Good evening everyone. We are here at the Mro Public Schools School Committee meeting. Today is Tuesday, April 29th. It is 7:31. I will call the meeting to order. I would like to remind everyone that we are being videotaped and streamed on WMCTV.
And if I can have everyone rise for the pledge of allegiance. All right. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Thank you everyone. All righty. Moving on to We have no presentations, correct? No. Moving on. Um, no. Well, we could
kind of kind of nothing on the agenda. Should we suspend? Yeah, we can. I don't know where are they. They are on the agenda. They are 9A. They're 9A to the trip, but I think they want to show us. Do you guys want to do a little demonstration of the
robot? Yes. Okay. Let's suspend the rules for the presentation. Suspend the rules. All right. Motion on the table and seconded to suspend the rules. Yeah. All in favor? Motion carries. Motion to proceed with 9A. Okay, we'll move on. So motion
on the table and seconded to move forward with 9A. It's the action item. Questions, comments, concerns? Seeing none, all in favor? All righty. 9A. So, this is the Mobra High School robotics overnight trip to the world champion
competition. So, the green light should be on when you hit the button. Is the green light showing? Okay. Oh, you hit the button one more time, Kyle. It was on. And then All right. There it goes. All righty. Now,
the floor is yours. We want to tell us your name and All right. Hello, everyone. Hello. For those unaware, I'm Kyle Major. I'm currently the adviser of the robotics club at the Marbor High School. And I'm Joanne Mahoney. I am the director of robotics at the middle
school and I check in with Kyle, see what he needs at the high school. So, okay. So, um our the team won the skills competition section of the um
state championship at Walsh Middle School. thus um giving them the opportunity to go to the world's competition um which is in Dallas, Texas. Okay. So it was very exciting. I have to say that um Aul started working with the robotics
in sixth grade and this has been his dream. So when they made that call that they had won, it was very exciting. Very exciting. So they got to work on his dreams though a little. It's the first time for the high school
program at least. Absolutely. The middle school went opportunity quite a while ago, 2014. And at that time it was held in Anaheim, California. So, and I publicly want to thank Mary. Um, we wouldn't have the program that we have
um without her support. um she as the principal at Wickham and then now as the superintendent. Um she has supported this program from the very beginning. Um we did honor her at the middle school
championship. Um and you know she got a special trophy. U Mary what does it say on that trophy? It's a leadership award. Leadership award. Okay. Um and that was made special for her. So it was you know we we are forever grateful um and we
will miss you next year Mary. Okay so we have with us today Atul and Andy Zang I think you all know Andy can you explain? Yeah atul you use your microphone.
Oh I'm sorry you couldn't hear me. You're fine teacher voice. Oh okay. Yeah we can hear you. It's just so the people at home can hear. Oh, okay. Hello. I just wanted to say thank you. I want to say thank you to everyone, all of you guys, and especially Mrs. Mahodyi, Kyle,
my mom, everyone supporting us. Um, for able for us to able to make worlds. It's been a six years for me to make it here. So, it's been fun, long journey. Um, somewhere finally we've reached like the end goal, right? Make worlds. Um, and it's been fun year especially for me and
Andy. I know it's Andy's last year, too. He's graduating. um going off to better places. But um we've we've um had so much fun like building this robot um just competing, learning so many more experiences, just collaborating with other schools. It's been a great
experience and we would love to just show you what we've accomplished. Yes, please. All right. You can tell them a little about the game. So, while a tool is getting our robot, uh I'll give you a preview of the
game. So, the main objective of the game is there are multiple stakes of multiple heights. There's these mobile stakes that we can put rings on with with each ring giving one point and the top ring being worth three points. And then
there's like mid stakes which are slightly higher than the wall stakes. I mean the mobile goals. And then there's a very tall like middle stake that is about like how many feet? It's like here. It's like five feet. Yeah,
basically. Yeah. And you get in camera. Get in. Uh now everyone can see. So Andy, do you know that Andy? So, yeah. Do you know the challenge ahead of time? Uh, yes. It the next year's game
will actually be announced at Worlds. Got it. It's the the final day of Worlds. They announced the new game. Sure. Yeah. So, you'll be able to see it live if you're at Worlds. The rest of the people just get the video from which point forward you can start building your next year's Railroad. Right now, we only have a name release. It's called
Pushback. Pushback game name, but we know nothing else about it. Got it. What was the game name for this one? It's called High Stakes. High stakes. Yeah. Talking about our robot, the main goal was to put the rings on the goal, right? So, we kind of do it with these
hooks. They slam them on the goal, right? So, you want to kick another one? We can put multiple. And the goal was to do it as quickly as possible to score the most points. Yeah. And you're supposed to put your color, right? There's a team of red and
a team of blue. Got it. So, you know, the blue ones would be for the blue team. So, you want to avoid those. Um, and Andy was talking about that higher stake, right? How do you put a ring on a higher stake? Yeah. So, what we did was we have this little arm thing that kind of moves. So, when I pick up another
ring, instead of getting stuck on the goal, it gets stuck on this thing. And we can put it on the higher stake. Wow. So, and it's at the the perfect height, so it very smoothly goes on. The front thing is angled at such a way that if we line that up in the
middle of the highest stake, once we trigger the arm, it goes on essentially every time. It's very accurate at this point. So, for the the portion that we actually qualified for worlds, which is the skills, how it works is there's one minute of a driver control period and
one minute of an autonomous period. So, the robot gets to drive itself for a minute in a pre-programmed route. Um, and in the driver control, it's the same uh setup. It's just now someone gets to drive it. Um, I believe we scored 50 50 points in driver and it was 42 in uh
autonomous. So, how you calculate that is each ring is one point and the top ring is three. So, it's a bunch of rings. I don't know how many it got, but it was we programmed it so much. We ran the route so many times, kept checking it um just for hopefully it to work the one time at the competition and it did.
