--------- thank you uh good afternoon this is a ways and means subcommittee meeting I am the chair I'm John Kingston on this committee with me is Anthony cajano and Stacy Bronson Rizzo um Miss Rizo I think will be arriving late um she had a
previous uh appointment um there's three things on the agenda the first one is School transportation the second one is Middle School Lottery and the third is additional classroom space of the gville Middle School school transportation my concerns are that the obviously Transportation has become a kind of a I
won't call it a budget Buster but Extreme um expense to the district and I thought or my thinking was that if the Middle School Lottery was replaced and we went to more of a neighborhood School concept that we would save some money I realized the superintendent presented us with um some
cost saving options the only thing and my fault from not getting back to you sooner um more I looked at this there was one there was one um scenario that I would have liked to have seen was we have the lottery plus one mile um the
cost on that is a million n The Lottery Plus a two mile radius um we would save $952,000 off the one 1.9 million and the second um scenario was no lottery in two miles we'd save you'd have to add the
952 plus the 317 which would be about a million two the the the next scenario and I didn't ask R I'll take that as on me was the lottery and a one mile radius I'm sorry the lottery no lottery in a one mile radius
of busing because we only have the one mile and the two so that would be something that I'd like to see I do think um I would like to see the lottery go away I think to try to save some money on Transportation costs number one number
two um there's numerous trips made by parents back and forth across the city I did have a ton of parents talk to me about that um you know they're not they're not as concerned about the busing cost as maybe I am but they were more saying the trips the parent trips back and forth picking up their students
and what that does to traffic in the city and getting across the city to pick up your student on time just with the traffic in the city so I believe it's too late to make any I believe it's too late and welcome to talk to anyone who would like to discuss it I think it's too late to do anything this year but I
really think it's something that we need to look at for next year um because um just because of the cost and also the transportation just the the parent transportation of moving kids across the city and what maybe a neighborhood a more of a neighborhood School concept
would help with uh with traffic and with saving some costs I know Mr K has yeah two do have a question for Matt can I go for Matt can you explain to us um how the the I believe and please correct me
if I'm wrong and please add to my whatever information I have the city actually does the paying of the bill we just administer the busing program right there's two different realities that it's the city's responsibility to foot the bill or to
make it happen schoolwise one is the buildings themselves two is getting kid to the buildings so they provide the facilities they get the kids to the school and then the school department is responsible from there for Ed everything
education related the reason that we end up intersecting with them in these conversations is it just makes pragmatic sense for the school department to be invested in the running of the program because we're in touch with school start
times pupil counts principal special needs special transportation so the city basically says hey we know it's our responsibility to get the kids to school how much is it going to cost you to do that this year we have to foot
that bill and then you can run that program for us so that that's the nature of that intersection which means it's a collaborative effort so who decides on the two mile radius us or the school I the city
Side the school the school committee decid decides what the structures and policies are around the schools and then the city is obligated within that structure to provide transportation according to state law which includes for any student who lives more than two
miles from their school um and any student who has Transportation requirements through their individualized education plans so okay so so any money I just to be clear any money savings on Transportation doesn't come back to the schools that's City
money which of course we should no we're trying to do our best yeah so my question is if the city decided to go to the two mile distance and say we're not going to pay the one mile right is that it's not in their purview to do that that's the school
committee's purview okay so they can't so and I'm not saying they are but if they said to us you're going to go to the two mile because that's the state law we we'd have some say in that yeah okay I'm just not sure I'm not sure how that works because it hasn't come up yet
it's come up a few times it might have predated you John but um probably it did come up um a few years ago when they were looking at going to the two miles um because we used to provide transportation for everybody um and that was super
expensive and to to cut that back um we went to the two mile rule for high school kids uh and the school committee at the time voted to keep it at one mile from middle school because they're younger and yeah no problem crossing highway and you know all of those pieces
played into effect U but that's why we have the two mile Rule now at the high school we used to just let anybody who wanted to get on a bus great no answer okay oh I'm sorry I'm done the moment one question I wanted to ask is what would be the impact if the committee
decides not to go to a lottery what impact would have have in classrooms so when we if we are going to look at this next year one of the impact i' like to be before I vote on it is would I increase the size of classrooms in certain areas and what can we do to keep
it down do we have supplemental busing to even things out or anything that's one of my biggest concerns when we do that and then if we decide or city sentence made it goes to two miles which I would never be in agreement with is we
have a lot of kids crossing highways which is not a good situation yeah but when we do sit down and look at this more and uh can we have also how it impact the classrooms yeah so I did pull some data that I sent you um last night
and it's on the sheet that says data on Middle School selections um and there are two tables there and the first one um this is just this year's data because I thought one of the things you might want to start thinking about is um what parents the
reaction that parents are going to have because I appreciate that there are some parents who would rather have their kid in their neighborhood school and not have to worry about the traffic the way that John articulated I think there are some other parents who are going to fail differently um we have calls all the
time from parents who don't want to go to their neighborhood elementary school because some other Elementary School is actually on their way to work and they can drop the kids there and you know we have uh policies in place where they can appeal to be in a non- neighborhood school and we abide that whenever we can
um I think you'll see the same kind of thing happening at the middle school there's a lot of different reasons why folks select their first choice school but just to give you some of that information in this year's Lottery which Dr mber is going to be talking about at the regular meeting um of the 527
students who are in the going to be in the lottery and that's not all of the fifth graders because some of them have unique places placements due to their um special education needs and some of them are owed to go to a particular school because they have a sibling at that school and then there's the employee
preference for if there's a a fifth grad or whose parent Works in a particular building um we allow them preference to go to that school as well so it you see 527 is the number included in the lottery of those 141 picked Garfield
Middle School for their first choice 218 picked the r Marsh and 168 chose the Susan banthony so that's just a way to show the imbalance in how people select which school they want to go right go to and um I think we talked a little bit
about this last time like they don't necessarily have to have a selection if we come up with a way to say we're going to have neighborhood middle schools um then we can look at it from that lens as well and um so the bottom graph on that page it shows sixth grade enrollments by
area of the city and we talked a little bit internally about what would make sense if we were going to have quote unquote neighborhood schools um and just based on proximity it made sense that the Beachmont and the Garfield would go to Garfield Middle for proximity and
that the Lincoln and the whan would go to the Susan B Anthony which means that the hill and the Paul R would go to the rney marsh that's how we could rearrange it and have the the least distance
between home and uh Elementary neighborhood school and middle school um but if you look at that data there's it's also skewed that means that for just using this year as an example there are 149 fifth graders at the Garfield and the
Beachmont by contrast there are 202 at the Lincoln and the whan so that makes for very different class sizes in those two schools and it means that the Garfield Middle School would
have much smaller class sizes Susan be Anthony and we could definitely redistribute staff a little bit to try to reduce those class sizes but as we know all of our schools are overcrowded there's no school in this District that's not overcrowded um and so trying
to make more classrooms have more teachers isn't as easy as it might be in some other districts so there's a lot to consider um I I agree with um folks who have spoken on this already that maybe
is a good time to really think through all of this um and and come to any kind of a conclusion that we can um prior to next year's lottery I would think that we would need to um really think this through and have a decision by December
so that we could communicate it to parents and families and they would understand if there were going to be any changes what those changes were going to be with adequate time to make their own plans and maybe a timeline for this building as well yeah you know yep isn't
that what Aisha asked last time because it could be counterintuitive I think the word was that you used counterproductive yeah yeah to to make a big change now and then yeah and I think that is a good question probably to include the mayor in I know that so as Matt just um very
clearly articulated the upkeep of the buildings any of that work also is the burden of the city and we know that they have accepted an enormous burden for us in the the building of the new high school um I don't know at what point
they're going to have an appetite to take on another it wouldn't be it would be minuscule in comparison cost-wise but it would still be I would I would guess and Carl we talked about this with the design team when we first started the process of um the whole high school
project back in 2016 2017 and at then they at that point they thought it would be about $20 million I'm going to guess that would be like $40 million today and so I don't know exactly I can't speak for the city on when they're going to have the appetite to take on
that additional cost do you think do you think the um do you think the transportation costs are going to be significantly less if and when this becomes a Central Middle School as opposed to having the three the the
three different schools I think it will help some what we're never going to escape is the challenge of uh the geography of the city where the point of pines and North rivere are really far away from the city center and so the
kids that live in those two areas in particular um will always have a distance to travel to school um even when this is a Central Middle School that we'll we'll still have to make sure those kids are able to get tuned from school but the volume of of buses that
would be required would be reduced yeah and I think that Max um Matt put this first page together that John was talking about a minute ago y um if you look at the at the at the no Lottery two mile radius on the bottom of the page it only requires right now six
buses to get the kids to those middle schools and that's based on if we did Beach M and Garfield go to Garfield um Hill and Paul re go to the rney Lincoln and whan go to the Susan
banthony um so those six buses are significantly fewer and you can see the three that go to Susan B Anthony that's primarily the kids who live in North Rivier and um the three that are going to rney Marsh are taking the Paul rier kids from point of Pines to rney Marsh
that's where those six buses are coming from they're coming from those two remote areas of the city um and you know so there would be some savings if the school committee decided to go to a Lottery 2 mile radius rule but it would
still mean that that you'd have a whole lot of kids like think of the Beachmont kids who don't live in point of Pines they're still crossing a highway to get to the Garfield and so that's a decision that the school committee has to make if they're if that's something they want to but legally we don't even have to bus
them oh unless they're more than two miles right right yeah true do we know how many students fall in that range like how many students were busing that fall outside of the Matt might know because he the requirement yeah I don't know the
student account but I know that the number of buses these are our best estimates of what it would be and uh also don't forget like whatever the count is of kids that can go on the bus say it's say it's 40 per bus for a
middle school age well if you have 81 kids you need a third you need a third bu no matter what so you're you're the three could be two in a year where you have to not or it could be four in a year if there's six big families that are not living in North Rivia that
weren't there before right just just thinking about the transportation cost do we do we do anything um where like we would offer parents money to take their kids drive their kids to school yeah especially our special needs kids because that's where the bulk of our
cost is yeah and we have a lot of parents who sign up for that it can be it depends often those kids have some significant physical um needs that have to be met and so if the parents don't have the converted van that allows for a
wheelchair especially for the older kids once they hit middle school then they can't transport them anymore but a lot of them do transport Elementary I know know well two two summers ago I did some analytics coursework and focused on this problem
yeah and it kicked out some you know suggestions that we have implemented one of which is you contact every parent possible you explain who it is that could drive their student to school not just mother and father and you see if
there is interest there yeah and then there is a threshold in which it is worth it for us to uh just buy the buy the vehicle ourselves but it's a much higher threshold than you would imagine analytically and so even though our
bidding seems exorbitant when you look at the cost per run and you compare it to that you say it's still better for us to hire the vendor right than have to figure out insurance where do we put it how do we get the capital purchase who's driving it who's the backup driver so we really have done all that we're doing
and but we could did the analysis Matt did the I think you you were both here when he did the analysis of should we hire do it internally one questions why don't we have our own Fleet and right the the the
a price point there where you would do it but the price point doesn't make sense at the point it was in the mid 70s and it doesn't make sense it would cost us more to do that than an outside
vendor is is doing it for us and we know if a run came in at 97 then we know okay we need to go back out to bid and find someone who can bring it down because we know where the price break is we're not just blindly
agreeing to contracts and also don't forget we have the challenge of if we own 10 more even mini buses where are they going to go now there the cost for storage and security the the the costs
add up to do that and the other hiring 10 more drivers who have health insurance and and backup drivers because we can't yeah so all of that you know we we did it's a big spreadsheet and it was ful because if it would have said to us
hey it's it's $45,000 and the majority of your uh runs with outside vendors or 75 then we would be taking aggressive action to change that but it's actually was flipped which affirmed Us in there's nothing we can do
in some of this to save money have we made those calls I just wasn't clear on that like you said we could call you know all the parents of students with I and special needs every if in we call them the next year even if they say no one year we still call them next next
year you can see them on the orangs yeah okay I see them on there but but I see the ones that on on there too so the analogy to keep in mind from John's opening question is so and again sometimes you use extremes to understand
