good evening everybody and welcome to the April 8th school committee meeting here in hoo I will take a roll call for attendance please uh mayor Garcia here miss Brunell I am here uh mild lefave is not with us this evening Gustavo Romero Miss Rosy tensley Williams Dr Rivera cologne here Dr Cabo here Mr willan here Mr colore here Mrs Wilson here I think our student reps are here but I can't see they're both here okay thank you I'll rise for the Pledge of Allegiance please well good evening we have a packed house please bear with me while I run through some housekeeping notes real quick on March 29 2023 Governor hilly signed into law an act relative to extending a certain state of emergency accommodations which among other things extends the expiration of the provisions pertaining to the open meeting law to March 31 2025 specifically this extension allows public bodies to continue to hold meetings remotely without a quorum of the public body physically present at a meeting location and provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings the ACT does not make any new changes to open meeting law other than extending the expiration date of the temporary Provisions regarding open meeting laws to 20 uh March 31st 2025 just a reminder that this meeting is being audio and video recorded and live streams on the hoyo community TV channel so thank you all and welcome we are going to begin with our student showcase this evening we have a wonderful delegate from Ian white school here with us um I will pass it over to I believe their music instructor to see if she have anything to say before they perform for us oh miss Burks are you the one talking for us very feel free to grab that microphone right there my dear okay good evening everybody so I just wanted to take a minute to introduce Adrian Wade Adrian is our strings instructor at Ean white uh Bridget ambers is our amazing music teacher and they are supported here tonight by sonita mus whom we have an amazing music partnership um often times zidan white being the language school we talk a lot about what learning a second language does for students brains but tonight I really want to highlight what music can also do for students brains and so I know I I'm you know a little partial but I think these guys are some of the greatest upand cominging musicians and language Learners that we have here in the city so I want to thank our amazing teachers here tonight I want to thank our amazing parents who came out and supported us thank you so much for bringing your kids here tonight and with that I'm going to hand it over to miss amers hello thank you all again for showing up to this evening's meeting we are going to actually start with some student readers to come up and introduce our band so could I have Angie could you come up please to read your [Applause] section hello I'm Angie Ola soy Angie we all inan oh we are all in fifth grade and school school at our school everyone in fifth grade music classes play an instrument for the whole year at the beginning of the year we listen to the teachers play all the different instruments and then we get to choose what we wanted to [Music] play I'm so sorry my name is kaora and I chose to play violin which is string instrument family I'm in the orchestra with the other people who play the violin and the the orchestra is going to play Mississippi twinkle which is a version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star but we have to do a fast Rhythm pattern with our bows instead of making it slow and smooth soundi tnk twinkle [Applause] twinkle face this way come to playing position and let's turn our bodies that way so you don't poke anybody so cor maybe turn and face this way a little y there you go put yourself where you can see twink Mississippi twinkle here's your introduction listen to the beginning part and be ready playing [Music] position [Music] the [Applause] my name is Anthony and I chose to play the trumpet so I'm in the Band with other students who play woodwind and brass instruments instrumentos in our band we have flutes clarinets AO saxophones trumpets we're going to play hard rock blues which is a song that help us practice new pitches and Swinging or [Music] [Applause] rhythms hey show me ready positions hard Sol one [Music] Sol [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] ni my name is Victoria and I play the [Music] cello our whole grade is going to play one last song together it's called swallow Jake and it's a dancing song from Ireland this is the first year we've ever had a band in an orchestra play something all together so we're all pretty excited about it thank you for inviting us to play with for you tonight [Applause] for set up [Music] so playing position first finger here's your [Applause] introduction [Music] up [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh thank you all so much before the before the students move away if any parents want to come back here really quick to take a picture of the students all gathered like this feel free uh before we move on if anybody wants real quick yeah fine I'll give you a smile [Music] Mar [Music] see your thank you guys so much for that presentation that was wonderful do any of the school committee members have any questions or comments that they'd like to make I have the the two teachers hanging back as well okay okay all right Miss rosley teny Williams um you guys don't take too long to come back you did an excellent job we really appreciated it Dr Cav thank you so much for all the work and all the you know energy takes a lot to really train just one and you've trained so many it's amazing what you've accomplish and I support what my colleague said please come back with more music thank you so much now really imagine yeah wow and the support of the family it's also important thanks [Music] absolutely Mr Kennedy uh I was actually on the middle middle school band when I was in Middle School and even though I was very terrible um I it was a freeing and enjoyable experience for after school so I'm very happy to see that it has progressed to where it has because when I was in Middle School it was like a third of the size that it was um so thank you very much for that because I know as a student who went through that program that it was a huge benefit to the students so thank you and great job I have Miss Wilson so you're gonna need the microphone because you're gonna have to answer a question for me um it's right over here and that's my understanding was this is the first year ' had a band this is so can you explain that to me a little more I think it's important to know it's the first year the school's been it its own school too right so so I'm just trying to get a history understanding about how many kids and how did you get such a wonderful number and oh is this what okay this one works so this is how I structure my general music class for fifth grade um so we have that wonderful Community Partnership with son Musa and so they send us other teachers who specialize in their like instrument and that's how they're able to pick which one they like the most and then we end up dividing and the orchestra stays in the music room and we purposely scheduled it so that uh fifth grade music class is first period so we can use the stage in the cafeteria so we split up and then we are able to use two spaces for everybody to learn which takes the most um kind of our best practice um once we've done this for a couple of years and like pre- and postco and during Co we did like online beginner band from zoom and that was really rough too um so um in the students they said this was the first time the orchestra and the band played together so that this was the first song we ever put together to bring everyone to play at the same time normally it's like oh the band plays their thing the orchestra does their thing and I think that made it a little more of a community event good job too that was just wonderful wonderful brought me back to taking flute lessons when I was a youth here in hoolio Dr Rivera cologne I just first of all thank you so much second of all I just want to because I don't know if the people at home could witness what happened here the transformation of the space the organization where everybody was how they were paying attention and focus and how it was their teacher directing them in such a professional way it wasn't the the dirty looks of a teacher like hey do this do that it was really they were all professional players and they were being conducted professionally so I think that that is amazing And for those of you who didn't get to witness it it was just truly amazing so thank you so much Mr willan thanks again for showing up with the students it was great um I know we had a joint meeting with with the city council um last month and we were a little little disappointed with the numbers of the district for the number of the students that were taking advantage of the Arts terms of you know music and other other aspects of it so I think that maybe should be a goal for the school committee moving forward I know Erin's been talking about that just um making that more of a a concerted uh effort or goal to kind of get more uh more of our uh children involved with it know right now I think it's an elective or something I think maybe we can maybe strengthen that to some some degree that's my thought thank you Miss Rosie teny Williams I'm a little bit under the weather right now yesterday I went to see my fair lady at the hok high school what a performance after it was over a lady came over to me and she said I saw you you were really I said that brought out the New York and me I sang with them I knew all the songs it was awesome so you guys keep up the good work thank you so much come again I'll set thank you ladies appreciate you have a good rest of your day thank you all right moving right along we are into there's no public comment uh neither online or in person and so we'll move right into student reports um so whichever one of you fine young gentlemen would like to go first we have it as north campus but makes no preference to me H hi my name is Nicholas Rodriguez your mic's on hun um hi my name is Nicholas Rodriguez the Holio Kai School uh school committee representative this in the past two weeks we have had a group of holoai school teachers and students go on a school trip to visit Manchester High School in conjunction with our redesign team the goal of this visit was to learn about what Manchester had been doing to improve their high school and see how we could Implement those ideas into our own self-improvement when the trip was over a redesign team meeting was held to discuss all of the ideas that we received from Manchester in addition to finalizing plans for next year's block scheduling the hooai school hooai school performed the musical My Fair Lady this past weekend Mark Todd and his cast crew put their hearts into the performance and each of the four days received a moderately sized audience and finally throughout the course of this week many of our sophomore and Junior students will be going on College field trips based off of their academy uh including the likes of Western New England um ammer Westfield State University of Connecticut and Keen State thank you Mr Kennedy all right Evan Kenny the dean campus student rep first on April 3rd our health assisting Juniors had their CNA exams three of our juniors are fully certified after this exam we are a pretty small junior class so that is not bad a few of the students have to just retake one part of their exam to be completely certified um for those who are unaware here at Dean most shops have a an end goal for their shop and health assisting their CNA exam is their end goal um continuing on with health assisting freshman and sophomores participated in their some of their additional certifications required for the shop that includes basic support which teaches CPR stop the bleed as well as first aid training a huge thank you to Osborne EMS education for once again certifying our future healthcare workers next on April 12th we have we we are having a staff versus student volleyball game and every grade level will compete to see who is number one next on May 11th our seal of Biol literacy will be celebrated at UMass um next on May 18th we will be hosting our annual car show at Dean competing