[Applause] [Music] good evening everybody we're going to call this meeting to order today is Tuesday June 4th 2024 this meeting is being video and audio recording for future table broadcast please silence all cell phones for the duration of the meeting and as always we will give the pledge ofion so please [Music] stand FL United States stands one nation God indivisible Liberty Justice and I do to take um if I can have a motion please uh to officially open our meeting by call a second Downey yes Mrs yes Mr Hood yes Mr yes Mrs yes I we'll start with our consent agenda if I request a motion please to approve the school committee meeting excuse me meeting minutes of May 7th 2024 and all payroll so second any discussion all those in favor I and here that we have anyone noted to speak at delegation for public comment so we'll move on to new business and I will quickly hand it over to Dr K thank you madam chair first thing um on my report tonight I'd like to um have M rary and Mrs chesy come up to the podium to talk about ignite program this is a grant that we had talked about earlier in the year but um we just wanted to give you the final synopsis of our program great good evening Madam chair members of the school committee good evening so we're excited to present to you tonight um about the ignite reading program that we started in uh January of this school year so what is ignite reading thank you ignite reading is a 15 minute a day Ono one virtual tutoring sessions for in our case students in grades K to 3 it is a program that runs um the upper grade levels as well but we we use the program for grades K to3 um and the students work with the same highly trained tutor um each day for the course of the amount of time that they are sitting in the seat working with the tutor and these tutors are highly trained in the science of reading and they use um differentiated instruction and it's based on it's based on where the students kind of place into the program after a diagnostic test um and included with this ignite reading program we have a literacy specialist that works with our district and provides the school and teachers with actionable feedback on data so as Miss Riri said um students take a diagnostic test and they are placed along this Continuum that you see um on the slide show there um and then they move along and they're um is a prescribed number of lessons that they have to do within each one of those domains and as they are join with the tutor they are interacting they have embedded assessments to see how well they are doing then all that information is downloaded to us in the meeting that Mr be had just referenced as well um and we'll just continue we can show you how the kids did actually I think we have a video Mr mistler was going to um show kind of that the experience would be for a student who is in in the night reading program students work oneon-one for 15 minutes every day with the same tutor this allows the student and tutor to build a strong productive relationship where the student can feel safe and comfortable as they take on the rigorous work of learning how to read at the beginning of our program tutors conduct Baseline Diagnostics to determine each student's precise decoding gaps those decoding gaps determine which skills the student starts learning first good job the student works on this skill with their tutor for 14 lessons lessons include intentional modeling and repeated practice in order to develop automaticity as the student moves through the lesson the tutor provides feedback when the student struggles look at that if the student makes a mistake the tutor will ask the student to try again to see if they can self correct if they make the mistake again the tutor will give targeted in the- moment feedback and then ask the student to practice so they can solidify the code correctly sound it out ready the goal is to close the gap as quickly as possible so the student can move forward and learn new skills all the while tutors are collecting data in real time this data helps them further differenti apprciate instruction for the student in the moment and the next day 15 words in one minute amazing confet tors celebrate student progress with colorful confetti fireworks and virtual high fives celebrations reinforce the joy factor of learning to read and boost students confidence give me a high five you did great beginning with Blends and diagraphs students have a daily fluency passage this allows them to apply the pieces of the code they've learned to Connected text and after 14 lessons the student is progress monitored if the student demonstrates proficiency they move to the next set of skills where they're able to strengthen their deuring skills on even more rigorous words I right get on to a different protocol if they do not pass the progress monitoring assessment the student moves through a reteach sequence a beautiful relationship is built between the student and tutor as they celebrate growth together each tutor is their students's personal cheer leader coaching and cheering them on as they navigate the wins and challenges of becoming a reader thank you so much for watching with me today you did a wonderful job so we received funding through a grant with the Department of Education for the 75 seats that we had received um and that was the grant the grant was for K to three and we started mid year so right after we assessed our students with their the dibles test which is like a reading assessment that we that we use and is was an assessment that the state also uses um to Monitor to Monitor this so once we had that middle of year assessment data we looked back and identified students based on other data as well but really mainly the beginning and middle of year dibles reading assessment data so yeah so this is so what we're looking at here is the devil's data for only the students who we had identified to participate in ignite reading um and so Boi means beginning of the year so Boi middle of the year and end of the year is there um and then you can see the number of students who were falling well below Benchmark below Benchmark at The Benchmark or above Benchmark so and then in that there's a column change from beginning of year to middle of year so the number of students that were kind of moving out of in and out of the categories and the green column there is the movement that happens since we began ignite or after we after we've had ignite in place so really we we saw a large number of students move out of that well below Benchmark um and a lot of students move out of the below Benchmark categories as well and move into the at and above Benchmark this is like really positive data I think our next slide will um also show a little bit more clear um the first chart um that you see is again the students that were identified in this year's ignite so we did not include Year's kindergarten but we just looked at what they how they grew from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year as well as middle of the year to end of year now they have all this you know their reading intervention if they work with a special educator um they also have access to their teacher and Lexia so they definitely were showing growth the 22 to 23 year but the growth is is much more dramatic again we're including a number of kindergarten students that were not in the first chart but you can see the um the amount of growth from the middle of the year to the end of the year as compared to the you know relatively the same student group previous year and again these are only the students that have been identified for ignite and it's a it's quite a significant amount you know is it statistically perfect the way we did know but we wanted to compare apples to