##VIDEO ID:QwsypdilRhc## Cycles uh with f frr ronl and Lawrence um working with Middle School staff there um additionally members of the uh Massachusetts partnership for diversity and education held a um diversity recruitment uh event in Brookline was the host of that back on September 7th uh at the high school and the event um um as shared out by our OE team was a resounding success and I did speak with some superintendents from other communities and they did mention that they came and they are getting most impressed uh with our facilities that we have here so it was an opportunity to also showcase um what we where and how our students learn from the office of teaching and learning um Dr funa um is joining me out um in in visiting and spending time in schools so she has blocked Tuesdays and Thursdays on her calendar this school year um to spend the day in schools she's excited to see the outstanding work in the PSB community of Learners during these visits she spends extended time in classrooms oftentimes when I'm going in classrooms with the with the principal it's for short periods of time and my purpose is really again to see um holistically what's happening Dr Fortuna will be doing deeper Dives in terms of how the professional learning and the the work that we're leading how how that's actually manifesting in the classrooms and so we look forward to that continued work um she uh is ex as um many people have asked for this on the staff culture and climate survey and we'll do a walkr of that as part of our strategic plan uh piece this after this evening and she's extremely excited appreciation is abundant for the teachers who are attended the curriculum meetings on September 17th uh a big thank you to our principes and their partners for leading a fruitful conversation about literacy so uh We've uh added um or leveraging a portion of the contract for additional professional development time on Tuesdays for our K through 5 Educators and so part of this is again in service of our literacy work um and the the training um uh the aspects of coming up to speed on the science of reading and those aspects that's the initial part as we then transition and then select uh whichever uh curriculum materials that we're going to go to so this is an opportunity for that so Dr funa shares that OTL is looking forward to a year filled with joy and learning uh as am I so I won't say any more about school visits other than I've also started my school visits um I started them last Friday um and I tend to spend about two to three hours when I go to the high school I try to spend about three hours there just because it's uh much larger complex um but but I tend to spend about 2 hours um at each School spend some time with the principal um and then we go out and look at grade levels and so this year I'm trying to structure it in such a way that I look at one to two gr bands at a time my first few years I was it was it was somewhat sporadic and so I think this time uh being focused in terms of looking at what's happening across a grade level and again it's non evaluative for the teachers I'm not there to evaluate them that's not my role my role is uh connecting with the building leader asking them questions about what they're seeing in instruction and how they're interpreting that so that's my purpose for being in the rooms there and certainly seeing what's in front of the students and how they're engaging with it can I just repeat what I think you just to make sure I understood when you're going to the schools this year turn this on when you're going to the schools this year you're for example going to Heath and or Haz and seeing seventh grade and then rle and seeing seventh grade so that you're starting to see commonalities across okay wonderful thank you and last but not least there was a question that came up about private school enrollment Trends here in Brookline and I wanted to share sort of our historical Bird walk walk so the the manner in which the grid is laid out we have school year Private School enrollment our October 1 enrollment and then the percentage of the October one now this isn't necessarily Apples to Apples because I believe the private school numbers come in much later in the year so we're not you know our enrollment tends to actually Peak around the January February time is where we feel the greatest stretch um but this just sort of gives you an idea prior to co sort of in brookline's high year of enrollment at 7855 we were at 16.5% of our students um uh choosing private school then you can see the the covid year or the covid shutdown year of 2020 21 um when you saw we see the percentage actually increase but our enrollment dropped so significantly um at that juncture and then you can see each year um as our enrollment goes back up the number selecting or opting for private at this point is starting to Trend down we'll continue watching this but again I think it's an opportunity uh for us to say how then can we strengthen what we're having here but um you know I've seen education competition in many ways uh and so um uh but you have some very old private schools and very established private schools here uh that have uh Steep reputations and we're proud of our reputation as well and so we want to do a stronger job of even sharing the great um great instruction and great learning that's happening within our organization as well as the opportunities that students get exposure to as well Helen so a long time ago when I used to see these numbers um it was very interesting it it usually hovered around 133% for a number of years and what was interesting about that number was in looking at the schools and the numbers of students who went there approximately half of them were parochial students and to me that's a different group of students than private school students in some ways because we can't offer them what they get in their parochial schools whether it's Jewish Catholic uh Christian um so I'd be interested to know how that might how that is today if it's the same or different um I think it's it's an important piece in in the the whole puzzle but thank you for doing this I appreciate it absolutely all right and that go ahead Carolyn sorry I'm going to jump back to your sort of like School kickoff I just just want to say I don't know if I don't have Elementary School students anymore so I don't know if they're doing their back to school nights but tomorrow is BHS back to school night which is a highlight of the year I haven't gone yet but I can tell you already it's going to be great and it really is my husband and I were talking to our son who's a sophomore about it last night and saying every year we go and we're just re inspired and refilled filled with gratitude to live here in this place and be able to send your children to these schools sorry I'm going to be CL and you go to back to school night and the teachers are so dedicated and they're so enthusiastic um so that's going to be a highlight for me this week awesome Helen you following up on what Carolyn was saying in years past many years past um the school committee was also invited to accompany either a parent or get a schedule of a student and go around to back to school night maybe it's too late now but you know for next year Helen you're welcome to join me tomorrow night we can have a school Committee Member take a school Committee Member to back to school night you're welcome to join I'm actually going to be at Lawrence School I'm probably the only person who has both a k through two for Lawrence is tomorrow night as well as back to school night I'm probably the only person who has a kthrough tour at Lawrence and a high school do both yeah so that's feasible nope but I will yeah so yes I know that that I was aware of yeah okay thank you yeah I'm sure we can take we will take people who want to come yeah yeah then I would recommend it to anybody who doesn't have a kid at the high school that it's worth doing check it out I have my sons tomorrow as well so I was going trying to figure out how to make it it work but it won't um so tonight we're going to turn our Spotlight on Excellence I see our guests are here for this uh to kick off this year's Spotlight on Excellence series we would like to honor florita ruffen Ridley School par professional Miss Tiffany Legrand Miss LR is joined this evening by F frr principal Candace Whitmore on Friday September 20th Miss LR performed life-saving measures for a student who was choking on an apple her quick response and action surely kept this from being a tragic event I want to turn the mic over to principal Whitmore and to miss LR good evening everyone and thank you for allowing us to be a part of the spotlight on Excellence um and so before we present our recipient Tiffany LR I just want to give a little background about um our work that we're doing so um we looked at the results that admin and I looked at the results from our culture and climate survey and so we were intentional this year on building relationships specifically with our PA professionals and recognizing and uplifting all of the hard work that they do every single day um they're vital and they're very intricate part of our school community and often times you see them running and they're the ones behind the scenes uh helping us get the work done and so we are meeting with our parents every other week and we're just having celebrations doing professional developments checkin certifications and also sharing unique things about ourselves and so this past Friday Tiffany was able to share with her colleagues um what her Spotlight and I'm just gonna pass it over to Tiffany and say thank you thank you Miss Whitmore um so what I wrote for my Spotlight was I saved a life once um so my student and I were doing math it was around 9 in the morning and um we usually let our kids have snack while they work it just makes you know things a lot easier um and I noticed that he was coughing a little bit um at first I didn't pay any mind until I kind of looked up and I saw that he was in a lot of distress and I just thank God that I had um a refresher course in CPR and I managed to just get in gear and and help out and I'm just very thankful that I took that course and was able to stay calm and and help them out thank you Tiffany and you did the heick maneuver right make sure you yes yes I did the heck maneuver um you know and that's what I did and Tiffany was calm um she executed like very swiftly and so um this just shows the importance of you know constantly recertifying our pair of professionals and making sure that we just highlight and say thank you and so that is our Spotlight yay [Applause] Sarah yeah Sarah and then I really like to how you both framed that to um to honor your work and also to open it up to the other pair of professionals I find that the pair of professionals sometimes really set the tone in the classroom you know the teacher might be a little bit more stressed out a little bit less in touch and the pair of professionals help us connect help the Stu the teachers connect with the students they're sometimes the the ones that have those really important relationships with the students and we are just so thankful to the work so thank you Ria thank you Tiffany and and thank you for recertifying and for having that knowledge fresh in your mind that really let you be the person on the ground to handle that that's wonderful I was just wondering um if your certification was offered as part of PSB training or somewhere else and then my bigger question is how do we make sure that everyone in the PSB Community who wants that kind of certif certification or can benefit from it is getting whether it's the first time or a refresher like you did um I actually run steps to success so it was a requirement for me to have my recertification um every year um and I just think that um I don't I'm not sure if PSP offers it I think they do and I think that it's just I never thought that I would need to do something like that ever and I'm just thankful that um that I was able to take that CPR course and I think that that should be a regular a requirement for everybody because you never know um when you may need it so true and Trisha and I had this conversation Friday so we were talking about how to make this possible as well for those more that are interested that would be wonderful cuz I believe I heard that there was also a choking incident at Driscoll last year right and so and so obviously you know this this is when we have this many people eating food like this what happens and so it would be wonderful to have it be something a partnership with public health or whoever to offer that and I'm sure other people in the community would be supportive and interested too thank you you were required to do it for steps because um it's a eec uh group it's a Early Education yeah they require uhuh okay thank you all right so with that the public schools of Brook line Spotlight on Excellence is awarded to Tiffany LR with extreme gratitude and appreciation for displaying dedication and courage during an emergency situation the exceptional actions taken by you directly contributed to saving the life of a student congratulations Miss lran thank you okay thank you so much thank you for joining us uh we're now moving on to public comment I think we have one person Miss vote if you would like to come forward hi everyone um my name is Marissa vote I'm a town meeting member and I'm a a pierce parent um but I'm speaking to you today um on behalf of the safe roots to schools um task force which as you probably know is a group of um parents and teachers and other community members we have representatives from all the Brooklyn schools and um we're just we we want to um give our our organizational um support to the the Pierce um at Old Lincoln School uh daytime crossing guards to highlight the need for this this crossing guard to help the students at Pierce um safely get across the street to their playground at bo uh the Boon Street playground which is across the state highway from the school um as you know right now the The Crossing yard is being funded during the day by the PTO and uh this this is not a a sustainable um or really acceptable solution um I I distributed to you a photo that I took today um right it's right before pickup so there's maybe one or two extra people in the um in the crosswalk but this is I I believe it's a fifth grade class um of of kids crossing and you can see how many people there are on the crosswalk um this is you know when there were only two seconds remaining for pedestrians to to finish if you can um you can see the little countdown timer there were only 2 seconds left this is just really shows you how what it looks like when when students are cross ing this state highway um during the day and it just shows you how it's it's difficult to get a whole class across the street in time and why it's really important to have this crossing guard during the day um and so we want to ask the school committee to please support finding funding for this um and I know uh School Committee Member Carolyn Thal had responded with um you know some some information about the peer School building committee um and how there might be that that is one potential or appropriate rate source of funding um I would just say that you know this is this is a very urgent need and so the you know we're concerned that there would be a a long and protracted sort of discussion either from the town or school committee or Pierce or the Pierce building project about who should be funding this and right now it it just it needs to be funded so it it needs to happen quickly what regardless of really where the money is coming from um you know it it shouldn't be coming from the PTO and um you know let's not let the the perfect be the enemy of the good and just find find the funding fund the crossing guard and and figure out the the details later um and then also just uh also in your emails or in your packet there were some other safety issues um regarding you know transportation to OS um that the safeer school task force just wants to highlight you know there's just a lot of traffic um I know a tremendous amount of work went into getting this site ready um for fall for students um and it's it's a really uh it's a really great space my my son is really enjoying second grade there um but uh the the transportation side of things was maybe not quite ready for prime time there's a lot of um you know sidewalk issues and things that need need to be addressed um which I know is not necessarily your exact purview but it is still um something that I hope the school committee will support so thank you very much for your time and um have a great rest of your meeting thank you very much thank you is it possible I saw so many emails flying back and forth is it possible to just get a quick update on where that whole conversation is at from someone who knows yeah about the I saw something from Amy Eng Les and I saw there were so many emails yeah so I I don't know is there a synopsis of where it's at I think when I get to the capital subcommittee report okay great I'll talk a little bit about peer thank you meeting okay thank you um we'll moov it along uh is Dr Fortuna here for this okay we're moving into discussion of District Strate strategic plan hi everyone yes they are here I am there you are Jody hi Matt hi Christina we I am so excited to be here tonight with my colleagues Dr du and Miss Hernandez to talk about um our strategic plan and I get to introduce um two wonderful speakers too who are going to go over our school in family culture and climate survey results with you um so I want wanted to start by saying um yay we have a new format for our strategic plan which is much more accessible um than our old format was all of our school Improvement plans are directly tied to the Strategic plan and our foundational year has been completed and if we go to the next slide I can highlight some of what's different in our new presentation we have lots of color um photographs we have a table of contents we have more data about the demographics that we serve before each goal we have um a high level statement of um basically the philosophy behind the goal and then on one page we have the goal and the benchmarks for um those goals and it's all in a lovely um about 30 page um document that is or will be available on our website I want to thank Neil gka for really beautifying our strategic plan and making it more readable just to reorient us we have five goals for our strategic plan the first is next slide please lonus I don't have them all memorized yet our next uh first goal is teaching and learning um and that is to increase achievement for all students by establishing implementing and regularly assessing a consistent high quality and challenging curriculum delivered using evidence-based practices community and connections develop and Implement a culturally responsive Community engagement plan to Foster connections among caregivers schools the district and the community and you'll see a lot of what Matt and Christ you talk about tonight would really feel feed back into goal two climate and culture um partner with families in the community to create safe environments that promote belonging our