We try call. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. How are you? Great. Today is January the fifth. It's seven o'clock, and that means it's time for the commencement of the Westfield City. I, Mr. Gunther, Mr. Gun, can you call him Allon Exhaust? Jeff Goslin. It's exhausting. Here. Jeff Gunther. Here. Kathleen Hillman. Here. Bo Sullivan. Absolutely. Richard Sullivan. Here. Mike Terrell. Here. Chairman MCC Cap Here. Uh, before we move on, I want to welcome Kick Sullivan. Kick. Do you want to go by kick? Is that what you want?
Yes, please. Okay. Kick. And Jeff Goel. It's nice to have you both with us. Um, allegiance, United States Under God, individual Liberty Justice Forum. Now it's time for public participation, which we'll leave open for about 15 minutes. If anybody should like to address the school committee on a topic of your choosing, you have three minutes to do so. Un unless the, uh, committee extends your, so anybody like to address the school committee? Mr. Mayor? I'd like to. Can I do it from here or do you want me to stand up there? Well go ahead from here.
This is the very first time this has happened. Four years. And we're about three minutes in. Perfect. Okay. Good evening. Um, I'm truly honored and so grateful to the citizens and voters for electing me to the school committee. I wish to thank my incredible team for their dedication. You have stood by my side through nine school committee campaigns, especially Mr. Gino Marelli, my campaign manager, and Mr. Peter Ottis treasurer. I would like to thank my family and friends for their unending support, the Cafe Baristas
who saw me far too often during the campaign, and my fraternity brothers for their late night pep talks. And a special thank you to my mentor, my mother, the late Sharon Merlo Goslin, the second woman ever to have run for the office of Mayor of Westfield, a three term school committee member, a historical commissioner, the first liaison to the head start Westfield, a preschool teacher, a friend to all. And I'd like to take this moment to thank Ms. Joe O'Connor and Ms. Heather Sullivan for their prior service.
And finally, to the people of Westfield, thank you again and again for believing in me. Let us continue our work. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gold. Anybody else saying none? I'm gonna close the public participation period and go on to item number four, which is the election of school committee Officer. Dr. I'd like to nominate Mike Terrell as vice chair of the school committee. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion on that, that seeing no discussion footage
I'D to nominate Jeff Goslin? Mm-hmm. For Vice Chair. Is there a second? Okay. Uh, going back to the original motion, um, how does that work? Dr. Gunther, can you call the roll? Jeff Goslin. Mike Terrell. Jeffrey Gunther? Yes. I'm Mike Terrell. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Mike Terrell. Abstain. Chairman McCain? I'll vote twice. Yes. I To the secretary, I'd like to make a motion, uh, to nominate, uh,
Bo Sullivan as Secretary of the School Committee. Second Bo should been made in second. Is there any further discussion on that? Does Bo accept that nomination? No. Do we know That? You know, this is the classic situation when you miss a meeting and you wind up with the chair or something crazy. Yeah. Um, he does accept that. Yes. Any other discussion? Are there any other nominations? Seeing none, Mr. Gunther. Jeffrey Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes.
Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Bo Sullivan. Mike Terrell. Yes. Chairman McKay? Yes. Just for, uh, to make sure we're clear when we're voting on a motion, the motion's already been stated, so there's no reason to, to add in names right here like that. It's a yes or no on the motion. Um, Mr. Vice Chair, Uh, subcommittee assignments, uh, for 2026, um, chairing the curriculum Instruction and Assessment Subcommittee will be Jeffrey Gunther, alongside member Kick Sullivan.
Human Resources and Policy Subcommittee will be chaired by Kathleen Hillman. Uh, alongside, uh, Jeff Goslin as Member Educational Planning and Technology Subcommittee will be chaired by Jeffrey Goslin. Uh, and Bo Sullivan will be, uh, the second member. The finance subcommittee will be chaired by Bo Sullivan with Jeff Goslin as the second member. And the facilities and Capital Planning subcommittee will be chaired by Kick Sullivan with Kathleen Hillman as the second member. Can I ask a clarification? I have myself down for one and Jeff Goslin for three.
Is that An error? I could have said that incorrectly. Uh, You go through 'em again. Oh, Hang on a second. No, it's my, I I I wrote down a i one of these in error. Pardon me. So I have Dr. Gunther and Kick Sullivan for curriculum. Kathleen Hillman and Jeff Goslin for Human Resources. That's correct. Jeff Goslin and Bo Sullivan Educational Planning. Yep. Bo Sullivan Finance Committee with Jeff. Jeff Gunther is the second on, on finance. Sorry, but I, there's too many Jeffs and there's too many Jeff Gs
JGs is not gonna work. I actually wondered if putting the both the Jeff's on this side was a good idea. Yeah. We'll see how, no disrespect, but it, it's gonna be interesting. And facilities and capital planning. Uh, ki Sullivan and Kathleen Hillman Ki Kick Sullivan as the chairperson. And Kathleen Hillman as the member. Does that make more sense? That's much, Yes. Thank you. Sorry about that. So Ki is the chair. Okay. Excellent. Um, item six, I'd like to like to make a motion to nominate Kathleen Hillman as the school committee member to sign payroll.
Do We have second, do we do the alternate as part of that, or is it, Is that separate? I have, I have them broken up as, um, separate, but Okay. We'll do it separate. Um, I think you can do 'em together, to be honest with you. Do you have a, do you have an alternate? I was gonna nominate Jeff Gunther to be the alternate For Okay. Signing. So the motion is to select Kathy Hillman as the school committee member and Jeff Gunther as the alternate to sign payroll. Pardon me? That's incorrect. Okay. That is not the motion that I meant to make. Okay. That's the motion I meant to make for number seven. Okay. Um, Let's scrap the first Motion. Yeah. I am a, I'm a secretary's, uh, nightmare.
Today, uh, I would like to make a motion to nominate Bo Sullivan as the school committee member to sign payroll and Jeffrey Gunther as the alternate to sign payroll. Second. Is there any further discussion? All the roll. Mr. Gunther. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Kick Sullivan. Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Mike Terrell. Yes. Chairman Cape. Yes. I'd like to make a motion to nominate Kathleen Hillman as the school committee member
to sign the weekly warrants with Bo Sullivan as the backup, the alternate Motion has been made. And second, is there any further discussion on those two folks saying none. Dr. Ick, Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Mike Durrell. Yes. Chairman McKay? Yes. Thank you for the work. Apologize for the, we're Kind of trying to find a jury here a little bit. We're okay. Of those two Meeting, Uh, item eight, who's got item eight?
Uh, that's the public schools accountability and MCA data. Mm-hmm. Hi there, Dr. Shea. How are you? Good evening. Happy? I'm well, thank you. Christine Shea, director of Assessment and Accountability. Um, so this evening I am going to review accountability in MCAS. I'm just gonna pull up my slides. Um, Okay, here we go. So, first I'll review our enrollment data, go over our accountability results, and review our MCA results. Um, and we can go into like, further detail at a, a curriculum and assessment subcommittee meeting.
So, all right. Just to get started, um, this year, as you know, we have nine elementary schools, and our enrollment is 4,725 kids. And that was as of October 1st. Our other numbers are still from last year. Uh, the state will be updating, um, all of our race, ethnicity and selected populations data, um, very soon, like by the end of January. So, um, I mean, as of now, um, just
to give you an idea, Our high needs population, and that includes any kids who, uh, families who are low income students with disabilities and or English learners, is at 60, 60.2% compared to 55.8%, um, at the state level. So we're a little bit higher there in terms of our need. Same with low income. We're higher, we're at 48.8%, where the state is at 42.1% students with disabilities.
