##VIDEO ID:o67CdUpaHtc## order please stand for the pledge of allegiance of the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you this meeting is being live streamed by chel Tel media and posted a CPS website for interested community members to access and watch inperson public participation will be taking place tonight in accordance with the Chums school committee public participation policy anyone speaking tonight during the public input portion of this meeting has been not has notified the superintendent's office the desire to speak and has been provided with these guidelines upon request written comments receiv received no later than 12:00 P p.m. the day of the meeting will also be read be part of the record of the meeting during the second public comment session so welcome to this meeting of the Chon school committee first order business is to approve our minutes from our meeting on October 15th I make a motion that we approve the minutes of the meeting of October 15th 2024 second second okay any comments or Corrections on the minutes he all in favor I anybody opposed 5 Z all right next up we'll hear from our student reps uh the CHS Cass of 2025 craft fair will be held on Sunday November 17th from 9:30 to 3:30 p.m. um in the high school gymnasium uh there will be $3 General entry but um kids and senior citizens will go in for free um at this at this craft fair you'll look forward to seeing jewelry clothing candles baked goods Woodwork and a lot lot more uh the CHS Beauty and the Beast performances will take uh place on November 1st and 22nd at 7:30 um two shows on Saturday the 23rd one of them being at 1 100: p.m. and one of them being at 7:30 p.m. um students can purchase their tickets at lunches uh but tickets are also sold online um and can be accessed through the Cher High School homepage along with this um tickets are sold at the door um the CHS psychology Club is throwing a Cher High School cleanup day on November 20th um this will allow students to help um pick up trash that's um uh all across the school um additionally they have they have uh started and continued uh their compost bin which allows students at lunches to uh compost and um their their food scraps for healthy recycling um all sports are coming to an end um with that winter sports are starting up this afternoon there was a uh winter sports meeting which uh athletes can meet with their coaches and see what basically what's expected of them um through their upcoming Sports season tomorrow night will be the eighth grade parent night in the gymnasium from 6:00 to 8 high school students will also be there to share their perspectives on classes offered at the high school as well as well as what the upcoming eighth graders can expect to learn and see once they enter the high school I will be there for environmental science if anyone stops by and then with Thanksgiving coming up our spirit week starts on Thursday November 21st ending on Wednesday the 27th with our pep rally to to prepare us for our rival game against Bela for those who are not familiar with pep rally that is where all the students get together in the gym and cheer as loud as they can with performances from the band cheer dance and color guard as well as pieing in the face and tug of war events for Spirit Week include spirit days Chums for trivia clothing and food drives karaoke attending Beauty and the Beast Powderpuff which is flag football with girls being able to play as well as homecoming for all grades and then this Friday the chumford High School National Honor Society board will be attending a conference at Holy Cross meeting with other Massachusetts National Honor societies the chumford board will conduct a presentation sharing how Chum students here at the high school serve their Community we will be sharing events such as the Christmas tree lighting ha for cause at the Paul Center bu family math night peer tutoring programs schoolwide cleanups and many more we hope to hear from other towns and student accomplishments and learn from them as well as Inspire other students by our Cher pride and I say we because I'll also be attending that so thank you very much buy any other good news we want to share um just very we had a very successful full PD day it was exhausting I think for everybody involved um we split the day up into two parts where they started off in their buildings um Elementry stay in the buildings all day and then we were able to bring back um we resurrected our Ed Camp Model and um we had a lot of good discussions ice cream was on the docket and um prizes with um Dr Lang was the one that was able to pass out all the prizes so it was a good day great anybody else have any good news they want to share okay right doesn't look like we have any speakers tonight no so we'll move on jump right into new business we've actually got several items it's good seeing you it's been about a month since we uh match just the way the things fell but we've got a few facility related items um tonight to talk about the first is to um kind of finalize our Capital planning in prioritization list for um consideration the town's Capital planning committee is going to be meeting for the first time this coming Thursday and then we meet um the following Thursday to present School projects and then in early December we'll all convene to kind of figure out exactly what the town will be able to fund and and what may need to get deferred to other years so I did a couple of things I updated the um sheet that I had provided at the last school committee meeting because um two of our projects actually were favorably funded through um town meeting so when we had our town meeting the um tennis quod area renovation over at McCarthy uh Middle School um was approved uh using free cash so that $975,000 uh is already earmarked for the project that can then come off our list because it's not going to be um needed to be funded through town Capital anymore and then the South Row roof project just uh two days after town meeting we did receive official word that the South Row roof was going to qualify as an accelerated repair project that's estimated to be about $1.2 million um but that will actually go through a bonding with the town outside of the capital planning committee so that $1.2 million also uh came off the top so almost $2 million worth the project or a little over $2 million worth of projects um were already uh approved so I was able to kind of highlight those I want to keep them on the list for tracking purposes but you'll see they're at the very top in red and we don't have to allocate a budget to them um so right below that we had um that first year that I highlighted in green for this that were kind of the in my um U my kind of top school safety security um order that was to add the secure uh entryways at the remaining schools as well as a StayWell renovation at chumford high school um to help with emergency egress uh that was the first year that added up to $877,500 and then we had a second tier that was more kind of structural so we had a um partial roof replacement at McCarthy um last year so there are several sections of roof McCarthy you're going to see the McCarthy roof for a couple different years but this particular um section was budgeted or estimated to cost about a million 250 um last year the town meeting funded um $250,000 to be able to start start the work of engaging uh a firm to put specs together and things along those lines but we need to go back for the actual work to be completed which would be about another million dollars um McCarthy is in need of a new boiler replacement um in the school for uh heating um a section of Center School um roof needs to be replaced at 130 and then U there's a a hot water tank at domestic hot water tank at South roow that has been on our list for just under 100 um that category actually adds up to a million uh n and those again are kind of more of the nuts and bolts um physical things we had previously talked about I know at the last meeting I actually went back because um there were some hwood hwood floor Renovations at several of the school the stages to be redone repair and whatnot um I spoke with Brian curly about that we had a company come out and actually um update some pricing for us and we're actually recommending not going forward under capital for that it ends up being a