##VIDEO ID:mdIP1_26PbE## please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all thank you this meeting is being live streamed by CHC Tel media and posted the CPS website for interested community members to access and watch inperson public participation will be taking place tonight in accordance with the Chon school committee public participation policy anyone speaking tonight during the public input portion of this meeting has notified the superintendent's office the desire to speak and have been provided with these guidelines upon request written comments received no later than 12:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting will also be read and made part of the record of the meeting during the second public comment session so welcome to this meeting of the CH school committee uh first order business is to approve our minutes from July 9th okay I will make a motion okay that we uh approve the minutes from the prior meeting do I have to say the date yep the July 9th meeting okay take a second second second okay we have a motion second any corrections okay all in favor of approval I I four zero okay uh any good news good well good news it's the summer has been going great um a lot of projects going on enjoy the extra time to get things done but looks like we're in good shape to open up in three weeks three weeks wow who's counting though we are yeah all right any other good news anybody would like to share great okay um it doesn't look like we have any public input so we'll move on to new business sure we have a couple of reports for you tonight uh the first we're going to welcome uh Christine Clancy who is our DPW director um we work very closely just is a little bit of background uh the school department of DPW work very closely on the um the day-to-day maintenance of the buildings our custodians in the schools um and our contracted companies do the cleaning of the buildings and dpw's um work for us is the one that really um gets into the HVAC and electrical and um the bigger repair uh type stuff within the buildings and then we partner with DPW on capital projects both Town funded as well as they'll be working closely with us on the msba project um and one of the things that was under our uh strategic plan last year the facilities and operations initiative was uh look to better track the different work that takes place in the schools with regard to work orders that the schools put in how long it takes to get them filled what's the fill rate things along those lines um So Christine is here tonight uh to provide kind of the annual review of what we're able to accomplish last year and talk a little bit about um how we might move forward so I very much appreciate Christine um's partnership but coming tonight to just review some of the um detail that she has thank you for having me tonight and I do want to provide an update of the um FY 24 work order summary so this is an effort to try to show what measurable what we've done in the past year from facilities in the schools um I will get into it to talk about I think there are some limitations with the existing existing system that we have uh we use School dude it's from the 1990s and I will get into some improvements that we're proposing in the next year um but we have been able to put together this report um so we do use School dude as a work order system to manage our work orders this is outside of our Capital requests so larger projects are are completed separately um we use this I think this be originally started for the management of school work orders the nine School locations we have expanded that in recent years to expand to other Town facilities um and even sometimes you know town we have a you know an item in our system for um Town common so we do use this at our DPW um but like I said Capital larger projects those are really outside of this tracking system that we have um just to give also a brief overview of the de PW facilities um so we have a staff of 15 um of that staff we also have various trades inhouse so we have two electricians one plumber one HVAC tech one Carpenter one playground inspector and then six other field men field um maintenance general maintenance that these are the people that really respond to the work orders that come in um aside from that we also have other vendors that we work with whether it be fire alarm we have a um a large contract with MBE Kenny to assist with the HVAC uh work orders and and maintenance needed in the systems in the schools particularly um so what we did this is I guess our first take at trying to show quantify what we've done in the past year so this report summarizes so in the past year in FY 24, 1425 work orders were created in the schools of which uh 1,182 were completed so that's about 83% completion um and that means that 243 work orders remain to be completed uh further on in the report it does show a breakdown by location so on the next page figures two and three it shows a breakdown of the work order summaries by location total work orders for the buying the center the community ed the school admin the high school Harrington McCarthy Parker and South Row it shows how many are remain to be opened and percent complete and for the most part they're they you know we're targeting about um I know the average is 83% but some schools are doing better than others and it's various reasons is why work orders are maybe not complete and I can get into that in a little bit um and then it just graphically shows what is uh shown in the um the table um so obviously High School is our largest schools that generates the most work orders created um for the most part I would say the other schools relatively same amount I mean I would say so the school admin buildings is the smallest space we have so less work orders or are created uh the next page uh figures four and five this is breaks it down by trade so we do track various trades in our work order management system general maintenance delivery Landscaping site or playground roof Plumbing carpentry HVAC electrical parking painting and snow and ice um and and by trade here broken down what remains to be opened um and percent complete here varies obviously snow and ice hopefully we don't have any ongoing snow and ice issues right now in the summer so and typically too we do sometimes use some other uh databases that in town you know snow and ice if there's a snow call we're more emergency re we're responding emergency work order system is not I guess set up maybe for the snow events because we're responding within 24 hours um but just to kind of get into so we have for the trades and there's various percentages complete um so this is our first take on it we are looking so one this is in terms of our next steps and so we have 243 work orders that remain to be