so it's 6:30 pm and I'm going to call to order the regular meeting of the nooba regional school committee and we will start with the Pledge of Allegiance so you guys can all mute and uh stand if you would like follow along 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 all right so our first matter of business is to open the school choice hearing and I will hear a motion from our vice chair okay I move to open the 2024 2025 school year Choice hearing at 6:31 p.m. I'll second that any discussion all right we'll take the vote um for those who are in favor I say yes shanor did I lose him shandor can you hear me I don't see him yeah okay he's up oh there he is thanks shandor Amy vessels yes Joe yes Dana and friend yes she said Amy Cohen yes Sharon yes Jackie yes and Karen yes all right everybody so that opens up our annual school choice hearing and I'm going to turn it over to you super intendent Downing for a brief presentation reiterating much of what we heard last meeting that's right thank you madam chair and I will ask Miss Masterson if she'll go ahead and bring up the uh school choice hearing presentation as you mentioned last week we went through this presentation in detail um and so I I've truncated all the attendance information I've just included the hearing uh slides here so thank you this is our annual school choice hearing as required by Mass General law and I would like to begin next Slide by outlining some important not notes regarding school choice this is is automatically opened every year if the school district does not vote to close up by June 1st uh the nishoba regional school committee can limit the number of students accepted as well as the grades and locations where they will be assigned if there are more applicants than available seats a lottery will be conducted employees May enroll their children through through school choice just and they are subject to the same rules regulations of all applicants no preferences for employees are allowed once accepted the nrsd is obligated to provide the student with the free and appropriate education until graduation from high school school choice does not apply to current students wishing to change schools within the district siblings of enrolled school choice students will be giving preference in the process next slide here is an outline of uh the district net over the past five years regarding school choice and you can see um last year uh we did reopen school choice for the first time in many years uh and the the district net did decrease in terms of the budgetary impact next Slide the school committee when we took the approach that I'll re uh describe again tonight we opened 43 seats last year of which we had 20 students and all those who applied during the school choice uh window were accepted into the nooba school district this year so how did we go about that next slide we can manage the enrollment uh U population of our school by following these recommendations and the as these recommendations were outlined to you is to maintain and make sure that we always have room for residents in our towns to uh be able to have seats in our classrooms without adding additional staff to our schools according to our class side guideline class siiz guidelines of 24 to1 in grades kindergarten through grade two uh 22 to1 and 24 to1 grades three and up uh so to do that um the recommendations I will once again put forward to this committee is that we do not open kind grades kindergarten one or two these are our youngest Learners they show the greatest change in their learning curve in the early years and we're getting to know and understand the complexity of those students and their enrollment can change show from grade level to grade level um we would utilize the class- siiz limits of no more than 22 students per class to enroll school choice students rather than 24 as I said before um and also no more than 20 220 students in a particular grade level at the high school across the district we would not exceed 260 total students across any grade level and that is to protect for ultimately when those students advance to the ninth grade and maintain that 220 threshold for grades K to8 uh we would not excuse me we've not opened school choice enrollment is within four students of the class- siiz floor no more than four students per grade level per school should be considered and we' prioritize lower class sizes across locations to balance classrooms um and so with that are the enrollment and population Trends from from uh the previous present next slide so here is a table of uh the bandwidth of when there are two three four and five sections uh and up to 220 students 10 sections potentially at the high school next slide So based on the forecast enrollment data that we have today you can uh see from this chart that engrades a p PK through two uh we would close those grades grade six would also be closed because it exceeds the 260 student threshold for the district so we wouldn't add any grade six students at any of our schools next slide So based on that recommendation and the criteria are shared with you here at nooba Regional High School we would have room to add four students at each of our grade levels next slide at Florence Sawyers school we have room to add four students at third grade two at fifth grade two at sixth grade four or excuse me uh that two at sixth grade should actually be blocked out because the sixth grade uh that was an error the the sixth grade is recommended to be closed across the system so four in third grade two in fifth grade zero in sixth grade um four students in seven four students in eight next slide for Mary rollinson Elementary we recommend that all grades remain closed next slide at Luther Burbank Middle School there's enough room where uh we would allow uh um and and I want to make a correction here that should not be a four and this needs to be corrected in the motion as well I apologize that should be a two because 88 would be um or excuse me that is a four because we have five sections we can allow four them next uh slide forgive that here uh Center School we'd recommend closure at all grade levels then at Hill Middle School again zero for sixth four for sth four for eth and you can see the reason we allow four for eth is the same at Luther Burbank because we have five uh at that grade level that allow us to do that next slide so this is a summary I would draw your eye uh to the eighth grade column 8 and and you'll notice that from my presentation I said four students at each of the eighth grade sections however across the district there are only 24 there are 249 students we anticipate in 8th grade so we would only allow 11 across the three towns um and that is Express expressed in the recommended motion so while the 444 adds to 12 we won't add more than 118th graders to stay in that criteria of 260 students on the recommendation and so next slide we'll wrap up with the motion considerations so the motion considerations outline the detail that I gave you here um and uh if it were the committee's choice to close school choice altogether the motion would have to be to close school choice um because if you were to leave it open as I said earlier um if you did not take that vote it would remain open so uh with that Madam chair I will take uh any questions from the public so I'm looking at the screen here it seems we might have one member of the public here not to put pressure on the person who's labeled Chris but if you would like to speak please feel free and of course to the committee members um you've been through this maybe before but in a public hearing we typically reserve the time for the public to speak but we will have time to deliberate this in the public meeting Alita nobody in the waiting room oh just make mayo Brown waiting for the um Equity piece that's it thank you thanks I don't know if you can see the chat Leah but the person Chris does not wish to speak oh fantastic I did not see the chat so thank you for that all right everybody so [Music] um there's uh it doesn't seem like there's anybody who wants to be heard so I might hear a motion from our vice chair to close the public hearing at this time sure I move to close the 2024 2025 school year Choice hearing at 6:42 pm I'll second that any discussion all right guys let's go around I vote Yes Amy vessels yes Sharon yes Amy yes Cohen thanks Dana yes Jackie yes Scott yes Karen yes Shan door yes and Joe yes all right everybody so we have closed the public hearing and we are now back in the school committee meeting and moving on with our regular agenda and I think members of the public for either watching or joining us and Chris you can kind of jump out of the zoom now and resume watching on YouTube if you choose all right so moving on to our next item it's the consent agenda and Amy do you have a motion for us I move to approve the consent agenda of April 24th 2024 containing draft meeting minutes of April 10th 2024 and the warrants of April 26 2024 I'll second that any discussion on the consent agenda seeing none we'll take the vote I vote Yes to approve Amy vessels yeah Dana um can I abstain because I wasn't here last week you can yeah obain uh Jackie I'm also going to obain Sharon yes Amy Cohen yes Scott yes Shan door also wasn't here so I'm abstaining Joe yes and Karen yes okay W I think we made it um all right so on to the school committee chairperson update um I don't have much other than um I wanted to um at the request of Alita to remind all the subcommittee chairs to make sure that you are getting your approved minutes to her from your subcommittees um once you um meet and approve the minutes of a previous meeting just send them right along to Alita and she'll post them and if anybody needs help with that just let me know all right so our next item is the student representative report and if I'm not mistaken I don't think our students are with us not today it is such a busy time of year we totally understand um especially our upper classmen they are just inundated right now uh so we look forward to perhaps seeing them at our next meeting and perhaps that will be I'd like to know Kirk when hans's last meeting will be I know Ava will continue to join us yeah I believe the last in-person meeting with hansy will be our next meeting yeah okay so so I think our in-person meeting will be the proper place for us to demonstrate our appreciation right okay look forward to that she's done such a great job um all right guys so moving on to the next item here it's the superintendent report oh there was a concert at the high school thanks Laura um yeah all right so Kirk uh the stage is yours on to your report thank you madam chair for that recognition um we're excited to share some things with you uh this evening uh in the superintendent's report you'll see several items I'm going to pick it a little bit out of order uh in the third item under announcements is the fy2 nrsd budget book we uh this was a book that was shared with you and all the town administrators and distributed to local officials and I want to take this opportunity if you don't mind Madam chair I'm going to share my screen um to take you to our website where you can uh see where that is posted uh so I think you have my screen now um we would like to show you uh by going to the nooba Regional School District website and clicking on the finance and operations page you will see now under the finance and operations page the finance and operations center this is our transparency Center where you can find information I'll click on this I want to thank uh our communication specialist Miss Hanigan and uh our finance and operations director Ross M Karen for working hard in in putting this page together as we have been uh and this will grow this is just a beginning for us but this is where you'll be able to see uh various parts of uh the budget and hopefully expressed in ways that are easy to find for our residents but we outline the budget process the budget books presentations on enrollment uh the Audits and end of the year reports uh information around uh OPB and then of course the regional agreement what it is and the agreement itself um so as I said this uh transparency page will continue to grow I will first take you to the budget book for this year um and through the hard work of all