school committee order qu stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for to stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you this meeting is being live streamed by CH 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 Chums school committee public participation policy anyone speaking tonight during the public input portions of our meeting has been has notified the superintendent's office of the desire to speak and provided with these guidelines upon written request comments received no later than 12:00 p.m on the day of this meeting will be read made part of the record during the second public input comment session so welcome this meeting of the CH school committee our first order of business to approve our minutes for our meeting on May 21st I'm a motion that we approve the uh the minutes for the meeting of May 21st the second okay okay any corrections on the minutes okay all in favor I I exstension four I and one abstention what four okay yep okay all right next up we'll hear from our Chum high school student representatives in graduate former School alumni oh wait alum oh alumni now you're alumni yeah oh gee um so this past Saturday June 1st was the CHS graduation ceremony for the class of 2024 at SAS Arena at UMAS L and the seniors have officially graduated which is really exciting um and next Tuesday the 11th will be the eighth grade moveup day um so the eighth graders will walk over to the high school at around 12: p.m. and get a tour of the high school meet some freshman teachers and staff here from current freshmen and will be able to meet up with their student mentors and the mentors are chosen 10th and 11th graders who will help the incoming eighth graders transition from middle school to the high school and I also just wanted to share that this is my last school committee meeting so thank you all for an amazing experience it's been fun so thank you thank you thank you hello everyone so today some of the high schoolers participated and volunteered in the second unified game day at McCarthy and the student volunteers were able to help out with the athletes and run activity stations and today was a great day for all the athletes with different abilities across the chumb schools and the students who took time out of their day to make this an amazing event for everyone and this Friday is the start of our finals meaning we have two hour two two hour and a half long class periods a day to take our two class finals besides next Wednesday where there's only one final and a makeup period it's very so I would like to on behalf of the committee thank you both for doing a great job all year long um with your reports and everything else Lana hopefully we see you back here again I'll be here and the election for the new student representative will be Thursday there's two kids to run off I so you're coming back yeah I'll be back so you guys are all Super Lucky putting in a good word for us Lana yeah and Kia thank you and gratulations great speech by the way the other night at graduation yes congratulations that so we have a little gift party gift so all your hard work thank you thank you good luck with everything thank you all right anybody else have any good news they want to share I kind of figured they were going to take the good news so as they were saying it those were two of the big items that we had I don't know if we want to open it up for anybody else that wanted to share anything for good news anyone else have anything they want to share I do have one thing um a few weeks ago right after our last meeting uh superintendent Lang received a an award from uh the massachusett and school superintendent he didn't tell us about at the time um but uh I wanted to congratulate him for that was a president's award and uh big deal congratul thank you very much that's wonderful congrats congratulations all right anybody else have anything okay all right so we're at our first public input session I don't believe anything have anybody registered for the beginning part correct the end all right so we'll move on to new business great we're going to start and we actually have a couple of presentations um before you tonight and the first one we're going to be highlighting uh Megan mcgurk in our chips program so this is a chumford integrated preschool program um Amy ree our director of student services is here with Megan as well so welcome you guys to come up and um again this is a um kind of a highlight for us originally we had a scheduling issue originally it was going to be chips and Community Education um the Community Education director is going to come to the second meeting in June and talk a little bit about um Community Ed and some of the Summerfest and summer Quest programs um but Megan was still able to come tonight and to talk a little bit about chips so Megan welcome aboard and uh would love to hear a little bit about it and I just want to point that one of our teachers marn is here as well hi I know she probably didn't want me to call attention to her but I appreciate her support um so yes I'm Megan mcer I'm the coordinator of the chelsford integrated preschool program um so our program at a glance we have eight classrooms five Inclusive Preschool classrooms um two intensive preschool classrooms and one that is an inclusive intensive classroom we have over 220 students currently enrolled at tis um most students attend either two three or four half days a week um and they're a mixture of students um with identified special needs and also typically developing peer models uh so that's our program at a glance uh we have five inclusive classrooms um these are classrooms that are a mix of typically developing students and students who have identified disabilities all of our classrooms have communication and motor support embedded in the classrooms for all of our students our speech therapists spend time in there weekly uh occupational and physical therapists are also available to all of our students um their half day 2 and a half hour sessions morning or afternoon and we have two three or 4 day options um for our inclusive classrooms and this is where most of our students are [Music] involved we have two intensive classrooms at the preschool level these are substantially separate classrooms for students who require a higher higher level of support um primarily ABA based instruction um for our students there also with communication and motor support embedded in the program speech therapist spend a lot of time in those rooms as to our physical and occupational therapist most of those many of those students in extend excuse me attend a half day but there is an extended day option for children who need more time and that's based on IEP team decision and then we have uh an inclusive intensive classroom this is a really unique room and it provides an opportunity for inclusion for some of our needier students with additional support for students who require it so it's um a session that is half of the day is an inclusive session that's staffed a little bit higher we have an extra um Ava train par professional in there and then half of the day is a substantially separate session where children can work on skills in a small group setting um with um direct instruction again communication and motor support are embedded in the the classroom and as I said part of the student St is in an inclusive environment and part is in a substantially separate environment um there's a lot of different schedules in this classroom it's very flexible classroom um really based on individual needs and IEP team decision so we have some children who will attend 4 days from 8:15 to 1:30 some who come in the morning four days and stay one or two days for some extra small group instruction and kind of everything in between there um so it really is um for our kids who don't need that substantially separate environment we need them to be less restrictive but still need a little bit more support um and this is um I the staff's been really good at evolving with this program as the needs of our students have evolved um so we have a lot of related services and support at chips speech therapy occupational therapy and physical therapy those are provided as determined by students IEP teams um they're also a great resource for any student um because they're available to consult to all of our teachers if you know they're they're looking for some gross motor activities to do with kids who might be you know a little bit behind in that area we deliver our services in the classroom in the inclusive setting whenever possible and the related service providers consult regularly with our classroom teachers to ensure that skills are carried over throughout the day not just when they're in the classroom and our curriculum we have a language Rich sensory friendly environment um our curriculum is developmentally appropriate it's aligned with the district's Elementary C curriculum we use foundations and found to in panel classroom um at an age appropriate level for a lot of our kids is exposure to those programs so they know the language they know the structure when they get to kindergarten um but we really individualize it based on what the kids are ready for developmentally and we have standards based report cards for both our three and fouryear olds based on the Massachusetts curriculum Frameworks and now the really fun part is pictures um so these are some pictures from our space week um space week is um a a actually a two-e theme we call it space week it goes across all of our classrooms our whole hallway is decorated one of our teachers Lauren Nicolosi spearheads this um and there's really great staff participation help her because it is a lot of work to set this up um the kids have a blast with it as you can see um very very fun and then under the sea is another one of our our themed weeks that's going on right now um it's our second week of under the sea again um Laura Nicolosi spearheads this uh it's based on the book commotion under the ocean um all of our teachers do a lot of work helping to set this up um lot of fun and this just happened recently um we have Touch a Truck every year sponsored by our PTO they put it all together um this it's a rain or shine event and this year it was a rain event um but the kids had a blast the teachers were awesome Sports the volunteers were awesome Sports um and it's one of the highlights of our year the kids just have so much fun um and officer Aussie was there too but I didn't get a picture because he was sleeping most of the The Touch a Truck day so just a few highlights from chips does anyone have any questions any questions or comments or I'm just going to make a comment I'm move it here but where are you I love chips and I love the work you do my family has been participated in chips and uh of all of the services I think that the town provides and we provide uh yours is probably one of the most popular cuz it's all the I mean it's just little kids it's great this is great thank you also I miss being a parent of kids that age sometimes they're fun you can come visit anytime all right Fair welcome visitors out of your 220 students how many are actually on IEPs um about half um and I I think our our population has really expanded since I've been the coordinator um so we've been really creative with schedules because we have more kids with identified needs so we've been really individualizing um with different schedules and that also allows us to serve more Community children so that's kind of been an added bonus kind of getting creative with the sessions and offering different options but it's about half which is by Design because an integrated program um is designed to be um 50% you know 50% students that's wonderful is eel a part of uh chps too all of our teachers um are um endorsed um the um the L teachers come over and Screen all of our children um and that's going to be changing how we're doing that but it's part of it um and all of our kids are provided sheltered English immersion as they need it okay um how is and maybe this is more general question how does funding for chips what is the source of funding for the chips program yeah so so chips is part it's in our local budget so chips is funded as part of our local budget um we do take in um some revenue from the the role model or the general ed students that come to um kind of partner in the program that goes through one of our revolving funds and we use that to offset some of the costs for teachers and things like that in the program um chips and a special education program also receives grants from the state so there's some grant funding involved um but the bulk of the program is local budget it's part of the budget that you approve we have line items for preschool teachers and things like that when you see Preschool teachers that means the chips program so um congratulations to chumford for an excellent program I think and to you all for running it um so just another question on um you said you follow foundations and fonton panel and um so how have you found that curriculum to be in the school um I think it's been a great success um I and I think my teachers are really good about using it at the level that's developmentally appropriate for their students so it's incorporated into Circle um you know they're incorporating sometimes lining up you know just doing the activities um so the foundations have been great that way Fountain and panel has been great exposure to a lot of great literature um there's you know big books that are a great resource for it so it's just kind of Blended nicely into the literacy instruction that's already been there okay great I'm going to make one final comment and tell you this my daughter