next goal is management and capacity building um also some of the recommendations and action steps will fit in here with developing resource management and capacity Building Systems that will ensure educational and organizational goals are Timely and accomplished with transparency and finally our fifth goal is governance and we want to design and Implement an organizational structure and related information systems that will enable us to achieve the district vision and with that our Spotlight tonight is really on goal number three climate and culture um where we're partnering with families in the community to create safe environments that promote belonging and with that I'm going to turn it over to Christie and Matt who really have the meat of this presentation tonight um okay I was goingon to say we could go to the next slide hi everyone we are so excited to be with you today to dive a little deeper into the climate survey and the results will begin with the why behind the survey um so firstly the survey meets one of the action steps under the Strategic plan goal three which in our foundational year so 2023 2024 um delineated that we would administer a baseline survey and create action plans surrounding the results so the climate survey functions as serves as that Baseline survey um but the deeper Roots behind our why uh are entrenched in this idea of be belonging our theory of action is that strong perceptions of belonging will support staff retention and staff capacity to support students as well as homeschool collaboration and partnership um this survey it serves as a mechanism to collect detailed information about sense of belonging so with that information we can recreate what's working and the discrepancies that we see for certain groups in that data provide direction as to where our focus should be and where our action should be um and one of the most important things is that this serves as the creation of a channel for the voices of staff and families to drive the actions of leadership the question what is the purpose or what are we going to do with this data comes up a lot and so we wanted to address that here the what the data will do is what it's already begun to do is inform individual School Improvement plans and thus support and structure the work of principles and school leadership and to continue informing Central offices work and action plans um to ensure alignment across departments and that our work is supporting each other and responsive to the needs of our practitioners School administrators and our families and students the staff survey measured seven different elements those are School belonging cultural awareness and action District climate School climate staff administer relationships professional learning and teaching all students all of which are defined for you in this slide and the family survey measured three different elements those being school and District climate family engagement and school support all right I will uh jump in thank you uh for that chrisy and and good evening everyone um so I'm going to walk us through the results of um the staff and family surveys there's a lot of information here there's a lot of data we're going to work through some slides and and I'll give folks a couple of seconds to sort of take in the information that's on each slide what we want to start with is anytime we do a survey anytime you're engaged in survey research uh the first question you ask yourself is uh the sample who uh participated in the survey is that generalizable to the full sample that we're sort of interested in in this case you see that we had 438 staff complete the survey and that's out out of about 1250 staff and so our response rate was about 33% and at at a high level when we're looking at a district level view I think we can feel pretty confident that we're capturing a lot of voices that the feedback is absolutely actionable um when you start breaking it down by um areas for example by school you can see there was a a wide distribution there based on the number of folks who completed um the survey within schools when you start looking in for example with race it does not match uh the racial demographics of our uh School staff and so um in the future we're really hopeful that we can create the conditions to allow more staff to to complete the survey so we can feel really confident that we're capturing the voices of every single staff member when when was the survey administered I um completed this last May some some folks did it into into early June but around late May early June folks completed it and sorry Matt it's Carolyn I'm gonna ask a quick question too was this internally designed or the contracted internally designed yeah so we had a working group that came together to to build out the survey all right so we'll jump to uh our first uh slide here and we're going to look at uh staff perceptions of school belonging um and what you're going to see in each of these slides is in the corner um we offered some notes those notes are going to sort of pull out um any discrepancies that we observed in the data um or areas where we hypothesize that we could have seen a discrepancy so we want to give some additional information there what I really want to stress is that in this presentation and as we're talking about these data it's really important that we're staying at the district level and the reason for that is uh as we were building up the survey it was really important that we were communicating to staff that there there it was going to be anonymous survey as soon as you start cutting the datab based on an individual school and then based on your role within that building you can really easily identify through the survey so um we're going to make sure that we stay at that 30,000 District level um foot view so that we're really protecting the anonymity of our of our staff um but this first uh slide this is a huge success this is something that we should collectively feel really proud of and so you're seeing in that P graph is that 87% of Staff who completed the survey endorse strong perceptions of school belonging a couple of slides ago you saw Christie that in our strategic plan our goal was for all staff members regardless of demographic variables regardless of role um that we'd achieve 80% for for all groups and so in a moment I'll talk about pair of professionals but we're really close already to achieving um that goal uh what's really important as we're framing out our work around school belonging is that it's very much a team sport and what I mean by that is every single one of us carries really important responsibilities to doing the work to facilitate all of our experiences of belonging um I know myself as a leader I know I carry really really important responsibilities in this space I know the things I do the things I don't do absolutely impacts the conditions where staff can come together and experience strong belonging and so what I see here is that clearly as a community we're invested in this and we're collectively engaging in that work so that the vast majority of folks are experiencing really strong belonging um so one area you see 64% of pair of professionals endorsed strong School belonging and so that gives us a really focused area that we really want to think about how we can support uh pars and the really important work that they do so we'll go to uh the next slide um and here is where we're sort of zooming out a little bit so that that first area with belonging we're really tapping into those uh really protective features um that are available for staff around really close relationships feeling like they're understood and they matter when they're um in their buildings School belonging is a little bit um uh sorry School climate is a little bit of a broader construct where we're sort of asking folks dayto day when you're in your buildings what's the overall feel um of it and so you see here it's 64% of Staff endorsed a strong positive School climate and a little over a third fell in that uh medium area and then very few endorsed uh low School climate uh so again that's that's really positive uh Christy referenced uh uh School Improvement plans I know this is an area in particular that a lot of principles are really interested in using as a target for school Improvement plans and are actively thinking about ways that they can help support uh belonging within within their buildings excuse me uh support climate within their buildings uh we'll go to the next slide uh and here now we're zooming out even further and we're asking folks to describe um their experiences of being an employeed within the public schools of Brook line so overall how does that feel um you see it's just over a third of staff are feeling really good about District Climate about half are in that Medium area and 14% are in that low area um we have some uh uh some thoughts around some action items that we can take to help uh support uh climate um thematically and we're going to talk about this um often uh communication trust transparency and relationships came out over and over and over again as think a really help support District level uh climate um we go to the next slide uh these these next suan okay to ask a question yeah Matt okay we ask a question or do you want to wait us to wait is it specific to the slide yes I mean it's okay with me Matt is it okay sure yeah go ahead yeah yeah Matt Jesse here back on the school climate one um so if I look like at the lower right corner my opinions are considered when decisions are made more than half either you know neither agree or disagreed or disagreed or strongly disagreed it's like 55 56% what are the kinds of cases in which um at a school level staff would say you know my opinion should have been considered but we're not I mean that's more than half are saying they aren't um do you have any examples you could provide yeah you know that's a that's a great question Justin I think there's a range um of things know as a as a leader I'll sort of name there there are times that you're in a position where you have to make decisions and some of those decisions um are need to be made made quickly I think what we're tapping in though when like decisions for example around scheduling around uh when meetings happen in terms of what supports like look like for students this is sort of tapping in is does that feel collaborative does that feel participatory um so I think that's what's going in there for the most part I think principles are deeply collaborative and are really thinking about participation one of the things that we we've talked about as a group is just around communication and really being transparent about how it is that we come to decisions so I think that's sort of what that that that's tapping into thank you all right so we'll jump uh one more SL okay so these last two slides regarding uh the staff survey um we asked folks to think about and and describe their experiences uh describe their relationships excuse me with uh building level leaders and then the next slide we'll talk about uh District level uh leaders and so here you see uh 56% of staff are feeling really good about the relationships that they have with uh building uh level leaders and again when we think about some of the themes that are coming out for folks who are hanging out in that green space it's a lot around um feeling known feeling like people are seeing your work and that you also know the leaders that you're working with a lot around um communication and frequency and respon oness and transparency around how decisions um are made and so those are themes that really came out pretty clearly and so if we jump to the next slide um you'll see that this is our uh most significant area of of growth and so you see 7% of staff reported feeling uh really good about the relationships with central office leaders uh 70% of staff were hanging out in that um yellow area that Medium area and again what what's coming out is it's a really fair uh request it's a really important need of wanting to be in relationship with central office leaders of wanting to feel known uh by leaders of wanting to be seen by leaders and so um we we referenced it earlier so Dr Fortuna pushing into school several times a week I know all of those are collectively thinking about how we're more participatory in our work and participating um uh within schools and so that came out thematically of things that are really important for folks and so we're definitely thinking about um that deeply I just alluded to couple of themes but I'm G have chrisy jump in here and she'll talk a little bit about more some more themes that we saw in the survey thank you Matt if we could move to the next slide so diving more into the main themes that emerged from the climate survey there are three main themes the first being trust this was so clear um in the feedback there's a strong sense of value for leaders that are on the ground and a deep desire for more from leaders at every level at the school based level and at the district level as well um and it's not just a desire to see these people more there's a desire to be known by leaders as well um one of the main themes that came up is that teachers and staff want to see District leaders spending their time in the teachers room eating lunch with teachers are outside when teachers are at recess Studio but spending that time primarily with teachers in the trenches rather than spending the bulk of the time with school administrators or being taken through the building by a school administrator um another main point um under trust was people really want to see transparency surrounding decisions at every step of the process so not as a more um reactive response but as a proactive response from the beginning um another main theme was communication and Matt's touched on that a lot throughout um but there's a strong value placed on hearing from leadership once again School level and District level um and people really want clear communication surrounding the vision and direction of the district they want more frequent communication transparent communication and they really want responsiveness specifically from central office members um and moving us into one of the last themes which is discipline oh also just with communication as well I think one thing that came up in that data that people also want to see is there are issues and staff and practitioners understand that there are issues that we cannot talk about at certain points for confidentiality ma measures but they want to feel the value that central office members communicate to them we can't talk about this here's why they want to feel that acknowledgement um another main theme that came up was discipline and this came up as an area of growth a for the district people named inconsistency in disciplinary response and in follow-through of the resp response so follow through being communicating with family the setting of a consequence for a disciplinary infraction and the follow through on that consequence for the disciplinary infraction um people named wanting clear districtwide guidelines regarding disciplinary systems and procedures in order to feel that backing from central office in doing their work um and like I said Christie we have a question here excuse us for a minute sorry Christie thank you um when you say discipline are we talking about discipline of students discipline of Staff what are what are we referring to here we're talking about discipline with students okay thank you um and like I was saying what people really want to see is central office support in communicating and enacting these guidelines with a broader Community next and now giving it back to Matt I think chy so um yeah we're gonna walk through the family survey now um Suzanne we have one more question Jesse Yeah a question before we jump to the um Family section um unfortunately the slides here don't have numbers but I'm going to go back the school climate versus the district climate these were filled out by the same individuals right right these are being these results are being extrapolated from the same 400 or so folks that you're in that you showed earlier is that correct correct so my question is amongst those 438 um how do you read the difference between the school climate and District climate they're talking about how they feel in school and then they're talking about how they feel the whole district is treating them and yet there's sort of like this whole shift I'm seeing that the Agreements are around 40% you know on school climate but then it shifts to down to about a third and a third that didn't agree or disagree it's like a big shift um I just wondered if you might be able to comment on that yeah so I think again the thematically I think it it and so much of our work is is based in relationships and so I think what came out thematically is that in general people are feeling really good about the relationships they have with folks that they're working with every single day and within within buildings feeling really good about the relationships with their VPS and their principles and you know sometimes it's the function of the work but having less relationship with central office leaders I think that's impacting uh people's perceptions overall um how it feels to be an employee Within Brook line broadly but then feeling potentially a little bit better about being an employee at Hayes or at Lincoln or whatever their school is thank you so we we do have plenty of time for um conversation uh scheduled so I so I think now if you have a clarifying question I think that would be this would be okay to ask during this and then afterwards we can go back and really kind of dig deeper if that sounds okay to people because we we actually have a lot of time so Mariah did you have a clarifying question you wait okay we write it down so you don't forget or maybe that doesn't happen all right right ahead yeah sure so we'll um we'll jump into the family survey and again so you see here um we had 817 families complete the survey that's about out of 3500 uh families so you know relatively strong response rate and that's sitting somewhere around 23% and going through the demographic variables are pretty close uh to what we see um throughout the district and so that definitely gives us confidence that this is really representative of what our families are experiencing and so we'll jump into um this first slide here that's uh looking at uh climate as you see the questions we are asking folks sort of a mix of questions that both represent how they feel about the specific buildings that their children attend and also more General um in terms of District climate this is a really strong number and this is something that I think we should be very proud of we care about this deeply and it comes out in so much of the work that we're doing um and it's not an accident that 76% of families are feeling really good um about the climate within their buildings and generally within the district um on the side there where you see some of those uh breakdowns uh within different subgroups uh those percentages mean the percentage of families within that group who are also endorsing strong climate um so for example to give an example if you look at