We'll have to do all of our votes by roll call. So I'll call attendance. Uh Aaron here. Sarah here. Carla here. Here. Laura here. Here. And I take it Tom's not in the room yet. So Sean is here. I expect Tom to join.
He's he's uh traveling back from a college drop off today. So I expect him to join in flight. Um, but I'm not here to start the meeting. Um, let me go over the agenda for this evening and then we will jump in. So, we'll start with public comment. I want to remind everyone, see if there's anybody in the
crowd there, but we've got a few people on on Zoom here for sure. Um, if you have public comments to make uh we ask that you keep that things to topics that are not on tonight's agenda. We'll leave opportunities for folks to speak on items that are on the agenda when we get to them as well. Um, from the public
eye, we'll go into our consent agenda. We will cover reports uh and then we'll jump into the meat of our meeting with new business. Um we've got a team from the Forest Monitor Micros here this evening uh to provide a brief presentation and then we'll have some discussion and potentially vote to
approve uh the establishment of that school. We'll um review and vote to approve updated school medication guidelines. Review and vote to approve an updated rental policy agreement. review and approve an updated accept acceptable use policy. Uh we'll have the
extended day program team in for an update on that program. Um some brief words from the superintendent on the beginning of the 2526 school year. Uh Dr. Milleski will then interview our full-time Harvard resident who I know we're all very excited to have here in town. Um we'll have an initial review of
superintendent goals. We won't be taking a vote on those tonight. We'll just have a sort of an initial um introduction and discussion and then we'll review and vote to approve the superintendent review timeline. Um we do have an additional handbook revision from the the districtwide student handbook that
we approved a few meetings ago that we will review and vote to approve this evening as well. From there, we'll go into executive session um which is uh related to strategy and preparation for and conducting contract negotiations with the superintendent. I expect to
come back from executive session uh and take a public vote um on executing a contract with the superintendent. And that will bring us to the end of our evening. So, let's go ahead and begin with public comment. Um for those that are online,
if you have public comment to make, um I'd ask that you drop a note in the chat so that I can make sure that you get unmuted. Um but we'll start with folks that may be in the room. And I'm sorry I can't see can't see who's in the room. So if there is anyone there in in the library who would like to make public
comment. Um I'd ask you to approach either the the podium or there's presumably space at the tables up front and you can um you can uh give us three three minutes. Um make sure you give us your name and your address and again I'd like you to just keep it focused on items that are not on our agenda
tonight. So is there anyone in the room? All right, Angela, go ahead. Thank you. I wrote down my comments to read them quickly. Um, Dr. Milchesky, Chairman Branch, and school. Angela
Vanda, long time meeting member for Park Drive. At the April 25th, 2024 town meeting session, Dr. Chesy presented article 10 named our major fieldhouse floor design and replacement in the warrant report a project which
also included new bleachers for ADA compliance. It was presented in November 2024. Dr. Milichesky asked for an additional increase for a total of $3 million for the floor and bleachers stating that the upgrade in design and floor cost was primarily for
the safety of the students. Both presentations over the two nights were very detailed with numerous speakers talking about engineering of the floor safety features. In the presentations and discussions which lasted around 2 hours, nothing was mentioned about
athletic equipment, scoreboards, a batting cage, or broader general renovation of the fieldhouse. It came as a surprise to me to hear the facilities manager tell the Fincom last week that the accepted bid came in at 2.683 683 million. Over $300,000 under the 3
million ask, but that the $300,000 was spent on a wish list of items that a very small people knew, a very small number of people knew about, which was never communicated to town meeting or approved by town meeting. While some of the items might be considered in scope,
even if outside the bid, many items were very clearly out of scope, including the batting cage, scoreboards, backboards, and a divider curtain totaling nearly a thou $100,000 of the 300,000. While an argument may be made for doing
this work together and for purchasing some of these items at the same time, no argument can be made, in my opinion, for this above bid spending without town meeting approval. At a recent select board meeting, a select board member
talked about the town needing to tighten its belt, and he said that he needed to set an example by reigning in spending. To this end, he didn't want to fund a request by the trails committee for just a couple of thousand dollars to buy boards and nail repair boardwalks to
rent equipment to move trails off to move trees off trails for the safety of those who recreate using our trails in the network. A few thousand for the safety of hikers. And the town hasn't found the money. I heard from a town
official earlier this week that a COA member, Council on Aging member at a recal building meeting was asking about a feature she was expecting in the new recal building. And she and she learned that it had been removed from the design
because there was no money for it. According to her, the $300,000 should have been savings and might have been transferred to the recal project or the kllum if needed in the near future. Town meeting members are used to hearing
Miss Angstrom and Miss Wellman talk about bids coming in low. Yay. And how we can save that money and reappropriate it as needed and as decided upon by town meeting. That did not happen here and I'm disappointed and will view future
presentations by the school department and the superintendent with a sense of distrust until my trust is restored. I'm asking you for a couple of things. For the sake of transparency, I would like to know who was involved in the decision-making process to spend
$300,000 above the bid cost, who is aware of the decision, and how the decision would make was made. I would like to see the school department, athletic department, reimburse the town for the $100,000, a third of the money spent on the athletic
equipment. And I would like to hear a promise that this won't happen again. I believe that these three actions, disclosure, reimbursement, and a promise to do better, will go a long way to restoring trust with with the residents. The town has just started two major
building projects with Kilum and Recal, two major recreation facilities projects going on with Birch Meadow phase 2 and with pickle ball courts. There are a lot of competing interest vying for limited tax dollars. Residents need to be
reassured that there is transparity, transparency, and some equity in how financial decisions are made. and we need to know if money is appropriated for specific purpose that it goes to that project only. I hope you will seriously consider what I've asked of
you and I would be happy to discuss this matter further. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Benda. Thank you. And I'll just again reiterate, we don't typically respond to public comment in real time here. I do know Dr. Milesky plans to address um a number of
building projects, including this one, during his updates uh here in just a few minutes. Um, Miss Doctor, I know you've got your hand raised and you wanted to speak as well. Um, I you should be able to unmute yourself now in the chat and go ahead. Hi, Nancy Doctor Pearl Street. Uh, also
a precinct one um town meeting member. Um, kind of related to the last speaker's uh concerns raised. My very specific questions of funds being used by the school department outside of what
town meeting approved for is really a legal question. Um there are certainly ethical ramifications, but I would like to know from town council what are the legal implications of that um misuse of funds. So, I don't know if the
superintendent can answer that or if that's something that has to return be um turned over to town council, but that's my that's my question. The legal ramifications of that act. Thank you. I think town council would be an excellent uh excellent place to go for
that answer. Um any other comment in the room or online? Mr. Harry. Okay, we have one more. Steve Herrick, precinct 8, uh, longtime
town meeting member. Uh, apologize if this is going a little bit. I think that I think this is a little outside of the scope of the projects per se, but I do want to address the same topic that um, Miss Binda uh, just uh, covered. not as
uh I'm not as well prepared or as eloquent as she is but uh this I sat in a town floor meeting while this was being discussed. We had extensive uh conversations and discussions about this as we do about many topics many topics to come to town meeting with far
far smaller dollars far far smaller implications for the town. Uh, I've seen people pull votes ad nauseium to uh cross $10,000 out here and $20,000 out there because they didn't like something because that wasn't within the purview.
To see this kind of spending take place that clearly was not part of the warrant. I read the warrant. I printed it out. I said it it's it's obvious it's not part of it. That that money is not being turned back. It generates a level
of concern and distrust that I think is very very very detrimental and it it concerns me this is what I see. What would we not see now? That's the question that has to be raised. Um these things are supposed to go. We have the will of town meeting. They're the
ones who hold the purse strings. And this is not that I'm anti-batting cage or pro scoreboards or anti- floor. That's got nothing to do with it. I'm talking about the process that we go through for allocating the limited funds in this town. I think there needs to be a lot more transparency. I think there
needs to be accountability. I would really like to know what the process is for approving these dollars. And if we're approving things in town meeting and then the town staff or school staff, I don't know who feels they've got free reign to go out there and go outside
what town meeting did. Um that raises some serious questions about the governance of this town. Okay, that's all I wanted to say. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Heric. No other no hands. No more hands, Sean inside. Okay.
All right. Uh, thank you all. Um, let's move to the consent agenda. And is there a motion? I move to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Lara. Any discussion from the committee?
Okay. Move to a vote. We'll do a roll call again. Aaron, yes. Sarah, yes. Carla, yes. Laura, yes. Yes. And Sean, yes. Carries five to zero. All right. Uh, let's go to reports and we'll start with the superintendent, Dr.
Milleski. Great. Good evening, everyone. Nice to see you tonight as we embark on another school year, the 2526 school year. Uh, to kick things off, we'd like to hear uh from some of our students. So, we have with us tonight a uh three of our RMHS 11th and 12th grade students who are our
uh few of three of our 63 Rocket Ambassadors. If you're not familiar with the program, over the last three years, uh we've launched a program called Rocket Ambassadors, which uh aims to build a more positive, inclusive school climate by having student leaders uh help shepherd the experience for our incoming 9th grade students. Um I'd also
like to give a quick thank you to the three staff members who have really been integral in getting this off the ground and running. uh Mora Keefe, Sophia Chavez, and Lena Williams, and also Katie Buckley uh for your incredible work uh in the community. So, tonight we have a few students who'd like to come up fresh off of launching freshman orientation this week to share a little
bit about their work this past week and also what's ahead for the year. So, come on up and introduce yourselves and share a little bit about your work. You can sit down right at the microphones if that's okay. If you if you guys Yeah. If you feel more comfortable sitting. Okay, I can start. Um, hi, my name is
Amelia and I'm an incoming senior at RMHS. This is my second year as a rocket ambassador. Thank you. This is my second year as a rocket ambassador and throughout my three years at RMHS the program has definitely grown
significantly. What happens is that each week we have something called flex block which is basically free time for the entire school and as rocket ambassadors we go into freshman flex blockses flex blocks and we just talk to them about their like time at the high school how
they're adjusting. We had orientation this past Wednesday, yesterday, and we just showed them around the school. Our role is pretty much just as like mentors, as students who can offer a different perspective about what it's like being in high school. Um, having
had, you know, been in their shoes just a few years ago and it's really, really valuable. So, hi. Um, I'm Da. I'm also a incoming senior here and I just wanted to say I really appreciate the opportunity to
talk about my experience with the freshman and mentoring them at orientation yesterday. Um I just wanted to say how they were all so cooperative and I honestly felt like I was talking to a younger version of myself and reminding them that even though it was
overwhelming right now um everything will be all right. Um, I really enjoyed being part of showing them around the school and telling them about clubs and sports that they could join and being a helpful person that they could turn to in the halls if they ever needed
anything. Overall, I think the freshman were really excited and eager to come to RHS and to learn about the opportunities here and explore what they want to do with the endless possibilities available. I think what really helped
was sharing my personal experiences so that they could have a better idea what to expect and how to get more involved at RHS in the future. Um hello, I'm Salonia Patel. I'm also an incoming senior. Um, I think I can speak for almost all our Rocket Ambassadors
when I say that we really um want to make sure that the incoming freshman have like a good experience and kind of would calm all their nerves that I know I once had as a freshman coming into high school because when we were coming into this program, we there was a lot of
there's a lot more applications. I think there's like around like above 100 applications coming into this and now there's I think around 65 ambassadors. So we all knew coming into this that it was a pretty um like competitive program and we all were here for the right
reason. I think everyone really proved themselves in working with the freshman because I especially I can say for my group they definitely started having a better bond as we did more ice breakers and we did more tours. When I first saw
them on move up day, they were definitely a little bit more shy and they didn't really want to ask many questions, but this past orientation, they definitely opened up with being able to bond with their fellow classmates because they are coming from two completely different middle schools
and some outside of Reading. Um, and they all are kind of in the same boat of being a completely new environment. High school is very different from middle school. And I think the ambassador program really helped them kind of um move into this new environment. And I'm
really happy to say that it was a great group of kids that helped them. I feel like our the my fellow ambassadors are very um knowledgeable and they're very comforting people who just want the best for these freshmen because we were all in their place.
Awesome. Any questions for you? I I'll I'll just chime in and say I I love this program and I love how it's grown over the years. Um and and you three obviously get it for the the nervousness and the transition for
people to make and how overwhelming the hallways can be, right? Especially for freshmen, I think, when they when they're first coming in. And just to be able to see a familiar face of somebody that they know is caring and and is there to answer questions for them like
you guys are you really provide a service and and calming fears is huge. So thank you for what you do. It it really thank you for what you do. Thank you. I would just like to thank each of you for stepping up and uh answering the
call to leadership. I know there's so many ways you can lead at RMHS, but this way is uh as Carlo was saying so important to our students. We know we're feeling a variety of emotions coming in. Just as a question, I think the community may be interested in hearing. You've probably shared a lot of advice over the last couple of days. What is maybe some of the the best advice that
either you've given or you've heard others give to people who are going through either, you know, the transition to freshman year or kind of acclimated to a new school in general? I think that for me, it's definitely just reassuring them that you'll get to know the school in a couple of days. It's not as as big as it looks. Um, and
also just telling them like that your guidance counselor and the guidance office really has your back. Um, so you have a lot of support and you have a lot of support systems in place to help you navigate high school. Um, for me it was um just to like get
involved in the school. There's so many ways that you can get involved whether it's with like clubs or like sports and everyone really has like an area RMHS and just like explore around. Um, yeah.
Um, I think something I kind of told uh the kids in my group a lot was just kind of have fun cuz high school is this four years where you get to learn as much as you can. You kind of find what you're into and what your interests are and you just want to pursue that because there's
a certain time where it like and especially like with us now since we're in college or going to college and have to start thinking about that. It's this like big time where you just want to find what you're interested in and just have fun. And I think that's a really important part of growing up in a town
that allows you to have those opportunities. Great advice. Awesome. Well, thank you all very much. I'll echo Carlo's comments. I think they were they were spot on. So, we can't let you go uh without taking our traditional focus on excellence photo. A little bit
of a skeleton crew there in the room today. Um, but I'd love Yeah, we'll be we'll be on TV so we can frame the TV and the photos. Um, if the three of you could join those that are in the room in front of the table and get a a quick photo. So, we're going to take a picture
right in front. Thank you. Nice job. Thank you. Thank you. Just want to pull up the presentation real quick. All right. So, that was the first half and the more exciting part of my report, which is hearing directly from our
students. I have a few other uh updates to share just around the beginning of school. Just give us one minute as we pull this up on the screen as well. Thank you again for coming tonight from here. Here we go. Share from here.
That was drop off hitting a roadblock. Andy right at the beginning. Sean, help us. Sean help from afar. So that was on the screen, wasn't it?
