##VIDEO ID:NC64VvfkNaI## good evening and welcome to the Tuesday January 14th meeting of the long meow school committee School committees and other public bodies may continue to hold remote meetings through March 31st 2025 under legislation enacted on March 29th 2023 the statute chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 extends Quorum reductions for remote meetings all votes while there is remote participation must be made by roll call vote this meeting is being recorded and aired live by lctv and we will begin with the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the rep for it stands one nation indivisible liberty and justice for all we'll move on to correspondence uh before I begin correspondence let me apologize in advance for any mispronunciation of any names uh from said correspondents um we have an email from M bernardet dening uh dated November the 12th 2024 regarding parent teacher conferences we have an email from The Miz Kayla wlin dated November 19th 2024 announcing students who were accepted into the Western Massachusetts senior District Festival we have an email from Miss Jessica coat kot uh dated uh November 20th 2024 regarding contract TR negotiations with the Long Meadow Education Association Unit D uh we have an email from Mr Richard Alber dated uh November 21st 2024 regarding the traffic at Long Meadow High School uh and lastly we have a memo from a Mr Donald Jarvis director of the occupational education at the lower Pioneer Valley Career and Technical education center regarding the Walter E Quigley Jr student of the month award for November 2020 before yeah I don't see the name for that but hold on we've got that [Applause] um I don't see a long M students so they must have just sent it I don't see a name from long anybody else see one no not sure okay nope I don't see one okay would you like me to strike that the same thing no no it's still an email you were totally right I just also was looking for the name of the student thinking there might be one okay all right thank you so much moving on to approval of minutes we have a few minutes to recommend I'll entertain a motion I move that the school committee approve the minutes uh to the December 5th 202 can I do all three of them uh no we'll do one time one time all right de December 5th 2024 school committee meeting as presented we have a mo a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Estelle yes Adam yay Jamie yes Michaela yes Zach yes and yes for me as well there's another I am further move that the school committee approved the minutes to the December 10th 2024 school committee meeting as presented we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any further discussion see none one we vote Estelle yes Adam y Jamie yes Zach yes Michaela yes and yes for me as well and finally f with kinetic energy I move that the school committee approved the minutes to the January 9th 2025 school committee meeting as presented we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion to a vote Estelle yes Adam y Jamie yes Zach yes Michaela yes and yes for me as well um public speak we do not have any members of the public here and none online so we will roll on forward to business with guests which brings us to our student advisory Council and Miss Heidi drwick assistant principal over at the high school come on in we'll turn over to you guys okay so to start we had right before break we had our talent show uh senior vers faculty basketball game and maker space like the last couple blocks before that afternoon block on Friday before we left um so for the talent show we had a real good variety of student performances um including a band to finish it off with both uh teachers and students performing as well as our VR game performance perance by one of our students which was really cool to see um and then in the maker space students um could participate in craft making and stuff along those lines in SEMA and then also the basketball game got really good um attendance with students watching and it was a really good environment in there okay this week we have midterms there's three midterms tomorrow and Thursday and then two midterms on Friday and then after midterms the second semester will start um with quarter 3 beginning on January 21st um and then next Friday January 24th we're GNA have the Special Olympics unified bot tournament at Murdoch high school with around 11 other schools and it's free for students to attend and watch and either play in or cheer on the team and then just for a quick Athletics update we're kind of in the middle of the regular season right now um western Mass stuff will start up in like two or three weeks and then after that um teams will move into the state tournament all right that's everything all right any questions comments feedback who won it was teachers right I mean no it was the students by one point and I still question that we've got controversy still question okay yeah I say you really buried the lead on that all right well good luck with midterms next week um or this week um and hope that it all goes well um and we'll see you again soon thank you thanks for coming out all right moving forward into um chair report um just welcome back to everybody into the new year um it's good to see the emails flying with lots of great activities and events already starting to fill up everybody's calendars um and thank you to everybody for all the work they're putting in making all of those things go so well um any other school committee recognitions and announcements all right seeing none we'll head over towards Dr superintendent's report uh just a couple items for you tonight and I can do it in the form of a a showand tell sort of um first I want to hit on uh the uh the news that we had a a data breach that power school