##VIDEO ID:zbYyIQtG0EY## e [Music] [Music] good evening the school committee Workshop business session of August 6 2024 will now come to order this meeting is being recorded and will be made available for viewing on the methan public school's website Madame secretary you please call the RO Ryan dolio mayor Beth Donovan here here Kristen Maxwell here Dan chabila here Kenneth wette here Mayan Neil Perry here thank you um may I have a motion and a second to amend the agenda to remove item four ratification of custodial contract all moved second move by member shilia seconded by the Vice chair any discussion did you just want to say yeah sure yeah sorry sure we just don't have the final confirmation between parties for the I shared with you so the language has been ratified but the actual document uh we did not get that back today from their representative so I apologize for that but we're not going to do it unless they we have it clear no problem okay all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppos say nay thank you the eyes carry unanimously on that may I have a motion in a second to accept the agenda as amended so moved second a motion by member shilia seconded by member Willette any discussion you seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I oppos say nay thank you carries unanimously let's move on to the flag salute can't wait for school to be back in so we have students coming do this I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you has anyone signed up for public participation I'm assuming no okay so we have one email that I will read that came in today um this is from Lauren jelbert who lives at six Lady Slipper Lane as a former student of the timy I'm writing about the bullying my friends and I experienced as well as the general lack of decorum by students and admin alike at that school students in every grade constantly made degrading racial or homophobic remarks to others teachers didn't do anything only temporarily separating students or student groups that seem to have conflict when it was reported to guidance nothing was done Miss derky would oversee a recess to ensure no physical altercation happened and would keep us separate so as not to have verbal interactions but only for recess none of this addresses the problem of the bullying none of this alleviates the stresses of the bulli students I would have liked to have seen more adult involvement towards conflict resolution in these ongoing cases of bullying the schools should have informed the parents what was going on in their child's day beyond education especially when it affected their learning environment there needs to be something in place other than punishing both groups for months on end when a friend addressed to administrators with parents in the email the immediate solution was to separate the students who were striving for resolution into a meeting with the administration alone the only thing they did was separate the groups there was no other attempt to stop pause or work towards resolution in any way unfortunately the issue went beyond lunch in recess so that minimal separation was feudal at best My Hope in writing this email is to see better understanding involvement with the staff guidance and administrators at the timy towards the students who actively seek their help it was unfortunate for my group of friends that took an email from a student to a joint admin and parents group to get a minimal invol ment from the administrators for the students that don't have parental involvement it seems like there's no help at all it's intimidate thank you for your time L jelbert and just a reminder um that you if you cannot make the meeting in person for public participation you can send an email to Matha suroy maoy meu. k12.us before 3 p.m. on the day of the school committee meeting Madam superintendent would you please start the discussion on the transportation for the start of school sure thing so um we have invited uh Rich Li he is our consultant that did the report uh last uh meeting that we shared with you uh he did come last week to meet with the Transportation subcommittee uh I think there's an update that we want to present tonight to the committee uh this is something we are going to follow closely about our roots and open drivers so we have some of that to share with you tonight and then you know our next steps right what we should be doing next in this process so I will invite Rich lib up to the podium good evening evening uh and thank you for the invitation uh as the uh superintendent mentioned I met with the Transportation subcommittee uh last week uh reported where we were at that point with drivers uh for the start of the school year uh we were about the equivalent of six drivers short on the regular Transportation side and two drivers short on the special Edge side uh between then and now uh we learned this afternoon that the special ed routs are all fully covered uh and they have sufficient drivers uh and they are uh the equivalent of one driver short on the regular Transportation side but they have a driver in training uh and be who's being tested tomorrow so hopefully that driver passes and uh then this number of drivers is complete however there are four parts of uh four roots mostly in the afternoon that remain uncovered but in their email to me they indicated that they had still had four spare drivers at the terminal uh I sent them back an email this afternoon uh indicating that I expect any and all Beacon Personnel to be driving uh to cover these open routes and these are primarily in the afternoon uh and they're at uh uh timony and and tenny uh we're monitoring this uh more than on a daily basis I mean almost hourly uh as emails come back and forth and I will say that uh the two Transportation managers did work over the weekend uh because I did have some emails going back and forth with them over the weekend uh so I give them at least that credit that they're uh they're working to resolve this issue um and uh as I said to the superintendent at this point uh we should wait and see uh for the start of school uh if they have not covered everything uh then uh I would think we will meet and discuss what our options are at that point to uh with regard to the contract uh non-performance uh Andor default um and uh as an aside uh as a result of my uh meeting with both the subcommittee uh and questions that have come in uh we are writing an addendum uh to the report to answer questions that have that have Arisen so if I may you had mentioned that special ed bus routes are covered We Are One driver down on the other side the bus side but you said there are four routes in the afternoon that are uncovered I assume that it's one driver per route so my math is not mathing oh no the uh the the route it's it's a run uh for your uh either your your upper or your lower uh programs it's not a complete route in other words morning and afternoon it's just a a tier of the route that's uncovered okay so and your elementary schools in the afternoon when kids need to get home there are four buses they may be from different upper lower so it may be two and two it could be three and one I I don't know but either way it's not one driver can't be one driver if there's four routes no no no it's uh they're missing driver time they have drivers for the other three portions of the route they're missing a driver for a portion of that route you follow what I'm not following this at all you need a body in a bus to drive it simple as fact let's get that on the table if there's no body in the bus to drive it that means they don't have drivers that means buses don't leave and if we have four buses that can't leave that tells me we drivers more than one the driver in in question is completing the high school run your middle school run but your Elementary run is uncovered at this point so we're missing a driver we're missing part a part-time of a driver but in essence you don't have a full-time driver for for that route route you're correct in that looking at it that way but given that this is probably between a 30 and 40 minute run they have the capability of covering that with either a mechanic who has a CDL license Andor office staff who have a CDL license if they don't have enough spares uh they've indicated in other school districts that they have office staff that will drive in an emergency situation I would consider this to be an emergency situation uh if they don't have driver coverage for all of your roots and so how is it for root I'm sorry I I'd like to think I'm relatively intelligent but apparently I can't justify how we have four routes and it's only one driver one halftime driver down the driver that's down has there are no routs covered on that run in other words it's I'll just say it's bus 19 yeah we're looking for a full-time driver still on one route okay so we have one route meaning the all teers uncovered uncovered that's a that's a different kind of problem yep then we have four diff four routes so that's three that one driver on all routes High School upper lower that's three routes right there morning and afternoon so six okay right the so that's uncovered right now one full-time person to do all of those the same bus all three tiers yep okay so we have four routs right now where we have I'm going to I'm going to try to do this because I know what you're asking and I know it doesn't make what you're what you're saying is correct we are we are we are we're going to have late bus we're going to have four late buses on Wednesday if something doesn't change between now and Wednesday morning right but that doesn't mean the entire all six routes are not covered because I have somebody doing the morning route the morning three morning routs and 2 p.m. rout roots that one there's one left uncovered that they can't stay their day cannot extend to the lower school hour right so it's not a full-time driver I'm looking for I have these openings which the hope is that this the company which through our interactions today will cover those until they have somebody who can extend that time to cover that full-time so so yes I know what you're asking because we don't have a driver those four routes at the end of the day won't be covered but but it's not all six routs I'm not looking for a full I'm not looking for four full-time drivers I know that's weird and I'm with you on the like it it still means kids are going to be waiting and this is why we're pushing the the fact that they need to either have other staff cover them which as Rich has said has already been public knowledge that they've said from other districts is what they're going to do so we're hoping they're going to do that with us so it's one we have a drive that'll do all morning and then high school and upper but not the lower so it's one route at the end of the day not four of those people right four four of those people I have four openings in different places for that situation we just said and what is what is the barrier for them extending those days I have I do not know that because what the barrier is to extending those days because some of the feedback we've got and I wish remember doaga was here because I know he's received it as well is that nrt is capping them on ours saying you can't exceed 30 for no other reason than they don't want to pay it I don't know I I have not heard that have you heard that your contract doesn't have a limitation and I understand that however that doesn't mean they're not doing it on their end and we would never hear from the driver why hear it right I mean I've received messages I know he has mentioned he has as well so I just I want to make sure that we're not we can certainly inquire we're going back and forth as rich said like we're all on these emails now since Friday to see where we are and what our progress is to fill in those routs I will say that communication has certainly improved a lot from the the problems which we had last year we may not like the message but at least we're we're have pretty frequent and open communication now with the uh with the two managers Silver Lining and I think they understand the uh the importance of a good start I am aware that there are several drivers that they had that used to be full-time they used to do morning and afternoon who have decided for personal reasons or whatnot that they only want to drive in the morning some are taking care of elderly people or family members or whatever in the afternoon so they don't want to get rid of them completely cuz then they're down at additional um so they have more drivers in the morning available than they do in the afternoon so they're trying to find people to either pick up the second half or you know find the match to that so the fact that there's openings means that they probably borrowed somebody from the tech route who they do their Tech route and then they come and do our upper school route but that still leaves the lowest school route available and so there's a lot of moving parts and the reason I I responded to their email of the expectation of any and all Beacon Personnel is that they have the ability to because they're the parent company they have the ability to transfer Personnel between different sites that they operate uh in the marac valley so all of those Personnel aren't necessarily background checked and stuff the way that our our folks are accurate I'm sorry is it accurate to say that not all of those floating Personnel coming in from other districts are background checked and vetted the same way that our drivers are that are regular everyday drivers uh they would be checked B they would be but the difference is that they're not checked I check all of the ones and okay them for Methuen so the the issue there that we have to contend with as we go into this cycle of you know new contract writing is uh that if they're coming from somewhere else the Lin terminal I haven't cleared those people as a methan superintendent another superintendent might have but it hasn't been meet they do meet the the state requirement they've been cored stored and fingerprinted they have to go through that and they send them to all the principal I mean the superintendents in the districts that they work for that I think is standard practice but that's not my my standard might be very different than somebody else's standard so I haven't seen those core does that make sense so so while they work for nrt and have gone through the vetting process they haven't gone through the vetting process here in mayor MC Valley with the superintendents up here Mr chairman yeah just as a a point of uh information is that what I Envision and obviously it's subject to approval of the school committee and I had it vetted through the superintendent uh legal councel is that initially we do the FBI database then subsequent to that we go to the Corey which is not as comprehensive as the FBI database which is 50 states the happen stance of the allegations of what transpired very fortunate to have it occur in our jurisdiction because if we were relying upon just Corey that alleged driver might have fell through a loophole so what I Envision is for methan and we got clearance to do it is have the FBI database continue for our drivers and bypass Cory because Corey is not as comprehensive it's it's just adjudication of State matters and FBI database is is it's a it's a false sense of security um so that what member shabil is indicating he is he's accurate so if we have someone pull from outside the community um from another District they will be rely upon Corey's Pro state law but the stronger policy that I Envision subject to approval of the school committee would not subject them to FBI database because they're filling drivers and that's the conundrum I'm envisioning that we might have a problem with but obviously I understand some of the part-time drivers um because of uh personal issues still having them be able to work because what's a sense of uh discarding them but like the hybrid approach is going to impact us because the text email notifications to families that upgraded system will not work if we have backup drivers from outside the area so that was one of the biggest stumbling points was the parents were like we're not being notified it's a half hour hour where is that bus and we upgraded our system internally with text and email notifications and we also have tracking similar to what Boston does but if you get someone from outside the system as a fill in um the the security measure isn't up top and that text email notification will have to be addressed at some point for the sake of the the parents um so member shabil has valid points and I've been working with the superintendent on that um and that should be incorporated in the RFP anyways at some point but that was one one of the things I just wanted to yeah thank you Mr chairman so I think there's a there's a a couple of things here there's we want to figure out where we are right now for this school year right some of these conversations member wette that we've been talking about are all the details we want to see in the new specs new RFP new contract right we we definitely I think all agree on some of those pieces um of which will happen in Open Session which I have confirmed with legal council those conversations will happen in Open Session as we go through our uh conversations about the RFP uh that uh rich and his team are going to help us draft that was why we brought him on board uh because he's been doing this a lot longer than we all have and has a different lens and relationship with this work so for tonight our our goal was and we weren't sure where we were going to be as of this moment with drivers and some of the options I think um Rich summarized it a little bit by saying where we we would like to open school we have we have 1 through 12 this week some K in the district and then all of K next week and so we want to see where nrt where we land as we open the next 5 days um and the likelihood that we have this conversation again on our September 9th meeting is probably High um and we might bring Rich back that night to talk about what our options are that evening if we still have open routs and drivers how do we Define that situation what is the action of the school committee and what that entails and what that allows us to do or not do to uh to move forward to uh make sure that we have drivers for our students so it was it was looking like we were going to need to do some of those votes tonight uh but I think after today we need to see how the school how it opens uh I think that's going to make us most comfortable um and then on September 9th we have another discussion about how the first seven days six days have gone uh if we're still in the same boat and they haven't brought in uh office staff to fill these gaps or have hired people and we still have open routes I think the conversation on the 9th will be a little bit different with this committee about what our next steps need to be to move forward to make sure our buses have drivers and our kids are getting home on time I so please note that member doag join the meeting at 6:15 okay member Willet thank you Mr chairman and I I appreciate your involvement um having your background experience is so vital on a a day-to-day basis I I think it was worth having the contract uh because when we had the initial meeting with nit the corporate culture was terrible they weren't forthcoming with information um they were obstinate um they were making referrals to regulations um and that was it from their standpoint um I think the methan manager whatever transpired on that I I think it was healthy to have a new person in that capacity um what I've said in in Prior meetings is that they need to have similar to other Transportation companies in Massachusetts some type of either an employee handbook or evidence are doing onboarding it's like some type of verification that they go through um sexual harassment and and other laws of a review or some type of an employee handbook um and I I think that's a very telling uh thing for the company not to have either there's like um ADP which oversees HR for like a million companies say it's vital to have some type of employee handbook and I'm old school with the handbook so what they do