So, as they're pulling up the report, just a couple things that we can share, too. Uh, thank you to our students, but as the community knows, our staff are all back in the buildings starting on Monday, uh, for opening staff convocation, uh, starting at 8 a.m. And then all of our students are coming back on Wednesday for, uh, for 2 days before then we're off for the, uh, the long
weekend. So, in this quick report, just want to share a couple of updates that may be relevant uh for the community around the opening of school around some instructional updates, uh a couple of construction updates, and then also a few things and thank you for the summer. Um so, to start, uh you'll see on the screen now, too. Um first thing that
we'd like to Here we go. Thank you, Andy. Go ahead. Perfect. Uh so, again, construction projects, a few updates around staffing, where we are, uh a few instructional operational updates, and then some summer highlights, too. So, uh, around construction, it gives me first the chance, as you know, we are, in addition
to the projects, which I'll discuss momentarily. I'd like to give a huge thank you to our custodial team led by Kevin Gersonner. It is an absolute incredible lift to have to get all of our buildings prepared, especially transition from ESY, summer programming into being ready for our welcoming our students. Kevin and the team do an
absolutely incredible job in making our uh building shine and having them ready for our staff and for our students. So, if you see one of a member of our custodial staff, uh, please thank them. It is a a always a busy and crazy job and especially these uh upcoming past week and upcoming few days. Also, as I
dive into construction, also like to thank our facilities team. We know that we had several projects which I'll get into this year, three right here on campus this summer, which I know impacted some traffic, some programming. Uh but a a huge thank you to the facilities team for managing three projects all at once during the summer
months and all of them on track for the uh start of the year. Special thanks to our facilities director, Joe Huggin. Uh I will share this with anyone who will listen. Uh Joe Huggin is uh the absolute best at what he does. I feel really confident in talking to a lot of neighboring districts around challenges
with facilities that we have a team that is uh proactive, a team that is collaborative, a team that is competent. Uh and I feel extremely fortunate that we have someone like that serving at the head of facilities, someone who uh is is proactive and also in terms of resolving
crises. uh limits the impact of any facilities issues on instruction and on the day-to-day experience for our students. So much of Joe's impact uh can't be seen because it's things that he's putting out fires before they happen sort of across our building. So I would just like to thank him, thank his leadership for what the the impact on
our community. We'd be in a much different spot in our schools if we did not have his leadership. So starting uh three projects that we that we'll kind of give a quick up very brief update on around where we are uh on site. First our MHS fieldhouse project. You'll see here a picture of both the new
bleachers, the new track, the new floor which was just sanded today. Uh the project which uh started 2 days after graduation is now uh set to be opened up for the community and for the school on September 2nd. So again, a uh did an incredible job really fitting that work
into a really tight summer window. Um and will be opened up with our first activity will hopefully knock on what would be a girls volleyball game uh this fall. We think that if you if you haven't gone down there and taken a look, go down and take a peek. Carla's words, it it just looks incredible. It looks like a college sort of facility,
uh take a look. I know that this is a space that's not only used by our RHS uh by uh students during the day-to-day, but also used by our student athletes and also used by uh community members, both students and adults. So, uh we know it's something that will get a ton of use. So, huge thank you to the community
for your support. Also, thank you to Joe and everyone else who's been uh working on this project behind the scenes. Second up, the modulars. And I don't think these pictures really do it justice. It looks a lot better than it does in this pictures, but if you take a walk outside, uh you'll see that the two modular classrooms that were on site at
the Kllum School have now been shifted over to uh outside the parking lot uh out behind Rise. This is to accommodate uh sort of space needed for the Kilum School building project. As the community may know, these will be now housed two additional RISE classrooms. The two rise classrooms that were
previously in the Kllum building uh have now moved over to the modular classrooms which will then put all but two of our classrooms. So still two classrooms at Wood End, but the rest on site here at the high school. Again, a huge thank you to all of the work of our facilities team. Uh this was a project in a very
tight timeline given sort of the end of school needs. Uh they are slated to still be opened up for our students by the start of preschool and our teachers have actually been able to get some of the materials in there to ensure they are ready for day one. Uh, all of the Rise families just received an updated uh, parking plan and traffic plan
because we know it'll be a little bit busier down there from 7:50 a.m. to 8:10 uh, during school days. Big thank you to Alex and Carl Sakone to neighbors who actually picked the paint colors for us. We thought they did an incredible job. Did a much better job than me or anyone in our office would of picking paint colors. So, I think that did a really
nice job there as well. So, huge thank you to Alex Carl and all the neighbors on Longfellow. And last but not least, a project that was in uh completed earlier on in the summer. This was the resurfacing of the Rise playground. If you had been on the playground before, you would know uh two
things I think that stuck out. One, a large structure that said appropriate for students that are older. Uh and that obviously didn't fit the age needs of our students. and then two uh some divots and craters within the surface of the uh flooring that we thought uh was
challenging in terms of for student mobility and student safety. A huge thank you to again our facilities team DPW uh for turning this uh space right around which is ready for our students uh come next week. Staffing updates, we are in a really good position with staffing. Uh when you
see this number uh open positions 11, uh you'll see uh that seems like a lot. That's uh pretty consistent with where we've been, where we uh expect to be at this time of year. Uh so three of those are positions in the RTA. Uh two of them are special education teacher positions, one a school psych position. The other
position are para educator and food service positions. All of those positions we are currently interview process. So we feel confident that we will be able to uh by the start of school be in a position that we will be fully staffed. New staff 52. Welcome to all 52 new members of the Reading Public
Schools. uh that is 23 members who are RTA members which is a little bit down from 40 last year. Uh and many of our staff members this week just participated in the uh new teacher orientation. Huge thank you to Sarah Hardy and Jen Sty for their work in leading what was a successful week. And
then two district-wide roles just to flag for the community which you'll be hearing more about. One the inclusion specialist role which we talked have talked about several times uh last year with the start of Jackie Pooy's role. This is the additional role uh given the success that we had with Jackie Palooi's
role which is really around supporting uh some of our more challenging needs in the general education setting. So supporting teachers, supporting families, uh supporting uh our other staff members and how do we effectively meet the needs a variety of needs of students effectively in a general
education setting. And as we see students coming to us with more complex needs, we think that these roles have been especially impactful. And then two, uh, you'll see the districtwide metcoordinator role. This is as a result of us, uh, adding last year in the FY uh, 25 budget, adding in a or active by
26 budget, adding in a METCO coordinator, uh, at Parker Middle School, which now leads us to have one METCO sack at each of our buildings. And that freed up, who was our Parker Metcoordinator, Mikel Daring, to now serve our students districtwide. Uh, we
think that having uh, Mr. daring supporting students K through 12 as an additional resource support uh for all of our students that will be uh really impactful academically uh socially uh as well. So really excited to be able to have Mr. Daring support students across the district.
Some new leaders across the district just to flag uh you'll see here a list we have Jamie Flynn at the high school. Uh we have several new team chairs across Parker RHS uh and J. We'll introduce Ramsay in a little bit and also would like to flag that Timmy Mziki, our new K8 math coach, has been a
longtime teacher at Birch. So, we're excited to see her in the new role and the way that she impacts our students as well. And to close just with some student pictures, these are a couple of thank yous and congratulations as we gear up for the year, mostly relating to summer programming. On the uh far left, you'll see the 2024 Silver Award winner
for Turn Up the Beat. Yep, the the pun intended there. uh that is award that uh puts our food service as one of the more competitive programs in the region for excellent offerings, nutritious offerings, quality of food uh during the summer months for students. So, congratulations to Katherine Franetti,
the rest of food service team who continue to deliver uh year round for our students. You'll also see some photos here which are from our first ever MLL summer programming. Uh Tiana Pereira and her team uh a wonderful job uh impacting 25 of our multilingual learner students for programming at the
Reading Public uh library. Those were uh uh uh academic programming, social programming, uh program that families and students both said was a huge success both in language acquisition and in terms of feeling more connected to our community. And last but not least, uh we'd like to thank our 191 students
who participated in ESY. That's 86% of the students who were recommended and referred. Also, that is 75 staff members plus an 11 additional who substituted. And a special thank you to our five administrators who also rolled up their sleeves and were teaching uh or serving
in support staff roles as well. Uh 97% of the staff at ESY were either RPS staff or returning from previous summers. A huge thank you to Kimberly Bryson who was formerly uh the team chair Parker will now be working in our reach program here at the high school for her leadership and leading the
program. Uh but from what we've heard from all involved, a huge success. Um and again a huge thank you to the the staff. We know there's a million things you could be doing to spend your summer and choosing it to support and guide our students um that we know means so much to our to our community and to our students and families. So, uh they are
uh not resting much and they are back next week to uh be back for the start of the school year. So, just again a quick thank you to all the staff for all of your work this summer. Uh and those are just a couple of quick updates about what's ahead and also uh the summer. So, there's any questions or comments from
the community feel free to open up. Okay, thanks Dr. Let's go to um we'll go to liaison reports as well. Um Carla, maybe I'll start with you because I I know you likely have a report and then we'll just open the floor if anybody else does tonight. Um so an update on Kilum. We have um
really used the summertime to push and drive the um design process. Um we we've been consistently meeting with the designer. Um we just recently had um an estimate done for the overall project
where we have the designer bring on an estimator and the project manager bring on an estimator and they duel it out and um they compare their estimates and they they actually were very close um to one another which is always a good sign. um
that number is under our budget by a few million dollars. So, we were really happy to have that type of cushion. We we um have developed a a value engineering list of items that um if things come up because in construction
and any type of renovations, things come up and you need to be able to be flexible and add or remove things. Um so, that project is going really well. Um, in we will have an abutters meeting soon and in September we will be just
pushing out information to the Kllum community so they always know what to expect um into the community so they know what to expect um for the next year. I will say that part of my walking route, my daily walking route takes me
um into the high school area and I love um walking the track and seeing all the sports going on and and different groups out there. I have watched, as Dr. Milichesky said, the the three construction projects going on on campus
and um just to see the progress, to see the contractors. Um, I got a tour of the fieldhouse a few earlier this week and I felt like I was in a college. Like that's how beautiful this this facility
is. The um I was able to see the thickness of the floor that the the running surface of the floor which was huge. Um my one of my daughters who was um did indoor track was there and she said, "Wow, this is this is so much
better than what we had before." I was able to bounce on the um the hardwood floor. It it was just it was beautiful. Um the hardwood floor, the uh from what I understand, the construction crew is
just fabulous. Um, I I will point out that to have three construction contracts going on for these contractors are used to working in schools and to have them working on our campus in the
summertime during prime time is huge. Um, the the um limited very limited um disruption to our staff and students is is huge. It just it it shows to the
talent of Joe Huggin, of Kevin Kabuzi. It shows to um their understanding of construction and managing of the projects. That project was um the we didn't hire an OPM, an owner's project
manager for that. The fieldhouse um our head of facilities was the OPM. That was a cost savings of 1,00 uh $150,000 right there. So, uh, we have a fabulous facilities department.
Um, we probably won't know how wonderful they are until they're gone. That's my theory. Um, I will point out because I was thinking about this um as some of our people were talking about um our situation during COVID with
some um communities not being able to open because of the um their conditions for for circulated air and the standard was MV 13 filters to be put into schools. Well, we were already at I
think like MV 11. So the only thing we had to do was buy those MV 13 filters and put them in that some and I won't say the districts I know of some districts who were not allowed to go into their buildings. So when you have professional staff when
you have people who know how to take care of facilities we are fortunate that we are not looking for we are not asked on town meeting for emergency funds for things that break down. So, um
I feel like sometimes our jobs are to um protect our wonderful staff. So, I'm done. Sean, thanks. Um okay. Anyone else on the committee have a leazison report tonight?
I do. I I finally do. I attended uh my first wreck committee meeting uh last week and um it was a whirlwind, but I would say the most relevant thing to the school community is that they did give some updates on the Birch Meadow phase 2
project uh which is going according to plan on schedule as they um told it and they said that the playground equipment for that should be arriving in and being installed in October or November of this year. Uh just a couple of quick updates. The
finance committee met on August 13th and um among other topics, they discussed the fieldhouse um that was just discussed, but they also set in plan the place for the financial forum of October 8th and the free cash guidance vote of
October 22nd. So, um I think most of us should expect to be or be asked to be in the October 8th meeting at a minimum um as we go forward with that. Um additionally, um I've been approached by a member of CPAC, not one of the board members, but a member of the C of CPAC,
and that that member has also approached the CPAC board. Uh and Sean, you may have had the conversation as well by now, um asking if the school committee would support the sponsorship of CPAC awareness month for November. Um, so we, um, I'll make the official request that we put it on an agenda item sometime
soon. Um, and then we can discuss how we want to do that, but I also want to make sure that CPAC actually wants that, too. So, I'd need to get in touch with the board members of CPAC, which I'll do uh, in the near future to confirm that they want that support as well. I expect they will, but you never know.
Tom, we'll take our lead from you as soon as you have that conversation as just let us know and we'll we'll get on the agenda. Sounds good, Sean. Thank you. Is Sarah anything insight? Just a quick RCTV update. We met on Tuesday. The board met. Um we got a nice
overview on the courses that Anna Aquavos be is teaching this year including the dual enrollment course with UMass LOL. So there's a lot of excitement and buzz around that. Um we got a quick shout out for Blake Thomas who graduated last year who received the RCTV um uh kind of uh student grant. And
then um uh contract negotiations are continuing with select board. Excellent. All right. Um so that brings us to the end of our report. So let's let's jump into our new business agenda. So um I know we've got the team from the Forest
School uh on looks like on Zoom here. I can't tell if there's anybody in the room. Um, Mary, I'm going to take you off a mute. And if you could just let me know who else from the team, um, you'll have to unmute on your side as well. If you could just let me know who else from the team, you know, that I can I can take off of mute, we'll make sure that
you all can participate here. Thank you so much and good evening everyone. I'm delighted to be here and to have my team. So, we've got James McGovern and Marie Fast, Lindsay McGovern, and it looks like Dr. Amy
Froolo is stuck because of the hurricane. She was coming up from North Carolina. So, just heard from her that she's not able to attend. Okay. So, it looks like I believe I got everybody um you know, invitation to unmute. So, when you're ready to speak,
you can go ahead and take yourselves off. So, so Mary, I'll give you the floor. um we can pull up the materials in the uh packet if it's helpful, but if if you want to just speak for a few minutes about um the request before us. Um I'll just I'll just make one one quick um one quick comment just for context for folks who may not understand
kind of why we're here. Um so Mass General Laws Chapter 76 grants school committees the sole authority to approve um private and independent schools that operate within the town um over which that that school committee has purview. Um there's very little guidance there's
very little formal guidance from from uh MGL or DESIE or any other you know body um about what exactly that should look like and and even our own policy is is somewhat lacking. Um, what I will say is that the the uh the the chapter in in
national law that addresses this um leaves it to us to determine whether we're satis quote satisfied that the instruction and all the studies required by law equals in thoroughess and efficiency and in the progress made therein that in the public schools in the same town. Um so that's sort of our
formal legal charter if you will is to you know make that determination um as you know as it pertains to any any private school that wishes to operate in the town. Um the uh for school came to us back in I think it was early July maybe the last week of June um you know
asking for for consideration for approval by the school committee. Um you know you all have seen the materials that are are in the packet that they've submitted. I know we gave everyone an opportunity to ask some questions in advance as well. Um, so we'll we'll, you know, we'll give Mary and the team an opportunity here to to speak for a few
minutes. Um, and then uh and then, you know, have some discussion amongst ourselves and and figure out how to go forward here. Um, just to be clear sort of what what um the approval that they're looking for this evening um is not required for them to sort of open
their doors and start accepting students. Uh what it is what is required for is for students who are age six and over to be considered as um compliant with compulsory school attendance by virtue of attending the forest school. Um the the school committee would have
to approve their school for that to be the case. Um otherwise um those students wouldn't necessarily be in compliance with state law around compulsory attendance. So let me pause there. I'll kick it to Mary and the team um for any uh comments you want to make for the next 10 minutes or so and then we will
open it up for committee discussion and questions. Go ahead. So much um would it be okay if you pulled up our presentation just so people had something to look at? I think yeah um and if you don't have it I can also share it. I Carla's pulling it up as we speak
here. Just bear with us a second. Okay. It's the presentation that's in the school committee packet, right? That's right. It's titled Malbury Forest Montasauri Curriculum and Logistics. I know there are people here tonight who
aren't familiar with our project. So, I thought it would be good to just have a little bit of a visual. Somebody Andy, we're gonna we're going to watch and learn this time. It's okay if it's tough. It's it's not necessary. I don't want to hold things
up by waiting for the presentation. It's just a uh it's a long packet tonight. So, I think we're trying to hunt down specific uh specific page. We're trying to share the screen. That's our problem. We got the presentation. So, beautiful. Yeah, that's it.
Okay. Well, this is a introductory image. I think that speaks well to the project. So, I'm just going to start tonight by introducing myself and introducing the members of our team who are here and I'll mention briefly the members of our team who are
unfortunately not able to be here due to unforeseen climate issues. So, my name is Mary German Saba. I am a educator and a artist. I have a
PhD in geography. I'm actually myself a product of Massachusetts public schools. I graduated from Medford High School and then on went on to do my undergrad at Harvard and I hold a master's and a PhD in geography from the University of California, Berkeley. I would love to
just um introduce you all briefly to the to part of our team here tonight. We have James McGovern, veteran educator, a curriculum designer and artist. We have Lindseay McGovern, also veteran educator, currently a public school
teacher, and also has extensive experience with special education administration, has worked as a special ed administrator and also evaluated uh at the state level programs and accreditation. We have Dr.
