All right, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to call to order the, March 16th, 2026 meeting of the Westfield School Committee. Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Goslin. Here. Jeff Cutler. Here. Kathleen Hillman. Here. Bo Sullivan, here. Kit Sullivan. Here. Mike Torralva. Here.
Chairman McKay, absent. All right. Everybody please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. As is customary, we will open up, the floor for public participation for up to fifteen minutes and up to three minutes per
person. If you have anything... Anybody that's here that is not on the agenda that would like to address, the school committee, you are welcome to do so at this time. Is there anybody here for public participation? Seeing none, we'll close public participation. Uh, we'll move on to number four, Southampton Road Elementary presentation. Come on up. Welcome. All right. All right. So thank you for having us tonight. We're super excited to be here. We have some students that we'll introduce in a, in
a little bit. Um, but we just wanted to start tonight with a couple, little things. My name's Kate Ritchie, I'm the principal. Um, and we have some new additions this year to SRS. So we have a new assistant principal who's with us tonight, Destiny Meeker. Um, and Destiny comes to us with a great wealth of instructional leadership, knowledge, and so that's been a huge asset to us at Southampton Road. We also, have a new Milestones program. Two of the classrooms from Paper Mill came over
to SRS this year, and it's been a really great experience. Um, and we are happy to say that we're fully staffed in that department, and so the kids are doing really, really well, and it's just been a great addition to our building. Um, so we're really happy about that. Um, another thing that we do a lot with, and our students I'm sure know exactly what I'm talking about, is our PBIS. And so our students, whenever they're caught doing anything that goes above and beyond the regular norm, they are
rewarded, with what we call Star Bucks, 'cause we're the SRS Stars. And so our students earn those bucks to be able to shop at a store or do some fun activities with, with adults or with each other, and seems to be going well. Um, and along with that, this year we started our all school assemblies. So what those are, are, owned by one grade level every single month. And so we hold a big assembly, and we focus on a value for that month. And
so second grade started us off, and they led that value for the whole month, so we talked about it. Um, and then our PBIS Star Bucks were aligned to that. And it's just a really great opportunity. Everybody comes into the gym that morning, and we celebrate as a whole group. Lasts about thirty minutes. Um, but we focus on attendance and our ST math, significantly, and it's been a super, super happy event that we run every single month. So we're really happy about that. Um, and here are, like, some certificates that
we give. And SRS is super competitive, and so we have a lot of challenges happening around the building r- r- around ST math.So that's been fun. And then here's like a bulletin board that we're working on right now. Um, and now again, we're really competitive, so there's gold coins all over the place. Um, and then we are-- I'm gonna introduce, Jess Hansen, who's here with us tonight, and she's gonna talk a little bit about our Steam Initiative and our Project Lead the Way.
Thank you. Of course. Hello, everybody. Hi. Thank you for having us here. We're so excited to share some of the things that we're doing at SRS. So as you can see, we had Steam Night this year again. Um, one of our parents at our school works at Smith College, and so she connected us with the Robotics Outreach Initiative there. So the Smith College students and some of the staff come to our school once a week for seven, eight weeks, and we do all sorts of, coding activities, and they get
to make the robot do lots of different things. The kids are fully in charge of doing all the coding, and they love it a lot. We also had a Steam Night, in February, so that was open to third and fourth graders. The Robotics Club is just for fourth graders. When we have Steam Night, we're kind of recruiting the third graders a little bit to give them a little taste and get them interested and hooked on coding. So, that was one evening, and we had parents involved running stations. The Smith College folks came back again, and
we had all sorts of activities. Uh, there was a math center and a robot center and lots of fun things to do. Here, the Smith College folks brought some microscopes and fossils, and even the grown-ups took turns going to look into the microscopes and see the cool fossils. It was pretty fun. And we always have engineering going in, lots of activities too, building and such. So lots of great skills and get them hooked young, and they want to do it for every year
throughout their, oops, throughout their education. Okay, so tonight we're highlighting Project Lead the Way, which I'm sure you've heard of before, probably many times. I'll just show you one example before I start talking about it. Oh, yeah. Okay. Please work. Please work. Okay. There we go. Ta-da. Okay, so the students work with a partner. Collaboration is very important during Project Lead the Way, and
also we don't have enough iPads for each student. Even if we did, I wouldn't let them use them. They have to share. They have to work together. They have to be a good teammate. So two students get together, and first they have to write their story on paper. So they begin with a graphic organizer, which they do in their second-grade classrooms with their teachers. I do have to give a shout-out to Mary Mokry and Vicky Arcott and Kim Avery because they collaborated with me a lot. This takes a few weeks that they did their graphic organizer in their
classroom, and then they wrote their beginning, middle, and end and drew pictures of it all, so that by the time they got to me, they're ready to go. And they both had to have the exact same story with the exact same pictures and the exact same dialog. They are a team, partners. So I, I will let the students do the real display for you here, but what they do is, oh, I guess don't learn. I don't learn. Okay, let me try again. It took fourteen weeks to get this far, so I see
them once a week for forty minutes. Here we go. The end. So it's hard to believe that took fourteen weeks, but that's because we do a whole lot of prep work ahead of time, lots and lots of vocabulary words. We see, a professional animator comes on and gives a speech about, "This is what I do at work every day, and if you wanna do this someday when you're grown up, you need to blah, blah, blah." Um, so a, a lot goes into it. And even though that was less than two minutes, they really did spend a long time working on it.
So I think at this time I'd like to send the students to you with their iPads, and the direction I gave them is we did use a little bit of the lingo. So there's a driver and a navigator. The driver touches the iPad. The navigator gives the directions. So these second graders are navigators, and you will be drivers. So you touch the buttons and make it work, and if you have any questions, the teachers will teach you. All righty, so let's see.
All right. So go, go pick the person that you're going to present with, okay? Great. Oh. Perfect. Okay. So Joey, can you put it in the middle right here, please? Thank you. I'll share this. I'll share it. Thank you. Is it sharing? Which part? Right here? Is it the one you're in? To
go back again? Yeah. Click this? Sure. How do I change- Click this ... Can we give it a red nose? Flag? Um. Yeah. Did you write this? You wrote this program. Oh. How do I undo it? Well, that's probably too fine. Yeah, that's very tiny. Probably this one. Give it a- Yeah, how about we make this one. Yeah. How about we make this
one red? Good job. There you go. That's cool. That's a red hoops. Thank you. Could you like slide down? How to, what was the skill that you learned? When you see it, tell me. You did? Okay. So you can move over to another block now. Have another turn. No. Congratulations. All right. So what's this? That's Z0 when you hit scratch the bottom right down. One of these here? Yeah, you drew this by hand. Okay. Oh. You can put the
texture. Can I do that? Yeah. Make sense. Yeah. So what are these, what are these down here? And to make the square bigger, to do the color, you have to do like one- Oh, like the orange kind of. So those are my pages. And then if I hit this person, right, that's gonna show me the characters that- Where can I do that? Yeah. Where can I do it? Oh, okay. To move? There you go. Pretty good. Oh, this is- Did you show them your- Is this the whole thing? ... your trick that was important to you? Yes. You did. Okay. So you'll move this way next to
us. Say thank you. Thank you. That was great. Excellent. Do you want to try one more? Are you gonna do pretty good? Hi. Sorry. Oh, sorry. Moving on. Let me move this out of the way. Would you want to do one more? Okay. Next. Yeah. But I, I don't know how to do it. You have to drag it out. The exterior. The exterior. Very cool. Um, which ones do I get to choose from? These two? Nice. Uh. That's pretty cool. I will choose this.
