Good evening everyone. Calling the November 18th North School Committee meeting to order. I'll start this meeting by reading our mission statement. The Norfolk Public Schools offers a safe, joyful, and challenging learning environment that meets the needs of our diverse students through school, family, and community
partnerships. We provide an education that inspires lifelong learners and cultivates caring and productive citizens of our everchanging world. Have a roll call, please. >> Peter Schwala. >> Grace Lockhead. Madora Champagne. Miam Goodman.
>> Do we have any public comment tonight? No. Okay. And we also have no correspondence. So, moving on to item C on the agenda, the committee chair report. First, we have some gifts to vote on. We have a gift of $350 from the
Norfol PTO for the sixth grade movie night staff payment and a another gift from the Norfick PTO of $118.52 also for the sixth grade movie night staff payment and then a gift from the Dave Young Children's Literature
Foundation of $500 and that is a donation for to the Freeman Kennedy Library for purchase of literature. So looking for a motion to accept the gifts as stated. So moved. Second. Further discussion. Just thank you. >> Yeah. All those in favor?
>> I moving on to the pair professional negotiations update. >> Um it's my turn this meeting I guess. Um brief update. We are continuing to negotiate with the pair professionals. Um we've had I think a total of three
three meetings um thus far and we are scheduled for another meeting tomorrow early evening afternoon. So um it would have been better if this meeting was on Thursday. There would be a more substantial update. There you go.
All right. Moving on to the joint letter we wrote with the select board on chapter 70 funds. So, I brought this to you all last meeting. As you know, Desi is holding listening sessions um for districts to come and talk about Chapter
70 and how it's affecting them. Um Dr. testified at one today, which they'll tell us about later on. So last time we talked about potentially reaching out to the select board and doing a joint initiative and writing a letter to Desi
to the Department of Education of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Division of Local Services who is running this study just really laying out how chapter 7 and its current state affects towns like ours. So Tai Sigman and I
partnered together and we wrote this letter. I started with a draft that really started with a high level on how it's affecting the schools. She added a lot more commentary and edits of how it affects the town as a whole. And I think that's really important where this town has many departments but we are one town
and one budget and so bringing boards together and working collaboratively across boards. So I won't read the entire letter to you but in it we offered the following observations. We have a residential tax base in minimal
commercial offset. And so she lays out why that is and why we're in the situation we are in and also attaches the master plan. Lays out the impact on the municipal services, noting that schools are the largest line in the operating budget. Our commercial base is
very small and the chapter 70 funding as it currently stands is not recognizing that towns like ours need extra support more than we're getting now. The next one is how towns like ours the revenue we get and the revenue growth we get is
relying on Proposition 2 and a half. So schools can't raise additional revenue on our own and so we need the state to step in because costs of education mandated costs are rising higher faster and higher than that. So we definitely need more support from the state there
and really highlighted a need for an updated and responsive formula. Um the five action items we really laid out, we said modernize local contribution calculations to better reflect towns with limited commercial tax capacity and
aging populations so required local effort doesn't systematically outstrip realistic levy growth. index chapter 70 to real cost drivers we can't control like special education, tuition, transportation, utilities, energy mandated services. So aid keeps pace
with actual market conditions. Recognize infrastructure constrained communities by creating an adjustment for towns where wastewater limitations block commercial diversification until state or federal infrastructure funds revolve the constraint documented in our master plan. Provide a predictable glide path
so communities are not forced into annual overrides to keep services level and substantially increase the minimum per pupil aid amount to ensure it meaningfully covers non-discretionary mandated cost drivers such as inflation and employee benefits and more accurately reflects the rising costs of
providing public education. So it really lays out from a town and a school perspective that we need the state to step in and help towns like ours. Our Norfolk is not unique in the struggle. towns like us are all feeling this right now and Desi I think putting out these
listening sessions. It it's kind of a signal at least to me that they're listening and so we want to take the time to you know take part in this testimony. So I don't know if anyone has any comments. I did go to the select board
yesterday and talked to Anita and Kevin and Ty about this. they all approved the letter to be sent in. Um, does anyone have any thoughts? >> No, I think it was more powerful that we joined together to to do that. So, thank you for that.
>> Definitely. >> And I'll I'll be speaking a little bit later about the chapter 70 testimony from earlier today, but I think this letter mirrors a lot of the themes that we heard from multiple um small rural suburban communities. Um the current way the formula is structured, there's a
significant amount of money through the student opportunity act that are flowing into larger gateway cities. Um gateway cities are the only um uh places in the commonwealth where education spending is growing. Education spending in in suburban communities is actually
declining. Um, and I think as Lisa pointed out, the only the way that the formula works currently, the foundation budget establishes a budget that they they feel based on the chapter 7 formula is adequate, an adequate educational budget. They then determine based on a
community's relative wealth what the community's local contribution should be to fund that adequate budget. And then chapter 70 covers the gap. So, it's overestimating local contribution and what small towns are actually able to fund. It's not meeting the rising
inflation is growing faster than the chapter formula uh chapter 7 is responding to. Um and it's really leaving districts that are minimum aid communities like Norfolk to cover the rising costs of education with no additional revenue and no way to levy um
other than to go the override route which are unrealistic in this economy and are failing everywhere. So the state needs to balance that formula so that it's a fairer way of funding education across the Commonwealth to all communities. So I think this letter hits a lot of the points that we made in the testimony today.
>> Yeah, I I agree. It's a very good letter and good effort to be with the select board. I think the only area that I am concerned or hesitant about is the header for number three being Prop 2 and a half because I think the focus of the
letter is the chapter 70 formula and process and that distracts a little bit from the intent of the letter. Um, that whole paragraph really is about our aging population and ability to handle
continual tax levies and the structural imbalance that towns like Norfolk have. So, it's really not as much about Prop 2 and a half as it is about the kind of the relative like
incremental tax levy that we can do as a town because of the limitations we have both the voting population aging and not being able to accommodate large tax increases and the mix of residential and
lack of commercial revenue that we have in the town. So I'm not 100% comfortable with heading this as Prop 2 and a half because at the state level there are political efforts to remove that cap altogether and I don't want to be seen
as advocating for that as the solution to what the actual problem is is the chapter 70 formula. So, um, I would say as a light edit, I would say maybe a different title header for that, at least to bring the focus more to what the town's constraints are
versus Prop 2 and a half itself. I think the only thing I would say is I think that um what came up a lot in testimony that I heard today is there's an assumption of local capacity that the that communities that have high income,
high home values have the ability to to fund education at a higher rate. >> So Proposition 2 and half prevents that. We're not advocating for it to change. We're just acknowledging that there really that that isn't a true assumption. So the assumption that communities can because of their
relative wealth can contribute more is is not actually true because proposition 2 and a half limits how much you can actually raise the taxes um in the absence of an override. So I think it is a mitigating factor. Um I I hear what you're saying. I don't think I don't
think anyone today was advocating for raising Proposition 2 and a half, but I think they were acknowledging that Proposition 2 and a half is a very real um factor that impacts municipal revenue. Um and in the absence of any ability to or interest in raising and
and I think most people talked about overrides aren't passing, the economy is strained. Communities like Norfolk that have aging populations, there's there's not an interest in doing that. Um, so there has to be another solution from the state side. So I think that was the argument that that many districts were
sort of acknowledging today. But I I hear what you're saying. >> Yeah. And that's outside of like again I mean Prop 2 and a half. It's outside of that. I mean have we stated in here the fact that we I think are we we're close to 70% of our town budget goes to fund the schools. >> I mean that's a number but it's pretty
much consistent with all of our regional most small municipalities between 65. It's the lion's share of the the tax revenue. >> Yeah. >> 16 million last year for for the last fiscal year budget. >> So
>> yeah, in most communities, Mariam, what would you say? It usually ranges between 60 70% even in the larger cities because schools are generally the largest employer and take the lion share. But >> yeah, it's a large percentage of the operating budget. >> Yeah.
>> Yes. Is anyone else reading that paragraph? I've written letters to the state on behalf of the school committee before and I've always tried extremely hard to be neutral. Um, if anyone read it advocating one way or another, that wasn't the intent, but >> I don't interpret it that way. Um, if
Peter continued to have reservations about it, perhaps a thought would be to combine one and three to give the whole you're discussing we are a residential tax base with minimal commercial offset. You could have a second paragraph that incorporates the discussion of two and a
half that just says in addition to the affformentioned constraints. Proposition two and a half pre present that prevents the town from raising residential property taxes above a certain amount on an annual basis due to this constraint. You know, we are effectively
pigeonholed. We have no commercial revenue. We are a residentialbased town. We cannot raise the residential tax rate above and beyond 2 and a half%. um if that addresses your concern. Um but I think
it gives a holistic view of this is the financial reality of this town. >> Right. >> Peter, you were just saying the type the the header, right? >> Well, I was Yeah, I was trying to think of a way and I think Madora, your suggestion is really good. I was also trying to think of a way that would
prevent more work in terms of re-review with the select board. Is there is there is there a light enough edit that we can do to just simply dehighlight prop two and a half and focus on what
the real problem is in Norfolk and the entire paragraph describes that with the exception of the first sentence and the and the headline from my perspective. >> I think from my perspective I mean I'm I'm happy I like offering the suggestion to consolidate those into one sort of
holistic overview of what the financial reality is. I don't have an issue with it as it's drafted because I do think that Proposition two and a half is part of the problem. >> It it contributes explicitly to the issue that we have with chapter 70 because we can't there is no way to
mitigate the issue we have with chapter 70 due to proposition 2 and a half. Um I don't feel so strongly about it that I want to you know I want to belabor the point even more. I would be happy with it either way as long as it's being discussed because it is Proposition 2
and a half is part of the problem. Um, chapter 70 is a majority of the problem, but because of Proposition 2 and a half, we cannot effectively solve the problem independently as a municipality. >> And I think the letter was saying Proposition 2 and a half is our reality.
