##VIDEO ID:c15vIpUPoEE## I'd like to open the meeting with a roll call uh to go into executive session under reason number three to update the full committee on collective bargaining with the MTA and to return to open session Jen Blum here Bob Clark here will Switz here Steve Sylvia here John Burke here uh Courtney Brightman not here Carolina Hernandez not here and Chrystal Ling not here okay this will be go right ahead I I'm abstaining from the executive session uh the committee's already had a roll call and open the meeting um additionally uh Miss Terry Fleming Mr Jack Higgins and M Kelly steel are joining uh outside of Lakeville is there anyone here recording the meeting tonight I am okay could you identify yourself please Victoria H Thom okay thank you very much could everyone please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag the United States America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you um I'll entertain a motion to accept uh minutes from the January 8th of this year committee meeting no move second second I have a motion in a second all in favor I I I oppose abstain I'll entertain a motion to accept minutes from the meeting on October 9th of the of 2024 still MO I have a motion do I have a second second um all in favor hold hold on I just I don't see them oh here they are okay I don't have it either it's it's deeper in the packet okay yeah okay that makes sense I think that was voted or I have a motion and a second you have a motion a second for the meeting of October 9th all in favor I I oppose obain I'll entertain a motion to accept minutes for January 13th of this year we move second I have a motion and a second uh all in favor i i i opposed abstained I'll entertain a motion for executive session minutes approval from January 8th of this year second I have a motion in a second all in favor I oppos abstained all right and finally I'll entertain a motion to accept minutes from the executive session on December 18th of 2024 so move second we have a motion and a second all in favor I I opposed abstained thank you everyone think we're all caught up now caught up yeah we are all right our ponit student Representatives the floor is yours thank you hello around a lot of new and interesting events have been going on at a pondit recently for instance there have been many field trips allowing students to win outside the classroom students in modelan went to the United Nations Headquarters on a tour and then to the Museum of Modern Art they then walked around Time Square and the drama club went to see the musical Hamilton in Providence our 2011 Deca students had a successful trip to hyenas for the district 8 conference they all competed in two role plays resulting in 38 of our students qualifying for the state conference in Boston 15 students made top five and are moving on to States 23 students made top three in our moving onto States students inquir and bands participated in semia 10 students made districts this is a very high number as larger schools often only have one to three students they were able to rehearse with students from over 65 schools and perform in a Saturday concert in addition to field trips exciting things are happening with the school a new semester is starting and we will be choosing classes and electives for the next school year in February I'm looking forward to taking AP literate chair because I enjoy reading and writing and I am looking forward to taking AP Calculus because I enjoy doing math on top of classes we are also excited to be attending the physics Olympics in April with meetings starting this Friday this is a great opportunity for us to put what we learn in physics class to action thanks for listening thank you thank you thank you so much thank you both thank you all right I'll entertain a motion uh to move forward our public participation piece for the evening to this point in the meeting still mov second Motion in a second all in favor I I opposed abstained okay uh before I open up the public comment period I wanted to note that we have received emails and phone calls from community members uh regarding recent reports of a lawsuit involving a former employee of the district we appreciate your concern and reiterate that student safety and well-being is our top priority at this point however we are not able to make any public comment I would like to open up uh public participation for this evening public participation she be in accordance with District policy each speaker will be permitted a maximum of 3 minutes during which time they can speak about topics listed on the school committee agenda for the evening this section is not a discussion debate or dialogue between or among citizens and the school committee rather it is intended to offer citizens an opportunity to express their opinion on issues of school committee business um there is a sign-in sheet at the podium um we request that anybody here to participate please uh go up to the podium uh to be addressed and kindly fill in the signing sheet okay okay um if you can please start with your name in town if you could sure my name is Jessica Kudo and I am from Freetown thank you all right welcome excellent hi everybody um like I said my name is Jessica Kudo I'm the Widow of Paul Kudo who was a teacher here at FL Ms for 17 years um passed away two years ago of cancer so it's a very interesting topic for me in particular and um I definitely have to say Mr Strauss was very supportive as the new superintendent coming in not knowing Paul um was supportive through our transition and Paul's passing and and making sure we had all the benefits available to us um as a teacher one of Paul's very famous sayings if you ever remember if you have his memorial posting is character is who you are when nobody is looking and I think that is extremely profound right now um I'm very disappointed with the behavior that is being exuded from the committee to the public um one of the things that I'm here is not to debate what has been said by who or what or the lawsuit or people's behaviors what I'm here for is to imp implore not only the committee our citizen of Freetown in Lakeville but we need to change our bylaws we are a United school district we are a region we are not separate towns anymore and if Lakeville can have bylaws that give us the ability to control bad behavior then free toown needs to do the same we cannot have a school committee with two separate operating systems and unite and do this we are now in the news from September another newsletter or article came out about somebody on the school committee and now we have another one from a recording and names are being called out and I personally would like to call out to Carlos Lopes and Deborah Petty as Freetown elected officials to help us change the bylaws immediately so that we can retro a recall effective today and in the past we are not doing a service to our students to our superintendents or to our budget or to ourselves if we do not fix these bylaws and work as a unit elected officials are supposed to represent themselves in a moral ethical and proper professional manner and I do not believe that everybody on the school committee or the town of Freetown has done so and it is upon you to put the pressure on the elected officials of Freetown to give you the ability to do what you need to do to represent our town in a better way I'm embarrassed now cuz I don't know what type of superintendent you're going to be able to recruit here I don't know what kind of teachers you're going to be able to recruit and retain or families to come into this town because it is embarrassing and that character is not a good look right now for this entire School District or freet toown or Lakeville for that matter we elected you as officials to work together as a group and not set out an embarrassing tone so I implore you please if you need to speak to Freetown people if you need help if you want to talk to the officials we need to talk to the officials of Freetown as well both Carlos and Miss Petty and we need to change the bylaws to make it available for you to control people's behavior and and actic and treat our children in the proper manner as possible thank you thank you right is there anybody additional um so my name is Antonio Costa resident of Freetown I have two small children in the district I don't have specific questions about the lawsuit I understand that I do have a parallel sort of question specifically um have any policies changed as a as a result of this lawsuit if yes which ones if not if none why not um has any mandatory training been instituted as a result if yes what type of training if not why not um whoever's keeping minutes I can rehash this with you afterwards and um you know um I I I'm sure it's on your radar but I think it's worth saying out