So, we're pretty proud. And for further clarification, the skills field is a particular setup of rings. They're in a particular orientation. They're the same exactly every time. If you have the field at your school or just locally, you can set skills up yourself and run
your routine as many times as you need to see how it goes for you. At which point, you can then go to the competition and do your routines. Your highest total can only be from one competition. So you don't get the best from each from like different competitions. You have to do well in
both from the the single time the single performance at a single place that we went. Okay. All righty. Can I ask one more question? Sorry, you know me. Um so you guys get the information for like the stake size
before you get going, right? So that way you can program how high you need to go. The field parts themselves. So once you put it together on the field, you'll physically see it. But if you don't have it at that point, you can look up the dimensions. Gotcha. And we have a field.
Can you can you go to the Yeah. Go to the So we have a field at both the middle school and the high school. So Mrs. Mahoney, was that field the thing you wrote the grant asking for? You actually did get the money and built and No, I did not get the money. Okay.
How'd you get? But that's we Well, we've had the field. Um what we were looking for this year for the grant with the risers because now what they've done um at competition is they've taken it up off the floor. Um so the our field at
the middle school is on the floor and the rises do you know how high they are? They're like roughly about this high. raises the field off the floor and it makes it much harder to move. The walls aren't actually attached to anything other than themselves. They're not attached to the floor and the robots can
move pretty quickly. So, if you run into the wall hard enough, it will just kind of move it. Yeah. Which is a pretty big deal on the wall stakes especially since they are attached to that wall. Yeah. So, it really reduces your accuracy if your field moves a bunch. So, by raising it off the floor and putting it on
something that's a much more anchored, it reduces that variable by like quite a lot, it's helpful. And it also it's the field you're going to be competing on in most high level competitions. So, it's nice to have the experience because it's a different field of view than normal
for a lot of the people. Yeah, we've had the one at the middle school um ever since we began working with robotics. So, that was 2011, right? But it's the risers. So, I'll write a grant again for next year. Going to say write a grant and inform someone. I want to make sure
that the community knows about this and that this is a need because we have a lot of businesses in the community and other people in the community that might be interested in supporting it. MEF wasn't able to provide it this year, but as you said, there's future years, but
there may be other people in the community that might be interested in supporting. We can talk, Michelle. Well, and I was going to say it might be something also to um make sure that MEDC actually knows because as they're having conversations with businesses around town um as Michelle was kind of alluding
to, they may want to step up and be a part of this especially excellent with the notoriety of you all going to worlds and who knows, right? Who knows? Thank you. Thank you. So, thank you. Another So, the team is three of you,
right? Betsy is the third one. She wasn't able to make it today, but um it's just us three. Yeah. Yeah. We also I don't know if it was mentioned, we won the CRE award at the state championship. And what is that? So, it's an award based off the most creative design and approach to stuff out of all all the or
teams. It was um who had the most creative and this was done through interviews. So, us three were interviewed several times just to for the judges to see how our robot works as well as our documentation. Um and I can give you like a brief what kind of made us creative right. Um two things I guess the first thing was our approach to our
programming aspect. Um the biggest thing was we were able to track the robot's position um from the start autonomously through a bunch of calculations. And what that would able allow us to do is instead of telling the robot, okay, drive forward and then turn right and then drive forward, turn left, we could
just tell it, okay, follow this path and it would do it almost perfectly. Um, the goal was to be able to kick the robot off its path and it would get back on. Um, and it worked. So, it was pretty cool. Um, the really creative part was we were able to do it with no extra sensors. A lot of these other teams are using a lot of sensors which add weight,
complexity, and a bunch of other calculations which we found out a way to just avoid it but still have the same uh net outcome. Um, and that was super creative as well as just the the robot itself. Some of our um design elements were creative they found. Um, and it was great. We we were so shocked that we
won. We weren't expecting. I think if you watch the video, we all put our hands up like us. Is it really us? You can probably see my extremely shocked face. I was walking up like I have to take a picture now. Yeah. What is your thought as well that the other thing that they thought was quite creative was
our approach to communication with other teams and how well each of our members knew the robot itself. A lot of the times when you are judging, you'll notice that some of the kids do not talk much or they aren't able to like very well explain others work or some parts
of the robot they don't know a lot about. But each of our members knows quite a bit about this robot and are able to talk to each other's work and complement each other and a lot of the judges found that quite impressive. That's great. What is your team's name?
