--------- So, I know um Kevin is going to be late and Carrie won't be [Music] attending. So, we have Dr. Lopez. Let's see. Want to So, we need S to get started. Yeah. At
the minimum, you need a Yeah. Are Kevin and Carrie not able to join? Uh, yes. Well, Kevin's going to be late and Carrie was unable to join tonight
and so um in order to have three members voting members, we need S to come online here to be able to get started. Otherwise, the June meeting is going to be very, very, very
long if we don't get through this long agenda tonight. I had a hard time uh coming in onto the Zoom. The uh the link didn't work pro did I'm very tech unsavvy though so I just assumed it was me. I did too. I did
too. Um I had to like update my Zoom to get in. Okay. It's in my iOS what didn't support Zoom. Correct. And then I had to put in the meeting ID which I never did before. Yeah. I know with Zoom, if you don't up
your laptop on like a like um its routine updates, you will have problems with Zoom because that happened to me last month. I didn't update my my laptop and it wouldn't let me into Zoom. So, in the future, just make sure your actual computer's updated because then you
won't have problems with Zoom. Just a fun fact. I thought it was on automatic updates, but you never know. I'll double check. Honestly, Joan, I also have mine on automatic updates and it never does it. So Oh, really? Yeah. It's the It's
the strangest thing. I had to just update my laptop before this Zoom meeting and thank goodness I did cuz I would have also been late if I didn't. Okay. Yeah, I was I got on at 7 uh 6:59. Worst of its kind. If this happens
tonight, Rick, are you able to elevate either myself or Jerry in case? Aha. Yes, that is But I forgot about that option. That is Or do you need more voting members to
elevate? I I think we just need we just need three voting members. Okay. So, that doesn't solve the problem. Yeah, that would solve the problem. Got it. Okay. Well, let's give give S one more minute
and then um we'll we'll get started. So, if you elevate um Sophie, we can get and she can vote. Yes. um either Sophie or Jerry, you know, if
they're elevated to full member for this meeting or at least until a full member at least until S and or Kevin arrives. Then we can start the meeting um go through as far as we can and then um
when either Sal or Kevin arrives, I think we can we would revert to sort of our standard quorum. Is there anybody in the waiting room? Nobody in the waiting room. Okay, thank you.
Okay. [Music] Um, I think we've only done this I've only done this once before in five years, but I don't think it requires a vote. um wouldn't make sense to require a
vote and [Music] um you know Jerry uh Jerry you there can unmute you I'm here you're here okay um as a sort of more senior associate
member um and also as your second to last meeting um it might make most sense to have uh to elevate you to a full member so we can get started until either Kevin or S comes online. Is that okay? Yeah, happy to help.
Great. Um, so I'm going to call the meeting to order. Um, do a roll call. Uh, just state your name. Uh, Jerry Jerry Kramer, Sophie Sophie Hansen,
Joan Joan Wetzel, and Rick Lopez. Okay. So, tonight's agenda is um there's a lot of information um a little couple votes, but uh mostlyformational followup on a number
of items that we've been um dealing with. And um so after we um catch up on our minutes from the last couple meetings, we'll do public comment if we need to. um have a discussion with regarding the
YMCA's annual request uh for approval of um uh of their summer camps uh prior to an inspection. Um I believe Starbucks has changed their protocol which uh has
made it uh uh in compliance with our regulations. Um and so they do not need to we're going to defer um on that agenda item because they don't need a variance if
they're already uh in compliance. Um so that's we can cross that off. And then um we have a cease and desist order regarding um chickens update on 1051 Main Street that we've
been following, a shared services update with Annette uh Garcia. Um and then just sort of updates from a day on the MBETA sound study. Um 178 Main Street, their tobacco
suspension that we authorized the rodent program. Um feeding wildlife. I'm looking at this and I believe you're hoping to take a vote and the agenda only has in form.
Um may have been a a typo. Um, we'll have to ask our parliamentarian Kevin when he comes as to whether we can do that or not. Um, because he'll he'll certainly slap our wrist if we can't. Uh, and then um the
usual monthly update followup on the volunteer application process and we'll wrap up. So, that's it's quite a lengthy agenda, but uh we're going to get through it. Um, so why don't we go ahead and get
started. So in terms of the minutes, we were sort of lagging by one meeting. Um, and we now have minutes for March 13th and April 10th uh, that were distributed prior to the meeting. Uh, were there any
um, edits or changes or uh, to the minutes that people reviewed? Yes. Sean, one very minor thing um on the third page in March um under um inspection report, it talks about um a uh
reinspection and going back and reinstating the importance of health um roles. I believe I'm paraphrasing and um I believe it should say restate, not reinstate. importance
to each step to state the importance. Yes, good point. Um Haley, do you you see that there? Yes, I do. I'll make sure that. Yeah.
Okay. Any other edits to the these two minutes that we can do them together? I don't have any change of myself. Uh, so I'd make a motion to approve the minutes for March 13th, uh, and April 10th. Do I have a second?
Second. Okay. Um, vote. Uh, Jerry, yes. Joan, yes. Rick, yes. Okay, moving on to public comment.
Um, so, uh, I see one I see one member of the public or group of the public, McKenzie writings. Um, if there's a desire to make a public
comment, um, you can click, uh, at the bottom of your screen that says reactions and click on the, uh, raise your hand and we will unmute you. Um, otherwise, if you're just joining to to
listen to the proceedings, that's fine, J. Okay. [Music] Um, so why don't we unmute you if you can do that Haley?
Yes, she should be unmuted. Hi everyone. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Thank you for uh letting me in. I'm um just literally here to hear about the MBTA sound study. So, um, I will follow
along, but the MBTA sound study is the thing I'm most interested in hearing about. Okay, very good. That occurs later in the agenda and, um, you you're more than welcome to come. Thank you for taking the
time. Okay, moving on to uh, agenda number five, the YMCA. Um I don't see um sorry Rick another member of the public just joined so I didn't know if they wanted to speak for public comment as well. Oh
uh Mr. Praau if you want to speak in public comment for your two minutes um please click reactions at the bottom of your screen and click on the raise hand and we will unmute you. I think Mr. Prada is here for the sound
study as well. As well to listen in. Okay. Correct. And he has um he was the one that sent um the emails that I forwarded to the board. Yes. Yep. Okay. Good. Um okay. A day. Do you want to sort of
uh raise the issue of what the YMCA is requesting? Yes. So um this happens every year, you know, since I've been here. Um so the YMCA is requesting a license
to operate a recreational camp for children without prior inspection. Um this isn't is in accordance with 105 CMR 43000 which is the minimum standards for
recreational camps for children. Um the state code allows a day camp which is YMCA at the discretion of the board of health be granted a license without prior inspection based on certain requirements. Now the you know the YMCA
meets all the requirements. However, they cannot be here tonight because it's out of their working hours and um they are requesting I grant this license and future licenses to them without attending a board of health
meeting. Now, we've been going back and forth regarding this for 3 to four years. Um, if the board is fine with with the request, um, please feel free to take a vote to authorize me to grant the license without prior inspections to
um, YMCA for this season and future seasons. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions? Have we we've granted the license previously without the inspection?
Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I think we've done it without the inspection at least at least a couple times. Yeah. Because the inspection it it has to do with them in being able to enroll I think um children
into these camps and uh without an authorization from the board of health. So this gives them the ability to uh enroll the students and then as soon as the camps are open um you know an inspection is performed uh by the health
but um it's there are in the materials that we got in advance there are um six preconditions in order for this to happen um and uh the YMCA meets all
This is kind of a routine every year thing. There's never been that I'm aware of um any issues uh with the camps in terms of the board of health. And so they're just trying to streamline the process here so they don't have to come
back every May and and go through this. So, if uh there are no other comments or or suggestions, I'd make a motion to um authorize the public health director to
um provide a um author to provide a permit for the YMCA for their summer camps um before an inspection is done. providing they um
meet the six requirements that are listed in um 105 CMR430.650 and um and to do an inspection as soon as the camps are open. And I would also
include in this motion uh that this is this authorization um is uh permanent or at least going forward for future years until the board uh makes any decisions to resend it.
Second. Okay. Uh roll call. Uh Jerry, yes. Joan, yes. And Rick, yes. Great. Thank you. So as I said earlier in terms of the Starbucks variance day, you said that
they changed their process so they're in compliance with regulations. So we don't need to discuss the variance. Correct. So they made some last minute clarifications and that would except exempt them from being you know before the board of health to request the variance. Okay. So um as a result
they're not attending the meeting tonight. Okay. Um, so Dave, you want to talk about um item number seven, the cease and desist order? Yes. So, um, this 31 Audabon
Street. Uh, it originally started off as a complaint about chickens being kept on the property without a permit. We contacted uh, Mr. and Mrs. campus multiple times and we informed
them. I think S is about to to come in to join the meeting. Okay. And Kevin is about to join as well. So, we informed um we contacted uh the owners uh Mr. and Mrs. Campus multiple times and informed them about
pulling a permit and going through the necessary uh procedures to be able to keep chickens on their property. Um we also issued a cease and desist because this situation persisted. We didn't get any
resolution. Um you know Mrs. Campos informed us that they had just moved in and you know they're planning to build a chicken coupe. We informed them you know they have to pull a permit. Um the building department has to review
the permit, look at the setbacks. We need to know the types of feed and you know the housing conditions for the chicken. And um so far we haven't received an application. No word from the campus.
Um I'm not sure if they're here tonight. We informed them to be present at this meeting but um I don't see anybody from 31 other button on the screen. So I um I mean technically
uh this is a hearing and I guess we should have formally opened it but I guess the um without a representative from the campos uh folks um let me ask you a day did
they um When the cease and disorder notice was provided, did they get rid of the chickens and comply with that order? So, I can't definitively tell you that they did. I drove by, I didn't see any
chickens, and the neighbors that were complaining, you know, they stopped complaining. They've not been complaining for over a week or so. So again, I can't say 100% that they got rid of the chickens, but I didn't see
any when I drove by, and the neighbors are not complaining. They're no longer complaining. So, um Okay. So, at this point, um it sounds to me more of an update.
Um and I'm not sure what more needs to be done. I think that if uh sounds like they pro we probably need a formal inspection to ensure that they've complied with the cease and desist order at you know correct. Um at
this point I believe we're going to start finding them if you know if we find any chickens on the property right and then we'll take further actions after that. Okay. Okay. So, we're I don't think as a board we need to take any action right now.
Um, everything that you're planning to do is already something that you have authorizations to do, correct? Okay. Um, just to make a note that
um S is with us. S, you here? Yeah, I'm here. I still having problems, but I'll I'm here. You hear? You can hear and you can speak. And that's I can hear. Yes. Yes. And Kevin, are you here? Uh, we don't hear you. I just made him a
co-host. Okay, let's see. And I see I saw Russo on Yes, I saw Russo as well. Yeah, Kevin, can you hear us? Ellie, is Kevin unmuted? It says that
he's unmuted. I'm just not having technical difficulties. [Music] Okay. Okay. Um, we just lost Kevin. He probably is gonna log back in. So, why don't we why
don't we continue. Um, so we're going to uh go on to agenda number eight. And I would also say that now that S has arrived, we have three voting members, we have full of quorum, and Jerry's role
as uh we'll will step down uh for the remainder of the meeting. Thank you, Jerry. [Music] Everybody. Oh, it sounds like Hey, Kevin. Um, okay. So, AD, do you want to um Yes.
talk a little bit about 1051? 1051. I'll give a quick update. This has been an ongoing uh issue situation that has now come to an end thankfully. Um, a final inspection was conducted at this location and all violations have been
corrected. Great. Finally. Right. But it appears that Mr. Babau is doing some extensive renovation uh in order to have this apartment rented again and he has been informed that he'll need
a certificate of occupancy to be able to rent it out again. and um getting a certificate of occupancy will require an inspection from the building department and the health department to ensure that the dwelling is fit for human
amputation. We have now um closed out the case and uh we'll see what happens. If he wants to rent it out, we'll conduct an inspection. If it doesn't meet the standards, he won't be able to to rent it out.
Okay, great. Sounds good. and then okay let's move on to shared services update okay and um you know again as you all know the readen health department is in a shared services collaborative with
health departments from the towns of not and lynfield north reen and the city of habil our shared services collaborative is called the middle sex public health collabor collaborative, which is a state action
for public health excellence grant recipient that aims to improve the delivery of public health services across the region. Um, Annette Garcia, who is our shared services coordinator, is here tonight to give an update. Um, Annette, please feel free to proceed
with the update. Hi, it's so great to see you all again. Um, I'm going to I have a little PowerPoint as usual. So, I'm going to see if I can share my screen to share that. See, and can you all see my screen now?
Yes. Okay, perfect. Um, so as a day said, and I know I've been here before, we're the Middle Sex, Essex Public Health Collaborative. Um, so we serve six communities, North Andover, Andover, Reading, North Reading, Lynfield, and Haveril. Um, so I know you've met me all before. I'm Annette Garcia. I'm the
shared service coordinator, which is essentially the grant manager. Um, I don't think I've ever formally introduced the rest of our team, so I thought it was a good time to do that. Um, we have Leanne Perau, who's our shared services public health nurse. Um she's been with us for just just about a
year and a half. This June it'll be a year and a half that she'll have been with us. Um we also have Shenine Pierce. She's our shared services health inspector. Um and she has been with us since last August. So she's coming up on a year. Um and she previously worked with North Andover. So she's been in the
region for a little bit longer than that. Um so what we've been doing since the last time that I was here, um we Oops. Go back. We are currently going through strate strategic planning process. So we contracted with BME strategies um and they're working with a
strategic planning subcommittee which consists mostly of our advisory board members but the shared staff also sits on it um to create a 5-year strategic plan. We have our last meeting happening in um early June and then they'll be presenting the finalized plan and we'll
be sure to share that out to all the boards as well. Um so you can kind of get a sense for where we see ourselves going in the next 5 years. Um, we've also made a lot of effort to be present at different health fairs. Um, and we were just at readings recently at the senior center. Um, and this has been a
really great opportunity to interact with um, residents and really inform them who we are as a collaborative and how we're helping support the various health departments in our um, that we serve at all the different municipalities. Um, we've also been hosting a quarterly substance misuse um,
prevention work group. So most of our um public health nurses from the collaborative sit in these meetings. Um we also have recently had some town leadership join us. Um some EMS coordinators and it's been a really great opportunity to share best practices. Um the communities are
talking about how they're using their opioid settlement funds and really sharing some of those ideas crossjurisdictionally and figuring out how we can elevate each other's work and work um as a collaborative. Um, so that's been, you know, a a really great outcome and kind of expanding our scope
beyond the health departments too to include some of those other key partners that um, the health departments regularly interact with. Um, I know last time I was here I talked a little bit about the foundational public health services reporting the state was having us do. Um, and so this was really to
look at um, you know, the different services that health departments are currently providing that relate back to those foundational public health services. Um, and we had all six of our communities complete this uh, reporting. It was a huge undertaking. It took a lot of time um, both from the departments
and then I had some one-on-one meetings to help guide um, folks through that reporting. So, it was really impressive. Um the data that came out of it has been super helpful for us as a collaborative because it really helped us identify what are those areas that um maybe there
are some gaps existing across all of our communities that the the shared services staff can really help support um amplifying those expanding the services that we have to meet those different foundational areas. Um and then as always we continue to support our
nursing and inspector needs. So that's things like helping with blood pressure clinics. um covering Maven when there's you know planned vacations, helping with restaurant inspections. Um so some things that we have coming up, we're finishing that 5-year strategic plan which is going to
be um really set that that roadwork for how we're moving forward with our work and how we're expanding our capacity. Um we are going to be hiring a second health inspector. So that'll allow us to increase the frequency that we're
providing inspectional support. um the increase the amount of um like training and planning that we can do behind the scenes as it relates to inspectional work. So um we're hoping to get that position posted soon to have it hired and starting on July 1st. Um our public
health nurse is also increasing her hours. So currently Leanne's at 24 hours. Um starting July 1st she's going to be going up to 28 hours. And so with that additional time, she's going to be taking on some additional communications um responsibilities to help ensure that
there's consistent communications across all of our municipalities. Um she's also going to be doing some epidemiology work. So she's going to be looking at disease trends across the collaborative. So looking not just at one community, but all six communities. Are we seeing
any worrying trends in reportable diseases? um and thinking about how we can tailor our programming to address those. Um we're also supporting a comprehensive training calendar. So next year we're going to be putting out a lot more opportunities for training um for the local staff and making sure to
communicate that um so that they have an idea of not only trainings that we're putting on, but making sure that we're elevating some of those other trainings the state is really looking for all um local public health staff to have. So seeing how we as a collaborative we can
support that. Um and then we're developing our fiscal year 26 work plan and budget. And some of the program areas that um really have come out of our strategic planning process that we're looking to incorporate is increasing vaccine access. Um, so working with our public health nurses to
see how can we elevate and increase the availability of not only your seasonal flu and COVID vaccines, but also looking at childhood vaccines and how we're supporting populations that may not have a medical home in making sure that they have those required vaccines to attend
school. Um, we are also supporting FDA standardization work. So, um, this is a voluntary national program and set of standards that the FDA has put out related to food safety. Um, and so our inspector subcommittee group has
identified working on the foodborne illness disease investigation standard as a priority for next fiscal year. So, going we're going to be working on not only developing the policies and procedures that rel relate to that standard, but also helping departments incorporate that into their daily work.
