I'm going to call the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. for the nooba regional school committee uh tonight on March 26 2025 the first item on our agenda is to conduct the Pledge of Allegiance so if
you guys want to mute rise if you can and I will recite for you I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with
liberty and justice for all all right guys so the first item is public comment I have not received any public comment from the public so we'll go right past that head over to the consent agenda and I wonder Amy do you have that motion handy move to approve the consent agenda
of March 26 2025 I'll second that is there any discussion all right seeing none uh let's take the vote I vote Yes Shand door yes John yes Amy Cohen yes Scott
yes Amy vessels yes Lindsay yes Jackie yes Robin yes I think I got everybody my screen jumped all right so that's the consent agenda um the school committee chairperson
update there's nothing beyond the regular agenda to share with you all so we'll move on to our student representative report and I do see that Ryan and Ava are here thanks guys so go right ahead so for for the junior class we have prom coming up which is
definitely taking a lot of our kind of time and energy towards making sure that goes smoothly and then stuco has their lip dub going so we also just scheduled a planning session for our next student advisory council with uh superintendent Downing
sits on that as well as Dr Boon so we a and I did have a question for you guys if there was any like specific topics you kind of want to hear from the students directly our last one for example was a talk on like diversity equity and inclusion and how we can kind
of look to better promote that and we had a bunch of kind of student ideas so in a second once a is done we'll just kind of ask to see if there's any topics you would like us to talk about so then Ava can tell you a little bit about um we were on a podcast which he'll tell
you a little bit about and I think you guys were on it too SOA yeah so Ryan and I did a podcast for um what's it called the digital learning at NOA digital learning at nooba and we
had a section on it just kind of talking about our roles as student government leaders in and how we kind of got into it why it's so important to us and we gave some advice to maybe other people that are looking to get into Student Government so I thought that that was
really fun you guys can listen to it it's out now um and then spring Sports have just started um the girls lacrosse actually just had their second game of the week and we won I think 11 to two so but we'll be back soon because now that
they're all starting up we'll be back with more updates and then the next Friday Winston Z and I are heading with Mr Kaiser to Student Government day in Boston which I'm really excited about it'll be really fun so that'll be a fun
report to give back to you guys um I signed up to I don't really know what it was It was kind of just like an argument on digital learning for in education so we'll see how that goes yeah and then
our our active Minds chapter has um a fi tip to Gillette Stadium coming up soon which is um all the different chapters in the area come so we kind of learn more about mental health and socialized specific it's specific to student athletes so I mean that's all we have
for now if you guys have any input on what you want to hear from us during the student advis council that would be definitely appreciated thanks Ryan thanks Ava I just dropped the podcast link into the chat if you guys want to check that out it was a really great celebration of all
of your hard work and how you guys are really helping nooba kind of lead the way for on student leadership so that's great Madam chair that link that is also in last Friday's common uh that was published on
the 21st so uh folks can go to the common and find that link there and there's actually a lot of different podcasts that they've done thus far this is not the first one and they're all riveting and I like to say that they're just the right size for my commute so
it's a good chance for you guys to listen to them uh so Ryan you are you are meeting with superintendent downing's student advisory Council um and you guys are uh can you just elaborate a little bit more like each each time you guys meet there's a
different yeah or yeah it's definitely um it we kind of the conversation it's just like an open conversation with 20 or so kids um we kind of start off with like a topic or Workshop type thing that AA and I would play and then um a lot of people kind of chip in and just the
conversation kind of goes in its own direction we were just wondering if there was any kind of inspiration or Foundation you wanted us to kind of start with in there yeah so I'll open it up to the committee any um ideas
guys if not we'll think of something um I wonder if there's an opportunity to just kind of loop that in with um some planning with the student council um they really are two different
elements things okay yeah um you asked this question Ryan I really do and I'm I'm like yeah I think it's it's so um just so indicative of how amazing the
representatives like how how well you're doing your job and how engaged you are with the student with this school coun school committee there's too many councils and committees I know so I'm I'm working hard to come up with something before we let go of you
tonight well if you you guys can also always like email some ideas it's kind of just like feedback that you would like to hear from students on like the environment of the school our last meeting we talked a lot about um diversity Equity inclusion like we said before and kind of of like Fair
punishments for certain things that students might do like how students are feeling about the teachers the environment and I think that could maybe tie in I don't really know maybe this might be a stretch but into budget like kind of see what's working well in school in what kind of areas and kind of
like use that I don't know I guess your budget's already set but I think the feedback would be really helpful for the school committee just to know what the environment in the district is like how students are feeling at school what can you do as school committee to kind of
bring in a more positive engaging environment for students where they're like happy at school if that makes sense I I wondered this you guys I know that the student council the student advisory Council and the school council
are three different opportunities for students to be involved um the school council is really in charge of the school Improvement plan yes but Ava and Ryan I mean Ava you're on the school council right yeah you're on all three
um so I wonder if the school Improvement plan which was so robust so fantastic so well presented by Dr B I wonder if you could use that as a road map for things to talk to the students about because getting feedback on that plan is
probably a great place to start because there's so many things that she talked about in her presentation that like totally fire me up and I was like this is amazing this is awesome um cuz we did um like we said at when we all met the school committee
with the suco about the handbook which I did get a lot of feedback on but that's also a good idea yeah we have a we have a planning session on Tuesday so we can definitely spend some of that time planning kind of looking through that see if there's anything specific we want
to kind of present to the advisory Council and then obviously you guys can email us any any time until then yeah and I feel like there was one thing that um Dr Bon talked about a lot that I found fascinating and that was the high school's move toward Project based
learning and how you guys were really um you were really starting the last time um Miss Cohen and I went to talk with the stuco there was movement in that direction toward teachers adopting this methodology and I think that's in the school Improvement plan too so I wonder
if like that's something that I'm interested in because know that your 7 to 230 experience is really important to me and there's a lot of information out in the world right now that says that there's student disengage there's a student disengagement crisis and there's
something that's something that I care a lot about and I think that project- based learning is oftentimes thought of as the antidote to that disengagement so that's something like learning strategies as a whole we can kind of bring to the table and look into
Project based for sure and see yeah perfect that's a good thank you thank you anything else guys awesome all right so thanks Ava thanks Ryan thank you appreciate it you're always welcome to stay but we're gonna um we're going to move on and
we'll not be offended if you have to go thank you um so guys now we're going to move on to the superintendent report and Kirk just a very quick question for you I know that you have the Middle School related art Spanish model in two
separate spots are we gonna see this in the superintendent report and then again in new business I memorialized it in the superintendent report it's just gonna be real quick got it all right so let's hear from our superintendent go ahead Kirk yeah thank you madam chair um just want to let the committee know on Monday
I attended the joint committee on Ways and Means budget hearing that was held in Amherst Mass at uh University of Massachusetts um it was an interesting meeting it it basically was the three commissioners of Early Childhood uh prek to 12 and higher ed along with uh
