okay it is 6:38 p.m on Tuesday April 1st 2025 calling this meeting of the Westport School Committee to order if we can stand for the pledge pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation
under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you under master law chapter 38 section 20F this meeting is being recorded we'll start first with comments and statements from the public seeing none we'll move on to
ourformational agenda we'll start with our student representatives good evening the school committee and everyone else in attendance this evening i have a small amount of news to share with you about our middle school starting off with academics the third term will be coming to a close on Monday April 7th term
three report cards will be available on the community portal by Friday April 11th mccast testing has begun in grades seven and 8 will be testing in ELA on April 8th and 9th and grades five and six will be testing in ELA on April 10th
and 11th now for some other topics the spring dance for fifth 6th and 7th grade will be held on Friday April 11th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m the dance will be casual attire mr monest will be the DJ and there will be pizza drinks snacks and candy available for purchase tickets
are $5 and will be sold at lunches on April 10th and 11th permission slips will be coming home soon there is an important guardian student meeting for the eighth grade Washington DC trip on Wednesday April 9th at 6:00 p.m the middle school student council is holding
a donation raffle for Forever Paws Animal Shelter it will be ending this Friday April 4th you can donate items from a wish list and earn raffle tickets for a food and fun gift basket valued at over $100 donations can be dropped off every
morning from 7:00 to 7:30 in the cafeteria or any other time at Mrs trips or Mrs py classroom please see the latest school newsletter for the wish list and lastly spring sports with the exception of lacrosse which started last Friday have all started this week we
wish all of our spring sport teams a great season go Wild Cats thank you thank you Matt uh good evening Superintendent Aubin school committee and all in attendance this evening i'm going to start out with some information about what's been going on at the school term 3 is coming to a
close and it will end Monday April 7th report cards will be posted to the community portal on April 11th the fifth annual senior dinner was held last Friday night seniors and their invited staff member had a fantastic night filled with food raffles laughs and
karaoke thank you to Mrs reel for organizing this memorable night for our seniors and thank you to all the staff and their generosity uh for donating raffle prizes setting up and serving dinner also a special thank you to Bayost Bank and Lee Supermarket
for their support in this event the seniors had an amazing night and it will be sure to be a highlight of their year attention seniors graduation yard signs are now for sale and the cost is $20 or $25 depending on the design of the sign orders must be placed by Tuesday April
29th emails have been sent out to all seniors with this information and the QR code to scan for purchase is attached to that email a reminder for seniors the senior class trip to Six Flags is on Friday May 9th permission slips are in the office and in Mrs avala's room they
are due by Wednesday April 9th the Westport Advocats and Rise Room are sponsoring the second annual Jay Nujo bowling fundraiser it will be held at Holiday Lanes on Sunday April 13th from 4 to 6:00 p.m teams can pre-register now
the cost is $25 for 2 hours of bowling with shoes included all proceeds go to buying Westport High School's Special Olympics T-shirts and a scholarship for Westport High School seniors please see Mrs avala Mrs melo or Mr marshall for details and to sign up seniors you must
participate in this event in order to apply for the scholarship now for sports the spring sports season is officially underway this week for all our Wildcat teams the varsity lacrosse team started their season with an exciting home opener last Friday the record is currently 2-0 and their next home game
will be tomorrow against Southshore Technical High School the JV also has a record of 1-0 they played yesterday the boys varsity baseball team currently has a record of 1-0 they played Diamond today in one the girls varsity softball team has
a record of 2-0 after their wins against Bristol Aggie and Norfolk Aggie yesterday and today the boys varsity tennis teams have had their first match at home against Dartmouth High School on Monday their record is currently 0 and one and lastly the girls varsity tennis team played their first home match today
against Fair Haven they also played Dartmouth I believe and they currently have a record of own two good luck to all our teams and go Wildcats awesome thanks both very much participation karaoke oh I had to leave
early i had a man I stayed for a little bit thank you have a nice night thank you thank you guys boys it was very nice working with you the last few years very nice working with you you're welcome good luck with you too
have a good night all right we will now if there's no objection we'll take item D out of order recognition of our two committee members uh who unfortunately are are leaving the committee uh after the election next week so just have two
things uh but first I just wanted to say that uh both as chair and and before as as a member joining the committee it's been a true pleasure working with both of you um I've learned a lot watching both of you on the committee and watching you work um the input that
you've had um I think has been really valuable to our conversations and I think the students and staff of Westport benefit as a result of it um so just wanted to say thank you to both of you uh for your commitment we don't you know this isn't a it's not a paid gig it's
not a one does it for the paid i know so I think it really shows uh commitment to this district and the community for both of you to have been so involved uh during your time here so I just want to recognize that and thank you two things for each of you a thank you
small gift and in addition um Senator Rodri's also uh has citations for both of you from the state senate which I'll read uh state senate official citation be it known that the Massachusetts Senate hereby extends its congratulations to Dr melissa Pico and
Gloria Cabraw in recognition of your years of dedication and commitment to the Westport School Committee and be it further known that the Massachusetts Senate extends its best wishes for continued success that this citation be duly signed by the president of the Senate and attested to in a copy thereof transmitted by the clerk of the Senate signed by the Senate President Karen
Spilka clerk Mike Hurley and offered by our state Senator Mike Rogers oh thank you both of you that's really nice [Applause] so I'll just say uh because no one really wants to hear me talk I'll just say thank you to everybody and everybody
that's here because it really takes um I know it's kind of corny but it really takes a village to raise children and um all of you are so very important to our community everybody here our teachers our staff our business office our
cafeteria workers uh I mean I can't you know I wish I could name everybody um but my years on the committee has uh I don't know maybe that's why I feel sad today it's nice that it's done done because then you know I have free time but um at the same time it's like the
end of uh you know so anyways thank you all thank you [Applause] so Melissa we're the village people i've had such a great learning experience um for the last three years
it's been on the stepping stone of all the things I do i just have to watch when I follow Evan because it's always something else I have to get done afterwards but this has been um great with Chris and Evan and Melissa and Jay now got to know Jay and everybody else uh so I'd like to thank you for that not
that I'm stopping anywhere it's just continuing in a different path right now but again thank you for all you all have done and hopefully I'll be able to come back and visit i'm not I'm not voting but no voting but
thank you thank you thank you both again melissa you touched on the you know the time that it takes i think there's a lot of you know behind the scenes that goes into a lot of the work here you know our agendas even reading the supporting material here getting into the budget there's a lot
involved in being a committee member and I think you know both of you really embodied you know that commitment and dedication and showed that uh in your participation in the meeting so I just wanted to thank you again appreciate what you did thank you is this where I can make a motion to make it a monthlong
meeting we will have a reorg on April where we'll discuss uh is there anything else from the committee before we just again uh you know thank you to both of you um obviously for your your time and dedication to the district it was great working with both of you although it's
been a short time um getting to know you better and know you from the uh from the school committee side of things but congratulations and thank you both again thank you just once again thank you both i um I I really have enjoyed even though it's only been a year it really has been great serving with with each of you and
and you both offer uh perspectives that uh I I have just come to appreciate every meeting and just want to say thank you very much and hopefully hopefully neither one of you will be strangers so thank you thank everyone i realize I'm also now going to be the senior member
on this committee the youngest one is a senior member all right um we'll move back to item B with superintendent's report mr robin sure Mr chair uh it's a two-part report uh good
news first bad news second um if it's okay I'd like to actually have uh Mrs kaminsky read the report on uh the visit we had to Boston uh with the Mass Business Alliance this past week as a result of the incredible work that both
she uh Miss Duket and her staff did with the high dosage tutoring so if that's okay with you I'd ask uh Mrs kaminsky uh if she could actually report out great thank you thank [Laughter]
