--------- Good evening everybody. Good evening. Welcome to the June 16th Committee School Committee meeting of the whole. We'll all rise and salute the flag. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to
the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. And you want to do roll call, Mr. Gulati? >> Mrs. Biasella? >> Present. >> Mrs. Bronson Marzullo?
Mr. Caggiano? >> Present. >> Mr. Damiano? >> Present. >> Mr. Feliciano? >> Right here. >> Oh, perfect timing. Uh Mr. Kingston. >> Present. >> Mrs. Milbury-Ellis. >> Present. >> Ms. Monterosso. >> Present.
>> And Mayor Keefe. >> Here. >> Okay, we have a quorum. Uh I did talk to Ms. Bronson-Rizzo. She's unable to make it tonight, but uh she sends us her best. And uh I'm sure she'll be here next meeting. The uh first item of event is the
approval of the minutes. Take that up in the full meeting. Well, any questions on the on the minutes? >> No. >> No. Okay. And attached warrants. >> Any questions on those? >> No. Okay.
There are no food service up I'm sorry, no financial uh reports. And no uh food service financials. Uh no communications. Do we have any no no enrollment update? This is the end of the uh business, so it's usually things are pretty wrapped
up. Uh so personnel items uh Ms. Uh Dr. Kelly, we have new hires, retirements, resignations, terminations. Anything to share? >> Right. >> Any questions? >> We have new hires, right? We have new we have new >> Okay. All right. >> Not yet. Well, I mean, there might be a
couple, but I don't We had No, actually, we haven't finalized anything yet. >> Okay. >> So there would be nothing in there yet. Two assistant preschools? Is it a middle school that's leaving or a middle school teacher? No, so what one of the elementary principals >> Yeah.
>> is leaving, and that's already been included in previous. >> Okay, it's just my question, so I'll wait. >> Yep. No, that's okay. >> Thank you, Mr. Feliciano. So uh the the the Was it the Hill School? No, it was the Paul Revere Innovation School change, correct?
>> Uh so uh yes, the um the Lincoln School principal is um going to be leaving the district at the end of the school year. Um and you'll recall uh we transferred Mr. Coyle, who is currently the Paul Revere principal, is going to the
Lincoln, and um Bianca Quark, who's currently the assistant principal at the Paul Revere, is going to take over the principalship. Um, and she'll be here to meet with all of you at the July meeting. So, tonight uh we have the new high school principal, um Shea St. Laurent,
who you met last year when she became deputy principal, but she's going to come back tonight as principal, uh and the new uh deputy principal will for the high school will be here uh as well this evening, and then we'll have Ms. Quark come to the July meeting. >> Great.
Thank you. Uh I did skip over warrants, I apologize, so let's go back to warrants. Um and Mr. Caggiano, you have some questions. >> Matt here? >> Um I'll go get him. He's here. He was just standing there. >> Okay, when he comes back.
>> Okay. Sure, we can wait till Matt's Matt comes back. We'll go back to warrants in a second. Um >> [clears throat] >> acceptance of donations and gifts or grants. >> Um so, there's two things. >> Um so, just two things that we have under our gifts or grants. They're
They're both grants, actually. Um the first one is very exciting that uh City Lab has finally received an official designation as an early college site uh in partnership with the Franklin Cummings Cummings Institute. Um so, what
that means, we already have college program at Revere High School. Now we'll have it at City Lab as well. Um and what that means is that the kids get free college credits. >> Uh >> It is excellent, yeah. >> great. >> Yeah, and it you're going to the presentation that the guidance
department is doing this evening um at the regular meeting is all about the early college program, and they have a full set of data on You've seen it in your packets, actually. How many kids are enrolled, how many credits they've earned, how much money we've saved the fam- their families in in college
tuition, and also some very interesting data on student matriculation into associate, bachelor's, and other college programs. Um so, that's coming up. We're really excited to have this uh designation at City Lab as well now.
Um as I mentioned, the the current designation is in partnership with the Frame um Franklin Cummings Institute. Um so, for the 26-27 school year, we'll have a credit partnership with them. Um and the intention is to expand that.
Once you have an early college designation, you can add additional colleges and universities to that portfolio. And um Dr. Mulligan, her next steps are going to be to add MassArt, UMass Amherst, where a lot of our kids
take classes, a lot of our City Lab kids take classes right now already, um and get them folded into the early college designation, which will help support uh and pay for those credits at those colleges and universities as as well. Um
>> And just have to go to those colleges, correct, in order to get the credits, or they could go to any other colleges and still get the credits? >> So, they have to take the courses that they take um are in conjunction with those colleges right now. >> Okay. >> Um but those colleges and other colleges
have to agree to accept these early college credits as transfer credits. >> That's it. >> So, there's a whole plethora of colleges. I think um Lillian Parker, the guidance director, is going to share that with you tonight, but all of the UMass system automatically accepts them. And then
there's a whole bunch of private colleges and universities that automatically accept them, too. So, the kids don't have to go to the other college once they graduate high school. Um they can take their credits wherever they decide that they want to go to college. >> And if I'm sure everyone watched but for
the viewing audience we had graduation last week and Dr. Mulligan presented in her speech that the graduates some of the graduates from the City Lab School were the inaugural members four years ago. So some of those were the first
four-year full full high school experience at the City Lab City Lab School and it was great to see them cross the stage. Kind of a fun moment. Like we know we we we all know some of these kids but you know, I
before I was the mayor I I actually taught or kind of hosted a cohort at Legal Sea Foods in the in the culinary culinary cohort to some of those students four years ago and I recognized them as they were walking through and and they one of those students says, "Hey, you remember
me? I was rolling sushi." And I said, "I do." >> [laughter] >> I didn't and I'm presenting him his diploma but it was pretty cool and some really good kids. So four years later you know, it was nice to see some of those kids stick it through, stay in the stay in the program and of course get those early credits and and just see
seeing them thrive >> [clears throat] >> in that in that environment is really impressive. >> We miss you being able to foster that partnership with Legal Sea Foods. >> I know. It was nice. It was it was it was a it was a commitment that I made and unfortunately when I left there they
weren't able to continue that commitment because it was my own time but I did appreciate them allowing me to do that. However, I feel like I can certainly serve the students even more now. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> I do too. >> [laughter] >> Okay.
>> The second grant that we received this month is through the Genocide Education Teaching and Learning Grant from the Department of Education. This was for $39,994. Very specific. Six more dollars and we could have said 40,000. Um
and this these these grant funds were secured by Dr. Porter who runs our humanities department and they'll be used uh for to pay for our partnership with Primary Source which develops curriculum units uh on genocide which will be delivered to ninth grade and
11th grade students through their history classes. Uh it'll also pay for stipends for teachers to collaborate on constructing their own uh lesson plans and differentiating existing lesson plans to meet the needs of our diverse students.
>> Ms. Milberry Ellis. >> Dr. Kelly, do you know if this grant requires um certain subjects certain certain genocides over others or if it allows the teachers that discretion? >> I believe it allows the teachers that discretion, but I can ask that question of Dr. Porter. I know that the
Department of Education is typically very broad scoped uh in matters like that and don't want it to be narrowed. They'd like the kids to see an experience from a lot of different perspectives, so I'd be surprised to hear that it was narrowed in any way, but I will confirm that. >> Okay, thank you.
>> Thank you. Any other questions on this matter? We're going to go back to the warrants and we got Matt here, so Mr. Caggiano. >> I have a couple of questions. Warrant five, when it says nursing services I'm on the left column. What is that in reference?
>> So, those are specialized services being provided to at-home special education students who need nursing in addition to the educational services and they're provided by a third party. So, that's why you see us writing them as a a
vendor check rather than payroll to one of our nurses or sped staff. It's a vendor that provides those specific services that are written into the IEP for some of those special education students. >> And I'll just add to that. I believe
that those lines also pay when we have to hire a third-party nurse to go on transportation with students who have some significant medical needs and need a nurse on their transport to and from school if they're in an out placement. >> Yeah. >> And then one was
number 108 109 bridging independence and behavior services. Page four. >> Yeah, so that's in the same category. Everywhere that you see a service purchased from the special ed cost center or that series.
And it's a sped 504 services. Those are services that are required in the IEP for the student. And sometimes we can provide those services ourselves in-house. Sometimes the school that we place the student as has that staff
there. At other times we have to bridge that gap. So these vendors provide those services. Sometimes it may say nursing, behavioral, medical, tutoring, um a variety of different types of services that have to be provided in support to
the typical instruction that they're receiving. Um for for that one, behavior services, yeah, I can flag that and pull the PO to get a a deeper description of exactly who they were serving and why if we want to do that.
But you'll feel that in that whole category with seven to 10 different possible vendors. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions on warrants? Mr. Damiano. >> Thank you, Mr. May. I ask through you? Uh Matt, could you actually uh just
clarify or maybe even Dr. Kelly, um 188 through 191, it's the the T passes we have for the students. Those will be uh stopped for the summer. Is that correct? And then they'll re- reopen again when the kids come back to school?
>> Right. So, we'll receive a monthly bill based on actual handouts to the to the students like the assistant principals in those five schools are tallying up exactly how many they gave out for the month. We receive
that bill and pay it. Uh we've been tracking this pretty tight cuz this is new. We haven't done this before. So, after the June warrant, we'll see our guess our open purchase order, how close did that align with what our estimate was? So far, it's been tracking
about 90 90 to 95% accurate. And then um that will reset for the school year. But, I'm not sure if you know, August will be a monthly pass uh
even if school starts later in August, you know. >> Right. We're basically looking at just July as the only month that they're fully not in use, right? So, that would Next month will probably be the only month we wouldn't have to >> Yeah, when we finish paying the June
bills, we'll treat that as that was the 25-26 school year. Here were our costs for for that year. And I'll be able to give a report with the transportation printout. Um we've never gone into the next July. So,
I don't exactly know how how the summer time's going to feel. >> I I do believe, and Dr. Galucci, correct me if I'm wrong, that we worked with them last year to make the passes active at the very end of August when we're back in school. >> [cough]
>> Oh, we didn't. Okay. So, the MBTA wouldn't do that. Okay. >> So, we had we had to do a 10-month purchase. >> Okay. >> Um so, it's basically September 1st to June 30th. >> I have a question. Hi, thank you. Matt, I'm curious. This um
the the passes are not preloaded. They have no value on them. Um and they're not. Um and they're not. >> They They should be. They should automatically work. >> Yeah. >> during school time. So, I would at the
Garfield, I would um reach out to Mr. Horgan. >> Yeah, that's who he gave those to the boys and said they should be supposedly $30 on them. >> They should just be Yeah, it's unlimited No, it's actually unlimited. >> Okay, so we have a lot of wrong information. >> Yeah.
>> We need to clarify that because I was surprised when the boys went to use the card and it did not work. And I said, "That doesn't make any sense. >> Yeah, we pay the full monthly fee. fee. Yeah, we pay the full monthly fee. >> so we got to look at this. >> That's why I was pausing on on the question to make sure I understood it. >> But, you did re you did remind me that
in the summer when our with with the school committee has approved ends at the end of June, the kids can and the parents can load those those very cards that they have to put pay for their own services until we reinitiate in September. >> Well, they do it Yeah, cuz they do
expire at the end of August. But, I was really surprised to find that there was no value on them. >> And Vanessa, that could Vanessa, that could have been an activation. So, if the card was distributed, but the who administrator never hit activate.
You know what I mean? That might Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Um the other the other piece I just want to um let the committee know about. So, if you remember, we had kind of an initial baseline we're offering them to students
that were this far away from their school. Um over the first 2 months of the year, we worked with transportation to then offer more kids the passes. And so, we started out at 2 miles or greater. I think we ended up at 1.4 miles or greater for the high school
kids. Um so, we were able to get down to 6/10 of a mile um to more kids than And Mr. Cruz said it's tracking at 90 95%. That's why we we we then reached out once we got the initial no's from certain families.