Oh, yeah. Sure. What if I didn't- Can we make it green? Where's the green? Where's the pink? Where's the pink going? That's the pink one. I choose, choose green. Good idea. And you can do screen by screen. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Now where do you want to press it to make the color green? Can we make... What's this? When-- Oh, what's your name? That's cool. Now, can we change its color from green to blue? Yeah. We can make the dot bigger.
All right. Yeah. What about we can only make it bigger. Oh, very cool. I think you can do it bigger and lighter but like- Make it this way? Yeah. See how it looks. Or I did, oh, I did green. No. Oh, that's better. What do you think? Do you wanna change, like, the red spot to blue? What page are we again, Ashley? Slide before the... So if we do the same thing like after the thing I just pressed, I don't
know. Oh, okay. Second graders, thirty second warning. If we make it a dark blue. Here? Yeah. Press this. Press this. And then, okay. Now I need to change the, the reds to something else. Um. Or like a really dark one or like a really- I think a really dark one. What do you think? Let's give it a try. Guys, what do you like? What? So this is all the codes that you wrote. Or press the L button to press all different things. So what do I- This page doesn't have a box.
All right. Oh, your magic touch. Thanks. I like it like that. Well, can we get rid of these orange ones? Okay, second graders, we need to wrap it up in just a couple of seconds. All right. Okay, great job. Can we turn on the light? Sure. This is here. Thank you so much for sharing this. There you go. All right, let's see it this way. I like it. Do you want to sit here and do it? Yes. Okay. Thanks. That was fun. Jas, do you want to sit with your family now? Okay.
So in second grade, they make the animated stories that you just saw. In third grade, so this year's third graders did this last year. Their assignment this year is to create their own video games, and they are so excited. They just can't get it fast enough, and they don't want to sit through forty slides about all the background information. But it's super exciting, so maybe another year you'll see the third graders here showing you the video games that they created, and someday could become very- Fortunate ... wealthy and, successful- ... video game programmers. Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great job, guys. Good job. Yeah, you can. Thank you. All right. Come on, you're getting a gift.
Look at that. Very nice. Wow. Thank you so much. It's not an apple, but okay. Um. Very nice. All right, item number five, Westfield High School student representative. Come on down. How are you? Hello, I am Colin White. I am our student council executive board president. All alone today, but that does bring me into our first topic to talk about, which is the spring sports season has begun. We had tryouts this week, which is actually where my friend Sharon, who normally is here with me, is right now. Talking about some more previous business, we had
our N-NHS inductions March eleventh, where we welcomed fifty-seven WHS students into NHS. Last Friday and Saturday, we had our seventy-fourth annual Pops Concert, an American spectacular, where we celebrated the history of America and American music. Um, we'd like to congratulate WHS teacher, Mrs. Collins, who received the Harold Grinspoon Excellence in Teaching Award, honoring her commitment to teaching and student success. We'd also like to congratulate all WHS students who represented us at the Regional Science and
Engineering Fair this year, and specifically our award winnows-- award winners, Adedapo Soele, Allie Pieperkus and Andy Lu, Paige Mello, Giovanni Santaniello, and Caitlin Goulet. Speaking on some upcoming business, tomorrow, our juniors have the opportunity to attend the NACAC National College Fair, which will have over two hundred colleges and universities in attendance. This Wednesday at six PM, we will be hosting our annual One Acts Play competition, with each clash-- class putting on their own short little
play with plenty of awards afterwards. Upcoming this weekend, we will have our band representing WHS at the Saint Patrick's Day parade this weekend, who are trying to win the People's Choice Award for the third year in a row. We will also have testing for the Seal of Biliteracy. It's opened up and will take place April seventh to the ninth. March thirty-first, we will have our eighth grade transition night and a program of studies review. And finally, on April first, all
of our juniors will participate in our annual career fair at Westfield State University. Thank you. Nice job. Thanks. Colin. All right, item number six, preschool update, twenty twenty-six, twenty twenty-seven. Mrs. Darjee.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you to the youth. They will save us. So I'm happy to present tonight, an update on our
preschool, and we're calling it Rooted and Reaching because we nestled all of our preschool students in to our elementary schools, and we're already reaching for what next year is going to look like. And I did have the opportunity to, present at the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Subcommittee, and wanted to be able to share that with everyone.