secretary tutweiller to essentially describe and uh defend the governor's proposed budget with you're familiar with through our budget process um the interesting part was I give it to our high school teachers from around the Commonwealth they rallied up the troops
there were hundreds of students uh demonstrating at the budget hearing uh in Amhurst at advocating for increased funding to Public Schools um once I was able to get into the meeting because it the auditorium was so full they were not allowing
everyone in um uh I was able to hear a testimony from our state representatives and state senators well shouldn't say testimony there are questions to those who testified uh regarding State funding and I I think the mood uh the theme was
generally the same that yes there are some issues and problems like Chapter 70 circuit breaker uh Regional Transportation that need to be um uh redrawn remade refunded uh use the term that you wish I
will say that our Representatives on that committee Senator uh Kennedy as well as representative kilcoin advocated uh for the positions that we've taken in terms of fully funding Regional Transportation and fully funding circuit breaker so we just we wait now uh the
house budget should be coming out uh the we before April vacation to understand if the house is recommending any changes to the governor's budget uh tonight you're going to hear um a presentation from our Middle School principls along with assistant
superintendent friend on the Middle School related arts and Spanish model uh there's just a very brief summary in the superintendent report along with a link to that presentation but we'll use that agenda item to get into that in detail and I'm gonna now turn it over to assistant superintendent friend she's
going to talk to you about Universal screenings uh and student learning goal growth update so assistant superintendent friend the floor is yours thank you superintendent Downing I wasn't sure which way we're going to Pivot so thank you for the clear Direction uh tonight's update relative
to our Universal screening our winter screening got pushed a little bit back because of the budget um meetings and the time and attention there we've had the presentation ready to go for a couple of weeks so here we are tonight's update includes two key updates from our
winter screening results as follows um how we are doing in relation to our district student learning goal one and two how our students are performing relative to Universal screening requirements for early literacy that is
specifically where we are identifying students in K to3 who are potentially at risk for learning challenges reading challenges in particular so the overview that we've prepared for you tonight is just that it's a districtwide overview
we would like the committee to be aware that our school-based teams um have reviewed their school-based data with their principles grade level teams have reviewed their data in their PLC structures with their grade level teams
and individual teachers have reviewed their data for their classroom as well um teachers shared information from the winter screening results with families during conferences that were held earlier this
month in terms of our student learning goal great news we are on track to meet our district student learning goal which um is for 70% of our students to meet or exceed
The Benchmark of typical growth in reading our winter Benchmark data shows that we are right there with our goal was 70.6% of our students meeting or exceeding typical growth in math we have
exceeded the goal our winter data shows 76.8% of our students meeting or exceeding typical growth and of note that's a 5.5% increase from the fall and as for Star early literacy we're still working to step over that
70% Mark but you will see in the presentation that's been hyperlinked in the update that we have exceeded our proficiency goals and we are seeing a not notable decline in the number of students identified in the Urgent and uh
intervention and intervention category so I'll talk more about that in a minute which is is really promising so for the second part of the update um that is how are we doing with our K to3 student population specifically the early literacy
screening requirements that the committee and the community will be reminded are required by Massachusetts General law we are required to screen students in grades K through three for early literacy twice a year we are
assessing students three times a year so we're exceeding that requirement and the purpose of the universal screening as a reminder is to identify again those students who may be at risk for reading challenges as they progress in the years and that's what we're doing at nishoba
and that's been um the intention with our efforts as it relates to the implementation of high quality instructional materials and and really trying to firm up and strengthen our foundational literacy at the earliest grades so the goal of screening is not
just to flag students who are at risk but it's to understand why they are at risk and that's what our screening measures do is they provide us with diagnostic information um to pinpoint students areas of need and then to use that data to provide targeted
instruction and interventions at the earliest moment possible so on that note I am very pleased to share some highlights which I've provided in the superintendent report to you from our winter screening both in terms of growth from fall to
winter and year-over-year Trends from 2023 fall of to Winter 2025 and they're listed for you there in the update um I've I take me a just a second to read through them because I think they're noteworthy and they're accommodation to
our teaching staff and our instructional coaches and our students who are working really hard in kindergarten um our at and above proficiency levels increase from 75% to 77% in the winter and we saw fewer students in the intervention and Urgent
intervention categories in grade one our at and above proficiency rates increased um from 73% to the fall to 74% in the winter and in grade two where we saw the most significant growth observed we're really
excited about this growth is that our at or above Benchmark increase from fall to winter from 65% in the fall to 76% to in the winter which represents 11% uh 11 Point gain we also saw a
decrease in lower performance categories on the off watch intervention and urgent urgent intervention categories super exciting and then in grade three our at and above proficiency rates increase from 77 to 80% which is a three-point gain and we also saw a decline there in
students needing intervention and Urgent intervention so that's the fall to the fall of winter growth which is important but two data points don't necessarily support a pattern or a trend so that's why we're excited to see some early
ending indicators of year over Trend Improvement in grades K to three and we've listed those for you here specifically um the number of students again from Fall 2023 to Winter 2025 the number of students identified
for intervention decreased this is raw numbers of students from 97 in Fall of 2023 to 66 in the winter of 2025 our most recent screen screening window and the number of students in the Urgent
intervention category this would be the bottom 10% decline from 78 in the fall of 2023 to 41 winter 20125 which represents a
nearly 50% reduction in the number of students falling in the Urgent intervention category so the data is promising and is working to indicate and support that the systems and structures that we are working to build to support foundational
literacy which includes our implementation of high quality instruction materials our work to strengthen found foundational literacy programming to make sure our teachers have what they need our implementation and integration of mtss which we've
spoken about before our plc's hard work of our principles our teachers and our coaches and their students is beginning to show um in the data year-over-year trends from 2023 so that is the update from the
winter screening um results which concluded in February so we'll be excited to share another update in the spring when we we capture that data at the end of the year so Madam chair we'll move on to the presentation on Middle School related
arts after we take some questions um from the committee on the superintendent report sounds good thanks for that thanks Laura that was really helpful um I wonder uh who has questions Amy Cohen thank you um this is a lot of
data to absorb and um but the one thing that I'm wondering is how do the conclusions from the screening tie into goals in the school Improvement plans that's I have two questions that's one of them um like do because it occurred
to me that we we approve the school andov plans before this data comes out so like how does that cycle work school Improvement plans are built upon the superintendent's goal and we have that 70% growth Benchmark on those screenings
so those are reflected in the plans as well so for something like the early literacy [Music] um early literacy reading and math yeah there was one that was at
67.2% so something like that get picked up in the next year's superintendence goals no that is a Perpetual goal that we have and just because that number is below the 70% Benchmark wouldn't necessitate that we continue to have
those as year-over-year goals because if the typical growth benchmarks would be at the 65th percentile and so we sent our Benchmark at 70% so that we can accelerate which is why we're right now pleased that we have some indicators