apples so and one of our as we know we've been talking a lot about special education and how are we addressing any possible gaps there and I I think that both Mr garyi and I were and Dr Bailey were so pleased with um and Miss Bon Court we're so pleased with the um dramatic result in special education Improvement so I won't take the time to read all of these but we have been meeting with students throughout the program checking in dropping in on the sessions um and just you know trying to get that regular feed back from students and um it has really been fully positive when meeting with the students there were a few who said uh a few meaning two who said that they felt like they were maybe missing something by having to do this 15 minutes each day but they also admittedly say but it's helping me with my reading and I would do it again um so the students basically all said that they would do it again that they really felt like it was helping them with their reading they felt more confident um they love the confetti they actually they it's really something to see because they are super engaged and you know we learned a lot during the covid closure and learning remotely and we had our doubts when we when we learned about this program being 100% remote um but they have created it in a way that is highly engaging for the students um and I can like on a personal note my daughter participates in it and um she won't miss like she wouldn't miss it if we're home if she's homesick she'll jump on and like she does not want to miss she she has a meeting she Hasting loves having a meeting um but they like it and I you know I met with the first graders today and same thing they all said we would love to be able to do this again um so it's it's um it's been a really positive experience and it's Grant funded through it's Grant funded through the end of this year just so we could just potentially reapply are available there's nothing posted at this point yet um I've been reaching out to desie to find out they're saying more to follow um so I don't know what will come down the pipeline but I would imagine with this positive experience that we would like to have the opportunity again um and just when we say we had se you said I want to make sure I'm we had 75 people who qualified we have't to to get all of that funded right we didn't have more than 75 and then didn't get funded right I um so there are probably some kids that were like on the line that wouldn't have benefited and if we had 80 it would have been okay but 75 seemed to be a pretty good number for the amount of students that we typically service for for title one across those grades and and these seats are seats they're not assigned to a student so a student could they did actually yeah and that did happen where a student kind of tested out or completed the program and we were able to refill that seat with an old student um let's see okay yeah so um I kind of referred to this a little bit before but one of the benefits is that um there is a reading specialist who talks to us about how the kids are doing we have a meeting that's a voluntary meeting that I do we do have about a half dozen teachers that go to um every single time there's a meeting um and she talks about specific students and the data that they have is so specific it'll be to the letter that the child missed on a particular assessment and just talking to the reading specialist as a former reading specialist myself she it's really that was one of the things that I think is really unique about the program that you have someone who is working on that working with this group of tutors to make sure that all of their protocol are being followed exactly and that they're they're getting that amount of time that's definitely a benefit for us right and that reading specialist would watch the recorded videos so if a student is not making progress they would watch those videos work with that tutor and try to suggest you know another path or something different to try um so we got a lot of data we and we've been receiving a lot of data from the ignite people down to the second also of how long students have been on logging in for and yeah and this ties to our district strategy by achieving um in the category of achieving academic Excellence for all students in strengthening Partnerships with parents in the larger community and in that regard um this was a true collaboration with desie um in order to get this Grant and they were really excited about our willingness to accept this Grant and kind of extend the early literacy they have a huge early literacy push right now um and extend that work down on the south coast what questions do you have for us so um in regards to the data that you're capturing there're I know they're being shared by the half a dozen tutors that show up but is it also being share to the teachers and are they changing their ways with students or have you not got to that level yet we get most of the teachers involved in that if not um Mo most of them have been talking during stat meetings during any type of discussion that we might have and sometimes these discussions even just happen in my office someone will say oh I'm really worried about this particular student and then we'll we'll talk about it in that way too if that person hasn't been goinging there but a lot of the teachers do have because not every teacher in every grade level has a student inite that's thank you how does the scheduling work like how do you schedule a student for a session and so and this is probably one of the caveats um just to mention what because we did it at the time we did and we knew that there were already intact groups we chose to do it at a time when kids might be doing science or social studies or something like that is it ideal no and of course we want that but you know as a again as a reading specialist there's only so much time and if someone needs to close that Gap I don't know too many parents who would say keep my kid in social studies or science and that you know don't give them that 15 minute individual time um you know we're not taking away something like PE or one of the Specialties that you know is it ideal no and that is one of the caveats if we were to do it again we could consider other scheduling but the way that we scheduled um one of the comments by one of the coordinators was that because we had people who were overseeing it we were able to be more on time and have less minutes missing from a a a particular session so if you could as you know if you're in a classroom and you're trying to have your groups and then these kids need to go on ignite and there's a technical difficulty there's always a technical difficulty every pretty much every day um then you have to get up then those kids are sitting there and now you're going over to ignite and and so that was the other tradeoff so she was actually impressed with how well the kids were quickly getting on how well they were taught because they were all doing it at once it was almost EAS they do it but it's not ideal and um we don't like we don't like to see them miss anything but there's only so much time and it's crucial that we get these kids reading any other questions all right thank you so much I would like to just mention that um Mrs chzn and I Mrs Bor and um three uh three of the teachers in District are attending the Massachusetts dyslexia Institute um at the end of this month and so we're going to be learning a lot about um creating we're going to be creating an action plan for identifying students who may have um needs in reading and just kind of thinking about all of this thinking about everything that I presented with the student Opportunity Act thinking about there's so many things that