##VIDEO ID:M_SF67PDLl0## [Music] good evening everyone today is Tuesday September 17th and the time is 6:32 p uh 6:32 p.m. and I'd like to call this meeting to order first up is our consent agenda uh first item is minutes from August 27th 2024 any questions or comments on the minutes hearing none I'll take a motion I'll make a motion to accept the school committee minutes from August 27 2024 can I have a second I'll second all those in favor I I next is uh to vote on warrants 14 16 and 17 which have gone around for signatures um any questions or comments on any of those hearing none I'll take the motion I'll make a motion to approve uh warrants 14 16 and 17 can I have a second second all those in favor I I next is uh out of state field trip that would be our want me you just pull a chair up and next so thank you there should be a copy of this um presentation in your um folder so um good evening I am uh Sarah Bearden I am the high school guidance counselor at over at the high school I work with the 10th 11th and 12th graders and as part of our partnership with the mass hire Franklin Hampshire Workforce board we have the opportunity to send students to um Hartford Connecticut for the Aerospace manufacturing convention and so what it is is if you know anything about um western Mass and um Northern Connecticut they call it Aerospace alley so Pratt and Whitney um Boeing where all the planes are made so what they do every year is they do a convention it's it's a two-fold one for students to come and see all about what it means to be in Aerospace manufacturing so making the planes not necessarily um how did they get there but all the things that go into making them as well as it's also a job fair so they get to hear about um what you would do and how you would get into these jobs so the um Hampshire Workforce has reached out to us and said that they will pay for transportation as well as the registration fee so Derek Kars who is our technology uh teacher and um Brian seeta who teaches 3D printing and he is also the Middle School school counselor or are going to go as chaperon we right now have about 18 kids signed up I know there's more but I waited to get a little aggressive with who wants to come until I got approval for the trip um this also ties into um if you are aware we have a grant that we are working on we're in our second year of it for Innovation pathways through the state and what we've chosen to do to concentrate is on information technology so um giving students the opportunity to learn more about technology through our computer classes through inter ships and field trips such as this so this would be um it's on October 30th it is only going to be a few hours they'll probably leave at about 9:00 and they'll be back well before 2 so it's just a quick trip down we'll have them spend a couple hours they'll get lunch from the cafeteria and then from our cafeteria and then they'll come back to school by by two for the bus what grades right now we have eth through 12th grade signed up so I have three seniors who are interested in um engineering so they want to go see it from their from their perspective and then Derek um has a robotics class so a lot of kids that are in his robotics class are really interested in seeing because they right now are building and they want to be able to see the bigger things that they're learning about uh questions you said the 30th the 30th 31st I'm sorry bsat is are the 30th yes the 31st of October oh that's cool a nice Halloween treat I'm sorry so it be a Halloween treat yes yes yeah so the kids that are going I mean that are signed up are really excited especially the eighth graders because so yeah so it's a great opportunity for them any other questions hearing none I'll take the motion I'll make a motion to approve the out ofate field trip I have a second second all those in favor I would you uh report back and let's know how of course yes I'll even bring pictures all right thank you sounds okay next is the district Improvement plan I don't know if you want to have Co little first because I kind of been I didn't realize that I put that in new business as well okay take that way he can all right well we're almost there Cole we'll just read through so we'll move that down to the next one if you want to see you could listen to the dist plan but I just wasn't sure what kind of a I don't mind going you don't mind waiting it all right we we'll uh just go in order so we'll move down to visitors comments any citizen wishing to speak before the committee must sign in with the administrative assistant prior to the opening of the regular session of the school committee the visitor will identify themselves by name and address and shall speak for no longer than 3 minutes for anyone unable to sign in ahead of time we ask that you clearly state your name and address so that this information can be included in the record for the meeting I'm not seeing any so we'll move along to you thank you um first of all it's always good to see all of you again hope you've all had a good couple of weeks I know that there wasn't one as planned last week I sent out an email told that there wasn't one which I but I was able to make it today um I was unable to appear from Miss D away but M Jordan was uh able to get me all the information for the high school of course you know it's about the fourth week of school um par and caregiver night was held last Thursday a follow of email to families was sent out this past week in the newsletter which contained the slideshow and a Google form in order to prepare for in house workshop for uh as for academic updates add and drop um for classes ended on September 6 we implemented a new for and order for