All right. Good evening everyone. Now that we've addressed our technology issues, we will I will call the April 6, 2026 meeting of the Plymouth School Committee to order at 7:01 p.m. Everyone, please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Next, I'll read our land acknowledgement. We acknowledge that we are meeting on the unseated ancestral
homeland of indigenous peop people whose enduring presence we humbly recognize. We honor the Wanoic people as the original stewards and the Herring Pondwanoic as a surviving tribe indigenous to these lands. In our commitment to lifelong learning, we acknowledge historical injustices to the native people of this land and vow to
educate ourselves, our community, and our students on the first peoples and the hardships they endured. We offer this as a small but essential step towards building a culture of respect, truth, and accountability. All right, next we have comments from the community. We have two people signed
up tonight. Uh first up, um Lauren, um Lilo, >> welcome back. >> Thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to speak to you again tonight on the importance of keeping the Manet public preschool program in Manet.
I understand that tonight's agenda is a lengthy one, so I will try and be concise. Though I remain in full support of our superintendent and the school committee as a whole, I have to advocate for what I firmly believe is in the best interest of families and children in
precincts 6, 7th, 8, and 14. The district's own survey shows that affordability and accessibility are the top concerns of families here in Plymouth. The Department of Early Education and Care have affordability and accessibility as key tenants in
their uh grant here in Plymouth. The department um currently is awarding about a half million dollars and the community I'm sorry the uh Commonwealth's public preschool
initiative grant. Sandwich nearby community is awarded more than twice that amount and many other communities are as well in order for Plymouth to potentially qualify for more money next
year. Having accessibility and affordability as part of their program would be advisable. Next year, only two children will enter Manamed Elementary School without a preschool experience, which is a
predictive metric for success in kindergarten and beyond. Considering that Desi's own data reflects Manet as a highne district, this is not a statistic that can be lightly tossed aside. However, moving this program out of
management could severely impact the number of children that are able to attend preschool. Additionally, as town meetings scrutinize the operational budget for next year, the cost of moving the preschool, which is over 117
um,000, will be an additional cost coupled with the continued re renovations that are needed at South Middle. another 1245 by the renov by keeping the preschool in manet for
next year which incurs no additional costs. The renovations can be done leaving the funds allocated available for future needs and any bumps in the road that can be new location may encounter can be smoothed out. The preschool children
with identified needs will continue to be serviced by the manamemed elementary school specialist and children and families will be spared the disruption of moving, not to mention the teachers having to pack up and move and then unpack the classroom in the new location. The school community, which
delights in the preschool classes, will be pleased they are remaining. Most of the school has yet even to be notified that the program is scheduled to leave. And Dr. frame can continue his exemplary leadership. I wish to thank him and the
entire MEES staff for embracing the preschool program and making them a welcome addition to their school. Next year's families can be surveyed about the effect that a move to PSMS will have on their households, which the current families were never even
notified about, never mind surveyed about. and an informed decision can be made about pulling the only preschool option for both Indian Brook and Manamett Elementary School students. >> Thank you for your time.
>> Thank you. >> All right. Next up, we have uh Sandra Broken. Welcome back. >> Good evening. My name is Sandra Broen. I live at 15 Trina's Path in Plymouth. I'm a retired teacher with over 40 years of
experience in the public schools and more years tutoring and teaching children individually in small groups. I'm opposed to the CE comprehensive sex education program that has been taught to the eighth graders this year and is planned for sixth, seventh, and eighth
next year. At March at the March 16th, 2026 meeting, I made efforts to see that all of you in the school committee and administrators who were here received the February 2026 newspaper from Rhode Island, Good News Today. A front page
article was about Plymouth Mass. It was entitled, Fighting Back Against Explicit Sex Education. I hope all of you had a chance to read it. I hope it put some concerns, stop signs up for this program. It's not age appropriate for um
for these children and it's not even appropriate for some adults. Um my biggest concerns with the overview for the Plymouth Public Schools 8th grade health education sexual health is that students know how to access and use
health care services and information. And my question is what health care services are they referring to? And I am going to be checking into this some more. I I'm hoping to meet with um with the teacher with a couple of friends of mine. Um let's see in lesson 3.1 uh
personal boundaries and consent. What are the students consenting to? What is the subject of the consent in PCS PCIS PSMS 8 uh eighth grade sexual health unit parent caregiver questions and answers?
The question is instructional methods boys and girls taught together or separately and the answer is lessons are taught in mixed gendered groups to ensure that all students receive the same information. Well, this is bogus. Children should be taught separately to
pre prevent embarrassing them and to prevent innocent from being taken from them. As a kindergarten teacher, I had two sessions of classes, AM and PM classes. I was expected to teach both classes the same information every day. So it can be done. Um I believe the
effort could be made to teach the boy students and girls students separately if you're proceeding with this program. Teaching basic human physiology and sexuality can be taught without getting children confused, embarrassed, and ready to try things they might not be ready for. God is watching and we need
to have the fear of God with regard to this subject. The fear of God is a beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10. The fear of God is a beginning of knowledge. Proverbs 17, Psalm 127 says that people who fear the God are fear God fear the Lord are blessed and it will be well
with them. The opposite is true. If you don't fear God, you won't have wisdom and knowledge. You you may not be blessed and it may not go well with you. God is watching to see what you will do. Be wise. Care for the kids. Seriously, reconsider the program. And if you won't stop it, at least teach the boys and the
girls separately. And if I can keep going, something else to consider. We have been uh we have we have all been made in God's image. The children have been made in God's image. Genesis 1:27. Part of us and them is very holy and
needs to be respected at a high level. Consent and casual sex is not holy. Abstinence and saving one's virginity for that special person you will spend your life with is holy. So, thank you for hearing me. I appreciate your time.
>> All right. Do we have anyone else speak wishing to speak tonight? >> All right. We'll continue on our agenda. Next up, we have uh representatives from the coalition of organized Plymouth uh employees for presentation. Oh, hold on, >> students. All right. Sorry. You guys are
to sit through a presentation for no reason. All right. First off, we have Plymouth North Representative Emerson Sneak. Sorry about that. >> Good evening, everybody. Just this Thursday, the Interact Be the Light benefit show took place with 14 different acts and talents from both
different high schools. The show raised a significant amount of money for both the whale and dolphin conservation, which is an international nonprofit that has an office here in Plymouth and our very own PNHS food pantry. SAT school day for juniors takes place for those
who have already registered during the school day this Wednesday, April 8th. Junior prom tickets and senior dinner dance tickets are on sale now via GoFan until the end of the month. Make sure to get your obligations in in order to purchase these tickets. Term three
grades close Friday, April 17th. Report cards will be out Friday after we return from vacation on Friday, May 1st. Seniors, make sure to check Google Classroom and Instagram for all end of the year event updates. All right, next. Next up, we have
Charlie Walker from Plymouth South. >> Thank you. A big congratulations to the Plymouth South High School community who raised over $22,000 for Special Olympics and hosted a Polar Plunge last Thursday. It was a freezing day, but the spirit and amount of both student and staff plungers was remarkable. We were
recognized at the top fundraising school for this incredible cause in Massachusetts. Spring sports are underway, even with the frigid temperatures. All games are posted weekly on both the school's Facebook page and arbiter.live. live. Thank you to the Panther Booster Club who hosted a fantastic casino night a
few weeks ago. The turnout was tremendous and the parents did an incredible job with the event. May 3rd is also the annual North South One Town Golf tournament for parents and we'd appreciate any support we can get there. This Wednesday, the juniors will participate in the SAT during the school
day and we finished the first round of 10th grade MCCAST with ELA last week. Our spring musical, Foot Loose, is fast approaching. Ticket sales went live this week. Don't miss our gig band concert this Thursday at 7 pm at Plymouth South.
Also, thank you to the Interact clubs at both Plymouth North and Plymouth South for the fantastic Be the Light concert last Thursday. Congratulations to the following Plymouth South art students who will be receiving awards from Congressman Bill Keading in the 9th District
Congressional Art Cont um competition, sorry, on Friday, April 10th. First place to Katherine and Zora for the collage. Second place to Mercy Montagna for painting. And honorable mentions to both Ashley Coven and Finley Quaser for
paint Casey for painting and computerenerated work respectively. Junior prom tickets go on sale next week. Ticket sales close on April 15th. Tickets are $70 and will be on sale by the third floor elevator before and after school from Thursday, April 9th to
Wednesday, April 15th. Um, please be sure that you are off of the O list and all guest passes are approved before coming to buy your ticket. The junior prom is May 8th at Indian Pond. With the late April break, senior events begin right after April vacation. We will be sending an email
with the many dates later this week. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you both. Any questions for either of our representatives? >> Can Can I make a statement? Um, just thought it was the right time to plug in with prom, graduation, awards coming up.
Uh there's a new barber shop over on Main Street that has a student that is a barber intern and I just thought it was great to be able to see them in the middle of our community using their
marketing skills, what they're learning in tech program and bringing it all together. Teamwork out there passing out flyers. It was just really great to see them, I would say, emerging as active members of our community. So, just
thought it was the right time to kind of plug those efforts in. Tell your friends. >> Thank you, Miss Bryant. Anybody else? All right. If not, we will now move on to our representatives from the Coalition of Organized Plymouth
employees. some support with us. >> So, um I appreciate uh you putting us on the agenda and we just kind of wanted to update the committee of kind of what's going on especially with town meeting coming up uh Saturday and you know we are kind of looking for this committee support. Me and me and Dale have been a
Dale, >> Dale and I, sorry, Dale's We have been a traveling road show um since probably December and we've we've been working with all the other unions. I'm not sure if people are aware, but I so I I want to bring this up and again D's got some comments prepared and we're open to conversation at at town meeting coming
up, article 10 of the special town meeting. Um it it is it's its goal is to remove um the home rule petition the special act of 2003 and it's to remove it from from uh every um and that that's the rule that says when you retire you go back to the contribution rate uh you
were hired at. It was brought up by two selectmen or missto and it's supported by uh Kevin Candy in the December select board meeting. Uh it was it was then voted down at that meeting and then later we had a citizen uh Rich Cury from precinct 2 collected the 200 signatures
to put it on the on on the article for tell the for springtown meeting the article um to to all of us you know we we're against this obviously one because we believe it creates the halves and haves nots with our memberships um it's something we've worked with this
committee to collectively bargain to put into our contracts and then also our PEC agreements our health insurance agreement you know, says there will be no changes to the health insurance portfolio for the duration of this. Um, it there again, even despite all that information with the collective
bargaining and whatnot, it was never we were never discussed. We were never talked to, we were never reached out to as a community group um to say, you know, look looking for cost ideas. We understand that that health insurance costs are rising around the and again not a Plymouth issue. it's, you know, it's in the state of Massachusetts are
rising and again us as coalition of or organized uh Plymouth employees and as the active chair in the past chair of the insurance advisory committee, you know, we're dedicated to continue to find, you know, cost savings initiatives out there. Um at our next IC meeting,
we're bringing in two uh plans to look at to possibly save money on maintenance prescriptions and there's another program that we're looking into. So we're actively again as taxpayers you know also to try to find solutions to work collaboratively. I think you know this committee and this group of talk
you know we've gone through negotiations and I think we only reason we've been successful through a lot of these things is through collaboration I think we have a proven track record on that uh we don't believe again there's no collaboration in this there's no conversations with us and you know going
to talk to many of our different employees you know at their work at work sites or we and we've gone to the fire union meetings we work police SEIU op we've got so working with all the groups you know many of our our members that we get in front you know are feeling attacked on this. So again the finance
committee voted 0 to 13 not to recommend it. The select board voted um 3 to2 not to recommend it. So you know we are looking you know for the school committee for some support as as another major committee to help you again recruit and retain as as it will affect your ability to recruit and retain if
this is taken away um not you know not jointly worked together negotiated uh through the process. So we're here to have a conversation with you. Dale's got some uh some some prepared comments. And again, we're happy to answer any questions from the committee and have a conversation.
