States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all this meeting is being live streamed by chelor tele media and posted to the Cher Public Schools website for interested community members to access and watch inperson public participation will be taking place tonight in accordance with the chelsford school committee public participation guidelines anyone speaking tonight during the public input portion of this meeting has notified the superintendent's office of their desire to speak and has been provided with these guidelines upon request written comments received no later than 12:00 p.m. on the day of this meeting will also be read and made a part of the record of the meeting during the second public comment session are there any members of the press here tonight all right welcome to tonight's meeting our first order of business is to approve our minutes I make a motion to approve the minutes from our meeting on February 27th second okay any questions or concerns all those in favor I 5 Z all right um next up we have our chord uh High School Representatives welcome back it's great to see you I'll D and hear about the L [Music] out the Y2K cultural event the Y2K cultural event hosted by the black student union happened on Saturday March 9th and was a huge hit for chanceford high school students chanceford High School is also engaging in its re accreditation process as identified by Nas which is the New England Association of schools and colleges they have been touring the school stopping into classrooms and meeting with students to learn more about CHS and also the CHS Wellness Fair took place on March 6th and students in grades 9th through 12th took time out of their day to visit numerous stations to have their blood pressure checked learn the proper CPR technique sample food and tea take a turn in an impaired driving simulator hang out with therapy dogs and much more also on March 6 the junior class had their career exploration breakfast put together by Miss Cunningham students got to meet two professionals from careers that interested them all while being able to indulge in a complimentary breakfast I got to meet with two engineers and it definitely was a great experience and opportunity getting to dis discuss and ask questions about their and this week is our house Olympics each of the three houses Emerson Hawthorne and whiter compete against each other by participating in spirit days and events the winning house gets a trophy and obviously bragging rights yesterday was our house colors day so the colors is red blue and green and an art competition where students can submit a logo and a slogan that they feel represent CHS the winner will have the opportunity to design one of our lovely walls at school there was also a dodgeball tournament after school and our winning team came from the class of 201 25 my class and today was luau day and an Eco cleanup took place during our pride BL and after school today was a disc golf tournament and in case you're wondering what I wore I wore lat to school today and tomorrow's theme is cultural day and during plus block there will be a robots race competition and the students versus teacher hockey tournament at The Forum if you'd like to watch it's $2 entry fee and Thursday will be pajan day with family food taking place during the school day and during lunch there will be karaoke and Just Dance after school our grade versus grade basketball tournament with the winning team playing the teachers and last week Friday will be our gold Spirit day with student performances during lunch and next week class elections will be taking place so junior class representative speeches will take place on Monday and Tuesday with an election on Wednesday and Thursday for any potential runoffs and on April 2nd the student council will be running their annual leadership conference with adults representing the law medical financial literacy college and business panel Fields this event takes on a half day so students will have the opportunity to have a catered breakfast and attend three panels of their choice and have the chance to hear ask and learn a tremendous amount from leaders in the various Fields great thank you I have a question so normally you have a spirit week during uh like around Thanksgiving um yeah that's during like our pep rally so we have a bunch of spirit weeks actually oh really nice I like that a lot and it sounds like it's a lot of spirit there's a lot of spirit um actually I will say that when uh we uh had a chance to meet with two of the people from the um Nas committee um they talked about um the student Pride um they were very impressed with the number of students at the high school who really exhibited you know Pride for their school and their community and their involvement in a variety of activities and um whether it be clubs or sports or whatever so they were very impressed with our student body yeah great thank you both all right I'm going to turn it over to you for any good news um good news so um like you're speaking about our ask committee is at chelwood high school this is the accreditation committee that is going through and meeting with teachers small groups groups of um administrators uh visiting the classroom so that seems to be going very well with all the spirit that's happening at chood high school so I'm sure they're enjoying the excitement that's there um last weekend um Dr Lang and myself got to see Annie kits that was by Parker Middle School didn't see all the performances but we heard they were all amazing the one we were at was exciting and they did the kids did a great job um very well attended couldn't even get a seat if you didn't get your tickets ahead of time so that was great to see and that's what we have for good news great thank you oh you have good news too I do go you go first after you okay I we all have good news great um last week I participated in community reading I went to two classes at Center School and one at Harrington and I really enjoyed doing it I've done it before as a retired teacher coming back but this time was the first time I was able to do it as an elected official so I talked to my the kids about my you know continuing interest in the schools um kids were great I well behaved I really enjoyed doing it I did as part of when I finished up ask all the kids if they had any comments or questions about what I did with the school committee and I did have one third grader who asked if they could have after school activities at the elementary school so I just told her I would pass that on but I mean it was great I enjoyed it and I really say thank you to the parents or the people run that and keep it going because it's really a nice event I did get bumped out of one of my spots because um officer Azie could only come the time I'd signed up for so I had to switch my days but I did that for officer Aussie nice nice it's really a choice I don't yeah um I just wanted to quickly say this is actually a buim relevant update too so um uh I don't know if any of you had seen the announcement that the sidewalk project uh for Maple Road going all the way to Westford um in South ch is is going to is at least went to the senate for approval so it's a $350,000 project to extend sidewalks all the way from the Westford border into um all the way to the biome so it's going to get all the way to the front door so we might actually have some kids that don't have to pay for the bus they can walk finally so I'm super excited for that but uh that should happen hopefully someday soon we'll just get on P about it that's my only good news though thank you so I did participate as well in community reading love doing that every year and I went to botel to uh Center and to Harrington uh both were great great than I love it it always rejuvenates me the um second thing is because you mentioned the wellness Fair uh and I'm the person who goes to the wellness committee meetings I just wanted everybody to know that this year was especially challenging because it was harder to get folks to participate from the community and so I want to especially thank the members who did so much work for this Hannah Barker set all through the wellness Fair as the greeter for our committee and she is a parent liaison if any parent out there is interested in the wellness committee reach out please do because uh it really is an incredible committee that only meets four times a year the folks in the Katie Sims and Stephanie Quinn were absolutely amazing as the leaders of the committee again and uh we cannot thank Peg enough Peggy aump uh because it was part of her Grant and her very hard work that we had the folks who did participate and then finally a shout out to Nancy and tanelli she W and her staff fed all of the people who did participate from the community all right it was yummy I attended as a one of the other vendors the food was good yes very good she did a really excellent job so thank you to everybody there it was hard this year thank you Dennis anything good okay that's a lot all right anybody else all right thank you all right so we don't have anybody registered for our first public input session we do not okay so moving on to new business great so the we have a couple of presentations tonight I'm really looking forward to um to hearing um first we're going to hear from the Bome elementary school so I'd love to invite um principal Jason foret and Betsy Dolan the assistant principal up um to talk a little bit about biome some of the work that's taking place um this year at the school um this again continues our series of having each of the schools in for our um meeting each month to talk a little bit about impr practice what's happening in their building so Jason and Betsy welcome and thanks for joining us and I'll turn it over to you thank you much for having us um you know there's always a discussion about what we're going to do with this right and we um go back and forth and people throw at ideas our school council our team leaders all very helpful uh one thing that we thought would be really important to talk about this year was the implementation of um reveal math program sure Dr banovan came with a riveting and dynamic presentation but we'd like to breathe a little life into that and show you uh some of that work in the classroom this year so um we will uh kind of have a little hopefully a little interactive piece for you too um with any good uh presentation we really want to ground this in the work that we're doing from our strategic plan um and through our strategic plan it have been identified especially K to8 that we're identifying um kind of outcomes for students with in mathematics and one of the big initiatives in that is the implementation of