lot um less money than anticipated when we looked at the door and what do you study um we're not looking to turn those um stages into performance stages like we have at the pack or at McCarthy um and the so the number we were carrying was significantly higher because that would have done that so if you happen to go on the stage at McCarthy it's not hotwood anymore it's like a black um I forget exactly what you call it but it's like a surface that's more for like plays and performances and things like that the stages at the elementary schools um Harrington and Bam um South Row it's more more of just like not a true performance stage it's to be able to have like a little s school play or something like that but they actually just need to be um resanded and polyurethaned we're not going to put the Black Performance uh staging on top so it's a lot less expensive um that's something that actually the company feels that they can do over some school vacation weeks so we might even engage some over Christmas break or a February April break but likely we'll do that in-house it just isn't going to raise to that level and then I know Diana had asked about um just as an example the finishing the art classrooms at the high school and like how important is that compared to some of the other projects we were looking at um bill on it so what what's remaining is basically um some additional furniture for the rooms and then the biggest issue was the technology upgrade that was where the cost was coming from but uh Bill said he could get another year or two out of them if we had to um he updated the RAM and the computers to make them um operate a little bit um better the art rooms themselves have been getting great notes everyone at the school is really happy with those rooms so that is something just kind of given the scheme of things we felt like we could defer another year or two and then do like a a complete um overhaul so I had just for the sake of this um exercise kind of bump those down to be the the top two items in T3 and you see some notes still T3 four FS um in the very end if you take a look at tiers one and two it comes up to about $2.8 million I don't know exactly what the town's going to have to fund but um you know originally some years back they used to do about $3 million a year it's gone up to four it's gone up to four and a half um it's probably going to be in that $4 to5 million range when all is said and done I don't know the exact number but um John Su of the Town um treasur and accountant will work with us on that but um we're our first here was coming up to just under $3 million I actually think it would make sense to present those as like our priority projects and present the um detail with the budget for the remaining projects because obviously in total that's about another um 4.7 $4.8 million of projects to show the town that we have this need in the future years but um I don't think it's overly realistic to think that we would receive much more than the 2.8 million um and instead of throwing 20 different projects at them and having there be any kind of confusion my recommendation would be to if you agree um kind of go in with these first two tiers of actual projects that we uh recommend and really try to um fight for and then have the the others be obviously on the docket so that we're letting them know that they'll be seeing these in the future but we don't um expect necessarily that those would be funded this year uh and then we might come back in some of the smaller ones again let's say it's the wood floors or something like that we might look to do with our R onetime money come the springtime but I think this $2.8 million really does handle the next wave of Safety and Security as well as some of the bigger structural things when it comes to a roof or a boiler things like that that are going to keep the um the schools functioning um so I made those couple of revisions uh for you in the uh in the um spreadsheet uh and just wanted an opportunity to kind of talk that through the strategy to see if that's something you agree with and you think makes sense if it's something you want to alter um but ultimately My Hope at the end of the night is that we agree on which projects we actually would recommend um in this kind of priority order to the uh Capital planning committee so that when those conversations related to the school department happen next week and then when we do our reconciliation in early December we're all on the same page any questions or comments I have one question um um given that we now have a better sense on the kinds of root projects that the uh that the msba will fund like the South Row one I know it was 52 years old or something like that I'm curious if there is any possibility of the other roofs that are on this list qualifying and if there could be an argument for deferring either of those projects and elevating others if those looked likely or if they are not likely to be eligible in the near future and they really would need to be funded through this yeah no it's a very good question um we actually did look at that um I meet with Brian Curley our facilities director and then Christine clany who's the DPW director and Paul Cohen every month to review our projects and things like that um so the South Row roof uh was actually the section that's being replaced had just hit the 25 uh year mark I know the school is much older but the roof section itself had just gone over the 25 years and 25 years was the minimum uh age that the msba would approve a roof through the accelerator repair project we did take a look at the roofs that are coming up um the center one is just nowhere near 25 years the maccarthy roof is just approaching uh 2021 years it doesn't have another four plus years it does it and then you actually still have to go through the whole process so even this South Row roof that's going to be funded through the um accelerator repair the um funding is awarded now we actually have to go through about a Year's work with the msba to get all the documentation ready and a roof like that has to be done during the summertime we can't have it done in a school um during the school year it's just it's too disruptive so there's no way we're going to get it done in the summer of 25 so that's already a summer of 26 project so some of like a maccarthy roof by the time you let it get to 25 years um again that's if the program doesn't change at that point and then you actually apply you're probably looking at another eight or nine years of having life and um they are basically in a in a patch and repair mode at this point so there are active leaks and they have to go up and patch and repair them to kind of keep the the roof going so we all sitting at the table said we we can't get eight or nine more years out of this it's just um it's un we have to just do it this way yeah um I'm not close to that I just want to make sure it yeah we did we did look at that and um just to see if anything was actually going to even come close to trigger in the 25 years and unfortunately the roofs before you don't okay thank you other questions or comments yeah yeah does the strategy make sense yeah as far as um kind of really honing in on these two yeah I think I think it's important for us as a committee to prioritize this and to only present what we really think is important uh after attending you know town meeting and realizing the amount of work that has to go on at so many different buildings throughout the town we are very large part of the Town budget um so I honestly think that this is is important to do this yeah when you go to these meetings right and I was gonna say have L Fortune to Ser in the committee and yeah there are just so many projects and so many of our infrastructure type projects like roofs and heating systems and elevators and you know so to get other things through like like the McCarthy Park it's a great idea but I think we'll be hard pressed to do that so you know making a list were prioritizing security and you know in the parts of the building that really need it like the boilers and the roof that that makes the most sense so we talked about it a couple times last week and I think this this is probably the best and we go in there with a reasonable request we're not going into with $9 million and say hey we want to do all this we're