##VIDEO ID:fWqYhCrwWg4## e e e e e e meeting from uh December 5th to order we have one remote participant so I have to do the roll call to start us off so Chuck here Carla here Aaron here Sarah here Sean it would help Sean if I had unmuted myself before I started calling us to order thank you there you go Sean here um okay so walking through the agenda first and before I do that just um I might get up in the middle of the meeting and walk around just because I'm dealing with a pinch nerve don't please don't take any offense to that at all um just sometimes you got to move um so I'm going to walk through the agenda real quick and then we'll dive in so first things first is we'll have public comment for anything that is not on the agenda anybody want to speak on that um they're welcome to with then a focus on excellence and we're represented here with the uh the track team um cross country uh and the state championship right um so thank you for that and then we have our consent agenda that we'll dive through um move on from there to uh reports um both multiple reports uh we'll then move to new business which includes a high school professional development update the q1 fy2 financial update uh we will start our discussions on the FY 26 school committee budgets uh budget priorities um and then we will adjourn to ex ex cutive session not to return for to conduct strategy and preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel our central office and principles Administration across the board um okay so with that said um does anybody here from the public have a public comment all right seeing none let's move on our focus on Excellence Dr mileski would you like to introduce absolutely so we're and the rest of the team yeah we're thrilled here to be joined by the boys country team who as the community knows was recent state champions first state championship for the team since 1974 which is incredible uh also joined by uh coach Conley who's here with us and also uh coach Mike mcweeny who's not here with us as well um just to couple things like to share about the team first uh Team if you look at the results online had a score of 70 which the next closest team I think was Oliver ases at 106 just the Gap was incredible just absolutely shattered the competition and the at the the championship meet and something when you ask members of the the community about this team not only just attain the highest level of athletic Excellence but also if you see and you hear from them uh student athletes who constantly hold themselves to a high bar academically and also student athletes who constantly are the uh consumate role models and peers in the community too and a team that we constantly look at for being you know examples in our community too so just like to thank obviously and congratulate the team on the level of academic I mean athletic Excellence but also for all the other things that you do for our community as well um we'd like to invite the team up we know there's uh we're going to hear from coach Conley first and then also he's going to turn over and some of his uh players and student athletes are going to be able to share a little bit about their season so come on up to these mics if you don't mind that way uh the TV can pick you up and everyone at home can hear you as well C around your student uh advisory committee numers over here can't see over there car huh just have to talk into both mics we'll put all them here okay great um good so yeah first off thank you for the invite um certainly privilege to be here um I've always been extremely proud to coach um the cross country team and this year uh we really had a special season as you know to be state champions for the first time in in 50 years and uh to do that the student athlet standing behind me and many other you student athletes and those that were involved um as anyone that's ever tried to run you know a few miles or get out there and do some jogging and do some some running and or to race and try to go faster and faster I think you know just how difficult this this sport is and it just takes an enormous amount of discipline determination you know mental toughness it's a big big mental part of this Sport and these you know student athletes behind me and and those that were on this team um just Rose to the occasion and just really uh overcame a lot of you know adversity throughout the season you know we had some injuries we had some guys starting the season off that had to um do some alternative workouts pool workouts and we um kind of overcame a lot and with our with our ultimate goal that we knew we could be at our best at the end and and they they Rose to the occasion and and exceeded expectations um and they really really worked hard so it's it's it's a lot it's a very challenging Sport and they put a lot of time in and as I've kind of told them and kind of told in a few different opportunities I had to speak about the season in the in the championship and how it came together is to reach this kind of Pinnacle of the sport and to achieve something like a state championship it's really not done the day of the event as we all know it it it really takes dedication hard work commitment sacrifices that go back really weeks months in a lot of cases for these some of these guys some of these seniors and juniors that have been on the team for you know three or four seasons years to kind of prepare to give yourself that opportunity and I was just so proud that they you know did those things and it takes an enormous amount of really um self-motivation in leadership from the seniors and from the captains it really starts starts with them um because you know a lot of this has to start in June and and and months before when I'm not seeing them and the captains and the leaders really set the tone and that they came in um with this type of goal in mind but it took a lot of work and a lot of effort to get there and a lot of challenges that we overcame so that was what really what made um me as a coach to kind of watch that and observe that and see their leadership and see how hard they worked and see it really come together that was sort of an historical run um Championship run over over the span of a few weeks so they they got they got it right at the right times and things came together um and on that day which happened to be believe it or not and I credit coach mcweeny who did the research in the reading public library it was 50 years to the actual day of November 9th so 50 years 1974 November 9th was the last day championship and just so happened the event in the day fell on November 9th this year so maybe it was meant to me meant to be um but they they they stepped up that day it was extremely challenging course so to me I was feeling confident because I believe in in the leaders that we had and the runners that we had and all of our preparation for the months before I I believed that we could do it um but the big sort of Al you know variable out there was the course um it was an extremely challenging course that you really have no way to train for prepare for how your body is going to react to it when you get into start racing a 3.1 mile race on a course that the first mile as these guys can tell you was like a mountain you know I almost would sort of prepare it to like you're climbing like a ski you're on like a a ski resort and you're climbing the the mountain on on a ski resort and that's what that first mile felt like um and they reacted well and they they executed the race strategy we talked about your Perfection and they just marched up and moved moved up that entire race which was a awesome awesome to see and to as um we talked about earlier to score 70 points and and to do it with that much of a kind of resounding victory was I I couldn't be more proud of them um but a lot of things have to come together to get over that hump we've been close a few years in the past we were second last year um in the top five really the last three or four years um and I was just proud that this group which was a really special group that had great leadership great work ethic um they cared about each other um they were a team so cross country is a team sport I talk about that all the time and they really cared about um each other's the team's goals and helping each other and supporting one another um and that's what it takes to kind of get over to get over the top and um I was so proud to to watch them they were couldn't be a nicer group of athletes and as um superintendent said earlier they really are in my opinion the role models of just the student athletes of the school um there's not a lot of noise around the sport and we understand that you know a lot of the traditional team sports that are happening inside stadiums and inside Fields um where it's easier to kind of watch and and spectate um but these these athletes um deserve just as much of the attention in the accolades and they they earn that this year by by all their their hard work and the commitment that they put in and was just an extremely challenging challenging Sport and they did it and they were tested every step of the way by having to do it on a very challenge in course the hardest course in New England is the Northfield Mountain course as they call it so they overcame all obstacles all challenges and they earned every step every every bit of it and um I know they're going to remember it for the rest of their lives and grow from it and I I'm extremely proud proud of them so I said a lot we're going to turn it over to them um we have a couple of our captains here today one of our captains Jack Philipi is actually at hockey triy outs so he's not here today but um here we have Royal nail been a captain member of the team for four years um Chris Barbo who's been a captain this season and just had an awesome season Chris Barbo actually also set the school record this year um running 1506 in the in the five five K 3.1 miles so that's just an extremely blazing time um so we have senior Andrew McCarthy softmore um Finn Johnson hulahan we have Cam giggler and and K Hy who was a freshman who on The Varsity which had an awesome season as well so captains want to yeah take over I mean my name is Rory I'm one of the tri captains I mean it really was a long season but we worked hard every day I mean definitely some ups and downs we had a tough loss to Belmont that really kind of messed with us we thought that was kind of it but we kind of bounced back from that we end up beating Lexington which was a huge win for us at the middle SE League meet we got second which is we're really happy about that and the state meet was kind of the final chance for us to show them what we got and we did that and our goal for the meet was just get our top seven people across the Finish Line as fast as we could it's all about pack running which we really did execute that day I mean it was really was something special um hi I'm Chris Barbo I'm also one of the tri um with this season or going into the season I think we knew we were more than capable of definitely being in the picture for a state championship given that we played second the year prior obviously I mean last year we had four seniors in that group that graduated so we definitely needed a few Runners to step up and they definitely did but I think between just all the work that we did over the season we had up to 40 mile weeks of work in between showing up every day and just doing what we were supposed to do I think we just like we made it happen where it needed to happen and there were a lot of emotions on the day when we won the state championship because a lot of us have been putting the work in since June and like years prior in cross country and track so being able to come home with the State title was definitely really awesome in a cool way to go out else should I go yeah please okay um yeah um my name is Andrew McCarthy I'm also one of the seniors on the team I'm not however a captain but uh they talked a lot about how how much hard work the team put in and I think that a lot of that came from uh starting in summer training which I think made a big difference for our team cuz we started early and even before school had started and um I think the team environment that we created during those summer practices and all that before school started was really what made the difference in feeling like a team and running like a team so I mean I did not expect this result but I think it was a really good senior year for me and hopefully for everyone else I mean I just want to say none of this would have been possible without coach Conley coach Crosby coach mcweeney and Coach Julia I think the best coaching staff in the state they truly put in so many hours every single week for us [Applause] we have one tradition that we're going to