it imagine if the school committee said we want every kid in Riv to get to school in a limo and it's going to cost us 60 million ion dollar a year you guys got to pay for it then the city would naturally come back to us and say are you crazy we respect you school
committee but we're not doing that because we can't afford it so this is the first time now that all of our cost saving measures still have a gap which is why this question of are they viewing the committee saying
hey there are reasons we are at one mile and not two um but since it's collaborative they may come to the table and say um we need to talk about those reasons because because the two has become unaffordable in other words
that's the collaboration that that was my reason for the question yeah and I'm hoping that doesn't come to pass I'm not I'm I'm not for the lottery I'm for neighborhood schools but I'm not for the two miles so all I would ask from this conversation is if and it doesn't have to be tomorrow by next month maybe I
would just like to see what no Lottery and one mile radius yes I'll do it this week but I think it's zero but I'm not my thought is I realized the first year savings wouldn't be very much I get it by the end what the way I'm looking at is okay sixth grade wouldn't be in a
lottery seventh and this is how I'm looking at it and someone else might say no we'll move them all I'm really no sixth grade you wouldn't I I just don't think it's a good idea to move everybody so we're not in my opinion I'm not an educator but I'm sure you know educ hopefully educ agree I'm not trying to move all the kids but to me it would be
a three-year process so we ly the sixth seven and eth stay where they are so to speak and then you know you wouldn't see a significant savings I agree in the first year but hopefully by the third year you would because now you you have to be busting less kids in the third year right I believe it it may not have
been on here e either because I'm I'm missing something about the nature of that or it's the same difference in savings but I I'll look at that with Denise this week yeah because that would be my prefer that would be my I mean if I was Voting today that would be my preferred you know no lottery in
one mile be looking at this but with a one mile radius instead of a two so you'd be adding so John I I'm saying one I'm saying one mile with no Lottery because of the sh I apologize for not being on
time but what do we doing with if they not having the lottery no no no he's saying where they've already kids have already started school in the Middle School sixth grade you wouldn't want to move them out of the scho that they've already started let them finish their seventh and to achieve ma if the city
said to us all right we want to achieve maximum savings probably and I don't want to do this so I want to be very clear this isn't my idea not at all but if you went to the two miles and no Lottery and moved everybody which I don't agree with but if that's what they came back and said that would be maximum
Savings in the first year was it two years ago that rich for state was in front of us questioning the transportation how long have to pay and we did redo I think they didn't have a $300 million $500 million mly yeah at
the time so now and we did um that Stacey we just talked about that I think it might have been right apologize that's okay but um we talked about when Matt did the analysis of whether or not we should bring an internal and it was going to cost more money and in those pieces
um but you know we absolutely want to work can partner with the city we owe them everything we have like I don't want to diminish that but I but I do want to reemphasize that they don't get to make these decisions John you make these decisions no that's fine I that's why I asked the question no I wanted to
hear it and you know I just I did right some of it is education that to just that everybody understands there's probably six or seven action items that we've taken on Transportation costs over the years including contributing every
possible penny that we could from supplemental funding that's come in in the response of covid to lessen that burden for the city pushing opportunity with parents knowing what our analytical thresholds are and then when you come
sit in our office and you say wow all these kids have to get to all of these schools every single day all year and even with all of that the price is still what it is still what it is and this this is a least expensive stuff this in
in in District uh non-special Ed transportation is the least of the cost it's the it's the special ed Transportation I mean not out studing out Place yeah yeah right but I think there's no way to go the only reason I was looking at this is because I figured
be frank I figured they were looking at this the students with special needs that's that's not going to change and you know I know they work hard in the transportation office trying to get reimbursements and all that good stuff that's great I know they work very hard get kids that can get on the same bus
the city to the there's no criticism here I just figured I was just I have a lot of parents that reach out to me that don't like the lottery and I don't think I'm saying anything I know but I don't think that has anything to do with Transportation those are two separate well no I think seeing it as a means of
of cut trying to save us some money cut Transportation not two birds with one stone what this analysis confirmed is the primary savings available immediately is with an increase in the lower limit distance from the one mile
to the two that we're doing because of various reasons to the two that's required and of course there are secondary savings that could be triggered with an elimination of the lottery but they're a third of of the mile change and they wouldn't hit for
three years correct because you're not going to make a seventh grader Beed that's my so I realized the first year savings if you gave us a graph and and said John it's next to nothing I would get it but in the second and third year there would have to be a savings because it's just you moving myess kid well it would be four the fourth school year
from the decision being made right when there would be we would have the body but I'm thinking that's when the you know that's when we might hit the cliff maybe or the you know the imaginary Cliff or it's a real Cliff that's what I'm thinking and you know we wouldn't we just you know saving some money for
everybody on one both side and the thing the challenge with that would be if you look at this data around the sixth grade enrollment by the area of the city so we had talked about this do you have this one it might be on the back of your um Regular meeting packet I sent it last
night to is the is the cover sheet but there wasn't your supplement is I looked it over so the difference here for Garfield Middle having and again this is a year by year 149 compared to Susan B Anthony
uh 202 so let's just call that a different of 50 students by the time you iterate that three times it's a difference of 150 students over sixth 7th and eighth grade that's a whole another grade level in the Susan B Anthony School than there is and one whole less grade level in the carfield
school so that it really is not as simple I think as as people might think it is to go to Neighborhood schools because the kids are not at least right now they're not evenly dispersed throughout the community there's far more on the west side of the city than there are on the east
side even though there's more students that live on the other side than the west side yeah the East side's more dense population right it is more dense right yeah much more okay so um so this will I guess
till the fall and then we'll revisit it well I don't know if maybe we should start a committee or something that can do some work we had the Rel um did an analysis of all of this I tried to find today and the best I could find was that they reported to the school committee in May of uh
2014 so that was 10 years ago it probably is time to reconvene a team and have them dig dig into this issue again I my own in interpretation is not a lot has changed other than we've grown and the problems we had 10 years ago are
bigger than they were 10 years ago um not not smaller so um but I do think it would be worth it to have a team that can kind of dig dig into this and see what they can figure out is there a subcommittee that that would be appropriate for would it be bu in
comes under Ways and Means for some reason we talking about the lottery itself yeah the whole restructuring yeah but that to me is not a ways and means thing it would be I think the cost would be referred to ways and means but I
would think it would be a committee of the whole to decide if there's a subcommittee and an appetite of what to do um maybe with some brought it up at the last meeting and it went to aways a means yeah went to ways a means to discuss the cost cost cost but we don't have any well we do well but I think
part of that is because we're tying it to the transportation right and I trans part ways to mean but I think to Stacy's point we need to think of them separately like we should think about how if we want to restructure How We Do Middle School in the district that's a question yeah I I agree with
that especially because and I keep getting back to this but if we if the plan is a four-year plan like this school cannot stay vacant for four years well we'll still be this school will still be here the business offices will be here right for three years so I
mean I I just think if we're going to talk about middle school then we should bring in all of the so look at didn't someone talk about asking principles to they have like a survey or something I thought I didn't at the last
Mee then I I will look at the minutes kind of briefly went through but I thought principles were asked but someone brought up asking the principles to survey so maybe between principles a couple of teachers and a few school
committee members they can work on a plan yeah or at least study what what exists and what's possible yeah and make recommendations I I guess my question is the the way it was split up now was by schools so that necessarily wasn't by
residential lines right the way that you've split up the this here yeah yeah yeah that was just by which schools so it's not an exact um districting someone could live at the edge of a dist so I think it would be more like I remember the last meeting we talked we said we
were GNA draw draw the residential lines to see where students fell yeah those numbers might may be different than true might equalize it a little bit I think it would I think that you'd end up with a lot of parents who are
saying I know I live on this side of the street and you're telling me I have to go to Ry Marsh but we're in the Lincoln school and all of our friends are going to the Susan banthony and I think it'll which they do but it's but that's something that we
can ask this group to look into to look into yeah okay anything else on the transation well the committee can expect Cityside to be in communication as this budget process
rolls out about the initial number that that I've put on schedule 19 as this is what it will cost to get the kids to school next year you can expect them to be um has the bid come back on he the
bid came back I'm sorry yes and so um someone said 14 million is that right total not just for Healey but for everything is that number I don't think we have all the bids back yet we haven't finalized the bid for inside spreed Transportation they're both on my desk and there's we're going through the
price proposals someone through that number some of the vehicle specifications so I'm just saying a substantial increase over the last year that was part of this conversation right that's a small part of our conversation on schedule 19 but for Ways and Means I would expect the city to be intersecting with
the agreed upon budget for what's available for transportation for next year I didn't you got it no I didn't say you got it wrong okay um the last um so I think we're all said any I don't want to cut any fredd M sorry Mr do you have
anything to say I'm sorry um just a point of information through you to the superintendent Michael the city if if we cut back on the amount of buses the savings is not on the school committee side am I
correct you are yeah the that savings would go to the city okay so if hypothetical we said H it was was mentioned who would go to the Susan B Anthony if you were to say any child can go to the Susan B Anthony as long as
their parents driveing we're not going to provide buses it doesn't change anything because it's not on this on the school department side it would mean probably more kids there so I think any subcommittee any
committee however you wangle who goes where you the same means per say now going along with the chairman as far as people picking their school I'm in full favor of it because people across the street want to know how come I can't walk across the street but I can go to
beachmall so I think that's a totally different um H Transportation as the discussed this afternoon is immaterial to the school committee is that too much an easy assumption or what is it yeah I I I
think I think it's um true Mr sella I think you know I think Mr Cruz said it the best that we want to be good friends and allies with the city and we can appreciate that this is causing a strain for them and do whatever we can to reduce that strain I I feel like we have
been doing that um all along okay no it it it's just I mean we're everything's circling and it comes back to the same thing no dollar value technically to the school department itself so our problem hopefully within
the high school being built free and up space then that's going to alleviate for everybody Mr chairman thank you thank you Mr s all right so the only thing before I move on to number three the only thing I would ask for in next month is fine if I could have that third I I I
can't say the way on that third option no lottery in one mile right I would just be curious and I realized the savings first yeah if you could do one two and three that would be helpful you know first year savings I'm not expecting much because you're not it's not a big number but by the third year and again to say that we'll be in this
building in middle school and four years I'm not prepared to I don't I'm not prepared to say that I don't know I but I'm just saying I don't know that that's GNA Happ have a plan yeah oh I don't mind I just don't know what's going to happen um okay so the last item on the
agenda um additional classroom space at the gothfield middle school um I do financial literacy work there about three days a week and I noticed on um I noticed I I got off the wrong I'll be honest I got off the wrong floor one day I wasn't paying attention and the second
floor outside the second floor I'll say elevator stair area it's kind of Walled off and there's space there for the elementary but on the third floor it's open and last year I don't know if Kyle remembers Mrs swon apologize I don't know if you remembers but last year when we were
doing that uh kids with special needs reorganization I had said to them hey I know we're going to need some classroom space at the gothfield middle I said when you come off the third floor elevator stairwell whatever you want to call it there's a big open space there and you could make classrooms like this one outside on the third floor because
it's totally wide open so um again I'm on the third floor two three times a week doing the financial literacy class um to the sixth grade and I see it and that prompted me to ask if that would be possible um I do see teachers there on
carts I know teachers leave their classroom to let other teachers come in um and I think that's sometimes difficult you know it's their prep and you know maybe they don't have any place to go or they have to leave their classroom and I feel bad so I always feel badly about that and I'll tell you I'm gathering up the stuff as quickly as
I can from the students and helping out because um another class is coming in and another teacher is coming in so the teacher that's in the room is leaving and another teacher's coming in so it's always like a rush at the at the end of the class to get um you know squared away stuff put away so that the next
class and the next teacher can come into the classroom so that's my question okay so what's unique about the second floor is that it doesn't have the same volume as the third floor and the fourth floor so within discussions of
the fire department they do not want they consider that space an evacuation space for overcrowding during an evacuation from both Wings there's a North wing and a South Wing to that building on the first third and fourth floor the second floor is unique where it doesn't have a
North Wing because there's the pool in the gymnasium that take up two floors on the first floor so we were able to I won't call it an argument but convince them that we didn't need that entire space on the second because we don't
have the volume that we have on the third and fourth and they bought into our Theory but they were Adam and about no doors that the walls don't go to the ceiling that they're you going to be able to hear fire alarms and there would smoke it would travel through any open
air ceilings so they would travel to grow out so what you really have on the second floor is just a petition agree it's called a demountable wall which technically it's not really fastened it's there by pressure agree so we were able to kind of convinced them on the