of our entire team we were able to put together this book and as you will see although I can't grab my arrow because I need to move everybody over here um okay so uh you'll be able to see uh again using isue the book is well crafted well put together including reports from all of our departments our schools around important programming and ultimately uh getting into the the financial uh details of the school system so as we know in the in the budget book we want to be able to produce uh the why behind our work and that's why the bulk of this budget book is about just that because our public uh needs to know what it is they're purchasing when they approve uh the annual operating budget and then uh a lot about the process in here the funding sources the end funds how the assessments and contributions are made the rolling averages the debt assessment all the things that Mr mcaren has walked through including the executive summary so our residents have a complete understanding of the expenditures of the school district so uh I'm going to stop my share there and and really take this opportunity uh to show my appreciation my thanks my recognition of uh Mr McCarren's leadership in the finance and operations department and in his leadership that includes everyone all of our department heads and our principles and as well as Miss Hanigan our Communications specialist it took a team effort uh and I think uh the product of which uh we're displaying our our budget to our residents is a highly professional product that is very informative so thank you Mr mcaren for that uh and thank you for letting me uh take a moment to share that we'll we'll certainly take your questions in a moment but let's get on to our next two announcements of which I'll turn it over uh to assistant superintendent friend to give us an exciting uh update on the Innovation pathways as well as talk about a fantastic recognition for our music education program so assistant superintendent friend thank you superintend and Downey just a quick update tonight about where we are at with our Innovation Pathways programming at the high school as I I believe that you're aware we had an application process for students interested in our fall cohort and the application process closed right before April vacation on the 12th so I thought I'd give you an update of what the interests look like from the application process so we had 26 students submit an application for business and finance Pathway to begin in the fall 18 from the class of 2028 and eight from the class of 2027 just the fact that I'm saying class of 2028 is frightening to me but and for our Advanced manufacturing and Engineering pathway a total of nine five from the class of 2028 and four from the class of 2027 confirmation emails have gone out to all students and families telling them of the exciting news that they will be participating in our in our fall cohort also of note Mr a reached out to me today that we've had some additional interest from students for our Advanced manufacturing and Engineering pathway just this week so we have actually reopened the application for any students who are interested in participating wanting to make sure that it's as inclusive as possible so good interest overall in our first year we'll continue to keep the committee updated on our progress as well as our solicitation of our partners um which will be part of our Capstone and an internship programming during our student senior year so we're we're underway and really really excited that we're embarking on this great opportunity for our students so that was the first update should I continue please take question yeah the the second one is great news on the music front a special shout out to Miss Amy Bel humor music educator from Luther B bank for really taking the lead and the lion shair of the work on the completion and submission of our application to be recognized as a best community for music education District by the N Foundation our music educators tell me that this is topnotch recognition I believe them um this is a unique honor and one that recognizes nooba for not for not only valuating evaluating the Arts but music um ensuring access to music education to all students nishoba is only one of 23 districts in Massachusetts to receive this designation bragging rights uh tools and National recognition come with this award please be on the lookout we will be posting a bcme seal on our school websites and our district website and Banners will be provided to each of our schools to celebrate this acknowledgement great job to miss bimer Mr Joe McCarthy and to our entire music department and most importantly all of our student musicians in our nishoba community and for her families supporting music education at nishoba this recognition makes us smile definitely so before we talk about strategic work Madam chair we'll take any questions on the announcements excellent well I am going to begin by saying thank you very much for that transparency page I know that that is a part of that was part of both of your goals this year and it looks fantastic and we are super grateful it's an excellent place for all of our town leaders and all of our Town's people to understand better what the priorities and the values of our District r as expressed through the dollars that they are spending so will you use that tool as the presentation tool at the Town meetings well no because we we have some limitations by the town moderators by which we have to operate under uh so we've requested that but uh we've been asked not to do video presentations so but uh we will certainly direct people that that way um so they understand the information yeah I just think it's a great opportunity to um trumpet that accomplishment and and make sure everybody knows that the page exists I know that I'll be probably um sending it out to everyone I know in the community so that they can go there and take a look so thanks Ross great work thank you Kirk on that front any other questions from the committee on other things all right well congrats to our music program as well that's fantastic news and The Innovation path pathway programming is going to make us really stand out and and I think um encourage some kids to find a home at aoba high school as they as they get older that's the Hope yeah thanks so much Laura yeah um all right so on to strategic work yeah so uh assistant superintend friend is going to talk to us and give us an update on the K to5 literacy work and I will make a note that 9 to12 science is coming down around the the pike um but tonight is about K to 5 literacy we've included an update update tonight about our curriculum review process for literacy as we're nearing completion of phase two of the process just to Note S our 9 through 12 science is is still in phase one I would like to acknowledge the hard work and and true leadership of Laura Padington our curriculum director for ELA literacy and social studies she has really um worked IR lessly to support the process and and a really large curriculum committee I'd also like to thank the entire curriculum Review Committee for their engagement and for all of the teachers who have been field testing materials and providing feedback via surveys and completing rubrics and meetings during the entire process everyone's been truly engaged it's been so impressive two high quality instructional materials have been selected to field test I think I had mentioned this before El Imagine Learning being one and wit and wisdom being the second one both curriculums are are highly rated on Ed reports and Cur rate as per our parameters and our priorities if you'll remember from our presentation in December field testing for elel has concluded and we are finishing up the field testing for wit and wisdom as we speak in addition to field testing committee me members including myself have visited or will be visiting schools in neighboring districts who have adopted and are implementing each of the curriculum for example visits to Westford and tuesy uh North Andover and Northboro Southboro have been planned for next week you visited Westford and tesb North Andor tomorrow and North Bor South borrows next week and that is part of the process so we can actually see looking forward what implementation looks like it also helps us answer questions that may have lingering from our field testing process part of our process has also included the formation of a k to2 subcommittee to specifically examine that foundational skills block which is so critical for our early readers or developing readers within our literacy block and to ensure a few things to ensure appropriate instructional materials our teachers have those that we have early readers and decodables and many of them and that training are part of our selection and implementation process so a shout out to this K2 subcommittee which has included teachers literacy Specialists our coaches and special Educators as well as curriculum director Padington in date uh to date the committee has met a total of 16 times and has used our parameters and priorities our vision for literacy really uh as a beacon in terms of our process and our decision making the committee will meet again on May 8th to make a recommendation as to which curriculum will best align with our nooba priorities and we have scheduled an update to school committee on the planning calendar for May 22nd to provide the committee with an update of these recommendations and a fleshed out report of the decision-making process and what implementation will look like next year hopefully I'd also like to make a note that our continued involvement in the Desi Implement Network which provides professional development and guidance for curriculum review and adoption and um consistent meetings but participation in this network has made the district eligible for $ 77,6 in grant money to support the curriculum imple implementation and selection process so you'll you may remember that Mr mcaren and I presented to the committee for approval 15,000 Grant award this has been increased we just found this out yesterday because of our participation in the Dy Implement Network and we received word yesterday that we we are eligible for this increased amount totaling $7,350 so we're really really pleased and excited about that so good news yesterday so we'll be providing that to the committee to approve um at the next meeting if if that's okay with a chair and a superintendent but that's coming down the pike as well that's it we would uh be pleased to put that on the planning calendar thank you Laura yeah wonderful news for everyone that will that will help with the purchase purchasing of materials as well great uh committee members any questions on the Strategic work the literacy work high quality instructional materials all right fantastic that's great news um and I think that's it for the superintendent's report yeah Kirk yes me all right um so uh moving right along everybody on our agenda tonight in new business is the phase two presentation for the equity audit work and I will turn it back over to Kirk so he can help us understand what's going on there uh thank you once again Madam chair um I would like to once again welcome back uh Our Guest Dr megma Brown who is leading our efforts to uh have a as we work through a deep study and look at Equity um across our school system this is the phase two report and as I remind the commiss uh the phase one the phase two reports are just that they're just reports they're not recommendations it'll be the final report at I believe Madam chair the June meeting is is what's on the planning calendar the final meeting is when uh we will outline recommendations and then begin to take the craft of the totality of the report and those recommendations and be building on what is our strategic work going to look like regarding um Equity across the school system so uh at this point I'm going to introduce once again Dr megma Brown and she will uh lead us through a presentation highlighting um the elements in the very dense and comprehensive report that uh you all have received uh so Dr Mayo Brown thank you for joining us this evening uh thank you thank you superintendent for the introduction and it's great to be back with members of the school committee once again um as a superintendent