cars Will Roll in from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and festivities will begin at 1 and ending at 3: with trophies uh the types of trophies are best Honda best Toyota best audio system Best in Show and best classic just to name a few our the rest of our competitions are listed on our flyer which was passed out a few months ago however if you'd like I can send out another copy of the flyer to the committee tomorrow speaking of the car show we are still looking for some food trucks to join our event if you know any food trucks please reach out to miss Bermudez who contact information I can also send out to you uh next wait last lastly finally April vacation Academy for mathematics will be happening at Dean currently we have approximately 30 students signed up with more signing up this week's vacation Academy will be led by Miss Myra Rodriguez this theme is math in the seat e world that's it thank you Mr Kennedy can I assume the car show is going to take place up in the parking lot I believe so yes cool thank you so much anybody have any comments Miss tensley Williams um I have a question microphone honey Mr Kennedy I have a question for you yes the CNA uh people that passed the test you said it was three uh yes we have three Juniors fully certified with their CNA W did they pick any place that they would like to work at or um so I as one of the juniors in health assisting right now can say that uh the students who so for our Co-op program they didn't need to be fully certified uh with their CNA exam it's because we have other opportunities I I know that we have a couple students as a medical assistant and um I believe yeah we were offered a few pharmacy tech positions too um we do have one Junior currently working as a CNA but we were given other uh job opportunities other than uh being a CNA because they really need CNA so encourage them okay yeah so um we've been working we've had two we had two students out who were Juniors um on Co-op before the exam even took place um but I know that after we you know tested there will be more opportunities open to us thank you sweetheart great yes Dr Cabo Mr Kennedy How can I reach out to the Prof the teacher in charge of the food trucks um um Evan if you can just send me an email I'll share it yes yes I will send so thank you all right moving right along uh superintendent receiver reports uh we have a presentation on the trails curriculum requested by uh Miss Ellie Wilson so I just wanted to see if Miss Wilson did you have anything that you wanted to say before the presentation I think um the reason I requested this is because we we've been talking about social emotional learning um and the impact of anxiety um you know that has risen since covid and it's impacting a larger number of our students so I'm just looking to get an understanding of the curriculum um as you know to be an informed school committee member um so that we can better understand what our students are being taught um as well as if possible how the curriculum was chosen thank you well as soon as he sits back down I'll turn it over to Mr SoDo sorry I didn't notice he got up it's all yours Mr SoDo yes thank you and I I wanted uh with the committee's approval to allow uh jelle roas who is um online to come off camera she's going to basically lead us to the pr through the presentation that's in your packet um and I I would also ask Mahoney if he can come up here uh to support Jazelle uh and and us if you guys have any questions I'm going to allow Jazelle to introduce herself um but jezelle is you know whenever we uh talk about social emotional learning and counseling supports in the Holio Public Schools uh Jazelle is a leader in in in all of those efforts so jezelle if you can um come off camera and off mute and introduce yourself hi good evening everyone um I'm glad to be here joining you today to talk a little bit about our Trails curriculum like Mr SoDo said I am the director of student support services so I um support counselors and all the mental health efforts as well as uh social emotional practices in the district great jezelle um so I in the the the school committee has had an opportunity to uh review the information in their packet and in there there was um a presentation and some information around the trails curriculum so if you could just uh walk us through that do do you have um a presentation that you want to share or do you just want to uh walk through what we have in the packet I do have the presentation um I I thought we were we could share it if I don't know if I'm the one that that should be Shar enough if you could just um if you could just throw it into Google Chat I can I'd be happy to share and you just let me know when you want me to uh move to the next slide sure thing all right um I don't think I have the option of um I don't see a chat option here in Google Chat just Gchat it to me if you don't mind yep I'll do that right now and then I will open it and get it set up I got it Dr Mahoney sent it to me so um okay this share this doesn't work so yeah let me give me a second I I have it I just got to take it out of presenter view so no problem I'll do this here we go I mean it's working this is not technology this is user error [Laughter] yeah blame all set on my end Tech is fine me on the other hand is this the right slide jizo yes yes awesome we're ready when you are perfect so Trails is the name of our social emotional um learning curriculum and for for those of you um who may not be entirely familiar with the concept SEO essentially is the um the vehicle through which we help our our children and adults as well strengthen their social and emotional skills so these skills are are the ones that are going to help them and US identify and manage our thoughts and our feelings they also help with establishing and maintaining healthy relationships and navigate problems and decisions students need to develop the aw awareness that their thoughts their feelings and the behaviors are all connected next slide so why is our district teaching SEO so our District's approach to education is already aligned with the principles of social emotional learning um and so we are focused on teaching our students through our our Hol um reach values for example um how to be kind how to be respectful how to be engaged and and thoughtful members of our community the trails curriculum help us with that because it allows us to strengthen how we teach these principles and it supports our schoolwide approach to character and Community Building as well as discipline and academic and behavioral intervention interventions as well as any other extracurricular programming next slide so why are schools teaching seal so there's ample research out there that shows the many the many benefits of teaching um within the school setting one of the uh benefits that SL um studies report is increase academic success in the areas of reading mathematics and Sciences as well as in general learning outcomes and reduced behavioral and emotional challenges um um seal also has the potential of helping improve postsecondary success such as high school graduation um postsecondary enrollment in graduation and stable full-time employment it's also been um proven to reduce uh bullying cyber bullying name calling and sexual harassment in schools and it could lead to less sta staff burnout healthier student teacher relationships and higher level of patients empathy and healthy communication why did our district choose the trails SEO curriculum the the the curriculum is is grounded in research and it utilizes two evidence-based approaches that are proven to promote mental Wellness these are um the cognitive behavioral Theory and mindfulness practices so mindfulness practic is the um the skill of focusing on the here and now and essentially with the practice of mindfulness students can help to um ground themselves and really be in tune to what they feel and and managing the responses that come out of of their feelings and cognitive behavioral therapy is a um a framework that also focuses on on helping um individuals make the connection that exists between how you think and how you feel impacts how you behave right so these are the two um evidence-based approaches that are um that TRS is grounded upon and trails also helps support teacher as they deliver SEO lessons with a wide range of implementation support that includes um professional development and SEO practices it is also um convenient for teachers to implement and it it is flexible um so it allows for for different um ways to implement lessons that typically take around 30 minutes um of of a school day so what do students learn during the trails lesson students learn about that connection between their thoughts their feelings and their actions and how to manage their responses to Everyday stressors these skills are also skills that are involved in noticing how thoughts and and feelings help students maintain healthy relationships and and problem solve effectively so what do what do students learn during the trails lesson the trails lesson um pulls from the um Castle or the collaborative for academic social and emotional learning framework which um is one of the um leading um organizations inl research and practices so the castle framework includes five core competencies that um is essentially what we want our students and and us as adults as well to develop so first is the competency of self-awareness which is the um competency that allows us to recognize our feelings our interest our strength and our limitations then there's the competency of self-management which is the um competency that allows us to regulate our emot emotions and manage our our daily stressors there's the competency of relationship skills and through this competency um students learn how to exibit pro-social behaviors and also demonstrate post positive social skills in order to develop and and handle meaningful relationships there's this the competency of social awareness so this helps students take take the others perspectives into account and also appreciate their similarities and differences and lastly there's the competency of responsible decision making so through this competency students learn how to make responsible decisions as well as strengthen their ability to develop appropriate solutions to any type of problem that they may encounter so the way that the um the curriculum is is built is that there are five units um and each unit is one of theal Competency right so there's a total of 25 lessons and each lesson has key skills that are grounded in both the cognitive behavioral Theory and the mindfulness framework so for a for the competency of of self-awareness for example students go through Five Lessons um that are centered around that that particular competency they first start with a lesson on just introducing what the concept of social emotional learning is and then each unit has a um a lesson that is just a review of everything they've learned in the previous sessions and how to specifically apply that competency so they move through the the first um competency which is like the foundation um self-awareness and then they continue to self-management and as you'll see in the next slide then they'll go through um the competency of social warness relationship skills and responsible decision making so each each lesson targets a specific competency in addition to that the Les each lesson planned include includes a um a lesson preparation checklist which has all the different um materials that the teachers are going to to need to to deliver that lesson and within the the lesson plan there are instructions for how to deliver the lessons which talking points to um prioritize a tips around like how to Foster that particular discussion as well as examples on how to teach that particular um uh topic or skill each lesson has a mindfulness practice to begin and and end the lesson so um this is important because students have the opportunity to kind of like go within and just kind of like Center themselves and checking with with themselves before and and um after the lesson is delivered um each lesson also provides for students to practice the skill that they're Lear they're learning about and this is done through worksheets or videos that the teachers can um introduce and and project during the lesson um