today's meeting of the air Shirley Regional school committee meeting Wednesday May 1st recording in progress those attending tonight's meeting should be aware that the meeting is being audio and video recorded by apaac and asrsd any audience members who wish to record any part of the meeting must inform the chairperson who will announce the recording this is to comply with the mass wire tap statute the listing of matters that are the listing of matters are those reasonably in anticipated by the chair which may be discussed at the meeting not all items listed May in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law per policy bedh public comment is now discussion debate or dialogue between citizens in the school committee it's a Citizens opportunity to express an opinion on issues of school committee business citizens will have three minutes to express their views any staff members addressing the school committee are reminded of their obligation or state and federal student record laws with respect to maintaining the confidentiality of student record information and refraining from disclosing any personally identifying information regarding students with that we'll call them me order and do the pledge attendance and all that will come I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy justice for all ready for the rooll Mr Bahan Mrs Berard here Mr quiny here Mrs rishu here Mr rer here all right and I think we've got a student showcase tonight so let's see what we've got Mr Christie you ready Mr deppy uh thank you for having us here tonight um Mr deppy and I are proud to talk about one of our collaborations this year um and what we've decided to do is have high school students intern at P hilot um so for the second semester just the second semester of this year we have 37 high school students at page hiltop they are all 11th and 12th grade students they come all seven periods various kids coming different periods but all seven periods of the day we have high school students at page uh they're providing models and mentors for the Pidge Hilltop students Our Hope here is that this is going to create for US future Educators uh we at the high school have some truly phenomenal students that we're happy to get to to showcase for you tonight for us this provides paraprofessional support for p htop and for the high school students it provides Real World experience it's the ultimate and win-wins we will be continuing this relationship again again next year so we have some of our phenomenal high school students and F Hilltop students that are here and can talk a little bit about what their experience has been this year Noel I I know you were dying to talk please come on up fa thing to do um hi I'm Mel and I've been doing this since September or October and I've had a blast it's honestly my favorite part of the school day I go and I first I focused on one kid in specific but as I went to his class every day and I go for 2 hours like every day it's insane but as I started going I developed a relationship and a bond with everybody there and it's honestly one of the most rewarding things I can say I've done you learn a lot about people and like how school is different for everybody um the student I focused with he's really he struggles to learn and people might assume like that he's not smart or anything but like as you get to work with him you realize that he's actually really smart he knows everything he does he just struggles to concentrate and sometimes that's it's it's cool to be able to help someone like that because I mean everyone struggles to concentrate like I I'm not good at math you know I can admit that so it's it's cool to be able to help him and like once he gets comfortable it's cool to be able to see like wow he really knows everything and yeah I don't know I really enjoy everything I've done there and so I think it's a great program and I think it should continue on or ever haly I think you should bring your two up and can all talk bring your two partners your friends bring him up haly's the second grader and introduce yourself and then tell them who your two friends are stand over here so they can see you over here she needs a chair talk about hi I'm Haley and this is Abby and David and they are very great in the class sweet um I loved when I went to lunch with them and I saw all the high scores there it was really fun give it um Abby gave me a tour and it was really fun and good job the intership has been an amazing opportunity I've been so grateful to have it's taught me so much things like it's taught me how to be more of like an adult definitely when I came over there especially because I'm not trying to pursue a career in education I kind of didn't really see it as much just hanging out with kids but definitely it stop me to have more control in there like I had to go in there and bring my own place because nobody really tells you what to do and that was definitely a shock for me and something I really needed especially going to college College next year and it's something that I really enjoy it's taught me how to teach which kind of sounds a little silly but I guess when you're like explaining something to peers it's way different than explaining to someone who doesn't know like nearly as much and hasn't been in school for nearly as long that's been like kind of a shock to me something I really struggled with and also just being around adults has been very strange like working with the teachers who were in our classroom instead of them telling us what to do they see us like on the same level and that has been something very helpful to me especially with the only job I've ever had was with one other teach teenager so I'm really glad that I've been able to feel more like an adult uh going into my adult life so um yeah I also help a kid and he is kind of in the same spot as meel and it's like my favorite part of the day because I have a younger brother and I love to be the role model for him but helping the whole class I can be a role model really early and I try to be the role model that like I wish I had had if I was thanks [Applause] guys so I'm Marissa and I've been doing um internship since the beginning of the year as well like Mel has and I've found it very beneficial in all sorts of ways even though I'm not planning on pursuing a um teaching career I'm planning on going into nursing and I feel like we work with people of all ages so I feel like being exposed to children and like how their minds kind of work and learning how to like deal with them has been very beneficial for me and honestly like just as much as it's seen as helping the school and the kids I feel like it's so beneficial for me as well like it makes me like happy just to like go and see the kids and work with them and it brings a smile to my face each time she she doesn't want to come out she can just wait I just add to what Mr Grizzy said we we've L the fact we've collaborated a lot of stuff um Sports things helping with daycare at PTO music event I mean we've had a great connection here but this has been one of the best when he brought it to me I said it sounds good to me and we put it together and it just grown and grown and I just see both sides I mean I've gotten to know it's nice to see a lot of these kids I knew because they came to pay tail talk it's nice to see them in a different Ro and they just you know done wonders and with our kids and it's just cuz I know some the kids are talking about they really um wanded and turned around some of our kids and the kids love to see them and on your front of your desk we took some pictures yesterday was wonder if M and another girl they put together our kids came over for a lunch with all of them that's the group we had lunch and then they got to take a tour of the high school and see all the cool stuff over here and everything so it was it was a nice thing to do so it's just a fantastic program and like SP just said I'm looking forward to next year and expanding and growing Stephanie I know a friend doesn't want to come up could but could you introduce her to us well she could stay there just introduce you can introduce her from there this is a mani oranga Unice uh she's in kindergarten yeah well thank you for participating in the mentorship program we're glad you're here you thanks welcome thanks for coming thank you thank you thank you yes um so um are you focusing on kindergarten first grade what is your focus for the mentoring program uh students are are in all grades throughout the building um some of our students are more focused on building specific connections with some of the paid Chell toop students um that perhaps could use a Big Brother Big Sister um type relationship other students of ours have a a specific academic area of interest uh be it physical education uh to a specific grade um so we've tried to line them up with areas of their interest and as students have been there for a set period of time uh we've tried to to change around their their day a little bit so that they can experience various aspect of elementary school life yeah some of like say we started out putting in place where teachers could need help and then they high schoolers kind of told us things they'd like to do so it does go g mostly K12 we got the most them but we also have some 3 four five so is this mostly seniors uh seniors and juniors yeah so we we started this fall with just seniors um and frankly it it was going so well uh and we had such a tremendous outpouring from our student population uh that we decided to expand to our Juniors as well um this is something we see continuing next year again I I think for our upper classmen it it makes a big difference in their life we want it to be something that they strive for um and I believe we have the parent of a current Junior uh in the room right now who is very excited to continue this his senior year um so again whe whether students are looking to become teachers in the future or whether they're looking for as Mel talked about kind of the adulting experience um it's that great transition the bridge between being a second semester High School senior or first semester High School senior and getting to to lead your postgraduate life mhm how many students are involved at say the high school from the high school uh right now it's 37 that's a lot okay yeah thank you so a significant portion of our our upper class thank you thank you like I say our kids absolutely love it it and it the difficult part has been because the high school has a rotating schedule so it's not the same time and but they're getting used to the worry but there's be times when some of the kids will be hounding the ladies in the office like when so and so coming is he coming here can can you call see he's coming over that sounds really good thank you uh just a couple observ one I was the pictures here and you have to keep in mind that most of the school committee members come right from work and this food makes me hungry so it's hard for me to concentrate so classroom stuff would be appreciated but what did you have what did you have to eat take amanii what did you have along with the chicken what did you get for dessert uh like a cookie nice those were special cookies not every student here at the high school got those you guys got those special cookies and I think the uh the experience that you g i I'm going down this week and my son's graduating he's an a music education major at Auburn University so he's outlooking the jobs now but as a a a side benefit and you looking at the teaching career there's a lot of places looking for teachers so so you're going to find a place that will be vying for your talents and this amount of of experience is going to help also the other benefit is that as you're all through your your college careers you come home for these odd breaks sometimes you get on list for different schools your phone will go off at all hours we are always looking to back fill so you have automatic work you don't have to schedule anything you just scheduled then you just respond so that can employ you every day and you get experience in an actual School environment and you get to learn I mean you've learned a lot already but the more time you send in the school environment the far better off you're you're going to be so uh my easiest time in finding Subs is those six weeks on the holidays right and then a couple weeks in May when they'll all be coming back from college again that's the best time yeah it is um a few questions in terms of the way you've set it up is it a High School Mentor to an elementary student one to or is it more General to the class is it it's a combination CU um for some it's a one-on-one y like Meha one it started out and and that's cuz going around to talking to teachers and knowing my students and stuff with kids that like say needed that Big Brother Big Sister some of they could work in the not only on the academics part but work on the whole social emotional and help them out with others it's more of a classroom setting and they will go in and you know work with the groups of kids within the teachers you know throughout the course of the day and then with some it's you know floating around like we have some that go specifically to work in you know fizzed with Mr O'Brien and stuff so they'll see dipping classes all day long so great um and I mean just Kudos I think any of these programs where we have students from different schools connecting right you high school to Middle School to Elementary like it builds a community in our district it keeps kids in our district it keeps kids engaged in the district so the more we can do this the better for students who are in it whether you want to be a teacher or a nurse or a banker like no matter what you want to do there are very few nursing might be the one exception there's very few jobs that make you think as hard as being an educator the transferable skills you have being in a school and being responsible even approximately responsible for the well-being of young people it's enormously challenging and so if we're not doing it or if you need someone to help you can write the most compelling resume or college application from this experience so ask Mr Christy ask Mr deppy like ask chat gbt like the critical thinking the time management the project management the interpersonal executive functioning all of this is there and so make sure that you are coming out of this with more than a bullet point that said like I helped kids because you are getting a lot out of this and so so make sure you take a moment before you leave for the summer to get on paper like what are the four bullet points I want to put in my resume because it will be it it'll be worth a lot and every one of them has spent time in lunch and recess too they know how to do oh my goodness if you yeah I'd just like to publicly say say thank you to to Mr deppy for for allowing the high school kids to go there uh for for the high school students that have been showing up there all year you've represented us so well I'm so proud of you guys um this really is putting our best face out in the community um and having you all represent us and who we are um makes me proud every day you you walk across the street so thank you haly and amanii a few years you're going to be high school and you can come through this too what do you think yes she says we have the mdle with us thank you supporting this for encouraging this it was an easy decision easy win I just want to say thank you of I have two boys at paage Hilltop and they love when you guys come over it's like I hear about it I hear everyone's names which I'm forgetting now but I hear about you know the high school students that come visit them so thank you guys you're doing a great [Applause] job thank you thank you students and families thank you for bringing them out tonight it's always great it's our easily our favorite part favorite part of the meeting maybe only second to our um student Representatives so with that I'm going to make a hard pivot um to our student representative Miss Devin Delani I will say was also ptp's really representing tonight okay so MIA could not be with us tonight she had to get home so it's just me um but I'm just going to talk about what I've been up to it's been a while since I've been here so yeah um so first things first is um school year almost over which is crazy and um I started flag football and I love it it's so fun Abby does it too um and I don't know I love the environment it's so fun it's such a like chill sport cuz you know I'm doing Softball too so it's a lot going on but it's really fun and we're hoping to make it to Gillette but you got to be top four so we got to start picking up we got to start doing better um uh for softball you know lots of games lots of uh stuff going on we just had a um a raffle to raise money and we raised over $4,000 which was great and we're hoping to get some gear and some new equipment especially Le and stuff for the people next year and we're hoping to also make it to the you know the state finals but also need to start doing better so um for senior activities um I'm on student council and we've been working on a lot of things um we're going to do paintballing which should be fun except it's two days before prom so we're hoping not to get bruised up can we can we move that what are we doing um which should be fun um we're going to try to have a movie night here at the school with popcorn and candy and we're going to pull the poll to see what movie SP um prom is obviously coming up we're almost all set preparing for it but we just got to get people to buy tickets now um we're looking forward to the car parade you know decorating the cars going through town and I think I'm most excited for the through the years's parade where you walk through the elementary schools and middle school and high school I like would love to see all the kids and like all my old teachers and I'm I'm just looking forward to that I think it'll be really fun um I'm obviously still trying to get the school which is hard and we have all of our AP exams coming up I'm doing statistics and