##VIDEO ID:ke5cWPEoa64## recording in progress good evening everyone and welcome to the Malden school committee meeting today is Monday November 4th 20124 the time is 6: PM the next time we will meet is Monday December 2nd 6: pm and it will also be the meeting after Malden beats Medford on Thanksgiving is that right M Mr Angelo please send that message back to Mr conrey so what we're going to do is pledge allegiance to our flag we'll then have a series a moment of silences one for our veterans and also one for the very untimely and unfortunate passing of Lieutenant Scott Carol of the malen police department Mr Bernard to my left to your right is going to talk about election day the hours um how to get information if you need any leading into tomorrow uh we then gonna uh take a moment to introduce our student representative here this evening For the First Time Katherine Fontanella uh sophomore at Malden high school and then we will take attendance to ensure that we have a quorum sufficient to meet tonight and then we will get into this evening's agenda so the agenda consists of the following uh first we'll approve the minutes uh from October 10th then we're going to take public comment uh that will be an opportunity for anyone wishing to address the school committee to either step to the podium or participate via remotely we only ask that you state your name and address for the record and as always we allow three minutes per speaker for a total of 15 minutes for public comment from there we're going to go to our superintendent he has a series of items that he's going to discuss with the committee uh first being around Nature's Classroom uh specifically for the salemwood ferry way in Forestdale uh then there's also a proposed Washington DC field trip for the Forestdale and then from there uh just what's going on in the district uh especially as it relates to the accountability results from 2024 where we are enrollment wise across the district and uh the superintendent goals now that he's um hit four months in the district after that we have two motions and resolutions uh the first is around uh The Residency policy for our students uh in the second one discusses whether or not to do anything with that policy as it stands right now then after that we're going to invite any of the members to offer points of personal privilege as to what's going on in their Wards and then we will take a vote to go into executive session if approved we will be going in to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for contract negotiations with our principles then we'll come back out uh we may vote on that it when we come back out we may not but either way we will then move adjournment until our next meeting so there any questions uh before we begin all right if not why don't we first pledge allegiance to our flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all please remain standing for a moment of silence in honor of all those who have fought for our country and continue to do so today thank you let's also remain standing again in memory ofe Lieutenant scottt Caroll who suddenly passed away this weekend uh Lieutenant Carroll joined the malta Police Department in 2000 after serving our country in the United States Marine Corps and was a patrol officer later became a sergeant and uh was a lieutenant at his passing the department the city are all in shock and I would now ask everyone here to please pray for the family thank you may be seated we're now going to go over to Mr Bernard who has the latest if you don't already know on the times and everything having to do with tomorrow's election thank you uh Mr chair um so yes we have a very important election tomorrow I'm pretty sure that everyone is aware of that um in the city of Malden the hours will be from 7 a.m. to 8:00 P.M and if you're not sure where you go and vote um and you have to go and vote in the ward that you live in uh make sure that you go and you check that out at the city of malm website um if you go and you look under the city clerk page that will go and have you can go and and see where the locations are and where you need to go and vote and if there's any questions feel free to go and email any one of us and we will be happy to go and help you very good okay now uh we want to introduce our new student representative Kath and Fontanella she is a sophomore at Malden high school and we had the um fortunate opportunity to meet with her leading into tonight's meeting and so on behalf of our entire committee welcome aboard let me see hi everyone I'm Katherine fontania I'm currently a sophomore at Malden high school and I'm very honored to be here today all right now let's take attendance mayor Christensen here Mr drummy here Mr McCarthy here miss Bora here miss Macklin here miss Wy here Mr Gray here Mr Bernard yeah Miss Rose zberg superintendent Sipple yeah student representative cathine F so we have a quarum sufficient to allow us to come together tonight let's get into the agenda so we have these minutes from October 10th 2024 any questions queries qualms concerns Mr Bernard makes the motion seconded by Mr McCarthy all right everyone any last minute questions okay hearing none all those in favor say I I anybody here opposed you guys have it that carries unanimously let's take a moment now to hear from the public again we only ask that you state your name and address for the record public comment is now open all right can you do this every month anybody online wishing to address the school committee can do so now we only ask that you utilize the raise hand function all right this tells me we're still in the Sipple honeymoon period it's got to be that all right we're going to close public comment uh and now we're going to shift over to the aformentioned superintendent to go over his report thank you Mr chair um and thank you committee um I do want to take a moment just to introduce uh the newest member of our executive team uh who is the assistant superintendent of Human Resources Dr Sarah mlin if you could all just welcome her um her appointment was as as the committee knows her her appointment was confirmed at our last meeting and um we're delighted to have her join our team and um she's working hard already um want to invite uh the teams from um three schools uh who have um submitted proposals for overnight Andor out of state trips um and the um which under school committee policies requires a committee approval and the first of those three is the salemwood school um they're going to be um they're proposing to go on an Nature's Classroom trip and no principal van is here yes come on up and some members of her team who she will introduce and a student exciting good evening good evening um so I have here with me the sixth grade teachers Miss ma who is our Ela teacher and Miss strer who's our math and we have our student uh who was who's now a seventh grader but she went on the trip um last year and she wants to speak on behalf of how it was um Caroline Machado great hello hello um I'm Carolina Machado um hi I'm Carol Machado I'm currently in the seventh grade at salemwood school I'm here today to talk about why the sixth graders should be able to experience Nature's Classroom I went to Nature's Classroom last year in sixth grade I've already gone camping before and I had an idea of what Nature's Classroom would be like but it was much better than what I had thought one of the reasons why I think the sixth graders should be able to experience Nature's Classroom is because they get to have many new experiences for example they get to be independent spend time with friends make new friendships and most importantly spend time off their phone I remember that before going I was really upset because 3 days without my phone was going to be like a nightmare those three days without my phone were actually some of the most productive days of my life I didn't have anything to distract me and I felt way more connected with my friends and teachers it's very um it's actually really fun to be a nature and go touch some grass but some kids don't do enough one other big reason is getting to do teamk work with people that you don't really talk to which obviously many kids won't like that at first I surely didn't but in the end I made some new friendships and got to see other people's ways of thinking at camp we were in a group that consisted of some people you were friends with and some people you thought you never talked to the bunks were also fun too it's like a sleepover and it was really fun one strong connection that I made that I didn't expect to make was with my science teacher she was in charge of chaperoning our bunk and I got to see a different side of her and that I didn't see in school every night that we got settled for bed routine we would change into our PJs and have a fashion show my science teacher would join in too we treated the hallway like a Runway and it was also really fun if it wasn't for Nature's Classroom I wouldn't have been able to see other fun and cool sides of my teachers one of my favorite activities at the camp was the night walk every kid got a different color marked on their hand and nobody knew knew what their color was until our eyes adjusted to the dark it was fun guessing the colors and seeing if we were right or wrong during our walk we were able to experience with mints one thing we learned was when we would bite into a mint in the dark there would be Sparks it was the coolest thing I'm so happy that I got to experience Nature's Classroom and my oldest sisters went in previous years I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go as well I hope that this sixth graders get the chance to have the same if not better experience than I had going to Nature's Classroom thank you for your time and listening to my experience well said well said principal van please tell me she's coming a m and high in two years right good all right uh anything else you want to add or okay I'm Sarah strer I teach uh sixth grade at the Salem wood school I have gone to Nature's Classroom with student at least 15 times so we have been in touch mostly my coworker Melissa ma who did a lion share of the planning last year a lot of the uh success that we had with the trip was due to her organizational skills and we have a tentative date for the last week in March the camp has given us a price at the charlest uh Charlton site for 350 but we are confident that we can get that price lower than 250 for the um three night 4-day trip thank you um I'm Melissa Ma I'm the language arts teacher at salwood school like M Dreer said I mean the whole grade six team worked really hard last year to put everything together it was a lot of work um a lot of hours extra hours Beyond you know school time um but we made it happen and excuse me the students really enjoyed it um it was nice to see City students enjoy nature and really unplug and and just get that experience that they may not be able to get otherwise um so all that hard work really paid off it gave me goosebumps just watching the kids be kids um seeing them be innocent and just enjoy themselves so you know I really think that this trip is is very worth it and um valuable to our students experience great before we take questions on behalf of all of us thank you for what you do we don't get to say that enough but hats off to you all right let's open it up to questions questions from the members let's start with uh we'll go to miss Hy then over to miss Macklin and then we'll take her from there thank you Mr chair so since you mentioned it I have to ask ask this question about cell phones clearly you're not allowed to take them there so my question is are you just required to leave them at home is there a check teachers what's how does that procedure work so for me um we all they really told us to do is just leave it at home and which kids did do um if they were to bring it I wouldn't have realized but for me I really like that they did that like At first I did not like it at all but I think that one of the like best things about about it was just being in nature thank you and uh to add more on that we also have class dojo where we connect with families so every day every night we send a few pictures and um even some personalized pictures to parents that may reach out of you know just checking in on their on their student which they have every right to do so you know we send them pictures we send them a quick snippet of what their day was like um and you know how how they're enjoying it so far and um m did mention that we would like to do three nights four days um last year we did two nights three days and we realized the second day they finally got into the routine and then they had to go home so we're hoping that this time with an extra night it will really provide that um Ultimate Experience thank you great thank you over to miss Macklin thank you Mr chair um I just wanted um was wondering about the fundraising efforts and so that 250 that's per student is that the anticipated cost per family or we were able to offer um I believe it was 150 through fundraising and grant writing last year and that was for three days and two nights okay and um principal van and her administrative team they were amazing in reaching out to families and we truly make every effort to assure families we do not want money to be the reason that students do not go on the trip okay that was going to be my second piece if there were families who affordability was a factor um are we somehow making up for that to have scholarships available well awesome thank you can I add some of course um also um helping with the fundraising was also really fun too because it gave us like a lot of um different activities to do at school too like especially because last year we did did have a student council so that was also really cool great thank you so much future student representative right there seriously all right let's go to miss spor thank you um just curious because New England weather as we're you know today's probably 40 and tomorrow is going to be I think 70 the dates are the end of March so is there a possibility of cancellations if we're hit with our crazy New England snowstorms do you still go if it snows we go if it snows we do it in all weather we have the weather forecast ready so we can advise our families on what to send for outer wear what to pack extra socks Etc there was one time a snow day here but we were at Camp doing our thing fantastic so yeah they're prepared for everything um