um holding training opportunities so that all staff are familiar with it, not just our inspectional subcommittee staff. Um and then hopefully heading towards a full-scale tabletop exercise um where we're able to bring in not just the inspectors but also have the public
health nurses come um and talk about what their role might be if there's a dise illness disease investigation. Um and then the third big area is looking at developing a sustainability plan. Um so currently this grant is promised to
be funded through fiscal year 27. Um and after that the sustainability of the grant is a little bit in flux. So there's not any um you know guaranteed funding past then. So what we're looking to focus on is really diversifying our funding
streams to help ensure that we can maintain our staffing and capability level beyond that fiscal year 27. Um so this year, this coming year, really focusing on identifying opportunities to um find other grants or you know other
revenue streams that can help us sustain past that fiscal year 27. Um just some like these aren't finalized numbers for the year, but just some um numbers that we have. So the graph on the left there is the different
public health nursing activities that our nurses completed in fiscal year 25. Um so she has supported a lot of case investigation. Um she helps support blood pressure screenings in a lot of the communities. Um providing education
both um direct training. So she did a lot of CPR certification for local staff this year but then also developing um you know education written materials for folks. Um I know that she did a lot of work around measles education that was distributed out to communities. So,
she's certainly been busy. Um, on the right hand side, we have the inspections that were completed by Shenine. Um, and so we can see like she primarily is working in the the food sphere to help um communities make sure that they're hitting their targets for um completing
all of their routine food inspections, but she certainly has been assisting across a lot of different um topics. So, she does some septic inspections, helps with pools and camps as well. Um, and then the final area that I think has been one of the most beneficial for
our communities is our ability to help support training. Um, so, you know, like I said, this is trainings that we host as a collaborative, but also helping send folks to trainings. Um, so I know with these funds, um, a lot of inspectors that previously haven't been
able to go to the MHA conference or they haven't been able to go to, um, you know, get their Title 5 certifications, we've been able to support those efforts to make sure that the local staff are receiving all of those trainings that are required for them to feel confident
in their ability to do their job. Um just today actually we hosted a mental health first aid training that we had nine staff from across our municipalities including both Amelia and Liv. Um and it was an excellent training where we really got to talk about
different strategies that um as public employees we can use if we're if we come across somebody who may be experiencing a mental health crisis. Um, you know, now we have staff across all of our municipalities who have those skills to help intervene and and have that
conversation with somebody. Um, so I think this is one of the areas that I get most excited about because um, you know, our ability as professionals to continue to learn and improve our skills is paramount to ensuring that our communities get the services that they need from the public health department.
Um, so our ability to help support those and send folks to training has been really excellent. Um, so that's my highlight, but as always, I'm happy to answer um any questions that you all may have. Thank you, Annette. Kevin,
um, thank you for that presentation, Annette. I just had, um, one question just on your on the graph. I noticed that Haveril um, didn't have a lot of, um, need for services. Is that because they have a a robust health department over there?
Yeah. So, um, Haveril has a pretty robust staff. They have five health inspectors. Um, their deputy director and then a director. Um, and they're they work a little bit differently than some of our other departments. So, um, they have a health department which, um, sits kind of in the council of aging.
So, they it's like the senior center and health department where the nurses sit and then their inspectors are housed within inspectional services. Um, so they're they're like two separate entities, but both work with us as the collaborative. Um, and they they really don't have a need for inspectional
support. You know, it's something that we continue to offer. I go about once a month just to check in and, you know, ask if they need anything, but um, what they find most beneficial is the training support because they don't actually have a local line item for training. Um, so that's when that's how
they've really been able to utilize the shared service. And I think that really points out to why this shared service arrangement is excellent because we're able to meet the unique needs of each community in our collaborative. So they might not be exactly the same where we're providing, you know, the same
number of inspections to each community, we're able to really target it to how we can best support them and bring everybody up to the same level. That's great. No, thank you. Thanks, Onette. Thanks. Yeah,
absolutely. Um I have a a question about um two things. One is in terms of the opioid funds. Um are any of the uh cities and towns uh involved
um performing what what you you might think of as best practice in terms of um expending those funds. And the sort of second question is in general um you know is there an opportunity across um
what is it seven three seven towns um you know to uh extract the best practices in public health from various towns and and sort of highlight them to the other
towns cities and towns. Um it it sounds like it would be a great uh local learning opportunity. Yeah, definitely. Um so we're really lucky in our collaborative because Lynfield um has been utilizing their funds right from the start and I think
they're a great example um for how these funds can be utilized because I know a lot of our communities look and say, you know, I I think we're pretty fortunate in our communities. We have pretty relatively low um you know overdose statistics and all of that, but Lynfield
has really taken the approach to utilize their funds for prevention first. Um so they have a town psychologist who's working with all their first responders to do the mental health first aid training that we just did. Um you know, they have pretty robust Narcan distribution programs within their town.
Um and this workg group that we have has allowed that crossjurisdictional sharing. And so the last meeting um we had back in March, Lynfield was there to talk about what their programmings are and directly interact with the communities within our collaborative to
answer questions about how they got that started, what kind of uptake and perception there have been from the communities for those different programs. Um, so I think there's definitely that opportunity and as we continue to kind of build out this workg group, it's new this year, so we've only
met um three times so far, but we do have another meeting in July where um the assistant, the deputy town manager in North Andover has actually reached out to all the town managers in our collaborative to invite them to join because I think the opioid funds in our
um group tend to be housed within the town manager town manager manager's office rather than the health department. So, um, having that opportunity to bring all of those decision makers into this conversation as well and have them have the opportunity to hear from their
counterparts about those best practices and um, programmings that have been really effective, I think is going to be it's really where the collaborative can kind of have the biggest influence because we're not the the holders of those funds and it's a little bit difficult for us to request them when we
have six different communities playing into it. Um, but holding that space and bringing those decision makers together, I think is going to be a really great opportunity. Um, so I'm excited to see in our July meeting kind of what comes out of that and how um, folks have started to think about their local
programming as it relates to those funds. Great. Thank you. Any other questions for Annette before we let her go? So, uh, initially we planned on doing this, uh, quarterly, but, um, I think
we're going to do it twice a year now, Annette. Is that accurate? Yeah, I think, um, I plan to, you know, come to each of the health departments. We have six, um, in the region, so I think it would be great to to do um by by annually, so every six months. Um, you
know, I do quarterly reports for our advisory board. So, I'll encourage them, they can definitely pass those along, so at least you can kind of have those updates. I tend to um do a PowerPoint as well. Um but you know, I think just based on the work, it tends to I don't have too many new updates um quarterly.
So definitely by annually, I'll make sure to have lots of uh good information in progress for you all. Sounds good. And just uh keep in mind that uh we don't typically have July meetings, July and uh December meetings. Yep. So, yep. Perfect. I'll definitely
plan around that. Well, it was great to see you all again. Um, I know I'll see you soon and make sure to continue to pass communication through a day. Great. Thank you. Okay.
Um, a day the NBTA sound study update. Okay. So, um, at the February 25th meeting, the MBTA notified the town that, um, they had withdrawn their NOI, notice of intent to gather more information and listen to the concerns
of the residents. Um, they plan to refile the NOI at a future date, but um, we are aware that the MBTA MBTA has conducted a sound study, but we don't have the details. uh we sent a message to the MBTA for
them to provide access to the sound study report and um they seem like they're going to you know cooperate with us but they still don't have the report at the moment. Um in the meantime I've been receiving emails about the sound study from Mr. Prao. I believe he's here
tonight and some other residents. I've shared this emails with the board and I'm hoping that Mr. Prao will be able to shed some light on his um emails tonight if he's available. Mr. Prao,
are you here? Do you want me to unmute him? Yes. Yes, please. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. How you doing everybody? Good. Good. And that day, thank you for uh reading the emails and forwarding on to the board. It's much appreciated. I believe there's a
few other uh members of our group um on the call as well, too. Um and so, thank you for the information. So, it sounds like you guys um are reaching out to the MBTA. They said that they've done a study, but you have no scope or no data
yet. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. Um, so it's kind of spelled out pretty clearly in my email. I don't need to go over all of the email, but I think myself and other fellow residents with the facing this um potential issue uh
because we abut the train tracks um just want to focus on that the sound study you obtain the whole scope and understand and make sure that the scope meets what they plan to do. our worry
with what we witnessed. I think it was during April vacation. I just happened to be off and myself uh and Joseph, another member on Willow Street. We were walking the uh mallet area and we came across one of the sound uh boxes and then we searched a little bit more and
found two others. Um, we just don't believe with once again not having the scope, we really want to make sure that the sound study encompasses the slow idling, slowmoving trains behind Hancock Street and Vine Street and then
ultimately to the idling and not just the noise level, but the time associated with that noise. Um, and it's once again just to reiterate, it's not just the noise, it's the vibration. Um, if you guys research down in the Southshore uh
um train that they just uh released um earlier this year, I believe there's neighbors drastically complaining about the noise down in that location right now. Um, and once again, not just the noise and stuff like that, but so it's
just want to make sure that you guys understand the full scope of their study. And if their scope doesn't meet what you guys believe is correct, slash, it would be nice to include us into that conversation too since we're the ones directly abuing this situation and
having to potentially deal with it. Um, we just want to make sure that it isn't a biased study that the MBTA paid for and had done. Um, does that make sense in general?
just want to make sure that everything is being covered and it's not a say just black and white no details type of study and it doesn't and the biggest thing like I said sorry I'm repeating myself but just to make sure that it's
encompassing what they plan to do not just a baseline I mean you still need a baseline but you need to test what they plan to you a day. Have has the have we requested us the
scope and the outline of the study? Are you saying we requested it? Yes. They haven't provided it yet. They haven't, but they will. They will provide it. Correct. I guess it's important to have it before the study is completed and and you know
the consultant has signed off on it because then the horse is out of the barn at that point in terms of they may be criticisms you know um but they don't criticisms won't give us answers you know um so hopefully um they will
provide that before the study's completed I looked at um I think they contracted with a consulting firm called WPS and um it's apparently a very national if not international company
with 72,000 employees. I mean it's it's a large um a large company and um although as I think Mr. Prada pointed out one of the uh one of their senior
leaders is a former MDTA U executive. Um you know which raises a little bit of concern. Um so I guess what we need to do is we need to hear the scope and then decide h you know how to address it. I mean I
think it would be healthy to be able to have a conversation about that. um you know whether they agree or don't agree but at least raise the issues um you know measuring the
sound for today doesn't as Mr. Pravis says doesn't uh really reflect on what it would be like in the future if they do the turnaround. I see um a hand up from McKenzie Writings. Um,
Haley, can you unmute them and see, you know, if you have something to add to Mr. Pra's comments? Go ahead, McKenzie Writings. Hi, thank you very much. I just wanted to reinforce um the point about the consulting firm. Um, so
not only did this individual work for the MBTA in leadership, but he only left six months ago. And that is a conflict of interest because very obviously he has a connection to the MBTA. He knows what the plan is. He is, you know, has
friends that work there and, you know, it's I'm concerned that it's an incredibly biased study and there's a conflict of interest and considering what the ramifications of the study are. Um, it's incomplete and um, you know, leans heavily biased towards what the
MBTA is trying to accomplish. Is he leading the study? He's the VP for the um for the consulting company. So very obviously has a connection to the work. Okay.
Okay. Good point. Um a day has um has Matt made any comments or been involved or kind of how is he looking at this um at this point?
Yes, he has uh reached out to MBTA as well and um we're just we're waiting for the you know outcome of the study. We need some kind of document or a link onto a report or something you know. So
but he is working actively to get this uh resolved as well. Yeah. I mean uh well we at this point unless the study is completed which hopefully it hasn't you know the the idea would be to be able to comment on the design before it's
actually uh completed and they they print some results. Um so okay um I guess maybe more to come on this going forward. Uh, yes, Sophie.
Um, yeah. Date, did we get like a time frame from the MBTA of when we could expect it? I'm just wondering if it's risen to the place where we need to involve like state legislators like Rep. Hagerty or Senator Lewis at this point. So just
what I think they're doing is they're like going to different spots um doing their testing and they're trying to present the the best option they have. That's what I believe they're doing. Um so I think they're going to require a little bit of time to get
everything together. Um and have they shared what that time frame looks like? No, they haven't. But is that something we could request just so that we we like we as a board and then as cons know and then
that way if it falls outside of that time frame we can understand if we need to escalate it further. So they won't request um a new notice of intent if they don't have a viable study. So um again I I think we should uh you know
give them a little bit of time to get that information and and go from there. um if they turn in a new uh notice of intent, they don't have any approvals yet. They don't have anything. Thanks.
And they're not um the MBTA is not doesn't currently have a plan to address the um the diesel emissions, just the noise and vibration. Is that right? as far as I know. Correct.
[Music] Yes, Kevin. So, my my concern would be very similar to the residents in regards to the MBTA being the the the body that is trying to go out and outsource this um
information. Do we have somebody on staff that is qualified to look over um this report when it comes in so we can identify how it was structured and see where it you know where there may have been um where it may not have been as
complete as it needed to be. So, um we have the town engineer, um we have conservation, we have me, and then we have access to uh recruiting a third party that can help uh with the
assessment of their report. I would and and not that you folks aren't qualified. I'm not trying to say that you you most certainly are. But these things are always structured in a certain manner that that somebody on the inside that deals with it on a regular basis can easily pull it apart and tell you
exactly what it is and how how it was put together. Um I think that's an important component for us to when we do get this report is to look at it from um somebody who looks at these things all the time and can and can just just like you said just pull it apart and show you this is this is what they've done.
Whether you agree with it or not is you know you can decide at that point but I think it's important to understand how they got there. Correct. And that was why we requested a third party you know but in this situation their third party has some kind of conflict with the MBTA
but that's the purpose of requesting a nonbiased third party to do a study and present the outcomes of the study. Well, they the third part. Are you you referring to the company that's doing the study? Correct. But in this situation, it appears that there is some
sort of conflict with the VP and you know, MBTA, right? Yeah. Yeah. Certainly seems to be. Um, was there any discussion in regards to going further down the track? I know that was kicked around a little bit.
Not Not that I know of. Okay. As soon as I get some details about this, I would share with the board. Okay. I might be able to come up with a third party that doesn't have a conflict. Well, it's unfortunate
that it's unfortunate that the MBTA didn't see this um see this potential conflict before they secured this consultant. Um, as I as I read about this, um, this
senior executive VP for the consulting firm, um, is, uh, had been an MBTA employee for something like I think it was 20 years. Um, and so and just left
the MBTA last fall. Um, so it's it's not it's obviously raises concerns. Has uh has the select board been involved at all around this particular issue of this
study? Probably not. Not that I'm aware of. No. Okay. Thanks, John. Okay. So, we will follow up. I think
um you know you can tell a lot by looking at the design of a study before it's executed as to whether it's going to answer the questions you want answered. And so getting that information
uh again before the you know the stud is completed and published and then um and then there's a sense of that it's inadequate is is an issue and I think it would also be helpful a day if if Matt hasn't already done so uh to raise the
concern about conflict of interest with u the MBTA. they either they don't see it or um you know they're comfortable in some way, shape or form, but it would be good to know what their thinking is around
that. Right. I think we should move on, but I'm sure we will hear more about this um going forward. I think McKenzie's hand still raised. Oh, she comment. I don't know if that
was from before. Oh, she just reerised it. Oh, okay. Hey, go ahead. Hi, thank you. Um, I just want to mention that the study is done in the um on the Hancock Street side. It was done less than in around 45 48 hours.