you okay oh I need mic sorry John thank you on the fly here okay so yes we were invited um a couple of weeks ago by um the Honorable Edward M lambert former mayor of Fall River now executive
director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education to go up to the state house to take part in a hearing on high dosage tutoring um a couple of years ago we worked with the state to secure funding for 30 of our kindergarteners to get um high dosage
tutoring for a few months and that resulted in 93% of our kindergarteners going to first grade with end of kitten kindergarten skills ready for first grade reading instruction and this year um we all we got that support again for
30 more of our kindergarteners um but um um executive director Lambert invited us up there because there were two co cohorts of schools that have gotten funding so one of the one of the cohorts was pretty much the Gateway Communities
and they worked with the 18 Foundation and um the 18 Foundation underwrote their experience so that John's Hopkins could study the results and the results were remarkable and then the state used some ESSER funds to support that work in
other communities and they because they wanted it to be more of a cross-section of communities that had access to it so as a rural district we we um petitioned them and were pleasantly persistent and finally they said yes um so on Thursday March 27th after an invitation from the
MBA MBA we visited the state house for a hearing about high dosage tutoring for two years we've been successfully working with Ignite Reading to provide support to our students who need additional instruction and practice around foundational reading skills and I want to thank the committee because if
you recall um earlier in the year or last spring you voted to use some of our remaining ESSER funds for some of the students at the West so 11 of our students at the West are also getting tutoring every single day for 15 minutes
a day from a one-on-one tutor virtually and they are making gains so we joined a researcher from John Hopkins who presented data around the impressive success of Ignite in Gateway communities the vice president of academics at Ignite Reading superintendent from
Chelsea and Fall River legislators and their staff who were there to learn and invited guests from a handful of districts who've been using Ignite to accelerate success in their districts we presented a one-pager that you have did you pass that out there you have it yes um we presented a one-pager that you all
have that traces the timeline of work that we've been doing since 2022 around literacy um and part of that work happened before I even um got here with uh the former curriculum director who did an intensive look at highquality instructional materials for the
elementary school with u Mrs dukat at the time and they selected the Wonders program um the the one pager that you have will also post online so the community can take a look at it i don't know if you know but Governor Healey has allocated $25 million in her
budget for high dosage tutoring and the hearing went a long way in educating folks about its value and efficacy so hopefully the legislature will support this um this line item in the budget and districts will continue to to get that
tutoring so what that means is um that will allow 10,000 students in the Commonwealth continue to continue to get this high dosage tutoring and really help us to be to continue to be the best state in the union for education thank
you so much for sharing that and appreciate your advocacy on that and I remember you know our first discussion on that in the committee I think it was sometime last year maybe it was last spring when we looked at some of that baseline data and
seeing where we've gone from them i'm I'm first of all I'm proud that we supported but I'm even more proud of our staff for implementing it up to the degree that they did which I think is is great shows really shout out to the staff because they have supported the work in their classrooms so thank you
so Mr mr chair I I did just want to mention um so going back again I guess it was about a year ago when this was brought up and it uh uh thanks to Miss Kaminsky I I I went down a bit of a rabbit hole looking into a lot of the uh a lot of the reading uh curriculum
changes that had been made over over the past year or past years um I say this every time this comes up I'll say it again thank you again for spearheading this and thanks to our staff for implementing it this is something that where you see it say it right here actually in the the one sheet it is
value evident in the data everything that is being done here uh you can there you can verify it with quant quantifiable data there is great progress here so I just want to say thank you again for continuing the effort and I'm glad to hear that it's uh it's made its way to the state house
yeah so okay I get to be the skunk at the lawn party so here we go um this is hot off the presses from the Massachusetts Association of school superintendent I want to be abundantly clear on this when I'm reading this I'm not reading this for the political agenda or anything
it's simply a release that just came out I'd say about an hour ago uh we are writing on behalf of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent which represents more than 700 district leaders from 276 school districts across the
Commonwealth in the 10 weeks since inauguration day a barrage of directives have left our school districts and professionals who lead them in a state of upheaval uncertainty and fear like so many across the country we are continuously trying to make sense of
executive orders and federal mandates pertaining to funding immigration and the like we are writing today to seek your advocacy on two critical issues related to the US Department of Education first we are deeply troubled by the swift and
irresponsible dismantling of a federal agency that plays a critical role in the oversight of public education while we recognize that a great deal of authority rests with state and local bodies the United States Department of Education has numerous roles and responsibilities
that must be upheld we have extremely concerned about the more than two billion in federal education funds currently awarded to Massachusetts to the United States Department of Education last year schools received more than 285 million in title one
grants alone the largest source of federal funds for K through 12 schools to educate students from lowincome families through title two Massachusetts received more than $30 million last year to support effective instruction like you're looking at there um including
innovation programs to enhance teacher performance title three grants uh enable our schools to educate a growing population of ling English learners and we currently have 14 English learners here at Westport um our communities rely heavily on funding through the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act including resources for early intervention and preschool programs as well as special education services for students through the age of 21 massachusetts continues to lead the way in career and technical education
offering innovative technical vocational programs to prepare our graduates for successful careers and again thanks in large part to the work of Laura Sharet Lisa Kaminsky uh Regina Mercer and I don't want to miss somebody but a whole bunch of other people uh I'll include Mr
toma in his work with these ZSpace compare we are offering vocational in a different way that I believe has allowed us to enroll more students than we've ever had before that or within my tenure i'll leave it at that most critical second we have outrage that school
districts were blindsided last week by Secretary M mcmahon's sudden decision to repeal the extensions that were granted to the spend federal pandemic relief funds under this reversal Massachusetts stands to lose nearly $106 million in
American Rescue Plan and elementary and secondary school emergency relief uh in some cases US DOE had approved the deadline to extend uh for the uh use of those funds now 20 school districts in
nearly every region of the state including the South Coast are scrambling to account for the potential loss of funds that have been spent or earmarked for pandemic uh recovery investments including tutoring and other academic supports mental health services and
facilities projects such as air quality improvement and security upgrades and this is real and the reason I'm saying it's real is because the so the schools in our area that have been impacted uh New Bethford is seeing a $15.6 million
clawback of their funds um Fair Haven is seeing $250,000 clawed back uh Greater Fall River Vocational School District to use the vernacular diamond is receiving a clawback of $115,000 um and fair like I said Fair
Haven was 250 uh New Bedford was uh 15.6 i want to point out that Westport if they were to try and claw back they'd be carving back 54 cents and that is an unbelievable credit
to the business office and the school committees past and present that saw the need to use this money and I want to make it abundantly clear not only was the money spent well but it was spent with the future in mind the next pandemic comes we don't have to buy 200
rabbits air purifiers because we have them sitting and ready to go in fact some of them are still keeping our classrooms uh safe we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on UV lighting in an effort to make sure that the common areas at both the MAC and the West had
more protections for the students and staff and I think it's played a role in the attendance of our students and our staff so you know I could go on that nauseium about this you read this stuff people don't think you're serious about it this is dead serious right now and we better keep an eye on the title one in
particular because that is we get hit on title one even at 25% again over $100,000 so it is it is a credit to the business office and sitting next to me i want to give a huge shout out to Michelle and her staff because what they did was absolutely amazing with that
