##VIDEO ID:t9grLYaiR2A## e e e e e e e e e e e e e is of our check okay okay check check check check is that okay why you pass me that right there yeah check okay Rick I think you're gonna have to move your seat because I'm not going to be able to see you oh is he giving me a thumbs up check okay testing okay testing check testing check okay testing check okay testing check okay would like ours graders this even we can start with Chapman e student teachers right who has made incredible impression on all of us here at Arms since joining us this year Alina is an exceptional young woman whose unique personality lights up our school she brings a wonderful energy to everything she does she is also an amazing writer whose Talent shines in the classroom her ability to express your Jada is one of our fly students at alol high school that her teachers e e e e for e e student of Spanish serious motivated mature responsible diligent resilient always engaged and enthusiastic so tonight you celebrate con as well now before I encourage you all to take some desserts cupcakes and drinks on your way out if you wouldn't mind sending up your students of the month for us that would be fabulous students come on up administrators come on up I'm G to hide behind you okay I'm going to hide everyone's gonna look at Miss right now and have a wonderful already we've so that's where they make their announcements oh okay you no thanks now usually you're they that's great I won't ask who you're read like's all kinds of little inspirational e re no additional e e you find it there's nothing about this is this is not I don't think there is a way to can be done but I also don't want that to happen officially two minutes I want to give her I don't it will go down we are using coat hangers duct tape I would have used duct tape i' have been going around and arounders no more wire hangers anybody else any El think Mommy deest where is it we don't like when when we do school when we do like school choice thank you got okay here we go ready okay we're going to call to goodness we're going to call to order the a royalston regional school committee meeting for Wednesday December 18th 2024 um this meeting is being recorded for either live broadcast or repay and this evening we will start with the Pledge of Allegiance Laura would you like to start us flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and Justice perfect okay the first order of business this evening is the approval of minutes for November 20th 2024 is there a motion make a motion motion is made motion made and seconded thank you or is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor okay next we have public input um this is a school committee policy it's three minutes per person the item for public input must be on the agenda for a total of 20 minutes the first person on our input this evening is Claire bird for enrollment thank you for letting me talk I'll be short and sweet hello everyone my name is Claire Butler and I am here today because my family is experiencing a really difficult situation at the AAL royalston Middle School my oldest daughter is so distraught Over The Bullying she faced this year that she cannot face going to school every day I have applied to have her enrolled in homeschooling I was then told enrollment was capped at 1% of students AOL students and there were no openings I was referred to another program and told no one could be denied again it was denied and confirmed that it was also included in the 1% allowed the state has a 2% cap so the school has agreed to send home work packets as a temporary solution I understand the 1% allowance for homeschooling is an old standard I stand before you today asking you to update this enrollment policy to include 2% of Athol students who need their education to be delivered in a structured yet comfortable and safe environment at home I think by now many of us have watched the school committee meeting from November 20th 2024 it shows us that problems do exist at the middle school these problem s need to be addressed for the sake of the education of all of our children in our community it is my hope that we all work together and bring positive changes to our school in the meantime I am pleading with you to allow my daughter to experience the education she deserves at home and update the enrollment policies please thank you for your time and attention have a good evening intendent evaluation it's it is cont oh you know the contract is actually on here for this evening is there something specific about the contract that you wanted to discuss because you have eval but there's no eval on the meeting for this evening the superintendent yeah it's for his contract okay okay just it's regarding the the superintendent's contract renewal yes because we are currently in contract negotiation so you have eval down here I just want to know that the evaluation period is over we are in so negotiations would you like me to update it it's regarding the superintendent contract negotiation just that's okay with you yep okay okay good evening tonight you again have plans to discuss the future of this district and what the leadership looks like the union is looking forward to hearing about what you have learned about this District over the past month since that November school committee meeting the homework you have done and the work that is being put into asking the diff the difficult questions in this District some of those questions hopefully will be where is our strategic plan where is our staff handbook where are the discipline reports to dig deep into the claims that the staff made on in November after everything you heard at the last school committee meeting what has changed where where are we at the union receives a very pointed email that the school committee has declined the Union's invitation to come in visit the buildings get a pulse speak with the staff after the end of the school day to get a feel of what's happening yet all of a sudden people started showing up giving hope to the staff that maybe you all recognize the heir in that decision what has come of your visits because from a staff standpoint we are not seeing the impactful changes that the shifting culture in this of a shifting in the culture in this District the district presented a rebuttal article to the newspaper citing all the statistics around the students who are not tier three those are all great statistics and the union never argued that there were many students in our districts that do not exhibit tier 3 behavior however we didn't speak in numbers of students we spoke in behaviors we noticed in the arttic the article was absent of any data regarding the frequency of tier 2 behaviors except for RCS as well as the frequency of repeat offenders it does not matter if a teacher is sworn at 100 times by a student or 100 times by 100 different students what matters is that the staff member was sworn at 100 times I can assure you that putting an AR out that avoids the hard questions and the issues on the table and additionally calling your staff Liars those staff that are living in it every day was certainly one way to keep from having to answer the tough questions and be accountable for our reality the union received some of the behavior data that was requested in our information request and the volume of behaviors was no surprise to us and hopefully you have all been given copies of that behavior data to further support the statements that this district is not successful right now staff are being hurt students are being both physically and verbally aggressive and we're not seeing the light when considering the future of this District do you envision the future looking the same worse better there are staff in this District who are doing okay and they are far more that are not we hope for better but if you keep doing the same things you get the same results tonight we should be celebrating the great news about the high school moving to the next phase in the process of building a brand new school but a comment made on on social media kind of sums up where we're at right now when they wrote hopefully there'll be teachers left in the district by then thank you next we have Mr solder hello uh everyone my name is Jeff solder I'm a union representative in arms and I teach seventh grade science I'd like to start by thanking members of the school committee that visited arms in my classroom uh thanks to superintendent aworth for hosting a listening session uh thanks to the administrative team at arms and all the staff at Arms we're all working hard to make sure this is the best environment for kids to grow and learn uh there has been some progress at Arms there have been initiatives that begun that are motivating students to make better choices uh we recently started a claw coins incentive program we hired a new administrator uh there are changes to 108 our internal suspension room on the horizon and a tier one Community regularly meets and has come up with some fun initiatives and activities I think to a degree we've made some progress uh the district responded to the Athol Daily News article uh written about comments made at the last school committee meeting uh their response included a lot of discipline data in an attempt to send a message to the community that the most egregious behavioral issues in schools were not widespread but reserved to a relatively small number of students unfortunately this paints a very blurry picture of what is actually happening in schools at Arms we use a tiered system of support there are tiers one two and three behaviors in the district's response they spoke of tier three behaviors those considered to be the the most egregious uh these include Controlled Substances incendiary devices elopment uh fighting assault weapons arson threats to safety it was stated that 91% of students at Arms had not documented uh incidents of this nature which leaves 9% of students that have I'm here to say that 9% of students engaging in tier three behaviors is a high number uh we have 441 students at Arms so this represents about 40 students uh though they are not evenly distributed this would average out to about 10 per grade or two in each of my five classes uh though some of these disturb disturbances have diminished administrators are often occupied by these students making it difficult to respond to other lower priority issues they put out the biggest fires uh what the administration failed to mention is that though tier one and two behaviors are less serious they can be extraordinarily disruptive uh to the Social and educational environment I had a class today that I couldn't really teach uh and it happens to all of us uh tier one and two behaviors include vandalism theft insubordination class disruptions leaving assigned areas without permission profanity derogatory comments toward other individuals unauthorized cell phone use staff at Arms have written up referrals to Administration 1274 times but there are so many issues occurring and often all at once that that number is greatly underreported the data collection system is broken uh many of the behaviors are recurrent no matter the accommodations Andor consequences it's impossible for administrators to respond to and address all these issues uh the inability to be able to respond to so many of these issues challenges is a message that it sends to the students the students often feel unsupported others see an open ing to make poor choices because they can see that the staff are overwhelmed teachers often do not write referrals because they don't feel they will be adequately addressed the tiered system of support looks good on paper uh what's missing is follow-through what's missing is a robust Behavioral Management System that rewards good behavior enables students to reflect on poor choices and assigns consequences that suit the behavior the majority of incidents of poor Behavior slip through the cracks and they're not adequately addressed students see that they can push the envelope pretty far before anything serious happens to them the system in place has no backbone no teeth to meet the needs of students all of this said uh we change administrators often uh new administrators walk into a system that was created prior to their tenure and they're trying to understand new systems and Implement new systems um to change systems uh they're not superhuman our administrators we have real challenges in this community I'm aware all I'm asking for is an opportunity to work together all of us uh we need a formal Gathering to figure out what problems uh exist and how to work towards solving them uh we need to devote faculty meetings to this and have cided discussions that are productive maybe we need a task force to address some of