No comment on it, just the reality. Um, therefore, chapter 70 needs to change in response to that, >> which is I I think what the letter is saying. I mean, my read and my interpretation of the entire situation is you're in a tangle where we we can't
solve unless something changes. And the most effective way to solve the problem, not just for Norfick as a municipality, but for every municipality that's experiencing this is a complete overhaul of how chapter 70 is is allocated, how it's funded, and and what the thought process is that goes into, you know, how
local contributions are formulated. But Prop 2 and a half is part of our existing reality. >> I think that comes through in the recommendations because the recommendations are clearly focused on modernizing the chapter 70 formula. um aligning it because chapter 70 also has
a cap on how much it can go uh what the increase can be and that cap is often doesn't keep pace with inflation so it grows um and then there's a you know inflation glitch that we have to correct so I think the the recommendations are pretty clearly focused on on the state
increasing minimum um per pupil aid I advocated today for an adjustment for small districts of under 2500 um having an an inflation calculation for uh those districts because the overhead of facilities and um all of the
administrative required costs aren't shared among a population of a thousand. It's a higher proportion of the budget. So um I think the recommendations are focused. I'm not opposed to like this is your letter. So if you want to change it, but I do think process-wise if we make any any edits and you want to
jointly submit it, the selector will have to revote it. >> Mhm. >> So that's I mean that's up to you. But we couldn't modify a letter that's written on behalf of both boards without them reviewing and accepting the changes. So, um, up to you how you guys want to proceed. >> What's your comfort level, I guess,
after this conversation? Cuz I want everyone to be >> Oh, I mean, I still feel the same way that I mean, I I appreciate everyone's thoughts. I disagree on the perspective of two and a half versus this algorithm around chapter 70.
I mean, you know, but I it is it worth the squeeze around re re-reviewing it? It's up to the committee to determine whether you it's worth the effort to make the changes and
then send it back for review. So, I'll leave it to, you know, majority rule. >> Okay. Well, for me personally, I specifically made sure that I wasn't taking a side on that like I've done
with prior letters cuz I don't want people to say you were trying to do this or you're trying to push this. I'm just So, I think in my opinion, the letter stays neutral there and it's not calling for any type of change in Prop 2 and a half. It's saying this is the current
state and pro in uh chapter 70 needs to change. >> Um but if anyone else disagrees, >> I'm very comfortable with it as it's written. I appreciate I appreciate Peter's concern. Um but I I
think that it does stay neutral. Um, and I I think it stays on target and makes appropriate recommendations relative to I think the statewide discourse that's happening on this topic right now as well. >> Yeah. And I wouldn't be opposed to making edits, but I'm also comfortable
with the way it's currently written, so I I'm neutral. >> Okay. >> Hi, Anita. >> Um, did you want >> I was just going to say when the next I'm not sure when the next select board meeting is. >> You don't have to, but if you want to join the discussion, you're more than welcome to.
Thanks for inviting me. Um, you probably need a mic. >> I'm not sure. We said Thanksgiving when your next meeting would be. Um, I'm not sure. I think it's the Monday after. I think it's the Monday after. We have a lot of dates floating around because
there's um I think that when I read the just Peter's point because I was listening to Peter's point and when I read the letter I didn't at all interpreted in that way that this is proposing that we should change two and a half. I don't think there's um a paladin in our community for changing two and a half. What we're really
looking for is a state to appropriately fund the schools and I think the letter says that and that that's how I read the letter that um Lisa and Ty worked on. I think it did a nice job of doing some of the unique things about Norfork as well that we're we're small but we don't qualify for rural things. We're a
suburban but we don't we're not a gateway city so we don't get those kinds of so we're in this little niche and I think the letter um captures that and sends that forward. I I didn't read it as as um being a proponent of the changing two and a half. So I I didn't I didn't read
it that way. >> Okay. The So you think the next select board meeting would be the 1st of December? Monday the 1. >> Yes, we have Monday, December 1st. We do have a meeting on December 1st. >> So if you chose to make edits, it would go back to it could go back to the board on the >> But it's really a matter of vote, right?
I mean, I've expressed my opinion, but that's one opinion of four committee members. So, and I'm perfectly happy if everyone else feels like they want to move forward and they don't want to spend more time with us. I'm not trying to hold the process up. I'm just saying what I think >> would improve the letter. That's that's
all my inputs about here. >> So, >> did you have any other comments? >> Only other thing I wanted to say is we're grateful for the advocacy of this board for the appropriate funding for the schools. Um we want to see our schools appropriately funded and and um it's a struggle every single year to to
do that. So, um we're grateful for um your advocacy and we're grateful for the partnership and the work and it's nice to see you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Right. So I would be looking for a motion to
accept the letter as written for submission. >> So moved. I'll second. >> Any further discussion on it? >> All those in favor? >> I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> I'll say I as well. It's fine.
>> Great. up next. All right, great. So, just to start, uh, a few things that I wanted to share, some highlights, things happening across the district and in both schools. Um, at the district level on November 4th, we had that shared regional professional development day that we partnered with King Phillip, Brenton,
and Planeville. Um, it was a great success. Teachers had an opportunity to participate in a wide range of professional development opportunities. We also had several of our staff members who presented workshops and different topics. um special education. Um uh Katie did a couple of workshops on on
math discourse and math thinking. Um Dodd offered some some workshops that day. So it was a really great day and another um I think we look forward to planning and strengthening this partnership going forward and having that shared um shared opportunity. It allows us to really um because we're a
small district, we have two members of our art department and we have two music departments. So when we're bringing in presenters, we're limited by the the the number of people we have in different different roles. So when we partner regionally, we can offer richer and stronger uh PD opportunities. So that
was a really exciting and positive events and thanks to Katie who jumped in with the planning of that event um with the assistant superintendent from the other districts. Um we also uh had a great uh evening workshop for parents where we showed the film screenagers uh
and had a panel discussion. It was uh I was really struck by h how powerful and compelling the uh the film was and how much it resonated with the struggles that all of our parents and I had as a parent with my kids. Um you watch the
video and you watch the kids interacting with technology and you feel like I've I've had that same conversation 10 times over. So it it left with really strong positive suggestions for parents. There was a panel discussion. We had a a local pediatrician. We had a mental health um professional. We had Katy Appel, our
school resource officer on the panel. Um Trish Kelly, our technology director, and then Dr. Cameron and I were part of that. Um but it was a really great night, really rich discussion. Definitely encourage parents. There's going to be another showing in Planeville. Um doc, do you know the date on that off the top of your head? >> End of January or early March.
>> End of January. It is not a film that's available for people to see. You have to purchase a license to show it. So it isn't something you can watch on your own. If you didn't get a chance, I would really encourage parents to attend the plane bell uh presentation because it was really really powerful. Um some
really frightening data about how how we keep our kids safe and how we protect kids. Um there is a really alarming trend in the rise of anxiety and depression worldwide since the advent of the iPhone. um that's pretty profound and so I think it's really important for
everybody to be aware of and we're really working hard with our texting committee at how we are addressing that within the school. So that was a great night. Um upcoming uh and on December 4th at the Asal Day School, we will be presenting the school budget in
partnership with the um superintendent from KP to talk about the Norfolk and the educational budget in town. Um, so, uh, that I think they're all filmed, so you can watch that live if you're not part of the academy. Uh, at HOD, two things from this month. They on October
Thursday, October 30th, and for the first time in many, many years, the weather did not cooperate. It was kind of a rainy, overcast day, but the Hol Day had their annual Halloween and storybook parade. Um, students were able to dress up and as characters or or wear
their Halloween costume, and they paraded through the halls of HOD into the cafeteria. Um I think NCTV was there filming. Uh so that's available on their website. It was a really nice event and we were very thankful to all the room parents who came in to help uh support that. We also had uh title one
breakfast. So our curriculum director Katie Young um facilitated along with our HOD math specialists a breakfast to talk about the services we provide for um math support through the general education program for students who may need additional uh instruction on targeted skills and that is funded by
title one. So, we had that title one breakfast. Um, at FK this month, uh, we had, uh, the FK school hosted a wonderful, um, very moving Veterans Day assembly. Uh, we had several members of our school committee able to join. Uh, the focus of the ceremony was really honoring those who've served our
country. Students and staff members who have family members who are veterans invited them to attend. Um, the the students did a great job. The band performed, the chorus performed, grade levels shared poems and songs. Um we had uh Robin Tuseri our and Lois Epenheimer
um put together a very beautiful tribute v video recognizing all the veterans um who are affiliated with our schools and with our school families. Um so it was a great event. Um Representative Bon attended as well u and offered some comments. So that was also recorded by
NCTV our wonderful partners. Um so that's available for anyone. And then earlier last week, we had a group of fifth and sixth grade students. One of the items in our strategic plan in the FK school improvement plan is to develop a peer leadership program to offer leadership opportunities for our fifth
and sixth graders. And 22 students went to Bridgewwater State last week for a full day of training uh through the Mark Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center um to become peer leaders in the school. And during their day, they created an action plan of what they would like to see implemented in the
school to improve the life of students at the FA school. Uh which they came back and presented to uh Adam Tarzek, our assistant principal. Um Lisa, Julia, and Liz, who is our adjustment counselor. Um and they will begin meeting shortly uh next month to start
developing action steps for their proposed action plan. So that's an exciting new program. Happy to take any questions on those, but just a few highlights. Great. Next, we have Miriam here who is uh here to provide the quarterly school
budget update. Good evening. I'm going to give you a brief overview of uh what your budget looks like as of um as of the numbers are as of the first uh quarter in 2026. Um but you'll see the projections. So this is your current 2026 budget and how
it's allocated. Uh and you can see that the majority of it is uh spent on instructional services as it should be. Uh in district administration, I'm anticipating a total deficit balance of 6,000 and change. Um most of this will
be reclassed because we anticipate administrative um services being reclassed through SAC because we provide Whoops. Uh we provide services to the SAC program administratively for their bill paying and that kind of thing. Um
for instruct okay let's try one at a time. There we go. Very sensitive. >> For instructional services uh project pro projecting a deficit of roughly $23,000. We have a new classroom teacher this year that um we added after the budget
was set for grade two based on enrollment. Um, we also have uh some potential reclasses for from our music rebaling account that will um cover some of this. And um don't be alarmed. There's other rebaling funds that are um
following up that I'll talk about. Uh in student services, we have a new licensed practical nurse that we added also based on student needs. Uh anticipating this whole category to be over uh under budget by $1,200. In operations, we will also reclass uh
ex custodial expenses uh for food service for custodians who are cleaning cafeterias and for um the sack program. So that is seeing a balance of $8,000 fixed charges. Um also seeing a balance
of about $8,600. That's where you're seeing most of our contract benefits paid out for uh retirements and that kind of thing. And no surprise at this point, programs with other districts, we have uh a deficit of roughly $313,000.