So our vision, our preschool vision was developed last year by our preschool leadership team, and that included school and community representation. So Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, we have, the director of the Amelia Park Children's Museum. So we are really looking broadly across our city at what we want for three- and four-year-olds in
Westfield. And some things about our vision statement. When we say we want students to have the opportunity to attend preschool, we mean any and all quality preschool opportunities. So they could at-- they could attend our publicSchool, preschool, community-based organizations like the Boys and Girls Club and the YMCA, religious centers, private preschools, and
home-based programs. We want all three and four-year-olds to have the opportunity to attend. We want student transitions to be minimized, and this is a big emphasis of the CPPI grant, which is the Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative. And that is a grant that provides funding for our preschools and some funding, to be extended also to our
community partners. And last year, we had a number of students who went to Fort Meadow for half day, and then they went over to the Boys and Girls Club for the other half of the day, or the YMCA for the other half, or one of these other private preschools or home programs. And CPPI has three goals: expansion of access, alignment of quality, which has to do with curriculum and
instruction, and what are the things that we want all of our preschool students to be able to experience to build those readiness for kindergarten skills, and then lastly, the equitable access to special education. So to minimize transitions, we are able to have members of the itinerant special education preschool team travel to the Boys and Girls Club, to the YMCA, to
provide the services that the students would be coming to the school to receive. Uh, so that has helped to minimize those transitions. And we, we are in the process. We had a, a meeting with, Ms. Brittany and, Kelly Brown at the club about a student who was spending her early morning and morning, and
then coming over to one of our elementary schools to receive some speech services, and then going back to the club for the after-school portion. So her day was very long and included these transitions. So we are achieving this part of our vision by working closely to eliminate the transitions. And so now, this student may, with parent-- the
parent is meeting with the club to decide, are we going to have her at the club all day, get her services there, and come to the school in a subsequent year? Uh, students with disabilities receiving services is certainly a vision, and that all of our student needs are met. We talked a lot about student needs in the planning for the transition, but some of those needs were not fully
known until we had our new three-year-olds coming in. Um, and we wanted to pay particular attention to make sure that those needs were met. The way Fort Meadow was, was able to meet them was not exactly the same in the elementary school, which we knew. And then the preschool classrooms being in all five elementary schools, that is a part of our vision. Certainly, we are not able to have preschool at Paper
Mill at this time because there is not space for classrooms to be added. We do anticipate that that will change in the future. This is the preschool district team that I was mentioning, the itinerant team. All of these service providers, and we also have, our preschool program supervisor is up there, Jonathan Schedule. But all of these other
providers only work with preschool students, and that was really important to us. They're able to specialize in that developmental range, and they are the ones that go to the different sites. And we are in conversation also with Head Start about a student there whose meeting is coming up. He's turning three. So they may be the next, location where we have
some of our services provided. Uh, so lessons learned. We, we are always in education. We are always iterating. And every time you hear from any of the presentations of our students, no matter what they're working on, they're always looking for ways to improve. And that is no different with all of our programs, all teachers in their classrooms. So we did, we f- did
feel like we were able to address some things that while they may have been anticipated, we had to be fully implemented before we were able to tease out some of the specifics. For example, the service delivery. All of the student IEPs were written f- with their half-day services.From their Fort Meadow program. So as many of our students moved into
full day, we were able to make those adjustments, for what was needed, and it didn't necessarily mean doubling the services and taking kids out of the, the integrated classroom, but it meant to make sure that we had support for those students. Um, the power of three is that we see the model that, with our teacher and two paras
as the ideal, because when the needs are greater, when we are learning the student's needs, when the student is brand new to school, many times one of those paraprofessionals acts as a one-to-one or a two-to-one for several of the students throughout their day. So when we don't have that, there is a more-- there is a higher likelihood of a recommendation being
made at a team meeting that we need a one-to-one for a student. And we know that we're building independence, and it's a much better model to have that availability to provide extra support when needed, but then fade that. So looking at how we can do that across all of our classrooms is something that was part of our budget discussions and part of our goals, moving
forward. Gross motor time is a big, important deal, and we saw the beautiful space that Fort Meadow had in the center there where the students were able to ride the, the, tricycles and climb on equipment. And we have large spaces in our elementary school, but we underestimated how available those spaces would be. And in each school,
we-- everybody worked together to figure it out. I love to go to Highland in the preschool hallway and see kids going up and down the hallway on their balance bikes and their tricycles. Um, and in other schools, like Westfield River Elementary, there are other spaces that have been identified. But for next, for next year, we're going to be scheduling that in more like we
schedule art, music, and PE. Uh, recognizing the dual role of the teacher is just about the fact that we went from four days, or four and a half days with students, to teachers with students five full days, and students that were in half-day programs now in full day. We will be moving towards the model that elementary has, where the classroom teacher has certain
responsibilities and an, a special education teacher has other responsibilities, like writing goals and objectives and progress reports. Because right now, and shout out to all of our F-Fort Meadow teachers that are now in the elementary schools, they're doing it all. Um, and we do know that communication is key, and it-- that was planned for and has been reinforced
that that has been a tremendous, support for problem-solving and for planning into the future. We have a preschool district team, which is made up mostly of the members of that itinerant team that were on the other slide with the occupational therapist and the board-certified behavior analyst and the preschool supervisor. We meet
regularly to look at how our services are being provided, where we have staffing gaps that we need to shore up, and really just to share information about what's happening because these are the people that are in all the classrooms on a daily basis. We have our preschool transition advisory committee. That committee meets monthly, and it was originally made up of teachers,
paraprofessionals, and administrators from Highland and Munger because that's where our Fort Meadow staff and majority of our Fort Meadow students were moving to. And we wanted to make sure that we were mindful about the culture of the two schools, blending that culture. And pretty quickly, the preschool teachers and paras were saying, "We've got this culture
thing, but here's what we need and what we don't have and what we need to change and what could be better." So we've invited some additional members onto that committee, from the other schools, and we are now planning for next year. So for example, that committee saw this presentation before the subcommittee did and gave feedback on it. The preschool leadership teamHas
been i-in existence since last year, two years ago. That was started by, Dr. Christine Shea, and it includes members of the community, as I mentioned earlier, and principals, and at different points, teachers from the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Club, the schools may come for
certain agenda items. So that team continues to meet as we grow access to preschool for students in Westfield. One of our goals is to meet all student needs. And what we realized, as the year progressed and some of our three-year-old students that were having a full day of school but had some significant needs and other students that were turning three
and coming in, or some of our four-year-old students who had been more in a nested kind of environment when they were three at Fort Meadow, we felt that we needed to do more for that group of students. So we saw these students with significant needs in each of our schools. And the service providers that are traveling to provide the services need travel time, so they're not as able to
have all their time focused in one spot. And that meant that the student support was limited to their service grid pull-outs, and then when the paraprofessionals and teacher were there, that they were dividing time among all of the students. So we were able to figure out how to open one of
those intensive needs classrooms this year. So our plan is this... They will have a modified curriculum which better meets their, their current level o-of need, a higher staff to student ratio, and we opened one of these programs on March second at Munger Hill, and we have a plan to open another classroom at Highland to start
the school year. I want to make sure to thank the transportation director, Adam Vincent, and Melissa Galzinski, who quickly went into action to reroute some buses, some vans that were going to Highland and whose students will now be going to Munger. Um, same thing with some students from SRS that didn't have a minivan because they were transported by a parent but now needed the
van. Um, we had Dr. Rosenthal and Sean Zukra and Jonathan Schedule calling the parents of the students recommended by teachers and service providers to be part of this program. And it was up to the parents, whether or not to have their students move to the program, and we had eight recommended students and eight moves. A-actually, we had nine recommended, and we had eight moves into the
