##VIDEO ID:yANLiQ1Qszk## [Applause] [Music] motion second today is uh Tuesday September 10th 2024 this meeting is being video and audio recorded for future cable broadcast please silence all cell phones for duration meeting pleas a roll call Mr Hood yes Mr hro yes Mrs P yes uh the next item is the consent agenda everything listed in the consent agenda was distributed in advance of the meeting does anyone have any requests to remove anything from the consent agenda and have it voted on separately could I have a motion to approve the amend of may13 2024 and all payroll and WS so second we need a v call Mr Hood yes Mr H yes M fera yes uh anyone signning for delegation no delegation so got Pledge of Allegiance ready do that flag United States of America indice thank you for that um so I see no old business father the next item is new business or the superintendent report y so the first thing I have just a a review of the goals they're two-year goals that started last year and you will see in your packet that anything that I highlighted in yellow has been updated this is always a working document um this notable would be the dyslexia team um that we started in the summertime and the responsive classroom that we've added over at ABS that has started the PD um for this school year um and as you know when we started these goals we didn't have board docks at the time so we' sort of started on this document but now everything is on board dos but it's just you know a little update so that you can see we're continuing the work um does anybody have any questions and Paul just Dr just to be clear this was the first review is the intention that we would um come back to vote on this at the next to have the next meeting no because we voted on twoyear goals last year so this is just a review however if anybody has any concerns or wants you know to make some edits or suggestions I'm definitely open to that because as always um you know it's a working document and and if I'm remembering correctly we also did establish last year a subcommittee that is responsible for reviewing superintendent goals mhm okay so my suggestion will be that any back comme review it and if there are any STS or whatever we can have bring it back to the Comm in the recation um next I'd like to call um our critical direct Mr Jerry and the principles mesy and Mr siia to the podium I'd like them to review with to our responsive classroom strategies in both buildings and that's part of the strategy that we're um implementing good evening Mr chairman and members of the school committee I'm joined tonight uh by Mrs Leah Chesney the akush elementary school principal and Mrs Michelle Sylvia the Ford Middle School principal and we're going to share a little bit about the responsive classroom training that's been happening across the district um so what is responsive classroom there's really four key domains to the responsive classroom it's engaging academics having a positive School Community effective management and developing awareness in students um and it helps Educators create safe joyful and encouraging classrooms and it builds School communities um where students can develop strong academic and social emotional skills um and this is an evidence-based approach to teaching and discipline so why responsive classroom um there were some student and feedback surveys um that kind of revealed a need for this based on sense of belonging surveys uh focus group meetings and um teacher surveys and um there was also a level of Behavioral conduct that we thought we would like to help reduce um at the classroom level and I don't believe it's on here but also just trying to get students more engaged with the school community and help with the chronic absenteeism and that General sense of belonging um so I'm going to hand the microphone over to Mrs Sylvia because the Ford Middle School actually started responsive classroom last year you may call um so she'll kind of give an update on what Ford Middle School is doing and then we'll hear about AES good evening so we did have the 4-day trading last year throughout the year we did it um on the full PD days all staff participated teachers pars special Educators counselors so now like we did last year advisory Begins the day they come in get their breakfast they go to advisory and it's throughout the building this Specialists the special Educators the Paris the counselors all staff are included in the morning advisory and like I had said in the past I made those advisories pretty much random um to encourage the school Community the sense that everyone here at Ford Middle School belongs sorry did I do that no oh no I just okay guys I just didn't know if you want to show the pictures that when along with what you were saying okay so in our responsive classroom training this year we've done a one-day training so far and it was improving student in staff communication listening skills arguing disagreeing how do we teach the students to listen C body Focus key details face the speaker nod that you are listening repeat back some of that information that you heard to them and you can agree and disagree with dorum and it's okay to agree and disagree cuz when you agree and disagree you learn new things you may even change your mind based on somebody else's facts that they're sharing and it's that's what you know learning is about I am okay so the elementary school as um Mr Gary mentioned is taking part in four full days of training we've already had two um I think they were very successful it was really wonderful to hear all the laughter and see the engagement of the teachers