I'm anticipating. Um our 2026 budget approved the use of stabilization funds. Not sure we're going to need that, but we do have $75,000 that the budget approved if we do need to. Uh we will be reclassifying $233,000 from the circuit
breaker revolving account that we will have to use this year. We also have um the cause of that part partial cause being one uh an out unbudgeted out of district placement. Um we did anticipate using the 233 but the differential there
is because of that out of out of district placement overall looking at a $325,000 deficit at this point but it will be offset by the use of revolving funds um and onetime emergency funds. So let's talk about
that for a minute. We you will recall last year that we had an emergency shelter and we received funding for that emergency shelter. They were one-time funds and they were received in late June and in August in two payments obviously after the close of the last
fiscal year. So those funds will be used in this fiscal year to offset operating costs um costs of ELLL staff u teachers and apparel professional translation services supplies and materials for the program other contracted services. We
also have um we still have an outstanding Mckin Vento transportation reimbursement that's we're waiting for. Not sure it's coming but it's out there and so we might have to use some of this funding for that. Um
the total projected expenses for the year will be spent. We're projecting spending $533,000. So that balance right there that you're seeing is going to you going to be offsetting that some of that 325
in the previous slide. Here's where your revolving funds are right now. Um, and we do use typically, as I said, some school lunch money, some revol music revolving money, and um, some sack money as well to offset uh, the
operating budget. We have a projected use of $70,000 already built into the budget from these funds. Uh, this is where your grants are at this point. You see some FY25 grants that we're just finishing up with some
small balances and some FY26 funds that we're using um as we go along through the course of the year and we anticipate those will be finished um if not all of the 25 grants will be finished by the end of the year. Some of the 26 grants
may still have small balances at the end of the year. And in terms of other special revenue funds, circuit breaker and stabilization, as I said, the 75,000 from the stabilization fund, um we we are not anticipating having to use it
right now at this as of as of now, but we will be using 233,000 in um circuit breaker funding. Key takeaways, emergency shelter funds, one-time funds not available for use for FY27. they're going to be expended by
the end of the year. The the FY26 budget, the $75,000 that we don't anticipate using this year and any other available operating funds at the end of the year can be used to make a second payment on the math
curriculum to prepay tuition and to replenish our sped stabilization account if approved. Uh and so I am happy to and oh gift account summary brief get
balance uh 31,000 on the gift accounts uh and donations as some of which you've approved today uh used for teacher enhancements camp scholarships other events fields etc. Um so that is where you are
happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Leaving it to you. >> Have a great day. Um, as Miam said, we are watching
closely for the with the second payment for Mckin Vento. That balance is carried on the town side um because the town had to pay that bill for us up front. So, that would be a budget transfer. Um, and uh, if there's any remaining funds, we
may be able to use it in a way to help um, offset the potential deficit in next year's budget by prepaying math or prepaying tuitions. Um, obviously, if we didn't have that revenue, we would be not in a great position right now. So, we want to take try to protect us
ourselves from that for next year. So, thanks, Mary. Great. Thank you. All right. Um, quarterly budget I can do very quickly. There were two reports of potential bullying this quarter at the age of day. So the quarter goes from the opening of school to November 1st. Um both were investigated. Uh we have a
formal bullying prevention and intervention plan that outlines how bullying investigations are conducted. Um both cases did not meet the criteria for bullying. At uh FK, there were also two reports um both fully investigated along accordance with our district
procedures. Um these were not found to be bullying but in those cases appropriate disciplinary measures were taken consistent with the code of conduct. Um we continue to provide instruction in anti-bullying and social emotional learning through open circle and through our secondstep program.
Right. Great. So we're going to switch the order if it's okay so we can get Katie to her soccer banquet. Um, one of our goals as a district that we have been working on and Katie has really um taken the lead on that and has really made some nice pro progress is to try to
create a curriculum web page that parents can view or or visit if they want information about the grade level curriculum um look at scope and sequence look at assessment information and in order to make it transparent and easily available. So Katie has started to work
on this um curriculum page. It's our goal for the year and we previewed it last night with our parent leaders. This is in construction. So, we're not bringing you a complete page intentionally because we want to get feedback from users so that we know how to move forward. So, we previewed it
last night with parent leaders who had some really great suggestions and looking at it, I can already see that Katie made some changes today. Um, but she wants to highlight with for you what is what we're intending to have on this page. Um, and then see if there's any feedback or suggestions and we'll continue the work. So go ahead.
>> All right. So yeah, yesterday at the parent leader meeting, they offered some great suggestions and I was already able to make little adjustments on here. So I would love to hear any other suggestions. Um the main goal of this
teaching and learning uh web page, which will take the place of where it says curriculum right now, um is really curriculum transparency. we really want to help our families and our community know um what we're teaching and a little bit more about the scope and sequence or
the order. Um so one of the most uh I think one of the most clicked buttons will be the curriculum by grade and so yesterday the parent leaders um suggested that I make that a bigger button because that's going to draw I think the most clicks. So we'll start
right there. And what we did was, let's see, we separated out by grade. I only have um I'm going to show you fourth grade. They're not all done yet, but if you have a student in fourth grade, you can come to this to this
page. Um on the side, I actually linked a Desi handout. So, this was um something that was given out at open houses uh at both Freeman Kennedy and HOD this year. And for every grade level, the department of elementary and secondary ed comes uh they have a a
welcome page just kind of an overview of the grade level and then one page for each of the core subjects that are really a summary of the standards. The standards in full are going to be in another part of the um of the website. But that so that will all be there.
And then for each of these subject areas, so we have ELA, math, science, history, social, emotional, and um the specials are going to be broken out once you click on there. So for example, if we click on English language arts,
we have um an overview of what the district really feels about teaching English language arts and the learning of it. And so there's a little bit of an overview. And then in every uh content area, so in ELA, math, science, there are the three same buttons, curriculum,
resources, units by term, and report card standards. So I'll click just to show you what that's going to look like. It's very small right now. Um so our core curricular resource for each um each content area is listed with a
little blurb about the philosophy of that program. Uh I I call this the curricular resource and not the curriculum because our curriculum really are the state standards and the resources we use like HMH or Amplify are more of almost like a scope and sequence
and a core set of resources that we use to teach the curriculum of the standards. Um and then the but I'm going I'll have a button here that will bring you right to an HMH family site. Right now it's not live linked. We'll we'll also have the units by term.
So by the end of the year, we'll have all three terms which will then stay up. Um because HMH is in year two and Amplify is in year 1, it's very natural to fall a little bit behind because the programs assume that
students are coming up with the previous grade levels material or learning and they haven't. So there's some filling in the gaps um that that has to take place in the classroom and it's not going to be the same in every class. It's going to be similar but not the same. And so
I'm hesitant to put out term two and term three ahead of time just because we're still living it. Once we live it this year, we'll put it out and then we can always tweak it next year as as we as we're ready. But for ELA, of course, there's reading, writing, and grammar. So, these are the uh units through HMH
that fourth graders will be you um working on through term one. Sometimes you're going to see like it might say begin and it just means they begin a unit but units don't begin and end right within term dates. So, sometimes they'll begin which means there's not an
assessment yet. Um and so it might not be reported graded on yet even though it's in here. Um, and I plan on putting together a document about our report cards just to explain that kind of thing, which will be put in the website as well eventually, but it will also go
home in Wednesday's words. And then the report card standards are the standards that they're graded on on the report card. They're endofyear standards. And so, for example, if we're looking at writes opinion pieces, I'm looking over here.
They may start writing opinion pieces in term one. And so on the report card, they're going to be there's going to be a grade, but it's not going to be um students unless there's outliers always, but students for the most part will not have met the
end of year standard. So there will be a lot of twos, there might be some threes, there might be some ones, it's it's a two or a one is not a negative grade. It is a um reflection of the progress that they're making towards that standard.
So that will be for every grade in every um in every content area. Some of the other things we put on. So for screeners and assessments, this actually came out in the Wednesday's words. This is just another version of it that I put on the website. So, talking about screeners and
assessments, if you click on the links or the buttons, it's the screeners that we do in Fox in I'm sorry, I worked there for um a long time. Um the screeners that we do here in Norfolk um Aadia and Sundessa, we also wrote
home in the Wednesday's words about some of the benchmark assessments. And so there's information about the reading and the writing modules and the amplify MC class. And so any kind of information about teaching and learning, I'm going to continually be updating on
here. Um, go back again. Special education links right to Dr. Tupper special education page. Learning standards. These are the state learning standards that I'm talking about. This is truly the curriculum and the DESIE website. For those of you who most of
you, I'm sure have seen it. It's very dense. There's so much information and so many places to click. So my hope was to find just the the resources that would be most helpful to the community and put them directly on here. It still links to Desi. So if I click on the math
curriculum frameworks, I'm going to the the mass department of elementary and secondary ed and it's the frameworks from preK to 12. It's a 214 page document. So we're not going to scroll through that. Um but if you're looking for some progressions, that's that's on
there. So what else have they updated? Um academic well I'm going to be putting information about digital literacy the um we have a uh tech screening comm or steering committee right now that's really working on some AI guidelines. So
all the things regarding digital literacy will be also um posted here. English language learning academic dates will be dates of the terms and report cards dates things like that. Uh, and then on the this side are some of the
things that I think will be clicked less. I'm not really sure how to um format it just yet because these are going to be more secondary, but um we f we really follow a multi-tered system of support, meaning that if a student is
struggling, there are so many different ways we can provide support to them um before they need to be recommended for an evaluation. Um, and so through the multi-tiered system of support, that is where the Nest comes in. I think I might have put it in here.