that we've been able to reduce the number of students needing urgent intervention dramatically over the last two years yeah that that's awesome um and it's nice to have data to point directly to that you know yeah um
my second question has to do with um when we get a report on the high school um screening results because this is k through eight yeah I'll remind the committee that we don't have a universal screening assessment for the high school Laura do you want to talk about that a
little more yeah I mean I think that's that's just it you know we assess um through grade eight for reading and through grade nine for math um I I can share that just across
the board while the presentation focused on our student learning growth data um and because that's relative to our district student learning goal the proficiency data in grades 4 through 9
also shows improvement from fall to winter so is like the mcast really the what there's just no screening in high school because the screening is not necessary by the time you get to high school I'm sorry if it's a stupid question no it's actually a very good
question a good question okay go ahead no I I mean I think the intention of universal screening um at its purest sense is to capture student need at the earliest moment possible that's why
we're really leveraging um resources to begin with a really strong foundation for our students to capture them and their needs at the earliest moment possible because the the the quickest we can intervene and provide intervention
or Target support the sooner we close that achievement Gap and that achievement Gap does not grow over time so um that's where our energies um are are focused at the elementary um and continue into the middle level but
that's really where we're targeting really intensive supports at the elementary level that really capture those discrepancies and that discordance at the earliest moment possible all right I would just say that um Amy your point about mcast is well
taken by me because that was a screening tool used at the 10th grade level almost the people used to call it an autopsy because it's kind of at the tail end it's it's not what Laura was just describing but I think that it used to be a really important indicator for
better or worse and the voters just did away with it so that whole system is going to start I I believe um disintegrating uh slowly but surely so uh there is nothing for the high school level because the companies just don't
put it make anything for them so we're relyant upon Department level um assessments and things of that sort data if the kids even take it anymore uh Amy
vessels uh I had two questions uh the first one was about um the uh sharing that data about how kids did on the screening with parents you said it was through parent teacher conferences is that correct what if a what if a parent
didn't come into to parent teacher conferences and also um I like I guess I'm wondering for the kids that were struggling were all those parents booked for a parent teacher conference or you know if they were kind of mid-range did a call go out or like how exactly are
parents being um get getting this explanation if they didn't come to parent teacher conferences great questions um I take the second question first um and that is we are
required in its best practice um to notify families of those students who are falling in Urgent inter urgent intervention and intervention categories through grade three so that's required as part of the law um and so we have
systems and tracking measures that are are being followed at the school-based levels to ensure those the contact is made through a phone call um and then a follow-up letter so that happens K to3
certainly it's best practice at any point for a student who is struggling to receive communication from their teacher about the struggle and then most importantly what we're doing about it to help um bring parents into the conversation and awareness of of what's
happening at the school level so that just being part of best practice but we are notifying families of those student of students who all in the bottom two categories and then following up with further communication about students who have responding to intervention after
those are put in place in terms of the question relative to um the star reports and families who do not attend conferences certainly if any family requests a report we are absolutely going to be providing that
report and that data to families the challenge is that we want we want the report and the data to be adjacent to a conversation because it's one data point part of a larger picture of how the student is performing in the
class so um sending the report home without a conversation around what does the data confirm um yay or nay is part of the larger um efforts that we have at the school based levels to bring parents
into the and caregivers into the convers ation and awareness about how students are doing okay thanks um C can I ask one more is that okay well on that on in that VIN Amy I just wanted to add that Laura Kirk and I had this conversation earlier today because I asked the same question that Amy asked I think that for
Middle School in particular these teachers don't have 25 kids they have 100 kids and they only have 20830 slots for conferences so it then becomes incumbent Upon a parent to then I don't want to say
burden but like there could be a delug of emails to teachers of the other 70 parents who are requesting the report but don't feel they need a conference or didn't get into a conference I think that's a logistical thing that I just wanted to kind of throw on the radar
that for example I didn't sign up for conferences because I didn't want to take two spots and I thought I was doing everybody a favor but then I realized oh man I missed the star report so then I had to burden them anyway with emails Etc so and they sent everything to me and it was great but I think that
there's you know 70 people who are not going to get a conference slot that's should still be given the report and shy of having a hundred conversations I just don't know how you do it um but I I I love Kirk know that too Madam I appreciate good feedback yeah it's good
feedback and um we are gonna work on that in our next principal's Council and begin crafting how we solve that conundrum yeah okay but another question yeah I was just going to say um like Amy Cohen I am interested
in some type of um kind of looking at how kids are changing and learning and growing at the high school um and I'm wondering if like I know you're already doing some stuff around portfolio and i' I'm wondering if that's going to be kind of where this is
headed that kids not only that they I mean yeah mcast is great I guess or whatever it gives them some kind of score but like at least with a portfolio or something the kids are reflecting on their own work and you know thinking about and acknowledging what they've
done they're not just getting the score report right so I'm wondering if that if it's moving in that direction so that we start to see some some of that happening at the high school as well yeah I I mean I we're we're still developing and building out the model
for the digital portfolios at the High school but we agree the balance of a showcase portfolio and a reflective component of the portfolio is important it is an opportunity to build students meta cognition about their own growths and strengths and celebrations so that
is work that is well under the underway at the high school um I think we had pointed at the beginning of the year we would love the opportunity to share um a couple of those portfolios with the committee um if allowed towards the end of the year of course with student
permission but work to continue to deepen our work with the portfolios is is definitely in a plans as we move forward at the high school with Dr Boon okay thank you and I and I would also like to just commend um assistant
um principal Janine Boule who has been leading the work there um great work happening and great feedback thank you great thanks well I have a quick question for you could you just help anybody looking at this who is
perhaps not an early literacy specialist like myself you have this reading test or reading screener but then you have an early literacy screener can you just tell us why they're different um I can I don't have the spec
specifics in front of me around what domains they assess early literacy versus reading I can tell you that the early literacy assessment assesses foundational reading skills like phonemic awareness phonics development
it also includes early numeracy the star reading test is a more um traditional um vision of a reading assessment so it's got vocabulary it has comprehension questions it has critical
thinking questions based on a a a passage where the early literacy test really assesses students foundational skills to be able to comprehend that makes sense that's so helpful thank you and then I'm looking at um a vivito star
report and I won't tell you the score but the categories the color coding on the family report is different than the categories you're including so on the family report it's not meeting expectations partially meeting meeting
and exceeding I so I just wonder how those um mesh with the charts you're showing so the um it's a good question um in a little bit into the details here the report that you
have because your students um are older is based on state Benchmark and so we're using the category the state bench Benchmark reflects the categories of mcast aligned with mcast the District