Do you have a name? Yeah, so we have a number and a name. Our number is 4344X and our name is X squ just to follow up the number. Got it. And does the robot go in carryon? Yeah. How do you how do you transport a
box? A big black box that kind of looks like one of the ones you take to like a sound stage. Yeah. Oh, okay. Great. So, you leave on Monday the 5th of May. Yeah. Monday the 5th at 8 in the morning. So, when you compete, there's three days. Is it like a knockout? Like
the first day we're not competing. Then on the sixth, there's a skills day that's entirely dedicated to our first practice match, which doesn't count for anything. And then just running the skills as much as we want to. And then the next day after that, we'll start the
qualifying matches. We'll have 10 in total. We'll play 10 matches. And after that, depending on how we do, we might make it to the final um elimination rounds where it's single eliminate style where if we lose once, we're out of the
tournament. But the upside of that part of it is that your alliance partner isn't random anymore. Um during the actual competition, things are randomized to keep it pretty balanced, right? So, you aren't aware of your alliance partner, especially at this kind of event. You have a much
higher chance of not having met them. Um, so you just kind of have to roll with it. Sure. And this is worlds. So there are teams from other countries. Yes. 53. So we have, yeah, 53 countries are competing um at this. And we have a
couple of China China teams coming. Uh, Shang uh, sorry, where is it? Singapore, Taiwan, lot of diverse countries. It's going to be a fun experience. Mexico definitely. Yes. And all over the was in our division. Yeah. Who else? uh someone from New Zealand I think was in the
division that we're in. It's literally worlds. This next robotics is a worldwide organization. How many people from the United States are represented? Do you know? It's a it's a lot of teams. Um it's probably a majority. Sure. Um it's per state in the United States. How
many teams per state? It's like roughly 15 a state. Yeah. Roughly 15 a region. And most of those regions are individual states. I know that for our region, I believe it was 18 teams from the high school um region of Massachusetts itself
made it to worlds. And that's off of awards and skills performances and just the winners of each tournament. And you competed against all of those other 17 Yeah. in the last tournament and beat them all. So we faced quite a few of them. Yeah.
Yeah. With this same robot. Yes. Same challenge. Yes. Yeah. Same exact game trying the same for each year. And another question, do you ever I mean, is it ever strategized where you're trying to block your competitors
as well? Right. Yeah, it's pretty aggressive. Definitely. That's what I was thinking. Since it's a 2v2, um there's a lot of offense defensive roles, right? It's very strategic. Um a biggest They have rules to prevent that. There's five, you can't pin someone against a wall for five seconds. That's what I was wondering.
Yeah. So, um there are a bunch of rules that they like enforce. You can't hold more than two rings. You can't like hog them. Okay. You can't possess more than two goals. Put the blue ones out of the way. You can do that. You can troll your opponents and like move the rings out of
their path, right? Um but you can't possess more than three rings in your intake or robot. You can't hold more than two goals at a time. But you can push any number of goals. They just can't be in your possession, which means they can't be in your clamp essentially.
Can you attack another robot? Yes, kind of with limitations. But you like you into them. It's not battlebot. Yeah, it's not have a weapon, but you can ram into any robot. There's a lot of strategy behind it. Like um there's four
robots and five of those goals. So each robot can only hold one. So there's always one that's left over, right? So now each team is trying to fight to get that last fifth one, right? And then that creates that struggle of like offense, defense, and um and that's why you've got the alliance, right? Exactly.
