##VIDEO ID:MFLhJSJWrGM## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e there you go welcome to the Monday September 23rd 2024 meeting of the dentist jth Regional school committee may please have a motion to enter into executive session okay if we can do a roll call vote we have to read the Marilyn if you want to read the sure reest the Dennis shamer Regional school committee will enter into executive session to return to public session for the purpose of discussing strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares a motion a second we'll do a roll call vote Mr new yes Mr moris yes Mr Martin yes Miss Landers yes Miss beamus yes and I vote Yes we will following our discussion executive session we'll re again open the meeting e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e welcome back please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you we will start with our student representative report Miss Powers good evening everybody happy to be back um I figured I'd start off by talking about our open house which we have every year we have we had an amazing turnout this year especially so I was there as an ambassador and I sort of hadn't seen like for from that perspective before of open house but once I got to talk to all the parents We There was just so many people who were like so interested and I saw almost every eighth grader had a family member show up which is always amazing uh also a quick little brief about our phone policy that we're implementing here at DIY that you guys I think had approved last year and we had it Implement at the beginning of last year it's going amazing I think that everyone at DUI can attest to that especially admin I know I've seen Miss Bennett in a lot of my classes this year and the attention that students are paying and the class discussions have just tremendously improved U we're also preparing for two upcoming sat dates so we have one October 5th and then one November 2nd so I know seniors are sort of cramming for that October 5th date to have results back for early admissions and then juniors are already starting to prepare for November which is very exciting we also have our boy soccer is on a winning streak for one of the first times ever at UI and I can attest to this I've been on girl soccer since 8th grade and I've never seen them play this well and I know we just had a highlight on a student named Billy Donahue just had an entire article written about him in the cap cot times so they've just been on an absolute High every single day uh also on Friday we had our volleyball field hockey and football team all win at home games so spirit's been high this weekend at dii uh we also have fundraising beginning for our German trip which you guys had approved previously and also some for the Japan trip which is exciting and people are getting signed up and good energy for sure we have nhs's meeting again clubs meeting again just deep in planning I think for preparations of like homecoming Spirit Week everything like that and then finally we have our senior parent breakfast on Wednesday which we hold one in the spring that also has like students involved but this is just parents because deadlines are coming up fast so that's where we're at thank you so much and send our good luck to Ava I know she's playing a volleyball game game so we look forward to meeting her but we know that you know you guys have a lot of different roles in the school and she's a student athlete and we we appreciate what she does so thank you and going straight into talking about the cell phone policies the school handbook presentation I believe we're going to have our some of our principles and vice principles share with us today good evening I can hopefully I didn't overstep I see the high schools up first is that okay okay um I can dictate it from here right okay so the high school handbook is updated to increase Clarity and transparency and updated for language to be student centered so the first is a list of clerical updates I reference page numbers if you'd like to reference um we had a lot of rubrics um from the last neas accreditation that I thought were still valuable um but it took up about 13 p pages in the beginning so we moved those to the end they include you know thinking critically thinking creatively communicating effectively um which again with the new cell phone policy I'm pushing all of these ideas in the classroom so to have rubrics aligned with them was still relevant to have in the handbook um we removed the ali instit um program that no longer is running at the high school we included the points of contact link um that's also posted on the website helping families with issues or questions and where that first Contact can be um we in changed language that included for half days to include the minutes as well because students might get dismissed and return and it was easier for families to think about the half day in terms of minutes instead of by 10:25 um attendance tardies dismissal eligibility for co-curriculars um social suspensions we edited that language to be social notice academic probation to academic notice and then just a note the dance and prom regulations there were no edits to this we will continue to review guests on an individual basis I will put a little plug here that prom is a senior prom this year so just to start um setting that tone as well it was approved last year um by the parent advisory Council okay some additions to our handbook we added grading per the handbook to have a more consistent approach from teachers that's in the handbook you know that consistent messaging about the 10 days um getting the grades within the power school program within 10 days of assigning an assignment we added the specific mcast dates replacing the 2B announced to all of the 2024 dates we added our unified Athletics to the Athletics section we added the state language regarding the definition of chronic absenteeism to our attendance policy and and added the cell phone cases and expectations in classrooms to the cell phone policy we took did a sort of an overhaul of our discipline again that was aligned with our strategic plan for the high school or our school Improvement plan um and we modeled the middle school with the tiered approach so um we're aligned vertically with the middle school we included the school conduct and discipline code we included a description of the five tiers of behavior and five tiers of potential responses we have a link to a resource for families for alternative measures and responses of course it's not an exhaustive list but it's a nice resource