##VIDEO ID:https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/994DtmGEsi0VDYK3jJI2BJ72GfgNIpU2/media/915755?autostart=false&showtabssearch=true&fullscreen=false## <v Speaker 1>Everyone, we're going to start our meeting.</v> Welcome to the next committee meeting of November 18th, 2024. We're gonna start with roll call Ms. flas. Here. Mr. Brand Present. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. McDonough? Yes. Ms. Brune Here. Ms. Goeth here. And I'm here. I now would like to make a motion to enter the exit of this session to order to discuss strategy, respect to collective bargaining. If an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body. The chair. So declares E in unit A and B and MR. Assistance, food service, paraprofessionals and custodial and maintenance. And I'll take a second. <v Speaker 2>Second.</v> <v Speaker 1>And I'll do a vote. Roll call. Ms. Fathers.</v> Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Ms. Collins? It is. Ms. McDonna. Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. Ms. Goeth? Yes. And Emma? I, yes. So we are now in executive session. We will return to open meeting at approximately six 30. We can resume our open meeting again. Welcome to our school committee meeting of November 18th, 2024. We did roll call right before executive session. We're now back in open meeting. So with that, I'd like to ask everyone to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. In a moment of silence, <v Speaker 2>I pledge allegiance to the flag</v> 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. <v Speaker 1>Thank you for joining us.</v> In that moment of silence, we take that moment to honor those who have sacrifice for our country. We can now move to announcements. Any announcements from the committee or from the administration? Yeah. Ms. Brunell, just <v Speaker 3>Wanna say good luck to Kendall Hacker this tonight.</v> And Matt, do you wanna take it from here? <v Speaker 4>I, I have prepared a nine slide presentation.</v> No, I think that for those who don't know, the, the Varsity girls soccer team is playing tonight in the state semi-finals. I would much rather be here, so good luck. Good luck to them. Kendall, our student, one of our student representatives is one of the captains of the team. My niece is one of the other captains fine. So good luck to them. And I, we hope that we'll be able to go to the game on Saturday. <v Speaker 1>And they're defending their, the championship, they're</v> <v Speaker 4>Playing against the team that they, they</v> played in the finals at the state championships last year. So very stressful time. But good luck. They're a really great team and they've had a great season regardless of tonight's outcome. <v Speaker 1>Great. Any other announcements?</v> So my announcement around along the lines of rather being here is to wish our colleague Kathy Collins, a happy birthday. <v Speaker 2>Birthday.</v> <v Speaker 1>I was not gonna, that's</v> <v Speaker 2>Exact.</v> <v Speaker 1>Say any ages. Make</v> <v Speaker 2>A</v> <v Speaker 1>Quick announcement.</v> Oh sure. Ms. Goeth. Okay. <v Speaker 5>Just to remind everybody that there is a survey out</v> that the school committee sent out about the academic calendar. So everyone, all families should have gotten a link to the survey. Survey will be open until November 25th. So we hope that everyone will fill us out, fill it out and give us their input. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Great. If there aren't any more announcements, I was going</v> to move to public speak and we have one person who signed, who emailed me in advance. Ben Stern. Is he on online? Oh, he is online. Okay great. So let me just officially open 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. When the scope of responsibility of the school committee, all remarks will be addressed to the school committee chair. Public speak is not time for debate or response to comments by the school committee. So Ben, as I mentioned in the email, we'd love to have you speak for three minutes and then unfortunately we cannot respond to your comments. But we'd love to hear them. He is what? Oh you. You should be able to unmute yourself now and there you are. Great. <v Speaker 2>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 6>Hi, my name is Ben Stern</v> and I'm a sixth grader at Kennedy Middle School. And I would like to address two things that are bothering everybody in Kennedy Middle School. The first thing is we need later wake up times. I'm always getting up at six o'clock because I have to get ready because the bus comes at 6 54, I'm losing sleep. Also, middle schoolers are also going through puberty. We need more sleep than the, and the elementary schoolers wake up later than we do. But only the certain fifth, fourth graders kind of need sleep. But the first and second graders, they're ready to run around at 5:00 AM We need sleep. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends middle and high schoolers start at eight 30 or later to give students the opportunity to get the sleep that they need. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends teenagers eight ages 13 to 18 should regularly sleep eight to 10 hours per night for good health. Students without enough sleep are likely to suffer from symptoms of depression, perform poorly in school and not engage in the daily physical activity. In addition, earlier start times don't impact elementary students. The second thing we need is recess laps are good but it's during our lunchtime, which is bad for us 'cause some people don't eat 'cause they wanna get outside and do activities. PE is might be the answer, but it's instructional. It's instructional and we only have limited options and we need to be active. At least the fifth and sixth graders do. We're inside doing screens 'cause we need to do our assignments. But screens negatively impacts you if you don't balance it out. Recess usually balances it out. But we have no recess and we only get 10 minutes of lap time. This is why we need our own recess. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you Ben. Thank you so much</v> for sharing your thoughts on those two topics. As I mentioned, we are, can't respond to them right away, but we've all heard you and we'll take them into consideration. So thank you so much and that was beautiful. It was very eloquent. Well put anyone else either in person or virtually here for public speak. Seeing none will close public speak and move to our teacher representative, Mr. Wood. <v Speaker 7>Thank you Mr. Chair. Just a couple of quick things.</v> First of all, good luck to Kendall. Secondly, happy birthday to a fellow Berkshire resident, former resident, someone who understands what Western Mass really means. And lastly, I just wanted to express some, some well wishes to our colleagues, our Union brothers and sisters in Beverly Gloucester and just escape me. Thank you. What? Marblehead. Marblehead. Thank you. Thank you. They, as we all know are still in working for a, a fair contract in their negotiations. And given that we have begun our process here quite differently, of course I wish them all the best in their efforts to get a a fair contract. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you, thank you.</v> And Andrew, we'll go to the student comments. Thank you Mr. Chair. So with Thanksgiving coming up, something we do every year at Natick High School is the food drive for a place to turn Natick High School. Last year raised over close to 4,000 food items and we're one of the biggest donators each year. This year currently we are slightly behind in our efforts. So it would be really helpful if you guys could like show up next this Sunday at Roche Brothers from 10 to one to donate some food items and we hope to achieve around 3,500 food items this year to donate to a place to turn. And yeah, that's it for now. Great. That's such a great cause. And while Kendall is helping our team make it to the final, she does have, yeah, she has provided some comments, which I will read the same. Oh, it's about the same. It's a fully drive. Well I'll read them just so that her words are heard as well. I would just like to add that food drive is up and running, but that we encourage everyone to stop by the high school and donate anything that they're able to because donation numbers are a bit low this year. Student council will also have a table this Sunday at Roche Brothers in Natick from 10 to one and we will be collecting donations there if we can. If we can get the word out about that, it would be greatly appreciated. So to both your points, please do anyone watching us, please do participate in in this food drive, which is an important cause that the students are running. So thank you both. And unfortunately our Medco representative is under the weather, so she cannot join us today, but we wish her speedy recovery. So that's all. Those are three representatives. I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda. <v Speaker 2>So moved second.</v> <v Speaker 1>Anyone wanna pull out any item? Seeing none.</v> All those in favor of approving the consent agenda. Anyone against any abstentions? The consent agenda is approved. <v Speaker 2>So</v> <v Speaker 1>Jillian isn't here yet.</v> <v Speaker 2>Right.</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay.</v> So we can start with the superintendents report. So I'll pass it on to our superintendent. <v Speaker 8>Excellent. I'm excited to kind of enter into round two</v> of our school improvement plans. We have the next four schools here today to report out to us on their individualized plans. And we're going to start with Kennedy Middle School. So Principal Cohen will be here to bring us through that presentation. Welcome. <v Speaker 2>Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 9>Hi everyone.</v> <v Speaker 2>Hi.</v> Okay. <v Speaker 8>And Linda's gonna drive for you. So</v> <v Speaker 9>Great.</v> So thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited about the school improvement plan for the 2020 4 25 school year. Change the slide please. So who are we at, Kennedy? Well you got to see actually one of our amazing students at Kennedy. Here's a little bit just about our mission at Kennedy. Our mission is to provide a safe and healthy learning community that fosters respect, promotes intellectual, social and emotional growth. We strive to engage and appropriately challenge students at all levels as we value their individual strengths. Our school vision is dedicated to cultivating a learning environment where students are empowered to take ownership of their education, who work together towards common goals and develop the perseverance and adaptability needed for success. In today's rapidly changing world, Kennedy Middle School takes pride in our inclusive programming, our commitment to social emotional learning for all students, and our dedication to growth mindset for all in our community. Next slide for me. So these are just some highlights. There are many, it's hard to put 'em all in one slide, but these are just some highlights from the last year things that we take pride in here at Kennedy. So our social emotional learning program was implemented last year on monthly half days. That's a a, a great accomplishment for us. Our response to intervention during WIN Block has been utilized to provide students with intervention as well as enrichment opportunities. We're very excited about that. We have an executive functioning workshops that are at taken are done during WIN at every grade level. We are really excited about restorative practices that we've implemented in beha all behavioral situations by the administration and we're continuing to build capacity with staff as well. Restorative circles were, were a a new thing last year that were successfully introduced to resolve conflicts. Our access program is a real highlight for us at Kennedy and it can provides consistent reverse inclusion opportunities for all students at Kennedy in a variety of capacities. We have amazing compass programming, which provides opportunities for structured social emotional learning in a supportive environment throughout the school day. We're very excited that our staff is a vital part of determining how best to give our students what they need academically, socially, and behaviorally. And we have strong, successful collaboratives with our community, including our school leadership and parent school council. Next slide please. So I'm going to, oh, okay. One second. <v Speaker 2>I think it just hit the X.</v> <v Speaker 9>There you go. And back up a couple of slides.</v> One more, don't worry. This happened to me at back to school night. I am very familiar. Keep going back. <v Speaker 2>Here we</v> <v Speaker 9>Go. Perfect. Okay.</v> So I have three school improvement plan goals that I'm really excited to share with you today. First before I go into these, I really wanna share that Kennedy as a whole is doing amazing and we're really proud of all the students at Kennedy. Many students are doing great, but we always wanna aim to increase. So when I was thinking about these goals, that was where I was coming from with the school. So priority number one is around increasing student achievement outcomes. My first goal is centered around accelerating math achievement in grade six and seven for students performing in the bottom 25th percentile. I'm gonna show you where that rationale came from in a second, but it falls nicely in line with our district goal number three, instructional excellence and support systems. Particularly around, I wanted to highlight the multi-tiered systems of support. That's a critical component of this school improvement plan goal. And you'll see that shortly as well as encouraging continuous improvement and incremental growth. Next slide please. So here you're gonna see the rationale from which I came to the school. So across the state you may know that MCA scores did go down our, some of our scores went down as well. So overall progress towards improvement for all students at Kennedy went down from 80% to 61%. In 2023 to 24 it still meets or FI finds, finds us in the substantial progress towards target goal. So we're still making great progress, but we did go down overall pro and that's in the all students category, which you can see at the top below that you can see that overall progress towards improvement for students in our high needs categories went down as well from 56% in 2023 to 18% in 2024. Next slide please. So when you dive deeper into the data, that was very curious to me. How did we go down? You can really dial in to see where the, where the lowest performing groups were coming from. So math scores in the accountability report. And these are screenshots from the DESI website on our student profile, which is linked in the slide deck in the slide before. So if you wanna look at it, you can, if you dive deep into that, you can see in our lowest performing students, which is on the far right hand side, math is really the area we were losing score losing points. It went from earning four points, which is the maximum you can earn down to zero from 2003 to 2024. This is what contributed to the lower progress towards improvement in the overall student cumulative criterion. Target percentages that you saw on the previous slide. Next slide please. Again when I dove deeper. Oops. There we go. Next slide. There we go. Yep. Thank you. So, so di diving even deeper into this, if you look at the high needs student group, you can really see when you can earn a maximum of four points in 2023 across English, math, and science. The high needs category earned two points in 2023 and that dropped to zero points in math, zero points in ELA and one point in science. So overall, that's what contributed to the loss from 56% to 18% from 2023 to 2024. So when I saw those numbers, I just wanted to get a good sense of where is, where is the drop coming from? Next slide please. So in looking at that, I came up with a goal to dial in and increase the overall outcomes for all students by looking at the areas where the most need was. So I chose to do an accelerated math achievement goal in grade six and seventh to boost up from the bottom 25th percentile. So my smart goal or smarty goal, because we like to be inclusive and have equity is this, by the end of the 2024 to 25 academic year, 100% of Kennedy Middle School students in grade six and seven scoring in the bottom 25th percentile with low growth below 40 SGP on the fall star Renaissance math assessment will meet or exceed their star renaissance SPG goal of moderate growth. So the goal is a change in growth to 55 from fall 2024 to spring 2025. And the reason why I chose all students is because I want all students to meet that target. Next slide please. So how are we going to get here? So these are some of the highlights of action steps that we are going to take at Kennedy to uplift those scores into the SGP of 55. We're going, going to be looking at MCAS scores to identify areas of improvement. We're going to evaluate the official accountability criterion data provided by dsi, which is what I just walked you through at the school level with our staff. So I already have shared this with my faculty at data team meetings and with school leadership. We've already hit both of those so far. We'll be evaluating students on star benchmark data testing to identify students in the targeted group. MCAS data, as you know, does not come out at the end of this year. So if we were to, to solely look at MCAS data, we wouldn't know where we are by the end of the year. So we're using our star renaissance because that is a predictor for MCAS success. And we can benchmark test at any time during the year. Using the STAR benchmark data. We will be placing students in interventions appropriately needed for math increase. We'll place them in tier two and tier tier three interventions as needed by data provided during data meetings in partnership with our grade level data team and teachers. This is a practice that we always do here at Kennedy. So this is not any different, but we are really dialing in who the students are and where the interventions need to happen. Work with Kennedy data team to monitor progress, which again is something that we do all the time, but we're really gonna be dialing in on the students who need support. <v Speaker 2>That's too loud. Sorry.