##VIDEO ID:eEx5dMRAUVc## [Music] all right good evening everybody uh seeing 6 o'clock um I'll request a roll call um in this open meeting uh to go into executive session under reason number two to conduct strategy sessions in preparations with negotiations for the superintendent John Bart here will sanquin here Steve syia here Jen blam here Robert CLK C in Courtney bman here Carolina Hernandez is absent yes she let me know she will not be make she will not make it tonight thank you okay can we have our sip committee has already had a roll call at the start of our open meeting thank I note um also present superintendent Allen stous is Terry Fleming Mr Jack Higgins and M Kelly seal uh seeing Lake cam present is there anyone else recording the meeting tonight could you kindly tell me who you're with is that thank you so much okay I'll ask if everyone can join me for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you I'll entertain a motion to accept um the minutes from meeting on October 23rd of this year so John I think these meetings these minutes were already voted on at the November meeting and they're already posted on the website did I have the wrong date I'm sorry I think that we need to accept the meeting minutes from October 9th okay because those were the ones that we originally a couple weeks ago those AR in the packet so I'll make sure they okay yeah but 1023 is already voted on and posted okay Courtney thank you thank you thanks for I'm making a note myself I'll detain a motion to accept minutes uh from the meeting on November 13th we move second I have a motion and the second any discussion yeah um under the subcommittee updates for f Collective gardening um the minut indicate that we entertained a motion to include Mr Lopes and to participate in the negotiations but there was two Town reps it was Mr Lopes and Miss baban from Lakeville so I think if we're going to include one we should include both 100% good catch it's very good catch thank you so if I add that in would that be okay to post after yeah all in favor of alone uh Renee to make that addition and then post based off of what we have i i i i opposed abstained okay motion to accept executive session minutes from November 13th so moved second have a motion in a second discussion all in favor I I I opposed obained okay entertain a motion to accept a meeting minutes from December 3rd for executive session all move second motion and a second discussion all in favor I opposed and I have one obained okay um 1218 sorry I I neglected to uh add that to the agenda I will move that till uh next time okay moving on to presentations so our first presentation is with principal Francisco she come up and her team introduce [Music] everybody can I have them near the PowerPoint would you like them here there's a microphone right there that's why we oh okay all right can you read it from here just tell me when you want the slide to the move and I'll I got you covered hi I'm Gabrielle Ashley hi I'm Ryan musier I'm Karen mow and I'm Kaye vopos so we were asked to build Bridges to be able to hold at least 14 lbs and we made before we constructed the bridge we used templates to sketch on and then put wax paper over to be able to build the bridge [Music] um our first step um of our engineering design process was that we had to identif y um like what the different Bridges there were and like what would hold the what would be like the best bridge to hold 14 lbs and make a strong sturdy [Music] Bridge um then we have to investigate the criteria to be successful and then we needed to come with come up with a design based off of the the criteria and the different materials we knew we needed to use and then we planned by sketching um on these um we built the road road deck Tresses and the the the bridge itself and then we created the bridge and we used bid glue and then to attach each every every part we used it think next we test our bridge to see how much our Bridge could hold the goal was to hold up to 14 lb and then we communicated by saying that um if it was successful or not and if it held 14 lb [Music] the forward Arrow before testing this was me and um me and Ryan's bridge and before testing it weighed 46.1 G can the next one thank you sorry it's okay and after testing um this is what it looks like it broke this was our before testing photos and our Bridge weighed 18 G before testing and then after testing it was able to hold 10 PBS and so yep then they had them videotaped the testing process right good I okay can we do a full [Music] screen how nervous were you at this point um a little nervous you had already seen some of the bridges that were tested and they just Smash and it makes a lot of noise and pieces fly so everyone's a little nervous dumping the sand into the bucket cuz their face is very [Music] close and each one of those Scoops is a pound so they have to get to 14 and then then anything beyond that we added 5B weights like weights that you would lift with and added those in five at a time to see if we could get them to break some of the bridges held over 40 lb so oh wow yeah me we're great and this is a thicker balls of wood than some of the other classes use the one she's holding is a um a smaller bals of wood thinner and that helps as much as something thicker like we had and then we have an example of a paper rolled paper Bridge they um I haven't tested yet but they're almost finished with building which has proven to be um pretty sturdy too so if you hit Escape it'll go out of that oh I'm sorry is it replaying I think it's still yeah it's still going oh it still going it's going to crack that theirs will crack eventually sorry that's okay the next one you don't have to show the hole if you want to but we can watch them watch the breaking yeah good cracking yes dist stress it is stressful yeah every time I love one of these is scary was that 14 yep and now they're going to put weight so y eventually we'll break but I happen to walk into this um bel's class when we were doing and St who used the entire Barrel oh yeah yeah we just stopped at 15 lbs and then we just started adding the five Pounders so they just keep throwing them in there MH backing away so I think I I film it I probably thre the camera too cuz it scared you every time that far the it's folling no no but it's the [Music] [Music] Smashing this one too oh okay not one grain more that's yes each pass to need the minimal it breaks like towards so do you want me to just fast forward the B okay yeah with sound you guys would all be jumping cuz it snaps really loudly [Music] [Music] [Music] so that was that was it they got to test them and watch everybody else's get tested and and see what structures work best they had to take pictures and upload those ahead of time so they can go back and look at the structure and and see what worked and what so yeah during the research phase can I just ask during the research phase can you share some of the findings about the structures of bridges that we have even in the area that so we found that triangles are like the strongest shape especially when Building Bridges so we try to incorporate as many triangles as we could do you look at Bridges differently now have you driven over like the Bor Bridge since you've done this project and you look at Bridges differently now about that next time you do there's a great suspension I know that Mrs beler had that Miss beler had them taking pictures of bridges as they were around town and in different areas over vacations and things like that take pictures and for extra points to um take pictures right you guys had to do that it's great that was a great idea yep what brand of glue did you use Elmer sorry Elmer Elmer Elmer Elmer good Elmer good old Elmer glue gets too hard and it's tough to clear it out of the little joints to put it together so the Elmer's glue is easier to cut out if you had to Mr Mr Sim wanted to know that cuz his comentary efforts are usually a disaster had many a bridge break yes so how's that engineering pathway looking for you career path for engineering yeah you ready to go engineer good job job thank you everyone right we would love to hear some school Improvement plans so when we first started 3 years ago um we decided to change from a typical one-year School Improvement plan to a three three year school Improvement plan um I know our conversations with the principles have been incredibly positive about it we do go back and forth a little bit as to whether we go a two-year but certainly a one year is out moving forward but it's been it's really been a good experience for our principles to just be able to focus on one thing or two things or three things and not keep Reinventing it's also better for our teachers so that they're not constantly shifting or or changing momentum so with that tonight we have uh M P Mr Ward and Dr Sullivan in that order and thank you for your work on this question um this is just like a one page hand out of kind of where we are you all right um thank you I am Bethany the principal here at asaan um so in terms of year three of the three-year and um School Improvement plan which I think I speak for all principles when I do say how much we really loved having a three-year plan um for every reason that Mr Strauss just explained and it really gave us more time to work with staff and really reach the goals um and analyze data that we had so for school Improvement plan number one about