There you go. All right. Good evening, everybody. We're here for the final uh in-person meeting of the 2024 2025 um school year. Um, I will call the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. Now, if
everyone will please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance 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, I'll read our land acknowledgement. Um, we acknowledge that we are meeting on the unseated ancestral homeland of indigenous people whose enduring presence we humbly recognize. We honor the Wanoak people as the original stewards in the Herring Pond
Wanoic as a surviving tribe indigenous to these lands and 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. Right. Our first order of business today is an executive session. Do I have a a motion for that? I move that we go into executive session for the purpose of
discussing the investigation of criminal misconduct. All right. Have a second. Second. All right. We'll call executive session. Sorry. Oh, sorry. We need a vote. We'll do roll call. U Mr. Melis, yes. Miss Haywood, yes. Mr. Morgan, yes.
Miss Jackson, yes. Miss Bryant, yes. And I vote yes. Uh, vote is unanimous. We will now go into executive session starting at 6:31 We'll have to Good good evening everyone. We will re reconvene into uh open session at 7:25
p.m. Welcome everybody. Um first up on our agenda is comments from community uh members. Before we start, I'll read a quick statement. So public comment is not an opportunity for discussion, debate, or dialogue between individuals and the school committee. It is an individual's opportunity to express an
opinion or concern on issues within the school committee's authority and scope. Each speaker will be allowed up to three minutes to present their material and must begin their comments by stating their name and address. I believe we have one person wishing to speak tonight, Mr. Robert.
Great. Thanks. Thank you and good evening. My name is Dale Weber for the record tonight representing precinct 3, one of the 18 precincts uh in the town meeting uh roll call. And I'm here tonight just to share a
quick story with you. Uh back on May 23rd, I had reason to be out front here in the parking lot uh to follow up on a concern that uh some constituents from precinct 3 shared with me that uh obviously they
didn't get the memo about the voting locations had changed for May 17th and they showed up here to vote from precinct 3 and they pointed to me to the sign that was out front that said precinct 3 vote here. So I was here on
the 23rd following up with a meeting of the DPW assistant director to uh try to effectuate the removal of that sign. While I was here, I ran into a one of
the school groundsman who I also represent with another hat that I wear in town. I represent the non-sertificated employees of the school district, the head custodians, the custodians, the skilled craftsmen, and the cafeteria workers.
So, one of my members was heading out to the side parking lot right behind you over here. There's a tree that's on the front page of the documents that I passed around to you to look at. That is a tree. It's called the golden chain tree. Sometimes
referred to as a golden rain tree. It was planted in memoriam to a uh woman that worked in this building when it was the town hall uh back in 1997. Janice Eder passed away at a way too
early age of 58 years old due to her medical condition. Well, this groundsman was working his way towards that tree with a chainsaw, and I saw that the previous night's rainstorms, we had 5 ines of rain a
couple of weeks ago and some heavy wind, and the tree was leaning. was leaning towards the parking spaces and the back of the root ball came up out of the ground a little bit and he was charged
with the orders to take the tree down. I went up to him and asked him, "Please don't do that." I gave him the reasons why. He informed me that he had orders to do so. I said, "Could you please call your your boss? Tell him I'm out here. Tell
him that I'm asking him to hold off." Long story short, they held off. They took a few limbs off the bottom of the tree, which I was appreciative of. But I'm here before you tonight to basically ask for permission
uh to put some stakes in the ground, some heavy duty stakes behind that tree with some wire and some protective coating for the tree uh so that the wire doesn't cut into the bark and support it. Maybe put some lom around the ball
of the tree to give it a fighting chance and I think we can save it. I've done some of this work in the past. If you don't want me to do it with a couple of volunteers, you can let me know that you'll have somebody from your place do it. But that's my request and uh I'll do
whatever you decide is best for the school committee. But I want you to know that I volunteer to do that. in the packet. I just want to share with you the letters that I received because the answer that I got that day from staff was that there's no plaque on that tree.
No plaque on the building. And my answer to that was, well, back in 1997, the occupants of this building figured that they would always be occupants of this building, and they didn't know that you guys were coming to take over operation of the building. And so, they figured there was no need for the
plaque. They all knew what the tree represented. This is a letter from Claire Vase. Many of you might know her husband, Lenny Vase, one of the almost a 50-year town meeting member. So, she gave me the letter to verify where this
was from. I gave you copies of the 1997 annual town report listing Janice Eder in memoriam. uh and the the fact that on page 169 she was listed as passing away on June 23rd at the young age of 58. So that's my
comments. I know you don't uh get into dialogue with public comment, but I'm hoping that I may be able to hear something back from uh the school committee or your superintendent or your uh building and grounds maintenance staff that you will take care of that or
invite me to take care of it for you, which I'm happy to do. But thank you for your time. If there's any questions, I can entertain them. But if not, I'll be a due to you. Yeah. Thank you for bringing this to our our attention. All right. Thank you. have a great meeting.
Right. You want to go You want to go connect with them? All right. Uh, next up we Yeah, we our student representative updates. Tonight we have Anna King from Plymouth North High School. Hi, good evening everyone. Last week, Plymouth North graduated over 300
students. On Saturday, our family members and guests were in attendance to support all of our graduates. We would like to wish all of our graduates success in their future endeavors. Our academic convocation night was held last Thursday, June 6th. Congratulations
to our seniors who were honored at the academic convocation night. 114 seniors received excellence awards, scholarships, andor service awards. Students at North received over $26,000 in scholarships. We are we are very thankful to those families and
businesses that provide these amazing awards. The saludiatoran award for the class of 2025 was awarded to Chelsea ohiwa and the valid Victorian award of the class of 2025 was awarded to Evan Johnson. Congratulations to both of these students for attaining the highest
GPA in their class. The Plymouth North High School students in the class of 2026 were honored on Tuesday, June 10th in the annual book award ceremony. The book awards program honors students who have demonstrated academic and extracurricular progress and leadership
in their school and community. 16 students were rec recognized, excuse me, by wellrespected colleges and presented with a book, certificate or medal to acknowledge their hard work and dedication. Lastly, we would like to wish all of our students and families a
safe and happy summer. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for King? All right. Well, if not, we thank you for a wonderful school year and look forward to having you next back next year as a senior. Thank you. Congrats on the last
day of school. All right, get back to the agenda here. Uh, all right. So, next up we have I want to recognize uh some students who have received National Council of Teachers of
English Writing Achievement Awards. Good evening. Thank you for having us. Um it's always nice when we can come to school committee and talk about recognition that our students have received. So for many years we've been having our students submit writing to um the National Council of Teachers of
English writing competition. And we did have two um winners from North High School. And um Mrs. Shelley Terry is going to tell you a little bit more about the contest. Um so each year um we nominate two students um to participate
um and I'm excited that both of ours um were awarded recognition. Um what they're asked to do is there is a specific essay topic um each year and now I can't even remember what the essay topic was. What was it again? Oh, you don't remember either. It was a
while ago. I know it took a while ago. Sorry. February. It was It was a while ago. Um anyway, so they have to respond um and then they're assessed compared uh and compared to uh nearly a thousand kids across the country. Um and so they
both were awarded um recognition. So we want to just call them up if that's okay with you. Um so we have um an award of excellent rating to Maya Salamone.
[Applause] and and superior to Leo Carlin. Dr. White a photo with uh Sure. Amazing. This is Terry. Okay.
Yeah, you can go up too. No, that's okay. But I can't. And I just want to thank all of our English teachers for all of the hard work that they do every day to help our students become great writers. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. White.
All right. Next up, we have another uh fun topic. We have a an international field trip request for Milan, Italy for next January 17th and 24th. Yes. So, we have Mrs. Vanetti who has been doing an outstanding job um with Mrs. in um
absence this year for her sbatical. Um this is a trip that you're all familiar with in exchange. Um Sarah's here to talk about um the details with this trip and also talk about some of the financial opportunities that we've already been made available to us. So,
right. So, we're lucky to be able to continue the partnership with Kigio San Carlo from Milan, Italy, and um they've agreed to continue uh the exchange program. So, so far we have um anticipated dates of receiving um the
Italian students here in our district um on October 25th to November 1st. And a little change on the um time that we would go to Italy uh January 17th to January uh 24th, which is the Martin
Luther King Jr. uh week from school. Um, there were problems with traveling during school vacations, including the Milan Olympics, which is a it's a big deal. It's hard to send children during that week uh during the week of February vacation. And the Lombardi region of
Italy is having their uh state testing in April and just not welcoming students during that time. Would like to continue the tradition of um this exchange. So, we thought that that week we had met with Dr. Campbell about um kind of
pivoting this year uh to that week. Um we have spent some time thinking about how we could uh make sure that all families are able to participate in this trip. So in anticipation of um school uh committee approval, we had to send out
the application. So, it's pending approval, but with that, we sent out a um a a needs kind of survey for people to fill out if they felt like they needed financial assistance, and we had four families um fill that out. Um we're lucky that we've already gotten a a
great donation to the program of $5,000. So, we're able to cover uh at least two uh full, you know, uh costs for the program or maybe partial costs for the program. And hopefully we can get more community partners to continue to donate
to our global studies program um to allow more families to be able to participate. Um so um and that along with some fundraising, I'm talking with Mike Cable and um Allison Rearen about some ideas for fundraising throughout the school year in order to raise money to lower the overall cost for the
program for all families and help families in need to participate. So um so that's about all I've got for the about the program. All right, questions. No questions. Do we have a motion then? Um, M. Jackson, I'm going to make a
motion, but I also want to say I appreciate the time and effort you put in to consider the financial um aspect of it because it's something that uh is really important to our families and to us as a committee. So, thank you for all the effort you put in. Thank you very
much. And I make a motion that we approve um the Milan field trip um from January 17th to the 24th of 2026. All right. Do we have a second on that motion? Second. Mr. Samaris seconds.
the vote online. [Music] All right. And the motion passes unanimous. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all. [Music] All right. Uh, next up we've got
representatives here from the Plymouth Special Education Parent Advisory Council to introduce their new officers. Bring your own chair. Thank you. [Music] Are we good? Snug in. All right. Well,
welcome, ladies. Thank you. Take it away. Thank you. We'd like to thank the district and the school committee for inviting us uh here tonight and allowing us the opportunity to formally introduce the new board for the year ahead. Um as well as our vision
for the year ahead. And so my name is Holly Gay. I'll be serving as a co-chair. April Burr. I'm also co-chair. Janet Shu, secretary. Stephanie Howie, treasurer.