there are slide Decks that teachers can also uh use to share and and put in the screen if they're using that and this is also helpful for for remotes delivery and then there are supplemental resources within each of the lesson plans so there's information for for families on how to integrate the the skills that the students are learning about um and there's also another uh tips on how teachers can use the lessons for um for practice during the week um one thing that we've done with with teachers is that as part of the support that the district has offered we've partnered um school counselors with um uh teachers depending on on the grade levels and and based on the grade levels that they have assigned they arranged to meet with um the teachers to really discuss the lessons address any questions or concerns that they may have and just offer General support um in addition to that counselors are also um observing the the lessons being delivered periodically in order to identify what potential challenges are within the lesson plan or the resource as well as the time that the teachers have available and this feedback helps us um assess the impact and the level of the student engagement as well as help us make informed decisions about what the curriculum trajectory should be in in the months ahead so this is um this the curriculum itself is online so we don't have any type of like um materials that we use we everything is is um on website but this is what typically a lesson plan looks like so you you can see that every lesson had um the objectiv so it's really around like what Target the the lesson um stands to accomplish and then all the resources whatever needs to be um printed or projected in the screen as well as an overview of the lesson um is provided um within in the next slide you'll see that then they go through like each of the um parts of the lesson and guide teachers around like how to explain how to present the concept and what questions to ask students in order to Foster you know the discussion around the specific topic as well as how they're going to practice that that particular skill on that day and in this next slide you can see that there's also um resources on how to adapt the lessons um so that they're developmentally appropriate and depending on the on way students of that particular grade are you you can either you know add or um eliminate some some of the concepts so the guidance that we've provided school is that um students should receive the the trails lesson at the K5 level during morning meeting um six through eight schools do intervention blocks and then our ninth graders have received the lessons either through the College and Career course that Dean or the Freshman seminar at North that graph there that you um are seeing is a um a question that was included in a survey that was provided at McMahon school so we wanted to understand the availability of time that teachers had to deliver a lesson um within those those times that we've named and as you can see it varies and these are 11 teachers from from McMahon so they all had very different um uh opportunities of time so some use the 30 minutes but others kind of like divide the lessons either through the the day or through the week which the the the lesson plan includes um ways in which teachers can do that can I yeah so she's just about finished anyway go ahead so hi um so this is Mrs Wilson so yeah I'm just kind of trying to understand this that the lessons are to be 25 minutes long according to the curriculum correct per per per week I thought I saw in the presentation is that right yes so so if you're going to teach it all at once it it it'll approximately take between 25 and 30 minutes however because they recognize that you know time is it's limited um depending on the school they also provide the teachers within the lesson plan different ways in which they can break down the lesson plan so if you don't have 30 minutes available then they they tell the teacher okay here's how you can do it um spread out across two days so here's what you will do for the first day in the 15 minutes and then you can do this part at the the next day or any other day in the week um if that's what the teachers have available so I I kind of wonder about Fidelity to a program and what are we doing to track this when you say when six of the 12 respondents say they only have 15 minutes to deliver a 25 minute lesson plan and how are we ensuring that the lesson are being taught as intended I mean I I I I just I I don't like purchasing a program that says we should be doing this I'm not even going to get into the fact that there's it's not in Spanish but purchasing a program and then not staying to what the program tells us to the amount of time that's necessary now whether it's broken up or not that's fine but if I were to read this slide like I did you're saying six people only do it in 15 minutes so to me we're not being we have no Fidelity to the program at least in these 12 people who responded to the McMahon Miss Wilson you're you're right in that like um this has been inconsistently implemented across the schools I want to say that last year um was the first year that we we started to use trails and the implementation of that initial thinking was that our counselors were going to deliver the lessons and the feedback that we got overwhelmingly from the schools is that that's not realistic and we saw that it was inconsistently applied we shifted that so that the counselors play more of a supportive role and that the teachers are are delivering that and we've provided time in morning meeting uh to do that but but I think that you know part of the work that that we're working on for next year around building a strong mtss system and and not just building the system itself because there's a lot of pieces that already exist can you explain what mtss is for all us multi-tiered system of supports so uh you know tier one is what does everybody get around you know academic around behavior supports and around um social emotional learning and you know some not everybody's the same all students learn differently some students may need more tier 2 supports and some students may even need three so we have a lot of those pieces developed but we're currently we we organize a team of people across all schools to help us think through how could we bring all this together and I think the important thing moving forward is to your point like what um how are we holding schools and teachers accountable to what we're asking you know what we're expecting to be delivered in classrooms we had a whole session today with our leadership which involved uh three three of our principles and some members of the academic team and and my leadership to really and you know it it was we had honest questions with ourselves like how could we make make sure that we are holding ourselves accountable and that we're moving towards accountability um in in an environment where over let's just be real the over the last couple of years we've been in an environment where we're just like worried about losing staff and worried about when we do lose staff not being able to fill those positions um but you know we have to move move into a comfortable space where we're having honest conversations and and providing real feedback to people and and holding ourselves and them accountable to what we're expecting so I'm I'm hoping that you know as part of the work that the mtss team is doing is that uh we we we lay out be a little clear not just about what we're expecting but how we're going to be monitoring that moving forward so I just want to clarify this is the third year with the program but this is the first year where teachers are expected to be instructing it is that correct the second year this is the second year yes where teachers are expected to to teach this okay it's the it's the second year total year one we leaned we we thought we would have the counselors doing the primary delivery this second year we shifted that to teachers doing the primary delivery with support uh from the school uh and adjustment counselors yeah and I will say it's a it's a career curriculum like um and we continue to get feedback I think that um generally speaking we've heard a lot of positive feedback about the content and the curriculum itself particularly for elementary schools um but we have gotten feedback that for middle and high schools it it might not be it might be a miss right so these are things that we need to continue to evaluate and figure out you know um what are the right what are the what are the what's the right material to be supporting across different grad spans they you know to to jelle's point earlier they do have options to differentiate by grad span but I'm just being open and honest about the feedback that we're getting I have a few more questions do you guys want to let her finish the presentation first well I sorry so if I'm going to be very honest if you're if you're reading from the slides I think we've all read that so I think we could move to questions fair enough sounds good um next I have uh Dr Cavo um thank you so much um for sharing the the material with us um you know sometimes uh me and my colleagues we talk about the invisible work that we teachers do and that invisible work um is not remunerated um which is bringing in the student just let him talk or let her talk um giving some some advice etc etc because they feel more comfortable talking to this kind of teacher as opposed to some other um members of the staff etc etc um how are we to really support emotional social emotional um approach an approach that is social and emotional for for the students if not we just witnessed a band of students performing right there was self-awareness self-management relationship skills social awareness responsible decision making the point that I'm trying to make is that this is not something that we necessarily teach the um as a lesson the way I said it this is something that grows out of community um trustworthy uh something that the students are looking forward to like being in a team playing soccer baseball softball doing the Arts you know painting together that's how we grow as human beings if we intentionally really build our curriculum around these things then I would propose to really seriously invest in the Arts programs in sports programs in really making our students understand what community- based learning is um because to me then it sounds sort of like fake let me push this through because now we have this program but I would see it also as a training opportunity for teachers and staff entirely right so that they are aware of this kinds of um of this kinds of mechanisms that we can Implement in our classes but other than that if we are really intentional about this the Improvement of our students and getting together and building up on these strengths we need to really focus on how can they really manage their emotions when they try to build a team you know when they are trying to build to I mean to compose a piece of music or just play together uh that's the point that that I'm trying to make it's very hard to measure when a student is feeling a way this way or the other when we're trying to just implement it as a lesson this is the skill that we're going to to develop if there isn't anything you know really happening that is intentionally tackling I don't know self-awareness if they're not playing an instrument or just um working with a tool creating something thank you uh Dr Rivera colog up to you guys I don't yeah I I just sorry hold on one second honey if you don't mind I couldn't agree more I mean this this is a curriculum but I don't want to lead this community or lead the school committee to believe that the only social emotional learning that goes on in our schools is during those 30 minutes of this curriculum like that that would be just a bold face lie so you know we're con and when I say we I'm talking about all our staff are constantly looking for opportunities to reinforce some of the lessons are in here when students have a dis agreement and there you know uh through our restorative justice program or even just conversations that our student support team or our our counselors are having with students they're reinforcing a lot of these lessons um throughout the day and I think that you know