>> Thank you, Tom, and thank you committee members for allowing us to speak tonight. For the record, I'm Dale Weber. I uh am the president of the collective bargaining relief association which represents the non certificated uh employees of your school department, the
cafeteria workers, the custodians, the skilled craftsmen and uh the other uh head custodians. So, and the school bus drivers as well. So, I was born here in Plymouth. I won't tell you how many years ago, but it was uh over 70. So,
uh, I've been a town meeting member for 34 years, a town employee for 38 years, an insurance advisory member for going on 46 years now, and a past chairman for decades, and Plymouth retirement board member for 10 years now. So, I have some
institutional history here, and I am solidly invested in my town and my Plymouth school system. So, here is one fond piece of history related to the Plymouth school system that I'd like to relay to you today. I've worked with three remarkable women from your side of
the Plymouth governmental equation through the years, and my work with them became the law that is now under attack from a citizens petition that is up for vote this Saturday. Article 10 of the annual special town
meeting trying to amend chapter 27 of the acts of 2003 which I helped uh write uh with with uh my friend and to uh longtime chairman of the Plymouth Retirement Board Tom Kelly. We wrote
this bill and along with active employee groups we worked with was Mrs. Mary Henry, uh, former dean of students at Plymouth North High School for over 40 years. Some of you may remember her. If you didn't, some of you have probably heard
of her. And Mrs. Albert Thompson, former major in the military and Plymouth's first woman selectman and its first chair. Now that's history. These two great women worked as founders
of Priya, the Plymouth Retired Employees Association, and along with another great woman and past longtime chair of this committee. They were recipients of the Adele Manf Freddy Excellence in Education Award. Another great woman who
never missed a school committee meeting in her long tenure here as chair. So, I'm honored for their heavy lifting to get this bill passed into law. And since its inception, the employees of this town have initiated savings in
health insurance portfolio, approaching many, many millions of dollars in compounding cost savings and initiatives. I'm even more honored to be in this room as often as I am, the room this community named the Albert Thompson
meeting room. It's right on the wall outside the doors. Sadly, these great ladies are no longer with us, but I can bet they are not happy with the petitioner of Article 10. This bill before us, Saturday, April
11th at 8 a.m., if passed, will produce zero dollars in savings for decades out into the future. Its only goal is to send a message to town and school negotiators to play hard ball in the sandbox with
the unions. The lead petitioner has a history of going after town and school contracts, making motions at town meeting in the past to vote no on those contracts. This is his latest rendition on that theme. The bill he is amending cuts out
any new hire from the reversion back to the contribution split for health insurance at the employees hire date. It will lead you into protracted negotiation and legal challenges as all of our current collective bargaining
agreements as well as the public employee committee PEC contract states and I quote, "It is agreed that no other changes will be implemented to the current health insurance portfolio, including both plan
design and contribution rates for the duration of the current PEC. agreement. Our bill created that benefit at a time when the town was at a fiscal crisis due to a combination of the electric deregulation
and the governor's 9C budget cuts. The town asked us for help. Chapter 27 of the acts of 2003 provided instant savings that continue to compound out today. not in dollars, not in thousands of
dollars, but dollars in the millions of dollars. And we continue with employee initiatives to produce savings and cost avoidances. The most recent public employee health insurance contract is at nearly $20 million of savings after
three years. This contract runs until 2029. So, more savings will result as the compounding continues. And as a result of this and of paste agreements and interest rates, we are
scaling down the OPED liability by almost $300 million according to the latest actuarial report. Those are proven results. We work hard to balance the cost to taxpayers of which we are too. Please don't leave
this meeting without thinking that while maintaining the benefit in a way that can still recruit and retain employees to our town. If this article 10 passes this Saturday, the words recruit and retain will be lost and the words have
and have not will be the new words of how we do things in Plymouth. How will new employees feel when they find out their co-workers receive a benefit they don't? Is this what we have become? We hope
not. That is why we are respectfully respectfully asking this committee to make a motion tonight, right here and right now, and to vote no like the select board and the advisory and finance committee did.
Please vote no to send the message that the Plymouth employment model remains open for business. Thank you. I appreciate you listening. Thank you. You have any questions, >> Michelle?
>> Um, trying to think of how so I'm trying to look up the language for article 10 is what I'm trying to do. Um,
>> so what it's what they're asking to do is immediately change the health benefit. >> Yes. >> That is already contracted. >> What they're what they're asking to do is is to change the home petition law. So it would have to be voted at town meeting and then it would have to go to
the state house. So they're looking to amend the law which again we have negotiated also into our contracts and they're looking to amend it to remove it for any new hires. >> So the the impacted parties would
essentially be new hires. It wouldn't go it wouldn't backdate like we wouldn't be changing benefits for anyone retiring or retiring under current contracts. It would be any new hires and then moving forward would >> Yes. So again, we don't we don't the
petitioner has said is no savings to like 2050. Again, there'd be no savings unless we move >> our contribution rate split. So there's potentially could be no savings. And again, it just more for us the way how it kind of again, it wasn't even on the
agenda at the select board meeting to talk about when they were going through the warrants. It was at the very end just brought up again because we would have obviously been at the meeting to try to have a discussion about this. And again, we weren't no one informed us. Again, it wasn't an agenda item. And then again, it was voted down and then
somebody went and collect then Mr. Circuit went and collected the 200 signatures and in our town bylaw says or charter says >> that it has to go to town meeting. >> Okay. >> That's why we're here. >> Yeah. Um what
split uh what majority would this need at town meeting? Two/3s or or 5050? >> Majority vote. >> Just a majority vote. Sorry. >> Select board. Uh, no. Like when it goes to tell me article 10. >> It's a majority. >> It's just a majority vote. Okay. >> Um, >> I'm gonna pause for a second if anyone
else has a question. >> I don't necessarily have a question. I can I don't love the idea of being arbitrated on something that we negotiated already. Uh, I feel like if that needs to change, it should change through a negotiated term, not through
an arbitration by town meeting, the select board, advisory and finance, or private citizens. I feel like that's something for the schools to negotiate with the unions together and to come up with a plan. And I don't feel like the
knee-jerk reaction to what could possibly be a bad fiscal year is a wellthoughtout plan. I think a well thoughtout plan comes through going through the budget and negotiation cycle, not through a knee-jerk reaction to cut something that may or may not
help. So I for one don't couldn't stand behind something like that just for that alone. I appreciate again I mean you know I I think you know we are potentially coming on tough times. I don't think anybody's hiding it. I think we're going to have
to work collaboratively moving forward for for us to I think everybody's got to have you know across the state's going to have to work collaboratively >> that may make negotiations more difficult or but that's something to negotiate. It's not something to arbitrate. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. I I just have a statement as well. I echo um the thoughts of Miss Jackson. I wasn't here for the negotiations. So to hear something that has been woven
into other discussions, the way things are written, contracts that have been negotiated, I would agree from a knee-jerk reaction. I'd speak to in my line of work, medical costs are rising
9%, we have to figure it out as a organization. dental rising 8%. We have to figure it out as an organization. It's not infusing citizens who are not part of the
collaborative process, the negotiated process to determine what happens next. So, I ju just would say I appreciate you both coming and advocating in the work that you're doing throughout the community to bring people together because bringing people together will
get to the overall goal. This I I would agree it's not the solution. >> Now, we've always had a good working relationship. We've always had a good negotiation pattern. We've always had a lot of transparency and everybody has come to the table on both sides to make
things work. I don't think this time will be any different. So I don't think there's any reason to rush into taking something away that >> could change things, could make them better, could make them worse, could not help at all. You know, >> there's there's no cost savings.
>> Yes. >> In in this particular approach. I'm on record saying there's no cost savings in this approach. >> Yeah. Mr. Smarts, >> you have to go back. Um, sorry for walking in while you were presenting
tardy. Uh, >> is our vote more symbolism and support >> and so it it's basically I mean our our vote is to support and you know we don't want to reward bad behavior when when someone just brings something up at the
last minute and says all right let's make this stick. I don't think that's a good process. So, I mean, I'd be inclined to to vote in favor of that type of support. And then, you know, and and I know there's tough fiscal times,
but things can also turn around. The cherry sheet can get better for us. Like, you know, the state receipts can get better. You can't manage, you know, in a fiscal doom and gloom all the time. That doesn't mean you're not conservative or moderate or, you know,
efficient. But I think you also got to be looking at how things develop. And if if something like this developed almost in the 11th hour, you know, I' I'd have no taste for that. So I' I'd vote the same way as my colleagues to support you guys. >> Yeah. And like I said, we're act like I
said, our insurance advisory, I mean, we said I go to the Blue Cross labor forums. We go to the different events like, you know, we're invested in this, right? We've been doing this for a while. Like you said, Dale's been in a while. Again, we our insurance advisory meets the first Friday of every month. this this one's going to be the second Friday, but I mean you have a group
that's actively looking at the numbers, actively having the conversations, looking for the questions again, working collaboratively together through this. Again, even since this all happened in the PEC says no changes as as as Mr. Weber said, Dale said, you know, again,
we're stepping outside the box to try to bring in cost savings initiative that help our members and then help the help the community. So, it it's a win-win. Again, we we've done it as it's a proven track record. Again, our last PEC some I benefit the pillar RX program uh through
Blue Cross. Again, it saves it saves the town money on on insurance and it saves our members for specialty pharmacy drugs, which are some of the some of the you know, driving costs of everything. I mean, I I fortunately I have to use them and I and I don't I don't have to pay for them through the system and the town's getting them through a discounted
rate through a c uh you know, it's like a a coupon. So again, we're exploring another program like similar like that with with an op an optional program for people to be able to roll into to help them with maintenance medical bills and again that they'll be getting the medicine at a at a lower rate. So
they'll be saving money and the town will be saving money. Again, we're not afraid again we are taxpayers said you know we are invested in the community. My my kids go to play public schools. You know I help coach learn to play hockey on on Saturdays and whatnot. So, I mean it just again if even if there
was a conversation it may they reached out to us and say hey we're going to do this I probably would have said no I'm still against this but I would have had a little more respect if if a phone call I mean you know even when we have disagreements here you know we still pick up the phone and call each other and say here's you know here's the issue
we got to deal and then you know we then we figure out both sides how we're going to work through it but you know there's phone calls there's conversations again there's just lack of and I think that really is resonating in people in our members is, you know, they're almost feeling like, hey, this health insurance partner, you know, it's it's because of us that we're because we have health
insurance. It's that we've negotiated that we've sacrificed funds for that we've worked hard to maintain to to tr and that now we feel like as employees, we're not attacked because yeah, the the health cost is rising and it's having an effect on budgets. But again, you know, it's happening to everybody and you
know, members are really starting to feel like, you know, we're being attacked because of because of the health insurance crisis that's happening in the state. Mhm. >> Can I get a word in? >> You can absolutely. >> So, uh, what what what really triggered
us into being so active in opposing this citizens position was not that the citizens don't have a right to do that. I mean, they have every right in the world to do what they did. When Tom refers to a phone call coming to us first, that should have come from the
town manager uh who basically handles a lot of the health insurance negotiations on behalf of the rest of us. Uh but we had already taken steps back in December when the budget for health insurance was
starting to get seriously uh escalated by the popular uh explosion of the GLP1 drugs. Not unique to Plymouth, but Plymouth was
on the hook for almost $3 million in claims in the last six months. We had scheduled an insurance advisory committee from some for sometime in January, I think. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but it was based on we were
making a recommendation to our provider, Blue Cross and and Blue Shield to no longer cover those drugs come July 1st except for people who had a medical necessity and not just for weight loss.
So the crisis that the town was anticipating with the spike in claims was averted by a insurance advisory committee recommendation to the town. And again, we're only advisory. We make our
opinions. The town manager can accept them or deny them. But we made that recommendation. and Blue Cross Blue Shield also was on track with recommending we not do that. So
that coupled with the citizens petition that came out sometime in February I think or uh basically said this this statement is what energized us.
This citizens petition is a modest but important step back from the fiscal cliff we are now approaching. Now you'll hear if anyone asks at town meeting that the petitioner is is basically saying that there were great savings to be
found in this uh citizen petition. You will hear from the chief financial officer andor the town manager that that's not so. That is just not so. So, this is kind of looking like a nail
if the only tool you have is a hammer. I'm sorry to say. I don't mean that to be disrespectful to anyone, including the the uh citizens that signed this petition, but there is no money to be saved here. Our committee has proven
results that the town manager and the chief financial officer, Lin Barrett, will not challenge. They know the numbers that I've been talking about. They have never challenged them when I'm in front of them. And I think that my numbers are slightly conservative
because I didn't want to be accused of overinflating the numbers. So that's it for me. Thank you. Appreciate >> you guys. Michelle, did you >> um how many towns have a similar clause, >> have a similar what
>> like have a similar like this law is relative to the town of Plymouth specifically. Are there other towns that have um a similar >> There are several aspects of this uh home rule petition. Uh, I believe we were the first back in 2003 and there
have been several other towns that have jumped on board that including parts of Boston, but they're they're split up and there are parts of uh I believe it's uh Arlington. Uh, but I I concentrate on
the United States of Plymouth and and that's that's where I come from. That's what we do. And we don't, although we look at the global issues of health insurance, I will say what I've said many times before in forums like this,
we cannot cure the cost of health care here in Plymouth. We just can't do it. And the reason being, and these are statistics that come from consultants that we work with, uh the cost of health
insurance in the United States is the most costly in the world. >> Okay? The cost of providing health insurance in Massachusetts is the most costly in the United States of America.