completed in the various trades I did actually spent I spent some time this week in reviewing with our facilities director to go over really what are those 243 work orders that remain to be opened a lot of them were created at the end of the last school year some might be a little bit you know within the school year um and so I think there are the software like I said was was developed in the 1990s it is a bit of a manual entry to go over the process the pro the entries are generally uh generated from the school side those are put in we see those requests those requests are assigned to the the trades person person that would respond to them they're given a print out they go out in the field they inspect it they fill out a form and they bring it back to the office for it to be closed out so it's a bit of a process to get it to be closed out manually um there's opportunities for improvement in that and so we have school dude is the is the vendor um but now they're brightly Solutions and they've we had a presentation and really their software now is much more enhanced much smarter um metrics can be tracked uh and we were just given a proposal that we're um moving forward with and so we'll probably spend the next six months or so building out the program um primarily for the school side but also for the entire town so it will it it can better tie to asset you know has a lot more Asset Management opportunities so you can tie boilers and then you can set preventative maintenance uh work orders right now that all has to be manually entered another example right now is if we have a hole in the wall that hole in the wall has to be patched that's one work order but then someone has to go in and manually create the next work work order for someone to paint the wall the the new system allows you to set up some type of work plan within the the work order systems so you can say okay the first person has to patch the wall then someone has to paint the wall um and or it could even be more multi-step than that um and there's Al there's a lot more things down the line we can look into but our our next step is to look into that reporting or you know onboarding onto that new system training it also has Large mobile opportunities or tablet opportunities like I said right now it's is through a computer program where printouts and printouts are are filled out handed back in um for closure you know we close them in our office uh now we're able to use it with a tablet so the person that is reviewing it it's assigned to them they can bring it up on their tablet in the in the school building see the issue um write comments add photos and then close it out right then and there so there's great opportunities with the new software I think with that new software too is the reporting there's huge so in in this reporting it just took a little bit of time I know Dr Lang asked me for reporting and there wasn't something I can just click a button and have that reporting be generated I had to do an export into Excel and then do some manipulation of the data to to get this reporting um and even the reporting I think has some limitations right now so there's huge there's opportunities um with this reporting you could also we could set up different dashboards where if I just want to I I want to see just if a principal wants to see one school they go and they just see that one school or if they want to see just the high priority work orders there's different metrics to set um and preventative maintenance so I think there's great opportunity So the plan would be to you know immediately we obviously we're planning for the new school year which yes is only 3 weeks away um so really looking at those 243 work orders and looking at them I'm not overly concerned I think some of them there's closure that just needs to administratively be handled some some of them looking at them today some were um duplicate and duplicate entries um some things that were addressed but maybe not closed out and there there aren't wholesale um you know issues in the schools if you walk through the schools they are in great shape um so a plan is to come back quarterly I believe and if we come back quarterly we could provide an update and so you know 83% is a good number but I like it to be closer to the '90s and I think with um some of this administrative closing out of the work orders will be there in the next quarter update and then with the new software there'll be more fancy diagrams or more metrics to maybe show you uh and we'll build that out over the next year I don't know if there's any questions what have questions I just add one quick thing just a Christine a little bit um the timing of the work orderer entry also like in when you do the reporting is significant to keep in mind because this is reporting through June 30th which is the end of the last fiscal year but we kind of preload tickets for work that we would like to get done over the summer time because we know the schools are closed um so we're entering tickets in June that we know aren't going to get done by June 30th but we just expect them to get done over the course of the summer before the kids come back in September so that open ticket is also because of us entering stuff that we would like done in advance of the summer being done so when we actually take a look at the first quarter report at the end of um at the end of September which we'll look at sometime in October you'll see a lot of that summer work reflected um so a lot of this is going to be timing also of just when you actually are reporting and then when work is getting completed so that is another reason for the um uh I guess the number of tickets that are still open um because it was work that was requested in anticipation of the summer coming correct yeah we did see a lot coming at the end of the year knowing that would be a you know a summer list to work through which we're working no I just wanted to mention that for the timing right so any questions I do have I have two kind of related questions they're both just sort of for my edification because I my first time really looking closely at this um the roof stands out as something that has a much low lower rate of completion than other things with the exception of one that only had a few orders um and I'm curious what the situation was and why so many of those at least as of when this snapshot was were still open um and then the other one was another sort of disproportional thing I'm curious why so many more orders come from the high school than the other sites is it just the age of the building the size of the building and or something else sure so for the the roof uh and I actually so going back now two years ago I know when we were looking at potentially reporting we had some administrative closure of work