>> Nope. Um, so the Nest is Norbook's uh internal >> Do you want to describe the Nest a little better? >> Student support team. So it's a general education program. If a child's struggling and a teacher has been working and they're not seeing progress, they can meet with a group of their
peers with a special education representative. um uh OT, speech, whatever relevant providers and they look at the students work, they look at the challenges and they brainstorm interventions that might help that child succeed. So um every district has the students support team process and so
that nest is ours. Thank you. Um the common accommodations, it's technically called the district curriculum accommodation plan. Um, and again, every district has it. And these are accommodations such as flexible seating,
for example, things that any student at any point might need to take advantage of. And we have it we have it listed in this document. And a little bit more about what the DCAP, we call it the DCAP, um, what it represents. But in short, this is for any student. You
don't need any kind of plans. Um, just to get little accommodations that help them, give them the little boost that they need to succeed. Um there will be the curriculum review process uh the district report card. So that's from Desi. Those go home already.
Um and so this is just a link to them. Title one has a lot of legalities and paperwork. This is the title one funding that we use as um Dr. Already has said to support our math program or our math learning. Um so I'm going to put a little bit more information on there. Um
but it's already it's already really out there. It's just I'll try to house it in one place in case anyone's u interested. And then summer learning, which we are not quite ready for it yet, but in the summertime that will be active. Um, so I'd love to hear if you have any suggestions or things that you're
thinking, gee, I really wish I, you know, I really wish you put that on there. Um, I worked really closely with Adrienne Smith and Mark Peasy. Um, Adrienne is the design guru and Mark is the tech person who has
immense amount of patience teaching us things over and over and over again. Um, I really wanted to be able to uh add and change things as a year goes on. So, he's been lovely in explaining it to us. Whenever we have questions, he comes
over and walks us through. Um, but I'd like to to hear a little bit more from you if there's anything else you're >> hoping to see on here. >> I love it. I think it's great. >> Thank you. >> I think you did a really nice job with it. Um, very accessible and clear.
>> Do you envision it >> like a couple major updates or is it kind of living breathing? If you make an update, it'll go in Wednesday's words just, hey, check out the new section I added. Um, kind of. Is this like a living? So, if there's little updates, I'm not planning on sending it out
through Wednesday's words, but if there's any kind of like addition to the website, which I do think just naturally, but you know, being in a in a public school, there's things that are always changing and happening and we're doing very exciting things that sometimes we want to share. So, yes,
when um I I will add to it as that as as those things come up. Um but I like the idea of putting out a little blurb out in the Wednesday's words to say check it out. These are the new components of the website. Thank you. >> I think some of the questions that we most often hear from parents and that's
sort of what we try to put front and center. Um, a lot of times we hear from people. So, I don't I'm sure you probably never have this experience, but parents will say, I asked my kid what they did at school today and they say nothing or I don't remember or so they're looking for more information
about what what particular units they're studying. Like, so what are they going to learn in social studies this term? what should I be thinking about? And a lot of times parents say, I want to know where it's going. I want to see, all right, so where does this go in sixth grade or next year or what should they have done last year? So the scope and sequence um is really what Katie is
trying to get at by the units uh by term. So to list exactly what particular topics they're exploring by term in each content area, we also get a lot of questions about screeners and what a screener means and what the tools are. Um, so that uh, so the curriculum do
documents and the screeners are like the top things that we think people are going to be most interested in. Um, uh, I think the other things that we'd like to add again are links to the particular program parent resources because like Amplify has great resources for
families, videos that show what you know different subjects that and how things are taught. So those things would be linked in here too. Um but the idea is just for for transparency and ease of use. Um as we live it, I think there'll be format changes or we'll we'll look at the data and we'll say all right the
desi title one information and the desi report cards aren't getting a ton of hits but we are legally mandated to post those on our website. So maybe those go in a different place. So we'll kind of look at the usage patterns to try to make things um easy and not buried in multiple clicks. So that's some of our
goals. So, if you think of anything that um oh, people ask me about this all the time, it'd be great to have that on this website. Um, anything like that would be great because we really want it to be a userfriendly and useful uh tool. >> Yes, >> it looks great. I think on the
curriculum with the terms, maybe the term dates. >> Yes, that's a great idea when just to have it >> when term one starts and ends, etc. >> Love that. Yeah, thank you. I can definitely add that. >> Yeah. So I think you were saying so the the letters to parents so they're always in Wednesday's words or the FK
newsletter I forget which one and then I lose it. So um it would be great if they you know those links it's like >> the family letter by grade. >> Oh yes that's I am definitely thinking about putting those um >> I maybe I should have a button for that
actually because I think that's something that many people will be looking for. Um I was >> possibly you could go with the units by term if there's a family letter that goes with any of those. >> Oh, that's true. I could just link each unit. >> Yeah, >> that would be that would be great. Emails forget where it is.
>> Yeah, they they come in the building letters and not in the district letter. But um yeah, it's it's sometimes hard to keep track, but if we do the units by term and say, "All right, these are the things in ELA." If there's a letter that goes home, it could be part of that in that by term doc. And HMH, I'm sure, has something Oh, they do have something
similar. Um, so I could do it for that. I could look into uh science and social studies and see see what those programs offer for uh parental and community involvement. >> And the second step, the program, which is one of the buttons you can click to,
has those units um and letters that go with each unit. So those could be embedded in that under that button, too. >> It's great to open the second resource. >> All right. Well, thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> And if you have any thoughts again, um, you know, feel free to reach out or send
an email cuz we are, uh, Ky and Adrian have been working hard on this and it's in in construction, so >> it's easier to change as we build to be published. >> I'm hoping for it to go live. Um, by the time we come back from winter break. >> Oh, okay.
>> Um, it will not have all of the all of the buttons won't be active. So, right now, if you click on the curriculum page, it says it's under construction. There'll be um little popups like that on the parts that are still under construction, but all of the um all of the curriculum, you know, K to six
curriculum that I put on top is actually already written and it just needs to go through each of the grade level teams to make sure that I didn't step out of bounds and say something that's crazy because they have the boots on the ground way more than I do and I want to make sure that what I put out to families reflects what's really going on
in the class, right? So that will that is a work in progress. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And thank you doc. >> All right. Next we have Doc Pearl who is our regional director of wellness to provide an update on some of the
projects and things she's been working on in Norol and regionally. I said to Katie, it's been a long time since I had to run to a banquet. Okay. Well, thank you for having me. Um, I'm going to talk a little bit about just wellness and I I list it as I talk
about it on here. I say all the four districts because I always want to remind people that I work for the four districts. Um, and I don't do all of the same things in every district, but for there's a lot of things that are standard across the districts. It's nice to have consistency for all the students in the districts if we can. Um and so
just as a reminder when my role was created it was really created around the whole school whole community whole child model. So at various points I might have my foot in some of these various tenants of health. So I put this slide because one of the
main focus and I think back to when I first came one of the superintendent said one of their priorities was really um around mental health and around increasing services and resources available for families. Um and so this is just to give you sort of some context around why why we're still focusing on
on mental health in schools and why we continue to. Um you know just some stats one in three um youth ages 12 to 17 had me a mental emotional developmental or behavioral problem. Um 16% of children ages 3 to 7 reported to have anxiety or
depression. And if you know those are those years 2022 to 2023 um with some the most recent of the children's data. The children's data doesn't get updated very regularly because the surveys are more difficult to do them when we're doing them with
adults. Um but suicide has been recognized as the second leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 14 and 15 to 24 in the United States in 2023. And you know we see that we hear you look at 10 year olds and you have 10 year olds at FK. So it's a concerning
concerning number of course. Um I this slide is from this um shot is from Metro Adolescent health survey. Um we do that at King Phillip every other year. Um they're actually doing it this week at the schools. So we'll have new data. the data takes a while to come back to us,
but the last time it was 2023. Um, and if you the students are taking this in either October or November when they're coming first into seventh grade. So, as you see some of them, the depression symptoms, self-injury, those are t they're talking about the last 12 months. So, they're reporting about the
things that they felt or attitudes that they had um while they were still here um in the elementary schools. Um the stress numbers actually on that year were lower. Um, I always find this interesting. During CO, the stress numbers were higher. Um, and kids were
pretty stressed as as all of us were with lots going on. So, the numbers dipped a little bit. So, I'm interested to see what the 2025 um data will show us around stress. That's just to provide some context. So, because of that, one of my big focus has really been to
continue to increase access to both, I put tier three, but really both tier 2 and tier three mental health supports. Um, one of our major things has been working with Kerasolus over the last few years. Um, from January of 2024, um, we switched from interface referral to
Keros Solace. Um, Keros Solace financially is a better option for us right now. They also provide services not just for students but for students and their families. Um, we often find there's multiple situations going on that people need support for. We It also covers our staff and their families.