uh reveal math and the uh reveal math program was um one of our final two that we piloted uh piloted last year several teachers across the grade levels K to five um took a program and put it through its Paces with their students and um the reveal math program was really the odds on favorite and did have um really a high preference towards that program uh hopefully you'll see a little bit about what we show you and why that's the case and and how we've seen the impact happening with the um reveal math program I think it is built on all those great pieces of research that we like to see but there were some things that really stood out to us during this um not just the pilot process but the implementation of it too is that um it really does go beyond kind of just the rot math skills get really lays Good Foundations for what that application looks like in real life um I think it's also what we really liked is that it has um a lot of different components that um really woven through throughout the the all the grade levels and that it really um strives to have um students come out with a mathematician mindset and I think that's really important um it's the first really kind of program in mathematics that I've seen that really takes um you know a really kind of good looking and effort to implement a lot of social emotional learning into it around um you know whether it be anxiety around math Taking Chances um having an opportunity to um kind of change your mindset about being a matician and I most of us who teach elementary or had taught Elementary got into that for one reason we couldn't do math Beyond fifth grade so I follow to this group as well um as I look at that so there are many wonderful things about reveal map but we're going to focus on three main components um them being be curious and the numbers routines and ignite and I'll mention uh go a little further into each one of these in the next slides so the be curious is the teachers are fostering students thinking through meaningful discussions and different types of um curiosity and being curious at their math mindset um those are these four notice and wonderings which doesn't belong is it always true and numberless word problems and you'll see um some examples of this in some of our clips that we have that we'll show you tonight uh then on a number of routines um going through uh these are such things as uh having students estimate with about how much breaking apart and decomposing you'll should see a little bit of that in one of our Clips as well finding patterns and make making patterns math patterns mystery numbers um having students do their real math reasoning skills um doing the which Benchmark is it it closest to which is students really working on those estimation and estimating and rounding um and then the would you rather and enhancing their math thinking and really those math Mental Math um skills and then lastly our ignite is really thatal Hands-On um portion of the reveal math program which is wonderful it's uh really students Taking Chances with knowing that they um won't be wrong and really um encouraging their participation in the classroom so it's cultivating curiosity accepting math challenges engaging with trial and error in their math work embracing failure you know giving things a try no matter um if they think it's something that they may not know the answer to working together in groups and in um Partnerships with their peers and then the last portion is that just play which is an exploratory part of the math program now as we take you into these classrooms as evaluators or observers of classrooms there's certain look fors that we want to be aware of when we go in so we're going to put these on you now so there is a quiz after so make sure that we're really attentive during this um so what we'd like you to look for um in these clips is the math dialogue that's going on um and you're going to see clips from um that are going to span you're going to see a second grade clip a third grade clip you'll see two fourth grade classrooms and you'll see a kindergarten classroom so you really going to see um you know kind of the scope of our grade level and you'll see also some teachers talking about um about what they have witnessed with this program also want you to notice the commonalities about between the grades and this is a real strength of the program I think and and when we're doing things these students these routines that you have they are the same exact routines that happen um from kindergarten through fifth grade so the obviously the complexity of the material changes but the kids as they begin in um as early as kindergarten are doing all these same routines and it falls into all those C categories that Betsy was just listening so when um you know there's a math Center game it's always the same five games but the kids will play those same five games certainly had a varying complexity of it so that's important to look for and also engagement you here some teachers talk about engagement but um look at the kind of Hands-On pieces that you might see also want you to look for kind of that um kind of maybe table talk between students or other things that um you see um some Active Learning um not as much teacher talk and a lot of student discussion in this program which I think we really value can I work with a friend maybe move on to our school kids how are they the same how are they different you can share either remember I want you thinking of math questions Ariana go ahead um they're different because one the top rer shows inches and bottom one shows C here's something new nice job pointing that out the top one is an inch ruler which we've been practicing a lot Ariana noticed that the bottom this is a cenim ruler what's bigger inches or centimet inches are larger than centim so we've been talking about if it's larger you don't need as many of them if it's smaller you're going to need more Addie R what else um on the top um it only goes to the to yes add's noticing on the inch ruler it goes from 0 to 12 on the centimeter ruler it goes from0 to 30 excellent Ryan what else um they the same they're measuring the same on different rul yes they are measuring the same object that's important if we're comparing what it is with inches and centimeters it's the same object good Connor what else um I noticed that C okay so Conor's trying to figure out how many cm would equal 1 in it looks like about 3 cm equals that we know all different tools and we're now talking about centimeters let's see what they show us what tool can you use to measure the length of a pen so think of a pen about this big would a yard stick make sense for this no no rvy what do you think um or if you didn't have a r probably paper CS or something yeah I like how rvy chose a non-standard unit like a paper clip because he knows this marker or a pen isn't very big so you chose a paper clip that would be small I I'm here with Lissa weeks who was a second grade teacher and she had a few thoughts to share about reveal math so my class has really been enjoying reveal math this year um Mr fet just got to watch us do our be curious I've noticed that my students love this part they're so engaged they're all raising their hands they want to share I've noticed um since the beginning of the year that their conversations have become more advanced you know in the early months they were sharing about colors and things like that we're really having these deep math conversations I'm always so impressed with the things they're coming up with I'm even noticing some students who might not normally share are participating it's really engaging for them one of my favorite parts of it is when someone will hit on something that's going to be in the lesson that day they just impress me and it's one of my favorite parts of reveal absolutely all right and now our be curious all right so our VI curious today says is it always true any whole number can be represented with a fraction so I want you to show me a thumbs up or a thumbs down or a thumbs in the middle if you're unsure so I want everyone either put their thumbs up thumbs in the middle or thumbs down can any whole number be represented with a fraction so I'm thinking in my head what is a whole number what is a fraction can that be written as a fraction and I'm going to call on some volunteers to he your thinking what are you thinking Violet has to be even okay thank you for sharing your thoughts Patrick okay an number has to be spit into equal parts I love that you're thinking um about our previous lessons Eli any fraction can be a whole number if the numerator and denominator are the same awesome I see some myre signs thank you for sharing anyone else so we're thinking of a whole number any whole number number so any whole number could be the number two or the number 102 can both of those numbers be written as a fraction awesome and that kind of ties into our lesson today so what Eli mentioned was our lesson from yesterday or from last week um where we talked about how when the numerator and denominator are the same like this so we have four fours that equals one hole but what about when you have four holes so you have I'm here with Miss Malcolm who you just observed in a third grade classroom uh Courtney can you tell us a little bit about um we saw in your um lesson we saw the end of a um number routine and also then a be curious routine can you talk about how those have progressed over the year with your students absolutely so when we first started especially with the B Cur gu um I've noticed that the responses would be a little bit more like superficial like they would notice the color or just how many of the objects there would be um but as we've progressed I've noticed that they're applying like previous mathematical skills that we've learned they haven't seen before and they're starting to tie it into what the lesson might be so they're starting to think of um just the different mathematical practices that we use so they're they're using a lot of like um the critical thinking skills that we want them to see and they're great at this point and how would you see that differs a little bit from our previous program you did teach with the math expressions the math expressions I would say didn't um offer a lot of time in the curriculum or the pacing for us to kind of have these questions and have these conversations with the students and I've noticed especially the students that tend to struggle with math are the ones that will raise their hand for the be curious so it's really nice to hear um their higher level of thinking because they're not ones that will typically raise their hand often in a typical math lesson and free ways we should H yep