Benchmark which is the Benchmark that's reflective of early L literacy screening requirements is based on the Urgent intervention intervention category so a different set of categories again to capture those students who are at risk for early reading or reading
difficulties I will also if I can comment as well yeah Madam chair is the report you're looking at is based on those proficiency benchmarks whereas the data that we're looking at in the data that our goals are written to are based on growth not Benchmark so we're looking
at growth numbers they're two different uh ways of looking at the data when we're looking at a student we want to look at both proficiency Mark as well as how are they growing because if you just limited to proficiency Mark then you're not validating a student's growth that
they might have over a large bandwidth that is below that proficiency Mark or above that proficiency Mark got it and then when the parent parents get the family report of the younger kids did they see these indicators as well or is is theirs about benchmarks and not about
growth it looks similar the report look similar y to these charts yeah okay yeah just so that they can see where they if they want to see where their reports fit into the grander scheme any other
questions all right guys so that is it for the superintendent's report thank you for that we are now going to move on to new business and we have um without objection I just want to touch upon letter B before we get to letter
a and seeing no objection I'll just let you guys know that ala has been um leading the charge here to track down where the legislature is on uh remote meeting allowance and extending it beyond the
March 31st Alita if I'm not mistaken deadline um meaning that anything after March 31st any public meeting would need to then be in person unless the governor the legislature and the governor extend it they are really on the cusp of
extending it into I think June or July of 2027 so the governor just needs to sign it and then we will have our remote meeting allowance continue for the next couple of years we are all confident that that will happen so it won't really
affect us because our next meeting in April is in person it wouldn't come to a head until our second April meeting but we're confident that it will be signed and extended before then all right so we'll I'm sure Alita
will keep us uh completely informed on that front now let's move to our next or only uh other new business item and that is Kirk's presentation on the Middle School related arts Spanish model for 2025 26 and I asked for
your um uh not patience because this is super important stuff and I know you guys all want to hear it but this presentation is going to be a little bit longer than our normal ones uh we have some special guests here that I'm sure Kirk is going to introduce first off but um we're probably in for about a 20 to 30 minute presentation on this important
item so i' like to give you a fair warning on that so over to you Kirk thank you madam chair and I actually think the presentation will be more brief than that as we were looking to carve out time for questions around that so um Madame chair I would
like to once again reintroduce assistant superintendent Laur fren she's going to be presenting this evening with principal Joel Bates the Florence Sawyer School Kyle Grady of hail middle school and Mr sha OA of the Lu Luther Burbank medal school so uh as you know we've
been briefing the committee all throughout the budget process of reimagining our Middle School related arts program so I'm going to turn it over to assistant superintendent friend to kick us off thank you superintendent Downing and Alita if you have the presentation and
you wouldn't mind sharing your screen that would be helpful I'd like to um while while Alita is pulling that up I would like to just give a special thank you to our three Middle School principles who have joined us this
evening um speaking firsthand um I can share the they've worked incredibly hard in collaboration together and with me to develop a thoughtful and responsive plan to address our current needs together we have uh developed an
updated and calibrated model for Middle School related arts in Spanish how awesome is this picture this just distracting um and and just so amazing to see our our student athletes our Middle School student athletes there
the model is grounded in both our current constraints and our commitment to Student Learning thank you to our principles for their diligence their collaboration and their solution seeking mindset I have to say this has not been easy work for any
of us um but as we know the financial necessity accelerated the need for us to take a look at our Middle School model and make adjustments so we've strived to build a balanced and effective model that honors what we know about our adolescent Learners and what they need
and that is exposure exploration mixed grouping movement and high quality instruction so I'm starting us off this evening with a big picture and model rationale and then I'm going to turn it
over to Mr OA who will speak to more specifics about the model um and we will proceed so Alita if you could click on to the next slide it's an overview of our model rationale so as we're aware and it has
been spoken about before um with the committee is the challenges that we've had with our eighth grade class size and the Urgent challenge um was the need to address the class sizes in grade eight um with our enrollment numbers and
the needs um the needs there which we have spoken about and superintendent Downing has spoken about with the committee in Prior meetings so the revised model addresses the need for a section reduction in grade 8 reducing the sections from five sections to four
sections to better meet student enrollment needs and moving Spanish into the related arts um model and over time the model will allow students increased exposure to Spanish over the
course of three years as we work through the model we looked at distributed impact to ensure that the adjustments that we made were designed to ensure the impact is distributed across schools and grade levels as equitably as
possible and we prioritize maintaining our related arts programming so despite our staffing and our constraints the model preserves programming and all of our related arts ensuring students continue to benefit from a well-rounded
Middle School experience in terms of considerations in developing the plan we took into account Staffing and scheduling Logistics again the development developmental needs of our adolescent
Learners we also examined the offerings from near peer districts which showed a variety of programming at middle schools and our updated approach is aligned in offerings with our near peer districts I'm going to turn it over to
Mr oay who is going to provide some more specifics about the model itself thank you can you go to slide three please thank you building on that overview from Mrs friend this slide shows how the model will work in
practice for students we've organized our approach in two complimentary components on the right side we have our school-based programs with full-time teachers at each middle school music physical education and Spanish these are offered throughout the school year with
students attending each class two times per cycle providing consistent opportunities to develop skills over time on the left side we have our district based rotating teachers providing instruction in art engineering
and health students take each of these for one trimester also meeting two times per cycle these Specialists will rotate between middle schools each trimester allowing us to maintain all programs while efficiently Distributing
resources at the center of our design is our primary goal ensuring a consistent student experience across all three middle schools this approach guarantees that every student student receives instruction in all related arts regardless of which school they attend
while attending while addressing both our fiscal realities and educational priorities I believe uh principal Grady is next Kyle I think you're muted and I think next slide too
Alita next slide thank you and thank you um this vivito for letting me know I was muted um thanks thanks Sean and just uh a thank you to the uh school committee again for for letting us present on this
it's been quite a bit of work and and I think we're happy with where we landed with our results um what you're going to see in the next two slides are the related arts courses that are available to all middle school students starting next year you're also going to see the
free frequency for which those students will attend these courses in this slide you'll see that students will take music PE and Spanish all year long um this works out to two
classes in each of the three content areas every week um there is an option for an additional class each week for students uh in PE and Spanish we have a we have a similar model that
runs right now in our middle schools um and in that model we refer to these additional classes as related arts Plus classes or Raz plus um and a little bit later you're going to see a student schedule which will help to um uh for
you to see that um if you could just go to the next slide Alita that would be great so this slide addresses the other three related arts courses so um it's going to be addressing the art health and
Engineering um starting next year students will have an opportunity to take art health and Engineering on a trimester based rotation so similar to the previous