Even though we have employee assistance programs, often staff will feel, oh, people are going to know even though we tell them it's confidential. We don't know anything about that. But it gives them another alternative if they're looking for mental health support. So that care match service helps them to find those resources um matches them
with with someone uh for counseling. I'm going to give you some stats on that in a minute. Um >> can I just jump in clarify? Um so one of the things that we did prioritize for Dot um when we hired her because of where Norfolk's located, we are not near an emergency room or mental health
center. Um and the average wait time for students and families who are are seeking a counselor or um or seeking outside support was well over a year. Um it's very hard to navigate. And so for our families, these are services not provided in the school. for our families
in crisis. There is no you can go to Norwood Hospital, Riverside, but there's no local provider other than that. Um, and then to try to navigate and and access care and support outside of schools. People were getting lost in the weight of a year, 15 months. So,
Carousol is a referral service that we can um access, families can access on their own that helps them match with an outside provider. It's not an inschool service, but it's trying to address that critical need because when students and families have critical unmet needs, it
does impact school and learning. So, this is an outside referral service that's been grant funded that DOT wrote grants for from for multiple years. >> Yeah, we and we have it already um paid for for um through this school year and through the next school year. So, it's nice that to know that we have that and families are used to hearing about it
now. Um and they also have access for u people to care match people for multiple languages which was really helpful to us over the last few years as those numbers have changed. Um the other inschool piece is the partnership between transitions counseling in Norfolk um
with Norfolk schools for school sitebased services. We've tried that for a few years in different formats um and they we met this summer and you know they said we have another approach that we do um in other districts that's working really well. Um so it's going to be something where the school counseling
team members can refer a family um with their consent for a student to have some support from transitions here at school. Um or a family can also refer their own child and call them and then transitions will um manage that whole intake and
help that family decide whether it's appropriate for them to do this counseling service in school, whether it's better for them to come to the office. and then they'll try to fill their their case loads between HOD and Freeman Kennedy. Um right now they're shooting for one day of filling it. Um I think they're going to um and then
they'll decide what what's going to happen beyond that. Um but it's nice to have >> funded by students families private insurance. It's just addressing the fact that some families also have transportation issues to get to a counselor. So that would allow the counselors to come to school and the family to receive the services here
>> and providing it in school. A lot of times people say, "Oh, well, you know, we don't want it in school because they're going to miss math or they're going to miss English." But sometimes when kids are really struggling, they're not accessing that curriculum anyway. Um, and they're struggling. So, if we can help package them up and get give them some skills to be able to u get
through that day in that content area, um, it's helpful. And the transitions will also work very closely with the families on back to the school referral person to try to make sure there's coordinated care going on. Um, and so in the meantime, I also continue to build relationships with area outside
providers. Um, and pro I provide updates to the school counseling teams. They have a a spreadsheet of all the agency offices and you know, when I know there's openings, I might put that there. I know there's a specialty that's added to that agency, I'll put that. Um, I ask them not to give that to families because it's a lot of resources, a lot
of agencies, and it's overwhelming, you know, when you see it. And I think, you know, sometimes families will say, "Well, I called 12 pe 12 places and I'm on a wait list everywhere." Um, and so they use it though if they have a family that calls and says, "Hey, I have this particular need." And they can go to that list and see what that's all about.
Um, I think one of the things that's really key to those services is that it takes some of that off the plate of the counseling team so that they can actually do direct care of the students that are here in school that day. Um, and they're not spending time calling agencies and finding looking for openings, all of that. Um, and I think
you this is something that we hear about all the time. Average number of years between a child's first symptoms and mental health issue and when they actually receive treatment is 11 years. Um, and that that number has stayed pretty consistent over the last few years when they look at those numbers nationally. So that's really hard
because you think about a child maybe struggling for years and years um and it doesn't provide proactive care. So just to give you a sort of a capsule of care solace a little get a little bit to know about that. Um it provides the care match services as we said at no
cost and then the actual service is provided through the VA's insurance. Um we started January 2024 um and through this November there's been 16 appointments. I know it doesn't seem like a large number, but if you look um at the usage since we started,
warm handoffs would be your your school people referring a family or for students. So there were six only 16 referrals. There were um 24 family initiated calls, which is a good number because we've been trying to push the word out to families. Um and then there
were 58 anonymous searches. We don't see we won't know how many appointments are made from the anonymous searches. Um but from the family and the um school referrals, 16 appointments, eight declined services once they work through
that system and 16 were unreachable. And I've talked to the counselors a lot about the unreachable ones. We have to keep reminding families when you're referring them, we're going to get a call. You're going to get a call from Carales. And what happens is a lot of families won't answer those calls because they say, I I don't remember this. I don't remember talking to somebody about this agency. So we're
trying to educate them that you're going to get this call. please respond and then follow through. Um, so that's why that number is a little it's one that's probably the most concerning to me, the unreachable ones because for some reason and sometimes people change their mind about wanting to get services, but we want to make sure that if they want
them, they it follows through. So the dashboard also gives me sort of a sense of what people are calling for, what what kinds of needs are they presenting. So when they call and they say, you know, I have a 10-year-old and this is the what I'm dealing with and they have they can say any number of
things that they're they feel like they're dealing with. So anxiety has been the highest one since we started. Um trauma has been up there though that was a little bit lower last year. Um this is the most recent um from this this summer to the fall. Um and so those
numbers have moved around a little bit but anxiety, trauma, depression, um depression was a little higher last year. So those numbers continue to stay high. Okay. So mental health screening um as you know mental health screening is
something that schools haven't done a lot of at the elementary level. Um we have been doing screening in and a variety of high schools for years around signs of suicide um around some of the other mental health concerns. The department of ed along with you know
many of the mental health resource um providers in the area have talked about this for a long time in terms of how do we identify proactively and and prevent in a preventive mode who which students are struggling who needs help first and how to be proactive about helping get
those um services to them so that it it maybe reduces um further outcomes of crisis or behavioral issues later on and and instead maybe helps make give them more positive outcomes down the road. So the screening um we last year the counseling
teams spent the whole year learning about screening and what that is all about at the mental health level. Um just like your academic screeners, it's part of a multi-tered system of support in terms of finding out who are the kids that are maybe struggling and how do we get them a tier of intervention that
would help mitigate those. So um we know that the academic learning, behavior and social interactions are impacted when a student is struggling with mental health concern. The schools spend an awful lot of time um putting fires out a crisis today, you know, behavioral issue tomorrow, whatever that is, it takes a
lot of time out of the classroom, but also for the providers in the school. So if we can find identify students early and and provide interventions to them to be proactive, you hopefully reduce future concerns of crisis. So the team
looked at a number of screeners. They decided to go with the revised children's anxiety and depression scale which referred to as ARADS. Um it's a 25 question screener. Um quick answer is kids take about five minutes to take it. Um, a lot of the questions are around
worry and the things that might cause them concern. Um, I don't know whether they're going to stay with that screener. They have talked a little bit about whether that's meeting the need of what they had helped to uh find from it. But so this year it was an optin and we did not screen the kids who
either um didn't opt in, they opted out or they didn't respond at all. So it was just the opt-in. So there were only 71 students of grade five screened. We decided to try um this with grade five um rather than your younger kids because we also have these fifth graders for
this year and next year to help them before they go off to middle school where there's other concerns that may come up. Uh the middle school in seventh grade and the high school and actually all the grades now does do the archads as well so that their kids are used to those questions. Um, so of the ones that
they did this year, there were 20 students that needed follow-up. And the follow-up doesn't mean that we need to hits an urgency that there's a crisis and we need to call Riverside. When we use the term um urgent or clinical, um, what we're referring to is really sort
of a coordinated response term that we say, okay, who are the kids that we need to do some follow-up on? So, our urgent kids might be the ones that had the most concerns. they answered the most of their questions were a higher score in terms of how they responded. Um, and we
only had um two students that fell in that urgent category. The urgent doesn't diagnose anxiety or depression, nor does clinical. All it does is it says there might be some symptoms that students demonstrating or um attitudes that they're having that are causing them
some angst. Um, and so wherever their score falls, they would either be urgent or clinical, but really again, it's not a diagnosis. It's just there are some symptoms or some concerns that the student might be experiencing. Um, and then the counselors would talk to the family. Um, the coordinated response
requires that this the counselors would see all the students that needed followup, talk to them if they had question about, you know, number three, you answered this, can you tell me more about that? Very easy conversation they might have as a counselor. And then they would call the p the parent and they would say okay here's what we found
let's talk about this a little bit often times and they found this this year that many parents said you know we're already aware of that also we've been seeing that same thing we're already connected to a counselor or yes please refer me to car solace or maybe you can consider me for the transitions in school and counseling so they were able to to talk
about what might help that family right away um they're also looking at well are there what's the what what kids responding about are there many kids responding that they're just having anxiet about school related issues. So maybe they could create a group for kids
around anxiety in school and how to deal with that. Um and when we do the seventh grade youth behavior survey, it always comes out when we talk it talks about what things make kids anxious and the usually the highest is school followed by social appearance, right?
And social skills, right? So um but anyway, um so you just when you see that you just know it's not a diagnosis. It's not that they're saying take this child to your psychiatrist tomorrow or your psychologist because we feel like they need to be on medication or anything like that. It just puts it on the table
and gets the conversation going and that whatever they decide to do is really a a coordinated effort between the parent family and and the school. Um so um the other piece is really the focus for me has been always to increase
families um awareness and staff as well of the resources provide learning to increase family and staff capacity to support children. Um so you know when we have different families having needs so many and that students have those needs when they're coming to school the the
wellness website we try try to keep that up. I add things to it all all the time. um just added some new information on the heat um assistance programs. Uh the food access is one that um we've been working on obviously once with all that was going on with SNAP as well as the
increase in families that are having food insecurity. Um we updated all the family uh food access resources on the website. So we'll keep that updated. It's um I'm glad and grateful that I can have the same website for all four districts. So when I update everybody gets that same update on it. Um so we'll
keep doing that. Um, also the wellness newsletters are additions to the Wednesday's words or principal newsletters if I just have a small amount of information to share out. Um, Ingred already talked about screen aers, but you know, the other focus is really helping educate parents and caregivers
um, and giving them skills to be able to best support their students as well. So, we'll be doing some other things during the year. Um, again, another Screen Aers uh, elementary edition. Um, as well as there's a screeners one that's related to addiction that, um, Healthy KP
purchased four of them for us this year. So, we were able to, um, show one at the middle school, the elementary one here, and the elementary one at Planeville, and then the other one later in the spring. Um and then you know one of the things that we've also tried to do is really keep employees reminded that care
solace is for them and that there are other employee wellness resources that they might have because when staff are struggling they can't be their best for the students in front of them. So we try to give them that. So I have a padlet that I provide to the staff for all those kinds of resources that are out
there. I think um just briefly wellness advisory um I chair the wellness advisory um at three of the districts and I sit on um the one in rent them um but um we meet four times a year last
year um I'm sorry in 2022 23 we did a trienal assessment that the school committee approved uh in April of 2023 we're required to do a trienal assessment um again in 2026 so we will be doing that starting in our next
meeting which is in December and going into the spring so that we can have it to the school committee prior to April 2026 um DESIE this year in partnership with uh switch the school wellness initiative for thriving community health created a tool for us um we used to use one called
the wellsat from um from Yukon um both are a little dense but this one makes it a little bit easier to really look at the Massachusetts laws related to the things that are in the wellness policy as you know, um, physical education, nutrition, um, and all of those things.