AP Physics C mechanics I'm hoping to pass physics and do get a two in in uh physics wait pass stats get a two in physics that's a goal um we'll see I'll update you how that goes um and then lastly I'm still figuring out the whole College situation um if you asked me yesterday I would have said I'm going to UC Boulder but that actually changed and I'm still trying to figure it out but I think I'm going to villain NOA so we'll see yeah so closer that's all that's all I've been up to that's a thank you yeah so de today is actually Devon's last meeting as our school committee representative um I I I'll tell you from working with her throughout the year I knew her before this year but really getting to know her this year has been absolutely incredible she is a wonderful young woman with an incredibly bright future ahead of her she's made my year better um so personal advice that she's given me on how to be a better principal um I've taken to heart um and you will truly be missed thank you [Applause] Deon before we let de go any questions or comments from committee members thank you for taking the time to come out it's been a really great hearing what's going on in high school um and good luck with college and hopefully we'll maybe get an update even coming back for sure what was the deciding what was your your criteria going between Villanova and older um okay well I was thinking Villanova that's where I kind of decided on but it's really expensive so I was like Colorado is a cheaper alternative where I can get the same like um level of intensity for what I want to do it's really good in astronomy and um space stuff um and it would be really fun and then I found out my financial aid was wrong at Colorado so it's actually more expensive than Villanova so now I'm leaning more towards vova um but I really like it there it's really pretty has great like facilities and I love how it's like right outside of Philly and you know not too far from home so I think I'll end up there just have to find a way to pay for it if you're still open um Catherine got a 10year a u a 10-week internship at uh National renewable energy Laboratories in Boulder Colorado so really if you want to drive out with her in 10 days you can go check it out it's a free ride will fly you home you have a great trip it is really pretty I love Colorado I love it but I don't think I don't think it's going to work unfortunately yeah that's all right I'll take your place on you can go on the trip thanks Villanova is very well respected you know yeah I know it would be great all right well e just echoing the the committee um and principal christe thank you for giving up um your Tuesday and Wednesday evenings um this year it is again second to maybe only the student showcase our favorite part of the meeting um and I mean I mean I know college decisions are difficult at the end of the day wherever you choose to go what you put into it is what you're going to get out of it so no matter what you choose it'll be the right decision um and so it'll be difficult it'll feel daunting but like you'll be fine um and just as a point of uh feedback when you come up and present don't say it's just you we get you you celebrate that so um we know your counterpart couldn't be here but fortunately we have you to present so don't sell yourself short um but thank you it's been Joy I'm not going to be so serious no us have uh kids in high school here we want to hear about the prom when is it where is it and you know the important stuff here okay okay so it's on May 30th from 6:00 to 10:00 at the Sheridan in NASA it's a royal masquerade theme oh fun um I don't know I made the playlist so it should be pretty good it should be pretty good um yeah I'm looking forward to it good good you have to end on a light note you know yeah for sure thank you so much of course thank you guys all right thank you oh I can keep my yes thanks for the pl all right thank you for all of our um students who came and showed up up for tonight Michelle any public comment on the zoom no all right any public comment in the room I'm going to assume no um so with that we'll move to the consent agenda we've got the regular session minutes a trip to Canopy Lake Park and some warrants to approve any questions or discussion on any of the items listed uh Mr chairman should we expound a little bit on the Canopy Lake Park like who it is and stuff like that because we have to sign that separately don't we um we probably do um let me find it in our packet um no it's just an approved thing okay y so it is an approval for the seventh grade out of state day trip for um oh I was very confused because it said April 1st but that is the date of the request um the field trip will be the 13th with a rain date of the 14th um it'll be approximately 131 7th graders um and the cost is $70 per student this has been a yearly trip um they've gone on for quite a while just think you had to put special attention on it yeah any other questions or comments about items in the consent agenda all right I would entertain a motion to approve I'd make a motion to approve the April 9th regular session minutes the annual grade seven field trip to keny Lake Park and then the AP and payroll warrants as listed on the agenda second I'll second it all right do we need we don't need to do a roll call do we we just all right so vote on what's the what are the words I need to say first of all in favor there we go I'll get it I all in favor I great um with that we'll move on to new business proposed increase to in athletic user fees Mr Steven Kendall third favorite participant used to be the favorite by them if Joyce was in my seat Joyce might I'm going to take your advice you get me tonight Dr R gets a night off for me in the sports exactly oh we don't want to put him I'll start I'll start with the good news of the uh what's going on they keep saying everything else is their favorite part of the meeting which is just keep getting bumped that's okay I get it they're hard keep it the I and I'm over there doing announcements every day so I I see these guys coming in and out and my first grader loves seeing the interns come in he loves them at recess Mel and Marissa and James Gauntlet and I've seen the work that they do firsthand because I'm I'm in that building a lot and it's a great program those kids are doing a wonderful job uh and I've seen the difference in the students that they work with as well because I've seen them from summer school last year through all this year some of them my son's class so I I get to see the impact that they've made so I've told them a lot that they've done a great job and I think it's a great program uh Fred and Spencer have started so I'm glad it's happening um going to the sports report so it's been a great spring so far things are going really well despite the the weather being inconsistent the fields are looking great Kenny Lewis has done a really fantastic job and Brian Phil Brown as well was out there a lot uh keeping the fields up today we couldn't quite get the baseball field dry enough to play but uh considering all the rain we had for that to be the first game that we've had to cancel because of of weather on a day it wasn't raining is pretty remarkable so I want to give Kenny and and Brian real credit for that cuz they they work really hard out there getting that field ready each and every day the last two days have not been easy with with all the rain on and off uh our volleyball team our boys volleyball in our second year of competition first year in the midle lausa league so that's a big jump last year we played a lot of Independent Schools independent schedules played a lot of smaller schools this year we've had to make the jump to midwatch where we're playing alonquin and wus and the shoga regional and maror and we're doing very well uh we're we're four and seven currently but they've shown a lot of improvement there's a lot of matches that they could have could have gone either way they've been very competitive and close our coach Brian Leighton um has done a really nice job Brian's a teacher at blacks Valley Tech who I had known from when I coached hockey at MOBA he also a school Committee Member in lunberg um he has he has a fun meeting tonight much much less fun than this one will be I think um but he's done a great job and they've sh really rapid Improvement in a very short amount of time I'm very pleased with what we're seeing from them it's a positive group of young men and a lot of whom don't play any other sport so adding the sport last year gave opportunities to kids who normally would not have played a sport so that's been great to see our track teams seems like this is a broken record but it's a good broken record they're undefeated uh they won they came in second both boys and girls in the Central Mass division two relays last weekend at at Garder uh they did a great job I was lucky enough to get up there it was probably we'll see the same thing here in a few weeks but probably about 3,000 people at the event uh and to see our kids do really well pole vault has really helped us we got six points in in both boys and girls po vault which is something we had not done previously but to be able to add it to our program with the with the new track complex has been really good really help it really was a difference between second and third for the boys U so that was nice to see both track teams host naragansett Regional and Collegiate Charter of L tomorrow that will start about 4:00 and probably end with 200 plus athletes we'll probably end about 9:00 it's going to be a long meet tomorrow um and coming up also we have the Central Mass division 2 meet which we hosted last year for the first time we Host this year again on May 11th uh it's a busy day but it's a great day if you can get up here uh we had perfect weather for it last year and pretty much every parking spot this parking two parking lots plus the entire lower field was filled with with cars as people were up here to watch and we had nothing but positive comments on on our facility which is why we were asked to host to again so we're thrilled to be doing that uh our Middle School track program which started this year another program we're able to start this year has been a massive success we have 45 kids which is far more than we anticipated getting uh and it goes back to what what Christen said earlier about getting kids from different schools involved and we got far more students be able to involved a lot of sixth graders who normally wouldn't be a able to participate in the Spring sport they're not participating um Trey Skipper one of the pair of professionals down at the middle school has been been the coach and working with our High School coaches they they have a nice program goinging our High School coaches have always used to having the middle school kids there there's just a few more of them this year uh than we we used to so they they have a home meet Friday which will also probably be pretty long because that's a TR meet with lunenberg and Tonto I anticipate about 150 athletes out there between those three schools um Chris Donovan our boys coach I don't know if he mentioned this last month but he was named the division five indoor track coach of the Year by the mstca uh so it's quite B second time in seven years that coach Donovan's been honored so obviously does a really good job as our entire coaching um and one more just because I saw him run this race because he beat me seventh grader James Stans who's on our track team he came in he won his age group in the Portland 10 mile race on Sunday he passed me about mile 8 I said hey I kind of I think I know that kid hasn't come by me then I saw his dad go by so congrats him that's a pretty impressive performance at 12 years old to even complete a 10- mile race never mind in about an hour and 20 minutes so good job by James uh our baseball team is currently 8-2 they're ranked number five in the state power ratings in division five um we've got a great group of seniors led by Tyler Crawford James Gauntlet Bradley Marion and James Churchill James Church is among the league leaders in batting Tyler's the league leader in pitching uh they did lose today 5 to2 to to Bron to Tonto in a great a great game uh they host bronfield this Friday and they host uh Mystic Valley Charter School on Monday also want to give a a credit to Russell Kenny who's a member of our football team he's a bronfield student but because we call up with bronfield he plays for us uh and he has started a backpack company uh for baseball and softball backpacks and uh his company has um made a donation which we'll be able to approve next time because they're just coming in um Rango Sports he made a donation to our baseball team which all his teammates from football basically but he made a donation to our our baseball team of backpacks um you know it's a smart business move by him because now all the other teams will see them I want to give credit to him as one of our our athletes but also as a a student who's worked really hard at starting his own company it's probably got he's hoping it's how he's going to pay his way through college so thank you to Russell and his dad and his company our softball team as as Devon mentioned is having a pretty good season deon's one of our standouts she plays multiple positions uh Gabby Sweeney another senior they've been really really doing a great job as senior leaders the only two seniors we have on the team they're forign for right now in ranked 22nd in division 4 um they had a tough loss with Tanto today as well they host St bernon on Friday Tanto on Saturday afternoon and then Mystic B on Monday they got a busy busy week ahead of them but they're doing great our JB team's been a very competitive day and a great game today with Tanto out here uh beat Parker school yesterday so they're doing doing well as well our girls golf team won their first match of the Year yesterday which quite an accomplishment because they beat westbo who's the top team in the league uh I don't think any of them are sure how that happened but it happened so it's great um Taylor new junior junior Grace Cormier and Senior Sophia Watkins have really stepped up uh and as well as we have a we call up with gron we have one girl from gr dille and Emily oen from gr dille has been excellent for us as well it's co- coached by Peter galini a history teacher and Casey sefon also a history teacher here our girls LaCross program we have one girl playing for the the gr Nal Co-op and that's Cari Ewa U she's the second leading score on the team and they're ranked uh ranked 11th with a 5-2 record we're hopefully hosting one of their games coming up soon um for girls across here so Char get an opportunity to play on our home field so we're working on that with the gr program our boys lacked program is with lunenberg we have six students playing for that they've been playing very well we did host a game for them so our our kidss get to play a home game uh last week was kind of a last minute thing cuz they're they had to move a track meet and they called me say can we use the field I said yeah come on up we're able to get them out there get our kids a home game playing in front of a lot of fans we did have a lot of kids show up which was great uh as D mentioned flag football started up and it's still a club sport uh but we've been doing a lot to support that uh between myself and and Dave plazi from lemonster we're working on uh creating another proposal for the Mia to hopefully have that as a an MIA sport uh not next year but the following year it'll be up for vote next year uh but uh Devon's one of them doing a great job Leia Figaro has been outstanding quarterback and then Bella blank Devin Gabby Sween Sophia Watkins car EA playing well because the club sport they can they can play two sports which is technically it's Mi rules but since it's a club they can participate um so it's been good for them they play tomorrow night excuse me Friday night at Doyle field and lemonster uh we hosted the opening week back uh April 15th and we'll be hosting again on May 13th U we had 11 schools here on the an April we have 9: here on uh May 13th it's a Monday night our uh UniFi track program had their first home meet today we hosted Malo really well um we had a lot of a lot of good participation we have 16 athletes participating this year uh really big thank you to to Chad lstr and Kesha Miss Kesha L nunz for their work with uh coaching team we had a bunch of track athletes who helped out uh with scoring and and participating I want to make sure they get credit for that Tommy Bergen will Marshall uh AA Murphy Obi con wandy were were really helpful in getting that program going and and helping with the meet today our athletic trainer Nate defen who used to coach our our unified team he was out there helping and Kevin Southwick a math teacher who pretty much helps with everything like I say Kevin can you help with something he's there so he I didn't have to ask him he was already out there helping out at shop but um they host Thea Regional next Wednesday and we will be the host of the Midland WUSA League meet on May 22nd and our track team's hosting the Midland watch should meet on May 14th as well so that's a Tuesday um we had unified Middle School basketball uh that ran in March uh that was a huge success 16 athletes again coached by Jackie coocher Spanish teacher at the middle school Andrew Skipper another person who pretty much if you ask him to do something he will do it Deon Williams and Natalie Carol um we also had the programs going on at Laura White and Paige Hilltop the unified programs are just wrapping up uh Jackie Klein and me Chase do a great job at the the Laura white one I don't know if you've seen it but there's probably about 60 kids there every week uh playing basketball so they they've done a fantastic job getting that program going uh and Justin Justin O'Brien runs the program over at paig Hilltop with some help from Toby Wells uh they started that this year they did a 3 to five program that wrapped up about 3 weeks ago currently just started the K to2 program and