experienced a data breach and uh that affected um staff and student data um there was a um several we we've recently posted the data fields that were copied and exported from Power School uh and we had notified staff and families of this uh for the most part we were it was um data that did not include Social Security numbers but as I explained in an email to families uh there were and staff there were some students who had either separated from us or graduated in the Years between 2005 2009 that in fact had uh Social Security numbers copied and exported as a result of the power school data breach uh so it's our job now to um do our best make our best effort to reach out to those former graduates those former students to let them know of this data breach and extend uh credit monitoring to them through Power School and so I just wanted to share with the committee uh and I'll I'll just share the screen if I could um a website that we put together to provide uh staff and Community with the critical information they need as a result of the data breach so uh right on the landing page of the district website uh there's a link that would take you to the power school data breach updates and you'll see that I won't go through all the fields here but we've included all the communication we received from Power School on this matter uh and FAQ from Power School uh included the messages that I've sent to staff and families on this and then uh just in the interest of full transparency we uh copied uh we let staff and families know what data fields were breached and our Tech team did a nice job of kind of translating uh the data fields to help families and staff understand what information might have been been included in that data field uh and so the student data fields are there and then the staff data fields as well so um personally identifiable information that included names addresses uh dates of birth um and you know I'd encourage anyone with questions to to take a look at the information that we've posted I'll send this out to families tomorrow just so that they can uh be specifically directed to that but I want to thank RIT team for uh jumping on this so quickly they really uh did some nice forensic work to help us understand what data was exported from Power School uh and they've been on a series of uh webinars and phone calls with power school as Tom and I have been as well we have been in touch with um our attorneys on this matter who in turn have been uh squeezing Power School to make sure that power school is being responsive to longm of public schools and so confident that um uh in the very near future we will have uh access we will have the ability to offer credit monitoring through Power School uh so we'll stay on top of that um you know again uh grateful to Our IT team for really jumping on us and help helping us understand um the uh ins anounce of this of this data breach and um it really underscores the once again the import import of of uh cyber security and um you know there'll be some additional reviews that we will conduct as a result of of this incident so if the committee has any questions or anything any input for us there might be questions that I I am in a position to answer or there might be questions I can take back to our it team so happy to um happy to feel any questions you might have about that all right questions from anyone I know yeah all right thank you yeah thanks for that and lot lots of information to review if if anybody uh is interested the other thing on a on a lighter note that I wanted to share with the committee and the community is um some of our recent work associated with the building project and so this file here um is uh the most recent uh iteration of the floor plan from Jones and wit IT architects our entire uh central office admin team and Middle School admin team met with jwa on uh the 13th just to sort of take a look at the floor plan and the adjacencies that they have mapped out and really to make sure that we have um sort of spaces and well- defined spaces and supportive spaces for uh the entire middle school program so uh we continue to work with jwa as they as they refine the schematic design uh this work will uh the schematic design work will be done sometime in the spring and submitted to the msba uh but uh we'll send be sure to send this uh a recent iteration of the floor plan on off to uh the community and the staff as well so some exciting work uh and you know we're we're I'm I'm grateful to the administrative team for kind of putting their heads together and providing jwa with some critical feedback uh to make sure that we've got uh some great spaces laid out for um for our staff and our students so exciting times and uh there was no building committee meeting uh this month but I do anticipate that there will be one uh in February as well so if you have any questions happy to happy to take that all right all right thank you that's it all right great thank you um other administrative reports no I have couple things coming up a little later on the agenda sounds good student representative report back over to so just to add a couple things from from before the holidays um we had our holiday sweater competition um including with five categories including most created and most fested um and we had a really good turnout with that um each student who won each category won a trophy and they were announced on the announcements at the end of the day so that was a really fun way to just have some good school SPH going into the Break um also before the break we had LHS Writing Center college essay week which was an entire week of different workshops to help students from um with students tutoring other students from The Writing Center um in their college essays and including supplements and the general