saying this is what we need you know and and hopefully we'll be able to get most of that so yeah and I think we have to just be cognant of the fact that this town had like this big building boom in the you know 70s early 80s and all over town these buildings are reaching that age at the same time so we just have to be cognizant that we do have to priority things this way and it just makes sense to me to do it this way CU we're sharing the money with a lot of other exactly groups in town just wanted to confirm that there's no so I see there's two things here that refer to being Ada accessible or Ada signage is there anything in which we are you know off of code and there are serious concerns about accessibility issues that are on those so I'm looking at the Herrington exhaust fan and Ada signage and the bi them Ada accessible cabinets countertops shelving and sinks yeah would we we would only be out of code if we did like maor major Renovations and things like that to the facility we were not so we don't have a code issue now if we were to do major projects and it would have trigger um current code then that would uh come into play we don't have any uh Ada issues with our own students staff right now accessing the building it's more just for the future and not being able to anticipate who may need to um so it's something that will obviously still keep on the the radar and even again as we look at some of these projects if they end up being smaller in scale it could be something that we just decide we want to just tackle on our own and we use um our own onetime money to do them okay we wouldn't want to use our own onetime money to do say like a furnace or a roof or something like that that would just be too uh that'd be too much okay thank you right any other thoughts questions just thinking that it's really been great that we got to do the calfs the cafeterias cuz we had all of those kind of issues um bringing up the compliance made me think of that I think it's really really good and it was because it was prioritized so I think that this is the way to go the safety has got to be number one yeah no I mean we have three really state-of-the-art um cooking and preparation kitchens at this point at the high school and the two Middle Schools they're phenomenal they're going to last for years to come um they is yeah it was well worth it did the doors just on this did the doors get done at McCarthy is that are they that was this weekend um so they uh work work began yesterday today and uh tomorrow so um by the end of the week they'll be completed but um yeah that actually got scheduled they were waiting for like a long weekend to be able to do it um so they were able to start yesterday so by the end of the week that'll be that'll be up and going and we are using that new secure entry though that happened prior this that's been going very well um that that's actually the feedback has been very positive about that a lot less just kind of random foot traffic through the building um and even like you know the parents coming in if if the um child forgets a lunch or an instrument or something like that it's just much more easy just to leave a the not have to get all the way into the school and come back so that's been working well great thank you anything else okay we'll take a motion to accept the I I move that we accept the proposed uh Capital PL planning and prioritization schedule that has been presented tonight I'll second motion all right any further comments all those in favor I anybody opposed I zero great thank you very much um second still staying on the scheme uh theme of um schools we received um about a week or so ago a certification letter and enrollment um enrollment certification and letter for the Parker Middle School U potential new school building project so this is something that is kind of like a key component in the uh the new build because what you have to do is work with the msba to actually certify what your design builds are going to be for the various options that you want to look at so we've been certified to take a look at just a one forone replacement of Parker which would be a two- grade level school 56 we can do um a three-g grade level School a four five6 which takes a grade level out of the elementary makes those buildings last a little bit longer because now they've got extra space capacity um or the third option is to look at a brand new um 5678 kind of bringing both middle schools back together kind of a mega middle school and then uh being able to reutilize U McCarthy as an elementary or or some other type School in the district so McCarthy would still stay online um working with the msba you want to make sure they call it kind of right sizing but you want to build to the right enrollment that you need you you don't want to build too low and you don't want to build too high if you build too high you know it's our money that's kind of being wasted it's also State money being wasted so this is a critical step that they look very closely at us with um to prepare for this uh step that we had to take you have a series of um documents and information that we have to submit to uh msba so we ended up um doing that over the course of the um the summer you then have to hold um meetings with the msba let me just um blow this up a little bit sizewise um you then have to hold a series of meetings with the msba to actually agree on what your um your enrollment is going to be so at the time we had um because they have their own methodology of doing this we had NASDAQ come back in and do another long-term enrollment projection for us that was they've done work for us previously um what we obviously have is the historical so we can look back 5 years 10 years 15 years but we as a district can't really project out so NASDAQ has a methodology that they use so we had them come back in and help us with a projection because we knew our enrollment was going to be increasing a little bit uh msba then has their own uh format that they use as they're trying to figure out exactly what the enrollment should be and you have to reach agreement at some point around what the build enrollment is going to be so to get prepared for this meeting again we had them come back you on my little spreadsheet I'm just going to kind of walk you through this so um what I was obviously always hoping for is that we would get at or as close to the nzda projection because that's kind of our projection that's what we'd like to see have happen um gives into consideration the historical data it has a good outlook for 10 years and it also takes into consideration some of the building that's going to be happening in town because we had nezda actually work with local Realtors they pulled different building permits to kind of get a sense for what was on the horizon so I wanted to get as close to the nesda number as we could um I was pleasantly surprised at the very outset of the project when you look at what they consider the base enrollment which is in these um in the red on my spreadsheet um if we just did the grade five to six we were only off by nine students so they were only you know nine less than I had wanted if we went up to grades four to six it was 15 students less and if we went to 5 to8 is the four grade level School we were only 25 students less than um they wanted so that was kind of excellent starting point I don't think I've actually started this close to where we were in any project I've ever worked with them on so that was already a good feeling coming out of the gate um what we know over here then in our um purple uh the purple columns is we actually know what the grade for student population is right now in front of us and um obviously so we can track them going right up through um seventh grade based on the data these kids are already here we know them this is a very solid number um when we actually did that you know we came up with you know 818 kids 12 14 1658 those would be like a a building size that you'd need to fit the current population that we have in those three scenarios I then took a look at over the 10-year projection the highest enrollment that we would ever have in the building and again these kids aren't necessarily here yet but it's the blue years um in 2030 when in fourth grade we 479 based on the NASDAQ projection and that obviously um carries along so