we have to make sure and be careful to say that when we talk about social emotional learning that it's the trails curriculum because it's not just the trails curriculum it's not just that 30 minute block it's not just our counselors it's not just morning meeting it's every day um we we have to take every opportunity to to just teach our kids to be good kids to get along to understand their emotions to control their emotions all of those things this is a curriculum that we use but but staff are doing that all day every day back to Riva colog yeah I want to because I I understand thatal is in everything that we do as adults is in everything that we do um explicit seal instruction is important because if we don't teach our kids how to manage their emotions they may get it somewhere else but some students may not so this is a big way of equalizing that for everybody so that everybody at least has a tool set to be able to work on that right that being said um what are we doing what is our focus on the adults in the building SEO because sometimes if the social emotional learning is not being modeled by the adults in the building then there's less buyin sometimes from the people in the building so that then when it comes to the instruction then it's like ah this 30 minutes that I have to spend doing this thing that I don't care about or that I don't value or that is in in congruence with the way that they manage themselves so I wonder is there um some sort of training or Focus that is on the adults at not so much as to delivery on the curriculum yeah I mean I think that ties into the mtss plan that we we hope to deliver uh we have a bunch of those pieces and and jezelle I don't want to you know I don't want to answer for you or Dr Mahoney if you guys want to take that on but when I when I think about that what what level of training it really is you know uh a lot of the work that that we're currently engaging in to make sure right now Trails is what I would consider tier one like this is what every student should be expected to get but let's be honest some kids need more and we need to build out what that more means right and I know that some schools already have that unpack but it's very inconsistent from one school to another and our role and our job is to not only make sure that we build out what those tier 2 supports are around social emotional learning and tier three for for kids that need it but how uh how we're monitoring that and and holding you know uh and and holding schools accountable to to what we expect to see for for those supports Dr Mahoney Jazelle um I think yes I I I totally agree um that having the adults model the skills and also having the adults um practice and embrace the concept of okay how am I de um developing my own social my own self-awareness my own social awareness that that type of thing is essential and we are currently um we have some professional development this year for counselors and we are currently um exploring um and thinking through what what would we need to put in place to ensure that that training that was done um with support staff this year um expands so that we can also um bring it to teachers because it it's it's absolutely um a necessity in order for them to really buying and and implement the concept of social emotional in their classroom so we are um exploring and and looking at potential um professional development options for next year to do that thank you oh one second Mr Mahoney Mr willan thank you very much um yeah just to kind of follow on what um Mr soda said I just feel this this is just another tool tool that the you know the staff can use to expand on the you know the social emotional learning for for the students I don't think anyone can expect to just roll out a program snap your fingers and walk away and said okay we're good the world doesn't work that way for anything you know this is just another tool that that will that will help help our uh the district and just um just a quick question on what age group is taken advantage of this program it seems to be it's geared to the whole level of grades but is there like a like a certain grade level that is more adapt to taking advantage of it if you want to answer that one you can and then add your comment um yeah I would I would say that um that our K5 um is is uh far more um uh U engaged um in it uh at the this point I think that um we're re-evaluating as some of uh uh just cell's notes Mark about the the um applicability or the relevance um for the secondary students um and so we're looking at that I did want to just go back to Dr Rivera cologne's question and just say that we are um our Equity work um very much um uh is is based on a kind of empathic uh uh approach to uh school and to our students and our families and so we are leaning in on that I do think that um uh our uh teacher attention work also like we have named giving uh really uh explicit and intentional attention to kind of Life work balance and and and people's mental and social health people who work in the buildings um it's hard to take care of other people when you're not taking care of your own self and so we re recogniz that as a part of our attention efforts and then I just think that our this the trails and the implementation of trails as a toolin the social emotional uh learning curriculum is very much a a part of this broader plan that we're trying to put together with teachers and administrators and school support staff around um mtss and having a real plant for that including restorative justice and and having more people than just a small group folks you so thank you one of the things I'd like to say too is I think as we're looking through this like you know I feel like so much of our day is so structured and social emotional learning is kind of that thing that happens when the need presents itself above and beyond the curriculum so I I just hope that with this Focus we're allowing teachers some Grace with their day if an instant comes up that requires a 10minute break in the day and focus on the social emotional needs of the classroom like you know Johnny's cat might have died last night and maybe we need to spend an extra 10 minutes talking about that today so you know I know we're very time blocked and very conscious of moving from lessons and things like that but you know as it's an overwhelming like whole child need right and adult too and you know even with the the staff like you know maybe Miss Smith lost her mom last weekend and allowing her that space to communicate and grieve with her students or whatever it might be right maybe the classroom hamster died I don't know but not just death but just as an example right and just ensuring that we're allowing teachers that Grace to um take the time when it presents itself you know to to to stop what might be going on as as far as a lesson goes um and allowing them that Grace to spend the time uh needed to ensure the the well-being of the classroom uh Miss Ros Miss rosley um everything you all have said I'm going to piggyback a little bit um is correct children mimic what they see you can talk until you bleue in the face kids go with what they see you do so those of us that are adults on the staff or um just volunteers or whatever we have to carry ourselves in a way that the kids they will believe what we say and a lot of times first of all we have to get their attention by letting them see that we are their friend and I found that out in life um like I say I love all the children it doesn't matter what age they can be babies 100 year old children whatever um they go with what they see not what we say and so that's all I can that's all I want to add to that but you all saying the right thing thanks I'm going to go with Mr Kennedy and then we'll finish off with Miss Wilson all right um I apologize everyone at this table knows that when I have a lot of points in my head they kind of get jumbled together so bear with me oh Evan we love it take the floor uh okay so I did take the social emotional learning class now let me say this was when I was in ninth grade I'm a junior year now so that means when the class was first implemented so I'm not 100% sure at how it is how it's changed however when I took the class it was not really prioritized the curriculum was not really prioritized during the class um it was you know it just didn't feel like it was an important topic on top of that it was a class it was a classroom right so it kind of felt like it was another lesson I've said numerous times at this table that I felt like I was kind of drove driven right into the ground last year like I was overworked so going to that class was just another class it was not a Time to you know cool down or think of my emotions it was structured like a classroom right so I don't think that helped get through what the curriculum was teaching uh next and as I've said every all the time that mental health needs to be more prioritized and I think that this isn't a terrible way to prioritize it I think that we just need to go at a different take a different approach at it and teachers were in teachers to I hope it's not like I think I misunderstood this I hope not but I think like you said that teachers are now teaching these separate classes like it's not all like some of it's embedded in their curriculum but some of it is like teaching their own separate classrooms or separate classes but teachers are already really have three times the amount of work on their plate than they are expected to do they are overworked they are tired so adding this curriculum to their teaching I mean to put into perspective at the beginning of the year we had an admin we had an administrator teaching a class now we have uh uh building sub who I thought was a full-time teacher she has her own classroom teaching a full class schedule we have another administrator at the end of this year covering for classes teachers are overworked we're losing teachers I looked at the thing we are losing teachers in this District so it's hard to say we're going to hold the teachers accountable when the teachers are already going above and beyond for what we need so yes this needs to be prioritized but it needs I think that we need to take a different approach and reevaluate how we are prioritizing it I hope that made sense Evan I hope you can join us when we have our subcommittee meeting about like collaboration because having our students input is so important because you guys bring a different perspective to the table so I would um I look forward to have continuing that discussion Miss Wilson bless you so I I'm just trying to understand how we picked a curriculum that's not in Spanish that that doesn't lend itself um to our dual language program um that so are the family letters translated into Spanish that are supposed to be sent home with each unit any family letters that go home are translated in Spanish we don't send anything home unless it's translated in Spanish so I don't um and I do know that in the Dual language program specifically um they might not just be using and and I'm not even going to just say the Dual language alone they might not uh schools are being creative with how this is being delivered so at Ian white for example I walked in on a morning meeting and I saw one of the lessons of the trails curriculum being delivered but it was up on the TV and it it actually was uh profet and um one of the one of the um like the dean of students in that school that was actually delivering it both in English and Spanish um I'm not saying I can't sit here with confidence and say that everything right that happens um in you know in in the Dual language uh in in the the these um these lessons is done in English and Spanish but I can say with confidence that I have personally witnessed Addie and white one class one one session that I had walked in one morning meeting and I saw the way the teacher was delivering it was that school's admin team created a video and they were being interactive with each other and teaching and it was in English and in Spanish and then that video came off and then there was a debrief with the teachers so uh teachers are being creative despite this not necessarily being uh in English and Spanish but again you're adding to the teacher plate it's more work work for them that they're having to create in order to make it conducive