Speaker 1: March 9th at six 30 and we have a busy meeting today. We're gonna do a few things. We're gonna start with roll call. Mr. Patel. Speaker 2: Present Speaker 1: Ms. Lathers. Present Mr. Brand. Present. Ms. Collins? Yeah. She needs to see present. Yeah. Participate remotely. I will. I'll go to Ms. Brunell, Catherine and Kathy, are you guys able to, okay, so we've just heard that Pegas is maybe having some issues with the Zoom, so just bear with us while we try to sort out the technology because if they, if we can't get them, we don't have a quorum. We do
Speaker 2: Have quorum. Speaker 1: Oh we do now. Oh yes we do. Oh, didn't count myself. Okay. So we do, but we wanna make sure that everyone can participate. Yeah. Okay. Speaker 2: I, Speaker 1: Okay. So I don't know Ms. Brunell and Ms. Collins, if you guys are able to hear us and if you're able to unmute, you did let them both in, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So Linda's made you co-host so you should be able to unmute and then Speaker 2: I do not. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 2: Oh, maybe it's because she's cohost. Yeah, you should be able to hear him. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 2: Catherine, can you hear us? Catherine, can you hear us? Nod your head if you can hear us. I just put in the chat.
Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Speaker 2: Linda, does it matter That town hall that says muted? Like our room says muted. I don't remember if it, I always mute this one. Speaker 3: Catherine, can you hear us or anybody? Speaker 1: Can anybody online confirm that they can hear us on the Zoom? Nobody can. Cannot. We cannot. Okay. Alright. We're Speaker 3: It Cambridge? Actually Linda, can you unmute us again the same way you did before? Speaker 2: Oh, Speaker 3: Can you hear us now? Anyone? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Are you able to unmute yourselves?
Speaker 2: She wants to be off the speaker Speaker 3: That we can't help with. Speaker 2: I don't have that. Speaker 4: There's like five of me in the room. Yay. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. We can only see one of you at a time, so, okay. Super. Speaker 3: She's everywhere. Speaker 2: She's surrounded Speaker 4: By us. I've come to haunt you all. Speaker 1: Alright, so continuing role call Ms. Brunell Speaker 4: Here. Attending virtually. Speaker 1: Okay. And now we'll try Ms. Collins, Speaker 5: Am I unmuted now? Speaker 1: Yes, am here Speaker 5: Attending remotely Speaker 1: Super and Ms. Gomes Speaker 2: Here attending remotely. Speaker 1: Super. Awesome, thank you.
So we have a quorum so we will get started. So just to give everybody an orientation to the meeting, we're going to do things in a slightly different order. We're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence in our announcements. We'll then go to public speak and then we're then gonna go to an item on the chairman's agenda. But on the superintendent's agenda before we go to the budget hearing. So we'll stand now for the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence, Speaker 2: Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God
with liberty Justice for all. Speaker 1: And we take that moment of silence for our troops who are serving us here and abroad. Do we have any announcements? The only announcement I have is just a reminder that there is the finance committee education learning subcommittee meeting this Thursday at five 30. And the meeting is posted on the town website for anyone who wishes to tune in to that meeting. Okay. So we'll go to public speak. Public speak is scheduled for a period of 15 minutes. Each speaker will be permitted a maximum of three minutes during which time they can speak about topics within the scope of responsibility of the school committee.
All remarks will be addressed through the school committee chair. Public speak is not a time for debate or response to comments by the school committee. I do have one person who emailed me, Carol Glof. She should be online. And so we have that if anybody else in the room wants public speak, don't see. So I think we just have Ms. GL when you're able to unmute her. Okay, Speaker 6: Great. Thank you so much. Madam Chair, as you said, I'm Carol GL and I'm representing yes for Natick tonight. Can everyone hear me by the way?
Speaker 1: Yes. Okay, great. You're a little quiet, but yeah, Speaker 6: I'll try to turn up the volume just a little bit. Speaker 1: You're good? Yep, you're good. Now Speaker 6: Try to be noisier. Okay. But I will be quick. So yes, RNA is hosting a candidate forum next Monday. That's March 16th starting at 7:00 PM All candidates on the ballot for town wide office have been invited to participate along with write-in candidates for Tom Wide offices for which no one submitted nomination papers by the filing deadline. At this point we have candidates for select board, school committee and recreation
and Parks commission who plan to participate. We're pleased that the editors of the Natick report will again be moderating this event which will be live on Zoom and telecast later on. Natick Pegasus. You can learn more about this@yesfornatick.org and I'll spell that out in a minute where you can also register to obtain the Zoom link and submit questions for the NA report team to consider asking during the forum for the second year. Yes, for Natick is also publishing candidate information an a, a candidate information report on its website
that is open to all candidates for office, including those on the ballot and write-ins for town wide and town meeting seats. If you're interested, please submit your information for publishing through yes grenada.org. The candidate information on the website will be updated regularly, probably not every day, but regularly until the March 31st election. And yes, ick is spelled capital YES capital FOR, capital n on natick.org. There are no spaces in between any of those words. I have one more thing that I'd like
to mention if I haven't used up all my time. Speaker 1: No, go ahead. Speaker 6: Finally. And this is also for, yes for Natick. We're inviting people interested in participating in the work of our organization to get in touch for 10 years. Yes. Re Natick has been a political action committee and has offered candidates forums and public information events, but we've not been active in endorsing candidates or ballot questions as would be allowed by a pac. Now we're looking into incorporating as a non-profit with a continuing mission to promote civil, civic information and involvement.
If you are interested in possibly being involved, please send an email to yes bru@gmail.com. Thank you very, very much for allowing me to make these announcements. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Anybody else for public speak before we close? Nobody online. Okay. Alright, well now close public speak. So we'll just go to the superintendent's report for a very special presentation. Speaker 7: Excellent. Thank you for switching that order a little bit. I'd like to introduce Kevin Kenneth Wu who is here and he's going to describe a proposal
for an Eagle Scout project and his advisor is Natick Environmental Planner and Conservation agent Claire Rundel. So you can come up here and use, feel free. Yes. And we'll be happy to project for you right there. And we just hit the little button and it'll, when it turns green. Yep. Speaker 1: You can have a seat. This one, it's green. Yep. Speaker 7: Excellent. Like and then we'll, we'll project your Speaker 8: One more. Speaker 1: Perfect. Speaker 7: If you have any questions, just let us know. We're super kid friendly. Welcome. We're happy to have you. And Ms. McGrath is going to move your deck forward
so you can just let her know when you want to move a slide forward. Okay, sure. No worries. Welcome. Speaker 9: Thank you. So this, I would like to present to the Natick Public Schools Committee, my Eagle Scout project. Could you go to the next slide please? So this project will be to construct box stairs in the entrance to the trailhead in between 177 and 181 South Main Street. And the project will be spearheaded by me and it will be as I am a, a life scout.
And I will have support from my fellow boy scouts, whether it's from other troops or it's from my troops. This project will be primarily to improve the trail conditions and to improve the visibility of the trail as well. Next slide please. So this project, it's the purpose of this project is to not only improve the trail conditions but as the trail is currently rather difficult to identify, it is also intended to improve how visible it is and to improve the safety of it as it's a rather
steep like incline. So I was worried about me and the friends of ne Trails were worried about the possible, the possible injuries that may occur during like wet seasons. Next slide please. As you can see on the presentation, that's where the trail is. It's not really very obvious. There's a few red arrows leading to it on the right and on the left is the entrance to the trail on Google Maps. On the next slide please.
There's also like another map of the trail if necessary. Next slide. Next slide. Thank you. So as you can see on the slide, I, those are the resources I will need and I estimate that the budget will be around $1,700 ish. Next slide please. This will be fully self, like fully self-funded, although I would be open to any
help from the committee or from anyone else, although it will not be necessary as Next slide please. So the, this will be spearheaded by me as the life scout and the Eagle Scout in training and I'll also be the primary source of labor and the primary fundraiser. Wait, that's the last side, right? Oh, sorry, wrong slide. The project Ika. Oh yeah, the project that, as you can see on the screen, those are the project diameters.