when we do that um then our build actually goes up to uh 934 1352 and 828 so when I went into the meeting with the msba and um I participated um Dennis was online participating uh Pat Maloney who's the select board member who's the um chair of the group and Paul Cohen was on the meeting also to kind of um argue our case these are the numbers that we had kind of going in um and again we wanted to kind of figure out how off they were going to be from the um Whatchamacallit from the uh mba's enrollment projection um after we had a very good conversation with them they said they would look at additional data that we had even around at that time um I think it was only a couple days prior there was um a 40b application that had come in for rck riverneck yeah that was potentially going to be a site so they said you know give us all that information we'll look at that um and long story short um just this again about a week or two ago they ended up coming back to us and they gave us the um um the final design enrollment so the design enrollment itself um is in the yellow so what they're indicating is if we actually did a grade five and six um I was saying I'd left to do it for 934 and they were at 9:30 so you can see that they were actually Four Less in the in the yellow column that's still not bad then we actually um get a higher design build if we do the 46 or the 5'8 than even our nesda projection um supports so you know we get an extra 38 kids at the three- grade level school and an extra 57 kids at the top school which is phenomenal you know coming out of the Gates Again that uh is taking care of our 10-year projection and you know a little bit of a cushion for the future so those numbers even being off by four is nothing in the scheme of doing this that was like so good uh in the end that I'm I'm just very happy um so these are basically our uh design enrollments that we would build to when we'd have a designer come on board we'd have an OPM come on board they would run through all these different scenarios and we'd know based on square footage cost and how many kids we would have in the buildings this is what these three options would be designed to um so our next step in the process is is ultimately to uh to sign the certification say we agree this is what we want to build to because then the msba will take these numbers and work them into the um the feasibility study agreement and that's the last step that we have to sign off by the holidays um it's just waiting for us to sign this form and get back to them but um I just want to share with you it it's kind of a key Milestone of this whole project is getting this enrollment projection and it actually worked out to be a little bit better than I even anticipated or hoped um so that's like really good news kind of going into it at this point um I know it's a lot of numbers on the sheet but I'm I'm happy to you know explain or or discuss any of the things on here that you'd like um but I think this actually sets up very well um as we start getting into this next phase of the project just one question to make sure um to clarify this in my mind 100% so if we go with a 4 to6 model we then of course free up the um grade at the elementary levels to for expansion and growth there um if we go with a five through eight then the way that's possible is because one of the schools remains available to be modified and so on McCarthy would be McCarthy y it would only be McCarthy we' have to choose McCarthy so as part of this project we had to designate which school was going to be our priority and we already went through the process of designating Parker okay so at the end of this process Parker has to come offline so Parker would be demolished and come offline and McCarthy would remain an extra site what we use from McCarthy if it stays a 78 if it would have become um say fifth elementary school that's basically going to be the swing space is either going to come from McCarthy under a 58 scenario or it's going to come from moving one grade level 100 kids out of each of the elementary school levels up to this new school so one way or the other macafe still gets used and that's how we're able to um not have it be two school projects and keep the keep the buildings all in function there we're still keeping in the mix here an option where it's simply replacing Parker 56 and at that point we gain nothing in terms of the overcrowding issues we have at the elementary level correct but does that have to be in the mix because that's the current grade configuration correct okay yeah we have to evaluate that's msba thing yeah but who ultimately decides and when which model we're going to move forward with msba is it no so it's going to be a combination because um just because the cost involved like the msba is going to have a stay in what happens like we're going to have to prove to them which of these three models really works best for chelsford in which the town of chumford is going to support so the what we're going to do is we're going to certify the enrollment um projection we're going to get this back to them we're going to do the feasibility study agreement that'll get done by the holidays then we have to wait for the board meeting of the msba which is either the end of January or early February to officially be invited into um the feasibility study right so when we get officially invited into the feasibility study let's just say that's February at this point um we then have to do additional paperwork and documentation but the first step in the feasibility study is to hire um an own as project manager an OPM and a designer to actually design the school take a look at the options and um I know you you were part of the group when Duran woodier worked with us and we did the visioning for like schools and things like that this group is going to have to come back in a new group is going to have to come back in and basically St from scratch and hold kind of community visioning sessions for the town taking a look at these three options again when we had the DOR wiia study it was a blank slate and I think there were 20s something options we were looking at this group is going to come in and just hone in on these three options these are the only three things we're looking at at this point so they're going to again hold sessions they're going to see parent input student input um just general community members input it could be surveys focus groups fors it's going to be a detailed work that's going to happen you know the OPM and the designer will likely come on board in the springtime and then uh they'll start to do some of their investigatory work over the summer and I think the real conversations about which of the three options we're going to explore would likely happen next fall so it'll be like the fall of 25 um through the spring of 26 is when all this work is going to happen because um I Envision that all getting wrapped up in the summer of 26 and ideally in the fall of 26 would be when there would be um like a ballot question to fund one of these three options debt exclusion or debt override exemption something like that um but we'd be going to the ballot similar to the way the fire stations went to the ballot to get uh people hopefully to support our project but over the course of the next school year is when we're going to kind of figure out which of the three we're going to go with and again we have to go through this so Diana's point we have to just kind of show what just doing a one for one replacement of Parker does it does give us a very new upto-date building um to take care of at least the fifth and sixth grade long-term enrollment in the district um but it doesn't do anything to really help us with the other levels of the district um so we have to go through the exercises right so and so there's going to be data to back all of that up of course and we hope that it the data will support the picture we want to show but then there's also just discussion about different things people have to understand about what's educationally sound developmentally sound is is there an opportunity at any point to add those things into the mix so it's not just numbers no that's going to come during the visioning okay because there's there's going to have to be again you're going to get staff input you're going to talk about like what is the right