</v> <v Speaker 9>Sorry. Alright, where was I? Okay.</v> Progress monitor before and after each trimester. So this is something that STAR allows us to do, which is to dial in and pretest test do formatives as well as summatives Kennedy math Teachers will continue to monitor students in the math classrooms and provide solid tier one instruction, which is again, what Kennedy is really well known for doing and providing extra help opportunities for students after school during math help days. Okay, so my second priority is around building a comprehensive multi-tiered system of a support tier one advisory model. I'm really excited about the advisory model at Kennedy and I'm really excited to share it with you. We're already in full, full speed ahead and it's been pretty amazing. These are in line with all three of these district goals around psychological safety and social emotional learning. Clearly fostering an environment of trust, respect, and mutual support is huge with an advisory program. As well as strengthening the SSEL initiatives, relationship building and community engagement. So we're not only strengthening our connections with staff and students, but also with families at home. And we'll have plenty of opportunities to do that. We're enhancing our partnerships with parents and the broader community and we will be supporting our staff through whatever necessary tools and professional development, primarily around the WAYFINDER program that we're gonna be using for advisory. We've already done a training and are well in our way with using wayfinder for the advisory model. So this is the next slide is our needs assessment. I put a link there to the data. That's the graphs that show this data. You can look at that as you wish, but here's some highlights that were stood out to me. 86% of our students during the middle school connectedness survey last year reported that they're connected to at least one adult in the building. 89% of students felt that they were treated with respect in school. 81% of students felt if they had a problem, they didn't have an, they didn't have an adult, they felt comfortable. They, sorry, they did, sorry, have an adult that they felt comfortable talking to about it. When asked if they felt as if they belonged at school, 48% of our students said very much so. 44% said somewhat, which means 8% of our students said very little or not at all. When asked if they felt connected to their school, 25% of our students said very much so. And 63% said somewhat. That means 12% of our students said that they felt l very little connection to our school or not at all. I am throwing in some information about school activities because I think that shows connection and belonging to our school. 61% of our students on average attended school activities each week at Kennedy. That's a lot of kids that aren't connected in my, in my mind. Previously Kennedy has scheduled, had a scheduled tier one SEL programming that met monthly based on staff end of the year feedback last year's SEL program was not as well received by my staff as I would have hoped. Teachers felt a bit restricted by the monthly themes and shared that themes and consistently matched the needs of the students in front of them at the time. Although the themes were amazing and really important, if it doesn't match the kids in front of them, then maybe their missing out on an opportunity to provide support. So as a result of that, staff buy-in for the program was, was lower than I would've liked. Teachers wanted more staff across the building involved because our entire faculty was not being utilized and they wanted more effective and smaller group sizes where students could feel increased connection and sense of sense of belonging to our school. Next slide. Oh, thanks. You did it. So my smarty goal is around the implementation of a grade level tier one advisory program at Kennedy. So by the end of the academic school year, Kennedy Middle School will design and implement a tier one advisory model that provides all students with small, very key word grade level advisory groups of nine to 10 students aligned with this M-T-M-T-R-M-T-S-S framework that allows 100% of my students to feel a se that to report that they feel connected to at least one trusted adult. And 100% of my students feel a sense of belonging and connectedness to our school growth will be measured by connectedness and belonging surveys with students in fall and spring. And by continuously serving, serving of staff and taking feedback through the advisory faculty committee Action step highlights. These I'm pretty excited about 'cause we're, we've made our way almost through the entire action step list so far. So to in obtain increased buy-in for this advisory program, I put in place a volunteer faculty advisory staff group over the summer and they volunteered all of their time to help us organize the best possible scenario for our building. So we had summer planning meetings. That has already happened. A mission statement was determined during my opening day faculty meeting. We presented two possible scenarios. One was a monthly program, which is what they were used to, and one was what we felt based on the survey of staff would really represent and be the most beneficial in our building. And that was a once per cycle advisory. So the staff voted on the first day, and I think it was 78% voted on a once per cycle scenario, which is what we have in place now. The advisory model share was shared with school council. The model and and process was shared with school committee when I came to visit you previously. And the advisory model was also shared with families, which brought us to wayfinder. We did an all faculty wayfinder kickoff on October 25th and then we were set to start. So our student advisory focus group has not yet happened, but we are just starting with advisory. We will get that started soon. Our students and staff survey produced will be sent out and shared each trimester formative and summative assessments will be given and a connectedness survey pre and post will happen. We're currently in the beginning phases of the connectedness survey. So the, the advisory connects to many of the district priorities. You can see here we're obviously trying to foster an environment of trust, respect, and mutual support at every, at every level. We're obviously, this fits right into the MTSS system, which is right in line with academic excellence, but also SEL excellence. That's how I like to think about it. We're supporting our staff with the necessary tools that they need to, to, to deliver an academic, I'm sorry, an SEL program that's beneficial to kids and to staff. And we're encouraging a lot of continuous improvement in incremental growth. So the thing that I like to highlight, which is on the bottom, is the celebration and success and strengths. We're acknowledging the achievement of staff and students through this program. And we're regularly celebrating the strength and success of students and staff. So the next thing that I'm gonna talk about, priority number three is cultivating a culture that empowers teachers through collaboration and framework aligned learning walks. So this is actually really near and dear to my heart, being an educator for 20 years. So in order to determine what staff needed around the evaluation system that we have in place at Kennedy, I did a staff survey and the data is linked at the bottom so you can see it. But I'm gonna give you the highlights that I feel are, that I felt were meaningful. So 34% of staff reported that they felt evaluations were not consistent between evaluators at Kennedy providing a consistent evaluation situation for our staff would promote a more positive and successful experience across classes and grade levels. Thus, more opportunities for teachers for growth. The alignment of instructional leaders at Kennedy will provide, provide messaging to staff during and after walkthroughs that are powerful and direct tools for change in student outcomes. 50% of staff reported that DESI frameworks were not mentioned between zero to 50% of the time during conversations afterwards. If we link our evaluation system to DSI frameworks, this directly relates to our, my goal number one, which is around academic achievement. So the more we can link what we're doing to what DSI is doing, the better opportunity that we have to increase those, those possibilities of outcomes. 52% of our staff reported that UDL look for were mentioned some of the time during evaluations, but 17.5% of my staff said that UDL look for us were not mentioned at all. Look for, for UDL supports access to curriculum for all students. So again, consistency of of evaluation directly impacts student success. And 50% of our staff rated that psychological safety around evaluation was in the neutral to worst categories. Incre increasing psychological safety of staff around evaluation walkthroughs would promote a model of continuous growth and feedback for practice at Kennedy. So again, being an educator as long as, as I was, I know when I had evaluations, that impacted me greatly. So that is the scenario that I wanna provide for the teachers at Kennedy. Next slide please. Oh, you're ahead of me. So the smarty goal for for this is that at the end of the 2020 4 25 academic year, I would like to establish a school culture that values and prioritizes learning walks as a tool for providing teachers with constructive framework aligned feedback to improve their instruction and create the most successful learning environment for all our students. This school will be measured by increased satisfaction rate of the new evaluation and learning walk protocols via a staff survey. I'd like to see that increase at least by 20% and have teachers feel an increased psychological safety around this. The evaluation process and all of that will translate to student outcomes. So the action steps are already in full motion. The district office has been at Kennedy many times and we're working together to set benchmarks around DSI frameworks aligned with walkthroughs. Baseline surveys, which I've already talked about. The first one as a pre-assessment has been done on how the teachers and staff feel around the evaluation process. I'd like to implement a tracking look for system that's, that's beneficial for teachers that they find is practical for their, for their practice. And having learning walks with instructional leaders across the district who work in my building. I'd like to have those happen four times per month. Whether it's with the instructional leaders in my building or the ones at Wilson that are also at Kennedy. I'd like to or some that are K through 12 as far as the arts and music and fine arts are concerned, I'm educating the instructional leadership team on aligning the evaluation practice across my building and the end of year staff survey as post assessment on how they feel learning walks have worked throughout this year. That was a lot of talking, so I welcome any questions that you have about any of this. <v Speaker 1>Any questions or comments?</v> So Cina, I'll make a comment. I always like to pick one thing I'm really excited about. So two things. One is I'm excited about the use of MTSS to bring both the academic and social emotional supports for students across all three tiers. But the, the thing that I'm especially excited about is goal three and reframing the walkthroughs. You know, oftentimes when you're being observed as a teacher, you might feel like you're being observed to get feedback in order to receive feedback, in order to be evaluated. But especially when you're encouraging peer to peer Yeah. Walkthroughs, you are reframing the walkthrough as not only an opportunity for the observed teacher to learn, but also for the observer to learn. Yeah. Because oftentimes more oftentimes than not, teachers are doing amazing things in the classroom. Yeah. And you don't know that until you walk through and see that happening. Yeah. And so especially for peers to learn from each other but observing each other. So that's really exciting. Yeah, thank you. And I hope that that's how it's perceived and, and that people are that, that your staff see it as a learning, a valuable learning opportunity for everyone. Yeah. <v Speaker 9>Thank you. Thank you. That's what I'm hoping for also.</v> <v Speaker 2>Yeah. Great. Okay.</v> <v Speaker 1>Alright. Oh is a question from the audience, the public.</v> Sure. <v Speaker 2>That's great.</v> <v Speaker 10>Hi, I'm Jillian Wilson Martin, most</v> of you know me as a sustainability director, but I'm also a parent of a fifth grader at Kennedy. And I just wanted to say that I'm so impressed by everything that's happening at Kennedy and what you're sharing tonight. I know I only caught some of the end of it, but a lot of this is communicated in our parent newsletters so I'm hearing about it, you know, for the second time or third time or more maybe missing a couple newsletters here and there. But I really do feel like you're creating really living natick's values and creating that place for belonging. And I just really admire all the work you're doing and I'm excited to see what happens next. So thank you. Oh thank <v Speaker 11>You.</v> <v Speaker 2>Thank you so much. Awesome. Okay.</v> <v Speaker 8>Thank you so much. Yeah, you're</v> <v Speaker 9>Welcome. Thank you all</v> <v Speaker 2>Coffee?</v> I think so. Okay. Alright, good. <v Speaker 8>Okay great. Thank you so much.</v> I'm going in the order of the agenda. So next will be Natick High School with principal blocker. <v Speaker 11>Good evening everybody.</v> Looking forward to presenting our school improvement plan for the 24 25 school year. We can go to the first slide. Great. So our mission at Natick High School is as a part of a larger community, Natick High School seeks to develop students with creative minds, healthy lifestyles, and strong character who will contribute to the ingenuity, service acceptance and leadership to an ever-changing society. As globally literate citizens, Nat High students will achieve their highest academic potential by communicating clearly, thinking critically problem solving, creatively and working collaboratively. While mastering subject information through diverse programming, Nat High students will engage in active learning that promotes wellness while preparing students for college career and life choices. And in a safe and supportive environment, Nat High students will demonstrate responsibility, integrity, and respect in their daily lives. I can go to the next slide. Natick High school students will. So this is our vision. Write with focus, development and detail orally communicate ideas and information coherently and with clarity, analyze and solve real world problems. Use appropriate technology to research, organize and present information, make informed choices and practice behaviors necessarily to achieve, maintain their physical wellbeing, conduct themselves with honesty and integrity, demonstrate personal responsibility for their learning and their behavior and practice social responsibility and active citizenship. So we chose a few pictures up there of our club fairs, various kids doing various points of activism in our community. There's a robotic arm that we got through our STEM grant this year. And up top is our ninth grade orientation with all the kids in pink are our student mentors who volunteered their time over the summer and on the days right before school started to shepherd our ninth grade around and they have been in our mentorship program all first term and then most recently led our dodge ball tournament, which is always a big moment for the ninth grade. So they've done a great job this year. It's a quick shout out to our mentorship program. This past school year, the 2324 school year, we had a lot of moments to celebrate. So the first was we achieved unified national banner recognition from Special Olympics North America. And so sometime in the community that gets portrayed as we have unified sports, which we absolutely do and we are very, very proud of our unified sports program. But this banner recognition really signifies more than that. It is achieving national standards and excellence in the areas of inclusion, advocacy and respect. And so this really embodies the spirit of all of our unified courses that we have going on during the day, including unified community projects, unified arts, some other courses that we are actually thinking about running next year. We were only one of 22 schools in Massachusetts to get that honor. So it was a really big deal for us. We engaged over a third of our student body in AP coursework college Le college level work, which was a 13% increase over the prior year. And 90% of our kids scored three or above, which is the benchmark for college readiness. So it's a pretty high bar that we're doing in the AP process. And we got awarded gold medal status for that, which was exciting. We decreased vape use in the bathrooms, which was a big exciting moment for us. We are actually hearing from kids that it's better too. So we're monitoring the vape detectors. We're seeing an average of 30% decrease over the year prior, which is great. And the work we did with hiring a campus aid using the parking funds and increased staff vigilance and also staff dedication around maintaining order in the bathrooms as well as using the cell phone parking lots have really helped in terms of distractibility. So that was a big moment. Also, we don't have as many independent measures as the lower grades. So we really look to our academic grades and how we calibrate those grades for an indicator of achievement. And so one of the things we do, we do it at midterm and then at the end of the term, every term during the year is we look at our low grades report, which is students getting a D plus or lower. And because all of the academic