e e e e e e e e the regular meeting of the nooba regional school committee tonight May 22nd at 602 p.m. if you would everyone um you can mute but join me in the Pledge of Allegiance 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 good call on the flag shandor I need to designate that as a job um I do see that Karen is trying to get in so hopefully she'll be a to join us shortly uh so looking at our agenda here we have uh citizens comments first and I have not received any interest from the public in formally engaging in citizens comment so we're going to move on to our next item here and um just a little bit in advance of 607 but that's okay uh we're uh scheduled to have an executive session two separate uh purposes although they are similar and I'm going to lean on Amy Cohen to give us well hold on one second uh Kirk we're going to need to ex to say both of the pursuant statements is that right that is correct you will need to say both okay okay Amy go for it all right I moved to enter into exec Ive session at 6:04 pm. pursuant to mgl chapter 30A section 21 A2 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel for unit a grievances executive session a to include the school committee superintendent Kirk Downing am Marie sta Kevin keany Mike tson and MOA Le Point exe exec session B to include the school committee superintendent Kirk Downing Amry sta Kevin key Mike tulson and Britney Jones the committee will reconvene to open session we'll second that and any discussion all right we're gonna take a roll call vote I will start I say yes Joe yes yes Dana thanks Scott yes Shand door yes Amy vessels yes Amy Cohen yes Sharon yes Jackie yes Mike yes I think I got everybody screen jumped all right everybody we are e e e e e e e e e okay so do I need to read this all again and list the other participants or can I just modify it okay I move to enter into an executive session at 6:11 p.m. pursuant to mgl chapter 3A section 21 A2 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations contract negotiations with non-union Personnel for unit a grievances executive a session to include the school committee superintendent Kirk Downing Amry sta Kevin KY Mike tosson and Kristen Marino EX ex cutive session B to include School committees superintendent Downing Amry sta Kevin key Mike Tolson and Britney Jones the committee will reconvene to open session I will second that thank you Amy um Joe do we need discussion sorry yeah the only thing I was gonna ask is who moral a point is she not going into this into this session she is not currently present it doesn't look like but she perhaps will join us she was listed on the motion I did not let me let me let me include MOA um executive session a also to include more of the plan the point I'm so sorry it's even more complicated that's okay so I am I seconded the motion and I am happy to accept that friendly Amendment thank you to include morea La Point okay and so if there's no further discussion I'm going to take the vote myself I say yes Joe yes shandor yes Scott yes Amy vessels yes danana yes Sharon yes uh Jackie yes Mike yep uh Amy Cohen yes and Karen yes okay so we are now in executive e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e I will apologize to the community if they were keeping track of our timeline um we are a little bit behind here with the executive session lasting a little bit longer than normal so we do have our regular agenda to attend to we're just a tad behind so picking back up um we are going to move on to the consent agenda and I wonder if Amy Cohen could give me a motion on the consent agenda oh you're muted yep thanks Amy y sorry about that I moved to approve the consent agenda of May 22nd 2024 containing draft minute meetings meeting minutes of May 8th 2024 and warrants of May 24th 2024 I'll second that any discussion on the consent agenda seeing none we'll take the vote Joe yes myself yes Jackie yes shondor was that a yes shandor yes oh sorry Mike yes Scott D Scott oh yeah I did Amy vessels yes Karen yes Amy Cohen yes Sharon Sharon can you hear me consent agenda would you like to vote on the motion yes excellent thank you did I get everyone it's jumping around okay everybody so um the motion passes we're going to move on to the next item here and is the school committee chairperson update so I just have a brief update it is actually related to one of our subcommittee reports but um I will share it now the school committee is um looking to at our next meeting um identify the membership of our advisory committee called dear J and in the superintendent's common uh which is his Weekly Newsletter uh it was explained how we would appreciate any residents who are interested in joining this advisory which serves the school committee and making sure that all of our actions are um adhering to our statement on diversity Equity inclusion and belonging and with the Strategic plan and so if you are interested in being a member of dear J for the next School year and uh helping to forward the mission of that group and of our committee please email me at L viverito nrsd.org around might be a good addition to the group uh at this point in time I will let the community know that I based upon the common um from last Friday I do have seven interested people people who are willing to serve on the committee which is a great number so um if you feel like you are a little too busy for this but you hope the mission carries on uh if you're not there are seven fantastic residents who are going to carry it on so that being said let's move on to uh the next item on our agenda is a student representative report but Kirk I'm not seeing our student reps yes not surprising busy busy busy um so that's okay we will keep going here uh and move on to our superintendent's report he has a couple of announcements and some updates on strategic work and and our team knows uh Madam chair given the timeliness of the evening we will give you some truncated reports without get uh losing any of the meat we want to make sure you have the good stuff um last week we sent out an announcement to nooba Regional High School families and the families of our middle schools specifically eighth grade families regarding manganese that's been detected in the water source for noober Regional High School uh that uh sample was taken uh in January and March of this year we received notification uh from Whitewater um water and wastewater Solutions on May 7th uh with instructions on notifying our community within 30 days uh of of the the testing it's important to note uh that manganese itself is naturally in water uh these are elevated levels for which we have never tested higher uh than than the threshold in the past so this is a new phenomenon for us and uh part of that um requirement from Mass D is that we put together an action plan which Mr Freez wook will be uh working on that um as well as notifying our community uh so we also put out the literature about manganese in the water that uh drinking the water itself uh is is not dangerous say in in a single or minimum usage but repeatedly over a period of time could have some NE negative effects so this is something we want to um monitor I want you to know that we are I've already put out a request to test the bubbler water because all of our bubblers do have filters and carbon filters on them so we want to uh now test directly from the tap Source that's part of our our plan so we get that data back um and so uh with that uh just want to let the committee know that we're following all the regulations of mass D and their notifications to us while that testing was done on March 26th we received instructions at that time to pause uh as they prepare notifications for us uh to notify the community so that's what we did we received their information on May 7th and were able to uh get it out to our community within the week so uh with that manam chair before we go to the next piece I just want to take any questions from the committee I did ask uh Mr Fook to be here as well as Miss Wicker in case there are any questions from the committee okay so um this is specific to the high school so uh yep so let's go over to Amy Cohen yeah I was just wondering if you could explain um the timeline a little bit more because it looks like the samples were taken and January yeah but notification wasn't really provided for few months after that do you know why that they do multiple samples it was taken in January and then again in March we were notified at the end of March in that notification they said uh we will be preparing notification for you for your community please wait and so we followed their instructions they sent that to us on May 7th and so uh after that because when it comes to to water quality we have to follow Mass D's instructions quite strictly so um now that we have that we move forward with the plan so could we assume that since the DP didn't get back to us until May that they there wasn't an urgent need to react right is that's that's exactly there there was no danger or sense of urgency where we needed to do that okay but you're saying that carbon filtration is very likely capable of managing this no I'm not saying that what I'm saying is we have carbon filtered bubblers um we're just having the bubblers tested to see if it's addressing that uh Mr Fook I I'll turn that question over to you thanks superintendent um carbon carbon media um isn't really effective for reducing the amount of maganese in the water um it could do it a little bit um you that's why we're going to do some field tests to see if the bottle filling stations at the high school um because those have carbon filters in them um see if it reduces the amount of maganese in them get a baseline um and then we can you know take further action at that point so I'm assuming that this kind of testing could take rob a couple of weeks to get that Baseline and then to kind of test for safety field test when White Water gets on site the field test will be able to get results immediately once they get the field test done so we'll know on those B filling stations whether that carbon um is filtering out the magines um we do right now we're going to increase the raw water sample which that's the sample taken directly from the well we're going to increase that to monthly so we can get a baseline up to this point well up till January we've never had a detect of Magan in the water system um so it's kind