##VIDEO ID:60_rdkjPbic## okay good evening members call to order the Rev school committee meeting of the whole January 21st 2025 will all rise flag conations to the flag United States of America indivisible liberty and justice for all okay take a call please Mr K here miss Milbury Ellis president Mr Kingston here miss mon Rosa here Mr sella pres and Miss Rizzo pres and Patrick PE is pres okay approval of the minutes any questions we have oh there's no seconds in all right so all in favor of the minutes we approve them in the next meeting we understand uh Mr chair I mayor I have a question on those okay uh Matt I I was just wondering on item 38 what exactly was the 80,000 for the cultural Exchange program that that was um so we have the five Educators who came from other countries on H1B visas and that was the cost of um Contracting with the organization that we used to rning over oh that was all um Matt I I had a question not so much a question I was just curious um are all the schools working from the same um copy contract yes so when I started it was dozens right and it was chaos and so we did a lot of work to meet with potential vendors and secured a relationship with a vendor who's on the operational services division State contract bid list so we can cont check them at a good price with all the perks that come along with bid list vendors and there's a single point of contact so it simplifies the leasing process the payment process the maintenance contracts we're just dealing with one person District wide so just U anecdotally we the city was using each department had whoever they wanted as long as they're on the state bid list okay we brought we brought everyone under one contract one style wouldn't say one style but one brand and uh we we're already seeing things like you know the price is obviously beneficial but also if you're using one type of inkin toner and they're using a different type you over order you know it's I'm glad to see it the city wasn't doing that we we have fixed it since but um sometimes diversity is helpful to school and sometimes standardization is helpful so in that world it was clear what the best practice would be also if one printer's down you can run to another department use the other you know it's just it's very it's very helpful I was surprised to see it but we got it taken care of great all questions I had any other questions from fors um I just have one quick can you just follow up on on the 80,000 that program I know you said it was to bring them over I just don't remember hearing anything about it so I'm interested and quick yeah that's so Dr Garcia would have shared that it's through a grant that we have for the educated diversification Grant um and so we have a partner organization TR to remember their name RVP consultants and so they actually take care of all of the paperwork and everything else to bring folks over we identify these are the teaching positions that we haven't been able to do um in this particular case it was a middle school math position uh a high school biology position I'm going to forget what the other ones are do you remember off hand that's what I was interested in like they're teaching and then how how long how long do they stay for how long is the three years is the agreement oh okay and that 880,000 covers for the three years oh okay so it's it's five people for three years uh and after that they can apply for an extension if we like them and it's working out well is it working out it is yeah we've had one that we've struggled with a little bit but um really that was a function of um she had has two small children of her own and being in a new country and trying to navigate all of that has has been a challenge uh for her but the other four have been phenomenal oh awesome thank you I just want to know a little bit more about that any other questions I have one Mr notification on 190 Weis associated in public professional development you elaborate on that or if I see the number I'll 19 two things that it is course material for okay so that is for um all teachers when they're newly hired into the district are required to complete a new educator course um and so currently we use Reus and Associates as the contractor to provide that course it basically gives all of the teachers a Common Language around expectations for what we want to see in the classroom um and so that is the course materials for the teachers who are taking the spring cohort of that class which I think that'ss tomorrow or tonight next week oh last week okay close good busy any any questions regarding okay want great right reports Miss montosi uh yes Matt I just G to walk us through the red but I just wanted to ask more why the series 9,000 was in red and my next question is is there a chance we're going to be in a deficit in any other areas once all the union all the races from the union negotiations begin so how are we doing okay can I answer those successively yeah so the first question was the big ticket item that we hinted at last month to say we're meeting with special education and just just trying to get a grip on the uh the state of those accounts This Is Not Unusual if you take a 10-year view there's some years that sped sales and has a huge Surplus like last year there's some years that by October a various factors have driven the costs up across the board so the primary drivers here are increas in costs for the special education tuition out placements increase in volume of students who have been outplaced compared to what we would expected both residential and private schools um so both of those are driving the costs of the tuitions up from what it's been the last two years in a dramatic way and then the other cost increase that had hasn't been normal but we're facing this year is an inability to place special education teachers through the normal hiring processes and the normal Staffing processes and so having to use outside agencies to find Qualified people to take those positions and those come at a premium so those are cost drivers in addition to a correction that we did with the budget as you remember to say we don't want to sit on a million and a half dollars of unspent money in sped so as Murphy's Law would have it the year that we adjusted that we need we needed um so that's what this last page is showing you in actual numbers um our initial thought as you know paying attention to this is each year we receive four quarterly payments from the circuit breaker program our normal practice which is common across the Commonwealth is that you can you can Bank those four quarter payments and hold on to them the year that they come and then credit or expend them in the subsequent year so we were counting on the four quarters from last year to help us this year and it is but you can actualize a current Year's quarterly payment or two or three or if it got wild all four if you would like so what we'll do is we will actualize the first quarter payment from fy2 which already has been received and that is more than what the current projected deficit is in the special education accounts so that's the simplest way for us to solve in the immediate for that now that will open a new problem when we get to our conversation about next year's budget if we normally depend on four quarters and there'll only be three quarters available for the budget then you'll see a higher need for tuition costs in next year's budget so that decision for this year will affect the next year but don't forget that if we want we can count on next year's three quarters and the first quarter from FY 26 that's why circuit breaker exists to ride out these storms as you go can I add one thing that um and the other thing that we will realize at the end of this year because especially with the school psychologist positions that we've been trying for years to fill we have budgeted for them so we're going to see a surplus in um the instructional Services 2000 series that at the end of this year Jessie will be saying hey how come you didn't spend all this money you said you were going to spend uh and we're going to say well we're going to carry that forward and that will offset for the special education too because one of the things that we're doing as Matt alluded to is is hiring agencies to give us the services that we hope to do internally and so we are billing our uh 900 9,000 Series with expenses that we put into the 2,000 series you see what I'm saying so Dr Kelly do you see those offsetting at some point I mean as you mentioned bringing more of an in-house which is is great and I know it's been a challenge to find Qualified people but as you bring more in house and have the people on staff the out the out service or the outside services that are doing some of the work that would go away eventually correct yeah y it's significantly more expensive to hire an agency to do um like the school the school psychologist work or the occupational therapy and we continue to fill any positions that are or try to fill any positions that are open I have kind of a silly question um but I'm just curious that uh I imagine there's thousands of students who uh are in this category of students um getting these services are we making sure that um all the students that are getting these services are are using them or taking advantage of them or you know just that there's no maybe or that they're still here or like way to like check abely yeah yeah we keep very careful track of all of the services it's written into the r if any of them are getting these Services it's written into their RP that they need to get them and the special ed coordinator at each building makes sure that every special need Student in that building is getting the services that they're supposed to have once we do an out placement like if a if a student is in a um a hospital school or something like that the burden comes on that other school to provide the required services but they're still required to do exactly what's written into the IEP so if it says that they need OT three times a week and speech therapy twice a week and school psychologist once a week that school has to provide it I I guess my question is more so of us making sure that there's not money that's um being paid for these services and not being used so like if students are moving and maybe not reporting it or we're get we're late in getting it reported I just don't know how the inner workings works that's why I'm asking like is is it possible that we could you know save some money we eyeball that like you wouldn't believe because that's where that's where there's a lot of money moves they may not tell us but their files are requested by their school and that's when their IP gets fooled and then we get notified yeah and depending on exactly what the scenario is like especially for the kids who are exceptionally expensive to educate like I was talking about kids who are in a hospital school or residential or something like that um the state law requires that we split that cost until the receiving District can fully assume the student because they wouldn't have budgeted for that and sometimes you're talking about a $500,000 annual educational expenditure um and so in a case like that we would continue to assume half of that cost until the kid until next year until the next budget season that school would have to take over yeah at least until the next budget that's by law yeah and so we I mean we still end up having to spend some of that money but it's significantly less than what we would have budgeted for Are you delivering pizza to me I can um walk quickly through the Reds so we saw the Reds in the special education and we did the appendix to be really clear about that one the transportation accounts have some Reds um we have no choice but to encumber funds to get the kids to school don't forget that these numbers are assuming every kid attends school every day for the rest of the year so as we get into the fourth quarter we're able to say which of these purchase orders actually aren't being used now because the child has moved or changed schools so the transportation will always have some red numbers at this point in the year there's no Reds in substitutes but there are some cool schools that are very close to the red don't forget that we budget a lot of money in the district account to help with unexpected spikes and leaves of absences in individual School accounts so you'll always see individual accounts go red but the districtwide account is black and Peter is paying Paul there to make that happen and then the Tradesman overtime account has already peaked into a deficit part of that is due to the fact that rather than Contracting to install uh technology screens districtwide which would have been a substantial cost we're having the maintenance team do it in overtime so we're saving a bunch of money by utilizing their services after the school day compared to what it would have been to contract out but it's sending that account into a deficit because we had not budgeted the difference in that account so car's you know car's doing analysis of all the Tradesman overtime but the primary driver was that there was something else it was the um Smart TVs and the furniture at order remember last year we let every school order Furniture so the custodians and maintenance guys had to put together all of those tables chairs everything and um the quote that we had districtwide was around $80,000 and we figured out the overtime cost would be about 16,000 and so that's what we went with but we didn't know that until like August so you we had already done the budget so that line is a little bit upside down um with the m the maintenance one is a little upside down the custodian one we still have money to spend most likely that will go during the winter with snow removal like we had to have them all come in yesterday to clean up the schools so that we could be in today after the storm um but we talked to K about that and he's going to be a little bit more stringent um with any other overtime than that and um we we're monitoring that as as well just my general question is how we're moving forward is there should we be worrying about a a deficit at the end of the school year in general or so that's a separate question this is a report of what has happened so far and have have