and then just I do see in the pamphlet we were received it as a Q&A can my child bring their cell phone and I know it says strictly like no Nature's Classroom Rules dictate no electronics I was just curious in the world of technology and and medicine I think some kids like check their um diabetes like um they use their phone now there's like apps so I'm assuming like there are exceptions made if needed I don't know if you've ever experienced that um we would follow Medical advice 100% And um last year we were able to pay a um SE charge so that we had Arn on site 24 hours fantastic and um last year we coordinated with the school nurses to make sure you know we knew of any allergies any medicines you know Daytime Nighttime midday ens yeah ens all of that um so we had a whole file um a big binder that we brought over there and uh gave it to to our nurses so that that way they can also keep up to date and you know those children would just be pulled whenever they need to um you know depending on their their medication schedule so with that being said with all meals provided I'm assuming if there's dietary restrictions that's provided to them beforehand so they're aware of not serving um y it's a nutree facility so that takes that off of the um off the table so to speak sure and and um they follow also um they help to support students that have um any kind of dietary restriction including for religious reasons as well great so the camp works with us sounds and this is why 15 times you've gone it sounds like you know they they really work to make sure that um they cross all their te's dot all their eyes so um if there's no other questions I don't see any I'd like to make a motion to approve the request motion by Miss Bor to approve seconded by Miss Hy any other questions no questions the other schools that are about to present might want to borrow the student presenter all those in favor say I I anybody opposed okay that carries unanimously thank you very much thank you thank you thank you I'd like to thank you principal van thank you team I want to invite the team from Fairway to come up principal uh Matt stall Mr Stevenson good to see you no so I think Salem covered most of the uh big components there are few details of Fairway that's a little bit different different um Kelly Swanson our sixth grade science teacher couldn't be here she's another spearhead for this but I have Mr Stevenson with us and he's one of our school counselors of the school uh he did amazing things with it last year and the experiences the kids have unfortunately we don't have a student with us so maybe we could borrow her in a second but we do have amazing Stories and and Mr Stevenson will give you all the details all right great thank you yes good evening good evening uh my name is Joel Stevenson one of the school adjustment counselor at the freway school um so last year was my first year at Nature's Classroom um Kelly Swanson um I believe she went about 15 to 16 times before Co um we were able to go between U May 26th to the 28th um so I believe four days and three nights um we were able to bring 52 students with us um we were able to fund raise so we had scholarships for 16 students who were able to go to due to that um our cost last year were about 300 students this year um we have scholarships for every um every 10th student we get a scholarship a free scholarship for that so that that's amazing right there um we're planning to go to Camp Cody in Freedom New Hampshire um and from my experience last year it was just amazing all the activities that the students got to par participate in they had blacksmithing they had um hiking um working as a team building Fords learning about nature it was just such an amazing experience just seeing the kids work together come together um students who we saw didn't necessarily do as well in the class structure really shined in in different environments so it was just amazing to see different students in different aspects be able to come together build different friendships different relationships with different students it was amazing overall good all right uh questions of the committee let's take some questions let me tell you that student presenter did you right I don't see any questions uh is there a motion uh let's get it up on the floor who made that uh Mr drummy made the motion seconded by miss bfor any questions Miss H thank you Mr chair I just wanted to ask you guys uh what your plan was for any sort of fundraising at fairy way yeah so uh we have a movie night this Thursday watching inside out too um we are doing a fotball tournament in December um we're scheduling a wathon with the PTO um we're planning to do further fundraisers we might do um like a bean bag hacky sack tournament um fundraises at local restaurants depending on what we get from them um in the past last year we did um a penny wars which that's all we needed to gener it was amazing yeah excellent thank you P also supports with a lot of scholarships and they have an amazing partnership y all right there you have it everyone so any other questions if not all those in favor say I I anybody opposed you guys have it that carries unanimously thank you Dr Stall um we have uh principal well from Forestdale and he has two field trips um before you tonight the first is a Nature's Classroom proposal and then the second one they are two separate trips different students um is a proposed trip to Washington DC so principal waldi thank you superintendent Sipple um I think that well I'm pleased to be here tonight with Michelle Foley our sixth grade ELA teacher along with miss bratzis and miss boow and our seventh grade team uh the three of them were actually pretty instrumental in the pillars of uh getting Nature's Classroom back up and running for US last year um I've had the opportunity to go a number of times as a chaperon and I was able to go last year as well and I will say the mint in the darkk thing is really amazing and you should try that if you haven't um I learned a lot um I think our kids learned a lot but I I think one of the things that I'll highlight that I don't think has been said well it's been said but uh is how much our staff was able to get out of this experience as well seeing see the kids in this light seeing them in this uh element of teamwork uh seeing them some of them experience nature for the very first time and the amount of work that they put in uh to make this happen driving our kids to make sure that they were able to even have this experience so with that I'll turn it over to uh Miss Foley to share a little bit about the same same trip you guys just heard about so I'll try to put it in different words now that we're going to hear it for a third time um this this was an incredible trip it was the first time I had ever been on it um and I'll be the first to say I'm not a big nature person so the joke of the school was kind of if Miss Foley can do it you can do it and I did it and it was great and I'm like begging to go back um and we had about 73% of students between sixth and seventh grade attend and they all loved it they came back completely different students but in a positive way they were bringing back routine and Community into the classrooms I think to this day they sing the or report I think Miss Bo can attest to that um and it was just incredible seeing the community being built um Partnerships new skills being learned um it was just honestly magical is the only way I can describe it so yeah great all right um let's take some questions but before we do um Miss Foley I want back in on first chapter Fridays you still doing those of course yeah I want an invite all right so let's take some questions first up Miss spor thank you Mr chair I think we've heard about n's classroom but while I have you in front of me uh Mr Wy can you kind of talk about what the students that don't go are doing for those um three or four days that um their peer are are off without technology what are we doing in the classroom to keep them engaged and not feel like they're necessarily missing out or maybe they don't want to go and they don't it's a great question we I'm going to let these guys talk a little bit about it we organized uh a bunch of trips last year that went on during the time that our kids were at Nature's Classroom for the small group that stayed back do you want to share a little bit sure so for the kind of nature aspect of it I believe they went on a nature walk correct what like a nature scavenger hunt through all of the areas um and then we had curious creatures come and they were able to experience a bunch of different types of animals for the stem aspect of it we they went to the Museum of Science and for Community Building they went to Borg fantastic that really makes me feel good that those that maybe choose not to go it's not their thing not ready to leave home are still engaged and um getting that quality you know time on learning but also it's fun yeah so thank you good question next up Miss Hy thank you Mr chair so I'm wondering you said 73% of students it was about 80 students between sixth and seventh grade um Miss Bor you asked part of the question that I was wondering about but the other part is um do we know why they didn't come um a lot of students just weren't ready to leave their phones oh my okay um and some um just decided actually kind of last minute that they were just afraid to stay away from home okay um that being said I don't think we had any like phone calls home at all or any tears shed of the students who did go um we always tell them the first night is the hardest and then the second night you don't even realize you're away class was not a okay no no we had like incredible fundraising last year okay so which we hope to do again I I attended some of those last year I'm looking forward to being there again this year Fall Festival remember 22nd very fun so I will I will be there I think that sounds fantastic thank you other questions will will one of the fundraising events include taping Mr Wy to the wall um Mr Wai will not be taped this year Mr Del Gallo our health teacher will be taped Mr Del Gallo's they don't have enough tape anymore all right back to miss Bor I was just gonna motion to approve the trick all right motion by Miss Bora seconded by Mr drummy any final questions everyone hearing none all those of fa say I I anybody opposed the eyes have it that carries unanimously thank you all thank you one more Mr W I go ahead yeah hey um so so I am pleased I'm going to do less talking I'm going to turn it over to U miss branis and miss Bo who have worked uh really hard to bring back um or to bring a proposal to you to bring back the Washington DC trip which um for those of you who might remember for a number of years um was something that Forestdale did pretty religiously it had the opportunity to chaperone um twice these trips uh few years back um so when they brought this to me and said we'd like to give this a shot um knowing them knowing how hard they work and how much they want to provide opportunities like this for our students I could not have could not wait for them to to write this up and present this to you so we could hopefully seek approval to bring this trip back so I'll turn it over to Megan nation good evening um I'll preemptively say that a number of our students uh who I have a seventh grade were sixth graders with Miss bradis Miss Foley and they were like are we going back to Nature's Classroom and we said we can't but there's DC so uh good evening uh we're here tonight to seek your permission for our seventh and eighth graders uh to take a trip to Washington DC this is going to be the first such Excursion since the co pandemic and we're so excited to bring back this enriching opport after our successful an classroom trip last year uh this trip serves as kind of a Capstone experience uh so it's aiming to establish um uh so hoping it's be a biannual trip hopefully um that will kind of send our oldest kids to the high school in a you know en roing experience um we saw with h classroom so many bonds and so many so much community building that we're really excited uh to hopefully have that same um friendship in that Community um but just in a different location and different enrichment um a number of our students actually who did not go to Nature's Classroom because of phones or nervousness heard how great it was and have now signed up for for Washington DC um so it's it's great that that's kind of um building in our community the trip is scheduled for May 19th to May 31st through the organization world's strides um students are going to fly out of Boston uh they'll fly out of DC where they're going to be greeted by a coach bus and then they have choc block itinerary so literally from breakfast to lunch past dinner there'll be activities um these things might include um the Aaron Space Museum the Museum of national history the American History Museum um as well as significant monuments like the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial so I got the fun stuff but miss bratzis has the money talk the money talk all right um so the quote we got was $1,300 for each student which covers meals transportations Insurance hotels um our overnight chaperon to help to help cover the cost we have organized monthly fundraiser events and an estimated goal of $10,000 in addition um I have a fun little side job that I like to do is find free money so I've applied for over $30,000 in Grants I can't guarantee that we'll get it but at least we can say we tried um and which we hope to support our efforts um we are committed to ensure that no student is excluded due to financial constraints um and the grants will be utilized to cover those students that do need to be covered um and we're happy to answer any questions or address any concerns that you guys may have for us great thank you and again thank you for all that you do along with the ferryway and salemwood and the other schools uh let me just offer on behalf of all of us if we can help add to the experience by getting a meeting with congresswoman Clark or Senator Mary or Senator Warren would be happy to arrange that awesome after all this senat is from here so I think we can make something happen if you needed a hand with that be a great add all right let's go to miss Hy thank you Mr chair um I just had a question uh working in a school that also does Washington DC field trip um you mentioned the night chaperon will World stride provide the night chaperon yes and tell