had outlined tonight is the opportunity to share with you an overview of the phase 2 report the report in its totality is about 60 pages long so I tried to pull out major um sections of it that are built upon the key questions that formulated um the the audit so whenever we're ready we can start the PowerPoint presentation and um I can go through it great next slide please the first couple of slides may look familiar to uh to members of the school committee it's we saw this in phase one it's a reminder of the definition of equity for purposes of the audit uh and that is that educational Equity means that each child receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential and then some guiding Frameworks uh for the audit are listed on the right one is to um critically examine policies programs and practices uh as we spoke about last time the national Equity project reframes the work of districts rather than closing specific achievement gaps with a focus on um students which sometimes is considered more of a deficit model to one looking at the district as a whole and what systems need to be in place what capacities need to be be developed so that again every child child receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential um the next uh framework is around the time is now right the momentum is in so many communities including nooba around doing this work and coming together to look at um things such as Audits and policies and practices in order to explore next steps and um my favorite framework is one that's offered by Ron hiitz that there's no such thing as a functional organization because every organization is perfectly aligned to get the results that you're getting in in an organization so if if the if the results need to change it's really looking at the organization and looking at the systems to see what needs to be either disrupted recreated or created next slide please this is a reminder of our key questions that uh grounded the audit again Equity begins in the classroom with each and every child getting what they need to reach their academic and social potential so the majority of the key questions here focus on the instructional core and that is the relationship between teacher student in the presence of content you'll see we had 10 key questions here they're pulled from the alliance for resource Equity next slide please our methodology was one to use our key questions that we just saw um as the framework to engage in an inquiry based collaborative process to examine programs and practices um to explore the district's current policies programs and practices through a quantitative and qualitative lens so things that we can count through quantitative data things that we can see and hear through qualitative data like in terms of what's being observed what are we hearing from stakeholders and finally a very important component of the audit is to invite stakeholder voice and particip participation through surveys and focus groups our phase two activities focused on inquiry based Equity walks in all of the district schools to review and analyze all the survey data for patterns and Trends to integrate the focus group data um with the survey data to gain a better understanding of what Equitable and Equitable practices may exist in the district to review targeted intervention supports for both academic social and behavioral needs um to look at the um extent to which students have access to high quality and relevant curriculum and instructional materials and finally to review family and Community engagement practices so the here's the I'm again I pulled some of the the key questions to provide a very big overview when I'm done with the presentation and would love to uh hear any questions you have about specifics or dig deeper into the report this is just to sort of ground our conversation um in the overview of the report next slide please so one of the questions was does does nooba have a specific policy mission and vision regarding educational Equity so so in reviewing policies and actions and this was actually reported in Phase One um there is clear evidence of the committee's commitment to diversity Equity inclusion and belonging the four bullet points there are part of that evidence the school committee has goals that were voted in October of 20223 where Equity is specifically addressed into two of the seven goals the school committee as you know adopted a diversity Equity inclusion and and belonging statement in December the school committee established the diversity Equity awareness and racial Justice Advisory Group and a strategic plan was launched for the next 5 Years From 22 to 27 providing strategic objective for culture and belonging next slide please another question we looked at was does each student have access to high quality and culturally relevant curriculum instruction materials the district's system of review and adopting and implementing and refining and and assessment while supporting the professional learning of faculty in the process is a best practice this is a strength of the district in terms of the way the district is viewing curriculum what needs to be adopted how it needs to be implemented systems for refining it systems for assessment all line up with what is considered um best practice best practice is underlined there for for those that have the um Google the PowerPoint slides you can click on any of these uh these are links to that will take you to a resource that describes it in further detail now while not all of the tier one curriculum um provides evidence of student access of Equitable access to high quality materials again the district is very clear about what structures are in place and what Vision um is in place to support the review the refinement the adoption of high quality instructional materials so again that system is present and there's evidence that that system is being used we'll get into that when we talk about um the adoption of the mathematics program in the Elementary grades to pull in some student voice here students were asked in the survey and these are students in grade 6 through 12 about the fre quen y of encouragement from teachers to learn about people from different races ethnicities or culture and again this is to get at the question around does each student have access to culturally relevant curriculum so what the students are saying here overall 51% of your students indicate a favorable response and in this case a favorable response is almost always and frequently next slide please another key question was does each student have access to teaching practices that are engaging culturally relevant and standards aligned um as we mentioned early on in terms of the methodology Equity learning walks were conducted in each of the district's six schools um observable practices are noted using um the department of Elementary and secondary education's culturally responsive look force page 39 of the report Prov provides uh additional detail about what look fors were present in those observations as well as the process that was used for the equity learning walks students participating in the focus groups provided additional perspectives about teaching practices again what does a class the the question for students was in focus groups what does a class where you learn a lot in look like sound like and or feel like again on page 39 in the report um students offered some some um some of their perspectives about that I just wanted to capture a couple um when we at when they were asked what does a class where you learn a lot and look like sound like or feel like um students said such things as PE people helping each other warm safe comfortable relaxing everyone should feel connected and everyone should be involved and feel safe people collaborate collaborating with each other and not talking over other people Everyone supports each other and is kind to each other a feeling of connection with people interactive lots of Engagement group work flexible seating spaces away from people relaxing happy inviting I should not go into class feeling super anxious or fearing my answers might be wrong interactive immersive fun Hands-On learning classes that focus on real life engaging very inclusive good relationship with teachers personalized to a student and finally one student offered a pride flag I don't know why but it feels safe when one is in the room moving on to the next bullet um while what and again let me just bring bring us back to the question does each student have access to teaching practices that are engaging culturally relevant and standards aligned while the percent of students completing Advanced Force work is a strength for sure for the district um when we disaggregate the data it reveals that there's disproportionality among the high school student groups and we talked about that in the phase one report and we also talked about that is not a high school issue per se there's something in the system that is generating uh that outcome by high school and so that should be looked as a K12 finding rather than a specific uh High School finding as you as you know I'm sure mcast performance indicates that there are some opportunity gaps for student groups when we disaggregate for race ethnicity disability and income the district does demonstrate a commitment to coherent learning experiences otherwise known as uh professional development for faculty and staff to support these practice teaching practices that are engaging uh culturally relevant and standards aligned next slide please another key question was does each student who needs more high quality instructional time receive it so this is for students who are engaged in tier one curriculum and instruction but need extra sometimes we'll say doses of instruction or additional tiers of instruction um in order to uh be successful again a strength of the district is the multi-tiered system of support system that is is in place so when you look at the mtss as we'll say for multi-tiered system of support the district's handbook is clear about the vision a framework and a rationale for why students need additional instructional support the handbook provides evidence-based practices and methodology it follows the key components of the Department of Elementary and secondary educations blueprint for mtss there is an incredible flowchart that I've I will say I've already shared with other districts that that talks about um specif that gives specific and detailed information setting the expectation in practice for Effective implementation of mtss the flowchart in itself is an Exemplar there is a system and expectation of data of data literacy and monitoring so that teachers and schools are looking at data and making decisions about students in terms of who needs the additional high quality instructional time and there are specific tiered instructional resources in the handbook professional learning communities are noted as a collaborative process to support mtss because when teachers have the opportunity to come together in those plc's they have the opportunity to review uh student data and ensure that targeted interventions and supports are selected that are aligned with what their students needs time is often um a resource that districts have that struggle the district struggle to find in order to provide additional high quality instructional time nishoba has found that time with the wind blocks the what I need now blocks they're in the master schedule across every school every grade level k through eight again providing the opportunity for targeted instruction um for students who need who need additional time next slide please there's a lot of information on this slide I I break my own rules by putting way too much text on here but I did just I wanted to draw your attention to uh the percentages in red students were asked five questions in the survey they were asked a lot of questions but these five questions focus on uh a sense of belonging and how your students are feeling about belongingness in school so when asked again for students in grade 6 through 12 how much do you feel you belong at at your school 54% of students had a favorable response meaning they answered completely belong or belong quite a bit when asked how much do you matter to others at your school 42% of students