So, that's not a very complete study. And as Luke mentioned, um it was actually not the train was positioned in the wrong place. Um it did not have any idling. Um and actually one of the people that works for the company was
sitting on Hancock Street. Um we think collecting data, but obviously very far from where the potential location is. M and you know again it doesn't include vibration. It doesn't include um diesel emissions or any of the major concerns
that go along with just no and you know it's not just about the noise. Right. Right. Great. We understand that. Okay. We will we will continue to follow this uh very closely.
Um [Applause] we're going to move on to uh 178 Main Street uh update. All right. Um so 178 Main Street. This is about the suspension
update for Mobile Gas Station. Um remember at the last meeting they sold to a minor um and um the board asked me to pick the dates for the suspension. So we issued a 3-day
suspension to Mobile gas station um from May 5th to May 8th. And we also received the um $1,000 fine. And um you know everything looks good at the moment. We're hoping that um
moving forward they'll put measures in place to avoid selling tobacco products to persons under the age under the minimum legal sales age. So that takes care of 178 Main Street.
Um then moving on to the road program update which appears to be going well. Um, we haven't been receiving complaints about rodent sightings. Um, it appears
that what we're doing is working. We have a total of about 157 catches since the implementation of the program in January, which is great. Um, and as you all know, we received an additional
$35,000 for road mitigation during town meeting. I met with DPW leadership to come up with a plan that will allow us to use some of the funding um to help mitigate rodent dispersal
during DPW construction projects. Uh the meeting went well. We were able to identify some hot spots and some areas. Um so right now we we're working with uh purchasing department to execute a contract. Um, I'm hopeful that by the
end of next week, we should be able to have uh an executive um contract. I will keep the board updated at the next meeting. Um, yeah, that's it. Things are looking good.
Great. That's great. Um, speaking of wildlife and yes, in terms of feeding of wildlife, I sent out um an edited version with the
initial email I sent out to the board and um subsequently I sent out a clean version that pretty much uh you know gets rid of gets rid of all the edits and makes everything simple and easy to
understand. Um so essentially this regulation prohibits the feeding of wildlife in reading with some exceptions including but not limited to um attractants deposited by natural vegetation. Um any individual company or
corporation that is engaged in lawful agricultural pursuits. uh any action that is officially sanctioned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that would require feeding, baiting, or layering of wildlife for management purposes
purposes. Um failure to comply with this regulation may result in a fine of $50 for the first offense, 100 for the second offense, and 150 for additional offenses. So, um I sent out the clean
version. I hope you guys had the chance to read the clean version. Y can I can I just um put it up on the screen and is that visible? Yeah. Okay, great.
So um first of all let me just ask Kevin. Uh the agenda um actually has the purpose of this discussion as inform and not vote. So we're does that preclude us
from voting on this? Um you know our next meeting's in two weeks. We can always vote in two weeks. But um do you know that? Do you know the answer to that? If the agenda just said
inform, we prohibited from voting. Correct. But um Dave, did you look into this to see if we voted on it the last time or if we just said that this just decided to send it to council for their edits? Because I can't remember. It was
maybe I think we just saw a a draft version that AD had put together um and his staff. Um and we made some comments and then the uh you know the plan was to
go to town council which it did. We saw the edited version from town council. It's amazing what lawyers can do. And um and then so this is what I have up here is basically incorporating the town
council edits um and uh perhaps some of the things that day wanted to include. Um I I wanted to um let's have this discussion and we can always defer the vote till in two weeks
but um I had a couple questions about this and um definitions here down here wildlife um you know not limited to coyotes,
foxes, raccoons, skunks, turkeys, bears um was there there are other wildlife that sort of come to mind. Um and perhaps the original version had much more detail around
that. Um I think uh town council's suggestion was to be be more limited. Um but I guess the question is what about um rodents, deers, rabbits and
waterfall? They are um you know rodents would include squirrels and chipmunks and um and uh deer are certainly plentiful in reading
um and uh as are rabbits. And so a day, do you have a sense of whether we ought not to be that detailed? So I think yeah, hunting has to do with it um
because people are allowed to hunt and um deers can be hunted I believe. So there's so many technicalities that went into this regulation like I can't tell you you know everything that went into it but we had a pretty robust uh
discussion about this and then we u finalized the regulation. It was a lot of you know going back and forth and trying to figure out what exactly is going to work for the town of Reading. Yeah. So I believe hunting had to play uh a role in that decision to
redefine you know what wildlife meant. Okay. I mean I I I guess the uh stating undomemesticated and unrestrained animal of fowl pretty much pretty much includes everything
that you can think about. Um correct. And so maybe we'll just leave that. Um, there was only a couple other things I just wanted to ask about. [Music] Um, Rick, could you scroll that up a little bit just so the full the full
body's on there? There's a third page down here we can get to. I was just looking for something because when I read it over I thought there was something that pertained to um a nuisance or it's probably the wrong term but of that like um within regard
what you are just referencing. So I think there's some I think there is some um I won't say gray area but I say uh I'll certainly say some um decision that um can be made you know on the spot whether that is the essence of the of
the regulation or not. Yeah, I'll just look it up if I mind. So, um to be honest, I intentionally left out the voting part of this to give the board at least two weeks to look through the regulation and then vote at
the next meeting. Oh, okay. Great. Yeah, it's actually a good idea doing it that way a day. So, let me just just the other couple minor things. One is here under uh section E. I think this is a typo. I
think the bird feeder and seed debris, not sea debris. Oh yes, that's just a typo. And then um lastly um you know this this sentence under F
you know if wildlife gains access that the conditional must be corrected within 48 hours and I think I thought town council raised a question as to whether that was sort of operationally doable.
Um because at an earlier um over here under C they said you say 7 days. So should this be 7 days or are you comfortable a day with that 48 hours?
I'm comfortable with the 48 hours. You are okay. Those were the only areas that I noticed. Um so if you know this did come by our desks uh later in the afternoon. So uh
we have a couple weeks to to look through it and we'll we'll put it on next our next meeting's agenda for uh final decision and and vote if there aren't any other comments.
Okay. Sounds good. All right. So, um, updates. Yes. Amelia will go first with the monthly report and then, uh, Olivia will go next, uh, with the nursing updates. Hi, everyone. Can you guys hear me? Yep.
Okay, awesome. Let me just share my screen. Can you see my screen? Yes. Okay, awesome. Sorry, I can't see you guys. Um, so for the month of April, we're in April. Um, we had a total or I
did a total of 32 inspections and that included all of the public schools. Austin Prep being the private school, the Goodyard uh Goodardge School, which is the preschool down near Cumbies. Um, so that satisfied them for their year
calendar date when I did them back in October and in April to meet the state requirements for their food inspections. Um, if we keep going here, so the two complaints I received that were regarding some food establishments was one involving trash at a dumpster, uh,
which I spoke to the owner about and they handled the same exact day. And another was uh some customers at a restaurant had observed some pest sightings. Um both that has also been taken care of. It took a little time to work with the restaurant to get that
under control, but I can you know happily report that that is now under control. Uh new permits that were issued was for a preschool that's coming into town. So it is a preschool by the church on summer a they are having a food
permit because they're doing prepackaged foods for the kids. So they just got a food permit so that way they can keep up with their inspections as they have to provide that to the state as well. When we go down here uh regarding complaints that I've received um I
received a couple complaints about trash on residential properties which when speaking to the owners they took care of that. Um, I received a complaint about dog poop in front of the canine training on Main Street. Um, I spoke with the owners there and uh, you know, we talked
back and forth and they did mention that they have signs in the front, which they did. I saw it the second time I went by, asking people to pick up their dog droppings if you know, their dog goes on their um, lawn. I guess they're having a little trouble with people passer by
walking by and not picking up their dog poop. Um, I will say that seems to be a common trend in town. We've gotten a lot of complaints about dog poop in public areas. So, if everyone could just, you know, be mindful of that and please pick up your dog poop when your dog does
utilize, you know, the outdoors to go to the restroom, that would be much appreciated. It is an attractant for rodents, believe it or not. They do eat that. Is it attractive for wildlife? Um, and it's more harmful for you than you may think. So, there's my little PSA about dog poo. Um, I got a complaint
about an overflowing dumpster which was rectified. Um, they actually ended up taking that off the site. Uh, also I addressed that mattress and porter potty uh toilet complaint that I believe S had sent to all of us.
Um, that contractor was under the assumption I believe that his coworker had handled it. I guess they didn't. That was ended up being rectified which I believe a day mentioned to you guys that that was taken care of when that occurred. Uh you can see I had three
housing complaints. Um so one involved a leaky pipe in the kitchen. Um a day came out with me for that. So this resident um or occupant I should say had a leaking pipe in her kitchen and what ended up happening was it was coming
from the unit above her. So the unit above her her kitchen sink was leaking and she didn't realize it and it ended up leaking into her unit. For some reason, the way the building is built, um, her kitchen sink piping goes through, uh, the occupant below their
cabinetry, um, landlords ended up rectifying that and that issue was addressed. Um, I got a complaint about someone's thermostat, sorry, I couldn't think of the word, thermostat in their unit was not functioning properly. Um,
it ended up being that a condenser needed to be replaced on the roof, which in theory would affect other units because it's not just one unit, couple units attached to one condenser. Um, that apartment complex got that issue
addressed. Um, another occupant had called regarding that their neighbor in another apartment complex uh is smoking cigarettes in their unit. Um, I did speak with the landlord on that. I guess that's um an occurring issue and they were able to get a handle on that. I did
mention um and I guess it is good to just mention in general that you know smoking in your unit is it is a fire hazard. It is dangerous. Um I did inform the resident that they could always talk to fire prevention. The fire department is amazing in reading. Um and they might
have some, you know, resources to help with that. So just another PSA, you know, it is a fire hazard, so please be careful with that. Um, and then again the we actually got the complaint about the check-ins back in April. So, uh, just to kind of talk on that a little
bit. So, I actually went out to the property. Um, I spoke with an older woman who answered the door. I think there may be a small language barrier there because I actually spoke with the son on the phone a couple days later. They did not know that they needed a
keeping of animals permit, which I explained to them that's, you know, that's valid. That's completely fine. I will also preface before I worked in a health department. I did not know that that was a thing either. So, you know, it's common. Um, I gave them my card. I wrote down on a piece of paper how to
apply for the permit. Um, you know, I gave them about a week and a half and the neighbors kept complaining unfortunately. So, we had to submit the cease and desist just because I don't know. Again, I offered to help with
applying for the permit. I don't know if that has been a little bit of an issue. Um, I know once they received the cease and assist, I got a phone call from the sun. They mentioned that they were going to like it a day said they had just moved in. They didn't realize they needed a permit. Uh, they were going to
apply for the permit. I spoke with her last week cuz she emailed me asking for the abutters list and how to obtain her proper butters to certify mail them. I sent her the PDF form that the assessor's office hands to people and I
explained to her she would just have to fill it out, send it to uh bring it to assessors. Assessors would then bring it down to us a day would sign it or someone in the health department would sign it. Um and she would be able to receive the information then. I unfortunately haven't heard from her since and I did email her in the
beginning of the week to attend the meeting. Um so my plan is on Monday I have to go out to do a couple uh complaint inspections. I'm actually going to go drive by there and knock on the door again. Um it might just be better to communicate in person a little bit. So that is my approach to that. And
sorry, I'm just looking over here. Um I did two inspections for the pools for pools um cuz those were starting to get ready for the season. And I believe that is everything. So that is for the month
of April. Not too exciting, but always exciting in the health department. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Okay. Can I just follow I'm sorry, Luke. Can I just follow up with that real quick? I know I know it came in late.
Did we move up that um cease and desist vote that was on the agenda? So, unfortunately um they didn't attend tonight. I don't know if there was a conflict on their end or they weren't available. Um, so we kind of just left
it just because the representative of them weren't there. Um, so that's why I kind of mentioned that I'll just go in person on Monday and see if I can maybe talk to them in person and hope that that might help with one ensuring that the chickens are no longer on the property because we did mention that
they do have to remove the chickens. Um, and two, that they are in the process of applying or they honestly could have just gotten rid of the chickens and just said, "I just don't want to deal with this." and they just never informed us. So I plan to go Monday to just get a little bit more information.
The reason I I raised the question is I wonder what difference there will be with a permanent place as far as the complaint goes, right? So there's clearly a complaint there. Is that going to change? Of course. Yeah. So the we got the original complaint because of it
was a setback issue and they were letting the chickens loose on their deck. I believe they weren't in like a coupe setting. They weren't in a coup. Okay. All right. Yes. Which the permit will encompass all that. I I realize. All right. Great. Thank you. Of course. I'm just going to go ahead and share my
screen. Okay. All right. Good evening, everyone, and happy end of May. Um, all right. and we're just going to jump into it. So, for the month of May, this is Readings Reading's disease report. COVID and flu
cases are down this month. Um, in a or last month, sorry, April, we had 13 COVID cases and 25 flu cases. So, they were doing great there. Definitely have room for improvement, though. Um, want to highlight the June
blood pressure screenings. We have June 11th at the Pleasant Street Senior Center at 11:00 a.m. and on June 18th at Frank Tanner at 10:00 a.m. Um, also just wanted to mention that we have two more uh in July on July 3rd at Pleasant
Street and then July 17th at Frank Tanner. I just wanted to highlight some um awarenesses for the month of May. May is mental health awareness month, which is a critical time to reduce stigma and raise awareness and promote access for
mental health. Um, if many of you don't know, we have a resource here in Reading called Interface Helpline. Um, and they can connect you uh with the Reading Residents with mental health counselors. And if you have any questions about that, please call me and I would love to
talk to you more about it. Um, it's also high blood pressure awareness month. uh very important to reduce um your blood pressure when so many things in our life can raise it including stress and the foods we eat. Um so go ahead and ask
your primary care some very important questions. What is blood pressure? What is my blood pressure reading and what does it mean for me? How often should I be getting my blood pressure checked? How can I control my blood pressure? And are there any medicines that I take that affect my blood
pressure? Um along this lines, it is also food allergy awareness month and this is something that Amelia and I work very heavily with um dealing with uh in the restaurant industry. Um so just
being aware of the nine most common food allergies, milk, eggs, peanuts, soy, tree nuts, shellfish, fish, and sesame. That is a tongue twister. Um, but yes, please be aware of all of the major food allergies. And if you or any of your
loved ones suffer from any of these, I recommend carrying an EpiPen. Just a couple updates, um, or just a couple, sorry, uh, visuals that I wanted to bring to everyone's awareness. Um, I did a little travel health
advisory check before you jet. Um, there's lots of different travel health notices that are published, um, for every place in the world. Um, so before you go on vacation this summer, go ahead and see if there are any outbreaks or health risks um to the travel area that
you're going to just for proactive and preventative um measures. Uh it is also coming into tick season. Always check for ticks after you've gone hiking. Tuck your socks into your leggings. I know it's not the most fashionforward look,
but hey, it'll keep you from getting um Lyme disease or the brand. Well, it's not it's not new, but it's it's making its way into the Northeast. The Lonear tick um from my good old home place of Texas. Um and be aware that alpha gal
syndrome comes from Lonear tick bites, which causes a um increased sensitivity to red meat. So, people actually complain of allergies to red meat. So, if you like your steak, tuck your tuck your socks into your leggings and wear long sleeves when you go hiking. Um, and
also, yes, sorry, I just could I share a quick thing about tick season happened to me and it I I don't go hiking. I'm not an outdoor person, but I was waiting for an appointment somewhere and I just leaned against like a like a metal pole that you'd find like in a traffic
whatever and I went to my appointment and the person who was there for my appointment like a hairdresser found the tick on my back of my shirt. And I happened to be wearing like a yellow shirt and she said, "You were so lucky you were wearing yellow shirts." So even when you're not
going out, just be very very vigilant. So just wanted to share. Yeah. No, definitely. I I they're everywhere. I I also just want to point out I've gotten a couple calls from residents um asking me they they find a tick and um they've
removed it, which is wonderful. And then they ask if they want to bring it to me so I can have it checked. I don't need to check I don't have the capacity to check your ticks. Um my recommendation would be to contact your primary care. Uh, but thank you for thinking of me,
but I I cannot um do those tests on your ticks. I actually got a tick last week and um I went to the walk-in and they I pulled half of it out because it was so deep. Only half and Yeah. And they they said they don't take them out anymore. They
don't check them anymore. They just give you a one dose of antibiotic within if it's within 72 hours, I think it was. Yeah, that's their protocol right now. Well, good to know. Neither neither myself nor urgent cares are collecting
ticks. Exactly. But they will help. Um, also as the summer months come in, uh, be aware that, uh, heat waves are going to come. It's already the warmest whatever in forever, you know,
it's it's global warming, you know. So, just be aware that um, heat stroke is very prevalent. Stay hydrated. six to eight glasses of water a day. We have two cooling centers here in Reading. Um, one is at the Reading Public Library and the other is at the Pleasant Street
Senior Center. I have the addresses posted on this heatwave and heat stroke PSA. Um, all right. So, I have a very exciting uh class that's coming. Um, I'm very excited about this. Um, we're bringing
in Leanne Shaner. She's a holistic health and personal development coach and she is coming to teach us um about everyday plants that can be added to our foods to aid in digestive health and mental health. Um and she is coming for July 15th and the 16th. I'm super
excited about this program. Um I've listened to some talks from her. She's she's truly fantastic. Um and I hope that we can all attend. Um all right. And also on a similar vein of classes, the um coalition, the Reading Coalition
for Prevention and Support and the Health Department are partnering up on June 10th to teach a Narcan community Narcan training at the Reading Public Library. We already have 10 participants. I'm very excited for the program. Um and uh if you would like to
come, I'll be there teaching on next to next to Tanya and Erica and Jess. Um, so yeah, that's going to be a great a great class. And then finally, just want to bring awareness back that I still have the diabetes supplies and the medical supplies takeback programs. So if you
have any of those types of supplies lying around your house, give me a call and we'll see if um we can work on collecting it and getting it donated to the right channels. And that is all. Thank you all. Um, quick question. Would
you like to say something about the health fair and how it went? Yeah, I forgot. I'm sorry. Yes, we had a wonderful health fair last week at the Pleasant Street Senior Center. We had the most attendees they said they've
ever had. Um, at 70 attendees and we had 27 vendors. Um, it was wonderful. It was it was brilliant. I met some wonderful um people. I connected with some wonderful people in the community, uh, as well as some awesome vendors in the
area talking about what resources they have for our Reading residents. So, it was really great. Um, and I'm excited for the next one. Thank you. Thank you, Liv. [Music] Um, so anything else today that you
wanted to mention uh in the monthly report? Um, that's pretty much it. Okay. In terms of um volunteer applications, as you know, every um June
for boards, commissions, committees in the town, uh there's a reappointment process at the end of one's appointment, whether it's one or two, three years. And so, um that process is underway, uh
currently. And um there are three members of the board of health here who who whose appointments are up. And um so that is my myself and Joan and Jerry. And
um uh I Joan and I are uh reapplying for appointments and uh Jerry has decided to step down because of work rellated issues after five solid years. Um it's
amazing it's been that long. Uh but I I believe you know Jerry will be with us at at all next meeting in June. Um so uh the applications are still open
um through June 6th and uh the VAS committee has started scheduling interviews in that process uh for applicants and I just a short while ago
got the list of you know uh people who are applying for reappoint or new appointments. Um there is one one person um who is applying um I presume it would be for the associate
position that that Jerry holds. Uh someone who has been on the board of health in the past uh before my time um or just before my time. And uh I think I would probably have to
leave it at that. I don't I we'll see how the process goes, but that's that's where things stand. So, we we actually may have a full complement um going forward if if that works out. So, that's where that process is. And
um in terms of final comments, I I don't have any. We have a meeting in two weeks. It's coming up quickly because of the delay um that we experienced in May.