We're at 25% with the state at 20.6. And our English learners we're actually a little lower. We're at 8.8%, and the state is 13.9%. Just to give you a sense of our need. Um, and just a little refresher for accountability and the different elements that are part of that. Um, the state has two different measures for accountability. One is a percentile ranking, and that is comparing like elementary schools to elementary schools across the state and middle schools to middle schools
and high schools to high schools, um, from one being the lowest to the 99th percent percentile. And then every school and district are given, um, criterion referenced goals to meet like targets. And the second component is like, how well are our schools doing in meeting those targets over each year? So there's two different measures, and I'm gonna share both of those, um, with you. Um, Dr. Sha, can I interrupt you a sec? Yes, absolutely. Do you have this in, um, electronic form? Yes.
Can you send this to us? Yeah. I just sent It or not today. It's impossible to try to read. Yeah. Okay. Um, alright, good. You go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. We'll send it later today or first thing in the morning. Sure. Absolutely. Um, so the components of the accountability system include achievement, which is MCAS, um, student growth, which is another measure of MCAS, um, how many kids are finishing high school, uh, how many kids are becoming proficient as in English. And then there's some additional indicators like at the high
school who's taking, um, AP classes, college courses, um, for an example. So just keeping that in mind, some of our takeaways, um, this year, really good news is that all of our schools met the accountability requirements. So we don't have any that are needing targeted assistance. Um, we all, all the schools in our district made progress towards their goals and most made moderate or substantial progress. Um, we'll look at our absentee rate,
and right now we've decreased the chronic absenteeism rate substantially. We have a substantial increase in the number of students taking and passing advanced courses. And, um, our MCAS results vary with science showing our most improvement. So just that first, a accountability, um, rating. These are percentile rankings, and what you're looking at are, are schools over three years. So, for example, like Highland, um, in 2023 was around 50,
just above 50 last year, it was a little, like more below 50. And this year it's at 55. So we've seen an increase there. Munger has been more, you know, between the thirties to the forties and it dropped down a little bit. This year. Paper mill has made stud steady increase over the last three years. South Hampton Road is, um, right above the 40th percentile and pretty steady. Um, Westfield River is really the first year of data. You know, last year was a year when two
schools came together. So, um, this year they're right below the 20th percentile. Um, WIS this year is above the 40th percentile higher than the last two years. Um, the middle school is around the 20th percentile, a little bit lower than last year. The tech academy is pretty steady, um, right below the 20th percentile. And West Westfield High School, again, is right around the 20th, a little bit lower than last year. Um, and this, this is a measure of how well our schools are actually meeting the targets
that are set, you know, at each school. So, um, this year we have two schools making substantial progress towards meeting their targets. Most of our schools and district are making moderate progress. And Westfield River, again, it's their first year, so, you know, it doesn't have like, the three or four years of data, um, may not be quite as reliable. And they are, they've made progress, but it's more limited. And the good news being, we have no schools requiring assistance or intervention. Um, a couple things to really celebrate. If you look at just the, the direction of those lines, um,
all students are, you know, all of our groups have actually gone down since 2022, which is our chronic absentee rate. You want that to drop. Um, this is for kids who have missed more than 10, 10% or more of school. So as of right now, um, for all of our students, we're at 12.2%, and that's substantially lower than the last few years. Um, our English learners, uh, is the orange E line, and that's at 13.2%. And our students with disabilities is at 18%.
But the good news is that, you know, we're steadily dropping our attendance rate, which is, you know, what you wanna see increasing is going up with all students at 94.5%. Um, beginning of December, English learners is at 94.2%, and students with disabilities is at 92.7%. So you'll see that we've had made a lot of progress there. Um, just gonna give a quick overview of MCAS, but just to let you know, the different categories of MCAS.
Um, we want all our kids to be scoring 500 and meeting expectations or exceeding at five 30. Um, below that are kids that are partially meeting and then not meeting. So tonight I'm gonna give you kind of an overview, um, of a percentage of kids meeting or exceeding expectations. So to give you a sense of a comparison, um, from the state, for the state grades three to eight, um, they've seen an increase overall of three percentage points in ELA. And math has been pretty flat as compared to 2024, grade 10,
ELA decreased six percentage points, and math decreased as well as compared to 2024. And they credited some of that, um, that there's evidence of impact from question two, which you'll remember is kids still take MCAS, but they don't have to pass it to graduate. So they were thinking that decrease may be just the effect of not having to pass MCAS, um, in science at the state level, there was no change in grade five, and they saw a decrease overall in grades eight and 10.
This year. For the first year, there was a civics test, um, in grade eight. And, um, 39% of kids at the state level either met or exceeded expectations. So for Westfield, some of our key takeaways, starting with ELA, um, our ELA scores and grades from grades three to eight, were pr were the same as last year. Um, in grade 10, similar to the state, we saw a decrease in scores from 2024. And similar to the state, you know, may be attributed
to the fact that kids don't have to pass it at this point. Math, um, grades three to eight was similar to 2024, and we did see a decrease in math in grade 10, um, from 2024, similar to the state. Um, a celebration that our grades five and eight actually increase compared to 2024. And, um, that's something that, you know, we think about the curriculum that we've been teaching for the last few years, and we like to see that increase there. And then, similar to the state, our science in grade 10, um,
we saw a decrease as well. Um, and this year, our first year for the civics, actually our kids, 43% met or exceeded expectations, and we exceeded the state average, which was 39% across the state. So again, another reason for, uh, celebration there. So I know that was a, a quick overview. Um, as I said, we can go into more detail at our next subcommittee meeting with curriculum and assessment. Um, I don't know, I don't know if we wanna pause for questions.
And I will send these slides out, um, you know, first thing so you can look at 'em more closely. Does anybody have any questions for Dr. Schack? Mr. Just a quick question. Uh, there was no, there was no data for Westville River, um, but it did look like, uh, the slide where you had the bar graphs there, that one, yeah. It, it did, it did look like Westfield River was pretty much in line with what the average of Abner and Franklin would've been, right? I mean, Yeah, pretty much. You have a stat for that or, yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, And then on for a Westfield, uh, middle school,
um, at least I think that says WMS. Yes. Uh, that one, that one ticked down just a little bit, it looks like in 2025. Do we have a, do we have an idea of Where that might be coming? Um, I mean, it, that's a good question. I'll have to look at like all the different indicators because their MCA scores were fairly much, pretty much the same. And then civics, they actually did better than the state. Um, some of the other things are like, we could look more closely at attendance. Um, they have el el English learner proficiency
as part of the formula. So let me, I'll look more closely and can let you know. Great. Thank you. This is not so much a, I I'm excited to dig in as we get into the next curriculum. I had that feeling committee. Me too. Um, so I will, I will not pepper you with questions right now. There's a lot of questions on my mind. Um, one of the things that I think would be helpful that I would love to dig into is I know that there is a table that shows the number of points that we earned for accountability or for like a, each of the different Categor For each of the different components.
The like, absolutely. Whether, whether to, 'cause I have the same curiosity as Mr. Terrell and on the opposite side at wis, why did they jump up so much? Right. And so knowing whether that's coming from the achievement score, the growth score, the high needs students, the ELL, like knowing which components that is, seeing that like table for each of the schools, I think would be really helpful at the next curriculum instruction. Sounds great. Anybody else? I have the natural question that is, why is Highland so much better? Like geometrically better than everybody else?