substituted a chips and she told me that um she loved the classroom teachers that were in that classroom and she thought that they were absolutely phenomenal and just following all the things she's learning in school herself oh that's wonderful thank you that a great compliment thank you I I had one question um I'm just curious you uh in regards to the uh intensive inclusive classroom um during the part of the day where the students who need more intensive services are doing that do um the more mainstream students join another class or is there um so the the way it works is the inclusive part of the day is our am session which is 8:15 to 10:45 um the peer model students leave at 10:45 and then students who have an extended day stay from 10 uh 10:45 to 1:30 okay so it runs a little bit differently than our two half day sessions it's a shorter day for those kids okay anybody else Su thank you I have a question and I should know the answer but I don't um are all of your teachers special ed teachers they are they're all do they're all dual certified in early childhood and special education that's I I'll just Echo what J I had two kids go through chips myself um and you really kind of side of the on the right foot you know with their education one was a Jun with needs one was a peer model and uh the peer model is now a speech therapist herself so she Le really kind of you know saw what things were like way back then I also want to put up a plugin for um the PTO and UK can back you know it's a tough PTO because it's turning over so quickly and but you know the amount of um you know um enrichment activities and everything else that they they help to to fun and organize it it's really impressive and even though marel will probably hate me just pointing it out Mar 's kind of the Cornerstone of the whole thing she's she's there year after year kind of helping guide the process along so I know thank the parents for all that they do and and obviously also the teacher i' like to say that our PTO is small But Mighty yeah that's a good way to describe it yeah all right well thank you very much thank you so much thank you thank you [Music] Megan great we're going to transition to our second um presentation tonight and we do this every June so we're gonna welcome up Nancy anini Nancy is our director of uh School nutrition and Nancy is gonna kind of walk us riew of the school nutrition program some of the stats about numbers of uh meal serve breakfast is served um Jo actually did you want to give a little I'm kind of stealing the intro did you want to give a little intro okay go I have a tendency to do that I'm sorry so um Nancy is going to share that with us and at this point in time um well we assume next year meals will be free again we just do have to wait till the budget gets approved at the state level um that hasn't um happened yet but um all indications look like they want to go in that direction but we still have to kind of Safeguard just in case something were to change but um Nancy love to turn over to you and hear a little bit about your year and Food Services well thank you for having me tonight um let's go with number of the meals served thus far for 23 24 school year um phenomenal our breakfast program were 57,6 71 um last year for the full year we were at 191 but at lunches um lunches this year thus far 483 to 9 over um comparison to last year the full year we were 48,8 35 so um we've already beat that so that's great and we had a few more weeks to go and so as you can see our total so far this year is 64,8 180 compared to last year 672 like again it that was a full year and we still had about we have about six weeks when we did this four to six so um we really are pleased and happy and busy that's for sure we're busy um it just is just a reminder if we did ever have to go back to um paid lunches you know we have to stay within the compliance and we right now we currently we still say we're a175 for breakfast is across the board in the high school and the middle school are 325 and the elementary school is at 275 um and that would be remain the same until we have another meeting if if we ever hat to look at that again procurement this year um we went out we had a rebid for all of our um for everything this year so um our paper bid was with Mansfield paper Dairy is with rosev grocery with thirst and Foods bread with fantini we hope and um we had a roll over with our fresh pizza and that's what Gils pizza again so our accomplishments this year um we as you saw increased our meal served we're at over 60% participation for lunch at each school hopefully next year our breakfast will do that but right now we're at for our lunch um we re-evaluated the needs of the school district and adapted the plans to meet those needs to serve breakfast and lunch at each site um we do the elementary schools we serve them in the classroom except this year we started with the third and fourth grades um we serve them um we have the Third fourth grade has come down to the cafeteria so that's new and actually it's working out we just don't do it at Harrington because of the pods so that was new and next year we've discussed already that um at the high school we'll have breakfast after um between the pride so about 9:15 there'll be a second chance breakfast so we'll set up some CS in the hallway um and I appreciate that Steve Murray's going to look at that with me and he's kind of pleased about it so um we continue to introduce the new menu items with scratch cooking recipes we am implemented a new nutritional menu planning in production record software it's un terrific parents can see exactly what's in every we serve and um it makes a lot easier and we have a dietitian on staff so we've really um come up with that and the nurses they have they can see whatever is going on so we don't have any more of the calls or any panic most of the time I'm not going to say it's 100% but most of the time everybody um knows what's going on um the implemented the new um males are prepared with state-of-the-art equipment at the high school is our commissary still and they're delivered to each school and I'm sure you all know that um you'll see the pictures that we opened up the baty school this year and it's beautiful and we already have Parker that was done a few years ago um now we're working on the design plans and we started Renovations at the high school as of yesterday um and I don't know if anybody got a chance to see we painted South Row the new cafeteria there's a um they call a storefront and then we painted the inside wall at of the cafeteria and I think we've got a lot of um good reviews on that who's ever seen it um we hired quite a few new employees um and we're still working very closely with human resources and our recruitment efforts at the Regional job fairs we already hired so far in the um going through HR and going through the we've had eight more for next year so that's really good we've never done that before um we continued our partnership with Valley collaborative to have three to five individuals assist the team in the high school commissary daily all staff received monthly sanitation training all sta staff received three PD days in house training we reviewed again the national school lunch program the guidelines Hands-On culinary training we did a few classes in that this year which was a lot of fun too um for Scratch cooking and there will be I'm sure you might be hearing it there are new um guidelines for our breakfast programs starting next year by the time we finish in three years there'll be no salt or sugar left unfortunately um I am um the assistant attended a week-long training at Framingham State last July in collaboration with the Institute of Child Nutrition to train as trainers train the trainer um I continued my leadership roles in the sna of mass as a media p president and worked in collaboration with the wellness committee for the successful Wellness fear held in March that was an incredible um fear and I really have to say ktie Sims and um Stephanie did a unbelievable job and along with piggy Gump and a few others is incredible and we increased catering for events within the Chels food School community in fact today we did work um over at unified games [Music] so so these are just some pictures I wanted to show you um that's what South Rose wall in the cafeteria looked like top left that's what it looked like before um as you look down that's what it looks like now and um that's the inside wall so when the students walk through the lines um in the cafeteria the serving line that's what they see and there's another picture of um you know fruit fruits and vegetables and all so this is um our lead Randy that he's working over now at the new Macy kitchen and that's our pizza oven and um we have one over at Parker and we have one going in at the high school they're great pizzas come out really quick and delicious and now we add ingredients before we just cheese pizzas but now we put all kinds of toppings I'm sorry and that is we're at the wellness spere um myself Holly ready our dietitian she's on the far left Casey Gump um she's been employee with us for now third or fourth year and um myself and then Laura Bishop she's our operations director so for the future um we're going to implement the new modernization of the high school with capital funding we enhance the cafeterias with updated painting storefront murals and serving lines that we'll be putting into um the elementary schools this summer um we expand and tasted Tuesdays we do them right now at South Row so we're going to introdu introduce them to all the elementary schools next year and it's a lot of fun the kids um you know we send over a different vegetable or fruit of course cooked with nothing so they really get the taste of that vegetable or fruit you know we don't add anything to it and um we do it on once a month on Tuesdays and we're hoping to invite we tried last year the school committee and administration to lunch and we also will continue serving breakfast and lunch at all the schools using the high school as a commissary we are put in like the section we're putting in now really will handle a lot more for the elementary schools for the delivery we're continuing to hire new staff constantly because to keep up with course with with the expanded participation we're updating the nutritional information using the software program as I said adopted in 2024 professional development and team building for the school nutrition staff and we're purchasing Farm to school products which you'll see a in a minute and developing more scratch cooking recipes so that is just a small delivery that we bring in and that's all farm vegetables we we buy local um Farms we go no more than 400 miles away in they deliver we work with the Worcester Hub I don't know if you're familiar with them so they do the vegetables and they also will do the our meats and um quite a bit more too we tried um a few other things that we we've tried fish and we might be introducing hopefully next year on you know once a week or something up the high school especially the kids seem to want to try fish and we um bought some nice hatic and everything this year so we all that comes from the WIA Hub um to the right top right that's how we the food the new service lines work that the students really get to choose this is at mccy we also have it being done at South Row in parcker um Macy's doing a terrific job I just had to show you how pretty it looks and um so that students can actually pick their own vegetable and scoop their own vegetable and we'll be doing that at the high school also because we have these beautiful serving lines and that's how you know most people do it in the glass you know it just really looks pretty colorful and it's say fresh is best and there we are we just came back from a healthy Summit um the three of us and um actually chelsford won an award for our wellness policy and Katie and Peggy and Stephanie also accompanied us there that's just another training um sorry that's a training with the some of the staff um for their development so on my accomplishments um past president for the school nutrition nutrition Association this is it for me and then um I'm I am involved this year that our large conference is in um Boston this year so I am very involved in the coordination of all that with national and um that's in July and we will be taking actually we offered it for any staff members that would like to accompany us because I think it's a great thing for them to see it makes them very worthy of their profession um so about 12 want to come so that's going to be nice so that's all if you have any questions for me anyone have any questions John just a quick question uh what's kind of the policy and how are we doing work on things so I just actually spoke to a recent chemsford Alum and one of the comments I said was hey what do you what if there's one thing you could fix uh and they said she said I'm a vegetarian and a lot of times there's not a lot for me to eat in the high school so I end up eating like potato chips and it was was like 5 minutes ago but anyway so I that was the one thing she said and I've actually heard I've actually heard this comment from other you know other grades too um so the thing I've heard is vegetarian Halal and kosher food so how are we handling that and I think it's pretty important to have culturally sensitive food available to kids so when they show up they're like well I could eat this food but I'm I'm eating salad all the time you know that's kind of what ends up happening so with the new um I'm going to be honest with you with the new um High School School kitchen we'll be able to handle a lot more um of awesome options