orders needed so we actually closed up 14,000 work orders so we did 1400 this year 14,000 and just because of like I said the manual entries there were things that were in progress but were really complete or just there's there's also a a designation between um complete and closed so we went through and we made sure we closed 14,000 work orders that really that were complete or not you know no longer needed so then moving forward in FY 24 we knew that we could have this reporting so in doing that um we've you know we've now at at the four 1,425 and then looking at some of the trades I think there are still some administrative closures so when in looking um a lot of the work orders there were some duplications and um particularly for the roof was at the high school there was some leaking as we said over the pack over the um stairwells and and also was during rain events and I think also then when we go out and inspect some of these we're not finding the Le leaks um I did actually talk today to our our shop to see if we had if we had any known issues that's say we currently don't have any significant issues at the high school but the reporting is telling me otherwise so I think there's some some cleaning up to do particularly in the roof trades um but uh that was an example of some duplication and that's the thing is sometimes it would be a work order it says it's raining today there's a leak and then the next day it's still rain there's a leak so it would so it's almost dispropor it's almost disproportionate um but it was Mo it was more so the high school related also we are we are coming upon a lot of roof work so that also could be indicative that you know more work orders generating more need for longer term capital projects I thought that was the case but when I dug into this specific incident to like just looking at the 50% completion um it's really I think it's more administrative um in in going through some of the work orders uh and then as far as the high school I think it is just the volume of space it's such a large space it is older too I mean all of our schools our newest school is 50 years old so I think it's all of them I can't really speak to the age um but I just think there's this such a large space that so that's what I would say Square just a square footage alone of the high school if you think about it it's well in excess of you know four times the elementary schools so when you put those together and even when you look at the middle schools it's well over um two times both middle schools together and there's a lot of specialty spaces at the high school um you know you've got the locker room say that you don't have in the other schools um you do have the Pack um you know you have two CF series is just there's just much more volume um so that's that's kind of the rationale for that one being so large any other questions thank you and just first of all thank you uh what um so it definitely sounds like um an upgrading software is well needed um I guess my question is is this a shared cost with the town is it just something the town paids for just from budgetary standpoint sure so historically it's been mostly it's been paid by the school school department um and there is a little bit more of a cost increase with this upgrade and I think there is a benefit to using it both for Town and for for school we've mostly used it for school we've started to add in some asset points not really that create you know there is more just a so we could log points at Town common um we have also we have the town has Civic plus so we use other um other sources for some tracking like potholes we don't use School dude yet or or brightly Solutions so the goal is to for work orders generated from buildings to use both town and school and share that cost okay yeah we um it'll be pretty neutral in the end to us we um currently have a annual fee of around 7 $500 for the for the program and even when we go to the upgrade um and this the town buildings come on our annual cost is going to be about the same um but there are some pretty good enhancements even like from our angle like our custodians I was mentioning to Christine our custodians are responsible for changing out the filters in each of the um say classrooms but we'll be able to program in again from a preventative standpoint like every three months going to do the filter changes instead of someone having to manually go in and create a ticket every three months we can just set up a schedule where every three months the ticket pops and it actually can also help us with inventory management of say the filters and things like that if we want to get to that level so that they're actually ordered and arriving on site for the replacement um but it's going to be relatively net neutral to us cost wise so um I think it'll be good in the long run okay great any other questions well thank you very much yeah thanks pleasure thank you have a good night uh second item up on the agenda this evening is um our final year-day budget report our financial report for fiscal 24 so I will turn that over to Joanna thank you at the June 9th meeting I had presented our preliminary figures and um because there was just a few final journal entries to be made um before the fiscal year and you have a couple weeks to close things out and so this these are the final numbers and they're not significantly different from what we present presented July 9th so our fiscal year 2024 budget was local budget was 70 million 700,000 we've spent 6 9,966 296 46,000 we have open encumbrances so those are open POS or um supplies mostly that um we will get in over the summer of work to finish up of $733,000 7354 and so our available budget is zero so we and that's our goal every year is to spend out the account allocation to um you know for the schools um any questions on our final figures questions no it all seems so neat at the end doesn't it it all ends zero this all this work this year just ends at zero I love it it's great work thank you that's amazing um the Grant and revolving fund summary there were a couple changes uh to that report um some Revenue did come in um at the end of June and then was posted um to The Ledger you know after you know the reports for the July 9th meeting so that's the I think there were about four or five um um Grant or revolving funds were a little extra Revenue um came in and is reported on here but otherwise um nothing significant changed on the grant revolving funds any questions on grants and then the last report there were no changes at all these were the Student Activity accounts for the um high schools and both middle schools and this report did not change at all can I ask a question in terms of Grants how do we usually find out that there's a grant out there and is it by the apartment