students to draw a class after the deadline the form does require parent in caregiver approval uh clubs are beginning to be advertised first meeting bu is happening this week final F was also over the weekend we selected a social and emotional curriculum to implement an advisory it is a work in progress and will likely pilot with the junior high first for upcoming events soon Council will meet next week for their first meeting of the Year Mr Milano has signed back on for this year which I'm happy about I do like working with her I can give you updates on that as I will be party coming till this year or Le to athletic events throughout the week as well um I mean games almost every day right feel been very busy lately as well as the gym the volleyball Bo glove has been posting on social media weekly and as I'm aware they are uh running fers they actually have a meeting tonight yes I can't be in two places once though oh yes and I cannot forget because I was put in front of the entire school to do it or almost the entire School the uh gold Athletics fundraiser that the soccer I almost say both soccer teams are running to go and buy new or to raise money to buy new bus merity field I was I know I don't want to say unfortunate enough to be one of the Cs who was chosen to um make a uh make a little video to Post online about it oh I want to see that no you see Yes actually I do I'm looking forward to that but but nonetheless um all the kids involved with the girls varsity girls junior varsity boys varsity boys junior varsity are working towards that to raise money for uh goals and by doing that we are sending out these um way of them as gift cards to two different locations they call them the gold cards discount cards discount cards yeah and uh the goal is to sell these cards to different people and together so it's it's going pretty decently from what I've got some if anyone wants [Laughter] some any questions for Cole what are the cards cost 25 each 25 each it's like a boat house yeah there's a lot even even you know really popular locational and can you use the cards more than once so depends on the location yeah some of them you can it's pretty cool it is all right thank you thanks Cole thank you you're welcome to stay for the district book plan to he's like I have okay so now we are at new business we've already done the out ofate oh I didn't realize when I looked at this before that it was doubled up so I guess I'll have to I I guess I thought the consent agenda is just what's going to be on the agenda I'll have to no consent agenda is usually just the minutes and the warrant okay I'll keep um so we've already done the out of state field trip so now we're on the district Improvement plan sure um the district Improvement plan is um was created last year with um The BLT and um uh superintendent Sullivan and the vast um the main purpose of the district approval plan is a um extension of the Strategic plan so if you take a look at the um the school Improvement plan it requires the four um tenants that are in our um strategic plan which is high quality instruction um and uh supportive and safe learning environment collaborative and safe supportive and safe learning environment and communication collaboration and Community engagement so um what I did is I took a look at the district plan with our DT and we decided that a lot of the activities and the action plan were put in place from last year we all in development stage so this year because our strategic plan is a three-year plan we Revisited the um School Improvement plan to uh take a look at what we actually developed and moved to the next stage of implementation for some of these items so if you go through it with me you can start to see that the things that are in red on the district Improvement plan are things that we are continuing or we are implementing um last year was a lot of development and if you take a look at the last line um the last statement it does say um year two will focus on the implementation and and data evaluation to support the established outcomes at the end of this year we'd like to take a look at that to take a look at guiding our strategic plan for the following year um and then um honing in on where we need to create more opportunities for the for the uh District so I can go through it line by line um if you'd like to just with the Chang if you're interested or do you want to how do you want how do you want to approach this anyone yeah I'm F focusing on the changes changes are highlighted in red yep okay the changes are in Red so if we head over to the first one it is high quality instruction and if you look under action step number three the action step was to continue classroom observations and feedback sessions to ensure the application last year we started with classroom feedback but um we needed to create a a tool a walkthrough tool in order to do that it was important for us to create a tool to to do that so this year um we have a tool that we've uh honed a little bit this summer so we're going to use that same observation tool and uh create a way to um look at our data through those observations and and continue to create data cycles for for our staff so um most of the other ones on that side belong with um Lin uh column three creating structures for data analysis and action planning and so uh number three would we continue to develop grade level learning targets with math and literacy that are aligned with high expectations I've been walking around the classrooms and I've seen um a great number of teachers using learning targets um however I think it's something that we need to focus more on to make sure that it becomes more in line with everybody's classroom it's a