Next slide please. This is a diagram for the project and this is what I will, this is what was first recommended to me. And on the next slide please. That's the YouTube link I will be following to construct this project. All the instructions for the project will be on that in that YouTube video. Next slide please. So this project should, I'm gonna start, I plan to start fundraising the project around April break and I plan to begin like construction on it probably around early June. And I will most definitely be, most definitely be finished
by mid July. Next slide please. So these, this slide is the associated individuals. I will be spearheading this project and Mrs. Claire Elli and Mr. Doug Dreek, the directors of the Natick friends of Trails have been advising me and will help like oversee this project. Alice Lee, Mrs. Alice Lee is my mother and my legal guardian and you could contact her if you wish to contact me. And Mr. Brian Shirk is my assistant scoutmaster and he's been very helpful in helping
advise me and oversee this project. And the rest of the labor is going to come from either my friends or members of the strip seven or scouting BSA. Next slide please. Oh, is that it? Yeah. Are there any further questions? Speaker 1: Thank you. Questions from the committee? I see Mr. Brand. Speaker 3: So first of all, thank you for, it's a great presentation and it's not always easy to sit in this room. A lot of courage to come and present to all of us, but awesome presentation. We, I've sat through many, that was a really good one.
Here's and I think the project is great. I have one question. Have you built anything like this before? Speaker 9: I have not built this anything like this before. I've built a lot of tables as a lot of my previous Eagle Scouts in my troop. Like had their Eagle Scouts project building tables or doing all sorts of woodwork, like building benches, building bird, bird houses. So I have some kind of experience in this, but this building like steps is going to be first for me. Speaker 3: Well it's basically like a series of tables with no legs.
Yeah. So you'll be fine. I think it's great. Thank you. Speaker 9: Any other questions? Speaker 1: Are there any questions online? Ms. Brune? Speaker 10: Yes. Thank you for coming and congratulations on going after your Eagle Scout. I would be, I would not feel good if I didn't share this tonight. I'm on the Memorial Building School Committee as a school committee member. And one thing I noticed with this project project was that it may overlap with a potential site for the memorial buildings of the eventual school. Now obviously no decisions have been made.
We haven't even selected an OPM, but part of the, that's an owner's project manager. But part of the requirements and good practice is to look at other sites in the town. And so this is one of the few sites that the schools both have control of and in terms of ownership and has open space right now. Again, I'm not saying that there's been a site selected, but I just wouldn't feel good had I had you presented tonight and I didn't let you know that this site has also come up in another meeting.
There are other sites as well. So I just wanted you to know that and it's way too pre premature to make any decision about it. But I, you know, you're gonna put a lot of work into this and so I just wanted you to know that with transparency. Speaker 9: Thank you. I will make note of it Speaker 10: And we can talk. I, I called Doug today, to be honest, Doug and I have known each other for a long time. So if you want more information about that or you wanna follow the school building process, we, we can get you information about it. And again, like we're talking like a long time out.
But given that transparency is important, I just wanted to make sure that you knew that this is one of the potential sites. Speaker 9: Okay, thank you. Speaker 1: And when you say a long time out, Ms. Brunell, you mean years, right? Speaker 10: I believe I said four years out. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. So if a, if this, if these stairs were built now, they could potentially, if, if that site site was selected, we don't know what site would be selected. The stairs and the trail could be enjoyed for four years at least before. Would you agree? Yeah, that's the way I see it. Yeah. So any other questions from the committee? Personally? I'm psyched 'cause it's my neighborhood
and those are treacherous entrances, so thank you. Speaker 9: Thank you. Speaker 3: Do you need a motion? Does Dr. Stash wanna say something first? Speaker 7: No, I, I applaud you for coming for the interest. Members of my family have built such things in our conservation land near us and it is such a treat to walk on those instead of kind of up steep embankments. So no, I mean this is the committee's vote, not mine, but I definitely support it. I'm grateful for Ms. Brunell explaining kind of the link to the MSBA and we did put, we just put vote,
vote Eagle Scout proposal on there. So yeah, I think if, if the committee doesn't need to think more on it, we did put a vote on here. Speaker 3: And for clarity, I don't if for clarity, the reason we would have to vote is because it is property managed by the schools. It is. Right. So we're, we would be giving permission Yes. For this to happen on school property? Speaker 7: Yes. Okay. Speaker 1: And then I have, before we do that, actually I have a, a question. It's also technically a donation of goods to the school property, right? So we would have to be, I guess right, like the, so would we have to accept that as, as a donation,
as some either now or in the future? Is that, Speaker 11: Is that two separate votes today? Because you have to fundraise first, right? Yeah, Speaker 3: We don't actually know what the donation would be. Right? Speaker 1: Right. So Speaker 2: It's gonna be two votes. Speaker 1: So two votes. So we could vote today to endorse going forward and then we would ask you to come back once you had a final budget so that we could accept that as a donation. Okay. Which is a legal requirement for school committees to accept donations. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 3: I think we would want to get an update anyway. Speaker 1: I think we would. Yes, Speaker 2: I will do that. I think you'd just go have a meeting out in the woods. Yes. You know, I think that's
Speaker 1: An excellent idea. Can Speaker 3: Pega get out there? Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 3: So I would make a motion to approve the Eagle Scout proposal as presented. Speaker 2: Second. Speaker 1: Okay. So we'll do a roll call vote. I'll start online. Ms. Brunell? Speaker 2: Yes, Speaker 1: Ms. Collins. Speaker 2: Oh, she also, Speaker 1: We'll come back to Ms. Collins. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Lathers? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins, are you able to hear us okay? We can, we can get her vote later. I'm a yes. So we have six. Yes. The motion carries.
So thank you so much. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Congratulations. Thank you. I look forward to having you back soon. Speaker 2: Alright. Speaker 1: Okay, so Ms. Collins did say that she is muted so we may have to work on that for the next time. Alright, so I'd now like to move us to the public budget hearing, which we are going to open as an agenda item. And I think Mr. Brand is going to, Speaker 3: Do I read it and then we vote to open. Okay. So I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read In, in accordance with the provisions of cha wait, I should put these on in accordance with the provisions
of chapter 71, section 38 N of the Massachusetts General Laws. The NA school committee will hold a public hearing on the preliminary fiscal year 2027 budget on Monday, March 9th, 2026 at 6:45 PM The meeting will be held at the Natick Town Hall 13 East Central Street in the school committee room on the third floor and will be virtual as well. The agenda and meeting link can be found@www.natickma.gov as required by section five dash two of the town charter. A summary of the budget is as follows, FY 27 budget.
The request is $100,650,912, a 5.4% increase above the prior year. The budget is largely level services with budget neutral strategic reallocation to services listed on pages 28 through 31 of the budget book. The school committee encourages community members to attend, to ask questions and provide feedback on the proposed budget. Copies of the budget are available on the website@www.natickps.org or at the superintendent's office located at Natick Town
Hall 13 East Central Street in Natick. For more information, please contact Linda McGrath. Her email address is lmc@natickps.org or 5 0 8 6 4 7 6 5 0 0. Extension 1 5 0 0. Now would you like a motion to open the public hearing? Yes, please. Motion to open the public hearing. Speaker 1: Second. I will do a roll call. Vote. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Lathers? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins. We'll skip over Ms. Collins
and hopefully you can unmute Ms. Collins. Ms. Brunell? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: So we'll give you another shot. Ms. Collins, if you're able to unmute? No. Okay. I am a yes, so, oh, okay. So we have six in favor and we will, the public hearing is now open. So we are not going to do a presentation, but we are here to answer any questions from the public. So if there's anyone in the room or online who would like to ask the question or make a comment about the budget, the public hearing is now open.
Speaker 2: One question at time or everyone? Speaker 1: We're flexible. We're flexible here. Yeah. So there's no one in the room with a question? No. So we'll hang out for just a another little bit just to make sure that people aren't joining. So one more request for questions. I see no one in the room. No one online. Okay. So that, I think Speaker 3: You need another motion. Need another motion. A motion to close the public hearing on the FY 27 budget. Second. Speaker 1: Okay. So we'll do roll call vote we'll start online. Ms. Brunell? Speaker 2: Yes, Speaker 1: Ms. Collins?