to their classroom and again I just want to be very clear the family letters are available for every unit of the curriculum so the families can have a preview you are telling me that those family letters that are available for every curriculum have been translated I'm not I'm telling you that every letter that we've sent to families is in English and in Spanish I will have to follow up with and and maybe like you know we would have to survey the schools to see what lessons were sent home from this curriculum and and see whether or not everybody in Holy Oak knows that if you're sending anything home to families it better be in English and Spanish so I would like to find that out um because I think it is important that um families know what's going to be taught that week so that they can have conversations um and you know in order to what did you learn let's talk about it how does it you know how does do it affect you have you thought about well when this happened can you think about a different way to approach it now that you know that so you know I I I would like to find out if those are translated into Spanish and if if those are going home because I'm sure that's Again part of the curriculum that we purchased the implementation yeah yes the implementation um I'm I get kind of feisty about purchasing curriculum and not using it fully just a request for information all right so I would like to make a motion that we find out um through the trails curriculum have been translated so they can so in order to be sent home that um any further discussion all those in favor I all right we have mayor Garcia online Mr willan did you have discussion or were you about to vote okay uh mayor Garcia I'm yes Miss tensley Williams yes Dr Rivera clone yes Dr caban yes do um Mr willan I almost upgraded you Jay yes Mr colore yes uh and Miss Wilson yes okay thanks all right um I think we're good here depending no further discussion needs all right moving right along then thank you so much appreciate you uh let you find my agenda I know next is the budget even though I don't have my agenda in front of me um so it we're still on the superintendent report and the next item budget right in there is just a quick budget update um I do have Sean here with me but we did provide that oh Jazelle thank you so much for showing up tonight appreciate you thank you everyone have a good night um so we you know we provided you all with with a quick update there's uh a few slides in there I'm not going to go through all of the slides the Highlight is that our initial projection we were projecting early on a $6 million deficit and throughout uh you know under Sean's leadership we've been able to work with our department heads we've been able to uh do our our our staff allocation and realign making sure that that schools had um the resources they need and a realistic resources that they need because I think part of our inclusion priority that you guys saw in our strategic plan was to try to get more elll and more special education teachers so that we had one teacher on every grade level team and in this Staffing Market it's just not realistic like we've added a lot of positions uh to in positions that we just weren't able to fill so we had to really think about like based on where we're at in this market and uh and and realistically uh what should our staffing levels for those supports be and we were able to to to reduce that deficit down to about 785,000 um and you know the the major cost drivers and and why you know we had that $6 million deficit initially was because we're losing Esser money so the initial assumption that we gave the school committee was if we were to take everything that we have on Esser and just move it to the general fund what would our deficit look like and that's what but we we couldn't do that so we had to really re-evaluate like okay this is what we have on Esser it was this worth the investment so an example and I I don't want to so I think one example is all of our deans of management and Ops uh we have had committed as a district to fund those through an allocation and uh we no longer are supporting funding those through an allocation however we are meeting with every single principal and in some schools they are making a purchase decision to say you know what um I have been able to to to Really lean into instruction and our team has been able to really shift from being firefighters and dealing with everything in the building to really focus on what's happening in the classroom and how me and my leadership team can help support teachers in their growth at becoming better at instruction and and get ultimately getting student outcomes so um I had the pleasure of of Hosting uh uh Miss Brunell at at the Holio high school budget hearing and you could see all the conversations about how are you spending your resources and many of those principles uh uh many principles are choosing to fund that through either the per pupil amounts that they get or through trading different positions um and and so I just wanted to name that as an example of things that s was Esser was coming off of and then uh principles are making uh decisions on um I I I'm not going to spend a lot of time I promise so the the other thing that the remaining I guess the the Highlight that I wanted to give was a quick update as to where we're at and what to expect so we are our plan is to hopefully have a balanced budget by May 1st and and you know come to the school committee with how we got to a a balanced budget um we'll have an opportunity to go through each of our cost centers so like what's in the what is the big changes in the academics budget what is the big changes in the special education budget what's the big changes in schools budgets and we'll provide you with all those details so that we can have some real good dialogue in May at the uh uh in May at at some point um our goal is to be balanced by May 1 um and right now we just finished our last budget hearing with our last School uh on on Friday which was Ian white and there were a lot of like decisions that are still to be made so Sean and I are going to uh collaborate on what's still outstanding that needs to be approved and where we can close that Gap of about $700,000 to get us to balance and I just want to name that part of how part of a strategy that we're using again this year we we might use some one-time Revenue sources so like we've been we haven't been utilizing our school choice fund much because we've had Esser right and we knew that this time was coming and that at some point we're going to need that we haven't been using the state's turnaround Grant so um I've actually told them two years ago we don't need that but trust and believe we're going to need that in fy2 and they have committed to me that they're going to definitely help support which would Bridge a a another year of student Opportunity Act increases for next year so this is the year where that funding Cliff is hitting but we have some strategies that uh we hope are going to you know the are not going to be super impactful in terms of everything all the priorities that we talked about earlier being able to implement a lot of those and being able to continue to support the Arts we have music and art teachers allocated at every school I wish we had uh those wonderful teachers to fill those positions at every school that needs them um but there's a you know there's a lot of work around that so I will open it up to questions and uh yeah uh thank you you Mr sto so I will say uh it was a wonderful experience and thank you for inviting me to sit in on the Hoy High School Norse budget presentation um one of the questions pretty much the only question I asked while we were in there is a little bit more information about like The deans of operations and management and you know these kind of what sound like admin positions and it's like oh are we topheavy like are these positions like critical and you know hearing Mr stto say how he gives some autonomy to the the principal to decide what her building needs I I really her or his I should say sorry uh I really uh admire that and appreciate that and I feel like listening to miss McKenna explain how important her deans of students and deans of operations forgive me if I'm messing up the titles because I'm bad with titles but we all know that um and just you know the days of when I was in high school is not the same as today and so you know when I was in high school you'd get written up and you'd go see the vice principal and so much of the vice principal's day was spent handling student relations and so how can a vice principal have an impact in curriculum and making sure their teachers are doing well if they're focused on you know students right so or or not students not that they're not focused on students but like student disciplinary actions throughout the day right so just getting to hear her explain how instrumental these positions are and how they're like first funded in her budget because they're so important and she's found them so vital to be able to for her and her her staff to be able to function better as a school God bless you and then my second point is like we knew Esther money was going away and I will say it's one of the things I'm very grateful that we do have a receiver with such a financial background because I feel like as a district we planned ahe for this really really well um I don't know how much of the guys pay attention to the surrounding districts but I mean they are cutting positions from what I saw we are not you know at ho Kai nor she's looking to add two teachers potentially for example you know there was no no no cuts that are of no right there was no teacher layoffs no staff you know no missing gaps in uh academic uh options or anything like that so kudos to you guys as a team for planning ahead for eser going away for making sure that we weren't overfunding positions we didn't overhire during that funding source you knew and planned ahead for a student Opportunity Act to fill those as we come forward and so into the point about you know the art and music teachers and things like that you know as other districts are looking to have layoffs this might be our opportunity to pick up some great staff throughout the uh throughout the region so I just want to say kudos to this district and to your office um for planning ahead for the cliff as you explained uh for the budget process uh so Miss Wilson so I'm just trying to get a better understanding of um when you talk about schools with fewer than 500 students for the dean of management and operations which schools are those um so it's basically every school with the exception of Holio Kai North and uh Sullivan middle school so all all other schools were not allocated uh a DMO but I can that's so and also um I'm trying to get an understanding of what the class sizes are going to be now for home rooms uh since you're moving from the three Home Room model uh to a two I would assume yeah we're not um we aren't we aren't adjusting our target class sizes I will say that we aren't we are not no so one of the things that we committed to after rezoning was that despite the class sizes we always had a target class size depending on the grade band um so you know in in kindergarten for example is up to 20 in the middle schools it's up to 26 and then um no more but I mean generally our class sizes are not big like if you walk around schools you're not seeing classrooms with you know 35 kids or something like that so what we did during this year for the first time was we committed to a model of three teachers per grade span regardless I mean some that meant some classrooms where it had nine kids in them right um what we found is that when we did that it was again one of those things that in a perfect world that that would be awesome but like we don't live in a perfect world and and we're not able to fill a lot of those positions and in fact some schools made decisions to collapse those CU I you know we part of the commitment was it'd be nice if we had three teachers so that they can collaborate with each other during have during common planning time um but you know at some schools that just don't have the enrollment they might have you know uh 40 kids and we were we were funding an allocation of three teachers when really that should be an