we re have we actualized any problems can we see them the second very important question is uh what about moving forward um to the year close and also generating carry forward as we get into the budget process so uh your business finance department will all go on strike if you ever settle four contracts within seven months again it wasn't our fault your fault very so we are at the we trying to do it within three months we are at the very end of actual the collective bargaining changes so just this past Friday we actualized the the bump for the 805 members of R and in four or five weeks we will actualize their retroactive pay so this was the first week that I was able to do an analysis with everyone just about at their new collectively bargained rate what does that look like my my estimate is that the Retro will be somewhere between $8 and $900,000 when that hits so I've got that in mind so no we're not headed to a current your deficit um there's so many variables now but if you ask me are we going to get into that four to five millionar of unspent money to deal with that chunk of teachers I would say nothing will be like the last two years when the S funds were helping us but we should be all right there the major major question for us is not are we okay this year it is what happens this Thursday when we see the governor's budget and with all the work that we've done to prepare for whatever may come what do we actually have to do so we've sketched you know a budget calendar and we have to see those numbers then we have to do our work at Cityside to say how much of that increase is finding its way into your appropriation and then we sit down and say so how does it look and all the many strategic things that we have going how will we move those into our budget so we'll have a bunch of work to do in March April on that but it's kind like this is for a CFO the Monday before the Thursday it's super stressful because if they say x then we go all right and if they say y we go and if they say Z we go we weren't expecting Z so but there's no anxiety to be to be worth it until so we see the number and roll with it don't forget we have been in communication for years strategically for this coming budget when we knew that the Sesser funds would dve so we've done everything we can and we have to first see the governor's number then negotiate with the city with those realities and then say okay now we can come together and bu it going forward my last question and point is I know the I know the governor has stated that if there are cuts to federal grants the state will work into its best to cover for districts but I'm assuming once we hear any news about Federal changes we'll have that conversation how it affects us right so I've been hustling at all the preliminary work that the business finance office can do getting everything ready so when the door opens of the governor's budget and the cherry sheet and then the door opens of the schedule 19 negotiation we're ready to work part of that includes a very thorough Staffing model to say who is where and what are their funding sources as of right now and if they all were a part of the district yde team going forward who are we planning on being where that includes all of our special funds so if for example T we we know going into the process title one has say you know 24 full-time professional staff members if the tital one Grant was severely reduced will know here's what it can hold here are the people who have been in that group in that fund that need to find somewhere else so our work right now is just to be ready to have the conversation the only reason we don't talk about all of this aggressively is because we just be kind of yeah let's just wait and I think the fact that um with the new administration because one of the worries was that the department the federal department of educ would just be abolished but I think the fact that there's been a named um director of that department and an named assistant director gives me a little bit of hope that it's not going to be abolished so that's that's a good thing um what exactly it means we won't know for some time um but the other thing that I'll add is I think that we've been really good fiscal agents we all of us the school committee Matt especially in his team um by having that that $10 million backup it's it will help us address if there's some huge dramatic change at the federal level or if we run into a little bit of a bump like I know Matt that we did mean for when we hit the Esser cliff in my mind I'm hoping it lasts till we hit the SOA Cliff which is two years from now that's right uh if we couldn't touch it till then that would be phenomenal but if we have to we we're we're there we would want to make some decisions as a group together like we don't want to just extend the problem out four years we would have to start thinking about how are we going to start reducing so that we can aain sustain in a new and new Financial reality just one more point of information we are uh we've given everything to the purchasing agent at the city to go out to bid for regular transportation services special education inside transportation services and districtwide cleaning services and the Commonwealth just Friday released the template for the Food Services um that they're they're being more droning in the in their management of it so this winter in additional to all the budget stuff that we'll be doing I'll be overseeing going out to bid for four major contracts my reason for giving them giving everything in by January 2nd was it would be great to have those numbers in hand as we begin to deliberate Bud instead of saying because we don't know what the spikes will those so we've done everything we can to have very fruitful budget conversations in early March and through April as a as a committee and thank thank you any other questions regarding fins Food Service R none Communications none person person items reations and any questions reality no acceptance of gifts and donations I just want to speak to this one briefly um principal Coyle had applied for it and received thankfully a $175,000 uh playful learning a grant to to bring in the playful learning Institute um and before he applied his teachers the governing board agreed that this is a path that they wanted to go down um they're looking at this in an exploratory way is something that we might want to adopt in other schools down the road so they're going to kind of pilot and and see how it goes but um and you can Google the organization but basically what they look at is how to engage kids in playfulness throughout the day particularly for our youngest students Pre K through three um and there were some requirements to receive the grant one of them was that it had to be a full inclusion school which the Paul rer is um so that's why they were able to be the pilot for for us uh on that um uh I'll just read a quick blurb on what the playful learning Institute says participants mean tools and strategies to intentionally design and embed playful learning instructional strategies across the course of the school day playful learning supports deep dives into content creates Equitable access to learning for all children and creates varied opportunities for authentic assessment particularly during instructional blocks across the content heing um areas so it doesn't mean they're going to be out on the playground all day it means that the teachers are going to work together and have some training on how to create playful moments as they're teaching maap or reading or the alphabet you know whatever the case may be so um that's that great 175,000 towards instru wonderful yes I do in the steam yeah yeah great uh SC field trips we get to we have a number of them yeah I know the ROTC is going to be doing the civilian program again this was this the one they did last year no this is a different one this is the brand new this is the one that they're doing at the par of school right noi oh okay um I do want to just give a shout out to the jrc who came in first in the maxm competition last weekend and we have an enormous um trophy that I'll make sure that I show it to you guys before you leave it's pretty impressive it has all of the districts who've won every year back to 1998 has a little plaque on it and in the last five years this will be re's third that's awesome yeah so got the kills that's awesome I'll bring it I'll maybe I'll bring it into the next meeting and put it up on the on the board question wonderful to see field trips yes okay appointment of two members for non-union Sally working group so this is the working group that I had emailed over or the start of the holiday vacation about um that we would like to get scheduled and going and so we're looking for two members who can sit on that and I think the suggestion I had was that it includes somebody from Ways and Means uh and somebody from personel Personnel um together with them will be uh myself uh at least one of the assistant superintendents a couple of folks from the Raa um and a couple of principles and what we hope to do is give more of a long-term this is how we give raises establish that um so that the committee after negotiations with unions isn't um debating about how to how to follow up and the other thing we had talked about was um the Raa salar is bumping up against principles and then we get into a gym when nobody wants to be a principal because why do I want to take that on when for 5,000 less I can be an AP right correct you know so not work Summers right not work Summers and just have all have all of that conversation and the Raa when we negotiated with them was open to having the conversation and that's why I thought it would be good to just um kind of stop this committee and do this all at once I don't think it's a huge time commitment I'm thinking that maybe we'll have like three or four 90 minute meetings um and hopefully we would do that in the next month or two so that whatever the committee decides whatever changes are going to be made this board this school committee can approve them and we can move forward with making sure the folks who haven't had raises yet would get them or who fall in that category yes right where they're bumping up right okay I would like to volunteer I'm on the Personnel committee and I'm also on the chair ways of means anyone else we have we can put two people and I I will just say no pressure the Raa mentioned um Aisha um for this because you because of the negotiations I'm just saying they're like I I get I get it that's hilarious we don't have to have to but if anyone else wants to be no if you want me to do it I will it's fine well so everyone's will vot you both in and then you can't make one at least you have someone else to get updates um I was just going to say that whoever's on it to give updates to the full committee as you all meet so we just know how it's going sounds good the next item um that was kind of under this because it might fall under the working group was substitute raes by Mr Kingston so I just feel all the all staff well almost all staff I know there some was still going to talk about but the rest of the staff members have received um um whatever we want to call them wage increases or whatever word we want to use the substitutes are not and I just don't think that's fair for our equ so that's why I want to bring it up I think if it wants to if it needs to be included in that other working group that's fine but um they didn't get anything so just correct me didn't didn't we did we review the substitutes and go out and see how much this other substitutes were making in neighbor District no just last year I thought and I you we bumped up last year we bumped them up last year significantly and they had had we gave them a decent bump last year because we were having trouble finding substitutes to come in um but we and we had you know bumped them up a few years before that they don't typically follow with Union negotiations or uh anything like that but I do think John it would be I think having that committee that's a good place for it to be right yeah I agree and I was just say everyone increase it except for one one subsect of um yeah staff if I may what what are the rates the don't 104 for the high school diploma 117 with the bachelor's degree and 130 for with a teaching certificate per day yeah you say that one more time I'm sorry 104 104 with a high school diploma 117 with a bachelor's degree and 130 with a teaching certificate what we calling it like a six hour day just yeah they the before and after school stff go six into 104 to work too well mean it does okay that was my question if it was 1 an hour for the people on the 104 and maybe it's more six and a half I would say I think that's fa so it's even a little less so that's there's very few people that don't have at least a bachelor's degree that want to work in schools to be honest with you but still the 117 divided by the six is is much High a lot of the high school diplomas are parents that want to just be able to maybe work twice a week and that's why they do it all right I know at the high school the teachers do the P cover a period and get paid and that's fine but that doesn't work in elementary so it does we have elementary teachers who cover on their prep period so refer it prer discussion to the working group thank you joh and also the Paris have that stien right next is the subcommittee names and structures Miss Razo brought some recommendations I just put it out there it's up to this committee I just say let them choose what they want to do just my suggestions you um do you want to walk us through the suggestions or why you picked certain options over others or no I think it states exactly just the addition of a couple of committees that might I think I put the reasoning behind it so if I may mayor I was looking at some and there's some I have thoughts on I have different thoughts on them all so I don't know if folks want to go through them and we agree on some changes we're good if not we could put it as a motion um for the next meeting or something like that okay so the first was Finance versus Ways and Means personally I like to keep Ways and Means just that's just what the committee is called at every level of government so I would prefer keep that their