how does that happen so on the um desie website there's the um entitlement grants so those are you know really easy to see and then there's also a section on uh competitive grants and you know our leaders and our primier department leaders have access to all that and then we see if this something we want to um considered is it in alignment with our strategic plan when they read over the criteria is that something we fit you know based on you know our needs our student population and then we make the decision okay and just on a regular basis everybody looks at those and yeah they Rel to us as well we received emails um letting us know about the upcoming competitive BR right so anybody that is part of the distribution list those emails will start to get them so they'll pop up that way as well so you don't always have to go comb the website you'll receive something there's a commissioner's weekly email that often highlights them as well um the opportunities we're pretty in tune to like the state department of Ed grants obviously the US Department of Ed grants when they come out and then even the um the state for like non-school grants um they have been like bill has applied for some technology related grants um you know we may be open for some um school safety security grants we've applied for there's a different office you apply there but um that's something that we regularly monitor thank you any other questions on the budget report yeah as always guess uh take a motion just to accept it as a report of progress okay I make a motion that we accept uh the report from the director of business and finance uh as presented second okay is there no further questions all in favor I I hey 5 Zer great thank you Joan thanks Joanna all right so next up we have um the superintendent's performance evaluation so first of all thank you to everybody for getting me in your individual uh evaluations uh the timing manner um everybody in front of them has the the final evaluation um so just the first page is the uh the ratings for the superintendent in the different areas so four different areas uh they rated in uh so in the area of instruction leadership his overall rating was proficient uh in the area of management operations was overall rating of exemplary in the area of family and Community engagement an overall rating of exemplary and professional culture uh overall rating of proficient with an overall rating for the year of exemplary um below are some comments I'll just kind of try to summarize them and not read the whole thing because you all have in front of you but just for the people at home um so just to highlight um in the area operation management superintendent was praised for the job he does in develop in and monitoring the budget for the district uh a particular note is the fact that the chord Public Schools find themselves in a strong financial position as compared to a lot of other districts because of the way the superintendent his staff allocated Financial Resources during and after the covid pandemic uh another area of commendation found in most of the comments was in the area of communications superintendent was praised for the way he keeps the committee and the community at large informed about how things are going in the district through his weekly newsletters Community coffees presentations at public events and his willingness to sit and discuss issues one-onone uh many committee members also mentioned some of the long-term initiatives that started to really lead to notable improvements this year uh including the Strategic plan special education and safety reviews and most notably the acceptance of chelon into the msba new building program uh a few of the recommendations found the comments included continue to provide committee information about areas the district still needs to work on continue to Mo monitor of the new Ela program and being open to making additions or changes allowing teachers the freedom to personalize instruction within the parameters of the different curriculum programs providing updates on professional development programs and new teacher training programs and continuing to strengthen relationships with and among staff members throughout the district so if anybody wants to add anything else to that um I'm just going to make a comment great it was a great year so thank you for the work thank you for all your staff's work everybody the and the teachers and just it's been a I don't know it's been a good year this year it's been nothing but upside for a few years actually I don't want to jinx it stop talking now he he didn't say that anybody else anything you want to add um well first I said this privately to you Dennis but I'm going to say it I think you do a really great job of summarizing everything and um I know that my comments that I had made are Incorporated here and I really appreciate it um I would like to say that it's always a pleasure to work with Dr Lang it really is um you do listen which I truly truly appreciate your is open whenever uh we need to uh communicate and that's a big big plus and I also know that if we made some comments that you will take it to heart and you will read it and I've always heard from you that that's something you actually appreciate so um I think it's overall it's just really good and I look forward to continuing to work together it's great anybody else um I I think the the summary of the report really Jed with a lot of what I had sent in um to Dennis and to you and there are areas where you're absolutely exemplary that um we we're in great great shape before it and any of the comments I had about Improvement were things I've already talked to you about personally so I hope nothing came as a surprise or things that you've been open about and I think we've been open about too so hopefully it can only lead to better um and more progress and I will say you know this was actually very easy to right because everybody seems to be sort of on the P same page you know um which I think is great um so personally and hopefully behalf of the school committee thank you for another great year and hopefully we continue to uh do well in the upcoming years as well yeah no I I appreciate it I appreciate the um the feedback I do know that you take a lot of time in putting comments together and the ratings and whatnot um I do think we had a successful year um overall and I've said this in the past I know you're rating my work as a superintendent but it's really the team that we have in place in the district that does the day-to-day work to keep us going I think having the Strategic plan work that we did a few years ago really kind of sets the direction for everyone to be on the same page and has been helpful um I'm really looking forward to getting into year three we're already kind