they've had really good participation there so it's great to see that happening at the elementary school uh we have um representative from specials Massachusetts going to come in to work with them about things they can do uh I know we're a unified Champion school for the banner school for the high school but now we'll be able to apply to be a national Banner District uh starting hopefully next year so we'll be working on that as well a couple things that's going on in the P Department as well since I'm working with them as well uh Laura White hosted the the Bruins alumni last week for the bit program which was a massive success the kids loved it a lot of good um advice about leadership and character kids really enjoyed it now thank you to Beth Lewis and Ryan Doner and de watet the PE teachers really helping get that program there um we a couple leadership things going on uh Carly our for mention Carly Mal and Bella participated in our Midland watchus league student ambassador program today uh that was at ultimate obstacles in West bston and Devon did it last year actually uh so 20 other schools participate and they they could have taught leadership skills and overcoming adversity through different challenges some physical some mental challenges uh so they get to participate with about 65 other schools so that was 65 other students from schools across the Midland wus so that was great MCA Grace who was here earlier and Tess Eric Kellan will be our Representatives at the Mia girls and women in sports on May 22nd at Gillette Stadium uh should be a nice venue change uh your daughter went a couple years ago was at Fel Hall in Boston which was a mess to get in and out of at 9:00 in the morning so hopefully uh it'll be a little bit easier to get in and out Gillette so they'll be they'll be our representatives there uh I want to just recognize our orts program at the middle school which has been doing great it's something we're looking to add at the high school next year so I hopefully we'll be able to do that Amy Dell has done fantastic uh kudos to Fred on the Wizards game this week on day I was here for that the first time I've experienced it as a parent and a player it was awesome to see all the the participation of the kids and I was impressed how many high school kids that started when they in first grade were still attending it so it's great to see that we have a couple students with a Civics pro project going on here to help raise money to help buy some CP helmet clips that reduce concussions so Lizzy hos and and Jacob Andre are doing that um I told them whatever they rais I would put towards the purchase of them so they're working on that now so there's a lot going on with the PE department and with other things as well and then just one more thing I'd be remiss if I didn't mention because he's retiring and he's been a great partner for us uh Through The Years Jeff Thomas the a recreation director uh who's supposed to have retired already but still hasn't been able to retire um he's been a a dream to work with we need anything he's up here helping us uh you know helping us run the summer camps uh just a great guy I think he's impact is probably anybody who plays Sports in in this Two Towns cuz he'll go help out fasts and help out shley goes help out shley too so uh I just wanted to publicly thank him for all the work he's done we've honored him at a couple of events but I think it's important to remember uh the guy who puts all that time and for the community I know there's a lot of others but uh with him retiring I think it's a nice time to remember him so uh and one more thing we have uh telegram to a nice article on three sport coaches and we have several of those in our district and God bless them because I did it for two years and I don't know how anybody coaches three straight Seasons um Chris Donovan Mike sein our cross country and track coaches and then Devin Williams uh who coaches assistant coach for football does boys basketball at the middle school and boys baseball at the middle school and also helps with Middle School uh unified basketball and then Trey Skipper another pair at the Middle School uh who coached their middle school track cross country team this year coached our middle school track team uh does Middle School basketball Dev and also helped out with the Middle School unified basketball program so we also have 11 two season coaches so we've we've got a great coaching staff right now a lot of dedicated people and it's always good to to thank them because without them we don't really have much so that's it that's it um before good news before that I I want to interrupt you because you're very good at giving all of our athletes and coaches um their due but uh Mr Kendall was just awarded National certification through the national in interclass athletic administrators Association um he's put put a lot of work into that and um congratulations and thank you [Applause] awesome how are the um the numbers in the the middle school for baseball and softball how are they doing this year softball's at 14 and the B the Middle School baseball teams at 16 but we also have four well and we have four at the JB level and there's four eth graders at the JB level for softball so total there's about 24 38 softball and 42 in baseball between high school and middle school good good so still pretty strong uh which is good because it's I know in a lot of other places it's not there's a lot of schools not having JB teams and it's funny because the school I used to coach at when I after year I coached there six years ago we had 48 kids traveled for softball and now they have 14 yeah uh which is amazing to me I don't even know how it happened but happened it happened quick yice so we're fortunate again that goes back to people like Jeff and then christop IRS and a lot of other people I'm sure many of you who volunteered your time I know you volunteered a lot of time in in the town's gy helping out with with our sports teams too so thank you very Solly thank you I was going to do it for memory then I'm like that's a bad idea I'm going to write especially after be at the Wizards game till 8:30 on Monday still little little Friday from that one uh with the user fees so just put those together real quick summary for you guys uh user fees fund the large majority of our busing officials and support staff for the season uh you know basically the the line item in the budget covers for busing one or two months September and October probably and everything else comes from the user fees and the officials about the same it covers about the fall and then um everything else comes from the user fees and you know we do buy some essential stuff from that not too often we bu in the test that most of the stuff we we able to purchase through a regular budget but a lot of non-essential stuff like I'll buy apparel for the students or for the the staff to kind of wear it out when they're out and about uh so some of that stuff is purchased there too and it's all increased dramatically over the past six years as we all know everything's increased dramatically over the past six years uh the user Fe user fees have stayed steady just as a review the current fees for High School sports is $200 per year uh Middle School sports is $100 per year and the family C of $500 no additional cost for high cost Sport such as ice hockey and then for in reduced lunch have no charge it's not a high number here but there's you know we still have a pretty good number of students who are fre reduced lunch uh I gave you some comparisons to other local schools uh that are in the midlandusa league so bronfield there's a per sport I'm glad I'm not there trying to figure out who's suppos to pay what because I looked at their list I'm like oh my God this is challenging it ranges anywhere from $260 which typ believe was cross country to$ 395 which I believe is skiing and swimming um and we're part of their Co-op uh for swimming and we're very fortunate they they they've never charged our students to swim there they students pay their user fee here and that's it so I'm very thankful for that they've been always been a great partner for us gr dun was $400 per High School sport so if you play three seasons it's $1,200 which is their cap uh for family 200 Sports for the middle school with $1,000 cap and then ice hocke is an additional $500 per season Littleton 250 per sport I'm not going to go through all these you can see them but you can see that they're all pretty much every other school in this area charges at least 250 first four we're 200 for the year which I think is great I'm not I'm not a huge fan of user fees I understand the need for them um you can see there's three that are free and I called all three of those schools Lemer Fitchburg and Clinton and and all three of them said we only have about they have about 70 to 80% free reduced lunch that play sports and it wasn't worth the Manpower time to chase down the $50 user fees they used to charge to make $1,000 they said it was easier just to to wrap it all in that's why those wasn't free um cost increases uh busing just from fiscal year 20 to fisc year 23 it's 56% part of that is co part of that busing part of it is we have more sports teams but we also balance it off because golf never has a bus now because they take the Mini Bus Bas girls basketball last two years have rarely had a bus they've usually taking the Mini Bus uh whenever we can send a JB like JB softball is going to West Bon on Monday by themselves there only 14 kids they take the mini bus so yes there's been an increase because we've added Unified sports we've added volleyball uh but it's also that's kind of been balanced off a little bit by the use of the Mini Bus so that's been a a great thing and that's been used for a lot of other things as well just so you know the mini bus is not just an Athletics thing uh AP testing up at or AP Prep on Saturday La capaso took a bunch of kids up to Nar it to use it it's been used for multiple field trips Amy Do's used it for the gaming team a few times the musical um directors have used it to transport equipment uh band has used it multiple Saturdays so it's been get I would say this spring it's been pretty much used almost every day including some Sundays so it's been it's been used quite a bit it's going to a field trip to to the Museum of Art in Wester on Tuesday uh Special Olympics tomorrow so it's it's getting its use um just to give you football it's an idea all sports have gone up about the same varsity football officials made $77 per game and fiscal year 19 this year they make $95 per game next year it'll be 98 something uh goes up about three to 4% every year for officials uh and the support workers uh have not had an increase for their work and over a deade so like someone who's doing the clock for a basketball game JB and Bary will get $50 for the night it's been $50 for a long time I mean I was doing the clock in the showa regional games 15 years ago and I got $50 a game so they've been they've been pretty steady uh I'm very lucky that I have a great group that do that uh some of them have been doing it 30 years and they love doing it and they don't complain about it but I think it's important to remember that you know they they do a lot of games Kevin sou is one of them at everything U and then equipment and uniforms have increased considerably now we were very lucky that we have a lot of local vendors uh in in the area that will deliver or I can pick up so Matt husk does a lot of stuff for us and I'll just go drive down to Lancaster and pick it up for North bro uh us Sports in North bro so we Save A Lot on shipping uh but those those costs have gone up quite a bit as well so just I mean the guys you guys know that but just wanted to remind everybody that those things are are going up uh exponentially and our user fees make up a lot of our our budget so the proposal would be to go up $50 for both per year for both um high school and middle school athletes to go for 250 the year for high school 150 for the year for middle school with a family cap of 750 uh not including an additional sech charge for iock you know the the challenge for isaki would be this so it's different depending on which team we're talking about so the boys team which is called of lunenberg uh they pay $700 they pay $200 to us they also pay $700 to the lunenberg ice hockey boosters who fund half the program and then we pay $700 to the lunberg athletic programs per kid uh to help fund the other half of the program the girls onaki team because they're CAU with lemonster and lemonster does never use her fee they don't pay anything to lemonster but we pay what was it a th000 1,0 per kid Bill yes yeah it's about $1,000 10 $1,010 per kid uh for each each player that's over there we're the only school that I know of and I've called a lot not just in Central Mass that doesn't have a search charge for I don't think it has to be a lot I think a little bit of a search charge for that high a very high cost Sport and I'll give you another example I coached ice hockey for 20 years at nooba um they paid $385 for a user fee and then they paid a usually somewhere between $600 and $900 of a search charge to to play and for I don't want to speak for all ice hockey parents cuz I'm one of them but um they're used to it $250 is a TR for ice hockey uh and I don't say that lightly because I think it's anytime you're charging money to people I think you have to think long and hard about what's appropriate and this will still be the least amount anybody charges for a Sur charge for ice occup considerable I think roton was the second lowest at 425 so I didn't do this lightly and I make a joke about ice hockey parents being used to it cuz we are uh but still I I don't tread lightly with charging anybody anything extra these days because it's not a cheap world to live in at the moment um that's it for me so if you have any questions I'm happy to try to answer them choice so um Steve first well this is fantastic um but um so this is what people are charging this year right now yes example is probably going to go up next year that's what I'm thinking so are they so they're going through the same thing so if we say well you know we go to 250 and that's kind of matching everybody else but is that going to cover us or should we actually consider more than that at this point considering that these are current ones not what we're going to see from them what they'll be doing down the line I'll jump in on that one see it it it isn't it it's not but we also don't feel like it is fair to increase in one year a Dr itic increase for sports um you know $50 we think is reasonable and we'll we're going to re-evaluate next year and see um you know what it actually cost us um and then in reassess and if we have to do a small increase next year I I would rather do that and to go with with really what some of our neighbors are doing um now it would be a shocking increase to families and we we just don't feel like um that that would be fair uh if if we have to step this up over over years um I think that is is a much more reasonable approach than go from 250 to to 750 um user fee or $600 user fee per sport uh like some of our our our neighb 200 and you're talking about 250 um and if you went to three then that would be 30% which is still not doubling it or anything CU I think you're going to see those numbers from all the other districts at three I would imagine they're going to come they're not going to stay where they are they can't I think you're the cost of busing everything that we need the maintenance is too important um for our fields and stuff like that so um I could ask Bill to jump in this and you know we are going to cover the kids and make sure that we have the sports so that's not a question um so um has that been considered CU that that would be a 30% which is in this day and age of buses went up a a lot more than that um I mean it's totally justifiable in my mind I just wondered where you want to go with it so that uh with the with the $50 uh increase it would be somewhere in the vicinity about about a $155,000 additional I do work with I mean some of you have know this I mean I I do work with any family that comes to me and since you can't pay it on time I'm like fine we can we can work on a payment plan I've let kids work work off their user fees uh you know so we're I mean we're happy to to uh bring some hard numbers to the next meeting and if if if it is the the desire of the school committee to go to 300 which I would agree is still a fairly re reasonable user fee I mean we can look at that but you know roughly and C if you know this better than me it's about $155,000 with the $50 increase so I would assume it would be about $30,000 increase um which is is kind of a drop in the bucket as far as what we pay for Athletics um so we're happy to do that um again we're trying to not be really what we did with with our plan for the for the overall budget um to try to step this in over a number of years was kind of the plan but um if if everyone thinks that um you know a moving to $300 is reasonable that's we can we can certainly look at that and bring you exact numbers um at the next meeting um that would be though um we're at 200 now so if we increase to 300 that would actually be a 50% increase okay yeah yeah uh because the only thing I'm thinking about is from The High School parent perspective like particularly if you have a if you have a senior coming in where sometimes you know throughout the high throughout high school kids will kind of pick up and drop different sports but then that last year if they want to do everything um I would like it I I would like to have that balance so that the kids could do could do everything cuz what I'm thinking about is you know senior year is a very expensive year junior year has some money associated with it and you know parents we all tend to calculate based upon what happened the year before and then of course if there's a slight increase that's fine but when we're talking about the athletic Feast to jump that full you know it would end up being $100 uh it seems