consensus thoughts I agree I just found the consistency with the city Side so that was yeah yeah good by me um the next suggestion by Miss Bron and orizo was changing our planed maintenance to buildings and grounds I think that makes sense I I know when I came on I was like what do we mean by plants like is it just like our gardening work so I would be okay with changing the buildings and ground folks good with that fine fine um and then governance versus policies and procedures I think governance is good just because it increases what falls under policy and procedure anyways and every committee every government structure should have a governance subcommittee at some point for me I I thought we should keep the policy and procedure I think it's um for sake of transparency people to understand what it is that that subcommittee does I just don't it's not that it's a complicated word I just think it it's more easily um ascertainable as to what exactly the subcommittee does with policies and the public and everything I rather have names that the public looks at it they know exactly what the committee is about and policy and procedure would make more sa yeah I only feel that way about policy procedure and the next one Safety and Security okay that's so we'll keep it as is and then the next one was changing Safety and Security to school climate I agree to keeping it to what it is school climate falls under princip building principles jurisdiction that's not really what we oversee I like climate I I'll I'll I'll heed I like 16 security consensus to security the next suggestion was changing our Dei committee to adding the B for belonging with that's fine mayor no I I just whatever academ we have in a few more years exactly it's gonna keep changing I know that's fine okay we won't have it that all well hopefully hopefully at some point we don't need it hopefully the work's work's done and we've set off generations of I think I've been waiting 65 years for that to happen I think happen sorry nice thought right so and Miss Ron Rizo had actually brought up uh under this a point about a recent legislation that passed so it's actually called the educator diversity act and I actually led the state Coalition that helped pass it so what I'm going to do is send you all a factory of the provisions because this law actually a lot of the provisions fall onto districts and committees not just desie so it's a conversation that we will have to have um throughout the school year but lucky for us we have someone on the front lines of it at the state level so I'll send you all the short version of the law so that we can continue to have that conversation thank you and um the last change beyond the suggestions was changing health and sped to student supports I think that makes sense because health and sped sounds like we're just limiting it to those two but well what other what other things would fall within that that um subcommittee aside from issues concerning health and special education could we put transportation in there because right now as we stand now that would be Health though right as we stand now Transportation with plant and equip plant maintenance of buildings and grounds whatever you want to call it it doesn't belong there I think I after you had said it I put it down as a separate no I agree but maybe that could go in student support or maybe it should be his own committee but there's really not a lot I mean basically we're required to do what we're required to do I don't know what that committee would do what committee Transportation committee that's my fear too I mean we have to do what we have to do I don't think there's much debate on yeah if there's anything we could all I think if we can all just agree to leave it in building grounds just because there's very little and there's we a small committee to I get another committee to have to schedule three four that's fine it's just it seemed like an odd place I don't know if it belongs somewhere else maybe it belongs support I tend to agree we stop weighing into too much it's yeah we had a meeting on it because we were talking about the bus bus bus situation and transportation is is a is a it's a Pandora's box but it's also a the budget breaker and for the entire commonweal and because because it's unfortunately matter of fact it's not I mean it's not all right it's it's you know I I I don't know I I I I tally disagree I I agree that we should have safe paths for kids but I also think that you know I it's it becomes a bit much I I I think kids should be walking the stre I think that I should encourage that but that's again that's just my feelings and I get we provide it you know Rich we'll take it off your plate too so for the few times this comes up folks are okay and leaving it under buildings and grounds yeah so then going back to student supports versus health and special ed student supports for re I like I like keeping the heal and special Aid we can put it as a vote if there's differences I don't mind okay so we'll bring that as a individual motion at the 6 p.m and I I think put special it it's become a word of being demeaning um and I know we're trying to get away with you know people just use the word sped and not so much as special education but support okay so that will be a vote and then we address Transportation the next two were suggestions to ad committees one was this for the superintendent evaluation that has my understanding is it's always fallen under Personnel I did this last time so I don't think we should create a different one because then I don't know what personnel would be meeting for without this I would suggest we not create a new one consens yeah what other personal issues would we be addressing yeah most don't fall under our Juris yeah and then curriculum and achievement I also don't my personal advice would be to not create this because then we're stepping into things that don't belong to us and if there was something like the honors program or graduation requirements we could always create a temporary ad hoc committee without actually having to have a standing one that stretches our capacity even more agree well and some of the curriculum um falls under policy as well I say poliy such as graduation okay so then what will it be I will make the changes we did agree on to our structures folks also I believe I heard almost from everyone I think there's one member I hav't so I'll reach out to him for structures and I'll have the new committee assignments for Everyone by our next meeting and then we'll just vote on the special ed versus student support at our 6m thank you you want me to ask FR if he wants to add anything oh yeah Fred I think you're on mute but if you want to unmute um did you want to add anything to did you hear from that discussion no it the the realignment of the Committees I think titling is IM material as long as they serve the purpose um some points were well made whether it's uh the wordage is derogatory as you know some people could misconstrue but uh everyone seems to have a reasoning and or I don't have a problem Transportation as Mr Kingston made reference to it it's kind of an offen um we had a meeting on it with regardi we ended up talking about passes but it was moot so whether I I agreed that it should not be a committee unto itself because that just spreads everything out a lot thinner so to leave it where it is now I don't have a problem with it then um I'll reach out to you separately Mr sella to see what committees you want to be on because I've heard from everyone else but I want to take you into account as well all right thank you for your time sounds good believe that is meeting at Agenda um I know I saw on the agenda but um when we talked about the grant that the par got it when we talked about Early Childhood I was wondering if the mayor wouldn't mind giving us an update on the mcken sure um so we have secur so with John's mentioning is Mr Kingston's mentioning is the McKinley School the uh refurbishment and repurpose of the McKinley School so we have um met we've uh procured an OPM project manager owner's project manager and an architectural firm uh maybe about a year ago we had some schematic designs regarding what it could look like if we use it for multiple purposes using some of the remaining Esra funds that the school had had uh applying for a state 9 one Grant which would be moving the Rivier winr 911 call center from the riv police station over to a wing of the Mckinley school and then again using some additional uh Grant funds that we received uh over uh the course of the last few years regarding a food Hub so the three uses would be a basement level would be food Hub people ask why would would use the basement level if you've ever been on top of a kitchen when it leaks that's fun so having all the um heavy heavy work with water and cooking and all that stuff wouldn't be leaking on any classroom space um classrooms would be the uh the left wing are mostly the old school if you know the McKinley School had an addition put on it in 1927 so the left side of the school going all the way up uh well two floors would be um Early childan Education space I think that capacity was in the the range of 300 students or so and then the right side weighing about 13 14,000 square feet would be um would be the 911 Regional call center as well as Training Center um so that is going through a a a deeper dive on design and it's out for design right now uh we're going to get a little bit of a synopsis on the cost what that's going to mean to the city and the commun the municipalities um and and more than likely uh we'll be able to um come to some sort of an understanding and move plot forward that would also there will be there will be a clost to the city of course when we're talking about the scheme of things it shouldn't be too much uh and especially as you take that out over a certain period of time it it uh it'll really bring the entire School the playgrounds par space all back into uh a really you know state- ofth act space for City there for its students for its families but also uh the food Hub and the 911 call center they also we're we're running out of space at the police station as you could imagine it was built now almost 20 years ago 15 15 years ago 15 years ago and um it's of course as you know it was built for much less offices you can't find parking over there there's not a lot of SP so uh it's a it's a bigger Department they're busting out of the scams at the call center right now between Riv and win it's become one of the larger Municipal um call centers in in in the region is the the 911 call center that they still interested in having that locationin school yes okay that would be the right side so and the good news about that is but because of the state grants and the 911 grants that are involved um it would pay for a large portion of the renovations you do have to do things like seismic um um renovations to the building because because it's an emergency call center needs to be hurricane tornado proof so there'll have to be a little more structural backing into the building of course you get elevator on that of course you will you'll have elevators on both sides because you have to make it ADA Compliant the old school of course is not so The Big C the big ticket items are things like that and then of course just got renovation and and and you name it but the Architects really love the building it's obviously as we all know it is a it is it was at one point a really beautiful School uh they'll still remain some of the kind of characteristics the large Hall the large STS will will will still be in place for the most part add and the exterior is going to be largely intact correct so windows and facade will be repointed and all that but all in probably about a $30 million renovation um but the amount of State in Esser funding that will come into play will be well north of 20 million so when you think about all of that you know for many years bonding out you know this the 10 million let's just say we had to bond $110 million over the course of time it's really um It's relatively inexpensive I just think it would be such a game change for people have so have to find daycare and stuff I agre and that'll serve as Dr Kelly mentioned the you know ages three to five population um that's why that's why I thought of it when I saw that prob so I apologize if all go if all goes as planned we'll have something probably in front of the council possibly before the budget this year um and if all goes as planned and of course you'll you you'll present to the school committee as well if all goes as planned and we start actually moving you probably see something in the tune of 2027 uh opening that's awesome thank you sorry to put you on spot that was great the tricking tricking it out there yes so the last item here was just to let you all know that I put in the Motions wrong for the 6 PM so if you all agree in the approval of the consent calendar and we don't motion to vote we are voting so I'll just switch the tit galy of those two oh just to vote you mean yeah to vote yeah okay what is it sorry for the Motions it's um I meant to put motion to switch the location of school committee meetings the city council chambers and then motion to accept the school Improvement PL because we are already voting I see okay uh motion to adjourn second on B --------- ##VIDEO ID:ruaa1K9zlMk## e good evening call to order the revious school committee meeting of January 21st 2025 we all rise and salute the flag flag of the United States of Amica the it stands na godible andice call roll Mrs Bronson Rizzo Mr aano here Mr Kingston here Mrs Milbury Ellis present Miss monteroso present Mr sella mayor Keef here it looks like Mr s is there is that him yeah yep all right Mr SEL is present but not present okay the uh first uh item on the agenda is the recognition regarding our heroes and helpers and we have some members in the audience we'd love to have you come on up M Miss Miss Kelly did you want to I believe Dr guchi is Mr guchi so um I would like to present uh these certificates of recognition to Captain O'Hara and Lieutenant Larry for their unbelievable leadership and partnership with the River Public Schools and students and families in River um I will say that both Aon and Amy came to me with this idea uh this