we should say right now we do offer salads fresh salads as you saw um everything's from the Farms um we do like have a grilled cheese every day an option we have hummus packs so they have that y so there are different options it's just that um when they run out sometimes I do have a problem with that in the Halal we did have one student um parents did reach out to the principal and then they didn't go any further with it but I did look into that and to be honest with you at the summit last week there's like I could take in some Hala like the chicken for example and I would just do it across the board and just right because it tastes the same it's delicious and I would just so that actually we're already looking at a font for that so um we'll be working with that next year I just wanted to add something like in regards to that I think like having like a salad bar would be like a great idea cuz I know right right now now we have Sal like celiac disease and bread at the bottom so she can't get that so I think that would be like a great idea in the future that so that's great to hear because actually salad bar so we won't have an actual salad bar um there'll be well there's so much that's going on in high school the kitchen is going to be like I think we'll have everybody want to come and visit us but you know there'll be C certain days there'll be option but everything will be to just make your own so the only thing that that will be actually serving you is you'll choose like hot lunch and this is your hot lunch and other than that you're going to walk down that line and add whatever you want we have tried like we had um Indian culture we've done you know Asian culture Foods we we're trying so um now that we have more it seems like we have more people wanting to come back to work too so which is great um so we hopefully we looked at it last year we try to do like a once a month cultural food but if you need anything from us let us know cuz I I'm a big supporter of it I think it be good and I think with the expansion the capital expansion I think it's going to be help you to do a lot more too I think sometimes you're just limited by the equipment you have so no I'm really looking forward to seeing all the the changes my daughter's actually going to high school next year she oh really I'll get all kinds of realtime reporting on if she's talking to me that day but generally speaking so Nancy in terms of the breakfast program and now I'm also a member of the wellness committee and uh Nancy is a incredible contributor to that committee um you did actually all the lunches for the folks who were displaying right at the at this this whole fair so that was great and we appreciate that tremendously thank you um you had mentioned something about serving the breakfast and it looks like you are starting to do different things like offering a second breakfast at the high school second chance and Elementary the fourth graders in the calf I think it's probably hard for kids to have it in the classroom when not everybody's having it in the classroom or only making the you know you yourself are choosing it but other people are not and so on so that seems to be your way of trying harder to get everybody to access the breakfast as much as possible right um we're we're going to actually Holly myself and Lara we've been speaking about that because we you know we look at the numbers and we look at the concern and everything and um breakfast is that number one meal that they actually D he always pushes us on that we're thinking of maybe if we have enough employees because there so many different hallways and of course they have to get to class fast and we have to account for those breakfasts even though everything's free breakfast and lunch even though everything's free we still have to account to it to a student meaning that that student picks it up I still have to ring in that student's number because there's a different way that we're reimbursed for them as you know how that all works so um we're hoping next year if we have enough we'll go into the hallways this way the child doesn't have to just go into the you know what I'm saying they'll just go up in the hallway one of the hallways on the um at each school and pick up their breakfast and I think then they won't be so targeted and feel like you know why am I getting breakfast why is it someone else right now with the um at the middle school at mcy we only serve in hallways they walk through the hallways they grab the breakfast and you know we're going to talk to them about if there's a break in between two cuz breakfast after the Bell because some they come in so fast yeah they don't have a chance to grab the breakfast I would we're going to go a little bit on the more healthier side since we're being forced into that we're going we're going to be ahead of the game for that that's wonderful yeah so yeah but we have one Awards we it's you do some very very good work so we appreciate that and you've mentioned a couple of times the workers so I'm noticing here is it is the shortage in your field and what's happening you're getting some you said you have some ahead for next year already oh I already we started hire ready for next year we've had um I think we're maybe a 10 already that have come in and applied and um we have a couple new leads too so um I'll be honest with you we have a very diverse group I guess that's best to say too we have a very diverse group coming in so um English is the second language for some but it's everything has been working out terrific and we still are working like with Valley collaborative so um they help with the meal the breakfast program so um we're we have a pretty good staff now hopefully it will continue because wonderful we hope to grow more next year y thank you and thanks for all the work on the wellness committee thank you um two things first is just a a comment um my kids have been at South Row have really enjoyed the and benefited from the tri Tuesday so I'm excited to hear that kids at the other elementary schools will have the chance to experience that because um I think it's been a wonderful way to start a conversation about food being something that's an adventure rather than something you just kind of stick to what you know and the sweet things that the kids are all gravitating toward um the question I have is about the breakfast I noticed as you mentioned that there's a drop as compared to last year and I'm curious if that's something that you attribute to the the change in the fact that parents now need to sign up in advance for their kids to receive breakfast because that I know that has resulted in my family not doing breakfast this year even on days when we're rushed and the kids have to grab something out the door because you know I knew I didn't register the day before yes I am going to say yes um um cuz I I think it is difficult for parents but we have cut down on the waist that's that's what we were trying to do because we were serving every student so you know you're putting out all those breakfast then you try to cut back so I think that if we have him in the hallways we don't have to have so much that the parents will have to sign up for it'll be in the hallways we we'll prepare and it will be a little trial and error you know like you know we don't have enough of this we don't have enough of that I think my selection will you know um won't vary as much either and it won't be so much sugar so um it's just watching the numbers constantly and um hopefully no child's going to cry but I don't think it'll be a lot easier for parents that you know they won't have to sign up yeah I actually I think that will be welcomed um both the fact that parents may not need to sign up in advance but also actually the healthier options at breakfast I know that will be a push and pull with the kids but um if I hear anything about meals um that is critical and there's a lot of positive about meals in chumford schools the CR the critique I hear is the very sweet nature of a lot of the breakfast options so I actually think there will be some excitement about a move towards some healthier breakfast options great we'll try our best on that right anybody else Susan you good I just have two quick questions uh one is I noticed on the memo that that were not being asked to cover any outstanding um student accounts because we don't are we still carrying over those accounts from before Co I mean we're talking five six years ago do we still carry those over and is there a statute of limitations I could give you a list and um you know it's there so each year prior to whenever we went to uh at no cost to the families the committee voted um to cover the cost of the uncollectibles however we never wiped it to zero because we don't have a policy to do that so if so we still have it okay so if the only way to really get rid of that is for the committee to vote to say you know all this you know wipe it away and you know to never right no efforts to ever be collected ever again okay cuz yeah it's been what four or five years at least since yeah right something like that Co yeah and I don't know I know what the state's intentions are if they're going to continue to fund school lunches and breakfasts in the future I mean you know at some point do we just finally say okay yeah I I mean I'd have to think about it a little further we're not actively trying to collect you know the funding at this point I think in years past if we had to um to fund and collect fees each year and at the end of the year we came before you and you gave us a sum to basically clear the account that would be a um almost an incentive for parents to then not pay if they know it's going to get wiped at the end of the year so um I think we should it's not hurting anyone right now to just kind of keep it on the books and we're not actively collecting let's give it another cycle for another year or two and see if the state continues to pay if they do continue to pay it's no kind of no harm no file it's not hurting anyone but if we ever had to go back to a pay situation I think that could then make your uncollectibles jump if people didn't think that there was really a responsibility to pay my other question uh what do you think timeline in the high school kitchen I mean I know McCarthy stretched out a lot longer than we intended what do what do we how's it looking in terms of getting meeting today and they're staying you know Brian Curley told them you have to stay on target and they're doing their best to do it appliances and everything else were un scheduled I know that's where we got backed up a little they started I'll be honest with you they started yesterday and you walk in today and you can't believe how much is already all the lights are down so all the equipment's been moved out it's it's a clear and what what's the the slated or projected end date August 26 okay all right for the next school year all right we um obviously this is going to be a very tight job to try to get um to get accomplished when the weather kind of cooperated with us and we didn't really have a lot of snow days um we looked at the senior schedule at the high school obviously we knew we lost seniors a week ago um we also kind of get into final mode so it's half days they're not cooking in the kitchen um we said to to Nancy is there something we can do to um you know produce meals outside of the kitchen that last week of school to give the contractors an extra jump so we were able to do that and so this past Monday over the weekend we um Brian and the facilities group went in and removed everything that was salvageable from the old kitchen that we're keeping and then we turned it over basically to the group on Monday for them to start their work so they're actually picking up an extra couple of weeks we're pushing hard to get done by the end of August because not only do we have the biggest school that we serve being the high school for breakfast and lunch but that is our um commissary where we're producing all of the meals for the elementary school so we really can't afford to have this be a project like McCarthy kind of leaking into the fall um we're going to monitor closely we're going to push for that completion you never know when you get into a construction project what happens something behind a wall things like that the biggest issue we ended up actually getting into at McCarthy that was part of the delay was obviously some of the equipment was back Ed we also had some unintended asbest that we had to deal with as who went along the way we knew there was a little bit of removal involved in the high school so again giving them an extra couple of weeks to get in and even just kind of set up their tenting and things like that has been helpful so we're pushing for the end of August um each month we can give you an update with regard to like where we're at but um this isn't one I want to see get too deep into the fall um it would be uh very difficult for us to have to then shift to the two Middle School kitchens to not only produce for the kitchens but to produce for the elementary schools and the high school so um that's not something onestly I have to deal with so we're going to be pushing pretty hard good good all right anybody else have anything else all right well thank you very much yeah thank you very much nany nice job as always thank you have a good summer a third presentation toight have a great summer okay thank you thank you we'll see you in the fall have a good summer bye she said she'll miss us yeah um so third we have um Tess from District Management Group is with us we've been uh actually talking I know this is kind of a Hot Topic we've been talking about for a little bit Susan's