com up essay so it was a really good week um because obviously all those essays were through January 1st um so yeah that was really good and then the cast list for the senior cosplay Frozen was announced today and that will be performed in midm March excited about that nice that's always a good one um and congratulations to you I hear you've made some decisions about your college plans yes do you want to tell yeah I'm going to cby college congratulations congratulations not as importantly but do you have Ro in the uh senior class play no I don't you don't you're you're a busy man so and a man of many talents so I thought maybe that was a possibility so that'll be a fun show that's always nice nice night all right wonderful um other reports um lpvc Zach no report all right thank you energy and sustainability is still all right um I have a couple of um reports so one is they are going to resend the survey because they only received 195 responsives so they're looking for um more folks in the town to respond to their survey and I know um the superintendent share with the you know family members um so if you know you're able to share it again that'll be much appreciated from the committee um the other one is um I know there is a coordination another meeting regarding the idling that I know you uh have scheduled but the other one they are planning a future Planet Fiesta on May 3rd at the green um where a lot of uh I know three um high school students are involved I don't know if you are aware Andrew um it's okay um but so they're going to have an auction they they're hoping to auction a compost having a um recycling fashion show and they're working to have some food vendor and an exhibitor so uh more details to follow from the system sustainment energy and sustainment committee all right great thank you that sounds like fun um and seal Michaela um this month's seal meeting was cancelled on bling it's going to be rescheduled um and so the next meeting is February 12th on Zoom from the Department of De developmental services on transition planning all right great that's it y thank you all right Finance subcommittee I'll turn over to which of you gentleman's going to uh I can start off we have uh three building use requests that are in your packet tonight on in a consent agenda the first is from the Blueberry Hill PTO for use of uh the Blueberry Hill uh parking lot uh in uh for a 5K and carnival on May 18th uh from 8:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. the second request is from the Glenbrook pack uh for the annual Bulldog dash of 5K on May 4th uh for use of the Glenbrook on uh from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. uh and the last one is a request from the national multiple scr Society they are already approved for use of the high school they are looking for um a Hydration Station at Williams uh for their annual uh Charity Walk which is on uh I believe May 3rd um and May 4th it's from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. um and that would be at the parking lot of Williams we are in conversations with the uh MS Society because there is a lacrosse tournament here to maybe see if we can move their event to Startup Williams so there's not so much congestion on the High School site but we're still talk with them so those are the three building use requests we have tonight all right we have a possible motion related to a consent agenda I move on the recommendation of the finance subcommittee that the school committee approve the consent agenda for the January 14 2025 school committee meeting has presented all right so as a reminder there is no discussion of items if they are on a consent agenda so if we would like to have one or more of the items on the consent agenda um discussed we'd have to vote to remove an item from the consent agenda does anyone have a request to remove an item from the consent agenda all right seeing none we have a motion do we have a second we have a second thank you any discussion saying none we'll move to a vote Estelle yes Adam yay Jamie yes Zach yes Michaela yes and yes for me as well and then there are two FY 25 budget reports in your packet they are informational uh just kind of tracking where we are in terms of monitoring the FY 25 budget uh one is the year- to-day budget report that has some projections through June 30th at this point it shows us with a possible small deficit um again I would say because my projections are conservatively High um I'm not overly concerned about that at this point but we'll continue to monitor it uh and then there is the an updated revolving account report showing uh transactions uh revenue and expenditures through January 13th so they're informational but I'm happy to answer any questions now or if a member has some that come up after the meeting all right any questions related to either of those budget items all right being none we will move on to policy um policy subcommittee met on December 30th 2024 someone have a report for that is that Julie uh I I was there um we we had a very substantive meeting it was um aidite and it was uh you know it was it was very um it was very respectful and uh we discussed um how to approach uh different funds in terms of um you know the uh the the boosters and um we were going to be looking for a little clarification onto kind of categorizing the quantity of amounts um you know as far as the the funds what would constitute a gift what would constitute a booster possibly you know creating a salary for a certain coaching position be it an athletic booster um and so we're we're going to be getting that information back back and and hopefully coming up with a a more cogent definition you know to be able to to categorize what is a gift what is a uh what would be salary supplementation so that we could