was not a school idea it was a idea generated by our partners at the RPD and RFD um to take 30 children shopping at Target um in early December and um needless to say they helped with the coordination the scheduling everything um and even still as I was kind of deep within the planning with them when I showed up at the event event I was absolutely Blown Away um 30 shopping carts decorated for each child and so many um Riv firefighters Riv police Personnel um each of whom accompanied the child on their shopping trip with $110 gift card to Target uh in addition we had contributions via their network with um the suffk county sheriff's office as well as members of the Massachusetts State Police all who were there on their own time um we had a pizza party before the shopping spree and then each of us escorted one child around Target um so that they could buy toys for either themselves or family members which was very touching to hear the kids saying that they wanted to buy things for their siblings um but none of this could have happened without Amy and Aon and all the members of the RFD and RPD and so these certificates the first two are Amy and Aon uh it says Rivier police captain Amy O'Hara and Rivier fire Lieutenant Aaron Larry in recognition of outstanding leadership and partnership in coordinating the heroes and helper program for the students of River Public Schools so captain Oh and Lieutenant Le in addition the participation was so overwhelming we would have been remiss if we did not recognize every one of the Rivier fire and Rivier police Personnel that showed up that evening and so to save a few trees uh we have our certificate for the entire RPD and the entire RFD staff for their outstanding leadership and partnership with Rivier Public Schools and before I turn it over to Captain O'Hara and and um Lieutenant Larry I just want to say how fortunate we are as a school district to have that close partnership with the people that keep us safe and respond to all of the emergencies throughout the city um when nobody else is coming they are there and to our fabulous SRO who were at the very front of t as soon as I stepped off the school bus meeting families greeting kids and really directing all of the traffic into Target into the pizza party thank you Joe and Joe as well as Risa and Brian thank you all Richie thank you um you know we thank you for these really kind words but we would be remiss if we did not recognize the collaboration from the superintendent and you and her team on this on this this incredible event our first time year and also the members of the Rivier police and the Rivier fire department who volunteered their own time to be involved in this incredible event it really was a collaboration I know eron and I are up here but it wouldn't have happened without the incredible collaboration of of the officers including my Sr here and other members of the of of the riv fire department so thank you but this really is a team effort and it just shows how our community comes together to create these incredible events not only only to um bring a little holiday chair to some of our kids but it's great for first respond is to build these incredible trusting relationships so thank you but I thank you on behalf of uh our department as well eron if you ever seen no well well I I just want to make it clear it is a team effort the collaboration is what made it possible that you know from our offices and our firefighters so thank you very much thank you thank you cap captain and Lieutenant would you to come up and take a picture with the board please we do a two minute recess we can one minute recess yeah we'll just quick picture you I took a bunch oh no that's all right realiz the meeting how much work no no I understand that but it's just like with all the meetings we had it's just okay we're back to order we also have well next up we have the consent calendar motion to approve any discussion roll call that's you doc M he thinking about pizza Big Time Mrs Bronson Rizzo Mr kiano yes Mr Kingston yes Mrs mbis yes Miss monteroso yes Mr sella yes mayor Keefe yes motion passes and just for your edification Miss Miss rzo had to step out next we have the student report there are there is not one this month we have the opening of public speak any viewing members of the audience uh participating on Zoom or anyone in our public here wishing to speak now is your opportunity on any items on the agenda motion to close public speak second all in favor I it's awarded superintendent report Miss Kelly um thank you Mr Mayor thank you Mr Mayor we have um just a couple of presentations tonight under the superintendent report um the first is from the Beachmont Veterans Memorial School um and I'm going to invite principal Frierson to come on up he's got several members of his team here which I'm sure he will int roduce um and they're going to share some information on the student supports that they have initiated this year at the Beachmont school and what they're seeing so far in terms of results of those accurate description principal fyen accurate description all right sorry the speaker one okay yeah accurate description so um as the presentation gets pulled up my name is Chris fryzen I'm the proud principal of the beach month School and I have with me my incredible incredible team of Janelle keski uh our assistant principal uh Kayla sof Viera who's one of our school adjustment counselor and Vanessa hogo who's our school social worker so um tonight what we're going to be talking about is a little bit about the student support system that we have in place here at the Beachmont school and upgrades that we've made to our system over the past number of years um and we're going to share a little bit of data um and some strategies that we've implemented and a tier tiered approach that has has has been successful so a common goal as a staff this year is to we challenged everybody at the beginning of the year to find the good and to help our students meet or exceed expectations whether that's um through academics but also a big pushes social emotional support as well and the reason why we in just the next next next slide um and the re and the reason is from the school Improvement plan is we want to make sure that um our students report feeling feeling safe and comfortable if they're not if they don't feel safe and comfortable coming to school um it's going to be an uphill climb all day long so from the school and District Improvement plan by 2025 80% of our students will report feeling supported socially and emotionally in the review public schools and uh by 2025 80% of our students report feeling in control of their academic progress and capable of managing and thriving through social and emotional challenges and at the Beachmont like anything that we do we really try to make sure that is a team approach and that's you know the reason why I want to make sure that um you know the the These Fine colleagues here next to me are here to support this presentation so we've used data to uh inform our practice um so each year we do an mcia um student uh survey and we take a look at that um in the spring and during the summer and make adjustments to our practice based on on some of the feedback that we get from students our counselors have done an awesome job this year of collecting student data uh throughout the year so student surveys and seeing how they're doing um and making sure that they do feel safe and comfortable we do a family survey at the end of every year we've done that for the past um three years and then the district did a family survey at the end of last year so I have some data to to show there as well and then we do staff staff check-ins and staff surveys at the end of each principal's meeting but also at the end at the end of the year uh end of year survey to make sure that staff have their voices being heard as well and make adjustments as necessary so just we can quickly kind of go through these but these were some of the the the data points um mcia data from both students and staff and then I think that the next one um kind of shows you know the the parent survey feedback that that we received over the past number of years so when it comes to the school being welcoming and effective communication and feeling valued um having put in access to resources and they know what's happening as you can see on a scale of 1 to five you know we are we are very close to you know um achieving uh a strongly agree in all of those different categories which I'm very proud of um you know thinking back to two years ago I believe it was maybe 150 parents uh that answered the survey and this was a little bit less you know so about 100 parents were able to um answer this survey but it really helped um helped support our work this year and taking a look at where we were a couple of years ago to where we are now and where we want to be in a couple years from now so in terms of our um student support team it consists of myself uh Miss hogu I work with grades K2 and four and all of the Spanish-speaking newcomers and we try to travel with our grades as every new school year comes and Miss Kayla VI soel works with 13 and five in Portuguese speaking newcomers um and usually what our student support meetings um look like is that we really try to focus on theal needs of the students and we identify students that might need additional support whether it's coming from admin's point of view or the teachers point of view and so we try to have a collaborative approach within the counselors and admin to see what else we can work with the families and collaborate collaborate on in terms of supports as well as the family Liaisons um and just trying to see like what the next steps are so every time we meet as a student support team we always end with coming up with what the next plan is and whether that means collaborate with the families or just um looking at what other needs they might have okay next slide please uh so since Vanessa is is since Vanessa and I start three years ago uh we try to implement a school counselor that provides services to the whole school instead to focus only in small groups and individual counseling because we're just two of us to attend all the population so we really want to make the services available to our school students and families so if you compare this slide with the next one for a first year and second year you're going to see a decrease of uh small groups and individual sessions and a large increase of classrooms lessons circles observations uh contact with parents teachers um consultations and also crisis responses because we catching those things before they become a huge problem so the really focus that we have is increase our interventions in tier one so that way our servic is more available and reach out to the massive of our students and I'll I'll toggle a couple of times so you can see that difference so for the committee you notice like teacher referrals are down crisis responses are about the same but the observations have almost doubled and that's enables them to reach the students where they are before they hit a crisis situation yeah if you notice the classroom lessons in circles we went to pretty much nothing to like a lot of interventions in classroom so we can give our kids Especial elementary kids the foundational skills they don't have for social emotional support you know and and this is where I like to shout out the school committee for giving us an extra counselor and I think that instead of just kind of like doing it with the way that it was always done I think we tried to think proactively of how to make sure that we are building these relationships with both students and families in a proactive way I think the next slide and this is I'm gonna turn I'm going to turn it over to assistant principal keski um so part of our meetings we talk about the types of supports that we can offer students what what can we do to give everybody what they need and it is a tiered approach tier one everybody has access to that and that's you know making sure that our environment is welcoming those Buzz days the kids love it just Builds an element of joy and we'll talk about a little bit more about that later we have Buzz about about um that um students can receive for going over and above or meeting the four BS you know safety uh responsible kindness and respectful I said that in the wrong order but those are the four ones um and they Reed these Buzz abouts and I acknowledge them in the cafeteria and everybody cheers I kind of thought it would fizzle out over time because you know every single day calling kids but you'll see you know we have a video that the kids run up and they they love it um we're reaching out to families trying to in you know improve attendance we have our parent coffees we're just trying to get everybody involved because we know that parent engagement does lead to Student Success and achievement um so we're always trying to see how we can leverage uh those connections and then there's tier 2 and tier three support where it's more individualized um there could be checkin checkout we're really proud of that we've started this year and that you know connects uh a student to a trusted adult um to try to help kids meet our expectations um the home for little Wanderers that's you know a nice service that um the CL comes into the school and and that's just another level of support that we can offer the kids um yeah so that's an example of our Buzz about um teachers try to make sure that everybody gets one at some point everybody's being recognized for the good that they're doing or you know if kids are improving we want to make sure that we recognize that you know small gains this is what it looks looks like I read it over the microphone kids clap and they run up it's exciting what oh there's a video cck I don't know if I have a clickable version Oh that sound it's exciting I will but just kids cheering yeah um so and and I spoke about this a couple of years ago but we've we've improved our um our Buzz days we've repurposed our half days where instead of going to Encore students experience what we call 30 minutes of Joy going back to the original side of like finding finding the good um so instead of going to Encore students uh participate in these fun themed activities on