k to2 90% of families who have a child within grades K to2 are feeling really good about the climate within their building and within the district um you'll sort of note there that there is uh a pretty meaningful uh separation between K to five and then six through through 12 again going back to relationships again going back to communication uh thematically what came out is um within K 5 developmentally um it makes sense that there's a lot of communication uh from teachers that goes out that go out to families um within K to 5 I have a kindergartener at home I get daily Communications I get pictures where I can feel like you know I know what what happened with my son obviously when people are moving into Middle School when they're moving into high school there's really important developmental reasons why communication is going to feel different potentially it's going to be less but I think it helps frame how important being in relationship is with Educators and how families really appreciate communication and really want that partnership uh to come together this is a really strong uh celebration of course we have work to do but this is a really strong number to start with um the next slide uh we're looking at Family engagement and this is more specific around uh some of the communication that we use with families um and this sort of that that direct um uh communication uh with them and so here that number is at 70% again I think that's a strong number to be starting with um this is another area that a lot of principles are thinking about within their school Improvement plans um I know we as a central office team are also thinking about family engagement and what our messaging and what our communication um looks like uh to give an example of something that I've definitely been chewing on in something that I've talked about uh with staff it's cut off a little bit there but at the bottom row you see uh if a student has done something well sta uh staff contact me to let me know that it's happened um about 30 about about a third of families are reporting that as a consistent practice I would love to see that number increase um that's something that families really like uh it's a really good practice it's really important that we celebrate children that we name and acknowledge when they're doing things that are that are um conducive to their learning so that's sort of a practice item that I think can help um address uh some of the needs that that families are having uh and then the final um area uh we'll talk about is around uh support so uh we'll jump to the last slide here or the next slide I guess um so being in the office of student services this is something that I was particularly interested in um and here we're just under 2third of families feeling really good about the support their children are receiving um and about a third of families are in that uh medium category and so what we know again thematically and what families are communicating to us is when they feel like they have a really good understanding of the support that's available to their children when they have a really good understanding of how it is that kids come to access support when they have a really good understanding of what the support looks like day-to-day when they're in relationship with the people who are providing support and will they have a really good understanding of um how the support is working or if it's not working and sort of partnering um in that space that's just really um helping folks um sort of sit in that green area and when all those structures are in place that's what um can make um that support feel um less positive uh for families and so I'm going to turn it back over to Christie and we're gonna talk about some quick clarification Suzanne um in on student support I think you might have a um y AIS um error inadvertent there Matt where you see the first one my student is appropriately challenged academically the um the Y AIS I think switched to neither agree nor disagree on the agree so it makes the agree look it's thanks for KN that yeah that's an easy fix thanks you're welcome the first middle one no no I know which one you're talking about but is the agree just the neither agree nor disagree should have been third in the Y AIS it was mistake what's what's the percent next to that neither agree nor disagree should that be 17% or should that be 4 no so so is is this an ordering so all the numbers that are are next to the statement are correct just ordered incorrectly yeah I just I would just also say thank you for sending this out in advance so that I could read through the whole thing before the meeting so that was good would be hard to catch you know when the slides are zooming by thank you all right so moving into an analysis of the main themes that came out of the family survey the first main theme that came out was that families want additional transparency and information on how issues related to discrimination harassment and bullying are handled which jibes or aligns with one of the main themes that came out of the staff survey um families also they appreciate positive like Matt has said appreciate positive and proactive communication and want more and also another theme that came out is that families really value um events such as International night and PTO activities um as really positive ways to build a sense of community and so those are the main themes from the family analysis and then going to pass it over to Dr Fortuna who's going to take us through a few action steps so I think we've been signaling that we've already started to take action on some of these but we're really working on some key areas um the entire central office team is working on increasing our time in schools our office of oee does this through their Residency program um m o Connell is always in schools um checking on various programs um I've really worked to rethink um my schedule for the year to be in schools we're really also trying to increase our participation in teaming structures faculty meetings student intervention meetings consult teams so that people know that we're listening and we're paying attention to when they're having issues and what the actual work on the ground is we're working on increased communication um from the central office Dr gillery has started to send out a Wednesday staff Bulletin to all teachers that kind of highlights what we're going to be talking about um at school committee that week and also some happenings in the district itself we finally have a fully staffed human resource department which has made an exponential difference in all of our Lives because Human Resources is now fully handling all the human resource issues that come up and the rest of us are really able to focus on our core areas of the organization we are including goals around climate and belonging within all of our school Improvement plans and those of you that um heard that Marathon night of presentations um heard celebrations and the inclusion of these goals and we're really trying to Target our professional development based on educator needs so we're really working to listen or trying to listen to our Educators and their feedback on the professional development that we are offering them so these are some of the immediate steps that we're taking right now to respond to our staff survey results and then um back to the Strategic plan for a minute we are going to be providing checkpoints along the way so each of the Deputy superintendents is going to provide and the executive director of The Office of educational Equity are going to provide um status updates quarterly on the Strategic priorities that affect their area and I took the liberty of recommending some school committee dates when you might expect these um and those are listed on the slide and then we're really working just like in tonight's presentation we really spot spotlighted strategic goal number three we're really going to work to explicitly tie all of our presentations back to our strategic plan so that everyone the community the committee is aware of what's Happening that our strategic plan is a living document and that we are truly taking it seriously and communicating out with transparency what's happening with it and I believe that's it for the presentation portion and now we'd be willing to take any questions um or comments that the committee has yes so that's great thank you so much there was a lot there again thank you for presenting it to us beforehand at least this is my second time I probably need a third or fourth but I app I do appreciate it so thank you for that what I'm thinking is um well we could just go randomly or we could do like the first half and see if there are any questions or thoughts and then go to the second half I I did the two halves as in family and staff so should we maybe stick with one area general question General then let's do general questions to begin with and then see if we need to go deeper so we'll do Helen and then we'll do Mariah go ahead Helen okay well first of all thank you so much for this presentation for all the hard work that goes into it and to the people who answered the questions because that can also be difficult to find time to do that um I'm curious I in the past we use panorama Matt you could probably answer this question um to do these questionnaires am I correct or am I yeah and but you said these were not part of that yeah so uh Panorama does offer uh staff surveys we we didn't really feel like it met our needs and so we did put together a working group to to design our own survey uh we still administer it through the Panorama platform so they they house the data um but it was a survey that we that we constructed based on what we were really interested in and what we thought was going to meet the needs of Educators and the same thing is true with the family one or the family one we use the yep but the student one we do use panorama we so yeah so I know we we often times describe it as the Panorama service so we use that as a platform for administration um but we've done a lot of uh building out um of the survey with um uh within the district to meet our needs so again Panorama is the platform that we use but those are surveys that we have definitely been informed a lot with the research we but we've designed them to meet our needs so one more question if I might so do any of our surveys are they comparable across the country across Massachusetts or it's not uh feasible huh in terms of comparing the results to other districts or comparing the survey to what other folks [Music] use I'm sorry I didn't hear your question so in terms of uh can we compare the the survey that we use to what other folks use or can we compare the results to other results the results the results um yeah you know there's not um that's a that's a wonderful question um to my knowledge and and there might be folks who can correct me um I've not seen super public uh places where you can sort of in a really easy way see for for example throughout the Commonwealth here's the average percentage of belonging um that's a sort of a hard thing uh to compare that'd be great uh that'd be wonderful I know we can tap into research and when you look at research overall with belonging it it's not great it doesn't paint a wonderful uh picture for a lot of lot of places uh but I think for us what we're really guided uh by is really thinking about what we need in Brookline what our staff need what our kids need what our families need and using that as a as a sort of an organizing light and I would say I think I've said this before when we talk about kids I think if we do compare to other districts if we compare to other towns I think we'll generally compare pretty well that's never good enough right that's never going to be our goal that we have some some measures and metrics that we want to hit because that's what our kids and our families and our staff deserve thank you thank okay we're going to Mariah and then Stephen Mariah oh it's answered okay Stephen um thanks Suzanne and thanks everyone for this presentation I just have one general question which is um to ask for more about the link between uh this survey and the Strategic plan so you refer to it as a living document I think we've U we've discussed it as a living document um I was looking a little bit at the Strategic plan as you were as you were presenting out um and there's a lot of really rich data here here I'm wondering what kind of processes you envisioned to iterate on the Strategic plan as you continue continue to gather data from these groups um and specifically are you thinking of uh amending the Strategic plan for fy2 AKA year one which is what we're in right now so I think Stephen great question I think that's something that we really need to look at as we gather more data across different data sources and how we are going to adapt the Strategic plan and make sure that it's truly a living document so we don't have a distinct plan right now for doing that but that's something um to be determined um by the team because we do want these results to be incorporated we want people's voice to be incorporated into the plan and this was an excellent mechanism for achieving that okay so for now we should just continue to refer to the initial strategic plan and um with with the expectation that at some point there'll be adaptations but but not yet correct thanks okay uh Sarah so I have two things and they're both under family engagement I wanted to make sure that during this discussion we said again um something that we've referred to in the past is that when you look at Family engagement that seems to be the way to get at um addressing issues around attendance so I just wanted to kind of highlight that again and remind everybody that um that's why the superintendent has family engagement or that's one of the reasons the superintendent has family engagement in his evaluation goals and it's one of the reasons why we talk about it is because it's a um increased family engagement brings kids to school more is what the research says so wanted to get that in and then I also wanted to talk a little bit about um Family engagement at the middle school level so one of the um one of the points that Matt made was that um you know a parents would would appreciate to have calls home to hear about good things that their students have done right that sounds a little bit more like a elementary school thing and so I just kind of wanted to talk a little bit about what family engagement what the things are that we're looking for for the middle school and um my neighborhood School happens to be the Lawrence School so I know best what they do and um one of the things that our Middle School teachers are doing at Lawrence is and then probably across the district is that they're calling home at the beginning of the school year um from The Home Room to say you know um hello I'd like to talk to you about your child and if they don't reach the families and what they do is they send an email to just establish that um communication um also in sixth grade at the laurren school we see a newsletter go out and it talks about what's happening in curriculum across all the different subjects so I just wanted to get that in there I'm always like sticking up for the middle schools so thanks Caroline um thanks and thanks everybody this is great [Music] um I I love what Sarah just said about Middle School just always important to and I do think the idea of the the parent teacher contact really drops off and I know there are complicated contractual issues there but um the more that we can can uh have that happen I think it's helpful um I have a question and this may just be my misunderstanding and it's a little sort of um wonky but I see in action steps and maybe in the introduction also inclusion of goals around climate and belonging within School Improvement plans um and I guess the way I heard this was that that's going to be sort of an expectation my understanding um which might not be complete of school Improvement plans and and site councils is that they are include um Educators in the building community members School leadership and I always think of the school Improvement plans as very local and sort of ground up so I'm just interested in sort of how the notion of like and I'm not saying this is going to come out a little wrong but like basically we that the district wants these included in school Improvement plans is is that what you're saying and is that consistent with the school Improvement plan process and I'm not saying that I have any problem with this notion but it but I'm wondering how that sort of fits with the with the process if that makes sense thank you Carolyn great question um it does fit with the process because we're not telling the school Improvement Council what the goal has to be what we're saying is that there should be a goal in included around climate and culture and we find that all schools generally want to work on their climate and culture and are continually using a growth mindset when it comes to climate and culture so that it's a very realistic goal to have included we're not telling people what the goal has to be we're just saying um please include a climate and culture goal into your school Improvement plan Mariah than thanks first off I just want to repeat how wonderful I thought the school Improvement plan presentations were last week and I know we didn't get the chance to do them at full school committee but most if not everyone was there of the committee and I thought they were spectacular so thanks again for the work that was done to pull those together and what we're talking about tonight which is what I thought was another like just a terrific aspect of them was their tight integration with the Strategic plan because when we're all sort of aiming in the same direction things really start to move so that was that was wonderful um I have what two questions the first one was um on the school belonging there was one pocket of Paras that didn't meet the 80% I was wondering if there were other demographics that did also did not meet the 80% School belonging threshold that was the only one that was the only one okay thank you um and then I think my question's a little bit of a repeat of Stevens but I'm going to ask it again and you can tell me asked and answered so the school belonging um your goal in the Strategic plan was school belonging of 80% but that looks like you achieved it it's not really the issue um and so I guess I'm I'm specifically asking will the gold in the Strategic plan change I'm not asking when I think Stephen was asking when I'm just wondering is it going to change so Jody Jody and I talk Dr fun and I talked about about this um at our checkin and what where we were at the time when the plan was built we didn't have this foundational data so she and I talked about the need now to look back at that and say if we've already achieved the target we can't you know keep our keep our finger on the scale in this regard and say oh we we're we're mission accomplished as such but what then makes sense is there another aspect or if we go back and look at sort of the work that and you all were on the on the team there but look at other aspects of what needed