So, we'll be working on that this year. And then, you know, current grants. I looked at when I did this slide, I said, "Oh, it's disappointing because other years I've I've been able to secure a little bit more funding." Um, the DESIE grant we've received every year. The superintendent got it the year that I
was hired and then every year I've been able to apply for that. We've received it. this year um they didn't offer as much money to the districts which was really discouraging because we usually get much more than that. Um and that bulk of that grant pays for the carousel contracts for the districts. Um but there's some other things that the
districts um each have have talked to me about. Um and then in Norolk we've been lucky to get the opioid settlement monies um three times now um to help support our uh family social worker here in Norolk. Um I was really when I saw um
Anita here, I was glad because the slick board was really supportive. Um especially in this last round because they had more requests for funding. Um and they didn't have a huge amount that they were doing out this time. Um and a couple of the members spoke up and said, "No, we really believe that these services are needed by the schools. Um
because when we do we have any opioid settlement funds, we really need to talk about harm reduction, um access to care. So all the things that we've been trying to work on Any questions? I'm
>> real quick. How many do you How many fifth graders we have total? >> Is it 162? About >> 162. >> I I couldn't hear. How many fifth graders total? >> I I think it's 160 or 158. >> Yeah. Isn't that about It was about half
of the students that took the the assessment. >> Just under half. Okay. >> Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Was that exciting? >> And I think it's the first time too that we did it as an opt-in. We did it as a pilot in a couple of classes as an opt-in last year, but not as a grade level. Um, so I think uh people are
still learning about it. We had some parents that wanted to come in and talk through and look at the instrument, which people are welcome to do. Um, but it was more the first time. I think, you know, as as it becomes more familiar, we may have more parents choose to u participate.
>> Yeah. I have a fifth grader and I was surprised by how few of his classmates took it. So I don't I don't know if that was expected but you know he came home and he was like >> expecting about half. We thought it would be about you know anytime you roll out something new and I know
>> well I know know it's opt in and if you don't get a response then so that also yeah and some of the screeners at the upper levels um it's opt out and if they don't hear they screen them they screen everybody but here because it was the first time and it's elementary kids feel
more of a need to make sure parents are in you know the deal. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Well thank you for having me. Thank you. >> Um and again, Don has done some tremendous work for our district. We're so fortunate to have her. Um the the
screener jurors, as I talked about earlier, uh she does a lot of grant writing for us, a lot of work with our mental health team. Um a lot of professional development. So, uh thank you for sharing some of the highlights of that tonight with us. Anyone else?
All right. Next uh on the agenda is my uh I have prepared some draft goals for uh the 25 to 27 school year. Um the the goals are proposed as two-year goals. Um
per the state typically we have a I have a are requested to have a professional practice goal. So uh professional learning goals uh district improvement goals and then student learning goals. So, that's sort of how these are shaped. There are um uh four goals that I'm
providing tonight. I do anticipate that I will be adding a fifth district inclusion goal. I haven't drafted it yet and I think I put a note in this. Um as you know, we recently applied for to the MSBA for funding for a school building
project. If we are selected by MSBA and invited to participate, we will have to do a new feasibility study, new working with the new building committee. So, I would anticipate drafting a goal around that. If we are not selected, then I
think we need to form a space study committee with input from the town and other community members to come up with a temporary solution. So, I'm just not sure how how to craft that goal until I know whether or not we're going to be >> eligible for funding. Um but I think that's a critical it's going to be very
timeconuming and and a critical um thing that I attend to over the course of this year. So that goal I will provide in December. MSBA is going to be making their decision on which districts to invite um into the project on December 12th at their board meeting. So I will
have a goal as soon as I know which direction we're going. >> Okay. Um, I also based my goals after the I had a chance in the fall to meet with each school committee member individually uh to talk about my evaluation and to talk about what you would like to see over the course of
this year. So, I took that feedback and and incorporated that as well. So, the first goal that I'm proposing is a professional practice goal. Um, as Katie talked about tonight and you've heard many, many times with the committee that came in March, we u that came in May, we are in the process of implementing a new
math program. One of the biggest thing changes in this math program is that um the way we're approaching teaching math is different. It relies a lot on supporting students in articulating and explaining their thinking, creating their own models, being able to engage
in a mathematical discourse, prove their reasoning. It's a different kind of approach. Kids are not doing a worksheet of 20 problems. They might be doing two to three problems where they're a actively figuring out the conceptual math behind the algorithm and being able to explain why the formula works or why
it doesn't. So that whole math discourse piece um is really critical. We see a lot of students that are successful that are good at memorizing facts and memorizing math succeed and thrive in elementary math and crash in algebra. um algebra is a gatekeeper to upper uh more
advanced math and it relies on that conceptual understanding. So that is a pedagogical shift. Um it is something that I think that as an administrative team we need to learn along with aside with our teachers and really look at what are the strategies that promote active um and rich mathematical
discourse in classrooms. Um how do we facilitate and encourage that? What are high leverage strategies that people can be using? Um so my goal is around working with the leadership team to increase the coaching capacity around facilitating and promoting robust mathematical discourse um in classrooms
and to um help our administrators as they are working with teachers support them in implementing those high leverage strategies. Um I've articulated a number of action steps. We do have administrative team meetings weekly. I always have an article or professional reading that we start the um admin
meeting with and we've been focusing a lot on um research around math discourse. We're going to be doing a book study. There's an excellent uh professional text on the five practices in practice uh successfully orchestrating math discussions in elementary classrooms that we'll be
reading with the admin team. Uh, additionally, we want to do uh, as we typically do, some shared observations to look at what highquality um, instruction and and those strategies look like across the developmental levels. Um, and then to work with the Norfolk Teachers Association Eboard to
develop some common expectations for what do we want to see in successful math classrooms. Um so additionally we really want to work closely with teachers to understand how the program is going and what their needs are for professional development so that we can
really thoughtfully plan our data team meetings, our curriculum meetings and our PD opportunities. So there's um that's another one of the action steps. We do uh regularly look at data but we want to be really focused on um administrative data team meetings analyzing data from the observations as
well as our benchmarks to see how the implementation's going where students are doing well where we might need to supplement or adjust the curriculum in the first year of implementation. Um um I also am looking to work with the special education director and the
curriculum director around providing targeted professional development for our pair professionals that support the math program in our resource rooms or other uh special education programs. So um I won't go through all of them but that gives you kind of a sense of some of the action steps. Um and then I
always say this evidence for goal attainment. I can provide the the admin meeting agendas, the district for documents and the PD plan that will reflect some of those things. Um district improvement goals. One of the things that we are continuing and I will be co-leading this year uh for the
second year is the technology steering committee. We did a lot of work which we shared with you at the end of last year around screen time guidelines um and intentional use of technology in the Northfor schools which was based on uh a wide range of research parent survey school survey data that we gathered last
year and developed that and brought that to the school committee. This year our focus is shifting and we are looking at uh the role of artificial intelligence. I think we have to uh artificial AI is here to stay. It's not going away. It's
in the background of a lot of programs. We need to have thoughtful plans on how we protect academic integrity um and student learning. We also have to think carefully about student data privacy. Um I think one of the biggest mistakes that we've made in education is with the
advent of social media. We didn't do enough proactive education for students on what social media what the risk and dangers were, how to protect themselves. We don't want to make that same mistake with AI. So we need to have a thoughtful plan for how we're teaching students um about how to navigate and how to use um
AI. We also have to think about transparency and so where is it present in the schools so the parents and families know. So that's a pretty big project but that is our focus for this year and I'll be leading that um with Trish Kelly our director of technology. uh our intent is to bring recommendations from that committee to
the policy committee for a global AI policy um for the school committee to consider and then from there develop procedural guidelines for each of those things that are much more specific specific and explicit. So procedural guidelines for student data privacy,
procedural guidelines for AI um use in the classrooms, all of those uh subtopics. So it's a lofty goal, but we hope to have that work done. Um, I hope to have a policy recommendation to the policy committee for January. Um, and the procedural guidelines by the end of the year. Um, we are sort of ahead of
the path here, although it seems like we're behind because AI is like rolling down the hill. Um, but none of our other regional counterparts have this work done yet. So, we're sort of pioneering this, but we'll partner as as we work through it where we can with KP and and
our other uh districts. um evidence of goal attainment. There would be the district AI policy. Um a curriculum docu document outlining the scope and sequence for what we think we need to provide for instruction. I do see that that primarily being in the upper grades
um although there might be some um understanding what AI is in the lower grades um because students certainly experience that. And then um parent if we do once we you'll see in the action steps I think we have to really do some some thoughtful work around community
engagement parent workshops sharing out what you know what the school uh protocols are what it looks like um gathering feedback from the community. So I would have surveyed uh or workshop records from from those events. Um goal three is around enriching and
strengthening the culture and climate of the schools. um fostering robust two-way communication and collaboration among staff, parents, and administration and also expanding active family engagement in ensuring that our schools remain safe, inclusive environments. Um, one of the things that I am trying this year is
uh hosting bimonthly drop-in office hours at each school building uh to provide more opportunities for staff to share their experiences and insights regarding programs and district needs. Um also working with the uh and uh with the administration and NTA roundt
meeting um we do those bimonthly pretty much um to problem solve any issues that are arising. Also we have been advertising and expanding the district parent leaders group. So we have 22 people that are part of that group now. Um we had our first meeting
last night. Not everybody was able to attend. I do think we are going to be looking at hybrid and and virtual ways that people can participate. Um we're also thinking about on the website putting uh a place for the parent leaders where we can have post agendas, meeting notes, things like that if the
community is interested. Um we are reformatting based on feedback from the community and from parents the district newsletter. So it's it's almost impossible I find to find just the right amount of communication. Some people want a lot. Some people say, "You're
sending me too many emails." We have streamlined communication. We used to send a lot of connect edits and people said, "I'm getting way too many emails." So, we streamlined and now we only send things on Wednesday. It's either the building newsletter or the district newsletter. Um, that people liked um but
then people said, some people say, "Well, it's way too much. It's too much information to read." So, what we've done to reformat, we are really doing like a paragraph on each topic um that gives the highlights and then you can click if you want to read more about that topic. So, we're trying that. We'll
see how that works. Um but we are reformatting that. Um we and then I will be working with Katie on the transparency around the the curriculum websites. Another area that I'd like to work on um thinking about bringing some we used to do and I used to host parent
coffee meetings for informal discussions or diff over different topics. uh thinking of trying that again on some of the subjects like for example AI I think it's nice to have informal settings where parents can ask questions and communicate um and when we even though their coffees I've tried to stagger the
time so I would do one morning and one evening um so that it's accessible for parents continuing work working with PTO CPAC and parent leaders um to try to host at least one community event annually um we have had a tech a technology night PTO
did a great job with their um their cultural heritage night. Um so I'd like to kind of continue to think about that. We've been talking about like a math education night or different kinds of workshop. But I think one thing that we heard from a lot of families is they miss the the gatherings, the time to come together for something special at
the school that that um I think people really felt the loss of during co. So we've been bringing those things back, but I think that's important to continue. Um uh I would like to I would also like to we started with a a
parent community equity working group. Um I'd like to get that group back mobilized again. It was looking at trying to bring resources and make things available for families, especially new families to the district. I don't think it's feasible this year um with negotiating two contracts and
potentially a building committee, but I would like to see that come back next year. Um and then the I've listed the evidence of goal attainment and then the student learning goal. Um one my professional practice goal is really focusing around strengthening math instruction but it's
a new adoption. So you know we're teachers are still learning the program. Um so the student learning goal want to focus on ELA. I did add to the packet I think did we put that in the the go the data from my last year's goal? >> That last goal sheet.
