One, two, Good evening. I'm calling to order the October 8th meeting of the Milton School Committee. If we could all stand for the pledge of allegiance 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. We're starting with public comment. Um, in accordance with school committee policy, we welcome members of the community to share their perspectives with us during public comment. We've set
aside up to 15 minutes for this part of the meeting, and individuals may speak for up to three minutes each. While the school committee does not respond directly to public comment, there may be opportunities for members to address issues that are raised over the course of the meeting when relevant topics are on our agenda. We strive to engage in
respectful discourse during our meeting and ask the public comment speakers to keep that in mind. Speakers should introduce themselves for the record. Do we have anybody? Don't have anybody in the room. Is there anybody online? We remind them to raise their hand.
If you are interested in speaking, if you could raise your hand. All right. Looks like there isn't anybody. The next agenda item is the superintendence report. Good evening everyone. Um very thankful
to be here tonight to update the public in the community and the school committee and a few things that are going on in the in the Milton public schools. Uh first and foremost over the last few meetings you have uh we have been addressing the transportation issue that has been uh put upon the district
uh this school year. Uh we did listen to several folks um give us their concerns related to getting their children to school and the long wait list. We're we're happy to announce tonight that uh over the last several weeks we have been
able to with the hard work of uh assistant superintendent for finance Katie Blake and others um take 48 students off that weight list and put them onto buses. Um, we have been engaging with families and engaging with the bus company for several weeks in
order to come up with some creative thinking around the bus routes and how many students can ride the bus uh to to school each day given the amount of students that were on that weight list. So, we had a weight list uh that we were able to reduce uh putting 48 students on that bus two weeks ago. All those
students were informed, all bus passes were mailed home and those students are currently riding the bus. We were also uh very very happy to get the support from uh principal Bill Fish who's in the audience tonight at the middle school. Bill is opening the school at 7:00 a.m.
for all those families that are still on the wait list uh to be able to come in one half hour earlier, go to the cafeteria, get some homework done, and be ready for breakfast uh in order to support any family who has a commute that would be um uh made possible uh
with some early drop off time. So those two strategies we feel have alleviated the bus list quite substantially. Please note that there are still folks on the bus wait list. Uh and we are taking this week in order to collect some data uh of about how much space is left on the
buses that we might be able to utilize. And a little fact that I just want to put out to the community is that uh our buses are legally able to have a certain capacity uh of roughly 64 students. 64. I'm looking at Katie Blake for that number.
70 70 students. We currently in most districts usually use for middle and high school a lower number than that because the students are bigger and it forces 74 capacity forces all seats to be used with three students per seat which for high school students and
some of our middle school students is not a viable option given all the things that they bring to school and they're bigger human beings. We started with a capacity of 50 within Milton uh which a lot of districts do. Um, and we asked the bus company and our staff to go on and take a look at how old our students
were, how big they were, how many sixth graders were riding the bus and could we actually move roughly 48 students onto the bus uh and keep the same amount of buses. So, we increased the capacity to roughly 55 students or so per bus. And
that was predicated on us looking at how full the bus was, how old the students were. Um this week we'll be doing a further assessment of even with those added 48 students. Uh is there still more capacity that we could maybe add more students back to each bus for a
second round of reductions from the weight list in additions to regular school buses that we will look at this week and make some determinations. So, in our communications with our families on the wait list, first of all, the families that got the uh the letter that said you now are able to come off the
wait list and join the bus, they're they're excited, they're happy, and they're driving the bus. But the ones that are still on the wait list, uh we asked to wait two weeks until we could make a second round assessment and then hopefully call folks sometime next week and let them know if there's any room on their particular bus. I should say that
the this was complicated by the weight list being done by bus and bus route. It wasn't just one long list. It was actually disagregated by bus and um and the bus company did do their bus routing this year a little differently. So there are some considerations that we're
trying to do for those families who may have been put on the wrong bus to begin with in order to see if we can help facilitate uh the farthest families from the school being able to have access to the bus first. And that's how the weight list was created initially. So, um we
are going to facilitate bus refunds for those who want them. Um and we will be communicating next week with the next round of options. After that round is complete, this will be the last set of work that we will do um around transportation for the 25 26 school
year. U and I would say on this issue that this is in the front of our minds for our budgeting work that we're doing over the next two months. uh adding a bus to the fleet uh reorganizing our stops and routes in a more effective way with the bus company and being uh able
to communicate all this in the spring uh in enough time for folks to understand the process. All the lessons learned in uh new strategies will be implemented for the 2627 school year. My next update is on teaching and learning. Uh we're
happy to say that the school visits have started. Uh we are doing principal learning walks. uh in all of our buildings. Uh we go to maybe one or two schools a week. Kakoso and I have been to the high school. Tucker, Kolycott, uh Pierce will be at the um the Cunningham
tomorrow. Uh we walk through three or four classrooms. We have a protocol. We sit and talk about the observations with the building principal. All of this is in an effort to do uh a lot of diagnostic work, observation work and unpacking with the principles what are
they seeing and what are we seeing in terms of the effectiveness of what's happening in the classrooms. What are these good news stories that we want to share? Um, it also serves as a way of validating and giving teachers the attention and the due respect that they deserve around watching what they do
well and giving them positive feedback on that work and making sure that they know that at their classroom level that central office is actually interested, grateful and um really uh wanting to have impact on the classroom this year and supporting them in that work. So,
it's a multi-layered effect. Um, and we we'll be doing that work every week uh of the school year for this school year. So, thank you to all the the the teachers that uh you know took us in allowed us to be part of their classroom. Thank you to the students who
are very excited to see us do uh the learning walks. Uh doing math groups at the collot last week on the floor with students who are doing uh traditional division and also the new types of division uh was exciting. So, all good stuff. Um, principal and coordinator
meetings have been up and running. This is new, uh, at the elementary level and also, uh, the way we're doing them this year with the secondary as well. This is where all of our teaching and learning work will be done with our leadership team and our building principles. Um, we, I believe, are in our third round of
these meetings so far this year, and they are creating our professional development. They're helping us focus on our five leadership team focus areas and uh coordinating the development, the professional development like the one that we had today in the district for the early release. Uh and so families
know what did the teachers actually do today while my child got dismissed early. Uh we actually took all of your MCAT scores of each school. Uh every principal was able to execute a set of slides with the school data in the district data that was driven by one
slideshow for all uh schools. So we're continuing this theme of central office providing consistent communication around teaching and learning uh in the professional development. So the first maybe eight or nine slides were district- based and then the remaining slides were school-based and then
teachers would go back and unpack that and connect that to their work this year in their classrooms and with their students. Um we always send out uh a feedback form to all staff uh asking them for more feedback. What we heard after our first professional development was that they wanted more collaboration
time, that they like the flexibility of what we were doing. So, we're being very explicit about using that feedback to inform how we do our next professional development. The teachers are our customer. We're trying to work for them around professional development in service to our students. So, it's really
important to get that feedback and so we appreciate I think we had almost 170 replies to our feedback form at our last PD and we'll send that out again tomorrow. Um, and lastly, we will be presenting those MCAT scores to the school committee at
our October 22nd meeting, and we look forward to that night as well. Thank you. The next item is the Sorry, can I go ahead? Sorry. Question. Um, I guess two things. One, do you all have updated numbers on how
many kids are left on the wait list? I heard 48 kids came off for transportation. Sorry. There were 25 left in of roughly of the 25 um 15 lived more than a mile away and 10
lived a mile or less away. That's from the original weight list for those folks who applied for the bus on time. There is another list of folks who did not apply on time that we weren't even able to address given the volume and given the bus capacity. And how many people are on that list?
On the second list? Yeah. Um, I don't know an exact number. I'm going to try to give you a ballpark number. I'm trying to think Katie might have it. I don't know the exact number. I believe it was over 50 students that were on
that list. Um, but I don't It was a sizable amount. Thank you all for all your work on trying to widow that down. 25 is a lot less than uh obviously where we started with and so appreciate all your efforts and also again to open up the school you
know an hour before um that's that's great love that even for for Cunningham because we have before school which is great but I pay for that but uh again Bill Fish is uh putting the bill over at PS we I appreciate you Bill
it's very very nice um the only other question I had was on the MCAST Um this is it possible for the slides for the school committee presentation to be shared you know a week in advance. This
is not a you issue it's just the past couple of years when we've gotten them. I think I've gotten them like the day of uh which is then like not allowed for a whole lot of opportunity to like have Yes. Um would the Friday before the meeting work or even before if that's possible that would be great. Yeah.
Yeah. No, we'll have they're pretty much because we made them for every school today, it'll just be an extension of the current common set of slides that we have. So, yes, we can do that. That's great. Thank you. Appreciate anyone else. Great.