as we started to kind of go on this journey um what we have been really focusing on and we've already started to see is the implementation of morning meeting every morning across all of the home rooms as well as ways that other teachers are able to bring in some of the energizers the activators things to make sure that students are engaged in their classroom across the day so we have a couple of pictures to show that that's a picture of our training and and that's another example of um one of the learning structures where teachers are encouraged to collaborate in its modeling so that they can then do that type of learning with their students a lot of it already goes on um in the classroom but it's a bit of um taking it to the next level and I had told teachers when we introduced this this was a training that I went through many years ago maybe too many years ago to even uh mention but it really really revolutionized my own teaching and in any in some ways my own parent the way that I talk to my kids so it really does work we start off with the hopes and dreams which is a little bit different from um what they do in advisory and students now um if people go to open house they're going to see hopes and dreams posted outside certain classrooms as the students figure out what is it that they want to do throughout the year and then the teachers have been working on making rules that enable those hopes and dreams to to come to fruition by the end of the year and I think those are more Middle School um teachers in the training yeah and that's just an example of the morning meeting um activities that teachers have already started to do we have a couple pictures there one more thing yeah some more training the fs staff and the training oh there's the um the student who was in the lead of the advisory today or yesterday doing the slides talking about the announcements given the shout outs the attendance price no the smiles I just posted here on the last slide that uh the the responsive classroom work that we're doing aligns to the district strategy as far as creating thriving social emotional experiences for all students and achieving academic Excellence for all students questions no great love it thank thank you uh moving on um this is just a quick informational report the overview of class sizes you'll see the attachment um is a page for AES as well as a a page for FMS but basically um you have the number of students at the elementary and then the average number of students at all of the um sections for the middle school so as you can see they're really not bad at all um in both buildings I just thought it was a visual that you might want to see Dr Bailey is there a benchmark or a standard the contract says that we should strive to stay under 25 how does that is there like a an industry standard best practice in terms of what that ratio should look like yeah I would say that we're we're actually looking pretty good I mean a lot of our classes are 18 13 16s well some of the lower ones are some of our self-contained special ed classes 19 20 19 16 22 23 24 is our highest one at the elementary school and then it goes down from there are you are you seeing any Trends you know you know so future planning it or we're pretty stable as far as our population from one year to another I mean the trends right now is um is lower enrollment across the state but we're we're seeing more or less stable in a cushion at this point in time corre okay any other questions so the next thing I have is the second read and I would be asking for a vote on those uh two policies from the last meeting the first one is the substitute teachers and the second one which is gcg and the second one is J school admissions so you would have had an opportunity over the last month to have the second read the first policy we talked about removing after 20 consecutive days and replacing it with language that aligns with Desi which is more like 30 days um and special ed is 90 days and then for school admissions um we have a new language that's outlined for you um one of the things that the committee added was that parent Guardian requests for specific teachers are not accepted or considered but that's about it that's so tonight is the second read and then I would be asking for a motion um to accept those so that we can update those policies question make that motion accept the policies as outlined by the superintendent okay I'll second do we need a roll call Mr Hood yes Mr HC Mr yes okay thank you um next we have our annual Personnel exit report that um the committee had wanted last year so I just started doing this and we started um put the codes down that align with our Aspen system so you'll see a list of uh positions of people who have left the district whether it's you know retirement resignation or non-renewal um and what the reason is next to that again those codes align with our Aspen system and that's what we have to put in so we're just keeping up on that so that you know this was something that interested the committee last year so I figured we could do it at the beginning of every school year once things settle down with the changes in Staffing we have a number of people on that list that left the field nothing and Paul Dr Billy when you in the comments I'm assuming that captures most of what some of those conversations would be you know just looking at this I think to Mr hpr's point it's hard to glean any Trends but are there anything anything else that you hear in these exit interviews that the you think the committee should be aware of no actually um the majority I do all exit