But I'm sure you guys will tease that out in, in your conversation. Yeah, I think that, that the table that Dr. Gunther just mentioned breaks out the different categories and will let us know like, where are their strengths and you know, why they're doing so well. Yep. Well, and just to be fair, it's our only elementary school without any special education sub-separate programming. So it's gonna be skewed. That's the answer I'm looking for. Actually. I thought it was just the opposite. So thank you. That makes sense. Okay. That's where I'm curious if, like, are they, when we look like thought the high needs students,
is Highland doing any better or work like as we get to those subgroups, it would be interesting to know whether it's composition or if there's, there's something happening there. There's something else there I think would Be really important. And, and just remember too, when we set our goals for the beginning of this year, we, we really focused on the LS and the special ed population because we see that and we need to narrow that gap If possible in the future. If we're gonna be looking at slide decks, can you send the slide decks ahead of time so that we can Absolutely. I can't see them. Sorry about that. Maybe it's a function of age,
but I've got no shot at that first page that you put up on my eye. I got nothing. It, we'll send it out and if you have any follow up questions Sure. Feel free to reach out. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Yep. Sure. Sorry, Christine. Yes. Um, now I'm hearing the state is working on a little bit of a change against like the, um, MAS situation and they want testing of every single class that these kids take with a percentage of passing. Superintendent Zapp is the right person to answer this.
I'm just curious as to where that's going. So Actually, I didn't understand the question. So the, The state is, the state has, has eliminated or because of the vote, uh, the graduation requirement for MA, yet they still give the test. And I will tell you that I actually think that affected, uh, per student performance on more than just that level, just from phone calls that I received from even families. Why are you making my child come to school for an MCA day? And I, and I had to explain, they're, they're not, it may not count for graduation, but the scores still count and we still need your child there because we still get, um, down scored
for accountability if our attendance is low on, on mc a day. So those little things actually do have a, a factor in how many kids are doing makeups, um, what the state has proposed. In short, and I'm gonna do a presentation on this shortly, so Okay. You don't need to explain then. Okay. But they wanna do end of the year courses, uh, exams that don't count, that the state administers and scores. And they also want to do a, um, uh, a so that would be for like algebra one, algebra two, geometry, so many more exams than they're already taking, than they were taking.
And they also want the students to have, um, they have to fill out the fafsa that's, or the fafsa. That's gonna be a requirement, assuming every kid is going to college, which is not a fair assumption. Um, and they want every student to do either a portfolio or a capstone project, which I love that aspect. And then My question there is who's gonna correct those? So we would at that level, I think, and it could be, but a lot of our shops and a lot of our classrooms are doing similar type end of the year projects as it is now. So it wouldn't be that hard. There's a few other, uh, parts to it.
So I'll do a presentation. Also, my organization, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents and very other, and various other groups have given a response, particularly the largest concern would be the unfunded mandates that this would come along with these requirements. Because, because then the, the, the cost falls on us to bear. Yep. Tell me something That doesn't always happen, right? But, uh, it really, there's a lot of pushback On that. So, in fairness, can we wait for your presentation to have this conversation? Yep. Thank you. Yes. I just didn't know if he knew of anything that was happening. No, not So I'm actually totally graduation.
But if you let, if you let the superintendent go on, he'll give you his presentation right here. I would. And I don't think he's prepared to do that, so I don't want to get in recent. I Agree. That's what I said. West Phil. Uh, where are we? Special ed? Yes. Good evening. Good evening. Uh, Greg Rosenthal, director of Special Education, Westfield. Uh, so this is just more of a four year information. This is a, a update from earlier this year where I presented, uh, information around my goals for the, for this year. And something that I know the, uh, central office administration team is also adopted.
Uh, it was looking at our inclusion practices as, uh, indicated in the presentation prior. We saw a discrepancy within our special education assessments, and we saw a, a, a significant gap in learning. So, uh, that's one data point. What we want to do is get further information about the why behind this. And over the course of the last, uh, four months and ongoing, we are doing, uh, site visits where we're seeing firsthand instructional practices
within our sub-separate programs in our inclusion setting. Uh, as the administration team, we also felt that would be important to get another third party unbiased look at, um, at our programs, at our inclusion practices and our, and our instruction. Uh, so through that, we went through a process, uh, to get, uh, so what we want to do is, first let's outline what information we're looking for. What, what are we looking at for continuum of services? Meaning what are we providing students from age three to age 22 for the, for their 22nd birthday for our programs?
Uh, also, what does that look like for inclusion? Are we doing the same practices within our elementary school that we do at WIS Middle School and high school? Uh, and then what does the staffing model look like for that? And if we do have to add, or if we have to do professional development, having a plan in place that is not gonna be just a one and done, we're looking at a multi-year multifacet plan that's gonna take three, four, or five years to really implement with it, with fidelity. So we, we accepted three bids, uh, around those parameters.
Uh, we had academic discoveries who we awarded. Uh, they came in at, uh, 51,600. Uh, we had collaboration for educational services. We were a little bit more. And then SPED strategies, all of them were very great proposals. We landed on the academic discoveries. Uh, the head of this organization is, uh, Nadine Ra. I've worked with her in the past. She's excellent. Uh, she's not only gonna be, her organization's not only gonna be providing us information and data points. Uh, there'll be interviews with staff, uh, focus groups,
surveys, uh, and onsite visits. Then there will also be research behind their proposals. Uh, so not only are they gonna give us information, they're also gonna give us the research behind why they think this is important. And we're gonna couple this with our own onsite evaluations, assessments, what we're doing. And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna present something, uh, probably before the end, uh, the beginning of March for, uh, the committee to review, uh, couple the, the two data points together, because this will have, uh, potential impacts to budgetary
and professional development as we move forward, uh, as a district. So, wanted to give you a little bit of an update where we're at with this. Uh, the interviews are starting this week. Focus groups are next week. Surveys will be coming out, uh, uh, to families and staff, uh, before the end of this week. And, uh, we're really moving forward and it's doing a, a really good job. Any questions? Dr. Got there. Um, just, I'm curious about when, when we anticipate wrapping this up and sort of what your, what your dissemination plan is. Yeah. With a little maybe hidden advocacy for curriculum
and instruction being a stop off on bringing us into all This. So my hope is that we'll have everything before March because there's going to be impact on decisions that we're gonna have to make as a district, uh, professional development and budgetary that that all will be part of this, uh, because they're gonna have a look at staffing models, instructional practices, and what is the, the timeline for increasing those, you know, what would that look like? Thanks. Kathy. Are we privy to the survey?
Just so we know what people are being asked? They're gonna sh uh, send it to me prior, uh, for, for me to send out to the families. I'm gonna be using Talking Points, uh, to for staff and families So we can send it to you. Okay. Yes. Because people sometimes ask what those are, and if I don't know what they're talking about it, it's very helpful to me to see that. We have our CPA meeting on Thursday night, too. So I'm going to be presenting, um, that to our cpac who also have that Facebook site that it really reaches out
to a lot of families too. So, um, we're gonna use multi-facets to really communicate. That's making sure that, um, that people have an opportunity to voice their, their, their, um, opinions. There's a Facebook page for that. There's a CA Facebook page, Westfield cpac. So they, they disseminate a lot of information. There are a lot of members. Okay. It's been there for a long, a long time. Okay. Will you Accept me? Okay. Okay. Okay. Alright. Kathleen, do you have anything else? No, I'm good. Good. Mike. Um, so as part of the, as part
of the review, obviously we have a lot of Westfield students that are in placement that are in programs outside of the district. And I, I I'm assuming the, the review is focused on practices and the system as it as it exists in, in the, in the student population as it exists today. Is there any, is there any sort of look back as far as the students that we have not been able to service in district and how we might be able to I improve that?
Or, or, or even if we could bring a few of those students back Absolutely. In the future. Um, my, my philosophy is, uh, educating students within their community. Uh, you're, you have students that go to, uh, towns where the schools are at, where they go to grocery stores that aren't their own. They're, they're engaging with students peer groups that they can't play with, uh, on the weekends and, and after school. So for me, I, my philosophy is I will exhaust everything within district first prior to looking at a district
because it's would benefit students. And if we can't meet a student's needs, this is where this report will really come in. And what is those instructional practices we need to add, uh, within a district? Because, um, you, you know, don't, I won't say that every student has to be educated in their community. Sure. There are a certain percentage of students I worked in our district, I've seen it, uh, firsthand, but a lot of students can be educated within their community. Um, we'll take a case by case, but ensuring that we exhaust everything within our power first.