size for a school oh good okay you know again like I've said this from the get-go I have a little bit of concern of going back to the four level um like when middle school for the entire town you'd have a middle school that's bigger than a high school um so like how conducive is that but you still have to go through it because that was one of the options that we got appr proov to look at um we still have to look at just the one for one replacement although that doesn't do anything for us long term you have to look at it and um there were going to be some I'm sure that say you know what let's do that because it's it's of the three options it's going to be the cheapest because you're only dealing with you know two grade levels as opposed to three or four um but it's not going to help you long term yeah that's I worry I don't want people just looking at the money well this is the one that cost so let's go with it that's what this designer and the OPM are going to help us with they're going to help kind of frame the discussion they're going to facilitate with us the sessions and we're going to do pros and cons of all three options and have a series of community meetings to talk about them and ultimately agree on which one we want to bring forward we just have to be certain when we bring one forward that's the project that the towns can get behind and ultimately support yeah okay but I'd say the bulk of the work administratively is like now but then the real work like the fund kind of work I'm talking about this is really next school year any other questions good work yeah no I mean like I I couldn't be more pleased with the just at this point getting the numbers where they are um you know off you don't want to start at a deficit and you want to be kind of fighting for it they were very good to work with the msba staff they took into consideration all of our um um all of our information the supplemental information that we provided and I think was very helpful the step that we took to have the updated nezda enrollment projection because again that's hard data to use um a lot of districts may not have done that going in and you're just kind of dependent on their data um now in our case the data actually wouldn't been horrific for us but we were able to still use that NASDAQ data to get it to be even a little bit higher than than it was going to be so I'm happy about that a bit of astounding when you look at the possibility that we would have 18 1985 as uh student enrollment in 5 through 8 that is substant that's how much more than our current high school that is a substantial amount higher yeah than our four grade levels at high school right now chman High has been that high you know higher previous right but now that's an insanely big middle school that's that is a very big middle school for um that's very large that age group in particular mhm and they took into account all these new projects like West Campus and said riverneck and you know that they would come right possibly coming on board and you know that be prepared for campus are for sale already though yeah so they would in that regard so they did yeah all right any other questions on the enrollment report I don't think we have to do anything regarding that um no I guess more so it's just procedurally for us um I guess you could do a vote to just accept the report as a report of progress or yeah I move that um we accept the presentation uh on the update to the um project for a new school includ which included the proposal the three proposals potentially that will be presented to the certified design enrollments for the certified design enrollment great okay couldn't have said it better myself Mar I knew it second who seconds has to repeat the whole thing though oh yeah good all right we have a second from John okay any other questions all right all in favor hi hi anybody opposed no thank you and again um we'll get all this executed and then right after the holidays we'll get um deep into work so there'll be updates as as we go um third is just kind of a final update for you this is just where our deliverables stand at this point with the the eight different submissions we had to do so you can see the enrollment meeting was held on 88 and then we finally um got the forms back on November 4th from the msba with the design build so that was able to get plugged off so the last thing we just need to do now is once we sign this send it in they'll send us the feasibility study agreement um we'll execute that uh at the Town send it back and wait for our board meeting in uh end of January early February to be um accepted in feasibility right what work of any is it for us as a school committee once we get into feasibility is there anything besides advocacy that we're going need to be involved with I mean a lot of it is going to start the um the building committee will start meeting more regularly like when you actually kind of get into the meet of things so um you know when you're OPM and you design a come on board what we would likely do similar to like I work with DM we'd probably figure out quarterly or you know maybe like a annual report where we would have the OPM of the designer come and give updates to the school committee they'll be updating the um the building committee as they go but just to U make sure that another opportunity to be kind of seen in the public and and to talk about the different um um pieces of work that are happening with the project yes there is a big advocacy piece that's going to come and I think we'd have to talk about more of like a strategy to really support this school different um communities go about it differently I know um you know we're going to be a little bit and I'm going to be a little Limited in my capacity as far as um because it's a ballot question as far as like uh promoting the ballot question and things like that I can provide information but I can't really take a stance on it so it becomes a little bit um challenging obviously I'd love to see a a new school and support that um at times there are like U parent groups that that get together that you know we produce all the information for them and they help uh the community kind of educate what's happening it could be the um pto's it could be the Council of schools could take a really active role or maybe even have a subcommittee um that kind of worked on um PR and just again holding different sessions to kind of talk about the school the need um things along those lines so I do definitely think um this spring when the OPM and the designer come on board you're going to get start to hear a little bit more about what's happening but then when the designer gives us the schedule of how they're going to conduct the visioning that's again where the school committee will weigh in great other questions on the scheduling of events the only other thing I thought about in terms of the visioning is um working with the Strategic plan for the town um how how does the building and it's you know this whole new building do they talk about this at all well I'll know a lot more next week next week we meet with the Consulting Group to go through that visioning stage I see but a lot of that will already be complete before we ever or get to that next stage with this project okay yeah because do they talk the vision of town for Education itself yes a lot of input has come in about the schools themselves and then also about the facilities so we'll have to see where that gets prioritized in terms of the big picture for the town yeah yeah next week Tuesday we have an all day meeting all right sounds interesting to do that fun all day yeah no I know just even from the little sessions that I I've attended I know you were at as well um it definitely seems like schools and the value of Education of the community has been a high priority like number one or two on the different surveys and the feedback uh focuses and I do think infrastructure has also been noted across all different groups not only for the schools but even Town buildings things like that so that I would be very surprised if like education um and like infrastructure Investments weren't um right at the top of the list so I would have to think that it would it would gel yeah super see like I said all day Tuesday I know thank you sir all right any other comments on building project all