Uh so the next item is the preliminary fe going over the field trips the preliminary field trip approval. So uh we have three trips uh planned and that are on the docket tonight from the middle school. We also have uh principal
Bill Fish who can answer questions specific to each one of these proposals. Uh just an overview of all three. Uh we have two trips that have been consistently implemented. Um at the Pierce Middle School, one of which is
the uh Washington DC trip which is for all eighth graders. And want to commend uh Principal Fish for all being all and him ensuring that every student who wants to go on this trip u can go on this trip. uh to the point where he went
last year with students who were maybe challenged in the ability to navigate the trip and he made sure that they were there. So all does mean all to Bill Fish. So Bill, thank you for that. Uh the second trip is the um trip to Quebec City which is run through our our world language department and our student and
our students who are in the French immersion program and the new uh partner trip to that interim. Uh, I want to thank Zena Hamada and her team of Spanish and Latin teachers of the middle school for picking up this work and and following through and and making this available to and making this available
to uh the Pierce community. Um, I can bring if people have questions, I can certainly bring Bill to the table in order to answer any of those. So, Bill, would you like to come up to the um table? Thank you. Welcome, Bill. You're welcome.
So the the outline the bill provided uh has uh sections that represent the educational objectives, the description of how the study uh how the safety of the students will be maintained, the proposed budget including the cost to students and sources of finances including fundraising, uh estimate of
number of students and adults participating, general plan and schedule, procedures and emergencies and notification and procedures for students uh if separated from the group in the nursing services. So each one of those categories has been filled out by Bill
and his team for each of the trips. Yes, I guess question. The Quebec City trip, the Washington DC trip both happened last year. Did the New York City trip also happen last year? No, this is this is a trip. The New York City trip is would be a companion trip to the um Washington DC's eighth grade
students. the Quebec City seventh grade French immersion students and the New York City trip would be seventh grade Spanish and Latin students. I noticed that the trips are on different weeks in May.
And I'm just thinking logically speaking, would it make sense for all the trip to happen at the same time? Mhm. So that like the teachers and the students are all going to be gone. The seventh and eighth graders are all going to be gone
at the same time. And it it just makes logical sense. I think like if you have teacher who might be teaching both seventh and eighth grade, I don't think that happens. Uh but
I don't know it it just feel like very choppy like you have first week you go to um New York City second week you go to Quebec and then third week you go to Washington DC. Mhm. So I could I could see that from the Quebec
trip and the New York City trip because I know with a hundred kids I think went to Quebec last year and I know that was tough for students who didn't get to go or just like you know um faculty not being there and just interruptions in
learning. So I was wondering if there was um any way to kind of make those two happen at the same time. We started that was our starting point. some the challenges in the availability with the travel vendor and um if for trips our size that that the Quebec City
being above 100 students, there's a limited window as as to when some of these trips can be accommodated. That happened last year with the DC trip. We ended up going a few weeks later than we had historically gone because uh the week we had previously had always gone was Pride week in DC. So the hotel rates
were astronomical and accessibility to the Smithsonians and some of the other normal stops. um were challenging and that that is often for us one of the adventures. So some of it I I appreciate where you're coming from and Hannah you're absolutely right. It is it can be
disruptive when a teacher shaperoning and there's a teacher covering the class but um there's also uh an operational aspect of needing enough adults in the building to cover it safely too. Um because in yes
in an ideal world every trip could happen simultaneously and we would almost but yet we also have to remember that especially in seventh grade not every student will attend the trip. Thank you. So you're saying that seventh graders not everybody is going to attend. It's
optional trip for seventh grader. Yes. But for eighth grader is like expected everybody will attend. It is um the way that and and John and I have spoken about this. I'd look at the Washington DC trip is that's one that we want to we want to ensure that every
student who is mildly interested in in taking that trip has the opportunity that is a class trip as a culmination for of their middle school experience. The seventh grade trips to Quebec City to in the proposed new trip to New York City, those are really nice to haves very similar to the European trip that
the Milton High School did last year. So, um we don't we we have seen more interest in the eighth grade trip, more universal interest in the eighth grade class trip than we've seen in um the Quebec State trip. We expect there to be good interest in the New York City trip. We
did poll families, sixth grade families last year to get a sense of whether it was um worthwhile pursuing pursuing the opportunity. But um I would I would expect that the participation rate would be higher for the DC trip in eighth grade than it
would be for seventh grade optional trips. Um you know the the Wildcat Dan um also offers a New York trip um on in November for for middle schoolers and yeah just for a weekend.
Okay. Um I I don't know like it seems like there are some overlap. Obviously this one would be language focus and cultural immersion all those stuff but I'm just wondering like is it possible to have partnership between different
place different programs in the town um to perhaps like have fundings pulled together maybe the student because the student that they serve is also middle age student right and our students in our middle schools are all of middle
middle school age so they is potentially that the same student would attend both New York trip, right? So, I'm just thinking like is it possible to eliminating duplications? Who is the group that's doing the other
trip and where did they go? I think it's done uh by the mutton park and rack um um from the Wildcat Dan that they you know they converted that um old state a firehouse into a teenage youth center place
and they offer a a trip to New York City in November because I I remember seeing that in the fly just again with the size of our group we're not always able to do every traveling and as a as a full role of six buses Yeah,
great. No, I appreciate it. I think it's great. I think the addition of the New York trip for the non-Frenching speaking kids is great. Uh, and totally understand the logistical challenges. I think the idea is a good one uh that we all both had and if there's a way to do that in the future, figure that out in the future.
That's what I was going to say. think that we can if if assuming there's enough interest in I expect there will be interest in continuing the Quebec City trip assuming that there's enough interest to have the New York City trip run as we're planning things further in advance now try it is the same travel
vendor jump street to to work with them to try to sync up the duration the the timing and the duration of trips thanks for everyone I just have a quick question about the DC trip as you had mentioned mentioned
this past year it was a little later into June then and now it looks like it's back earlier into May. Sure. Are you still planning and it's okay if you haven't thought this far ahead, but I think personally and the feedback I've
heard was just so um phenomenal about the opportunity for rising sixth graders to spend that time in Pierce building when the eighth graders were away. So would that still be possible even if the trip was like in May at on this time
frame? Absolutely. That was one of the I mean there have been lots of shining points over the course of the past few years at Pearson. I think that that transition to the step up days and bringing our fifth graders over for the two days and the experience our sixth grade teachers
provided was um definitely right at the top of that list. So it it in our thinking it doesn't matter. it it happened to be last year two of the last four days of school or last five days of school whether if it's a few weeks earlier um because even this these dates
is the three days leading into Memorial Day weekend so it's still um I think it actually potentially be better because students will still be presumably not distracted by the you know the end of last couple days end of year. Great. I'm I'm I'm really glad you brought that up because I I wanted to
just mark that for for Bill and the Pierce is that we have our fifth graders coming in as a total group, all the students where it used to be where the kids would come to a camp if they could make it for a oneweek duration and and not all students could do that whether they were away or there there was a
money aspect to that. Bill has created an onboarding of our fifth grade children up to Pierce all students uh meeting the sixth grade teachers. great transition opportunity for every single student in all four schools to come together and begin that process of building team around being sixth graders
the following year. And on the book end of that, our eighth graders are leaving um uh the middle school with this wonderful trip that uh a lot of people that Bill has organized in order to support financially the families that may not be able to uh afford it, get a little support so that every student can
attend. Uh really great bookend trips that include all students. Um, so I I really appreciate the thinking on that. Uh, it's by design, it's purposeful, it's good for students, it's good for families, and it's good for the morale and the and the culture of Pierce. So, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Looks like that timing should also land pretty well with just after MCAST finishes for great science. Um, just a couple of quick questions I'm taking from your comment, John. I I um it sounds like with the fundraising that
happens that these trips to what degree are any students excluded because the trips are cost prohibitive. And then I'll just ask a second question which is uh Quebec has a cap of 100 and New York has a cap of 200
attendees and I'm wondering just if if they're so that adds up to 300 like is that are there kids who are like weight listed essentially and what's the selection process if so? Right. Um for the first question about uh scholarshipping. So for the past
three years we have been able to send every student every eighth grade student who's wanted to go to DC to DC regardless of their ability to pay. Um and the two primary sources of funding is one through the contract that we have with the vendor. We have a there's a um
there is an incentive based on the number of students that sign up and pay and and um pay in full. Um, we were given discretionary money. Some schools use it to pay the triple leader a stipen. We use ours to pay for kids to go. Um, so last year we had it was in
neighborhood of 11 or 12,000 in in scholarship money that came back from from EF. Um, then we also do an appeal to our families. Uh, and for the past two of the past three years, those um funding sources have completely covered
all of the asks. when we um we look at we analyze the students who aren't who don't initially register and we personally reach out to families to ask them if they're if they're aware of the trip if they're interested um and without prying try to find out what if they're not signed up what's their
reason and in some cases some students some families some kids are just not interested in going some families aren't ready to send their children off without them um but once in a while a parent will say I you know it's it's too much for me to do and um I didn't want to ask
for help or I didn't know I could ask for help and we bring those we bring them in and um we got our participation up that we were at 90 90% of our eighth graders last year attended that trip. Um for some families it's a partial scholarship, for some families it's a
it's a full scholarship. Um with Quebec City and I would imagine that the format would be the same with New York City. Um, this is where I put this in the the the I said to John the other day, I would run through a wall to make sure that every eighth grader wanted to go to that trip that they could. The seventh grade trips, they're incredible
experiences, but they're I put them in the nice to have category. And um last year we were able to thankfully uh several families had asked for um about scholarship opportunities. We were able to tap into um you know, local families
and some some other resources to make that trip a reality for everybody. Um but I am you know we are careful about who we ask and how much money we ask for from the community and um that priority is is going to be for me is going to be
on the DC trip because every student will have the opportunity in terms of capacity um the the cost of the trip is dictated by how full the buses are like be so we're on um when you see a cap of 100 or cap of 200 because you could put about
50 students on one of those on those coach buses and the more full they are the lower the cost becomes for the the per unit cost becomes. So um that's why those are in increments of of 50s. Um there areund about 110 or 111 7th grade
French immersion students now. Um last year we had 101 sign up and um we were we did have a wait list for one student as it turned out that p that student was able to was able to go. It's a little bit of an unknown with the New York City trip because I we're not sure whether there are lots of families that
expressed interest when they were asked this in the spring of sixth grade. Um how that comes to bear when we move forward is is a little bit of an unknown right now. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Bill. You're welcome.