these issues to address the elephant in the room we need to make this a top priority the culture of the building is its foundation uh We've made progress but we still have a lot of work to do we all want to meet the needs of the students uh we all want to have a good place to work and I know I can speak for all teachers we teachers want to be able to teach you have Laura gestner did she say no okay um Eileen no okay good I'm ien St jeene I'm a union rep and I have been for years and I teach special at Aces and this was submitted by anatha High School staff member uh the school committee should know that the high school also has a growing list of concerns teachers there are to some degree or another reluctant to speak up for a variety of reasons and to be honest one of those reasons is that they do for the most part respect and feel supported by their Administration however one has to wonder if the administration feels supported by their central office admin the superintendant I.E oftentimes the tier three students those displaying chronical behavior issues that require the most interventions or Consequences are not dealt with in a way that appears to be truly following the progressive discipline model there are a handful of students that are consistently roaming the halls and skipping classes they are ignored because they are not creating a disturbance but if any adult asks them to move along and return to class they are at the very least met with disre disrespect this is the best case scenario because more than of more often than not the response is actually a stream of vulgarities and sometimes threatening statements and the student is back in the building the next day additionally despite having a cell phone policy most of the chronic offenders have their device taken away for one day at best for many of these repeat offenders a progression of discipline as described in our handbook should have these students losing their privileged privilege for months if not longer however there seems to be a very strong reluctance on admin's part to engage in that conversation with these students and their families one can conclude that the admin do not feel that they would be supported if the complaints about such a path were to lead to the superintendent's door most trouble is the common reoccurrence of language that is horrific many times the same group of students are using words that clearly fall into any definition of hate speech but yet are not being dealt with harshly we are not talking about oneoff offenders uh we're talking about the same repeat offenders that keep using the words uh the n-word homo  and a whole slew of other vulgarities like the F1 the one oh the b word sorry and a-hole um often times directed because I'm not supposed to say those words um often times directed at certain individuals including teachers uh teachers have had these comments made directly to them and the student is back in their class the next day often with no explanation we also believe that it is vitally important for the school committee to know that the high school teachers are no longer allowed to put conduct referrals into the um Aspen X2 system that is used to run all of our conduct attendance and grade reports instead we are required to fill out a Google form and the admin decide what goes into X2 as a formal discipline issue and Consequence the vast majority of serious issues have not made it to into the formal reporting system and this are not readily available to be examined or included in any stats such as those the superintendent gave to the newspaper in in the rebuttal this clearly appears to be an effort on a superintendent's part to hide what is really going on and really what building admin team is going to speak up when he controls all the aspects of their continuing employment you the school committee needs to understand that you are not being given all the true and accurate information required to make a valid and honest assessment of the of the performance of the central office administration specifically the superintendent is it a case of not knowing what to ask for is it a willing is it willing is it willfully avoiding a serious examination of his performance either way this group is ultimately responsible and you are not doing your jobs and this was um submitted by an AA High School staff member thank you you we are move down to student representative report thank you for being here tonight of the student council and um I'll start off with our November highlights of the AEL High School the student council organized and ran lip sync this year each class put together a performance and altogether we raised around $1,400 the academic to cathlon group competed in round one their team placed eighth overall and four kids were medled three kids in Mrs Sheffield's class participated in plant Mars over the last 8 weeks which is a national competition where students were sent soil samples from Mars and designed their own investigations and tracked data to see if crops could grow on Mars we also had a College and Career Fair on November 22nd which is where students are given time throughout the day to visit and interact with vendors from local businesses schools and networks lastly for November our AP Lang and English 11 classes took a field trip to Salem on the 14th of November to provide real world connections to their readings of The Crucible and our December highlights are the student council is currently making homemade cards to be delivered to local nursing homes for the holidays our best buddies group took a field trip to the hoolio mall to help students in the high school's future program shop for holiday gifts and navigate budgeting calculating tax and compare prices Mrs Sheffield's computer science class is competing in the American Computer Science League competition this week yesterday we held an an end of semester celebration for our 27 Early College Juniors that successfully completed semester 1 the purpose was to celebrate and reward our Juniors for taking the academic risk to complete some excitement around the program to give this group a celebration luncheon we had chicken broccoli Alfredo Caesar salad rolls with butter drinks and dessert we're so happy to also report that it looks like our semester 2 numbers will grow to about 30 Juniors participating as for the Early College seniors today marked the last day of final exams where we had 39 seniors complete semester 1 these 39 seniors are already looking forward to their second semester Mount WUSA Community College classes which begin on January 22nd this afternoon the athl high school food pantry was visited by state representative Susan whips and Senator Joe com for in order to bring a Ness to the sign significant me and work being done in our food pantry in terms of this year's numbers through November 2024 our pantry supported over 6,800 people and over 2,700 households with a wide range of Food hygiene and Pet Food additionally with the cold weather coming our pantry also offers gloves socks and coats through the generous donations of both individuals local businesses and community organiz organizations lastly this Friday December 20th the history department will be holding their annual We the People event where the US History 2 students compare and deliver speeches to local government officials about issues they believe American democracy will face in the future thank you very much of course you do not have to stay so thank you for being here and thank you for reading that to us we appreciate the update and you are welcome to leave now if you'd like you don't want to sit here for the next couple of hours oh you guys have fun okay by the way the lip sying contest was fabulous I know Dr Kennedy and I both judged it and you guys did a fabulous job thank you for all of it thanks guys have a great evening next this evening we had our recognitions for our students at RCS there was uh Theo nardz and Norah Hart at Aces William Parson and Colton fish it at Arms tan Chapman and Alina Saros at AHS it was J Cowen and Connor Pino so congratulations to those students if you weren't here this evening they most of them attended except for Connor and the 10th grade so congratulations to all of you the next thing we have here on unfinished business is our superintendent contract we are currently in negotiations and we will be having a meeting um next month um to continue discussions for the superintendent contract um um I don't have anything else to add to that at that time okay um and then the second unfinished business is updated masc policy Services contract which I do have a copy of and I believe we voted on already to approve it is there anything else that we need to do I I believe Leah just asked for us to approve it with the current dates and just the revised contract okay so we we put it back into the package just for confirmation okay so do weote yeah we should just vote on for safety so we've already voted on this but there needed to be a change to a couple of dates um this particular is this the date here November 22nd 20 which oh you're on it was it well the original one that we had put in the package was the template so this is completed with all of the district information and and the dates okay so we have already voted on this but we'll take a revote with the corrected date so if there's a a motion to accept the agreement for participation in the Mas policy 21 program um as presented with the new dates I would entertain that motion make a motion make a motion made and seconded thank you Frank any questions seeing none all those in favor any absent yeah Bobby thank you Bobby yep absolutely okay moving on we have new business the technology update I believe we have Mr Saltzman here to discuss gu the technology update with the committee thank you Mr Salman all right thanks for having me here um I think you all have in your packet a uh a write up of this am I right about that y okay there should so I'm I'm happy to sort of walk through that and folks can interrupt and ask questions and ask questions at end whatever whatever works um this is sort of a high level update it's things that have been going on the last couple of months the most important stuff I think in my mind there's certainly other things that are happening that are not listed on here um and again I would be happy to talk to any about anyone about any of this stuff at any point tonight otherwise offline whenever you want it's all important that's for sure so uh first up is the state reporting I think you're all familiar with that stuff uh The Sims is certified and epam's SCS at the time that this was written was ready to be certified it is now certified so the state reporting is done um second part there is the network and infrastructure so I've done some uh looking into the wireless network and we're going to talk uh also about the wired Network ethernet the Wi-Fi in the district is uh still supported by the company that makes it it's it's a little bit on the older side but as long as it's supported by the manufacturer that's really the most important thing it absolutely functions in the way that we need it to there are some issues that pop up uh here and there and those issues get fixed I want to thank uh one of the tech assistants Josh has been super helpful with that stuff in fact I'll just give a shout out to all the tech assistants who keep this place up and running and uh without their help it would be it'd be really difficult so um thanks very much to them for all the work that they do uh so the Wi-Fi I think that uh we we bought a few extra access points um to keep them kind of as cold spares if something breaks we can swap it out they're pretty inexpensive on eBay and we just bought a few of them they're like $35 at this point we're good with that we have the support of the company that makes them and they're going to keep working for a while that said I think that we should be thinking about getting new hardware probably in a couple of years so nothing to talk about right now but it's a big expense even with e- rate and we just want to be thinking about that in the future so uh then kind of hand inand with that is the ethernet that's the wired Network and that's older and a little bit less uh I worry a little bit more about that fortunately ethernet when it's plugged in and it's working and there's no problem it tends to just work and work and work until it just flat out stops working that is pretty unusual and I don't expect that to happen but that said uh the next year we should be looking at an EAP project where we would be replacing all the ethernet and the reason I say that is you want to replace the ethernet before you do the Wi-Fi you don't want to install Wi-Fi on an old ethernet Network um that's