hold you to which is when you come for a focus on Excellence you come down here and we take a picture with you let's do it group up parents can take pictures if they want to I need to stand up I've been to the doctor and a car waiting for an MRI my God thing's freaking out good all right thank you [Applause] this isn't the same conratulations congratulations aw rest we uh we'll do our thank you I couch the 5K thing it was like a zombie running it was great as suppos supposed to spr oh my go mine's have a good season very good season and I ran like one I'm done yeah okay that was it6 I can run one mile about all right let's move forward is probably more like 16 or 17 minutes keep our way down the agenda as we go not even if somebody was and um do I have a motion on the consent agenda motion to accept the consent agenda seconded by Chuck any comments or notes Dr mil ches I can just share one thing quickly you'll see in there a uh uh information about the metco REI which is Grant which is the racial equity uh uh racial integration and Equity Grant so want to flag that you'll see the potential partnership with Ignite reading if you follow the globe you'll see that there was recently a front page story about uh ignite reading's partnership with Chelsea Public Schools and the impact that had on their first grade students uh for those who didn't read that it's in long story short it's a program intervention uh program for targeted for first grade students to ensure that uh based on foundational reading skills to ensure that every student is reading on grade level by the end of first grade uh if you're interested in learning more obviously check out their website you can they've also was was a a research study that was released today about the impact of the program we are exploring that program with that with that grant for all of our first and second grade students who are currently not on grade level uh need a additional boost which is 15 minutes of uh online live tutoring every day too so uh that would be a part of the grant funds but wanted to just give the community heads up on that potential partnership I think we're really excited because as we've talked about before we need to think uh thoughtfully and strategically about closing gaps particularly gaps that we know have existed for a long time uh and we think that this could be a way or a strategy for us to be able to do that so uh we'll loop back as any more formal Partnerships are uh are kind of brought forward and but excited about kind of exploring that over the next couple of weeks great excellent thank you any other comments questions concerns no okay roll call Vote cheuck Yes Carla yes Aaron yes Sarah yes Sean yes Tom yes and it pass is 6 to Zer okay so we will now move down to our reports and we'll start with our Director of Finance and operations pH well thank you um I just wanted to say I'm I am uh paddling my feet as fast as I can trying to keep up with things having started a little bit late in terms of the budget process um I did want to uh thank everyone in the central office and the principals and everyone else have been very helpful to me uh especially Kate finigan the assistant business manager putting up with my questions and I constantly asking why um and we're moving forward from there and I have had a couple of uh I have attended a couple of meetings the DLT and the administrative staff and gave my quick five- minute presentation on um Who I Am My Philosophy purchasing and budgeting which you know I like to call it my award-winning presentation but you know it's always a challenge to keep this keep the keep the audience awake during that thank you Phil uh I'll say I like hear heing that you're asking why why is always a question that people need to not be afraid to answer and it can't be just because this is how we do it has to be because it's the right thing to do and here's why it's the right thing to do so thank you for that okay Dr mileski I hear a lot of wise at home from my kids and now I get a lot more wi so it's very well reive um I just had one quick I Laur O'Neal was just here and asked if I'd give an additional plug to it I'm happy to do that for an an for an annual community favorite which is the Festival of the trees which everyone knows is Saturday and suay at Parker Middle School uh so obviously if you you know more information is out there but would love to get as much Community involvement there are some really exciting trees and I have to say the one I am most excited about initially uh is there is a uh kilum School building tree which you've heard about which I think is really exciting actually implements some of the uh some of the pieces that are integral to the project and some of the design pieces of the project which I think is really creative and Innovative um also before the festival the trees on uh this weekend on Saturday is also the annual metco brunch so if you don't know anything about that you're interested let me know or find more information online sponsored by the friends of reading Meco uh we already have close to 100 people who will be attending It's a Wonderful event and Community Builder okay great let's move on to Le on and subcommittee but let's start with the students to see if there's a student report okay so um prior to the Thanksgiving break students and staff participated in homecoming week this included the homecoming dance dodgeball tournament pep rally Walky like you rock at 5K the Sunday Night Lights football game unity day and the Thanksgiving football game at Fenway which was a huge success um many of these events were fundraisers for the senior class to support upcoming events like prom and other senior activities also um the newsletter has action photos with these events and um yeah students and staff had a wonderful time during homecoming thank you to all who helped make this a reality like Miss Clawson Miss green bom and PTO Miss Buckley too and uh the administrative Team all the staff that volunteered to shop room also the Innovation career pathway students in the healthcare and social assistance pathway went to Medford and talked with um the Medford Public Health office on a field trip they met and learned about jobs facing public health issues so that was a cool opportunity for them great thank you uh in addition this week 40 plus rmhs business students attended a business immersion field trip to the Manning School of Business at UMass LEL uh students there had the opportunity to engage in uh interactive and fun business activities and also T the business school and get kind of an in-depth look into the business college experience uh the student body wants to extend a huge thank you to the business department and to Mr Kuper Sher for planning and attending this field trip with them uh winter Athletics also have started this week starting on December 2nd um all the triy outs or sports are happening now like track uh hockey wrestling you name it um so we just want to wish luck to all the athletes competing and trying out in their first few games games and scrimmages uh and then finally today during Flex U Mr kenis the RM one of our science science teachers here at rmhs uh launched a series of talks uh centered around stem first one today was on uh Nuclear Physics I believe um I I I didn't attend it I I thought it sounded interesting I had another commment I had to go to but there's going to be um a chain of these talks centered around stem throughout the year uh and that's something we're hoping we can get a lot of student enthusiasm behind in the coming months thanks so okay any questions for Sebastian or Alex thanks for being here we'll start with chck so just a couple quick things the recreation met definitely since our last meeting I can't I can't remember the the day uh not a lot it was it was uh uh light agenda meeting but uh no real school related uh Charter review was supposed to meet but we canceled so we could go to the football game uh and we'll reschedule for next week right that's it for me okay Carla I'll give a quick update on kilum um we on Monday we are going to um have an A Kellum open house for um the neighbors where we're trying to get people together and make sure they're informed about what's happening we're going to have snacks and a quick presentation our next um School building committee meeting will be on the 16th um we will be talking about um sustainability there um we did not make a decision on our HVAC system last meeting um cuz we didn't have all the information so we pushed it off to this one we will have a community meeting um and talk about sustainability on January 15th um we've just we've been meeting with rmld about solar and there's just a lot going on okay um I was also going to mention the festival trees so thank you Tom for mentioning it um and thank you to RF for doing a con Tree on behalf of the um overextended school committee um but we're very happy to support them and uh just reminder that the annual manora lighting is Sunday night at 5:00 on the town common and everyone is welcome to attend great Sarah um the Coalition board met uh nothing school specific really on the agenda other than some great updates they provided around how they're supporting some of the health classes here at the high school uh around substance abuse and Mental Health First Aid so that was exciting to hear they're just really excited about it um and the work they're doing so that was really fun um Community plugs we talked Festival trees community manora on the community and then following at which church is it I can't remember the to Clock Tower Church sure um with refreshments and stuff following that um the Dickens fair is Saturday uh the 14th which is a fundraiser this is only the second year we've been doing it since postco it was annual tradition it's a um drama club fundraiser but we basically turn Main Street into zenzie and London there's caroling but it's a lot of it's a lot of vendors and Craft um folks come out and have awesome things to buy your parents for Christmas and your grandparents and other things that you might need um and then also happening this coming weekend in the following the select choir is doing their carolling again so around town so if you don't know of an event um that's happening ask any of your friends and neighbors if they're hosting it or know of any because it's really really fun and I always do my buddy the Elf plug best way to spread holiday cheer singing loud for all to hear so get out and support them um and listen to them to mix that in I am of course my favorite is the best holiday movie is all right Sean any updates from you I can't follow that so all right I just have one quick update um at our last meeting we were talking about the ace committee and whether or not we could represent ourselves or not and and whatnot and we decided Ed that we are going to have a delegate so I interviewed a candidate by the name of Ryan Johnstone really really great conversation with him um and I'm going to appoint him as our delegate uh for this he's got a lot of interesting legal background um has very interesting fam familial background uh with public policy and how the 50s 60s and 70s shaped certain things um that I think is very is is uh going to be contri very strong contribution to that committee and some good ideas about how to kind of loop in the family when the time comes um as things work their their way through that process so I'm going to nominate him as our delegate um and then we are also responsible to nominate the student delegate and I had a wonderful conversation with London Stith Nichols um and she was phenomenal um also for a ninth grader incredibly well thought um and well really polished really well put together so I nominated her for the student position as well so awesome that should close out our nominations okay um that closes out that portion of the agenda and I can't use portions of my finger I'll switch over to the next portion of the agenda um so uh we'll start with the new business of the high school professional development and before I do that gentlemen Sebastian you haven't been here before Alex you have so you're welcome to stay as long as you want or leave as soon as you want right no pressure either way um we will need to make space for Miss Callan though so if you slide down if you want to please do so she can get on the on the camera view and uh all the necessary J good thanks for advocating night man now looks like we kicked you out you're free you're free okay so start us off I don't think I have a presentation to share do you have it over there do we have it up for say it was in the pack I can share out the packet if that's easier the easiest way okay let me let me get to the packet and then we I'll share from there and you can do the whole like