Yeah. Understood. Okay. Thanks. Anybody, um, this was the first chance I had to, to read it was Friday. Um, is there something that you need from us in terms of, um, to move this forward? Or are you good? 'cause I noticed that, you know, obviously when I see it today, a lot of the goal posts have already passed, or miles guide marks have already passed. Is there something you need from us? No, it's more for your information. Uh, just knowing that we are going to have a more formal, um, uh, review of, uh, of their information
prior to probably the beginning of March. So if I could simplify this, this is simply an assessment tool for special education. Yes. Um, to kind of couple, like I was saying, uh, with our own, um, data collection and our own observations and having that third party unbiased look at, uh, at what we can do. And is there anything binding to their, to their discoveries, Nothing binding it's recommendations, um, that they would propose for us to take, uh, into consideration moving forward. Nothing that we would have to do. Right?
It's, um, different than if Department of Ed came out and reviewed our program, which they're doing in June. So in June they're gonna review our compliance and if they have a finding, we're bound, we're, we're bound to, um, to do what they recommend. This one's a little different. It's their opinion. Um, they're gonna give us the research as to why they believe it, but we're, there's nothing binding with It. Thank you very much, Dr. Rosenthal. Is there anything else, Jeff? Good. Good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Item 11.
Hi. Hi. Good evening everybody. Good. Evening. Item 10. There we go. Introduce yourselves. My name's Andrew Joseph. I'm the assistant principal at Westfield High School. I was the only one. I'm Brian Ducker, coordinator Of Instructional Technology. Long story short, we're going to be starting a pilot program at Westfield High that delivers a school-wide cell phone policy for the first time ever. Um, I'm just gonna take you through some brief points about the policy or the, the pilot program I should say. Um, and see if anyone has any questions. So, as you all know, Westfield is a one-to-one district.
So every, every student has a Chromebook. Um, it typically meets all the educational needs, uh, that kids have in the, in the classroom. And so what we want to do, um, is find a way that aligns with the values that we have as a district and as a school, which is to educate kids the best that we can and every topic that we possibly can. And one of those is learning how to manage the devices that are pretty much central to living a modern life that we've found. So that's, that's the problem. That's our goal with, uh, running this pilot program.
So this, and this is a long story. This is something Brian was involved with pretty heavily and, and Dr. Shea. But it was a, a winding road to getting to doorman. Um, you'll recall in August, there was an article published about, um, how we were going to move forward with a pilot in January. And doorman is the company that we're going with. It's an app-based solution and blocks high dopamine apps like TikTok, um, Snapchat, Instagram, um, but allows the use of the core functions of a student's cell phone, um, during the school day.
Uh, so it essentially just sends the traffic of a, of a student's cell phone through a secure, um, server. Um, allows everything to work except the stuff that we don't want it to. Um, so we can talk more about why that's pretty advantageous. Uh, we will in a second, but that's essentially how it works. Um, kids use medical apps to track blood, uh, blood sugar, stuff like that all the time. And they use Google Classroom, the Google Suite all the time. So we can whitelist any app that we would like to use. So, um, a lot of feedback, I think everybody's gotten
around cell phones is that I think a lot of families feel it's like a, a part of a, a safety issue. And, and I think that I have a whole bunch of thoughts about that. Um, but I guess what I'll say is that, um, you know, that that's the consensus. I think it, it's a safety blanket for everybody. Some apps like Life 360, um, that's really important to parents so they can track students' movements and, and all that. Um, this is compatible, um, with apps like that. And this pile program is gonna keep cell phones on kits, um, for those reasons.
So, uh, they would be able to make phone calls. They would be able to use the phone's, um, calculator or flashlight functions that are core to the phone's, um, function will still be, be able to be used, um, a rough implementation timeline. So, um, obviously tonight we're rolling this out publicly for the first time. No staff students have heard about this yet, besides everyone at Central Office. Tomorrow we'll make an announcement, uh, communicate to families about what our plan is for rolling out. We'll have a staff information session after school on the 7th of January.
Um, January 8th. The founder, one of the founders of, uh, doorman is come, is coming to our faculty meeting, um, Thursday after school at the Westfield High Auditorium to just kind of introduce himself, um, and talk a little bit about the, um, the app to, to the staff. Um, we'll have a parent information night, January 13th, if anyone wants to come and ask questions about that. Um, we'll roll it out to students, um, like I said, between now and then. Um, and then phase one is gonna start January 26th. Phase one, we're gonna take it step by step.
Doorman is a startup. They're very nimble. Um, they've, um, worked with us pretty closely. They're pretty responsive, um, to the questions that we've had for them. And, um, they, we've worked with 'em to develop something we hope will an approach that will make this work. So we're just gonna start with about 15 classrooms, um, see how that goes before we roll out a couple weeks after that. Um, school-wide, that's the goal. And again, it's a pilot program. If anything stumbles, then we'll just, we'll take a pause. We'll, we'll get together and we will,
we'll think about maybe expanding, um, phase one a little bit. Maybe go to 2025 classrooms, whatever's gonna work. Okay. Um, so I'm a student at West Hill High and my classroom's part of phase one. Um, on January 8th, Patrick is gonna come to the school, put geez, n NF, NFC tags, NFC tags. They're non-powered. They're just, uh, a little credit card size tag on a, uh, place close to the entrance to the school. Kid is gonna have their, their, um, app downloaded already on their phone.
They go and tap the tag when they walk in. And now doorman is engaged. They go about their normal business. It's important to note too, that a lot of teachers have worked really hard to establish effective cell phone management in their classrooms already. And so we're gonna be crystal clear with teachers that we want them to keep doing what they're doing. Right. A lot of that entails those, um, calculator ca uh, caddies I think you've probably seen in the classrooms. So we'll just add this little step to their already effective policy if it's working for them. Um, so class time, those high dopamine apps,
like I mentioned before, won't be accessible on a student's phone. Um, they'll be able to, like I said, use the other core functions of the cell phone if they needed to. Um, but during class time, they wouldn't be able to access those. Um, doorman is linked to PowerSchool and so we, in the be in the summer, we always put a bell schedule into PowerSchool and, and so it's gonna, um, shut off. Um, at the end of the period, students will have access to the full function of their device, including high dopamine apps during passing time and during their lunch period.
Um, and so when they go back to the next class, they tap it, um, and then the program's running again. Okay. So it's essentially what the student experience is gonna be like. Talked a little bit about these, um, stakeholder communication plans already. And then, uh, easy measure for success for us is gonna be just to look at our Swiss red ups or PowerSchool incidents just to see if we've reduced those, um, in the second half of the school year. Mr. Troll few questions. Mm-hmm. By the way, thank you. Thank you for this. Um, I, I guess
we'll start, start at the end first. Sure. But in terms of measuring success, is there like a, a pre and a post survey or what, how, how, how are we gathering data on this? Like, The data that I think is gonna be, we can do a whole bunch of things. I think a survey makes a lot of sense. And when I've talked, a couple kids emailed us right when the first article came out in August. They want it to be a part of the process. So I think having a survey at the beginning and end is gonna be important just to see how the students are experiencing the app. Um, so yeah, all those qualitative measures I think will
be, would be good. And I mean, I'm thinking more from a, from a teacher standpoint, right? Like I, I, I feel like the cell phones are the biggest burden of the, of the teachers, right? They, they're, they're big. It's on them to put in their policy, their in class policy, as you mentioned. Yeah. Um, so I would be interested to know at the end of, at the end of the pilot program, what the, what a what a a, uh, an anonymous teacher opinion would be Sure. Of, of how that went. Yeah. Was were, were there, were there distractions reduced?