a strong and positive School culture of interconnectedness talking um my biggest thing I wanted to work on is that inclusive leadership um in terms of of shared practices and resources I feel like the staff continues to work very well together at ASA wamit we've actually had quite a turnover in staff um every single grade level does have new staff members with us um and they've done a great job really sharing um Team goals when doing their evaluations um and really focusing on data to be a team and collectively share resources and make sure that that curriculum is consistent um that also embeds that positive School culture so some of the things that we have done collect L as a whole staff over the last three years um and really focusing on this year is that we do have a new school pledge um I did highlight in red that we did include kind inclusive and accepting of all celebrating differences As We Stand Tall um is now in our pledge to make sure that we have that Dei and inclusivity in there we also changed all the I to we um it used to be today I will do my very best and now it's today we will do our very best um just kind of think of thinking of us as more of a collaborative school um the next one um the coffee with the principal has been in my plan for three years it's year three I have not done one yet so I have one next um Tuesday night will be my first one um I did send out a Google form and it does hopefully look like nine guests will be coming um and I also sent out a form to um elicit some ideas of topics that they would like so this first one it's Tuesday night at 6:15 it's very informal I will just do most of the talking um hopefully it's more just discussion based and then I if it's a good turnout I will do two more my goal is for three a year so I am focusing on that this year as well um underneath that I just have a couple of pictures we did just um also the round tables with Mr Strauss as you know he's very into students having a voice um and he started that when he had come here those are just some pictures of what we did over the holidays we did the spirit of giving and again was a collaborative um schoolwide initiative and those are just some pictures there we honored the police the fire department the bus drivers and our technology team um and we raised um several hundred for gift cards and candies and things like that so we had an assembly they all came in the kids were also a collective part of that and gave them the gifts and the rewards that we worked on um on the bottom is a gratitude assembly that was in November so again just appreciating staff um I feel like that shared leadership is all part of just really making staff feel valued um and a part that we all belong in asaam set so that was schoolwide also kids made gratitude turkeys and during the day just walked all over the school and gave them to every single staff member that was there um the inclusion and belonging that's just a picture of the assembly I actually ran that one this morning we talked about um again just just being inclusive and then the evaluation rubric is that bottom picture that I have um so again just talking about shared practices and resources the teachers rubric is obviously all the expectations that we have of them um they actually rid themselves and I had oneon-one conversations and meetings with all staff to get more of a personal conversation with them and see what their strengths and weaknesses are so that again we can collaborate visit other teachers classrooms just that whole interconnectedness again of goal number one um the what to look for protocols is something that Mr Ward and I worked on again in terms of collective practice um just going through classrooms and having a set of consistent protocols that we look for um in terms of consistency between free toown Elementary and ASD wantet so that's something Mr Ward and I have also been working on um I'm going to go right to gold two um so this is just research based instruction using multiple sources of data um we are on target obviously we St by analyzing data that's just a consistent process that happens all the time um our biggest focus is comprehension we're kind of starting at Ground Zero so that picture to the right um those are our comprehension standards so each grade level started by um unpacking and analyzing the standards they highlighted the verbs um you know what is it exactly that we are teaching our kids um for example for example in grade three the word plot is all over the um comprehension standards and as a grade three team we talked like if you went back and told everyone to just write what plot is on a sticky note and put it on their desk and did a quick informal assessment how many kids would really know what plot is um so just starting Ground Zero going right back to what the standards are what is it that we um that the students are actually responsible and progressing towards at each grade level um again team goals we the Wonders um the Wonders program that we have in Reading we are now in our year two so just digging deep with that we're continuing with early bird which is um a dyslexia screener that we're using at the elementary level um and then just some of the big things are like author's purpose just looking again how are we teaching author's purpose at the elementary level you don't know why the author wrote the book comprehending obviously is going to be an issue um and just kind of all those foundational skills are things that we're really working on um just to touch on math quickly um we're continuing with what we actually presented at our when ASA WSET presented last time which is the thinking classroom really just that math discourse letting the kids run the show um and again we've been doing walkthroughs with that as well continuing with st math um and then on the right the mathematical practices again that's just like a little checklist um what I like about that is we made what the teacher should be doing and what you should see students doing as well so we could kind of talk about both when we have those conversations and then the last goal is the um Dei and just celebrating diversity and the social well-being of all students so again we are on target um you know we do have our Dei committee it's one of the most fun committees I feel like that we have um we've started the diversity calendar we have our bi-weekly assemblies um that always focus on something in terms of Dei again this morning we did inclusion after we do the bi-weekly assemblies the students and teachers always have something to follow through um I just brought some quick examples this was what does diversity mean so this classroom every student kind of picked the favorite part of their um their body so just physical differences and then these are I am unique because so these were we had a big display of these just hanging around um so there's always something that follows through where each month we focus on something in terms of um Dei the other thing that we're doing is tracking any discipline data and in terms of um relating to any any type of um diversity or race or anything like that um currently we actually have four incidents three where students just being curious um maybe about a different skin color or something like that kindergarteners sometimes ask questions um and then we have only had one case of an actual inappropriate incident that obviously was handled um our curriculum night this year we are going to do um seeing the world through wonders so we are going to focus on the Wonders program um but do more of a multicultural night with some of the various authors author and um places around the world that we've already studied and um that's something that we're going to do maps and globes something so basic and simple but we've um are in the process of adding them to classrooms um just again especially with wonders and having stories coming from all over the world it's nice to just pull out a map or a globe and actually show where that part of the world is um and then lastly we're going to put a huge map outside the library so as we continue to do to do this so we can Mark um all over the world where these authors are just a way to get diversity into a school where there's not very much of it any questions for me thank you any questions for M actually I have one go ah um so I know at fbes I think they have the races posters in the races program about Ela are is ADS doing that as well we also do races yes that's just an acronym for those of you that don't know um when you're answering an open response or open-ended question so we do do races we do cubes and math as well um for some of the younger grades some of the older grades it doesn't really fit but we are consistent in terms of those as well across the two [Music] schools question no I just want to be in you thank you very much so good evening everyone um as always I just want to say thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the Freetown Elementary School Community I am the proud principal of free toown Elementary School uh Michael Ward so real quick let's get into the school um Improvement plan we have four goals uh all four goals um Based on data uh we have every reason to believe we are on Target and we are going to reach our goal goal number one and number two uh subsequently the same just within different content areas so basically 100% of our students uh will make progress towards