Dr. Emory Faustst, a co-founder and a biologist, a research scientist. We have Anna Pura Garza Gonzalez, our wonderful primary lead teacher and also has a degree from Williams College in
Environmental Studies and Feminist Studies. And not here with us this evening is Dr. Dr. Amy Froolo who is a Montasauri educator, a veteran educator and also a research scientist and ecologist and holds a PhD in teacher
education and learning sciences. So that's part of our team. We also have an occupational therapist who's recently joined us at the primary level and a variety of wonderful assistant teachers and uh and volunteers working on this project. So just to kind of give you a
very quick background, if you could scroll down just a little so people can see the mission and the vision that would be fantastic. Malbury Forest Montasauri. Yes, just there. That's great. Malbury Mont Malbury Forest Montasauri is a new micro
school. It is has being founded by this just fantastic group of educators and conservationists and scientists who are all coming together because we strongly believe in this project and in the benefits of a outdoor education and a Montasauri education and what happens
when you bring those two things together. So we are a micro school which means that we are very small and we intend to stay small. This is in order to best serve the population that attends our program. And and so micro schools are sort of
increasingly becoming a a phenomenon and they allow for a sort of small and responsive uh schooling system to arise that can meet needs of of children who may not be best
served or or currently served in kind of more traditional education. So we are planning to serve prek through grade six. In Montasauri language that is means that we will have a primary classroom which is ages 3 to six and two
elementary classrooms. In Montasauri children are not actually just in grade levels they're in grade kind of age bands. So there's elementary one which serves 6 to9 and then there's elementary 2 which serves 9 to 12. And so this year at least we will be combining those elementary classrooms. This is our pilot
year and we have been working diligently on our curriculum again with our our curriculum experts and basing on Montasauri pedagogies for several months now. We will be integrating nature-based approaches with a fairly traditional
Montasauri schooling pedagogy which which relies very heavily on hands-on materials and in order to help children make a connection between very concrete and very abstract concepts such as one encounters in math. And at the same time
our curriculum has been developed in relation to the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks. That means that if children kind of need to come in and out, you know, join us from from a more traditional school or or ultimately find that a different kind of schooling is better for them, they will still be at
the same roughly same grade level as they would have been had they been in a more traditional school. The benefits that that that that however that they can learn in an outdoor setting which has been shown in multiple ways to
research has shown in multiple ways that it supports focus and regulation. And it also has the benefit of having a kind of hands-on application for all of the skills that children are learning in a kind of more um straightforward and again abstract
setting. So I'll just briefly say that we anticipate 10 to 15 students total this year. That is a very small number of students. It's partly because we made the decision to go ahead and and start in a pilot year
and and kind of launched rather late. Traditionally public uh private schools are often doing their recruitment in January. We started our recruitment in July. And but we're we're very excited about this coming year and what we know that we're going to be able to offer. And and the final thing I'll say is that
we are, you know, collaborating with the Reading Conservation Commission who are going to host us at the Bear Meadow and Mata Cabin Conservation Area. It's a very exciting collaboration where we hope to learn a lot from them. They are also experts, you know, obviously in
that local history and in that ecology and and we hope to be able to support the conservation commission and eventually make some of our environmental and educational programming available to the public um in a either very lowcost or for free
setting so that we can support the Conservation Commission's mission in really integrating educational programming into their conservation work and and just into the spaces themselves. So that's it for my introductory
presentation. I know that a lot that you've all received a lot of information about our project and we would love to take any questions that people have. Great. Thank you. Um so I'll open it up. Anybody who wants to uh get started can go ahead.
I mean Tommy and I haven't had a chance to talk yet. I think your recommendation or your thought on this would would be really important from my input in terms of where where this stands. I do have some other concerns, but I would like to hear what your feedback is in terms of the educational side of it and what
they're they pre presented. Montasauri is generally considered strong. So I don't I'm not worried about that per se, but I just the rest of the materials they presented, the rest of the preparedness, anything else you've done from a due diligence perspective would be appreciated if you have a chance. Yeah. Um I think great question. Do you
mind if I ask this committee first just because I I ultimately I I don't have a vote on this too. Uh so I can say like I mean Sarah Hardy and I did review all the application you all the materials you know we did uh obviously in alignment with what Desessie's provided around some of the sort of the checklist of things to look for. Uh but I think at
this point if it's okay with you I'd just like to give the committee sort of first chance just to be able to share and then we can share any insights or thoughts too because I know some committee members came with some questions. That's good. Okay. Hey Tom. Just a couple of folks in the chat flagging that they are having trouble hearing you. So if you maybe
reposition your mics or just make sure you speak into them, it' be great. Which Tom? Tom Weiss. Sorry. Okay. Maybe it's cuz my head was turned sideways talking to Tom. So apologies. Mic is right in front of me. So we should be good in that regard. Sorry.
Go ahead. I I'll start. Um, I have I was very intrigued by this school from the beginning. Um, I my initial concerns were about how a three-year-old is supposed to be outside
all day um in the wintertime. I've noticed that um since the initial submission, there has been um it it looked like online um that you're you're taking more time to be indoors. So, I kind of
appreciate that. Um, I wasn't sure how to approach this as a school committee member. I started looking um at qualifications. Um, a a couple of things that are stood out
to me was um that you are a 501c3 organization. Um but the Malbury Forest Monttoauri School is a project of the 501c3 organization
Access Culture Inc. which resides in Medford. So, I know at one point in time um you had mentioned at cuz I did I I did attend the select board meeting too because I
was I wanted to see what was happening, wanted to follow it that um that you were looking for accreditation through um or looking for 501c3 access through another entity, which I'm
I'm going to come up on my notes in a minute. Um, so I I kind of I that's one question that I have is the the 501c3 organization. Um I is the is the school
a 501c3 organization? Yes. So we are fully compliant. We are a 501c3. again um access culture is a nonprofit organization that I co-founded in in
order to begin the school under it. We were we are still in discussion with the Montasauri network of schools the wild flower network y which is probably the foundation that you that you have had in mind and we
thought that we had to create a newation in order to affiliate with them and it turns out that we don't which is great and very simplified and so we are going to just be affiliating with the wild foundation as as mulberry forest as it
already exists. if that clarifies. Um, access culture is registered in writing, I'm sorry, in Medford. We fully intend in order to sort of meet all compliances with the select board and and so on to have our our organization based in
Reading. I am actually going to for clarification file head to town hall on Monday and file a new business as in writing so that we so that there's both separation clarity around forest and also that it is
established as an organization that's running and writing and we intend to have our address be the mater conservation area. Okay. Um I I you know I noticed that you your website had listed that you were in different locations in Arlington and in
Melrose and Stonem. Um and I was initially confused because I I I believe now from what I understand you were operating as a home school under in those locations. Is that true?
That's right. So M so Malbury Park started off as a homeschool co-op that was actually in Stonam Melrose on the on the line in Brookfield Park and we also had a lovely coverage in there with the conservation commission. We were running as a homeschool co-op. we weren't
incorporated as any entity and it was primarily preschool children and we considered um continuing and and then the same thing is with Arlington and we we we were hoping to again we approached the conservation commission there and we were hoping to be able to
develop a partnership. What ended up happening was that we weren't able to find any suitable indoor space adjacent to conservation land. And as you've mentioned, it is very cold for 3-year-olds to be outside specifically all day. Although there are programs that do it and and Massachusetts EEC has
a specific regulation around nature based programs, which I which I believe I included in the packet, where they are fully allowed to be entirely outdoors and not even have access to bathrooms. and that is within the regulations um of the state. But as as you've said and as
we certainly noticed uh it's it's it's very helpful to be able to go in and warm up when you need to um to be able to then reap the benefits of learning outside. Sure. Thank you for that. Um I I so I I looked at the the people I kind of
didn't focus on the board because I wanted to see the people who are actually with the children, right? the teachers or the guides as um as they're called and and there is definitely a focus on Montasauri right your curriculum is based and your
methodologies and all that and when I started to dig into um the the first co-head of school um and this is from the website she holds her certifications in Montasauri
elementary education through the American Montasauri society And and then I went on to that website and I said, "Okay, so what kind of certifications does she have?" Um, and you know, you can potentially take a 4-hour class and receive a
certification. So, is is that what we're talking about? So, I think I would like to know what her certifications are. Um, and what ages is she certified to teach at? Um, so that was one piece I I looked
into your primary guide. Um, and she is per the website assoc she is an association Montasauri international assistant credential credential for the
primary level. So I said okay what is that? So I went on the site um and I noticed that the equivalent to what it would be in our school system is as a pareducator.
So um this person per per that the classroom assistant resources they support the teachers but they are not the lead teachers. Um they prepare and maintain the environment, observe behaviors, models grace and courtesy,
um and assists in the development of independence, um preserves and protects lessons, but they are definitely an assistant to the teacher. So I said okay that person is doesn't seem to me to be credentialed
under Montasauri and they are credentialed under the primary level which I'm assuming is 6 through 12. So I don't know if you have and then I did check your credentials out too and you you seem to be um in the m or in the
in the process of getting credentialed. Um, so I guess you know when I look at a resume of someone I I can see their actual credentials and I can understand it but I found it very difficult to see if if you are certified to teach under
Montasauri um and if you are if that's an acceptable your certifications are acceptable to Massachusetts. So that is a like huge issue for me. Um, I don't know if you can address it.
Yes, certainly I can. And I'm gonna allow um James and Moody to jump in here in a moment. But I I just want to say so first of all, thank you so much for for that and for doing your due diligence. So I'm excited that you've been on our website and um pre and post the updates
that we made. And so I guess I'll say first of all Amy Froolo has a so the American Montasauri Society is actually just an coordinating body that that that training programs affiliate with. It does not itself
offer um certificates. So I I think I agree with you that the language on those websites is very confusing. The certification that Navy have is a teacher training certification from from an institute the Montasaur the center for Montasaur training in in Connecticut
which actually was absorbed by another institute. She did her training 12 years ago. Um she then went and did a one-year internship in Connecticut and then she taught one year as a teacher in a Montasauri school at Keystone uh Montasauri in Chsford. And then Amy has
gone on to have 20 years of of of teaching experience in a variety of settings, including the college level, including a extensive kind of outdoor education programs where she was the lead teacher and the Brit and the
transport adviser on those. So Amy is highly qualified to teach children um you know she's also had experience with preschool that she hasn't officially taught in preschool. So she's qualified to teach between the you know between
kindergarten and and university levels. Um, Anna, who is our primary guide, is is going to be one of the people actually primarily advising, although unfortunately it doesn't look like she'll be one of the main she won't be in the classroom every day. Uh, we do
have another wonderful teacher who's also is a lead is a lead preschool teacher uh, certified in Massachusetts and is also an occupational therapist who wasn't able to join with us tonight, but she's really fantastic. Um, and I I guess the the the third thing that I
would say about the kind of Montasauri training and the uh network that we're affiliating with, which is the Wildflower Network. The Wildflower Network is a really wellrespected national and and also international uh
group of Montasaur schools and one can affiliate and they have a fairly high standard for what they determine is a Montasauri authentic Montasauri education. So one can affiliate with a Montasur education if you are trained or in training. And so all of our educators
are again, you know, highly skilled, have experience at a variety of of levels, including from elementary to the college level, basically all of us. And and um and also are in training to become better Montasauri teachers
because of course, you know, unfortunately, Montasauri is a very wonderful and and time-tested pedagogy. It's also very expensive and there aren't a lot of scholarships to do training. So there are a lot of people who have a familiarity with Montasauri
but haven't had the privilege of being able to train because the programs are sort of you have to travel quite far to to participate in them often and so on and so forth. And so and so we feel really confident that our teachers are are highly skilled in the age groups
that they are working with. And and and also I guess I'll mention and I believe Lindsay might talk about this as well, but in in Massachusetts, private schools are are not are are are allowed to determine internally the qualifications
of their teachers. So, we feel really confident um particularly based on our board who isn't just a board. They're actually as as you'll learn very hands-on and and in fact going to be in the classroom a few days a week um
supporting and training and and participating in teaching. I don't know James you'd like to add anything. So, so if somebody could give I'm I'm going to go back to the Montasauri because this you guys are touting Montasauri and the and how
wonderful it is, but Monttoauri doesn't go up to the collegiate level. So, I I quite frankly don't care if somebody's taught at the college level and and anybody can call themselves an educator, right? I'm a mom. I I don't have a teaching license, but maybe I can call
myself an educator. I wouldn't. So are are you three who are going to be teaching qual have you received your qualifications to teach the grade levels that you're
specifying and offering under Montasauri do you have those qualifications as I've answered Amy has taught in a Montasuri classroom and is qualified uh under coordinate is assistant qualified and in training thing and as the
wildflower network which is has a very high bar of is well respected and has a high bar of determination and they are fully satisfied with the fact that we are in training and have a a plan for for external support
I tell you I don't know if you'd like to add something that's actually what I was going to also emphasize is that the wildflower network has very high standards and has determined that our staff meet those standards or process of
meeting those standards. I actually don't think that anyone can call themselves an educator. I think that becoming an educator takes an extensive amount of training and the board is very cognizant of that and we have very high standards for who we would hire or even
consider to fill these roles and work with children. um particularly because um the board members themselves have had extensive and I'll I'll I'm one of them had extensive training and education and
administration and very high standards for staff and hiring and as does James and as does um Mary and and Marie. So, I I think that the qualifications of the staff is not something that it needs to
be a concern in any way, shape, or form. Um, given how carefully vetted the staff has been and how much time we've put into interviewing the staff, looking into their credentials, they'll be working under. Also in public schools as
as we all know um paraprofessionals aids often have less education less training or they're in process of working towards train being credentialed and they're working under the close supervision of somebody who is highly credentialed and
I think that that also applies to our model those highly credentialed people are in the classroom with them right okay I I I think I would have an easier time if you were just the forest school and not the Monttoauri forest school. Um
Sean, I could go on, so I'll I'll let anybody else step in. Yeah, I I'd like to just speak to um a number of things I'm hearing. um in my experience as a recently retired public school teacher um is that I I mean I
have trained um a significant number of student teachers over the course of my career um most of which was spent teaching in Boston but I've also been in Lexington and I finished in Rockport um
you know I've I have spoken at most of the universities in the Boston area. Um I feel committed as I have my entire life um to
education and quality education not because it was ever my job but because it was my calling. Um I I was perfectly happy to stay retired until this opportunity presented itself. Um, and I
couldn't stay away from it because it was so compelling. Um, and the people that we have found, the people that we are working with, um, are all people who share that same level of commitment. Um
I plan on uh fulfilling a coaching role and a supervisory role um as much as needed as I have done in public schools for 30
years. Um and you know ultimately this program is about being uh responsive to the needs of the constituency that we are serving. And I've always believed that it's important that schools respond
to the needs of the community. This particular community began this program because they were seeking a place for their children to be educated that they felt comfortable with. And it comes back to the fact that those parents were
looking for a particular kind of education and they have a right from my perspective as a lifelong educator to get what they need and what they want for their children. Um, so this
intrigued me because of its direct connection to the people who had a need and the size and the flexibility of the program allows for us to accommodate those needs. um as a as a teacher, the
idea of having hands-on um responsive community-based connection um is something that I feel very passionate about. I have absolutely no intention of allowing this program to
in any way um become anything other than a completely effective program. I am putting my reputation and my career on the line when I say that because I do truly believe that that's what is going
on here. Now, you know, are we um are we fitting all of the criteria that a public school would fit? Of course not. That's not what we are. Um and so
to expect that we would um when our emphasis is in other places um you know puts us in an awkward spot. Um we are we are going to make this happen one way or another um so that it does serve the
needs of these children and these families um and so that we are a part of those communities and and connections. Um, so yeah, it's not going to be kids playing in the woods if that's the concern. Um,
it's not it's it's you know, it has to be it has to work with the Massachusetts state standards. It has to be something that if a student leaves the school, they can step right into another classroom anywhere else in the state and
meet those qualifications. James, go ahead. I just wanted to respond briefly. Um I did hear at the end of my comment a comment about putting credentialed people with children and that's full
that's what we fully intend to do and I just wanted to stress the transparency of the staff's experience or training status um when and the transparency of our curriculum. That's all something
that we've been extremely um committed to ensuring is transparent and available to parents and other constituents who are interested in our school. Um and I think that transparency is something that's extremely important and then
allows parents to make the decisions based on whether they think the staff are credentialed enough, which we we clearly do. But we we are I wanted to just emphasize that we have been transparent right along with our
training status, our lensure status, our credentiing status, our monasuri status and our curriculum. And we've worked really hard, as James alluded, um to both horizontally and vertically align
the curriculum so that if kids do filter into a public school, like um James was saying, they have a pathway in and they won't be behind other kids. um our location and our vision and
mission may be alternative and in some ways and I just wanted to acknowledge that I'm well aware of the history of alternative education not always being um you know up to high standards being
too loose um having too much choice having too much flexibility um and the the sort of label of alternative schooling being a label that can with um some connotations of lack of rigor or um just
kind of a free-for-all. And I just wanted to emphasize that that's not what this school is about. And although its location is unusual, so can I I want to jump in here, Carla? I just want to clarify one thing. I think Mary maybe mentioned it, but kind
of in passing. um private schools don't require the same lure that uh public schools do. So, um, you know, if you look at any of the local private schools, you're going to find teachers who don't have a formal, you know, teaching license from the state in the same way that all of our teachers and
and administrators uh would, right? So, um, so, you know, I think those points are well taken. Um, Lindsay and James, in terms of the sort of the credentiing and and sort of the different backgrounds and different forms of credentiing that are in place for for your staff, I'm I'm not actually
concerned um from a qualifications perspective. For the most part, I I I one very very significant sort of practical concern. Um, as I understand it, as we sit here today, the material cabin isn't currently coded for use for
this purpose, um, in a way that would sort of accommodate, you know, a class, you know, classroom of children. Um, I know that that's in the works with the town. I'm a little bit um you know and I don't want to create a
chicken and the egg problem here but I I'm a little bit hesitant to say I do think it's appropriate for us to evaluate sort of the appropriate the the appropriateness of the physical plant to support the you know educational mission that you have um and I get that the sort
of primary physical plant is the is the bar you know is the is the forest um and so that you know that part makes sense but there obviously you know given extreme weather there's a reliance on the cabin as Well, and as we sit here today, my understanding is that it's not properly um coded for use as a school.