me about that okay um so it is included in our our price um they are vetted chapons uh we're still getting exactly what V it looks like World stride is going to get back to us on that okay um she said it's CED usually and um finger printing but we she didn't want to give us just an answer she wanted to make sure she was giving us the Right facts um and then that chapon I believe was from 10 to like 6 AM they are awake they are depending on our numbers on either side of the hallway um the students aren't allowed to leave their hotel room if they come out they'll give them a warning if it becomes an issue they'll come wake us up and they always say like you don't want to wake up the chapon they're not going to be very happy when you wake them up sounds good they also do noise complaints too so if it's like 11:30 and the kids are still Prett rious they'll give them an off for that as well okay that sounds like a great plan what's the um my understanding from the trip that I'm familiar with is that students are allowed to have their phones with them on the trip and that in in certain situations we've used a different company um so I know that that's obviously not going to be the same their phone was used to access um apps or materials that were to made the the tour more interactive um there's also kind of I guess you would call it a classroom piece um and they could access things you know in a driver Google Classroom do you know if students will be interacting with technology in that way or I would utilize phones in that way so it's not just them scrolling on Tik Tok when there's a monument in front of them um and I love that idea so I look into it uh we love that idea um it's also partf because eth grade's curriculum is civics and so it ties in so fundamentally to what they're learning about um so there definitely is things we could utilize and now my brain is spinning with ideas thank you okay thank you other questions Miss SP four thank you Mr chair um just curious why flying rather than uh coach bus all the way there great question so when we first brought up this idea we started researching different companies and the first two companies that I reached out too said that it's a liability with the coach buses um after looking at other companies as well there are options to um use the coach bus we thought to utilize our time the best it's best to fly out there that way we don't waste the time and we can make the best of the trip I had asked the same question too because I've been on a number of trips as an eighth grade teacher and we'd always just like just like elab we' taken buses down yeah um so I was a little like oh are we sure but I mean listening to all the companies talk about the liability piece and then also factoring in which I really hadn't thought about how quick the travel is versus the seven to eight hour bus ride with the stops and how it eats up so much of your time both on either end seem to make sense a number of other schools that have like websites and things you can kind of compare their trips and a lot of them are doing five days but two of those days are travel days and so they have essentially the same time down there and the costs are very similar to where we are um so along with all the scholarship opportunities that world strive gives to our population um it felt like a better organization to go for okay um and then in the information that was provided says um six out of the seven meals are included so that seventh meal is expect meals wherever we are at the point like grab and go that's just not budgeted in what the student pays for so the student would be expected to bring $20 or you know to pay for that meal okay um and then and we wouldn't want to be cost preventatives of the students on a scholarship we are going to be aware of that and be able to provide exra okay um um and then finally for principal Welly so this seems to enter I mean overlap with Nature's Classroom sixth grade so this is going to be a lot of students out of um the school at one time along with a lot of teachers out of the school but obviously coverage seems to be good we should be okay I think this is a gift to assistant principles carpon and F six seven and eight will all be out of the building at roughly the same times but and if I play my my game rate I'm going to try to go up for the first day and a half of Nature's Classroom and then come back and accompany um our eighth grade seventh and eighth graders to DC um but coverage wise we should be fine um as of right now we're looking at exclusively taking um forestale staff to DC um so but we should we should be okay the number has climbed up a little bit too I know when we submitted the initial proposal it was currently 28 stud have pre-registered now we're looking at 42 42 42 and to add on like what Miss Bo had said earlier um because we made such a great community in Nature's Classroom when we took the students last year we have so many students that did not go because they heard about it there was that that click that we created in Nature's Classroom that they want to be a part of so now they're signing up for DC as well also to add on to the chaperoning um the advantage of DC is that because the cabins with them it's a hotel room there isn't the same um number requirement because last year we had such a boy heavy group that we needed to kind of pull the band teacher and that from the building whereas this year it's be mostly just 73 teachers we won't need to pull in extra well Mr weld I knows that my daughter lives in DC so I am gladly chaperon um I just got back last night and had a Fant time so um and then I think I think you answered all my questions just noting this is the same week as Memorial Day week too so a short week um to have the school somewhat empty um no I think I'm good thank you all right uh seeing no other lights we'll entertain a motion motion by Mr Bernard seconded by Miss Hy any further questions queries qualms concerns hearing none all those in favor say I I anybody opposed the I savath that carries unanimously thank you so much thank [Applause] you all right back to our superintendent right well thank you um to all the principles of all three schools that presented and no one will take offense if you need to leave a little early staff you school tomorrow well actually we don't we have professional development tomorrow but just the same thank you very much for for being here tonight at this time um we the the the second half of my presentation um tonight um is going to focus on our accountability results the portion of our accountability results we did not look at at the October meeting another enrollment update and then I'll be sharing about my goals proposed goals for the year I want to invite uh two of our assistant superintendent uh K Basin of teaching and learning and Pam McDonald student services who will be uh presenting the accountability results and talking about our next steps in response to those results so Miss B thank you thank you good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today as you you know in September the department of Elementary and secondary education released the Statewide accountability data based on last school Year's performance on the next slide thank you um in the October Malden school committee meeting we shared an update on Malden's performance and the academic component of this data release and as promised we are here tonight to share the rest of the information on malin's performance and the um remainder of the data released from the Department so on the next slide you'll see the data that we have available that we'll discuss tonight this includes chronic absenteeism and some high school specific indicators such as our graduation rate our extended engagement rate our dropout rate and our Advanced coursework completion today I'll share the trends in the data and then I'll be joined by my wonderful colleague assistant superintendent Pam McDonald who will discuss the next steps we're taking as a district to address this data so let's start by looking at Chronic absenteeism so you might be wondering what does chronic absentee is a mean this is defined as the number of students that Miss 10% of the school year so for a student who's enrolled for the full 180 days that would be 18 days absent it includes any days where a student might be homesick so how do we think about 18 days out of school on average you can think of this as missing one day every two weeks why does that number matter well the Department of Education has released data that shows the relationship between absenteeism and academic performance and across the state so this is Massachusetts data when you look at the students who had missed those 18 days and then you look at the mcast performance of the students who did not miss those 18 days there's a 20% difference in their passing rate on mcast at the elementary level and when you get to the high school level that rate is even larger 27% so all that to say it's a big deal to miss that much school so on this um on the previous slide you can see how we did in Malden on the left you see our grades 1 through eight our chronic absenteeism rates and on the right you see the high school so let's look at grades 1 through eight first the blue bars represent Malden's chronic absenteeism rate over time so 2019 is pre-pandemic then 2023 and 2024 you see the red line which shows the state average and the yellow line which includes our peer districts as we discussed last time these were identified by the Department of Education as comparable districts due to demographics and size and they include Malden Brockton Chelsea Everett LEL in Rivier and mam so chronic absin ism is like golf you want your absenteeism rate to be low and you want to see it get lower over time right because then fewer kids are absent means more students are coming to school so when we look at our elementary school level we actually see a large drop in chronic absenteeism from 23 to 24 so that's good we're not yet at our prepandemic levels and we're not yet at the state average but we're well below our peer districts here which means we're doing better than our peer districts the state assigns targets for reducing absenteeism and in grades one through eight we actually hit those targets and reduced our absenteeism even below those which is very good receiving four out of four points in the accountability system on the right of the slide you oh you see the high school and we're also seeing a drop in absenteeism from 2023 to 20124 but similarly we're not yet at pre-pandemic levels at the high school level we have more students absent than the state average and our rate is comparable with our peer districts what's not shown in the graph is that we've done better than our state assigned targets for reducing absenteeism again receiving four out of four points in the ab in the accountability system I do want to note that we have the high school and the non-h high school side by side but the scales are different so while we're proud that in both Elementary and high school we've reduced absenteeism from 2023 to 2024 I want to note that we still have more than a third of our high school students as chronically absent and that has a significant impact on academic performance so you know thank you to desie for giving us four out of four points um but we really do want to hold ourselves to a higher bar here in Mal and we want to reduce those numbers below what we see here as we own our responsibility in supporting our students to get to school so in service of that goal on the next slide we look at absenteeism in our specific populations of students to consider where we may need to provide more support to reach attendance targets so I'll give you a moment to look at this graph in all student groups you'll see that we have more students absent than we did did pre pandemic there's a jump from Blue to Red to Yellow but in every single student group we see a decrease from red to Yellow right so that means we have reduced absenteeism consistently across all groups from 2023 to 2024 at the elementary level so that's good news desie sets targets for decreasing absenteeism for every single student group and we decreased absenteeism for every single student group beyond what our targets were as we look at this data however we continue to consider the needs of our students with disabilities and our Hispanic and Latino population as well as our low-income students and these are groups that we know we can support more with our attendance initiatives as those rates of absenteeism are higher than the other groups on the next slide we'll look at the high school data by specific student group so the good news here is that similar to our K through eights every group at the high school school also showed a decrease in chronic absenteeism from 23 to 24 and we went beyond Desi targets for reducing absenteeism for most of our groups except for low-income students and our Asian students who showed more modest decreases so I'll note that their absenteeism did decrease but not at the level that desie would want to see as I mentioned earlier I want to note that the scale is the percent of students in the group that are chronically absent so even even though we are meeting Desi targets for reducing absenteeism we need to hold ourselves to a higher bar than the state does because we still have groups where half of our students were chronically absent last year and there are many groups where more than 40% of our students were chronically absent last year so we want to reduce that again this is data that helps us guide our attendance focused initiatives and the planning that we'll speak about later in this presentation so that's our data on chronic absenteeism the remainer of our indicators are high school specific and we'll start with graduation rate so graduation rate for the high school is shown in the blue bars here and it's shown overtime which is on the bottom axis so I just want to clarify because the years can be a bit confusing desie does not publish grad rates until a year has gone by and that's so that we have time to incorporate the numbers of any students who may have graduated over the summer so our 2024 grad rate is not actually published yet we won't get that information until next year and so our 2024 accountability data what we're looking at today takes into account the 2023 grad rate right so essentially grad rate is on a year delay in reporting so that's why when you look at 2019 you