kind of a lot all there does does anybody have any questions about that kind of stuff okay um so just a couple of things about the ethernet why I think it's it's probably time uh to start thinking about replacing that and I I just to give like a super broad ballpark figure that I don't want to be held to and but uh we just did a similar siiz district and the ethernet Hardware was about $140,000 so just to give you a sense of what what that costs what we have here in the district is an assortment of Hardware we don't have like one brand and one you know a few different models we've got a variety of stuff here there is no Central management to any of that Hardware so it's not like I can log into a management panel and see the status of all of our ethernet um we we have very limited documentation to how it's been set up so if any one piece of equipment were to fail uh it'd be more stressful than you would like it to be um there's not really any redundancy as far as I can see I could be wrong about that there's a lot of it but I don't see a lot of that uh I don't see any comprehensive backups to the configuration of this equipment so again if a piece of equipment breaks even though you can replace it the whatever special settings we on it may or may not be gone and that's something that we absolutely have to take care of so I've I've put down here that we're targeting this winter spring to really go through each piece of equipment and take a look at it and back it up up at a bare minimum um even logging into it right now would be a challenge for me I'm not sure if we have documentation on how to log into every switch that's in the district so that's the kind of thing that we we definitely need to clean up and and some of that uh that doesn't apply I want to be clear to the wireless network which is centrally managed and we log into it and it's supported by the manufacturer whole different situation there but all of that plugs into the wired Network next thing item three translations uh this is something that I I think you're all aware of but the district has uh a really incredibly increased need for translations I've been working with the family center on that to try to offload some of it into a more automated process that would be better handled by technology rather than the folks who work in the Family Center so that's that's something that's come up uh over the last couple months and we're we're going to work hard to try to help out there then we have the servers um I think I might have talked about this the other time that I spoke to you at the beginning of the year the servers are definitely not in in the best kind of shape that you would hope that they would be in they're running on Old Hardware they're running on even older software and the configuration's a little bit suspect there's very little if any redundancy there is very little backing up um it's that's not ideal now fortunately our critical data for the most most part is in the cloud so we're not really worried about like a server crashing and losing a ton of data but if a server crashes what we would lose is the ability to get on the internet and that is something that you don't want to happen that's easier to recover from than the old days when you had a server full of data and you know that crashes and you lose everything so we're not in that situation but the servers are still vital and that whole situation needs to be cleaned up I'm hoping that this spring we can set up some of the donated equipment that we got and get it implemented this summer any questions on any of that okay uh projectors we have a large number of older projectors I'd say that's a pretty good example right there you can see that that screen is not super bright and that's kind of what we Face uh across the district in a in a lot of rooms new projectors are expensive even cheap ones when you multiply it times the number that we need are expensive uh you're going to spend at least $800 on a new projector and realistically you shouldn't even be considering that type of projector um more modern Ultra short throw projectors that are laser based instead of ball based are about $1600 each and a touch panel TV which would be even better those are about $2,000 each and you can kind of do the math in your head there's a lot of classrooms so again we're not going to do that tomorrow but we should be thinking about allocating money to do that because we we're going to have that need we have it now and it's just going to keep keep getting bigger purchasing I know that uh I think some of you are aware there were some uh issues when we came on board with just kind of getting the purchases happening and we have that worked out we got a purchasing form that folks are using and uh we're we're getting those things done the uh school committee live streaming as I think you all know that was a problem that has been resolved last month's meeting was streamed and this month what's happening right now is is streaming live right now I will say that uh even just getting it started today tonight we ran into some issue and I I think part of it is related to Google who owns YouTube they tend to change things frequently and we logged in and it just looked a little bit different than it did last time a little bit stressful we got it working um one thing that I would love to have people thinking about is instead of having to set up all this equipment every time we need to use it having it somewhere where it can be more permanent there's a few different ideas that we've gone through but uh doing something like that would be really helpful to kind of facilitate predictability when it comes to meetings like this so something that I've been talking to the superintendent about something we're thinking about the last thing is budgeting I've been working with the business manager the first round of that is complete obviously very important and uh moving forward with that so that's my update anybody has any questions I would love to talk about it any questions anyone all right thank you so much thanks very much thank you very much Dan okay next we have RCS Nature's Classroom donation for the Bruins luxury suites is anybody talking about I believe someone from RCS was going to speak about it um not if it is in your packet um oh hi everybody I'm Laur McDaniel from RCS I'm the Nature's Classroom coordinator and this year we are absolutely blown out of the water by the support of the community that we have been given to help plan this trip so students don't have to pay we have been gifted a over $114,000 um Brewin Suite to the April 1st game it's going to provide 21 access tickets along with the site the food um access to the game access to private lounges it's absolutely amazing um it was gifted by one of our family members um cousins so we are asking the school committee to approve this donation so that we can run a raffle where community members will be able to purchase tickets um we're looking at $25 a ticket or um five tickets for 100 um the raffle will be drawn at the end of February so that the um Community member has time to make play it excuse me to make plans to go and um celebrate their winnings great so um let's do you there's um is there a specific dollar value that we have to there is should be in the packet with you I kind of you to say that dollar amount cuz I'm reading I don't have it in front of me no I got you but it also says that he needs a letter for tax deduction so I just want to make sure that our motion includes a donation from is it Mr Zena yes Mr Derek Zena who is wonderful to this community um and the value of the donation of the package is 14661 $1 and that um the motion will also include providing Mr Zeno with a tax deduction tax dedu deductible donation letter from the district is that legitimate or can so there's an issue with a raffle piece of it okay um so if you want to do a raffle they consider it a lottery the state does so we'd have to think about how we can make this work like we probably would need to talk to the PTO about it um because you can't justy the PTO is not part of this process it's been a donation directly to Nature's Classroom yeahp they're allowed to do things yeah but I think we need to I need to think about ways where we can make this happen um but the raffle process you have to go to the town clerk you have to sign up to be a lottery or run a lottery so I just I have to think about how we can make this happen because obviously it's a great donation I just so need to figure out how we can do it legally okay to allow it basically for sure and we definitely have time because we weren't planning on running um anything until February so if we need to go back to the drawing board and find another way to allow access um to the event then we certainly can yeah I'm going to I'll start working on this right away so we'll we'll figure it out before your next meeting fantastic meeting okay thank you very much I appreciate it of course the next item here is to reopen school choice at the high school for the current 9th grade student Mr King is that for you or I'm sorry Mr King okay so after we close school choice two months ago we had um a family of three move from AOL to another school so these students um but I believe we only Clos it for the freshman class because the number was so good so this student was already in our school and then the family moved to uh winching and I think last time with attorney Dupri we were able to make a motion so reopen we reopen school for one one student one seat one seat back into the availability that's the situation okay so you need a motion to reopen school choice for the nth grade only for one seat correct okay is there a motion I'll make the motion motion made and seconded is there any discussion attorney Dee do we have anything that we need to consider or see you're making it just for this one one spot who was already in the district but moved to win and the individual will probably end up with preference because they have siblings already School choiced into the district you're and you're opening a spot for how long d i I was under the understanding once you're in school choice you get it you're here until you graduate but I'm not sure no I mean like people would have a right to apply for the spot to apply to the spot two weeks last time I mean you got to do some reasonable period of time where somebody else could apply so we can open the school choice as of this evening and close it in two weeks time sure okay you got to post it that's available as a spot so how do we do whatever way you normally post how do you normally post your school choice slots whatever you normally do just do that again I don't I don't remember we normally just announce I'm not sure ifed them anywhere we normally announce it here how manys are open and then we you could put on the website we can do it onsite I'll probably do that anyway yeah we should have it up onsite okay so the motion will be to open school choice for the um freshman class ask for one seat for two weeks and we will post it on the website and then close it for any applications that are available for that one seat that's open all I'm saying is I don't know if that's what we did last year we did something last year and I don't I don't know if that's what we did that's what we did okay I thought we gave preferential treatment because they were already in the district and already here and that number was already accounted for yeah we had to go back okay we did we had to post you can't just yeah you can't just pick like somebody can't just come and you pick that person as the school choice kid that's coming in you'd have to post it let people even if they already and if there was somebody already on the list on the wait list they have to be and then you do a lottery yeah yeah well we would be able prior to the lottery if there were preference if there were kids with preference we would be able request as of right now correct yeah so two weeks from today um we would the lottery would close on January 1st so if we don't have any new applicants by January 1st that student would be welcome to stay otherwise they would by on Monday January 6th well and if should we get should we get other applications it would need to be another applicant for ninth grade that would also have siblings in the district that are school choicing here right just to be so we wouldn't run a lottery unless those requirements were those parameters were met so I repeat the motion I'm sorry so well the motion is the motion that we need is to have the n9th grade open for school choice for one seat for two weeks until January 1 um and it will be posted on the school website and then taken down at that time is there a motion motion moved is there a second