you know come up with a policy that would keep us in a good place as far as Title 9 is concerned we don't want to get on the wrong side of uh any regulations there want to make sure everything's above board and um yeah so we'll we'll continue to evaluate that moving forward all right great just quick mention that um as a followup to that we had at the request of the polic subcommittee reissued the booster club uh inventory that we had sent last year and really to try and get a handle on uh the level of donations uh and support that is provided by the booster club in the areas that Adam mentioned so uh the results of that are are coming in and uh when we have a full response we can reconvene policy sub or or perhaps Finance sub to take a look at that as well so all right great thank you appreciate that um curriculum sub um we have a recommended motion related to approving minutes from a um curriculum sub meeting early this year I move that the school committee approve the minutes to the August 15 2024 curriculum subcommittee meeting as presented thank you we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Estelle yes Adam yay Jamie yes Zach yes Michaela yes and yes for me as well same thing related to the evaluation subcommittee meeting I mooved that that same school committee approve the minutes uh to the October 18th 2024 evaluation subcommittee meeting as presented thank you we have a motion to we have a second second any discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Estelle yes Adam yay Jamie yes Zach yes Michaela yes and yes for me as well all right that brings us into ongoing um business which will begin with the Middle School building project do you have anything else on that right nothing beyond what we talked about earlier okay perfect um school committee assignments so um The Wellness committee we have do you want to tackle that one certainly uh so um per your policy we uh are obliged to review the wellness your wellness policy and so that should happen every three years or so so nil de irisari is heading up that work for us uh she has assembled some staff and parents uh to take a look at our wellness policy this is a policy that covers things uh relating to nutrition education and uh recess and physical activity and um some uh requirements of our food service program it's a fairly comprehensive program uh or policy rather and so um your policy does require that that the school committee be involved with that Wellness committee policy review I think if there are changes to the wellness policy it would eventually be brought back to the policy subcommittee uh but if any Committee Member is available we have meetings coming up on February 12th March 12th and April 9th recognize that the timing of these uh this may not work for your own calendars uh but even if it isn't if there is a Committee Member who would volunteer at least to be a liais on to that Wellness committee I'm sure that would fulfill the requirement and that that person could then sort of report back to the full committee or the policy subcommittee so if there's any Committee Member who's interested in these matters and I can Le a I I think I Le a as well as the best of them perfect all right so you're good to do that you'll look at the calendar figure out yeah my wife doesn't have anything on those days so I think I'm free I'll pass I'll pass it along to thanks great thank you so much all right new business that brings us to school Improvement plans um and we have a brief presentation related to school Improvement plans tying them into our district Improvement plans the uh the individual School Improvement plans uh have been with you for some time now and um it's an opportunity for me to provide the committee with an overview of those individual School Improvement plans uh and potentially consider uh a motion to support those plans uh so if I could I'll just pull up a slide deck so the um School Improvement plans this was a presentation that we had originally slated for November 26th um but wanted to make sure that committee had an opportunity to review the plans in their entirety and as a whole the uh the the district growth and Improvement uh for me has always been based on three principles that have been near and dear to me as an administrator for a long time and that is a commitment to continuous Improvement when I was a young assistant principal uh I worked under superintendent Tom McGary uh who uh coached all of us on the principles of continuous Improvement and so that's been something that's been part of my orientation for a long time uh Dr McGary uh also helped me understand systemic alignment and the concepts of synergy how when we're all uh the gears are all turning in the same direction it produces greater effects and greater energy so I've kind of kept these principles near and dear to my approach to District growth and Improvement uh so shout out to Dr Tom McGary former superintendent in Long Meadow had a big influence on my my career um the planning cycle uh we have uh introduced School Improvement plans that line up uh cyclically with our district Improvement plan and so the cycle that we are on uh represents a district Improvement cycle that would run from December 1st 2024 through November 30th 2027 so we're sort of at about 3:00 right now on this on this planning cycle um the thought is that the plans would though we have mapped out three-year plans at the school level the thought is that they would potentially need to be tweaked and adjusted based on uh new realities and new needs in the years ahead but um you know the the hope would be that uh if we were to get the committee's approval tonight that we would continue with plan implementation and and do our best to implement and monitor our progress along the way and then in the