got her pen out and ready to ready to take some some notes to take but uh no so DM group is our partner um who originally helped us put our strategic plan together uh three years ago and then we contracted with them to do a number of different initiatives this past fall one of the initiatives we identified under the equity group of the um strategic planning group was around the role of par Educators in our district and how to better and best leverage their um time and efforts and energy to really be getting at um increased and better uh student outcomes so uh Tess is here to actually just give a little overview of the work that we did this year um a little update this will also be touch Spas I know um Maria you had asked like when we do our next strategic Plan update so we are on a six-month cycle so in July will be reporting on the Strategic plan so this was an element of that but this is kind of an uh just dedicated strictly to the paraprofessional working group as an update uh for you guys tonight so without further Ado turn over to Tess great thank you good evening all um excited Jay kind of stole my thunder at the beginning but I will ground Us in the Strategic plan uh as we do but tonight just want to go through yes what were the goals of this work how did it start in the first place give you a progress update and then talk about where we're going next year to actually roll this out uh so grounded in the Strategic plan as Jay said just reminding us of the equity priority of the district which essentially says making sure each and every kid has what they need to be successful and part of that is ensuring students with IEPs or disabilities uh are scoring proficiently and that achievement Gap is minimized uh and as you may remember now three years ago I I think it was uh when we first built the Strategic plan it was seen that the achievement gap between students with and without disabilities in chelsford was larger than the state even though students with disabilities here are actually outperforming students with disabilities at at the State uh you know are striving for better so that was the Genesis here which led us into the special education opportunity review uh and basically what this says there's a lot here you can uh we have whole articles about it but change takes time uh and so just want to take you on a little journey uh we created a sense of urgency around ensuring students with disabilities had the services and supports that they needed when we first built uh the Strategic plan the district uh once we discovered that area of need we built a guiding Coalition through the special ed review that the PA work came out of uh and this year we enlisted a volunteer army to support the par work uh started to identify and remove any barriers so that this role can be refined and rolled out in the fall so then you'll go through six seven and 8 next year generating some winds sustaining acceleration and really instituting this change in the role uh and consistency in order to serve students so essentially project goals uh utilizing that change management framework you know we talk about redefining the role of the PA professional really it was refining the role to ensure consistency uh that you know you won't see a ton of new things added some things removed but really just making sure that across every classroom at all schools uh parents understand what they are expected to do and others understand as well uh so we started this work back in October to just understand really really deeply what is the current role compared to best practice outline those refined responsibilities and then spent a lot of time talking about communication professional development in order for this to be implemented in the fall uh we created a working group which you can see here so all the way from superintendent district leader School leaders general education teachers special education teachers uh and a par educator from every level and this was really important in order to get the perspectives not only of par Educators but those they work with on a daily basis uh and just we actually worked in this room around the same table uh oftentimes with chart paper and everything else I wish I had taken a picture uh but it really was incredible just to see every part of the district role talking having really honest conversation with one another uh about responsibilities and I think think the district is going to be set up so well in the fall because any potential concern uh or barrier I think has already been discussed probably a couple will come up but uh we just really had this cross functional group uh so that uh yep great so we'll get into our update uh as I mentioned we met in this room six times throughout the course of this work uh to conduct a variety of activities really grounded first in best practices uh defining the role that communication PD and progress monitoring uh and again I think just being able you know people could sit in a room and say okay let's in one day you know write out a bunch of responsibilities but this really allowed the group to go through thoughtfully have think time throughout meetings uh and bring up anything that was on their mind address those barriers proactively so this is the work that the committee did and we really started by rallying around a theory of action or essentially what is the fundamental belief around par educator success uh so talked about okay if roles are clearly outlined there specific training and Par educators are directed by a licensed teacher or specialist then they can be a highly effective member of the team uh and I know everyone who was in this room certainly believed that and so this was our guiding principle As We examined the role and there were three areas of best practices that I'll talk through at a high level um as I I know many of you were in the classroom you know par Educators do a lot uh and so it was really helpful for us to examine the responsibilities in these three buckets and identify what fits in here what doesn't but a way to organize all of the responsibilities into these key areas of support uh and so how we actually went about uh defining those responsibilities we outlined all the current ones from all the levels all types across this room uh we bucketed those into different types of responsibilities aligned on those current responsibilities and ensured they were aligned to best practice and research uh and That Was Then part of the proposal for the new responsibilities that you know again were iterated on probably throughout the six months uh and so I just want to give you an example we are we have the whole list of responsibilities that will be rolled out in the fall to par Educators every other staff member in the district who they work with uh but just one example and we heard about this a lot uh when we spoke to folks around the role of a par educator in instruction uh so par educators will not be teaching new skills to students uh not modif test classwork anything independently teaching content even if a student was absent the day before Etc uh which we did hear sometimes reports happening across schools uh what they will be expected to do is yes reinforce content that has been introduced by the teacher uh support any teacher develop plans for modifications and assist just with inclusion of all students in the classroom so this is just it's very nuanced here making sure that it's clear yes you are going to support in the classroom with instruction this is what it will look like this is what it will not uh and so once we had all of those defined we mapped out communication plans for all of these key roles we know uh that if it's not communicated well it's very unlikely to be consistent uh so for each of these roles we outline just what is the goal message mode timeline of communication so those plans will go into effect in the fall we also outlined with the team just what professional development would be needed uh and so you can see the three topics there around one just the best practices supporting diverse uh student needs and focused on social emotional learning one thing that I want to highlight here that really came out in conversation is around adult collaboration so do general education teachers special education teachers par Educators know how to collabor at with one another in the best way possible uh when we first started talking to folks and we asked what is the role of a par educator we sometimes heard very different things and so that's a key piece of the development we've talked about just making sure folks understand the types and ways they should be working together uh so with that that is where we are this year as you move into the fall that will be rolled out we're meeting with the district leadership team and school leaders uh on June 18th to go over all of this work so they're prepared to support their staff and then as we move into the year we'll make sure to measure success uh along the way to make sure we don't let a whole year go by and realize that it was ineffective uh so there's just a couple examples here of measures of success that the team and District leaders will think about uh just knowing okay we just spent a whole year defining this rule how do we know that we were successful so looking at par educator efficacy you know how well are they performing those responsibilities looking potentially at retention staff satisfaction family feedback none you know you you all already do surveys anything any question we may add will be done through existing tools not something additional but just to know that if there are any challenge areas they can be addressed quickly uh so with that I already told you we'll be here June 18th meeting with DLT uh and then everything will be rolled out in the fall and kind of just to wrap up again I think the group that has worked on this really you know volunteer their time to spend on this work which is going to pay dividends uh to just all of the par Educators you have in the district uh and the impact they'll have with students so with that any questions thank you so much for the presentation and I've been looking forward to hearing from you all about this um I'm curious about a couple of specific things so in the uh the synthesized responsibilities of par educator the buckets yep um one of the buckets is school and classroom duties which I had to read the details below it to fully understand what that meant because that could be a lot of things um included internal subbing as one of the school in classroom duties to me that feels a little different than the responsibility or then what's laid out in the uh theory of action because the theory of action you know it doesn't either mention that or happening or not happening but it doesn't seem explicitly to be part of um supporting students social emotional academic and Career Success in the way that the dos and don'ts of the role laid out um inherently being a sub sometimes means introducing new content as an educator teaching new strategies and needing to accomodate kids we also heard uh at a school committee meeting a couple of months ago um from some guests who spoke about um concerns about par Educators being pulled to be Subs at the schools I'm wondering if there was any discussion in the group about something that feels to me to be missing from the theory of action which is a context in which um there are enabling conditions so that this can happen happen so if the district is short on Subs is that going to disrupt this entire theory of action um and if par educators are for logistical reasons or for carefully considered reasons going to be used as Subs um how is that going to be laid out to ensure that they are still adhering to this role that the group has worked so hard to build great we talked a lot about subbing uh and Janie me I'll I'll let you at a high level what we did with the subbing is we heard that often the same par Educators were being pulled to sub when a teacher was out uh and so of course then the par educator who's in charge of supporting students those students aren't you know getting those supports as often we also know that in the reality uh currently across the country with sub s shortages that people are going to get pulled to sub sometimes so the team actually outlined some key guidelines around how often a par educator should or should not be pulled to sub so that it was more on a rotational basis and you weren't relying on those same people um Amy I don't know if you want to add anything no I think I think that covered it I think there was a lot of conversation about that and you know some of that concerns are how frequently it was occurring you have to speak in the mic if you're going to talk I was just going to say there was a lot lot of discussion around um the amount of time and subbing and the concern around the fact that if it was happening too frequently you know certain students may not be receiving their their support um we had discussions around the time that sometimes if a sub does come in and then a par is working in the classroom the PA professional sometimes knows that routine of the classroom knows um you know structures and stuff in the classroom and sometimes it's on paper more efficient to kind of utilize you know reverse the role so there is still um students getting their services and they're working together as a team in there so we talked about that as well um you know from from that but we really spent a lot of time putting parameters around that it's a really good question okay yeah there was just briefly there was a considered effort to say like in some of those things for practical purposes you know we're never going to eliminate something like that happening