to or what was being surfaced at that moment to say is this truly the essence of that have we captured it in the right way or is there something else that we really need to hone in here so that's part of that refinement process Jesse Yeah question going back to student support um I see 10 questions on the slide um I'm assuming there were more questions than the 10 for which the graphs are shown or I think I got them all on there okay so I'm wondering how from there unless it's the the bottom right one the 10th one at the bottom the theme about families wanting additional transparency about issues related to discrimination harassment and bullying um was that a direct question that families were asked in one of those questions and gets me to my other second question which is that this was a survey that was provided to family these caregivers and things like that is it available to the school committee so that we can read all the questions because they all get cut off in this presentation and the graphs I show did you see the individual items that were asked yes please sure and then and then and then the and then I I guess I see the feedback um on discrimination harassment and bullying um but what is the the action steps didn't really discuss how those as a you know one of the big three let's say are going to be addressed since they're unfortunately you know U there's a frequency with which these things are happening in the district so it's on a lot of people's minds so I think with that one Jesse is the um the work that's being done on the on the protocol that's being developed and um some of you may be aware that the AG the Attorney General office also put guidance out to schools so we're actually reviewing the protocol that we've developed internally against the new guidance from the AG's office and uh town council's office is working with uh with our team on that so that's one of the attributes um that's direct that will directly address that um and I don't I can't recall at the time if that surfaced as part of the Strategic plan workk itself I know that it's um after exactly yeah but to answer your question that an an independent body but will address this this measure itself not necessarily in the plan itself but we we have this protocol that we're working working on as well thank you okay I am going to jump in uh because then everybody except Andy has not has spoken we'll see if Andy wants to speak so um I would just say that I think a lesson learned perhaps and it's understandable uh that it sounds like staff wants to see central office more but many of our central office people are relatively new I mean like almost everybody I guess and so it makes sense that um now is the time to get out there and to really get to know the staff and for them to know to know central office so I'm very pleased that that's a a focus and I think the staff will be pleased when they see you and and you'll start to learn who they are and they'll learn who you are here so I I think that's great so but I I think it is understandable um with the with the turnover we've had at central office that that staff do not know central office as well as certainly as they know their people in their own buildings and that that seemed to be reflected in the results of the survey did you want to say something mad or no no no fine um and then the other thing I want to say is in terms of uh staff and Community uh being engaged in decisionmaking there are ways uh that could be set up formally where that happens and we're starting to do that so in some systems they have instructional leadership teams where staff uh works with administrative administrators in the building and they make decisions for the building there are the plc's professional learning communities where staff works together and we're starting to do that so I think as as these new formats come in and New Opportunities come in uh that the staff again will be feeling uh that the voices are heard and that they have impact on decisions at the building level uh and also uh at at the central office certainly we did that around um the Strategic plan uh and I think if we continue to do that that means good things are going to continue to happen so I just want to throw those things out there things that we are working on and it really should make a difference uh as we go forward so thank you thank you for all the work uh okay uh just a second Sarah uh Andy did you want to ask anything I'm gonna give you a chance if you want to uh thank you very much no I don't have anything to add to what's already been said just um that I also appreciate this very interesting presentation um and I think um having frequent brief um check-ins status updates about strategic priorities sounds sounds great rather than less frequent um but more uh more high pressure uh updates and reviews thanks yeah okay so I have Helen that wants to say something and then Sarah okay Helen yeah um one thing I was just thinking about and I'm not sure it's information we need to know but I was wondering if we look at this information by school so that you could see you know is there a school that's an outlier or not are they all around the same um to see whether there's work that needs to be done on a more individual level schoolwide level rather than you know districtwide um it just sort of occurred to me that you probably have that I'm not sure we want to publish that because that the ends might be too small it might not be really indicative there may have been one issue in the year that could cause things to skew in ways I think you've just done a great job of summarizing why we presented at the district level uh here and the work that we will do um as a as a district team and as a school district team um on the local level great that's that's what I was hoping Sarah my question is actually for you Suzanne I really liked where you were going when you were talking about increased opportunities for educators to be involved in decisions so I I guess I have a question for you and then a question for Dr Giller is um I I'm not aware of how educators were involved in the Strategic plan so could you go over that yeah I mean Helen you can help me and Jody can help me but there were a number of representatives from uh schools that were part of that so there was a big group uh that's different grade levels different um they at the middle school and the high school different um you know subject levels subject areas there was guidance there was a couple school committee members um obviously the district leadership was there uh this is when we were coming up with the five big buckets and and so there was input from from all from maybe 40 people at least I mean this room was packed is that a little bit a model for that we follow we followed it for the Strategic plan um was it a new idea or is it a model that we follow for other things to no this one was a new one the time before was a smaller group that met I remember the room at Old Lincoln there were maybe 20 of us there um at the most uh this one was much more diverse much more wide uh across the system you know touching on many fa deliberate probably yes I think it was um and we had a well both times we had a facilitator was just different ways to so our definition of stakeholders does include the Educators it sounds like we as be you for representation yeah I don't remember exactly which Educators were there or what grade levels or what schools but I remember they were they were in the in the group jod did you have anything you wanted to add we don't really no you ladies um did a wonderful job of summarizing thank you and then um for Dr gillery um you know so I see the feedback and themes that they came up with and they talked about discipline and discipline's you know such an interesting conversation here in Brooklyn we have a we have a way of looking at these things and so I just thought if there is a way that we involve staff in issues of discipline I'd love to hear about it because I'm not aware what we do so one I think one of the things that gets um gets brought up anytime you talk about discipline is the inconsistency or the the belief that student a does something and gets this punishment student B does the same thing and gets this punishment so there's that inconsistent inconsistency that uh people observe and I think one of the things that um that is going to be helpful to this end is the work that uh the policy subcommittee will do as it's going through subsection J which is all about students um and the code of conduct and those types of things as well so I think that will be a helpful infrastructure around that but this it's this notion of um inconsistencies within the same building of a perceived or the same sort of similar infraction that um and what we find is that that comes down to um oftentimes race uh a student uh of one uh background does something and gets a small or low-level punishment and a student uh that's often of color does the similar type thing and gets a a higher or different um disciplinary infraction and so principles are certainly aware of that body of work um and we're calling that out calling it up uh again because it's an opportunity for our our system uh to behave in a more equ e Equitable manner uh and consistent manner as such that's super important to this conversation and I and I'm really happy to hear that answer and the other thing that I wanted to know is is just like we're trying to involve Educators in the Strategic plan could you tell me if there's any opportunity for educators to be involved in how we respond to discipline issues an example that I can think of um right off the bat is the work that the Driscoll team did in its Middle School to actually look at their middle school infractions and the middle school team teachers actually work with the administrators to come up with their code of conduct essentially um so that one I know more specifically about because uh principal ukas and I had deep conversations about it last year when they were working through that so that uh that is a model also as well I'm sorry to keep on insisting on this so much and then could you just finish up Suzanne when you referenced plc's being a way for educators to have decision- making um in leadership or in like you know um policies in schools could you talk a little bit more about that just so I understand that better I will give it my best shot um so I I also would like to add that PBIS positive behavior systems um is also another way for staff to be involved with discipline I love that sorry I love that but I don't understand what you're saying so tell me about that so I system that they're using in different schools it it just formalizes um you know the code of conduct uh it formalizes um Pathways to go for Retribution or reparations and that kind of thing but and it really focuses on positive behaviors and so by getting all staff involved in buying into this which they help develop um then then the entire staff is buying into it and so they have a say in that and so some of that came up plc's are professional learning communities we often talk about data and we talk about curriculum um however they also can do data such as Dr gillery just referred to could be data or discipline and infractions and they can you can have a conversation in your professional Learning Community you know what is the data what what are the infractions what what's happening what are the results what are the the follow-ups and as a staff they can decide you know if this where they want to go with it so it it's professional learning communties tend to be very tend to be small so they might be grade level or it might be department but then they can go to the bigger community of the school and and present something or say this is what we've been talking about this is the data that we've looked at I hope there'll be opportunities like that that's great yeah I there should be I mean they're starting to do more of that so I I think there will be and I think also with the with the discipline piece the student experience in that I mean the students will often say I did the same thing and I got a different punishment than than this person as well so um that again is uh and that's not a New Concept and it's not unique to Brookline um been a principal a long time and uh and I've seen it in many different systems as well but again it's this notion of uh calling it out or putting a flag bag down and saying this is the body of work that we're going to engage in and work toward and so it's not uh a condemnation um we need to do better about it as such and so we we know that this is a body of work that we have to tackle uh as well and so uh my belief is that people are well-intentioned um but when we see inconsistencies uh we also need to process and dig into those as well yes Stephen thanks suzan I'm sorry I really quickly Dr Gil I didn't quite catch your answer to Mariah's questions I just wanted to to ask it again was the resetting of year one targets for this goal on the table or not I just missed the answer I'm sorry so what we said was now that we actually have the data coming in we're going to actually look back at those to see where where what's the true Baseline as such so when we put these numbers out we didn't have the data so we picked numbers that we thought where we would be and so at this juncture we now have Baseline uh Baseline numbers that we can actually put as our initial marker so yes that does that mean that it's on the table that we might change the targets I don't have a preference I I just I we'll we'll look at at that as well U but I don't I ALS also want to be respectful of the body of work uh the group that actually um did this body of work uh but also look at what other because we had we made hard choices about what to actually put in we didn't put we couldn't put everything in so we want to look back at what might be um a a more um succinct or better descriptor as well so we'll take a look back at that but what I don't want to do is attempt to rebuild the Strategic plan uh at this juncture as well because we've already gone through a deep process about that and I don't want to so I I would look more at where numbers may need to change or um if there's not changing activities but maybe some of exactly okay okay thank you Carolyn um thanks I have two more quick ones I shared Jesse's question on the feedback themes I think on both um both of those slides sort of where those came from were there and sorry if I missed the answer were there open response questions that led to these themes like events such as PTO activities were highlighted or families want or that's just interpretation of the the questions that we see here and then I'm going to have another quick thing after sure yeah so I think I think it would be helpful for us to provide you the full survey so you can see that there was some space for folks to provide some open response but I think you having the full survey will be will be helpful okay and I'm sure I did it I just don't remember exactly I promise I did it and then and this is really an amazing amount of information I'm super appreciative um I'm just going to point something out on the ones that are the family ones I think and then the column on the right with all these different demographics um the last box it says family student Jewish El lgbtq and Middle Eastern Israelis are Middle Eastern so just wanted to I'm not sure where those and I don't see Middle Eastern in the demographics maybe it was there somewhere but um just wanted to kind of throw that out as food for thought I just I'm just really um I just want to say that school school culture and school belonging like that doesn't happen out of nowhere and these scores are amazing and and it really reflects so much hard work by building leaders and and colleagues and and that's just spectacular so you know there's lots of opportunities to improve and there's some amazing work here especially as we think about where people are at Mat as you've talked to us you know where people are at following um or through covid and really this is this reflects such strong community so congratulations to everyone who's working to make that happen also just one thing can I just share one thing to Carolyn's point that you didn't have to choose one it didn't have to be like you could identify as Jewish or middle eastern people could choose both as well so that people can have a space where the complexity of their identity is honored um and where they can choose to disclose what they want but they didn't it wasn't you can either pick Jewish or you can pick Arab people had the option to choose both and identify as best represents themselves we really wanted to preserve that here because we know people have a lot of complexity to their identity so just wanted to clarify that yep thank you except Carol okay see no other hands or questions or concerns I thank you so very much there's a lot here and um I'm really looking forward to these quarterly updates I think it'll be be really great they're already in the the calendar so thank you for that it's great okay um you're all welcome to stay as long as you want Oh but uh you certainly don't need to um we're moving on Mariah this is you the first reading of this is I don't know if we're in the first reading or the second reading because we published one it doesn't matter I guess we we talked about it last week at Finance but then we or we didn't talk about it we had it on the docket it doesn't matter we're in a reading um so you all got in earlier today I think three documents one was the I'm going to call it the second draft I don't know what reading it is but it's the second draft of the guidelines mistakenly labeled first draft but they are the second draft um and then there was there's a document um that's from Jesse which you have in front of you which is the table and there's a document from Carolyn which is a another uh not table um oh and a document you mayor I already Incorporated it yeah yeah okay that's well if it's the same one that you see see you on the one yes it the oh okay perfect yep so I sort of wo that in a little bit in that I pasted it in for us to discuss that's in like alternative intro yeah the alternative intro and then at the end I put in step's bullets alternative suggestion for fewer priorities yes um and then I highlighted a sentence on the first page which I think Stephen also called out and I thought it was worth talking about um so so there's that and then there's also one additional priority I put in um that came from Helen I sort of put your I don't know if I got your words exactly right but I put something in for discussion that's 1B now that's um for fiscal year TBD for fiscal year XX return World Language as a k through 12 program um so so I don't know that we're going to come to like a document right tonight so I kind of I think I want to throw this out there as a couple of maybe big philosophical questions to then take back if I'll take back and try and work on for another draft if that's okay with people so and then I know Carolyn and Jesse both provided detailed comments which aren't like included in here so I think we can also then and everyone can throw in additional comments um so I guess my my