program. And some of those moves were just from their classroom at Munger to this new classroom at SR-- at Munger Hill. We were able to fi-find funding to hire the teacher for this last part of the year because of some unfilled positions, and then we were able to move staff from other places, and transfer some n-not yet filled positions from that-- the school where
they were originally to this school. So also thank you to my colleagues, Dr. Morris, Shannon Berry, for, you know, making it all happen, Chris Rogers for the moves, Christine Shea, who advises on many things. And we opened the classroom, and it's wonderful. I've spent time in there. The students are settled. They were sitting for
morning meeting. I saw them doing a movement break and was told that in their schools that had not been happening. There was just too much, going on. They weren't distressed in their classrooms, but they weren't making as much progress as they could make. So this year we have this configuration for our preschools, and the one that's missing is that intensive needs
classroom that we added to Munger Hill. This is what we started the year with, and, the only school without preschool right now is Paper Mill. The next year's configurationWe will continue with the intensive needs program at Munger. We will add an intensive needs program at Highland. We will convert one of the four-year-old classes at
Munger to another three-year-old class because we are eliminating the full-day three-year-old classes at SRS and Westfield River. That is not necessarily a permanent move. That is a stabilizing move so that we can work towards getting students into their entrance into preschool in a half day, and then getting them into a full day four-year-old classroom. So we haven't
lost any three-year-old seats because we had, 15 students at River, 15 three-year-olds at SRS, and now those 15 from each of those schools will be in the half day at Munger Hill. So more a.m. session, 15 students, p.m. session, 15. So we didn't lose any special education seats. We didn't lose any three-year-old
peer seats with the model of eight peers, seven special ed students. And next year, four-year-olds will be in both classes at River and SRS, and that will allow us to have more of our pre-K students getting preschool, because w- our seats are limited and through the lottery. So we want
students... We have lots of students who are able to come in for three-year-old and then four-year-old and go to kindergarten. But by making this shift, we hope to be able to get a few more of our four-year-old friends in who we might not otherwise see until kindergarten. And then the following year is when we would like to add two classes at Paper Mill, and those would be four-year-old classes. And
as you may remember, one of our vision pieces is that students will attend their home school for preschool. So in order for that to happen, we would need to be at full implementation, which will allow us to have one three-year-old half-day class at each elementary school, which then feeds into two four-year-old
classes. We can't, we, we can't do that with half-day classes next year because we wouldn't have the seats for them to go into, because we'd have 30 three-year-olds going into 15 four... You know, we, we wouldn't be able to do it. So this would be full implementation. And lastly, we're really excited to meet our th- new preschool students. I feel like I've made 255 new
friends. They're just so welcoming. Just come as you are to their classroom, and they will say, "Lay down. Do you wanna lay down and rest? Do you, are you gonna stay here or go to lunch with us?" We were just in a class, and it was amazing to see the teacher. They were, they had done their play planning. This was at Southampton Road in Colleen Murphy's class. They were in their, centers
doing what they had planned on, like I'm going to be the ambulance driver, someone else was going to be the patient, and they were in all their centers. And she put on the cleanup music, and it was magical, and everyone just cleaned up the centers and went on to the next. So we can't wait for next year. It's gonna be great. Excellent. Any questions? Any questions for Mrs. Baragi? Ms. Hillman. I wanna know, has the lottery been done for next year already?
No. The lot- When, when is that available? It, it closes on March 20th. So it's an, it's an interest form that parents filled out to say they're interested in the lottery. So it's not a registration or a pre-registration. It's just saying you're interested in the lottery. I did meet with Jonathan Schedule and, Meredith Lewis to talk about all of our
three-year-olds that are, today, that are moving to four. Many of our three-year-olds are staying in three because they're, they won't be four by September 1st. So the l- the lottery seats this year will be limited. It will not be as open as in previous years because we were filling all seats regardless of, whether students were,
had an IEP or not, and we're cur- we're only able to fill our peer seats through the lottery. For next year, only peer seats? Yes. Okay. But a lot of- So if somebody has a two-year-old right now, could they put in their name already? And where is that form located? Um, if they have a two-year-old that's going to be three- Mm ... by September 1st, yes, they could fill out the interest
form, and that form is available on our website on the registration page. And it's, um... Each school has it on their website. If somebody can't... We've, we've put it on Facebook. We're going to put it on again this week saying that it's the deadline. So if you- Okay, 'cause I haven't seen anything yet about it. Okay. All right. If you have somebody that is not finding it, I can... W- we can g- They can call, and
we can send it right to them. Okay. The link. If, if they're doing a search, can they type in registration for preschool? Is that- Um, they should type in, in preschool interest form. P- preschool interest. Okay. Yes. Any other questions? And it's not to say that a student with disabilities, would not be able to get a seat in the lottery. Sometimes we have peers that we then realize that they have a need that needs to be, addressed, and we evaluate them and...
S- Can I ask another follow-up? If somebody have, has an IEP already for speech being- Mm-hmm ... a three-year-old, will they be accepted more so than somebody who doesn't have an IEP? Yes. A student that has an IEP and is already in our program will have a seat. Anyone who has a seat right now in a three-year-old's class will have a seat next year. They don't have to fill out the interest form.
Okay. They're either staying in preschool, or they're moving to... or staying in three-year-olds or moving to the four-year-olds class. Um, and that- Sounds like a balancing act. It's hard. It's a little bit of a balancing act. Thank you. Thank you. How many-- Mrs. Dargie, how many students are we turning away via the lottery currently? Um, probably more than 100. I did not run the lottery last year. I know we had over 200, that filled out the form.
Last year we had about 200. This year it might be more at, like, over 100. Yes. And we-- And last year we had more seats. So how many did, did not get a seat in the lottery last year, like 100 and... Uh, about half. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the four-year-old seats are largely filled by the three-year-olds. Right. So, so the three-year-olds are much more apt to get a seat because those are open- Right ... for the peers. Yes. The four-year-olds are moving from three to four, so there's just not as many.
This year there may be a f- some more fours because of the shift at River and, SRS. Got it. Okay. Mr. Soto. Quick question on, um... I believe, I'm looking at the slides, it looks like there's five classrooms at Munger Hill right now, plus the in- the intensive need program, that's six. And then going forward, it looks like there's only five. Right. So- Is there a reduction there? Well, with--
The plan that we're making is what we can sustain with CPPI and current funds and... Like, I feel like maybe that question would be answered as we're looking at, you know, the next year's budget. If we-- What we're thinking is that teachers will be converting to one of these classrooms. So right now there are
five classrooms, and then we added the intensive needs with a teacher. But the teachers that are already at Munger, one of those teachers will need to be a three-year-old teacher instead of a four-year-old teacher. And then it's possible that another teacher may... You know, we have staff that move around in our intensive needs programs, so that is to be determined
how all that staffing is placed when all is said and done. Thank you. Any other questions? Ms. Shelton. So how many, how many kids are enrolled in our preschools right now? Two hundred fifty-three. Two fifty? Yes. Okay. Thank you. It's about... We have two hun- we have two hundred fifty-five seats, and then we opened that substantially separate program w- that has eight students in it, but there is another student that's
joining before the end of the year. But all of our two fifty-five seats aren't full yet because kids are still turning three, and meetings are being held. Okay. So right now our capacity is two sixty-255 plus 8. 263 This year? For this year, two sixty? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to move, agenda
item 21B up until this point. Second. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. I'd like to make a motion to accept the Credit for Life grant in the amount of three thousand two hundred dollars. Second. So the Credit for Life grant, was awarded to us in the amount of... Oh, sorry. You're okay. Thirty-two hundred dollars. These funds will be used to provide supplies and materials, for our annual Credit for Life event, which is being held at
Westfield High School on April 8th. Um, it's going to be used for providing busing, signage, raffle prizes, and any other kind of materials that they need for the event. Fantastic. Any, any questions? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan. Yes. Mike Terrell. Yes. Thank you. Item number seven, AI Committee Strategic Update. Okay. Oh, good evening. Um, my name is Brian Duckham. I'm the coordinator of Instructional Technology for
Westfield Public Schools. Um, and I have two students with me from Westfield Technical Academy. Do you guys wanna introduce yourselves? My name is William Torres. I'm in the Information Technology program at Westfield Tech. My name is Caden Smith. I'm also in the Information Technology program at Westfield Tech. Excellent. So part of our district goals this year were to, implement AI tools and practices in, in at least twenty-five percent of our math and ELA classrooms to enhance personalized learning, streamline administrative tasks, and improve student outcomes. And so as part of that goal, we had some key actions.