see a blank bar because the 2019 data would have been published in Spring 2020 as you recall nothing was published at that time due the pandemic so the headline here again grad grad rate is a year delayed but we can still find it useful to look at the trends in the graph over time if you don't mind going to the previous slide please um so again chronic absenteeism we said was like golf you want the numbers to go down grad rate is like football you want the numbers to go up with more kids graduating so when we look at this chart you can see our grad rate in Malden has been in the high 70s over time slightly below the state but again above our peer districts from 2022 to 2023 we actually had a decline in grad rate so a lower percentage of students graduating which is similar to the trend in our peer districts and so from a state accountability standpoint we received zero out of four points possible reflecting that our grad rate declined from around 87% in 2022 to around 83 and 2023 so on the next slide we break that down by specific population so what we see here on this slide is that many of our student groups are actually graduating at rates that are higher than the pre-pandemic levels which is encouraging and we also see that within the past few years there's been some rising and falling in grad rates with generally for all of our populations a peak in 2022 and all of our student groups actually showed a drop in grad rate from 2022 to 2023 so when we look at all of of our student groups I do want to point out that our students with disabilities and our English Learners have the lowest graduation rates so this data really points to a place where we can Target our intervention efforts in addition to grad rate the accountability system also looks at our dropout rate which we look at on the next slide so in the graph we see the dropout rate for Malden in blue over time and similar to grad rate we have that one year lag in data so that's why you'll see 2019 with no information and so again with dropout rate we're back playing golf you want to see the number be low and you want it to stay low over time because fewer kids dropping out means more kids staying in school so sadly if we look at the red line for the state you actually see that over the past few years Massachusetts Dropout rates have increased and in our peer districts the yellow line we've actually seen a pretty dramatic increase and now in contrast to those Trends we're happy to see that since 2018 Malden's line is actually going down and we're reducing the dropout rate so that's good news while our trend line since 2018 is pointing in the right direction and we did reduce our dropout rate from 2022 to 2023 we didn't make a large enough decrease to meet our state targets so we dropped from 3.1% to 3% and so the state considered that no change even though it was a change it's a small one um so we received one out of four points in the accountability system indicating that there's more work to do here when we look at this on the next Slide by student group we see a clear win for our students with disabilities from 2022 to 2023 the dropout rate for students with disabilities went down from 5.6% to 3.5% and so that exceeds Desi targets for expected decrease in dropout rate that's very good news from 2022 to 2023 the dropout rate for students designated as English Learners also decreased it went from 88.8% to 6.7% which is a positive shift and it's beyond what was expected by our state targets but I do want to note that the dropout rate for English Learners is still more than double the dropout rate for all students so we want to continue the work that's been done there so to support our English Learners to stay in school so as a district we saw success and decreasing Dropout rates for our students with disabilities and students learning English we do have a few student groups where we saw increases in the dropout rate so from 2022 to 2023 the dropout rate for low-income students increased from 3.4% to 4% additionally the dropout rate for African-American and black students as well as Hispanic Latino students also increased these are groups these particular groups are where we receive zero points for that student group due to declining performance so those are some areas where as a district we know we need to provide more support So in terms of high school data overall we've looked at grad rate dropout rate and we have an additional indicator called extended engagement rate which we'll look at on the next slide so to be completely honest when I first started working in secondary schools in Massachusetts my first question was what does Eng extended engagement rate even mean um so for those who like me may have been wondering the extended engagement rate is a way of measuring whether we can re-engage kids who don't graduate in a typical fouryear so if you want to be technical we look at how many kids graduate in five years and how many are still enrolled in school after that five years and because this is looking at kids over a 5 to six year time frame we have the data on a multi-year lag right so the most recent data available to us is 2022 right we'll get the 2023 data next spring and again 2018 would have been reported in 2020 the pandemic year so that is also blink so when we look at these blue bars we want to see that the extended engagement rate goes upwards the higher the better because it means more students engaged in school and the good news is that in Malden our rate has continued to get higher while the state average has been pretty flat Malden has increased his extended engagement rate and is closing the Gap with the state and in addition while we were previously pretty comparable to our Pure districts we jumped ahead in 2022 and so Malden received Four Points so full credit from the accountability system for exceeding our Improvement targets so what does this good news look like for our specific populations we'll see that on the next slide um the headline um thank you the headline is that we're seeing this success translate to all of our student groups every single student group has shown an increase in extended engagement over time students with disabilities and English Learners have shown the most significant increases exceeding Desi targets black students have shown increasing increases that met Desi targets and Hispanic students have imp improved but below Target so we've discussed multiple ways of looking at whether students are getting across the Finish Line graduation Dropout and extended engagement there's one more data point that desie looks at in the accountability system and we'll look at that on the next slide this is called Advanced coursework completion this is defined as the percent of 11th and 12th grade students who are enrolled in one or more course defined as advanced so this could be an AP course this could be a dual enrollment course for credit it could be a vocational or technical course or something on the list of Desi selected rigorous courses it's important to note that we don't actually calculate this number ourselves and report it to desie desie calculates this number based on our schedules and then reports it to us so for the past few years the state has reported our data as above 70% of our 11th and 12th graders taking Advanced courses and we've consistently received four out of four points for exceeding these targets so that's great news I do want to note that when we compare des's numbers which are shown here to internal data that we have on our student schedules we think there may actually be a discrepancy here and we believe that what's reported by desie may be higher than what we see in our buildings the root of this may be an issue with how desie is interpreting our coursework data and so we're actively working as I speak with the Department of Education on this um we want to alert you to this information to let you know proactively that this number may change um and it may possibly decrease um but we do not have a definitive update at this time um but we will report to you as soon as we have um an update um so on the next slide thank you um we see that on our journey tonight uh We've looked at the full picture of accountability data we've seen that chronic absenteeism has decreased at Malden's K through 8 and high school levels although we still exceed Statewide averages we've noted some specific groups that Malden can do more to support with in terms of attendance such as our students with disabilities our Hispanic and Latino students at both the high school and Elementary levels and I think if you click you should be able to see um the animation disappear maybe not oh there we go um in terms of our high school data um we can see that the graduation rate has declined from 2022 to to 2023 our dropout rate has stayed flat and the extended engagement rate has exceeded targets we know that more support is needed for our students to reduce our Dropout rates and to boost graduation for our specific populations including and particularly our English Learners so being transparent about this data is the first step um but the next and most important step is that we make a plan to address it so at this time I'm uh excited to turn over to my wonderful colleague assistant super Pam McDonald who will speak to some of the next steps that we're taking as a district so chronic absenteeism um I'm first going to talk about uh what our district is doing to adjust chronic absenteeism as you saw in the data we received four out of four points um on working on reducing absenteeism this past year but we really want to go above and beyond that um and our strategy includes um developing a district and schoolwide systematic approach um I think this is some of the most important work that we're going to do this year um as my colleague alluded to if they're not here they're not learning and post pandemic we have a totally different way of looking in an approach to attendance for a few years we told everyone if you're sick if you have a sniffle stay home and now we're telling parents no no they have to be here every day so I think one of the things we need to do is work on our messaging to parents um our schools have done a good job of individually going student by student but we need a more broad um district-wide approach with interventions that are districtwide as well so we are working to be a lot more efficient um and effective in what we do for chronic absenteeism some of the things that we're doing is um the principles and the assistant principles and I have met we're meeting again tomorrow during our full day PD to develop first we're doing a self assessment that looks at six areas it looks at our um capacity building our data our engagement strategies our strategic Partnerships um as well as shared responsibilities between districts and schools so we're going to look at we did a self assessment over the last week and we're going to look at that data we're also going to look at um the root cause analysis for why some of our children are out more than others and what interventions we can put in place we're also looking at a systemwide attendance protocol that has tiers for all of our students that are linked to the barriers that we see when we finish our root cause analysis but um as we do that we're also really working at monitoring our attendance this year for the first time we have started meeting monthly the school attendence officer and I meet every month and look at the list of students that are chronically absent we are putting plans in place for each of those students um they include things like hooking them up with outside Services incentive plans reaching out to the home whatever it may be that we think that child needs to succeed um so what I hope you really take away is that as we do this overall system approach we're also working with individual students to make sure they get here every day next slide so the accountability data so I want to talk about our graduation rate our dropout rate and our extended engagement rate um for this next slide as we saw um the graduation rate is declined from 22 from in 22 to 23 and the dropout rate has stayed the same but our extended engagement rate we exceeded targets so we wanted to look at um what we're doing well um and we want to do two things with um our our rates and the first thing is is we want to play the long game we want to look down because we know that even though the accountability data is specifically at the high school what children do all along is what leads them to the high school so we want to look a little bit at the younger years in the middle school and build a good foundation for when they come to the high school we know that one of the biggest indicators of graduation is your third grade reading level so we want to make sure that we are playing the long game as well as some stuff for our struggling Learners at the high school um so as I know you all know the superintendent is in the process of conducting listening sessions across the district including at the high school and we are deep into anal analyzing the data from these sessions and we plan to incorporate it into strategic planning for s26 the superintendent has made weekly visits to the high school and has begun to Eng engage building leadership in important conversations regarding School Improvement efforts and planning for Sy 26 um all district leaders are meeting with the high school on a regular basis including assistant superintendent and I um we have made it a priority to spend time there and build relationships see what's working well and what we can build on for the future I want to talk a little bit about our Advanced course workk we have some exciting news we are newly designated early college program um so that will increase access for us for um the highle course work and course work with Bunker Hill um as a newly designated Desi partnership uh sorry Desi early college program it will allow us to support a more diverse group of students in um our early um college program um student monitoring and intervention so some of the things that we're doing um that is is that first we're in the process of developing a tutoring program that we're going to launch in the coming months um to really get those students um that are struggling to pass 10th grade mcast a lot of our students will be taking it for the first time we have um students that move in and have never taken it from other states or the countries so our our um tutoring program is going