now is maybe onboarding um that culture has to be improved in that regard um I know we don't have the director of security and transportation um so whatever the conduit is I know on a temporary basis you're on the front lines I definitely appreciate it I know the superintendent and her staff are on the front lines I know we're going to do everything possible to resolve the busing um the only thing else I would say um is that in the recommendations and I know the subcommittee brought it up is that now that we're going back into school are we going to do some type of surveying of the parents to gauge because like my impression is most of our drivers are excellent drivers that they don't have complaints it was isolated incidents but I don't know so I want to be able to survey the parents is that something that either the subcommittee um or the the administration envisions of surveying the parents because I think that was one of the recommendations that you highlighted um and I think it's crucial just to gauge the parents because we don't know we get some of the reports but you know I think would be typically typically we we recommend a a parent survey if there's ongoing problems with either communication with parents uh or Roots uh where parents are are vocal about about the issue okay uh because at that point we want to Quant ify what that issue is as we move through the contractual management process uh especially if we have uh to defend our actions with the uh the inspector General's office or the Attorney General's office so we want to make sure that we have documented data and often times uh if there's we're moving in that direction uh we would suggest a survey monkey or or one of the online surveys uh but I don't think we're there yet okay the only thing I would add is that U so um I think you know that um you know we tried to do launch the audit um and uh the feedback from the community at large we had 18 people pull the bid nobody bid and they're it's too big too big a too big a pie so we have since split it into financial and operational and I will tell you that we did I did write in there um some elements of the transportation where parents and staff would be interviewed about uh transportation performance right and we can beef that up you I I just sent it to a member Donovan a member shilia I'm happy to send it to whoever wants to read it um but you know to me um rather than hit with a separate survey you know do it as part of the audit and get parental and staff feedback on you know what they see the transportation performance as and what's been happening okay and I you know and I long term I agree with that process I think shortterm too the Survey Monkey is just to gauge because we don't know um and like I said these could be isolated instances and we have an like an allegation of a crime that's still going through the adjudication process um now are you seeing with the new manager a change of of attitude and more open communication well I wasn't part of the problem last last uh year so I don't have the you know the the no but I mean are you getting cuz we had really nothing we had you know we are we are getting pretty much uh turnaround uh of questions and answers uh on the timeline that we've requested I'll give you an example uh I had sent an email on uh Friday uh indicating to your two managers that uh I was meeting with the school committee to report the status of uh drivers for the start of school uh and I asked for an update uh before 3:00 this afternoon at the latest uh and I received them both before 3:30 so I'm I'm comfortable with the uh uh with the the type and the uh the frequency of communication like I said I'm not overly thrilled with what I'm what I'm hearing and seeing but uh we're moving we're moving in the right direction and we've certainly moved uh a lot since Thursday of last week okay and then um through no fault of the school district um the governor did massive cutbacks to expected uh Chapter 70 funding so administrative positions were limited ated one of them was the director of transportation and security the superintendent's office I think whoever is involved in that process of incoming calls um is that something that you know with the text and email system that we have set up that will still uh continue um what is the apparatus for because we don't have the director full-time director anymore you're looking at him okay so Ian all right and I have confidence and Ian I've known him for many years he's you know he's a nice guy but I mean that was something too that thrusted upon us is that we had to do is cut eliminate the director of security and transportation so uh I just want to make sure that have open lines of communication and and again this is healthy and I don't want you ever perceive that we're doing an adversarial thing um we might have questions and concerns but um I want to make sure that n was always the focus m like we did internal reforms but nit was like multiple red flags of how they communicate to us uh in the culture of the corporate culture that needed to be improved so um that I'm all said Thank you Mr chairman thank you um Mr chair sorry I was L was my first day back at school so I was working late um so yeah I also know few people that work for nrt and they said they were being C ours um as well I don't know I know member shilia brought that up just a few minutes ago but I wanted just a recap on that uh what what nrt is saying or doing they're not doing that we we said like that's not something they have told us we were just I think it was member shilia who asked do we know the reason why maybe some people are not working the last route that's not the we haven't heard that from anybody at nrt and I don't think Rich has either I'm not sure we would hear that if uh if you have that in correspondence I'd appreciate if you would uh forward that to me I could try and ask them it was it was voice it was voice it was a voice call I was just asking and they they they don't want to lose their well quite frankly if they kept I understand I I was just asking the question if it's true if you heard that I'm not C hours of full-time drivers like what is it specifically you want us to ask she said that she's not working more than she has to like in the sense of getting extra hours or anything of that sort well quite frankly being asked to cover extra Roots if she could okay yeah some some of your roots uh are longer than 6 hours a day especially you're out of District uh special ed Transportation routes uh many of them uh are closer to and Driver time and closer to 8 hours a day uh so to cap anybody at anything uh makes absolutely no sense okay and also uh your contract doesn't doesn't have that included in it so there's no reason contractually that they would have to do that like I said I don't know what it was and I know we were having a meeting um so I I'm just asking that question well I I I think if I could help you out here M yeah I think the question on the floor uh that arouses my interest is is that we go to nrt and say is there a 30h hour gap is there a 30- hour cap on on specific drivers and if there is why right that's the question right that's what you're trying to ask so that we're just trying to ascertain I don't think we're trying to ask the schools they would know is there a cap if it is it Financial or otherwise what's the reasoning for it right that's all we're asking okay all right sorry about that I'm dis than did you have anything else to no Kristen you good remember will it yeah thank you Mr chairman um in terms of um I know member shilia and member daglio were approached about the cap in terms of whistleblower protections should that be in the RFP because if these drivers somehow think they're being capped with with hours or they have issues that they've been told I'm just saying hypothetically not to bring to the attention should we have have the Whistleblower protections I know we have state and federal laws is that something that in your experience with rfps that the drivers are protected with the Whistleblower those drivers that are covered with a Collective barwing Agreement uh either through the teamsters United Food and Cooperative Workers Union Steel Workers that I'm aware of the the three that I'm aware of have whistleblower protection uh in their collective bargaining agreements uh nrt is non-union so so I'm not sure and can we I mean obviously can we impose we can include it in our in our Bic concern if drivers and they're on the front lines and let's say hypothetically they have a problematic bus um and I think we have at any time um the capacity to pull a videotape from the cameras and if we need to we can put a monitor on a bus that's there's no restrictions on that but I'm concerned as if someone wants to a say something and they're not protected under whistleblower um then that's a huge gap too that I think should be incorporated we can we can include it the likelihood is that it would be found to be a Personnel matter oh yeah I on their side like the handbook and the on board hand and some of the other things but lot of discrepancies we can include it uh what would happen is at the biders meeting uh the biders would comment on it uh probably would ask to have it removed uh and we would discuss it at that point but we can include almost anything we need that within certain parameters yeah in the specifications themselves uh and then see where the uh what the final contract looks like the final bid speec looks like yeah we have a uh We've collected a laundry list already of of things that we've heard uh over this past year from reviewing some of your previous school committee meetings and uh uh of what uh what we think the first at least the first draft of the uh of the bid spec should look like and what they should include okay along with the fact that uh uh uh as you know uh we provided uh technical assistance to over 300 school districts nationally uh very few of them have said our transportation program is running fine and we have plenty of money and we have plenty of drivers come in and and take a look at us uh almost everyone we've as a result of they're having to face some type of a problem or issue so we see a lot of issues we've seen a lot of uh uh problems uh and we've seen uh a number of ways to address and to improve though improve them so we draw from a lot of different uh resources uh to put together a specification that uh meets your requirements uh and that will pass muster with both the uh inspector General's office for 30b uh and uh and for the Attorney General's office in the event that someone files a complaint because from my perspective I think it's a reasonable expectation that we're upgrading the the background checks I think it's a reasonable expectation to improve the culture and I think it's a reasonable expectation to have either handbook or onboarding and in this case here to protect the drivers to The Whistleblower component I think is a reasonable expectation I don't think anybody could ever question those items I I I just would the only thing I'd say is the absence of it from a a negotiated agreement with a specific driver I'm not going to name a company right does not exempt it from state of federal legislation right I mean the fact that we don't have a handbook or we don't have a um you know we don't have a whistleblower article in a CBA with nrt or any other does not exempt the company from um state and federal legislation I would strongly suggest that um If a driver had a problem and it Rose to that level hopefully it never would but if it Rose to that level they would they would be covered under whistleblower legislation if if so bless you so that's my two cents you're you're no you're absolutely correct Bottom Line This is a government contract sorry my apologies no um I don't know if you want to wait till later in the evening for this but given the fact they probably our parents watching and now concerned that the first day of school their child might not be arriving when they hope to arrive and given the fact that we have all that construction going on around the Tenny District um it might be worthwhile if you explain what the protocols are when we have a late bus maybe put everyone's at least know there's a process in place to keep everyone safe and orderly and get home as soon as we can sure from staying at school to getting notified by 1:00 all those pieces okay I'm like I'm just want to make sure that I'm on the same page as you yeah so uh we will keep the same systems in place that we had certainly at at the end of the school year where we had nrt had to notify Us by noon time I think it was noon or 1:00 at the latest of the late buses that we were going to have those days so that the school the district could communicate with the families on those buses um you know keep in mind right now you are and I'm I'm being not funny but funny but Ian is our finance uh director and doing all Transportation right now as well so uh we're going to do everything we can to make sure I think I went to his office three times today and he and his secretary were on the phone with three different people and parents about bus routes so we we're going to get the communication out there and what we found last year and we're going to keep careful track of that is what they told us at 1:00 wasn't what happened at 3:00 right so we we're keeping again careful track of all of those things uh we had some good data from January to June uh that we were able to track every single route and the times that was some additional information we did give to Rich um after our subcommittee meeting as well to help look at you know performance or non-performance and so that was something else that we will be tracking as well but we will communicate with parents uh you know it might might get uh you know just make sure everybody reads their emails looks at their text for talking points uh we will send those out as frequently as we need to for late buses again as we know this is that this is this is the critical part for us is the communication right because it's not uh when we know we will send out information to parents in addition we're going to require in a specification that the uh the parent app evidently Beacon is ruling out a new parent app uh be live time uh posting it 30 minutes later doesn't help parents at all so so I I was going to come at that and I was going to start by saying I dread bringing this up in that disastrous presentation yes he speak used the word disastrous you know forth with um there was much talk about an app that they needed a couple more months to work on an app was going to be ready and that app was be in May I'm sorry supposed to be ready in May you correct so um you know when people talk about specific dates I usually write them down and remember them and this is one I remember so um I too like member will think Ian is one hell of a guy um and appreciate everything he does from me public schools and how hard he works but I I think it's it's Folly to put all of this on any one person's shoulders whether it's yours or his uh when we had a company said stand in front of us and say we will have an app ready by May um and now we haven't heard I I don't know maybe you guys have we haven't heard anything about it I don't do you want to talk about that Ian just briefly um back in May early June um prob it might have been late May um they did send us out a a training a date for training it's called beacon beacon connect so they did do a training yeah and our transportation person went to that training and learned all about it and they just emailed me I I reached out to them and said hey my guy who was trained is gone um so they did just email me as soon as I told them that so that I could go spend some time getting trained and speaking connect so yes that they they do have um a system up it will as I understand grow more parts more parts but they do have one for communication for um for discipline of students that kind of stuff it's going to be all through Beacon connect at this point but it will become more robust as it goes forward but they do have something up and running and I need need to get trained between now and Wednesday and and I guess the follow question would be accessible to parents I will know when I I haven't looked at it quite frankly it's not accessible to parents then it's not helping right right it's just adding work to people who are already overworked right yeah I I can check to see if there's a there's a we do have access to where's my child which is the tracking app and only works if they're using the correct buses and the back end setup correctly and those are the buses that we usually don't need to track because the driver showed up and they're driving the right bus but I I I guess and and and maybe this is my naivity my expectation of any bus company would be so I'm aware of where's my child and when that presentation was made that faithful night I remember that being said that's not the app you want to use that was the bus company said that's not the app you want to use you want to use our app right so wait a couple months and we'll have our app okay so I I mean I hate to keep banging the drum here but this is a perfect example of where is it right not not you know have you trained in what is the bus company doing to help us get that out to our parent community so that they understand what it's used for and what it's not used for and how they should best use it right uh because otherwise the whole thing is quite frankly a house cards built on you know communication that we didn't didn't see last year we're highly hopeful it'll be better this year and I believe you trust me when I say you know um I have confidence that what you're telling me is correct but I don't want to see it all fall down to one person who's got access to an app that may or may not tell us what you know if I was the president of nrt I would have somebody here at this meeting tonight showing this committee this is the app this is how it works this is how parents can take advantage of it yet none of that happens right without I I I guess it's just too hard to me right in defense of nrt yeah uh you don't they don't have a contractual responsibility to provide that okay uh it's something that they're doing uh for their own business reasons uh and uh uh ultimately uh people are going to people being school districts are going to pay for it going going forward because it'll be incorporated into their their their ongoing costs absolutely so but remember Willet yeah just a quick um point of information um the city of Boston they have that capacity right is that the same program or is it a separate program I have no idea city of city of Boston is not a client District so I have no idea what they do is something that's it's um adopted by other companies is it something I'm not familiar with this I'll do some research I didn't get that were it's called my bus is something I think that's used by other companies yeah they were talking specifically an app that they were developing go Beacon is I think used for their their companies Beacon connect would be proprietary to Beacon Mobility okay's my child is an app you can buy off the shelf because if you get city of Boston and they have an app that's seamless right and then they're they're going through the the nuts and bolts of a of a their own program and it's May and then now it's going to September and it's like you know it's almost like refreshing a window on a computer it's like Still Still refreshing you know and it's like going from that time frame to now it's like I rather just do is just Why reinvent the wheel if something like city of Boston has and I'm you know again I write an article on it but I'm going have to go thisy this is something they did internally for their own company it's certainly easy enough for us to inquire what it is just curious we'll bring that on the ninth as well yeah sorry I didn't mean to yeah no it's and for what it's worth abely respectfully I I well I understand your point contractually there's no obligation I disagree with the you know this is we've been talking about difficulty communicated yes right for quite some time right so while there's contractually no obligation I think if the uh if the company's