Shandandy Cardier, uh, community development. I'm Elise Leer and I am the district CPAC leaison. Uh, for our vision for the year ahead, the Plymouth CPAC envisions a school community where every student requiring special education is supported,
empowered, and included. We strive to foster meaningful collaboration among families, educators, and administrators to ensure equitable access to education and services through advocacy, education, and community engagement. We aim to promote
a culture of respect, understanding, and high expectations for all learners. In the year ahead, we uh we aim to actively grow our CPAC membership in collaboration with the district. We aim to assure that all parents know that
they are important stakeholders and their voice and input matters. We want them to know they have a platform to come and share their positive feedback, concerns, questions, suggestions, and needs for support. We will do so by holding our monthly
district and public meetings. Uh create spin-off groups and events and be active throughout the district and community. In addition to being active across multiple social media platforms, we will soon publish an updated CPAC website, which will serve as a guide and a
resource for parents to stay current and connected with the CPAC. In the year ahead, the CPAC will focus on the strengths of our special education programming. Serving children is at the heart of our mission uh which will be best met with a strengthbased approach highlighting our
children's accomplishments and always focusing on building their confidence and self-esteem. As special education continues to evolve, we are excited to collaborate and fulfill our advisory role in the year ahead.
Uh we would uh also like to request that we return later in the year to provide a more formal uh in-depth presentation and we uh look forward to our monthly CPAC district leadership meetings with Dr. Rogers, uh Katherine Jackson, and
Ashley Shaw. All right. Do you have any questions for for the folks? I miss Brian. I have more so just a clarifying or a recommendation. I think I picked up on your statement in
regards to being able to have parents bring forward positive feedback and I just think it's important that we continue to have dialogue where we're sharing all types of feedback so that we can make sure that we're able to you
know meet challenges as well and look for opportunities within that challenge. So, I just wanted to kind of like amplify that message so that you know all families are seen and heard. Yes. Thank you.
Great. Anyone else? And I would like I will say that even though Miss Jackson will be replacing me on the committee, I did leave myself on as an alternate. So, I will join the meetings when I'm available or need a cover for Miss Shaw or Miss Jackson because I do like being part of that group. So, thank you. So, but you're
you're in good hands with Miss Jackson and Miss Sha. All right. Thank you. Thank you for coming and introducing yourselves. All right. Uh All right. Next up, we have a transportation efficiency uh report from the Alliance Education Associates. So, Mr. Loy, want to do the
introductions? Um this is Rich Lee. Um Rich, we've been working with Rich probably good six, seven months or so. Um we obviously as we all have talked about transportation is a huge expense in this district. Um so what we did is
we reached out to Rich to perform a study to see basically to look at all aspects of our transportation and see kind of give us a guide in regards to what might be a good recommendation going forward. So Rich is here tonight to summarize the the report. If you have any questions for him, please feel free
to ask. But I'll turn over to Rich. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for having me this evening to uh at least give you the highlights of the transportation report. Uh if you're ever uh having trouble sleeping, this is the report to read because they tend to put
people to sleep. Uh I would uh just call your attention to a couple of things. Uh one is that uh uh Plymouth is a is a growing community uh in terms uh but has decreasing enrollment. That's not unlike a lot of suburban Boston uh
communities primarily because people are moving in without the school age children. Uh and that is not uncommon. Uh Plymouth is a relatively large uh school district. Uh you comprise about 135 square miles. Uh it's relatively
densely populated. About 678 people per square mile. That's considered densely populated for transportation purposes is what I'm saying. Uh and uh as such uh when you look at transportation efficiency, it's not just the number of
students riding a bus. Uh it's a lot of factors go into determining efficiency. Uh not least of which is the the geographic size of the district uh and the location uh of your schools in comparison to distances between schools.
Uh you look at uh whether you're using manual routing or computerized routing systems. uh the person who actually does the routing really determines the configuration and number of buses that you're required. Uh the number of uh
scheduled riders um being those that are eligible for free transportation uh and in some cases the fee for service uh students added to that uh versus actual rider riders. Uh we refer to that as student loading uh in our in our
report. uh the time available between school starting times and ending times uh we consider that to be called that's called tier time uh that's the amount of time that you have to actually provide transportation between your bell schedules uh as I said the distance and
travel time between your schools uh population densities uh highway in road infrastructure and traffic patterns uh especially at drive times in morning and afternoon and not least of which is the community expectations for the quality
of service. Uh often times the community uh expects a certain level of service. Uh most parents want to be able to see their children get on and off the bus from from their window. Uh so they uh like uh very convenient uh bus stops. Um
uh and lastly, it's typically the morning routes that drive the number of buses that you require because uh of after school activities. Typically, your uh morning ridership is is higher than your afternoon ridership. Uh in our case uh one of the things we looked at again
is your uh your bell schedules and one of the things we noticed is that you have relatively short uh bell schedule in the morning uh between some of your schools and a relatively short afternoon bell schedule uh uh in most of your
schools. Uh the result of that uh is that uh you're running uh a relatively low ratio of the number of seats on the bus that you're actually using. Uh and uh when I say that uh you're using about
40% of the seats that are capable. Uh typically uh that would be problematic for us. The problem with uh the uh saying that it is not efficient is that you're using 90% of the tier time that you have available. So what that means
is that if you had more time, you could pick up more students. Uh and so when we look at all the factors that lead to school efficiency, we're able to say that the system is as efficient as it can be given the uh the parameters that you that you have to work with. uh and
that especially being your school bell schedule. And our caveat uh is that uh you never change bell schedules for the sake of transportation. Transportation is a support service uh to the educational process. Uh and you set bell schedules, school year, length of the
school day. You do those things for educational purposes uh and transportation as a support service uh will provide the support uh as they're able to do that. to do so. Uh we look at other factors. We we look at some of the
benchmarks. Uh and uh when we look at the uh the cost of transportation, uh we uh we were very surprised when we looked at uh the last several years and the last years on your current contract. Uh
you had a long-term contract uh to which transcended the COVID years. uh you have several years left on that contract at a 2.75% annual increase. Unheard of today in the private sector. Uh and while
that's good today, the the caveat to that statement is that if and when you go out to bid next time, you're going to see uh you're going to see some sticker shock u and a and a big adjustment in in the uh the next uh round of bid. uh we
look at the uh uh transportation costs uh compared to the total district budget uh and uh in your case it's averaged about 9.33% uh annually uh and for suburban Boston uh and cape type of uh communities the
the standard has been 10% or less is considered to be cost-effective so we can say that based on the factors that we analyzed uh we can say uh not only as you are efficient as possible uh you're also cost effective and that's a
benchmark that desi department of uh u uh education uses as well as a an industry standard benchmark uh I brought your attention to the fact that there's a a severe driver shortage there has been a driver shortage for the
last several years uh it continues uh CDL drivers in particular uh and there are several companies that are actually targeting school bus drivers for employment, offering them not only signon bonuses but full-time employment, guaranteed overtime uh during the
holiday periods uh and a full benefit package. And it's difficult for the public sector to sometimes compete uh against the private sector uh for when there's a shortage because they have the capability of of uh of offering type
types of bonuses to uh both recruit and retain uh good drivers. Uh we looked at transportation operations. uh you run a hybrid uh three- tier system uh which is very common and is probably one of the more efficient ways
of of of uh operating. Uh you'll see we have a lot of data with regard to the construction of your roots, the times of your routes uh and the uh the metrics for your roots and as I said uh in the morning you're using 87% of your tear
time that's available uh for a 40.1% uh load capacity. uh your average route time including the dead head time is 40 minutes. Uh and your average number of stops per mile is 1.02. Uh so it's not that you're having
a lot of stops. Uh it's that you're relatively large district. Uh and uh uh your uh actual load is about uh 29 30 students on an average uh per bus. Uh and again, as I said, you're using uh
almost all of the time that you have available uh to pick up students. Uh and it's no different in the afternoon. Uh with the exception is that you run one more route in the afternoon than you do in the morning uh with the same number of buses. Uh
in the afternoon, however, you're using uh 96% of your tier time available. So your routes were even even more tightly constructed. Uh in the afternoon uh we looked at staffing uh and the staffing appears to be adequate for the size and the structure of your
operation. Uh the fact that you uh run some of your own buses and you contract out for for the others. The staffing appeared to be appropriate. Uh we looked at your uh your fleet uh and uh we found that you run a relatively old fleet of
school buses. Uh the average uh uh age is 6.1 years old. Average miles about 70,000 miles. Uh you have only have seven of them under warranty which represents 43.8. Uh our recommendation
is that uh you develop a capital plan for sequential uh replacement of buses. Uh what you'd like to do is to be at that 50% mark where 50% of your buses are under warranty at all times. What that does is it helps to one minimize
the cost of repairs and maintenance uh and secondly uh more reliable uh vehicles. Your van fleet however uh average age was only 1.7 years uh and 14 of them 100% of them are still under warranty.
Uh so you've done a greater investment in your van fleet than you have in your your bus fleet. Uh we looked at facilities. Uh you don't have a transportation facility per se. you park in the school parking lot. Uh there appeared to be adequate space uh for
both buses and uh and driver vehicles. Uh we uh we noticed that uh that the uh Department of Public Works has recently uh purchased a a new facility, a new building. Uh Adam and I toured uh both
the old building uh the current building and and the new building. Uh we spoke to the uh director of the DPW uh and uh he indicated a willingness uh at least to discuss uh not a commitment but at least willing to discuss a cooperative relationship with the school
district to share uh maintenance and repair space. And we recommend that if the district chooses to expand its operation uh that it do so. Uh that would help both the DPW uh and uh and and the school district. Uh he also
pointed out to us a joining property that the that the town owns, a large parking area uh that certainly would house uh all of the current contractor buses should the district want to take over that that operation. So uh fueling uh there are two fuel
sites at DPW uh used both by DPW uh and the school district uh and that fueling appears to be adequate uh for for both entities. Uh the uh the town buys its fuel off the state contract. At the time that we looked at it, diesel fuel was
three uh 3.49 $349 cents a gallon uh which was uh which was a pretty uh good price. U again uh the uh DPW director even pointed out several bays that he thought would be uh that could be used for
school bus uh repairs and maintenance. Um, I put uh I took pictures while we while we toured. They're uh they're in your report. Uh, so you can actually see uh what uh what we saw. Uh, part of what we uh were asked to do was to look at the cost benefit of whether it made
sense for you to continue to own and operate your own vehicles or take over the uh the current private contractor contract. uh and uh you'll see on page 37 we have a list of about 20 uh different assumptions that we made going
into into that. Uh part of it had to do with the maintaining the same uh level for fuel cost uh same number of routes, same number of vehicles uh and uh that uh uh not only would you have to purchase 75 buses but you'd have to
purchase an additional seven buses uh for spares and athletics. uh also looked at the uh the current cost uh of your current contract cost uh and we looked at uh what the next couple of years are under your current
contract. And then to when we went further beyond two years, we used the Milton bid, which we just opened in January, uh as an indicator of what the private contractor, it's the same contractor by the way, uh would look like uh going out three, four, five,
five years. Um and you you'll see that it's a big jump. The bottom line to the costbenefit study uh is that in year one it would cost you money to take over because of the front end firstear cost capital investment etc. After the first
year uh the the line starts to diverge a little bit uh to the point where in the third year you're saving about three and a half% of the cost of of of contracting. Uh we uh the question becomes uh uh to what degree you want to
invest in uh in uh capital large amount of capital to get started uh and uh for 3.4 uh% is it worth taking on the headache of another 75 buses? Uh what we
suggest uh is before you make that decision since you have two years left on your contract, you may want to consider actually going out to bid next year, a year early, going out to bid and getting actual numbers from the contractors uh as to what that future cost would be. Uh my guess is that your
current contractor may sharpen their pencil from what they did in Milton in order to keep this contract because they already have a heavy investment uh in this community and a long history in this community. Having said that, uh I'm happy to answer
any questions. Uh and also should you have questions after tonight, just send them to Adam and he certainly will uh will forward them to me and we're happy to uh to answer uh any questions that you have.