to Target them as well as students that need a little more to boost um boost their scores to reach their meeting in exceeding scores um we will also do a tutoring program for those that are going to take the retest in March um and as we think about enrollment in these program we're looking at data regarding specific populations to Target those that have not done as well um one of the things you'll notice in our data is that um our extended engagement has been really a glow for us are getting students over the Finish Line not in four but in five years has been really a positive um for the high school and I think um a lot of you know about the graduation Academy that's one of our best programs to get them across the line we are sort of changing it a little bit this year in a couple ways we're calling it acceleration Academy we are going to do a couple things we're going to do it earlier usually we wait till third term we're going to started a little bit earlier this year after first term and we're going to Target not only those seniors that are struggling to get over the finish line or our 50 seniors but we're going to look at our younger kids our ninth graders who are failing right off the bat and how do we get some interventions into them before we get to the point where we're paying playing catchup with fourth and fifth year kids that are really struggling so those are the two ways that we're going to change graduation Academy and call it acceleration Academy um the other thing um that we've had a really um success with is our Saturday school this is a target intervention for students that are at risk of dropping out and Saturday school um is an intervention that research shows um is a good alternative for suspension um it can providing the tutoring really can increase their academic con confidence it can give them the skills needed for high school graduation the high school does Saturday school we do pockets of it in our K to8 and we're going to work on expanding that program um for our middle schoolers to make sure that those students that are struggling sixth seventh and eighth grade we don't wait till they're at the high school to get the way they need to be because this is you know not just the high school's program problem this is a k to a program problem as they come up so those are the things that we're doing um to address our chronic absenteeism and our high school accountability data all right assistant superintendent Bine and McDonald don't go away but you can take a seat for a moment and we'll come back to questions in just a minute um I'll actually Mr chair do you want to yeah talk about this before we go to the other please all right so actually don't go that far back bam and come on if you can come back up I think while things are still fresh y um I think it'll be easier to have a conversation about um the data the important data you presented and also the important next steps that you presented Pam I think I speak for the entire committee saying another Well Done presentation um very comprehensive but I think easy for us to follow along so thank you for that uh I would just ask at the outset going forward any of these programs that you're going to institute High schoolwise if you would just make sure our student representative is in the loop um so she can help get the word out uh on what you're doing to address these areas uh just a couple questions and I want to get over to the members the dropout rate 3.1% to 3% we did not get any points for that could you have appealed that because it is a decrease like you said or is it not worth contesting that change so if we really got into the nitty-gritty of it there's a there are um specific targets that are down to the 10th and 100th and thousandth I think a decimal point um and so if they're if they're within that range that 3.1 to 3.0 essentially it it didn't when you go out all the decimals it didn't H the hit the target the graduation rate the four points if we had received those four points would that have put us into another tier or would that have no bearing on our overall rating so we were not designated in the bottom tenth percentile um so we were not classified as District in need of assistance and so we um so it said declined is I saw that word that's what that means so I think what what assistant superintendent Bassin is trying to say is that um none of our schools including Malon High were classified as needing Improvement uh being in the bottom 10% of the state and so what they do is they take mcast they take chronic caps ISM all of these data that we looked at tonight and they put that all into a a a composite score and then they compare malen High to all the other high schools in the state and see what percentile it comes in at and if it's not in the bottom and 10 or or the bottom or below 10 then they're consider it not needing intervention um if it's and I believe it was 17 is that right M 17th percentile so um if if we had made the 4% that you're you're asking about Mr chair then we might have conceivably have been up a little higher 18th percentile 19th percentile but all of those things have to work together for us to really climb R yeah that's what I was asking right okay what is your hunch on the 2024 graduation and dropout rate is it with your sense I would say it's probably similar to the year before I do think again our efforts with um the fiveyear engagement I think we have a lot of students with disabilities who take five years I think that we have programming for students once they fall behind and we're really good at catching them up I think what we need to look at is how we keep them from falling in the first place and I think that's a systemwide it starts at the middle school and you know getting these kids on track as they get into the high school because you know ninth grade is is one year and they didn't just fail there and I think our our we try really hard and we've got some interventions but we have to work on um Shoring those students up before they get up to the high school two final questions and then to the members on the game plan reaching out to the families have the battle sometimes I think yeah because a lot of our families are working two three jobs they may not know day-to-day attendance wise what's happening so that that's a good move and I think one of the things that a lot of people don't realize is you know once every other week we don't notice those students until all of a sudden the end of the year they're out 20 times and then you're like oh they missed a lot of school so really the schools were doing a great job of looking at it earlier and I think one of the things we need to work on as a district is a districtwide message around attendance you know we have lots of families that they don't know why it's that important so I think as a district that's one of the strategies we're going to put in place with the schools you know an attendance Mattis sort of PR campaign that's been lacking in the last few years yeah speaking of which having the attendance officer being a part of the discussions is another wise move I I I know me I've never understood why they have been sort of over there and not part of what's going on here so I'm glad to see that's happening uh just a final question uh might be for the both of you so the way they just Define Cron absenteeism does it surprise you that they don't account for excused or someone truly being sick or would that just be too difficult to decipher so I uh I resist the tendency to speculate as to what the department might be thinking but my understanding of the rationale for the calculation um is that because there is such a huge impact of students being out of the building that they just calculated how many students missed 10% of the year um and so I understand you know at a school based level or a district based level there might be policies that still allow those students to be promoted if some of those absences are excused for example um but from the desie standpoint their perspective is trying to understand who was in their seat learning the material and who was not and so that's my understanding of the rationale um but I can't speak for the Department got thank you all right let's find out from uh the members what they have questions first up Miss Hy hi hi thank you Mr chair I have a lot of questions mostly around chronic as anism also because I deal with chronic absenteeism daily um couple questions actually before I jump to that I want to say that the ideas that I think you are you folks are working with in terms of the grad Academy and starting the interventions earlier is obviously going to yield some really great results I think um I think anytime we have kids moving from small K to eights that they've been at from K to eight some kids who've never literally been in another school ninth grade at the very beginning can be jarring y um I think a lot of kids do well but we know that we have other kids that need some extra support in there I know that you you have some programs that are built in for ninth graders already um I'm imagining you're going to build those up and diversify them a little bit more I think that that's excellent so back over to Chronic Abs andm if I could um couple things that I'm wondering about if you just happen to have in place already either as a district or as a school just functions that are in X2 or things like that they could make your lives a lot easier um in other words is there a trigger when a student has been out five times 10 times something like that that it sends a message to whoever the person is is within the building that's in charge of attendance meaning maybe if you know we're talking about Forest still one of the assistant principles then that triggers um I know you're talking district attendance policy and I'm just thinking uh our parents getting a letter and an email at this point um are we calling them in and asking them for a meeting farther down along the line because as you said if we're changing the the district policy and we're saying you know school is important and you need to be here we need to be engaging in a conversation about why you're not here I think that chronic absenteeism is the most complex problem schools have because there's no one answer the answer is different for every family um so does that exist sorry so to answer your question all of those things are done but it's school by school some schools do it after a week some do it after three days we do have um open Architects I don't know if you're familiar with that which is great it has some really great data you can check the data every day it has who's you know by student you can look your um dashboard you can see who has the most absences in your school right there on open architect so it's really really great you can look at at um by day what day this year do we have the most absences so that's really great for us to look at Trends I'll tell you days that it rains our attendance rate goes down so all of those things are really great in open Architects but that's the thing every school is working really hard and it's like I've said this before we're trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon one at a time and we need a more system approach like what is our policy what is our procedure do we send it after after two days after three days after five days we've talked the assistant principles and I and the principles the schools all send different letters so that is what we're looking at how do we make it so it's a systemwide approach and that the protocol is um well thought out and really strategic because I think our principles and assistant principles are working really really hard at this and we just need to all get on the same page going in the same direction I and I think um I think if you're talking especially about the the districtwide policy then you know and you have PD tomorrow like you mentioned so you're gonna I'm sure you're G to talk about this you know are we talking about two days in a row or three days in a row absent and what's the policy that for that versus three days over three weeks or two weeks or something um but you also made a good point we we spent a couple years telling kids and parents stay home please don't breing Co to school basically and now we're saying no please come all the time we'll send you home if you're really sick so that's a really big brain shift I feel like for a lot of people um also there is kind of a colloquial understanding but I brought in a doctor's note yep I I think it would be hard if you pulled anyone off if you did you know man on the street interview and you said oh well like H how big of it a difference does it make the student had a note from their doctor well this this is very clearly telling telling us that that doesn't matter and I don't know that everybody knows that so that's that feels like an important message to get out there too um another few questions if you could um can I just clarify as well um it does matter in terms of our you know how your your school report card right right it's just not how the state counts it so just to be clear on that I'm with you on that totally um not that you know the answer to this but if you were to go on open Architects right now this is this isn't the real question I wanted to ask but I was also wondering this if you were to run a report right now how many students would be considered chronically absent if they were students for the entire year at this very moment November 4th well I actually um probably I will run that tomorrow because on Thursday and Friday I'm GNA meet with each school to look at who they have so we do it run it okay sorry am I not talking loud enough and close enough um so we we do run it um you know and there's actually um I'm going to introduce it to the principals tomorrow I have um found a classroom calculator where you can put in um your student how many absences they have right now how many days we've had and if they're on track to be chronically absent or not so I think like tools like that are where we need to go so those are the things that we're working on District flag and just one more question actually oh sorry if I could um I know tomorrow that you'll be working administratively in terms of the way that you want to roll this out with a districtwide policy but when it comes to the for lack of a better term boots on the ground dayto day who's going to be implementing the attendance policy and what I mean by that is who's going