had a favorable response meaning I matter uh a tremendous amount or I matter quite a bit when students were asked how connected do you feel to the adults in your school 31% of students had a favorable response saying extremely connected or quite connected when asked how well do people at your school understand you as a person 43% of students had a favorable response indicating extremely well or quite well and finally when students were asked how fairly do students at your school treat people from different races ethnicities or cultures 82% of the students provided a favorable response when disaggregated for R race and ethnicity students identifying as black or African-American had the least favorable response of 62% of extremely are quite so you've got about a 20% um Gap in those responses between in the Aggregate and how black and African-American students responded when we look at those five um questions and when we review them by race and ethnicity what we notice is that students identifying as white respond more favorably to the five questions outlined above um with students who identify as Asian respond least favorably to the five questions themes from the student focus groups also provided some opportunities to get some additional perspectives about students lived experiences um in school and students of color are expressing um feelings of isolation or alienation due to being in the minority experiencing difficulties in forming connections with their with peers teachers and staff who may not understand uh cultural backgrounds or experiences next slide please another key question is do do student do does each student have access to effective social and emotional learning opportunities again the district is prioritizing social emotional learning within its District plan as you know there are two strategic initiatives um number three is to integrate social emotional learning best practices into daily instruction and student life and the the next one is to develop and Implement a systemic approach to social emotional learning that creates equable Equitable learning conditions um for all students so each school what what I found was each school offers um aligned School Improvement goals with the district's seal strategic initiative so there's a through line there in the Strategic plan there's an expectation and strategic initiative uh captured and every school in aova all six schools are aligning those School Improvement goals with that so that it goes from District to school so that as the district is working on it schools are working on it as well um Thea Fosters an environment intended to support staff in adopting um effective seal opportunities for all students particularly at the K through five level um I did phrase this in a way that Fosters an environment uh because professional development there are systems and structures available um for faculty for staff for schools it's not we'll get into this in just a moment but it's not quite evident that all of those areas are being fully adopted by schools at this point and the district does clearly identify this is the last bullet um where there is more work to be done that work is clearly spelled out it's just it's the matter of having the work take place in schools the work is articulated there are systems in place for it it's adopting the level uh at the school level the the work that needs to be done in social emotional learning next slide please another key question does each student experience a safe school with transparent culturally sensitive and consistent expectations and discipline policies every nooba school has a school handbook it contains the district's code of conduct it describes the purpose of the code of conduct and an overall approach to discipline there is variability among those handbooks in terms of Comm commun communicating consistent expectations and discipline policies I want to be clear that every handbook has the required school committee policies the state and federal uh regulations the variability exist in in how other um how other policies and practices within the school are described to families and caregivers student speakers and focus groups um note Improvement in culturally sensitive this is particularly around faith-based um practices that that there's Improvement particularly at the high school in this area uh parents and caregivers attending focus groups express some concerns about the consistency and variability of discipline practices across schools and yet parents and caregivers 67% feel that discipline practices are working extremely well or quite well for their child right so there's a bit of a there's a bit of a difference there right so it's working well from for my child 67% of those that responded in the survey are saying but yet I'm here one interpretation may be right I'm hearing that there might not be some overall consistency across all schools in in the district something to unpack uh a bit a little you know down the road a bit uh student uh Stu I want to amplify something that came out of the student focus groups uh student speakers in the focus group identified racial slurs as a primary area needing attention in schools specifically the need for explicit expectations around the use of language and consistent consequences um when the behavior occurs students reported for example that the nword may be used the student who used it may be told by an adult don't do that again then the student there's no consequence for it and the behavior repeats itself next slide please uh another key question does each student attend a school that actively and meaningfully engages family again the Strategic plan um prioritizes Family engagement particularly around um communication uh parents and caregivers attending the focus groups um representing students of color identify communication specifically targeted Outreach a necessary area of improvement for the district and schools um again this is captured in the district's um strategic plan it's uh it's an area that's being being worked on uh as the district continues to work toward greater inclusivity there are some themes from parent and caregiver focus groups that again we want to um highlight for the school comme one area is hyper visibility and otherness uh standing out is the only person of color can lead to feelings of being constantly watched or scrutinized with one's racial identity overshadowing other aspects of their identity and leading to a sense of otherness tokenism and pressure to represent being the sole or small number representative of their racial or ethnic group can place undue pressure on individuals to represent their entire Community leading to feelings of being tokenized or reduced to a stereotype um this is further exacerbated by the idea of being the model minority and then finally navigating power dynamics um negotiating power dynamics within predominantly white spaces can be challenging as individuals may feel marginalized or excluded from decision-making processes and Leadership opportunities again these were themes that were combined from uh parent and caregiver focus groups and felt we felt it was important to highlight those uh for you uh this evening next slide please uh do another key question does a teacher and Leadership Workforce reflect student diversity the chart that you see before you is um a depart a chart from the Department of Elementary and secondary education it displays the annual number and percent of um showus Educators who self-report or identify as non-white on the first weekday in October of each school year so you see you have three years there it gives you a sense um I believe uh I believe just one moment I want to check my notes the district is um currently when we look at the data 97% white so to the question does a teacher and Leadership Workforce reflect student diversity no not at this time however the district has a teacher recruitment plan that articulates and operationalizes the district's desire to diversify the workforce um and also uh the district applied for and received the teacher diversification Grant um so funding is uh providing for professional development um for this year and next year for the district's Equity team and Leadership Council next slide so overall strengths from you know sort of taking all those slides and summing it up um here the the district strategic plan is most certainly driving the work of District planning including the development and implementation of systems designed to advance Equitable outcomes for students there's evidence of alignment with a strategic plan in school Improvement plans we see it in the teaching and learning resources we see it in professional development there's a great effort I would say within the district to align systems and structures to that strategic plan it is driving the work of the district it is not a plan that is sitting on the shelf in any way it is um it's articulating the work the import work of the district over the next five years another Equity focused strength is the Department of teaching and learning in aoba um the systems and structures there are providing an equity focus and lens in all areas you can see it uh in the infrastructure that is emerging you can see it in the curriculum review that I had talked about in the report bridges in mathematics is an example of how um the department of teaching and learning is using equity an equity Focus lens to adopt uh curriculum you can see it in assessment practices you can see it in the multi-tiered system of the support we talked about we can see it in professional development all organized to increase the inclusive and Equitable practice for each and every student in nooba uh another Equity Focus strength is the mtss system that we talked about it's evident in math in ela and social emotional learning and finally the district is demonstrating a commitment to student well-being through comprehensive planning not yet imp full implementation right comprehensive planning in social emotional learning and Behavioral Health next slide please so areas for further examination by the district much of the district's current Equity focus is as I say importantly on outputs it's what are the activities that we're doing to um around uh an equity Focus I've cture tier stakeholders will likely want to understand what are the expected outcomes and impact with the investments in your outputs so as you're doing um what are the expected outcomes of the curriculum that you're adopting what are the expected outcomes and impact of the professional development for example as the district is um developing and implementing systems and structures uh in teaching and learning processes for accountability to the systems are not yet evident and what I mean by that is if the district is providing professional development or not if the district is providing professional development in equity focused areas what are the systems and structures and the expectations that that professional development is then realized in the classroom what we saw from some of the faculty and staff service data and I had captured a quote in the report from um from a staff or faculty member who indicated it seems that the professional development in equity is optional so if you're not want to participate in the optional piece of the equity Focus development how is it to how is it that you can expect um or hold faculty accountable for those Equity Focus practices in the classroom just something to to think about uh the third area student handbooks do not yet share with families the collective Equity Focus vision of the school committee and District leaderships think about those School handbooks as a opportunity to engage with families to articulate your commitment and vision around Equity uh with families the the student handbooks provide a great opportunity to share some of that granted it's one-way communication but again it's an expression of your commitment and vision to equity and it's a bit of a missed opportunity right now in the in the student handbooks uh student survey data sets in the area of belonging that's why I wanted to share that slide with you the percentages of students who are feeling a sense of belonging and those who did not indicate uh a favorable response there's work to do in that area right but again