e
all right thank you everybody welcome back we're out of executive session our first order of business actually is going to be a pledge of allegiance which we did not do earlier and then we will be moving across the street for the art award ceremony at Nathaniel Morton so join me the pledge pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stand
one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all you yep and then Miss Jackson is going to read Our Land acknowledgement before we go across the street we acknowledge that we are meeting on the unseated ancestral homeland of the indigenous people whose enduring presence we humbly recognize we honor the Wampanoag people as the original stewards of the Herring Pond Wampanoag as the surv ding tribe
indigenous to these lands in our commitment to lifelong learning we acknowledge historical injustices to the native peoples of this land and vow to educate ourselves our community and our students on the first peoples and the hardships they've endured we offer this as a small but essential step towards building a culture of respect truth and accountability thank you Miss Jackson all right and now we will go across the
street
e
you want pass have Cathy pass it to you
I can I think I can read this too I don't have my glasses with me try Okay am I messing up your set they'll Shake M's hand and they gotta go that way of Dance
good evening everyone so sorry for keeping you we had a uh busy uh schedule before coming over here but really pretty what a turnout this is fantastic I think I heard we have over 200 people in attendance um I'm Chris Campbell superintendent of schools uh really uh just so excited to have you here uh we really appreciate Visual and Performing Arts here in Plymouth and it starts with our school committee support so we're very grateful for that Mr capable and
his team as well we have amazing staff which really in my opinion helped to inspire a lot of kids uh whether it's visual art Performing Arts uh you name it it's just a great uh forum for self-expression and uh a whole host of other skills that are important and we really appreciate your support of the Arts and coming here um as you know um your children's your loved ones artwork has been in our hallways for many months now uh we do this twice a year
and it's really an opportunity to to Showcase showcase our students showcase your your children um and also just the great work that's done from kindergarten all the way through high school so again we have certificates I want to preface um as I read these names I want to apologize in advance for any names that I mispe and to our students if I say your name incorrectly please correct me so we can get that uh right okay so we're going to start start with um we just
going to start and Mr Pano our committee chair will be passing out the certificates as we go okay we're ready to go there you are you've been waiting patiently um first for manman elementary a darling no it's not AA Mr capable it's not AA uh Flora hilly Nathaniel Morton Elementary School congratulations um
from Nathaniel Morton Aiden santosa did I get that thank you Aiden also from Nathaniel Morton Isabelle Isabella ricardi Richard come over here richardi richardi congratulations um Nathaniel Morton Mila McGregor what happened there going have to get that fix Mila
McGregor also from theth Morton Emma Colby continuing with Nathaniel Morton Griffin Lincoln Griffin um from Nathaniel Morton Easton chaui congratulations also from nathani Morton Dawson bars go by his dad congratulations Hunter Hein
also from Nathaniel Morton Olivia Lort and Leo D tamasi from Nathaniel Morton Margaret Fay from Cold Spring Elementary School Ray Ballinger also from Cold Spring Isabelle Leonard
from Cold Spring Michaela bourges also from col Spring Elementary School Ronan paloi job Ronan Colt Spring Elementary Christian O'Brien from hedge Elementary School Zoe uh is it Bish show all right from hedge
Elementary School Levi Dei right Levi from West Elementary School Laura Moran also from West Elementary School Emily Fitzgerald also West Elementary School Sienna brioli from West Elementary School now Natalie if I mispronounce your last name
you come up here and correct me okay Natalie szak from West Elementary School Dominic deito uh from West Elementary School soraa Kenny uh from West
Elementary School Kelsey coris I get that right kelse from West Elementary School Ben group Ben from federal furnace Elementary School Charlotte ready from federal furnace Elementary School Ella Shaheen also from
federal furnace Violet Walberg continuing with Federal furnace Ariana Bel desera congratulations from federal furnace Elementary School Celeste Rondo congratulations from IND Indian Brook Elementary School Steven Bert also from Indian
Brook Elementary School Kelsey Fitzgerald continuing with Indian Brook Scarlet sella and also Indian Brook Elementary School Tyler Hartwell from Indian Brook Cole Leo from South
Elementary School Delany Pierce nice job also from South Elementary School Emma McCrae from South Elementary School Camden Stringer from South Elementary School Grayson benavites benavites Benitas excuse me I try
try uh from South Elementary School Finley Perry um Haley Ceno Ceno over here Rino at which school from what School South Elementary School thank you uh from South Elementary School Brin Sante
also from South Elementary School Violet Frasier nice job that's right from South Elementary School Veronica Vega i' been visiting some of the graduation walks across the way down the road um from South Elementary School Miles poui how do you say
it miles pway pway congratulations miles pway my apologies folks um South Elementary School Elijah Murray from manam elementary school biley Freeland for man Kennedy Parnell than
from pcis Luna farity congratulations also from PCS Violet pagali from PCS Annie Hill job also from pcis Colton strael Colton uh continue with
P Harry and McCullen mclin excuse me Al have my glasses with me nice job from pcis Anna herrian heran how do you say it Anna from pcis Shayla denovellis from Plymouth South
Middle School uh Kaa Marquez conations from Plymouth South High School mateline Edwards and Mr capable I have one certificate here and two people in line so oh there we go uh from pum South High School Isabella Smith
thank you um and last but not least from man Elementary School Ava darling so again congratulations to all our artists and and a big thank you and my apologies for any uh mispronunciations of your family names uh again just a great appreciation for what your support your support is really important to us um and thank you
for supporting the Arts and coming out in the cold tonight and waiting for us so thank you so much and we hope you have a good evening thank you
e e
and uh
they had to all right welcome back everybody that was a nice fun field trip for all of us um uh before we get into this evening's meeting we want to take a moment of uh uh to remember and honor the life of uh I Eileen Ellen Odo who passed away on January 9th 2025 at the age of 81 um Eileen was a dedicated member of the Plymouth Public School serving for many years as the Director of food of the Food Service program she was deeply committed to her work
and to the community she served leaving a long lasting impact on the lives of those she worked with her warmth infectious laugh and strong work ethic will be remembered finally by her family friends and colleagues Eileen was a loving mother grandmother and sister and she will be greatly missed by all who knew her please join me in a moment of silence as we reflect the Life and Legacy of Eileen Odo
thank you all right next up we have comments from the general public do we have any members wishing to or community members wishing to speak NOP all right in which case we will move on to our um student High School Representatives tonight we have uh Miss Anna King from Plymouth North High School hi good evening everybody um over the last couple
weeks 37 Plymouth North students attended the Harvard Model United Nations conference held in Boston students represented a variety of countries and discussed International topics regarding social political and financial concerns the students put their best foot forward in the process of discussing and debating these issues in effort to reach a formal resolution the senior cost just announced a new fundraiser for the class of 2025 graduation lawn science the deadline to purchase will be March
28th um winter recess will begin on Monday February 17th and students will return to school on Monday February 24th the Plymouth North and Plymouth South boys and girls varsity basketball games will take place tomorrow night at Plymouth night Plymouth South High School the Plymouth North dance team will be competing at the endicot Invitational on Sunday February 16th on Tuesday February 4th a group of student leaders from Plymouth North attended the Southeastern Massachusetts Association of student council's conference at Bishop Fen high school
students were able to meet other leaders from other schools and grow and develop new leadership skills on Friday February 7th over 100 participants and just over 70 plungers took part in a mobile Polar Plunge at Plymouth North to raise money for Special Olympics as a school Community we have raised $14,300 for Special Olympics thank you all right thank you for that report uh any questions from R king all
right and we do not have our uh representative from just wanted to speak to that so um South High School had to reschedule their National own Society evening so both um of our representatives are a part of that so they are un available to see me all right just to explain it's for a good cause then all right yes all right well next up we have our uh we have two um program updates tonight first up is uh Mr Mike keable with the update on our visual
Pro uh Performing Arts uh program he everyone long time no see um thank you all very much for uh coming across the street and and doing that I know it's a little bit of a logistical uh magic trick to uh to deal with and pull off and go out in the cold but we do appreciate it um I was just walking in now and um all the families were just just beaming coming over here looking
at their work and uh just feeling recognized for something that they they felt some success in so thank you for being a part of that I really really appreciate it um my name is Mike capable coordinator of visual performing arts for the P public schools uh it has been uh my privilege uh and honor to uh be here this is uh my 14th year middle in my 14th year um which I didn't even think I was 14 years old so um that
I don't know how that happened uh have you guys ever been kind of uh into things and into something so deeply and uh you get so busy and somewhat distracted and really working hard and something and you're putting out fires here and there and you kind of sometimes forget what you're doing or maybe even why you're doing it um uh well within 14 years I certain have done that from time
to time and quite recently has been uh that type of time for me both uh personally and professionally and um I'm going to share a little bit of a a story with you we'll start with a little bit of a story uh a couple Fridays ago had a had a terrible day um real terrible day and uh was very distracted pulled in lots of different ways and dealing with things and again putting out fires and uh uh it was just kind of crazy I was exhausted and then
I looked at my calendar and I realized oh it's it's Lion King uh tonight and um uh if anybody has seen a uh pcis musical um they're quite good in my opinion uh and I have nothing to do with that um all the credit goes to the amazing uh volunteers the kids uh teachers especially Miss Jess Fuller and it's a pleasure to go to this show um and but
I looked at my calendar and I was like just so tired so tired and so exhausted I could hardly keep my eyes open and I contemplated for a minute uh of not going um I had talked to Mr Paladino uh and told him kind of things that were happening and I said uh do you got this covered and he needed a few things and he was there as the administrator so I knew it was covered um but
I decided no I want to go uh out of respect for Miss Fuller out of respect for the kids and all the people that put in tons of work to this to this uh musical uh so I did I went uh and I sat up in the back uh with uh my wife and was just kind of quiet and not seen I kind of I don't usually do this I snuck in the back up top you know I know how to move about buildings and not be seen if you guys want some advice on that let me know um and I snuck in the top and I I sat in the seats and
and uh waiting the curtain goes up uh the music starts curtain yeah curtain opens the kids start singing um the the band is amazing beautiful voices costumes projections everything it was glorious and um you know it's singing you know the the circle of life like uh I'm kind of a a softy and a sucker for for Meaningful things um and it was just
hit me it just hit me so hard that um it's worth it uh even when it's hard um I'm sorry uh it's it's really hard and important work what everybody does you all up there the administration administrators teachers students it's so hard sometimes um but then hopefully with a little bit of luck
uh you have a moment like that and you kind of get knocked back into your senses and you're reminded of why it is you do what you do and you get reminded about um how special it is to be a part of this district and to lead uh this uh what I think is a pretty pretty good department so I just wanted to share uh that with you and thinking about
motiv motivation and thinking about how sometimes it's a pain in the neck and we all know this dealing with certain issues and certain things but if we can remember why we do what we do hopefully it gives a little bit more energy and sometimes you you can't wait till the next break or the next summer recess to to find that hopefully you find it during the year as we move along thank you for indulging me and have a good night uh um so uh this picture I just
want to talk about this for a second um if you'll notice uh all those kids are not high school kids uh some of them are like 27 years old uh some of them are 19 some of them are 20 this was a uh fundraiser a picture of um a bunch of uh students uh Acappella students from North High School that uh got together and answered a call from Mr Dave grman over the summer to get together and