uh being a strategic reader that's goal number one goal number two being a strategic uh progress towards being a strategic mathematician as Miss pult just stated uh obviously assessments come into play uh beginning of the year assessments middle of the Year assessments end of the year everyday assessments we take that information and we make data informed decisions so what does that mean we create well structured lessons the staff uh and it's tier one instruction right so that's tier one that's our whole group so tier two is our small group and that's really the Crux of a lot of our great work that we haveen so now teacher students go to the teacher table they have conversations based on uh what assessments uh areas of strength areas of Challenge and we have that um objectives develop goals um sort of develop and then we progress monitor that work the last piece of that is tier three and that's really our intensive um interventionist so that's our reading specialist our uh math specialist we have a literacy focused interventionist we have part-time interventionist so a lot of our decisions are geared to the best interest of our students and the work is tailored to where their strengths are and their weaknesses are so you see uh the data there and a good example of that if you go to page five in your packet and I talk about is tier one tier 2 tier three and there's a triangle that we get that 80% is tier one and it's usually around uh that's all of your students 15% for tier 2 where students might need some extra instruction tier three is around 5% and if you go to page five that's Ela if you look at that triangle and you look at last year's endof year school data you get 82 you get 14 you get 30 we're right where we need to be right so kudos to not only the staff the families that support us but the students who come every single day uh ready to go and you can find that same information um in math as well uh with it it's a little bit off there it is at 77 23% but what's interesting there is a 1% in that um the red category for U math which is your tier three so again work is there and if you look at the information yes it's the beginning of the year data middle of the year is being taken right now as we speak right in that time frame and we have every reason to believe we're going to continue with the same pathway of what we just saw last year and we'll continue on goal three uh again I stated out on the Proud principal but that work was incredible the writing go all right and um I know Mrs Breman just shared about some races piece so a couple of years back I want to say it's on page 19 if you take a look at the data there U about there's the pandemic and then after you see the data and you're just like and we took it a little personal I might have got a little grumpy and and cranky around the building a little bit teachers and staff they work with me on it um but you see what last year brought us right we're at 50% right so that is going to webinars that's going to seminars sponsored by desie taking a look at student work looking at the exemplars from Desy having faculty meetings having my curricul fil leader Miss Loreno lead that work at the faculty meetings common planning looking at student work and this is a result of just rolling up our sleeves putting some hard work in having conversations with our students here's what writing looks like here's an Exemplar here's what we do when we have writing conferences and feedback and the students are getting past oh I got to do this again now they're getting used to okay I got to do this I got to race and racing does not mean I'm raced to be done first race means as m penal just said we're going to restate it we're going to answer we're going to cite we're going to explain we're going to sum it up and it works its way up from kindergarten you see that in the action plan we don't expect our kindergarteners to be able to race by the end of the year but able to restate and answer a question with a sentence starter that's great and then it builds up to first grade second grade third grade with the hopes that Dr Sullivan principal Francisco principal dessert in the years to go ahead will obviously feel the benefits of that and there'll be proficient writers as we go ahead and that's why what you just shared Mr Brighton with Miss Bernal is that interconnectedness between the schools is so important so when they get to Dr Sullivan at gra whether it's AES or FES we're in the same piece so that's uh great so uh again we're on target for that and the last one um mirrors a lot of what Miss penal just said so quickly I could say ditto um was she was saying her number one goal our number four goal is about uh creating and fostering an environment that promotes the social emotional learning as well as the academic piece each day students come off that bus or they go to the back uh Memorial Drive Mr morera the music teacher dabbing students up they're by name saying good morning leads itself into the classroom where they're having Open Circles morning meetings end circles closing circles to the day and there building these students up that they can do the work right we encourage mistakes I was just in a classroom this morning um and it was just talking about mistakes they're welcome they're encouraged we learn from it shows that we're growing so students Embrace that type of work and yes many students get it right spot on the first time but certainly a place uh where it's encouraged and they learn from that um another piece and again our goal is not directly attached to attendance but I am proud of this or we are proud of this not I we are proud of this so about 3 years ago The Chronic absenteeism at Freetown Elementary School was dismal I 20% 30% Mr stra I remember I remember the conversation Mr stra and Mrs fing came to the school we had a conversation immediately about it the following year I want to say we dropped it down to about 14 and then last year it's like 7 something per. um it's not all of my doing or anything it's students feeling like they belong in our schools families knowing students wake up they want to come to school they feel welcome they belong here it's a place where we stand ready to support and care for them and we're going to watch them grow along the way a lot of times my message to my staff is about productive struggle that we're here to push students thinking we're going to make them think creatively we're going to make them engage in tasks that are going to be rigorous enough to push them just outside their zone of sort of where zone of proximal development but where they feel comfortable so they feel good um so that that's a proud part and the last part we do as each year I teacher voice I also consider family voice very important we send out a survey uh about a short survey to the families I want to make sure that's clear to the parents um and they share about ways that we could be more inclusive how students feel at recess and one question we asked to the families from their child's point of view does a child feel proud to be a free toown Fox until the years I've asked both of these responses have been well over 95% of our students feel that they feel it's a good place to be so with that uh that concludes the school Improvement Plan update but it's just a place where I am proud to to to be the principal of so thank you any questions any questions for Mr Ward thank you Mr Ward thank you thank you good evening Dr Elin here for the Intermediate School um there's a lot of connection um between obviously the two elementary schools and then to me um while I call my first line to tell you the three goals for the Intermediate School are very interconnected you'll hear when I start to talk about them how connected they are to the other schools as well um our ultimate goal of course is academic achievement and social um com a strong social Comfort level for children I want all children to feel that they belong that they know who they are um who they want to be and where they're going so that's a very big piece of who we are at Grace's the the social emotional piece um each one of my three goals again are are interconnected uh the first one was to improve students self-awareness self-management and social awareness so that they could approve improve their academic and social experience at the intermediate school and Beyond um so back when we wrote these three years ago with the help of Mr Strauss and Mrs Fleming um the consideration was did we have the supports that we needed for those children and with support and your support we were able to bring on board that other school adjustment Council that you heard us talk about when we were here in November um and and through that work through their work because we have two because they are all about professional development presenting it going to it and sharing out um evidence-based strategies to teachers and working with children we are getting children the the access to the people that they need to get them back into classrooms so children who are not scheduled um through an IEP or a 504 plan for for counseling with the counselor just a child that something unfortunate happened this morning the dog died the cat died you know Grandma's ill something like that um we're able to process children with smaller problems within six to we have an average of 6 to 15 minutes that we're able to get children into classrooms so they can