##VIDEO ID:IBpmgjF5RUo## [Applause] [Music] this meeting is being video and audio recorded for future cable broadcast please silence all cell phones for the duration of the meeting can I ask for a motion to open the second Mr Hood yes Mrs down Mrs Mr H Mrs P yes and we ask everybody to stand for the pledge of flag un States godible andice for okay uh so the first item is the consent agenda everything listed in the consent agenda was distributed in advance of this meeting does anyone have any requests or something to be removed from the consent agenda and discussed or voted on separately seeing seeing no discussion may I have a motion to approve and accept the items listed in the consent agenda including the minutes from October 8th 202 motion second all in favor I do we have anybody sign up that and we don't have any old business so we'll jump into new business turn it over to so the first thing first thing on the agenda is you want to talk about the math Olympia program at the middle school and I would ask Mrs siia the principal to come up and introduce whoever um is with her tonight to present on Ma thank you Dr Bailey Mr chair members of the school committee is it good yes I have Mr deur with me also she is our person in charge of the math Olympiad I think they call it a Pico so Mr deur is here and we also have a bunch of our students but if you don't know anything about the math Olympiad program we can start off with that first it is originated in New York so we did pay a fee to be part of this program and we will take competitions throughout the year so this is not just an after school event now it is during the school day it's one of the most influential and funfilled math competition programs in the United States and throughout the world more than 120,000 students from every state in 39 additional countries participate every year we have 23 students participating one fifth grade team of 12 one sixth grade team of 11 Mr Ms is our academic coach and she is our Pico our person in charge of this math Olympiad program we chose students based on their high achievement on the math mcast and star assessment and along with teacher recommendations the fifth grade meet on Wednesday's dur X block and sixth grades meet on Tuesday during X block Wednesday Wednesday we meet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays jet clock sure so with us this evening um you'd like to Dixon is here from our fifth grade team come on Dixon come on up Brooke is here Joshua is here Matt is here Sophia is here and from our sixth grade team we have Abigail here and we have Lucas here so so great that they could join us in front of Mr M they're going to go in front of the podium no stay there Mr going to talk about what you all do we're going to talk about what we do so here you can see this is a snapshot of one of our practice sessions you can see the students here in group The it's kind of half and half here but we do sit around so that we're all facing each other um so here you can kind of see one of the pictures of us sharing strategies we talk about the different problems as a group um and so that's kind of how we have that structured as highlighted here some of the program goals are to encourage enthusiasm for mathematics and also Foster mathematical creativ ity um this is a program that helps to teach strategies for problem solving as well as develop mathematical flexibility here's another group shot of our team one of our teams here is an example of a contest that was given in January of 2018 you can see the uh start of the contest here the contests are actually five questions um so here you can see an example of just the front of one of the contests but they this is similar to what the students will be seeing when they take uh when they take their first contest which will be coming up next week okay here's a picture of our sixth grade team yeah good yes so I I just realized that you all have 30 minutes to complete those five questions yes I have faith in you I know you're going to do it and they all both teams have to take it at the same time they do yes and then it I think this chart is from online all the grades get submitted by March 31st 2025 but I would think that as soon as we're done we are going to submit our grades what day are we doing it on do we know yet next week next week we're going to finalize the date um and you know this is aligned with achievement academic Excellence for all students prioritizing community Partnerships that support the aligned goals of academic Excellence social emotional learning kiddos in front of me ready for some math questions you get [Music] anyone who can quiz Dixon right now go ahead Lu go one one can we try another one go ahead you quiz Josh a true question what do you think what we need a pencil ohc repeat it again what was the you know the answer 1,495 wa you get 495 are there any questions all of you I just would love to hear how yeah well how do you like being a part of this group what motivated you to be a part question so if I could just interject here often times we talk about kids who need extra help and interventions this is enrichment right and these students definitely have a math brain they're are math Superstars they're model students and we are very proud of you does anyone else want to share what it's like to be part of this group with Mrs de can I call no no it's no we didn't tell them we were going to ask them questions I'll let you okay after their first competition they'll come back okay how are you feeling about the competition confident a little nervous mixed yeah and that's normal so keep doing what you're doing you're meeting weekly I have no doubt that you will excel and do well so we're very proud of you and I want to thank your adults at home for supporting you in this endeavor and I want to thank Mrs deur for running this program uh for the Ford Middle School it's nice to have this enrichment program in map and we definitely need it and we need the models so good for you congratulations thank you all go home and study now okay thank you my friends than thank you than okay anybody else question okay next on the agenda