interested in a relationship with the MTH public schools and they have an obligation to at least say we we didn't talk about the beacon app or whatever the heck it's called right that was brought up that night and I would tell you if you know even though some of the school committee members have changed for some of the people that were here it was like oh you know we were struggling where's my bus when do I use where's my bus and when do I use this other thing right and they the answer was you're going to want to use this other thing all the time right the one Mr chairman um just quickly it was Z the app what it was what Z was the city of Boston so I'm just curious oh I don't know yeah thank you madam Vice chair um one thing I want to make very clear to parents and going forward we need this written into the RFP is that we need the substitute buses are not tracked the late the new drivers are not tracked so so the the parent app isn't going to work on these four routes that we're talking about because we're not going to have the right bus on that route and so we need to make sure that in the RFP that substitute buses are tracked for the parents because those are the ones that are always late and those are the ones we want to know where our kids are so I just want to make that clear so that parents are aren't saying I'm using this app and I'm not seeing where my kit is it says they're at the terminal well it's it says they're at the terminal because that's the way the app works right now and so we need to make sure that that message is out there to parents and that we need to fix that problem in the future yeah the app the app is uh uh GIS based uh which is right now part probably part of the bus right and they need to hot swap the bus numbers on the app if they know that bus 12 is doing bus 19's route then they need to stick bus 12 into that in the back end so that it works one one of the ways of fixing that is if uh if Beacon were to uh purchase and install uh tablets for their drivers uh on the bus then the tablet goes with the driver uh if there's a spare driver on a spare bus he takes the tablet or she takes the tablet uh and GIS is tracked that way according to the tablet but that's that's an added cost but quite frankly our our our bid specs will will ask for the price of tablets uh because they operate like the uh uh like your uh navigation system in your car uh so almost any driver can get in and follow uh both uh you know verbal and uh and uh map instructions through the tablet uh as opposed to trying to read a uh a root sheet uh and and drive at the same time uh and depending on what the uh bid results are uh the school committee may or may not want to look at an alternative cost of requiring uh you know tablets but we know we uh you know we will put together you know some some alternates for you to consider to uh improve the system uh you know but perhaps you won't be able to to afford it but that's that's a that's a choice that the committee will make thank you all right all right thank you well as am I thank you yes happily so uh we have in front of you tonight uh our draft our new three-year plan a draft of that which is uh there were Blood Sweat and Tears put into this these ideas and Concepts and uh key actions putting this all together to really try to think about moving our district forward with what where we've come and where we want to go uh I think we've I think we've captured that and we've been able to uh weave in some things that I know I've talked about over the past three years felt like outliers and not part quite part of the uh the system as a whole so uh this this draft has been in the works for several months now and we had uh our leadership team we have a two-day Leadership Academy with all of our administrators in the district a few weeks ago and we presented this and we took time working on this for a full day during those that time with our administrator so we're here tonight uh to present to you what we think is going to be our next three-year strategy plan for district Improvement so I'm going to ask Lisa uh Dr glovsky to go through these with you there are some slides that hopefully will explain some of the things uh that we're going to go over tonight that just will be beneficial um on what some of the asterics and numbers mean and why they look a certain way uh so that was helpful we I got some questions ahead of time so Dr golovsky was able to put these slides together today so that everybody could really understand where we're coming from and I think the most important part of this process for us is uh also aligning our work but also aligning our work to Des initiatives bringing it to what methan needs uh we know and I've been in this business enough to know that um when Desi aligns certain things uh that means that we typically will uh benefit from that in in the sense of resources and grants and funds uh webinars Partnerships things like that that's where they're going to focus their attention uh and so we have a lot of similarities this year with and I I think I shared that last time of what desie is really focused on there's a there's a different commissioner the focus feels different um I think they're looking at data a little differently which is where we've always been coming from it can't just be one test score that defines a school district there's a lot of other pieces that that we need to look at a little deeper and I think that's where we're going with this plan is going deep deeper um based on the information we had in the last three years so with that said I will turn it over to Dr golovsky Who will start us off thank you Dr Quan you're welcome um so you have in front of you a slide packet and also the actual document packet I'll toggle back and forth uh between the two um but I'm going to start with the slides um to lay the foundation for how we arrived at this direction or this blueprint blueprint for the next three years um so first we have the educational Vision um of desie um which is that all students are known and valued learning experiences are relevant real world and interactive and individualized supports enable students to excel at grade level and Beyond um so certainly all things we believe in um generally stated um and then the next slide shows desie strategic objectives um so the first focus is on the whole student um so joyful healthy supportive learning environments where students feel connected valued ready to learn um the second focus is on that deeper learning um so you've heard a lot this past year and again moving forward you'll continue to hear about grade level work and how important that is um in real world relevant interactive work um and then their third piece is is um diverse and effective Workforce so preparing Educators um and a staff that's culturally responsive and well prepared committed to continuous Improvement and having Equitable access um for students to effective Educators So within each of these bundles is a whole lot of smaller parts that we also um believe in and that set us up for our plan as well um and Dr and I had already started Banning about ideas for our plan then saw where desie was going and was happy to see that there was a marriage there already um and so in this first piece of the Strategic objective number one for desie it talks about the whole student um the commissioner is really focused on chronic absenteeism being a metric for Success um because it does speak to students engagement feeling of belonging and connectivity in school it does Trend itself um to support students in having higher test scores having more opportunities making use of those opportunities um and reducing the chance that students will um drop out or become disengaged um so this chart here represents um across the state trends that um desie has tracked from prek through high school um pre pandemic up to current day and still how we're we're still not um where the state would like to be so the real emphasis is on chronic absenteeism which I'll speak more specifically about in a bit in terms of methan population and this slide is just um in case you're unaware of the district standards and indicators that desie sets forth so these are the the areas of which they review um or audit the school system in terms of these areas so the leadership and govern governance curriculum and instruction assessment financial and asset management student support and HR professional development and you'll see aspects of each of these woven into our plan so the methan public schools Vision core belief um are the same as they were for for the previous plan um and what's changed is the theory of action so we are asserting that if we aim for the objectives which I'm about to propose and share then we will close gaps and improve outcomes for each student so as once take a moment to go over the components of the plan so we're going to share three objectives there's a rationale for each or the logic and reasoning behind why each objective is important four priority areas for each of those objectives which we believe are high leverage pieces so if we were to aim for those priorities or really shed some light on those areas for the next three years we think we would move the needle in terms of making those gains for our objectives and 10 to 12 key actions for each of those objectives so I want to emphasize this is not an exhaustive list of everything that we intend to do these are just the high leverage pieces that we're promoting and highlighting many of which are multi-year actions um and then there's also annual measures of progress um and I'll I'll certainly say more about that but those are key indicators from multiple data sources that would suggest at the end of the year whether our focus on the priorities and execution of key actions are doing what we think they will um and certainly give us time to make adjustments as we move forward okay so as a as a review of where we're coming from and where we're going our previous objective one um we're all familiar with and it centered on student literacy outcomes and that was really targeted through the um skillful use of high quality core instructional materials and interventions so at the onset of that plan in many areas we were um faced with the challenge of putting those highquality materials in place training teachers on how to use them having that become of part of the fabric of how we operate on a day-to-day basis objective two had been um to increase prevention intervention activities to lower the rates of anxiety depression and post-traumatic stress in students and the third had been um to provide students from historically disadvantaged groups with Equitable access to an excellent education so Dr Quang has said um multiple times that after the plan had been developed and accepted she felt as though objective three were something that um we wouldn't check off as completed in terms of offering Equitable access that's something that needs to be underlying everything that we do so you'll see objective three Still Remains but it's absorbed in the new objectives in the plan um and we we felt the the same for objective two so social emotional learning mental health is not its own box or something that's compartmentalized but it is a piece of everything that we do so we hope that that comes across here so our um the objectives that we're proposing for the 24 through 27 plan the first is to accelerate literacy development and language acquisition across all subject areas so in the previous plan it did feel as though the literacy development um was was primarily the responsibility of the ELA teacher and maybe the administrators overseeing that in this new objective we share that responsibility so all teachers are responsible for helping to promote literacy development and also the language development piece in support of our English language Learners um and so we' we'd like to see students as being all of ours instead of just owned by certain departments and the second objective um this is something that we've seen for a number of years and that's the disparity in student um outcomes between student groups and we mentioned this in the SOA plan objective two mirrors our SOA plan pretty closely in talking about the all students group as compared to the students with disabilities group and the English learner student group those are the areas where we see the the most sizable disparities um not just in achievement but in Opportunity um so looking at who's enrolled in certain types of programs um who is aware of C certain types of programs that may be available to them how are we supporting students reaching the expectations not just holding those expectations for them um and then the third piece is to enhance Partnerships with students and families to increase connectivity engagement and belonging um and we chose we chose that phrasing um carefully so we could have said enhanced communication but it didn't have that same meaning we're really trying to create Partnerships um and I'll say more about that as as we move on okay so we're slowly panning out here to see the larger plan so we have each objective which I just um highlighted and then the priorities for each so these are those High leverage Focus areas um which we would Center um and work on to develop each of the objectives so for the for the literacy piece and I spoke to it um briefly before building that culture of accountability for leaders and Educators supporting students in delivering standards aligned instruction that build students comprehension of texts while increasing student ownership and from our previous screening and testing we know that comprehension is the area that that's most challenging for students across the board so we want to hone in on that utilize screening and progress monitoring to track student growth and adjust instruction so we have been screening for literacy um and progress monitoring um also with the help of our tntp partners we're doing the same for students that are English Learners um we want to hone in on that uh instruction adjustment and then now that we have high quality core instructional materials in place our are we using them effectively so a lot of these programs come with um so many parts and pieces that it's really an art and a skill to know how to arrange the order of the assignments know when to scaffold and when not um and then I'll speak to the the number two so about the disparities between student groups um so we really want to support leaders and Educators to utilize culturally and linguistically sustaining practices um we started some of that work at the leadership academy that Dr Quang had referenced um and we had um a really engaging speaker come in um Edward Walker who shared some insight on culturally responsive pedagogy and teaching and education um so that our leaders know how to help guide teachers in those areas um we want to look at the um focused supports and interventions that are offered and explore how they're offered and are we really helping all students engage in deeper learning the co- teing piece is something that's um been on our minds for several years and now I feel as though we have more co-taught sections and courses than previously before so we have sections where there may be a gen Ed gen eded teacher and a special ed teacher both teaching a class we have other situations where there's a gened teacher and an El teacher both both teaching a class and so these Partnerships are new for a lot of our teachers and some may not quite be sure of what the model or Exemplar looks like how can we most effectively use these two experts in one room to deliver more personalized instruction so we've already started some work in that area um and we also want to monitor the um utilization of the supports that we offer to students so um John Crocker and I have talked a lot about all the mental health supports that we offer and social emotional learning um and we've had some interesting conversations about looking at the proportions of student populations to see if that usage is widespread and if not are we really publicizing or supporting all student groups in exercising their right to use those supports um and then to specify the priorities on the third um to enhance Partnerships our first bullet there just like desie talks about improving school and District rates of chronic absenteeism so chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of school days so if you are enrolled for 180 days that would be missing 18 or more days but when you break it down over the term the number may seem small kids might not realize that a college visit and not being in school counts towards that or um maybe you're ill at home and it's an excused absence in school but in the eyes of the state if you're not in school you're not in school and so that counts as chronic absenteeism so um that rate for our accountability data is tracked from students in grade one through 12 and you have to have been enrolled in methan public schools at some point during the year for 20 consecutive days so say you're enrolled for only a month and a half and you're absent for a handful of those days you could fall into that category um we also want to empower student voice and increase student engagement in specialty programming and extracurricular opportunities um I'll say more about that with some of our key actions we want to provide regular opportunities for families to engage in school related activities join parent groups or utilize services and programs available to them we had some luck with some school day off offerings this past year that we'd like to expand also offer some after hours offerings for other families um and we we generally want to increase communication to inform families about School progress and programming and Garner feedback so we're going to continue with the newsletters and notifying parents of upcoming events but I think it's really important also to be very transparent with parents families and students about where they stand at academically in terms of their progress and then what the next steps would be to help them improve in those areas so so definitely a focus with progress in that area as well okay I've talked for a while are there questions up to this point I will get to the measures afterward and key actions but I sent some questions Brewing excuse me memb thank you Mr chair and I don't I don't want to be I I love the ideas of like having um support clubs and all that but the problem I have that I've witness a lot is holding like the commission is like I'm really concerned about chronic apses but where are we holding parents accountable in some aspects because sometimes parents will decide to take their kids for a month out of school to go away or better yet also and again it's a sad world that we live in there are parents that just don't care that their kids go to school or not it is happening all across the country in the Commonwealth and I think it we could put all these things in but if we're not holding p and I'm not saying the M Public Schools that's beyond our control but the state legislator should needs to do a better job of holding parents say no your kid needs to be in school um and that's that's that that is what I deal with I've dealt with it now for three four years where kids have been gone for like two three months and then they pop back in June and we're like hey where have you been and it's happening all the time and legislation will always find well schools schools schools need to do this this but schools can only do so much so the question I have is is what is the commissioner's P plan to make making sure these kids are coming to school if the schools are reporting saying these kids are not coming to school yeah so um the Thousand question um so the as Educators right we've I've been doing this for a long time there are certain things that are certainly going to be out of our control what the commissioner and I thought uh a few weeks ago he did a webinar and I would say 40 minutes of the our webinar on his objectives was focused on chronic absenteeism and resources and it was very clear to me at that point that this is right what is in our control is the engagement the Outreach the education of why education is important right the bottom