access curriculum and their learning and then we can see that those results on assessments which all that data is in there for you all the fun color charts the data is there for you um obviously that's where we want to get to but the things that that I'm talking about tonight are just where we are on target so because we have those those two counsels in play because the teachers have been we've done ongoing book studies over the course of several years in my building we view the most recently was uh Dr Mark bracket's permission to feel we talked about emotions and how important they are for all of us and how they play a part in all of our lives and we can't just ignore them um and we get children to understand that and move through so we can get to the learning um we are on target to meet the first goal the second goal um as with most of the schools and you'll hear the other two I believe next week um was to improve our our school culture and climate all towards belonging and we are on target to meet that goal as well um this the strategies that we've used for all three again because they are related are what bring us um bring us to that point but we have um we have worked with um in conjunction with the district care team we have our own care team in the building uh made up of myself The Adjustment councils and several teachers we've reviewed and narrowed down a list recognizing events and holidays in draft form that will later be sh shared with the larger group The District wide group to identify the cultural norms Traditions observations of families who make up our community and and again we anticipate that we'll we we may not get to the exact number of what we're looking for as a goal and this is the other thing which I really have loved the three-year goal but when we think about my population 3 years ago that doesn't represent any child who's in my building right now do you know so I have to think about and I've had this conversation with Allan and with Terry that I sort of have to think about how I how I do that because just if you think about that I only have the children for 2 years so I'm not comparing the same cohort um so any rate we we have made tremendous progress on uh in in my opinion but it's anecdotal and I think that we need to we need to look at how we're measuring it a little bit better on my end um the third one and finally again really connected to the others um so the steps all Impact it is is um where am I I lost my place excuse me for a second oh is the attendance one again and one that's common to everyone um I'm really proud of the work that's happened at Grace again that's another another piece of the counselors where children feel safe coming into school they know that they can talk to somebody they know if they're starting out on a bumpy road it doesn't mean they need or and their parents know if it's a rocky morning it doesn't mean you need to stay home from school um or or it can mean you can come in a little bit later but we can figure it out um attendance um what we shoot for is 94% a week we've kept track of it over the 3 years in 2022 we missed that mock six 6 weeks in 23 we missed it 3 weeks and that's up to the point of the data that you have um and then I I looked at it again now that we're a little bit later and we've missed it once and that was Thanksgiving week and I attributed that to Family Travel I don't attribute that to um chronic aism at all I think that's a safe bet that that's what it was um but we are you know clearly s missed it six times missed it missed it three times missed it once um I have every reason to believe that the attendance is going to continue improve it actually showed up at as a big Improvement on our accountability rating um that came out in was that October Terry Allen it come out well it it was in the fall um but that was a that was one of the big jumps that um we were happy to see at graves um so with the students being able to manage their emotions and feel part of the classroom and coming to school regularly they're more fluidly receiving the curriculum that we're trying to deliver and we are seeing that on common assessments already we have already done the to Benchmark but I already in some of our classes and the the gains that I'm hearing of are beautiful so far so that's what we are questions for me any questions for Dr svin thank you just thank you thank you you Grace has some lovely artwork hanging in the Halls right now not that all the buildings don't but I was really noticing some of the artwork that's hanging in in in the hallways at Grace right now they've done some really neat things in art some of those things aren always mentioned but as Brian comes up I do want to say ethy you did not get the opportunity to hear this but you can bring it back to your school at the Gray's Round Table yesterday um Ryan Blanchard spoke to the kids this is the first time we've had Ryan speak and his statement to the kids about your day in which you celebrated Bethy in AES celebrated the tech team Ryan's statement said to me or he said to the group excuse me was he's been in this job for 25 years and it's the first time they've ever been recognized and that's powerful so please bring it back to not just the round table but your whole building that we need to remember kindness wins we don't take people for granted and what they do matters so with that your technology playing right now do your homework good evening everybody I'd like to share some updates regarding our technology efforts and highlight the work completed by the technology team over the summer the tech team inspected the Chromebooks collected to identify any issues that needed to be addressed before the school start of the year we successively deployed 417 Dell Chromebooks and 910 max cases which will help minimize the risk of accidental damage and ensure that the Chrome books remain in optimal condition the installation of the doc lease fiber connection between arhs and as was also completed during the summer this new fiber connection enables direct communication between the buildings and eliminating the need for the firewall and Verizon internet at ases and allows us to Route all the traffic directly to the campus in addition we replace the existing cablin infrastructure at F to eliminate the network switches from classrooms this upgrade uh involves replacing our 22-year-old cabling infrastructure with newat 6 cablin eanet Jacks and Patch panels we also created new idfs in the east and west wing and installed 12 strands of single mode fiber from the MDF to the east Wing The West Wing and the basement we have also again applied for the 2025 Theiss Val saage security awareness Grant and are awaited notification on whether lrsd will be accepted again cyber attacks are making daily headlines highlighting The Importance of Being mindful of cyber security with every email text and phone call the answer the knowledge from this training is crucial for both work and daily life does anybody have any questions any questions from Mr blanchon Ryan continues to attend cyber security training I know he went with Terry on one he went with myself on on one um and I think it's something we forget about the cost to the district or to a town if there's a Cyber attack so uh your work is vital and we appreciate it thank you right before we let you go first thank you I appreciate you um what's your biggest need over the next 5 Years From from your standpoint right now uh don't give me yeah to Rattle off quick um we need a phone system that is out of date uh we need Network switches the network switches that are currently in place were put in 2013 so we're end Al life on that um the the desktop computers that are in the classrooms are Windows 10 machines and they can't support upgrading to Windows 11 so those need to be replac so those are three huge purchases that the district will need to make over the next couple years thank you you're welcome thank you [Music] Ryan all right I would also add in terms of um a little different or or stepping aside from from technology we have developed an AI committee um both for policy so we'll be coming to policy about how do we handle Ai and what are we going to do as a district in each building in regard to how to enable students to understand how to use AI effectively cuz it's here and it's a powerful powerful tool um that certainly our students will be using once they're out of high school sure thank you can I just quick comment too it sort of fits in the it bucket but I just wanted to say thank you to for the newsletter format the s'more and following up on that and finding the funding um not only for the translation piece but I just think it's a cleaner newsletter and it's a nice look so thank you for the followup on that thank you hear that bany right Mr Higgins uh thank you uh this is my uh fy2 uh budget update um we are uh we continue to monitor expenditures uh we also looking for um ways that we can make sure that we're encumbering those uh expenses in the future during the school year that um or during the fiscal year so that we can uh ly um map out the entire year as you can imagine with the cold snap we are monitoring our heating oil usage very closely that is of course something that can make a a dramatic swing um in a in a budget particularly with five buildings and uh two two of which were built in the 40s uh so uh we we keep an eye on those things very closely conversations