One of those was to form a committee, in which we, which we did at the beginning of the school year. That committee involves staff from Westfield Public Schools, leadership, administrators, teachers. We have three students. One of them is not here tonight, Jacob Sarneki, who's also a student at Westfield Technical Academy. Um, another goal was to do a needs assessment to identify where AI could fit into the district and where we could use it to, to improve our practices. Um, a-- One of our big goals for this year was to establish policies and guidelines for ethical and
responsible use of AI, which is aligned with state and federal guidelines. Another goal that we're working towards now is launching AI pilots, into classrooms across elementary, middle, and high school, and then to develop resources and create peer, peer support network of early adopters, and then lastly, to provide updates to our school committee. And so they're getting set up. They're gonna show you, something that they've, that, that Caden has created to help him, along with his work. Um, and as they're getting that set up...
Um, so our very first priority was to just understand that this is gonna be more than a, a one-year process. Um, as AI is changing every day, it's, it's rapidly increasing. Um, different programs are coming out. We want to establish our, our mission as, ensuring the safe, ethical, and equitable integration of AI into Westfield Public Schools. DESE had come out with some guidance and guidelines for schools, and so we wanted to-- Our first kind of piece of work was to ground our work in that guidance, and then from
there, focus on conducting our assessments, looking at our policies, and identifying early adopters. From our survey, we found that close to forty-five percent of our staff is looking for guidance on AI. They're looking for professional development on AI. They're looking for, for concrete examples that we can show them on how to use that in their classrooms. We found that the most common tools in use are ChatGPT, Gemini, MagicSchool AI, and
Grammarly. Um, one exciting piece of work that teachers are reporting is that with AI and the way that it can streamline some of their work, they're able to focus more on relationships with their students, because of the way that AI can help us with some of that, that work. Um, after the survey that we conducted, we des-decided to create some subcommittees, so we ended up creating four subcommittees. One was on policy, and that committee has drafted guidelines and policies that we're gonna look
at, into putting into place for student use and teacher use in terms of AI. We have a communication subcommittee whose goal is to really kind of educate the community on what we're doing with AI, how we're using it, how we're trying to move to more of a responsible approach, and less away from that kind of fear-based approach. Then we have a professional development committee who's working with teachers and showing them tools to use, creating resources on, on, on ways to use it. And then lastly, we have a student use and academic integrity committee
that is working on creating expectations for students, ways for students to disclose how they're using it. Um, and then moving forward, our goals are to, to implement these tools and practices within the classrooms. We already have quite a bit, work in progress. We've, we've been using one program, Playlab AI, that allows you to create your own kinda custom chatbots.Um, we had some students at Westfield High School through Project Lead the Way, they, they participated in a
s- an event called Student Solve, and they were recognized by, PlayLab for the app they created, for an engineering class. The app was designed to help students who were stuck in their thinking become unstuck. Um, and so they were recognized by that work and then encouraged to, to, to join the Presidential AI Challenge that's going on right now. Another, ah, piece of work we've used with PlayLab is with our work with ST Math. Um, we've created a app that allows teachers to kinda-- that allows teachers to
identify areas that they can, they can work with students to increase their personalized learning. So if you have a student that's, you know, struggling with multiplication, the ST Math chatbot will kind of help them identify where they can go in ST Math and what standards they can use to kinda help that student and personalize their learning. Um, we've been working with the Collaborative for Educational Services, to provide professional development for our leadership team, for our, for our principals and administrators, and then they're coming in soon to present more professional
development for some of our assistant principals as well. Um, and, and, and then another, another piece of work we've been working on this year is, working with building thinking classrooms and approach to, to shift some of our, our teaching to, to be more of a, a, more thinking-based problems instead of kind of just working on, you know, multiple problems at a time. And so we've been using AI to create more relevant thinking tasks for students as well as creating, what's called thin slicing where, where teachers can take one
problem and then scaffold it by changing one variable at a time until it, it gets increasingly harder and harder. And so we've been working with teachers using AI to, to help them in their, in their lesson plan development around that. And so, um- We're getting an error on the, the HDMI port doesn't seem to be working. Okay. Can I, can I ask a question? Mr. Cell? How- Yes ... how has this-- when you mention the word AI or the letters
AI, are you getting the same reaction I get that people are just terrified, including me? Yeah. So yeah, no, exac- yeah. So that's, that's part of our, our objective is to kinda educate staff, students on, you know, what AI is, how it works. You know, it's not just this magical thing. You know, it's, it's, it's machine learning. It's based on patterns. It's predictable. Um, it can be biased. You know, you know, part of the work that we're trying to let the community know is that we're not just letting people use any program, that's out there. We're looking at the privacy policies.
We're looking at the data and stuff like that and making sure that, you know, the number one priority is that our student data is safe. You know, teachers are asking us to open up programs. We look at those programs and determine whether it's safe or whether it's not. Um, because we are a Google, Google District, Gemini is part of the core services, and so that's one of the safety nets we have is that, you know, that they're not using our data to train Gemini, the, the specific version we have. Um, we don't have it open for students right now. We have some students that we have it open in small pockets.
Like, we have it open for Caden, Will, and Jacob who are on our committee. Um, and then we have the ability to open it for other students in small pockets, kinda based on, you know, what they're learning. But we really wanna get some of that kinda digital literacy in place- Right ... and teach them kind of to be more responsible before- Do they, do they wanna be taught, I guess, is my question 'cause- We know they're using it. I mean- Oh ... they're not using it on our network. Um, but they've been-- I mean, and, and Caden, Will, you know, they've, they've brought a wealth of knowledge to our committee. Um, you know, I could talk about it, but they could talk about it for, for hours
more, and know the ins and outs and the way that, that it works. Um, and so... Okay. Yeah. We're good. So as he talked about before, we've been working on PlayLab and using that for AIs. What I had PlayLab come up with is I made my own little chatbot to help me, like, assess my, all my essays that I've written and whenever a teacher's given me a rubric. So what I can do is, is I have a teacher give me a rubric. I can put it into here, and now that it has my rubric, if I were to go over to my essay that I wrote, put
it into the chatbot, it'll tell me where, like, certain categories that I need to work on and what kind of, you know, an estimate of the score that I'd get. And it'll give me, like, strong arguments, certain things like ten out of twelve for this areas, sixteen out of twenty for some evidence, like my works cited, all that stuff, and it puts it all down at the bottom of strengths and priorities that I should focus on. Now, with PlayLab, what is really cool about it is, it, you can have a setting where it tells you to not give any answers, but
to actually help you find the solution on your own, and it will disable any sort of generation to give you the answer flat out. Right. Okay. Will, would you wanna talk more about, some of that? Some AI stuff? Um, I guess my stance as a student on AI is I-- Well, we have subcommittees in the AI committee. Um, we have professional development, students using AI.
