All right, it's 7:30 and I'd like to call together the May 29th, 2025 school committee meeting. If you would all rise and please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to
the republic for which it stand with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. This evening we have our consent agenda posted which is contained the minutes from the May 15, 2025 meeting and others build and
payroll. Is there a motion made to to accept that? I move that we accept the consent agenda. Motion made by Miss Sleman. A second. Second by Miss Woods. All those in favor by saying I. I. Passes unanimously. Thank you. It's our first opportunity for interested
citizens. If there's anyone in the room or on Zoom that would like to speak before the school committee second to the end of the meeting. Nobody online. Happy. believe you know the routine, but if you
just state your name and address for the record. They send the 672 great road. Uh I just like to speak a little bit about the the Shaker Lane. Uh I did a program on the 22nd of May uh by Shaker Lane
because I had spoken to several individuals and uh they was a little concerned about the price tag u but the number of um classes kindergarten, first grade,
7th grade. They thought that was a costly price to build for the school. And I was sort of kind of kicking around because they wanted more classes there and I was talking to uh the director of
LCTV there and uh I was telling what my thoughts were when I get ready to do the program. So he sort of kind of threw out a few scenarios there and um I sort of agreed with him there with regards to he
said you know make it uh K through four and um that would probably um give us opportunity maybe not to have to build another new school uh depending on what came into um Shaker Lane saying if you
did one through four then you can have five and and six at Russell straight seven and eight at the middle school and then you have the high school. So it would depend on what would be pushed into the high school there may very well mean that uh you could add on a little
bit of space but that's a lot different than building a new school all together there. So I was throwing my support uh behind that. Excuse me. And uh I don't know how much time you give here to set, but uh I saw also went in and sort of
kind of explained to the people that um you know when uh uh the the new comment area come in up here that uh there's going to be money that's going to be coming in. So I had spoke to the uh head uh assessor and uh she told me
that she hadn't looked into exactly what was what because right now we as citizens we are paying the difference between what the town is entitled to collect for 550 up there and I know uh the past previous two years we paying
about $130 over and above what our taxes were and uh I wanted to know where we were at based on that because that's assessment was made at $60 million when they did that. So, um I talked about uh the new income coming in. I talked about
the town putting a stabilization in uh for the school and that uh I talked to the assessor and I told her what I was looking for and she said, "Well, yeah, George, I understand. Come back to me in August. I should be able to give you a better reading on what's what." She
said, "But I understand you want to offset." I said, "We eventually going to have to build a new new school." So, I'm looking at a offset for the taxpayer. So, I'm saying if they can take the new growth that's coming in and they can put maybe at least half or more over there
in that stabilization, let's just use for example, I said if we're talking about 1,500 would be added to the taxes, half of that would be 750. But we may get enough money in this will be down the road a little bit. We were hurt a little bit for a short period of time,
but we may only have to put 500 over above what we're paying for our property tax. So my offset was that would be done yearly until such time that that debt was paid in full. So if we went to 120 million, 130 million on it, I'm saying
that, you know, this is a way that we because the money comes in town, we have a f say as to where this money go and the offset would be that we will put as much money as we could toward that school because that would be the biggest debt that the town would have. So that
was my take in uh promoting on that. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Sanders. Thank youelcome, [Music] Mr. Sanders. I appreciate you coming and uh I feel inclined to, you know, respond. We typically don't always
respond to um public input. I love the enthusiasm. I really appreciate you helping us get the word out there. There are some challenges with changing the grade levels within the buildings that we currently have as it relates to the MSBA program where we're receiving state
aid. So, uh, we're essentially replacing an existing building. I know a lot of folks are complaining about the cost. That's just simply what it costs to build a building of that size based upon the needs of our students. If we were to include more grades, the cost would only
rise from there and it would just seem seem more and more expensive. The best time to have built a new school would have been 10 years ago and it's certainly not 10 years from now if we choose to pass on this opportunity. And then lastly, I'll say the select board and finance committee are more than
willing to take input um work collaboratively with other boards and other citizens on strategies to um to buy this debt down as quickly as we possibly can. I had a conversation, I believe 550 King Street in its heyday
was assessed at 60. I think maybe now it's 30. We've got to have $30 million of appreciation to get back to where we were. And then based upon the grandmaster plan, it might be a $120 million property. I think those those numbers could be wrong, but something like that. And they've taken a look at
the extra tax revenue coming in, and the feedback that I got was it it doesn't move the needle much. I mean, it certainly will produce free uh free cash for the bottom line, but with uh the additional units, the additional folks, it's roads need to be replaced, additional fire and safety.
And so, every penny helps. It's just it's not I don't believe it's going to be a huge windfall for the town. I wish it was, but thank you for your input, and I'm happy to have um more conversations after the meeting or any other time you can catch me. Thank you. All right. Uh we're going to move
on to our recognition portion of the meeting. Uh I'll turn this over to Superintendent Clenchy. Uh one recognition this evening, tomorrow night, we get to celebrate uh our 2025 graduates tomorrow night at 5:30 alumni field. Keep your fingers crossed that we
don't have any rain tomorrow night. And uh so far so good. And that's it for indulgence tonight until the end of the year. Yeah. Right. Uh we did have a nice retirement ceremony prior to this meeting. It's
seven or seven or eight seven or eight votes retiring from the district. Seven or seven. Uh all right, we're going to move into our presentation portion evening. We've got uh it's on the there's five on the agenda. It's probably around. Um first up is a CPAC update. So members of the
CPAC will give an update on the events in the 2024 2025 school year. Welcome CPAC members. Now we're clapping on the way in. Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm.
You have our um do you want us to introduce introduce ourselves? Uh you're more than welcome to. You're not obligated as citizens because you're representing a group. But okay. Well, I'm Rebecca Freeman. I'm Carrie Eckley. Allison McCarthy, too. And we're the um right well, we were
this year the interim leadership team. Um yeah, you can go into that. So, Allison was able to put together a timeline for just what we covered this year. This was our second year as an interim group, um interim
team. And so, we did a little more planning. we had more time to plan and we put together a few more um events and I mean you got you can you know look at it but the the one thing I wanted to point out about the first one was we did have parks and rec come to talk about adaptive sports that was really um
successful and they were they did start running an adaptive um program which was awesome. So um so it was good to have them there and engage and then um yeah we through mass hack we offered the basic rights training in November and then we did
some social meetups um and then we did have elections in April. Yeah. Yeah. And then the last one I guess we shouldn't forget is a really great panel we had um that the district put together um I
guess hearing from you know older students or grads on their journeys. So that was really appreciated I think. Yeah they did so yeah it's very powerful. So and then car we have June coming up weekend. Hopefully it'll be a
good turnout at um Shaker Lane to have a parent meet up with the kids play. Um so we also did is there another slide from the week before? We have three. Okay. Well, I'll just go
over some of the topics that we talked about for next year for meetings. Um, we talked about, and this came from a suggestion from a parent, sharing resources, some like kind of like a portal of local therapists, camps that we've found successful, um, OT, speech
therapist, just, um, anybody that people have worked with for their kids that could be of benefit. Um, we talked about doing a book review, kind of like a book club, um, choosing something a book of topic, and then getting together to discuss. Don't really have the book list
yet. Um, and then all of our workshops and topics that we'll be covering. We'll do the mascot basic rights with the federations and some other ideas for workshops um or panels or presentations
with the behavior um anxiety and bullying. I think there's been an anxiety one in the past that was really successful. Um yeah, and then just um working on engaging more in the school community without coming here. Interesting.
Questions or comments for the SPACK team? Yeah. Last time I went to one of your meetings, it felt like you were really starting to gain traction. That's it. Yeah. Have you been get getting more and more parents involved as time has gone on? Um it's been Yeah. slow but surely.
I mean, I'm happy that we had liaons that decided to volunteer for those positions, which is great. Yeah. So, we were able to fill most of the positions of the elections, which was and they were all pretty much a lot of new family, you know, new faces since then
of the last group. So, yeah. So, yeah, it's a good time. That's excellent. Yeah. Thank you. Well, thank you for all the work you're doing. Oh, thank you. I'm a little biased, right, Alex? I but um you guys do great work. It's um it's
a really it's it's sort of the message across the district like there are wonderful resources in this district. CPAC being one of them, you just have to take advantage of it, right? So I I've attended a number of the events and although they might be small, like they're powerful. Like even if it's just
the social night out, right? Parents come and they're like, "Oh my god, I just need to take a deep breath." And then it's like it's the same sort of con everyone has the same conversation and everyone feels like their anxiety goes down. And then the um the workshops where folks can sort of learn to
navigate different processes like it's easy if you're navigating special education with your second or third child. But if you're the first time going through it, it's nice to have a buddy that can kind of um give you the dos and don'ts or the tips and things like that. So awesome job. Can't can't
thank you enough. Thank you to Lyn and her team. We're looking forward to next. Thank you for everything that you do and I'm so glad. Right. Next up, we're going to hear our school improvement plan review for
schools, all principles, school administrators will focus on the two major goals for the 2425 school year. I think principal is up first. Everyone, thank you for having
us. Here we go. Okay. So, and the superintendent charged us with two goals this year. SMART goals. Like my brain goes right to smart, specific, measurable, actionoriented results um and timed and tracked. And goal number one was really good. I felt like um we
partnered Russell Street um Mr. McDonald and I partnered to really focus on our new ELA curriculum. So, it was a a different curriculum for than our staff is used to. It is a knowledge based curriculum. Um, and one of the big action steps is
really supporting our staff, taking their lead on where are they, where do we meet them, how do we move them forward. So, we we had a um an implementation team that u Mrs. Steele put together over the summer. We met several times and we began to um work on
developing materials, presentations, anything that we needed for the program. So we started in that this summer and then um Mr. McDonald and I talked about providing professional development through the implementation team on our two building based early release days. So that's the first part that you see
the action steps there and it was really talking about what is the program, how do we implement it, how do we unpack it and we really walked slowly through um the steps with the staff. Uh we provided I provided a Google form of feedback. What did they want to learn more? What did they need more information about?