you guys have some great ideas great number great number awesome okay mathematicians I am going to go now and turn and learn it's G to go off any second you're going to turn and learn this is not a real alarm this is a timer sounds like an alarm to your math partner and [Music] share okay let's go minutes [Music] okay okay y let's see wait I thought decompose seven T wow is she correct did anyone solve it differently and would like to come up to the board what we're just going to take a minute we're just going to look about it at it and we're going to think about it very interesting all right I'm going to replay it one more time so let's think about this about math and how it can relate to this the Curious task oh I like how I can see aby's thinking already okay that was a minute these are this is what I want you to think about okay how how would you describe each pattern Block in the representation how would you describe each pattern Block in this representation and do you notice any relationships okay so how are how are they the same how are they different two minutes share with your partner one un so if we suppose that the value of the hexagon is one unit the value of the other shapes um their size we're going to think about their size compared to this hexagon compared to the one unit so how about everybody takes out a red trapezoid and I want you to place the red troid on top of your yellow hexagon and I want you to what fraction that represents and you can raise your hand instead of calling out raise your hand when you have the answer okay so the red trapezoid is worth half of a unit now let's do the same thing with the blue rhombus put it on top of the yellow hexagon you can take the red trapezoid off no that's not what I'm asking my friend put it on right on top of your right on top buddy there you go right on top of the yellow hexagon what fraction does that represent Cory okay so the blue rhombus represents 13 of a unit and then the last one you're going to get everybody is the green triangle triangle you got it throw it on top of the hexagon what fraction does this green triangle represent [Music] so that's shapes and you might use more but remember are all of those shapes wor one or some of them less so that's and two right thank you Miss Jackson so if you could just share a little bit about what you've noticed about the reveal math here in fourth grade yeah I today we worked on the ignite um for Unit 10 and I just feel that the ignite does a really nice job introducing the concepts of the lessons that follow and in particular something like this does a really nice job um of marrying the strategy with the use of man manipulative so that all my students regardless of their skills level in math get some really nice hands-on experience great thank you she said if we break apart two and three then if we put them back together it will make five okay anything else that anybody notices about this or wonders about this picture what do you notice ma um if you take away um four and you break apart the one off it then if you combine them together then it would equal five yes yes yep mhm okay anybody else the breaking the part number there's space between everything and so when you break it up it's easy to tell that they're they're broken up because and when you have when you have it breaking up they in different and then one and then when you put it back together ital 10 because you take them apart okay yep this picture has five but yeah we did 10 just a few minutes ago um so we really want to thank our teachers a couple highlights before we go back to your part and when we ask you all the things you observed um is uh these aren't we're not unveiling here at dog and pony show we really threw it out and just said we're going to be coming through in videoing we didn't say we're coming in at this time I want to see this make it look good um and that's we really wanted it to to feel genuine because it is this is what we do see on a daily basis when we go through classrooms um so I did want to highlight that one other the thing I wanted to highlight too and around the engagement part you noticed a lot of this platform is very different than what we had right this platform is certainly very um online based and one of the things that I know teachers really appreciate they do have all these routines but teachers can really have some um you know kind of some say on how they present that it allows you all these lessons come in a slide deck so you can actually move these different portions of the lesson some people say I want to do that ignite first some people like to start with to be curious but they can kind of um from lesson to lesson and even you know from classroom to classroom um customize that a bit and I think that's been a real strength of it too they do like having that kind of customization of it um bet anything you wanted to add on kind of your no I think Y no I think that that that um we tried to encapsulate through different ages as you saw we ended with kindergarten sort of those youngest math Minds um uh sort of what we see throughout the the weeks and um this is a replicated in other you know all of our other elementary schools with this this reveal math K to 5 which is great y can I just make a comment that um I learned about 30% of the things that I didn't know so those kids not to say that a fourth grad is smarter than me but I definitely learned a bunch of stuff in that section so very good very different than we learned M no it's definitely different than we learned math but the concrete I would have been a fourth grade math teacher that's what I think I'm saying here not g higher than that just as we as we look back we wanted you and and just teasing unless you have do want to comment on this some of the things when you go back um and look at the math dialogue hopefully you saw some rich dialogue and heard teachers talk about how that's progressed throughout the year very true right you hear these I'm noticing and and and using kind of math terminology um the commonalities between the grades you saw those be curious in different grade levels you know certainly much more you hear fourth and you're like wow am I what am I thinking here you're right I do have to pay attention but even our kindergarten is talking about breaking apart and decomposing numbers like they were doing that in the other grades um and then the engagement I think we've found this proog this program to be engaging hopefully you could see that in the kind of different presentations that were different styles um there are certainly Mass stations and things that are also a part of this um there are also online pieces where we can do our assessments online to this as well but also can still use um traditional paper and pencil tasks too so um it really is I think you know we're we're doing the hard work of implementing in year one but we've been very pleased and I think we're going to hopefully reap some real benefits as this progresses along our strategic plan it looks great thank you everyone yeah and certainly any questions we can take if anyone has any any questions or comments I I was going to ask it seems like the teachers were very enthusiastic and students any feedback from the parents I mean they're the ones that own help oh God way yes yeah yeah I think I I think it you know I think they've at least been indoctrinated to that for a little bit right that that real math switch we've been doing that for years our our uh past program Dennis had the same thing but I think that it's going to take a while for them to kind of feel that difference there there are some distinct differences I think when teachers um and we use math expression for quite some time because we had a um second iteration of it with common core um I think as they get more confident and comfortable to you know kids will hear more about it but I think they do the routines are great and hopefully some of these discussions come out around um you know when we're talking about math and kind of looking through that kind of math lens throughout the world I know you know my daughters are hated when I come home because I'll ask something very specific and I don't get an answer because just curious how things are going uh when you you know in the same grade levels that you kind of are a part of but um it it'll be interesting I think when we after year one I could see certainly some um pieces for us and in sharing that more with the the parent and the family community because I think uh teachers always want to feel comfortable be the experts and and it takes that year of implementation to feel that way thank you though anybody else I I think that this kind of program is very important going forward because the way it's people are talking the students are learning to talk about math and I think in the old way it was more you do it in your your head and you show the result on on the paper and now it's okay let's talk about it it's really important to do that because that's how we're going to use math and our using math now every single day um more and more and if you can talk about something usually you understood it so moving forward so la I think it was last meeting or the meeting before I talked about um one of the teachers at the middle school who is having a parent group that uh joins the her every month or every couple weeks and they're learning the math themselves now so they can help their student um has there been anything like that asked by parents to do anything at the elementary level uh we have I I don't know um specifically about all the elementary level I haven't had any specific requests around that um you know it's something certainly we'd love to we'd love to share with um with folks from um home and in the community but that as far as them um learning I we have it as I I tease Dr Bay Rovan but he really is an expert on um translating elementary math to to has a published book about it even that it is something that is um we we we came from the very concrete when we learn things and learn things um a certain way and that's how you did it and that's why we struggle with our children and their homework um at home but I do think and it's hard for some kids some kids do want to do it one way and the right way and it does not allow that it allow it exposes you to multiple ways to do that but they can choose the one that works best for them too so but that's hard for some kids they just want to say well I I I know the answer to this or are you making me do this and it's about the kind of conceptualization of all that kind of all those skills but yeah it is I think it I think it opens up as we think down our our strategic plan as well like part of this math I think sharing kind of this because I you know I think we we we have pilot teachers do this they feel good about it but then there's certainly always some trepidation around implementing something brand new and I think when we like I'm feeling just kind of these conversations had with staff beginning of the year to that they're Comfort level with now and then they do it year two all over again and can really kind of um tighten procedures and kind of explore pieces of it um I think down the road you know sharing this with the you know the community is certainly a great and what I'm hearing is certainly something that we'd love to do and is the response back from staff that they basically have enough professional development at this point or so we've for um the way it's broken down we've really done all of our kind of um building base uh stuff has been around in the area of um Dei social emotional learning um and all of our um Department days for elementary has been math so we've we've invested quite a bit in this and then that's going to be layered in next year as well we have math time as well and I know we've embedded a lot we have um our math coach come by and meet with teams separately too and almost when you're doing this they don't know what to ask at right you're kind of like they're unit to unit and they're learning that unit for the first time and as they kind of get that scope and sequence of it and figure it out I think we're really you know going to be able to have um even some more kind of pointed PD next year where we've kind of had people um and it was almost in a two track thing where we had pilot teachers and then kind of an expert group join and do a bit more and we had somebody on each team join that so they became um a little bit more of a um kind of a consumer of this and have really hopefully been um you know lightning rods for the people in their team so that then they had kind of the other basic level so it's been thoughtful the roll out of the PD but it does continue into next year and we know it doesn't mean that ends going um new programs do need thank you did you have a comment yeah I just want to comment I'm really glad to see the resources that this has for teachers I mean I happen to have taught under math expression and math expressions did deal with the strategies and the decomposing numbers and all those things that were part of the um concore but if you wanted to add any of these conversational things teachers had to create those pieces it wasn't that you couldn't do that with a lesson but it's really nice to see that it's just made things much easier for teachers to do it on a regular basis see it's a true part of the program so I think that's only help right Dennis did you have anything no I good well you scared me so much with the look force that I actually took notes let me got he no I really thought it was um I thought it was terrific um I really thought um the teachers did a really nice job yeah me too um you know connecting uh the current lesson to Prior lessons um I really liked uh what one teacher did um around um having the kids thumbs up you know thumbs in the middle or thumbs down um because I think it's great to have kids participate some kids can't participate this is another great way to involve them and it made me think of um the uh Embrace failure almost as Embrace uncertainty that it's okay for you not to know it's okay to say that um and I so I really like that um I I like that aspect of her teaching technique as well um I like the manipulatives and how the colors on the I don't know if you noticed this but the colors on the clear touch match the manipulatives so I thought that was terrific in terms of helping kids to gain a level of comfort as they're learning these new Concepts Maybe by identifying the colors first but then having the concepts you know um evolve you know as they're going through all of these things um it was really just a a terrific job by our staff so thank you very much um I do have one question um so I'm wondering like if you have um maybe special education students in the classroom so I you know I love a multimodal approach right I mean I think this really you know is terrific in terms of meeting uh the needs of a lot of different types of Learners um but how are they doing are they able to keep up you know because there is a certain amount of Independence that kids have to have in the turn and talk or you know when they're working independently how is that going uh I I mean I in my my opinion I think um and one of our teachers talked about this the the way these lessons are set up there's a lot of entry points for kids okay I think so where some student might not have a total grasp of this um there are certainly observations they can make right and and I think we know when um when some of our support services are best mean it's not just totally a separate program that we're doing right some of these kids might need to um have some more special instruction around some of these um specific skills but that we want them always exposed to this Core Curriculum that's really important for them to hear all this language and to hear those routines and to see that so um you know it's not something where we're pulling many kids out of this you know they might have some time out of it when there's maybe some independent work that's a little bit more supported but that they um it's important they are part of these these major routines is ignite and to be curious is building their self-esteem and their their math confidence when maybe that wouldn't have been the case a few years ago if they were in this with a different curriculum yeah yeah there's really no right answer to a be curious or to an ignite that's you know and if you look back at the presentation one of the things with the ignite is just interacting with materials just to play right there might be some things and there's time just to explore that and that's very meaningful at all different kind of points of um understanding great thank you very much yeah no I thank you I the one thing I want to point out I really appreciated was particularly as the kids got older a lot of the collaborative work that they were doing in groups I think um obviously just to get those um skills kind of back and interacting with PS is is huge um as a side note I did appreciate how you tie this work also through the Strategic plan I did I noticed that I picked right up on it and Tess is very excited about it too because all weaves together but no Betsy and Jason thank you very much for coming tonight I thought it was a great presentation so thank you for sharing welcome and we're now going to transition to a second presentation of this evening um and this is something that we had said we would um do with the onset of the school year um we were going to have a little bit of a different presentation philosophy this year where um each of the five priority areas of the Strategic plan we're going to present at a meeting to kind of really talk about and highlight some of the work that's taking place and then we said we would do a midyear check-in which is now and then over the course of the summer we'll do a um good night we'll do a uh another check-in uh to report out our findings uh for the year so um Tess Nicholson Powers is with a district Management Group U Tess has been our with us actually for three years during the U beginning roll out of the Strategic plan has stayed on with us to do a lot of the work with the special opportunities review and now even um kind of the implementation of some of that work so um thank you for coming Tess I will turn it over to you and I look forward to um hearing and um talking a little bit about the uh the implementation of the Strategic plan great it's good to see so many of you in person uh and that was oh Jason already left but but I I studied math in college and was an elementary uh school teacher so this was the right meeting for me to come to and I wish that I had toau math like that back then um but anyway so yes I'll be talking about the Strategic plan and I just want to say you know you see it up there pretty but really the Strategic plan is living in the buildings every single day and that's what we just saw at Bome uh Jason talked about that math priority and why this new C was implemented so I'll give this summary but just wanted to say this is certainly living in the district um I did add just a couple slides on the process wanted to First just uh thank all of the people who have been involved in not only the creation of the Strategic plan but implementation from school committee members District leaders School leaders and others all assigned to a specific area uh and how we've worked this year there's been two phases so we Ed the fall really to take a look at the data from last year so where were goals met uh where were goals not met what initiatives do we need to implement to ensure we meet those goals uh to reine refine those specific action steps and then since October have been tracking progress on those initiatives I know you've heard from each of the subcommittees in a bit more detail um but just making tremendous progress uh overall uh and just to give you an idea of how we work throughout the year so every six weeks the steering committee that you saw comes together uh and we work with that group to progress monitor holds everyone accountable uh that every 6 weeks we come together talk about the work that has been done in in between with those subcommittees at the bottom uh aligned to each of the priority areas so this very intentional working structure make sure that the Strategic plan does not only live within the school committee or District leaders but is really funneling down to the schools leaders and staff who are part of those groups as well uh and I didn't record one of our uh progress monitoring meetings like uh Jason showed you in by him but did just want to give a little overview of how we spend that time uh in those uh every six week meetings we have a very specific discussion protocol to make sure that everyone can understand uh progress towards initiatives across the priorities uh other groups have a chance to ask clarifying questions or get feedback problem solve on anything they need to uh and then we wrap up and talk about what next steps need to happen in the 6 weeks to make sure we stay on track uh so this has just been uh an incredible way to ensure that the Strategic plan Five-Year Plan uh action is happening every day and checking in every six weeks uh so wanted to add that just as the process but getting now more into the content so this is the framework that chelsford used to develop the Strate iic plan so you have your Mission Vision theory