good evening welcome to the school committee meeting on March 12th it is 6:04 p.m. all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance please all right as with every meeting we just need to start with a little bit of housekeeping so on March 29th 2023 Governor Haley signed into law an act relative to extending certain state of emergency accommodations which among other things extends the expiration of the provisions pertaining to the open meeting laws to March 31st 2025 specifically this extension allows public bodies to continue to hold meetings remotely without a quorum of the public body physically present at the meeting location and to provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings the does not make any changes to the open meeting law other than extending the expiration time of the temporary Provisions remote meetings from March 31st 2023 to March 31st 2025 notice is hereby given that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast on audio and video all right roll call for attendance because we do have one member joining us via Zoom tonight mayor Garcia miss brunau here here miss lefave pres Mr Romero here Miss tensley Williams present Dr Rivera cologne present Dr cavayo Mr wahan here Mr Kore here M Wilson present thank you Mr SoDo all right so we're going to start the meeting tonight with our student showcase um we're excited to welcome the Hoy Kai school dean campus wrestling team and uh they won the MIAA 2024 sportsmanship award so welcome gentlemen uh Mr stto did you have anything you want to say to introduce them no oh and ladies I'm so sorry I did not realize my deepest sincerest apologies for that that's K ars no I don't know if uh I think uh we have uh Mr salano here who's the assistant principal uh who's probably just going to talk a little bit about uh the character of this team and and the award that they won so that everyone understands uh what it means but I can tell you uh right off the that that I'm extremely proud of every single one of you this is an award that just speaks to the character of our students and who they are as people um and in Holio Public Schools you know one of the things that we we strive for is to make sure that uh students are ready for for career for uh college but most importantly for life and and you all receiving this award just really says that uh it says a lot about you guys really being ready to to just be good people in general and to have strong sportsmanship and to pick each other up and to be collaborative and I'm just extremely proud of of all the all of that and you guys receiving that award so I'll bring up VIN so that he can he can just speak a little bit about his team wonderful thank you I'm not really sure exactly where to stand I think I see myself on camera but all right great uh I think you said it best Mr stto uh we strive to prepare our student athletes for life itself um wrestling is uh hard enough right but life is even harder so we like to prepare ourselves through training through mindset and through a team uh well you have the award there I'll just showcase it real quick um you want to come up and hold it for me thank you uh this was a small goal at first uh we had not known it would be possibility when I first started coaching a few years back uh and then it turned into a bigger goal and now this year it was actually our our goal to achieve a ward like this um I made a small joke to be uh kind of spamming the MIAA to let them know how great we are as a team and um it's not just my voice there was a lot of people from the community the wrestling Community saying how proud they were to see Holio growing this isn't our full team uh we have plenty more and we're growing even faster we do graduate quite a bit of seniors seniors if you can give a quick wave we're really proud of you and our assistant coaches in the back who are much more than assistants and volunteers so again thank you all for uh having us come down here today uh we really appreciate it we're really proud of our wrestlers and you'll see a lot more of us awesome thank you so much does anybody have any questions comments I do um I think I saw Ellie Wilson first oh Mr Mo sorry Mr colore yes uh first of all congratulations to all of you not just the not just the team the school in general because over the years I've been watching sports for many many years and uh it's just a wonderful feeling that you get the sportsmanship award because that my opinion and I've strided for this for many many years sportsmanship award because that is what really helps our school system and western Mass team uh I'm not sure but I believe this is the first wrestling team in our school system that received the sportsmanship award I know we've received it in basketball and baseball I'm not sure of other sports but I know that wrestling is really one of our top sports today we so we did receive it a while back when Dean Tech had the the team by itself and they had loyo Kai kids come down under the dean Tech name we had also received a sportsmanship award from the referees two years ago but it was very small but this by by far it out of the I believe it's 384 or 85 sanctioned wrestling teams the Mia AC's uh we are the only team to receive that this year and that's how that award works so it is very special thank you noticed we had another hand up oh I I have an order sorry Ellie so it's just so amazing to see how many people are here present who are are taking part in the wrestling team and I know for many of you you probably never officially wrestled you know prior to joining this team and I think it's really amazing what uh commitment the coaching staff has put into developing this team of individuals and you yourselves to Growing yourselves not only as an individual but also to support each other and to really just strive for excellence so congratulations thank you Dr C wel to I won't reiterate all the Praises and um but I would say would like to say congratulations congratulations because that's a community effort and that's leadership and that's also not only the support of all the staff but the support of your family and your friends and that's the trust that they deposited in you so that you become and continue to work on being the leaders ficial leaders of the city you've put you know another again another Spotlight on School uh systems here in Holio and uh for that please I really congratulate uh all of you continue the good job and uh please don't let that Spirit of unity and communion you know go away from from that sportsmanship award thank you so much for what you've done thanks Mr SoDo I was going to ask how many how many wrestling teams won it in the state but you answered that question but uh Miss Brunell brought up a good point she asked if if we already have a banner for this but if we don't Vin I'd love to to make sure that we get a banner and recognize uh this wrestling team for being awarded that sportsmanship award and make sure that we have it in both the holoai uh North Campus gym and the holoai dean gym we would love that uh Dr Rivera clone she's on the screen I just want to say again congratulations this is amazing and as the body that we are that we educate the community for those at home and everybody who will see this maybe later what are the qualifications for a team to win this award what was what did it inail so that we can continue to kind of like let everybody know how awesome this team is that's a really great question and to be honest I was in the same camp with your question when we were being nominated for this thing how did we receive this so um we do need to be nominated by several School leaders um on top of that the Mia does some digging and they look into if you've had any uh infractions which are negative things and our team has had none and what that really means is it comes down to each match if a student athlete has a really hard time and says or does some actions we that are negative again we didn't have any of that this year whatsoever uh and we really strive to make sure we thank people after each match thank our opponent thank our referees and just show gratitude because without them we would not have a support and those are the reasons why we became nominated for this award uh that I've been slowly learning about behind the scenes but thank you for that question hopefully I answered it well enough thank you that gives us more opportunities to brag about our team so I appreciate you congrat ulations Mrs tensley Williams we are so proud of you guys um I came from a family of 10 siblings uh six girls and four boys and we used to bust our brothers up we played we played football basketball Mom they're hurting us we we would Jack them up so we are so proud of you guys so anything you need from us don't hesitate to call on us truly appreciate that thank you very welcome sorry for your brothers me too thank you guys all so much for coming if I could get you guys to all come up we'd love to take a a picture real quick before you guys all take off um and if any of the students have anything you guys want to say or add about your experiences or anything feel free to chime in if you'd like if there's a captain who represents you or anything Derek Derek dere hey guys how's it going good good it's an honor to be here thanks Derek uh I just wanted to say that this sport will make or break to be honest and with that being said it's not something that you can pretend to love you know like it's really a family without these guys it'd be a pretty difficult Road getting through you know school um other than that I just want to say we have like an amazing coaching staff without these guys we'd have no hoolio to be honest and um other than that you know I'm I'm a senior and it's going to be sad to leave this team but you know it's always going to be an amazing opportunity to see them perform thank you thank you thanks Derek sure I guess we'll get in the pictures I guess we're cross applesauce hold on we got more coming in wait for us we're slow behind we're a little slow we're gonna pull you [Laughter] up a who's going to come back and who's going to come back all right moving right along I don't see anyone signed up for a public comment I didn't get any emails um so communication reports we have our student reports we do have our Hoy High School North Campus student repres resentative today um and so you can take it away don't forget to introduce yourself all right uh my name is Nicholas Rodriguez is it green all right um thank you honey no problem uh my name is Nicholas Rodriguez the HHS North student representative um in the month of March so far our school has had a spring and tier Academy field trip plan where um we essentially had like an orientation for each of ourm uh they were given the choices of three colleges that were selected for like for um if they align towards their Academy like what they were after you had three colleges for the engineering and Life Sciences Academy three colleges for the community and Global Studies Academy and three colleges for the reform for the Performing and media arts academy um the holoai redesign team consisting of five students and administrators uh teachers and counselors met the plan met to plan for the shift to block scheduling for the 2024 to 2025 school year um Mark mastrone the US District Court judge for the District of Massachusetts came in to speak to to our community and Global study students about his experiences as a judge and the criminal justice system itself um the holoai school theater company will be putting on the play my fair lady at the beginning of April hope you come to see it um in preparation for the ELA mcast uh sophomores were asked to participate in games and events that prepare themelves uh the national or an assembly was held to review National The National Society honor sorry um an assembly was held to review National Honor Society information with our students uh over over 40 students were invited based on their initial initial eligibility to participate and were encouraged to apply for this procedure Accolade thank you thank you Nicholas and I know we have um somebody sitting in for Mr Kennedy tonight so if you could introduce yourself and then give us the report for the dean campus good good evening everyone my name is Tiffany bergo a 10th grader from Health assisting here at Dean and I will be acting as the dean campus student representative let's get into these updates Dean text applications process close with over 300 eth grade applications letters of letters of acceptance were sent out on Wednesday February 28th of 2024 to 110 Rising nth graders Fe February is a career of technical Education Month and Mr mcff our CTE director celebrated it by holding the the dean's first CTE student cabinet meeting with shop repres Representatives a representative from each grade level met with the director to to shop director to discuss questions issues comments or concerns about CTE program and of their shops class class of 2027 and 2025 are currently selling class t-shirts in February Dean passed the total of Co-op can candidate C C dates from 2022 to 2023 school year student C Cooperative education work based learning placements with 21 21 Juniors and seniors Place shever several more new placements are currently being finalized they have been placed at Mel's autoc collision repair Holio Health Center Holio Medical Center Mount Marie nursing professional drywall and Co cakin office just just to name a few Dean programs are open to the public of service if you want to see that see to see what Dean students are capable of in their selected Fields then be sure to fill out the form at Dean c.com to request the service so far we have five students who have earned the Seal of B biliteracy still waiting on more results to come in we have tripled our numbers from last year here are a few important senior dates prom will be held at wof Country Club on Thursday May 23rd at 5:30 class day will be on Thursday May 23rd at 8 8:15 a.m. senior breakfast and graduation rehearsal will be May will be May 29th at 8:00 a.m. senior trip will be on May 20 May 28th to Brownstone water park graduation will be on May 30th at 5:30 here in the gym thank you so much great job speaking in front of everybody is never easy so we appreciate your efforts good job all right moving right along Vice chair reports I just have uh receivership update which is not much um mayor Garcia and myself have a zoom meeting with the new interm commissioner on Friday um you all received my comments in response to it not being a full meeting so I've shared my thoughts on that I've shared my thoughts with him many times and I've requested their attendance at our 20 March fifth meeting and was told it will be discussed at our Zoom meeting on Friday so stay tuned anybody have any questions about that Dr Cavo um what was the reason if he gave any uh why he's not having a full meeting with us I didn't get a response to my official comment about it I guess I I I really don't have an answer hold up Miss Tinsley Williams we cannot because that would be uh a quorum which would make it a full meeting which would mean it would need to be publicized um so you know Josh and I will have this conversation with him I'll keep it as brief as possible of course and you know try not to go into too much detail without it being and then ultimately the goal is to try to get him to come to the 325 so I haven't even constructed an agenda for that meeting yet because I figure if he comes will pretty much dedicate the whole meeting for that um so our Zoom is on on Friday afternoon Gustavo did you have a question or a comment no I'm sorry I thought I saw your hand anybody else all right moving right along um superintendent receiver reports Mr SoDo I will turn it over to you thank you m berell and and I'm hoping today uh we wanted to open up the superintendent report uh to for and give an opportunity for folks that are on the teacher retention work group to present to the school committee um their their report that they uh that included recommendations that were made to me uh to address the the teacher retention so I want to thank all of them and and everybody who's here to present everybody who is not here and probably listening online or couldn't be here but a lot of work went into that report and I'm excited to share to to create some space for some teachers to to share uh the recommendations I also have Aon lynville who is is online and Dr Mahoney will be uh coming up to uh with with two teachers