And that's a fact. And we're fortunate in that regard because we have the best hospitals in the world where people travel from all over the world to get their care right up the street in Boston. And that's a benefit to
Plymouth, not a detriment. And we're proud of that. But we do take all the steps we can to balance what it takes to recruit employees and what it takes to
uh provide the benefit. So >> I have one more question or statement. Um my last question is reading this there is nothing within the home rule petition that says that the rates can't be changed each contract. So they can be
negotiated. There's no there's nothing right. There's nothing stopping us from changing this split. >> Remember this, and thank you for that question. >> In 1974, the town of Plymouth was in another fiscal crisis, >> and they had no money to offer us at the
table. Okay? So, they offered us health insurance at the rate of 99% paid by the employer and 1% paid by the employee. Today we're at 70% paid by the employer
and 30% by the employee. What a long long road we've traveled, but we've come down 29% in our contribution. And one of the comments the the uh petitioner of this article
has put out in a mississive to every town meeting member uh last week was that the collection plate is being passed to the employees and they're not putting anything in it. What a falsehood because we put 13.2 two I think million
dollars a year into that collection plate for our contribution rate that was bargained in good faith with your committee with the select board and that's where we are we're here we're doing it >> y
>> so just for everybody who's not been through negotiations before the way that we approach things is that we talk about what's on the table and what is the what what are the things that you most want on the table and what
are the things that you can take away. So they already know going into negotiations, you know, where we're at. So if health insurance ends up becoming something that we negotiate, like we all are aware of what's going on. And I feel like
that's something that we've always been fully transparent about is, you know, like this is what we have. Let's come together to figure out what we can do with what we have. And I would hate to see that process be sullied by somebody
who doesn't understand how long it's taken us to build a really good reputation. And I mean we've always been able I mean Louise can back us up on this that we've always been able to sit down and come up with something. I think sitting down and we all understand what the constraints are and it doesn't
behoove you to try and keep health insurance up here if you know that down here you're giving away something else that you really want. >> Agreed. >> That's right. >> Just recently retiring from three decades at
Blue Cross Blue Shed of Massachusetts. I would say that the rates that you share, the challenges we speak of, everyone are dealing with these challenges. But to put this on the table as a solution for
a challenge that again will provide zero cost savings, it will end up costing more for both employee and town and school if it is removed. So, I just wanted to be able to put that
out there. Coming from the perspective outside of school committee as a former member of health insurance, we invest in the prescribing in treatment rather than the overall health. So, it's just going to get worse
before it gets better. >> Michelle, >> um I just want to say one last thing. um because of the fact that I abstain from negotiations on this committee if the committee does take a vote tonight, I will likely abstain from that as well. I know it's not it's a it's more of a
symbolic vote than anything else. Um but I have family members that work for the Plymouth Public Schools. Um and I would like to heir on the side of ethics. So I don't want anyone to interpret my abstension as not supporting this because I do support this. The questions
that I asked tonight were specifically just from a fiscal and just a a questioning perspective. Um I it seems like there is no good reason to over change the home rule petition. Um because it's not saving us anything and
it's not it seems like it's going to do it's going to make us look worse in the eyes of prospective employees. And um that's my opinion on that. But like I said, I will be abstaining. I just didn't want there to be any I want people to know why I'm abstaining from this vote and and be clear about that.
>> No, thank you. >> He asked us to vote so it feels like we might vote. is does the administration want to weigh in on this or you guys I mean I don't want to put you on the spot but if either either you or Dr. I think you've all articulated it very well personally. Um I think to um
>> to Kathy's point, we've always worked I think collectively and collaboratively and look at like what you know it's not about getting one over on one another. It's about doing right by our employees. We we demonstrated that the last
negotiations when we knew that we didn't have the funding to negotiate in good faith and we've always negotiated in good faith. Um so I think that's where to your point Kathy um that's where you know these things should occur in my
opinion. Um and I think um I mean you've made a lot of points that that I personally agree with >> regarding this. >> All right. just from a procedural. So this was not on as an action item, but as it is on our agenda, we are within our rights to actually you know uh you
know move to you know whatever that motion looks like and vote on. Again it is largely uh symbolic. That said, I would happily if the uh committee does uh you know vote to support our friends in the unions, I would happily add make
mention of this and you know added to my statement uh that I'll read on uh floor of town meeting. >> Yeah. >> I just want to make sure so it doesn't um just per Robert's rules um and the fact that it is >> it this doesn't seem like a negotiating item. >> No. >> Okay. I just wanted to
>> Yeah. No, this is Yeah. This is purely us you know publicly uh you know supporting or not you know >> okay >> this position which then you know I said give me a little more have you know rather than speaking for myself at town meeting speak on behalf of the committee
that you know this is the committee's position >> I'm happy to move for that I don't know what language you want me to use >> and I second whatever language let's craft
uh >> be not to support. >> Yeah, exactly. It would be Yeah. Yeah. Just a motion to not not support article 10 at town meeting at springtime meeting. >> I move that we move this from an info item to an action item. Uh an
affirmative vote would be to not support um article 10 vote um at town meeting. I second that motion. >> All right, I'll do a roll call vote. Mr. Samaros, >> yes.
>> Miss Shaw, >> abstain. >> All right. >> Yes. >> Mr. Morgan, >> I'm going to abstain. >> All right. Miss Jackson, >> yes. >> Miss Bryant, >> yes. >> And I'll vote yes. So, we have five fours, zero against, and two abstensions
or three abstensions. All three. >> Two. >> Oh, just you voted for two. All right. So, we're good. >> Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. See you. >> Appreciate you. Thanks. >> All right. >> Chair, I don't have any power here. So,
I'll vote manually. >> We all had the same. >> Oh, it's all >> What's it? >> Oh, you guys have an extraordinary. >> I'm almost full. >> I'm connected on my MacBook, so use mine. >> All right.
So, next up, we have a a request which I'm inclined to approve unless there's any objections from the uh committee that we move item uh where is it? 6 uh 6.6, which is our discussion of the uh our transportation uh costs up ahead of
our uh three school improvement uh plans. So, everyone good with that? >> All right. and only because we we have a a guest in the audience that I you know like to allow to leave here sooner than later. Thank you for coming. All right, Dr. Blazo.
Um thank you very much. Um tonight we are talking about the yellow bus bid recommendation um from FI27 to FY31 um that was put in. Rich Lee um as I know you've met before um is joining me. he um had done one of our transportation
studies and he conducted the bus bid for us as well. So Rich will be talking along with me and feel free to interrupt with us at any point in time with any questions whatsoever. Um we'll call up that in just a moment. Um as we look at this, I just want to kind of go back a
little bit um when Rich had conducted the transportation study um and a few things that did come up during that study and um things such as budget. Um, one of the things that Richard found was that we averaged about 9.3%
um of our total district budget for transportation in the past yellow bus. We're not talking special ed um over the past 5 years and that the transportation district ratio of 10% or less is actually considered effective by both DESIE and industry standards. So we are
under that 10%. Um, we also had a con we had a study by MAPPT, the Massachusetts Association of People Transportation. Um, and they found that the average overall ride time across a district was 40 minutes and that our operating
capacity was at 51%. Um both AA aa and MAT basically said that we're as efficient as we can given our geography um and the length of time length of our bus routes and um our transportation tier times our
bell schedules um we could fill our buses more and that would be much more efficient but we just don't have the time to do that. Rich, I don't know if you want to anything else. >> Simply is if you had uh more time between your school's starting and ending times, you could you could run
longer routes and pick up more students. >> But uh the the end all is you can't get to school late, right? >> That's the bottom line. um when they when both when Richard had looked at our our morning routes and our
afternoon routes um pretty much again the same the same con conclusions were found. Um in the morning we were about 80 used about 87% of the available time. Um we had about 40% ridership in the
morning. Um but we used all the available time we possibly could. In the afternoon it was similar findings. Um, we used about 96% of our available time. Our ridership was again about the same. Um, but we used all the time we possibly
could between between routes, morning routes, afternoon roots. Um, skip over this one. All right. Then they also looked at which looked at our current fleet as
well. Um, and our current fleet is aging. We run all of our field trips. We run all of our own athletics ourselves. We also run about five routes ourselves as well. Um, we have six of our buses. We're over 10 years old, costing us more
and more money maintenance-wise. Um, we anytime that you take over something of yourself operating, um, you need to replace your buses. You need to have a capital plan. Each bus is about $132,000 or so right now. Um
some of the other things that need to be looked at when you self operate is you need to look at human resources. All of the tasks that would go into um selfoperating staff recruitment. We'd have to do onboarding, evaluation, termination, um grievances, dealing with
retirement. Oops. Could you go back a little? Oh, it's not me. >> There we go. Right there. Thank you, Kristen. Um, so we need to deal with all human resources. Um, we also have to deal with maintenance. We'd have to develop a maintenance plan. We'd have to coordinate with the department, the DPW.
Um, we'd have to look at a maintenance garage. We'd have to deal with equipment. Um, other things we'd be dealing with contract negotiations. Where do we park that many buses? Um, the other things that aren't included in the study that Rich had done are the
long-term costs that aren't included in this. This is the the study that we did was really looking at the day-to-day. When you start looking at long-term costs, you're looking at pension, you're looking at retirement benefits, including health insurance, which was just a conversation just a few moments ago. Um, we need to look at that capital
replacement. Um, the the study included capital initially, but it didn't include a replacement plan. Again, when you're looking at contracting versus selfop self opt um map and AEA both looked at some of those
considerations, um contracting has predictable costs. You know what your costs are going to be. Um owning a fleet does provide flexibility. Um but then like I said, we have to start thinking if we were self operating operating, we have to look at health
insurance, um pension eligibility, union costs, um which would increase costs as well. Um, and then also Rich also pointed out that there's a shortage of school bus drivers in the area. So, we would have to be doing we would have to be doing our own recruiting and if we
can't find a bus driver, then we don't have we may not be able to run that route. Um, that puts now if we have a contractor, it puts the responsibility on the contractor, not us. Um, the next thing, let me go back in.
There it goes. Um this is just that initial capital investment. Um when you look at the this the study um it kind of looked at spreading those costs out in those first few years. Um but looking at like I said a 75 type-C passenger bus
but $131,000. Um there's your annual investment and we're looking at $2.2 million a year over the first five years or so. Um the last bus we purchased in Plymouth was just over $133,000. So that the numbers coming up and I don't know if you wanted
to talk more about supply issues and >> well one of the concerns that uh Dr. Blaze and I talked about this evening is that uh since the original study was done in 2025 and even since my recommendation in early March was done.
Our world has changed. >> Absolutely. >> Uh we're now facing uh issues with regard to Iran. Uh we're seeing spikes in fuel. Uh this morning I I fueled my car and uh I paid $52 a gallon. Uh up
from about 379 a gallon uh less than two months ago. Uh I'm predicting that uh we're going to see supply chain issues as we did during COVID over the next uh 6 months, 8 months, 10 months, whatever long this war is going to take and the
repercussions of it are going to take. Um and one of the things that is somewhat intangible uh well it is tangible in one respect is that you have a bid cost that is a that is a fixed cost. You know what your cost
is going to be over the next five years. If you choose to selfoperate you're rolling the dice on what the economy is going to do over the next year, two years, three years. um not a gamble I would take at this time given the cost disparity between uh the relatively low
cost disparity between contracting and self-operating and I don't think that it's worth the risk given given the issues we're we're seeing. The other piece of that is that you actually get another bite of the apple four years from now. Uh if you can revisit uh when
the economy is either settled or not settled. Uh but you actually get a second bite of the apple in four years to decide if you want to continue to selfoperate or uh or contract. >> So what we did um obviously we talked about there were different options that
we had. Um we could have just taken the option year and waited um but we decided to go out a year early um and bid. So we released the bid on November 17th. We opened the bids on December 23rd. Um we had two submissions. We had one from First Student and one from NRT Bus. Um
they're also the same company that operate Vampool. Um same exact company. Um First Student was the low bidder. Um and so the initial the initial bids um came in basically year 1 was 7.25%, year two was 17% and
then it was 6% 6% 6%. Um so this year we are we are currently operating at $499.83 per bus um this current year. Um and then that contract that initial bid that
came in brought that cost to $747 per day um per bus. Um Rich and I talked quite a bit at that point in time um and we decided that we were going to try and negotiate with them. Um that also
included um we were asking for a 100% performance bond at that point in time. Um so year one of the contract if we were to accept it was almost $300,000. Um and year five of that contract it was adding on about $325,000. Um and so those are just some of the the
major key points of it. Um then um we negotiated we basically asked them to negotiate. Um so what some of the things that we ended up doing is they came back and reduced the performance bond. Um we
they reduced year two. Um they also as we know comp they're a company that's in it to make money. I mean that that's really their their purpose and to transport kids. Um so in the the reply also it was looking at providing some vans for specialized transportations
just like Vanpool does. We spend about $900,000 right now with private contracted small buses, small vans. Um, so that's this is included. This is going to be a piece in the negotiated piece, too. Um, and they also offered to do a route efficiency and bell time
schedule study, which we had done a couple years ago, but it doesn't hurt to do every couple years. You want to add anything else to that? I >> I would just uh re remind you that uh Massachusetts general law 30b does allow you to negotiate down with your low bidder. can't negotiate up but you can
negotiate down. >> Could we ask a question so if we don't move on just so we remember it. >> Um on the performance bond when you said they it was negotiated down on whose behalf is the performance bond
uh a a fee they would have to pay to us for underperforming? Correct. >> It it's built into the cost per day per bus. So when you negotiate it down, does that mean they're less on the hook? >> Uh they're uh yes, they're they're less on the hook for 100% of the performance,
but there is a performance bond. I think it was 25% >> 10% >> 10%. And uh in Massachusetts uh if you are found to be deficient and you have a contra a bus contract that is terminated for cause uh and you c you uh go to the
performance bond uh you cannot bid on another contract in Massachusetts for five years. >> So the leverage that you have is not necessarily the monetary leverage of the cost of the performance bond. It's the threat that they can't bid on new work uh for five years. >> So we still have that clause in place.
Is it just that the percentage of what they would have to is it a reimbursement when they would when that contract would be severed? Is it 10% of the contract? Like >> 10% of the annual cost of the contract.
>> All right. Okay. >> I I just wanted to expand out. So that that essentially um is the tradeoff. >> Um >> one of the trade-offs. That's one of the trade-offs. Okay. Um, but what we're giving up is like a level of like
financial protection in a way. >> I don't I don't see it that way. I I think the protection you have is the threat of non-performance. And in your uh bid and in your contract, you also have language for underperformance, which allows you to
access their performance bond. No company wants to uh access a performance bond for non-performance or underperformance. The reason being is that you're you're not necessarily bondable after an event of that. >> Uh so >> and and what is the true savings in that
way? the with the reduction >> if you look at the savings bond the the just looking at the performance bond or >> the reduction be >> basically year one if I can go back year one of the performance bond would have
cost the district $295,949 of the 100% performance bond when we negotiated it down to 10% that performance bond at 10% is going to cost us $5,358 per year so It's a significant it's
$245,000 difference in costs. Um the other thing to remember is we may let's say they were to sever the contract and we call on the performance bond. They're going to pay us for the the contract but we don't have a we don't have a bus comp.