You know, I I don't know what the latest on that is in terms of the expectations for when that approval comes. I'm a little bit concerned that if we grant approval to operate, even if we grant approval to operate contingent on receiving, you know, receiving approval
from the select board, if the um if the certificate of occupancy or the code or whatever it is exactly that you're waiting for comes back and forces you to modify something in terms of the number of students that you have, for instance, does that put you in a position where the program that you're proposing to us,
you know, has to be modified and doesn't quite come to fruition? And I'll give you one example of that. Um in the in the uh responses there was mention of um you're not required to get EEC approval because the majority of the students are
um of elementary school age and and not um you know not early education age. um you know if the approval from the town comes back and says you know but you can't host as many students will you have to make modifications to your program that may put you in a
different position with respect to requiring EEC approval and what does that say you know what does that mean for us in terms of the approval that we would grant here so I'm a little you know a little concerned about um you know granting approval when we don't
yet have finality on whether or not the space itself is going to work for the program that you're proposing to us. Thank you for that. And I can say a couple of things. Um the first thing I'll say is yes, we would really I I think it it would make sense given the
fact that the process has sort of slowed down um with the with the town building inspector. However, I've received a separate opinion from a from a building professional, a separate read
of the plumbing code that isn't necessarily the same. And again, I I I know that there's a process that the town is going to go through to to sort of turn to the state level and and kind of see what their thinking is. So, I guess um we would really
sorry, let me back up. Um I think that we were hoping that it would be possible to have a sort of contingent an approval from the school committee contingent on the approvals coming through at the town level in terms of the building. Um the second
thing that I will say is that the the category of school that we are in is kind of a not it doesn't it doesn't exist on paper which is why we've been referring actually to the EEC naturebased regulations because while
there is a regulation for what nature-based schools need and don't need and can look like at the preschool level and that's because um a few nature-based programs together lobbyed the state for that regulation. So that's why that regulation exists. There's basically no
almost there's only one other school that we know of that's like us, which is Burch's Nature Academy or Nature School in Lincoln um that is a fully outdoor elementary school and they also started out without a space um but they were on a private land trust. So I guess that we
are sort of a different category where we really are intending to be outdoors most of the time and and and working with the conservation commission and the town and the select board. You see, we have um select board member Karen Heric here with us this evening to be able to
find a solution that will allow us to open um even if we are primarily outdoors and we are exploring options like uh using a yurt with a separate heating solution to be able to have some heat. So our intention is to you know go
forward um we are are are very hopeful that the town will be able to find a solution and and the sort of specific question you asked about whether the building is coded as a school. That's why I sort of started with the EEC regulations which is that we're not actually changing the occupancy of the
building. We're not taking over the building as a school. And so it the building will continue to be rented to the public on nonschool hours. And so I'm not sure I think that this is where this kind of gray area about what the
coding of the of the school should look. But I can go back to just answer your your initial question which is that would we change the number of students or might that affect um what we're proposing. We are going to have a very small group
of students this this year and as we expand which is probably something like 10 to 15 maximum which is what I as I sort of led which I led with um and if we end up being able to expand that will
require a different building and then we will come back to the school committee to evaluate whether the school committee feels that that separate building is is adequate for an expansion. So our plan is just is to stay small essentially. Thank you. Others on the committee.
Um I have a question related to the size of the group. Actually I'll start by saying first of all I love this idea. I think it's a really um a really great way to think outside the box in terms of meeting the educational needs of all students. And I really like
the interdisciplinary nature of it and how much it emphasizes sort of drawing connections between students and the planet on a larger scale. Um, and I'm impressed with everybody's credentials uh on the on the team. I did however have a question looking at the answers
to the questions that were submitted about the enrollment information, the ages of students, the number of students in each group. I noted that for the primary classroom, it says there's uh one student who's signed up to attend five days a week and two students who
are signed up to attend only one or two days a week. And so I was just curious for the other days of the week, does that mean that there's just the one child in the primary classroom? Because I could see where that could potentially have um negative consequences in terms
of of just social interaction. That's a very good question. Um, we this is our enrollment as of right now. Um, the one child who signed up 5 days a week is actually my child. Okay. And so, um, that's you make a very good
point and and and actually as as as his parents, we're considering whether the other days a week we might do something else with him if there's no other children his in his age group. Um but but there's also a possibility that we'll have one other child in that
age group join us five days a week. But I mean I'll also say you know one thing that is really special about having this very small group across ages is that there is interaction among the different um group ages and you know I can give an example from one of the
children who will who will be joining us in elementary who is now nine uh was part of our original homeschool co-op and so sort of you know interacted with with these really young kiddos from from when you know he was seven and they were much younger and and I've actually seen
him be able to mentor these really young children and that's really cool and and and a kind of an opportunity that I didn't have, you know, as as a child in in kind of regular public school to have those kinds of interactions across ages and I think that they actually bring something really rich.
Thank you. Can I ask a question please? Okay. Um, so thank you for everything. Uh, I was actually very impressed with your your materials and the the thoroughess
of everything. Um, what I'm struggling more with is the the timeline that it's August 21st and um I'm trying to wrap my head around like how you open in a in a few weeks um and
and can give these kids, you know, the full year. um of a school experience. Now, I'm imagining you are not um bound to the 180 school days like the public
schools are and that with a smaller classroom and smaller environment, you can probably get um a tremendous amount done that can't happen in a classroom of, you know, 22 kids all in
one room. So, um, you know, I've heard that from homeschoolers that, you know, it's it's shocking how much you can get done when you aren't, you know, having to deal with as much with with the large group. But, um, I guess can you walk me
through if if this did get a a contingency approval tonight? Sounds like you're still waiting on some pieces with the town. um what what is your anticipated timeline moving forward and what has to
happen in the building for you to be able to start operating? James, I see you leaned forward. I wondered if you wanted to start start with with some of this and then I can jump in. Um just sort of um I I thank you for
asking that because we we struggle with that as well. Um it's a very reasonable question to ask and we ask it of each other and ourselves every time we meet every day. Um, you know, I think the
important thing is that we go back to our philosophical baseline that um, you know, children spending time in an environment with intelligent, creative adults who are
committed to their education and their safety. Um, in an environment that is rich with possibilities. um are are expected to learn to um think critically and to do the things that
they need to do to find relevance in their education. And so like that starts day one. That's that's um whenever day one ends up being the reality for us is
that we want to begin to to in um support our students in becoming independent learners, creative thinkers, critical thinkers, problem solvers to to develop the perseverance um and the confidence to confront um an
independent challenge or problem that they have. and find a way through and we want to provide the skills to help them do that. So a lot of that is not necessarily um contingent on the full year of
planning being written down so much as the initial beginning of um of establishing those skills in students with students. Um so you know I think I
think that we are prepared to begin tomorrow if we needed to. We don't have our location ironed out and that is the the place where we are running into difficulty but if you if you said could
you start taking kids into the woods tomorrow and teaching them that we are prepared to do. Um, so the logistics are what they are and they take the time that they take and we're doing everything we can to accelerate that
process. Um, but the but the practical reality of being in an educational situation um that we are ready for that there is there's no question in my mind that we are ready for. Um, so also here just to say you know we've
been doing we've done a great deal of of backloading and of curriculum planning our team which I should add is until school begins all volunteer at which point we will begin paying um the educators and some of us will continue
as like myself will continue as um all working proono in order to get this prog this program up and running because we believe in it And um you know I wish that we sort of had extensive seed funding to to get this project up and
running but but this is the seed funding is us. It's our really wellqualified labor. Um and so we have a really clear map of our curriculum as you saw. Um, everyone has done this before or or many many of
them have done this before and we're also taking a a kind of emergent learning which I believe ended up in our and somewhere in our curriculum packet and an emergent learning approach which is that we respond to the situation. We respond to what children are are are are seeing and are interested in and quite
honestly we respond to the situation that we're in. So right now we're in a situation that we did not in any way anticipate which is that the building that we thought that we were going to be at um will have some limitations and essentially
you know we had imagined that next week we would be spending um sort of and again we were never intending to set up the building that the goal was never that we were going to be allowed to actually use classroom space inside Mata Cabin. It was always and I can I'm happy to sort of share with you guys some uh
documentation but our our sister school the Montasauri Field School in Indiana um on which one of our board members one of our board members is the founding uh the the founding head of school of that school. So their first year they were in a very similar situation to us. They had
storage space in a at a shelter with bathrooms at a conservation area and they rolled out shelves every morning onto the deck essentially and they put their Montasauri materials on those on those shelves and they taught the children. And so we're very flexible
people right now. We are, you know, in the process of pivoting from what we originally imagined was going to be our situation to what is it? How are we going to be there for these kids on day one and how are we going to teach them? And like I said, relying really heavily on both this extensive work that we've
been doing um in the last several months for curriculum development and just on the and also on honestly on the talent of our staff and and of our supervising and professional development team, you know, including James and Lindsay who are here tonight who will be able to kind of support through those
challenges. I hope that answers your question because it is a very it is a very important one and and you know we're also hopeful that there will be a resolution to this question of the space. Can I ask one more thing Sean? Sure.
Um, so Mary, you mentioned something that I actually wasn't super clear on previously, but that outside of school hours, um, the facility will still be, you know, the cabin will still be available for rent, um, by residents of the town.
Um, but I'm wondering about Bear Meadows because right now that's just accessible to to anyone all the time. Um there's also a community garden over there, I believe. Um so what is the intention
during school hours for those spaces? I because I'm thinking of it twofold both both like the accessibility but also like the you know the safety of the children in your care. Yes, thank you for that very important question. We have anticipated that and
we have an extensive um safety plan mapped out for you know keeping our eyes on this. So I I I'll back up and say forest schools of which there are now many in the country and many in Massachusetts. Many of them operate on lands that share space with other people
or have passerbys. There's the Boston Outdoor Preschool Network which is in the Arboritum in Jamaica plane. There's Right Lock Farm in Winchester. Um there's a farm school in on the I think it's Concord Carile border and and so all of those are actually the children
are in spaces where they see members of the public. Um and so you know what we've found in terms of be best practices from operating as our our outdoor homeschool co-op and also just from speaking with other programs is to have a really clear protocol um where
you know we are the educators have communication devices with them at all times if they're out in the field so that they can communicate. Um, children are not allowed obviously unsupervised with any person who was not a um background check member of staff or
volunteer and and we monitor the situation and and kind of interactions with with the public. And then, you know, kind of have enough people to be able to if something strange happens, which thankfully until this point, knock on wood, uh, all of our interactions with the public have been incre
incredibly positive. Um, you know, in the in the in the instance that that something strange would happen, we would immediately kind of remove the children to a different location and and kind of activate any kind of a a response plan.
We have a a detailed response plan, some of which I I believe was in most of which I believe was included in our packet. And I I guess so then from the other point of view, we're a really small group and we have a really small footprint. And um in terms of the
accessibility to the public of the land, um we plan to be sort of primarily in the mornings at least around the area of the cabin and the pavilion. And if you're familiar with the the way that the the conservation area looks and kind of doing our our uninterrupted work
period in in those spaces and then having kind of more exploratory periods in the afternoon where we go on walks together and kind of do a different you know more um emergent learning and and ecologically based responsive to the to
the land kind of our our social sciences and and history and arts curriculum. So, I hope I answered your question. Um, yeah, Sarah, I saw you come off mute. Yeah, I just I guess so. So, appreciate there's so many exciting and wonderful
things to think about about this concept and I think I just appreciate all the material that you've submitted and and enjoy kind of think about what could this look like for some of these kiddos. Where I'm struggling a bit more is kind of from the operational perspective. So, you know, you'd said, you know, you
don't intend to rely on the cabin for classroom space, and I'm trying to think about February in Massachusetts and little ones windchill factors in the negative digits. You're going to need to utilize that cabin space. I'm really struggling with,
you know, not having um approvals from the town for a change in use or or the health and safety sign off um and certificate of occupancy. Um, and I think that's where my head is kind of right now. Like logistically, what does this really look like? Cuz, you know,
I've had little ones, they they need breaks from the cold frequently. You're going to have to utilize indoor space in those harsh winter months particularly or if there's torrential downpours or those kinds of things that wouldn't necessitate a day off school, but would require more shelter and and heat and
space. And I know that that cabin is is likely going to need some some changes for that. So we've thankfully had we did um go through a DRT. Thank you again for that question actually just to start with and I really appreciate everyone's enthusiasm for this as a concept and
everyone here's obvious love for being outside um is is really palpable. Uh so in terms of the all of the inspections the only thing that we are waiting on from the town is actually just a certificate of occupancy. our our plan, you know, we submitted it to fire and to
and to health and safety and to uh into a DRT meeting on August 4th. The transcript of that is should be online on, you know, on on public television and and so again, the only concern right now, and I can I can kind of at least tell you what I have understood, is that
the only concern is whether they would like there to be gendered restrooms in the cabin. And that's the concern. Um, and the and the cabin has been I I believe approved for occupancy of of 24
people, but I might be wrong about that exact number, but it's around that or 24 to 36. Um, and and so that's that's the specific issue that we're we're attempting to resolve and and very hopeful on that possibility.
And you know, again, I I guess I'll say that the experience of our sister school in in in Illinois, my god, in Indiana, where it's I usually go to bed around now. So, I apologize that that I'm a
little bit I'm not as articulate as I often am. Um the the Montasauri Field School, it's actually significantly colder out there. um it gets down to, you know, 10 degrees pretty regularly.
And and and they've actually found that adjusting what they do curriculum wise responsive to the weather is also like a really important thing to be able to offer children as actually pedagogical inspiration and as a learning
experience. So for example, or as a fun experience. So, for example, when it's actually like if there's snow on the ground and it's quite and it's quite cold, you know, they whereas a lot of schools have eliminated school uh snow days and they now have, you know, online learning those days when there would be
a snow day, um they go out and they sled and so and that kind of becomes part of the curriculum and and so we, you know, attend to we are really hoping that that we will be able to have use of that space and if not be able to set up a different kind
emergency shelter that will have some heated a heat source and and we're pretty confident that there is a path forward with the with the very enthusiastic support of the conservation commission and you know at this point um we we really I I call town hall every
day I talk to someone I feel like everyone is has really gotten on board and behind this project as the months have gone by and so um yes I I I so just a sort of two-part answer partly we will be using the weather as a kind of inspiration for, you know, not
necessarily doing reading and or the same kind of writing and dextrous things when it's really really really cold. Um, and at the same time, we do uh feel hopeful that that this question will get resolved. Tom, I don't know if we've heard from
you yet. any any thoughts before we um um academically I like a lot of what I see right um uh so I appreciate a lot of the work your team has put into putting to to doing what you've done there I have some
of the similar operational concerns and my concern actually might be more financial um I feel like there's a hidden cost here for us that we're not maybe talking about um it may not apply right now with the 10 students you have, but if you have reading students and we have an
obligation to bus them that we are not currently busing any elementary students except for maybe a few to kill them, we might have an additional bus need that comes out of this as a requirement for that that same state law that Sean referred to at the beginning. Have you
considered that? Have you thought about that? Um, of the 10 students you have right now, are any of them reading students that are outside a two-mile radius from where the material cabin is? No, not at the moment. No. Okay. So, obviously that could happen
tomorrow, right? With you know, somebody's interested and the ob the potential obligation that we would have to bus to offer. Whether the parent picks us up on that is not the question, right? altogether, but by law, we'd have the obligation to do it if it was
requested to to bust that student from say South Street to Mater. Um, so that in addition to the operational stuff that Sean and Sarah has raised is something I'm I'm a little
leerary about. Um, this would be our first private school of busing age kids level, right? Austin Prep 7th grade and up. We don't have an obligation to bus 7th grade and up. You have to you have
an obligation to bus K through six. Uh and for those kids that are in Reading. Um so I think I just want something I want us to make sure we think about because we're well past budget time and if all of a sudden we have an obligation to bus
two, three, four kids, what is the cost of that for us? It's not your cost. Fortunately for you, unfortunately for us, it is our cost, unbudgeted cost. It may not be big. Um, but it's something for us to think about
and make sure we're aware of and that we've we've consciously considered as part of the approval process here. Um, as this essentially could be a budget, I'm not going to call it a budget buster, but it's a it's a budget challenger potentially, right? Um, so
you may or may not have any thoughts to that, but I be curious if you do have immediate thought. If you don't, then I would I wouldn't expect you to have an answer necessarily. Just something to think about. I'd say that u we have talked about hoping by the beginning of the second
year um having our own van to pick students up in a particular area. We hadn't been thinking about it specifically in terms of um you know how we would meet Reading's needs in that situation. You're right. I I hadn't it
hadn't occurred to me. But we do have some students who have um you know transportation issues and so we would like to be able to accommodate that um ourselves. Right now our group is so small um and we don't have actually any
any specific um need to do that but it is and frankly we don't have the budget yet to to make that purchase. But it is in our plan um for that very reason that you know kids need to get there and we need we want to be able to facilitate
them getting to the school um regardless of where they are or where they're coming from um or what their financial situations are. Um it's about getting the kids where they need to be. So yeah, we have we have thought about that. I don't know if that solves your question.