I'll go back to the dist the district has articulated and there are systems and structures that are available to work on that area on connectedness and belongingness uh with with students it's articulated out the work just needs to be given a chance to be done in in the district and finally uh the reported lived experiences of bipo students and families again this is coming coming out of focus groups in the context of their school Community communities is one right now of limited representation and curriculum Staffing extracurricular activities and Outreach and again I would say as I say that to you tonight remember that there is evidence of systems and structures that are addressing the curriculum piece that are addressing the Staffing piece that are addressing the Outreach piece so much of this is sort of in this early implement ation phase uh there are times when Equity audits are done with districts where systems and structures aren't even imagined yet right nishoba has done that work you've visioned that work you've articulated that work you've stated that work now it's the matter of having that work um you know take hold in each and every classroom right so that each and every student can reach their um you know as we Define educational equity in the very beginning of the presentation um reach their full academic and social potential and I think that might be the last oh finally yet next steps phase three um will'll meet with District leadership to discuss some recommendations um that'll be the next phase of the report I'll draft the final report for review and fat uh feedback and submit it which again will include um recommended strategy supported by research based practices thank you so that was excellent thank you so much for that um I'm going to open it up to committee members to perhaps ask clarifying questions anything that they would like Clarity on or probing questions if you'd like go ahead Joe uh thank you m chairman I had two quick clarifying questions and um the first had to do with the slide regarding um Dr Brown's assessment of our school committee policies and the question I had was was that just an assessment or review of policies that are specifically geared and targeted towards Dei or was it assessment of all the policies and I ask that in light of the fact that we've been counseled and it's been suggested that we as a committee need to review all of our policies with regards to this particular issue so with respect and I have two questions that's the first one with respect to that slide is that was that just targeted towards Dei specific policies or did it okay so wasn't the entire policy manual correct no just those that focused on on Equity um or Equitable outcomes yeah and my second quick question has to do with in in the report I see that the term I believe is race ethnicity and culture is used a number of times I feel I have a fairly good assessment of what race is and what ethnicity is I'm not so sure I understand what culture means and in that vein could you tell me exactly what culture means as far as your report is concerned and would that include people who are we would describe them as neurodiverse yes so so I want to respond in two ways the report in analyzing the data I wanted to be sure that I not only looked at race ethnicity right but we were also looking at um students with disabilities students who were reported in the um high high needs category if you will students who were considered English Learners so that it was a broad look Beyond race uh and and ethnicity in terms of culture I feel like that largely came out of um there's culturally responsive teaching right and being sure that students see themselves um in curriculum for example see their cultures are and become aware and understand other cultures uh much of the conversations uh in focus groups focused on particular families or students cultures um so did that is that did that clarify it for [Music] you all right I think Joe's satisfied with that answer so thank you for that what other questions or comments do we have yeah Jackie I just um I did have some questions but when I crosswalked it with the full report it was very clearly answered for me so thank you for um the broad overview but also the documentation to be able to drill down into those specific areas um I guess I just wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you for all of this information and then thank you for the families and the students who participated in the process because was really important and Rich work and it's driven by student voices in our community thanks Jackie Amy Cohen yeah I I want to also thank you um I feel like this was really important work that I've been really looking forward to um for for years and um for me it illuminated that we are headed in the right direction and that we've we've really outlaid a really um specific and appropriate vision for what we want aoba to be but there's work that we have to do to kind of realize that vision and so when you're looking at the the next um phase of your report I'm just wondering would you and and I know the scope has already been defined so I'm just wondering in that scope is part of your Rec recommendations going to help the school committee understand like best practices we could be using as we're reviewing our policies um for how they contribute to work that needs to be done um I feel like that's been a question of mine since I joined the school committee like how can we guide our work with regard to equity and and giving our students Equitable opportunities the school committee in your role you really are guiding the work in such a tremendous way unlike I've seen in many districts the the the way that you've gone about to clearly vision and state um the expectations for the right for the district uh again I'm just looking you've got it in your goals you've got a statement you have a um the deer J um committee you have a strategic plan you've done the work that a school committee needs to do um in terms of setting policy of setting the expectation so much of the work now is around implementation of what you've of what you're expecting to happen in the district right so the governance piece of the school committee the policy setting that work um that work is I'm not saying it's done but you've done you've set the district up for success in that regard would say the school committee's role around really really ensuring that those policies right are taking place in the way that you expect them to right and that's the that's the district leadership's work now is now that that now that that vision is set now that those policies are in place the implementation the administration of those is the work of the district um leadership I would say that that is the great relationship between the school committee and the district leadership that you're working on that um together right so I think to your question it's really about asking the important questions at school committee meetings like how's the work going you know getting reports on various aspects whether it's in curriculum or professional development or you know social emotional learning um hearing the work and supporting the work in in that way Madame chair yes may I please thank you um I also would like to add on to Dr Mayo Brown's answer by hearkening back to the construction of our work around the Strategic plan and ultimately the district's approval of that strategic plan the school committee voted to approve that plan but what we discussed in the process and Madam chair I believe you were on that that team as we discussed that when once we go through the phase in the culture and belonging section of conducting the equity audit it is with certainty that the outcomes and things that we will learn there will inform us in a way that we need to then embed them in their future strategic plan so I'm signaling that to the committee that we'll be coming back in the fall of next year and looking to some Amendments of our 2027 plan and not wait until we uh come back to the to the renewal of the plan process in 2627 so um we'll be revisiting that based upon our learnings that come forward at the final report in June um maybe yeah just one other comment I I'm not sure we I couldn't find a link to the actual presentation that was given is that something that did I miss it is it there I think it's in the it's in the materials yeah there's just so many listed it's in there got it thank you okay great uh Jackie I just wanted to mention alongside the work that's happening at the district level by the administrators part of the ongoing conversations that we're having is in what way is deer J supporting the work of the school committee and so to um to Amy's question like I know that we have this we've created this structure but there are I think continued ways that we can think about and inform our work in a really meaningful way and those conversations are happening at dear J meetings um it will happen this summer at a retreat so there is always an opportunity I think to integrate um feedback and then also to think more concretely about what we're doing as a school committee moving forward me something else I see that look on your face did anybody else have a question because no go ahead go I I just keep coming back to the slide about the students reporting self-reporting of self self uh sense of belonging um I mean to me that that data was I guess I kind of expected there to be some kind of finding in that regard but the numbers were a little surprising to me at how low they were across three different or four different measures um and to me I what it tells me is that there there seems to be um I don't want to I'm the word that's coming to mind that I'm trying to avoid using but I can't think of a better word is a disconnect between what we're visioning and what's actually happening in the classroom and um so I'm just I guess when you're putting together your final report I would also be interested in learning how we can continue to monitor that type of feedback from students so it's informing the work that we do um and how we can bring student voice more into some of the decisions we're making with with those indicators so I believe that the district is um engaged with Panorama so you Kirk I'm looking at you that that would be something that the you would have longitudinal data on each time you administer that to see the to see the movement in belonging us yeah we'll continue to survey students and even if we um shift Platforms in the future away from Panorama to another we'll continue to do that so so yes and if I may I would also offer that the social emotional learning framework that's articulated and not all of it yet implemented um consistently across all schools holds great great promise for increasing um those numbers it it it's captured that the again and I believe it's in a strategic initiative right that that becomes part of daily practice in classrooms the social emotional learning piece of it um and again that again it holds great promise to the extent that it gets implemented feel compelled to jump in and just say that those numbers seem so low to me and if you if you pull it apart like the full report does there's some grade levels where it's actually much lower than the aggregate numbers and so I mean what it just makes me question is what's happening with our kids um we can't put blame on our schools for everything it's just um it's it's mindboggling to me those low numbers that kids are not feeling connected and so you know what I feel like the the problem feels gigantic but I wonder what other other questions we could ask to maybe pull it apart even more and try to understand even more like for example um you know as a teacher myself I know that every single day I I just kill myself to try to connect with the kids and I am finding that right now it is as hard as it's ever been in my 25 years of teaching to connect with kids and so like it is a I want the Community to know that this is a very complex problem and that it lives at all of our doorsteps and so we all need to take responsibility it needs to be a very holistic approach I know the recommendations are coming and I'm not trying to recommend but what I do know is that every single stakeholder including the kids own this and