loud that you know the parents of the district are expecting a formal followup um in writing with everything that was missed and is being done as a results and um I guess finally if someone if possible could explain to me I have a preconceived notion of what mandatory reporting means and um is someone on the community are you willing en able to maybe provide a definition of what mandatory reporting means just so people cuz I plug in my own definition and maybe my assumption doesn't line up with what that really means that's open to anyone that's able to answer that Mr Coster I I thank you for your questions um please allow the committee to to review those oh you you can't give the definition mandatory reporting not at this time does that mean the definition is not written down I don't have a comment on on it at this time okay uh I just have a a request in as you look forward to putting a committee together for a superintendent search that there is members from the community that is not associated with the Committees um to be considered to be able to put an application because I think at this point I think the community's voice outside of the school system or the school committee is important um that is uh something that doesn't always happen but can happen with searches um and I don't know if it's happened in the past with Lakeville or not um but I think it's important in today's climate that a voice is heard and an outside voice um you know I think that's just good practice in general but even more important right now thank you thank you could you just please tell uh I'm sorry Melissa Ryan nton Lake though thank you okay is there anybody else okay we go okay good afternoon thank you all for having me here tonight um first I want to start with some questions for um will will um did you ever admit to having inappropriate or sexual encounters with a student I'm sorry that's I'm going to ask the questions because it's my first amendment right thank you did you ever use official school department or government emails or phone uh via text inappropriate messages text messages or emails with students while in either a school Cent kindly there's not appropriate this time of the meeting he is not allowed on school grounds due to his signed Dusty contract every single one of you who defund him are just as guilty of allowing him on school grounds if he was able if he was to sleep with another student like he has in the past the motion to adjourn is not come down to a lawsuit I'll ask I'll ask you to please stop your e what Miss Kudo said when it comes to ethics and character and having having our school district Mr CH and having school district look a certain way I think that we should not allow these type of situations to happen he is not allowed on school grounds by his signed Jess contct this will be going to the news just so you guys know good okay is there anyone additional for public participation tonight so let's pause there was a motion made to adjourn okay I'm sorry so we need to address that motion at the table here is there a second for that no second okay okay moving forward okay we have some presentations tonight well I would ask if there any other one okay I'm sorry might be someone want to come up prior hi Mr Zer if you excuse me for one second Mr Zer I'm ahead of myself um is there anyone additional for public participation tonight all right seeing no M derer please youer hello um I'm here to I'm sorry I'm going to interrupt just because um Miss desert did have in the packet um the program of studies changes but it was not on the agenda specifically so if if she is prepared to present those tonight but it was not put as an agenda item it was just under her updates yeah is that I just want to make sure that's allowable I believe so for sure oh well gra that as well I here to present um the school Improvement plan you heard from the three younger schools last week and today will be the middle school and the high school have um enjoyed the first time doing a three-year School Improvement plan rather than yearly and I just met with my school council right before here and they agree with that it's given us some time to really put some effort into specific goals for a sustained amount of time excuse me our first smart goal um was to support all Le Learners increase inclusive practices programming all of that in order to increase our mcast scores so over time we have continued to work with our TNT testing and tutoring so for students who are not on I APS they have your know specific goals and have helped with that from certified teachers we have created integrated classes we have put in many many electives um and I'll talk about more of that in the next one and it has paid off we move from a 75 accountability rating to an 83 in one year and we were named by desie as a school quote of recognition one of only 10 schools in the Commonwealth so that was nice to receive so doing pretty well with that one where mcast is going is a different story um the second goal was to build academic engagement and authentic learning experiences um I particularly love this path we started with think tanks three years ago last year we did a book study on 50 strategies for cognitive engagement we had a lot of um teacher presentation for others to pick up that pedagogy we've explored senior capstones where looking um Terry and I are looking into Innovative career Pathways many many things in that um and this year we're really looking at the vision of the learner and the mindsets in skills that students should have um when they go out into the world so that is our path right now and that is going very well a lot of inh house PD our last one is about absenteeism to reduce both excessive which is 10 to 17 and chronic we saw a great reduction in 22 to 23 and we still saw that with our chronic had really gone down but our excessive has gone up a bit so I was just talking with school council and even with a new plan next year we'd really like to focus on this as one of the mindsets and one of the skills that student need students need is that punctuality that presence in order to be fully engaged so we're working on some some things for next time any questions on that do you mind if I do the program of studies okay great okay so hearing those smart goals they do align with that there are four classes that we are proposing to add um we added quite a few electives last year this year we would like to add AP research last year we added AP seminar it's a sophomore AP course um any anyone 10 through 12 but it allows for our sophomores now to have opportunities to take AP AP research would be in the English Department and that would allow for us to have AP Capstone diplomas we have taken some of the music with a change in our music director and taken some of them out in order to put some in that would have high interest for students one of those to replace music appreciation is music and film TV and video games so students and um can get their their Mass core Fine Arts through this but it also puts computers in there as well not just you know listening to Beethoven all the way to rock but now being able to make it more relevant to them so we think that will hold high appeal also excited for build a band um so that you know in the past Mr lewith was able to you know teach guitar a piano when his when his schedule allowed now we're saying you know learn an instrument come in let's form a band um so that's one that I'm hoping has a lot of interest as well the fourth one will be CAD computer assisted drafting we're able to fully offer that kind of an engineering for at this time as we've built that pathway and with the lab that we built this summer we have the opportunity in order to do that CAD in there it also supports our digital art so the course drops um our music appreciation guitar piano computers and music and music theory as these other ones replace them we have some plans for the following year to have um band and choir have the opportunity for both a college prep and an honors level you know we do have some students who shy away from that because of the grade point average or ranking we want to be able to offer that we are finally taking American Sign Language out as much as we really wanted to build that it was difficult to do and we have a very robust Portuguese program right now so you know it's not something that's completely off the table someday in the future but at this point we support those two languages very very strongly and two come that come out of the business department are economics and e-commerce while those are important we're focusing on entrepreneurship marketing and business management as those major ones on the back it's it's long and and Terry will actually fing will actually talk about this a little bit now that