>> Yeah. I don't have it in my packet. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, last year I had a gap narrowing goal and achievement goal around ELA. Um I put a summary of that data in your packets. Uh I do feel that we met that goal. We had a uh the
goal was can I just follow that? Um we were looking to see a 4% increase in the MCAST scores for all students with a larger increase for students in special education because we're trying to to narrow that gap. Um and the difference
was uh from 23 to 25 was 4% for all students and 10% for special education. So I met the the original goal for that. Um and then on the Aadians benchmark we were looking for similar gains. Again the data shows an 11.7% increase for all
students um and a smaller gain for students with disabilities but we did not have disagregated data available in the first year. So I only have one year of data. So it's hard to really analyze the trend there. But I think that goal um was successfully met. So I want to kind of build on that. Uh and the goal
I'm proposing for ELA is around continuing to strengthen um the our our uh data analysis and MTSS practices looking to increase the percentage of ST students scoring in meets and exceeds. That's my time. Sorry time's up. um to
increase the percentage of students in meets and exceeds by 10% from the 2025 baseline of 58% um getting us back into the the high 60s and increase the number of students um meeting or exceeding the benchmark at the end of year's composite
score um from the baseline of 76.4% to 80%. So continuing that positive momentum um uh I think Peter you had talked about last year looking for lofty goals around our comparison groups. So I also have a second target around um advancing average ELA student
achievement to the top third of our identified comparison districts by the end of the 2620 27th school year. Um and then the target three is around that gap narrowing for students with disabilities who score in the meets and exceeds category looking for a higher increase um there because if they you know if
we're trending and with the 10% increase across the board that gap isn't getting any smaller. So um working again with our special education director and curriculum director to look at how we can intensify services to try to help bridge that gap. Um a variety of uh
action steps are outlined there and then the district MCCAST report and baseline benchmark report would be u metrics that you would have to measure progress towards that goal. Um I again the MCCAST data doesn't come till the end of the year. So I have to give you my final
data the like I did today um for for the year after but those would be the metrics for those. So those are the four goals I'm proposing with an additional goal around the addressing the critical care shortage um to to be presented at a later time once we know which direction
we're going. Happy to take any comments, suggestions, feedback. Um if there's anything you feel that I should be addressing that I'm not within these I'm happy to discuss those further. I appreciate the aggressive um goals towards improving test scores
to kind of being back at or in excess of where they were pre- pandemic. I think it's I do think it's aggressive. I mean I think it's >> aggressive. Do you I mean I'm 100% behind it if you think you can get it done. I mean it's it's >> we're going to try our best.
>> Okay. And do you feel I mean just taking into consideration both Miriam's discussion of our budget where we discussed where we would be but for emergency funding that we're using to offset some costs and the budget discussions we've been have. I mean do you feel you will have appropriate
supports >> and the right environment within the schools to achieve that goal? >> I think that's that's the hope. Um I think the budget is difficult. Um obviously these things are impacted if we have to increase class size significantly or cut reading or math
support. Those would be be challenges. What I do think we have um we now have a strong core ELA program. We have rich resources. Our teachers have had a uh well just a year plus a little bit of learning this program. Um we have
strengthened the MTS program and procedures that we have in place. Um, I think we we were able to keep our class sizes appropriate this year. So, with those things in place, um, and the right professional development and support, I do think that we will see continued momentum. Um, I do think as in the
action steps that I outlined, there's opportunities for us to strengthen and make sure that our um, specialized programs and our programs are tightly aligned and as as research and robust as they can be. Um, and they may we might have some additional resources that we
need to bring in. Um, so budget is a constraint, but I think I'd rather aim high and see how far we can go. >> Yep. So, >> love it. >> That's great. >> I think those are great goals. You did a great really nice job. >> Well, well thought through and as usual
and good goals. Yeah. Um, one of the things that we So, I would need a a motion to approve the goals with the fifth goal to to come. >> Okay. >> And then we would just vote on the fifth vote on the fifth goal when I when I have that if that's okay. >> So, looking for a motion to approve the
goals as currently written. >> I move to approve the four goals outlined in exhibit seven with a fifth goal TBD separately. >> I'll second. >> Discussion. All those in favor? Hi.
>> Hi. >> Okay. And then the last thing I have for tonight, um, and you sort of had a preview through, um, looking at the letter the school committee sending and, um, talking earlier, but the, uh, Dr. Cameron from Rentham and I prepared
joint testimony today for the chapter 7 virtual listening uh, session. One of the things that we have been struggling with that a lot of suburban districts are struggling with is the the significant financial shortfall of the chapter 70 formula. Um as I said earlier
the way the formula and the student opportunities act is structured. Um a lot of funding is being targeted to gateway cities where there's certainly a critical need. So it is helping to address some of those critical needs in gateway cities. Um but educational spending in gateway cities is growing
where everybody else is is it's it's decreasing. Um I think it's unrealistic. Uh the challenge that we have as a minimum aid district is that we do not have the capacity to absorb these shortfalls year after year after year. And what is pushing us is into cycles of
continuous sustained cuts every year which is eroding the quality of education and services that we can provide. um some of the challenges that we highlighted in our testimony today. One uh was around the inflexible local contribution. Uh this does touch on the
proper Prop 2 and a half, but it just really highlights that um small municipalities, the local community, the local contribution to the educational budget is is really built on property taxes and local tax revenue. That's the only source of revenue that Norfolk has.
It is um people are stretched thin in this economy. Norfolk has high tax rates with very few services. You pay for a lot of services beyond um what other communities pay for in taxes and it's not realistic. That's not real a realistic way to fund schools and escalating costs is to keep going back
to citizens to self-pay. Um so that's not um that is not a a an appropriate lever or an appropriate expectation. The other thing is we don't have uh in Norfolk and and many small districts don't have the economies of scale large
districts have. So when there's a budget shortfall, we can't just eliminate a position and absorb that. When you eliminate a position here, uh especially a teacher position or special education, it has a profound impact on class sizes or um you know when we look at administration. So the foundation budget
which is driven by chapter 70 calculates what they ex they consider adequate spending to to provide an adequate education. It is by community. We underspend the recommended adequate spending for administration by about 20%
15 to 20% annually. Um so we're already under spending. We're stretched really thin there. Um and we again we have our class sizes are rising every year. Um we have class sizes and we have for a couple of years our average class size
is about 21. Cambridge and Boston the max class size for for K to2 is 19. We're exceeding urban districts in terms of class size. Um so we don't have the economies of scale to make position eliminations without profound impacts on programs and students. Um the other
thing uh we we've talked about this before but small suburban districts the department of ed has mandated curriculum updates and changes. Districts have to adop adopt programs that are considered researchbased highquality instructional materials. We've talked it it was a huge
struggle to fund the ELA adoption. We didn't have the revenue. We had to stage it over two years. It was delayed by a year. We don't have that kind of revenue. So these are state mandates coming down forced upon districts that don't have any funding attached to them. Um so we don't have that that source.