that we have here I believe uh Jill and Carolyn as I should do myself uh good evening uh we're delighted to be here I I think I'll have uh Jill and Carolyn introduce themselves first and then uh we'll be able to walk you through uh the presentation so first up Carolyn hi my name is Carolyn Montero I'm uh an English language development teacher at holoai North I've only been here at holoai since this past August I worked for hoolio public schools um back in 2009 2008 I think through 2013 and then moved out of state for 10 years um so I just came back this summer and wanted to come right back to hoo because I loved my job then so here I am hi um I'm Jill Byer Hamill and I am a special education teacher at Ian white I've been in the district for almost six years and additionally to being a teacher in Holo I also have my own two children who attend Holo Public Schools so I have a dual interest in our work um yes Mr s if you can put the presentation up that' be great yes I can sorry I Am The Unofficial Tech lead for the cabinet so uh so that was an easy oh share it with you as well Mr Hines I oh oh you you've got it ready to go great okay my kinds is much more official in that capacity than I am that's great and Mr Hines if you want to there perfect okay Mr Hines you can go to the next slide great thank you um so tonight uh I am uh going to walk uh you off through the uh purpose and the process uh and then Carolyn is going to talk about the need Jill will talk about the work we did on root causes and then I'll try to bring it home with recommendations and next steps next slide please Mike I think important for us to to ground uh that our work uh came from the superintendent strategic plan um which you all know was was uh had intense amount of staff uh and community and student involvement uh in preparing um we uh we want to be the best fit District um for educators um and we want to be able to uh put together a plan to increase teacher attention because that is um uh a really clear and present challenge for hoolio public schools next slide Please Mr Hines um the process that we had for the teacher attention working group was uh uh a very uh uh involved and inclusive process um we had uh 21 Educators and leaders including uh a a member of the school committee Miss Wilson uh was on our group and uh who was able to bring multiple perspectives and and um not only did we have these 21 Educators uh and and leaders um but we also um used surveys focus groups we brought it to standing groups like our teacher advisory um uh uh group we interviewed former teachers to find out why they left um the district uh we had um uh uh all of our cabinet members and all of our principles and their leadership teams weighed in on it um as well so we we tried to have as inclusive a process as possible so that we could understand uh uh the challenge and the root causes as much as possible next slide Michael um and for here I'm going to turn the uh wheel over to Carolyn to talk about the need okay I'm going to I have some notes on my computer so that's why I'm going to be looking down I want to make sure that I don't miss anything but basically I'm just going to be speaking to the slides that you all have and that that are up um you can go go to the next one um perfect okay so the annual retention teacher retention rate has has really fluctuated um gone between 71% and 81% over the past 10 years or so the the dotted red line that you see are pre-re receivership numbers which tend to be the higher numbers um you see a drop right after receivership and then kind of a um fluctuation down the two kind of spikes um for um 20 and 21 were covid years so during that time um you know the assumption is that everyone was kind of laying low um not a lot of changes during that time um sorry I have some chats coming in from science teachers um so this past year um our retention rate was 77% which is relatively High compared to other years but I think to try to put that in real terms for everyone what that really means is that one out of every five teachers left last year one out of every five and that's a much more real number to me than saying 77% were retained right so when you walk down the hall at hokai 1 2 3 4 gone you know it it's a little mind-blowing um it seems like a lot when you think of it in terms of real numbers um so as we worked on this project we all were really um you can change the slide we are all really intent on trying our hardest to get to the bottom of it um you know I think that that's something that's really important we did a lot of brainstorming about how we could get underneath this issue um so overall our retention rate is lower than the states average and many comparison districts with the exception of Southbridge which I just found out today is also in receivership um uh they are consistently consistently lower than we are um and Lawrence actually had lower numbers than us this past year too and they're also in receivership there we go okay that I didn't know um in in 2023 we were only four points behind Springfield just as a point of comparison um and you can advance the slide um so this this slide is kind of telling it shows the years of service in the city of Holio not overall career experience but years of service in the city of Holio um we were surprised when we looked at these kind of raw numbers to see that 288 teachers this past year were in their first three years of working in hoo Public Schools that's more than half of our overall teachers in the district were in their first three years um so it really it really shows how many veteran teachers um just aren't here anymore um and the cumulative impact of the kind of turnover that we are trying to prevent right because it just kind of flows out over the chart um another little um nugget there is 18% um of teachers have um greater than a year of experience and uh 51% um wait isn't that's supposed to be less than 3 years less than three years experience yeah 27% of teachers are six plus okay um you can advance all right and this is another kind of surprising um number that between 2021 and 2023 we looked at the number of teachers who left we looked at all the teachers who left and we found that 151 teachers left in their very first year before their first year you know ended before like by the end of their first year so 151 teachers which I think is about uh almost a third um left before finishing out the year or at the end of their that contract year um and we looked at that and we really talked about what does that mean right um and we agreed that either we're not adequately supporting teachers in the district uh they are leaving for some unknown reason uh or we're struggling to hire the right type of teachers from the GetGo right we know that there's basically a shortage of teachers everywhere and so it's really hard to be super picky when you're faced with a teacher shortage and um we talked about how much of those people who weren't going to be returning maybe people who we may not have wanted to return right necessarily um some of those people might have been counseled out it wasn't all just like bye I'm I'm gone and oh we wish you could stay you know that's always a part of it but there that's a diverse group of teachers in that first year just like any other employment some employees fit and some employees don't but this is a pretty high number um the next slide feel free to interrupt I think maybe not if you if you want to ask a question if if that's in if that's procedurally okay how many more slides do you have I have I think this is my last all right we'll let you finish and then we'll open up for I have I have two more okay um so you want me to just finish up this thank you um so which one are we on workload oh you can move one more no NOP back are we missing a slide back one more that one okay um so we surveyed the teachers um who are here presently we had a 76% return rate which is a pretty good return rate for a survey and we asked them have you considered leaving Holo public schools and if so which factors most significantly would impact that decision right um and they had 21 things to choose from so the top five I just want to scroll down so I can see my notes a little bit better um where workload Andor work life balance student Behavior Uh salary pay um District leadership and work hours um when within focus groups we asked teachers to give more information about that um about their responses and we tried to elicit anecdotal information from as many people as humanly possible um and we want to point out that the district leadership um answer we found really came from um teachers feeling like uh the district leadership could do more to help all those other things right could do more to help with student Behavior could do more to um help teachers with work life balance and not feel so pressured to do more to support teachers in what they need for their work life balance or their working hours so um you know it's important just to remember that anytime you ask about um these kind of issues you're always going to get like my administrator or or my my district doesn't necessarily support what I need um but they did qualify that um and definitely people were are looking for leadership in those areas is in those top five um factors that did not come into the top 10 which I think are also important is families teacher colleagues pace of change um values misalignment instructional approaches District policies uh those things didn't make it the commute the calendar year um those things didn't make it to the top 10 okay you can go to the next slide and then this slide is about um when we surveyed the teachers who left so we surveyed the teachers who have left voluntarily I think over the last two years or anybody who left over the past two years out of 200 requests we got 50 responses which Aaron felt was pretty decent okay so about a quarter um there were 18 possible choices for them to respond and the top reasons were um School leaders student Behavior workload and work life balance District leadership and work hour SL salary pay um we found that school leaders showed up in this particular category it didn't show up in the current um current teacher category when we surveyed current teachers and we you know dug into that a little bit more to try to see where that came from and what we found was when people explained their answers they really were talking about um the response that school leaders had in really challenging situations um particularly involved with involving student Behavior like teachers felt like they weren't being supported necessarily um or it in that way um by um School leaders um and it was that feeling of lack of support that had them put School leaders up there um so that's it there's a lot more data like in the report that you're welcome to dig into or I'm happy to answer any questions that I can and if not Jill just move move along before I open it up for questions I just like to say it would have been nice to have this in advance of the meeting so that way we could have gone through it and prepared questions or information in ahead of time so we need to have all of the presentations in the school committee packet when we get it please because we could have you know done some homework and prepared questions I thought you had it no no oh okay it's not attached to the packet ah but that's not your responsibility gotcha Miss tensley Williams Caroline yeah so about 25 you know somewhere between around 20 Williams question oh I'm sorry okay you want me to repeat it yes please for the record okay um the ratio of I just asked her how many teachers left she said f one out of five yeah yes approximately so last year it was a 77% retention rate okay um and we've been kind of vacillating between 71 and 81 so it's approximately one out of five a little bit more or a little bit less and they didn't just walk away there were reasons for that so you explained a lot of the reasons while they left yeah okay thank you hun Mr SoDo uh I just wanted to ask a clarifying question on the on the slides where it talked about teachers leaving prior to their first uh year I I believe the the top of the slide said it was over a two-year period And I just want to uh to make sure that that's actually the case and that it wasn't know I think it was 15 51 teachers that wasn't in one year that was over the the course of a couple of years correct it was 2021 to 2023 and it was 151 that left in the first year in their first year of service like but before the they didn't renew their contract let's put it that way yeah yeah over yeah over two years presentation was linked into the packet you got I didn't get it either it's in the report there's a link that's fine though whatever I I take that back then because I apologize I looked for it and I didn't see it and you're right it's it's uh below it my apologies I was looking for a link so uh Miss Wilson please so I think the the key takeaway is that some of the things we're seeing is not just hok Public Schools um you know as a country we're seeing uh higher levels of discipline um throughout um you know levels of school um that is probably the number one reason that people are leaving teaching so I'm thinking right now which is all hindsight is always you know better than what we're doing now is like finding out did people leave teaching all together or did they just leave hoo public schools because many educators are choosing to leave um the teaching profession um due to the lack of uh and I'm going to use the term respect um that's cited amongst many um Educators um and then the other thing that I was going to add to that is that um you know discipline's an issue uh and it's and I think many times students are being effectually managed but not that information may not get back to the teacher and that is critical otherwise teachers are perceiving that nothing is happening you know the stories of kids coming back to you know always on those cute little videos on Instagram or other thing is a kid gets sent to the principal what do they do they come back to the class with a lollipop um you know kind of situation where we're not really seeing the work that's being done whether it's a conversation whether it's a mediation whether it's a uh teacher student um meeting where the disagreement is rectified or mediated to some sort of satisfaction um but these I have to say it's not just H yoke what I think is H yoke is the work hours I think that is a a key contributor um and to student to our teachers leaving um and so it's something that we need to look at and personally I'm I'm quite disgusted when I look at the slide of long-term teachers who are no longer in our district I myself and one of them um that I no longer teach in Hoke for uh a variety of reasons um and other teach I'm not I'm not I'm not going to call myself this but I know significantly um there are a significant number of Educators who are dedicated were dedicated and continue to be dedicated to their students they call them their kids it's not their students these are their children um who have left the district because they could not manage the some of the dictates that have come down um from hierarchy as well as um you know some of the expectations are just completely unreasonable so I'll that's the end of mine Mr willan thank you um yeah just to follow up on what uh Mrs Wilson said um one of the one of the SL um slides mentioned the the number of um uh first year student first year teachers um but I know you know since the pandemic we just you know Nationwide there' just been a a massive retirement or of of teachers right I mean that's just a fact so that's probably one of the reasons why there there's so many first year um first year teachers coming in you know just because of the the vacancies um I know from talking to some of the principles just the the pool of applicants is just down not only here in western Mass but in the Boston area the past you would have 10 or 12 um outside candidates trying to fill a spot you have a couple internal candidates trying to fill a spot and those numbers are just way down so um you know um some people might want to join the teaching profession they might not think it's it's for them and they might leave so and again back to the the Nationwide just the job market Nationwide you can do these surveys for any profession I would say in in the country accountants you know real estate agents etc etc the numbers are just down you know just the mass um Exodus of workers in