there were teachers that have to jump in there administrators that have to jump in just given what could be happening in any particular day but we really kind of focused on minimiz in you know that as opposed to just having that be the go-to type thing and like when it had to happen for a practical purpose um again just kind of making sure it was kind of rotated it wasn't just falling on the same person all the time things along those lines so a lot of the language will be around um kind of minimizing and when you do need to do something being very um kind of deliberate in kind of why something is happening and and checking it also so you don't go too long without kind of going back and looking at your data and saying well did we actually minimize or did we you know have Jay do something three times and it could have been spread out over other people things along those lines yeah I guess so I totally agree that things are going to come up and we aren't always going to have enough subs and all of those things are going to happen so my main concern was that there was a a written and disseminated plan for that and what you're talking about and what you were speaking about the rotation um to make sure that you know no kid is constantly being deprived of the par professional that's supposed to be supporting them or you know there's a whole another side of it which has to do with the par Educators themselves working outside of whatever they are supposed to be doing um so I guess my concern is just making sure that there was clear um communication of what this plan is so that it can actually be consistently enacted if it is what was mutually agreed upon yeah and I think that's when we meet with DLT on June 18th uh and uring that school leaders of course who are going to usually the ones making sub assignments they'll have that outlined uh we got to the level of detail with the group that OB it's School leaders who would make the sub assignments but uh you know a secretary May communicate that to a par educator and that's okay but just even how it would work on a daily basis if that were to happen around that same line of thought one of the things I've heard uh commented on by Paras themselves has been that when they go into the substitute role I believe it's a different amount of pay it's a different pay scale and um administratively it's not easy to track when somebody is leaving one role and going into another role it seems to me though that for accountability purposes and deciding whether or not uh a student is having sufficient par of time uh because that's important too would be to see how often that pay changes and when it changes and really truly accounting for that um so that you know the the par professional is being paid at the rate they should be when they're subing and at the same time seeing how much time is being spent that way for each individual I assume that's probably data just collected at the school level we have we have that's not how to collect we have the data wonderful so that might be a way to make sure that you're that's a good measure of success po you know that rotational that could definitely be thank you make sure Susan you had some things I say you're writing down and yeah um I'm really thrilled to hear this work and how thorough you really were with all these discussions because some of this was really tough and I know that different par Educators certainly have very different viewpoints and opinions about what they should or shouldn't be doing so I think being able to have these discussions has been excellent there's also the the circle you have with the orange and the green I know you can see it but it's not all there about what par educators will not do and then what they'll be expected to do I think that's great because it's so clear but what I really want to see happening now is you talk about change takes time and it sure it does some of this is going to be a big change but not just for the par Educators for the General Ed teachers and the special ed teachers so the part about par educators will not modify tests classwork and homework independently for some of these in some of these schools and positions that's a really big change and if the par Educators who've been doing it are no longer going to do it it has to be really clear about who will do it then so I think the part we have the collaboration structures as part of the continuing work is going to be so important so that's like the next step that I'm eager to hear about because if the par Educators aren't doing it and as they're not the content people so it makes sense that they're not doing it they can't all just fall back on the general ed teacher to just do it instead so I'm really looking forward to those continuing conversations but I think that the work you've accomplished in a year is excellent thank you thank you well thank you for all the the support Susan I know you've been uh you've had some ear being part of the Strategic plan work but I think to your point yes it's you know obviously this may be a change for par Educators but it's going to to be a change for everyone in the building and I think that's why it was important to have that representation on the committee because I the same you know we had that same conversation if okay if you're not doing something who someone needs to do it so I think just that yes having everyone hear this information at the beginning of the year at the same time will help those conversations start too and that Circle I don't you will see the big one the orange and the green it's so clear I like that that that's going to be a big piece I think as you're communicating this there's a visual right here that's very clear can be helpful I have one more question if I can the other thing that's not clear to me is who so is a par reporting directly to the teacher how does that work no the you want yeah the per will be reporting directly to the principal or assistant principal School leader y we did we talked about though we had a lot of conversation about words like manag directed supervises cuz they all mean different things so officially they will report to the school leader um but they will work with do you want to talk about how we you can yeah yeah we talked a lot about that and we we came up with some some words around that where they may be directed and and and manag a little bit within the day by the gened teacher the special education teacher maybe a related service provider speech OT Etc and um yet the direct supervisor who they report to is the building admin directed yep directed so like okay you're providing this activity or doing this work teacher but know you any HR or managerial things that's the school leader okay just to Quick points I wanted to make I do think it was very valuable that um like to Susan's point it wasn't just power of Educators on this group but like we had representation from General Ed Ian special ed because everyone really kind of when that question came up well who's going to do this then you know so it was great group to kind of bounce off of the the conversations were excellent I don't think anyone really kind of held back on anything over the course of the year it was just a very collegial group to work things through um and Tess also you may have mentioned but like the group actually um agreed to stay on next year and even meet a few times over the course of the year to just kind of help us with the progress monitoring piece as we're doing the implementation to see if we're on track because that was the group that was so invested in the conversations all year so I thought that was also telling as well that they really are invested in this want to see it move forward that that group is going to remain and um agrees to come back to together next year to see this through so that was significant I don't we had perfect attendance and everyone was always on time which honestly was incredible for the like I was blown away so yes that is a dedication or a testament to their work in when you say kind of brought my one of my questions go so who is going to be evaluating whether we're doing what we say we want like so one of the things PR par educated effic efficiency and how well are par Educators performing Rel who is making those evaluations how we evaluating that yep that will be you can go go ahead that will be school leaders are the ones who will be you know Gathering any data on that getting feedback then DM group will help you know analyze data identify points that need to be of focus Etc uh but we'll talk with school leaders on June 18th just more specifically what that will look like yeah I just we're going to um almost like we did with a strategic plan when now going to have we have this initiative that we need to roll out so this the whole kind of Pi strategy at all different levels there the professional development that's going to have to take place not only for the par Educators but for the General Ed and special ed teachers and all the different related providers because this is changed this is so everyone needs to be on board with that and then we're going to have to come up with our metrics we're going to begin that work on the 18th of kind of mapping out over the course of next school year how are we going to measure the success and have different benchmarks where we're going to come back we may need to adjust something something may have gone too and you know it wasn't it was just not an aggressive enough Target we may also realize something was just too aggressive in year one and we need to spread it out over two years but we'll have those conversations and then when we report out under the Strategic plan you'll have those kind of check-ins and and um check marks okay great right any other questions right well thank you very much for the thank you good to see you all yeah Tess thank you very much for coming Amy as well thank you all right transition listening to um item four this evening this is a um topic that we um have kind of talked about or kicked around for the last um year or so and I'm not going to say too much so that Linda can Lind you get do the presentation but uh as you know we um switched to out using a platform form called Panorama uh to look at some of our data so what we've been kind of struggling with a little bit is how to actually show the data that we see because it's confidential student data and things like that we just can't project it up at a meeting but we wanted to show you some of the analytics and some of the different things that we look at Daily at the district level School level teacher level things like that so Linda was able to work with the company to basically um get access to one of their test sites so um this is similar to what we have but it's not our data so that we can show it to you and uh Linda's going to walk you through a little bit of some of the highlights of some of the things that we have set up with panoram and how we use it in Sher so um I'll probably reiterate a lot of times that this is not our data these are not our students just in case somebody does sign on a little bit later to the meeting because that would be a little unnerving I'm sure to most parents so yes this is the demonstration site from Panorama this is what they actually use when they're you know instructing people how to use the program so honestly these dashboards have been um a multiple year process I've been if we've talked to anybody sitting at this table I've been talking about dashboards for a long time because typically what happens um is that you have data but it's in so many different spots thoughts that you know you have something maybe in the student management system someone has a spreadsheet somebody scribbled some data on a piece of paper you're trying to get this data together to make an informed decision and it just sometimes just doesn't really show what's happening for students so dashboards was something that I really wanted and in the at the same time I know that the district really wanted to have surveys to be sent out to families so um when I was talking to Shannon Bishoff she really wanted Panorama for the surveys because that's what they've been known for for so many years and they just happened to start putting together this Student Success platform at the same time so I was like aha let's take a look at it and quite honestly it fit perfectly with the Esser funding that we had so since we had it and it was going to be part of that why not try it so this is our second year with that information so I'm just going to just give you a few highlights of some of the things that are on here again with fake data not CH of public schools data so as a district person when I open up the dashboard this is what my dashboard looks like for the district when a school principal opens it up they see their school and when a teacher opens it up they only see their students so it has that multi-layer piece so just keep that in mind when you're looking at that so some of the things on this dashboard the front one this is just the opening like welcome we can get a kind of an idea of like okay what's happening with the academics are kids coming to school are we in the green so it's a green yellow red system right to keep people alert and then how are the behaviors going and then how are we doing with seal for students because in the surveys we do surveys for families we do s surveys for teachers we have surveys for students the student information comes into the side of the platform which is awesome right so you can get a few a good view on this page um there's a lot going on here however two things that I really really like on this page is you know an attendance report so this is going to look