line is I'm not going to be able to I hold students accountable I hold staff accountable I can't hold a parent accountable for their decisions however some of those decisions may have consequences and I do feel it's our job and our role to then educate the parents on what are those consequences if your child just doesn't want to come to school and you let that happen let's talk about those consequences right every team that we worked with for uh during the leadership academy I met with the principles on a on a separate occasion previous to that to talk specifically about chronic absenteeism right it is it is such a challenge and a district this size to tackle right to make those engage those lines of communication with with the parents and teach and educate about what those consequences are right and as the kids get older uh and I imagine that you all looked uh through that when we had the the handbook conversation but we decreased the number of days students could be absent for the high school credit denial so this is everything we're doing right is going to have a consequence so so we can't start increasing the number of days kids can be out and still get credit for a class because then they're just going to be out for that number of days right with no consequence so we're trying to we're trying to balance our community with the engagement and education that's where we come in and it was super clear to me that day when the commissioner spoke that that's where he's going to syn the resources what do we need to provide our our families what do we what resources do we need do we need to have more events do we need to go to those places do we need more translators the answer is yes to all those yes to all those things right how do we make sure that parents understand the value of Education here we have parents coming from families coming from all different countries where education is very different the system of education is different in the country they're coming from so what is in our control to educate those families about what our education system is and how it can provide for their children that's that's that's what is within our control to do that's what we are prepared to do you know we hope that by re-engaging parents by re-educating by spending like really focusing on the kids who are chronically absent we had several schools uh last year this was one of the goals of the principl uh specifically a a target number for chronic absentee students right and following them um and it was it was incredibly challenging to take last year students who are chronic absent right we have last year students who were chronically absent I know who those are today but what I don't know is the kids who are going to become chronically absent that I have to also maintain and follow right it's it's incredibly challenging to follow this um but but we put some really good things in place that we think our teams can start to tackle with within the education making the relation re-engaging students and families with attendance so that was a really long answer but you're not wrong in the sense that there's certain things I can't control and you can't control but our job I see it as our job is to do everything we can to educate the students and the family and re-engage them into why education is important what we offer to students is is valuable for their child in all different regards right social emotional academic going to high school going to secondary education going into a trade whatever they choose all of those things are going to lead to that so so again there are I'm we're focused on what is in with our control and what we can do to make those gains that's where that's where our focus is so again long answer and I apologize but no and and thank you Dr Quang and I I know like for any District that is a challenge but for the commissioner and again I I've listened to his statements I read online about what he's and I feel like again he's the the problem that we're have because I I I also see it where kids's been chronically absent but then he's allowed to go to the next grade or he usually go to next grade cuz we're worried about keeping him back for social emotional but then his reading levels are down and they go why is that and then it keeps going that it's like a Snowball Effect and then at the end of the day the commissioner is saying well The Chronic abses need to be taken care of but then again we're we're doing all these programming but nobody again sees that the amount of resources that we have to pump in because that one small problem that parents are not being held accountable bringing their kids to school that's and I'm not saying to every single parent there are times where kids are really really sick and they're out for 40 50 days that's it but we're talking about the ones that are perfectly healthy the parent and again I've heard these situations all over the state I have friends that are teaches that will say parents said yeah I didn't wake up in time so I didn't bring them to school today and it's like well when is that parent being held accountable and that's just because I've heard the commissioner over and over go I see the commercials all the time about chronic absent bring your kids to school keep your kids in school but it's never solving that direct problem that's stared at the beginning and I'm not saying all students I'm just saying that small group of students that's just my general thing I guess the only thing I'd add to it before I turn it over to membership bil is um I really like that third objective uh I'd love to see something in there that says something about data and I know I've talked about this before right using data to make a correlation between student performance and parental involvement right so those are two different aises and to me you know setting up some kind of program that focused on uh trying to Ed just to educate like a better terms to educate parents it says when your child is absent this much or can't complete you know this these assignments you use you know um what's the platform called Insight Infinite Campus infinite campus thank you you're welcome to me you know making a correlation for parents between um you know number of days they're in school assignments they miss Etc and performance is kind of a huge thing and and is hard to ignore right to me because you know to your point you know you don't want to get to the end of the year and just quote unquote promote the child right and I know we have to do that in certain occasions but our I'd like to see part of that third one be you know a targeted program to kind of make that correlation for parents so that they understand every time your child misses a day right it it puts them back and we can say that a million times they'll say yeah yeah but he's you know relatively smart he'll pick up you know well when you're chronically absent that doesn't happen right you're missing stuff right that you needed so I guess that's my two cents m shilia so just keeping on The Chronic absenteeism for now and we can get to my one and two stuff later um you said that it includes the medical absences that get reported to the state so if you have a child that is medically complex that kid misses a day a week that's going to reflect in our number correct do you have a mechanism for removing those kids from our number so we can see the kids that are just avoiding school you can yes that's the number I'd be interested in yes so that's what our our principles are looking at when we get the chronic absenteeism we actually have a da a weekly report that's run that's sent to them when kids hit a certain number and the principes actually know which students are not the ones that are going to call because they have the medical excuse but the state uh does not absolutely does not distinguish between excused absence unexcused absence the reason for that absent is just days mist of school so that's why it's defined so so we may have right 20% with this is what you're going to see right 20% chronic absenteeism uh we know why we know 7% I have to put in this bucket because those are ones I know that legit are going to be out for all reasons that we would understand right so now that leaves me with all right what's this 133% who are these kids that I'm going to focus on so there is that that we do internally but externally desie the numbers that you see on our accountability report uh are just days missed yeah I mean that's I'm not going to fix des's reporting right nonsense so when it student gets to so many days whatever that many days may be I just I look back on when I was in high school and think someone would have had a treny officer we used to did you find that helpful when it was in place uh I I did not have I think I was principal at the CGS when the high school had a truancy officer and then it was just eliminated due to budget reasons I don't I don't think yeah it was a long time ago I mean this is the hard part right this is the hard part so L Public Schools is touted for having this wonderful program to deal with Tru Andy chronic absenteeism they have a department in full-time staff to do it right so they have an offshoot of let's say our My Family Resource Center they have four five six full-time staff members dedicated to this one topic which is great great right so so they actually were one of the school districts that participated in a webinar this past spring that we all joined and everybody else around the state did to learn what they're doing now we're taking what we can from them and the tracking that they used and the communication they used and try to now disseminate that into buildings with principles and guidance counselors because that's who we have to do this work right so so there's it it's there's challenges every around every corner uh to do this work as well and we're taking it to make it so that what is our system look like who can be involved in the system appropriately because I so I have you know I have Ian doing Transportation right like we have people doing 10,000 Things uh and so so that was a big part of my conversation with the principles when we talked about this right it has to be what are the high and and Dr globy said it you know our highest leverage points right what is the the most bang for our buck when we're talking about chronic absenteeism making that relationship with the student making the relationship with the parent right edating making that phone call right it's it's what are those High leverage activities that are going to actually yield the best results and that's what we're trying to decide we're not going to be able to do it all because we don't have a system like that but we're going to take from them what we can and learn and and apply it where we think we can in our district that was going to be my next question there are districts out there and active case studies where the investment in those truy I don't I don't even know if that's the right no you know it's but you know what I mean yeah I actually don't know what the what they're called but that that was how it was presented to us right looking is being used in other districts and it's being effective so but for funding it's it's effective and more than just Lowel I assume so I assume they were they were the ones that presented the state chose them to present in one of the webinars all right I mean there's other districts doing things in Sharing as well but I would say the majority of the districts who are sharing do have dedicated Personnel for this they don't do anything else but look at student absenteeism engage re-engage do home visits that's it that's all they do all day and is that coupled with their local PD I don't remember if LOL talked about Police Department no I I will say that we do do home visits here and um in partnership with the guidance counselor SRO School administrator we will we would go out and visit the home home um but in terms of the data analysis I think what I'm most interested in is figuring out or finding that spot of um where we can be proactive so is it X percentage of kids in grade six who farare this way in this course tend to be chronically absent and they found that in Baltimore Public Schools like where are those little points that we can interject um before it gets to be a problem I think that's the case with grade n credit attainment so we really want to make sure all the kids in grade 9 get their credits feel invested feel successful are ready to move on and same thing with um involvement in school activities um but certainly I think I think you brought it up earlier about um the sense of trust that parents have in the school system and des's talked about that too kind of waning after post pandemic and really wanting to make sure their child is cared for and so it's a little bit of a a shift in mindset to to communicate that they'd be cared for here as well a different way too member Maxwell um so I just have a couple questions one with the chronic absenteeism can we not use the computers um for them to log in remotely if it is a problem I know you said like 7% of students have legitimate reasons can those 7% use their remote to no no the state has already said like remote learning is a no is not in school and absent okay the only the only caveat they made was during Co that remote days counted as days in school and are we limiting what activities the students can do if they are a part of that absenteeism group meaning like um you know if you are absent 45 days and you have no good reason really no medical reason are you a part of the drama club or you you know right those are all things where we're growing this year but there are already rules in the handbook obviously about if you're absent then you can't participate in something you know so that's supposed to be a motivator uh for students to if you are we don't want kids coming to school sick but right if there's if there's a an issue of of abuse for days and days out of school uh those are things we're all looking at as well and I think like Dr golovsky said one of the things desie focused on which we did add in our plan we like it 9th grade is a pivotal moment uh in time for our students to actually get to the end of of 12th grade and graduation uh is the credit attainment but also the involvement in extracurricular activities that's a new one for us and that was something new we heard in the spring and in the summer so we added that to our work of that is something we can quantify and actually promote because the high school has Athletics clubs right all different kinds of things that we could promote to have students in their ninth grade participate in so some baseline data to be taken but just other opportunities too that we're looking at to expand um and then I just had two more questions um so this one is the updated one from today and this one is the older version is that right um it's the same I just yeah they should be I just cut and paste it in a different format so this one here says provide targeted mental health support to provide to improve belonging engagement and safety among students and families um and then another one it just says Empower student voice and increase student engagement in specific so I mean it just doesn't say the same thing so I was just wondering which one we would go off of um I I don't know which one I can talk I'll I'll show you the Pres the presentation has um probably what's best to look at there there was some um discussion about whether the priority should be listed as a priority or a key action so it would be one or the other um but the presentation you have now um should speak to that so the slideshow yeah okay um and then in in the slideshow it says um uh build student comprehension of text while increasing students ownership how are we going to do can we can we include more writing can we include vocab because I think that a lot of our comprehension issues are have a lot of focus on vocab these kids aren't having vocab tests or spelling tests and even if they are they're on the computer so they can spell check yeah those so those are parts of the the ELA curriculum but definitely part of the language development in literacy more generally so whereas we were focused on just those literacy screeners as our only data point um I think you'll see the measures are um there are more measures and from a variety of lenses so certainly like the ELA scores student growth percentile would speak to their ability to to write as well the access testing um that English Learners take has the four domains of Reading Writing listening speaking um as well so there's different measures for that too but yeah we're looking and that's the way literacy shows up in a lot of other subject areas too so are we going to implement more writing and more vocab and spelling and all of that or no um the curriculum Ela curriculum will remain the same because those are the high quality pieces that no vocab tests no spelling t test no nothing like that vocabulary is a is assessed I think it might be different from um like maybe the matching qu quizzes that you or I used to take or the term and you define it so that we use vocabularies assessed most often through um context um so being able to study a word's definition and then come up with it after you've rehearsed it is a much different skill from encountering a text cold encountering a new word and be able to C decipher its meaning from the clues around it so we're we're aiming for that so that the student would eventually become self-sufficient in encountering texts but certainly there's vocabulary um pre-reading vocabulary would be something that all all um teachers would do deep dives into language is essentially that diving into the vocabulary helping uh students break down words uh find the roots of those words find commonalities cognates so we do L not the actual V like a vocab test would be like what this is this word and this is the definition of this word use this word correctly that that's one form of a a vocab test yeah we do we do gauge their usage so gauge it but I haven't I'm just asking if we are going to implement it because we don't do that we don't have vocab tests we don't have spelling tests we don't have that we assess it but we don't yeah an assessment I'm calling an assessment a test and the vocab that we're asking them to look at and decipher is a lot computer no not necessarily it could be hard copy too okay but it's it takes um it's a higher skill to be able to to look at that text and decipher contextually but there certainly are terms that we would pre-teach and assess okay I think you know I think um there's a piece in here it speaks to the Equitable grading practices and I think that might tie into your question a little bit more um because that key action talks about making sure the grades that we're giving kids truly reflect their progress in the standards and they're not inflated by other pieces but it's really like honed in on what students can do aligned with those standards specifically so vocabulary and language is a fifth of all of the ELA standards so if we really hone in on communicating that progress to parents and perhaps maybe that's something that was flawed in the past is that communication as to how the student was fairing in vocabulary to them and their families and that's something we need to improve but it's been a part of it yeah I'll wait to see the key components and maybe I won't a follow up I don't know okay um I just think that when we're trying to improve comprehension rates kids need to know the words that they're reading yeah so and we let thank you Mr chairman and just to go over the the treny aspect of does that representative EXC me remember daglio uh highlighted um it's it's a major issue but we also have to take into account that it's a misnomer to say that we're just similar to other districts just pushing the kids along to the next grade and that's that's not accurate because um if they're not doing the course work and they're missing um engaging crime absenteeism for instance with the MIAA they have to maintain positive actic standing so the the credit denial policy actually allows students to regain no skills to make up the cours work in order to go into the next grade because the one