of an anomaly so we want to get some baseline numbers um and more frequent testing to see where things are going if they're trending up or if they're trending down um so we can put a you know proper action plan in place going forward so we're grateful to you on this front and uh we thank D obviously for um conducting this testing uh I think that what parents are worried about is I know that you had a plan for how the kitchen was handling it with um you know fruits and vegetables are to be used you need to use bottled water to wash them Etc and so I understand the kitchen is managing it um there was a concern brought to us that that said that uh you know with the hot temperatures in this building is just you know how I feel about it um it's hot and the kids you know not all of them bring water bottles or they run out and then they can't refill so what's the plan for making sure that hydration is not uh a problem I know the sports teams are bringing I mean yesterday I saw them bring a huge bucket of water out so I'm not sure where they got that water like what's what's the plan there yeah as we have that advisement uh we'll work with Dr Bon and team they have bottled of water there at the high school we'll make sure if a child needs water we get the water um and so um Dr Boon will set up that procedure uh at the high school we'll get that out to fam that would be great yeah and and Kirk do you plan on sending out um now that this school committee has heard um your complete report here and we've heard from Rob and and you're kind of devising um some remediation here for the hydration piece can you send out an email or maybe update the community Maybe by Friday sure on this yeah everybody okay with that all right everybody uh moving on to um more exciting stuff and that is our strategic work so Kirk I'll turn it over to you again yeah and tonight you're going to see a presentation about the K to5 English language arts and literacy CC curriculum review report so I think uh Madame chair um rather than talk about that here we'll just address that when we get to new business around the Ki literacy yes I did notice that that was a duplicate duplicate on the agenda so you're ready to move into new business yeah all right uh so guys on to new business and um we have we are lucky to hear tonight from Scott Blanchard and understand his entry plan findings and hear his report so Kirk I'll let you ceue it up yeah I would like to introduce Mr Scott blancard he's our fabulous principal at Mary rollinson Elementary School and this is his uh first year he came and and told the committee about what his intentions are to learn about the school in the community this year and he's here to report back on those findings so Mr Blanchard take it away thank you superintendent Downing and uh thank you to the school committee uh for having me tonight and providing me with this opportunity to present my findings um before I begin I also want to thank the M community at large the student staff and families for their feedback and support through this process um I'd like to say thank you to uh my administrative assistant Jennifer frer and my assistant principal Steve Grant who are uh excellent thought Partners uh for me through this process um I want to thank again superintendent Downing and assistant superintendent friend for their ongoing encouragement and support in my first year as principal and I'd like to thank uh Shan O'Shea um for his mentorship and guidance over the last nine years um that I feel has really prepared me to take on this role uh as principal um back when I started this process a year ago I wanted to be sure that having been here at Mary rollinson for eight years that I really examined this uh the school and its needs um with an objective lens uh I didn't want to make any assumptions about uh what our strengths are what our areas of priority are or the kind of leader I need to be in order to help us achieve our goals um so with that in mind I drafted this entry plan and um which I I hope to summarize for you uh right now um so uh in the first uh do I have to share my screen can you guys see the slideshow um not yet okay do I have to share that with you guys yeah you can certainly do that or Alita could as well whatever's easier Scott I got it you got it thank you great thanks Alita okay so the first intended outcome was to understand the impact of our communication systems at M and the degree to which they build strong Partnerships with families and how we might improve them so some common themes that emerged are that um parents and caregivers really value transparency um they want to know about student learning outcomes um but they also want to know about our priorities as a learning organization and uh our schoolwide initiatives um they uh are looking for opportunities also for the homeschool connection uh we received feedback from parents who uh reported just being able to they enjoyed knowing what was going on in the classrooms day-to-day and have being able to have conversations with their children uh at home at night in order to be able to um reinforce and support the learning that was going on at school um so our considerations for next steps will be to continue to gather feedback from families about uh the effective ways uh we can communicate with them uh to provide them that information to potentially identify exemplars uh that are already being used in the building for uh home communication and sharing those with others so that um uh we can have some consistency to that and we also want to create some common expectations in the building around uh the types of things that are being communicated and how they're being communicated and also um to continue to use utilize our online platforms such as thrillshare uh for the communications you need to be more timely we've received a lot of positive uh feedback this year particularly about that Tool uh and how we've used to get messages out when needed outcome two is to understand the ways in which our process for communicating student progress impacts student learning and growth uh the interesting thing about this one was uh as I was trying to see if there was a direct correlation between uh how we communicate student learning outcomes uh what was the effect that it had and I didn't find a direct correlation between uh the communic ations and the outcomes how it affects the outcomes but what I did uncover was that uh in order for teachers to prepare to have these conversations with families uh it connects very directly with the PLC work that we've uh been engaging in specifically um in preparing for those Communications uh it behooves us to to really look at the four questions that drive the PLC work what do we want our students to know and be able to do how will we know that they've learned it what will we do do uh how will we respond uh if they haven't learned what we intended and how will we enrich and extend the learning for those students who have demonstrated Mastery um so in the process of preparing ourselves to have these um effective conversations with parents about student learning and student learning outcomes um what it does is it reinforces and strengthens our uh our PLC process and there's a direct connection there um it also what it also does is it helps uh reinforce the three big ideas of the PLC which are uh focus on student learning results orientation and collaborative culture so for our next steps uh I think we're going to be looking at uh developing systems for communicating with students about their learning uh I'd like to involve them in the process and extend that communication piece Beyond uh families and uh talk to kids about it and and have them set goals for themselves um so that they understand they're learning and where they're headed and they can contribute and have a voice in that in that conversation about um you know what they want their outcomes to be um we're going to continue to support teachers with uh data analysis processes and um using our Universal screener reports um to understand the student learning outcomes and and communicate those out and uh we also been thinking about an idea of having some student learning data nights potentially um to invite parents in and to talk to them about the reports uh that we share with them and what those mean and see if they have any questions just to you know build a better understanding um so that we can uh engage them in uh some thoughtful conversation about it intended outcome three is to examine the development of our PLC and determine how I can best support our staff in their capacity to effectively implement the process and to understand the why behind the work some common themes that arose there are uh first that understanding the why is important uh we did a lot of work this year around implementation of plcs and the teachers have all been working hard in in learning um the procedures uh and just the the way of doing things uh in our professional learning community and uh through it all uh they've remained very open and they've asked some good questions and um they've really been engaged in the process and and uh I thank them very much for that uh in addition our coaches have been an excellent uh support to us in uh in our first year of implementation um in addition uh we have looked at shared leadership uh this year I I formed a guiding Coalition uh for our school and uh a guiding Coalition of teacher leaders uh to help with the PLC implementation uh and the first thing that we did the first two big jobs we accomplished were we created a new mission and vision uh for Mary rollon which I'll be rolling out um and sharing with the community soon the academic impact that we're seeing as a result of this work is that uh 71.7% of our students met or exceeded growth Targets in reading so far this year 72.3% have met or exceeded growth Targets in math and 77.9 have met or exceeded growth Targets in early literacy skills our considerations for next steps include um really focusing on that fourth question of uh the plc work which is how do we uh enrich and extend the learning for students who demonstrate Mastery um each year I feel like we build on that a little bit at a time um but next year now that we have some other pieces in place I really want to focus on on that aspect of it um we're continuing to examine and determine what our essential standards are for ELA and math uh in our grade