So you can work with somebody and say, "Go get them and I'll get the ring." That's the idea. Keeping consistent communication during the match to So obviously obviously you saw the 17 other teams from here and how many from Massachusetts besides
yourself or is it just you guys? No, all 18. All 18. Okay. All right. So my question I guess is how many adjustments do you make during those days? Yeah. To like you know obviously you know the other 17 from Massachusetts and you made
adjustments when you saw it and I'm sure they went back and you fine-tuned things and whatever but when you get there and now you're in world and you obviously everybody's watching everybody else. How many do you make a lot of adjustments on the fly or at night you think about what
did you No, not really. uh during the competition definitely between competitions. So this is our third iteration of the robot. Got so we've taken it apart completely and then rebuilt something new three time or three times. So um and one between when we qualified for worlds and this one. So
this is between regionals and now we built rebuilt. Gotcha. Oh wow. Gotcha. So this is the the world's edition. Yes. Yeah. We made it smaller and a little bit more agile because speed has been a huge component of this game. But but like you said, yes, we do look at other
teams and see like, oh, what did they do well? And vice versa, right? They look at us and like, what did we do well? And everyone takes inspiration. Um, a lot of the robots look really similar at this point, like at the end, because everyone realized this is probably the best way to do it. So, yeah,
turned off. My batteries. Is there is there got tired international language? Like what happens if you you get paired in an alliance with someone from from Singapore and you don't indicate that they need a translator?
Oh, okay. Before they go to the event, they can add a special note that they need a translator at the event for any language. They have translators for all of them, including sign language, right? Oh, they need that for assistance and communication with their alliance partners or any other people including
the judges who don't all speak every language that's going to be there. That translator will essentially be part of that team for as much of the event as they can. Yeah. So, the primary language that the event is in is in English. Yes.
Okay. Got it. Okay. Fantastic. Yes. Will you Well, you're going to come back and see us anyways, of course, because you're part of us. So, you'll let us know, but we can make a motion to approve. Make a motion to approve their trip.
Second. All right. Motion, second. Questions, comments, concerns? Seeing none, all in favor of bringing back the world. [Music] Let's go. Best of luck to you. Before you leave,
Auntie, do you want to divulge to us where you're going to school? Congratulations. I already know. You can tell us. I'm going to Massachusetts Institute of Technology or better known as MIT.
Congratulations. Congratulations. And is this the field that you think you want to pursue? Are you interested in robotics? Uh right now I know I definitely want to go into uh computer science. So the coding or like aspect of
uh robotics, but I'm debating uh double majoring mathematics and computer science or electrical engineering and computer science. There's a decent amount so there as a computer scientist agree. Yeah.
All righty. Well, best of luck and congratulations and uh congratulations. Wonderful. Yes. Yeah. And have fun. We will try. All righty. Pictures and video. We'll do
a video. Oh, your father's going. Yeah, we're we're going to be watching it live the whole time. Photographer. We're gonna have a lot of photos. Paul is the photographer. All right. Yes.
Thank you. All righty. Okay, we'll go back to the Thank you. All right. Okay, we'll move backing up to the superintendent report. Superintendent Murphy. Thank you, Mayor Christian.
Um the good good now principal um search committee screened and interviewed potential principal candidates the week of April 14th. I'd like to thank director of human resources Patricia Brown and committee
members assistant superintendent Robert Scaza, principal Clyde P. Pantisopoulos, staff members Melissa Turpac and Simon Po Simon Poser, and parents Laura Creeman and Ko Pensk for participating on the search committee.
Tomorrow the two finalists will be visiting um good now school and they have a very full schedule and um so tomorrow we'll be welcoming um Jennifer Collins who has been working in
education for 25 years. Miss Collins is currently the assistant principal for the public schools at the Taft Early Learning Center, a prek to3 elementary school. Formerly, Miss Collins taught in grades K1 and two in the Marbor public
schools and was a teacher leader for the second grade at Jarrick Elementary School. And the second candidate is Andrew Hall. He's been working in education for over 28 years. Mr. Hall has been the principal of Elmwood Street
Elementary School, a prek to2 school in the Milbury public schools for the last 11 years. So we look forward to visiting them and um having members of the good now community and administration and principles all spend some time with them
tomorrow. I also expect in my next um report that we'll be updating that we are also doing a high school principal search and that pos um posting will close next week. So we don't have timelines for the committee on that yet.