magic fingers thing what do you mean by just indicate when you want to advance say it's p 34 yeah is or he wants to pull it up on the computer whatevers quicker just to do the packet right I'm almost there yeah okay full screen move okay so there's that now go back over here and why is I not sh the screen they changed the zoom interface there it is a big green button at the bottom that helpful okay we should be good all right good evening everyone I'm Jess K and the high school principal and with me tonight is Katie Buckley she is assistant principal but also the director of academic achievement so she's she and I work very closely in developing our professional learning plan for the the entire school um and so if there's something I can't answer she definitely has my back um we can go to the next slide Mr wise um so the as any good lesson plan this is the objectives of what we're trying to cover today um one is to give a high level overview of our professional learning plan at the high school I know there's been a lot of presentations from the elementary school specifically about their work um and I am happy to take this opportunity to talk about all the work that we are also committed to and carrying out at the high school um I want to thank the committee uh for their support of the in the creation of the department heads I I know and the department heads as instructional leaders at the high school I know that you have supported that as a committee and they are really working um hard to serve as instructional leaders and you're as throughout my presentation you'll see all of the things that they're doing to to develop and Carry Out professional learning um for their departments that's within uh the scope of their curriculum uh and some are also like also um volunteering to per to also be part of the uh other things that are called their PD tracks which I'll get to in a second um and so I just want to thank you for your support of that and also emphasize that they are an integral part of what we're doing um and then third is to just to outline the different types of professional learning that our staff are engaged in and when I say staff that includes the administrative team it includes our par Educators it includes all of our teachers and counselor as well um we can flip to the next slide please um so I think it begs a question why why do we care about adult learning um and how is it different than student learning um and so there it is it grounded in a theory or an author known as U Malcolm no nolles who talks about how adults learn that and how it's different from students and basically we need uh to it has to be connected to what we're doing uh we're adults are selfmotivated in a lot of ways especially if it's something that we're interested in engaged in and so when we're planning out our training and learning at the high school for our adults we take that into into um consideration obviously everything we're doing is also aligned with our strategic plan and the school Improvement plan as well um next slide please okay um and so really our um our professional learning is a three-pronged approach and so we don't have an enormous amount of time at the high school to to conduct professional learning but what I do in the spring prior to the start of the school year is come together with my department heads we and Dr Hardy as well as the administrative team and we plan out all of the hours that we have and what's taking place during those hours um and as we go through all of our training um whether it's departmental training or our early release days on Fridays the departmental trainings on Wednesdays um every pretty much twice a month for an hour after school um that is that we capitalize on using all of that time um and so it really is a three-pronged approach where departments are Prof are planning out that time on Wednesdays which you'll see an example of in a minute um and that is very focused on their curriculum specifically um then we have a targeted professional learning which is usually external uh professional development the teachers request to participate in that we then approve um and I'll give some examples later and the third part is a cross-curricular professional learning where people volunteer to participate in what we call professional development tracks um and they get to work with people from across the school um on areas of interest that they think is that's going to push forward um their practice as Educators uh next slide okay so I'm just going to go through each of those quickly um I do have questions at the end obviously uh but I'll if you interrupt me if you feel like you um if I leave something out um so the first the first portion is like I said happens about every other Wednesdays the department heads planed out the the in the spring before we come together and have a little I call it a retreat it's up upstairs in the DLR so I don't know how much of a retreat it is but um we take about a half a day and really plan out uh the work that we want to do the following Year everybody has an objective and a goal and then everything that we're doing aligns to that and but it's specific to each department um and so this also obviously ties back to the tenants that I talked about of the author the theory on Adult Learning um that I referenced before with Mr nolles can I say one thing and also we cover what we're going to talk about um in those department meetings and collaborate um in the instructional leadership team which meets once a week that just leads y um and so well I already covered that we can go to the next slide um so these are just some example I'm not going to read them to everyone but these are example departmental goals that are developed and so the department leader will develop these goals they're implementing them and then typically their entire department will also adopt that goal as part of the evaluative process for their professional learning goals um and so this is just an example of this year of our world language goal the second one says social studies but I actually believe that it's math I just it's a typo um where they're doing a guaranteed learning experiences and Mr Kuper who is the new math department head H gives these and practices these examples with his department members in their department meetings and they then um carry them out with their students um and so he's modeling that best practice and the last one is science um and that one it's very wordy but also is layered in with the work that the science team did last year as part of um the curriculum review process with Dr Hardy um slide Jess can you go back to that slide for one second I just want to emphasize one point too about like the the shift that the the committee helped Drive years ago with the in the contract was Shifting the roles of the department heads from purely like a department manager to department manager plus also Driving Learning and I think if you read some of those descriptions you can see sort of that shift and how those department heads are now responsible for instructionally related items that are going to improve teaching and learning within their department so I just wanted to again thank the committee for their work in that and hopefully you see that reflected in this uh and they really own that too Dr meski in that they're part of the evaluative process they're pushing into classrooms we are are working together each department head works with an administrator as a primary and secondary evaluator of every sing Le person in their Department um and we're authentically providing feedback we align how we're giving feedback to teachers and make sure that we consistently coach coach them um throughout the year um some teachers are newer they might need more support some might be taking on new courses they might need more support as well some are Master Teachers that we can use as models for everyone um in the school so it's a really good point I'm glad you raised that too it's one thing to like lead the learning but then there's also the next step of you know monitoring progress assessing being able to make adjustments and a step further hold accountable through evaluation I think is something that was that shift in the contract was really important M yeah thank you um okay next slide so this is just an example of what each department designs um when we do that work the spring prior uh and so we have I have spreadsheets for every single Department after or before their meetings are happening uh their agendas are linked here we check to make sure the agenda are aligned with their goal that they had at the start of the school year these are submitted to Dr Hardy at the end of the year so everyone um's hours are tallied for professional development um lens your purposes to move their work forward so it is a very thoughtful plan um and we try to make sure we're really pushing our staff um and again we're still right in the content we're only looking at their specific content uh but we try to also give people that opportunity when I get into the PD tracks to kind of expand what they're doing and be creative Innovative as well um next slide um so the main thing I want to highlight on this side is that some of this work obviously happens in in the summer some of this work also happens in the summer just to be more articulate um and that is predominantly focused on curricular development people working in teams uh because we don't have the luxury at the high school of having a lot of common planning time and our teachers are really taking advantage of this and doing this work a lot of it is around our new dual enrollment classes that they're co-planning sometime Planning by themselves or sometimes co-planning um with the professor from whatever institution that we're partnering with our Innovation career Pathways um classes some of which are new um and so we're using that time in the summer and funding um to pay uh for those hours the teachers to get together we have several new advanced placement courses that we're implementing and we send the teachers to um that advanced placement um training uh to be certified you know and learn content um as well examples for psychology which will be starting next year um and economics which will be starting next year perfect Ti from our previous meeting yes um yeah very you go um I mentioned this briefly already but targeted professional learning um you know we do what we can within the confines of our budget here at the high school and I think we do a great job making sure we meet the needs of teachers professionally and all of our staff professionally but sometimes there's 's other training that teachers need to receive that's very focused um in their field um and or gives them opportunities to partner and network um with people in the field that are on The Cutting Edge of new theories new teaching new ideas and so you know some examples of that um our curriculum councils which that is still happening within um you know within our rmhs um with Dr Hardy but also sending teachers the college College Board training um which we have done in do every year to make sure that they're up to speed uh mafla which we just recently sent a whole bunch of our world language teachers to the mafla conference which is very valuable um it's hard because you can't have your entire language Department out at the same time um so they work to come up with um schedules where they were one went one day one went the other day but came back saying like they just took so much from the sessions that they were able to attend um there's also matol and things like that that we take advantage of conferences which we had two people out on today at the MDA conference um go to the next one Mr wise I almost called you Dr Wise haven't hearded that one um one more I don't know I think you I think you missed one yeah um just one one additional part is the The Helpful collaboration that happens like we offer so many different classes over so many different courses and it really helps to have like somebody who's teaching like digital marketing management for example to meet with other people in different schools that are teaching similar things so that's like another reason why it's really helpful to have this targeted professional learning can you go back one Mr R sorry are it's before yeah so that one it's okay all right all right no forward forward why keep keeps that's where we should be yeah it's okay um I can go with this my formality looks different on mine for some reason but I got it um and so cross-curricular PD tracks um is what one of the three prongs of training that we're doing with our staff so um I think that I'm kind of going to go through a who what when why and how how we came up with this and and what does it look like and