of deep at work of figuring out the different initiatives and and goals and the way we're going to measure our work so that'll be on upcoming agendas um but I really do I feel the district is in a very good place obviously everyone has room to um to grow and improve and I think as a group we haven't you know been kind of just um satisfied with where we're at we're always trying to improve get better and uh and that's something we'll certainly do but I think it's it's been a good you know working relationship I appreciate the comments I appreciate the support um I do think it's nice when we're all working in the same direction and um so that's been been great I did appreciate the um again the feedback I do take it to heart and again I think we have a very good team in place to uh to keep us moving forward so I'm looking forward to continuing working with you great now at some point will this be posted somewhere on the website or yeah so once you technically accept it we have a whole section on the website under the super tenant that this will get uploaded to within a day or so okay um and it's up there for the uh for the public great it's not in the packet tonight just because you haven't accepted it yet but once you accept it it'll get updated the packet will get updated in the section of the website great okay yeah right take ation take a motion okay I move that we uh accept the uh summ summ rative evaluation report of the superintendent performance for school year 2023 to 24 um as presented I'll second the motion okay any further comments right all in favor I I I zero okay thank you very much uh next this evening we have a um fourth item is just the Personnel report and again this is just a list I give to you of all of the um new hires and transfers we've had within the district um some resignations from people that are either retiring or moving on uh and it's a good way for you to just track the comings and GRS of uh staff that you'll see in September in the schools um just as an aside we provided a little bit of an update in July for you on kind of where we're at with hiring um we're still advancing and making very good progress to be um hopefully fully staffed by the time we um come back in just uh 3 weeks time we still have a couple of um key positions we're looking to fill um we've done a good job of filling the U long-term sub positions we had a number of say maternity leaves and other leaves at the beginning of the year um we're in very good shape on that front um we've kind of shifted into um over the last you know two or three weeks right up through the start of the school year a focus on all of our support staff because oftentimes we have support staff um that may be licensed uh that are looking for jobs in other districts so it's sometimes hard to get them to lock in if they are interviewing other districts for teaching jobs if we just don't have one available for their uh skill set but um we' really put emphasis on trying to make sure that we have those jobs uh filled um Diane and Rh our office are going to be hosting next week a job fair right in chelsford at the high school so we're going to really um she I know she's working with the L the greater L Workforce investment board to um to try to help fill some of those um par professional positions that we have still that may be open um our food service um lunch and recess AIDS uh things along those lines some of the unlicensed um or unlicensed required positions in the district so we're really hoping that that goes well this is our first time doing that we're going to have our admin at the event as well to kind of talk about the Chan of schools talk about some of the employment opportunities and hopefully able to stop the hiring process right onsite so that we're really um kind of locked in and ready to go on the on the first day um when we meet in two weeks I'll give you an update of uh generally where we're at overall with the hiring but I'm very happy with where we're at at this point I'm not seeing any significant um issues for for being staffed for the fall and uh again a lot of time and effort has gone into uh to this we were one of the first districts to actually start advertising back in March for positions and again I think that was because our budget was was relatively set there were a lot of districts that were kind of scrambling and and uh figuring out if they were going to be able to maintain their staff or not and we were able to kind of swoop in early and get our postings up and really attract some great people to the district so um also it was fortunate that we have a very stable Workforce we didn't have a lot of you know resignations or retirements the few people that actually have left even since the end of the school year um has been more geographical we had a few staff members like physically relocate to other parts of the country and uh obviously working here wasn't going to be um viable anymore but we've been able to actively uh try to quickly recruit um good good quality candidates for those positions um some of the work that we've done really outreaching to the in specifically on the teacher and the professional staff level um some of the different colleges not area that are graduating uh students with licenses in areas that we need have been um valuable so I'm really looking forward to uh to meeting the whole new group that are coming on board when we do teacher um orientation and in our whole induction program in a couple of weeks so I'll have an update for you at the next meeting in two weeks that's actually going to be a meeting so we're going to have a lot of topics to just kind of wrap up what's happened the summer how we're kind of forecasting the start of the school year is going to go um so we'll have a couple of different items on that that I know you've been asking for any questions on personal um in terms of teachers and programs teaching programs I know that we have the fellowships and so on in two from the University of L I think and also marac y um how about the the student uh when they teach like in their junior year PR the practicum are we listed in these different schools for that we are we actually approved for them yeah we we take a lot of of students for that so typically um when you're in a teacher education program um now we've actually encouraged this but the programs are starting to get students out into the field even just for like observance type hours it's not physical practicum work but as early as their freshman year sometimes in the spring of their freshman year they're just going out for say 10 hours as part of a class to actually absorb instruction um observe I'm sorry but we have um students that come to our district primarily from the local colleges because a lot of it's geographically based but um