>> One more, I'm sorry. >> Mr. King >> Not to belabor the point, but I've had some parents tell me how happy they are with them. So, I know they're working and I As far as I know, they were preloaded. They didn't complain. I had about five parents tell me at the Depot learning how much it helped their students get around. And they like the opportunity of having it on the weekend
cuz someone you know, some of the older kids are going to Boston or whatever and they have using their card and That was a It was a I Someone come up to me and say, "Can I talk to you?" And I always, you know, I take a deep breath cuz you don't know what they're going to say. And they You know, so I said, "Sure." And then, they told me that they were happy with the pass. So, I I think they're working. My only My only concern
is um when we go back to school, we're going back earlier than usual this year. Um and so, the first week and a half of school or whatever, the passes won't work cuz they don't start till September 1st. I know that for a fact cuz I did call and asked. So, that might be something we'd have to
look at. Thank you. >> Great. Any other questions on the warrants? Okay. Go to school No, the school field trips remainder of the year meeting dates. Do we have Do we have that um >> That's me, Chair. I so I'll just pass it
down. Um so, just for anyone who's new, we always set our dates for every 6 months. so in case there's any holidays or anything. So, unless I made a mistake, we don't have any holidays or school breaks, so we should be able to continue our normal
third Tuesday of every month. So, we can all just accept it come the consent calendar at the next meeting, but our approved scheduling went up until this month, so this is just resetting the next 6 months. Yeah, I can just read them out. So, for July, it'd be July 21st, then August
18th, Sep- Did I get something wrong with September? What do you What? >> September 22nd falls on the fourth week of >> Oh, sorry.
So, it's okay. July 21st, August 18th, September 15th. I counted an extra week. October 20th, November 17th, and December 15th before winter break. >> Thank you.
>> Thanks for catching that, Mr. King. Yeah. Okay. Great, then we'll we'll vote on this in a little bit. So, back to you, chair. >> Thank you very much. I don't believe we have anything else
any new items or unanticipated um >> [snorts] >> um items that you want to bring to the agenda? >> I think we can um move if Ms. Mulberry Alice wants, we can move the policy and procedure subcommittee report up to this meeting. >> Yeah, I'm I'm good with that.
>> Um so, couple of things going on with the policies and procedures subcommittee. We've met twice um and we were able to review a whole host of policies. I did not get the minutes and those
redline versions to Robin in time for this meeting. So I for that I do apologize, but come next month it's going to be a slow agenda. Anticipate having a a a whole bucketful of policies um
to present to the full committee for approval. Okay? >> Um Ms. Monterosso, I'm sorry Ms. Milberry Ellis, will you be sending those to us in advance to I'm sure some if there's anyone that wants to add and then we'll put we'll we'll take that up in uh the meeting of the whole.
>> Yeah, that yeah for July. Yeah, that's fine. I actually yeah, so what I'll do is I will send everyone a copy of the minutes of the last meeting. You should already have the one from March 11th. The last meeting was on May 27th. Um and during that meeting we were able to get through at least seven policies
that are ready. They're ripe for approval for you guys. You just don't have them in front of you so I don't want to present them tonight. Um and then we still have a whole bucket list of policies that we're still working on. Um so if any policies that you'd like anyone wants us to review, you know,
always just send me an email. I'll tack it on and um we'll get to it in due course. But yes, you'll have those materials beforehand so that way you can make an educated vote. >> Thank you. >> [snorts] >> Okay. Any other items not on the agenda?
>> Dr. Kelly, is there anything under your superintendent report or is it all presentations from staff? >> Uh no, actually I can share information about um the accelerated achievement partnership. Give me 1 second. Find those. I thought I put it in here.
Um Yeah, there it is. So um the new Commissioner of Education Pedro Martinez has created a new program called accel- accelerating achievement and it's a statewide learning partnership
um through which the commissioner has identified 80 districts to participate, Revere being one of them. Um he's looking at schools that are uh not targeted for intervention by the Department of Education, but in that
bottom quartile of achievement. And so the four schools in Revere that are that we're looking at are Revere High School, the Rumney Marsh Academy, the Lincoln School, and the Susan B. Anthony. Um and so those four schools are going
to have teams that work with teams from the other 79 districts to identify areas of growth and the Department of Education is going to provide resources and grant funding to help build a collaborative community among the 80 districts so that there's
more peer-to-peer learning and less siloed work toward improvement. Um and so we're excited to be a part of that initiative. They had a kickoff meeting last month that we had teams
from all four schools attended. Dr. Mokaba and I filled out a district survey. Mostly what the department is doing is looking at our district improvement plans and seeing how they align with the with the DESE initiatives and making sure for example that we have
high-quality instructional materials, which we do because of our new curriculum adoptions that we've done over the last couple of years. And you know, different pieces like that. And then when they identify here are the two or three things that Revere really should be focused on, they'll put us
together with other districts that have those same two or three things and we'll be able to collaborate with them and with those teachers. And as I mentioned, there'll be some grant funding to pay for teachers to participate in that work. Um so we're excited to kick that off.
>> Can you repeat the four schools again? >> Uh Rumney Marsh Academy, Susan B. Anthony, Revere High School, and Lincoln Elementary. >> All of them are middle schools that we're going to be doing it for? >> Uh so, one is the high school, two
middle schools, and one elementary. >> Thank you. Any other superintendent report items you were able to go through tonight? Two. Okay. All right. Motion to adjourn? Pardon me? >> Motion to adjourn.
>> Second. So, what What All in favor? >> Aye. >> Aye. Part: 2
Good. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Revere School Committee meeting of June 16th, 2026. We'll all rise and salute the flag. Dr. Gulucci, will you call the roll? >> Mrs. Beal Salwa? >> Present.
>> Mrs. Bronson Rizzo? Miss Mr. Cagiano? >> Present. >> Mr. Damiano? >> Present. >> Mr. Feliciano? >> Present. >> Mr. Kingston? >> Present. >> Mrs. Milbury Ellis? >> Present. >> Miss Monterosso? >> Present. >> Mayor Ke- >> Here.
>> We have a quorum. Okay, the first item tonight, we have a lot of a recognition if you didn't notice, so we're going to go through that. What I would ask is after we go through the recognition, if parents want to step outside and take some pictures in the hallway, we certainly can do that. We may do a brief
recess after we do the robotics announcements and awards, but before we do that, I think are we going to be ready to do the athletic? >> I think we may have to auto. >> We'll do the We'll do the robotics first, and then we'll talk a little bit about that. I'd like to
Mr. Damiano is going to help hand out each certificate as they're called. And then we'd like to get a big group photo outside. Uh so you when when your name is called, after your after your um teacher uh talks a little bit about the accomplishments you you all had, uh when your name is called just stand up. Uh
we'll and uh Mr. Damiano will pass those out. Uh and then we'll go outside and do a large group photo cuz I don't think we can do it all in here or at least do it well. But uh before I do pass it over to Mr. Miranda, uh I do want to congratulate you the mayor as the mayor of the city,
it makes me super proud to see our students um with these types of accomplishments. We're going to talk about athletics a little bit and there was a big athletics award the other night. Uh and state championships don't come by the city often in our athletics department. They do come. Uh they
sometimes will get GBL titles or our division titles, uh regional titles, uh state championships are very very difficult to achieve. Uh your team has done that, but not only that you've been recognized um nationally and internationally. Uh it makes me very proud because we're a
community that we want to celebrate the good and we want to highlight it. And if you were able to watch um last uh Wednesday night, I think um the graduation, one of the speakers, I was smiling and Mr. Kingston was saying it, Diane Kelly was saying, "Ear to ear." because uh
Adam Lashor was talking so positively about our school and what it's done for him and his family, but he recognizes the gift that we have in being able to go to one of the finest public schools in the state. Bar none, one of the finest public schools in the state. And we can talk
about, you know, what the metrics are when they're ranked against Lexington's and all of that. We don't That's not how we compare it. We compare it on nights like graduation. And when we're seeing Harvard, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, UMass, BC, trade schools, military, and we're seeing the
accomplishments of the you know, 460 or so graduates, their early college credits. Uh and then of course, what we're talking about here tonight is the Neutrons and their the recognition that they they deserve, but also how well that they've represented the city of Revere. So, I know that this was a a
combination of the committee uh wanted wanting to recognize the Neutrons uh from Mr. Damiano, but uh you have one of the proudest coaches who constantly celebrates your successes and shares with the community, but she has with the superintendent how well you do. I was in a meeting with a company called
um Serve Robotics. I don't know if you've heard of them. Uh there's a lot of last mile delivery services out there and you've seen during the Super Bowl there was a company that was delivering like a Dunkin' Donuts in this little robot this autonomous robot that was delivering the Dunkin' Donuts on the sidewalk. Uh they're they're exploring
throughout the entire country. They're serving in uh states like California and Florida and Chicago and they're looking to enter into this world. And the first thing they said to to me when I met with this this um company out of basically Silicon Valley, they said, "We heard you
have a pretty good robotics team. Those are the types of people that we're going to hope to provide jobs for and we want to set up in cities like Revere that have the talent to pre to repair and put together our autonomous products." Obviously, you're seeing it in vehicles, but these little robots that they're
building and you know some we have some of the best robot uh firms in the world right here in Massachusetts, but they were talking about the Revere robotics team. This company that had never met before that probably hasn't spent more than a day in the city the city of Revere uh came in and they're telling me
about how how how much they've heard about your program. So, I don't know anything about what you do. I could barely put my remote control together. If I I struggle with putting the TV on, I have to call one of my kids, but uh I can tell you that you're what you're doing is is is continuing to impress
myself and the rest of us. So, we're super proud of you. I want to invite uh Coach Miranda up to talk a little bit more about the specifics and then we'll call IT [applause] A DAY. >> HI JOSH. >> UM YEAH, SO I'M I'M JOSH MIRANDA. I'M the robotics advisor um here for both uh
all of our programs, so the Neutrons and then we have several other programs. Um we had another great season this year. Um those of you don't know, we get a challenge every single year and we design and build a robot over two-ish months and then start competing um in New England and then
things go well um around the world. So, or against teams around the world. Uh this year we competed our first event was in Reading. We won that event. Our next event was here. Uh we host event here every year and came in second here, came in second in next event in Vermont, and second again
at uh the district championships. So, those are some hard losses. Um really close, but we did really well. Um we won a technical award at each of those events. And then we went to the world championship where we competed against around 600 of the best teams around the world. Um did well there as
well. Um we were alliance captains for our division. And then we went to the state championships and won that a couple weekends ago. So, really proud of our group of students. We have a bunch of seniors that we're going to miss. Um they've been great. They really kind of run things for for me. Um but also they
mentor our younger students. So, we This year we had a bunch of eighth graders that joined our team because of that mentorship and that has kind of solidified our our future. Um so, really proud of that aspect of the team as well. Um do want to thank all of our mentors. They handle all the technical aspects of things. I just handle all the
logistics and running that side of the team. But they're responsible for making sure that we're putting together competitive robot and that our students are learning all those technical skills. I also want to thank administration, school committee, Dr. Kelly for continuing to fund and support our program. uh It wouldn't be possible to
run this type of program, all the programs we run without that support and definitely not possible to be as competitive as we have been without that support. So, thank you. >> Thank you, MR. MIRANDA. >> [applause] [applause] >> MIRANDA TEED IT UP AND UP TO TALK about the mentors and the coaches.
We're going to say everyone's name in recognition and then we'll go to the students and and Mr. Damiano's going to help him those out, but so mentors IS JOSH MIRANDA. >> [applause] >> AL ALAN PLISH >> [applause]
>> ARIEL URIBE >> [applause] >> BASHAR SHAHAR >> [applause] >> BRANDON HOLLY >> [applause] >> CONNOR WALSH >> [applause] >> KENNETH SANTIZO >> [applause] [applause]
>> DEAN ATIYA KYLE REEVE >> [applause] [applause] >> MIGUEL YURIA >> [applause] >> WAYNE SOLOMON >> [applause] >> AND ZACH BOYER.
>> [applause] >> AND WE HAVE THE STUDENTS. WE HAVE CHRISTIAN HOLLY. >> [applause] >> FERNANDO AREVALO. >> [applause] >> KAYLA MENS. >> [applause] >> LEGEND VA.