level teams another area that we want to focus on for next year is uh the writing of common formative assessments um so that uh teachers have a a clear understanding of you know as they're as they're trying to answer that second question how do we know if they've learned it um the common Forma of Assessments really help uh them determine a what are the what are the learning targets that we're trying to gather data on and does the assessment that we're giving the students really give us the information that answers that question for us um so common formative assessment that that process of building those um will will help with that uh I'm also looking to again share the leadership uh to lead the meetings with teachers and have them facilitate and set the agenda um this year uh it was I did a lot of it uh um Steve Grant did a lot of it our coaches did a lot of that um but I'm really looking to transition that and hand it over to the to the teachers for next year um and also I want to develop our guiding Coalition as PLC experts that can act as models and and and support implementation uh going forward outcome four is to analyze oural data to determine the social and emotional learning priorities and to understand the impact of our practices on our students well-being some common themes are from the beginning um you know as far back as the winner of 2022 uh grit and emotional regulation uh came up as priority areas for us the areas we scored the lowest um back uh in the winter of 22 um students had 45% favorable um responses to questions involving grit and 51% favorable responses to um questions related to emotional regulation um so we've been engaging in uh some initiatives at the school level at the grade level uh level and at the classroom level to um address these things uh and as a result our grit has increased uh by 10 points which is the biggest gain of any of the areas um that that's assessed through Panorama and our emotional regulations scores have increased by four points which is the second highest amount um so there's there's still some work to do there but we are seeing um steady growth some considerations for next steps include um continuing our work with Dr Epstein uh in embedding that calm compassionate teaching and those strategies uh in our day-to-day work um expanding on the current initiatives that we have um for instance our third grade right now is piloting a a uh uh an initiative that they're doing in the grade level to um to address grit specifically with all the students U mixed up throughout the grade level and it seems to be working pretty well so we'd like to take things like that and um potentially expand them to other grade levels in the future um I want to do a deep dive into the Panorama data to look not only at the uh each domain but what are the questions specifically uh within that domain that are being asked and how are students responding them so that we can have a more specific picture about how students are responding to uh the different prompts and what that could mean for them and what they need um we're going to continue uh to build our sense of community uh and uh reinforce our seal with all school meetings next year uh held on a regular basis and uh in the fall we're in conjunction with our PTO we're going to have a kindness week outcome five is to engage stakeholders uh in order to Define our current priorities for school safety and evaluate how we're dressing common themes uh was safety are in the early earlier this year I went and I visited uh all the classrooms and spoke to the kids uh about things that they thought we were doing well and areas that they felt needed our attention um and again and again uh the students reported that uh they feel safe here at M that the adults in the building help keep them safe um in addition to that I would say that uh our staff here is is diligent uh always uh we don't have many in incidences that that require um kind of an intervention um but uh when things do come up when when there is a question that could involve um uh safety of the building of the people then it um they react uh and respond appropriately and very quickly um so they know what to do and and and they know what steps to take um and thank goodness we don't have to do it that often um some areas for improvement though still continue to be uh the limitations of our PA system in that we have areas of the building that are noisy uh such as the cafeteria when it's full students uh the band room uh places like that where it's hard to hear the alcohol system so if if a message needs to go out related to school safety some it's hard to hear in those areas sometimes um so we're looking at ways that we can um potentially improve communication in those areas that are noisy uh and also areas where it's hard to hear the PA system like outside of the class is outside um uh For Recess or PE or something like that um and then also our use of uh the chat we have a school safety chat that we use whenever we do these drills uh in practice um so that we can silently communicate to one another about what's happening um and we need to just get better at embedding that into our it needs to become second nature to us so when something happens we're doing a drill or whatever that we're we're immediately jumping on that chat and we're um using that to to communicate so next steps are uh we'll continue to debrief and reflect after drills um the staff always have great comments and suggestions and thoughtful questions uh after those drills that help us um you know pinpoint areas for for uh Improvement um we're going to include next year uh through the work of our our Lancaster Safety Committee we've decided that we're going to include uh regular time in staff meetings next year for discussing scenarios so throwing a scenario out there to the teachers having them talk about it in small groups how would you how would you respond what do you think and what questions come up for you around this and then opening opening it up to the the bigger group to share ideas and and and responses to those um just to to keep them in in the habit of thinking about these things and uh appropriate responses uh based on what they're faced with uh like I said we're we're hoping to explore some options for potential uh visual supports in those um areas that uh get loud and it's hard to hear the PA system um we want to make sure that our all of our substitute teachers are informed so we'll have to put a process in place for that to make sure that we have Subs entering the building uh if something were to happen uh they know how to respond appropriately um and then again embedding that use of the chat for communication whenever a situation like this comes up so that it becomes second nature outcome six is to understand M's strengths as a learning community and to identify priorities for continued growth and Improvement so to begin with uh our strengths are of course uh our wonderful students um uh they're curious uh they're joyful um they're amazing individuals uh and you know we're lucky to be working with them each and every day uh we have de dedicated staff um here at M uh who I'm proud to work with on a daily basis uh our parents are very much involved and uh you know seek opportunities uh to become as involved as they can be and to be um really good partners with us in in the work that we do um so those are our strengths um some of our priorities uh as you'll see listed there came out of um conversations I had a year ago with staff when I found out I was uh going to become M's next principal um I sought to meet with uh every member of our staff and to to ask them a couple of questions about what do you see as our strengths um what are the areas that need our attention and how I can support them individually and the the themes that came out of those conversations I was able to speak to 90% of the staff at the time um and from those some themes emerge and the themes are sense of community communication admin presence in the classrooms and clear expectations for student learning and behavior um so to address those we've done some things this year in the next section I'll show you uh some feedback that I got recently from teachers about how they feel those things are going um but based on all the information that we've gathered over the course of the year um to address sense of community again we're looking to have all School assemblies uh on a regular basis next year to bring everyone together uh we did a buddy classroom initiative this year where um classrooms uh from different good levels were partnered up um classrooms that wouldn't necessarily get together for any reason in particular um just so that they could learn about each other and and come together and have activities and build community that way um and work on increasing uh our sense of relational trust um uh you know our sense of community isn't going to improve the way we want it to um until everybody um feels comfortable and confident with that relational uh trust piece uh in addition uh communication uh we're going to continue our Weekly Newsletter to staff which is the m memo big thanks to Steve grant for bringing that to M this year it's been an invaluable tool we've gotten tons of positive feedback about it and I'd like to leverage our teacher leaders um and our guiding Coalition um to be a vehicle for for uh communicating um things to staff when need be so if staff have questions it doesn't necessarily have to be me or Steve that they go see um but it could be one of these uh teacher leaders or members of The Guiding Coalition who might have information and be able to um facilitate those conversations for administrator presence in classrooms um I've signed up for breakthrough coaching which some of our principles in the district have engaged in I'm signed up to go in September I'm very excited about this uh because uh it's very important for me to be in classrooms and um I did not feel this year that I I was able to do that as much as I wanted to um and through breakthrough coaching um my understanding is that uh I'll have at least two days a week every week dedicated to uh to being in classroom so I'm excited about that possibility and that's in September uh and then clear expectations for student learning and Behavior Uh we want to revisit our code of conduct we want to make sure that uh the teachers have it and have a chance to sit down and