of action priorities and goals where we are right now really is in this implementation phase making it come to life uh and one other thing I wanted to call out is just through the strategic planning process of course has set the priorities and really has started to lead budget choices like adopting reveal math or investing in the math Specialists and interventionists uh which is exactly what we'd hope to see is those Investments aligned to strategy so I think chelsford has just done a great job again making that strategic plan come to life in the many ways a district operates uh so just gring you all know this uh in the mission and vision that was adopted I'm not going to read it to you uh but that really is where the Strategic plans plan stems from uh you have your theory of action which is really grounded in District leader direction making sure principles can create conditions and culture in their schools I think we saw that uh in biome today and that teachers Foster an inclusive learning environment and so that is what we also saw in those math classrooms uh and so just wanted to highlight kind of just all the different key stakeholders in the district uh who are really get there all to make sure the vision of chelsford public schools comes to life so I am going to Linda somehow give it I'm gonna show the top and bottom of the slides there go okay great uh so I'm going to go into a little a little more detail into each of the priority areas now uh so starting with academic achievement great uh so I know you have this there's a lot here but just to ground us we have the metrics at the top there those are the measurable goals that were set aligned to the priority areas and then the short list of initiatives uh that the team is working on align to that priority uh we know that if we try and do everything well we'll do nothing well and so you'll see this through throughout the priorities this short list uh of initiatives this year so just want to call out and we showed this in the summer uh in the academic area hit on third grade both goals surpassed uh really you can see the focus there is eighth grade math and that's why we've been talking about those math Investments uh but all initiatives on track uh to implement the new curriculum work on I ready and just make sure that students have what they need to be successful especially in math as we've talked about uh in terms of the Equity Group so this is really focused on supporting students with IEPs uh as well as students from lowincome backgrounds uh you can see here they met a lot of their goals and actually surpassed quite significantly some of them so we had to revisit some of the 2024 targets to make sure that uh and still are to make sure that the target is not lower than where they actually ended up in 2023 uh but also some targets that were not met and so this has allowed the team to really focus on those areas uh and I always say if if everything were green we probably weren't aggressive enough uh so very understandable to see this uh and excited to see the results at the end of the school year uh as we mentioned have done a lot of work this year to implement some of the findings from the special education opportunity review specifically related to that first initiative around clarifying the role of PA professionals uh so I'll give them more uh in detail update at the end of the year when we wrap up that work but we've been working actually in this room uh with a group of from superintendent to school leaders to par professionals teachers really diving into that role to make sure uh that they are supported uh and that students are getting the support that they need uh going on to we missed one oh social emotional learning uh so you heard that uh Jason talk about this as well even embedded into the math curriculum which is great uh last year was all about laying the foundation of implementing Panorama getting that Baseline data uh so you can see those top two metrics are really the focus this year trying to increase those percentages around students feeling a sense of belonging uh those bottom two around students feeling they have supportive relationships just saw great Baseline data so the team chose to maintain is aiming to maintain those scores for this year while focusing on that sense of belonging through the below initiatives uh through Dei practices PD uh and really thinking about those transition years to make sure as students go from school to school uh they are supported and still feel that sense of belonging but very on track here uh and then going on to human capital last year was also a year of gathering a lot of Baseline data uh so if I draw your attention to that 2023 actual uh you can see Baseline data uh from teachers and staff uh similar to seal the group chose to really focus on increasing that percent uh of both of those top metrics uh those who feel adequately prepared to differentiate for diverse student populations and feel equipped to provide culturally responsive instruction uh and so that PD around Dei has been really critical towards those metrics and that is where uh we're hoping to see that increase this year uh the team has also been doing a lot of work by going to fairs to try to diversify the applicant pool uh of course kind of a positive and drawback is that your teachers like to stay which is not necessarily a bad thing but just we take time as positions open up to diversify that pool uh and then lastly operations and Facilities uh so superintendent has been part of this subcommittee leading that uh and really just making sure that uh the money is being spent on what it should be uh right now just one metric and initiative that is somewhat on hold is the maintenance work orders I know there's been uh some bumps in the road there but uh have really been focused both on those short term Capital plans uh and review of the building conditions uh and so a lot of work has been done there um so happy to answer more specifically on any of those initiatives but I know you already got uh the very detailed updates from the teams one thing that I just wanted to note and Jason did this at the beginning of this meeting but the steering committee has been talking a lot about communication and just how do we ensure that all staff families EX ET uh really see the Strategic plan living since it is everyday making that connection uh and so the team has been brainstorming about just making sure in Communications to families and newsletters that connection to the Strategic plan is made uh implementing a consistent structure so that school leaders as they do PD they're making the connection to the Strategic plan even just with one slide um as Jason did earlier ear uh cuz it really is living uh living in the buildings every day so I want to make sure we're making that direct connection so everyone feels a part of this plan um so that is all for me but happy to answer any questions at this midyear point is anybody anyra questions Dennis I guess it probably be more directed towards Jay Anda when when we see these like the the outcome that are read um we set a goal of let's say e8th grade math 64% 55% are we then digging down to find out what's going on and because then we set our goal at 65% again you know so we went down a little bit what are we doing in response to those type of things okay um so yes we did notice that so when we took a look at that group of students they had um year over year that whole cor C cohort I can't even talk cohort thank you of students um were performing lower than any of their peers so they actually did make progress but they didn't make progress up against what we had put for a Target so we are anticipating this group of eighth graders to outperform the students and we're giving supports to those students who are now in ninth grade at the high school those were going to be my follow what are we doing then if we know that that cohort is lagging what are we doing extra for that so that was indicative of a lot of the co over the years and that Gap that starts to widen as students start to go into sixth grade math and then they start to Branch off in seventh and eth grade with the honors we ended up giving them more supports and identifying specific lessons at the high school level so that those students could be supported when they're at chood high school do we see anything in the in the seventh grade sixth grade fifth grade do we see that is it it it es and flows right so it's it it's a matter of um looking at well right now we've combined the schools too so it's a little more difficult for us to dig into it because some of them may have been at one school over another school so we're going to have to look at some of those outlying um factors as we look at this next group coming in but we tend to be performing consistently so if you were to take that current 9th grade class who were taking that mcast and through I ready when they were eighth graders and you followed them through they were making progress but they had already started at a lower threshold anybody else go ahead um I have kind of a more General comment and then something more specific first I'm so I'm part of the group that meets with the zoom with the DM group and the plans every six weeks and I did mention at our last meeting I was a school Committee Member I really find this model to be super helpful to me that we have some really specific measurable goals to look at so it can kind of help with our um thinking as we're V envisioning the future future at chord schools and the budget and all one of the slides there was how strategic planning leads to District priorities which then helps us with budget choices so being this informed and this focused I think has been really helpful so it brings me my next issue which I brought up before and I'm going to keep bringing it up because I think it's really important um one of the things we just approved in the new fiscal year 2025 budget is some new special ed teachers specifically at the elementary level and I want to keep tying it back to you know the reason we need more is to help with this Equity goal of increasing the percentage of students who are proficient or above in math and ala and I I car I made a copy of this that special ed opportunity review because I think the things in this are so important so I I just wanted to speak up once again that I really am looking forward to hearing what the outcome of the Equity Group is and defining and clarifying the roles and responsibilities of par professionals because we hear in the meetings that they're having meetings and that they say they're on target but we haven't yet really heard what changes might come about because of that and I think we have to be