thing we have to be concerned about is if we have kids repeating then they're going to more one likely drop out of school so I think the credit denial policy uh empowers the school system and the students as a second chance they have to do the course workk they have to make up the examinations they have to have in-depth knowledge and then they also have to participate in summmer school and if they don't do the the credit denial policy and fulfill the rigers of that if they don't uh complete summer school then they cannot engage in sports so if that translates into uh extra curricular activities but I know for a fact the MIAA has a strong academic standing um policy that you have to be uh involved in that and then um I think when we talk about the whole student um it also has to involv the whole family and doing Outreach and I know the mayor they have a a program down in the Ison neighborhood where people can go and sign up for services and it's a big debate about should we be social workers as well as academics and I think with the mayor's doing with that program is a One-Stop shopping for families because they might be dealing with mental health services they might be dealing with the need for EBT benefits they might be dealing with Healthcare um they might be dealing with a job employment um so the One-Stop uh Center that the mayor established I think is in the right direction so I I think that the the communication is is there um and it's a misnomer that these students are being pushed to the next grade I know it's happening in other school districts um and it's it's well documented but I think the you have to meet the benchmarks the credit Den policy I think gives him a second chance going to summer school and then it's a linkage to if you do all those things and you pass those courses and you do summer school then you can get into the good graces of uh Sports again so that Mia academic standing policy if that maybe helps with people with um extracurricular activities but again what members Shia indicated two is that you have a cord of people who have chronic illnesses or who might have mental health you know illness um and those might be through a daun or those might be excused absences versus unexcused absences and like the superintendent said going into this fall and then when you have a new session at the State House in January I think we have to formalize a letter to the legislative delegation is that we're drowning the unfunded band dates they're studying Us in Beacon Hill and they have a nine billion dollar rainy day fund and we're getting Short Change financially at the local level and we're getting drowned and paperwork requirements and I know it's the federal government and the state government and so we're focused on the paper chase where all these goals are noble but if we're completing paperwork and we you don't have the finances to deal with those population centers of um English language Learners and recent migrants and and people with mental health issues and it again it was a direct correlation with covid you could see it with the mental health skyrocketed chronic absenteeism you can see it right where when uh Co hit and now it's going downward but then you're going to deny us funding at the local level and then you're going to still have these uh oversight requirements and these benchmarks it's not fair to the school district and I've been saying this since January um so and I have other questions but that was something I the whole student really has to be whole student plus like whole family and it's a big debate should the the school system be involved in that I think we do to a certain extent we try to help these kids we do the Outreach to the parents and I know the mayor's doing it as well with that One-Stop uh Center uh but it's something that if we don't get the assist again it's like examination of a microscope of the school districts but you're not giving us financial resources and then like Holy Family Hospital and Stewart that's going to be close to a billion dollars and then um the illegal alien situation is going to be like2 billion and then you are doing uh nine c cuts and then you're limiting us on Chapter 70 you're not going to meet the benchmarks if you don't provide the financial resources and you try to reduce the paperwork requirements it's just not fair to us Target the the different populations but provide the the funding to help us at the local level thank you and vice chair thank you um I have a couple questions the first one is on the literacy um one I noticed at the beginning you're including K12 now and versus K8 um I want to know does that mean that we're going to start implementing screening in progress monitoring in 9 through 12 um I guess that's that's my question yes um so we currently have a a a screener progress monitoring tool through SAS Pearson which we use um beginning middle and end of the year we don't um necessarily love it so the department chair is for English at the high school has been hunting around to see if there's a new measure um that we could use in the past we had used the Reading Plus Insight assessment and but when we started using it with the um upper school too the kids were over it by the time they got to the high school and we were looking to measure other aspects besides um the reading comprehension looking at all the different benchmarks um in standards so um what's been helpful in the past is when we give that Baseline the department chair in collaboration with the teachers would identify maybe three or four target areas or standards where our students on the whole maybe needed a little bit more development and then we would track those throughout the year um and so sometimes students might not realize that's happening um that they've gotten a little bit aept at weaving them into existing tests um and scoring them as different items um but yes we'll be moving toward that um and then the the kindergarten um first and second had always been screened um but we hadn't necessarily um targeted them on the previous plan and so we figured if we're expanding that would be a smart thing to do great I'm glad to hear that we're going to include the high school now because I feel like that's that's been a big hole so I'm glad to see that um two more questions um when you're talking about um engaging extracurricular activities um for students um are we including aecial kids with disabilities but in particular the kids in the sub separates who are going to require support and if so how are we going to do that um and in addition to that have you thought about how you're going to communicate that to parents because even at the high school kids who are in sub separates don't know about the extracurriculars I I can speak from personal experience that I don't know when best buddy is happening I don't know when the sports are happening for the disabled kids and so my kid misses out on it because I simply don't know and he can't tell me and so I want to know that that's that's a hole that's that's really there um and I want to know that we've thought about addressing it and and that those sort of things are going to happen yeah I think you're seeing what we're seeing um which is one of the reasons for this objective is is that piece of opportunity and communication um and I think that we have a a lot of excellent things happening in the district that people might not even know about um before we even get to why they're not accessing them on other barriers so I would agree with that and then my last question is on the last bullet um it says increase communication to inform families about School progress and student programming and Garner meaningful feedback what do you define meaningful as and who's going to determine that not okay that that's a good question too um so we we wrote in that we do meaningful means um Gathering feedback that is detailed enough that it paints a a picture for us that really clarifies the perspective of the hole or maybe different um groups within the hole but also has enough detail that we can then form action plans to address or redirect or change aspects of our Pro programming or culture or communication um so one of our first action steps we're talking about the the culture piece and the connectivity piece um I met with a company today um who offers it's a really impressive dashboard we'll have to see what the cost is um but some surveying tools where where they um administered the survey to students and families and it's it's benchmarked almost as if it were literacy assessment but you can look to see you know in what areas do we need Improvement and then are we trending in the right direction is what we're doing working or not um and so that's what we're looking is to a find the tool B gather that feedback um we' we've tried over the years to do the Google surveys or like the quick polls to families um but this would be something that's a little bit more comprehensive there's also the vocal survey that goes with the mcast um but after students are you know in the mcast mindset and are quickly responding to survey questions about the culture of the school it's it's a little tricky so we think that that might be a more meaningful way um to gauge that feedback um and also there's multiple parent um organizations um and packs if you will um and and we do rely on that feedback to direct a lot of our programming that sounds really good I'm I'm excited to hear that you have a tool that you're actually going to get data from that's fantastic yeah um and the capabilities of the tool are are really exciting because it could um integrate mtss information screening information about the student from year to year um it could like engage um with the family's attendance at events so when you fully understand the student when you call them up on the dash so we'll have to have to see that's been one of the big um one of their big um I guess uh accomplishments is helping districts not solve maybe reduce that chronic absenteeism rate like we talked about um and they're shown to move test scores from just compiling the data that way but what initially Drew us to them was that survey component so updates on that to come excellent thank you yeah just to um respond to what Mr wet said to me um working in a high school yeah I know how that works I worked Mr KET at hav high and genuity and he's not here I was just saying part um um and working with engineuity and know the whole Mia I was talking about elementary middle school where a kid could have chronic absences and be pushed along and that's happens in pretty much every district and the superintendent will probably vouch for me like when is it's a very hot to keep a student back in especially middle school and Elementary especially when they have chronic absences yes yeah so that's what I meant by when they push along and then you see them hit high school and they wonder why they're struggling still because they never got that basic foundations in elementary and middle school and that's where I I corrected the wanted to talk to the commissioner about is where what is he doing when it comes to the elementary middle school level to stop those chronic absences because the state has put a lot of hold on this uh schools that of keeping students back especially in elementary and middle school um me for uh me I have no problem keeping students back cuz I was kept back in first grade cuz I I had ADHD and and I was diagnosed with a disability and my parents said he should kept back and I thank them every day for it cuz it helped me learn those basic skills that I needed to get through to high school and going to college and end up where I am today so that's what I was trying I just wanted to just make sure that people understand at home I understand the high school level where you have all these opportunities but the problem is where I want to address to the commissioner is maybe we wouldn't have these many issues in the high school level if we attemp these different groups when they're in middle school and elementary school that's all thank you um I'm a big fan of uh primary material backup resources when we talk about uh blue engine and ey toide and strong and and other acronyms um similar to what we did for the special ed program and there's a whole Litany of special ed programs can we get like a um a summary of these different things like blue engine I decide strong um where is the funding coming from what is the purpose of it is it is it grant funding is it a permanent funding you know when you talk about these different things and I think well we've had these multiple conversations I think one of the the test Vehicles was taken away and we were concerned about that through no fault of our own um and then the latest testing vehicle I think allows for a greater diagnostic aspect to it and I think that's important in terms of data collection um and I think the modest goals that we're doing going forward um I think what the mayor uh was saying back earlier this year when we were the new school committee members um is I think incremental improvements and then assessing those incremental improvements and and experimentation I don't have a problem with that new programs um testing Vehicles diagnostic tools what's available to us I I don't have a problem with that and then we as a a school committee um will do a deep dive and post questions and analyze things I don't have a problem with that the elephant in the Rome and I think hopefully the school committee as a whole we will'll take a position on it at some future meeting is that there's a movement to take away the mandatory element of mcast and I think taking away the mandatory element of mcast and people with IEPs know that there's a pro U portfolio aspect of it and there's reasonable accommodations with testing but the mcast system was like the standard for the planet and as a movement to take away the mcast requirement and I think that's going to uh wreak havoc with those future test scores because if you take away the mcast requirement and again we're talking about standards alignment um and not and there certain states that still have it with the mcast requirement if we take that away I think we're going to have difficulty of maintaining those test scores and that's something to that's a political thing it's not something but I mean um they tried it with with colleges and universities of saying we're not going to do SATs we're not going to do uh act we're you know we're not we're going to look at uh your your grades from school and we'll make a like a nice interview and that's it and if you can't measure the student and there's no requirement to measure the student and it's not a graduation requirement to have like standards in measuring a student um I think you're going to go downward um that's just my opinion I know the governor's on record in opposition to that ballot question number two hopefully at some point the school committee here will take a stance on it but um I see dark clouds ahead on that because we're trying as a school system to because of covid uh we got whacked big time with remote learning and chronic abs ISM and an influx of mental health cases and we're starting to rebound and now you're pigeon H holding us on funding and then you there's a movement to take away mcast as a requirement to graduate so what what would be the equivalent standards and that's and that's the problem I'm I'm having so I like the incremental nature of what we're doing we're not going 85% you know 80% I think we're doing incremental on the AP and on a different uh testing I I appreciate that I think that's more in line with with the school committee was was following in terms of philosophy but if we take away the mcast requirement as a ballot question in a fall I think it's going to be repercussions for future uh test scores it's just my opinion thank you thank you okay yeah I think that Ash should us along to the um the next slide I had um so I'm just going to go out of order to show you um this chart here in the presentation talking about those incremental targets that member Willette brought up um so the purpose of of this table is to is to show you the measures of progress that we would intend to use which align with each of the three objectives and then which of those measures um actually are using the accountability targets set by desie um and which were those smaller incremental targets um that we had created and so I think one of the goals for this plan was to kind of sync all of our pieces together so to align the SOA to align our accountability targets and goals to align our strategic plan um so that we're all pulling in the same direction and can speak to what it is that we're aiming for um and so you can see here we for objective one we had those um proficiency screeners although um expanded in grades as was pointed out earlier um the ELA average composite scaled score and the percent the percent of students making progress toward English proficiency um and so the scaled score is what's really used to gaau gauge achievement um in ela from from the mcast in terms of accountability data the students making progress towards English proficiency speaks to the individual targets that each English learner has um for the access exam and if they meet that Target and are making their own incremental progress toward becoming proficient English um they're credited there um and then the student growth percentile um is for objective one and two so how much are students improving based on students who scored similarly in the previous testing cycle so we're looking at growth and also achievement um and then for objective two it continues on um with the percentage of students meeting or at seating expectations on mcast English and math percentage of students passing all grade nine courses proportion of student groups utilizing tiered Mental Health Services and number of um students in 11 and 12 enrolled in advanced coursework which is defined as advanced placement courses um Pro uh courses that use Project Lead the Way um our CTE coursework um other Advanced courses such as pre-calculus or chemistry um and then for objective three we have that chronic absenteeism rate which we've spoken about those culture surveys um the percentage of GR 9 students in at least two two school-based activities and the percentage of students with anxiety post-traumatic stress or depression um so although some of these measures may look familiar to you or the topics may look familiar there are some areas where we haven't collected specific data or organized it by student group um so for instance the number of grade nine students enrolled in two Bas school activities we don't have a baseline for that so so we see that kids are active but we don't know if it's the same group of kids that are being highlighted the most or are going out there and getting involved in the clubs and activities um is there a certain profile of student who's more apt to be involved or not if not what are the barriers to that so we're we're interested in engaging in that work too um and the same goes for the advanced course work at the high school do families know that the CT program is available to them and how to access it um so a lot of these um measures and objectives um a lot of our key actions May bleed into one another um because increased communication um underlies all these areas although we're primarily mentioning it in three for instance and then finally I have this slide on um the figures that we're waiting on so you notice there were some asterisks in your packet we're waiting on the 2024 Baseline accountability data um and our official state district and school level mcast results that we able to share publicly and those will be out midt um but I wanted you to have some ballpark of of where we stood in those areas so I provided the 20 2023 baselines and those are marked by the asterisk um and also in the rationale the the enrollment numbers and student group numbers for this coming school year I just wanted to make not we still have students enrolling we still have students language testing um and that will continue um until October when we send in um our foundation enrollment on which the budget is based um and still students will keep coming and enrolling