Also wanted to update everyone on the citywide PTO meeting that was held on Monday, April 14th. Um the PTO's at that meeting reviewed the April 8th school committee walking and no bus zone
presentation. We also talked about the richer school building project. We have been trying to recruit some parents to participate in full day exercises we've been working on on our ed plan. Um and we also scheduled tenatively June and
August meetings in the hopes that the new superintendent could attend these meetings. One as a traditional meeting, a transitional meeting and then the other one a launch meeting for next year. Um we look um forward to that
opportunity. Finally, I do I mentioned that I received um did the presentation for the citywide PTO meetings um members on April 8th about the walking zones, the no bus zones. And I want to remind the parents and community members, I did
send out information about this that on Thursday we we're holding two community forums in the Marbor High School little theaters. We've made some slight um changes so to some of the tenative walking zones since the last
presentation based on some feedback, but we're looking for some um public comments during that session so that we can um look at um what we are planning. The forums are scheduled at 400 pm and 6 pm. You just need to attend one. You
don't have to attend both, but everyone is welcome. Any questions, uh, comments? I just have an FYI. I just want to make sure you're aware that Thursday night is also when the music department is checking in for their trip. Yeah, they
originally were going to do it in the little theater, but they've moved. Okay. Just wanted to make sure you you knew that was happening. It could be a little busy, but it's spaced out throughout the night, so maybe it won't be too bad, but I just want to make sure you knew. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um, I just also wanted to make sure that
um and well to thank the superintendent and Mr. Wells on gathering some information that um I believe was distributed to you all um this afternoon where I was asking if we could have some comparative information about other um
districts um kind of nearby that have um specific walking zones. I really felt like we needed to have some comparison conversations because frankly our parents need to understand what other districts are are experiencing as well.
Um because we've all been um having to handle transportation and um I think it was it's helpful to have that perspective and I appreciate you all gathering this information specifically. This was gathering some information around Framingham, Hudson, Maynard,
NITK, and Sudbury. Um, which just as a reminder, we do not have any charge any bus fees, which is just one of the things that are frankly, I think, absolutely outstanding. Um, but there are fees in Framingham, there are fees
in Maynard, NICT, and in Sudbury. There is no fee in Hudson though. And I just think that that's part of what we need to keep in mind. There there are fee structures as well as then um in a number of cases um it is uh what
two-mile walking areas in a number of the districts. So I I just hopefully this is information that also can be shared and can be a part of the conversation. It's the new first slide of the presentation on Thursday and um
after those forums on Thursday, we will repost the updated presentation as well. Great. Thank you. I I mean I appreciate that because I think as we know from a social media standpoint, there are a lot of people that actually go to other towns to try and source and understand
what everyone is facing. I think this is just helpful information to kind of get it out there that um we are not the only community that's really needing to take a look at this and um I I actually have to you know say good for the administration that we stepped out ahead
of this. So thank you so much. Okay. I just want to piggy back a little bit on what Mrs. Hennessy said too talking about districts that charge a fee. And when we got rid of fees, there was a lot
of thought to that process. Athletic fees, bus fees, so on and so forth, parking at the high school. When when you reach a certain point of the free and reduced community, it's almost counterintuitive
to charge because if you have a hundred people that are participating in something and 70% of them don't have to pay, then you're only getting from 30%. And it almost it wipes out any savings you thought you might have had
or income from that. And um and that's what happens with the numbers. So if if there's anybody in the community that thinks, well, why don't we just start charging bus fees? Well, if you look at the population who would end up paying
um it goes back to our equity issues and it it's no longer an equity at that point. And that was what we were trying to take away years ago when we got rid of the fees. So that that's an excellent point and in a number of districts that I have worked in, we have charged fees
for busing for the under two miles for students to allow the busing for people to pay for it. And it never brings in any more than than 15 to 25% of what the total cost of that additional busing really is. Um because of the fact that you you the fee is never the total cost
of what it is for a student to ride a bus. Um it's usually a fraction of that. um trying to offset some of the cost, but generally to to your point that you end up with a lot of waiverss on the fee that you you issue out and you don't collect as much money as you were hoping to collect at when you actually
initially hit those fees. So, um you know, it is wonderful that Malro is without fees and it's great that we can continue to do that and certainly, you know, it it never has the strong effect that people think it might have when you Right. And I and that that's really why I wanted to bring that up because I'm sure there's somebody out there going,
"Well, if other districts are charging, why, you know, you have to understand the financial total picture." Yes. Before you, you know, Yeah. I will mention that at the citywide PTO meeting, one of the
questions were, could we just bus all the elementary students? It's a valid question. Framingham does it. But the way that the tiers and the cost per bus cost, if we went to one tier at 33