to be the contact person with the family is this going to be a multis multi- systemic collaborative approach with your adjustment counselors your um your VPS like who's who's managing it so first of all I want to say it's going to be a protocol because we don't do policy you do policy I do protocol sorry um but that's okay but so we're really in the beginning stages right so we're looking at this we just did a self assessment there's a lot of great tools out there um I have a schoolwide assessment that looks at your practices that I'm going to introduce to the principls that hopefully we can do at the schools we're starting here and we got to keep building down um but I do I do think we're going to start to build like when I meet with principles um they bring they'll bring their APS and their guidance counselors or their social workers and we're starting to build you know um School level um attendance teams but we're really new I mean it's November and we're really new this is we the last two years there was not a systematic approach to Chronic absenteeism the principles have done TR tremendous work but it's really just on the backs of the principles and APS and we're not going to move further than where we are if we don't have the entire School involved and so that's where we're going in the next year it will take us all year to get there but that is you know sort of my vision that we'll do schoolwide and then get down to like a classroom sort of um protocol per say because the classroom teacher is the first one you know and there's lots of barriers that we're looking at engagement I think that's why you see some of our students with disabilities or El's that have higher rates of chronic absenteeism because the engagement levels um so how do we look at that I think that there are lots of socioeconomic barriers for our kids in Malden how do we partner with our Community Partners to you know sort of bridge those gaps so I think there's a lot of that work that will really get our chronic absenteeism down to the next level uh and sorry not really a question but more of a I'd really love to hear about how this all pans out and about how um it's going to be implemented in each School and who's on your team and how that's working hopefully Mr Wy will keep me updated but I mean just districtwide I'd also like to know how that's going I imagine you're G to update us at some point but might be a Thursday with you Frid okay thank you thank you Miss H over to Mr Gray thank you Mr chair um I have um a couple of comments to clarification for myself and for people who may be watching I just want to throw this out there and feel free to correct me on these numbers for chronic absenteeism Dropout and graduation as far as the specific ethnic groups regardless of the size of the group those are percentages based on within the size of each ethnic group right okay so my second part for clarification um as far as the students with disabilities El and low income some of our students from the different ethnic groups are going to be double and triple counted as they're put into those different categories is that that's correct um great so if I understand your questions are students being included in those groups and also with their raor ethnic group yeah student with disabilities El and low income it's got to draw from somewhere so I'm assuming some of the students in the different ethnic groups are also in those different categories that's correct there's over there's overlap so so but to your earlier point that when it looks at the percentages of students with disabilities it's looking at a of all the students with disabilities what was their graduation rate and all the students with disabilities what was their dropout rate regardless of their race or ethnicity and then when it looks at them by race or ethnicity then it's looking at them specifically by that Dimension irrespective of whether they have a disability or not irrespective of whether they're an English learner or not and there's no requirement to break it down further within those groups we can I'm not asking to just confirming that there's no requirement to uh we what I'm saying is that we have the data to disaggregate further so you could look at of the students with a disability look at those students by race and ethnicity or look at the Hispanic Latino students for example and we could break them down those who have a disability or not or those who are English learner or not okay I was just piing my interest but yeah I'm not asking for it okay all right okay fair enough thank you thank you Mr Gray it's better for thank you Mr chair and then we'll go to Mr Bernard um bear with me as I go through my chicken scratch here students with disabilities according to the data are our dropout rate is fairly low graduation rate or not graduating fairly High I I'm pretty sure if I'm correct I could go back to the slide I think maybe 60% of students with I'm sorry I have graduate chronic absence he some 60% y um does that take into account and I think the mayor may have asked this in a a different type of question but like so students with disabilities that may be out due to long-term medical that are receiving tutoring so they're still receiving that time on learning are they still counted in those numbers no so if you are out and you are on home hospital and we have a tutoring plan in place and you know we have a tutor and we're doing all that they that does not count if they are in a home Hospital program and we have that filled out correctly by the state for the state um okay that does not okay right um absenteeism are we counting daily absenteeism or class absenteeism at the high school level at the high school it's daily it's the daily attendance okay because I feel like we have an chronic absenteeism issue that correlates with teacher absenteeism because we'll have students that could see that absent list and go well I'm not going to school today because three of my teachers are out today so why go I agree and studies show that there is a direct relationship between um teacher attendance and student attendance um right before the pandemic we did a little study where I was and the lots of our teachers were out on Friday and there was a correlation on Fridays our students were also tended to be absent because they knew every Friday this certain teacher was going to be out so why would I come so I do think there is a correlation between staff attendance and student attendance I'd love to see down the road uh data on that information um and then interventions we talk well I think interventions are Saturday school alternative options for our students that work on Saturdays are we looking at night options or some sort of alternative to the alternative Saturday so one of the things um that that you that I know you've been a part of is the graduation Academy and that is a um sort of afternoon late into the early evening situation and so we have lots of kids that have actually come back to just do graduation Academy because they were working and gotten those last couple of classes and gotten over the Finish Line in Prior years so we do have other options um you know the sturday school for middle schoolers um our plan is sort of to look at who's struggling after first term and see what interventions we can put in place teach them some study skills um do some extended engagement with them um do some enrichment activities with them but really build up their academic skills because you know most of our our students that are sort of falling behind are lacking some basic skills and it's really hard during a regular school day to build that up because we're working so hard on the standards so the Saturday school's also going to work to be um alternative to suspension program for us and then um how is any of this reporting when it comes to graduation um rates does it take into account mcast alts that's a very good question and it does not they would be considered not to have graduated there's not that many that it's going to skew us a ton but it is it is a it is a a good amount of students I I want to we had about 12 seniors that went uh to PG year or we have about 12 kids in our PG well our you know 18 to 22 program so that that took the mcast alt correct and probably could not have passed if it taken right the mcast in itself which I you know we're having a what if conversation the night before a very important vote tomorrow so who knows where we stand when it comes to mcast I do just want to say our sort of thing about the MC C is no matter what happens tomorrow the mcast is a good indicator on the skills that our students have so we really just still want to push to make sure that they have those skills to either go to college or out in the world you know that the mcast gives us sure just that correlation to graduation is going to be it will yes and you know if you look this year that it wasn't required so um I think that answered all of my questions thank you thank you over to Mr Bernard thank you Mr chair um a lot of my questions were previously answered but this kind of came up when Joe asked uh asked his uh his question and I was just wanted to go in and ask um when we go and we have uh we do kind of have that crosshatch that that with students that uh may be in multiple categories there you know if we we have a student that uh there's a certain uh culture culture ethnicity race and we go and we see uh an overlap with either English language issues or uh disability or even all all three or whatever other categories there may be um and we go to talk with the family do are we when we go on uh talk to them do we approach that in a culturally competent manner because I think that there's sometimes uh culturally that um parents or family or caregivers will be like no you take care of them and then at the end of the day I just make sure that they get fed and clothed and whatever but during the day that education part is yours I want to make sure that we're actually going and having uh the conversations with them like that there's there's a conversation that goes on with the family and that there's an investment between so I think that's something that we're really working hard on I think that's one of the proactive strategies that we want to start doing is the attendance Mattis sort of campaign but I also know that um our Title One events are really aimed at building that Rapport um I believe we have um in um not an open house but a parent workshop on we sent home the Dibbles screening and we had a you can talk more about it but we had a parent workshop on that to sort of build that relationship this is what you're getting home and this is what it means um so we are working on building those relationships I think they you've heard them talk about class dojo I think that's another great way our schools really partner with families it can be translated in lots of languages so um you know if you want to get a message to the family it goes out it can be translated into their language so I do think we're working really hard at that I think our schools do a nice job of really partnering and trying to build those relationships with parents right um yeah and I know it's a hard question to go and ask um so that's you know and and to get an answer for I just want to make sure that you know number one is that we that we're being sensitive but also that uh if it comes down to where we need to go and invest funds into terms of when we are talking with parents that English is not their first language or they may not be uh particularly uh competent in English that we're doing more than just going and saying well we translated it into to this language that we actually have an understanding of that where they're coming from and to get them to to make sure that we're going and actually providing for the kids but anyway thank you we yeah we do do we do have translators either um you know staff that speaks other languages or we will um contract with an interpreter to help us if we have to but you know I'm sure we could improve on it so thank you thank you thank you both uh superintendent based on all that's been said this evening would it be your hope of the simple Administration that we would see improvements as soon as next year or is this going to take time based on the steps that have been outlined here tonight I would um thank you for the question Mr chair I certainly hope to see improvements this year um as far as at sitting here on the 4th of November guarantee guing that we'll see improvements by um the 2025 accountability data I would hesitate to do that um but I do think that with all of the steps that um assistant superintendent McDonald outlined along with the work that we're doing more broadly engaging families and engaging staff in all of the listening sessions and the planning and um the strategic planning that we'll be moving in into into the next year uh I I think we're we're looking for every opportunity we can to um to try to take advantage of things that we see that are working and expand those practices and try to get more wins in the short term and um along with building systemic um um efforts to sustain those improvements um more on long term let me ask it another way what's the one that you think we could see gains right away or are they all equal in terms of addressing I think uh The Chronic absenteeism from first grade all the way up through 12th grade um that is probably the one which I think is the highest leverage for us okay I think because it's to um Pam's Point earlier um if those students are in school and they're getting that third grade reading foundation and they're getting the math strong they're going to be much better shape um and more likely to persist when they get to high school as well and it's also going to be good for our high school students too okay great and I think ass instrum come on go ahead sure and in support of what this uh superintendent just said a reminder to the committee that 50% of our indicators are on a time lag and so 2025 accountability data for our grad rate and dropout rate are from the past school year um right so chronic absenteeism is very timely and um is based on what we can do this year whereas the other indicators are sort of looking back in time and so we will see the improvements a year from now or in two years from now yeah and even even the um Advanced coursework is based on what our students are currently enrolled in right now and so we can make a dent in that a year out