the half day and they also receive 90 minutes of academic focused academic support but also building these SEO skills and Community Building uh lessons within you know that very short day so our Buzz days have continued to to be something I'm very proud of and it's a a complete group effort and you know if you come into the Beachmont school on on one of these half days you will see kids smiling having fun but also being held to high expectations so these are just a couple of pictures of some recent Buzz days and I'll just mention um for the committee because we had talked earlier about the grant that the Paul beer school got about play in school um these these Buzz days and experiencing the joy and talking about the Joy or very similar concept there's a lot of be puns always at so also on these buzay just more some pictures here you have examples of a Canon activities um and and also you know um some restorative um practice work so you you see our fourth graders here doing a grade level Circle to talk about whatever the the issue of the day may be y so more with restora I'll I'll take this more with restorative circles you know and our counselors support that work as well um and even the next slide what we what we did at our last um parent coffee is we have parents that participated in a circle so it was I think we had 50 to 60 parents that attended our our coffee and it was is probably one of our best ones yet and they were able to talk about their kids in a real meaning real and meaningful way and I think that um you know push it's going to push me to think about how we want to do parent coffees moving forward but I think gave parents a voice and was awesome for them to participate and there was language based so we have groups in Spanish English and Portuguese and Arabic I'm going to turn this over to miss Kai Okay so here's our tier 2 intervention called check-in checkout I love this so teachers can refer students that need some extra support it could be kids that you know they're struggling you know with getting to school on time or they're just struggling throughout the day or um struggling to get their work done or to make good choices so we pair up um teachers and kids that we think maybe have a connection and then they become their trusted adult because they're checking in and giving points or smiley faces and then they're working towards a goal or maybe a reward uh and the kids have really uh taken to this and they look for their trusted adult throughout the building and the staff have been so wonderful you know they make sure that they have time to check in quickly in the morning and then to check in at the end of the day you'll see teachers being like Oh I got to get to my kid um and I think that this has really had a a positive impact on the students so we're looking to expand that and get more staff involved it's been a really positive um change and then finally you know I know that that something that will always come up here is you there are obviously situations that you know require us to have some sort of consequence you know and I think as a beach M Administration our approach is to do this in a restorative way um but making sure that you know families understand you know the severity of of certain situation but also to have next steps into approach it um in a Humane in a humane way we utilize our counselors um to support students with understanding you know kind of like the harm that that was done in in certain situations and to come up with you know some next steps to make sure that it doesn't happen again and does it happen again yeah it happens again but we're going to keep being there for them to make sure that you know we've done our due diligence in in supporting students throughout you know their time at the Beachmont and then we've you know spent a lot of time over the past several years in terms of restorative practices and helping staff really understand that and staff is owning owning this as well I mean I think that this is just um it's really a group a group approach to how we how we handle pretty much everything at the Beachmont school and I think everybody really has a voice and and a part to playing this and the system's not perfect but I think that you know each year we're trying to get a little bit better at it and uh to support our students we want to make sure that the staff feel comfortable and know what they're doing so we can be in the same page to talk to our students so teachers have an idea what they should have managed in classroom what they should have referred to counselor what would be admin uh manager uh so that's a way to support the staff how to handle when things unexpected happen and we can support our students to uh meet them their needs but especially in the way support the staff to feel comfortable to dealing with those things too and all of them in the next slide you're going to see we try to really go through the lens of the restoratory practices so it's not a detention just like you're going to stay there you're going to miss lunch no you're going to think about what you did what you learned from there and what you can do different next time so we have reflection sheets we're talking about things that happen how can we make different choices next time and also keep the transparency with our parents your kid is in detention because of this we're talking about this and that's going to be the consequence so we can meet all areas and really reflect about and learn more and uh and all this the approach that we have according to the next line we try to really meet all the needs of our students because the optimal level of learn just help just happens when all of those needs are met so we need to make sure that we don't have control about lots of things in the school but we can support our families and students to make sure that their needs are being met like the physiological the safe the welcoming so we make sure that everything that happens at beachman is in some way answered the needs of our students and families and if it's not we're open to feedback so thank you thank you you know thank you for your time and if there's any questions I don't know M Milbury Al sure my um first question was in the first slide you had indicated that by 2025 you wanted the percentage to be 80% of kids like felt safe do you know what it is now so I would say from our and this is where it's like many different data points but I think that I I'm comfortable saying that's well over 80% you know in terms of in terms of the surveys that we've looked at yeah yeah yeah the student Sur there would be enough evidence to support that claim yeah and I think the data that you showed we where the the ratings from families between uh a zero and a five were around 4.7 4.8 um which would be over 90% 95% really Mr Kingston I've been to Culture Night at Beachmont I've been to trunk of treat at Beachmont uh I I did it and I've um also and I've lost on the third one I apologize um but I do spend a lot of time down there I think it's a very welcoming environment as all our schools are but I especially can say that about Beachmont having been to those events um I think it's great you get a I'm amazed at the number of people for a small school the number of parents and kids that are there I've done trun or treat for a few years down there and um it's it's just great and culture night and the and the cookie decorating thing was great um so I really appreciate um what your folks are doing and I know that people do feel safe and um I just see it in their faces I mean I'm standing there doing Trunk or tree giving all candy to kids and I can see how happy they are and at the um at the culture night was fun you had activities for them and I was giving them Pizza that was fun and then um you know the the making the cookies was cool too so I I appreciate all that you do I know it's a lot of work work at I know it's a lot of time after school and I and I was I'm always amazed when I see whatever building I'm in seeing teachers doing above and beyond well after school hours um and I think it's great and I just I'll applaud you and the rest of the district for that because I know other schools do it too but I know I've been at yours someone drags me there and I'm I'm always make sure that I'm there so thank I appreciate what you're doing and thank you thank you I just had a a a second question as well um thank you for answering the first one I know was eager to talk about cultural night um but my second question is and um this is all wonderful this is all all good stuff here I'm I'm interested in knowing what is your biggest obstacle that you see with respect to behavioral issues in particular biggest I mean biggest obst oh there we go um you know biggest obstacle I don't know I think that like every every day every day is a new day so I don't think that we're seeing you know Trends where like the same thing is popping up every single day I think that there are individual situations that you know if I've learned anything is is is pulling uh different layers of the onion from a different from a student you you figure out more things that are going on in their lives and we make adjustments to make sure that they're getting the support that they need and I think that you know in a team approach you know I think that we what we try to do even at those meetings is really you talk about the individual kid talk about the individual situation and like there's only so much I guess that we can do as a school but there is a lot that we can do as a school so trying to find that balance um but I don't think that there's any like one particular thing and I just think that you know for me and and and and being a leader in in the building it's equipping the staff with the tools to the tool belt to be able to you know support kids the best that we can and um um so I think that that's that's always going to be a challenge because I think that each year is a little bit different but trying to really think outside the box in terms of our approach of student support thank you yeah Mr kjo thank you first of all thank you for your presentation um I've been up to school a number of times we've met a couple we know we've sat down a few times and every time I've gone up there you know you have pitures up everything seems very welcoming and everything and most of my questions have pretty much been answered but one question I wanted to ask you was as far as safety for the kids is when the kids go into the school do they feel that they safe there and I'm not counting what goes on in their private life as far as the school itself or is there anything more we need to do I don't know if anybody I feel like I feel like I feel like these guys live it you know they they they live it in the in the day today I can sit I can sit there and go everything is gvy but I think that they they see it they see it every single day so I think from the moment that the kids step in you can see that they feel safe it's the way that we greet them the way that they come in through the door everybody knows their name I don't think there's a single kid that walks in through the door that not a single person that's at door Duty or just in the front making sure that they have breakfast that they they come in in good standing um for my part and from her standpoint we've never gotten a I don't want to come to school because I'm unsafe um they feel welcomed I think having to C that speak their native languages and for some cases helps solidify that for the families as well and know that their kids are being well taken care of and that their needs are being met with in the school so and I do feel like the fact that we speak the language helped the families to make that connection about culture so we understand beyond the language so we understand as immigrant ourselves exactly where they going through and we never had a student that didn't talk to us about issue and say like I was afraid to say yeah they always say like I know I can tell Miss C I know I can tell Miss hog so they always trust us that we going to fight for them and we're going to be with them throughout any problem they bring to us so I do feel like and even the classrooms lessons we talk to them to them about safety protocols why we have the do in the school why do we don't touch the doors why we have fire drills so they can feel safe even with the protocols that we that we have in the school so I feel like the transparency goes and everything we do and that makes the whole difference thank you excellent I I had one comment well great presentation you always do a really good job in echoing everyone else's comments we we always love going to that school they're all they're all special schools we know each one of them individually but you do you do have something Secret Sauce going on over there I think Erica at the front door is Big provider of the safety as well she does a fantastic job but my curiosity because you we see it we feel it when we walk in the building the way the way your students engage and the way your team ages is what is your um what is the absentee rate in your school compared to other schools in the district or or maybe as an I don't know I don't know if I have access to other schools but I know that like our ours is right around 95% so um in terms of our attendance rating it's something that we take a look at Daily you know and myself and and Miss k um you know try to figure out you know how to improve it and to make sure that like you know a goal of ours is to make sure that students are not chronically absent so having the difficult phone calls having the difficult meetings we've had we had have you know meetings today and like you're walking this fine line of um you know kids are sick right now they're you know they're it's it's flu season all of this other stuff but making sure that we have you know clear expectations that we want you here and like when you're here it's going to be you know you're going to get a lot the most that you can possibly get out of it so I think that again it's a it's a group effort it's I think it's um communication with families but getting buying from families and you know we are grateful for our families like we we have we have we have special families at the Beachmont school that you know I feel proud to um work