have a little reun Acappella reunion God talk about geeky nerdy stuff oh amazing um and all of these students these kids these young people came back and said yes this was a fundraiser for uh the Kyle Robinson Memorial Foundation which some of them knew um and it just it hit me I saw the photo I liked it it just talks to me speaks to me a bit about community and and the fact that that is what we try to do is build a community where kids are feel safe to uh do
what they want to do and they're even doing it um later in life um was it kind of a ploy to say Dr Campbell I put a picture of your daughter up there yes maybe you know um she happens to be standing next to my daughter uh and then there's also former students that are now teachers in this District uh in that photograph there are former students who do very well in engineering and donated $5,000 to the Visual and Performing Arts recently
they don't want to be named so I will not name them these are amazing group of people and I think they were impacted by the Arts and I won't read it but uh that's what we want we want to build community and we want to build meaningful connections with our kids and that's our mission statement and if we can do that and keep that going past uh graduation I think that that is pretty cool um highlights over the last year Trips Trips anybody trips want to go to some
more trips um it's a lot of work uh but again it is it is uh tremendously excited to give kids this opportunity uh Hawaii 80 kids going um to Hawaii for four four nights um absolutely insane and what an opportunity uh Mrs Holmes and Mrs group gave to our to our uh high school and eighth graders no it was just high school kids my apologies um so many trips coming up and it's and we'll continue
to do it as much as we can there are challenges with that as prices continue to uh increase with everything uh big shout out to the Plymouth schools Music Association if you're not familiar they are our parent support group and they support our Performing Arts uh in grades 6 through 12 they are an amazing group of uh parents who raise money and give directly to our teachers uh um kind of things that we're not able to provide them all the time extra things providing
um money for um trips for instance and other uh various things and it's absolutely great um I want to give a big shout out to theater uh speaking of that it wasn't just because I was uh crying about lion king um it really is thriving here and I just want to point out one thing we don't have an academic program in theater all of this is curricular it's great we'll talk more about that
in a few minutes um but it is doing really really well um we had a group of six young ladies and about another six to seven young people at Plymouth North that put together a full-fledged Musical on their own um they wanted speaking of fundraisers and raising money for trips they wanted to be a part of something and they want
wanted to uh do a fundraiser that had meaning and was connected to what they do and not just sell chocolate I'm not saying you can't sell chocolate there's nothing wrong with selling chocolate please don't cancel me thank you um but they did it all on their own they did a presentation to Mr Gman and I they needed some money to buy the rights uh I felt like an actual producer and I had to like green light this thing and I'm like ah don't worry
it was revolving it wasn't budget money I wasn't risking budget money but uh they needed some money for rights and all kinds of different things to get it going uh and that's all they got they paid for the costumes they designed the costumes they did the Coro they did everything the lighting the tech the singing uh absolutely amazing and they pulled that off and they raised over $6,000 for their trip to Florida coming up in a few weeks uh and that was all
kids on their own absolutely amazing um uh we'll keep going you can read all that but I really the last thing on that slide that I really want to talk about is the amazing teachers um there's 42 art and music teachers in the P public schools and if you want a good program and whatever you're doing you need good teachers that care about students and you'll have a successful program um I I talk about this a lot lot you know what do the Arts teach sure we teach you how to draw yes it can be
taught we teach you how to sing yes it can be taught talent doesn't exist um but really what it does besides all those educational terms up there is it teaches people to be uncomfortable to be uncomfortable and understand that there isn't always a right answer to something there's your best answer to something there's your best answer to solve a problem with a group of people um it it teaches you
to understand that it's not about getting a 100 it's not about getting everything correct there's no way to do that if you're not afraid to be wrong you'll never come up with anything original that was Sir Ken Robinson sounded good right like I said it I can't take credit for that but if you're if you're not afraid to be wrong you'll never come up with anything original so
the idea that risk taking matters not worrying about the grade all the time or or the correct answer or afraid to put yourself out there because you're going to be wrong uh it's about creating spaces where students can take risks be themselves and yeah uh see if they can be wrong to come up with with an original idea uh challenges there's always challenges uh um you know a lot of these
things in this presentation and certainly on this this page right now um with challenges they they are quick bullet points uh for things uh uh and they need deeper conversation um and we certainly have those internally but if anybody on the committee would like to have more conversations about uh any of these things I I just want to let you know I welcome that and if anybody in the public is listening and and wants to talk more about those things I'm happy to listen I think different points of
view matter when we're trying to educate our kids um so Recruitment and Retention of staff I used to get 30 to 50 qualified applicants for for ex uh arts teacher uh I might get seven or eight uh now um so there is a supply chain problem I'm have no idea how to fix that um but it but it exists um and uh you know uh space continues
to be a major challenge which we all know and we don't need to uh beat a dead horse there um the other thing um you know is again lack of dedicated space but managing uh using and managing the performing art centers it's so funny we have these amazing performing art centers um that do so much and we use them all the time and they're great and nobody's complaining I'm not complaining I'm Dr Campell I'm not complaining
uh just a couple challenges is finding and we have a program we try to change uh pack we train pack managers we call them to hire people to run the sound the lights a little bit be responsible there we we we have a program where we put out um uh information and we train people usually staff that's here and and and they get uh a little stien to to do that it's really hard to get people to do that it's really really hard to get even the people that are trained and signed
up to take the positions if anybody was I'm not sure at the South Elementary School concert recently uh we didn't have a pack manager and I I was there so I hit some buttons and things kind of didn't work uh so um really trying to Rack my brain and and open to conversations of how to uh look at that differently to be able to cover that uh type of issue is and trust me we' talked a lot about it here and we
put a lot of time into it um last uh on this slide challenge um not that mass core is a challenge but um if you've ever looked at the mass core um they do have a fine art requirement in high school um and uh there is uh a requirement to take one year of a fine art um we don't fully cover that uh as of yet we're really close we're a little over 90% and great 9 through 12 at
least 90 plus% of students take one fine arts class which I think is vastly important uh um but how do we get to 100% uh if you're interested in that I'm not bringing up don't worry uh there's a link there to State data in uh the number of our kids in all grades who have taken different art courses you can look at it through all the Arts you can look at it through music you can look at it through ART if you look at it through dance there'll be zero um maybe we
should start a dance program um but I'm really interested in having further conversations of how do we uh make that happen at the same time uh we keep or improve the quality program we have without watering it down so again future thought quick bullet point um uh ideas for the future uh I have there's plenty of ideas but um I want to
hear from more people than than me and I want to hear from more people than our insular sometimes uh art staff um so what I'd like to do in the fall is uh work on a full day of an art Summit and bringing a diverse group of community people together uh different stakeholders so that we're include teacher admin school committee you're all welcome uh students families parents alumni and community commity partners and kind
of ask some big questions of do the Arts serve you do they help how do they help and what can we do to improve um there are just a quick few bullet points on there um for things that are are are have been in my mind quite a bit um I mentioned it before uh with a thriving theater program that is strictly co-curricular but um I I really think we need to investigate how do we transform that co-curricular program where
every where we sell out hundreds and hundreds of seats to uh to the public H how do we turn that and make that also a curricular program um so that would be a priority for me we can talk more at the summit I'll see you all there um I'm running out of time so my soap box is going to be limited but uh Talent is fixed skills can improve um it it
really uh it it's nobody's fault but it drives me crazy when people use the word talent oh my goodness they're so talented they're not talented they're not like I can read kind of do you call me talented at reading no I work at things you learn skills skills are uh something that can be improved and I think that's what we want to do again a culture of improvement over talent culture
of effort over gifted and a culture of process over product um real real quick one of the greatest things that has happened this year try to think about Great Moments and I did share one with you but another one before that uh um we did a mini wack I don't know if you know what whack is but it's winter Acappella uh concert um and it was all the Acappella groups at North and South and we did a mini thing for our fourth and fifth graders and we bust all
our fourth and fifth graders from all the schools two different concerts two different days in into to North uh the teachers and the students work together to make this not just that night if you go to the night that's Entertainment but this was about education and teaching our kids a bit about how to do what was happening on the stage they were there we the kids stopped and taught them how to do uh different uh beatboxing they
taught them how to um hit different pitches um and then the kids talk to them really about like what it was like to be up there because these fourth and fifth graders is seeing these kids up there and there's there's a couple responses in general from from our fourth and fifth grade students there one oh my gosh I really want to do that that's awesome I'll take it all day long number two is they're so talented I can never do anything like that and so one
of the students took some time each uh at each uh performance informance and to and asked the kids uh all right you guys uh who thinks we're talented up here who who thinks we're talented and the kids are like and then the and then the young woman said uh what if I told you talent doesn't exist and none of us are talented and they went on to talk about the student the high school student went on to talk about how think about your favorite and I you guys do this if
if you play along with me for two seconds uh think about your favorite musician think about your favorite actor think about your favorite um athlete somebody you know that you think is really good at whatever they do do you think in fourth or fifth grade they could do what they're doing now do you think they had everything they needed in fourth or fifth grade to be able to quote unquote perform at that
level and I would argue with you no and every step of the way they continue to learn new skills from amazing qualified passionate loving teachers right education growth mindset and they work really hard and they have a tremendous passion we can talk about passion we can talk about grit we can talk about all of that stuff it's not something where you're like
touched right okay is Mike cable at 56 most likely going to make a professional basketball team no I'm not that bad I can move I can pass I understand the game but I'm not I don't have everything it takes so I you know there's definitely some natural ability that plays into it but the mindset of talent is being fixed and skills can improve and I really want to move every body from saying they're
so talented to they're so skilled that really is it I'm done I'm sorry anybody uh have any questions or or comments well thank you Mr cable always love hearing from you M Jackson um I really appreciate that you come in here and you talk to us about all the things and it's not just a presentation about all the great things that you do but you also talk talk about where the deficits are how we could do
better and I've gone to so many of your performances and I was just at Lion King too and it was great but I think people at home need to know how lucky we are to have somebody like you who builds a community of resilience and that's what it is when you talk about like getting people to feel uncomfortable is you're helping to build resilience and confidence for these kids and it that's what makes the Arts and theater and the things that you do important even though sometimes I'm sure you feel like that parent who it's like you're sitting at the
