##VIDEO ID:lIYQWswvL1E## e e e e e e e e good evening calling to order the Tuesday uh sorry the school committee uh of Tuesday December 17 2024 we'll all rise and salute the flag of the United States of America and to the stands na indivisible and jusice all Mr guchi would you call the rooll sure Mrs Bronson Rizzo here Mr kiano here Mr Kingston here Mrs Milbury Ellis pres miss monteroso Mr sella pres mayor Keef here and uh just for the record Miss monteroso is celebrating her one-year wedding anniversary with her wonderful husband Victor and we want to congratulate them on their anniversary okay she will not be in attendance this evening okay first up recognition Okay sty Riz did you have some a recognition apologies okay we uh voting on The consent calendar Mr Mayor can we take um the two donations we got off and then vote on the rest please sure so the two donations um you wanted to leave off and then vote on the other other items as a whole correct please great we have a second second okay discussion no none Mr guchi would you call the r Mrs Bronson Rizzo yes Mr kiano yes Mr Kingston yes Mrs milb Alis yes Miss monteroso Mr Cella yes mayor Keef yes and I asked for the two donations to be taken off and I'm going to ask Dr Kelly to let the viewing audience and the people um in this room know what the wonderful donations were about thank you Mrs rzo um so the first uh donation that we're very excited about is a uh reader to readers book donation which is coming to us by way of the United wage the Lincoln School and they've been offered over 600 books that will populate their school library um and just because we talked in earlier months about the program that representative janino brought to us that is giving every student in uh the Rivia Public Schools 10 books of their own and every teacher an additional 20 books 25 books for their classroom this is an addition to all of that um so principal Surman is here tonight she's going to be giving her a presentation uh we're very excited for that um but we're also very excited and hope that the school committee will support this gift uh which we know is going to help all of the students in the Lincoln Community um the second donation is coming to us um by way of the uh Metro North YMCA who is coming here tomorrow to give us a hundred $100 gift cards that we're going to be able to give out to students at all of our schools who are um struggling financially and what we're going to do is ration those out based on enrollment um and make sure that students at every school at least a couple of students at every school will get some this is coming um through the United ya which is making me think that I might have misspoken about the books the Lincoln School is it United Way Cassie that yours too read to readers oh readers to readers okay um so it's the United Way Through the YMCA of the Metro North YMCA that'll be giving the gift cards and we're really excited for that because we think it's going to change the holidays for some kids and those are the two gifts with that I'd like to make a motion to accept these generous donations second discussion none Dr kuchi would you call a roll Mrs Bronson Rizzo yes Mr kiano yes Mr Kingston yes Mrs mbri Alis yes Miss monteroso Mr sella yes mayor Keefe yes motion passes next is the student representative report good afternoon um all right so with our student rep report um oh and just to kind of preface this we finally have our Junior uh student representative on the council so that's very exciting congratulations you introducer what was that would you K to introduce her to the group Yep this is our student representative uh Jia for groa um and first time on the council very exciting and hopefully we will have many um more meetings in the future so this is great okay so starting off with the student rep report there it is um just uh to preface this that we have our student Advisory Board uh which is made up of five members in compliance with Massachusetts General law um that is that this committee is elected by um the student body and through that we actually have been able to reach out to many more students in uh the District of Rivier decides just in the high school um and I'm going to pass it over to the junior student rep to kind of elaborate on the visit to Garfield Middle School so in order to fully represent Rivier Public Schools as a whole me and my PE ad Lu went to GMS and first thank you to miss Shepard for making it a super easy process but we got a recap of what they were doing and they have two plays that are set to perform this week they have um they've had successful morning videos and they call it good morning Garfield and they just give Recaps of what's going on in the school bring some school spirit to the students and they have a successful student store that's been donated to by the school committee members and the big takeaway that we got was it was actually an accident that it happened but they took the opportunity to ask us questions about what high school is like since they had a lot of eighth graders and they felt like really relieved their nerves were calmed so what we took away and we talked to them was that they would like more mentorship with high schoolers and get that communication going so that they can feel more at ease when they come to the high school I think it's great that the students Advisory Board was able to have this opportunity um I along with a couple other members uh Was A Garfield Middle School student and I was Al also part of the GMS Student Government so it's really great that now in my senior year that we were able to make this connection back to something that was so meaningful to me back when I was younger um okay so going into the student Senate uh report uh I just Al want to briefly mention our opportunities and inclusion subcommittee um and how they're trying to expand their youth Scholars fellowship program to other schools such as Garfield Middle School um the reason I'm highlighting this from the previous meeting is because unlike schools like SBA and um RMA which are in closer proximity to the high school uh Garfield Middle School is a lot farther and um they sorry they are requesting um transportation Aid and um assistance from the school committee in order to um complete the monthly program to Garfield Middle School just for the sake of ensuring that everything is uh timely and to ensure that members are able to make there make it there safely because one of the the routes to Garfield Middle School from the high school is passing a really hard to cross highway so I'm just putting that out there if any school Committee Member would like me to connect uh with would like me to connect them to any of the officers part of that committee I can do that for you and they would love to chat about that um moving on um also kind of want to highlight the Nan project again um same thing from last week but I'm also highlighting it because um I believe that they are also requesting transportation for that that is something that's going to be in a little bit ways from now may feels very far especially for a senior um but putting that out there putting that on your Radars as something to um keep an eye out um can I ask a quick question sorry have you guys talked to Mr Bowen yet about these Transportation requests um I'm not personally part of that subcommittee but I'm I I have I pretty sure that they have been in communication with some of the admin of the school um again I could check in with that but these uh the middle school project that they're doing of the youth Scholars fellowship program something that they have been carrying out in previous years so I I'd assume that okay Bowen is knowledgeable about this also um I'm here to also advertise our student ad uh engagement sub uh from our student engagement subcommittees are Multicultural night it's going to be a big night of uh the semester one winter showcase and we are imploring you guys if please please please come it's going to be a fun event and you're going to see a ton of creativity from the students ton of achievement and yeah it's going to be great like it's been in past years okay so um Club report just want to also this feels like I'm advertising a lot here but we do want to we do want to help our high school so um our class of 2025 student council is doing our Deck the Halls event which is a new event uh that's actually being held today the 17th yeah it's going to be held tomorrow and it's a fun event fundraising trying to get prom tickets and all that fun stuff lower for seniors in the future and fundraising so again highly implore you come have some fun bring some festive spirit all right now next fun bit we have reached out to the jotc and we would like to highlight some of their accomplishments that they have had in uh at least the past two months so um they're having their map or Marksmanship emies and physical trainings competition and they were also able to qualify for the national Army Postal in Camp Perry Ohio um and here they're third in their Brigade so the notes that I have here uh to read is that the Patriots Battalion plays second in the 11 the 11 second of 11 in the regional participation 8th 8th of the 30th in the northern region and of the three National regions and 66 out of the 339 Army JC uh participating in the year's competition and um going on to the next slide we also have uh the JC's J laab or leadership academic goal which was able to complete their first round of JB and qualified for round two in February 2025 although this is not part of the slides I also wanted to give some recognition to a member of Rivier High's jotc um Cadet Amina Lise who was able to compete in an international uh karate tournament in uh takas Japan and was able to place top 16 in the youth division competing with students from all around the world including countries like Brazil turkey Kuwait Japan Italy Spain and of course many many more so uh just wanted to give that recognition out here um the JC is doing really really great things along with many other clubs in Rivier high so this is mostly just this report was mostly just a lot of recognition for a lot of the achievements our students have had and yeah that concludes the student rep report than there's any questions all right thank you than you very nice and welcome okay we have uh this point of the meeting we have open for public speak if there's anyone members of the public that wish to come and speak here's your opportunity Dr Kelly would you see if there's anyone online that wishes to speak okay going once we'll close that into the meeting okay Dr Kelly superintendent report thank you Mr Mayor we have a number of presentations for the school committee tonight um the each one is going to be about 10 minutes in length so um we should be able to get through them relatively quickly uh we're going to start first with the Abraham Lincoln School and I mentioned before principal Surman is here tonight and she's going to talk about uh empowering Every Voice by fostering inclusion and support in our diverse community so let me just pull up this presentation okay hello everyone hello everyone um the Lincoln has been working extremely hard in improving um various aspects of the school to support students um whether it's having events whether it's having initiatives in place so that is why we have the title empowering Every Voice by fostering inclusion and support in our diverse Community how do we how do we make all students feel empowered and safe we looked at the data from the school quality measure dashboard when we reviewed it we looked at some factors to make a decision for school culture um our approval rate was very good the teachers and students did this um survey um and I want to say in the spring um so School culture safety looks really good the next slide student physical safety overall people feel they feel safe now we have some growth student emotional safety the students had some concerns and we had to be very transparent about that um some students feel like they get picked on um they feel like some kids are acting unsafe and they're not seeing acts of kindness which is a very important aspect of our school of being kind to each other so this is an area that we focused on student sense of belonging they feel approval was great there student teacher relationship that was great as well so what systems do we have in place at the Lincoln we have restorative justice practice which is a districtwide initiative we have academic support we have family support we work very closely with the liaison who works with our families to make them feel welcome and any needs that they may need we do various things to help support them we had the food drive in November where we had um in our butterfly foyer um we collected canned goods um pasta cereal boxes families had an opportunity to come after school to pick up items where no one could see that they're getting items and we had bags available and we made sure that it was very private for them students have an opportunity to do word of the week in quotes each grade has a to choose a word and a quote sorry am I no you got to go I'm just going sorry this one yep yep thank you so every class decides every week they have a word of the week and quote where kids are taking a part of their learning and learning new vocabulary and participating in the school aspect so they make the decision it is announced every morning and they come down to the hall to the office to say the word and say the quote we have our anti-bullying pledge which we started last year that's going very well we have the posters up all around the building where students know we are an anti-bullying School if they see something speak up report it and let an adult know that this is happening schoolwide events we have lots of events almost every month we try to have something we had our Italian potluck dinner where the local restaurants donated um lots of meals to our school um for our potlock we had school committee members that were able that were also part of it that donated as well we appreciate that we had our Hispanic poster cont conc con contest um that was in October and we're planning to have a couple events coming up for Black History Month wom's history month and just celebrating um the diverse culture we have in our school partnership as mentioned before we have reader to reader um parent volunteers we have now started an initiative where parents can come in for lunch and recess to help in the calf and parents we did a training with them we explain what the expectations are and that's going well we have a few parents that has volunteered to help during lunch and recess they are Corey cleared we made sure that it was all in place classroom choice where students are taking AP part of the learning aspect where they they're learning about how to decide what makes them learn something after school club we have a new club handwriting Club a lot of kids signed up for that and I love handwriting I thought it was very important because all we do is technology now we're not practicing writing skills so two of our teachers are the after school teachers for that Miss Reynolds a second grade teacher third grade teacher Miss Arnold they work together after school Tuesday and Thursdays and they work with kids and they're they're doing fun activities with writing student council we have a student council which we had last year they decide our dress down every month whenever we have a half day they decide what we're going to wear and they make decisions around the school and we have our challenge accepted that's our new theme for the school year every month the Lincoln School has a theme and it is our Focus so we had let me see we did the food drive was one of them I want to say second grade did that one this month kindergarten chose the theme for the challenge they had to bring hat families were able to donate hats and gloves for students who may need them and we have them in the front for families to just get a hat and glove for the winter so one important aspect of empowering our students and families is actively engaging our families when they come to the school and actively engaging the students constantly and making them see the things that we have going on so for American Education week we had a huge bulletin board where parents can come in and sign and write a kudos to their kids you're doing a great job and parents were able to sign off and we have a couple of those bulletin boards up and we also had it up for parent teacher conference as well where parents can write a little note to their student and that's our tree for