And you know, obviously they're not gonna have data points or whatever, you know, just, but just sort of a general feel of Yes. I feel like students were much more engaged during this period of time. Yeah. We, we, yeah, we, we do, um, staff surveys really regularly. And so that'll be certainly a part of our plan here. We Had the opportunity to, to visit, uh, Watertown High School where they were piloting it. And, um, one really powerful thing was walking around the school building and looking into classrooms and seeing the amount of focus and no students on their cell phones, you know, so that was one way of kind of looking at, at
how it's working in their building. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So if it passes the eye test. Sure. Two, two more quick questions. Mm-hmm. Um, is text messaging, is that a allowed through? So, you know how I don't, do you have an iPhone, Mr. Terrell? You know, sometimes how it, it sends a green message when, when iMessage isn't working. Yeah. So I, iMessage won't work, But the SMS is SMS will, SMS is still gonna work and a phone call will still come into the phone. Yes. I think, I think one advantage is that fear of hearing, right? That they can still get ahold of their child. So we're not locking them with pouches.
Um, they're not using Facebook, they're not using TikTok, they're not using apps we don't want them to use. But in the event that a parent needs to reach their child, they still have that Option. Yep. Yep. Understood. Um, and, um, you mentioned tapping their phones mm-hmm. To turn, I'm assuming that turns this on and turns it off. Yep. Um, did that it turns it, it turns it on, and then it'll automatically, with the belt, a blue lock will show up and they tap it and it unlocks the phone for the passing time. So it's on the students to tap this Yep.
To tap their phone when they walk in. Mm-hmm. And we'll have a dashboard, um, administration will have a dashboard where they can actively see the classes and then students who are enrolled. So say for example, we have a student that doesn't have a cell phone or doesn't bring their cell phone to school, we might be able to mark them as not having a phone. And then we can see who's tapped in, who hasn't tapped in. Um, students also have the option to emergency get outta the app. I can't think of the word right now, but they can cancel their program. And you can see in real time when a student has exited the program. So say for an instance, if student leaves early,
they can exit themselves from that program to gain access back to their cell phone. But we'll see in real time kind of when that's happening. So if the student abuses that, we'll kind of see that, you know, they've exited four times in one day or so. Okay. And if they don't want to tap, then they don't bring their phone. Yep. Yeah. So we'll have a test form that, uh, good. Yeah. I don't want to go No, I was just gonna say, what's the enforcement of it though? Well, That's, that's, well, you're looking at it. Yeah. You're teeing up the question. So back in September of 24, we did a presentation on cell phone
and we talked about tier one, tier two, tier tier three enforcement practices. Is there something that's going on in tier one, tier two, and tier three that has caused you to look at this application because it wasn't working? Yeah, I, I think it's the Massachusetts state legislature. Yeah. Um, frankly, um, I don't, No, I mean, I mean, well, what I'm saying is because the cell phone policy went into effect, right? We had a cell phone policy and then yeah, that cell phone policy was supposed to help out students to not be on their phones. And if they were on their phones, there was a tier one,
tier two for repeat offenders, tier three for the habitual user, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So back to Mike's original question, which was, how do we monitor what's going on? Is there something that happened in tier one, tier two, and tier three that made us change the focus from the policy that we set forth in September of 2024 to now did, Yeah, that's the mass state legislature passed a ban on cell phones that they're want to implement for Next year. Got it. Got it, got it, got it, got it. So one of our thoughts, processes, so, you know, we looked at the under bags, which are about, I mean,
this is like $5 a student. The under bags are $25 each. So it's more cost effective. It also prevents us from taking the kids' phones where we've seen someone turn in a broken phone and say, we broke it. I'm just saying it's happened. Uh, we also, so we're not now responsible for a thousand dollars items, which is how, I mean, my gosh, some of the phones are up to $1,800 now. And I don't know that our teachers are comfortable taking that. It also helps takes some of the confrontation out of the teacher's hands. So now they don't have to have that confrontation and they can focus on, on teaching and learning. Mr. Superintendent, what happens
if a student doesn't wanna put the app on their phone? Tier one, tier two, tier three, but they don't bring their phone, then you don't get to bring your phone. Okay. And that's, and that's where we go back to the original tiers that we did. So the bonus for this too is because the honor back system, despite what people say is broken. I mean, I've spoken with students, you wanna know what's going on in our schools, talk to kids and they will tell you they bring an old phone, drop it in the bag, and keep their own one. And we're not searching them. We can't, unless we have probable, a reasonable cause, uh, reasonable suspicion. Well done. Thank you. Uh, from my law days, right? Yeah. So, uh, so we can't do it.
So I think this helps added lower cost. And the company, I believe has been very, I mean, we've met with them as well at central office. They're a startup. They're a couple, to be fair, I can say this because I'm old, a couple of young kids who came up with this, this, this thing and other high schools that we've gone to seem to be and very pleased with the app, with the results They're negotiating with, um, PowerSchool currently too, to be able to write into PowerSchool, which means that we could eventually use it to take attendance as well, which would then take more burden off of teachers, um, as they're working with power school negotiations. So that answered my big brother question
that was coming. Yep. This also helps a lot just with the consistency issue with the teachers. I think that we've done a really nice job with our cell phone policy. I think that it's going a lot better this year than it has in past years. However, to be completely fair, it only works if everybody's doing the exact same thing. Correct. So when you have 90% of your teachers going and enforcing the policy, and maybe you have 10% of your teachers who aren't, it undermines a lot of our efforts. So this really levels the playing field for all of our school. And and I really think it's a good, a good pilot and we'll do a lot of good things for our school. And you're right. And I just think moving forward, we have the phones, but you have watches
that do similar things. Now you have smart rings. I still haven't figured that out. And they have smart glasses that talk to you. So I mean, I, I feel as though we have to try to keep up with the technology and I, and it's evolving so quickly, um, that this is a way to probably do that. And they are part of the Student Data Privacy Consortium, so our data to stay with them, they've signed on to the agreements that we have with them currently As well. So, Any other questions? Kathleen? Will the state come back and say you're not adhering to the policy then? Well, No, I, sorry. Yeah, go ahead. Other
States have, have passed similar legislation already. And, and the, the app will be in compliance with that. Um, is what, is what we Understand. We should talk to John Veis about this too. 'cause he was the proponent of that legislation when He returns. Yep. It's my first, one of my first agenda items before. Okay, good. Because I feel like there should be an exception unless the state is gonna give us $25 extra student to buy a yonder bag for everybody because it's another unfunded mandate that they have passed. At least this is one fifth of that cost. Okay. Thank you. And the pilot piece too allows us to explore the, the, the benefits and the pitfalls.
And if we can decide to continue into the next year, we can make the adjustments that we need that fits our schools. And We are, we're, we're one of a, a short list of districts that they took on as a pilot. Um, we had reached out to them, they had an article in the Boston Globe. We had reached out to them, set up a meeting with 'em, met with them. They have a long waiting list for other districts that are, that are kind of sign onto their path as well right now. So we're one of the few that we together With. Absolutely. Dr. Gunther. I got my peripheral. Peripheral. There you go. Um, to, I think you maybe answered one of my, or you maybe imp implied an answer to one of my questions, which is, if this goes well at the high school would be
considered implementing this at Tech. I think I'm hearing that part of the instinct is a, an assumption that there'll be a law around this and we would have to, right. I don't know if there's been any conversation of, if that law doesn't There. There has, but we wanna see. Well, so I'm not sure where the law stands if it has actually been passed. It's passed the Senate. It has hasn't been taken up by, it's been named as a priority for the house, but hasn't been taken up yet. Okay. So, um, so yes, that happens. So clearly we're gonna have to do something at the tech too, but even again, at the cost is, is is wonderful. And this company is working with us. I mean, you know, you meet with people who run a business.