second floor that if they needed all this space on the third floor that we could really only technically need half of that on the on the second so they were able to buy into that far as recent conversations with the fire department they don't want anything as far as a chair in that space okay never mind
walls and doors so you know when they start looking at that space they you know I never even thought of it like that but they worry about a stampede on a mass exit that say if you got to the stairways and all of a sudden everyone was trying to get out and they couldn't get out that this is the Overflow and
that's why they designed that space as open space and that Prov crushing it never occurred to me until they started to explain that and then we waged the argument for the second floor that says well this doesn't have the I didn't take out my magic tape measure but the fourth floor has got the opposes do they stick
out further than the bet they do I don't believe they do I think I'll have to take a that glass wall goes all the way up so that is the the four floors okay so we can't put the classrooms in won't allow that's yeah I mean in recent conversations I mean that's we actually
went out and priced these walls and it was just to do what we did on the um second floor and put a wall in between to kind of make two spaces like that yeah and it was like I think it was $90,000 for the same walls well I just figured we were creating you know extra classroom space no I mean it it was it
something we were all thinking about too until the f f won't allow it get it no thank you I was I that wasn't my thought my pleasure I've looked at it well I've looked at it now for I'll be honest I've looked at it for three I've been doing Financial usty there for three years and I've been looking at it for three years and like I said last year when we were
doing the special kids with special needs move around I thought it would be a good place because the elevator and the stairs are right there and easy for them to get out no I mean it made sense to me too so they brought they brought to me their theory on why that space is actually not thing for my mind I thought it was money issue and that's why it's
here yeah I okay thank you okay sorry if I if I can respectfully um I do also want to say that this is something that's in the purview of the school department that we this is something that Carl and the principals and I should be working on when we and we do
regularly every year we look at where is there space where is something we can change where's something that we can make more comfortable and I I just think that that's the best place for um these ideas to come from uh not that they shouldn't not that school committee members shouldn't have ideas I know you
all do but I would appreciate it if the courtesy was shown to talk to to me about it um instead of bringing it to a committee meeting um because we do do this work internally and do have that information that could easily be shared
without it being a meeting if that makes sense well I think this lets people know why we can't and I think it explains it fairly well so think again I don't think it's a I think it should have maybe brought up to the building committee or referred to the building committee I
just out of respect for the people that we work with I'm not sure who's on that still but it could be you it is the other question by how many classes I like that that where we
placing you know we don't have the same classrooms for you know that are temporary you know how like on cards working offs you know like one teachers leaving the other classrooms is there a lot of classrooms like that or just like a couple or I would have to look into that to pull that data I don't know it
off hand but I can tell you generally speaking a teacher is only teaching right for four out of six periods a day okay so for onethird of the day they're either in their common planning period or or their PGT we call it professional
growth time or they are on their prep um and so one of the things like even you're going to see this in the design of the new high school is msba doesn't even allow that anymore like classrooms are meant to be instructional spaces and when teachers are on on their prep or PGT they should be in a meeting room or
in a faculty room so that that whole resource with a Smartboard and uh everything else that goes into a classroom space isn't just sitting idle um I get the point having uh taught myself that having my own room in my own
space uh was wonderful I enjoyed being in my own classroom during my prep period because I had all my books there and all my resources were there and I could plan more easily I was on my own computer um um but I think those are things that we have to think a little
bit more about and that's not just a problem at the Garfield School it's at all of the middle schools and the high school because we we just don't have the space for it the place where teachers typically have their own space now is at the elementary level because they're in
one room with the kids all day except when the kids go to a specialist and even then when the kids go to a specialist the teacher is often in a PGT in another room in a meeting room not necessarily in the classroom um isn't there something to be said though about
a classroom that you enter into and you're immersed in that subject like with you know that subject matter on the walls and decorated like yeah in that fashion you know there's something to be said I when I when we were in I want to say maybe the Garfield School I don't remember I don't want to say which name
of school it was but we were in one of the schools going to the classrooms we doing the walk around yeah um you know that was something that I noticed some of the classrooms look like old and just cold and like nobody kid and Barren and I couldn't imagine learning in that
space as opposed to going into the classrooms that had like maaps and you know that subject matter just like everywhere and you're immersed in it just I just feel like there's a this there's something you said but if we don't have the space we don't have the space but I would say the preference is
yeah obviously for teachers to have a space that they can make into a true learning environment right and one of the things that we've been working on particularly at the high school but at the middle schools as well is making sure that any teacher isn't in more than two spaces so if there's a teacher who's
traveling to room 134 um they should be in that room two periods a day and then in a second room two periods a day so that they're not traveling to four different rooms for their four teaching blocks and that's one of the things that the principles
have been working on and that can also give them that sense of ownership with they can feel comfortable immersing the space in the content area because I only have to split my stuff between two rooms my stuff was always the kids work because that was uh you know the best
thing and you know one of my favorite things I used to get in trouble for was uh when we did a unit on sound waves in in function stats and trig um we built our own wind wind pipes wind sorry what do you call them Chimes wind chimes
thank you and the kids had to get the measurements right and cut them right in order to make the sound resonate through the pipes and that was always great but after we did that project I had 100 set of of wind pipes hanging from these little Rafters in my ceiling and Jim bonds would come in and yell at me and
tell me I can't hang stu stuff from the ceiling and then would have to take them home and um you know that I think I think that one of the things that we've struggled with coming back from covid is finding the opportunity to build that kind of environment again we've been so
bogged down in so many other things that um it's been it's been hard to get back to that but I do think like you look around here and you start seeing more and more stuff like the soulbox project and you know we appreciate what it does for kids when
they are stimulated just being in a room in a positive way um and that's definitely something that we should be working on as well I agree um motion to adjourn so meeting is now adjourned at 504 and we're
late go get Part: 2
e e e e e e good evening calling to order the revest school committee meeting of March 18 2025 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 Mrs bronston Rizzo here Mr cajano here
Mr Kingston here Miss milberry Ellis present Miss monteroso present Mr sella absent mayor Keith here we have a quorum first autum on the business is the recognition no recognition no one wants
to be recognized okay uh the consent calendar motion to approve the consent calendar second roll call Mrs bronston Rizzo yes Mr C yes Mr Kingston yes Mrs milbery
Ellis yes Mrs monter Roa yes Mr sella he's absent y mayor Keef here yes oh sorry okay we have the student representative report mayor Miss monteroso uh the students are on their
way from a track meet so they're stuck on Broadway for traffic so if we could and move we suspend the rules and consider their report once they arrive is there a second second second second all in favor
I Ed suspension of rules uh Dr maaba can we put uh Mr seller in as present he is now in remote attendance okay this portion of the meeting we're going to open it up to public speak great do we have anyone Robin no
no okay anyone online no motion to close public speak do we have a second second all in favor I so ordered okay we have the presentation
from preschool no no oh Paul Rivier Paul Rivier presentation superintendent report go ahead Dr killer um thank you Mr Mayor so we're going to begin the superintendent report as you indicated with a presentation from the
Paul rier school um and we're happy to have our principal and our assistant principal and the person who really runs the school the secretary are all here um to present on playful learning Institute um the committee will recall that I
shared early ear this year that the Paul rier school had obtained a grant um to bring that program to the Paul R um and so that's what they're going to share a little more information on what they're going to do with that Grant um here now
and I have the mo give it one there you go awesome thank you so much for having us here tonight we do appreciate it we are going to talk a little bit about the playful learning Institute and what that means for our school and for our students and what the uh progression of this 18-month Grant is
going to look like so if you want to advance uh two slides again mooy principal good to meet not meet you but see you again and we have Bianca Quirk here and then our trusted Susan catalo who um is the most supportive supportive person I think that I've ever worked with and we couldn't appreciate or more so um the first thing I wanted to just
use to frame our work tonight or our discussion tonight is what play is in the department of education has adopted the definition uh for the purposes of this grant that play is what children and young people do when they follow their own ideas in their own ways and for their own reasons and I feel like
this is an important thing to establish right now because we want to uh understand that play um really supports all the work that we're doing with deeper learning and it supports student autonomy and it supports the choice and in that next layer of investment that we're looking for from students uh but
it doesn't simply just mean playing just to have fun so that's just to frame our uh discussion for tonight if you want to go to the next slide so play is consider considered um at least based off of the research that I was able to look at through the Department of Education um and their uh
resources uh play is considered as a spectrum it starts all the way on the le- hand side as free play and then if you look all the way to the right you see that there's direct instruction those central three components label guided play uh co-opted play and playful instruction are uh the parts where you those are some of the things we want to
see in the classroom and each of those um you can see come with a different level of adult involvement a different level of like uh student choice an autonomy that comes with it but the key pieces of those central three pieces is that each one would have a explicit learning Target so while we're talking
about play it isn't just play it actually is learning uh the way that I like to think about it Miss lus actually says no it's not you're not tricking them but the idea is Trick the kids into learning right so we're having a great time you're exploring you're tinkering you're doing all these things that we want you to do but guess what you just
learn the standard that we need you to learn and that's kind of the goal and what we're trying to do in reenvisioning the way that our Early Childhood uh prek through three classrooms look like uh both at the p r and then with the partnership that we have established with the Garfield Elementary so the
current practices in our school um and with the current curriculum resources we use high they are highly uh reliant on um direct instruction and we are really trying to instill a love of learning for kids and that's going to be a big part
of our goal um teachers need really specific training coaching and guidance um to be able to do this work and the playful learning Institute actually has all of that embedded um and from past cohort the past cohort and schools that have already participated in this grant we've learned a lot from them already
and how much they've enjoyed and said that this is actually the highest quality professional development in which they the administration and their teachers have engaged so we're excited to see where the journey takes us over the course of 18 months our next slide um so why focus on play I feel like if
I'm going to stand here and talk to you about play it's important for you to have some of the highlight from the research that I was able to look at um so when you're comparing students that are engaged in just direct instruction versus those that are engaged in playful learning we've noticed that or the
research has noticed that U students that engage in playful learning have lower rate rates of delinquency um and less need for Behavioral intervention that the students themselves because of all the uh social emotional learning and the communication skills that they're working with they're more likely and
more willing to help each other um and they're also less likely to experience emotional problems the bottom part of the slide talks a little bit about a longitudinal study that was that was done where uh students who received only direct instruction were more and likely more likely to experience stress and the
researchers also noted a connection in increased likelihood of off task and disruptive behaviors uh so it's it kind of counters uh what we worry about a lot of the time when we talk about less structured learning environments uh in the classroom where we worry that if I start to release some of that structure
and some of the uh Sage on the stage as the old saying right so that traditionalist uh mentality of instruction uh that we worry that that means that students won't be engaged in as rigorous of activities uh and that also with that they may uh run the risk of being more off task and less engaged
with the learning but the research actually shows the opposite based off of what department of education has looked at so all of this means um we need to have a balanced instructional approach and I think that this is something we always have to think about in anything that we do um you have to find the
balance in anything it doesn't mean that we're only going to do uh playful learning it doesn't mean we're only going to do direct instruction it's finding the middle ground and making sure that we're doing all the work that we can to be able to give individual students what they need and to be able to support the different modalities that students will need to engage with the
curriculum and the learning um so with this we're going to give students time to play in really thoughtfully planned out ways uh that really supports the work in the in the core standards we're going to uh give them that chance to to be able to follow their own ideas in their own way and for their own reasons
uh and that is really going to give them the opportunity to develop their and communication skills and then there'll also be time for uh independent practice and synthesis of learning to support students Independence and this really I think ech goes again back to the deeper learning work that we've been doing for
many years now um around ownership in individual investment in Pride and learning am I on the right slide what's that am I on the right slide um yes okay uh you weren't for a minute but it didn't throw me off so you're
good um so how are we going to implement it these are the specifics of what the grant will look like um so the one of the grant requirements as I was mentioning earlier is that you had to have pre kindergarten through grade three classrooms that could be involved at each of those grade levels you had to have two classrooms that would
participate directly in the grant we don't have a prek at um the Paul R so the department made um some some exceptions to schools that were in situations like ours that if there was another willing school or if there was even a centralized Early Childhood