a little it seems a little much I see it from our perspective but just being a High School parent flipping that around in the anticipation of when you get into the upper classes that could actually make a pretty big deal given balancing it against the costs and fees associated with that CH could jump in just to clarify it actually would be the 250 is for all sports it's not per sport so the 300 would also be for All Sport I was thinking per semester which is why it's it's it's really we it's a we have a deal right because a lot of other other districts are charging more have a the I was talking about increasing increasing it more you know doubling it um but I was applying it as if it was 250 per semester not a year charge so for once a year so yeah I I still understand the concept of balancing between yes we want to have an increase however if we look at the overall expense even with jumping it even that 30% isn't going to [Music] because I don't want to I don't want to decrease the value in that but if it's not going to really make an impact against the expenses that we have I think helping our student athletes and families be able to kind of slowly increase um might be a little bit wiser just given all the other things that happen particularly from the high school perspective and again being selfish in that I only have one kid she's in high school so one the things I worry about too on that same note is you know if we go up too much we have very high participation rate I I done this year's yet but last year was like 68% of our high school students participate in the high school sport I think it's actually up from last year um I wouldn't want to see that number decrease because of money you know you don't want to ever tell a kid you can't participate because you can pay $250 or even $200 this is why I always work with the students absolutely you want to come see me and you want to come work at a track meet and for two hours we can knock something off or if you want to help me set up a volleyball match we can you know and the kids have been great about it uh the ones who want to do that M so and you do yeah and I do want to highlight that Steve that I I know that you absolutely do that and I've heard that I'm just thinking about parents that don't engage and don't know that so they automatically make the decision for the family without even reaching out um is kind of where I was thinking because you do make it absolutely clear to all of the kids um that you're willing to work with them kids and parents um but I was just thinking from that the perspective of maybe a parent that's not as communicative or engaged they might just make a decision once they see the fire so um but I I agree with you I'm excited to have um the increase particularly we have so much going on not just through all of the sports that we have but the investment that we have from um our staff and from the community as well Ashley did you have something yeah I actually had a question for I know you said it was different for the the boys and the girls ice hockey would they both have that search charge though yeah I think the search charge mean because we do pay for both it's a little bit less for boys because the the family's already paying $700 I mean I think that's something we have to you guys probably have to decide I think it to be Equitable I think it does have to to be 250 for everybody here yeah well I'm just thinking for the boys that would be like $1,200 I mean I guess I don't have I'm not a hockey parent yet I guess maybe one day I'll find out but um that seems like a lot of money just towards the One season um but I guess maybe that's I'm trying to think in my head right now who plays I I don't think there's a single student and I could be wrong but I I in my head I don't I can't remember any student who only plays ice hockey which is rare I'll also point out uh us ice hocky players are ice hockey players and that's it I think every one of our ice hockey players plays another sport so at least it's yeah it's going so it's going over two or three I think most of them are three actually kids I'm thinking of a lot of them are three Season Sports okay and it's it's ice it's buying ice time yeah I is okay no I think that's totally in the buses the buses yeah the only other thing would be I noticed that in your examples which is really helpful so thank you uh but Tings Boro has kind of like a a tiered like they charge a little bit less do you think that would be something that would be helpful so you're not I don't I think if we ever went to the 3C charge every season I think that would be yeah like charge them less for subsequent sports but I mean I just feel like maybe the kid that pays plays one sport is paying the same amount as the kid that plays Four Sports so would that be a way to increase it without kind of like Erica said making you know some of the parents say no um you know keeping it to the increase that you guys suggested but then maybe adding like $50 for the second sport or like add your increase to a second sport opposed to adding increase that everyone gets if that if I'm explain that correctly I understand what you mean I think I think the way you have it structured right now you're not losing anybody if you have 63 to 68% of the community participating um and I don't think people want to know well I have to pay this semester I have to pay this one I have to pay this one they'd rather see it done open to all and the paperwork then becomes horrendous is a lot easier to collect to figure out who's paid when it's on once a year 3s three times a year it gets a little a little challenging for them to track who's paid what family ID helps a lot with that but then when it's paid the volleyball comes up the kid goes oh I can play volleyball I'm all paid for right so they don't have to dig up money again so I would just I like the system where it's just like hey and you're done I do enjoy the once a year I think it's uh and it's it's nice cuz it's not it's not a ton I mean I don't want to compare it to Youth Sports but all you probably have kids who play I just paid for eight weeks of flag football for my seven-year-old in lemoner 135 bucks it's one day a week for an hour and a half but uh it's a different world obviously they have a lot of bills to pay there too um but I I do like the once a year it does I think it encourages three sport two and three sport athletes because I think a kid maybe wouldn't have participate in volleyball might because like oh I already paid doesn't cost me anything to try it I'll try it out once they try it they usually stick with it there's very few kids who quit Sports here which is great and I do love that participation numbers are high and we might be the highest in the mid lach for student participation it's pretty it's pretty great our coaches do a great job of recruiting our PE teachers are going to getting kids out there to try things so I um I wouldn't spend any time giving us more detail on athletic fees and the rest of that because I don't think we need that for the decision it wouldn't help because no matter what you do you're going to be deficit spending right everybody knows that but what I'd like to do because we haven't touched this in a long time is to kind of build into it so I'd rather see a step program that says look you take a look at the numbers here we're way behind and we need some help but you like to soften the blow right you don't like to like Club somebody with it we haven't touched it in a while and said look let's sign on to a three-year program that's like we'll go up 40 this year we'll go up 35 next year and we'll go up 30 the last year to get us really where we think we're going to be and even after that you're going to be up 105 you still be deficit spending we haven't touched it but I think if people know it's there and know it's coming and they can see the increases I think it's going to really soften it for them and you tell somebody next year they got to go up 40 bucks it's like yeah it's a big and then it's going to go down five then it's going to go down five again you're like that's okay and that gets you the 105 but I think we got to we got to make some move now just to get it out there so people understand this is coming down over the next 3 years but we didn't we need to get the 105 but we can't do it to you right now now but we can do this and we'll all find a way to live through it and if that word gets out there I don't think you'll get any push back at all that's a good idea um I'm trying to do the math in my head are we raised this year did we raise approximately $60,000 from Sports fees or how much are we raising in about yeah I'm trying to doing my head too we had about there was about 2 85 high school students who participating about a third of them are free in reduced Lun so we'll say $220 at $200 uh so what's that 40 almost $50,000 and the middle school is about100 at $100 each with a few free and reduced l so it' be about $60,000 okay good job B well they said it was easier math and they said we're going to make $115,000 from I like I can multiply that by four um so I I mean I want to Echo what everyone's saying like this is the bargain in the region um and it is $60,000 or an extra $15,000 in a $33 million budget it's hitting it'll hit families more than it will hit a taxpayer so just recognizing that too for this group like we're making a decision to ask families to pay this versus putting this as part of our school budget because that is another um thing we could do again we could prioritize this within our school budget to invest in sports at the rate that is required to offer the sports that we offer um the other question which is a little bit tangental from this I feel like over the course of this year I've sort of like discovered that we have fees right like Erica you may have one of the maybe the student represent mentioned like oh I'm going to get my license and I'll have to pay for my parking spot I like we pay for parking spots I never pay for a parking spot in high school like I never paid fees I'm like do we know like is there a way to see all the fees an air shely family has to pay to fully engage and participate in the district and not because I don't want us to do this but because I it's easy in isolation and say like oh yeah we'll charge you 50 bucks it's a bargain but if it's 50 bucks on top of you know the r200 on top of a 100 here on top of 100 there it adds up and so I just want to make sure that as a committee when we're making decisions that impact fam spending decisions like we have a complete picture so that would just be my like request um and I also just want to remind us like we could fund Sports at the rate that is needed if we wanted to we could make that decision and recommendation and put it to the towns to um approve or we could prioritize over other Investments that we're making in terms of the things we're spending money on the fees in the hand Park $100 I can tell you that I'm not sure what are the club fees are there club fees we have not g with club fees since the pandemic right there actually where Lem lemoner was a zero no no user fees but they they stopped them at the pandemic and haven't reinstated them although I would anticipate that might be happening to MH right there is a list of fees in the high school um the handbook handbook however uh we can put together a list uh in I should have done my homework when we approved the handbook and a is what you're saying um yeah I I I agree with that but I I think what this also shows is the kind of full spectrum of um fiscal responsibility that we have from Administration to do athletics um and I want to highlight that it does take a special type of leader to be able to balance that because along with creating fiscal responsibility putting in more work that means you need to design a program for people to want to be there so it can't just be oh they're there for the kids I personally love advocating for them but I do children Sunday school once a month because otherwise I may not have a child so I I can't I I love children but I can't be around them that much um that sounds terrible but it's it's true let somebody else take care of yeah um but I'll advocate for him and I'll make money for him I promise um so I want to just highlight the fact that it your leadership Forward Thinking and providing a safe space to to help people to keep going when they inevitably get tired it's not lost on me I don't think it's lost on any of us but I do want to highlight that um because that is using um varying skills to accomplish something so I think Chris is right and this is where we can do some balancing um to where if we need to go and advocate for the budget we can um and here we've been doing a great job of being fiscally responsible and putting it on the parents as or families as well um but then also highlighting that you as an administrator are balancing between fiscal responsibility and providing a um welcoming work environment for those that are around you and I can tell you the kids regularly talk about even at their level where sometimes they can be missed in sports um they feel that they're able to contribute um and that they are supported that they're gaining skills that most times kids don't even start getting into until they start like their first jobs um so I do want to commend you for that um so I think we we all are in agreement s and I apologize for being late um coming from work it was not fun I was in traffic but um I'm sorry I'm just going to orient to this this schedule do we have do we need to do our vote now right or wrong well you make a motion that we um support the high school support increase uh 250 for the year middle school for 150 for the year additional sirch charge of 250 for ice hockey and a family cap at 750 for the coming year second okay Adam did you have something you wanted to say before I I technically can't because there because there's something on the floor there's a motion on the floor nuances um sorry okay you can second it and then I have all discussion you want I think we should just yeah we have we have a motion of seconds you now discussion right right discussion so I I just think I think it's easier to give them a three-year plan so they know what's coming and they know that we have their need their best interest at hand and even at the end of it we're going to still be way down on the bottom GE MH so it won't be we won't have to do this for four more years okay in three years over so I'd rather um I guess well we have we have the motion on the floor so I guess I wouldn't support the existing motion so if it com to a vote I wouldn't but I would be putting forth a motion that would change the increase from $50 to a three-year plan that goes 40 uh 35 and 30 okay so if you're I'll do the vote and then we'll see where we land how about that it passes then we're done I almost got through this year without a Nuance sorry all right Jim you could do a you could do um um an amendment to the motion if you add the years a moment so I would I I'm concurrent with the motion as it exists with the alteration being a three-year step program instead of the $50 per year increase for this upcoming year we would scale it to $40 for the upcoming year $35 for the year afterwards and $30 in the third year do I have a second seconded okay all those in favor of the amend or do we have discussion on this after that right I love you all but I don't love you right now so okay discussion um Jim so uh if if you were to repeat that please you were saying how much in the first year the second year and the third year what was your proposal 40 the first year 35 the second year and 30 the third year so that doesn't give them as much as they want in the first year right it's shorter the first year but it builds in a three-year plan it just makes it an easier whack for the parents so we'll end with 305 at the end of the third year yes I'm afraid to talk cuz I feel like you all are going to make it worse for me okay Erica you're in charge take I know I'm going to take charge here all right so we're going to vote on the um amended vote okay so all those in favor of the amended vote to have the user fees be $40 increase first year $35 increase second year and $30 increase third year if you're in favor say I I if you're not in favor Nay Nay Nay abstaining abstain abstain I got confused all right so I'm going to roll it back and now that that's happened can Adam share yeah cuz that's where I I'm still back there because I want to know what he has to say well I was simply going to going to share that that um Mr quinty had suggested a three-year step increase and we could certainly put together uh there there was one or I was going to offer to put one together for the next meeting essentially but we have another motion on the floor now to vote on which would be the original request so what I am wondering is if we're making cuz the $50 increase would be for the next school year correct right yes okay so then what if you can still submit the proposal for year two and three we just be at a the next meeting we're just we would be forward thinking it's a it's like a split of the baby almost but we're happy to do that yeah and then that way we can communicate it out ahead of time so people still are able to um prepare themselves you can also table the motion till time's certain if you want have to have a motion yeah and just say it's a it's going to be we're going to take the motion as it it's just right now we're going to move to the 15th okay so do I have a make a motion that we table this to the 15th second all those in favor say I I okay so we'll give you the time to do what you need to do but we still are in favor what you'd like in yes please you have anything do you have anything you want to say because I don't want to cut you off no the only thing I was going to say is I forgot the sports update was that the uh Janice pres hand Memorial track was painted so that's on the track got chance go look at it came out nice so been time for the race coming up in a couple weeks that was done two weeks ago so forgot