information is in PowerSchool, we can just pull it. So one of the things that we track is the percentage of kids who are in that low grades category in a course. And so that went down last year, semester over semester we went down quite a bit and then also amongst our special education and Hispanic subgroups. So that was great to see as well. And our graduates, we have the vast majority of our graduates going on to further education as well as a number going to the armed forces gap years and the workforce. So really high levels of entry into post-secondary work that we're positive to see. So moving forward, similar to Jody, we are focusing our three school improvement goals this year on math on MTSS and then also on increasing our readiness for certain look fors in education around our building. So looking into math, this aligns very well with the first instructional goal for the district instructional excellence and support systems. So right now we are gonna focus on embedding algebra standards into our geometry curriculum. And the reason why we're gonna do that is because in the US our system is to have algebra one geometry, algebra two as discreet courses around the world, many math education curriculum are integrated. So you would get all of those disciplines sort of integrated. So if we were to shift to that model, we would find that any student who moved into our district or any of our students who moved out of our district were unplaceable in the courses they would then go into. So we have to somehow stay tethered to the American system. The American system creates a big drawback though, and one of those is that our students don't get to see the ways that geometry and algebra connect until they get to algebra two. And we can very clearly see that the number of low grades that kids get in Algebra one plus the number of low grades that kids get in geometry equals the number of low grades we get in algebra two. Because you really have to master both disciplines to have success in algebra two. And so we also realize that there is a one year gap in their algebra learning where they take geometry. And so if we don't do some algebra, either remediation or algebra tie in, then even if their skills were strong, they may need a little bump when they get to algebra two anyway. So we're hoping that the goal we're going to do for for this year, we'll also have carryovers into the following year in terms of progress. So we can move on to the next stage. Alright, so our smarty goal here is by the end of the 24 25 academic school year, at least 80% of all students taking geometry will show proficiency by scoring 70% or higher on newly embedded algebra standards as measured by their performance on those standards, informative and summative assessments. So we're gonna achieve that by doing a needs assessment. And so I'll go into a little bit more in the next slide on what that means, what that looks like. Collecting purposeful data, looking at targeted instructional strategies, tracking our impact, supporting teachers to do the work and then providing regular feedback. So conducting the needs assessment. So that was a two-pronged process that we've already engaged in where we're looking at the algebra standards in our MCA scores where kids in the current in the past 10th grade did, did have the most lagging skills there. And we tried to see which standards those were. We also talked to the algebra two teachers and said What are the requisite skills that you find the students to be weakest in? And then we talked to the algebra one teachers about what skills they found at the end of their course the kids were weakest in. And so we were able to combine all of that and say, okay, these are the standards that we have to maximize our work on in geometry so that by the time they get to algebra two they'll have had more practice. And so we're going to do a little bit of collecting data specifically on kids' progress on those algebra standards. So we're going to then they've already started engaging in a data collection process where they're talking in PLCs on what are the specific skills, they're embedding them in certain starter problems and then they're also doing some spiraling back to do some formative and summative assessments on algebra that they're embedding into the geometry classroom. And it allows us to not go to a fully integrated model but still maintain a connection to algebra while we're teaching geometry. So we know that teachers are gonna need some support on that. They've already been doing that in PLCs. We have a new math department chair this year, Jay Ply, who's been a teacher in the department. She's very highly respected and the teachers are doing great. I went to their department meeting last week and they were already collaborating on resources they've used in the past and had to use some of the online resources they use to target specific indicators and standards. And so they are well on their way. Our ELL department chair is also going to be coaching them a bit for how to best do this in terms of English language learners. So the main thrust right, is we're gonna try to integrate more algebra into geometry and hope that that leads to better performance in algebra two. All right, next is MTSS. So this aligns to four of our main district goals. I won't read through all of them again, but really in line with what I think all buildings across the district are trying to accomplish, we are going to be starting to implement the first phase of an MTSS system. So we are already do an RTI model through the workshop model, but what we don't are, what we don't have currently is a comprehensive multi-tiered system of support that outlines how we best support all students. And you can see there are some social, emotional and behavioral indicators of need as well as some academic indicators of need that I won't read through. But I left them there for for folks who want to dig a little deeper. And I know we're gonna come back and present our Metro West data in a few weeks and that'll also sort of outline a little bit of of why MTSS is a focus area for us so we can go on to the next one. So a very, very quick outline for those who haven't heard the acronym, MTSS, multi-tiered system of support. The diagram on the right is really the one that I think captures it best, right? Green is what all students should be getting all the time. That's our tier one. Our tier two is what small groups of students should be receiving in classrooms that is targeted towards support on specific things that may be lagging for them. And then we really wanna do intensive support for the learners who need the most support and that might take place in or out of the classroom, but more one-on-one. And the idea is that we would have a system that does that where everybody gets green, a smaller subset get green and yellow and then an even smaller subset get red, green and yellow for behavior, for social emotional and for academic. And that we should be able to outline red, yellow, green for each of those indicators and that there are wraparounds for how systemically we provide that. So we're already doing a lot of work in Nat High and a lot of work has been done that hits in these various places. We just don't have a comprehensive model. And there are some holes. So we're starting with defining where we are. One of the things we're doing this year is we're piloting a tier three intervention, which is a general education intervention for our current 10th graders who were some of our students who were general education but academically scoring the lowest and their attendance was the lowest in our ninth grade at the end of last year we just did the term one data. If we do their quarter one GPA from the beginning of ninth grade and their quarter one GPA now at the beginning of 10th grade it went up 45%. Yeah, it was really cool. And their overall daily attendance went up 35%. So really positive, really positive. The kids are asking us for an 11th grade version of it. So we're excited about that too. They feel really connected to it. So we're trying to see what we can learn from that model that we can extend and see what it is, what their secret sauce is right now. But we have some ideas as to what they're doing. And so that's been really positive to see. We are training groups of staff so we are laying some bedrock for how we're gonna be able to extend the work beyond. And so part of the beginnings of anything is training folks. So we're training academic support strategies through this model of professional development that we're calling our PD strands this year where people can opt into various lanes of professional development that we have purposefully divided staff so that there are members in each department. And so two of them are on tier one academic support strategies, one is on tier one social emotional support strategies and then one is on tier two behavioral interventions. And so because we will have different groups of staff trained in each of those areas, we'll be able to do some jigsaw in the future where we can do some sharing of the information and the work we've done. We're also creating our scope and sequence for how to embed tier one social emotional learning into classrooms. So what we've learned in the past from students is that if we sit them down and say it's time for social emotional learning, that's when everybody goes to the bathroom. And so we've figured we have to really think critically about where to embed. Can we embed a lesson on perseverance right before we do the really hard science stuff, can we try to think about how we talk about executive functioning right before we have to organize a big essay, right? Where they don't really know they're doing social emotional learning but we're being purposeful. So one of these strands is creating a scope and sequence. They're learning the castle standards and they're trying to figure out where and which grade level and where in which courses it make sense to weave in the SEL work so that it's not a standalone. So we have one group doing that this year. And then we are piloting a tier three behavioral intervention, which we are calling the highly structured day. It is a version of in-school suspension that will do so we'll have to adhere to all the in-school suspension laws. But the idea is can we just keep kids in the building so infractions that may have prior warranted an outta school suspension, can we keep kids in? Can we do some counseling? Can we provide them work where we have, you know, educators stopping in during the day and supporting them and can we do a little bit of restoration work with them during that time rather than having them be at home. So we have not done an instance of that yet 'cause I know our handbook is slated to be voted on and it's in there as a new intervention. And so we're waiting but we have the pieces in place as soon as that moves through. And I will say our school council at the high school was excited about that. So, and then our last piece of this goal is to develop an implementation plan for phase two. So I have a little bit more bullets there about specifics on the tier three intervention that we started this year and on the scope and sequence if folks wanna read a little more. But I went over a lot of the broad strokes and broad highlights of what we're doing. Alright. And then priority three is about developing proficiency in UDL. So a lot of our staff already do a lot of universally designed instruction. What we're seeing is that some of them are really expert in certain areas and some of them are really at the beginning in certain areas and we really need to just like with kids differentiate, right? And so universal design is really one of the main approaches that DESI endorses that reaches the needs of the widest range of kids. And we have a grant through DESI right now to get coaching on UDL. And so one of the goals is sort of building on the goal that we had last year around our leadership team and trying to see if our educators, so we're doing, I'm doing some coaching cycles with our department heads where I am doing paired walkthroughs with them and we have broken down the UDL look fors into individual sheets by look for and we are calibrating our ratings of where different faculty are in our own learning walks in relation to specific UDL look fors. And it's one question the school council had is are you evaluating people outside of the collective bargaining agreement? And the answer that as an emphatic no, there are very clear crosswalks from the UDL look is to the walkthrough document in TeachPoint but really honing in on the specifics of how UDL impacts instruction is the thing that is overall going to allow our department heads to have the most meaningful conversations with teachers on feedback that will impact growth. So I am doing a data collection process with them where a hundred percent of the department heads in the major academic areas will be able to accurately assess their teachers on at least three of the 10 major indicators of universally designed instruction. We're using a UDL look for tool from Novak Consulting and as an associated rating scale and that they will be able to give targeted, actionable feedback to teachers to grow teacher skills in reaching all learners. So I am doing a tracking process where I'm doing these walkthroughs with teachers. I'm rather with department heads and then we are meeting afterwards, we're sharing our noticings and then we're independently rating what we saw for the specific indicator and seeing if we agree and then talking through if we don't agree. And then I'm tracking our alignment throughout the year to see if we get to a place where everybody is agreeing. And we're practicing doing that with our coaches. We're using our consultant, she did a full day of learning walks with us where she did some calibrating with us. We're using some instructional videos during our department head meetings and really picking it apart one standard at a time and talking about what is the meaningful high leverage feedback we can give educators not to evaluate them but to grow them towards the next step in improving practice. So really building those instructional leadership skills. And so my hope is that by the end of the year we'll see proficiency that everybody is agreeing on where we think staff are when we do walkthroughs and that we'll be able to give actionable feedback to lead to improvement. And that is it for us. <v Speaker 2>Great.</v> <v Speaker 1>Any questions or comments here Ms. Collins?</v> <v Speaker 12>Thank you. I got excited</v> when I read your vision and then when I saw especially priorities two and three Yeah. Behind it. Yeah, I mean math it's always makes my heart go pitter, but the idea that Natick high students will write with focus, development and detail and orally communicate ideas and information coherently and within with clarity every college professor in the country and probably across the world and therefore the students and the parents be will thank you because as I've said before, many students not picking on NA high students 'cause I never had knowingly had one. Most of them couldn't write a ransom note that would get any action at all. So this is an, especially in the, in the age now where communication has become the thing doing it is not enough. You've gotta be able to communicate it and, and so I'm very excited that you've put priorities behind that to, to get these kids there. So thank you. Yeah, <v Speaker 11>Thank you</v> <v Speaker 1>Ms.</v> Goeth. <v Speaker 5>So I didn't think I could get</v> so excited about like some math standards here, but having, having taken like high school math in a different country that does integrate algebra and geometry all the way through it is so much easier to learn it that way than it is as I'm observing my three freshmen all learning algebra or geometry. When you split it up, it just doesn't make the same kind of sense. So that's really exciting that you guys are providing those opportunities for them too. We're trying <v Speaker 11>To walk that tight</v> <v Speaker 5>Rope.</v> Yeah, no I get it. Different. Different, yeah. Different countries, different styles. But yeah, so thank you. Yeah, <v Speaker 11>Of course.</v> <v Speaker 2>Okay. No,</v> <v Speaker 1>So as I told Ms. Cohen, I'm,</v> I'm excited about the investment in education in educators and Novak Associates. Obviously they're a great coaching organization so I'm glad that we're bringing UDL in that kind of, I dunno, intensive way, but really focusing on those UDL practices and UDL look for, so that's exciting. Yeah. And I know, you know, there's plenty of research to show how that links to then student outcomes, which is great. Yeah. <v Speaker 11>Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 8>Great.</v> Thank you so, so much. Appreciated that. And we're on to Ben Hem and we're gonna have principal Gani and assistant principal Flannery welcome. Hey <v Speaker 2>Everybody.</v> Thank you. <v Speaker 13>I have a habit of not following my slide deck,</v> so I'm gonna try to be better. And to introduce Danny Flannery, new assistant principal at Benham. <v Speaker 14>Hi, good evening everyone.</v> <v Speaker 13>We're gonna work together on this presentation.</v> Things that I leave out, he'll fill in and I'll do the same for him. There you go. How's that sound? <v Speaker 2>Great.</v> <v Speaker 13>Just make sure you speak the micro.</v> Sounds good. And happy birthday Ms. Collins. Oh, oh <v Speaker 14>Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 13>Alright, great. We're ready when you are.