forward looking forward to maybe the next year or the year after strategic plan goals have to be aligned with that the best practice of as it said I'll take it directly from it academic support is best provided by content area experts with content area training so we need to hear what's going on with the Paris but then look forward forward to how does that then go into who's going to provide that content and instruction so I just want to keep our eyes focused on that piece of it as well yeah I just want to follow up on what Susan was saying she said it much more articulately than I will um so over the course of the year you know we've had the updates and now we're seeing this midyear review and it is it's hard for you know me to pull all the pieces together so I was looking at the initiatives and I was wondering if there could be something included in there around what actions steps have been taken because I don't know um so I'll you know give you an example um it says that we're going to continue to implement the district data dashboard Panorama uh to improve database decision making like who's doing that you know how is it being done and then are there parameters you know uh that we've set you know that are you know of concern that are going to Kickstart a process for action or some type of intervention and what are those you know so those kinds of things I think you know it would be um helpful to me to kind of round out my understanding of what's happening in the subcommittees and what um action steps are being taken and how those action steps are moving us closer to being able to meet our goal yeah and so each initiative does have its own action plan with more of those detailed steps timeline and then we rate you know you saw the initiatives overall on track off track Etc but each action step within that has on track off off track Etc and that's what we review every six weeks in the meeting um so Jay and Linda you know I think we can share those especially if there are specific ones uh that you're curious about but all those more specific actions do exist yeah I just think it'll help um Rel least for me um my understanding of you know you know what's happening in these committees and what what the process is um because like I said this is an excellent report but it's it uh it leaves me with a lot of questions that I think you're right could probably be answered through the other reports yeah I mean we're trying to kind of find the the balance of presenting like the higher level right what's been happening with the district but when you do get into the individual um of the five areas there is a specific plan on each one in different action items and steps we can certainly share those with you I think on a um like a public level we're trying to come up with some ways to to educate um you know parents and community members and others that could be watching again high level what's happening with the check-ins I do I have got good feedback about the committee meetings where we've had each of the priority priority areas report out so that kind of is more the in-depth um I do think the kind of this um Global review twice a year is going to be helpful um those other documents they exist there are working documents we certainly can share them if you want to get a little deeper um a lot of that work is really the the focus of the work with the subcommittees when they are together um so you it's finding that happy medium between what is going to be good for everyone um we did have a a talk as Tessa mentioned that at the last meeting about um really operationalizing the Strategic plan and trying to be very deliberate in um talking about our actions and how they actually tie to the plan itself and like sue you mentioned with the budget but we look at like the two big areas that we actually um added some funding for some positions this year were around the math specialist particularly at the elementary grade level and again special education to help with that Equity achievement gap of our special ed students um growing higher than we'd like it to be compared to our general ed students so we really are having our dollars and our budgets align with this uh plan and then ultimately in the end we want to assess we want to see where we are where our targets too great were they too low were they pushing us enough um so that certainly is happening but we can um certainly share those other documents with you and if you want to if people want to get deep into them they can and if they want the surface level or the higher level they certainly have those as well Mar or John did you um well I've been part of this whole process through from the beginning um and I think I understand what you're saying but when you go to the subcommittees and you sit at the subcommittee level then we go through all of those things that's why and I've come to the to the conclusion that in many ways I have to trust what's going on at each one of the um subcommittee levels because uh they're doing it at the pace that they believe is going to work well within the system uh for example what you brought up Susan understood um that is part of the equity um part of things and it for me personally I would have wanted it done six months ago um but I understand why they're doing it the way that they are um because there are several things happening within the system that it has to be at this particular Pace I can see why um whether we should talk about every single one of those things things at this level probably not okay um but I think that in the end you're going to see that there will be results and it's important to keep on mentioning those and part of the equity thing too is not just about the disparity with what's happening between um specialed and how they're doing and the other students in in the system it's also about you know equalizing in terms of students who uh economically may need some assistance as well and identifying that group is difficult uh tracking their needs is very difficult so this is something that you know we've been discussing how to do it and so on um and without hurting anybody in the process and actually helping them instead um one thing that I've noticed is that being because it brings different people from different parts of the system into the subcommittee it actually helps everybody to see different reasons why you might not want to do something at a particular time or why you might want to change something in a particular way because we bring in those different perspectives and I've noticed that quite a bit in the equity one uh because quite a few of the members are part of the special ed team uh versus you know so and I bring in the community perspective and so on so it's it's actually good that those subcommittees exist because it's just not one point of view it's many that come to making the decision and when things will be implemented and for me it's just as hard because I wish very much that things are a lot slower than I want them to be because I'd like all these children to just automatically be able to grasp all this immediately um but there is some improvement going on it's just going to take time to measure it so I think it is fair to say that you know there is you know you're right trying to find that right way to um share this message right um but I think if the information is available to committee members who want to do a little bit deeper dive into what's happening on each committee that would be very helpful great can I ask one more content thing you mentioned there's a bump in the road with the work order what what's the bump yeah it's not a particular uh it's not a particular bump we we have a work AIT system that we use to track with um DP W any repairs that we need so we've had that in place for quite some time and we can produce reports out of the system now that actually um show like what's getting done what's not getting done one of the things that we're trying to do is get a little bit deeper in the system to actually categorize like some of the requests for repairs and set up like you know what would the expectation be if let's say a um you know if a door is on if a door won't lock properly right that's like a top priority needs to be completed within 24 hours let's say if if someone reports a um um a leaky faucet in a bathroom or something like that that might be like a medium-term fix that has to be done between like one and three days like we're trying to kind of just drill down and work with DPW to come up with some expectations on that because it all ties back to the reporting uh functionality right now the reporting piece of the system is paper um so we're trying to move to more of like an electronic reporting because what's happening now is um I can produce a report right now that would show us even over the last week like what got done um but when the trades people come in during the morning they might pick up four or five slips of things to do for that day and they go out and do the work and they note it down and they bring the paper back to the office and then right now when someone has time they go in and they close out the ticket but if I run the report and let's say someone you know did get done today but it was a bad week paperwork wise so the paperwork didn't get entered until a week from now it would actually look like it took a lot longer for something to be repaired because the entry date on the ticket is bad and I don't want to put a report out there that's going to show um you know we put in a ticket and it took you know two months to get something done well actually probably get done a lot quicker so we've been having conversations about trying to actually digitize the um the work process even for the the laborers so that they would actually just record their their pieces on a tablet so they would have like an iPad or something and when they're done they would just instantaneously close the ticket themselves so it's happening in real time and that way our reporting would be better so the work is actually happening that's that's not the problem we're just trying to figure out a better metrics for the reporting so that what we actually put out there is more accurately displayed uh when things are getting done and again agreeing to like those timelines around urgency and things like that so that's the only little glitch we've had and the only the the tie up is really just been time because um we were coming out of the all the capital projects from the summer we've got to get the people together who are actually doing the projects so we just had a lot of work going on then we kind of with DPW also you're switching into the snow season which didn't really happen um and then you know we