ESSA funding and it should be recognized by this community on the great job that this school district and the business office did to ensure that those funds were used and used not only for the students of today but for the students of tomorrow as well and with that I yield
thank you thank you uh the only comment I'll make is that obviously we'll see what happens with the funding that we're currently receiving and then go from there i know this came up during the finance committee meeting when we were there um particularly on the formula grants that
we have um so we'll I guess see how that shakes up yes uh thank you so I I would just like to say that um that that that is a real issue i mean there's a number of them but the the funding of uh education both higher ed and our K
through 12 is is is a concern and there are ways of getting involved in order to advocate on behalf of of our students so you know look for those areas um if that's of interest to you because um
it's going to it has the potential to decimate our education and our um students moving forward thank you and Chair Jro they also in the Nav've talked about rural funding too so that is another area that we're going to have to keep an eye on because Westport does
receive uh rural aid so and uh through you Mr chair I do have one question of the the superintendent so you you mentioned I think it was 54 cents did I get that right that is correct so am I I assume there are no outstanding ESSER funds right now that have not been that
have not been spent or earmarked 54 I know I know New Bedford in particular that was earmarked for a new I think was it a health health center i know they did the kitchen they did a central kitchen as well i don't know if they completed it so yeah so I know that a
lot of a lot of the districts were were planning on projects and had been granted the extension so that that really is a testament to the business office absolutely for making sure that those got used well
every time but no we worked together as a team so I think working together with all the schools seeing what everybody's needs were and what the students needs were was really the focus we met we had plenty of meetings that we would make sure that we've covered all the buildings and what the needs of the
students were we spent right down from athletics all the way up so it was not just academic i mean even the beautiful sign outside the west was you know huge hugely important we could not have afford that without these these funds so all right um we will move to item C west
Westport Community Schools bill warrant dated 44205 $289,6156 um I reviewed it look through the voices i don't know if there's any comments from the committee that's for you all right moving to item E committee
leazison on reports we'll start with Mr thrasher reserving the superintendent for that agenda item i was just about to say Mr chair we'll wait till the next agenda item um I will mention although technically this one this one's your thunder but I'll steal it right quick the uh for with the long-term building committee uh there will be a community
meeting on the 10th which is next Thursday night uh it'll be at the old high school uh I believe it's going to be in the media center uh and this meeting will uh go over some of the proposals or I shouldn't say proposal but some of the ideas that are being uh
kicked around with uh RGB architects in as part of their of their uh review uh and uh feasibility study as to potentially uh using the the old high school building for something uh other other than uh what it's currently being
used for uh and I think that it it's going to be a very uh it's kind of going to be a collaborative approach uh very interested in community feedback and I I think they're going to set up stations with I different presentation like uh project boards in different sections of
the media center so uh looking forward to that again that's going to be uh Thursday the 10th at I believe it is going to be at 6:30 and if you'll give me one second I will be sure to sure that is correct but uh I'll get
back to you on the exact time but again it'll be Thursday night 10 thank you anything Lori not all year thank you i I do not have any updates uh nothing
besides um what I'm sure Chris will get to with the um superintendent or subcommittee all right um the only one I had is the audit committee will uh is is scheduling a meeting likely for uh the first week of May probably the 5th
um but we'll keep you posted when we get a date and uh keep you posted on what comes out of that meeting we had the audit report that was released um no material weaknesses were identified in it there were uh some items to watch that were consistent with uh some
previous years as well um that was all so we'll schedule a meeting in May and I'll update the committee after at that point all right we'll go to item F the superintendent search committee update mr thrasher I'll refer to you as the chair of that subcommittee all right thank you Mr chair so we have met
several times uh just the latest meeting was on Monday um I again thanks to everyone who is attending these meetings uh we do have interviews scheduled uh for next week um we have I believe we'll be interviewing five candidates uh and
we uh we are uh wanting to move forward with posting a superintendent uh uh survey to the community uh both the Westport schools committee or excuse me the Westport schools community as well as the town of
Westport at large um I I've passed around a uh a draft survey basically just uh have uh 20 different qualities uh and we're asking people to rank their top five also uh to identify what part of the community they they are in
whether they're parent teacher or or uh member of the community and also of course a uh uh place for some additional comments as well so the idea is it's going to be a Google form um and uh would like to post a link not just through school channels but also on the
on the town website as well so um we did discuss this on Monday uh it was I guess approved by the committee uh by by the subcommittee and uh if anybody has any anything they would like to to add or change about this please feel free so
looks great yeah I think it's great i think uh it's good that we're using this as a method to get community input i think that's important in the process um looking forward to you know the results and seeing how that plays out in the you
know in the interview process and how the committee's interpretation of it so looking forward to the community's involvement in that i you partly answer my question uh on how it's going to be disseminated so uh you said the town website so it it we're hoping to put a
link on town website as well as uh whether it's through an email newsletter or school the school website all the above perhaps um so yeah we're trying to get it uh disseminated far far and wide as quickly as possible um I also just want to give a a shout out to to
Michette here who who at first so you know came up with 20 qualities and at first I was thinking oh we'll just rank all 20 and then I I went back and forth and she she uh she assured me we'd get better with with a top five ranking and I think she is absolutely correct so good
job good call indeed so uh but no I'm uh I'm excited to get get the feedback and and we are like I said we're uh looking forward to the interviews next week and uh should uh we're we're still uh still I'd say close to the timeline that we're
looking at uh and certainly should be good by uh by the uh or the June deadline shall we say right so very good u thank you any questions comments from the committee on that all right um item G so I guess related
to that item there were some resignations from the search committee um so I would recommend that we fill those uh at this time what I would say is going forward I
think if there are vacancies I think that's unfortunately just we'll have to have the committee the way it's at because of the timelines and the way the interviews are scheduled so uh because it's only gone through the screening and not the interviews I think we should fill them uh you know at this meeting so
we can move forward with having a full committee going uh going through that interview process which I think is important um are the openings in those spots like are parent or whatever it's it's kind of everywhere okay yeah so I would uh my proposal to the
committee would be that we appoint uh Anne Hathaway uh Nancy Tavaris Rick Manis and Christopher Dunn to the committee to fill those vacancies and uh Mr chair I I say again uh just with the timing you know we we
like I said we we've had uh had some resignations um I think this is a tremendous uh undertaking as far as the time commitments so um certainly understand if it you know not working for with some uh but I I would also just like to reiterate uh we will not be
starting over with the process this is this is simply to fill these spots before the interview since we do have interviews coming up uh and our our goal is to meet uh on Thursday actually the meeting's already been posted we'll be meeting in executive session to get new new committee members up to speed so uh at this time Mr chair I will uh move
that those me or those individuals you mentioned be uh added to the uh superintendent search committee second was that a motion that is a motion okay so second motion has a main second is there any further discussion on this item i just like to say if if for some reason
they can't do it I think we just need to move ahead right that's absolutely okay yes yeah yeah and I would think that only because the interviews haven't been done yet i think is is why I'm you know certainly fulfilling them there anything further right hearing none uh all in
favor i I opposed that's that carries and we will move to item H out of school time pay rates uh benefits and job description uh Miss Jobs is here i will just note for the committee i will abstain from discussion
and vote on this because I have a relative that works at the program so I will abstain from this but jobs will present and then the committee is I will I can facilitate discussion but the committee is welcome to ask questions hello good afternoon um a few things on the the