I think Ms. Collins must be having difficulties. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Flas? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Dr. Fuman? Yes. And I'm a yes. So we have six zero one, I think we'll call it in in terms of closing the hearing. So the public hearing is now closed. So we're now going to, oh, you know what? I don't have, I don't have the motion for executive session. Is it there? Oh yes. So I'm now gonna make a motion for us to move into executive session. We do, yeah. We decided to do it now so that then it's going to be short
and then we'll come back. So yeah, so just give a preface for the, for members of the public who are watching, we're gonna go to executive session. It's likely to be quite short. And then we're going to come back and continue the public meeting. So Dr. Stash, I think 15 minutes for public for executive session. What do you think we Speaker 2: Posted it for 30. I dunno what we posted for, Speaker 1: We didn't post a time Speaker 2: How many questions, but I think 15 Speaker 1: Is Okay, we'll give 15 and then if we come back a little later we will, but we'll aim to come back in 15.
Okay. So making a motion to enter executive session for the following purposes. To discuss strategy with respect to litigation. If an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the public body and the chair. So declares and I do declare to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel and to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation. If an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair. So declares Speaker 3: Second. Speaker 1: Will roll call vote. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Laers? Yes. Mr.
Brand? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: Do we have Ms. Collins? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: And I am a yes. So we are now in executive session planning to return to open session at seven 15. Anyway, we're back in open session at 7:50 PM We're just waiting for the technology to catch up with us. So if anyone's on the, I can see there are some people on the zoom. Just if you can just give us a few minutes. Grace, will we get the, oh, there we go. Okay, so it looks like we can, can someone on the Zoom confirm that they can hear us? Speaker 2: We can hear. I hear you.
Speaker 1: Okay, super. Thank you. Alright. Okay, so we will continue our meeting by going back to the consent agenda. Speaker 3: Move approval of the consent agenda Speaker 1: Second. So we'll vote that by roll call. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. PLAs? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Dr. Fen? Yes. Do we have Ms. Collins? Speaker 10: No, she's unable to. Oh. Oh she's here but she is unable to participate because of something going on with her phone. Speaker 1: Okay, so Ms. Brunell? Speaker 10: Yes. Speaker 1: And I am a yes. So that is 6 0 1.
And so the consent agenda passes. So we'll go to updates. Mr. Wood, do you have an update for us? Teacher update. Speaker 12: Oh, thank you Madam Chair. No, nothing at this time. Speaker 1: Okay Anthony, Speaker 13: I just have one. I know last time I brought up the CAPE conference I got some feedback today from it. It was, it went very well. I got a lot of positive experience overall. We got a lot of feedback on things we can improve on our end from other student councils in the state and I heard great things. We'll definitely be back in the future years and use it as a way to improve.
And then the polar plunge is this Wednesday, which we're helping plan, we have raised around $8,700. We're hoping to get 10 thou to, yeah, $10,000. And that is Monday after the half day Wednesday? Yeah. Did I say that? You said Monday. Oh, Wednesday. Sorry. Yeah, Wednesday. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you very much Ms. Gomes, do you have any METCO updates for us? Do we have Ms. Gomes back? Okay. Yeah, Speaker 14: I'm here. Oh super. Okay everyone good. Good evening. The only update that I have was that this past Saturday,
METCO had a community assembly event at Roxbury Community College Auditorium in Boston. I was in attendance and it was really an amazing event. Dr. Candace Sumner, who was the new CEO of metco, she's been CEO since October was there and she really just, you know, it was an opportunity for the community to gather together. She kind of took us through a history of metco, which began 60 years ago and it was just a very fun collaborative educational time.
There were the Lincoln Public Schools step, I'm not remembering their exact names. Step group did a nice performance and it was great. It was good to hear from Dr. Sumner to hear about what her plans are for the future. It was really exciting to hear that there are some new initiatives that are being pushed forward. Some of which include having breakfast clubs amongst metco, METCO students from all districts because there was a highlight amongst like METCO being everywhere, but us not always being in communication with one another.
So there's a real strong initiative behind that offering tutoring support students as well as what I thought was really cool and moving and innovative and revolutionary, which was providing our students with access to mental health services. So yeah, it was great event. And that's all I got. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Appreciate the update. So I just wanna go to two items that we voted in executive session that we need to now vote in open session. So the first one, if someone has a motion, is the memorandum
of understanding between, does someone have a motion for that? Speaker 3: Sure. Move approval of the memorandum of understanding between the Natick school committee and the town of Natick regarding the shared chief technology officer position. Second. Speaker 1: Okay. Any discussion on that? And does anyone wanna speak to that briefly? I think we've discussed this position before. Okay. So we'll just vote it. We'll do that by roll call. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Lathers? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Brune? Yes. And I am a yes.
So that is well am I, oh yay. We've got, we've got a full for Speaker 15: The moment at least I'm back Speaker 16: Online. Speaker 1: Alright. Ms. Collins is a yes as well. So that is the 7 0 0 to approve the, the memorandum of understanding. The second is I'll make a motion to vote to approve the side letter with the EAN regarding the administrator of counseling position. Second, and I don't know Ms. Mendoza, if you wanna speak to that just briefly. Speaker 16: Yes, sure. Speaker 1: For the, so the public knows what we're talking about. Speaker 16: This is a, a side letter of agreement to make
the current direct, the current department head of co of counseling at the high school become a position in our unit BCBA, our collective bargaining agreement. And this, this would follow the same amount of days and pay scale as our deans that operate under Unit B, which is 205 days. Right now we are calling it the administrator of counseling. And this goes along with principal blockers, big visions of really kind of in investing a lot of time
into the counseling department at the high school and really focusing on a lot of college and career readiness and a lot of other really exciting ways that we can work with our students to encourage them to pursue their dreams. So, so this is just a side letter of agreement because we are, this used to be a unit, a position with a stipend. It's transitioning into a unit B administrator position. We'll still have a caseload of students and we'll also have some different obligations as an administrator. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Any questions
or comments from the committee before we vote this? Okay. Alright. I have one. Oh yes, go ahead. Speaker 10: No, I just really appreciated the clarification of guidance and the, the administrator of counseling and how that is a term that is, might be different in Natick or we, you know, other schools are moving to using that term. But that this is essentially, this is not adding a new position to the schools. This is transferring a position that we already have from unit A to unit B and it is making the role more robust as we look ahead towards things like college and career planning.
Speaker 16: Well said. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Brunell. Alright, let's vote this. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Flas? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Speaker 10: Yes. Speaker 1: Ms. Collins? Yes. And I am in a, yes. So that passes 7 0 0. Okay. So I'll turn things over to Dr. Fash for superintendent's report. Did we do the consent? We did. Okay, excellent. Okay, Speaker 7: So this is one of the, this is like,
we're dancing in this meeting going back and forth. So from now we're just gonna go straight down. So I'm happy to introduce Dr. Art Ferguson, who's going to take us through the item called PBIS implementation update. I'll remind the audience and the committee that this was a critical part of our bridge plan. It falls under strategic objective number one, psych psychological safety and social emotional learning. And it really is focused around improving our tier one work in our school. So I'm excited about this and excited to hear the update. Welcome. Speaker 17: Thank you. So I am,
can we go to the first line? Do you mind Back next slide. Sorry. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Tonight I'm here to provide a brief update on the work that's been going on in the district with regard to PBIS and the slides are there, but I just want to contextualize some of the work that we're doing within the larger sort of framework of mental health and, and children between the ages of, you know, early childhood through our high school, which sort of coincides with
where we are in native public schools. I think over the past 12 years or more, we've been sort of in this space where the mental health needs of students have been increasing and the, we've seen the reverberations of that historically in the past decade plus. We've seen the response in public health and directions and guidance from the CDC. And so we are aware that this trend has been in place for some time. And one of the things that I think is exciting is
how we're responding to that and making sure that we're taking the guidance, we're taking the research and really thinking about how we wanna operationalize and provide social emotional wellness and positive behavior intervention support for our students here in NAO public schools. So looking at this first slide, most of my comments are gonna be focused on the very bottom of that triangle, which is really around the tier one practices that are part of Nika. A quick comment about that a little later, that are part of supporting our general mental health and social emotional learning and wellness in the district.