These people felt pretty good and I think Your staff is Well, the cost is not really wonderful though, right? I mean, the cost is not really wonderful. It's a 20% of $25. I get it. But when you put that across the entire district, it's 10 grand. Right. So, but I get it. So let me ask, ask one more question. It's only the high schools, so it's a thousand students times five, 5,000. Right? Okay. I'm good. This is only one. There's only one location point for this device. What? No, it's every classroom. There you go. That's right. So I had this picture of like standing out there
With Mr. Perez going, I gotta buzz myself in and This is gonna Be my other, she wouldn't stand for that. She No Level Two to, to stop the bottle to come in. And My other question was gonna be do you have a, like, have you had any conversation? I think this is a great step. I think this is a really smart solution. I know it does. It will not solve all of your problems, but hopefully it takes a big bite outta your tier one. Um, I have you had any conversations around extending this to full day as opposed to just during instructional time, which would be more of a school-wide
Out? We haven't yet out, but I think if you, again, it's a pilot. Yeah. So if we decide that there's still a distraction at lunches, although cell service in the cafeteria, the high school is very difficult. I don't have it. Uh, and uh, and in between classes, if that continues to be a distraction that we'll look at the next step. Um, again, piloting something at this large, it seems to be working in other places, we need to make sure it works for us. Yeah. And then take it to the next level. One last question. How long is the pilot Through the end of the school year? Okay. And then you'll prepare some type of, I'm sorry, I have one last question, but No. Okay. Continue.
Um, and then you'll prepare some sort of final document. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Uh, is there a, a, a parent aspect to this? Like do parents have a, a doorman that is connected to their kids and they can see if their kids are on it or No? No, There's Not. Okay. No. But, um, Maybe if, maybe if they connect it through PowerSchool, maybe the kids, maybe the parents can see something that way at some point in the future. I'm just thinking from, from a messaging standpoint.
So, so if, if the concern is I can't message my child mm-hmm. And we have to leave messaging on, my concern is that messaging is still gonna be on. So if I'm my kid, you know, my daughter's in class, she can still message her friends. It was, it's not going through iMessage, it's going through SMS. But whatever It's still showing, which means it might not actually show up to weeks in The classroom. It might not, it might not. But I'm thinking from the, from the concern standpoint where as a parent, if my kid's phone is shut off and they have it at school and I can't reach them, maybe there's some aspect that could be implemented so that
I can message my son or daughter because they're logged in during class time. I do like, I, I think that they're really, it's so new. The company's really new and they're really prioritizing literally the, the nuts and bolts of making the technology work. Um, and they're at a good step there. I, and there's, like Brian was saying before about i the ability to take attendance. I know it's, it must seem like such a minor thing, but I think it'd be incredible, uh, as far as just some of the administrative that, and just like the data accuracy and all that stuff would be really important. Not to say it's inaccurate, but, And, and they, They, they'll get there
And they take feedback and they've made changes. So, for example, Watertown relies on their wifi, they're connects to wifi. It all works to wifi. We don't allow our students to connect to wifi. So they had something that was in development that they've now sped up for us so that we can be ready in February. So, um, our NSC tags will eventually be connected to wifi so that students don't have to connect to the wifi. Um, so they have been very open to changes and updates. So that's something that we can bring to them and then they can protect to develop for parents. Great. Well thank You guys. Any other questions? Thank You. Can I just add, I really Sure. I've been following this,
even though I haven't been here in this seat very long. 'cause I, they've been following this issue. I'm very impressed with this program and I, I really truly like it. You know, I've taught in the Northampton schools, I've used cell phones. Um, I've talked about that. When we were on a nature hike out in the woods, we got lost one time with our class and we used the cell phone to navigate through the wooded trail back to the school building. And it was a learning curve and a learning lesson. So technology, you talk about lifelong learning and you know, actual learning.
So if they're going to the door at the school every day. And they're doing that. That's part of your curriculum component too. 'cause you're bringing the technology to real world, you know, situation, real life experiences. Um, it's not just a matter of uh, getting in the building or checking in for attendance. You know, it's actual real world experience and living. I know in the state of Connecticut, this is a little side thing, but there's an app called Clink. They don't stand there in Connecticut, put bottles into a machine at the store like we do over here.
They have an app, you go up, you swipe the app, you drop the bag of 50 bottles in the big dumpster in the parking lot and that's the end of it. It's great. You don't have to stand in a machine. Technology's amazing. Sure. So, I mean, it's right on your app, you know. Yeah. Thank you guys. Welcome. Appreciate that. Thank you. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Item 11, I'd like to make a motion for the approval of the December 15th, 2025 school committee meeting. Minutes, second Motion I made. And second, is there any further discussion? Say none. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed?
Motion carries. Item 12, Uh, the next one has to do with the three year out of district transportation contract with the avail with the, uh, van pool from July, uh, June 1st, 2026. Uh, uh, no, that's July, um, 2026 to June, uh, 30th to 2029. I'd like to make a motion in order to approve the three year out of district transportation contract with the van pool for the time that was just stated. Second. Well done. Ms. Barry, do you have
Anything? Add? Good evening everyone. Shannon Berry, director of Finance. Um, so our out of district transportation is our special education Vocational Foster Care and McKinney-Vento Transportation. Um, our current vendor is Vanpool. Um, we did go out to bid earlier this time around to try to engage some more vendors in bidding. Um, we did have two vendors bid this time around. Um, yeah, vanpool was the least expensive. Um, the other vendor was more expensive and, um, did not meet our qualifications for, um,
vehicle age and mileage. Um, there many other vehicles, um, didn't meet our requirements. Um, so again, this contract would start in July and go for three years. Um, as you may have remembered, the contracts for outta district transportation, we don't set the amount, um, because how much we spend each year and outta district transportation really depends on the children we're transporting. So it all depends on, you know, the special education students we're transporting and the McKinney Bento. Um, but just to give you an idea, um, this year right now, McKinney Bento $563,749.
Um, you may remember the last time I presented financials. Um, the last I heard from our transportation manager. We are trending higher. Um, so likely we'll need some more, um, money there. Um, but that's where we are right now. Summer transportation, $174,548. Special education, 1.5 million, and then vocational outta district 38,000. Um, so if you look at the rates, just, you know, for next year, which is what will go into the contract, the actual rates for the 70 vans, the wheelchair vans, and the monitors, um, each
of those is about a 3.8% increase, um, between this year and next year. Um, so we're looking at about an $86,000 increase overall. Any further questions for Mr. Perry? Well, and And the same is the true for 27 28. And the same is true for 28 29, right? Yeah, It's, it's interesting. The the rates are, are varied in between there. It's about 4.5% for the 70 vans the next year and 4.17% the next year. Yeah. Yep. Anybody else? Did they only offer just a three year contract or did they have a five year one?
So we typically don't go as long as five years in our transportation contracts just because the varying in pricing due to fuel and, you know, other variable factors with transportation, we found that three years tends to be a more, the better way to go. So it's us That it's us that goes out to bid for three years. Yes. Three years. Mm-hmm. Anything else, Jeff? Well, I'm thinking in the past, you know, when I was on a school committee, we did A five year, we have done, we have done five years in the past and we moved to three years probably, I don't know, maybe six or six, three cycles ago. Yeah, I I say six or nine years ago. One of those two.
Did we draft a five year To see what they hold? Hold on a sec. Hold on a second. I, we can't hold up. Hold on. Sorry. If we're gonna ask questions back and forth, we gotta ask 'em through the chair. 'cause I can't guess who's going to ask a question. So if you want ask a question, I'm certainly happy to recognize anybody wants to ask a question. So back to Mr. Goslin, what you got? Yeah. So I'm just wondering to compare the rates. Mm-hmm. Like, did, did we offer a five year or, you know, in a three or No, we didn't. I mean, you'd have to do two separate bids. We couldn't, we couldn't do a five year
and then say we only wanna do three years. So we'd have to, we'd have to make a choice. Okay. And that was defined as the scope of work in the RFP that you put out, right? Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? Dr. Gunther, could you call the roll please? Jeff Asselin? Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. K Sullivan? Yes. Mike Rell? Yes. Chairman McCain? Yes. Thank you. Ms. Perry. Approval homeschool. I'd like to make a motion to approve homeschool applications number 1 73 to 180 4 for the 20 25 20 26 school year.