B CG and those are all polies for the second and the is ready we would be asking for votes tonight on each one of those um we had it on the agenda last month as the first read and now this is the second we and the vote to accept it um as we're updating our policiy so um I spoke with Dr Bailey about this of how a parent parents policy would fit into this and I believe that it would be something separate wouldn't be added to any of these policies is that cor these are all discrimination policies I'm sure that when U Mr Hood calls for the motion he's going to need each one of them separately when we take a vote so my concern as a self um person was I wanted to discuss the fact of of parents rights um with in regards to Children maybe not feeling you know if they're male female nonbinary what they want to be called that the parents have the right to know about that I know it's a big discussion in the state of Massachusetts but I thought it was the conversation I was concerned that with voting with these title n um items here that it would close the book on that and that is not the case so we can still discuss it in another subcommittee meeting and if we feel that in it's worth bringing to the whole committee then we'll do so um but other than that Melissa and I vetted these items here and we feel comfortable as is we had a couple of little adjustments but nothing but nothing major so confident in these policies and how they fit our school district and you guys will come back as a separate issue yes it do conversation I just have one comment um just an agreement with there was a note here about adding something about the social media on policy ACR um I think that was you had add wrot something so does that mean that will be added to the policy no I think it had be legal and I don't think got it yeah I'm just saying I would support that I think it's important to i we didn't change anything that was recommended through masc at this time if we want to do that if you want to adopt what we have now and if anything needs to be added when we meet with the subcommittee meeting we can certainly discuss that separately just because I I know um Mrs B needed these policies in in place as soon as possible so I think we'll bring that added addition to the next subcommittee meeting that we're going to have very shortly and then that I I think someone I may have had a comment or two in there as well so so I would be I personally would support voting on these tonight and then coming back and adjusting they're just little tweaks I think yeah nothing discuss okay not wow so could I ask for a motion to accept policy AC which is the non-discrimination policy including harassment and retaliation as presented well well we're going to do it as present but we may modify subsequently so moved second all in favor I is there any next policy is ACR non-discrimination policy including harassment and retaliation any discussion no seeing none can I ask for a motion to accept policy ACR as as presented second all in favor I next policy is uh the ACA non-discrimination on the basis of sex any discussion can I ask for a motion to accept policy ACA as presented second all in favor I I I uh next policy AC non-discrimination on the basis of sex under Title 9 including sex based harassment uh any discussion see none can I ask for a motion to accept policy AC as presented so Mo thank you all in favor I I I uh next policy acab any discussion seeing none can I ask for a motion to accept policy aab as presented second all in favor I almost there next policy acga civil rights grievance procedure any discussion seeing done can I ask for a motion to accept policy acga as presented second all in favor I next policy acgb Title Nine sexual discrimination grievance procedure any discussion seeing none can I ask for a motion to accept policy acgb as present second all in favor thank you next I have um new Beford High School tuition agreement it's just um I'm recommending our to extend that agreement by a year this would line us up with our current agreement with fa Haven High School so that both Agreements are do at the same time um and after discussion with some school committee members during a budget subcommittee meeting um we talked about having you know a rubric and some presentations next year from all interested high schools with what they have to offer and I know Mrs gos if you want to chime in here please do so because I'm chair of the regionalization committee I thought we all thought it would be a good idea to have the neighboring Towns come to us with presentations based on academics Athletics extracurricular activities uh music anything that they have to offer us um and do like I said small presentations so we can just see what's out there and what's offered to our students prior to the ACT negotiation of of the tuition agreements before we get to the money part of it that seem seem reasonable that way we can you know see what they have to offer and then you know vet that out and then discuss the money for and it will also coincide with the regionalization information as well once we start moving with that I think the nice thing is our students have a choice in a cushion it so you know they can go with what matches their interest in uh dreams hopes and dreams so tonight I would be asking the committee to take a vote to extend extend the new bford high school contract by a year it's already been vetted out with Andrew oerry the superintendent of schools in New Bedford he has no problem with it um no changes in the agreement it's just an extension of a year same same cost for student yes ask for a motion yeah so I'm going to ask for a motion to accept Rec High School tuition agreement as written any discussion all in favor hi hi thank you and this next one is the food service department agre additional label hours agreement this is something that the committee voted on already but um the ATA came to us with um a change and the Chang is in red and we agreed to it we have no problem with it we just wanted to be transparent with the committee that we did make a little change um based on the meeting that we had with the ATA so we