we're happy to have them and we update that enrollment in March and in June so we don't have the 2025 enrollment student group numbers yet um but we'll be able to provide uh something solid in the fall and in mid-september is when those those true measures would come the incremental accountability data um targets were provided in 2023 through 2027 which is why I was able to put those in okay um and then if I go back to the document I'll just show you I just wanted to do some quick highlights of some key actions and then I'd be happy to address any further questions um so the First with that literacy and language development we're going to continue with the professional development um on the use of our core and supplementary resources but also talking about making sure that we're standards aligned and focused and letting the students do a lot of the fa the work in the classroom with the teacher as facilitator um we're looking at um our observation tool always has highlighted some Focus indicators that pair well with our district plan um to kind of cue up the administrators on what they're looking for when they go into a classroom um we're going to identify which of those indicators best jive with this plan and make sure that all the evaluators are calibrated when they're going in so we're looking for the same things our feedback to teachers is Meaningful and consistent um and actionable um and that we're we're opening those those doors for conversations with Educators um each school is creating walkthrough schedules for the year um and we are identifying a few walkthrough tools um which the principles will select to use in different trimesters depending on their focus so it might be cultural responsive practices it might be that they're looking for that standards align um questions and challenging tasks it might be they're looking at small group instruction um but as they're continually going through rooms you want that to be a common practice so everyone can speak to the instruction that's going on and everyone's getting ample feedback um and then as we have some um newer staff and also we have a significantly large population of Staff in this District um that would like to have some support with planning resources and templates um and protocols for their use um so again we would make sure that these jive with um the plan and that teachers have a template of what their lesson should look like and all the components and then they can build from there um so a starting off point um and gleam I probably won't be mentioning as much because that's done now now we're on to land um so same idea just different acronym um so that's the learning acceleration Network um we have the same coaches we had with The Gleam Grant we're going to do the same walkthroughs we're going to do the same progress monitoring of classes um and they're even going to continue to support with some professional development um and so that's a 2-year free um Network um participation that we're able to work in um and then elevation is a tool that we use to organize our English learner information and teaching tools so we have it it's ready we know teachers log in what we want to do is make sure that we're maximizing our use of it so a real emphasis on getting to know the student in front of you rather than just knowing their labels or what categories they may fit into what can they do what do they need support with and how can you best help them deepen their learning um so that's a real focus of ours um Principal suggested that we um continue with Prof professional learning communities that focus on those indicators and priorities and allow teachers to participate in learning walks too um so sometimes the best professional development is being able to walk through the rooms and pick up some of the great things that colleagues are doing teachers don't always have the opportunity to do that um so we would open that opportunity if teachers were able to share their practice with others or wanted to learn as well um and then I've already started creating the the districtwide um assessment calendar that really incorporates every screener um in standardized test that we give K12 um and so what we're trying to do is being mindful of when we're administer administering those tests um and make sure that it's being done with Fidelity and then um key in on the data informed instruction so how can we expand our um examination of literacy data so we can collect all the data we want but if we're not talking about it and acting on it it's just there um and so we want everyone to have a hand in that process so I'll be going to the schools and and supporting in some data um instructional discussions and practices um and building principles will as well um and then we're going to create a multi-year cycle for the review and revision of those high quality instructional materials that we mentioned in the previous plan um so rather than it just being a spotty process of when grant funding is available we'd like a cycle for revision of different subject areas in grades um that's consistent and expected do you suggest I just zoom through the other two and then move on are there questions questions on that one on objective one so not really questions just one comment Y my only ask going into the next three years of the next phase of this is to keep the reporting consistent yes I know that was something we had we heard that loud and clear we already we also look forward to doing that I think and I think it makes it easy for everybody and I mean you can always make more graphs yes but the old ones coming to so yes thank you yeah we were we've been talking about setting this up to then figure out what that ongoing presentation is so that there's a regular expectation of we're looking at these District numbers this is what we're going to f you know we're going to have these numbers I think the difference this time too that we've been talking about is all of this data is going to come at very different times for us that that's going to be a little bit unfamiliar territory right we can't report anything out for mcast until October until the Embargo is lifted so that's going to be an interesting time for us to add numbers to this right our internal assessments might happen for literacy at a certain time and then other subjects at a different time like the screeners and things so so we've been trying to figure out that balance of here's the chart here's what we have now and how do we present that to you because it's not all going to happen at once which is a little bit of an uncomfortable place but a place that I think we're happy to be in because I think we're looking at the right things over a course of time but yes thank you that was my long response to that but yes we're very excited about coming up with I like that idea too a template I look forward to that I'm happy that you're happy thank you okay I'm going to move on to all right objective two key actions this is um the um disparity between opportunity and achievement gaps um that we're concerned about so um first if you scroll down to um the measures of progress I mentioned what they were you'll see on this chart here they're separated by student group group so all students L and former L and students with disabilities will be the three groups that we'll be looking at and again this aligns with our SOA plan um so the first action is to establish those Equitable grading practices to inform instruction and effectively communicate progress towards standards so we're going to need to do some professional development that area and again consistent communication to make sure everyone's on board so if we're saying this curriculum is of the highest quality the assessments are excellent there's performance assessments traditional tests essays and whatnot we want to make sure that that gets on the report card and those are the assessments that families are seeing so that they're able to tell in what standards their students are succeeding or not in the standards based report card sometimes it's easier to do um and then the letter report card that's through 7 through 12 um but we've already created some really nice um pacing and assessment guides for teachers so they'll know in some areas what grades should be going on as summative assessments for for instance Ela grade seven um and so that we know it's consistent and that it's showing um progress in all the standards just not one that we maybe happen to give more tests in that term that shouldn't be the case another piece of Equitable grading is to make sure that all students are supported and reaching those high expectations so for instance if you if you are an educator and you knew a student was having a a tough time at home you may be inclined to give them something a little lesser to not stress them out and that's actually the worst thing you can do it's doing them a disservice because now they have a gap in terms of that learning experience as well so what you can do as an educator is support them with scaffolds interventions um chunking out the project to help them accomplish it maybe changing the timeline whatever they may need but that standard of work is still held at the same that's what we're aiming for there um the tiered support process exists um and it's alive in the schools we want to enhance it that's part of our um SOA plan so we want to make sure that the the data collection is seamless that teachers are given um strong recommendations for interventions that kids have enough time in those interventions to see if growth is being made and if not an adjustment um is made as well um that was part of the conversation we had at that company I was discussing earlier um and we have those processes in place for um academic side behavioral social emotional um but we want to make sure everyone in the building understands their roles and that's not just falling on one or two people but that it's really a team effort um the win block and reading success block at the grammar schools are very important to us and we want to make sure that um we're effective in our instruction there um so we do have some curriculum um pieces that help guide reading success we want to make sure the data we're we're garnering from those screeners we're actually using um to adjust the groupings or instruction and that it's targeted and when stands for what I need so we do want to make sure kids are getting what they need um during that time um so we do have some kids who might in the first screener show that they're beyond grade level so what is it that they need in that Wind Block we need to make sure that that they're challenged as well too um okay and then the interventions at the high school we've had long-standing referral processes and structures um and and we analyze that data um pretty regularly we want to re visit those and make sure that the students um who need to access those interventions can do so and that the flowchart of uh for each student sometimes they need more than one thing the flowchart of priority makes sense we're going to look at Academic Enhancement which is a support block for students who take AP classes make sure that's being used well um in in terms of our chronic absentee um conversation the high school does something interesting where they offer vacation school and Saturday school so kids who may maybe had a term where they're absent more than they should have been for one reason or another can attend during um those days to try to recover sometime nothing truly replaces being in the original class but to be with a certified teacher and be working on your assignments do help um so you want to see who's tracking that and and accessing that so we're going to look at um maybe potential disparities and enrollment there as well we're not sure um blue engine is our partner to help us become better inclusive teachers um and so we're targeting in year one we have three pairs at the high school three pairs of teachers who have volunteered um to be coached and engage in feedback cycles and to be visited by um Blue Engine and also our administrators and learn um what it means to be a truly inclusive teacher and they'll also participate community of of practice in year two we're going to expand that model so those three pairs will become our like Pinnacle models uh for the district um blue engine's also going to provide professional development to all teachers regardless we're excited to see that um they'll also help us look at the master schedule to see if any changes can be made to offer better um support for teachers to plan together um teachers are always looking for time to plan with their grade level peers their subject level peers their co- teers vertically aligned to plan um so we'll be looking at that and seeing if any other changes may be necessary um we're going to create a new District accommodation plan we have one posted on the website that needs revision um it hasn't been updated in a while so we'll be doing that and sharing with teachers the I decide program is for students in grades 5 through 12 it's a drug um education curriculum we had it years ago um as as a deterrent uh to um suspension so when students could maybe spend time in the icide program to learn and um about their behaviors and and coping strategies and whatnot um which we thought was maybe better than just excluding someone from school and it's going to look a little different now and it's going to be more formalized in its um roll out but that's through grant funding as is the strong program um which is a desie vendor um to train the counselors to support newcomer groups um there's going to be a lot of collaboration with the El administrators as well um because they're most familiar with with the students and families coming in um but to to offer that um social emotional support um to students and their families and then collaborative problem solving which you've heard before um we are deepening um our training on that so whereas we have administr administrators who are certified they are going to advance to become trainers and then we're going to have a train the trainer model where we're going to expand um and so we'll be able to support more students um through those collabor collaborative problem solving discussions um and so both with strong eye toide and CPS a big part of this over the next three years will be to not just implement but collect data make adjustments and change the program as needed um going forward I'll pause there so this goal unlike goal one is not a really data driven goal so my big question is how are we going to measure and report on this like what's what's how's that going to look at the quarterly I'm guessing they're asking because we have we have the student um growth percentiles for mcast and we have the percentage meeting and exceeding so growth and achievement um the percent passing grade n courses we think is important in the enrollment in advanced course work is for Access but also opportunity and then the proportion of groups taking advantage of these different um supports we think would also show advancement in the priorities and therefore move us on the objective because when I look at it some of these key actions first off the one the the the starter here establish Equitable grading practices communicate progress I feel like we did that one last year so wasn't that part of the second goal last year we we did um the book study we're we're looking at equity in a number of areas I think last time we looked at like enrollment and AP classes but we never had anything um in terms of grading practices that are going to be consistent um getting into the mental health and then you had mentioned earlier the the sense of trust that's been the big Focus uh cartwheel it's the other one car Solace I know at one point during the S at one point during the summer we had gotten an email from I'd be to know fit this interest yeah that's the trick of it um yeah we do have some title funding that we use to support that and we had the Esser and acceleration Academy funding that helped um we we the data that we've collected on that um shows that it is successful so yeah we I mean I think if we did plan to expand it we just have to be really clear about who's eligible or not um and sometimes um the high school students don't quite need the busing that the grammar schools might as well so we'd have to maybe figure that out but it would be something that the team would look at I think for sure you know it seems to me that one of the biggest challenges here will be time there's a lot of um PD I'm looking in the previous goal PLC supporting teachers and you know getting into elevation which has been around for a while and it's a wonderful Tool uh the co- teing the training for that um I'll just be I'm sure that's going to be a big challenge finding the time to do it and to do it meaningfully and with accountability so I'll be curious to see what your thoughts are on that yeah I think it's really important to not let any of those topics fall out of the conversation either which could be easy to happen if you turn your head um so we've been looking at being creative with the professional development time and offering micro sessions or doses that that hit upon ENT element and maybe each of our PD days so even if a teacher needs to go off to another training they still hear the message um our collaborative time or um common planning time will have to be used really well as we building meetings and department meetings um but that's one of the things I think I'm looking forward to and looking at um potential scheduling um to allow for those co- teing pairs or or collaborative planning sessions to happen with the templates and resources will be able to share um I will say that most of these actions are things that we have Notions of how we'll start spiraling into this year um and there are certainly not just uh drops in the bucket it would take three years to really see the fruits of the labor I think year one's going to be a lot of fact finding information finding just starting the plans um but then to see real growth I I think it would take a little bit of time is PD Council still around and participating and will be part of this planning okay my other question is the wind block now that's always been a challenge M um again with some accountability what are you how will you be measuring the efficacy of that well in some of these in some of these measures it's hard to pull up hard to pull up part which variable yeah brought about the biggest change um but I think consistently being in those rooms um for administrators doing walkthroughs will be important um even just if it's a Popin um and teachers owning the data um I think of the the reading and also other subject areas is important um what I've heard from the upper school teachers with the Wind Block is that um it's a really good problem to have and that they all want the students with them and see a need in time for them for so for sharing um students who need multiple supports I think that that's something at the high school when they have the flow of intervention so um each student teacher knows when they get which dose of which subject when we're going to have to be really careful um with that rotation in in the upper school um but I think it also starts with the resources and the interventions too so we don't necessarily want the Wind Block to be a carryover extra time to finish whatever you started in the subject specific class but what are we doing to Target those particular skills so having those um tools and resources for the teacher to draw from I think going to be really important and maybe with the tiered support process being slightly revised that that information would feed into but I can see now it's not going to happen overnight as you said MH okay and my last comment is you mentioned the Saturday um school or or um vacation and it's something I to get to the um attendance issue I just did some research we spoke about what lol has done and it's crazy how they were were able to utilize Saturdays and school vacation for attendance recovery um and I could and also academic work done it's a lot of work but I certainly hope if there's any money if there's any grants we'd be able to put that in place