allocation of two teachers uh with the exception of grades three to five because we departmentalize in grades three to five and we need an e you know kids don't stay in the same home room they go to an Ela teacher then go to a math teacher then they probably go to a science and social studies teacher uh we we committed to that model in grades three to five even if it means that you have smaller class sizes because of that instructional model so you're saying that even with removing the the three Home Room model we will still not exceed 20 students in the in the kindergarten kindergarten and and I'm not sure I think it's up to 20 so it's kindergarten and uh 20 and then I think two it's 23 up to grade six and then 6 to 8 it's up to 26 kids all right um and then at the high school we fund you know total enrollment uh about 19 per 19 uh per class 19 students per teacher but that doesn't mean that there's always 19 because dependent on all the offerings you might walk around hoolai and you might see 12 kids in a classroom but then walk to another classroom and see 30 it does you know it's not it's it's the way we allocate which I think you know when we're when we're talking about local control and we're I think that this is something that really the school committee should engage in is like we right now we have a staff allocation model with target class sizes we didn't have that you know nine years ago but I I I think that this was a really good thing to happen because it it was an equit equitable distribution of resources to make sure that we're not just taking care of some schools at the expense of not taking care of other schools it's pretty clear what our staffing model is based on the our target class sizes you know and and the number of students that are enrolled in each school and I think the school committee should seriously consider like that is something that we like around finance and we want to keep moving forward and uh to to miss brunell's point the other thing that we changed around the budget process was we decentralized it's not me and Shawn sitting in a back room saying this is what we're doing it's me and Shawn saying this is what we're allocating and here's a bunch of money um we want to meet with you to hear how you're going to spend that money and it's a collaborative process like you guys uh uh thank you for giving me Kudos but it's it's not really me like all I did was create a process where where we're meeting with the people that really should be making this the decisions and allowing them the autonomy to do that I I mean there will be times where I say you know what I don't agree with that and like this might not be approved because I don't think it aligns to uh you know to to our strategic plan or I priorities I haven't had to uh uh you know i' I probably had to do that a couple of times for for good reasons um but I think that's also something that that should be good when we when we meet and talk about budget can we get a copy of the staff allocation model you said that you've developed V that so could we get a copy of it yeah we can we can provide you with a copy of the staff allocation it's I I could tell you right now it's temp it's messy there's like one school e each tab has a school one of the things um uh Sean doesn't know it but I'm going to be tasking him to do is is to actually write a staff allocation manual which takes what our process is and puts it in the form of a manual so that anybody could read and and understand better as opposed to just handing you a worksheet and say hey go for it and it's complicated so um I had that when I was in Springfield and it was a great resource to be able to say like what's a counselor what's an academic intervention teacher and how many of those are allocated per school and how do you decide that what are your class sizes um we're going to work together to build that out so that um the school committee has a really good resource to use and the community at large like how do we make Staffing decisions okay thank you Miss Tenley Williams Mr Soo you said by May 1st um the budget would be probably balanced you think it would be or you yeah I'm I'm confident that it will be um it it you know we still have a lot of decisions there's a lot of requests that say hey um these are things we want to add to the budget and we got to balance you know the state has committed to give us a significant amount of turnaround money um I want I I want to say 750,000 for this this upcoming year which is going to be super helpful um and you know like I said we're going to have some general fund carryover money we're going to have other other ways to help close this Gap that we have now the $7,000 that you mentioned um did you say we didn't need it and now you wish you hadn't said that or no absolutely no I I is that extra we didn't need it right uhuh up until next this upcoming school year so we need to work it in now to figure out yeah we need their support and the the commiss uh the interim commissioner has has um given me his word that he's going to support so okay thank you sir Dr Cato thank you so much mot for the report I was looking at the first I mean the uh FY 25 or 25 expenditure Outlook and look it at how much is being invested in Charter tuition and then charted tuition Transportation um I want to understand why are we investing the charting it's not necessarily an investment it's just the way the state uh funds charter schools so any student that lives in Holio Holio gets funding for all of those students and then the state then turns around and tells us but this is how much you got to give to Charter Schools because you have 800 kids that are in charter schools and um that is a moving Target because unlike our budget that they pick a point in time October 1 and they say your funding for next year is going to be based on October 1 when it comes to Charter Schools they actually check their enrollment periodically and uh I like to say students in seats if students in seats changes then that number changes and often times the number that we have here goes down because uh they overestimate this is how much we how many students we think are going to be at Holio Charter and at different charter schools in the area and then it turns out that it's it's usually always lower typically I've been doing this for you know a a long time and it's always been overestimated at this point and usually uh a little lower but that you know that could change thank you but it's that's the money that the state allocates not the city of hollyood that's what I wanted to do yeah about 88% of it comes from the state and then about 12% comes from the city thank you it's a interesting point of contention because when the charter rules were first written we were supposed to be have equal reimbursement because I mean ask somebody who obviously advocates for public education and public dollars going towards public education we don't support charter schools because it's pulling funds away from the the district and they don't have the same resources that we have to to provide to students with IEPs and and things like that it's one of the reasons one of the contributing factors as to why we operate with such a high percentage of students with special needs because you know charter schools have an application Pro process Charter Schools can decide midle of the year that they don't have what you need and send you back to your district and you know things like that so charter school funding is a huge thing and then keep in mind too you know we're the school committees throughout Massachusetts are fighting for uh an inflation adjustment to Chapter 70 funding right now there's another webinar coming up um one of the days this week I can share with you guys but that was that you know what we signed on to last week so we got to be staying on top of our legislature I mean luckily the St student Opportunity Act and uh the foundation budget review that happened we are seeing more money but we we still need to be seeing more to be adequately providing the services our students need uh Mr willan thank yeah just to follow up on what Mrs berell said I know the Gateway cities are in a better financial situation than some of our surrounding communities thanks to the student Opportunity Act I know the uh town of urst they're asking they have a budget deficit in their schools they're asking Amber college for a bailout uh northampton's in the same situation they're asking Smith college for a for a bailout uh there's been back and forth between the school districts and the city and the town councils over fighting for her resources so I um just a thanks to our budget director and Mr s Soto we we in a a better financial situation said they're talking on playoffs at a lot of the um the districts I know Northampton I believe where is it Amber one of them is you know they cutting hole programs I think the world language program in ammer they're looking to cut that entirely because of the deficit and I think some of the Arts and Music too so I know um so we're we're in a better situation financially which is good probably I think the next step is just to try to hone down and get a a date for the budget here and think probably the next the next step yeah I think um the budget hearing for the public will be in June I don't have the date but I think the the real work is going to happen in the meeting leading up to that in May where we'll present the balance budget we'll present each Pro uh the Department profile so that you guys can see the changes from year to year and really ask your questions cuz the the public hearing itself is usually quick if nobody from the public shows up um then it's not really a meeting um suest one one more meeting before that yeah I was just going to say I suggest that that all gets presented in the subcommittee meeting first um and that way it can be vetted and and have a shorter presentation have a time maybe late April early May for the next budget meeting what do you think is or uh the finance finance committee what what what do you think is best yeah I think so I mean Sean's happy to set up a meeting anytime in April our plan is to have a balanced budget in early May to then be able to so like we can Sean and I can keep you posted as to when we actually have a a balanced budget and we're ready to present that if you want to meet before then we're happy to meet before then it might be better to have balanced budget yeah we can talk about it on Thursday's call too okay thank you I appreciate it awesome thank you Mr willan uh Evan Mr Kennedy um I know that Super S used the DMO as like an example of you know the the budget situation um well not really situation like you said we're in a pretty good place compared to other places but I want to comment on the Dina management operations position uh because I have seen it be obviously I'm very observant in my building um and I've seen it be a inval valuable resource to schools um not only my Dena management operations but stem Academy's D management operations is kind of you know has a very broad you know Duty and role um so obviously like if that's a position that I appreciate is like left up to the principal but also those who do not choose to fund Ena management operations I hope that you know we're kind of preparing them for duties that admin will have to take on because I know like these last couple years we've had new leadership in our building in our buildings um so I hope that like we are really like preparing them for what extra duties will need to be taken on by the vice principal the principles the dean of students Etc so I just wanted to say that thank you Mr Kennedy uh Miss Wilson so I just wanted to I have to say this um crossing guards when's the last time crossing guards had an increase in their in their salaries in their wages I guess I I want to speak on their behalf because they are um a quiet small group um that are critical to our students safety I don't believe they get paid any sick time I don't believe they get paid any holiday time and so um you know I'm I'm thinking as I would be thinking that you know we should be giving some consideration for our crossing guards because they do ensure our children's safety thank you Miss Wilson all right I think we're all set in that regard yeah and uh the thank you Sean for sticking around