Program in the district that you could recruit classrooms from that school so I very quickly went to the incredibly resourceful Melissa Lis who said I know the perfect two classrooms and probably within 24 hours she had it all figured out um and we have two great teachers that are over at the Garfield elementary
school that will be joining the cohort um and that will be participating as our prek uh participants for the grant um what it means for these classrooms that are participating is that they are going to get some supplies that'll be provided which is going to be really
great but they had to commit to um and I'm going to speak specifically at this point the commitment that my teachers at the PO R made uh but they committed to participating in 10 hours of asynchronous learning to be ready for two full days of professional development that will take place in April they've also committed to uh
taking this work and being willing to uh provide professional development to colleagues within our building our goal is to take uh the the foundational skills and the core strategies that we learn through this institute and over the course of the next 5 years to balloon that and to to make sure that it
spreads to definitely all of the pre the K through3 classrooms but then also to try to integrate this into fourth and fifth grade classrooms as appropriate um based off of conversations I had with prior cohorts uh they say that they actually are already doing this in their schools and that they have found that
the strategies strategies that are being used uh work very well regardless of the age group uh when you're looking at the elementary school so we're excited to take and use our our work as an innovation School in the Wednesday early releases that we have to be able to do some colleague to colleague instruction
and to be able to uh you know develop this over the course of the five years um exciting about this too was that in our school every teacher volunteered to participate um and we had we only had to turn away maybe one or two teachers which was great but uh before we even
decided to apply for the grant we did actually um take a survey of all the staff and 100% of the staff uh participated and 100% unanimously voted in saying that we should go for this and they felt it was the best next direction for our school that Echoes back to the work that has kind of always been there
with the Paul R around uh celebrating teacher voice and looking for shared decision- making and I think that's Central to our school and something I wanted to highlight so the scope of the work um I've already talked through some of this um the exciting part probably would be bullet 3 bullet 3 uh talks about that the teachers are going to
receive three to five hours of um professional coaching from an outside agency that was selected by desie um that coaching will happen in the classroom there'll be model lessons there'll be observing lessons there'll be time for debrief um there'll be opportunities for our own academic coaches to Shadow the coaches that come
in and to learn from what they're what they're doing and learn from their feedback and the things that are happening um and then in addition to that something I forgot to put down there but uh Miss quk and I will also be receiving coaching as administrators of how do you lead this work in the school and how do you sustain the work the
Grant's only an 18-month uh commitment so they're going to help us to make sure that we have the structures and the things in place that we need to to continue this work the next page reviews the budget um pointing out first that the professional development and the program evaluation components which are those first two blocks were already
selected and bargained by desie so those ones were predetermined amounts that were going to happen no matter what so the professional development to support the 10 classrooms that are participating as well as the imperson professional development the asynchronous professional development and then all the coaching that's going to happen uh
was an $80,000 uh cost the program evaluation they're actually going to be doing a study where one of our classrooms at each of the grade levels has committed to be like a control classroom that won't undergo I'll call it the treatment because I don't know the better way but they won't be integrating the strategies um and they're going to do some comparative
studies and at the end we'll actually have access to that data to see across the entire cohort not specific classrooms just to rever but across the whole cohort what what effects did they see and what was the General outcome from this uh the last two parts were the ones that we had to budget as a school to decide which was for stiens and then
supplies and materials we budgeted for $3 to $5,000 per class room for material specific to this Grant and specific to playful learning and the uh stiens we budgeted at $220,000 grand total the grant itself was $175,000 which uh is a lot of money uh
but it was was nice to see that it was already kind of compartmentalized for us and that the services were already selected and we know that it's all high quality so we're very excited for that um the next page is just some additional resources that you can click through it brings you to the hub for the grant through Desi it brings you to the um
information about the prior evaluation of the first cohort and then just some other useful pieces that I thought would be interesting if you wanted to check them out at some point we have the references just identifying where some of the research was pulled from and the next page is the sneak peek at the
25 20 to 2030 Innovation plan we are in a Innovation Plan Renewal phase we have to renew our plan starting this year um so I wanted to just give you a sneak peek of some of the key things that we're going to be included in our new innovation plan the first one is obviously what we just talked about which is integrating the play based
learning opportunities the next one is student Le conferences we're going to find ways to increase student ownership over their work and to have them starting to do more uh presentation and more sharing and require them to be active participants in the conferences uh we're going to do unifor uniform
implementation of the learning pit which is a structure that we're using to support productive struggle in the classroom um and with that we're going to use the zones of Regulation the idea that we have is really around getting students to know when I get to that point that I'm really struggling and I don't know what to do my body or my mind
and my I'm reacting in a way that might be making it hard for me to continue the work but what strategies and what can I do to kind of keep myself in the game and so we're really trying to make that like the connection to uh the work and the challenge and then what that means for you and how you can strategize field
to move forward and then the final piece right now is looking at a revised Club structure you might remember that at the PA R School all teachers participate and um run clubs uh after school and sometimes before school the clubs right now are for students only but we're going to look at a revised Club
structure where select clubs um if if teachers want to we'll invite parents to also be participants in those clubs to be able to attend and to be part of the groups and to be able to try to uh kind of support that neighborhood connection that Community School type of feel that we want to try to get back to something
I think that was again Central to poier school especially before covid and now that we're trying to get ourselves back up and running with um I'll have a draft of this the new um plan to you by May 15th I think is the date I said uh and at that point um I think you'll be
voting on it hopefully in June but I'll take any questions if anyone has any questions and we have some other resources here as well that could help out M Mr may can I just add one thing um Mr Coyle thank you that was wonderful but I did want to share for folks at home that there are live links to all of the resources that you included in the
online version of the agenda so um if anybody wants to find those links just go to the reba. org website and you'll find them in the um materials for the meeting thank you Miss mber else no question questions just Kudos this is really exciting so
I'm happy for you guys can't wait to hear you know the progress that comes out of it and um and what the effect of it all is so thank Youk I'm just going to add in that an additional part of our hope uh that I've talked with Melissa about is uh if we do this and we do it really well which I
know is what's going to happen um is the hope to be able to share this through our excuse me uh director meeting structure with other schools and other uh so kind of share that learning across the whole District so again taking the work of an innovation school to try something new and then and then share
that across the district Miss brons Rizo yes thank you and always great presentations um so if I think of the pedagogy of play how do your Educators
um continue to make um playful learning how how do they make it Thrive I think that it's going to going to be a slow process and actually one of the things uh so you think about the way this grant is structured they um offer
six core strategies that actually came from the um Early Learning curriculum that's used and cre was created actually by Boston public schools and from those six core strategies they have to choose two strategies and we're going to build a year-long plan for all of next year an implementation plan uh and then they'll
be working with the coaches and I think that the way it's going to happen is to think of incremental change and really just starting small and and getting really good at the couple of things that we want to you know focus on first and then kind of grow them from there U and I think from that too one of the things we do a lot at the Paul R because we
have a lot of whole staff collaboration time is we do a lot of sharing and with that sharing comes a lot of um ideas for modification and adaptation to meet different challenges in different groups and and different things that exist in different classrooms uh so I would leverage that that work and and the the opportunity we have with those
collaborative structures to sustain this work and to really make it happen thank you you got it Mr kajo first of all thank you for the presentation and I'm looking forward to the updates from this new uh this new course but uh i' like to thank you and
your staff uh I came down this week and read and thank you for the invitation and I had a I had a great time yeah we really appreciate it having you there and uh I read to that class today as well the same one and they were really a lot of fun so I got a lot of hugs
today Mr Kingston I agree with you Mr Coy it's a Huggy room yes it is I I just thank you as Miss Miss milb El said thank you very much appreciate all the hard work and thank you for all you do I'm a graduate of the old par V school so I have yeah
I'm I'm glad thank you thank you thank you great presentation thank you thank you the next uh we'll continue with the superintendent's report and then we can go back to okay um so uh the next item on the
superintendence report is actually somewhat related um Miss Lis is here to talk to us about the Early Childhood Program um and you know the changes that are occurring as you all know we're working to build an Early Childhood Center at the McKinley School and that's going to
give us a lot of opportunity to expand that program in a lot of different directions both in length of time of day and the number of kids we can serve um and all different pieces like that so without further Ado I will pass it out to pass it over to miss lus thank you so much Dr Kelly and good evening to all of
you Mr Mayor members of the committee I'm really excited to be here to share with you this is like the biggest passion of my life as early childhood and to have this opportunity to serve this district for this is just really a dream um so I'm Melissa Lis I'm your director of Early Childhood uh this
evening I'm going to share about our existing prek program um the work we are currently engaged in within our department uh and our initial plans for um refining our program including updates about the McKinley project and and I wrote myself a script because brevity is not my strong point and I'm going to really try to stick to it um so
you can go to the next slide o the slide isn't even up yet I'm already talking no that's totally fine don't do that H so you can go to slide three all right so we currently have 10 prek classrooms across three schools we
serve 180 students and we are fully enrolled um actually I think I take that back we had two students withdraw we have two people the two spaces but I've got a waight list so they'll be full by the next week or so um at the Beachmont we have two substantially separate classrooms which we call small learning
groups and one integrated classroom at the Garfield we have two substantially separate and two integrated classrooms and at the Lincoln we have three integrated classrooms our substantially separate placements are for our students with the highest level of need those classrooms are capped at nine uh nine students who are served by a lead
special education teacher uh and two to three pair of professionals and their school day is 805 to 205 um our integrated pro programs are for students on IEPs who require less support than those in substantially separate placement and their general education peers who serve as peer models um these
classrooms are capped at 15 students eight of which are general education peers and seven spots are for students on IEPs next slide please our program is built on the relationships that we develop with families from our very first contract with them um when they come into the
Early Childhood office at the Garfield we work closely with our families and encourage connection to the school we recognize prek as a very unique opportunity to create habits of Deep school and home connections uh and we look to capitalize on those opportunities daily our current program
provides many opportunities for nurturing relationships with our families we host a beginning of the year orientation where families learn about prek uh we host a meets the teacher night where families meet their teachers visit the classroom uh just like all the other elementary students uh we also offer traditional parent teacher
conferences um which happen at the close of the first and second trimesters um and then we have a very unique opportunity in prek because of the nature of the onetoone pickup and drop off that we have um teachers have daily FaceTime with families and caregivers which I think is the most valuable
aspect of of that dismissal and arrival time uh it is by far the most valuable opportunity that we have for building and maintaining a strong homeschool connection uh prek also has a ve another very unique element uh we have a monthly parent and child time where families
join their child and this is very well attended um during the school day uh they get to learn and have fun in the classroom uh and that this unique opportunity is a chance for teachers to model elements of instruction to support a homeschool connection um and they also learn about
the activities that their child engages in at school and then they can replicate those activities at home we're really proud of the work that we do to build trusting relationships with our families and we seek continuous Improvement for our program um we're working to expand our orientation process to include
School Readiness screening for all of our students students uh we'll create more opportunities for information sharing with families about the inner workings of prek the demands of prek um as well as um important Community resources that are available to them um and finally we're creating more
opportunities for families to engage in school hosted workshops on topics about which they are interested uh we're currently um in we have a internal team focused on bringing all of those plans to fruition um we recently surveyed our families you can go ahead to the next slide um and we asked them through a
series of share of of questions that we shared in all four languages um just regarding their level of satisfaction with the program uh they could answer uh always sometimes or never to a series of questions that we asked um on each of the following slides I kind of broke this down just based on the survey
results um I've also included the recommendations families made about our program for your review for the sake of time I'm not going to go through each one of these um but I can say that I can happily report that the vast majority of our families feel that they are in formed about and included in our program
that they are comfortable Consulting with their child's teacher are confident that their child's relationship with their teacher is positive and supportive and that they feel that their child is safe in school which are all things that I find very very important and that I value and it makes me really proud to know that we've created those those