we're doing right this improved our data but we didn't pull anything away this was an add-on yeah like this was an add-on so it wasn't like anything that pulled away but these kids did get the additional 15 minutes a day and so thinking about that and seeing that that additional 15 minutes in the model that they did pushed the kids over the edge to the point where it did how can we if we can't expect to get a grant um you know moving forward how can we model what we do here to get those kind of results in house that's right great thank you so much we had said we wanted to look at the data I appreciate everyone's flexibility and willingness to try this new program but we had said from the get-go that's 15 minutes a day let's try it and then we're going to see the data at the end and we were really pleased with it and what we saw so great okay so next I have the energy Management Services procurement um and I'm going to need a vote for this so just to review um our timeline here on February 5th of this year we did an RFQ which is a request for qualifications for an energy Management Services that was published in the central register the standard times and our website as well um an optional pre-submission conference and um facility tour was held on February 15th with were interested esos toward our facilities and gathered additional information regarding this project and response submissions were due to us by March 8th Aion at Public Schools received comprehensive submissions and when I say comprehensive they were extremely comprehensive we talk in probably 300 pages each one from four esos including energy efficient Investments which is eii energy management Consultants EMC Sean industry and train Technologies so initial evaluations were completed and we narrowed it down to seens and train additional Discovery was issued to both Seamans and trains seeking clarifications and updates to various aspects of their written submissions we had interviews with both of the vendors and they were held on May 9th written responses to the additional Discovery were received by the required due date of May 17th uh further on May 21st reference checks were conducted with the towns or the school districts in which Seamans and trains had completed major projects for so and you know we we said from the Geto that with either one of these companies we couldn't go wrong we they were both extremely strong candidates So based on the final evaluations train was and is recommended to the school committee to vote to engage train to undertake the investment grade audit and develop a comprehensive Energy Management program consistent with the goals and objectives of the Acushnet Public Schools obviously this is something we've been talking about for a while now um but we're continuing to move the project along and we will continue to move along we get the vote tonight um with the work actually starting this summer with the assessment all right so with that I'd like to advance a motion to uh vote to engage train to undertake the investment grade audit and develop a comprehensive Energy Management program consistent with the goals and objectives of APs so moved second okay is there any discussion or question all those in favor I I I thank you uh next we have the um snack the collaborative renewal contract and I have that in your packets um and I would just need a to accept that and I think the only difference is they're just renting based on their needs a little less space than usual but um it's based on their needs okay I can request a motion please to approve the memorandum agreement between the ACC school committee and smack have a second second okay are there any questions or further discussion none all those in favor I I thank you next I'd like to call Mr mistler um our director of technology to the podium to give us an update on technology good evening everyone Madame chair School Comm members Dr Bailey um I've got some uh quick updates but pretty good ones uh we have completed the installation of our new phone system uh this system takes care of all the problems that we potentially could have had takes care of a lot of the statutes that the um uh Federal uh excuse me the FCC put in place um one thing that we did do pretty well well is as you can see in that document we provided from all the hard work we put in place and all the weekends we put in we worked here on on a bunch of weekends we save $50,000 off that project from a whole so that means we took that all on so they didn't have to do that and that that money is going to go both back to the schools and to the town so our goal is not only to ensure that we have our staff and students and Family's best interest in mind but also that of the townish um we are in the process of collecting our 10,000 Chromebooks for the end of the school year and we just sent out an email today for families just to remind them of the collection date um and also this I just want to take the second to remind families for next year uh we're going to send something out in August to please uh take our insurance it's great it's cheap and it'll save you a lot of money we really want you to go that way it saves a lot of time um we're also doing our summer plan so I kind of went into a little bit about um our communication in the department in this note so we have a lot of um Connection in our department we also have monthly team meetings where we get to talk about everything we share to each other we get to uh do some internal PD during those days um we get to talk about Recycling and including our summer plan so we've got a pretty good set up for this summer um on top of that we have District updates a couple things that are going to be changing this is going to save the district money and it's kind kind of the efficiencies that we've been building as we've been moving along so one thing you'll notice is you've probably already seen this uh there's a slight change on the emails and phone calls and texts that you're getting from the district we're going away from a one call system to thrillshare we put that place with all the administrators to have a one painted glass so our website does robocalling it does our website it does the mobile website and a couple other bells and whistles so they'll save us some money um also we're going to be moving away from s'more that's our district newsletter doesn't mean we're getting away from a district newsletter it just means we're getting away from that platform we're going towards a Google doc which is free for us it gives us all the same functionality um so we're kind of thinking hey that's a great way to save money as well so that's going to be coming in place here in short order um so families please notice that thrill share change that is us any questions so for the Google Docs does that mean parents have to make sure that they have a Gmail account and they can have to log in and all that not at all so what we're going to wind to do is put it up as a PDF on the website so you'll be able to go right to it click on it looks like a PDF you don't have to sign in you don't have to do anything anything else great great thank you fantastic thank you Mr mler uh and I just want to say I really appreciate all of your work and efforts in your whole department I mean saving money on that one project $50,000 is a big win for the district as well as the town so thank you um next up we have our school committee calendar um and the only difference we um have there instead of the first Tuesday of the month we're going to try the second Tuesday if it's okay with everybody here the subcommittees obviously we're always juggling those around when we have to but the school committee dates will be the ones that will'll try to keep you know