missing some of the protected classes in here so the text that you see at the top of the screen was there and the text that you see at the bottom where it says if a participant parent guardian or
potential participant all of that but these two pieces here in the red and the green those are the protected classes that we needed to add um so one thing that was added is that the hopon Food Services Department in collaboration with the school nurse building principal
and student services office will work to provide reasonable modifications to effectively accommodate children with disabilities on a case-by casee basis and then we also added that um the Department of Agriculture prohibits discrimination in all its programs and
activities on the basis of race color national origin age disability all of those things good move thank you for everything good night Matt so this is it we think in its entirety and I think we had said last
time that this was something that came about as a result of a food service audit through desie the one that's linked from it that's fine but don't just that we know the one that's linked from the agenda is not that like I'm not seeing that oh you
know what I see that but maybe it's because I'm on I'm one of the owners of this document maybe so that might be why I see it that way the link that I'm on in the agenda goes to that oh mine doesn't yeah mine
doesn't try again the if participant online is jammie you're saying if a participant that's just a sentence or two right yeah yeah I yeah yeah you guys don't have any of the federal law in you
go I don't have I have oh now it's there who yeah now we got I will accept that wording too I will have you say yes I move to approve policy efe School Nutrition department civil rights okay
motion by Kyla second second by Susan all those in favor I I okay uh that's great and that brings us then into our reports we do not have Savannah here for the student council U but uh we
can go into the superintendent's report okay um so thank you this is the superintendent's report for February 13 2025 uh I wanted to update you on the enrollment numbers just very quickly um our current prek to 12 is at
4,265 and our demographer predicted that we would be at 4,290 by the end of the school year so we are currently 25 students from that Mark and I think every once in a while we show how far we are from the mark on September 26th we
were 53 students from the June 30th Target October 10th we were 44 in January it went down to 39 and now on February 13th we are 25 students from the June 30th Target people may be wondering why we had 14 students enroll
in this period in many other countri the school year is just ending and so sometimes when people are planning to move to the United States or move to hopkington um they do so at the end of their own school year like that's pretty typical for um kids who are moving from
South America anyway we're down to 25 all right and then everything else in here is just stuff that we're celebrating so Wendy McArthur is our Middle School librarian and the Massachusetts School Library
Association um gave her the 2024 presidents award just so you know a little bit about her she's in her third year as our library media specialist and she has revitalized the library after years of closure we really did have no librarian in our Middle School library and if you
go in there today kids that you think would never be interested in reading a taking out books and classes are down there it's it really is a super vibrant place um Wendy has created a space where all voices are represented and respected
supported by a reconsideration policy and procedur she helped to develop to ensure continued inclusion her proactive collaboration with teachers brings engaging lessons and Outreach programs while her kind demeanor interactive displays and warm inclusive environment
have significantly increased student involvement in growth the library is now truly The Hub of Hopkinson middle school and so that's what her write up said when she got her award what is the reconsideration policy um so I think when it was her
policy about texts right yeah so you know that there are some places where they would say um we don't want kids reading this book and so instead of just taking it off the shelf we go through a whole policy of reconsideration have we made a bad choice by putting that on
there or is this a text that the school the building principal and ultimately at one point maybe the school committee would support but we are always willing to go back and look um all right this one is really interesting so way back in
November um after Veterans Day Jim montalto who teaches at Hopkins school got an email from a resident in our town and um the resident who is a a veteran um his name is Tim boen wrote to Mr
montalto saying during the P pandemic you're a student we've eliminated the kids names um andun her sister started to call us their American grandparents since their grandparents were in India and couldn't visit this morning my doorbell rang she wanted to wish me a happy veteran day then she gave me three
beautiful and thoughtful handmade cards one from her and another from two of her classmates neither of whom I believe I've ever met um and so we thought just thought that was really lovely um of our kids and something certainly to celebrate just their their kindness and their
respect um marginal which is Hopkinson High School's literature magazine the um NCT which is the National Council of teachers of English they have a group called realm and every year the marginal um enters to see how they would rank and