Oh, excellent report. Uh do we have questions? when it comes to um if we decided to take over the buses, would you recommend one of the things that has been talked about is taking over peace meal? Would
you recommend doing that as like a to alleviate the learning curve on taking over the buses and what the capacity is or trying to engage with that or is that I I would not recommend taking it on peace meal. The re the reason being if
you were to take we'll just say half of it uh your other half is going to be very expensive. Yes. because their capital cost, their fixed cost uh is going to be all built into half the number of buses and that cost per day is going to become prohibitive. Okay? U
given that you have two years to work with uh you have plenty of time uh to do what you need to do with regard to due diligence uh to take it all over. Uh part of uh when we looked at creating the situation where you would take it
over uh uh includes hiring uh uh or promoting a transportation manager who would have the capability uh to uh uh to oversee a larger operation. uh whether it's promoting somebody from within or hiring a different person uh and in
addition uh would require uh some additional uh uh people uh mechanics and uh dispatcher uh routing. Uh so it's uh we tried to be all-incclusive. Uh just to backtrack for
a second, prior to my retirement, uh I was a superintendent for the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative and we actually operated all transportation for seven member school districts. So we were running 280 buses uh both day, night, and uh weekends. Uh
and so uh we built four bus depots across the county uh to service that operation. And so we're pretty familiar with what needs to be done to uh uh for a 75 or in this case an 80 bus uh contract.
Thank you. Brian, what would you say is the average time frame for a fuel contract? I'm I'm just more concerned in regards to the variable of the cost of diesel fuel and
just wondering what would it look like from a state perspective? How long you lock in? The town purchases its diesel fuel off the state contract. Uh so that's fixed uh for the for the year a one year. For one year. Yeah. Yeah. So
that every year it's uh it uh the state sets the benchmark for for fuel. And by the way, fuel has been coming down as opposed to going up. [Music] Mr. Saridosis, thank you. Um so you talked about a collaborative with other
towns. um we had shared routes with say Norwood and Walpole for sped transportation uh when we brought it in house would we have less of a chance because of the expanse of our district to be collaborative with other school districts? No, not at all. Once once you
once you build the map uh uh with your computerized routing system, you know exactly what excess capacity you have on your vehicles, right? uh and either your sped director, your pupil services director, being in contact with others in the area. Uh it's in everyone's best
interest to cost share uh roots uh and and split bill. So has that offset worked where you've seen as a group have those communities gone out to bid or have they just brought everything in house and been a collaborative? It's a combination of both. Right. In in our
case, we owned and operated everything. We did we we didn't contract anything. And I think you're correct that since we have a two-year advanced notice, I I think that year-over-year cost is going to skyrocket, right? I mean, that 2.7 isn't going to be seen anywhere in the
contract. Um, when Milton went out to bid, did they ever consider doing something alternatively? They uh when we went out to bid uh and this is public information now uh they awarded on their regular transportation bid only. Uh they
did not award on their special ed and their homeless transportation. Uh they continue to do it with the uh the number of van contractors that they've already used because no one contractor came in and bid for it all. Right. Uh and uh so
it uh uh they're going to continue to use uh the the local private contractors that they have. Uh and they also uh do cost sharing where they can uh and split billing uh with area communities. Last question. You said we had 40% of
the seats that are being utilized when move students. What percentage of ridership would we get into being in trouble with our tier time? And I know you said you never adjust your tier time bait, but there is a reality if we get a certain amount of ridership with our
bell schedule like what percent do you guys model it out to like what percentage of seats would be utilized where we'd say okay what we can't meet those. Let me just tell you the standard the the industry standard uh is 73 to 75%. Right. of ridership to be to be highly
efficient. Right? If your bell schedule supports that for a district of this size and these demographics, you're not going to get there unless you get to the point of running uh routes that are an hour and a half
or more buses. Yeah. Or more bus. Well, less buses. Or or the other trick that you can use is you can use smaller buses. And statistically what that does is it increases your writership percentage
based on seats if you have fewer seats. Right. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Jackson, um just one more question. You talked about the two-year time that we have. Do you know just offhand what the ordering lag time is if
we decided to order buses? you know, so like how that compares the uh the typical uh type A uh bus, your SE 71 passenger typical bus uh 6 to 8 months uh delivery time. Okay, thank
you. However, uh there are two distributors who in anticipation ordered excess buses this year and have buses in their parking lot. They don't have 75 of them, but they have some. So if you even if you wanted to get
involved earlier, uh you could buy a combination of new buses and used buses. One of the reason of buying used buses, when I say used buses, I don't mean 10y old buses. I mean buses that are three or four years old is that not all your buses come up
for replacement at the same time. And you can you can stagger your your purchase in your capital plan. That's a very good point. vans you can you can pretty much purchase uh in in about a month to two month delivery for everyone else. I just have one
question kind of following following up on Miss Jackson. So within so having that 2-year uh time frame when would be the sweet spot where we would need to be making a decision if we were trying to take things over for that 2027 2028 school year like yeah
sometime in this next year I'm assuming and typically when when we do bidding for a school district we we suggest you want to be on the front end of the bidding season as opposed to the back end of the bidding season. uh which means that we uh we go to bid uh in October right after all your roots
settle in for the start of the school year. Uh you open bids prior to uh de the end of December which does two things. It gives you a year and a half before uh implementation. Uh and secondly gives you solid budget numbers going into the uh the following uh
budget year. Thank thank you. Anybody else? All right. No, if not extremely informative report. really appreciate the work you're doing for the district. Thank you. Yeah. And uh I want to thank Adam because uh it his office that generated
an awful lot of data because we're data hungry when we uh when we do these reports and uh I appreciate the time and the effort that he took to uh turn around information on relatively uh short time schedule. You really did a great job parsing it out for us. I appreciate it. Well done. Thank you.
Thank you. All right. Thank you. Uh all right. Uh next up we've got probably our big uh topic for the night which is our recommendations for the uh location of Plymouth Early Childhood uh Center. So Dr. Campbell,
thank you very much. See if this clicker works. Um so um as you know um we came before you in April I think I believe it was April 7th um with a concern and an initial recommendation regarding the preschool um since then we've had um
additional information we've sought a lot of feedback we've toured the facility I want to go through that uh two facilities I want to go through that and and pro provide an updated recommendation based on all the information that we have u not to to read this, but just again,
this is why we're here under Massachusetts general law that this is a responsibility to make sure that we have uh and maintain a safe and sufficient uh schoolhouse for all of our students. Um this is something that has been on my
mind for quite some time. Uh we made it part of our strategic plan because we knew that this was an area of need. um something that um going back when we were building self high school um I was really concerned about. Uh but we did put it as um as an uh as a goal in our
strategic plan really looking at how we can um expand opportunities for early education both for our student for our children and for um our high schoolers as well in terms of their educational opportunities. Uh so the initial recommendation was
April 7th. The first meeting in April was to relocate um from PCIS to South Middle School um and to do that not for the this coming fiscal year, but the following fiscal year. Um, again, I'm not I'm not going to go
through all of it in great detail, but we know that we have an increase a growing increase population of our preschoolers, particularly for students who are being uh receiving um early intervention u being evaluated at our preschools and being identified as
requiring special education assistance. Um we've gone up 41% in the last 5 years. The state has gone up on average 6%. So this is um there's a large need um and we need space for that. Um some of the students that are coming to us have complex needs that require a lot of
um mobility uh equipment. So not only are the numbers going up but space um um is is very concerning because of the equipment needs that come with many of our students. Uh we've talked about the parking and traffic challenges in the current space before, storage
challenges, uh the infrastructure, logistics, and again also trying to find ways to enhance our collaboration and educational opportunities for students, our high schoolers particularly. Um, some of the concerns when when we first
presented this in April were the the place space size uh and the location at South Middle School. Uh, fewer toilets and sinks. Uh, that the narrowness of the hallways because of the lockers there. Um, some of the therapeutic space needs need renovation. Um, and it does
not allow for expansion of our preschool. Meaning that while there are two extra spaces, um, we're going to fill up right away. So it really doesn't provide room for for the growth that we potentially could see in the coming years. You know, in some of the needs,
there are identified fencing, sidewalks near the entryway, storage shed, additional shelving, um parking uh near the entrance, uh and a removal of any structures that may be unsafe. And these are things that again we would we've not only toured and looked at um but our
facilities director is aware of that and and as well as our CCT director and we would address that. Um so since April we've again we've compiled a list of concerns and needs expressed by staff. We walked uh both PCIs and South Middle School uh with our teacher repres
representatives uh school committee school committee members um put that twice sorry um school and district administration and we did that in in in May and May 15th and May 27th. Um we've also had further discussion based on the needs and things that we've seen and the
concerns that came up uh with our director of facilities and our CCTE director who's in charge of vocational education programs. all of our vocational education programs. Um, so given what we've explored, given the conversations, given the needs that
have been expressed, and given the fact that we know that we will need additional space, um, our my revised recommendation to the committee is to utilize both PCIS and South Middle School for prechool programming. Uh it
certainly provides ample space for expansion. Um providing numerous classrooms in both locations. Um would reduce congestion of the existing program. Um and expresses concerns and constraints of the one location. Um
ideally having two locations is not only good for the expansions, but it's also good when we think about um the north part of town and the south part of town. Um so it provides opportunities and flexibility for families potentially there too. And again, the recommendated
recommendation for initiation is not for next year. It's for the following year. So the 26 27th school year. Um Dr. Blazeell uh worked on the preschool expenses and these are estimates as you can see to move to South Middle School. We're looking at just over $200,000 and
that was the estimate that was provided uh and you know without the specifics uh the first time that we talked about it, but here are some of the specifics there. uh moving to two sites, you see that that estimate goes up. Um however, I I'll point out that there are
highlights there in blue. Those are staffs that would be initiated the following fiscal year. So, it's not something that we have to we need to account for now. Um what we're looking for um is one permission uh to utilize
funds that are available to do some of the um equipment and facility issues that you see listed here and not the blue staff. That would be something that would be put into our budget, proposed budget next year when we go before you
with budget during budget season. Um, so again, the pro proposed locations, they're both off Long Pond Road. They're 3.9 miles apart, so they're not very far apart, but again, it does provide a south option and a north option. Um, and
it expands our programming needs. I mentioned this before. Again, this is just showing you the total space. While self middle school space overall is larger, uh again having the availability of all these classrooms would allow us to expand. It also allows us to use some
of the the unused spaces could serve um other roles for the meantime. So for example, we know that the science labs came up because of the con reconstruction that would need to be done in there and we were, you know, we're committed to do that. Um, but if that space wasn't needed initially in
the first year or two, even, it could be used um as a as an alternate space for staff, for example, storage or some other capacity. Um, the possibility of having lab classrooms at both locations for students who may be doing
internships or doing hours to to model lessons, uh, family resource room. These are some ideas that could be used for for the the space because we would have significant amount of space with the two locations being considered.