have no problem with it I would recommend the committee um vote on this again with the new um update so I'll ask for a motion to accept the additional labor hours for the food service department as ra second any discussion all in favor I I'll thank you and that is what I have for tonight thank you so much okay um are there any uh School Committee Member report you I don't [Applause] want yeah sorry I'll make it quick good evening everyone um we've got some great updates dat update our Sims and epins that is our uh State reporting that we do every year U we were ahead schedule thank you to Kath borne on this um as you know we strive for Quality data and we've come a long way um we've updated our intercom system in two areas in in the district um in both kitchens we found that with the dishwasher and everything running was very hard to hear some of the intercom stuff that we need for our safety protocols uh those have been replaced and uh we're happy to announce that they can now hear what's going on in there um side note to that we also have a plan to take care of any intercom changes in the future we looked into building out like I have my 10year plan for technology District we have a plan for taking care of the intercon district as well um families in Chrome Insurance roughly 300 families have purchased insurance through are worth out which is increase from last year however I always have to State we highly recommend Chromebook Insurance please get it it'll save you um it really will um professional development uh we got the entire Tech Team uh to do some professional development which is at Mass Q uh it was a great time for us and we got to look at some cyber security some Chromebook practices and we even got to find some ways to save us some money in the future so it was a great time all around that's our Tech up any questions [Applause] good evening chairperson hood and school committee I missed you guys last month you too Patrick um so I'm going to try to keep this brief but there's some important information to cover um fiscal 25 budget I always say this but moving along um some as planned some not too as planned but from initial numbers um you know we're staying on the budget if you will some shifting some savings from um new positions but some uh un unbudgeted special education costs um kind of offset those savings but we're we're surviving right now it's only November so we're keeping the close on that um on October 22nd we met with the budget subcommittee to discuss uh strategies for successful FY 26 budget now is the time where we start to build that um a memo went out to our our leadership team on prepping their internal budgets and submitting those at a time frame somewhere um in mid December and from there we'll have one to one meetings with those department leaders to look you know line by line through their budgets listen to their needs um potential cuts and kind of analyze from there um discussion with town uh first week of December is also when the board is Select and the Town Administrator will be talking figures so it times out perfectly um I gave you a little bit of an anticipated timeline on how I foresee things um March and April being the most important where we have you know the recommended superintendent budget um but that'll also play into potential ballot voting in April for the town if we have to pursue um any sort of funding for our Capital project or Energy Management Services project um so that's TBD and then you know the timeline for the Senate releasing their figures in May and then Governor's numbers in June play right along with our anticipated annual town meeting so nothing nothing new really there um unfortunately um you know it's going to be in another bismal year as far as I'm concerned you know we're still going to be a minimum a district um there nothing's really changed with student enrollment or demographic or any of the other variables and there's minimal growth in town revenues which has already been communicated to us so um it's going to be another tight year where we're going to have to you know be conscientious in our budgeting and fight for our true needs and cut out the rest of the the um fluff if you will which I think we've done a good job over the years past into it um one of the big falloffs of the FY 25 budget this year was the circuit breaker reimbursement I think in 23 so FY 23's circuit breaker is used in FY 24 and FY 24 circuit breakers used in FY 25 so when FY 23 to 24 our circuit breaker almost cut in half so we felt that repercussion in fiscal 25 um we're we're seeing that that figure is starting to Trend to be our norm and that's because we don't have the expensive AO District placements that we to have which means we're doing more in house but there's less reimbursement that comes with that um so that figure is actually anticipated to be pretty flat for FY 25 and we're going to have to make doe of that without dipping into our special head stabilization which we we did this year just to offset initially any questions on the budget or process um on the facilities front uh we received a draft investment grade audit from uh train on October fourth um when I say draft it's very much a draft um it's important for us to go over this internally with our teams um with school committee um before sharing it out we don't want any misinformation or mis misguiding of any individuals or or groups so um we're going to keep that internal until we can vet it and it becomes final um we're meeting tomorrow November 13th to discuss uh this topic at length with Town Personnel that includes a board of Select representative a finance committee representative um hopefully the Town Administrator and some Town accountant Department uh Personnel um just to talk about the topic the needs the funding opportunities what what repercussions there will be to the town if if any if it goes the way of a debt exclusion or any of the sorts um and this plays in line with uh chairperson Hood's motion to table the the uh warrants at fall toown meeting so that we could gather information get everyone more educated on the on the topic on the needs on the costs