There is no vote on that. That was just the preliminary table. So this is preliminary uh as of tonight and then this will be voted. We'll put it on the next agenda to be voted. Okay. Y Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Bill very much. The next item is the desi end of year report and this will be a vote. So, we enclosed in the folder the FY25
Desi end of the year report that is um uh put together by um Assistant Superintendent Blake. This is an annual exercise uh that we we're not sure is actually a votable topic, but we wanted to make sure that we're providing you
motion language to approve the submission uh and would reflect the fact that it's in your hands and been sent to you specifically in order to review if you choose to do so. Uh this is a standard annual task that uh that Katie
does with the state uh along with a lot of other submissions that we do throughout the year for a variety of reasons. Um, so that packet is in your folder uh for you to review. Um, we're just asking, we're just notifying you that it is being submitted and uh that
you're acknowledging that it's being sent by the district to Desi. Does anyone have any questions about it? I'll make a motion to approve the submission of Department of Elementary and Secondary Education FY25 end of financial year report.
A second. Is that good? Great. All in favor? Great. Great. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. So, the next item is the chair's report. So, um
we finalized the school committee goals, I believe, at our our last meeting. Um and one of the goals is around community engagement. um just up the exact language around it. Um and so the thought was that
um we could have a discussion and do some some brainstorming and come away with some ideas around how to better um engage the community, find um discuss ways to reach out uh to communicate with the community. Um I know that in the
past there ideas had been brought up. Last year, a good portion of our year, a lot of the communication really was around budget. That was the primary source of communic um topic of communication. So, just thought we could take this time now, come up with, you know, ideally it would be great even if
we had two to three ideas that we walked away with that we could look at um implementing this year. Um so, I just wanted to open that piece up to discussion if anybody wants to. We I remember last year when we discussed about this um we're saying
that for all those um districtwide events um sports events or other like monster dash events that we will send at least two school committee members to represent the group and we can wear a school
committee t-shirt or something like that to to make ourselves more visible. Um, not sure if we still going toward that. And I know that Mark already decides some t-shirt for us last year. And in the the meeting with the high
school representative last year and with the former superintendent, we talked about how in Boston public school systems, they have a group of students who talk about what happened in the recent school committee meeting,
a little broadcast um that the student a student and maybe one of the school committee members like created together. I I have no idea the details about that. Um, but it sounds interesting. So I have suggested we could do something similar
in in our school district because not everybody have time to sit down and listen to two hours of what we blah about at this meeting, right? And not many people will have time to or the energy to dig out our our meeting uh minute to see what hap what we have
decided on voted on all those stuff. So maybe if we have a another channel of social media easy recording of either audio or or video summarizing what
happened in our recent school committee meetings that could be a good to have I guess um especially for busy parents who work full-time and don't have time to
find informations. I haven't brought that up because I haven't I haven't meet with the school um the high school reps. We're meeting for for the first time on this Friday morning. So, I will report back next week or next meeting.
Great. on your the point you just made about another thing that we've talked about um is that would be even um like a lowerhanging fruit version of what you just said I think was to include in the communications that are
already going out to families a school committee section of the newsletter uh that could just highlight key takeaways from the meetings like the most recent meeting As far as key votes that were made or key topics that were
discussed, um I think in the past we have included, you know, links to recordings of meetings and whatnot, but I think maybe something in between that would um not
perhaps it could be an addition to what you just said, but I think it would be probably like a simpler um thing to implement. Um, yeah, it would just require someone to be doing the work on behalf of the committee to just simp like boil down
the key bullet points to be shared. Um, and in addition to that, another idea that I'd like to put on the table, which is something else we've talked about in different ways and done different things over time, over the years, including last year, is some
mechanism for community listening sessions or last year we did coffees. Um, pertaining to the calendar conversation. um that was I think wellreceived and
informative. Um I don't know if they would need to be um pertaining to a particular topic. We also did community um forums on the budget obviously and I expect we'll do something along that line.
But um I would actually be in favor of something even a little less formal, more like office hours held by school committee members. This is something I have actually really wanted to do for a long time now and I've not had the bandwidth to do it, but I've actually
feel like I might have the bandwidth again to like really think about how to do that. Um, I would be in favor of something like that if anyone else was up for it. Just a touch point that's allows conversation with members of the
community to be driven by the questions and concerns that they have. Um, and if anyone else agrees that's something to explore, then we could obviously would we would need to like think together about how to roll that out. But we've talked about it before and we just
haven't done it yet. Um, so those those like additional opportunities for members of the community to come and meet not with the full school committee, but with a smaller number of school committee members out in whether it's schools or
other places in the community is something I'd like to add to the list of things to consider. Well, just to piggyback on that, one of the things that we had talked about was even conceivably doing, you know, if you did a a co, say it's a coffee at a different school, like somebody will be there, you
know, at Kolycott once, you know, it might just rotate. I think to your point earlier, having clarity around what we're asking, do you um or sort of what the what the point of the meeting
is. So it's not, you know, I just obviously wanting to be respectful of, you know, say it was at a school that you're being respectful of the principal and you're being respectful of people running the school. So it's sort of is there, you know, we were we had that opportunity last year with the calendar.
We had the opportunity last year with the budget. So it really helped frame that discussion. But having discussion around you know gathering input around a particular topic I think might be you know be helpful if there are things that we thought
we were looking to learn more about you know maybe Nathan you had some thoughts. Well um couple I mean I I love those ideas Lizzie. Um, I think if we're going to be
I I think in terms of a a rationale for engagement, I think we're going to be looking for a permanent superintendent at some point over the next couple of years. We have the luxury of having this really long runway and, you know, community perspectives can change in a couple of years. So,
it's not to say that if we were to talk to people next month that, you know, those perspectives are locked in for a couple of years, but I think we could take advantage of that runway um to start learning about what the community wants in their next superintendent.
I think that would be that would be a valuable and productive thing. And you know also um I I think it would get probably the six of us are thinking a lot about this question. I don't know that
everyone else in Milton is thinking about this question just yet and I would also sort of force the community to start thinking about about that. Um so it could be valuable. The other u I I should probably know this and I don't but do does Milton have a practice of
regularly surveying families about um their experience with schools and do we have anything planned for this year? Uh I had a survey meeting with um V our data specialist uh Jenny Bell, our head
of guidance in Effie uh Shavers, our DEI director. Um we went through some potential um surveys that may be going out to students andor to the full uh school community. uh we're pausing several of those to get the timing up
and right with our uh with the needs uh of what we want to put those forward for. Um so we don't have any community-based surveys going out I don't believe this year we have an annual survey with our students through the vocal of the MCAST which we analyze
that data but I do not believe we have any uh adult family member like surveys going out at this point this year. Okay. Um, okay. And that that could be the the right thing to do. Maybe we think about
that for next year about how how to if we want to practice of it's just a it's a uh it's just it's a it's a way to get a lot of information really quickly. And I'm also I I would love to ask people how they would like to engage
with the school committee outside of this meeting. I think we can have some conjecture around how people want to talk to us. Um maybe office hours would be like I like the idea of office hours. I don't like the idea of office hours if
like nobody comes right. Um, so I think it kind of depend like I want to know how people want to engage with us and the time do you know that's one of the things I think when last year when we were doing both the calendar and the
budget meetings you know some it was recognizing sometimes if it's drop off people are dropping off and they have to rush to work or if it's pick you know some of them there are those like I just need to get in and out I don't have time to stop. So figuring out even within that and then there are families you
know if there are parents who are working in neither of those times work but they are looking for an opportunity to engage. So I think finding not only the the how they want to but when they like if it were in person when they want to when it when it works best for them I think would be important.
Well and like last year we did kind of try to make a range of the opportunities available. And I I think that worked fairly well. I mean, I'm sure it could have gone better, but being intentional around,
you know, morning and evening and offering a virtual option. Um, making sure you hit that range so that hopefully it has the best chance of working for I think the only thing we didn't do was a weekend option last year. Mhm.