Um, and any other last minute comments, questions, suggestions, thoughts? Not seeing any. I make a motion to return. I have a second. Second. Second.
Okay. Um, roll call. Uh, S. Yes. Kevin, yes. Joan, yes. And Rick, yes. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Have a good evening, good weekend. See you in
a couple weeks. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Part: 2
We will call the school committee meeting from uh May 29th to order. Uh it is 7:01. We are all here, so no need for roll calls, which is great. I'll walk through the agenda quickly and then we'll dive in. Um, so after the agenda,
we'll start with any public comment. So, anybody here from the public who wishes to address anything not on the agenda, that would be the time. If you do want to do so, just raise your hand. You'll go up to the podium, um, mention your name, address, and what you want to talk about for two or three minutes. Uh,
we'll then move to our consent agenda. Um, in which point we will as a committee review that and vote on it. Um we'll then go to a new item on our agenda which is new roles in alignment with the new policy that we approved last week. Um and Dr. Milichesky will talk through that briefly. We'll move to
reports from there. Um are you double dipping as a student report tonight too? No. Okay. So we will skip our student report and go with superintendent assistant superintendent and leazison and uh school committee uh
subcommittee reports. Uh then we'll move to new business and that starts first with our Reading Education Foundation grant update and we have some of the board members here to present that and tell us all about it. We're excited. I saw the check. It's awesome. Um we then move to a request from our SOA for EJI
group which is the Joshua name removal request uh which will follow our older policy um because it came in right before the new policy was approved. Um so we'll walk through that when we get to it. Uh we then hopefully we'll have a CPAC FY25 end of year update. I see a
head nod so we're good. Um and then we'll move on from there to a student services end of year update. Uh the district strategic plan update and finally a director of finance and operations interim ro update. So packed schedule tonight. Um so with that said,
do we have anybody here from the public who would like to make a public comment? No. Okay. So, we'll move to our focus on excellence, which is our project 351 ambassadors. And Dr. M, do you want to pick it up from here? Great. I think we can invite up uh our two project 351 ambassadors and also both uh Sarah
Marshott and Jill Storyer who can share a little bit about project 351 and their work this year. Sarah, I thought we had a slide. I don't think we have a slide. I think so. So the students are really showcased just to say hello. Thank you
for having us and I'm happy to be here student Esme Moss who was our representative for project 351. She'll tell you a lot more and thank you very much for having us. Lucas Dorman is Parker's project 351 ambassador and so a little bit about
project. Great. Thank you. That's me. Hello. Hello. There we go. Learning out to turn on the mic. My name is Esme Moss and I am an eighth grade student at Koolage Middle School. I represented Koolage in the
Project 351 organization. Project 351 is a group of students from every town in Massachusetts coming together to do good in our communities. In January, Lucas and I attended the launch day of the year-long service project at the JFK library in Boston. During this day, we
met our district groups and then set out to do service projects. We were divided into three different locations around the Boston area. I went to a shelter called Lac Labiva. There we handed out food, made emergency blank made emergency kits with toiletries, and tied pieces of fabric together to make a
total of 50 blankets for those who needed them. Overall, the day was full of joy and collaboration. There were also seven students who were chosen to deliver speeches at the conference. I was one of those students. I would like to share with you now what I wrote and later
delivered in response to the question, what is your dream for the world? My dream for a better world is simple. A world without hate. We aren't born full of hate. Hate is put on to us. So instead, let's teach one another to respect and love each other the same as
we would our own family. To have special compassion for those struggling with mental health challenges. With love, we can create a world of no judgment, where no one suffers in silence and everyone is accepted and understood. Thank you. Thank you.
[Applause] And Lucas has a slide. I'm not sure where that is, but if there's a way to display the slide, he did. Let's see. Um, do you have it available right now or No. Um, I had it sh I could share it
with you. Yeah, if you want to share with me, I can pull it up. Thank you. send it to me. I can pull it up to you. Yeah. If you wanted to uh if you send it to Tom and they'll be quick. We can pull it up and I sorry for the technical difficulty. It gives give me the chance to share one thing though about project 351 about the the process of selection
too. So off their site uh some of the criteria which you'll hear it says an ambassador is an eighth grade student selected by educators in their community based on exemplary ethic of service and the values of kindness, compassion, humility and gratitude. A special premium is placed on the recognition of
unsung heroes and quiet leaders in the rich diversity of our commonwealth. 351 representing 350 51 towns across our commonwealth too. So just like to while we're waiting to congratulate both of you on being uh selected out of very very many uh recipients in both the
Parker and Koolage community and thank you for your leadership and service to our community and to the state. I love seeing the quiet unsung heroes in that way, but the work that you're doing is tremendously impactful and we look forward to following it too as you continue to lead in our community next year in high school and beyond. Um, is
there anything else while we're pulling it up that anyone wants to share about the project, questions, you know, off the record uh comments about your experience before we go to the slide? Um well, step forward to us as me. Sorry. Okay.
Um I plan to do more with Miss Marshant during the summer um for service projects continuing to um serve the community. Great. And while Esme is up there, I'll just publicly recognize her as well as one of our student participants in the children's cabinet.
She's been a participant for the last two years in that process as well. So, not only is she doing project 351, she's giving back in the children's cabinet as well. Awesome. I'm tell I just shared it with you, too. There it is. Okay, there you go. You're doing a great job. It's all
You did it. It's great. It's okay. We got it. We're good. We're good. It's a great picture, too. I'm glad we took the time to pull it up. Do we have any Anyone else a former 351 ambassador? No. Okay. So, oh, cool. Share screen.
And Esme, can I we put you on the spot? Do you mind sharing a little bit more about some of the work this summer that you plan to do with Miss Marshant as well? Um, yes. Um, well, Project 351 collaborates with an organization called Cradles to Crayons. Um, I think during
the summer we would plan to get some donations for um, clothing for children in need and um, yeah um, kids who are in need of clothing, we would plan to get donations for that. It's a perfect transition to Lucas.
Hi, my name is Lucas Dorfman and this spring with project 351 uh I managed uh Cradles to Crayons clothing drive for Parker Middle School. And for this drive, we uh set out a bin
and put up posters to spread the word and we organized a team to help sort the clothes and bring them to the cradles to crayons drop off. Over the two weeks that we spent collecting new and used clothes, we collected 17 bags at Parker
and a total of 5,775 bags of clothing throughout all of project 351. And with the help of Cradles to Crayons, we impacted 17,265 children from the drive, which is still counting as not all the clothes
have been distributed. And yeah, awesome. You know, I love data. So, all right. Well, thank you both. Um, we have a tradition here that when people come for the focus on excellence, like
we have them come and take a picture with school committee. So, if you two would mind and principles, if you would like to as well, please come join us in front. And um, you know, Dr. Cororm, would you do the honors? There's our honorary always here guest.
We're going to be coming out behind us. like I'm leadership. Congratulations. Our world needs more leaders like both of you. So, thank you. Keep it up. [Music] [Applause] Okay, moving on to the next item on our
agenda. We'll move to our consent agenda. And Darren, do we have a motion? Motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Seconded by Sean. Any discussion, concerns, or points from anybody? Seeing none, all in favor? All opposed and it passes six to zero. Uh so
we move on to the new item on our agenda job description. That's that's where I was going. Perfect. New item on our agenda which is the new the new role the 1.0 FTE middle school metco site coordinator sack. Dr. Milesky, would you like to update? Excited to share this one too. So you'll see on the agenda there's a
new role listed on there as well. So in accordance with the new policy that was went over last week at school committee. uh anytime we add a new role to the district, we will also then uh share that job description with the school committee and make sure that that job description is shared publicly with the community. Uh like to share we are thrilled to share that's a 1.0 uh metco
sack position. So at in the budget this year we had put in for an additional kindergarten teacher. Uh given kindergarten enrollment, we do not need that additional kindergarten teacher. So we then moved that to be a an additional uh metco sack position which will be at Parker Middle School. So a little bit of context on that. We know when we uh
opened up the METCO school counselor positions a few years ago, our goal was to be able to have a metco school counselor at each one of our uh especially our K to8 buildings. This will now allow us to have each of our five elementary schools and our two middle schools with a full-time METCO sack and then still high school with Mr.
Luke as our full-time metcoordinator. Uh Jerica Santiago are will be full-time at Koolage and we'll be hiring this position at Parker. Last leg of that is last year we added a 1.0 O metcoordinator who is based full-time at Parker. That was uh Mr. Daring. Uh Mr. Daring is now going
to be uh fle floating across the entire district supporting students and student needs throughout 2. So uh excited to share that that now has built our mechco team up to nine full-time staff members. So thank you to the leadership and advocacy of many in this room and in our community. Uh we think this role will make a huge difference on the day-to-day
experience for our students. Any questions from the community? Okay. Um I think the policy says we need a vote to approve it. So let's take a motion real quick to approve it that as well. Uh motion to approve the do I sorry the creation of or the hiring of
creation the creation of a uh 1.0 full-time middle school metco site coordinator/school adjustment counselor. Second. Seconded by Sean. Any further discussion or questions? Nope. All in favor? All opposed. And that passes six
to zero. Thank you, Dr. M. And we'll move to reports. And Dr. Stice, you want to start? Sure. I have um something that everybody loves to talk about every year and I just wanted to let people know it's coming up. Our unified sports day is coming up.
It's going to be on June 6, which is a Friday, and families in the community are welcome to come and watch. It is a really wonderful time where we have students from all over the district. um we bust them to the event. They have
t-shirts. They do a whole bunch of sports. And we really want everybody to be part of this great thing. So, it starts at um 9:00 a.m. It runs from 9 to 11:30 on Turf 1 on June 6th. And I just
really wanted to um thank Tara Hurley for her organization of this amazing event. We have music and uh it's really exciting. And at the schools they do either clapins or claps clap outs for the student athletes. It's a very
wonderful inclusive activity. Great Dr. M. Great. Uh couple things. One, since you don't have a student rep, I'll share that four a couple of our RHS uh spring sports teams are now in the state tournament season. Uh we have four
teams who are in the top 10 uh in the rankings and a few that are actually even much higher than that. So, there's teams who are very optimistic about a deep postseason run. So, for those in the community who are looking to get out and support the teams, now is the time is literally now is the time with our boys team out there. Uh, and then two
things trying to drive up some interest for next week's school committee meeting. Two things to put a plug in for. One, at 6:00 is our annual distinguished teacher and distinguished staff member award ceremony. This gives us the chance to recognize some of the staff members and teachers who go above and beyond for our students every day.
We'll share the names of those staff members and teachers over the next few days, but if you'd like to come help celebrate, reception is 5:30 and then ceremony is 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. Also, next week, we're excited to share focus on excellence will be around uh our student authors. So, we have nine students who
have reached agreements with our core uh for the rights to their writing to be published out uh out in the community. They also are receiving uh checks uh anywhere between $200 and $1,000 next week. So ArtCore will be on site to hand out the checks next week and to
celebrate our nine young authors who will now be published authors and these are our fourth grade students. So thank you to Art Core for doing that but also excited to see our students here and celebrate their Yeah, it's a lot of money right see yeah that's awesome. So u pretty
impressive and we'll also share uh each of those writing samples with the community so the community can see the work that will then be published uh from our students. Great. Thank you. Any questions I forgot to ask about Dr. Sty's update or Dr. Milky's update? Nope. Okay, we'll move on to leazison
reports and we'll start on this side. Sarah. Oh, surprise. Um, so the coalition met yesterday. I was not able to go because it coincided with the choir banquet. So, a couple notes. Um, we celebrated four seniors this year that were the rocket leaders. Um, so Gabriella, Justin, Megan, and Maya. Um,
just acknowledging all the work they've done with the coalition. Uh May is mental health awareness month and so there were a lot of events happening, a lot of support that the coalition provides to our school system in terms of um different trainings and health classes. Um they did uh mental health uh
wellness workshops, team mental health first aid, choose to refuse, the second act performance um for grades nine and 10 here at the high school as well as kind of um sharing of different data points as well. Um the YRBS, the youth risk behavior survey will be
administered next month in June. Um I think early in the month as well. Um and I think if we me as we've mentioned previously um the opioid settlement uh the coalition received will be supporting the school system by hiring a part-time clinician as well for us. Great. Thank you. Any questions for
Sarah? I didn't hear what you said a part the behinding or part-time there and you can speak better the funding in terms of the the clinician support and supporting that will as part of the opioid settlement that we received. Thank you. So the opio opioid settlement uh impact on us is an additional point4
to supplement our point6 health teacher position at the middle school. That's one piece. The second is the coalition is hiding hiring an additional clinician uh who will be focusing primarily on our student needs. So, this allows students in need of additional mental health support uh during the school day where there may be barriers to get out access
to outside counseling to be able to have that built into the school day for our students. There already is a mental health connection with the coalition. This is an additional staff member. So, like to thank the coalition for their continued partnership. This is, as we know, mental health supports often difficult to access and there's a lot of barriers in place. Bringing those
services in the school uh has been uh really impactful for a lot of our students. Thank you. Okay, Erin, no report tonight. Sean, um, audit committee was supposed to be this evening, but was rescheduled until likely June 25th. Um, and I'll just
append Dr. Milichesky's update. Boys lacrosse was up 12 to zero at halftime, so it was a good start. Okay, Laura, no report. Carla, um, Kllum building project is starting in full swing. We will be starting, um,
monthly meetings. We have a meeting on Monday the 2nd. I think today we set up like 12 meetings um over the next like three weeks. Um the designer has hit the ground running. Um same with the um the
OPM. We um negotiated contracts which we'll vote on at our Monday's meeting. And we're we've set up or we will be setting up um monthly meetings and we're trying to kind of coincide with the other building project to not kind of
overlap because there's a lot of the same people on there. So, okay, we will be notified as a committee for Monday's meeting if anybody else wants to attend besides Sean and Carly. So, just FYI. I think we are technically already notified. Yeah, since I saw it,
right? So, just FYI on that. Um, all right, back to me. Um, not really a liaison or subcommittee report, but since I didn't get a chance to do it in person because I was in San Francisco, um, I would like to congratulate Tama Jones on being the school committee book club winner this year. Um, we were able
Carla was able to announce it on our behalf at the senior awards night uh, last week. So that's why she had that little bag that was in addition to the the two books that we gave her as well. Um, and so going to Buoie State focusing on psychology. So, we tried to find some
books that aligned to that and hopefully it will be helpful for you and we're we're glad that you received it and thank you for all you've done over the many years that you've been involved in the school. So, thank you. Um, all right. So, we'll move on to new business and we will start with the
Reading Education Foundation grant update. And board members, please come around and be go close to Carla so the camera can see you as well. She doesn't bite unlike what people say about her. Only some people.