the hats and gloves um that's in the front lobby of the school with all the hats and gloves on it our anti-bullying pledge which I mentioned and that is our literacy event we had in October no I want to say early November I'm sorry November we had a family one of our parents donated lots of backpacks to our school so kids were able to get backpacks in the beginning of the school year um we have a safety assembly to make sure we're we're reinforcing that we are very making sure kids feel safe we had this in the beginning of the year and these are just pictures from some of the events we've had of the Lincoln I want one more for American Education week we want to make sure since they are part of our school community do not want to forget our cafeteria workers our bus drivers we made them we made them special cards to acknowledge them and we had them sent to them to the driver to our cafeteria worker we did one for the crossing guard anyone who's part of our school Community we want them to know that they're part of our school and we do see that all the hard work that they put into what they do and that is it [Applause] anyone have any questions Mr Kingston I was I was talking to a newcomer student at the Go field and he only writes in cursive because he was never taught where he came from to write in um print so he only knows cursive and I thought it was interesting because our kids don't and our kids couldn't read what he was writing even though it was cursive so I'm glad you're kind of looking at the cursive side of the world thank you so I we teach Financial um I don't want M name the credit union does a program with financial literacy and if you don't do cursive how do you assign your name right it's a huge problem yeah that's what they do is scribble but it's pretty hard to scribble on a legal document when they get older so I'm glad we're looking at cursive because believe it or not it's a problem and the teachers are doing it where it's age appropriate where they have like K through two are doing basic writing and then the upper grades are learning how to write and handwriting but it's really nice to see the work they're doing and parents were all um signed up for they really love it thank you I just want to say thank you and most of our schools do it but thank you for including all the school Community our custodians our cafeteria our B driv these are um students that they see them every day just as much as their teachers and may be more comfortable with one of these if they had to go with an issue so thank you for including them our unspoken Heroes we have to make sure we owled them so yeah thank you anyone else thank you very much thank you principal serman okay the uh next item on the superintendent report is actually the presentation from City lab High School which is going to tell us what the heck is in the ELO [Laughter] I'm GNA be really brief um it's on now okay sorry I'm going to be really brief it's also my anniversary today so thank you um so yes what the heck is an e um I know I'm thankful for all of you guys that follow us online and say really positive comments but um when people often look at what we're doing they just think we're on field trips and it's important for the community to know we're not just going out and playing all day um so what the heck is an ELO um it's it's an acronym for experiential learning opportunities and we made a collective decision as a school community that this is how we were going to do school from now on um when I say say that we made a decision as a school Community it truly came from data from students from family from the reaction that we got from the community and from incoming data from students in their interviews and the first set of data that we looked at was when when do when do kids come to school and that started to stick out that the days the teachers were really changing it up and doing these uh opportunities in our classroom or when we do go outside attendance was just and that's important if the kids aren't coming to school there's a problem um when we ask students in incoming students when we interviewed them like what do you like about it and they're like well School looks fun over here we see what you guys are doing and it looks great um students were saying that uh they couldn't sit still it's difficult to sit in the classroom from block after block and they were bored so um after year one we were like we have to do something we just can't lecture anymore so that's really what we decided that we would become a different school and we would do school differently so uh over the past three years um we've been in the school model and the data has shown us that we have better student outcomes when we use experiential learning instructional practices at City lab um like I said most importantly attendance data as some of you know before we did this experiment our student attendance was between 30 and 40% um just this fall our attendance has jumped up to to 92% um um students genuinely love coming to school and that makes me happy to see full hallways um my first year here there was no kids and that was really because of Co it wasn't just because of what was going on there but there were no children at all um and then when kids did come back it still felt like there were no kids so to see full hallways um students laughing and students looking forward to what the next ELO was it um it makes me very happy it makes our teachers happy um I love that the school has adopted the acronym ELO um it was very important to change the language and stop saying field trip because that's not what we're doing so um the ELO is very intentional um we want kids to say that so they know that's what's happening we're learning a different way today so when you hear us say that it's not um that we're trying to give you more ed UC ational jargon to get lost in it's so kids know what's happening every day um it's important to know it's not about field trips it's about deeper learning Hands-On learning and real world experiences that connect our students lives to everything that we do every day um we were in our mtss training last week and we were trying to compare where those mtss guid guidelines support the work that we're doing in rever and something stuck out to me and it said we do not have struggling students we have instruction curriculum and school cultures that are not that are struggling to build on student strengths and address students academic andal needs and it just really resonated me with me because that is what we're doing um we saw a need and we answered the call so that's what an ELO is and Mr blaz Dell is the king of the ELO so I'm going to have him really break down how we got here what we've been doing this year and I'm going to hand it over to him hello everyone my name is Nick blazel I'm a teacher at City lab and um I'm going to explain a little bit about what elos are and not to be confused with the band uh but an ELO at City lab is an experiential learning opportunity that's what the acrm stands for and the whole idea of an EO is to U move away from a traditional model of teaching and learning where basically the idea of the sage on the stage or even um other models of learning where we're doing like say packets or activities or worksheets an ELO is well creating an experience for students to remember um the research shows that people um more likely remember things and things get stored into their long-term memory if it is an experience so um at City lab we've B basically made it part of our mission to make it um ELO's part of our whole experience for students and we've started this work um year one with the whole idea of City lab the city as a lab and moving outside of um the four walls of a classroom um in our first year as you can see on the slides we started our first year program with an exploratory program this is kind of our initial um first step into elos so the way this program works which it still continues is every Wednesday students will go period six and seven um outside um grades 9 and 10 students will go outside of the building we have Partnerships with um artists for Humanity for students who are interested in art Pathways zoomx for students who are interested in music video production um at one point we had a partnership with a legal seafood students are interested in the culinary um program and such and the whole idea was getting students out of the building and learning out in the community um so this was really successful our first year students were looking forward to um every Wednesday specifically period six and seven students were actually sometimes really bummed out sometimes when we had half days because then we wouldn't necessarily have the second half of the day um as Dr Mullan mentioned our attendance um was was one increasing significantly um year-over year um from SE Coast into City lab but also specifically we noticed in our um meetings that was at our attendance on Wednesdays was particularly high so going into year two um if we go to the next slide Dr Kelly thank you um going into year two we tried expanding on this um success that we've been seeing on Wednesdays um by basically making an expectation for all teachers to try to create at least two um elos per month per class um so this is includes things both inside and outside of the building um there was initial um confusion as Dr mentioned the idea of um ELO's just being field trips um so we did try to step away from that a lot during the second year and the idea of an experiential learning could be happening inside of a classroom as well as outside of a classroom so just some recent examples of things in the last I think this is actually from the last couple weeks just at C lab some examples um our math teacher was using the school vending machine to teach the idea of a function replacing some of the um drinks in there to show show students how a function needs to function for for It Fun right um our Japanese teacher had um students um Zoom calling with students in Japan um and then also in terms of outside of the building students were able to go to the Harvard U Museum of Natural History um on top of that our grade 10 has been doing um a few different U partner programs but basically as of year 2 and carrying on now um as well um all teachers are expected to have at least two um elos um per month um class so this was year two and now going into year three um one of the new biggest Partnerships we had in terms of elos and experiential learning at City lab is our partnership with halil education so hail education is an outdoor um Leadership Learning facility in Westwood Massachusetts and basically our program is that every Tuesday and Thursday our entire sophomore class will travel U Travels by bus to hail um hail facilities during this time students still get their core subjects English math History Science Etc um however they get it in an outdoor experiential fashion so for example um I'm I teach world history primarily so instead of say teaching students about say the trenches of World War I by reading articles out the che textbook and answering questions at the end we actually would create a simulation where students would actually engage in say trench warfare for example or instead of learning about the alliances of World War I we'd have students simulate that by actually creating Alliance systems and and passing telegrams and telegraphs to each other in this outdoor space um all subjects um have been having a lot of fun and doing a lot of um trying to increase the rigor by pushing our own teaching forward because as a teacher it can get one pretty repetitive doing the same things over and over again but also um it does um Force us to push our instruction even further um it's also a lot of fun for example a physics lesson they had me suspended 30 ft in the air as a pendulum learning about motion um so this is one of our big um pushes for um grade 10 for elos for this school year um another component of hail if we can go to the next slide is um the outdoor leadership component so obviously our first and foremost priority at hail education is the students's education um in terms of their core subjects um additionally another part of this though is um the idea of outdoor leadership and just leadership skills skills in general so at hail education we have these things called outdoor leadership Labs which are um I guess the easiest way to think about is if you think about the um the TV show Survivor um things that such we're basically forcing students to um really push their um leadership skills public speaking skills um teamwork skills and decision- making um through these outdoor leadership challenges so positive outcomes of elos oh yes we can go to next slide thank you Dr KY um positive outcomes of elos and as someone's been at City lab for the last 3 years um is one we've seen a massive increase in attendance and I've just seen that obviously this is the data but also just as Dr Mulligan mentioned myself just going from seeing more or less empty hallways to completely full hallways um going from seeing most students on Wednesdays so now seeing students pretty much every day um is a huge huge Improvement so we're seeing a major increase in attendance students are excited um students are actually bummed out when they're missing out on some of these things I'll especially the mornings we're going to hailed by bus my inbox is blowing up 7:54 the bus is running late the Train's running late this is running late the students really um begging me not to leave without them um very excited to come and also sending me very um sad messages when they miss it um which also shows we've are seeing a lot higher engagement um like we said students are very excited to be part of these um students are disappointed when they miss them and on top of that um as the research supports students are remembering these things it's very helpful when I'm teaching in class um I can recall now like for example we've been doing a not so exciting thing in my world history class I'm a document based question this week but I can recall oh remember that time at hail we did the alliance activity remember that time at hail we did the imperialism activity um it really ties all this stuff together and students are remembering in a way that I'm seeing is um more than previous years and then um lastly we we've been really working on trying to connect this to the pathway exploration um so students at CB have the opportunity to join a pathway their Junior and Senior year and really commit to um a discipline and get um college level um education for that so these elos are really helping students one think about especially early years 9th and 10th grade what pathway they're interested in and um helping them really decide what they would like to do um when they get to there because now previous years our first couple years students would get to Junior Senior Year and still weren't really sure where they want to commit they might jump from one to the other um these elos really help students solidify what they're into what they're not into and where they want to go um going forward so yeah thank you very good M Miss Rizzo well thank you first and foremost for transferring over to City lab from the high school I think it's um a great opportunity for our students no matter where you go but right now at the beginning of that program you are really a plus for the program um with the ELO I really appreciate how our students are learning by doing things um analyzing all their experiences um maybe even clarifying their values and definitely how they learn how to contribute to the community so I I really love the projects um I'm glad this two a month now for each of the subjects so thank you very much I appreciate it thank you thank you great work um very proud of what's going on over there and I know that you have you have a very strong leader so defin good job keep up the great work we look forward to hearing more all right thank you very much thank you awes [Applause] thank you both um next we're going to hear from our humanities Department um Dr Porter and Miss suus are here to share some information about adult professional learning all right hi folks thank you for having us so Brianna and I are going to talk to you a little bit about some of the work we do with adult professional learning so we just heard some amazing stories of student learning and now we're going to flip it over to adult learning um so today's learning outcomes our goals for today are to share some examples of adult professional learning we are doing to support uh teachers uh at in RPS