but then again who's going to do it you know that that's a big ask and how the kids are going to get there yeah those are the those are the grants we're hoping for right with the state focused on some of that this past year they didn't offer a lot of funds to actually execute that stuff they offered resources webinars information right to get us on the same philosophical platform as where desie was so we are anticipating I am anticipating very hopeful that there's going to be some additional monies for the actual execution of some of these that they touted last year that said these these are some of the districts that did things that worked here's maybe some funds to get this off the ground and we could have some of those in place so I'm hopeful and yes of course we're always going to look for a grant money that is applicable to any of the work that we're doing but that's been the biggest conversation I think when we've talked to the grammar school staff and you as well uh when you were there is the how do we get kids there right because the biggest cost for these Saturday schools or vacation schools is not the actual execution of the people there it's it's the if we have buses how do we get the kids there if they if they don't have transportation there to assist you know it's that that's where the money really is a plays the biggest role as the transportation if we're going to have buses or not which we talked about even with the high school um and we just it's it's un it's not uh wasn't feasible for us this past year but we did do some of it with through through other Grand money the transportation part well I like the idea that you said you're going to like look at what other communities are doing yeah and I know I I refer to L again but I'm just so impressed what they achieved and I don't think they had buses I know one of the city the city schools that took people kids from all over a middle school did not have bus transportation but they worked so hard on the front end in communicating with the parents but that was with a dedicated social worker which is something we don't have but um okay so fingers crossed for that thank you you're welcome um one of the biggest problems I see as with the numbers for the students with disabilities and probably with the lves too although I don't have the experience with the L's is time right just like what member Donovan was saying is time these kids learn slower and they need more time and I think that our utilization of esy is abysmal and I know that we we do what we have to do per the state and we we meet those minimum bare minimum requirements but we're only preventing regression in that time we're not helping these kids move forward to to let that Gap get smaller and we need to start utilizing that time to help these kids move forward to make that Gap smaller with their peers to be to really look at and I know this is a money thing I understand that but we really need to be looking at 12-month programming for some of our students who are really far behind and that would keep more kids in District which would save us money in the long run um and we need to look at that esy piece differently and we need to utilize it to really move our kids forward not just prevent regression because basically we're babysitting for six weeks for no good reason and you know many parents feel that that those six weeks are a huge waste of time so we really need to reassess what we're doing for esy make it a longer day make it longer a number of weeks and do more than the bare minimum because the bare minimum isn't getting our numbers anywhere if we're really truly going to commit to moving these numbers we need to put the time into it and we need to give these kids the chance to to get an education that's all um so to to go off um the M Vice chair um the there's a lot I totally agree with you with a 12 B program however from an Educator's perspective good luck finding the staff to fund um because you wouldn't find many people that would go through their whole summer to educate I do six weeks four weeks five weeks and that's enough uh for it but I totally agree with you we need to do that but another problem that we're having with El's from my experience some of them will come in May of seventh grade and then they'll go into eth and they just don't you're right the time is not enough but the problem is schools can only do so much when families are coming in may like we might have a kid right now in my grade we have nine Els I guarantee you by December we'll have about 18 we'll have double that and then you have from December we'll on break they'll come back in January and then you only have that four or five months to help them and then they're they're passed on and it goes back to my whole point with the middle school and Elementary School where you're passing them and there's just and also as member Willette will say the state cut out funding so how you expect these teachers to have all these programs because I would love to have those programs I would love to have all those nice resources and you know have those stiens because I guarantee you if those stiens were right a lot of teachers would volunteer but some of the stiping that we get are probably 500 bucks and we have to do five months and we'll just do one week like one day maybe a week to help but that's not enough for toour programs so there's a lot of issues and and I'm not saying your ideas trust me Educators love your ideas that you're bringing to the table it's what remember wette said the state doesn't give the money to the schools to do those programs so I just want to collaborate that yeah we all we we sympathize we would love that but fortunately we we don't have that I I think the um the commonality of the shared Vision there is that sense of urgency that needs to be felt to move the student groups along and to really maximize the time that we have with them um and I think that that's something that is the undercurrent of a lot of these actions here and we definitely feel that urgency as well just to go off topic a little bit and this is just something I want to pose to the administration and I don't know the answer to it so I'm just posing the question do we have and again I'm a fiscal conservative but do we have a full-time strictly focused on on grants like a grant administrator we do not okay so that's something I think for the budget discussion because if you have a full-time totally focused on grants there's so many competitive grants out there nonprofit charitable uh federal and state that we can send a letter to a legislative delegation and like member daglio and the mayor and myself and others have said the disconnect at the state and I think personally it's going to get worse but if we can explore the option and see if other school districts have a person that their main mission solely not um data collection not test scores is you know not academics but just grant Al you know acquisition that's something I I think we need to start doing because we're not going to get the resources from the state unfortunately um but if we have someone that might be a grant administrator and you know you might have something with the charitable group or a nonprofit or a federal or something and it's very competitive and you got to do the paperwork um I think do Harris in the in the past was that that person she was I think she was outstanding with the grants but I think we really need to explore um that as a as a committee um and again I represent one voice but um there's a disconnect right now with the state and we we'll do is I think like towards um the end of the year um and I might draft the letter or maybe invite the legislative delegation and it won't be an adversarial relationship I don't want that um but we have legitimate concerns as a school district as a school committee as elected officials on behalf of our students that the the the headwinds that we're experiencing um and we're not getting the resources to it so like member denovan um I know the mayor myself and others what like policy wants and we absorb articles and we read different things and I think L might be something that we can explore but and I know we have the summer school the vacation um and other programs but if we don't have the resources long term it's not it's not going to help us yeah um so that was just something I wanted to to say out there maybe down as we're going through fiscal year uh 26 budget review uh but just something that we really need to have somebody there that's on a full-time basis doing grant acquisition I have very strong opinions about that and have voiced that for the 13 years I've been doing this work um because I started as assistant superintendent with a full-time Grant administrator and as the assistant superintendent I was the one who ended up doing all of the narrative and the writing and the so the grant writer was completely separated from the day-to-day work that we were doing in the schools with the principls knowing what our Improvement plans where it became more of a challenge to every everything that the grant writer had always came on my plate to say is this something you want is this something we want and then it was can you write the narrative I'm not sure how it fits well I'm doing all the work anyway so I had I had a real I have a real personal but professional feelings about that and uh I also know that uh in the role of assistant superintendent there are also other people we rely on in this District John crackers one of them right excellent grant writers federal and state we rely on the people who are in the work aligning to the work that we're doing to find that and make sure the narrative aligns to what the grant is offering what we're offering Dr gapski does the same thing we have some in technology Nancy Lopez is actually becoming very very skilled at finding the federal grants that could possibly fit our need right we have all those access so I do have opinions about that when I'm cutting other management positions or other teachers that is definitely for me not going to be something I would recommend as a priority totally get the why behind you're saying that and it's been asked of me for the 13 years I've been in central office don't we need this don't you need it don't you want this I we really don't I I don't think that would be a priority need for us but still recognizing we're definitely getting and scouring every opportunity we can to get the funds right so we're getting that through the state we always get I mean the legislators are fantastic sending us uh the opportunities to see if they match or not so we are doing all of all of those pieces as well so again I have strong opinions we can certainly talk about it during the budget season but with everything else we have lost or could potentially be losing I think we need to set our priorities and make sure they're aligned totally get the reasons why though yeah appropriate that was just a little curveball and I Len very the mayor was looking at me he knew I was going to say something I've been saying this for years so did to the vice chair because i' I've been saying this for time it's hard to separate that work for people who aren't involved in daytoday in the work and the why and the planning and the meetings with principles it just it became very challenging to have that be a full-time job separate from the work that we're doing it that's it ended up being that a little bit because we we're going to have to like maximize every dollar which we do anyways I think I think in this discussion we've we've already added a couple million to the budget for next year so these are all the things yeah but what it is is in a context of we we lost about we lost about4 or5 million and anticipated chapter 7 know this is what I'm saying when we we try to do the best we can and it's we are doing the best we can I mean to to say that I don't have staff that are doing 15 million things right now to try to cover every department for whether it's less or just more We are continuing to ask people to do more and it's hard it's just it's getting it was hard it always has been hard hard um I'm lucky with the people that I'm surrounded with are willing to give 150% every day to get things done but um you know we hear all of you I think you know Vice chair Keegan I don't I don't disagree with you we would love to but that you you say I mean I was trying to not look at the business Mr golin during that but um cuz it is hard that's a huge financial risk for a district to do that but what does it mean for us and our kids and what kind of conversation do we have to have about it so recognizing all of those and balancing it is really important with this work but anyway we we digress all right Dr golovsky bring us home yeah all right the big finish here okay um so plan or objective number three the Partnerships with families and students to increase connectivity engagement belonging so I'm just going to the key actions here um so we talked about identifying kids who are chronically absent uh more importantly I think trending toward chronic absenteeism and taking the actions to support them um and reiterate the connection between School attendance and achievement um mayor which I think you mentioned earlier um make sure that all schools uh review review and revise the home visit protocols and create the home visit teams um collaborate with stakeholders to launch a multiphase plan to create the methan public school's vision of a graduate um the high school right now is in the process uh the neas accreditation process um which it looks different than it has in years past um so they're wrapping up their self-study and then um the team will come out this fall to actually take a look um at what we think um as a result of tearing through all of our documents and Survey results are the three areas that we need to work on um and so the high school work with nas um to figure out how they're going to work on those aspects and then Nas gives some time and be back in a year or two to say okay what were the results of your work so whereas before it felt a little bit more like a gotcha now it's kind of a collaboration to work on items that we need to address one of those which we're pretty sure um they'll agree um that we need to create is this vision of a gradu and that's something that um all stakeholders parents Educators students um K12 will have a voice in creating and and this is the portrait of what we are aiming for for all our students to be able to do or to be um and that mirrors what we know they need to be successful so that's going to be a big undertaking um talking points we've had um but there are new features um and we we also want to make sure that we're we're using it as effectively as possible to communicate student growth and achievement and that families are accessing talking points in the language of their choice or else it's not really um doing what we intend for it to do um the increase in school day and evening opportunities for families to attend um so those could be grade level offerings um to Showcase student work um or College Planning events at night um I'm starting a comprehensive list of what those offerings are throughout the district um that it would be nice to share um with you all monthly about things that are coming up but also to put on the website um in addition to school calendar so people can scroll scroll through and just see what there there is being offered um and then also um something that we haven't necessarily done before is we've tracked how many families and parents have come to events but we haven't necessarily um been committed to tracking who it is who is coming to the events um so uh a couple administrators suggested that if we offered pre-registration or scanning a QR code when you come in maybe we'll get a better sense of what it is that parents are looking for in terms of the partnership from the school and maybe it's not necessarily within the school maybe it's it's also off school grounds in different neighborhoods or what that might look like but um I think there's some work to do in terms of the information gathering um and who we're appealing to um and in what way um and we're certainly understanding that just because a family may not show up or enter the school that it doesn't necessarily track that they're not invested or supportive in their students education but we do want to um have those Communications with them uh next the uh youth participator action research um this is a grant that I applied for um and we were awarded and I'm excited about this because um it allows for every upper school and the high school um to create this club or sorts of sorts that's supported by aesi vendor where um students identify an issue impacting academic social or well-being and then they become change agents themselves um as they start to take action so in some ways similar to the Civics project but different at the same time um and so they're going to um the vendor is going to help us support um how do you advertise to the upper school students how do you attract interest what do you do with this cohort uh and there's funding uh for an advisor in each of the schools as well um and then also there's uh another Grant we are awarded um and that's supporting immigrant youth through clubs and activities um and I hear that a lot from the El teachers that the newcomers especially um would love to participate in um a group where they feel like they're supported this particular Grant helps them navigate the school system and not just students but also families so we're talking about um disparities and outcomes and opportunities this is huge for that um and it specifically speaks to students um in high school so it would involve um counselors and teachers as advisers um bringing our English Learners um and particularly newcomer immigrant youth to um college campuses community college campuses um work sites um CTE programming like letting them know what pathways are available to them and how they can access it um and that's also uh there's funding available to start those clubs in the middle schools as well so do they know what advanced math is do they know how to access it um how can we help um with interventions in helping not only the student but the families um and then we have the mental health parent student advisory Council um we would like to expand that to have more parent involvement and um student involvement from various grade levels 5 through 12 um so I think um Mr CER feels as though he has a strong core um but looking to build up build out and hear more voices um and then um he also is interested in supporting um an advocacy and awareness building action plan to to reduce any stigmas that may be associated with reducing uh with accessing Mental Health Services um and to be um a little bit unique in the approach about communicating about about the various Services we offer and Outlets so um whether that's posting on social media starting some social media channels um working with our media team to create videos um meeting students where they are um instead of maybe ask asking them to access a website and navigate through um several steps to get there um we talk about the bright model that's at the CGS this year um and evaluating that model and deciding if that's something that's worthwhile and putting in the other skill other schools as well um and then I have that the survey um on culture and climate that we would like to um share with students and families and work on um making improvements as needed and executing those plans and that's a multi-year um process as well so you'll see that some of for some of these items in terms of our progress me measure measures we first have to establish what the Baseline is um before we get into thinking about where we need to end up um we don't want to undershoot or overshoot um and then a big a big measure um as dese suggested would be that chronic absenteeism um rate as well okay thank you so I'm going to start if you don't mind just say I really like what you guys have done here um I'm little concerned only in the number of key actions that you've kind of listed so on board with the objectives uh love you know I I I reflect back to what member shabila said so to me