with our director of uh student services uh Kelly steel to identify um potential special Edge changes that may occur over the school year as well um and as will be the case each time um details we provided to you in the current year in addition to providing you obviously the revenue chart that you have there I had in the past been providing you as my predecessors had provided you an expenditure Su uh summary um I had through conversations with some uh local school business managers we I identified that it would probably be better and more holistic for you to be able to get the full expenditure uh general fund um summary so that's what is included in this and you'll get those going forward the fy2 24 audit is nearing completion uh we've received uh preliminary reports from our auditor uh similar identified issues from the 23 audit the statement made by the auditor in one case was I'm doing two audits within uh six seven months of each other there's no way that there would be that much of a difference but understanding that much of the issues that occurred at the end of FY 23 carried over in defway 24 which I've talked uh to the committee about before however within the some of the language that I've already received in terms of preliminary responses they have identified that um there have been effective steps taken in fy2 um that are going to be addressing those issues and and mitigating any any future problems so though a a full report full audit will be uh forthcoming I suspect we'll receive it within the next 30 days that's my 25 I can I have my further report later thanks Jack any questions for Mr [Music] Higgins Jack thank you right moving on to the new business there's a vote required uh fmls is looking at um one sixth grade um out of state field trip and 37th grade correct is Francisco 2 2 oh I'm sorry 27th in National Honor Society National Junior Honor Society um you have it in front of you what what the trips are so we don't necessarily need to go through it um but you need do need to vote each one individually any discussion any questions at the table and we can announce for a public what each trip is if if you want me to I don't I don't think necessary I I'll let you know they're aligned to the Frameworks of those grade levels so they're well aligned to cor to um standards for each of those and just for clarification when you said out of state it's Rhode Island all right both seventh grade yeah out right all four are in Rhode Islands and we've secured nursing for all of them right yes well well required so nursing is are required for every field trip move to move to approve the field trip to the IMX second have a motion in a second discussion all in favor I I opposed stain motion to approve the grade seven field trip to Ry Museum second have a motion and a second discussion none all in favor I I I opposed abstain no I'm sorry I okay okay I'll entertain a motion to accept out of state field trip to cold State Park some move second motion and a second discussion all in favor opposed abstain it's good I'll entertain a motion for the uh Junior Honor Society to go to Newport so moved second second Motion in a second discussion all in favor I I opposed stained all field chips approved we have a line item for the approval of uh payroll vendor warrants for November 13th and November 27th um I'll entertain a motion for the approval of the warrant for November 13th so moved second Motion in a second discussion um all in favor abstain I'm sorry object nobody abstained I I'll entertain a motion to accept to approve the payroll vendor warrants for November 27th 20 24 so move second motion and a second any discussion none all in favor I I opposed abstain I okay we have a donation to AES been made aware that is not needed for this meeting um moving on um we have a Boosters donation towards athletic and Wellness in the amount of $20,000 so the school committee voted to approve a $65,000 donation previously scoreboard is going in the 19th is that the date uh the vendors were here they are ready to um put it in I know I I received something today that power needed to be shut off um with that like anything else kind of like building a kitchen once you start you end up finding out things are a little bit more expensive so the boosters came in and are donating both towards the scoreboard and the wellness center um in the amount of $20,000 which um the school committee needs to it will go directly to the wellness center and the final pieces of the um scoreboard the scoreboard is not delayed because there wasn't enough money it's the it's um it was delayed simply because it's taking them that long to to get everything in to install Okay move to accept second I have a motion in a second any discussion just a thank you note will'll be going out as usual thank you to the boosters y thank um all in favor I I I opposed abstained thank you for to the boosters I will also say that there will be a sign put on um the the original donor didn't wanted to remain Anonymous but uh Mr kabuso is having a sign made so there will be something that says on the scoreboard that a portion of the donation went a portion of it was donated by the Apon boosters okay thank you for that okay last item of new business the appointment of a Lakeville Finance Committee Member as we know there's been a vacant spot for a couple of months and we are in need of a member from the town of Lakeville to balance that board I make a motion to appoint John Burke um to the Lakeville finance committee second no I'm sorry regional finance committee as a Lakeville member all um I have a motion and a second uh any discussion hearing none all in favor opposed abstain I okay thank you Mr bur very welcome okay uh director's reports Mr Higgins yes thank you um so uh the FY 26 um um budget process is in um is ongoing we have um as you know teacher par professional and secretary contract negoti negotiations are ongoing and therefore the values for those substantial elements in the budget Clarity to to identify um values at this time however uh the remainder of the budget uh in draft form has been completed through conversations and meetings with the um appropriate stakeholders including the principles and the directors through in the throughout the district uh key elements of the draft budget for analysis and further review include our health insurance uh Maya MIAA will provide us with a percentage increased value for FY 26 in the beginning of February our account executive though has told us to conservatively budget for a double- digigit increase um uh retiree health insurance increased by approximately 18% as of January 1 they have a a a different fiscal year than um our in our current employee health insurance this increase though was a result of a necessary adjustment regarding Medicare and was not necessarily an indication of an increase for FY 26 so that was obviously when we received that number in the fall that was the first question that was asked does this indic give some indication they said no it's strictly as a result of a Medicare correction that needed to be made um out of the district tuitions um as I had mentioned in a previous meeting the cost of inflation for FY 26 is 3.67% the cost of uh this is the estimated increase for special education tuitions for private institutions these uh tuitions are distributed on the first Wednesday in the February of 2025 and effective 71 2025 barring a freeze from the government I'm sorry from the governor the expected increase for collaborative tuitions is estimated at approximately 5% liability insurance as we had discussed in a previous meeting our liability insurance has increased uh pretty significantly over the last couple of years uh due to two relatively large claims over the past four years uh Grace roof um damage and arhs water damage um the liability premium has doubled since 2023 subreg litig ation for the grace claim is ongoing and the results of that litigation could reduce our premium over time it won't be instantaneous but instantaneous But ultimately if that litigation was to to go in the direction that we expected to there would be a uh an improvement in the premium over the next couple of years any questions for Mr Higgins I do want to add one thing thank you Jack as always um Maya as Jack stated told us to consider the budget for double digit increase they also said that last year um and it did not happen so uh we are hoping keeping fingers crossed I wish you hadn't said it out loud thank you Jack [Music] thanks um well we do have to revisit the pool conversation though at some point we will um I thought it appropriate to bring in in conversation maybe on the 15th next week okay perfect I would agree thank thank you right Miss um so I focused on flms I did have a typo I still had it listed as grads at the top of the first page I made corrected copies but if you want those I can give those to you afterwards um but I focused on the middle school next week I'm going to do a midyear full District update so this is just Middle School update um I a lot of the information is in here just for people who don't have it in front of them I'll give a summary um we're looking at grades 6 seven and 8 um so total at the middle school across grades is 124 students in special education um plus five outof district students that if they didn't require out of District they would be at the middle school level um and we have seven home school