is there any discussion seeing n all those in favor thank you I'll set B all right you stay right on the next you're next yes AHS request to add course to program of studies there should be in your packet um I would say we've done a great job uh at AAL High School expanding our opportunities for our advanced level courses um the science realm and uh an honest assessment we need to do a better job in our theater area uh promoting our theater we've had a we've had a challenge um finding high quality people to lead our theater program and to support our students so in brainstorming um the the thought came why why aren't we offering a theater course so I I am proposing second semester that we offer a theater course here's the course description right here um in the ideal world it would be tied to our music program our Music Teacher uh that music teacher being a certified teacher um and then we have some other resources in our school that could really support the theater program as well that we could push into that classroom so right now the uh the request is to add a course to our program of studies which was approved last year so we're looking to add a course okay um so we'll be entertaining a motion to add introduction to theater to the AAL High School course offerings is there a motion motion made and seconded motion made and seconded any discussion and we we do have adequate Staffing to offer this to the students so they're not in it for a few weeks and then we don't have someone that would be my only concern I think I think Staffing is always a challenge to answer that question we don't have a music teacher right now right U but that's it would fall under that sort of vacation have we had interest like what do you think the attendance would be in that class we have had plenty of Interest we've had plenty of communications from students that they're missing missing out on that opportunity uh we have a vision that this this would lead into a a performance at the end of the course so culmina activity yeah I I think the vision is there the thought process is there the support Staffing is always going to be a challenge um okay so there's a motion made in second and any other questions or discussions no seeing none all those in favor okay that's and then the 2024 2025 programs of study approval which is in your packet as well sir we're looking yeah we're looking to get an early start there's a lot of oh 2425 sorry that has to happen so we're hopeful to get this approved tonight so we can begin the process of scheduling or putting together the programming to schedule courses for students next year we have been averaging getting this done you know right around April May and then you know really doing behind so as as far as changes if I could direct your attention to page 16 that speaks to the change with the uh with the vote of the mcast so it talks about a graduation requirement mcast is no longer the graduation requirement we have received communication from the dec that um we have to put together a process to determine that a student meets a competency determination so we are recommending that the competency determination be and this is what this is what it was during CO as well we had to identify certain classes that a student had to pass to declare them as meeting the competency determination so you can see under the English they would need to pass one of those classes or they actually some of them are cohort classes they go together they're a cluster so if you take English 9A you have to take English 9B so you pass English 9 9A and 9B you meet the compens determination for English same thing for math you have to pass one of those courses or those clusters in the cell and the same thing for science this was the process that was used during covid and it is it is what uh what the state is recommending that you find these competency determination Pathways for students so that's that's one change and the only other change is under page 18 significant change what we recognize in our dual enrollment as you can see that third column dual enrollment now has its own place and what was happening is colleges the highest score a college gives is an A so in the old system the student could never get to the 5.3 because this whole column was moved up one right so the A+ was the 5.3 a College Bound student couldn't ever get to the 5.3 so it wasn't Equitable we moved it down to give them the equivalent of what the highest grade they could get at college so I think this meets what we um what we're looking to accomplish with making it Equitable for those students those are the major changes um besides that just some word smithing so um we'll need a motion to approve the 2025 2026 PR program of studies for the APPL high school as presented by Mr King is there a motion thank you Bobby is there a second second thank you Emily is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor that's all set thanks Dave next we have a memorandum of agreement for the Latin club um are you speaking to that or some I can speak to it you have a few memorandums of agreement in your package the purpose of those are simply to approve payment for the advisers of those organizations so the process that we have is that staff fill out a request to have a club or an organization approved that gets approved by the principal and then it comes to myself and then I will approve the creation or idea of the organization but the school committee from the fiduciary standpoint would need to approve um allowing for payment to those to those members so um so we're looking for a motion to approve the memorandum of agreement for the Latin club is there a motion motion made thank you Christie second thank you motion made in second any discussion seeing none all those in favor uh the next one uh similar to what Matt presented before it's a memorandum of of agreement for a mock trial Club at the high school um again it's just so we can pay out the teacher who is willing to stay behind and do this club with the students so is there a motion to approve the memorandum of agreement for the mock trial Club motion made and motion made second and any discussion seeing none all those in favor and last but not least we have a memorandum of agreement for a bird in nature Club here at Arms thank you so much the uh motion is to accept as presented is there a second second any discussion seeing none all those in favor um quickly before we move on thank you to those dedicated staffs who have put this together for the students um I know how important it is to keep kids engaged and keep them busy it helps not only the parents but keeps the kids mental health in check so um I appreciate you beyond belief for putting these clubs together I was I was going to thank the committee for approving these payments as well as the staff because I can tell you we are already seeing a tremendous difference in the participation in after school activities I think it makes a it makes a wonderful difference for these students to have these opportunities and I'm extremely appreciative of the staff that take their time and energy to give back to the kids to do these to do these programs so thank you to the committee and thank you to everyone um next on our list we have the arms student leadership initiative presentation and Mr Webster I believe I will be working the slides for you so thank you me I also brought some uh members of our staff to help me with this presentation um we feel this is a family opportunity for us we know that there's been some concerns with how we support students and uh adjust and adapt to their changing needs and uh you know when they have a hard time with their behaviors and and their focus and so tonight hopefully you'll be able to walk away with an understanding of what we've been doing to help with how we respond and also how we are encouraging the positive uh as well and so you'll be hearing from um I'll be introducing you in just a couple minutes to my friends here uh but first wanted to uh share a couple of things some updates we do have a new dean of students that started this week and Miss Alden who has been helping and some of the ways uh that she will be helping uh is through the in school suspension program that we have we are working on an updated approach as far as how we utilize our Council monitors and also they're kind of like a pair professional that works with students both in the ISS program as well as as you may have heard as far as students concern uh struggling with being in the transitions between classes being in the hallways taking breaks things like that uh helping as far as those students that need to get back into the classroom but might need to handle something at first to get you know off their chest off their mind so they can get back into the learning our culture monitors play an integral role in that as well as uh working in the in school suspension program and so that balance is what we're working on updating for when we return this spring uh in January which is actually the winter I got a little ahead of myself there can you go back to that slide actually just for a second Matt thank you uh two other things we are looking at other options that we are able to provide when our students are struggling and we've been working with the high school as far as uh paralleling their efforts with Saturday school as an option sometimes in school suspension isn't working for a number of reasons for students and so there needs to be other options as far as how we can use time to help them uh and they need to be able to get their focus back on studies and so Saturday school uh is one as well as other alternative options that involve Edgenuity and online learning as well and so those are two important elements that we are going to be adding when we return in January and we're working to do so please uh with that said to talk more about our student leadership core is uh Mr Arabian who's also a fizzed teacher here at school hi good evening um we can just go ahead right to the first slide and we'll get right into it uh the student leadership Corp we were created last year to help the fourth graders that were coming into our fifth grade adjust to the school better and help them on stepup day as it was when um Miss Aisha was looking for student leaders we were in the middle of Team week in fiz ed class it's actually three weeks long I just call it team week and it's a series of uh very rigorous physical and mental tasks and it's meant to help students bring out their leadership skills during that time um I had a very good group of seventh graders that were rising to 8th grade and I said they're going to be the top class next year let's have this class become the student leaders we checked their grades make sure they were good in good academic standing and um their conduct was good and we just kind of did an overall character assessment which we're looking to um get something on paper this year so we can identify the next group of student leaders next year and that's really how we got started and now they are really good role models to their peers in 8th grade and around the school uh we go to the next slide and the next one um so on top of stepup day they helped because they already had that connection with the fifth graders they were able to uh help host the back to school night where they were able to rekindle that connection they made in June into September and now they're interning in the fifth grade classrooms in the morning uh only on Fridays and they're doing group work um helping with some of the students academics and and so on so that connection between the eighth graders and and the fifth graders are there uh Additionally the eighth graders were very vocal about needing locks for their lockers because they need to use um lockers once they hit eighth grade it's no longer optional and when I got hired here I inherited something like 50 locks for the locker room but they were all scrambled and the the I had a list of combinations with serial numbers so the student leadership group matched the serial numbers to the combinations it took a very long time but they got it don't so know all eighth graders if they need a lock they can have one um and going back to the role models we really wanted to make school cool again and I know that sounds kind of cheesy but we want good behavior um good grades the willingness to try hard in class to become the norm and that's really um one of the big goals of our of our program coming up uh it says upcoming but we started teacher appreciation gifts two weeks ago um we're doing a featured educator I know it's hard to read up on the board but I I heard we were trying to get new projectors earlier tonight um so we're uh doing a fe featured teacher or