table and you're like oh my God not this again today but then you have those moments like The Lion King where you're like my child just won an award you know what I mean so I just want to say thank you for all you do uh thank you uh can I just say I do appreciate that I take that and I I really do thank you I'm trying to take that in but in all honesty it's a village of amazing educators and partners and teachers and administrators and principles and custodians and
like it really is a a village so nobody can take credit on their own for anything right I believe that we're very lucky to have the staff that we do here yeah thank you very much Dr shorton Jefferson wrote if you want something you've never had you have to be willing to do something you've never done and uh I'm glad you're moving from talent to skills because when the conversation is about Talent
the conversation is over exactly and that movement is a great movement and I hope our fourth and fifth graders get it yeah thank you thank you very much Miss BR I would share as a parent to a fifth grader who thoroughly enjoyed that opportunity um you can take credit for building the community of connection whether it's for all the staff that that collectively support the students and
help build their confidence I've had five children go through the school system and I've seen the changes to the Performing Arts over the years we're given the right tools the right resources the right people you're able to achieve amazing things and with each child that's been able to participate you see the confidence grow where they apply it not only to what they're interesting from Visual Arts perspective but
they also take it into math that they can do it maybe hard but I can do it same with English and such so I do want you to take some credit for that thank you very much I really appreciate your point just about it it is it's transferable it's not we are not uh have expectation that everyone we're not a conservatory nobody we we don't train we hope we have a program when kids want to go on they have the skills to be able to
do that and we do but really we want to be able to teach those skills that are completely transferable to other subjects but and and life right like so thank you anybody else no well you mentioned you you've been in the role for 14 years so I'm in my 14th year being a parent in this District so the bar was set by you so I don't know any different so I assume this is what VP is supposed to be like um but no I've been very very thankful for all those 14 years my kids
have taken took full advantage of it and still are it's you know Echo the sentiments of the other my fellow members it's we're lucky to have you and lucky to have the staff so thank you thank you guys very much thanks for allowing me to come and tell you what's going on again thanks for coming over and thanks for supporting all kids and the visual Performing Arts I really appreciate it and let us know about the summit be thank you absolutely absolutely thanks very much all right thanks all right next up we have an uh update from our uh English Department I'll say
English English things we call start good evening um I'm Lisa white the ELA coordinator I have um Mrs Shelley Terry with me tonight we're going to talk a little bit more about our some of our secondary um work and um she doesn't like me to say it but she did win the Milken award since I lasted my program of upd dat so um I thought I would
have her share a little bit about um her work in the classroom and and some of the wonderful things that we're we're doing with our students so she'll be adding for having me adding in a little bit I love going after vpa um I feel I feel the need to talk about my own Musical and uh theater background another example of but it is a night for humanities which I love so um I want to give you some
highlights since the last time that I did my program update um I was here in September and so I'm GNA start with just um going over some of the things that I did talk about in September regarding early literacy and then transition to some of our secondary work so um we talked a lot at that meeting about the early literacy screening um that is Tak Tak place in our all of our elementary schools and the foundational skill building
um that we're doing with our students um two other things that I think are really important to talk about at all grade levels but we start very early on um is really working with students oral language development oral language is a precursor to reading and writing skills and we do a lot of work with our youngest students on having them tell us what they know tell us a story use it as rehearsal for something that they're going to then write about um and then as they progress through
the grades we teach them about accountable talk so I think in today's world of devices and and um you know lack of uh socialization in some cases um it's more important than ever to really teach our students very specific skills about how to talk with one another um and then provide them lots of opportunities to do that you know to really talk not just um to the teacher but to their peers
um and really have conversations and and learn how do we say how to um disagree without being disagreeable which is a lesson I think many adults uh could benefit from um so again just an important piece of our Ela curriculum is is talk and and discussion um we have done a lot of work at this level and again you'll hear about this at the secondary level on small group instruction um we know that when whenever we give any kind of a lesson to a group of you know 20
24 students that um some students are are not quite ready for that some students already sort of know a lot of what you're saying and then there's the zpd in the middle uh where it's like the right time for them and so we want that mini lesson to be mini and we want to be able to then use the rest of the time to really work in small groups where we can provide more targeted instruction to the needs of the students um so again a lot of work um in that particular realm and then I want to add a little bit um
more about the ELA webinar I know um we had talked about that last year so last March we did a a live webinar uh with EDTV it was a little bit like a talk show if you will um but we interspersed clips of classroom practices of actual teachers um teaching students at our own schools and um you know really tried to explain a lot of what we're doing at the elementary level I think sometimes you can hear me talk about it but when you actually see students in classrooms
um and teachers teaching these these lessons I think it comes to life a little more so just a little plug that that is still up there if anyone is interested in that and then the writing units in grades three to five so we have updated writing units and a lot of the things we writing has been a strength for our district for a number of years now we look at that when we look at our our mcast analysis for example um but what's really nice about some of the updates to these units is that there's
even more focus on um having students write with a purpose and for an audience and we say that because we don't want students to write only for the teacher because that seems not relevant in many ways um so we want to give them an actual purpose like who are you writing this for what are you trying to accomplish and I wanted to tell this little story um we have a third grade unit where they were talking about opinion and they were talking in their classes about issues that are important to them
at third grade and then um students wrote uh letters so students in the third grade at hedge this happened to be hedge Elementary um they wrote letters to a number of us about specific questions that that they had um Dr Campbell can tell you about his multiple letters he received about needing an elevator at hedge Elementary School I told him to tell them he'll do one better and get them a new building um but he couldn't fix that one right away
um but I received a letter from um Navea who um wrote to me and asked if we could have more books in different languages and she talked about the fact that they have students at hedge that speak different languages but then also she as someone who didn't speak another another language other than English would also love um to have books and other languages for her to learn about that and that's something we have been working on in the district anyway so of course I could not resist the
opportunity to uh purchase more books um for uh in response to nave's letter and so um we were able to find about 35 books um in uh Brazilian Portuguese uh Haitian Creole Spanish and uh Tagalog with the with the languages um and um was able to bring those over to um her third grade class and uh we had a great convers ation where I asked them where should we store the books and they gave all kinds of great suggestions and so
they're trying to figure out now if they want to distribute them put them in the library Etc um so again just for them to see that if I write a letter to someone there's a response to that letter and it's something that um can make a difference and that really is what we're hoping that we're teaching our students is that when they they write they can make a difference for others oops I might be stuck there we go um I wanted to
talk a little bit about our our inaugural one district one author program you heard a little bit last year about this when we accepted the donation checks from the Plymouth Ed foundation and the Kanas Club so we had done this with all of our elementary schools and the preschool and we had um Peter Reynolds was our focused um author and uh we were able to purchase books for every school and a lot of um wonderful activities at the building level and then we had um
a create bravely night uh with Peter and Paul Reynolds where they came and students explored their creativity a lot of the things that Mr capable was talking about um where it was very open ended and make make a design out of the dot and you know things like that um which was a great event and and they signed books and and um had a great time and uh Peter Reynolds books have a lot of wonderful themes so we were able to really coordin that with a lot of the work that was being done at the
building level and we're excited that know what I'm doing wrong it's probably me um we're excited that we're going to have a a second event this year with the um author Kate mesner and um we chose Kate mesner because she's written um a lot of books she's very prolific author um but she's written picture books she's written non-fiction books she's written novels series so she really covers multiple grade levels which is something that we were really looking for that's
just a small selection of the books that um that she's written and so we we were again able to secure funding with the Kanas and Ed foundation's um support and we'll be doing that in March so we'll coordinate that with um read Across America and a lot of our schools like to do March Madness Brack brackets um with books so we're looking forward to that and she's going to do two uh visits two virtual visits with all of our schools this year so that every student will
have an opportunity to talk um with the author we are on our 10th year it's hard to believe but um our 10th year of the reflections anthology of young people's writing um which was something we started when we were um we first went to Plymouth UK as part of our 2020 planning and um they were doing a book like this we thought it was a great idea we did it with them for a while and and we just kind of kept on going um this is with the vpa Department as well um it's
a collaboration we do with them and um students write submit pieces of writing um we had I think about 300 entries this year um we picked I think about 70 um and then we send them to um artists to make artwork to go along with the pieces and we publish them in a book so these are all the covers the various covers um over the years and uh if you want to
see the unveiling of the 10th edition uh it is this Wednesday at 6:30 um at Plum South High School we were nervous about weather but I think we're okay latest weather report seems okay um so we'll be unveiling the the new cover and the new book um on Wednesday and it's just a great opportunity to really celebrate um students who love to write and um and then to to bring in the art um piece is always fabulous to see what the students have
come up with to go along with these pieces whoops back a little we are also um continuing to work on our poetry out loud program this is a program that we started about seven or eight years ago um at both high schools it started out as just a volunteer event um it's now become something that every single high school student does as part of their um English class and we
have classroom winners from each class and then there's sort of a regional sectional uh at the building level and then the finalists perform at an evening event and we judge those and the winners get sent on to the the um Cape Cod area division um the picture on the lower left is a student from um South High who went on to the state finals in Boston last year which was a great accom accomplishment and they uh perform at the old um meeting house and it's you
know very exciting so I think one of the things that's so nice about poetry out loud is it's really become something that every student knows like this is something we do and they really have to select a poem that means something to them and internalize it and and you know um present it in some way do you want to add a little to yeah I think the great thing about it is the diversity of students that we see so this year especially we had more freshman than anyone than any grade um which was great and I think because they're starting to talk
it up a little bit in the middle school that's been helpful um but seeing like a wide range of kids it really is a whole different type of student that you kind of see there and it's a great place to see them really shine whereas sometimes these are the kids that are reserved in class but they're actually doing well on stage um a lot of our El students do really well with it um which has been great to see them um to win the classroom competitions um just some other accomplishments um we
