Calling to order at seven 30 at 5 35. 5:35 PM Uh, I have the roll tone in front of me here. Kathleen Hillman? Here. Bo Sullivan? Here. Heather Sullivan. Here. Mike Terrell. Here. Tim O'Connor. Here. Chairman McCabe Here. Uh, I don't know how we wanna do the Pledge of Allegiance other than just kind of recite the P of Allegiance. We can Do that. There's one right outside my window. I think you should all look at the boys and girls. I'm gonna pretend that I'm, uh, I'm gonna give it a go. Here we go. Pledge allegiance to the flag.
The republic for which nation? One Nation under God, Indivisible, Liberty And Justice for All. Excellent. At this point, I'd like to open up public participation, excluding personnel. You have up to, uh, three minutes to speak on a topic if you're choosing. And we're gonna leave it open for 30 minutes. Is there any member of the public on the Zoom? I don't believe so. So, I'm going to close public participation and move on to item number three, which is the approval of the 25 20 settlement, 27 settlement agreement between the Westfield School Committee
and the Westfield Cafeteria Managers Association. I'd like to make a motion for the approval of the 2025 through 2027 settlement agreement between the Westfield School Committee and the Westfield Cafeteria Managers Association, and let the mayor sign on behalf of the committee. Second, second. Motion has been made and seconded. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Terrell, will you call the roll please? Yeah. Jeffrey, You just put as, as pre can you just put as presented in there? Thank You. Mike Rell. Can we add an add as presented on the I did. I did. Yep. Thank you. So noted. Go ahead, Mike. Uh, Jeff.
Jeffrey Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Kathleen Hillman. Are you on mute? Oh, oh, yes. Yes. O Sullivan. Yes. Heather Sullivan. Yes. Mike Terrell. Yes. Tim O'Connor? Yes. Chairman Mcca? Yes. At this time. Motion passes. At this time, I'd like to, uh, turn it over to Vice Chair Connor to speak about the Superintendent of Schools evaluation for the 20 24 20 25 school year. Mr. O'Connor? Yep. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, uh, the school committee has,
um, went ahead and, and, um, provided, uh, documentation for, uh, the superintendent's 2025, uh, evaluation. And, uh, this, what, what, uh, I'll do is I will go through, um, some of, of the numerical scoring and then just provide overall comments. I will share the full summative report, uh, with the entire school committee and the superintendent, um, shortly after the meeting. Mr. O'Connor, Can I interrupt for just a second? Sure. Anybody who's not speaking other than Mr. O'Connor,
put your microphones back on mute for a second, and then, Yeah, I'm going, I'm just, I had to come on here for a second. Yeah, no worries. And then we'll just give it back to Mr. O'Connor in a second when everybody's all set. Thumbs up for the All set. Good. Mr. O'Connor, the floor is back to you. Very good. Thank you. Some of the evaluation report for the superintendent. Step one is to assess progress toward goals, and I'll remind the school committee and others, uh, what those goals were. Professional practice goal, by the end
of 2024 2025 school year, the district will improve central office alignment and efficiency by implementing three best practices from recent research on high performing teams, resulting in better alignment of district initiatives as measured by progress toward district's strategic goals. Number two, student learning goals by the end of the 2024 2025 school year district will improve student achievement on the i-Ready diagnostic assessment by increasing the percentage of students meeting or exceeding grade level standards by 5%, and by increasing the percentage
of students meeting typical growth by 2%. And the district will increase the student daily attendance rate by 1.3%, uh, to the pre pandemic rate of 93.8%. And the third goal district improvement. By the end of 2024 2025 school year, the district will successfully close three schools, open a new elementary school, uh, transition a hundred percent of English learners to their home schools, and integrate preschool programs into the elementary schools. These, um, uh, these goals, uh, were, were viewed by the school committee, and each one provided, uh, um, information
and feedback, uh, regarding where they thought, uh, the goals were met, not met. And there, there are five ratings available. Number one, at a rating of one did not meet. Rating of two is some progress. A rating of three is significant progress. A rating of four is met, and a rated of five is exceeded Professional practic goals. Numerical rating was 4.2 Student learning goals. Numerical rating was 4.2 and district improvement goals. Numerical rating was 4.2. Step number two, assess performance on standards.