right next item and again I'll close it off for you when we do have that final one in the feasibility agreement okay um next item four is just the uh school's presentation schedule for this year um just so you can kind of flag for your on your calendar the different school committee meetings uh we will be having the schools come in to talk a little bit about um work that's ongoing in the buildings what may be tied to their um strategic plan uh documents elements that um they really like to highlight and show for us in other areas where um they may putting some extra effort because they want to see a little bit more um return on some of the Investments that they're making so um we're going to have them come in the second meeting of each month um and again we're going to have South Row we're going to actually welcome them uh next week they'll be our for a school to present uh we are going to have the middle schools uh present on the roam this year so we're going to have McCarthy come in separate from Parker they did it last year together because they were brand new but um this is our schedule for the uh schools uh right now through the end of the school year um I'm GNA I'm kind of working on putting a master schedule together also just for our meetings because um I've got to weave in the different presentations from um DM group and if there are departments we want to have specifically come in and present um I just want to kind of weave that in so we don't have like too many presentations on the same night but um I'm working kind of on a master calendar behind the scenes oh okay so that was my question on this this is not the master list of all the presentations that we're thinking about these are the schools school this is just the schools because I because it's hard for them to kind of play in so I wanted to get them locked in um they don't have quite as much flexibility as some of the other players do but this is just your schools so that you'll know when the seven schools are coming in now I noticed chips for example like there there's um we did have presentations around the Community Education and chips and things like that in the past is that going to be scheduled at a later date or we usually have um chips and ComEd come in together um right before the summer so it's like the last uh part of May early part of June we'll likely do that again it's a nice opportunity for chips I mean not chips for Community Ed to be able to kind of talk about some of the summer programming and things um but we'll definitely get them on a a schedule this is just the K to 12 yeah that's fine I just was making sure there was wasn't a reason that was left off no no no no we we love to see the the chips and Chade come in is there a particular theme this year in this present I know one year and then you know is there anything in particular math are we talking about what's going on with the new math I don't know what's yeah I mean um I leave it a little open to the schools as far as we ask them to um take a look at like within the buildings they all have different goals they have literacy goals they have math goals they have seal goals um often times they do like to come in and Spotlight something that's like really special to them they working on um I know like Harrington did the work on their sort of circles that they were doing is that was something that was a big Focus for them I've asked them this year to just take a look at their uh plans and something that they're specifically trying to to work on whether it's an area that they're trying to improve upon or it's an area that they feel is like really working well for them that could potentially be like a model for some of our other schools um I would not be surprised I didn't want to have every single school coming in talking about the exact same thing though because like obviously we have the math initiative this year I'm certain that you know math is to come up in some of these presentations and there may be times also where we might weave in like different departments with a school if there is a particular Focus but then um if there's a particular Department that isn't getting tied into some of the school presentations we certainly as we have in the past could work to have them come in um on the road and make a presentation as well I I love the idea of hearing from the schools things that they're excited to talk about and I do feel that it would be very helpful to us as a committee if if we explicitly ask the schools to talk about what they see as some of their Growing Pains isn't the right word what I would call maybe growing edges things that um they're encountering that are tricky that they're trying to navigate and that are difficult um in part because I think that is just as valuable for us to know as the high as as the Highlight Reel is and because I think it gives us a really good perspective as we think about you know are do any of these have policy implications or budget implications that we should be thinking about um so I I would I guess I would ask if it's possible to just encourage them not to feel like they have to put on the best face you know that they can feel really comfortable sharing with us what they feel like are some growing pains for some of their new programming and ideas yeah right any other thoughts comments so in terms of the Departments and presentations by the various Department because I made my own list of about and none of is the schools okay um but I think that there were I would love to see us this year also really get an update on what's happening with the curriculum in a sense so for example went to the conference went to this wonderful thing on um mental health MH started thinking okay which classes in our system and at what level are we bringing up any of these Mental Health Health uh issues so that you know kids are a aware of what's going on and so on and and I know that there's some because you know my own children have been through this but I don't know where it is right now so thinking about updates like that so that we get a sense as a community sure of how our entire curriculum is going and I think that would require really looking at each department and what's going on in each one um for the entire to get an entire idea of what we're teaching um and I think that that would be a valuable thing to do so that yeah because there's a lot of richness in it there really is there's a lot available and A lot's changing um so those are the things that I had here for example in business and technology I know that there's been tremendous amount of changes there and that the pathways have impacted them uh quite a bit and I don't know if there's any updates on what's happening with that so those kinds of things okay I think would be valuable to us do you think it would be more valuable to do it separate from the report outs that we do through like the Strategic plan workk well I don't think the Strategic plan workk um and reports bring in exactly what our curriculum is I think what that's doing is focusing on what Diana is talking about which is you know there are things that we need to improve on and that we want to make better within the system and that's what the Strategic plan I think is all about uh where we want to make sure you know math is focused on and so on but don't want to leave behind all the other parts of the curriculum why don't you share with me your list of departments we'll do and we'll talk about seeing if we can weave in uh Department presentations to some of the other meetings as important the bigger calendar together that would be terrific yeah thank you sure just it's in a slide so like when we look at this strategic plan and we hear from the groups we look at discrepancy and say for our our elll kids and how they're doing with the curriculum and testing but we don't ever hear about how that program is run you know and what what is done actually to help support these kids and give them I I know from working in school but as a school committee we don't really ever hear how the services for those kids actually work I think that would be valuable to know more about as we're exploring how do we close those gaps okay and and making us aware of the numbers even for instance you know sometimes I hear things like there's a very large number of V children in this particular