I joined the professional development committee, because I think the most important thing going forward with AI is how we can structure schools to be less of a, "Here's this task, do this," and more of a critical thinking stance, where the old ways aren't gonna work as much anymore 'cause everyone's using AI. Um, even if students have it blocked on the Chromebooks that everyone has, they have their phones, they have ways around it.Um, there are more AIs popping up every minute.
It's like when the internet first came out, there were-- It was like a no man's land because it was everything popping up every two seconds. Um, and so AI is kinda like how when phones first came up, they were more like, "Let's ban phones in schools." And now at least at the Westfield Tech, it's a per classroom basis of, "Hey, this teacher can let you use your phone if they choose to, or they can outlaw it if they choose to." Um, which may not work for AI because AI is gonna be ingrained in everything.
Um, so it's more of how can we tailor AI in the classroom as a purpose like to better teaching rather than to outlaw it and then have students use it behind their backs, I guess. Um. And so I, I think I heard you say something, but I think it is, it is useful to re-emphasize in terms of this rubric checker. I think what I heard you say is, what you cannot do is then say, "Okay, can you do it for me?"
Yes. Right. It won't give you any of the answers. And the-- And so part of what I've enjoyed, here, I've learned a lot sitting on this committee with you all, but I appreciated the emphasis here on ethics and responsible use as a core part of wherever we're, we're headed with this, and appreciate, appreciate the students, doing some self-regulation here and helping us to draw where those lines are. And as I just put into it, I asked it to flat out give me the answers, and it told me, "No, but let's help you find a way to
get the solution on your own." And that's what I love is about this part of the AI. I believe students should be using this. As Will said, he's our own professional development. I'm on the student side of it, and I've given, some of my friends access to this for their essays. They've loved it, and they were able to increase their scores on certain assignments by having this tool to help them get like an estimate on what kind of score they would get. And if they need to add something, like I had a friend of mine, he needed a couple more work citeds that he thought he had, but, and he didn't. Put it into here, and it helped him figure out where he can like get
them, but not flat out give him answers. How close does it come? Have you, have you tested it out in terms of, uh- It, it came pretty close. So before it gave, what was it? Uh, seventy-nine for the essay that I turned in or submitted. Uh, my teacher gave me an eighty-five. Yeah, that's pretty close. It's, it's-- Like I said, it gives you an estimate. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I can tweak it a little bit to be a little more accurate, but it all depends on the type of teacher you have. Sure. Sure. There's always gonna be humans in interacting with it.
Human error is always the biggest factor in everything. That's why I tell people it's an estimate. Don't rely on it, but use it as a tool. Yeah. Uh, along the lines of, what Mr.-- what Dr. Gunther said, and asked, what is the-- I mean, there's-- in my mind, there's two sides of it, right? There's how do we, how do we use AI to, to enhance the classroom experience, right? Um, the other side is how do we, how do we limit how much we're doing with AI in terms of,
you know, making sure the work that's being done is truly the student's work. It's great to be able to check it against the rubric. Yeah. I think that's a great use case. But w-where do-- I'm guessing it's from a policy standpoint. Where, where do we-- H-how do we limit the, the use of it in terms of folks that are not using it like this, but obviously everybody has access to AI- Yeah ...at home and on other devices, as you mentioned. How do we, how do we try to, how do we try to curb that? So I think it-- going along with what he said, it's, it's that responsible
use piece. Um, it's shifting our assessments to the way we assess students to, to more of a, the process, focusing on the process versus the outcome. And so if we shift the way we assess students, the way that, that we teach them to use it, we value that process, and we evaluate that process versus just that outcome, I think. And then just really moving away from that, that fear base of, you know, using AI checkers a-and just kind of building in that literacy piece with students. Um, like Brian just said, the process is
the most important part, going forward. It has to be less of, "Hey, this is the end essay." It's more, "How did you come up with this essay?" Um, like you give the students a free form project, like, "Hey, pick any topic and give us your thoughts on it." It's gonna be less, "Okay, what's the end outcome?" It's more, "How did you come up with this? Um, did you like have your own creative thought in this, or did you just rely on
it?" Um. That's, that makes a lot of sense. And something too we've talked about, you know, in terms of policy and guidelines is that, that, that AI disclosure, you know, that's part of DESE's guidelines, is, is disclosing when you use it, not only for students, but teachers as well. Um, and you'll see more and more in people's e-email signatures, professionals saying, you know, "This was written by me, but AI helped," something along those lines. And so, so teaching students, you know, part of the guidelines that were drafted is, you know, when it's appropriate to use it, when it's not appropriate to use it, and then kinda how to cite it and, and, and when you're citing it as well.
Yeah. Yeah. Was there another question? I just-- I-- How many students do you think are exposed to what you just showed us and-Now that you have an advantage over the student who doesn't know about it, how does that work? Well, currently less than five students have access to this. Okay. And I don't believe any of them even use it on a daily basis or remember how to use it at the moment, 'cause I gave it to them, and I-- then I just got rid of it off their Chromebooks so that they couldn't... 'Cause I wasn't sure at the time if they could, but I just wanted to have them test
it out- Okay ... to see, give me their thoughts, what did they think about it, how I should tweak it, and all that stuff. And, and, you know, equity is a big piece of this as well, because we wanna ensure that all students have access to this. And we know that, part of AI is that AI can be biased. And so understanding that some of these tools might be biased and trying to, to reduce that bias by not using those tools and then educating people and then making sure that, again, that these tools are available for all students to use. That's the important part, that everybody's on an equal basis-
Yep. Exactly ... as far as I'm concerned. I, I know when my kids were going to school, they'd write an essay, and then I'd sh-- they'd be like, "Mom, can you proofread?" And I'd highlight things where they needed help, and that is very similar to what you're doing with this program. So I think it's really a-an advantage if kids have this, so they can improve their writing. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. Uh, I'm not sure if you will have something to say, but going off of this, how the privacy policy and keeping students' information and their data secure, with PlayLab
it has a section in the-- where you, in the chatbot settings, how you can tell it what you want it to remember or if it remembers anything or if it's just when you have the tab open. 'Cause right now I have it set up so that right when I close the tab it forgets everything. Wow. Nothing will be saved in the chat at all. It's only the stuff what's-- if you have the tab open, it's saved. Once the tab's closed and you re-launch it, nothing will be there. It will only remember the fact that you are going to give it a rubric and that you are going to give it an essay to grade. Interesting. Thank you.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. All right. Uh, number eight, Mr. Goslin. I'd like to make a motion to approve the March second, twenty twenty-six school committee meeting minutes. Second. Motion was made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Number nine, Mr. Goslin. I'd like to make a motion to approve for the approval of the revised twenty twenty-six/twenty twenty-seven Westfield Public School
calendar. Second. Second. Mr. Morris? Dr. Morris. So, the revisions are based on the, settlement of the contract, so there was five early release days agreed to, so they're scheduled. Uh, the other second piece is the timing of the early release days. They're not half days. They have a later, release time, so that's delineated on this draft. And the last one is that, next year Juneteenth is on a Saturday, so federal register says that June eighteenth, which is a Friday, is the federal holiday observed, so it
can't be a school day if there's enough snow days where we're still in school at that point. Sore topic I know for many people right now, snow days, but we're just gonna leave it there. Um, and so those are the three adjustments that you see from what was previously voted. Questions? Do we have a final day for the last day of school? It is on that draft- Okay ... but it's, as you know, this year has shown us it's a guesstimate, that rarely ends up being the actual last day. Okay. Public- That's not adjusted- ... likes to know that. Yeah, that's not changed from the original draft to this draft.