had a writing Award winner last year I think we had her here at uh school committee in the spring Caitlyn richer um one thing that was great this year and I I'm speaking a little for the social studies Department too because you won't have a program update from them um this year but we worked with them on the MLK essay contest with no place for hate um and the Plymouth diversity committee and um we found a
way to really connect the topic with a seventh grade um event that had been planned at the middle schools uh where they had someone come from Africa and talk about his work um in this area so it was really nice to have something that the students were hearing about someone in the real time uh who was doing um peaceful non-violent uh work for equity and they were able to make connections with Martin Luther King and and his message which was wonderful and so um we uh
scored the essays and had winners and then two the first and second place winners came to the event um the MLK event and um they did a fabulous job they represented plumouth schools extremely well they both had standing Elations um and just was a great opportunity to again connect students with the community at large uh and then again you know I'm sure you heard from EDTV at the last meeting about the pnn and panther TV and awards
that they continue um to win uh every year Mrs Terry actually um is the teacher for the um pnn program at North and um I wondered if you could just tell them a little bit about a a particularly fun story that they did this year so um I'm not sure if you saw it but if you haven't you should check it out um we interviewed um an astronaut Sunni Williams actually on the internal space station which is pretty crazy it was
one of the most amazing and confusing situations I've ever been in just cuz it was so bizarre to have kids actively talking to someone and when we started she was like I don't know somewhere over here and then she was like 4,000 miles like Away by the time we were done 45 minutes later like it was incredible um it was really interesting we also brought in some engineering kids math students to also be there and ask some questions as well well but it was a very interesting interview just learning about what it's like the fact that
you know she's quote unquote stuck up there longer than planned but really loved it and was excited about it um it was a really extraordinary situation for kids um and for them you know just to even know she's like okay in 3 minutes it's going to go dark because of the position of the sun and the satellite and then we'll pick up in 20 minutes like it was such a surreal experience but the kids really enjoyed it and you could see the Earth right behind her yeah that was that was like that Norm you don't get to see that like she's like all right I'll come and we'll go to the front and I'll show you what earth looks like and
so you're on Earth while we're talking and technology is amazing so it was it was very exciting that's amazing um I have failed at clicking um one thing that is really important um is that we continue to support our teachers you heard Mr cable say that um one of the things we want to make sure is that our teachers are continual Learners as well it's a lesson we
want to teach our our students and so a lot of the professional development that we've been doing um with our teaching staff is really embedded um professional development you can have great workshops you can have great um lectures and you know things like that but when you have people in your classroom working with you and your students um and modeling and and doing that kind of work that's really where we see a lot of um aha moments I think for people we sort of talk about it as
the medical model you know where they follow each other around and they have interns and and they learn from each other um so I think that's really powerful and you can kind of see in the pictures on the the two right hand side pictures in Elementary classrooms um there's about five teachers um sitting there watching um you know work with one or two students um and when we have staff developers they'll say I'm gonna talk to the teacher sometimes you know to the teacher sometimes and sometimes I'm going to
talk to you and they say you know because teachers are always learning and I just think that's a really important message to send to our to our students is that teachers are always learning as well to you become better at their craft so I think that that kind of professional development has been really helpful and important um we were very fortunate that the National Convention NCT um was in Boston this year and that's always nice nice because we can send people more more teachers to
that so um NC was um in November there were more than a thousand sessions offered that our teachers could take advantage of um they had amazing uh Keynotes uh katani Brown Jackson was a keynote um Kate McKinnon from the entertainment World um and um Brian Stevenson um who wrote Jess Mercy um who's done a lot of work for um the Justice League and that's a book we also use with our students so that's why Mrs
Terry was excited to to meet him um and then that picture in the middle are all of the books that one of our eighth grade teachers brought back for free to her classroom had about 54 free books that she took with her so again just that idea that we want to continually learn um as teachers uh can I say one so I think one of the things I love about it is you're learning from other teachers as well from all over the country and so the last time we went was over 10 years ago I think was when it was in Boston and so
I think what I love about it is you just soak everything in and then you try to come back and try to implement as much as possible and so this year my focus which one of the things we'll talk about is supporting multilingual Learners is that I was trying to get students to write um about sensory language you know really trying to be descriptive in what they were saying and describing their own lives and what they carry because we were reading um Tim O'Brien's the thing they carry and I'm listening to this
and they're talking about how you get kids to write and so one of the things you need to do is you need to let them write in their native language like give them a choice whatever you want to write in because I'm not assessing in this situation you know spelling and grammar I'm assessing do you understand how to be descriptive and have sensory language and with technology I can take something that they write and easily translate it back into English and I can see if they get it and so this moment I was sitting in this in this session and I immediately went on I think it was a Saturday and my kids were working on an
assignment and it was going to be due on Monday and I sent a message to all of them saying you can write this in whatever language you want and a few of them questioned me wait you mean I can write it in Portuguese I'm like yep and they did it and it sounds crazy but I didn't realize how amazing of writers they really were until I was able to see it in their own native language and it was such an eye opening experience and it was almost like a ie of permission to do this and it really changed the whole classroom Dynamic and that would have never happened if I didn't
get to go to that conference um so just some other um secondary level highlights so one of the projects we've done the last three or four years is work on updating all of our courses at the high school level um and again I say update because they're always a work in progress we're always adding new links and new texts and new um revisions to them but really wanted to make sure that we were as updated as possible with all of our courses we offer um our Standard English courses and
then our seniors take um two halfe courses we have lots of options for them which is fun kind of a lead into college um so we have dystopian literature and Shakespeare and historical fiction and 21st century all kind things um and then we also have our elective courses as well so just updating those was really important um for us to do we also have been having a lot of conversations about
AI um as everyone has been in education um we were probably some of the first departments to start talking because of the you know maybe negative use of AI if you will um and so we've just had to really grapple with um teaching our students about tools that are out there and what are the benefits of some of these tools and there are many wonderful benefits to a lot of the AI features and then what are some of the pitfalls um and things that students really need to
be aware of especially as they're moving into the workplace and college um and so you know we that's ongoing conversation that we continue to have as new things become available um but just sort of educating ourselves as as teachers on that and then learning how to support um students with that to do yeah I think also thinking about the way you go about things like I can't assign as much stuff to just have kids go home and work on things because unfortunately at least 50% of it going to
come back and it's not them and so trying to do more in the classroom with the same amount of time and trying to prioritize things and trying to do on demand writing as much as possible and working on the process piece um so it's definitely a work in progress I think it's better this year than it was last year so I think that's something we're continually trying to work on but also with the authentic audience and trying to make kids understand why learning how to write and not just copying writing
is important is really what we're trying to focus on um you heard us mention this earlier but but the support for multilingual Learners is an ongoing um direct you know objective for all of us and as our populations have increased um and become more diverse we really want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to support um those students and so um one of the the stories that we wanted to tell you about is that at the
high school level um until fairly recently A lot of times students who came and and they were level one or two language proficiency they were not actually in an English class they were in a ESL class as an English class which is not the same thing so um we've really been working very hard with um Matt carpenito um and and the staff around trying to make sure that our students are receiving um English instruction as a as
a course along with English as a language um so we have a couple of quotes do you want to give these some context sure so um this is my first year um teaching a class with um current El multilingual students um I was very nervous I will be very honest even with SEI endorsement and everything I was curious to see how this was all going to play out normally these kids weren't in our classes and whatnot how is it going to work out and it is the best
experience I've had in my 18 years here um so this is a student um I kind of just asked them if you could give us a little bit of something about what it's like being in this class um so he wrote I'm from Brazil and this is currently my first year taking an English class with Mrs Terry and Mr Sorenson they have helped me as a student making progress with writing and understanding the meaning of a speech or a text I have learned how to analyze speeches to get the context out of it and I have improved my writing skills to use more sophisticated words in a text and so that was on demand in front of
me not using any sort of um you know translat or anything um which is great and these are their first years in a full English class um you know again I think this was like a level three which is typically like it would we'd wait a little bit longer before they would come in our classes and so it's been really great I think there's a few things I think number one the stories these kids have shared about their own experiences like leaving so many of them left
during covid and came here and just hearing their stories in descriptive ways and kids feeling comfortable with the classroom Community that's really happened has been astounding um I have another student um that sent me this where she said I noticed the difference between ESL and Ela in ESL I was just learning English and in ela I was using my English which I loved uh Mrs Terry and Mr senson helped me improv my skills in reading and writing and I'm sure that doing American literature made me more confident in reading and writing in English
and so it has really been a rewarding experience we're hoping um maybe next year to even get the very beginning students into um some co- talk classes where we could work together to help these kids because I think it was such a great like I love that line like I was learning English but this is where I'm using English and I think that was such a powerful moment for me to realize the importance of that I think it's so important I just want to interject for a second I think it's so important that a
lot of the assumptions that adults make and a an assume about kids are so incorrect correct and when we allow them the opportunity they just flourish and um yeah yeah I think there was a lot like I I had my own reservations like I'll be very honest I had anxiety All Summer Long about how is this going to work not me and know how is this going to work and how am I going to help them and how is this going to work with other kids that are not where they are and like it just it worked
and it worked a lot better than I thought and these kids wrote like in October they wrote their fir they wrote a three-page paper like character analysis after reading The Crucible like we did it together we acted out loud like they truly did it and that was no chat GPT there was nothing with translation because I scared them all and I made sure that they did it in front of me and they felt good after they were so proud and they just turned in their own personal narratives where they wrote about different experiences from their own life and they were so proud about that as well and they go and they
tell their ESL teachers like look at this look what I'm doing and it's been great yeah I love that um again we talked before about small group instruction we're doing PD on that at all grade levels um and you know partially what we're talking about right because if we have the more diverse Learners we have in our classrooms the more we need to address you know students in different ways and so having that those options is important um we've also been continuing to do diversity audits with our book