or private school students who um may or may not participate in services offered through the district it's really up to them whether they want to participate or not um so out of the total students enrolled when I did this report which is the Monday before Christmas changes every day but it was at 698 um and then special ed students like I said 124 so 504 plan students we have 77 and then if we're looking at percentages um students receiving special education at the middle school is 17.8% of the total population you'll see that that's a lower percentage than at gray and I kind of talked about how gray was higher um especially with those kids in fourth and fifth grade being those covid K1 kids when all of that happened it makes sense to me but 17.8 is where we typically would want to be kind of sitting so um the Middle School hits right there and then the percentage of students on 504 plans is 11% so those are our percentages across grade um I did include information about um our inclusion numbers by grade are partial inclusion which means um inclusion I think I've said it before but it's over 80% of their day is spent in the general education classroom partial inclusion is when you're hitting between that 60 and 80% so we're talking about kids that are pulled out for you know more than an hour and 15 minutes a day would be partial and then um our sub separate or life skill students are when they're pulled out for more than um 60% of the day they're out of the classroom so those numbers are listed um but percentage wise we're at 67.6% for full inclusion which again is a number that is really where we want to be um about 2/3 which is great um partial inclusion is 18.4 um our life scales population is 5.1 we don't have any related only um related Services only which would be like speech or just OT or something like that um and 5.1% are private or homeschool um that make up from the full special ed population and 3.7% are out of District so again all kind of what I would hope to expect from the Middle School I'm not really concerned about the numbers there um I just listed 504 Plans by grade we have 24 in grade 6 34 in grade seven and 19 in grade 8 for a total of 77 and I just listed um the coordinators so Su tulan is responsible for the grade six Ralph Honeywell for grade seven and Tristan Jolly for grade eight and then um I just listed power professional information for the Middle School 6100 6200 they each have a par professional supporting those grade levels same for the seventh grade same for the eighth grade um each of our transition programs which are kids that are in that partial inclusion that have more pullout service they have a par professional assigned to each grade level um and then we have a couple of students or a handful of students that have um shared PR professional support across their day so we two Paris do support those needs and then we have three 1:1 Paris and a library par professional so that's a total of 15 par professionals at the middle school really no big changes in the par professionals that have been slotted there previously um and then I just like to look at evaluations um we've had so far 23 evaluations total and those are that have been completed so they're still ongoing evaluations I'll dive deeper next week um but they're fairly similar grade six total have been five seven at grade seven and then seven at grade eight so nothing really glaring in there and then we had some additional testing which is just extra like kind of battery of testing but not a full reav Valor initial um we've had 16 students qualify 13 were through rals and three were through initials we had three students that did not qualify two were reow um and one was an initial and we have initial evaluations and process right now is six re-evaluations are seven um and an additional assessment in process right now is one and then just update CPAC had a meeting last night um I was present it started a little late and it was virtual they had a special education Advocate um just do a a quick presentation it was maybe 10 or 15 minutes it was more of a Q&A um there weren't too many questions um through that meeting um but it was it was actually nice it was nice they weren't from the state so it was more General it was more National specific and in you know federal law um versus state law but it was just a good conversation I felt like it supported both both sides of working together as a collaborative team so I thought that was good um and I know you know Mr brke was there too so he was able to hear that presentation um next meeting is going to be it says January 7th but we just had that one so um this was when I wrote it before the January 7th meeting the next one will be the first Tuesday in February we're going to focus on um home to school and school to home communication for parents of students in special education and kind of the best process and how to make that work so that it's productive for all different ways that we communicate and then March 4th we have Dr Carolyn McCarney coming in to do a presentation on bullying and we would really encourage Beyond special ed but any one within the district that wants to come attend that we're going to host that probably in the lecture hall and we're hoping for a bigger audience there so we're going to get Flyers out we're going to put them in our updates um we're going to be kind of really promoting that because I think it's going to be a really rich presentation but also conversation um and then they're working on getting a speaker for anxiety um following that and then we have a couple of meetings left so the the meetings are flying we haven't had to cancel a meeting we've always had the Quorum which I think is great this year we weren't hitting our Quorum last year um at all meetings so we've had at least 10 people at every meeting which is is definitely in Greek from where we were great um and then vacancies we're we're down right now to knock onone wood but a power professional at FBS if anyone knows of any anyone that's interested for a onetoone position and it's just a retirement fill um or a January retirement and we were we were working on filling um someone who did a voluntary transfer to another building to fill a retirement at AES so there was a there was a position there we were looking to fill and then we do have a long-term subp position just posted for a special ed teacher that's going out from now till the end well from March until the end of the year um so we are looking for if anyone knows a special educator that wants to come work this spring into the beginning of when we end for summer let me know um it's on school spring they can apply there so those are those pieces and then professional development is ongoing um a couple things to note I'm excited about as I've been tracking um we hired that new um additional arhs school psychologist in team chair and we have not had to contract out one evaluation all year so we have not paid for one evaluation to go out a district and that was the hope and the goal um and that psych also is helping in doing all of our out of district testing that need to send someone out to do and we don't need to contract out for that as well so that's been a budget save on one end and I definitely think it's well worth it because Danielle Johansson now was able to do her job with better Fidelity as well because she can share meetings at the high school um so that's pretty much it for the middle school focus next week I'll have a very big update with Trends and numbers and projections and all of that for the district questions thank you any questions and thank you for spending your birthday with us wel thank you thank you okay um I also have highlights for the middle school but before I start the highlights for the middle school I want to congratulate um we have two four six eight nine of our high school students that made Senior districts for either Coral or um instrumental um and that's a actually quite a large group for senior districts so I'm really um happy for Jenna and her um support of the students making um going to those Audi and making it so and four of them got Allstate recommendations which means they can audition at a higher level for an Allstate group so that's fantastic um I did want to say that the competency determination guidelines changed with the passing of measure to there's a little blurp in my um notes about it including the the new language this is the exact language and what it has done is um and this is good for the public to also realize and know that the mcast testing is not going away so we are still required to take the mcast test we do not have to retest um the but students do have to take the mcast um test still and it will be a part of our measurement for accountability still I don't know what the formula is going to change to but the state is still adamant and there are still um scholarships that are tied to results of mcast so mcast isn't going anywhere it's just not a competency determination what that means for us is that we are now having to determine every District in the Commonwealth has to come up with their own competency determination um guidelines and it is a scramble as we have conversations what are you going to do what are you guys thinking what are you thinking what are you thinking um and there's a lot of conversation happening and I've started conversation with our curriculum leaders and our