look at it and ask questions about it um in terms of our expectations for behavior um in terms of our expectations for learning we're going to continue work as I said on our essential standards uh and writing learning targets and success criteria based on those essential standards uh that's going to be a big drive for next year um we're going to continue uh to with our schoolwide heart of a Husky initiative that we started this year where we're celebrating the things that um uh that kids are doing to be um positive members are of our school community and again the all School assemblies and then uh lastly uh seven is to engage stakeholders to determine how I can best serve the M community in our collaborative efforts to achieve our goals so common themes uh from that are that m is a great place to be it really is um I'm super excited to be here I'm very excited that my my daughters get to go to school here um that I'm a member of the Lancaster Community um we've gotten lots of positive feedback from families I have over the course of the year um through listening sessions and conversations and things like that um uh and there's evidence of it in in the day-to-day uh just walking down the halls and and seeing uh uh the work that the kids are doing and and uh the experiences that they're having um collaboration is also uh going to be important um specifically not just uh among staff but also collaboration with families and collaboration with students um and and that of course is built on uh the whole notion of transparency and relational trust uh which is an ongoing theme um for this work uh some other common themes are there's still work to be done so and the following bullet points are the results of the survey that I sent out recently to staff to say how am I doing on the things that we uh identified as priorities for us so sense of community 44% of Staff who responded and I think the um the end there was uh it was like 27 out of uh roughly 75 uh staff so about a third so 44% of the respondent said that there uh has been Improvement 29 said no change and 30% said it uh sense of community has deed Ed this year um 78% uh of Staff who responded said that communication has improved 11% said no change and 11% says it's declined uh administrator presence in the classroom 33% says said uh it has improved 44% said no change and 22% said declined and then clear expectations for uh student learning Behavior 37% say that has improved 40 said 41% said no change and 22% said it declined so our considerations for next steps are um I really want to continue with the student listening sessions I'm about to schedule another round of those uh to wrap up the year uh in June um and I'm going to continue those next year because I feel like the input that they provide is uh really valuable and it's I think it's important for them to have uh a voice in um our school Improvement efforts uh to something else is to establish a student advisory panel to the principal I'd like to see uh if we can get a group of um students to be able to meet with me on a regular basis um to share ideas and provide me with feedback about how things are going um I'd like to continue to gather feedback from the staff related to those areas that I identified earlier um just to make sure that we're continuing to improve on those things um part of this process I did listening sessions with parents um I'd like to uh continue with those um I'd like to I'd like to have a Time dedicated at least once each year to be able to um invite parents in and and have conversations about um you their thoughts about the direction the school is headed in and and any thoughts they have related to that um and then um the plan the big plan is to take all the uh next steps that are identified in the previous sections of this uh report uh to develop an action plan for the coming school year and that is it thank you so much for for listening that was a lot of information I I really appreciate the opportunity uh to come here and present this to you um uh it was a it was a great year of learning and reflection for me um I'm so grateful for all the support I received and um I'm excited for next year so thank you thank you all principal Blanchard we really appreciate that uh very thoughtful presentation and I will hand it back over to Kirk is there anything else you wanted to share yeah thank you Mr Blanchard we really appreciate the time effort and energy put into understanding and noring your community um sorry about the truncated evening uh as as things have gone a little bit long but we sure appreciate your effort so thank you wonderful uh so our next item on the new business agenda is a CPAC update and I wonder Alita is Pam with us no no she sent an email saying that she logged on at 6 and logged off at 7:30 got it um okay so I did I did let her know that we had executive session first but because it went so long it seems she was is not able to hang with us totally understandable um I can touch base with her separately uh so we are going to move on to our K to 5 literacy report and I'll hand it over to Kirk to cue this up I am also keeping my eye on the clock we have um six minutes until we do the up or down but we have quite a bit left to go my friends so in honor of Mike and Karen's last meeting we're GNA just like really hang in here uh for all of this important work still on the agenda I hope you all don't mind can I get a thumbs up affirmation that at least you're at home right now okay I'm seeing many thumbs Dana's drinking her coffee thanks Dana um okay so Kirk moving on to our next item K to five literacy report I'm gonna turn directly over to assistant superintendent friend take it away Laura waiting and I'm all fumbling with my Mouse um I think Alita is going to share the presentation I would like to thank you superintendent Downing and thank you to the committee for allowing us an opportunity to provide an update an exciting update about where we are with our K 5 uh literacy curriculum review process I would like to thank Laura Padington our curriculum director for ELA and social studies for hanging with us and joining with joining me this evening to present uh our update and and even more importantly engaging in leading all of this great work uh we're pleased to share with the committee and update this evening we have provided for you a report a full report that encompasses our processes to date as they relate to our curriculum review and that can be found in the meeting materials it's also included as a hyperlink Within These slides so much more detail found in their report this evening Miss Padington and I are going to provide an overview of our phase two process as well as plans for phase three of the process Implement as the committee will remember nooba field tested two highquality curriculum this winter and spring wit and wisdom and imagine learning El education included in our presentation overview tonight will be our most recent processes and where those processes have taken us we're very excited next slide this slide simply serves as a reminder our curriculum review process was and is predicated on the instructional Vision that we developed for K to5 Literacy By our nooba team and our goal was to select instructional resources to help our teachers lift this vision for our students and their learning into reality and into our classrooms so this was our driving force throughout our process and continues to be our Beacon next slide on this slide we provide a link to our full report which includes more specific information about our processes in detail beginning from phase one having previously presented this information about our processes to dat this link in this report is just intended to provide all of the information in one place for the committee and for our community next slide as a reminder our processes and timeline are provided here alongside our timeline for completion the area high lighted in green is where we are currently and where we are headed in the fall and serves as the focus for tonight's overview this spring we spent a considerable amount of time in that phase two select process and miss padington's going to provide more information about the why we landed on our selection uh as it relates to the selection process so I'm going to turn it over to miss Padington and Miss Masterson you can move into the next slide um because miss padington's going to take it from here here to talk about our evaluate and select and Implement Laura good evening um we have as we reported previously um uh been engaged with a large number of Educators from across the district and who worked tirelessly in every phase of this process and we are deeply indebted to their commitment to this work and as part of our Phase 2 work uh We examined the high quality instructional materials that aligned with our instructional vision and our nooba priorities that we have previously shared and through our um work in phase two we investigated through field testing in 15 classrooms across the district in extensive um examination of curricular materials Gathering feedback about the resources and the experiences of students and teachers and we also engaged in visits to uh four different school districts um that um have implemented those uh curricula to give us um more of a sense of what it's like in implementation not just in field testing uh next slide please so um as a result of phase 2 um after examining both elel and Whitten and wisdom which are both high quality curricular materials that have strengths and and either option would have served nooba well um and strengths were identified as well as um areas where um nisha's instructional vision would be realized in each curricula um but ultimately through a consensus driven process based on the wide variety of feedback that we gathered throughout all of our work uh we ultimately um selected Imagine Learning El education as our um core tier one instructional material for reading writing speaking listening and um some of the strengths that were cited in our through our process for in terms of reading um it certainly meant our priority of providing complex authentic uh knowledge building grade level text for students we saw explicit instruction in Reading Writing and speaking listening and the language standards and it was also cited um for its um accessibility for students and some of the um features of the curriculum will allow for um