big philosophical questions I'm going to start with the highlighted sentence Mari yeah can I just ask you to start with your philosophical approach to this I think it would just be helpful to set a foundation just to have you provide your your basic thoughts around what this what budget guidelines are to do okay well I don't know if it's up to me I feel like this is a committee thing but yeah no I mean it's okay I'll I'll try and articulate what I think but um I think the idea is and Susan walked us through this at our August 21st meeting she talked about how there's sort of some formative documents the Strategic plan um these guidelines the um budget which she also referred to as the annual educational plan which was very important to make that connection to me um and and I think also then we there was maybe also the capital plan was another part of this this cycle um but that how they're they're sort of part of the foundational documents of the district to really guide the process um so I guess that's how I'm thinking about this is just as one of those foundational documents in that it complements those other documents um I'm not sure what else I don't know that's my philosophy of it this is a a question but does it is it basically like a a way of executing one of our statutory well I think that's right and that sort of is alluded to in the in the first sentence of the draft I mean I put in the alternative intro but this is sort of our key one of our big one of our two to three big things we are supposed to do so um to me it's really important and and Stephen asked this question and other people have too so I don't want to call it Stephen just about like you know how much do we how much does the Strategic plan stay static versus changing it we're having that we just had that conversation here now and um and I guess my qu you know it's this is part of the tension of this docu allows us to add on to what's already happening in the Strategic plan and put a little bit of our stamp on it without maybe completely trying to change the wording as you alluded to lonus in the Strategic plan which has been you know worked on and worked on um by many people um but I don't see this as overriding those other things it's just meant to sort of give Our Moment In Time feedback for the year as opposed to us trying to to change a multi-year document I don't know that's how that's my thinking on it Stephen I don't know if that's helpful and I don't know if other people have other thoughts helpful thanks Maria yeah yeah Sarah I feel I feel like if we're going to get a group of people together and say that you're the stakeholders and you participate in a process that we need to make sure that we honor the work that's done and to take a right turn at this juncture feels to me like we're not honoring the authors right so there was a lot of language it it funny because a for the way that this felt to me was that a lot of this these proposed changes came in last minute and I feel like the rugs being pulled out from underneath me because I had been very um I I really like the budget guidelines the first draft as it was and there's a lot in there that I like we've been working towards for a while and that goes back to that group that did the Strategic plan so I'm hesitant to make large changes that we you know those of us who aren't you're saying to the alternative you're referring specifically to the alternative proposed the alternative proposed wordings and in all the different things in front of me I don't want to do too many changes because I felt like we already went we've we've already come to some some agreements Samurai what would be most helpful okay well I'm going to go back to where I was going to go which was to talk about a couple of these things and it's to get a sense of the committee um first one is the highlighted sentence like you know is the Strategic plan this the Strategic plan which the school committee has voted and endorsed are do we agree that you know I think the question is are we seating our budget or responsibility for the budget by letting the strategic plan be the sort of anchor of the budget as opposed to us having more of a hand in it I personally feel comfortable having endorsed the Strategic plan myself to let that be a a a source of continuity and decision-making for the district over the long term um so I feel comfortable with that but I think it's something we should all talk about because it is a it's a strong it's a it's a strong philosophical statement of the committee um can I can I weigh out on this Steven then Helen oh I'm sorry did I cut you off go ahead Steven you got it first okay so um the the language the alternative language I think that I proposed Mariah you left out some of it which is that sorry can you hear me yes I I proposed initial language above the bullets that state and I'll read it um number three no prior to that that the um that the FY 26 to30 budgets should first and foremost support the Fulfillment of psbs 2024 to 27 strategic plan and any subsequent strategic plans so I propose that language to proceed any subsequent bullets and I thought that language was a strong commitment to supporting the Strategic plan and was more precise than a general commitment to having it be the gravity of our decision making independent of changes which I thought can be interpreted to be um a deferral of our executive authority to oversee budget making decisions I also looked at the budget guidelines for a number of neighboring communities including Newton's Wellsley Arlington's and about three or four other ones and those that had a strategic plan had it as a bullet or an objective rather than this Central overriding commitment that overrode even changes to leadership and the school committee's composition I think it goes too far to say that I think it's sufficient to say that we support it as our first and foremost OB objective and I think it um it's simply we we are not sufficiently taking our executive authority to oversee the budget seriously Enough by saying that that's my argument against that sentence uh Helen did you want no okay I mean I can kill that whole paragraph too if we want to like we more or less say the same thing below it says the primary guideline for fy20 26 to 30 is that all activities described in the Strategic plan and future iterations thereof will have clearly identified funding in the budget which I thought was the equivalent Stephen of your other sentence you said I want to have this primary priority but it was more or less there so I I think I I didn't understand it was a that it wasn't exactly as written but now I understand that but I'm fine to delete the whole paragraph that has the highlighted or like to massage it so that paragraph basically disappears I don't I'm not opposed to having it be the central commitment of the budget guidelines I just want to I just want to avoid having this commitment seem like anything more than a a guideline I don't think it should usurp any any Authority that the school committee possesses but it how could this usurp any Authority we have because if it's saying that this is the gravity of budget making decisions when budget oversight and approval rests with the school committee I think it' be reasonably interpreted to mean that we should stick to any budget commitments in the strategic plan even if this but even if the Strategic plan is a living document and can be interpreted in a variety of ways I think it's just it's too broad a [Music] statement Sarah did you want to speak well now I'm confused so um Can can you just tell me that you wanted to take the um highlighted part out okay but the thing is is that I I can agree with all your words I actually taking I I think the most powerful budget guidelines that I found had a really brief introduction that that expressed the strong vision of the school committee and then stated its priorities immediately and I I that's why I was proposing an alternative introduction that did that and then went straight into the objectives that we wanted to see enacted or that we wanted to give as guidelines to the administration I recognize that's not how we've operated in the past but that's what I came away with after reading other districts budget guidelines and I thought we could accomplish that by just stating our first objective is first and foremost to support the enactment of the Strategic plan and here are our other objectives that we would like to see I feel like I could agree with that if I hadn't then read the um bullet points that are in green at the bottom as being yours as well because if you say say what you've just said and then really try to change the kind of way that I've interpreted this document with these new more brief bullet points then that's where I get uncomfortable so for example if there's things that we've been working towards for a while and had conversations about and really wants to make sure that we see in our budget and then suddenly we're not working toward those anymore because we have these very vague um you know fewer prior ities and more vague ones I feel like we're not going to be effective because we're we're un undoing some of the work that we've done I guess it seemed to me that we should State the priorities in the Strategic plan that we wanted to see prioritized above other areas of the Strategic plan so it was more powerful to State these as generalities and then leave the specificities for the Strategic plan so these three areas that are in Black are already articulated in the Strategic plan as far as I can tell so I thought by summarizing them as a priority and what the value of that priority was it would be most powerful two three is what I think he mean can I ask a question yeah that's okay so I'm listen thank you I'm listening with interest to this conversation between two people who've gone through this process before um so and generally speaking my understanding of this process as as it was explained to me is that this is a a document that gets tweaked annually um and so but specific to the conversation that the back and forth there between Sarah and Stephen so Sarah you're saying you feel I think you're saying you feel committed to some of the things specific things that were worked on last year and so in these one two three can you give me like what specifics that are less vague than anything else um it's really important to me the way that we talk about rightsize Staffing for the office of educational Equity that's something that um has to do with the the people that we're employing right now and the way that we're we're positioning ourselves to do the work if we're not able to have that in our budget I feel I feel like some of the work that we've been working on will not go forward so the way I see that bullet is fund an educational Equity strategy and I don't know that we I don't know if an educational Equity strategy has been specifically like that sounds vague to be H like I don't know what that is and then the right size is sort of like follows when there are specifics so um but I appreciate the answer but so to me like most of these sound pretty Broad and that's not yeah so Su we don't know what the strategy is I don't think well I I think that one of the one of the challenges I had with one of the things I liked about what you were saying Stephen was make it shorter just make it shorter and like yeah I'm on board with that let's just like philosophically longer versus shorter let's just cut out extra words so I think I can take a big pass through and cut out extra words and I think that your third bullet essentially is no different from the budget number three and I think that the first budget is a little bit different in that it doesn't just focus on the high school um so I'm getting into a little bit of like yes let's do shorter you're talking about class sizes at all levels and I think that's something for us to discuss as a committee how do we talk about that I think that your second Bullet To Me becomes it becomes too broad because these are talking about the four bullets here are very specific and very timelined and yours becomes there's no timelines here and it's much broader in a way that I'm not sure if I would never ever know if we achieved your second bullet so that to me is a meaningful difference like what you wrote in number two is so broad where is what we have as we've outlined it gives fiscal years gives specific programs these are specific things seen so that yes I want to shorten things and I appreciate what you're saying about that but I don't want us to lose the specificity that allows us to know if the things we've asked to be done or being done so good point yeah so in general just going back to these philosophical questions I think we can we can cut out this paragraph or adjust it in some way to keep the sort of focus on the Strategic plan without any possible misunderstanding of whether or not we are seeding our ultimate statutory obligation I think in general I can I I can go through and shorten shorten shorten and we can figure out what we do on that um I think that members particularly Helen Jesse and Carolyn had other specific topics to bring up and I wonder if we might just want to if you all just might want to throw those out there the things that you'd like to see so that we can have a sense of the committee I don't want to like beat each one to death but basically a sense of the committee are we sort of leaning in that direction and then we could word Smith those ones offline um to bring it back to the committee and I I didn't get the chance Jesse to read your document other than like super quick skim so um so maybe I guess I leave it to the three of you maybe Helen you want to start since yours was relatively brief yet to um I I did say I would like World Language K through five returned is that what you said I don't remember what okay let K through five okay um but I wanted to be brought back in a stronger and um uh using our the report that we got and looking for ways to to do that and it probably it can't happen next year but we could at least start the planning plan for maybe that would be what you would want to put uh for a return of K5 World Language and I don't remember if they suggested if we were getting if we were eliminating it bringing it back year by year or bringing it back you know in kindergarten and moving our way up with a a cohort I don't remember I think that Dr gillery and Dr Fortuna have a a year in mind what year was that can you remind me it's in two years correct thought it was two to three but because three years we we talked about it in the context of um adding potentially adding to the school day as well as adding to the length of the school day let me be specific yeah and um what's the cost implication there as well so it's teeing all of those pieces up um can you remind me if that was 27 Jody do you remember off hand she here still yes she's it was 27 27 okay so planning for it in this coming year would make sense starting the planning of it the planning so that it could be implemented or par implemented in 27 should we write something like by FY 28 and I only say that just because that gives a little bit of wiggle room because I think this is a much don't hit the goal no of course of course we move it on just yeah exactly but I think it's also tied into the question of the longer school day it just feels like there's well that would be an override well that's my point of you know should we be talking about this as there's a year for planning a year for figuring out the money and then and then the implementation I think it there's just so many moving Parts here and and I see Jody's hand is up too and the reality of um our CBA negotiations that are also going to be happening starting next fall yeah it feels that would be FY 26 FY 26 427 right yeah Jody Jody yeah um um I'm I'm concerned about capacity um in being able to do it well next year with the launch of a new literacy um initiative and um I'm also not that this is not a reason to do it but I'm concerned about Staffing we're having a difficult time Staffing our middle school programs now with qualified candidates and I'm worried about being able to staff by a certain a certain date so th those are my key concerns with that bullet well why don't we put a pin in World language for now we'll come back and talk to you offline Jody and sort of figure out some of these things to come back to the group with some wording that might work for everyone in a timeline but knowing that word world language is in The Ether I'd like to be a part of that conversation if that works yeah um Carolyn and Jesse does one of you want to share some some of your topics that you'd like to see go ahead Jesse yeah sure where is it that we can read it while you're saying it it's there was a table one that was from Jesse and then there's one that says Staffing enrollment at the top that's from uh Carolyn right so in the um frantic rush to respond to um the email that there was a miscommunication I'm sorry yes that's okay that's okay um there was still a frantic Rush toh put something together that seemed to um look like guidelines without being specific um Milestones let's say so I took the track uh in the table of um of pulling together five guidelines uh with some language and then try to map them to the original language that I saw in um this other you know in the in the first reading document so the first one talks to um and they're at high level because I think the the you know I sure the guidelines needed to be uh specific budgeted items uh as as as as we've been talking the last few minutes though so aligning the budget with educational goals and again does it reflect our school priorities and the goals from the sips that we heard about and um and supporting the broader Mission like the Strategic goals that measured on a regular basis for me that says what the original language said as well um but sets us get gives us a um some broader perspective uh and and and and keeps our feet to the fire and making sure that each thing that's put into the budget aligns with a goal and so if those goals are from the Strategic goals then it's a perfect match the second one had to do with um equity and inclusion as a priority and comes back to making basically making sure in everything that we do that all students have access to Quality education and so that's throughout the whole year um because I I read a lot of stuff about extended school year and summer course opportunities of course that's throughout the year and then the uh the achievement gaps and and support for for students that might be challenged with special needs or low income or or foreign language um would be included in there that's the inclusion piece and again um I'm going to um repeat almost for each one that we need special ways of maintaining dashboards or measurements and I saw that in the original proposed letter as well and again we should come back to that I just yes sure sure the third was um fiscal responsibility so make sure it's balanced budget and uh that also includes the reserve fund that I saw mentioned in one or two places uh but there was nothing about the topic let's call it of fiscal responsibility by the school committee in in and how