##VIDEO ID:21Q7UKLKWG8## e e e e e e e um good evening everyone welcome to the December 9th 2024 town of danas school committee meeting um we'll start today's meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance is the flag United States of America the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible Liberty Justice for All okay I'll St by reading the Danver Public Schools mission statement Danver Public Schools is a dynamic community of independent Learners dedicated to respect responsibility creativity in the pursuit of academic and personal Excellence this meeting is being broadcast on danas Community Access television and is any anyone in the audience recording these proceedings the answer is no and I'll just say in advance our next meeting is on January 13th um we'll start with items of interest um typically superintendent you like to go last on these items of Interest okay um any items of interest from the school committee I just want to uh send out a big thank you to the damis Falcon Fest for up fantastic tree liting the other night um I know the parade was a little late because Santa had some work to do but uh my daughter Adeline got to dancing it and it was a very exciting night for everybody I think uh the crowd was great security was right on and everything went fantastic I appreciate you letting me say that okay anyone else on the school committee okay um one item of interest that I'd like to bring up is um um given recent events um you know in in the town and from communication from some parents specifically in regards to uh you know incidents that happened within school and the communication process that's happening um I wanted to check in with the superintendent and have a conversation around how can we better communicate not only what you know impacted parents and students when particular things happen but also balance that with the level of respect and privacy that is uh mandated by state law and I think it's a a little bit of a delicate dance um a personal opinion here I think we've kind of overcorrected um we have we're just hearing too many instances of parents you know sharing frustrations of when they meet with the school they doesn't seem to be a doesn't feel like there's a followup and they start to get the impression that you know incidents or situations are happening within the schools and no one is doing anything about it which is actually the opposite but I feel that we have to put together a better communication protocol to better inform the parents of the next steps and what's happening when things do happen and and hopefully you know encourage some kind of you know better communication between the schools and the parents and hopefully we can mitigate things in that way um again with the goal of avoiding the level of frustration that some of us on the school committee um here directly from parents on both sides of these situations um so with that um I I check in individually with with some of my uh peers here and I shared a letter with uh superintendent uh Mr Bowers and we're checking with our legal team but again the goal is to have a better communication platform to better Empower our our teachers and our principles and any administrator um to be able to address these situations so parents can walk away feeling that they're fully informed um so that's just an update for everyone I don't know if anyone else wants to app on that or Mr Boward if you have anything nope I appreciate appreciate that and we're working on that documentation as well as we do have a meeting with our uh health and safety committee with their DTA as well so we're looking for improvement in all lines of communication that's I think that's a number one I know that we're working really hard on that and um I'll have an update for you for the next meeting there's always been a difficult balance I think between especially in the world where social media is so powerful now and um there's always been a delicate balance between what parents want to know what members of the community want to know and legally what they can know is I think you alluded to so this is not this is not new and um you know hopefully we'll find that that real sweet spot but I'm certainly in favor of looking at anything that will help us anyone else okay and with that um items of interest from the community does anyone have something they'd like to say or share from the community okay none all right off to items of interest from the superintendent thank you chair Lopes uh we have a nice uh agenda tonight so we'll start up with our student representative report we have some great recognition and a few updates uh so I don't begin with our student rep updates we have we've had a very busy uh time here in our schools thank you so we first just want to give some updates about the elementary schools in daners um starting off with Highland School um they are currently running their annual toys for TOS program and grade two teacher Mr ganowski has been running this program at Highlands for 28 years and the students will present all the toys they collected to the daners fire department this Wednesday at Wham Wednesday afternoon meeting along with this the Highland students are gearing up for the Highland annual pig races and the pig races will take place the day before December Break um moving on to Smith school so tomorrow Smith school's chorus is coming to danver's high and Mr V and Miss Powers will be taking the fourth and fifth grade chorus um they are going to have an incredible experience at our school singing with the um derse chorus as well the Denver High chorus and it's going to be great for both groups to sing together um moving on to thorup thorup had a very successful cereal drive for a local food pantry that brought in over 500 boxes of cereals to donate um Great Oak the students collected $500 for the American Red Cross Hurricane Relief Fund and they just ended the first term and they're excited to now start term two students and staff are gearing up for break and celebrating spirit days on Fridays throughout this month and our second community meeting coming hosted by our fifth grade student council will happen as well and they'll lead us in a read aloud about what it means to value our community and then lastly from Riverside they also had a very successful food drive and they donated over 65 bags of food to the People to People food pantry and this week classes start an st math challenge that will last for two weeks of this month in an intent to increase their puzzle solving by 3% each week all right um and then we have a few updates from the high school um so the first one we mentioned at the last meeting that the um academic Pro program had their fall musical which was Mean Girls had a lot of success um it was directed by Michael Barry there was the musical Direction by Ivy okono and the technical Direction by Don mariy um there's over 60 students that participated um in either like the cast crew or the pit Orchestra um huge success um a lot of turnout great job there um moving on we had our spirit week and our annual pep rally um and the week like our short week um leading up to Thanksgiving so we had different themes for each day um and on Wednesday we had our pep rally where the whole school comes together um we honored some student athletes and we had a couple schoolwide competitions like table surfing um Musical chairs um a tug of war with uh teachers that also participated and there's a food relay um finally shout out to our football team who be gler um again and finally um we had a lot a lot of students who volunteered their time at the end of last month to present for uh dver residents who participated in the kind of Danver Citizens Academy so this space just a 10 we up close view of our local government so they got to see different aspects of the Town um through different classes and activities they got to see um our community block program um Deca and some of the like projects in our manufacturing course and finally we got to uh preview the uh fall a which was girls again thank you so much for that um recognition girls suck um if yes so I'm G to can I ask oneone CH sure I just want to say thank you for including all the schools in the report um one thing that I I'm really appreciative is the depth of community service that takes place in all of our schools and it's quite amazing seeing the pantries and and the donations that come in I saw the video of the serial boxes that went all around Thorp school that was outstanding so um and ALS also I was at the football game and I want to give a compliment to both teams it was a hardfought game but it was a it was a good solid game great sportsmanship shown by both teams which was outstanding is it should be on Thanksgiving Day um so I just want to say thank you for great comprehensive report and again to highlight great stuff happening in our schools excellent thank you so much and speaking of the great things happening at the school uh believe we're going to do a recognition for girl sucker yes if I could have uh representative Sally Karens come up athletic director Drew Betts and principal Peter dearo we have a recognition of two outstanding individuals that I've had the The Good Fortune of seeing a couple of the games and uh very proud of not only the athletic proudness uh and the leadership but also the way that it's done the right way so I'm going to turn it over to our friends for an introduction then the presentation yeah um well thank you all very much for having us um I do want to take a quick moment to sort of introduce them since I know you know their accomplishments over the years are I think very well known in the community um but sort of being newer to the community was something that was very very um interesting to see so the first person I do want to talk about is Georgia um so Georgia is one of the individuals that will get recognized tonight um She was recently selected as the NEC MVP for the second year in a row um she was selected as the division three player of the year across the state and was one of just two individuals to be recognized as an All-American um she's an incredible student athlete she's amazing to watch play and compete um she always Rose to the big moment but I think the biggest thing that really stood out to me is how she does it with an incredible amount of humility um she kind of walks the hallways with a very calm and quiet demeanor but then as soon as she gets on to that athletic playing field you see a whole different person um but she's