buses, it would actually probably cost us more than what we are planning on doing. And so it would still be, you know, the equation would still result in reducing educators in the district. No,
I have to commend I have to commend you and your administration and Matt and the whole at looking at the total picture of without you know taking your nose off your face kind of thing. So that expression well and and to be fair many of us around this table can remember
walking to school. I mean I that that's what we did. Even the mayor walked to school, you know, that that's what we all did um for many many many years. So it is maybe an adjustment but I think that's been an adjustment that we've tried to start the right process on on
you know having the wonderful thing at the elementarymentaries like the walking Wednesdays um when we had the bus strike situation um we all really banded together as a community to step up to make sure that we were getting kids there safely and I
think it's just a matter of we need to get into the mindset of that's what we're here to do right is to all work together so we can find a solution. So I again thank you for the information. I appreciate that you're going to add it to the presentation not only for um
Thursday but then you know uh moving forward. Thank you. Okay. Anything else? Moving on. Director of finance and operations report, Mr. Wells. Excellent. Thank you. Um so we're going to start with food service. uh food service has the elementary schools
have all achieved over 80% in participations for school lunch which is fantastic. Uh that that growing uh and and as well as the middle school as well also reached above 80%. So we're getting a lot more participation on that lunch which is great. We love having the kids come and eat or we have great foods that
we're offering. Uh they really do love that fresh fruit program that we're running. It's it's it's got great color to it. Um they love trying the new fruits that we offer, the star fruit, the the dragon fruit that we put out there. So, it's it's very enticing, very interesting for them to try. Uh, breakfast we still struggle with. We're
we're still trying to uh to to draw in, but um as we showed in the in the survey, some of our students just they won't eat breakfast. They're just not going to do it. Or, you know, with our high schoolers, yeah, Dunkin Donuts is fantastic. You know, it's it's on the way. You get your coffee, you get your donut, and you know, we can't serve
coffee and donuts obviously within the school. So, um can't compete with with some of the offerings that are out there. So, um, but we continue to try and figure out how we can get breakfast, uh, more readily available at the point of entry. So, we, you know, and try and entice students to to grab that and take it with them and and have it, you know, a second meal. Uh, because, you know,
especially at high school, uh, you know, a lot of those students, I think a second meal would be very welcoming. So, um, transportation, uh, we over the past couple of weeks, we have seen the reduction in the number of callouts. Uh, we even had a few days where we did not need any coverage on any of the routes.
We had all drivers show up. So, um, we're on the downside. Uh, you know, obviously it's very warm outside. We're we're feeling the the effects of the the warmth and, um, having the flu season, uh, dissipate for us has helped out a lot. Uh, we did take a little bit of a hit. We had our our dispatcher left
suddenly and unexpectedly. Um, which was unfortunate. Uh, so we're they was a bit of a scramble, but they they did a great job of getting somebody in place. Um, that person is still learning the ropes a little bit. um the manager, the hub manager, Monica, is stepping in a little bit more to help out with that to make
sure the transition is very smooth and help with the training of that individual. But uh we feel pretty good about this person they put in place as well. But it was a little bit of a hiccup. Uh you know, when you've got someone who's, you know, had settled into the roots and uh having um you know, partnership with the drivers, it
it was it was rough to have that person leave and have to put another person in place, but seems to be transitioning well and we we're feeling pretty good about that. Um, and again, we're we're talking about the, you know, the the no busing zone. So, we're we're getting that information together. We're get that off to NRT this week so that they
can start producing something of what we would expect to see. Um, how the routes would be laid out. Um, again, it's going to be different because, uh, you know, we're going to be running, you know, outside of an area and then running into the area. So, um, it should be interesting how they map that out. We're
going to be very close with them on that to make sure that um it maps the way that we would expect it to map as well and um and you know certainly use our institutional knowledge of the city to help them out with that. Um and then there's a copy of the financials uh is in your your book. We did um release the
uh supply accounts back to the principles uh as we we're coming towards the end of the year here. We were looking and saying okay we feel comfortable um sort of we had that strategic freeze in place. we felt more comfortable releasing that now and saying let's fill up the supply cabinets and the closets and make sure that we
got everything that we need and get a little bit of a head start on next year as well. So, um we're still cautiously watching that budget, but we feel pretty good we're going to end the year um in a great place and we think that strategic freeze did help us a lot to make sure that we could end up in a balanced situation.
Thank you. Moving on, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, Dr. Scaza. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First item on my report this evening is in regard to the vision for math
instruction. So we are currently working through a process to develop a K through2 vision for math instruction with the Mar for the Marorrow public schools as we partner with TNTP. One of the consultants who goes by Katie Gardner is assisting us along the way.