And every at that point I said all right I think that we at Chicken we need to pump the brakes and really give them time to digest this material. So, every month there is a grade level or staff meeting. We have every month we have two meetings, a staff meeting and a grade level meeting. And I was talking with
our assistant principal and I said, I really think we just need to give them one of those hours to work together. So, through the rest of the year, October through June, they have a month that is just dedicated for team time to look at the materials, to plan, to coordinate,
to provide uh scaffolds, any kind of interventions and supports for that curriculum. Um, so that's the monthly meeting. Um, sorry, that's the monthly 1-hour dedicated team time to work on programming. The one before that is the implementation team that began in the summer. We continued to work throughout
the year. Um, we worked on pacing guides, feedback, we looked at student work. Um, I don't want to steal everything. I'm sure Mr. McDonald is going to talk about some other stuff. And then the last piece um was um before when we were looking at researching the
program last year in the uh 23 24 school year, we had a few staff go over to North Andover and it was very positive when this program was decided upon um and we had it in the fall. Mrs. Steele coordinated another visit for now we have the program now let's go to it.
Let's bring our entire staff that wants to go grades K to 5. And so those were other district visits that we we did this year. Um, so indicators of success. I think I think one of the things that North Andover called it was the the pit of despair. Valley of despair. Valley of
despair. And North Andover said, "You're going to hit the valley of despair. Just embrace it. You will climb out." And so I think we we rode that this year roller coaster. We had ups and downs. And there were there were tears. There was sweat. I don't believe there was blood. But we
we did we did a lot of good hard work. And we saw today just one little piece. Carrie's daughter is a first grader at Shaker Lane and one of the culminating activities um that the first grade team put together focused on the last module which was the Cinderella and they had a
ball. So they had a ball, the kids were dressed up, they came in tuxedos, they came in ball gowns, crowns and we had the celebration in the um in the gym this afternoon. So really just taking the learning and the heavy work and celebrating that. So and we have some other things. I know there's a
kindergarten teacher um this ties into the second one. She is um their unit last unit study module study is the continents and so she's celebrating the whole unit and the wit and wisdom program by inviting families to bring in a food that represents the the continent
that they studied. So she has a sign up they're coming in next week. So really just celebrating the hard work that we've done with this program. Um so indicators of success the teachers were able to plan complete lesson plans. Um work on creating a bank of resources. We
have our special ed staff that has a a Google folder that has scaffolded resources for some of the um focusing task questions the kids have to complete and other pieces that can help them um with sentence starters and different ways to access them the material. Um
we're working on a data tracking system. Can you move that arrow just a little bit? The data tracking system. Um still working on that. Move that little arrow. That's okay. um the data tracking system. We I need to gather a little bit more feedback at least at my school about that and we talked about it a lot
in our um implementation team. There are some grade levels that are are really tracking the data very well there and I feel like just moving slowly with that and really making sure that we're doing it next year where we were learning the program this year was the piece that we needed and then continuing up with that
next year. And then um next year we are redesigning the wit and wisdom block of learning based on the staff's feedback and visits. So that was our first goal. The second goal um so the second goal high expectations. This was to really
design and implement two to five um DEIB focused activities for students and staff and families that promote awareness and have 75% of involvement with each project. Yeah, it's it's smart, but I didn't get it done. Um, as far as like the involvement because what I realized about this goal is I was
relying on other people to fulfill a goal that I was setting. And so when I reached out to families and said, "Hey, do you want to come in and present at a community meeting?" Parents are busy. You know, we had a fantastic cultural affair, I say that will be the highlight of this year. Um, we did, this was a
joint effort with Russell Street. Um, and we added in dancers and we added in food and it was it was incredible. But having having a goal that involves other people to to take over what I think we should be working on, that's why you'll
see that the cultural fair to me is the one piece that we did that hit that we had such a fantastic turnout that night. But then when we talk about the classroom presentations um the holy wrangoli art the taste around the world celebration student spotlights diversity story readings these were things that we
do within the school to create inclusivity and it really as much as I would have wanted parent involvement it's just really hard we have a very busy parent family community that are not able to do those things so thinking about it and thinking about next year um
Rebecca Deacon the assistant principal and I were brainstorming All right, we this didn't go as planned. How can we revamp it? So, we've been thinking a lot about at the beginning of the year, we hang up signs that we created two years ago that say welcome in every single language that you can think of. And we
two years ago, we had the kids um pick out the language in their classroom. The kids signed it. So, they're now our second graders because this would have been two years ago, so they'll be next year's second graders. And we hang them in the lobby. So, this year we're trying to think, how can we change that up? So, we're thinking of doing it's called an identity collage and it's where we have
the kids do drawing pictures u magazine cutouts that explains you know their family, their culture and you know what they aspire to do. So, really just showing their faces and what they you know having that sense of belonging in the hallway. Um and then um a couple of
other things that we're thinking of doing is just inviting community members in to Shaker Lane. you know, police, fire, other people just to create that sense of belonging and inclusivity. So, I feel really proud of us with the first goal and the second goal. Maybe just
missed the mark with with the intention, but still always being inclusive and um thoughtful about all of our students and families. I have no questions or comments for Principal Kane.
And Michelle, what would you do next year in regard to goals? Because what I'm appreciating is well, when you say I didn't make that goal, but it sounds like you learned a lot about why. And I just wondered if you could share that.
Yeah. So, what my goals would be next year or what? Well, well, like what what what did you learn that you're going to bring to goal setting next time? Yeah. is something that I'm in control of really just not relying on other people. Um, so one of the things Rebecca Dee and I are working on this summer is really
creating some some norms for how to respond to students and creating capacity with our staff. We had a fantastic PD last week with Jessica Minahan and I think that is one of the biggest goals is imparting that what we've learned to the staff but we have
those that information. We're the keyh holders. we can, you know, take that information and present it with the staff. So, I think it's just really looking at what can we do, not what do I have to rely on other people to do for me. I think that's what I learned from this. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Yeah, I was thinking about the redesign of the learning block. So, this year we had a standard 90minute um wit and wisdom learning block for first and second grade. for kindergarten. I think we had 75 minutes.
And when we, you know, in in learning the program, you know, one of the things that they said to us was focus on the pacing. Give the time that you need to learn this program and watch in going to North Andover and watching them. They're like three years into the program and coming
back and learning the program. We said to the teachers, "All right, we've really focused on this curriculum whole group for the most part lesson, but we we kind of lacked a little bit in the small group. So, do you some of them some of them said some of the staff were saying that 90 minutes was too much and
other days it wasn't enough." So, we put a survey out to the staff what to the team leaders, tell us what your staff wants for a literacy block. Most of them said about 60 to 75 minutes. So what we've done is we are taking that Witten wisdom curriculum unpacking it within a
Whiten wisdom block and then we have another 30 minutes for small groupoup instruction. So it was really getting our feet wet with the program giving it the dedicated 90 minutes every day. Our staff is finished that we finished the program. Some finished this week some finished two or three weeks ago. So
we're like okay we think we can do this in the some I think kindergarten said 60 minutes. uh first and second grade around maybe 70 minutes. Um so that's the design and just the feedback and going through the program. And did that seem to be the north handover strategy
as well? Theirs um I I think theirs was a I'm trying to think back because I I didn't go this year. I went last year. They No, I think that they have a different block. I actually can't even get back to you on that. Let me get
back to you on that. What? And the reason were they during during the day to observe the instruction or were they afterwards to just talk to the teams when our staff went our staff went to to do we actually did both. We had time to observe and then time to to consult with
them afterwards. The piece that we were hearing from our staff was that they they focused so much on learning the content and the delivery of the program to fidelity but they were missing that small group instruction time. And we dedicated this to win wisdom. So some
teachers were actually able to figure it out this year on their own, but then you know we didn't want to force them. We just said let those people figure it out and then as a group we'll move forward together and figure it out next year. So some of like our second grade teachers and some first grade teachers and kindergarten teachers all figured out
how to do small group instruction. Um but it really was just those that weren't ready and wanted to just focus on the program and wanted to give them the time so that it didn't feel like it was forced upon them. question. Yeah. No, no, no. I've still got more. Um, no. I was I appreciate uh
your reflection on the second goal because I I feel like it's it's okay not to meet a goal because if you always had to craft goals that you were sure you were going to meet, they would never be rigorous, right? So, I think it's I think it's really great to set your sights high and when it prompts such a
deep reflection, I think it's a worthwhile goal. So, I appreciate your your deep thinking about, you know, what worked with that goal and what you would do differently. And I also just want to thank you for being such a strong instructional leader. It's not I don't I
don't think we should assume that every principal is as involved with the instructional piece as as you are and I think Colin is too that um you know to be this involved with it and to be um really listening to your teachers and
watching what's happening in the classroom and to know when they need to take a beat, you know, know when to push them, when to when to pull back that you're really taking the pulse of what's going on in your school. And I think that's so so so important with rolling out a new curricula. So um really kudos
to you for um being such a strong instructional leader. Thank you. Yeah, I was just going to say that the cultural fair is such a highlight. I'm glad you acknowledge that and hope you all keep doing it. It was such a success this year. I've already gotten requests
to from the same group to do another dance. I was like I don't even know if they're doing a cultural fair but sure. So, Veno was um one of the people that we reached out to to have um a group of girls do Bollywood dancing and it was amazing. So, we had Bollywood dancing
and I think that Emily, no um Aubrey Aubrey did Irish step dancing. So, we had Irish step dancing presentation, we had Bollywood presentation. Then what we learned is we needed to give time between both presentations because after yours we went right into the Irish step dancing and then the kids wanted to
learn it. But I think some kids wanted to learn the Bollywood. So I think it it was just it was it was powerful. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Uh so for Russell Street we have a very similar first goal to sh to Shaker Lane.