that we need to make sure that we're holding everyone accountable as we go to make recommendations and ask ourselves you know how can we build capacity within the staff how can we make sure that they feel like they belong how can we um make sure that parents feel like they belong how can because you know when parents feel like they don't belong that kind of talk can kind of seep in at the dinner table and then kids start feeling like they don't belong and and that just like feeds itself so you know I know that the numbers might feel low and they look low but I'm looking for a much more complicated answer as to why that number is so low it is cultural like American culture is driving it things like that um and so I just want to put that on the table before everybody feels like super low about that that number that um there it could be very a very complicated reason for why it is there um see Sharon again go ahead Sharon okay um I have so many thoughts in my head right now and um I hope that I would what I say here will make sense and and I will say it not badly um I want to thank you um for all this information and for all the encouraging words um about systems being in place and evidence of um work being done it is something that um the district has worked really hard on getting to this point in the last three or so years um I am discouraged that um like Amy and Leah were saying that that the numbers seem low in terms of just basically belonging be being a part of of the community that is really discouraging um and also that it seems like we have systems in place but they are not being implemented consistently um and specifically to me one of those is the social emotional learning that um I wish that we were at a better a place where we were implementing that more consistently um and I hope that in as as you finish up your work that that we'll get some really good recommendations that and that the district will embrace them and not I'm not speaking just to um any one particular group but I think as a whole the community the families the school committee the all of the people that work in our schools all of us will really be able to embrace those um recommendations and really make some um real positive change for our kids Daren um chair I man yeah go right ahead Kirk um and as as I hear some committee members talking about recommendations u in the coming weeks Dr Mayo Brown myself assistant superintendent are going to meet and we're going to be talking about the format of which the recommendations will be coming from this committee what I will do to sort of frame expectations on those recommendations as I would Envision them I'm GNA take the last example we heard from Miss pck on social emotional learning a recommendation could possibly look like alignment in a social emotional learning program but it wouldn't be as specific to say do this to get that and so I just want to to present that to the committee that the recommendations are going to be these are the things that we should be looking at and focusing on in the steps of our strategic work and then we apply our systems and practices to get those things into place so I just want to frame that as an expectation as we come into the the final report in June yep all right guys um not seeing any more hands all right so thank you so much for that report welcome um thanks for yeah it's enlightening and I know just like I think Amy said we've been waiting literally years for this information and and and although some of it is a little hard to take um much of it is incredibly inspiring and um we're grateful for the leadership of this District kind of setting the stage and we look forward to the recommendations that can make it real for kids so thanks for your help thank you thanks thank you it was a pleasure to be here tonight thank you mag uh knowledge is power everyone uh I believe it so we're going to head on to perhaps more clear-cut things and uh into the finance and operations report uh and so I don't know Kirk do you want to set it up or right to Ross I think we can just go straight to Ross mcaren finan operations director okay I appreciate the uh opportunity to present um this evening um I may not describe the work that we do as always clear-cut but I appreciate that these reports are seen as clear-cut so thank you to the chair uh so a few areas that I want to call to your attention this evening as we review the report uh primarily and we talked about this uh in previous iterations but the special education department line um we know that due to some increased costs we're going to be spending down that money what I do want to acknowledge to the school committee this evening is that we did receive uh confirmation that we qualified for Extraordinary relief under circuit breaker which means that we will get additional funding this year uh through the circuit breaker mechanism it is unlikely uh that that special education line will be in a positive balance but it will be less of an impact to our circuit breaker um balance as we'll be taking in more money this year um and it does not impact any claims that we make next year so this is really good news we don't know our actual circuit breaker extraordinary relief uh number yet uh we have a webinar next week with desie and then we'll start to get our notifications after that uh the other thing that I want to call to your attention is just within the cluster of our building accounts we certainly are looking at some healthy projected balances at the end of the year uh it is likely that these along with uh the curriculum professional development and systemwide uh balances will increase as our actual expenditures come a little bit clearer and we know for certain what absolutely needs to happen in fy2 24 but it's likely that these numbers will go up facility is always a question mark um so we can't make any guarantees around that because of what may or may not happen um but it's likely that the overall balance um that's projected for the end of the year will continue to increase it is doubtful that it will be as high as it was last year at the end of FY 23 um but likely to increase at at some level all right does uh anybody have any questions or comments on the March operations report uh Scott I assume that you guys already um discussed this at budget and warrant maybe yeah all right everybody moving on to the next piece here and that is regarding the donations that um we have received for deck uh do you guys want to cue this up a little bit I certainly can that would be great yep so as um we've heard from uh Decker leadership um and I think you're all very well aware we have a great group of students that are going to Nationals this year um the cost obviously are increased with distance um they've done a great job fundraising however they're always always remains a need to um have support for for this program so we've received notice that there's two pending donations um one from Clinton Savings Bank which has traditionally been very generous and supportive of the DECA program and also now Align Credit Union um has continued um its support of the program with their donations so there's a $3,000 donation a 20 $2,500 donation um up for approval this evening and I know that the students are excited for their trip um but also I know that they're they're in need of of additional support so this would be very helpful for them excellent so before we have discussion maybe Amy could you give us a motion for these donations sure I move to accept the donations from Clinton Savings Bank in the amount of $33,000 and Align Credit Union in the amount of $25 $2,500 These funds will help defay the travel costs associated with International Career Development conference I'll second that uh any discussion from the committee or questions I have a question so do we we don't need to say that this is in the motion that this is for Deca or anything like that I think that conference that you just identified is DECA okay is that right guys yeah so that's sufficient all right seeing no other discussion we'll take the vote Amy vessels uh myself yes Amy Cohen yep um and I don't know if you guys heard Amy vessels but she said yes um Sharon yes Scott yes Karen yes Jackie yes Dana yes Joe yes and shondor yes so thank you so much to those community partners for helping subsidize this amazing program and we wish all of the DECA kids the best of luck as they head to Nationals go get them noova uh represent all right guys so that's it for finance and operations thank you Ross for all of that information uh so on to unfinished business guys we have a few votes that we're looking to take the last of which will maybe give us a little bit more pause but um let's start with the school choice I'd like to take a motion from Amy and then we can discuss all right um and actually Kirk the motion that was written I know that there was some conversation about whether or not the motion need to change is Amy's motion as given to us by Alita still good yeah yeah as long as it reflects that last Slide the motion was fine I just had an air on that one sixth grade uh colorin but it's that's not going to affect the motion that will not affect because uh we would be voting to close uh at Florence soer kindergarten 124 and six is in the motion the motion is correct either so and so Amy um hold on one second it is just one motion but it is a very long motion do you agree Amy yes there were two I just for full transparency I was the Motions I was given there's a choice to there's two motions that I have written here but I was going to move the recommendations of the superintendent as opposed to withdrawing from the school chose program alog together and I assumed we could discuss after that make sure everybody agrees yeah but Kurt um we're supposed to move to withdraw first and then move to fur then further move to limit yeah exactly um because we are we're not opening school choice just uh universally so uh I think we should just be specific to that to just make sure it's it's clearing the record um so what I will do miss Co is I will offer my recommendation to the committee and then anyone on the committee can move as recommended that would probably be easiest so the first recommendation I would like to make to the committee is to um move to withdraw from the school choice program for the 2425 school year due to enrollment and class size standards as follows Des to be notified of this vote um please excuse me I got a notice that my computer is running out of power of course that should be remedy I'll repeat move to withdraw from the school choice program for the 2425 school year due to enrollment and class size standards as follows desing to be notified of this vote Florence Sawyer School Clos grades kindergarten 1 2 4 and six Mary rollinson Elementary close all grades Luther Burbank Middle School close grades six and seven Center school close all grades hail middle school close grade six that's the first recommendation would you like to tell us your second recommendation the second recommendation part two is move to limit school choice enrollment for the 2425 school year as follows desie to be notified of this vote at Florence Sawyer School allow four students in third grade two students for fifth grade four students for seventh grade and four students for eighth grade lutha Burbank Middle School four students for 8ighth grade hail Middle School four students for seventh grade four students for eighth grade nishoba Regional High School four students for 9th grade four students for 10th grade four students for 11th grade four students for 12th grade furthermore no more than 11 total students District ride for grade eight thank you for that recommendation and I've put it in the chat because I'm a very fast typer no uh so it's all in there for you guys if you can see the chat you can't see the chat because I direct messaged it to Laura hold on it is the final slide of the presentation so you can view it there do not steal my thunder Kirk my chat Thunder okay that that should have gone to everyone this time laori you get it twice so that's Kirk's recommendation as is the case in the last slide of the presentation okay so go ahead Amy I will move to accept the superintendent's recommendations with regard to the school choice program for the 2024 2025 school