Uh Katie has a really sharp math mind and she has been instrumental in leading us through some conversations around visioning. We recently conducted a workshop with our director of mathematics 6 through 12 Heather Russo and the elementary math interventionists
Jamie Miller, Rebecca Kaya, Pam Migos and Christa Oral to draft priorities for an MPS math vision. Our next step is to gather input from families and caregivers. We will be sending a brief survey out to the community this upcoming month of May. April attendance academy. I am very
pleased to report and that we were fortunate to be able to hold April vacation attendancemies last week. The funding for these programs came from the targeted assistance grant provided by the department of early and secondary education. Similar to the February break attendancemies, the primary focus of
each session was to re-engage selected students into a pattern of routine attendance at school. Additionally, each session offered some general academic support to help students be better prepared for the final push of the 24-25 school year. Whitcom School had 30 students participate and Marorrow High
School had 70 students in the program. Uh just a point of mention, we are also intending with some grant funding through title one to offer four more Saturday attendance sessions to really
put a strong point of emphasis on addressing chronic absenteeism, getting kids in the school um during vacation and on Saturdays to uh re-engage them and help them make up lost attendance. Finally, extended year
summer programming is right around the corner. Happy to report the summer months are ahead. We have begun staffing and preparing for the 2025 summer programs. Grant funding affords us the ability to provide extended year instruction for students who are referred to the title one and three
programs. Furthermore, students with extended year programming on their educational plans will attend one of our special education summer programs. The elementary programs will be housed at Jarwick School this summer. The air conditioning is ready to go and we will conduct a summer programming orientation
for our summer staff members early this coming June. Thank you. Questions, comments? Sorry, just one question on the um attendancemies. You mentioned the Saturday. Will that be
for both Wickcom and high school? That one is only intended for the Wickcom school and it's it's four Saturdays. Okay. I just sorry wanted to make sure I understood. Thank you. You're welcome. Anything else? I have two questions. Uh one, I'm just curious. um this extended
school year at Jarrick. Is that a change this year? Is it usually a good now? Yeah, we Why the change? We have tried to balance the summer programming. Last year it was the air conditioning project that did not afford us the opportunity to have the camps at Jarwick good now
with the dehumidification system. It's comfortable there. Um however, we have kind of shared the responsibility of of elementary summer programming. um with schools that do have the air conditioning ability. Can I just add it also allows us to do a deep cleaning at
good now this summer which we haven't been able to do for the last couple of years. Got to and principal Battel is aware and ready ready to go. All right. My second question is can you tell us what a little bit about what the students are doing during the attendance
um what are we calling it attendancemies like are they their new lessons? Are they working? So at the high school level it's a mixture of two primary focuses. The one is they do engage in the apex learning platform which is like
an online um program where they can make up lost credit. They can uh remediate skills through the online programming. They do that for a portion of the of the session because that's just a lot to ask a kid to be on a computer for that entire day. Uh the other portion of the
session for the high school students um are like they run them in circles, but they're just formats for them to discuss what some of the barriers are to getting to school. Some of the staff members who are at the program talk about healthy
habits for school attendance. Um there's some coaching, some social and academic coaching to help prevent some of the barriers that are causing students to not get to school. So there's like a balance of let's talk about some of the reasons and how we can re-engage and then let's also give you an opportunity
to make up some of the work um that you've missed because of your attendance. At the Wickholm school it is primarily focused around the re-engagement. They try to incorporate some activities that involve like some team building skills, some fun things.
They unfortunately don't have the online platform where they can make up the lost credit, but they are remediating some academic skills in a different style. Uh but it's primarily focused around um activities just to re-engage the students back in school. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Sorry. And one more
um around the math instruction. I just was um curious to understand how is this kind of coordinated around the math curriculum that is part of our budget for this next year. Um it's instrumental and just as a to mention the con some of
the context with how we um introduced our literacy program which now spans grades K through eight. We develop we worked with the department of ed. We worked with it the TNTP organization and
we received grant funding to help us with the materials and and the training along the way. the um vision was kind of step one to set the course for what we wanted literacy instruction to look like in the district specifically in relation
to that core program into reading and into literature. Uh so our vision work then took on a K through 12 scope to make sure that everything everyone was on the same page and we kind of understood what what we wanted literacy
instruction to look like. um K through 12 and we did solicit feedback from the families with that process. We're doing the same thing now with mathematics and we're kind of taking a step back because we have um introduced into math grades
six through eight at the Whitcom school, but we are going to be launching into math grades K through five at the elementary school. So, it's imperative that we get this vision underway. We're going to make it a a K through 12 vision and um have it connected to math
instruction globally, not just um around the program grades K through um eight, but the vision itself is basically around like why it what is important for us as educators and for families and caregivers around the subject of
mathematics. And some of the questions that we're going to ask the families are um are pretty general like what do you hope your child will be able to do with math as they get older? I mean we saw an
example of hello you know brilliant um robotics uh earlier this a this evening how important is it that your child on a scale from very important to not important enjoys math can explain their thinking solves problems in different ways gets the right answer quickly. So
just getting some general feedback from families and care caregivers about why math is instruction to their children instruction is important to their children and then we can kind of mold the way we're we're teaching this new program K through eight to kind of accommodate for those needs. Thank you.