get into Capital planning and things like that but it's really just been more of a time thing um so we are on track to to kind of have that and be able to produce our for a set of reports from the system that hopefully will then build upon to try to make them better um but that just took a little bit more time than we thought and dpw's on board with trying to yeah we're all trying to do this and and everyone's been very Cooperative it's just kind of agreeing to that and then uh running with it so uh again I could produce the report it just wouldn't be really timely with regard to like when something got done because of the the paper process as opposed to trying to digitize as long as the work getting done the work's getting done yeah yeah great anybody else thank you I'm sorry can I say something the test I just I think the work with the your group has been really really good us and just in terms of timing um just you've had an actual opportunity while all this has been going on to create a totally new human being to come into this world has became a mother throughout this entire process congratulations amazing right so I just honestly everything takes its time it honestly does um and and I know that committee work you know just can't take quite a bit but it is being thoughtfully done which I really appreciate yeah one thing I was going to say this is a five-year plan and we're about a little more than a year and a half in uh and changes hard and uh districts are complex organizations with a lot of stakeholders and so I think it's important for any you know big initiative or change that's going to happen What for the Paris for example you know having that cross functional group testing ideas having Paris be part of the change instead of just saying oh here's the change we're going to make and have change done to them uh I think it's just going to be so valuable in what you can then actually see in schools and classrooms uh that's what I've seen most effective just in my work work with other districts right well congratulations first of all thank you and uh and thank you very much for coming in yes thank you all thanks s thanks very much for the update no okay uh next item up on the evening agenda is the vote on the school choice program for the 20 the next year 24 uh 25 so just as way of background our district for a number of years has participated in the school choice program which basically we identify a number of seats of the district where we have um some capacity and some space primarily at the high school level and um we offer up those seats to any people in neighboring communities that might be interested in attending uh chil Public Schools um for us as a district uh again if we have capacity um we're able to bring in some additional students the state uh basically provides $5,000 of funding per student through uh the chapter 70 program uh funding would come through us um as a calculation so the district that is sending the child basically is not receiving 5,000 and we are and they're um acclimated and treated like a any other CHC high school or CHC public school student so it's worked really well for us um this current year we have 37 students um in the program we typically try to have about 40 students overall in the program sometimes people will um withdraw uh they like our own students their family might move move to a different community and it's just too far away so it does happen but we usually try to have the year starting out with 40 slots so of the 37 that we have for the current year six of them are high school seniors who will be graduating in June and then obviously moving on which leaves us with uh 31 students returning the next year because you always come back so when you're in once you're in U permanently so I I provided you the grade level distribution of those um students and again primarily because we have the capacity at the um the high school level my recommendation is to bring that number back up to uh 40 students for next year and doing so by um adding eight additional um spots for incoming ninth grade students at um chelsford high school and adding one spot for an additional incoming fifth grade student at um Parker Middle School um so those 31 adding up those nine would be 40 um and when we take a look at the high school numbers we're going to currently have two nth graders next year already so adding those eight uh brings up to 10 so so we have 10 we have 11 and 10th 11 and um I'm sorry 11 and 10th 11 and 11th um grade and then obviously a smaller uh senior class but that's also um easy enough on the high school to be able to schedule it's not like you have 40 freshmen or or you know or a lot of seniors there it's a good spread um so I'm happy to answer any questions you have again this is a a program that we participated in uh prior to me even coming here and uh we've received good um good results from I think it's a good opportunity for our kids and for other kids coming to uh to the district um so that would be my recommendation does anybody have any questions how many years has it been $5,000 is it I mean for as long as I know um I don't think so no I mean we we've we've actually asked yeah and we I think actually listed that as one of our legislative priorities a couple years back um they just didn't seem to be any willingness to uh to really look at it um even like offline when we've had different uh convers Sation with the Desi Finance folks about like different grants and things like that um they even acknowledge it's just an area that really hasn't been focused on it's just it's in there it's in the the um I don't know if it's a policy or legislation that talks about the number um but it just hasn't uh hasn't changed so I I you know I'd love it to be more but I'm not holding out any hope that it's more the other thing is you know we have students from chumford who participate in school choice in other districts as well so even though we're getting say 5,000 for taking a student in if that increase to 10,000 and one of our children are going to another District we'd be losing 10 there um so you know it's it's a little bit of a trade-off U but we we have sufficient space particularly the high school for next year I think again it's it's a worthwhile program and this would bring our numbers back to 40 and I think that's a good number to to count on that then gives us $200,000 of extra Revenue that we can allocate within the budget if things come up where we want to um to Target uh resources still going to the computers yes so it goes to the revolving fund and then what we have at ear mark the budget against is the the leases for the the 101 initiative do we are there 40 students from our district D how many I don't I I should have known that number before you asked you happen to know the number no I can find out for you and send you an email um I don't know off top of my head and that's again even for us it's something that just has happened over time you know it's not like we had like a a bunch of students leave but I'm sure we have a number that have always attended school choice in other districts um and then we have kids that we've taken into our district I think it's less than the 40 but is it less than I I've seen number I I'll find out tomorrow morning for you and shoot you an email um I'd be surprised if it was more than I just don't know the exact number seen the number before but I foret I'll find out for you all right Dennis I'll take a motion make a motion to accept eight additional students at chord High School in grade n and one additional student at Parker Middle School in grade 5 under the Commonwealth of massachusett school choice program being the to bringing the total school choice participation in the Chums public schools to 40 students during the 2024 25 school year second all right is there any further questions or discussion it's a vote it's a roll call okay it's roll call vote all right uh Dennis Dennis yeah I know Susan I John I Maria i i five in favor thank you very much I'll report back um the par the the participation inters we receive just to let you know um fourth on the agenda under new business this evening is just approval of some uh field trips uh there are three before you this evening I just want to call your attention to uh the first one um this is a trip you actually this is for our um students at mcrai middle school to go to um Quebec uh you had approved this at the January 16th meeting and the dates for the tripad to change so uh the dates are moov from um April 26th to 28th to May 17th to 19th um so you we're just going to approve the the date change on that particular trip and then we have the theater guild at the high school looking to go to an event in Boston on March 21st to 23rd um it's in state but it's overnight that's why it's before you and then uh trying to do some pre-planning for a year from now um this is the chelwood high school of students who are enrolled in the French program this is the cultural Exchange program um in the springtime of 25 um that's April 16th 27th would be our group of high school students going to France um so I'd recommend approval of those um well the modification and then those two new trips one one at a time uh yeah one and one at a time please all right I make a motion to approve the field trip of McCarthy middle school students enrolled in French to Quebec City Canada from May 19th to 24th 2024 second any questions all those in favor Z in favor make a motion to approve the field for the T High School theater Guild of Boston massachusett from March 21st to 23rd 2024 second questions concerns all those in favor I I 5 Z in favor sorry I make a motion to approve the field trip for CHC high school students enroll in French to L Shel France from April 16th to 27th 2025 any questions or concerns all those in favor I 5 French though well this this stting to rotate so this happens to be the French trip and then the year later will be the Spanish trip what are they going to do for ASL Learners I don't know we should probably work on that interesting question a lot of kids actually want to take ASL now and there's no Associated trip with it interesting yeah I don't know I can't speak intelligent to this I don't know that you would necessarily have to go out of the country I don't know if there're like different places I'm sure there's like a fancy College somewhere where they de or they like kind of yeah came up with like some kind of ASL type well there are performances too yeah there performances true maybe like a New York thing or something right yeah definitely we can look into that it's a it's a good incent it's a good incentive to have kids take it no it is I think the other ones you just kind of