rooms and really taking a look at what we have um for um reading material for students you saw the cot before about um making sure we have Windows and mirrors and sliding glass doors for our students and that really is something we're taking to heart as far as what characters are represented in the books um that students are reading and um we've looked at at gender we've looked at at setting we've looked at time period we' at disability ability um all
kinds of different things and ways of looking at our collections to really improve what we what we have um and then the other piece and this is something that was a a district initiative not just in the ELA department but I think um that you Dr Rogers would say we were some of the first people to uh go along with wanting to do this so we also have um phased out our cp2 level um at the Freshman level and that is going to continue up through the grade levels next
year um and um again I think there were some people that were concerned about that um and uh as someone who does K12 I you know one of the things I like to say is well they they weren't in cp2 in eighth grade you know they suddenly became that right in in freshman year um and so I love this quote students will rise to the level of a teacher's expectation I firmly believe in that and so um having students not have that that
low lower level uh class I think is been a much needed change and um we also have a quote from a teacher about this you want to share yeah so this transition has been incredibly positive for the school Community the school groups have been able to be diverse and supportive helping some students stand out as role models and others to have an array of positive peer models the small class sizes have been essential to this success as well well as the thoughtful pairing to make sure that all students have the opportunity for Teacher support so one
of the things um I know at North specifically I believe it's itself to that our principales tried to do is make sure that these class sizes were not all of a sudden going to 28 kids in a class because for a lot of these kids you before this um a lot of our cp2 courses were kind of averaging at 15 um anywhere between 10 and 15 and so to try to manage that with a co-teacher in the class for some of them and everything I really do feel that the reason why it's been successful is it's a lot more manageable when you have that smaller class size to really help out and transition
into it so our hope is as it transitions to the sophomore next uh sophomore year next year that hopefully those teachers we're going to do our absolute best to try to make those um attainable classes to make sure it's as just as successful as it was um for the Freshman um class um for our department we have kind of had this model for senior year um so I think our teachers were a little bit more used to the idea not as hesitant but I think they're seeing it work a lot better um
when you grouped these kids together they would travel around all day so their drama would travel around all day and now they're all dispersed and so really it's just better they're meeting kids that they didn't know before that they're not that they maybe haven't been familiar with I mean at pcis they have been but at pcis they're all in the little groups for three years and so here they're finally able to um talk to each other get to know each other and I feel that because of that you do have these natural leaders that come out and they're really bringing everyone up no one's bringing anyone down everyone's bringing everyone up which is great yeah and
just to you know remind you we still also do have honors level so it's not like we've completely deleveled um our program but I really I love um not hearing that phrase my cp2 kids anymore that was something like nails on a chalkboard for me um and I just think it's something that that I'm thrilled that we're that we're doing in the district so ongoing Focus areas um obviously there's always work to be done and lots
of things to work on um again you see that refinement of small group instructional practices at all levels that continues to be something that we we work on um we want to make sure that we're providing um instructional practices that are responsive inclusive and supportive to all of our students um and really responding to the needs of the students in front of us um I talked a lot about this in the fall but um our data team protocols where we're really
looking across the Year we're meeting um to talk about student data to talk about what we should try for someone who might be you know not making the progress we would hope that they would make um how can we what what can we provide for them as some form of additional teaching or intervention and really just making sure that we're we're progress monitoring for for those students in particular who are not performing um at grade level and making adjustments to that and then um we are using the engagement Continuum that's something we've been using in the
district for the last few years as part of our learning walks um and it's really this idea of when we walk in classrooms who's doing the work um you know is it the teacher doing all of the work or are the students driving the instruction so the goal is to get to the right hand side a lot of the time which is student driving instruction the minimum we're sort of looking for Is the participation so we obviously want students participating in their learning um but how can we get them to go from just participating um to actually driving the
instruction and that's where a lot of those um Pieces come in around small groups and uh accountable talk and um having a voice and a purpose for what you're doing you know in terms of your writing and all of those kinds of things to really make the learning relevant for students so that they see that it's not um confined to just this one book they might be reading so again always more work to do um and every day we do that I will say um you know we have a wonderful just to Echo what Mr cable said we
have a wonderful wonderful Ela staff um here in in plumouth I'm very proud of our staff um and a wonderful um you know every every K prek uh to grade five teacher is an Ela teacher as well so it's really every teacher um that is doing that work and um we we also have struggled a little bit with some of our you know recruitment uh pieces we also have many fewer people applying for jobs than
we used to um so that's an ongoing thing um but we um you know we're very pleased with the the teachers that we have in our department and I really do think one of the things that has helped us to to keep our teachers is the fact that we provide a lot of professional development and opportunities for growth because I think that teachers are really um looking for that that type of support any questions thank you questions I guess you
must have V us with all that appreciate all that you I was just going to say um I I've had the opportunity to talk to you at length about a lot of the literacy stuff and I like how open you've been and how much you've been able to share I was one of those students that was caught in the middle when we had levels and without having an excellent guidance counselor at the time I would have just been stuck there but he recognized it and helped me to move up and I know not everybody
is so lucky so I really think this change like you said people live up to what people put out there for them it's really important that we recognize that these kids are just as capable and need to know that people believe in them so I appreciate that 100% anybody else no uh the only comment I was going to make is more I really appre appreciate what you're doing on the multilanguage learner side as a multi- language Lear learner myself I just it would have been neat to have have that
when I was growing up so I really love the way you're just making them come along for the you know for the ride so it's awesome so thank you you thank you all right all right next up we have our proposed 2025 2026 Plymouth Public Schools academic uh calendar Dr Rogers or Mr Mr preso thank you very much uh so this is typically at
the first February meeting we have the proposed calendar for the upcoming school year we've also included for the next agenda item I believe this the school committee uh proposed calendar as well um but uh so 25 26 hard to believe that we're entering f26 but um with the new with the contract adjustments that were made we're to start a little bit earlier so you notice that the proposed start date for the teachers is actually the 25th of August um
and we'll have two days with our staff it will be the opening day which we typically do when everyone gets together in the Performing Arts Center the 25th the 26 will be an opportunity for staff development um as well as time for teachers to prepare for for their students so uh so we're our proposal is to start on the 25th with staff students grades 1 to 12 will come on 27th uh and kindergarten will come on the 28th we have the 4-day uh the long weekend in
also that's part of the contract um for for Labor Day uh preschool would start afterwards um first day of preschool would be the 2nd of September um you can see the half days that are in there we have seven inservice half days that are spread out uh throughout this um we have um Veterans Day um the the Thanksgiving recess would be the 26th through the 28th as it has been for many many
years uh the holiday recess in December uh because of where the holidays fall it's actually two weeks we're proposing so December uh 22nd through the F 31st so the two full weeks uh returning on January 2nd no Fifth Fifth excuse me fifth it wasn't on this but the fifth yes the second is the is the FR um Martin Luther King Day no school on January 19th our winter recess in February would
be the week of February 16th um TR the April recess would be the week of April 20th again this is in line with what's been done in the past uh graduation day um no school Memorial Day excuse me um graduation day would happen Saturday June 6th with the last day of school pending any makeup days um would be June Wednesday June 17th with a possibility and hopefully we
don't have to initiate five snow days um or weather related days the 25th would be the would be the final day do you have any uh questions on the M sha um with the it it doesn't have to be this year but with the town updating the polling locations and reducing our polling locations is there any thought to
eliminating the full day um off on Election Day um in in theory if we're only having four polling locations the need to use the schools would be diminished um so sure so uh my understanding is there still be a few of our schools that will be used so there would be very very heavy traffic areas for election um contractually we have another full day for professional development so we
typically stay with the the election day uh regardless um of how busy our schools would be because it seems to be the most logical place to put it at rather than having another day that we would be canceling school that's the reason that we've used that in the past okay good question anybody else um the only question I had Dr it wasn't so much an issue with uh calendar just the way it was written up I don't know if this was on purpose or not but for the um holiday recess in December
and January in December it shows like Monday the 22nd through the 31st and then it says holiday recess December 22nd January 2nd and then but and then now below it says continued January 1st January 2D I don't know if uh yeah where you trying to show show it all at once or should that top one say December 22nd to the 31st like I didn't know if it was like that on purpose or if that was a typo sorry are you doing to split the year I see what yeah that's yeah because because I
know you split the year on purpose so should that Top Line just have the December part or which Top Line are we talking about I'm sorry I'm not seeing the bottom of the first page where you have Mond holiday recess December 22nd to January 2nd but down below it says January 1st January 2nd again you have you have that part yeah yeah you're correct but if you're I mean if you're trying to be all inclusive it is that is the entire break so I said I wasn't sure how you were trying to yes what the intention was that is a little confusing but it is the two that's yeah I
wasn't saying it was wrong it just because it's kind of on to the January piece yeah so that appears twice so I don't know just something I don't know if it's worth updating so it's more the dates and when we send it out the the calendar will be clearly depicted the way that always is with the the blue highlights of those two weeks starting on the 22nd through January 2nd would be the the the December break mhm but is it is a little confusing in the memo yeah that maybe the first one should probably then say the 31st because the second one says
continued just to make it clear that there's two blocks but if you're ready for a motion I I'll you ready for a motion I'm ready for a motion I will move that we accept the calendar as presented second second Melle seconds all right and we can vote online
your you're not no no one showed me how oh just just thrown that out there all right in the meantime we will do a the Roll Call in the meantime all right so we call in the meantime Miss briyan to join the meeting do
you know what your password is for your so once this is voted on and if it's approved we will um speaking some time yeah we'll roll call anytime so appreciate that yes yes M yes Miss awood yes Mr Morgan yes Mr Jackson yes Dr sson yes can I vote Yes all right it's unanimous thank you we'll be sure to uh clar clarify that memo and put that we'll put that out and once the calendar is finalized we'll put that out but little clear and then we have the school
committee calendar yeah so this is so if you the dates that are proposed I'm not going to go reading through all of these this is the same uh structure that we've followed this year in terms of the summer meetings and the the configuration of the meetings just the dates change because the date happens to fall on a different day you have any questions on the school committee calendar I do I just have a question I think um just the Saturday