</v> Okay. At Benham. So our school council worked on our mission vision statement, the 22, 23, 23, 24 school years. Just to fine tune what we valued. We felt like post pandemic, it was a time to kind of tune in and reprioritize what our goals were. So at Behem we build positive relationships to learn and to take care of ourselves, others in our community to make our world a better place. Our core values are we take care of ourselves, each other, and our world. Everything fits in one of those buckets, whether it's social, emotional, behavioral, whatever, everything fits there. Our school vision is that we will cherish all children and support their development as caring citizens. And I think that that's an integral part of our learning community is that everyone's welcome come like from your entry point and we're here to support you as best we can. We have a diverse profile of learners across our programs and, and, and we do cherish that. It makes our school better joy of learning master foundational academic skills and opportunities for learners to follow interests as they grow. We feel like that's an important aspect of any learner, to have them be engaged in school. And so we felt that that was important to be in our vision and that our welcoming, we create a welcoming community that support and care for all students in an inclusive spirit. Learn and be curious, seek perspectives different from our own and model and teach healthy relationship building and support everyone's social emotional success. So that this is a team effort. Life is a team effort and we need to make sure that we have our people and know who they are and how to gain access to the supports we need to be more successful in life. All right. Alright. And Danny's not speaking yet 'cause he wasn't here last year and he wasn't part of that process. So last year we had a couple of things that we're really proud of. We did an external review, a program review of our TLC, our Therapeutic Therapeutic Learning Center. We got some great feedback through that process. We reinstated things that had kind of stepped out during our pandemic schooling situation. So we have a whole school assemblies back on, on track. They're student led, they directly attached to our core values. We had illustrative math our first year, K four. And it was super successful in my opinion. And the reason for that is that teachers were invested, students were engaged, and we really didn't slide. It's all good, right? We welcomed Kodiak and his trainer Janine, as our therapy dog on campus once a week. Kodiak comes in, he is big old English sheep dog and just brings respite to our learning community. We installed a Babylon grow house in our front foyer where we through with food service, where food service will actually use the product that's grown in that grow house. And our lunches, it doesn't make enough for everybody all the time, but when it, when they harvest, it goes into our salads, it goes into our sandwiches, they make pesto with it. It's amazing. And our population is evolving and increasing over the course of the past couple years. So we have the diversity and the learning profile, but we're also increasing our MLS in class. So like our multilingual learners, our numbers are growing and we welcome what they bring to our, our crew. Okay. I'll do this one. Sure. Okay. So our first goal is super targeted and I appreciate the fact that we're able to dig into like what our building needs through this process. You know, we've worked through many evolutions or iterations of school improvement plans and it's nice to be where we are today to meet the learners who we have in front of us today. Just because school, school changes, right? So our goal, and I took my glasses off. Our goal is really targeted on our third grade students. Here's what we notice longitudinally. We are doing worse than our peers across the district. And our constructive responses and our open and our short answers for no good reason that I could come up with. And by the time those same students went to fourth grade, they were achieving at or above their grade level peers. So that to me, with a little attention is gonna be an easy fix, right? So our goal for this year is that our third grade students will improve their ability to construct short answers and constructive responses in math, but at least one level as measured through the IM end of unit assessments and cool downs targeted on MP standard three, construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. And so MCAS is not the measure because MCAS will not be available to us to see if we actually met our goal. And I also don't wanna use MCAS as like the measure because it's a tool we use to measure our success in implementing standards. But this is our daily practice. So we set up a system where we're able to use the cool downs, the end of unit assessments and release items, MCA release items that coordinate with the instructional units that we're teaching to support that work. <v Speaker 15>If I could just say yes, something really exciting was</v> that we had been working on developing our school improvement plan and then in meeting with our third grade teachers, they as a team had come up with essentially the same goal to do within their own educator plans. So that was exciting to see <v Speaker 13>That was good.</v> Karma for sure makes it easier, right? So what are we doing? We're analyzing student work, we're doing quick sorts. We're using MCAS release, like open response constructed responses as their cool downs versus what might have come with the program with the I am program so that children have more targeted experience in the practice of what a legitimate response looks like. And then our next step is to really work with our team of teachers to understand like what does good look like, right? So we're doing the quick swartz and then we're figuring out like where would this fall on the rubric? Well, how do we know? Okay, so what, what moves it from here to there? And then how do we support our kids in understanding that practice and doing it right. Okay. Are gonna keep going. Okay. This is another very targeted, very targeted goal for a subgroup within Bennett Hemingway. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, our ml, our multilingual learners, our numbers are increasing. Last year's data showed us that our EL students were out at least twice as much as their non EL peers. And for us as this dynamic or demographic is growing within our school community, it's, it's on us to understand why that's happening. So this goal is really about, it's increasing student attendance, but it's also for us to understand what are the barriers and how do we support our families in breaking down those barriers and understanding what expectations are and supporting them so that we all have a successful experience. So the actual goal is that we're going to reduce the average number of days. Our EL students are absent during the school year. And we chose that on purpose because, because it is such a subset of our entire population. If we focused only on chronic absentee kids that are chronically absent, there's a cohort of students that fit that demographic that might not fall into chronically absent, but they're close, right? And once you're chronically absent, you're chronically absent. It's not like you hit 18, you're chronically absent and then you're out 30 and you're more chronically absent. Like the, that doesn't differentiate like either you are or you're not. So we kept it this way so that we could support all children that fall within that demographic and, and the action steps. So the next slide, the things that we're doing to help that are really building strong relationships, connecting with parents, being proactive in our communication with parents so that once we see they're hitting a certain threshold or it seems like there's a trend forming where talking about what's happening, what are the challenges, how can we help? And some things we can control for in some things we can't. But just creating that environment where they know that we're, that we're partners in this process and that we wanna make sure that everybody's getting what they need. Right. And the other piece is we also wanna make sure that our families understand when their children aren't there, then they're not getting some of the supports that we have in place for them. And it's a missed opportunity. Right? And just being clear. 'cause that might, we make assumptions that everybody knows that, but unless you tell them, maybe they don't. Right? And so open communication I feel is important. How are we doing this? Established an attendance team. Differentiating the way that we communicate and reach out to families. Working with our general ed teachers too on being efficient and effective communicators with all of their families and supporting them and learning some of the new strategies that we're using. Connecting with clinical staff to see if there are any like somatic symptoms that show up or what, what's the, if there are patterns of behavior that we can maybe help and support through our school counselors or through other resources within our building. And then proactive, like thinking about next year's kindergarten group. 'cause our demographics are, are change are shifting and changing, like really leaning in and talking about attendance and why it's important what we do. <v Speaker 15>And that's not listed here.</v> But another thing that we've been discussing as our ML population is quickly increasing, just doing intentional professional development for staff. Because of course if students are engaged, supported in their learning, they're more likely to want to come to school to be involved and to feel like they, they have a place in the school community. So to that end, our entire professional development slate for December is focused on supporting mls and then we're gonna revisit that theme in February and April as well. <v Speaker 13>Hmm. Makes me go back to Joseph as like the green,</v> yellow, red, right? Green is good for everybody. So some of these moves are good for everybody. And man, if you can't hit a couple extra few more by doing something just a little bit differently, there's just value in that. Right? Okay. Our third goal is really looking at implementing a multi-tiered system of support. It's so interesting to be here for all of the different grade levels and all the different schools and to hear where we're tight and how we d how we flexed our muscles for our own buildings this year. I appreciate that. So implement an MTS framework that integrates social emotional learning and trauma sensitive practices. And then the measure is based on the successful implementation of tier one strategies, we will experience at least a 20% reduction in office referrals compared to 23, 24 school year data in the following areas. Classrooms, bus conduct, recess and special goals. So we we're using that as a measure. That's a document that we manage within our front office. And the idea here is that we had our coordinated program review, we got some great feedback. Some of that feedback shouldn't be exclusive to the program. It's, it goes back to that idea that it's good for everybody. And so what are the things that we can all agree to be tight on in making sure that students understand what they need and how to have their needs met. So there's a lot of information on that slide. I won't read through it, but I will just point your attention. So one of the key ideas here was professional development with staff on, No, that was about ti hiring people, nevermind thinking about professional development with staff and SEL strategies. We targeted that for October. We had four collective hours together with our faculty. We leaned into that at the beginning of the year knowing that systems and structures are so important and that developing that tier one opportunity real with a real focus on self-awareness, right? How do, how do you get what you need when you're in the classroom? And you can do that as a 5-year-old and you can do that as a 7, 8, 9, 10-year-old. And so we have commonalities across all classrooms. And what we did this year is take it to another level with the idea that self-awareness was kind of that guiding force at the beginning. And taking children from understanding that you could have access to a chill zone if you're feeling like you're in this zone of regulation, like and you need to take a break. But there's also other ways. Maybe it's not sitting in a chill zone that's gonna get you what you need. Maybe you need a pacing space or maybe you need a standing desk or maybe you need to like figure out, I'm having a big moment right now. It's okay for me to just do this strategy at my desk. I need to breathe deeply. I need to do this or, or whatever it is that you need. So we're constructing chill out plans with all of our kids and purposefully practicing like how to use that plan in the moment so that children can take that with them. Because just giving them something to do when they feel that way is a distraction versus actually building the strategy and the skill when you feel this way, this is what it's telling you and how can you respond. So we're trying to be really purposeful about the strategy being attached to the need and not just a distraction or an avoidance of something that's hard. <v Speaker 16>Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 13>How are we measuring that?</v> So we have the measure from school, like the school discipline referrals, but then we're also doing collaborative walkthroughs using the castle rubric. We're taking section one, which is all about classroom practices and routines. And we're collecting data points across classrooms and noticing that when there are classrooms that are not as evolved maybe as some of their peers we're leaning into where that's happening and spending more time with that cohort of teachers to help growth skills and bring the strategies to the classrooms. Yeah, <v Speaker 15>We've also do done a lot of work this fall</v> bringing teachers into this discussion as well. Our EPLC leaders did walkthroughs with us with an SEL focus at the beginning of the day. Each day we're starting to do some more general instructional walkthroughs as well. And the, the two hour early release that we had focused on SEL, we had many teachers and our like mental health suite did different presentations that it was kind of a workshop model and teachers could go around and learn from each other. So that was really nice as well. I'll also just say, because RTI is on there, our IT our i, sorry, our RTI leadership team. This fall has really worked to kind of like clarify our process, make it clear to everyone and help understand the step-by-step so that teachers have greater buy-in to know kind of what the process will look like and how they can get their student support and what it looks like as you go farther down the road. If, if a student's not meeting expectations in an intervention. <v Speaker 2>What do you</v> <v Speaker 13>Think are your questions? Thanks.</v> <v Speaker 1>Any questions or comments?</v> I am having a hard time picking up which item I wanna focus on 'cause there's a lot that you said I'm really excited about in general. I just love how with all these presentations, your first two goals in particular demonstrate how important it's to use data to really guide identifying the very specific needs that you wanna address since you use green, yellow, and red. It reminds me of taking my card to do a diagnosis where like you look at, every time you take your card, there might be some different part that needs to be tweaked a little bit here and there. So the whole system can work really well. And so for you it's, you know, let's tweak this math issue. Let's support our ELL student families with attendance. I probably shouldn't be talking about cars while I have other engineers in the, in the room since I don't know anything about cars, but I'll stick with the education. I also, later in the agenda, Ms. Brune and I are gonna be talking about our experience at MASC, the Massachusetts Association School Committee of School Committees Conference where one of the sessions I attended was on supporting newcomer students. And I just opened my notes from that session. And so much that you talked about in supporting the family, supporting, you know, understanding each family's needs, the what are the, the, the barriers, what are the supports that they need. So it's great that we know we're the things that we're learning outside are happening already here in, in our own schools. So that's great. <v Speaker 13>Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 8>Thank you so much. Okay, last</v> but not least of our eight improvement plans, Dr. Marshall's gonna bring us through the plan for lilja. Welcome. <v Speaker 13>Thank you. Good evening everybody.</v> So at, Well it's, I have a prompt up there and they're here just in case. I do have a safety net. But our list, our mission at Loja School is to create a supportive and inclusive community that inspires everyone to be learners, to reach their full potential and to become the respectful and empowered citizens. Our vision will just committed to nurturing a passion for learning that lasts a lifetime, recognizing it as the cornerstone of each child's future achievements. We believe natural curiosity serves as a powerful motivator for growth and knowledge acquisition. Our school culture is defined by a set of common values, fostering close partnerships, providing a secure learning atmosphere and blending academic challenge with the joy of hands-on experiential learning that encourages cooperation and teamwork. Lilja celebrates and embraces the beauty of diversity in all its forms. And we believe that every student brings unique perspective and a set of experiences that enrich our school community. We accomplished a lot in 23 and 24. A few of our big highlights is including creating some strong sub-separate programming for our autistic students. Through rigorous program evaluation engagement and consultation with experts and really strong family partnerships, we were also able to, with the support of GI and her team, respond to some student passion for eco-friendly advancements every year during the persuasive writing units across our grade levels, I get lots of really wonderful and impassioned arguments from our students seeking ways to really make a positive impact on our environment. So we were able to pioneer an initiative in our cafeteria that included moving to a live lunch line and also being the first elementary school in the district to enact a composting system. So all of our students are com composting at the end of their lunch and we are diverting a significant amount of waste. Additionally, allele's accountability data recognizes the strong work we are able to do with our struggling students. At lowest 25th percent achieving nearly all the possible points across achievement growth and chronic absenteeism. Our first action plan item is enhancing tier one literacy instruction in lower elementary, which is aligned with instructional excellence and communication and leadership development. So the accountability data from DESI indicates that while we had a really strong response to our lowest performing students, we have room to strengthen our tier one instructional practices data from this fall's Renaissance benchmarking assessment. And the criteria for intervention yielded 100 goal areas for students. Grades one through four, that's not a hundred students, that's just a hundred areas for goals. But of these goals, 25 were in first grade literacy and 23 were in second grade literacy, really suggesting a need to enhance that tier one early literacy instruction. And as of the fall benchmarking, 73% of first grade students were meeting or exceeding expectations. 