school and still only one staff member whatever those are important things for us to know in order to figure out budget for next year and what to do and keep keep those improvements going and that doesn't seem to have much to do with a strategic plan yet it does because if we don't take care of those things we're not going to be able to move forward with a strategic plan so I would just add that for example um I don't think it's an explicit item on our strategic plan to know about how our um High School enrollment in early college and Innovation pathways are going where the numbers are where the interest level is what we're hearing about early out for students who have engaged in those Pathways but that is a significant impact on the shape of our high school and in theory could have an impact on the way that we shape our Middle School to to feed into the high school too so that that's one example of something that's not on a strategic plan that I I would love to know more about sure great great suggestions all right anything else okay do we not have any PE trips no I had put that on the agenda just because I had a feeling that one was going to come in from a school and I didn't want to not have it on there but then we do not have a field trip to present tonight so I no I do not have any um anything further okay all right any leas on reports anybody has um I can speak a little bit um South Rose PTO met on the 4th that's last week a very long time ago um and it's going well um they were really pleased with um the funds raised at the pumpkin um fair that was held um back in October um but um just generally a lot of enrichment happening sort of achieving um some of the things that they were fundraising for so the month of October has been very busy with fundraising they've had a lot of success bringing authors into the school um in partnership with bookstores um so that's been kind of exciting um this year's student council at srow has 60 approximately 60 kids on which is even larger than last year's huge student council at South Row so um it's a real Testament to the excitement and interest that the kids have in leadership opportunities that's more than half the class and um also a testament to the success of that program um so that's very exciting um Parker and McCarthy are meeting later this week so no updates for them right now um and I was happy to participate in the subcommittee for the um strategic plan steering committee um no kind of major takeaways but um it feels like there's good progress anything yeah I attended the chord friends of Music meeting um a few weeks ago and they are really working on invigorating themselves I think they had a tough time the past couple of years but the meeting was well attended they have a big group new group of people really trying to put new life into seafarm they have a four-pronged refocus and realigned plan to refresh how they do their funding for their enrichment and scholarships to refocus on the friends they really want to bring in the idea of it's fun to participate in seom activities and they're looking for some Community ideas like having some music trivia nights or some things like that going on in the community to get the community as a whole interested in music and therefore supporting their fundraising efforts um they're really trying to convince kids that it's really worthwhile to help out and do things like the bottle and can drive that they can get uh Credit Community Service Credit and have fun and meet people doing that um and also really we working on recruiting um student and parent ambassadors um for their ensembles and for their other things going on so they're just trying to Breathe new life and they had a lot of ideas some people had some really new ideas on how to run some things so hopefully we'll see them doing some fun things out in the community and raising funds for their efforts at the same time so it was it was a good meeting it's absolutely wonderful anything yeah I went to the Council of schools as did um Dr Lang and Dr hsh and uh I I don't know if you'd agree with me but I think it was a really well-run meeting it was a very long meeting uh but the content was important it it brought together all the pto's which were very well represented during the meeting was on October 17th one of the things that came out of this that I was so happy to hear was that we are going to get Katie Greer as a presentation for community and for parents and that will be sometime in January uh and she is a presenter basically on uh social media and online um type of presence um okay so I think that's going to be good and something for us to watch out for and to uh let our different PTO make sure they know that it's going to be available is there a date for that it's in January I thought I wrote it down but I think that they hadn't finalized it uh so I don't want to say it because it was January I I don't have the date off top my head were they looking at two different dates they were so I'm not going to say but I'll make sure that we know when when it's coming um they had a lot of different issues it it's great to know that the rein has a representative she's going to organize it she's a VP for the readin it's Melissa mcaffrey um and uh they have an entire board themselves Lisa Bryant Jinger scook are the co-presidents Melissa Brennan is the secretary and Courtney Cooper is the treasurer um so they're trying to make sure that they have different processes that uh PTO share in that they can use those Services um so for example scheduling type of programs or Zoom as a subscription that all the ptos can access those type of things um it was good to see really wonderful to see all the power to them all right anybody have any new items I I probably should have said this under liaison reports it's not really a liaison report but just sharing officially that I attended as our representative at the um Massachusetts Association of school committees um as a as a delegate um voting on the um resolutions and platforms I voted according to the way that our committee had decided as a majority um with one exception there was one that had significant amendments that address some of the concerns that were brought up by this group so um I was advised to use my best judgment and I I voted in favor once they made those adjustments um but all of the items that we discussed a few meetings ago wound up passing by a pretty big majority by the group um and just wanted to share that it was a it was a successful conference that a few of our group attended and learned a lot about what's happening in other places across the state as well as um you know getting some ideas and inspiration great thank you for doing that because it's a long day day to go through those how long was the session lots of parliamentary procedure stuff all right I had a couple of things uh first of all I just wanted to actually thank the town meeting Reps for their approval of the two projects the um the money for the McCarthy tennis court area it's going to be a great project once it gets done and then obviously the money for the sou R roof project so just want to thank all the time meeting rest for their approval in that um had a couple of people talked to me about cell phones and I just wanted to get some clarification what kind of things you'd like to bring is it are we looking for like what policies do we have in the schools are we looking for information whether what we're doing isn't work I don't know before we I we talk about like okay what exactly what people like to so one of I can share I I specifically am curious um to kind of gauge the interest in our community and in our group about um looking in two specific areas around policy I don't have a strong stance yet on what I believe we should do but I'd like to explore options um one is around establishing guidelines and I'm specific in using the word guidelines rather than in shrining policy right now around uh AI use um and potentially I attended a session at masc um that looked at a couple of models of Massachusetts um School committees that had enacted guidelines that really talked about the aspects of AI that connected back to established policies around things like intellectual property and PRI student privacy which have implications with AI use um and there has been some highly publicized concern I