mcast is no longer a competency determination in the Commonwealth schools need to Define how they will do so and she'll talk about it a bit more but we have um created a statement that talks about passing grades in those courses that were and still are tested but it can't be so we'll we'll use that for now plans for the future may include finals or common assessments to do that but right now as schools are are just putting this together we're putting in an initial statement talking about it as a pass passing of a course so I believe this one does need a vote yeah we can I have no problem taking it out of order um it is just a first read though so we'll get it on subsequent agenda item we'll vote it then thank you Mr appreciate you thank you thank you very much I'll fill in some of the like gaps too when I do my report appreciate you thank you good evening everyone Jackie Francisco flms uh wanted to report on our Sip and Jack this will be very familiar to you because this was yours for for 2 years so I'll go goal by goal and if you have any questions feel free to stop me and I will address those so we'll start with the smart goal number one which was focusing on active learning strategies really getting our kids to use those higher order thinking skills and we wanted to see a 10% increase throughout this three-year goal in those active learning strategies each year over those three years and so I've listed for you in the the the two Ider that you have the things the evidence that we have that show that we were working on that um I'd like to just kind of have you kind of scan through those ask me any questions if you have any but at the end I do um comment there that we did in this year add something else to that um we were thinking about our students ability to postco be able to use academic language um and their fluency in with the use of that language across all content areas so we actually added something to this smart goal number one uh which we're calling academic conversations so increasing our students ability to use specific content language across all content areas and so uh The Faculty is doing great focusing on that work um we're also looking at purposeful groupings and uh our evidence and our data supports this need for students to make their thinking visible during those active lessons through the use of specific academic language so we are trying to kind of like boost up our students ability to communicate effectively and make their thinking visible at this time uh we believe this goal specifically relative to Active Learning has been met uh we will continue to work on Active Learning lesson planning but adding to that that aspect of academic conversations um and continue with that focus on student writing across all content areas moving mov on to goal two this one focuses on a an adopted schoolwide rubric aligned with learning expectations for our school so students were um graded on those during the the end of the first semester and the end of the second semester uh these as you can see from this long list of work that was done by the faculty and staff uh were embedded into practice and are currently still embedded into practice and teachers still do use these to communicate out to families um the goal has been met at this time the rubrics and expectations are embedded in our practice okay smarkle three involved Bel a sense of belonging for kids uh and increasing that feeling of inclusivity at our schools so we wanted to continue to focus on this in year three but kind of hone in on um the way we do this and and noticing our impact in and actually measuring our students feeling more like they matter when they come to school and so through a few different things we've been able to um increase some uh attendance numbers that we'll talk about in a little bit but um we not only have done the things that we've listed here in the bullets but we're we're implementing uh what we're calling weekly wraparound meetings these are um at the admin level weekly and also at the grade level so I'm meeting with my counselors and assistant principal weekly uh looking at attendance behavior and academics and planning strategies to either contact families uh work with students have meetings um create plans whether Behavioral or academic or attendance and it seems to be um helping our students out and and making them feel like it does matter uh when they're not either not feeling successful or just not showing up as much right so we are going to continue to um use those weekly wraparound meetings to do that in addition we have our team meetings as we've always had um but the we we've tweaked the tweaked the um the process and the the the template a little bit to be a little bit more focused on those kids that need um our support we have an SLG Focus this year that I'd like to talk a teen little bit about so uh we have been working with all of our teachers on identifying students that are just on the cusp of of moving up a level in their mcast scores and actually planning strategically during purposeful grouping time to try to push those kids through academic conversations to be able to make their thinking a little bit more visible to make them feel a little bit more successful as they practice in speaking and then writing we um shared our data at the beginning of year meeting with all of our teachers uh and we feel like we all need to own our data and it was it was a really um really reflective time on that first day of school to be able to look at our demographics and our specific um subgroups and see how we did and how we can um continue to work towards Improvement in in areas that we need to so again we are going to continue to use that wraparound model in meetings to develop and Implement action steps so that all students feel that sense of belonging and can achieve at flms goal four is is focusing on reading comprehension strategies across all content areas and as you can see from our bullets here we have done lots of work in in this area and this year I will kind of just highlight a few bullets um we have a schoolwide focus on academic conversations and depth of uh depth of knowledge questioning across all content areas so during faculty meetings our teachers are collaborating on using uh depth of knowledge um models to be able to ask good questions that evoke really good responses it's you got to think as a teacher if you want to get kids to talk with accountability you have to be able to develop really interesting questions or else they're just they might just look at each other and go okay right so the good questions Drive good thinking so we've been working on those uh We've also been doing some learning walks which is um exciting uh and and those learning walks are really focusing on the implementation of just this right this stuff seeing how effective this is how it's changing um students ability and and comfort level and as they are making you know those conversations happen in class we uh we used I ready consistently this year to look at student scores but also we made I already available to all of our teachers um not just Ela and math but every content area so that they could use the tools in I ready to be able to identify uh good working groups so for example I ready will take your student data and build groupings for um either paired reading or paired work um and I will also make suggestions on how to boost um student ability level in specifically for our accountable talk focus in uh reading and writing um so even if you were teaching art you could use that I data to be able to build a purposeful grouping and then be able to use the supports that I will tell you per student based on their assessment that they might need in order to be successful we uh have uh we're in the process of writing a curriculum for the sixth grade ELA course called uh literacy in the digital age LDA is the acronym it's that second Ela course in sixth grade that we are using to sort of juxtapose the skill building with um Ela writing reading using um primary sources and also our Google apps so like how do students use um Google Slides effectively how might they use uh spreadsheets effectively are they using Google Docs effectively so um that class really kind of balances those two things and we're going to continue to do that to address this reading comprehension goal um that last slide I gave you just gives you a little bit of a feel for where I feel like we might be going um of course we'll look at data to continue to kind of inform us but that goal one high quality relevant and rigorous programming for all kids we do want to continue to implement Active Learning and accountable talk strategies we do want to measure impact uh through learning walks and the focus and we want to provide feedback fostering an increase in those