you know UMass L maramax things along those lines um then when you get to sophomore year and junior year you have to do more hours in the different uh programs and we find sometimes the teachers are having the um the students specialized so maybe they want to do a little bit of time observing special education instruction in a mainstream classroom or in a sub-par classroom some General Ed instruction and um we assist and we find locations in the schools at the elementary middle and high school where they can do that and then that sets them up for their full practicum so usually there's a whole semester that they're actually doing like their student teaching we used to call it and um we'll have teachers that will um agree to take on a student who's requiring a practicum and they'll come and they'll obviously be there like every day over the course of a semester they'll observe the uh students they'll actually get to the point where they do some co- teing and even lead some teaching lessons on their own the university Partners will come in and observe them as part of the program and doing that so we have been a site for that um there's actually been a little bit of talk between UMass LA and meramac um even in the way that they're doing their um they call it fieldwork um where and we're going to try it this year at a couple of our elementary schools um they'd actually like to have u a class of their students go to a particular school and observe kind of at the same time or at least the same um cohort of students and even teachers so that they can kind of compare and contrast what they're seeing it used to be that if there were 10 kids I call them kids but if there were 10 students in a class they might go to 10 different schools to do something they're actually seeing if we could actually host say all 10 at South Row Elementary School let's say and they would come in and they would observe a certain grade level if they wanted to try to see something or a c you know um cohort like we have a strive program at um South Row so maybe they' like to observe strive in a general Ed setting um so we're going to actually explore that a little bit um the teacher or the instructor from the University would actually come with the students so that they could actually do a little bit of debriefing and things afterward um but no we're very in tune to that and we try to be open to uh taking students in uh when we can and that's a great pool for us and to be able to recruit from it is because they get exposure to our schools and and if the experience is good for them they return but um one of the reasons I'm saying this is now I've had a couple and it's not just where my daughter goes I've also heard from UMass that um students that for them internally the coordination is not always great M um so that it's difficult for them so so if the the school is approved already MH and they know exactly who to call and so on it just makes it much easier if not then the student may not make the effort of doing it and will just accept whatever school's already approved so I just wanted to make sure that we truly know we're approved on those lists so that students will choose us yeah well as a district like I said where the a district accepts those students in there's minimal kind of paperwork that they need to to go through like we do require them to be qued um you know you have to kind of do your your paperwork before they come on board um you we need to make sure that when they come on board that they're going to be sensitive to like student confidentiality and things along those lines so there I prescrib things that they have to do but that's kind of in our relationship with the university um but we do if if marac or like UMass those are our two big ones if those were concerned I can tell you that we're approved with them because we do take kids uh I'm sorry students every semester that's great yeah and I can I can say I wound up teaching in the district that I student taught in and it was it was definitely helpful to have had that yeah prior experience back in the day are questions on Personnel Susan you yeah I have one um I had seen the listings for the hiring Fair that's coming up and I saw there was a couple of teacher positions that are called interim is that different or the same as long-term sub what does that mean the interum position a little different so a long-term sub would be if we have an individual let's again who say is on like a medical leave or maternity leave from the first day of school until October 20th we would hire um a long-term sub for that particular period of time there's a per DM rate that that individual would make more than a day-to-day sub rate but it's a PDM rate but they know at the end of that um term on say October 20th when the teacher comes back they're no longer guaranteed a position um So that obviously attracts a certain um candidate who is okay taking uh maybe a six or eight week leave and they might then hope that maybe there'll be another leave that they could fill somewhere else but there's no guarantee if we know a teacher um is going to be out for the entire school year so we've had a couple of in the different schools where um they've had say like a child rearing leave after having a baby say in the springtime and the teacher asks for a whole year-long leave then what we allow the school to do is hire an interim teacher so they're actually able to hire a teacher um on step and Lane so like right according to the contract but the person has only guaranteed the job for the year so when they um get accepted and they actually take the job they know it's a year commitment we're committing to them for the year they're on stpp and Lane but there's no guarantee at all of a job the following year that spring they have to look on the compendium and kind of figure out if there's a position that they might want um but at least they know they're locked in for the year for that job so that's the little bit of the difference so they're hired as the teacher on record for that job for that school year and that's all they know that they're okay yes so they but they guaranteed a whole year right so that often times attracts a different caliber of candidate as well because someone might say you know what all right I want to get my feet wet I really kind of like this particular grade a school I at least know I have a job for a year and maybe something could come of it you know you never know someone does take a leave for a year and life situations change and it ends up being they decide to take some time off and we end up hiring the person they still go through the process but they kind of have a foot in the door but they guaranteed employment for the year and because we allow the school to hire on step and Lane um again if someone's