Not me. No, you come on in. Thank you for having us. I'd like to start by quickly introducing the ref board who I have with me here. We have Emily James who is on the grant committee. Andrea Nelson who is Festival of Trees co-chair. Chris Mccari who's
going to be our new grant chair. Debbie Hatterie our current grant chair couldn't make it but I do want to give her a special shout out. This is her last year on Raph. Um she's led grants now for two years and she's been an amazing board member. So we really want
to thank her for all her work and the entire committee and the board. And I just want to give a short summary. I know most of you know about Reading Education Foundation, but I always like to reinforce that Readings Group has a little different model than some of our
neighboring towns. Our funds come entirely through our fundraiser Festival of Trees and then a small portion is through direct donations. Um a lot of cities have corporate funding, other
mechanisms to get um grants, but we are a community-based group and we feel that it's important that the money that is raised at Festival of Trees is given right back to the schools the very year that it is raised. And another reason
we're very different from your PTOs and other organizations is that the grants that we bestow are based upon teacher and support staff requests. It's not the administration, it's not the parents, it
is the teachers requesting items. And we're very proud to fund it. We hope to see more grants. We love how the grants evolve every year. Um, we are so impressed by the teachers and what they're able to do with the funds that we provide. And we're very thankful to
the community for continuing to support Raph and support the Festival of Trees. And with that, I would introduce Christ, who's going to talk about the grants that were given this year. Um, well, it's wonderful to be here tonight. Thank you uh so much for having us. Um, as
Laura mentioned, Debbie Hatterie was not able to be here and was very disappointed since this is her last um, official uh, grant uh, check delivery, but she prepared a message that she asked me uh, to share with all of you. I want to take a moment tonight to
recognize and celebrate a remarkable group within our district, our teachers who applied for REF grants this year and in years past. Putting together a grant application takes vision, creativity, and a genuine commitment to improving
student learning. These educators went above and beyond their daily responsibilities to develop ideas that bring new tools into their classrooms, libraries, music and art rooms, and gyms, and make learning more engaging,
inclusive, and effective. They don't stop with the question, "What do my students need today?" They ask, "What could be possible tomorrow?" Whether it's through technology, project-based learning, steam initiatives, or new ways of supporting social emotional growth,
these teachers are pioneers. Their applications reflect not only expertise, but also a love for their students and a willingness to lead with cur courage and curiosity. On behalf of REF, I want to thank every teacher who has submitted a
grant application over the years. Your efforts are a powerful reminder of the passion and talent that exists in our schools. You are helping shape a culture that values imagination, initiative, and continuous improvement. We are proud of
you, and we look forward to seeing how your ideas continue to inspire progress across our classrooms. Thank you. I have one more thing. I should name the other um members of the grant committee. It was Laura Fusco and Nil Taylor. And I
also want to say thank you because I've been on REF 12 years. I've been president for four and this is my last year. So I want to thank the school committee for all their support, the administration, um the principles and the student seniors who have volunteered at Festival
of Trees. You guys, it's not possible without you. So, a huge thank you to the community. Thank you. Picture done. Oh, more pictures. Go back around for a picture. Audience. Well, I mean, that's huge. Well, for the record,
it's $29,334. You can get it on camera, too, and around. all over it. I'll make sure she's off. Thank you so much. Every time I ask it everybody
else, I'll say yes. By the way, you guys got a shout out at the uh Parker concert tonight. Mr. Norton was very thankful for his iPad. His iPad and everything. Okay, so moving right along. Uh the next
item on our agenda is the Joshua Eaton name removal request submission. Um and just to go through some of the logistics so people understand what happens tonight versus other nights and the team here already knows because we walked through it before. Um we are operating this under the policy that was the
policy when they requested which is the older version. Um but fundamentally it's not much different right um this is an unnamed request. Um if this request is successful there will be a name process afterwards. Um tonight
they will present their justification and reason for the request. Um the board will not deliberate. We won't be saying, "Oh, I think this or I think that." Um, we can ask clarifying questions. Um, at our next meeting, the next Thursday, we
will have um any deliberation the board wants to have and vote on the creation of uh an advisory committee uh in alignment with the policy. Um at that point if an advisory committee is formed we will um talk about the constituents
of that or part of that will be the constituents of that advisory committee and then work to populate that advisory committee and move forward. Um so that's the step that's the story for tonight. Uh team please come forward uh again come over here so we can get you on camera if possible. Introduce yourselves
and um give us your your information. As you know you have up to about 10 minutes if you need that much time to outline your justification. an empty. We're moving the mics over for you as well. Thanks, Sean. Carla, there's an
empty sneak past you. Thank you. [Music] Hello, I am Jeremiah Sanford. Uh, as of tomorrow, no longer a senior. One more day soon to be a graduate.
Yeah. Um I'm Tamir Jones. I'm also like a senior now. We got a few more hours. Um but yeah. Um I'm Alana Dorquez. I am a junior, a rising senior. Good. Uh good evening. I am Dante Dio. I am a junior
and a rising senior. Um we are the students of color and allies for equity, justice, and inclusion. We are here today to kind of just talk about more about the Joshua the proposal to um unname the school Joshua
Eaton and I will pass it to these two juniors down here that will continue. When Joshua Eaton uh senior passed away, he did not leave a will. It is not entirely clear on which Eaton family member owned Ko after the patriarch's
death. Uh Ko appears to have remained in the family whether immediate or extended as he re as he retains the surname Eden in a military record of 1782. Our proposal recommends renaming
Joshua Eden Elementary School because of the current school name is not clearly defined between Joshua Eaton Jr. and Joshua Eden Senior. Our suggestion for a name is Ko Eden Elementary School to acknowledge the full historical narrative of the community and to honor
Ko whose life and legacy represent resilience, service and the often eras erased history of black individuals in Reic. This name preserves historical continuity by retaining the eaten surname but centers the story on Ko, the
man who endured enslavement and went on to serve in the Revolutionary War. His name will inspire students with a story of resilience, service, and the ongoing journey towards justice. Okay. So, our rational for the name change is number one, um, historical
accuracy and representation, honoring KO recognizes the full truth of Reading's colonial history, including the pre presence of slavery and the contributions of enslaved people to the town. Additionally, it is an educational opportunity for the community. A school named for KO provides a valuable
platform for learning about slavery in New England, early African-American history, and the enduring fight for justice. It also um reading also has a moral responsibility. Continuing to name a school after known enslaver without addressing his legacy, continues to
perpetuate historical injustice. Renaming the school after Kada reflects a commitment to equity and truth. It will also serve as a community as a way of community growth and inclusion. Renaming the school symbolizes progress and inclusivity values that should
define our education system and public institutions. We ask for your help to make sure this very important change to help create this very important change in our community. This proposal is not an eraser of history but an expansion of
it. By renaming the school Teao Eaton Elementary, the Reading community has an opportunity to tell a further, more honest story, one that acknowledges the pain in the past and uplifts of the voices too long ignored. We respectfully
urge to the school committee to support this renaming effort and set a powerful example for the current and future generations. It is time to give Ko his due on the land that he worked and lived on. Thank you. Okay, without any deliberation, are
there any questions from anybody on the committee? So, just to confirm the order of operations, this proposal, it goes through all the cycles and iterations would result in removing the name. If I remember correctly, the name
sort of stays in place until another name is identified, which requires another nomination process and the whole Yeah. Okay. Correct. So, while they have suggested a name, technically it has to be unnamed first. And then a name potentially if the unnaming is approved.
Okay, Erin. Yeah, forgive my ignorance because I I don't know this. Is the land that Joshua Eaton is on what was owned by the Eaton family? Correct. So that's exactly where it was? Yes. Can I ask another question? Yep. Question. And Ko also fought in the war.
Yes. Yes. How old was Ko when he died? I believe in his 30s. I don't remember exactly. It's not known. Did he die in the war or after the war? After the war. Okay. And
Joshuan Jr. died in the war. Correct. Around I've seen different numbers for his age, but 18 19 roughly. Yes. Okay. Okay. Any further questions? Okay. So, as you know, that's
that's the end of tonight from this perspective. Um, we'll bring it back um for next Thursday, and as of right now, it's the first thing on the agenda for next Thursday. So, other than the beginning stuff that you just saw us go through, you guys will be the first on
the agenda for next Thursday. All right. Okay. So, um we're going to move on from there to our CPAC FY25 end of year update. And I believe we have some of the CPAC board members here. And would you ladies, please join us down here as
well. And um I have your presentation that we can start sharing. [Music] Okay. Hi, good evening. Thank you for having us. My name is Dilly Wilson. I'm one of the board members. Um, and with me today are Trisha Kylie,
and Jasine Lee. Um and Unice Kenyon and Zia Leonard were unable to be with us, but they're also board members. Next slide, please. Thank you. Um just a a reminder of um who and what CPAC represents. We're the special education parents advisory council. Um
our mission is really to work for the understanding and respect and support of um all children with special needs in the community. Um and the the words around the circle um explain how we um do that through networks of parents with
special needs um advising the director and of student services um promoting communication, sharing information between CPAC members and all our other constituents and also do umformational workshops for parents, educators and students and
professionals. Next slide. Thank you. So, our agenda today, we're going to look at our year in review, what we did this year. Um, and um, Trisha will then share our results from our annual survey that we do each year. Jasine will talk about what outreach efforts we've been
working on. Um, and then we'll round up with talking about the workshops that we um did this year and also what we plan on doing next year and then we'll open it up for Q&A. Um so year in review um we started this year in October with a full board. A
full board by our current bylaws has six members. Um two had um and so four of us were um from the year prior. Um two new board members. Um we ended the year at five as one board member had to step down. Um and we expect to work on our
bylaws next year to expand the number of um board members to a higher number. um it's more than six. We haven't decided how many is too many yet, but um we'll create a subcommittee to go through that. Um but it's been great to have a full board. Um this past year um we've
been having some great um strong momentum as we have in the year past. We've been continuing our external relationships. Um the meet and greet with um school chair, team chairs and administration has been wellreceived as the year before. And then we've
continued our great partnership that we have with um student services which has been always just a great um support for us. And as I talk to other CPAC members, not every school district has that um has that I think uh privilege. So So
we're we're really um blessed here. Um, and we've also been working on our internal c culture, having more parent workshops, more meet and greets among the community, um, and more social opportunities so that we can all, um, get to know each other and therefore know what each other's needs are and
hopefully, um, do our best to meet them. We're also working on we worked on finding more underreached groups and then finding um identifying our bllight blind spots and trying to be more inclusive and bringing everyone in. This is just some stats. So we've
been active on social media. Not me personally unfortunately. I don't have any of these accounts. However, um uh we have 711 Facebook followers. Um and number of events. So events is defined as the number of likes, reactions, saves,
comments. We had 22,000 this year, which is great. So lots of people are on our Facebook account and interacting with it. Um, and then you have some other numbers there just to show um sort of our Facebook usage. We have 197 Instagram followers. And then um I think
two years ago now um Unice and her husband actually created our CPAC website which has um I mean personally that's how I learned about CPAC when my little one joined the school system um which is a fabulous website that they created. So we have is it 164 that have
um visited our site this past year. Um the most popular um sort of subsection being past presentations. Um we record as many presentations as we can to put them up for parents who are unable to join um live. Um and then these are some of the other pages. So we're active and
have great momentum on social media to try and get the word out on who are we and what do we do. Um I'd like to now give it over to Trisha who'll talk about our survey. Hi Trisha Kylie. I'm the new board member here. Um so this is just
words right from our survey that we put out. Um, a lot of people like to connect with us. Um, they love our in-person meetings. Um, and like I said, you guys can read the word bubble. That's kind of fun to look at. But speakers was a big piece for us this year. Um, a lot of
parents responded to the speakers we had. We felt like we really reached people on, you know, our reading. Um, we had Sarah Hardy on. She did a great job with the whole going over the reading program. We had the director of finance on to talk about the school
budget and that was very wellreceived. So again, we really feel like parents love to have speakers, love the in-house speakers, but I think the third party speakers like from the foundation are really nice for parents to get some outside the district information and then be able to bring it back to
indistrict. Um, so it's been that's been like a big push and like on Facebook we promote that, promote that, but anytime we have a speaker on that we can record, it's on our website and people can go back and rewatch it if they can't make it. And I think that's again a key to get parents a little bit more informed
about what special ed looks like in reading, who they can connect with, and also give some background information for their own personal knowledge. So um, yeah, again, those are just some of the comments that were taken exactly from our survey. Uh, next slide.