when does it happen so um this happens on our Friday Friday early release days um Miss Buckley uh actually kind of surveys the staff about different interests that staff have and who might be willing to lead different professional development tracks um during the school year during because it takes a lot of planning uh to carry this out I I'll talk a little bit about one that I led last year with Mr mcweeny um but it it can be anyone if teachers teach it uh lead them administrators counselors um it varies um and these are topics that teachers feel are important pressing issues that are happening in our classrooms or needs of our students that are in front of us or tied to our accountability data um or new pedagogy P pedological um theories or practices that are out there that people want to try um and every single person like I said in the school is participating in this to include like our par Educators our administrators teachers counselors are all in this together um and how is this approved it is approved by me um the topic are approved by me Miss Buckley reviews the plans each before they go out every Friday um when we have the early release days but everything also goes to Dr Hardy and she approves these professional learning plans before they're implemented um as well um and so it's there's a lot of oversight uh but we also want people to be able to you know have some creativity as they're implementing these as well um okay not next slide so these are some examples of professional development tracks that we've had over the last two years um and the different topics of of what we've covered uh the one that I did last year with um Mr mcen was small group warning learning walks um and we link that with an anchor text called deeper learning which I'll show the more specifically um what that is in the next slide um grading for Equity it was another one you'll see it again in 2024 and 25 and I explain I can explain why we've seen that twice um ready for rigger was one that Miss Buckley LED um the year prior and then had a second tier of it uh the following year strategies for literacy self-reflection and assessment um and then this school year you can see that some have renewed some are continuing and then there are new topics um out there as well so trauma informed practices neurodivergent Learners um differentiating instruction which is always something we can always be better at um and uh keys to literacy which is new being led by um one of our reading um instructors uh exploring AI which is highly um interesting and also pressing for what's going on in the world with artificial intelligence uh modern classroom Pro uh is also one of the uh pieces I did not continue doing the small group uh learning walks one this year just because I just didn't feel like I had the capacity to do it again but there was a lot of interest in that um I do want to just touch upon modern classroom because I know that there has been some discussion um about that in the community and with the committee as well it is but one of the uh PD tracks that we're doing this year I think there are 14 teachers that are participating in it um they're doing one to two classes a few of them are doing three classes um of this they were trained in the summer and then they are trained throughout the year Miss Buckley and Dr Hardy are also part of a coaching cohort with um modern classroom as well um they are surveying students consistently to get feedback Fe the surveys have been positive I will say um I think that I've met with the teachers about you know the the stressors and the successes of modern classroom um and they do feel like it it is harder for students because it is very very student centered and they're asking students to articulate and demonstrate and show their learning um and so teacher centered is I stand in front of the class and give you a lesson sort of like I'm doing now um which is not good teaching and that and you I assess you and with the grade you get is the grade you get and we move on to the new content um this uses a myriad of tools um that the students uh work on and then they come to the classroom and the teacher um asks them to demonstrate their learning either in small groups or individually um can actually use different structured seating um to uh move the kids from space to space dep not all the time but depending upon how they're demonstrating their Mastery of the content um what teachers have said is it is a little uncomfortable sometimes for students because they are being asked to be very articulate about what they know and what they don't know um and if they haven't demonstrated Mastery they they don't move on to the next um subject yet um and so it it is a lot of responsibility and owness on the students but it's also pushing them to really develop their um executive functioning skills which is something that our students definitely need um as they progress through high school and after high school as well um and so I know probably questions about that but I just kind of want to touch upon it a little bit um is not something that we're ad adopting as a whole school right now like all of the professional development tracks people are trying these elements taking what works the best um and then in March or April we come together as a staff and people present the findings and data and information from their professional development tracks um to the staff to determine what we learned what is useful do we want to continue this for next year do new people want to join in this cohort and training or not which is why you see some things continued and some things didn't um it's not always teacher interest sometimes it's those of us that are leading it whether we have the capacity to continue doing it um there anything you want to add Miss Buckley no did a great job okay thank you very much um she's also my posit always positive love that um do you want to move on to the next slide or people have any questions anybody want to stop here we can stop here I I just have a question I know so we also know there's been some like negative questions raised around we've had a lot of conversations around it but we may like what would you say maybe to a you know to to families who are say like well my experience isn't what you outline there how are you navigating that you know kind of what data are you looking at and maybe what adjustments would you make or how would you support those classrooms as well I would say that um you know teachers are all at different points in their Journey as Educators and some teachers are in need of more support and that is being highlighted through some of the different strategies that we're using and when that emerges we respond by coaching those teachers and pushing into their classrooms giving them feedback that's very action oriented for them to correct course and bring things back around they're also meeting every you know every time we have an early release um to talk about what's happening in their classrooms and better their practice they are not perfect at it nobody that's doing these practices are yet but we're asking our students to be creative and Innovative and push the boundaries I also need to ask my teachers to do that and continue to be energized about their jobs and to be on The Cutting Edge of the pedagogy and the theories that we're doing we can do as Educators I want them to continue to want to be Educators and you can't do the same thing every day and every year and still keep keep that same enthusiasm and so is everything going to be perfect and work the first time absolutely not um but should we be trying new methods and trying to push our students to be better and be the best they possibly can be absolutely um and so that is you know I I know that requires an asking a little bit of faith and trust in us as Educators and us doing our jobs as Leaders um but I can commit to you that we are and and this is not new to the school it may be new to some teachers correct there are lots of teachers that have been using many pieces of of this one piece of modern classroom um in terms of uh asking students to do things outside the classroom coming into CL the classroom demonstrating their learning that's been happening for many years um this just now it has a label um and it is not the same as a flip classroom I know that's been thrown out there um I tried to kind of clarify that in my communication that I sent out to families um how that is different a flip classroom asks a student to do everything outside the classroom that's not what this is um there are resources that are shared with kids outside the classroom but they have access to those resources all the time and then when they come into the class the teachers develop mini lessons and different times types of Assessments so the student can continue pushing and learning um at their own pace until they Master their content can I ask a few questions um so you probably heard through because I've had many conversations with Tom um I I've gotten more complaints about this than I have on anything in a in a long time um and it's it's um been consistent and like highly highly concerning um so I don't want to I don't want to call anyone out or give any identifying information um so I'm I'm being very aware of that but I guess my question is how can you evaluate if it's working for every teacher and if you're seeing signs that it's not working what what happens then I think when teachers are not successful with anything you're going to see students that are disengaged they're not going to be in the classroom when they should be um they're not going to probably complete their work um and the teacher will be frustrated because teachers want to do a good job um and when they communicate that to us we have people pushing into the classroom whether that's me or miss Buckley or one of the assistant one of the other assistant principles and or their department heads who are the instructional experts you know in that field um and so we provide coaching and oversight in an both evaluative and not both formally and informally so sometimes people need to be able to ask for help um and get that coaching without thinking there's going to be some kind of Retribution on the other side um and you know I've played a lot of sports in my life and I believe in coaching and so I think that that's the the mentality that we take as administrators is um if a person is willing to be coached up we continue to do that um it's very evident when something's not working um and you know I know I haven't been here that long but I feel like we have a good uh pulse on where our where our educators are um in their Journey as Educators um you know many we do have a lot of young teachers um and some are very new to the field and so um and we have older teachers that might be having struggles as well not older I don't mean to say more experience a better terminology um and I also think that there's been some labeling of things as modern classroom that actually is is not a modern classroom classess so you know what I would say is I always ask people to come and talk to me about it um and I know that's part of your roles as school committee members but I I want to hear those conversations and I have had very few people reach out to me I know um and and sometimes those that did reach out to me directly they didn't have correct information and or I went and addressed it you know with the department head and the teacher directly and were able to provide support and and get things back on the right track mind if I follow on that really quick I also so I appreciate that answer I think that's like spoton and I also share like I worry with some of the generalizations of heard of like that model's not working okay like tell me why that model's not working because I actually from the feedback I looked at with J there's a lot of positive feedback from students in classes where they feel like the models really valuable for their learning uh I'd say from teachers and from families that kind of have a counternarrative to that so I just want to make sure that that kind of perspective is shared that that's from what I've seen it has been more I have seen more positive feedback than I have and knowing we're across 14 teachers across multiple contaras and things like that I would also share too like if there's someone says that model is not working well what is it about the model because I think the model is not it's not are you doing a mod are you a modern class yes or you modern classroom no I would argue a lot of that they're just good instructional practice that whether you're not it's kind of a spectrum of practices so if you said stop being a modern classroom what do you want someone to stop doing stop you know pulling towards like individ like Mastery toward standards at more of a self-pace okay stop having like various Mo like uh methods of learning whether that's like peer learning whether that's small group from a teacher whether that is Tech space like I don't know it's not as easy as just saying to stop being a a modern classroom and switch back to a traditional classroom because I do think it's a spectrum of practice with that said I can assure you this is a when a classroom is struggling it is a sensitive topic for for all of us and I think I have faith in this team who's up here that they do all of the things that they're getting a lot of feedback from students and F from students and families and staff and when something's not working they are one trying to provide those members with supports whether that is coaching whether that is evaluative whether that is from you know peers some sort of support and I also think if you know this team there's not only a high level of support but we know there's a high level of accountability and I think if you ask the teachers here they will feel that so I don't want to be dismissive of the feedback that says that things are not working with the model in certain classrooms we get that and they're on it but I also want to be weary of a generalization about the model or about the thing that may not be entirely accurate because I don't think that's fair to the model nor do I think that's fair to the classrooms where this model actually may be getting some positive feedback as well well and I also want to just say I I emphasize contacting me but many times if I if parents contact me about anything which my door and phone and all those things are always open but the first line is they should reach out to the teachers and many times the teachers have no idea that a parent is upset about about something and I mean I'm a principal in a school I still go to my kids teacher if I have a question that's that's step one um and so it's hard to fix something if you're not told that it's not working um and you know I have no problem with me being CCD on things but I also think that conversation should happen as well because we are all committed to bringing our very best to students all the time nobody's coming in here saying I'm not going to do a good job today everybody's trying really hard and education is a tough job and and I want people to stay in public education is deeply important to me um and and so I we want to make things better but I also think we're asking for a certain level of trust um that we are professionals and you know we can hear that feedback but also it may was that me no oh um you know it may be that um sometimes things that we're asking kids to do is pushing them to grow a little bit um which can be a little bit uncomfortable can I just add a few things so um I appreciate all of that um and I want I want you to know that I always reiterate that I always reiterate like start with the teacher thank you if you're not getting what you need from the teacher go to the department head if you're not getting what you need from the department head go to Jess um so I I think some of the push back I've gotten is is teach um kids not wanting their parents to rock and vote so kids coming home and complaining or describing a classroom environment that is very different from how you're describing modern classroom should look um and then I've also heard you know that the surveys are not Anonymous so kids don't all feel comfortable giving feedback to their teacher who is responsible for their grading um when it's not an anonymous survey so that is some of the push back you know because I'm like they surveyed the surveys are positive you know so um I have had a lot of those conversations but and and I'm not like excusing it because I was someone who I'm like look I'm a school Committee Member I still went to teachers when I had concerns because I think that's like that partnership is vital but um but that's some of what what I'm hearing I'll continue to like repeat it but I do I want to say that I do hear that a lot about that people don't go to coaches because they're worried about retribution they don't go to teachers because they're wor teacher like we're in education like people are not seeking retribution on children um and so I mean in Ideal World students would go talk to their teachers themselves right that's a life skill um that you got to be able to do not every kid feels like they can do that um that is actually what I tell my and strive to get my own children to do it's hard right and it is okay for parents to reach out to guidance counselors teachers administrators we are not going to take retribution on students that is not something we're in the business of doing and if I ever heard something like that was happening I would do something about it um so I you know I know I'm being a little bit emphatic but like that's just you know we're in we're in this for the kids yeah yeah and it's to be clear it's not because anyone experienced that it's the fear of that or the kid the kids fear of that I did think that yes I and I get that sometimes but and I do believe the survey is are Anonymous but I will triple check okay I I was told by at least two parents I I will ask um yeah um and then the only other thing I I appreciate what you said about coming back together in March and sort of evaluating but you know the other question I'm getting a lot is like is this the future of reading high school and I'm like I have no idea um but I think that um you know I I've heard from parents that are like I wish I knew this was going to be taught differently this year maybe I would have chosen a different style or um you know for the learning style of my child like things like that so just something to bear in mind for next year um I do I do think there's like a learning style this could be great for and a learning style this could be a lot harder for so I think that I've heard that before and and I just want to say that every teacher has different teaching styles and if we get into into the business of saying this teacher doesn't meet my learning style then it's going to be really hard for me to schedule kids in classes right um and like we do come together in March or April and during that February um early or during the early release on Friday and we the teachers present what they've learned or the people that um had the professional development tracks and then you take from that what are Best Practices so the answer is no this isn't something that reading Memorial High School is transitioning to be a modern classroom project school it's that we're using the best practices from all of the professional development tracks that we have there um to be better at our jobs um and you know be better evaluators be better administrators be better teachers um Etc um because we have to continue to evolve as as Educators um and so no we're not transitioning the entire School into something else but we are going to take what works um and it may be that it works with 11th and 12th graders and it doesn't work with n9th and 10th or it works in certain subject areas and not others or maybe there's certain teachers that say I really like this piece of it and I'm going to use that um and like uh Miss nazaro said we have been doing elements of this for a very long time because it's essentially a student centered classroom which is really what we should be doing um as Student Center CL can I just say one thing yes also we want to like Inspire young adults to go off into their education or wherever they are going next and be able to learn from all different kinds of experiences and different ways that different people whether it's a boss or a professor or who whatever is next for them we want them to be able to be successful in that learning environment um so this is just another flavor of learning um you know and it's not really that different than a regular classroom anyway yeah I hear that for when it's going well I just yeah let's move on we understand I think you've already had a chance I'm going to go to Sarah real quick then we'll come back to yeah mine's really quick and I think this will actually get into the budget conversation too but one of the things that's kind of jumped out to me about some of these things we're piloting and trying is that it requires a higher level of executive functioning from our kiddos to navigate these different environments and a huge budget priority for having more we'll talk about it in a little bit but I think in terms of supporting them to navigate those different things and what are the tools that we can put in place for them absolutely to help them become better learner so that when you do go to college and it's wild west of who your professor is that you can advocate what you need to access the material good point point I said then good are we are we into the question part now so J is still going to go through a little bit of example oh yeah we go to that I'll wait I go ahead car topic point on this topic no no go ahead I want to finish it real quick thank you yeah thank you for taking the time to talk through it thank you for answering the challenging questions thank you for you know putting out new ideas and new ways of approaching things right I'm thinking about this tying it back to goals right some of this is new pedagogy as you mentioned some of it has some scientific background and research behind how well it works or doesn't I think your letter up the community in fact showed some of that how how do we then again bringing back to March and April say this worked and this doesn't How does it go into the library yeah right so we have to tie it back together with the overall goals of the district and the superintendent as well and part of it is trial right I think back to some of the stuff that we've heard from the elementaries to your point she asked about some of the small group learning that's going on in at barrows and or was going on at barrows and is still going on at Josh Weeden how do we think about some of those things that expand them more where they work and contract them when they don't but we have to give a chance for trial and error to continually get better right we don't want to stay the same we know the same status quo is not good enough we still want to keep raising the bar and part of that is going through in professional development different ways of teaching Etc so well it probably was painful at times putting yourself out there and having the teachers put themselves out there I just want to say thank you for taking the chances it's not easy to do thank you so now it's back to you okay we can go to the next slide these are just examples so that you know that we aren't making up the things that we're doing uh that they are tied to Anchor text or different online theor theoretical resources um and you so it's not made up um okay um so my my example which is the next one you can go the next one Tom um is that Mr mwe and I last year did a uh our professional development track was using the text deeper learning which is a it's a weighty book um to tie together instructional rounds so it's the first time teachers had participated in um larger scale instructional rounds which means like pairs of teachers I I did I was The Matrix person so I came up with the schedule and figured out when they could push into different classes and gave them relief of Duties to be able to do that um and then uh if you flip to the next one I think yes um and so when they went into classrooms my the teachers in my professional development track were looking under three um Windows right and so the theory is in the deeper learning text is that if students are Dem are are demonstrating creativity having identity to the work that they're doing or it's tied to their identity and they're mastering content um and this is no overlap with modern classroom this was separate that that is where deeper learning happens right and so it was um very interesting to see the teachers pushing into classrooms and then using the tool that we developed um to collect feedback and then rate what they saw um and sometimes the rating was I didn't see it right like um and I as I pushed them to say Don't just go in the beginning of the class go in the middle in the end which is something I do as an evaluator to see different segments of what's happening during that um observation and then we came back together multiple times throughout the year and tallied our the information to see if there were patterns um you know of where we did we see creativity but we weren't seeing Mastery Etc wasn't it happening in some departments and not others um and so I think if you flip to the next slide Mr wise um can you go one more I'll come back to this one um some of the feedback that we