an she's been an incredible person to watch she's going to graduate as the school's all-time leading Schooler and she will also go on to play soccer at Boston um university next year but again I just want to say it's been a pleasure to watch you compete into to play over those past two years and um sort of throughout your four years you you're going to leave some very very big shoes to fill so that's kind of around Georgia the next person I want to talk about is coach hinin who um when I first was able to accept this position here for Danver Public Schools I tried to reach out to every single coach and and call them and my my phone conversation with Jimmy really stood out to me because it was very very you know obviously the girl soccer program throughout his ten years been very very successful um and I asked him a question I was like what what things stand out to you most about your program and the things that he talked a lot about were pride and tradition and I think that's something that he's been very very successful in establishing throughout his time um obviously he has led this program to 33 consecutive state tournament appearances he's won over 400 games um but similar to Georgia he does this with an incredible amount of humility incredible amount of selflessness um and he really is someone that seeing from the Hall of Fame inductions last year to the way they they carry themselves after a tough loss last year to a tough loss in the Elite 8 this year is he really does instill that pride and tradition um and he's really an incredible person to work with and I feel very very privileged to to get to work with him every day so those are just kind of our quick introductions to those two folks thank you drew thank you so fun to be here for um such a happy occasion um I don't have many updates for you tonight other than to say we are nearing the end of our legislative session still might see some things produced um kind of hoping fingers crossed that this bill that would adjust the eligibility for retirement plus if you've heard of that through a glitch um I perceive it to be a glitch some people were not allowed to enroll I don't I'm told there's a chance so we'll see um uh and then I just did want to say congratulations um Olivia and Julia on your presentations of all the wonderful going on at the five elementary schools of of our wonderful town um I'm a Highlands parent so uh love hearing about anything Highlands um uh and before I turn to the other relevant Highlands matter uh the Falcon eyes group is coming to the state house um this Thursday to sing at the staircase which we're pretty excited about and um Secretary of State bill galin will be there and um it should be a really nice concert so if anyone would like to come it's open to the public and it should be wonderful so about Highlands and about Jimmy hinin Mr hinin I still kind of call him Mr hinin um we is this the right order you want to do this okay so um so much to celebrate with this guy and to be sure um you have to come on come on up Mr henin [Applause] so um it is a real honor to present this to you um I firmly believe and I think everyone does that you are core to the success of the daners PE soccer program and the loyalty and the uh Integrity of your players and it's a two-way street so we reap what we seow and you sow all of those great qualities in your athletes so um I want to uh bring greetings from the Massachusetts um House of Representatives be it hereby known to all that the Massachusetts House of Representatives offers its sincerest congratulations to coach Jimmy hinin in recognition of your 400 career Victory coaching the Danver High School girls soccer team over the past 26 years the entire membership extends very best wishes and expresses the hope for Future Good Fortune and continued success in all Endeavors given this ninth day of December 2024 at the State House signed by Ronald Mariano Speaker of the House offered by Yours Truly Sally Kar state representative uh with our Clerk and just congratulations um photo photo yeah should we do the photo I no they don't want don't want it's all right they're coming they don't want and then um that's what I'm think okay Con well done okay just to kind of recap some of the um statistics that Georgia will have put up kind of throughout her four years so in in the very last probably I want to say 10 seconds of her last High School game she will have actually broken our school's um alltime scoring leading record um which had been held for the past 15 years again she was just one of two all-americans selected in the state of Massachusetts um she was the division 3 player of the year um she's a two-time NEC MVP um last year she was also selected as the Salem News player of the year um and again that's something that could be on the horizon in the future but has been an absolute pleasure to watch thank you so Georgia come on up and while while Georgia makes her way Georgia there were so many accomplishments you have so many accomplishments that we couldn't fit nearly half of them into our citation but I do want you to know um we're very proud and I know your parents are very proud and you join a very elite group allamerican is it's a very big deal so um so come on up uh be it hereby known to all that the Massachusetts House of representativ offers sincerest congratulations to in recognition of being named an All-American by the United soccer coaches association due to your outstanding contributions to the Falcons girls soccer team 2021 to 2024 uh the entire membership extends very best wishes and expresses the hope for Future Good Fortune and continued success in all Endeavors given this ninth day of December 2024 at the state he did it at the state house I'm giving it to you here at the high school uh signed by the Speaker of the House Ronald Mariano and signed by me your state representative s and we're just very proud of you and wish you the very best to be you go Terriers okay we'll still you're a f dad's congratulations to you and then we're gonna take a photo I I think we should turn it and have our backs so that we can see I'm going to play four more beautiful oh ready okay now we have our update from the [Music] um Equity subcommittee or the human rights and Equity subcommittee okay Equity Equity subcommittee update yep we met last uh week on the 25th um and and Mary uh presented uh she just going to give a quick overview of the subcommittee notes um Mike was there and Eric were able to attend thank you so much um a lot of great work is happening so Mary I'm going to turn this over to you thank you we um talked a lot about the equity work that's happened over the last few years um in the district um and so uh so today we'll just go over kind of like the focus of the work we were doing the data that we looked at our um participation in the culturally responsive practices Leadership Academy and then uh the suggestions that the Consultants that worked with us in that Academy gave us so um um over the last three years um from September 2021 to now we um participated in um the department of educations they called it a multi-tiered system of support Academy and there were multiple acms and we applied for this culturally responsive practices Leadership Academy was um accepted into it and so we spent three years with them and um the goal of the three years was to support District leaders as they learn the foundational content of an embed cultur respons Equitable practices across the district so it was broken out into three years and um across the three years was lots of professional learning for district leaders um we had U well eight administrators on the team and then three teachers one at each level Elementary School and it was amazing professional development that we went through but then the products for the three years the first year was we picked a topic that was called lwh hanging food to work on and that was um diverse hiring was an area that we worked on so we joined the m Cho its partnership for diversity of Education um and that helped us think about how to go to different types of job fairs and how to do um better recruiting so um that was year one um the second year they um had us look at an operational framework to put together and focus on Equitable learning environments so that we able to Ure that all students are learning and um able to access education given that we have Equitable learning environments in our classrooms and in schools so we drafted a framework for that and I'll show you that in a few minutes um and we're still working on dra on that draft and need to do more to communicate that so we and then the third year was like a Capstone project just like the kids go through it was it was a lot of like you got Peter dearo Julie C perck shekel uh John White um and Stephanie Bruno were all on the team and we really was a lot of work for that last year and we had site visits and interviews um by the Consultants that came out and and visited multiple schools interviewed District leaders teachers lots of different people and then they also made us do a case study and present and kind of culminated all the learning we did for three years and present to them the work we were doing in do so the rest of this presentation Kind Show highlights that work so this is the framework the Equitable learning um environments framework and um in it there are four domains because there are four pillars to have Equitable learning environments you have to make sure that you the systems and structures in your school district allow for that so the four pillars are the or domains are the teaching and learning uh schoolwide systems and structures so that would be like schedules and things like that the third one is family caregiver and Community Partnership so how we engage engaging families and um community members and and then finally is the district policies so we we have to make sure we have um good practices in all four of those domains to really ensure that we have um so then the next um phase of this is I'm going to highlight some of the suggestions that they um gave us so actually if we go back more the we have to do more work in the district we as the team understand this uh framework that we drafted but we haven't done enough communicated so I think that um it's it's really kind of um dub tailing nicely with our planning work is that we can start to communicate this framework as well as doing the visioning Because part of our visioning and our core values really has to have the Equitable learning