for questions um the last thing that we have as part of the student uh uh sup the superintendent report was a request uh from Miss Brunell to provide the mcast uh graduation breakdowns so um we provided all the way up uh for the past 5 years the number of students that graduated with a full diploma and that versus a certificate of attainment you can see last year that only four students received a certificate of attainment um so there's the data I don't know if you have any questions but Dr Mahoney and I are both here yeah thank you I just asked for this because I feel like um personally I was losing track of like what happens if you don't pass your mcast come sophomore year so I just thought it was good information for us to have on like how we're doing with supporting those students um you know through those next couple years and especially those that go on to opportunity Academy or transitions Academy and all the other things so thank you for the information I did not have a chance to really dive into it yet so I will um but did anybody else have any questions about that so I I W sorry I would like to um say that I'm sure um the school counselors guidance counselors do a lot of work um with uh sending in appeals for students and that takes a significant amount of work um to process those appeals gathering together a cohort um so I do want to recognize um you know those individuals for their hard work um trying to ensure that our students will graduate with a high school diploma cool thank you Mrs Wilson all right so moving on to new business I'll turn this one over to Mr willan uh he asked for this to be added to the agenda uh the mass Senate is honoring uh women and Mr wahan has a suggested uh nominee thank you thank you for putting this on the agenda I appreciate it um yeah just um something that I just found in just my my leisurely reading that that I do trying to be topical um yeah so the senate senate president Karen um spilka I hope I'm pronouncing that right so um she's been the senate senate president for a couple years now um and I know she was surprised going through the the chambers that there was um less female representation in the chambers uh for people that have been honored um woman that have been um um that had not been duly honored throughout our Commonwealth so I know she's um taken nominations for um when woman uh influential woman in the Commonwealth to have have a bust of them um right now there's very few or or or none um so um my only thing that was weird is uh the end um nomination period ends in April April 30th so that's why I was kind of asking to have this on the agenda uh soon I know um just in terms of uh you know U agenda says that that I'm nting Miss Betty uh Medina lichenstein I was hoping that the uh the entire School Board could do that I know Mrs um Medina was the first Puerto Rican woman elected in public office in the Commonwealth uh she was she was first elected the war two seat of the hoyo um school committee in 1985 so this body here so so it's to me that's that's worthwhile to to have that you know um that um honor uh was not bestowed on someone from Boston or Cambridge or Worcester or Springfield it was stowed on someone here in hoyo so that's an honor that I I feel is worthy of being brought forth um to expand her influence not only to to the city of hoyo but throughout the Commonwealth so that's um that's my my views on that thank you Mr willan uh just so you guys know he did attach some um information from the art committee as well um so if no objections I'd like to entertain a motion uh that we as a school committee uh nominate Miss Medina Lenin for this honor um and I'm sure Mr waham will take on the responsibility of filling out the appr paperwork if we do so yeah okay so I'll entertain a motion motion uh who's making the motion Mr Miss Dr cab and a second by Mr colore oh sorry second by Mr woman oh I'm sure Mr colore won't mind seconded by Dr Rivera cologne any further discussion Mr willan yeah real quick um I couldn't find an application online uh hoping maybe we can reach out to our state reps and uh they can maybe walk us through the process can help us sure get this going um I don't know whether someone from the administration can can help out in terms of getting a quick quick bio together for Mrs uh wienstein and that so um yeah so I'm kind of looking for some guidance from our our reps on how to move this forward okay good to know uh Dr Cabo yeah thank you so much for that nomination Mr will uh we're talking about a woman who's affected the lives of I don't know I I want to say tens of thousands not only here in Holio because she's the heart of Holio but people from chapi West Springfield Springfield you name it uh Northampton and uh it's a person who's an educator she really loves to teach people how to do the right thing serve the community give wraparound you know services and really find and fight for um the people who really need her support uh thank you so much for that nomination and I I hope that she gets you know to be the final person that let thank you Mr cmore we talk about Betty when she first came here not just as a school Committee Member but even before she was on a school committee she did did so much work for the people of Ward I organizing different things especially really especially listening to the people from W to and all the students of hoyo par parents would come to her and ask her questions and things like this she'd bring them back to the school committee for suggestions on how we can implement me different things and as far as I'm concerned Betty was without a doubt one of the best school committee people we've ever had in the city thank you Mr Colmore all right friends so I will take a roll call because Mr uh Garcia is online uh so on the motion Mr Garcia yes I myself have a yes Miss rosley teni Williams Dr Rivera colone yes Dr cabato yes Mr wahan yes Mr colore yes Miss Wilson yes thank you just so you know student reps if for the record you'd ever like to like have your voice heard just feel free to let me know and we'll record your opinions on things as well even though it's not official but that's okay um all right great thank you all um so motion carries um I will connect Mr willan and uh rep Duffy's off office and we'll see how best to proceed um but might be who of us to reach out to somebody at anlass too um and they could help us work on a bio uh yeah thank you Dr cavan you're the perfect person to do that thank you so much all right great moving along um so ongoing business approval of minutes I'm actually going to entertain a motion to table the 26 um there's some changes that we need to make uh on Clarity for a motion here um so I'll entertain a motion to table the minute it's on 26 for now so moved uh second please second by uh Miss tensy Williams um any further discussion roll call Mayor Garcia yes I myself and me yes Miss Williams uh yes or no on the on the motion that you seconded yes Dr Rivera cologne yes uh Dr Cav see Mr colore yes Miss Wilson yes okay so I will entertain a to approve the minutes from 3:12 so moved thank you a second second any further discussion no no edits on that one okay great uh roll call Mayor Garcia yes I am a yes Miss tensley Williams Dr AA cologne yes Dr cominto see Mr Kore yes Miss Wilson yes every time someone answers in Spanish it tweaks my brain for half a second and it's like a a glitch in The Matrix oh my God I watched that to it's so good yeah yeah yeah it's like TI right love it okay moving right along updates for subcommittee meetings um policy and governance I don't think you've had one correct we did have one um I just had got the minutes recently so I'm going to review them and share them at the next uh meeting as well as uh bringing forth a couple uh policy adjustments okay great and just let me know if you plan to to schedule a meeting uh Finance operations uh we have approval of minutes from 10:18 uh Mr willan stepped to the bathroom so we'll let him do his update when he comes back if he has any uh but we can go ahead and entertain a motion to approve the minutes motion second by Dr cabano thank you uh any further discussion seeing none roll call please Mr Garcia yes I am a yes tensley Williams Dr cab I'm sorry Dr Johnny elette see Dr cab see see Mr Kore yes Miss Wilson I want to say like da I want to go Russian for you love you guys uh Joint City Council school committee uh Miss lefave isn't with us this evening she is actually still at a conference representing the masc strong so Kus to her diversity equity and inclusion we have approval of the minutes from 2724 I'll entertain a motion for those so moved thank you uh roll call Mr Garcia yes I am a yes tensley Williams uh Dr Riva clone yes Dr cab see Mr willan if you'd like to vote to approve the Dei subcommittee meets that's what we're voting on Mr cmore yes Miss Wilson Dr Rivera clone did you have an update about the PEC naming or did we discuss that at the last meeting I I feel like we keep meeting to talk about it but haven't yet I sent the draft to be added for our meeting okay so it made it to our meeting okay I will ensure so PEC naming I'm like wait a second um we can't if it's not on the agenda my dear I apologize I will ensure it's on the agenda for the next one um God bless you you better not be sick I better be allergies I got you on that I okay I promise and Shaya is hearing me so I know she's got us on it too okay great uh Lo local Control subcommittee meeting um meeting was held on March 25th we don't have minutes yet but we will soon uh Dr uh Rivera clone if you want to go over this list of uh UPC upcoming meetings for the committee sounds good so yeah so I have received the draft of the minutes so that's going to be ready for our next meeting great so today we had our meeting discussing the turnaround plan and we have some homework to do in terms of the priorities that we need to be looking at so that's going to be discussed at a further meeting our next next one is going to be Tuesday April 23rd to discuss the annual budget then the next one is May 13 to discuss the policy process Tuesday May 28th to discuss the process for reviewing hiring and evaluating the superintendent Monday June 10th to build a plan for collaboration with key stakeholders going forward Monday July 22nd to revisit the turnaround plan with a focus on continuous Improvement going forward Monday August 9 to review and develop recommendations for the school committee bylaws that would go into effect when receiver receivership ultimately ends and we will be working collaboratively in making the draft for the plan as we go along and then we will be able to discuss that at the full school committee meeting thank you Dr Riva clone I just want other committee members to keep in mind that even though it's a subcommittee meeting so at the meeting we can't all participate any conversations can be had sub Quorum in the in the interim of meetings um we want this to feel like everybody has a say and has a voice and has an idea of what's going on so please don't ever hesitate to reach out with your thoughts your ideas we're going to keep a running Google worksheet that we can share with you as a viewer and we'll stay the editor so you can share our thoughts back with us um but you know this is just such critical work and I just want everybody to feel like they're a part part of the process even if you're not on the subcommittee um so for example in planning for these meetings and ahead like we have a meeting on Thursday with Mr willan in the finance department to discuss our budgeting process and we have a meeting planned ahead of the meeting for policy with Miss Wilson um just to make sure that we're really doing the work uh to make sure we're as prepared as possible for this process so um and of course thanks to the to the acting uh commissioner and his uh Chief of Staff Miss woo for joining us today um you know they will be here in person most weeks but and just in case there was any like weird things that happened with the the eclipse today they thought they needed to be at their desks in case districts ran into any weird things hey man you never know so uh thanks for that so all right uh moving right along the rest the next few things are just FYI in your package but feel free to stop me if anybody needs to go into them in more detail you have your