Um so yeah, maybe we could, you know, try to gather some input around what um people would like to see. But I I also would encourage us to not like overthink that too much. Um cuz in
the meantime I think we can do something you know we can try something and even if it's an office hour session where only one person comes like that has some value in it I think because that's an opportunity for that
that person wouldn't have otherwise had to have a connection. So I just, you know, I think this um this year when we know that next year is actually really going to focus quite a
bit on the superintendent search directly and there will be structured many opportunities for community engagement through that process. I think this year almost presents like a luxury of just working on off um innovating a
little bit with like how we put ourselves out there. Granted, without it can't have no structure to it. It can't be like too loose, but I think it also doesn't have
to be like a perfect model either necessarily. So, go ahead. We can keep We're not going to figure it out right now. I mean this is something I have a suggestion since Nathan you talk about survey and Lizzy you talk about office hour and and the little
blurb about what happened in the superintendent newsletter. Is it possible that we can just create a Google form anom anominous Google form that just generally asking like if you would like to contact the school
committee with any questions or concern please use this Google form and submit it to us. um in that way like if people do not have the time to come meet us during our office hour if we decided to go to that route or if they can still reach out
without revealing who they are for those who doesn't want to say who they are right doesn't make sense then how do you like it it just you just don't collect their email address right so I if they don't expect a reply let me say
yeah if they respect a reply then they would let us know who they are. Right. Right. My I was talking about the I don't know if I said something to Lizzie about this sometimes like I think it's important that we get input.
I think um getting input but ensuring it's within our purview. Do you know? So sometimes the expectation is if somebody comes and brings a concern and it has to do with staffing or a teacher or something that we have no right
it's not within and then is there an an expectation of resolution some of it can just be the expectation can be I mean part of that could be oh that you know that's not you know that's not something the school committee does I suggest you reach out to superintendent
failen or you reach out to your principal or something Um, but if there's a way that we can, you know, maybe part of it is encouraging people also to recognize that they can send emails to the school committee and that it, you know, that it is anonymous that, you know, that not that it's
anonymous, but we're not, you know, sharing that with anybody, but that way there is the opportunity to share back. I'm not dismissing the Google form. I like I just some of it is is sort of managing the Yeah. Could we set up like an annual survey at the
beginning of the year that kind of we set up like questions based on what we're responsible for, right? And then put that out there to collect the feedback to kind of because I think with a lot of the things that we've done to engage the community,
we it's lower attendance, right? It doesn't quite represent the 4,000 students that are in our district. So, I feel like some of the surveys we get more feedback from. So if that's something that we set up annually to collect feedback then that could even
you know um like uh impact our the goals that we set for ourselves and so on and so forth just to collect you know and and we can kind of base the questions around what we're actually responsible for what we could do something about you know and just what can we do better you know like just
for us right and I think it's something that we could kind of look at and just at the end of the year when we go through our goals and say, "Okay, did we meet that? Do we meet like community expectations?" You know, what can we do better? And just like kind of reflect on
on that for us as well. But I think getting more people is really important because I do understand like having even been to some of those sessions last year with the calendar just a smaller group and I feel like it's it's tough and it's great. We have great conversations. it
would be great to get more feedback, you know, and I know like um a couple years ago when we did the superintendent survey like we had a ton of feedback and it was important like you know um to hear all of that. So so I I think it helps us the more
feedback we get but I think if we can structure it so that it's stuff that we can actually you know address or think about. I don't know. Yeah. Go ahead. Uh yeah, I I like that. I mean, I like having kind of annual surveys to be able
to get feedback on. I think having it be structured around, as you're saying, the things we own and can assess that every year, use that to guide goal setting. I love all all of that. Um I think we should do it. I also really like I like
I don't like having just generic kind of open office hours without really much direction for a lot of the risks that I think other people have shared around you know again scope creep of like it's not actually our job and are people going to show up and is it the right time is it the right people
um you know things like that I I really like Nathan's idea of we have a long run room uh for this superintendent conversation Let's start having it as like that. If we want to get out in front of people, use that as the opportunity to say like,
"Hey, we're going to have this to try and get out in front of you." And then naturally, if you're out in front of people, they if they have other things they want to talk to school committee about, they will bring it up within that setting. But we also have like a goal we are trying to accomplish within that beyond just sitting in front of folks.
And I think obviously like as you're saying a survey, we saw that with the school calendar. Mhm. It was, I think, helpful to have the inerson sessions, but we got a lot more responses obviously through the survey. I think that would still be a part of that. I don't know if we'd need to do a survey on the superintendent stuff just yet, but I think that gives us to Nathan's
point like gets us a sense the tone within the community probably and helps set the tone within the community that this is something that you need to be we all need to be thinking about having conversations of what what does this mean? Um, so I I like both a lot. I think for
the superintendent search piece, I mean clearly as we discussed last time, we're not discussing it tonight, but in this community engagement piece, like we're waiting a response currently, right, from the the state. So I think it's we
definitely need to gain clarity for ourselves about like what this interim phase involves for us before we open up enga engagement with the community around the next steps. So that strikes me as something maybe more appropriate
as the year goes on um to kind of um create those opportunities and um yeah I agree that could be good. I think another thing we could consider is um
BA started out reminding us that at one point we had talked about like showing up to things happening in the community and we could think about setting up listening sessions slash off more so office hour type things like adjacent to
other things that are are going to be drawing parents in. And I it would be important to not um conflict with anything or over complicate anything, but like I don't know what that looks like if there's um like you know the
Milton High School info night just happened. I'm thinking about like could we in the future that could be like a a 30 minute like come early for the info session and check in with some school committee members if you want. I don't know, like tacking on
to um parent conference times or times that parents and families are already trying to show up for something um to make it more efficient for them. But I'm just glad that we're talking about this because I think out of this
we can figure out some things to try. Did we Can I Can I just one other thing? talking about the I also wonder, you know, we're talking about sort of the more formal versus informal things and this whole idea of the community piece and this might be really goofy and I
don't know how else to think about it, but is there a way that I think a lot of us go to, you know, we all have different aged kids and we're involved in different things, but is there a way to almost like and sometimes I know we're going as just a parent, but but there also is not that expectation
of, you know, you you are an elected person And so is there anything where you kind of go and you identify yourself? Like is there something that if it were like a monster dash or something and you have something on it that says you are school committee or there's something some way
that you're doing it so that people know who you are and they ask because I think that there are people who maybe in town government or more you know that they've been in it for a long time people know who they are. They feel comfortable going up to them. I just don't know if that's something or that we all take that initiative as we're out there and
you're if people are talking to you and that they know you're on the school committee. I just think it's it's it's an opportunity that that it's you're there and it's less formal and it's not a table that you're asking somebody to come up to. It's just like, oh, hey, you know, I was thinking about X. And then
to that point earlier, if it doesn't have to do with what we do, point them in the right right direction. But if it does, you're like, okay, great. let me take that back or something. You're giving me a look like you're like I'm not wearing a tag. I'm not wearing a t-shirt. It was the opposite. We we had this
conversation. I put we we did have a comm's planning working group and wrote down some ideas and it's in the school committee folder as a shared drive. I put a link to that u document itself, a shortcut into today's folder.
Um just as help because we talked about a lot again. We talked about like going to these events, creating this event calendar. exactly what you're talking about. That was the idea of the t-shirts of y was you going to make t-shirts so that like you could like you're not necessarily identifying yourself but other people are like oh that's a school I'm gum
um but yeah that was the issue we got to of just the implementation of yeah do we are we setting up a table at these places. I completely agree with Lizz's point of it's going to be way better to like go where people already are versus trying to bring people to you. We've seen that time and time
again. But also, you're going to a place where people are expecting to see you and wanting to engage with you too, right? When I'm at the football field, probably like setting up a table maybe doesn't make sense. Maybe people do want to engage at halftime on school
committee stuff. Um, so yeah, just figuring that out and figuring out I think another thing that came up in the conversation jump in and correct me, but was that sense too of like well it probably doesn't make sense to do that at every event and make every school committee feel feel member feel like
they're on all the time at all their personal things. Um, so like how do we try and divvy up that responsibility and what are the events we we think are most important which to the point you made like this calendar this like events calendar like what are the the events we think we want to have some
school committee representation in their t-shirt. So I think there are a lot of great ideas. So, how do we I think if we I can take or we can take everything that people had weighed in on the idea is compare it to the comp plan that you
had and then have um let's come up with some you know review it and have some next steps or or maybe pri in one of the future meetings prioritize and say okay what are the two or three that we want to tackle how are we tackling what are the next steps who's responsible for it
kind of have a real plan around it and just you know maybe all you know, maybe there's something I can put out that weighing all of them and people can individually share back like the two or three that they think rise to the top and then we can make a plan from there. Does that make sense? Because I think we have a lot to work for, but I think now
we just have to implement it and find a way to move it forward. So, great. Okay. Thank you. Um, the next thing is just um just I'm sorry, I'm trying to pull up the make sure I have the right agenda in
front of me. the just that the um MASC MASS joint conference is on November 12th through the 14th if anybody wants to sign up for that. Um I think you can go right onto the site and register for that. Uh they have the agenda what this
you know with the the topics are over the few days. So I just wanted to make sure that everybody was aware of that. And if you you know just if you want to let people know that you're going that would be great. But those are the those are the two things for the chair's report.