environment work in it as we have to promote that our school so then the um Consultants gave us some suggestions and um one of them is to go out there and and and communicate that Environ in that framework so um kind of what we we've reconvened our team and we're looking at um looking at that framework one more time before we go out and start communicating it to the um teachers and staff and other administrators and we're going to be kind of weaving in some of those Concepts into our professional f um and then making sure that we connect the equal learning environments into our day-to-day work and that you can see down below at the the last two bullets we kind of talked about some of those foundational um uh structures that we have to have in place so that we can build Equitable learning environment so we need to have the um time where kids really working on their social emotional um learning skills so we have the community block for the high school we have richond ha block and then the elementary um sense of belonging teams in their SEO so that's those foundations were really working hard on strengthening them this school year and then um the last bll says to we have to create a line strategy um to make sure that school climate is is getting stronger and we have a new brand that we'll talk about later around devel Positive Behavior Support Systems um in other schools I'll wait later about that um a suggestion from our Consultants was to make sure that we incorporated more performance tasks as requirements um in our as as our courses and as part of Port graduate work so they've recommended that we start to work on developing a system for Port graduate so fast forward we be on theate strategic plan and that work is already getting going so we knew we wanted that I think we had talked years ago about doing it got tabled and then Dan's been a big proponent of it it's since um to be our superintendent so that work is happening um and so that they really want to make sure that we develop um work embedded into our professional development so our current work is we are building in performance-based tasks into our curriculums we have at the high school the project Le way um which are like applied learning project based um courses we have um the middle school trying out or P piloting um Project based learning math units it's another grant for God are all the science courses have to have performance task and many of them do already but we're really being um more explicit with them because the mcast has now shifted that in the fifth grade and eighth grade science that they have to do simulations and um performance tasks to show what they understand scientific which is a shift from the multiple choice kind of face of the Imp and then finally um last suggestion um is that oh yes so oh yes so we got I'm sorry I saw the forgot the last bullet um that we also were awarded one eight Grant so the high schools this is their second year of being in it and um so we're now moving our applied learning to other courses at the high school really kind of looking at using more performance tasks um at the high school but the full en Richmond has been awarded as a year one um site for starting to look at and seeing what umom based tasks and applied learning looks like in other schools that are better at so exciting it's really supposed to be there to increase student engagement and that's what we're looking for right is that kids being engaged in their learning and engagement school so then finally um some of the L the um work of the uh when we were doing the site visit was to really talk about what are our next steps and so at the equity subcommittee we talked about what what our most recent next steps will be and it's to rec our team which we've done we're meeting tomorrow morning um and we are thinking about like how do we put um we kind of duvail the the Strategic plan workk on the vision and core values in with some of the Equitable learning environment so that's our conversation tomorrow um and then we um are looking at our Tech selection policy we definitely have a policy um on the books right now so we want to review it we're going to do that with the sub commmittee toie that um policy and see if there needs to be any kind of rision to it given some of the changes over the last few years and then um if we update that policy we will'll be voting on it at a meeting and then bringing it back to thank you Mary any questions or comments okay um I would in regards to domain number three I mean I think it kind of dovetails into what I mentioned earlier around engaging families and community members there there any early specifics on that or is it still you know just a framework and you're going to build in some specific actions yeah I think we you know as a as Leaders we were talking more about like how how to make two-way communic stronger in the district so we're working on um I think with teachers we also work on like you know what is an authentic hardip look like and it's not just calling and telling that whether the child's doing well in school or not most of the times it's it can be negative so we're really working on those positive phone calls and I think that like the families at Smith School will know that they all the first call comes in September early on with positives about how they're getting to know their child and things um before you know anything any other kind of call happens so I think that many of the schools have that in their school Improvement plan I'm really working on I love that thank you Mr chairman if I could um Mike and I were lucky enough to uh attend the meeting and hear a full presence I think Mary for um for all of our sakes cut down on size there was really so much information there but um so I want to compliment you and your team on the presentation both you and Dan and uh what I came away with was that there is a commitment I like to boil things down and the commitment is to to set high expectations for all students and to give them the resources and the tools and to build an environment that helps them to meet those high expectations it's about allowing everybody to learn and to sort of make the most of what they have as individuals and uh you know I think what else could be better to a better description of equity than that give everybody the tools to get the most out of what they have um the other thing I would say and I see Paul poock from the uh human rights and conu and inclusion committee and um I hope Paul that uh if you think it'd be helpful I'm sure that we can get some number of uh you know our uh Administration and uh teachers to come and talk about this at one of your meetings if you think that would be helpful that's it thank you not to give you more work yeah good go ahead um and I appreciate you saying that Eric too and I think we talk about the partnership really it's the big three it's our students it's our families but it's our staff it's also uh allowing room and space to help you know grow our staff as well they work really hard uh but but making sure that they have the tools necessary to be successful so I think to your point uh chairman Lopes uh in terms of the the community outreach you know I know that that you know particularly families that English may be a second language and I know a lot of work we've been doing to to help with that you know translation devices and we're working hard on that but I think just in general you know how can we involve more families at the open houses in the start of the year um and how can we just communicate more effectively so I think it's giving everybody what they need to truly be an equitable learning environment and I think one of the things with Equity that's important it's not taking away from something to gain something is to make sure everybody gets what they need right and we have advanced students that could use some push as well so I think I think that's the lens that we really are looking for so I appreciate boiling that down we have a lot of work to do but um I feel confident with our group and our staff uh we're really working at a hard thank you Mary for for that that was great and very excited to see the outcomes uh from this subcommittee um up next superintendent advisory Council uh just a quick update to to let the team here know that we've had um our SEC second successful meeting the second meeting we ran through the strategic planning process um but really looking for this group with a great cross-section to be a nice sounding board for what we're doing in our district um in fact uh some feedback came out in our last meeting to take a look at our previous strategic plan how that went about to look at areas to you know like where were we and how effective was that as we're going through this process although it's a different process which is really looking for ways to push District forward so that's been the the tone and the theme and we'll utilize this group to help us as we analyze and further the data breaking down to create the core values as well as our visioning uh for the Strategic plan so it's it's really a nice group and our next meeting is on the 17th uh the meetings are open I put that on my update they're open to attend uh Mike's part of that and and attends on a regular basis but we have a nice cross section uh so if anybody out there they they want more information they can always reach out to me but I include that in my update when the meeting is it's at the high school library 6:30 and it's open attendance so uh we're looking forward to more um participation if I may miss the chair it's it's been very enjoyable to be in that space people who are attending are fully engaged taking it very seriously um a lot of great thought Partners in the world I'm looking forward to the next one I know the 17th I know it's a tough time of the year but the meetings only really do last about an hour and I'll be honest people are so engaged that we do go over a little bit don't even know the hour go flies by but it's with the time we love to see more people fantastic glad that that's working out so well I thought some had something okay the Amber cares update thank you chair Lopes I would like to bring forward Amanda Weber and Whitney mcney they're coming up Laura mayor is uh not present tonight but um I just want to say before they begin tonight really is just an introduction of our new Leadership Model at daners cares it's a as we know it's a Community Coalition um looking at year one and looking at ways that we can improve more interface