and also highlight the connection uh between adult learning and student learning okay all right so last time we had presented in the spring we shared the same overall Focus for humanities so we're just zooming in right here on the adult professional learning piece which is a place where our office spends a lot of our working time tell me if you want me to any of no no we're good thank you okay so I have this quote this is like a broken record quote for me I did not invent it but I use it when I'm teaching grad classes who use it all the time working with adults adult learning and student learning are symmetrical so that means there are a lot of elements that you would use when you're learning with students that you would want to model when you're learning with adults um things like uh honoring folks background giving people choice um so sometimes folks think oh it's very different when you're working with adults than it is working with students but not so much we also want to mirror uh what we would expect to happen in a classroom so we try to do that when we're planning learning for adults so the learning principles we're going to focus in on today are learning experience should should be learning centered I.E the learner does a majority of the talking and thinking and we really just heard a lot of great examples of that at City lab um Learners need Choice which was another great um thing that was just uh presented to us Learners come with extensive background knowledge and experience that can be utilized in the construction of new knowledge and um Mr blazedale really highlighted that like when students come back and the classroom they're they're having that as well um and then also number four learning is a collaborative process so in designing learning um for adults we want to mirror some of the same structures we would expect to see in a classroom so that is ownership choice and collaboration like you might see lecture style often but we really which is is sometimes appropriate but really we want to get into that student centered um environment that was for our folks of the 80s there including ourselves so we have that ber buer picture that we're trying to move away from all right so this is just to highlight our office really like I said we spend a lot of our time in designing adult professional learning for Rivier Public Schools this is not an all-inclusive list but these are some of the key areas that we've been working on um several years so uh one of the audiences that we work work a lot with our our coaches so our Consulting teachers and our literacy coaches Brianna also supports Dr Costa with the math coaches um we meet with our literacy coaches one time a week to support their professional learning um we host all the coaches and Consulting teachers one time a month to support their learning we also organize professional development with our partners so for example tntp or the collaborative classroom and then in the middle column there you'll see our audience as all Educators so the directors work on creating um many different types of options for those uh directors meetings we have 10 hours um every year and we actually have 42 sessions that create choice that the teachers have Choice over what what session they want to go to um we meet with PGT they meet with PGT weekly they have professional learning for programs and resources and that values U um excuse me varies across um the different programs that we have we also have the self-directed study plan which is part of our Ed growth cycle we also um engage in many different learning walks across all departments um and that includes participation in debrief so that's a really rich learning experience for our Educators so one of the Sor before you go on can I just point out these are all live links for the school committee so if you look if you click on this link it will give you the list of all of the director meetings Y and likewise these links over here will show you how uh instruction is differentiated for the adults in our community the same way we expect it to be for kids yeah that's perfect Dr Kelly so we have the new teacher audience here we we wanted to make a point that this is not just for our veteran teachers I'm one of the folks that oversees new teacher mentoring and induction um we have two different Pathways depending on if you um are returning to us you are hired mid year or if you're a brand new hire so we realize you'd need different professional learning we have the mentoring program which is individual so whether you've taught for 10 15 years you're brand new you'd be a assign someone to support your learning um if you click on the link you don't have to click on it now but even our new teacher PD meetings the two we held in the fall uh folks had choice that they could choose the meetings that they were going to even though the topic um for that was working with English Learners are working with our special education students so always mirroring that idea of choice and differentiating what we're doing based on the folks that we're presenting too go to the next slide please if you look over to the left-and column we uh Christina and I designed PD for coaches to support their learning um and and then TurnKey that to teachers so we had them come up with the coaches came up with areas of focus which were rooted in our district goals and if you notice and highlighted in blue um looking at student work and um sorry I can't read this instructional changes and next steps returning to data Cycles so we're really working on looking at data going back to the the data and going into cycles and really um creating a plan for there and helping teachers understand how to do that and and um and then also we're this year we're really working towards building the mtss system in K through 12 so we're engaging districtwide um all teachers and all administrators in that work and then what we have here we're going to try to give a a briefer example of this so if those are our goals how do we do this work um with with adults um you have a whole section of handouts that go with this I'm Italian so more is more there's always more stuff for you to look at after the fact if it's helpful um what we've included in the handouts that came with the presentation was um to support this focus on looking at student work to inform our uh instruction in the classroom Brianna and I started with PD for the literacy coaches um in that PD we gave them a choice between a bunch of different articles that they could read on designing effective um looking at student work protocols um then they got together in smaller groups and thought of some of the data sources that they had that they could use with teachers um the second example we had a more focused PD for our secondary coaches with one of our partners tntp so they specifically worked with them on a pdsa which is plan study plan do study act protocol of looking at student work from there Dr Kelly if you want to go to the next slide I have an example from high school English so that's a lot of professional learning for the coaches and then they went um and the coaches support the PGT facilitators so this comes from grade 10 Ela at the high school um all of the grade 10 teachers participated in this they used one of a version of this protocol for looking at student work from their Things Fall Apart unit which is a relatively new unit and you'll see they all had to upload student work and they used a protocol to go through that um I was able to attend Miss Riley was able to attend so we can watch what the teachers are doing and support the work of the coaches go to the next slide please in the next slide you're going to see the timeline that we have for this districtwide work with our mtss system that I had previously mentioned so in this work we had summer work over um over the summer with our coaches and our interventionist to create supports for students within tier two so we have our Core Curriculum which is tier one and we're looking for ways to support students that need extra scaffolding so that went on and then we ended up training our Administration um at the beginning of the year then we continued with this work and with uh our PGT facilitator so the idea is that we're using this protocol to look at student work uh to engage the teachers in ways in which to support students um when they are not making tier one gains and so our next if you look that's a timeline um our next uh uh training just occurred well our last training just occurred in December um with the PG GT facilitators and all the admin and then and following up in the spring we're going to start doing learning walks to see how that work is is coming about in each building and that's it we'd take any questions that you had and thank you for your time thank you any of the committee have questions good work thank you very much um so the next uh item on the superintendent report is a an update really um from the Special Education team on the redesign that we implemented uh or started to implement last year and our directors are here to share some information one thing I'm just going uh there's a scrapbook coming around that goes with some of the slides that the team will be presenting specifically to slide 8 it has pictures of students so it is confidential so I'll collect them back but we uh went with paper copies it's our favorite part of the whole presentation hello and thanks for having us Katie Lisa and I are really excited to share out updates related to the redesign but first I wanted to do a bit of a recap and an overview initially stakeholders came together um to review our special um education programming and the focus was on ensuring that all on ensuring that all of our student all of our programs provided the absolute best opportunities for students the work was Guided by teachers Paris parents and administrators and the result was the redesign of our special education programs one of the most important elements um the redesign committee cited was to limit transitions between schools and this is allowed for students to have customized schedules for example a student with strengths in math that is in a specialized program can join a math inclusion class now we have streamlined expanded uh and expanded the ignite programming at Beach Mountain whan and we've also expanded middle school special education um and the Continuum of supports these changes ensure that we meet the we meet the vision of includ increasing full inclusion opportunities for all students and most importantly they provide a more streamlined version of the K to2 Journey for our students with that I'll turn it over to ktie and Lisa to share out some specific updates related to each program I'm so excited to be here today to share updates on the special education redesign this year the capture language based program has expanded to include Middle School support at SBA and more inclusion opportunities at the lincol these shifts create more vertical alignment between Elementary and Middle School programming now capture students are able to be serviced at two out of the three middle schools to support the expansion of the capture program Rivier has partnered with Landmark Outreach Consulting Landmark Outreach is is renowned for its professional development the outreach program is designed to empower students with language-based learning disabilities by training teachers impr proven learning strategies our Landmark Consultants are former teachers and school leaders who bring their expertise from The Landmark School this year Landmark has provided professional development to SBA and Lincoln teachers in addition Landmark has been coaching begun coaching Cycles to provide individual team support and thank you to the admin and teachers at the esay and Lincoln for supporting the capture program just one more right there thank you very much for having thank you very much for having us tonight um as you may recall the original ignite program formerly known as the ASD track was split between two schools at the elementary level the Beachmont and the Wayland students attended the Beachmont for grades prek to 1 then were moved across the city to the Wayland school for grades 2 through 5 from there students transitioned directly to the RMA for middle school before heading off to the high school as you can see the Early Educational Journey for a student in the ignite program was a bit splintered as it included attending two elementary schools sometimes three depending on a student's pre- experience before reaching Middle School therefore through our redesign we streamlined and expanded our ignite program at the elementary level two complete K to5 Pathways were created one at the Beachmont and one at the whan students who reside in West Rivier whan Lincoln and Hill neighborhoods attend the whan school students residing in East Rivier the Beachmont Garfield and Paul R neighborhoods attend the Beachmont school as a result of the expansion our students remain at one school with their peers throughout their Elementary School career fostering a sense of community and continuity ignite program at the middle school has also been expanded thus allowing students to be serviced at two out of three of our middle schools the streamlined model benefits students teachers and families by strengthening PE relationships and promoting a more cohesive learning environment in an overall more supportive atmosphere you can you just next slide thank you we are thrilled to be working with Kathleen quill Dr quill is a developmental psychol linguist whose clinical and academic work spans over 40 years she is a researcher published author and is an Adjunct professor at Enda College where she is currently teaching in the ABA autism program Dr quill has visited both the Beachmont and the Wheeland schools and has met with building leadership and teaching teams she will continue to collaborate with us to refine the ignite program by offering guidance consultation and skill building in academic and behavioral expectations the special education department would like to thank the administration coordinators and teaching teams at both the whan and Beach Bond schools for their collaboration and dedication to this work as you may recall Ascend programs are now housed at the Garfield complex in rhs the Ascend Middle School was relocated to the Garfield Middle School to maximize the use of Community Resources in order to provide additional transitional skills earlier in a student's educational Journey as I highlight these updates please feel free to flip through the Scrapbook passed out by Dr guchi we are proud to say within four months multiple transition inclusive opportunities have been put in place at GMS special thanks the GMS admin teachers Paris Kristen Cormier Murphy Connor O'Keefe Donna Paige Matt nazaro Annie Waters ananya Amato for supporting these meaningful opportunities the special education the special education office has purchased Charlie cards for the Ascend classes at the secondary L level at GMS these students have participated in travel chaining experiences for example the class walked from GMS to the Rivier Beach te station to practice travel training to the Wonderland Station students have also taken part in Walking field trips to Rivier Beach as part as their adaptive PE classes with Mr nazaro other opportunities include the students taking swimming lessons at GMS pool the GMS pool unified PE and adaptive art beginning authentic transition planning and training at the middle school level will allow the students to build and expand these skills at rhs thank you at rhs students in the strive postgraduate program have have begun doing cooking lessons at the rhs calf an additionally students have continued their internships at the district the Chelsea District Court rever Parks and recre Recreation and new Mass Boston while auditing classes this year two new community- based internships have started at the RMA calf in the rhs library the students from the rhs strive program support breakfast at the RMA and support the RS rhs Library checken the skills practiced in both the Ascend and the stride program will transfer to their personal and professional lives ensuring greater Independence and supporting each student's Vision next slide please the Propel program was loc relocated to the RMA this year now the RMA houses both the Excel SLG and the Propel under the same roof this change was designed to support individual students various needs without changing schools now students are able to have hybrid schedules within the RMA um Excel inel programming next slide please the