uh based on what what and the the expanded enrollment we see in that but the chronic absenteeism is something that we can affect this year great thank you all right now let's go back to the superintendent for an enrollment update then the goals and then we'll move to motions and resolutions great um so I'll be really brief on the enrollment update I do have another month of data of active students in our Aspen um if you go to the not sure if you can move the the controls there Vice chair just the controls from the top so I can see the title of the slide if you click on the green and just drag it oh there go perfect thank you so this was October 1st we'll be looked at last month if you go to the next slide um you'll see that our the active student enrollment went from 47 40 6472 to 6494 um we are in the process of finalizing the certification of our enrollment with desie um and so I hope by the December 2nd meeting to bring you um our official numbers we do expect that they'll be slightly lower than this because um some of the students who were active today were not active before the cut off on October 1st we also have some students who were active but then um were subsequently there were a few who were subsequently identified as having moved to a different District but didn't let us know um and their enrollment in that District's been confirmed and other circumstances that will cause that number to to fluctuate but I'll bring come to you on December 2nd hopefully um with uh with our final confirmed enrollment numbers for this year uh one second Mr pfor could you go back slide just want to see something yeah you have it too okay okay all right so all right if we go to the next slide so um home stretch we uh as you know uh superintendant like every other educator in the state of Massachusetts are evaluated and um you all have the distinct honor of getting to evaluate me um that's one of your key roles as you're well aware um and uh part of the the if we go to the next slide um part of the system if you will is for at the at the outset for the educator and the evaluators to agree on a set of goals for this year and so that's what this portion of the presentation is regarding uh on the right you'll see that um perhaps familiar kind of uh cycle where there's a self assessment there's analysis goal setting plan development implementation of the plan formative assessment and then Summit of evaluation um and the idea is that Summit of evaluation is something that would take place at the end of the year after um the plan is being implemented and we're collecting data along the way um based on the goals that we set at the outset for all superintendents in Massachusetts um ensuring systems alignment uh coherence empowering principles and other District administrators and leading with a commitment to equity um are kind of the priorities that for all of us if you click that one um once just a little arrow there shows this is where we are which is in the goal setting um stage one more oh it's okay ohsh you're fine okay this perfect just um just to familiarize the superintendent rubric um has four standards which are have a lot of indicators underneath them but essentially instructional leadership management and operations family and Community engagement and professional culture are the four big buckets if you will of standards that superintendant are um assessed on and so if we go to the next slide I just wanted just to remind you um about the core values that I shared with you when I joined you for the first time last May um in the interview process process um and that I've talked about multiple times with our Educators across the district and you can just go through all this just fill them out perfect that's great um just including and collaborating um we are really endeavoring and I hope you hear a recurring theme in all of our work that we're really endeavoring to include people in decisions that impact them and to engage in the work that we're doing in a collaborative way with our School principles with their teams with our teachers with our labor partners with our parents and caregivers and with our students as well and of course with you with the school committee um and the city and with um other nonprofit agencies and Community Based organizations who have so much to offer that we're really focused on embracing growth and what we mean by that is that if we're not we don't see what we want to see and we saw a lot of data today that we are not satisfied with and we're not happy with but that doesn't mean that we're not able to see Improvement um that all of us all of us as individuals us as a district that we're capable of growing and so it's not about whether it is or it isn't it's about it not being yet what we want to see and then lastly doing right by all kids we want to ensure that our system provides uh an education experience that opens doors to the Future for all of our students not only a few and that we need to we collectively need to advocate for children youth and families who are not yet able to do so for themselves so with all of that um I bring to you actually goals that have been recommended by the new superintendent induction program with a little bit of a tweaking um and I'm just calling out uh to some extent the core value that I see is most relevant to it um just because I see a lot of a lot of uh alignment with what these goals are that I'm reading before you tonight and the values that have been guiding our work since I started with you um so the first goal is effective entry and Direction setting and the the highlight of the goal is by late spring the district will have broad agreement from Key St stakeholder groups about what our most critical needs are the strategies and goals that we're going to pursue to address them and how we're going to measure our progress this is a big goal I I'm not discounting it but this is a this is a big goal because as I've had the the pleasure and the privilege of engaging with parents and caregivers across the district in these town Hall meetings and as I've been talking with staff members there are a lot of very passionate viewpoints and there are some very different viewpoints in terms of what those priorities might might need to be and so there is going to be a process over the next few months of really getting to the place where we can establish a broad agreement about what those critical needs are and what the strategies and goals um need to be um implemented to per to address them um but that's what this work is about and including and collaborating is what I think is the the key core value that we'll be leading with in um in to achieve this goal if we go to the next slide so the next slide has to do with maintaining a focus on continuous Improvement during the transition and this is especially related to Student Learning we have all these uh these this listening that we're doing and collaboration and we're thinking about the future and the strategic planning but meanwhile we have kids that are sitting in math one right now and we have students who are sitting in third grade right now and what is their experience and we can say yes we're growing it's not yet but what do we what are we doing for them right now and so this this goal speaks to that we have been working since August uh and especially even more focused ways since September with all of our leaders and when I say leaders our principles our assistant principles our district uh direct directors on really coming to terms with uh the degree to which we have a common vision of what effective instruction looks like we have a lot of different tools that we use to to assess instruction we're trying to really narrow those down so that we've got really common language of what we think good teaching good what good learning looks like so that we can identify it so that our teachers know what they're aspiring to so that we know that when um one principal is is working with a teacher and the coach in that building is also working that teacher they're speaking from the same language they're speaking with a with a similar alignment and um this is something that you can't just write a memo and tell everybody this is what good teaching is do it this way because that not how people learn that's not how people work they have to own it they have to understand it and so we're going about it in a very collaborative way but also in a very um in a very urgent way to make sure that we have that that common vision of in effective instruction in place by the end of this year um and as we go we'll be engaging our uh even our labor Partners in in being alongside us and helping to helping us to test drive some new tools that we're using to to look at um effective instruction with principals with our coaches and with our teachers themselves so that and even maybe inviting some students to to join us on some in some of that work um because we really want to make sure that we we have so many good things happening in buildings across the district I've already observed I think uh was it 200 200 classrooms and um or more and there's so many good things happening in in in schools across the district we want to make sure that that's the more and more and more consistent experience that students have regardless of what building they enter every morning and then the last goal is um has to do with my induction program um which I spelled out for you in more detail and the the goals document that I shared with you in advance but essentially I have to uh I'm in engaged in monthly induction uh sessions with uh superint tenants from across the state um sometimes they're virtual and sometimes they're in person and there are specific tasks that I'm um expected to complete as a part of that induction program and as far as my professional practice goal it's to successfully complete that program and earn proficient ratings um for all of the all the deliber over PS that um that are required of me in that in that program and so those are the the the the broad goals that I'd like to uh I bring to you as proposed goals for myself for this year um again I shared a the document with you all in advance that has broken down with key actions for each of those goals and um what some of the specific uh deliverables uh are for for them but um I would submit to you Mr chair um to request that you approve these goals questions of the members if not we can entertain a motion any questions Miss Bor thank you thank you Mr chair and my question actually pertains to the enrollment just because we kind of rolled right into yes so um I just wanted to not maybe this question might be better asked to Miss McDonald but our um our out of District numbers have dropped and I was just curious was that due to students moving out of the district or was successful in reintegrating students back into the district assistant superintendent P McDonald so I think it's a combination of both we did have a couple students move out we have a couple moving in that will end up on us I mean we always have a quite a churn rate um in Malden but we did bring back um a few students um specifically to our therapeutic programs so that was a win for us um you know one of our goals from the special department is to really take a close look at our autism programming I think we've worked a lot over the last few years on our therapeutic programming so now we're turning um and really want to look at our autism programming to build that up so that we can start to bring kids back in that dist from out of district and those programs you can't bring them back unless you build robust programs and it's sort of like you can only focus so much on you know one at a time so that is our next sort of piece of work that the special ed department is working on fantastic thank you thank you uh we'll now entertain a motion to approve the goals motion by Miss Macklin seconded by Mr McCarthy discussion yeah of course uh any discussions questions queries Miss Bor thank you um so thank you for the the broader um document that was sent I just want to make sure so what we've received and reviewed is in alignment with the mass Association of school committee um superintendents and the core rubric that is um that we will then be evaluating you on um later in the year that's correct and I reviewed these goals in detail with um with my coach the from the new superintendent's induction program and it is aligned with it fantastic thank you thank you all right we have a motion that's been seconded any final questions if not all those who favor say I I anybody opposed the eyes have it that carries unanimously all right right now let's take a look at these motions we're going to go over to my left to your right to Mr dry thank you Mr chairman um that's just my leg don't worry about it um due to a situation that arose uh and speaking with the superintendent uh a couple of motions been made that we'd like to submit to the uh policy committee uh I'll read them out and you can I'll look at them and I know uh any questions you can bring up them uh motion to refer to policy subcommittee possible amendments to the residency policy for student enrollment policy jfa specifically for students who have moved outside of Malden and are in their final year in a k through eight school or at the high school all right you want me to do them both together or you just want to do them individually Mr chair let's do them individually individually start with that one okay so uh well let's get it up properly before so you're making that motion seconded by Mr Bernard so any questions on this this is just being sent to policy for review and discussion let's go to miss hoodie thank you Mr chair Mr drummy was the intention behind this motion to be only in the last year at the K to8 and high school levels yeah yes only because the situation just arose a couple of weeks ago so we weren't really familiar with the one they redid the policy committee we allowed students in or out and this was never entertained because it never really happened before so this is why it's worded that way okay thank you you're welcome okay let's dispense Miss Bor thank you Mr chair um so I have been mulling over this one specifically today um because I just question and I understand the background behind it I'm just questioning do we have the authority to send this to policy when we have already voted this year to not be a school choice District therefore that vote says we will not keep students from out that live outside of the