So I could just easily say same Z as um Michelle for um for a lot of the things that were on our action steps and our indicators of success rather than um just repeating a lot of the same things. I think what what I'll I'd like to highlight are a few um unforeseen
obstacles that I think were Russell Street specific when it came to Whiten Wisdom implementation this year. Um the first one that comes to mind is uh the pacing of this program. So um Whit and Wisdom for every grade level has four
modules uh that students go through. Many of which are around 30 to 35 lessons per module. Many of those lessons uh especially in first year of implementation cannot be completed in one school day or in one 90-minute block
for students. So, um, over the summer, um, when the implementation team, uh, started to do their work, the administrative team, uh, sat down and looked at our school calendar, looked at those modules, looked at the number of lessons per module, and tried to map out
when we thought each module should be starting and ending throughout the school year. Now, we did that having never ought one of those lessons to any of our students. So, it was more or less a shot in the dark that we tried to stay pretty true to. Um, but one of the
unforeseen obstacles, I guess we could have foreseen it. Um, was that that pacing guide was off in some areas for certain grade levels throughout the year. So, um, one of the things that I'm very that we're very fortunate to have and I'm very grateful for are our implementation team members that are on
those grade levels. um that were really collaborative with u myself, M Romano, Miss Steel to come up with some creative ways when they realized um through their really hard work and planning that that pacing guide was not going to align either because we underestimated how
much time something would need, school events come up, benchmark testing, right? A couple snow days here and there. Um, so how do we adjust that um that pacing guide while staying true to the fidelity and integrity of the program that we have been saying all
year we want to do? Um, so that looked differently in certain grades. Third grade, you know, we we built in a buff these these buffer days here and there that we knew we might be able to play with a little bit. So, uh, third grade made some shifts to to manage and and move around those those makeup days or
those buffer days. fifth grade is still plugging along because they have the longest modules and the the most in-depth work to do. So, um I'm just really that was a really great learning experience, I think, for all of us now that we're, you know, really in the in the weeds with this program and and we
know what it looks like and feels like and um what elements of lessons are really the meat and potatoes of what we want to work on with our students versus the things that we might not need to spend as much time on in year two of implementation because we now know that
that skill or that concept comes up three lessons down the road and we can really spend some time to dive into it at that point. So, pacing I think was one of the big um things that that we worked through in order to to reach this goal this year, which I'm really happy we were able to wrestle with it because
it's going to make us better for year two of implementation. Um the second unforeseen obstacle that um I'm I'm proud of my team for really working through this year as um as Kane mentioned this is a knowledge building curriculum and when you get into the to the upper grades in fourth and fifth
grade um some of those some of that knowledge that we're building and the concepts that we're working on with students are heavy and are powerful and are sometimes uncomfortable or unfamiliar with some of our students and families. Um, right. Fourth grade is is
reading survivalist novels about, you know, a main character who is in peril and has to, you know, fend for himself and has feelings of self-doubt and, um, uncertainty and and fear and working through that with our students. Um, uh,
some of our our fifth graders in their Civil War unit are, uh, talking about, um, right, the first war that's photographed. So they're looking at, you know, photographs from the Civil War and then also talking about the young boys that were a part of that Civil War that are not much older than some of our
fifth graders now and and working through some of the emotions that that may bring up. So um that was a little learning experience for a lot of us and and again I'm happy that we have grade level teams and teachers and implementation leaders that are comfortable to to come and say, "Hey,
this is what I'm hearing from my team. We're not really sure how to broach this subject with our students. Can we talk through this?" or I've got a parent that really wants to to just kind of get a better understanding of of what's in this text and what we're what we're working on with our students. Can you can you give us a hand in in managing
that? And um that's something that I'm I'm I'm again happy that we went through this year because um we can make some adjustments when we have determined that some of the uh things that are in the curriculum may not fit uh the Littleton community and and how we might want to
massage that or or alter things a little bit, but also lean into some of the uncomfortable parts of um you know, literature or our history or the topics that that we want to have with our with our uh young folks to make sure that we are preparing them and and building all aspects of their knowledge uh through
this curriculum. So, um that's kind of my little update on Wit and Wisdom. I'm happy that we got through the first year uh in the Valley of Despair every now and then, but we're we're out and hopefully we're not there over the summer. Um the second goal uh for Russell Street um as I mentioned to you
all when when uh we spoke in the fall when I first met all of the staff members uh the thing that I heard over and over again when I was getting to know um Russell Street and the community was um the idea of Stripe and and having Stripe be more of a prevalent um uh
symbol for Russell Street and uh all of the community events and assemblies that used to bring the school together. So, I crafted this second goal to kind of combine the two of of bringing Stripe back to the forefront of Russell Street School um using a PBIS model um and
having Stripe be the cornerstone of bringing the school community together in assemblies and and um activities to do. And I'm I'm really happy that we have a lot to show for this goal um for this year. The first and most important is the assembly of our Stripe team. Um,
I I put the word out for any staff members that were interested in reinvigorating this program and I had uh lots of great volunteers and they have met um with Miss Romano and I at least monthly since we got that rolling to spearhead some new initiatives and um
I'm I'm very proud that I can someone can come to a meeting to a Stripe meeting and have an idea and we can talk through that and then say let's run with it. take care of whatever you need to take care of. Let us know how we can help and then things happen. And um it's that organic um enthusiasm about
something that's important to our educators because they know it's helpful for our students that really makes me excited about continuing the Stripe program. Um other action steps, we developed some new incentives for students. We have the cafeteria cup, the reflex raffle, we've got the traveling
green light. One that I'm really happy and and proud of is our student strike nominations. So, typically when a a student is caught caught doing good by a staff member, they'll get a slip of paper that's a stripe and a portion of that will get hung up on our in Chillville in our in our front lobby and
another portion will go home so so the student can let them know about the parents. But that was all adult to student given and um we wanted to change that up a little bit and make sure that our students had the opportunity to recognize their peers. Um so each month
when we have a Stripe assembly focusing on one of the areas of Stripe, safety, take responsibility, respect, integrity, perseverance, and empathy. Um each home room nominates a classmate from that class that has exemplified that element
of Stripe that we're recognizing for the month. And those students get called up um and get recognized as having received a peer nominated strike award, which for my money is way better than any strike that you can get from a teacher because you're getting it from your friends because they're recognizing all the
great things that you're doing in school. Um we have had a few other cool things like like we had a again to get some student voice and choice in there. Um Heidi McGregor along with Sarah Morton, our librarian aid, uh did a sticker contest where students used
Canva to design a stripe sticker um that uh we then all of the students voted on as uh which uh sticker each grade level was going to get to uh show their stripes. Um and just lots of really great um ways to invigorate Stripe,
bring it back. And um the last thing I'll mention for our stripe assemblies is we've been able to include um the community in um in those stripe assemblies. So for example, when we had our safety stripe assembly, we invited um members of the the police department,
the fire department to come talk about what safety means in their line of work and how our students can be safe. Um we talked about bike safety. We had Julie Lord come and talk uh from the technology perspective about internet safety. Um, we had nurse Sullivan talk
about some of the things that she has on her radar in terms of keeping our students safe from a nurse's perspective. Um, we have brought in a guest artist, Bren Badlan, to talk to our students uh, when it came to respect because he's the smile artist and all of our kids walked away having created a
piece of art that we're going to install over the summer somewhere in the school um, to to reflect the work with that. So, just really invigorating um, strike for for all of our students. Um, couple Oh, I mentioned a couple things. So, one thing I mentioned was our green light
award. This is our this is our traveling green light for our per for our the home room that perseveres the most over the course of the week gets the most green lights on our reflex um math program that we use. So, uh Susan Mitchell
tracks all of the students and the green lights that they receive. Um they earn a perseverance stripe if they've reached 100% uh proficiency. Um, and the home room each week that earns the most green lights, they have persevered the most by spending the enough time getting their
math facts and practicing their their uh math automaticity. So, that home room, I stole this from Miss Schaeful's classroom, so I got to put it back tomorrow morning. Um, so that's that's one fun thing for our students. The other I mentioned our sticker contest. This is a school committee exclusive.
I've got stickers for school committee members. So, these were the winners of our sticker contest. students don't even have these yet. So, pick a pick a sticker. Yeah, you're gonna be the talk of the
town. Um, so just a just a few things uh that I'm really proud of and happy about that uh bringing us straight back to Russ. Thank you. Questions or comments
for John? I just want to say I really like how you present peers whether it's encouraging people give awards or also I feel like you have a whole room that has to get all their work done kind of encourages everyone to ask each other and understand something you know obviously for the teachers but also you
know [Music] yeah thank you for um all that you're doing for community building at this school like that's I'm having some deja vu because I was remembering thinking that same thing when you introduced the goals in the fall. But I um you know, as a principal new to the district, it's so
it's so important to build your own sense of community and with the with the staff and the students. And it really seems like you've done so much with that, so much enthusiasm. Um so that's awesome. And thank you for all the work you've been doing with pacing with
witten wisdom. That sounds like it was a heavy lift. And then, as I'm sure you know, like the first year with a new curriculum always goes slower. It will when you're more proficient. It's almost like everything you learned about pacing this year may not play out
the same next year. And but it's it's um it's so important because the worst thing is to like, you know, get to the end of the school year and be like, well, we ran out of time. Bye. So, um thank you for all the effort that you're you're putting into it to make it cohesive for for the students. I know
that our yes, the pacing will be different next year, but I know that our our teachers are excited about that because they're already recognizing how they can maneuver um those lessons to make pacing a little more comfortable for them and their students. Yeah. Great.