slide it works out to two classes each week in these three content areas um also similar to the previous slide students will the opportunity for an additional related arts Plus Class A
Raz plus class in art health and [Music] Engineering um I I'm gonna turn it back to principal Shay who's going to now walk you through the trimester based rotation uh for art health and engineering
thank you could you go to slide six please thank you this slide illustrates how art engineering and health rotate across the three middle schools on a trimester schedule while the order of the subjects May different from school to school the structure ensures that each school
offers all three subjects over the course of the year in all students in all grades will participate in these rotating related arts classes they'll take one subject per trimester and attend classes two times times as Mr Grady was
explaining for example uh a student might have art in trimester one Engineering in trimester 2 and health in trimester 3 while a student at a different school might follow a different sequence but all students will have access to the same content by the
Year's End again this model reflects a coordinated districtwide approach that supports Equity across all schools it also helps us manage Staffing and scheduling in a structured and sustainable way while preserving all
three of these important programs for our students I believe I turn it over to Mr Bates I think the next slide principal oay is the sample student schedule which is Mr Grady's oh okay um I can jump on
that so um thanks again principal Shay so what you're seeing here is a a sample related art schedule for your middle school students next year and for the purposes of this presentation we left out the
core academic courses and focus specifically on what um a student would receive in the related arts classes um this is this is sort of built out as a as like a trimester one um a related arts schedule for a student
so um in the model that that we've designed students would have access to Spanish twice a week on a and C days and that would occur all year long they would have access to PE also
twice a week on B and D days all year long um the students music elective in this particular case would occur on A and C days that is um you know that is
that is the option for students to take um General music um or band um and and also we have the option for chorus um this leaves us then with the trimester base rotation for art health
and Engineering that uh principal Shay was just talking about so for this particular student they're taking art trimester one and then they would take Health trimester 2 and
Engineering trimester 3 um those are those uh those subject areas that that are uh in parentheses um and where I had uh referenced earlier um in in the earlier slides that there's a related arts plus class that is on this this
eeday um and and to be honest we've we've toyed around with whether eeday is at the end of the week or whether eeday lands middle of the week and we're seeking some um input from our staff around around that um but what we have
here is that this is where a student would have access um to an additional course in Spanish PE and those um three rotating uh classes the art engineering
um and health um so uh uh offsetting that is is that um a student who's taking band would have the opportunity to come together at a grade level to do a combined rehearsal um uh for for the
benefit of performances so um again just just just to to go back to an earlier statement you know this model does preserve um keeping General
music chorus and band within the academic academic day although it might not be reflected in this particular slide I if you could go to the last slide Please Mr Bates thank you principal Grady so um to wrap up we
believe that this is a model that between the year-long opportunities of Music PE and Spanish um and the trimester rotations of art health and Engineering that we are providing
students with a a balanced approach to um preserving the related arts that students have experienced and uh our communities value while still addressing uh our class size and um Staffing considerations um but also the
opportunity to maintain that idea of the the Raz plus uh model that principal Grady spoke of to to deepen the learning or to extend the learning for students as well in those particular areas that they've had
that exposure to and with that I will turn it back to uh assistant superintendent friend or superintendent Downing for any questions that you might have I think Kirk's trying to unmute mute trying is the right word Madam
chair hopefully I was successful y I want to thank you and I I I want to thank Mr Bates for joining us from Nature's Classroom uh I know he is with the Florence warrier students currently so that would explain uh uh your get up for this evening here Mr Bates normally
I would not wear a hat to a school committee meeting but preferable to what my hair looks like at this point so thank you for long so Madam chair uh I think our team give a very comprehensive look at what our strategies are moving forward this
optimizes our resources while also maintaining all the working agreements that are in the negotiated agreement between the school committee and our Teachers Association um but I think the most important thing is it gives our students an opportunity to still continue on these courses uh that are
embedded in our system now so that they get that well-rounded experience that uh assistant superintendent friend always talks about in the Middle School so that as they move on to high school they've had a taste of the choices that they will make as they get deeper into their classes as they get older so with that
we will take any questions from the committee right can can I just ask a quick clarifying question on any given day how many blocks are there in a day you would have your four academic blocks plus your two related arts blocks
um and the Wind Block is that right Mr block thank you that's what I was forgetting okay thank you so there's technically seven blocks in a day yes got it okay so let's go to questions Amy colen oh you're muted boy we're really
out of uh practice here oh I'm so sorry about that um so I think that you've presented this in a way that's easy to understand um I'm just trying to I
was looking at my own middle schoolers schedule and just trying to convince myself that um the courses that she has now are the same it's just a a
difference in the schedule right um that is correct okay and so then the other question I had here is for the Raz plus um opportunity on the E days so if
I it sounds like this is an opportunity like if somebody wanted to take a third day of Spanish they they could but if they needed their clarinet lesson is that also when that happens or um miss the eay uh would be when all
of the instrumental lessons come together so that would be the day for band okay so if your if your child does ban that's when the the group ban is going to yes happen but chorus would be during one of the
other music um slots if they wanted to do band and chorus how does no course would not be a time during um band it's a separate slot yes so it' be like a or C on the schedule that you've presented on the on the plus day um
course is a SE SE block and then band is its own block that's by designed so that um students in sixth seventh or eighth grade could take chus at the same time so there at the same time so so
will students be able to do chorus and band or not oh no I'm sorry so 67th and eighth grade would have access to chorus in a at the same time at a block different than their band time oh thank you thank you for clarifying that okay that's
all I go next oh no I can't hear you you're muted Leah oh good you didn't hear me scream Jackie go ahead now Jackie muted I mean it's contagious go
ahead for any um families in the community watching who may not have had a middle schooler yet um whose students are supported through special education can a member of the team talk about
where those identified um goals are worked on and if that would have any impact on their schedule or accessing some of those activities I'm happy to speak to that um
so there is no impact to students receiving services from where they are currently in our Middle School model um they they have a designated period of time every day where they are able to work on um the goals listed in their IP
through what I need next or a Wind Block um that is allocated um every day um and if a student were to receive um you know Services beyond that there's some allocated time um uh through the through some related arts classes where where
they would be able to receive those services but um there there is no there is no change um and there would be no impact to those students who um uh receive uh any special education
services thank you any other questions Kirk I have a procedural question for you yes you are not looking for us to approve this operational change no you were just sharing this with us that's correct because we just think it's
important for the committee to be informed and and have the talking points to speak to as we we making this shift as it's been very well known and we've been publishing regularly through our Communications to our community the necessity to make these moves so no we are not looking for vote here tonight
just keeping you informed okay so then I had I had one substantive question for you I know that we have heard from staff members who are concerned that this newer model would not ready students for Spanish 2 going