Uh are we on the MA on the conference piece? Yes. If anyone So is it um I think this might be something we're talking about next time, but if anyone is going to go, then we would need to like appoint that person as our
delegate. Okay. To the um what's it called? The to take votes related to the MAS resolutions. Yeah. So, I mean, I've
done that before and I think my take a takeaway from that was it was valuable and not necessary, you know, um if no one can go can go like well, we could look at so people have the date. We could look at the next day at the next meeting like you're
volunteering to do it. Yeah. Okay. I think we also looked at the list of things that votes on the resolutions. Yeah. And then whoever's the delegate, if there is one, goes and represents the Milton School Committee with their
vote on behalf of the majority of the Milton School Committee on the resolutions. Okay. So that is an agenda item for October 22. Correct. So So if if someone is interested Yeah. Which I am not. Yeah.
I because I can't make it because it's my birthday and I'm not going to spend it at that conference. So, um, just kidding. It's real. Yeah. So, we could, you know, like by the next meeting before the next meeting. Yes. Yeah.
Great. Can you say the date one more time? It's uh the November 12th through the 14th. It's really interesting. There's a The sessions are really so informative. What date did the vote though happen? Because they're not voting all three days. Just the
no the is the 12th or the 14th. I want to say it's probably I'm sure it's in the agenda. Yeah. It's the last day. The delegate assembly is the 14th. Friday general session. Friday, November 14th. Yeah. So, somebody wouldn't need to go at 3:15.
Need to go all three days. Not on Friday. Oh, and it looks like someone can just attend the delegate assembly and not actually go to the conference if we want our perspective included in the resolutions.
So, just look at the everybody if you're interested look at the agenda decide and we can discuss that at the next and we're on that at the next meeting. Um the next item of business is the finance subcommittee report.
Great. Um finance subcommittee uh we are right now meeting on a kind of weekly cadence. Uh trying to get a lot of things done as we are approaching the um we are in kind of budget the start of budget season. Uh one thing we've been talking about and I think we shared with
you all previously is this like budget calendar. uh put a copy of the current draft budget calendar in the meeting folder. We just kind of finished talking through it at our we had a finance meeting right before school committee. Uh a little off
cadence. Um so finish chatting through that. So apologize for it being kind of late. We do have a stated vote on here. If folks don't feel comfortable taking a full vote because it was late, that's fine. I think generally the idea is we
want to make sure folks feel like they have a good sense of the timeline that they don't have any concerns with anything. The goal here would be to then share this with uh the warrant committee chair to just make sure we have their feedback on the touch points with the warrant committee as being an important
point and also share this with the budget coordination committee. Um we've already shared kind of our high level budget dates to the budget coordination committee update but uh shared a bit of like our this is generally when we have our budget finalized at school committee
which is the end of January. So we shared that but I'd like to share the more detailed version with them but want to make sure this gets y'all's eyes and general thumbs up if folks are okay with a um a vote then we can take that. Any
kind of questions on the timeline? No, this is great. Okay, there are no questions. Then I will make a motion to approve the FY27 budget calendar. Second.
All in favor? Okay, great. Uh I should say for the record, this is similar to the school committee like it it's a living document. So if things change, we will share with you and we'll we'll keep you updated on these finance committee things, but feel good about this one. Appreciate uh the whole committee's
health and work on this and the feedback from John and Katie. Um so excited for a strong budget season. Uh brings us to the general finance update. I just gave some of that which is a lot of this work on this calendar. Um we've also been talking about one of the parts of the
calendar as you can see is kind of this discussion of really trying to set our budget conversations uh ground them in these like budget philosophy priorities of like not just you know what position we want to add or program we want to expand something but like what are the
things that really guide the budget decisions that then when you get down to the line items they kind of are aligned. Um so superintendent Failen um and um assistant superintendent Blake have put together a kind of initial draft that we talked about today which looks really
strong. I think the to not speak for John but like the idea generally is tying budget priorities to the district priorities which hope your name makes a lot of sense uh and sounds right. And so, uh, we talked about that draft today, gave a little bit of feedback, uh, and expect to kind of have that for
the to send out to the full school committee to to look at, provide you all feedback on it as well. Um, and again, use that as kind of the guiding philosophy. So then when we get into the budget conversations and have to have more challenging discussions of what again programs to expand or contract and
what positions to add or reallocate, uh, we can kind of do that under this kind of guiding kind of philosophy of what we're trying to do for the district. So um one other thing to note is next week's meeting at finance the town administrator will be coming to the
finance subcommittee um to present information on expected revenues and expenses for the town which will be an important obviously very important piece as it relates to kind of our budget cycle. Uh those meetings are still cross-osted if anybody else wants to attend, but otherwise they will be
recorded and posted and we will do a a share out here at the next school committee kind of that what we hear from the town administrator as well, but expect to have that. Um that's it for finance. Uh unless there
were things I missed. Um so we just voted on the budget calendar. We weren't screen sharing that as we voted on it. I wonder if we should just make sure it's in the notes somehow or I'm not sure
what. I just want to make sure the public understands what we just voted on. Yeah. Should we post it? We have the budget web page. We can post it on the budget. It's technically meeting materials. What's that? It's in the meeting materials too technically. So
Oh, it is. Okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah. But that's that's a good flag. I think closing on the budget overall time left I mean budget part of the website and any materials this thank you but nothing else to add that's great
um all right then I will move on to um approved vendor warrants I I've already shared out 12 and 13 I have 14 sitting in front of me so we won't vote on that tonight I'll try and sign that tonight so we can maybe vote on that next time uh if it's necessary Okay. So, I will go
ahead and make the motion and then if there's any discussion, we can have it. But I'll make a motion to approve vendor warrant 12 in the amount of 294,325.72 payable on September 25, 2025, as well as vendor warrant 13 in the amount of $586,89369 payable on October 2nd, 2025. Is there a
second? Second. Any discussion? Right. All in favor? All opposed. Any abstensions? It passes. Believe that is it.
Excellent. Thank you. Um next we have the policy subcommittee report. Great. Um so policy met um on September 22nd um we had um Lizzie myself out um
John and we also had Karen Cahillo the high school principal and Carl Kosa as well. Um we discussed the um policy IKFE which is the competency determination policy um and also um the graduation
requirements policy. Um so um at our meeting um we talked about the requirements for high school graduation and competency determination in the absence of MCCAST. And um um we
also um uh Karen came in and presented. She had a um um a slide presentation of the requirements that we currently need. Our students, for instance, need 120 credits to graduate. Um they will be um
and to be considered a senior in the class of 2026, they must have earned at least 85 credits by the 2025 2026 school year. and students must carry a 35 credits per year. Um, and graduation requirements including completing
specific C coursework and meeting the competency determination standard. Um, for MCCAST and coursework, students in the class of 2026 and 20 27 who are already who already took the MCCAST are grandfathered in, so they're all set.
But the students who haven't um taken the MCCAST, they have to complete English nine and 10, integrated math one and two, which covers algebra, geometry, and algebra 2 and trigonometry, biology, and then beginning in 2027, US history.
Um, and students can also meet the requirements via MCCAST appeals through Desi. Um, so we had a draft version of this policy and it has been since then filled in with the uh language. Um, so
you have that in your folder to look at and we're going to have a first reading of that and our second reading is not going to be till our next meeting and vote but um it is there for you to review. It has a lot of details in it. So, we did take a vote to bring it to um this full school committee at our
meeting. And then second, we have uh the graduation requirements policy, which is policy IKF, which is something that our district did not carry prior to this. So, uh we are we are also adding the appropriate language and adopting that
policy so that we have it. Um, and so that is also should be in your folder uh to review with the um with the added language that's specific to us. And then we also briefly talked about a two-year
world language requirement at our meeting. Um, we are thinking of piloting a program beginning FY27 for the 2627 school year focusing on conversational language instruction um over two years and then funding for this
pilot will be secured as part of our budget planning process and um so that's something that we are going to have more conversations about and really start looking into doing. Um and then the other thing is um a lot of districts
offer the seal of biiteracy award. So um there is has been a growing interest of in language recognition and bilingual certification. Um so that is something that we're going to be looking at as well. So um that was
basically our discussion. So, we're going to have um more information as we go through about um about the um to your language requirement that we are interested in adding as well. Um so, those two
policies are in your folder, but the changes is not reflected. No, it that's the complete. So, when we looked at the policy, we just looked at a a presentation from Karen and then all of that wording got into the policy. So what you're looking at is what we're
looking We didn't discuss that pro. Yes. So you were there. I I was there. I know. No, I I thought we are going to look at um a red line version right now. I think it just has the added language because it didn't have it before. There's no two-year language requirement
thing in here. And no, that's not that's not part of this. This is the graduation policy that that's coming. the other one that was just a this is just the competency determination and the uh graduation requirements policies. If I remember principal Cahill also
mentioned in our one of the previous meeting that she was here that she cut down the community service from 60 hours to very little. Mhm. I don't remember how many hours but it's definitely less than 60 hours. She might cut it 260. Is it?