Um truthfully, I I I really don't. But that is something that we have talked about doing. It may solve my question for the next budget cycle. But does this question for this budget cycle, right? Because you have the same you have the financial constraints you have at the current moment, right? Um,
so I guess maybe the question might be I don't even know if this is something I maybe we have to take this up with our legal counsel, but if you are since you are a private school, you are pro you are tuitioning somebody in, is there a potential for some small offset share if
necessary if a busing requirement is necessary? Right. Um, something to think about. I don't again I don't know if if we can even legally ask you to do that. Um, I'm just trying to brainstorm to find a solution to what could potentially be a problem. Because if you're going to go to 24 kids and you're
at, let's just say you're 10 now and none of them are reading. Let's just say the worst case scenario is 14 kids from the southern side of reading decide they want to go to Material Cabin for school next year, right? What is the cost of that? It's a pretty big potential cost.
Um, busing is not cheap. Uh, it's one of our biggest costs when we have to send other kids, some of our kids out of district. So when we have to bust kids in in our own district, it's a it's a potential big problem. So I just want to highlight that. The other one I wanted
to highlight um is other town strain potentially. Your your materials talk about leveraging DPW to do snow removal um which fortunately because we're a town thing, we get to avail ourselves of as well. But a private entity availing
themselves of the town for snow removal is something I'm a little like, huh? Have you thought about that as well? And is there is there a limitation from the conservation commission that you need to use DPW or is there something you guys can do as well to to make your space usable in in the case of snow that does
not require DPW? So the cabin is actually already cleaned by the DB DPW. Um it's just not at the top of the priority list. So, for example, where as the schools, you know, whereas Reading Memorial might get cleaned at 5:00 a.m., um the Matera
cabin would get cleaned closer to 9 perhaps. I'm just giving an example. And and so our intention, um you know, in those cases is is really just to delay school opening until the DPW does the work that they were already going to do because remember that the cabin is
actually as a public space. um it's just treated as any other public building and so it is um kind of maintained in that way and we've had a pretty extensive discussion about facilities cost also the the sort of way that the arrangement that we're doing with the conservation
commission works is that it actually accounts for facilities and and upkeep and and regular cleaning. Um so all of that said uh one of the central principles of Montasauri education is care of the environment and and that's
one thing that you know children in Montasuri classrooms are taught to set up their work to respect the space and to actually clean the space after or clean up after their work and kind of clean the space. And so that is one thing that we will definitely be doing
with the children and um and and also honestly ourselves as a as a really small committed team of educators if there's an additional you know amount of snow removal that has to happen for example I don't know on the back deck of the cabin we certainly intend to do that ourselves um I
shuffle out my elderly parents um driveway you know several times a year and and so it's not it's sort of not too much of an addition for us to think about pushing some snow off a deck so that the kids can learn there and have fun. There's no need to do snow removal
across trails or anything else like that outside the cabin itself that you're thinking about a request planning. No, there was no request for planning for that. Again, I do believe the trails can be the it does some amount of snow removal on the trails, but I'm not going to we haven't actually discussed that
particular point extensively, but no, there was no kind of additional request of DPW to do anything more than they're already doing. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Sean. Thank you. Um, Mr. McGovern, I
have a quick question for you. Um the website says that you worked for the Mission Hill School in Boston. Yes. Do do you um what years were you a teacher? Were you you were a teacher there? It says you were a founder of that school. Yes. And I I started in the school first
year. Um I was there for 18 years. I left um before the school transitioned into the final leadership team that it had um
what years what years were you there please? from 98 to uh let's see wherever 2006 something like that. you you know where I'm going with this
question because I I saw it on the website and um I I Googled the Mission Hill School and a number of articles and newspaper um stories came out and um it says that the Boston school committee and
superintendent closed the school in 2022 because the school and I quote systematically failed to protect students from threats of sexual misconduct and abuse from other students for nearly a decade and that um I'm sorry but let me let me first
point out that that is completely irrelevant to the discussion we're having here tonight. Um and so I find it kind of un I don't know why that would be a factor. If you want to discuss my qualifications that's fine. I don't have a problem with
that. I left that school for the very reason that led to the issues that it had in the following years. And after founding, after being a member of the founding team and committing so much of
my life to that school, it was an extremely difficult experience to see where it eventually ended up. So yeah, I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Um, Mission Yield School has nothing to do
with Malberry Forest Monastery School. Um, you know, personally, all I can say is, um, I was appalled and disgusted by what uh happened at that school and how it ended
um and and how it got there. Um, and all of those things were partly to why I left before that occurred. Um, so, you know, you can take that for what it's worth. I'm I'm sure I'm sure it was very
upsetting. Um, as I said, I I found the information on the website. You know, the Mission Hill School was listed, so I did a Google search and a lot of information came up. Um I read for the information I'm sure
I don't understand how it's relevant to this discussion here tonight. Can you explain that please? Yeah. Yes, I I can. I I um my and I and I do realize then when when there is a lawsuit that you're given one side of the case. So I I understand that and I
take that into account. Carla, what I'm saying that lawsuit concerns things started a decade after Mr. McGovern left the school years. It was it was in right. It was um the case was filed in 2017
and it the um discussions were of a decade previously. So for basically from 2007 which if he left in 2006 I I understand. Yeah. Yeah. This is absurd. I'm sorry but you know what but like I've committed my entire life
so much. I think we can defer to Sean. I think we can defer to Sean actually. Yeah, Carla, I I I don't I I have to agree with Mr. McGovern. I don't see the relevance. I think we should we should redirect here. Um and Mr. McGovern, I apologize for that. Um all right. Any any other questions?
Sean, there's no need to apologize if we're if we're I think it was inappropriate based on his Google search. You got an answer from him on what his timeline was and and I had to ask the question. Yeah. Hello. I had to ask the question. I I do have a couple of quick two more questions. Can
Can I ask um what the protocol would be if um if wild animals were encountered? We have a lot of coyotes in the area and that was just one of my um you know, you're outside with the kids. What happens if there is a wild animal?
Our educators are fully trained in emergency response, including in outdoor emergency response. And so the protocol would be that they would follow um you know if they were again coyotes don't often actually approach
people um but they would you know follow the protocol for scaring away the coyote and removing the children from the area and if there was a different kind of an emergency again we would activate our our sort of well thoughtout emergency plan. Thank you.
And then they would learn about I chased one last week, so that's why I'm asking. It was going after my neighbor's dog, and I thought to myself, what happens if I had 10 kids behind me? So, it just kind of stuck out in my head.
Um, one one last question that hopefully is an easy one. Um, are there any plans, and I I I don't I don't recall seeing any of the materials you submitted, but are there any plans to pursue any kind of third party accreditation? One of I'll just be, you know, blunt here. One of the things that I'm struggling with is not anything
you've submitted or anything you're trying to do. I'm I'm very supportive of a lot of elements of the mission. I feel frankly underqualified to be in a position to make what feels like a very big decision um that probably should be made by you know professional educators which which is something that I'm not.
Um and so um it would be helpful to me to to understand whether there's any intent you know from NESC or the American Monetary Society or any other number of accrediting bodies that could be relevant um to pursue that you know during this pilot year and beyond.
Sure. So all of our so there is an overarching so I'll say two things. The first thing is that again I'll go back to the idea um that we started with which is the wildflower network which we are intending to join which is a sort of very you know really wellrespected if you do a Google search
you'll find a lot about them uh really wellrespected network of Montasauri schools and and kind of a check that says you know their first principle is are you authentically are you an authentic Monttoauri program uh the second is um MACDI which is the
accredititation board for Montasauri um because we have a teacher who is accredited who did her training at AMS and another teacher did her training at AMI. We're kind of in a it's it's complicated with these Montasauri associations. So we I I don't know that we would ever join AMS for example or or
if we could join AMI which is based in the Netherlands. Um uh all of that said that MACDI is the board that sort of accredits people's training and so our goal is that that that the heads of
school you know again Amy and myself are have MACDI accredited trainings and that that is a sort of that's a very well respected internationally it's kind of the gold standard of of Montasauri schools and and to be clear you're saying your goal is that your training would be
certified by MACT that's not Amy's training Amy's training is already certified by MACD um 20 years ago and also AMS and I am in a MACD accredited training right now. Okay. Sean, do you mind if I jump into it? I just want to quickly share because I
know Tom, you asked me to sort of open it and I throw it important since I did not have a vote for me to not sort of influence or impact sort of my own perspective on sort of the the the case here. I just want to share I appreciate a lot of the elements that have been hit on. uh first on the idea of you know the the organization the preparation you put
together and what is an exciting and intriguing model for the community. I appreciate that our team uh Dr. Hardy I see on here also had the time to look through everything and I think for us it's always exciting we can see something on paper and it's hard to fully assess unless you see it in action and that's something we would be eager if things to move forward is to have the
chance to see something because it's one to sort of see something on paper and then two to see how it's executed. So I just don't know what it would look like. While on paper there's a lot of things we're excited about. I don't know sort of what that would look like when it's operationalized. I think my my concern I think was the one that was you highlighted tonight was just around the facility space that you know uh is again
what would things look like if mater cabin is not an option. I know that's in the works. I know the town is trying to be supportive. It's just a concern for me that that's sort of still held up and that there's that's a that's an unknown and to me that's that's a big unknown, right? So I think that's a and obviously that's a concern given the timing here
too. So um but from our end you asked if we sort of had any concerns with the model itself. I think it's exciting. I think it's intriguing. I think that they've done a lot of uh homework. Uh my my concerns would sit sort of in that operational space. And again I it's unfortunate that that sort of wasn't you
know for whatever out of your control resolved a month ago be a lot easier to sort of navigate that here too. So I just but um I want to thank you too for uh your work and and leadership and trying to you know pro provide options for families and for students uh and you know kind of the creative thinking here
too and would love to whatever way this goes continue the collaboration with our team uh about sort of what uh you're driving to do and also sort of the work I'm underway in Reading Public Schools. So thank you for for coming tonight. I just didn't want to I just wanted to make it clear why I sort of didn't answer it up front because I thought it was important for committee to have
first chance at that. Thank you. Okay, I do want to um we've got at least one person from the public with their hand raised. Uh so I'll go ahead and unmute Karen Heric. Um and then if there's anybody in the audience there in the room that has any questions, we can
um or any comments, we can take those quickly as well. I just ask you to keep them to about 3 minutes and then we'll um move to our motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, quickly, I I didn't intend on speaking tonight, but we did have um I wanted to share with the school committee that um yes, Mary
has been working very closely with town staff and um they've been trying to work through whatever concerns they have. They're raising great great, you know, everybody cares about safety and and and things like that. Um today, you know, I
understand and I learned that Mata Cabin has actually been closed to everyone. Um there is some concern in the building inspector's department. Um and and I wanted to share with you we do have a new building inspector starting on
Monday. So I I'm very disappointed to learn that right now the cabinet is off limits to everyone. So this is a this is something that I see as a very high priority for the select board to take up as soon as Tuesday to make sure that um
this very expensive and valuable and well-loved resources resumed open for the community. So um hopefully it'll be resolved soon and and that would certainly help um this group get through their hurdles as well. So thank you. I just wanted to share that with you all.
Thanks K. Um, anybody I just wanted to add really briefly in in response to the just to the previous comment that you know we are really eager to work we have been as you've seen been working really closely with the town and and we're delighted and eager to work with the school committee
as well and and you know we'd love to be able to create some kind of an enrichment program based on the on the expertise and the kind of environmental um sensibilities that that our staff brings. and and quite frankly originally our our goal was to try to make a public
alternative school and and to have it be a fully public option. Um but kind of given both our timeline and the and the current situation that we are finding ourselves in in this country, it was just a little we just thought like okay we need to start we need to start off with a school now and kind of see where
we can go from there. But we really believe that this kind of option should be available to all children. Um not you know not just families who sort of are opting out. Thank you. That's all. Thanks. Uh any other comments in the
room? Um since I can't see. Nobody has their hand up. Okay. Um Carla, do you want to uh do you want to make a motion here? I think I want to amend the one that I expect you're about to make, but why don't you start with yours and then we'll go from there. I have moved to approve the Malbury
Forest Montasauri Micro School. Okay. Um, this won't be a friendly amendment per se. There's a lot to it. So, let me um let me see if there's a second for that motion first so we can discuss it. Second.
Second by Tom. All right. Um, I'd like to make it contingent on three things. um one is the town granting a certificate of occupancy that supports the program as presented in the submitted materials. So if the if the um
certificate of occupancy from the town is granted in any way requires um you know an adjustment to the amount of time the students are in the build or have access to the building that adjust the sort of you know classrooms you know the classroom sizes or or number of students
enrolled or anything like that um in any material way want to have that come back to us um so that we can understand the educational implications of that. So that's number one. Um the second thing would be um I'd like us to include a contingency on um reaching an agreement
on reimbursement on some degree of reimbursement for any state required transportation of students. Um you know subject to as Tom said we we got to run that through council and you know understand what the limitations are there but um I agree with Tom's concern.