table today so out of school time pay rates benefits and then job descriptions so um probably makes sense to go in job description order first i know you have a copy of each of those i do want to state these are not
these are all existing roles there's not a new position added no changes to the job descriptions as as well or the only change is the actual title okay
and that's based on EEC recommendation yes so these are all existing what were the titles before so as an example where you see assistant uh group leader the first one which is your high school student it was childcare
assistant um second one group leader was child yeah was childcare educator yes so when EEC comes to do their monitoring visits they kind of give you feedback on all sorts of things one of the things was to be more
consistent with what the EEC on in most sites has for their roles in out of school time programs so we just want to change the titles to be more in line with that and these are all part-time positions right this is because it's after school
yep i don't know if anybody has any discussion specifically on any of them any comments and you you I'm Lauren you're doing the program so you run it full-time and the kids are all so do you have a a lot
we've looked at these well it's probably not the roles it's probably after that you have a lot of kids doing the program I haven't Yes so we're at capacity right now right now we have 105 children is there a wait list at this time as well because I I saw a post saying I did put
a Yes so there's a wait list already for 2526 school year so the kids that are currently enrolled in the program get first priority after that I put it out to the community based on what I received in those numbers from preschool up to fourth grade I can't I've I'm at
capacity for morning and afterare a few slots in preschool and a few slots left in kindergarten but one through four are maxed out is this at close close to the 105 number or I mean I know this is for the next school year but what what's the number that you're looking at as being
capacity right now uh so right now I have 90 kids enrolled for this school year for this okay and I have 105 kids right now that being said what I think is going to come in through kindergarten and prek will probably bring me back up to the
105 understood yeah any further comments questions on the job descriptions mr chair I just I'll just mention I'll ask a question i know the answer to uh this this comes out revolving account revolving account not
the general budget i actually was just going to say that but yes um revolving account never out of the school budget and you come out of the school budget no I don't all the revolving yeah so myself the program coordinator and then any
staff underneath are um It's like your own little Yes uh supplies everything comes from there so if I may it also includes a little custodian I believe if I'm not mistaken and also some business office funding as well so really what she does what doesn't come out of that
department is really just overhead as far as heating electricity lawn maintenance you know things of that nature if you want to go oh any other questions no um so out of school time rates and
merit increases is the next one this it was easier for Kristen and I thank you Kristen for your help with this and Melissa who's not here but she helped a lot with this as well um I don't know if you remember we used to go by a step
process essentially everybody just moving up every year step one step two step three step four i think step four was the highest uh former school committee member at one point maybe a couple years ago uh kind of put into my ear that having a
merit-based increase or evaluation for an increase was kind of the way was a good structure to look at and I agree that that was how we should eventually do it um considering we're not part of a union and we have the ability to be flexible like that so these
are rates that we would like to well like to be effective as of July 1st and the first box are for new hires so that first box is new hires you'll see your assistant group leader group leader and then site coordinator/behavior support assistant 0
to one years 2 to four and then um five plus that would be anybody coming in on July 1st the middle box is a current staff on July 1 and then a merit increase
um Kristen this would that's right it would be July 1 2026 so this year would just go with the standard 2% 2% yes because we'll be introducing um a performance evaluation
system that will be tied to these merit increases which will be new for everyone we want to get through one full cycle of performance evaluations and then assigning increases based on performance in the job which is the bottom chart
so that's what's a little bit different is that you can see that the perform the um merit increase percentage is higher with a higher performance level but we didn't want to make that effective 7125 because this is a new system we want to
get through a whole evaluation cycle with everyone and then assign those merit increases based on their performance in that you have like a checklist or some something to say okay they did professional development they did all that stuff so the evaluation tool is being created right now and it's
all based off off of health and safety guidelines and requirements by EEC so when that evaluation tool is complete I can actually send it to Lori to send to the committee if you'd like to see that um not anymore but Oh yeah but if you do want to see if anyone
wants to see the tool that tool will then give a score and based on that score you'll see at the bottom the needs improvement meets or exceeds and that's where they would fall in line with their increase rather than just bumping people up every year on July 1st right i understand that but I you know I just
worry about you know somebody says they got a higher one because they like me better and I've seen that before on merit they they don't like me so they're not giving me a higher raise and it creates a problem with any of this you know people will just be with that so that's why I wonder like if okay you did
this you did this and this is showing you're exceeding that's why I was wondering about a checklist type thing so it's very cut and dry so in I don't have any wiggle room with the health and safety standards as an example if someone is continuously doing their checks their attendance checks it's I
spot check that so that's a very like cut and dry right so they either do it or they don't um I'm not necessarily worried about that because it's all spelled out for us from EEC so it's just here's what they need to do and then they're being scored
okay yes most of the categories they're tied to the EC standards they Yeah they all are they all are okay so through you Mr chair I do have a couple of questions um I I want to go back to the job descriptions for a second but I just want to check on the
uh Sure on on the the the built-in uh the merit increase schedule here okay so have you based on Well actually let me let me step back first question is the has the cost fluctuated as far as what
is charged either to the vouchers or to uh to the parents over the last few years has it gone up every year or so our rate our private rate increase our our private rate tuition went up last year okay per afternoon so it went from 25 to 30 this upcoming year there is no
increase okay uh to apparent what I've gotten as an increase from pace out of that $30 per afternoon I'm now getting $26 and say50 per child that has a voucher okay so realistically it's not
implementing this is not going to affect the capacity as far as or the bad I mean correct yep it's been gained out a little bit so that Yeah and you take a percentage right isn't that percentage of pace percentage of private or how how was your or did you take more kids at a
pace or I don't know how was how many kids would they come in class is there a No it's not even a percentage i just it's based on ratio so I know when I have a certain number of staff I can only have a certain number of kids uh if I had another staff member I would add
13 more kids but because I don't have that I have to cap it off yeah do you give the opportunity for staff to have any their children there because sometimes there's benefits to that like some place I know BC if you had a child on a summer program they would go free
and then they would do it that way to help you know give a break to um staff the incentive for a staff to have their children is 50% of the cost so a discount of 50% and that's both morning they can have their children morning there they can drop off as early as 7:00 they can
have their child there till 5:30 if they do afterare um I don't really have any staff that's ever utilized it for the summer because they're with their children um but morning is very I probably have eight teachers or so that are utilizing morning program um
and it's 50% so it's it's reduction savings so uh if I may I I just wanted to ask about the job descriptions did these come uh and through you Mr chair I'll ask Miss McDaniel did the did did you these come from recommended job
descriptions at all or this all can actually um a lot of the information correct yes so EEC will give me I'm assigned a monitor some essentially the person that licenses the program through her um
Nicole i asked her what is was the best route to go in order to get these job descriptions you're go they're very similar to the YMCA Boys and Girls Club um your standalone sites if they're licensed by EEC they're almost the exact
job description okay so the only concern I have and if this if other programs similar programs do the same then sure it's less of a concern um but I do see a couple of uh mentions on uh under classroom support talking about preparing materials and setting up
learning environments for activities uh lesson plans and curriculum implementation and my concern is that this program the out of school time program is is explicitly not instruction time it is not correct it is not in
instruction time however it is an EEC regulation that you have to have some sort of curriculum now it falls into their guidelines um not it's not academics but it's a play-based learning so when when staff begin at the out of