um and hopefully move this forward in the spring um another big ticket item that we have been kind of chasing around is the water leak in the AES gym closet it's been going on you know it was brought to our attention I think mainly last year but we found documents showing that it's been going on for you know almost 20 years um so we had an engineering company come out and analyze that they cut into the wall um they they did some analysis they found that the drip edge wasn't properly installed along with some other materials um I included that report attached for for your te for the team to see um and we're going to have a follow-up meeting with Gale Associates to see you know to ask questions see what next steps are see what a design would look like and what a cost to addressing that issue would be um but just moving along with addressing you know the the critical needs of our buildings um just curious when do you anticipate that that meeting is going to happen so we re we just got that report last week we reached out to start a meeting or start scheduling a meeting and um I haven't heard back on their availability just yet but hopefully sooner than later they're pretty responsive um Food Service front we just discussed the Moa um again that was just to address labor hours per des's formula we we recognized that we um didn't have the labor hours necessary in our kitchen to meet the amount of meals that we were providing so this should help um we're excited to make that change and then you might have seen in community communication that the food service director launched a new online menu platform called healthy Pro if you haven't taken a look at it it's actually a phenomenal product um especially if you're dealing with allergies or diets or calorie counting you can go in and kind of build your menu for your kids or select the choices and it can tell you the nutritional B of all of these things combined for the full week um it's really educational it'll benefit the parents that want to take advantage of it to make sure their kids aren't you know eating certain eating certain foods or consuming things that they don't want them to um and it took a lot of work for the food service director to to implement this change but it was necessary the old product was going um out of business if you will and this was the one that was selected to move forward with and it's phenomenal so um kudos to to Jo meoa food service director um other matters just ongoing with everything that we deal with I wanted to share with you guys just the different Audits and reports that you're not always pry of um there's six on here I left one off to make seven but um we have a des management decision letter so they're looking at findings from our fy22 single audit they're requesting more documentation um and have selected us for fiscal monitoring review because of findings from you know previous years and we're we're addressing that as we go I think we've definitely improved controls uh since then that they're going to be happy with what they find but that's ongoing our end of year report audits are ongoing for 22 and 23 um we have an Essa program monitoring desk based review some of these are just are reoccurring so you just rotating basis it just happens that a lot of these are hitting all at once so that's the program monitoring just review um the national school lunch program admin review national school lunch procurement review um the msba school survey assessment is happening to assess our buildings and what they need or what needs we have um so a lot going on in the background that you know we don't just advertise or most of our time can be consumed with um while balancing you know budget future negotiations policies all these subcommittees so on and so forth and and just you know overall working together as a team to improve the district so um and then another exciting update was the town has hired um a town accountant Mr Ellis I met him briefly at a little meet and greet and it seems like there's a lot of potential there I'm excited um trying to set up a meeting with him in the Town Administrator to sort of kick things off and figure out how to move forward with um efficiencies um so I look forward to that uh I did get win he's also part-time so I hope that doesn't get in the way of things but um heading in the right direction always been part time or recently so when I started two years ago well it's tough to say because that was a contracted Town accountant and then the assistant accountant got promoted and he was very much a fulltime accountant he left and then it was replaced with another contracted accountant who was only part-time and now she has been replaced with this part-time in-house accountant if you will so is it enough time will'll tell um it all depends I guess on what the priorities are at the beginning and how we can frontload some of these things to to streamline changes and build efficiencies within the school in the town um is the 2324 budget officially closed with the town last year's budget officially um no is not off I I I'm not aware of everything that they're doing but the last that I talked to them the balance sheet still wasn't submitted to the state so that mean you know certified um it won't necessarily cause a problem I think what they do is they delay your payment on funding so Chapter 70 or something of the sorts could be delayed to the town but as long as they don't have a cash flow problem I those are questions for the town dep the 25 Bus in wait but again I I think they're moving in the right direction and you know they are they are including me and correspondents and emails and meetings um so I think it's just getting this new individual acclimated and and setting up some time to figure things out and uh set the rules over do you know if this person is PR to munist yes it sounds like very much so um he had good experience from what I understand in the town of Bourn um but he he sounded like he knew munus he was surprised that you know we weren't necessarily up to speed on munus through our departments um that he could get us there um again it's just collaboration getting