I would be I would be concerned in this pilot year that you know in mid year a substantial transportation cost will pop up. a budget challenge for us. Um so at least in this pilot year, I'd like to sort of include some agreement there as a contingency as well. And then the
third one would be um not sure exactly how to phrase this or what specific shape to put around it, but would be um sort of satisfactory progress on on maxi certification of of uh all your lead teachers. Um and I know
Mary said you've got your one for two there, not in your own way. So, um, you know, struggling to say exactly what that would look like, but, you know, probably something like coming back to us periodically to sort of report out on the on the progress there. Um, in terms
of, uh, in terms of MACD um, accreditation. Uh, I'm going to I see a com I see a hand ra. Um, is there a second? Again, just for discussion. Is there a second on that amendment so we can discuss it? I'll second but with a clarifying
question, Sean, if you don't mind. Um, are you expecting I just maybe I misheard you or I want to make sure I heard you right. Are you expecting them to get the MACD certification before they start teaching students or are you allowing for a provisional period of time as we would with a teacher in
writing public schools? Yeah, the latter. and allowing for a provisional period of time and you know sort of we'd expect them to come back to us you know in a quarter in 6 months with you know kind of an update on the progress there. Um probably in the near
term maybe provide a timeline for when we can expect that that you know so that we can we can evaluate that but um for the purposes of tonight we call that sort of provisional. Okay. So I I second with that one more clarifying question or and maybe this is
uh a another maybe it's not for you Sean but um for the team the second portion he mentioned with regards to the transportation side are you amendable to that portion of his agreement
of his uh of his amendment and Sean maybe you want to outline it again what you were thinking. Yeah, it would it would be um contingent on us contingent on us reaching an agreement on a on some degree of reimbursement for
state required transport. My thinking here is my thinking here is you know the risk to us is you you you go and enroll five rising students from different corners of our community that all require busing and it create and and I know that's not your intent and as your enrollment currently stands that's not
the case. Um, but that's what the risk to us is. So, you know, it's a little bit of a risk transference that if you go down that path, you're, you know, you're accepting some of the cost that comes with that. And Sean, just to clarify too that I'm
not sure if they're following the track to like the referring to I don't know if you have Mass General Law in front of you which sort of outlines the requirements of public school districts to uh you know provide transportation for students attending private schools in within outside of that you know
threshold the two-m threshold. There's some different interpretation even on our team of sort of what that looks like. I've got some uh I would say adi guidance recently from the state that says that we would not be legally required to provide that in sort of this circumstance. So I but it sounds like there's some more work on our end we
would need to do with legal counsel just to know for sure one way or the other two and I don't know Mary if that's sort of what if you were in the loop on that or you knew sort of that's what the context behind the comment was and my my my contingency would be tying this to any state required transport. So if it's the case that there's no there
are no circumstances in which we're required to transport these students then there's no state required transport to share cost fund I guess is what I'm getting at. Um but given the sort of uncertainty around that both in terms of the interpretation of NGL and in terms of whether or not
any letting students who live more than 2 miles from the school will enroll you know it creates a little bit of a safety net for us. I don't understand how that can be confusion. It's pretty darn clear in MGO. But that's I mean reading it says each school committee shall provide
transportation for any p pupil attending such an approved p private school within the boundaries of the school district which this would be provided however the distance between any pupil's residence and private school said pupil attends exceeds 2 miles which is our standard or such other minimum distance as may be
established by the school committee for transportation of public school students which we don't have one and we can't go we can't say it's more than 2 miles because MGL has a a max of two miles. So, we're not going to say one mile because that doesn't help us, right? So,
that's pretty clear that we would have that that that liability. Yeah. Black and white from the from the law. Whether we interpret whether people read the law that way is another story. I I think the guidance that we were given from the state too was around approved private school and sort of how a student ends up in a private school placement
versus that's parent choice versus a uh um this is not a placement. It doesn't say placement. It says approved private school, which is what we're here for. This is part of the same section of the law that we're here for. So, I think Sean's language either way we could sort of dig either way. Sean's language would cover it sort of both if that's what you're getting at, Sean.
Yeah. And Tom Tom wise, I think that the way that that may because there's a clause in there says, you know, the same privileges as provided by law for pupils, etc., etc., etc. Students opting for school choice, for instance, are not entitled to transportation to their new district when they opt into another
district through school choice. Right. This is only limited to those in reading. Where Dr. Milky is going is this this would follow this theoretically should follow the same thought process which is students are opting by choice into this into this school into into the monitory school um
not being you know sent there as a result of a special education placement for instance. This is a different thing than than school choice. Very different. But anyway, your your amendment accounts for my concern, Sean. So, as long as the as long as the
the forest the school team is is comfortable with that and they'll accept if we vote yes that they'll agree they'll work to agree to come some agreement, then I think that's fine. Can I So, so what Sean, can I what what are the ramifications with
this reimbursement? I I'm if if you asked me like what my guess would be, we wouldn't legally be able to ask them to participate in reimbursement. And can that be contingent upon a
decision to vote for or against it? I don't think so. That's just my guess. So, part of me feels like if we don't have an answer to this to put it into our motion, what does that do to our motion if if it's um
if it's not legally okay to make that request, if that makes sense. I would and I would piggy back on that. I think there's way too much gray unknown. Yeah. In all three elements of motion to feel
comfortable. I think if a town just for example so not knowing what proportional share would be for transportation or what's legally possible not knowing what the operational safety health plan would be if the town does not give them a
certificate of occas the the friendlyish amendment is still a little too great for Uh, and she just wanted to add quickly that our our head of school, our our lead teacher Amy is already AMS
certified in Montasauri and our process of affiliation with Wildflower again has is kind of considered all of these questions of the standards of of what we're doing. And again, we're not just a Montasuri school. we're a Montasauri
forest school. And so those two pedagogies combined, you know, unfortunately there's not a board that kind of um gives a check mark as to whether that's particular approach is is done right because it it's a kind of
fairly new thing and and this is pretty exciting, right, that it's new and they're sort of only doing this. But but of course, you know, we do fully intend to as much as we're we're able join any associations that would emerge or that
would be pointed our way as ones that kind of encompass the kind of education that that we're offering. Yeah. I I I offered I offered that amendment to address, you know, to address the concerns about sort of the difference in licensing, you
know, requirements and and you know, Mary is your I think your suggestion that that was sort of the more appropriate way to think about, you know, somebody who's who's licensed from a Montasuri perspective um was that their their training was, you know, was MACI certified or MAC accredited. I can't remember what the what the frame
was, but um so I I I hear you that there's not a forest monatory school association who can give us a thumbs up. I hear you on that one. Um but I think this this is really targeted ensuring that your your lead teachers have um
you know a credential that sort of makes sense in this context and and we can you know we can point to that. Uh so we try to get comfortable here. Um other committee members. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. No, just they do. Amy does and and Adam is in the process of of obtaining hers.
Okay. Um any other thoughts from other committee members? I go ahead. I I will I will just say that um I I think the concept of this school is fabulous.
I um honestly read through the curriculum and thought it was great. had no problems with the curriculum. My issues I I feel like you need more time, right? I feel like this is just all coming to like a you're just trying to
get it done for this, you know, for September. Um I I think you need to get your certifications. Um get the occupancy permit squared away. give yourself a little bit of breathing room and time to really um focus on what your
what you want to do, what you want to get done, what you want your enrollment to look like. Um I I I just feel like it's it's it's too quick. You know, you don't have a place yet. how can we give you approval or contingent approval or
you know sometimes you just need to take a step back regroup keep going forward because I mean I can see the amount of work that's been done just in these past couple months right your website went from no information to or not as much
information to a ton of information that you know the information you gave us was huge I just think it's there you need more That's just my thought on it. All right. Any other any other discussion on the amendment in terms of
some of the contingencies we had to the motion? Miss Eric, I see your hand raised. I'll take you off mute there and then we'll go to a vote on the motion. Thank you. Um I don't um I'm not sure this cabin had an occupancy permit. I'm
not sure they are going to issue a new occupancy permit per se, but I understand the gist of a provisional, you know, with with the town approvals, but so I don't know if that helps you. I um but whereas I don't believe um the conservation commissioner or anybody
from the town is in the meeting. I'd like to just help communicate um some of the feedback from you all um and also ask so if no occupancy permit is required how does that affect this amendment? Um
I I don't believe that could be the case that no occupancy permit is required for the building to be occupied. My understanding is so so you know, maybe a certificate of occupancy occupancy with a use code that supports
the program as presented in submitted materials is maybe the framing. Um, again, understanding that there's not a use code for a forest school occasionally using it, you know, per se. Um, but it's it's more a, you know, it's
more a thumbs up from the town that the building meets the requirements of the school as presented. where the building can meet the requirements of the school as presented. Um, anyone else on Karen can't respond
unless she's unmuted. Oh, I didn't mute her. Um, go ahead. Karen, did you have anything else? Sorry, Mr. Chair. That was my fault. I muted myself afterwards. Um, yeah. So, yeah, I I I understand why you all are
growing and I I completely agree with it. the the town cares about they've flushed out most of the operational concerns, safety concerns. Um they've covered liability concerns, things like that. And um you know and and I will say that town is not an expert in these kind
of programs either. So there's been a bit of a learning curve, but there's been a lot of support. And um so thank you. And if I might just respond briefly to to the previous comment. Sure. Yeah. I just I I thank you for that
response and I I want to actually really just affirm that we are ready that we've been working on this project actually for several years and quite intently the last 6 months and that as sort of adherence to this to this concept of
emergent learning where we learn along with the children and where the environment itself provides a learning experience. We actually really are are confident that this what we're calling a pilot year that this year one where our enrollment is going to be perhaps lower
than it will be in the future. Um you know again pending the resolution of the space question which we also feel confident is going to go forward. We feel really strongly that this actually is becomes part of the learning experience for the children too that we
are coming together again as as as James and as Lindsay mentioned that this really is a question of responding to a need that exists in the community. There are children who have a need for this kind of school and we need to offer that to them. And so um even if it's a small
group because people haven't heard about it yet, that's fine. And when everyone see this in action, they'll really understand what it looks like. And then children will have been able to be part of something incredibly exciting and new and vibrant. And I mean, you know,
imagine writing about that in a college essay uh 15 or or however many years later that that that was something that you were part of. And so, you know, we feel really confident in all of our educators. We feel confident in our in our accredititations. feel incredibly confident in Amy Furola's leadership who
unfortunately was not able to be here, you know, due to emergency circumstances on on her transit from North Carolina and and we feel confident in our in our kind of curriculum advising board and in on our broader network of support in the wilder network that this really is a
strong, robust, and an exciting program to be able to offer children. And so, you know, we would really love to count on your support in moving forward. Okay. Thank you. Um, if there's nothing else, why don't we move to a vote on the motion? So, this is this is sorry, on
the amendment. This is to amend the motion to include uh the contingencies we discussed. Um, we'll do a roll call on the amendment. Can you just repeat them one more time, Sean? Carla, oh sorry, but can you just repeat them one more time? Read through it one more time, please.
Yeah, so it's um it's contingent on the following. Um one is receiving a cert certificate of occupancy and or use code that supports the program as presented in the submitted materials. Um two would be um reaching some agreement on on
reimbursement for any state required student transportation. Uh, and then three would be um sort of like uh again I'm still struggling with exactly how to phrase this one which I understand makes the emotion a little bit problematic. Um
something like um sufficient demonstrated progress of um you know MAC descertification of of lead teacher credentials. Okay. Thank you. Our lead I just wanted to specify our lead teacher our head of
school Amy is already AMS certified. I thought there was maybe I'm using the wrong terminology. I thought there was a lead teacher at each level as well. I see. Okay, I understand. That's right. Okay. So a school that is already certified in ana has an assistant
certification and it is a process of of certification. Yeah, that's that's Yeah. Okay. Exactly. Okay. Um so that's the motion or that's the amendment rather. Uh so let's move to a vote on the amendment. Um I'll start with those Carla. No.
Tom, yes. Laura, yes. Aaron, yes. Sarah, no. And Sean on the yes. Um, so now the motion sits as amended. Any further
discussion before we move to a vote on the motion as amended? Can I ask a clarifying question? Please do. So the motion as I understand it is to with the amendments approve the Malberry Forest Montasauri micro school. Is that
a permanent approval? Is there an option for any sort of provisional approval that we could revisit in a year after the pilot year has gone through to kind of evaluate where things sit? As I understand it, approval is
at our discretion at all times. Okay. Um not, you know, we don't grant approval today and it's good forever, right? We could revoke approval at any at any time. So we can, you know, through the you know, and I would expect that we would have continued conversations with the school, you know, when and if they open in town. you know, continued
conversations with them. You know, I'd love to visit the school for instance, you know, and and the committee could certainly um you know, choose to bring our approval back, you know, back before the committee at any at any point in the future. Okay. So, the motion doesn't have any
particular the approval doesn't have any particular time, you know, it's not timed down in any way. Okay. Uh okay, let's go to the vote then. Uh, Carla, no. Laura, yes.
Tom, come back to me, Sean. I'm still I'm I'm I'm struggling on this one a lot. I like it academically. I don't There's other problems I have and some of them are covered by your conditions, but the other ones are not. So, I'm just going to say no. No.
Aaron? Yes. Sarah? Not yet. And I'm going to guess um Tom, are you are you voting no or am I coming back to you? I said no. Okay. So, that puts us at 3 to three, which means the motion does not pass.
Um here's what I would say to the team. I think you've heard a lot of the concerns tonight. Um I understand this, you know, throws a wrench into your plans to open uh open here shortly. Um we have regular meetings coming up. you
know, if you feel like you've made substantial progress against the concerns that the committee's raised tonight and you want to come back before us, we probably with, you know, without having another two-hour conversation could, you know, could hear updates on on progress and um consider this again,
but um at this point, it's uh it doesn't pass this evening. Um can I just ask for clarification on Tom's concerns, which I if you could specify what those are. I'm not I'm not sure where I I want to take them offline with you. I don't want to talk in public forum
out of respect for some of your team members. So, I'd like to take it in public in a private conversation, please. Okay. Um I I I think um I really appreciate everyone's time. I think that it would be very useful for us. I don't know if it's better to do this on over email,
but if we could just have a sort of a specification of this of the concerns. Um are if they are primarily related to the building or if there are other concerns that people have that that you'd like an update on? Yeah. Can I can I ask um those members
who voted no and anybody else who wishes to you know chooses to do so let's um let's submit those to Olivia over the next you know I don't know week or so um and we'll you know as we did before we'll get those aggregated and back to
you back to you all if that's okay. Thank you so much that's very that would be very appreciative then we'll know exactly how to what to respond to and appreciate everyone's time and thoughtfulness. Absolutely. Thank you all for the uh for the preparation and and all the materials you sent. Appreciate it.
Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. Um do folks want like a fivem minute breather? I know we're running long here. We want a fiveminute breather before we jump into I'm saying who knows. Okay.
Do you want Dr. Do you want to jump into um school medication guidelines? Sure. Mary, do you want to come on up front? So just you can find information in your packet which has a uh cover letter and also just the uh draft of uh updated school mitigation guidelines. So I think
Mary can just briefly share uh just sort of what the context for the shift is and then move it forward for committee review and approval. Thanks for waiting Mary. Thanks for waiting. Oh no worries. Thanks for having me. Um so this is
um every year we review we have to apply for um controlled substance regulation um because we give medication store and give medications to students in schools. So generally it's just a review of the um regulations which have been the same
for many years but there was an update um it hadn't been updated since um 2006 and this summer the regulations were updated and this is mainly in response to um new formulations of medications that actually will help us um a lot of emergency medications and the one that
you're most familiar with probably hearing about is Narcan is now readily available. So, it allows us to have Narcan in the schools, which we we previously have, but also to train our staff to use that if they would like to be trained. Um, but there's also um new
formulations, and some of you may be aware if you have children with allergies of um emergency medications such as epinephrine is now in a nasal spray as well called Nephi. So, we'll have that available for students. um for students with some with seizures. Um we
used to have a rectal preparation of Valium to be administered in emergency and now there's a nasal spray of um of Valium available. And so that makes it much easier for us to um to to use those medications. And finally for diabetes um
there's a um a preparation similar to an EpiPen um where you can give glucagon and there's also a nasal spray for for those emergency situations. So those are really life-changing medications that have um just been evolving over the past couple of years and now are available.
So how that changes um our practice um is that we are able to um first of all like I said we have Narcan um the coalition is able to provide it to us for free at this point and so that's available in our AEDs in case of emergency. And as I said, teachers um
can be trained. Um I think especially our coaches, some of the outside of school but school related activities, having that available could be very important. Um in terms of our school um practice, we apply as I said um to the state for registration and part of that
is delegation. So here in Reading um nurses generally give all um medications, daily medications um to students, but the exception that we apply for delegation is field trips. So if um there are you know we've had quite a number of field trips or great opportunities for our students. If
there's a daily medication that a teacher is trained to give that one-time medication by the nurse reviewed goes through a training then the teacher can be responsible for giving that one dose. A nurse has to be available to consult with the teacher if there's any issues around giving that for that time frame.
Um so that we apply just for field trips for those medications. Um and so um the other aspect that we apply for is training and typically that has been um EpiPen training which we do with all of our staff every year. So if a child has
an allergy action plan from their physician um and has an EpiPen, our staff are trained to administer that in case of an anaphylactic emergency. So the um regulations have expanded to include those other rescue medications.