not only with our school but other schools in the community um Amanda Lor and Whitney stepped up to the plate we worked really hard over the summer to review and revise and and um we had a meeting today and really doing a very nice job with uh danver's cares but more importantly providing resources for our community so not to steal the Thunder they have a presentation tonight and um I just want to thank them for the work that they've been doing thanks Dan I get really nervous on microphone so and I forgot my glasses so um so I'm a Mana web that's okay thank you I I if I do need them I will earlier they yours right now I'm okay cuz I have the screen right in front of me um so I guess just I know most people are aware of danver's cares and the history there um Dan had asked or requested um that I that we look at a different model for damous cares this year I've been a social worker in the district for I'm in my 11th year here and up until about a year and a half ago I really struggled to understand fully what the role of dver cares was and how it um connected with the community I knew that it had a lot of potential and I know Dan knew that too and Whitney has a history working there as well and it was just really exciting to kind of be able to move forward with a new vision um so I'm here to introduce the team how do I go to the next slide thank you um so this year what we did is what used to be one position for dver cares we have now divided into three leadership positions so I'm program director Amanda Weber um this is Whitney mcney uh who's a school counselor at dver high school and has um past experience working for dver cares and then Laura mayor who unfortunately is sick tonight she was planning to be here um she's also a social worker at dver High School with us and is serving as the school and Community liaison um and we really wanted to split the role into three parts to divide the work in ways that would reflect all of our strengths and skill sets um this year also for the youth leaders so K Robinson has been working with the DHS youth leaders for many years now um and Rebecca gargan who's a teacher at hm hrms has also been working with the middle School leaders we were able to get grant funding this year which is great to add on to additional uh so Emily Gonzales who's also a social worker at the high school is now sort of co-leading the youth leaders at the high school and chrisa Rundle who's one of the school social workers at the middle school is now co- facilitating the Middle School youth leaders so just general overview Denver cares it's a dynamic Community Based Coalition focused on positive Youth Development through collaboration with Community Partners the Coalition strives to implement evidence-based prevention and educational programming in the community in the area of Youth mental health substance use prevention and healthy decision making the Coalition Works in close partnership with the regional youth prevention Network including communities of Beverly if switch glester Manchester essic and Rockport to share prevention resources and best practices all right um before we move on to current initiatives I just want to say the regional piece of it prior to coming in I had no knowledge of so it's been really exciting and interesting to be a part of sort of a bigger network of um clinicians and community members up and down the NorthShore to be able to share those resources um so that's been really great and we have access to grant funding that I wasn't aware of Prior so youth RIS Behavior survey originally we were going to present some data today we're not going to do that um but we are planning to present it at a a more thorough um more full a fuller picture of all the data at a later Community uh school committee meeting we haven't identified exactly which school committee meeting that is um but it we think it might be in February or March potentially um so I'm excited to give that to you we did give a brief overview to the ders cares uh Coalition today and I feel like it it was a good uh practice round good starting point to start getting that data out there but the idea is that we really want to be transparent and put this data out to the community so we can really use this really understand what's happening with our youth and help that to drive uh programming and initiatives um so to Whitney hi Whitney MC here so uh we administered the ybs um in October and um in October as well on youth mental health day actually it was considered mental health day we had a mental health guest speaker mallerie come from minding your mind and we've had that group here several times in the past and they're always really great for the kids to connect um and she spoke about mental health challenges and treatment and hope for recovery and I think it was really engaging for the students we had a lot of feedback that was very positive whether it was Anonymous or in person afterwards um so we hope to do more of those in the future in late October we had a youth Mental Health First Aid training that several staff attended and that was a two-day training where we were learning about how to I was one of the participants and we learned how to recognize signs and symptoms that could suggest a potential mental health or substance use challenge where skills that were taught or focused on listening not judgmentally giving reassurance and referring to appropriate Services just so we can be staff members throughout the school that catch students early on before a problem gets worse another initiative that we're doing this year is called Talk they hear you it's a social media campaign from samama and the goal is to help inform families on different um things to note or tips to help talk to their kids in an appropriate way that will make sure that they're making good decisions around alcohol and substance use when that comes up in their lives and we post weekly on social media and on our website so check us out there next slide so some youth projects that have been happening so daners cares have um students that work with Karen and Emily I've been working on a few projects so on kindness day students wrote positive messages in sidewalk chalk and added kindness rocks to the the colen rer Memorial Garden that was lovingly updated this fall by our dedicated staff members Curr flowers donated a generous amount of pink and white roses for us to hand out on that day and it was a really wonderful way to start the day and just feel that sense of connection and Community another piece is we are working with the regional youth prevention Network to do a trusted adult campaign um that is really um a highlight video real of students talking about an adult that they trust and why and we'll be sharing that later when that's completed so three of our students attended an project Adventure day where they went and received leadership training during this training they played games and activities and challenged themselves on ropes courses that was really engaging and learned problem solving skills and Leadership skills one of the quotes from a student read we learned how to solve problems and communicate effec ly with others we stepped out of our comfort zones and tried something new and some of our students are attending monthly meetings on Zoom or in person with other youth from different towns so you mentioned Rockport Gloucester students from all over are meeting in Beverly at the YMCA and just getting to talk about what's important to them and also this winter um the middle school and the high school are going to work on sending out letters to uh senior citizens and nurses in homes um something that will be nice and comforting for winter season and way to you know engage in our community and lastly we're piloting in January a new mentorship program between the high school and the middle school students so we're trying to uh create a positive peer support system and we're using a curriculum that is all about working through challenges and making good decisions and that will start um piloting with three sessions in the spring so we're excited about that last um okay so uh just in terms of next steps um I realized I didn't explain what the youth risk behavior survey is um I don't know if everyone knows what it is but it was a survey that we gave uh to the high school back in October that really covered all topics that are relevant to youth health and wellness mental health substance use um physical health all of those all of the stressors that our teenagers are going through and experiencing day-to- day um so with that data um this whole idea of us being really transparent uh the plan is for us to as I said share with school committee hopefully in February or March the data that we have we'd really like to do some kind of parents or Community presentation that is separate from that um we've talked about potentially doing it um in person or potentially virtually as well if it's more accessible in that way or we could do some hybrid version so that uh people really feel like they can access the data um and then I do think we're also going to share it internally at the oh we shared it with staff uh at the high school uh last week um and we shared some of the data the Danver cares meeting today um and then I think the health and safety committee we were planning to look it over as well um so it's starting that work and it's really fun and exciting um the instructor training for the Youth mental health firsts a I know I'm I think I'm running on time but um we did the so the the staff did the training they loved it we got really awesome feedback as part of a grant with the regional Network which is amazing we're sending six staff members to become instructors to do that training so that we can really bring all that training internally um into the school district so that with the goal of more staff being able to gain experience and being trained in this area um some of the teachers that we've spoken to who did the initial training are really feeling empowered and excited about the fact that um you know they they were given I mean actually you could probably speak to it better than me but I talked to this one math teacher in particular who just was amazing and she just said you know I we are dealing with students with these issues every single day in my math class um I see it I feel it and I just didn't have the confidence um to be able to respond in a way that felt helpful or productive or the right way and she really just she's going to be trained as