the job pool Nationwide uh it's very concerning as Mrs Wilson said that U we don't retain the the the number of teachers year to year I know when I was hoai you know the the questions were who are you getting for history this year who you getting for for math you knew the teachers you knew who your your choices were and they weren't really new new names or new faces um okay thank you um I'm gonna call on Mr Colmore and then we're going to continue because I guess that's only a third of the presentation um so we want to keep moving this along at a clip uh Mr Colmore yeah I I'd like to discuss salaries in our school system we can't really discuss teacher salaries that's collective bargaining and not something that we're really involved with not just on the whole okay I'm talking about other districts compared to hoo there should be some comparison throughout throughout western Mass or even the state that says oyok is very very low in uh teacher salaries is that the re is that some of the reasons they're leaving our system is because of salaries in our system well when you see the survey here only 20% said salary and pay the top reasons were School leaders student Behavior workload or work life balance District leadership and work hours were all ahead of salary and pay but there's got to be some kind of state report Mr SoDo yeah I don't have the state report but I I I will say the last round of negotiations with teachers which next year will be the third um that analysis is always done and we were we were very competitive with surrounding districts um when when that happened uh we looked at parts of the scale to to make sure that where we weren't competitive um we addressed that in the in the in the salary uh for teachers and on average uh 10 uh teachers got a on average teachers got a 10% increase um um from the scale from the previous contract so uh obviously since then that was a couple of years ago when when when that new contract went into effect some districts have have renegotiated contracts so like when we when we actually go to the table again next year that's something that you know that that is a process that that our team will definitely go uh go through is taking a look at surrounding districts what where they're at and and making sure that we we stay competitive and and working with you know uh the union to to go through that that bargaining process and uh let's just talk discipline for a moment uh I don't know how far we go within the school system but are there more students not just leaving the system but being shipped to the court system for implementation of uh our policy I would have to say no to that like I I actually visited the hamy hamon county sheriff's department and he said whatever work you guys have been doing over the last five years like I want to commend you because we're seeing a lot less people enter our system um you know so I don't want to create the the perception that that are are you know know that you know I I just I'm struggling with that question because uh that is not a representation of our students right yes we have student behaviors we have unmet needs but that does not mean that you know our students are on a path to you know to incarceration or anything like that and the sheriff himself expressed to me like look you know a long time ago Holy Oak we were seeing a lot of kids young young adults uh entering our system and we're not seeing that anymore and just keep in mind too uh discipline data is in your packet every every meeting as well if you have want more information so okay if you guys could continue great I'm gonna I have Jill come to the mic walk us through uh root causes and uh the first set of recommendations that came from uh the work group oh well all right so um I will try and be as as um succinct as possible so um after we reviewed the data we conducted a root cause analysis and we found that the primary problem was that around 25% of teachers leave hoolio each year so um we looked at the unconscious bias in schools and there was a quote from that that said too often we think we understand the problem and identify Solutions based on Surface diagnosis if we really want to get to the root we need to dig deeper so that is what drove our work in the uh teacher retention group so um in looking at that primary problem we had to think about the why which were the sub problems and we came up with three as a group so the three were one the amount and breath of expectations or workload for a teacher is too high teachers feel undervalued and underappreciated students social emotional needs are not being fully met which leads to disruptive student behaviors in the classroom oh oh yeah that can go to the next slide so um from that primary problem and our work and the retention group we came up with some recommendations and you can go to the next slide so this slide contains two of the sub problems which um we attacked together and found one corresponding strategy so the sub problems were that amount amount and breath of expectations and that teachers feel undervalued and underappreciated and so the corresponding strategy that comes from that is that we need to create and Foster a work environment where teachers are and feel supported valued appreciated fairly compensated and successful so from that strategy we found sub priorities which in my mind I think of the corresponding strategy is the how and then branching that out into some sub priorities so we listed those as prioritization and coordination workday professional learning coaching in and support communication compensation appreciation connection and well-being and recruiting so as I said that slide um touches on two of the sub problems that we listed you go to the next Slide the third sub problem that was identified was students social emotional needs are not fully being met which leads to disruptive student behaviors in the classroom so this one had its own corresponding strategy that we came up with and that was to strengthen School cultures and students social emotional learning and support systems and to branch that strategy out we came up with the ideas of um a multi-tiered system of support which includes a system of seal behavioral and academic tier one two and three supports social emotional learning and relationship building student behavior supports and special education I would add support into there next slide so this slide is strategy one which spoke to those first two subcategories um so the idea was to create and Foster a work environment where teachers feel supported valued appreciated and so on so we broke that down into um five recommendations so compensation was at the top of that list and in negotiations with the HTA explore ways to increase the competitiveness of teacher total compensation and benefits and in my mind the um word that sticks out most to me is competitiveness because if we're trying to keep teachers here we need to look at the surrounding areas and really make ourselves competitive with the job market being what it is the second on that list is workday and we said to modify the teacher workday to protect prep time differentiate te teacher learning compete again with surrounding districts and promote work life balance the next one um spoke to comp compensation again and for this particular um recommendation we said that we should revisit stien ra ranges or hourly rates for additional duties voluntary responsibilities and coverage due to absences to ensure equity and fairness within Holio and competitiveness with nearby districts and um this really spoke to veteran teachers because the way that our salary schedule is set up right now it really does support new teachers which is surprising that we lose new teachers even still but um if we could look at this um salary schedule and really think about how we're supporting teachers who have been here for more than three years and try and keep them I think that's something that we need to um really dig into um prioritization speaks to um developing an achievable list of responsibilities and expectations for teachers which lends to that workload and uh work life balance and also limiting district and school priorities so that each grade band has a reasonable amount of new priorities and a lot of the feedback that we got was that teachers felt like they just had work that kept on being added on and on and on and nothing was taken off of their plate um think that might be all for my portion because Mahoney is going to speak to strategy 2 okay thank you Michael um so strategy number two uh went at the third sub problem that that Jill outlined uh which was to strengthen School culture and social emotional learning and Sport Systems for students um uh we have several here um uh at the top is exploring some alternative programming for uh disregulated High uh High need students who uh tend to have an A A disproportionate impact on uh classroom and school cultures um second was to to uh get back to our multi-tiered system of student support review it uh revise it as as as necessary it the last time that we put together uh one it was two years before the pandemic um and it was before we did um our reconfiguration and rezoning into elementary middle and high schools so um that needs some uh serious uh it needs U serious attention um for Behavior Support to really have uh consistent systemic and coherent responses uh to student Behavior both proactive what we expect um adults to be doing to promote uh healthy uh uh behavior and and students making productive uh uh decisions but also how we respond to it in ways that are clear and consistent for students and for families and for staff um and that includes everything not just what happens when you know uh when you know um student referred to an administrat but also being really consistent in the communication back to the Gap that Miss Wilson uh just noted right I may do great work with uh um with uh with the student in in my office but if the teacher doesn't know about it then there they we're missing a key part um uh look at uh adjustments to special education Staffing and supports um so that um and and then which we're doing as a part of the Strategic plan any anyways but this was uh tagged in and overlapped with our work and then finally making sure that uh school schedules and uh programming uh have dedicated and and uh protected time uh for relationship building and for intentional direct social emotional learning and then our next steps um thank you Mike next um first is uh is to begin sharing a and uh uh this report and presentation to get feedback input and ideally action um the report um has been shared uh with uh School leaders it was shared with all staff um uh this week it was shared with with you all uh last week in the board I believe uh Mr Soto has either shared this already um with our liaison uh at the department of Elementary and secondary education um but they were very much in the know as we went through um and then to start bring it to uh family uh groups and to uh standing staff uh faculty meetings um we've already begun uh much of uh of the work on uh the uh on these recommendations so for example um Jackie glashen Serita grain Rebecca Thompson and I have taken a first cut at um prioritizing uh teacher responsibilities and expectations for first second and then third year plus we'll take another crack at it uh later this week and then start sharing it with an advisory group of school leaders and teachers that are going to be working with us on that um mtss work begins on uh on Friday uh with a a a design team of school counselors deans of students classroom teachers um and uh building and District uh leaders and then um our goal is uh for us to have uh finalized actions uh and a plan for the superintendent to share in miday um we are our mtss plan is to have a revised mtss plan that schools can begin planning to turn key at our June Leadership Retreat so that um schools will have the summer uh to prepare uh for uh any changes in systems and structures uh and practices in the buildings and uh if there are other questions that the committee has happy to take those um as you see fit thank you very much Dr Mahoney uh Miss Wilson so I do have to say that one thing I heard very strongly from the group is having consistency for discipline um that was huge amongst uh the group of individuals um and so that students especially because students are going to be moving from elementary to middle schools now um and coming from different elementary schools going to different middle schools there needs to be the consistency of approach with how um you know each situation is dealt with and managed and that is not seen right now within our community um and then I'm going to say this um I think the work life balance is very important I think um I think it needs to be looked at especially now because of the Staffing shortage and how teachers are being being called upon to staff vacancies um and missing out on their preps um missing out on you know different times or Duty time whatever it is um that should be built into their day I I think that we need to be thoughtful about what we're presenting at staff meetings after school um I know many teachers find staff meetings um irrelevant um in in many cases and I would really challenge our administrator to be thoughtful and use the time wisely and not just have a meeting for the sake of having a meeting Miss tensley Williams what is that acronym for mtss yeah thank you it uh it stands for multi-tiered systems of support um and what that means is that uh you have uh three areas of support that you'd be providing to students um academic behavioral and social and emotional and that in each one of those domains you have three tiers so you have tier one which is universal you Pro you every student has access to that and it's provided to every student so that is our illustrative math curriculum that every student is using um or uh that would be our uh code of conduct that uh that um drops drives decision making when when in in response to student behaviors well that would be our Trails curriculum that students in grades 1 through nine are getting um in in all of our schools that's tier one tier two is generally when students need more than what you're giving in tier one tier two usually speaks to having smaller groups of students maybe need uh uh specific work on uh uh phonics and phonetic understanding or need uh we have small groups that deal in behavior and social emotional that deal with everything from anger management to grief and and and helping students understand and go through the um that experience and then the third tier oftentimes is is much more individualized and personalized to um uh specific students who have um very particular and and unique circumstances and needs to their situation thank you so much that's great Dr Cabo thank you so much for the presentation I had the opportunity to study of your submission and uh actually took some time to go over different research um websites uh where they talk about es seal you know social emotional learning and one of the recommendations is that why not integrate all those you know multi-tier uh approaches to the curriculum and not only focusing on you know specific situations but why not in it into what we teach our children you know how we also uh engage with families and the community so I I guess when we talk about well um how are we going to support our students to perform better in our schools um seal social emotional learning has to be you know a pivotal you know central part of that uh education uh something else that I wanted to point out was the situation about um the lack of support that teachers feel from their administrators um it saddens me that people leave their jobs because they don't feel supported or appreciated something that also affects the not only the teaching but the learning because there's an an energy uh with which you go to your work uh place and then how do you deliver uh the knowledge because you don't feel supported appreciated um what are we going to do with that you know the the report your report also talked about the lack of communication that was really um that would permeate the same information across the public schools why why is there uh communication this way in this school and another school is doing something else um so the lack of that prioritizing a Common Language and a common approach to not only teaching but also communicating with um with the staff and with the teachers the report also