Um if if a teacher or a par educator or administrator um who works with a child um would like to be trained and the nurse assess that that's a reasonable situation, they can be trained by the nurse to give those emergency rescue medications that would have to be
written um in a specific plan signed off, have a doctor's order, the parent order, um the parents permission, um and the nurse has to deem that that would be appropriate. The other um situation that is addressed in the in the updated regulations is um self-care and self-
administration. So in order for we don't allow and that's per regulation students to carry any medications with the exception of epipens or epinephrine um inhalers for asthma, pancreatic enzymes for children with cystic
fibrosis and insulin. So a lot of children now who have diabetes have pumps. So they are basically carrying an a medication um with them. So we just kind of specified a little bit more about what that means in terms of self-administration. And when we look um our current medical
order form where parents sign off on um for permission has um a box that's checked um to give permission for the child to carry their um specifically epinephrine or inhalers as inhalers. So the parent can give permission. In our
old form, it was written grades 5 to 12 only. So I would think now especially if if the parents agree that the child is able to carry that, the doctor has signed a permission an order for it and the nurse agrees and has trained the child that they would be a that they're
able to you know use their um asthma inhaler and this could be on a field trip as well. They're going on a hike. This child has showed me that they know how to use the inhaler properly. they're going to use it right before they go on the hike and and they're able to to do that. So, it kind of specifies a little bit more around that situation. So,
those are the main um issues that were addressed in the regulations and um it also when it changed the wording a little bit of um it went um reiterated a little bit what regular school activities. So, not just during our school day, but what regular school
activities we're also responsible for. uh making sure that all of our students can um attend any sporting events um any social events such as the prom um our afterchool program you know Chris and I have worked with when there's been students who have needed to have medication in that program do we need a
nurse to be available or could it be a situation where there's a student who has that rescue medication they haven't needed it the parent and and the the team would feel a lot better if some of the staff were trained for that specific student in giving that medication so
just expanding our thoughts to all of the um school events where children may need medication. Um and I think those were the main the main um issues that we that we touched on. I'm not sure if anyone has any questions about any of
those or anything else that I didn't mention. Folks, go ahead. You have questions away from me. You covered it for me. Okay, just one thing I'll add um kind of offline here. Um it was flagged that we referenced
Tylenol in a few places. We're going to replace those references with the ced minifen, you know, just for the generic uh title versus the name brand, but otherwise um the version in your packet is the one we're asking folks to approve today. Okay. Yes. And I I appreciate that. For
consistency, the generic is probably a seed benefit is best. So, um, thank you. Do you want a motion? Okay. Yeah. Go ahead, Carly. Motion to approve the updated school medication guidelines. Second.
Is that Laura second? Yes. Okay. Great. Any further discussion? Okay. Okay. Uh, Carla, yes. Laura, yes. Tom, yes. Aaron, yes. Sarah,
yes. Sean, yes. 6 to0. Thank you, Mary. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mary. Thanks, Mary. Um, if you don't know, I assume we have probably Chris Nelson in the audience. Um, we do waiting patiently.
Yeah. Uh, anybody else? Any other votes out for us? Uh, Chris is next. Okay. Um, so I'll I'll move to we take item uh E or sorry um yes item E5 out of
order. Second seconded by Tom. Um Carla, yes. Laura, yes. Tom, yes. Aaron, yes. Sarah, yes. Yes. Chris, all yours.
Thank you. I I appreciate you uh jumping having me jump. Um, so I just wanted to come and give the school committee and superintendent and viewers at home an update on community education uh for the last year
and kind of what we're looking for in the future. So, um if you remember, um I came in front of the school committee about two years ago and we kind of had a a weight list problem for our extended day program and
we uh came up with a a new pilot program to help alleviate the needs of the community and open up the weight list. Uh and so we we knew two years ago that we had enough funds in the fund balance that we could do it for two years and
then reset, re-evaluate, see if this is something that we could continue on or if we needed to um update and and change course and come up with something else. So, it's been 2 years uh and we have um
finished our contract with our vendors, which helped us with the weight list. And we've noticed there were a couple of um concerns that popped up with the funding of the program. So, if we stayed
the course, um we would have had to raise tuition about $275 more a month per family. or um we would need to kind of come up with a new idea. So
what we decided to do is kind of change extended day. Uh we're looking to change the name of extended day to the reading community education base program. It would be the before, after
school and enrichment and it kind of would help alleviate um that extended day model. It's now defining it before, after school and enrichments. Uh so the before and after school is
pretty much um is is is what we're the extended day would be. It's it's the before school and the after school. And the enrichments would be the contracted vendors, but they'd be pulled aside. They'd be pulled out. We decided to pull
them pull them away from extended day for two reasons. based on community feedback from the students, the parents and staff, um we've noticed that some students although they they love SNL every single day, they wouldn't like the
other program that we had, kids test kitchen or um kid kid theater program that came in. And then we also had community families that wanted to take part in these programs, but we could not
allow them in. it was set up just for extended day. So those are the the two reasons of why we wanted to change. Um so the reason you know we wanted to maintain the long-term financial
stability of the program for the before and after school program. We want to respond to higher demand for child care and expand options be u beyond the traditional just after school program. And we wanted to what we've seen is an
um parents schedules have adapted. A lot more parents are going back to work nowadays as we see that they're going back into the office. We're seeing families sign up more for 5 days as opposed to two days or three days which
would have allow us to take take more. Now we're we're kind of shortening our window. Um this slide here just kind of gives you the breakdown of the three different programs. The before school, the afterchool and then the enrichments.
Again, our goal for before school and after school is to provide a safe, structured and engaging environment for children in prek through fifth grade during the hours of before school and after school. Um we we'll in operation
when school's in operation. Um and we're the base program is to support students social, physical and some academic development throughout our age appropriate activities with our staff and with support of um supervision
as well. Uh the before school program it's um they participate in daily morning activities. We get them kind of moving in the morning, try to get that energy out so they're not bouncing around in the classroom. Um, we go to the gym,
they do arts and crafts, free play. They're provided breakfast from with the from food services and in lunch we provide a excuse me and after school we provide a snack as well. So the nutrition part is kind of taken taken
care of by us. So the changes for the enrichment is now the the enrichment will not be part of extended day exclusively. It will still be there. It will still be offered. Um, it will be offered for the
entire community. So, when we run SNL at Barrows, any student at Barrows or a student at Birch that might like the sport that they're playing could come over, provided the parent provides transportation and partake in that
activity. Extended day students would be able to sign up and register for that program at a discounted rate. Um, and so that's kind of the biggest difference to the program. And this kind of just just shows you
what the activities would be. They'd be one hour weekly sessions. Um right now on the docket we have SNL. We have kids test kitchen. Uh we have cinema kids which is a film making uh foreign
language chess. Uh kid create which is arts and crafts types of programs. These are all set to go in the fall. Um and we're looking to add more as well. So, and this again any student in extended date could register for that at a
discounted rate and anyone in the in the community can register. Again, these are the the the um vendors that we've already partnered with and we've set up our schedule. So I just want to give you kind of a breakdown on the numbers for extended
day for the last three years with our totals. Before school in 232 24 we had a little little over 200. Um before school kind of dropped last year 195 and now this year we have 249 registered for
before school. Our afterchool totals you see have kind of gone up. Uh the for two year in 23 24 25 we went up about 100 students and we were able to maintain that same number this year even by
moving the contracted vendors out. So um we were able to keep the same numbers. The weight list is the issue that we have. Um the wait list exploded this year and again I think it's the times a
lot of the families going back to work, a lot of the parents going back to work looking for child care. Uh families moving into town um actually add into it as well. So that's that 113 number is a number that I don't like looking at. I
don't like weight lists and we're trying our best to accommodate that. Um we've had couple teachers leave. We were able to hire a couple new ones. I'm interviewing three people tomorrow. Hopefully, they work out. That will help
us reduce the number a bit. Uh but it also is turning into another problem, which is space. Uh our numbers are getting so big. The space in the buildings are it's dwindling down. And if you look, I think our number of 663
is bigger than any elementary school in district. I don't think there's an elementary school that has 663 students um involved. So, where are the after school programs right now, Josh? All the elementary school. Every elementary school and um at the
rise high school. Yeah. As well. And this kind of just breaks down those numbers by each school. Um the RISE program, we moved Rise Kllum this year over to the high school with the mods.
So it just kind of gives you the breakdown for the of the schools. And this gives you the um the final two schools. Here's a little breakdown of our budget that you might be interested in.
So uh two years ago when we came we had a nice fund balance and we knew that would carry us for the two years. That's why we engaged in the program. After the two years you can see the fund balance drop um for the FY25
uh budget and our projections for FY26 looks like the fund balance will be going up. Now, it's a projection and we know things can change. Um, but we're pretty confident that we'll we'll hit that mark.
Chris, just check me on if I'm remembering this correctly. The enrichment programs um for the last couple years of this pilot, they've been available to students who are enrolled in after school extended. They were available to those students at
no additional cost. Is that right? Correct. So, and and that's presumably part of the budget turning upside down, the cost of those enrichment programs not paying for itself with with the enrollment. Absolutely. Correct. Okay. Um that that that
was the uh that was the extended day. So, some other things that we do at community ed, we have the first Lego League, drivers education, um revolution prep, SAT class for the high school, and adult education. Um, those are some of the other things that we we're handling.
Driver's education, we were able to get a new car last August. Had it out have it out on the road. Uh, that's actually a picture of it. Um, and it has made uh my life a a lot easier with scheduling.
Uh, we're able to get about uh 16 students out on the road a day with two. We have the two cars rolling now. So, it's pretty nice. our our driver's ed numbers have kind of increased um and it's it's just been a a great addition.
We actually had three students this week um pass get their licenses. We've sponsored road tests now as well. So, it's it it's pretty nice to see. Who who are the teachers? Mr. Scarpedo. Mr. Scarpedo and Mr. Tumi are fabulous.
They're fantastic. So, um, here's a here's the the U breakdown of the budget for our adult ed drivers ed and enrichments and the fund balances the have been steadily going up every year. It's in
good shape. Um, and we're continuing and we're we're projecting it to be in in great shape for next year as well. Uh in in conclusion, um these are some of our goals for this year. Uh the number one goal is to eliminate the
weight list for the base program, the extended day. That's our number one goal. Uh we'd it may not happen uh in September, but we would love to be able to offer everyone on that weight list a spot by um Christmas, which was when I
first came here six years ago. I was able to do. uh I started in November and was able to clear the weight list in December. So that's our goal. Um and then we continue to uh expand our offerings. I I'd love to increase. We're
looking to increase our adult um programming. We're looking to add maon yoga, Pilates, financial aid for college, some dance, some cooking. I'd love to work with um the votech in Wakefield for some like home repairs for
adult classes, uh things like that. Um and then one of our long-term goals is a a possible new office for the department. And uh one thing I didn't put there that I'm I'm really pushing for is a youth center for our middle
school, high school students. Uh, and I know that's a few years out, but that's something that I've been wanting to do for six years. Um, so that kind of wraps up my little presentation and be willing
to answer any questions you may have. Chris, one more one more question on the point I was making earlier where I was going earlier. Um for families who are have students enrolled in extended day in the afternoons in particular for this upcoming school year, have they already
started receiving communications about the feebased uh enrollment in these enrichment programs? So we have it planned out. We haven't started to share that yet. I wanted to come and share with the school committee first and um tomorrow we'll be start
sending it out. Um, Monday we have our opening welcome night where the the site the site coordinators and the staff will meet the families at each school and um we'll start spreading the word there as well. So our our PR push begins tomorrow
morning. I don't so I you know not a criticism because you're doing the responsible fiscally necessary thing. I I do worry I mean it's going to feel like a takeaway. I I don't know that families will have internalized it. We intended it as a
pilot. Um so I I do worry it's going to feel like a takeaway for families who've had, you know, had kids in extended day over the last couple of years. Um like I said, I don't really have anything to offer. It's a better a better solution. So So certainly not criticism. I think it's just something
for us to be aware of and prepared for. Yeah. No, I I appreciate that. Um I I agree with you. Uh, this kind of goes back to an old model of when we offered Jeep or Apple or ASF. Um, so it's kind of like a return to the to the old
school of of the programming with this piece added in um with a little bit more of the offerings. So yeah, I mean I suppose the alternative would be we include it for extended day students and then raise the overall, you know, raise the baseline price to offset
the additional cost. So this is a little bit of giving families choice. You know, if they prefer those enrichment programs, they have that option. But um you know, keeping extended day affordable generally speaking, I think that's key. What Sean is saying right there is managing the message.
Correct. Yes. Managing the message in terms of that. And hopefully over the last couple years, we have been saying these are pilot programs. So they they've been hearing that to some degree. But now you're managing the message that there's there's some optionality here. You know, Johnny, Joey, Sally likes X and Y. they didn't like A and B. Now they can do
more of X and less of A and B, whatever the case might be. Correct. Um, and think through that. So, that's going to be really important as the team rolls that out. Chris, um, Sean, can I keep going with another question real quick? Please. Um, I noticed that Lego League is
explicitly excluded from base as its own thing. Why is it not part of the E of bass, at least at the elementary level? Um it's it's because it we kind of look at that as it has a middle school branch to it and so the base is more
elementary. Um so it's it could actually technically be in both. Uh we just we just kind of moved it moved it out into that one because it's it's a little bit different um than than some of these other programs. We're looking for parent
coach volunteers. Um and it's it's like a longer program. It's, you know, longer duration goes from should begin in mid to late September and go all the way through March where these other programs are 6 8 week windows and then they'll
take a little break and then start again. So, so it's a little a little different. And have we looked at more enrichment that would be academic in nature besides the foreign language stuff? We talked about anything else that we could do there to continue to to bolt on or
extend the school day academically as well. Um, so we look at bringing in a lot of different things centered around academics. We're looking to bring in coding. Um, I keep looking for instructors for like a Russian math uh some things that that are kind of
outside of Yeah. Well, they're outside of like the, you know, the math curriculum that may be taught, but it's it's it's more of an education thing. A lot of the STEM, a lot of the engineering, uh, types of programs we like to bring in. Um, some
science. Um, there there's a number of different things that we want to bring in again space-wise because we get, you know, we're in the calf, we're in the gyms, we're in the libraries, the art rooms, the music rooms. Uh, and we're getting pretty big and I don't want to
get into classrooms. Um, being married to a teacher, I I totally understand that and and that's something that I I don't I I totally respect and I get and um and so so but what we can alternate, you know, we can do a season of chess
and then switch and bring in, you know, math or um bring in the stems uh for for the different seasons. And another reason why I strict I stick to strictly kind of academic in nature
is um there is a more of a gentleman's agreement with the recreation department. Um I don't want to over I don't want to step on their toes. I don't want to offer programs that they offer. Um I want to be respectful to to them or both town departments. Um so I
so I do kind of stay on the side of academics. Okay. All right. Thanks, Chris. Why don't you uh get out of here just a couple hours late. All right. Yeah, just in time for my bedtime. Thank you. I just want to close to thanking Chris for his leadership. I think his job is
one of the unsung jobs behind the scenes. Yet, as you see the list of the amount of students that he's impacting, uh, you know, close to a thousand students is truly incredible. yet often has received the thanks for the work just the the amount that's thrown on his plate both in planning and also sort of in reaction fire you know fire putting
out mode too. So I think I just appreciate Chris also his his visionary leadership through the last couple years of coming up with creative offerings for kids with this weight list of 113. You can tell that there was some success the last couple years more students are wanting to be involved which is really exciting too. So I just know a lot of people you know you know I know you're
behind the scenes a lot of things but just thank you for all your work you do and I hope people recognize that. You know Chris really doing an amazing job leading the program and it's uh not an easy gig. So thank you for everything you do and excited about the year ahead. Thank you. You Thank you. Have a good night. You too. Anybody
else want to uh you want to do Ramsey Ramsey's and we have Sarah online too uh for said I I mean I think all those three the next three are very quick I so
keeping in so let's uh let's go to the rental policy agreement let's get us up there great so you'll find that in your packet to cover I'm just going to go quick on the next few and if you want more detail you can uh this was driven by some input from our community uh mostly rental groups that the dates to request space and then receive approval for those
dates was later in the season than they would hope and sort of put them behind the eightball and then being able to schedule events, games. Uh for example, a lot of our like winter basketball leagues were already had the rest of leagues scheduled and by the time you know we got our dates out there, we were sort of already scrambling too. So these
there's no negative impact on our uh athletic programming at the high school. So, it's it's a it's a win-win sort of all around. And that's the most significant change in the policy outside of gender neutral language is just around sort of those rental uh you know, dates and times as well.
And I should say thanks to Tom, Kevin Gersonner, and I sort of all worked through this uh collaboratively as well. Car motion move to approve the updated rental policy agreement. Is there a second?
Second. Any discussion? Tom, you look contemplative. Okay. No. No. Nope. It's all good. All right. Uh, let's move the vote. Carla, yes. Laura, yes. Tom, yes. Aaron, yes.
Sarah, yes. And it's a yes from me as well. Okay. Uh, we're going to Dr. Harding next. Let me click accept policy. susceptible use policy you'll see is a very small update to the policy just is integration of uh AI language around AI and that language
was given directly to us from legal counsel. Sarah Hardy has been working collaboratively with Julian and with others on this behind the scenes as well as here if you have any questions otherwise uh that's just a kind of a quick high level overview being part of the technology working group. I would say that this is um this
is again in front of anticipated issues. This is not sort of the conclusion of our work around how we integrate AI and education around AI into uh into our district. Um but this is you know I think appropriately put this in place on our back foot should we have any any
issues particular that we can read. I would strongly recommend that the um acceptable use policy that the student sign, so what's on page 160 of the packet, um also include an AI statement
in conjunction with that new language. I noticed that there was no update to what the students are signing and I know from experience that they are very happy to exploit loopholes and so I think it would probably be a good idea to put a statement in there um that reiterates
that students agree not to use any AI tools unless they've been instructed by the staff that it is an approved tool. But I think the language itself is good. I second that recommendation. Yep. It's good feedback. Great, great, great catch.