with their kids every single day thank you yeah and that's the that's the the key right they want to be there they'll they'll show up you know otherwise you know I don't want to go to school if they have a great environment which you're providing you're going to want to keep coming thank you very much good job thank you all of you continue very good yeah um uh the next item on the superintendent report is a presentation from our multilingual and World languages Department um and I'm happy to invite our director Jennifer Lalita and our assistant director uh up to share some information and data and I'm going to try to share my screen again okay sorry you can stop talking just while I pull this up good evening everyone thank you so much for having us again my name is Jennifer lebita I'm the director of the multilingual and World Language department and I'm here with my colleague Chelsea Banks assistant director thank you so we will start uh with sharing a a little bit of our data so as you will be able to see and if you can see in your packet you got the chart in front of you you can see over the last 30 years we've had a growing enrollment for our multilingual students for our English Learners and especially in the last 5 years since 2020 there we go if you go to the next slide uh we've gone from about 23% of the district to over 36% of the district with over 2600 students that are in process of learning English currently something to share our students our multilingual students come from 50 countries and speak over 45 languages which is an Incredible Gift we are one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse cities in the entire State over 70% of our students are multilingual so we are here to celebrate and cherish and honor that and that is what our work is every day to support our students so if you look at the world trying to reshare it I don't know what just happened so sorry why is it coming up black okay we'll wait one second go ahead we can they have it in their packet so you can just keep going so for our world language enrollment you can see that we've uh offer Spanish French and Italian as we have for several years for many years uh we're very proud that this year we offered Arabic 1 as a World Language elective offering for students and we are one of the few cities in the state to offer Arabic and then City lab continues to offer Japanese which is a very popular course and the kidss are really really enjoying it okay so then if you continue to the next slide we'll talk you through some aess 2024 data so uh percentage of students making progress so what this refers to you can see I selected just a few districts but I did an analysis of all the districts in the state of Massachusetts with a thousand or more students who are learning English so of all of those districts we are second in the state for the second year in a row for the percentage of students making progress you can see we had 44% last year I believe it was 45% so pretty much consistent whereas the state average is 37% um let me explain what making progress means so if a student is here let's say in 2023 they take the assessment and they score a three out of six then they are given a target for the following year to achieve let's say a 3.5 so if students do meet that Target or exceed that Target they are considered to have made progress but if they do not meet that Target they are considered to not have made progress even if they have developed and grown so progress this first graph is a binary yes or no which is why 44% being very strong in the state it doesn't sound great it's not where we want to be we always want 100% of our students to make progress but I will say that because this is a binary yes or no it does not show the true picture of the progress that our students are making so I want to say that this is a credit to the hard work of our students our teachers ERS our school administrators and to the increased Staffing that we've had over the years our coaching over the years I really feel like we're moving in the right direction with the progress for our students and before we go on can I add one more thing that I noticed in this data Jen after you shared it was um if you look at the trends of from 2023 to 2024 so this top one I'm highlighting is quiny and you can see that they went down um and if you look at all of these others you see that most of them are going down the exceptions are Rivier as Jen pointed out pretty level Everett pretty level and Chelsea it's kind of hidden here right is that Chelsea or is that the state under here the state's great okay all right so then I take it back but um so Everett and Chelsea are two of our partner districts that we work very closely with and so for all of us to be seeing kind of a um a steady level of students so showing progress when the rest of the state is going down I think is a really significant point to note absolutely and that's due to your hard work in your leadership so I appreciate that so if we go to the next slide uh it's about student growth so the difference here is student growth is measured on a scale from 1 to 99 one being low and 99 being high so the state considers 1 to 39 as low growth so you can see we broke apart red extremely low and a and a yellow and then average growth is between a 40 and a 59 you can see nearly 20% of students fall in that average expected growth range and then our students who are making high exceptional progress we have nearly 48% of students there so if you compare this and you think well 66% or more of our students are making expected to strong growth yet only 44% are considered making progress but it shows the majority of our students are growing um at the rate that is expected they just maybe didn't make that exact target on that access assessment okay so then I'll pass to Chelsea for a moment to talk about some priorities that we're working on um so one initiative that we have expanded this year is multilingual learning walks in partnership with each of the schools um last year we piloted a look for Tool um from the from Desi um and this year we kind of built off of that to identify our own uh Focus area so we copied our Focus goal here on the slide thinking about um how students are daily engaging in authentic speaking interactions what's the language Focus what supports are in place we identified that goal in looking at access scores um and then looking at the results from our learning walks last year so we've completed walkthroughs in each of the schools in collaboration with school administrators school-based coaches um and teachers we're moving into the next phase now where we're designing professional development and sharing resources around the different areas for growth um that we identified in the learning walks uh later in the year we'll return to the schools again to see kind of an endof year uh measure to think about growth and then we'll use that data to um identify priorities uh into the next year um as we've mentioned a few times um language development coaching has been an expanding Initiative for the Department um right now we have three language development coaches uh one for the high school level working both with Riv high school and City lab uh one coach for the three middle schools and one Elementary coach supporting across the six buildings so in our vision uh we would be providing support at these three different levels and so our coaches are really busy um tackling um all of these different um opportunities so at the district level coaches are involved in designing and leading professional development they of course collaborate with us but we also collaborate um with directors from other content areas other coaches to support curriculum development within ESL and uh best practices for multilingual Learners across content areas at the school level um additional professional development for teams of teachers or for the whole school uh coaches collaborate with administrators and school-based coaches to try to fine-tune you know what does this individual School need and a lot of support um with compliance processes that we have legal requirements for monitoring student progress and designing interventions um at the classroom level our goal is that our coaches would be able to provide that one-on-one personalized support for teachers um currently this is happening uh to a greater degree at the secondary level just in terms of the number of schools um for each coach to support they're able to do coaching Cycles get in the classroom to do some direct modeling um co-planning together and that is in suppor of teachers of ESL but also World Language core content you know electives uh supporting multilingual Learners which is in every uh every classroom and and touches each of us on the World Language side as Jennifer mentioned we've expanded our Arabic offerings with Arabic 1 this year and that cohort will move into Arabic 2 for next year which can fulfill the graduation requirement for World Language uh we also have a strand of Spanish specifically for Heritage speakers so these are students that come to us with some level of background in Spanish um based on their home connection to the language uh we have three levels so our third level is new this year um so that students can enter at you know the right fit for their proficiency level and really accelerate their process uh their progress excuse me over the course of high school our goal for those students as for all students is that they would reach the AP level and um um earned the Seal of biliteracy um and then finally last year we shared with you the new foundations of translation and interpretation partnership with UMass amst we're in the second year now uh that cohort is just getting started in the second semester um at Rivier high school and they're very excited to to continue that work uh speaking of the Seal of biliteracy this is one of the ways that we really try to highlight the linguistic diversity of our community uh last last year we uh gave out a 100 Awards um related to bilingualism 73 of those were the official state steel state seal of f literacy um we have 115 students that are in the process now and for any seniors listening or families of seniors we still have time to to join in the process um and we are looking forward to celebrating all of the students participating um at our award ceremony in May okay and then briefly I'll share a few other projects that we're working on as we shared our coaches are continuing to work on ESL curriculum development we are also part of a partnership with Desi and the English learner success Forum to work on high quality instructional materials at the middle school level it's a partnership with Dr Porter and myself and our our Middle School coaches uh along with Dr Garcia and a partnership with um ammer translation Center and desie we are also part of a the 2-year language access planning committee where we look to examine our practices in supporting our two-way family communication and ensuring we have appropriate translation and interpretation to provide support and and resources and again have that two-way communication with all of our families and we also are proud that we just received a competitive Grant from Desi to support our multilingual students who are experiencing housing insecurity um so schools have access to funds and we're doing a lot of different things with those funds okay so on our last slide I know the state budget is coming out shortly so I just want to put a plug you know I got to take my my chance when I see you because I'm not here all that often as you've heard about our language development coaching I really think that's one of our strengths that we're working to give teachers the support that they need you know we have Educators from all backgrounds all experiences so so many of our students are learning English and it's important that every teacher feels prepared and confident to meet the needs of the students in front of them so I'm uh requesting that you consider adding two additional Elementary language development coaches so that would give us three so that each could work with two schools and really be able to do more work with teachers in their classroom to be uh giving demos and modeling and supporting and really giving that onetoone support that teachers need and then of course I always put our as we've increased our ESL Staffing greatly and our ratios are pretty strong but given you know you never know what goes on with enrollment it doesn't mean that I might not be asking for for a position or two as we look at our numbers in the spring so that concludes my prepared section but we're happy to take questions or comments M uh thank you so much for all of these updates and congratulations on the grant my question is more on feedback I've received from students specifically at the high school level so my first question things may have changed with the restructuring of the high school but English Learners especially those at the level one had shared with me that they felt separated at the high school because all of the English e classrooms were in just like one area of the school so they didn't really like come out of that bubble to interact with the rest of the school community so my first question is what does support for inclusion within the school and the culture look like especially for our level one Learners MH the first question so I think location wise I don't believe when I think about the teachers that we work with that they're in any one particular Wing or area I feel like when I look across our colleagues their rooms are spread around the building we have six different levels can I say that that may have been a concern if you went back 2 years before we did the reorganization um I think all of our El classes at the high school at that time were concentrated in the East Wing but that's no longer the case no so location wise I don't believe that that is a current concern but then are you asking also for greater integration opportunities right so we have many many levels of ESL and what we've done to provide students more access is increase the number of levels so that at an earlier proficiency level students are integrated into mainstream content science math and social studies with their peers so that they have models that