to put that in there I want to make sure I said that to sure sorry before you head out can I ask one other question um what fees do we charge other organizations using our facilities the event fee is that what you guys call yeah like if there's a men's pickup League that plays soccer here at nights and the basketball team use our gyms on weekends like I'm sure there's some range to that so we don't charge I'm going to let you get in the specifics I want to say the go one we don't charge the our wck leagues anything so if you are the wreck department in Shirley or air and um you that is um it is the town's facilities we are just taking care of them so there's no charge for that uh occasionally if somebody wants to use it on a Sunday occasionally we we may have to charge for a custodian is that that uh it depends we usually try to cover it ourselves for the for the leag shy re's been out there this this spring on Sundays using the field which I'm thrilled about because I've been trying to get Keith to to let the teams use it y uh so they've been here on Sundays uh I know we've had a custodian come and open the bathrooms and come and close at the end of the night but charge of anything we want to support uh local Youth Sports as much as possible now if it's a local Youth Sports that is a uh for-profit um they would be they would be charged the fee and I don't know the exact fee so I'm going to defer to Mr School groups and Community groups we don't charge um for like the pickup soccer we it's $100 an hour for the new athletic field okay for the turff uh for the grass fields for soccer and baseball is $50 an hour and then we we charge for custodians to be on site while we have these outside groups uh the community groups are invested in our you know like Park Department Jeff Thomas is always helping us out um so uh it's the groups that are nonprofit or not affiliated with the schools it will charge $100 $50 for the grass yeah we also charge the auditorium that gets used uh quite a bit um we have rental space um for uh Keystone uh classrooms classrooms and classrooms for caps collaborative we have individual us which I would prefer not to disclose um separate separate um certainly could do that in an executive session okay um super helpful and I as someone who supports at the very least the Shirley active I support all the wck leagues but participates in the Shirley wck leagues in the same way that if we're considering um charging families I wouldn't think we need to charge a lot but that may be a place where again it's like we're paying for the janitor to be there to you know open things up there's some cost we're incurring from that is that another way to sort of supplement this further again in all of this I want to make sure that we're getting whether it's our Sports programs our music programs our you know our classrooms the resources they need and if we can't fit it into our regular budget what are all the ways that we can do that we can certainly ask our families we can also ask Community organizations who again I don't think it they can pass costs on too right again if they have 100 I don't know how many third fourth grade soccer there's four teams of 11 just for boys there's another four for girls if they pass or add an extra $5 for each of those kids you know that covers the cost of you know a dozen kids here at the high school um paying those fees so it's something to consider maybe not for this year but for the future um as we you know again there's a lot of cost they're all going up everywhere if we can spread them out as much as possible um we we are looking at um all avenues of that we we actually have a tuition in student from another District uh at a subst stal cost uh we looked we haven't had any in quite a while but um um foreign students uh come in and I'm forgetting the agency we work with Michelle for Cambridge I'm sorry the Cambridge Institute um which it would essentially we charge our per people expenditure but it's been at least two years since we've had a student yeah it's been a while yeah four years four years it's been a while um well thank you so much da I appreciate your time and your hard work thank you for having me it's always always a pleasure to come talk about that very supportive everything we do so I appreciate that absolutely thanks thank you thank you okay so next Dr Renda will discuss the asrsd family engagement plan so I think you're going to be very happy that we put these in memo form uh for tonight because it's just about 8:00 and this is probably the longest part of the meeting is about to start so at the last school committee meeting uh we presented the communication audit and then part of the communication plan and then we we received some some very good feedback about how to uh possibly engage families who we can't typically get to engage who don't fill out the surveys don't necessarily um come to some of the school events or when they do they AR actively engaging with us to to give some of their feedback um so as we started to prepare this it really started to take on a life of its own um and it's it's as you will see it kind of expanded uh from the original idea which is still in there and is at the core uh what it is but I think if we left it at that we'd be missing an opportunity uh to really work on the welcoming aspect of of the district that is is always at the Forefront and a focus for us so I I do and I'm being sincere when I say this uh we do appreciate the feedback because I believe this let us down an Avenue that we probably wouldn't have gotten to on our own um and I think there's a lot of potential here uh but what we would like to do is to start employing proactive approaches to randomly inviting parents or Guardians to partake in various focus groups in initiatives facilitated by not only uh me uh but other administrators uh specifically uh and this is I believe what we had talked about at the last meeting at least once a month uh after a school committee meeting not directly after the day after excuse me um to invite parents in for a focus group and talk to them specifically about something that we want feedback on but also have part as part of that an open form where they can come and uh discuss with us any of their concerns or or or what they would like to talk about so we're looking at a couple of things here we're going to keep the open form I would like to keep the open form once a month before school committee meeting and we can have that in person and on zoom we're here anyway um and we would like to get that to be part part of of our culture so parents know that that is happening and then to be to be more so that's just that's passive right it's happening we know what's happening we'll remind parents and if they come to us in person or in zoom we're there to have that discussion uh but then the next day um actually we probably have at the alternating meeting so we're not um uh jam-pack but the next day what we would do is is specifically reach out and invite parents to come um so we have we have a student information system we have all the the communication um information that we need with parents uh and we can absolutely establish a very transparent way of randomly inviting these parents we don't have that completely uh fleshed out yet but what what we're envisioning is alternating schools one week one month it will be Laura white one one month it will be the high school um and so on and so forth we throw the grade levels uh into a hat we pull out a grade level okay it's going to be third grade we're going to throw the teachers name is into hat okay it's going to be uh Mrs Martino we will have numbers of the students um that are on that roster each number will align with the student if I pull out number two whoever is number two on the roster we will uh invite those parents uh and we're thinking two to three parents that could change um I think two would be one would be awkward I think um two I think would work well three three might but I think above three were were some people aren't going to aren't going to speak um so we're thinking somewhere between 2 or three um to start and we would adjust that as as we go um depending on how effective it becomes uh and that's that's one of the thoughts and this is kind of um it grew from there so from that point we we started talking about how do we how can we use this to to Really um have some diverse engagement opportunities and so there's the superintendent focus group an open Agenda and and that's going to be more more than than just the superintendent I think what we will do is invite some other administrators to be part of that um people always want to talk to our our wonderful assistant superintendent uh so Charlie would certainly be part of that at times maybe um Mrs Payne the nurse director uh or tabosa can be part of it and and we can certainly advertise that um depending probably not everybody every week because that can be overwhelming uh but certainly sometimes have someone else there uh who parents may want to speak to but so stting to invite parents to workshops and seminars that we hold we we've had uh a couple of Zoom trainings from ESS effective School Solutions this year on different topics about students mental health and you know we send it out passively it's on the weekly update and we ask parents to to to zoom in but I think what some of what we need to do and again this can't just come out of my office but it has to be uh every every school administrator's office is that when we have the events to specifically invite parents who we either know are struggling with some of these issues and could benefit from coming to this or has expressed interest or concern so I meet with parents all week every week uh it's mostly phone calls but there's often in inperson um inperson meetings and what I what we started to think is when we have these meetings and parents are expressing their concerns it's not going to take a lot of effort for for us to keep a list of that and what the concern is so that when different events come up that may pertain to that event to personally reach out either it's either it's me or or Michelle um you know it it could be me directly or the superintendent's office to reach out and say hey this is coming up we would like to see you there uh you shared your input with us can you come be a voice and the other part of that is it's really difficult to say no if someone calls you personally and invites you to come it's really easy to say no if you just get an invite or a notification in the weekly update that that's happening so we we're looking to kind of expand it's not so much random inviting but but um personally inviting parents to come to things and we don't do that really at all unless it's it's kind of by circumstance where I'm running into a parent and I would say hey this is happening you should consider coming um I think we're going to make that much more purposeful and proactive um and this's there's no there's an endless amount of things that that are happening in the district where that personal invitation to reach out could could take a uh really be effective and I don't think we have to uh really go through what all those are uh uh one of the other things that we would like to do is it is it is nice to have this uh before the school committee meeting because that's in the evening and then the some of the personal invites can be during the day but we're going to kind of change up the times on those um I think one of the reasons the the coffee with cabinet um I'll say it hasn't been successful but I will say it's as successful as they were in the past all right so we have um we typically have under five five parents show up part of that is we're doing it during the day and parents work we have to we have to change the times that that we're doing that so we'll have some things that are on a fixed schedule are happening at the same time some in the evening some during the day but then some of these other things including the the focus group with the superintendent we we need to change up the times for that and and essentially the parents that we invite randomly are going to set the time for that because we're going to have to find a time where they can all come so um we we'll be open to that and that's going to be a scheduling uh challenge for Michelle thank you in advance uh for taking care of that uh and then the other part of this was really is to take advantage of opportunities when when parents are already in attendance and it's a it's kind of a it's this is the beginning of an idea but um we're already all going to things um I'll use the musical we I we did two musicals in in um a weekend recently I was at a Friday night and a Saturday night I could have very easily shown up 20 25 minutes earlier set up a table with a banner ask a superintendent a question and just sit there and see who who comes and engages I'm I'm certain some some parents would um but I think it's got has to be more than just from out of the out of central office and the superintendent's office so whatever we we employ we we'll probably do some of this um at the school level too uh I'm certainly open to feedback on that but um we really think this is a much more proactive way uh to to engage with families who don't typically engage with us by asking them personally being available uh to them at something they're already at and then um getting that personal invitation um after they have expressed interest or concern on different topics that they're already talking to us about so that's kind of like the the the uh three-prong approach and then the personal Outreach i' mentioned before you know is really important like I said if if we give you a call and ask you to go to something at least me personally if I get that personal invitation it's hard for me to say no but if it's just something if it's a Google invite or an email or on on a uh weekly update it's it's quite easy to to overlook it and skip it and then really my role is going to be modeling this um uh for the other administrators and um you know actively greeting and participating and walking families and facilitating the interactions um at these events um which is you know something that we we regularly do but now it's going to be uh in the form of asking for um input and feedback so and like everything else that we do we're going to we're going to try this we're going to collect some data we'll see if it's successful and if it is we'll keep going and if it's not we're going to adjust so that's kind of where we are uh with this I know this kind of morphed into something um I think on point for what you were asking but but probably a little bit more uh I'm happy to answer uh any questions or clarify oh good I think this is good um we we gave you a task and you definitely the need um well the Fe the feedback was uh very clear um so it's and and actually when we started to to think and talk about this it it was it would have been um a missed opportunity just just to leave it at that one thing yeah um great absolutely great thank you um for that like I'm sorry I'm I'm still like digesting and reading but I definitely like the way this is going and also with a personal approach the other thing is is that that shows that we're paying attention when they come in and they speak to us because sometimes you know parents can come in and they feel like they're not heard or they're so distraught that they then question if they appropriately communicated the need so circling back and providing that you know invitation um I think would be great um because then it also shows that we we're engaged we are listening and even if you feel like you didn't Express Yourself well this is at least the the takeaway we got and we love to partner with you so I think it's great well thank you it's it's uh the systems that we're going to have to set up so that we don't miss these opportunities is going to be interesting one of the things that was supposed to be on here and I forgot to put it on um was a an online uh suggestion box um on our website and then one that goes out in our our weekly emails because we don't really have a way besides sending an email um a way to give feedback in that way at first we were going to we were thinking of a ask us a question box but that that's tough because we could literally get hundreds of questions that we would then be on the hook to answer in a certain amount of time whereas um the suggestion box is is a little bit more passive so that's something that that we will start that one will start relatively soon that's an easy setup um and a Google form and and um forgot I put that that was actually a a s from Michelle Town um and I forgot to put it on here so my apologies Michelle um y Adam so you just said that if you had if you said it was a question box you would get a million questions I would guess that they would break down into two or three strains MH where you would have yes this is the same thing that you're talking about and you're talking about and you're talking about so you wouldn't be necessarily answering each individual one but we have had the question about and then a comment or response in that way I don't think you're going to get well we could we could certainly do that I would I would want to do that so it's not Anonymous right um you know we would have to collect an email address and a name um and phone phone number for a response because it it uh from talking to some some other people who have done things like this anonymous questions or no you don't want questions uh that you have to post answers publicly to turn turn into a nightmare information in there yeah but if we if we did that it would have to be very transparent we want to know because you know someone can have a bad day um and shoot off a lot of questions then we would be on on the for answering which is fine we certainly have to answer questions from from parents in the community but but we we'd have to be very careful how how we Tred to execute that um I I like that idea but I feel like if we started with a suggestion and then maybe if we kind of ran out of steam then we