into ninth grade so that's a concern I have too I mean I know that so I'll just do a little bit of editorializing I think that starting to learn a foreign language in eth grade by the research is not early enough so if we all had our DS
we'd be teaching this from kindergarten up and then the kids would be truly fluent that's right um so it's already I know a challenge for kids who are not don't have this aptitude already to LEAP to Spanish to in nth grade how will we
manage this for kids so that they can reach the highest levels of say Spanish by the time they're senior so uh I am going to ask uh assistant super contant friend to join into the conversation right up to the work and preparation for that we know
we're looking at a two-day a week model and there's a tradeoff to that while we'll be going for three years um we'll have a minimum of at least 216 days in the Middle School experience prior to high school currently we have 180 the
tradeoff to that is it's two days a week over three years as opposed to five days a week over one year um I'll turn it to assistant superintendent friend to give a little more color to that and I would also say there's the RAS plus which
which offers the opportunity for third day um during the week as well superintendent Downing that's um so I would say that that's our goal right is to um prepare students for proficiency at Spanish to when they enter into the
high school it's going to take some time um in order for students to um to be able to gather enough exposure over the course of the three years um it's going to just take some time for us to get there what I can say is that our high
school World Language Department um led by the work of our high school department chair Maria Davis has been working with us and working directly with our three Middle School Spanish teachers um to develop a model to
identify priorities and what's a essential for students to know understand and be able to do so they are the most well prepared for our current seventh graders or current sixth graders and what have you and they're working on a scope and sequence in a plan that is
included taking release time already this school year working during early releases we also have already allocated Summer Academy working session um that's collaboration amongst the high school team and the middle level team and we also have some teachers attending a
Proficiency Academy this summer as well that's sponsored by the state so we're working on the curriculum and instruction side heartedly and together in collaboration and I just have to commend our teachers our middle level teachers and our high school teachers
and um department chair Maria Davis for helping us really dig in figure this out um and making the best possible experience for our students given the limitations and the timing that we're faced with so ex Supreme shout out to
our team I would like to add to that as well that one of our graduation cor IRS is that you take a world language for two years under this model and our course offerings we acknowledge it right up front there our current seventh graders will only be in this model for
one year the SE sixth graders will be in it for two years and our current fifth graders will be in it for three years but once they get to the high school level they will still have the full compliment of four years in high school to go go all the way to AP if they choose because they can begin at Spanish
level one at their freshman year and still make it to AP um Spanish by their senior year so the courses aren't being closed off and that those opportunities aren't being closed off to them ultimately at the end of that language Journey thank you for that uh Amy Cohen
yeah sorry I have one more question um so with this kind of new opportunity for choices of this Raz plus um Choice that's going to be presented to our middle schools schoolers next year how
is that going to happen um is there going to be some kind of like Google form that's sent out where to parents where parents talk to their kids and they make that decision together or yeah I think Mr Grady can
address this question uh thank you this is Coen um that's a great question um so the the teachers are rotating um to each building based on a trimester so you imagine you have your
art teacher um at Florence Sawyer for the first trimester so that means that students at Florence Sawyer would have access to an art class during the first trimester in Bolton and then as those
teachers move to um another another building suppose it's engineering at Florence Sawyer they would then have access to an engineering plus class for the second trimester in engineering um and and the same thing for health the
third trimester so uh it provides equity for everyone across the district as far as access uh to these related arts Plus classes but it also guarantees that students are getting additional PE and additional
Spanish classes all year long for their related arts uh uh Plus classes so uh there's not a selection that students are going to make aside from their music electives and that's where they're they're selecting um band uh chorus um
and general music so okay but if they I thought that they could choose to take a third Spanish class what as opposed to like I know if they're in ban that's when they're going to be doing ban yeah Miss K you're
speaking to the Raz plus day so Kyle can you explain how do students get into their Raz plus so um in PE in Spanish they students will take um the related arts Plus Class all year long they have
access to PE and Spanish throughout the year um for one of those two related arts class on on an eay um uh that that that is not something that they elect to that is something that they that they will be
scheduled to to to have so um with the exception of students who are in band those other three classes it is dependent upon where the teacher is located so if they're located um in in
Bolton then um they would they would be taking that that course that particular course Mr Grady can I ask you the question this way so let's just imagine a trimester where art is at hail Middle School on that Raz plus day as a student uh when
the other students go to band and if I'm not in band would I go to Art would I go to PE or would I go to um Spanish and do I have the option of going to one of those three on that Ras plus day when
the other students are in band thank you that's what I'm asking yeah so if I'm understanding the question correctly just one trimester on an eay yeah right um so in other words do I get my preference on that Raz plus
day of art um Spanish or PE yeah if I'm not in band you do not you are you are scheduled based on the teacher um the
related arts teacher that's rotating so if it's the art teacher you're getting art and then um you're getting PE and then Spanish on a rotation can I can I add in please um
the scheduling is very complicated and trust me like we have to go back and forth all the time like is this what it is um and um so understanding it can be complicated the the on the plus day um student stents get an additional Spanish for a certain period of time and I can't
remember if it's a trimester or quarter at this time and then they get a PE for another one to make it all Equitable and work you don't get an extra PE and Spanish on the plus day all year that's broken up so you're getting the two
consistent core classes all all the cycle and then you're getting another additional one so it's like another 12 or 15 or something um in addition to the the core classes um and then it rotates
to the other class that is um within the so and so on in addition the rotating uh teacher is also like art or health that's that's an additional one too so Mr Mr OA in a mathematical sense over a
12-week trimester on the Raz plus day uh four of those sessions would be Spanish four would be PE four would be art so they don't choose them they
rotate through each of them there is not a selection on the side of students they're not saying I would prefer to take this they're getting an equitable distribution of whatever the rotating teacher is along
with PE in Spanish um but throughout that trimester so um uh they of course the exception is if a student is is in banded um they do not have access to that um but the there is
there is the sort of out of four weeks I mean out of 12 weeks they're getting four four and four um uh access to those those three content areas okay thank you so much I'm I'm so glad I asked because that wasn't um it wasn't obvious to me
until you kind of spelled it out in the istics of it and now it makes a lot more sense thank you that's great uh I just want to insert into the record and for anybody who's watching um
a really important note on the Genesis of this whole thing and that uh and it it brings up an oped that I read in our local newspaper recently that is begging the question whether or not our school system
is respons POS with the resources that the taxpayer provides to it and I think that this is an excellent um example for any Resident who's wondering that that our Administration is taking on a really
difficult task upending A system that has been in place for a while to better allocate resources because if we were if we weren't doing this and we just maintained the five sections of core academics in the eth
grades we would have very small class sizes and in hail in particular the class sizes would be looking at it now 13 kids in each classroom when we would have third grade classrooms with 23
kids and it's just not a good allocation of resources and so as painful as this might feel to some and questionable to others I think that this is an excellent example of our Administration looking at the resources that we have and seeking