and then we also have a link to a glossery of terms we added to the substance abuse policy you know failure to participate in an administrative search would be considered an admission of guilt um for clarity as well and that was it any question questions Mr Glenn yeah thank you so much for your time that you put into this um obviously very important to us um I understand that you're trying to do alignment with the school committee on this I just want to make clear to everyone because I want you to have the freedom and the ability to make the decisions for your schools and and the other principles in the other schools um and the wording some of the wording kind of got me in particular the cell phone policy because it looked like it was our policy that was dictating what you do as opposed to you being in alignment with our policy in other words uh the you know forgive me for the not the exact wording but like the cell phones were to be stored away and you might have a a more direct that you were going to hold them as opposed to our policy is not to have them interrupt or interfere and that could be Progressive discipline that could be you know you lose the the cell phone or you have to have it stored away there could be other things than taking them from the students right and I think that's a different discussion that we have to have in regards to Safety and Security issues that we're updating ourselves anyway but I just wanted to make that clear that uh you know that the any changes you know we authorize the overall policy and you're in alignment with that but you have your own authority to make decisions for for your schools so um but other other than that I I uh you know I think all of your changes are correct and and um in support I'm in support of them so thank you I will make one note um I have my school council is now going through this year's handbook for edits for next year so we're having our third meeting in October and that is you know chunking it into um an out you know what we can be productively edit in an hour's time so hopefully next year we'll have you know more thorough edits as well Mr new what uh have you done to inform the students of the changes in the handbook and is has there been a session of some sort where you've communicated those changes to them to make them aware of them yeah thank you so one thing we did um that was a nice feedback from a parent group last year during the new student barbecue I had two informational sessions um typically it's you know barbecue and they do tours but I had one in the beginning and at the end of the evening with some of this information so if parents came to the barbecue um I also so had this information at the open house and my welcoming and class meetings and then I sent all of the presentations including you know the barbecue class meetings and openhouse even though some of it was similar information I put all of that in my newsletter and and sent that home additionally my parent advisory Council and school council I'm kind of using them you know as community members to push that information out from the school if I may just follow up uh how do you feel this year is going as far as adhering to the handbook so far I think it's going really really well I've already referenced it you know a couple of times in communication home so I'm H working with my admin to utilize it really as a resource um because there's so much helpful information in there it's really clear so whenever I'm trying to promote or um Ure things are happening in the school that's aligned with the handbook I use that same language so it's been helpful with consistency and you know um yeah just really objective language that we can all be on the same page about M Landers is there any has there been any thought to sort of trying to chunk this information differently and have the handbook me more of I mean I know it has to have specifics in it but more of an outline of things with other policies to be referred to as a parent get getting a high school kid to read 105 pages that he's responsible for and I'm the parent who makes him right so the size of this alone is really intimidating and I'm afraid that a lot of people look at 105 pages and just say forget it and I mean they're still accountable and they still have to be held to it but we want you know we want everyone to be as educated in all of this as possible yeah yeah so that actually came up in the leaders one of the leadership meetings the department chairs over the summer so there's plans just like our program of studies to make it kind of a website more of a website of the handbook more interactive and I think two efforts with the link to Alternative measures and the link to the glossery of terms when we were updating it we could have put all of that language in there and it would have made it probably 20 more pages but adding more links for to reference resources rather than having it be all Tex you know text Rich in one document so I think twofolds I think there's value in having the text document but having a draft that's you know more user friendly click here if you're looking for this click here if you're looking for that thank you I think the high school is uh done a great job so thank you the next presenter come up when you click we'll find out who sorry we'll see which school uh middle school will be next we'll go to the oldest to the youngest and so Den middle school will be next let's try that again good evening everybody I am Holly Burns assistant principal at the middle school so major revisions this year to our handbook so the first one is loitering so students are not allowed to remain in the school building or on the school grounds after the departure of buses unless they are under the direct supervision of a teacher coach or other staff member students found loitering will be instructed to leave the building or leave school grounds parents may be called to the school to pick up their students who continue to loyer loitering or being discovered in an authorized area may result in Social probation um this was clarified due to a large number of students that were staying after school unattended um particularly on our playground structure um or attending sporting events without um a chaperon the next addendum is social probation so what we have is if a student receives two or more FS on his or her performance report or report card they will be placed on social probation this withholds students from attending any social event so that includes Athletics after school activities and dances um and during the probation time period