pretty consistent on this calendar so um is everybody okay or is there any discussion about some changes potential changes with this calendar that we've proposed so the only changes is the school committee meetings will be the second Tuesday the first yes [Music] are we talking about the time of those meetings or is that it's up to the committee that um yeah I I I would put it open for discussion I think I don't know if this would matter I just don't I one of thought that I have would six o'clock start time be better for not necessarily us it might be better for me but that's but just families and other people it might give a little more time to actually come attend a meeting I don't know if that's true but I do think 5:30 at times can be a bit challenging for folks so not trying to extend um every once a night but it's a [Music] thought I don't have a huge I think either right is fine with me unless I support that 6:00 just cuz easy to remember well three people I I've done it I've had meetings here at six o'clock before and it didn't make a difference but if it appeases the committee on I think we can try it we can always vote to go back um I guess I would just say you know and I kind of talked with you about this before Dr Bailey trying to keep the agendas tight especially nights when we have executive session you know and those nights where we know we're going into an executive session just keep maybe the maybe skip a report you know that that's not essential to maybe another meeting just to kind of keep things rolling but absolutely yeah yeah um do we need to vote on that or we don't but try out see see I don't think we need to vote I right just see how it goes and so we're to schedule them for 6 o' we'll see how it goes and if we feel that we need to change at any point time just put it go back to 5:30 fine good we also want the sub commmittee meetings at 6 might as well right it's easy to Y six yeah sure okay but can we also have the school committee meetings on the general count yeah we're going to work on that um we were just talking about it it looks like it will fit that all of the black writing is smaller for this purpose to fit the school committee dates on so the font on the um calendar that's posted it's actually bigger so people can see it but we will try to get the regular just the regular school committee meetings on and that way parents will know yes absolutely without having to go anywhere else on our website yes no problem at all okay next up um we have um we're approaching the mid cycle of my two-year evaluation cycle and if you recall earlier in the year we reviewed my goals the committee voted on the goals um and now it's that halfway point right the interesting thing about this year is we started board docs in January okay so we didn't start it right in the beginning of the year so we're a little bit um mixed in the way that you're going to see things but I would really like to focus on the board docs because board Docs definitely tracks things like when you listen to the presentations and they're always aligning them with our district plan we can manually put in when we're getting this agenda prepared what goal does it relate to what standard does it relate to and board dots takes care of that for you okay so if you remember um last year there was a document and for the past several years a document that looked like this and it's because we didn't have board dos so what I did is I just started it again this year from you know the summertime through December and I wrote a few things on it okay but really moving forward because we have a whole l a year now to use board docs and I put um separate packets in your file on this but really technically you could actually go into board docs and access these reports in links yourself so for example there's a packet student learning goal number one okay anything that related that we talked about at school committee is going to be printed on this report which is fine I can give you the piece of paper but the reason why it's better to access it because you can actually click on the links if you're interested in looking at anything again to jog your memory from something from five months ago okay um so in addition to the goals it does the same thing for the the standards and I included um the rubrics um the St the superintendent's evaluation rubric again as you know I know you're all familiar with this no one's new on the committee we've done this before um so I basically vote a memo to you that I do appreciate the collaboration um I think that our school are doing really well and I do think it stems from the top in terms of your support um of me your support of our leadership team and I I am very grateful for that because I know not all districts have a working relationship like that so I personally want to thank you all for the support um and the collaboration that we um continue to move forward with so you know I know all of this is in your pack I'm sure you don't want me to read you everything that we've gone over this year um but what I did do today and if you saw your email I sent you a Google survey okay and on the Google survey because this is a considered a formative evaluation which is a midyear check-in the little bit different than the end of the year at the end of the cycle Summit of evaluation so the check-in you don't need as much information the most important thing that we as a district have to report to desie are the ratings of just the standards we don't have to report the goal ratings we don't have to report there's no comments that get reported so most important thing this year is that those ratings you fill out the form it will probably take you hopefully no more than 10 minutes um missus will gather that information so that all goes into an Excel sheet to her she tabulates and basically comes up with one rating based on everyone's rating okay so there's really nothing different and in the survey if you've looked at it I put directions um at the beginning of that survey to say what's required what's not you'll usually see like a red asterisk with what's required and then things that are not like the comments are not required of course I welcome the feedback and you're welcome to spend more time but just for the purpose of the formative evaluation I definitely need a a ratings from everybody and when is this do icy the I believe I had the 18th on there hold on let me just double check is yep it's two weeks from now Tuesday June 18th I thought that was enough time to give everybody and I would welcome your phone calls um if you want to do it in a different way we can do that um but yeah you can call me like if you're looking over something and you're not quite sure of the rubric or um a question on something that was presented that you're not clear on or need clarification please call me um does any survey the same survey they we've been using for the past it's the same format it's the same exact format does anybody have any questions on that okay all right the next thing I have um as you know we had a student pass away puil met and I know that um we had Parents on the PTO parents I know Miss pissa P was also involved in this but they had purchased a bench like a buddy bench in his memory and we don't have it yet but according to our policy we need to get school committee approval for when we do receive it um to accept the donation so tonight I would be looking for a vote um I'm recommending that you know you would obviously accept the donation and this we would do something special um in his memory and I know that um we've already talked about some really special ideas with some children from his class Etc doing some readings um about friendship and things like that so we're