>> [applause] >> NICHOLAS ROSA. >> [applause] >> RANYA ABOUD. >> [applause] >> ASHRAF MALKI. >> [applause] >> ADAMS AND DANNY. >> [applause] >> OH, NO FAVORITES HERE, BUT ADAM IS
ASHORE. >> [applause] >> AKRAM MALKI. >> [applause] >> ANDRE NGUYEN. >> [applause] [applause] >> ANGELA RAMIREZ TOBIN. RONDALE ROARK. >> [applause]
>> CHRIS LIMA. >> [applause] >> CHRISTIAN SALMERON. >> [applause] >> CHRISTIAN FIGUEROA. >> [applause] >> DANIEL ZENOUGA >> [applause] >> DAVID CASTLE ROARK >> [applause]
[applause] >> ETHAN MANN BARRIS ADVIC >> [applause] [applause] >> HENRY MAY JADE DANG >> [applause] >> JAVIER ROSA >> [applause]
>> LEAH ZENOUGA >> [applause] >> AND THIS IS THIS IS THE GRANDSON of a former mayor. And I know that he makes the city proud just as much as his grandfather probably wishes he could see him present. BUT UH LUCA SHANLEY >> [applause] >> AND ANOTHER GRANDCHILD, NOAH SHANLEY
>> [applause] >> NOOR ASHOUR >> [applause] >> ROSE COW >> [applause] >> SAMANTHA INDORADO >> [applause] >> SAMYAK MAHARJAN >> [applause] >> YUSUF ZADI
>> [applause] >> AND ZACK KADIRI >> [applause] [applause] >> BEFORE WE BREAK FOR RECESS, WE'RE GOING to do go back to the athletic awards while we have everyone here present. I know Director Shea, the athletic director, has a couple words, but
you know, again, we've we love to celebrate our students and their successes and we've done a lot of great awards nights and celebrations and I think with the amount of recognition we do sometimes we too make mistakes, the clerical issues and
things like that, but I can tell you that there's a few there's one gentleman here that I looked up and I got to talk to his coach and was was super regretful that this there was a there was one of the records that was broken that wasn't recognized, but just
said one of the finest athletes that he's coached in his entire tenure at Revere High School, but this gentleman that is here, I know Frank Shea's going to speak a little bit more about and Coach Fleming's going to speak a little bit more about, but we wanted to make sure that he was recognized specifically in front of the
school committee tonight, but and I'll let you take it away, Frank, but tremendous record-setting year for the entire team, but one gentleman stood out as well. Mr. Shea. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, we're here tonight to recognize two
student athletes who broke school records in their respective sports. Like like the mayor said, they erroneously were left out of our program >> [snorts] >> and our awards last week. I'm going to go a little bit out of order because one student is unable to
be here. In the sport of field hockey, Isabella Mendiata broke the school record for goals in a season this year, scoring 22 goals and she also holds the record for career goals in field hockey at 56. And unfortunately, she's unable
to be here tonight, but two great accomplishments that um will probably last a while here at uh THE HIGH SCHOOL. >> [applause] >> AND IN THE SPORT OF TRACK, AFTER I say uh these few words, I'm going to have uh RHS track coach follow me up with a
couple of words. Um but in the sport of indoor track, uh Jeremy X broke the school record in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.34 seconds. Jeremy was also a member of this year's outdoor 4 by 100-meter relay team and
the indoor 4 by 200-meter relay team, which also broke school records this season. So, congratulations, Jeremy, and I'm going to turn it over TO COACH FLEMING. >> [applause] >> AND JUST TO EXPOUND ON THOSE WORDS, so in total, Jeremy is has four other
school records in addition to that 60 set. Um Mr. Shay mentioned a couple of those. The 4 by 2, alluding to uh to Mayor Keith said that state championships are difficult to come by. Uh the 4 by 200-meter record, they were
second in the Division 2 state meet uh just a notch just a half second or less behind Catholic Memorial. So, that was an amazing amazing uh record. Um but in addition to that, or more importantly, uh Jeremy's a strong student, a high GPA. He's a team captain, multiple time
all-star. Um a student of the sport, and he was like having another coach out there. Uh he taught others. Um and he has been a pleasure to coach, and he's going to be successful in a matter what he does. Uh I just want
to to have everybody welcome and give a round of applause to JEREMY X. >> WOO! >> [applause] >> THANK YOU VERY MUCH. >> THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> SO, IF I CAN HAVE WE CAN DO A QUICK OH, I you're my apologies. We have one more recognition.
Mr. Kingston. >> As someone who struggles with just English, I'm very impressed when a student can do extremely well and pass the state test in multiple languages. I joke with Dr. Garcia about the seal of biliteracy. Doc speaks
about six languages, which I think is impressive. But we have a young student who passed three state exams to get actually get three seals and took the test for the fourth. Unfortunately, she wasn't successful in the fourth, but like I said, I'd have trouble with the
English one. So, I'm very happy and proud. When I stand at graduation, if I see someone with the seal as they're walking by me, I give them an extra shake of the hand and I congratulate them because I'm in the business world. I've been in the business world for a very long time and knowing another language is invaluable.
And when you someone takes a state test and that they're actually, you know, extremely proficient in another language, it makes them such a valuable both not as a member of the community, but also member of the business community if that's their child, of course. So, I'm really very excited for this. I don't speak another language. Like I
said, I've tried to learn Spanish. My daughter has self-taught herself Spanish and actually works with English language learners at the Weil School. I'm very proud of her for that. But I I get a I really gives me a big charge on the seal of biliteracy. So, I wanted to recognize the student. I don't know that she's
here and I apologize for that. She is and I'm glad of that. Happy to pronounce or happy to give this certificate to Miriam. Can you say your last name? I'm sorry, I don't want to Thank you. UM >> [applause and cheering] >> OKAY, SO WHAT I'D ASK IS WE'RE GOING TO
DO A brief recess and if you'd like to orderly file out on this door to the right and we can take a photo in the hall with the with the team and and our individuals and then you're free to go or if you'd like to hang out for the rest of our school committee meeting you're welcome to stay. >> Mr. Mayor and if we could also take a
picture with Jeremy and the other student as well. >> Perfect. Yeah, we'd love to do that. So we're going to we're going to do everyone all in favor for a brief recess? >> Aye. >> Okay. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Motion to return to business.
>> So moved. >> Okay. So, all in favor? >> Aye. >> So ordered. Okay. >> Mr. Mayor. >> Ms. Montroso. >> Uh yes, for the consent calendar. So, we actually had a request by one member.
So, you know all know the only different thing here is the approval of our meeting schedule. So, someone proposed the idea of starting our committee of the whole at 5:30 moving forward instead of 5:00 since that one usually has less time. >> Regular.
The regular meeting. >> No, no. So, starting at 5:30 and then if there's anything that isn't done before 6:00, we can continue in the regular meeting under unfinished business. Because if we start if we move up the
6:00 p.m., we might have staff that are scheduled to come and speak at a certain time and if we just continue moving forward, folks might be waiting. You still look confused, John. >> Miss Yeah, Miss Montaroso Mr. Kingston feels like to clarify. >> My suggestion was to um stop the
the regular meeting at 5:30, have the committee of the whole at 5:00. Um that way if there we did have speakers, it helps staff and other people that are coming to the meeting not to have to have such a long day. Right now, they're probably in school at 7:00 in the morning and they're meeting with us at maybe 6:30 at night and
that's just a very long day. So, if we can shorten it a little bit, a half hour helps. So, the committee of the whole would be at 5:00. The regular meeting regular school committee meeting would commence at 5:30. That was my suggestion. Thank you. That works. I think yeah, as long as we're not just like oh, whatever time we finish, we just swoop within the regulars. If we
have a set Okay, so we're moving the the proposals to move our regular meetings to 5:30 moving forward and if there's ever anything from the committee of the whole that we're not done discussing, we'll continue under unfinished business. But then at least that way we're keeping in mind like staff who are waiting to present to us. So, if
everyone So, when we vote on the consent calendar, we're including that proposal of moving the meeting times. Everyone's okay with that? >> Yes. >> Okay, so motion to approve the consent calendar. >> I >> So, >> With a second. Any discussion?
Okay, roll call. >> Mrs. Biasella? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Bronson Rizzo? Mr. Caggiano? >> Yes. >> Mr. Damiano? >> Yes. >> Mr. Feliciano? >> Yes. >> Mr. Kingston? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Milbry Ellis? >> Yes. >> Ms. Montaroso? >> Yes.
>> Mayor Keefe? >> Yes. >> Okay, we have the next is the student representative report. It's awesome. >> Good evening everybody. I will be presenting the student rep report on behalf of the student advisory board.
>> Paul, can you go Oh, there you go. >> And then as always we're in accordance with Massachusetts General Law. Following the stress of AP exam season, the Power of No organized a self-care fair to help students recharge and prioritize their well-being. The event
brought together local organizations and student clubs, providing them an opportunity to showcase their missions, programs, and contributions to the community. Students enjoyed a variety of activities including a petting zoo, raffle prizes, musical chairs, henna
art, and custom 3D printed keychains. The fair was a tremendous success encouraging community engagement and reducing stress. As part of the district-wide deeper learning, students showcase Revere High School hosted a multicultural night, a celebration of the diverse cultures,
traditions, and backgrounds within the school community. The event featured interactive exhibits, cultural cuisine, and traditional displays, and student-led presentations that highlighted the heritage and experience of students and their families. A highlight of the event was a performance by Alma
Mater de Tia which showcased three vibrant Mexican folk dances celebrating the richness and beauty of Mexican culture. And for our club round-up, we're highlighting the speech and debate team. After competing against schools across Massachusetts, the Revere High School
speech and debate team concluded its season by sending two national qualifiers, Dina Ufaesa in original oratory and Afua Mire won the McNew in declamation to the NCFL Grand National Tournament tournament in Washington, D.C. where they gained valuable
experience competing against the top students across the country. For sports roundup, we're highlighting the track and field team. Deena Ortega, Gemma Stramel, Velez, Isabella Marin, and Zizi Calivas broke the 4 by 100
meter record in a time of 52.99 at the MIAA D2 State Championships. Gemma also broke her 400 meter record in a time of 1 :00.96. Great way to end the season for 2026
outdoor season. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> THANK YOU, MISS WATSON. UM MR. KINGSTON. >> I ATTENDED THE South Care Fair and I have to be honest, I was shocked and Dr. Kelly was there. I was I was I Shocked probably not the right word. I apologize. I was amazed at how many
students were there. It was packed and I thought that was really great. I was wasn't sure cuz it was after school. I thought maybe kids would scatter and whatnot, but there was literally hundreds of students down there and I thought that was great. So, thank you for the people that organized that and put that together. Thank you. >> And I'll I have to give credit to Miss
Jill Horwig who's our director of health and wellness who coordinated that that whole event and I'll echo what Zoha said about the petting zoo was a huge hit. A lot of people felt a lot better after petting some ducks. >> Thank you.
Miss Miss Hassan. Pardon the ignorance, are you are you a junior rising senior? >> I'm a I'm a junior rising senior. >> Wonderful. So, we'll have you next year. >> Yes. >> Great. Well, good. You we we look forward to seeing you all next year. Thank you. Okay, we have the public speak. Miss
Monterroso, did you want to go do you want to go over the public speak? >> Yes, so I will have Robin. So according to our public speak policy, we have a 15-minute period. If we have more than five people signed up to speak via Zoom
and in person, people only have two minutes. The policy encourages uh five or more speakers are speaking on the same No, wait. Let me read it. Somewhere in here. The goal is that there's multiple people speaking on the same subject, you're encouraged to come
together so that we can hear as many people as possible, but if not, um when we have more than five, which we do, folks have two minutes. So I will call you I'll call your name up. If I mispronounce, correct me. We ask that you please state your street address and then your affiliation to Revere Public
Schools. When you hear the timer, I don't want to be rude, but it it means it's time for the next person to speak. And when our 15 minutes are up, uh we will also let people know. You can continue to sign up for public comment until the end of the period. And then, do we have anyone on Zoom? >> There's no one here.