practice we have to continue to focus on so really to hone in on that because it's important for the students to know what's happening in the classroom you know what are we going to focus on today and so the students know what's happening in the classroom so we're going to monitor that um and ensure that staff is tailing instruction for the needs of students which goes back to the observations and so all of this is about high call instruction and then number six is continue to progress monitor strategies to track effective instructional changes to make necessary adjustments and I have a star with that because that really is going to hone in on what we do with our professional devel elent so when we take a look at our in effective instructional um changes what do we need to support the teachers to do that and that would be taking a look at we're offering for PD to support them in those areas so that's what we're looking at in that particular area if I head to the next page kind of in the middle access to high quality profess development which goes back to continuing our partnership with tntp they are actually coming in the district tomorrow they are a program to help us implement ment the new math curriculum so we have Katie from tntp coming in tomorrow to uh do some walkthroughs with our admin team to uh look at educational practice so that's continuing in year two for us and then the outcomes are um just changing the dates and um some of the measures were are um we um just made them a little higher instead of last year some of them are 15 or 20% we made them 25% that's quick question uh what does tntp stand for um the new teacher yeah new teach yeah something what do you know what it's called tntp new teacher project new teacher project the new teacher project but it's been shortened to just tntp and it's uh it's like a nonprofit well I think it's just the name of the it's just name of the yeah it's the name of the the program that comes in helps us uh evaluate our our curriculums oh okay right it's it's a partnership we have with the yeah that's a i it's a company that helps us do that gotcha MH I did know that but I had a block when you asked me I'm like um okay so we're going to get to safe and supporting learning environments so we're going to continue the work that um uh superintendent suvin worked on with with the safe and learning uh environment um there's lots of new opportunities for the staff to be engaged with um um inclusive practices and bullying and lots of other opportunities that we're looking to um address behaviors to to make sure that everybody's getting the supports they need so we're um as you know the beginning of the year we had some new um training in sexual bias training um and there's been some new caveats to some of the bullying policies that we looked at in the beginning of year so I put those in here um and that's just something we continue to revisit and monitor um so promote diversity equity and inclusion so we're going to continue to imp Implement strategies last year they developed strategies to manage crisis and the high school did a really great job with uh with managing the crisis and and developing a lot of strategies but we have to um really focus on creating ways at the elementary school so we're keeping that in it to help the elementary school um manage crisis of postback related to um Equity inclusion and then um we just want to we already have a great plan for fostering a welcom and inclusive environment for all students but we didn't do a lot of research and and get surveys to see how the students felt about it so that's really what we're looking to do with with that particular strategy and then um we started a little bit on developing the portrait of a graduate but there was so many other things going on last year with um the Dei and the ready work that um Mr Sullivan had started that uh poral graduate really didn't get where it needed to be so we actually used having meetings um the end of this week or beginning of next week I think it's this week is it this week yeah um to to Really develop that what the portra of badet looks like and that is really about creating opportunities for students to um have College and Career Readiness so that is what that's about what do we want that to look like so one of the first things that we did is really work with mass hire as um Miss beard talked about and that would be part of that but we really have to try to create a more comprehensive um plan how to look at what students want night being didn't really kind of hone in what they want to do for classes so say for example they wanted to go into medical so let's take a look at our Sciences to make sure those students are on the right track where they need to go so those are things we're going to look at to create a pathway for each of them to do that and um we were in the beginning stages last year but we really need to focus more on on creating those opportunities so if you look at the next page it's also talking about you know por of a graduate there's a little team together but we really have to really um make sure that's fully in place by you know I'd like to have it in place by February so that when we start creating the schedules for next year we have that opportunity to make sure the students are getting what they need to get the classes they need to support their career Pathways that they're interested so that's February I'm hoping to have that done quite February um and order with all of these Pathways my hope is to really start creating Partnerships with community colleges I've already reached out to UMass I've had some conversations with uh Greenfield community colleges Greenfield Community College and um