looking forward to that opportunity also our art teacher might be involved with decorating the bench um and working with students on that so it's truly um you know a project that's inclusive of many many stakeholders so um I would appreciate your vote in the affirmative on that to yeah I don't if you have anything you want to say about this um no just um with the Buddy bench what happened we approached buddy bench and they reach out and they find a family who will um essentially pay for the Buddy bench so there's a family I believe they're in Florida they lost their their dad to brain cancer so they actually bought the Buddy bench for us or B so they actually would whenever we have it all done they actually would fly down and be part of the that's really nice so I don't that's still in the works and I know right that's how his family wanted he wanted a celebration we were trying to do it in May around his birthday it's just it just can't happen right so um whenever it's done we'll we'll just proceed is it on I think it's on back order or something we've been waiting for it to get delivered up yeah but it will be here okay well I appreciate everything you guys have done too of course make that happen I know it was amazing all right great well happy to uh ask to advance a motion to accept the donation of the Buddy bench as per policy kcd public gifts to the schools so move second all those in favor I thank you thank you and that concludes my report time okay this is manager's report chair person Downey school committee thank you for your time tonight um how great were the pride Awards earlier huh aming and just the amount of joy and smiles on everyone's face and you know test scores aside to be able to celebrate the character of our students um I love being a part of those things it was that was really special um so thank you guys for that superintendent's office and everybody on the leadership team for coordinating that um to keep the agenda tight as chairperson down to earlier um I might graze over some of these items but stop me if you can um some of them just are redundant with what we've talked about in other areas so um moving forward FY 24 budget you know we're coming to a close on the year here um there's about $2.2 million left in our budget about 1.7 of that is salaries um um so you know that leaves some other funds for the miscellaneous expenses that we continue to have related to contracted Services facilities um utilities things like that um and then we have some calculated savings that we'll talk about with the budget transfers um and you know I'll allude to that a little bit right here there's going to be a focus on um facilities and the student services and special education tuition's um prepayment as planned with the f25 budget uh that we'll be dealing with with those savings so uh let's see the FY 25 Budget on May 29th um the finance committee announced that the town uh finally had a balanced budget to present the town meeting in which they also voted unanimously to approve the school budget so you know great job everybody I know we all had a part in that and you know it's a grueling process but I think we got where we wanted to be with level Services um and we're very satisfied with that product so um everybody still come out on June 17th to Spring annual town meeting and help support the schools on the budget and the initiatives uh facilities as superintendent Bailey communicated uh we're moving forward with our Esco thanks to your vote um for the investment grade audit we hope to have a kickoff meeting as soon as next week with train and our owner agent um and they'll Jump Right In starting to collect documents getting in our buildings uh testing measuring just everything right away um and that'll happen throughout the summer with hopes oh not hopes we have a hard deadline to get all that data together compiled and reported so that we can go to a fall town meeting um to secure funding for whatever projects we decide to move forward um as we know there's a focus on air quality and dehumidification custodial services so uh many times throughout the year we've reported our difficulties in hiring custodians and retaining custodians it you know it came to a a you know meeting again with the Union Representatives the the the unit member custodial member um and the team members to to see how how can we proceed forward to keep our buildings clean and to have these Services I mean we've we've obviously been paying overtime using substitutes everything that it takes to keep these buildings clean and we're doing our best though I know some of us even within that department aren't satisfied with the the end results so um we finally came to an agreement to put a hiring freeze on the custodial unit and Outsource our night custodians um budgetarily we don't know what that looks like we have to go up to bid um but obviously we're confined to our budget and the vacancies open up certain amount of savings for salaries that we'll use to uh privatize these services for the time being um I I think it's you know there's pros and cons to it but at the end of the day we want our buildings clean I think there can be things that we can learn from these companies that we can take away once we can get back to hiring talent and and securing talent um but right now we've all come to agreement that that's what we need in addition um that's also going to happen with four maintenance services so many of you may not know that a lot of our summer is emptying classrooms and stripping and waxing the floors and battling with the weather and the humidity for the wa to cure and to get the classrooms it's it's you know the last day of school all the way to the first day of school um so by Contracting those out it gives our our team you know a little bit of alleviated stress but focus on you know the other areas just keeping the buildings clean we have summer programming we have dehumidifiers that we have to empty some of these walls need paint for the last decade you know we're going to get painting um there's going to be a lot of hard work that goes into it um but this kind of gives us that flexibility with the three man crew that we're rolling with right now so um that's also in in the works and I know I've communicated with that pre communicated about that in the past um any questions on that just in the mov report there I know there kind of a change this this would be you see this contractual agreement happening for one year and then reevaluating where we're are at so I imagine you know there's a fiscal benefit to having optional years just to to see what the price point will look like um if a vendor knows that they could secure us for one year plus optional years they might give us a better upfront cost so I think that will be the strategy um but yes at the end of the day we we'll go out to bid um we'll evaluate those bids and then it'll be a 10-month contract from uh you know August 28th whatever the first day of school is till June X which is the last day of school and then we'll reevaluate from there um as you guys may know we have negotiations coming into play next year too so depending on where those go maybe that helps us you know secure more Talent we don't know but yes one year with options and then we'll discuss it and to make this happen we did work with the ATA to put this hiring frees together and they were in agreement so yeah we're working together and collaboratively to keep our schools clean are we hiring or are the um prisoners coming in to paint do we still do that from what I've heard and that was more so the facilities director and I think superintendent coordinating that once the new sheriff sort of took over I guess that there wasn't so much availability