Do numerical ratings for this assessment was one, unsatisfactory, two needs improvement. Three is proficient, and four is exemplary Standard. One, structural instructional leadership, 3.0. Standard two, management and operations, 3.4. Standard three, family and community 3.2. And standard four, professional culture 3.0. Step number three is an overall rating, summative rating
for the evaluation report, and that rating is proficient. Step number four, overall evaluator comments. This was an operationally complex year where the superintendent continued to effectively navigate the schools through significant change. Despite many challenges, the Westfield Public School system has continued to make steady progress and the areas of student achievement, shared district vision, data-driven decision making, and a steady rise in student attendance. There were also successes in school transitions in establishing a difficult but lean budget.
Though the district saw gains in many areas of student achievement, not notably in reading, in math, instructional outcomes and attendance should remain a priority with the goal of significant growth and student achievement towards grade level performance on standardized assessments. Continued con, continued concentration on support services for special education will also need to stay the course, ensuring that all students are receiving the support they need to be successful at every level. With a formidable central office administration team in place with sound building management leadership,
and with an incredibly talented teaching and specialist staff, the Westfield School Committee is confident that student achievement and district improvement will continue to advance throughout the entire district. Thank you. Um, any other comments from anyone? Like I said, under the, under the assessment performance on standards, there's some other, uh, information that was a collection of comments put together, uh, for, for review. I can say on behalf of the, the school committee. Um, thank you, uh, Stefan for you, your co uh,
and all others who had contributed to a, a, a very good school year. I think we have, um, some, some other work to do, but I think, um, I think everything's in place to, to continue to build upon. So thank you for, uh, the hard work day and day out. Mr. Mr. Connor. Yep. I'd just like to note that I didn't take part in the evaluation process. Uh, it was left with the members of the school committee outside of the mayor, because I have a bit of a different relationship with, uh, uh, the superintendent. And I would just like to say thank you to him for,
um, the effort. Um, we have actually been on the phone, uh, daily, it seems for the past four or five months, if not even longer than that, working on stuff that, um, might not have been part of the evaluative process, um, because it was, uh, to such a distraction, um, whether or not it was in the political arena or in local government arena, or facilities management or whatever it happened to be. It was just, uh, it was, uh, a pretty brutal, from my point
of view, it was pretty brutal last six months. So I'd just like to thank him for his partnership. Great. Mr. Terrell? Um, yeah, I just want to, a couple quick words again. Uh, kudos to the superintendent, to the co team for, uh, for, for a a a good year, which was also a challenging year, obviously another one, another one coming up ahead, judged by, uh, this year's, um, budget cycle. Um, and also just wanted to, uh, note, um, the amount of work that goes into, um, this, you know,
obviously everybody on the committee sits down and puts together, uh, a a put, puts a fair amount of work into and, and thought into this process. Um, and just thanks to Vice Chair O'Connor for, um, sitting down this year, uh, pouring over all of those reviews, putting together, uh, sort of more concise, more focused, uh, reviews this so that we have a summative, uh, review. Uh, that's where you got all those, uh, point, uh, values, 3.24, 3.4, and so on and so forth.
Um, going through averaging all of that, uh, and putting together all of the comments. Um, so thank you, uh, vice Chair O'Connor, and, uh, yeah, again, thank you to the, uh, superintendent, the co team, and all the faculty and staff here. I have my hand up. Go ahead, Tim. Go ahead, Heather. Um, all I can say is I think the superintendent and his team have done an amazing job, and I echo what the mayor said. I mean, we don't have to deal with it day in and day out and every hour of the day like they do.