to best allocate them through fiscal responsibility and excellent educational programming um so I I just keep going back to this that this might not be something that is well received by all
it might also seem um as if you know one more thing we're cutting but I think that it's really important for the public to keep in mind that that what this school administration and this school committee is trying to do is put forth a budget
that is completely responsible from start to finish and this programming switch is one of the ways that they're doing that and so if anybody has any questions about that especially the writer of any future oped please feel
free to reach out to me in particular or to reach out to our superintendent and we can help walk you through what we've been doing for the last many months months in painstaking detail to make sure that the budgets we're asking our towns to pass are as Slim as they can
be so uh Kirk thank you for this presentation we appreciate you guys all keeping us us in the loop thank you to our principles especially Joel Good Luck Good Luck sir there are some really great kids here with us they're all they're all
doing well that's fantastic we're so uh grateful to you thank you so much Joel and thank you everybody for being here we appreciate it our mam chair if I may please I I publicly want to acknowledge the hard work of our three Middle School
principles along with assistant superintendent friend um Miss Cohen's question was an excellent one because it really gave us an chance to illustrate the complexity and the depth and really the Precision for which we had to put this schedule together
to meet uh the words that you just expressed so eloquently so thank you to all of our team members for their hard work appreciate it guys it's not easy and we appreciate you well thank you everyone for the support all right everybody so on to our
finance and operations update this one is going to be a little less weighty than Ross is used to in the most recent months so turn over to Kirk or Ross we'll just go straight to Ross mcaren our Director of Finance and operations thank you superintendent
Downing uh thank you to the school committee um I'm G to start with apologizing for failing uh to probably deliver my information in the five minutes it's allocated on the agenda but I'll I'll do my best uh to be a champion
of brevity uh this evening so uh with regards to the operations report I think Alita is going to be bringing it up um no major changes um certainly this is the end of February that we're looking at uh you know with uh the at that time
the heating season snow plowing etc etc still well underway uh typically you know we talk about uh the salary surpluses we've had some changes to those uh that are reflected here um we're still going to be uh in a surplus position it might not
be as uh as high as it was reported previously because we've had some staff return that was unanticipated and these things happen um as you know um with people's uh schedules and their personal things um so we've had some staff return
um that was not anticipated um and that has changed some of that position but overall we're still tracking at a higher Surplus than last year at this time um but other than that no major changes uh we're continuing to watch everything um as a school year comes into to sort of
like you know is on the horizon the end uh so but overall we're still tracking well um and no major concerns we're going to obviously know a little bit more about how much circuit breaker we're going to have to use uh to level out that special education account uh and you know certainly through the
budget process this year for FY 26 uh We've uh put ourselves in a position um uh that we will likely not be uh having that same conversation next year we just have some better predicting coming out of that office now that we have um some
steady uh leadership there so great thanks Ross any questions on the operations report and this was reviewed with budget and warrant last week so I can take any questions excellent yeah so thank you to our chair
Scott who um brings us up each time all right I'm not seeing any so I I think we can move on to the school launch update yeah so as a lead is pulling up the presentation um you know I looked at this in a lot of different ways without getting too far into the weeds but I think the school committee
um you know deserves a bit of an update here on how it's going with food services so for those of you who are on the committee um or just a general review uh at about this time last year we notified the committee that we'd be going out for uh requests for proposals
to um contract out for our food service managing um position so that had previously been a director uh within the district an employee of the district so we contracted with witson um culinary and they provide us with a a food
service manager uh that works with our kitchen managers um but also brings in a lot of their own resources to support the the Food Service program here uh I'll talk a little bit about that but there's some financial pieces and then some also some data pieces um so just real quick the things that I'm going to
cover today leita next uh slide just some of the positives that we're seeing uh across the board uh some data and financial pieces and then talk a little bit about next steps and again this is the goal here is big picture and and also being uh uh brief um so Le to next
slide so in general um I I think it's important to note that we're really trying to shift to our measure with Food Services being our student experience so we've had a lot of increase in our options from K to 12 and shout out to our kitchen managers and our kitchen
staff that are are really working hard to pull through uh into a new system and to also manage a lot of options and they've had to learn some new things they've had to be flexible and they've also given a lot of good feedback along the way um uh more so at the high school
but we've been offering tasting stations so this is giving students a preview of what may be coming down uh the road with our menu options and getting some feedback of whether whether or not it's going to land um you know this is a great place to test Seafood to see if there's uh there's interest in certain
dishes um and this is not something that we're really able to do before but we are we are able to do now is to get some feedback before putting something on the menu um on the right hand side you see that that looks like a carrot um that is
the uh icon for the app um that families and students uh if they they have a smartphone somebody at the high school can use that links to all of the menus uh for all of the schools and what that really does and I encourage people to use the app because they can build their
own student profiles so if you have a student who's at hail and a student at the high school you can build two different profiles so you can see those two different menus for those students um this allows parents who need to have allergy awareness to get right
into the ingredients right away uh it allows them to also look at nutritional information and what the ingredients are even though you may not have an allergy you still may be very interested in what the ingredients are and what I've seen for the not just the allergy piece but
certainly the nutritional and the ingredient piece is that uh students are much more aware than I think when we were uh in high school about what is in their food what do they want to eat what don't they want to eat what things do they want to stay away from what ingredients do they want to make sure
they put in their diet um so this gives them the opportunity to be able to do that as well especially at the high school level obviously um we've also moved through a lot of comp um compostable materials so all of our Cutlery uh is now compostable as well as most of the trays uh that we're trying
to use and not just the trays but also some of the smaller pieces at the um at the different levels um again with the increase of the options we have healthier Provisions coming in um we had a kitchen manager's meeting the other day and while there is some still want
for some Staples like those chicken patties uh from students we are able to offer with witson as a partner a higher um nutritional value uh chicken patty um and a different quality of those types of things um in addition to some of the
things that you see on the plate here with the fresh grapes and the the tomato and cucumber salad the menus are more creative um and the bigger piece for me and I think stepping in as the finance and operations director noticing that we had some great things happening in our kitchens but we didn't have Co coherence
across the district and student experience within with within the cafeterias so by making this move more of our students and are having more of a similar experience so there isn't um one thing happening in one kitchen and not
happening in another it's more uh Equitable across the district um and just a little bit more of a harmonious experience for our students so with regards to the those those resources and what their our kitchens were doing um we have now been improving our equipment
we're we've improved some of service set up and how things and how kids move through the line what's set up where so that they see what's available and they see previews on plates before they even walk into the line they know it's coming um and certainly just whatever they need for supplies um and getting those things