a little familiar to you I'm going to use their Lincoln Middle School because it's a little bit more indicative of what we have I had given you a copy of what our attendance look like at the district level remember I called this kind of like the EKG of what was happening so you can get an idea of what the past week has looked like for your school what the past month three months so on and so forth and then for us underneath and it's not here on Panorama because they didn't populate it it would tell you who the students are that are starting to to show Too Much attendance you know missing school so they'll make them red they'll tell you how many days what's going on so that you can go right away and say these are the kids that we need to kind of capture at this point so that's a really nice feature of the program that a lot of the even the principales enjoy the other one my most favorite one is birthdays so why not have birthdays and the kids have a cute little hat on their head and then they tell you who's coming next so those of course are my two favorite features but beyond that um there's a you know multiple pieces that I can just jump to right away if we were since we have a focus on math I could look and say how many kids are below the Benchmark in math one of the things I wanted to tell you about the academic piece because it does get a little confusing is that when it's pulling academics it's pulling a student's lowest grade or lowest standard if we're looking at standards based report cards so for example I'm a student maybe I have A's and B's in all my classes except for math maybe I have a d or an F it's pulling the D and the F not that I'm failing everything that's why you have to kind of dig into it a little bit deeper but it will give you an idea of like how many kids are really not doing well in courses it doesn't mean the students failing completely across the board but you want to say what's going on for that student so when you see 49 48% you see yellow you're kind of probably like that's terrible why would that be in in red it's because it's only pulling how many students are in that lower part so it doesn't mean they're all failing we don't have like in this Panorama Academy there's not 52 students that are failing school so kind of keep that in mind and then obviously as a District overview we get to see all the schools so we can jump to a school immediately and say okay what's happening like I see red here so we take a look at what's happening with the academics or yellow if I want to jump on Behavior again I'm going to use this Lincoln Middle School um only because because it looks a little bit more like Chums but what's really nice is on this side and again these are not what our um not the same words that we use to describe our students it's pulling right from our student information system so if I want to see how students are doing through race or ethnicity if I want to look at Special Ed I can jump right to that and it will give me more information about that so this is all students so the nine schools in this in this fake school district the 40 you know 4700 students or so if I want to see how many of them are in a placement and how those students are doing I can jump right to it so again don't be aligned by the red because these are not our students or if I want to just look at how our El students are doing so because these are some of our focuses we can take a look at how our El students are doing and they break this one down by their levels we just keep them as one felt like one group so that's kind of the nice way to look at it if we want to look at a grade level we have all of our features on the side that are coming from our sis this takes a lot more work to do if you're trying to pull it from our student information system which is Aspen sometimes called X2 it's called Aspen now that takes a lot more work but this allows us to just jump to it you can put multiple features so that's one of the cool things about it so um back to our um Lincoln School I want to get back there hold on let me just go back to my home and pull them in um so if I'm the principal I might say okay I'm opening it up I want to see what's happening in our schools I can see what's happening in grade apparently with there's no academics in grade six in the school but um that's fine um but grade seven and eight I can get a good idea of what's happening and if I want to see how again with those different um demographics on the side that are coming from our system I can pull that if I want to go into a specific grade level just going to give it a minute it will give me an idea of the 975 students I have in the school 300 there's 355 eth graders in the school and I can look at each of the students individually I can search for a student up here if I need to just go directly to that student if I want to look at just Ela for that for these kids I can click the ELA button and see how they're doing or the mathematics button and see what they're doing and get how their course work is lining up with their state assessments lining up with our internal benchmarks which is you know a pretty cool feature and then I can look at all the different students that we might have in here the flag on the side is just showing if they have a um intervention plan in place academically or behaviorally right because if we see low attendance we might want to be doing something for that student so there's progress monitoring that's happening for those students um let me pull a student up that doesn't have as many of these so I wrote them down because I've been looking at all these students that are really not our students here but that's fine and I probably could have used the um feature that I just told you about but you know nothing like scrolling makes my day better so let's see all right let's take a look at Ral oh no he's not a good example he doesn't have testing stuff hold on let me go back to my friends here let me refresh just to get them in there there we go all right so oh one student let's take a look at Tanya what this does for me is when and this is actually very helpful especially if we're doing a student study SE um Team it gives you the students name all their information right what they're you know student ID information is if they're on a plan and they're getting progress monitoring we'll have that it brings up all of their grades you can even take a look at how they've been doing with their grades so in chumford for example they in Panorama Academy they just give them a grade for each term we put in grades every two weeks for our grade 5 through 12 students so we start to in this area start to see multiple grades so I might see like a d here but then the student went up to the C and then by the end of the term they had a b or they might be going down right so they might be end up with a d at the end of at the end of the term we can see all the different assignments as they go in so you can expand down to see what's happening actually in this art class or in the language arts class so we have way more data than what they're showing here and then what's nice is it then pulls up all of the students assessments so you have them right in front of you and again fake scores that are here because they work with multiple States we don't have these type of numbers for our mcast but this is just what they're doing with their states um and then you can look at how they did for their math assessments compared to the internal benchmarks so we have additional benchmarks in here like our Dibbles for our young kids we have FMP scores in here so there's a lot of different data points and then their attendance so you can get a good idea of like is there an attendance issues this why they're not doing well in school or wow they come to school all the time and they're still not doing well in school and then you can do it by class and then also by um their actual you know by the month and then underneath we have a whole um Behavior piece so when we're putting conduct into our student management system it will pull up the conduct for the students and it will you can tell blah blah blah fake notes in here but this is where you can put the incident notes in here you can get what the actual we actually put in the date the time because we want to see are we having a problem at 9:00 in the morning are we having a problem at a location like lunch is it happening in the hallway um and then we actually put what the what the remedy was or consequence or if the student's going to be having some type of um remedy that's happening for them and then underneath it gives us all the social social emotional so this is the survey that the students take so we can say all right you know we could put in an intervention for say social awareness maybe that is something that's inhibiting that student and even when you break it down it will give us a Playbook on how we could help that student with self-management or how do we help them with social awareness and it links us right to the Playbook so here's an example of the Playbook if I want I can put anything in here if I need help for a student that cannot do two-digit addition it will give me five different strategies to do that if I need help in how can I have a student um um participate more in class I can put that up in this search bar it will give me activities to help my students do better in class if I feel like I've run out of my strategies so the Playbook is amazing in this because there's something for everyone and it's even helpful if a student is on an IEP if you want more details on how to heal help with um academics or behavior you can have a variety of different things so this is what we really were looking for and again there's way more features in this but I wanted to give you an overview of how this has helped us take every piece of data point that we have including attendance grades assessments and put it into one place rather than logging into this searching in you know this finding the piece of paper I wrote down with you know information about Maria on it you know and putting and coming to a meeting and actually having a conversation around the student so that is the academic side of it and then and we I'll take questions in a in a minute but then on this side is the survey information and I'm just waiting for it to populate come on Wi-Fi you can do it all right so here this gives us an idea of all the schools the district as a whole and if and this these are not the same schools so I'm just going to pick any of them and within that school it will give you all the survey information and then you can explore it even further to say okay we we're seeing that maybe Family Support is something we should look at as a district so this one only has the guardian one we have two other tabs we have a guardian tab or famili surveys we have a teacher survey Tab and then we have a student survey tab so we can explore all of them this demo account only has the family one in here and it gives you an idea of how the results are changing over time based on the questions that were asked to families about this topic so fam's perception of the amount of academic and social support that they provide their child with outside of school and it gives the parents get to answer we get the data back we can decide oh do we need to put something in place to help parents help their students outside of school and it gives us all of that data and then we can analyze it and we have it for all three of our areas that we provide the surveys it's a lot of information so I don't want to keep going until people have questions so I'm gonna take a little stop right there I have I love it if I was teaching I'd be using that well you know what I'm talking about times like I got to go to a meeting and you you know pull in 15 things and then you're like wait a minute I have to make a decision just to kind of help you get a the whole picture on a kid I love it but I do have two questions one is um on the academic piece obviously things like I ready are going to be generated by I ready and put right in in there but how to grades like say for an elementary grade so much of the grading is what teachers have to grade kids on on a day by day week by week how does that kind of academic information get into Panorama y so the only so it does it it populates at 12 o'clock every night midnight every night goes in and it's going to pull anything that's sitting in Aspen and pull it out it doesn't do the daily grading because then what happened was in one of our iterations when we weren't using everybody wanted all these pieces of data in there and it just got messy right like we have to decide what do we actually want so when it comes to that academic side it's only going to pull the standards based report cards it's only going to pull the actual letter grades 5 through 12 so until a teacher actually puts something in it will not populate but if you're in the middle of a term right now so this is the 5 through 12 because they post every two weeks that term grade could change right you know parents could see that on the PO portal they could get an alert that we can actually see the change so once I put a grade in if I put one in tonight the system would pick it up at midnight and that grade would show up and that actual assignment would show up so for 5 through 12 you're getting more information uh for the K through four we'd only have to wait until we have the um actual standards spacee report okay and then what we did is we working with Panorama we did the math behind it to be like okay if you have this many um standards then could be in the green if you have this many standards this would be yellow this many standards is red