we're going to develop and how the school department is going to develop the budget that was not in the original guidelines is um engaging other stakeholders in the process um across the community um there are a lot I mean I know I me during the campaign um from House Party to house party or group to group um individuals that came up to me and said you know I've I retired from running a um you know $30 million or half a billion dollar Corporation and or I was a CFO of five companies all these things there people in uh you I wrote down their addresses as as they as they approached me from different neighborhoods um because they have like a wealth of data and they said well no one ever asks me anything you know I just sort of read stuff in the newspaper and I realize how how did that get done I'd love to help so engaging stakeholders even fromin the community in the process to make sure it addresses all the needs and it certainly would um help to promote a sense that we're being as transparent as possible in in in how in how we're doing that there was nothing about um sort of the the widest do you see that as a school committee responsibility or or is this a directive to staff because this document is a directive so that's why I want to that's they they'd want to yeah we'd want them to yeah we'd want staff to do that to bring other people in just as well as I mean you know if it'd be the difference even be saying that we'd go out and pay a consultant who's really good at helping schools with developing budgets while we have people I won't say wandering around Brooklyn there are people like that well I think that running a company is incredibly different from Municipal Finance like they're just not the same we can find people who did who did um NOS people who R in nonprofits all kinds of there are lots of people out there for sure um and the last one was um this you just mentioned it a moment ago but about measurements Monitor and evaluate the spending on a regular basis that was also not in the original guidelines so at least the ones that I read and I felt that there's something about being able to make um regular adjustments to the spending so make to make sure we don't get bit at bitten at the end that part we do through the finance subcommittee so we have quarterly meetings yeah great um if given what you wrote here Are there specific like if we don't rewrite things but the way you did rewrite them I guess my question is if we weren't going to rewrite them but edit the wording that was here are there things that you would suggest editing particularly well you mean in the three that are listed in the original letter yeah and I guess one of like for example one of the things that I liked in the way you wrote it is I think you talked about sips a little bit differently than the way they're written here um because one of the things that I thought was very interesting and Illuminating in our sip conversation last week was that there's still we're still in a transition phase from the old way of budgeting to the new way of budgeting and it was clear that there was we're halfway through it and that was clear and so how um how the sips are and even how the school budgets are looked at as holistically as opposed to an sip has $10,000 to support it and that's like the story which isn't right so we're in a transition phase so so how we how that um and I think your language speaks to that a little bit better than what's what's written here so personally I find that to be appealing to how we think about that transition from old process to new process I would like to incorporate some of that if that's okay with you if I don't know how the committee members feel but to me that was something that I thought maybe we could be a little more eloquent and supportive of the work that the principles are doing and finances doing just in the wording a little bit keeping it short very short but but I think with that and again because this is what Jesse has here sort of the way when I was a building principal the way um we would write our school Improvement plan with that but what what you just said that Mariah sort of this transition piece is that right now we are not set up in such a way to give the funds or the resources that are needed to impact or drive some of that change and some of our internal systems are not there uh as of yet and so you know when I hear dashboards I get excited but at the same time it gives me aa right now we're still very much a manual a manual system where we have people putting in keying information in and so it's so what I'm thinking about in the background is what are the infrastructural requirements that automate much of this so that we can move our staff away from doing the manual keyboarding aspects or data entry and actually allow them to analyze and really dig in and get creative and excited with their work so that's the that's ATT tension I just want to yeah name as part of this so I like the direction of the thinking but I also want to uh name that as a concern for the work also let's come back to dashboards in a minute um Jesse are you ready for is it do you want is there other things in your stuff that you want to call out for now okay Carolyn do you want to go through your um recommendations for us and then I want us to come back to the dashboard's conversation um okay either way no go ahead you're next okay go ahead great I'm sorry I thought is so again um my understanding of the directive here was like this is sort of by the way I like how it opens like I like how it starts with the school committee is responsible for approving and overseeing the district annual budget educational plan I like the mention of the you know being having the Strategic plan as the the center um and then my understanding of this was it's basically the school committee saying you know here's sort of like the what we would like to see a budget come to us to say here's what we want to spend money on here's how we want to do these things so um this was just kind of my my go at it um something about class size which basically reflects what I think I think it's important that we invest in classroom instruction in student facing Educators however that's expressed um for me that's a value um I put hold Reserve funds for staff because I think was that noted as something that used to be come up somewhere else it's still in 3B okay yeah it was there last year no she it was it was there it got removed back so that we had a few extra positions if a class size grew we immedately yeah so um you know I I certainly would defer to Susan and others who who can and jod who can speak to um the kind of on the ground need for that but given that um I'm committed to investing in classroom instruction um if staff have found that they miss that um I'm I'd be interested in in hearing that and seeing it go back um if if if that was a recommendation wait what go back I missed having a reserve fund we're already doing it we're partway through the process that's what 3B is okay thank you then that then that wasn't clear to me um when I say invest in literacy program rette I'm just sort of saying support it to the extent needed and recommended by staff um and then so I'm going to jump down to the summer programming basically like I support and and would support expansion of that um as a way to support students who need more support need more challenge um I just think it would be great to offer something really robust in terms of Summer um I'm not going to get into the whole High School electives Learning Center but that's I think sort of like a percolating challenge that it would be great to kind of address um I would love to see us do more um in the sort of calculus project model um so that's where I'm going with talking about high dosage tutoring that might not be the right word um but again just focusing on on teaching giving more to students who need more I would love for us to have more investment in Middle School programming I think that in districts that have Standalone middle schools there's just so much more and that really supports student engagement if there are clubs if there's Sports um and I know it costs money but I'm putting it in there um what are you taking out I bring it and we'll respond um I don't know a lot about this conversation about lengthening the school date so that's why it has question marks around it but it sounds like that's I guess that's a TBD and then the stuff I wrote under budget I don't know if it's appro for this document I don't really yeah I don't really know I didn't fully understand I guess the there'll be a different document Carolyn that picks through sort of what does the budget book look like so I would park those ones for now until we not necessarily Transportation plans but um these other sort of like uh Trends and overarching things those will go into the budget book and we'll come into that conversation in a month as far as like how much transparency there's going to be so about how much transpar but the types of analyses meta analyses that we're asking for so okay yeah dollars per student or percentage of Staff who are student facing versus non-student facing all of that will be in the budget book and that will be a separate conversation I guess so then how come if this is a budget guidance guideline what does like how come there's a number three budget because those are actually like the budget things not the budget presentation but how they actually get included like the fact that sips are part of the budget itself the fact that we're telling them to fund things that are they're about the budget not about the presentation of the so they're sort of broad yeah okay what are you talking about with Transportation plans and costs I'm not clear let me see the last one yeah oh I was just thinking about how Transportation The outof District transportation ended up being such a pain point this year and and I don't know how efficient our IND District transportation is either um so I guess I just want to make sure that the changes um that Susan um implemented Ed this year are are working and maybe it's not a budget guideline but it's sort of a we're spending so much money that we have to spend on Transportation I think it's it's more of a question to ask at Finance to have a I think that's an oversight kind of a question rather than a budget construction question I guess fine yep Andy do you have your hand up and then Stephen where's did you say Andy had a s up someone said Andy had a sand up um yes I I did for a while but then I took it down because uh it was addressed um but I guess something that came up earlier that I'm I'm I am wondering about so I think when Helen mentioned World Language and then the discussion turned to lengthening the school day possible need for an override and I agree that that makes that item like not suitable to be included in a document like this one I am wondering you know how do we talk about those things um something that is on a five fiveyear Horizon that may never happen but if it ever is going to happen we need to intentionally begin to study now what resources would be needed you know what else might have to go away you know um something like lengthening the school day that involves me negotiating contracts and raising a lot of money that we don't yet have um we have to start you know planning for that intentionally do we write it down somewhere does that go somewhere in the introduction to the budget book or you know where do we Memorial realize our interest in in that issue so um this was going to be one of my closing questions to people I think it does need to go in here and because I think it this is five years out and we need to Memorial I do think it needs to be in here because this is something that everyone's going to have to start reorienting themselves toward I don't know we don't know what we don't know how that's why it's not for next year but it's going to have to be on um on the horizon and I think this is the right place for it and we have to be careful to write it in a way that doesn't suggest that it's a foregone conclusion that anything of the sort would happen right but that um there's interest in it and and you know we need to start doing feasibility on it I thought that lonus when you came to us last spring you said that the state had visited and um there was I mean I don't know if it's a foregone conclusion but I thought it was a expected outcome maybe I misunderstood that there will be the state will be expecting us to do this to take on this work so in looking at um and Lisa and jod just submitted our um TFM our tiered Focus monitoring um results um back about the the length of the school day um and because we're at the at the K8 level we were able to demonstrate through our scheduling uh meeting the required number of minutes the challenge with this is that to then put in a robust uh K5 World languages Helen is describing with dedicated time that means either we're going to do less of something else that means taking something else off the plate or if we want to add this in in addition to that means lengthening the school day as such and so at the time we were um really looking through our schedules to make sure that we could take care of our academic core we've been able to meet that requirement as such so adding back um uh something more stringent than what we had initially means that either something comes off or something gets added at but don't we now not meet National best practices for example for meal and break times as well so I'm just saying like it's not just about I'm not right this I don't think you're saying this but it's about we can only have World Language if we linken to the school day I think there's like a series of things that would be really appropriate in a school day that we should have so yeah and I just want to make sure that that's the case K through five and not just K through three yes yeah and another issue that maybe requires feasibility that's on the horizon um and that we don't yet have the resources for is a universal prek right or at least greatly expanded prek that's predictively on Horizon we need to start doing feasibility on it but we can't yet budget for it obviously right um but we probably should memorialize that somewhere and Mariah you're saying maybe here just as like you know a statement of interest um is it a five-year statement and are we having to carry this ourselves or is that going to come with a huge Federal well we could put it in terms of if the state as soon as the state funds y or state or federal government okay I'm writing that down yeah that I would like that okay Stephen's next I'm sorry go ahead Stephen then Helen thanks so three quick things one just to respond to what Andy said one way that um wsly addressed uh what you brought up Andy is they they mentioned that they were going to fund ongoing analyses uh to in uh in like Cropper a given or other projection analyses for the district in full so that they can continue to project the needs of the district we could consider something like that in our budget guidelines that we want to make a commitment to continue uh funding analyses of the district's projected needs including uh demographic changes um uh state regulatory or funding changes um Etc Ju Just a thought on on how to broaden Andy suggestion to some that might be a broader state and federal what was the word you used something not as good as what you're going to come up with afterwards okay we'll rewind the tape later on and figure out what it was it was good um yeah that's thought number one thought number two is that I wholeheartedly and unsurprisingly want to endorse Carolyn's proposal to um Elevate to the level of a guideline that support for the literacy um curriculum and PD roll out not hopefully not just because I have it as my own policy preference but because it's such a major and one-time investment for PSB that I think it it deserves to be at the level of a budget guideline that we would fully support its rooll app um along the same lines I really liked Jesse's articulation of support for the Sip process because I I thought like I think most of you that the Sip um presentations have just been increasingly strong and I like the idea of of elevating sips into a budget book guideline by saying um but by giving it some guideline along those lines by saying that um priority should be where possible given to the the stronger support of sips in this and future budgets um the third comment is that um Beyond those two suggestions I I guess I want to reiterate wanting to broaden out the educational Equity budget guid line to something more vague so that the specificity of how we what was that lonus didn't hear what the word was he said what I said vague oh something something broader and less specific AKA vague so that the so that the meat of what we do in educational Equity is left to the Strategic plan and negotiated more fully um with the office of educational equity in deij subcommittee meetings and in the school committee meetings because I think it's clear from um Mariah's proposed language Jess's proposed language and Carolyn's proposed language that the policy preferences of specif of different school committee members will differ and and I think finding a consensus on this might be difficult so so I would like to propose continuing to make funding educational Equity a priority but leaving the specifics of what that entails to different negotiating channels so those are my three suggestions thanks how is how is that last one different than what's written here what would you change in 2C from yours Jesse's or Caroline's mine how would you change 2C what is what there is too specific and do you think needs to be vaguer sorry I just close your document bad timing yeah can I ask a couple more questions and and we come back this is responding to something that Carolyn said Carolyn brought up enrichment and I'm wondering what the committee thinks about rolling enrichment into 2D such that the summer programming is not just about um the examples given are not just about um students on IEP accessing summer electives but also to be able to incorporate enrichment into the summer programming and sorry Helen I'm going to jump super quick that if it wasn't clear I think that was sort of what I intended okay I think that's what you were intending I wasn't you mentioned it broadly not related to that one I'm saying but also does that does that scratch the itch does that solve the does that address the concern that people want to have enrichment is addressing it as summer program at the high school a good start or insufficient or because it doesn't address it at K through 8 yeah is is this like a wish list of all the stuff we want Ian thank you well I mean I'm not understanding where all this I think from the summer programming is something that we've talked about for a long time no I'm not I'm not saying I'm against it I'm just saying the whole conversation is um you know possible longer day bring World Language back enrichment that's all they're all great yeah but we're still with the same pocket of money so in my mind the guidelines are to help us decide if and when we don't have enough money how do we vote for priorities MH and so I mean that's