Again, um and I highlighted this last time we were together, but the the the other great feature about South Middle School is the easy access for early education and care students at Plymouth South High School. Um it would just give them a a very valuable experience and
it's walking distance so they'd be able to walk over there as well. we wouldn't need to transport those students, which is a great feature. So, um if this recommendation is approved, um we would start with the we've already
started with the PCIS playground. That is something that is um has in the works where we're going to do that anyways. We're committed to that. Um I know that there are some options that were looked at and and I think selected if I'm not mistaken. So, we would be um doing that over at PCIS, but we would also want to
do that at South Middle School. The fencing, the modification of the bathrooms, signage, everything that we talked about before. Um, and waiting until FY27 to initiate it again allows us the opportunity to incorporate students from CCT, our vocational
programs in a number of the trades to be quite honest for some of the less substantial projects, but there's a lot of possibilities there. Um, and it's an exciting opportunity in in addition to getting students in the arts to do some murals. I know that that was talked about before from what I've learned and
didn't happen, but we would commit to doing that and really trying to make it a a space that feels like an early education center. Um, so again, we're excited about this opportunity to to expand early education, um, and to
provide spaces that really are going to, I think, enhance the learning environment for our staff and students and also keep the costs low. I mean, some people may say that $200,000 or, you know, 270,000 is a lot. When you're looking at um, an early education
center, it's not. It's really not. It's a very it's a it's a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of our overall budget and I think it's an investment worth making. So, um with that, um happy to answer any questions.
Um I if if she doesn't mind being put on the spot. I don't know if um Principal Tobin has received any feedback from staff about um about this plan at in as an alternative to moving the program.
Has there been more positive um feedback or how was everyone feeling about it? Hi. Um I think that again as I said before when we discussed this you know regardless it's it's not ideal but I
think understanding that we have a lot of opportunity with having both spaces is definitely more favorable than trying to move PCIS to PSMS and all of us try to squeeze in that new space. So, I definitely think there's a more positive
feel. Um, and I could be wrong. Um, but I think there is a, you know, a bit of more positive feel to having both spaces and really being able as a staff to look at the opportunities that we have moving forward, you know, for programming and for the space in general. Okay. Thank
you. All right, Miss Jackson, I think you had a question. Um, just uh one statement and one question. I just wanted to say thank you and to your staff representatives for making the time to go through and answer a lot of questions. It was very helpful and it
was very helpful in figuring out the you know idea of doing two spaces and figuring out you know what the shortcomings were with both spaces and with the whole process. So I it was very valuable and I just want to say thank you to everybody for that. Um during
that conversation we did talk about some of the um let's say shortcomings with the PCIS space currently too and I was wondering if that was also factored into the budget and because we had talked about like maybe making some adjustments at
the same time. Yeah, I think that whether that's I don't I'd say no. Well, the only thing that the toilets, we've talked about the bathrooms, too, and I think even seeing if there's a way to to update them and some of the maintenance and that's very that's something that we could absorb within the operational
budget, the storage, but yes, so I think it does allow us and we talked about that and we talked about that on one of the walks, you know, we walked both spaces. So it is an opportunity to look at that space both South Middle School but also the current space and say all
right well as we're looking at this space how can we improve it today and also for tomorrow so that when we're it you know should we be in two locations we're improving that and we should be looking at that anyway. So if there's an opportunity but that's not really uh
factored into that. I don't I think it's something that could be absorbed within the facil the facility's budget to do some of those maintenance repairs because we have funds in there for that. But and this summer we have some plans just for some cosmetic things in the
current bathroom. Um just some painting and then replacing the baseboard and all that like rusty wall things. We're going to um take get that taken care of this summer. I was also thinking of like the lack of private space that you sometimes need for meetings and how that might be
able to be addressed um and whether if we have more stuff absorbed at one place there might be an opportunity to create a space so that it's not like your office or you know what I mean so yeah I
think it it you know when FY27 you know should this take place we would have an opportunity now to rethink that space as well and to repurpose some of those spaces as well. Absolutely. And also I
want I appreciate that um we've talked about the staff being involved and coming up with some of the decisions because I think it's really important that them being the experts they have a voice and you know in how the space is built out because we have the time to do that. And we talked about one example
that sticks out for me when we were in the motor room at your current space, for example, and just the location of some of the and some of that may be prohibitive based on where the ceiling joists are. But it's something to consider like could we re repurpose that? Is there a different location
where it may be better? These are things that we can look at, you know, moving forward. Yeah, Miss Bryant. Yes. I would just, you know, echo in regards to thanking the staff for their walkth through and sharing, you know, a
a lot of the behind the curtain. I really enjoyed the experience of seeing that storage unit in the back that I will not talk about publicly, but I don't think until you see it, you really understand how much storage needs are
are involved. Um, I do think that the new option is a great opportunity being someone who's been very vocal about the experiences people have within our district, but
specifically options in North versus options in South. And even though it doesn't seem like it's very distant, it still is an opportunity and a removal of barrier for people to be able to have
access. I think what's really important, I would say to me as we move forward with whatever decisions that we are making tonight that we think of, you know, what does this look like as a disruption to employees? um knowing that
some of those skill sets will need to be shared to make sure that our students have an equitable experience at both places. I think what's important to the point of the bathrooms in the current um space as well as some of those private
areas where students need special assistance in feeding or or other things that we make sure that the spaces that we are designing whether it's in the new building as well as um a current space
um are dignified and inclusive and when I say inclusive not just to meet the students needs but to um be considerate of the teachers that are also sharing that space and their voices to the point that you pull pointed out in regards to
the joy. um understanding that you know the teachers that are involved do bring that level of expertise and I would just echo to to my peers here that I would also think in regards to the investment
that we would be considering not only you know short-term but long-term to our community and everything that we're talking about here in in regards to you know transportation and people seeking
services outside of the district because we're not able to to meet their needs. So, I I again, thank you. Thank you to everyone who participated in the tour and um I'm hoping from my purview, no
matter how the vote goes, that I'm able to just to continue to lean in and um elevate any concerns. Thank you. Any other questions that Mr. smart results. Mr. On the on the playgrounds, Chris, are these so one's
60K and the other one's 58. Are those named after anyone? Are they new playgrounds? Like, do we ever have the option to go out and get someone to underwrite the construction of a playground that's looking for positive recognition? donate. I mean, because we we had
playgrounds that we would build and a business entity wanted to say, you know, I was part of underwriting this and they got a simple sign, but it was money that we pulled back. Um, do we have a group internally that does that or is that something that we could pursue?
I'm not certain. I don't know. I'm wonder I think we may have a policy that prohibits that. Yes. To a degree if I'm not mistaken. have a policy that prohibits like say a large business that we buy all our technology from wanted to put their name underwrite and wipe away the 60k and
just have it recognized. Does that violate our policy? It's it's in policy. The PTA can have donated money towards stuff like that. But now could take it. They could raise it and donate. Yeah. Right. It's still a fundraising effort in regards to Right.
It's 120 grand of the 400 and any money we could claw back from partnering with a approved commercial entity would be, you know, should be explored. I just don't know if we could brand it. I think that's the that's the rub is that we could Yeah, this naming. Yeah, branding
naming and alignment. All right. Always looking for donations and yes, for sure to your point, you know, and we've partnerships in the community. We're working on a partnership across the street at Nathaniel Morton, for example, um with the the parking lot.
So, there's some possibilities there related to this. Uh but not for the preschool currently. But, you know, again, we've had um inind like labor and and support and and and things like that, but always open to looking for um
donations for sure. Mr. Morgan, I was just going to comment that I kind of favored the one um location at PL South Middle School versus the dual locations a little less money and I don't like the two locations per se. Um but you know, I
appreciate we did listen to staff and kind of got their feedback, but I still kind of leans toward the uh the one location up on the south. Michelle, I just have a it's just a general comment. I just um to echo it. Thank you for your staff and leading us
around in the tours and um just as a as a personal thing. This um speaks to me a little bit and I know that I have discussed this when I spent time on CPAC. So, I know Holly this is something that um was important to you, but I it it this speaks to a bigger vision for me
of students being able to make connections with people in their neighborhoods. So, if we have one in South Plymouth and one in North Plymouth, that gives much more opportunity for kids even as young as preschool to be making connections with
peers that are living close to them. So, we don't have a student, you know, that's going to be in a North Plymouth elementary school that is making connections. It not that that's a bad thing, but um it makes it a little easier on families if if your students
and your child's peers are closer and closer proximity to you. So, that's one of the other reasons that I really um like the both both sites. We have two middle schools. We have two high schools. Having two preschools um makes more sense than having just the one. So,
I think that this is this is great. Thank you for all of your hard work and for everyone's feedback and I welcome feedback in my email at any time. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. M. Um I just had one uh question. Actually,
Miss Jackson teed me up a uh a little bit and when we walked through the schools, the feedback I was hearing from the uh teacher represents it was very much there's lots of details that need to be uh worked out. Nothing that was not uh you know not not achievable
doable but it seemed to me that you really need a you know a really collaborative process um to work out all those details. So like like in the design phase. So I would like to understand a little more about how what the plan is to you know make sure we're
getting that feedback you know not just now to help us make a decision but more over the next year to get that you know to make sure we're you know understanding their feedback and design. I mean s simple things like you know room assignments. It was a lot of things like oh wait this really you know this
is what the the draft looked like but it really doesn't make sense. So, and I and I those are things we don't need to answer in order to make a decision, but they're things that need to be worked out over the next year to make sure that what we implement is, you know, is a plan that makes sense. Yeah. I would I would think, you know, my initial
response to that is when I think about like when we were building the high school and we had like a two week look ahead, not that it would be every two weeks, but you know, we were meeting and we were working with our project manager and the the construction crew um two
weeks ahead and we were consulting them and they were getting our feedback and going back. I would imagine that we would set up a timeline for anticipated projects and construction, you know, construction uh projects. Um also some of the concerns and prior to any of that
coming in, bring people in to get that feedback and and give periodic regular updates throughout the course of the year um for everything that we're addressing that's been brought up in those concerns so that we can meet it as best we can. some things may be
impossible to, for example, the location of the playground at South Middle School. Um, but to that point, there's also an opportunity for expansion for other spaces. Um, so these are things that, you know, we need to continue to have conversations and just set up
regular sort of opportunities and we could do it similar to the way that we did it with our building reps and and get some feedback. kind of like having a an advisory council that's on Yeah, I'd like to see that kind of formalized where we have some like subcommittee of
uh you know sta staff and you know two or three school committee members that are meeting whether it's monthly or at certain set uh milestones to make sure that that feedback is you know being you know one given but incorporated into the into the design because again there's
you know lots of details we worked out don't need to work them out today but I want to make sure we have that process I think that's a great idea Mr. Jackson, I I was going to pretty much say we just said that I think it's important that um given that the concerns were raised to us that we have
some school committee liaison on the project so that um we know that we're keeping feedback. Not that I don't trust everybody I do, but that that we know that we're also a voice for the teachers and the people who initially raise
concerns for us. And and to that point if I may, I mean it is part of the strategic plan. It's the school committee's plan. So this has been something that we we looked at then we knew there was a need. Uh we had lots of conversations about it at when we were in our working groups then. This is
something that I think is certainly worthy of having now that you know should we have an action item related to that benchmark that we're trying to do we should have something in place to kind of walk through it periodically and regularly. Okay. All right. So, so
pending the whatever whatever gets voted on tonight, then I will I would plan you just using my authority as chair to set up a subcommittee and we'll you know we'll assign committee members then work with you that you know pull in all staff but kind of hold you know make sure
that's actually happening. Sorry, can I give one more? Huge shout out to Miss Tobin. she's been on the hot seat, I would say, whether it's at school committee or, you know, navigating as
kind of the the middle to all parties involved. And I I just want to say I appreciate any question that I've asked. I I've gotten an answers right away. and I I I just really appreciate how you've
amplified voices and and spoke for our children as well. So, thank you. Thank you. This project Thank you. This project is very important I think for um for the growth of and the you know the well-being of our students. We're all here because of
the students and I think this project really you know speaks to that and the staff and their voices again are very very important in this project. So, thank you. Of course. I will gladly second a shout out to Miss Tobin and her staff. So, thank you. All right. Uh, do
we have any other comments or questions? If not, do we have a motion? I will move that the Plymouth School Committee approve the location of the Plymouth Early Childhood Center at both Plymouth Community Intermediate School at 117 Long Pond Road and Plymouth South Middle
School at 488 Long Pond Road effective July 1st, 2026 as presented. I second. All right. Do we have a motion and a second? Any discussion there? Go a vote. All right. Looks like the motion passes
unanimously. So, we have a new project. So, all right. We'll look forward to working with you to make this a reality. And thank you for for being part of the process. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. All right, let me get back to the agenda.