one of the uh youth Mental Health First stors as well and do the training and I just we intentionally didn't pick all um clinicians and mental health people to do the trainings we have two teachers doing it we have a one of our uh Behavior text we have a par professional um and one social worker the last thing we'll say is uh to check out our website when we post a calendar of events in January for the new year and that our next meeting is open to everyone who would like to attend so if anyone's watching and Miss thought about coming we'd love to have you and it's on February 3D at 2:30 at the high school you can just come right in the front door and um in c23 that was a fantastic presentation like thank you both very very much I know Lara couldn't be here but thank her as well well I I love the updated vision of dver scares um I know it's been around for a while and it's done some great things but I think this this is a nice little damers cares 2.0 version and and it's something actually Dan mentioned Mr Barrow mentioned like early on about his a new vision for it and uh you two have done a phenomenal job of even some of the things that you discovered I've heard here for the first time ever so I'm super excited about the next Pres presentation and now I'm going to have to get myself to a couple of these meetings to really try to get involved um couple um one thing that really jumped out I mean just the last thing you were mentioning about the six stanas High School staff members and the mental health first aid and and the potential impact that could have I I really like the idea of it not being like clinical people they're actually like students and people in the classrooms and and you were mentioning you've already benefited from that training we were're saying or two training so far mic microphone sorry we have the two-day training so far and we'll have a longer one for other staff that wanted to isit the staff yes so in January it's actually Four full day four full days of training for the instructors that they do it's the second or third week in January um that also I just want to give a shout out to Peter dearo too who has just been so amazingly supportive of all of this um um I just think you know he he has made it very easy to help us and support us in ensuring that teachers at least at the high school are getting a lot of this work done well thank you so much for that and I'd love to hear more about these changes when you guys come back in January February or March and you can come to the Denver scares meeting the next one in February all right I'll be there oh sorry comment first of all thank you for the work you're doing and uh this looks terrific um and because I am the second oldest person in the room right now only because Paul stayed around um I remember when danis care started and it was uh at that time the you know the police had a representative the District Attorney's Office had a representative local clergy and the whole point was to share information about challenges that were facing young people and sort of work together to come up with ideas to help with that um is there still an aspect of that when we talk about a coalition can you talk a little about the community piece of that so our meeting today um just to give you some an example of sort of what it looked like we have representation from the library from Elliott uh uh from amver Police Department we had a counselor from EIC chech um we had JD Marts from the accessibility committee we had family Family Resource Center um The Hope is and in the past we've had um Sally is usually there she couldn't come today um but we also uh Mary is usually in attendance as well she couldn't come today um but the hope is that we really are going to broaden this uh I'd really love to see more parents which was really great the six tech school counselor is also a parent in the district um which is cool to have that perspective uh but I really you know I think we've started to do these things and then the next step is really starting to recruit more uh community members to come and give more feedback our opening question today in our meeting was about you know how can we partner with you better you know really I want to use this as an opportunity to hear back from community members to say okay how do we do this better um and we genuinely want to hear from them and figure out how to do how to partner um so anyone and listening now in the community that wants to have a you know be able to have a voice here and partner up with us we would love to hear from you and um yeah so that's where we're at well this is uh this is great and thank you for doing this and I think you're going to make a difference in a lot of young people's lives so thank you thank you anyone else I just want to mention as well I love the updated time Monday at 2:30 it used to be Monday morning which is just impossible for parents and some other folks okay oh y Mike Shannon thank you uh for bringing that to us um I really I'm looking forward to hearing your data and I'll I'll wait I'll be nice and wait but I think I really appreciate you saying that you want to bring it to the panel you want to share that I think that's incredibly important we talk a common threat we talk about you heard it earlier tonight is uh partnership family to school school to family um letting people know what what's happening with the Youth of town and really have honest conversation real conversation and and drive that partnership make everything thank you that okay that was a really great presentation and Dan is going to keep it going with our strategic planning update thank you thank you chair and I just want to Echo that I appreciate the point brought up about the Coalition because when we made the changes we had uh some feedback to ensure that will be the case and and it absolutely is the case we also had the select board member maren Bernard was there and Dan vennett's been there as well um but it's really empowering we have a great staff it's empowering in our staff be able to make a difference and we talked earlier about giving resources and the opportunity to run with things um and and again I appreciate them pointing out to Peter as well to allow this but that's the only way we can make things happen is to empower our staff so make this partnership so thank you um they were nervous but I don't know why so um strategic planning update just quite simply we've we've gone through the focus groups we had two Community groups we had a faculty and staff we utilized Danver high school students Peter tomorrow principal tomorrow put together a group uh might do that again hopefully um and we also did this with our uh superintendent advisory Council but we know there's more work to do our goal right now is really to gather information to shape our core values to review them for the future as well as our visioning um so we're looking to put together uh another Community Focus Group and we'll hold that at an elementary school in early January we're working on a date to run one more of those for families but we're also looking to have a joint school committee select board and town leadership hopefully on January 9th I know it's kind of a quick turnaround uh we'll run through that process um whomever can make it on January 9th and we'll do that at the high school and I'll send that information um on that tomorrow for everybody but we have confirmation from Rodney Conley Dan Bennett um and Cher Lopes that we can bring this together and I'll reach out to HC as well and we'd like to have those voices included uh and as well as at the middle school get those voices in here and then we're going to put together a survey to kind of bring it all together so we're Gathering data and we're looking for patterns to build develop our core values envisioning so we're trying to take the cone approach we are taking the cone approach Amy web is a futuristic designer who speaks to many many companies I know your Gabe probably connected here we're trying to do is really develop a vision that would stand up over time right if you think about the last 10 years we've been through so many things as a community as a country and as as a world um so our vision needs to stand up and be flexible to adjust the change in times nobody predicted the pandemic so that kind of altered our practices we need to put together Vision that withstand any type of change that comes our way so right now we are currently in the visioning process so we're taking all the participants data everybody weighs the same in this so we're trying to call this down and create themes that would lean itself into our true north as we say our vision for the future and our core values core values we have may stand may not stand but that's the process we're getting to and ideally when we get to our professional development day with our staff we can call that down further with the superintendent advisory Council in January call that down further as we continue to build this out for a strategic plan so quite frankly the vision of The Graduate is a something that will run parallel to our uh strategic plan we're really looking to do and our goal is to create a vision that not only stands up over time but quite frankly what skills and knowledge and mindsets do our graduates need when they leave our schools to be successful for their future notice I didn't say college I didn't say Workforce I didn't say military it doesn't matter right we talk about 21st century skills well we're quarter of the way into the 21 right the 20 25 coming up soon so this is really important and just so work was done here on this earlier and certainly know kind of came to a halt on this but at the end of the day you know this is this is actually something that will ingrain and ideally will work its way all the way through K12 everything that we do would revolve around our portrait of vision of a graduate here's an example uh that I found um and you can find there's tons of examples this is not just exclusive to Massachusetts quite frankly I think we're a little behind right right now 15 states or so are making this part of the Statewide and the district Visions report to the graduate because ideally when we find our points we'll create the major themes that tie into our vision this is an example from Oxford Public Schools which by the way Mississippi right um and you could find many examples throughout the country um and this is just their through their work and the work that they do everything aligns to all of these um