taking in um ways how we can get our students to become more aware what's what's out there for them uh my hope is to create some sort of certificate program so if students are interested in in doing specific um things like you know it we can give them a a certificate that says they have those skills in information technology so you know working with the colleges are really helpful and creating agreements with them so students could get what you call articulation agreement so that they could College not necessar college credit but they'll get certificates from colleges um so that's what I'm looking for to to work on that with those Partnerships um so um working on creating a cultural event for um uh non-dominant cultures creating a understanding and acceptance diversity within the community I know the high school is working on um different types of cultural nights um with Foods specifically is that around Foods yep um so we're looking to make sure that we have that I'd like to really take an opportunity to work with our elll students invite the parents in and talk to them about what does that look like and and invite parents to the schools we want to make them feel welcome so really taking some opportunities working with um Mrs heru and miss mucha about uh um getting El families involved with um some educational program um so may 2025 educators will adopt the new and effective teaching methods that approvement to work and that will that's also going back to looking at our walkthrough tool our walkthrough tool really should be able to help us identify if students are engaged and if they're if the curriculum reflects their interest so that that's part of that and then um this year we have the information technology pathway but we only have one grade in it and it's um we'd like to get more students involved so next year we'll have a two-year um pathway for students and uh hopefully there'll be a little more rust I think there's only four students in it right now four or five for yeah so we're looking to really um what's the word I'm looking for um celebrate that pathway and see how we can make that more robust and work with colleges to get that going um and then um the rest of it is really talking about uh systems and structure at our end you know creating a budget cycle um they did a really good job last you're creating a budget cycle we just want to make sure that we developed it last year let's follow it and make sure that we're following uh the process that they put in place last year and then uh we didn't um do the two rounds of 60-day improvement cycle um so we're definitely going to do that this year and then we did complete the GPS hiring exing procedure manual this summer um there's just a couple things we're tweaking but for the most part that is done and uh there is a process in place for posting positions um interviewing folks um and we also have you know uh it goes through a process it goes through um the principal to the to the um what is your name business fin business manager vory superintendent so there process and everybody knows the process so and then we have a manual you know what does it look like when you're hiring persons you know we have to really have conversations so there is a great um hiring procedure manual and um I glad to see that there's a couple things I want to tweak exiting procedure manuals I'd like to see us put in that if somebody's leaving the district um I'd like to have personal interviews with them so that's kind of what I want to add to that um you know the principles do a great job but it's important that we get uh you know a different feedback so that's what that's the only thing I I wanted to add to that so really it's it's the um the great plan that was created last year but again A lot of it was develop create so this year it's really going to take the opportunity to implement and and focus on trying to um make sure these um action steps are um measurable so that's where we are and then in October I think the 1 I have the dis the schools taking their school Improvement plans to you so everybody can look at them I know alli's meeting with her school council to go over it and uh again we're going to try to keep it with our strategic plan is going to meet with our district plan with the school Improvement plan which in turn would be with the students and the teachers um work and evaluation so that all has to be in in line with with the the umbrella of uh that big four page that document that they worked on so hard last year so that's where we are any questions questions or comments no thank you for showing those DEC I was going to do a PowerPoint but I knew the and I said with the books I didn't think I able to do anything so I apologize that I wasn't able to do that but uh that's fine I the book fair was here so that's all that I have on M um if there aren't any questions I'll take the motion U just one comment for the uh the June 2025 um diversity event I said this last year I'll say it again food's awesome music Sports things that bring people together for the cultural night yeah yeah only things that we haven't had a lot of discussion on that but that is that is on my radar right bring food they will come absolutely but yeah things that bring the community together ruce them to something new as opposed to highlighting divisions I think is the way to go like a invitation to come learn something new and everybody seems to like food and music Sports I like the music idea food is good but I do like the music idea that's that's a nice idea yeah so that's my two sents food they always come but music is nice too that I'll let you to keep it you updated on the progress of that excellent with there aren't any