So we have to go out and find someone to transport the kids anyway. >> Um >> Right. >> So it that's a another issue. >> But you feel we've been aggressive in in this contract management discussion, not
just with the performance bond, but with like operational language, right? If if they don't meet reliability and safety standards, that's the performance bond, right? That's that clause. >> You have uh you also have fines built into the contract uh for not running a
route, uh not showing up for an athletic event, things of that nature. There are there are fines and penalties built into the contract. And you feel they broke out the roots specifically so there's no like hidden profit margin like they detailed the roots in this contract so
when you're calling them on that performance you can look at roots and say this was supposed to be performed efficiently this way. Did we get enough detail? >> We give them we when we put this out we asked for 65 buses based upon our current routing
>> with detailed routes. >> No we do not >> broken down by >> we review the routes every year. The roots are supposed to be redone every single year. Um, some years I don't necessarily think they're they're really scrutinized, I think. But I think >> would that help us though for them to
show us the true cost of each route with fuel costs, what their margin is per route. >> We don't get to see that. Uh, we don't get to see their billing template or how they build their bid. Uh but I I will tell you that typically the uh the industry standard is that
>> put that in the RFP though, right? >> If you could put in the RFP that detail breakdown, so we didn't have that in there of >> Well, we didn't we didn't ask for it. They wouldn't give it to us anyways. >> It's it would be it would be showing their competitors how they do their bids. >> Yeah.
>> M Bryant. >> Um thank you again for coming out. I remember that during my your first presentation that was one of my major concerns as well in regards to the performance clause. Um, I would say
based on the original presentation versus what we're hearing tonight, what I'm hearing, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is the biggest change is the lower performance bond than originally
when we went out. And again, I think it's important to remind people that we decided to go out to bid as a precaution knowing that there was going to be some challenges along the way. Not the challenges that we're experiencing, but
other challenges. In addition to the performance bond, what else was necessarily taken off the table that makes this less than >> in in addition to reducing the performance bond,
>> I'm I'm positive that they reduced their overhead costs and I'm fairly certain that they reduced their profit margin in order to get from 17% in year two to 9% in year two. Uh that's a lot more than
just the performance bond for them to do that. >> Thank you. >> Uh they certainly did not take it from driver wages and benefits because they have a very lucrative teamsters contract that uh that they're working with. So it didn't come from that end. So it had to come from other places. Uh and the biggest places they have are typically
they run at a 26 27% overhead. Um and typically they look for uh somewhere between 10 and 12% u bottom line profit margin. And so I'm sure they made cuts in in those areas. >> And and so to that point, us having the
lower performance bond, knowing that that there's that other piece to it that if they were reported for lower performance, it's still a benefit to us where they don't want to be reported for
poor performance because of the and the air quotes deal that we're getting. >> Yeah. One one of the reasons that we put it the 100% performance bond in the bid to begin with is in the event that you get a brand new contractor who comes in uh brand new contractor we recommend you
have a 100% performance bond the first year uh you know to really force them to perform uh uh to the standards that we have in the in the bid. But we have a proviso in the bid and in the contract uh that the uh school committee reserves
the right to re uh reduce or even eliminate the performance bond at their discretion. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Jackson. >> Um and then also the other piece of it is that they have now the added benefit of being able to maybe take over some of
the van pool. So that's the other reason for reducing the performance bond is now this provides them with a different opportunity to make money. That's the flip side of that. >> Correct. >> Which could also may or may not save us money from the independent contractors that we're already using. Or am I
misunderstanding that >> we will no longer need them? >> It will um one thing to note is obviously first student the teamsters is more national. We have COBRA um in Plymouth. So it's um though we have Cobra in Plymouth, Teamsters is first
student as a whole. Um so they that does drive some of their costs too. Um yes, correct. Hopefully what will happen is we'll have more predictable steady contractor of a contractor we know performing some of these routes rather
than reaching out to some of these private vendors. It'll be again it'll go back to a a steady known cost because we can run with our van these new vans we can run three tiers in a day it's going to cost us the same amount of money rather than us trying to predict okay
what what is it going to cost us when we have to go and look at some of these vendors >> as well >> okay >> and I would say just from a performance perspective that van model being run by a consistent entity for a more vulnerable able
population getting back and forth. It's it's a benefit to the district. >> The the other piece of that is that they got to spread their fixed cost, some cases capital cost, management cost over 10 additional
vans uh as part of their operation and so they were able to eliminate some on the bus side by transferring it to the van side. >> So, >> thank you. >> Uh Mr. Smart Jal. Yeah, I not to jump around, but I I mean they're owned by
the third largest private equity firm in the world, right? They manage 230 billion in assets. I don't care about them spreading their costs. Uh the fact that Do we have to give them the van business? >> It's part of this bid. Yes. As part of
this negotiations, yes, >> part of the van >> part. So we Okay. If we found a more efficient way, if someone just showed up one day and said, "Hey, I'll >> I'll take care of all your vans contractually. I know that's a hypothetical, it wouldn't happen, but we're on the hook for giving a piece of
that." Okay. >> A relatively small piece, by the way, >> but you feel that's why they came from the 17 to the nine. >> I think so. >> Okay. I I think you got to They're almost a private monopoly. >> You got to make some deals. And one of the things that we and I'll get into
this in a minute. One of the things that our goal is is to over the next couple years start looking at more and more special ed transportation inhouse as well. Um so this will give us a little bit of predictability in regards to what is it going to cost us when we for some of
these routes. Um our van poolool contract is up in two years. Um so our goal is obviously to take over more and more of the vans as we can. um similar idea as how we were going to take over the buses in regards to trying to build in some of the capital costs within our
own costs. Um so we're not necessarily going up for capital as well. >> Michelle, >> um I just kind of want to mention that um I totally understand what Mr. Smarel is saying. Um I'm not a huge fan of um
monopolies in in business. >> Yeah, I I'm not I'm not a fan. However, um as a special education parent who spent time on the CPAC and has um talked to a lot of special education parents regarding our special education
transportation, I think having the leverage of having a small portion that's guaranteed to this company >> gives us leverage with Vampool. And I know that we've had a lot of issues with parents and the performance of the
private contractors. Um, I've heard a lot of complaints about our private contractors and we're in a position where we're such a big district that we have no choice but to use them. So, I think that if we can eliminate the private contractors at the very least, I
think that is something that hopefully our special education parents will see us doing something to try to rectify issues that have been ongoing with some of the private contractors with their with their not only reliability but
their treatment of some of our special education students or special education students in other districts. So I think that that is a positive where generally as a person I would never advocate for giving our money to a
conglomerate but you know >> that's a good that's a good >> I I would just call your attention that we we did have two bids and it was about four and a half% difference between the the the two bids. Yeah. Oh, Miss
>> So, we're kind of marching towards like a hybrid model in a sense. >> Yeah, we really are. The yellow buses we would maintain with a contractor. That's what we're going to recommend in a few moments. But we would recommend that we keep the the yellow buses with the
contractor and that we are looking at taking over more and more of the specialed transportation because we think that's more feasible um and attainable than dealing with the yellow buses. Yellow bus. dealing with yellow buses and taking that over. There's a
lot to it. It's it's there. It's easier to maintain a van than it is to maintain a a large yellow bus, a commercial vehicle basically. Um >> Okay. Yeah. >> Um and just in terms of just um the
efficiency piece, the fact um that the the the buses themselves, I mean, have we looked at other models in terms of I know it's difficult just like with bell times and what have you, but have we looked at other I know that you say that
you you look at the roots every every year. or is it >> our original study uh looked at the the bell schedules uh and noted where you had relatively short tier times. >> But our caveat in in the report, you may recall, is that we never recommend that
you change the school year, the length of the school day, uh or bell schedules for transportation purposes. Those are educational decisions to benefit children, and transportation is really a support service to the to the educational process.
It's just that it doesn't regardless of what we do, we don't we don't really solve that problem either in terms of efficiency >> and that's something I think the first student will do for us. Um they're going to look at bell times as well. >> Okay. >> So when they do their if we elect to move forward that will be something that
they're looking at rooe efficiency and bell time study as well. >> Um thank you. >> No problem. And then in this if it goes on Christian wait a second I might catch up
that gets into the buses. Hold on. If we can move forward just a little bit. I just wanted to this is Oops, I went too fast. Um these are just some of the recent settlements first student has and we have and other districts have. Um, so you take a look at Plymouth for
FY27. Um, we're looking at about $536 per bus. Um, just some other first students in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, they just settled at $53266. Um, Milton is at $55,9.79.
So the the FY27 rate that they are offering us is pretty in line with others that they're settling across the state. Um and then the others the others are other companies as well. So >> I often caution people the percentage
increase or decrease is not really the factor. The factor you want to look at is your your cost per day per bus. Uh because if you're coming off of a long-term contract that was indexed to cola for instance, uh contractors were making two and a half 3% uh increases
per year. Uh and they're going to make up some of that ground on on the next contract. So depending on where you are in your contracting process, uh a lot of districts saw double-digit increases in the first year of their their new contract.
>> So the recommendation obviously we again we had a couple different options. One was do we do nothing and that we accept the option year for next year. Um and I think Rich might have some cautions to that. Um the but the recommendation that
or we could look at selfoperating. Um but we're recommending that we accept this bid um through FYI 20 FY31 um with their rates um and that we would use first student for the 10 routes in the vans as well. And I don't know if Richie
you want to talk about caution about >> I would just say that uh there's very little cost difference between their option year and the first year of the new contract. What they did is they built the the in the the increase into the second year uh as opposed to making the the first year a debatable subject on the for the contract.
>> That makes sense. >> All right, M. >> As we move towards I mean we're we're quasi hybrid anyways, but um you know as we move towards attaining more on that side, I mean just to kind of really update us in terms of what that really
does look like for us. um as a district would be. >> Yeah. I think one of our major points is when we look at that, looking at the van side, >> um our goal would be to obtain obtain more vans than we currently have. >> Um and then hiring drivers. Um we've had
a couple vans this year sitting because we haven't been able to hire drivers. >> Excellent. >> Um so as we're able to hire drivers, but again that kind of came up in one of the that Rich had done in his study. Um but we are get we just actually hired uh
four drivers for our vans. So we're actually able to put more vans on the road and take more back ourselves. So um our goal is to now start looking at how do we acquire more vans, hire drivers and then start taking some of the routes back um from either private companies
Vampool or not necessarily for a student at this point in time but trying to obtain more over time. One of the other advantages that you'll have is that you always have the opportunity to add more type A buses, the mini buses, 1920 passenger buses. And typically when you
do that, you can eliminate uh at least three vans uh saving money because the the cost of one type A bus is is less than running three independent vans. I just want to put a exclamation point
on what I'm hearing that another thought in this is what does it look like to recruit and retain >> bus drivers >> within the Plymouth district and the importance of that. >> Yes. Yep. And I don't want to bite off
too much more than we can chew. It's going to have to be step by step. >> Um so I don't want to buy too many vans. and then not being able just having them sit >> because they appreciate him wearing tear just sitting.
>> All right. Anyone else? >> All right. >> So, this has motion. >> This is Yes. >> I make a motion that the district enter into new 5-year contract for fiscal year 27 through fiscal year 32.
>> It'll actually be 31. Sorry, there's a typo in the >> through fiscal year 31. >> Second. I was trying to help them. >> All right, Michelle seconds. All right, can
scroll down. All right. >> Yeah, totally. It's way too quiet. >> All right. And it's unanimous. All right. Appreciate it. >> Thank you both. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next up, we have our trio of
um school improvement plan updates. First up, we have uh Indian Brook. So, Miss Erica and Freddy. >> Try and click it myself. >> I don't know that I will do any better than you did, but I'm going to try.
What do you >> except big basketball star? >> I I thought I was going to be sore after that basketball game, but I didn't actually do much. >> We didn't do much running. They ran around us like crazy. >> The defense you guys were playing. >> I couldn't catch them even like
>> I didn't even try. I didn't even try. >> They moved way too that fast for me. >> Yeah, they didn't want us to try either. >> No, we would have got hurt. >> Uh, good evening, American man. Sorry about that. Principal of Indian Brook. Um I just realized as I as I was sitting
there that I've been the this is my eighth year as principal of Indian Brook. Woohoo. Which some days it feels like it's the hundth year and some days it feels like it's the first. So I don't know. I don't know. Take with that what you will. And just just so you know
Dale, every time my mother went to school committee, it was the best night in our house. Not because we were, although we were proud my mother was at school committee, it was because she wasn't there for homework time. My father was and he didn't care. So, all right.
There we go. So, um, this was our first year of our three-year school improvement plan at Indianbrook. Um, our school council members are Lisa Brown. She's a grade two teacher at Indian Brook. Molly Caneta is a parent of two
students, a kindergarten student and a third grade student at Indianbrook. Angela Costa also has a third grade student at Indian Brook. She's also our amazing PTA president who forced us to play basketball. Um Jill Dugen, the assistant principal.