in the hands of our kitchen staff uh witzens is very Hands-On uh Myra moldonado who's our kitchen manager from witson is in the field every single day um we also have a chef um as well that works with us from witson so um we just
had a we had a little bit of a change in a little bit of a window where we didn't have one but we've recently um had witson bring a new person on board and that's going really uh well um and spending a lot of time at actually the high school um in supporting uh the program there Alita next slide so just
to give you a sense um on average every day in our District 89 students are eating breakfast at school this year than they were last year and at lunchtime we have about 130 more kids eating School launch some months it's much higher some months a little bit more even than it was that or to what it
was last year but in general we just have more students um accessing the breakfast which always sounds good uh and certainly the school lunch as well so you know your our Counts from um uh the budget process but now we're having
more more than half of our students are accessing that that free school lunch uh each day uh Alita next slide please um so need to provide a little bit more detail in in explanation here on fy4
vers versus fy2 I just want to briefly talk about expenses there's a few things that I want you to know these are expenses August through February um it's not a full year yet so this question came up during budget season um Joe gon
from Lancaster had asked uh for a Community member about the contracted services for um food services so if you look at fy4 the contracted Services the provisions and the supplies what we were spending on
Provisions is really now shifted to contracted services in fy2 with witson we pay witson monthly they're in charge of all the provisions so they're doing all of the food ordering all of that kind of stuff for us we're not doing it it's part of the contract so that cost
that expense has really shifted uh in into contracted services so we're spending about the same year to year or year to date year-to dat um between those lines uh as we were FY 24 what you'll notice about our cafeteria staff
and this is actually a good thing is that um while it's gone up about $112,000 it's actually more than that because we're not paying a Food Services director so we are having our staff work more hours because we need people to be able to support the breakfast program
which more kids are taking access to and just in general setting up a better experience for our students um and we we're working on continue to work on solutions for Staffing and to make sure um that we're able to provide the student experience that
we want and make sure that our staff um have the right amount of right amount of hours to do it um and come through on the revenue side um something that I want to bring to your attention is this is August through February what we been paid but these are lagging so this
really only represents on the the state reimbursement what we've received uh in payments for meals served through December so we'll still have more Revenue coming in but it does always lag a little bit because once you've done all your your service you have to
calculate place it on the claims for the state they have to process and approve and then we get reimbursed so in general we don't have a significant change in our financial position relative to how we were self operating but we've seen an improvement in the student experience
and that's what's important for us here uh on the next slide so we're going to continue to engage the sustainability team at witson there's more work to be done with um whether we're doing recycling or composting or whatever it may be there's just more work to be done
um within this District to you know I think we have an obligation to to be more green and to be more um sustainable but we also have obligation to our students in that regard because that's what they expect that's the world that they're living in and that's what they
want to see within our kitchens and cafeterias um will we be setting up our school nutrition Council um having witson without uh that chef and also being new um this is sort of been pushed a little bit by me because we want to make sure we're fully ready principes are aware I'll be tapping into the
school council um uh opportunity to to reach out to families and see who can come in and help serve on our School nutrition Council and certainly Ryan and Ava will be good resources at the high school to get students involved in that as well we also are going to be doing our student experience survey um now
that we're mostly through the school year um we'll have to time this right with the other surveys that go out because we don't want to overs survey our students or our families um because we don't want people to not give us some feedback um but from my perspective you
know the the biggest indicator that things are going better in our kitchens and our cafeterias is the trash can so the last couple years when I would look in the trash can in the cafeteria it was filled with uneaten obviously not eaten food but also things like uh vegetables
or fruits or whatever it may be where there was a missed opportunity for kids to have something that's nutritious but also good tasting and what witson has done and what our kitchen staff have stepped up with um is really putting those things into places and into into uh recipes where kids are
eating them and what I see now is less waste in our in our uh our trash cans that all being said we still need to hear exactly from students and families what's going well and what we could improve upon so we can have that feedback as we transitioned into the next school year so uh probably not a
great um example of brevity in five minutes this evening with my presentations um but I hope it was inform informative and I can take any questions as well yeah that was great thanks Ross um Alita do you mind taking down the slideshow for for me awesome I wonder if there are any
questions for Ross on the school lunch update all right seeing none we're gonna uh move on and just um say thank you to Ross for that great update uh we really appreciate all of that hard work and again transitioning for better programming yeah and and again I can't say thanks enough to our our kitchen
staff it was something new and they've really stepped up great all right everybody so we have uh no unfinished business this evening um does anybody have any burning items for the next
agenda I think um the planning calendar has a few things on it our next meeting is April 9th it will be in person um the big item on the planning calendar right now is a school choice presentation where Kirk will present
some enrollment data for us a quick reminder that um we're supposed to have our subcommittee goals checkin and now I'm thinking maybe that is premature I am going to move the subcommittee goals
check-in uh to a May meeting but can all the subcommittee chairs please put that uh in your mind to put that on your next agenda and I'll ask the chairs to share out at a May meeting how they are doing toward their goals remember that this is
a formative check-in for us because we're on a two-year cycle just like our superintendent so a Quick Share out um and the committee can ask questions if they have them Madam chair if I may please um I think I've reviewed this for you so I'll just share it with the
committee as we're planning future agenda items I will not be at the May 7th uh school committee meeting I will be on a flight to Denver Colorado for my daughter's graduation on May 8th so I think that we don't have so that's
awesome but I think meeting on the 7th yeah it's the 14th thank you that's right you don't have to worry you corrected me on that before and I still I got it locked in my brain well you got it locked but the good news is you get to enjoy your daughter's graduation without tangling
with us that's right so the next meeting is the is May 14th yeah that um so I'm going to put the committee goals sharing uh let's say on the May 14th meeting for now so subcommittee
chairs get ready for that uh anything else you guys are dying to have on the agenda or in the parking lot uh the last one Amy what yes so we're gonna have it's
going to be a first reading at the next meeting yes yeah and Madam chair these are some juicy ones that we have been sort of uh just doing a little work on no oh they're just going to we're going to need some explanations so got it so
there it's not just commas and apostrophes no okay uh all right huge shout out coming at you guys at the next meeting for making this the last one your soldiers on that front any other things you want to see on there yeah Jackie um I just want to put
a plugin that um adding to maybe the April 30th agenda to put a call out for interested dear J membership um advisory volunteers for the 2025 2026
school year good um Amy did you did you guys um H use the decision making tool from dear J at your last meeting where doing it uh towards the end of April got it and so maybe in May you can give me some sort
of a indicator on how you you know how that worked for you guys Etc yeah okay anything else all right guys not seeing anything else I am going to move to adjourn
second okay thank you Jackie I thought you you're pranking me there for a second um let's see all those in favor let's do the roll call myself yes John yes Scott yes Amy Cohen yes Jackie yes
Amy vessles yes shandor yes Robin yes and Lindsay yes wonderful thanks everybody