conditions for our families um the results are very encouraging and signals that while we definitely have work to do regarding our family satisfaction um many of our practices are positively received on this slide um you can see some comments that our families made um to the question I would like the Early
Childhood Program to consider the following recommendations um so we had some some really nice things up there but the themes that we saw really rise to the top were themes of appreciation from our families and the request for a longer school day and you can go ahead to the next
slide next I'm going to chat with you a little bit about the curriculum that we use last school year we adopted the blueprint for early literacy curriculum which is published by the children's literacy initiative uh this curriculum is broken into 10 units with themes including but not limited to uh healthy
kids exploring our local community we are Architects there's a bunch of really cool themes um the curriculum uh and suggested method of instruction is well aligned with our District's deeper learning goals uh it's based on the pedagogy of intentional and guided play and fosters the development of curiosity
and critical thinking and building community and Independence in our students we currently have a committee of prek teachers focused on report card alignment scaling the curriculum to fit our current model uh and exploring how to increase the accessibility and re relevance of the Gathering time portion
of of the prek day you can go ahead to the next slide our teaching staff is beyond remarkable I'm a little bias because I love them all but they are dedicated and intense women that do amazing work for our students um they support our three
and four year olds in developing the social and academic skills that they need to be successful in kindergarten and Beyond the team is highly collaborative they meet daily to examine data refine teaching approaches discuss instructional challenges and address logistical needs and a Hallmark of the work our teachers and paraprofessional
staff do uh with our students is that the work is centered around the needs of each of the individual students in the classroom it's not uncommon to walk into any of our prek classrooms and see every child in that classroom engaged in a center whether it's building a model of the Boston Subway and blocks um
sequencing a story through play acting in the library making breakfast in the kitchen and then working as a team to clean up I've had some excellent fish lately it's been very good um exploring states of matter by trying to free a toy car from a block of ice my favorite lesson so far uh or working at a teacher
table on letter and number recognition everybody is highly engaged our students recognize the our teachers rather recognize the importance of play and the importance of continuous Improvement of practice our next steps our engagement in professional learning uh for both our teachers and our par professionals on
initiating and sustaining play to Foster deeper learning um we're also developing a multi-year differentiated professional learning scope and sequence to ensure that we're always on the Leading Edge of Early Childhood research uh and that we're able to put Theory into practice in our classrooms next slide
please monitoring student growth is a key element U to not only ensuring students gain the skills they need to be successful in school but also to ensure that teachers know where students are in their skill development so they can adjust teaching approaches to meet student needs in prek we collect and analyze data regularly and discuss what
we are seeing in a team setting uh we start with Baseline data which includes information about social emotional fine and gross motor literacy and numeracy SK skills um students are assessed with similar instruments measuring progress in these areas two additional times um each year that they are in the program
uh we share progress with families during the same using the same Cadence as K to5 schools and teachers also reach out to families with any concerns or celebrations throughout the year as a team we will expand our current intake process to include opportunities to gather additional information about the student and the family we'll model this
work off of the kindergarten screenings that happen at all of our elementary schools um and we also have a committee currently working on a redesign of our registration intake and orientation process that we hope to plan or that we plan to launch in the fall next slide please Community relationships are
critically important to our program into ensuring that as many students as possible get access to some form of prek we are really proud to part with kaic Headstart in Chelsea the Chelsea R family Network and the Chelsea Riv Care's Early Childhood initiative um each of these organizations and really
the amazing humans who spearhead the work of them um they're deeply committed to building a means to serve as many three and four year olds as possible while our program is limited in the number of spots we have available right now um these partner organizations help us to fill the gaps with programs like
parent child plus and Popp Stone any of our students who are on a wait list or who have been identified as needing additional support have access to home visitors through these programs um the programs are designed to support families in establishing playful practices at home to support oral language fine and gross motor and social
emotional development um this spring we will meet with as many home and center-based programs in the city as possible to expand our Partnerships um build relationships and in the future extend our professional learning opportunities to those uh providers in the community next slide
please finally and I really hope I'm still under my 10 minutes uh I'd like to provide a brief update on the new Early Learning Center at the McKinley School um this is so exciting I had a meeting today and it's just so exciting we are currently in the design phase and are working closely with the architects who
are working with the engineers to finalize the plans for the renovation of the building um we have a small team that includes myself Dr Kelly Mr Fenson uh Maria tanza who is one of our um prek teachers at the Lincoln and Corey Bower um who is one of our prek teachers at uh
the Beachmont uh those are the members of our team um the current plans are for eight classrooms administrative offices therapy and meeting spaces indoor and outdoor gross motor spaces and a large Gathering space for meetings and events um we are so happy with what the
Architects have presented and we feel really fortunate that they've been receptive to our suggestions and really responsive to our needs as they designed this like truly amazing new center I saw pictures today I was like whoa um while we are still a few years away from opening the center um we're off to a
great start with the project uh if if anyone is ever looking for updates never hesitate to call me or email me I will put something together for you immediately I'm always happy to talk about this because it's really exciting um and one final piece before I close out is we are currently accepting applications families at home um
currently accepting applications for prek for the 2526 school year the applications are available on the website or just call the Early Childhood office and either Maria or I will help you um and we're also taking a look at our tuition structure for next year um and that's it any questions
start on the start on the end M Mr Kingston I just want to say thank you for all your hard work I remember having a conversation with you when you were still the principal of the hill and I I couldn't get you to stop talking and it was just amazing um when you were thinking about doing this so um no it's a big compliment because it was like
someone hit play and all these words came out and I was like holy crap she's planned out the next 10 years and hasn't even got the job yet I N Out about this I was very impressed what I also do want to say and not to take anything away from you I want to thank the mayor public yes um if he didn't get Chelsea involved in the uh called the wreck is
what it's called it's not pck and wreck it's wreck um if he didn't get them involved the grant might not have come through so instead of getting 8 million we're getting 15 and that's going to make this happen um well I'm very excited about the high school I'm more excited about the early childhood and I'll tell you why there's a huge article
in the Wall Street Journal which I read faithfully and take a lot of stock in talked about what a game changer Early Childhood could be now all of you folks could tell me that and you folks could tell me that and I'd believe you but in in no all due respect to read it in the Wall Street Journal and have you know people other people across the
country just talking about what a game changer is not only are you telling me but they're telling me and it and that was years ago and it I haven't forgotten it so I'm really thankful to the mayor for getting Chelsea involved it's going to be a huge help to us um he did that the building's been empty for years it's driving me crazy every time I drive by
it and see an empty it bothers me um so I'm very happy with what the mayor is is doing and I appreciate your work tremendously and please I don't want you to think that I don't but if it wasn't for him getting the 7 million we wouldn't be having a project so thank you to you sir thank you I Echo that M Milbury Alis um I just
have a question once the program is up and running what does that mean for the existing prek classrooms in the other schools that is a great question that we are not making any final decisions about right now um I think that I need to work more closely with Dr Kelly look at what
enrollment looks like over the next year figure out um what is the best model is it a hybrid model where we have some halfday offerings some full day offerings so really work with our families and our community to figure out exactly what they're looking for the beauty of the opportunity is that we got
eight additional classrooms right so if we kept the classrooms in the schools and these eight additional we could expand to 18 classrooms um but we might not need all of those classrooms if we have full day programs so there's just so many different permutations of what this could look like I would be remiss
if I made a decision right now or we made a decision right now without really taking more time to talk with the community uh and really put a finger on the exact needs um but I know that we've got a lot of opportunity and a lot of flexibility yeah I mean that's fair and that's that's good to hear I guess I'm
just thinking about the swelling of the elementary schools as it is and I'm seeing this as an opportunity to free up some space that's that's greatly needed and I think that if as a district that was prioritized we in the early childhood Department could absolutely work with that okay good to you thank
you thank you so much for all your no thank you um oh miss m monteroso uh yes I have quite a few questions pleas please bring it uh so my first one is what's the tuition structure and is it going to be applied to the Mckinley school as well so our um
two of our teachers are paid out of tuition funding um so right now our tuition is at $10 a day um for paying families so those are families who are the general education peers of students in the integrated side of the program um not the students who are on IEPs in that
program if that makes sense the students in small learning groups have no tuition structure at all okay and the small learning groups are what some people may cost up separate that's the technical term on the IP it's a substantially separate placement we call them in review small learning groups okay and then when do
applications open every year uh typically in like middle to end of March with this being my first year in the role I'm just kind of following what we've done in the past that may change for next year uh if I hear feedback from families that they would like to see those applications earlier in the year or later in the year or whatever I just
need to wait until we get through one cycle to actually gather that information and what's the timeline for notifying parents if they got a spot um typically we start enrollment processes after we figure out how many kids will be returning so that typically starts in the beginning of May okay and then how
are students chosen is it a lottery system it is first come first serve so as we receive applications I put them in order based on the number or the age and the date received um and then once we start the actual enrollment after we find out who's returning and how many
spots we actually have available um then I reach out to families by phone um using interpretation as needed um to say are you still interested and if they are then we say we have a spot for you please bring your documentation in to start the residency and registration process great and then just three more
quick ones um how many adults do you have per classroom uh it varies so in the integrated program we have one lead teacher and two pair of professionals who are part-time so one par of professional works the morning session one works the afternoon session um in our small learning groups or are substantially separate placements
there's the one lead teacher and between two and three par of professionals depending on the need of the classroom um and between those three individuals one might be fulltime and two might be part-time two might be full-time one might be part-time it really depends on the need of the classroom and what are
the hours that we offer um so for the substantially separate placements which is the full day program 8:05 to 205 um for the integrated program 8:05 to 1035 and then 1135 to 205 and my last question is for the people who are on
the weight list what's the average like do they just have do they actually get in in the middle of the so I had a weight list of I want to say 25 people in July when I arrived um we're down to three people on the wait list and two of those are getting placed so am yeah no
I'm on top of it that's like Thursday's work is wait list payroll deposit like it's I you got to have a system I get to be it's great amazing thank you so much thank you so much um Miss Lumis Miss montoso has all those questions CU she
has a future student there is no personal interest in these you know and rightfully so she needs to plan her schedule have I have three years the big intention obviously uh Miss Lumis by the way I spoke to Cambridge 7 and they're extremely grateful for how much work you've put in
to the designing of the building and all the ideas that you've given them so it's making their jobs our architects of the doing this project uh have just been very complimentary of the city staff supporting what the needs are not just from the the the ECE but also from the regional 911 Center but and Mr Kingston
thank you but it it's you know this what we're supposed to do right so um you know creating good relationships is going to make this this progress work the school is I saw the renderings and you're going to see them Thursday night if you come to the state of the city address uh but they look beautiful so
I'm I'm excited I'm so excited to see it come full circle for someone like you that is seen the old and that will see the I just remember pre pandemic being in the hill cafeteria when this was first starting to be talked about and just how exciting it was and to be able to be a part of this is is really meaningful for me so thank you right
well it'll kind of close a circle we have a high school or ECE I just spoke to just anecdotally I spoke to another mayor just today uh and I'm not going to say which city but they have eight schools that are over 100 years old and they have to renovate eight schools we I
I'll give credit go back 15 14 years you know the the city really did a nice job of renovating and doing a a good job with their school school system I'm just kind of closing it out but to have eight schools over 100 years old that all need to be renovated in one city is almost unattainable we are going to have to do
one and a half one's a big one but you know we'll get there thank you um M Kell no M rzo thank you Mr Mayor Melissa you have always been someone and
I say this you know I respect you but you take something boring and you make it sound so exciting that we can all just jump on board with what you're saying um but you are exhausted I'm exhausted listening to you um I
appreciate that yeah it's a good exhausting my question is the blueprint for literacy I really like it oh good I I'm sure it is State Standards but is that the one that's also aligned with Head Start so
they are aligned with the Head Start standards which is positions us really really well I've got a team right now taking our state standards um both the academic standards and the standards for learning in play and crosswalking it to um the curriculum so that we have a really clear understanding of what
activity is aligning to because it can get a little wonky in EC right like how is this actually making kids learn that can get a little confusing especially to outside observers so the work that we're really engaging with is breaking apart the centers and figuring out what are the kids doing in those centers that I