year I will second that is there any discussion from the committee any questions yes Scott so I just I'm trying to understand why you're recommending a four student per grade per School limit can you explain that please yes last year um Mr pal is we had not participated in SCH school choice for quite some time uh there was uh some concern brought forward by the committee of the numbers uh would we be able to manage the numbers how can we control them as as changes on populations happen and so uh as we looked at this uh we said well if we limit it at four per grade level per school that will give us a manable load to understand the demand I actually think it's a very reasonable place to be particularly since we opened up 43 slots last year and we accepted all 20 students um who applied to those spots that help scottt no I still don't understand exactly where the four comes from I if I could Kirk just um say that I actually remember making this comment last year that there was one grade level last year that could have taken in like 20 kids that the the allowable number right and it almost would have like doubled the grade at a particular school and I made a comment that I worry about school culture and as we're trying to create the sense of belonging and build um connections where we have very large influxes of kids who are not familiar with and so I remember personally making this comment and I still believe it's true that um it's wonderful to have this infusion of new students into our district but that I would like to see that Tethered to some level of control where we're not tipping the balance so much in one particular grade where then the staff and the district is having to um kind of take Extraordinary Measures to manage School culture and I'm I'm not sure if that's what's driving K thinking but I remember making that comment last year I do remember there was some discussion about concerns regarding integration last year um but I do wonder you know four does seem a little arbitrary as any number would be but um you know in this I'm just looking for example at Florence Sawyer so you know we're talking about four students adding four to a class of 74 and eth grade whereas we're adding four to a class of 82 in seventh grade and it just I understand the concerns about integration and I'm not going to hold up this vote on this particular point but I would like the administration to consider if there might be another way of limiting it that might allow in a few more kids like maybe up to 10% of the class or something along those lines just think about other limits for this discussion question next year please uh I'm happy to do so Mr pal at the direction of the committee as it said this is uh put forward to the committee so I can learn in terms of what your thoughts and desires are so as we think about that next year absolutely we can consider that thank you good point Scott uh any other comments or questions all right everybody so I'm not seeing any more Golden Hands we're going to move to the vote I will start by saying yes Amy vessels yes Amy Cohen yes Sharon yes Scott yes uh Karen yes Jackie yes Dana yes Joe yes shandor yes that's unanimous thanks everyone and thanks Kirk for that very thoughtful process one again we really do appreciate all the hard work that goes into that you know um as you guys all know the door could just be kicked wide open that's not what you're doing and we really appreciate all the effort you you put into this and and making things great for all kids thank you all right everybody uh moving on here with the agenda uh next is uh the nrhs student travel um the trip to France and you guys are to take a vote today on the presentations that we received at the last meeting and so Amy do have a motion for us yes I moved to approve the Nisha Regional High School student trip to France on April 21st 2025 to May 4th 2025 for approximately 20 students in three chaperons as presented on the April 10th 2024 school committee meeting all chaperons will be fingerprinted and CED I'll second that uh any discussion seeing them we'll take the vote Amy vessels yes myself yes Sharon yes Amy Cohen yes Jackie yes Scott yes Dana yes Joe yes Shan door yes and Karen yes fantastic I hope they have whoever goes I hope they have a fantastic time and we look forward to wel welcoming uh students from France here that's exciting I love to see the travel program coming back it was um it was just so great before the pandemic and I'm so grateful to those Educators who are Reviving it so thank you to all of them all right guys uh the part you've all been waiting for policy Amy vessel has been an amazing Steward here uh we have these three policies that we're going to be looking at today um Amy I'm gonna actually turn it over to you if you don't mind for this um uh before we put a motion on the table because we're going to take motions for each one individually Amy could you just go through each one and then we'll do a motion and so starting with bhe what's happening here just remind the committee what we discussed last time because a few people weren't present and um what small changes you made and then we'll maybe hold a little bit of discussion before the motion and then we'll go forward with bhe one of the um concerns that people brought forward in the meeting last time was about um electronic messaging between um and among members of the school committee and so we just went in and added in a few small phrases that said you know basically that you should be you should not be doing that when a quorum is present so it's not saying now it's not saying that you can never use electronic messaging that you can only you know before it was said you could only use it for housekeeping purposes but now we've um changed that a little bit to say that um you could you should only be using it for housekeeping purposes when a quum is present so there how many that's perfect thank you Amy um so this is a concern that Amy Cohen brought up at the last meeting um I think that the changes make sense U maybe the word I don't know if the word smithing is something that we care about but um any questions on the substance of this matter Amy Cohen does this satisfy you yeah I think this takes care of my concern thank you very much any other discussion or comments before we take a motion I just wanted to mention that the people that were absent last time were all in the policy subcommittee so we did talk about it a lot fantastic God you guys are good uh all right so Amy Cohen do you want to throw a motion out for this one yes sorry um I was need to toggle back to my motions um I move to approve the revisions to policy bhe as presented tonight I'll second that any further discussion seeing none let's take the vote Amy vessels yes myself yes Amy Cohen yes Sharon yes Scott yes Jackie yes shandor yes Joe yes Dana yes and Karen yes all right uh let's move on to policy efd so Amy what's going on here um we did not make any changes when I we met with Kirk on Monday night he said Ross was going to speak um about this policy and he did not feel like it would it would need to change so he said Ross was gonna present about it okay and so Kirk um or Ross feel free to explain what you're thinking um let me set it up by saying uh Mr mcaren and I had a chance to meet about this this week so he dug in and did some research uh Madam chair I did send to you via email some recommended language that Mr Karen is offering um to add to this policy but I'll turn it over to Mr mcaren to address the concerns I know Mr mcaren you did have an opportunity to review the discussion from the last meeting and you have some thoughts yes thank you superintendent Downing uh I did I watch the uh recording of the meeting um as well as obviously review the policy so um a couple of things of note with regards to the the the what I think are the two main points for discussion number one uh being request firsts notification um so I have some some thoughts and some language on that uh and then also the the uh conversation with regards to unclaimed balances so I was able to complete uh some internal research to understand a little bit deeper our policies and procedures out of food services uh again I would point to you know our Our Food Services RFP which is coming to closure soon we'll be having our our responses from potential potential vendors we had very a very good turnout um for our our facilities tours uh a couple weeks ago so again these are the expertise that they'll be able to bring in um which we would appreciate uh so with regards to our internal processes um I do see areas where we can improve through policy um with regards to the unclaimed balances uh I spoke with our Auditors uh I spoke with our Treasurer Vicky charier and I also spoke uh with a contact at the unclaimed property division which is part of the Mass state Treasurers Office uh I think more commonly known as fine Mass money.com uh so there's there's some not competing opinions on this but there is um certain uh accounting practices and uh state laws that are are at play based on the the level of the balance uh how long it's been on our our our books for Etc um so I do have some potential uh policy language for consideration I do actually have an update potentially to even what I shared with superintendent Downing this afternoon because I did speak with our Treasurer uh probably post that meeting so I can put this into the chat if that would suffice H yeah let's give it a whirl okay just don't send it to only Laura I will not okay this looks like it's good so what I'm presenting for recommended language is positive balances of graduating students with a sibling in the district will automatically transfer to the next oldest siblings account so therefore if a student graduates we automatically then transfer any balance to uh the next oldest sibling when students are graduating they're they're asked to pay any deficits they may have in the school lunch program so it's not a it's we're not setting up either also a condition of a deficit then gets counted against the next sibling so this is strictly with regards to positive balances any other student leaving the district by withdrawal or graduation will be notified of their balance for the refund and the procedure for requesting the refund then uh this is also some language that may have changed since I I spoke with superintendent Downey uh unclaimed balances will be subject to applicable Massachusetts General law so I think there that opens up channels for levels of balance how long we've had them without getting into too much detail on that with with the policy so if if applicable Massachusetts General Law changes our policies flexible to that change in in statute okay and so you are recommending that that language right there be attached to the policy maybe a final paragra in the policy uh actually no I I should have prefaced this would replace the section on pull back up I think it's just called uh refund it's called payments sorry I have too many uh I think it just says refunds too many tabs open yes refunds thank you that would be the section that it would replace got it all right so does everybody understand the recommendation I think I see Karen's hand I'm just wondering so if that's going to replace refunds would the option to donate to a student in need with a written request still be an option for families or is that no longer an option so my recommendation um would be to remove that language for the following reason is that we we no longer have students who may be having increased um deficits within our school lunch accounts because of their first meal so a lot of that has been taken care of I think in the past prior to Universal school lunch we would see families who may be you know increasing their their their bill owed um simply by the child taking a lunch every day um any child can get that first breakfast or lunch any day of the week so we won't see those increases this is just really balances on allart or seconds um that students May um have and again those types of things need to be paid prior to graduation commitments um I also um would be concerned about how do we identify the process of which student in need um and to what extent um so certainly that's a that's a consideration okay thanks I guess I would finish that