She I totally remember her cutting it but I Yeah, I remember she I think it was more than 60. It's not that. Oh, is it? Okay. I think that's the new one. It's only 15 years. That was for the program of study last year. Okay. Is sorry, are we are we discussing this
now? Sure. Anna, could you just characterize so it sounds like there's been a change to the community service requirement. Are there other major changes to the competency determination policy from its current state?
I would. Yeah. So this is a brand new policy. This one is both of these policies are brand new. There is no existing policy for competency determination. This is currently a desi policy that has been recommended and this
version is the template that MASC has recommended that all districts adopt. And essentially this is the exact template from MASC and we have actually just dropped in like every district will what their competency expectation will be now that MCCAST is no longer a
graduation requirement. So what you see in IKF is this is standard language from from MASC and then when you look at the competency determination requirements that is what we will be expecting in lie of MCCAST because MCCAST is no longer a
requirement. Um, this is pretty standard throughout the superintendent uh and high school principal world right now because we all know that this is going to change over the next two years as legislation begins to ramp up and the state begins to talk with DESIE around
how we going to move forward uh in the postmcast world. So this is basically a one or twoyear uh competency determination policy that we will have. So, we implemented the competency determination uh requirements uh that are pretty standard throughout most high schools
that are all adopting this now and the align courses that support that which are the remember now this is embedded into the program of studies because it used to say in program of studies you had to to graduate you had to do X Y and
Z and pass MCCAST. This is basically supplementing that MCCAST expectation. And then on the back it asks you how are you going to uh consider uh these additional considerations related to students across the in Milton
High in Milton public schools and it's very similar across all districts at this point in time. So this in context is part of the program of studies and we're just supplementing this new information due to the change in circumstance. Got it. While exploring this and reading
the MSSE expectation around this um policy change, we realized that they were referring to a graduation requirement policy that Milton public schools just did not have in their policy book. So then we had to then bring that information forward. So we
went back and got the template from MASC regarding graduation requirement IKF. So this is also not a a redline version of an existing Milton public school policy. This is the first rendition of the IKF
graduation requirement and uh this is straight from the uh program of studies as well. Again with the language and the legal references and the sources from MASS noted below. So now we'll be whole when it comes to this in our policies.
Got it. And the reason why we brought up the world language requirement is that uh member luring has been asking about this addition to the program of studies as part of uh being in compliance with other uh expectations across the state
for the mass core. So, we have met with our world language director and we will be coming up with a timeline for the introduction of a two-year minimum world language requirement given that we have uh a model of world language uh courses
of study in in Milton. We want to celebrate that. Um so, we will come up with that. Uh Zena has already started that work with the educators and I'll have her come to a future meeting uh putting out a timeline for how that will be conducted, how that work will be piloted. uh budgeted and implemented
over the course of the next three school years. Can I ask a another just a granular question here? Um on competency determination under coursework requirements
says that the student will demonstrate competency by successfully completing the following courses. What is the definition of successfully completing? That was a big conversation we had at the Southshore roundt with about 15 superintendents two weeks ago. Uh folks
were getting caught up on grade point average. What's the grade? How do you await that grade? Um and at that point in time uh the recommendation has been to if you pass the course that is the requirement because we know that the
this expectation will change probably through the legislation through Desian next year and we figured we would leave it the template as easily adoptable as possible. uh given that the next grades are going to pass with their MCAST scores regardless and that by next year
at this time we'll probably be voting a new desi and statewide expectation for graduation related to the lack of MCCAST. Yeah. Okay. Um my I I don't have a kid in high school
yet so I don't really know about this. I I thought because we are very heavily with the language instruction since first grade regardless of which strand they attend. I thought students are expected and required to take language class in high school. Is that not the
case? Students take language courses in high school. We offer Latin, French immersion, French as a second language and Spanish. Mhm. Uh the majority of students do take a language and take a multiple years of languages. Uh we're just trying to
cartify that expectation as a graduation requirement. There are some students who do not take a language that even though they may take Latin in middle school or French in middle school uh or Spanish in middle school uh when they get to the high school do not want to take a world language even though it's recommended
for college graduate, you know, for college acceptance, etc. for a variety of reasons. And the reason why we're pausing and looking at an implementation phase for uh some of our world languages to be part of this requirement is that some of those students have experienced
the language class as a heavy uh curriculum that that may be more accessible to them if we make it a conversation based curriculum and a culturalbased curriculum. Our goal is to have students to be world travelers
whether they take French immersion, Spanish, Latin, etc. So having the curriculum match the ability for our graduates to be able to speak fluently in the language in a way that allows them to travel and be a citizen in uh and participating in the language and the culture of that community that they
choose to visit would be the predominant um expectation for the curriculum to match that experience. Yeah. uh and not spend time conjugating verbs, but actually spend time learning how to converse and understand the culture and then be able to be a member of a traveling group that can then go
experience that community in that foreign country. So that that's a shift in in curriculum and we're talking about that with our uh world language team as as early as today in our early release work and uh we'll be putting forward a plan for them to get that work together, piloted and
demonstrated to the school committee as well. It feels like this work should not be just be done in high school. It seems like this work should have been done embedded like the curric the curriculum change the p the teaching pedagogy for language as what you just mentioned it
should be for communication um purpose right so it seems like the focus should be how to make the language instructions starting from kindergarten or starting from first grade up to be more communicative. I think I think that is what we should be focused on so that we do not have
students who go to high school and and still cannot communicate in the language they have been studying for how many years? Eight years, right? If they started with us in first grade all the way to eighth grade, that's eight years of language instruction. Although it's
not like a very consistent uh instructional time like English and math and all those core languages but I feel like the students should have a very solid foundation of the language that they already studying for that much
time right so I feel like is this the whole thing about adding to your language requirement it should not be a new thing it should be like um extension of what they have been practiced
throughout before they attend high school. Do you understand what I'm saying? It's basically saying that the teaching pedagogy so it should not be just conjugating the words and making sure the noun and the adject and the adjectives and verbs are are aligned
with each other and very grammatically heavy. but extend that to make it more communicational so the student know how to use it in their real life settings. So I think like the fundamental
thing that we should be doing is the pedagogy of teaching foreign language. So just to be clear that's exactly what we're saying that we're going to do. Mhm. Uh that will trickle backwards towards the middle school and elementary curriculum because it's going to be a K
to2 scope and sequence. The reason why we're voting the requirement for high school is that the high school can only have a high school graduation requirement based on the high school courses offered from grades 9 through 12. So although the curriculum goes K to 12 and that work is ongoing and quite
frankly our our educators right now in world language work very hard that if you do uh acquire the language in a way uh we'll use Spanish as the example instead of starting high school in Spanish one you're actually sp starting high school in either Spanish 2 or
Spanish 3 that any other high school uh across the column what would be you'd be starting in Spanish one and nth grade so we there is a level of rigor that is happening in those courses that allow them to enter high school at a higher level of the language. We're just now asking our educators to
look at that through the lens of more conversational uh curriculum uh in cultural curriculum than in then in less in more less in the traditional way and more a different way. So that will be happening and I think parts of it already do happen. And I think it's a
cultural component of our curriculum across all of our world languages and our educators work hard to make sure students are engaged at a high level in a variety of different ways. But this would just formally tilt that lens towards a conversational uh curriculum moving forward. May I add one thing before you join in?
So in order to make sure the student are in the right level of the language class that they in um when going to a high school, we will have to have placement test, right? Otherwise, how do you know which students should go to Spanish 2, which students should go to Spanish 3? Right? So, right now, what they do is when when
the students complete successfully whatever course they have through 8th grade, they are recommended by the teacher to start high school at a certain course level in their world language. So, that determination is made by the educator and then passed over to the family and
then they decide that that's where they'll place their child. So that is a student-driven teacher recommended family decision that they make about their child's course selection at the high school. So what is successful successful completion of the course? Is that the A or B or C?
Passing course. Passing course. Okay. And if they enter the course and they're struggling with it, they may decide to shift their class and go down to a lower or go to a higher similar to what happens in math, similar to what happens in English, similar to what happens in other content areas as well.