like this is a student we'd be concerned about because with the standards based report cards there's way more standards than just a singular grade yeah does that make sense so every all the pieces aren't there for all the elementary but there's a lot better but all of like if I were to pull up they don't have the standards in here if I pull up our information I see all the standards I can tell you that you got you know 15 out of 17 of the ELA standards you got this many of the and which ones they are and then I can just dig down into them now what this doesn't do is so let's just say you looked at the I ready stuff that's getting populated automatically from I ready um if I if I have to dig further into how the student scored on I ready I still need to log into I ready like it's not going to give you it's not going to allow us to pull in that deep of information but it's just it's more of that overview into in that that red yellow green system because when you start seeing yellow and red you're like what's going on like we got to take a look at it it at least alerts you yeah but I mean I ready you get a lot of great information but I'm sure there must be students where there's a discrepancy where I ready seems to say one thing in their classroom Behavior performance shows something else so there's there's not a real way to measure that for the younger kids yet yeah there's a lot of questions around like if a student's getting all A's and B's but their assessments are very very low what's going on or vice versa you know their grades are super low and then their assessment a high what's the disconnect right like why do why are we seeing this disconnect and that's kind of what we were getting at with some of this getting this information in one place because I mean I'm sure that's happened to any of us as teaching I'm sure that happens I'd be like oh I didn't realize that that was going on why are their assessments so low but then they're still doing so well in class is there a difference is it you know what is it yeah but without seeing it you don't know it's some but there still there's a lot there so I think that's great and it's also um those when you're digging into looking at the students individually if you're having a conference you can pull that out print it off give to the parents you know and that's a nice feature to have instead of trying to put your own system together for parents so I my other question was about the part where you could actually put in Behavior incidents um and I know that you know different teachers are different places in using this but how's that been working out I mean because there are kids who if you just tried to keep it in your head know they had trouble this day with this kid or that day with that kid but how how how's that working with people inputting that kind of information so they're still putting it into Aspen and it's getting pulled into Panorama and all the schools have identified like major and minors because there's a difference between a major incident and a minor incident and when you get into the upper grades there's a distinct difference between a major incident that some some things that need to be reported over to the state so the schools got together they've identified what's like major and what's minor they put that in information you know into we put into Aspen the teachers can actually go in and add the information in if they want to similar to like the the Swiss Swiss program or any if they use used to use a Google form to do it but that's been working out because this allows us to see if it's a major or minor it gives us two sides of it so you could be like oh okay this is just more of like just blah blah blah yes blah blah blah somebody's just you know being a nudge opposed to wow we've got this problem and then when the when they go into like a Behavior report and actually let me see if they have any information in there what I like about it is that it starts to tell you what like how many majors how many miners no data means that they didn't identify either one of it but then when we go into those incidences we can see if like there's a trend if something's happening all the time at this time of day in a hallway at lunch at recess you know and if there's a trend of like more fights more um I don't know I say what weapons but like weapons if there's if there's something big coming up you'll start to see like what's this what what do we have to put something in place and why is it happening where is it happening what time of day is it happening so it's it's been pretty it's working out well right we had other programs like Swiss and that was another place that you had to go and get the information and try and figure out what's happening it will the behavior stuff to that didn't have the say again that just had the behavior it didn't have the academics right that only had the behavior different pieces didn't right so it's literally like think of a poster board you're trying to put all this stuff up and then trying to Fig things out it's actually sitting in here so that has been working out pretty well I had two questions um one is around the flagging that you mentioned um does that happen automatically based on what Panorama calculates based on the data it receives does that happen because somebody's looking and saying we need to do an intervention because of what we're seeing in Panorama or does that simply reflect students who are on 504s or IEPs or have some other special plan um that modifies their instruction it's the second one so we can put in intervention plans we can put in academic or behavior one we put the plan in and then we can decide how to progress monitor it so it has to actually be done that's the second part of Panorama that we're going to be exploring a little bit more next year some of the schools are a little bit more comfortable able with it than other schools and teachers have because you know they have all the features so like like myself included when as soon as I have features I start clicking into them so some people have automatically started to go through that and add the intervention plans but we have to put a little bit more PD around like what does this look like and what do we actually want in there and then who's monitoring it because a plan's all well and good but if nobody's monitoring it is really not going to help us so those are actually put in by either a team a teacher and how it's going to be monitored it Panorama doesn't pick it up by any type of data and we don't it's not just for students with 504s or IEPs L students any of the above it can be for any student other questions yes um it's my it's the fact that I'm an attorney so let me just these are fake this is fake information I'm like no well but it's data any kind of data mhm we're dealing with creating a record about someone and uh an evolving record and a record about a child who's growing up and you know so question is who can enter data and what are your rules regarding access uh and privacy rules around this data because I I can see if a parent is coming to a session and you're going to show this whole Panorama thing to the parent and say see here's the problem okay and now you're um giving data from various teachers various incidents various things that happened that the person may not have had access to before that type of thing so I just don't I I I don't know what your guidance what your rules are what your data policy is about the use of penama I think that this is absolutely a fabulous type of Tool uh from seeing this and if I was a classroom teacher and I've got this down okay it's one more way of verifying for myself what I'm seeing every day in what's happening with these CH with my students but I can also see at maybe a middle school and high school level where students have access to many teachers uh guidance count counselors uh you know everybody throughout the system who is going to be changing those data points and when can they and so on so I think it's going to be very important to have a really good policy in place for this yeah so um we do only provide student access to the people that are supposed to have the access so if uh you're a principal you have access to your whole school you get to see everything if you're a teacher you only have access to your students um so they there's no student information or confidentiality that's broken and the people that are entering in the information are only the people that so we have identified roles in here so there's a teacher role there's an admin role and we identify who receives what roles um only teachers that have actual students like we have to make sure that everybody has a role even in Aspen which happens all the time and then they get chosen for these specific roles so they can only see those students that they're supposed to to see so nobody has there's no and even like the I ready and all of that parents teachers all have access to that anyway and we are allowed to give that to parents and there's been times like even if we've had a parent that's asked for their student record we've given him a copy of this as well because it's just laid out better for them it's no different than when they say I'd like a copy of my students grades their transcript I want a copy of how they're doing on their um assessments their State Testing it's all of the information that they're owed to have on their own student so all the roles are defined and only people receive the role that they are designated to have so like a teacher can't see all the students they can only see the students they have whether that's middle school or high school but let's say a Dean at the high school can access every student yes they can in the school in the school as they should enre the teachers don't get to see the detailed part of the some of those consequences right suspensions and all of that they only see see that there was an incident they don't get to drop down but the actual Dean would be able to go in and see like if I think um women policies well yeah you have a policy on this it's your student information policy so this Falls within it and then even pianorama having the information we've signed an agreement they're in a secure account so they and teachers can't even go back so if next year when we roll the students over they can't go back and see students they don't have anymore they're going to only see the students that they currently have okay okay and so teachers cannot share the records of their class classes with other teachers okay that would have with or without Panorama that is right grade books all that stff information regulation extremely important is it sharable in aggregate at some end sizee or is it not sharable at all like is there any way to see like for example to do a data dive as a staff looking you know in aggregate at the student body and how they've grown over time for that information like without the student you know identifying who the students are I think of something like mcast right we'll just say this is how overall all seventh graders performed right they wouldn't that wouldn't be a student information violation because the student names are not there sure but I didn't know if there was a certain end size so for example could you look at achievement cops between groups of students and at what end sizee is it allowed to look at a group of students I haven't looked that deep I don't think I don't know if it if it limits that similar to like gcast where if it's not 20 or more students you can't see it but that I don't think anybody has gone that deep into it but I can find out yeah thank you yeah any other questions so there's a ton of other features in there but it's amazing it just kind of gives you the overview of how easy it is to click and get the information rather than searching for it and um providing information right out of the gate for even like a parent I'd be like here you go use this at a conference that would what I would do I think it's like anything else with data oh there's always a human being behind the data and right and so you just honestly have to really think about all of those issues oh yeah um and you know you don't want to ruin a kid change the reputation of a child whatever um and uh so thank you I appreciate that and I think that that's really important and I want to thank Linda I i' have been fortunate to actually kind of get a preview of this earlier in the year I'm thinking wow this is so great I mean how could we get this to the rest of the committee how can have people and it's been months working work with the company this is they act I was actually laughing with them I said I think we actually should get a a check because I'm actually promoting your program so do you think I'm going to get a royalty check how does this work because there this is proprietary information and I said you know we already you've already sold it to us so we have it I just need a way to be able to show people because somebody would might want to use it somewhere else so we're only here to help you so it just took a little while to get their demo site I wouldn't want to have it because it's get down a rabbit hole there you could spend hours and hours and hours clicking and finding well especially with all the demographics on the side of by grade level you can look by the the counselor I mean it's everything we have it's like oh let's go find right you could be in there forever just an overview great it's okay kids are not okay how can we help well thank you very much I appreciate that really helpful now to really see how it works you talk about it a lot absolutely y all right next up is lgbtq pride month um is this month and uh so we have a proclamation