interviews unless somebody resigns and doesn't come back for the exit interview we had as you can see a couple of people did not have the exit interview but the majority did um the majority have very positive comments about their um service in a kushit and their time here but some of them have life circumstances you know that they need to tend to um some of them have left the field and we see we had W that the grant was eliminated um yeah I'm not seeing overall any trends that you wouldn't normally see in in public schools as a matter of fact we have to do a report every year for desie at the school districts and we have to talk about open positions and I know across the state right now a lot of districts are really struggling with open positions and we're very fortunate that we have all of our positions filled I think except for one par at this point in time but and a nurse but that is all pending right now so it looks as though we will be completely uh full hired over the next couple of weeks so we're in actually very good shape any other questions no okay um next I have um calling Mr mistler to the podium to give us an update on his Department good evening Mr chair school committee members some good things to report start of the year is going really well we've got a lot of new procedures in place that have made the year a bit smoother to start for sure and I want to thank all the staff and administration for that for their hard work and special thanks to the tech team uh Chromebook Insurance our numbers are still coming in however the early data shows that more parents have bought insurance this year than last and the date is still open the deadline is open till October 1st so anybody listening please jump on that insurance it'll definitely save you um for security we rolled out twostep Authentication for all staff and teachers um this essentially just provides a much level a much higher level of security reduces the risk of fishing and anybody listening to this even at home I highly recommend it's even in our newsletters to pretty much enable two-factor multiactor authentication on any app that offers it uh banking social media Etc it'll seriously help you out um we continue to work on safety security initiatives in the district and then I want to say thank you because uh this was kind of a cool start of the school year um kind of behind the scenes thing uh we had a keynote speaker Carri dark she kind of knocked out of the part she said it's a good day to have a good day and she mentioned how hard it is to adapt and learn and grow when you're having a negative mindset and that we have the direct ability to impact our students positivity so I just want to say I know a lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes and I want to take a second to say thank you to everybody and a special thank you to Dr Bailey for that thank you any questions for me thanks I don't have anything else um I do know that the business manager is at the board of Select and right now that's where I was giving a report so hopefully he'll be back I don't know how you want to do this if we want to just skip over his section um and come back to it hopefully he'll be here for that I know he's planning on being back for that would we go I was suggesting we would go to accept session ifs come out um or if there's verbal reports or we can go over the communication and information first any any verbal report to many members no communication information we have the district newsletter right AES newsletter FMS newsletter Personnel report other newsletter soall perhaps maybe it makes sense then to to move into exact session and if Patrick comes back y that would be fine so could I have um a motion to adjourn into executive session uh for the purpose to discuss the deployment of security Personnel or devices or strategies with respect to Safety and Security of staff and students and with the intent to uh return to open session when second do we need a hurry up before I CH Mr Hood yes Mr H yes Mr yes open meeting yeah I'll so move on second should we take a roll call yes Mr Hood yes Mrs GES yes Mrs CA yes Mr [Music] yes so Dr Bary we noted that Mrs GES entered the meeting during the executive session as she was at the board of Selectmen meeting um and I think what we want to do now is go back on the agenda because uh business manager was also at that same meeting and he is now back with us so we can go back to section six of the agenda the business manager report thank you good evening chair person Hood school committee members thank you for your time um I'm going to pass this quickly but stop me if you have any questions um budget to actual for fiscal 25 we're here in our we're in our third month I'm reporting on our second month of August um everything's on track so far so good um we have expenses flowing we have incumbrances flowing and we have no surprises yet um we have some Personnel matters that are leaning us heavy towards substitutes earli in the year that you know we we can deal with now um there there are no changes due to that but it is unique so early in the year you know we're paying salaries but we're also paying the substitutes so we're keeping a close eye on that um otherwise budget questions anything no all right facilities um we continue to push forward with our investment grade audit through our Energy Management Services um we presented earlier tonight at the board of Select meeting uh on this topic as it relates to the two articles um that we're pushing for for town meeting waiting for September 30th to be continued I guess on that matter and we'll