morning meeting and the winter time I do see I mean I understand what you just mentioned I see that it's on the 31st it's normally 31st of January and it was normally like the first weekend of February in February right it is off by a day which brings it into the other month y um yeah like instead of like the 6th or 7th it be the February 7th it would have been like it's nor first weekend in February
yeah and I think right so It's Tricky right we tried to so we did this so that you wouldn't have the backtack meetings within a couple of days but I understand um so I mean whatever the the the committee would be happy if if there's a change there proposed change happy to consider that well there's backtack meetings in October yeah that's how you Saturday and Monday yeah there is there is I think we try
to avoid it this year more than once so and where that falls in January this year though I see what you're saying or next year four to six personally February would be better for me but that's just my personal thing we could change that to the following February which would be the sth 7th sth but I'm only one person so miss Heywood up the February date so whatever the will of the committee is we would only
have the two meetings I guess for the February because it would be that right now we only have one meeting correct right yeah the February break and whatnot so we can like we can propose the February 7th date in place of the January 31st the other Str I mean along with that if we don't want to have meetings to days as a part is I know we can't
meet February 16th that's the first day of a winter break but you can meet the what's that the 23rd because that that would still give you two February meetings they wouldn't be on top of each other and you saw a week between the 23rd and March 2nd what is it happy to do that seems like it solves both problems all right well someone someone February the February meetings so we have the two January meetings the 5th the 26th the Saturday morning meeting would be February 7th the 1st
February meeting and then the second February meeting would be I'm sorry that's the February 23rd February 23rd thank you that work folks all right someone wants to make a a motion of such I move to approve the uh school committee meeting dates with the changes that were stated second mwood seconds
all right we'll do a roll call vote M Bryant yes M Shaw yes Miss awood yes Mr Morgan yes M Jackson yes and Dr senson yes and I vote Yes passes unanimously with those requested edits thank you excellent we'll make the revisions on that and make sure that that supposed to do electronic School Board before start school year too all right next up uh we have the first student uh agreement for transportation services
Dr blazel yes um so I'm coming to in front of you this evening looking for approval to approve um the second of our one-year options um for our first student contract for our next for next fiscal year um as you know we were we had a seven-year contract with three one-year options last year we voted or you voted to accept the first of the oneyear options um this year um if we
look at FY 26 it would increase our budget our bus budget by 2.75% which is extremely low comparison to other districts around um so it would bring our daily rate per bus from $486 45 to $499 183 um when you look at some other districts around um information that I have um the average increase right now for next year is looking at about 9% um when you look
at again the ones I have there's a lot of ones out there I do not have um and we're we're still under $500 and I met with a consultant just recently and they said if you're under $500 you're doing pretty good um so um what we have to do right now is also we are in the process of undergoing a study in regards to whether it makes sense to can to go out to bid for our next bus contract or to look at our own buses um no matter what we do it would have to be
an active conversation in the fall um because either way what we would have to do would take some time to write the bid and then for someone to accept the bid because they have to go out and buy new buses and right now buses are looking at about a year out um before you can get one um so if this is just recommending to go to FY 26 to approve the one-year option for the $499 83 for next
year per bus per day this is reflected in the proposed FY 26 budget obviously too all right do we have any questions for Dr blazel so my my my only uh question more com one obviously we did a amazing job getting this deal in the first place so obviously it makes sense to keep taking the one year um uh you know extensions once we get you know looking forward to 2027 and
you know the 2027 2028 school year aside from you know considering uh having our own buses are we planning for that like you said it's almost like a a budget nightmare where we're we've gotten so lucky in postpone all these increases we're going to go from 500 at bust to a th000 or whatever it is are we plan for that essentially like doubling of our you know Transportation budget in two years what we'll do is before we get to that
point um I'll be meeting with I'll be surveying a bunch of different districts around to try and figure out those who opened up their contracts just opened up their bids just recently and where they settled and what those percentages are um I'll be working with a consulting firm to write that bid I won't write that bid um because I don't have that experience and um even when Gary cson wrote the last bid he worked with a consulting firm to write that bid um and we'll get those percentages in regards to where people are thinking that that
it might lie yeah um and we'll be budgeting for that so hopefully we'll be opening a bid be hopefully before the next budget cycle for that's I was yeah that's I'm hoping is for before next year we have at least that heads up for you know town meeting Etc to know that hey a Big Bill is coming in a year you know yeah or um two years from now or a change or some yeah exactly yeah something major good timing with the with the Trans as we do that is one of our goals looking
at transportation and can forecast out what would be the best option um and we'll have to make that decision because again to get new buses we're talking a year yeah so we're we're going to have to have that cont settled you're at a fork here you have to do something okay did anybody else have anything think of anything all right if not do we have a motion on the uh proposal I'll make a motion to approve the uh contract with first
student a second Miss Jackson seconds all right do roll call vote Miss Bryant yes Miss Shaw yes Miss awood yes Mr Morgan yes M Jackson yes Dr senson yes and I vote Yes motion passes unanimously all right thank you Dr blazo thank you all right move on to Dr Campbell's superintendent report thank you so underneath the report also is included my superintendent goals update so I'll end with that could kind of roll in if
that's okay um so just in terms of a quick update the um advisory and finance committee met uh with us on January 20th uh subcommittee F uh the entire advisory and finance committee will be voting on budgets on Wednesday the 19th uh Dr blaz doll and I will be in attendance for that meeting uh where the large Committee of 15 will be voting um just wanted to to bring that up uh
Nathaniel Morton uh proposed parking again Park Plymouth wants to help support a driveway playground parking renovation uh very early stages we've had one initial meeting with the town civil engineer to start some conceptual work um we'll be sure to share that with you and want to get uh a group before the school committee to kind of talk about where things are going I know many years ago when Park Plymouth came over to Nathaniel Morton he was concerned about the the grass and the parking and they
put the fence up and that was a result of conversations here so we this um before this conceptual work gets too far along I want to bring the commit the the group uh essential people to this committee so we'll plan that um sometime in the near future as well um she should goam Japan just you know students in parents um the applications need to be again a reminder of this wonderful opportunity this summer uh for our students
we have 11 to date we have 11 um interested students um the applications need to get in by this Friday February 14th we continue to push that out through social media so um and we'll do um we're going to schedule the interviews for February 25th after the break bless you um if anyone has any questions any uh family has any questions please reach out to me directly uh my email or
my phone in the office um last week had a a virtual meeting with the acting commissioner talking about supporting immigrant students and families um during that webinar we received you know you know important reminders about the updates of supporting our our families and desie emphasized the resources available through the office of refugee and immigration uh the AG's office uh the same guidance and information that I've shared with the community and how we're uh you know providing equal access
to public education for all students and our commitment to that um so Dy continues to show their support um on that as well uh another thing that was shared uh during the webinar is cell phone and social media School kit Dr Rogers actually went to a workshop where the Attorney General spoke to this toolkit I'm to share that out with all of you as well a lot of research regarding the damaging effects of social media and Technology of you know
smartphones and whatnot in the hands of young children um a lot of suggestions in terms of policy like how policies could be written I think we've done a good job our secondaries here in terms of putting them away for the day and certainly I think you know you hear testimonials from our building administrators on how that's been very helpful um just a great resource and I think something as we plan and consider like opportunities for families to really understand what they're doing when
they give their child a device at an early age the impact that can have uh the more again the more that we can educate our families I think the better off we are the the toolkit has a a number of great suggestions in that as well uh another thing that was talked about just kind of the highlights of the of the webinar with the commissioner was competency determinations so we discussed the upcoming changes related to the competency determination which we spoke about I think was the last meeting
we did that um the Desi is launching uh with the governor uh a commission to explore the concept of deeper learning um across high schools with the goal of enhancing both depth and quality but also looking at potential changes to competency determinations including some of the deletions of where the regulations mentioned the state's role but also introducing new potential definitions and terms and um so this will also include additional subject
areas potentially under the perfu of des's oversight um so this Statewide graduation Council should be established very soon and we'll start doing that work to to establish these guidelines so as more information comes to our attention we certainly will uh keep you um updated on that we may even have someone internally that would you know someone who was was considered to to be a part of that so not sure if that
has happened yet uh and and Dr White I already mentioned I was going to mention that the reflections and Anthology is happening on Wednesday it's a wonderful event can't believe it's been a decade in the works but if you can make it over to self high school please even for a short period of time um it's a great great event so happy to any questions about any of that before I get into the yeah um the proposed parking driveway playground Renovations uh Park Plymouth is that are they doing that with
the intention of using that as parking in the summer or something yeah so that is part of Park Plymouth already so it's yeah so there wouldn't be any change to that agreement um it's kind of a I don't know how commonly known it is but they are part of that Park Plymouth this would be to expand the parking sort of moving the playground structure structures yeah off of the parking lot and moving them to
the perimeter of some of the Green Space not keeping in mind trying to keep a lot of Green Space there which and which would be safer for the kids enhance the park Plymouth options but also allow us to um to Stage all of our buses back there which anyone who's been here at dismissal um on Lincoln Street it's it's it's quite busy and heptic so that would create a safer environment for students and
families as well so uh very early stages we don't know where it will go with their committee but as we get some conceptual drawings bring it here so that people can see that as well that's great thank you you're welcome M Jackson um with the cell phone um policy that's being put out I was just at the plumouth South High School school council meeting and we had a really good conversation
about that about how not taking them away completely but having a tempered approach actually AIDS Us in teaching them how to manage things in real life and I thought it was a good point to add to like whatever they're talking about now I don't know if we have the opportunity to weigh in on that but um uh Mrs fry made some some really good points about the fact that kids are going to have to learn how to use this as a tool as adults and
that um giving them structured time to use it is important to show them the good use of you know you know what I'm trying to say yeah responsible being yeah as as a as an adult we all have it's in my pocket right here and sometimes it's it's like an appendage um but it it's a necessary tool and how to use it as a tool and and um but also again finding allowing kids to sort of
Disconnect from it because and I'm sure that you've heard examples like of kids that you know it's the notifications are going off over and over and over again the anxiety that produces so trying to get students and families to understand like when is it when do you first hand over a device like that to a young person and when you and how teach them that responsible usage we have students though in first grade that have cell phones smartphones and you know that's a