>> Okay. We always want to make sure we alternate between in person and Zoom to be um responsive to everyone. So the first person is Modi Seal Turco. >> When you speak, then I'll start. Then as you all come up the mic to turn
it on is like a little face with three little lines. Okay. >> Hi, my name is Marzio Turco. I live at 16 Carlson Avenue in Revere. I am here as a teacher from SBA. Uh I was raised in Revere, attended
school here from grades 1 through 12, and had the pleasure of teaching at SBA for two years now, where I currently teach creative writing for grade six students, which has been a dream for me since I also write outside my school hours. Um speaking tonight is in regards to the
budget because this class is being removed. And not only will that prevent future students from appreciating writing and enjoying their work, but it will also affect my current students if I'm not here in the fall. I have referred more than a handful of students to our school counselors this year because each student felt safe
enough to disclose personal struggles they are facing and have faced. One of my students has also written me a note this year stating, "Thank you for caring about my mental health. I felt more seen with your writing class and no longer had to hide myself. Thank you for making me be seen and for helping me
improve my writing." By creating a safe space for our students to express themselves, these students have not only found a coping outlet, but also found their voice and opened up about things that are hard for them. And by eliminating this class, we are in turn silencing the voices of our already
vulnerable students. We as educators are in a literacy crisis. Students should be given a class where they can openly and safely express their individualism, culture, and identity, which creative writing offers. My class has been pivotal in helping students develop literacy skills in writing and genres
beyond the ELA curriculum. As someone who grew up in Revere, recently returned home, and hopes to continue serving the community that helped shape me to the person I am today, my only ask is that we take into consideration the classroom teachers, special educators, and physical
education classes that we are cutting. And that we do the right thing by amending the budget and putting our students first. When I was a student in Revere, I always prided myself on having teachers and committees that truly cared for students and the community that we live in. The teachers and committees were of highest caliber and always put
their students first above all else. Are you willing to do the same? THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> NEXT, WE HAVE KAREN LOVERING. >> WE COULDN'T HEAR YOU. >> YEAH. >> KAREN. OKAY.
HELLO, my name is Karen LeBreck and I am speaking um I'm actually here to read a letter from Colleen Race, the adapted PE teacher. >> Okay. >> Um good evening members of the school committee. For the past 5 years, I have had the privilege of serving as the adapted
physical education teacher for our pre-K through five grade students across the buildings across four buildings, sorry. I stepped into this role knowing it would be important, but I didn't realize how deeply it would change me professionally. I have never held a position more rewarding. To some,
physical education might seem trivial, but to my students and their families, the progress we make is nothing short of remarkable. Development of our most vulnerable population doesn't happen overnight. It takes time, consistency, and repetition.
I have a student who shared with me at age three in preschool. Today, that at age eight years old in the first grade, they finally can stand on the spot with no prompting and follow a sequence of exercises. That is 5 years of dedicated daily work
to retain that skill. I have another student who used to completely disregulate when losing. Today, that same student approaches their peers, holds out their hands, and says, "Good game." These life-altering social, emotional, and physical breakthroughs would not
happen in a standard setting. I understand the harsh reality of a budget, but I also understand the reality of what I do every single day. The district's current logic suggests that while middle and high school students need adapted PE, our youngest,
most impressionable elementary students somehow do not. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of early intervention. If we do not lay the groundwork of physical literacy, emotional regulation,
and social inclusion at age 3, 4, and 5, we are setting these children up to struggle later. You do not build a house on a foundation. What I teach does not show up on standardized test scores, but it shows up in their lives. It shows up in how we
they navigate the world, how they play. Okay. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> NEXT IS STEPHANIE BRUNO. >> Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the School Committee. My name is Stephanie Bruno. I'm here as a parent of a special
education student. All six of our children have gone through Revere public schools, but little Shawn sitting over there, he's the first one to be in the special education department. When my husband, who is a lifelong resident of Revere and a firefighter in
Revere, when we were looking for a house, we wanted to stay in Revere because we knew that Shawn would get the most help through this city, through the members of the community, and through the teachers that give their all.
Special education is not an extra service. It is a legal and moral commitment to ensure that every student has the opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed. These programs provide critical support such as specialized instruction,
adaptive physical education, and classroom accommodations that help students reach their full potential, done by individuals with very specialized training. When funding is reduced, students with disabilities are often the first to feel
the impact. Larger caseloads, fewer services, and limited resources make it harder for educators to meet students' individual needs. And if any of you have family members or know of anyone who has special education, autism, Down
syndrome, you know that their needs are indeed very specialized. Investing in special education benefits the entire community. It helps students become more independent, strengthens families, and creates more inclusive schools where all children are valued.
Cutting funding may save money in the short term, but it can lead to greater costs later when students >> No, keep going. Keep going. >> Oh. when students do not receive the support they are need that they need and are outsourced to other facilities where their needs can be met.
Every child deserves access to a quality education. I urge you to protect and strengthen special education funding so that all students have the chance to succeed and to become proud, productive members of our community. Thank you. >> THANK YOU SO MUCH.
>> [applause] >> NEXT, WE HAVE ROXANE CAMPBELL. HELLO, School Committee, community members, students. I'm Roxane Campbell. I'm a Marblehead resident, but I'm a 31-year veteran teacher, the last 18 of which have been here at RPS. I'm
actually speaking on behalf of educators at the Whelan School, and I want to respectfully advocate for maintaining our current special ed education teaching positions at the Whalen School. Special education staffing directly impacts students access to instruction,
their ability to make meaningful progress, and our ability to meet legally mandated IEP services. These are not optional supports. They are required services that ensure equity and access for some of our most vulnerable students. The role of a special education teacher
goes far beyond delivering service minutes. It includes modifying curriculum and assessments, collaborating with general ed education teachers, moderating monitoring progress, and ensuring students can access grade level instruction. If staffing is reduced, special education
teachers will be responsible for multiple grade levels, which limits collaboration time and reduces consistency of instruction that is essential for inclusion and student success. We also need to consider group size and intensity of instruction. With reduced
staffing, students with disabilities could be placed in groups of 10 or more, significantly decreasing individualized support. This would also create real challenges in meeting IEP services minutes across grade levels. As we've
already seen this year during a maternity leave absence, that staffing constraints required us to adjust the schedules of four staff members just to maintain services for one special ed teacher. It is also important to consider that
caseloads are not static, and throughout the year they typically increase due to evaluations and new referrals. Maintaining current staffing levels is essential to ensuring that we meet our IEP requirements, support effective collaboration, and uphold our
responsibility to provide equitable and appropriate services for students with disabilities. Thank you so much for listening. >> THANK [applause] YOU, ROXANNE. NEXT, WE HAVE GINA GARRO. >> HI. I'm Gina Garro. I'm a resident of
Somerville. I too grew up in Revere. Um I am finishing 30 years as a special education teacher and from kindergarten to first grade. 27 Yep, that's right. I have 4 and 1/2 more days [applause] to go.
Um 27 of my years have been in Garfield Elementary School. And I And I have to tell you this was probably my most challenging year ever. And people who work at Garfield probably know that. Um the students who came to school this year in kindergarten were extremely
disregulated with very complex challenging behaviors. And we were not ready to support them. The classroom teachers were not, the special education teachers were not. We already have a As a district, do not have the support that is necessary
for these students. So, the idea of cutting positions is just appalling to me. It was already unsafe with students who were so disregulated running out of classrooms, throwing chairs, doing dangerous behaviors like biting.
So, I'm asking that somebody make a motion to amend this budget to not just to to not just maintain, but actually need to increase the levels of support for students. Other districts that are neighboring Revere have have positions like behavior
technicians who actually implement behavior plans. We don't have anything like that in Revere. We have BCBA's but no one to implement the plans that they write. So it is really kind of silly.
The last thing I want to say is that last year at Garfield we already lost a fifth grade special education teacher. So what that meant was that two other teachers had to split that fifth grade caseload. And what that meant in reality
is that due to attending and this came from the special education teacher who had to do this. Due to attending fifth grade IEP meetings, she missed 25 small group reading sessions with grade two and 12 plus missed win intervention
groups. So her grade grade two missed all of those services because she was also cover covering another grade. SO THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> HAVE TIME FOR [applause] ONE MORE. SO OUR 15 minutes are almost up so I'll
stop this cuz it's still going. We'll We'll allow space for one more according to our policy. The next person is Brian McDonald. >> [applause] >> ARE ARE YOU REMOVING YOURSELF BRIAN? >> If There's a So there's only time for one more speaker?
>> Yes. >> There's no way to >> extend it or extend it? >> Extend it? >> You can extend it. >> I need you to pick someone. There's the three people on the list are Brian, Jane, and Max. So who will be the last speaker? >> What is it 15 minutes? >> Yes.
>> How many people spoke so far? >> One, two, three, four, five. >> So that's two minutes each. Five times two that's 10. We should have five minutes left. >> You said you're not starting the timer until the person starts speaking. >> For when people speak but not the the whole period is from the moment you start >> by a different rule. >> Jane, pick someone cuz we got to keep
going. >> Wow. >> Yeah, different rules different days, you know, whatever means it. Okay. I guess uh Max, you want to share a minute? Go. All right.
>> [clears throat] >> Wow. >> Yeah. Silenced again. Okay, Jane. Are Are you starting your minute? >> Members of the committee, tonight you've heard directly from educators and community members who work with students
every day. In my role as RTA president, these are the same concerns I hear about regularly. I hear about them because the educators and communities care deeply about our students. We care deeply about whether our students are receiving the services that they need.
And we care deeply about whether our students are being supported. But most of all, we care deeply about the future of Revere schools. There is no one person better poised to hear from about the day-to-day impact of this budget than
the educators and community members you just heard from. It is important that you hear from us because the priorities in this budget will change our schools permanently. You're taking away creative outlets for students. You're eliminating adaptive PE
for the youngest students. You're increasing special education case loads that are already stretched too thin, and you're increasing class sizes while reducing supports for uh those teachers in the greater class sizes. Last year, Lincoln and Garfield each
lost a special education teacher. >> your minute with Max, so if you want him to speak again >> Educators have spent the last year trying to make the impossible work, consistently deciding whether to put their limited time and attention because there's simply not enough time to meet every student's need.
These cuts are choices, and different choices are still available. The district knew that financial decisions were coming and set aside reserve funds for exactly this moment. And yet the budget leaves millions of dollars in reserves while cutting 66 student-facing positions.
And maintaining 27 assistant principals for 11 schools. 27 assistant principals for 11 schools. The issue is not whether the resources exist. The issue is the priorities and
how these resources were prioritized. You have the authority right now to amend this budget. You have the authority to restore the special education positions at Lincoln, Garfield, and Whelan. You have the authority to restore adaptive PE and protect the services our students rely
on. But if you believe that these cuts are the right choice for Revere students, then say so. Defend them right now. Defend them. Explain to all of us here watching tonight why >> Thank you, Jen.
>> larger time is up. >> special education caseloads, fewer students, and the loss of adaptive PE are the right things for Revere students. But if you have heard what we have heard tonight, and you believe these services matter, if you believe these positions matter, then make a motion to amend this
budget. >> Thank you, Ms. Shapira. >> The question is whether anyone [applause and cheering] here is WILLING TO ACT. THE 15 MINUTES >> [cheering] >> ARE UP. >> [applause] >> MOTION TO CLOSE PUBLIC SPEAK. CAN WE HAVE A MOTION?
>> All in favor? >> Aye. >> Aye. >> So ordered. >> Thank you. Um we're going to go on to the superintendent report. >> Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um the first item on the superintendent's report is the reintroduction of our new high
school principal, Mache St. Laurent, and also she is going to introduce our new deputy principal, um Steve Canosky. >> [applause] >> Hello everyone. Hello everyone. >> [laughter] >> Thank you for having us tonight. I'm
excited to introduce Steve Canosky in just a second, um but I just want to start by saying that almost a year ago when I was here being introduced as a deputy principal, um I wouldn't have imagined that I'd be stepping into these shoes, but I'm very very proud to be taking on the role
as principal at Revere High School. It's been an incredible year for me. Um it's such a welcoming staff and and that's truly why I'm staying. Um the staff, the students, the caregivers have been incredible to work with. The goals are aligned with my vision for learning, Steve's vision for learning,
um and we're really excited to continue moving those goals goals forward together uh with our partnership. So, I'd like to turn the mic to him to just say a few words and um welcome him to Revere High School. >> All right. Hello everyone. [applause and cheering] Hello hello. Uh yes, Stefano Canosky,
and I'm very excited to be here. Um I just echo everything Shea has said. Um even in my short few visits, uh the community is unbelievable. And um working in service of a community that that cares as deeply as Revere does.