I've dealt with a lot of loophole syllabus loopholes in my time. Okay. Um, any further discussion on this one? Right. Let's move to Oh, wait. We make a
motion. Need a motion. move to approve the updated acceptable use policy. Is there a second? Second with a friendly amendment. Go for it. As amended by by recommendation by Laura. So the just so we're clear on what that
recommendation is. So the it's not the policy. Go ahead. Sorry. Except we use policy for students includes an AI statement. The ask is that the signature page explicitly call out sort of a shortened version of that AI acceptable use.
That's my recommendation. Yeah. Yes. I will not use I will something like I will not use AI unless it's been explicitly approved. Yeah. Or something like that. Okay. Sarah Sarah's nodding in agreement. I think she knows what our intent is. So, yep.
Okay. I'm good with that as a current amendment. Um, any further discussion? Okay, we're going to vote. Carla, yes. Laura, yes. Tom, yes. Aaron, yes. Sarah,
yes. Sean, yes. Um, okay. And then that takes us to Where does that take us to? Um, beginning of school year update. Dr. Messi, I think you covered most of this during your report. Any additional comments here on that update?
No. Okay. Uh, let's go to Ramsey. Welcome, Ramsey. So, I think the committee has all met Ramsey. I'll just take 30 seconds to introduce Ramsay in case anyone is uh watching here at home. Uh, we're
thrilled to welcome Ramsey Merritt to our central office leadership team. Ramsey is in the last year of his three-year doctoral program at Harvard and was spending his residency, which is a full-time residency with us uh on our central office leadership team. Also a huge thank you to Harvard for funding Ramsay's residency as well. And that's
the second year in a row that that's funded residency through uh through Harvard. Uh Ramsay will be taking on a variety of projects with as an extension of our central office leadership team in a variety of areas. Uh the with the bulk of his work being around uh teacher uh
like uh pipelines of leadership development and continued leadership development support coaching for our existing leaders leaders and leadership team. Uh so therefore his title while it's you know behind the scenes a sort of uh doctoral resident uh is going to be director of uh teach of leadership
development for our district as well. I think for those who have met Ramsey know that you can look at find his qualifications and resume in the packet. Uh extremely skilled uh impressive background around teaching and learning. I just think we're uh really lucky to have your uh talent and leadership with us for the year too. So want to give you
the chance. I know it's 10 pm, so maybe a very brief uh word of welcome and then give the committee any chance to share anything that you'd like or any questions that you have for Ramsey. I had to resist so many jokes there. Come on. Interest of time. Um no, it's a pleasure to be here. Um working with Tom and
Sarah and Jen is just a pleasure as well. Um I know all of the principles really really well and so I'm those relationships are already existing and I'm happy to just continue that work with them and then like uh like Dr.
Milleski said we are really looking to develop pipelines for leadership and and take advantage of where we have real strengths especially in our elementary schools where we don't have a lot of opportunities for teacher leadership. there are some ways that we can do that.
And um I'm also going to be starting a cohort of voluntary cohort of assistant principles and sped team chairs who are looking to one day be principles. So giving them something explicit. Um but I'm happy to be here. That's it.
We're happy to have you. I'm excited about that. But I was surprised. What about our math? What's What's up, man? You're a math guy. I'm I I I will say that I do still talk to Dr. Hardy and Maryanne Lynn quite a bit
about math. It's not fallen off, but it's not a official part of of my strategic project. Let me build on that for Tom's point too. So, you may know Ramsay was very involved two years ago in his first year of sort of the work that happened at Parker around revamping math instruction. I think he's uh very well
respected and appreciated in the Parker community, too. Ramsay has to choose a a project that's his focus of his mini dissertation or called a capstone and that will likely be around leader development. That does not mean he won't be involved in a variety of other projects of our team. He actually just
wrote a book around math instruction as well that was just recently published. I did. So to think that how many copies do we need for the district? Thinking we will not be leveraging that skill set I think is uh is would be a miss on our part. I I I feel sure I'll be pulled in many directions and I'm happy to be pulled.
So, wherever I'm needed, I'll go. Leadership development is definitely one that we've been talking about for a while and we've made some progress, but we need to continue to make more. So, glad to have you focus and with an eye of of where it will be left off and who will pick up the reins on some of these things. So, it's not
going to be a one year and done thing. every single project that I'm working on, there's a little column on the spreadsheet of who takes this on. Now, whether they do No, I'm just kidding. Um, we have a plan. We have a plan to keep it going. Yeah. For for anyone who might still be
watching at home, we had the pleasure of having Ramsay facilitate our our retreat a couple weeks back. And um, you know, your skills as a facilitator are outstanding, but it's easy to see how they translate to this this work that you're doing in the district as well. So despite your unfortunate choice of undergraduate institution, uh we are we
are thrilled to have you here. Um vice chair, can we strike that from the record, please? I'm going to actually make sure that's in the minutes. Now we're thrilled to have you and uh very lucky to have you. And if any of you ever want to reach out
directly to me, you're more than welcome to as long as that's okay. Well, Duke and UNC. Yeah. Okay. Go Tarheels. Thanks everybody. Yeah, go Tar Hills. All right. Anything else?
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for sticking around. All right. Uh Dr. I think we are going to an intro to your goals next. Yep. So to tee it up for the committee too, tonight is just an uh kind of an
introduction of draft goals. I think we can have more robust conversation in the next school committee meeting after your feedback and maybe when it's a little bit earlier too. Just want to flag a couple of things for you in the draft goals. Uh consolidated down to three goals. I think one is a very similar goal around student outcome data. Uh you
would see last in the last goals around hitting 80% of DESIE determined MCCAST achievement and growth targets at both the school and district level. This time we've also added in uh those same goals around our high needs groups, our MLL group, uh students with disabilities and students of color. So that's I know we've talked a lot about ensuring the
success of all students. The goal last I thought over the last two years to not explicitly name those groups. Uh so I think it's really important that our growth and uh count growth and achievement targets are also reflective of those demographic groups as well. You'll also see an addition of uh of AP
data in there. So increasing uh AP annual AP exams taken three plus scores four plus scores and then also continued expansion innovation uh pathway enrollment that's all around goal one uh goal two I feel that was the goal that as we looked at the summit of evaluation
from last the last two years that was an area that we did not uh hit where we wanted to be a lot of work to be done in there and I think we're on an exciting path with the u introduction of edge climber so I think it's important that we maintain that goal as written with a small small dates of of tweaks on dates
uh because I think that's sort of what's going to drive a lot of our work ahead. Goal three, I know we focused on principal leadership development the last four or five years. Uh again with the addition of Ramsey, I think that we've all talked many of times about sort of the way we move the needle in district is through investing in our
principles. With the addition of Edgy Climber, I think it's really important that our central office and I continue to focus our work on principal leadership development because that's ultimately what's the the biggest lever that we have to be able to improve student outcomes. So over the next before the next committee meeting,
whether you have feedback tonight on the floor that you want to share, I'm open to feedback. Whether you have feedback sort of one-on-one or after, I'm happy to, you know, incorporate any feedback and bring some updated draft goals for the next school committee meeting as well. One thing other thing I should have flagged in goal one uh also I am
trying to focus on outcome data. Also recognize that MCCAST sort of is shouldn't and isn't the only metric of success but I'm trying to focus on measures that are objective. I I'd rather not have measures that are subjective in there because I think that's just tougher to for us to sort of uh center around to. So with that I'll
open up to any questions or feedback. Um and knowing we have another meeting in a couple of weeks. Um the pathways goal 230 students. Yep. I thought we had a 50 student cap.
Did we raise the cap? Have we increased our capacity? And if we have a 50 student cap, 230 is not possible. 50 student cap per per grade. Yeah. Per grade. So there's four grades. That's 200, right? Yeah. Yeah. So what our hope is is for
us to be able to continue to expand what is sort of pathway programs um per grade per path. So correct. Yes. Correct. So now with more pathways we think correct account. Correct. Okay. Yep. Okay. Sorry. Thank you.
Um, I'm going to want to talk about too when we more at more at during our 101 and then we can figure out how that ties back in at some point as well. Great. All right. Any other initial feedback? We will we will take this up again um
and formally approve the goals likely in our next meeting. and Sean, I'll make sure to reach out to committee members to gather feedback to over the next couple of weeks, but I just wanted to make sure to get the conversation started. Yep. Okay. Um, so no vote on that one. So, so
next we'll go to the uh superintendent review timeline. Um, there there really are two decisions we need to make around the superintendent review. One is the timeline, which we'll do tonight, and then the second is around sort of how we're going to think about focus indicators, which we've moved around on a bit over the last few years. Um I just
want to settle on the timeline tonight and we'll we'll come back and discuss on focus indicators next time. Um the two options fundamentally are uh we do an annual review. So we would do a formative review in the winter in the January early February timeline and then
um a final review in the May June time frame. Um or a two-year review which is what we did for Dr. Milesky this this last cycle where we have a formative review um at the end of this school year. So the you know May June time frame 2026 and then the summitive review
would follow in May or June of 2027. Um so we you know we're free to you can we can discuss the merits. I don't see any particular reason to go back to a one-year timeline personally. Um so my proposal would be to stick with two but that's obviously up for this committee to decide. So I'll open the floor if
anybody sees it differently. Go ahead. Nobody else is speaking up, so I'll speak up real quick. Um, I was opposed to the two-year when we did it two years ago, but after doing it, I like it. I'd like to stay I like to keep it that way. Um,
I know you wanted to not do the focus indicators, but one of the reasons why I liked it is because we could cover a lot in that two-year period. So, we'll get that we'll get to that when the time comes, but I I think the two-year worked and worked really well. That was part of my thinking was separate those two
discussions a little bit because it it gets muddied, you know, um when we try to do it all at once. Um okay, so Carla um need a motion including specifically a two-year timeline with a a summitative
in um June of 2027. Move to approve the superintendent review timeline two-year review cycle timeline with a formative review in May June of 2026 and a summit of review in May June of 2027.
Second by any additional discussion. Okay, let's vote. Carla, yes. Laura, yes. Tom, yes. Aaron, yes. Sarah, yes.
And Sean, yes. Okay, thanks everyone. Um, all right. So, let's go then to the student handbook revision. Uh, Dr. Milk, I'll take it to you at this one. Great. This was purely driven by the recent Supreme uh court case, Mimmude. Uh, and in response, uh, legal council
provide us with some language that should be updated in our handbook. So if you look into our student handbook, uh the only updated language says consistent with Massachusetts regulations, the Reading Public Schools through its curricula materials, it encourages respect for the human and civil rights of all individuals regardless of race, color, sex, gender
identity, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation. In accordance with the district guidelines, families may request information from the building principle on available accommodations related to curriculum content. So that's the only addition to the handbook. uh sort of the guidance from uh legal council obviously was to develop a
protocol sort of with families want to request information uh regarding uh curriculum content which we have obviously uh developed internally. So happy to answer any questions on that but again it's a pretty straightforward uh update just given uh legal council's
guidance. Let's start with a motion and we'll see if there's any discussion. Move to approve the updated district-wide student handbook. Second. Second by Laura. Any further discussion or questions? Okay, we go to the vote. Carla,
yes. Laura, yes. Tom, yes. Yes. Sarah, yes. Yes. Okay. Um All right. So, now we're going to go to executive session. Expect
this to be relatively brief and then we do anticipate coming back to open session. So, um, Carla, can you, um, make a motion, please? Sure. Move to enter into executive session in preparation for negotiations with non-UN personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or
contract negotiations with non-UN personnel, the superintendent, and we will be returning to open session in approximately 15 minutes. Second, seconded by Tom. Uh, roll call. Carla, yes.
Laura, yes. Tom, yes. Aaron, yes. Sarah, yes. Sean, yes. Um if you all in the room need a couple minutes feel free to take that and we'll we'll join You're muted. Are you muted?
Sean can't. Nope. No, you're not muted. She He should be able to hear you now. Okay, Sean, you should hear us now. No, he's muted. I don't know. Oh, Sean's muted. Sean's muted. Here, we can move.
Yeah. You're going to have to um you'll have to make that phone otherwise they have to be individually unmuted. Why can't we Got it. What are we trying to do? Make Yeah. Um you know what? Cuz we made him We
If you're host, you can make them co-hosts. Yeah, we got to make your host. Yeah, he's got he's the host. One second. The last few meetings. All right. Um, I'll call it back to order 1034. We need a roll call back
order. Carlo, yes. Laura, yes. Tom, yes. Aaron, yes. Sarah. Sarah. It's muted. Y
back over at 10:34. Right. So, um in executive session, we just reached agreement with Dr. Million, uh on a new contract. Um this will be a I believe it's called a successor contract which replaces his existing one
versus amending it. Um it'll take effect retroactively July 1st of this year and continue through June 30th of 2031. Um the the primary, you know, alterations from this current contract are um his
base salary effective the 2526 school year will be 242,000. Um we're limiting the annual retention payments that were part of this prior contract uh which previously were were $2,000 per year. We're eliminating those. Um we have structured two
retention payments um later in the contract. one which was is payable on uh on or after June 30th of 2029 for $30,000 subject to Dr. Milesky receiving uh satisfactory or exemplary performance on all of his summitive reviews during
the course of this contract and then an additional retention payment of $15,000 on June 30th of 2031 um subject to those same performance expectations. We're also incrementing uh Dr. Melanchesky's vacation time by two days
um and adding an additional personal day as well. Um those are the primary modifications. There there are some additional you know minor ones around removing the new superintendent induction program and things like that that aren't aren't you know terribly
relevant anymore. Um but otherwise uh otherwise this contract will largely carried forward as it as it currently exists. Um, so any uh anything from the committee to add before I uh before we go to the vote before I go to the
contract? Anything to add on the contract itself or I should say on the contract itself? No. Okay. So, I'll just say um you know this is this is now the second time uh we we've amended Dr. Contract in the you
know handful years we've been here. Um, I think it's it's, you know, to me it's evidence of the fact that we we really believe we have the absolute best superintendent for this district um in in our in our midst here. Um, Dr. Dr. in
addition to being sort of a phenomenal leader um in the thing that he leads independ that he leads himself was really a force multiplier that gets so much you know get so much more out of this district than out of the other leaders incredible leaders that he's brought in and added to the team along
the way. Um, you know, even you saw it tonight with Ramsay, even his relationships at Harvard that have brought us um, you know, really talented folks for free for a couple years in a row. Um, is a is a value add to our district that, um, you know, you don't you don't get with just anybody. You get
it from somebody like Dr. Milesky who people want to come work with and work for. U, who has the reputation that he has, who's, you know, done the kinds of things that he has in his in his career. Um, and so we we feel very fortunate to have him and want to keep him around for a very long time, which is what this
this uh contract is indicative of. So, any other um any other comments from the committee for Dr. Milk before we take it to a vote and go home and get some sleep? I'll say thank you and I just really uh I love working in this community. I love
the love the community, love the students, love the staff, uh the families. It's a it's a great place to work and I'm really excited to be here for uh many years to come. So, thank you for your continued support. Looking forward to all the collaboration ahead and continuing to do the right work for our students. So, thank you,
John. I think you summed it up very well. Thank you. Except I would say the best superintendent in the state, not just for this district. I would take that qualification out. You know, I don't know every other There's some good ones out there. Um I I
wouldn't want I wouldn't want to replace him with any of them. Let's put it that way. So, you know, so that let's put it that way. All right. Uh let's move to a vote by roll call. Carla, yes. Laura, yes. Tom, yes.
Aaron, yes. Sarah, yes. Sean, yes. Did we have a second? Thank you, everyone. Did we have a second? If we don't If we didn't have a second, I second. There was a question if we had a second on the motion, but All right, let's do the vote again. This is an important one.
I second. This is one like the three things we're All right, seconded by Tom. Let's redo the vote. Carla, yes. Laura, yes. Tom, yes. Again. Aaron, yes. Sarah,
enthusiastic. Yes. Sean is still yes. Okay. Uh, is there a final motion? Motion. Motion to second. Seconded by Carla. Um, it's still roll. Yes. Laura, yep.
Tom, yes. Aaron, yes. Sarah, yes. Yes. Good night everyone. Good night.