educator Awards and um that's open to recognizing teachers our custodians uh our lunch staff in the cafeteria people in central office people in our main office um the students are all for it they love it and um we call it mugging so we're filling these mugs with chocolates and uh our students are going up to teachers saying you're getting mugged and handing them the mug full of of chocolate uh we're hoping to get involved in a toy drive next year whether it's CR M Cruiser or we start our own uh either way it would be nice a bathroom makeover eth the eighth graders were very vocal about the graffiti in the bathroom and how they think it's affecting the school culture and um we're thinking if we let the eighth graders decorate the bathroom within reason right we're just not it's not going to be a free-for-all graffiti if they take ownership in that um maybe that will help vandalism go down we've contacted an artist in Orange and she's willing to help us out for free at no cost to us so that's a a very big help um we're working with Dr Kennedy and Shirley Mitchell to help with the district literacy night the kids are super excited about running stations um and helping the the little ones um improve their literacy skills and moving on we can go to the next slide is the the last bullet on that one was trying to find some kind of um Leadership School to go to whether that's a high ropes course or a low ropes course uh or a leadership day where they focus on activities similar to my team week that I run in fed um we'd really like to do that and we're starting to talk about fundraising ideas there's also a leadership program at the high school so we're hoping this program will bridge over to the high school so moving on in addition to teaching fed and um the leadership program I'm also the unified arts department head once a week students get an extra unified Arts block while their teachers are meeting for team time and um we can go over to the next one during that time uh the UA teachers have been collaborating with each other on creating lesson plans that aren't content specific to our area because sometimes we get kids in that once a week class that normally aren't with us um so we said let's focus on the term we're using very Loosely is humanics uh how to be a person how to send an email how to overcome adversity uh we did a career exploration where they kind of took this uh online test its data reported I just forget the name of it at the moment but it told them what kind of careers they would be very good getting uh they would be good at um how to sign your name how to read and write calligraphy we brought in calligraphy pens so they could read historical texts and one of my kids said my dad has an old uh King James that was written in Old English and they're like now I know kind of where that came from so that was pretty neat uh we're also working on uh mindfulness and formal writing as well and the results of this have been um giving them skills we can I I just like the transition slides gives me time to take a breath um so it's letting them learn about the real world we talked about credit scores mortgages things like that things they're going to need to know when they're adults really um how established institutions and systems function whether that's they want to go to college or work in a trade um in skills that will make them more employable in the future uh skills all adults should have and that's that's the main goal I'm going to turn it over to Steve who's going to talk about our tier one um team that was already mentioned earlier all right good evening uh my name is Steve Leen I am one of the assistant principles over at the middle school and since I started I have been working with the teachers on developing a tier one team um the team is made up of volunteers right now we have five six other volunteers besides myself um with the initiatives of basically creating a schoolwide behavioral expectations and incentives for be positive behavior but also to create a culture of Staff events um and student events that promote uh positive culture and climate so our first goal was to sort of get the schoolwide behavioral expectations and incentives out so a behavior Matrix was developed um and from that behavior Matrix It outlined positive expectations in the classrooms the bathrooms the hallways and the cafeteria um and kindness coins or or or claw coins um were given to each of the teachers or staff members in the the building um for students showing positive behavior it's nothing new um this is a PBIS type of approach um that's going on in different schools um but we sort of um incentivized what wasn't existing currently um and basically students can redeem those coins for the prize carard um our volunteer uh bis Kitty comes around with the prize car to each grade level once a week so that they can redeem prizes some of those prizes are trinkets but there's there's also relationship prizes that some of the teachers have donated which I think are really cool um such as baking lessons and things like that um and then we also have a grade level incentives too if they earn a certain level of coins um then the the grade level would be eligible for grade level incentives as well um this is our Behavior Matrix it started with a very boring spreadsheet and Miss Hume uh jazzed it up for me so this is what it looks like um and these are posted all around the school for the students um and also reviewed with the students as well uh this is the Bears menu so this just sort of give you a sort of sense of the different levels that students can redeem their coins like I said the top level there's like small Trinkets and then the bottom there's some relationship pieces that students can redeem their coins for and then the second piece is just creating positive culture um for students and teachers um so we just want to just each month try to infuse some more uh different pieces uh to the school that are positive um for everyone to participate in um I know that prior to to working at the the district there were some pieces that are already there some events that that teachers were were hosting we're sort of jazzing those up and also trying to like for example the the volleyball game that was students versus staff um it was all the sports players but we're trying to look into ways where we can sort of um invite more students into the these activities and have teacher participation more teacher participation so um those are some of the things that we've done so far some of the events that we've hosted um here are some pictures that I got from um the Facebook group group um that um superintendent aor took um of the different events and moving forward um a tier one team is basically for for all students but I would be um one of the pieces that I I want to start working on is using the data I know I was talked about earlier looking at referral data um if you run a really good tier one program or any tier program you're always looking at your data because the the goal is obviously to minimize or to to to reduce the number of referrals that happen in your school so looking at that and looking at the incentives and whether they're really driving forth to to reduce those referrals that are coming in um more of a focus on a positive um we we definitely could use that and of course more events and those are our team members thank you Mr Le we we got Miss Kitty snuck in at the bottom there one other La uh late edition here uh I wanted to add this about the mindful mornings pilot I'm hoping that uh the the committee sees a Common Thread here about connections between students and staff we realize that we have a ways to go and there are a lot of opportunities for how we can connect better with kids and so hopefully you've been able to see some of the things that we've implemented some short ter term and long term for how we're able to build those connections with kids because Middle School really is that time where they're growing it's awkward they want to fit in and and stand out all at the same time they're poos to struggle obviously not to the point of uh unsafety but they're they're going to struggle in different ways and so I think that uh you know I'm surrounded by a staff that is dedicated to kids dedicated to kind of that bill bellich just make it work do your job but we need to figure out in the long run um and so I just wanted to add this last slide uh Miss Kennedy Jessica Kennedy is our school adjustment counselor and she's had a couple of piloted sessions with mindfulness we recognize that one one of the most common times times kids struggle with their behaviors is that unstructured time between classes before school starts at the end of the day when the buses are here we're all outside kind of encouraging them to get on the bus um you know and so being able to go from what we consider kind of a high energy uh event a class maybe they're with Mr um Arabian and fed and now they've got an English class and they've got to be able to calm down if you're 10 years old that's not always as easy to do that requires being able to control your breathing being able to relax take breaths and do things in a mindful way uh that helps and it's a life skill uh even our teachers are interested in and so this just highlights some of the uh aspects of that as far as what the session includes regarding yoga some stretching exercises like I said some breathing skills coping uh and a lot of this also uh is common with uh common threads with our uh counseling staff as well uh Joe Quinton and Isa squal who are also working hard uh with our students so this is just one other another example of what we're trying to implement so that we can make stronger connections with kids and also understand where they're struggling so we can help them um and I wanted to thank Mr LEF Fountain and Mr Ren for coming out tonight to be able to uh share their thoughts here so you could hear from someone else besides just me but we are a team so that's what we have any questions yes can't behave in class um but I didn't hear you elaborate on that and when you expect to roll that out and what that's going to look like certainly so one thing that's uh been utilized at the high school we've been talking with them about Edgenuity as far as online courses and our job is to do our very best to make sure kids obviously are held accountable for their their actions their behavor Behavior but there's also time on learning and that's a really important piece because our job is to educate and if they're not in the classroom that's difficult when we have students that are struggling in that way and unfortunately due to their behaviors the classroom isn't working at that time Edgenuity is an opportunity for us for them to still be able to get some work done while we're trying to also address the behavior side as well and by that I mean maybe it's time it's it takes time to identify a therapist or some other caregiver or someone else some professional that needs to step in and assess and uh figure out how to help that student uh we believe that all kids want to learn we believe that all kids want to be successful uh we don't think that students come into the school thinking I'm going to disrupt the school day there are reasons behind that are invisible on their shoulders that they carry in as we all know every day and so we're working to figure out how we can help them and how we can better and in a more timely manner identify those needs and this is one way that we can try to do that so hopefully that answers your question a little bit better um anybody else or okay I also had questions about it um I was just wondering you know I've seen the Ingenuity Pro program up at the high school my kids did it during Co um what would that look like for a kid who was put into that what would their day look like if they are you assess them they're having difficulties in classrooms we're trying to minim Max minimize the disruptions what does their day look like they would be working on the four content areas uh it starts in grade six so obviously heaven forbid if it involved a fifth grade student and this also would fall under the situation where if there was a medical need or there was something going on something else getting in the way of their education this also would be an opportunity um it's not perfect nothing can replace uh a teacher working with students we are aware of that however this at least gives us another opportunity so at least the student is able to get some work done and we can identify those uh areas that they might already be working on in the classroom and match that up uh with a course uh for math English language arts social studies or science uh so that they are getting some work done uh ultimately we