RMA has welcomed students in their Propel program into their Community Unified sports has expanded to the RMA to pil pilot unified botch a club at the middle school level students from general education inclusion in the Propel program came together to join the unified bachchi Club the RMA provided a pep rally to send off the students before heading off to their boty tournament to compete against different districts thank you to the RMA and teachers and staff for their support with the expansion of Unified sports thank you very much looking ahead we're going to continue the collaboration with consultants and the expansion of PD and programming the goal being to offer more inclusion opportunities in various paths to graduation throughout this presentation and on previous occasions you've heard the details and listic Logistics of the redesign but to close I want to emphasize that the overarching purpose was and is to design a plan that is grounded in the belief that all students can learn and that we must provide opportunities that challenge include and encourage them we very much appreciate the work of building Administration the teacher teams and the support of the school committee in this work we've made great strides in the short amount a time and we look forward to continuing to do so thank you any of the committee members U Mr Snell just curious they had a b tournament they did don't be jealous friend it was on actually Halloween I can't remember where at another District school gym okay but they do have the new Sullivan park on the beach has two courts oh the Senior Center has an indoor court school has oh oh thank you so we're going to be practicing practicing and then we're going to crush it Senior Center actually has a tournament with the Chelsea Senior Center they have a long accordance it's it's different but when we were younger had probably equal party courts to population we have it Stadium they used to have two courts there so it's it's having a resurrection but oh nice you should I play okay maybe you can give us some tips but no it's interesting because it's it's skills and um at the at the Jack sat house the average AG is M and um they'll help them get up and everything so I mean it's something that anyone can do so just uh probably can arrange maybe a field trip or something absolutely I was in a leag at 1.2 Miss Rizzle oh I really like the fact that you're working with liamar and I hope it can keep going great collaboration um and I wanted to say that my favorite part of today that made me so happy was looking at the Rivier High School redesign team um photos presentation this morning because it was absolutely stunning but to tell you the truth this Takes the Cake looking at these faces I could I'm sorry Mr dayon but these faces come first so thank you so much thank you thank you thank you uh Mrs Snell has something else just just one more the May supports watching shance to prove it you haven't brought me home a trophy yet just want to say mray is until last year they had a tournament on the beach right across from the police station um different teams and you know they lay out strips of I don't know but it that was nice you had to make sure the ti was going but uh live and re carry on the tradition thank you uh should we have a separate subcommittee on botch Mr I know I think we found something give us some test yeah have to remember one thing it's round that's good thank you and yes in fearness Mr sella you you I keep sponsoring this team I'm expecting a return with a trophy one year please next year we got it we got walking Billboards is they B you qu at the new high school not currently add that in put the motion the next uh item is uh the speaking of this High School the next item is the rhs building update Mr dayon thank you I'm not sure I can follow up bot talk but I'll I'll try uh Dr Kelly Do you happen to be able to put those up thank you um so we're coming to the conclusion of the design development phase in the next few months and I wanted to come and sort of give a little look ahead of uh what's going on in the next couple of months this is a little bit of a dry presentation next month's that we'll talk about in a minute will be a lot more fun um Mrs Rizo sort of previewed that we've been going through a lot of coordination meetings with various groups and um our leading into uh really being able to summarize with graphics with plans um the results of what we've been doing as a team since June so right now the um what's on the screen is the first page is a design development completion overview uh we're here for this update tonight we're going to do a similar update and some busy work with the building committee tomorrow night um on January 9th and 16th the design team owes uh the final design development uh drawings to the estimating teams we always do two parallel independent estimates um to make sure that we really have uh an understanding of the overall cost in January on the 22nd um we have a school building committee meeting so as we the team behind the scenes are digging into estimates the middle of January into February uh we're going to present on January 22nd the sort of the scope results of the design development phase by scope I mean the actual building uh updated renderings plans site plan Etc uh much more fun than seeing a bunch of dates on the screen um I'd like to return to this after I just buzz through these slides because um we would like to come back to the school committee and run that same sort of update in January we'd like to do the same in February and March with different topics and ultimately I'd like to come back to discussing when we could do that whether we turn that January 22nd into a joint meeting or whether after the second um it's possible to do some other meeting in the following week two weeks but we can return to that in a minute um by February 14 the estimators owe the team uh completed design development estimates we then will spend a handful of days analyzing both estimates and then reconcile both of them uh which is really just a a critical meeting with the entire project team to figure out why there are discrepancies why different estimators saw some discrepancies and uh get the two estimates really tied into each other we then in February February 26th are looking to uh do the real budget and cost update uh that would require a school building committee motion to then submit that to the Massachusetts school building authority in the first week of March um so as noted we'll come back to this but I want to I want to have a discussion with you folks of when uh after those two dates in bold uh the second one January 22nd February 26th when around or just after those dates we could do the design over review with the school committee and then the cost update I'm also coordinating with the city council right now they just have January 27th meeting where we'll do the um we'll do the design update they have not yet scheduled February March meetings um so we'll work with them uh and just as a overall reminder to to everyone at this point in terms of approvals and motions the school building committee is where that all happens um for this phase and future phases we're not seeking any motions or decisions from the school committee or city council but uh just like every other group in the city we need your input we're seeking your input and comments keep in mind this is an iterative process we'll keep moving um and I can talk a little bit more about that on the next two slides so next slide please Dr Kelly um while we're documenting the project the other big thing that um I'm sure you all understand we're doing is going through a pretty intensive permitting process um we had the first step of three in the Massachusetts uh Environmental Policy Act meepa um process completed and approved earlier this month um they also issued a phase one site demolition waiver which allows us to hold the schedule and get out there April May of next year and start demolishing The Remnant foundations of the old dog track and uh pavement old abandoned utilities Etc uh there's there's a whole lot of old stuff down there and it was really impact for our schedule to be able to get out there and remove all that stuff before the end of next year when we plan to get into uh other items um the phase one site waiver is always subject to an additional multi-week comment period um so that is out there right now the submission was approved um by the 23rd I actually looked at this date twice I put that wrong 23rd is the uh when the comment window closes and they will issue the actual certificate to the city within a week so the wording little poor up there it'll be issued by the um basically by the new year but the public comment period runs through the 23rd of this month we are already focusing Brian is that something that we want people to weigh in on that public comment period yes and um I know tomorrow there'll be some um through both the school and the city we do now have a link it's a very confusing link so we're going to send out a press update of a link or a direct email to meepo where people can um put in their support like they did uh earlier in the month and last month um their website's a little weird right now um so I think it's we'll put out a press release that has the link to the uh environmental monitor State website uh but we'll also include an email to our um designated meepa reviewer M Mr day can we have a question quick question um between February of 2025 and July of 20125 when those um impact reports are being submitted what physically is happening on the property if anything um it that in February Nothing by July we'll be ripping up the old foundations ripping up Asphalt abandoned Electrical Plumbing utilities basically deleting the remnants of everything that was there we're not building the building yet next summer we're removing uh everything we can from the site so that we're ready to build by the end of next year moving dirt around basically yep and just to clarify with next summer we mean the summer that's coming up not a year and a half correct sorry yeah yep and we'll hit that in a little more detail just on the next the third of three slides so um while we're going through this meepa process uh the deir is what we're focusing on right now for February submission we'll then have the final uh FEI final environmental impact report in July as we go through all that we're doing Mass DOT Department of Transportation permitting uh and Mass D Department of Environmental Protection permitting um we will be back in front of the r Conservation Commission at some TBD point this winter to file a notice of intent for that demo phase the so the next time we're at Riv conservation it's just about phase one just removing those the paving utilities Foundation uh as all of this everything on the screen becomes complete by uh August 1st of this coming year uh we will get back in front of the um Conservation Commission with a notice of intent for the full project and uh after that it's really just securing local um building permits so the state permitting and the environmental permitting uh with concom leads us to just the ability to pull building permits and um ultimately it leads to the next slide which will show that we're we anticipate building for Real uh what I mean by that again is not just pushing dirt around not just deleting old foundations but building the building so as I said we're at the end of the design development phase uh now that phase will conclude in February we're going to bid the site uh bid package one ultimately we'll have three bid packages for the project the third will be gigantic the first few will be relatively Limited in size um site demolition we're going to bid from the design development documents that'll be out on the street for bid in March April and we anticipate at some point in April or by early May uh having all uh the bidding process complete having permitting uh complete for the phase one and um that will lead to what I just mentioned of removing things from the site most of next summer during that um right as we finish the design development phase we move into the 60% construction document phase that culminates in July we will be bidding the trades listed at the bottom of the page from uh that Milestone set foundations concrete steel underground utilities elevators waterproofing um those are all items that we need to get into first or long lead items Believe It or Not elevators take uh forever so um it doesn't seem like well we won't have a space to put an elevator for another year and a half two years but we've got to get it uh ordered at the end of next year so we'll then move uh after that bid package goes out we'll move into the 90% construction document phase July through November um and as noted before by August we plan to be complete with permitting secure the local construction permits and fully mobilize on site to start um not just removing items but building the building in August uh the final construction documents will be out uh in by the end of 2025 and that's what we'll bid the remainder of the project from so everything outside of that foundation's concrete steel underground uh utilities elevators waterproofing we bid off of the final set that bidding will take place some of those are public filed sub bid uh some of them are private bids through the contractor that bidding will take place over the winter of 2026 into um into spring uh construction substantial completion remains May 2028 we'll follow that up with a two to 3month process of having all of the furniture fixtures Equipment Technology and uh staff training uh in that new building and open up at the beginning of the school year in 2028 so everything we know of now uh we remain on budget we remain on schedule but the rubber is really going to start hitting the road in the coming months as we get this design development uh phase done as we demonstrate that we're on budget and as we start moving into um into actually bidding what I will say about uh estimating the final comment then we'll stop for some questions um we'll be running estimates at the end of each of these phases so we're not only doing um this isn't the final estimate we're going to do in the project when we complete the 60% documents we'll do a whole new set of estimates based on all the progress by 90% will do the same except for the things we've already bid it's pointless to estimate them if we've already bought them so we will do estimates at the end of DD at 60% at 90% And at the final construction to verify that we're staying on schedule and on budget sella had a question sure the um phase one and phase two Conservation Commission similar fact there was some concern of fling creating another habitat situation down there has that been resolved or is that an issue that more or less that almost that entire environmental um permitting process is focused on that we have um we've deployed um level monitors through the whole Eastern County ditch and Upstream of it to gauge the influence of storms on the site uh tidal influence on the site and all of that's being fed into the design drainage Etc so um we won't be able to secure those permits if we don't demonstrate to both the state and concom that the site we're designing is uh as impervious to flooding as humanly possible um to some degree parts of the site are designed to flood um and release water slowly out into the marsh um so parts of that area when you see the plan that just look like open areas of grass are actually low-lying areas that are intended to flood um was the original intent or their concern flooding and our whole ecosystem starting to develop in there it it's a little bit of both and um part of the meeper process for example they had us do a tree survey they had us uh note what species are down there what what what's growing um and a lot of that Will was sort of required to replicate the good thing uh from a permitting point of view and honestly from a city point of view is out of that 30 Acre Site it's almost 22 Acres of paved area um and a lot of the Pavements broken things start growing through it but um we're going to have an overall reduction of that sort of pavement on the site by something in the realm of I think six seven acres so we're generally we're very much Greening the site through this process there's going to be a lot more green a lot more planting uh a lot more open area than there has been since that's all been uh turned into a large parking lot decades ago thank you you're welcome um do you want me to show them just the one picture of what Dawn shared with