Um and after 20 years in a classroom and uh the last few years as a principal, um I want to really just say I'm very excited to think about how to support the teachers who are working every single day
um, for our kiddos. And together that's where we're going to see the growth and this beautiful vision that Revere has. So, thanks to all of you. Thank you FOR THE OPPORTUNITY. >> [applause] >> MISS MISS MONTROSA. >> AND correct me if I'm mistaken, Dr.
Kelly, but I believe Miss Shea is going to be our first female principal in Revere High School history. >> You are correct. >> [applause] >> YOU ARE CORRECT. >> CONGRATULATIONS. UH, AND IT WAS GOOD TO SEE YOU last year. I'm glad to have you back and hopefully you'll stick around. And I know uh, Principal Bowen
did a fine job over the last few years and we wish him well in his next uh, position, I believe in Chelsea. So, congratulations to Kristen. Okay. Uh, any other questions for the principals? No? Okay. Thank you. >> We'll be back. Thank you. >> Good luck.
>> Thanks. >> Uh, the next item on the Superintendent's report is a presentation by the Garfield Middle School. And I don't know if Principal King is going to start us off. Um, I see his administrative team is here. Uh, I don't I don't know if they're going to participate as well.
Um, Mr. King, I toss it to you and I'll get your presentation up. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Good evening. Thank you for having me tonight. Mr. Kingson, good to see you again. Spent a few days together. Mr. Caggiano, appreciate both of you coming out for our field days and supporting us
and helping out with the cookouts. Uh, I'm here tonight to talk about a couple of things. MTSS or multi-tiered systems of support and our attendance outcomes over the course of the past year. So, I just wanted to share a few of those items. Um, some highlights over the course of the year for us. So, we'll just talk about a few
different things. A couple of our initiatives relative to those two topics, some of our math outcomes uh over the course of this past year as well. Uh we don't have the ELA stuff quite compiled yet, so I won't be able to share that. I also want to talk a little bit about monthly attendance, kind of the month-to-month, as well as
our chronic attendance rates. Um and then we'll end with whatever questions you might have. So, the two major topics we're discussing at clearly come from our school improvement plan. Uh the first of which is MTSS. Uh this includes MTSS typically includes
all aspects of our students' academics, social, emotional, behavioral. Um we had systems in place for social, emotional, and behavioral uh systems like trauma-informed instruction, restorative justice, PBIS, et cetera. But, we did not have um until this year
an authentic academic intervention at the Garfield. Our new schedule was driven by this need um for an authentic intervention block to serve all students, not just those with the lower outcomes. So, the pieces that kind of contribute
to that new schedule, first off is the WIN block. We did that by incorporating a WIN, It's What I Need, uh block for all students in ELA and math. From those who needed skills, that included those who needed skills-based uh support to those performing well beyond grade level. So, everybody gets
something that they need. The additional aspect of the student uh excuse me, of the schedule that we created this year um was student voice, which I feel is very important in our schools. Grade seven and eight students as a part of this new schedule get to choose their areas of interest for their allied arts
or specials. In [snorts] order to do that, our teachers expanded offerings in those areas to things including ceramics, digital art, rock ensemble, chorus, musical theater, and sports and sports performance, just to name a few. In terms of attendance, we had a few
things going on. So, uh Mr. Horgan, who's here tonight, uh our coordinator of operations and assessment sort of led our attendance initiatives over the course of this past year. We started up uh a much more focused attendance team. It's very small, but very focused uh in terms of tracking
attendance very closely. We work with individual students as well as larger groups, depending on where they are on that sort of attendance continuum. Some students have perfect attendance. Some uh fall a little bit short of that. So, some students get individual incentives, and others we may get a group incentive
for something like perfect attendance over the course of a month, maybe a course of a week. It all depends on who you are and sort of what your attendance history is like, what you need to continue to improve. Those incentives included simple things. Uh something Sometimes for an individual who might have struggled and was a chronic attendance issue over the past
number of years, and you've met one of our students earlier this year, something like a simple gift card, maybe uh snack of choice when they come in in the morning if they've made it to school for a week consistently. Is my time up? >> No. >> I'm just kidding. Uh we also have, you know, maybe lunch with a special person that they of their
choice, that type of thing. Group incentives might have included things like a free dress-down day. They would get a little wristband if they've had a perfect attendance for a certain amount of time. Perfect attendance is a biggie for us. We're having a slushy party later this week for those who have perfect attendance over the past 2 months. So, we want to celebrate those
victories and inspire others to kind of do the same. In terms of what we've done over the course of the year, there's a lot of things, but you know, it's driven by a number of people who have taken this very seriously. Simple things like phone calls to the parent or a student. We have a number of students who we have their cell phone
numbers. If they're not there on time in the morning, they start getting phone calls, their parents do, the students do, etc. Uh home visits. Just want to, you know, just sort of uh mention uh Nick Maglione, our truancy officer, has been integral in this as well. Done a lot of home visits. He's holding attendance meetings for us, and so on.
So, these are the types of things that we've been working on uh to improve these these outcomes and we'll see those in just a few minutes. So, some math outcomes that we've had, I've got a couple of things up here. So, we use uh as the whole district does, we have uh benchmark tests over the course
of the year. We start those early in September. We do another winter assessment benchmark and then we do uh a final spring assessment. We start that at the beginning of the year. Um and that sort of dictated what we call our WIN groupings. So, we when I mentioned the schedule just a moment
ago, we have groupings of students um based on their needs. So, what you see up here tonight is just each grade level. I don't want to get into the weeds about what the actual scaled scores are. That would be an entire another presentation. But, suffice it to say you can see last year's scaled score improvements um over the course of the
year. So, what you see is the improvement in each grade level from the uh the the fall assessment to the summer the kind of spring assessment where we are currently. And what you'll see is there was improvement and it was nice. But, what you'll see this year after our uh WIN blocks is that there's a
significant change. So, in grade six, we have 32-point increase. Grade seven, 23 points. And in grade eight, 28 points up as you can see um from each of the prior year uh each of those grades from the prior year. But, what we're really excited about is what you see in the bottom
graphic down there. We historically have had pretty good math scores. The the Garfield is a school that has higher math scores than the LA scores typically. And that was a problem last year. Um I think we had a bit of an implementation dip. But, one of the the traditional problems for our school is working with those students
who are at the lowest level, right? So, what you see up there is a quantile. So, excuse [clears throat] me. So, STAR breaks this into five groups, 20%. What we're really excited about is that you can see the lowest groups, our lowest performing students, had the highest outcomes in their scaled scores. So,
I don't really like to believe that there's a ceiling for student achievement, but there's a floor. So, what we're trying to do is lift that floor, and I think that what we can see over the course of this year is that we've had a really positive outcome for these students. And we attribute that primarily to our intervention block. It's a 55-minute block that every
student receives half of their days, and then they'll also get ELA, as I said. So, that was something that we were very excited about. Attendance outcomes. Over the course This is our year our month-to-month attendance outcomes this year versus last year. What you'll
basically see is September and December are the only 2 months where we had a lower attendance outcome than we had the prior year. What we're also very excited about is what you see in the final month here in June, where we're we're doing better by a 10% increase in
attendance. Um but the other interesting piece I think that you'll see that there's not a big change is in December and April. Um where those are typically times where families might pull their students out early to go for the holidays, whatever those might be. And so, we've worked hard to try to keep that number as stable as possible, but
we've seen improvements for all the months except for those two, um which we're very excited about. And again, comes back to our attendance team, who's working very hard with individual students and groups. Chronic attendance is uh clearly a a messy indicator, and that's chronic
attendance is about students who miss 10% of their enrolled days or more. So, over the past 4 years, we have slowly improved, but you'll see that this year right now we are on track to improve by 5 percentage points over last year. Which we're really excited about. Um we've seen a lot of hard work from from
all of our attendance team. Again, all of these incentives that we have going um clearly seem to be making a difference. I also believe that this relates to that student voice. When students have a choice in their academics, they're more likely to come to school. If we're going to be honest, they're not coming to school for science, math, ELA, social studies.
They're coming to school for those types of things that they like to do in their allied arts. So, getting that choice makes a difference. That was also a piece of our our intervention blocks, which I didn't mention. We have with that students who are performing above grade level, those students get an enrichment blocks. They get choice. They get choice of
activities. We saw those at our deeper learning showcase here at the high school, and we also had two showcases throughout the year for our families to come in and witness and see all the good work that our students have done over the course of the year. I think that's it.
I'll take any questions or remarks. >> I noticed that the sixth graders did better on the math when they were in the sixth, but then they dropped when they were in the eighth grade. >> I'm sorry? >> I noticed that the sixth graders have better marks than the eighth graders. The percentage >> It's the the number of points that
they've moved in this particular year. Yeah, it's different for every grade, sure. >> Yeah, I noticed >> And just to clarify, it was great the sixth graders had greater improvement. Yeah, than the eighth graders did. >> Did, yeah, that's what I noticed. >> Which has been an area of focus for us. >> All right, I went to Well, they were busy you there the other day, but you
wasn't around. You was you was flying back. >> It's very busy. >> Um Mr. Mr. Montro- Mr. Kingston and then Ms. Montroso. >> Uh I was just going to say I remember the beginning of the school year, you and your team came and you showed us all the things that you were looking to do and to see the data in just one school
year and how amazing the changes have been. It's just It is remarkable and it uh speaks to GMS not being one of the middle schools that we have to put a little bit more attention to. So, I want to give your whole team kudos to that. And I know I can I can pull this up through profiles
myself, but I'd love to compare where we are with the pre-pandemic chronic absenteeism because that huge drop either you might know this are we like below it? Are we where we were? >> We're not there yet, but that that is the goal. Right? Like we want to keep dropping that number. We need to get down into the lower double digits to
kind of approach that, but we're going to keep working on it. >> And I think next time you all come and show us that even change. I'd love to see how we're starting to compare to that pre-pandemic levels to see if that's just it really will show the amazing work that you all have been doing. So, kudos. >> Thank you. And thank you for recognizing
the rest of our team. This isn't about me. I just happen to present. They do all the hard work. It's not me. >> [snorts] >> Thank you, Mr. Kingston. I spend a lot of time at Garfield Middle School. The credit union provides financial literacy class there to sixth graders. And one of the best programs that I enjoy very much and I participate in cuz I volunteer is
the school store. Sixth graders are given Garfield bucks um for good behavior, for doing a good deed, for being kind. And Miss Shepherd and some other teachers um spend a lot of time um purchasing items. And then on Friday morning every other week um these items
are sold to students using their Garfield bucks. I generally [clears throat] drop something off myself just to try to help out, but I do show up for school store and take the kids' money and um they use their Garfield bucks and I It's a reward thing and I think it really works well cuz the kids want the money and they like the stuff that um Miss
Shepherd and her crew provide. And I really think it's a help. I don't know if they do it in the other two middle schools, but it was something that I I hope would um hope would be. I spend a lot of time at Garfield Middle and I'm very proud to be there. And I like a lot of the things that I see when I'm there. I don't really engage with anyone. I go
to class and leave class, but when I am there, I do see the students and um my greatest joy, to be honest, is to see a seventh or eighth grader that I had a couple of years ago and say, "Hey John." or give me a high five in the hallway. It's very nice. Um I just think there's a great culture there and I hope we I hope it continues. Thank you very much.