And I appreciate all that you've done. You've conquered so many great things, and I, uh, huge hurdles and I appreciate the hard work and dedication you guys have put into this, all of you, you and your team. So thank you. It's, it, you know, from the bottom of my heart. Um, thank you. Because you work hard and it shows, so I appreciate you. Well, thank you for that, Mr. Sullivan. I, I, I'll, I'll just echo what everybody said. Um, Mr. O'Connor, thank you for putting us all together. 'cause I know how much, uh, work goes into that on a Saturday and a Sunday afternoon.
Um, mayor, I, I am really appreciative, uh, uh, appreciative of you saying about the budget because not only all these goals that we had to evaluate, but like you said, for the past six months, the, the majority of his day was spent with you or with the code team coming up with that budget, which we all know is gonna be a lean year. So, um, I think if you add that on to this evaluation, the numbers actually go up. So, uh, kudos for all of that next year. Hopefully you won't be closing what three schools and selling two other buildings. You'll just be able to enjoy a new school
for a full school year, uh, and, um, and, and move this all forward. And I just, one thing, and I know we approved it and I voted to approve it too, but the more and more I think about that student achievement numbers, the percentages of that we put on a goal for him to achieve, I really do think we're high. Okay. That 5% is a big number. It really is. And getting a 4% and a 6%, you know, average it out as a five, he hits it. But, um, I think, I think getting even close to that 5% and exceeding it, um, is, is a, a, a big, a big lift.
Uh, and you, you pull that one off. So I think it was a great year. Um, and good, good luck with this one coming up because I think it's just gonna be just as much work. But three More, Stefan and I, three more. I don't know where he is. He's not on my picture anymore. He's got three more. Yeah, three. And anyone else Jump in really quickly and just echo that last point Mr. Sullivan made of, I, I appreciate the, like, the rigor that went into the goals this year. And, um, I think you set some pretty ambitious goals
around growth in some of those scores. And you just wanna, wanna echo that, uh, appreciation for doing that and for the, the progress that's there. It's great to be able to spend some time reflecting on, uh, just how much progress the students have made this year, particularly in reading, but also in math. So great to see and really appreciate the efforts there. Great. Any other comments? Sure. Before there's a motion to adjourn, 'cause I know it's Coming. Uh, we've got one more. We have one more thing. Okay. I see. I would like to make a motion for the acceptance
of the Mass Life Science Center MLSC grant in the amount of $59,406. Second Motion made. And second, is there any further discussion? Ms. Leland? I know that you're out there. I'm here. I'm here. Um, so this grant is, um, has been awarded to the Intermediate middle school, um, Westfield High and the Tech Academy. Um, and it covers both professional development and equipment, um, for our life science programs. Any questions for Ms. Lan? Ms. Leland?
Mrs. Long seeing none. Thank you very much. Perfect. Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, uh, Mr. Terrell? Post Sullivan? Yes. Motion or adjourn? No. A vote on it. We're almost there. Tim Bo Sullivan? Yes. Yes. Heather Sullivan. I could have said second in this meeting now. Mike Terrell? Yes. Jeffrey Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Jim O'Connor? Yes. Chairman McCabe? Yes. Motion passes.
Thank you very much for to, to Joanne for our explanation. Before we adjourn, I just wanna say thank you to everybody that's in the room. Um, this is my fourth budget session. It was by far the hardest budget session, and it was made harder by you guys digging deeper just so that you, you know, because a better product was produced as a result of all the digging that was done, especially Jeff with this NSS, whatever that, I'm just kidding, Jeff. Um, truthfully, but we're better off for how much work
that each individual member here dug into and took, took a look at, and Heather with the, with special ed and all of those things. So I really wanna thank you guys for what you did. It was, uh, you know, it's an interesting budget. We'll see what happens next year, but thank you very much. Now is there a motion? Motion adjourn. Second. Motion been made in second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Have a great summer. You too.