we obviously are always going to take what we can get um but right now yeah painful we SP about a letter in the past and I think we had plans to do it again so you know we'll try and see what comes with it thank you I have a question um does the Pico bill um apply to communities poo Bill uh uh passed some you know legislation some time ago and it uh you know it it it it sound of like prohibited State Services privatization and I'm just one you know limited it and I'm just wondering if it applies to what yeah I don't have an answer for you there I know within this you know the industry of schools and school districts more often than not they're privatizing C Services again that's not our longterm yeah no um it's it's been a topic not only you know internally but on the list sered for business managers at masbo it's happening everywhere it's similar to you know teacher teacher needs and and finding teachers to staff and um it's just kind of across our industry right now Food Services I'm going to save those updates for our presentation um sh Melo our food service director will be following up after this and I'm excited for her to share you know the goals and accomplishments we've made and what we continue to strive through um transportation we opened registration miday somewhere last year same process we've already got um a lot of feedback um and submissions which is great um we are again entering into a new contract with our our bus Bender Amal and we're going to look at every rout every stop and see what we need to consolidate and where we can have you know stops and what's safe and what's not um what we did do differently this year is we open registration up to our high school students from Acushnet um and Fair Haven and New Bedford that supported sharing out our registration and it just gives us it helps confirm the data that we have and knowing our ridership um and if we need x amount of buses for our high school teams or if there's a better way so again it's it's just being responsible evaluating our data and if there's savings great if there's additional needs we want to be equitable um so we're looking at everything um and again you know town meeting that contract will go up to vote because it's a three-year contract with two option years so we ask for the support there because the industry of buses is just skyrocketing too and if we can walk in those rates now to have optional years at these lower rates before something takes off in the future it's advantageous to us which you know is advantageous to the toal and the savings um so that's it regarding my business manag report again any questions there no just hear me up like the so I was just thinking um we have so much data in the school from you know academic to bus riding and everything has the school ever thought about selling it to private companies because they need data right public record unfortunately so you like the dibles and all that stuff it's all public record after we redact what we need to redact it's it's public it's public but if you find a way I will join that business with you and S sell public data sell data the state's doing it so why can't we I mean this yeah we talk about negotiations not to get off topic and analytics and essentially there's a a former superintendent out there that started an analytic company that's publicly requesting everybody's unit contracts compiling the data putting in spreadsheets and selling that service so I get where you're going with it but thanks I hope you I wish I quit I'm gonna go do this thank you um all right so moving on Declaration of surplus so again you know we haven't had many opportunities to declare surf plusus this year but we continually look to clean our spaces and turn over old and outdated material so chairperson Downey I believe you have that form to sign if it's voted to declare Surplus but it's it's old curriculum and instructional equipment I think mostly textbooks which are at best 15 years old or older um so I ask that to go to vote to declare Surplus can I request a motion please to vote on the disposal of equipment or material that is grown out Selita as for policy DN School properties disposal procedure second in are there any questions or discussion all those in favor all right great moving right along so budget transfers so this year I put it into a memo format um you know there's improvements here too next year the policy states quarterly reporting you know all on that one we can we can work to do that sometimes it doesn't seem necessary but at least if I can address it quarterly um with school committee that might strengthen um you know the communications there but ultimately what it boils down to right is at the end of the year we have some budget savings um from vacancies and positions from strategical savings from Grants that we acquired throughout the year that that you know absorbed services that would otherwise been absorbed locally um and with that we are asking to allocate or transfer funds um according to this this memo that I passed along so um I I'll just to say out loud just changing line items it's just changing line items and again you know it's with strategy to address um the other District contracts that we that were unexpected this year that are above and beyond you know our circuit breaker offset and our idea grants and things like that it's to support the funding of the prepaid tuitions that we built into our fy2 budget that have to be paid out this year with this year's savings um so that's really transfer one and then transfer two again is just kind of pass costs to the facility side to replenish what we spent um out of our revolving account so this one is interesting right so we we dealt with air quality throughout the year we spent so much money out of our use of facilities rental fund because it was a place to put those expenses at the time we didn't know what the future looked like we didn't know what we were Shir of now we're going to transfer those funds back to local because local can absorb it and we'll leave those revolving accounts free for us to use in the future um so there there's strategy there but it's always been a part of the strategy and it's just come to fruition now um so that will help us moving forward and then in addition you know there's some Safety and Security items that I don't want to advertise a while that we want to work on um with this transfer as well if we can get those projects lined up and quoted before June 30th for ourselves let's get so with that questions um if not I again I ask for that to go to vote and then again if things do fall through don't go according to plan between now technically I believe we have till July 15th to line everything up and close up the books um we'll approach the committee in August to to reallocate the transfers um to to have our budget aligned and retroactively if you will if I could request a motion please to vote budget transfers between line items within a major account as defined by desie for policy DJ a dbj budget transfer Authority so second second discussion further questions for Patrick see them all those in favor thank you all right now without further Ado I want to introduce to you our food services manager sh me um no all joking aside I'm I'm so proud of shell and what she's accomplished in her short time as as the food service director here um we kind of joined on at the same time and we bought into each other's plans Communications strategies um you know I lean on her for information she leans on me and this is our chance to kind of advertise that you know it's been a short time and I'm sure there's always going to be more requests and needs and goals but um we've come a long way and like I said I'm proud of her so here