I appreciate you. Sorry. Um you're acknowledging just sort of the the content which was like a little bit surprising. you know how they do the passages at home and first time they read the passage I was like should we talk about this like I can't check what what is check check check plus we need
to talk about the content you just read um so I'm just curious and you you mentioned that too and sort of teachers or or I think you mentioned teachers sort of seeking guidance or having questions around that are you thinking next year sort of approaching that differently or is there professional development or do they feel like because
they learned a lot this year and take that into next year I think this this being new to everyone this year um was a challenge. So I think next year knowing what's coming, knowing how those conversations have gone in classrooms. I I'll tell you that I think teachers were
sometimes very nervous about a section of a book that was coming up and they read it with the class and it turned out to be a big nothing burger and it was like, okay, we're just moving on because that that didn't hit as they may have, you know, expected it to. and vice versa. There were things that students had questions about that teachers, you
know, may not have been um ready to answer for students or to have that conversation yet. Having gone through that this year, I think our teachers are going to be better prepared. Yeah. And we all are also making small changes here and there to make sure it is um you know, more uh aligned with, you know,
what we want to teach for for our community. I just wanted to say to Colin and Michelle and Beth, when we brought Colin on board as the principal of Russell Street School, one of the things that we talked about was creating a stronger connection between Shaker Lane and
Russell Street. The vision I've always had is a two separate schools, but the KTO approach to so that it's a seamless transition from one school to another. the uh implementation of IN2 math witten
wisdom uh is is a great example because we were doing this together as a K5 team. So it's there have been some struggles obviously because wisdom especially is very very different compared to what we were doing in the past. But having that connection and and
the ability to see the vertical alignment working together to solve problems and challenges has just created a a connection that I've I've yearned for for years. It's kind of funny when you you implement something as huge as we've we did there was an opportunity to
create a better understanding of K5 education and having teachers from each school start to connect with each other. So just want to commend the three of them for I think I feel you've done an outstanding job and your Stripes program. Uh you know piggybacking off
Shaker Lane uh you know it's just it's seamless what you're doing. So, thank you so much to to the three of you. It's a lot of hard work and it's difficult to connect two schools when they're not physically attached. I think you both have done a great job doing that. So,
thank you. Thank you. I have nothing for you by the way. [Music] My friend who started a dangerous competition next year we'll be driving home a new car. Look on your chairs. You get a car and
you get a another sticker. No, I got to one up next. September's at least dinner. You can't be outdone. You dressed for it. Well, I was going to
leave you with this beautiful face, right? Glad to have that in your dreams, but I guess that's not good enough. Um, thank you. So, uh, our two goals, uh, very different in in, um, what they look like, but equally important in in terms
of how they play out. So, our first goal really centered around the idea of relationships. Um, you know, postco we see such such a difference in in the way students, middle school students respond to adults and needs. Um, and we, you know, part of our job as administrators
is to see what's happening three, five years down the road and try to adapt to it. So when these things are ready and so in the work we do with UDL and the work that we're doing with um, social emotional learning, it all gets back to this idea of relationships and being able to converse and get to know your students on a level so that if something
arises, you can have a conversation without raising anxiety, without creating um, us versus them mentality. And so it becomes increasingly important as we're seeing millions students to to to create those opportunities. So to be mindful of that and start to move people away from just saying, well, I have
great rapport with kids. The kids in my class, I know all of them and and we get along really well. That we can do better at that and we have to do better at that. We have to really get to know our students at that level. So the the original goal was to really set sights on having teachers identify a small handful of kids that they would really
go out of their way. I I can speak to to the work that I did. I I chose three and I'm so glad I chose those three because those three, you know, we have met time and time again and that initial building of a relationship has allowed me as as the principal to be able to work with these kids in ways that I necessarily
wouldn't be able to moving forward. So, what we did is we met as a staff and we broke into teams into small groups. People could choose somebody individually or they could work as a team to make sure that they hit a number of kids. And then throughout the year, it was really about saying, "All right, let's let's have an update. how are things going with your with your
students and having teachers have an opportunity to reflect on that and kind of share and you know some it's like anything you know you trying to move the whole group at one time doesn't necessarily always work like you want to but our early adopters were all in you know the middle group comes around and as they as next year comes and we and we
build a consistency into this I really look forward to seeing what this what this can become because our schools need it this isn't something that's just a fly by night we're going to do something um fun this really it it really goes to help a lot of the the different initiatives that we have right in the building and help everything function.
So, we have a staff meeting coming up next week. We're going to start to quantify that data to really build a baseline. So, the the indicators right now are largely anecdotal. Um, you know, we kind of ch I kind of chose an arbitrary number at the beginning because we don't really know where that number would normally be. And so, we'll
then be able to next year sort of build on that number and see did we set the bar too low? Did we set it too high? And so, but the anecdotal data really does show in in it shows in hallways and it shows it in the learning and it shows in the interactions in class. And so, as as administrator when you're a class and you're watching your teachers interact
with students in a way that it wasn't like four to five years ago, that is where we know that these things are starting to pay off and that's been supported through um professional development. We brought in um you know a highly regarded school psychologist in the fall. We had Jessica Minahan last week and so the message ends up being
compounded. this idea that has to come back to this and there's not a more important time I think for students to be able to reach out and have a connection with the middle and as as it is in middle school. So what we what we do to really look at it is we look at behavior data. So I have a form that teachers fill out anytime they want to
make a behavior referral and it it sends it to me right away. It comes in a spreadsheet and I can I can look at it and I can see the decline in the number of referrals from September to to June. Now is that enough to go on at this point? you know what, we're going to continue to build on that. But I that's
where I look at it because if if adults are having those connections, then we start to see it in those less um emotional moments of anxiety. And if things are getting worked out at the classroom level because a a relationship has been established, then we should see
it on the back end with with a decline in those behaviors. And I can and I can say without question today, we see a definite decline in some of the student behaviors. Um, and so we'll keep on it and we'll keep building on that and see, you know, just where this can take us. Um, and then, you know, before we leave for the end of the school year, I want
to put together a couple of like um student focus groups, one for each grade to see how they have this. Have they noticed a difference in how teachers respond to them and talk to them and and and work with them. So, that's that's an important stakeholder group. Uh, because we can I can sit up here and champion all the things that we're doing, but I
if the students still feel the same, then then we know where the work is. Um the second goal was was ambitious, but I I I can say we we we as close to complete it as we can. And I don't think it's something we're ever going to fully complete because it's always going to be um you know a
work in progress. But really moving from um the current or the past MTSS level, you know, the tiered support level to something now that's bringing those supports in class, right, in a dynamic way so that this that the teacher that the student has an interventionist with
them as the instruction is happening and then they have an opportunity to work with that person as opposed to once a week going to a separate classroom and trying to recapture something they did the week before. um you know going into this it's hard to schedule that with with with middle schoolers and the rotating schedule but our interventionist did such a good job of
leaning into it and you know it was very different than what they were used to. They were used to, you know, very a very simplified system of this is how it works. And I I turned that completely on its head and I got to just commend their their professionalism for for taking on this task and trying to find ways to the point of running around like, okay,
we've got to take a breath because now they're trying to do too much with too many kids. And I think that's a sign of something great as opposed to, you know, um, you know, the opposite. And so we starting to see those changes and we've been having conversations the last week about what this looks like next year and becoming very excited about how do we
take the work that we did this year and now improve it. So for example in you know with the indicators of success we are seeing those kids who have math lab or lit lab in their those interventions in their schedule. We're seeing better math scores and we're seeing improvement in confidence in classes. Um you know
our SST program is is evolving. So, in the fall, one of the things that we're going to adopt is really like a a goal model with our student support team. So, if if a if a student is referred for academic or emotional reasons, rather than just saying we're going to put you in a math lab because you struggle with math, we have to identify what the skill
is. What's what what is the skill in math that needs to be targeted so that that interventionist can intervene specifically as opposed to saying a general math um phobia or anxiety. And so we want to really drill down into some of the things that we're doing to get granular in the work that we do so that we are data informed. We're data
focused but also targeted specific intervention so that we can see the goal that we need to do because if we're going to make a referral to special ed, we need to make sure that we've tried everything we can up to that. And so this is really an accountability piece and say we jump through every we've looked at every possible option. And so
I like where we are in this process. Um, it'll always be evolving, but but I think we I think we we nailed that goal to this point this year. That's it. Great. Questions and comments for Principal Ed.