And then these are the things again that came up that you know people think we're doing a great job um and are those blind spots you talked about is they people feel like they don't know how to get involved. So we're trying to reach out and find out how we can connect with families who don't know how to navigate
CPAC. Um I just joined the board this year but like I had never really engaged with CPAC as much. Didn't think I needed to. I have a background in education so I felt like I knew stuff. Um, but it really is trying to get people to understand that this is not just you
have someone in spad and here's some information you may or may not need. We're really trying to reach out to the whole community and educate everyone. So when Sarah Hardy came on, she didn't just talk about special education reading. She talked about the reading program as a whole and parents had an opportunity to so it really was for the
gened parents as well as for sped parents and that's the kind of what we're trying to reach out to and educate the community on what reading has to offer. Um, so where, you know, it's like, I don't know how to do CPAC. I don't know how to engage with you. We're, that's our blind spot. We're really trying to work on that to make sure that we're reaching parents who
don't just have like the heavy IEP kids, but the 504s, the, you know, my kid just has speech, but well, how can CPAC support me in that? Um, and that's what we're really trying to, that's our goal going forward, and we pull all that from our survey. And then what else? Oh, this is
next year. The T. So next year the topics for next year we're looking at um more middle school high school conversations. A lot of our focus is like has been on the elementary age kids and once you like I have a fifth grader going to sixth grade. I you know would love to
know what goes on in the middle school a little bit more and I think that's kind of like a a jump that we haven't made yet in CPAC a lot of board members have younger children. I'm probably have one of the older kids um at the moment. So looking to find more webinars and more speakers to speak to that middle school,
high school transition or just the curriculum going forward, social emotional going forward. It's very different in that those age ranges compared to what they do in elementary school. Um and a lot of parents are looking for, you know, multiple, you know, autism and ADHD. We have some kids
that my own have both. And how does that look like? What does that play out? What what are the supports like? Um, reading is always going to be a big topic every single time. I think like when I was going through the survey, it was like dyslexia reading, dyslexia reading. I'm like, okay, it's still going to be a
problem. It's one of those things that people are always going to want to ask about. And we already have such great in-house people to discuss reading and reading, dyslexia, and reading. I do think like getting a third party outside person to give another perspective gives parents a sense of like, yeah, okay,
reading's doing what they're doing. I understand the diagnosis better. Um, and what else do we have up there? And always people, it's really important for everyone to every year do a what's in an IEP. How do you how do you use an IEP? How do you get what you need out of
an IEP? How do you go to an IP meeting? That's always a very popular one, too. So, that's kind of what we're uh looking forward to in the next year. So our outreach efforts um have been I guess multifold. Um one our partnership
with Reading Public Schools and student services and we really again really appreciate um the reciprocal communication and collaboration all throughout the year and going forward. Um we've um actively been having you
know monthly meetings um communicating um parent concerns and suggestions and then um working to bring those speakers um and topics uh to the community. Um next slide please. And then also connecting with
our community. So we do it um by information share as well as um social engagement. from a information share. We have the website, we have our social media, we have the Facebook, the uh Instagram, we have our newsletters and
district updates as well as you know meet and greets and our annual survey. And next slide, please. And from a social um standpoint to engage people, we've had a series of family lunch meetups. We've had
playdates. Um we had a fall foliage um nature walk um in the Reading Town Forest. Uh we had also a Wusetts Mountain meetup. And um for the unified sports, we're going to be setting up a water station, shade break tent, shade
because it's going to be hot. Um and then uh we're going to also u you know participate in the Metco um kite festival. Uh we participated in the festival of trees and um we're going to have an end of year social and patio
socials and popsicles in the playground and then later on we'll um talk about our future initiatives for the next academic year. Um so workshops um these are the workshops we did um this year. I'm not going to read each one, but um one of
Lynn Lions gave tackling the pattern of anxiety, depression, and avoidance. Um and then we had um the screening of the right to read which was very popular and um wellreceived, the 360 thinking model
by Sarah Ward. Um so, and these are the other um workshops that um all those sort of speakers and events that um the parents really um enjoyed. Next slide, please. Next year, what are we going to do next year? Um, copy, paste, repeat. Um,
um, we're going to provide, we're going to continue to provide the new social networks and opportunities. We we upped it a little bit this year and that's been really nice to to again get to know the community. The more you can meet face to face and know who we are with each other are, that really helps us be
a community. Um, we're planning on screening in a different key this year. Um, do a screening of that. um also expand our workshops more by bringing in presentations on inclusion um additional educational workshops. Um Lynn Lions and
Sarah Ward are both so highly wellreceived by parents. We're going to um continue to work with that. Um and part of our inclusion work more with the friends of the CPAC. Um, we're also, um, funding, um, is always an interesting question and, um, student services
always comes pulls it out from somewhere and gives us the funding we need, but we're also going to look at opportunities where we can do some of our own fundraising as well for some events. Um, expand our website, um, again do the team chair meet and greet,
um, which so many parents come and all the team chairs are there. It's a really nice event. um before the outside of the formal IEP meetings, which has been really nice, expand our partnership with community support groups, continue developing our partnerships um with the
school um school committee, school student services, and then finally that bylaws committee up u that I mentioned earlier on. Um so these are some of the things based on the survey um and our past experience that we are planning on doing next year.
Great. Before you move on, I think there's a question. Can you just say um a little bit about what In a Different Key is? In a Different Key, the a movie or screening. Jasine's the one who said. So, um we um had gotten a grant um to do
a screening um a one time. We are um it's going to be about I guess you know inclusion um and we are exploring the possibility of doing a a fair um here at
AI public schools at a a school or place to be determined that is going to um really focus on inclusion and have a um uh in our what's available and resources in our village. And so, um, the idea or
concept is that we're going to have the movie as part of the entertainment, if you will, um, in one part. We're going to also have tables where you have resources that are applicable to families, um, uh, you know, from a
special ed standpoint, from a general ed standpoint, and, uh, what's in our village because it takes a village to take care of the families. And so we want to have that um include in inclusive environment laid out of this is what you can do, this is what you can
sign up for, these are the organizations and services that are available to you and make it as easy as possible and show that these services apply to everybody. Okay. Thank you. You want to say something? I do want to say something because I love the CPAC so
much and we're so grateful that they brought this forward for us. I'm actually almost finished watching the movie. It's um really wonderful um documentary about students with autism um and as they grow up and are adults
and and woven throughout is how do we make everybody feel like a member of our community? Um it also is a book um which as soon as the CPAC let us know we're working on getting funding to add to our school libraries. so that families and
staff can access the book as well. Um, so that'll be part of it and we're working on getting a date and a time for their fair as well. Thank you. Love that. Anything else? No. Perfect time for Q&A.
You jumped the Q&A. You want anything, Sarah? I just uh just so much gratitude and thanks. It's so exciting to see such an active um CPAC board. It was not that long ago we had one board member and to see um so I it's just it's so amazing to see
how and the fact that we're you know saying how many board members should we have this year that's just so exciting to me to be see all the things that you're able to do. So thank you. Yeah, it's my first year and I really, like I said, I am really happy to finally get convinced to join, but um it's been
really nice to I taught for eight years in first grade and like I have I have background with special education kids. My two kids are special education and it's been nice to see the I keep saying like behind the curtain and seeing all the work that um student services is
doing, what teachers do. We've been included in so much stuff. I really want to like shout from the rooftop of what the staff is doing because some people don't see behind the curtain. All they see is that IEP meeting they go to and it's it's rough. It can be rough for a lot of people. But it's it's really nice
that we can see all that goes on and all the pieces that come together and we can start to share that with the community. I think it's really it's been a nice perspective for me. Um because like I said, it's just so much goes on and I don't think it gets advertised enough. So, I really appreciate like being part
of the board and having the opportunity. So, thank you. Sean, you remember Aaron? Sean, who had their hand up first? Erin, Carla, whoever can go. I think we we've lost the hands up. Jen has her hand up, too. Jen's already spoken. We'll come back to
Mine was directly related to Trisha's comment. Go ahead. Okay, Jen, go ahead. Um, I just also wanted to acknowledge um the board has been so great um in partnering with us. Not only do we meet once a month, we also like send them emails like, "Hey, heads up. We could
talk about something." But they actually came and did a workshop with us this year that we're going to continue to do about h what's the latter of inference and how do people communicate and what how do we have stressful conversations and what do we need to do? The latter of
conflict. Yes. And so it really we are just so grateful that they continue to partner with us. So I just want to thank you all personally. It's been awesome. All right. Now we'll go and we'll work our way. Um so I I'll piggy back on what
Sarah said. Like I I think it's been amazing to watch the evolution of this group and um all that you have accomplished and brought to the community is incredibly impressive. Um, so I'm wondering, are there things you think we
as school committee members can be doing to either better support you or help promote you more within the community so that more families are aware? I think my goal for next year, we're going to push towards that inclusion topic. Um, you
know, we have a great inclusion specialist in town, like what does that look like? but also um try to work more with schools PTO's because the PTO is a big driving force for that afterchool engagement. Um and I have found that
there's a lot of families who do not engage in after school activities because their child can't be in the environment as is. they're always in always have the opportunity to but as again I we went to a movie night and we had to leave early because it just
wasn't the right but it could have been but it wasn't and so I think the goal is to kind of get ourselves a little bit more entwined with PTO get PTO's coming more to our stuff and having that converation kind of educate each other but there is a big gap right now in the community where there are I'm at Birch
Meadow and like there are parents who kids are in fifth grade who don't even know that there's been programs in like they if you said the word sore now it's embark but it was sore people have no idea what that is and so there's like that disconnect where we we we could
scream it from the rooftop but individually in the schools there's so many amazing programs going on that are like the and special ed is helping the entire community and that's kind of the message that should be put out there is
that my special ed kids educ you know all that he has an IEP is actually like kind of it expands the whole school and kind of making that more aware. But I would I think we need to involve ourselves more in like the PTO world and PTO needs to come into our world a
little bit more because all the sped parents know what's going knows what the programs are but there are individual schools you know Barrows has a program has a program Josh has a program and I don't think the majority of those gened parents you know have any idea
what those programs are they just might know that there's a kid down the hall screaming and don't understand the background behind kind of but if you knew oh because at Burge there's like I don't know like two full-time speech therapists because of the need there
your child who might not need speech directly is indirectly having an it has an effect you're in a classroom and you're getting like an extra SP the paras are there for the special education need kids your child is benefiting from having an extra
adult in the classroom again not directly indirectly it's this indirect um connection that we all are having, but no one knows about it and no one's acknowledging it. So, I don't know what how that really plays out, but it's something that, you know, um Allison and
I are specifically working on. Um we're kind of making our little we're working together to try to figure out how we can fill that void and how we can make these bridges and have the conversations with individual schools. But, it's really like the it's the parents, it's the PTO, and we need to educate more parents
about it because the sped community knows what we're doing. they see CPAC and they can sign up for something. But if we're branding, our branding isn't great for the gen ed crowd. No one goes to go to a CPAC event if their kids not
in special ed, but we run events that would benefit the entire community. So, it's trying to again make those connections to people that like when Sarah Hardy came on and did reading, it had nothing to do with sped. There wasn't a sped conversation. It was here's ARC. Here's ARC as the program.
let me go over the reading levels and let me go over this. It had nothing to do with spad, but it was an information session. And then she came back and did another follow-up and re answered all the questions that parents had. So, I mean, like I said, like I don't know. I don't know how to like really answer that, but I know that going forward the goal is to really start to integrate and
educate everyone a little bit better without throwing it in anyone's face. Let's just weave it in and let's just make everyone aware of the fact that these things are in our schools and they're really great programs. So, I taught I taught in Stoneham and they didn't have half of this. You were
either this or this. And I when I had my daughter in preschool, I looked at four programs that she may or may not have fit into. And I was blown away at the availability and the variety and we could really cater to her needs. And that's that's the amazing part of Reading. So, that's what I want everyone
to kind of understand. But inclusion is going to be the big push next year. And how do we make inclusion for the community, not just for sped? It's like how do we push that through that all of writing? Love that. Yeah, Sean. Um, so a few things. One, I'll just pile on with the gratitude for all
the work that you all are doing. It's it's really really important and valuable. Um, Trisha, something you were talking about resonated with me and there was an illusion to uh workshops, you know, that that benefit everybody and aren't just about special education students. Um, I think that's super super
important, you know, um, for a couple reasons. one because they do benefit some of those workshops do benefit so many people but also it does build awareness of CPAC and and what's going on there. You know, Dr. Millesky and I have been having a conversation lately around um you know, I'm hearing from more parents than I have before about
behavioral dysregulation issues in our schools and um unfortunately, you know, parents often associate those with certain subgroups and and they're wrong in many cases, but they but they do. Um, and so, you know, there's a there's a a lack of empathy sometimes, you know, that we need to sort of reinforce with
some folks. And so, the more that we can, you know, bring awareness to um, you know, what special education families are going through or what, you know, their students needs may be and and, you know, is it's valuable for everyone. And it's it's to me like I think like I normalizing certain things like Yeah. My daughter walks around with
headphones in school because the cafeteria is too loud. Yeah. But you know what? If you were in an office building, who has earbuds in? Everybody. Who sits in a yoga ball in a work office? Everybody. So, it's like normalizing those things that like some
people would assume are like for a certain subgroup, but we just need to say no. It's like literally anybody. Anybody would benefit from this and like you can you can have a wiggle seat, you can have whatever seat you want because we allow it as adults in an office building. It's a good point. You know,
like we normal, we can normalize this, but in reality in schools, it's like it is it's pinpointed and it's only for that kid. No, I'm telling you, like everyone if you go to an office building and people are wearing earbuds, they have to drown out the noise. It's white noise. How many people go to sleep with white noise as adults? So, like I said,
no, I agree. It's it's it's trying to find a way to educate without throwing it people's faces. I love that. Um my other question was um uh the the piece about you know more programming and more you know sort of offerings for middle school and high
school um families. You know I would imagine there's a couple factors there right? You know because you're the programming you do generally is going to reflect the priorities of the engaged members right you know sort of how the how it goes typically. So I would imagine there's you know parents who just sort of um you know have other
things that they're involved in and just you know maybe don't dedicate as much time. There's also lots of parents presumably who have sort of figured out, you know, how to support their own kids and built their own networks and things like that. Um, you know, I guess my question would be, are there other factors, you know, that are are making it difficult to sort of get, you know, middle school and high school parents
involved? You know, I'd ask Dr. Stice, are there examples in other towns that do a really good job of engaging middle school and high school parents? Like, what can we maybe this is another place where the school committee could help out as I was going is like how do we help build that ground swell? I think I think it's there also they some and my
experience is that some kids are can manage until a certain point. So these parents have not had to deal with a disability in learning until they get to middle school cuz then we meet we make a jump in our education that's more there's independence there's a whole
bunch of stuff. Some kids are not getting diagnosed with things until middle school, high school, and because they've been able to, you know, keep their head above water and then they get to middle school and high school and then it's a rush to find the the testing that this and that that but they haven't
been engaged with us before then. So, I think it's again I h I am going to have a middle schooler next year and I think my focus is going to be a very different focus next year compared to what it has been for the past 5 years. Um, but I do know that each milestone from middle school to high school, we're going to
see a bigger group of parents who are definitely in need, but they don't know, they think that CPAC is only going to offer things for like, you know, the younger kids, but if we start hosting um things for higher level kids and you you guys have talked about going on and
having meeting about the lead or the the programs in the high school and middle school like this is how I don't even like 100% know I'm better at the elementary stuff. It's going to be a a learning curve for all of us to make that jump to the higher levels. But a lot of the board members, we no one is
have anyone older than a middle schooler. I'm gonna have the oldest one. So I think that the problem in the community is that there's there are jumps when you hit middle school. Your kid might sink or dyslexia picked up then because they've been able to make it through a certain point. And it's finding those parents and reaching out
to them and knowing and like getting them like PTO's getting school staff to say like you know what the CPAC's there you can always and sometimes just emailing us and then we play phone directory you have a problem with this we'll send you this way. Um and
sometimes it's also the question of where do I go because they get very frustrated. We get a lot of angry parents. The heat's too high. They're frustrated because they think something's been mass missed from K through five. Hasn't been missed. You've just been able to maintain your you can
be able to maintain it. Kids then fall off the in middle school. High school is another big one. The curriculum changes, the independence, the you know. So I don't know how we I think just we have to we have to find the right speakers
and Lin Lions is great but sometimes people think Lin Lions is for like younger group of kids for this like younger anxiety group. We almost have to look for that like teen adulthood speakers. Yeah, I think so because I think partly it's the programming the
CPAC has offered is just been of more interest to a younger group. Yeah. So partly it's I think us and the other it's a blind spot. It's one of our blind spots. We have to like really like sit back and like when we h when we pick speakers what is a topic it can't still be you know regulation is always a
problem. regulation and understanding that stuff is always going to need be need there, but by the time they get to middle school and high school, their needs are not like regulation necessarily. It's more the social emotional, it's the how do I get my middle schooler who's reading at a
fourth grade reading level, how do I help them in seventh grade? That type of stuff and understanding reading. Again, it's making that bridge for parents to say, you can listen to Sarah Hardy talk about ARC and she'll go over the steps
in reading, the breakdowns, what's FMIC awareness, what's blending, like all those terms and it would still make sense to parents who are middle schoolers. If they're not reading at a seventh grade level, they need to understand the lower level stuff. So, I think it's just a
blind spot. we have to really sit and even talk to like Allison and Jen about like what what does reading have staff-wise that can reach them because it's always great to find in-house but I find the more popular ones are getting that outside the reading community
parents don't want to hear everything from reading all the time they want to hear from a third party source so that they have a little outside information then they come back to the reading and they're like oh I feel better because reading is doing exactly what this other person said they're not is telling me
what I and part of the challenge with that is that um we're limited in funding and so we have to pick and choose the topics that we can select um for workshops. So we're trying to think creatively for the next academic year of
how we can fund raise so we can get more workshops um to address the different levels. Um, so that we try to pick workshops right now that can address uh a wide breath of our community, but we definitely need to have more. And so
that's why we're trying to be creative with having that fair sometime in in the fall. And um I've been trying to apply for different um grants. So, we've gotten I think two grants now um that we can utilize for the year, but we need to
definitely get more so we can um address at different levels. And to pick it back off that, that was going to be one of my questions for how can the school committee help whether maybe letting us make aware of grants that exist um or um funding in general. I know student services has always sort of found money
somewhere um but anything sort of to help us to that we can reach. So I think the need often tends to be that that younger group like myself, I have a preschooler and I don't know anything about it and so I'm really engaged. And so I think when we get to middle school for parents like myself, I think who've
been through the system by middle school and that's what some of the parents said in the survey, well I engaged with CPAP when I was younger. Now it's fine. My kids were younger. I've figured it out. And so if we can engage them whether it be the parents who are new or the parents who've been through with speakers that are more relevant because
we can offer that which is a funding concern that would really help. Carla I'll just make this really quick. Um many of the people on this committee are here because of the issues with
special ed prior. I can tell you 20 years ago I was dealing with it. So, it's um we are in a totally different place now and it sounds like you guys need the older crowd to turn around and say we're doing really well right now. Yeah. Um I love the um I love the
collaboration of having the CPAC join for training. I I that's awesome. Even just to have the finance director just so people understand like people think you have to pay for this. Well, guess what? you know, it's this amount of money and
sometimes just to have that understanding. So, it's it was it was one of our mo most popular um meetings and I mean, we recorded it, so I'm always like, if you want to know, just go back to the recording. Um he he did a phenomenal job. It really explained like
Paris and why we can't just put like 15 paras in every building, you know, like why is this this, you know, and it was like very cut and dry and people were like, "Thank you. I just needed a number." It's it's it's not an endless supply of money. Um, and people just have to be aware of it. Um, which is
it's it's awesome to have that. So, I think the in-house speakers are great. Um, I see a kind of a connection with the children's cabinet, too. There is. Yep. Okay. Um, and I also see a connection with um with Reading Wreck um in summer programming because I hear
that all the time is I don't have any place for my kid to go in summer. Yeah. My daughter is an inclusion counselor at Reading Wreck. What does that mean? She's, you know, she just turned 18, which results a big conversation this year because of um summer schools like gets out at like 11:30. But that's
another like that's another avenue to, you know, Yeah. to see if if if a different group of children can be serviced. Oh, yeah. So, thank you. No, thank you. I guess I'll I'll end it.