other um questions or comments I'll take the motion I'll make the motion to approve the district can I have a second I'll second go ahead I'll second okay all those in favor I I all right next is I don't know if it's brt or Brit grants right right I'm gonna have Ally talk about that yes do you want this page to about Alie uh I have you that may I yes you may I gave you all M you gave me that so this is really exciting um a couple years ago we first started this work for bright um as a tier three intervention tell what bright is and yes everyone always asks I had to write it down so bright is the bridge for resilient youth in transition and we so we refer to as bright it's much easier to recall and it's really a short-term program for students returning to school after hospitalization um you may hear of it or see it in the news that it's across the Commonwealth and the Driscoll hey Foundation received an enormous amount of money to continue funding this ultimately bright wants to be in every school and so originally when this came out and a couple years ago they took their money and they gave it to schools that had money and resources to implement bright and then it left little schools like grany kind of by the wayside and so we jumped on the original program design and met with the part had a partnership with Brookline who oversees all of the funds from the Grant and developed the program attended all the webinars had inperson meetings things and it was really cool we were really stoked and excited and unfortunately the budget knocked our program right out and we kept pushing for it saying like this is a program that we need and our social workers do the best that they can and when we have students in need or in crisis transitioning back they ring the bell and they come back to school and we put them back in their a block and then we backpedal and say how do we support these students because our social workers can support them and a lot of it's after the fact but they're already back so really it's designed to support the students to be able to hold them before we reintegrate them into that classroom setting um sometimes students are coming back from uh a medication and there's been a med adjustment so it allows them time it could be for students that that have exceeded um absences so if they've been away um for two weeks in the hospital due to illness um or extended I don't want to say vacation but sometimes students need to go um overseas right if it's if it's an e student from a different country and they go and they come back and they jump right back into their a block so I think you understand like the example that I'm trying to provide so that's typically how we handle it and so then we talk about all the cooks in the kitchen like the social workers involved the assistant principles involved um the teachers are involved the guidance counselors um are involved and there's so many people involved for one possibly two students and so we talk we talk at length about how often it Maxes everybody out because we spend a good amount of time discussing the student at SST which is our student support team and then that communication piece and is it what's best for students at the end of the day absolutely not it's not what's best for students so we've been talking about this now for the last couple of years and um this I wrote the month down was left may I think no it was it was recent it was June um well so the grant the extra funding came out in May okay and I sent an email out to the partnership at Brooklyn I was like hey remember a little gramby when you said you would keep us in mind if there was additional funding and she said we've we've allocated our funding already to these 25 schools and I was like all we need is just a salary that's all we need we're not going to be super greedy we're just going to ask for a salary of a person and the person isn't necessarily a step one teacher and it's not necessarily a pair of professional they're just a because they take on that academic piece so it takes the school counselor out of it and it replaces it with that academic coordinator so really gets the academic coordinator and a social worker doing that work together and focusing on you know the student and reintegrating that student it's meant to be a temporary program it's not supposed to be a six-month program it's really a couple weeks at most whatever the student may need um so we were fortunate enough I got I literally got an email in July saying that we received the funding put together your budget that really happened he's really excited so we put together a budget mind you we're in the process of hiring and what does that look like and what are we going to do like how are we going to make this happen so we did the best thing ever and pumped the brakes because we're really guilty of just being excited to make it work and again we have all of the training done and the experience and the design there and because that was work we were doing for two years and I found out actually last night that Brookline reached out to me via email and said that they approved our our funding so my next question was was that just the first year or the three years because we had to put together the three-year Grant and the reality is in year two and year three they wanted to fund programs that would eventually be self- sustaining and that's our biggest issue is we can have a program for a year but for what and we're looking more longterm so we adjusted the numbers a little bit I did and then we resubmitted it and so my question for them is did they approve the whole three years so I'm not going to ask yet I'm going to leave it alone and then I'll revisit it but at the