Amy Haramman is our um health and wellness teacher. Myself, Becky Mezer, is a fourth grade teacher at Indian Brook. And Susan Paige, many of you know, she is an amazing member of our community. She's also a retired kindergarten teacher who
taught at Indian Brook. Maybe we go. >> Um, this year at Indian Brook, we have 531 students, grades K to five, 25 general education home rooms, three Strive home rooms. um and strive as our
autism program. Uh 22% of our students receive special education services of of some level and 22% are considered lowinccome. I swear I'm pressing the button.
There we go. Um some updates about some new and exciting things exciting to us. Um, our PBS is our positive behavior system and this year, Miss Dougen does an amazing job with it. And she created celebrations
that we call block parties and each grade level celebrates um positive behaviors by um basically having a party um which is a lot of fun. The kids really like it. that she sets up centers and and they can work
collaboratively and celebrate each other and all that they've achieved. Um our PTA has been amazing with um our playground. They've gotten stencils, some four square courts for us, um new
pieces of equipment. They also have beautified our gym in our library. I have some pictures of that. Helped us purchase a new stage curtain. The original was purchased when the school was built. Um, so 1970 something. Uh,
we've welcomed several VIPs volunteers into our building. One is doing a knitting club with some students. Um, another is reading in kindergarten, first grade, and I was just connected with another um, volunteer who's going to come read with students.
Number Corner is one of our math programs. This year we've able to expand it to um K and one are doing it. Our Strive students are doing it. And I'll I'll talk about this in a minute, but we're
expanding it to grade two as well. Um we purchased a new 3D printer for our uh lits. Our kindergarten and first grade teachers have done an amazing job inviting parents in for math centers. Uh this is really cool. It's parents come
in and they get to see what's happening in the classroom and get to know the teachers and it really has been amazing to have them in the building. And there's lots of things that are happening, but lastly, I'll touch on um
our upcoming partnership with New England Center for Children with our Strive program. They were have been at Federal Furnace this year. Stacy can maybe talk more about it another time. Um, but they are experts in the autism community and they are coming in and and
doing some I don't know. >> So, they're doing some program >> program evaluations to see if we can um >> to see if we can better support our students and what the staffing ratios need to be, things like that. So, >> we do an amazing job in our Strive
programs, but it's it's ever evolving and there's always always room for >> Y and sometimes I think just having an outside perspective because we live it every day, so we think it's perfect in every way, shape, and form. But, um, >> just a few of the things that that the
PTA has done for us to beautify our building. Stage curtain was disgusting. So, we were very happy for that. Um, >> all right. I'm not going to I won't bore you all with all of these, but our first
strategic objective around social emotional wellness, I I won't go through all of them, but second step, um big buddies, bus helpers, these are these are our initiatives over the next three years.
Many of them we focused on this year. um bus expectations and safety meetings. Um I'm going to So next year, year two, our goal is to focus on these three areas.
It doesn't mean we're not focusing on all the others, but these are going to become a priority for us. The bus expectations and safety assemblies for students who ride buses. This is one of our priorities. buses are are
coming after Adam's conversation. I don't know, but buses are tough. >> Um, that's a lot of kids in one one spot. Um, so we're really trying to work with the drivers as well as the students on appropriate bus behavior. Um, we've
already started this. I I'm not going to say we're we're doing it as consistently as we should. I tend to do it all myself and then reach out to people afterwards. Um, but I'm goal next year is to really get the counselors and the nurse more involved in looking at student
attendance and um, chronically absent students. And the other bane of my existence is recess issues. Um, so we're really going to try and work on work with our power
professionals to develop more structured recess. It's challenging to have 90 students out on a playground at one time and to provide the supervision and the structure that is needed to avoid um conflicts and to make sure that it's
productive and enjoyable for everyone. So, those are our social emotional focus areas for next year. This is our awesome book vending machine and our um PBIS acronym and some more of our events. Those are
our block parties. Our next objective is family and community engagement. These are again our three-year goals. Um curriculum newsletter working with our PTA. Um
we this year we did partner with the um DA's office for um internet safetyformational night. I can tell you that we did it throughout the all the elementary schools and one parent showed up which was really sad to me. Um and since then
I've had to send out two letters about internet safety to fifth grade families because of issues that we've had. So take that how you want. Um cultural arts. Today we had an amazing um woman
in who wrote for Africa books uh on African folktales and she came in and showed artifacts and and read a story to the school which was great. So we're continuing um expanding on that and
our general newsletters. we keep we continue with in more school beautifification. So next year um our main focus areas are the curriculum newsletter that we're we're in the very beginning stages of. We'd like to do this quarterly. Um
continuing our our increasing our communication. We have not been great with Facebook this year. So uh that's that's my goal next year to get Facebook up and running again. um in like I said our schoolwide events,
our cultural arts, making sure that um they're diverse and representative of our community and more be school beautifification, pictures of some of our things. We had a woman in this year um mindful doodling
it was called. So, our fifth graders got to participate in that and it was great and I'm hoping actually to bring her back to do it with staff, a workshop with staff. So, our last um strategic objective is teaching and learning. These are in no particular order. Um they're all
important. Um so, just to summarize what's in our our three-year plan is analyzing data. um Amy Barry's engagement continuum doing some professional development around that teacher learning walks um
working with the special ed department to help our gened teachers better understand special education um in the everchanging needs of special education. Uh, oop, sorry, I went too far. expanding number corner,
um our district, helping staff understand our district accommodation plan, refining our child study process, and next year our focus will be our main focus areas will be around the engagement continuum, Amy Barry's
engagement continuum, um expanding number corner to grade two and continuing to refine our child study process to make sure students are all are receiving the tier 2 supports that they need and that we're identifying students that um need more.
>> This is just some >> data. This is our MCCAST grade 4 MCCAST, some longitudinal data. Um you can see except for 2023 in math, we've um are always above the state average.
Um we had a great year last year in grade four formath. This is some star data. Um our second grade, this is second grade. This is reading and um you can see we've
definitely moved it. This is uh fall. So coming into second grade and winter, which was in January, and we'll um students will take the assessment again at the end of the year. Um, and you can see we're we're doing pretty well there.
93% of our students are approaching or meeting and exceeding. They were in the fall and in the winter they're we're at 95% for reading and math. We are at about 77%
meeting or exceeding or meeting or approaching. And that was in the fall and by winter we had moved that to about 88%. Um which was nice progress. And just some fun pictures me getting
slimed >> last year. Um another uh just the picture in the middle. I just want to point out um two of the people in this picture uh Angela Koser, our PTA president who also runs our VIPS program, met them at
the Council on Aging when she went to talk about VIPS and they live near Indianbrook and they have come in, we did a holiday event and they were they came to school like three nights to help paint and and decorate for uh our event
which was just an amazing community. um outreach and just some more photos. That's it. Questions. Try to be as brief as possible. >> All right, Miss Jackson. >> Um
thanks, child. >> Thanks. >> And keeping it concise, I'm sure Miss Bryant would say the same thing. >> Um I'm very excited about the New England School for Children being there. Uh I have family member from out of state who attended there and it was
life-changing. So their work is really phenomenal and I think their involvement in this community is a big um you know a big win for us to have them involved in the program. >> Um and your scores look great. So I just
want to say nice job. >> Thanks. >> Anybody else? Mr. Smart. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um, so you there was 22% low income, 22% IEP. Take it into account crossover, right? Does that put you like
around 30% in those combined C categories of like of your 531 students? Is that a fair number? Like 30% are either in the IE. So that's >> typically where we sit each year. >> Okay. >> It's a little low. I think we were at
23% last year. low income, but we're right around there usually. >> And so when you when you have the New England Center for Children come in and give that assessment off the bat, they what do you think they'll see that can
be beneficial? Do you think they might say, "Hey, you need more space be program?" >> I don't need them to tell me that. >> Yeah. No, but it's apparent, right? because those numbers I'm looking >> currently the space is fine but uh
>> if that number ticks up at all >> there are no fifth graders leaving the Strive program this year so I I have no fifth graders so I have nobody moving up to middle school and we expect >> kindergarteners to come in so that could be a whole another class
>> so we're not Yes. >> Yeah. I mean I I think as a a board to anticipate you know, space constraints um is something that that we do. It's part of a a plan. It's a vision, but it also, you know, we we've
seen folks come in and say, "Okay, well, you know, you're moving a temporary space at another school up to the middle school." And um I think there's, you know, there's aspects of that that that we've planned for, but it's never easy,
right? If you need more space and you can't just you're not going to they already have modulars there, right? So if you need more space and then that comes into play where it might be another location, I think that the sooner the better any type of space requirement need can be brought to this
committee, the better we're all off, right? Um, and you know, you're right probably at, you know, if you get 30% of your students that are are in those categories, but I I know it's different that Strive is just for autism, right?
>> Yes. I mean, service >> and and what about I I was there one night. I actually um was the Cub Scouts were there and I was doing a a talk and I saw they were there was a gym rental. Do you guys get like how how does that work out? Do you get a lot of rentals?
And do you find like I know when they have rentals at the middle school and the high school, it's more of a a process, but when you get them there, do you find like everything's okay >> the next day? Yeah. So, it's been going >> for the most part. And we don't we don't get as as many as middle school and high
school, right? Just because the size of the gym and >> Yeah. But you get some >> that. But yeah, actually up until this week, we've been pretty booked. >> Yeah. almost every night with something. >> Well, I I'm very much a huge fan of that
school having, >> you know, my kids and my >> appreciate that >> nieces and nephews about 10 of those Greeks that have gone through there. So, and you guys have been wonderful. So, >> thanks. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Bryant. Uh just on the tail end of
the bus conversation, I sympathize with the fact that let's say 24 years ago, you were going through bus challenges. I mean, for some of the kids, it's a long ride on the way in. Everybody's excited
or not excited on the way in and then going home with all of that extra uh energy. So, I sympathize with that. And if there's any lessons learned or opportunities, I think it would be
helpful for families, not families, other schools to to share best practices because it's definitely a long ride. >> It's it's a I think maybe I'm wrong, but Indian Brook might have some of the longest routes out of all the elementary schools because
>> Yeah. >> So, it is a long time to be on a bus. >> All right. Anybody else? All right, great presentation. Thank you, M. Man Freddy. All right, next up we have Dr. Frame from Manamett.
>> Good evening everyone. Thank you for having me. So, Manet Elementary is in year two of the school improvement plan. So last year we formatted our new one and we've been implementing many of the different steps that we outlined. Some of them we've begun and finished. Some of them
we have not even started yet and some are somewhere in between. So uh we look at it as something where we're picking different aspects of it each year to move the work forward. Very grateful to all of the folks up there on this slide uh for their participation on our uh manat elementary school council. On the
right they'll see some of our pride award winners. Pride is our PBIS uh acronym positivity, respect, integrity, determination, and excellence. So, sort of a brief overview at our school, 242 students in K through five.
There are 28 other students from the preschool who um are in one of our classrooms there. We have an AM and a PM session that come in. So, there are 28 of them. So, there are 270 that attend school there. 242 are actually manmed elementary school students enrolled.
The percentage of students on IEPs, I was looking back over the last 15 years or so and it really it's a smaller sample size in a smaller school, but it ranges. It's ranged anywhere from I think it was 13.8% up to 21.5% over the course of the year. So, it
really varies. And some of those students may simply be on an IEP for speech and language only. others might be on for four or five different reasons. So, um but we we're always looking to see if we can um look at that number critically to make sure that those who need those services were
identifying appropriately for those services. Uh low-income households, we peaked at about 38% last year or the year before, I think it was. We've ranged anywhere from about 28 to 38%. So, uh 35% is where we are right now
with that number. uh two themes through just about everything that I'll talk about tonight are they should cross over through most areas. One of them is vertical alignment and coordination. So one of the things we talk about a lot as
a staff is looking at how we can look at how our curriculum builds, how our program builds up through the grade levels. What does it look like in third grade from what it looked like in kindergarten and some of those skills and how some of those standards are growing over time. So we talk about that
a lot. The other thing that we talk about is uh working to better look longitudinally at individual students as well. Tracking where they've been, where they're going, so that we can look at the next logical steps at an individual level. So not just at the school level,
but at the individual level as well. Excuse me. So for the opportunities for students, it's not the same as it might be at a middle school or a high school for a lot of the extracurriculars, but we try to have a rich set of offerings to meet a
lot of different students interests throughout the course of the year. Sometimes it's it's dependent upon those who we need to offer those programs and what their ability and time constraints are, but we've got a pretty good assortment there. They're they're funded in three different ways. One is through
our um budget, our building budget. Uh and then also they're funded, a couple of them are funded through grants and then thirdly through some fundraising as well. So uh we're really really happy with the offerings that we have and and the students really appreciate what we
have in place and typically they're very well uh enrolled across the board. So busy year with regard to curriculum uh development and professional development on the part of our staff. There are a lot of different offerings
listed up here. I'm not going to walk through all of those individually, but I will say most of these are in place across all the elementary schools in Plymouth. Uh a very rich assortment that uh some teachers sign up for um but others it's across the board. All the
all the teachers are uh trained in those. So, uh, really, really busy year. When you start to list them out, you see just how much and just how involved people are in all of these different offerings. So, area one, three big goal areas in the plan. Teaching and learning is one
of them. And you'll see three of the big ideas for teaching and learning listed up there on this next slide are those three big big ideas with some of the action items under them. Replicating best practices. So, we're trying to look rather than start from scratch and
brainstorm, we're trying to look at what's working maybe in our building, maybe in another school in our district, or maybe somewhere else in another school as well. Uh, this year, our four sessions with the Mossflower group who's come in, uh, they've had consultants come in to help us with some of our
literacy piece across several of the buildings in the district. It's been a very uh powerful tool where instead of you know in some of our courses teachers might take they might take a class and talk about the teaching and learning and look at videos. This group comes in and
when they come in you're doing more of a lab site model where rather than talking about students hypothetically or talk talking about case studies they're going into our classrooms with our students and looking at pedigogy and trying things out and practicing them and then
coming back and debriefing. So very powerful uh tool for our for our teachers. Uh number corner is something where K and one are fully implementing. Grade 2 is going to be implementing that next year. Very popular among the teachers in terms of uh what they feel
as though students are getting out of that as they implement that. So we're thrilled with that and it's a really active and engaging uh tool for teachers to use every day. Grades three through five, they've worked very hard with our science coordinator on the open sed
curriculum. Grade three is really in the beginning stages of it. Four and five are really in full implementation of that. Upcoming PD in the building this year around literacy is going to be focusing on some of that vertical alignment. The teachers
have been asking for discussions across grade levels. So typically when we do professional development with our coaches, it's a grade level that meets at a time. It might be, you know, all the kindergarten teachers or all grade five. They're looking for teachers are
looking for more of a vertical look in terms of looking at what some of these skills look like as they build. So we're going to do groupings where it's a K teacher, a one and a two, and then another K and one and two and etc. to give them some of that opportunity to have that dialogue across grade levels
um vertically for the academic data points there. Um first a couple of pieces we're excited about from the accountability data with the state. Uh 82nd percentile with that. We were thrilled with that. Far more thrilled with those next two numbers there though. uh for our low-income subgroup
97th percentile in the state when you hold our low-inccome subgroup against low-income subgroup students from throughout the state. Um the special education 94th percentile sped students versus students who are on IEPs throughout the course uh throughout the entire throughout the entire state. I
did a look back to 2019 when they started giving that data and I'm very proud of the work that our staff has done there. we've been 90th percentile above in every single one of those years that those scores have been reported. So in both of those areas. So for our neediest students who need our greatest
attention with regard to meeting their individual needs, our staff has just done a phenomenal job meeting those needs. Uh the last thing in terms of the data piece, we meet periodically throughout the course of the year as an entire staff to look at bringing the
data to the individual student level with our colleagues to look and see how we can move students forward. So those are whole staff meetings. We have those discussions that feedback for reflection piece. Uh the learning walks are not new. We've had those in place for several years.