Subcommittees comes up. All right, next up is subcommittees. So speaking, so I will note that there's going to be a new subcommittee being formed. Um, I'm not going to go through this in uh detail, but just to note that um the uh committee assignments have been uh
posted for the 2020 uh 526 uh school year. I would say probably without fail, I was able to accommodate anyone that had specific uh uh requests. So, if you requested a specific committee, there's probably a 99% chance
that that's what you're on. as well as um school liaison um assignments there. I did have to play a little bit to make sure that everything is uh covered. Thankfully uh thankful to a couple of members that did not have preferences so I was able to kind of slot them in. But I think for
the most part everyone that had a specific request um had that. So if there's anything that you were, you know, not uh thrilled with um please let me know. We can try to accommodate that. But I was I think I was able to really get everybody everything uh they needed.
I will call out two new line items towards the bottom of the subcommittee assignments which is um uh added an English uh learner parent advisory committee. So elpac that committee has been around for a year but we did not have um assignments to it. So um for
this year I've assigned myself and uh Miss uh Haywood as we actually were both English language learners our ourselves growing up in non-English-speaking uh homes. So um but obviously we'll rotate that as we do the rest of them. And then
we also we had talked about this back in um our winter or February um uh retreat but hadn't actually uh formalized the creation of the committee but I've also created a new member onboarding uh uh committee since we have never had
a formal way of onboarding new members and that's obviously been a a big need the last uh year or so. So we've got Mr. Morgan, uh, Miss H, Miss Bryant, um, being the charter members of that to come up with kind of a process, a manual for on boarding new people and actually, you know, um, kind of helping them out
when they when they join the committee. Um, I think everything else is pretty standard. Oh, very welcome. Exactly. We give you the royal treatment, man. Um, Miss Bryant, I wanted to say if you needed a backup for Plymouth Harbor
Academy, all the high schools I see have two. I'm more than happy. Oh, that'd be Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I also that that one because it doesn't have the typical um right school council doesn't have quite the uh the left. So, yeah, I'd be happy to add you there. I was trying to be uh make sure I didn't
overload you, but I will make that note. I'm a glutton. All right. Uh any other uh comments or questions or anything like that? Anything any special accommodations I missed? All right. I think oh probably the only other one where I had to make uh a tough
choice was we because of uh people that had uh gotten appointed and elected in the recent year we had too many members assigned you know un officially and unofficially to the diversity uh committee. So that has I did have to narrow that down to uh three folks. So I
think it's probably the only one where we actually had to lose um you know lose a member that was previously on there. But I think everything else is pretty standard. Um, I did want go ahead and populate the committees that don't actually need representation this year just in case a need were ever to uh come up such as uh negotiating team uh the
strategic planning uh committee etc. So obviously those ones will meet as needed but you know don't have a a specific urgent need. All right. All right. If not we'll keep moving. Thanks. All right. Next up, we've had uh the uh
Miss Carolyn Reigns give us a health services director's update. Last of all, the uh directors and principles, but certainly not least. Just hit the the right arrow moves you forward.
Good evening everybody. Um so for those of you who don't know me, my name is Carolyn Reigns. I'm the director of school health services for the district. Um and I just want to thank all of you for being here tonight and to my administrative team. No yawning. I'm just kidding. Um um to be here and
hopefully this presentation um will be informative for you, especially for those of you who have never um seen it before. And I do want to thank I do have some of my nursing staff that are here. So, um, at the end of the presentation, if you have questions, they may be the best
people to talk to, um, about certain programs or anything specific that you have as we go go along here. Okay. Obviously, I'm not technologically savvy here. Okay. So, um, we have a grant from the Department of Public Health. Um, a pretty large grant, um,
that we've been getting here in the district for many, many years. Um it did change its scope and focus um probably about eight eight or nine years ago I believe to the um compreh from from the essential school health service grant to the comprehensive school health service
grant um with a focus um specifically around health equity for students. Go back. So again, the goals of our our health. So the goals of our our health service department really are to be to really stress the importance between the you
know the link between health and learning um and looking at you know obviously providing a seamless comprehensive health program for the children um and to be a link between the educational and health communities. So back in previous presentations, we
talked a little bit about the whole child model, you know, the whole school, whole community, whole child. Um, which was from the CDC. Um, this is from the National Association of School Nurses. It does address um it's a framework looking at specifically around the
standards of school nurse practice around you know health equity, quality of care, um collaboration, um cultural humility and so many of the things that the nurses do. And this is sort of a great segue into some of the programs we offer. Um the quality
improvement um looks at a lot of the data around some of the programs we run that definitely tell stories around care coordination um leadership and our partnership with community and public health. So our mission in the district really is to be again like I talked a little bit
with the goals is really to be a link between the health um and education teams. So, kind of like a little bit about perspective, like what do school nurses do? Um, and I know that many many years ago, I if anybody had ever told me I
would have worked in school health, I would never have believed it. I don't know what I thought school nurses did, but it does go beyond the band-aids. I promise. Um I think and everybody has a different perception and it's really interesting to see people coming into the district whether it be student nurses or nurses that are being mentored
by my nurses like that are in graduate programs looking at the complexities of what the nurses do every day. Um so it's really it's you know it's always great to get their feedback and I'll talk a little bit about more as we go through the presentation.
So again I think many of you here obviously are familiar with what the nurses are doing. We always focus on student centered care obviously keeping the family in mind. Um I think some of the requirements of the role you know obviously have to do with doing skilled nursing care, giving kids their
medications, treatments, um looking at health policy development. Um and we also in you know in Plymouth here we also have the responsibility of caring for staff um as well and looking again like I do think numbers are important and we do a lot of
data collection we have a monthly report that we submit to the department of public health as part of our grant requirement but above and beyond that an annual report that's extremely comprehensive and um I think sometimes we get lost in the numbers I mean the nurses are administering hundred I mean
thousands of treatments ments a year, thousands of medication administrations, um a lot of comprehensive complex care for children with medical needs. Um but I think what's important to know is just basically that, you know, again, we do have days where we have emergency situations. We have um health screenings
that are all based on Mass General law. Um and a lot of the things that we're doing are requirements um of the state of Massachusetts. So it's not ne it's a very busy busy job. So the data collection obviously tells a story and facilitates so much. Um I
think that when you know when we're looking at some of the examples I'm going to get into here um you'll see what I mean in terms of just how important the data collection pieces. We do have an electronic health record. Um and again for nursing extremely extremely important in terms of um
making sure our documentation is accurate. Um and that's really a critical piece. So, I think we did this these numbers were from a week ago, and I believe we're up over 85,000 in terms of total health visits over the school year,
which is actually um notable. I know that um some larger districts districts like the Brockton public schools don't see too many more kids. I'm not saying that we have needy students, but um it does speak to the importance of having a nurse in a building. Um and a big piece
again with having a school nurse is having um a return to class rate. I mean, getting these kids back to class um and back to learning is really important, addressing their needs, but making sure that they um don't miss out too much time in the classroom. And so, um again, and when we'll talk a little
bit about attendance, that's another another big piece in school districts across the country, they've looked and when you have a full-time dedicated school nurse in a school, your um attendance is usually much better. So, kind of just I always like to make a little analogy and this was probably the
best one I could come up with this year, but there's about um close to over close to 90,000 people that go to Disney Disney World every day and that's as many kids as we see during the school year. Um, so one of the things I wanted to look at with our grant, and we talk
about this a lot, um, especially when it comes to health screenings that are required by law, um, the school nurses in every building on average see about 85% of the student population, um, during the given school year, even if it's one visit or if it's, you know, 10 visits a month. I mean, pretty much 85%
of the kids know the school nurse. But there is that population, smaller population that does not. Um, and I think that's what is beneficial with health screenings is that that's the great one-on-one time nurses have with kids. So, we thought, you know, what can we do to look at different populations
of kids um that go to the nurse, making sure that um again, you know, we don't have um you know, there are cultural differences obviously across Plymouth. We do have, you know, different socioeconomic groups. We have kids English language learners. We have kids
in foster care, kids who are homeless. Um and there are other um situations where we also can't um don't have an easy a time tracking health office visits you know for kids who are dealing with um substance abuse in the home um or domestic violence and other things because it's never really not everybody
comes with a you know it's not an equal playing field that's for sure. So um just wanted to look at every quarter Karen Vanette does help me. Um our Aspen does align with our electronic health record. So it talks to each other. So we can track with the help of Aspen. Um we
can track. So the average student who is ELLL does see the nurse more than the nonLL students. And this is some of the things that I really wanted to see. Um students who are homeless usually see the nurse more than kids who are not. um
the socioeconomically disadvantaged children also see the nurse more than kids who are not. So again looking at you know some race and ethnicity issues too male and female just getting an idea and looking um male female non-binary students pretty much equal across the
board. Um and then you know you can just see some of those numbers. So, these are kids in our third quarter who access the nurse at least four times during the school year, which is a good thing because we want those kids to know that they have um that, you know, they can receive care as well and that there's
not, you know, any um challenge or barrier for them seeking the health office out. Um so, pri prioritizing obviously chronic medical conditions. um for all of these numbers um we're looking at, you know, kids who are on 504s, kids on
IEPs with some of these, um nursing services written in. We have plenty of individualized health care plans. Um pretty time inensive when a nurse is spending time with a lot of these students. Um you know, that have significant issues during the school
day. Um life-threatening allergies. This was one of the first years we've only had two epipens administered which is very unusual. We usually have a lot more. Um and these were for two known allergies which again normally our epien
administration is really for you know first time dose kids are first time reaction. Um but again we do have a a pretty large number of students over 300 with life-threatening allergies in the district that have EpiPens. We also have stock epi as well in our
schools. um the concussion data district-wide. We have added a few numbers since um early June above these. Um we do look very closely at um managing concussions because obviously there is not only does it impact physical health, but it also impacts
academics. Um and when you get to, you know, sports related concussions, we do report um do a pretty um comprehensive data report to the Department of Public Health for both of our all of our secondary schools, both middle schools and high schools. Um and they they basically want to know like is this
sports related or not. These particular even in young children we're seeing more and more concussions in elementary school and again most of those are outside of school but it does again it impacts their recess it impacts participating in PE. Um it may impact some of their classes. So, and I
definitely saw that as a high school nurse. Um, pretty significant issues, you know, again, you know, working with the families, working with the providers, maybe they're seeing a specialist, um, working with the teachers, athletic director, athletic trainer, um, making sure the kids aren't
going back to sports too soon. Um, and that also includes some of their outside activities as well. So, concussion management is pretty time inensive. And that law um began it was 2010 and certainly impacts schools tremendously.