guess around um what could happen if there isn't a policy established and there's a dispute over whether or not a student has violated what is not right now a guideline so I would love to explore whether we wanted to consider some of the models that are already out there um and establish one of those that's one thing um the other thing I'd like to do is look at whether our current um sort of school by school approaches to cell phones in school is sufficient or if there needs to be a kind of a a districtwide discussion about setting a I don't know if it's unclear but setting a um a more proactive policy decision around that I don't know what I think about that but I would like to know um sort of what the community is is looking for and I'm thinking of various roles in the community anybody else have any input on that or questions on that I think it's good okay you want to clarify one of the things that my might be really actually important in that second approach would be uh second thought the second about the cell phones is to actually look what at what each school has sent out absolutely as guidelines and so on so that would be one and then on the AI use and models and so on thinking about um what we're doing in our participation as a district in the MIT program I they had a group there at uh the conference too that I went up to on the AI and just um how are we ready for this are we ready to you know do a model type of policy for our district or do we need to do more work in that type of group I don't know so yeah I I will say that I agree that like taking a step to establish policy if we did we we might be the first district in Massachusetts to do so um based on what I was hearing at the presentations I was at and my conversations with other school committee members um so what I'm not I'm not proposing right now we sit here and set a policy somebody made a really great quote what we're working with right now is the dumbest AI that will ever exist and setting a policy based on that feels premature but I think looking at whether we need to kind of explicitly connect AI to our EX existing policies in a way that can serve as a guideline for now um Newton is one school district that has established um I want to say it might be Wilmington that's another but there there's two or three districts I wrote down um at the conference that we could look at to see if any of that connects to what we're looking into I agree first auditing what's already happening and maybe hearing from um the um School administrators you know our issues Rising already or not and it would be worth knowing that and we just had a group attend right didn't we just have a group of 10 something to do with MIT yeah that was the MIT group so Bill Silva the tech director is kind of leading a team from cheler there eight people on the team um who are participating in this um kind of focus group series through MIT taking a look specifically at AI use in educational settings there's a whole component on policy and like how that's going to have to evolve in districts I think everything is like very uh premature at this point it's like early on in the development stage um I know they went away to MIT for a full day training uh in the middle of October and then there's like three sessions that they have between now and the springtime that are going to be um in District or working in like neighboring districts so I can ask Bill I mean Bill's kind of heading that up I can ask him to keep his ear open on like policy development type stuff thinking like longterm and there are implications policy-wise that even entire curriculum and you know plagiarism and things like that so we'll definitely kind of keep our rear open for what's happening on that front um I'm wondering not to jump all over the place but I'm wondering on the cell phone thing if what if we SED um because I don't off top of my head even know what the actual uh because it's not a policy like what the guidelines in the schools are now that they're using what if I stop by collecting from the seven schools I think it's safe to say chips isn't using them but if I sat in the seven schools and figure out like what they actually have for kind of their guidelines that they're internally using and then take a look at our existing say policy or any procedures that bill even has through technology if I kind of pull that all together just to actually see where we're at um and then we could maybe take think about next steps as far as kind of maybe surveying other districts or seeing like who's doing what um but why don't we start by I'll pull all the information together for us to at least be able to see where we're at and then we can figure how I actually have it open right in front of me I mean the handbook has a paragraph about cell phone usage and what the first offense is what the second and subsequent offenses are using it it's right in the handbook are you on a high school one or that it's just the general one yeah yeah so that's just the chelsford public school student family handbook there is a paragraph about phone usage so I think it would be good to make sure that everyone in the schools is aware of it and then how is each School carrying this out and how is it working we've talked about phones a few times in the past but it comes up every few years I think people but I think we're hearing things that it seem doesn't seem to be handled the same way in every school and yeah and is it that some schools aren't quite following what the policy that's there or is it that the policy itself is very open and leading to a lot of different interpretations I think it would be great to start with hearing what's actually happening on the ground and and going from there yeah yeah I can pull that stuff together and like I said I'll note the policies and even if there's another document that I'm not even aware of right now that's out there um pull it all together facadas and then we can have a discussion about like what next steps should be great thank you Dennis BR that up that's great problem um couple other I just in reminders more than anything else um we are meeting next week again so just you know back toback sometimes and then we just got an emailed tonight um right before the Mee from uh manag Cohen um TR board meeting is Monday December 9th that here six o'clock okay just so people can put on their calendars all right all right um anybody have any emails I have a couple so I just want to okay all right so I I received a few emails um well I received email and then another message um so uh Lori McCarron um who was an active member of CPAC for many many years and still very involved at the state level wanted me to let everyone know that November has been designated as CPAC awareness month she included a proclamation went along with that um and she personally wanted to thank the school committee uh the teachers the par professionals uh parents Caregivers for their support and efforts regarding our students um just gave a little blur about CPAC um CPAC was established um under Mass chapter 71b Section 3 paragraph 19 um in charge with advising the school committee on the education and safety of students with disabilities meeting with school officials to participate in the Planning Development and evaluation of special education programs uh more information about resource pertaining CPAC is available through our local CPAC which we have uh as well as TS public library and many other online supports so I thank M mcaren for reminding us that this is CPAC Awareness Month um I'm sure we'll hear from CPAC later on during our school year uh and then finally um superintendent forwarded to a letter from a parent um we received about the use of deescalation rooms in some schools uh she didn't want the letter read but she would wanted to make you um all aware of her concerns um and along with that letter uh you also received some information from Amy Reese our special education director regarding what the escalation rooms are and how they're used and what Ty type of policies are related to that so I just wanted to if you hadn't read it yet I just wanted to kind of point that out okay right anything else okay uh all right if not I will take a motion to adjourn I would make a motion to adjourn second second all right all in favor I I great thank you thank you great all right e