coming in with three or four years of experience they're going to get credit for that we're in a long-term sub situation they're just getting a flat rap perday so that that's kind of the the difference so if you ever see inim on a posting it means there's a particular like grade level of school where someone has told us and they've been approved for leave for the whole year so okay than other questions if my question is just and probably go to Linda um you know in terms of all these new staff because this came up on the evalu what do we do for them in terms of orientation and mentoring what what I mean if that's something no sure we um so we do have two teacher orientation days that will happen a week before school starts before all staff and students are back um we also assign mentors to all the teachers that U require a mentor someone who is either new to the position or new to a position that they've never done before if there's a significant change so if you were a kindergarten teacher and suddenly you're a chemistry teacher at the high school we would get you a mentor for that and then um those mentors work together they're trained mentors in the district they've gone through the mentor course through the district with our Mentor coordinator and then they meet regularly throughout the school year with that Mentor uh coordinator and know and them together the mentor coordinator is a teacher so it's not like evaluative it's not like administrators are in there it's a place where they can have conversations talk to each other what's working what isn't working and the mentor can support that teacher if they need additional um you know professional development even um Co like teaching we've released people to be like can you go and help and maybe Model A lesson the me the mentees have gone they go every year to um watch their Mentor teach a class as well so there's a lot of different supports in there and then of course you have administrative support through the department coordinator or the building Administration is a mentor program for just a year or is it two years is it it so a teacher in order to move to the next lure has to have um 50 hours for two consecutive years so it's pretty intense the first year year and then the next year the second year is a little bit um more Le it's less formal where they meet not as often but then that that teacher the mentee ends up getting their um hours in so when they go to change their license from say initial to professional they have the hours we sign off on that we hold all of the information together and every year we run a mentor class for new teachers to um that would like to become a mentor in the district to take the course and especially if we have like a low in group like nurses special ed um OT you know somebody that you need somebody specialized to do that we've also um did like co-mentoring so let's say you had someone that um you know had the content knowledge but then you needed somebody in the building that had different knowledge we would have them commentor can ask a question related to that in terms of Mentor coordinator is that one person for the entire District how does that work well it's a combination so between a myself and then the mentor coordinator is one position it's a stiping position that's a teacher that teaches in the district it's Mary Beth mallister so she's been in the district for quite some time so she's the one that will teach the course um for anybody that would like to become a mentor she runs the mentor mentee meetings throughout the school year okay but for entire district for the entire District because we have usually about what' you say like 20 Mente new mentees a year approximately 20 people require a mentor each year okay and then she works with both Diane Cary and myself like if there's something we have to work out if there's a situation if the match isn't good um or even during the school year let's say somebody has experience and they by All rights should be doing fine but maybe they're not we'd hear from the principal Department coordinator we might have to assign a mentor mid year great thank you all right anything else on personnel okay all right uh I'm going to assume no leas on reports at this point I actually have oh you do all right my assumption is wrong um because I'm the liaison to the town's oh yeah yeah steering committee on the Strategic plan which is really now coming to the community visioning phase so if you I don't know if you've gotten emails from Paula Cohen yet kind of introducing the whole process if you're a town meeting web you definitely would have received something um well if you didn't it's coming really soon yeah but there there's a a web page up now with a survey and a a place for residents to add comments All to develop a strategic plan for the town similar to what the school department went through of course um School issues will be on the town's plan even though the town doesn't really tell the school how to operate the funding does come from the town so there's definitely some tie-ins and if the town's going to prioritize certain types of work we want to make sure that people have been able to make it clear what how they feel about the schools too so there's a big push through the schools to get word out to parents about this Dr L and I met last week and um he's actually had some great ideas to help us um get um students because they're looking for kids as young as 14 to complete these surveys or maybe different clubs to do something called meeting in a box where the there'd be a facilitator meeting with that club and they'd kind of have a discussion about what they see for the town vision and things they'd like to see for the town in the future so we have um some good ideas that I'll be reporting to that committee next week on the way the schools can help the town get the information to create the Strategic plan so I think we're in good shape for doing that so it's nice going to be a nice coordination anybody else Le on reports so the only the other thing is that Sue probably has one coming up too we have the Strategic plan going setting the goals for coming year I know my subcommittee has a meeting coming up tomorrow so I think different subcommittees are meeting in order to set the goals and the priorities for that right uh okay any new items people would like on upcoming agendas so one of the things would be if we could get an update on what's happening with numbers and I'm sure for en sure for I'm sure that that's coming yeah the only um I certainly will can do this for the next meeting for you the only thing that on top of mind um that's kind of changed since the last time we talked the kindergarten enrollment at Center Elementary School had creeped up to the high 90s so I did tell them to