anchor qualities the for of The Graduate and then if you the the quote on the bottom I won't read the quote to you but from the National Association of state boards of Education they talk about this goes beyond and we talked about this as a board you know standardized testing and and those marks which are important but that doesn't really paint the true picture of what it takes to be successful when our students leave the school so this work is vitally critical and I think can go a long way not only to help the par of students we're doing a great job of this but I think it will align all the work we're doing but also give us a better snapshot of how we are how we are doing as a district aside from just straight scores because that doesn't tell the whole story so we're excited about the work um I thought I would just show this example you know how ours turns out I have no idea it's kind of neat to see it written down and you can see every one of these markers and looking into the world of business into the world of science and so the whatever it might be these are all important components that you need to have so anyway I'll leave it at that I just wanted to give a quick update where we're at and we're really excited about the work I don't know if anybody's any questions with what happened any questions or comments I I think this is uh this is excellent by the way and I think it goes um I also wanted to to mention not only is this so important and we talked about like you know what does the picture of a graduate look like but I love the the work that we're doing in the community um the meeting at Essex Tech the superintendent and other key stakeholders within the town really having a conversation about every Danver student not just Danver high school but also at Essex Tech and how we can better partner and just really offering and making available what students want and uh I I think that's super important so this is a really great initiative and again January 9th um you know as many of us that can make it would be great to get there but super excited about this and this is a great visual representation of uh where we're trying to be thank you I want to dovetail from the agenda for one second because I noticed Mr poock is here um and I don't want to make him wait until the end of our meeting Mr Pollock is is there uh something you want to share from the human rights and inclusion committee yes yes sir please please I didn't want to think you uh I we I didn't know you were coming is this on yes it is well I would have waited till the end of the meeting but thank you just a courtesy um had a great meeting this afternoon with superintendent Bower and assistant superintendent Miss warmers Miz uh with Charles Desmond who was on our HC committee it was um informative really informative and I think what we took away as Eric would know I think and you should know this that we're not here to set your agenda we're here to help in any any way we can help when asked so that that's number one all right number two is um I'm going to probably be the self-appointed liaison which we've never had your committee maybe you don't want us I won't show up but but um I've taken over the chairmanship for a short period of time and and people on our committee are all working people and I I fortunately am not I'm retired so you might see me pop in from time to time at your meetings and I just wanted you to know that's going to be my responsibility at this point other than that we're we're fairly good shape we have another meeting on um Thursday the 19th uh I think uh either Eric or Gabe Mr Lopes or Mr Crane might attend and you know if there's something that comes up uh and you want to attend please feel free to anybody going to come I will get back to them about this meeting so you feel sure that you're going to be represented two things I thought I might just mention to you in this advertisement okay number one we have a a manora lighting on December 30th in the Town Square I I should have mentioned it this afternoon uh that's upcoming and that that's a pretty nice ceremony fire trucks the police cars and the hook and ladder and they distribute the candy and it's just a lot of fun okay that's about an hour and then as you know everybody knows it uh on January 20th we'll have our MLK event at Dan high school so we can talk about that later thanks for the opportunity I'll stick around a little bit I really wanted to hear a couple things I there are things on my mind here and we'll see see how it goes and I might slide out thanks for the opportunity okay thank you thank you thanks for all I'm sorry you made you had made a suggestion about us getting involved with HRI you getting involved with HC um 20 minutes ago my suggestion was that um we do a presentation to your group what Mary's working on yeah we can do that we do it one of two ways I'll bring it before the committee but um we'll do it one of two ways it could be right at a meeting if you want or it could be 45 minutes of just an uh you know a conference type thing casual setup okay whatever we'll talk about it sounds good we'll figure it out okay thank you thank you Mr Paulie um now for the monthly budget report from Pam good evening a little little break in the or change of I don't know change of the style of the information I guess um so I I guess I'll just start with uh a bit of a disclosure or confession which is that providing the data for the budget report has been a little bit more challenging this year given the transition that I've mentioned in the past about um a change in the accounting system for the Town um so it requires a lot more manual um manipulation of the data to merge the two sets and make sure it's um as clean and accurate as possible um but that said um I would say that the the data in the tonight's report is telling more or less the same story as what was presented last month um I did add the operating budget that was presented last month where there was some re balancing between the lines to account for the settlement of the contracts last year and that kind of thing um and to acknowledge the increase that we did see in spending that we hadn't really forecast for the um summer program the program um but other than that I would say that we are kind of proceeding um as as planned um in the sense that um you know things things are we our hiring has been advantageous um we have all of our positions um largely filled and we were able to realize some Savings in some of those those lines so um we're looking to be in in Fairly good shape maybe better than in previous years um in terms of the projections on special education and the associated Transportation they will always be challenges and things that we need to continue to work on but um right now I I don't have uh tremendous concern as I have in the past Rel relatively sure that the um because really the instructional assistance is the one place that we and we sort of saw it coming with a new contract that's really a product of that and still confident we can we can take care of that within what we have I I I do believe so I mean I that the deficit that you see on the instructional assistance line is a reflection of uh some staff that had to be brought on to address specific student needs as part of our building of our program so that we could keep more students in District and not um not have like keep them as danas public schools in district students um as we go into the budget process all of the positions um will be evaluated very closely by Christina Ryan in the student services department and her team Along with Dan and Mary um we'll all be taking a very hard look at that where we decide um what it is that the district is going to have to request for a FY 26 budget now it sounds like we're doing what we need to do for our students yes I do believe that is true thank you Mr oh no problem and and I mean and just looking at the highlighted bullets here it seems we'll still be on track for to be on budget by the end of the year after the circuit breaker and um and the funding from the state the emergency assistance program yes we are waiting for um what has been promised as a December payment to supplement what we've already received um and that will be very useful in addressing um from my perspective a lot of the transportation costs associated with some of the students that have come to danverse um and whether they stay in Danvers um for their education or go back to their home district and all that there's a lot of Transportation costs associated with that but their cost shares with other communities um so that's another area of the budget that we're just kind of keeping an eye on but the state does provide um has promised to has committed to providing that emergency assistance funding and then there is also um just the homeless Transportation reimbursement money that comes from the state that is based on the inputs from last year's interview report awesome question no um unre and not right not for this program but I know we recently hired a transportation coordinator and maybe for the next school committee meeting I don't know if there's any highlights or you know quick wins that you may be able to share from that we'd love to uh uh David pulsifer we hired um and he's made a huge vent already um and love to bring him in and and said that to be the case as we get into budget season uh so next month it's okay chair I'd love to bring him and talk about some of the programming and actually just is completing a survey just to find out you know what people think about our transportation services and not sure the last time that we had a survey based on that but uh he's interfacing with special education on this Transportation um he's already gone down worked DPW because fleets he has some ideas and ways we can update that uh he's going to go with me to Essex Tech after the first of the year to see if we can partner Transportation I if you have anything you'd like to add with about that P I guess I would just add that the um the efforts that we have made to work through the Consortium for another way to um address our transportation costs that seems to have legs so to speak um it looks like they have uh collected the data that they need and are refining some of that but I do think that that is going to be happening um maybe even before this fiscal year is over I'm hoping but all excit that has potential to U realize some good savings for us too I took care what thank you thank you very much yes this I appreciate um the new