absentee and chronic attendance and chronic absentee as an update referral and disciplinary data updates Staffing updates uh Middle School building update oh my God you guys there are cranes on site I just have to say that because it's so exciting when you drive by and like today there was two cranes and they're doing so much work and it's so exciting I can't wait to see the steal start going up so um there's an update in your packet but if anybody ever wants information just call me I'm happy to talk about it it makes me kind of giddy um administrative assistant position update there's a FYI in there as well I know Mr stto ran it through HR got blessings uh they worked on a a assigning a salary uh he guaranteed me it will be funded in next year's budget um so we look forward to getting that uh that accomplished soon I again feel free to stop me if anybody has hi I can't see him behind me so thanks guys yeah I mean there's no information in the packet but I'm just giving a quick fiyi which is that the position's been posted for about a week and a half now can you share it with us we have um one applicant and yes we can definitely share it I'll text Sha right now and maybe um like our our media person can like I don't know if it's been shared on Facebook yet by like you know the school department yeah we share um a lot of our postings and the together for Holy Oak update yeah so we'll be sure to add that one cool thank you anybody anything Mr Kennedy um um can I just quickly go up to the chronic absenteeism sure can um on here it shows I think that we already kind of discuss this of how we kind of would like a more bre broken down type thing for the um absent absences but this is I want to just point point at the elephant on this scale and that is the unexcused absences that is I think that it's important to note that's not just students who just don't want to get out of bed and don't want to go to school I I know that I say this a lot but mental health is a huge huge huge thing in this District it's a huge thing everywhere and I think that it's not always prioritized as it needs to be I'm going to use an example that I literally got today I was actually reviewing this packet when I heard a student say this but there's a student in this school who was literally bullied out of her classroom right and it was not just by one student it was by an entire group of students and even though that was reported and maybe it was dealt with that doesn't EXC that doesn't excuse their absences they have a lot of absences on their system that is now requiring or that is now requiring them to go to summer school because uh they could not be in their classroom like it was horrific bullying that was happening to the student who yes missed out on the learning but now has 20 absences under her belt for something that she had no control over now you talk about the guy going to the guance Department we have impeccable guidance counselors honestly I think that Dean has one of the best guidance counselors in the area um working for us but we have one two three four five uh count guidance counselors and we have one intern working under a guidance counselor I believe that's her role we have 150 students going to that office a day they cannot they are stretched they are stretched very very thin so this is a big concern because that student maybe couldn't go to the guide department when they had chance to so what are they going to do are they going to stay in the classroom and continue to get bullied no they're going to walk around the school or they're going to go somewhere where they just are away and secluded um so I think that we really really really this is this is a part because yes obviously there's some part in this graph where students just don't want to go to school whatever or they just don't bring in their doctor's not sure but this is a has a huge part of mental health in it and we really really need to prioritize that because this graph is not great um if I'm looking at it yeah so please over the next couple years please or like you know time prioritize that and also like you know go through more training with the teachers we talked about the social emotional learning but we also need to go with like maybe a little bit of Mental Health Training for the teachers because they have their own they may have their own responsibilities to teach the class but also maybe if they could you know say something to the student that would prevent them from needing to go to the guidance Department you know something for smaller infractions um I hope I was clear and I hope I you know said everything I need to say Thank you Mr Kennedy I I don't want to speak for Mr SoDo but I can promise you I there will be some looking into the situation you're referencing Mr SoDo yeah I just want to be careful um people are listening to us right and uh they respect everything that on this com people on this committee say I don't want I can't sit here and tell you that our unexcused absences that a large portion of it is due to bullying but when I C what I can say is that thank you for raising that our team has gotten together and uh this unexcused category is just way too vague way too broad and we need to uh we're in the process of evaluating like we need to have more categories so like unexcused sick but didn't provide a doctor's note unexcused uh you know family vacation unexcused bullying report like we need to really evaluate how we want to break out that unexcused category because this category is so big and and it doesn't really help us figure out uh what we want to dive into but I don't want to say that that category is all bullying because um I don't want to mislead the community so I will just say too though um to that I don't as a parent in the district I can say I'm not always contact it when my student is absent so people aren't necessarily always inquiring as to why the student's absent because it could be something as simple as I don't know how how often y'all try to be on a on a sick queue with ho pediatric sometimes but sometimes you're a 30 second in the queue and there's just no chance of getting an appointment that day right so like it could have been excused but it can't and like is calling your therapist like can your therapist write you a note right like that could be excus so there's instance is where like you know you you might try to get excuse and it can't be but you know we can also strengthen that communication too because not all absences are followed up on um so Mr Kennedy go ahead yeah let me be clear this situation that I was referring to was dealt with well sorry dealt with by building Administration but the point is the absences are still there and also let me clarify super nesota I'm sorry I'm not saying this is all due to bullying I'm saying this could also be a part of burnout um as I've mentioned this could be a part of simply just you know not being in the right head space to deal with the rigorous curriculum right I'm that was just one example and I should have had more examples I apologize um but yeah I like I know that we said like I know that we said it needs to be like less vague but I just wanted to point out like that is a part that is a big part of it mental health burnout bullying that is a big part of it and I really hope that over the next little while we Implement A system that kind of tracks everything so that it's not just like oh look at this because this is not this this doesn't look good to you know the state when we're trying to get regain local control because all this is saying is oh we have um 2500 absences that are unexcused well why are they unexcused right so I think that a big part of regaining local control is kind of explaining why these absences are happening and they're not just you know students not being held accountable or not students just being too lazy to go to school so that's my com Miss tensley Williams um I do not wish to blame the parents um charity starts at home and spreads abroad if I it was 10 of us and if we had bullied anybody in school teacher called my dad or my mom I don't think we would bully anymore so what Mr Soo you probably already doing this when kids are being bullied are the parents being the children that are bullying people is anybody letting the parents know that their children are bullying in school absolutely when we h i mean we've had officially we've had about 20 bullying reports all year so we're talking 20 situations where uh bullying was actually reported it was investigated and either substantiated or not considered bullying so um during that process we you know whenever an allegation comes forward as mandated reporters we have to let the families know that hey these allegations came forward and we want to let you know that we're investigating it and and that as part of investigating it is interviewing the person that brings it Forward interviewing uh other students that may have been witnessed to it interviewing any staff members that may have been witnessed to it and then um and then reporting back to the family with an official report as to what the findings of that report is we can't share in some cases we can't share like what action we took um with for example the the student that was uh the the bully but but I mean I that that's hard because families want to know exactly what happened we can we can only share that you know we investigated it it was substantiated and here's a plan that we have moving forward we can't say you know how many days a person was suspended or like what other things have happened but it always involves talking to the families but I also will say that not all incidents get reported right have you had any results uh we have a lot of results if you see the the referral data you can see that as uh the reset that we did in Fe February yielded a ton of categories where where the amount of referrals have just over overall reduced pretty significantly in different categories I'm not going to sit here and say that it was because of the reset but um you know it could be timing like it could be in in March that you know we we typically have less of those but I will say that you can see in the referral data that we've we've seen drops since January when uh since February one we implemented the reset we've seen a lot of positive data uh around referrals thank you sir all right thanks everyone doing Mr Kore you look like you're waiting to raise your hand for the next thing microphone dear I'm sorry Ju Just along those lines doctor uh what response are you getting from parents in regards to what you sending a letter to the parents about the bullying situation oh parents you know parents are actively engaged in those conversations when when they're happening to their kids and you know when they're when their child is you know accused of being the aggressor um I I can't sit here and tell you every single scenario how parents responded but we have we have absolutely engaged in those conversations and um sometimes parents AR happy when they hear their kid is engaging in such activities right um and they're they're a support like we need them that we need parents to be our partners in in helping uh in situations like this all right thanks um another FYI on aate field trips you got some meaf and two STEM Academy trips and then uh announcements we got some meetings coming up you guys can uh read through all of those um so if there's nothing else I will inter oh Mr willan um when I stepped away were the finance yes I'm sorry I meant to come back to you your finance committee minutes were approved and if you had an update I I I did mean to come back to you when you got back into the room so sorry about that if you have any updates please feel free to share approved okay thank you that was my main question uh we met in March I should have those subcommittee minutes uh ready for by the committee hopefully at at our next meeting all right thank you Mr willan Mr colore meeting okay I'll set all right I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so move who's the motion Dr Cabo seconded by Miss tensley Williams no discussion on this type of a motion so roll call please mayor Garcia yes Miss Ela yes Miss tensley Williams see Dr Rivera clone see Dr C see Mr willan yes Mr Kore and Miss Wilson C thank you all have a good night meeting is adjourned at 8:19 p.m.