talked about the um in consistencies with the um professional development teachers are receiving professional development uh training that they have already taken and I would propose and why not integrate all these professional I mean the language of social emotional learning so that teachers and administrators are more um aware as to how to not only help themselves but also help the the students and and the families so that we have students that Thrive and and so that we learn self-control and learn where our strengths are that all should be part of the curriculum and also part of the conversation that we as teachers and you know leaders in the city should be uh having thank you so much for for for all your work thank you Mr fa thank you again for the presentation as well as for all the work that you guys have done on in the retention working group I'm going to focus on strategy number two um the recommendations and um starting off first with your behavior support the recommendation to explore alternative programming replacement options for dis significantly disregulated students who do not have an IEP individual education program how did it even get that far my question so I remember we've always had building based support teams and when if a student is having difficulty obviously referrals are made meetings are are done with the family and then if we need to do a behavioral assessment a functional behavioral assessment it's done um if we need to do an OT valuation for sensory it's done um and we look at before getting to an IEP a 504 plan we also look at implementing a safety plan in there um where would we be exploring alternative programming if we haven't done a now all of a sudden we want to get to C we've had things in place it's just that we're not following the protocol either because we don't want to make it look like we're really any bad shape um but if I connect this to when we talk later about um the referrals from one month to the next we have a problem so obviously we're dropping the ball somewhere and before doing a 45-day placement or a recommendation for that I think the support should have came in a whole lot long time way before that so I think we better go back to the basics um and nipping the stuff in the bud before it gets to where we have disregulated students who do not have an IEP I also think that it shouldn't just be left to the teachers shouldn't be left to the pair of professionals my question is how are nurses involved in this right how are we getting nursing involved because is is is the student on some sort of medication is there a change in the medic a and now it's causing a chemical imbalance which now increases you know could be causing a manic episode that's a reach out to the parent to reach out to the doctor there's a lot that could be going on or it could be a medical issue it could be a simple utti and we got to get some antibiotics that's where I have a problem there number two strengthen this HPS system of support so every student receives the seal every time I hear seal it's like that other word that came out a couple years ago and it was like the hot word and now this is like the hot ticket word social emotional learning I'm very curious I'm a student can somebody please show me an seal I don't know what you would do in social emotional learning if I'm a student I'm in class what are you specifically doing and when exactly is this social emotional learning being done is it first 15 minutes of every day okay I just I want to answer and and I'll let Dr Mahoney answer I think that a major shift that has to happen um in Holy Oak and I'm not going to say that it SEO is not just a place it's not just it doesn't happen just the in morning meetings like SEO is everybody's responsibility and I think that you know Miss Wilson was alluding to that it's not you know it's seal happens in your Ela block seal happens in mathal happens in the hallways seal happen seal is everybody's responsibility and and you're absolutely right it should you know it's not just on the teacher it's on the student support team it's on the admin like seal has to be an entire shift that it's not just our Trails curriculum which is our tier one instruction of SEO that often happens in morning meetings it the the shift has to really be that it is everybody's responsibility and I'll let I'll let Dr Mahoney say what he was going to say before you go there that's exactly the point that I'm trying to make is that this shouldn't be well let's do this 10-minute little Act ity it's just like processing an incident right if a student has an incident we need to process it right because the student needs to learn identify your trigger right because then we all have to keep in mind and it shouldn't again it shouldn't just be the teacher everybody because that same situation can happen if the student is down the hallway and it's the the maintenance it could be um the dietician cafeteria whomever it is but it's how do we all address it right and so I constantly here social emotional learning we're doing social emotional learning but apparently I I I don't see how we're doing it so go ahead if you can show me well I I wanted to just like really um go off of what um Mr SoDo said absolutely positively it's not a single place it's not a single point in time what we talked to a lot of the teachers about and what a lot of the teachers said to us when we were doing this research as part of our working group was they just want time to develop relationships with their kids um and there's so much pressure to get through the curriculum to prepare for the next test to take time out for the next test I I don't I can't speak to other schools but I know from my colleagues at hooai um teachers and kids are standardized tested out and um it takes so much energy and you know I co- te a 10th grade biology class and kids come in the door and they have needs and and as the main teacher is teaching I am walking around hugging kids whispering in their ear letting them know that they're okay um asking them what I can do taking walk taking a lap and that's to me what social emotional learning is but every classroom doesn't have the two teachers that I have in my bio class and we just don't have time in the day to make those relationships with every single student and that's comes back to you know teacher retention and people staying in the school because if I saw you last year I'm going to be able to connect with you again this year and it comes back to if I'm able to go home and give my kid my own kids some of my energy and some of my love that I'm going to come back to school the next day and be a better teacher for the kids that I'm responsible for here it's just all so related but I agree social emotional learning is like this catch word what it really means is connecting tightly with your kids and having time to do that whatever that looks like and it's also about building trust yeah right and so it goes back to if we're if everything is about that it's got to be according to you know a teaching moment then you're actually missing the whole point because it's about developing relationships imagine if I just went into each of my patients home and just been like Hi here's your medicine bye yeah that's not even building a relationship on the contrary you know if they see me out in the community they're like hey Mild they even think I'm a doctor I'm like yeah no but that's the most important thing is building the relationship knowing the child and knowing the triggers because if you can beat the trigger you can get to the child to help them learn how to regulate themselves and be able to to calm themselves to to kind of pass off on actually escalating and that's why I always say safety plans need to be developed and there should be a crisis plan that is created with the parent and the student and to this day is that part of the IEPs not all students have it unless the the parent has asked for it I know that for each of my children when they've had it I've created it because it's very important Miss Williams um I'm sorry no I'm confused yes but I'm staring at I'm staring at Ellie Miss Wilson excuse me rosley you're after Miss Wilson my my apologies so a couple things I just want to bring up Mildred in order to have a 504 you need an area of disability so that's a key criteria for a 504 um and one of the critical pieces that more and more 504 teams special ed teams um are wrestling with is the determination of social maladjustment versus an emotional disability that is a Hot Topic let me tell you um because there's there's there are more and more I'm going to be very honest socially maladjusted students than students who have an emotional disability so a social maladjustment is not a criteria um under federal government for a disability so I just wanted to clarify that that um the next thing is um I can let you know that in the high school I work at we added a a second assistant principal um this year based upon what we were seeing with our students and um how the assistant principal was not able to effectively work with students not just manage the moment but effectively work with students so that's something I think that we a district can be looking at is um having more staff um in order to help students which in turn will help our Educators um the last thing is I I just I want to cry um that there's not time in our day to connect with our students that is the first thing students need to feel in order to be available for learning they need to have a connection with their Educators in order to be available to learn and if we are so focused on drilling academics and not making these connections we will never see improvement with our students finally I am going to ask that the trials curriculum be presented to a student student to a school committee meeting so we understand um a high overview of what that curriculum entails thank you Miss Tenley Williams right now I'm very happy um we've had a lot of meetings but this is one of the best I am so happy that we're having this discussion tonight um I've always said I had buttons about five years ago made up if you mess with kids you mess with me first of all you have to be friends with the children um they need to know that adults care about them it doesn't matter whose children they are uh even on my block my neighbors they love me the kids if kids love you you in because a lot of times kids don't trust you they're not sure who their friends are so but they Miss tensley Williams they love me I'm not trying to get be great and all that but if teenagers love you you're in be their friends first of all you got first well they have to trust you before you can even talk to kids and so my kids are old they're in their 50s but it was tough I was a single mom and we made it it was a hard it was tough but we need to be friends with the children and all the Kids on the Block belongs to me I don't care if it's Sullivan School all the way up to Dean these are my kids so they have to know that we care about them and I'm loving this meeting tonight I could I could cry but I I I'll contain myself thank you guys for coming Dr Rivera clone thank you so much and I I don't want to take too much time I do wholeheartedly agree with a lot of all of the things that my colleagues have said so far I just want to add something in there where a lot of what I'm hearing based on the recommendations requires more people requires Staffing requires more bodies in the building we are having trouble filling in positions that we have already established that we needed as part of the Strategic plan as part of our social emotional learning as part of our special education all the students that we have to better serve them if our answers are we have to hire more people and we haven't have been able to even close the gap on all the hiring that we need to do that is not going to be an effective solution for next year or the year after I urge the team to also think about and and this goes beyond just the retention um task force which you have done an amazing job of putting all of this together and is the reason why I can't even talk about it because you did all the the work um and we're thankful for that but we need to be thinking creatively outside the box doing a resource assessment what do we have that we can do now so that way as we really look into the future and we do want to have more people what are we doing for our kids today what are we doing for the students now because those students are here now and they can wait until you H you hire all the people who are needed so it's it's not an either or it's an end right like what can we do now with what we have and then how can we help the teachers feel heard and valued now and not when we actually get all the people that we hope we can get because that's that has come up as solutions for other things but we just still don't have the people the Staffing it's a really big issue so far thank you Mr willan thank you thank you for the report it was well done um just um I want to ask Mr Mr stto if he could just remind us of um some of the benefits that we've done for the for the teacher over the last year or so in terms of the bonuses yeah retention bonuses thank you thank you for for asking um you know one of the things that I appreciated about this process is that I was regularly kept in the loop um throughout the process and and I know I will say um we haven't waited on implementing some of the like as we were hearing things we were actively thinking about okay we're hearing these things what can we do um we heard about time right uh uh so one of the things that we did in December I shared a message with the community I shared a message with the school committee um we made adjustments to to time and and and teachers having the professional courtesy to to be trusted to do the work and not have to stay um so we had given back some days uh that that teachers were required to stay before or after school in k to8 um we made adjustments to that in response to what we were hearing um we we heard about appreciation so uh you know we've tried to make efforts at the district level and school school level to recognize um um teachers for for good work doing we've done you know uh we did Wellness bonuses that that uh that that's you know I I don't know a district around here that was doing that and yeah it was a small it was $1,000 per per staff member and that's not going to fix things like I don't want to sit here and say but what I want to say is like as we were listening and as we were hearing some of the concerns we we we committed to like here's what we're doing in the short term and and once this report before this report is released these are some things that we can do right now uh around the student behaviors we just shared with the school committee a reset that took effect in February and we de we did see a significant drop uh in February in in the amount of referrals uh since that reset was implemented um so there there's things that as we're hearing we're implementing but there's also you know uh we just got this these recommendations the heavy lifting and the important work that has to happen between now and may is like let's be realistic what what can we do now what can we do next year and what do we need to start uh working on and building for for future years I don't think any of this this is going to be like more staff uh Dr Rivera cologne uh I don't know any recommendation in here that is like stating more people but like yeah you know our budget can't support more people and you're right we had you know we've had 70 vac teacher vacancies all year it would be you know we're not going to throw uh funding at creating more positions and and like pray that like we can fill them uh we're looking at a $4 million you know budget deficit for the upcoming year that we have to close so like we're not even a in a position to to add more positions so that isn't something that you know that that we're thinking in terms of strategies we've looked at those strategies we've done root root cause analysis and the next step is is for our leadership team to to start planning and designing what can we do now and what and what what what are we looking to to build out in the future may I assume that you were all set because I had you next okay uh thanks again you guys for coming I really appreciate your last comment about standardized testing clearly I was shocked that your entire report didn't talked about testing so for you to say that it leads