this probationary period will last for two weeks and during that time the student is expected and required to stay after with the specific teacher in which the student is failing the um the addendum that we also added to was social probation can also be applied to student Behavior at the discretion of administration so that was something that we added for this year and lastly we have our cell phone policy which is not new as as of this year but we wanted to just um focus it um as an updated you know event so upon entering their advisory students will turn off their cell phones this is in line with the high school's policy as well they are to turn their cell phone to their adviser and cell phones will be kept secure in their classroom until dismissal headphones and earbuds should only be used within the classroom upon teachers instruction o Sor and then the reasoning for the revisions as I kind of went through as we were talking about them but just we want to make sure that we set a clearly defined standard of respectful Behavior within the Middle School community that provides a safe and productive learning and teaching environment all members of the community have a responsibility to conduct themselves in a way that demonstrates respect for all individuals their rights and their property and that's it for the middle school any questions anyone of questions from Miss Burns Mr Glenn yeah so just being consistent um about the cell phone policy I I think that again we should have another discussion but I don't want to leave out talking to you guys about your opinions on it what how the discussions went were there discussions across um the school community in other words other grades other principles to other or did did your team make this policy or has been been a broader discussion because it's it's obviously a a broader discussion in the community and in a lot of other concerns and uh I don't want to undermine any individual building or uh uh principal's uh position but I want to like you said it it has to be a a clear and defined thing and that's what we're trying to communicate and we'll have a another discussion about it but I just want for for you uh to know that I'm concerned or we're concerned um about what you think so I'm not you particularly but your team right um yeah so we've had conversations our Administration certainly and we try to keep in line with um the high school as well um this is the second year that our polic is in place in terms of cell phones um last year we saw um a huge um success rate with it um parents were largely supportive of it as well um the students seem to be on board so far this year knock on wood um things are going very well with it as well so um we think that you know so far it's been a it's been a policy that's been very effective Mr new thank you has uh there been any consideration of smart watches so I believe smart watches were um sort of added to that list of items that students are not able to have um you know because they are able to access internet and you know texting Etc so that's one of the um one of the devices that we consider prohibited at this time m beus I I do think this is more of a comment what I really liked about yours uh I looked at them all yours is 31 pages so I I do appreciate it's a balancing act because you want to be clear have the policy stated what the school rule is but I was just hoping you would consider on your next revision to add some of the districtwide links to it so I just think you know maybe one is a little bit shorter one's a little bit longer next year or maybe you can bridge and work work on it together particularly since you're a transitional school y absolutely um what I really liked was that school W expectation Matrix I thought that was very clear something you could post in any classroom so I really like that um and I and I started seeing it in your building and then I saw it in the next the intermediate so I see how you work together but that student Support Services page where you identified the person but also did a great explanation of what they did so I appreciated that um I think the points of contact uh is something new and I did see it on every school's link but I really think that's great what do you do when you have this kind of question wherever you can publish it I would put it out there that that's my other suggestion and thank you thank you thank you Miss B thank you looks like we have Dr gon for the Intermediate School hello I'm um Dr gson I'm the one of the aps at the Dennis yth Intermediate School is mine up there okay I don't have it memorized so how do I it down so I included everything the revisions and the reasons on the one page um first off we did a big revision last year when we merged schools so there wasn't quite as many this year first off we included the district points of contact this was a chart that was created um over the last year by The District administration and that helps to um inform the families of who to get in touch with and we have that under family concerns we've also included information about alphabest which is a new daycare opportunity at the Dennis armouth intermediate school there are few um items that I just updated one was the mask attendance policy I wanted to make sure it was um accurate I use that as a link so it doesn't add bulk but it it's someplace that parents and families can get the information I also renamed the physical policy under the nursing under um SE section also that they can just click and go we included some Personnel change we have a new school nurse and a new front office staff so I wanted to make sure that those names were represented we've updated all the dates and calendars we've made sure that all the school committee policies were included and that our information is aligned with the policy we do this yearly just to make sure that we have the the right information and again i' we've done it as there a the um appendix at the end but things that we want to highlight we have linked so that the parents can easily access that information um we've out updated the lunch information because of the free lunch policy um and we renamed the Dolphin Way and included a chart so we call our we brought in the dolphin so it's pod so it's our same dolphin way but we just um changed the acronyms and then we put a chart in for the The Matrix for our expectations in all areas of the school and we included the most multiple languages that are are are important for our families to have um a lot of the changes like the loitering thing we also have in our handbook and we highlight that also