But what's become more and more uh part of our practice is to have teacher involvement in there. And the teachers uh who have been a part of those teacher learning walks have really benefited from that and been a powerful voice for us going back to to staff who were not
walking through the different classrooms to be able to talk about some of the things from their perspective as teachers and it's it's been a great sharing. The other thing that they're looking to do more and more now is to get into other buildings for learning walks uh which has been very successful this year. Several of them have gone and
done that. going into next year they're looking to do some informal ones inhouse and again look up upward through the grade levels there and get that vertical look. Uh so we're very very uh excited to keep that work going forward as well for the social emotional wellness there
are big areas there and those are outlined here in these columns on the next slide. So morning gather is something that we saw in another school that we wanted to try. We tried it five different times this fall uh where we uh gathered as an
entire school for about 10 minutes. The students come in right at the beginning of the day right when they got off the buses. Uh the teachers were not happy with me when we talked about this. They were very skeptical of it. Um but I think in the end it was something where it was a nice community building opportunity for us. A nice chance for
some shout outs, a nice chance to celebrate students and staff as we met and also build build on our our core values as a school. So I think it was something that we are going to continue uh periodically and look for our spots to do that. Um because it's it's hard to
get the whole school together for an extended period of time uh rather than interrupting different specialists or curriculum pieces. So it's nice to be able to have those short opportunities to come together as a staff matching supports um and services to student
needs. So looking through a UDL lens, we talk about universal design for learning. We're talking about taking a proactive look rather than a reactive look at the learning environment to set it up the way that we want it to be to meet individual students needs rather than waiting for a student to struggle
with something to look and say what what are the elements of choice that we can embed in the classroom for our students. uh through the budget and through the home and school association, they've been tremendous in terms of uh providing us with a lot of the things that you need to do that. Well, some of that
entails furniture, some of that entails equipment. So, um it's been great to have the resources that we've had to be able to do that. Another thing that we're looking to do going forward is uh to improve the tracking of our child study piece. Child studies when we meet
to talk about the academic, behavioral or social, emotional needs of any of our students. When we get together, sometimes there's frustration that we need a better mechanism longitudinally to look so that a teacher in second grade can have a better look back or that we can ensure information that
through lessons learned this year, that information goes forward into the next year. So, we're having those conversations as a staff and trying to generate that tracking system, that mechanism a little bit better. our nurse, school psych, and adjustment counselor do a fantastic job with
meeting individual students needs and huddling up to do that. Uh guidance counselor was a was a a new me new position to our staff last year and it's just been tremendous to be able to have that support at our school. Safety and emergency preparedness.
Anytime we meet and talk about these different pieces, it's a positive thing to do it, but it's also anxiety producing. Nobody feels great after you're done doing it, but it's sort of important work to make sure that we think through the different scenarios that might come up along the
way. And and we've carved out time to do that. Uh our health curriculum, we've got some tremendous lessons that students are able to um take from that that help them quite a bit with regard to their safety. Our wellness fair is a great opportunity. We we have important
messages delivered by members of the larger community. Our school resource officer is is phenomenal. He's a tremendous resource. Uh and he's just part of the school culture now. So, we're thrilled to have him there. Uh and and we're always looking and we have our district safety meetings, but we try to
bring back important messages or um steps that we're taking at the district level to make sure that those are carried through at the building level. So, that's another important piece. Finally, community uh engagement. One of the things that we're always looking at is to try and troubleshoot
that uh chronic attendee attendance and also the tardiness and I think we've made some great strides with that this year. Um and then our partnerships and programs again I'll talk about those on the next slide and the staff proficiency with uh multil- language learners. Those
are all outlined here. So we start from the premise that you can't teach in MTC, right? We want to make sure we're getting we know the phenomenal things that our staff are doing every single day with students. So, we want the students there. So, we've really done a strong job of driving those numbers down
and seeing some great uh improvements with that coming out of COVID. You know, it's sort of a reprogramming for all of us to try and get those numbers back to where we'd like them to be because um they were they were greatly greatly inflated for quite a while. Uh the
support of our attendance officer is fantastic. Whenever we need him, he's there uh either for a phone call or to come in and meet with a family. That's helped tremendously. We've even reached out recently. There was a situation with a transportation provider where they helped us with a particular
accommodation that we were putting in place and we were just thrilled that they were able to help us. So, every little bit helps when we're trying to look at individual student needs and accommodations that we could make. Another thing that we talk about as a staff too is that school engagement matters. We want our students to feel
like when they're when they're missing school, they're missing something, right? Uh we want them to feel like they want to be there, that that they're going to miss something really cool if they're not in school that day. So, we try to we try to make things as engaging as possible to create that culture for students. Uh we're looking at our open
architect data daily, uh which helps us to sort of track where where our students are at. And then we're also again looking at those short-term trends, but long-term trends with data to see where, you know, if something's just a blip this year, did something change? Did something happen? Or is this something that we've seen go on for
quite a while that needs to be addressed? So, the partnerships there. Um Erica and Freddy had mentioned the VIPS. It's been great. We've got our first volunteers in and they are uh ready, willing, and able to help our students. and we're trying to go through
the process now of making sure we have a match between uh what volunteers are looking to do for support and where the needs are in the school and match those up. So, like I said, we have four four individuals who have been on site already helping us and we're greatly appreciative of that. Home and school
association, I can't say enough. Um, Women Aid has come to our aid three times this year uh in big big ways for families who have experienced crisis. So, as they do throughout the entire district, Manameck Conservation Society, the MBO, the bird observatory, 23 years
I've been at Mantt Elementary, 23 years they've supported us with programming for our students up at their site for a very nominal um fee with regard to that. And Rose and Vicki, we wouldn't have our afterchool theater workshop program without them. And the support, the financial support that they provide
every single year, just tremendous for us as a school. And finally, our multil- language learners were small but mighty population there. We just began servicing multil- language learners on site. Um well, we were before that, but students who were
formally serviced. Um two students a couple years ago, we start we're at 10 right now. I I'm going to say three or four years from now, we won't be at two or 10. We'll probably be closer to 20 or 25 by then. uh six languages were already represented in the households of
our students. I was talking to our uh ELLL teacher the other day and and she mentioned that and I thought that was amazing given 10 students at our school but six languages already um in those households at least. Right. um the ML teacher at our school, our EL teacher,
has just done a phenomenal job of not just with her work with students, but also bringing us all along as a staff and making sure that people understand all the different facets of this. She was way ahead of the curve in terms of what we needed to know. So, we've really
benefit uh benefited a great amount by being able to pick her brain throughout the course of the year. We're trying to approach our services to our multil- language learners in the same way we do uh with the same philosophy around special education where we try to do that in the least restrictive
environment as possible and to have uh as much inclusion support for that as possible. Sometimes there are situations where what that student needs requires them to be pulled, but we try to have students uh in the classroom as much as possible because we know that's u going
to be greatly beneficial over time. the the more we can increase that time in the classroom. That's what I have for you tonight. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. >> All right, questions. >> M Jackson, >> uh I just have one. Um first, I really
like your uh philosophy on the multi- language learners and trying to create a least restrictive environment because I think that's so beneficial. Um and then also the transitions and the lookbacks. I thought that was great. Um, and I think it's so beneficial. It's
something that I've heard when I've been at CPAC is how helpful it is for the teacher going forward to know what's going on. And I was just wondering if you are also doing that like when kids are transitioning between like out of fifth grade and into the middle school.
Are you also doing that kind of effect >> for both preschool into kindergarten and fifth grade into middle school districtwide that happens? So there's a mechanism in place for that. >> Okay. Perfect. We also do a grade level to grade level with with teachers in house, but districtwide that happens at
both of those transition points. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Anybody else? >> All right. Thank you. Uh one thing jumped out, really great job on those uh tests, particularly for those low low income and special ed students. So, keep it up.
>> All right. >> And thought I wrote that down, too, but I'm tired. >> All right. Next up, we have uh Erica uh Barrett from uh Plum South. >> Good evening. Erica Barrett, principal of Plymouth South Middle School. Uh we
are in year two of our plan. Uh matter which way I click. Uh our first goal is enhancing student social emotional growth, health uh and civic responsibility. And our big key
point was we were looking at our PBIS model very similar to what you've heard from my colleagues. You can switch slides. Thank you. So our powerpoints are based on student attendance based on their accepting of responsibility. They lose points for uh negative behaviors. of
work, their grades, they get positive points and showing respect, our staff members can nominate kids for paw points. Uh, our teachers have bought into this plan, the assistant principles as well. Uh, I did have a bus driver ask me actually about giving kids points at open house and I gave them that option.