can use as a data point to show they're reaching this standard and this standard and this standard um a lot of it is observational and conversational um so we're building those structures and systems to make it a bit more efficient for teachers to track the data analyze it and then make moves from it thank you
thank you if anybody ever wants to talk about learning through play I'm your girl thank you very much great job thank you Melissa you um the next item on the superintendent report is a presentation from Dr Costa who's going to share an update on some
of our coaching programs and how that relates to the curriculum and instruction in the classroom thank you Dr Kelly and the school committee uh so as Dr Kelly mentioned I'm here tonight to talk about our instructional coaching program and uh
how that supports our Educators and uh better meeting the needs of our students so if you move to the next slide my hope is that by the end of this presentation you'll be able to describe key aspects and the impact of our coaching program and those are the
topics that we'll be exploring tonight then if you go to the next slide a key RPS belief that we hold is that uh adult learning and student learning are symmetrical and sometimes you might hear this uh said as schools where adults are learning or also schools where children
are learning um and also what I think uh we mean by this is that we want our uh adults to have opportunities to learn and ways that are structurally similar to the ways that we want our students to be learning so when we talk about students having choice we want to make sure that our Educators have Choice with
some of their learning when we talk about students having opportunities for deeper learning we also want to make sure that our Educators have opportunities for deeper learning if you move to the next slide when you read the educational literature sometimes you'll hear this
phrase teacher efficacy um addressed and really what that means is it means a teacher's beliefs and their abilities to have a positive influence on the outcomes of the students that they're working with and the research also highlights that teachers with high self-
advocacy are more likely to embrace Innovative approaches um and more likely to embrace uh changes to evolving demands and education so I'm really working to make sure that often uh we
how we can best support our teachers with having a strong sense of self-efficacy and when we look at the uh educational research ways that have been successful and really fostering and promoting teacher efficacy throughout uh different stages of their careers there
are sustained opportunities to engage in thoughtful professional learning that's embedded into their jobs and we look at some key RPS structures that uh support adult professional learning uh we have um professional growth time and we also have our coaching program our
instructional coaches our math and literacy coaches our language development coaches our special education coaches and our Consulting teachers if you move to the next slide so you know some of us might be wondering why is it important to
innovate in education why is that uh critical for us to do um you know obviously as you've heard tonight from the two presentations there's this evolving understanding of how children learn best at different stages of their development and you know uh how to best
uh encourage the brain and learning um and this this shift in better balancing transferable skills like communication collaboration emotional intelligence with content knowledge so um back when I
was in school um you know it was a lot of like the basics and content knowledge and memorization and some of those are still important but some of those are not as important as some of these more transferable skills um obviously there's always generational differences and just
like really looking at the assets of our students and also their needs and next steps and you know if we think about uh those needs uh we want to make sure that we're responding to those um also you know just how we're responding to new technologies and how Technologies are
changing the world that our students will encounter so you know in recent years we've been talking about Ai and the impact that AI is going to have so really just making sure that our students are leaving us in their careers with the skills and competencies that they need to thrive in the world and
make a positive change in their communities and if we look at the next slide so some recent educational changes that you know we have all had to uh be a part of uh experiencing and implementing so you know really new content standards
with a greater emphasis on transferable skills um transitioning to more student centered approaches implementing new instructional materials and a lot of these are connected and the ideas is that different approaches are more
likely to help students develop the transferable skills um that we Aspire for them to have a better understanding of students emotional needs and their wellbeing new approaches to grading and feedback so if you move to the next
slide so thinking about the role of an instructional coach and how an instructional coach can support Educators with implementing some of these big changes that are really adaptive changes that are addressing key beliefs that they might hold about teaching and learning an instructional
coach's tasked with collaborating with teachers to improve teaching and learning so some of the work that they might do um collaborate and work with teachers during professional growth time uh provide PD to teachers observe teachers and provide feedback model
lessons co- te and uh also conduct coaching Cycles which I'll get into on the next slide so a coaching cycle as you'll see with this graphic um is a cycle it's a circle and it starts with a teacher setting a goal so I might be a fifth
grade teacher and I might be working with an instructional coach and maybe I want to implement some deeper learning thinking task into my classroom so the coach would support some of my learning in that area maybe bring me some different ideas for thinking tasks help me to think about how I want to
implement that maybe the coach even models it uh for me maybe they co- plan with me and we co- te it and then as we implement it we're collecting feedback and the feedback is connected back to my goal of what I'm hoping to see from students as a result of implementing
this um you know maybe I'm looking for higher levels of Engagement maybe I'm looking for deeper thinking maybe I'm looking for some more critical thinking and problem solving when we collect that data we're analyzing it um and then we're identifying what we want as our next
steps if we move to the next slide so I conducted some in-depth qualitative interviews with some of our Educators in different roles who throughout their careers have really um engaged with instructional coaches to
shape their practice and all of these Educators talked about a coach as a resource to improve their instructional practice they talked about them as a thought partner and emotional support to help them navigate some of the ups and downs that they experience as a teacher
um someone to hold them accountable to the work that they wanted to do I mean obviously a lot of us set goals for ourselves but the days and weeks can go by um so you know when the coach is showing up every Wednesday at 9:00 to help you work on this thing they're
holding you accountable to it and all of them mentioned the idea of having a nonevaluative support to push you and regardless of how great of a relationship you you have with your direct supervisor they're still ultimately your supervisor so getting feedback from someone who's not your
supervisor just feels different so if you move to the next slide so these teachers talked about the impact that working with a coach had on them and just how it really increased their confidence in their craft through that regular support makes them more
willing to take risks and try new things pushes them and helps them stay motivated um in taking on new challenges one teacher talked about how and this is often the case for lots of Educators is that she started teaching the way that
she was taught and you know realizing that that didn't work for all of her students and she would have stayed like that if it wasn't for the support encouragement and feedback from her coach also like the coach helps integrate new Educators into the part of
the uh School community and makes them you know not feel like they're out in their own and uh talking about working with a coach didn't feel like an extra thing because it was a support for what they really want to do and then one teacher talked about working with a
coach was really transformative and because of the student centered practices that she was implementing into her classroom her students were much more curious about their learning if you move to the next slide so some specific work that these
teachers talked about working with their coach own um implementing and refining Center rotations really digging in to understand the depth of different content standards implementing new instructional resources like illustrative mathematics and the support
that needed to make those shifts um to a much more student centered inquiry based approach to teaching and learning analyzing data from their practice and implementing next steps as a result um making modifications to better
support our multilingual Learners implementing different uh practices to support deeper learning like uh implementing debates and uh more rigorous academic conversations different structures for group work and pure C oration and also collecting and
responding to student feedback so just some closing thoughts here so some of the teachers that I interviewed highlighted how rev investment and coaches just demonstrates how they value Educators that want to continuously learn and want to continue
to refine their practice um and really just valuing making sure that every student has the best possible teacher in front of them at that time and then just having a support for coaches at at for teachers at all different career stages
so obviously you know newer teachers might need a different support um than a teacher who's 15 20 years in but a coach can differentiate those supports and work with teachers on what they want to work with and give them some choice so
if you go to the next slide so some next steps for us perhaps there's some areas where a coach or an additional coach could be helpful and beneficial um continue to encourage more and more
teachers to engage in coaching cycle work with a coacher CT so that coaching cycle work is really an opportunity for deeper learning for a teacher where a teacher can have Choice with what they're working on and really dig in deep to a part of their practice and then continue to support coaches with
their own professional growth and learning obviously the coaches are often tasked with supporting the growth of their colleagues so making sure that they have spes where they can continue to grow and then that is it so thank you
and I will answer any questions at this time Miss montoso thank you so much uh are these optional coaching Cycles or does every teacher have a coach um every teacher has a coach um in some ways so
there's some content areas that have more coaches than others um so like math has coaches literacy has coaches um there's language development coaches there's special ed coaches so every educator has an opportunity to work with
a coach um if you're a math or literacy teacher you have more coaches that you could potentially work with the coaching Cycles would be voluntary what's not voluntary is working with a coach during professional growth time working with a coach during uh PD whether it's
school-based PD or Department uh districtwide PD um but the coaching Cycles would be things that are voluntary to do and what do you say a majority of teachers participate in these Cycles uh over time I would say we have a high percentage of teachers who participate in them um because the
coaching Cycles are really indepth work that require a little bit of a time commitment uh coaches maybe only have like so many spots on their case load to do that type of work in a given year with teachers m else um how often other coaches co- te
in or student facing in the classroom uh that's a good question um it varies day by day but we obviously want them to be in the classroom because that's where learning is happening and that's where they have information that can shape and inform their practice so you know
roughly 2 to three hours a day they should be in classrooms working with teachers working with students and um whether it's co- teing modeling lessons observing lessons collecting data collecting feedback things like that and and so when they're not in the classroom what is it that they're they're working
on um they could be in pgts with teachers um they could be in PD for themselves uh they could be in other meeting so on Friday mornings um a lot of times the coaches will have their own PGT with um the other coaches that share
the same role as them so every Friday morning I will meet with the math coaches and that'll be their p P GT and engage them in some professional learning um Dr Porter and Miss suus will meet with the literacy coaches and engage them in some professional learning okay thank you of course yes M
Rizo so I can always admit when I'm wrong and I remember when this was first brought up to us about 10 years ago um there was so many of us that well I should speak for myself that didn't agree with the money being spent for
this um I do have to say in after a couple of years what other teachers that signed up and asked for a coach the confidence at buil in them um and feeling that they
weren't being evaluated it was a peer just telling them maybe try this a different way so I saw some new Educators come in and I'm like oh will they even less but with coaching it really helped them
that the there's some of our better teach well we have all great teachers but are stronger teachers right now so when I'm wrong I will say I'm wrong um thank you um and keep going thank
you thank you okay can I just add one thing to um M Milbury Ellis's question um so one of the things that Dr Costa talked about was coaches versus Consulting teachers
um and those programs are a little bit different and I I feel like uh Matt clearly explained the coaching program but the Consulting teacher is even more intensive um in in those positions and miss montoso this answers your question as well um the teachers actually do sign
up and commit to meeting with that Consulting teacher for two hours a week and one of the hours is classroom based and the other hour is the two of them co-planning lessons and doing research together uh and doing that kind of stuff so that's a much more intensive in the
classroom but it's also a voluntary process um where the teacher has committed to the relationship with the Consulting teacher and really exploring something on a deeper level to build their skill set um and improve their instruction so there's I think of it like we almost have two kinds of um
embedded professional development for teachers one is the coaching model that um targets a whole lot more people um maybe not quite as deeply as the Consulting teacher program does which goes a lot deeper but uh because of
capacity they can only work with about 15 teachers a year so can I ask one more question as far as um the coaching before it was a 2-year cycle does it remain is it still at a 2-year cycle or
for the Consulting teachers it is y what about coaching so the coaches work with okay sorry go ahead Danielle we extended it to three because we had turn we didn't want to lose the the coaches um so the math
coaches and the literacy coaches in particular um work with the entire department in their building we have a math coach and a literacy coach at every school and they work with the entire math department the entire English or literacy um department at the elementary
level um and they do a lot more kind of group work with all of the teachers in their discipline as Matt said they also do a lot with PGT so if you think of the elementary math coach at different times of the day there's a first grade PGT a second grade a third grade a fourth
grade fifth grade so they spend a good chunk of their time doing that PGT work and they do try to split it over the day so they still have time every day to be in classrooms and work with those individual teachers who have said hey math coach can you come help me figure this thing out and that come help
me figure this thing out could be a week or a month or a whole year um the that's between the coach and the teacher um to figure out what the appropriate level of support is and and what what it's going to look like they design that themselves um the the language coaches and the
special ed coaches uh again we have one we have three Elementary e coaches you might recall that in last year's budget you expanded that because of the need um and we have an e coach at the high school level who also works at um City lab and
we have an e coach at Danielle is it at each middle school or there might be one just one for the three middle school so these the areas like we I think that Dr costu is alluding to like we probably could use Neel coach at each Middle School um we don't have science coaches particularly at the Uppa Elementary
level where a lot of teachers might not have a grounded expertise in science that's place where we could use some coaches some more coaches um these are the kinds of conversations that I think we're going to have to have as a school committee with the budget coming up and and where we are and it's not quite as