if it's not measurable um I'm not really sure how why we should be talking about it but I I would just encourage you guys to go back and take a look and maybe narrow down some of the key actions there's a lot there and I'm I'm talking you know we all want to get all of this done right but there's there's a lot there there's just so much to me right and so um on board with the objectives like the key actions one concern is there might be too many for you to to Monitor and measure um and I don't know how the rest of the committee feels I'll wait and hear them out but you know to me uh I think you know you're taking an important stride forward I love the incremental goal plateauing um you know we could talk about that but um that's my two cents so I appreciate you taking the time to go through it thank you remember doio U thank you just going off of that like I said I was listening and I'm like wow these are great ideas but I do think you're you're shooting for a lot for a short amount of time and if you did accomplish a lot of them that's great we just we just add on to those key actions but like I always say like you should do two three and see how it goes and and and if you accomplish these other objectives great we could trust me we're not going to sit here and say well you you did those key you picked those three but you accomplished these three but those are not the key ones so we're going to hold that against you we're not going to do that um I do however I do love the even opportunities That's goes off of uh our subcommittee Miss uh member uh Maxwell and I I we we hit these ideas of cultural events bringing in different groups coming in to explore their cultures and have that like a family event um I would love to see those so when I saw that I was like I'm glad we're having that key action um based off of the conversations we had at our meetings but like I said yeah like the mayor said I feel like we're again just doing too much at a little amount of time so I I will agree with the mayor on that one thank you we had more too it took us I mean it was this is a challenging exercise and what is the going to be the most important actions on the outcomes right like we're focused on the outcomes we believe a whole set of actions are going to give us those outcomes right so our eye is on the prize no matter what we do uh and so we did we had a whole bunch uh and we paired it down and the leadership team helped us but also keeping in mind this is over three years too right so some of these things are going to be in year one and we're going to update you right and so so we we we recognize that and we may take that into consideration tonight and see but um you know this is where we landed with sort of a consistency and the what we think is going to be the biggest bang for our buck over the course of three years to see this movement um you know and again I I think the one thing that I've appreciated about this and we really have lived it in this district is previous in in my time here you know the Improvement plans were a document and not necessarily living breathing talking working through this is what we have lived by the last strategy plan uh in everything we do right it's on every document it's every staff member can tell you what our priorities are it's part of our Improvement plan you know uh I mean our professional development plan and planning uh so it it's woven into all of our work this is the same way right so we're going to be very transparent coming back to you saying do we got these two key actions way wrong like way off right so that when we look at where we ended year one and say we actually have these two priorities that surface that are going to actually be yield you know a greater outcome than these two so I think I've appreciated that part of this process the last three years and we've engaged in that you know that we're not changing what our goals are and the outcome but how we get there we might have to tweak that along the way and that's I see this as the same process M Vice chair appreciate it thank you um first I have a comment on the um objective three um I'm a little bit concerned with the tracking of the percentage with of anxiety depression and post-traumatic stress because in order to get those numbers to go down um one we're expecting that we're actually going to be Mental Health Providers and I know that we do a lot but um that's a little bit of a concern to me but like I'll just take an example of post-traumatic stress so we have a student who has PTSD and we help that student get a little bit better so there the number goes down we're not preventing traumatic events from happening to another student and so that other student comes up and that number goes back up again and so we're not tracking the same students throughout and so that number is so fluctuating it's not really a meaningful number and so I'm afraid that that's the case with all of the mental health numbers that as we help students who have anxiety we've got new kids popping up and so those numbers are are going up and so this this number to say we're going down would indicate that we're actually preventing V in something from happening to begin with and I don't think that we have that sort of control and so I want to just rethink those numbers a little bit and how we present them and how we track them because we're not tracking student for student we're tracking a big total a total every single time yeah and so I I'm a little bit concerned about those numbers um and I appreciate that because you had this conversation with me to bring it up tonight that I think we do need to look at those a little deeper to able to report out the kids that we know it's kind of like The Chronic absenteeism right here are the kids who I started with that I know uh have participated in the survey have indicators high right level where do they lend start in September and go to so I think those are definitely conversations that Dr kbski and I have had after our conversation that we want to have with Mr Crocker because I think there's those tell two different stories so I totally agree with you and the but that's going to be the the two-year process right follow the kids who indicated and and follow them for the second year to see what the process was right and and where they ended that second year and did we see that incremental Improvement in their well-being yes and once we have this well-oiled machine that we have a kid who has a traumatic event happen in their life that we had no control over comes into our our machine and as they go through we see the progress happening for that student I think that's an important indicator that we have a a system that's working as opposed to hey look we've made this number go down but it's an arbitrary number that doesn't actually track anything yeah got it yep we're on it very good point excellent excellent thank you thank you for listen so we have I'm I'm hoping not that this is voted on but this is a draft that we want to start preparing with our staff and obviously for me to prepare my own goals aligned to this where I'm getting head nods are we all in like we're going to move forward with this yeah um is the mental health screen is the mental health um I don't want to say participation but is that required by the state because I feel like there's a lot of it's an opt out always well I'm just saying I feel like like as a district I mean because I feel like we're providing or we're uh focused a lot on the mental health which I think we should be I'm not saying we shouldn't be however like ber Keegan said we are not MediCal providers and for us to be watching and growing and treating and all of the depression and the anxiety we're not qualified to do that so I don't know I don't I just have a lot of yeah I think there's a lot that we are qualified to do and that's what we been following for the past 10 I mean I've been involved in this with Mr Crocker for a good 10 years or so at this point um and it is something that the state actually expects and wants us to do mental health screeners and other other districts are 100% engaged in this work as well um we've just we just have done it a little bit longer than some other districts okay yeah and done a better job at oh thank you well was it has been a part of our conversation easily for 10 10 11 years it did you know most people started the work Co during Co that's when the state and other districts really started to push this um so so we already had data previous to covid because we started some of this work in different grade levels and we've expanded since then but so so it's just it's a little different for us but uh but you know member Keegan's point about actually looking at a student taking the student a and following student a through this process actually will demonstrate the work that our staff is doing and the impact they do have so while they not be while they might not be a licensed outside therap clinical therapist school counselors absolutely have an impact on the mental health and the cognitive behavioral therapies that they're doing in school with kids and that's what we're focused on so you know we can see that a little differently so definitely worth looking into breaking that that section apart a little bit to show I think what we just described I think is great awesome thank you excuse me mayor we're just about to hit 9:00 so we'd have to make a motion to extend the meeting well now so moved second M second by m all those in fav signify by saying I I both say nay I would say nay but I won't all right at 858 we can keep going thank you appreciate that marag you had a question I have uh just two two things I just want I was um asked by constituents to ask one was um a concern about the cell phone U policy is hoods uh hoods allowed to be worn in class because they were concerned that airpods could be used and they could put the phones away but I've I want them to be redressed that airpods are not allowed to be used and I'm pretty sure hoods are not allowed to be worn in class they can they can hoods and hats are part of our dress code so they can be worn earbuds cannot be used in class but so the parents yeah the parents concern is I could they they could put the phone in the bag but then listen to music with airpods in but once the teacher ask them to remove their Hood to see that they have to do that okay they have to be identifiable and be able to see that the student doesn't have Earp pods and they can keep their hood on but that we I've done that in done that in the High School classrooms walking around yeah and and the second concern um was that parents are having problems of um of getting on um INF uh infin campus yeah with the sense of they're not getting notifications for their emails like personal emails saying like if like my personal email I would get a notification that there's a notification on Infinite Campus and they were to log in is that I think what he's talking about is the transportation email that went out did not go out to parents it only went to the infinite campus yeah okay that okay that was what I can tell you as scheduled a email on Friday night at 6:00 um I got a receipt saying that 1300 emails went out um I did however get a lot of people said they didn't get it I don't know if maybe it went to spam I don't know if there's a a glitch in the system I resent it again this morning um at about 11: I want to say um which is really weird cuz I sent that up the same way I did the one on the 13th 12th to 13th the previous one and everyone got that one um if if they don't have a just have email MPS trans Transportation um and we'll get them the information they need but also if they just log into Infinite Campus and they go to the transportation tab the students busing is there the the regular busing is there yeah they they were seen that that's so weirding you get one said I would send it yeah you got it yeah okay didn't get one Friday or got one Friday did not you didn't get either Friday or interesting okay thank you yeah we'll look into that if there's I know we'll look into that for sure we haven't heard any other concerns about Infinite Campus so we'll look into that one okay uh couple of things for next agenda sure uh last meeting you had that handy dandy but also sad list of open positions oh yeah that will be yes we can have that an update on that of course yes September 9th yeah I have that as part of theing is it possible to I don't recall because I don't have it in front of me clearly but if it was it broken down by school it was is it also possible to have on there what we're required to have so for example like an open position in my mind is something that you either have or are about to post as a position but if there are let's say for example you're not posting a second nurse position but yet we would be my understanding is we're required to have so many nurses for 500 kids in a building so if we could just know if there is a requirement maybe it's not being filled I'm sure there's always a reason for all these things happening but just so we can get an understanding of where we are and what critical versus non-critical sure okay um on the second one my understanding is there's going to be some new stiens for floating if I'm stating this correctly so for example more than that uh again using the nurses as an example if they're going to be floating from building to to building or if they're going to be alone for a day I just want to be able to track and understand what fiscal impact that's going to have versus hiring someone so if we could see that I don't know monthly quarterly whatever you're you're doing it on I'm sure it's going to be a line item in munus so it should just be a click hopefully a click away um and then I've gotten a lot of questions and comments over lunch which I know is everybody's second favorite thing behind supplies so if we could have that conversation I know that the food service director in the past has offered us stuff uh tours lunch popins samples and all that good stuff I'd like to get I don't know if it's the committee or subcommittee whatever it has to be to take advantage of that and start exploring that in a more productive way than just everyone complaining about it sure do you want him to be present or you just want to I am going to defer that to you have him communicate with the group okay that's it for me okay member Willet just a piggyback on membership Alia it was an inundation of complaints about the food service I've always been a strong advocate of surveys and it has to be a model survey out there for that school uh lunch breakfast industry of having a survey sent out to parents and I want a full-blown you take home the survey you have the two weeks and I want it not a small sample I want to have as many parents and the students if they want to participate as well to do a survey of the the Food Service um we have a syrup Plus in the account um I don't want to jump to conclusions um but there is an unbeli concern from parents that uh percolates to the surface uh on online and I think it's something as a committee we have to really uh analyze um but I don't want to jump to conclusions but there has to be a survey vehicle sent home to the parents this time around similar to what we're doing for transportation um you know I hate to say was smoke this fire but there's definitely something going on here and I want to get some responses back from the parents and the students thank you it clearly will be desire for more baln and cheese that's what I see so all right anything else oh sorry oh M dlan sorry my apologies say it again uh we need to set it date for the building committee and I believe that's Mr daglio Mr shilia and myself okay so if we could work on that because time is a wasting you going to say something I I was going to make a suggestion and just to think about it because there's we have a lot of subcommittees right now and uh it's hard if we are piece because sometimes I need to be there sometimes I don't sometimes Ian and I both need to be there sometimes we don't um sometimes you might need Gina boac there sometimes you might need Lisa it just depends on who you might need from the district there um if uh I reach out to each of the subcommittees and come up with a sort of a regular schedule of posting I I know in the past when we had the residency subcommittee we always knew that we were going to meet like at 5:00 before the business meeting and we just assigned that and when we didn't need it we didn't meet and post it but we all know 5:00 before the business meeting is when the residencies subcommittee was going to meet so um and then we just meet here and then we roll into the regular meeting so maybe if we could come up with something like that with the policy subcommittee or the transportation I CU we're kind of popping now when we need to and having some consistency would be helpful and there there are a few and I don't want to lose sight of the because I think we have four subcommittees right now is that right Transportation y building policy and the a maybe it's the AIT I'm not involved in that though I don't no yeah that's done so so maybe it's three so if we can come up with a a system of scheduling those I think that would be beneficial to all of our calendars in time it's a great idea to have it before the meetings we currently have scheduled right and we just kind of rotate it if that works for folks but I'll communicate with each of the subcommittees if that works but thank you for that KN deep in trying to get some building stuff done still with the lease so just so you're aware okay and the last thing um I I would think it would be beneficial to have our attorneys come to a meeting and just do a mini review for our roles and responsibilities as school committee members and my inspiration for this came from what the Andover school committee did as they were getting into their negotiations just so we have a cohesive approach we all know what our responsibilities are and it's and I I just think it would be a great idea I think a few years ago perhaps the lawyers came and and did like a refresher course so we did we Mike mararo and Sarah spor and I'm not sure how many of you know Sarah but she has worked with us over the years uh I believe they came in during the 17 18 school year maybe or the might have been my first I don't remember if it was my first year 189 um they came in and just did it during a public session a workshop and is that something the committee would like me to look into again with them so they probably already have an agenda for that that they did they can kind of refresh that yes okay quick response to that so I I plan on bringing that policy forward of of that the problem is I've been trying to get a hold of our rep at masc to come in and she's just been busy but she's going to come and explain the free training that masc provides right um I have the list uh the the superintendent already has the policy on our desk I just want to make sure she's here to explain what how that program works so I'm collaborating with her and hopefully I can get her into the September meeting um I if I may I think that's a great idea and I really supported I'm just thinking in terms of getting us ready as we get ready to move forward because I think what masc will support is they have very specific topics as well that that they can bring to us or that you can go to uh on certain issues that expand right if we have attorney mararo and spatap for come in it's sort of just a general where we are as a body m is that what I'm seeing a little bit so both actually will play a really important role all right I be happy to look at that and see if I can get something scheduled with them and what they're great okay and and good luck tomorrow and Wednesday okay with no further business to discuss may I have a motion in a second to adjourn this Workshop business session of the methan school committee on August 26th 2024 so moved second move by member doag second by member shilia roll call please Madam Secretary Ryan yes Mar Beth Donovan yes Lori Keegan yes Christen Maxwell yes Daniel shilia yes Kenneth wette yes may and Neil Perry yes thank you all uh with that the meeting is adjourned at 9:11 p.m. good night m [Music]