81% of kindergarten students were meeting expectations. And that meeting expectations is that 40th percentile based on that start early, early literacy measure. Our goal is that by the end of this school year, 85% of students in grades K and one would perform at or above the 40th percentile, which would be meeting expectations as measured by the spring Renaissance literacy benchmarking assessment of start early literacy. Our hope is to achieve this goal through the implementation of a comprehensive professional development program targeted at grades K in one, which would include weekly cur curriculum leadership meetings with coaches and administration, some quarterly peer observations. You know, going back to what we said before, teachers being able to mine the wealth of each other and learn from what is happening in other classrooms. The development and implementation of instructional learning walks focus on evidence-based ELA instructional practices and biweekly coaching support, which would include items like co-planning, co-teaching and debriefing from our ELA academic coaches, all while ensuring some particular attention is paid to equitable outcomes for English language learners, students with disability and targeted support and resources provided to address all the unique learning needs of students at lja. Some of these action steps are pretty much laid out in the goal. So some of those meetings and supports that we talked about. Good. Linda, our action plan number two is around those coaching systems. So priorities one and two really kind of dove dovetailed together pretty nicely, which is that we gather some baseline data via teacher feedback survey already this year, indicating that teachers feel overall neutrally about the impact of academic coaches with 49% of all responses being neutral and only 31% of all responses being positive, teachers are expressing a need right now for more clarity, collaboration, and hands-on support from the academic coaches to help them feel more effective in the classroom. Streamlining the coaching model and integrating it better with some of the day-to-day instructions seems to be a key request from our teachers overall. The teachers really wanna see coaches more embedded in the classroom experience and to collaborate more closely with them on planning and instruction in order to strengthen the support of our interventionists and consider the needs of all students. Our elementary school teachers wear so many hats. They are teaching so many different areas of instruction and they're really in terms of a new math program in terms of making sure that we are using things like science of reading and aligning all of our different curricula together, seeking some of the expertise and having our coaches really be working alongside them to make sure that we're doing strong tier one work. So the goal language is that by the end of the 24 25 school year, the development of a comprehensive academic coaching system will improve the coaching experience for teachers increasing the positive survey responses by 20% over the gathered baseline data as measured by those feedback surveys. We'll be working, you know, alongside sort of a district team to develop a clear vision and some guiding principles for the academic coaching system to make sure that our schools and the district's strategic priorities are focused on providing the targeted job embedded support to teachers, engaging in some comprehensive professional development programming for coaches, focusing on coaching strategies, data analysis and culturally responsive practices, facilitating some regular feedback loops between coaches, teachers, and school leadership so that we can continually refine and improve the systems that we have in place. And to then administer a feedback survey to the staff in May, making sure that we get a hundred percent response rate from classroom teachers to ensure that that post survey data shows positive trend. And our third priority is a culture of support for student behavior. There's a high incidence of some unexpected behaviors occurring in communal and less structural environments, less structured environments. We did use the SEL walkthrough tool as well and we found a notable absence of some core values in community spaces. And if students cannot see and feel those core values in each environment that they're in, it's really hard to hold them to those expectations or for them to intrinsically want to meet those values. So what we did is at a faculty meeting where we had all of unit A, all of unit S, I had my administrators and my school support staff there, we rated our, our co communal spaces unit using the walkthrough tool. And these are the average ratings across some of our different common spaces showing some real area for improvement. Additionally, the staff survey data from that same meeting, so we got a lot of voices, indicates only about 20% of staff are confident in their understanding of lilja PBIS system and its implementation. And most 58% of respondents feel that students have a limited understanding of the behavioral expectations and reinforcement systems in place at lilja. This is something that, as Karen, Ms. Kelani said earlier, some things that kind of went by the wayside during the pandemic when we were all in our rooms and in our plexiglass. Just need to really be shaken up and dusted off and be made real for students who have come back to us at lja. <v Speaker 1>Great. Any questions or comments from the committee?</v> So obviously the, oh yeah, go ahead. Oh no, <v Speaker 5>Go ahead.</v> Just a question on the slide that had the, you're rating like core value usage in common areas? Yes. What is the, like I, I'm, I'm familiar with that system, so what is a good score or what's <v Speaker 13>A, so the SEL walkthrough tool is attached on the</v> actual SIP plan. So you guys can take a look at it, but there are essentially one through four. Okay? So a four would be a perfect score and there are several different categories. You know, one category for example is a display of student work. Now Lilja thanks to its teachers and its amazing art teacher is filled with student work and it's beautiful and that was some of our strongest performance. But a four for example, would have student work that was directly related to the core values. So we have beautiful student work, it's not all related to the core values and I'm not saying it all should be, but there isn't to student work that is related to core values. Others just simply is there a indication of what the core values are in the given space. You know, we do not have our core values posted in the cafeteria, so there was a relatively low score there. There are also different rubrics around how do students treat each other in this space? How do adult and student interactions look and feel in this space? So it's both what you can see when students are not present, but also what you can see and feel when students are present. So it's a really nice rubric that helps us sort of capture the physical environment and the psychosocial environment in any, any given space. <v Speaker 1>Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Ms. Ms Brunell,</v> <v Speaker 3>Thank you.</v> Just on a personal note, thank you for giving me the language in parenting. I was looking for tonight a notable absence of core values in community spaces anytime. So I really appreciate that. Thank you. And I'm gonna repeat myself from last week, but I just wanna say I've been quiet tonight just because I'm in awe of the work that all of you have done and the braveness that you have taken to identify students that need specific help. I am just really proud to be on a school committee of a district that is moving in this direction with so much data, specifically for students that have a need. I think that's brave work and I know educators get into work, get into the work because they're passionate and because they're brave people and because you wanna see kids succeed. So I just am really grateful to you all for doing this with your teams and at your schools and I can't wait to see what happens throughout the year. There's a book that I've read recently and the he's, he's all about data and he talks about school committees and that school school committees only succeed when 50% of your time is spent talking about data. So thank you for upping our average tonight because it has been less than 50% before tonight. Thank you. <v Speaker 13>Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 1>Any other comments?</v> So I'll say I'm excited to see the, the third goal around PBIS. I think Memorial is working on PBS at the high school mentioned PBIS, integration of PBIS and SCL is something that the broader field is working on. So it's great to see that happening here under an MTSS framework. I do know that many educators across the country reported that the post pandemic, the impact of the pandemic, while for many of us adults is way gone, we, we don't even remember what it was like to wear masks, but the impact in students is still felt. And I think that those, those positive behavior expectations everywhere is a great way of bringing that back and making also in doing that and having those core values everywhere make also builds school connectedness and just improves learning. So it's exciting to see that and hopefully something that can, we can learn across the district how PBS works well when implemented. Well thank you so much. No problem. <v Speaker 8>Alright, great. Thank you so much.</v> So that concludes our presentations. I know they've been very detailed and likely, but I think that this is the work that we're doing in schools every single day and I think, I couldn't think of a better highlight to give from this honestly brilliant team and their team of teachers and other staff incredibly impressed. I did put together a few slides just to summarize this because we heard the other four teams go about two weeks ago and technically the we will ask the school committee to vote or to approve these plans that you've heard in great detail. Can you just go to the next slide please? I just wanna bring us back to the fact that we are doing it a little bit differently this year. I think everyone made it incredibly clear how aligned we are to district priorities. We targeted proportionality. What I mean by that is we went down that funnel, right? We used data, incredibly compelling data to kind of say why we're focused in a certain place for this year. And then I have every expectation that these teams will clear those and move to another one next year and we will celebrate that. We stated everything is a smart e goal, super measurable, time bound, they're really clear. So I'm sure they'll be able to report on those at the end of the year providing localized focus, you've heard it from almost every single team yet there's incredible cohesion because of those district priorities. So even though people may be doing slightly different things or the data's a little bit different, they were able to make a solution that's local to their kids, their teachers, their context. And I also just wanna commend the incredible bravery and vulnerability that the, the teams and the leaders have shown in sharing things. That data that isn't perfect, awesome. This is psychological safety. We are here for you to bring that forward and to support you as you bring things across the finish line. So I just wanna commend you, it is noticed heavily by me and greatly respected. The next is really just the priorities. I think we all have the memorized by now. And then the last one in case you need to thread together the themes. They really are the priorities. You know, we heard a lot around literacy and math, growth and achievement, everything from the preschool all the way up to the high school. Many, many people leaning in on multi-tiered systems of support. I'm excited about that. I, I think that's gonna come out as things when you hear my entry findings as well. So they're getting a head start. SEL and psychological safety, I heard in every single school family and community engagement, which is huge. Families are in that kind of triangle of you know, staff, student and families as an essential partner to everything we do. You know that 'cause half of you here have kids in the school system or did equitable access to learning opportunities trying to find solutions for every single learner data-driven decision making. Ms. Brunell talked quite a bit about that professional development and coaching core goals that many of us had. And then attendance and engagement, I can't really think of anything we missed here. So I'm just celebrating the team tonight and put it forth to the committee for an approval. Consideration of approval. <v Speaker 2>Do you need a motion? Sure.</v> Move to approve the school improvement plans as presented. Second. <v Speaker 1>All those in favor? Anyone against any abstentions,</v> all eight improvement plans are approved. <v Speaker 2>Thank you. I just wanna</v> <v Speaker 1>Add my appreciation to all the principals</v> and assistant principals who came tonight and last time, but also to Dr. Stash for leading this process and bringing your vision and your coaching and mentoring to the, to this process. So thank you all. <v Speaker 2>Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 8>Please leave and go home.</v> <v Speaker 2>Okay. Lemme twist your off.</v> Yeah, should we let Julian go? <v Speaker 1>So as is our tradition to allow those</v> who have those of you who are visiting us to present go first so that you can go home while we take care of other details. We'll let, we'll invite Jill Wilson Martin who is the director of sustainability for the a town of Natick to present on some action steps that the town is moving towards. <v Speaker 10>Great, thank you. And I am joined tonight also virtually</v> by my colleague Ben MacArthur who is the new sustainability coordinator. Most of you haven't met him. And David Laman who is a member of our net zero committee. So I'm, the plan for the presentation is I'm gonna give a overview of why we're here and I'm gonna turn it over to Ben to walk through the vehicle related work and then I'll come back and close it out. And I think David might have a couple remarks. <v Speaker 2>Great.</v> <v Speaker 10>Do you want me to keep going?</v> <v Speaker 2>Thank you.</v> Go. Yeah, <v Speaker 10>Keep going. Okay,</v> <v Speaker 1>Great.</v> I think people are coming back. Yeah, <v Speaker 2>Great.</v> <v Speaker 10>That's fine. So thanks again for having me tonight.</v> Jillian Wilson Martin here as the sustainability director at the table. And I'm here tonight to discuss with you two action items that we have for the school committee. Both are related to unlocking opportunities for funding for the community and there are also actions that are being taken by the select board or possibly already have been taken by the select board. They're both identified in Orange on the slide that's called from Green Community to Climate Leader. The Green Communities program is a state program that is run by the Department of Energy Resources in Massachusetts. And the Green Communities program was enacted in 2010 and Natick was a founding member of that program. And as to be a member of that program, we had to meet certain criteria which are listed on the left hand side of the slide. And as a member of that program for the past 14 years, we've been able to receive over $2 million in funding. Now as the state has ramped up its climate goals and a lot has changed since 2010, they are announcing a 2.0 version of the program that's they're calling climate leaders. And to become a climate leader, you have to again meet certain criteria and those are listed on the right hand side. And we've throughout the year been making progress on achieving those criteria so we can become a member of the founding class of this program like we did with green communities. The criteria that is required to be a climate leader is actually very much in line with the work that we've been doing in Natick for a few years now. And it's in line with work that the school committee has voted to support previously. The actions are actually very closely tied to priority actions that are detailed in our net zero action plan, which the school committee was actually the first of the elected boards in the community to endorse back in 2021 and they tie back to a 2018 goal that time meeting set, which was to reduce our emissions to net zero by 2050. So with that being said, just as a reminder to folks that what we're talking about is what we do with, with our school and municipal operations, this isn't meant to be a presentation about what happens with our residences and businesses in Natick. This is about Natick public schools and specifically tonight, but then also about our municipal operations overall. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Ben MacArthur and he'll walk you through the zero emissions vehicle first policy. He might need to be like unmuted. <v Speaker 17>Is it Ben?</v> <v Speaker 10>Ben? Yes.</v> <v Speaker 18>Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes.</v> <v Speaker 10>Yes, we can hear you.</v> <v Speaker 18>Okay, great. Thank you.</v> So yeah, what I want to do is just give kind of a high level overview of the current state of the fleet, how the policy kind of fits in with that, and then some of the benefits of electrification and how they go hand in hand with the other benefits of of climate leaders. A high level overview of the fleet today, right now we currently have two EVs in circulation. We actually just got a third one recently that we've been testing out. It's been going very well By 2030 we anticipate there's about 20 vehicles that we could reasonably electrify. This is kind of the, the low hanging fruit, the ones that make the most sense from a cost pers perspective, from utilization, you know, the what's available on the market really meets the needs of what we have and that the, the benefits that are in place right now that we would get from the financial incentives make it even more cost effective than a gas vehicle. This has been calculated by sitting down with the fleet manager and really doing a, a long-term roadmap by 2035, we expect that number would be 50 plus. One thing to keep in mind with that number, there are general benefits to electrifying that are, are motivating enough on themselves, but the state has another rule that is gonna go into effect next year and is gonna increase over time in which a certain percentage of vehicles passenger sedans that are sold in the state need to be electric. And that as that number increases, the availability of of gas vehicles is gonna go down. This applies to everyone, it's to individual consumers and municipalities as well. So there's a significant benefit to being an an early adopter and getting ahead of this so that we're, we're staying in compliance and getting the vehicles we need as they're available on the market and not scrambling at the last minute to put in the infrastructure to electrify or not having the right vehicles that just meet basic operational needs. Next slide please. So the zero emission first policy, the most important thing to keep in mind with this is that this isn't restrictive and it doesn't mean that we can only get electric vehicles. What it really is trying to gear us towards is the consideration process that when a vehicle is up for replacement, that we go through a process where we evaluate the needs of the vehicle, we see what's on the market and that we give first consideration to an electric vehicle if it meets the needs of the municipality. And if it doesn't, there's a hierarchy that we follow in which we go down the list and see if the next best option is available. It doesn't exclude us from buying gas vehicles either. If there is no form of an electric vehicle that meets our needs, that's still absolutely an option. Next slide please. So how would this actually look on a, a day-to-day basis once this policy has been implemented? Suppose vehicle A is up for replacement. What we would do in a collaborative process is sit down and with the department head, with sustainability, with the fleet manager, we would review what are the operational needs of this vehicle, what purpose does it serve, what's its daily use case, the range that it may need, what's the right size for the vehicle? We want to be mindful of not oversizing vehicles, you know, getting the, the largest one possible to meet our needs, to help minimize the, the environmental impact and the cost. If there's any towing capacity, you know, any cargo space that it needs, any electrical customizations. These are all things that we would sit down and review. Once we have this checklist, we're then able to take that list of needs and compare it to what's available on the market today. And again, you know, if a vehicle doesn't, if an electric vehicle doesn't meet the needs of the department, we would not be obligated to move forward with that. If we do find that there are vehicles available on the market that meet those operational needs, the last step is to make sure that we can actually support this vehicle, not just from our maintenance department being able to do it, but do we have the right charging infrastructure in place? Is there charging at the location where the vehicle would be parked overnight? And is that infrastructure sufficient to charge whatever type of vehicle? It's next slide please. Once we've gone through that process, we have an idea of what we need, both from an operational perspective, what's available and from charging. So the prioritization, the hierarchy that climate leaders as defined by the Department of Energy Resources has put forward is that first we would give consideration to an all battery electric vehicle. If there is one available, then the expectation with the policy is that we would move forward with one or more of those options. If that's not available, we would simply move down the list of that hierarchy to a plugin hybrid. Same thing if that's not available, a conventional hybrid. And finally, if none of the three battery options are available in any iteration, we would go for internal combustion engine A, a gas vehicle like we have in the past. The one requirement there is that we would need to get the one that has the highest miles per gallon rating on the market. So for every new vehicle, again that is up for replacement. We would go through this process of determining the lead the needs and then taking those needs and going through this hierarchy to see is there a zero emission vehicle that meets our needs. And if not, what's the next best option? Next slide please. So this is a quick overview of the vehicles from the, the school side that could apply to this policy. Right now there's three vehicles, two passenger vans and a box truck. At this current moment, and again this goes back to step two of the needs assessment, determining which EVs are on the market with the current landscape of the EV market, we don't believe that at this exact point in time there would be a vehicle that is all battery electric that would meet these needs. We're still looking into hybrid options. It's not like these vehicles need to be replaced immediately anyways, but it's something that we keep in mind. Our, our fleet manager ourselves are very involved in tracking trends in the industry. The expectation is that one or two of these within a couple of years, we may see something on the market that could be all electric that meets the needs. We're trying to think ahead right now. We have a, a great opportunity to potentially get at either a very low or no cost to the municipality charging infrastructure installed in various locations. And one of the areas that we're taking into consideration is where these vehicles are parked. So again, getting into the, the future proofing the, the planning ahead phase of this is to get that infrastructure in place. Now we know at some point, again because of those state regulations, that at some point these, these vehicles would be electric. So it's important to get the, the infrastructure in now so that when that conversion happens, there's no interruption in service. An important exemption to keep in mind any vehicle over 8,500 pounds, school buses are exempt. So that that's, I know the school buses make up a, a large percentage of the, the school fleet. That's not something that would be a requirement under this policy that we're adopting. Next slide please. And finally, I mentioned this briefly earlier on, but to give a, an overview, kind of a snapshot of the financial benefits of electrification. These are two examples here. An F-150 lightning, which is the electric counterpart of the common F-150 by Ford and the other one is the Eran. These are two vehicles that we've put in orders for recently and are still waiting on. There's a, a multitude of options available from a funding side. There's the IRA federal rebate, there's a program through the state, there's an additional program through green communities and these rebates can stack with each other. So the example of the lightning, which is eligible, eligible for all of these, you can see that the final cost of the electric lightning ends up being less expensive than the gas counterpart with the transit. It's available for some of the incentives, but not all of them. The cost is more or less the same as the gas counterpart. The, the benefits extend beyond that. So both from a, a maintenance and a fuel perspective, again, it depends on the vehicle and how it's used, but maintenance is generally 40% cheaper and fuel 30 to 50% less depending on the vehicle and how much it drives. The, the annual savings there that you see of of 14,000, there's a grouping of vehicles. You know I mentioned earlier there's 20 that we anticipate electrifying over the next five years. There's 12 that within a slightly shorter period of time would be really the, the low hanging fruit where it's cheaper to replace them with electric vehicles, it's cheaper to operate them and we can get the charging infrastructure in there very quickly to support them. So those, that's gonna be the very near term electrification plan. If we were to do those 12 vehicles, we anticipate saving about $14,000 a year just in operating costs. Our next slide please. So that covers the, the vehicle portion of it at this point. Happy to pause and answer any questions that anyone may have <v Speaker 19>Any questions</v> <v Speaker 10>On on this</v> PO on this policy. The select board adopted it in early September, late August. And again it's kind of just tangentially related to the school committee in the sense that the majority of your school related vehicles don't apply. We did wanna show you those three that are considered school vehicles in the fleet and you have influence over their purchasing, but it is a requirement of the program for the school community to also adopt the policy. I didn't mention this at the beginning of the evening, but for these two votes that we're looking for, we're not looking for them tonight. So we're here just to give you a summary of the materials that you've been provided seeking your feedback and then we'll be back on I think December 2nd to ask for your vote. <v Speaker 3>Yeah Ms. Bruno. So I was just looking at our policy manual</v> book and we, we have a section D, dj, DJA and DJB that are purchasing policies specifically. So I'm curious if there is going to be a crossover or recommendation if this policy exists with on outside of our policy book or if we should consider, have no idea if we could sit consider bringing language into our policy manual that would support or acknowledge this policy were it to pass town wide. <v Speaker 10>I, I almost dunno if</v> that question is directed to me, right? Because it seems like it's a question of how you guys manage your policies. Yeah, so I would defer to your group on, on that question. I think the more ways that we can make pol, like if we were just to have this policy and maybe it wasn't in your school committee policy, then how would people know about it is a question that I have though it's certainly very much understood by the fleet supervisor who is responsible for even purchasing your quote unquote, you know, the school vehicles that are owned by the town. So I do feel confident that even just like voting to support this policy without it being part of your larger policy handbook would still, it would achieve the goal of getting the funding through climate leaders. But it would also I think overall be effective in the town. But it's a great point. <v Speaker 3>And this policy would, where will this policy live</v> that you're proposing? <v Speaker 10>What do you mean by where a policy lives</v> <v Speaker 3>Like it lives on the,</v> who has jurisdiction over this policy basically? <v Speaker 10>So the school committee would have jurisdiction over the</v> school vehicles and then the select board has jurisdiction I guess over the rest of the vehicles that the town owns, joint Town and schools and the select board, they've been revamping their policies this year. I think there's a place on the website where we have all the policies listed for the predecessor to this policy, which was part of the Green Communities program. It was a fuel efficiency policy and that was something that every year we were evaluated on by the state as part of our annual green communities report. And what happens is we using the state like Registry of motor vehicles, we get a list of their understanding of our vehicle inventory and if we're complying with their policy and like for example, we recently had one that showed up on their list that was flagged as red that we weren't complying and it was because of a vehicle that had been an undercover vehicle that wasn't shown in the the registry before and then it showed up. And so it seemed like it was a violation but it wasn't. And so we actually have to actively like look at that and get evaluated on it. So it's a policy that is enforced to the degree the state enforces the policy on you, but they, if you are not in good standing with that program, then you would lose your ability to apply for a grant. So we check it every year essentially. Mm, <v Speaker 1>Thank you.</v> Can I ask a follow up question? Is it a policy, it's do we need to take on our own policy or is this more of a commitment? We're making a commitment as a school committee that as we look to purchase future vehicles, that we're committing ourselves to main to the doer's policy. And I don't know if that's, if that question even makes sense, but, but 'cause I, somewhere in the first slide it talks about or second slide simple. So that's the decarbonization, I think that's the next section, the roadmap. But that talks about commitment. So I was wondering if it's a commitment versus a policy, but <v Speaker 10>They refer to it as a policy</v> to me they mean the same thing, especially because of how Ben MacArthur explained it, that it's really how we're prioritizing the purchase of vehicles. And if we, if there wasn't an electric vehicle out there that made sense for our community, for the use of the vehicle, then we wouldn't purchase it, right? And so to me the commitment and the policy is the same thing. The policy is really that we're gonna go through this prioritization process. <v Speaker 1>Okay, that makes sense. We can figure out what</v> that means for us. <v Speaker 10>Got it.</v> <v Speaker 1>Any other questions</v> or comments on that first section? <v Speaker 10>Great, thank you. So the second item is</v> the adoption of a municipal decarbonization roadmap. And what this roadmap is, it's essentially a 25 year plan or guidance document that seeks to pair capital improvement projects with opportunities to decarbonize. And included as a link in your agenda is a draft of that roadmap. And it's a draft because we're still getting some final feedback from staff and we also wanted to have an opportunity to incorporate any feedback you had in the final draft that we hope to bring to you on December 2nd. So on the slide that here that you see that has this several five years of five year calendars, it really is meant to summarize the way this roadmap works. As I mentioned, it's essentially a 25 year capital plan that sounds maybe more detailed than this plan actually is because it's really directly aligned with the town's current five year capital plan, the one that will be published in January. So in that capital plan, there's improvements needed, capital improvements needed at Ben Hem, at Wilson, at Brown, at Lilja, all those buildings are buildings that were built in the late nineties, early two thousands and they have a lot of HVAC related projects that are necessary in terms of deferred maintenance for those buildings. But as the years go on, the way that the this 25 year capital plan or calendar works is that it's based on the useful life of the equipment in our buildings. So the way that we developed it is by collecting a ton of data on all of our buildings and also our vehicles about the age of the equipment, what year the roof was replaced, how old is the hot water heater, what kind of installation work has been done, is there a dryer in the building? Some questions were felt kind of like why am I going down this rabbit hole to find these things? But we collected all this data on our buildings and that's how we were able to come up with these, this forecast of when we expect to need to replace equipment. And what the roadmap does is it follows this approach called zero over time, which is something I'm a huge fan of. It was developed by the Rocky Mountain Institute now called RMI. And the idea is to pair what they call trigger events with which are basically large capital projects. And that could be a replacement of an HVAC system or it could be the renovation of a school or the reconstruction of a school or other building and pair those with decarbonization opportunities where they're technically and financially feasible. And so a great example of us doing that is the Behem project that we're doing right now that we, we received that grant for. So Behem, we've known for a while that air conditioning was a problem at Benham, but we also have known that we have all these rooftop units there that are getting old behe of those schools that I mentioned besides Brown and Loja Behe versus Wilson Behe is older than Wilson has its equipment is, you know, dying sooner than Wilson's. And so we knew that we had all these things on the capitol plan. We also knew that it was one of our worst performing schools in terms of energy use intensity. And so we were just spending so much money on heating that building every year. And so we knew that we needed not only to like think about our boilers, but also the controls in that building, how are we managing the building like through technology? And that system is from 1996. So we knew all of that. And what