And those really are centered around ensuring that we have consistent, clear and consistent disciplinary practices. We have positive behavior systems that are aligned across our districts, that we have safe and secure buildings, that we have good practices and protocols in terms of bullying and bullying, prevention, character development, and supporting students and when they have concerns or conflicts with peers. So much of what we've done, really as we take the language
of what's in the public health arena with what we are looking at from an MTSS framework, is to ensure that the practices that we build in our schools are really responding to the need to support student mental health to support mental fitness, which is really a way of helping our young students develop the skills that they need to address challenges from the social emotional perspective and as, as well as in, in certain cases, likely
mitigate problems that might occur in the future in their social and emotional development. Next slide please. So this is really how the work is tethered from that tier one perspective. The bridge plan here clearly shows that we'll be prioritizing psychological safety and SEL and we'll be building our T oh one structures, both from an academic and social emotional and behavior systems and the key components of the work that we've tried to operationalize and connecting our tier one S-E-L-P-B-I-S practices within the broader
framework of MTSS is to ensure that we build leadership teams within each school, which we've done using universal SEL instruction. As you all know, we've had increasingly sort of aligned with Wayfinder as our tier one SEL instructional curriculum collaborated across the district in building the behavior matrices that we are using to provide the structures and guidance for our students around expectations and infractions. We do some universal screening with savers. We're working on school climate and culture.
We have ways of gathering information from our students and our faculty around expectations and feelings of wellbeing across the district. Part of our fidelity tools include self-assessment surveys and tiered focused inventory to ensure that this fidelity and implementation as we move forward. And of course, building a robust data informed decision making system that guides our practice and allows us to reflect on our progress and make adjustments as we move forward. Next slide please for just to recap, some of this
aligns with the slide before, but in terms of what universal tier one supports are, these are direct SEL instructional moves that we make that are built into SEL blocks at the elementary school or advisory at the middle school. We're teaching and reinforcing school-wide behavior systems. As I said earlier, we have matrices that have been developed and aligned across most of our levels. And this helps us to continue to have the accountability and fidelity that we're looking for. Positive recognition systems. This is very popular at the
middle and the elementary level where students with who we engage in the expected behaviors that align with the cultural values are identified, reinforced and, and, and incentivized in some cases, but certainly recognized for the, the work that they do and the model that they develop for their peers. We have, we are working on aligning and developing consistency around or adult response to behaviors. And recently we have commenced SEL walkthroughs across our buildings to ensure that we're looking at how values
and expectations are reinforced in the common areas across our schools, in the classrooms and in the specific behavior interventions that we develop within each one of those structures. Next slide please. Data systems that we've built over the, across the past couple years, actually, as I mentioned earlier, include the savers, which we do have a fall and spring screening. We also do culture and climate surveys of talk to times here about the vocal survey and some other more in in-house surveys that we develop.
We've also implemented staff SEL surveys that are aligned with designed to assess the effectiveness of our MTSS structures that we're building our behavior matrices and our response to challenges when they occur. We have optional mid-year pulse that we, we take to ensure that we're keeping the fidelity of the process that we're building. And as I mentioned earlier, self-assessment surveys occurring at each school and tiered fidelity inventories
as well as CSE walkthroughs. One of the things I failed to say earlier is that every school across the elementary level, middle and high school does have PBIS and SEL sip. And so that has been, and that aligns with my goals as well. So that has been the, the nexus of the work that I've done with, with principals in supporting what's happening in the buildings and providing alignment with other districts and ensuring that there's collaboration to ensure that we are making the right decisions. We're doing it collaboratively
and we're doing it with fidelity. Next slide please. PBIS team structures. As I mentioned earlier, every building has a team that's designed to create, to envision what it needs to look like in the buildings and follows through with meetings and ensuring that data review sessions are happening and the communication is happening with the building. Some of these teams are also involved in developing PDs that are specific to those buildings, even though we are envisioning PDs as a district
that sometimes lands in the buildings through those individuals. So monthly meetings, reviewing of screened data, implementation, fidelity, the work around adjusting tier one practices, reviewing behavior systems and strengthening and SEL instruction is the responsibility of this team. I'm also oftentimes receiving information about how our tier one SEL instructional efforts are working in the buildings and whether or not we need to make adjustments as we move forward. And oftentimes we do. Next slide please.
So this is roughly the arc of the year as it relates to how data is used in the fall. We engage in our surveys, we adjust supports, we update matrices, and then we ensure that the implementation takes off. In the spring we're administering the SRE and surveys again, we're conducting walkthroughs and we're beginning to review data trends. And then end of year we are looking at how the implementation worked and ensuring that we're planning professional development for the following year. Obviously in the fall we're doing the same
as administration, doing the, the surveys, the self-assessment surveys on a building level, looking at our tiered inventories and ensuring that we're launching our SEL instruction. One of the exciting things that we've done this year, and this the high school takes a lot of credit for this, is how in partnership with the principal and the SEL team really have worked on training departments as the primary sort of agents of delivering SEL instruction because oftentimes it's, it's harder to find that structure within the high school,
but department heads have been really partners, great partners in thinking about how much of the instructional curriculum and modules falls within their disciplines and using that as a way of engaging their students in their classes around SEL. So that's been a really nice partnership, not the typical way it moves, but that's worked for us in Natick. So the next few slides is really me just talking about summarizing and collating what the, the implementation looks at, at like, at the elementary level, the middle
level, and the high school level. And these are just common practices, obviously within each school, their unique programs, their unique culture and identity aspects of each building that is unique to to them. And we wanna celebrate those as well. So the goal here is to provide some broad structures, but really allow the schools individually to develop their own leadership, their own identity as to how this lands in their buildings. So there's always a strong emphasis of community and, and sense of belonging at the elementary
school, which is critical. We were privileged to see a number of whole school assemblies that were exciting, that had some aspects of challenge and competition and faculty were involved in that. I'm thinking about something specifically that happened at lilja and I'm thinking also about something that happened at Brown. And these have been really community building experiences where students are joyful, excited, and really feel like they're part of this, a sense of belonging to their school, to their grades, sometimes very exciting. There's a lot of student leadership
and accountability that is developed around behavior expectations and modeling for our, for our students and their peers. And students are often recognized, whether that's how they walk in line or how they show pro-social behavior to with peers in, in the hallways or in the cafeteria. There are expectations, behavioral expectations and SEOs instruction that happens. We continue to gather data on the fidelity of those and the frequency of those. The goal obviously is to ensure that they're happening with fidelity across the district and our counselors are a big part of helping us gather
that information and reflecting back with principals and myself, there is also a focus on community expectations, both within, within our schools, but also helping students to see beyond their immediate community to see how much they're a part of the larger community of which they're a part, whether that's natick or being global citizens and what that comes with in terms of responsibility. So those pieces are also brought and centered into
how students engage in SEL instruction at the elementary level, data informed decision making continues to be part of what we do. A lot of schools have built their data systems and we're increasingly looking to make sure that we have systems that can speak to all the needs across all the schools. One of the things that has evolved over time is that schools can develop their own systems of data collection. And that sometimes presents a challenge when we're looking at things from a district level. And so we want to be sure that we have the right tools
and the right instruments that allow us to really understand what's happening in our buildings at, at every point in time. And our leaders are able to share that information to us in a way that we can compare apples to apples if we need to. And obviously, as I said earlier, the P-B-I-P-B-I-S leadership teams exist in all the elementary schools. Next slide please. At the middle level, as we expect, there's a lot, a little bit more complexity to how this lands and one of the, the efforts of this year and this across all levels,
but certainly the middle school level presents some level of complexity, is working to align and create positive stated behavior expectations that are now built into behavior matrices that really look at everything from positive behavior to at times more challenging behaviors when they do occur, as we know they, they occur. And so ensuring that we have a document that is robust enough that's broad enough that captures much of what we expect to see from students from the things
that we expect and the things that we don't expect. The document and the, the structure captures all those elements. Direct SEL we know that this is happening both mostly in the advisory period at our middle school where students get the opportunity to learn the skills through direct instruction as we know from the research that's critically important and the need to focus on culture and climate. Several times around the year we are taking some data on our students' experience of their community, of their schools.