provide an update one way or the other whether it's at the next school committee meeting or through Communications otherwise uh custodial services so we were able to contract Night Cleaning Services at the 11th hour before school started they were here for the um first day of students in the building so that worked out well um they were a little more expensive than we hoped for but they're covering all the services that our night custodians previously covered with some moving and shaking if you will we given them a little more from to alleviate the day custodians of certain tasks but now the day custodians are responsible to take on some of those night tasks um all well within job descriptions um and so far it seems to be working out well questions on the custodian contract food services so good news in the Food Services Department we we've been vacant at our cook manager position at AES since last winter really um Shelley Miller food service director had been great holding down the fort you know wearing multiple hats but we've finally broughten in a full-time individual to fill that role again right in time for the school year uh this individual previously worked in our kitchen so she has experience here and so far you know the feedback has been positive and she's she's doing great so we're excited to have her and see you know now that we have all the pieces in play what sort of changes and progress we can make in the food service department or just continuing the current good that we're doing um transportation so last meeting we talked about registrations were down well as predicted they were up you know the last week leading up to school and you know we did our best shout out again to Bonnie Grace the central Administrative Assistant who's really handling mostly all of the transportation at this point um and she's done her best to make sure we can get all these students on the loes as soon as possible as well as address parents and family safety concerns about stops routes things like that um again it's not perfect with the inflow all at the end of the or all at the beginning of the year like that but I think we've done a pretty good job and I appreciate families patience that are impacted by that that we can't guarantee a spot on the bus immediately due to the weight registration but we are continuing to work with them um so that we can get students in seats here um unfortunately on Wednesday August 28th we had a minor bus accident um on Lake Street the bus was exiting the Lake Street parking lot and sideswipe the guard rail uh we sent out Communications regarding this um you know obviously we don't plan for these types of things but we did have a plan um and I commend you know the First Responders being the Police Department EMS and fire as well as superintendent Bailey who all you know made it to the scene helped you know calm down the families the the students on the buses all the families cooperated by picking up their students from the scene and driving them home there were no injuries reported you know truly everyone had a hand in it we were sending out one calls trying to keep everyone updated the FMS principal it was an FMS pluss the FMS principal got on the phone and called directly all the families that had students on the bus that were impacted um I think we did the best that we could and again thank you to everybody fortunately we were able to you know report that everyone was safe so um and then other matters Town updates fall special town meeting scheduled Monday September 30th um right now we have four articles on the draft draft warrant um and two of them should have been on the Springtown meeting but they're now on the fall town meeting one's a transportation contract with option years the other is using um special ed stabilization fund to help balance our budget uh those should be shoin and then we have two related to the train Energy Management Services that we discussed um that are still in limbo so we would appreciate everyone support at town meeting on September 30th questions on the business manager report have the budget transfers okay yeah I just didn't know needed to introduce it or not so next on the docket is the quarter 1 budget transfers so per school committee policy DBK quarterly I need to report to you on the budget if there any transfers are required um quarter 1 is passed uh well July August September here it would be next month so here we go um anyway right now as of now we don't have any quarter one transfers so that's good news um that means everything in the budget is within the categories um that we call major accounts and we're on track for spending so um I'll report next month on an update on that when I get my quarters right any questions on that no all right thank you any other discussion I just want to say one thing thank you so much Mr McIntyre for all your hard work and everything that you do here um we know it's very stressful and we know that we're all learning protocols from the town um which can be sometimes daunting to all of us um but again a big thank you to you and all the work that you done as well as Dr Bailey but really you held your cool today at that meeting and I appreciate that uh thank you Miss GES I would Echo that I had the honor of uh participating in some discussions with Patrick and some of the Selectmen last week on some of these projects and uh so thank you for all you're doing to try to move those along for the district um that being said can I have a motion to close the meeting so moved second M Mr yes Mrs gums Mrs Perera Mr harro yes thank you thank you [Music] [Music] a