a variety of implementations for example universally designed um lessons and strategies to support uh multilingual Learners along with pacing that uh is going to to uh support our um instruction in in our classrooms for in aoba as well and so we're excited to um share a little more about imagine learning in El education tonight but um also know that a lot more information will be coming as we continue with um implementation next SL slide please so um Imagine Learning El education uh is design designed around a uh read write talk and think framework and what that means is that throughout the four modules that are found in each grade level which contain three units the read write talk think framework has students begin with developing and building background knowledge both through their um use of a variety of different texts whether it's uh classroom read alouds or access to um individual student texts then they extend their reading and their research and close reading and independent reading as they progress through the grade levels in the second unit and in the third unit we find um an extended writing and performance task the reading and writing instruction is integrated throughout um so this is something that we're really excited about that rather than there being a separate reading and writing Workshop the uh the natural integration of the two domains happens and that means that students are writing about what they're reading about and um it's going to um lead to students being able to really demonstrate a lot more of what they learn through all of their access to information in the texts that are part of the curriculum they're going to be exposed to a wide variety of genres of writing and they'll also have um explicit instruction in language skills which is a high priority for um for for the district there are some other components to the curriculum that will look to down the road that will even further bolster um what is offered but we're beginning as is recommended with the implementation of the core module um in our first year of implementation next slide please it's important to note that um we also spent a lot of time examining uh foundational skills which are obviously so critical and uh nishoba has had um foundations as our core instruction for foundational skills and as a means of comparison and exploring as part of curriculum review we also examined the elel skills block foundational program and that was field tested in classrooms and uh while um there certainly were things in the program that uh people who feel tested identified as As Nice um it didn't offer anything that was going to mean that we should change from our current uh curriculum that we have in invested in and and have in our classrooms uh Wilson's foundations which is a really high quality foundational skills curriculum however as part of our review we certainly uh work to identify areas where we could bolster and strengthen the current foundation's practices and uh we're in the process of those action of Meeting those action steps right now ensuring that every teacher has the supplies that they need providing refresher training as needed and um we're really excited about providing um uh foundations decodable texts that are aligned with the current foundations um scope and sequence and I know that um the teachers in the um early grades are really excited about the decodable texts coming to their classroom so we're looking to get those and um we also will be um expanding foundations to grade three um not next year in the following year and we continue to explore hegr which is uh specific to pheic awareness but works um to uh be integrated into primary uh grade classrooms so we have um a number of different action steps there that are going to bolster our already um really great things that are happening in classrooms but just make sure that our our teachers and students have what they need to to do um the best they can um next slide and back to assistant superintendent friend yeah thank you Laura um lots of information and thank you for sharing um phase three Implement so the selection and planning of a new curriculum is only as strong as the plans for an effective and successful implementation which also includes the support and monitoring of that imple implementation and so to to that end we're committed um we've identified and shared some immediate next steps that will be happening uh now and through the summer here for you and into the fall plans for these have either happened or are fully under way and those include targeted training and professional development for our Educators through um the support from El and our instructional coaches and Laura and myself um as well as the importance of communicating with our families about what this new literacy curriculum means how it will look and how they can support their children at home so to that end um Laura and I have been um developing U thinking around and all you need to know for families uh plans are underway for a family night in September and of course we're going to support our Educators during openhouse and curriculum night in the fall um as well with information because we know that our partners are have been supportive of our process and um and they're Partners in learning for our students and and their children so bringing them in and um making sure that we're communicating with them about this new exciting curriculum and what that means Fortune andoba is really important to us and so plans are underway for our family engagement piece there and then finally last slide and in the end we're excited about our new steps and what they mean for our students and for our Educators we know that we have a great amount of work ahead we're incredibly thankful for the hard work of our curriculum committee our field testers and all those in between and we are confident in our processes so far and we're really excited about our next steps we're espe I am especially thankful we are especially thankful for the leadership of Laura Padington the support of superintendent Downing finance and operations director Mr Ral mcaren to our school commu community and for supporting our curriculum efforts on behalf of Nashoba and to you our school committee for your support um for our current and for our future students it's going to have a great impact and we're really really excited uh about the launch as is our as are our teachers so thank you thank you Laura Laura and the entire team that you listed at the beginning there it's a really fantastic group of people doing this work uh so that wraps that up my friends does anybody have any quick comments or questions for Laura all right so seeing none Laura thank you again for that and we wish you the best of luck as you roll that out over the summer and into the fall our kids will benefit thank you uh so without objection I am hoping that the school committee will allow me to bump the qu Quorum rule discussion to our next meeting seeing none uh we will bump that to the next agenda item I'm also wondering if Sharon will uh humor me here and allow us to move the school committee manual presentation to the June 5th organizational meeting as well thanks Sharon and as long as there's no objection from the rest of the committee we'll do that and we've already announced to the community the need for deer J volunteers so moving on to finance and operations um so I'm wondering if Kirk do you think is there anything here that is um movable or do we need to just power through these things uh I will defer to Mr mcaren on that if you can do it quick Ross I'm sure which I'm sure you can you can go kind of one at a time um I will deliver brevity as much as possible thank you okay um as far as the April operations report this includes a better estimate of our um projected expenditures as you know as the year tick ticks on here um nothing significant of change this was reviewed with budget and warrant uh last week so if there's any questions I can take them otherwise certainly we can move on to the next agenda item any questions all right everyone so um Ross just really quick from me uh when do you when do you actually close everything out and present to us the end of year report you will get the end of the year operations report not to be confused with the Desi end of the year report um but the end of year operations report will be um probably October um unless there's time in September but we're still cleaning things up with regards to open posos over the summer and rollovers and things like that so great okay thank you thanks to budget and warrant too for looking this over so let's move on great uh so again I'm G to try to use uh efficiency here um there's a significant contract uh up for discussion um but thanks for the opportunity to provide you an update on the procurement of food service management um so our goal this evening is your approval of the execution of this contract by the administration at the last meeting I shared that we received three proposals all from reputable firms um I did provide a memo and anticipation of questions from school committee I hope that was informative I'm just going to quickly touch on a couple of things and maybe expand um this is a a draft this template uh is required by desie um through the RFP and all the way through the execution of contract there a great deal of oversight um ensure that there's adherence to governmental laws regul guidelines standards Etc when it comes to food services so um I've done a lot of communication with desie u nutrition services over this uh this contract has been reviewed by our legal council both attorney Melo and also attorney rhods who does uh more deep Dives on contractual language uh was reviewed by him as well and our legal council has provided uh motion language as well for this evening which we will uh get to at the end of my my short and brief explanation so again the contract does not change the employment of any kitchen staff as we continue to hire retain and work with those individuals under the unit c collective bargaining agreement it's a one-year contract with options to renew um based on the evaluation criteria uh and desie prescribed methods um we are looking to uh award this contract to wion's culinary group um it does guarantee a return to the district of $441,000 in um excuse me $ 4,842 for the first year of the contract uh less what we have built in for offsets of 160,000 