time being um they did approve us for a $30,000 um position to fund now bright will no longer be in a Unit D contract here as but it is technically a par professional so this contract lives with an Mo MOA which is separate of a position here in Granby so it's technically like a pair of professional but a step up um we will be able to utilize this person when students aren't in the program we can go all year without having students in the program and when you don't have the program that's when you have students when we're going to have the program we may go all year without but we intend fully intend on using the person for bright to be able to support our Pathways program and our structure Learning Center program so we're in the process of trying to finalize the space and their the design and how we can best use that person to support both programs so we're really excited and um let me see if I missed anything I don't think we did uh we have held interview for the person um that would be fulfilling the role but again I think we originally looked at launching the program the first week of October but there's other commitments that we need to make sure that we have in place with coverage and student needs that transition Off Campus before we move forward so and again this position would look different this may be at 8 to four maybe 7:30 to 5:00 it could be over the summer because students could potentially still be hospitalized over the summer and then they turn around and come to school the first day of school and we're learning that they just were released from the hospital so we still have to work out some pieces we're not going to have all the answers but I think the most important thing is that we have um potentially three years of funding the original ask was for half of that for next year and year two and we alter the numbers so it's asking for majority and that's the only way in grany as we know our budget and our constraints that we're going to make this happen and work it's just not reasonable to ask a small school like gramby to be able to do the things that a school like Springfield can do it's not an option for us um they understood why there was an adjustment to the budget book um so here we are it's more of an FYI you probably heard about this a couple years ago and we're back and you will likely be reading more about it we have to represent staff and um yeah we're excited well thank you for the update and for sticking with it because it's yeah right super exciting yeah it's great it's exciting to know that plus that we can use that position that person for you know again it's a Gamby thing like everyone wears multiple hats right so it's nice to have to know that we can do that because sometimes it feels like some of the grant stuff is um you're um tied up with how you can use it so this is uh this is great any questions or comments no well presented thank you yeah I think it's great I think it's a it's a bridge that hasn't existed in a lot of places for a long time and seeing kind of all sides you wonder if there was more of a transition period and support around that for students what ultimately what like kind of final placements would look like especially if students are dealing with just changes and Trauma and all kinds of things so that's great it's really exciting it's great it's nice to have students get re acclimated back into the into the you know with the students and sometimes it's scary so having this opportunity is really exciting and I I like the fact that you know it's funded so you know and we can use M source so it was really excited to and we're not on our own so this comes with the resources and the partnership we've been on the phone with them multiple times so they have a team that supports us you know a couple years ago we had toured a high school and it was really it was really cool to see it you know in action and I think that's a good next step for us is to be able to see a school in action again because it's been a couple years um but yeah it's a lot of work behind the scenes and we're ready to go then I'm sure it'll be in the newsletter and talking about the program but we're not quite there yet we'll get there soon so excited yeah excellent thank you thank you keep us posted as we keep going through this thank you all right next up is the enrollment dashboard he if you can I talked to Stacy today we had um some nice meetings um talking about a obviously our enrollment from um June of last year we had 711 students um but uh may we had 711 students but then we had 49 graduates um so it brought our attendance down to 662 um we now have 672 so we are a little bit lower in enrollment than we have been in the past but if you take a look at some of the other charts um it's not for that we have a lot of students going out to school choice it's the same way we've had in the past we've had um six students going out um to belr town and one to maybe South Hadley I think it was so those numbers are the same however there's a big number of students in grade um nine that chose to go to Pathfinder so that's 11 for us so that's a we have not had that many going to pathfind in the past so um but the numbers have remained steady um and uh we don't see anything else coming in we don't have a lot of openings I've had quite a few calls for grade five this year believe it or not but we don't have any openings in grade five so there are some opportunities for uh people to come in during the year and we'll keep you posted on that but we do have some news that um looking at the census uh the kindergarten is going to be quite large next year so you know some of these numbers will go up if you can take a look at our pre school there's