Okay. Yeah, I mean I agreed I appreciate this, John. I agree with a lot of the sentiments you have, which is like we we are a unique district in that we have the French immersion program. We should be crushing language, right? And we, you
know, I think anybody who's not in the French language like expects something strong from the Spanish. We should have a strong Spanish program that is is supporting our high school kids all to succeed because we are we are investing in systems from as you say first grade
all the way up to help prepare them there. It's not new when they hit high school. They've had like lots of language development. Obviously there's the exception of the kids who come in kind of midcycle things like that but right how are we building that up? So this should not be a you know a crazy
thing to to accomplish in the high school. I think I believe strongly in the requiring world language as part of the graduation requirement and again that's kind of doc coded in um the mass core simply because it's around I think
graduation requirements around like what are the things that kids will leave with that will allow them to be have the most opportunities available to them when they leave right I think that that is our job as educators is we want to give them the skills and abilities to do
whatever they want. And we know that colleges care about world language. You have to have world language in order to get admitted into many colleges. Colleges require language classes when you attend. Uh and so if we are not
pushing our students to even if they're not don't love it and this is coming from somebody who did not love was never very good at world language but you got to push them to kind of get comfortable with that and again we should have as a district a long enough
runway where we are really supporting our kids and they are greatly excelling in these things right we should be out producing everybody in AP you know world language AP French and all these things. Um, and so, uh, I just think to me that
is the the importance of the world language requirement is that it ensures that every Milton graduating Milton High School student has as many doors open to them as possible if they choose to go to to college, that they they have full access to do that and to succeed and to
make it through. Um, and so that's that's why I'd love to see it on there. Um you as I said previously like I know there's kind of budget considerations of this but I would really love to see something else around um financial literacy uh as a graduation requirement
creating some course. I think that's something that a a lot of families like you know people who have gone through college used to look at surveys I think I've shared some of those too of like when people you know recently graduated high school seniors what do you wish you had gotten like financial literacy is top of the
list of what everybody shares and when you ask parents like what do you want your kids to have like financial literacy is the top of the list of the surveys they and yet like no high school is still really doing that we're still really requiring that and I'm not sure why um and So would love for us to to think
about that, create the model. Again, I know there are budgetary implications of that potentially um in terms of like being able to sustain the the enrollment that you would need to get all of our many kids at the high school kind of through a program like that and the timeline for like which graduating class
do you start that with. Um but would love to still have that as kind of a part of the the conversation. Um just because I think those are great skills if I remember right. I believe the high school course of study has economic class.
They do. We have statistics. They do offer those courses. Yeah. As an elective. Yeah. As an elective, but it's like not a requirement, but there are options out there for students to take. If they can get it. Yeah, I think that would be the other. So, just in order to frame this at the
end is this is a really good news story and our world language department is thrilled to be able to codify and celebrate the the work that they do. So, we uh I I think right before I left, we finally created the access to the
DEL, which is the highlevel French immersion, French-speaking uh uh exam that all of our students take that recognizes them as a native French speaker. uh we just uh have been join we we are joining the the uh state
biiteracy model which allows not only to have students express what they've learned in school around what language they may speak it's any student who happens to be bilingual if it's at home so it's recognizing and valuing any family and student that's bilingual as
something that's important it's valued so if I am a native speaker uh in Creole I can actually get that biiteracy because if I can demonstrate my English. Now I'm I have the biiteracy mark on my graduation and I'm that's a again a nice uh thing to happen now that we're a
two-year we will be working towards a two-year requirement uh for world language. It's another accolade and another codification of the fact that we value this program. So, uh, all good stuff. Um, and we're we're glad to, uh, and we will be presenting a three-year roll out
of that, um, that, um, uh, Zena Hammad and myself have worked out and the process has already started. So, good news story for world language. Just one other thing on the seal of biiteracy. I think that's great. The other piece is it's not just a nice to have, but it also can save kids money, right? If you a lot of time many
colleges will take that and you do not have to take the foreign language course and you can get college credit for it and therefore reduce your tuition costs and that's great makes college more affordable more accessible. Yeah. Yeah. Same thing with you know APs and things like that. I I had a question several from the graduation on the
competency determination. Am I reading this correctly in that the MCCAST portion that we're saying that students can either pass the coursework or pass MCCAST or is that not correct? Because I my understanding is we we could do that.
There's nothing within the state referendum that stops us from utilizing MCCAST as competent determination. What stops is that the state cannot require it and it pushed it to the local level. Correct. Some districts are just using MCCAST as the competency determination and just leaving it there. Y
uh we are not doing that. We are implementing our own and we are doing so because we we are awaiting guidance on what the next competency determination will be. So at this point in time we are uh we are not using MCCAST as a as a graduation tool.
This brings up the whole other discussion that we can probably talk about next week is what is the purpose of MCCAST moving forward for our students, for our families, and and more importantly for the educators that use the results. Um, the MCCAST, in my
opinion, as an educator and as a parent, I've always looked at MCCAST as a an adult tool for data to be used in order to inform how we organize our scope and sequence and pacing and our internal
assessments related to the standards. and that the data that we get from MCCAST allows us to do that adult work in order to better prepare and present in uh engage students in that rigorous environment from grade three to grade 10. So um to me it was never just about
the students. This was an the MCAST is a reflection on your school district and the adults in your school district, not necessarily the children who take the test because if they're prepared they'll do well. That's our job. Um so I I I think that uh we'll be it'll be interesting to see how that moves
forward. There has been some discussion about the recent the 2025 grade 10 scores uh by the state have dipped a little bit and people are wondering whether the 10th graders decided just not to put that much effort into it given the
recent vote and the timing of the vote of no MCAST and whether they thought it was helpful or not to to complete the test. So, um, but in the end, as long as MCCAST is around and it represents the standards that we want our students to know and be able to do, we will be using
that as a guide to support our curriculum development and our pacing and our scope and sequence that we work with our teachers on in order to prepare students directed at directing their learning to standards that we think are really important. So, we think it's important to uh to continue the work of
using that as a guide uh for our work. I guess a follow like I think the state has actually and they did this on a couple webinars like they've come out and said they think the the lack of the requirements hurt scores, right? They saw more blank answers uh in the test
than they've ever seen before. They saw more blank essays than they've ever seen before. They saw more off-topic essay writing than they've ever seen before. All those were uh evidence and the state scores went down about like seven points uh in ELA, more more so than math. Um
um and so yeah, I think that then makes it a difficult tool to assess student perform like or how we are doing as a school district if kids are not taking it seriously if kids are not there. And so I think my question would be is there a harm in utilizing an
eitheror approach of like there are two paths here? kids can either take MCCASTs and therefore you know we can try and hold kind of a rigorous standard of like this is important because this would allow you to meet compensated determination requirements and also if
not then they complete coursework um and can do that kind of at the same time. Um and so kind of either pathway allows students to reach competency determination. But I I I generally agree with you on point of MCCAST is like an assessment
tool for you as a school and you as a school district. Um but I do think there are larger kind of concerns within the state around what this you know what is the future. If if kids aren't taking the assessment seriously, if they're actually not putting forth effort, if they're actually not showing what they know, then it's a worthless assessment
completely. Uh correct. And at this point, we're still at this point, we are still forced to have kids take the tests. We're still forced to implement them based upon even federal law, not even just state law, I think. Um, and so like what are the ways in which we can control the levers that allow it to
be informative data and helpful data and not just a waste of uh for 10th graders six days of um of learning. So I I I think the uh we can re we can review whe I can speak to principal Cahill about the keep leaving both paths
open to answer that question u and what are the pros and cons of that I agree that we're we're concerned about uh the MCCAST data having value if in fact folks aren't taking it seriously in the next few years and I think that's the
question that our state uh department of elementary and secondary education is is struggling ling with in a way to what is the next step in this work to ensure that school districts have the ability to assess where students are and what
needs to be done differently in order for them to get to a standardsbased education. So this is a bigger question that we don't have to figure out Milton as much as we need to contribute to the work that's happening at Desi uh in order to make sure that whatever the next phase of this type of work is that
we we have some input into it wherever it's possible. This this is going to shift over the next two to five years for sure. If we implement MCCAST test, uh does it cost us any money through the district to do? We already have to do them even if it's not a competency determination
requirement. We still have to give it okay there's no cost to other than time. So it doesn't hurt to have both options available to a ticket or not ticket and completing all the course work. There's no there's no financial cost to it in
either situation. Yeah. So, this is the first reading. I will uh discuss this matter and provide any updates if needed uh to the second reading that will happen on October 22nd. This does have a requirement to be
submitted. So, we we do have to take action. And I only will um add to the policy group that's meeting in the next two weeks that there was another DESIE um expectation to have middle school exploration policy be voted by uh
November 1st. So we'll ask for an expedited approval of that at our next meeting, which is essentially talking about what our middle school does in order to support students to be aware of and educated on their vocational opportunities. And because we are part
of the Blue Hills Regional, uh it's it's a very simple u process that we already do. So I asked Bill Fish and his team to codify that work and put it within the MSSE template uh that was provided. Again, this is a new policy and that
will be presented on October 22 after it's passed through policy, but that will be that one as well. And at that point, we'll be all as it relates to these requirements for DESIE hopefully for this year. Just one more one. I'm sorry. Uh I the
only other thing I was wondering um John is if you have talked about like the PE requirement, right? It's state law. Kids have to take PE uh each year of schooling. However, I know districts provide
allow some students to utilize um sports participation as a substitute for the PE requirement, right? That that like meets the expectation of they are like learning around physical education uh because they're doing sports, which then opens
their schedule up to do more electives, more things they would like to do. Maybe they want to do PE. they can still opt into it. Uh but it just reduces some of those restrictions in terms of every year at least one of their courses is physical education. Um I don't know if that's
something Milton has looked into doing. We obviously have a very robust athletic program that y'all do a tremendous job of. Lots of kids are taking uh active participation of that. They're spending lots of hours in baseball or hockey or football or um you know all the
different things. Uh and so you know it it has always seemed silly to me that that that is not somehow um taken into account of like we have very very active kids uh and so the need to do that kind of within the school days if they are doing that significantly
outside of school hours. But again just just wondering if that's um something you've you've talked about looked at just to again open up mostly with the avenue of opening up opportunities for kids to take other courses and other areas of interest. Would that be for high school? Okay.