you're looking at approximately a surplus at the end of the year of 280,000 so um a couple of things that I want to point out um this would uh allow us to work with them with not just the food service manager um component which is very administrative but also have them bring in a chef manager to work in our kitchens and with our kitchen staff on all manner of things when it comes to variety Innovation um efficiency of kitchens all those types of things and also provides for a part-time sustainability manager and I'll talk about that in a little bit um we do also have within the contract that they need to form and Implement an Advisory Board which would consist of students parents staff um and the purpose of that is to develop our school nutrition program so yesterday I had the great opportunity to visit witson Food Services uh in the Lexington schools both at the high school and one of the elementary schools accompanying me were two of our kitchen managers and the parent representative who served on the proposal evaluation team so I think I've seen thousands of school lunches in my time uh and I truly believe that this is probably one of the best uh possible things I've seen when it comes to school nutrition um and is definitely the the best possible direction for our students uh we saw some amazing things happening with variety of options nutrition at the for Forefront and there's some really great work that they've done with sustaining ability Partnerships in the community uh when it comes to composting Recycling and Supply choices so the feedback that I received from the kitchen managers and the parent rep was positive and similar in sentiments um these people are experts in school nutrition and food services within schools uh they'll work in tandem with our kitchen teams our Administration our community and students to develop and Implement a vision for school nutrition for nooba in the future um there's obviously significant amount of change and transition that comes with this but we'll we'll be off and running uh prior uh to July 1 uh if we move forward with the contract and then really get into it over the summer uh and be ready to start up at the beginning of the school year so again uh this evening the district's looking for approval of the award of the Food Services management contract to whitson's culinary group as set forth in the district's RFP and that the contract is subject to any final written contract terms that would be acceptable to the superintendent and District legal counsel and lastly that the superintendent be authorized to execute such a contract on the The District's behalf Amy Cohen can I lean on you to start with a motion before we move to discussion yep she's getting it yep um I move that the committee vote to approve the award of a Food Services management contract to whitson's col group on the term set forth in the district's request for proposal contract issued on the contract start date would be July 1 thank you July 1 2024 and witson culinary groups proposal in response there to subject to final written contract terms acceptable to the superintendent and District legal council and to authorize the superintendent to execute such contract on the district's behalf everyone so that was a long motion it is in the chat for you do I have a second second thanks Joe any discussion on this contract Joe yes thank you madam chairman first and foremost I want to just thank superintendent Downing and Mr mil Karen for I I know you had our school council look at over this and you off offered me an opportunity to kick it around a little bit myself and I apologize my schedule this week was such that I wasn't able to spend any time uh extensive amount of time looking over that document um not that you pay me to do it anyways but um my question though is um just and it's it's it's it's a very just minor procedural matter the the document you presented us miss mcaren it's the contract starts actually after your your memorandum your memorandum isn't incorporated into the contract correct that's correct okay and the only thing I just noticed on the contract you you start off with the fsmc and I know this is a draft so when the final version of the contract is prepared will you will they be replacing the fsmc the Food Service Management Corporation with the name witson because fsmc is no it's not defined in the body of the contract it's inre in your memorandum yes so you'll also notice that that starts on I think page 21 maybe and the previous pages are the posted RFP so at some point Within there you're absolutely correct that it would not it would note that witson is the fsmc and the SFA is the nooba Regional School District that is correct and the CN is a Child Nutrition program uh yeah I need to maybe double check that one but yes okay that's it thank you madam chair what did did I miss did we get the opportunity to review the document the contract uh it's in the meeting materials which document this would be the food service contract oh I see so it's all the P I missed all the pages after the memo okay so what is it talks about guaranteed return of $441,000 what's being returned to us so that would be uh think of it as all of the reimbursements the reimburse through reimbursable meals plus any revenues that come in through allart those types of things less our labor costs their costs procurement costs um equipment costs those types of things and the the remaining amount is $441 we have $160,000 in offsets in the budget so 441 less 160 puts us at about 280 um which is under the allowable threshold for um ongoing Surplus within Food Service um as dictated by the state so this would also be the working with us on spending down our existing Surplus um I know that I've talked about this in the past what they'll be able to do is to really work with us on vision and making sure that we have continuity across all of our kitchens and our cafeterias um not just in terms of menus but also experience for students right okay uh Amy Cohen yeah I just wanted to say that I'm really happy to learn that a sustainability manager is going to be part of this agreement and that someone will have responsibility for looking at ways to reduce waste and incorporate composting because I know that there have been initiatives in the past that have tried to do this and haven't really gotten anywhere because there just no one had time or bandwidth to to take it on so yeah and I I think what we saw in Lexington was obviously multiple years of work being put in not just by uh witson but by the community members as well and working with local green teams and and and you know the school so it will take time um but having a focused effort and bringing expertise to the table and putting these things together and the Outreach to you know local boards is really important I also add that I'm glad to hear that there The Advisory Board is something that is worked in that includes parents the the use the end users I know that witson works at my school and they work with our student council to kind of obtain feedback and and react to it and and kind of address not only the nutritional needs but also um trying to improve the experience and so I look forward to seeing more of that any other questions all right or discussion I should say there's a motion on the floor so seeing no more discussion we're going to take a vote to accept the contract I vote Yes Mike horish yes Scott yes Joe yes Sharon yes Shan door yes Amy Cohen yes Amy vessels yes Jackie yes and Karen yes awesome thanks for that Ross let's move on to the next yeah that's great let's move on to the next piece about Food Service rates yep as uh mentioned last uh at the last meeting uh we're bringing these forward for today um and we're just seeking your approval for these rates okay so um I'm so sorry Amy do you have a motion for this I don't see one but I can make one I don't see one either um Ross it this is something that you need a vote on correct so the motion would essentially be um approval of Food Services rates presented for fy2 Amy yeah I moved to accept the um food propo the proposed fiscal year 25 nrsd School nutrition rates as presented second any discussion seeing none I'll let's take the vote I vote Yes Mike he said yes Scott yes Joe yes Sharon yes shandor yes Amy Cohen yes Amy vessels yes Jackie yes and Karen yes excellent thank you so the next item items here are some pretty amazing grants and so um Ross why don't you tee them up and then Amy can give us a motion yes thank you um and super assistant superintendent friend may add in uh if necessary um the first one is the skills capital and technology equipment Grant uh this is through the Executive Office of Education not desie um but they still work in Tandem and similar systems so in short this ties right into our Advanced manufacturing and Engineering pathway uh that we've talked about and was presented by Mr andropolis at the last or excuse me a couple months ago at school committee um and is a major piece of the Innovation happening at the high school um so what we're looking for tonight is approval of the Grant in total of $74,900 which includes a significant amount of equipment and upgrades um to those current rooms um and obviously anything um that would continue would go on to the next building as well um I would like to thank Mr Andy leblan for doing a lot of the leg work on um understanding what's available and what's out there and what's needed and doing the research and putting together um essentially what is the the budget for this grant thank you Amy would you like to give us a motion sure I move to accept the FC 30tc skills Capital Grant as presented in accordance with school committee policy DD I'm going to second that any discussion on this grant shandor I just see their drones in there and want to make sure that the district complies with FAA regulations for part 107 and the rest of it uh the use of drones so noted I'm sure that um Kirk you'll take note of that FAA regulation thank you shondor what would we do without you not sure any other comments or questions all right everybody let's take the vote on this very large and important Grant I vote Yes Mike yes Scott yes Joe yes shandor yes Amy Cohen yes Amy vessels yes Jackie yes Sharon yes and Karen yes excellent uh let us know about the second one Russ yes uh thank you so um this is for project lead the way this is a grant uh although the