with also saying we are willing to work with any family on payment plan or anything that there may be with regards to any sort of school lunch uh account balance um you know and work with them especially when you get towards graduation great thanks Jackie I I know that we've said that before I know sometimes though in in my own work there's hesitation on parts of families when those kinds of situations H have come forth so I'm just I appreciate that I also would be concerned that people won't take advantage of that even if it's offered all right any any other questions about this policy with Ross's additional language and so I feel oh go ahead Sharon sorry I couldn't unmute um no question just a comment thank you to Ross for um taking a look at that and adding that in I feel like that is um more fair toes to be certain that we keep track of the money that they have put into the system and that they get it back if they haven't used it all right um so Amy Cohen I think we're ready for a motion if you can fashion one here yes I [Music] move to sorry just okay I move to adopt policy efd as with the re revisions presented in tonight's meeting I'll second that any further discussion all right seeing none Amy vessels yes myself yes Amy Cohen yes Sharon yes she said Scott yes Jackie yes shondor yes Joe yes Dana yes and Karen yes awesome okay wow moving right along here um we're going to look at the final piece and that is GBE Amy vessel can you tell us what's going on here yes after our discussion last week about the concerns around use of um of um resources given by the district for personal communication um we spoke to Kirk about this at our policy meeting on Monday and they um he had spoken to um I think who who is it uh Suchi our technology manager yes and he and so they decided I think together that they would recommend taking that out and so I did take that out all right so you guys can see that red line there in the meeting material I think that I'll just go ahead with a motion from Amy Cohen okay um I moved to approve the revisions to policy GBE as presented tonight I'll second that uh any discussion or questions everyone all right so let's go for the vote Amy vessels yes myself yes Amy Cohen yes Sharon yes Scott yes Jackie yes Shand door yes Joe yes Dana yes uh Karen yes awesome uh so policy subcommittee great job uh persevering through all of that we're so proud of you guys um Amy runs a well oiled machine and she promised that she has dozens more for us before the end of the year um so some of them is like replacing commas and our English teacher friend Amy vessels knows that commas matter so we'll follow her lead thanks for that Amy um all right so moving on here we're gonna head over to subcommittee reports and Mike is not present for budgeon warrant tonight he had other matters to attend to but I wonder if um other members of budget and warrant have anything that you can share with us we haven't we haven't met since the last school committee meeting and the next budget warrant committee's meeting is scheduled for May 14th fantastic thanks over to communication anything going on Sharon A lot's going on what's going on um we met just after our last meeting um still working on those final details we're really close we um I think I sent it um I sent the new version to you Leah I owe you an email don't I it's okay no worries let's week um so we're really close when we can get it onto the calendar and then we'll see kind of what what feedback the committee has from there awesome thanks communication uh over to Joe with the school building committee thank you madam chairman uh the building committee will be meeting tomorrow evening at 7 pm uh I have literally nothing to report we have an astoundingly light agenda tomorrow night I will just remind everybody that we're looking at groundbreaking for June 7th thank you oh my gosh music to the years thanks Joe uh PA over to Personnel Sharon what's what's up here no report Okie do um just as a quick note for personnel we do have the superintendent evaluation coming up in the coming month so Personnel will really kick into high gear then uh policy anything else Amy other than my joke about how much you have on your plate uh no just that we're meeting Monday to finalize stuff to bring to the committee at the beginning of May on the parent communication policy excellent Kirk something to add that was just it yes all right she beat you um over to audit advisory Dena anything there I'm not sure the last time I gave an up update but we did receive one um um sorry one response to our RFP from Markham but we wanted to get more so we sent it out again and then extended the deadline which I think is the first week of May you can correct me if I'm wrong R Us so we are going to meet I think that Tuesday or Wednesday after that to review what else has come in and so at least markham's interested in working for us again thank goodness okay that's good at least um they are the the auditor who we have had for a couple of years yeah okay and we did just receive the audit yes we did so we will also be reviewing that at our next meeting as well awesome and so you got you guys all should have received the audit that is required that you receive it and you did hopefully um so Dina you can report on that the next go around okay cool um over to Dear Jay and Jackie um so just to quickly update the meeting minutes um were approved at our last meeting on April 3rd for our the minutes from February 26 so interested school committee members and community members can access that on the district landing page um the April 3rd meeting really focused on continued support of the school committee and specifically around the equity audit there was a review and brief discussion around the PLC that happened in March and that the upcoming meeting on May 7th will look at um you know just discussing more in ways that Dej can continue to support the work of the school committee uh in our next year ahead of us awesome thanks Jackie uh Karen anything for CPAC uh CPAC was supposed to meet yesterday but it got moved to tonight so they're they had a meeting this evening um I did check in about their presentation and uh got confirmation that cek will be able to present in May so I just wanted to confirm um with you Leia that May 22nd is still a good date that's where it is on the planning calendar but I will I just wanted to check before I confirm with them uh you said May 22nd yes it's on the planning calendar for May 22nd so I just want to make sure that is still that still works and then I will confirm with that I think yeah as far as I can tell um we obviously are are we have a packed schedule over the next month or so but we are excited to hear from them and so that night might be the best bet okay that's it thanks awesome thanks uh and that is it I believe for our subcommittee and advisory reports uh so items for next agenda you guys can see the planning calendar perhaps um I'm actually uh I'm able to quickly share that with you now if you would like to look upon oops uh so today is the 24th obviously uh here is the information for May 8th I don't like it when it does this I'm just going to go like this to help this so there's May 8th 22nd and June 5th uh as always guys if there's anything that you would like to see on the planning calendar that is not there uh you can either tell me now or you can email me at some point uh Kirk um I am noticing that we need to include Mr Blanchard's um um entry report so will do his report on uh entry findings I think the May 22nd meeting might be the most appropriate time to do that okay I have it on the 8th Kirk but would you rather I just I can't see it on my report yeah no worries would do you want to move it uh we I have my consult with Mr Blanchard this week so I will check in with him and if yeah that's uh that's good work though we look forward to the the the you know the Brady Bunch maze was over that part so so I didn't see it right um let's see I'm just going to scroll up very quickly to the parking lot and um Joe I have not forgotten about our Quorum conundrum and that is something that we do need to kind of bring to the four at some point get some definitive explanation on on Quorum so that's in here parent communication policy is coming the school committee manual is coming and the mtss presentation kind of all things special education is in the parking lot and that is going to um definitely be a focus of the district next year with um a new director coming online I know and so if that doesn't happen this year it is something that will happen however I did see the mtss handbook featured quite a bit in the equity audit so that helps um okay and so just FYI um I like to give a heads up Alita can you help me with something really quick is June 5th the organizational meeting or is it like or is it June 15th do you know Kirk the next meeting would have been June 19th and that's juneth so we can't that's a Federal holiday so we either have one meeting in June or we have the second meeting really really later yeah right after this one two weeks from the 15th would be juneth got it um and so I want the committee to kind of consider this because we do have some amazing committee members who are rolling off of the committee uh when elections happen and you guys might remember that the regional agreement has um kind of redefined the term length of school committee members and what that means is that the organizational meeting is the first meeting of the newly elected members of school committee and the meeting right prior to that which would be the second meeting in May would be the last meeting of those who are rolling off um so I'm not sure that we want it to be that way so I just want to put a pin in it for now and maybe we can discuss it at the next meeting how we want to hold the how we want to handle the organizational meeting um and whether or not want to add another school committee meeting in June to kind of wrap matters up before the new members come on so that I'm gonna I'm G to kind of put that up for deliberation at our next meeting um so I'm sure that Amy has a question go ahead Amy vessels oh yeah you just need to let us know too when you want to deal with the big all that policy stuff it's not like a lot of them are short but there's like several things so got it we're going to be working on that the next at the next two meetings so you know if it can be in June that would be awesome yeah yep so I mean my yeah so we'll discuss the the calendar at the next meeting and and do a little bit more work there um all right so anything else that anybody wants to put on the table before we adjourn yeah just one question um what about the food services update are we going to get anything from Ross on how that's progressing I'm very anly awaiting we were Outsourcing weren't we the RFP stuff great question yeah is it okay to provide a quick update uh not today but can I put you on at the at the next meeting would that be okay put it on for the E excellent I that is something that just C kept getting bumped for a variety of good reasons this is this would be considered unfinished business so Madam chair for clarification yeah Miss Ellis I think what you're asking for there is just like sort of an update on where we are in the process because I wasn't sure anything came in yet or when is it closed so what we'll do is we'll include a a section in the announcements portion of the superintendent report and and report back sort of an update on progress there right I mean we can wait if it's going to close out before we're finished with this um this season two thank you just curious yeah we'll have a update okay I'll put a question mark on it and then Kirk and I can show it up next time we meet on when thanks for that Dana anything else all right so obviously if something comes to you let me know you can just email me and I'll I'll throw it on the um conversation list for Kirk and me on next Wednesday but uh other than that everyone um I do believe it's 8:37 and I'm going to move to adjourn do I have a second second nice job uh let's go for the vote Amy vessels yes myself yes Amy Cohen yes Sharon yes Scott yes Jackie she said yes Karen yes Joe yes Dana yes and shondor yes all right people thanks for everything everyone second that Leah um Dana Dana