in the same room figuring it out thank you any questions otherwise thank you so I apologize to both Patricks for almost jumping over you there so apologies now I will ask if there are any schools committing reports I have the U regionalization committee I would like to change the official name because the Acushnet Public School regionalization Committee just assumes that we are going to regionalize and I don't want that being assumed by the town we're just looking to see if it's feasible so I'd like to change officially the name of the committee to be a cushion Public School regionalization feasibility committee or the aps RFC AP srfc yes so yeah so can we ask for a motion to change the name of the regaliz as Sarah just [Music] descri have a first I'll second it any discussion all those in favor I very good um and then in addition thank you for that because again I just want to be open and clarify what we're trying to do with this feasibility committee um in addition to that I have verbal um acceptances to be part of the committee by uh myself as chair Sarah Gomes Dr Bailey Mr McIntyre Melissa cadero Bob Hinkley as a selectman Jamie Kelly as uh the Town Administrator and then I'm hoping once Jamie leaves in June the other whoever that is will also be part of this uh Christine varo who is PTO president and I am still looking for two teachers that I have communication out to and I'm hoping they accept but if not I will go back out because I really feel that teachers need to be a part of this and then once we get this committee officially together I'm planning on our first meeting in January early in the new year and then I'll have a full schedule for the next six months and regardless of me not running for the school committee for the next three years I will still stay on as a community member which is um it was part of the whole collaboration Community member be part of thisy to do that and I will report back to the school committee every month giving you upates try not to skip over you I won't let you anybody else well it's connected with this discussion as we well know we questioned two pass you know which removed the uh the requirement you know high school you know the you know has you know getting a diploma for the you students uh there is great talk you know among you know the legislators and the uh and of course the governor uh who were they may very well St you know implementing or recommending going through the process you know legislatively and setting requirements you know what they high school diploma you know when receive one what they have in in the curriculum you know and and activities and course work um I don't know how long this process is going to take but if we're you know talking about you know uh either regionalization or you know tuition you know agreements that that may very well we may very want to look at to see if they that the school system that we dealing with has already Meeting those new requirements that they are going to uh uh recommend and so I think that's you know uh they may very well uh you know um some may not they may have SE wav this we don't know in in that process but we should be looking at that because it it does affect future costs if one uh you know school system has already already Meeting those what they you know those requirements uh they may very well be a certain cost Factor but some who have not are not omitting uh admitted some course work they going to have to bring in more staff in order to you know uh meet the meet that new Benchmark so to speak uh that it would uh you know cause them to ra raise our tuition even you know you know of cost or negotiations you know I'm sure you if you follow me it's a very uncertain road but we're we're looking at in cast 2 now and at the discussion on that it affects us even though we're not you know affected you know like great levels but it it will affect as far as uh you know the quality and the cost factors of where we had we headed to un regionalization or tuition I have a question about that so the high schools that we have currently in our area do have criteria on what our students need to pass in order to get a diploma like four years of English one year of math two years of science do they all have requirements in addition to passing the mcast was one of them um I was on a meeting today with the state and the acting commissioner said that he believes very much going to go back to local districts on what is needed to pass high school you know the requirements so as Mr hcraft was saying I think it's really important that when we talk about high school choices next year talking I think that's a very valid question what are the requirements to get a high school diploma but I think that law goes into effect I believe December 5th we don't know what the MCAT to will look like yet do we how the legislature is going to act I it's too early to say I think very early mcast is still required in in the different grade levels so and I think the important thing to realize is that mcast tests the standards the state standards which is what the teachers teach so you know we in a chriset are not planning on doing anything different because of question two um it doesn't mean that mcast is going away it's just another measurement for our kids to you know for us to measure their success so I think so we'll add that to part of our rubric of what the citerior is either tuition or the regionalization make sure we cover all I believe we're going to be discussing that in our next Workshop which is coming up soon thank you so Paul I think Dr there was um communication and information right District newsletter AES and FMS newsletter staff and family Communications and then the Personnel report so we are going to go to Executive session we're not coming back correct yeah so that being said can I have a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting to go into executive session to discuss the deployment of security Personnel or devices or strategies with respect to Safety and Security of staff and students with no intent to return to open session all in favor roll call yes [Applause] [Music] heyy [Music]