>> Miss Milberry Ellis. >> Thank you, Dad. I just have two questions. Um the first is you indicated that part of the um part of your efforts include calling parents as well as students. What's the students' response like when they receive phone calls from the school
directly? >> Well, it's probably probably best Mr. Horgan answers that question, but I think they're relatively positive and typically we get the students they they show up. >> They answer? >> They do. They do answer. You know, sometimes that means we have to send Mr. Maglione to the house and do a pickup,
but that's whatever it takes. It's important. >> You know, and I think the outcomes are also related to attendance. The more you're in front of a teacher, the better you're going to do in school. It's It's a simple equation, so it all fits together. >> Yeah, and I think it's just that it struck me because it's the first time that I'm hearing of a school, and I'm not saying it doesn't happen elsewhere,
but it's the first time I'm actually hearing of a school reaching out to students directly. I think it's a great use of the cell phones, right? Um and then the second the second question I had as as a non as a non-educator, I I'm curious as to what the intervention block looks like. Like is it Is it all different student like
all the students in one room? And how are those different needs being met? If you could just paint that picture, that would >> Yeah, that's a great question. Uh sorry I glossed over that. So, the way it works is this is a block it's all hands-on deck. So, this is to break out students into small groups um and work
on the skills or areas that they're you know, needing to work in. So, we have as many teachers as possible in that block. The biggest problem is scheduling and finding open rooms. We break them out into groups of like skills and things that they need to work toward. Um and then teachers meet once every 6
days typically to sort of reassess and see if a student Okay, that student has mastered this, we can move over to this group or so on. So, it's really dynamic grouping as well. >> And it's And it's I would assume it's um organized by grade, so all hands-on deck for grade six >> Correct. >> seven. Okay. >> Correct. And half of half that grade is
doing ELA, and half that grade is doing math, and they switch. >> Yep. Okay, great. Thank you so much. >> welcome. >> Good job. >> Thank you. >> And Mr. King, just to put a finer touch on that, for the students who are soaring, they're in acceleration during WIN block. >> They're in acceleration, what we call enrichment. This is where they often get
choice. They'll do robotics, they might do coding, they do financial literacy. Uh they have a number of things, but it's their choice. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay, good stuff. >> And Mr. Damiano. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Uh Mr. King, I just wanted to give you uh I wanted to commend you and say nice work.
Windblock wasn't a thing when I was a student. I'm a I'm a Gator alum. Hey, Ms. Berzal. Um we didn't have Windblock, but in modern in the modern school atmosphere, this is what is the students are responding to. So, I'm really happy to see how much improvement is occurring in
these types of things, and I really like the initiatives that you're that you're participating in. And great job. >> Thank you. I The The The work goes to the teachers and the rest of the staff. They do amazing work. We have a great staff at the Greenfield. >> Ms. Berzal. >> Principal King, I love you guys.
I I'm a special educator at a different at a high school in another district. My both [snorts] of my boys are at J.M. S. So, I'm a little biased. But, I did have two older kids that went to the two other middle schools. I I don't know I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is, but there's a secret sauce at J.M. S. that I just
can't put my finger on, and I'm just I'm so grateful for all of you that having an excellent experience. Mikey's leaving you this year and going to the high school. Um >> We can keep him if you want. I mean, we can make that [laughter] happen. >> I think he might want to stay. But, I just wanted to say thanks. You
guys are doing a fantastic job. As a teacher, as a mom, I'm just I want to give you kudos. Thank you very much for being awesome. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so >> Thank you so much. >> THANK YOU VERY MUCH. >> [applause] >> THE NEXT ITEM ON THE SUPERINTENDENT'S
REPORT IS A presentation from our early childhood department, and they're going to talk about early childhood improvement plan updates. And Director Lomas, who is sadly leaving us at the end of this year,
will spare will lead this presentation. >> Hi, friends. So, I scripted my stuff so that I don't go over my 10 minutes. So, I'm just going to go ahead and plow right in. So, good evening. Next slide, Dr. Kelly. Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor, uh members of
the School Committee, and Dr. Kelly uh for the opportunity to share about our pre-K program this this evening. I'm Melissa Lomax, your current director of early childhood programming, um and I will be off to Maine in a few short weeks. Um this evening I'll share >> what you're doing?
>> Oh, sure. >> Melissa is going to start her own early childhood outside school. We are all of those things outside. [applause] >> I'm really excited. I did not bake time for this into my presentation, but I'm happy to chat with anybody about what teaching a 3-year-old to make fire looks
like. Come find me. >> And when she has that all figured out, she's going to come back and share it with us. >> Yes, definitely. Um so, I'm going to share about our efforts to enact our department improvement plan um with a focus on our work with engaging all early childhood students, accurately
reporting their progress and growth, um and our work engaging families in the community, um also our work towards accreditation and opening our new early learning center. Um and I'll take any questions you all have at the end of the presentation. Um so, next slide, please. Uh oh. Yes, that's right. Um so, over
the course of the last 2 years, the EC team has spent time learning about and exploring using play as a driver of learning in our classrooms. Uh both our integrated and our substantially separate classrooms have spent time examining our blueprint curriculum from the Children's Literacy Initiative, uh
refreshing our knowledge of the pre-K standards for learning and play, and thinking deeply about how we can best use our curriculum to meet these standards. Uh teachers consistently monitor students for growth towards the standards. We focused this year on using the district's multi-tiered system of
support to better support our students who are who we are not reaching as well as we could. Uh over the course of this school year, we used the MTSS process to ensure that adjustments to teaching and planning practices were enacted so that curriculum and classroom activities were more accessible for all students.
Um our department supported three students through the MTSS process this year. All three were exited from the MTSS process as a result of the work of the team um in identifying the appropriate supports to close the gaps we were seeing in growth or finding the appropriate placement for the individual students. Um we've also thought a lot
about how to share what our students are doing with their families so that the tremendous growth we see in our students is clear to everyone. Um in pre-K we don't take tests, we don't take quizzes, there's no multiple choice anything. Um we rely really heavily on documentation
of what our students are doing. We focus more on the process than the product because it's in the process that we truly see the foundational skills of numeracy, literacy, and critical thinking flourish. Capturing these observations is very challenging. Um so our department spent the bulk of the
year working to develop and pilot forms that help us to capture student growth across the domains of pre-K learning. Um these forms were drafted by teachers and paraprofessionals collaboratively across all 10 early childhood classrooms um and they identify growth in literacy,
numeracy, fine and gross gro- fine and fine and gross motor skills, social-emotional development, and self-help skills. The forms are also responsive to the amount of time students spend in our program. And if they're in a full year or a partial year experience. At the end of several months of collaboration we use
uh and use we're confident that the forms that we've developed will help us to accurately share student progress with families, help to spark conversation during those family conferences, um and examples of the forms I linked them in the packet for you all to take a look at. If anyone needs access to those, please just let
me know. Um our future work in the area of teaching and learning is really focused on a more robust and authentic data collection process during the process part of the work uh that our pre-K students engage with. Um we're interested in capturing what students are doing as they're planning their
block structure or as they're deciding how to engage in the sensory table. By digging deeper into the how and the why of the choices the students are making during centers, we're better able to design learning opportunities outside of centers that can fill gaps in critical thinking skills or provide specific
practice for, you know, very specialized academic skills or social interactions or collaboration efforts. Um the team [clears throat] is super excited to continue to partner with the folks from Playful Learning Institute, um who are also working to identify consistent and effective data collection methods for center and station learning.
Next slide, please. Um all of our learning experiences, all of us, um they're built around relationships, collaboration, and sharing. Uh in the early childhood department, we believe that a family's first impression is a critical one, and our goal is for families to feel
welcomed from their very first interaction with our program and our district. After a family applies to our program, we reach out. It's typically me by phone uh to discuss their school choice, respond to any questions they might have, and to offer guidance for the registration process. In the past,
um the EC office has placed students with teachers based solely on available space. Like, "OH, THERE'S A SPOT THERE. Let's plunk them in." Um and their school preference, obviously. We recognize that creating class lists in this manner was not really yielding us the balanced classrooms we were looking for. And as such, we worked over the
past 2 years to implement a screening and intake process. Uh this new process provides us with additional information about students and families that helps us to build classrooms that are balanced and well-positioned to serve all of our students. We'll wrap up our spring screenings tomorrow, uh and teachers
will use the data collected from the assessments they completed with students, coupled with data that we received from families about their child's earlier learning experiences from birth to three, to build out the class lists. Any students not screened this spring will receive screening in the early fall before being placed in a
classroom. Um just like K-12, we enroll all year. Our goal is to be fully enrolled at all times, and as such we consistently pull from our wait list uh and accept applications to our program throughout the school year. We also recognize that joining a classroom for anybody after the start of
the school year can be challenging and can often raise feelings of insecurity and apprehension and nervousness, not just for the nugget, but also for the grown-up at home. Um we ensure that from the very beginning of the enrollment process, families are our partners. Both the integrated and substantially separate classrooms offer class visits
prior to students starting in the classroom, and we found that since implementing this practice across all classrooms, um the transition into the classroom for new students is calmer, more productive, and less anxiety-producing, again, both for the students and the grown-ups at home. Our next step is to layer in the
screening and family survey steps for families enrolling after the start of the year. So, I'm going to try to figure out logistically what that looks like to pass on for next year. Next slide, please. A unique feature of early childhood uh is parent and child time or packed. Um
Mr. Damiano, uh you are featured on my slide. Thank you so much. Packed, and that was unintentional. Uh that was completely You look entirely different in that picture than here, so that was completely unintentional. Um packed is a monthly opportunity for families and caregivers to actively participate in their children's learning
experiences. They create meaningful moments of connection, collaboration, and growth. Each classroom hosts this monthly event where families, caregivers, and children engage in hands-on activities alongside the students. Um activities may include storytelling, collaborative art projects, sensory play, early literacy
and math games, exploration and engineering, or imaginative dramatic play. The event is designed to spark curiosity and strengthen the bond between home and school. Parent and child time also nurtures a sense of community and belonging within the classroom, providing families and caregivers with an opportunity to
connect with other families, gain insight into classroom practices and routines and see for themselves how their children grow and learn. Through these interactions, families and caregivers build a deeper understanding of teaching and learning and gain knowledge and skills to extend learning beyond the classroom. The lessons and
activities used during parent and child time are packed or thoughtfully designed by classroom teachers, uh align with our current learning objectives in the classroom, and this intentional approach ensures that families and caregivers can share learning experiences with their children, and more importantly, gain knowledge and skills related to extending the learning at home.
Families and caregivers receive notification of the schedule of packed before the close of the first month, and reminders of the events are shared through classroom newsletters and Parent Square. Next slide, please. At the Lincoln School, thank you, Casey, for joining this evening and giving me moral support. Um >> Can I just Can I just shout out? So,
Casey Korea, one of our early childhood teachers, one of our fabulous ones from the Lincoln School, is here tonight as well. >> Um so, Casey, along with the uh Ms. Tanza and Ms. Tuxbury at the Lincoln, expanded the scope of their packed time this year to include opportunities to engage the larger community. Um the
third unit of blueprint, uh our curriculum, focuses on exploring the community. So, to align this theme, uh and to encourage connections and relationship building, the team at the Lincoln hosted a community forum. The team recruited community members who hold positions that the students have been learning about. They created a
series of stations where each station hosted a different community-themed activity. Uh and to increase opportunities for oral language development, they developed guiding questions for grownups to use at each station, and teachers were able to model facilitation of conversations across a group of pre-K kiddos, which can be
challenging at best. Uh typically, packed happens with an individual classroom. Uh the team at the Lincoln combined their classrooms for this forum and found that the experience uh yielded opportunities for additional connections between families from different classrooms. Anecdotally, all of our EC
classrooms have seen an increase in family engagement during packed, which is great evidence that what teachers are offering to families during this monthly opportunity is meeting their needs and providing the support they're looking for. We consistently ask ourselves as a department if we're meeting the expectations of our families and we believe, based on this anecdotal
evidence, that pact is a piece of our programming that families highly value. Next slide, please. We're not just interested in what they think about pact though. We want to know if families believe we are meeting expectations across our program. As such, we've asked our families again this year through a survey that we sent
home in all four languages a series of questions regarding their level of satisfaction with our current program. Families could select always, sometimes, or never as responses to the questions and I compiled all of that into slides for you and added them as a supplement cuz it's hard to see on the
screen and I figured you could dig in better that way. I'm happy to report that the vast majority of our families report that they feel informed about and included in our program, which honestly is my biggest goal. Additionally, families report that they are comfortable consulting with their child's teacher and confident that their
child's relationship with their teacher is positive and supportive and that they feel their child is safe at school. The big request from families, shocker, is a longer school day and the before-and-after care as is evidenced by some of their comments that I've shared. This year's survey's results are similar
to last year's and continue to be encouraging and signal to us that many of our practices are positively received. Next slide, please. Just two last quick pieces. First, quick update on McKinley. The transformation has begun.