at the end so how do we learn from this was one of your questions we we did a survey I also took numeric data um and then that was all submitted to Dr Hardy about our professional development track uh but some of just one of the quotes from the teachers was um I appreciated the book for thinking about classes we observed having those three components as pillars has been helpful as I think about lesson plans for my own lessons right and so it was really pushing the teachers to grow and to think deeply about how they were designing their lessons and making them much more meaningful for students um and and learning more authentically um and it is really a different lens when you go in and observe it's someone teaching um it it really flips your thinking you know and teachers don't really get an opportunity to see other people teaching a lot of times and so this was an example of a professional development track um that I feel was very successful um in I would love to continue it but like I said I just was like I don't think I can redo this again um but and I've done instructional rounds in a lot of schools uh prior to this but linking it with the text as well just made it that much more robust can you go back one slide Mr wise um and so at the end of the year we always I do an end ofe survey and one of the I ask many questions in that survey and this is kind of how I measure if we've met our goals or not are they aligning with the district goals Etc um but one of the questions to the staff was how did you like your PD track right like how did it go um you know and 75% essentially said I like what we were doing right that is actually a very emphatic celebration um for professional development because a lot of times when you talk about professional learning and professional development in schools that are run by our own staff um there's some Grans um and so this I felt like was very positive mainly because I think people had Choice um in what they were doing but that choice was done strategically to align with our um goals as a school and the goals of the district as well Jess can I add on one thing if you go back two slides two slides and I'm going to ask a question I'll put the committee on the spot in a second on this too just the one with the H yeah next one actually the one one forward so yeah here we go so has anyone read this text so it's it's the deeper learning text it's like the the subtitle is about like remaking the the the high school reimagine the high school experience and the two authors toured uh you know hundreds of classrooms across the country looking for the best instruction and their goal was to then say what are the best practices that are consistent across all these amazing classrooms and then let's try to put that in practice and scale that up right it was interesting the researchers found sort of one particular you know uh I would say content area or group of classes where they said students came to life any want to guess when that was where they saw the best instruction where students really came to life anyone to guess student lead student lead you're going to say modern class no that would be awesome subject matter it's a subject matter sort of it's it was extracurricular activities it says the students are like this all they they give the very dramatic intro where students are like this during the day and all the bell rings at 305 kids come to life and they actually said the time where they saw the best instruction was in arts programs in athletics where they combined sort of these three pieces of Mastery which is like students have to work towards a particular skill there has to be something in schools it's towards standards but it has to be tightly aligned to what they're doing there it has to tie to something they feel personally invested in that connects to who they are and where they want to go and it has to give them some creativity in their learning to be able to feel like they have some ownership of their learning so if you I would encourage you if you haven't to dive in the text it's long but it does I think go deep into like each of those three categories which I think are pieces that we would all agree are really like good pieces of instruction and I just wanted to say to to like Echo what Je is shared is I commend the high school for saying we're going to Ground Learning in a text that's going to we think is around what good instruction looks like we're then going to take it a step further and calibrate on what that looks like in practice and hold each other accountable on that and then also process-wise is the benefit of building that like shared culture and that shared Community too I just think that's really powerful and like how that was designed to I think since I only gave you 20 minutes you like move through this part which I think is like a there is like minutes what's that no way we are but I told just to go Qui but I just want to I just want to emphasize I think that there was a really good quality learning in the in what was a I think a really good anchor text and pushing and integrating that into practice I I just think was a really thoughtful uh way to do that and to make it you know actually uh you know in a way that teachers can digest it and use it too so I think uh I think it's a good example you and that was our dilemma how do we make our classes especially those that every rese child has to take like extracurriculars it's a challenge or and it's not an elective right or or something that the child you know outside of English n English to do it's it's it's that is the Dilemma of that text I want to be a better basketball player so I'm going to learn in the drill how to like focus and you know how to put my hand how to do XYZ but how if I don't see the connection towards being better in Al why am I going to focus so it's that teacher's job to build that same connection for that student's identity and that's a challenge Sor we we can talk about the stuff all day yeah we probably can can I just go ahead before I jump in um I think I'm done for for me when I first saw this presentation the thing that stuck out with me that made me hap really happy was the involvement um of the department heads right the true involvement of the department heads in in the curriculum in you know the evaluation process in the curriculum you took our thought of you know we want the department heads to be more involved and you blossomed it um the thing that I like even more is the teachers being the fundamental you know Learners being able to to be creative in how they roll out material um it and and then I always go back to where we were six years ago and and my reasons for getting on the school committee and probably a lot of our reasons for getting on the school committee and the environment that we had in this building particularly and we are we are from night today of where we're at um and for for to have the leadership team that goes out and is trying to pull all the stuff from the teachers and the teachers being excited about this it is like to me it's just like I could just like walk away and just say this is this is like perfect so for me with this stuff it may not be perfect but how you have it set up it it just um I think it's fabulous I really appreciate that but I also have to commend my team that I work with as well as an amazing staff they really are um you know and they keep things moving forward and I'm happy to be in the position that I am they make my job easy um and I appreciate your support and obviously the District staff support as well um in trying some of these creative ideas that we're that we're doing it's awesome and we just want to bring the best to the kids sure so I I don't have any questions to get down into the weeds of of stuff but I really do appreciate this presentation because you know as it's kind of timely too as we head into the budget we see professional development all over the budget the community does has never seen this and really knows what it is I think this is very timely and important that there there's something behind that that that that's a significant amount of the budget it gets talked about in collective bargaining a lot uh and I I I really appreciated this presentation because it it put it put context behind the numbers really you know well and I appreciate the opportunity because we put a lot of work into this and I think it's really good work um and nothing is perfection but I think it's excellent and um so I really appreciate the opportunity to come here tonight and explain what we're doing and and we are always open to feedback um to be better anything else Sean anything on your side I want to commend them one real quick and good thank you I just want to thank the team to commend them too that is a true skill to be able to lead like have focus on instructional leadership in a high school where you're managing a city every day and day out it's hard enough just to manage the operational side of the work but to focus and truly the ways that they are on leading uh showing demonstrating strong instructional leadership is a is a true skill and a testament to you and your team so I just say thank you for that work which is critically important and don't want to underest people in the community to know that job no one said your job is easy one of I can't imagine a more difficult job and appreciate this Focus because what our school needs I'll I'll end as well with a thank you but also with a caution um and I I want to figure out how how to word this properly but if you were to step back in time maybe 15 years ago about what the best practices were and the books that were out there about how to do those there was absolutely zero research base behind them and they harmed a lot of our kids mhu so as we think about this and as we look at some of these things I want to make sure I'm ask that you do and that sounds like there a significant review process so that wouldn't be hopefully not a problem on a go forward basis but as we anchor in texts let's make sure those texts have good strong research back behind them not just hey this is my best thing best idea in the last two days right I know that's not what you're doing yeah but I just want to caution that that we continue to think about the research base behind what we're putting out there and not just putting out like anything right um so I appreciate the the diligence the thoroughness with which you guys continue to work through this but again just make sure we don't fall astray as many in the industry did 15 or so years ago I was only 15 then kindergarten both thank you so much you very you okay uhop was Adam here six years ago yeah so with and uh we will move on to the next Topic in our agenda which is our financial update so can we go you want to go back there share for the uh sure I can go back five slides have time to do evaluations because of all this yeah I was just being no all right we why light so cuz I just went out yes thank you both thank you have a good night thank you so I think you're going to see from these slides that I could probably benefit from for from some professional development on having more exciting looking presentations um so what we have is uh five slides for the q1 uh financial report it's pretty much in line with what you were seeing last year and I think the last couple years one of the things I'm going to be doing over the course of the year is looking at these reports and perhaps making some changes modifying them I'm open to feedback from you folks if there are things you looking for that aren't there and when you get to the third slide which is the revolving accounts I've already made some changes for that one and hopefully it's a little more um useful providing some more useful information to folks and of course the q1 update is always the most boring one because you know school just started through September you only have one month of the uh salaries for the teachers in there right now even and I'll talk to where we are right now in December we're tracking fine in terms of the general fund budget everything is pretty much uh running in line um we will be encumbering the salaries K has from whole lot of work since I got here in terms of reconciling current Staffing back to the budget Staffing and I've been doing it as well to they help me understand how this year's budget was created and what's behind it uh so we're going to be making some budget transfers to get things to line up so that when we're done we'll know that what's in those lines for salaries is what we need for the rest of the year and then if there's any um Savings in terms of salary savings we'll be able to identify what those numbers are as well so it's a lot of work um luckily again Kate's been doing a lot of that work and I just