They have the paperwork to do it if you want to use it. Uh, but I have not gotten any, but they might do it at the elementary level. Uh, but we've given everybody that that option. Actually, our student doing project 351, he asked if we could do it as a competition, whichever floor got more clothing, and
he wanted to give them paw points. I said, "Sure, if that's what you want to do." Um, and that's something that our kids are enjoying the rewards for that as well. So, looking at our behavior data before starting the behavior plan, we had about 30% and I'm looking more at the
percentage of kids that are having incidents, about 30% of the population had at least one referral. uh last year dropped slightly and currently we're at about 18% of our population as one referral. So we might be seeing more incidents with the same students but
we're seeing less overall in the building students getting in trouble which is good. >> We also implemented last year awards nights for sixth and seventh grade. So 70th graders and 55 seventh graders were recognized and I let the staff develop
the awards. sixth and seventh grade pretty much gave the same awards with the exception of some of the academic awards where seventh grade classes might be different than sixth grade classes but there were seven awards and 18 academic awards. Uh we also added awards to eighth grade promotion night which
they did not have previously and the eighth grade teachers picked five awards and 25 academic awards in addition to uh acknowledging kids that are on honor roll all three years and doing the president's educational award. I think all of our staff attended those evenings which was nice as well. Uh we do have
principal assemblies in the beginning of the year and I just did mid expectations uh assemblies recently as well as we do have monthly CST meetings. We had one today in which we're talking about our students and their needs and we do track you know what we talk about from one meeting the other making sure that we're
we're following up on things. We also do have monthly attendance meetings with our attendance officer. Uh, and we're automatically at the secondary level sending letters when they hit five unexcused absences. So, that's something we're automatically generating if we don't know why the student has those absences. Obviously, um, if we have an
awareness and maybe we didn't get a doctor's note, we're not doing that. But, we are automatically generating those letters so that parents have an awareness. Uh when we developed this plan last year, I did not know that we would possibly be getting a Bright position, but we did get one starting in January this year. We got that grant and
we added an adjustment counselor who is working very well so far. She has had a few a few kids so far, but it's been a great addition to have. Um and also when I developed the plan, I did not think about my digital signage, but I was looking at the hallways at Pulma South Middle School all summer long going,
what am I going to do with these display cases? Uh and I actually have to credit Paul Bonafilio. He's one of our technicians that said, "Well, we could put televisions in them and you could put digital signage." I said, "Okay." So, our kids do enjoy that. They do like seeing pictures of themselves. It's very easy for me to take pictures with my phone. There's an app and I can upload them to televisions. I just have to make
sure I have them timed because when they're timed for like 10 and 15 seconds, they want to stand there and watch them all. So, I have to time them for if I have time at 4 seconds, at some point in their passing, they'll see themselves. Uh, but they love, you know, you know, we have a basketball game and I'm taking pictures and they're seeing themselves on the televisions the next
day, which they really like. We added a few clubs and some of them are returning clubs this year. So, we added a few new clubs very recent. Uh, had a couple staff members, including my new bright adjustment counselor, uh, that wanted to start the girls on the
run club. So, we just started that one up very recently, but we added some of those other clubs this year as well. Goal two is academic achievement and our focus has been on our coordinator walks uh and also on our
professional development for student engagement. So that's an example of what our coordinator walk feedback looks like on the right hand side. So last year we did two walks with each of the academic coordinators. This year we did four. We did one per term and we've had people
ask if others can join as well. So, the elementary math coaches, I think, have come on every single one of our math walks. We've had high school department heads come. Uh we've had some of the nth grade science teachers recently come down to see our eighth grade science classes because they're new to open sad and we are not. Uh and the district
technology coordinator, she wanted to join as well. She wanted to see how technology was being used in the classrooms. and she said, "It's kind of awkward for me to just walk in and see what's going on, but if I'm doing in the context of your walks, I can provide feedback." So, we did that on one of the social studies walks. And she provided,
you know, tips along the way. We do not have a full-time ELEL teacher. So, I we walked into one of the classrooms where I have EL students that are integrated that are using technology and one of the teachers grabbed her right away just around, you know, ease of translation and how she could help her make things a
little bit um more, you know, fluid for the students in our classroom. So, it was nice to have her join us on the walk. Uh, also when I developed this plan, I didn't have the the discoursing map option, but Allison Rearen, who was doing work for 18, gave me this this idea. She said, "Why don't you apply for
this grant and see if you can get a team to go?" So, I will explain that a little bit further. Um, but it's not that one, but I'll get there. Uh, oh, was it there? Go ahead. Go ahead. You can Oh, no. It goes later on, but I'll get there. Um, student engagement, professional development was my focus
originally. Uh, and in September, we talked about establishing classroom norms for student engagement and we did some some work with talk moves and a lot of content area walk. They looked at different videos of different content areas as groups and talked about the strategies that they saw. So, next week
is where we're going to be doing the the work that we've been working on with 18 on discourse mapping. So, it's a team. It's myself, Ashley Sass, Rob Skinner, and Amy Ring that have been working with them this year. So, we've been learning about what discourse mapping is. We did a baseline survey with our students on
how engaged they feel in class and how often they're engaging. And we're going to be presenting those results at PD next week. So, basically, we're using peer observation to kind of get teachers to see and recognize what students are doing in the class and how they are
responding. So Amy Ring really loves this because a lot of our classrooms are that's her her map. She's very good at it. A lot of our math classrooms are doing the math talk regularly. So she is mapping them anytime they're having conversation. Uh
and basically all the lines are when they're contributing, you know, in conversations in their groups. And really the goal is to get them to contribute more naturally that they're having conversations whereas we're not constantly prompting them that we're not, you know, in between every student
saying something to get another student to to start to discuss. Uh, and what we've done is we've been looking at the engagement continuum and Amy is taking it as far as she put grades on it. Uh, so that when she's doing her mapping, she's quantifying it. Uh, and the kids are they want to see it. They want to
see what their maps look like. she's, you know, she's showing them to them so that they can see what they're doing and they want to know how they can improve their participation grade. But this is just helping her uh along and she added those little emojis as well uh to make it more studentfriendly. Uh but this is
what we're going to be showing the staff next week, showing them some of this. And I've been having the team join us on some of the curriculum walks as well and doing some of the mapping then just to get more used to it. And what we're going to be saying to staff moving forward is if you want to invite us into your room to do mapping and discuss it
afterwards, um that's something we're going to be doing as well. And recognizing academic achievement, we are continuing with our honors breakfast that are a standing tradition. Like I said, we did add the academic awards at the end of the year for all of our grade
levels. And we are still sending kids to ASLP camp at Mass Maritime. It is a costly camp, but there are a number of families that are very interested in that and they're currently giving Plymouth 10 seats. So, I think we have five applicants this year. Uh, we haven't taken all 10 seats yet, but I
can tell it's it's growing in interest with each year. >> And the last goal was to increase family and community engagement. Uh, we worked on the transition plan for fifth grade to sixth grade last year and we're continuing to build on that as well. So
that we do have uh our transition meetings, you know, like we do across the district where we meet with the elementary schools. We have a parent night. Our students come for a tour and we are working on our um fall event. We want to have a sixth grade fall event
this year. Something where they can possibly meet their teachers prior to coming in. Uh so that's something that we're going to be working on as well. Uh we're increasing parent communication through social media. I try and make sure I'm posting things on Facebook regularly so the parents are looking at
that. Uh anything that's really important would be in multiple locations and would be in the newsletter as well. Uh and sending emails too. We have a great PTA and they are actually spearheading a lot of the events that happen at Pulma South Middle School. So we have a good relationship with them
and they are increasing their involvement as well. And of course, we're inviting our parents to our evening events at the end of the year to celebrate our students. You can flip. Uh so that was some of the things that I
spoke about and again uh one thing that I just had on there that I did not have last year. Can you flip back in one second? Thank you. Um is the new floor labeling. So if you come into South Middle School now, for some of you that might not realize this, you're coming in on the second floor. Uh that's all
second floor numbering and it's something that we've talked about at school safety, but a parent that is a police officer brought it up to me as well that you have no idea that you're on the second floor. So we have a lot of new signage the next time you're there. Uh that's labeling where you are and labeling where all the classrooms are as
well. So that's helping everybody out when they're we're entering the building. uh talking points. We've done some PD with that as well so that our staff that do have our multil- language students are able to use that tool to to translate and to communicate with families and that's become very popular
with our staff. And finally, community engagement. Uh we are working with VIPS as well. Even though we're a middle school, we're the smaller of all the secondary schools in Plymouth. So we're proportionate in terms of staff. Uh, so it's nice to have
the community members wanting to volunteer to help offer some other things to our school. Um, we also have a great Veterans Day assembly every year that one of our teachers, Colleen White, puts together in which they honor members of the community and our sixth
graders do community service learning field trips. They go to different areas in town and they do community service and then they h they come back and they report out. Um, and finally, our basketball bonanza, which is one of our big events that our PTA is a big part of, and they're funding part of our
sports program with that as well, was a good success this year. 32 out of 66 staff members, so 48% of our teaching staff showed up. We had two pair of professionals, we had one custodian, and actually 100% of our new hires for the 2526 school year came. Uh, so it was a
great event, one of our our more successful events this year. >> Erica and I are available for that. you. Everybody else was there. They're always looking for players. We actually had our um our unified team played at halftime as well uh for the
first time and they they enjoyed that. Uh those are our school council members that I'd like to thank and also our PTA like I said they are are huge supporters of what happens at Pulma South Middle School from our you know dances to our end of the year activities. >> Awesome.
>> That's all I have tonight. Anybody have any questions? Mr. Smart Jaws. >> Thank you. Um, you mentioned school sports. Do we have an inter mural program at the middle school? >> We do. >> So, what do we what do we offer year
round? Like are there because I've been on this kick lately against travel sports even though I I'm coaching a travel team, but it's just Plymouth kids and it's affordable. But I think there's there's about 70% of kids stop playing sports by
the age of 14 because they're not going to cut a check for an elite travel team or they're not going to make a varsity team. And I think at the middle school is an opportunity. I mean, we just listened to our union talk about GLP1s and the
significance of, you know, those type of drugs. But I think we take a step back and we say, "Well, where do things start and manifest?" And I I think, you know, the opportunity to play something for the love of just movement and life
lessons should be afforded to kids. And I think middle school is that area >> that you can accomplish something because I I watched dodgeball night where the kids form teams on their own at elementary. They got more fired up about that than like game seven of the
World Series. Right. >> They do. Yes. >> So, I think there's there's a model out there that's missing that is not about elite athletes, right? Because I I can't stomach that pay to play. Um, but
there's something there that might be more, you know, driven by the sixth grade forms x amount of teams. But is it a is it a budget aspect? cuz I know um >> I I know that you would have the desire to do something like that, but didn't
they just offer girls softball and they had to pull it back for lack of participation or a coach or something of that? >> It was a little bit of all of that. Yes. Uh we didn't we were having a hard time getting players and it's partially because we have strong youth programs, right? >> We couldn't get a coach and then there's
so many middle schools that have cut softball. So, it's also trying to to get a schedule. Yes. And a lot of middle school sports have been cut. You know, before co we had lacrosse at the middle school level >> and we don't have that anymore, but town lacrosse is huge.
>> Well, that's why I think intramurals are part of the answer, too, because there are kids who want to be part of something but might not have even that level of playing for the town lacrosse team because they can keep 15 or 17 kids. But I I think we got to I don't
know there's something that's out there that's a model that maybe we could look at that um allows kids to participate because I I just know that there were there were times where I had more you could play a sport when you got to high school football and baseball but I was
terrible at hoop so I loved inter mural hoop I wasn't going to go wrestle I'm like no I'll play inter mural hoop because everyone played it all degrees of you know and but there was something collegial about that you knew was just involved in your school. I think if we
can get that back at the middle school level, um we we got to start somewhere and get more kids moving, >> you know. Um but I >> we have kids last year that wanted to play basketball after school and Kelly PRZ was running it after school and they were alternating. They were using the basketball court outside. We have the
outdoor basketball court that was paved uh which the kids like to use. So they were using that and then they were using the gym if the weather wasn't good. Uh but I think that is the one sport. Yeah, it's probably basketball is the one where we're making cuts. Uh but other than that, at least at South Middle
School, we're typically not making many cuts and we're able to have sixth graders involved. >> Yeah. >> With the except basketball is the exception, but that is something like I said that we've had people do that after school as well. >> All right. All right. Anybody else?
>> All right. Well, thank you. Sorry. >> Thank you. >> All right. Given that we are two hours and 15 minutes in and probably have about an hour more to go because we have like six action items plus the executive session. I'm going to suggest a a fivem minute break right now to give ourselves
a little chance to recharge. >> Good. All right. So move >> and there's a national championship game on between Yukon Welcome back. All right, let's try to crank through these. Um, all right, so
next up we've got a number of uh out of town overnight uh field trip uh requests. Um, first one up is P South High School overnight field trip to Vero Beach, Florida. I think this is an annual one they do for uh kind of spring
baseball spring training, right? >> Motion up. >> Sorry. >> Mhm. >> Getting Kathy snack. >> Throw you under the bus. Um the first field trip is to Vero Beach, Florida. This is a field trip that has been
previously voted. I sent Walt home because he was freezing from his earlier baseball game. Um, so he takes the baseball team down to Vieier Beach, Florida, and it's a great field trip where the kids get to play baseball, but they also incorporate social studies and they go to the Jackie Robinson
>> um museum um as well as a few other social studies related um excursions. So that is our first field trip of the night and is an action item. Mhm. >> I motion that the proposed PL South High
School overnight field trip to the Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vier Beach, Florida as accepted and approved as presented. >> Good. >> All right, Mr. Smartell seconds. Have any discussion?
We shall vote. >> All right, >> great. Thank you. Um and then our next two field trips I think are backto-back. One is for North and one is for South. They're to Derry, New Hampshire and those are for um student council um
national student council conference. >> All right. Any questions on this one? Are these two mostly? >> All right. >> Can I make a double motion please? I propose that the Plymouth North High School and the Plymouth South High School overnight field trips to the
Vision National Student Council conference in Derry, New Ham should be accepted and approved as presented. >> And a second. >> Second. >> All right. Mr. Jackson seconds. Obviously, we'll need a vote twice, but we can do it as one motion. >> Okay.
>> All right. That's unanimous. And we will go to our second one. >> And the last field trip request for tonight is >> one minute. We have to go to the second. >> Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. >> I like the energy. We're okay. >> We needed more of that.
>> Yeah. What was >> ready? >> This is the rocket. >> Yeah, I know. >> I'll wear my shirt next time. >> All right. >> All right. You're up. >> Okay. Now I'm ready. All right. Here we go. Um the last field trip for tonight um is
um from Jessica Fuller and she is taking a group of students to see The Lion King, grade six, um over in Providence, >> which is great timing because our school year is so long. I also make this motion because I'm extremely excited about this field trip
that the proposed Plymouth Community Intermediate School out of town field trip to the Lion King in Providence, Rhode Island on June 4th be accepted and approved as presented. >> Second. >> All right, I'll take Miss Jackson second.
>> I think it was probably a draw. >> All right, >> Simba. There I am. >> All right, that's Adam gets the long boring presentation. >> We crank through those. All right, let's now we get the fun one. All right. >> I thought it was thrilling. So >> I get all the field trips.