uh depth of Knowledge Questions and responses for goal two the learning learning Pursuits we do want to continue to measure a common learning pursuit or Pursuits or set of skills we may tweak them according to where our need is um and so we would look at that uh as a team and then come up with maybe a revised version of those goal three inclusivity and belonging we really want to uh I would say redefine social awareness and belonging and importance in building inclusive community um for all of our students and and you when we think about inclusivity you know sometimes we go to a particular thing that we think that might involve but for our students it could mean a number of things so we want our kids to continue to feel like it matters when they come to school and we want to use our wraparound meetings to identify concerns with attendance and provide interventions and supports and I feel like we have been doing that uh a lot go for the last one around that reading comprehension and communicating our thinking we do want to continue to increase practice in reading and writing across all content areas with that focus on accountable talk and academic language we uh would like uh to use some evidence-based questioning questioning in all content areas and we are working on that right now and we are starting to use uh if anyone's heard of the strategy close reading it's kind of a preap strategy uh we're introducing that with kids and Analysis and strategic pairing so thinking about students taking a a first read second read third read of any piece of text and a text could be a number of things and then having them derive from that um different levels of what we think that they can in order to um use that EV evidence to answer questions so those are our four goals that is where we are right now in addition to that like I had said from our sense of belonging goal um I I also gave you this little one pager with some information so if you want to take a look at that with me very quickly um I've got for you both my chronically absent and my school year attendance percentages so if you take a look let's work our way upwards 2223 chronically absent we went from 13.8 in 2324 to 11.7 and this year uh as of right now our chronically absent number has dropped to 8.7 uh we feel like that is due to a number of things and I'm hoping that I'm right but I feel like it's due to our students um knowing that when they don't show up we we are going to hey what's going on why are you not coming to school and and that all comes from those wraparound meetings um but also we want them to be happy when they come to school and miss it when they're not there so if we can make that feeling in a number of ways that you know we do to excite kids about coming to to school we are going to do it so uh chronically absent uh if you don't know the percentage a student could be chronically absent if they are absent from school um 10% of the school year which would be 18 days for 180 days right so this would be a 9-day cut off so this is where they are right now okay my um school year average attendance is pretty close to you know where we've been in the past three years I'm hoping to get an uptick in that in the next couple of months as we start to actually challenge students by grade level so we went from in 2223 to 94.3 to 94.8 and right now we're at 94.9 my goal is to get that in the 95 soon uh I want to get sixth grade competing against seventh grade competing against 8th grade and and I hope to kind of like involve them in that and let them know that it does matter when you you know if you're not here and your friend isn't here that's that's going to you know kind of like impact their their their attendance the incidents at the bottom uh suspensions and days suspended are also there for you um as you can see 2223 we had 737 total incidents in 2324 we had 870 in 2425 currently uh just about at the halfway point of the school year we're at 395 uh and then you can see our our suspension numbers and days suspended there that I've included for you okay any questions Miss Francisco if I could hypothetically if you were to have an incident that involved 10 students would that be one incident or 10 incidents like when I'm looking at this table it would be 10 incidents if you wrote all 10 up okay so if all 10 got a consequence and if all 10 were written up in any way shape or form that would be 10 incidents okay thank you okay anyone questions for Miss Francisco thank you thank you very much you're welcome thank you just a comment and thank you to all the principales for the school Improvement plans um I I'm I'm hearing through the principles that they really enjoyed the three-year process for the school Improvement plan so I'm hoping we can do that continue that moving forward yeah seems to be popular and then I apologize if I missed this they're all aligned all the schools just and did the three-year cycle it wasn't a school that was off on a different like 2-year cycle we all started with a 3 year ended with a three year yep cuz sometimes in edal people are on different years so it's a fresh start next year good thank you okay Capital plan do we have an update for our Capital plan with Mr Habib and Associates and just a little patience as um our cyber security is tightening up I was not able to open the thumb drive that was brought so I just got the Powerpoint and I'll get that open for you okay please thank you while that's happening I'll just uh say I'm I'm Steve khabib president and founder of aan Associates architects and I have two of my associates with me J old Grady and Melissa Boon and we're going to present on the master plan options U we've been working on this for quite some time with you and it's time to now take a look at um what options have been developed for the master planning so there are two key areas that need to be um assessed and performed prior to developing any Master plans for a school district and those two are physical condition assessment which identifies the types of repairs and renovation work that will be necessary just to bring the existing building up to current standards okay so that's that's one piece the second piece is the educational adequacy of the school building itself and the spaces within it and that also takes into account the uh capacity of each Building compared to the enrollment and the enrollment projections so those two elements need to be brought together in order to develop any sort of Master Plan solution so we did that and we presented the results of those those two elements some time ago now uh we'll just quickly uh refresh our memories with respect to that the first slide that's up is the physical condition assessment uh summary and that's I know it's a challenge to read but the bottom line is um without adding for inflation it's a little over $80 million $82 million identified for work that would be needed to bring the buildings up to Snuff including um work in the three phases or the three Scopes that we use to determine that and that's across the entire District That's Not Unusual that's not uh uncustomary that's that's pretty typical for the school systems that we visit and that we um that we spend time assessing so the next area is the existing School capacities and although you can't see it very easily all of the schools have adequate capacity for the students enrolled now and in the future at least as can be best projected with the exception of the ASA WSET Elementary School that particular School excuse me when we look at the educational program that the district wants to provide for those students when we look at that program and we build those spaces into the school we find that we're short um space for roughly 60 65 students uh in that particular school all of the other buildings have adequate capacity to offer the same uh educational program and and courses that have been defined as being desired U by the school district so you're in pretty good shape there now the next slide shows the enrollment projections and what we've seen over time I realize it's challenging to read but you just have to take my word for it the enrollment has been decreasing not radically but continually over time and it's expected that that will continue and that's not just a trend that we're seeing here in this District but it's really Nationwide we're seeing that uh there are certain areas of of the country that are seeing increases but this area of the country in general I'll say in general is not excuse me so now we come to options and we developed six options having all that information that allows us to then develop options that will meet the needs of the district so we have uh six options they range in cost and this is costs based in 2024 they range in costs from 88 million to $263 million and they cover a