naturally think Spanish and French you know go to another country but um yeah we'll have to think about that there's experiences that they could go to have to do with the ASL how would improve the lives of people yeah that be cool it's a good idea um and that's all I have for tonight on a new business all right thank you very much um we do not have anybody registered for our second public input session correct we don't okay um so liaison reports anything additional than what people had already talked about go ahead not to say at the high school they're meeting tonight um and I can't attend because of this meeting so they sent me a report they did a staff appreciation welcome back from the break by leaving snap in the house offices the kitchen staff area and the main office they've two more events planned for staff appreciation one will be funded by the district and the other is funded through parent donations and they will happen over the next six weeks they're also very busy right now with after prom planning in the middle schools I attended that meeting last night both of the PTO were present they had a really good showing um they discussed extensively um creating a steam fair for the middle schools hopefully for next year they are looking for a couple of parents who like this area and want to work in this area um to uh come in and be the leads so if you are interested in it as parents please uh reach out to the pto's uh Dr Parks reported very happily on a successful seventh grade black light stance where over 250 students attended which that's wonderful and they were acquire a few parents and staff uh who um chaperoned and then Parker had its play that was reported uh how well that went and there were two casts and that meant a lot to them um so really uh kudus to that director who put that together because the greatest number got to participate they are working now on on their talent show showbo May 18th will be the talent show and that is being led by a parent and the middle schools would like to host Katie Greer and at this event last night um Council of schools was present and so um Kate fet had to reach out to her because they would like to go ahead and fund a parent event if that's going to happen okay uh and that's my report for that all right does anybody else have any leas on reports I do um I attended chips PTO early last week um they just did a sock Drive which they said was really cool like a way that the kids could really participate in something that helped out the community but they brought in pairs of socks to be donated and they said this was really great because even their littlest kids could kind of understand that like toy drives they've had trouble with the kids want to keep the tool always but they can kind of get it this I already have plenty of socks at home but I can donate socks for some kid who might not so they said that worked out really well um the PTO does a real lot there with help supporting the theme weeks that they have in the school they do things in the hallway there at chip so all the um students can go through different um whatever the decorative things they have but for instance they've got an Under the Sea week planned for um late May and the PTO helps fund having a photo booth there so they do some nice things they also used some PTO money to give teachers cash gifts and the teachers were very grateful they brought some things such as pretend play food kinetic sand books live butterflies um new sensory equipment like sensory swing um and some other items they did some Garden games and ladybug games and beehive games and but the teachers are really grateful that they have that um money from the fundraising um so great for the parents who participate in that next big fundraiser is Square One art which is a fun activity for the kids but it also brings in some money um at Harrington PTO last week I went and followed the advice of the Strategic plan DM group and I actually talked to them about the Strategic plan and just let them know that they can see it anytime they want I showed them how to find it on the website and because I'm in the academic group I just talked a little bit about that how we're um working on improving students math scores and I had a convers ation with them about I ready I actually have some feedback that I will share with my subcommittee next time we talk so that was really helpful and they seem very interested to know that we had that going on Dennis yeah I have a couple um so just uh CPAC is going to be holding several workshops on the new IEP um ver both virtual workshops I believe the one on the March 21st is already filled up but there's another on March 26 so you can sign up through um the CPAC Facebook page um and then they're going to have their own workshops later on in the in the spring um after attending a nice event the John was involved with I get to also go and attend the Center School uh science fair and I act as a judge there and it's great the kids always do a great job the people that put it on they do so much work to get it organized and everything else and you know it it was nice to see I get to do mostly first graders so um just to see that the thought proces and what they like what they don't like so that was that was a fun event as Donna already mentioned uh she and I both had the opportunity last night to U meet with the the the nas team just to talk about how things are going so that was was nice to nice to hear about the the feedback they're getting from the students about what they feel about and it was all very positive so hear that yeah I went to that science faere too they had like 90 projects yeah and I was very glad I only got ass signed first grade and it was down from last year yeah these elementary kids really throw in the curve for us oh I saw the most amazing thing that Lego vacuum oh yeah that was this big and it was very powerful and I was like this man this this young man could Market this thing for cars oh my just keeping your glove compartment to vacuum up and things I put on Shark Tank it it was unbelievable it was the the whole all of them were really terrific okay um did you have a question yes could you say what neas stands for please I don't care remember that nobody knowland Association school committee something no New England Association of secondary schools some yeah I need I need to write it down it it's okay because we keep on saying NE and it kind of occurred to me that people may not know what it is it's our accrediting program right however it is not part of desie no it is not it's outside group that reviews High School schools in order to accredit them as you know institutions of New England Association of schools and colleges thank I was there I was there I got to SCH that was I was I got for Google yeah I just as I said we had mentioned it a few times tonight and I'm not sure that's an excellent point you know know what that is all right um so um I have a couple things uh the first thing I want to say is uh I'd like to congratulate John on your um Town Hall did you held last night Jesus last th last week I get it all right thank you and um it was phenomenal um and I it was uh post 911 military service post 911 veterans um like kind of house your service inspired further service in the town how it inspires more service right it was excellent it was excellent I very well attended so yeah no I was really grateful for the amount of people although my superintendent show up the town manager did show up you were at a conference I know I was no I actually I just uh really appreciate all the people that came out Regina Jackson bunch of people from the town Representatives came out you and um the chair of um the select board so it was a really well attended event it was great and we had and got to speak about although I didn't say his name uh you know talking about Afghanistan that people think war is really far away and when Afghanistan ended there was actually um a chord High graduate in the airport during that whole um evacuation so during that two week emergency period there was actually chord people there so I just it's the wars you know all the stuff is a little bit smaller than people think yes absolutely yeah so um congratulations to you and your group for doing that um so I have an announcement from um Evelyn Thorne from the Arts and Technology education fund uh so applications for the 24 25 school year are currently available the deadline is March 31st the staff of CH for public schools are eligible to apply uh the director of technology has sent the um applications and instructions to all staff this year the ATF committee decided to expand to accept applications from clubs any past recipients are also required to submit a project summary sheet with with any new application and applications are also available on the town website and then um that is it for Lea on reports does anybody have anything else how about um action items or new items just can we nail down a date to do a public forum on the building I mean CU you know I know we're going to do some maybe prey but I think we're definitely do some prey yes I am working on that I'm just trying to figure out I think McCarthy is the venue I just want to find a knife that we can actually do it and have it be recorded and everything it'll be pinned down by this week okay just we get the word out and we'll do a save the date and all that ading yeah okay okay um and then also um Sam pton from the nooba um valy school committee nooba tech school committee um was here and he asked us to announce that uh there will be a final debate on March 20th that's a Wednesday from 7 to 9:30 um p.m. in the police training room at the police station this um particular debate will be um co-sponsored by the Republican uh committee uh Town committee and the Democratic town committee they'll both be working together and it will be televised on cheler tele media and um it will also be broadcast on wcap and I think that's it um do we have anything else we're meeting for the show thing 25th right right the 25th I caused a problem with that because I least made us figure it out meeting next week correct in a week we're meeting again no two week 26 so the next day is 26 next week no 19th is next week two more weeks two weeks from tonight and I don't know are we having an executive session we got a request about no okay no uh we're going to um allow Dr Lang will meet with that group okay okay so I don't I just wonder know I need to be in my calendar all right anything else all right if there's nothing else I'll entertain a motion to adjourn make a motion to adjourn a second all those in favor 5 Z in favor thank you everybody thank you tomorrow tomorrow night think I can