I believe Susan's going to read it for us okay this the chumford public schools Proclamation on lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer plus uh here for to known as lgbtq plus um it is now pride month June 2024 whereas the chumford public schools is a welcoming learning community and whereas the chumford public schools recognizes the importance of equality and freedom and whereas the nation was founded upon and is Guided by a sense of principles that includes that every person has been created equal that each has rights to their life liberty and pursuit of happiness and that each person shall be accorded the full recognition and protection of Law and whereas the chelsford public schools lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer PL plus lgbtq plus Community are a vital part of all fields and professions and tribute to a stronger community and whereas the chumford public schools is dedicated to fostering acceptance of all its members and preventing discrimination and bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity and whereas the chumford public schools is strengthened by and thrives upon the rich diversity of ethnic cultural racial gender and sexual identities of its residents all of which contribute to the vibrant character of our system and whereas the Center for Disease Control CDC recognizes that lgbtq plus teens are at a higher risk to be the victims of violence and have increased suicide rates and whereas it is imperative that young people in the district regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity feel valued safe empowered and supported by their peers Educators and school leaders now therefore we the p chelsford school committee and on behalf of the chelsford public schools hereby Proclaim and recognize June 2024 as lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer plus lgbtq plus pride month in the chelsford public schools and urge all members to recognize the contributions made by members of the lgbtq plus community and to actively promote the principles of equality and Liberty sign this day fourth 4th day of June 2024 and now we'll take an official vote on that if all right I I would like I move that um we Proclaim as a committee we Proclaim and recognized June 20 2024 as lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer plus lgbtq plus pride month in the chumford public schools second that motion who seconded it okay thank you all right any further comments okay all those in favor I I thank you very much for doing that I gotta put it off at sus so I read the whole thing but great job sign it yeah we're sign I have an original so I'll pass it around after the meeting we can all sign it great thank you all right um right super uh number six I'm actually gonna ask Joanna we just had a couple of more um smaller one time budget expenditures I'm just going to ask Joan to walk you through that give you a little update and then there's an accompanying transfer thank you in previous reports we uh the financial reports quarterly reports the budget projections we are favorable this year of our $7,700 th000 budget you've already approved um at two prior meetings some one-time um purchases the first was about 1.6 million and the second one at the last meeting in May was 500 56,000 this is a third request totaling $63,500 and they're related to um two projects you've already seen one is the art rooms and one is the new little science project area at the high school so the art rooms it's um installing the lighting and the power upgrades for the light remember this is a pretty big area it's five rooms and then some dumpsters to get rid of the debris and then um the second one is the little science project area um there is um going to need to be some abatement and that quote hasn't actually come in yet this is a estimate we didn't want to wait too much longer in June because we wanted to get it to the committee and then the oversight of the abatement so any questions on uh the onetime purchases anybody have any questions I notice most of this is coming from substitutes line is that because we didn't need as many substitutes this year or we couldn't get as many substitutes this year um I specifically it's in the um the daytoday subline you we have like four different sublines and that one came in a little bit less um some of them are right spot on like the long-term Subs things like that right other questions um will this be our last request or you think we'll have another one in the at the last meeting we've only one more Mee to go I know that's I know it but it'll be a small one if it comes in um there were a couple we we really do try um to do the biggest order early just because of the lead time and there were a couple of these smaller projects that um you just actually had more service related components that are just all getting kind of hammered out as we're getting into the summer so I'm not overly anticipating anything for the next meeting but you know going to reserve our right to have something small if it were to come forward and are we putting any money in this that Special Reserve account this year or no oh yes so that we'll all talk about in July okay when we actually do like the the closing of the books okay so um that because we'll be liquidating purchas order is making final year payments um in July is usually when we reconcile everything so we'll do the prepaid tuitions we'll come forward with you we'll probably have like a recommendation to um to pay for the CH Fields again out of the so we'll have all of those but that's like a July action okay that wouldn't come until then but we've set aside a million 8 for that so far you up to you authorize up two million okay that gives us wiggle room as we're closing the books okay all right I'll take a motion I would like to make a motion um that we approve the FY 2024 local operating budget transfers discussed totaling 63,5 for the chumford public schools as presented second okay any further questions I have to roll call Diana hi Susan I John hi hi I I have zero thank you thank you very much I had listed approval field trips on the agenda I thought we may have one that came in for like a year from now for an overseas and it did not so I don't have approval of field trips um so that would just bring you to the reports okay all right uh anyone have any leaz on reports I uh attended meeting for McCarthy and Parker um my first time with that particular group um some of what they shared um we already heard from our student members tonight for example eighth graders doing a visit to the high school um and the unified game day that happened today um but I think um what was interesting is at the end of the meeting I think there were a bunch of them that were very excited to just tell me their thoughts and ask some questions on some things so I am just going to report out on what I heard them talking about um and what they shared with me there were um the the thing I heard the most was around hiring um there were a lot of questions and concerns about the candidate pipeline for teachers um one of them who is a parent and a teacher um talked about what she perceives as difficult ulty in getting teachers to accept job offers in chumford duee to our pay rates um and that led to a lot of parents chiming in asking if we have a teacher referral program where there are incentives to teachers for referring other Educators um to join the district um or any other kinds of incentives um to help kind of refer teachers into the district um there were also questions and concerns about the diversity of the teaching force and the challenges in trying to hire a more diverse staff that better represents the student population um so I just wanted to elevate that because I know it's it's something that is very present particularly this time of year as I know the district is wrapping up um some of its sort of initial plans for hiring for the fall um lastly I'm just going to elevate for them that there is a won't call it desperate but a fervent request for fifth grade families or Rising fifth grade families to join the Parker PTO in particular and they invite families to come on at the June 10th meeting great anyone else have layers on reports um I do I was at chips PTO last night and I'm pleased to report that they were able to elect a Full Slate of officers to continue their PTO um they not only have a Full Slate they have three brand new people who are kind of going to shadow in each of those roles so that they are pretty much guaranteed that the yearafter they will um have officers as well so they were really thrilled with that because there was you know we've been worried about participation in PTO another thing that did come up was talking about how the fact that chips does not have a music teacher come in at all and we were kind of brainstorming some ideas of maybe having some high school kids sometimes come in and you know some of the chus groups or the instruments and having some possible visitation so it's not necessarily a school committee thing to decide upon but in the future maybe talk about some of those ideas because maybe there's some ways we could do it for free and bring them some music great so I attended the central PTO meeting um it it's exceptionally well attended as usual um cental school does have a Full Slate uh for next year as well uh they did all of their elections and they went over a report of uh the enrichment that they've done throughout the year and I just want to commend them um because they're not only great fundraisers but they really spend the money on enrichment which is where it's supposed to go and they did a great job with that John anything okay uh I don't have any reports but I just a couple upcoming so Alumni Association was supposed to meet tomorrow night they push that till next Tuesday just because of conflicts and then also on June 12th um there's a mun Municipal open house at the library Library um starting at 6:00 and so members of various committees are going to be going there um I volunteered to to represent the school committee if anybody else would like to come and join me then that'd be great um but it's at six o'clock and it's just people want to get information about all the different committees and and what's involved in the Committees maybe we can recruit some people for you know to get on committees in the future that type of thing so that's next next Wednesday the 12th um starting at 6 o'clock at the library so just wanted to mention that all right so I know that I had the high school this year so I just mention that um I was told that the uh after prom was a tremendous success once again this year and the amount of donations and contributions by families of the students was absolutely amazing I know that in person because I was a collection site and it was just amazing to see it's great every year it's just yeah incredible incredible all right any anybody have any new items they would like we good okay all right great so we're now to our public second public input part of our meeting I believe we have some speakers so um if there's just a quick update if anyone present that would like to address the committee please come forward uh to the microphone uh please state your name and address uh for those speaking tonight uh just try to limit your comments to three minutes and keep in mind we will not be responding directly to your comments during this part of the meeting although we may address them at a future meeting welcome thank you uh good evening everyone my name is Brenda desimon I reside at 10 footpath Road my husband Tom and I are here to address concerns that occurred before during and after in our opinion a bullying incident that took place on February 15th this year between our eighth grade daughter and her foreign language teacher we've followed the recommended escalations process and are here to support and partner with you to resolve the con concerns we have identified they are communication there was a genuine lack of communication between the principal and superintendent parents including myself were informed by the superintendent that he was unaware of incidents reported to the principal emails and voicemails went unanswered requiring multiple follow-ups from parents lack of accountability the overall lack of communication led to no accountability for instance the teacher involved in the incident made conflicting statements in January about their departure when I raised this with the principal he indicated an apology from the teacher would be made to the students as the teacher indicated in error they were leaving the apology never occurred lack of mental health support students did not receive timely responses from guidance counsil during a March 6 coffee chat a father shared with the superintendent that his seventh grade daughter's guidance counselor hadn't responded in three weeks of emails from him and his daughter our daughter's requests on at least two occasions to see her guidance counselor were never followed up on our daughter gave up I appreciate your time and attention to these concerns again we both want to reiterate our interest in working on these concerns that we brought up today um and I'd like to just say if there are any parents and students listening I want to thank the students who supported our daughter and those who spoke out against bullying and the emotional abuse your courage and desire for change are commendable thank you thank you would anybody else like to speak tonight okay all right well thank you very much for coming here tonight right um if there's nothing else I'll take a motion to adjourn I motion to adjourn I say second all right all in favor I I okay right thank [Applause] you for