variety of of areas the least costly and we're going to go through each one by one maybe we just flip through to the next slide and you can you can see that now that is this campus that we're on and it really is maintaining this campus but adding some um some additional fields some turf fields behind the building in the existing in in the existing location that they exist currently it also includes all of those physical condition uh assessment dollars that were identified throughout the district so it's not much more than what the existing um conditions identifi the increase has to do with the addition excuse me the addition of turf fields behind this building if we move on to option I I'll use all three of these options A2 B2 and C2 now these involve a slight expansion to the ASA wamit elementary school expansion of four classrooms that would then allow that school to have the same educational spaces uh such that those 60 to 65 students can then be incorporated uh into that building offering the same um curricula the same educational program that the district decided that they wanted to provide the difference is and I'll ask the flip again and we'll get into each of the three options now with this option be one this shows a new High School in the upper left corner the northeast corner it's that purple area and then using the space where the existing building is for additional athletic fields this option also includes all of the renovations and the repairs that were identified in the physical condition assessment and proposes a new building in that location with turf fields in the center of the site the next option places a new high school building close closer to the middle school and the intermediate school and then moving the fields forward towards the Main Street um and expanded in terms of the extent of of athletic fields uh that can be created in that location so there are some decisions to be made um what is the direction that this ghou department wants to head in uh I think that obviously that requires some some close scrutiny on your part and and um some determinations up but I'll open to questions any questions the Steve sure I I wouldn't even know where to begin I think you just presented between 80 million and 200 and something million yes as options to develop a strategic plan that's a lot to digest I I think we probably need to get that Capital committee back together and talk that out but based on your experience um would any of these um updates or or bringing these facilities the buildings in particular be eligible for some of the msba reimbursement programs uh yes some of those would projects that deal with uh uh roof Replacements and Window and Door Replacements on the exterior of the building could be submitted for an accelerated repair program through the msba um you also could submit for a core project for instance okay a statement of interest for I would suggest this building in particular um uh would be appropriate uh so there is some you know this this absolutely the the POs you know the possibility of submitting to the mass School building authority and and as part of the document that you shared of this presentation which I assume we have electronically do you make recommendations on that that we could take back and kind of you know simplify it for for people like me to to take to a capital committee a smaller um I'm I'm happy to uh to make those this report was not int intended to really make recommendations like that but I'm happy to cuz I do remember a conversation with a house doctor and we would and I and I want Greg to be part of this on what the priorities are in in the district in terms of what kind of the must do or things we need to address immediately so maybe if somehow we can highlight or summarize that at some point it might be helpful I hope Greg I'm I'm not talking out of school but I certainly want you part of that conversation and to make sure that we have a clear picture of of what the needs are cuz that's a hefty range that you just shared there yeah in the in the facility condition assessment I think it'll be it'll be relatively easy to um highlight items and I can do that for you that we would see in in um conversation with Greg as well that we could highlight items that would show what would be the higher priorities or what areas could be submitted to msba uh for funding through an accelerated repair project that would be helpful yeah thank you m did you have a question yeah have you uh these options all involve new bills correct no not the the release costly does not involve new bill are you talking about portable classrooms the well option A2 would include a build at ASA wson for four classrooms well that's a build yes but that's not all of them option one does not did you look at portable classrooms pardon did you look at portable classrooms uh we did not no I mean that could be well I know subd districts utilize that when they have a small increase in student population well it certainly could you know we haven't tried to Define how that would be built our role was really to Define what should be added that would be a cheaper uh solution short term wouldn't it if it's anticipated that it's going to be shortterm yes that would be bless you bless you so instead of being in 2024 instead of being uh 98.7 it could be 90 four let's say or 95 I I it's it's hard to say how much the savings would be for modular versus new uh construction off the top of my head thank yeah just Steve and your team thank you for putting this all together I really appreciate it I think what it does is now mind you I want to kind of state the public nothing is imminent here we're not going to the towns and asking for 88 million or $263 million tomorrow right nor do I think the towns are in the position to be able to support that um but what it does do is it helps us get our ducks in a row and really you guys did the work that we most obviously don't have the time to do um which we which we certainly appreciate so um as soon as we can get our hands on this and start digesting it the better off we'll be but that's great yeah thank you thank you you're welcome I I think you find if you go through the report that it'll be a lot it'll be a lot more uh a lot easier to to comprehend absolutely yeah thank you you're welcome question sure the physical any any improvements want me stand over here oh okay so regarding the physical improvements um are Ed projected to uh like save money so are there uh proposals for solar panels on so we have uh maybe cheaper electric bills or turf fields I imagine would mean like less water usage like is that built into the plan um well those it's it's not identified specifically as to what the potential savings would be from those elements but those elements uh I I don't believe we have solar um photov voltaic called out do we no not in the not in the not in the deficiency list because we're looking at what exists and saying okay what needs to be repaired but you know roof replacement projects are going to save energy um window repl projects are going to save energy uh tur fields are going to um they're going to save money however the first cost is is more costly but they'll save money in terms of in terms of irrigation and uh and maintenance okay Steve another question before we let you off the hook and and thank you so much for coming this evening um was there any discussion by you and your team just regarding pool and kind of the state of the pool and and plans for that moving forward cuz I know that's going to be on the agenda tonight to discuss but I don't know how deeply that was covered by by you and your folks detailed in the report yeah in the in the uh facility condition assessment there the um the pool is addressed okay and and I think digging into that you'll be able to see it I did not bring the full detail okay to be able to call that out for you right now no that's okay thank you it's good to know that it's there though yeah and I think that assessment may have been done before some new issues developed yeah yeah so okay thank you very much you're very welcome thank you thank you on to our director's reports Mr Higgins yes thank you this is a follow-up report from uh last week's school committee meeting um in which we updated the school committee regarding the financials uh for the month of January so this is more around facilities uh and status updates in terms of uh some of the other committees for example Regional uh finance committee the next meeting for regional finance committee will be next uh next week January 22nd at 6:00 in the library here in this Library here uh we will will be at that point reviewing some uh more elements of the FY 26 budget uh which is progressing um those conversations will be continuing and then the the presentation of that