We're trying to understand how student identity might change how they experience their community or experience their, their classroom or their grade. And that's important information for us to help us respond to and calibrate to ensure that all students feel a sense of belonging in our schools when they come. We've ensure that we are reinforcing these behaviors in classrooms, always cafeteria transitions. Oftentimes the cafeteria is a very active place in our middle schools and that's a place where we do focus
and spend some time to ensure that students are reflecting the values of their schools in those during those more less structured times. One of the things that I will, I probably should say now is that the work that's been going on around the code of conduct, which we will be providing an update I think in about two weeks is, has been a really important part of the PBIS work and it's really allowed us to, each school has some representation in that work and there's been a, a simultaneous feedback loop that's allowed our building leaders
to understand what the trajectory is for the code of conduct and the ultimate product, which is going to be behavior codes and, and expectations and values and student rights and responsibility. And that work is already influencing how leaders are working in their buildings to ensure that decisions they make now will align naturally with the eventual products that comes from from that. So in terms of the behavior response flow chart, there's ongoing calibration within the buildings, but also in the context of the code
of conduct steering committee that is ensuring that we are building a code that allows our building leaders to tether that to what's currently happening in their, in their school building. So that work is something that has really allowed us to align with the culture of each school and it's made the work much easier actually. And members of that committee will be here to share with you the stage of, of that work in the current time. And obviously we wanna be sure
that we're inviting student voices in into our decision making and across our middle level, our students are invited through, through groups, through clubs, through leadership opportunities to share their experience with leadership with and ensuring that we are responding to to them and that they have voice and choice in creating the communities that they want. And family communication, family engagement continues to be a part of that, hopefully not just when students have
made decisions that need to be shared and restorative practices built around, but also proactively to ensure that our families are informed about what's going on in our schools and feel like they're partners with us in creating the culture that we wanna build in our schools. Next slide please. The high school way SEL looks a little different, but there's some elements that are pretty similar. As I said earlier, Wayfinder is the curriculum that has been utilized at the high school through the departments
and they've been excellent partners with that. So there's a whole system of building the scope and sequence within departments and allowing departments to connect the values and the, the, the values, but also the goals of social emotional learning with their own individual departments. So for instance, in math and, and the science department heads were able to look at the curriculum and see what natural connections exist and use that as a way of introducing SEL into their courses
with students, which has been great. The code of conduct has been a very important part of the work that the high school has been doing. We have robust high school representation in that steering committee and that leadership group is been, has been critical in ensuring that the work that's happening at the high school this year through the handbook through the SEL teams, is connected with the work that's going on with the code of conduct. And my, my our hope is that when the code
of conduct is finalized, the work of PBIS and SEL at the high school is gonna be more clearly defined as, as much as it needs to be. So shared expectations and sense of belonging, relationships and psychological safety are all foundational to the documents that include student rights and responsibility and continue to echo the positive climate that the high school is working towards. And so part of what I'm saying is that the high school PBIS structure, unlike the middle school and the elementary school, is really gonna be built
around the code of conduct and obvious. And also the work that's going on with our, our clubs at the high school is a big part of transmitting the culture of belongingness with students and the billing of relationships. So both of those things are central to how SEL and PBIS looks like at the high school, which is, which is obviously different from the way it looks at elementary and and middle school. I think that's my last slide. So that's a brief overview. Our principals have been critical partners. They've developed their sips, they are collaborating on
from a district level and within levels how this lands in the buildings. Each building has its own identity which allows them to ensure that what we do from an S-E-L-P-B-S perspective is reflected and valued and has the investment of their students and staff. But there are natural alignments that happen at the district level and we continue to work through this. The, we continue to work through the PBIS platform as we land the code of conduct, which is going to allow us
to tighten and tether more of what we want to do at the district level into the schools. So that's a quick overview and I'm happy to invite questions as they come up. Speaker 1: Thank you very much Dr. Ferguson. Questions from the committee? Any questions online from either Catherine or Kathy? Okay, well thank you so much for doing this work. I mean it's really clear that there's been a lot of expansion and deepening of this work and I really appreciate the update today. You're welcome. Thank you. Speaker 2: Okay, Speaker 7: Thank you.
Next we're going to give you an update on the literacy audit that's been underway now in year two. Welcome. Speaker 18: Thank you. I have Chris Cook, director of curriculum instruction here and he's going to kick off the update and I'll jump in as needed. Speaker 19: Awesome, thank you. So nice to see you all. The curriculum audit and pilot has been going on, like Sue said, this is year two, it was last spring when we chose some different programs to pilot
and we'll just run through kind of the, the status of where that's at and how we're coming to a decision soon. So obviously choosing high quality instructional materials links directly to the bridge plan for this year and we want to make sure that moving forward students have rigorous standards, aligned instruction, strong reading, writing and foundational literacy skills, and a coherent literacy experience across grades with vertical and horizontal articulation. Our elementary pilot structure, we had all schools represented and at least four teachers per grade level,
not necessarily at every building, but we did have a good representation across all four schools and grade levels and they had great support from literacy coaches and building admin teams and they have received training from curriculum developers so that they can implement these units with integrity so we get a good feel for, you know, the authentic experience that teachers and students will have and various opportunities for surveys. And we definitely want to get everyone together for conversations in the selection process this spring.
Next slide please. There we go. So our first elementary pilot was with Fish Tank that began in October with two full instructional units. Members of the pilot team were able to visit the Chelsea Public Schools to see it in action directly. And the fish tank curriculum based on what we've experienced is a more open-ended approach, which gives educators more autonomy, but it may be lacking when it comes to that tiered support that's actually integrated into the program itself. And when it comes to CKLA, that is the second of the two pilots.
They began in January. That group also had an opportunity to visit schools where it was being implemented in Cambridge. And the knowledge building in this program is more explicit and anecdotally speaking is appreciated by the students and the teachers. It's highly structured with high levels of engagement based on what we're hearing through surveys and meetings with the coaches. And they have also had a robust amount of training and support from the folks at Amplify. So the elementary pilot teachers are wrapping up CKLA unit soon
and based on their feedback, there is not a significant appetite to do a third pilot with another program. So as they wrap it up, we will gather feedback from them, have meetings across the district to make sure that we gather as much and as accurate information as possible and, and hopefully have a, a resolution and a decision in April. Speaker 18: So I know there was a question that was asked about a decision about why not a third pilot and last spring when we made the determination of which
curriculums we were going to pilot, we had settled on those two and starting it early in the fall, leaving it open that if these two that we were piloting were not viable options for us, meaning they didn't match with our vision, they weren't matching the needs of each learner that we had, that we would be open to piloting a third curriculum. And so we did a survey just before February break of the pilot teachers
and said, if you had to choose today between these two curriculums, do you think you could make a choice that you felt would work for the students that we have here in Natick for the students in front of you? And do you feel it's necessary for us to select a third curriculum to pilot? And the overwhelming response was one of these two curriculums is the right curriculum for us. And we do not feel that it is necessary for us to go with a third option to pilot.
We have to listen to the teachers, they're the ones who are boots on the ground working with the students and they spoke, they said, we absolutely do not if, if you tell us we need to, we will do it, but we do not feel it is necessary to do that. And that was an overwhelming response. So if they're telling us that's what it is, they're both high quality instructional material, they're evidence-based, research backed, meet the needs of our learners, I'm not gonna push them to do a third pilot if they feel that one of these two is going to be the one
that will work for our kids. So hopefully that answers that question and you know, we'll take some questions when we get to the end, but I just wanted to jump in there with that. Speaker 19: And in fact, the teachers piloting CKLA expressed interest in keeping it for the remainder of the school year and, and working out how to find the resources for that. So they're, they're pretty satisfied with what they've seen in those two so far. Speaker 18: And the, the materials that CKLA has given us for the pilot, actually there is enough there
that will take us through the rest of the year. So there is no additional investment that we need to make at this point in order to get us through the rest of the year if they choose to continue. Versus going back to what we've done in the past, which is more of the units of study modified teacher resource type of curriculum, which I'm thrilled that they want to stick with one of our high quality instructional material curriculums. Speaker 19: And the middle school also had representation across both buildings to teachers per classroom
or to classroom teachers at each grade level as well as MLL teachers and special educators at every grade. They also piloted Fish Tank and implemented two units at the beginning of the school year, consistent collaboration with their department head and curriculum leader. And that was an opportunity for a K to eight conversation around that curriculum. They started HMH in January into reading for grade five and into literature for grade six to eight. They're currently implementing their second unit and as they wrap up their second unit with HMH,
they are getting materials and training to implement EL education through Kiddom. They, they requested a third option based on the ratings that they gave the different curriculum options back in April. They were pretty tight in terms of their top three and that's been an ongoing conversation since last spring and since we were able to squeeze in a third round this spring. They are going to implement EL education shortly. They're getting the training pretty much as we speak and they will wrap that up
and we will work on the middle school selection process as that concludes. So yeah, there's the, the timeline in a little more detail. The EL pilot will be done in April. And same idea, we want both, we want educators from both buildings to contribute to the feedback survey and district-wide meetings and, and make a selection as soon after they wrap up that third pilot as possible. Speaker 18: So I'm just gonna go back before we jump into the high school and just talk about what the decision making process looks like. I can't remember if we have a slide later in the deck, but just to be clear,
what we typically do is we will bring all of the pilot teachers together as well as any other elementary teacher. So we'll start with elementary because we'll be wrapped up with that, those pilots first, and we'll bring them together and we'll have a guided discussion to talk about what are the pros of each of the pilots, the materials, the curriculums that we piloted and what are the cons and give everyone an opportunity to share how the pilot went, what they saw from kids.