Yeah. Um, yeah. I had a question about your first goal. Um, way back in the beginning of the process when you were identifying the pool of students that you wanted faculty to pay special attention to, were were they how were
you identifying those students? Were had they already been identified as high risk or no? Was it a little more organic than a little bit more organic? We did it early in the school year so a lot of our teachers wouldn't have known all the students particularly well. I felt like at at the time it was important to keep
it organic because I don't want to bias teachers to say here's our atrisisk kids and we're going to focus all of our attention there because as we see so many times the atrisisk behaviors are those cries out for help but on this side there are plenty of kids who suffer at silence and need those connections. You never know it. So I I don't want to
label kids and have people shift this way forgetting about a whole group that might be silent otherwise. So, it's been more organic and then as the year goes on, the idea is hopefully you add a few more to that to that group of kids that you have. Um, and I think as we continue to do this, I think the success will
speak for itself and we'll get more and more, you know, involved with and and get more and more successful in in that program. And and then how did you avoid the whole like teachers pet syndrome when did kids notice some kids were getting a little more attention than others? Because in in in the way we try
to do it, we're the middle school model is different than the elementary in that you don't have as much time. You've got your 50 minutes that you're in a classroom. So that that particular thing doesn't necessarily happen the way that it might if you had the kids in your room for the whole day. But it was important to do it in those unstructured
times. And that's what we kept talking about. It's hogs. It's lunches. It's in those moments where you're not just in front of in front of the class and I'm paying special attention to you because I want everybody to see it. It's more that subtle connection that I think is far more meaningful. And so that's what we push for staff. Find those moments in
between passing periods or if you see a kid in the hallway, you know, on your break and they're walking by. Like those are the moments that are the most meaningful as opposed to necessarily academic support in that moment. We want that person. So that's what we push that. Well, and I think, you know, you said it was anecdotal data, but I think
the reduction in behavioral referrals Yeah. is is hard data. So that's that's awesome. Yeah. I should graph it. I I thought about that weeks ago and I I should I should just to see like the decline in it. And then the other thing I I love your intervention plan. Um but
that must have totally blown up your schedule to try to put those blocks in to provide more intervention. Was that part of that whole thing that you did last with putting in the extra English class? No, that was that was that was something separate. So the way it used to work is we have students have five
unified arts classes. Music, arts, so and so. students would be pulled from one of those classes and they would receive the same condition. The problem with that model, I think, is you say, let's say a kid has they really struggle with math, they really struggle with math. So now I'm going to take you out of a class you like and put you in a
75minute math class and expect you to be successful. It just it it wasn't working. And it wasn't through no fault of our educators. They were trying, but it, you know, there had to be a better way to reach kids. what working with best deal. The idea was if we could flip that model instead of having kids coming out of class to work why don't we go
into the class and then that way they're they're working with the lesson as it's happening and it's done in a much more subtle way. Listen, I'm here to help. I back up when you're on your own. The idea is and then it's data collection. So that person can take data on success rate and proficiency and all that and
then report back to SST. So it actually made the schedule a little bit easier because now every student can have all five of the fine arts classes. before it might might be three or two depending on the number of interventions that they have. So we've increased the number of students who get unified arts. We we we are more responsive in in the um
intervention. I think the biggest part to the schedule was figuring out how to get the interventionists into the blocks so they could they could do it. What's nice about it doesn't have to be an everyday thing every what we did. So it was like two to three days per week and that created the coverage too. So now that took off like I don't have to be in
this class every single day. I can come twice a week and I'm still giving more intervention than I was under the old system, right? But I'm giving it more timely and and and and and I think far more effectively. You know, I love this the coherence of this too. It feels almost like an
elementary model. So it's like providing some coherence from, you know, the Chaker Lane Street and the middle school that kids are getting the intervention, they're getting what they need. I think that's a good idea. you know, you see it coming out in in its policy and in its structures within the schools because
it's all about helping to support that and as a district, we've been committed to that. We'll continue to be committed to that. So, as administrators, it's important for us to build structures that allow for that to happen as opposed to saying, "Here's you'll go at it." And so, um, if we can find ways to do it in that way to just, you know, makes it so
that's just the way that it is, then then I'll Thank you very much. My mustache. Yeah. Oh, how do I how do I do this? Go ahead. I wanted to ask a question with my parenting hat. Um, as my kids went through school and you talk to other
parents, this is not data driven. This is with coffee is um a problem that is that I've seen in schools that we've seen in schools is the kids that are up here and kids that
are way down here, they get lots of attention. and the kids that are just right there and they're doing their thing. I've had many a parent go, I don't know if anyone notices my kid going through the day, you know, and and
so in this program, can you speak to um how you keep your eyes open to keep that from happening? So, it's a natural just part of way schools operate, right? The top five and the bottom 5% get 95% of the attention, right? So, this is this is an attempt to try and limit that a
little. So as an interventionist is in the class, interventionist is in the classroom. The teacher provides their instruction. They're working with kids, small group, individually, whatever. But the interventionist is doing the same and they're able to see things um slightly different. It's a second set of eyes. So they're able to provide the teacher with hey listen, I'm noticing I'm working with this student, but and
this is happens every day where other students say, "Well, can I can I work with Miss Silva, too?" And so now she's while she's targeting intervention on this, there's also other kids who are part of it. So she's actually able to see things in her work that just sort of cast light on something that we might not see otherwise because some kids, you
know, if they struggle with writing, they may just be there's quietly doing nothing and hoping not to get seen. This intervention model allows us to have boots on the ground to see it in ways where the teacher is worried about, you know, classroom management and instruction and time and the launch and the close. The interventionist has just
a pure vision of of student support can and can look upon others. So that's the one thing that we rely on most and the communication between interventionist and classroom teacher to identify those students and then and then from there to seek support if needed. Almost like
student teacher ratio matters. It's amazing, right? It it has a promise. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. All right. and Jason just thank you for for understanding the importance of
connectivity with your students and your faculty that that's really important. Uh I guess to add to Janine's question when you're in the classroom when you're out and about you're
probably processing how many times a teacher interacts with a student. And when you're when you're observing a class, it's very easy to determine whether the teacher is is involving the whole class in the discussion or engaging the whole whole class or not.
Right? So those are those are some of the strategies that are used in our schools to make sure that students are seen, heard, and valued. And and the structured time is just as important as the unstructured time. The only difference is the unstructured time
allows you to develop informal relationships that are very hard to develop in a classroom structure. So yeah, we look at things from, you know, how many how many when when a teacher's asking for questions, are they calling the same kid every time or are they spreading it out? We look at gender breakdowns. Are they giving equal time?
Like there are just a lot of ways when we as administrators would walk in to see because it's easy to call on the kid who always has their hand up because if you're asking a tough question and the other 25 don't have their hand up, you know, you at least have that one. And so it's there's a tendency to go that way. And so that's why UDL is great because it it moves us away from that to say
more like how do we bring you into this so that you feel confident and so hopefully that middle shrinks you know over time and with proficiency in the way that we so thank you. All right. Excellent. Thanks. Thank you. Hi, good evening. I'm Keith Kamo,
assistant principal of the high school for John because he is at his son's graduation tonight at Shbury High School. So, um, congratations to Luke and John would have been here, but you got to be tonight. Um so for the high school um
our first goal was focused on um the development and implementation of what was once called the vision of a graduate which is now shifted towards a portrait of learner more of a district-wide initiative. Um this is part of our upcoming accreditation which is next um
May May of 26. And so we're working towards that goal and working towards fully implementing what is um our current u portrait of a learner and then how do we assess that? How do we make sure students understand it and how do we develop those skills needed to um
successfully graduate kids with the skills not just the content of the their academic courses. Um so so far over the course of really starting the end of last year but the beginning of this year over the summer um we have reviewed the six competency areas that we're focusing
on and we've identified skills in each area and kind of this is also shifting out past the high school to the rest of the district. The other schools are also participating in these activities as well. Um we attended workshop with NEAS um the principles from Nitbuck Regional
High School. Um Maryanne and John John Clemens and Mary Moran who are the co-principal of of NITMUK have met with us as an admin team and they've met with us as a high school team and we've also sent our steering committee for accreditation to
NEAS um three times this year to meet with them over the various aspects of the process of developing the vision of a graduate now portrical learner. Uh we have um in the works a survey that will go to staff and students to help identify and highlight powerful learning moments in
each course that students be able to reflect on as they go through the vision of a grad sorry portrait of a learner um for the high school. And uh we did some of the beginning work for that identifying as a steering committee some of the schoolwide things that happen
like the financial literary fair which happened last week is a schoolwide event that's not necessarily tied to the class but something every kid will experience as they go through the high school. So we're we we identify some of the bigger picture things as a steering committee. Now the next step in that process is having the teachers identify stuff um or
opportunities for learning in their coursework and also the students who are going through the classes also saying well I remember when I was a freshman in English this is one thing I really enjoyed this is one thing I really connected with in terms of different skill development areas that's our next step is really um putting together that
bigger picture Nickmuck first has a road map um and it's a big visual thing of all the different learning experiences both in the classroom outside the classroom in school and out of school which our students will experience um through their journey not only in the high school but also districtwide eventually. Um so that's a next step
right now. Uh we also have a plan for the creation of digital portfolios which will be how we track student progress through the div the vision of a learner um and provide reflection opportunities throughout the course of their freshman year, sophomore year, junior year,
senior year. And ultimately, again, big picture long term, we're looking at having students do some sort of culminating presentation of their progress through the high school. Um, and then starting next fall, um, as a continuation of this, uh, this goal is
we have we'll be planning over the summer, myself and John, um, PD for September to really go through the process of implementing the the reflective opportunities, the portfolios. Um, there have been discussions locally, statewide, and you
ask overall about what kind of rubrics you have and the schoolwide rubrics which were common for the old accreditation system. We're kind of stepping away from those and more towards these plucking opportunities. Um, so we're looking at how we're going to do that, how we're going to facilitate the student opportunities for
learning or demonstration of their learning and their completion of the portion of a learning for the high school. Um so the indicators of success for this goal in the end we'll have the fully developed and published port of a learner which will include the