me to say why why is it not discussed in your report at all I find it hard to believe that it didn't possibly come up um in this retention work group um you know I think it's important to note because as a district that is so focused on mcast it drives a lot of our day-to-day activity and our students miss out on time on learning with all of the time we spend on testing we've had a wonderful report and survey done by Mr Kennedy that he did here at the dean campus that surveyed his 11th grade uh student colleagues and it was so enlightening and I hear you talk about it and you're which you said your colleagues at Hoy Kai are focused on it we talk about all the time but what are we going to do about it when are we going to stop having so much AET and star and teaching to ATT test like he just said we have some event happening to help their 10th graders prepare for the mcast like come on if we want to have a healthier District we need to stop focusing on testing so I'll just start with that going to Priority two um sub priorities and strategy two and all this talk about social emotional learning and to Ellie's comment about the social deficiencies which we know heightened with covid with children learn missing out on that opportunity to engage with their peers what I didn't hear any talk about was Art music recess all of those things that we know are key strategies that help improve students social and emotional outcomes because like mild said it's not about a structured criteria how you learn to be socially and emotionally healthy so music can provide students with a creative Outlet to express their feelings and emotions while allowing them to explore their identity and make sense of their expressions through engaging in musical activities children learn to trust their own abilities and build their own unique sense of self play is vital to kids building play is vital in building kids social and emotional skills especially in unstructured play sessions like recess these play settings give students a place where they can practice social skills with their peers in real time allowing them to develop essential skills like collaboration and communication art art education has an important role to play in Social emotion development in part because Arts education is commonly believed to provide different ways of accessing and developing social emotional competence empathy perseverance self-awareness this is in case with other academic areas like why aren't we talking about the fact that we as a district have moved away from having having art curriculum music curriculum and more time for recess we want input on this I that's my input I want to see art I want to see music I want to see it not just in K to8 but also in the middle school we have such amazing programs at the high school and one of the things we worked on in our Middle School collaborative study team was ensuring that our middle schools were providing Pathways to all the different aies we have at hoyo Kai we're not feeding the theater program at hoyo Kai we're not feeding the band program at hoyo Kai we're not feeding media arts at hooai let's be real about what we're offering our students at the younger levels to be able to feed into those programs at the high school so all of this feeds back to social emotional learning it's such a focus why aren't we focusing more on Arts and Music and recess which we'll talk about further in the meeting and then the other thing I wrote down you talk about student triggers right and like getting to know your students triggers testing as with Evans wonderful survey he did and how much Social and emotional stress and triggers testing is for students you could be a A+ student but skip school on a test day because they can't handle the stress of the test so I would love us as a district to really look at what we're doing around standardized testing and start to re-evaluate that you know we want to have all these fixes and all these Band-Aids but but we're not doing at the ground level what can be done to help our students have a happier and healthier day at Hoy Public Schools so I thank you all again for your presentation I don't see any more comments so with that we will move on thank you all for coming uh next is a Yonder back update um Dr uh Cabo had asked for this so uh Mr SoDo yeah so included in your packet we we provided you with an update we reached out to the the schools that actually have the Yonder bag pilot program in there and uh I think the the biggest impact that the Yonder bag pilot has has done is it just normed that like cell phones aren't going to be used during the school day in classrooms um you know uh not all students are using them like we we find that you know uh students uh report that they don't have a phone but they actually do um but you know one of the things that it is norming is that cell phones um are not are not to be used in school and in classrooms so I think that you know schools have expressed that that that it has accomplished that obviously this is the first year of of of the pilot so um you know to sit here and expect that 100% of the students are complying with the Yonder bag policy is just like it's not realistic um some schools have have actually experienced issues so when for example we're we're we're finding a lot of phones Holio Kai specifically um and they do you know they announce or do random searches because they they're seeing like a lot of kids use not random but like on Friday we're going to do we're going to check everybody coming through the door to make sure that that has been a strategy that has been used to discourage uh to encourage students to use their Yonder bags and discourage them but like the the feedback that we got from the high school is like when we do that it takes a lot of time it takes a lot of time to get you know 900 kids through the door and and go through the process of of checking to see if they have a Yonder bag or not um all of them expressed like you know all the schools Express like you know the the the pilot while it while it could be tweaked and and like we need better support for example like at the high school um we we could look into there's actually uh not metal detectors out there but there's uh uh there's there's things that just check for phones only not weapons or anything like that you know uh or like if they need additional equipment to help with those days um it's that's just a tool right like the the goal is to have less students using phones in the classroom some communities don't use Yonder bags some of them go to a like a safe place right in the classroom where they put what I like about or or what what the team liked about the Yonder bag uh as a tool for to enforce no phones in classrooms is that kids have the ability to keep their phone on them some of these phones are like let's keep it real like some of these phones are $1,000 right and and uh to sit here and say like oh I'm going to put it in this cubby uh in a classroom full of 25 kids um there's there's risk associated with that and students might feel like I don't trust it like this is this is my phone and um so what I like about the the the Yonder bags themselves is that kids actually have their phones on their person and there's not that like risk or liability that they're going to be losing them um you know how how uh I think the part of the reason this came up was because there was a huge spike in in confiscation um when we shared our referral data I think that's the trigger that said hey like there's a lot of confiscations going on as a referral code uh does the Yonder bag have anything to do with that we'd like to get an update on that so that's how we're providing an input yeah like the the confiscations is a result uh the increase in confiscations as a result of the Yonder bag implementation so we ask schools and on average I I'd say each each campus is experiencing about 10 to 20 phones a day where like they're finding you know the the kid walks through the door do you have your Yonder bag no okay let me get your phone we'll give it to you give it back to you at the end of the day um or like no I don't have my phone and then you you see them uh throughout the day actually using it those get the phones get taken away put away if it happens a few times we just enforce the procedures that that we have attached and that have been vetted through the committee um where we you know a phone you know if it happens a few times like we're calling home and saying hey Mom hey Dad you got to come pick up the phone and let's have a conversation with your with your child about like you know not not using the Yonder bag so um at this point like I don't you know one of the things that that we're exploring or not exploring one of the things that is being recommended is that we do we continue the pilot for another year uh because of the impact that it has had like overwhelmingly all principles reported that we see less students on their phones in class and and that's a positive thing that's a good thing um you know there there it they have changed their pricing structure a little bit we used to leasee these um but you know I one of the recommend one what's being recommended to me is that we continue with the pilot for a year make it better like if if Holio Kai is having issues with those days is there support that we can Prov provide or equipment that we could provide to make that process quicker um and then you know it could be evaluated again whether or not we we do away with those bags and and and you know I don't think anybody says like hey we should just allow phones in classrooms everybody's like no Yonder bags is just a tool to do that um folks are recommending like that we we continue with another year of the pilot um and and just get better at it and then re-evaluate next year Miss Wilson thank you so much Miss Wilson had her hand up first and I'll call you second Miss Wilson so I'm trying to understand this because in one part of uh you said that we're doing searches and then later on in our com in our material it says unlike other area schools HPS will not initially Implement bag searches and metal detectors for students who report not having a phone upon entry to the school so it appears that we're not following our procedure no that's so what essentially what's happening so Central Central High School their their policy is that every kid walks when they walk into school they walk through a metal detector and uh you know if they have their phone it goes in a pouch right and and they can go through a separate line if they don't have a p pouch they walk through metal detectives we're not doing that every day that's not something that we're doing we are uh you know occasionally throughout the year we are you know using that as a strategy like all right on Thursday we're going to we're going to go through that process we don't have uh metal detectors per se that like kids walk through we have wands where their bags are searched um what what was expressed is that when we do that it's uh arrival is is is very uh especially at the big campus at the north campus where there's so many kids um you're essentially losing 40 minutes in the morning right trying to trying to do that so the high school Express like you know look if we're going to do this like we need a little more like we need to explore a easier way to get kids through the door when we're when we're doing something like that right but but you're not you didn't speak to the fact that in our procedure it says we will not Implement bag searches and yet we are random so like it's not like we're taking like picking and choosing when we do it we do it like everybody walks through the door and their bag gets checked so I think our procedure needs to be updated because if I was a parent reading this I would think that we are not doing bag searches and yet we are can you can you or I don't know if we take this conversation offline or you point me it says it right in one two three four the fifth bullet down the second sentence unlike other area schools HPS not initially Implement bag searches so while we're in a a trial period I think that's considered in initial um and that we are doing bag searches I think that's something that we need to update the procedure and notify parents that that is a possibility I think I think we need to clarify this so you're you're absolutely right um we probably just need to clarify this the intent of that is that unlike other the intent is exactly what I'm trying to tell you okay noted and I will fix that should that get sent to poliy for review or no I would say it should sure and that's where the change can happen and then it gets recommended back to us right sure I mean so I'll entertain a motion or refer that to policy thank you Mr willan thank you Mrs Williams any conversation saying none all those in favor no we have tooll Sor roll call did you have a comment hun no okay roll call please Mr SoDo mayor Garcia Miss berau yes Miss lefave oh yes Mr Romero yes Miss tensley Williams Dr Rivera cologne yes Dr Cayo see Mr wellan yes Mr Kore yes Miss Wilson yes Dr cab did you have comments no I I wanted to thank um Mr SoDo for the clarification thanks a lot and then the only thing I'll add is um I think if we do adopt it further moving forward we need to take into consideration watches and headphones because the Yonder pouch doesn't interrupt your signal so your pouch your phone can be in your pouch but if you're wearing an Apple Watch you're getting all your messages on your Apple watch and if you have you know Apple headphones in you're getting everything there as well so just wondering like if if staff is finding that as an added distraction I know I've gotten some text from my own and I'm like what are you and she's like I'm on I watch I'm like don't do that like shut off your Wi-Fi or your um abilities so just you know thinking ahead and I'm just curious if it's something that we need to think about if if staff is seeing as as it's a concern moving forward so yeah I think we got to get this right first like how do we make how do we reduce the amount of phone use first and and and support schools who are implementing this and if we choose to continue with this pilot Beyond next year um you know maybe expand it when things get better right now you know right now not every student is doing it yeah right now like I would probably venture to guess like this is just a guess that like 30% of the kids that have phones are actually using the Yonder bags right now the rest are hiding it which is fine like I'm o I'm okay with that right um you know I have I had a mentoring session on Friday and one of my mentees was like Mr SoDo check this out and I'm like really oh really JC that's not his real name same but he definitely turned red and was like oh I probably shouldn't have shared this right all right thank you so much moving on to uh lunch and recess that's you as well yeah I think um the the request was to um to share with the school committee the the schedules for lunches you can see here that no school has less than a half hour for lunch in recess um so some schools are doing 15 minutes and 15 minutes and some schools are actually doing 20 and 20 some schools uh one school even is doing 30 and 15 so uh we provide guid provided guidance to the principles they develop their schedule you know uh with Ian white specifically because that's why the convers ation came up you know I did respond to the the parent group and like you know that that's something that at the school level like if if Amy you know I asked them to work with Amy and if if she can make that work for the school what we can't do is so I'll give you an example like Sullivan is a school that has a lot of kids and a small lunchroom if we forced this policy onto them that means that some kids will be eating lunch at 9:45 in the morning morning and sub kids won't be eating lunch until like 2 right like because if we want to have those longer lunch periods it means we got to you know like that it's going to it's going to affect the the first lunch and the last lunch so like the the argument will be made for families that like my kid is eating lunch way too late or my kid just got to school an hour ago and he's already eating lunch so for you know I think that uh this is something we provide principal autonomy on uh based on you know based on like that the size of the building the size the the size of the cafeteria the amount of students like when they're building their operating plans and