been bugging the heck out of her with all my questions on it and everything else so again in terms of the general fund uh things are tracking fine uh the next one which is the grants one uh it took me a few minutes to actually try to understand what this thing was trying to tell me um now that I understand it it's just showing us in terms of grants from prior years if there's any money left it's being used up um and we've got the fiscal year 25 grants out there as well just as a reminder to folks that in terms of entitlement grants those actually have a life of 27 months from the time they're out there so um we are allowed to I hate to use this term but carry over funds from year to year if we don't use it all up so um typically the ID Grant sometimes since that's our biggest one we do have the ability to not use up the complete allotment of the current year and carry some of that into the next year so but again in terms of the grants Esther's gone those words will never pass my lips again um so we're all done with those and we're just back to where we are I I am very impressed though since I've been here in terms of the number of grants that the staff go the staff has C out to done to do their applications to try to get them there's a lot of those grants floating around so um again I commend the staff for doing that all right the third one which is the next one which is the one I've done some work on which is the revolving accounts I started here because revolving accounts to me you know they are our business line so to speak because most of these are self-funding um operations want to make sure that we have enough Revenue to offset the plan expenses so the first four columns are the same it's just showing what the beginning balance was at the beginning of the fiscal year and how much we brought in actual in Revenue how much we've actually spent and what the balance is the q1 the difference is the next four columns what Kate and I try to do is to project out the full year um plan for all of these lines so we get a sense as to where we think we're going to end up at the end of the year um I've spent some time meeting with um the folks from um the extended day programs to go over what their um plan is for this year if you look at the extended day because of Co and everything else fiscal year 24 in terms of Revenue it's just finally getting back to where we were in fiscal year 19 in terms of utilization of the programs um they've got some great plans for this year some new programs that they're going to try out um they're anticipating another increase in Revenue but we're going to keep a close eye on that just to make sure that that Revenue actually does come to fruition and if it doesn't we've already had conversations with them as to what changes we might need to make to their expense side to make sure that uh we keep that in line um I've also had several conversations with Katherine in terms of the Food Service program Food Service program is doing extremely well um participation rate is relatively speaking doing well she'd like to get it up higher uh one of the operational things that we're running into at high school you know because the kids get what three and a half minutes for lunch these days we're trying to increase the throughput on the lunch lines so we're probably going to go out and buy a fifth register and we're also looking at using their ID badges rather than having to put in their 4 digit code to pay for the lunch so to speak just be able to scan the barcode and their ID badges speed things up so we're going to try to do a pilot of that after the first of the year and you know operationally hopefully that we get the kids through faster because a lot of high scho there are some high school kids who just won't get lunch because the lines are too long so we're recognizing the operational issue so we're taking a look at that um just a couple other things full car kindergarten as we all know this is the last year we're charging any tuition for that um where we expect to be at the end of the year is what was in the plan so that there will be you know just under 500,000 left to be used up for the next for fiscal year 26 and 27 so that's pretty much on plan and just the last one that I'm going to look at next is Athletics trying to wrap my head around that one um and we'll see where we are the rest of them you know overall you know we're looking pretty good but again these are ones that I like to keep an eye on again because you know if we you can't have a negative balance in these Accounts at the end of the year because if you do then you've got to get money out of the operating account to pay for it and we don't want to be there so we'll be keeping a close watch on that and then the last two are just the gift and donation accounts and the uh Student Activity accounts there's nothing really much there to talk about with those so that's all I've got for the q1 U there's no written cuz I hate writing memos um but I am going to try to again make some changes to these see if they'll I can get ways to give some more information and I also prefer graphs as opposed to numbers because I think people understand pictures better rather than looking at the numbers so you'll I'll be doing some experimentation I think during the course of this year to see if we can get something that um you know gives a little more useful information at least what I think is useful information but I'm strug not going to say that what I think is useful is what you folks may find useful so any feedback I would certainly be appreciative of that any thoughts anybody sounds great Sean anything NOP I'm good thank you hold on Dr cor um I'll I'll say I appreciate what you're doing here with the revolving accounts um in the addition here in terms of actual Revenue actional expenditure for C Revenue expenditure um and I also very much appreciate the extended a program Deep dive and understanding because I had a pretty big concern there that we'd be in in bad shape so thank you for that um one thing I would ask you to think about is actual collection history right interesting you should bring that up because one of the things that we talked about when I met with Chris and McKenzie from the extended day was I actually went in and said and I did a comparison between where you should have been in terms of collection and where they were and there was a a lack and the response that I got was um that the um parents who had signed up to have um automatic debits taken out that part of the software program was not working so they were behind in terms of their collections that's something I'm going to keep an eye on you know when I look at to make sure that the revenue is tracking in line with where we expect to be you know based on what people signed up for the revenues expect to be around 2 million so I want to make sure that that's correct and if I continue to see that the collection is dragging then I'm going to have another conversation to say we need to see what's going on to make sure that we keep programs you know from not going negative for the year but and if the software is not working and the parents aren't seeing that withdrawal happen the parents don't know necessarily so what are we doing to communicate that Gap I would also add as well we've seen collection issues with some of the other accounts um you know you use of school property would be one I would look at as well historically I used to be a coach in this town used to use the school property used to register for it used to never get build so it may not be the case anymore um but let's look at some of those things as well to make sure that's the case especially as we might be charging more for certain fields and things like that in the future um you know that we have a really good tightened up collection procedure we have the same type of issue that we had with uh extended day with kindergarten it's not going to be an issue going forward next year y um um and we don't want to we're not going to exclude a kid from kindergarten but if they if they can't pay or if there won't be payments then we need to make sure that we understand if there's some other paperwork that should be filed appropriately there was we've had a couple conversations about that um so far this year the collection on the kindergarten seems to be running better than it has in the past can fail in one Lum some because it's so small that's what we've heard but it's still it's it's still let's just make sure we we monitor actual versus expected um Athletics as well Athletics would be another one that you're going to you're going to see a rather large flow on a regular Athletics and extracurricular um sland activities with the high school or wherever that one goes um so okay uh Dr perm you had a question Jeffrey corm Ridge Road um if actually go back to the revolving accounts that one I think it's kind of my traditional com U comment of mine that the extra curricular Parker and extracurricular coolage show no activity and I think it's been five maybe 10 years since there's been any activity in those years so in those two accounts and I just sort of you know wonder what they're doing and why they're sitting there I'm also a little curious I see there's an after school activities Parker but not one for coolage so I wonder you know why not um and these are you know things you can look into and obviously those have been sitting there for a number of years it's not a huge amount of money but you know kind of at my head every year ask you know and somebody says okay we look look into it and then you know other things take priority uh if you go forward um oh I was the Student Activities account the other thing that came up at a re at a similar budget um overview one time was the um Student Activities accounts particularly for the graduating classes where they had some class funds that had been allocated and there was a question as to who actually had authority to spend those accounts and I think we were hunting down some like the class president from four years ago or something for some of these counts to try and make sure that the the accounts could be spent in in a way that the students had asked for it to be you know had intended for it to be spent back right before they graduated so just a couple of things to keep an eye on as you delve in and learn the uh the ins and out of the budgets here thanks is there a school committee policy in terms of what happens to class funds after graduation there isn't a policy that we have um when we were when Susan was looking through this last she was going to come up with a set of updated procedures about how to handle them um appropriately I think the overall um understanding that we had from some of those conversations and anybody else jump in and correct me was that upon graduation it should go to an account owned by the class officers for future celebrations of reunions and stuff like that right that is the way it should work and up in Newber Port which is why I asked a question the school committee polic is very clear is is that it's 90 days after graduation then the money is taken and put into an account that's under the name of class of 2025 and the signers on that account would be whoever were the class officers at time of graduation because at that point that money is no longer the responsibility of the school department yeah I think the challenge we had was who has that account on a go forward basis which bank does it go to it's not going to be the town it's going to have to be distri Ed by the town to some account somewhere y making sure and I think that's where we go back to the procedur so Tom you may know where they are um but we should double check with them and then Phil get yourself comfortable with them and if we need to bring it up from a policy perspective we have plenty of policies to review we can just add one more to the list right sure next time we meet yeah next time we get something done yeah okay thanks Phil anything else no anybody else no thank you no thank you okay so so um last topic on our agenda is FY 26 school committee budget priorities discussion um just to set and Dr mileski I'll let you set things up as well we started this process what two years ago now um brought it in as a process to say hey what do you want us to focus on as we go through this um it's really kind of been more ad hoc and I'm fine with it being ad hoc too I'll probably time box it to about 10 minutes um I think we're probably all going to say the same thing anyway or something very similar with some slight adjustments I had ideas about sticky notes and rankings and all that stuff and I'm not going to worry about that right now so um you know really just kind of thinking about other than the basics of it's going to be more or less a