Um our 911 calls um again you know obviously unanticipated um for a number of different reasons. We utilize 911 during the school year and um based on the nursing judgment um a you know staff person or a student would
be taken to the hospital. Um we also um are you know we also take care of our staff. So Tammy Tammy was taking a blood pressure downstairs recently and um she very enthusiastic. Tammy is our case
that's to bring it down. She's our case manager um with a psychiatric background and her office just happens to be in Plymouth Harbor Academy. So she out of the goodness of her heart really takes care of those kids down there and make sure they have their screenings done and make sure they have their needs met. Um,
and that includes the staff did their screenings, CPR, and everything for them. Field trips. Um, I believe I've caught all of them. I may be off by a few, but I believe 393 field trips that I'm aware of through the nurses. Um, a little
fewer, although it doesn't seem like that this year, required a nurse to attend. Um, and we have pretty rigid requirements for why we need nurses to go on these. And I I really impressed with a lot of like you know some of the like Plymouth South Middle did amazing cleaning up the beach and then they were
at the cemetery putting flags out for Memorial Day and I think a lot of the field trips are great and very educational and so um it's great that the kids have these opportunities but it's it's really time inensive to make sure that we have
coverage if we need it. Health screenings, again, state law in Massachusetts. Massachusetts, um, although is a model state for many things around school health. Um, we also are a little archaic and some of the demands around health screenings, um,
vision, hearing, um, start from preschool on. Um, we also do postural screening, which is something that's, um, a state mandate here in Massachusetts that's not required in many states across the country. Um and then of course as of 2016 started doing
expert screenings for one middle school grade and one high school grade. Um and that's screening brief intervention and referral to treatment talking to the kids about um any substance use certain questions that the kids are asked and um so far I think since we've been doing
this across the district I think we've had um some pretty great conversations. It's a good opportunity for learning. We like to do it early on in middle school to make it more of a health promotion education program. Um, and I think that, you know, the kids are very frank and honest about what's going on. So, I
think it's the screening is great. Um, as in any screening, parents can are allowed to opt out. We do send anformational letter home for espart over the summer just to inform families on on what it actually is. So BMI again, you know, I don't know how
it's it's a good indicator. I don't know that I'd take it to heart. Um I feel like it's something that we're doing heights and weights on on kids in grades 1, 14, 7, and 10. That became a law in 2013. And I think that it gives um it gives us
a you know a rough idea. We used to send letters home to families, but we don't do that anymore. It looks at kids who are underweight, you know, normal, what is considered normal weight based on height and body weight. Um, and again, sometimes it's not super accurate, but our numbers are concerning for sure. Um,
and again, you know, having taken care of high school kids, some of the high school athletes, um, the boys especially, um, you know, the the more they weighed, the happier they were many times. And um so again, the 30% for grade 10, I'm not really sure
specifically how accurate that is, but um across the district when you're averaging all grades, it's about 31.2%. Um and I think this is something that we should we can probably look at next year around student um nurses um student learning goals and some of the education
we do around health um health promotion. Jenna Sorenson and I have talked about partnering our nurses with their health education and PE teachers and um and looking you know considering some of these factors for next year and seeing if we can put some programs together for
the kids. So 2024 25 was another great year I would say very successful in many ways. Um, back in 2012, um, the state required us to have medical emergency response plans. Um, as
of this school year, um, it changed. The law was amended to include behavioral health emergencies as well. Um, which is a really good thing. And, um, we put a comprehensive plan together. Every three years we need per law, we need to submit our, um, medical and behavioral health
plan to the Department of Education for review. I mean, we were cited several years ago as having a model program or a model plan in Plymouth. Um, and we like to try to add and implement new things. Um, I think, you know, last year we had our great partnership with Plymouth
County Outreach. Um, and had the NLOX boxes. Um, we have, you know, in our AED cabinets, we have epinephrine. Um, we have mobilized kits. We had a rep from the mobilized company from Zol come and do a presentation to our safety
committee and also to our administrators at a PCD meeting and talk a little bit about mobilize with we had had a grant with the Plymouth Police Department several years back and had some mobilized kits that have tourniquets and clotting different just different types of you know stopping the bleed. Um and
so we did were it was great. We got to order a lot more. Um and so some of our nurses who have been here a little bit longer, we have sever quite a few new nurses over the last 5 years. And so we did a new train the trainer um tourniquet training so that we're going
to hopefully be able to get this back and put this and implement this with our CPR programming in our schools. All of our nurses, our BLS instructors as well. So we have a self- sustaining program. Um so this year we trained 111 staff.
Um, we were able to get a lot of our elementary staff over at Nathaniel Morton on a PD day. Um, and then we did some separate classes at the secondary level. And we're actually doing a facilities class at the end of the week. Um, West Elementary, some of my
elementary nurses um, do a first aid CPR program after school. Um, so West, this is sort of a long-standing program at West Elementary and the kids are all pretty happy with themselves here. Um and again my nurse from South Elementary is here and she trained her students as
well and um and again so if you have any questions maybe at the end but I think the kids were um very happy to participate and they learned a lot. Um in addition um you know obviously the yellow tulip project has been big across the district over the last several
years. Um my nurse Antonio Wheriff from Nathaniel Morton is here. She did a kindness um she along with the yellow tulip project implemented a kindness program um project for afterchool for her students and um I think that was
really successful. um at Cold Spring in Federal Furnace, they offered the balance for kids yoga program which incorporates some family dynamic as well as a craft for the kids and then the yoga and they look at you
know kids who are more high needs who will benefit from this. Um so this is not the first year it was in the district. We started implementing it prior to COVID and then you know obviously took a little hiatus after that but it's back and up and running again. So it's a great program.
Um so one thing I just want to mention a little bit about legislation obviously hugely impacts schools in many ways. We have lots of laws um that increase the responsibilities of schools around a lot of different issues. This law, this particular bill was just sponsored for
the first time by our new state senator Fernandez. Um and so it's something this is actually the fifth session of this bill. Um, we were behind it with the Mass School Nurse Organization and looking at municipal Medicaid billing across school districts. Um, that money
does go to the town directly that we bring in from all of our direct service and administrative cost billing. and I if those funds could come back to us directly. I know it's um you know it's a balancing of monies, but um the district did send a letter to the last session
that it actually the bill went right to the very end and we were really hoping it would pass for some reason. Um regionalized school districts get all of their money back and regular eleas like us do not. So um this bill is back in session right now. I believe it's in
healthcare finance. Um and so you know keeping fingers crossed I feel like it's really important that we do our part here in the district too to do the billing piece. Um and again this talks a little bit more a lot about equitable care making sure that all kids receive
services. Um there is also a brand new health equity bill. Um actually not brand new I think this is the second session and act advancing health equity and looking at actually you know when I look at some of the facets of the new bill they changed some of the language this session. Um,
in schools, I really feel like our school district completely increases as access to quality care for all kids. I believe we do enlist community connections and partnerships all the time here in Plymouth. Um, and we do um have a strengthened health equity
leadership. I think it there's total buyin from the administration here. Um, and we do have so many involved community partners to um, help us with this. So, our a district-wide professional development day, the um nurses along
with the um adjustment counselors in the district um were able to have two presentations. One is was on concussions of the school age child presented by our school physician, Dr. Saludi. Um and then we also had a supporting student mental health program um that Pemrook
Hospital came in and did for us. Um, every November we try to do an evening program and this particular year we did one on substance abuse. We had a a great panel of speakers and we had a and I know some some of you might have may have been there to see it. Um, it
was actually we had a great turnout and um, you know, was very happy. We're very happy with it. So the bulletin boards are something that the nurses try to have a health theme during certain month during you know almost every month of the school year. Um, and again, just looking at
some of those, um, they do the certainly like a few of the nurses have the question of the day in their offices and they talk about what the topic of their bulletin board is. Um, some of them go into classrooms. Um, and I think that's, you know, it's obviously great that they're able to educate kids.
Um, so we have our healthy headlines. It's been a longstanding um, newsletter for health services across the district. Um, we were doing it every month last year and the year before, but this year we decided to do it quarterly. Um, and I think it's pretty successful. We're able um to get
the analytics on it. And we do have and I'm sure, you know, obviously there are families um families and staff in the district get this um and we have, you know, we can kind of watch how often it's being opened, how long it's being opened for, what topics they're looking at, um whether they're on their phone or
their computer. Um so you know really happy with the feedback. I've actually had parents call me and give me suggestions for topics. Um this year um one of our initiatives on our wellness committee was doing a health and wellness quarterly for staff which we
started um and we've also had some really good success and we've been able to feature some of our um staff who have done a lot um in the term in the realm of health with their students and great to feature them and um again also have had some really um positive feedback on
this particular newsletter as well. So again, the yellow tulip project was started by Judy Dart, a nurse educator at PCIS. Um she has really role modeled and mentored this program with all of the nurses across the district. Um it's we also have a lot of community
involvement. Yellow tulips um are at the hospital, they're at the library, and we've had some she's had some financial support. Um every school that does the yellow tulip project has student ambassadors. And again, this basically represents smashing the stigma around mental health and I think it sends a
great message. We have a great hope walk. Um we had the third one this year at the third health fair which we had a great turnout for. Um talking a little bit about attendance really quickly. This is the sixth year um of a grant um
between the National Association of School Nurses. Initially, the first three years was with the CDC. Um, Lan Neas, our nurse at Manmat Elementary, was part of the first three-year program and Kathy Riley, who's the federal
furnace nurse educator, picked up after um, Lann, and we were able to continue. This is the final and third year. Um, Kathy did a really great, she's did a great presentation at a statewide meeting on it and also was involved with the truency committee at Algangquin.