And it'll be a very guided discussion with the opportunity to share so that teachers who were not part of the pilot, so that our special education teachers and our multilingual teachers who did not pilot, mostly because a lot of their work tends to not be in the general education classroom or very little because they're doing a lot more of the pullout, which is going to change, as you heard from Mr. Santiago Sylvestri at our last meeting, who has, he has also dug into these materials
and looked through them very carefully, but so that everyone has an opportunity to hear from the teachers who piloted. And then there will be a survey and those teachers will take the survey and they will identify if they were a pilot teacher or not a pilot teacher, what grade they're in and what their feeling is on which curriculum they feel that we should go with and give some reasoning behind that. And that's how we will make that decision because we want the teachers who actually implemented it as well as the teachers who have heard and experienced the materials and looked through it.
'cause every teacher has had an opportunity to look through the materials to have a say in in the decision. You know, we've, Dr Sp will tell you she's agnostic about it because as long as it's high quality instructional material that is vetted and rated by curate and through ed reports, we know that it is evidence-based and research backed. We want it to work for our kids and we also want it to work for our teachers. And they're the ones who will be implementing it. So that's the priority for us. So they need to be the ones to have a say in it.
And then we'll do the same with the middle school once they have come close to the end of their third pilot. And so, you know, we've done the, the strategic reallocation in the budget for the $300,000 for their literacy curriculum. I estimated based on what we anticipate having to purchase for the initial purchase for one of these curriculums for teacher materials, initial student materials,
there's always more to purchase at the beginning of a new implementation of a curriculum. So all the teacher manuals, the student tax, that kind of thing. And then each year, obviously there's the digital platform that you have to pay for and any consumables, but the bulk of the purchase happens in the first year. So that's what is in the budget that we've requested. So that is what the process looks like. And then we are on the agenda to come back to you in May with members of the
pilot team, department heads, coaches in May to back to you and present to you our final findings and what our decision is for what curriculum we'll be going with. So I just wanted to give you the context of how the decision is made and what our next steps are in that, because you're the, the financial people, the budget people, but we'll be, it's our teachers who will be s working together to help make the decision on what the curriculum recommendations are. Speak to the high school you've been Sure, yeah.
You've been all in on this one. Speaker 19: So the high schools was in a slightly different position because none of the options on curate are high, highly rated across the board, and none of them are highly rated for accessibility for students. So that's a significant issue when trying to choose a, a program or platform. And one of our educators had been involved in a self-study in their previous district. And so that, that conversation came up and that's where it landed with the high school group. So they're in, in like their own kind of lane at this point.
And the report was recently completed in terms of that self-study. It's been reviewed and conversation is ongoing with Josepha blocker, the principal, myself and Sue. And we are currently trying to line up outside folks, educators in our job alike. Marianne Willette, the department head for the English department is working on that as well. Put now feelers so that we can get an external review by experience educators and curriculum leaders from surrounding districts. And then that will inform where we go. It's not to say that we would rule out these options
that are, that are on the table, but we have also heard from our colleagues that the implementation where districts have adopted these programs, student engagement is not phenomenal and the implementation has not been smooth. So the door is open to that. But we're really hoping that the self-study and the external review will point us in the right direction. Speaker 18: I think that one of the things that we want to ensure is that obviously, you know, that we're building the foundational skills
that we're ensuring student engagement and the love of learning for reading and for writing. And that we're ensuring that we're building those skills early and building them up and that when they get to high school that they're ready to really dig in. And that we are digging into the data and saying, where are the gaps that we have right now in our high school curriculum and how are we going to address those? And we can look at it all we want from an internal lens and we're going to miss something, right? Just as I can proofread my own paper 14 times
and I'm going to miss something. So we wanna bring in some external people who can look at it and say, Hmm, I'm seeing this. I think you might've missed that. You know, we, as Chris said, we have a teacher here who have, has gone through this process in another district. We've actually connected with the assistant superintendent who had been the assistant superintendent in that district when that process happened and found that it was an incredibly valuable experience. And so she has actually been really supportive and
provided us with a lot of the resources that they went through and that they used during this process. So we're going through that process now. What the results of that are, I think will help guide our next steps in terms terms of what do we need to do to rewrite, realign, enhance our curriculum, or are there going to be some red flags that tell us there are big pieces that are missing in our curriculum and we need to find something else. We are not opposed to any of that, but as Chris said, we're sort of in a,
in a different trajectory with that. And we don't necessarily think that we will be completed by the end of this year. We may have some findings by the end of this year, but there will be work to do in terms of rewriting curriculum and making adjustments. And then to piggyback off of what Chris said about, I know a question came up about looking at some of the curriculums that are listed on the curate or ED reports. And as he said, we have heard from our colleagues in our job alikes that it has not gone well. We have a lot of really wonderful
elective courses at the high school in the English department. And when you purchase a a boxed curriculum like that, it takes away some of the autonomy to build some of those elective courses. And we wanna make sure that our kids stay engaged at that level and we worry that that's gonna remove some of that opportunity for kids. So that's a piece that, that we're concerned about as well. Speaker 19: So just to kind of put a bow on it, our elementary pilot had two different program programs that it looked at. They feel comfortable making,
making a decision between those two. And they'll be wrapping up the second pilot shortly, the middle school level. They are opting for a third pilot that will begin soon. So they'll be, you know, a few weeks behind, but still hoping to wrap up the pilot by, by April. And the high school, like we just discussed is do is wrapping up the self-study and getting an external lens to help inform our process. Speaker 1: Thank you. So much questions. So we'll go to the room first. Dr. Speaker 11: Fugman. So thank, thank you so much for the presentation and for leading this process. My first question is, how important is there for there
to be alignment between the curriculum and elementary school and the middle school? I think Fish Tank is being looked at by both, but it's the only one that's being looked at by both. So there's a chance that they might not be the same. Is that a concern at all? Or, and I, I'm really curious. I I don't know if if it is or not. Speaker 19: I mean, it hasn't come up as a concern by the folks that are piloting or the department heads and curriculum leaders at the, at the elementary and middle, middle levels. It's certainly part of the conversation. Yeah. In terms of vertical articulation, as long
as we can look at those programs and examine where any gaps may arise, we can address those, but we really don't want to take that conversation away on, on just that criteria. Yeah, but it's a fair Speaker 11: Point. Yeah. Yeah. 'cause I think it was the math curriculum, it might have been within the sch the grades with elementary school because there was a new curriculum and an old curriculum, but there was some sort of like mismatch between the two cu anyway, there was something about a mismatch of two curricula at the time, but I think it was during the math pilot,
but that might not be relevant anyway. And then with the high school self study, so how does it work? So what is the deliverable, what's the end product? Is it like a plan for how each grade nine through 12 will teach English and like yeah, what's the deliver? Because there's no, you know, the other two great bands, you have the deliverables, the end product is like a curriculum. So here is it some sort of like neg developed own plan of study, right?
Speaker 18: So right now we have a 15 page self study, so a result of their findings, which then would go to the external audit team and then they would audit our curriculum and the, their curriculum their, which is actually linked into the self study. So they will review all of that and they will write up their findings and recommended action steps. And then from there we will develop a list of action steps of what they need to do, what our team,
our department needs to do, which would likely be areas for improvement for revamping parts of the curriculum. Or it could be we need to investigate a curriculum. Yeah. Speaker 11: So those were my questions, but I'm excited about the process. I, I, I'm, I'm really glad that this is a teacher led process because ultimately they're gonna be the ones using it. So I appreciate that that's the approach we're taking. Speaker 18: Dr SP always says it, it's more important to be power with and power over. And I think this is a perfect example of the teachers need
to be part of the process that they really need to be the main voice in this process. And our job is to guide them. And I, I'm hopeful that, that they feel that way because if I said if we walked in there and said to them, you need to do this, we're not gonna have the buy-in, and then the kids are not going to get the outcomes from that. Speaker 11: So I completely agree. I mean that's what change management is all about. Like any kind of imposed change is always going to be met with resistance because of the imposition, not because of anything wrong.