their schedules like what makes the most sense uh I'd love for every school to be able to have at least 20 minutes for lunch and at least 20 minutes for recess I would love that but we I don't think that we can force that onto a school without considering the impact of that change right the the the example like I'm going to I'm going to reiterate like a kid showing up at 8:30 and then first Lunch Period being at at you know 9:55 or something like that because we you know because we want to increase the the the lunches so uh there's the information um and I'll entertain questions I'm just gonna say and then I'll pass it over to Miss Wilson we have a policy in the district under wellness and it says that students will be allowed 20 minutes from the time they sit down to eat their food y so what I want to know is at what point in time did we decide we're just going to throw away our policies and not look at them and construct a lunch schedule that's not within our current policy that's all I want to know we have a what do we have policies for if we don't follow them I'll I'll get you the updated wellness policy but it's not it's not on that masc list this is the hoyo public school school committee that's the school committee policy and as as you guys all pointed out many of those policies are are old and we updated yeah we have an updated wellness policy can can you send us a copy of it yes and does it what does that say for lunch time it doesn't say it it does say 20 minutes for recess is recommended and uh it doesn't say anything about sitting down like 20 minutes after sitting down but I'm happy to share the the wellness policy and when was that policy adopted I can get you that information as well Miss Wilson so first of all I'm I'm I don't even know the right word um if there are any policies that have been created that supersede a documented school committee policy um that should be made aware to every single school committee member we should not be hearing about this because according to our laws if a parent is looking for a policy this is the policy they are looking at this is the legal policy for lunches not only does it say they have 20 minutes after sitting down for lunch they said the the policy says lunch should be scheduled between 11:00 a.m. and 1 p.m. when possible so I I I have to say that I'm kind of sh the word is shocked I'm shocked that there is a policy that supercedes the legally adopted school committee policy that our parents refer to I am shocked by that and I would like to know if there are any other policies that have been put in place that supersede the adopted school committee policies Miss fave so with that I'm going to put in a motion that any policies that have been created during receivership which was not with the school committee um be referred to the policy subcommittee for review because it is true it should be even on the website um and access for anyone in the public even um families to be able to access the the policies online so the fact that we have those things and it's it's a discrepancy to what we have even though they are old um and they haven't been updated it's the current most up to-date you know that technically we have there um so that's my motion is any policies created while under receivership so from 2015 to present be referred to the policy subcommittee for review and then because then they would end up have having to go under the letters that they would follow under um in our policies I second that motion made by Miss of Faith second in by Miss Wilson any further discussion on the motion I just Dr y your hand oh she just took it down okay I just I'm it's just so frustrating because so much of what we do here is reflected on us as as a body and it's not done by us as a body in some way shapes or forms so like how many policies have changed since receivership that we don't even know about uhuh Mr Kore did do you have a comment during discussion yes about policy children so currently the district has a policy online a wellness policy and so the presentation is about lunch and recess and within our wellness policy that's posted online according to what's posted online the district is violating our policy but apparently there's a new policy what I wanted to get at is uh the principles are saying we would have to start at 9:30 in the morning and not have lunch through one o'clock in the afternoon well are we looking at so as much as I respect where your question's coming from it's not discussion to the motion so let's do the motion and then I will let you come back with your comment okay very good okay was your discussion on the motion Miss Wilson with Milam I'm sorry it was about to Mr SoDo but I'll ask after okay okay so on the motion then uh roll call because we do have Dr Rivera Clen online mayor Garcia miss brunau here I mean yes here uh Miss lefave yes Mr Romero yes Miss tensley Williams see Dr Rivera cologne see Dr kabayo see Mr wahan yes Mr Kore yes and Miss Wilson yes thank you the motion's unanimous Mr kmore now you can finish your question thank you the question I'm looking at is we're all talking about the time limit for going to lunch but is anyone in your office looking at expanding The Lunch Period not the lunch period but the lunch uh rooms for example uh this room can only handle 20 people well we can we couldn't have a meeting if we couldn't have that but we cannot have small lunch rooms to accommodate the students could we look into building expanding our cafeteria um no one is looking into expansion of cafeterias I mean you got to think of the history here right we took elementary schools and made them k8s we you know we took elementary schools and and have them as middle schools we've had different grade configurations you know over the last many many years um in Holy Oak so um you know I think what when we provide guidance to principles on on their schedules they they put their best foot forward to make sure that they're they're doing right by kids um and you know it's not a principle that's saying you know uh we got to start lunch um maybe that was a slight exaggeration for me to articulate to you all why we why it would be hard to just say yeah let's let's increase the lunch periods like you have to factor those things in it um when when you're creating a lunch schedule like the how early lunch starts how late lunch starts and how long it is goes plays into like what when you know when a principal decides like I said like I said to all of you one of um one of the things I'd love to do is make sure there is a lunch period of 20 minutes and a recess of of 20 minutes and uh I members of our team are actually working on a schedule for next year to be able to provide that like directive to principles but then then create the opport opportunity for them to to express to us if if they're doing something less than that in elementary and middle school uh uh articulate a reason why a reason why that's not possible so that we can have that dialogue so if for example a a principal's like yeah Anthony like if I do 20 minutes of lunch and 20 minutes of recess like this is the implication this you know students are going to be eating too early or eating too late and then we have to solve that issue um but the the guidance that that I'd like to provide to principles and and that our academic team is working is to make sure that that there is a at least a 20-minute Lunch Period and a 20 minute uh recess and that if if that's not possible that they they talk to us about why that's not possible are you all set no uh are we Ain I'm I'm not sure if someone's discussed this at all in building the new PEC School uh have they planned for 150 students to have a only two lunch periods in the school 550 students um 550 St well we certainly don't have a schedule for the school yet um but in theory all of the wonderfulness of building a new school is to ensure that it can accommodate the students that it's going to house right you know um we have I'm not going to say Sullivan is overcrowded but we have a lot of students there right now yeah you know and so the new school shouldn't have problems because the cafeteria is humongous I mean so the cafeteria has a a movable wall that divides like the gym space so that way for big community events you can host big community events there so you know there there's modern buildings and modern spaces will be more accommodating and more adjustable just like I assume our Dean campus here has an an easier flow of lunch because they have a huge cafeteria H Kai has a huge cafeteria I'm sure when Sullivan was built it wasn't built for 550 students so the cafeteria isn't you know of the size it would need to be to accommodate that that many students I think you know one of the things we'll need to look at and one of the things that I think we need to start talking about when we look to opening Dean or I'm sorry the new Middle School which we haven't officially named yet um what are we going to do with medcafe maybe medcafe needs to become like a prek-k center maybe we need to take some of the student load off some of the K to8 maybe we have too many students in there to be able to provide the full range of services because launch in recess is a service right so maybe we have too many students maybe that's something we need to look at um you know we're going to have a building that's essentially planning to to be vacant in a year and a half so what do we want to do with it right so maybe that's something to look into but for right now I would say confidently the new school will will be able to handle its lunch crowd just just fine Miss tensley Williams usually I have easy questions um this is for you Mr Soo you say there's a lot of students at Sullivan um how many well I said that oh how many students 520 yeah I mean we started with 520 there's you know there's just under 500 now so like so do you have two lunch breaks or three guys the schedu in your packet oh thank Sullivan has one two three four five six lunches um and then I saw oh is your hand down Dr Rivera cologne uh I I got tired of waiting I saw you I promise I just um the a lot of people have been talking about the same thing I just think that we shouldn't get hung up too much on the 15 minutes in the middle school because the new building will come and that's going to alleviate some of the Sullivan pressure however if there's a way of still rethinking in Adon because it would be the only other school that I see here who wouldn't be necessarily affected by the new building so maybe something to consider in the future thank you anyone else uh Mr Romero I have um I have two middle children that um are not too impressed by the menu and are able to do anything about that just to encourage them just like cuz I know they're not the only ones skipping out on lunch so I would like to tackle that maybe a little bit I don't know if we could make what school Sullivan Sullivan School okay so I met with the Middle School cabinet um Middle School student cabinet and we had a lot of Sullivan representatives there and we we did provide a presentation to them from our F food service department and they've expressed to them like um you know what they like what they don't like so soxo is going to be working on making I think right now is a quality control the one thing you know even my my Mente mentioned like the lunch is way better Anthony than it was at peek and when we talk to our high school students our high school students are like yeah the lunch is good um and even students that were at metf last year but they're in ninth grade now uh at the high school they're like the food is so much better so like but the the thing is is like it's the same food right so what's going on at Holy oai and why is Holy o Kai's food better than the food that's be that was served last year at metf so there's some clear like quality control things that that sedexo has to do and they're in the process of you know we did one focus group with middle school kids and a focus group with Sullivan kids if you could have your kids reach out to me directly and let me know what what their concerns are so that I can share that with sedexo and I know that they plan on doing one at Ian White because that was something that was brought up atany by the PTO so I want to make sure I I facilitate another focus group over there so that they could understand the program um it it it's not like we could just serve whatever we want to serve right it's a federal federal program that we participate in you got to look at calorie count you got to look at um you know making sure there's like real strict guidance on what you could provide and part of that it part of that is trying to find like with this guidance how do we create palatable things that kids like right and and that's hard that's the balance that's why they try different things that's why these focus groups are important because if the kids are saying I love the chicken patties they're busting then like and other kids are saying the chicken patties are not good like okay what what's going on there should we explore getting different chicken patties is that more expensive okay let's spend the money to do that right um if they're saying they don't like you know the one of the things at dunu they didn't they didn't like the cheese cheese burritos that were being served or whatever like so soxo needs to know that so they could stop putting that on the menu and on the rotation and instead replace it with things that kids like maybe it would be helpful too if the rest of the kids in the school like got the information that those kids provided you know that way they know that it's being looked into and like it's like a regular thing that you meet and chat about with you know if you if the other kids were like hey some of your peers gave us this kind of feedback um hooai though they I heard they stopped putting out the cheese for the burgers because the cheese gets tossed around so funny yeah that did come up and we you know one of the things they ask for is salad bars and I have talked to the high school about like we need to put back the salad bars and and that's an adult issue like they got to figure out how to manage and make sure and I asked the students like talk to your friends like part of the reason the salad bars were were taken away was because kids were like just not not taking care of it so you know we want I committed to the high school students that we're going to put you know um salad bars back so they can go get their meal and in addition to their meal they go and and get a salad that is not part of the reimbursable meal but who cares like some kids might want that and um the high school is going to be working I haven't followed up with Miss bashard yet but like that was my directive was sedexo put that back at the high school and work with the high school leadership team to make sure like um whatever concerns were brought up I think it was initially taken away because of the pandemic and everything had to be prepackaged so like you can't have a serving where people are grabbing their own salad and stuff like that but those times are gone and kids want that back so we're going to put that back at the high school awesome thank you so much moving along we have no new business ongoing business approval the minutes from January uh organizational meeting entertain a motion uh make sure your microphones are on friends when you make motions I would love to make the motion thank you so much second and seconded by Miss tensley Williams any further discussion seeing none roll call please I'll do it Miss Brunell uh yes Miss lefave Mr Romero yes Miss tensley Williams see Dr R cologne yes Dr Cayo see Mr wahan yes Mr Kore yes Miss Wilson yes forgive me I should have done this as a package uh uh I will also entertain a motion to accept the minutes from our February 12th meeting Jo moved thank you Mr Colmore second seconded by Mr Romero further discussion M sorry I looked at you forgot to call your name so real quickly um just a a a recommendation on the meeting minutes because there was especially on this 212 I noticed there was where it says um Miss lefave motion to amend and it says to include it was include something I'm going to tell you right now I got to go back to it motion to include individually okay was that the motion made to Second the readings as a group package and approve these for review with the state by Our receiver superintendent then below says motion amended by Miss lefave to include individually so I think