>> Yeah. All right. >> Short stick. >> All right, Dr. Blaze though, you're up. Um so the next item on the agenda is um we have discovered in my department that for years we have had different pay rates um for a lot of different things
um but it's really the school committee's um job purview to to approve rates. Um so a lot of the rates on this this sheet um are rates that we've been paying for years um but it's never come to school
committee. So, my my plan going forward is this is would just be one of those annual annual things that we probably would do in August going forward. Um, but I wanted to at least get it on on your agenda for approval to look at. Um, but these are all the different rates that we pay. There's a lot of different
rates we pay for athletics, timekeepers, uh, scorekeepers, ticket collectors, and so on forth. A lot of these are paid through either this the budget or through the revolving fund. Um, then we have cafeteria. Um, some of these,
again, we've paid some of these rates. Um, if there's nothing in the proposed pay rate for FY27, it would remain the same for 27. Um, looking at cafeteria, um, we have substitute cafeteria workers, food service truck drivers, substitute truck drivers. Um, here I'm
putting both the a new rate for FY26 and a rate for 27. Um, substitutes. You've approved all these rates already. Um but we're just trying to make one sheet where it's all together in one location. So rather than a little bit
here, a little bit there. Um other those are just some random items that are just paid for different events. Pack manager, you have talked you've actually approved that already this year. Um instrument music lessons, high school detentions.
Um it's not necessarily something addressed in the teacher contract, but it's something we pay. um but they stick with the same rate of the the par the teacher approved EIPC rate. Um special ed tutors, there's always a question in regards to student high school workers
um that we do employ some student workers for different events um through the year and we just pay minimum wage whatever that minimum wage might be. um bus monitors. This kind of um again it's a par two contracts in the par contract
but it just defines the time the one hour additional pay even if it's just a half an hour but it's an additional pay. Um and also finally now is ESY and summer pay. Um we have a lot of summer programs but again these rates have been
varied over the years. Um so this would be for the 27. A lot of those rates are EIPC tutoring rates or contractual rates or um somewhere in between. So this is this is this is again is just to formalize it. Um I take any questions
Stacy can answer any questions in regards to ESY. >> And a lot of these are actually in the contracts, right? >> Yes. >> Um yeah, please. >> Um we're not changing any of the rates. We're just putting the rates on a single page. That's what we're voting on.
You're and you're you're approving the rates to be honest with you. Some of these rates have never been approved, >> but they're like they're established. We're not like >> correct >> not changing anything. >> Like Dale Weber is not going to come back and yell at us.
>> I mean, like this this is documenting what was already happening. >> Yes. >> Clarifying that FY27 rates are new or already include included in the proposal. Those are in contracts. >> The anything that is contractual,
>> yeah, >> does not change. Some of them are not in the contract. I'll take like the detention. Detention isn't necessarily addressed anywhere in the contract whatsoever. Um, so we're just trying to formalize. >> So like this given day,
>> those are athletic rates that we've been paying. Um, and then some of them are proposed. If it says an FY27 proposed, that is an increase. >> And it's new. >> And it No, it's not new. The rate's not new. >> The proposed rate, >> the proposed increase is new.
>> But it's things we've we've already been paying all of these >> at some way, shape, or form. >> Some of them are what we're paying now that you've never approved. I'm going to be honest with you. Right. >> And then some of them we're looking for
an increase for FY27 starting July 1. um that are being included in this discussion um in this sheet. >> And so sorry just another clarifying question. So, what has been proposed as
part of the budget, and I know I'm talking like little dollars that probably wash themselves out, the the numbers that were used to to come up with this was whatever was in here as a fiscal year rate 26 and not necessarily
27 because the 27 is new based on this discovery. >> Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. Y >> so the the Thank you, Mr. Chair. Were the pay rates in a line item for personnel, for example, in the athletic
budget? Because we So we approved them, but we just you're just saying we didn't prove the specific rate for that item, right? But they were in there for personnel under athletics, right? >> They've never been approved, >> honestly. I mean truly some of the
athletic ones they've been paying these rates so >> out of a revolving fun >> out of revolving or included in some of their budget for athletics. >> Yes. And some of them are set like occasionally you'll see Maya rate the Maya rate. >> Those are rates that are set by Maya. >> Yeah.
>> That we can't control but we just want to make sure that we're documenting that they exist and these this is how we pay them. We don't come up with the Maya ones. We don't necessarily come up with a rate on our own. The other ones have been rates that have been established paying it. They've been established
>> a stipen where they can the right of first refusal can go to staff. >> Um it would be an additional pay. Um and it's they put it out to the staff members and say who would like to work the games or who would um it's usually from talking to the athletic directors
and the principles. It's usually the same people that do it over and over again um because they're the people that volunteer. But it is put out put out there as anybody that wanted wants to do it. >> But to your point, I mean, it's not new money, right? Because obviously we're already we're already playing soccer. >> Yeah, we're already broken it down
because you had a boring Tuesday and you decided I mean this is great though. >> I wish I what always happened is I would get questions from payroll. >> This is good. >> What what is this rate Adam or like as Stacy's going to set up summer program? It's like what are we paying the powers?
what are we paying the teachers or what are we paying? >> Um, >> so the summer program is a little unique because the teachers are not working with under their contract >> and so we have a little flexibility but >> you know we had a lot of turnover in special ed so a lot of the rates got >> I think tossed around. So having this
one sheet that we can refer to that HR can also refer to when people are being hired. >> This has been like >> amazing. >> It's great. We're a people business and this brings to life what it costs to run just one game. >> Yeah.
>> Right. Or one activity. Um >> I mean I can't wait to put my inter mural program down here for favor. >> No, but I I have motion to approve. I mean are we making a motion to >> Yeah. >> Approve this? >> You need a vote, Mr. Chair? >> We do.
>> Okay. So motion to approve the pay rate as is including the um proposed pay rates. Do you have a second? >> Second. >> All right. Jackson seconds. >> And again, I'll make this an annual
August type. >> Yeah, I mean, it'll give us a like I said, it's nice to have it all in one place and it gives you a baseline that we can make sure. All right. We have five yes and two abstensions. All right.
Keep going. All right. Next up, we are at where are we? All right. Uh, school choice participation. So, this is a public hearing. Obviously, there is no one here to assess it. So, Dr. Campbell.
>> Thank you, Mr. Pisano. So, you know, um, as you all know, the interd district school choice program has been in place in Massachusetts for gez, uh, over 30 years. It allows families to enroll their children in a school district other than the one they reside if school
districts choose not, uh, to withdraw from the school choice option. So, this is an annual thing that comes before the school committee. um if there's not a vote of any action by June 1st that's submitted to the department, you automatically become a school choice
district. So therefore, you know, we're bringing it to you um here in April. So really um my recommendation hasn't changed. Um I don't think we've ever recommended um to participate in uh inter interd
district school choice. I think you know just the with budget constraints and the capacity issues of our own schools and some of the things that we've talked about I think it's in our best interest not to um elect to um participate in interd district school choice for the
coming school year. >> Any questions for Dr. Camp? >> Is there any benefit to a district you know not our district >> but is there a benefit to a district to enroll in school choice? Yeah, if you have districts, a lot of Cape districts
will will do that. You'll see if they're really itching for enrollment and they're having challenges, it really is is a way to to help generate that. So, you'll see that more for districts, I believe, that um are struggling uh with their enrollment. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> Welcome. And I know we've had requests like from folks in like Middleboro, some of the adjacent towns that >> see our you know >> schools are a little better quality and have tried to you know >> appeal to us and we say so we don't participate in school just you know >> y >> school choice.
>> So yeah it would definitely we would definitely be on the uh impacted end versus benefiting. >> All right. Do we have a motion on this? Mr. Morgan. >> Um, I make a motion for the school committee to vote to withdraw from the
interd district school choice program for 2627 school year. >> All right. Thank you. And a second. >> I'll second. >> All right. Michelle seconds. Make a vote. trying to. >> All right, that is unanimous. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you very much. >> All right, next up, I believe we're at uh superintendent report. >> Okay, just a quick update since we were last together. It's been a while. Um last day of school update. So, I did send out a communication to families It
was a little week ago, so ago um we had multiple weather events and cancellations as you all know and we exceeded our fiveday uh that are built into the calendar. So we actually had seven snow days which brought us um on the calendar to June 19th, excuse me,
June 29th. 19th would have been uh great. Um so while the state regulations regarding 180 days of instruction um we've met our mandatory instructional hour threshold. So there's the 180 day rule, but there's the timeline on
learning requirements. Uh we exceed that even uh without going to that 180th day. Um even going to the 179th or 178th. Uh the commissioner allowed districts to um
one look at their schedule to try to get out of to end their school year by June 26th if they exceeded that. um as long as they demonstrated um certain conditions. They tried to look at other days that were available um within their calendar that weren't scheduled with
students. Um they looked at you know um Good Friday and other days that were off professional development half days. Uh we we went through that process. Uh we discovered that um the Good Friday is
actually a holiday uh within our transportation vendors contract. Again, we don't negotiate with those employees directly. >> Um so we would not have buses guaranteed for our students and we know how many
buses we need. So, we did I sent this an appeal um seeking a waiver to the commissioner demonstrating that even with ending our school year on June 26th um we meet the time on learning requirements. So, we were granted that.
So, our last day is now June 26th and a communication has gone out um to our staff and to our families. Um one thing that um Miss Barrett mentioned this tonight. So, the Beth Beth Israel Deaconist Hospital, Plymouth Community Based Health Initiative grants, uh
Plymouth Public Schools received a $435,000 award. Uh and that is helping to fund the Bright program. You've heard us use the term Brightite. It's bridge of resilient youth and transition program. So this is really a wonderful opportunity at now at all four secondary
schools to have this transitional program to support our students with uh you know clinical mental health supports, the academic needs, the family engagement needs, the the care coordination with with particular students that have you know had a
partial hospitalization and are returning to school and they need a you know a you know we don't want to just throw them right back into academics all day. they need some extra care and support. Uh we have the model in two of our schools, but this grant allows us to to guarantee it across four secondary
schools. It's a wonderful organization that supports it as well. Um so we're really excited about that. Um and and know the benefits and the success that it has for for for students. Um and we're we're happy that all four of our secondary schools are now part of that.
Um and then just two two last things. Um, congratulations to Miss Mrs. Linda Blokus, one of our health educators, being named the 2026 health teacher of the year by Mass Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and
Dance. So, um, you know, Linda's been a um, outstanding. She was our only elementary health educator um, until, you know, not too, you know, not too many years ago. Um, so we're really proud to have her expertise and dedication and and and to be recognized
at the state level um with that honor. Um, and then lastly, town meeting is this Saturday. Uh, we start at 8. There's really no need for a meeting before, I don't think, or we really no uh particular agenda item, but uh look
forward uh to to um that and and hope things uh go well. That's all I have this evening. Any questions for Dr. Campbell? Nothing. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Campbell. >> We are cruising along. Uh, next up,
where are we? >> All right. Uh, retirements, Mr. Dr. Blazo. >> Tonight, we have two retirements. Um, Maline Mueller from who's an admin assistant at Plymouth South High School with 10 and a half years and Bonnie Holmes, a music teacher at Plymouth North High School um, with 27 years.
>> M. Jackson, >> on behalf of the Plymouth School Committee, we would like to thank Miss Muella and Miss Holmes for their combined 37 and a half years of service and wish them good luck in their next endeavor. >> All right. Thank you.
All right. Uh, so we have uh reports and proposals from committee members. Anybody have anything they want to update the committee on? >> I can update. On April 2nd, I attended the Plymouth Pilgrim Area Collaborative Meeting. They're currently having us
review their fiscal year 27 budget as well as policy revisions that they've um completed um with an expectation to vote for next meeting. Um they actually had
their 50year celebration last week I believe. Um unfortunately due to work I wasn't able to attend but was able to attend the meeting and they said it was a really cool um meeting that showed all
of their past years um participants including um Michelle Badger. So, um really nice event and progress moving forward, but enrollment numbers have been down within the um area
collaborative. However, their fiscal year 26 has been responsible. So, just wanted to report that. >> Thanks. Thank you for that. Anybody else? Okay. All right. Uh has master planning committee met?
Um, we had several meetings canceled due to the weather, but um, we had a meeting and the plan has been completed and presented to the planning board at this point. >> Nice. >> So, if you'd like to see a copy of it, it's on the town website. Um, I'm not
sure where it stands for the planning board at the moment, but um, the consultant put it together, the committee voted on it, and was going to be presented to the planning board. So, >> all right. Thanks for that. All right. Uh, building committee has not met since our last school committee
meeting. So, we will report on that at our >> next couple days. >> Yeah. Yeah. Next meeting is on the 9th. >> All right. Uh, personnel reports. Dr. Blazo. >> Sure. We have two appointments, eight resignations, seven parental leaves, and
one medical leave. >> All right. Next up, uh, unfinished and new business. Do we have any unfinished business anyone needs to bring up? Any new business any wants to propose for future meetings? All right. Next up, we have our consent
agenda. So, just the minutes from our last two meetings, some uh homeschool plans and accounts payable warrants. Anything needs to be pulled? If not, I'll take a motion. >> I move that we approve the consent
agenda as presented. >> All right. I'll second it. >> And Mr. Mr. Morgan seconds vote. >> All right. And all right, that's approved unanimously. All right, so that brings us to the end of our uh regular uh agenda. So I will
call this actually yeah uh clo close this meeting or actually no actually don't close it. I will yeah need a motion to convene to executive session. >> I'll make a motion that the committee move to enter executive session and close out regular session.
>> All right. Do you have a second? >> Second. >> All right. I'll take a do a roll call vote. Mr. Saridelis? >> Yes. >> Miss Shaw? >> Yes. >> Miss Haywood? >> Yes. >> Mr. Morgan? >> Yes. >> Miss Jackson? >> Yep. Miss Bryant. >> Yes. >> And I vote yes. We are now in executive session as of 9:48