Um, if I think back and Carla was thinking back and Sarah was thinking back a little bit. If I think back seven years ago, uh, and or nine or 10 years ago, depending on how far I want to go back, um, as Sarah said, we had one board
member and none of this engagement. And I think the the work you all continue to do and the desire to make it more than six, that wasn't even considered as a possibility back then. it wasn't even in the in in the realm of possibility,
right? So, the fact that the the group is so strong that you want to add to the board and make it bigger um is is really quite phenomenal. Um I also love the fact that I don't know a single one of you, right? I mean, historically for the
last few years, I've known the presenter sitting at that table pretty well from all of the time I spent with CPAC and whatnot. So, I love the fact that there's new new uh board members coming up and and it's grow growing even more. If Unice was here, I wouldn't know her.
Um so, you know, I just want I just want to observe that as part of what we're going on what's going on here and um continue to applaud the work that you're doing. Um and say you have our support. Um I don't I don't know how well you sort of already have the financial support. Yeah. To a degree. Yeah. Wink
wink nod. Um, you know, in terms of other things, if if there's other brainstorming or other ways you want to um think about fundraising or or whatnot, um, I'll find a way to make myself available to help some of that as well. Um, like I said, it's it's going to be looking on those
blind spots is going to be really important because I do agree like we have a there's a lot of people who on that survey were like, I don't know how to use CPAC. I don't know how how to do this. And I'm like, it's like I'm like I I want to make sure that everyone has the availability. And I don't know how
much of it is advertised in the middle school and high school, elementary schools. It goes out in the newsletter. It goes out, you know, it goes out in all the newsletters. Um so I mean I'll say this as well. It's um it's one of those, this is maybe a crude way to say it, but you can lead a horse to water,
you can't make them drink, right? Um so some of that is there until they feel the need. They won't plug in in some cases. But that said, don't stop keeping don't I mean don't stop continuing the process of of sharing information, pushing out. Um I love the fact that next year is going to be focused on
inclusion. Um I actually am reading a study that might challenge that conversation, but is still um something of of interest that I think is good. where Carla was going with the ch children's cabinet and Jen might have been thinking this too is you as you work in a different key. The children's
cabinet has talked about various different ways of sharing information on around town for people who need resources. So it might be a good plug to either get additional people to help you. Yeah. Or you know expand the the resource fair that we've talked about in
the children's cabinet type concept. Yeah. Um, so just if we can align those two in addition to what Carla was saying, that would be uh, you know, a force multiplier to a degree. So, uh, thank you for coming. Thank you for sharing. Thank you very much. And, um, don't be strangers. Don't come just once a year. If you need anything, you know
where to reach us. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So with that said, from CPAC to student services, um, and I will start the share on this one here in a second, too. Okay. And then we can go from there. Every time we do a presentation, I think
of the the kiddos who came last year and said, "Every time I want you to click the slide, do jazz hands." That was my favorite presentation because they literally did jazz hands every time they wanted a new slide. Um, I just would
like to thank you. Um, I am so grateful the CPAC and the team that we've developed. I don't know of anybody that comes to the table and doesn't say what's best for this student. How do we help this family? And people are really
creative and it has just been amazing. Um Allison Wright has done such a tremendous job leading the special education department and the fact that we have inclusion specialist, a program coordinator, a special ed literacy coach
that is is some of the work that you all have done and I'm really grateful because those are very creative positions that most districts do not have that you have helped us fund that are making a tremendous difference for our students. And I also just wanted to
name um Fran Mack and Olivia who are um the most amazing people in our office who pull everything together for us that wouldn't we wouldn't do the work we do every day. Um they support the teachers and the paris and and speech and
language and school sites and social workers in ways that nobody really knows. And so I just wanted to acknowledge that. Um, so as we go forward into this update, uh, you're going to see the the pillars of our strategic plan. And when you hear Sarah
Hardy's update next week, she's going to have a very similar structure cuz uh, we really try to work in coordination and so much of what we do because none of this work should happen in isolation. There isn't like
student support just does this. we are part of everything. And so that that is the way that we really wanted to um present this to you all tonight and going forward. So um what you're going to see in this
presentation on the next slide you're going to um what we did is we really tried to focus on the pillars in the strategic plan and then talk about just a few initiatives that were really high
priority and important for our community and things that we know are having a measurable impact. This is not the breath and depth of everything we do. It's just a few highlights in the pillars of safe um learning environments, instructional systems and
family and community engagement. So on the next slide, one of the things around safe learning environments, I am so grateful we have had for the past few years a district uh safety committee with members of all of
our school community represented, but we also have the town come. we have um the fire chief and the SRO's are there and we're really talking about how do we make sure that reading is safe and do we have the right protocols and what do we
do? Um and this year um we've been fortunate enough to um partner with our union and really go through all of the safety data and make sure we're not missing anything. And so those two pieces have been really beneficial for
our district. And one of the outcomes was we did a district um safety committee on um 467 um staff participated in our survey. Every building had people respond and we
really wanted to know how are we doing and what do we need to do better. So on the next few slides, we'll just go through them quickly, but you'll see that's just the representation of the different grade levels and that we had
staff throughout the district participating. Um, and we asked people over the last 30 days, how safe have you felt in school? And you can see the majority of people said safe or very safe. And if a behavior occurred in my
classroom, I knew this some dis um deescalation strategies or I knew many deescalation strategies. And so people are feeling equipped. We know there's some work to still do, but we also are seeing there's some really positive um
impact. And as you go to the next slide, um, this was really about, do I know what I need and what makes me feel safe at school? And I just wanted to highlight because I think it
it really shows how hard our building leaders are working, too, that if I call for help, I know I'm going to get help. People said that consistently. um they felt like the school resource officers were um really important and
also that we have some mental health structures and supports embedded that people don't necessarily always know, but it's really nice to know if there's a a threat or a student in crisis. We have protocols and supports that are um
nationally vetted that we have trained staff in every school. So as you go to the next slide and see um the survey themes, people really said when we looked at the responses from the whole district that they think we do
have good training communication that we really have a focus on students and their needs and that people are visible and supported and trustworthy in a crisis which is really important. and they gave us some areas to continue to
work on and that is something we are working very hard with our principles. We actually took all of this data. We work with the union and our safety committee to go through it. Um, and the principles are now working at their school-based level with their raw data
and their ILTs or data teams, whatever made the most sense in each building and refining to make sure every school's needs are addressed um, based on this survey data. So, um, the next slide shows you some of our continued work
ahead in the safe and supported learning environments. Uh, we made a district safety video people were not a fan. Um, but now people know me everywhere. They're like, "You were in the video." Oh, goodness. Um, but we really wanted
the staff to have an understanding of some of the things that we don't always say and and so we really are hoping to do some more videos. Um, one of the things is explaining some of the vocabulary that we use in schools. What
is a hold? How do you know what to do in a hold? And so that families are aware, but also our staff has been so good at giving us feedback that um we know our substitutes need to learn that as well because if
they're in a classroom and someone says we're in hold, they're like, "What?" Um so we want to make sure we're filling in those gaps. One of the other things I'm I'm really excited is um through so many of our listening sessions we've done across the groups, our students have
said, you know, it would be great if we had a bullying and a harassment policy. We're like, as a matter of fact, and they're like, when do people tell us about that? And we're like, okay, here is an area we need to work on. So, we are going to work on with the
principles. what's the best way to get to the students to talk to them about this and and what does it mean? Um, we're going to continue to update our systems and I mentioned the school safety plans. So, that's just a little highlight of some of the safety work
we've been doing and I'm happy to go into more at another time if that's helpful. Um, we also wanted to talk about our instructional systems a little bit. And as I mentioned, um, these are just a few highlights to show some of
the things that we are doing that have really had a big impact across our community. So the first one is our implementation teams, which are we're so excited about. We actually use the
general education model that S Hardy has done with her reading implementation teams and her math implementation teams. So if you go to the next slide um you'll actually see a picture of Jackie Pooy's inclusion implementation team. We have
representation um from all the schools and it's really exciting because we have our own educators really trying to figure out what are the things we need to know to make sure all kids are included in the least restrictive environment and we are really excited
about that and we're also coming up with a roadmap around how do we do the right PD to make sure everybody is supported and we're doing that in conjunction with um Sarah Hardy team as well. On the next slide, you'll see um a
little summary of our special education literacy implementation team. Um and that team is actually really working on making sure we have all the right steps and feedback to ensure we are doing all
the right instructional practices with fidelity. We just had an amazing presentation um with Renee Lamaro and Erin from um Sarah's team talking about MTSS tier
one, tier 2, tier three supports, what's the difference? And how do we recognize when students are struggling readers and intervene early? And not only were the special education team chairs there, um we also had all the reading specialists
there. So we are really doing coordinated work um with our teams that we are really proud of. So the next one is something that you all have mentioned to us many times
as as an area of concern which is the transitions. And so we worked on the depth and breadth of transitions um across the district. Um, we're actually still meeting, Ellison and I are meeting with every school team
chair, principal, talking about all the kids that are coming up, giving them the information, as well as the school visits, as well as the team meetings to make sure we're not missing anything. But one of the highlights we wanted to do um for you all was we really focused
on the rise to kindergarten transition um with the help of Jackie Palooi and Alana Shonne and Kelly Deo. They have been in doing school visits. Kindergarten teachers came to preschool. Preschool went to kindergarten. They are
meeting on every single student to make sure their placement and support is right. Um, and we have a very detailed plan. This is just like an ex excerpt of the plan to show you. We really wanted
to make sure we were concrete and um, putting everything together. And on the next slide, you'll see um, a little picture of um, the sweet path to kindergarten. um that we just had a meeting with all
the preschool teachers um and the kindergarten teachers and invited the building administration to talk about what's working, what are we really excited about, where are some of the pain points, and we'll continue to do this work. Um but it's really exciting
to get everyone together and make sure we're putting all the right supports in for our students. I know I'm talking really fast, but I I also want to be respectful of time and and hit as many of these things as possible. So, I'm happy to answer
questions as we finish up. I'm super proud of this. We are really ex grateful in reading um to have had understanding disabilities. They've been in our schools for a very long time and we are super thankful for their
work. they're no longer going to function in that way. And so they're working with Sarah and I to make sure their work continues in Reading Public Schools. And they've created a lot of lessons and um we actually created a new
team where we're working on our social emotional team and how do we dovetail that work with the lessons from UD. So, it's not just a speaker or a one-off activity, but it's embedded in how we
talk about our learning and what we do throughout the day and um and as we are working in classrooms and it is super exciting some of the work we've seen and I'll highlight it again in a few minutes
but um the lead program has enacted um a lead advisory where the kids talk about how their brain works and who are famous people with dyslexia and what does this mean? And it is amazing to me when I get to go into
classrooms and kids are talking about flipping their lid, meaning they're, you know, they're in their brain stem and their prefrontal cortex isn't working and how do they get it back in the right spot? Or kids saying, "It's really cool
how this works in my brain and this is why and I celebrate all of that." neurodeiversity. Um, so that's something we want to have embedded in our classrooms. So, we're continuing to do that work this
summer. So, that was um actually the leadin to the next slide. Oh, back to the lead advisory for a second. Um, because I'm going to shout out to Mia Jones again um with her permission. She
was one of our first students who um actually came back as a senior and started talking to the middle school students about what it's like to be a student in the LEA program, what it's like to be a student with dyslexia, her experience, and her
celebrations, and to be here tonight and have her to know she got into our First Choice College and has done so many good things and is willing to talk to students about it is really really amazing. A shout out to Tama and to all
the staff. She'll tell you hands down her favorite teacher is Jamie Bener and um what a difference it's made. So one of the things they've also done in the lead advisory is um students have gone from the high school to talk to the middle school
students. The middle school students have gone to the elementary school to talk to them and to start to build that bridge. And it has been amazing. There's a little slide here. Um, the students themselves made these slides. We didn't
give them any prompts. We just said, "What do you want kids to know?" And they come and they talk. Um, and one of our Parker students was absolutely adorable. He was so excited and said, "The kids ask great questions." Um, and so they're really proud of who they are
and where they come from, and we are excited to continue that work. On the next slide, I just wanted to highlight um some of the work we're doing. So the first example um to kill a mockingb bird is a ninth grade general
ed activity and they have animal adaptations as a fourth grade general ed activity. And when you look at these, this is something that the lead students are doing. They're having access to the general education curriculum, but
they're using things like the two column notes which is from Cornell that um Joan Sadita updated in the key comprehension tech um routine and also there are guided questions that help the students.
The coolest thing about that though is they've created it in a digital cell format. So once the students answer all the questions and they put in their sentences, they disappear so it becomes a paragraph which is one of the things
Sarah Ward recommended in her training around executive functioning which the CPAC talked about. Um and then the draft on the other side they really used um some strategies from project read
framing your thoughts around basic sentence structure and elaboration and what we're seeing is our students are are really accessing the general ed curriculum with a lot of success given the right supports. So we just wanted um
to highlight that for you. [Applause] Some of the other things um is we are doing a lot of trainings and one of the things is story grammar marker because we know that we need carryover and one
of the things everybody was talking about tonight is what does it look like in general education and good teaching practices in special education are just going to be good teaching practices period. So we're continuing um to do
that work. One of um the next things on the next slide it talks about the AIM curriculum um implementation and that's actually for our reach program. It is really
exciting because the core focus of this curriculum is having kids accept their thoughts and feelings without judgment. This is where I'm at. what are my goals and values and my decision- making and how do I move forward? Um, and where I'm
really really proud of our staff is they didn't just say we got to train the teachers in this. This is important for our kids. They said we got to train the families in this because if we're not looking at the whole child and everything that interacts with them,
we're missing giant pieces. So, we're really grateful that we had um five elementary and middle school families come for the training and we're going to do it again um at the high school for the families so that we're using a common
language. So, the next couple of slides just show you some of the components of AIM which includes mindfulness and ex um and acceptance and also has some of that applied behavior analysis in it. so that
that we can ensure that we're taking data, the kids are being successful, and we're getting all the right steps. And on the next slide, you'll just see that um as we looked at curriculum, we wanted to make sure we had something that went through all the
grades because we know these are students that really need to have something that builds upon it. um and that they are seeing themselves as continuous learners who are growing which is really
exciting. Um and then just the next slide is just more a little um about act and um and then the slide after that really just says we're going to continue to work on this get more staff trained
including our general education staff and we're really working on um developing additional parent resources so we can generalize all the skills at So in terms of instructional systems
next steps, um we are really working on our um templates and examples for the ed assessment A and B, lots of specialed speak, but what we know we're missing often at the table is the general education teachers perspective. and we
want to make sure that their paperwork as they come to the meeting is is important and it's really explaining what the student needs and any questions and concerns can be addressed. So, we're really trying to work with the general
ed on that. Um, we're going to continue to monitor all of the things that we've talked about tonight. Um, and we have been working on a series of videos um with the help of Sarah. She's looked at some of my videos to give me feedback.