It's really just the three items I mentioned. Okay. Anything else? Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Seeing none. Thank you. Motion passes. Thank you. Number ten, Mr. Selk. Make a motion to approve the Westfield Technical Academy field trip to the New England Air Museum located in Windsor Locks, Connecticut on March eighteenth, twenty twenty-six. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes.
Number eleven, Mr. Selk. Make a motion or make motions to approve three foreign exchange students to attend Westfield High School for the twenty twenty-six/twenty twenty-seven school year. I'll make a motion for each student. Um, first one, I'm, I'm making a motion to accept Akihiro Higasanaka from Japan as a foreign exchange student at Westfield High School for the twenty twenty-six/twenty twenty-seven school year, pending the receipt of his J-1 visa and on the condition that this involves no financial obligations on the part of Westfield Public Schools, and if there are any such
obligation, this acceptance is rescinded. Second. Motion is made and seconded. Any discussion? Do we need a-- we don't need a vote for these, right? No. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. Mr. Sullivan. I'll make a motion to accept Mingun Choi from South Korea as a foreign exchange student at the Westfield High School for the twenty twenty-six/twenty twenty-seven school year, pending the receipt of his J-1 visa, and on the condition that this involves no financial obligations on the part of the Westfield Public Schools, and if there are any such
obligations, this acceptance is rescinded. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Mr. Sullivan. Okay. I make a motion to accept John Kohrs from Germany as a foreign exchange student at the Westfield High School for twenty twenty-six/twenty twenty-seven school year, pending the receipt of his J-1 visa, on the condition that this involves no financial obligation on the part of Westfield Public Schools, and if there are any such obligations, this acceptance
is rescinded. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any further discussion?Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to approve the memorandum of agreement between the Westfield School Committee and Westfield Educator-tion Association Unit A teachers regarding classroom teachers instructing hybrid or virtual sections, and authorize the mayor to sign on behalf of the committee. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any discussion?
Mike. Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Sorry, give me just one second. That would be yes or no. He's reading. Oh. Yes. Okay. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Mike Torell? Yes. I'd like to make a motion to approve the memorandum of agreement between the Westfield School Committee and the Westfield Education Association Unit D Paraprofessionals regarding compensation to library paraprofessionals for coverage of Unit A preparations, and authorize the mayor to sign on behalf of the committee.
Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan. Abstain. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Mike Torell. Yes. Item fourteen. I'd like to make a motion to approve the settlement agreement between Westfield School Committee and the United Food and Commercial Workers, UFCW Local one four five nine for the twenty twenty-five/twenty twenty-eight school year, and authorize the mayor to sign on behalf of the committee. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion?
Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Actually, I do. Yep. So does, so does doctor. You wanna talk about it? I just wanna congratulate you and thank you for the job you did. This w- it was lengthy. W-without stepping on any toes or anything, you and Kim, the-- our attorney, did an outstanding job on it. I sat on it. Um, so, I, I just think recognition needs to be served on their side too. Um, these were good negotiations. People on both sides wanted what they wanted, and we came to a conclusion which I thought was very good. So congratulations and thank you-
Thank you ... for the job you did. Thank you. I was also going to share that, you know, it-- there was an adjustment. It was, kind of local association joined a larger national union. There's always gonna be some adjustments when that happens, and we worked through 'em, and it took longer than probably anyone anticipated, but we got there. So, thanks for your kind words though. Yep. Next one. Anything further? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan. Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Mike Torell. Yes. I'd like to make a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding between the
Westfield School Committee and the Westfield Education Association Unit A teachers with regards to degree advancement for the purposes of movement on the salary scale as presented, and authorize the mayor to sign on behalf of the committee. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Kick Sullivan. Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Mike Torell. Yes. Item number sixteen, Mr. Sullivan. I'd like to make a motion to create a new gift account, the
Turkey Drive gift account. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Who's in charge of that? Can I, can I guess what this is for? So every, fall we have the Turkey Drive, that the Figges, run. Um, and we receive many donations, and as the years have gone on, we are receiving more and more donations to this fund, so it is time to set up its own gift account where we can actually just put the funds that are specifically for the Turkey Drive into an account.
We are gonna see something later on in this meeting about how much is going into that account, correct? Yes. So we have-- Yes, there's a donation coming up, and then, I will have to obviously transfer s- the money had been going in long before, you know, I was in this position. The money had been going into the VIPs gift account. Um, so we will have to transfer the money that does-- We've been keeping track of what belongs to the Turkey Drive in that account. Um, so we will have to transfer the money that's in the VIPs account to the Turkey Drive gift account too, so. Good. Any other discussion? Just a quick thank you to the Figge
family and all of those who volunteer with them for causing us to have to create this. Nice to have to do this. Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is a nice- 解 决 问 题 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Uh, Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan. Yes. Mike Torell. Yes. Item seventeen. I'd like to make a motion for the approval of a rev-- a new revolving account, the Damaged School Property Revolving Account. Second. Discussion? Motion made. So open for discussion.
What is this all about? So we currently have an account set up for damaged, Chromebooks and technology. Um, we are seeing, unfortunately, more damage to school property that is being done by students. Um, and I spoke with Mr. Rogers, our director of safety and operations. Um, it's not necessarily more damage, but we are trying to recoup the funds from families for damaged property. Um, so we need a way to be able to take in, the money we are, are getting, to then be able to pay vendors for repairs that we need to do.