school time program they need to take a training from EEC it's got a about nine modules on it one of those is about planning planning curriculum play-based learning um because in fact when EC comes to for their unannounced visits
the one thing they do not want to see is children in seats and so we have art curriculum there we have music we have yoga those will are all encompassing of what the curriculum um would be understood okay well as I said my my concerns are are alleviated if if other
job descriptions and other programs are are similar and that it would make sense i just wanted to make sure that that distinction was No yeah it it's a definite expectation not on the high school student but as a group leader that they plan um plan something every
day doesn't have to be crazy you know go crazy but they definitely have to have something for the the kids to be planned every day in addition to the offering so in addition to the yoga the our physical activity obviously over there at the former high school we have that big gym um but they are absolutely expected to
plan something yes gotcha okay thank you you're welcome any other questions further than that um so um I'd like to make uh a motion to approve the pay rate/benefits and job
description for the OST program melissa I just have to go i just have to get to the benefits oh thought that was okay no that's okay second on that motion i'll second all right it's been second you can continue on okay okay we have it
last page discussion last page are the out of school time benefits so um if you look at the top so vacation there's one week in August that we close that um to parents we don't offer care so because the out of school time program runs from January through
December we at one point maybe probably a few years ago I'm not remembering when it was decided by the committee to give that last week the actually the week before school starts for the kids to the staff to have off so what we are
proposing is that um for anyone that's been in the program for one year in year two all the employees will get something that week so how we did it last year again asking for the the same this year as a this is a new benefit package that
we're kind of putting together here whatever they worked for hours in the past 6 months melissa goes back with payroll takes a six-month average and if they worked an average of 15 hours over the past six months they will get 15
hours of pay for that week we are closed and if somebody worked there are people that actually you know do have five and six hours a week on payroll um they just want to work a day or two then that's what they would get paid that week
and is what on here is different from last year right to the bottom uh the sick time just sick time okay so right now the employees get they don't get anything for sick time so um
we're requesting proposing that after one year well after one year in working at out of school time in year two only a position that would work 20 plus hours obviously minus myself the program coordinator um after one year getting 5
days after 5 10 after 10 um 15 should that occur right now it only affects two employees out of 22 employees so we're asking that they at least be able to get that benefit is there
anything comments questions from the committee i think just the only concern obviously with it being a um self- sustaining program in terms of um funding and what they take in is if
um we can encompass all this you know if if our staff members um in the program all say um you know gain the experience to get up to the you know to the top levels will it continue to be self- sustaining
so I can tell you that or are we sorry are we that's okay are we free to make our own decisions or increases um in um tuition costs to offset that or is there like an EEC mandate or
something like that there's not an EEC mandate [Music] um I really go based on what's around us and local tuition rates um knowing that
it's been self self- sustaining i mean I don't know what it was like before I started right i don't know where that number was but right now there's $30,000 in that account um even the cost to
the the monthly the added cost on a 2% for all employees is an additional $3,600 a year so I'm not concerned really about not being able to then give these increases if that is that kind of what
you're referring to yeah and just to check this is not contractual beyond a single year right this is approved every year uh or No we don't approve that every this every year we're bringing this now this is Okay so this is Yes okay so what
we did do what Melissa and I did was we actually took somebody at a pretty high like one of the higher rates right now and gave them as an example like a 2% 3% across for them to get to the highest level or step it would actually
take us out four years so maybe we'd be back here four years revisiting kind of the structure does that for existing staff for existing staff correct yes okay now how does your uh OST salary match uh
with the district union salaries in that same type of I can't speak to the union is that what you need that's what I'm asking yeah yeah no they're not equivalent these are um lesser i would I
would guess much less again I I don't know but I didn't bring the contract with me but yeah you're comparing it to a TA is significantly less okay um I was just thinking about the um
benefits those aren't accumulating right they're each year like five five days after year one and then they go away they're not accumulated correct um what was the thought process about because I don't I don't know that I typically
see well maybe but you know after one year they get 5 days after 5 year 10 days after 10 years 15 days um so each year they just go away at the end of the year and they restart yes i believe it was a use it or lose it type
of thing and so they'll usually use it and then you'll have like I would assume like specific do you know because it's different than almost like vacation so like when you think about vacation usually you know something like that is
increased because you know you've been somewhere longer then you get you know more the benefit of more vacation time but sick time while it is a benefit it's not like you can only take it if you're sick do you know what I'm saying like it's different than vacation time so
typically I would see that as vacation not sick so I was there a reason why it was done sick versus something else like personal or I don't No it was just kind of hearing staff over the past couple years say you
know when we need to be out sick we don't have the ability to ever get paid for our hours on some days so I kind of brought that to the table because they don't have benefits or you know they have Yeah they have that one week of the averaged out hours but over six month
six months yeah but we don't we don't have anything so really this is just like what we came up with something what you you sometimes and I'm not saying that this is here but what you sometimes find is if someone has 15
days they're going to use it because they're not going to lose it use it or lose it right so but that's why it's usually like sick or personal so um are you kind of referring to like a PTO like paid time off in like Yeah but at the same It all depends on what the goal of
that was if you you know if you're thinking well if someone is there quite a while and then they start getting sick yeah they should get the sick time okay then that makes sense but if the goal was to give a benefit of a couple of extra days and maybe um after five years rather than you know five um 10 sick
days maybe it's five sick days and five personal or something you know just a thought like I'm okay with approving it as is it's just as I started to think about it I'm like I don't know if that's the best way to go i think and I I see your point another way to look at it is
if you have a longerterm employee that has a disability for a period of time and you know then they've got at least 15 days they can do that with Can't they do that with FMLA well it's not paid though but this would be paid right okay
be able to substitute but you know it's different yep that's fine i just just throwing it out there that was a good point yes um particularly to us well yeah so one question I did want to check you mentioned you had employees that say only work five hours a week or
something maybe a couple hours a day or something uh so I just wanted to check when when you're when we talk about five days is that based on an hourly situation or is it just whatever you're scheduled for on that day how is that
spelled out uh correct so if someone the person that I'm thinking of let's say works a four hour shift over five days yes so she's only they're only going to get paid what they would actually work on
that day yes and keep in mind this is only for people that work 20 plus hours so out of 22 people it's going to affect two gotcha okay all right that's just my salute yes
good did the information discussion impact your motion at all no I don't think so i I would say that I mean this is the first year that you're you're putting it through i would say take a look at it if after that you think it should be something different then you know if you need to bring it back to the committee do that but that was just kind
of like a brainstorming thing that I was throwing out there and no I do appreciate that because we didn't I just Yeah it wasn't like that wasn't the thought at the time but yes I understand it yeah but yeah I'm still okay with with it going the way it would this be made like a one year a two-year contract to see it and look at it in two years
and see if it's it's going to be abused or not we we talked about that because we don't take sick days right so we don't take sick days certainly whatever the committee feels like if you want us to come back in a couple of years to do this it can be approved it can be
approved from July 125 to 27 to 27 yeah that way you can Well I won't be again but it would be a way to see is it working is it not is it abusive it's not like we've seen it when we take the attendance of every you know we get the monthly attendance and you'll see okay now we're getting to May oh everybody's