culminating experiences. We have the the first part of it done. We have the the compy areas. We have the skills identified. The next step is really putting into what does this look like daytoday throughout the course of the four years of high school for each student. And so students will have to develop their digital portfolios. We're
talking with technology about Canva or other types of presentation options or storage options for how the students to track their progress and also the process through which um the advisory teachers will help guide the students over the course of their four years. So
we envisioned a process through which each advisory teacher uh which has you know between 12 and 15 or 16 students each advisory depending on on on the year um being really that guide for the students as they progress through each year of high school and helping students
identify for themselves their most powerful learning opportunities that they've experienced. and the reflection that they've had identified their per personal um pathway identifying or acknowledging that each student will progress through the high school
experience same things differently and what one opportunity may be for a student to say well this made me a effective communicator another student may say this was an area where I was a critical thinker and it could be the same assignment or the same opportunity and so having each student be able to
talk about their personal um growth their personal journey journey of learning and what we we'll end up looking at in terms of these um portions of learners. So that was the first goal. It's an ongoing goal. It's something that's part of the process for NES accreditation, but it's not the reason why we're doing it, right? We want to be
able to identify the opportunity that students have in the district in the high school in particular and acknowledge that the path is going to be different for different students. So it's not neas won't obviously. Um the second goal that we we we developed is
again by June of 2026 so end of next year we will have developed and implement a well-designed clearly communicated and documented multi-tered system of support the MDS model for the high school. This is something that has been in place for a long time. It's more about the really codifying of what we do
and how we do everything for student support at the high school. Um part of that the action steps is the continued emphasis on UDL. Actually Jason talked about that um in his discussion with of the middle school goals but really looking at how we are implementing those
UDL practices in terms of teacher instruction but also in terms of student product. So I think the easiest if you want to call it that part of the UDL implementation has been giving students choice in how they present their their work. The next step in the more important piece of this is how do we
ensure that teachers are having differentiate opportunities for students to take in the the information as well not just the their output. Um so that's a continuation of the emphasis on UDL for us. Um, another thing that has been going pretty well over the past couple of years and it's part of this overall
process is our character strong seal curriculum which we deliver through um through our advisories as well and that's something that we've been looking at uh each year in terms of the effectiveness of the program and the implementation of the program. We've had
uh teams working on uh making adjustments to the to the curriculum and to the individual lessons that come from the character strong curriculum and adjusting them to the the needs of our our building and our students. So this year we actually worked over the summer
to pair down the I think it was 15 overall lessons that we're doing with capture strong made it nine. This year we combined some of the of the content and we built in more opportunities for guess easier conversations between staff and students. And again, this kind of goes
along with what Jason was talking about bu building connections. Um the conversations that we're having with students are not academic. Their everyday situations, their, you know, social situations, they touch on a variety of different topics. And I've had my advisory now for three
years, so they're juniors. And so they've been through the entirety of our development of social emotional curriculum in the advisory process. And from my perspective, from my my students perspective, I think that the Cabron curriculum and the conversations are
very productive and they're helping build those connections, build those relationships between staff and students that are so important to helping students feel connected and sense of belonging in the building. Um, another action step is that we are in the process of really redefining what our
academic support center can be in having clear, active, and frequent monitoring of student progress. Part of the impetus for this change was the fact that we um were seeing an academic support center which was not really intervention in nature. It was more of a small study hall. Um, part of that was because we
didn't have a full-time teacher in there. We had a an ESP that was running our our ASC. Um, but this year we hired a full-time teacher to run our academic support center and and more efficiently and effectively track data of students that were in the ASC and making sure that the supports that we're providing
in there were aligned with their needs number one, but also helping them achieve their goals. So, that was a big step this year. We reconvened our student wellness and achievement team uh which is a team primarily of clinical staff and
administration um so we can have more open conversations about student needs academic social emotional and behavioral attendance also is discussed in there as well and making sure we are we're all on the same page understanding who our students are and so if one student sees
a particular counselor about what's going on that counselor's out they can go see someone else and have the same level of of understanding of of their needs. So, we have reconvened that team. We're in the process of updating our SST manual and and our our processes and procedures of SST to make sure we are
looking more specifically at data as we make recommend different types of interventions through our SST model. And we've had extensive PD for our special ed staff on the new IEP and implementing the new IEP. I'm sure you all heard
about the changes in the IEP process. So that's that's all part of this MTSS model is you know special it's part of that um not the only part obviously so some of the indicators of success we have implemented a lot of student success plans through our SST process
where we identify the specific needs primarily academic for the for for students in their success plans and what types of inventions did they uh require um part of that is through the ASC part of that is not part of this through through more of the in-class support uh
we did hire uh a dedicated ESP that was focusing on math tutoring. This year we because we had a a segment of our student body that was um struggling with math. She she has been both in classroom but also in the ASC to provide individual support to
students. Um we have done a variety of screeners um uh surveys that students have taken. So we look at at that data to gauge the effectiveness of our character strong uh curriculum and see where we're going with that. Um, we've had some PD focus on behavioral and
social emotional support. Everyone's so far mentioned Jessica Menahan last week. That was a a very good PD um, focus on uh, student behavior and social emotional needs and the the impact of things like anxiety on student behavior. So, having more and more PD on that
really helps our staff understand the needs of students um, at a deeper level. And of course, we've adopted the new IP. It's another indicator of success for our MQSs goal. Then on the next slide, there is a visual um Steve of the
uh portrait of learner. Oh, that's all I got. There was there was a like a blue. You must have the old package. We've done it in our package. So visual of the competency areas and the identified skills. So that's what we're building
off of to um again drive the student portfolio reflection opportunities for the portable learner. So you have you all and I think it's been presented before. So I think it's been out there. It's the same very similar visual that we had
found it just not in the the course of the year. The uh the portrait learn high school initiative or has that made its way down to middle school? It it's it started out as a high school initiative because it it was part of the
requirement for NEAS and as we were calling the vision of the graduate at the time. Yeah. Um but over the this entirety of the year like I said John and Maryanne came to our admin retreat last summer and spoke to the entire admin team and from that point we've
branched out the port of learn to the entire district. So all of the schools have engaged in activities u with their staff to look at these skills and make them or they will be making these ski these skills and um the language and the skills more user friendly for younger
students. Sure. And so we're identifying the same category looking at the skills that we identified as being indicators of success of each of these categories. Right. And it's going to be a district-wide thing. Sure. Um well, John and Maryanne actually helped us develop our own uh roadmap when we worked with
them last summer. So everybody internally has that document and that's a document we continue to build on so we have consistency K through 12, right? Yeah. So I like I mean I love it. Y um I don't know if you're doing these things or if this is where you're headed, but
you know, I see this as a concept that gets introduced like for example, freshman year, like a schoolwide assembly or nth grade assembly, course and you talk about it and you check in. You you give the students an opportunity to check in annually or twice a year. Yeah. with where they feel they they
are. Um, you know, geez, I'm I'm doing really well at being a collaborator with my group projects, but I'm struggling with my opportunity to be engaged as a citizen, right? And it just keeps it top of mind for them so that as they make their way through the high school,
they're prepared for the next phase of life. They feel like they have a really well-rounded grasp on, you know, maybe I don't do all six elements really well, but I've had at least had an opportunity to try. Sure. Of course. That's right. I see. part of that happening more than that more frequently than say annually
or monthly like through the advisory it's gonna happen organically with with me and my 11 kids to my advisory I'm going to talk to them about their assignment x y and z we also envision a situation where we may use like student le conferences as opportunities for that
have them reflect at the certain benchmarks of nth grade 10th grade 11th grade where I where am I in terms of satisfying all the the areas is but also what's my strength like so John and Marian from from Nitmunk uh
they have a system where basically a student presents who they are as a as a learner and it could be I am an effective communicator and this is this is why this is how yeah they touch on the other things as well but they really highlight who they have become as a learner sure and they they've actually
paired that down in their district to the elementary level where they're like I'm a effective communicator superhero and they play little cartoon characters and like that that's how they've aligned their district. So obviously we're in conversations about how we're going to do that here. But I do see the opportunity for reflection and that
guidance with the advisory model as being a really uh good opportunity to have those check-ins. Sure. And I see this as like I'm familiar with middle school work right now, right? Um, in middle school they often like chunk a project down like we're going to do this aspect of it and then there's
check-ins and all that stuff and perhaps a lot of that goes away in high school because there's independence and that's really grind. Yes. Um, but I see this as an opportunity as the project gets chunked down. It's like for this element we're working on this. Yep. You know, try to master it and then as we move on
we're we're here. Um, and maybe I see this ultimately being uh expanded upon with, you know, further documentation or a couple pages on each one of these that gives the students a a sense for where they might pick some of these skills up as it relates to the
coursework or other opportunities outside of class or in class because it's a great visual, but they might need we all might need a better understanding of how do we accomplish this and and it's different now than it was in the old system because in the old system we
had our schoolwide expectations of learning and all those things and like most schools I mean I wasn't here when we developed those last time um they said okay the English department is going to focus on you know effective communicator right and history is going
to do you know collaboration whatever it is and they have these the rubrics assigned to this and this project is aligned with effective communicator the difference here is that we are identifying the skills and we're identifying that covers the areas and the kids are going to be able to
identify where they learn that, how they learn that. So, it's more agency for the students in this iteration of um portable learning. Yeah, I I appreciate the emphasis on student agency, but I'm also wondering
about the implications here for instruction. you know that it looks like a lot of the tenets of um uh student centered learning you know like will the teachers have opportunities maybe in PD to learn how to provide more
opportunities in their lessons for critical thinking or collaboration or uh communication you know like it's it's hard for students to show these attributes unless the teachers are providing lessons that and what these things are that absolutely Absolutely.