they have access to grade level rig rigorous curriculum and then uh specials or uh all of those Choice classes kids are fully integrated as well so that's part of a strategic way that we've been scheduling and now I will say there's you know 600 students at the high school level so we there's no way to contain and to be in one area so it is integration is an important goal for all of us at in the high school level okay thank you um I fig can I ask J to share one more thing on that note can you talk a little bit about the inclusion classes that we now have at the high school with as an El teacher and an Ela teacher or a math teacher yes we have multiple layers of inclusion so for our students with disabilities that need an IEP that have an IEP we have uh a special educator that can co- te into our ESL classrooms for our Advanced students who are very close to that proficiency where they would exit ESL they're in the grade level Ela 910 Etc class Co to with one of our ESL Educators alongside and so depending on the grade level and the class size the classes the goal is for integration right because if they had scored a tiny little bit higher that's exactly where they'd be anyway so we wanted to again push them into grade level opportunities with support so we are co- teing there and teachers have um you know two hands to support all of the kids and then we also have ESL teachers working with our students in our small learning groups and other um more uh subpar SLG programs so that all of our students who are identified as eel whether they are duly identified or not they all receiving service and support thank you and then my last question is uh high school students have mentioned how sometimes when they are in assemblies or they're having like the town halls with where we're letting them know about policies and things like there is no translators there so they usually just sit in the back and they're like well I didn't know there was a change to the cell phone politics I didn't understand so what is being done to ensure that when messages are being communicated during school hours that all students actually understand the importance and the severity of the messaging yeah and I can certainly connect with Chris boen but I know I'm here every day I hear the announcements are multilingual his emails to students go out and they they have their multilingual I know sst5 which is primarily our newcomer and earlier proficiency students um that house does multilingual assemblies I don't know if there's um just thinking about how a lot of information is communicated through Patriot block and so newcomers have been strategically um grouped together so that the material could be presented in a different way prioritizing bilingual staff whenever possible um to support that um just thinking you know just today there was an announcement kind of resetting expectations around cell phones and then um that was delivered in Spanish as well um even just over the announcement so I think there is you know an effort and you know should be something that we continue um to work on of course thank you thank you Mr Kingston I really appreciate everything you do and I want to thank you for that I'm just doing quick math in my it seems to me that another Elementary person is necessary just doing quick math um for a coach um sorry Dr Kelly that's how I feel and um I I hope that we can have that conversation in the spring when we're doing the budget um my dad was a I'm not an educator but my dad was a Elementary principal for 30 years in re and back in the day it was Italian it wasn't all the languages that we have today but it was basically Italian and he used to say if we could get the kids help when they're younger um it'll help it'll really reap dividends as they get older because sometimes kids get turned off to school because they're not you know it's not while the school is welcoming and doing everything they can it's just that barrier can create some problems with kids not wanting to go to school and if that's that's something that's you know scattered when they're kind of young so he was always a big proponent of let's fix it when they're younger because it's um it's a it's sometimes can really be life-changing for the student so um I just wanted to say that but thank you for all you do I know it's difficult um it it really is it's it's difficult thank you thank you thank you all right thank you so much uh the next item on the superintendent report is just a reminder to the committee that there is a joint meeting of the um school committee and the school building committee tomorrow night on Zoom um and that link can be found on either the city website or our website it's it begins at 5:30 and there will be a an update on we we are as currently our contractors our owners project manager and others are already getting ready to submit paperwork to the msba and so this is an important information Point uh in the process and so um we requested rather than have yet another meeting um that we do a joint meeting and we're thankful to this committee um for agreeing to that because it's one less meeting for all of us um so thank you for that uh just a quick reminder and then the other thing I had sent you all a copy of a letter that we are going to be sending home to families shortly um and that is about the graduation requirements and how things have changed or in large part I'm going to say they have not um based on the new law around mcast no longer counting to as a graduation requirement where whereas it used to um and one of the things that I think is really important for folks to understand and all of this will be laid out in the letter so that parents can make informed decisions uh on behalf of their children is that the the mcast has not gone away which is what some people think it's the graduation requirement that went away um currently students are still required by federal law to take the state assessment um at certain grade levels which we will continue to do and for our context I want to point out that there are two reasons why taking mcast are important uh to our students one is because it is still used as a qualifier for the John and Abigail Adams scholarship which gives any student in the Commonwealth free tuition at any state college or university or Community College if they get at least proficient on one of the math and science math and English exams and exemplary on the other um so that's an important resource to families who are looking for ways to help pay for college um and the second as I I should have brought this up when our um English when our when our team was just here from the El department and the world languages Department um mcast is still used as a determinant in whether or not a student can earn the sale of B literacy uh that's how they demonstrate their literacy in English language arts um and so it's really important if kids are looking to get the seale of by literacy which again has some open some doors for them in terms of their ability to get work after high school um and also that scholarship situation so mcast is not gone it's just not counted as a graduation requirement and I'll tell you that there are a number of in the Commonwealth that may not have had as stringent graduation requirements as others including the ravia public schools um but I'm proud to say that our students for a number of years have been required to complete the equivalent of the mass core that's four years of math four years of English three years of a lab science there are some districts where kids are still not required to take four years of math and instead of taking a lab science specifically biology chemistry and physics they might be allowed to take earth science as a high school student and have that count toward graduation in those districts they having to revisit their graduation requirements but we we in R already had a more stringent requirement so basically the change for students and families is that they don't have to pass mcast to graduate they still have to do everything else that's outlined in the in the guide for families and students which will be linked in the letter that goes home to families that they can click right on that it'll take them directly to the right page um I think that pretty much covers everything we are still required by state law to identify each student as having completed a competency determination or not and the guidance that we got from the state is that a competency determin determination will be earned when a student completes the course workor that's relatively similar to what was required in order to pass mcast so generally speaking that would mean algebra and geometry and math English 9 and 10 in English language arts and biology because that's what our mcast tested our students in so for the most part for most students they're automatically going to hit that competency determination as they work their way towards our graduation requirements which include even more than that we don't separate out algebra and geometry we teach our math in an integrated format but integrated math one and integrated math 2 would be the equivalent of your traditional algebra and geometry class um there are so so if you look at the top of page two of the letter it says that here's what the kids have to have finished to get the competency determination integrate math one integr grade math 2 English 9 English 10 and one of the one of the um lab Sciences there are some changes for students with IEP services that place them in the Excel program um and that just changes the particular course that they're taking they take Concepts in math one and Concepts in math 2 which are a required subset of the full set of standards that other students take in those courses but they're largely the same as uh the courses that kids take in our um inclusion classrooms there are also some changes for English learner students um and and this will speak to the point that um Miss laita made about the different offerings the different levels that we have for kids it's the they're when they come to us determines a lot about what they're ready to learn in English what and what they might need more support on so it would be any two of esl1 ESL 2 ESL 3 ESL 4 ESL Advanced 9 ESL Advanced 10 ESL Advanced 11 or ESL advanc 12 any two of those would meet the equivalent of ela 9 and Ela 10 um like all other kids they still have to complete integrated math one integrated math 2 in one of the lab Sciences um and the other things that we point out in the letter really are that there could be exceptions to this rule um based on kids some kids will transfer in from out of state where they might have had different regulations in what coursework they are required to take in situations like that our guidance office audits their full transcript and makes determinations on what courses can apply or are similar but maybe named different differently than our courses that's done on a case-by Case basis and uh Diana Finn who's our director of guidance does a great job of helping to navigate that and make sure students are treated fairly um so I don't I don't think this is a huge change even though it sounds like a huge change it's not a huge change in terms of what our kids in Rivier have to do to graduate really the big difference is they don't have to pass mcast but I want to emphasize there are really good lot there are a lot of really good reasons why they should still take take that test seriously I think once again it's a really that our district is always ahead you know there's districts that are right now committee scrambling to figure out what they want the new requirement to be and so for the students graduating now and next year we have a solution but you know I do want to bring to the committee and I hope you all support it when the time is right um that this is a chance for us to really look through our graduation requirements and see how they can be more Innovative so we're preparing students so whether it's adding that every student has to complete faca CU sometimes they graduate they realize they do want to go to college after and now they don't know how to do FASA or we require that they take at least one Advanced course or how are we integrating our voke and trade courses into their graduation requirements and then you know I think we should ask for more than 26 community service hours I'm not saying they need the 200 I needed to graduate but I think you know there's been a lot of changes right now to our high schools and we have a solution for now and this will take time time and stakeholders but when the time is right I do want us to revisit how we can bring you know our requirements up to date so they are more rigorous for our students you reminded me of one other thing when you mentioned our current students um this this decision does have implications for students who graduated in past years and we are still working through that but um to let students I I shouldn't have used the word graduated yeah I should say students who finished high school but did not get a diploma because they didn't pass mcast uh in past years and we are working on that we're working through some guidance from the state on that um we've been told by the commissioner that there'll be additional guidance coming out in the coming weeks and we will be reaching out to every student who falls into that category um in the near future as soon as we have accurate information and helping them understand what if anything they need to do to get their diplomas so we are working on that I don't want anybody to think that we're not working on that piece of it too um and Dr guchi were you going to share that um what did you you sent me yeah I you want to do that under the superintendent report do you want to oh I have it I have it lined up to display if I can figure out out do that right all right so uh I wanted to update um the community about a recent uh initiative that we undertook in regards to safety um so Mr Kingston brought to my attention that uh one of the schools had um our internal personal commands printed on um what is the size of an ID card and what we decided to do was duplicate that and I I have to give credit uh as Mr Kingston told me to miss Magno at the Lincoln Elementary School um for the initial idea about the internal