switched a question in here's why people's interpretation of what they're doing versus what you put out and communicate can be two different things because I could very easily see that going from I put this question in the question box and the superintendent never got back to never got back to me yeah so I feel like if we start with the suggestions right because you can kind of take a ball and run with that you have time to build it up because those are skills skill that you all have given that you have so many different things that you do when you're building you know different programs and then eventually you know maybe if you get to a certain place or space test it out but that would be the my concern would be some people may utilize it in correctly um and and then you have a different set of issues on your hand um that's just might two subs Ashley did you have something yeah I just um s Ashley no um I like this I think it's really great uh the only thing I would say is maybe try to incorporate I think you said this but incorporate the School principles and assistant principles I think by the time that the parents are getting to you it's because they didn't feel heard or didn't feel satisfied with the response they got from the school principal um or the teacher or I mean whatever steps I feel like hopefully they're following some type of chain of command so I think if you gave a little bit of um like if you kind of teamed up with the principles it would give them a little bit more like I can't think of the word I want but experience yeah they just um it's going to kind of like make sure they complete whatever task you're giving them whereas the parent feels like I keep emailing the principal I keep emailing the teacher I'm not getting an answer if they were able to collaborate with you guys as a team they're going to see you holding that principle accountable and it might kind of ease their their concerns cuz I'm guessing a lot of it's really not something that you should be having to deal with or that would be something on absolutely right so I think that put it and I'm not saying that anyone's doing anything wrong but put it back on that principle yeah so the parents heard but then the principal's doing what the principal needs to do completely agree and that is absolutely part part of this um and I would say it's about 50% I would say 50% of the families absolutely follow the chain of command and come to me when they feel like um they they can't come to a resolution with the school and then there's there's 50% that just jump just go straight to uh straight to the superintendent but in In fairness when that happens we do try to direct them to have you in does most of the screening have you talked to the building principal yet have you talked to the teacher and and we tried to direct them back uh to them first and then we we absolutely um give the school a heads up too saying hey we just got this call they're calling you let's make sure we uh we contact that parent and try to resolve this but this can't just be coming out of the superintendent's office this this whole plan has to be integrated um in all four schools yeah completely agree um Ashley you segue into you you brought something back to my mind that I thought like as soon as you said it's was like oh my gosh i' I've it's probably been months that I've been wanting to kind of highlight this so I think for us like in our our roles even though we're outside of the district it it's something that happens in any career path um as much as we celebrate the changes and recent strides that we've made as a district we have had a lot of change in leadership and we have a lot of new leaders and I think in in not that what you said was negative I'm just going in a particular vein the expectation of parents is that you have to recognize that we have some people that are still learning at a certain level so they're not going to automatically know I mean Mr deie we know he's been in his role for a number of years um Mr Christie has been in his role for a little while um we have our Middle School principal which has probably one of the hardest schools is new so we've got to recognize and maybe even some sometimes address when we're having those oneon-one conversations that they need time to grow in their role too um and as much as Adam is going to step in and Charlie steps in you know to assist and help them grow just like when we're on the job and we're in our management or um um what's the other role I can't think of it but in in our higher level roles as we grow into those roles you know making sure that we still highlight to parents because they're they're not going to know you know what I mean like in their mind you know this is a principal and he's supposed to know what to do and that's absolutely not true there's tenants that they're going to know but they're not going to know it every single time they're not going to get it done appropriately that's why we have you know Adam and Charlie here to help them and walk alongside them but I did think that a while back it was important to highlight that we have a we have people who are growing in their careers and as we all know it's usually the first five years when you're in those roles that you really get your a lot of your hard knocks um so I I think they're doing a good job not knocking them but I just want to kind of highlight that abstract Point um so that people kind of remember that because we've grown a lot but we've had a lot of change at the top and that's great to move forward but at the same time we have to accept that we're going to have some growing sorry I didn't mean to segue but I if I didn't I wouldn't remember so I appreciate you let me jump off of that go ahead Adam well any other questions on that or do you want so um next uh we have a proposed time change for to for the middle school and high school stock times for next school year so essentially we have a very technical problem that we haven't been able to solve um we have teachers who are staying past contractual time to supervise students waiting for a bus at the high school on a uh regular basis uh daily um we've tried to solve this problem by working with deboss and asking that they stop dropping off middle school students when they leave the Middle School what's supposed to happen is we have buses who uh they pick up both middle and high school kids and then do a run um when buses are leaving the middle school they're supposed to drive directly to the high school and pickup students and then begin the Run um they are making stops from the Middle School um uh on their way from the Middle School to the high school we have contacted Debs at least three times to let them know this needs to stop um and they're not uh and when we are talking to the drivers they are telling us they have permission from D to make those stops and it is putting us in a situation where we are not following the um the contract the teacher's contract so um our only other uh Avenue to start this is to have a little bit of a differential in the start and end times between the Middle School and High School um since we can't get this resolved um with d what we would like to what we're proposing is the high school starting 5 minutes earlier then they start this year and ending five minutes earlier and the middle school starting 5 minutes later and ending 5 minutes no wait a minute do I have that in Reverse I would need the Middle School excuse me I would need the middle school I have that in Reverse my my apology I would need the high school to startop five minutes later and end five minutes later and the Middle School to start five minutes earlier and end five minutes earlier this would this would change it we would actually be reversing this problem a bit when we have students in earlier but the difference is is the buses drop off in a staggered um way whereas for dismissal all the buses leave at the same time so it's a much easier problem to manage in the morning than it is in the afternoon questions um D busing company m M so we've talked to the drivers the busing company we' we we've talked to everybody that we should talk to it t we can't they're just like this we're just going to do whatever we want no we've been told that that they're going to stop and then they don't MH and and and I wouldn't I I I wouldn't be expressing this if we weren't at a point where we just don't feel like we can solve this with them they can't get drivers so like the drivers are like look I'm going by where this kid lives and I'm dropping them off and that's what I'm doing I'm not going to make stay on the bus as I drive by house go up to the school and drump off on the way by I'm just going to do what I want if you don't want me to drive the bus you can go you know brush yourself and you don't think it takes a lot of time but we're talking we're literally talking 5 minutes 10 minutes is is a is a big deal here and you know teachers are teachers want to make sure kids are being safe and they're staying but day after day after day it's becoming a union issue and quite honestly I don't I don't blame them um you know we we should be able to solve this yeah and by the way we tried to solve this all of last year and they the teachers union was fantastic allowing us to try this we weren't able to solve it last year we haven't been able to solve it this year this is kind of like this is how we think we can solve it which is why we're here um and asking for this I mean I I'm asking mostly because of we I know how much we spend with d and I also know that they've got a monopoly essentially in terms of our options right it's not like we can go call Shirley bus company right um and so but it is and again 5 minutes here 5 minutes there not a big deal I'll figure out how to get my seventh grader up five minutes early next year um and it is frustrating for a company whose costs have gone up as much as they have make up such a significant portion of our budget isn't able to sort of operationalize this relatively straightforward thing and and to be fair you know it is very difficult to find drivers uh so that that could that could certainly be playing into it uh I don't know but um you know we again all of our other attempts to solve what we think is a pretty simple problem uh have failed and it's it's not fair to Azria and the members and the teachers that are doing it to to continue um down that Avenue when it's it's obvious that we're we might be able to get it fixed for a week yeah uh and then it's right back to um the not being fixed yeah yeah okay um contractually with the bus company will this change anything I mean obviously the contract is not helping us in the sense of getting them to do what we're asking so will this time change are they going to fight the time change are like they going to be not there on time so then the issue continues I'm looking at you Mr plet I don't think 5 minutes for East Building is going to is going to mess it up the the air buses for the middle school high school runs have to be at the Middle School uh and then they have to go directly to the high school so I think I don't think it's going to be an issue Shirley the Shirley buses there's only two or three buses that come over to line up at the high school and they're there on time uh it's it's just waiting on the air buses to come over from the Middle School okay so I think they'll all be able to get there on time but we'll monitor it very closely yeah well I'm just thinking if you change the time I mean is it going to change the uh cost to be there yeah and you're also asking them to get there earlier shouldn't because we're going to be the pickup time doing two TI still we have two two tiers high school middle school and the elementary so that's what we're paying for 12 buses for those two two tiers okay right so we need to make sure when we structure that that the pickup times in the morning doesn't change for D in the pickup times pickup Times Obviously in the afternoon um really would change we're actually just giving them a PO hopefully the way that we we we do this will just give them a bigger window right a buffer a buffer to to be on time because there have been times when I believe we've had some students dropped off late here but for for for valid reasons either an accident or a train um so that would hopefully increase that window so that doesn't happen but that's certainly something we're going to have to look into and we will come back and and um report that out and if it is a cost increase we certainly come back and ask to have that change back um so can you remind me is is the transportation services in this case it's D but I'm asking in a general um is this a company or are they a union like how is the contract written again is it just where we have a contract with a company that's de yeah we go up to bid they they respond to the bid they're their only player around right and so it's a sing single bidder right and it's a public that's still a public well not public like like Mar bus but they are a private company private they're a private company providing is it technically a public service given that r no no okay it's like buying uniforms yeah it's a contracted service through a private company yeah um I don't know why I was like hung up on that and having a hard time with it okay and we do have a contract with them right three years with two onee extensions possible wasn't that just last year we renewed the contract or was it two years ago I think it was two years ago I mean I know I was there I just don't remember what year it was it was that's why I was asking that okay and and also to be fair I mean they they they do runs every single day and almost every day there's no issue right right so I mean this is just the the one thing we haven't been able to solve so um you know how many we have 12 buses 12 M okay and most of the time those 12 buses pick kids up and bring them home um uh without incident this is this is the the one m to us major thing that we we need to solve uh for the high school teachers here and and honestly for the kids because they're waiting an extra 20 minutes uh a day right now to get on the bus and go home and as you know 20 minutes uh High School stent waiting 20 minutes to go home is a recipe for bad choices right yes yes I would be among them walking to my home just so I get it I get it so I I appreciate you all and also the high school um I think we all do just to kind of work together to fix that but yeah I um do we need we don't need a vote for that do yes we do yeah because it's the start and stop times what's wrong with me okay get it together all right so does anybody else have any other discussion if not I'll entertain a motion I'll make a motion that we accept the starting off times as suggested by Dr rinda tonight for the buses to make it more officious all right second that all right all those in favor say I I I all right okay next so we have the recommendation to accept school choice students for 2024 2025 school year based on available seats Dr Renda take it away thank you so we are asking uh for uh to accept the recommendation to accept school choice for the 2024 25 uh school year kindergarten through Grade 9 as you can see from this handout um we have determined the number of open seats at each grade level except for grades um kindergarten uh grade n and grades 10 through 12 which we do we have never opened school choice or that we ask that you don't open school choice uh the reason that we don't uh have these numbers for kindergarten is enrollment is not yet complete though it is higher at this point in the year than it has been in recent years so we are expecting uh rather a large kindergarten class uh at both Paige uh Hilltop and Laura White and for uh the high school we don't have that number because we we do not yet know how many students will be attending um Tech or possibly Parker Charter or or some other choices um so these open seat numbers change on a can change on a daily basis we try to cap kindergarten through second grade at 20 seats now we say 20 if we have if we have um High enrollment for kids who live in Aaron Shirley that number can be higher uh than 22 however if it is at 20 the average class size is at 20 we what we would ask is that school choice not be open to raise that class size with students who don't live in the community and for grades 3 through five we're asking for we use a cap of 22 and then um 6 through uh 6 through 9 uh 25 so we are asking you to vote to open uh with these current seats and these seats will be updated um on daily basis and we will ask you to close school choice for specific grade levels when we reach um capacity if I remember correctly starting back around December so what we we looked at something like this and we were not ex we had like maybe nobody open mhm so have we have kids dropped out what's the change here cuz this is adding eight adding 19 adding 23 there's quite a difference of not having any open areas so what was the change some of the change for the Middle School uh and high school is we were at 22 mhm we feel 25 is a manageable number for middle and high so that opens some available seats uh and then for the others uh this is because this these are projected numbers for next year this is not the the current year so but you will notice that most of these um there's not many seats open so uh the projected kindergarten enrollment was down this year uh so the projected number at Laura White um for first grade is three open seats so that would be one student per section and that'll take you up to 22 per section that would right that would take us up to 22 per section and if you look at first grade at um P htop page Hilltop um that is that number is uh much bigger because there were three kindergarten sections at uh P Hilltop this year but that kindergarten class will be going into first first which will have four sections so that's why it looks like there's there's 23able seat kindergarten on P no first grade no I'm going back to kindergarten which is going we will be yeah we will be adding the we will be adding the fourth we'll be