budget will be at the next school committee uh February 5th school committee the draft um uh initial uh budget presentation the um as of January 2025 the uh internal re Revenue Service has increased the mileage rate to 70 cents per mile for 202 5 you may remember that we had a conversation about this in um earlier this year or last year earlier in the fiscal year uh when the school committee voted for uh 67 cents per mile to align with the the IRS rate uh at the beginning of each uh calendar year typically the IRS will determine the mileage rate for that for that year we are at that time they have increased the rate by 3 cents uh it would be a requirement for the school committee to make that uh adjustment uh for those employees who are utilizing their vehicles in order to execute their work through um throughout their their their day uh that they would be um reimbursed at7 cents per mile the uh technology department has uh as you know is continually assessing the equipment uh is seeking approval as a result of that assessment to declare items on the submitted list that you've received in your packet uh for Surplus these are out outdated pieces of equipment that will be donated to an electronic waste removal company or disposed of appropriately most of these will be uh removed as a as recycling so often these are not usable pieces of equipment anymore um but the recycling company is able to take it without any cost for us to um to to to to get rid of it through waste we've had a few incidents over at Freetown Elementary over the last month uh regarding Freetown Elementary and the heating system on December 15th Sunday a coil malfunction in a unit ventilator system located in classroom K2 at the preown elementary school this incident resulted in the activation of the fire alarm due to the steam that was released prompting a swift response from the Freetown fire department the Steam and water leakage required the class of students to be relocated to another room during the necessary repairs and cleaning we express our thanks to the classroom teacher Miss Aaron bers for her flexibility she made the necessary adjustments and has not missed a beat with her instruction a full report of the incident is included in your packet uh we are expecting that the U repairs will be completed within the next week or so uh and the class will be back into their regular learning Space by then uh the installation of the new FPS H controls has created some unexpected issues that caused some uneven heating in the building most notably when we had some a cold stretch uh last week and the previous week the maintenance team is working diligently to address these issues as they are identified some of these things are a result of um as as noted when the new controls came in it started making the system operate appropriately in which case as one example we have a damper system where outside air has pulled in when a room starts to warm up um those dampers have um uh weatherproofing around them that weather those dampers haven't been opened in probably 10 years as a result of the control system not activating them so when those when those dampers for example opened those weather stripping which had aged and cracked and become brittle broke apart so then when those dampers closed back there was still gaps and so cold air was able to be running back into the system even when into the classroom even after the dampers were closed that's something that the maintenance team has been addressing um and working very hard to put new weather stripping on all of those uh and addressing other items like uh Motors that have been uh in need of replacement a full report uh of that is um uh is going to be or well I shouldn't say a full report but an update report is being submitted to the FBS in um principal and teachers so they kind of have a sense of timeline as when they're going to have things back into a little bit more of a normal state for themselves and then uh on the early morning of January 10th it was discovered that the FES heating system had malfunctioned this is causing our boil the boilers to shut down ultimately required to cancel the school for that day uh the the issue was identified as a malfunctioning mixing valve it wasn't the boiler itself but a mixing valve causing the boiler to automatically turn off uh we are pleased to report that the valve was successfully repaired and the system is now functioning properly so uh the con uh the topic of the swimming pool had been brought up in December um as you recall we had a school committee meeting actually I'm sorry in November we had a school committee meeting uh where I had suggested that the school committee uh do a field trip to see the status of the pool um it was unable to to make it work for the entire school committee but John Burke and Courtney Brightman participated in separate walkthroughs in December uh through the grace pool area as well as the mechanical room during those walk walkthroughs I believe the visible elements of what the needs of repair were revealed in addition there was a short review of the information that we shared at the O that I shared with you on the October 23rd meeting uh we are and and as I shared on that October 23rd we did have a consultant review the pool a year ago and their recommendation was for an engineering study if there was uh um um to look at all of the ultimately the elements that are going to be necessary if you want to bring the pool back up to uh use any questions from Mr Higgins yeah through through the chair um just a couple quick things first as far as the event on 110 goes with the closing of free elementary school I just want to give a shout out to to the team for for how quickly you folks were able to move and make the decisions necessary and communicate to not only the towns but our parents and U wasn't an ideal um end result but but I just appreciate how how quickly you folks worked as a team and got the word out so um Kudos there to you and obviously Greg and his team so thank you um and then on the topic of the pool I I do think because the pool is a gem right to our district not many districts have the ability to to be able to have a pool and I do think when utilized correctly it is a a major Plus for the communities right so before we make any rash decisions about whether to dump a ton of money into it and keep it open or or close it and and utilize that space for something else I do think it would be best for us to have a full report um just as far as the the extent of the damages what it's going to cost to get the pool up back and operational um I just think we have to do our due diligence as a committee before we we make a decision like that but just my two cents there I can say as as one of eight um I did get a walk through of the space with both uh Jack and Greg and you know fired away questions and you know as written in your report the the components of the pool that were in need of repair were very obvious to a someone not in that line of work you know so it was very clear to me that you know it is a need of significant repair I I do think though you make a good point with due diligence as somebody who spent a lot of time not in the pool but on the pool deck I I do see a lot of benefits of the pool in this community but I do think it is fair that we we do get some sort of a um a report or a full assessment on what the cost would be before we make a decision anything additional for Mr Higgins Bob go ahead I'm looking at the list uh Jack are there any companies that that buy broken computers to use some of the functional parts that are still there that is what the well the the recycling company will take it off your hands for that they won't um because that's how they're going to make their money um because the cost of throwing these things away is is not cheap I I understand that but I see in lead acid batteries you could take it right out the county road and get some money for those I mean I just I just hate to pay some pay somebody or or lose money on something that we could make money on although it's probably not a lot of money no but still I understand Jack thank you thank you I miss deal right so Student Services report today I'm doing more of a midyear um touch upon I do schools kind of around the mid year and then beginning of the year and end of year I'm not going to go line by line but just as a summary I'm going to start with Asa WSET um we are up six student so on my report you'll see kind of in parentheses up or down that's compared to September um so where I started in September to where we are now so we're up six students in special education at ASA wamit and it's broken down by grade um FBS we are up 11 um and you do need to remember that our preschool is at FES so the numbers will be a little bit bigger