city in our district so we we took that vote in May by sending this to policy are we I'm just curious are we saying that we are going to override a vote that we already took I think it depends once it gets there exactly yeah so I think for our purposes tonight no harm no foul yeah because we could refer back and that's a whole different can of Wars we don't want to get into so what Miss Bor said should probably be part of that discussion yes when the time yes yeah thank you anyone else all right let's let's dispense with this first one um so the motion was made it was seconded by Mr Bernard all right let's uh roll call that one if you would Madam clerk mayor Christensen yes Mr drummy yes Mr McCarthy yes Miss Bora yes Miss Macklin yes Miss hordy yes Mr Gray yes Mr Bernard yes Mr Roser all right than carries unanimously staying with Mr drummy let's take a look at the second proposed motion this is to uh authorize the superintendent to defer enforcement of our current presidency policy for students whose status may be affected by the policy amendments under consideration that we just dealt with previously Mr drummy you just read it Mr chairman do you want to add any context to it that's F we're going to leave it as we we just leave it like that and then it'll be enrolled with the previous and then discussion will okay I think compass that and you're open to discussing this because I think m b for has some ideas about what to do here and just uh for the context for the people here that are watching um we had a student that's inner final year at one of the KS right yes we do but has moved out Midstream and there's been a request by her teachers I presume and yes staff at the at the school yes to let her finish out because she's been there for a long time that's the context of it everyone so uh so the first motion we just we're going to send it to policy and let's talk about it in a grand fashion but this one here this is given the superintendent the authority to defer enforcement because if we did nothing that student should be in another District so let's talk about this one miss Bor let's go to you first and then we're going to go to miss H uh yeah I think was Mr jman you made that motion was second by did you second that one too I'll do it for the purp disc Mr Bernard for the purposes of discuss question Miss bfor followed by Miss Hy thank you Mr chair um so because we're currently a school choice dist we vote no to be a school choice District i' I'd be remiss to not include a date on this to I I do not feel comfortable authorizing the superintendent to defer a policy without a time frame on it so if the purpose is so we can send this down to policy and see if policy wants to work with it I'd be I I'd like to make an amendment to the motion to read um authorizes superintendent to defer enforcement of the current residency Poli policy until December 20th which would be the last school day of this year for students whose status may be affected by the policy amendments under consideration okay let's check in with the spons are you willing to accept that friendly Amendment okay anything else on your end um I'll defer to miss Hy all right let's go to miss Hy thank you Mr chair I just want to make sure that I have this my understanding of how how this all happens correctly so as of November 1 or November whatever date it is I can't remember exactly you just said uh super forth thank you um we get notification from desie about the enrollment that we give to them they say the enrollment is correct right sort of like I I'm trying to understand that aspect of it to understand the next part so um member Hy I think you're asking about what I the comment I made earlier about certifying our enrollment with desie confirming who's here who's not that we're in that process now okay so I guess my question is if desie certifying the students that we have here here I'm just thinking of time energy and Manpower who then is going to check about kids home address after that or are we relying on folks to be honest to come to us and ask them and then aren't we setting up a situation if we're not going to look into this more aren't we setting up a situation for people not to be entirely truthful maybe I'm just putting that out there Mr JY do you have something this has happened previously and I know where're we take a vote as to not accept students in and not and that's a whole different but it plays into this and I'm looking at it in just this one instance and we're trying to keep it that way because this will evolve into something we don't want uh but in previous years we have even with the numbers we have taken a student in and nothing's I mean it didn't the world didn't end school went on and we're all still here so I don't think it's going to be that extreme but there is there could be some I I I just think they want to put a date on it that's fine uh I don't see anything wrong as as opposed to putting up a specific date I would just sort of kind of like if you want to make it well the last day of school prior to Christmas break because that date will change every year unless we want to stay specific to this in instance you see what I'm saying thank you so I don't know if Jen wants to you know I think she's it that way just do it by the last school day of that calendar year versus December 20th because next year it might be a different date if we come up with well I think right now she's just dealing with the current situation policy policy will deal with so just put it with this one and leave it and the way Jen has it is fine for this inent yeah over to miss Bor thank you yeah if I may so I'll I'll it should have been reflected as 12 20 2024 right this year okay and this year only and I'll I just want to clarify by my stance because again we're not a school choice District therefore if there is a student that's attending the district that did not notify us correct that they have changed residence we are not receiving funding from the sending District because we choose to be a a correct non-school Choice District correct and our per pupil um I don't know the exact number I'm going to say approximately 19,000 to educate a student in Malden so if there are eight students that are here from all you know every sorry my little dance there that's $100,000 you know or I said eight so we'll say five you know that we're incurring the cost so I just the date was to give the superintendent some leeway to work with those families family families to say get your stuff together yep and enroll in your district and it'll be a smooth um move for those students um maybe not too disruptive but also acknowledging um that this is going to go down to policy and whatever policy decides to do with it um will handle it then but also policy you know it's not going to be a quick turnaround out of policy either I know there's going to be you know work with with legal to make sure that if we do make any changes that follows Massachusetts General law Desi standard so on and so forth so that's I just wanted to put some clarification you know behind the policy and behind that change to the motion so everyone was clear okay thank you anybody else okay hearing none Let's uh call the role yes Mr dry yes Mr McCarthy Miss Bora yes Miss Macklin yes Miss Hy yes Mr Gray yes Mr Bernard yes Miss Rose iberg okay that carries unanimously now let's take a look at Personal Privilege before we entertain a motion to go into executive session my left your right any points of personal privilege Mr Bernard thank you Mr chair uh give me one moment go pull up this email uh a thank you to miss van for going and sending that in advance of me going and asking for it uh so here are some announcements from uh the salemwood on Tuesday November 12th uh there will be a PTO meeting uh going from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in uh the uh K8 CFE I believe that was uh on the 14th uh there'll be a title one caregiver event at 8:15 a.m. the K through 4 Cafe uh on nove Friday November 15th if uh we have kids that need to go into uh picture retakes that will be happening on the 15th on Saturday November 16th there is going to be a uh a Girls on the Run heart and soul 5K being held at suff Downs uh you need any information reach out to the school uh on November 19th uh there'll be a Educators and caregivers conference from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. and November 23rd there will be a craft fair from 10: to 2:00 p.m. in the gym that's on a Saturday very good thank you Mr drummy thank you Mr chairman um first I just want to say um the ferryway school PTO did a trunk ATT treat last Tuesday and there was a sneaker that kept coming back we couldn't get rid of it no matter hard hard we tried but uh they did a great job uh they literally half the parking lot was teachers with cars and the kids were having and they they had a train there and a bus and there it was just a great time and the kids had a ball so congratulations to the uh Fairway PTO and the Fairway staff for putting on a great time for the kids uh tomorrow as we know is uh election day Fairway PTO will be having a bake sale from 12 um sorry from 8: to 1200 in the school Lobby uh go vote have a cookie on Saturday November 9th from 1:30 to 4:00 p.m. there is a craft fair at the ferryway school uh get an early start on your Christmas shopping if you'd like uh they have over 30 over 30 vendors uh coming so go for it and then uh next Tuesday is the PTO meeting uh that they normally have this is normally a zoom meeting this time it's going to be hybrid so on November 12th at 6:30 in the February School library uh there will be a PTO meeting uh but there's also a zoom meeting so if you can't make it go to the ferryway school PTO website and the link will be there for you and last but not least on a more personal thing uh and that for that I mean the school the textile recovery bins that they have it's not for garbage people please don't be emptying blue bags and green bags and white bags it's Linens and sheets and shirts and the PTO makes money off it and they don't really please just think about it everybody have a Happy Thanksgiving thank you Mr chairman thank you all right uh Miss Hy then miss Macklin thank you Mr chair tomorrow is election day go vote and while you are there at Forestdale please go and purchase some of the wonderful bait Goods that I've gotten to see some great pictures of that some of our students are making as well as some of our families um I'm sure it's going to support a lot of different en Endeavors um this Thursday November 7th at 8:15 there's the tit a title one parent Workshop in the forestale cafeteria focusing on literacy at home with students the next meeting of the forest lpto is a Wednesday November 13th at 7 on Google meet check the PTO Facebook page and the web page will have the link to the meeting there pick sure retake day is November 13th if you have any questions you can reach out to the main office and finally uh I know we will have a meeting before then but I want to put it out now that in December 6 the PTO is going to be hosting an annual craft fair and family fun night from 5:30 to 7:30 last year it was very very well attended there were a lot of different vendors there and it's absolutely worth your time to come over and take a peek um and I I think that's all the events for this month thank you thank you Miss Macklin thank you Mr chair so we have a couple of announcements from both the ELC and the high school first up is the ELC thanks to all parents students and staff who came out for the Fall Festival a special thank you to Mayor Christensen and superintendent Sipple for supporting the ELC at the Fall Festival we will see everyone during the winter festival um the second announcement from the ELC it's the season of giving the ELC is having its annual food drive to benefit the bread of life all families and staff are asked to donate non- perishable Goods any student who brings in the food will be able to wear their hat uh Flyers went home in backpacks let me get over to the high school um quarter 1 ended today quarter 2 begins on November 6 uh malen High School play production presentation of Pippen will be November 22nd and the 23rd at the Jenkins Auditorium Thanksgiving football game versus Medford with Malden is on Thanksgiving Day at 10:00 a.m. and congratulations to the volleyball and field hockey teams for qualifying for the miaaa state tournament and Happy Thanksgiving and everyone great thank you uh Miss Macklin Miss fapor thank you Mr chair um so out of the BB we have oh jeez using the wrong Mouse over here I have too much technology in front of me um picture retake day is going to be uh the 19th and caregiver conferences will be on the 20th 5:30 to 7 and the BB site Council BB School site Council will be meeting on the 21st Spirit Week starts Thanksgiving week the week of the 25th early release 11:00 a.m. on the 27th not to forget Veterans Day next Monday the 11th thank you to all of those that have served uh I think that's all I have go Malden beat Medford thank thank you Mr pedar we'll now entertain a motion to go into executive session and again this is to go over contracts negotiations with the principles motion by Miss Hy seconded by Mr McCarthy clerk will call the rooll mayor Christenson yes Mr drummy yes Mr McCarthy yes M Bora yes Miss Macklin yes Miss hordy yes Mr Gray yes Mr Bernard yes M Rose iberg school committee that passes unanimously school committee will now be an executive session recording stopped e spe for for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e I recording in progress okay the school committee is back from executive session will entertain any motions of the members Miss pfor thank you Mr chair I'd like to make the motion that we approve for the principal contracts up to four consecutive work weeks of paid parental leave and up to an additional six paid work weeks may be taken to be deducted from their accumulated sick leave for uh pregnancy child birth or adoption of a child effective immediately is there a second seconded by Miss Hy so any questions on that click will call the role mayor Christensen yes Mr drummy yes Mr McCarthy yes Miss Bora yes Miss Macklin yes Miss Hy yes Mr Gray yes Mr Bernard yes Mr Ros Iber that carries unanimously any other motions motion to adjourn second motion by Mr dry second by Mr Bernard clerk will call the role I'm only kidding all those in favor say I I anybody oppos the eyes have it school committee is here by amen no