You were all at groundbreaking in April or many of you were. So we've moved from the design to the construction phase. The entire EC department is very excited to see what the building will look like at the close of the construction phase and they're eager to move in when the school opens hopefully in the fall of
2027. I hope my school is also opening at the same time. Maybe we can FaceTime each other. Maybe I might even come back and see it, which would be really fun. And last slide, please. Um finally, we've started the process of becoming accredited through the National Association for the Education of the
Young Child or NAEYC. Um we've been accredited in the past. However, since our last accreditation period, the process for accreditation has changed completely. Um the smaller graphic on the side on this slide shows the full process for moving from recognition to accreditation
to accreditation plus. Um uh the association has added the initial step of recognition to the entire process. Um the larger graphic illustrates the expectations of the recognition step, and the EC department spent this year examining our practices, reflecting on
our work uh in order to provide the necessary documentation to apply for recognition through NAEYC. We worked collaboratively collaboratively across all 10 classrooms to collect evidence of our work, and then we submitted this evidence to demonstrate our alignment with NAEYC's expectations of a high-quality early
learning experience. The review of the documentation takes between 6 and 8 weeks, um at which time they will let us know of our if our application is complete uh and if we are a candidate to move to the next step of the accreditation process. I am fully confident, based on what I saw that we
submitted cuz I submitted it, um that we will achieve recognition and be well positioned uh to pursue the next steps for NAEYC accreditation moving forward. Um and just a side note, we have a few spots left for pre-K for next year. So, if there's any families listening, send us your application and we'll get you we'll get you started.
And that is all. I hope I was under my time. >> Thank you. Uh Miss Miss Milbury Ellis. >> Um so, can you explain to us what what are the benefits of being accredited? >> Um there used to be like a ton of benefits for being accredited. This is
basically just like a good job. Um it doesn't really qualify us for grant money or anything like that. They don't look at that the same way that they used to. Um 10 years ago, I helped to accredit a program in Dorchester, totally different. Um different process, different everything,
but was tied to a lot of grant funding. Um, my understanding in the research that I've done about grants is it's not a required step. It is a nice to have. It is something that does signal to families and the broader community that what we're providing is high quality, that it meets the standards that NAEYC puts out there, which are fairly
rigorous standards. Um, but I don't know that it really gives you anything special. >> Thank you. And then the the other question I had The other question that I had was, um, you know, like other communities, enrollment is down and I'm just wondering if you felt that effect
in our enrollment. >> We have a wait list for Lincoln right now. Um, we have one spot open at Beachmont in the morning for next year and we have three spots open at Garfield and I can't remember like if they're one and two or two and one, so I don't want to misquote. But yeah, I think we have less
than five spots available for next year. >> And and how many Oh, okay, less than five spots available. And how long is the wait list? How many? >> Um, right now we've got three people waiting for Lincoln. >> Okay. That's the That's the extent of the >> Wait list right now. Yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> No problem. >> Mr. Kingston.
If you weren't going to Maine, I'd send my grandson to your school. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. >> I I really appreciate If you if if you've listened to her speak, she you hit play and it just goes. And I I think it's amazing. I know you're a very hard worker and I'm going to miss you very much. I've told you that in person.
Um, I appreciate all you've done for the early childhood program and I wish you the as as much success as I can wish you in the future, but if you ever decide to come back and I'm still sitting here, you as far as I'm concerned to take you back in a heartbeat. I appreciate that, Mr. Kingston. >> Thank you. Thank you.
>> Ms. Monterosso. >> I mean, I'll take the spot in two years if Mr. Kingston doesn't want it, but, um, these questions are not just for Nico. So, my So, you're saying we have a wait list for one school, but we have spots open in other schools. Why is that? Like
>> Um, basically people choose their preference, which >> Oh, okay. >> Which school they would like. So, you can choose between the Lincoln, the Garfield, um or the Beachmont. Um and right now there's just a higher demand at the Lincoln. >> So, if that parent if those parents on the waitlist wanted a spot, they could
move if they chose. >> that's I I spend quite a lot of time on the phone explaining like, "Do you want me to put you on the waitlist? Do you want the Garfield spot? Do you want the Beachmont spot?" And I call back, "Hey, so those spots not open at the Lincoln. What do you think about the Garfield?" So, I try to, you know, help The most
important thing is get the kid in the building, right? >> Okay. And is it first come or a lottery? >> It is first come. >> And what did you mean when you said full year or partial year? >> So, because we enroll throughout the entire year, we're not going to rate you against a scale
the same scale that someone has been here for all of the age three and half of age four. It just doesn't seem like it's painting a accurate picture of your growth. You've only been with us for a month and a half. We're going to give you a diff- Not that we're rating you on different things, but our expectations for where
you are towards that goal are vastly different. So, we've tried to really customize those conference forms so that the conversations can be richer with families. >> Okay. And then what are our current hours? >> Uh right now we are running 8:05 to 10:35 for our morning session for the
integrated program and 11:35 to 2:05 for the afternoon session. >> So, >> And if I if I could why [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Um so, I think one of the things that um inhibits parents from bringing their child to a school that's in a different
part of the city is it's such a short >> Yeah. >> time period. And what we are hoping with the um opening of the McKinley school is that we'll be able to serve more students for a longer period of time, which will engage more kids in the early childhood programs.
>> So, McKinley is intended to be full day? >> We're working on it. I'm not going to promise anything just yet, but that is our goal is to have more full-time uh early childhood programming. Uh >> And why do we have like these two
shifts? Like two two hours is is nothing. >> So remember that remember that our purview is K-12. And that early childhood lives outside of um the work that we're doing. But we understand the critical importance of
early childhood education and we are required to provide early childhood programming for students who have IEPs. So that's where our early childhood work comes from. Um but even our chapter 70 funding technically is for K-12, not for early childhood. So that's where
we we we're trying to um walk that fine line between what we're allowed to contribute to, what we can afford from parents paying tuitions, and keeping that tuition at a level that's accessible for families. >> And ensuring we can serve all of the
students on IEPs that we're required to serve. So if we have two if we have a morning session and an afternoon session, that means each classroom can serve 14 special education kids each day. But if we had a full day because of ratios and state guidance, they could only serve seven students.
>> And my last question is then where are we when we hear the governor talk about universal pre-K being one of her top priorities and funding? And I know that Revere has been quoted on we don't have space to go after the funding, but >> And that's the McKinley is going to
change that game for us entirely. >> So will McKinley allow us to go after the dollars being put out for early childhood? >> That's right. >> And you're going to help us get it. All right? >> Oh, is it on them? Sorry.
>> Miss Mr. Feliciano. >> I want to thank you a lot. You were so great with my daughter in the Hill School. Thank you. Thank you very much. She loved you. When I told her you were leaving, she was sad. So thank you for being a great principal. And I'm hearing you now for I wish my grandkids some of
my grandkids would have had you. You would have done very great good job with them, too. Thank you very much. >> I I I learned a lot from Mary Ellen. I did. And and yeah, I'm really proud of how much she's grown. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Mr. Damiano.
>> Thank you, Mr. Mayor, through you. Uh great job. Just got to offer you some recognition. Um I I have a kindergartner and a preschooler right now, so I >> Yeah, we share the We have the same birthday. Just saying. >> Yeah, that's right. I I know you know that. Um And I didn't
>> No, I did I called I called the family when I saw his birthday. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I have the same birthday as Jack." >> Um I didn't know I was going to be famous. I didn't know I was going to be part of your presentation. I also want to just put it out there really quick. The woman making ice cream is Mrs. Damiano, and uh she does take orders.
Um we love Pack Time. So, that's really what I wanted to comment on, and we are just as noted in your presentation, we're super supportive of it. Um specifically though, those these new community Pack Times that we've we've had this year have been outstanding, and I know she's
in the room, she's in the back. I know Casey is a huge piece of >> Instrumental, yes. >> I just can't say enough good things about it. We've seen an uptick in in PTA involvement. We've just The kids are all playing together. Like it's It was awesome. And then the most important thing is they got to experience the
community. This is when the school became more than just school. It became a community. We were all in there. We had the firefighters. We had uh Brian Brennus was in there. And they just They're seeing the same people over and over. Now they're comfortable. Now they're familiar. And they're going
to grow up here, and they're going to just They're going to They're going to belong. So, thank you. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. >> Thank you. Great presentation. >> Thank you. THANK YOU, EVERYONE. >> [applause] >> I JUST WANTED TO I DIDN'T PUT IT IN MY POCKET, BUT I JUST wanted to share our 2026 college graduates.
>> Sure. If you give them to Vanessa, she can pass them down for you. Uh Mr. Mayor, the final uh presentation in the Superintendency report is from our guidance department um and its focus is on early college graduation graduates
um and achieving the college dream. Um she has a dream team with her, Ms. Lillian Parker, who's our director of guidance and um a bunch of other stuff. Uh and I'll let you introduce your team, Lillian. Go ahead. >> Hi. Thank you um
Mayor Sorry. Thank you, Mayor Keefe, um Dr. Kelly and School Committee. Um thank you for having us. Um I just wanted to come um and present on early college with my team. So, as Dr. Kelly said, my name is Lillian Parker. I'm the director of counseling. And I have my colleague with me. I'm Megan Hatsunaka. Um I'm the
early college coordinator. Um and we have two of our graduates. We had our first early college graduating group. Um and I also want to thank them for coming here today because Miriam had orientation all day today. So, Mom, Miriam, they're tired.
And Florencia has the same uh orientation tomorrow. So, um I'm going to let them also just introduce themselves now as well. >> Hi. My name is Florencia. Um I did early college. Started early college my sophomore >> Florencia, will you just go up to the
mic so that the people at home can hear you? >> Um I started early college my sophomore year and I did full-time senior year. I finished early college with 40 credits. And it really helped a lot. Got to save some money for my family. Being the
oldest is very important because I had to set an an example for my little siblings. And got to, YOU KNOW. >> [applause] >> UH I'M GOING TO SALEM STATE FOR NURSING. Um I have my orientations tomorrow very early.