adding the fourth section back it there's already a need for it with the number of enrollments that we currently have so we have instru we have teachers and everything for that because oh yeah that seems like in space yeah no we have we have the space and outer space we have the classrooms and we have um we do have the teachers there will be there will be a posting uh for a kindergarten teacher but we already have um plans for that okay and will there be a posting for first grade at paage Hilltop there won't be there will not be a first grade opening at page Hilltop it just seems like such a change because we had like well we talked about this yeah well you're looking you're seeing that massive number at paage because there was there the kindergarten enrollment was down now that could change Dr that could change very quickly we've had a ton of movein this year too so um you know we that is you know having a a class size of 16 is is fantastic um I would I can't imagine we're going to have 23 students looking to school choice into first grade that P I mean that we've had we've never had any type of request like that that just happens right now it just happens to look like there's 23 available seats but uh we get roughly I don't know somewhere between 30 and 40 requests of school choice between now in in August um and we don't tet we we accept somewhere between 20 and 30 and and that is because um not everybody is looking for a spot where there's an available spot in fact we get a we actually get uh quite a bit for um High School 10th 11th and 12th grade but it is um it's very difficult for us to take High School school choice students in and make sure that they grad on time yeah complication yeah well typically students students are looking to change um for for a reason for a struggle and the problem is at High School in um for because there is credit and graduation requirements it is then very difficult for us to help them get across that stage on time and then there's a there's unfortunately there's it negatively impacts um the high school and in their accountability so that's that's one of the reasons why uh it's just simply easy easier to allow school choice in when they're freshman so that we can guide them through that that process but it's really difficult and it's this this is barely common practice for a lot of high schools um to to not accept uh 10th and 11th and 12th graders right even ninth graders uh some don't yeah we we we do does that did that answer the question some I know when it's was just like we were not open to anything there were two spots in the world and now it looks like a different pictures yeah Jim but if you were reducing a section at page hiltop first grade wouldn't that put you right on target for your what you're looking for per classroom and if I mean if you moved it down to three sections that put you at your 22 number and then you just close you're open accept no other people in you just drop one section we put it in kindergarten we we could um but where where trying to learn a lesson from what what we did this year so we I had cut the section in kindergarten this year because the class size was down and that resulted in uh what was a very difficult year for pig hiltop kindergarten in retrospect if I could go back and not make that decision I would not have made that decision I would have I would have kept um the four sections and had our kindergarten teachers have 16 kids per class and we're looking to rectify that this year uh in first grade to spread those kids out have the lower class size and have the opportunity to um have a really positive um impactful year for our first graders with some early literacy just I just look at it and it's like trying to get Equity across all the grades and all the schools and and it really stands out a lot and when you start the way that means you chase this bubble all the way through to middle school so you end up absorbing that extra teacher all the way up to the next four yeah we we are we are reducing a section of fourth grade this year for for for that exact re reason but there's it's a little bit different because in fourth grade they're really have they're they're in the process of making the shift of learning to read and reading to learn and in the younger grades they they're still learning to read and and the there was a lot of added stress on that kindergarten scene this year um uh that that we really didn't anticipate for and uh part of it too there's there's some dynamics of that actual class and the makeup of that class and the students that are in it that we feel it would be better to push them from three sections into into four sections anyone else as a parent of one of those kindergarteners I would wholeheartly agree and I think they definitely need four groups and I think that especially I mean if you look back um the year before last the first grade had five sections mhm so I think yeah you kind of have to keep first grade as light as possible um with that being said would you if you did get an influx of school choice would you at some point you know cut that back knowing how important the first grade cut it back as at the well right right now so the the class size the the highest the class size would go is and I think that actually might be I think the yeah that's actually not 23 so it is we round that up to 7 it was that's 12 there 12 open seats in first grade my apologies um I I taught Ela um but so what here's how we do that 16.3 there's no such thing as a03 kid so we round that up to to 17 on average which means there would be three open seats per section times four sections is 12 not 23 so with that should we entertain adding another section to L white because that would bring you the first grade L white at the exact same number as the first grade of P DOD it's already certified that brings you to 16 on both first grades that would be incredibly difficult to do right now with the budget certified um it would be cutting from somewhere else but one of the things that we we could do if Laura White does not grow yeah that's what we did this year too um space we're going to have to look at that and um come back with a recommendation probably at the next meeting um but where we wouldn't be open for kindergarten um well it doesn't M it's not kindergarten it's the first grade but uh we can do that uh come back with a recommendation for that and it shouldn't affect the the school choice because these number of open seats will be completely different by the time that we do our school choice lottery in August than so you could still vote to open it um I think we can we can for that I think we should explore it but I also think that we should just accept what's in front of us because that doesn't find our hands to open another section for first grade if we decide to do that because this is only about whether don't accept new people in so we can just accept the plan as is and then take a look at maybe add another section at Lori white to give us the U Equity across both SC or or just close the school choice at law first grade and leave it at 21 kids if you're worried about the class size but well actually I 21 and 16 is a very different to explore it but I think we should I think we should approve what's in front of us right now we should take a deeper look at that see if maybe we have other opportunities here I have no problem accepting what's in front of it actually the school choice at Law in first grade should be closed U because they're already at an average of 21 and we try to cap that at 20 for a k through two so that wouldn't but we could we could we could look at that uh or come back with a recommendation for that too anyone who wants to go to law we can push them towards p m chair I think we should just table this till we see help see come back with it a little tighter I'm looking at you at oh um I mean you could again the the way that we do school choice and um the way that you vote for the number of open seats we won't have a lottery until August these seats will all change by then uh so essentially what you're voting on is to allow uh the superintendent to to make decisions when there's um available seats whether or not to accept SC choice these numbers are just currently what's available it's floating it is floating it is always it is always changing and we are um so we could table it but uh a yes vote would not impact any of the other recommendations that we come back with I would make a motion that we withraw that and then I would make a motion that we open Choice there you go second all those in favor say I I do what you got to do thank you keep this posted all right so not sure if I may y um we have the superintendent report and two memos on the uh superintendent goals yeah um which are three three separate memal two from from myself one from Mr clear which will be very quick because as we know he's exceptionally at being exceptional being concise um none of these are except for the superintendence report are really timely I I'm not sure if you want us to power through we're happy to or if you want to uh table some of these until the next meeting making me think today um so I'm going to say given the time if you want to extend it to the next week so long as there's anything is there anything that you would like to highlight I will say that there you go next next agenda is not as packed as this correct no yeah I mean we're we're happy to do it we're prepared it's it's done um but it's they're not quick okay so yeah then I have no problem with doing that okay it's 8:40 yeah okay so do I cuz now I feel shaky about it is there anything that I have to do we should do the superintendent report and then we can table the yes yes what he said okay back okay some District updates so at the last meeting we were asked to provide some historical data around attendance uh for discussion uh the Friday before Labor Day um being a school day versus a non-school day for students um and then we're going to look at the Wednesday before Labor Day the Labor Day holiday and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving we have this information we would like to share with you sorry I have this on a link here if you could just give me a moment I'll bring it up perfect so um when we look at the student dat uh data for the Thursday before Labor Day uh there really isn't a significant drop of attendance attendance is pretty good everywhere um P Hilt up 96% Laura White just edges them out at 96.8 the middle school at 96.2 it's that's great Middle School attendance uh and the high school uh being at 90 92.2 so no no significant drop the Wednesday before Thanksgiving uh a little different uh 84.8% at paage 84.2 at Laura White 86.4 uh at the middle school and 76.3 at the high school that's that's low attendance um uh for all the schools and then the Friday before Memorial Day is actually in my mind kind of the most interesting um the page Hilltop lower white in the middle school fairly typical attendance uh Pages a little bit lower than what they typical are but the high school uh on that Friday before Memorial Day 5810 I'm not sure if that is a skip day or what but that is low that is a parent skip day that's something I can absolutely attest to that that the Senior Skip Day that particular school year um I wish I could blame it on them but I do particularly remember for like last year um it was the Nuance of people wanting to go on vacation and being Frugal and seeing an opportunity while airfare was lower to take off that Friday so I very much want to say that was a parental I was not among them I'm just saying I heard a lot of chatter and it was a very good week and the fairs were very good and on top of that the seasonal passes for summer began so my best guess is that's what happened you that makes sense now it's the same Trend really for um the staff really nothing significant on the Thursday before Labor Day or the Wednesday before Thanksgiving um you know four staff out in a day isn't isn't all that uncommon but when we look on the Friday before Memorial Day that's pretty high uh pH hiltop had eight staff out Laura White had six uh the middle school had three and the high school had six staff out so that that that that's a bit High um so there is a uh a trend for um students and and maybe some staff to call out on that day uh Southwest and Frontiers um fly all summer for $500 past begins May 1st just thr it out there I think that the Southwest ad have to get away or need to get away yeah you just you book your flight and the only thing you have to pay for is your bag and you could fly every day if you want to so I have a feeling that because it started on May first that might be why you're seeing what you're seeing okay well with the with the um actually approved calendar we that they're not going to have to call out um or actually it's a early release day that day M all right so maybe we're enticing them to to at least come to the a little bit for the for the most of the day right any questions worrying about the Wednesday before Thanksgiving you want to worry about the Friday before Memorial Day make it I'm not I'm not worried we're g to we'll get through it either way um but um I I would have thought that Wednesday before Thanksgiving would have had the highest um absentee rate for both students and uh and families but I think the the weather is a big draw yeah right and it's it's it exactly um so uh next is the update on the course syllabus uh following up on Miss man's question at the last school committee meeting teachers can upload their course syllabus into the class subcription section of Power School uh it's only viewable by students uh not by the in the parent portal and uh Mr tibo our director of Technology uh has let us know that it's not very int intuitive and it's difficult to locate in power school but we can certainly make that easier uh by sending home uh some information on where to find that and to ask ask teachers to model that where to find that for students um yeah or when um I can't I can't remember what the and I'm only thinking about recent years but you know the initial Outreach that's done in the beginning of the year um maybe if the teachers make sure that they scan in their syllabus they attach it in their email because then that way we can download it and save it and that way it's not a huge lift because I know Mr TBO tries everything he can before he you know says something is very cumbersome and on top of that that just tells me to have my kid screenshot it and send it to me should already be in Google Classroom it should be in Google Classroom I agree and we can make sure it gets in Google classroom also uh the Shirley finance committee has uh reached out at uh Mr Brian hillbrand uh for some School tours um we will be touring the high school and pH htop Elementary School uh this Friday their thought was to see the newest School in the district and one of the oldest and because of the proximity of the schools on the campus they thought this would make the most sense uh the tours have been scheduled for Friday this Friday May 3rd 2:30 for the high school 3:30 for pH Hilltop and we would uh extend an invitation to any school community members who would like to attend if you do plan to attend if you could let us know by tomorrow so that if there's more than three we can post this as a meeting today at 5:00 p.m. to Clos don't off don't okay we would like to extend the invitation to three school committee members first come first serve I'm happy to join is there a reason that'll be three um why the Shirley finance committee would pick the two I mean I know the high school is part of that it feels strange they should go to Middle School um I would imagine it's because most of the members of the finance committee know the Lura white school very well already okay uh but that that's certainly a question that you could them yeah I'm happy to join if there other folks who really want to meet these folks I'm happy to give up my seat um and I'm happy to table that question for them during the tour ch um I know I've discussed this with at VAR times when we were interviewing superintendents and if there's no votes being taken at something we can attend because there's no votes being taken so I don't know that it's not a posted school committee meeting there will be no discussion there'll be no votes so I think anybody who wants to come and stand around have I don't think you have to actually post it because it's not a decision making well thank you for clarifying that I was mistaken and I've gone through it a number times and I know it's difficult because we do need to post etc etc but that video during the training they said like even if we're a Duncan go outside huh I don't know during the like video for the training I remember there's like an example it's like if you find yourself in the Ethics Committee they're like if you're at Dunkin Donuts and there's a quorum one of you needs to leave I mean that's practice really but it's not not a a if you end up at a cocktail party together it's okay what I'm looking for V it's not in violation of the as a as a mitigation strategy and I don't know how logistically cuz I know you you're talking to the the building principles as a mitigation strategy let's say all of us do come we could also segment off with different people that are coming from the finance committee then that way we're not together we we can do that if we need to yeah exactly break out those Co rulers yes I would do we still have some cuz I would like some at all times just one in my car one in like masking tape on the floor to seg way how far you need to be sorry sorry we should get back on F we're trying to wrap this up it's 8:45 okay so uh next uh student cell phone use during the school day so there's been recent concern from multiple parties from uh teachers parents administrators some school community members um in the district concerns about cell phone use of students during uh the academic day so back in 2017 and 18 a self-owned policy for students was discussed the school committee determined at that time that the electronics use