we go shell we always don't fix this we do that first Madam chairperson thank you for having me just a quick overview so both breakfast and lunch program are federally and state funded we have to follow the meal nutritional the nutritional guidelines to qualify for the reimbursements the new thing to share is the community eligibility Pro provision so that's the c c is a high poverty District to serve is for high poverty districts and it allows them to serve all enrolled students free breakfast and lunch normally a chrush would not qualified for that but the percentages for poty level just went from 40% to 25% in October so we applied November and was approved in December so what that means for us is we do we don't have to um fill out applications anymore Massachusetts is one of eight states that are free anyway but it gives a statement opportunity to pass off some of the reimbursements to the federal government the federal funding so the federal funding will pay more and the state will pay less but we'll get the same reimbursements the percent that you just mentioned that's our percentage in the school we're approximately 36 but it went from 40% before we didn't qualify at 4% but then they changed it from 25 to 40 so anybody now we now we qualify it about 35 and that's free and reduced so here's some of our taste testing and our meals some of the new meals that the kids like and now I'd like to really talk about the the main players of the program you know we don't hear a lot about them but they're in the back scenes and and they're working and they're working hard so we have a vacancy in in the elementary school for the cook manager the staff members over there are Katie Bary krie lavasia and Jennifer ho and the middle school that's Rachel elves Janelle Arabian Kayla fesi and Loren wer and they they all really really work high as you can see the um the state has a a meal per labor hour calculator and you should be doing Serving so many meals per labor hour we're at 18 in the elementary school we're at 18 hours per labor hour per day which is approximately 22 meals per labor hour in the state expects 16 so we're the labor is really stressed we haven't done anything with labor since 2018 now that free and reduced is permanent we're selling thousands of meals more and we still haven't done anything with labor so that's something we need to evaluate um the middle school is at approximately 20 meals per labor hour almost 21 and again the state standards are 16 we also have three real reliable Subs that we can call in and so I'd like to thank them as well and give them some notori also so last year's goals were Su spend down plan which is started we purchase some L Equipment in March that'll be delivered this summer um I'm expecting to purchase a more in September for December we still have more equipment that we need to that we need to to um order and and to help with the spend down plan now that I have a better understanding of the revenues and the expenses of the profit and loss it'll be a little bit easier for me to see help with a spend down plan up until now the profit and loss has been kind of tough because we had Co for us where we were sending meals out the door and then last year we had the supply chain problems so we were spending more money than we would this year is probably the first real accurate profit and loss that we can send down and start making a steady budget from and that will help us um with the spend down plan The Benchmark for the spend down plan is three months of expenses and that's that's the desie standards to keep that as Revenue so that's where our Benchmark is going cross training cross training is is something we just continue to do and the permanent staff and substitutes are all cross trained they're cross trained for different stations and they're also cross trained for to go from school to school for the most part it just makes the kitchen more efficiently so if somebody's out somebody else doesn't have to worry that they're going to end up on a station that they don't know how to do are they're not familiar with so the kitchen runs more efficiently for that if we have multiple absences we can accommodate that because everybody can work at any station it helps with um production records so everybody knows how the production records work why we're ordering food how much we're cooking temperatures safety values as well today we had a situation where one person was out we didn't have any staff members that could come in at 6:30 in the morning so we borrowed one from the Middle School that went over to the elementary from 6:30 to 9: and then we got a sub from 9: so that's where the cross training really comes in handy the next topic is the taste testing so the taste testing we did a couple this year um it helps with food choices students learn their food choices at a young age and The Taste testings helps introduce them to new to new foods they're not usually they don't normally have the way we do it is we go out with a c and I think you saw it in one of the photos so it gets their attention they want to try what's on that cat just because they're not used to seeing that c so it gets them willingness to try new foods and it also allows us to get student import whether they like it if they don't like it we didn't overnight oats last week and they really like the taste but they weren't sure of the texture but if you get one student to buy in at that table about the texture then they all like it so that's where the taste testing really gives us the upper hand we um for the strengthening the menu we have made some additions to the menu the she year we did a barbecue po pork on potato tarts with cheese uh chicken fajita Taco the chicken D drumstick last week that the kids really enjoyed and I'm hoping again to add the um overnight Vats to the menu next year F to school we use about 30% of the F to school funding that we had last year so we have about $4,200 more to go to this year I'm hoping to um redie quite a few local farms and I what I don't want to do is use that money on items that I get all the time we can use it on certain Farms that the locally but I like to like we did butternut squash fries that's something that they they don't normally have the overnight oats we use some of them for that so that's kind of we did um butternut squash for Thanksgiving we made cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving things that they're not used to having I would rather use the funds for to get them to try new things than to just the things that we can get because we have the grant um equipment purchasing and inventory so again we've started the the purchasing of the equipment the beginning of last year we inventoried everything we tagged it and we put it on a spreadsheet with the make model in the year of it so that give us a more accurate Capital plan on the capital plan we have we can we can determine what it's going to cost next year if we hold off and what it's going to cost the year after so on this Capital plan we also have low moderate a high is is does it need to be replaced now can we wait and this way also that will help with our spend down plan what should we be spending the money on First and what can we hold off on what's going to cost us more if we held off longer the breakfast model is now we we are compliant with the 2025 um Provisions from the state so all the added sugar that we need to go down to is gone we've added a um Cafe we do have the breakfast desserts the cinnamon roll the mini Donuts the um chocolate chip muffin but it's once a week so they only have and and that falls into the added sugar provision so they don't have it every Tuesday or every Thursday they on Wednesday they get one of them and each