I appreciate that. Thank you. Anything else? Seeing none, moving on. Acceptance of minutes. Minutes of the April 8th, 2025 school committee meeting. Motion to approve. Motion to approve is on the table in second. Questions, comments, concerns regarding the April 8th school committee
meeting. Seeing none, yes. Well, it's just a little minor thing. I think that I was trying to look up the previous what um 9B the it wasn't the chamber orchestra.
It was the quintet that was here. So, it wasn't like we had a whole orchestra here. It was just five members. Yeah, it was it was the it was the quintet, not the chamber orchestra. So, I think that should be edited. 3B 3B
3B. That's how you said mine under presentation. Oh, chamber orchestra. Yep. Because we didn't have the whole orchestra here was the quint. Okay. Thank you. Motion as amended. and seconded to
approve the April 8th minutes as amended. Any other further questions, comments, concerns? Seeing none, all in favor to support the amended minutes. Motion carries. Thank you very much. There is no one in the audience. So there public comment will only be
said once. Public comment. Seeing none, we will move on. Action items and reports. We already approved the Ma High School robotics overnight trip and we already approved the school committee budget. So ex moving on to acceptance of donations
which is on 9C. We have four of them. So Boston Scientific for Richard Elementary School for $30. Need a motion. Motion to approve. Motion to approve on the table and seconded. Questions, comments, concerns
regarding the donation for Boston Scientific. Seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries. Good Nation Foundation grant investigating history for the Witcom School for
$39,200. Motion to approve. Motion to approve is on the table and seconded questions, comments, concerns. Seeing none, all in favor of the grant for Whitcom. Motion carries. Good Nation Foundation grant democratic knowledge project for Wickcom
Kain Jarrett Goodnau and Richard schools for $74,340. Motion to approve. Motion to approves on the table and second questions, comments, concerns regarding the grant. Seeing none, all in favor? Motion carries. And the last one is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Credit for Life for the Mubra High School Reality
Fair for $2500. Motion to approve. Motion to approve is on the table and seconded. Is there any questions, comments, or concerns regarding the grant for the reality fair? Seeing none, all in favor, motion carries. Thank you very much. Moving on to reports of school
committee subcommittees. Seeing none policy is our policy. Yeah. Um, we just recently had a meeting uh earlier this morning, I had to think, but I think we may have had another one right in time. So um uh so
we will have some policies coming forward in our next meeting around uh some of the visitors in school as well as um wellness policy. Sorry, I had to think about that. And uh we have some
other things we've been working on and you'll see some things soon. Thank you so much. Anything else? Seeing none, moving on. Members forum. Anything from members forum?
No. No. Did you sign the warrant? I signed the warrant. Thank you. I reviewed and signed the warrant. Okay. Anything else? We have the day on the hill coming up on Monday. Tuesday. Yes. Say that again. MC Day on
the Hill is on Oh, yeah. Tuesday. Day on the hill. Tuesday. and our friend won't be joining us this year because he'll be off in unfortunately he'll be in Dallas but but I know you've got three or four of your other colleagues are coming.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's the Massachusetts Association of School Committees annual advocacy day at uh C at Beacon Hill. So school committee members and students come to be come and
uh talk to legislators and hear from legislators and good time is had by all. And aside from that afterwards all of the vote schools um our friends at Asabet included um the
students prepare lunch for everyone. So it's it's their one of their big times every year to show off their their work. So it's a good day. Yes. Um quick question. So at this point we've voted on the budget. It's moved forward to
you. Do I understand correctly that it's going to be headed to city council for um their next Monday meeting? It's going to be on the agenda for Thursday and then the meeting on Monday. Okay. And then at that point, um, do you
anticipate that they would then set up their plan for hearings? My assumption would be the following Monday, so the 12th. Okay. That's my assumption on Monday. So, can once I have that information, I'll be happy to send it to you. So, I was just going to
say though, can can you um at least communicate that we would normally have our meeting on Tuesday night? So my hope would be that they would not put anything relative to the school budget on on the Tuesday night
that Tuesday night that Tuesday just because it wouldn't allow for us to really freely be a part of any of that um communication and support. Correct. So um if you could at least express that to them that would be really helpful. You got it. Okay. Thank you. You're
welcome. It's everyone's favorite part of the night. I'm sure. Motion to return. Thank you. I think there was a second because you all said at the same time, but I will second that. Questions, comments, concerns about adjourning. Seeing none,
all in favor journeying at 8:23. We are adjourned at 8:23. Thank you.