at that Building compared to ASA WSET um at times and then at Grace we are down three students in special education at FMS we are up three and at the high school we are up five um so that's a total of 24 students increase um from September to now that being said um when we add in our out of districts and our other high schools we are at 5:45 and then right now to on this day we have 263 students in the district 19.6% is special education um numberers pretty similar to what I would expect um nothing really crazy from where we were before our a of District numbers are um stable so they were 35 at the beginning of the year we're 35 now um we did have a couple of students one had aged out one had moved but then we also had a couple of students that had gone out of District so we're right at the same number we were at prior um and then I'm not going to go over eighth grade transfers those really don't impact us again until towards the end of the year when we're preparing for the nth grade transition um but for initial referrals this year um our biggest number is Elementary K to3 it typically is um the total is 43 24 students out of that qualified 19 did not um at are reevaluations for students that already receive special education um 50 students so far have been due for their reeval 38 of them qualified 12 did not so total um an increase through initial evaluations last year for the whole year was 77 right now we're at 12 um but that's the slowest part of our year so I expect it to to grow a bit maybe I don't think up to 77 but it will grow um we did have four addition move in so that did add um and then we had some IEPs that weren't active yet in September that got signed so it took us all the way to 24 total increase and then our movein we are 20 movein 20 move outs um so we're pretty broke even there um we have six move in since September and two move outs since September so we do have a bit of an increase if you're looking at it ratio wise um and then we did have one student age out out of District so that was one that also had left us for that reason um and then evaluations in process there's 47 so those are just initials I don't I'm not counting those as reeval those are the ones that we could be adding to our total population depending on if they qualify or not um it's important to note I projected um at the beginning of the year I was looking at numbers and where I thought that we would end up being and that was 581 by the end of the year and right now we're at 5:45 so when I did my math I'm kind of right on track of where I anticipated us to be at the end of the year um and then I can just go over some notes of other things CPAC I just like to give an update we have a February 4th meeting um that's going to focus on home to school and school to home communication I talked about some of this last week March 4th we do have a presentation on bullying by Dr Carolyn McCarney it it's open to everyone so anyone um within the district that would like to come and and attend that that would be awesome it's going to be right here at the High School location to be determined U most likely the lecture hall so I'm working on that right now and then vacancies are the same from last week so flms we're looking for a long-term special education teacher from March till the end of the year that is posted on school spring um FBS a one to1 par professional and ASA wamps at a grade level paraprofessional we did have someone that was just about to come on board and a couple days before had taken another position so that was filled and then not filled so we're working on that one right now as well esy is coming quicker than we really even realize but we'll be posting in March um and then we're running July 7th through August 7th um the same 5we window that we would do before and then our buildings are all used except ASA WSET and then we're doing ongoing regression data and talking about that at Team meetings um Greg Goodwin was great to join we have um our special at admin meeting every other week um so it's myself the three administrators Heather Ashley and Jen seberg and we meet and go over everything in special education and so I've really felt it was pertinent to have Greg join us September January and June because we have a lot of kids that have facility needs and I think sometimes in June we're like oh this student's moving to this school and we haven't prepared for that physical move so we're talking about it early in the year and taking those slower steps so we're not putting so much pressure on maintenance to hurry up and get it done um so Greg met with us today we went over some transitions from FES over to Grace and then we talked about some high school um projects that we're looking at down the road so it was a really good meeting and it was great to have him and we're going to continue to do that in the future so that's kind of the overview of special education right now and I'll go back to building based and kind of hit more schools once we focus on those questions thank you Kelly thanks Kelly thank you Kelly could you give us an example of uh something that you you would need Greg's team to do at a particular School absolutely so say we have a student that may have either a hearing impairment or a vision impairment sometimes the recommendations through evaluations might be sound panels that have to go up in the rooms um to absorb the noise or if they might have a vision impairment it's um sometimes painting the curbs or painting the steps or putting the tape on the steps for the visual like kind of identification so they can navigate the building better um door handles things like that so it's really about more of those sensory needs but then we have students with physical disabilities as well and access to the playground and things like that so those types of transitions thank you mhm any other questions for Miss thank you very much so my report is um two pages and I'm actually going to start with pictures on the back you can't see them very clearly but I want to give a huge shout out to um Lakeville Arts Council our frames are up and student work is in them and we are so appreciative of Their donation and the frames that we um were able to purchase are the frames that are easily we can easily replace but and they're thick enough to have almost there's some textured items in there not fully 3D L clay and so forth but um there's some very neat um student artwork in there and the pictures don't do justice so at some point you know hopefully you can um get in and and see those um so we want to just again appreciate that donation and then the remainder portion of my report has to do with competency determination uh competency determination previously was set by um proficiency on mcast and now it is on each district to provide their own language for competency determination with the highest um need being making sure that we've addressed students for 2020 2025 graduations um so I gave you a just a kind of some breakdown of some research that has been going on with districts and some collaboration with districts and then some language on on this page um so the new guidelines are um requiring that we identify areas that students are um meeting demonstrating Mastery of the Common Core of skills competencies and knowledge in the areas by satisfactory satisfactorily completing coursework that has been certified by the students District as showing Mastery of the skills competencies and knowledge contained in the State academic standards and curriculum Frameworks in the areas measured by the mcast high school test described in section one administered in 2023 and in any additional areas determined by the board so there hasn't been any additional areas determined by the board as of yet so what we're operating under is the fact that the mcast tests that were offered in 2023 were um English math which included both algebra and geometry standards and then science the four options that were provided for science were biology introductory physics chemistry and Technology and Engineering so those were the areas that we focused on um our curriculum leaders districtwide curriculum leaders met and and um spent time brainstorming ideas and then our high school curriculum leader team met and spent more time kind of drilling down into what was reasonable for the high school at this time to um identify for competency what would determine competency determination in addition to competency determination we follow Mass core for graduation require requirments so it's kind of a two-part and as we started to investigate um there are some if then in a flowchart that you kind of go why are we either double dipping or why are we like hitting things twice under Mass core and under competency determination and I think every district is facing that kind