rosy as it has been the last few years especially with the exra money going away um but here's where we'll have to make some decisions um and I think um Miss Rizzo said it very well the the capacity that they bring to the district
is enormous and un unmeasurable because it's not just about having a good teacher who's working with a group of students this year it's a really good teacher who's working with 10 or 15 other teachers which is impacting 150
300 450 kids this year um but you know those some decisions we'll have to make thank you thank you sorry yeah um the next item on the superintendent report is is and the last item I should say on the superintendent's report is the Middle
School Lottery update and I'm going to um share my screen and Dr mokaba is going to um share this information with you thank you and while Dr Kelly gets that slide up um one of the things this is my annual presentation um about the
Middle School Lottery um there are a couple of things before I get into framing which schools have lotteries what and what that will look like um as of right now we're not going to accept any changes in Lottery um requests um and these numbers are our best
preliminary numbers um we are going to the uh each school team has done the work to verify um their forms and enter their data uh we and our office are going to do that same thing probably two to three more times um before the actual
Lottery which is going to take place on April 17th um we're going to do that double triple quadruple check um because I can't sleep at night during this season um along with the fifth grade families so um we will be doing that these are um our special ed placements
are final but the I will be going through this so if you see on lottery night that there may be one or two um changes it is because we uh found an error or um something along those lines so just giving the lottery is going to
take place on April 17th it is the Thursday um before uh April vacation at 5:00 it will happen here in the school committee room we will be broadcasting live on cable TV and YouTube this year there are nine uh
lotteries um they look a little bit different in um scale uh from the past few years so we will have two lotteries for whan um there'll be a lottery for uh rumney and Susan B Anthony we have one
lottery for the Hill school for Susan banthony uh we have one lottery for Paul Rivier to Remy Marsh academy uh we have two lotteries at Garfield Elementary for Garfield Middle School and rney Marsh Academy the Lincoln this year has won
the lottery uh to rney Marsh and the Beachmont has two small lotteries um one to Garfield Middle School and one to rney Marsh Academy so um if we look at the first page um this will identify the
what the lottery structure looks like um and how we sort of get to these numbers and how we know we are going to have a lottery so each middle each Elementary fifth grade classroom so the whan students there are 120 Uh current fifth graders um six of those students will be
placed in special programs so their placement is determined by their team um so we uh have4 students um who are given spots at the middle school so we take that number and divide it by three so each Middle
School um there are a third of the spots for Garfield Middle a third of the spots for rney and a third uh for Susan B Anthony so you'll see here um there are 38 seats per um school with Garfield getting 38 there are 38 seats available
at rney and there are 38 seats available at Susan banthony you'll see in the line below those are the requests so those are the students that picked each school as their first choice so there are 14 students selected Garfield 50 selected
rumney and 50 selected Susan banthony so that's why we're having a lottery um and you'll see this throughout for um there are too many students who requested a particular um school so we have exceeded the number of spots at rney by 12 and
we've exceeded the number of um spots at Susan B Anthony by 12 um one other thing that's worth noting um still siblings there is a sibling uh preference for those uh families that will have an older student in either grades seven or
grade eight um so we do have allow that sibling preference and we also allow uh an employee preference if a an educator or an employee uh works at a particular Middle School building they are able to have their uh their child attend as well
and we do identify twins so uh twins are uh have the option of being put on the same name card um just to ensure that wherever they go they go together um so if you look at Romney Marsh there are 50 names on 48
cards um because we have two sets of twins uh there are uh we are 12 seats over as I said all of those students will attend Garfield Middle School that do not get their first choice all of the students I should note that selected Garfield Middle School are able to
attend Garfield Middle School and we do not have a lottery for that um for Susan B Anthony there are 44 names on 44 cards the 12 students who do not get selected for Susan B will attend Garfield Middle School the next Lottery um in size is
the hill um so again this year there is one Lottery and that is to Susan banthony so you'll see here um there are 110 students that will be entered um that were able to select their spots 36 spots were available at
Garfield 37 at Romney 37 at Susan B Anthony and you'll see this year 30 students selected Garfield Middle School 35 students selected rney Marsh Academy and 45 um selected Susan B Anthony so we are going to have a lottery uh for Susan
B Anthony only so those students from the hill that selected Gill middle or Romney will be attending those schools um now the way that it works uh six of those students will attend Garfield Middle School and two uh who don't get their first their choice of Susan
banthony two will attend Romney um that's where we have the spots available and this is the opportunity where we go to a student's second choice um until the second choice is full and then we move on to the third next
slide this year Paul R um we'll have a lottery to rney Marsh so you'll see um based on the smaller size oful R year there are 75 students that will be um that are not in a special program so 25 seats at each Middle School um 13
students selected Garfield Middle 43 selected rney and 19 selected Susan B Anthony um we have a number of siblings here and you will see that there'll be 40 names on 40 cards we are over 18
seats so 18 students will not get their first choice um we have 12 spots available at Garfield so 12 students will attend Garfield uh that don't get the rumney and six will attend Susan B Anthony next
slide uh this is Garfield Elementary so there will be a lottery for Garfield Middle School and Romney Marsh Academy so you'll see here there are 33 seats available at Garfield Middle School 41 students um requested it uh 32 seats
available at rney mark 38 students requested it and then 18 students uh requested Susan B Anthony so uh there'll be 37 names on 37 cards for Garfield Middle School all eight students um that don't get Garfield Middle School will
attend Susan B Anthony similarly there's 33 students 33 names on 33 cards for rney marsh the six students who don't get their first choice will attend Susan B Anthony for the Lincoln there is a lottery to rney Marsh Academy um you'll note there
is 2733 seats per school so 27 at Garfield 28 at rney and 27 at Susan B Anthony we had 24 requests for Garfield Middle School 33 requests for rney marsh and 25
requests for Susan B Anthony so there'll be 29 names on 29 cards um and five students will not get their first choice there for rney marsh um and three of those will uh take attend Garfield Middle and two will attend Susan B
Anthony and then finally Beachmont um our smallest fifth grade class so we have 16 spots at each Middle School uh we had 19 students request Garfield Middle 18 students request Romney Marsh uh and 11 students request Susan B
Anthony so here we have uh three students um 18 18 names on 18 cards the three students who do not get their first choice of Garfield Middle School will attend Susan B Anthony uh for Remy Marsh we have 18 names on 17 cards because we do have one set of twins um
and the two students who don't get their first choice will attend Susan B Anthony thank you Miss monosa so the second choice ranking does that come into effect for the schools where there's space in two of the three
options yes y so then a certain then who how do we choose which of those extra students get the second choice so what happens is we pick them in order so uh let's just let me pull up one so we're talking about um like hill hill so um we
there are 41 names on 41 cards so when we fill the Susan be Anthony seats so we're going to actually draw 33 names because there are four siblings that were taken out of the lottery um number 34 we will look so that would be the
first person not to get Susan B Anthony we look at what their second choice is it's listed on the card um so if their second choice is Garfield great um they get Garfield and we go in that order so it's basically the order that they're drawn until the second choice is full so
the first two kids that select rumney um which only had two spots would get Ry okay thank you any other questions no thank you we'd like to uh to have a motion to
go back to regular business or yes second all in favor I thank you thanks everyone so we're going to go back to the student representative report we have Jalia here hi Julia good evening everyone
so okay um once again good evening everyone just to preface our student Advisory Board is made up of five members in compliance with Massachusetts General law this committee is elected by the student body of the high school and with that being said we can get started with
the club report fem launched their eating disorder awareness this week by tbling with pamphlets and stickers for students they also raised awareness and support for teen dating violence nasu had their Han and night fundraiser to kick off Ramadan along
with setting up prayer rooms for rhs students and continuing Rivier High School hosted the seventh iteration of the Greater Boston District event for robotics with the neutrons winning first place for United robotics Rivier High speech and debate
team welcomed Essex Texs debate team to an exhibition to learn more about different events for speech for r Fine Arts news this month on the 27th and 28th RMA drama club will present Disney's Beauty and the Beast
and on April 3rd and 4th the Rivier High School drama club will present Greece which features an RPS alumni and Kiss 108 person ity Gana Graal and this month rhs jotc Cadets are going to be having their annual military
ball with their guest speaker being miss ferano the assistant principal at rhs moving on to the safe haven resolution from last meeting many students teachers and parents are unhappy with the results of the
resolution for the safe haven and many have expressed concerns that the timeline from inception to vote was too short which calls for limited discussion of the resolution for many students including those with mixed documentation status the idea that this resolution
would place a Target on the students backs is unfounded many students feel less safe without the passage of this resolution and are requesting alternative Solutions along with improved communication from the school the student Senate has written a
letter regarding the resolution which I'll Now read aloud if possible dear Riv school committee while Riv is just a tiny portion of the greater United States we are still deeply affected by the actions of our federal government to call the last few months
unprecedented would be a severe understatement for many daily routines have been flipped completely upside down at the last school committee meeting the decision to bring the safe haven resolution to the table was brought forward with the support of our student
Representatives despite our concerns the measure was voted down actively keeping families in the dark we believe this decision does not reflect the wishes of the entire Rivier Community the need to pass the safe haven resolution is especially dire for
rever the estimated percentage of foreign born persons that reside in our city was estimated at 43.5% or nearly half of our City's population it is certain that without any doubt reveres a resilient immigrant Community within our community's events
govern in classrooms we work to Value diversity if we truly want to put our words into action we must ensure all district stakeholders are protected and in the know about the support around them furthermore this resolution can help tackle other disparities that have
risen as a result of the heightened ice activity in the region students fear going to school and in some cases Guardians are fearful of sending their own children to school out of worry of what it could mean for their families this results in not only A disruption in
attendance but also in learning by passing The Safe Haven resolution we would not only restore trust but also education for students that deserve to feel safe in school Riv Public Schools would not be alone in this decision Dr AA the
superintendent of Chelsea Public Schools published an oped in the Boston Globe in which she us the example of Lynn public schools in her decision to make Chelsea Public Schools A Safe Haven District following the communications between the district and the families of students to
reassure that the district is still committed to ensuring student safety Chelsea saw their attendance rate immediately begin Rising again our school district which has a similar demographic background to that of Chelsea can follow in these Footsteps in order to support all students still
there are arguments that creating a Safe Haven District would put a Target on students backs while this rhetoric may be from a place of concern it is unfounded and ultimately dangerous some worry that this decision could possibly bring protest to school but in the cases
of Lynn and Chelsea this backlash never occurred as a matter of fact publicly announcing that these districts were safe havens reaffirmed trust Within These communities families were able to trust the schools they were sending their children to knowing that student safety was the district's first priority
given the background of our city it's crucial we reaffirm our commitment our commitment to all students and families within the district we all have the safety of the students of in our minds we hope that we can come to a decisive and effective solution for all of our
city recent actions to the limit of safety of our education system impact all students much of it feels out of our control still you have the control the power to enact measures that will support our students at the end of the day schools are built on trust ensuring
all of R feels secure within our safe haven will fortify that trust and protect our entire Community sincerely rhs student Senate and student Representatives um I'll be sending the committee a copy of the letter so it can be entered into the
record thank you thank you Miss mon Roa I just wanted to give one update to the student Senate so last month you uh the student Senate brought up how all our meetings are not posted on the website the city website to
increase visibility of our schedule so I just wanted to give an update that our meetings are now all posted following the model of the city council so um people can see them 6 months out because that's how we vote for them and so I want to thank the student senate for bringing that to our attention and Robin
for working with City Hall to get those posted as well and then you know I just want to applaud our students for continuing to advocate for what's important to you and as the original maker of the motion for Safe Haven I'll always stand by if the committee ever has an appetite to reopen the
conversation so I appla to you all for leveraging your student voice thank you Miss mon Roo Miss Rizo question to miss montoso our meetings are always posted on the website so I'm not
sure H yeah so this was brought up last time when you weren't here the meetings are posted a week before but students were looking for the schedule like City Council post their year round schedule on the website so that's what they wanted so we just posted the ones that we already have voted on and approved so
they can look into the future weting them on our website Citys on the calendar on the city website now and then agendas will continue to be available once uh they are made which is usually the week before but everyone who looked at the
city website and add in addition to the school website can now see our full schedule as well thank you and Miss Mont oh well I'm sorry um just wanted to also bring up to the student Representatives we I I just
want to make sure you all know I wasn't here at the last meeting I do support my colleagues and I also support the student Senate uh in their actions this is this is what's a great part about democracy uh and we I do hear you and I want to make sure that you you uh fully
are are aware that regardless of any status that is put out there uh the city is going to continue to protect its student population no matter the status of your immigration we're going to continue to uh give the information that um the lawful information that you deserve and any families out there that