level funded budget going into next year um with where we are where the town is and things like that how do you want to how do you want to think about other allocations and how do we want to prioritize them so Tom do you want to introduce anything else or is that I think you did a good job okay so any any feedback or thoughts I think you started campaigning a little bit in one of the previous topics go ahead and let you a topic I so if and when we find some funny money our budgets here of a couple of things that I could be you know if we have smaller buckets of money that we could try and so I think building on the Medco Grant you spoke about earlier Tom and the summer reading presentation that Sarah Hardy did I think I would what other high-risk groups where we're seeing big learning gaps so MLL um economic economically disadvantaged IEP what else are we doing for those groups to close gaps like we're going to be doing and piloting um with the metr that' be one um continuing program evaluations that we've been doing for special ed The Learning Center Reading instruction really needs to be evaluated that was something that was proposed that we would do as part of the um lead evaluation but didn't happen so I'd like to see that and then I think the executive functioning instruction tools support more explicit structured instruction at different building levels to support um different students across all students and then the big one I'll throw out there that I think we just need to start talking about not for next year but we need to start figuring out similar to full dayk um busing there's a growing need for busing in the community what does that look like do we have interest in figuring out how to fund that you know over what time frame and then I think more importantly potentially um upgrading the HVAC um systems to get climate control into the buildings at some point in time that's going to be a reality we're we're losing well we're Los we're losing time on learning already related to global warming and heat in the buildings we're going to have to figure it out so just putting out there we have to start thinking about similar to full day it's not going to be next year but I just have a clar when you said busing are were you talking about kindergarten or busing in general busing Town busing okay okay any anybody else have anything they want to add or any things to pile on to Ser list or seconds as the case I mean I just I don't have anything I want to add but I'd like you know maybe Phil and you're probably already doing it uh and with all your experience just having a fresh set of eyes on where there may be in efficiencies where you did something differently I'm still looking for the magic POS well and there may not it may not be I'm not suggesting there I but I think it's you know I think that we should utilize your experience to take a look at that absolutely okay I guess I'm just aware that we you know we we reach collective bargaining with all our units we um yeah I I'm I'm like wary of even like like I have lots of ideas I know there's a lot we've talked about but um I feel like we're lucky if we can you know have a level service budget going forward so I'm I'm not I'm not thinking a lot bigger because I I think it's going to take more and we're only probably a year out from needing to plan hopefully around a new school building which may require some changes or additions um so I'm also sort of aware of that being on the horizon um so not the next budget but certainly the budget after that we'll be talking about it so that's sort of in my mind um the only other thing I'll say is I think we did see a clear impact from adding the math coaches um so again I know there's not room to add anything but um if there were that that is certainly something I would look at um whether there's room to expand that um and then down the line you know Ela coaches has covered them Sean you have anything yeah I'll support aon's point about the math coaches um for sure um Sarah's point about uh pooling systems I think is a very legitimate one I don't think it's operating budget question I think we need to start sort of figuring out how to do the homework to see what that would look like and start thinking about it as a capital planning item you know at some point in time um so definitely agree with that one um I know it's kind of a given but I just want to say it out loud making sure we take that final step to full day kindergarten you know is an absolute must from my perspective to be in the budget for next year and the only thing that's on on my mind is um you I think we've seen a little bit of a an uptick in dis regul behavior in sort of in the youngest cohorts in the school system um and so we need to think about um you know how we how we provide additional support for those kids what what that looks like whether it's programmatic or you know increasing par rati shows or whatever that might be um to support those kids in particular um you know they were you know one two years old at at the onset of Co so I think we're seeing the you know we're seeing the impact of that sort of you know I don't know delayed socialization or whatever you want to call it so um I think uh I think that's one other places that we need to be really thoughtful and probably figure out there's a way to squeeze in some additional support okay um I'll add a couple of Echo and then a couple of other things to think about um and I know aon's point about being level level funded I think is a key one so it is what it is we can do what we can do but from my perspective I think one of the most important things we can figure out how to do is is related to the Gap closing stuff that Sarah was talking about right um and the earlier the better because we can talk about improving access to high you know to high classes AP classes Etc the high school all we want but if our kids aren't ready for them because they can't read or they can't do math then we wasted our time right so what can we do to further augment and support those that are struggling are not meeting and exceeding um the expectations right um partially meeting isn't good enough so if you're not meeting exceeding what are we doing with any kid no matter what their background or profile is um maybe that's expanded testing and suggestions on testing to see if there's anything else we need to support that child and their family with maybe it's some of the disregulation stuff that Sean's talking about maybe it's coaching from a math or literacy perspective that we should be talking about let's look at the science and figure out what what the science tells us is best way to close gaps and figure out how we can fund those appropriately we've done that with some of these other Solutions already and you know we we can we can and should continue to do that in other places the other one that I'm surprised nobody said and I don't know if people are trying to avoid jumping on a land mine here I go um is uh half day Fridays right um we need to start figuring out the plan for that because time on learning at the elementary school does and will impact their ability to grow and the time on learning in middle school and whatnot uh for me that's far more important than busing or AC as much as I'd love my kids to be in a temperature controlled building I think there there are challenges we're going to face when we talk about that from a capital perspective where some of these buildings if we start putting AC in them appropriately might trigger other problems that we need to be aware of right so just as we couldn't do anything work any real work at killum without knocking the whole thing down and causing a major Capital issue many of our other buildings are old enough that this could be a problem there too so I want to Eyes Wide Open that's not an easy solution necessarily um and it's not a cheap Sol it's not a cheap solution in any way shape or form um so I want to be cautious about that but what we can do is provide more time on learning um and we know that that number approximately we had a number that we put in our in our head so how does that look but of course we can't roll that out without further conversations and discussions with other people right but we need to start some of those um sooner than later and it may not be 26 but it may be 27 and the sooner we have those conversations if we still agree that it is necessary from a Time on learning perspective then we should move some of those topics forward at some point soon I'm going to piggy back on you go ahead in terms of um getting instruments languages into elementary schools as well so that's tied to time it's tied to exactly so all the other opportunities to have Fridays open up and even seeing if we can have have more um language options getting Latin into the um middle schools ET but you I'm sorry you're not talking about the budget we're going into now necessarily right well I think when you know I have had a bit of a preview when we were doing some of the stuff preparing for fincom right so I don't think there's a ton of the extra space right now but I do think that we should be starting some of the conversations because laying the groundwork is not something that happens in two months or 3 months anyway right um and we know through other conversations that this is not a slam dunk issue necessarily oh requires other people to weigh in well it definitely does um there's there's enough flexibility that we have given ourselves but at the same time we don't just mandate we don't execute by mandate it's a collaborative organization and that's on purpose right um so I think it is something we should start talking about and maybe as we go through next year and if we have enough things maybe there's a a trial month next year I don't know I'm just throwing something out right maybe it's not the whole year maybe there's a trial Month in May of next year or something like that that we know hey that's a small enough M money thing and we can see does this actually work um and what's the impact and I don't know I'm just trying to be a little bit creative in that and and seeing how it might tie into things in the future State as well okay we got to be really careful about that because it's it's the same situation when that the schedule changes happen right it it impacted you know it impacted the why and and it it impacted where when kids were going to work to other places in town you're impacting parents work schedules and babysitting and where M constituent it takes a collaborative approach which is why we need to start it rather than yeah just ignore it yeah you going add to that or no no no not right now it's it's a can of wors so not okay so I did jump on the land mod but that's okay all right um anything else Tom just really appreciate these conversations I think Chuck your point about looking for efficiency you know inefficiencies too but also maybe things we do pull back on is sometimes just important as what you're going to add also appreciate these conversations and elevating priorities for us even I know for some of them like Elementary assistant principles Chuck you had said had been elevated for decades but continued on those and eventually they come to fruition so whether these are this budget cycle the next it's really good to continue to have these conversations so thank you we should look back on our list that we made get ready for the ride fil well the list didn't include coaches the list did include additional Medco staff the list didn't include full dayk the list didn't include Elementary assistant principles the listed include Elementary counselors the list we went I went through that list today and there's a lot of things that you know even before my time where there was you know things that have been on the table for a while and a lot of those have have come there was a lot and by the way to get all that into a level service budget is is still I mean that's a have a level service budget is not any small no event know there's been many years where it hasn't been and you know as we look forward there might be three or four years out that we're not going to be in that position just about that so anything we put in we have to make sure we can maintain maintain it um all right with that said um we'll close that topic and I need a motion motion to no [Music] oh motion to adjourn to to Executive session and not return second to Executive session for the purposes of sorry cond preparation for negotiation with nonunion Personnel the chair says that open conversation will be detrimental to those negotiations second second chck um so moves um we're going to a roll call vote Chuck yes Carlo yes Aaron yes Sarah yes Sean yes you got my note I did okay Tom yes we're Jour we'll meet in the room shortly sorry p e