the money will not come into the district and be expended out it's still a grant nonetheless that we are taking part in um and this again will uh support programming at the high school um and uh this is through their engineering um subsection I don't assistant superintendent F would use a better term than me on that one um but essentially this is the engineering side of the uh Project Lead the Way Grant uh and the total is $166,000 covering participation fees and training excellent uh Amy a motion yeah I move to accept the Project Lead the Way Grant as presented in accordance with the school committee policy DD I second that any discussion yeah sh uh Jackie I was just curious if this is going to support the Innovation Pathways to any extent Ross or Kirk I would turn that over to assistant superintendent friend Laura yes yes the answer is yes um well uh and um and and not exclusive to the students enrolled in our Pathways too so we're we're beginning with two courses and then we'll be looking at adding two two courses the following year so this grant will support the training and the materials for our Educators to get that going Laur does Project Lead the Way existed in aova high school right now no oh no not yet but it will awesome yeah I don't know why I didn't know that so okay so this is a part of the Innovation Pathways uh continuing on with that yeah and we'll also um count towards an advanced course hor work component of innovation Pathways too um which has higher ed positive implications for higher EDS so we're excited about that potential for our students as well fastic all right any other discussion all right let's take a vote on this grant I vote Yes Mike yes Scott yes Joe yes uh shandor yes Amy Cohen yes Amy vessels yes Jackie yes Sharon yes and Karen yes excellent all right guys that is it for finance and operations thank you very much Ross for that incredibly succinct uh rundown that's I supposed to be done in a20 my apologies not your fault uh so on to unfinished business we have the very important summative evaluation of our superintendent Kirk Downing and um as you guys know this is in the meeting materials we had each individual member of the school committee by regulation complete an individual evaluation of the superintendent based upon um his self-evaluation we then had the Personnel subcommittee meet to discuss and compile a composite but the Lion Share was done by the brilliant Sharon pck uh she has posted that composite uh thank you so much goes out to you Sharon because man that's a lot of work and we really appreciate you taking that on so everybody um this is something that we do take a vote on and I am going to lean on Amy Co well maybe is there anybody who has any um commentary because you are concerned about the content of the composite evaluation you would like something kind of significantly changed all right so for anyone who is not review anybody in the community who's still watching and hasn't reviewed this uh composite report you should should know that we have um completed the evaluation and we have assigned to our superintendent the rating of exemplary and um that is now going to be what is up for vote and so Amy can I lean on you for a motion on the eval yes I move to approve the composite nrsc Summit of superintendent evaluation report has presented the overall summative performance of exemplary will be reported to I second that any discussion on the motion h Amy go ahead well I I should defer to superintendent Downey to go uh Kirk would you like to make a small comment here well I'm I'm humbled by that rating and many of the comments and the evaluation I just have to put into the record that when we talk about exemplary we're talking about the work of a multitude of people that have been advancing the work of the district and um certainly I recognize that my job is to facilitate guide lead and promote that Vision but it's the people it's the people of our school system that make great things happen so I think the evaluation you're providing is an evaluation of of just continued progress and that's our goal here in your show but to always get better every year so thank you for that yeah I just want the public record to note that some of the language in in the evaluation I know we're short on time and I wanted to commend Sharon for pulling together the compilation um so eloquently and succinctly in capturing all of our thoughts but you know the summary says that we are fortunate to have a transformative and Visionary leader and superintendent Downing and that he works tirelessly on behalf of our district to drive Innovative growth positive change for our students teachers families and communities um he seeks connections with students with teachers and staff with families and throughout the community and we know that um goes on to note how many ways he's gone to improve practices throughout the district and I just want to um make sure that the public heard those words so that's all and I do know that in my coners my weekly conversation um with Kirk that you guys should also know and the community should know that um this is not all rainbows and you know flowers there's a lot of feedback in this evaluation that continues to um push the envelope for our kids and for our school district and Kirk is 100% up to the challenge of you know how we can get even better next year and that that will kind of drw as always the cycle of inqu inquiry requires us to use what we've done this year and the feedback that has been given to set goals for the following year and that is the job of the Personnel subcommittee over the summer and uh working with Kirk to kind of set the bar one more time in that aspirational zone that we so appreciate uh Kirk living in so if there's no further debate we're going to take the vote all right so um on the motion to accept the evaluation I vote Yes Mike yes Scott yes Joe yes Shand door yes Amy Cohen yes Amy vessels yes Jackie yes Sharon yes and Karen thank you guys uh moving on we have the second reading of the parent communication policy which has been worked on so diligently by our policy subcommittee and our administrative team and so Amy vessel could you just um kind of tee this up for us what we what we're being asked to accept here tonight uh yes so there was only did I lose her you may have bomber Kirk do you know what she do you possibly know what she was about to say yeah there are two adjustments that we made uh there was a piece in the um 48 hour response we removed the words teaching and learning because there may be topics that go beyond just the teacher and learning that was put in there because health and safety were put into another category but we thought that made simple um and then the other Clause there was a clause stricken out around confidentiality we actually do use email for confidentiality and we're actually looking at at systems for for instance IEPs can be sent electronically and those are confidential documents so eliminating confidential documents through the use email just wouldn't make sense operationally so we remove that Clause from there as well all right so Amy's back Thank you Kirk for filling in the Gap there Amy Kirk just identified the two um changes that you made did you want to add anything uh no those were the only changes that we made based on people's feedback excellent Joe a question yeah I just had a quick question regarding interpretation of the policy uh it's the provision regarding uh safety concerns and it says that messages regarding student safety shall receive an acknowledgement of receipt and be forwarded to the supervising administrator for appropriate action um I'm just curious as to perhaps what the superintendent or or even the policy subcommittee's interpretation of that is does this provision fall under the 48 hour regulation or would it so if there's a suit just so I'm clear if a safety concern is raised and it's sent to a particular staff member they have 48 hours to acknowledge receipt and then turn that over to the supervising administrator for appropriate action is that the intent of this provision the no the intent is upon receiving an email regarding health and safety there would be an immediate acknowledgement doesn't necessarily mean a response or or I mean a resolution but acknowledgement and forwarded to the administrator because we don't you know so for instance um you know if somebody would notice of harming themselves we want to act on it quickly may may I follow up Madam chair please yeah no so I I agree with you K that would be my interpretation as well but you said that you added the word immediate before acknowledgement it doesn't say it says receive an acknowledgement of receipt um perhaps the policy subcommittee would are we G I'm sorry we voting on this tonight Madam chair we are yeah we are would would the policy subcommittee be objectionable to my suggesting an amendment to that provision it just says instead of receive an acknowledgement receive an immediate acknowledgement was that is that a fair characterization of what the colcy stands for uh perhaps it's immediate to what's tricky is you know email Isn't like a phone call that it rings in your ears you have to go to your email to see the communication which makes it tricky so uh perhaps uh attorney gley can read something the effect of uh acknowledgement upon uh reading the email or upon reading the communication something in that vein yeah yeah everybody um can I get a thumbs up if everybody is okay with inserting that small detail Jackie okay okay any other comments or questions so I um would like a motion from Amy Cohen is it on there okay think so um it's not but I can make one yeah let's do it uh I move to [Music] approve policy IM jde regarding parent caregiver communication response as presented and amended tonight I will second that any further discussion yeah Madam chair the uh the motion should uh include the language that superintendent Downey had suggested motion presented I said as a presented and amended but oh I'm sorry I didn't hear that I apologize okay that's enough Joe I'm sorry yeah I I didn't hear that I apologize no it's okay all right everybody I'm not seeing any other discussion so um this is a huge work uh and I'm so appreciative of Amy vessels and Kirk pushing this with their committee uh through legal counsel and even through um all of Kirk's contact it has been a fantastic collaboration and