So I, I completely agree. So I'm excited. Speaker 7: Can I just add to that, the only rule that I kind of made was it has to be proficient or higher on mass curate or ED reports. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. That's why I can say I'm agnostic because we have a lot of smart people kind of rating that by independent organizations. It's also, we're saying when I did this in my prior district, the reviews of high school materials are much shallower by those two organizations. You can go Google it, it is a hundred percent more shallow. It may have been building and I actually have an expert at DESI that we can probably bring in who helped
me in my other process. But the high school is a more complicated setup and a lot of people do it more locally. So I think we're also learning, we're in like three different pathways and that's okay for now. I think. Speaker 18: And I wanted to add, to respond to your question about the, if K four and five eight end up with different curriculums because they are high quality and they are so standards aligned, the kids are going to have the standards that they're going
to master that they will be able to adapt to any curriculum because they will have the skills behind them. Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you. Speaker 11: Thank you both. Speaker 18: Okay, Speaker 1: Other questions? Do you have any questions online from either Ms. Brunell or Ms. Collins? Speaker 18: Both Col, Ms. Collins. Oh, Ms. Collins. And then, okay, Speaker 1: Ms. Collins, Speaker 5: Thank you. Going on that I get that kids who are starting at, hey, one would go through the whole new program before they hit middle school and
therefore will have gotten to all the skills and standards. How does it work for somebody who's now in third grade who only have one year? Speaker 18: Well, just like we do with anything, we're gonna look at where they are and what they need and we're gonna address that through tier one intervention. And then if they need more, we will provide them with tier one and then some tier two. And then if they need more, we'll give them tier three. But you know, we're going to focus on standards and mastery of those standards
and provide them with the support and intervention that they need. Speaker 5: Okay. 'cause the biggest complaint that I get, others get different complaints I guess, but the biggest one I get is middle school parents who child has recently been tested after years of pestering and shows a dyslexia or some other reading deficiency. And I just wanna make sure that we're not, we're not setting ourselves up to lose those kids by focusing on a new curriculum. I'm not saying we don't need a new curriculum. I believe we do. I just wanna make sure
that we've got steps in there that both institute the new curriculum and catches kids. Right. So I guess my question is, do we have any test results from these kids who've been in these classrooms to show movement and how they're doing? Speaker 18: Right. Well yes we we're, we're doing assessments through the curriculum, but we also do our benchmark screening three times a year. And those results now are going home to parents as well. So parents get those results three times a year.
So they sh the mailing actually went home on Friday, so parents should be receiving those today or tomorrow in the mail, which will show their growth from, from October to February. So that's now a very transparent process as well. So if parents have questions, they should be reaching out to their classroom teachers as well on that. So we're monitoring all students very closely on that. But it, it goes beyond that, obviously we're looking at what's happening in the classroom and we're very focused as part of our strategic objective and our learning walks
and evaluation process around formative assessment and how students are doing around that. And that's all part of that process as well. Speaker 5: And when parents get the benchmark, do they know whether they, their child has participated in a pilot program? Speaker 18: Yes, there were letters that went home. Okay. From every classroom that was part of the pilot. Speaker 5: Okay. I guess that's it for now. Thank you Speaker 1: Ms. Brunell. Speaker 18: It's actually Mr. Well, Speaker 1: Okay, before we go to the public, any other questions from school committee Mr. Patel? Speaker 3: Not quite a question, but I just, I guess Shai got me thinking a little bit,
but I do sort of share the concern about changing the, or having two different curricula and I'm just curious if other schools, either Cambridge or Chelsea, do they, have they continued the same curriculum into middle school or have they also changed? Speaker 18: I don't know the answer to that, but many districts do that. In fact, a lot of districts find that one curriculum works best for them at the K 4K five level and then they move to something else. We do it here in math and a lot of districts do that as well in other curriculums.
Speaker 7: Can I weigh in there? I'm not concerned about having two, my prior district, we had two. I'm much, I agree there should be some transition thinking between, they're very different curricula also in the elementary, there's a lot more phonics and skills side of things as like early, early language acquisition. So I'm very interested in how the curriculum meets the needs. We have gaps as we, I presented in my entry plan. I'm much more interested in how the curricula's gonna, what materials are in there to meet the needs of our differentiated learners. But I'm not concerned about the switch
from elementary to middle. I'm, I'm not saying we shouldn't be mindful, I'm not saying we shouldn't be excellent consumers of the curriculum and know how it meets our needs, but these highly rated curricula are standards aligned and that is huge. And it's gonna be how our teachers teach those materials. It's mostly gonna matter, but it's not a concern I have, but I think it's a really fair question. Okay. Speaker 1: Ms. Lathers, oh, sorry, did you wanna Speaker 18: Respond? I was just going to add that we also have done a really good job. Our department heads and our coaches have done a really nice
job of collaborating across levels. So our elementary coaches are working with our middle school coaches and department heads to transition. So they talk about what's happening at the elementary level as students are preparing and that will continue and they do observation. So the middle school folks will come down and observe what's happening at the elementary level and vice versa. And we do the same from middle school to high school. So we're really developing that vertical relationship so that everyone is aware
of what's happening from kindergarten up to 12th grade so that we can build that trajectory and we can build from grade to grade on what kids are learning and what they can expect as they're moving from grade to grade. And so if kids are so that, you know, our fourth grade teachers know what it is that we're expecting our fifth graders to be able to do when they come in so that we're preparing them as they come in and vice versa. Speaker 1: Just a quick follow up, just we graduate to middle school and fifth grade and a lot of districts tend
to graduate in sixth grade. Is there any kind of natural break point if you're going between, if you're moving curriculum from a elementary to a middle, do these curriculums have any kind of assumed break point between the two? Speaker 18: Some of them do, not all of them. For example, the HMH that we piloted at the middle school, there is an actual break at fifth grade to sixth grade. So we piloted into reading at fifth grade and into literature from sixth to eight because that's where the break is. CKLA doesn't have a break, the
fish tank doesn't have a break. So they're all it, it just depends on the actual curriculum, but many of them build upon each other. So Speaker 1: Any other school committee questions before we go to the public? Okay, Ms. Brunell? Speaker 10: Yeah, just building off of that question, is there a reason we wouldn't do CK or whatever choice that they make at the elementary schools? Would it make sense to do that in fifth grade given that they are still being taught by elementary school teachers, they're still mostly considered in the rest of the country as elementary students and still in
that developmental brain space. Would that be out of, out of the question to have to use the curriculum that the elementary teachers u pick to go all the way through the fifth grade and then start once grades come in, in sixth grade to use a more appropriate curriculum for middle school? Speaker 7: Do you want me to start or you, you can start. I appreciate the question. I come from a background of schools that started with grade five as well. So it was a, we treated that as a middle school. I understand you were, my kids went, it went through sixth grade and elementary. So it is different. The issue
that I see there is a structural and systems based one around the PLCs or the vertical, the ways teachers meet and how they work as teams inside their middle school. They're gonna be meeting and you basically have one grade on a different curriculum than the other three. And that could be a vertical issue inside from, in terms of just collaborating around curriculum, the transitions and switches from grade to grade. So that's the biggest downside I would say. I think it's a, you know, I don't think the fifth graders piloted the same CKLA curriculum that was in the elementary school.
So that would be a non vote so to speak from those middle school participants. But the biggest thing I see is that integration inside of a school, the coaches, the department heads, the actual planning work that's often done in great collaboration when a new curriculum is lifted would be just much more complicated if there's two curricula in the same school. Okay. Speaker 10: All right. That, that makes sense. And I just have a follow up question. Given that the middle school wants to do another pilot, can they pilot C-K-C-K-L-A? Speaker 18: They opted not to. They did not feel that it met their needs at that level.