us today yeah sure it might just um one it might help people just to visualize um what exactly what you're talking about so and want me to speak to this really quick Dr Kelly so you'll first off see um there are two different Landscape Architects working on this one focusing on the fields the athletic facilities and Fields one focusing on the open and green space areas the open and green space areas are the ones that are highlighted in in the color the fields this wasn't the purpose of this presentation but what you're seeing here is the entire School surrounded uh by various landscape elements that are designed to engage students staff and really give this the campus feel that um um we heard loud and clear from various committees as one of the main drivers of selecting the site uh you'll notice that some of the area that diagonal sort of line through the site is the Eastern County ditch uh that drains out the right of the screen here generally up to north um up to the marsh and we will be developing areas on the other side of that um mostly into sort of passive Recreation walking areas there's various educational uh components of that to bring people bring students uh and Educators through marsh areas so a lot of that area um if you can sort of picture the site now a ton of that area including the fields is all paved over um so that when I was referencing that we're creating 6 Seven Acres more of green space than is there now that's um what Dr Kelly scrolling through is sort of what you see I was trying to find a a crosssection of the um I already not sure there was a to give you the very and this excuse me presentation sorry this is what I'm looking for this gives you a sense of so one of the things um uh Mr sella that I think that you were referencing is that there have been some identified Wetlands on the property and so one of the things we're required to do is recreate that and so that's what you saw in the upper right hand screen um when I was showing the whole property line a minute ago if we zoom in on that this is what we're imagining it to look like in the end um so it's that multi-level different tiered that Brian was talking about that will absorb some of the water creating the Wetland over here with a nature classroom a walkway all the way around the wetlands including the relocation of the ospry nest that's currently in a light pole over there actually creating a proper ustr nest and and there'd be these walking paths around that Wetlands where classes could come up out and do some studying but also the community could come out it's the the whole Loop is a quar mile um and the different areas included in here they're going to be very careful to plant them in a way that you get to learn all of the different aspects of what a wetland is so I'm sorry if this if I go too fast but I'm going to scroll down I think to another picture that will show a little more of this looks like the bird sanctuary kind of lot of the right same species this is kind of a cross-section of what it would look like around and you can see the different BMS and the different levels that would let down into the the actual wet area of the um of the wetlands and one thing that our architect is looking to do is include again in this area which would really be a space for people to learn um is all of the different aspects of w Wetland including a a forested Upland shrub Wetland uh wet Meadow um a high salt marsh a low salt marsh and an aquatic Edge and you can see all of those pieces fit in here so it really becomes a learning center and then on the other end of the building you also see these other couple of areas that will be lower than the actual grade of the building where there'll be different accumulation intentional um to prevent flooding in in the inevitable um you know Mega rainstorm a lot of what you see here in the blue Shades is intended to become little pawns it's not going to look like there's little ponds on a dry season are certainly in a drought but part of the design that the Conservation Commission and meepa and all them are looking for is centers around resiliency in that um we have areas that are designed to take the water and then slowly let them out so on a really wet season it might look like there's a little Pond back there in a really dry season it'll look like Marsh Grass well they had that behind the toad board for years was massive body water y yep if I yes thank you Brian the capacity of the school is I believe 2500 2,450 students okay my one of my concerns is down the line if there's a decline in say enrollment and we have extra you know classrooms or whatever are we like kind of set up where we I know we talked about it we're like vocational and you know as whether there'll be a how can I say it as an elective or F uh vocational course are is the school set up for that capacity in the pl I think if for a decline in enrollment by the time that we turn the project over and the msba closes out the project which will take a year year and a half after the Project's done building's yours at that point you can use it however you see fit if enrollment declines you can repurpose classrooms and other areas a lot of these areas are designed to be flexible have like movable walls and there's a lot of a lot of operable walls a lot of that a lot of flex learning spaces so um it really would be up to uh the administration School Comm to figure that out but is is it I just wonder if the structure was set up for it so we have movable walls and so on what the state actually requires I know it's not what you asked but the the msba requires the opposite in case population Rises we have diagrams that will be including on how to expand the building right um in the event that's needed but um they don't necessarily ask about if enrollment goes down how are you going to use the space okay no cuz I know I know SAS SAS has that issue with the decline in enrollment and I'm not sure if the the school was was a setup where they could bring in the vocational course I was wondering if if we were able to do that and the answer is yes thank you yeah and and we can um get into more I know that the meeting in January is when the designs are going to be a little bit more developed part of that plan is to share all of that in January um but the whole first floor when you come in is what we call the heart of the school and off of that are the different areas like there's the the Main Kitchen that's going to service the Food Service program for the school but there's a separate kitchen over the side for the hospitality pathway um that will be a little bit smaller and have a restaurant attached where imagining that's where teachers will eat lunch most days and that the kids who are in the hospitality program will learn how to run the front of a house by servicing that cafeteria but they would need to have access to some kitchen items in order to make that function well so there'll be a small kitchen over there the robotics room is being designed so that it rolls right out into the hallway so that their space that they're using during the day of the classroom there's like a garage door that lifts up and then that um their floor mat spills out so they have a space that's large enough to be a practice mat but it gets rolled away during the day when this class isn't shut down um so it's all built to be very malleable and changeable the maker space is the same way that's up near the front of the auditorium but it's a big open space with all of the different tools and electrical access that it can it can be for 3D printing different pieces that they need for the robotics class or it can be a machine shop um similar to The Machine Shop that's going to be attached to the robotics room so there'll be all of those different pieces that pour out into the hot of the school so 5 years from now you could decide we're not going to do robotics anymore we're going to do electronics and everything is right there that they need to do that and one item that I'd add um that's just unique to this school because of the environmental reasons and having to raise the first floor of the building up so high that's how you ended up getting a garage under the building what I'll say about that it's kind of minor but if you're looking at longterm um usually the first floor of a building you're never going to be able to change that you're never going to get new drains uh underneath the slab because you've got an empty an open garage under it this first floor long term has a lot more flexibility than most ground floors of um of other schools just because of that um you could build From Below you could get different pipes and you could move sinks to where they weren't before Etc one the nice things with one of the nice things with if you do it the hospitality is the kids who are in the course just invite their parents in and they just kind of cook for their parents you know and it's a nice thing where the car you know the parents get to see what the kids are actually learning thank you Mr Kingson I'm just trying to be a little funny um thank you for adding a word to my vocabulary micro forest was a new word to me yeah is that cool we got we've got a lot of them in the design profession there's a lot of madeup words thank you Mr is the entire site Geared for the high school yes there there's not going to be cish land that could be redeveloped right right now no um now what I will say is the land behind the Eastern County ditch um which right now we went through a lot of the features that are there um we're not building any structures over there that land theoretically longterm is developable um I know there's the city's embarking on a feasibility study to figure out if a commuter rail stop could fit over the tracks in there somehow that would require some degree of egress Ingress from vehicles from people so um we do have to plan for and build the entire site so that it is resilient it drains it adheres to all the codes um but the area behind the ditch in theory could be used for different purposes long term but uh to fit the site program and the parking we need we're basically and to have drainage areas low-lying areas that feed into drains um we're basically building on the entire uh beach side of the Eastern County ditch all right the second question is that there was talk of a fire station on the corner of n Road and I don't know the first street is that still viable or has that been scrapped or I mean is that being included space to that it's not right now and it's actually we've been meeting with police and fire a lot lately and I am not going to pretend like I'm speaking for them but um it's tough as the city encountered with the point of Pines fire station because you got to raise these first floors up out of the flood plane that's extremely difficult with apparatus Bay um and it's it's not quite impossible but it's a lot harder than building a school um so the amount of space that would be needed to get a large or a mediumsized station down there is probably even more than one of these fields um long story short I don't I don't believe with this development it would be really possible to fit um a fire station down there but um I'm not an architect I just play one on TV talked about whe it was inclusive thank you okay any other questions I just got got one and you folks I am just I just like the committee to keep in mind those dates when if you guys want to have your own I'd like you all to hear it um while it's still pretty new so if if you folks um we could do a joint meeting in January we could you could schedule your own meeting towards the end of January I'd ask that you folks just figure that out let us know but um i' I'd like you to hear it before it's old news and we go into the February topics of um looking at a Million numbers or 500 million numbers thank you br thank you thank you thank you and we'll let you know about that yep thank you okay any uh reports of the subcommittees none no no reports right okay and have a few motions Mr Kingston um motion by myself micophone to Grant the same longevity step increase that has I apologize motion by myself to Grant the same longevity step increase that has been granted to the employees of the asme contract any non-un employees currently receiving longevity benefit second discussion I I know I Mr Kingson I I think there's um in my question I I think we got some information on what this meant to the unit yo Mr Mr ISO no oh I was just waiting till we discuss him yeah I thought we were suppose we're discussing um you can finish what you're saying so uh we did we get a full number on the on what the uh was is going to be a total in total per year or yes okay I can we let everyone know around 30,000 I think yeah in the meantime can I bring up my yes M relle my thought um and I appreciate when Mr Kingston's coming with this very much so but when we're not a right to work state and our employees in the union pay dues to have people negotiate for them so I I don't want it to be seen as a strategy to discourage unionization um and I'm just lary about starting to give um extra benefits when we're not unions and I'm not sure how fair that is to the unions um Miss milber sure I um so it's my understanding that I I totally get what St where Stacy's coming from um and in no way are we trying to dilute the the effects and the strength that unions have um but I my understanding was that there are select um individuals or positions who have always always received the longevity increase um on the off the heels of the back of the of the the RTA negotiations and the contract and ask askme correct and and that's who um is going to receive this benefit is that correct okay do you want me to that that yeah that was some of the clarity I was looking for and sure so uh one of the email that I had sent you all um after there were some inquiries from Mr Kingston about this at last month's meeting excuse me um was that we have 100 two non-union employees which include teex technology staff principes security translators family Liaisons some folks in the business office um superintendents assistant superintendents student engagement coordinators and then there's a handful of other oneoff positions that fall into this non-union category it's a total of 102 people 36 of those 102 are eligible I'll put that in quotes meaning that they have had a number of years in the district um that would if they were in the asme unit qualify them for longevity of those 36 29 already receive longevity for whatever reason it was built in into their contracts or their agreements uh whatever the case may be um so if you were to give um upgrade the longevity amount for those 29 employ employees to meet what we've agreed to for asme it would cost the district $3,750 um if you were to also include the seven other employees who are eligible but not currently receiving longevity that would add an additional $25,200 and my understanding was that's what the committee was contemplating um if they should give it just to the people who are already give the the increase in longevity just to the people who are already receiving longevity so that they would stay kind of on a matched field with the askme employees Miss mil Ellis um and just to further clarify um Dr Kelly those individuals that the 29 that already received the longevity this is something that is um brought up at the school committee meetings and voted on for them to receive this Ben um I I don't know that that has I feel like there have been different votes of the school committee over the years and sometimes they have said vote the cola sometimes they've said vote the cola and any other monetary B benefits sometimes like the language has been different over the years and that's why I think it we have resulted with and um either Mr sella or Mrs Rizzo might be able to add to this cuz they've both got the historical knowledge but the way the committee has voted to extend those raises or benefits or whatever to non-union employees has varied and that's why different people may have longevity or may not have longevity or whatever the case may be okay I don't know if Fred or Stacy want to so well at one time is what they called an agency fee if you didn't belong to the union it just so happened the fee was what your union dues were so that people would pay I thought that was somewhere amended somehow through the state but they can charge a portion of union dues if they're negotiating for a group it's never come out to us but it has this person that person it has happen so so you've got three or four different windows of of what you're doing and I'm surprised that