fall of 25 uh we'd be back we'd be back to that plan assessment and plan revision stage so always on that three-year planning cycle um School Improvement Plans by Statute are developed by school councils school councils are representative school-based committees that consist of principal uh parents teachers and other community members annually uh the law require requires that they develop School Improvement plans that are consistent with student needs and you have some specific policies relating to the development of uh School Improvement plans under School councils in your policy manual our district Improvement goals which um hopefully the committee and the community are increasingly familiar with are reflect a commitment to uh datadriven mtss processes uh uh based B on the principles of Universal Design for Learning to ensure that uh learning is accessible uh to all students it's based on a commitment to inclusive practice to reflect uh the diversity of our Learning Community it's based on a commitment to embedding the vision of The Graduate uh systemwide and it's based on a commitment to creating safe and supportive uh school learning environments so uh under each of those uh goals are there are a number of uh different objectives that are embedded in our district Improvement plan and I again I hope you see the um School Improvement plans reflected in this broad overview of the district Improvement plan that is shown here so tonight I'd like to just do my best though though the the school Improvement plans are dense documents that are in your meeting packet I wanted to do my best to just overview the school Improvement plans and highlight some objectives that cut across all of the schools so at the elementary level uh the there's a significant commitment to the roll out of Panorama and the refinement of those mtss practices and and when we talk about mtss we're talking about tiered systems of Port so a couple of screenshots here to reflect um the power and potential of Panorama um let me start I'll start with this one with Panorama is a tool that we adopted this year and I think the the roll out of Panorama will will take us really many years we're exploring the capabilities of this powerful Tool uh and really feel strongly that it's a tool that will help us uh become more aligned in our mtss processes uh and it will help us be even more data driven in terms of uh tracking student progress monitoring their progress and intervening as necessary so what you're seeing here is a screenshot of uh a schoolwide uh overview and with Panorama students can be designated as as excelling as on track as at risk or uh in a critical phase in the areas of academics attendance uh behavior and social emotional learning and we're at different uh places in terms of our our use of Panorama I think uh at the elementary level there's uh the focus really is largely on uh tracking student academic performance using the the tools of Panorama and so uh this is uh a more granular view of uh school-based distribution of students on in the four categories that we mentioned and you'll notice on the left that Panorama allows us to uh filter and get reports based on a number of different categories if we wanted to understand the performance of a particular um uh student demographic if we wanted to understand Trends if we wanted to look at the intervention plans that are in place so it's you can see it's a very powerful very robust tool and and we're really at the early early stages of using Panorama to support student learning uh this next slide maybe will provide sort of the uh best overview for you of this is now at the student level where we're able to uh take a look at let's say a student's responses to anal survey to understand uh their experience with self-efficacy whether or not they believe that they can uh can produce quality work we can look at attendance patterns we can look at uh academic patterns and really understand um at the individual student level uh how students are performing and then to back to drive you know you can drill down to any any one particular indicator in this case this is a screenshot of how a district might uh evaluate chronic absenteeism across the district so you have the ability to uh take a look at the number of students who are deemed to be chronically absent and you can look at your 10day moving averages your monthly comparisons your yearly comparison to see if that's an indicator that we're um that we're doing better on over time so um early stage use of Panorama but um our teachers particularly at the elementary level are using it to uh refer students for mtss intervention they're using it to develop and monitor intervention plans and panorama represents sort of uh One-Stop shopping in terms of its one place where uh teachers and interventionists administrators counselors can can look at um a student's performance on a universal screener they can look at a students's uh attendance they can even get some sense of uh how they might be responding toal surveys so it's it really provides that One Singular place that teachers and admin ad ministrators can go to evaluate student performance and decide uh what intervention plans make sense for a particular student so we're really excited about panorama um like I said early stage um use of it and we're still uh learning about the capabilities and exploring how it works for for our kids and our teachers so uh it's an exciting tool for us um wouldn't mind stopping there for a minute because I think if you went through our school Improvement plans you probably would see Panorama represented um you know repeatedly so just want to give the committee an opportunity to ask any questions you might have about panorama or if there's questions you have after the meeting we're happy to answer those