policy outlined in the student handbook um would suffice as um the school committee did not want uh to set a precedent on and a discipline uh in a policy coming from the school committee um so what our student handbook essentially States is on the first offense the phone will be returned to the student at the end of the day day at the second and third offense the student will be returned the phone will be returned to the parent and guardian and form more offenses uh electronic devices will not be allowed in school it may be left with the administrator for the school day and serious discipline consequences may follow so uh the part of that serious discipline consequences may follow um that is not a suspendable offense uh according to um 37h 37h and a half and 37h and 3/4 so I think the most severe that we actually could get as a Saturday detention um however if if you would like to explore a cell phone usess policy um and add this to the school committee policy manual we can certainly draft a policy for a future school committee meeting uh masc does not have a policy on cell phone use uh during schools but it does have a policy on the use of technology in schools uh by students we have that link there um we certainly have support from central office and other administrators for uh a cell phone policy and to move forward with something they are um a big problem in schools they they might be the biggest problem we face in the middle school and if not the biggest problem in a high scho high school they're they're up there um we would support moving forward with something we'd be happy to find um some policies there's many schools uh doing many different things right now we'd be happy to ga gather that information um we have had a member of Azria um approach us and ask to come and speak to the school Community uh they will be coming to a uh we are going to have them on the agenda um so the teachers are in favor of this and the teachers union is in favor of it um so that's uh if that's something you would like like me to explore or us to explore we're happy to do it absolutely yeah go ahead um so are these things being enforced first off in second offense and third offense can we have Jim who was right yeah hold on hold on I asked Jim and I think you thought I said Joyce so hold on a second please I just want I mean I was a part of the discussion back in in 18 and 19 on the situation now is very much different than it was in 18 and 19 there was a lot of data s before the discussion back then was like you know non-compliant kids with the phone not paying attention to the teacher is that sort of pocketed stuff and not the cell phones were new but the proliferation of them and even in the downgrades is is obvious to everybody but there's a lot of data now that says just the fact that you have it around you it's the thing that you stare at right and it it makes people uh not be able to concentrate on the work it really is a is a hindrance and also it always will put the teacher in in the position of having to be the hammer right and some teachers are good at that and other teachers aren't well we you know that we don't hire teachers to be good at that particular thing so I think I think we definitely need to look at doing something different the data seems to be very much in favor of restricting full usage but I'd like to see a number of school districts have already implemented that and I think it's certainly something that we need to consider now I I will say that I I like the idea of whatever comes down being a director from the committee the committee to take the School principles off the hook right so we'll take the heat we come down because certain people are not going to like this you know but we can take the noise you know I just want to take this off the shoulders of the teachers and off the shoulders of the administrators and ofr I think it's something that we should look at strongly absolutely um Joyce no I just uh I've been asking a number of other districts um and um a lot of them have these nice little expensive envelopes that are locked and they get locked for the day that's it mhm this this has become a business there are there there are a number of products you can buy for classrooms where um students can can put their phones in and and we can lock them and they can get them either at the end of class or at the end of the day and that's some of the Nuance that that we would have to um to figure out moving forward you know one of the things that that I want to mention this happened recently to to one of our teachers I'm not going to mention the school um but a student had um taken pictures of uh one of our Educators um and created a fake Tik Tok account um and it's you know this is a uh the person who's dedicated their life to educating uh children does a great job for all intents and purposes in one kid making a bad choice and creating that and then sharing it with other kids um you know that probably doesn't happen if they don't have their phone on them in school um not that that happens often but it does we've also had kids make fake accounts um about other students and we're dealing with this at an Administration in um um School Cal level all day every day and it's keeping us from doing things that really are are are much more important so um it's not going to get this isn't going to get better it's it's only going to get worse as technology gets better and faster and smaller um it's it's it it's just rolling it's probably is it probably the biggest problem we face in the middle school that say between Snapchat terrible Terri terrible app um and other Tik Tok and other social media accounts it is a it's an epidemic um Ashley yeah I would say um if we could expedite this I don't know how quickly a policy could really happen but I think this should be a priority and try and get it implemented for the start of next year I don't know if that's even like fible absolutely I was like do you want us to draft one for next meeting read like meeting right I mean I think um possibly um okay and then in the meantime my other question would be um I used used to be an SRO in Littleton and the IT department they blocked certain apps so back then it was like Yik Yak was one or something like that I don't know I'm aging myself but um they were really mean and awful but they blocked certain sites certain apps certain function so that they could only use it I mean in the meantime until we can get this policy implemented is there a way to kind of slow they're all blocked the the problem the problem is as soon as you block it somebody creates a window site so you can log on to windows.com and then log on to your Snapchat so they they're they're viewing their account through a third party and then we block that and then there's the they're they're two steps ahead of us all this so yeah I mean yeah it really is um for for every for every uh safe safety net we put in place kids figure out five ways around it um and there's YouTube videos that'll show them how to do it there's two videos on how to hack so I mean you know I mean I don't know off the Wi-Fi the answer I know it's hard but yeah I was going to say but like circumventing School firewalls has been a losing battle since we first brought computers into buildings um I mean I think yes we should work on a draft policy um and adjust that use literally today a former colleague of mine was in The Washington Post for he's a building leader in Hartford and the way they address that using the like the Yonder pouches so if you want to talk to a building leader who's used those and operationally what does that look like I'm happy to make a connection I'm sure there's other you all have connections too um because I think we can address this with policies and I think structurally there's things that we could consider again in the spirit of like there's a lot of different Investments we could make if this is one of the ones we wanted to do we could consider it so it's worth looking at but I think we should at the very least be drafting a policy and we can do that quickly uh and then the only other thing I would say in the way of helpful resources is I had to do the same thing on the employee level at the hospitals because some people truly have a very good intent and want to blog blog about um what it's like to assist mental health patients um and so they make innocent mistakes and then there are other people who do not um and specifically speaking to Snapchat I was able to um reach out to Snapchat get the terms and policies and make it clear to employees which then again the same uh information could be made clear to parents um and also our students nothing is deleted it does not go away and in fact they hold it in the hub and if the school needed to make an inquiry based upon a certain allegation they simply have to reach out to Snapchat and Snapchat will supply the information um so it it it it's interesting uh the level of change that happened once we actually explored that Avenue gave the newspaper feeds you know because that does fall underneath patient neglect which then imposes criminal and civil penalties and our lawyers were willing to go after employees who participated in it and it only takes once for everybody to get on board and stop doing things now again we're talking about students however I think in the Lessons Learned column for parents particularly especially if they don't know or understand an app to get that information and get them engaged and behind us might be another Avenue through communication where we say hey this is what this app does this is what really goes on behind the scenes um and we're trying to protect you know our kids first we're trying to teach them but at the same time we're also physically protecting them by doing this and then for our students and parents to help them understand they're saying it's deleted it's not I mean this is relative to Snapchat but there's a number of ones that you can get the terms and policies and kind of put maybe a packet together um so that as we're rolling out our policies and we're enforcing them then also you know you have the here's the why and here's what really is going on behind the scenes we we can absolutely make that part of the part of our plan and that that information is is readily available we we would not be the first school doing this um okay so we will put that together and bring that um is it helpful to have a draft policy to bring for the next meeting there I I I have six districts who have policies Banning cell phone news during the school day pulled up I could easily take what we have in our handbook and amend it and bring a draft for next meeting be great did you guys already start on one do you have we have no we are waiting to see the reaction of school committee before we started oh we have not started that if you want to tiet do the draft you can if you have enough on your plate I'm happy to do it and send it to you Michelle to put in the folder for next meeting it it I'm happy to do it would you mind sending me the the six that you found yeah thank you awesome can we forward absolutely uh so extended day enrichment program so re-enrollment for extended day program for schoolly age students so these are students in grades K through five uh begins on May 6th uh unfortunately we uh tuition will be increased 4% uh and that is the minimum increase so that the program remains cost neutral for the 2024 25 school year um in order to reserve a spot in the program the registration packet must be submitted by May 28th at 530 uh the new rates are below um again it is it is a 4% increase uh overall uh from last year would you like me to go through these individually you're okay um an additional fee of $30 a month will be charged monthly if your if um one of your child's days is an early release day um uh when the that's when the program starts early at 1:45 this is not applicable to children who are enrolled 5 days per week so sessions for public preschool will be determined in June uh and as soon as we uh the district uh determines uh what the sessions uh what the sessions are extended day we'll contact the families to modify or change the extended day Arrangement schedule to fit the needs of the students so we have an update from Miss Amy Doyle our Competitive Gaming coach about the spring playoffs um it is my pleasure to report to the amazing results for our spring season there are 13 students who have made it to the generation Esports playoff there are two brackets this year uh champion and gold Champion bracket is for students who scored in the top 20% of all players in the division the gold bracket is for players who did not meet the cutof for Champion but displayed extremely exemplary skill and attitude in as an Esports player there are players uh these players are chosen by generation Esports also uh you note that the entire chess team made it to the champion level playoffs this season there are also a number of students who are competing in more than one playoff game here are the games the players and their playoff bracket Super Smash Brothers uh Champion bracket Colby Brown 8th grade Ethan Chisum e8th grade Charlie Pierce seventh grade and Jonathan Browning sixth grade Super Smash Brothers gold bracket Ian Walton 8ighth grade Nathan Chrysler sixth grade and Gus Murray sixth grade chess champion bracket Elli Murray 8ighth grade Alex Baptista seventh grade Liam beard seventh grade and Manny Da Silva seventh grade Splatoon three Champion bracket Alex power seventh grade Jonathan Browning sixth grade uh cin Theo sixth grade Nathan chryler sixth grade I'm not saying that name right and Gus Murray sixth grade uh any questions on that we are looking to get orts into the high school for next year um this has been uh a tremendous addition to the middle school and um you know um Miss Doyle is the main coach but um we also have uh Dr padaki Who is uh coaching and I believe he's the chess coach so uh F Fant fantastic tion and this is really engaging uh some students um in in a sport that that may not so uh we're really excited about it um Middle School pocket Forest I don't know if you've driven by the Middle School uh lately but over the course of two days last week all of our students at the middle school had the opportunity to go outside and plant trees and shrubs in the pocket Forest that a little to ated outside of the middle school students had a great time just being outside learning about the benefits of the pocket pocket forest and learning how to plant the eighth graders chose the shape of the horse and it is a pantherpaw I do want to note that um families have the opportunity to vote for our pocket Forest initiative to receive an award it was on it's on our weekly update um and the link you can find in the weekly update um but it is it is a we will share that with you in a moment um but we encourage everybody to reach out and vote um for the Shirley Devin pocket Forest regions to receive the award which is to be named in a moment um there are no additions to um college acceptances but seniors who are all watching this um at 9:05 on a Wednesday please get them in because we would like to celebrate uh where you're attending college and I would also ask any students uh joining the military or have a job lined up after graduation to share that we'd be happy to share that news as well that is all for the superintendent report awesome thank you Adam so um y okay so the prestigious environmental Business Council of New England Inc has named our air Dev East Main Street neighborhood pocket Forest as a finalist nominee for the 2024 EBC Community Choice award and then you could go in and cast your vote and you can find that link on the superintendent's weekly update search your email should be in there we would love for them to win they they put a lot of work into this and um it's it's going to be great that we're not in Monday's weekly okay thank you um okay so I do not have any chairperson's notes for tonight are there any other topics for discussion not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance of this meeting no okay and then we have our Communications I believe I have my communications up I guess I don't have a call up Kevin's not here if you wish me to read it I can oh sure that'd be great thank you um Thursday May 2nd is the page Hilltop PTO meeting at 6:30 at page Hilltop Thursday May 2nd is the middle school grade 5 family information night 6:00 at the middle school Thursday May 2nd is the school committee chairperson is Erica span office hour 6: to 8 remote Monday May 6th 90minut early release late start for preschool and professional development for teachers lunch will be served dis dismissive times High School Middle School 12:50 law page Hilltop 1:45 Tuesday May 7th is the Shirley annual town meeting uh that's a 7 a.m. oh election I'm sorry 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Shirley Town Hall Wednesday May 8th is the Shirley educ ational Foundation ASF meeting 7:00 at the high school media center right here and Monday May 13th is the Shirley annual town meeting at 7:00 at the Middle School auditorium uh Jim is that 7:15 for the town meeting never mind Tuesday May 14th uh air annual Town election is at 7:00 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the air toown hall Wednesday May 15th is is Shirley is air is our school committee meeting 6:30 at the middle school Sunday May 19th and I would emphasize this why I wanted to read it is the Janice president hand run for Education this is very important that we all be there but I can't go 5K I don't think um and Friday May 25th is the last Daye for seniors and Monday May 27th is no school and observation Memorial Day and should we have on here graduation is do what I think it's June 2 next week but well I know but it's important June 7th right Tuesday is June 4th June June 7 yeah it's June 7th at June what do we do 6 p.m. 6 p.m. graduation thank you okay okay uh we do not have executive session tonight so I will entertain a motion toj motion to adjourn looking at that CL sideways 909 all those in favor say I I all right thank you everybody