there are people who are benefiting that some Union hasn't tried to incorporate them um I don't think we have a right to say that you have to belong it's it's it's it's a choice but as was eluded that if you're getting benefits and you're not part of it that somewhere along the line it's going to come back to bite us is that is is there a choice for these individuals no they're not okay so um Mr kajan and M Kings to my understanding by uh looking into the motion these people were grandfathered in many many years ago uh how that was way before me so basically these chosen what what is 29 individuals were grandfathered in who are currently receiving the longevity raises and were included in the budget for going forward so it's not a monetary issue it was already included in it was under the assumption that they were going to get the colar risers plus the Longevity if we if we add other people to it now you're talking about another 70 or 80 this motion is only concerning the 29 individuals or what is it whatever the number of individuals who currently received it in the past it's not this is not this motion is not to increased the number of non- people who never received longevity thank you was thank you Mr Kingston my understanding that these folks um I don't want to say not welcome but they're not they're not in the union because they don't want to be it's because my understanding and I don't want to say the wrong words but basically they weren't welcome into those unions so they're kind of in betwix in between what what I want to be clear on is the the asme longevity was increased so yes they got the longevity increase but they got it at the previous rate not the current rate so that's why that's what the problem is so the longevity longevity um stien whatever word to use was increased for the as me folks but the longevity given to the non-union folks was the old stipended rate before the new contract so I'm just trying to make them even with what they used to get per past practice if someone wants to include the other seven people I don't have a problem with that at all it's only about $5,000 based on Dr Kelly's math 25 I thought it went from 25 to 30 so the the the 3,750 is what it would cost to bring the 29 employees to the new levels for longevity and that includes because some of them are switching category of longevity somebody might be going from the 10 they might be getting the 10-year amount but they're in year 14 they go to year 15 they get a bump and then they also get the increase that we've that the school committee approved for asks me right separate from them so those are nominal changes because those people are already getting longevity payments exactly like you said John according to the old uh as me salary schedule there are seven others in the district who would be eligible because they've been here for 10 or 15 or 20 or 25 years who are not currently receiving longevity to bring those seven in cuz they'd be starting with zero longevity dollars to bring them up in longevity it would actually cost an additional 25,000 so all in the whole thing would be $555,000 that's the whole to give everybody the Longevity if uh and I just if if if my two cents is worth anything I think that voting it for the 29 employees not the other seven is going to make those seven feel incredibly alienated I would wasn't aw myself I'll be honest that how many that 29 out of the 36 were already receiving longevity payments but anyway that's just miss Rizzo I just wanted to say this is not about a dollar amount at all because that's really no money at all this is about First of and then I'm going to say never have I been on here that we voted longevity um we've voted Cola but we've never vot voted longevity they're not we don't know what their contracts if they have contracts stated I mean I wouldn't know huh most of them don't have contracts like the technology people you know um but then how is it how are they authorized to have longevity because there have been times and I did look into this cuz I was trying to understand it myself there have been times when the committee has voted to give the cola and all other monetary benefits that was the language used in a couple of the years Robin actually did the research for me so I'm looking at her and so when they said all are the monetary benefits people who qualified at that time were had longevity added to their salaries I believe so that's the practice go oh I'm sorry apologize Mr you finished yeah Mr K oh okay no what what I wanted to say was a lot of times when we have contracts Union contracts there's like a two tear people are grandfathered in these people were grandfathered in if we add the seven which I don't really have a problem with the seven there's still 80 82 other the people that you're leaving out so if you're doing for seven then you got to do for 82 the only thing I'm asking you to do in this motion is just the people that were grandfathered in Reed the same longevity raises that they received in the past that's all well Mr Mr cajano and um I I I I kind of agree with what you're saying there I I think that this is going to probably need a little bit more clarity because even tonight I'm learning new things uh just from this uh piece but we've negotiated just just this last year I've negotiated on nine different contracts every one of them is different and then every one of them three every three years something changes sometimes we roll things in you know a union will agree and this is happening we'll agree to roll things in because the rather than getting a stien they'd rather roll it into a salary that increases their their their pensionable income that increases their overtime rate Etc and then three years later they come back and go you know what we rolled it in but now we want another state this these go back and forth from year to year so it's what one of those where do you you know when if a union and I'll use asme for instance negoti ated something out um to benefit their base salary how do you factor that in it's just all of these contracts are you know as you know they they're they're all different the teachers contract is much different than the Paris contract is much different than the administration agreement in the asme I have police unions we have fire unions we have a different appsme at City Hall we have Local 22 at City Hall we have Unit A we have Unit B they're they're wildly inconsistent intentionally because each Union battles for different things have different priorities I don't want to leave out 29 people at the tune of again it's not about the money like M rzo said at all but before we vote on anything we don't even know who we're voting for this could be we could be voting for someone that we shouldn't be voting for you know what I'm saying um we we I don't know what unions this affects or non-unions and then the last piece I just want to say this because it's happened with the I'm just not the city council made some money moves on people last year and I had two unions come to me threaten to file grievances because they were voting on pay and they actually pulled an employee an employee because of the the bump they got pulled themselves out of the union and almost threatened to file DLR on the city because of that raise given by an an elected body not by a contract negotiation we were able to amicably settle it but we get very it gets very scary when these bodies start voting arbitrary on arbitrary raises I get calls from people that want it and I got I'm telling you right now God's honest truth I got calls from two Union employees that said what are we doing we fight for these rights on these on these we fight for these rights and you're just giving away situation correct correct and they say we fight for these rights and you're just giving them away so what are we doing I'm just just plain devil's advocate here I'm confused go ahead go ahead I I think the question here is that system itself the system itself is kind of antiquated now in the superintendent High she made reference to the tech people they're hired at a certain salary their assumption is that they'll get raises now whether she has to deal directly with them remains to be seen what we're trying to do is people who were hired um in the group of people you mentioned principles you mentioned well they're under the contract when you hire them there's so much going on so maybe the categorization has to be changed whether they're Union or non-union I mean the expectation is if they get a raise I want a Race So that's what probably the clarity has to come past practice grandfa that I don't remember grandfathering people maybe it's through attrition maybe it's through how it's been done in the past but I think it's got to be looked at to straighten it out to to be Equity but at what cost you don't want lawsuits you don't want you know so I think to you the superintendent what's your feel I mean You' you've hired people who have gotten raises over the years are these some of the people that are looking to be parody now they are I think it's exactly what you said Mr sella is people look around and say whoa they just got what raised I want that same race right and typically the school committee has responded by whenever you vote the ask me contract you typically make that motion to extend the cola raay to everybody else to everybody everybody who's non-union and that's routine practice what hasn't been routine is whether it's just the cola or if it's the cola and Longevity or other benefits sick leave parental leave all of the other things sometimes that's been afforded to them and sometimes it hasn't and that creates um definitely some consternation and I think right now um what happened was after this time the first vote that the committee took was to extend the cola to all non-union people right so that would be your principls your assistant superintendents your technology people your um parent aons all of these people it's a very different eclectic group of people that are in the non-union category um and and some of them are saying okay thank you for that raise but what about my longevity which you gave to them don't I get more long ity now that I was getting longevity does that make any sense yes I think that's what Crea I don't know if anyone else understands I think we all understand what you're saying but the only thing I want to say is this is not something that's new it's just being grandfathered in the motion is just for the 26 if you decide you want to look or whatever that number is if you want to go beyond that then we could take it up at a different motion and but we got to go into Ways and Means and uh and then we we can really take good look at it but I mean as far as these people have gotten it in the past I mean they probably got the same raises the same longevity and to not give it to them this time around it's it's just like a someone is it's like we have a two-tier in a Union contract and some get more money or some get more vacation than others or or sick time one of the contracts we had was if you started before such a date you had so many days vacation and uh time but if you started after this state you get a lot less so the only thing I'm saying is is these particular people and then when they go and retire or whatever the case may be is that longevity situation retires with them that's all I I understand what you're saying there I I I tend to agree with that statement um but that's the question if we do this and I think you're right you know we have 29 I'm glad that you clarified 29 people that are already getting longev and it would just be increasing the longevity to the consistency of of the other contract but then we're what about the other 90 80 people I'm sorry I'm getting confused and Dr Kelly I think can help me the seven is the 100 isn't it no so what is the seven so the 102 are all of the non-union employes but only seven are eligible listen hear me out for a minute so the 102 are all of the non-union employees principles technology um staff members parently aison security people translators a lot of different categories that Fallen to that 102 of those 102 there are 36 who have been here long enough that if the committee was so inclined they would be eligible for seniority for sorry longevity payments right so they've been here for at least 10 or 15 or 20 years whatever the case may may be there's 36 of them 29 of them are already getting longevity seven are not and so so so right now it's the the 29 who are already getting it the seven who are going to be angry if you give it to the 29 and not the seven the seven probably don't know the 29 get in the longevity I didn't know they were 20 I know right but but you're right that it opens up the can of worms that what happens if the rest of those 102 but they're not eligible yet they're not eligible yet if they stay they will be if they stay for a long time if they stay then we have a long-term employee and it's not a bad thing that's what longevities for and I point can I all right that is a good point yeah can I make a motion that we um I don't want to use the wrong words to Grant the same longevity step increase that has been granted to the employees of the as me contract to the 36 individuals identified by Dr Kelly is that does that work substitute motion then substitute motion that we that we Grant the same longevity step increase as been granted to the employees of the asme contract to the to the 36 employees identified by Dr Kelly is there a second second second oh discussion no discussion we've been discussing it bring it up if we had the seven people then we left out the 80 two people they're not eligible yet it's only 36 that's the magic number yeah but it will be at some point yeah at some point we and then you're not going to give it to them those 82 I'm just saying is I think future committees will have to decide when they make those motions to extend the benefits in the next from ask me to nonunion they'll have to decide then if they want to include longevity in that I mean the door has already been open right these these people have already been receiving this benefit this no going back so now it's just a matter of fairness I just don't see giving it to 29 and not extending it to seven that are eligible and that are in the same boat because the the rationale behind it is is just because we're trying to be fair so for me yeah I would I'm second in John's motion to extend the longevity step increase to the 36 um eligible non-union employees employee retention is so important and if someone sticks around for 15 years I think they should be rewarded I don't have a problem with that and I don't think excluding seven people is the right way to go either um so I'd like a roll call so discussion any other discussion roll call we have a roll call Mrs Bronson Rizzo epain Mr kiano yes Mr Kingston yes Mrs milb Alis yes Miss monteroso Mr sella yes yes mayor Keefe yes motion succeeds okay excuse me Mr chairman I think at this time we should instruct the superintendent to take a look see at people who she's hired indirectly half the time we've hired them to to kind of come up with some kind of a formula or something has to be I mean if somebody's hired and they after three or four years they're expecting a raise I mean it's just I I don't know how to word it but it's I mean it's because this is going to perpetuate itself well you know I'm I know that the the old days it was a little different but I can tell you from the city end uh we hire everyone has offer letters everyone has uh pack benefit packages and their expectation is very well known uh for the most part they are you know a lot of our emplo city employees are union but in the some cases they they are not those additional fringe benefits let's call them tend to be negotiated in in sometimes an agreement you know if you're trying to recruit the best and the brightest sometimes you say they they do they look at out the union contracts and they say I'd like to be able to have this in in my agreement um and they're and that's that's great it's more it's I don't know who takes a job and doesn't know what they're stepping themselves into this day and age especially with the information that's out there but otherwise this this was a good thing that that we did to help create some consistency but yes at some point in time creating even more you know let's call it and I hate the word transparency because I think it's overused but create a little bit more of a of a clear understanding of what is in what is in the total compensation package everybody I age okay there you go thank you okay