It's very long. Um it Early College held me alive. Really did not know what I wanted to do in the future. I know I wanted to go to college, but I didn't know the path that I wanted to go down. So, my first year we did this one class called intro to
early um intro to early education. And in that class, she set the professor set up a lot of Zoom meetings with different people from different fields to tell us about their experience, how many years they took to like get into that field and everything. So,
one There was this one lady, she did nursing and she told me about like the nursing and stuff and I was like, "Okay, yep, I'm doing nursing. This is what I want to do." And I told my parents and they were like, "Okay, yeah, we support you." And then I was like, "Yeah, I'm doing Early College and I'm going to stay in that program." And
they were fine with it. And every day my mom was like, "Oh, did you hear back from Salem State yet? When is your orientation?" >> [laughter] >> Thank you. >> [applause] >> SO, MY NAME IS MARIAM ABUTAWI and I also
started the Early College program my sophomore year. I always knew I wanted to do something in biology or science, but I wasn't sure what specialty. So, throughout this program, I was able to discover what was my passion, what I
wanted to major in. I'm also a student at Salem State for nursing as well. And um I just think that this is really a really good program because it opens up a lot of doors and thankfully because of my 45 credits, I was able to knock
off a semester off of my four-year bachelor's. And I was also able to start my nursing courses my first semester of fall. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> DO WE HAVE SO, JUST EXPLAIN A LITTLE BIT WHAT EARLY college is. Um if anybody doesn't know
what it is, it's to have students be able to have the ability to be enrolled in two different um educational institutions, so the secondary um institution as well as a higher ed institution. Um so, we have a partnership with Northshore Community College. Um and the credits apply both to the high
school graduation requirements as well as some um go to the um college graduation requirements. Um And then, next slide, please. >> Um so, I think the greatest thing about early college is, you know, the equitable
access, the opportunity that it provides for our students. Um we have two incredible students right here. Um you know, college it just gives them an opportunity to explore, um take different classes that they may we may
not have at RHS. Um especially it's funny cuz coincidentally they both happen to be um going into Salem State, the nursing program. Um yeah, right? Uh with Mass Transfer, it's such, you know, a great situation because they were able to take their
prerequisite nursing classes this year um at RHS uh well, as an RHS student, and they travel to Northshore Community College um every single day. So, while seniors in high school, they could take those nursing prerequisite classes. Um the
program is open to all. It starts uh their sophomore year. We we do recruiting our freshman year. Um meet with the students. Um we send out a a contract, meet one-on-one with the students, make sure that they are committed um or that they understand what they're getting into taking college classes while they're
still in high school. Um and the students have the opportunity to continue taking classes 10th, 11th, 12th grade. Um for the students who take the high school classes here at uh the college classes here at Rivier,
um by the senior year if they stay in our program, they can earn up to 30 college credits. Um and we also have the professors that will come on campus here, too. So, in the spring we had 14 college classes running while um at RHS with our
um teachers uh running what we call college academic time blocks. So, uh the RHS teachers would support um our college students in this study hall um college support class. Um so, you
know, I think that's really big for us is to get the entire community involved um for their college taking career. >> And most of these most of these courses are transferable, so they mass transfer to all the state schools, and then most private schools take them as well. We
have kids going to Suffolk and Northeastern this year, um and they were um transferred to those schools. Next slide. >> Um so, I think you know, the biggest thing especially for families is that they're saving time and money in our
program. Um the early college program, we pay for their college courses and all the materials. So, we pay for textbooks. If students need posters, we'll pay for that, calculators, whatever it is. Um lots of students needed lab goggles um
in the full-time um science classes that many students took. Um and then just looking at the seniors, it cost um the estimate cost is up to up to $6,000 in saving per student through this program.
>> Um so, early so, early college, as you heard from the students, it helps them find pathways. Many of these students don't know what they want to do after um high school and you know, a lot of them freshman and sophomore year of college are still trying to figure out. Some of these students as we can see find their pathway. They build self-confidence.
They might not know they want to go to college and with this program they're like, I can do this. This is doable. Especially this was our first cohort of seniors and 16 of them did go to the Northshore college campus and we're full-time Northshore college students.
Um It helps to close the gaps that we have achievement gaps. Um It gives them just like real college experience. So that was really nice to see this year. >> Um and then just referring to the slides right now, we've really seen that there are three different types of early
college students. So you know, if you're wondering if this program is right for you or your child or you know, recommend it. Um we have searchers, savers and strivers. So some students just you know, they thought about taking college classes. They're not sure if college is right for them. We really encourage
those types of students to join early college. Um some students are trying to save as much money as possible. So they want to take as many college classes as they can um so that we can be you know, like some like these girls who are going
to transfer in almost a year into uh Salem State with their transfer credits. Um and then we have our strivers and those are our students who are taking the most rigorous courses at our HS already. So they might be taking honors, AP classes, dual enrollment classes which are college classes that are
outside of the school hours. Um They are taking these classes to look you know, the most rigorous for those competitive schools. So we will take all different types of learners in our early college program.
>> Um 56 of our seniors this year earned 12 credits or more which is almost a semester. so that we were really grateful for that. And 24 of them received um Dean's List, which is a 3.3 GPA. Um and I think it would have been a lot um higher, but um you need to be taking
two classes at one time, and a lot of our seniors dropped down to one early college class first semester to fit in some other classes that they really wanted to take. Um so that saved an estimate of $390,000. Um if they went to UMass, it would have been $1.28
million just to put it in perspective. Um and the students in that last picture, we had our first early college recognition ceremony um about a month ago, where we celebrated all students that received 12 college credits or higher through our program. Um because
the data really shows that if a student receives 12 college credits or more, then they're more likely, I think it was seven times more likely to persist in in college after their freshman year. Yes. Oh, really?
Um and then again, so these are two of our 16 senior students. We started a pilot program this year, which is funny cuz early college is only like 2 and 1/2 years old, but we started another pilot program. >> [laughter] >> Um so we had our 16 students go on to
the um Danvers and Lynn campus um as a cohereted group, so they would take an English class together, but then the rest of their classes were gen pop in the college classes. Um and I was their advisor, so I met with them once a week at the beginning just to make sure if
like you wouldn't believe that first week of like, "Where is my class? I don't know where this is." So you know, just those little things that you don't expect um or like, "How do I buy a textbook?" Right? So um so it's really great to have um somebody from the high school there
to help with you since it's your first time on a college campus. So actually you're the 45 plus college credits in the in the first bullet point and many of the students are one semester away from receiving their
associates. So I think about five or six of them are staying next year to finish up their associates and either transfer over or radiology is really big. So a lot of students are going to try for the radiology program from there. I think the biggest thing that we want
to reiterate is that 100% of our students in our early college program applied to college and enrolled into a college. We're working on financial aid too. So our goal is to hopefully get 100% financial aid and FAFSA completion through us as well.
And then we connect them to post-secondary advising through Trio and other programs in our program as well. Since we we have you two here, would you like to talk a little bit more about what it was like as your first experience? What was it
like being on campus? >> Being on campus, we started at Danvers, the college in Danvers. It was really nice. We got a tour of course. The school is really nice. We My favorite part was the library because like in between classes I would
go to the library, sit down and study. And sometimes we would have tests in the library. So it was really nice to know where you know the test rooms were. And the teachers are really nice. My classes were really close together. I didn't really I didn't get lost.
All my classes were in one building. There was like two three buildings. I don't know. I lost count. I didn't struggle. Right, Mom? I didn't struggle finding my classes. But it was really nice. I really liked the Danvers, but when we got to
Northshore, it was really really really nice. It was I think I think it was bigger. My professors are really nice as well. We had this thing I forgot where the students the sophomores came in and we
had to talk to them and I was so scared at first. I was like, "Oh my goodness, what am I going to tell these people?" And then when they came in and they were like, "Oh, how do you guys like the early college? What classes are you taking?" And I'm like, "They want advice from me?"
So, I was really happy. I was really proud of myself at that moment. I was like, "Okay guys, I made it." And then I was I was so excited. They were coming up to me personally like, "Oh, what classes did you take for nursing? Um what classes are harder? Um how many days does the teachers usually
give you to study and this and this?" And I was like, "You do this, this, and that. You'll be good." They'll be like, "Okay, I thought it was way harder than that." I'm like, "I promise you it was not. You'll be good." >> [laughter] >> Okay, thank you. >> Um I had a really great experience as
well in the Danvers campus as well as the Lynn campus. Um during the Danvers campus, I learned to manage my time and make sure I'm always there for my classes even with uh longer break periods in between and I made sure to get all my work done while I was on
campus. And the Lynn campus was also very beneficial because I had more flexibility in my schedule and I was able to commute to like have classes in the morning and then come back in the afternoon for my other classes. Um we
were also able to sit in a setting with other college students. They could be adults or um college like uh graduates. And it was just really um really beneficial to learn from others and it
gave us uh like it it made me become more responsible of my work and I was able to register for my classes on my own, make all my choices. So, I felt like a college student while still being a high school
student. And I really want to thank Ms. Hatsunaka and everyone else who made this possible cuz it really changed my high school career. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> WE HAVE ALL THE DATA IN THE UM SLIDES. I'm going to let you look at that, but
um we just wanted you to hear from the students cuz I think that's the most important, but if anyone has any questions for us. >> So, about ooh, DK, maybe you can help me with this. About 11 years ago, I stood before this board about dual enrollment. Do you remember that? >> was, yeah. Yeah.
>> So, my son Shane, who's now 26, was the only one at Bunker Hill back then when it was Bunker Hill. And it was a very loose arrangement. They didn't come to campus. There was so many rules and regulations. It wasn't accessible. Um you know, there was just a breakdown of accessibility. Once I brought it to
the board, it was like it kicked it up, you know, and so we were able to finally put somebody on it. Like, this is your job. Figure this out and and and uh Dr. Kelly was all about it. To see what it's turned into. That first year after I came, it went from Shane
>> I was going to say, I think Shane started college before we had dual I think he was already doing it before we had dual enrollment, yeah. >> I went to the enrollment dual enrollment liaison at Bunker Hill and sat in the process his >> freshman, yeah.
>> Um and so, he graduated with I think it was a little 40 I want to say 43 credits. Something like that. Yes. And so, um we we fight it up and I think we got um Oh, I can't remember her name on it, but Mr. Mitchell at the time, Jonathan
Mitchell was the principal at the time, he got on it. So, to see this is just amazing. But, that first year, that's what I was saying, Shane was one and within a year we were at 20-ish and then boom, to see this explosion, I am I'm just I love this so much. So, thank
you. I'm I'm so excited. You girls, this is just an amazing beginning for you. Um what a what a leg up that we're able to send you out into the world with. Amazing. Keep going, make us proud as you already have. Congratulations and thank you ladies very much.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Miss Monterroso. >> I mean, I I love to see the number of students completing their associates. I think I've shared this before, I graduated my associates a week before graduating from high school and it's why I continued um with my college education
because the dual enrollment, the early college, the AP classes, and knowing our district offers all of it is really exciting. I think it's also really good that you're pushing towards the goal of 100% faster completion because we know that's one of the top priorities of the new graduation requirements. And I think
we're really advocating to make sure that that requirement is one that comes with state funding for districts to really be able to put in the support. So, hoping to be able to bring in that news um in a few years to the district, but amazing work. >> It's Mr. Cajigal.
Congratulations to both of you. But, the question I want to ask you is there a cap on how many credits you can get in your 10th, 11th, and 12th? Do they cap it off or is it basically unlimited? >> Is it Are you referring to us or the college? >> For the college for you to be transfer
uh for the high school to to have transferable credits to the college. >> Yeah, so it it really depends on um the college or university. Uh with mass transfer, they will typically take all of the college credits, but you know, when you have a specialized program like
nursing, they want you to take their nursing classes. So, um they're able to take all of their pre-req classes, you know, every college still requires English, math. So, they can take those here. Um and those will typically transfer. Not always with the private
schools, but I think um early college is just getting bigger and bigger. So, um when I first started doing this work, there was a lot of advocating to the private schools to try to you know, inform them what early college is and the benefits to it. And so, like we've seen that they're
starting to take more credits um because of that. >> Thank you. >> And if I can just add to that, we've had students who have done the early college program and gotten all of the credits there that are available to them through early college and then also elected to
do dual enrollment classes on top of that. So, we have had kids before who have graduated with associate degrees or um you know, more than a semester of credits. Um there are a lot of students who are very self-motivated and that's the kind of personality you need to have
to do that kind of advanced level work, but we have them. It's great. >> The modern-day Doogie Howsers. Right there. I mean, I'm dating myself a little bit, but but they >> [laughter]
>> Listen, I'm going to take ages over here. Well, I'll be okay. The um you know, Ms. Baricella was right in when this program started. I remembered hearing about it. Um my kids didn't take advantage of it and I and I I would I I I think that they took advantage of
other programs the city offered uh and the schools offered and they got a wonderful education, but one thing I want to say to you as I say to them, you've already made us proud and I know you're making your parents proud. Now, go make yourself proud. Okay? CONGRATULATIONS.
>> [applause] >> IT'S NOT A QUESTION, GIRLS. I want to thank you want to thank you. We are short of nurses in the in Massachusetts and I think the world. I want to see you at Mass General Brigham and Women's taking care of me. Make sure of that. Take good care of me when I go, okay?
We need a ballot. >> All right. >> And that concludes the superintendent's report. >> Thank you. Great. Okay. So, that's it for the superintendent report. Do we have any motions? Any hearings? >> Motion to adjourn.
>> Yeah. Call it what you get here. [laughter] Good idea. I like what you're thinking though. Uh any unfinished business? No new no new business? All right. Do I have a motion to adjourn? >> Motion. >> A second? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Have a good night.