include individually and then write out what the full motion would be because now I'm like what was I talking about right um so imagine somebody else reading it and wondering like what the heck is she talking about um so if we can just get it more yeah I think even when we're amending so you could do like the original motion in like um like this type of lettering just plain and then whatever gets amended strike out and bold I don't know if that if that'll help so do you want to amend the minutes or table them for no I mean I'm going to go ahead and approve now I'm just saying moving forward we you know spell out so what I'm hearing is spell out the motion in its entirety when we do that I can provide that feedback so Shaina actually watches the recording okay so like that's that's something that we can easily do as long as we're clear here when we write a motion or when we speak out a motion that we we we say we articulate because she's watching the meetings afterwards um if we don't clearly articulate what the motion is then then she's going to put what what she heard that's why you might not see all your comments Mr colore she can't always hear you all right uh okay so saying no further discussion uh on the motion roll call please miss brunau yes Miss lefave Mr Romero yes Miss tensley Williams Dr Rivera cologne stay who was there uh Dr C yep got you Dr Cayo see Mr wellan yes Miss Wilson Mr Kore yes Miss Wilson yes all right updates from subcommittee we have policy governance um administrative assistance to the school committee uh everybody took a look at that so this was an update based upon um this was the second round going back to the policy and government subcommittee this was based on feedback um that the administrative assistant position um was updated based on the feedback received and it was just two minor changes if I recall correctly so correct um all right so I'll entertain a motion to approve that motion to approve to approve the assistant administrative assistant to the school committee job posting the job description I'm going to clarify that we're we're approving the job description yeah go ahead isn't that a recommendation from us and the receiver then determines whether correct okay so then it would be um a motion to refer to the receiver for approval of recommend recommendation well it doesn't have to be posted it's not a policy so where where this is going to be a job description for whomever is be a job posting job posting and a job posting yeah but not like for eternity it's for now so I don't think we can we can't vote on it as that's what we're saying is going to go up but we're recommending we're recommending this as the job description that's what I'm saying that we can do but your motion was to approve this for it for us to approve for it to be posted did somebody second that yes will right so all right so can you make a motion to amend right I don't I don't think it was second I caught it before it even went to no you caught it in discussion after it was first made in second did Mr soda do you have a first and a second on that I don't I'm oh I'm not all right I okay I saw her hand I figured it was in discussion okay so forget that so I'll entertain a motion to refer refer the job posting the job description to the receiver motion motion yeah she's got the motion second Dr cabero with a motion Miss Wilson with a second any further discussion Mr willan thank you um best guess when would we post this would be for next year school year uh we would I would post it um I would post it uh immediately like so like I would post it next week and then you know I I want to make sure I review it with with human resources and then get the posting up and and like if we get a candidate that's willing you know we I'd obviously like somebody on the the school committee to be a part of the the process so I can work with the the vice chair to determine that um on the motion roll call please miss bro yes Miss lefave yes yes Mr Romero yes tley Williams see Dr Rivera cologne yes Dr Cayo C Mr wahan yes Mr Kore yes Miss Wilson yes just a note too I'd like to know where it ends up getting posted like on School spring that's where all related to the school department get posted and it's typically uh people who are looking for jobs in um education look for that site look to that site that is the best known site for looking for jobs if you're in education this isn't really a job in education well Administration and well it is but it's not I mean I just feel like it should also be posted elsewhere right like I don't know not like press but like you know once the posting gets up like I could share a link with all of you and you guys could post it wherever you want share on Facebook okay all right CU I certainly wouldn't know but it'll be it'll be a link to the school print the reason you know once you click on the link it brings you to the actual place where you where you actually fill out the application okay all right um Miss Wilson if you want to continue with um sure I would like to take up the minutes as a package the approval of the September and December policy meeting minutes as a package do I have a motion no I think you're giving the motion darling I give the motion then that we approve them second uh any further discussion on the motion Mr willan thank you um moving forward can we just put the exact date of the minutes in the you mean in the of the date of the meeting instead of just saying policy or September okay sure that's easy enough all right on the motion roll call Miss brunau yes Miss lefave yes Mr Romero yes Miss tensley Williams Dr Rivera cologne yes Dr Cavo it was in here I think Iain yes none none of us yeah anyway go ahead uh Mr wellan yes Mr Kore yes Miss Wilson yes so the next policy review I'd like to take these as a package uh the CHC dbj DGA and DH so I'd like to make a motion to uh receive and adopt well receive to accept these policy updates and refer them to the superintendent for final approval and if so po then um updating the website second because they've already been uh posted for uh public comment second uh seconded by Miss tensley Williams any further discussion Mr colore we can't hear him they can't hear you could you just get closer to the mic we just turn it on yeah uh i' just like to find out is this the first posting that we have seen since receivership you mean our first policy review adoption is that what you're asking no no I right here tonight we're talking about uh posting for positions admin oh we've already moved past that Mr cmore um but you can finish what I'm just confused as to what you're asking excuse me I'm trying to find out why positions were not presented to us for posting jobs oh well because we're not involved with Personnel even out of receivership we don't hire Personnel the administrator to the super to the school committee is different because they work for us but we don't hire Personnel the only job position that we even have any I mean obviously the superintendent and then the superintendent out of respect usually and I'm not I don't that didn't mean to come off in any way shape or form we we usually get debriefed on their choice for an assistant superintendent but we don't we don't have a vote or a say necessarily they just like you know with our nod but like we don't actually approve it right so who who makes the decision whether we want the position or not an assistant to the school committee which position no any job the superintendent so because we don't have a superintendent Our receiver does who what does that say in the rules in receivership Mr cmore the state law of receivership takes away all powers of the school committee SL superintendent and gives them to the receiver that's the law but yeah even under local control we hire the superintendent but we don't hire teachers or athletic directors or custodians or anybody any decisions for hiring is not made through us under the law the school committee decides whether they need a a superintendent or not and superintendent then recommends that we should have a an assistant superintendent beyond that that's all the say we have over staff that NE that never came as far as I know that never came to us before about hiring a an assistant superintendent we don't have a superintendent right now Mr Colmore we have a receiver corre it's it's the responsibility of the school committee to appoint Mr colore all responsibilities from the school committee were was tripped away under receivership and given to the receiver I don't see it in masc or anywhere else that we have taken the pro they have taken the powers away from us for appointing a superintendent a assistant superintendent point of order I have I have first we're way off the topic that that's number one uh we were right now on the policy review I understand what you're asking about Mr cmer and I'll be more than happy to talk to you about it after our meeting um prior to receivership what school committee um had a role in regards to positions but what was put forth today is because there was no Administrative Assistant um job description right so when Liz left that somebody else came in and started doing you know it was like shared work um it was um two people have already are have done it and one still continues there really wasn't a guidance to that position what exactly we needed and and for how many hours so in order for them to hire somebody specific to that role that's why we referred for the policy subcommittee to develop a job description that will then get posted um for the hiring aspect so this job description is specifically for the person who will be taking our meeting minutes but we typically do not do that we do not create um job descriptions for any position but we did it in this case because of the concerns that we've had while we've been under receivership and what is the role of our Administrative Assistant can we move on to the policy so you put in that motion and I'm going to second I it was second if I'm not mistaken can you tell me where we're at with that we were we're on discussion on discussion of it the motion was made by uh Miss Wilson and seconded by Miss Williams I believe um okay so we're any further discussion hearing none roll call the po as a reminder the motion is to adopt well not adopt is to to to to approve the policy updates and make the recommendation for the receiver to adopt thank you roll call Miss berau yes Miss lefave yes Mr Romero yes Miss tensley Williams see Dr Rivera cologne yes Dr Cayo Mr wellan yes Mr Kore yes M Wilson finally I do want to note that our next uh policy and governance meeting is going to be held uh next Monday the 18th where it's going to be here time it's going to be at I believe hold on I'm double checking my 5:30 I am going to be sending in the uh agenda um for final review and then it is going to be sent to everyone um for review we are going to be discussing um uh this our school district wellness program as it's been uh as the school committee policy that's on the agenda the current school committee policy we're going to discuss lunch and recess um and there's some recommendations for readings included as well as uh student retention policy uh that's retaining students from advancing to the next grade all right thank you it's up to her she'll send out the agenda um okay thank you uh Mr Willingham finance and operations thank you um we met on um March 8th um talked about um basically the budget deficit that's that we're trying to cut um an update um we the um Finance Finance director walked us through the budget process um um basically talked about the budget deficit just in general terms TR to cut that um a lot of the figures are unknown because of the state um talked about um the current budget update on the current uh school budget for this year that we're we working on um some of the long-term leases some of the short-term leases um I was hoping to have a the minutes we have a minutes to approve from October of uh 23 hoping to those in tonight accept so I will try to get those on the agenda for the next meeting thank you do you have another meeting scheduled not yet okay thank you uh Joint City Council and school committee you guys have one coming up yep March 14th did everybody who's on the committee receive the the packet because it's this Thursday okay good um so the meeting's at 6:30 at City Hall and um I don't think you've provided the no it's going first over to the committee and then I'll bring forth those meeting minutes that's it for the Joint City Council thank you uh Dei can I actually I have a question for that um did everyone get a copy of the agenda for that meeting nope I didn't and that's what I was asking so I I'm just saying I did not get a copy of the agenda for that meeting she asked if the members of the committee got a copy and nobody answered her no cuz I thought she meant the subcommittee I apologize so I wanted so to clarify I did the as a school Committee Member I did not get a copy of that so what I'm GNA do is I'm going to send it out right now I'm just going to forward what um Jeffrey Anderson bergo sent me um as for Mr colore uh I don't know what to say because that needs to be printed out that's on so who's gonna get that to Mr I will take that on responsibility this one and only time to print it and get it to Mr kmore tomorrow okay so I'm gonna goad would say that Mr Anderson Bergos the the chair needs to be aware and they need to get Ronnie a copy okay um moving along sorry uh back to Dei Jette thank you um it didn't make it to this meeting so I'm gonna make sure to resend it and so that we can make it to the next full meeting which is the plan for the renaming the possible renaming for the new PEC replacement building um and now we have the minutes from the December meeting so we can go ahead and approve those thank you I thought you said also we have our never mind I'll talk to you later I thought you sent them okay yeah I I thought so but if it's not here it's fine um I have and we have our next meeting tomorrow in on the agenda there's only just the update about de efforts in the district and our approval of the last meeting minutes um location and time so it's going to be at central office 6 pm tomorrow thank you um local control isn't uh meeting yet I figured we'll connect after my zoom on Friday yes okay yes perfect did we accept the meeting minutes the December meeting minutes from Dei oh your meeting minutes are there do you want to go do you want us to accept those to do those now yes those are ready what wasn't there was the plan for the renaming that we will meet this full committee okay so do you want to make the motion to approve your minutes so moved can I have a second thank you any further discussion seeing none roll call Miss BAU yes Miss lefave yes Mr Romero yes Miss tensley Williams SE Dr Rivera cologne see Dr Cayo see Mr wahan yes Mr Kore yes Miss Wilson yes um I just also want to just make a quick comment on um just reminder that Alex what's his full name the gentleman who's doing sub committe Alex Martinez is taking minutes after the meeting are recorded that's that's what he's doing okay um sha is is supporting developing the agenda getting it posted and doing all that work so uh um Alex what we've agreed with him is that outside of the school day he's going to be you know because he does work for us he will support writing the minutes um after reviewing the the meetings online and then we'll get them shared with the chair so that they can review and make sure they're okay before they get put on the full committee agenda okay thank you um chairs of of subcommittees should make sure they take note during minute during regular meetings if something is referred to your sub committee um especially until we have a full-time Administrative Assistant to track those things um and then obviously making sure you're taking down the language and who made the motion because they should have the opportunity to discuss what they're referring to your committee at your committee meeting when it comes on the agenda second to that I would say you need to be notifying people of your meetings at least a week in advance and agendas really should try to be done a week in advance they have to be posted to the city website a minimum of 48 hours but you know a lot of people have a lot of work to do outside of just this so you know us included obviously everyone so with that in consideration we have deadlines for our full committee meeting you know agendas and not we don't have an