Second Motion been made. And second, is there any further discussion? Dr. Shea? Gonna, are we good? Do you wanna address this or we good? This is your, uh, homeschool stuff. Okay. Is there a question about I didn't know's why I called you up. Is there any questions for Dr. Shea on the homeschool applications? I'm good. Super saying none. Great. We can move on. All in favor. Thank you. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you Dr. Number 14. I'd like to make a motion in order to accept the Westfield Public School's financial statement as presented. Second
Motion been made. And second, is there any further discussion on the topic, Ms. Barry? I have just a few items to point out tonight. Um, so on the expense side, first, under unemployment, um, we have good news there. So that $240,000 of encumbrances that we have remaining, um, we received the October bill just after I had run these reports, and that came in at $13,380. Um, so if we look at that as kind of a base for the next seven months as an estimate, um, we are gonna have a pretty significant balance of a hundred and about $130,000 in that line that will be available.
Um, and you know, and that's something I've looked at kind of the past years and we are trending lower on that unemployment line. So I have asked, um, Dr. Morris to look at that for next year as we go into budgeting for FY 27. Um, again, on page three, heating fuel. So we just received estimates on Friday from the GE. There was no change. Um, so as I stated the last time, natural gas, they're estimating around a million dollars, so about a $200,000 savings. There. Again, we're still early in winter though. Um, and then at the top of page four, electricity we budgeted 1.5 million. They're estimating about 1.6 million.
Any questions for Oh, one more. I'm sorry. Okay, just on page 31. Sorry about that. Um, the top of the page, sped summer transportation. So we actually just received a final bill, um, for summer transportation. It just came in in the past couple of weeks. Um, and that did put us over budget on that summer transportation line. So you will see the next time I present financials, I'll have to do a transfer to cover that $18,000 31 3. Thank you. We have questions Dr. Gunther. Just One on page 15. I I'm sure we've asked this before. Mm-hmm. Can you remind us what the tuition's Westfield guidance is?
Yes. And why that? Like, So we are running, we're gonna have a balance on that line. Again, that is, um, one of our programs at HTC Gateway to college. That's the money that's already encumbered there. Um, we have been budgeting for Westfield Promise 'cause it really is unknown every year if we're gonna get grant money or if they're gonna cover the cost. This is again, a line for FY 27. I think it's time to, to reduce it. We haven't had to pay for Westfield Promise and make Stepan nervous, but because The next this that'll be the, I know they charge. I know, I feel, I feel pretty comfortable reducing that line at this point because we haven't had to pay for it yet. Yeah. Um, and I feel like, you know,
we keep putting money in this line that we don't end up having to use. Um, so that's what, that was. Great. Thank you. Anything else? Thank you Mrs. Barr. Dr. Con, go ahead. Do you want me to do the personnel side now? I, I, I think I have 'em together. So yeah, go ahead and do personal. Okay, Thanks. Um, so I just have a couple on the personnel side. I'm gonna try to not be repetitive of what I've gone over last time. I do just wanna point out, you'll see some lines in the negative that I'm not going to mention. Um, our friends in the city auditing department are down a significant number of staff. So we have sent some paperwork over to make some moves
and make some, um, line shifts. And it's just paperwork that they haven't been able to get to with the, with the number of people that are down right now. Um, so on page three, I think I've mentioned this one before, but that instructional coaches line, that is our preschool coordinator, um, that is actually just charged to a, a wrong line. So that would be moved to the correct line where it was budgeted. Um, on page 19 at the bottom you'll see South Hampton Road paraprofessionals and aides. Um, were in a deficit. We actually had to hire two additional, um, aides that were not budgeted for. Um, page 21 in the middle of the page, wis,
the reading language arts, the full-time teacher. So WIS has two, um, title one interventionists for reading. Um, title one pays for the majority of their salaries. A small portion of it is paid through the general fund, and that is there. So that's just a correction that needed to be made to put a portion of that person's salary to that line. Page 27 at the bottom, you'll see we have not expended any of that psychologist line. Um, so Dr. Morris, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's safe to say we've posted this quite a few times at this point and it looks like we probably will not be hiring, um, that position for this year again.
Um, so again, the contract services line and special education is picking up, um, and paying, you know, consultants and contractors to do the psychology work. And then finally the last one I have is page 47, um, at the River School, the Lit Assistant. So that line also, no money has been expended. So most elementary schools have one reading interventionist. Um, the River school has a larger school with a lot of need, um, has two reading interventionists. So they decided because of the high need in the RISE program that they could do away with a lit assistant, um, because of the two reading interventionists.
And they hired extra support in the RISE program instead. So that money will just need to be shifted to the paraprofessional line. And that's all I have. Everything on the personnel side, Dr. Con? Oh no, that was, that was a note to myself. Sorry. No, no, I'm saying called roll Dr Con. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Oh, I have to do that. There was a motion to accept. Can't wait for voting back. Welcome back by Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Uh, kick Sullivan. Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes.
Mike Terrell. Yes. Chairman Mcca. Yes. I'd like to make a motion for the, uh, to approve the following transfers. Uh, first ones, uh, transferring the amount of $19,787 and 40 cents, uh, from account 5 0 0 7 8 5 2 6 5 7 4 to account number 5 5 4 8 9 4 2 3 5 2 4 0 1. Zero Second wish been made and seconding, I think you could do this any discussion? Sure. I'll give the explanation
for all three of these transfers. Thank you. Now, um, so in October we actually had a fire in the water heater at the, um, middle school. Um, and that resulted in there was the, the fire department had to cut a hole in the roof. Um, the water heaters a total lost, so the total cost was $109,803 and 60 cents. Um, we have an insurance deductible of $50,000. Um, the balance was paid to us by the insurance company. Um, so in order for the maintenance department to replace the water heater, fix the roof, and then do some remediation of the room
and cleaning, um, I'm transferring the additional $50,000 to his line so he Can pay for those items. Any further discussion? Dr. Gunther Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Mike Rell? Yes. Chairman mcc? Yes. I'd like to make a motion to approve, uh, transfer in the amount of $18,077 and 8 cents from account number 5 0 0 8 6 9 1 5 3 2 1 out of district vocational tuition tuitions in state to account number 5 5 4 8 9 4 2 3 5 2 4 0
maintenance of equipment, supplies and materials. Second Motion has been made. And second, as we've already had the discussion. Are there any questions on the discussion? Saying none. Dr. Gunther? Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeffrey Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Mike Durrell? Yes. Chairman McCabe? Yes. I'd like to make a motion to approve a transfer in the amount of $12,135 and 52 cents from account number 5 3 0 0 8 2 7 1 5 3 2 1.
Uh, WHS guidance profession, professional tuition in state to account number 5 5 4 8 9 4 2 3 5 2 4. Maintenance of equipment, supplies and materials. Second. Motion has been made. And second, is there any further discussion? Saying none. Dr. Gunther. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Kate Sullivan. Yes. Mike Terrell. Yes. Chairman McCabe? Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Weekly warrants.