still want them to be responsible for their learning even though other areas of their livelihood involving their behavior need some helpess getting back into class look we would pull the team together we pull the teaching team together with Administration and guidance so that we can uh talk about what the needs of the student specifically are because what works for one individual as we know may not work for another so it's not really there isn't the one-sized fits-all uh response to that however we would take it whether it be two weeks at a time that we can go in those smaller increments so that we're not we're trying to minimize the amount of time they're out of the school but also recognizing the need so it's a work in progress um but 504 and IEP what are we doing for special education for those children who do need those Services how are we meeting their needs and if they're in that program right if they were to go in that program that's when we would be working with our uh special ed liaison uh you know we have a coordinator in the school as well and we're working under the the guidance also of Miss Fontaine and kind of determining how in individual to individual it depends on what those students have for their needs we need to make sure that they're still getting those needs met and that we're meeting you know uh expectations from Individual Ed plans uh things like that so that we're following along it's it's it takes time uh it just it really falls back on communication and bringing that team together so we can make sure we're meeting those needs Excell committee this month we reviewed disciplinar and suspension data from the middle school so I'm curious what is your anticipated timeline to show some measurable Improvement in that area I think that these initiatives are great but what is a realistic timeline for us to start to see an improvement in overall student Behavior that's a great question I think that we would have to talk with the team whether it be halfway through the second half of the year sometime maybe end of term three is a check-in and then again at the end of the school year it takes time to establish these things as we know and to start to get some we have to have a baseline to start from and this is a new kind of data I'm not sure we aren't really sure as far as uh what the history has been in the building prior to my tenure as far as collecting uh behaviors like the positive uh I had worked as an assistant principal in Malden where we did something like this with PBIS and after a half of a year I was able to get in front of the committee and present the results of uh identifying a means at that time there were biscuits now we're using coins uh to recognize those behaviors and what kind of effect it had on our Behavior data not only and I think Mr sod mentioned that you know it's not just suspensions but those TI one and tier two behaviors as well uh we we pay attention to that and we do look at that data as well when we're looking at the referrals um and so I think perhaps that might be where I would start as far as go by uh by a quarter so maybe end of term three end of term four something like that yeah why is there so much that's going on in the schools why why is there so much bullying I don't think this evening's meeting is long enough to get through all of the possible answers to that question it's growing i i i i my thoughts first go to the fact that our students are going to be looking for attention whether it's positive or negative and we need to make sure that we're getting positive influences in their lives especially like what we're doing with our student leaders I think Eric and Aisha are working to improve the chances of students having positive influences middle school can be a very scary time it's a transition between nurturing Elementary School and the high school when the students are expecting to be independent and so part of that process is hooking them up with kids that have been through it that understand the school and have some positive ideas and thoughts to share and so I think that's a good first step I think being able to identify those positive behaviors goes a long way as well but when it comes to your question as far as why are we seeing all the bullying it's it's a it's a really good question I think you know kids are going to make mistakes and it's tough and right now we have technology pacifying our kids where 15 years ago and even 10 years ago it wasn't to this extent um it's that's the first way I could start to answer your question but I'm sure that we all could talk about fth graders how is it working with the fifth graders there how is it working yes yes I'm just curious because um as far as how how how is the children adjusting to the um to the middle school right and how they're doing because they have so much energy you know I'll be honest with you I never supported the fifth graders being with the sixth seventh and eighth graders never did they should be back into the elementary part of the school that's how I always felt I'll be honest before I was going to uh let uh Mr Arabian kind of respond as far as what he's observed so far with the uh relationships that have started between the fifth and eth grade I can tell you that a lot of our conversations about transitioning from elementary to Middle uh involve how the fifth grade really does have one fo in the elementary uh kind of years and still has that one foot in the middle school as well it's we have middle schools that are grade 6 S8 models I've been involved with k through eight models transitions are tough and that was one reason why we went to the two-person team model as far as the the uh General Educators because it minimizes a little bit uh the transitions kids have between classes however there's a give and take we're also seeing that they're in that same classroom and it all is Reliant upon the teachers use of time and how they're able to do so in a meaningful way between the content that they use and also letting the kids kind of be kids and get some some energy out things like that but I also want just wanted to check briefly I know we're short on time but of course uh so after the fourth graders now fifth graders were coming up to the Middle School um our student leaders wrote them letters over the summer to stay in contact and as I mentioned in my presentation um and I was I was trying to just kind of fly through it just to give a brief overview uh we have fifth graders going up I'm sorry eighth graders going up to fifth grade once a week maintaining those relationships and working really closely with the fifth graders um and they are helping with academics they're helping with social um emotional needs so sometimes the fifth graders will have something they want to talk about they don't want to talk to an adult um and they'll talk to one of our eighth graders and that's fine and of course the eighth graders if it's something serious they'll come to us and say hey something's going on can you check it out and we go from there uh as far as bullying goes I don't have the data in front of me but I don't believe you have any eighth grade to fifth grade incidents off the top of my head M ASI I'm in the school and I see one of you always walking with a student and dealing with issues and I appreciate this is this is awesome what you're working on but do you feel like you have enough staff to put out the fires on a day-to-day basis like we talked about things slipping through the cracks and I just want to make sure if there's any support we can give your team that you would need fire department want to come by and help out with the I mean the figurative fires certainly certainly certainly okay um thank thank you for that question and thank you for the recognition of of our staff uh we can always use help I've learned at the middle school we always ask for help and I think that we're also it's a matter of understanding how we can use our resources smarter and so we have support we've been a by that I mean we have a Dean now for this year which is fantastic we also have lunch monitors we've been able to hire from the community that have come in and done a wonderful job to help have more sets of eyes on kids it's going to take time I think having the dean of students and their um ability to fill in some gaps uh in communication is really going to help but it is going to take take some time and I certainly won't stand here and say we're all set we're good we absolutely could always use help but I think it's a matter of working with each other and also we've been hand inand with central office as far as giving us some help with you know things like the dean lunch monitors giving us those opportunities so we're on our way it's going to take some time you you got it you got it Roman AOL that's right but thank you thank you so much thanks for your time next on our list we have um Communications which is the district enrollment um we had a parent here this evening questioning District enrollment and um our attorney will be looking over um how we proceed forward with that correct yes okay is there what do you need enrollment the actual in our yeah just so you know um um the district enrollment will we have to have should we put like under District enrollment like an update next month would that be okay or um can we just leave it as District enrollment or should we up I want to make sure the parent gets their answer so there's homeschool there's no cap right at all so I will be transparent um Miss bird actually contacted me via email we've been going back and forth for days we've come to the established understanding that there is no homeschooling cap there is a virtual homeschooling cap that I have been told that there is but not that we can verify it's virtual through the Commonwealth virtual schools correct if you just homeschool through a virtual program that's allowed separately I don't know I'm waiting on the letters to come back from Miss bird about which programs she's applied her student to I don't know fully what their rejection was if it's the Massachusetts cap at 2% or if there's something that we as a district should be looking at for those caps I don't have those answers yet I haven't seen the the denial letters so yeah so we'd have to see that but you and I after this meeting can talk and then put it on the next agenda because I do have the information but it's really school um virtual schools through the ma Massachusetts system versus homeschooling at a virtual program so those are two different things there could be a cap you can vote a cap by March one every year for virtual schools through the Commonwealth so I'll talk um with the chair about that after the meeting and the next meeting we can put it on the agenda thank you so much moving on financial statements and approval of accounts turn that over to nany thank you excuse me so the first part is already that I wanted to cover kind of really has already been covered is I wanted to update you on the three um intern positions that you approved at the last school committee meeting as Mr Webster stated one of them has been filled at arms and the other two are still um we're still looking and the second part is a update on the degree on the non-degree substitute rate change um that we touched upon at the last meeting and since then um we brought the language to Legal who came back um with suggestions for you guys to look at and vote on tonight so I I sent that out we got that back and I sent that out this morning um I'm not sure if everybody was able to see that if not I do have copies here if you need them does everybody have have it you want a copy here you want to just good pass it down so I'll just I can review it because we need to vote on it correct yeah so just to review we are looking to one um for substitutes have completed 60 work days of service or more in a school year and who did not have a for who does not hold a 4-year degree are eligible to receive up to $5 per day more than the committee's regular daily substit rate in the following year the provision shall apply for up to four school years for a total of $20 for example if a if a substitute completed 60 work days or more than three years of uh three school years then the substitute would make up to $15 per day more than the committee's regular daily substitute rate in the following school year um regarding any substitutes that have um completed 60 work days of service or more in the 2022 to 2023 and the 2023 to 2024 four school years and who does not hold a four-year degree um said substitutes are eligible to receive $10 per day more than the committee's regular daily substitute rate for the 2425 commencing with the first day substituted after the committee's adoption of the policy in point