sick now mhm because it's and they'll be out in June so you want to you want to see if you get a year or two then you can say "Okay this is working great can we continue it?" And that way at least you can you'll have some kind of your data of what's working and what's not
yeah i know i think I mean it's easy to track for me because it's just those two people so that's but it's a good it's a good start yeah yeah so uh I'd like to modify my motion to um approve
uh to approve for a one-year time period also I'm going to have to separate it because everything can be approved except for the benefits right well you're saying for the problem is if you do it for a one-year process-wise you'd have this it would impact the
because it's kind of That's what I'm saying and so so um if I may I'm just wondering that program being a revolving account has even more significant eyes on it because obviously the fluctuation
of the in you know the money that is you know comes in and is allocated out uh typically if there was any type of issue that would require the school committee's uh attention I'm sure that Mrs shaves and her people would come to
the committee and say we may need to talk about this to modify something again I don't want to speak for her but I mean yeah um I'm trying to hope that would clear up your uh Well no I I agree but I think it I think it would make sense to put that one year for the for
the sick time benefit because then it's the committee saying that we've approved you've gotten that sick time uh uh yeah the benefit proposal approved for one year so you can also let the employees know that this is going to be a trial period for like a year and then
it because if it changes then they know it has that ability to change i mean it might not you might decide or for two years did you say one year i said two two the two gives it a little bit so um I'd like to withdraw my motion and make a new motion um I've never done this so I guess this is great that it's
happening today is this a trick this a camera rules um so I'd like to make a motion to approve the um merit schedule uh the pay and the job
descriptions for the OST program so it's going to be two motions that's the first one do you want to do it want to modify it or do you want to do it separate so I'm doing a whole new motion the first motion is to just approve the pay rate not the and the job descriptions without
the Okay yes i'll second motion has been made second is there any further discussion hearing none all in favor i have one obsession i'd like to make a second motion to approve the out of schooltime benefits for a period of two
years beginning on July 1st second okay motion is made second is there any further discussion hearing none all in favor i one absention thank you thank you thank you thank you all thank you welcome
thank you Michelle yes thank you um if since this is my LA I just want to say thank you for all that you've done for that program and for the people who work there it's an incredible benefit for our parents and our students that they have a place to go before and after school and in the summertime so thank you for
for everything okay moving to item I discussion of school choice for the 26 school year we have Mr aguar here Mr cat and Mr sheret join us thank you for joining us um this is a continuation of our discussion at the
last meeting [Music] um so we can if the committee has specific questions u we can direct them what I would what I would ask uh of the
building principles is their recommendations on these so I know that they're they're noted here um I know in the high school you're looking at just nine and 10 at that level um Mr agger if I if I
remember if I recall your what you said last time correctly you said there may be some capacity at the fourth grade level um but the other grades you wouldn't recommend correct and then Mr cat uh again if I recall correctly you said you wouldn't recommend for the Mac Umber correct okay all right is there
any questions for uh building principles i I do have a question for Mr aguar um so you mentioned that you think there is some room in the fourth grade is that is that 10 number what you would recommend
at this point or or at least I would say that we have six teachers in the fourth grade and five in the other so the 10 would be if you separated out amongst the six classes less than two students so class size-wise I think that's the
only place that we have uh room if there was the will of the committee to uh to add at our level i I think we still have some issues relative to I think we still have some issues in um in general with school choices is a risk
i it's you know I serve in forever river on the school committee it's a risk there as well you know the students that come in you can um sometimes you take students that are ready to rock it and sometimes you take students that are needy and you can't really differentiate it but that's where I feel like in in
the fourth grade if we want to do it and I think you have to vote on this every year so I think the 10 we could have the capacity at the west um so I I will make a proposal for the committee to discuss uh to agree on it but I'll make a
proposal that we um for this coming school year and again this is approved every year so this can be amended next year but I would recommend five in the fourth grade five in the ninth grade and five in the 10th grade would be my proposal to the
committee we don't have to agree on that someone else can propose something different that's fine whatever the uh the pleasure of the committee is that my on that through you Mr chair I would like to ask Miss Sheret um so I remember that you you
specifically talked about the the issues with students coming over in the later grades of fitting in with the requirements um do is um I know it says you're you're recommending no school choice for grade
11 um I is that have you have you encountered significant issues with this before what I'm wondering is could we do five for grade 11 or would that really So this is a very particularly large
sophomore class it's the biggest in history at almost 120 not history that's not the right word to say but like in recent history that's awesome so that was the main um issue because then it would really it like it's already a
large class this current senior class like is this current junior class is only 70 so that that gives you kind of a difference in why I suggested zero for the 11th grade gotcha yes we also want to be mindful of our class sizes and and keeping them um you know at doable
ratios okay thank you you're welcome um uh so uh when we last met I was really in favor of um having um school choice and then I think um I've had some conversations and then also with the
recent budget cuts while I do recognize that this is a way of of revenue for having students come in um I have to say that I'm really concerned with the revenue that's going to be coming um coming through from the Department of
Education and from the state and I'm just I'm really concerned with that and I think adding students unfortunately so I'm I'm doing a 360 here adding any students is is something that I I don't know that I necessarily want to do um I
think if you know the whole if the committee wants to do um you know five and fourth and ninth and tth um I would do that but I would almost be in favor of not doing any uh this year because of the significant
unknown and just the state of affairs that's happening right now it's yeah so that's my kind of five cents i would I I like the five 555 um just to see like I say you don't know what the waters are coming but that's a
doable number you know we've talked about it but um you don't know what it is so everything everything is like a chance so if you take more or less you don't know if you end up taking more and twothirds of them are special needs now you're in a bigger hole so staying with
a five five5 would be uh was it fourth ninth and tth i would agree with that one mr thresher I think I cut you off before no no no dr chico was was next i So I I um at this point I think it's important
to have some spots open in in especially at the high school level and I can understand simply based on the extra teacher I guess that we have in in the the fourth grade that that makes sense too so I I think at this time I am going to move Mr chair that we approve school
choice for five students in the 10th grade five students in the ninth grade and five students in the fourth grade for the next school year is there a second to that motion i'll second okay motion has been made and second is there any further discussion on this
um just a quick question um the current enrollment of the third grade right now that would be fourth grade next year do you know that off the top of your head is that right is this 116 that's the number I'm looking at here okay thank you and then then right the column all the way to the
right divides it by six where you go down to the 19 number gotcha thank you any further questions comments on this item all right miss Sheret no concern in the fifth grade with either number well you don't have a choice on on the lower
number but with the additional five in terms of your teaching we met uh I I did say that I think fifth and sixth grade if we were going to add school choice five would be appropriate at each of those levels um I'd rather get them young and help them acclimate to the the
Westport Middle High School way um but it's obviously the the decision of the committee on on those two grade levels thank you anything further from the committee all right motion was made and seconded uh all in favor I I say no no
okay that carries 32 thank you thank you Mr k Mr aar and Mr thank you um all right item J uh asks me of agreement uh so this is just a um we
have to announce after we approve a contract in executive session so there was MOA signed uh after calling our executive on March 18th with the ASME uh bargaining unit and it's for a position
that was previously here um and it's for a what was the exact title uh Kristen if you senior facilities and maintenance senior facilities and maintenance technician thank you um so the committee voted to approve that and we're announcing it today because it was approved in the