do need that information we have it available every one of our guidance counselors every single one of our guidance counselors every single one of our principles assistant principles and I would say I would lead to believe that 99.9% of our faculty know exactly what the rights are and they'll be able to offer those to any student or any family
member in need we will have in in in every language so uh I understand that it you know some of the frustration I feel it but I also want to let you know that we're going to you know protect and in the know we we will continue to do that regardless of any resolutions you're going to be protected in our school system and you're going to
be in the know and if you are if you don't feel comfortable with that you can come to me you can come to the superintendent you can come to any of these committee members or any of your guidance councelors that's what they're there for we are there to make sure that we're protecting our residents and our students uh Point Blank that is it thank
you um any hearings no okay and we have uh reports of the subcommittees ways and means the ways and means subcommittee met today March 18
2025 I was President as uh chairman of that committee uh Stacy Bronson Rizzo Anthony kiano were president as members of the subcomittee also present were Aisha Milbury Ellis and Mr Fred sella we had three items to discuss uh two of the items were somewhat
related uh talking about cost for transportation cost overall Transportation cost as far as the Middle School Lottery went um it was decided that we probably will form a committee to discuss the Middle School um busing
situation uh and costs associated with that um we'll get a group together and to have more further discussion on that the third item was trying to add two classroom spaces in a hallway on the third floor of the gothfield School Mr KL Swenson director of plant and maintenance um expressed um that the
fire department may not want us to block up that space with two classrooms so that was uh that was decided that we wouldn't go forward with that um that's the gist of the meeting um if anyone has any questions or add on happy to have them thank
you thank you Mr Kingston Miss montoso uh Mr Kingston can you just confirm that the next meeting will have the Yonder pouches on it it was wasn't on this agenda and the vote was unanimously passed last month so it should have been on the agenda and it should have superseded other items that were not
requested by the full committee to be put on there so I just want confirmation that that'll be on the next one I don't have any um through the superintendent I don't have any um information on the Yonder pouches as far as data and cost only
what I was able to determine on my own and um so I would need some assistance with that um as far as what what they were cost for this for the school thank you the the request was for the ways and means to begin the conversation of a visibility study so the meeting should have brought the agenda item up and then
you would have all discussed if you were going to have the superintendent or a member of the subc commmittee do the research to begin the conversation that's what the vote was so will when is the next ways and means committee meeting and when will this be on the agenda we're going to try to schedule a ways me ways and means
committee meeting next week I I honestly felt without any information I didn't know what I would discuss at the meeting not having any idea of costs or um you know what what the project was going to cost I could you know we could meet and usually Ways and Means has some numbers
in front of us so that we can discuss how it fits and impacts the budget without having any information on how much it's going to cost I don't know what I would discuss at the meeting again that's the definition of a visibility study so to begin the discussion you have to bring it to the subcommittee as the maker of the motion
I would have been present to explain what we needed to do and then as the chair of the subcommittee you would have made a plan to delegate to people or the superintendent who was going to begin that research but that conversation can't happen if it's not on the agenda just like it was voted and it should have been
today wow Excuse Me Miss Rizzo to Mr Kingston I believe I might have some um information I had um received a couple of years ago I'll go through um
some correspondence and I can um send it to you and then at our next meeting we can bring it up and hopefully I have more information than we need thank you I hope thank you thank you but again and with all du respect and I appreciate your effort it is might
be a couple years old and cost might have gone up so that's my concern but I appreciate what you're saying I just want to yeah thank you and no thank you for your reference I mean that I just was concerned I quite frankly when I did not get any information I'm sorry about the
feasibility study I don't recall hearing and I'm sure it was in the meeting I don't recall hearing those words but when I didn't have any uh facts so to speak to go on um I didn't put it on the agenda and that was the reason why it wasn't it wasn't anything intentional I didn't mean to hurt anyone's uh you know I didn't mean to stifle any debate or
anything like that I just didn't have anything um tangible to present so that's why I didn't put it on the agenda fair enough Mr Kingston U Mr monos I I I apologize a a little behind here were you the maker of the motion for the Y pouches yes and it passed unanimously to
be at the next meeting which was today so regardless of someone having information or not an agenda item was requested to be put on the agenda and it should have been just like I put everyone's agenda items on the agendas for our meetings well good point um what I'll also do is I will reach out I know
there's a there's a sales rep that sells these things um I will offer myself up to try to reach out to see if they can maybe present some data on updated costs to present to to give to the council at the subcommittee if that helps thank you sir and if it doesn't then thank you
we'll go from okay any other updates Mr Mr Kingston No Sir Mr sella have something to say I'm sorry Mr sella I thought he motion to accept the report there
there's no motion needed okay um vote to approve the school calendar year sorry can I say one more thing on that because I I just want to be clear that I can't provide information that I'm not asked for so if I don't know that um somebody expects me to give them information for a
subcommittee meeting that was that was my I apologize and I am apologizing that was my assumption at the last meeting and when I didn't see anything no I did not reach out to you I didn't I didn't put it on the agenda cuz I had again I thought they had nothing to discuss but I I also don't know what the
committee's idea is to do with the Yonder pouches if they want them at the high school or at Middle School the end high school or through the whole District so there's no way for me to collect information if I don't miss montoso so to clarify the mo the motion last month was to start the
conversation about pricing for the high school level so you are correct Dr Kelly the subcommittee has to either as research themselves or ask you to research whatever you prefer as a superintendent and then the plan continues from there so we can further
discuss at the next subcommittee meeting that I'll be present at as the maker of the motion thank you okay any other questions okay on to the uh motions to uh vote to approve the
school year for 25 26 Calendar motion to accept second second what's the first day I think that's all that we really can tell um the first day for staff will be on um the 25th of August and then students
will start on the 26th of August that will for students be a 3-day week and we'll take the usual 4-day weekend leading into labor day um and with this schedule if all goes according to plan and the weather continues to cooperate as it did this year the last day of
school will be uh Wednesday June 17th thank you and just for everyone's edification what's the last school day of this year if we have viewing audience you know it's the 18th so June 18th if as long as we don't have any snow days
correct okay great I think we're and then uh graduation is June 4th June 4th great so the high school graduation will be June 4th rain date June 5th rain date June 5th thank you
okay so any unfinished business we have the analysis for the rhs attendance by period Mr Kingston was that your request yes it was um I I had a lot of trouble read I had a lot
of trouble un understanding this um piece of paper um I was hoping Dr Kelly could shed some light on it some of the numbers I mean I can read the Biograph that the first period is is is problematic but the rest I really didn't quite understand uh too well thank you
yeah so so I'll try to summarize it um the the barograph on the top of the page um shows the number of absent or did not arrive to class um students for a first period second period third period and fourth
period I know that the conversation we had last month um focused on whether or not there are a lot of kids coming to school late first period And how that compared to the other periods of the day and so the Biograph shows that um and I should clarify that this data that
you're looking at here is for the second semester which started the third week in January so it's the data from the third week in January to current to last Wednesday I should say um and you can see that um the data for period one the
number of times that any individual student in that 7we period um did not report to did not arrive at period 1 was 1,632 um so that's roughly 1 half of one occurrence per student over s weeks and
then um the number of times that a student was absent from the first period is the 35,4 6 so that's how you can Orient to the graph so indeed there are more kids absent first period Then There are second third or fourth period um and
then if you look at the next table on the middle of the page um it's it's Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and in that time period there had been six Mondays six Tuesdays seven Wednesdays six Thursdays six Fridays and
you can see the average number of tardies per day and that's across all four blocks along with the total count of tardies and then what the median length of the tardy was so roughly 21 on
Mondays 20 minutes late on Tuesdays 28 minutes late on Wednesday um 23 minutes late on Thursday and 24 minutes late on Friday and then finally down at the bottom of the page we try to analyze
how late students were being um and the vast majority you can see all late by less than 5 minutes which late is late but it's better than um late by 15 20 30 minutes and you can see that breakdown as you go down
through the frequencies in that tottin table and then um the pie chart just shows um the the same data that's on the table but in a in a graphical form thank you Miss Miss Milbury Ellis thank
you um how do we how do we account for students who check in at the beginning of class and and may leave that class and not come back the teacher would have to address that as a discipline issue would would they change the marking of attendance like if they were marked
present when they first came in but then say and disappeared yeah there's they the high school has a system by minutes that determines whether or not you get credit for that class as being present if you miss too many minutes you're mocked absent okay thank you
Julia you on this list not all right good good answer on time that's right okay anyone else any other Comm oh Mr Kingston um so Dr Kelly how what what's what are we what can we do what
are we doing to get this is how I look at it des's very specific on how many days of school we how many days of school we have to go every year and how many minutes we have to put in yet a lot of a lot of students in my opinion are missing a lot of first period so that they only have four a day and if they're
missing a lot of the first that's like a quarter of their so to spoke work day and even the fourth period I thought was pretty high um I mean 20 I mean it's less than the 35 I agree but still it's it's a lot I I just I don't know what you know if
if he well I I thought well I can ask Mr Bowen to come again he I thought he handled that pretty well last month which led to this information request um I just see that I just he talked about how the student engagement coordinators and the team structure are
working with these families to make sure kids are getting here on time and um amplifying it with them I mean we really do need parents to partner with us and send their kids to school or bring their kids to school or whichever um whichever
the case may be um I I am encouraged by the fact that um the median numbers that you look at on the Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday for a total number of tardies that that's showing that even the median on Monday is 21 minutes that
means of all the kids that have been Tardy on Monday half of them were less than 21 minutes half of them were more and those half that were more definitely need to be addressed and the school is um working to address it but I know that this is a focus uh of Mr Bowen and his
team and the team structures that they've created um to wrap around to these kids with guidance counselors social workers um student engagement coordinators and student support Specialists they feel like they're doing everything that they can I can um
reinforce to him um I think he realizes that it's an area in need of work and that he's working on it and that they are working on it um you know what one more sorry I apologize what so
what what happens to I don't know what happens to the student who misses first period repeatedly is something I mean how they fail first period other than that you mean yeah so if they don't show up they fail yes I mean which I don't have a problem with
necessarily because you're not there correct all right I just want to ask and there's also um you might recall that last time we talked about some changes to the student handbook there are also rules around um missing class too much to the point that you cannot take it in
summer school you have to repeat that class so students who who Miss way too much of a class cannot make it up in summer school they have to repeat it if they do that two three times now they're not graduating on time so there are real consequences for
students um when they don't come to school and and that information is all ail available to parents and families I would urge them to look at it in the guide for students and families um in the high school section that's on our website quick
question um I might be dating myself um but you made me you made me think of something I'm just wondering in addition to the counselors and the teams that we've established to address to address a lot of things but in particular the attendance issue um do we still have the
truant officer and does that officer come into play with with this issue that we're talking about and how if so how yeah we have a a great treny officer um Nick mag Leone who works for us um and he does house visits all day every day not just for the high school but for the
middle schools as well and even on occasion Elementary we have some kids at the elementary level who aren't coming to school every day it's been an uphill battle since covid to to reconvince families and kids that their kids need to be here every day um and Nick has done a tremendous job and really has
built built relationships with families um and and been very successful in bringing a lot of kids back in and it's typically the team at the high school or the Middle School whichever the case may be who contacts Nick and says I need you to go um to this family and and find out
what's going on and he works directly with the teams um through that process and just as a final followup what has there been any have you received any feedback from him as to like the reason um not I just turned it off um not not
something that I would list as um actual data that we've done an actual survey with some of the parents but anecdotally they just don't feel like it's as relevant as they did before Co that's just what they
say we have to help them change the behaviors we have to do things we have to make kids want to be here and we have to help their parents understand why they need to be here maybe we need to hold parents accountable for for their students not
being here if all other measures you know fail just a thought thank you who else great okay um and the second item was the busing for
neighborhood middle schools I know that this came up um few of us brought this up right was this discussed at the committee any any resolutions no they're going to form a comme okay great a
committee and work on it in the future okay any new business I know we have executive session do we have a motion to yeah a motion to move into executive Ive session pursuant of purpose two
according to Mass General laws and we will not return to open session okay we have a second second roll call Mrs bronston Rizzo yes Mr kajo yes Mr Kingston yes Miss milar Ellis yes
Miss monteroso yes Mr sella yes mayor ke yes so we have approved to go into executive session just for the viewing audience we are not going to return to regular business so have a good night we'll see you at the next council meeting or school committee
meeting