go ahead and add a fifth section of kindergarten um I'll figure out the budgeting for it but I don't want them to start the air off high because I am concerned just also geographically with Center is getting um a lot of new families um I want to make sure that the K numbers are um really attractive so that's the only change um but I can include that in the August report for you that we've made since we last talked bam was always going to have five sections of K just because their numbers have been high and the other three we had always when we do the budget we sat with four um South Row and Harrington are fine they're in the high 70s or 80s um so their numbers are fine but Center I was a little surprised but start of creeping up to the high 90s and um again I don't want to start kindergartens with 25s and 26s so um I authorize them to go ahead and add a fifth section do we know if it's a particular development or anything that's going on there's nothing that like jumps to me from like the um just the addresses of the students that's the only thing I can go on I mean Center in the past has had certain grade levels where we've had to add five um particularly when different like hotels were being used for sites and things like that obviously Center was a little impact Ed but um uh you know I again I can't say it's like that development on Turnpike or anything like that it's just the center numbers for k um just were creeping up and like I said I just don't want them to startop the year with um High numbers in relation to the numbers I think it would be important for us to know what's going on with that Princeton project because it it really is moving along pretty quickly so we may find ourselves in the middle of this year um and I I think we had some funds allocated To Us by the developer the yeah the developer is supposed to earmarked some funds for us we don't have them yet I don't think we're going to access them until the school was coming on board but there was a discussion about that yeah just to see where we're at with that but if they start moving in during the middle of the school year that happens to be Harrington District that's going to have a an impact suddenly right in the middle of the school year so it's going to and how are the schools where you had to add the fifth doing in terms of space for those spatially they had five previously so they're making some maneuvering within the building but like Center has had 5Ks in the past it's not putting them over a limit where that they haven't experienced already correct yeah correct um and again I just we've always tried to really maintain those K And1 numbers around like 20-ish if we can um obviously they creep up and we've our policy will have them go as high as like 24 25 when they get to grades uh 234 but um just incoming care I want to have some flexibility so that was the one thing I didn't tell you that uh just came up over the last couple of weeks that I did let them go ahead and add a fifth section so okay any other new items um I would love in an upcoming meeting uh just an overview of what is happening in terms of long-term thinking about early literacy given that there's some new stuff that's been passed Statewide with the governor's new budget and given um I think we're approaching probably the midpoint with our existing curriculum and um I know there's been conversation from a lot of stakeholders about what's happening in early literacy across Statewide let alone just in chelsford so I'd love to hear sort of what the what the long-term thinking is and if there's any current opportunities through desie that the district is considering pursuing right anything else and a couple just um and Maria touch Point earlier um just the process in the next couple meeting talk about the process for our setting goals yes if we're going to get involved the DM group involved with that or we going to do individually how we're going to do that um the um if we can get an update on the capital projects that are going on I know there's a lot of things going on definitely have an update for you at the next meeting on that you know I'm sure our facilities director has been very very busy over the last couple weeks it's been a busy summer yeah um and then uh kind of related you know if there I know the budget was passed if there's any sort of impact on us in terms of you know Aid or in terms of school lunches if just kind of highlight anything that came out of that yeah not no significant changes to our bottom line budget that was approved by the town so that's the budget we're proceeding forward with um do you want to just touch base quickly on the the food piece right so in the governor's um what she signed was uh 170 million I believe for to fund um school lunch breakfast and lunch at no cost to families so that was um they're not sure if that's going to you know make it through the entire year it's hard to know but what they are asking districts to do and this doesn't affect our district but it will help the state is um you can qualify for Community eligibility provision it's called C and um what that does is it uh shifts the funding source to the federal government um so C through the years when it first started I don't know Jay what 10 years ago or so um the threshold was 60% um of certain poverty levels in that well through the years the number is 25% and then it's also changed you can do it it doesn't have to be your whole District it could be a school so um desie is um helping districts apply for c um and encouraging them to do so actually there's this big push back in June and then if that happens and if more um cities and towns in the Commonwealth have meet that 25% then the federal government will fund more and then that'll take away from the burden of the Commonwealth to fund the difference between you know for the you know at no cost to families again chumford is not impacted in C but um the other 350 cities in towns might so that might help the Commonwealth with their budget and hence why 170 million was funded rather than 270 million or something like that does that answer your question yep so bottom line when we start school year still free lunch and breakfast we start the school year okay um so I'm not going to speak for the governor but if this 170 million runs out then everybody's gonna have to take a different path that'll be interesting yeah yeah that's the on that particular item that's the only update we have on this point so that's how we're going to stop the year okay and obviously kind of monitor it and see how it goes any other things what okay um I don't think we have any second public comments so if not I'll take a motion to adjourn and make a motion to adjourn I second the motion to adjourn all in favor I thank you thank you thank you see this was