established deadline for subcommittees but I would suggest that you try to have your stuff in a week in advance um so that way the people behind the scenes who have a lot of other work can have their have time to get your agendas created for you back to you for approval you know um changes made that are necessary and still out to the committee and and publicized in uh fulltime so that being said tomorrow would be your deadline to get things to me for the um March 25th meeting if necessary um all right moving along um most of this is in your packet as a FYI um attendance data uh referral and discipline data Staffing update Middle School building um update and then out ofate field trips do we have any questions or concerns on any of that Miss Miss lefave do you know I'm going to keep digging on to this uh discipline and referrals data so you did um s you had made a comment that things had had gone down quite significantly um when you rolled out something in January but when I'm looking at these numbers I don't see a significant I said February February so I don't see a significant drop um if I'm looking now from February 12's meeting the total number of referrals and that report was 8,031 we are now at March 12th I don't know when the final number would have been the final date but we'll go up until today it's 8,740 that's an increase of 709 referrals external suspensions uh went from 649 to 805 that's 116 number of students referred um 1462 this month 1532 so we're looking at 70 and it actually passed our school year 23 um and then the number of students suspended we um number of students suspended not total number of suspensions we went from 345 to 416 that's 71 numbers 71 uh students um an increase now what I did notice is that the referrals by grade graph there was no change from last month's meeting to this month's meeting so it doesn't appear like that was updated with the changes from up here you know that blue and red graph um this one yes what about that one there there's no change from last month yeah it's a comparison to last year and and current year to date so no no there was a change from the January to the February but not from February to March the blue is FY 23 I'm thinking right yeah that one's the blue now if you look at the red the same numbers that I had in my February packet February 12th packet is the same numbers that I have in my March 12th packet but it doesn't reflect all of these changes that we have so if we're looking at referrals we had 709 extra referrals in a month some of these numbers should have changed to show um reflect those Chang es um so not sure how that works who does it um nor the referral by type um was um yeah was changed those numbers are the same as the 23 column is should be the same no but even our I was comparing both even though you know I it's 23 never going to change but my 24 so if I'm looking right now at February 12th this is my report from February 12th yep battery non staff members 303 what do we have for Mark if we're looking at referrals by type if you're asking for a Breakout by month then like no it's these numbers we're putting in the numbers according good if if there's increases yeah so um December yeah it's cumulative numbers so if if we're if we're looking at December right in December there were a total of 25 and then from December to January there were 26 so uh that bumped it up to 251 and then January to February there were 52 um that bumped it up to 303 and then uh in the month of February there were only 16 so you can see that the number from before the reset was 52 for that month and then it's 16 for uh February to March um in the in the in the packet uh Mildred the uh right before right right above where you see those slides there's a link that brings you to a much more detailed slide and it and it has like the comparison by month um I'd be happy to sit down with you if you'd like to to take a look at that and I'm just I'm okay look at your page 19 for March everybody go to page 19 okay let's look at battery non-staff member what's the number that you have there no I see 303 303 right mhm that's March's packet that you sent us okay I'm looking at February 12's packet 303 fatter so there were 16 there were 16 and that's so that should be that should we should add 16 to that number you're right and transfer so that's all I'm saying that these numbers aren't reflecting in the referral back or so the link the link has all the details okay you are pointing in out that that the formula didn't pick up the 16 referrals that happened in February yeah it's nothing not even that other graph where it would be on page yep okay 24 it's not showing or no a different page on yours so Steve that's you know we got to work with Jenny when we put these uh to make sure that she's taking the links the the the data that we're sharing with the school committee and up and making sure it's it's updated so it looks like the this past month of February although it was provided to the school committee and in a link what was shared in the packet that's not part of the link didn't include the the the February activity now the question is going on with these increases I mean we're gradually increasing so as yeah group what what we saw in February was a significant drop in a lot of those categories which if you click on that link you'll be able to see so um one of the things that we're going to be doing is diving deep the other thing I want to note um is that last year I think I don't want to say it was an anomaly but um I don't think that schools were being consistent in recording information in school brains like last year they were they had their own referral worksheets and one of the things like Dr Mahoney hammered hard into this year you know at the you know based on conversations we've had with the school committee is like that needs to stop and like everything is going to go into school brains which is our student information system so you see a lot more activity this year but part of that is because schools weren't updating School brain they had their referral stuff but they were using their own worksheets and then deciding like what goes into school brains and what doesn't um so we provided a lot of clarity and as part of the reset as well like expectations around like everything getting into school brain so um you know this is a good Baseline year you're you're absolutely right like there the referrals are are more like we just talked about behaviors and and like you know things things have progressively I wouldn't say not progressively but since the pandemic there's an increase in in in Behavior concerns um that that like we're part of this this process is making sure that we're collecting all that information and leaning in where we need to lean in the reset was like you know an attempt to to to provide Clarity you heard the teachers talk about wanting some consistency um part of that reset was to establish that across the district and we worked with schools we worked with counselors we worked with student support team memb to develop that clear guidance across and you know the data that we see in February we see a lot of things um we see some some positive data some positive Trends in in February specifically but um I'm not going to sit here and say like oh it's fixed like we we did a reset and now it's fixed like one thing we're committed to do is continuing to look at this data and respond to it so your fxs are they Family Access and engagement coordinators their role I remember when it was first uh rolled out at Kelly's school when Kelly's School became a community school um and they created that it was looked at more as a a family support but not really providing resources per se to a certain extent so when we're looking at increase in behaviors right there are programs out there that are that can help families and it's actually free if the student has mass health and it's called and it's under the children's Behavioral Health Initiative there's programs like the support network for families of Western Mass that work with families that have um children with mental health disabilities they provide a family support specialist that not only works with the family um you know in that can be with the education aspect you know being like a family partner um and a and attending the IEP meetings or any meeting that has to do with the with the child being able to attend support groups for the parent there's all different types of things is that something that our family access and engagement coordinators have access to those resources that they can then provide to the families like how many of them have actually been like maybe your child um especially those on the Spectrum the Multicultural uh service and referring for for that I mean there's so much and I and I think we're not really providing yeah the resources that families could be using that are actually fre yeah we have a list of resources that that like we tried to pull together all the resources in the community available to um to both students and and families I don't think that the family engagement coordinators themselves are like involved in the you know that when when when schools need support from a family engagement coordinator that they would jump in but um you know they're they're more inv more engaged in like attendance so like a couple of hours that would be one of the things where we wouldn't be landing in into we wouldn't have to wait till that far and the support network is right at 187 High Street in Holy Oak right in downtown so yeah I'm happy to I'm happy to make sure that that resource is on our resources page that um schools have access to counselors have access to the Holy Oak Hub has access to family engagement coordinators have access to and um I'd be surprised if we're not utilizing them but um you know we can look into that the support network for families of Western Mass is located at 187 High Street in Holio yep because I mean we're quick for and lass and and that whole CRA um children requiring Assistance or whatever you want to call it now um this is a different route it's more addressing the problem so if the problem is a mental health disability and not really these are the people that have lived experience um the people who work there are parents of their own who have suffered with mental health disabilities and the struggles that they went through and they're just helping other families then I'll just make a comment about the discipline stuff too is like consistency obviously is key with with discipline um and I think I've said this before too it's like not enough communication I think is happening between the disciplinarian and home um you know like we have student teacher conferences at most of our schools Thursday and Friday I I had one recently with my son's teacher and found out about something and I'm like okay well why didn't you notify me cuz you know generally speaking if you get a call from school or threaten the student with a call home sometimes not in all cases but sometimes just the thread of the phone call can be enough to have that student redirect or or make the connection because if if the if the the Guardians at home aren't aware of the problem then they can't help intervene and as as minor as the problem is right it helps prevent the the more major problems so okay moving along anybody body else have any comments on those items all right seeing none um a State field trips we have a keen state tour a Yukon tour uh was wasan wasan wellsian I thought there was a Welsley I don't there's so many colleges welan University uh tour uh and then Student Activity reports there aren't any um and then on to announcements uh so multi-year financial planning community meeting includes DPAC um elac and uh seac members uh Tuesday March that's today um hooai Dean graduation is going to be on Thursday May 30th I wrote down Deans while they were telling us yeah Dean is Thursday May 30th holoai North is Friday May 31st okay it's says it right here so while we're discussing that do you have a budget date hearing yet I have that cuz we don't have a scheduled June meeting because we are waiting for those two dates and for a budget hearing we usually do the budget hearing before the last meeting in June we don't have a meeting because we weren't sure about graduations yep so we we we we'll have to coordinate with you on like when the June meeting is so we can uh try to meet that deadline depending on how the how the budget process progresses and us getting to balanc we'll shoot for that date and then if we have to change it we'll we'll change Mr fa are these that gradu graduations going to be outdoors I know thatan always me Dean's inside and holoai is uh GNA be outdoor G to be at at the football field um one of the one of the good things about doing it on Friday at 6 is you're not finding out like at at 10: in the morning that it's raining and you got to move it inside like you can kind of you can kind of see like oh today's a bad day all right like now we have six hours to actually plan on move on getting the gym ready and communicating and all that um that was all part of the thought process by the holoai leadership team to uh as as a benefit to do that so um our goal is to have it outside on Friday night May 31st and and if we see that it's raining at noon like there'll be enough time to Pivot awesome uh Lawrence School site Council Wednesday March 20th uh you guys see all the announcements uh SE Pac meeting Wednesday March 20th Middle School building committee meeting is Thursday March 21st um ho school committee meeting oh Monday March yeah okay um the only thing that's not on here I wanted to mention a reminder for the parade um it's asked that we arrive at 8:45 which I know sounds a little early uh parade kickoff this year is at 10:45 it's been moved a little bit earlier um we are Group B um it's Mr soda will have somebody you've confirmed somebody's driving the van yes and I believe whoever needs a ride has already been called okay great yes great wonderful wonderful wonderful um hopefully the rain holds out say your Irish blessing it's 35% chance of rain right now um other than that I just want to congratulate the high school basketball team on making the sweet 16 for the state tournament they played amazingly um we're proud of them anybody else have any announcements or anything else they'd like to discuss Miss Wilson I just wanted to wish everyone who's celebrating a um a I guess I I had it done before and I can't find where I saved it the proper wish for a a piece happy Ramadan and I can't find it so I just want to wish everyone who's celebrating that um you know an entire Muslim Community yes wonderful thank you Miss tensley Williams can I at the end this is the end okay I jump on it before someone makes a motion to I have a poem uh it's for it sending it out to the children and it's called going to the library um excuse me I wrote it November 21st 2021 at 7:00 in the morning going to the library going to the library will not be very hard the only item that you will need is your library card while traveling to the library you do not want to speed you want to arrive on time to find the books you need going to the library is also for me and you it's not just for children is there for adults too when you arrive at the library there should be no fear it's so quiet and so peaceful you might want to stay in there some might think to themselves why these books could be my friends this peaceful feeling I get while here I don't want it to end in the library you may or may not see toys but you cannot help but notice the quiet girls and boys as the children in the library walk quietly down the aisles you can see they have found the books they need by their Great Big Beautiful Smiles so now when they are finished acting like little Scouts they walk up to the front desk to have their books checked out thank you so I want to send it back to uh Dr uh Rivera cologne because she has the proper uh you know wishing people a happy Ramadan so if you want to share that that'd be lovely Ramadan Mubarak thank you all right I'll entertain a motion to adjourn make the mo so moved thank you Mr Romero thank you Mrs Williams all those in favor I roll call roll call Miss yes Miss lefave yes Mr Romero yes Miss tensley Williams Dr Rivera cologne Dr kto see Mr wahan yes Mr Kore Miss Wilson yes you can do the third spot on it it's April 25th so are we adjourning motion passed sorry motion pass meeting adjourned at 8:58 p.m. thank you everyone