So it was one that they looked at. They chose EL education, that was the one that when they looked at all of the curriculums back last spring, they felt e EL education ranked higher than CKLA when they reviewed all of the curriculums. Speaker 10: But, and so that's the third pilot that they're doing? Yep, Speaker 18: Yep. Speaker 10: Oh, I misunderstood that. Okay. And Dr. Stash, I highly, I hope that you get that expert from DESI on the high school because you know, we had a ton of turnover in the high school English department over the last decade. I think it's settled a little bit more now,
but it's, there's, there's definitely something that I think we could push our kids harder in high school in some ways. And there's other places, our English curriculum, especially around the writing, it's is not consistent with peer districts. And when Haley Sunburn was on the committee, she spoke about it all the time. But now that I've had three high schoolers go through this situa go through the program, I, I'm happy that we are doing a self study that's gonna be very reflective. Speaker 2: Okay, Speaker 1: Thank you. So we'll go to the public.
Did you say we had Mr. Welch online? Kathy Collins. Oh we have Kathy again. Oh, so, okay. Kathy, Ms. Collins, do you have another comment or question? Speaker 7: Just Speaker 5: Real quickly, I'm assuming self-study meets Desi's requirement of high quality. Speaker 7: My understanding is Desi does, they would call that teacher created depending on what the outcome is. A lot of, so we're early, it's a little early to answer that question because we could end up with the high school picking a few different curricula that they use a smattering or they could be using more book study, we don't know.
So it could be labeled teacher created, but I don't think we would be the comparisons to kind of our neighborhood districts. We'd be in good company. I just think we don't have actually a lot of data from mass curate or ed reports on recommended curricula for high school yet it's a yet game right now it's a thing I'm gonna be interested in talking to this DSI contact that I have who gave, gave us that advice when I did it several years ago and, and we'll see where they've grown from there. Speaker 5: Okay. Thank you. Speaker 1: Okay. Alright.
So we can move to the public, Mr. Welch. Okay. You should be able to go ahead now Mr. Welch and ask your question. Speaker 2: Thank. Yes, Speaker 20: Good evening. Thank you for the chance to ask a question. My question is for Mr. Cook about the two elementary curricula you presented on Fish Tank. There was a, a bullet there about the assessment of its ability to support the intervention period, the intervention block for the CK curriculum. I'm just wondering, are you in a position to comment on the efficacy of its ability
to support interventions at this time? And if you are, what can you say about it? And if not, are you gonna assess its ability to support intervention Speaker 2: Hashtag tank support intervention? Speaker 19: Gotcha. Speaker 20: Your question is, which your question is which intervention? Speaker 18: He just didn't hear your question. So we were CKLA has, Speaker 2: So Speaker 18: We're just bumping back to the Speaker 19: Slides. Well I think part of it is the platform itself and the resources that the, that Fish Tank provides versus CKLA in terms of what educators can tap into that's available for tiered support tiers one
and two, like I said, fish Tank is much more open-ended, so it's, educators have described it as more of a skeleton upon which they can build versus CKLA, which is more robust and resource, resource rich that provides them with more tools and materials for tier one and two intervention. Speaker 1: Was that helpful Mr. Welch? Speaker 20: Yeah. Thank you. Speaker 2: Okay, Speaker 1: Any other questions online? Speaker 2: Okay, Speaker 1: Questions in the room? Well I just wanna thank you very much for coming
and giving us this update today. I think you, you know that this is a, a really important topic for the school committee. That's all I've heard and we've been waiting for years literally to hear this update and I'm just really grateful for you bringing us this information and we look forward to hearing more in, in April and May. Awesome. Speaker 19: Thank you. Speaker 7: I hesitated to weather, I should say this, but I'm going to, as we kind of transition out of this, lifting the new curriculum once the decision is made can take a few years. We just saw the math curriculum, which is a not an easy curriculum, illustrative math. It's really starting to take, and I just wanna compliment the teaching base
for having gone through that and for their stamina now in preparing for this next round. Especially given the appetite, the appropriate appetite of our community for this process. But, you know, it's gonna be a process. That's what I wanna mention. And we're gonna do the training and pick and, and move along and keep you updated and I just wanted to, I, I didn't wanna move on without complimenting the hard work of the teachers who are doing the pilots and those who have just recently, especially in the elementary school, lifted a new curriculum already as well. Okay. So the only other things we have the non-res schedule,
but again we already went through some of that. So I'd ask the committee if you're prepared to consider a vote on that. Speaker 1: Should we have a motion move approval of the non-res schedule. Speaker 3: Second. Speaker 1: Okay, we'll do a roll call vote we'll start online. Ms. Collins? Speaker 5: Yes, Speaker 1: Ms. Bruell, we'll come back to you. Sorry. Speaker 5: Sorry. Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Lathers? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Dr. Fen? Yes. And I am a yes. So that's 7 0 0. Speaker 7: That's a good vote approval. The one other thing I had noted as six E here really isn't something I was planning to discuss.
It was more just to help the public and the committee have all of the budget presentations in one place, including the most recent FinCon presentations and the one we're going to give on Wednesday night as well. So I don't have further to go on unless there's questions, but it's all really tied to, you know, depending on how the committee is feeling, whether you'd be inclined to vote for on the budget today or whether you need to wait. Speaker 1: Yeah. So that's a great segue. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Stash. So given all of the information we've had, the presentations that are attached, is there anyone
who feels on the committee who feels like we cannot take a vote today on the budget? If so, speak up before I ask for a motion. Okay. Does someone have a motion? Speaker 3: Ms. Collins is usually really good at this. Do you need the specific number? Speaker 1: Yes, Speaker 3: In the motion. Well I'll make a motion unless Kathy wants to do it and anybody can correct me if I get any of the words wrong. Move approval of the proposed FY 27 budget with a request of $100,650,912. Speaker 2: Good to me. Second, Speaker 1: Any discussion? Can
Speaker 5: I make a friendly amendment? Speaker 3: I wish you would Speaker 5: A request from town meeting to make it clear that it's the appropriation is not the entire budget. Speaker 3: Yes. Except as do I. Speaker 1: So could we just repeat what that would be for Ms McGrath? Speaker 3: Kathy, you want to do get a go? Speaker 5: You're gonna have to fill in the number for me 'cause I don't have it readily in. Alright, go. Move to request an appropriation from town meeting in the amount of Speaker 3: $100,650,912
Speaker 5: For the support of the Natick Public Schools for FY 27. Speaker 3: It's teamwork. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 3: And I second it. Still need a Speaker 5: Second? Speaker 3: It already has. Yeah, I second. Okay. Speaker 1: Okay. Any other discussion or comments before we vote? Okay, we'll do a roll call Vote. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Lathers? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. And I'm a yes. So we have approved our budget 7, 0, 0 and good job and thank you
to everyone on the administration. This is always a heavy lift but I feel like every year this budget is just getting more transparent and more understandable as to how we're supporting our students with these dollars. So thank you so much for continuing to approve the process as well as delivering this budget to us. Speaker 7: Thank you. So we have good feeling to have that done Speaker 1: For sure. Alright, so we just have one last agenda. It still has Speaker 5: ED subcommittee and town meeting not to bring you down. Speaker 7: Well actually that's really important point
because that's part of why we were hoping that this voted through the committee today because that means hopefully the 11th is our final meeting in that subcommittee. But we'll see. Speaker 11: I don't think they're happy. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Give them the information they need. Okay. So we have one last agenda item before the very last agenda item and that's an update on the community engagement subcommittee or working group. Does anyone have an update they wanna share? I know we had, I had sent out an email but I hadn't got any responses so we could always move this forward too if we wanted. Speaker 11: I would recommend we move it forward. We we're planning our meeting to figure out next steps.
I mean in general I'll say we obviously had a lot of activities in terms of community engagement leading up to the strategic plan survey and focus groups and now we need to re regroup but, but I think we were good with but giving an update next meeting. Speaker 3: Yeah, we were just, we didn't have time to post a meeting so that we could meet about Speaker 1: It. Okay. Alright. So we'll move it forward and if it doesn't fit next meeting, we can put it on a meeting in April. Okay. Great. Alright, so one last motion for tonight. Motion to Speaker 3: Adjourn. Second. Alright, Speaker 1: Roll call vote.
Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Speaker 5: Yes. Speaker 1: Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Lathers? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. I'm a yes and we are adjourned. Goodnight everybody.