as well so questions from anyone I'm assuming you don't put Social Security in there love the question uh Panorama uh it it's siloed and and although it integrates with Panorama uh it is siloed and it didn't get hit with the data breach that uh that we experienced uh earlier so good question though I mean as I think it is you know getting aside it's something that as we bring these additional tools on you know we just have to make sure that they are um that they have appropriate data privacy controls in place we do belong to a uh a data privacy Consortium so the tools that we use as Educators have to pass muster with that data privacy Consortium so uh that's one way that we we sort of you know work to make sure that that students data is private and protected and uh particularly when you're talking about these sort of extensions of of power school so good question though Michaela yeah I just I thank you for showing this to us because it's really cool and I love how timely it is for kids especially in elementary school um you know and that it's Universal to all teachers to see it I was just wondering is it something that like syncs from all the other databases or do you have to like input the teachers input all the information in here yeah we we we um the the teacher inter face with Panorama would involve accessing an mtss referral form so they might have to uh enter some information about what um what teaching techniques they've used in class to support a student but Panorama would pull all the universal screeners they would pull mcast data they would pull attendance data so we're trying to make sure that it's not burdensome to educators in terms of having to uh enter information so it for the most part we're finding that it seamlessly integrates with Power School uh but Tom has worked closely with our Tech staff on this as well I don't mean to put you on the spot but is there anything you'd add to yeah no I think we're still actually pulling in some of the historical data I think the other piece is the development of a plan would be within Panorama also in terms of an intervention plan and be able to update it as they monitor progress of the student in terms of the key um indicators and then you know just that's awesome because I feel like then there's no loopholes if a kid's change transitioning to a new school you can like go in there and see all that but something like the student like if so for example if I was teaching second grade at one of the schools and I did um ANL student survey with my in class do do they do it like on Panorama or is that like information that if I want track I have to like put in every month I believe they're using their Chromebooks to respond tocl surveys and so it wouldn't require that data entry but yeah I think if you're using one of the surveys that is part of the panoram platform the information would be contained within it but if it is say a self-developed or District developed one that's not in Panorama then the information probably would have to be added but I think think uh through our student information Specialists they can usually upload Mass information from our spreadsheet or you know some whatever type of electronic information we have available that's it seems like really cool that you could just do it right on through the Chromebook 2 Panorama and have that information every month and track it you make a great Point too Mel about um sort of making sure that we're supporting students as they transition from grade to grade and school to school so that you know the the receiving teacher can look back and see uh you know get some information on a students's progress and see what interventions if any were in place they can look back at Universal screening data uh they can look back at attendance data so I I think it will help with um creating a more seamless transition for kids from year to year so I appreciate you pointing that out all right other questions and thoughts I let you keep going sure so to to build on that the um the the Panorama surveys um we we do anticipate that there's a number of Panorama surveys that we can access that will help us understand um students sense of belonging uh and then there's even tie-ins to the vog uh that can be implemented through these surveys um so we're excited about that uh to hit the high school's work on goal one um Tom Landers has been working with his staff on the development of formative assessments this was a recommendation that came out of the neasc um re accreditation process and it's really encouraging uh to see that our high school educators are diving into the development of formative assessments um candidly um when I was teaching high school years ago it wasn't really part of my practice uh but increasingly we're recognizing that you know we can we can uh create better instruction if we're doing these formative assessments along the way so Jump Ahead uh the second goal relates to inclusive practice for a uh diverse Learning Community um Dave Allen at Blueberry is doing some interesting work with his staff uh on representing uh student identity I've been uh pleased to see some of the ways that his staff has uh created activities schoolwide activities or classroom based activities to um highlight uh different cultural Traditions different religious Traditions different ethnic traditions and uh so students have an opportunity to uh to Showcase their own backgrounds but also learn from others as well so um I'm thinking about an activity I saw at one grade level I forget what grade level it was but it was a beginning of the year activity it was an all about me activity and and the teacher encouraged the students to um represent uh their individual Traditions to their classmates so that uh was good learning experience for the kids um again at