I think that it will do great things not only for our staff members giving them some clarity but also for our kids so thanks so much uh I vote Yes Mike Mike said yes Scott yes Joe yes Shan door yes Amy Cohen yes Jackie yes Sharon yes Karen she said yes and Amy vessels yes all right everybody uh flying now let's go over to the district physician contract uh just real quick I just want the committee to know that we'll be uh reviewing this policy with the entire administrative Council our August Retreat so they can include it in their uh opening presentations of their faculty and staff to set the tone for the school year excellent um Amy we are looking to take a vote on the district physician contract can you start us off with a motion yes um I move to authorize the superintendent to sign the 2024 2025 I think this is supposed to say FY Physicians contract between the district and Dr Russell Coleman Dr Coleman will receive a $5,000 stipend under the terms of the contract maybe that's s for school year ah school year okay let me read it again I moved to authorize the superintendent to sign the 2024 2025 school year Physicians contract between the district and Dr Russell Coleman Dr Coleman will receive $5,000 typon under the terms of the contract second that any discussion yeah I didn't see the in the meeting materials L that last week's meeting materials it was presented last week's materials Ah that's why got it and then yeah and you weren't present so I think right oh bummer um Kirk did it the stip in does that represent an increase I can't remember no that is level and I checked it with Dr Coleman prior to the meeting as well and so Dr Coleman agrees okay very good any further discussion all right let's take a vote I vote Yes Mike Mike yes Scott yes Joe yes Shan door yes Amy Cohen yes Jackie yes Sharon yes Karen Amy vessels yeah all right everybody fantastic thank you for that let's move on to the handbook vote and Amy perhaps you can put forth a motion I move to approve the nrhs school year 24-25 handbook as presented on May 8th 2024 I second that any discussion on the presentation we heard last time seeing none let's take the vote I vote Yes Mike he said yes Scott yes Joe yes Shan door yes Amy Cohen yes Jackie yes Sharon yes Karen yes Amy vessels yes excellent so uh thank you to drct Boon for putting that forward and all that hard work let's move on to the next piece which is the director of Early Childhood um Amy do you have a motion for this yes I moveed to approve the job description for the director of Early Childhood as presented on May 8th 2024 I second that that any discussion seeing none let's take the vote I vote Yes Mike yes Scott yes Joe yes Shan door yes Amy Cohen yes Jackie yes Sharon yes Karen yes and Amy V Frozen are you frozen Amy vessels darn um so we'll she'll have to abstain let's go now to our last piece here it is the school committee goals check-ins via subcommittee report here is what I'm thinking and if I get a thumbs up from everyone I will do this for you could each chair as a final Act of this um term this school committee term could each chair please send me your um kind of goal reflection that you were going to share tonight I will type it into the spreadsheet that is on the meeting materials and then um make this uh the I'll kind of share it with the committee on the 5th at the organizational meeting and then this is the document that will drive our goal setting in August would that be okay for the subcommittee chairs do I have a thumbs up on that to just have you guys send me don't type it into the spreadsheet just send it to me all right I'm not seeing anybody shaking their head violently so good all right so let's move on to our subcommittee reports and um if there is no report that is fine but I'm just going to run through them really quickly you tell me uh two our budget and warrant chairman is there anything to report Mike we have a massive report uh this evening which will last somewhere around 52 or 53 minutes uh our last our last meeting uh was uh on May the 14th we uh evaluated progress towards the goals which we'll email you um we uh provided uh feedback from the fy2 budget book oh oh and um Madam chair we also have a um recommendation to revise our warrant signature protocol can I should I just include that now as part of the report yeah and so why don't you give us the heads up on what you want to change and then we can vote on the fifth right so the the tension is that um the outgoing chair of the budget warrant subcommittee uh actually there there will be no chair at the end of this year um and so warrants still have to be signed over the summer so we want to um modify the language so that the uh chair of the school committee as voted uh in the organizational Mee uh meeting can sign off on warrant for the summer until a new chair for budget and warrant is uh is voted on at the beginning of next year excellent so we'll include that in the June 5th planning calendar Alita would you mind putting that on the planning calendar for me for June 5th that we need to modify the warrant signature protocol we developed and uh thank you for that Mike anything else from budget and warrant nope all right so uh Mr chairman I would just like to say a final thank you for all of your time and energy and effort not only on budget and warrant but uh everywhere you go with regard to school committee this is your last meeting and we want you to know how appreciative we are so uh everybody give Mike a big heart or an Applause you're the best Mike um so over to communication uh other than the school committee manual anything to report Sharon no nothing to report um the school committee manual is in the meeting materials so people can look at it however I realized that um I sent it as read only and that meant that my comments um so the manual has comments alongside of it telling you where to find the um comparable section in the existing manual and those don't show up in the version that I had a Le a post to the meeting materials so I'm not quite sure how to do that I have to figure that out and then I'll make sure that people can get those notes as well yeah I totally understand what you're saying so yeah let me know if you need any help with that I can do that for you I'll just post I'll just post as a Google link instead of a PDF okay okay okay so then um was it a word doc or a Google doc it was a Google doc Google doc but I I changed it so that it was view only so that it couldn't be altered by mistake and I didn't realize that that would take the comments out of it it's shared us as a PDF make Alita an editor and she can work her magic because I was gonna say that we just had discussion last week about deliberations through a Google doc and that will prevent that so uh Miss Masterson can work on that I'll leader right now okay sorry yeah okay thanks Karen Perfect all right thank you guys for that all that work we will um discuss that uh on the 5th uh School building committee any updates Joe uh thank you m chair I'll be very brief uh the building committee met on May 16th it was a very short ministerial meeting uh site enabling work is ongoing our groundbreaking is scheduled for June 7th and our next meeting is scheduled for June 20th thank you madam shair thank you uh Personnel anything else Sharon that you'd like to add no other updates yeah and one more time thanks so much for doing all of that work with the evaluation great job uh over to policy Amy vessels anything else I know that you're still fast at work anything that you want to share nope just that we're going to have a lot to do at the beginning of next um next school year in terms of looking at these changes to these policies and um going through them amazing and I am not going to forget that you told me on the side that you wouldn't mind doing policy again God bless you um all right let's go over to our advisory committees um Dana actually had to um take off and family stuff that she was managing with her little so audit advisory will have to wait but please know that um she is working hard on that and alongside Ross to move toward a new auditor potentially and establish that timeline so Ross I know we're exchanging some emails at one point so we'll just keep going with that um so over to Jackie for dear J I just wanted to say I know that we already had the brief um update regarding the people who are being put forth um from our community and from the current uh dear J members um they've met multiple times to kind of review their existing documents um in preparation for the presentation at our next meeting and so I know that that was a lot of work and looking forward to seeing their presentation with you all on the fit that's great thank you so much and I are we taking like recommendations just kidding I was gonna say I also love being on policy with Amy ah wonderful that's awesome yay um so I will keep that in mind at the um June 5th organization meeting we do have a survey for all the members of the new committee to kind of um assert their preferences so that is to be decided um let's go to our final advisory and that is CPAC and Karen no report CPAC was going to um present tonight but we got really behind so hopefully um that will be rescheduled soon so they can they can share what they've been working on um directly with the committee thanks and I would be remiss if I let us adjourn without saying equally to you how appreciative we are of your work and um we are going to really miss you on school committee this is your last meeting as well and again just thank you so much for everything that you've done and all of your expertise lending it to the committee and to the show Public Schools so yay Karen thank you for making my last my longest I know it's like some covid era level meeting minutes here um so so thank you everybody for hanging in there items for next agenda are pretty well set on the planning calendar if there's anything you want to add just reach out to me um and before I move to adjourn I want to say one more time thanks to Mike horish and Karen Divine for all their service great job guys we'll miss you stay in touch thanks everyone uh so I'm gonna move to a journ do have a second second thanks Scott um and let's take a vote on that I vote Yes Mike yes yes Joe yes shandor yes Jackie if I say no will they stay I don't know yes they won't yes Sharon yes Karen yes Amy vessels yeah and Amy Cohen yes I guess so