accounting system has allowed for for those of you who might have been Bill signers in the past the new system has allowed for remote signing or digital signing of Bill sheets which has been wonderful um ask Mike to do that while was in the building couple years too late but that's great yes all right all right thank you very much thank you Pam all right new business approval for approval of Camp Cody stiens I don't I'm sorry oh I don't know if you have any questions but um the camp Cody stiens uh that is the sixth grade Camp okay just bringing in the the money to be paid and just make sure go through proper protocol procedures yeah when the when the when the funds to pay the stiens come out of our Student Activities accounts it's required that the um that payment is approved by school committee before the payment goes out so okay motion to approve uh so moved second any discussion I'm just glad we have lots of shop rooms lots of people could be up there with the kids an exciting exciting week any other comments okay all those in favor I I I oppos None the motion carries thank you uh on a safe and supportive learning environments update good okay um it's okay chair I'll just go through just a quick update the evaluation yep and then write to safety support schools oh I'm sorry I skipped that all right I go intended valuation cycle sorry about that no problem right um in October I think it was October seems like yesterday presented our district goals as well as my goals the three goals um and just as an update February we'll bring in we'll do an update of my goals and District goals that's customary just to give you a midpoint cycle review to see if we're on track if we are on track or if we're behind you know what will we be doing to make round or provide an explanation and then in May as we've done it um I'll present the end of cycle progress report to the committee uh just with the evidence supporting goals I'll meet with Gabe in advance but if the hyperlinks work where it's quick Google Docs and just going through the standards um I'll have that ready to go um and then I think at that point you'll take the information review it and then come together and work on a u f to report that will be then reported out in June um and that's a public my review the public to just to see um areas that I need Improvement areas that are doing well or exceeding and then adapted just like we did last year so I just as a reminder just to know and just to keep it real simple I'm open to any suggestions to make the process as smooth as possible provide whatever information you need for for an evaluation so that's it any questions on the process I think many of us went through it last year so pretty good and you really did a good job of uh preparing us to uh go through the assessments um sure I'm not skipping anything here yes now we're doing safe and supportive learning environments update thank you chair um I I'm going to turn this over to Mary who's done uh Yan's work in this area um and the piece up that we really um again I don't want to steal her Thunder but this is more to give her Kudos her and her team but we received two major grants um theal behavioral and mental health grant for $100,000 as well as the hate crime prevention Grant $50,000 these monies will provide the resources to help again promote support the safe and support schools provide tools for our teaching staff with the goal to help everyone so Mary so I'm thankful for your work on top of all that she does the grants are it's a lot of work and working with Cam Clum as well to coordinate this and her team I just want to take your time to say thank you for that great so these uh grants are specifically Target to improve uh School cure climate in our school district so um and the for behavior andent health on this screen really is focused on the multi-tier SST support I always talk about this but it come it comes in two forms there an academic side where you're improving the academics with teered supports but we also have another side which is to improve students social emotional um skills and improve their behavior and um and them and provide mental health support so that's what this these grants are about so um and so I'll talk further about theal Grant um in a few minutes but right now to focus on the heat crimes prevention Grant we've had this for a number of years and um we've been working with Northeastern center for the study of sport and society which is amazing TD it's really works with both uh sta faculty and staff in our school but most importantly the students so it's been great professional development they've come in for a couple days students um do a lot of work with that we really Target to our athletes to have them come and um participate in it and they bring it back to the the team so good one there we have uh Janelle Ridley who's a D's uh Community member she works on a uh developed a program called nextg um equity and Leadership program she started that a few years ago has done some great work it's really working with the students to help shape the culture um of Damas high school and they really work on students incoming to try to teach them the positive culture that exists herei and um get acate them to the culture that so she is a great po group I feel like at the end every time we go by it just seems like the numbers are growing so i' say over 20 students are participating in thisr then I think later on today you're going to vote on a um trip that they're taking so she's been doing great work we're proud of those students I think did any of you participate last year in the simulation that they had feel like they had a town community Town Hall oh my yeah so yeah so they're doing great work so it's a lot of game design to have some really you know crucial conversations between students just thinking about is that field trip going to cost the students anything out of pocket or no it's um it's through private funding it's actually being funded through the human rights and inclusion perfect I was going to suggest we pay for it somewhat linked because it you know they they meet our schools but the human rights and inclusion is working on the funding um if I made the uh the work that's been done in this area the last couple years I don't know if you realize but it has resulted in a recent D High Gra name for the hi Isaiah so I just want to I just want to put that out that one of our recent grads has just been put on the human rights and inclusion committee he's what is he 19 years old yeah so I just I mean it works the work they've put in is exceptional and that group of uh young people that I sat with for that game it it was a joy to talk to them interact with really was and I so well informed and had really things like conversation through which is so genous it's great and Isaiah actually partners with Janelle right now and is a co- facilitator of the next gener leadership so it's great that a graduate comes back and really keeps building and showing kids where where that work can go all right so onto the um mtss oral behavior and mental health um so mtss uh in a few of our presentations is really like you think of it as a triangle the the base the blue part is the tier one that every kid gets and there's where they're learning um social emotion skills they need we're teaching them expected behavior in school and we're providing um Str uh coping mechanisms for mental health like Stress Management like that so that's tier one the blue that they get everyone gets and then tier two and three the green and red are some extra uh extra support some students might need and they move up in the tear um to do that but what I love about this graphic is that Equity is at the base so there is like it is built on those political learning environments so we have to have those learning environments in place both in the school and in the district classrooms before any of this can take shape so that's kind of like how that cpra work works with this model what I love about this triangle too is they have um the cycle inside that talks about the data that we're using so that we have a an identification um piece in the using the data we identify students that extra supports then the key is we match them with specific supports what we've often done in the past is match them with oh you need to see the social worker but now we're saying what exactly they need from the social worker and try to group kids that need similar skills together for social emotional learning they might get an extra dose of what they've learned in tier one or if they need um little help in learning the expected baby behavior in the classroom or in the school they get a little help on that so that's kind of how that cyle works identify you match them with the the extra intervention that they need and then you monitor see if they're if they're you know understanding and internalizing the learning that they're doing and then they can move off to support and go back you know to stay into the tier one services so it's been it's been a great um we've started this work and um we've had some teams go to a conference um that is was put on by this may Institute who is now going to support us in implementing um the work that so um we go on to the next slide um so in this grant we've been really given U money to build capacity in our school to do the work of positive behavor support so the May Institute is going to come and um have send a consultant to work at each one of our schools and they're going to meet um with each school three times so the initial one is they're going to take an inventory to see how we are doing with the behavior supports we have in place and then they're going to help the school put an an action together to take steps to develop these uh more positive supports and get uh strengthen their system so and they come back two other times to monitor how that's going and then at the last one they'll make a help them make a plan for the following school year so I'm really excited about that um we at every school we have a sense of belonging team and that really is geared on focusing on the work of of putting in the um positive behavior supports they each are developing um schoolwide matricies that are um um aligned to their um their schools um positive behavior system for example Smith is BU dog Brave so brave is the Matrix like we talked about what each letter means uh that gorp it's called tiger five so tiger stands for you know their expected behaviors so what they do is they show the kids how these