This... Just off of that, is this-- Is there a world where we would combine or we would move one of those accounts into this one, or is this a fundamentally different- I'd like to keep them different because really this is more like maintenance kind of purchases. Okay. And then the other fund is solely for technology and that I use, like at the beginning of the year, we do a purchase order for repairs that the, tech center then uses. So I kinda just do like a blanket purchase order at the end of-- at the beginning of each year for that. Obviously, there's enough that we have to create it, its own line
item, l- its own account. So I would say it, it's, it's not excessive. I mean, I've seen two this year, but there's just-- there's no vehicle to take this money in right now, so we, we need a way to be able to do it. Okay. That was my question. Yeah. How much is that? Yeah. I, I mean, twice it's happened this year, so this isn't, like, a, a widespread issue. Is it twice you've collected or twice it's actually happened? So twice I've seen collections, yes. Okay. Okay. Anybody else? Mr. Sullivan? Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Moe Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Number eighteen. I'd like to make a motion of-- to accept the special revenue counts
as presented. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any questions? Alan? I just have a few items I wanted to review. Um, so as you know, I've been trying to go through, through some of these older accounts, and I'm trying, to close some of them out. So you will see the gift account for Franklin Ave, we've closed out. Um, the gift account for the virtual school is now closed out. The gift account for Westfield's High School technology closed out. Um, and then the Westfield High School gym equipment, you'll see that's in the
negative. We've already done paperwork to fix that. We did an order, and unfortunately, something came in higher than expected on the invoice, so it just-- it threw that account into the negative. But we're just gonna transfer that to the general fund. Um, so just a few of those there that we've been able to close out. On the second page, the middle school Project Astra, as you know, that was an older project from the nineties, that you approved now using just for general STEM purchases at the middle school. So as you can see, you know, they've already done almost fifty-three hundred dollars worth of expenditures, so they are working to spend that money
down. Um, and then finally, school choice. So again, we're set to receive about one point four million dollars of school choice revenue this year. Again, that is never a definite number until the claiming process happens in the spring. Um, so I'm going to be doing that next month, and then w-we see the reconciliation of what we actually get for the rest of the year. Um, so total up to date today, we've received nine hundred and twelve thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight dollars, so we actually had some more revenue post, after I ran this report.
Um, total expenditures are just slightly more than what you have there. Um, we have about another six hundred and sixteen thousand dollars to spend, between the, salaries that we have on school choice, and then we have curriculum and technology expenditures that, are yet to be spent. Um, so we're expecting to see about two point three seven million dollars left at the end of this year. And that's all I have on the accounts. Do you wanna give us a preview of what that's gonna look like at the end of next
year, or how much you're gonna need from that to start next year? Is that something we wanna do now, or wait till- No, I just wanted to ask the question ... after the season? I don't know the answer to it, and I know the whole bunch is coming out to me. So, so the plan, the plan right now is to not use as much as we did in FY twenty-six. Good answer. Thank you. Just music to everyone's ears. Yes, sir? Can I ask-- So just make sure I'm tracking. We're gonna use up just over twenty percent of our school choice beginning of year balance this year. Right. Okay. Thanks. Any additional questions? Seeing none. Mr.
Sullivan? Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Moe Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. I'd like to make a motion for a budget transfer in the amount of fifty thousand dollars from account five seven two eight four three three zero dash five four eight zero zero one, regular transportation gasoline diesel, to account five seven two two three three three zero dash five three three zero one one, special services transportation sped out of district transportation. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Anything to add here, Ms. Hillman?
Sure. I just wanted to comment that a-as you know, I don't usually like to do budget transfers when I'm not presenting financials, but I thought this one was important to do. Um, as I explained at the last meeting, I set a deadline for all departments to have all purchase orders in, and all money encumbered that they need through the end of the year by March twenty-seventh. Um, so I did not find out about this transfer being needed until after the last school committee meeting. Um, so this is for our special education out-of-district transportation. Um, we just need more, more funds on that, purchase order to cover the rest of the year.
Any additional conversations or- Are we, are we not using as much gas? So this is the line where if we owe, if-- to Laskinski, funds for gas and diesel. Yeah. But they have actually owed us this year, because of gas prices. I mean, obviously that could all change as of now. Yes. Right. So we do-- So just to clarify, we did encumber twenty-five thousand dollars to cover us through the rest of the year in case we do owe them money. Okay. Okay. Anybody else? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan? Moe Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan?
Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Next are the weekly reports. On February twenty-seventh, twenty twenty-six, there were nineteen batches totaling one million one hundred and thirty-eight thousand five hundred and five dollars and two cents. On March sixth, we had eighteen batches totaling one hund- four hundred and fifty-seven thousand eighty-two dollars and thirty-two cents.
Thank you, Ms. Hillman. Number twenty-one. I'd like to make a motion to accept the following gifts and donations donated to Westfield River Elementary School from Box Tops for Education in the amount of twenty dollars and thirty cents for the educational purposes gift account, and also to the Westfield River Elementary School from Stop & Shop Community, Community Bag Program, twenty-one dollars for the educational purposes and gift account, and to the Turkey Drive gift account from Westfield State University in the amount of five thousand twelve dollars and eighty-four cents for use in the Turkey Drive gift
account. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any additional conversation? Thank you, as always Thanks, everybody. And good luck with your $5,000 in your Turkey Day gift account. Yes. Oh, already spent. It's already been spent. Oh, I know she can. All right, so- Uh, Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jess Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Uh, we do not have superintendent's update. Okay. We do have the mayor's update. You wanna give an update? School committee update. Ms. Hillman. Um, I attended the Westfield Middle School
concert, last Thursday, and it was, like, amazing to me how wonderful the choir and the band. But the most exciting part of this was there were no parking spaces left. There were so many people at this concert. The whole gymnasium was flooded with parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers. It was amazing, and the band was superb. I wanna give congratulations to the choir
director and the band. It was stupendous. The next part was really amazing. When they were done, all the community members that were there grabbed chairs, music, instruments, everything went back to the music room. Within, I'd say, 15 minutes, all of those instruments and all of those music stands were back in the music room. It was amazing. It was really a community activity. The other thing I attended was the National Honor Society, and I
always love going to this. To hear our students who are excelling and being inducted is one of those privileges that I think the students will never forget. Thank you, Ms. Hillman. Anybody else? Seeing none, number twenty-four. Oh, that's me, too. Let me just go. Um, so tonight, the Human Resource and Policy subcommittee met, and we had 10 different policies that we
were discussing. Three of them were, were tabled, and they were on negotiations. Um, so we tabled those three, and we will revisited those. The other ones that we visited were the animals in schools, visitors in schools, service animals in schools, community use of the facilities, community use of the, regulations, and the library material selection and adoption, and finally, the library resources. Those will be
presented for a first reading on April sixth. Thank you, Ms. Hillman. Mr. Gunther. Like to make a motion for the approval of the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment subcommittee minutes from the March second, 2026 meeting. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any additional conversation to be had? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Next regular school committee meeting is to be held April sixth,
2026, as Ms. Hillman just mentioned. Is there another motion on the table? I'd like a motion to adjourn. Motion has been made. Second. And seconded by Mr. Sullivan. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you, everybody. You did a nice job, Mike. Good job, Mr. Terrell. Mm-hmm.