Um, but really what we want to do is for 504 and IEP process, we want to be able to send them to parents and say, "Hey, you're getting a consent. This is what it means. This is what's next. Now, you're getting ready to talk, come into a meeting. This is what it's going to
look like." So that we can continue to develop um people's understanding and make it less scary. Um, the other thing I'm just going to mention, um, is we have the integrated monitoring review.
For those of you who are like, what's that? It used to be called the TFM. Before the TFM, it was called the pro coordinated program review. It's when the state comes in and checks our compliance with special education and civil rights. So we um we are now
submitting data almost every day to the state um to answer all the indicators. So we're doing that. Another thing that is up and coming is um this is super exciting to me. Dr. Maryanne Wolf is doing a
training and we were able to work with Sarah and the finance department and get access for our um entire staff. Anybody who can join to hear Marian Wolf speak is going to have access and we have the video that we will have for a very short
period of time for the people who sign up. But she is a leader in brain research um and it's very very exciting. Some of the other things, Sean, to your point earlier, um, we kind of talk about it as the
students of 2025 are different and how are they coming to school and what do we need to know about them? And it is fascinating the research that is going on um about how kids are changing. And so, we've bought all of these books for
the schools. they're in libraries, but we're also doing book studies and and really training the staff in um what's the difference in our attention span? And it's scary. Um Jackie Pooy laughs because I was literally in California
texting her, hey, can you send me the graphic? And she's like, are you on vacation talking to random strangers about the attention span research? I'm like, yes, I am. Um, and so I think it is it's just important that we keep up
with all of that information because it really drives the students that are in front of us and how do we support them because not all students that are struggling have a disability. We need to support all students. Um, what happened to you? Just as a plug, if anyone's interested in that
book, uh, Oprah is a co-author. We did our own little book study. The people who listened to it got done way faster than those of us who read it. I'm just saying. But it's a good Does Oprah narrate? What is Oprah the narrator of the audio? Uh, it's actually written in
a convers. It sounds like a podcast and so Oprah's asking questions, talking about her own trauma. What is trauma? It's a very good book. Uh, but just the plug for people really like listening to it.
Um, the other thing that's just coming up on our radar is our executive functioning program review. We've done surveys and listening sessions and observations and at the start of next school year. You're going to hear from our amazing team and we're going to talk
about it. And really truly that that graphic that was um created by Alli Sarno who's one of our school psyches explaining that executive functioning isn't just that you have a messy backpack that there's also a social emotional component to it and are we
addressing all of the pieces um which is really exciting. So that's just uh coming soon. And the last thing um because it's a pillar that falls under student services that we've been working on all year um and I wanted to give a shout out
to Dr. Barbara Best who graduated today. Uh you've heard this information from her, but she was really instrumental and we are going to continue to do the work she started with really elevating the student voice and building a community.
So, you've seen the next few slides, so I won't spend a lot of time on them, but we're really using those listening sessions to build on what students need and how do we support families and we'll continue to do that.
Um, Barbara is is so great at thanking everybody and um we have just such an amazing community in Reading. I I am so grateful for the coalition and working with the office of equity and social justice.
They continue to partner with us. I can send Erica a text and she is right there with support that we need and it is it is just amazing and we're going to continue um to do that because as on the next
slide that Barbara loves this nothing about us without us is for us and I think that really just highlights we've been meeting with students in various forms and families in listening sessions
Alison and I also do weekly office hours where anybody, staff, families can come and ask questions, say, "This felt lousy. Can you help me figure this out? I really don't understand why the team recommended this." And we continue to do
that because honestly, if we're not listening to people, then we're not doing the right work. So, um, we just wanted to highlight all the listening sessions Barbara did on the next slide. And
um and then the slide after that just talks about what the children's cabinet helped us to offer around Phyllis Fagel and her workshop that really focuses on microaggressions especially at the fourth to 10th grade level and socially
what does that mean? Um, in addition to the two things that were listed here that a lot of people don't know, we actually had Phyllis come in and meet with all of our school psychologists and social workers to talk about what does it look like in their worlds and when they're working with
students. Um, the next slide is um just highlighting Jill Walsh who came and who is amazing speaker around social media and devices and gaming. Um, as the CPAC
was talking, not everybody, um, likes to be recorded. Um, and the way, um, Dr. Walsh said we could record her was if we didn't just send out the link because the person who talks about social media
doesn't want people to take clips of her and put them on YouTube or social media. But we are going to do some screenings. So we will offer times that people can log on and see the presentation if they
didn't get a chance. Um and so we are going to continue this work. Um and net over the summer um again Erica and her team they have found money for mini grants for youthled
summer projects and we're have the town hall coming up and Barbara actually created for us a toolkit around school connectedness and that's some of the work we were doing with the CPAC. So, that is a highlight of of the things
in student services. Um, I know it kind of is a big mixture of things, but it really comes down to making sure everybody has what they need. Okay, let's look around. Questions, comments? Sarah, everybody
has it. Right. Couple clarifying questions. John, and you might not know the answers, so if you don't, you can write me to collaboration. Story, grammar, marker. Huge, huge fan. Um, so that's really exciting. Um, can you say a little bit more about who we're training, what grades, buildings,
teachers, um, they'll be and when it'll be rolled out. Yes, absolutely. We are um all I don't want to misspeak but all the lead staff and everybody um I believe has already been trained and we
are work at across levels and we are working on getting that all out to our general special education teachers as well over the next year. So, um, we, um, one of the things I just wanted to highlight that I can answer better to the exact number of staff, we have over
20 Wilson trained staff in this district at this point. They are certified, not trained. Well, trained and certified. Um, and so I I think that idea of increasing our ability of staff to be really trained in highquality
programming is really coming together. That's great. um fall onto is there any plan to train the gened teachers in story grammar? So that's something we're actually talking to Sarah about. We've uh we have this giant document of all of our wish list. If we could make training
for everybody, what would it look like? And that is a piece of it. To your point earlier, high quality instructional methods are for everybody, not just for people who struggle. Um the lead ELA example with the Tequila Mockingbird, I think you said that was a ninth grade. Just a clarifying point. Sure. the two
column notes template. Is that something our teams created? It didn't look familiar. No, no, it's it's actually um a research method that started at Cornell and then Joan Sadita adapted it and it's something that um is is widely
used as an organizational strategy for anybody who needs to be able to organize their thoughts and note takingaking. with the specific example like the week for the Tequa mockingb bird one with the prompts and those kinds of things. That was something the team created for the
Oh, um the so the format of it is is the two column notes and then the prompts were specific to killing. Yes. Um okay. And then um two other things, one quick one, the lead advisory slide with the examples on it. Um, you know, I love
that we're focusing on the additional social emotional needs of this group to your your voice over was fantastic about celebrating neurodeiversity. I just wanted to say that the prompt I think was it a speaking prompt maybe the where it says on the right hand side above the um slide advisory and then famous people
who have overcome dyslexia before changing the world. Do you know if that was a discussion prompt? What what was that exactly? the prompt that says advisory famous people who have overcome that is actually part of the curriculum they've developed to talk to the kids.
So they talk about um kind of what is dyslexia, how does your brain work and this is completely normal and people learn in different ways. They do all of the training around um our brains weren't formed to read and
we're making connections and then some of what the kids were really excited about is they love to like start to list. If you're a middle school you love to be like and did you know about this one and that one and this one. Um so the kids started that. Thank you for
clarifying that. I think I had a visceral reaction to that wording and I had other people reach out to me about it as well is the overcoming dyslexia piece. So I think you're the way you were speaking about I think is the you know mindset and the way that we're talking about it and that we would want to lead an incorrect statement to say
that you overcome it and it also has a negativity kind of construct to it. So I think um just encouraging to think more critically about our word choice with the things we put out there to the kiddos who were Yes. Absolutely. And I think that one of the things that we've
had a lot of students who are really excited to say a and I know with kids it it gets a little complicated because I've remediated my skills and I'm able to do this often comes out as yeah I've
overcome it and so we're continuing to try to help them also not only advocate for themselves but talk about it in a way that makes real sense and is celebratory. Love that. Um, and then I I can one more and then I'll stop. Uh, executive functional review. I'm really
excited about that. And it sounds like we'll have some initial kind of timeline and plan in the fall. It should be totally completed in the fall. All the components are finished. And my favorite I'm going to ask every single time the full review of specialized reading instruction for both lead and the
learning center that wasn't on the next steps list. Is that something we're planning to slate for next year or to get back on the the agenda for the program reviews? Yes, we are. We are looking at what's next and how do we get all of that. So, absolutely.
Okay. Anybody else have any questions? Sean? Yeah, just two quick things. One, um I I love the incred the very intentional approach to the kindergarten the rise kindergarten transition transition. So, thank you for that. I think that's fantastic. Um and then um the second thing and it just sort of triggered a thought or something that I
meant to connect with you on. Um in the focus and inclusion page you had uh you know attention span and anxious generation. There's a parent group that's formed. Um I think anxious generation was sort of the impetus for it. Have you heard from them already? Uh they have um kind of a little in with
Jackie Palooi who is our inclusion specialist also a member of this community. So she knows lots of people. She saw it on Facebook and we're continuing to work. It's actually something Parker was also doing as a book study at one point and so we're
continuing to bring people into that. Great. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? No. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Change. I don't have a question. I was going to say wait a minute. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you very much. Next
week. Next week. Yes. Okay. Uh so that means we get to move on to the strategic plan update. Um, I don't know if you want me to share or Great. This is fine. Right here, too. Uh, given that you have, you heard a little bit about this in my goals last week. You've heard a little bit tonight
from Jen. You heard a little hear a little bit more from Sarah next week. I'm going to be very brief and provide a very sort of highlevel uh overview in two ways. One, I'm just going to orient everyone in the community just sort of what's in the packet so you you know what you know you're looking for. to just a couple of points of things that
we think are points of progress for us this year and then things that the flag we already know uh are hitting us in the face as points of uh of areas of attention for next year. So, first, as the committee knows, this is our district strategic plan that we developed back in 2023 and is a
three-year strategic plan that has one more year left on it, which is the 2526 school year. If you scroll down a little bit, Tom, you'll see that how the plan is divided up by uh by four strategic pillars. Uh each with you'll see highlighted below it uh also some of our
initiatives in each of the uh strategic pillars. And then scrolling, if you click on each of those, you'll then be brought to uh that point in the documents will show you a couple things. One, on the left, it'll show you the activities that align to that specific initiative. In the middle, you'll see
some of the outcomes that we say are both short and long-term. Again, some of these were ones that we expected, you know, outcomes to be completed in 2024. Others are ones that we think will be hit by the end of 2026. And then an update, the update that is in uh traditional just the the black colored
font is uh the update from last year, 23 24 school year. Anything in red is our update from the end of the year. I would like to uh give the committee a little bit more time to digest all the things that are in here too, especially in light of what hap what comes in Sarah's presentation. So, I think this is
something we should revisit again at some point over the summer, especially as we think about goals and things for next year. But a couple of things in here I just wanted to point out really high level points of progress this year. Uh in 2.2, 2.4, 4 2.5 as I've shared
with the committee we are starting to see really positive uh turn and student achievement outcomes that is reflect that part of those pieces of those pillars relate to curriculum PD assessment those all feed into what we want as the ultimate outcome is our
student achievement outcomes two uh really pro encouraged by the progress within our sense of belonging work especially around the idea of gender shared of listening to our students and using student voice and and other you know in addition to traditional metrics to be able to drive programming
improvement efforts etc. three really excited about uh our continued partnership with our union that's in 1.3. Uh especially our we partner with our union around a variety of things but particularly this year around our collaborative work around safety. Uh thank you Jess Bailey her team for being
side by side to helping us think about painoints what we need to do to improve our school safety. Uh 1.5 ML co coherence in our metro in our uh in our MLL programming. You will see some of this in the presentation next week, but as a little bit of a a
teaser, some of the things this year around uh new curriculum, uh also the work of Tayiana doing around our uh as a uh family liaison. You'll see that in the in the in the uh update, you'll see that we cut our chronic absenteeism almost in half in our MLL department
over the last couple years. Uh and last but not least, you'll see that we uh made some pretty significant bumps in our access outcomes, and those will be shared next week. So encouraged by what's happening within our MLL department. And last port of piece of encouragement is around a lot of the work we know at the high school. This is 2.3 around college and career pathways,
dual enrollment classes, uh you know, innovation pathways, things that we know is making the high school experience innovative and different. It was interesting. I was walking out to the senior barbecue uh uh today and a student came up to me and said, "I just want you to know I closed my experience here at the high school having more
experience in plumbing as a result of the high school being creative with what I want to do with my future than I would have got in the local vocational high school." I said, "Tell me a little bit more." and they said around gaining uh gaining credits for uh non-traditional sort of work, partnerships with local uh
plumbing organizations, uh other uh credentiing opportunities through community through partnerships with the school, all different ways that this student now feels prepared in what is a pretty traditional high school model. So, I think they're just scratching the surface on what this can look like in the future, but very encouraged with
that work that's happened the last couple years. Five areas I know we've talked about just to flag is major areas of focus for the year ahead. One 1.2 which is sorry I meant bucket one but 1.2 in the strategic plan data systems.
We know that we are encouraged by our new data platform and tool. Uh but we think that is going to open the door for us to better uh close gaps in achievement and access across our district which we know is a continued pain point. Our second one 1.4 for METCO
coherence. We are thrilled that we have now bolstered up the team to what we feel like we've had wanted. Now is the challenge to make sure that we are fully leveraging the team and moving the METCO program forward, particularly improving outcomes for our students within the program. Three, you've heard a lot about
special education inclusion, a continued focus on improving special education outcomes. 2.6 educational admin technology. two big piece of work in that with m with our team one AI we have not done a ton of work yet uh
around what AI integration is going to whether that's the policy level whether that's the practice level uh and that is coming as we know or with us very very quickly the second piece of that is even technology integration with the resources and tools that we have the third part is around uh technology uh
phone bands what's coming along those lines too so a lot to come with technology and last but not least 3.4 MSBA. I wish maybe Carla wishes funding went through. Now we sort of move on. The school is built. It's not. We're quickly learning. There's a lot
more work ahead in the year to come. Uh so I think a continued uh focus from our team and our community on uh ensuring that we're in a good position for the stay on track and on budget and a school that we can all be really proud of. Um, if you look in the uh packet, you'll see
a much more detailed update around uh many of the indicators that we list and many of the activities. I encourage members of the community to read it, ask us any questions, share any feedback, and then I would invite a conversation later this summer to be able to talk about progress more specifically and
goals for the year ahead. Okay. Any questions, comments from anybody on the committee? There's a lot in here. A lot to digest. A lot. and more to come next week. Drinking from a fire
hose. Um, okay. Seeing none, I think we can move on to the last topic on the agenda. Great. This any preview from you want me to dive right in? You you can dive right in. All right. Perfect. So, this around our director of finance uh interim uh role update. Uh, so as the committee
knows uh Mr. Phil Little Hill has been in the role since October 15th of 2024 and his contract was up uh continued through July 31st. We are excited to share that we were going to move forward and uh and I'm going to recommend to the committee to extend uh Phil's contract
for a year. Uh Phil has in his seven or so months here in the community, I think done a really uh uh nice job in positioning us from a strong financial position. I think his background as a CPA, I think his background with over close to 15 years of public school
finance and the CFO role has been a major value ad to our team, especially in a time when you see many local districts struggling around school finance. We trust Phil's expertise. Uh he's been a a wonderful team player and we are lucky and thrilled to have him as
part of our team. Um why not moving long term yet? Phil's only been here seven months. he's still sort of getting up to speed with everything like that. And as we've have done with some of our other interim roles, we like to give people a little bit more time to be able to acclimate to the community uh for them to be able to continue to learn more
about us while we continue to see them in the role. Uh so we will have a a discussion again next spring about the path forward. But I'd just like to share here I've been very encouraged by Phil's work thus far. I think he's been a great member of our team and I think he is uh going to continue to help us be in
really strong financial position. So, uh, with the community the committee support, I wanted to move, uh, forward and make that recommendation. Okay. Any questions on that? We will take a a formal vote on that. Okay. You have a motion or you want me
to make it? Go ahead. Uh, move to accept the recommendation from Dr. Milichesky for one year of renewal for Phil Little Hale as director of finance. Second. All right. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor?
All opposed. And it passes six to zero. Good. Great. Um I guess just as a point for um Laura, you may or may not know this, but this is one of the only positions that technically we're joint hirers of, which is why our approval is necessary in this
case. Okay. Um with that said, any other motions? Motion to adjurnn. Second. Seconded. Non-debatable. All in favor? All opposed? And we're adjourned at 8:58. You all