um this year we won the award and we think that we are so we got this award and it's the third time uh we have done it we think that we might be the only School in New England to have done that um and they wrote to Ben L who is the adviser to Marginal saying
congratulations to you and your students on this exceptional publication we commend you for inspiring a love of writing that your students will remember for the rest of their lives and that's what we received from the NC and um realm means recognizing
excellence in art and literary magazines um Colleen janino who is the subject matter leader for a visual arts we finally got our results back um from Scholastic and we had uh 46 State level Awards this year and I
had emailed her and said 46 seems very high and she said we hadn't seen those kind of numbers in 10 years so we're very proud of that um the pieces are selected based on three criteria originality technical skill and the emergence of a student's personal Voice or Vision this year we
had 11 gold keys 11 silver keys and 24 honorable mentions and if you are a gold key your work goes on and it gets reviewed at the national level which is the piece of art on your slide is that students art this yes it is so this is entitled Christmas and doorchester
1955 and it was done by Evan Fitzpatrick the next two Beauty and Imperfections pascaline T and I think that they are a student whose work was showcased here before yep and then this one is entitled life of Fragile by
Juliet Finland and we have access to all of these I just picked out a couple because these were different media um and they're just really the work is amazing so um Mr LeBron and I had an opportunity
to be around some buildings this week and so at Hopkins our grade four students are working on coding with the librarian Lauren parie and they have all made computer games and so we all had the opportunity to try out the kids games they're going to put them all together in a spreadsheet and you can
click go in there click on them and try a kids game and last night we celebrated marathon math night uh so you can just see a couple of shots of families and their kids engaging in all things math I would love to point out this person over here this
is Mrs Shelley Moran who is our K 5 math director uh I don't think anyone I know is more passionate about math than Mrs Moran and uh that was alive and well last night so thanks to Mrs Moran and Mrs deau for a great evening of math fun some beautiful pictures and that's all I
have but lots of really fun productive wonderful things going on where our kids are being recognized for teeny weeny little things and super great wonderful things all good amazing Y super questions no comments thank
you okay that moves us then into to the school committee chair report uh Warren 25-60 s 25- 0 61s 25- 062 s 25- 063 s
25-64 s 25-65 s 25- 067 s 25- 068 s 25- 069 s 25-
070s 25- 071 s and 25-7 072 s have all been approved uh and the warrants are included in your folder are there any uh liaison reports we had a Turf committee
meeting and um the revenue generated by the turf which is supposed to fund um replacing the turf and
upkeep will not come close to replacing the turf well if we the revenue we get it'll take about 50 years of that Revenue to replace the turf so um that at some point will I think
obviously have to come from I from somewhere else right um but um it it was a good meeting and there's plans in place to um the ad and parks and wreck um working together nicely to
figure out field usage and um then renting to outside groups and and all of that but um we meet twice a year and I'll have an update in six months when we meet again fabulous that's
it um members of CPAC and the community um provide a Refreshments for the buddy buddy to buddy right best buddy best Budd best buddies program which was um from what I see they were overwhelmed
with the donations of stuff and there was a great bullying Workshop Tuesday night done by the CPAC great they learn they learn how
not right if there are no other leaz on reports uh we can move into items by consensus um I have uh comments on the minutes from January 9th and January 16th um so I don't know if we want to pull pull those two out
yes please okay trying to make a motion to pull them out so um or can I move to approve items a through n by consensus yeah so this we need the superintendent to make
the recommendation first okay so I recommend that the school committee approve items a through n um in your items by consensus as outlined in your agenda okay that work move to approve items a through n okay motion by Jamie a
second by Susan all those in favor I uh and then do you want to highlight your yeah so I just I felt that the um in the January 9th discussion with the select board we went into an explanation of what the VHS was for the French class
um and I I think it would be beneficial to have that a little clearer in the minutes and then the language around the mcast conversation from January 16th was a little unclear um so I could provide some suggestions to tweak that for
clarity but that was it just those two things okay so we'll bring those back uh for our next meeting then okay all right uh so is there somebody who would like to make a motion to
adjourn I move that we adjourn okay motion by Susan is there a second a second second by Kyla all those in favor I and we are adjourned at 910 our next meeting is uh February 27th uh and then
March 13th and March 27th thank you for everybody for hanging in on a long uh long meeting tonight thanks off