so that's fine so do we want to say we don't want robust summer programming no I'm I'm not saying that I just don't know if that's a guideline for the budget well see I think it's important and last year when we talked about it we thought it was important too yeah I'm not saying it's not important I'm just trying to make this a really useful tool for us so on that mean that we want to prioritize that first above other other activities and I don't know that there's consensus on that or or I'm not sure that I would be supportive of that as as my as my as the first in my wish list sum programming I'd like to just say one other thing about budgeting when when we talk about sips and budgeting at the school level $110,000 will do nothing right I mean it buys crayons it will do nothing for new programs or new initiatives or new ways of thinking and what was really needs to happen I think is that they are going to get the same budget as we give them a budget based on the programs the number of students and then they have to they meaning the local school level has to decide how those monies will be spent so maybe they'll say I'm going to trade in three paas for a classroom teacher or I'm going to trade in a classroom teacher for three pairs or I'm going to share uh Paris Paris or I'm going to share a science teacher because I really only need one and a half and right now what happens is my understanding is that all comes from up above the coordinators totally that but for the most part they're told how many science teachers World language teachers Paras they're told that what they're going to have and if we really want the budget to happen at the school level they need to be able to figure out what the needs are of the school school site Council may even have some people that understand budgets on it that's where they should come in not at the Dr given's level in my mind I mean that's she's professional that's her job but at the local level it might be helpful to have somebody who really kind of can play with budgets a little bit and then that's where that happens and so somehow we're still just talking about everything we want but we're not giving them any money except for $10,000 which well we know know that that's going to change we've accepted we all know 10,000 the old model is not is the old model right at some point we need to have the conversation about what this new model will look like if if we want to go there if we want to just stay with the you do what who you get and we give it to you then we can do that but we have a number of years talked about having more decisions made at the school level so and so but can I before you hold on hel before you what how does that like was that prompted by the addition of En Into Summer programming no it's prompted by this whole conversation okay this whole conversation I mean I think if a school says by goly we want to do enrichment I am committed to it then they have to figure out with the help of central offic how that can happen within their budget yeah but at the end of the day Suzanne yes they have to do it but also this is our budget and something that we're supposed to be supporting and I think that there is a huge Community desire to see this kind of programming so to the extent we are also providing feedback to building leaders about what we're hearing I think that that's important too that's true but that again they if you don't give them the money they can't do anything different well absolutely that's why it says fund it like the first word there is fund I know but okay we we don't have the funding for them so we have to help them decisions need to be made I mean that's the whole point of this right is that tradeoffs have to be made and if we don't yeah but the question what if we can't what if there we went through that exercise last year yeah and the school committee made decisions and some of us were very happy with some of that all of us are not always going to be we've already made those those are gone right you know the next level gets harder I think I I'd like to say two things one it's very interesting part of the reason that things weren't so School controlled was because in the past they were mhm and there was no equity among the schools in terms of where what you would get at once school and what you would get at another school so that was the shift then towards you know making it so that everybody got a per pupil allotment whatever it was and one school didn't have a Drama teacher and another school had a I don't know a special art uh program we it sort of got leveled out whether that's good or bad I don't know but this sounds like it's a movement back to that because there's certain Basics they have to fund we have to have kids in classrooms and they have to learn a certain amount of curriculum you know um wait what about these guidelines as a shift backwards I'm confused by that to giving more control local control so to speak schools that's not us that's like the 1994 edform yeah okay well okay we were there we left we came back because people were saying you know why do they have that and we don't have that anyway the other piece I think this this robust Su Helen if I could just on that but I think that's the that's the tension that we expect to see with the local control with School site Council and so that's part of what Suzanne is saying here as well is just you're you know we're going to we're going to some may experience it as an inequity but the local school may say this is my customization for what I need for my particular body of students and that looks different uh from school to scho there are some things that are going to be consistent we need everybody in math we need everybody in science we need everybody in social studies in ela that becomes a given but then when you start saying well I want this program and so at this on this side of town I have this program but on this side of town I have that and then you have now people looking over the fence saying oh well I want that and I so you know it why would this why would this process Le to that problem that you're describing my understanding of this document and process is the school committee saying these are our Collective values this is where we want to see the district prioritize its spending so at least for for me when I looked at this I wasn't I definitely wasn't thinking about it as like individual ual no no no I'm not saying about this document I was just responding to the the what Helen was saying about the centralized control versus local control not about this document okay but and yeah so and I would not take get to off track I would certainly make the argument that enrichment is educational Equity right if Equity is ensuring that every student gets what they need to meet their academic and social potential than enrichment is educational Equity okay I Sor yeah there was one then we going to try and TI because I think we're almost done I had one more question and could be a budget Buster if we make it Universal 2D yep you're having robust summer programming um yeah and I don't I don't know how you you go about doing that I do think uh 2A is really important our extended school year for those kids who need it I think that's critical I I don't mind expanding that but I think 2D can become I depending on how it's done I mean we could have offer it but then it would be you know only kids you know who could pay or we'd have as we have now our summer school that's in deficit so that's my okay Mariah we wrapping this up um one more question for the group and you're not going to allow to talk about it as long as you did everything else and then one discussion on dashboards uh several members brought up class sizes beyond the high school 1A right now only contemplates class sizes at the high school do we want to consider a broader um given the discussions we've had in this past year is there something we want to say about class sizes Steph suggested some wording I think maybe Carolyn did too or do we keep it focused on the high school and then continuing to look at the K12 enrollment forecast as is articulated here aren't we still committed to the guidelines from the K to a pre to I'm just asking I okay does anyone want wording changed here if we're okay with it that's fine I just want to get a sense I would actually like to have a commitment to the class siiz guidelines K to 8 which one which guidelines our guidelines the ones that don't actually exist in any policy yeah that we've tried to get okay um I'll write down something about class siiz guidelines and then lastly I just want to bring us back to the to the paragraph right before number one which talks about the dashboards and there is a guideline hidden in there funding must be developed for the funding must be included for the development of these or equivalent data analytics Tools in FY 26 if they are not complete by the end of calendar year 24 which is the end of Q2 for fiscal year 2025 so I don't know where we're at on that lineus and you were just alluding to it as well but to me it's like this is sort of this is the heart of it well with certainly with uh some of our student uh metrics we were're uh building out dashboards there and I know Susan and her team has done some work on those as well so I'll let her weigh in on that when she returns okay so I'll come back to you on that one for sum wording over the next week yep I can move that one down to budget good idea great thank you that's the end unless anyone else has something to say going once going twice done sure thanks everyone for the input thank you thank you m and everybody who contributed and everybody today okay we're moving along we're going to do our subcommittees and layers on reports um again fairly brief if you can um Capital you're up first okay I'll be brief um tomorrow is the peer School building committee meeting at um 4:00 uh on Zoom um and we will probably be discussing I imagine the the crossing guards at that point um and what's happening what the school has been able to do what we're looking at uh I need to talk to Susan I know her and Joe have been trying to to figure things out too um we on Friday morning is the Driscoll School building committee meeting at 8:00 uh the capital subcommittee meeting will be on October 24th um at 4:00 which will it'll include uh our CIP requests for next year I know it's been delayed uh but that was because Charlie was out on sickle Charlie Simmons uh the head of uh buildings and we wanted to make sure that we're working together on that request um and uh's back huh he's back I just saw him this morning uh this evening in the in the garage so he's definitely back and working and looks great um do we have to do a possible vote on support letter for the Davis path yes so um you saw in your packet I guess that's all for those pieces unless anybody has any questions um the discussion and pule vote to issue a support letter so the school committee actually issued a support letter last year on this Davis path foot Bridge which is an important grant that DPW is trying to get at the time they said they didn't know if they were going to get it I was sort of hoping they didn't get it last year so the timing would work out that we would would be able to use the field for peer School throughout the time that we're at Old Lincoln School and that by the time we leave it they would be working on that path and the playground because the two will be going together I spoke with um uh Aon Shu gallentine Commissioner of uh Department of Public Works and she felt that that's probably the the trajectory of what would happen if we were to get it but if we don't apply for it we're not even going to get it so um I would recommend that we approve um uh resending a letter I don't know exactly what she wants us to do the new a new letter dated this year with the new uh signature and maybe give me the permission or is it substantially the same as last year's yeah so do we need to vote uh yes I would like to um I'll make a motion to vote to issue a support letter for dpw's Davis path Footbridge replacement project for the Federal Grant application yes Jesse thanks he seconded Jesse I seconded okay I thought okay Jesse you vote uh yes Andy yes Carolyn yes yes Sarah yes Mariah yes Stephen yes and I vote Yes as well is that it so is there um do we need somebody to sign this letter um I sign Andor perfect right okay perfect thank you all thank you that was quick that was quick uh curriculum met actually twice now we've met so in August end of August we met uh we were uh told a lot about the unbounded Institute that a number of people went to from OTL they loved it uh and they talked a lot about literacy and uh and they started including more around comprehension and around writing which is I think good to see um so uh prek K and one are all going to be doing heg and Foundations grades two and three are doing foundations this fall so that's across the board everybody's doing it uh as we mentioned I think uh maybe Dr Gill mentioned uh the after school uh some of them are calling plc's but the after school uh professional development and they had the first one uh several Tuesdays ago and they were well attended so and they talked about literacy and curriculum so that's really good and they'll they do that 38 hours throughout the year so they'll do it throughout the year um they also we've also been attending I think Michelle did this literacy acon academy by desie uh it's they're going to help us with modules and on the ground coaching so that's great yeah and um questions coming up is how do we understand dashboard data what we're going to spend some time doing that in the future um and then Jody did mentioned as she mentioned I think today that there's some internalizing re uh reorganization and she's going to be out in the field more so she's going to be out on Tuesdays and Thursdays um Gabe is coming in more he's doing more grants and mentoring and operations and then Michelle's going to do more around literacy really focused on literacy um so that was that meeting and then we had the joint meeting with finance and we it was just a marathon and we went through the school Improvement plans but you know I felt like we were in a Groove and so we knew what you know what was coming and kudos to jod and her team for really getting this format that worked everybody was the same so we knew what to expect we kind of knew where they were going and where they got off Target there um they started off with celebrations and acknowledgements of teacher staff uh Community people who were involved with the sips in their schools and then they went through their goals which matched the Strategic plan goals for the district um so I thought that was really worthwhile yeah it was excellent and uh that's my report uh de J okay that's fine Finance um nothing other than the meeting you just described thank you yeah uh government relations Andy um yes government relations met very briefly last week um to look at the warrant for the November town meeting and decide whether there were any warrant articles uh that we wanted to uh bring before the school committee um so that the committee could discuss whether to hold a public hearing on those warrant articles um so if we do hold a public hearing on a warrant article we invite the to come they they'll give a presentation anybody else who wants to speak can speak on it and then after that we may or may not hold a vote on whether to take on what position if any to take on the warrant article if we do take a position then you know somebody writes a statement and that goes into combined reports so the two uh warrant articles that um seem potentially of interest to the school committee or relevant to the operation of the schools are number 16 uh which is on tree removal so on this one um you know at the time of the meeting my reading of um the warrant article explanation made me think that it might it wouldn't apply to school property at all so this is um a warrant article that strengthens the one that was passed in 2022 that makes it harder to chop down trees um and this one would extend sort of the application of it um according to the explanation the current bylaw applies only to residential property and the proposed new um version uh would apply to all private property and I thought at the time that that meant that schools would be exempt um however just to be sure I got in touch with Richard Murphy who's one of the the uh the petitioners and he said that it would apply to schools because schools are zoned as residential property um and so that's where it is for now I think if it's if it's going to be an issue for school property then it might be something that we would at least want to inform ourselves about uh what the implications would be for um you know for our properties so Andy can I ask a question have you consulted with Town Council I haven't because you know we just had the meeting last week and then I I emailed Richard and just in the last couple of days that um I heard back from him about about this which is I have to say it's a surprise to me um I think that um so does anybody remember when Mr Murphy came before the school committee actually a couple of years ago when this when the original uh warrant article went through and I I think that at the time it was said to not apply to schools um and so I'm not sure now why we're being told that residential property does include our properties I think it would be helpful before we made a decision if you could confirm whether the language not as written in the explanation but as in the proposed bylaw would include the schools as Town Council interprets it one thing if I could just add to that um in the schools where we have taken down trees We have replaced them probably with more maybe double the amount that were there but not the same size and you know one of the things that I read in that is they want larger caliper uh size trees and actually smaller ones grow faster than bigger ones and take better so I don't know where I guess the issue the only issue we have to address right now is um so as Mariah suggests um I think I will go to Town Council so if Town Council were so if Town Council says no it would not apply to schools then I think we're done if he says that it would apply to schools would the committee then want to hold a public hearing if only for the purpose of checking in with the petitioners um about how they're interpreting this I think you're right or do you think that's Overkill well I think if the purpose of the discussion is for us to also issue our feelings on it then that's probably valuable okay if we have opinions on it if it applies to us okay can I take as an instruction to go to Town Council and if he says it does apply to us then we would go ahead and schedule the public hearing am I supposed to say yes I don't know from here it's very hard for me to tell what people are people not it seems yeah people are okay with it okay good so the other warrant article that um the school committee might be interested in is 19 on um that's a resolution calling on the select board to establish a Jewish American Heritage Month in May um the the reason it's relevant to schools is that um one of the one of the parts of that is