administrators um and we're and I'll have more of a presentation on it next uh school committee meeting but every uh the good thing is that we have no 2025 students that are affected by the change um because they had already met competency determination through meeting mcast or um portfolio um scores all right now flms the Middle School um I just wanted to show some of the things that are going on in amplify so some of the screens behind me are some of those uh amplify as our new Ela program the teachers the students are really embracing it this this is a this is how I can go in and see how the teachers are doing exit tickets which are quick formatives for our students um to just give um feedback and to and to get feedback on their learning so I was really excited to see that all three grade levels are using the ex exit tickets both electronically and they can print them out and give them in written form as well so that's some of the data that comes across um this is the online writing that is going and it tells how many how many um writing assignments have been done and the average words count which is really um quite interesting sixth grade units have done an average of 120 words typing on there so that you know how many um whether it's an exit ticket or a short answer or a longer answer uh seventh grade 130 words and eighth grade has um been doing up to 140 words on average so those are good this is an example of how feedback is given so if look at the right side of the screen there um the teacher is able to give feedback including you can't see it really well but there's some typing down there that gives kids feedback immediate feedback on their writing um some of that is AI generated and some the teacher goes in and adds to it so the kids once they submit a writing they will get some feedback that says um check the length of your sentences or watch your verb to um pronoun connections or you know it'll give this feedback in the grammar portion and the teacher can go in and give some more feedback on content so um I'm hearing really good things from both the teachers and the students about the use of the amplify online these are examples of student work um I do love the topic on the one on the far left it's called the sour Twisters um and it was from one of R doll's books that they read um writing is also happening in maap so this is an example and I love this an um analyzing error is really important I used to like let students know hey if you can think of what the what can go wrong you can avoid that so um this is a problem where a student is determining what the student was thinking incorrectly um and so this is how some of the writing some of the writing at the middle school is happening now not just simply explain your answers um and use words to explain yourself but I love the error analysis that's happening um this is actually a sixth grade paper so I was excited about that here's some of more your more um typical show your show or explain your thinking um show or or explain your thinking using words so kids are doing writing in math this is another one that has math this was done online and so they were given um the questions and they had to type it up again reinforcing typing skills the use of electronics uh devices and then um just able to give feedback on these these were snapshots snapshots um history been working or science been working on performance tasks so there's a ton of writing in there so these are two samples from science where the writing is happening um and this was given as an assignment where the student had to use certain um vocabulary words in science and um the feedback that was given on that and then one where they had to use the graph and the data for to explain how the volleyball um players were doing comparatively speaking so so writing has been a focus and it continues to be because it's an area that covers all the content areas and I uh applaud um the middle school and their work in that area this year um here's another like I didn't want you to think that it's all electronic we are still writing by hand um clearly our students don't write a lot by hand uh or like my high school students that are wrote better as sixy olds than they do as 16y olds um there's still lack of being able to read some of it so but we are still doing our penmanship right our writing um by hand and this is a CER it's a claims evidence and reasoning page um in science here's some Focus this is how our students are doing um with their writing those greens are some of their areas where they've been really strong in units and um then Fink areas that we growing the white in the middle is is just um like like a a medium middle score and then the next area that we're going be focusing on is that feedback so I started to show feedback but we really haven't gotten to the point where we're doing as much feedback as I was like would like for students to hear um how they're doing including peer feedback and self feedback they need to be able to look at their own paper and say this is where I need to amp things up that's the middle school you got data I gave that to you I'm not going to go through that but um it is cohort to cohort I like to show you what they did in their prior grade compared to now and what you'll see is kind of a um I I appreciated the fact that there was not the Reg FR over the summer so their end of year from last year to the beginning of the year um assessments you'll see nice little creep UPS where we had a few more people in the proficient range few less people in the needs Improvement range um so I was really happy with the lack of regression over the summer this year for our middle school students so if you have any questions on any of that now or in the future feel free thank you ter any questions from Miss Mumy no just just a comment and we've talked about the emphasis on writing but it's nice to see progress I Mr W and Miss penol talked about the writing progress they've seen and I think they'll start to see it as you go up so so thank you for for that and we have a high success rate in 10th Grade right like by the time we get to 10th grade our students are doing so so much writing from the early grades um that the curriculum leaders this week alone were talking about how that has built to successful 10th grade writing it's a it's a process thank you okay superintendent report great thank you tomorrow 207 Deca students that's right 207 will attend the DECA conference in Boston this is the largest number of students that we've ever had uh I want to thank Mr Rosa and Mrs Cronin for all of their work and the 13 chaperon all of whom care enough to spend their time out of in school and out of school um supporting our students I also want to thank the high school Administration it is not an easy task with 13 staff being out and 27 students out to manage the building so um things will still run smoothly but I give them a lot of credit um and we hope they have a great time I want to thank the town of Freetown uh for their financial comp contribution to the FBS gym floor which is finally redone Mr Ward is incredibly excited as well as Mrs laru um and it it looks fantastic and and so it's important to um acknowledge free town for what they did question questions thank you okay when I when I was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in July of 2023 I was scared and worried first for my children and grandchildren for my future and for balancing my role here in the District the superintendent after I took a breath and told my family and close circle of friends I showed my diagnosis to my wonderful professional coach then to the now former chair and vice chair of the school committee my central office team our eafl co-presidents Aaron and Henry all of whom were remarkable in their kindness and concern I want to repeat that they saw my diagnosis from Dan Farber from the Geto next the full School Comm committee the two Town administrators and the full District leadership team were informed of my illness then in the first week of September 2023 the entire staff was notified because I am by Nature inclined to keep my health status private these increasingly public and Broad disclosures were incredibly uncomfortable for me but I felt it was important for people to know what was going on because I knew the impact of my treatments might become evident at work Stuart Scott the ESPN broadcas who battled cancer for 2 years said at his final speech before passing when you get too tired to fight then lay down and rest and let somebody else fight for you I want to repeat that when you get too tired to fight then lay down and rest and let somebody else fight for you this sentiment captures the resilience of hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of cancer patients a resilience rooted in the human Spirit and the care from others while the vast majority of people in the district Community from Individual school committee members to teachers par professionals parents and Beyond have been incredibly compassionate in understanding about my health challenges I discovered that this level of care is not Universal as a person in lead in a leadership position inevitably it draws scrutiny and criticism as a leader I embra Embrace constructive conversations even when frustrations arise and I respect the balance of criticism and praise what I did not anticipate however was the reaction from a small group of elected