behaviors play out in the classroom what they're expected in the hallways what it looks like in the cafeteria what it looks like out in recess so it really helps kids to know what is expected them and if they are not able to meet those expectations we put in lessons to help teach them that behavior so it's more of a positive approach yeah the you know always consequence students especially when they're so young they're learning how to behave right so it's really good model um so the the teams are helping us do that work we also training the principles and administrators in in the work and then um at the district level in January during our inservice day we're bringing together the social workers school counselors to get together and really think about think more deeply about the tier two and three more intensive supports we need to put in place um so the safe and and supportive schools U as Mary mentioned the tier one is the the expected on the social and the academic side because the basis is if our students are not in a good place very difficult to learn and this this we're trying to push not only our achievement but it's hard to do that if uh students are disregulated or in a tough place so this is one and it's also provide tools for our staff to help with this as well and the tier two and three are for those that need much more attention um so I look at this a number of ways we have physical security we have emotional and psychological security we have the whole gamut so you know we' put together a district Safety Committee which we started last year um in fact just to give a quick update we were talking talking uh updates from the schools and there's some fine points that we're working with uh by and large we're doing a good job with Safety and Security but we want to keep building on that piece the other thing is the district um safety and health committee came out of our DTA negotiations last year so we meet next Monday and that's to meet specifically with the staff things that that are um bubbling up or areas of concern that we can talk with them to look for common resolutions and that's another I think another great mechanism for more communication there the teachers they right on the front lines uh we're meeting on a regular basis with our IAS and BTS instructional assistance Behavior techs that have meeting with them on Wednesday build more capacity in that area our Wellness advisory committee meets quarterly because that pulls in the other areas of nutrition health and wellness and Danver car as you heard them tonight um our datat which is our district threat assessment team again came into play we put that into place this year and knock on wood you know we're in a good place but they're there in case we need them so there are many more examples of what we're trying to do as a district to U provide you know safe and supportive classrooms and and learning environments that go along lines as Mary said to Equitable learning environments that's the key so a lot of work is going on I'm proud of the staff I'm proud of our administrative team I'm proud of our teachers but again um some bright spots for last year negotiations is coming closer with our the structural assistance Behavior text because as we know they're right on the front lines with our students and that feedback is really critical just to ensure we're allocating resources that they need to be successful so I think we're doing a lot of good work in this area certainly areas to improve upon and we'll continue to update as these link into our district Improvement goals any comments from the committee I I just really appreciate this foundational work that I think sometimes is just underappreciated because you have to create the environment where the students can learn and and this is the foundational work that we need and so I'm super excited about the grants and the work that we're doing the results that we're seeing with uh former students like isaah that's incredibly exciting and and wonderful to hear and uh really looking forward to more updates around this but this is you know this is exactly the stuff that I don't know if there's another outside of our form to get this information out I don't know if it's available on the website but um you know some you can't please everyone you know some parents May believe we do too much of this but you know we really really need this work to be done to create the environment to maximize The Learning in the classroom so I'm wondering if there's any other mechanisms and I know you guys communicate a lot over email but how else can we promote this work so I think it's a great great Point um you know thanks to Janet who's been putting our presentations online and I make sure I point that out in the update but um I think we're rip for a session U sometime this winter just gives an overview of safe and supportive schools and again we might have a hybrid option on that to you know make another Community opportunity maybe bring damers cares into that as well um because I I agree with that P again it's to the point where you know you have to be in a good place to be able to learn as teachers you have to be in a good place to teach effectively so the work we're doing here I appreciate you saying the foundational goes a long way to pushing student achievement because that's not going to happen if we don't have these other pieces and it feels like we've been skipping and I know I'm new here um but I I think you know we're starting to bring this into alignment hopefully we'll see the outcome better achievement but also um better better results and I think they're starting to speak for themselves but we have a lot of no no other comments all right thank you uh Mary that was that was excellent oh okay put my glasses back on here all right on to uh order of business we have a consent agenda a motion to approve uh fundraising request homeschool request field trip requests Danver High School donations and Personnel memo have a second second any discussion comment have a question yeah sure um on the DHS donation from the ACA Health ACA healthare Foundation what what what's that about or how do we get involved with that that was uh an Outreach from family that said that um there they want to remain anonymous but there is a matching opportunity with the company and they've done this before so they reached out to the principal and then we said we have a process to go of course we want to accept the donation um so that that's how that came about um they solicit us so that was just a awesome opportunity sometimes we do get the solicitations that come to us um we just want to make sure we follow the process okay no other discussion all those in favor I I oppos None the motion carries uh Mr secretary the minutes we have a second second any discussion all those in favor I I opposed none motion car Ares um communication any updates from the communication okay none um we had our legislation update earlier unless there's any other comments on legislation if you like um the chair if you'd like uh Sally and Joan lovelyy to come back at some point provide an update um I can work on that if you'd like just let me know that would be fantastic thank you um any I I apologize I have one question on communication not something that is on the agenda but I think we did receive an email from parents about nutritional meals I just wanted to make sure someone had oh yeah I I specifically responded I point to uh the parent directly back to uh the the nutrition person our cafeteria or food service director food service director absolutely because that's you know um I thought going directly there would hopefully get the best result in if get what you wanted I hope they write back and let us know um okay um no problem um do we have any updates from any subcommittees yeah we covered a lot of them we we did I was going to ask through the chair if possible we have a policy meeting scheduled for the 16th and I'd like to move that to January if possible really nothing on the docket I can work with you if that's okay on a a future date on that absolutely as long as I'm in the country okay we did have a Safety Committee update yeah we we um basically reviewed what's happening in the schools things are going well some items to work with the DPW and um just a few updates on a few doors and particularly alarms at the elementary level uh just to make sure that we're in good place and we are we're um working on that um and also just communication with anybody that enters the building which we go through the whole process but we do have contractors and reinforcing the need to ensure they all sign in but ensure that if there's a contractor that the custodian meets with them and walks into the appropriate place just a quick couple quick reminders that I think are are very important also we are uh working on the informacast which is the uh system to update in case there is an emergency um and that uh Jim Sullivan our Tech director is working on that closely so getting very close to releasing that and then as I mentioned earlier our district thread assessment team they've been fully trained Prof development and they're available if needed fortunately we've been in a good place with that uh but we had some good discussions as a committee in terms of looking forward to our next meeting and just bringing further updates um again drills and such good collaboration with our police and fire so that's that part of is really good um CPAC at this point is still kind of recalibrating I'm working with Christina Ryan our director of student services um she's working working with that group it's it's um a smaller group right now um as well and our deep I don't know Mary if you have any updates to deep um they awarded their grants Rec so we did we talked about um that was that last going through the gr and then the uh the Consortium update uh the annual report is ready and they'll be sending it to school committee members and I can give a quick update in our January school committee meeting on that but but things are moving along well the project that we um are taking our share of financing the hbac project is going well um and as panp pointed out the collaboration for the Transportation uh we're getting some really good legs on that so hopefully we'll have some savings on that so that's all I have okay um next meeting will be January 13 and with that can I have a motion to adjourn a motion to adjourn second discussion there is no all those in favor uh I opposed none good night damers thank you