that um let me read it out the public schools of Brookline um should observe Jewish American Heritage Month by organizing activities in celebration of the month and providing instruction on the history and culture of the Jewish American Community right so this would be a non-binding resolution however it is so waren article that sort of is telling PSP what to teach when um and so it's something we might wish to take up but town meeting can't bind PSB anyway right right it would not be binding however it would be you know it would be Town meetings speaking on uh and and sort of telling PSP what it would like to see happen in our schools and the wording you're pointing to is not provided to us right because explanations not the okay yes it's in the actual War article not the explanations yeah I would also add that it was celebrated last year in the schools this was just a another I mean it was we have pictures of it being done at F frr for example with nice posters Etc it was also done at Hayes although some additional direction would have been helpful there um and we I I met with parents and some others about trying to work with the district in terms of finding a way of doing it in a more standardized uh shared way so that everybody on the same page I think the issue here with the with Article 19 um Andy is that they wanted the town to sort of revalidate what the federal government's already done and that's it uh it's a response to some historical other resolutions that were done for other um Faith communities in Brookline and um uh Michael and Scott were interested in doing this for um an existing Federal heritage month that's already um uh cele ated by the schools but to have the town officially recognize it in a resolution that was it yeah so um again please speak up because I can't see people's gestures but um would the committee want to hold a hearing invite petitioners and possibly make a statement on this for Combined reports or do we feel comfortable um staying out of it I would I I I would stay out of it personally I mean my vote it stay out of it yeah I mean I've had discuss I'm not sure why the Warren article is even being brought actually so that's okay it'll get passed I mean it'll it will get passed I'm not worried about that but it's just another one of these you know Brookline sort of getting in the way of what federal and State's already doing and in this case public schools of Brookline are already doing it so it's not it doesn't really affect the schools as much it would it would if the town decided after this you know without the res solution not to celebrate it then it could affect the schools because you'd be going against like a town value but it's the other way around so I don't see this as an issue at all does it does this does it make sense for the school committee to essentially say just as like a point of record psba is already celebrating this right like we have a hearing just so that someone writes a thing that get submitted and says this is something that's already a PSP value that is being practiced sure I don't know the only so but you're saying having a hearing where the petitioners come I mean it's just like a lot for the petition when you're doing a warrant article it's a lot of well I don't know that we have have theing but we could submit a something without doing a hearing like submit a yeah a statement a statement yeah yeah that we support it and public schools of Brook line is 100% behind it already being done can we do that can we do a can we do a statement without a hearing I'm just asking okay okay well and probably it's um it's a courtesy to offer the petitioners the hearing and then they can turn it down right rather tell them you're not allowed to come to you're right I'm thinking about the I'm thinking about like sitting through all the hearings on advisory yes sure and and remembering my friend Nathan who was doing the be thing and he just could not for his wife who wanted to keep bees and it just turned into like a nightmare of going to every possible group and then sorry I'm just super quick Andy um I would respectfully suggest you might on the tree thing actually check with Cara brutin um might be more expert on the on the zoning questions or an additional expert well you might know you might know the answer to this are all um public schools in Brookline considered to on Town Town property so there it's complicated okay all right the two schools use parks that are public town Parks as our school park no I'm asking they I believe they are well no but we own them we own them yes the town look in the register the Deeds I'm pretty sure it says like their town of own that's what I thought I think the school department has jurisdiction or control control that's what the word is control yeah right so so they're not really residential that was they're residential I I I think that's a a stretch you know they'd like to do it but it's a stretch and we do do it I mean that's the part that's even more important in other words when you're on you know the proposed amendment to apply to all private property I think when you're in a public school of Brooklyn you're not on private property you're on Town property with the control of the district but it's really not um private property anyway so it wouldn't affect this I'm surprised he said it was residential because it's really a stretch yeah yeah Andy do you wonder the masc oh uh sorry is that is that on today's docket yeah oh yes that's right um the other thing we need to do hold on let me um let me just pull up the docket um is to to uh appoint a delegate and an alternate for the masc annual business meeting um and so I would like to nominate um Suzanne to be the delegate and Sarah to be the alternate I believe both of them have uh have um expressed willingness to to be in those roles seconded all right okay we have to vote I guess right take a yes yeah Jesse yes Andy yes Carolyn yes Helen yes Sarah abstain oh you can vote for yourself yes Mariah yes Stephen yes and I vote Yes as well okay is that it Andy triple the salary that's it for government relations negotiations is next do you have anything for negotiations no oh whose's negotiations who head aren't you oh am I yeah you you oh I'm still I thought you took me off Andy quiet we're dormant right now not doing anything okay Stephen policy review um thanks um so we met last week um we had a meeting with um uh there were three topics on the meeting one was the discussion of our work process which um thank you for everyone's patience as we continue to hash out what exactly is our work process this year um we talked about how uh the work process is going to be few things one is as we work on the substantive revisions of existing policies or on new policies that will proceed pretty much as we've proceeded in the past but on the revisions of entire sections we're just to try to focus on uh changes uh with regard to the Brookline context and uh with regard to changes in state law statute regulation that hopefully will be delivered to us with the assistance of masc a consult with a consultant from masc um So non-value based changes that'll be that part of the policy subcommittee docket and then we'll have our discussion section as well so at that At Last At the last meeting we had that discussion of the work process then we had our first meeting on the coordination of a PSB mobile device policy I think it was eight or nine of PSB principles submitted their school-based pilot policy there was a lot of overlap because principles worked together on this um we reviewed a lot of these policies principles uh contribute what they thought some of the core ideas behind these policies um I think it knock on would it shouldn't be that difficult I think to put together a districtwide policy that is has a K8 section and a and a section for VHS because there were some pretty obvious Core Concepts including um well I won't go through them what what they are but um I thought there was a lot of consensus there and the principles have been exceedingly helpful in helping us identify what they are and then we went on to review um a lot of section J some of section J we're going to be tackling specifically like we're going to be looking at the attendance policy in next month's meeting that's part of section J we're going to be looking at um some of the some of our some of section J like hate speech and hate speech um the sections on bullying anti-discrimination policy and so on we reviewed fairly recently so making nonv value based changes to it uh making contextual changes contextual updates to it isn't that important because we did that fairly recently so we we looked at six or seven subsections of section J and hashed out a review process this is going to be a much more boring subcommittee than it's ever been before so we worked out that we're all going to take this part of section J um mark it up send a version of it to Carolyn for her to integrate before uh November which is when we're going to take this up again we're going to stagger these things every other months so we have time to really review it and then that block will be the review of the integrated draft so that by the end of it we hopefully can come to an agreement on it and present an integrated draft of it to the school committee with our changes highlighted um next month we're going to review policy at the request of principles and everyone is invited to submit their comments on this policy to me Betsy has sent around I believe Betsy the the draft of that or was that just to the policy subcommittee I'm sorry I don't remember just she said just a policy just a policy okay and we're also going to start reviewing the student code of conduct so that's what we're going to take up in October and thank you Andy for taking the review of the warrant articles away from the policy subcommittee it's nice to have been unburdened of that responsibility welcome Helen yeah so Stephen I I looked at uh a little bit of your minutes I didn't get a chance to come to the meeting and if I can be helpful in terms of some of the residency stuff I remember when we voted that and the issues and why we did things so it may not be clear exactly why things are in there or why they aren't houses huh the 21 houses yes yes that would be great Helen that would be yeah so I I'd be happy to to go over that and I'm sure Rebecca Stone would be happier even to tell you exactly how they went visited each one of those properties that makes me remember that of note in our [Music] um is it what what is it we're going to review in in section J that's going to include a a subsection that we already have a draft revision to that's the placement policy so that's going to come up in November so when we present to the school committee uh a redrafted section J it's going to include that section which has already been substantively revised so that should take that off of the back blog anything else from any else anyone else in this go ahead ell wasn't that revised but not as temporary that was revised but never pass one year to see how it would work that was The Proposal oh so nothing happened yeah it it wasn't passed so when when this section comes up for review by the full school committee that will be in it okay thank you thank you additional lansa updates anyone have anything Ellen sorry I'm talking so much today uh but I happen to be at the steps board this morning I'm the liaison to steps of success and actually it was a really great meeting um they now have a full complement of Staff they had had a lot of turnover for a while and things um people leaving and positions not filled they are now totally filled um they're working on getting a consultant to begin K through two which we voted some of the money for that I know for our steps stuff or something that we did within our budget they're looking to do that um and one good piece of information that we can uh good news as they say on NBC News the good news tonight 23 students uh from steps senior class uh enrolled in fouryear colleges this year and that's 75% of the seniors plus the the ones who didn't they were working very hard with them on Alternatives some were working some were going to um two-year colleges and some into internship so it was you know things have sort of turned the corner I think in many respects and it's a good thing Jesse Yeah I just wanted to give a quick summary of the CPAC meeting that I attended um uh this past Friday morning um the bulk of the meeting was spent on um the new IEP process the teachers had already been through it but the U um mostly parents who were at the meeting um at Town Hall uh downstairs actually here we are in town hall that's right um uh we had a lot of questions about it and it was a a very thorough uh presentation um from OSS and then um I gave a brief presentation a couple slides about um the new um composition of the school committee and the um different Liaisons that we uh serve or function on in terms of the it's off the website of all the different um committees and there were a lot of like sort of gasps and oh like you know you guys are all over everywhere you know sort of liaz liasing with uh with every single place in town that's possible and and I also explained to them um for each of us um if we were the chair of a committee so they know like who the person is for Finance Dei Etc and um and then um asked them if there was anything else we could do to smooth the communication between any of their needs and us and asking them to be sure that from time to time during this coming year they feel comfortable and reaching out to us um to give a you know get on the docket to to U present to us anything that's going on in their community that would be helpful for us to hear from and they appreciated that as well and so uh it was a it was a solid 90-minute meeting and then yeah thank you good thanks thank you okay new business and we can adjourn oh my God that was action p --------- ##VIDEO ID:0gC_6pF84Xc## [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good evening everyone this is the Brooklyn school committee uh for September uh 25th 2024 uh Andy is here but is remote so he has asked me to run the meeting uh in person but he is with us and will join us when he wants to speak um our first item is a consent agend agenda uh I'll move to uh move the consent agenda do I have a second yes thank you Sarah uh Jesse yes Andy yes Carolyn yes Helen yes yes Sarah yes Andy I think you called on me already but yes again oh I did I have you down twice Mariah yes Stephen yes and did I miss somebody Val's absent okay I'm gonna object if Andy gets two votes each time I know I'm gonna I'm gonna correct that right now yes oh I vote yes that's that's that's the world change I didn't tell you about wait I'm sorry Suzanne can I just ask if the peer school project is part of the consent agenda sure you want to say yes go ahead stepen um can I was it part of the consent agenda yes yes oh then well it's too late we voted but can I just ask about it it seems to have been um a more than usual marked up copy I didn't know whether some some of the questions were like two police de two days for police Deale detail and then it says one day question mark I just didn't know whether we were voting on the the the the amended version or the version before the the written amends I'm just I'll have you jump in aren't we voting on a change order it's a change order the change order though has some markings on it and the marking not the same as what's originally listed I'm sorry I didn't think it was going to be controversial so I didn't look at it very closely however sometimes um our own project manager not the left field but our lap Yan who who's our project manager for this uh and works for the town looks at the bill and says no this is not acceptable and we don't include this and there you know and so we'll change that's why some of the markups are on this particular one um can I get back to you during the capital subcommittee report and I'll take a look at I'll remember it doesn't look like it would amount to very much but it just suggested that of the the the costs were um being questioned or were in some flux so I didn't know whether we were voting on I think oh I remember it was it was for uh now I remember it was for more excav um testing geotechnical testing and sometimes if it was in the road they would need a police detail to get the cars around and things like that so that may have been what that was about but why it was taken out that I can't tell you yet okay thanks Helen but it was for testing that we I think there were two or three things actually that suggested that there was a question around the the units like how many days of borings or how many police details I just wanted to know whether we were going for the what the final what the final was well usually what we are voting is what would be the final um I guess what I'm saying is it wasn't clear to me in the document what the final actually was whether it was the cost listed or the the written amount on top of that oh right that that may yeah right yeah I heard you it was not to exceed you heard okay it was not to exceed so may be a little bit less than that given that some of the costs were questioned correct okay thank you but they'll adjust that you know throughout the project you'll be get will'll be getting um sometimes change orders not to exceed that's the way they can limit the the cost and it's important the building commission put that on there when they were approving it so that's thanks as much as I can tell you right now okay all set now we'll move on to the superintendent report Dr gillery good evening I want to start with um letter that I shared with uh with our faculty later this afternoon so some may not have even seen it at this juncture um but I want to thank start by thanking them for their um thank our Educators for their incredible um dedication and commitment that they demonstrate every day in the care for our students and each other our unwavering Mission remains providing a rigorous academic and social education that Fosters critical thinking and supports the social and emotional development of our students I also want to fully acknowledge the complexity and significance of the issues our world faces today and that Global and National events can proud profoundly affect our students our families our faculty and our staff the one-year anniversary of October 7th and the subsequent war and enduring humanitarian crisis require that we remain unwavering in our commitment to support all individuals and our school communities in particular our Jewish Muslim Arab and Israeli students and staff these events impact each of us in ways seen and unseen explore course rooted in to take share important goal is to make feel connected will have a dedicated space where students and staff can go to reflect process their emotions and access support from a counselor or a clinician our counselors and clinicians will work with individual and small groups of students who want or need additional support we're asking that if there are any concerns regarding a particular student or a colleague to reach out to the school leader or to a member of the clinical team we are committed to maintaining this e e e