Um, we were able to do a Narian training for teens. So, we had quite a few kids from Plymouth Harbor Academy attend that. Um, and thinking, you know, Marian Coleman from the library was a great partner. Um, they have a corner at the library that has a lot of really great information and again looking at, you
know, the benefit of having community providers on a lot of topics that definitely impact families across the town. Um, so the public health excellence for shared services grant program. Um, so my nurse Susan at Hedge Elementary and
Rianna at Coldspring are involved with that um, with the board of health and Dr. Terry Reid. And so I think it's moving a little slowly, but um, they're still involved nonetheless. Um, we did at our community health fair, we did a CPR. But we try to we we do
offer CPR for the community and a lot of the little kids get really involved and um we had a really good turnout this year. Um we have our district wellness committee that meets quarterly. Initially the district wellness committee was started um back in about
2007 I believe um all around the um the lunch breakfast and actually just the lunch program. um all districts needed to have a wellness policy. Um and then the wellness committees also and the original focus was around obesity and overweight. Um but now we've really I
think kind of moved beyond that into the whole child discussing a number of topics. We have great community um response um and so many members. It's been it's been excellent and actually we um you know different people come every month as well as the regulars and so
it's really really well attended and a great program. So again just a little bit about gratitude. Um the nurses were the kids were great on nurses day. The nurses had a lot of positive feedback from them. This was a
note from a student nurse um to my nurse at Cold Spring for her time there. We partnered with Brockton Hospital School of Nursing this year and quite a large number of nurses um took on two students. So that was great. Um we do again you
know being very appreciative and valuing so many of the community connections that health services has. Um, and I just want to quickly acknowledge, I mean, obviously, um, it was great to see a nurse win the inspiration award. Um, Judy Dart, who started the Yellow Tula Project, won the
inspiration was one of the winners of the inspiration award last fall, which was great. Um, I do want to acknowledge um Tammy Agar. She has been she's been our case manager. Um and not only does she provide awesome um you know
resources to schools for kids and you can actually she's here so you can ask her some questions but again working with our vision and hearing specialist to provide glasses for kids for families who don't have the money um providers you know looking at um clothing drives
um again and offering her a background in psychiatric um nursing to support teams across the district. Sarah Britt was part of the um period poverty piece and has brought in organic menstrual products into the school. Um and she's
one of one of our health educators. And up top on the top left is Lily Elwell. She's a CNA at Plymouth South Middle. Um we were short a nurse there this year due to illness and she has she really picked up and did so much. um some of our CNAs are also BLS
instructors and she um I really cannot commend her enough for the initiative she's taken to support the kids in that building. It's been great. So, we had our nurses day celebration at the North Library and the governor sent
um I believe it was May 7th was pronounced school nurse day again and um Senator Fernandez and Michelle Badger as you can see were there and they gave the nurses their um house and senate recognitions which was nice.
Um so again mentoring nursing students again is a form of leadership with the nurses and I feel like um you know everybody was a student at one point and knew it what they were doing. So I think it's really important for us to share the knowledge and you know and a lot about school nursing practice because
we're looking at recruiting people for the future obviously. Um and then mentoring graduate nursing students. We actually have we actually mentored a total of five graduate nursing students this year. One of them on the right hand side um gave all of the nurses this
book, School is cool. Um she worked on attendance and actually went into some of the kindergarten and first grade classes and read this book. Um she was excellent and you know again mental health is also another focus for a lot of these nurses as well coming in that
were mentor that they're you know been mentored. Um we also have new health services staff. So new nurses are mentored. Um we've had two new health aids this year. Um and again that's pretty time inensive and busy health offices. Um we have
hired we had three new nurses this year as well. Um which are huge additions to our staff. Um all coming from acute care who had been substitutes. So we our subpool dropped a little but that was okay. It was worth it. Um health aids. We can't really do our
job without them. I mean, they offer so much support to the health offices. Um, it's really a a great model that we have here in Plymouth and our substitute nurses. Very thankful and grateful to them. Um, and I I just wanted to mention that Ian Powers is
retiring uh permanently. She told me this year. I said, "I don't know. We'll see. I don't know. Sometimes I get a little desperate." And she she agrees. but I think she's turning 70, so she said her time is her time is getting more valuable. And again, thanking Tammy
for all that she does for all of our um nurses across the district. We really appreciate her so much. I think she was um she attended so many field trips which was so helpful. So, thank you, Tammy. Um and just follow us on social media. Um and again, you know, looking
from the beginnings to the goodbyes. Um, I think it's just really important to to look at that. And then, you know, the famous quote from Joselyn Elders about you can't educate a child who isn't healthy and you cannot keep a child healthy who isn't educated.
Um, wishing Lanne Neimus from Manmat good luck. Um, she's retiring after 10 years of being in the district and um, we will definitely miss her. She'll be a hard act to follow. We did just hire a new nurse educator for that building. Her name is um Michaela Fehee and um I
think she's going to be a great replacement. And again, thanking the superintendent. Um I know they pulled you in. They pulled him in for CPR. I think Kathy said she wasn't going to let you walk by the table. though. Um, and I think that,
you know, without knowing other districts, um, I have to say like we are so fortunate here in Plymouth to have administrative support on all levels. Um, even when I go into Adam's office, he's nice to me. Um, so you're only
coming for more money, Carol. No. Well, that's why I'm there usually, but and he's never nice to anyone. But Stacy's been great. I mean, everybody's been really great and supportive and it it's really and that's not the case in so many school districts, but here it is about the kids
and so I feel like, you know, everybody has their priorities. So, that's all. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions? Right. Do we have Miss Jackson? Um, I have two questions and a comment. My comment is, I went to your substance
abuse evening and I thought it was fantastic and I feel like if anybody has an opportunity to attend something that you put together at night, it was well worth the time. Great. Thank you. And the speakers were just I mean they really all blew me away. It was I consider myself to be fairly well
educated in the area. I still learned a lot from just listening to other people's lived experiences. Right. Um thank you. As far as questions, I had two questions. One is um you were speaking about concussions
and um about the concerns around that. Is that something we track or is that something that we leave to the pediatrician to track for like high school sports? And Right. Well, you know, concussions are tough. I think I think they're recognized a lot more than they were 15 plus years ago. Um and I
think that I you know, we're more astute in terms of watching kids on the field. I think families are more aware. It's not just a ding, he'll be fine. Um so I think that you know and and the nurses do follow up frequently with the kids. Um I know at the elementary level you
can ask my elementary nurses but I believe that they the families will report it. Oh you have an incident in school. So it's like you know you look at the report of the injury and then you look at the symptoms. It may not be immediate but by the next day usually you may start to see some changes or
some issues with headaches or integrate or retrograde amnesia. It doesn't necessarily We at Salt Elementary, we had a brain bleed last year that was very serious. Um so fortunately my nurse did a thorough neuroexam and realized it was a little bit more than just a
concussion. But they are um they're just really important to manage. And I think that the teachers are overall great in terms of um being understanding and reasonable. Um it's just tough when you have some of those concussions that they just they're just not better in a week or two. Yeah. Um, so it it makes it high
for some kids, especially kids in AP classes that maybe can't continue on within them if they're still getting symptomatic. Some kids do great academically, um, and then they just every time they exhort themselves, they get their heart rate up, they seem to get, you know, symptomatic again. Other kids, it's just
the opposite. They can tolerate the physical activity, but they go into a computer class or they do a math class or foreign language. Those tends to be the classes that the kids have the tougher time with. And again, you know, depending upon the area of the brain that's injured with the concussion, um, that usually dictates to the symptoms.
And again, because it happens at the cellular level at the neuron, there's no change on a CT or MRI. So, it's kind of, you know, tough. Um, and then you talked about Medicaid funding. Mhm. Is there
any discussion about how maybe changing legislation at the federal level might impact what happens with us as like a um like healthc care funding and what we receive and how that might affect our programming. There has been some talk through different um statewide agencies
like the Mass Public Health Association, Healthcare for All, um the Children's Mental Health Campaign that are, you know, giving information. Right now, nothing. I believe I know the state met we're we're we have a good relationship with the state Medicaid office. There's nothing nothing that I have heard. I
don't know I they were presenting I don't know if they were presenting to the Mass Association of Business Officials or um the state Medicaid office people and somebody from UMass. So I think right now everything is kind of status quo. But again it's you know
it's important that all kids get screenings. And I think one of the things with health equity is not all um kids have primary care and we did talk last year about convenient MD having a school nurse partnership because sometimes you just practices don't want people that are on mass health or they
just can't fit them in even kids with insurance. I mean we get plenty of absence notes that without kids being seen. I mean it's problematic. I think since co we we always met one-on-one with every practice and it's really difficult to get in and um have that
relationship and rapport that we had had before. I don't know why they suddenly have become so much busier but they just they have and I think our attendance officer has a good relationship with one of the bigger practices in town. Um but it's still really difficult. Thank you. You're welcome. And I just
wanted to mention too that I'm not sure if you were aware, we did have an administration of Narcan and um some other life- saving um activities that went on at Hedge and my nurse Susan is here from Hedge. They were having fail day and there was um a community person
had dropped right outside the school area. So I think just having you know we are so equipped to handle emergencies. I think it's you know that just and obviously having a nurse there too, it just speaks to how well prepared we are in Plymouth. kind of speaks to the importance of like
the decision to put the NLX boxes in even though it was not always favorable in the community just having that education and the support and the resources available to right if something like that happens you know it would have been otherwise a tragedy That
was actually my second call. Wow. And that's interesting. That's why we put AEDs in schools to start back in the early 2000s was because schools are community buildings. So I think and they're expensive to maintain. I mean there it's, you know,
it's something that you have to be always on top of. but to have that here and available. We did use our AED at Indian Brook a few years back and did save a life. Um, so that was great. Thank you. All right. Thank you everybody. Thank you, Mr. Bryant. Oh,
um, just a clarifying question for concussion. I believe you stated that it's reported back to the state for any secondary and high school. Is there a reason why it's not done at the elementary level? And
the reason is is because the um the state law is specific around school athletics. And so if you had a if we did not have a formal athletic program at our um middle schools, we wouldn't be there. I mean, and I think it's important really for
elementary as well because those kids the diagnosis isn't as easy with them and um and they all they're impacted. they take longer to get better, right? Um, and they don't really understand to be able to verbalize how they're feeling and if they're getting better and it's
tough because they're back, you know, out at recess and back in PE. So, it's important that they get, you know, the rest in management as well. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh, Mr. Smart, you're not done yet. She's like, I'm out of here. So, I I
have two sisters who are nurses, so if I don't ask a question, I I can't return home. Um, But I want I I got a statement first is that we're by 2030 we're going to need 3 million more nurses. Um I believe that schoolbased nurses are the pathway to a better health care system.