at the middle level uh Nicole fores who's got a strong background in instructional leadership uh has set um for the middle schools uh a commitment to learning walks to make sure that we are uh evaluating inclusive practice across all classrooms uh Tom Landers uh has done some great work at the high school with his staff around uh staff diversification but he's interested in creating uh a website and M materials that demonstrate that we are looking for uh diverse applicants and we've talked a little bit about the different ways we can reach out to uh different uh organizations different uh College and Career Centers to ensure that we're we're uh sending messages that we are very interested in uh diverse applicant pools around embedding the vision of The Graduate uh again at Blueberry recognizing uh vog learning behaviors so each month um blueberry for example is is highlighting one of the learner behaviors associated with the vision of The Graduate and they're doing some formal recognition uh activities so one month it might be critical thinking and so during that month teachers will identify students from classrooms who through their coursework have demonstrated critical thinking and they're doing some formal recognition of that so it's a good way to to get the students to understand the complexity of the vision of The Graduate um one of the big pushes for the middle school over the next few years will be developing a new program of studies I think this will involve Crea initially creating a a a program of studies reflective of our our current practice we don't actually have a program of studies at the middle school many many middle schools do but we would like to get a program of studies on paper so that uh families students staff really understands the uh bread of the program and they understand what the expectations are at various grade levels and in various courses so uh once we get that down then obviously we would be looking to develop a new program of studies for the new Middle School to open hopefully in the fall of 28 and then um uh Mr Landers again with his staff at the high school uh really um evolving and changing how they using those connect blocks to Foster vog competencies they sort of had their first um experience with connect blocks I guess it was last year and they've made some adjustments to those connect blocks based on staff and student uh feedback so uh grateful that the high school has created these sort of timeouts during the day occasionally to uh promote some of those important vog competencies and then finally uh creating safe uh School climates and safe learning environments for students um so as an example at Wolf Swamp uh Mr Matas and his staff um have um begun the development of the student surveys uh and then uh one of the other ways that this is happening is through the new IEP process and so students as young as preschool have an opportunity to to have their voice heard at uh Team meetings which is kind of exciting so the youngest students will uh if they're available for a team meeting would have an opportunity to talk about what their goals are what their hopes are and that really isn't really lines up nicely with the vision of the graduate which really tries to get students to be in charge of their own learning so I'm happy that the the IEP team meeting process is also reflective of that um at the middle level ruler strategies to promote uh positive learning environments uh both schools have developed schoolwide Charters uh um to help everyone understand what the behavioral expectations are and then at the classroom level they're developing um those Charters as well so engaging kids in the process of developing those Charters those behavioral agreements has been really powerful and then uh finally um kudos to the high school for tapping into in-house expertise to be sure they understand how to support neurod Divergent Learners so there's been uh considerable amount of professional development at the high school that uh has been uh provided by LHS teachers with expertise in critical areas uh one of those being uh ways to support newer Divergent Learners so uh much much more to our school Improvement plans but I hope that provides a bit of an overview for some of the common goals that are cut across all the school Improvement points and so happy to answer any questions that you might have or take back any feedback that you have any questions from anyone thank you very much for putting um that together and big thank you to our um um administrators at each of our schools and also to the school councils for the work they put into those um and that alignment to the district Improvement plans um if anyone has any other comments questions Andor possible recommended motions I do feel moved I I move on the recommendation of the individual school councils and the superintendent that the school committee approved the 24 to 2024 to 2027 School Improvement plans for Blueberry Hill School Center School Wolf Swamp Road School Glenbrook Middle School Williams middle school and Long Meadow high school as presented we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any further discussion I see none we will head to a roll call vote Estelle yes Adam yay Jamie yes Zach yes Michaela yes and yes for me as well thank you again all right moving forward we have a possible acceptance of a gift the Blueberry Hill PTO um has offered to purchase some new furniture for the school library um and that would require the approval of the school committee there's a possible motion I move that the school committee accepted with genuine appreciation the donation for the Blueberry Hill PTO for of furniture for the school ever we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion do we know how much money we I don't actually remember