And then and we we've looked at uh like project based learning over the past couple of years integrating more of that into our classes and you know obviously the UDL principles talked to that as well. Um and so while there may not be explicit instruction about what does
this mean but there will there are going to be opportunities for students to um practice all these skills in in our classes. Yeah. I feel like it it has to be sort of a two-pronged approach because I think high school teachers are they have so much content knowledge and they have so much to share and it's a
temptation to be you know to have the focus on the teacher because the teacher is imparting the learning and but with these tenants it's it's more student centered so how can how can the teacher start to adapt their instruction to give
these kinds of opportunities right and there's that there's also the I guess the the idea that not all learning happens in the classroom, right? And so a lot and so a lot of these skill areas can be achieved through other types of opportunities, not just in the classroom, whether it's extracurricular
activities or the bigger schoolwide events like like I said, the financial literacy fair for example or things like that. And so a student may be able to reflect on becoming a you know skillful collaborator because they were in jazz band and talk about that experience
about how they became you know a team that way. So it's not going to be the same thing for every student. Yeah, there'll be elements that that'll be similar and the opportunities are going to be similar but what students take from those opportunities are going to be really the more powerful reflective actions for each student. Yeah, the
financial literacy fair is such a great for sharing that video. I watched the entire thing. Oh my god. It was what an incredible I really wish that that had been happening when my kids went through the high school. It's it was this simulation of of real life based on I I
love that their credit score was based on their attendance. I thought that was brilliant. That was a we put it. But we didn't tell the students that ahead of time. Genius. What's that? We didn't tell the students at the beginning of the year that was going to happen. But some students are upset by that. They had a low credit score. Yeah.
Absolutely. So the the staff are involved in in helping create the skill sets and we come back to the leadership team table uh create we create creative commonalities and then the next step as we we continue to evolve will be I can
statements. So the development of I can statements and having teachers involved in that are are going to naturally lead to a reflection on instructional strategies to align with the I can state. So this is this a real this this process
is really cool. It's really a treat. It's going to make such a huge Yeah, I'm I'm excited about it. Very good. Thank you. moving along. We've got a presentation on the post-secondary plans for the class of 2025. Mr. Superintendent
Kenshi, in your package, you uh have a list of uh colleges and universities that our students are going to. Uh it's always a a pleasure to to take a look at where our students are headed uh after they graduate.
different patterns we see. Uh I think more students are staying closer to home than they did 10 years ago. Obvious reasons for that, but uh and I'm not going to point out the colleges because uh I mean we have some it's not the right thing to do. We have some, you know, pretty impressive colleges that
some of our students are going to. uh two two of our students are uh going into the military and we have two students uh entering the workforce or a gap year and and uh we've all heard of the uh probably been exposed to it by
now the the movement towards micro micro credentiing rather than associate degrees and university degrees is becoming part of continual retraining and in those professions including education as well. Uh we have one student going to University of
Ottawa. Uh that's to know that we're getting you weren't going to point out any school Canadians universities. And I'm only pointing it out because every dollar you spend you gain 34 cents as today. Okay. And in bonus, you get to
learn Canadian. Yeah. Sean, you should know he's Canadian. My relatives say I've lost it. So, uh, just very impressive. It's always nice to see, uh, you know, the fact that that our students, uh, by the time they graduate from high school,
they're they're not afraid to try new things and go to new places in California. I mean, look at the list. Yes. It's just really really nice to see that that our students are ready for that to enter that next phase of their
their life. So, it's always a it's always a treat to to see this every year. Great. There's a couple there's a couple schools that have some high numbers which would be typical, but it's amazing to me the number of like individual like
enrollments like right one kid going here, one kid going here, one kid going here. I mean it's it shows you what the portrait of the learner like the skill set that they that they acquired here. They we cast like Littleton then cast such a wide net across all these
universities. It's pretty cool. Well, I think it's also a testament to the the skill of the guidance counselors at the high school. They are they work with every student one by one to try to help them chart the path. And it's when you
look at all these numbers, it's a really incredible feat that they've been able to support all these kids with their next step. For sure. And when you you talk to some of the students, I mean, I asked them why why did you choose this university? Do you have relatives out
there or sometimes have friends that you've you've met along the way? And and most of the time they say no. What do they university I wanted to go? I always wanted to go to that university always wanted to live in that state. So
it's just really thanks you know we always say at times that kids are kids but I have to say being in in education as long as I have uh the graduates of today are very different than graduates
20 years ago in terms of the skill sets they possess and the confidence levels up. you're saying that there's more students staying close to home. I actually was shocked by how many are leaving and going so far. So, it's just interesting
like such a diverse spread of where where they're going. I'm curious. The one that's going to Scotland, is that the one that was teaching himself all those languages? Do you know? No, not that. Okay. It would seem to follow a certain pattern. Sorry. up there. Great. Thank
you for sharing that. Uh fourth presentation is from Steve Maher, your financial update. So, uh again, the information in the report is in your packet. Um as been my manager all year, um we're
in good shape financially. Uh our our goal is to make sure we have sufficient funds to meet all of our obligations for the end of the year, contractual um operating. Um, happy to say that our forecast is we have sufficient funds to meet all of our obligations and needs
throughout the year. So, that's good news. Glad to answer any questions, provide additional information as requested. Um, I'd also like to take a moment while I have the floor to remind everybody about bus registrations.
Um so so um we laugh a little bit about it but um our numbers as of yesterday were 663 students. Our normal I can't compare it to what we did last year at this time because we opened up the process so much earlier this year. Um
our normal number of students that ride the bus is between 950 and 1100 right in there. So, we're really light on the registrations and I'm wondering that's because we opened it up early and those people that are um um achievers maybe um registered early
and those people intend to procrastinate till the end of the year um maybe they're still waiting and to do that. So, we're hoping that's the case. Um there is a reminder message going out tomorrow night to our all all of the student population and families about the bus registration. Um, we do have a
number of families that have registered, but it's in process, which means they probably didn't complete the payment process um, through the link that's provided on the web page. So, um, if you if you have not received a confirmation email, if you started to register and
didn't receive a confirmation email, your registration is not complete. You need to go back into the system and complete that process. So, that's a reminder to that. Uh, and then just a reminder to everybody else, if you're waiting until the end of the year, the registration process closes on June 26th. Remember, we opened it up, we
normally open up in midmay, we opened it up in back in April. So, we provided another six weeks. And again, my hope is that people just saw it and said we'll do it later and now they're waiting till later. But we are a little late on the registration, but I just wanted to put
that out there. So, um, anyway, What do you do about families that move into town say over the summer? Do you leave wiggle room? Yeah, always. Any new family we automatically put if they want a bus, we put them on the bus. Yeah.
All right. What's our most effective way to communicate to families? Is it the Is it the text message system that we have? Yeah, that I think it's our new app. That's what we're using. And that What's the enrollment we have on that? Nearly 100%. I believe so. Yeah, I believe it's 100%. I think it's 100%. Yeah. And have we
pushed the bus registration through that system yet? Yeah, we push the notification through that system and they can uh I don't know if they can get the link through that system. Um but they they should be able to but they can
certainly go on the Littleton Public Schools website and there's a link there. So um and and the their notification links to um all the district web pages. So, and the the school now app has a a section where you can the tool section you go right on our
website from there. Okay. As well, right? So, again, remind people everybody if you're watching, remind your neighbors. Um, if you want to if you want to ride the bus next year, you need to register. Whether you need to pay, whether it's free, you still need to register so that we can get the list
developed the bus routes over the summer. And you said it closes in how many weeks? School? I'm sorry. This bus registration closes when? June 26th. A month. Yeah. So, so probably need to push it a couple more times. Yeah, we're
pushing it. There's a message going out tomorrow night. Um, we'll work with the principles on their newsletters and do another push um through those newsletters as well. If I can get that message board, Indian Hill, put it on the message. But we got the new one in middle school up and off today. Thanks
to Jason. Really? Yep. I've been having another great week all year like Rosebud saying that. I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. The new basketball was installed this week. Jason spent some time. Thank you.
Thank you to Jason uh learning how to um manage that and program that and and uh uh put messages on that. So, was it a new board went in? Yeah. Great boards. What happened when they did the road construction? and they cut the cords. So that was the last message in the system,
but it couldn't shut it off. I said to Steve, "It was good thing it just didn't say like holiday bizarre tomorrow." Right. Reminder, school closed tomorrow. So the one that was bad was original for the school. It was 20 years old. They have a lifespan of about 12 to 15 years.
So yeah. Um so new sign is in. We're working on one for new central office. Working on quotes. um getting somebody to put some posts in so we can mount that. So, working on that as well, but that's not a done deal yet. So, sure.
Thank you for the confirmation email. I think I've emailed you every year to check if I ever registered. So, I confirmation email. Yeah. Yeah. The confirmation email was a an addition we put on last year. Yes. [Music] Um so, and the report that's in the
packet, the financial report, it's through March of 2025, right? Uh it's actually through April actually. Um it's mislabeled, but so to remind everybody um we withhold teacher salary. Uh so to pay them over summer
um those teachers that elect 26 pays compared to 21. That's about 1.7 1.8 million in payroll that we haven't paid out yet. We pay that out in June. We have uh uh a couple months of payroll uh to still uh record. We have some uh
special ed tuition expenses, some maintenance contract expenses, some busing uh contractual expenses that we're still um getting invoices for over the last couple of months here. So, um that's why the number looks high, but again,
there's six, seven something million in payroll that still hasn't paid out. Yeah. Right. You mean the available budget number looks like? Mhm. Okay. Yeah. Yep. I have no questions. You guys all set?