Weekly warrants for December 12th, 2020 5, 28 batches totaling $311,117 and 81 cents. And for December 19th, 2025 13 batches totaling $632,897 and 64 cents. Thank you very much. Superintendents report. Set two gifts. Who's got it? Uh, I will do that. I'd like to make a motion to accept I can do these all at once, right? Yes. I'd like to make a motion to accept the following gifts donated to Westfield Public Schools from Westfield Gas
and Electric in the amount of $1,000, uh, for the use of the Turkey Drive and VIP's gift account, uh, to donated to Westfield Public Schools from Westfield State University in the amount of $2,882 and 80 cents for the Turkey Drive and VIPs gift account donated to Westfield High School from the First Congregational Church of Westfield in the amount of $2,000 to be used for the Kinship fund and the VIP's gift account. And finally, to the Westfield Public Schools from the First
Congregational Church of Westfield in the amount of $1,200. Uh, for the, uh, Westfield Public School's welcome center, Westfield Public School's gift account. Second Motion been made. And second, is there any further discussion? Is that vi's account a new one that was just started or is that an old one? The vs It's on new Account. It's, it's been Around Because I heard Miss Gy get up here right at the last meeting she spoke about, um, establishing a new VS account. Yes. Yes. Hi.
Hi. Do you remember? Yes. That account was for specifically for Credit Per Right. Which is a program That we have for high school, our high school students that previously was held in the VIPs account, but now it has its own gift account. Oh, okay. Separate? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank You Mrs. Dar. Thanks. Dr. Gunther. Jeffrey Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. K Sullivan. Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Mike Terrell. Yes. Chairman McCabe.
Yes. Just like to say as always, thank you to all to everybody who donated in the generous donations. Thank you Mr. Terrell. Um, Mr. Roski? Yes. Thank you, sir. Welcome back, by the way. Thank you. Welcome back. And I do wanna say, I apologize for not being able to be here at the last meeting. And I have some, some things that happened just a little bit before the, the holiday break. But, um, I know many of us were at the topping off ceremony at the 72 St. James Avenue home in Westfield, and that wonderfully warm sunny day. Um, but then, uh, later in the, uh, the following week, uh,
we did accept a Volvo, JECR 25 mini electric excavator that was donated to the WTA horticulture department. Um, and that was, uh, made possible by, uh, rainmakers and, uh, Tyler equipment with a little bit of help from Elm Electric and, um, Westfield Gas Electric. And what, what's, what's cool and awesome about that is, is that we are now gonna be able to ourselves be able to dig the hole and install the sewage to the pipe so the students are really getting a full picture. Uh, this was also an $80,000 piece of machinery that, um,
we would not have been able to purchase any other way. So it's, it's just really awesome. Um, I also wanted to shout out, um, of course the, uh, the chorus at the chamber breakfast, which was also before the holiday, but after the chamber breakfast, I had the opportunity to go to Paper Mill school and see a fourth grade classroom. Um, and the students were presented with a problem. And you have to be part of one eight to get, uh, this but from Vena Robotics and the student solve. So people are, they're interacting from across the country. Right. And the, the problem that they had to solve is how do you, as we talk about technology, right?
How do you make robots more welcome part of a warehouse team because that is a reality that we actually may be facing, right? So, I mean, robot workers are probably not that far away and they may already exist and I just don't know, right? But, um, and the students just really worked to enhance the robot and I thought it was interesting to see some of their strategies. They worked to make it more human so that it would be more acceptable to other humans. Um, I thought it was pretty cool. They, they had to pick a team. They worked in small teams. It was a four hour event. They met virtually with a mentor from, uh, um, VEC Robotics
and who provided instant feedback on their designs and ideas. And, but I think the best part about it is the students were tired after they were done. They did a lot of work and they learned and they were able to work together the team aspect of it. Um, they also put some, some of them, you know, gave the robot the ability to translate different languages. I mean, it was just cool to see the kids at work. So I thought that was pretty, pretty awesome. And then this morning, of course, and I'm not gonna speak much about it, I'm just gonna say we had the inaugural, uh, inauguration at Westfield High School. But I know the mayor will speak to that very shortly.
Uh, so the last thing I'll say is just happy New Year to everyone and, uh, thank you. Thank you. You know me pretty well. I do. Yeah. So I want to thank everybody at the, uh, at Westfield High School. I know Mr. Gen drives story left, but, um, you know, they were terrific. Um, the, the venue was terrific. The microphones worked, right? Huh? That's because Jay was there that the first time, right? First time. And, and so I will moia well, We, we brought Jay in to fix the sound system and he did a wonderful job. And rumor has it that the light system maybe even coming next, so, we'll, we'll see how that works out.
Um, oh, I wanna say congratulations to Thanks. Thanks. Um, Jeff Goslin and Kick Sullivan for joining us. Um, it, it should be an interesting, um, couple of years together and I'm, I'm looking forward to it. Um, I'm also going to remind the school committee that they should just double check, um, the Open Media Law statutes. Um, if you haven't refreshed yourself in a little while, there have been some changes. I know that you come from a committee and you come from another committee. Um, so I just wanna be careful that we don't send out blanket emails and we don't, you know, do things that we're not supposed to do. But other than that, um, I, I look forward to working
with the, with the new team. So thank you very much for, uh, your participation. Mike Vice Chair, huh? Yes sir. Wow. God bless you. Yes, sir. For better or for worse? Yeah, he accepted. He accepted. And, uh, too bad we couldn't get Bo to give him another committee that he didn't want to be on while he was, he was gone. His absence. Um, we do have some policy stuff coming up that I'm looking forward to hear about, maybe, uh, little bit in the future. And I am going to, um, bring up something. I can do it now or how do you want me to do it, Mike? I can do it now or do it later.
Uh, with the building, with, uh, head Start. Uh, we could probably do it under items for Referral. Okay. We'll do it then. I'm good. Then. School committee update, no school committee update items to refer to subcommittee. It's me again. Right back at you. So, um, it's always you. I got, I got you. Thank you Kathy. Um, I, I got a, a notice from um, our council, um, Shannon Reed, uh, with respect to three 90 Southampton Road. So three 90 Southampton Road, you guys will remember is Head Start. Um, their, uh, contract with the city expires, um,
on May 1st, 2026. The question is, is the contract with the city or is the contract with the school department? And this is always where it gets a little where wonky. So I'm gonna refer an item to subcommittee. Um, 'cause I think what needs to happen is I think that the, um, lease needs to be reviewed. It's very straightforward lease, super, super easy lease. And we need to confer the property back to the city in order the city can process an RFP to sell off the property or do whatever the property we bought to it. You're looking at me funny. Well, because I had plans for that property.
Oh, well there you go. Oh, okay. Well now I know why's and You had plans with that property. You shared these Plans. So you know what the good thing about this is? When it goes into the committee? We'll, we will hash out those plans. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. We Toured the facility recently. Is my PO like, like yesterday? Oh, well there you go. Or today? Today. Today. Oh, look at that. How about that? All right, so I'm gonna send it off to a committee and we can, we can figure it out from there. Sounds good. Okay. Alright. There you go. What's next? So we Need to set up a meeting for,
Right? Oh, that's right. People have changed their, I just Wanna make sure That, yes. So who am I giving this to? You're Gonna give it to ki To give kick? Yep. We got Got Can I like physically give it to ki I'm the second person on it. That's why I'm saying that. Good. Gonna Was wonder why I was getting all these crazy looks from Really? We just tour it today and I, sorry, I don't remember what day it's, but we just tour it today and you know Why all it happens. It's all good. Um, any old business? Any new business? No, I'm just kidding.
Subcommittee of reports. Next. Regular school committee meeting. February the second, 2026. Don't forget the 20th, but there is a joint school committee, general advisory meeting at Westville Technical Academy on Tuesday, January 20th at 6:00 PM Yeah, I think I just got that right. Tuesday, January 20th. Yep. Joy School Committee. Westfield Technical Academy General Advisory. January 20th. Right here. Right. Write in the notes. Okay. Um, is there another motion I'd like to make? A motion to adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.
Opposed? Motion carries at 8 24. Thank you everybody.