The all the competitive grants that Desi offered were prioritized by high um uh urban districts that had high poverty rates that were underperforming schools. We applied every single year. We never got funding. Um other districts were getting half a million dollars to support these new uh adoptions. So
there's lack of funds for curriculum adoptions. Um and and as a result, it's reducing our competitiveness. It it makes it difficult to hire new teachers, to keep teachers. We have a high teacher retention rate, but we're not going to sustain that if we continue to make cuts in people. We're hiring people and your job's not secure. Um so those are some
of the things that we talked about at the hearing today. Um we advocated for four uh four things that we think are critical to be addressed. Um increasing minimum aid. We're we're advocating for minimum aid to be up to 250 per pupil. um which is almost double what it is
currently. Um in order to stop the erosion of baseline services, we also advocated for fixing the inflation glitch. Again, they need to address implementing a mechanism to adapt adapt the foundation budgets inflation factor in years um where the statutory cap is
falls below what the true increase of cost is. Um, we talked about updating the model bud budget enrollment assumptions and again thinking about multipliers for foundation budgets for rural, regional or small districts with less than two 2500 students where fixed costs like administration and
maintenance consume a disproportionate share of educational dollars and then fully funding the special education circuit breaker. So when um Marian was talking about how we're going to apply $233,000 to the special ed deficit for circuit breaker, circuit breaker is the
state um mechanism for funding or re reimbursing districts for highcost educational programs for students with specialized needs. It's it comes after the fact. So we submit our expense, they they reimburse us, and that money can be
used to apply um to the next year. It's only funded about 65%. it's not 100% funding. So the shortfall again has a disproportionate impact on on small municipalities. So those were the four solutions that we um advocated for today. We have submitted our written
testimony to the state as well, but this is just a copy of it for your reference. Um there were quite a few people. They're having four different listening sessions. Um during today this afternoon quite a few people testified. There were several superintendents from rural districts, some from suburban districts.
there were a few state representatives. Um I think pretty robust discussion. So I think the letter that the committee is sending will also help. Um I'm really hopeful that there will be some changes made to chapter 70 because um Norfolk's
on the edge of a pretty significant financial cliff. Um and and something has to change and I don't think it's going to come in the form of an override from a a community where people are already struggling. So um uh anything that we can do uh the Norfol teachers
association I've also spoken with and they are considering um submitting a letter as well. There were some uh teacher uh MTA presidents in different districts we spoke today at the hearing too. Um, so I think a pretty diverse uh representation of people. Happy to take
any questions or um >> I mean as representatives of small municipalities, did you feel like there was there were other voices added to yours in that kind of >> I think there were um I'm trying to think uh the superintendent from Berkeley spoke um earlier in the night.
Um I think uh Brockton I think uh Allan and I represented uh rent them in Norfolk. >> Uh somebody from MASS spoke um uh Easton I believe I I saw you bra there. >> So there there were quite a few
communities and this was only one of the four sessions. >> Um and then we had school committee so I didn't get to hear the last because it was from 4:00 to 7:00 tonight. So, >> um, but yeah, I think there's I think there's quite a I think the the primary, >> um, areas they're hearing from are
rural, suburban communities. >> Okay. Okay. >> You know, they they're getting a lot of access to to revenue. >> A lot of Got it. >> Thank you for doing that. You're welcome. to everything. >> Fingers crossed that it has some some
sort of impact. Um, cumulatively, not our not our fiscality, but cumulatively. Um, I I'm I'm hopeful because we're not the only like in the last few years, the the last probably three budget cycles that we've been through. Um, when I go to the regional round table of
superintendents, everybody was in in in reductions in in eliminating positions. Nine, Sharon, everybody was in the same position we were. And there's a crazy statistic about I mean if you look at it's like 300 plus municipalities in the Commonwealth and in the past several years it is a disproportionate number
that have even tried to go to an operational override and those are consistently being driven not a debt exclusion not a capital override an operational override >> and every municipality is allocating 60 to 70% of their funding towards education it's educational over like it is
>> it is systemic across the Commonwealth I mean and I think in districts like ours but also even in larger I mean they're not passing they're not passing like the over bill in and Franklin were unsuccessful which leaves those communities
um cutting massive amounts of teaching positions and programs. Um so it's not solvable at the municipal level. It's got to be a state solution. I didn't notice u when I was looking through this I noticed all the dates of the hearings but did they say anywhere
maybe I just missed it when they're going to make a decision on this or >> I no I think that this commission is supposed to issue a report of findings and I think that's that's early in January but I could be wrong I I need to double check that. I'm not sure if if
the submissions are due at the end of December or if that's when they think they'll have an initial. So I'll get back to you on that. >> Okay, great. All right, that's all I had for tonight. Moving on to committee and liaison reports.
Peter, did you want to introduce the >> policy? >> I was not prepared. Oh, I can I can that that was the only policy we have for tonight was on meal modifications and I think you used for the committee last night. It was just
>> really it's a a legally required policy that's just um base or documenting procedures we already offer. Um, so basically saying that we will make accommodations to meals and meal substitutions at no charge for students with disabilities or other special
dietary uh needs on a case- by case basis and that there's a required meal modification request form. Um, so this is part of the requirement for USDA funding for our meals. Um, and it is not um asking our staff to do anything that they're not already doing. So, but we
are required to have a policy. So, I think we were hoping that the committee would wave the three readings and and vote to adopt. >> I move that we wave the three readings and vote to adopt the policy as outlined in exhibit 9. I'll second it made sense
in the last meeting. It's >> further discussion. All those in favor? I >> I >> also this does have to be put now that you've approved it in the student handbook. That's a requirement as well. calendar will be added to the student subcommittee budget subcommittee.
>> Uh nothing to report. I'm sure we will have lots to report in the coming months, but nothing this month. >> We're going to probably have our first meeting in December. >> Uh building committee. >> Uh just waiting and hoping.
>> Good. King Phillip >> uh KP school committee was cancelled last night so nothing to report >> really cranking very little to discuss. >> CPAC lots to discuss. Trunk or treat
last month was their most successful to date. Their volunteer trucks included HOD admin teachers Norfol Fire, Norfol PD. Um the HOD maintenance staff were incredibly helpful. The Norfick Lions supported parking management and decor
and professional uplighting and they're just really incredibly thankful for the community to showing up for their event. An email went out today on their eye care program. Uh and they are seeking parent volunteers for their disability awareness ability acceptance reading
program. IARE is running both at HOD and Freeman Kennedy throughout January and February. And it is an initiative that builds students understandings of abilities and disabilities to promote kindness, acceptance, and inclusion. The commitment for parents to read aloud is no more than 30 minutes per session. You
can sign up for as many as you want. There's a training session on December 1st. And questions, email norcpackgmail.com. Uh event happening this week on Thursday evening here. Art therapy and mental health workshop for parents. This
workshop aims to introduce parents to the therapeutic benefits of creative expression as a tool for stress relief, mental and physical well-being, and self-discovery. Their hands-on activity guided by art therapist Dr. Laren Leon. Participants will explore various art mediums like painting, draw, and collage to enhance
self-awareness, reduce stress, and strengthen connections with their children. And then finally, one more. Save the date. This sounds pretty cool. February 24th. also here a Norfolk CPAC workshop rethinking social development
in a post-pandemic world. In this workshop, they'll explore the impact of CO 19 on children's social skills development from the loss of organic practice opportunities during the key developmental years to the rise of technology mediated communication. They'll examine shifts in social norms
and habits have shaped today's challenges. So, a lot of things great things going on with the CPAC and they're always looking for volunteers. PTO >> PTO um started their year off strong per
their direct quote um 24 local business sponsors um across the course of their initial fundraisers which included the back to school night bake sale which sold out at HOD evidently and the fifth and sixth grade movie night. They have
already raised over $3,000 towards FK promotion activities. I think they put that money towards um they have rolled out some curriculum enhancements um at the kindergarten level and at FK through the Discovery Museum and
through arts for learning in Massachusetts. They had a bingo night last Friday that was sold out. Um so that's exciting and they wanted me to extend thanks to the HOD and FK teachers that helped out with that. Um, upcoming fundraisers are fun pasta sales through
the month of November. Not 100% sure what that is, but they say it would make a great holiday gift >> cuz you missed the last meeting. It's fun. >> It's fun pasta. It sounds great. Um, fun. And, uh, working on food drives um, in
coordination with HOD and FK. I believe um PTO members will be transporting all of the donations and collections to the local pantries. And um both of my children's favorite time of the year when they were students here, uh Scholastic Bookf Fair is coming up. So
create your little accounts, load them up, get your books or big accounts. >> Well, the dollar amounts. >> Well, I know books first was always the rule in my household and then the fun stuff that then the posters of cats. So that's it.
Any other leazison on updates? Okay. All right. Moving on. We have school partnership applications and they are both renewal. So I don't have to read the whole policy. Um the first one is the Norfor Teachers Association.
This is a one-year renewal. The Norfick Teachers Association is an organization of professionals who work with and educate children in the Norfol public schools. association is made up of budget regular education, special education and special subject teachers as well as various therapists and other
licensed professional staff associated with the MTA, the NEA and the Norfick County Teachers Association. All of which provide professional development opportunities as well as educational support information to members. And the list of planned or anticipated activities that may occur during the
year includes the North Food Pantry, the annual scholarship for the graduating KP senior planning a year in education, planning a career, sorry, in education >> more than a year hopefully a career. Uh so looking for a motion to approve their
application at the school. >> So moved. Second. >> Second. >> Further discussion? All those in favor? Hi. >> Next one. Also renewable from the Nor Community League. Norfor Community League exists to bring Norfolk Community
together to raise funds and foster the spirit of the town we live in through a variety of social, family based, and fundraising activities. Our primary initiative is fundraising in order to raise vital funds to disperse back to the community through our annual community assistance grant process.
So, some of their planned or anticipated activities in include the candy giveback event, the haunted car crawl, the artisan craft fair, holiday craft nights, Easter bunny event, and the Santa visit event. Looking for a motion to approve the application from the NCL
further school partner renewal. >> So moved. Second. >> All those in favor? >> I I >> All right. The minutes are in your packet. Looking
for a motion to approve the minutes as written. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Anyone have any discussion? >> All those in favor? >> I >> I
And then our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, December 9th. That is a half day. I don't know if that messes with anyone. I am out of town that day. Don't disrupt your plans for me. But I don't if anybody else has a conflict without
feedback from Lauren. I would just be concerned about >> quorum. >> A quorum. >> Yeah, that day feels strange to me, but I can't tell you why. >> Oh, it's parent teacher conference. Yes. Yes. Mhm.
>> So, we can always email. >> Yeah, we'll plan plan on the 9th if that works and then if Lauren can't make it and or we don't have a quum, we can reschedule. >> Sounds good. >> So, second in favor. I