commands and what we ended up doing was making it a two-sided card where we also put the state puts out how to interact quickly and silently with 911 if you were in a scenario where you couldn't verbalize what you needed to tell them and so they have this um uh silent 911 code that we took and kind of made userfriendly um where someone can can text 911 in an emergency situation um if they need police they simply press one and send that to the 911 text fire two ambulance three if you need all three it's one two and three um once the 911 uh operator starts corresponding with that person it becomes a two-digit code down the bottom where if you're going to answer the 911 operator with yes you press four and if you're going to answer with no you press five um so now this two-sided card which has the silent 911 calls as well as our internal command rests behind the staff memb ID card um and as we've talked a lot about on this committee during an emergency situation um people's executive functioning often goes out the window it's very difficult to do simplistic tasks to recall simplistic information and so this is yet another uh available tool for someone that's hanging around their neck and that they can reference during an emergency situation so I want to thank Mr Kingston and Miss Magno uh for bringing this idea to me and Miss Flynn uh for working with our life touch company uh who was gracious enough um to give us these cards for free and print them and so really really um nice team effort and and want one clarifier Dr kuchi these codes that you just shared on the silent 911 those are not unique to the school this is for everybody anywhere if you ever find yourself in trouble y these codes are the same no matter where you are absolutely and interestingly enough the day in which Mr Kingson brought this idea about the internal codes I happen to get something from the Massachusetts office of 911 that displayed these 911 codes and so they went hand in hand and it was just perfect timing all around Mr King I I just want to thank Dr guchi for taking the idea and running with it um Miss Magno did approach me about it it was definitely her idea so I'm not taking credit for anything I I strongly and I really appreciate Dr guchi um this could have just died or just kind of gone in the hopper but he uh jumped on it and I um I know I've talked to some teachers about it and they really do like it because as you said when when the you know the chips are down and all of a sudden what do I do it's nice to have something to rely on that's real close by so I really I mean that sincerely I really appreciate what you did and thank you thank you okay and that concludes the superintendent report thank you Dr Kelly so no hearings or reports of the subcommittees we have motions motion yes Miss monteroso yes um I'd like to make a motion to switch the location for school committee meetings to the city council chambers and if there's a second we I can explain the reason for the motion I'll second it so to explain we had I think unanimously agreed to make the switch earlier last year but I think last month there was conversations about not switching so for the sake of the chambers freeing up and the city clerk knowing what's going on I think it's best if we have like off an official vote on whether we want to stay here or not so the city just knows what's going on okay there's so we have we have a second and then the there's any discussion what is the actual vote going to be so the vote is to change to City Chamber so if we want to stay here you would vote no you hear it's no I guess any Miss Kelly I I I I was for the people at home who might be wondering what the context is one of the decisions that the school committee made um earlier this year was to free up this room because we're so over crowd at the high school and um when we did the scheduling back in September uh Mr Mr Bowen and um Miss Finn shared that we were actually okay for semester one that they had enough rooms in the high school to schedule all of the classes that needed to be scheduled but they foreshadowed that it would be a problem for second semester and that they would have to have at least two periods a day when they were going to be in this room and so we were talking about how we anticipate this problem to exacerbate we were talking about uh adding two members to the committee after the next election um based on the new law and how it all of that work um I did share with a couple of you because I know that we've had conversations that um the high school does still need to use this room second semester um but if the committee wanted to continue to have this be the school committee room Mr Bowen said they can easily put smaller classes in here so that they're not removing the diet um or anything like that we would hang a couple of whiteboards I know he's actually already ordered the whiteboards to hang for the teacher um they already have the technology in in place um for the teacher to use to conduct the classes so he didn't think it would be an issue for the school committee to stay here as long as the meetings were after school hours which they are um if we were if the if there was going to be a subcommittee meeting or an emergency meeting or anything like that during school hours we would have to think about using a different venue for that um so just to give the folks at home some context on why the committee is talking about this I just want to share that mury I just have a quick quick question weren weren't we going to look into the the techn technological aspects of moving up to the council chambers so given the updates that were made they have now everything we would need to function so they have computers at every desk and they have screens as well so they have whatever Tech we need if people wanted to move you just reminded me of that context because the decision was made to stay here part of the reasoning was that City Hall was undergoing some kind of renovation with their sound system right so we didn't want to move right then that was another reason we didn't want to move right then there was stuff going on with there technology so the technology has been upgraded and the speakers the only thing it's I'll just say this selfishly it's it's easier for myself right um but I don't want to put my needs first is I you know I I look across here we have Robin you have the Educators um this is a building that they don't have to travel very far to participate and they're a big part of it and I'm not necessarily you know I don't want to uproot them unless there's a real if if if it's going to provide space for the school and the students and it's going to create less chaos then I'm all for it but I don't want to do this especially in a short period of time if this this you know to it this this might be a two or threee thing and then there's going to be new school so that's going to be a move Point move point and that's the only thing I say know you talk to Kelly your office is right there you can run down there but again selfishly come on to my house I don't have to travel very far but I guess that's that's the only thing I want to put put in everyone's back of everyone's head Mr chairman M Mr sella through you to the superintendent what is your preference for the same reason that the mayor just laid out why he would prefer that we go to City Hall um I would prefer that we stay here like as he said just being attached to the office being able to work right up until the minute of the meeting starting being able to request that a staff member run down to pull some information if we need it um you know Miss Lita and um Miss banks are located in this office so there's a lot of times there are presentations that people can come right from the office to this room and give a presentation to the school committee where going up to City Hall might be a little bit different that said if it's better for the committee and better for the city we would obviously make that work but I think as a point of uh clarification um it was mentioned that we could accommodate a classroom and still have our meetings without too much Interruption that is correct that is correct yep all right thank you yeah just quickly if I may I I guess the reason why I had suggested this in the first place um I don't remember when it was some time ago um it was with the idea that this space would be able to be utilized because we were bursting at seams um and so I get for me I guess if that's not um if if this space is not going to remedy any pressing issue then I'm just as comfortable staying here I feel like we do have our own space here that's ours um so that's where I stand guess we could take a vote now Mr chairman move the previous question Mr sella um move to vote uh just one one last piece is I guess my curiosity just if we would have vote yay or nay and we weren't able to revisit it should we table this and see if this becomes a pressing issue months from now this could be a pressing issue next month and then we could we can re revisit it we have we we can move quickly we can do it on on the turn of a dime so maybe we table it and then if this becomes a real pressing issue semester two then we would revisit the vote we can always just vote again to go like to go like if we if we needed to move to the city council chamber someone can just introduce a motion to make us move over Mr chairman I moved the previous question okay motion uh I'm sorry uh we have a roll call so yes would be to move to City Hall Chambers a no vote would be to stay in the school committee Chambers for the time being Mrs Bronson Rizzo Mr kiano no Mr Kingston no Mrs Milbury Ellis no Miss monteroso no Mr sella no mayor Keefe no motion fails thank you we can always bring it back up another time keep it in our back pocket you're good for now Robin it's an option all right the next item is the next motion is to vote to accept the school Improvement plans so move who have a second second second I'm sorry second any discussion Miss Milbury Ellis so I I have to be honest I'm hesitant to vote on this for the reason that this is 11 plans that we're getting and it's there's only five months left in these in these plans right of the school year yeah I would prefer that the state let us do something reasonable like set three-year goals but they don't um and you're right you should have had these plans usually you get them in November that's usually when you vote on them um so we are definitely two meetings behind um thank you it's just it's it's difficult to give them the attention that they deserve in in a short period of time um I did notice though that they all pretty much um meor on off the fiveyear plan and and keeping in Alliance with those goals it just would have been been better for me to have it far in advance Before Christmas yeah we got them no we received them before the holidays and then I sent a reminder email to everyone in case folks hadn't reviewed them so we had a month and a half okay and sorry can I sorry can I say one more thing John to Aisha's Point um they are intentionally designed because we want to make sure that all of the work that we're doing in the district is pushing in the same Direction um and so that's why we always start with the the community meeting at the beginning of the 5 years that we're going to be doing this spring um to set the vision in the tone of what we want to work for for the five years um and then just you know refine that each year to get more specific in what we're going to do and we always set the district Improvement plan first typically this the school committee approves that in the summer um because then by state law the schools are required to meet with their school Improvement councils and teachers to write their school Improvement plan which has to be built off the district Improvement plan so that always takes us until October before a principal really has a team put together of parents and others to um to look at that work and make sure that it's aligned and typically they pull most of their goals off of the district Improvement plan but they tweak them or have some unique goals based on that school that school's need so um that is the process that we we usually use and typically they would have that done around the end of October and the school committee would vote on them in no November this year we did just get off track I'm going to take ownership of that I think the very beginning of the school year we were so distracted with everything happening up here that I wasn't pushing principles to get their plans done and um that left us a little bit behind so my apologies for that thank you and and the only reason why the only mention of the of the um the district plan was I guess just just to say that I didn't notice anything unexpected it was pretty much in align with what I was expecting so thank you Mr Kingston I would just hope that we can get on track for the for the that in November of 225 and vote on them then I just I feel like we you know the the I kind of feel like the horse has left the bond and now we're voting on it and it's just that's it's just not I'm just not comfortable with that part of it I have no problem with what's in there I've looked at it I just I wish the vote had taken place in November thank you Mrs Bronson Rizzo Mr kiano yes Mr Kingston yes Mrs Milbury Ellis yes Miss monteroso yes Mr sella yes mayor Keef yes Miss mon Roo we have one final motion from the C so the motion the motion is to change the name of the health and special ed subcommittee to be called student supports second second second discussion roll call Mrs Bronson Rizzo no Mr kiano no Mr Kingston no Mrs milb Elis no Miss monteroso no Mr sella no mayor Keefe noo any other motion okay we are now um no new business we are going to uh go into executive session pursuant to massachus general laws chapter 30A section 21A for the following purposes to discuss the purose pardon me you say for purpose to for purpose to motion to to Executive session we won't be returning yes we have a second and uh we'll do a roll call okay Mrs Bronson Rizzo Mr kiano yes Mr Kingson yes Mrs melis yes Miss monteroso yes Mr sella yes mayor Keef yes and uh before we officially enter executive session we will not be returning for this evening so so the regular meeting is adjourned thank you