So, I am familiar with that uh that type of uh shift and I can talk to principal Cahill and the athletic director about that and uh you know figure out if that's something we want to include in the program of studies or not. There's a lot of nuance to that that would be involved
uh and having experience with that. Uh it's it's a it's a it's something definitely to consider, but there's a lot of smaller pieces that we want to be thoughtful about. Any other questions?
Great. Thank you. Negotiation subcommittee report. Um the negotiation subcommittee had its first meeting on September 24th and as we all know um Mark and I represent the school committee on the negotiation
subcommittee. Um, others representing um, Milton Public Schools on the team include obviously Superintendent Failen, um, our HR director Linda Damon, our attorney Joe Emerson, um, assistant superintendent Carla Kosa, also attended
that first meeting. Um and um both she and assistant superintendent Blake will be participating in the negotiations sort of um to consult and inform the process as we go along. Um
the purpose of that September 24th meeting was just to begin planning and preparing for the bargaining process and we're planning uh to anticipate our first meeting with the Milton Educators Association taking place on November 4th. Um that meeting will be to establish
ground rules and um do some housekeeping to plan for negotiations around scheduling meetings um for future bargaining sessions and so forth. And then it would then be in those future sessions that we begin to exchange proposals. So uh this is just a quick
update sort of where we're at. The process has begun, but it's very much in the beginning stages. Um the negotiation subcommittee will be meeting um you know before and during those sessions um to
do the preparation. And once we've gotten underway um and started exchanging proposals at that point we would begin to have executive sessions with the full school committee to keep you all informed as we go. And that's it. Mark or superintendent feeling to
add anything? Nope. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Lenny. Um the school building committee report. Uh we actually did not have a meeting. Um it was cancelled because of just not
enough to talk about. Uh only thing that's coming up is there's an enrollment meeting with the MSBA to kind of discuss and um hopefully finalize kind of enrollment projections which are used for the school building committee process. um on October 20th. So that's the next
thing and then we will have our next meeting on October 27th. So school building committee, the budget coordination committee report. Uh yeah, you want to take this? Sure.
Uh we had the last meeting I think just on Friday. Um Mark was there, superintendent Failen was there, assistant superintendent Blake was there. We spent most of the meeting sort of continuing
to like norm around the purpose of the committee and what what success looks like for that committee. sort of at the end of our at the end of you know at the end of the year basically that that we have this first um first stab at at
progress. Um, and you know, I think I think we like and others who joined add in because I'm I'm probably not going to remember everything that was that was agreed to in there, but I think I think having a
having number one was building a shared understanding of the budget management process and like the annual planning process, I guess, for for budgeting. Um and that's sort of step one was what we actually voted on tonight was kind of having a joint understanding of the
order of our policies and practices were um extending beyond people's service commitment to the committee. Um so that you know 10 years from now that same group isn't having the same conversation. Um and then starting to talk about uh a
policym process so that we have policies um around around the use of say reserve funds. We didn't actually do any of that work but we talked about that work. Um I think one point of discussion and Mark feel free to come in here because you
you were in the room having this is uh the the sort of decision making for that committee versus making sure that we um like that we weren't making decisions in the room that this committee hadn't already agreed to. I
really appreciate Mark you sort of raising that in the group and then making sure that we had a vote on this tonight so that we weren't committing ourselves to a timeline in the room that this whole group wasn't already in agreement with. Um, anything else you would add there? I'm
sure I've missed something. No, I I liked part Nathan brought up in the meeting was just again a goal being kind of creating a repeatable process within with the coordination across the committees. Uh, that I like that. I think we've been thinking about that within the finance committees process
for just school committee but how do we do that as a whole town so that it's not dependent on people all the points C's made so that was good and then yeah everything else I agree you can question what did you say about policy you said it went
uh there is interest in the committee and I don't think it is clear yet exactly how this works but there is interest within the committee to establishing financial policies for the use. There may be other use cases here, but
the the the issue raised during the during the committee meeting was establishing policies for the use of town reserve funds. So, just to be clear, would those would be policies established by the select board? I mean, this committee is not empowered to establish policy for the
town, right? Uh it's an advisory committee. Yes. Yeah. Advising on that. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Just clarity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, as Nathan said, I think there is some of that like what is this committee's role versus the
existing committee like the select board owns obviously their portion of the budget, we own our portion of the budget. Where does this committee fit in? How it can be helpful? I think that's what like the ground is trying to figure out. And then at the same time, I think something we're trying trying to be mindful of is at this point, we don't
think it is appropriate to be sharing budget information first with that committee before it gets to the rest of the members here. Like we want it to come through finance committee, then school committee, and then budget and then hit budget coordination committee kind of as the pathway. And so that is
like the lens in which we are kind of trying to approach that based upon I think conversations we've had here in general alignment. Um, and then how we're balancing that obviously with like timelines uh and like the tight timelines around budget and how often this committee meets versus the rest.
And so how do you kind of thread thread that needle for both of them but that that is the general lens with which we've been kind of trying to approach it. And I think there's a hope that Nathan hit on this like that we were just pulling the conversation also to this higher level this five-year view which uh as a town we haven't really had
kind of the opportunity to do in the last couple years. I really appreciate that piece and I think you know the way I I had originally understood the intent behind the committee was it's a sort of it some infrastructure for shared reporting out from the different
committees and so that really makes sense that you know our representatives to the budget coordination committee are bringing there what this school committee has already sort of worked through and so I know that in the beginning as you're getting off the
ground like there's a little bit of just sorting out. Yeah. The sequencing. Um and and it's good to get that all um sort of in place before the budget season like fully takes off. But I I do
appreciate your um sort of emphasizing the that's the goal. Um, so that and I'm speaking as a member of the school committee who is not on the finance subcommittee, you know, I definitely appreciate
being up to date with what's happening, you know, here. Um, and then it becomes shared sort of with the with the town. I think that's the proper
like order of operations there. So, I really appreciate you um sort of advocating for that and I'm I'm glad we're doing this. I mean, I think where we were a year ago, this feels like a big improvement um to to be
ahead of the process in this way. So, thank you for that. Any other questions, comments? Great. Thank you guys. Uh the next item is the approval of the Milton School Committee minutes for the nine the
September 17th 2025 meeting all in the folder. Does anybody have any changes or I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of the September 17th, 2025 Milton School Committee meeting. Second. All in favor?
Great. It's passed. The last item is um discussing agenda items for uh the next meeting on the 22nd. Um right now we all have the calendar in we have that shared calendar, but right
now Yeah, we have I'm updating that as we speak. Are you okay? Not not technology wise, but on paper. So, we have a very full October 22 slate. Yes, I was just noticing that. So, let me just go I I can go through them because I'm trying to make some We
have uh the vote of the MASC resolutions if we choose to have someone go and vote. Uh we would like to also present the capital request from my technology and facilities department as part of the budget process. We have the presentation from uh Kat Ro on the early literacy initiative. This
is the first meeting of two. We'll come back in February. We have the first quarter report that we would like uh Katie to uh present on. Uh we potentially have MCCAST um summary of scores which we can always push to November 5 if we wanted to. We also have
uh the field trips that we wanted to vote that we heard tonight. And we have the two policies that we discussed tonight plus the middle school uh vocational pathway policy that we would need to vote that night as well. So certainly a busy night. So when we meet
uh Amanda, we can maybe pace that out a little bit to see uh if we want to move anything. Some things are not movable based on the timing of the needs, but take a look at that full slate. I say if we'd also want to share kind of
your um updated um draft budget priorities document. Yeah, Amanda, we had also requested a response from the commissioner by October 18th.
Hopefully, we get that. Yeah. And if we do, um, that would be in the Yeah, that would be in the we could add that to the chair's report. Okay. Yeah. Maybe we just have a placeholder there. Yeah. Anything
else that we will have both policy and facilities right updates for next week facilities looking over the capital right I'm hope I'm hoping that there is there's I just um
didn't mention it but I can check but there is going to be a report from them so hopefully I'll share that. the policy facilities will the will um sorry next meeting is the 22nd 22nd uh no we won't have school building at that point
and we have a budget coordination committee meeting again we will have budget coordination yeah I I will share the a short report um about the meeting with the student representative reps okay
okay yeah we can look at that one. Mhm. Okay, I think that's everything. Your streak of short meetings was never going to last. I know. Well, there's always pacing ourselves here. Good job with that, John. Yeah,
still working at it. All right, somebody vote soon. So, we're I just hit 9:00. Forget it. Um, all right. Last thing. So, if I can and I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. So, moved. Do I hear a second? Second. All in favor?
meeting a jury. Thanks everyone.