executive and with that we'll move to item K light speeded update mr toma and I will defer on this item to Miss Cabraw who re who u suggested this be added to the agenda so I'll I'll defer to her to Thanks good luck Tony
what a great introduction good luck uh so we've implemented the filtering piece that's been going on for um at least a week if not two weeks the filtering piece was part of the implementation the harder part was of
course adding the grades the classrooms the teachers the ability for the teachers to view the students in their classrooms um we hit a snag on uh yesterday uh it actually began Friday afternoon but we really uh worked with the company yesterday as well as today i
was on the tech support with them um we think we have that solved so that uh we're going to test uh a few teachers tomorrow to have their ability to be able to monitor their students live in their classroom um I only discovered it around 3:45 this afternoon so didn't
give me a lot of chance to to go talk to any any excuse me anyone else including in my office and is it just in all the schools some of the schools any of the schools ready because we're going to be it's all or none at at this moment the the same um app is deployed to everybody so it's
active right now it's just nobody knows it okay okay so we need to work with the teachers uh beginning tomorrow to test whether it is live and usable once we determine that then we will broadcast it to everybody that um you know some already have the instructions but then
we'll make it formal so they're not as of right now you're not SIPA compliant you will be as of right now we are filtering so that is the SIPA compliance okay and that has been working is it are you finding things or has it been good
so far it's been good um we've seen various small issues with uh websites but these issues are benign uh for example if they're going to a newspaper um it's not part of their curriculum but at the same time it's pretty benign in
terms of what they're going to see i haven't seen anything that is X-rated if if that's sort of the angle that you're looking at and who everybody's getting trained all the your teachers get trained on how to use this i'm learning it in Fall River so um there's a lot of
things I can't get into right so we me yes you want to come over and share the mic i have a chair right here for you so with the classroom management piece um we did training with the Westport
Elementary School staff uh last month on setting up their classroom looking at the dashboard and seeing what you know the different classes that they have scheduled like ELA math social studies science um and and what what has to happen is the extension has to be added
to each Chromebook so that the Chromebooks can communicate with the teacher computer and the teacher can see what's happening um but they do have we every we have a Google classroom for professional development and all of the um on demand modules the asynchronous
modules are loaded onto that classroom so every teacher in the district has access to that training we have specifically trained student um teachers at the west they're eager to get on and once we get that the bugs worked out on that we'll do trainings at the other
schools um but yeah so we're starting with the west staff everybody can use it and I'm certainly willing to go work with individual teachers at the middle high school that want to get going with it um but we will do a schoolwide training later in the year before the end of the year so they understand how
to do it before we come back in the fall so uh through you Mr chair Mr um I am curious if there is you mentioned it that the extension has to be added to each Chromebook is that correct yeah but it gets deploy deployed in an IT kind of
way it's not like every Chromebook has to get collected in Okay that's my question so it's just Okay good mr pushed that order out to every Chromebook this afternoon and we're hoping that for for some we've done it a couple times but for some reason the their Chromebooks aren't receiving it so
we worked with tech today and we're hoping tomorrow when teachers log on it will be active gotcha is that is that the particular snag that you were referring to okay okay gotcha and your IT staff is all getting trained to do that too because I know they're doing stuff with that they're the IT staff is
actually as neck deep as I am in it we're all collaborating collaborating together they're gathering Chromebooks and doing the testing as well as mine on the call mr aguia how was it working with the training was that okay you have to come up to the speaker are you trying to throw me under the bus no no no i'm
just I'm going out i would say that uh our staff is eager to use it as I mentioned at the uh prior meetings uh on March 3rd was our staff meeting where the staff was trained miss Kaminsky had a PowerPoint like she said
the Google Google classroom for PD was up on the board so the people got trained the timing they were a little frustrated because of the snags technically and uh that's really what people are but they're jumping at the bit ready to go in the classroom and when you just can't see the students so on their site you'll see that like if
all of us were here they can see the names but they don't actually see the live computer so that's the snag that we've been trying to go through over the past month it's almost a month now but I would say the light's at the end of the tunnel and they are going to be ready uh people are very much interested in it
they were excited about uh the um GoG Guardian before and they're ready to to go they want to help they want to look at things and it's going to just help them to know what the kids are on but also be able to see the um what they're doing at any given time and I've assured
uh them that we're going to be watching to make sure that they're not on computers all day which they're not uh there's targeted instruction and then they're not going to be on computers all day so there's really just those windows of opportunity for instruction so great we're ready and hopefully from what I
hear right now tomorrow is the day so awesome thank you thank you uh is there a is there a timeline in theory get the bug worked out implement it at the elementary school first is there a timeline as far as the rest of the
district goes uh to have it active and being used by teachers in the same same setting through the chair that was my question as well so thank you through the chair i just want to point out that this would normally be rolled out during the summertime you wouldn't be rolling this out during the school year
especially in light of the fact that right now the uh tech department is short one person so you know they're doing what I would consider to be uh as far as professional development from uh Mrs kaminsky and uh the IT people I think they're doing uh uh the best they
can under the uh pretty crushing circumstances that they're dealing with right now yes um basically tomorrow if everything goes well I'll meet with Miss Aguar Mr aguar um and Miss Kaminsky and then we'll talk
about that roll out if it isn't already capable of being rolled out from there it it's my understanding that uh the middle and and high school would certainly need to be phased in but we would need to meet um with Laura about that to see how that would go
i'm under the understanding that she's ready to go as as soon as possible as well and we would be as well okay so So all all everything going correctly in theory within the next few weeks you it should
be rolled out districtwide in all classrooms okay all right good deal yep in a perfect world there could be a week but I don't want to you know rubber stamp it as a bet understood but yes we could do exactly all right six years
within reason any further comments questions from the committee on this all right thank you very much Mr tom for the update thank you Mr chair for recommending that item i I would Mr chair just like to have this on the agenda for the next meeting
as well if possible just to see how it updates to see how how it's going yeah that'd be great thank you all right uh moving on to item L discussion of competency determination we have Miss Sharet here Miss Kaminsky here as well um to speak on this sure
thank you so since 2003 in order to get a Westport High School diploma um there needed to be two um requirements that were met the first is that you had to um earn a proficiency
score on the MCCAST and you had to meet the graduation requirements um which are have always been approved by the school committee with November's vote um the MCCAST is no longer uh passing the MCCAST is no longer a requirement to
receive a high school diploma so now we have to determine our local competency determination what what what does a student have to do to earn a diploma so of course we are still going to maintain that they need to meet the graduation
requirements of our program of studies which is approved by the committee and they will continue to have to sit for the MCCAST because we do receive fund like state funding everybody has to take the MCCAST we had our first um we kicked off testing season last week and I was
so proud of how hard our students worked on MCCAST despite the fact that you know people were saying oh it doesn't matter anymore they they worked harder this year than I think I've seen in in a while so I was super super proud of them still eligible for their the John
Absolutely there's still the uh you could still be eligible for the John um Adam Abigail Adams scholarship yes so what we're looking for tonight is for the committee to um approve um the competency determination for this year which would be fulfillment of our
program of studies and then for um following years we would come back to the table um with with plans that include um for for our special ed students but for this year it would just be approving um the current program of studies as as what would earn them a