um unfinished business M Miss Bronson Rizzo motion sorry motion motion apologies Oh I thought the secretary would have read it but um theair was you read it for yeah yes i' like read go forward and this is a great idea M you know what I have many great ideas holidays late motion by Miss Bronson Rizzo to present certificates of appreciation to Heroes and helpers who have contributed to bringing that holiday spirit to 30 of our RPS students and families Miss Rizzo motion as read second discussion none all in favor I so thank you m r could I also add that um maybe extend an invitation to any of the families that were um participating in case they wanted to come and say thank you also of course Robin has nothing else to do okay um no unfinished business any new well we have one bit of new business I shouldn't say new but we want to wish everyone a happy holidays this is our last school committee meeting of the year uh before we wrap up the year we want to wish everyone a very happy holiday season and uh and enjoy it motion to adjourn all in favor I so have a good night --------- ##VIDEO ID:fhyMqMdmg28## battery okay uh good evening calling to order the committee of the school committee of the whole meeting of December 17 2024 we'll all rise and flag United States of America to the stand na indivisible attendance we have Miss Rizo yeah Mr fredella pres Miss AA milber Ellis pres Mr Anthony Pano pres and Mr John Kingston pres and Patrick Keith is here you want to know that and also we have do that M MOS say oh yes I well listen uh first off if we can all send a warm wish to miss monteroso and her husband Victor on their believe they one year anniversary congratulations I hope you're having a good evening we give you an excuse to miss tonight only only on the first year in the 20th okay Victor very good we have the consent calendar approval of minutes I have no questions on it questions on the minutes minutes questions all right the attached Wars any questions on the wars yeah sorry Mr K on [Music] the5 the Noto Community College page five okay is that kind of diplom we talking about where they would have they could earn their credits towards their associate degree while at the high school was this part of the same program so that's a that's for kids who it's a it's the Gateway to College program so they attend Northshore full-time it's not a dual enrollment class okay um they attend their full-time and will get they get high school credit and college credit at the same time I believe we have six kids in that program right now ready any other questions on the launch no okay so in in January I'll be able to give you a report for the first half of the fiscal year and then that four Thursday in January the governor should put out her budget and we'll go full stream ahead on our budget work okay do you want to mention uh special education oh yeah so um one of the things that we'll tackle in detail at that meeting is that our special education budget we met two or three weeks ago maybe with special education director just to say hey this happens there's some years we don't outplay as many kids some year there's a surge and then there's also some residentials and then there's a struggle placing teachers in classroom positions so we're using agencies to fill those positions which comes at a premium of cost so when you have an increase in tuition's out and an increase in residential students and an increase in agency placements backto backto back um weights on that budget and the other thing that I'll add uh that has been an unexpected weight on the budget this year is the tutoring of all of the kids that we removed from the high school U because of the're fighting in the beginning of the year we still have to educate them of course so but that's an added expense that we didn't budget for talking uh if if the world if everything froze right now we'd be talking about somewhere around a million dollars of deficit out of a 156 million budget line so percentage wise it's not a ton but what we do in the first six months or in this case we met in late November on it is say um is there anything that's you know moving in a direction of keeping our eye on that and be aware of it so special ed is the one place that you'll see in the January report you'll see some red red letters on significant red more than usual yeah and then we have several different ways of addressing that which we'll talk about with w and means and also so some of those students like just today I closed I think $770,000 of a purchase order because a student moved who had been outplaced so it's a little bit of an up and down but typically you won't have more tuitions plus two or three new residential students who can be a quarter of a million dollars each and then placement agencies having six or seven or eight different placements in in offices so when I present the six months to you you'll notice some red in special education we'll have an addendum so that you see that and then anything else that's tracking that way we'll have a six-month report the next time we're together and um just in terms of how we anticipate managing that one thing we're looking at doing is taking our normally we don't touch circuit breaker until the year after uh it comes in um and so this year if we still have a deficit we would use some of that ccet breaker money in this fiscal year to balance off that over expenditure that we did um in special education but we're hoping that we get that number a lot tighter before we have to go to that point um so it's not we're not concerned that uh we're not going to be able to pay or that we're not going to have the money we're we're all good but I was just looking for numbers who I know yeah inane five yeah we just got to pay closer attention to it and really be careful yeah if you remember last year in the budget process we said heyy our special education is over budgeted and we've been so generous with that budget so then in the budget that you voted for this year it wasn't irresponsible by any means but you tightened it up and of course Murphy's law says right as soon as we tighten it up we'll have one of these years if you took a six or seven year history you would see again this this kind of you just can't predict what's going to happen in a given year so when we present those numbers you'll notice in the 504 Services psychological evaluations and tuitions you'll see some red um and it's at the end of the six months that we can give like a clear six months in report on that and whatever else is happening so we'll have that conversation at that point but just know that that's one of the things that we're meeting with proactively and keeping keeping an eye on and have a means to address it and then if there's continued acceleration then we'll address that to as we go Mr sell has a question Dian on on the um tuition outs for the students to fight it's that's not under special education no they're not tuition out they are they they are excluded from the school Community but we still have to educate them so we're paying the tutoring service okay to tutor them so I mean it's not an outside placement Transportation correct no it's not of that um uh most of them are at home some of them are meeting at um the Ria public library and some of them are doing online tutoring it's virtual isn't it yeah a lot of it is virtual it depends on the kid we we work it out with the fam but it's an expense and it's an expense we didn't plan for and it's an expense we didn't plan for times 15 kids you know so it adds up pretty quickly fr the reason we verbalize it as special education is that special education department procures the services sorry for that kind of tutoring and then typically would be hospitalization or or and so now this year where that number would have been there's 15 plus students who are also receiving those services so you'll see the deficit in the special education line because we're using those procured services to meet this unexpected population who's needing tutoring well you hear Special Ed Ed plan and the whole thing so thank you for the heads up thank you m thank you any other questions from financials okay uh Food Service financials none Communications none enrollment update Personnel items we have new hires and retirements res resignations terminations back to Kell guys thanks M Lio Dr guchi I see that we had one Nur how many are we down at this point um I believe we have one position open at the Beach Mall school that is so good I know I'm impressed yeah we hired two nurses um I just met with the second nurs that's why I might not be on there and where's that one going um Jill herwig has decided to put them at the Wester be complex for now but that's it's going to be in asne position is that three over there yes so initially we had conversations perhaps about uh maybe like three days at the West r two days at Garfield because they're the two most populated schools so that's still in the works and Jill's going to work that out with the the um new nurse now will that nurse be able to at least assist with her and envision and throughout the city um I don't know if we got that far in the details but I would think yes okay good yeah thank you and if not our float nurse assuming we have 100% attendants would also be able to assist with that so we get a good bench good yeah thank you Dr guchi they um are they deemed Cityside nurses or so is good both nurses with school side hires right wonderful get used to it way it should be well well just so you know our intention is always to hire a nurse who's licensed by the Department of Education they just really hard to find and the reason that this structure was set up to have the Cityside nurses was because for a time we had no Nur nurses there was no way to hire nurses and we still encourage the nurses that we hire on the city Side to get their license and move to the school side the biggest challenge we have with that is they make more money on the city Side especially when they initially start so I know that's something that we eventually going to have to work out to try to make that a little more Equitable we do reimburse the city bill right oh yeah yeah yeah it's no no no it's more about the um the oversight and the um and the who they report to and the they're in a different they're in a union at the city that I think is it's a different Union and also uh it technically it's a different work week it's a different work year yeah so the reason that there's more pay is it's based off for the 365 day a year Work Week where the schools all different so there's some anomalies but there was Mo mostly due to the co the pandemic and not and not being able to hire so the the hopes and the intentions for everybody for everyone's best interest is to make sure that everyone's on the school side time and I will say on on um the advantageous set for us our the city starting salary may be better but our ceilings better um and then also we're looking for someone to really do a crosswalk of the two Retirement Systems so we have a nurse at the high school very early in her career she's on the city Side at some point she the school side's going to surpass and then if you think about the mtrs retirement benefits it would be more beneficial for her to go to re City Y and so Jill and Lauren Buck really have their eye on that and they're mapping out that kind of those conversations that one time we had uh City nurse end up taking her mtels and come over to the school side so that was a good thing but they want to thank um Lauren buck and Dr guchi for really spearheading this and pushing it back to the schools they belong any other uh updates on hires and retirements or resignations no we're doing pretty good yeah yeah good okay uh accepting some donations and Gifts uh we have the read reader to reader donation um you you want to yeah and I don't have any I don't know if oh here it is right this yeah um so you should have something in your packet about um the reader to readers book donation program has donated millions of books to schools and public libraries they provide districtwide book donations for public schools in low-income areas and Statewide donations for public libraries the Lincoln School is receiving 600 books free of judge from this program um so because we estimate that that would be a gift over $1,000 the school committee needs to approve that um they they anticipate that it'll be formally announced in January and with the committee's approval um they would accept that gift is this the program that was tied with the representative G or no this another one this is an addition to so yeah so the Lincoln School kids are still going to get their 10 books each from um the program that um rep janino put together and the teachers at the Lincoln School like the teachers at all of our elementary schools will also get their 20 books to their classroom so they're getting that and then this is an addition to and these 600 books will be in the school library um I know that um principal uh Surman is putting together a team of teachers to they they get a list and they can pick which books they want and um so they're going to decide uh and that'll be a school-based library in the library in addition to the books the kids get and the teachers get that's awesome so yeah lots of books year even the Jeet blue donation that they did it at the beach mon in in addition to the books from rep Chino so it's a lot great my daughter comes home with a couple of books every every couple of months or so yeah it's wonderful it's awesome and the uh Metro North YMCA yeah that's the second gift they're actually coming tomorrow uh we just found out about this last week they have a grant and they're um giving us 100 $100 gift cards to give out to students in need um and so what we're going to do is um with the committee's permission to accept that so this is through the United Way that is giving these out through local YMCAs and you know they're then reaching out to their catchment areas they're being part of um the catchment area for Metro North YMCA and so we'll have those 100 gift cards that will uh proportion to the school RS based on enrollment and um the principles together with their social workers will identify kids who could most benefit from those so and just um regarding so mat I imagine is that the lmb site or is it is it a vary of the the YMCA um is it Lyn or is it Everett I'm not sure doesn't have a one be l l has a pretty big one yeah so Malden Malin has Lyn has one um and just for the viewing audience I know that whenever we bring up the word why a Boys and Girls Club um there's always like why why is no one rever and as Dr Kelly mentioned it's they they based it off of population off of demographics and where where they uh can maximize getting the amount of people so the YMCA has been reaching out we've been having fruitful conversations in the last six months they do they are starting to see that the the rier population uh could benefit from the why and now now they're actually they are looking at space in the city we we've been accommodating uh and welcoming because they are a nonprofit organization um so we we're working on uh seeing what we can offer as as a as a as a community and um you know this this there ongoing conversation so if there is is meant to be a y in the city then we'll we we'll do our best to attract them and do what we have to do to make sure that we're um incentivizing them and uh and hopefully that will because there there the interest has peaked over the last couple years but even more so in the last couple months we have one a while ago there was as a point of information we had tried many moons ago we raised you know funds and they were in carnivals the money we raised what lights at Harry deluso stadium that um there was just we couldn't get the interest couldn't get the financing but I'm very pleased to hear that there is an Outreach for it um we at the time felt it was something the city could benefit with and from and um mrir you kind of filled the gaps that we probably weren't even aware of that but um yeah congratulations yeah it's it's it's very early and who knows uh but again it was for some time it was like no we're operating in certain cities we have enough we have we have enough to cover your area now they're realizing their capacity at at Lynn and capacity in Malden and they they have the ability to expand further as long as they're able to find the financing right because and the location and the location in the meantime I'm grateful for what they given us now so I'll take say thank you right very generous um so and I'm just noticing