of analysis of of um this this language in their um program of studies um desie recommended that all districts serving high school students should develop a process C that is aligned with the new language is approved by the governing board and is shared with students families Guardians and District stakeholders um and um we will make it publicly available as well then on if you look at Slide Five on the packet these are the ways that um I current currently there are 17 districts that have committed a draft of their competency determination and i' and there's five different models being followed with three of them being very closely aligned passing courses English 10 algebra and geometry and bio physics or engineering and then other small adjustments to that might be including chemistry as a choice for science um another adjust small adjustment was passing both English n and English 10 which is one of those redundancies because in order to take English 10 you have to pass English nine so um you know it's it's language um a couple of districts have decided to add a portfolio alternate alternate um source of passing um and then there is one District that has raised their minimum grade to 70% in those courses whereas our passing grade is a 65 um there's one District that has like kind of jumped out there and said we're going to we're going to set 70% as our Mastery uh so after reviewing all of this and working with the team um we uh have come up with the language and the first part of the language is really just reiterating what the state has come out with it seems like everyone is leading with that information um to receive a high school diploma students must meet the Freetown Lakeville Regional School District competency determination requirements which are in addition to the graduation requirements that's that overlap that I was talking about as defined by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and secondary education the competency determination shall be based on the academic standards and curriculum Frameworks for 10th graders and shall represent a determination that a particular student has demonstrated Mastery of a common core of skills competencies and knowledge in these areas by satisfactorily completing coursework that has been certified by the students District as showing Mastery of the skills competencies and knowledge contained in the State academic standards and curriculum Frameworks in the areas measured by the mcast high school test described in section one administered in 2023 and in any additional areas determined by the board that's just a straight quote from the change in the law students who have previously earned a competency determination through a regular or retest administration of the mcast including the November 2024 retest or through a Desi appeal process have earned their competency determination students who have not yet earned their competency determination through previous mcast administrations can meet the requirements for a competency determination through the following um compet determination receiving a passing grade in the equivalent of a grade 10 English course receiving a passing grade in the equivalent of Algebra 1 and geometry courses due to the alignment that we have for algebra in eighth grade and algebra one at the high school that will algebra one at the in the e8th grade will account for that determination um and then and then receive a passing grade in the equivalent of either biology chemistry physics or engineering one and two So currently we've run engineering one and two as semester courses so in order to use that they would have to take both engineering one and two um so what this looks like is um and Ali Cassidy and I spent uh a a good amount of time pouring over our students results um our current freshman not our freshman they haven't taken it yet sorry sophomores Juniors and seniors and and looking at them and saying um if these students passed previous assessment mcast assessments they're green right that box is green for them then if they haven't and they haven't passed a retest then we would go to their let's say they hadn't passed their English mcast yet we'd look at their English 10 grade and if they had a 65 or higher ding they're green in that box um and if they hadn't and if it was science for example and they hadn't passed biology then you drill down and you say did they take chemistry and pass chemistry did they take inter to physics and P that did they take two engineerings so um we're looking trying to um you know assume the the best access for students to demonstrate their Proficiency in in the competencies for these courses moving down the road um and uh M desert referred to this these courses listed will have common assessments it would be unreasonable and unfair for us to have algebra courses running um differently and having different scoring and different grading so they will have common assessments so we can ensure one and another are operating the same um that doesn't mean their day-to-day instruction looks identical it means that we're matching the assessments and then um Administration and curriculum leaders we will continue to monitor this check the data and look for the passing cours work through our 2026 graduates uh should any additional requirements by the board be given we'll bring that immediately to the school committee and we'll um advise any changes in that area um I think that one of the areas that could develop over the course of um this next year would be the idea of a portfolio so an alternate portfolio um that is something that most districts have not tacked on um but I think as we start to work together and people generate ideas leadership starts to generate ideas that could be one of the areas that I see our developing for us is something like that has it been more typical of a Desi appeal the portfolio so the portfolios can be submitted now so um we submit competency portfolios now for students that have not met proficiency um the appeal process comes when you submit something and it's and it's deny or it's turned down and then they could go through an appeal process we have very few um portfolios that have gone to an appeal process and I would have to do a calculation I know I saw at least two that were approved through the appeal process but I didn't go through and count how many we've had over the past four years thank you I'm just I'm just curious what district has a passing requirement you know I'm not going to share that I'm sorry I'm not going to share that okay any questions from Miss fumming thank you Terry thank you thank you thank you all right moving on to new business grade five out ofate field trip yes so grade five is um attending uh the Museum of Natural History um planetarium for a fifth grade field trip this is in Rhode Island uh Providence obviously and um it aligns directly with the curriculum and the teachers have um both a lesson pre-lesson and a post Lon that is tied to this um Excursion move to approve so hearing a motion in a second any any questions any discussion uh all in favor I I opposed abstained grade five is going to Providence uh mileage rate increase yeah uh as I mentioned in my report uh the IRS has increased the rate from 67 cents to 70 cents require a vote I'll entertain a motion to so accept the rate increase as presented earlier by Mr Higgins second hearing a motion in a second any additional discussion all in favor I opposed abstained thank you Jack uh the next item is detect equipment Surplus um that you received in your packet again uh requires a about uh for these items that are no longer usable to be uh recycled and or thrown away uh move to approve as Surplus second hearing a motion and a second any additional discussion hearing none all in favor I I I opposed abstained thank you Jack um I like pain a motion for the approval of payroll warrants for December 11th of 24 December 25th of 24 and January 8th of this year so move so Motion in the second any discussion all in favor I I opposed obained obained okay they're approved books are circulating okay and we were given a first read of the competency determination language um I'll have it added to another meeting for a vote y okay moving on subcommittee update um regional finance committee um we are meeting next Wednesday right superintendent evaluation committee no no updates this time okay Wellness health committee no updates at this time policy subcommittee no updates at this time uh Capital committee no updates at this time but it sounds like based off the presentation from Steve we're going to have some work to do y outstanding y any business that may properly come before the meeting hear none I'll entertain a motion to adjourn second uh so move second Motion in a second all in favor okay thank you everybody