We have a broken health care system with long wait times uh try to get an appointment, pay high premiums. But I think with the work that you folks are doing now in population health and chronic condition care and then bridging
the gap to education, we have a a fighting chance, I think, to look at our K to2 population and really have that advocacy before kids develop conditions, right? And I and I think you know we're old in the north the north part of the
globe like we have an aging population that's going to require certain care but if we don't at some time get back to moving sleeping eating and a wellness agenda um we're going to keep tracking towards inevitable aspects of breaking a
health care system. So I I think you know do you guys embrace any type of teleaalth or virtual care internally? Uh is there a is definitely gaining popularity in rural areas um where there is no access to care. We did have a really great relationship with Harbor
Health. Um I know Tammy as our case manager was very involved with them and um some of our schools they were seeing some of our a lot of our new ELLL families. Um and then their nursing um changed. Whoever was in charge of nursing, they're left. And so it's been
not as easy. But I will say just to speak to the chronic condition piece that um all of my nurses that are here tonight have had brand new diabetics, very young age come in and you know 10 15 years ago those kids would be in the hospital for a week having you know very
intense family education for and for themselves and now the next day they're in school. So and the school nurse is really managing the care with the families and you know the technology is great. we have so much more sophisticated technology, but not all
the kids use it. Um, and it varies, you know, from when you're dealing with a young kindergarten, first grader to up to a senior in high school who's maybe sick of being diabetic. So, you're dealing with the whole myriad of issues around that. But I think to looking at, you know, again, looking at our BMIs,
are they super accurate? Maybe not 100%. But looking at, you know, getting kids to learn about health promotion and the importance of good nutrition. We have a nutritionist in the district now. Um, we have access to the hospital nutrition nutritionist, Ma Masha Richards, is great coming to our wellness meetings
and looking at, you know, a lot of our PE staff and our new nurse that we just hired um, also maj majored and has another degree in exercise. So, I mean, I think it's important that if we can start instilling these values in kids early on, it's going to be really important. But, yeah, you're right. I
mean, healthc care today is a lot different than it was three, four years ago. And I mean, I know the nurses can speak to it. you just can't get an appointment many times at your physicians. And we and I didn't mention this either in terms of health equity, but um our oral health care, we do have
a smiles program which now includes a dentist. And we did see um a little shy of 400 students this year in our in that program, which I think is great because I really wonder of how many of those kids would have had dental care without that. Um and we also track health
insurance and um under probably under 3% of our students are not insured. It's tough because there are a lot of families that do not report anything and we can't get them to answer. Um so um you know and the nurses do send out and have a lot of communication around that.
But I think again um you know our case manager and our nurses have linked families with Mass Health and um I think that's just really important that kids have access to care because I mean that's huge. I mean they have access to care at school here. We're lucky for that. But if they develop any type of
issue and need a spe you know a specialist which with all of our kids with chronic medical needs that can happen at any time. It's important that they're connected. No, I think I think it's great and you guys are vital parts of a health care team and I think health
systems that are embracing that now and I think you need more access to data. I know it's HIPPA compliant and you know getting into Epic to find someone's records is a challenge sometimes, but I I I think we have to kind of smash that
um and almost create that synergy between health systems and what's going on with school-based nursing because they did that for a while in Framingham. Yeah. and Fitchburg, they had their um health system health software aligned with
different um it wasn't with Epic, it was a different system with one of their major hospital systems and that was great in many respects, but you know, not parents don't always want to share permission, right? Um and that makes it tough. There's got to be guidelines. You're right. Yeah. But um yeah, it's
great. In Delaware, I know they do that all the time, but we'll get there, I suppose. Maybe eventually. Yeah. 25 years from now, you'll be doing augmented reality. And yeah, I'll probably I don't know where I'll be in 25 years, but somebody will be here from here, I
guess. Anyway, but thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, M. All right, we are on to superintendent report. Dr. Campbell, thank you very much. Uh, a few things. Promise to be as um expedient as
possible. Uh first we had a a safety committee meeting last week and I wanted to publicly talk about one thing that brought came up and that was uh the danger of ebikes. So the Plymouth police shared that they're having problems and concerns around increased use of electric bikes in towns and these are
common with young children. Uh the minimum age for operating an ebike in Massachusetts 16 while the minimum age to operate in excuse me um to operate it independently is 16. But with permission, you could have riders as young as 14 uh with supervision. Um
they're becoming a danger in the roadway uh to pedestrian safety on uh pathways, walking pathways in town. Um there are plans by the Plymouth Police to put out a PSA, which we will share uh publicly as well to address these concerns over
the summer um to try to educate our families. Um some of the students are also taking the regulator off of it and they can go upwards of 50 miles an hour. Uh very dangerous. So um really concerned. So just want to put that out
there publicly and again we'll share that PSA when the Plymouth Police um publicize that and share it with us. Um on June 3rd, I had the opportunity to speak to support uh two transportation bills uh that Miss Badger was promoting
as well as um the written testimony from Mrs. Jackson. Uh Mr. Pento also joined me at the state house. Dr. Boyd Dell and Mr. Kanty also testified remotely um anecdotally very positive from the chair of the committee. Um and I think either
bill would be a positive outcome for Plymouth uh and many communities in the Commonwealth. So look forward to that. also will be um testifying tomorrow for a safe firearm storage uh bill which I know that Mr. Pazano will be as well and I think that you wrote something as well
something. Yes. So really excited and very just very appreciative of our representatives bringing us into the conversations to help promote some really important bills. Uh I'm going to ask if we can pull up the summer happenings. So every year we do a summer happenings. This went out in my letter
to families, but just to point out where people can find it. So, if you click on if you can go to the main page first so I can show people how to get there. Just click on Yep. Thank you. On the bottom, I believe there's the button. You see the summer the little uh the little sun
the little sun. Uh and that will take you right to the summer happenings. This is rich with information. Um so, if you scroll just um summer break care solace, we've talked about that. just getting help when you need it. We're not we're not in session. Really important. Our
summer lunches, summer reading, um some of the AP honors work, summer math, um our science programs, Blake Van uh planetarium, a whole host of things, credit recovery program in B. Those are all drop- down menus and there's lots of resources and
opportunities. So, just want to highlight that for the community. Didn't want to spend a lot of time on it, but uh please look at that. Um there's a lot of information there. Um, and to wish everyone a happy and safe summer. Um, and the the last thing that I want to do
is just take a moment to address uh an issue that I know has been of deep concern which we've uh communicated out recently, but we haven't had a public meeting since, and that is um the recent arrest of our director of food services, Mr. Patrick Vancot, on charges related
to alleged theft of school equipment and food supplies. So, just want to begin by reaffirming the community what I've already shared in my public and written communications. As soon as concerns about Mr. Vancot's conduct were brought to our attention, the school department
acted swiftly. We did initiate an internal review and with uh the extent of the when those discrepancies became clear enough for us, we immediately refer the matter to the Plymouth Police Department. And since that time, we've been fully cooperating with law enforcement. They've been tremendous.
Um, and we continue to do forth as the investigation proceeds. Um, we've also taken appropriate action, uh, personnel action and Mr. Vancot is no longer permitted on school property. Um, I think it's important for the public to know that to emphasize that this remains
an active investigation. So, while we understand that members of the public may have questions and and we share many questions ourselves, uh we must also respect the process and avoid jumping to conclusions based on incomplete or inaccurate information. Uh we also want
to reassure our families that at no point have our cafeteria been short of any food for students. Our school meals have continued without disruption. our food service staff, a tremendous staff have remained committed to serving our children with care and professionalism.
Um, this situation um is deeply troubling. Uh, and we take it very seriously. We're working internally and with our partners externally to identify where systems may have failed and more importantly what safeguards need to be put in place moving forward. and we're
committed to implementing appropriate any appropriate corrective actions and enhancing any accountability measures across all of our operations. But I just want to extend my sincere appreciation for the staff members who did come forward to raise concerns. You know, uh
we recognize that, you know, reporting a supervisor is an extraordinary difficult and stressful situation and it takes courage to speak up, especially in a situation that can carry personal and professional risk for an individual. So their action uh we believe reflects a
deep commitment uh to their integrity of our schools and and because of their courage and sense of responsibility we were able to act swiftly and appropriately and and they all have our deepest respect and gratitude. So as we move through this promise uh excuse me
as as we move through this process I promise to keep our school community and community at large um informed. you know, while I can't answer any questions tonight beyond what I'm stating here um or even in the coming weeks, but um I want everyone to know that we are
committed to full transparency and restoring trust and we will continue to communicate information in our process as we move forward and just again thank uh people for holding us to standards and uh the continued support of our community so that we can have our
students and staff and community have an environment that they deserve. So, wanted to end with that. Thank you, Dr. Campbell. Do we have any questions for Dr. Campbell? All right, we'll move on to committee member reports. Uh do we have any uh
general updates from any members? All right, if not, we'll move on to uh Mr. Morgan. Anything from master planning committee? No updates. All right. And then Plymouth building committee. Um yes, I will also be brief. I do have some information. Um, we had an update on the
homeless shelter being constructed. Um, in the industrial park um and um, uh, construction's ongoing. Um, they have some change orders, so their costs are going up. Uh, a lot of um, the money that for this project is from the CPC.
Um, and then they have grants and whatnot. Um but um they ran into some code issues. So we're building department building committee is watching that closely. Fire departments um station two the warranty work is being done. Station five there's a
number of issues um still being addressed. Um and then for the police station HVAC system, there's three finalists for the uh um owner's project manager role and that'll be voted on soon. Lastly, on Memorial Hall, they're
having some water infiltration through the brick. One of the walls are starting to bow. Um so they're looking to solid um stabilize that situation on top of looking at the plans for improving and modernizing the um um the hall, but they
have some immediate structural issues they need to address. So, um, the feasibility studies then is going to be broken down, presented to the building committee at a future meeting. And that's all I have. Thank you, M. Morgan. All right. Next up, uh, we have personal
reports. Who's reading those? Yeah. This evening, we have, uh, three certificated appointments to present. Uh, one classified appointment and one resignation. All right. Thank you for that. Uh, do we have any unfinished business? Any members would like to resurrect?
No. Any new new business for future discussion? All right. If not, we will move on to consent agenda. Looks like we just have some home schooling plans, accounts payable warrant, and a bunch of uh equipment disposal
records. So, anything need to be pulled? All right. We have a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. All right. and second. All right, Misswood seconds.
Let me show that. All right, as expected, that passes unanimously. Um, and we are ready to wrap. I'll say this is our last in-person meeting of the 2024 2025 um, school year. So, thank you everybody for all your hard work uh
over the past uh year or so and we will see you all virtually uh ne next month. So, thank you. I'll call the meeting end at 9:36 p.m. Thank you.