family decision but I think our job as educa ASA as education system is to is to share that data about what that could do to their their child right in terms of their like emotional well-being or or lack you know or not um so yes so it is I agree particularly the high school I I agree with your point when it comes to younger students I thought she made
a good point about the high school students but uh but definitely it it like as even at high school your brain is still evolving and absolutely so learning how to responsibly use a device is really and Dr Rogers could speak to the presentation that was done but came away um just really um taken back but and we know it and we're in we're in this work every day and we hear you know examples of students that are
you know really struggling but it's a yeah it's it's hard there's a study that came out of the UK that included MRIs of the brains of users and the figure was 30 hours they saw changes in m and structure brain structure for students who had screen time greater than 30 hours in a week and that's not hard to do if you're doing four hours after school or 5 hours after school you're going to be up
near 30 hours pretty pretty pretty powerful study yeah I actually um so Dr Walsh um she's a research uh sociologist at a Boston University who um started her dissertation um and she has three children all sort of uh School aged so she that's how sort of she started this research and um now she's you know world-renowned for her research in sociology and psychology on the impacts of
the brain impacts of mental health on um students who use cell phones either at younger ages um and she was just very well spoken I actually I was so the the speech was so powerful that I reached out to her immediately and I have a call with her this week because I want to pick her brain a little bit more but it was so um you know having three children of my own it was is really really enlightening about um the mental health issues the things that kids worry about the research and she uses a lot of
her students um in her research and asks them you know to like log their feelings about putting the phone away like even just writing the T Station or during class and the research that she's doing is is just incredible um so I'm hoping that I can get her to pth at some point to talk with our Educators and our administrators and maybe do a parent presentation um for our parents at some point so it was really great that great great anybody else thank you so
um regarding so goals updat so I put together it's I'm not going to read through this it's nine pages of just evidence and so um at the end of the year when I also Pro provide some samples of work underneath the indicators of leadership and the goals there'll be specific data to go along with this in metrics there's some in there that were easily obtainable but again we're halfway through this school year so I wanted to sort of sort of and this isn't an exhaustive list of what's
been done but just some of the examples of what's been done related to these goals we've really tried to approach it um looking at our strategic Focus areas um in our strategic plan so the first one being U student learning in chronic absenteeism and you know I'm not going to kind of go through like the the challenge of that and where we are as a state but um you know really trying to get down and and look at that as an administrative team come up with incentives
really looking at it in a holistic way bringing the community into it so some of the actions that have been taken you know are one driven by data uh two are involving the community and trying to engage our families and and um incentivize students to a degree in terms of like um that there's always a way to kind of improve it and it's not you know you've you may have been potentially denied credit but you can recover from this and how do we help kids uh through that but also just
doing some promotionals and being aware of our audience in uh multiple languages and trying to connect um and do outrage and connections um to all of our student bodies so when you look at that just kind of put it into categories so one is datadriven decision-making we have had three administrative meetings where our Focus has been on attend attendance priority areas for improvement list of initiatives that we're doing using um attendance work resources which is a
reputable organization to look at that oan Architects is our data analytics tool that we can analyze and and I will share this with you when we do the end of the year you can see the trends and we can break we break it down by subgroup we have our attendance officer coming in to supervisor of attendance I should say uh to support that work and really looking at the improvements that we've made um even in comparison to last year what happened this January and we've seen a
a dip in our English language Learners at at one point but we've also seen a major dip in the attire district for health reasons so last year December was really bad uh in January was better this year December was much better than last year and January's been really bad but we've had a lot of lot of like legitimate Health like virus going around that have been tough so you know we we kind of factor that into that um but we did
see an increase in in our um absenteeism among our multilingual learners for a period of time that's changed in recent you know recently but um again we're looking at it collectively we're having conversations we're coming up with we're sharing best practices as an administrative team principles um we have aury collaboration meetings um with with the residence service director um DD over at Al gonan Heights who's fantastic and she is like so supportive of this work so all
the schools whose students reside there are a part of those meetings um so that's something that um is new this year in terms of that Collective Focus uh the B present campaign in terms of community and family engagement there's a lot of examples in here in terms of promotional materials and events um also again done in multiple languages um creating success plans for students um and the media outreach
we've done multiple videos um Instagram rails podcasts um there's I've given a number of sample Medias in there from first grade classrooms to the English language Learners at hedge there's a link in there you can click on those I put some of them in the document if it says watch here it's an actual video so if you can go back and watch that um the Hedge one is just um it just pulls at your heartstrings It's a Wonderful video student ambassador um in that video for
sure so try to highlight some of those things that we've done as well um targeted interventions again with alangan Heights and the resident services doing monthly attendance reviews publicizing uh the creating challenges there for the students um they're they're running out a gift they're giving gift cards to students for their for like perfect attendance and they're running out of them and we're trying to help them with that because it's working some of those incentives are working there um some of the interventions
and communication strategies um getting more specific with our elementary and middle school letters as well as the letters at the high school to provide you know improvements and incentive plans in place uh just the regularity of child study teams focused on students who are at risk for attendance issues and a lot of the schools bringing in the nurse the adjustment col the principles to really get at that root issue depending on what it is if it's a medical if it's for emot social emotional reasons making sure that the right people are at the um
at the table um and another thing that has been I think is one of the best investments we've made is talking points and I believe I and I've put a link in there so you would take you to the website to look at that talking points is an application where we can at the classroom and school level communicate Direct ly with families so I would write something in my preferred language and the families receive it in their preferred language they can then
communicate in their preferred language and we receive it in ours so it's completely it it's instantaneous and it's amazingly accurate and we're finding that our families particularly our families who may not speak fluent English are utilizing this quite often it's a preferred method as opposed to email or picking up the phone so it's a great way our supervisor of attendent using it has a log and you can it's it's really helped to open the doors of
communication there U so I'm so happy that we're utilizing that any questions about that one so far I have a question about that last point please um how do we communicate to families to use this technology through the schools I'm sorry through the schools we've done that directly schools y so it syncs with it syncs with Aspen so if you're a classroom teacher you log into talking points you can send a text
message to if you were oh sorry if you were my class I just send out a welcome message it will translate it into whatever languages for the students in the class welcome to talking points um Mrs Rogers I'm your English teacher for the year and then so they get a welcome text right at the very very very beginning of the year and it all SS with our student information system you get on their Chromebooks uh on their cell phones on their cell phones right on their cell phones it's even better that and that's the prefer that is the preferred method that we found that even before we had talking points they wanted
text messages families wanted text T A lot of families are used to using WhatsApp so this is something that has really helped to transition and bridge that communication and we were we were playing around with it before we implemented it and Dr Rogers is sending me messages and all kinds of languages and it just translates instantaneously it is uh game changer for us it really is so I just a comment I just think where we were just having our last conversation about the effects of cell
phone usage with children and now implementing more technology to support students that we just are mindful in regards to the messaging about you know how we deliver scaling back and using the phone for what it's intended to um one of the questions I had specifically was at Nathaniel Mor and they use pickup Patrol and it's very helpful in
regards to proactively you know sharing about absenteeism is there an opportunity to use that at different High School levels and I I say that specific U at different grade levels and I say it specifically cuz I have a high school student who doesn't quite know how to get his note from the doctor to the support services staff so the letters that come home are very helpful because that
Bridges the communication of where did the letter go so I don't have an answer regarding pickup uh Patrol I know it's used heavily at the elementary school I want to clarify on the talking points though for you that that is just with families we're not using that with students so I know we're talking about like the cell putting the cell phone pH away and then using cell phones but it's with the just with the families for the talking point so that's our way of kind of connecting with the families on the attendance issues
or any I mean anything for that matter we're using it quite heavily okay thank you yep you're welcome say what it's great to see a progression I just remember I think it was in 2020 um like during during Co and um I remember I think it was I it was either wayth or Braintree that was piloting a translation service and I remember bringing it up and there was like this
cost associated with it and you know and it was kind of brand new so it's great to see this progression now that we have this ability to now communicate with our with our families yeah this is wonderful I mean we've had translation interpretive Services where we call people looking for assistance but this you don't have to wait for that I mean you can't always wait for that and and to do that is creating a barrier right so this is really I think it's one of the best tools that we've had yeah one
of our El teachers at pcis um was talking about so to Dr Campbell's point so the barrier you know like sometimes the field trip permission slip doesn't always get home right or if they even if they get it home it might not necessarily be in their language so a teacher can send out a a reminder to get the permission slip so we don't have students who Miss who are missing out on things or missing out on The Lion King or missing out on you know Coral um you know rehearsals or whatever
it is so it's incredibly helpful to engage those families and to make sure that we're not um accidentally excluding kids because of the language barrier awesome thanks c um the the next goal is around uh District approv in terms of transparency and communication regarding budgets so um we have done a lot in this area really a multipronged approach and um including I mean Dr blaz Dell has been
um I think I I drive him crazy at this point with all of the presentations and reports and uh TV appearances that he's been a part of and as as Miss Jackson I really do appreciate that but um really trying to we're we're transparent with our finances and the decisions behind it and our needs but also I think equally important how we're trying to be good stewards of taxpayers dollars and um make
the best use of of the resources we have so um I'll just kind of categorize this so in terms of transparency and public reporting really enhanced publications of financial reports I've given a number of examples those are all hyperlink in there so that you can take you to where they exist on the website um you'll see that our budget book when it gets PR produced this year for town meeting not the detail budget book that you all have already looked at and fincom looks at but one for our
town meeting members we'll also have uh QR codes and hyperlinks to all kinds of resources in there videos included so really trying to and and that will also sit on our website as do all the books of years past um so again trying to you know in terms of our Publications being mindful of the audience um a comparable budget analysis again and continueing to look at districts that are similar to us whether it be demographic or wealth um and how they're utilizing their resources we can always learn from one