in our more and that was it for us any questions yes Miss I did look at them all so I'm going to make a comment on all of them I really liked the fact and and again this could be a suggestion of someone outside looking at them all the behab chart I noticed right away it had the multiple languages and here's another plug for your school you were the and and I know it's new but you were the only school that had information about alphab best and it was well it was short as to the brief so you can all now add that to your list um and I also noticed in terms of the flow of top ipcs it seemed to follow the same order at the middle school so I like that continuity whether it was planned or not I did not that yeah we had done that last year that was kind of our summer charge for last year of making sure that ours aligned with they're all in the same building so that was our hard work last year so any other questions great I think you're okay thank you Dr thank you we have representatives from all three elementary schools we'll see which one pops up first there hello everybody I'm Shannon Carlson I'm the assistant principal at Margaret East small elementary school and I'm going to start us off this evening talking about our commonalities between our family and student handbooks with three elementary schools we wanted to preserve the autonomy of each of our schools and the unique qualities but we also wanted to come together to have a family student handbook that highlighted our common interests and starting with our district information um if you look at our family student handbooks physically they look very similar now too um the table of contents are the same the font is the same the headings are the same so it's organized in a very familiar friendly user structure and then our district information ranging from our calendars to our school committee our school committee goals um our opening and closing times of the school day early releases uh half days all of that information is there accessible to our family students staff and to all of you um in addition our bus information from five star is there for our families to reference um student searches school health services and then our curriculum and our state assessments and another commonality that we have and this is a short list there's more but just highlights our is our positive behavior intervention and supports um commonly known as PBIS that's districtwide and each of our unique schools has their own approach to supporting that through our managing student behaviors both proactively and responsively and so Kelly is going to talk a little bit more about some differences that you might find in our family and student handbooks oh you switched okay NOP good evening I'm Ellen flann again I'm the assistant principal at Ezra Baker um I'm going to walk you through just some of the things that are school specific so just as Shannon said we wanted to have consistency but there are certain things and we have really thought about our parents of our youngest students reading this and what would be most important so school mission and vision statement staff listings obviously those are unique um drop off and pickup procedures this is really important um for as you can imagine uh especially a new parents of kindergarten students daily instructional schedule looks different at each school lunch and recess times are different um and some of those types of procedures about breakfast and lunch might be different and of course our parent teacher advisory counsels are slightly different the reasoning for the revisions really our goal as we mentioned is creating uniformity in our handbooks in both style and content we notice as we went through this work last year we all had a lot of the same information but it was often in a different sequence so it gave the impression that we had you know information missing but when we went through it and made sure that everything is in the same sequence it there's um uniformity to that and really we were thinking if a parent were to switch K to3 schools within our district which often happens they're going to be easily finding the same information in the same amount of time that was our goal um and we also wanted to make sure that we're highlighting and representing the school committee uh policies that are most important so I'm going to turn it over to my colleague good evening I'm Kelly B I'm the assistant principal at station na Elementary School next door so our school committee policies make up a large portion of our handbooks as you've seen we really didn't make any additions to these what we did was to really be consistent with the order that the policies came in and then we also added um provided that link to the full list of school committee policies just for convenience for our family relas this is an overview of the policies common to all of our handbooks for K3 that you're seeing here um and we've highlighted our harassment and bullying policy guidelines which is 13 pages long and really tried to stick to um the ones that we F felt were really of the utmost importance at this time so thank you any questions anyone have any questions for Elementary School Mr Mr Glenn yeah so leave it to Educators to teach me the words that I was looking for autonomy and uniformity that's what really what we're trying to do I wanted that's what the word I was looking for I want to give you people the autonomy um but we need to be uniformity so my only question is is there any school committee policy um or any Administration policy that you think we we should address that hasn't been addressed and and that goes for all the schools but um if there is if there isn't fine but if there is if you could pass that along that would be you know at any time to the superintendent that would be great thank you thank you Miss beamus has her feedback it it was uniform it was I I and I thank you because I went down in order and I went oh they're all the same I don't have to keep reading and and so it did show from again a novice not having kids in the system looking through I could find it and it was readable and it was for that new parent entering the system voice I felt like I was welcomed uh my only suggestion and it's more a sort of a appraise of what you did uh when you went into all the policies I would flip the order and put the one about the school and the or Dy families and the user iPad agreement make those first and then our policies after because it was well done thank you thank you for that thank you thank you for all of you for presenting tonight um you know as we talk next