diploma and then if that's um approved we can actually go back to any graduate who didn't receive a diploma since 2003 i've actually already had two people reach out to me seeking their their diploma if I may uh Mr chair uh obviously the
state is still working on what they're going to do going forward that was my that was my next comment that's that's I appreciate the proposal because I think in lack in in lie of detailed guidance from the state on this which I don't think has tackled this in a in my
opinion in a sufficient way uh so far given the vote um and I have concerns too about now the removal of the requirement and what that means for you know it's sort of disincentivizing students to perform well on that so it's a difficult way to assess that's my
concern with the vote which is beyond the control of this committee but just as a side note but I would say that um I think that when we review our program of studies we always have conversations on like last year for example it was the it was the uh senior project um among other things so I know
that we always you know discuss this in in detail and have conversations about this every year so I think this is a a good way to go especially in lie of more detailed guidance that says you know uh without MCCAST districts have to impose
another assessment system or their own uh so I think in absence of that this is probably the the way to go for this school year and uh Mr here um I will also point out to our community that uh they are concerned about making sure that accountability uh exists at Westport Community Schools and I think
uh Principal Sheret uh and her team have done an amazing job but she will inform even great in greater detail uh how Westport is holding students accountable so so Mass Core is the set of standards
that Massachusetts suggests that um that schools are having we meet mass core in all but one area which is a second unit of a world language at present we only require one unit it should be noted though that because we are going to be
offering innovation career pathway courses those students are going to have to complete mass core in order to um get that designation at the end of their four years so it's 90 credits to graduate that's what I'm counting right am I wrong you need a h you need so you
need 120 credits to graduate right but 90 of them are required okay then you can take all the other stuff 30 elective credit okay that's what I didn't see down there i'm like wait a minute i'm and through you Mr chair there there is no change in this schedule if you this
or there is this year or so just from two weeks ago when the committee approved to get rid of the technology requirement but we kept in there the 20 hours of community service the the one question that I had also based on our discussion last meeting was on the
business personal finance requirement yes um have you all ever considered just having any business class potentially meeting that requirement as opposed to just the personal finance or is that has that
ever been discussed just out of curiosity or is it Well I think because of the limitation with staff within that department but because the committee approved the addition of a a business teacher for next school year we'll have much more um wiggle room to offer additional
courses so I think we could then bring that back to the table that um it could potentially be personal finance or another business course we are if I may Mr chair we are looking very heavily at financial literacy digital literacy and we're trying you know and thanks to uh
Mrs kaminsky we're trying to embed that into many of the courses not just because quite frankly a lot of the curricula aligns nicely with these um these these courses for lack of a better term so on the uh the language
piece if if the two isn't reflected here but is in the innovation pathway designation does does it still have to be reflected on paper in the graduation requirements for it to be considered compliant for lack of a better term with
mass core or is that a separate no because the majority of our students actually end up graduating with math core requirements because they're taking that additional year of a world language because they're college bound most colleges require two or more years of a
consecutive world language and we can also be creative in what denotes a world language so for example American Sign Language um can denote a world language there are some schools that actually use coding and specific computer science
classes as a world language um requirement the mass core definition just says it has to be two units of the same world language so you couldn't take Spanish one and then Portuguese one you have to take like ASL one ASL 2 if I may
Mr chair vocational schools typically technical drawing would be considered a a language um a substitute for that i would say that going forward uh long after I'm gone uh I think one of the considerations that certainly Mrs sharet as principal of the school is going to have to consider is uh and the college
is going to have to consider is to what degree is that is it makes sense for students in today's day and age to continue to take two years of a language there's some that would argue that with the uh advent of AI uh and the uh translatable uh services that are available so again I'm just saying that
this is something that the committee uh probably should look at on a regular basis because things are moving very quickly questions comments from the committee is it typical to not list the additional 30 elective um credits here so it it the
link for the program of studies it would because it's two pages so just for like the the one pager we just cut it down to to the actual required courses but if we bring the competency determination along with the program of studies that would include the credit
set exactly and I'll be bringing forward by the end of the school year the program of studies for your approval for next school year because we'll be adding the addition of the ICP courses and some new electives including the business electives great
mr mr chair is this an action item to also on an action item this is action item E would it be in order to take this out take it out of order and uh just move appropriate yes i will uh I believe I will move to approve this uh
competency determination criteria at this time i'll second okay motion made second is there any further discussion hearing none all in favor i that's unanimous thank you very much may I say one thing if anybody would like to join us on Friday at 100 p.m uh bear with me
i want to make sure I have the correct time it is 1 p.m we will be giving a diploma now that you've approved this to a student who um got a certificate of attendance previously from the class of 2024 so I think that's so awesome and then I
will be reaching out to offer this same to um the other student who reached out to me from the class of 2005 nice thank you you're welcome that Laura where will that be done um probably in the guidance office the career center maybe before I before I
forget too quickly on this item I know Miss Miranda isn't here maybe we can save it for then but I know there was some preliminary discussion on what that would look like there so I know there was talk of portfolio maybe some other iteration of that based on what other
districts have seen success with is there any just the plan is to start meeting very soon to kind of flush that out for you and bring something back to the table for you very soon great yeah and if Miss Miranda could have been here tonight she would have been absolutely thank you
thank you Lisa thank you all right so we will move to our action agenda the remaining items on our action agenda item A review and act on school committee meeting minutes of Tuesday March 18th 2025 so moved second motion made second is there any discussion
hearing none all in favor i I unanimous item B acknowledgement of the following 3,600 Westport Education Foundation grant for math camp $4,780 Westport Education Foundation grant leap summer enrichment program
$1,500 WE and assault systems STEM kits $750 donation from Bay Coast Bank for 2025 senior dinner i'll make a motion to accept all the grants second motion made and seconded is there any further discussion
just a thank you as always absolutely yes we rely heavily on uh the support of um the generous organizations that provide grants to support our programming here and provide services to our students so I'm going to always
recognize that thank you uh all in favor i oppose that's unanimous and that um completes our action agenda um routine matters correspondences and notices uh I have none uh other than to
note that our next meeting um we have the town election happening next Tuesday April 8th uh there's more information on the town website on that um for folks who are who go out and vote in town I would encourage participation in the
town election uh I think it's important that our voices are heard so that's happening next Tuesday following that meeting um we will have two new school committee members and we'll have a reorganization meeting um following that election on Tuesday April 15th um at our
normal time in the auditorium topics chair cannot reasonably anticipate 48 hours in advance of the meeting i have none uh other than before we adjourn to once again thank our two school committee members Dr kico and uh Miss Cabraw for your service and commitment to the
committee mr chair should we encourage them to open up their uh gifts we we could post a German if or now whatever the committee is going to thank you for the box if you have a chocolate one misha's upset about that i
just want you to know I don't want to roll over on her but No I don't mind no great difference maker that's really sweet thank you someone who can make a someone who can make a big difference in the world with
just a few words or actions an enthusiastic person who is dedicated to improving the lives of others and has the power to inspire and rally others to bring about positive change thank you thank you this is beautiful perfect
thank you thank you love it all right entertain a motion to adjurnn uh so moved no you say it i'd like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting a second
second any discussion you're not none all in favor hi reading