another so looking when we can um it's really important to look at that and see you know how other communities are doing it particularly if they have um comparable conditions as I mentioned uh transparency in terms of our school department website and you know there details regarding budgets summaries detailed reports Capital project statuses status of reports um C capital projects of of last year as well um
end of year audit reports that Dr blazel has added there and then just real-time Financial updates constantly we've done a lot of community engagement public awareness campaigns um through print materials videos I put a link out there for you to look at some of those uh did a number of video series collaborations with the local scene pack TV again there are a few hyperlink for the committee who's aware of that but for the public if they want to look at those as well uh regarding school budget understanding School
finances some of the priorities explained um and then the most recent Community conversations that we did uh which will go out right before town meeting again with uh pack TV there's a link there for that as well that was about 20 minutes or so I believe uh also did another number of radio um appearances we did 30 minute segments at watd really appreciate Mr Tachi for having
us in for I think at least five radio appearances if I'm not mistaken kind of going through you know the the operational budget in its entirety but then really getting into the nuances of some of those areas and I've listed some of those there um and then I think you know our commitment to working with uh budget committee select board to really Foster that collaboration I think we're really going into FY 26 in a very collaborative way uh we're all on the same
page and I in you know next year and we've had some conversations since our last joint meeting which happened on 30th I think that's when we had the joint meeting on the 30th right yeah January 30th um that in Dr bla D had a meeting with um Town manager today we're going to we're going to do that presentation jointly next year so we will be a school and town
town meeting Town manager superintendent presentation of proposed budget for next year and then also look at the additional sort of expenses that that a town incurs um that are not a part of the proposed budget so hopefully that will help to clarify any questions that people had during that joint presentation that was done um not a short while ago so any questions about any of that okay uh Dr blazel spoke to
this so Transportation we've been talking about transportation for several years so this is something that we're working uh very closely with the Massachusetts Association of people Transportation um so they've come in and started conducting interviews with myself Dr blazel uh looking at special education bus contracts um working with that transportation coordinator and having conversations with School principles uh they're in the process of doing a thorough document review to
analyze our our documents our budgets our contracts um Capital plans strategic planning they're looking at everything to come up with some recommendations so look forward to um that um so in addition to doing the analysis to see if we we can become more efficient or um if there's any savings long-term savings we're also want to enhance the quality of the experience of our students and and fam so really looking at how
do we how Are we more transparent with information regarding Transportation um and try to get feedback from families so the the Transportation website and again thanking Dr blell for this really enhancing the website to improve transparency accessibility for families with information regarding bus route information even our winter stops winter stop bus route if things are potentially changed frequently Asked question sections um key contact information if they
if they have an issue but also a first student feedback link uh which is allows parents to submit comments and some feedback another thing that we're looking to do which is in on this list which will be rolling out um a few years ago it was in its sort of infy stage but first View and um we talked about this at safety Community I'm going to actually talk about it again tomorrow but U First view is an application that we can utilize with first student that is like a geolocation
so it also kind of follows the bus and the bus routes but can be an opportunity to notify a parent when the bus is leaving the bus is is five minutes from its it's it's its bus stop so um we're going to slowly roll that out to see how it goes and look for participants understand understanding that it may not be entirely accurate we need to see if it's worth going uh full force with this but this is something that's included in our first student it's
not an additional cost on us to do this but uh we're looking to see if we can use this new technology to again help with our Communications uh with families any questions about that one okay and then the last goal um is really is our work around diversity equity and inclusion and uh we're we're committed to this work as you know so I've given
a sort of a number of examples of some of the many things that we're trying to work on uh one thing again looking at data we need to look at uh the data in front of us whether it's participation discipline uh um You Name It We attendance whatever it is we need to look at the data we have uh for all of our students and try to make make uh informed decisions and plans that are going to help us to to Really support all kids so we've done again
regular cour uh review of student performance metrics uh again using oit AR Architects again looking at subgroups and I listed the meetings from September until as recent as January 24th where this has been an agenda item with our entire administrative team our principles our coordinators and directors where we're looking at that and sharing ing best practices we're in the process of uh conducting a comprehensive Equity audit and this will be a a a districtwide uh audit where we're
looking at like our our policies procedures and operational structures supportive of all students and families in the most Equitable way um so we're in the middle of of initiating that um there will be self assessments that will be done at every building and districtwide um we will be doing stakeholder surveys with all families and students uh we are doing a curriculum and data analysis as well that's part of that so looking at our
curriculum documents um and having opportunities for interviews as well um you heard a little bit from Dr White about like curriculum where this is something that it's a goal and it's never done as Dr White said but we're we're constantly adding to our curriculum reining our curriculum so that we have as as Lisa said it's it's the windows the sliding glass doors and the mirrors do they see themselves
do they can they can they immerse themselves in another uh cultural experience but also um kind of integrate that into the curriculum where we're not just doing it at certain occasions so some of the examples obviously through literacy classro libraries investigating history curriculum I put a link in there that's the Department of Education support it um initiative and we're actively involved in that as well uh training for our Educators and cultur and responsive teaching
um we've had um keynote at our professional development this year us an same individual that came and spoke to school committee a while ago but we also worked with confianza and I put a link in there to that organization so I think that you'll be very impressed by that so confianza has been working with us for a couple years in our in at PCS again this year really training Educators and culturally responsive teaching unconscious bias and inclusive pedagogy so it's a really great organization that's helping and really getting in
at the practitioner level and working with our schools again Equitable access to learning resources expanding our classroom libraries for cultures and identities and abilities um and then we're also looking at um you know the Ada the title 2 laws regarding Ada accessibility for education materials particularly digital materials and and working through that this year as well um again at the building level it really comes down to trying to build that
climate and culture so in terms of like student Le clubs and initiatives some of the examples of the elementary clubs allies and Eagles for Equity at the high school North High School started a friends Without Borders to support multilingual Learners to really um get them connected with their peer groups at north um some of the multi Cultural Arts Community engagement events assemblies at various schools um we also had a uh personalized um multilingual learner College Career and Technical education
event for students and families this year run uh with the support of Mark Duffy which was very helpful so I think we'll see a change in terms of like active participation in CCT and TR really trying to promote that and personalized that again that that connection uh for our multilingual Learners and their families um as well as some family Knights to strengthen that engagement uh both high schools again as um new um communities join us
at our high schools making sure that the flags are are displayed in the schools so if you go down North call it Main Street you'll see the flags that represent uh the students and families in that school if you go to South you're going to see it in the Monumental staircase it's beautiful display and the windows of all the flags of the students um there um and then for at sou Middle School uh a training with Sandy Hook promise and start with hello to kind of foster that inclusive environment uh we continue to try to
partner with no place for hate um this was mentioned by liser as well um great event I was out of state with my daughter I would have been there um for for the Martin Luther King Jr uh weekend celebrations including the the essay contest which we focused in our seventh graders uh where some students came and and and read their essays but also a Visual and Performing Arts which were a part of that as well so again um and I spoke to some of the uh representatives
from no place for hate and really appreciative of that but kind of again we need to work as a community and work with a wonderful group such as no place for hate um ongoing support you know we're trying to support our immigrant families through school centered Coffer Gatherings our multilingual District communication um and and also partnering with our town leadership um in volunteer groups I think now more than ever and we're committed to that work again
communication I mentioned talking points that sort of falls into this category as well um the high school MLL night for eighth graders and uh the regularly translated new newsletters all of our schools are you know translating those newsletters anything that I send out is translated as well there's a button on the top that will will let you translated to any of the languages that we have um here in Plymouth so again our commitment to try to make sure that we're not creating barriers um when
when possible so happy to answer any questions about that again it's not an exhaustive list in any of these goals but just to kind of give you an update of some of the work that's being done and it's again this is a a collective you know the work is done by many people anybody have any questions all right oh Dr I I speak for myself but I bet you I speak for this committee as well the the deib goal in
here is is wonderful glad to see it um any audit I believe any audit that is worth its weight will obviously get the opinions of the minority students uh of their needs and wants however I would also think the opinions and philosophies of the majority students about sharing and acceptance and conversation with the minority students because we get both sides of the conversation and I if
that's part of the audit I think that would be excellent I think that they will be looking at all like a representation sample of all students in the school so I have no doubt and we'll weit and Dr Rogers and I have a follow-up um conversation with our lead at maec who's helping to coordinate this work and we can make sure that that's it's important we want to hear from from all of our families all of our students all of our staff as well great thank you y of
course all right all right next up we have uh retirement announcements yes good evening so there is a name on the list that looks familiar it's our beloved Michael Spencer uh he's been a principal and Nathaniel Morton for 13 years uh recently as you recall last year took a leave steep back from being a principal um he finally came across his uh position in higher education that he is now officially going to be retiring after
13 plus years here in Plymouth but over 32 years in uh K5 education so Michael Spencer M Jackson on behalf of the district we' like to thank Michael Spencer for his 13 plus years of service to the district he definitely uh was big act to follow I uh had lot of per personal experience with him and it's a big loss but I'm really excited that he's found something thank you all right next up we
have uh Committee Member reports anybody have any uh reports I want to give nothing all right uh Master planning committee update Mr Morgan uh our next meeting is March 6 Mar 6 yep and and obviously Plymouth building committee is That's Thursday okay all right so showy back to Personnel reports uh yes uh this evening I Council share with you we accepted two resignations uh we did have three classified appointments
and then we had uh two parental leaves four medical leaves and one personal leave that came our way all right thank you all right do we have any unfinished or new business any members want to raise nope all right we'll move on to the consent agenda does anybody have any items I want want to remove from the consent agenda see any all right do I have a motion for the consent agenda I'll make a motion to approve the
uh consent agenda Mr Morgan you have a second miss awood all right do a roll call vote Miss Bryant yes Miss sha yes Miss Haywood yes Mr Morgan yes M Jackson yes Dr Sison yes and I vote Yes pass it unanimously all right with that I will call the the February 10th meeting to a close at 9:38
p.m. thank you you everyone
e e