about our strategic plan and I know when we made our goals the biggest thing was to be all on the same page and it has shown that it we're continuing the things that we're working on by being on the same page from from all the way through all the levels so it's a segue into Dr Smith discussion on our strategic plan yeah thank you I say that now I can't find the cursor where to go not there it is it's more of a vision issue than a all right all right uh Mark Smith superintendent of schools and so what I wanted to do was give the committee an update on the Strategic plan on where we are uh in the development and I don't know publication I guess for lack of a better phrase uh of the Strate IC plan so uh I've been showing this quote a lot recently um I think it is a good encapsulation of last year for me uh as I've mentioned to you all as a committee on multiple occasions and I've set out to the in the public on more than one occasion uh I've felt very grateful for last year and that you all gave me the time to really spend a consider amount of effort and energy on my entry work and really get to know the district before feeling like I was had to dive into the Strategic plan work uh not you know I'm in this new superintendent cohort with a lot of other colleagues there 35 Plus of us uh across the state and not all my other superintendent colleagues had that same Grace uh so I'm very grateful for because I've help I believe that year I mean eight months or so of real deep listening getting meet with folks spending all that time really diving into our data really helped inform where we are launching the Strategic plan uh going forward so as a reminder what we what you know was able to happen last year myself plus with the support of many others able to conduct surveys plus go back over previous surveys that have been conducted across the district which really captured a wide swath of uh voices analyze a bunch of data both live data Plus historical data in the district review a Reams worth of documents U do structured learning walks with the leadership team plus I do individual ones with the building principles so really get into a significant number of classrooms I really wish I kept account uh but hundreds and hundreds of classrooms over the course of last year uh really immersed myself in the in the district culture getting out into all the events beyond the classroom um and um and then just having lots and lots and lots of meetings with all sorts of different people who have um interest uh in the school district and those looked like Focus F you know specific focus groups interviews Etc all sorts of different types of meetings and that ultimately led to the report of Entry findings which you all got in April of last year and that was shared with the with the school Community was posted on our website um and then I actually spent a portion a convocation this year going over the high level themes with the uh with the faculty and the findings from that report helped to shake shape some of the work for strategic planning this summer which uh sort of leads to the process that led us to the Strategic plan uh which you're about to see some pieces of so what did that look like well that looked like 4 days of work by the leadership team uh they really dug in we spent two days in July and then another two days in August using all the data from the entry work plus some additional pieces of data to set three big strategic objectives which I know the committee when you all did your goal setting uh saw a draft of what those looked like because it was right after we had done our July work and then from there we established initiatives in order to get those objectives accomplished and then we've actually worked on establishing okay so this is a Five-Year Plan well what do we need to get done in year one in order to uh actually work that uh fiveyear plan and what will come next is after tonight's meeting um I will I have a little bit of polishing to do basically some editing and then uh be putting the whole document out for public comment really seeking to get sort of one last look uh on the Strategic objectives on those are strategic initiatives both from our school Community but also want to work with our partners in both towns to get it out through their communication mechanisms because as you'll see there's components that are education focused but also as I've said already now in a couple different places you know we manage roughly 600,000 Square ft of taxpayer Municipal property 152 Acres of taxpayer um acreage of property and we need to be thinking forward about how how to take care of that uh take care of those properties uh in the long term so I want to make sure that we have the voice of the community as part of uh the broader beyond the school Community as part of the Strategic plan as well so I want to we have a plan for a public comment period which will start uh right here at the end of this month so our three strategic objectives so and you uh this the principles kind of started to talk a little bit towards some of this uh and the assistant principles during their last presentation and you'll hear more about it when they come back to talk about their uh School Improvement plans in is it next week next week yeah it's next meeting um and so the first one is for us to really focus on eliminating dis disparities and access and achievement for every student and then we have a bunch of specific ways that we're going to do that we're going to focus on tier one instruction we're going to focus on high quality instructional materials we're going to focus on leveraging a lot of the strengths that we have if you remember my report of Entry findings talked about was focused into sort of two big big buckets which was the what are all the strengths in the district and what are our areas for growth so we have a lot of areas of strength here which we can leverage uh to make this uh this goal come come to life so we want to leverage all those uh places that are already in or all those structures that are already in place all those uh great uh resources that already exist the second strategic objective really is focused on establishing consistent district-wide systems to support our Effectiveness as a district this is from things like how students move in and out of programs making sure that those are consistent across the district to having an effective communication plan uh to having effective ways that we process payroll and modernizing those systems like it sort of touches every aspect of the district from top to bottom left to right and then