and appointed officials including two school committee members Carolina Hernandez and Chrystal Ling and others in town government who have made defamatory statements about my health their actions have included are but not limited to demands for proof of my illness requests to review the use of my sick days and questioning the validity of my FMLA leave suggestions that my appearance for example not losing my hair or not wearing a mask indicated I was not sick and urging the school committee to seek a second opinion on my health these actions and other actions by these individuals have created a toxic environment that has compromised my ability to PRI prioritize my health the stress imposed by the actions of these individual officials has hindered the effectiveness of my treatments and my Therapies in the midst of this cruelty I have tried deeply to focus on the path forward to trying to get to a healthier Place loving my family appreciating each day of life and being a leader in the district I have never made excuses due to the extensive testing related treatments and side effects I have inevitably missed work days and used medical leave under the FMLA however I've never neglected my responsibilities to the district numerous people can and would attest to my commitment to the students and staff of our district is so great that I have frequently worked from a treatment chair at Dana Farber Cancer Center in recent months I decided I could no longer be silent about these vicious and defamatory efforts to destroy my professional reputation therefore after discussions between me and my attorney in the Freetown Lakeville Regional School District committee and its attorney I've decided to resign from the position of superintendent of schools and have entered into a settlement agreement with a release of my claims against the district and school committee while I am stepping down I want to make it very clear I am not relasing claims against the towns or town officials individually for their actions in leaving a district I am choosing to try and live and fight I've arrived at this moment in in difficulty and I'm choosing my family my health and my need to work in an environment with officials that allows me to lead with the joy and passion I've always done throughout my career arriving at my decision has been difficult but for anybody who has been paying attention to the public mistreatment to which I've been subjected to this announcement should come as no surprise I ask if your health was questioned or the health of your loved one was questioned how would you react I am proud of the district's many accomplishments under our leadership led by our teachers and parent professionals and our principles and will'll never forget the many truly and wonderful and inspiring students teachers and families I've had the pleasure of working with during my time here despite the egregious accusation of this very small number of people we must focus on what has been accomplished over the last 2 years significant safety improvements in each building the high school being named a school of Distinction by desie once again development of the backpack program helping to ease food insecurity for families a significant reduction in chronic absenteeism as you heard tonight Equity teams developed in each building superintendent Roundtable providing student voice in each building professional development has grown significantly through our director of curriculum the high school has expanded course offerings including AP courses stem courses to younger students the AES playground improvements an extensive capital and master plan was completed and will be presented to you on January 15th a successful change to a three-year School Improvement plan which as you heard has been a springboard to continue success and the driving force for our strategic plan the Strategic plan is completed and will be presented to you in February strengthening and already positive relationship with the eafl significant business department collaboration under the new Director of Finance and operations which has not existed in many years special education compliance is significantly improved through both our previous director and our current director CPAC membership and central office collaboration has grown and booster membership or booster collaboration has grown with central office I was gratified that the recent Community survey clearly showed a majority approval rating and my performance evaluation by the school committee reflected an overall strong appreciation for my work in the district unfortunately and unsurprisingly the same officials who at first asked for the survey without factual basis question the results of the survey I've devoted my life to the education of children I spent more than 40 years in educational roles teacher coach advisor assistant principal principal and of a documented record of excelling in all these roles the latest Accolade was being named as one of 10 superintendents nationally to serve on the College Board National superintendent Advisory Board this honor was approved by the Freetown Lakefield Regional School District Committee in 2023 prior to my illness and I was devastated that my illness prevented me from being the East Coast representative on this important Advisory Board which was a once- in a-lifetime opportunity I am hopeful that by stepping back from this position and distancing myself from the abusive treatment which I have been subjected to my heroic Health Care Providers at Dana Farber Cancer Center will soon have even greater success in helping me battle this dreaded chronic and non- remission disease to all the amazing people students teachers administrators and families I've worked with I say thank you sincerely and from the bottom of my heart please remember that kindness always wins that Joy is essential people matter most and how we treat others is the clearest indicator of who we are let me me repeat that how we treat others is the clearest indicator of who we are our students and staff deserve Lessing deserve nothing less than being treated with dignity respect and kindness even when we disagree I thank you for your attention I won't be making further comment on my agreement with the on my agreement with the committee and I would appreciate the Public's respect for What Little is left of my [Music] privacy thank you thank you the committee has a statement to share thank you Alan for your service and Leadership these last few years your hard work and dedication have clearly moved the district forward and for that we are forever grateful this committee wishes you all the best as it relates to your health happiness and success in future endeavors this has certainly been a difficult but productive few weeks after receiving information from Mr stuss about his objections to his working conditions and more specifically the conduct of and members of the committee we as a committee have now met in several executive sessions since early November to discuss the superintendent's contract and the future of this District the result in his agreement which was drafted by an attorney and approved by the parties the agreement settles Mr strauss's claims against the committee and provides for parting ways on terms that are fair and acceptable to both Mr Strauss and the committee in entering into this agreement the committee has carefully considered the financial impact on the district we are aware this agreement will likely be scrutinized by the community we want to be very clear to the school community that this outcome is not about Mr strauss's performance this is a mutual decision made in the best interest of the parties to that end and to the interest of turning the page for the district and Mr Strauss need nether the district nor the committee intends to comment further about the agreement or the discussions that led to it the minutes from the for the executive session in which we discuss Mr strauss's contract and separation from employment will be part of an upcoming agenda for approval when approved we expect they will be posted to the website as soon as possible of note the minutes will reflect that the committee acted with a quorum and votes were unanimous among the members who were present District Council also attended those meetings two members chose not to participate in the discussion and the votes on this matter to be clear this body made every effort to be inclusive for all members to be present and participate in both discussions and any votes related to this matter the members who did not participate AFF firmly chose to not participate on their own accord please know this committee will be working hard to fill the superintendent position as soon as possible in the interm director of curriculum and assessment Terry Fleming Director of Finance and operation John Higgins and director of student services Kelly steel will share the responsibilities of the superintendent to ensure a conu conu of services we will provide updates when we have them thank you in advance to Our member communities for your patience and respect for this change this agreement and the privacy of individual committee members and Mr Strauss moving forward this committee has no doubt the Freetown Lakeville School dist district will continue to thrive as we navigate a change in leadership and on that note I am going to motion we adjourn second second all in favor I I than