we did is we looked to see how can we do that, but also add some decarbonization measures that will help us with our net zero goal. And we were able to apply for and receive that Renew America Schools grant, which provides an additional $2 million to the town to support those needed capital projects like replacing controls, which we would have to do anyway. And then pairing it with a heat pump for adding cooling to the building and also replacing the rooftop units with rooftop units that don't solely rely on gas anymore, but also have integrated heat pumps. So that's the intent of the roadmap. And if you go to the next slide, the way that it's structured is it starts by providing a baseline, the new, there's a new baseline. When we were in green communities, our baseline was fiscal year 2008, and now as part of the climate leaders program, we're establishing a new baseline for our emissions. And that's fiscal year 2022. And what you can see here is where our emissions come from. On the bottom there's these little icons that show our energy use by source and where our energy comes from, what kind of energy we're using that relays into how much emissions we're generating. Most of our emissions come from our buildings and about 50% of those come from school buildings, which makes complete sense because you guys have the largest buildings in town and they're also often the most well utilized buildings. And then we have other emissions coming from our vehicles like our trash and recycling trucks. This does not include school buses, bless you. And our more like almost industrial processes like our water and wastewater treatment processes and things like that. So that's where our emissions come from. And then if you go to the next slide, what it does is it shares the state's targets for emissions over the next 25 years. And then the chart below the table maps out how Natick could reduce its emissions by 2050 if at every opportunity for capital improvement. We also sought to decarbonize. And when I say decarbonize, what I mean is switch away from using fossil fuels to heat our buildings to become as energy efficient as possible. And then to also when we switch from fossil fuels, we're switching to electricity. And the blue line that you see in that chart, that is a business as usual scenario. And the reason that goes down is because the state is working to green our electric grid over time. And that's something that's out of natick control. But what's shown in the roadmap are projections based on the state's goals and their clean energy and climate plan and are mapped to the state's like limits for emissions, which are, which are actually state law. So the next slide focuses on our buildings and within the roadmap there's kind of two, after we get through what our goals are, then there's two sections. There's one that's focused on buildings and a roadmap for buildings and one focus on vehicles. And the vehicles one is very much in line with the zero emission vehicle first policy that was just presented. So in thinking about the buildings, what we're focusing on are our top eight buildings. And in the roadmap we have a high level profile for each of these buildings. Six of the, those eight buildings are school buildings and the all eight of these buildings account for about 70% of the community in terms of the school municipal operations emissions. So they're worth really prioritizing. And what you can see in this table is that while our school buildings are well, our top emit emitters are buildings that produce the most greenhouse gas emissions are, you know, listed here. They also are often our MO most energy efficient buildings. So you can see the EUI score, which stands for energy use intensity, and it's actually a better score. Lower is better and it's a better score at some of the top emitters. And that's because when we constructed some of these or newer buildings, we really did focus on energy use as one of our outcomes that we wanted during the design process. Next slide, and this is kind of the last slide about the roadmap, but the emphasis here is that the roadmap identifies opportunities. It's not a contract, it's not, it's not identifying obligations that we're asking the school committee to vote to support. It's just simply identifying opportunities. And the, the real goal in that is that we can be planful when we have these upcoming capital improvement projects that we don't wait for the last minute and just replace like for like, because that keeps Natick out of the arena for potentially getting grants to do these projects for getting utility incentives for maybe doing something a little different that maybe doesn't do the entire decarbonization, you know, project at the same time but gets us farther. And in doing so, similar to the zero emission vehicle first guide policy, we think that at some point, not tonight, but we propose some kind of draft language about things that we might wanna consider as a community when we're making, when we're investing in these capital improvement projects. So for existing buildings, instead of just designing for the, a replacement of something as our baseline, just like this is what we're gonna do, we would also potentially include a high level design for an alternative. And then we could start to weigh the options based on their financial technical feasibility funding that's available externally. And then for new buildings also setting similar goals. And that is, that is the nuts and bolts of the roadmap. It's, you know, a 25 plus page document that you have and we, I welcome your feedback on it. In terms of the next steps, if you just go to the last slide, I'm really interested in getting your questions and your feedback. The timing for this is a bit tight for us because we would like to be one of the first class members of the climate leaders program. To do that, we have to wrap everything up in terms of local adoptions of things by December 31st. And then we have to submit our applications showing we are meeting the criteria. So I ask for your feedback, ideally before Thanksgiving so we have time to incorporate it before your next meeting on December 2nd. And after that we will be talking with the select board. I've, they have this roadmap, I've asked for their feedback by the same date if possible. So that way everything will be coordinated. And I look forward to next steps with you on this. So happy to answer questions and thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you. Yeah, Ms. Collins.</v> <v Speaker 12>Thanks Jillian. Remind me when the BENHAM</v> changes come online. <v Speaker 10>So we are just finishing the design process for that</v> and I'm about to go out for cost estimating. We've gone through the energy model, the schematic design, and we're at design development drawings. So we expect to go out to bid for that project for a contractor in the spring. So it would be two more years. So we have, we expect to close out the project and have everything done by the end of 2026. <v Speaker 12>Okay. So it would be the 2027 budget where we might see</v> some energy savings <v Speaker 10>Changes in the energy use there.</v> Yes. And there's some items that are not part of the scope of the grant, so don't be surprised if you see other requests on the capital plan for funding related to items that aren't part of the, the scope of the grant. <v Speaker 12>Okay. And just to be clear, I, I think</v> what I heard you say is this doesn't put anything on any particular capital plan or for any particular year, but gives us more a sense of the kinds of things we should be thinking about as those projects are being scheduled anyway on the capital plan. Is that a fair assessment? <v Speaker 10>Yes. Just to make sure we're on the same page.</v> So the first five years of this match the capital plan in terms of just wh when and what kind of projects we need to do. But it doesn't say this is how we will handle that project says, oh, we know that in, you know, FY 26, we need to start getting like new rooftop units at Wilson. Okay, well let's start planning for that. But it doesn't dictate what, what type of rooftop unit we would get just as this is coming up. And then for the future years it's based on the useful lifest standers for the other equipment. <v Speaker 5>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 10>Does that make sense? It,</v> <v Speaker 12>It does because I think it leads into that</v> MSBA would be using these same sorts of things were we'd to qualify for a new memorial for example. Okay, thank you. <v Speaker 10>I think of it as almost like this is in a way our capital</v> plan but then what we have every five years is a capital funding plan, if that makes sense. So it's like this is identifying what we know we're gonna need, but we don't write down in this five year document. <v Speaker 1>Great. Any other questions or comments, Ms.</v> flas? And then Ms. Brune, <v Speaker 5>I just wanna thank you for all the hard work.</v> I mean what I like best about this is the idea of being more planful as we move forward and taking these things into account. I know going through the food service stuff last year, one of the things we said is, you know, the rubric was, was set and it didn't include sustainability as a core part of that rubric. And then that kinda limits limits later on. And so the farther you can get ahead of it to say, you know, this is the objective I just think gives us, you know, just a lot of opportunity to make the best decisions at the time. So I'm excited about it, <v Speaker 1>Ms.</v> Brownell, <v Speaker 3>Just knowing that our committee works within policies,</v> we have a policy, a facilities development goals policy, and I think maybe we should consider some language in that policy fa around the environment and decarbonization of our buildings if we want to ensure that this stuff happens, right? The policy is the best way to ensure things happen. And like to your point Jillian, it's a commitment. So not, I don't know where, where the committee would land on that, but I think that if we're serious about this stuff, we should put it, we should make it policy language, <v Speaker 1>Yeah. Ms. Fathers.</v> <v Speaker 5>But I wanna make sure that we are in a position to</v> adopt it in two weeks and then we can set a goal or something to add it into that laughter. I don't wanna make that a gating factor. 'cause I think, think continued access to this kind of grants is I think really important. <v Speaker 17>Andrew.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yeah, Ms. Corset.</v> <v Speaker 5>And just to that point, I mean I think our,</v> our facilities policy, the last line of it says that it supports, you know, projects that meet educational needs and also the standards and expectations of the community. So I kind of think if we adopt this then that's a community goal and we may not have to do that much work. So I think we're pretty aligned. Yeah, which feels good. So, <v Speaker 1>So any other questions or comments?</v> So in terms of next steps, just to highlight what's on the slide, the last slide. So the comments should come to you, Jillian, on the draft roadmap, which is the second piece of the presentation when we come back in Decem on December 2nd, we'll vote both on both pieces, the the car part and the roadmap pieces. Well, okay, thank you. <v Speaker 5>You really don't know cars,</v> <v Speaker 1>Dude,</v> the trucks, they have four wheels. <v Speaker 5>And just one comment, just knowing that this is</v> time sensitive, so I think it would be helpful for if you're don't have any questions but you're overall in favor, I think it would be, Julian probably appreciate getting just that message from everyone just knowing. <v Speaker 1>And with that, I also will acknowledge,</v> so not only thank you to Ms. Wilson, Martin and Mr. Landman for their involvement on this committee, but also Ms. flas who is our representative on the school committee, on the our school committee representative on this net zero committee. So I don't know if you'd be open, not to put you on the spot, but to be open to answer any questions that people have. <v Speaker 5>Absolutely. Yeah, I mean reach out.</v> I, I think the important thing is that there aren't, it's not a surprise on December 2nd that people didn't have questions but then had a lot of concerns. So please, if you have concerns, let's figure that out offline before then. <v Speaker 1>And I should also say that the chair</v> of the committee, who is Ann Lentel, ELL Lentel also offered to answer any questions. And I think I saw her, <v Speaker 5>It is a very engaged committee.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yeah. And two students, right? Two students, yeah.</v> <v Speaker 5>Did David wanna say</v> <v Speaker 20>Yours?</v> You kind of covered everything, but I wanna say, I mean we're as a committee, this is where we're recommending doing this and it's a, it's a roadmap remember. So these are just, these are the paths we're gonna follow. So things can change with technology over time, but it gives us an idea of what the costs are and how much we're gonna save over certain lengths of time. So. <v Speaker 1>Great.</v> <v Speaker 5>And just follow</v> up on what you said about two students. It was one non-voting youth member and they had a lot of interest when that member graduated. So we recommended bringing on two senior youth. So it's a two year commitment. So if you come on, you can't be a senior to be the first year and you're not a voting member the first year, but then we recommended that, then in the second year that student is able to vote. <v Speaker 1>Cool. Great. Anything else?</v> No, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Thank you both for coming in for a great presentation and we'll see you again in two weeks. Yeah, for three weeks soon. Soon. Thanks. Two weeks. Trust me. I know thinking Thanksgiving, but that doesn't really make a difference in our schedule. Well thank you both again for the presentation and we'll move on. So we'll go back to the last item on the superintendent's report. <v Speaker 8>Great, thank you.</v> So this is brief, but we just wanted to kind of go on record to just discuss the fact that the student handbooks have been finalized. We can you go to the next slide please? This is just the process. So each school, in case people don't know, has its own student handbook. I and my team review and approve those handbooks annually for this year, we actually provided, I asked each of the leaders and their teams to provide a summary of changes from the prior year just because there's many years that have built into these handbooks and we just wanted to see the delta since last year they had been approved and we compiled a memo for the school committee, which is linked here. While the school committee doesn't technically approve the handbooks, we always provide an opportunity to ensure that the handbooks are in alignment with school committee policy. Based on that memo process, we answered all questions and they have been approved by my team. We have a link in this deck, so if you're curious, you wanna do some deep reading, you can read the last slide shows you all of the different links to the handbooks. The big changes just for the community to to hear One is some policy language refinements. That's the slide after that. Yep. Those just have to do with prior deputy superintendent Tim Luff made some updates in policy just based mainly around bullying definitions. So it's just kind of updating with policy focus on inclusivity. This was adding some translation services for families who speak languages other than English discipline practices, streamlining areas involving tech. You have heard quite a bit about our cell phones, so sort of updating to make sure that cell phone policies are, or procedures are in there. There were some reductions in detention times at NHS. They actually increased their short detention from 40 minutes to 60 and they decreased their longer one from two and a half to two hours. And then there's just wording around restorative practices at the middle schools and the high school security and safety updates are really, we had some new cameras that were added to Wilson and so we added some language just to, to capture that as well as that language was carried over to Kennedy. They hadn't done it when the new building was done, but they decided to kind of keep that language in line with Wilson. And then we are all very thankful that the COVID-19 guidelines were removed from all of the handbooks that is in our in, I hope soon to be fully in our rear view mirror. So that's really just some context for the main changes, but I don't think there was anything big. <v Speaker 1>Any questions or comments about the handbooks? No. Great.</v> So we'll move on to the subcommittee liaison updates. Is there an update on the custodial union negotiations? <v Speaker 12>Custodial union we met and just set out the rules.</v> Custodians, unlike all the other units that we negotiate with is traditional bargaining. It's not IBV. So we will be meeting again to put forth proposals. <v Speaker 1>Right.</v> <v Speaker 12>And there's no update on the food service</v> because that hasn't even been scheduled yet. <v Speaker 5>So Julie is</v> <v Speaker 12>Scheduling it.</v> She's in the process of scheduling it, but it hasn't been scheduled yet. <v Speaker 1>Is it? Both of you? Okay, so</v> she, yeah, she didn't schedule it, but did you have <v Speaker 5>Proposal she asked?</v> Yeah, well yeah, I She asked if we could meet on the 21st with the union rep. <v Speaker 12>Did that come through today?</v> <v Speaker 5>No, that was two weeks</v> <v Speaker 12>Ago.</v> I'll, I'll have to check with her 'cause Yeah, she wanted the <v Speaker 5>Included, so maybe that's it.