three is regarding any substitute that has completed 60 work days or service or more in the 22 23 or 23 24 school years um but not both who does not hold a four-year degree said substitutes are eligible to receive up to $5 a day more than the committee's regular substitute pay for the 2425 commencing with the first day substituted after the committee's adoption of this policy we only have data for two full school years so that is the only data that we will be going back we do not have any other data um to support how many substitutes have worked at the district for 21 to 22 so um we are willing to give credit to those who have worked in the district for two full years um and will um increase their substitute um pay accordingly so the motion would be to accept um the is there any other anything else we should consider rest um the only other thing I had emailed about so the two years back for current people's fine but the way when I took out the consecutive language then the question is like if you worked here six years ago six years from now would that count or do you want to just go back a couple it's all going to go back two school years so it would just be anyone who's put the time in from 2022 to 2023 because that's what we can track no I mean you mean if somebody want I'm saying in the future so if someone worked so if someone worked 60 days this year and then came back five years from now I would you don't have any language that says there's like a a time period that was the only that was my last comment I'm not OPP I'm okay with there just being the cap of the four times for a time period yeah if someone has done a full 60 days in one year and then they move out of town for years can't come in for a year or whatever it may be yeah it's perfectly fine I mean that that was just you know the only last I was thinking you could add but okay um so uh the motion would need to be to accept um The Substitute pay um as presented um and with understanding that there will only be counted for two previous school years to this year is there a mo motion made second so we can discuss perfect go ahead5 per day more like is there an Al alternate like or is it we're going to give them $5 it won't be like you get two you get three it'll be okay because that's what it reads that's what it says is that somebody has the authority to decide on some some value between five and one presumably I don't I don't know if that's necessary I think we would defer to Council on that it would be if you're not if you don't actually want the flexibility could be really zero to five right now if you're really just saying it's five you should just say five five was the plan okay so we can um the motion is um we can amend the motion as presented with the Striking of up to $5 is that correct or up to $10 it's kind of repeated throughout just take out up to throughout yeah I was just going to say we can amend the motion to take up to throughout the document and proceed on so we we can pay these substitutes the additional money they've been working really hard and I really do want to get this passed so we can strike the up to um and make that motion uh revise that motion is there a thank you a motion made in seconded for the revised language okay perfect thank you any other discussion I tell discuss having answer my question or not but um if I did my four years and I got the max I know you were talking about something like if I maybe like had a baby or whatever and didn't work for a year two do you lose that pay or is that my pay now going forward pay okay so if you got the four years under your belt and had the $20 additional if you went away for two years and then came back you would still have been given that credit you'd return with it yeah this this is all a not a mandatory thing from the way it's reading also you're eligible for it you're not required to give it correct I leaves us any opportunity or no nothing against anyone that does us you know does the work it's an eligible thing not a required payment increase right let see I actually I I it is listed as eligible the one consideration that I have with respect to that is I mean if if there were significant concerns we typically wouldn't keep the substitute however if there was someone that that somehow managed to peace meal the 60 days and there really was not a high assessment of their work or they had problems you know maybe some serious interpersonal interaction problems one Might at least then I might have the discretion to say this person's not going to get we're not going to give them more yeah just the near future you know understood no matter who no no matter who's here whether I understand we have a motion and second currently which minus the up to um is there any other discussion and then we can either somebody can either amend a motion to or we can not vot be fine with it I just the making it making sure that it's just an eligible thing it's not a requirement for us to give that you know I me yeah realist as the superintendent indicated that language would give you some flexibility I mean realistically I think it's meant to be given and long as there's not some good reason not to yeah any other questions or concerns okay all those in favor no yes thank you thank you and then um the fiscal 26 budget review update so I wanted to give the committee a quick update of where we stand with the fiscal year 26 budget so Matt and I met with all of the stakeholders with their budgets um and all the information has been entered into our financial system the hard part is the revenue figures aren't available yet and they're not going to be available until the January February time frame so in the meantime we're still reviewing expenses so I recently asked all the stakeholders to review their new requests and I asked them to rank them in the order of priority because most likely all of their needs are are not going to be feasible we're we how we stand right now so there there's a couple of items that I can share with you right now I think we have a good idea of where we'll be one of them is the health care and dental benefits so we met with our insurance broker and the insurance broker came back and at a is forecasting a 10% increase excuse me a 12% increase the payout for the district um is also changing it's going to a 70% increase and right now it's currently at 80% so because of that we actually have a savings to the district of 5% which is approximately 237,000 we'll have a more accurate um percentage of where that will Land once early spring comes trans Transportation so there's several categories in transportation we have our regular transportation that is has a contracted rate because we went out for bid over the summer so that that's a guaranteed 12% increase at 110,000 um a of District transportation that can fluctuate but right now we're projected at about an increase of 35% um for for 400 ,000 we're projecting three New Riders um and that's with a 5% increase just for audo District transportation and then in District transportation has a approximate forecasted increase of 120,000 which is a 5% increase from where we stand right now lastly one that I'm really watching is our foster care Transportation um we're very over budget with our actuals right now if everything is as they stand right now we would have an increase of $150,000 which is a 16% increase so transportation's one that I'm definitely watching um and we'll have a better read on as we move along a of District tuitions which is our special education T tuition kiddos um they're we are projected to come in at 3.4 million that's an increase of 15% about 400,000 and lastly our school choice expenditures in forecasting that out um we're projected to have a savings of 108,000 um but that's all still dependent on where kids land at the end of the year so those are just all rough figures to kind of give you an idea of the ones I can ballpark at this point in time so as we move forward hopefully I'll have more solid figures for you at the next meeting um and you can see where we stand you're welome welcome uh moving on reports of the committee reports of the chair I do have a few items I just wanted to mention this evening um we saw the presentation here by the Middle School Administration in Mr Arabian I did attend the PTO meeting um there were six or so parents along with the CPAC um who came to express their concerns as parents um or staff members um here in the district Mr Arabian um represented the te and the teacher in the PTO um it was a really great meeting and I'm excited to see that parents actually wanted to step in um I really do wish we would have had more participation from the staff here at the middle school um there was um obviously Mr Arabian and um Mrs dbal who came for about 30 minutes or so um I can't express to you how collaborative these parents really do want to be here we have people um signing up to come in and do lunch monitoring we have people who are wanting to come in and walk the hallways we have parents who are willing to sit classes if that's what it takes so I just want people to know that um we have PTO members down at Aces here on this board and any information or Insight that you can give to the middle school PTO would be greatly appreciated they are a small team of two they need more help here at the PTO at the middle school so any advice or any parents watching this this evening here at the middle school the parent teacher organization really does need you to be involved um you have to step up to the plate for your kids so I just wanted to thank um you the administration here and Mr Arabian and the the parents who came out that evening and really vo their concerns with what's going on here um so that was the one one issue I wanted to say I also wanted to say thank you to the members here who visited the schools I know Britney went and I believe chrisy and Emily may have visited thank you for taking that step and getting into the building and meeting with the the teachers and seeing how things are going I'm interested to hear what um actually transpired um during your visits so that was another thing I wanted to thank you for doing that um we did talk a little bit about the acceptance into the program um for our new high school build um it is the very infancy stages of moving forward for our students here so more will be to come on that going forward Matt and I along with other members will be attending the select board meetings in January and or February whichever works for AAL and royalston um and lastly I wanted to just quickly mention that Matt did some listening sessions at every single School um during the week was it before Thanksgiving um I I mention this to you because I cannot express to you how important it is that we partner with our teachers in the building to understand what our students are experiencing and when people don't show up to tell us what's wrong how are we supposed to know so just for your information I wanted you to know that we had two staff members show up at RCS when Matt did the listening sessions we had two members at Aces we had to be actually yes thank you Dr Kennedy was at RCS with two staff members Aces had two staff members arms had seven staff members and AHS had nine so thank you to the staff who are willing to come out and talk to the administration about the problems that we're having without you collaborating we really cannot move forward um and that is my report from the chair and next we have budget thank you Nancy you've taken care of everything this evening um there are meeting minutes in there and then we'll move over to facilities for Laura um so we had some great announcements uh coming forward which I'll let probably that share with the uh whole group which one which ones are those so to be clear uh Tammy was mentioning it a bit prior we have been accepted into the eligibility period for the mba's core renovation program which um does actually some some people have already suggested why wouldn't we just try to fix the high school actually during the feasibility study that is always an option that they explore however typically from a financial perspective they that's usually not one of the more favorable conditions for for a district but that will be a consideration um in the Fe during the feasibility study should we go into that section of the study so right now we are invited into the eligibility period we have reached out to the select boards as Tammy me mentioned and we are going to be meeting with the AOL select board on the 21st to explain a little bit more the first thing that I'd like to make clear to everyone there's no Financial Obligations right now period now that we've gotten into the eligibility period our actual invitation for the eligibility period