Thanks for always bringing good news. Thank you. And then the last thing, I'll jump right into it if that's all right, Mr. Chairman, is uh the signature authorization. So, this is uh requested by the town. So, normal normal school committee, normal state law requires, uh
three school committee members to sign off on payroll and uh accounts payable warrants. the school committee can vote and elect one person to be the representative and sign have one signature on payroll warrants and
um accounts payable warrants. Um so that's what we have done typically for the as long as I've been here with the board has selected one member to represent the board and do those signatures. We do those signatures through
um yeah, docuign um so people can see it in the convenience of their home. They don't have to commit to the office anymore. They can look at all the warrants and all the payroll and then sign off electronically. So we do need a motion from the board, two motions, one to authorize somebody to do payroll and
one motion to do um accounts payable warrants. So this so this falls under the oath to bills and payroll which I'm assigned to. Right. So I think what Steve's suggesting here is we should just put a motion on the floor so that it's public record that the school committee is in
is in agreement that I'll be the individual signer. I've signed up for the task. We now make it. So this is in addition to voting. Oh I guess we should we should do that one next year. Right. clear to step. But yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm you want to do both,
right? So, I move that Justin McCarthy be the uh do signature authorization for both accounts payable and payroll. Second. Motion made by Lynn, seconded by Sean. All those in favor indicate by saying I. I. Passes unanimously. Thank
you. All right. Thank you. We'll notify the time, give them copies of the minutes. Thank you for doing that. Great. Thank you. That concludes the presentation portion of the evening. Uh this is our second opportunity for interested citizens. Nobody online. Okay. Sanders, you all
set? Yeah, I think I'm okay. Good. We'll roll through our subcommittee reports first and and and I'll preface this by saying we just started with our committees last week. So, if you don't have much to report, although I I did hear that some members have reached out to other departments in town and
introduced themselves, that's always nice. Um, but I'll take them in order. So, PNBC. Yep. Uh, PNBC. Uh, we discussed the sugar lane feasibility study. Uh, there's a few other notes uh not related to schools, but I've discussed the
recent opening of the senior center. um and what's going on at Mary 6 King Street uh with that and then also that there may be some meetings and needed police and like I guess I guess there's water
coming out like the window there. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Good day. They didn't mention any. I'm just curious if the DPW station that hasn't come up in conversation yet. Keep us
posted on that. Does budget subcommittee? I don't have anything to report. Steve covered the financials tonight. Looks like we're in great shape. Uh policy subcommittee. We didn't last meeting. And then is there a
separate shaker lane building committee update from either Yeah. I mean it just generally we were discussing kind of the approach we're going to take between now and the uh town meeting and then subsequent vote in the fall and then also um we're going
through kind of the schedule of what needs to happen between now and uh the fall uh and kind of how rapid the pace it is to get that stuff done. I just add two things. We also have um some we have two community for we have a community
forum that's going to be towards the end of June that's coming up that was um we're going to be working on that 24th the 24th or the 25th out the dates the end of June and we have three school tours and information sessions one in June one in Jul August and one in
October and that's all on the Sherlane uh building website. What does what is the community forum all about? Uh so the tours that we have set up in June, August, and October are a tour of the building and a Q&A where the the community forum that we're setting up on
the 24th or 25th of June is really just a forum to kind of like the premeating that we had before the uh town meeting. So we we haven't really established that we're doing a presentation, but it's more of a we will be the community in
question and answers. There will be a presentation on the updated cost analysis for for the bill, right? And we hope to have uh some updated cost figures for our try meeting with the select board and the finance
committee which is scheduled for June 9th. And they're they're in Oh, they are a meeting this week and another one on Monday. Uh prices came in uh pretty close to what they project. That's nice to hear. Yeah. Yeah. Another couple of
things they they talked about the uh CMR process. So they need to get that underway and submitted to MSBA. And they also had a presentation uh by Sarah Ross uh focusing on uh grant money that's available for geothermal
wells as well. Grants are going to be good until 2030 which is perfect for schedule. All right. When you when you folks talk to people, does everybody seem to know
about Shaker Lane or do you still running into people that don't know a lot about it or surprised to hear about it? I'm running into people that are bending themselves into pretzels over whether it should go, whether they can support it
or not. And um there are still questions questions that quite frankly needed to be asked two years ago when it was started and and um and so yeah I think I
I think more conversation is about Sure. I appreciate that comment. So, I I think we're always going to run into folks that want to ask their questions and I think our response needs to be that we have vetted that question and here's the answer to it. And like whether you asked
it two years ago or not, we've gone through the process to say unfort you know fortunately well I should be fortunately this is where we are and this is where this is why we are here. Um people are going to say it cost too much. People are going to say it's in the wrong spot. people are going to say, uh, we should be doing we should be
doing it at all, whatever. Um, and I we, you know, as the school committee, we really aren't technically supposed to be all for it or all against it or whatever. Um, but we're all what I want to make sure that the school committee does is make sure that everybody knows about it and everybody
has access to the information. Yep. And then any every citizen can make their own decision, right? But what would upset me is if people vote one way or the other and they haven't they don't understand the project or the need for the project or the process that the
project has gone through. Michelle, we have another flyer going out to another postcard going out to every household member in Littleton that should be in their mailboxes by next week that has information again. So, we did one in October that went to every household
resident in Littleton. We do have it again going out next month. I'm sorry. Next week that has the school tours and the information session. So trying to get it out. Yeah. Beautiful. How many people are like why am I just learning about this now? This feels rushed. You
know, you're twisting my arms. It's like no, we've been go this process started like seven years ago and we didn't get in and we've been working on this for three years and here we are. We started the conversation 12 years ago. Yeah. Uh it's interesting. And I I just can't share this chart yet because it has to
has to be vetted again at one news meeting. But they did put a chart together of the school builds that are going on right now and compared the square footage cost to to cost. We're actually at the low end. I think they're about eight comparison.
So I mean this it's just what California was that Massachusetts. I knew I knew you were going to say all Massachusetts. All MSBA supported. Yeah, but I mean these are the costs and and uh it was it was a good it's going to be a good
comparison to look at because it also dispels the the rumors at times and we're trying to build a castle, right? You know, because we're we're building a school that that uh is very similar to what every community would build uh if
it were they were building a K2 school or another elementary school. There are no ex there are no special parts to it that are unique just to us. I mean that it schools are designed around educational plans and I think that's a point we need
to continue to emphasize and the the den spaces are are simply I mean if you just if you have a hallway that's 10 by 20. We're creating wider den spaces by
shrinking that hallway in half and making it irregular. So we're not adding space. We're we're using space in a more efficient manner. So th those are the messages that we we need to continue to to get out to the public. Yes. Could we
you you brought up some numbers of years that things have been talked about. Could we come up with a statement that was accurate about it? So when we talk about the the project, well we you know having started the
conversation in X here and then really um started working our committee a committee was formed three years ago what whatever in this year and over that those and over
the last three years of work we have come to where we are now and just like get ahead of that whole we already have that It's right in there. Our presentation from Yeah. I was just I I would like it because I would like to be used it in conversation. Okay. So the uh
our if you can't find it's right on our all of our presentations are on our website. So you can't you can't if you don't feel you have what you need, just let me know. Absolutely. I'll go find it. But that's it. It's it just occurred to me and and you're right. I mean you we we hear the oh you know this this
this came out of thin air when we oh we know it was was and so just being having those statements to get ahead of that. Sure. Yes. the um I think one of the best examples of time most recently is perhaps like the uh the apple orchard and what the town was going to do with
the apple orchard and the apple orchard working group and all the hours that went in and then town meeting happens and people are like why don't we try this why don't we do this what so ultimately they ended up putting together like an FAQ which had all of the why don't we do this instead and it gave you the answer as to why we're not
doing that um and I think that if we already don't have something put together for shaker like we need to have all of the the questions we have that readily available. We actually do. We would say if you think there's a question on there that we do have an
FAQ. Yes. But if there's a question on there that you think we should look into and answer, please let us know or we I will take a look at it and we could all just start forwarding stuff that we hear. Yeah. Oh, that would be perfect from the community because we're going to get a lot of why don't why isn't this
a one to four school? Why, you know, why is it here? why does it cost so much? Um, then you think of this. Mhm. And the reality is is that all of those have been addressed, but when it's that, you know, the week of town meeting, all of a sudden it like stirs up a bees nest,
right? Um, and we don't certainly want that. So, Mr. Sanders, I saw that your hand like to allow you to speak on the topic again if you so choose to do so. Sure. understand the 672 grade. One of the big mistakes that this
town makes is that people become concerned about how much is that going to increase our taxes. And it seems though that that message um doesn't get to the right people and they don't start
kicking that number down the road early enough. So people will have an idea as to what our tax is going to look like. I'm a firm believer that where we have information whether
it's found wise or not, if we have a figure as to where we at right now with cost, we ought to tell the people. And when we come in with information that adjustes that, we ought to tell the
people the other one is going to vote no or yes at the town meeting and you would be flabbergasted if they said no. Let's don't go
forward. So if we can educate the people and let them know as I pointed out in my program how we can give you some relief with regards to this taxes as to how much that is the key. I'm g tell you
that is the key with that school because we never been at the point of them talking about a hund00 million dollars with uh the state kicking around. I don't know where they increased the 38% that they said they was going to give to
the school board for it, but still we up in the the $60 million plus and people said it's $60 million that it's $60 million plus entrance for 30 years. So probably 20
years. Well well would never let us borrow our money way too expensive. 20 years. But but that that is what you got to do. And I always preach that when I'm on my program about keeping the can down the road. You you got to give the people the
information even though it may be temporary. You you you'll pull more people in that way than you will trying to give it to them at one time. Right. Thank you. In agreement, I I do think that we've done a good job of sharing information. It's
kind of back to that CPAC comment. It's like there are wonderful resources out there. You got to um you got to find them. But we have to continue to push the information out and we have to try every avenue possible try to get it to them because uh people are it's like
UDL. We have to give them the message in the format that they want to receive it. Um any other subcommittee topics or new business or old business before the committee hearing? None. I'll ask for a motion to adjourn.
Move to be adjourned. Motion made by Miss Woods, seconded by Miss Patel. All those in favor indicate by saying I. I. Let's have a turn. 9:21