only 32 students in the preschool so um you know that that's kind of where we're seeing the numers dip like what's the new uh row SP what's SP I well I'm asking you so it's grade 1 through 12 then oh that is a student who um is uh post 17 to 22 uh St a student with special needs who is placed out of District we have to keep him um uh or her on I don't know if it's him or her um till they're 22 so that is a student who is have a district placement who is especially need students that we have to keep on um educating till he's 22 or she's 22 so yeah it's at the bottom I was looking across that is one student and I believe that student is 17 or 18 right now so we have a couple years with that student so we'll continue to update that but we've been getting calls in um so this is a tuition out student then yes I don't know why we haven't seen this person because if they've been is it a new person I don't think so no I think it it's just a reporting a new line that hadn't reported before the student has been with us uh with us their entire educational career and I wonder if it's due to age at some point when you get into that 18 to 22 it could be not in necess 12 I think I might know who it who the person is and it's probably because of age no longer probably considered an adult so that's what is it would be called a post grad or or whatever but you students um with um special needs we um have to educate to other 22 Yeah so that that's what that is again I don't that that wasn't something last year I don't know it wasn't on it's not been on tripped with the age yeah that's my guess yeah so I mean you know we hope that we'll continue to take in some school choice as they come in I know they're uh trickling in still uh believe that we had two coming in at the high school um this this week but they're not on here because we don't have the paperwork in so we'll see a little bit of a growth but I you know it it looks like we're down about um about 22 students so the new enrollment and prek and K are residents then okay all right any other questions on the dashboard all right hearing none we're moving on who standing with thoughts oh M some of the stuff Cole talked about as usual but I just wanted to shout uh let parents know that uh again gramby uh is offering free breakfast and lunch for all families however if your uh students want additional lunches or snacks those have to be paid for um and there is a uh line in our website that the St the families can put money into their students account if they've want to do that I also want to let families know that smile Pro um courtesy of Nancy jenss our nurse director is um here to give some dental services to our um families um they're offering free dental cleaning sealant fluoride and U education to any students with consent from preschool through grade two uh regard you have grade 12 regardless if you've had dental insurance um they'll be on East Meadow on the 23rd um and the high school on um the 26th so if your students already enrolled in the program um you still need to update your consent form so please contact UM the Nancy jenx our nurse director or your principals to get more information if you're interested in the uh smile Pro program officer Gilly um will be conducting Alice presentations for all students on Monday September 23rd um that's for um all students as of mon and he did a nice job at um open house with the um parents at the um High School telling them that that would be coming up and be just to let them know that that's happening and he's going to do the same thing this Thursday with our elementary students as well um as of Monday September 16th all of our positions have been filled in our uh faciliity so we have our second shift custodian and uh and that's that's working out well um so that he was a former employee here so he came back and he hit the ground running and he knows exactly what he's doing so worked out great as you can see there's a book for here at East Meadow so families can um put money on an account and have their students come in and um get some books um they had uh senior night oh I attended the Connecticut Valley superintendent's round table on Friday September 6th um and acting commissioner Johnson spoke to Super tents about the vision of the Department of Education talking about what it means to um have a whole student and talked about the power of um chronic absenteeism and and and being absent in school if you've noticed on television there's been a lot of ads about the importance of bringing your students to school there's been um Billboards come to school so they're really trying to get families to understand that you know coming to school is really important so we're encouraging that as well um Mr fener presented to the families at the high school what the attendance policy looked like and why attendance is so important for students to come to school so he also did that um and the other topics that commissioner chest uh commiss Chester that's going back to my age commissioner Johnson talked about was deeper learning uh creating a diversive and effective Workforce talking about the new I and what superintendent should know um he also talked a little about the increased cost of busting and gave us gave us some resources of what that's may look like I know I gave some of the information to Mr um Dorman not sure how that's going to help us but we uh were talking about you know talking to the Department of Ed to see how we can get more services to help us look at some contracts across the state so that we can kind of regulate busing so we're looking to kind of do something like that um so and then talking about the UMC mcast ballot question one of the things he talked about