the email is from Kathleen Walsh who's the president and CEO of uh YMCA of Metro no and the address on here which might be an office not the actual Y is 10 Centennial Drive in pey so 128 yeah yeah so can we take those two items off so we can vote to accept them on the floor sure bu trips uh we have two field trips coming before you the first is from um the Harvard model Congress for Rivia high school it's February 20th to 23rd um which is during the vacation week um and you should have this in your in your packet it's uh Tara Mitchell and um Megan or oritz I'm gonna say her name wrong what is it Ritz they'll be taking the kids um they'll be staying at the Sheridan Hotel um Harvard is paying for it the the National Guard is providing Transportation um so it's really zero cost for any of the kids involved um we've done this field trip in the past it's amazing the kids love it they learn a lot they impress everybody with their skills and knowledge um what does it consist of yourself um so they they um the kids are assigned to different teams and they it's almost like a debate and a learning how to uh vote and and push measures forward and uh negotiate and do things like that the way of Congress right would engage with each other and um put arguments before each other are are you going uh to Har yeah you do you want to say anything else about what it is um so basically what it is is if you're familiar with Model United Nations it's kind of like that where you can either uh pretend to be or emulate the position of either a senator or representative or if you get a special event like I've done in the past you can emulate a country a third person or fictional character you can like um in the past students have gained uh or students have gotten uh usually 60 plus dollars in like usually food siphon from parment for the weekend and along with that um it's mostly the time where you get to interact with students from not just in Massachusetts but around the United States and even like so it's like it's a great opportunity and every have thank you for information they have they have contests and awards where they where they'll pick a team that may had the best AR argument or have the best persuasive discussion you know and things like that so it's pretty cool and our kids win awards every year um the second field trip is um to the hail educational leadership program in Westwood um and hail is a partner with us with City lab the kids the sophomores spend one day a week down there already is that right Nick is it one day a week two days a week two days a week um that they spend down there there but this uh field trip that they're talking about is an overnight January 16th to 17th um and they would say at the hail facilities down in Westwood um hail's whole uh mission is around external learning opportunities and helping kids engage with the world really uh and nature um it's an extension of their semester curriculum focus on uh immersive outdoor settings um there are going to be 34 kids that would be the maximum that he can allow um it it might be less than that but the most it would be is 34 with two chaperon again there's no cost for any of this our partnership with hail is currently supported through one of the grants um that City lab has as an innovation school um and they've already worked out with Transportation with our transportation department that they would be able to bring them down and bring them home excellent um and there's a very detailed itinerary behind that um if you want to take a look at that and also Nick is here he can answer any questions he's I imagine um one of the chaperon is gonna go yeah I want for this yeah do you want to add anything Nick to what I said um s yeah just an extension of some of the yearlong semester um that we've been doing at of the semester long curc we've been doing it H with outdoor leadership skills um also some of the core subject we've been bringing Outdoors that later on today uh tonight but um yeah it's kind of like the end of the semester kind of Celebration but also kind of last for thing one question when the T you got a first a training they get CPI I mean yes the hell folks there they're all trained and they have other medical yeah the basic stuff there so with two chaperon 34 students you know the students going and you feel comfortable that these type these students to adults can candidate definitely and as um mentioned 34 is our Max 34 is our the whole possible list I imagine it's most likely going to be I guess it's probably High Teens um mid 20s Max um also the two sh those are the that's the minimum number just me and another Personnel um we also might have another c teacher we're just waiting to get um one everything approved but also before I ask other people join in as long as you're comfortable oh definitely yeah the students we have I feel very comfortable with that that's the whole you go with them correct yes I go with them every Tuesday and Thursday with that yeah I think they're definitely a bunch thank you excellent thank you thank you good there one more to well there is one more realiz in here okay um Ria High School Outdoors club uh bethan Goldman and um Jerry gezer this is Friday January 31st through Sunday February 2nd up in the White Mountains they do this trip each year and the oldjoy club goes up and um does some camping and Hiking um their agenda is again very detailed uh in behind so go all right so those are the three field trips so should we take those off the agenda and approve them separate or do you feel comfortable voting them as a group on the floor meting it oh I see okay so everyone's in favor of as the group as a whole I'm than great yes fantastic so remainder of the school year meeting dates it looks like TOS these around um I believe I'm away on the 25th she you guys would live without me it's also my birthday but you know February birth we'll have a cake for you your absence vanilla or chocolate vanilla got your gift [Music] joh chocolates that was for the office that was for the office not just we can't do that we don't want to break any rules that was definitely that's a holiday isn't it what 17th isn't that no no Jun the 19 okay by me just sorry uh and I know there's a discussion for meeting locations for the upcoming year um anyone have any yes I think we can establish once and for all specifically um whether we remain at the school committee room or City Hall which graci graciously has made room for us racious well that's peace offering anyway um I for one am not comfortable in our pre- meetings in this room I would like to see us revert back to the council to the school committee room and conduct all business any and all business there and to thank the city council and um well the mayor indirectly and that we do stay in our own facility so that's my point so see what the members feel if I me uh we we strap for a space and even though you know Dr Kelly doesn't need the classroom right now we can always utilize the classroom but on the flip side also on the next election we're going to have two o seats and we won't have room so we're going to be moving either now or what are we going to do when there's another two positions well I I think that we're flexible enough that we can add two cheers um I don't think that uh we have territor IAL rights to certain areas I mean reconfiguration and if it becomes a classroom we meet in the evening and it shouldn't interfere with anything of of the nature that's going to prevent it from being used as a classroom did we already vote on this S I thought we did that's that's what my question was to us I thought we already voted on the S in the I I'm not aware of it m so I'm going to say yes they're going to be using it I do when I started on the agenda I asked Dr Kelly they are going to use it for the second semester um but it will not be used after school hours so I mean I'm just looking at for everyone I I can't say everyone but for whether it's our student rep whether it's for parking reasons because even though City Hall might close at 5:00 that parking lot's not empty at 4:30 for us to arrive so I I think of that and trying to get there on time I don't mind the steers I can do the steers it's a parking lot I'm not doing that elev not that old um I I just think you know again we do have two extra people coming next year if you look at other school committees in their seup a lot of times they're only folding tables and they can figure it to whatever they need um so a a side table let's say on the wall where I sit a side table with the student rep and the assistant superintendent right there to me is not a huge problem um I just think it's more accommodating for everyone I wasn't here for a vote I I know it was talked about in this room for a committee of the whole um but I was not here for that so I don't know and I Tred to look at the minutes and I I really couldn't find anything I know there was discussion maybe it was just a discussion it was discussion it might have been I don't I know we definitely discussed it because we even talked about um we talked about how that room would be available first semester that they didn't need it for classes I remember that being part of the conversation but that they would need it for second semester so if we had a subcommittee meeting what would we do we wouldn't be able to use that room but we could use this space or over there if if it needed to be private we would have to look for some and same thing subcommittee where are we going to have them it's not like you can just say I'm G to have one within 48 hours at City Hall somewhere without a plan I mean you know in subcommittees don't have to be anywhere specific I mean I was going to say huh no but I mean this is open to the kids during the day I mean it is so right but these rooms are usually booked through Robin yeah um like you could book that room over there that's closed off no I'm sure I'm just throwing it just for conversation discussion that's okay it just seems like um it's a room we're always talking about there's no space there's no space it just seems like it could be room a room that could be used for whatever it is that you deem it necessary will be but day night whether it's whether it's a I I'll be honest it's obviously easier for me to use the city city hall but so I mean uh but and I thought it was about accommodating more so when we get the two new members on yeah um so but I'm you know e either or you know uh as long as we are making sure that we have the right space so all is easy for me I walk up one play STS you know again I don't care about the STS I you know and then I had heard that um unfortunately joint meetings aren't even wanted and that and this is heay so I apologize if it's wrong but that we're not really even wanted sitting in those seats and I can you I can understand to a point that's their territory and you know um how they might feel about us or vice versa with two different entities and they have their own space well if there's any truth to that I think it's absolutely ridiculous traffic and receipts are paid by the tax dollars for them to borrow not to to own so if there's any truth to that then I highly take offense to it and I think it's very CH and again like I said it's his say so don't go jumping on the council um you know what it could have been one person talking to another person and we know Rev and I I understand coming from um Miss Rizzo and um I I I highly doubt it as well but I also you know you never know things do get taken out of context but um it is it's used by many many boards and bodies so uh and usually very accommodating um obviously this is going to have to become if this is a penous enough debate then we should have have it in the form of a true motion have some more discussion maybe at the following meeting but just have a vote for it and move on yeah we can we can definitely do that well if if we have good options on either one right uh um when superintendent daon always stressed the need for having it here because in case they needed something I don't remember ever having to get anything oh let's ask your opinion what you would well I for the same reason that the mayor was just saying how much appreciate having that City Hall I feel the same way about having it here I mean it's obviously more convenient and that's exactly that Freddy like my my thought of what I have to put together and make sure I have in order to be able to answer the questions that you all have when we have these meetings I worry a little bit if I'm at City Hall what do I not have access to I don't know it's I think of stupid little things like the internet like I have a hard time getting on the internet at City Hall here I know my machine's going to work I know Paul's right there I know Matt's got all of his Finance stuff right there and like just the comfort of knowing that all that stuff is a phone call or aex you problem with us using it at night and the school using it during the day I don't the the glitch for me would be the subcommittee meetings we couldn't count on having that space available for them during the day because they if they if they put classes in an issue with the sub can meet anyway you know that's great yeah with that in mind I don't think it's a problem yeah we got us we go to City Hall I mean we could meet anyway that's not AIG deal and uh this is we are talking about something that's probably regardless of what we do it's a short term because in 2028 or so you know do whatever we want a more space so that this could be a really short term decision especially where so the new folks will come on in January of 20 oh 26 okay yeah okay so it's really two and a half years we have time yeah I'll do whatever I'll meet I'll meet in the middle of the parking lot if we have okay yeah I think this could be a good agenda topic for next meeting so I'll put it you it should go on the next meeting's agenda Robin in the form of a motion right yep but where's the meeting going to take place the next one at City Hall or here no no we're not changing we'll be here the second semester doesn't start till February so we're fine meeting here okay discussion is great the Democratic process to walk down the hall or to walk up the stairs who brings nothing with them hey like I said I know I know and I get it this is this is also good school territory so it's good to be here too it's part of you know getting into the school there's something to be said for the school committee being in the in the school I agree with you there and I will say there's a few that have always been jealous because they don't meod doesn't have a school committee Ro um Everett was happy when they started doing it at the high school which was a beautiful room to do within anyhow but there's some that don't have any and some that just have Bolden chair and so I mean we have a a lot okay um thank you and then the last item is that Med agenda and mellan miscellaneous heads anything I I have a question um I and of course I'm not going to find it um under the drive I turn it already Untitled document it was brought to my attention and then I did see something on um the council meeting the other day um that something was suggested as overhauling the whole school committee and um he was told the person was told he she that if anything was said his family members would be retaliated against so I was told this but then I watched the council meeting to see if it was true and it was true the person said it um and I was wondering if anyone heard of anything I haven't even heard of an overhaul of the school committee wait say I'm conf these are the exact words he the person has been threatened and has been called names and also trying to cancel him and when he suggested an overhaul of the school committee he was told that if he said anything his family members would retaliated against them can I add some context to this um I didn't hear the specific comments but I think this was during public speak a member of the public came up and spoke to the councel okay I think I know what you're talking about um I don't I don't know what they're talking about but I think I you're talking about I I don't know if this is something we really should elaborate on you're we're adding oxygen to a something I wanted to know because if someone heard something about the overhaul of the school committee I I kind of would want to know about what the and they might be good suggestions who knows but I haven't heard anything so that's why I wanted to ask if anyone's heard something and overhaul usually beats bothen people out stand in line all in favor I I thank you [Music]