begins in May and that leaves us with a 270 day window for simply appropriating the funds that are necessary to do the feasibility study so once we get some more information uh we have some I have a meeting with Lynn Welsh who's the financial adviser for AOL schedule uh when we return from the break uh myself TJ uh Greg from Dr is going to help uh discuss some of the the pieces of the project and then we'll go to the the uh select board on the 21th first and and discuss it a little further with uh a the a all select board and we did send in uh a request to the royalston board of Selectmen we've just not heard anything back yet and we'll be following up um again this program just for anyone that doesn't know what it is this program builds or renovates schools and the state will reimburse the district this district with our level of uh need in our community qualifies for 80% reimbursement so when we talk about these costs a feasibility study might cost as much as $1.5 million that is for designers to come in inspect the grounds check sites do all of their site work and and figure out what can be done uh that however is also eligible for that 80% reimbursement so while the town has to while the town Za will have to appropriate the cost of the feasibility study the end cost to the community for the feasibility study should only be approximately 20% of what the cost ends up being as a total and as discussed before I'm relatively confident that we may be able to support it to some extent if not fully through our excess and deficiency funds in the district and I've been in touch with people from msba that have said they have seen districts do that before so again we would fully dive into the legalities of it and make sure that we're doing everything appropriately there's lots of logistics when you get into this process because it's all run by the state and it's all extremely overseen and governed um but again I have an initial inclination that we can use those those funds and that would not even be necessary until so we would have to appropriate the funds by January of 26 um and that would be to start the feasibility study so I guess the other point I'm trying to make to anybody listening is well there's a few points first and foremost nobody's nobody's getting charged anything right now we're in an exploratory phase we're going to be discussing it we're going to bring the information forward and then the communities will have the opportunity to have their say to vote on the feasibility study also as I mentioned this is not like we're not locked in to anything should the communities decide we don't want to pursue this then we don't have to pursue it I would certainly hate to give up this opportunity we we initiated uh we initiated the entire facilities assessment when I first came into the district with the purpose of using that information to get us into this program which has gone exactly as planned and I would hate to see us say you know well we don't want to just continue because we just want to wait when a lot of the prep work has been done and that facility's assessment itself cost the district a significant amount of money um the other piece that I want to make sure everyone understands is there will be a committee that gets formed it will be a building committee and it will include all different stakeholders from the Community Partners parents other other members Public Safety and the entire again it will be representative of the entire community so I don't want anyone to think that the school district is just making decisions are coming up with these ideas we have a vision for what we know needs to happen for our students and we have an understanding of what we need to do for our high school to have it fill the programmatic needs of the district and get our kids to where we want them to be however the district doesn't make these decisions in in isolation so I want to be clear that everyone will be engaged there will be lots of opportunity to have discussion about things and this is the very beginning of a long process so hopefully people will bear with us and we will end up reaping the fruits of our labor you have anything more you want to report on sorry did a lot of talking for your overview public relations um yes so we did meet uh on the 26 of November and talked with the Consultants that are working working with the district on um the portrait of a graduate which is an initiative um brought to the district by nask and so we um had some discussions about that there'll be more coming forth we are meeting again on the 2nd of January negotiations for not here this evening we are currently negotiations for the superintend contract and I don't have anything to rep we met on Monday and provided great information specifically related to the suspension numbers um we also talked about learning walks and um how good those were this last session um minutes will be in the next packet our next meeting is um Monday January 13th policy is not here this evening but she's moving forward three um policies for two for the first read and one for the second read um those are just presented in your packets this evening so have a review of them um they will be back on the agenda uh next month for second and third readings and now we'll move on to Committee Member referrals Frank do you have anything to see yep that'll be on next month's agenda for sure Emily did you have anything bring um handbooks and seeing where we are updating those um handbook for the schools so the the handbooks at every school from my understanding we we voted on them back in August so are you talking employee handbooks or School handbooks staff I thought it was St multiple different ones that haven't been updated yeah Dr Kennedy can we the academic Excellence student handbooks and I think there were some questions regarding um different behavior consequences policies Pro procedures things like that and so the um the handbooks were voted on in the summer and they had been updated um I think that there was some question about whether the updated handbooks were um put on the website that was one of the questions and I wasn't able to answer because I don't think I had my computer with me at the time so um employe have devel and changes need to be discussed with the and uh we had language for Title 9 which changed entirely and we sent that information out we've not gotten any feedback yet when was that sent out few months ago was there anything else no okay Laura do you have anything um I I do want to uh I'll I'll email Britney as well but I do want to bring up the um Behavior policies I want to make sure that we're checking what if what the district Behavior policy is I believe we did one maybe a year or two ago um but um my referral is just to look at the behavior policy for the district because that's what we are in charge of so I want to make sure that we are putting the behavior District policy in place that supports our teachers so just my referral is just to make sure that we review that at the policy subcommittee level um Kylie do you have anything no Christie no I was G to talk about the same stuff at the handbooks and also about the uh specifically having to do with the behavior policy um and I know that we did vote on those at the beginning of the year but it seems like our current stuff isn't working so I wanted to be able to review that yeah I was kind of on the the same thing but I think we need to start it earlier because we have to keep approving it and then you know it it it takes time and when they have to have it for school for September so August September whatever so that's what we need to do it so that it's in a time we fashion absolutely so um I know in terms of the behavior policy it was done a couple of years ago a lot of our Behavior policies are tied by what the state tells us we can and cannot do um so while we do look at them continuously we also have to follow what the law states in terms of behaviors um so whether we want to look at them and adjust them is as absolutely our right to look at those so I think you know at the subcommittee level we should bring it back and what's working what's not in terms of the policy that we have as a committee not what is in the district handbooks for the students we we govern the policy and we make that and then we look at the student handbooks and say are we following what the law is stating so um we can definitely start looking at handbooks and I don't know when we typically start we typically start looking at them in like what is it June we we have been looking at them too late respectfully I I've said that myself and I've discussed that with our leadership team and and our administrators at the buildings I do want to provide some clarification because people are saying the handbooks don't get approved there's different sections of our handbook the section one is the is the main District body of the student handbook which is all legal practices and policies that are there and then there are the school sections of the handbook the school sections of the handbook were brought to the school committee for approval because those are where the changes were made at the time during the course of the summer there hadn't been any major changes to the there hadn't been any changes to the body the of the student handbook since then we have needed to add disciplinary language and change some things so it is currently um I had shared it with Kimberly and and Russ we're currently reviewing the body of the the main body of the student handbook for the legality to make sure that everything we need to have with respect to covering the district's liability um is in there so that's so that's where people were saying the handbook didn't get approved all of the school handbooks the sections for each of the individual schools they were approved and they came and presented all of the updates the the section one that's being referred to is hundreds of pages of mainly legal polic mainly legal policy um but that is being prepared for review and we can get an updated approv similarly the employee handbooks that keep getting brought up we need to have feedback on the different parts of the handbook prior to us approving an employee handbook so there's a bunch of different sections where where um we need to make sure that people are in agreement and everyone has the same understanding of those sections strengthen the policy for Behavioral um for bullying and things of that nature to make it more have more consequences to it to let the the student know what this is about and also for the parents to be able to maybe sign um an agreement with it somehow to to let them know this this is an education we're we're trying to teach we don't want to see bullying going on in the school district we want the children to learn and there's consequences for things that you do that causes problems for the other students and we need to have something signed is there something that we can do with that well they sign the handbook the student handbook which has the discipline language in it there are there would be serious consequences for bullying the state law really requires it if it's really serious it goes to the police as well um so bullying is one of those areas where there are serious consequences for that that type of behavior hazing is another one um but the the change really was desie started to say you shouldn't be suspending you know you need to do all the alternative methods first and then suspend so there's really been throughout the state less suspensions in general bullying however results in severe consequences as far as discipline you polies so there's a model policy for bullying which I'm sure you've adopted already um so the state requires you to basically follow the model it got approved probably years ago in your District by the state you can't really vary much from that model but the model's strong anyway okay we can definitely r every a it is updated every August and we can you can definitely review what it is so you can know what what is in it at the policy subcommittee just so you understand what we do what we can do and that should help thank you very much appreciate that um so one of the public inputs uh parents brought up about the changing the 1% to the 2% is that something we would need to put on the agenda to discuss it'll be it's going to okay so that's being taken care of okay that was all I had okay um that brings us to the end of the meeting I would entertain a motion to adjourn motion made second second anybody what oh what do you need want something okay motion made in seconded all those in favor have a great holiday everybody I thought Frank was trying to say something before we adjourned oh sorry Frank I should look that way