with that and there's going to be more information coming in I'll probably talk about that at the next meeting in October because that will be on the ballot um and what that looks like but he did s say that whether the mcast question comes on the ballot or not we are bound to have some sort of um certificate of we have to have some way to determine that the students are eligible to graduate so he talked a little about that not quite developed to plan but we also have another meeting um next week to talk a little bit about what that looks like and uh and that's what he talked about so that's that I have on my end any questions for her all right Tom you're up um building onxon uh so the commissioner had given there's a transportation Association so like it's there's the masbo the mass Business Association there's one for superintendent you know that there's one for the school committee as well um so I looked into that organization um the key take take away that I had from that is they didn't they don't offer things like contracts for us that we could realize savings but I thought but they have a work group that they're doing to really examine U special ed Transportation costs and how that is increased disproportionately like many of the other costs and so I think that's what's most promising uh is to see if they're able to uh bring recommendations forward to Desi or whether that's legislation they'll bring forward uh draft legislation that they might bring forward to some in some way support districts with that rising cost but unfortunately it wasn't a pathway for us to find grant funding or something that could really be an offset for us in our district um couple of things since our last meeting um we met with the engineer and the architect on our kitchen project we regrouped um and after talking the architect had talked to um OPM involved in another project uh in town um the engineer was looking at some of the other projects He has their best guidance um is for us to go out to bid and um again a little bit later than we wouldn't be doing it in October November where we might have thought um to get out ahead of it um the engineer was very concerned um companies won't hold their contract and the pric is that long they wouldn't hold it for8 nine months um so so we're going to begin in January um to advertise and put on the central register um have our specs available beginning of February our walkth through um in February to have the bid documents going out for the GC bid at the beginning of March for construction in June um that's the most realistic timeline for us to be able to accomplish the project that was our update there um on uh facilities issue we ran into an issue with uh the pumps at this building uh for the septic system um we had to have one repaired and one replaced so that was an unanticipated uh expense that we had done um it didn't affect School operations we were able to get it turned around very quickly um so there was no impact on the school day and then lastly um this is the season where I begin our end of the year report for the State for the fiscal reporting on FY 23 um so I'm about to get knee deepen that deep into that one um and it'll take a few weeks uh for me to do hopefully I'll have everything in and then we'll get that certified and get that off our plate so those are the things that I have for you today questions or comments for time thank you very much um Joe um CES has a meeting the 25th uh anything else anything that we want to make sure we have on the agenda for our next meeting which I believe is October 1st October 1st excellent um I know you talked about um we need to we should probably we haven't had subcommittee subcommittee that's what I was thinking um do you do all of them or we usually talk about it but I thought we also were GNA have Ken or somebody come um Ken is was going to come today that there was a conflict um he's requested to come on October 15th okay which subcommittees would we' like to see on the first Well Finance probably policy as well okay we'll go with just the two anything else for the first anything comes up just let Mary Jane know or we have a couple presentations coming up ski ski programming a couple things I'll be putting on there as well okay great um if there's nothing else we'll talk about executive session pursuant to mgl c30a section 21 A2 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union personnel and executive session pursuant to mglc 30A section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and the chair so declares the committee will will not return to open session uh I think we'll be returning in order to vote on what's discuss in executive session oh the committee will return to open session okay so um I thought it was that was a typo um can I have a roll call vote for executive session sure Jennifer um did Jen uh I Michael George hi Jill hi okay um so we will return um about how long do you think we'll need 15 minutes 15 minutes okay and we're back from executive session um first we're going to take a vote on the mo MOA for the custodians um p motion can I have a second a second and then all all those in favor does that have to be a roll call no all those in favor I and the second is um a contract addendum for the Director of Finance and operations to take on the role of director of facilities on a temporary basis um can I have a motion I'll make a motion for the contract end regarding the director facilities duties can I have a second second all those in favor I I um and I believe that is it can I have a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn for the evening can I have a second second all those in favor have a great night everybody e e for