is is that in the how much it cost exactly how much $5,245 188 thank awesome fantastic all right it's a wonderful gift thank you very much I've never gotten a gift like that all right any further discussion none we'll move to a vote Estelle yes Adam yeah Jamie yes Zach yes Michela yeah and yes for me as well thank you very much Blueberry Hill PTO um we also have overnight field Tri request coming from the high school student council are you head into that I will not be going but it's a very um important event we're running one of our Juniors I don't know if we're out to name who they are yet um for president of the Massachusetts Association of student councils yeah so it's really important that we get good participation of um a lot of sophomores and juniors to help campaign for them and it's just a really good turnout um overall with students from all across the state and you get to hear a lot of different diverse perspectives on how to better run our councils all right wonderful you guys have gone to that before if I recall and had a really excellent uh time at that conference taken a lot away from that um I remember you guys came back and gave a little presentation about what you had all right awesome um so uh the dates for that are March 5th through 7th 2025 we have a possible motion I move on the recommendation of the superintendent the school committee approve the overnight field trip for the students from long meow High School to travel to all the way to hyenas massachusett on L 5th through 7 2025 we have a motion do we have a second thank you any further discussion see none we'll move to a vote Estelle yes Adam Jamie yes Zach yes Michaela yes and yes for me as well I look forward to hearing about the conference again this year thank you all right next up mcast determination tackle that piece sure um so you'll recall that in the uh November uh Statewide elections uh the ballot question eliminated uh mcass as a requirement to achieve the competency determination uh for uh students to earn a diploma and so while mcass was eliminated as the basis for earning that competency determination the state would still say that local districts have to um have to ensure that a competency determination is made and so because this affects and members of the class of 25 of current seniors it's important that school committees across the state sort of certify what their competency determination is so in our case and and really what's happening in most uh communities across the state is that school committees are Serv certifying that their local graduation requirements um are the competency determination and so I guess it would be my recommendation to tonight that uh you certify that by passing our local graduation requirements students can earn that massachus its competency determination so I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about that just to add in some clarifying information um for anyone watching at home or anyone who might need it um that um list of current graduation requirements is a component of the long mle high school program of studies which is reviewed and approved each year by the um curriculum subcommittee and also by the school committee as a whole um and can be found online as well any other questions related to this seems like you guys know what you're doing hopefully to clarify for anyone else who's uh maybe wondering about this um would this change be retroactive as of this point or is it related to the class of 2025 and forward particularly our vote related to just before the class of 25 I think um once we have some additional guidance from desie on this circle we might want to Circle back and and you know kind of look at our local graduation requirements and you know what we think should a competency determination could be you know it could be that you just simply revert to uh the courses and credits that are laid out in the program of studies or there might be some other um uh approach that you'll want to consider to have students earn that competency determination but this is really just for the class of 25 we don't want to change the rules in the middle of the game for the class of 25 so that would be unfair and a burden on the staff as well so all right we look forward to more uh Insight from desie and some conversations at curriculum sub and possibly advisory committee moving forward there you go all right any further questions or discussion Andor possible motion does the motion need to stipulate then that this pertains specifically to the class of 25 that would be a good idea yeah I think you could add that to the motion yeah okay well in that case I do feel moved that Theo school committee certify that LPS students from the class of 2025 can meet the state of Massachusetts competency determination for graduation by fulfilling the current Long Meadow High School graduation requirements we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any further discussion see any none one more to a vote Estel yes Adam y Jamie yes Zach yes Michaela yes and yes for me as well all right that brings us to our last um and final motion related to an executive session this is the long one um I move that the school committee meet an executive procession pursuant to Massachusetts General Law chapter 38 section 21A purpose two to conduct a strategy session in preparation with Collective targeting with units A B C D E F and H and purpose 7 consideration of release of executive session minutes of previous meetings not to reconvene an open session okay we have a possible motion do we have a second second thank you any further discussion none move for a vote Estel yes Adam y jie yes Zach yes Michaela yes and yes for me as well we are our adjourned and we'll see everyone in a few weeks a you have a good evening get home safe man