week they get one and that's how those are alternated we have a smoothie now we have the egg sandwiches more I'd like to get into more stuff for the breakfast too like I I had shown you earlier we're kind of stuck with labor right now to be able to to be able to extend the menu we kind of may have to go to extending the labor which again would go on it possibly could come from the spend out plan um educational Wellness so I explained how I did the taste testing this year what we did what I did was I had the cart and I had a poster on it and it had all the nutritionals on the poster and I put the posters up in the in the throughout the school for the students to read the more I looked at it the more I thought the taste testing is going well but maybe not so much the educational part of it so I met with Mrs chzn and miss petto and we came up with a plan that next year I'm assum I'm hoping all the positions are filled in and all these things can be planned much more in advance and not not um be kind of last minute thing sometimes what we'll do is we'll make flyers for each classroom we'll start advertising sooner Mrs chesne and Miss petto will announce at lunchtime the nutritional values and this way when I come around with the car I'm sure they'll have more questions about that and they'll get more nutritional education that way than what they did this year um gaining exposure and experiments so desie does a town hall every Tuesday so I I'm in those every Tuesday from 2: to 3:30 they I've done fond to school trainings I'm still in the USDA advisory committee board so we meet four times a year um the USDA the local directors meetings are twice a year in the area and it gives us an opportunity to see what we're all going through you know who's has what for es and it so that that runs my staff that I have to go to the big thing this year is the the school nutrition Association is doing they do a National Conference every year and this year we're fortunate enough to have it be in Boston so that's a 3A conference and they have educational Set uh sessions exhibit Halls culinary um demonstrations so that will be J July 14th to the 16th and normally from like 8:00 in the morning till 8:00 at night the 3 days but really you we get a lot of information out of them there's the taste test cot that everybody loves the two little ones on the on the right there came up with a song about the oh you know oh yeah some of the font to school items we had so we had the the B salad and all those were fresh from local Gardens the butternut squash french fries the butternut squash we use for Thanksgiving The Cranberries that we got from Jonathan Sprouts to use for the cranberry sauce and now my goals for next year so all the previous goals will continue because they're all just going to just keep revolving the spend down the cross training the taste testing continue to strengthen the menu from to school the equipment purchasing breakfast model the classroom education is one that I'm going to put on as a brand new one because again I think the classroom and taste testing because I think the taste testing worked for them to try new things but we certainly didn't get the total value out of it as if for for the new plan that I that we have come up with I think the new one would be much more beneficial I like to bring more events to the to the cafeteria we used to have a whole bunch of them all the time and then Co kind of squashed them and and and the kids liked them and it got them to try new things so maybe they have the ABC countdown at the elementary school and I thought maybe eat the alphabet a good luck so each day they go down they can do something like that um the Thanksgiving dinner the opening day for for red soots and more I come up with with more and a half um Grant we're going to Contin continue to focus on the grants and applying for the grants the budget now that we have a clearer picture of of what's going to be steady from the profit and loss again like I was saying earlier the profit and loss for the last few years has been kind of Wy it doesn't hasn't settled in at all and now it seems to be we know that free breakfast and lunch is is is going to stay before we weren't sure what to do because we didn't know if it was going to be permanent or not and now we know it is um um I'm going to meet with the business manager again we we meet often to to come down with a concrete budget that we can that we can certainly live by um another one of those is going to be expanding labor again like I said earlier we have not raised labor since 2018 and now that it's permanent permanently free the meals have increased quite a bit so the labor is really stretched out it takes away from the ability to grow the menu we just don't even for the farm to school that stuff takes so much extra time we're preparing or we're staying late to prepare or I'm staying late after everybody else leaves to to get things ready so I think the labor is something I really want to focus on this year and food waste there is a lot of food waste I think if the students were more educated with that we could that would be helpful again all the staff is learning production records that's going to be more helpful that I have been on a couple trainings and there's more to come for food W so that's um those are my goals for this year does anybody have any questions no questions just really impressed with all the work you're doing great job thank you impressive especially as you pointed out with the the lean staff so thank youate your hard work very impressed with presentation want to thank Shelly and her team for everything um every time I ask her for something she's right there she's extremely flexible I know that um a couple months back I met with a group of I believe it was third graders and we talked about things they love things they want opportunities for change in the school and one of the things they talked about was they said how come we don't have soup on the menu and I thought wow that's pretty interesting that they want soup and I went to Shelly and like probably the next week or two whenever she was able to order it we actually had a meal one day and it was really important to me that we show the students that we do hear them and we hear their voices and they have a lot of important things to add to what we do here I mean we're serving them so the fact she's so easy to work with and her team I mean it's it's been wonderful and I just really appreciate the work that you've been putting in and Miss McIntyre as well supervising that so thank you great um okay so that brings us to school Committee Member reports um and welcome any comments I do have uh one one comment I want to congratulate um Dr H Mr HRA on your reelection to the school committee thank you glad glad to have you continuing to serve with us um and then that brings to light for us that uh we do typically reorganize roles around the school committee after an election so I think we're going to try to schedule um a workshop to soon uh to discuss what that can look like um so I don't know if we decided on a date I think we might have to Circle that yeah we did not we to do it soon um so keep an eye out for um dates for that Workshop any other reports all right um just noting Communications and information there in your packet to read it your leure and we do have executive commit uh executive session um this evening so will not be returning um so if I could have a motion please to adjourn into executive session not to return to open session and that will be to discuss uh the following to conduct strategy sessions and preparations or negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with nonunion Personnel make a motion and Mrs Mr yes [Music] he