</v> So, well what I was going to ask is that if somebody would like to be part of that negotiation, I don't think I'm, I would like to step away from that for the food service contract. So what Julie said was that it could probably start in the spring in terms of the timing, but that the union rep wanted to have a meeting I think Thursday, but I actually don't have a, a meeting invitation either. So, <v Speaker 1>So you were gonna meet Thursday to plan negotiations,</v> but they won't start until the spring, right? Is that what you said? Yes. Yes. And you, Ms. Corset would like to have someone replace her? <v Speaker 5>Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to go to the first meeting</v> to provide some continuity, but if somebody would like to replace me on this negotiating team, I'd be happy to seed that task. <v Speaker 12>It's generally one of the last ones that happens.</v> I, I'm happy to <v Speaker 1>Do that.</v> Okay. Everyone that <v Speaker 12>Love food,</v> <v Speaker 1>They don't feed you.</v> I hate to, oh, forget it. I'm out. How can they not have food in the food? Just kidding. Is everyone without any objections? No. Okay. So that was the subcommittee liaisons. We now have, we'll go to the MISC conference update. Excuse me. <v Speaker 4>Just do one quick Yes. Sorry.</v> On the, oh, sorry, just, just real quick, just so people know, the policy subcommittee's going is we just figured out December 2nd and January 9th are our next two meetings. So just so we're good. So just so everybody knows, two weeks and then next year, not until next year here, <v Speaker 16>It's</v> <v Speaker 4>Next year. That's it. You're</v> <v Speaker 16>So far.</v> See notes, slides. <v Speaker 1>So just to frame the next issue, so Ms.</v> Brunell and I, and Ms. Scott who isn't able to be here today went to MASC conference. Actually we were also there with Mr. Gillis who was there presenting. And we wanted to take the opportunity to update on some of the big highlights from the conference. I believe I can share because we're meeting, I can share a document that summarizes our notes and our slides to the committee. And then Linda, you can add those to the minutes of the meeting. So I'm gonna do that now while Mr. Brunel, do you wanna go first? <v Speaker 3>Sure.</v> <v Speaker 1>You want, actually, since you put it together,</v> do you wanna describe a document as well? <v Speaker 3>Sure. The document that you'll receive, just as a</v> quick summary with slides and notes if members took them of the presentations that we went to. It doesn't cover like the major, the big speeches or the keynote speakers. I did. You I didn't do that either, but just, just to show you, just with three of us at the conference this year. And I'm sorry that you couldn't come but happens, right? But we missed you. And also Ulus was there. I'm not sure if anybody else was there. I I, I was in and out, so I was like, I knew that I miss people, but it, it was neat to see Natick's presence because we were really able to cover a lot and I just am always grateful for those professional development opportunities. I'll let the slide. So, you know, so if you wanna do a deeper dive into any of the presentations that we attended, the slides or the notes to speak for themselves, I just find it really refreshing to meet with colleagues and to hear what's happening across the state to know that one, we're not alone. And that two so often the, like the struggles are the same in, in similar districts and that there's really creative problem solving that happens in other districts that I really take a lot from. And even at the conference, one of the sessions I was at, there was like this whole conversation about whether or not by state law we could create another revolving account to house the Medicare or chapter 70 monies because you could create another revolving account through state law. There's 13 that are identified as a revolving account. And so the ms the man that was presenting, somebody asked the question and the man that was presenting it was like, that was a good question. I'm gonna follow up on that. And he works for Mabo, so it's just interesting. I love seeing things like that happen. So Matt, you'll appreciate this. So one of the things you get to meet people from other districts, so Cynthia Mayor from Wellesley is a colleague of Matt speaks highly of him, and she invited me to come to a session that she's leading in Wellesley this week. And that like, that organic stuff just wouldn't happen if you didn't have FaceTime with each other. So she's presenting the budget as a, it's, she calls it a budget academy and she presents it to the school committee and to the select board in Wellesley, just to basically give everyone like a budget 1 0 1 on their, on their budget. And so I just, I asked her if I could come, she said sure. And, and funny enough, like she gives me her n ear, you know, it's just funny things like that happen. So big picture takeaways for me, for me on the couple of sessions that I attended, collective bargaining, you know, Jefferson, you, you started tonight, speaking of the, the strikes that are happening up on the North shore, and I am, I'm sure all of us are very aware of that and just know the impact on kids and teachers and families and all of it. It's a, from what you hear from the fallout of strikes like that it really impacts everyone for a long time. And I was fascinated that this year, the collective bargaining session, I, you know, I've attended three years in a row and this year the session was not interest, it wasn't titled interest based bargaining, it was just titled Collective Bargaining. And I thought that was, that was an interesting, no, just sort of like shift and taking temperature of the state. I asked afterwards and the woman gave our district and our union, union leadership in particular a compliment saying that it just means that we have, we have a great working relationship with our union and we have obviously tenured people that are at the negotiation table. And so we're willing to do the, the work in-house as much as possible. Obviously I'm not on the negotiating table team, so I don't know what's happening, but I just wanted to give you that feedback and I thought this was funny. She said that the union and the school committee are in a marriage to which there is no divorce. So I know you've always wanted to be married to me Jefferson, but don't comment. I thought that was funny and I just really, really appreciate and I'm grateful for the interest based bargaining we do here in Natick. I attended, of course, always I do the fiscal responsibility, the, the fiscal sessions as much as possible. And again, just a huge compliment to Matt Gillis because we've seen, we've seen a shift in our district and the reporting that our committee receives, which has always been standard across the state, the quarterly reports, the transfers, the end of the years reports, it's standard and you bring it to us and you've done that from day one. So it was so nice to sit in those presentations and be like, check, check, check, check. Instead of like, hmm, where is that, where is that one thing I, she said in that presentation, better decisions are made when information is shared. And I really feel that way as a member of this committee and am grateful to the administration for, for following up on that. I do think our policy DBJ needs to be revisited because of state law in our policy. DBJ, we allow our superintendent to spend up to $10,000 without a transfer. And apparently that is not in, they did not recommend any committee continue that action. So I thought, given that I had heard that based on state law, I should bring that here. And eventually we've been talking about the budget subcommittee or budget work that we're doing this year, whatever, whatever it's called. I got some great information on maybe where to start some of that work. And so I would like to share that once we start that final thing I'll say is a special education presentation, much like was just shared in the net zero presentation, the proactive planning. Whenever these, whenever there's major costs in a district. I don't know if anyone saw the Boston Globe today, huge article on special education in Massachusetts. You know, it's, it's there. Special education is something that districts really have to obviously have to do, want to do that were federally mandated to do it and there's different ways to do it so that the students are served in the best way. The families are served the best way. Teachers are fully prepared in district, out of district. And it's, it's a, it's a topic that I think you have to have a lot of eyes on. The, the person that was presenting it is from Lexington. She was one of the first people in the state, I guess there's only five, they're finance, finance directors of special education. And they have found that again, I mean I keep going back to Jillian, Jillian saved so much money for our district, for our town because of the work that she does. And they found in Lexington that this person saved so much money and enhanced their special education by having a specific role for the financial management of the special education. I thought that was really interesting. And yeah, so that's my big takeaways. <v Speaker 1>Great. I actually, we did forget to mention Luke Steer,</v> who is the librarian at Wilson Middle School, was there on behalf of the Massachusetts Association of School librarians. And he presented as well and I believe his presentation is available in the, the document was shared. So take a look at his work as well. So I think Ms. Ella did a nice yin yang as well as with Ms. Scott. I focused more on attending the sessions on since I, belonging issues of equity, engaging newcomer students and just kind of some of the overall highlights. One of the things that kept coming up across multiple presentations is the importance of community engagement. Actually Ms. Scott and I both went to a great presentation by one of the communications experts in the state who talked a lot about, had great a lot of ideas and, and talked about the importance of effective communication is a two-way street. It's important to listen to actively pro proactively identify channels to engage all members of the community and not just the loudest voices. This also came up in the conversation around a different presentation on engaging newcomer families. Finding specific ways to identify who are the voices that we're not hearing from and how can we break through those barriers to, to engage them as well, again, through a two-way communication. So not only what information do we need to provide them, but how can we get information from them. The nice thing is a lot of these ideas are already included in the initial plan that we all came up with for our community engagement goal. So there's a lot of work that we are giving ourselves, but it's based on the presentation presentations that attended, were in the going the right direction. Another theme that I heard a lot is the importance of data. And obviously this is an issue that came up today a lot in the school improvement plans, but data not only in terms of academic data, and again this is something that was reiterate in our presentations today. Not only academic data but also data around engagement, sense of belonging. Looking at those, I think it was Kennedy that, the Kennedy Middle School that had the data around student engagement. I think some of the other ones even asked well asked educators as well about psychological safety. That's real data. They talked a lot about using the DC DART data, which I was excited to hear because we're already doing that. Yes. So again, a lot of things that we, you know, like Ms. Brunell said a lot of things that we're hearing from across the state, it's, it's really hardening to, to know that we're already doing it here. And also just the last point about data is dissolve conversation about data in the context of MTSS and what we heard through the school perimeter plans is that the district is really, natick is really embracing MTSS data is a really important part of it. The nice thing about MTSS as a framework is that it brings together the academic, the social emotional and the behavioral together. And so thinking about how to use data across data sources, how to triangulate data to really understand the whole child, how to support the whole child so that we're looking at things like, you know, students who are struggling with math. Well let's look at the attendance, let's look at behavior issues. Let's look at social emotional issues to really understand what are the barriers to learning and help every student through our all three tiers get the best supports. And the last thing I thought I would mention, there was a great presentation, if I may say so myself on digital media. It was a colleague of mine who presented, I, I helped her facilitate, but this is my colleague Sherry Kessel Schneider is the person who leads the metro West adolescent health survey that we're gonna hear about next, next time part in addition to the Metro West Adolescent health survey this year, her and a team of of colleagues also conducted focus groups around specifically digital wellness. She interviewed parents, students and educators about digital media wellness, which is not only how to decrease the risks and the, the, the challenges related to overuse of digital media, but also the, the how to build on the positive aspects of digital media as well. And we talked about policies, but not only po you know, policies like we do here, like we've heard from our high school middle schools, but also how to integrate media literacy education into health education, how to help students develop those social emotional skills around self-management. So you're not just telling students not to use phones because we say so, but that they really understand why it's important for them to think about how they engage with the world, how they engage with each other, and how digital media can be either a distraction or a support towards that. So the presentation is on the, in this the notes as well. <v Speaker 3>Yeah. Ms. Brown, I just wanna give shy a shout out</v> because he also presented at the conference so I wasn't able to attend those sessions. But I, it just is great to see you giving your knowledge to other districts and also Mr. Gillis presented on how to retain your finance hire team. What was the title? How to hire a great finance leader. So I hope that is not a signal to anything fi, school finance leaders strategies that work. So <v Speaker 21>No, my couple of my colleagues sort</v> of roped me into doing a presentation with them for mabo and then they said, oh, and how about MASS and Mabo and a few other places. And because I've known Cindy since grad school and Mary Ellen, who once upon a time here, worked here in in Natick for a good 20 plus years and they still talk to me. I said, sure, I like to tease Cindy that I wrecked her 4.0 GPA in grad school. <v Speaker 1>So anything else Ms. Bruno?</v> Any questions from anyone about M-A-S-C-M-A-S-S? So we'll move to our last item feature meetings. Just a quick preview. We obviously we're gonna hear back, we're gonna have a chance to vote on what we hear in terms of sustainability. We are working towards having a joint meeting with a select board, not next time but the time after that to focus on the override. So stay tuned for that. And otherwise we have some, we have the Metro West coming up and I dunno if you want to add anything else. <v Speaker 8>First of all, thank you for the really thorough kind</v> of share from the most recent conference. I'm excited to share that with cabinet and thanks for the notes on it as well. Yeah, so as Shai said, we're gonna have Metro West adolescent health survey work group presentation. We kind of felt like that would be a good time to also have Dr. Ferguson report out on some vocal data. Which is a, which is, it's basically an assessment that happens after the MCAS. The whole state does it. So it's in grades 4, 5, 8, and 10. So we'll hear about that as well as data from Sabre. So kind of like data around how our kids are doing, how the what student wellness. And then in terms of the chair report, what we have right now is rotary book donation, a field update. Not sure if we wanna keep that there or not, but a field update, the TEC vote, which I think they said to wait until you can let us know on that. But that's what's on there right now. <v Speaker 4>Yeah, that next meeting won't be it.</v> It won't, it's second week of third week of <v Speaker 8>December.</v> So maybe we bump that out a ti. Okay, great. And then the zero emissions vehicle fleet policy vote. <v Speaker 1>Any questions or any, yeah, Ms. Corset and the</v> <v Speaker 22>Other and the</v> <v Speaker 1>Both votes.</v> Yeah. There's also the roadmap and they go together. <v Speaker 8>Oh yeah. Okay.</v> <v Speaker 5>Just a question.</v> Do we know if the potential joint meeting with the select board will be on their schedule or our schedule? <v Speaker 1>It's still, we're working on that.</v> We're trying to figure that out. Yeah, <v Speaker 22>So I wanted to propose that either before</v> or during the joint meeting that the school committee propose or take a vote on proposing to the select board what we need in terms of the override relative to all of the budget work that's happening. So that the committee is informed, the community is aware and we are able to lay out what we've already done to reduce our budget, what we need for the coming year, why we need it, and, and what that, what has been proposed by the town and then what the override would cover. I think that would be important for us to do. So we either go into that meeting or at that meeting we're prepared. And so I know that a lot of conversations are happening. I know that budgets are being refined, but I feel like that would be helpful for people to start to have a sense of, of what the school's needs are. 'cause that'll be a a portion of the override. <v Speaker 1>Any other questions or comments about future meeting</v> topics with that? I see there's two adjourn. Yeah, at least two people eager check people to adjourn. Second this Colin Scott first. Mr. Hand, second. All those in favor? Anyone against any abstentions? Our meeting are now adjourned. Good night everyone. Thank you all for being here tonight. <v Speaker 23>I'm hoping there's cake.</v>