third third is to address the district's short and long-term facilities and capital needs we need to develop we um as I've come in here I've sort of had lots of different conversations with lots of different people who who know like this thing needs to happen and that thing needs to happen and we're St you know having this meeting in this beautiful facility and this is not the way the rest of our facilities all look right and so we need to be thinking long term and this is a beautiful brand new building and then we've got several other buildings that are much older and have you know either roofs or boilers or X Y and Z that are end of life or near end of life and we need to be planning for all of those things and so how do we work and it's we're going to have to be developing a plan both as a with myself working with you all as a committee and working with our partners in the towns on how we plan for that over the next 5 10 plus years um and putting sort of a prioritized list together so then each of these has specific initiatives under uh each of them in order to accomplish them so again these are to be accomplished over five years uh but the first so in order to accomplish that first strategic objective which you remember is to eliminate disparities uh in Access and achievement and you may remember from my entry report not only have we struggled uh in overall achievement as a school district roughly a third of our kids are meeting the State uh benchmarks uh across the district for the last six or seven years uh but then when we start to dig into who's among that group who's succeeding we find achievement gaps for all the for every historically marginalized group so we have work to do to raise um raise the bar for all students and further to work harder for our students who are historically marginalized so one effort is to improve tier one instruction um and we have a we're going to work on establishing what do we what is it we mean when we say uh tier one instruction is great if you have this this ethereal idea but we really need to be clearly defining it we need to provide a professional learning plan in order to support that and we need to regularly monitor Improvement and we need to use data to drive that decision uh decision- making system second is we need to we don't have a comprehensive multi-year professional learning plan um uh so we need to develop that we should know more than one year out exactly uh what our professional learning plans for our staff are and how they support that first initiative um we need to implement uh or we plan to implement a research-based high quality social emotional learning curriculum curriculum uh as we know the needs of our students are be are academic and the whole child and that uh the social emotional needs of our students support their academic achievement uh we are in well into the 21st century uh and so we need to be thinking purposefully how we use instructional technology in order to support this goal which leads to that uh initiative 1D and then uh the last is we can't do any of this unless we're really thinking purposefully about our strong Partnerships with families so uh 1e is really thinking about how we strengthen and expand upon our relationships uh with families to ensuring that we're engaging all families for every student in order to uh eliminate uh disparities and access and belonging the second strategic objective again if you remember that's about establishing consistent wide systems uh in order to ensure that we're more effective as an organization so first uh and I should point out these aren't like in like we're going to do these in order these are just initiatives that all need to be accomplished over the five years in order to accomplish the larger objective so I probably should have said that up front um but these are all pieces that are necessary in order to accomplish the Strategic objective so first uh the first uh initiative identified up there is we have student data in a whole bunch of different places and I guess the phrase that I would use is word data rich and information poor in that we've got a bunch of student data but we don't have a great way in order to capture it organize it and use it in a way to make informed decisions at the district level at the school level and in some cases at the teacher level uh in an easy way in order to make to plan for Student Success so we need to establish a system as it says there to capture and and house student data and then be able to manipulate and visualize student data in a way that helps us uh to inform our decision- making the second as I mentioned before we don't always have clear criteria about um programming for students who learn differently and so you know why a program is built or designed for a particular student who learns differently and um that cuts across many of our diverse learning profiles and so we need to really clar and you know if you think for example we had three uh of our K to3 uh administrators up presenting so we have different programs across those different schools that in that are serving similar students but I'm not sure that the programs are always designed the same way and then we serve English learner students across our entire District but the programming isn't exactly the same across all of our districts so these are areas in which we need to be um have more consistent programming in order to to meet the diverse learning needs of all of our students the third objective we've talked uh I know the committee you know as a committee or with the committee during your goal setting we talked a lot about this third one which is we talked about the disparity in uh school choice out versus school choice in and the sort of the sub theme that bubbled up there around the the public perception around Dy um and the public perception around our students and our district and that the sort of the listening lifted up this uh long-term baked in belief system and and a lack of real thoughtful deliberate um coordinated messaging as a school district around who we are um what we value and all the great things that are going on inside the school district and that we really need to capture and own our own story so this uh initiative is directed at that around a clear uh communication plan directed at amplifying uh and sustaining our positive Public Image about the district the next initiative is around uh ensuring that we uh do a better job of incorporating and having a systematic way of incorporating all the voices of all stakeholders across the district uh in order to ensure that we're moving the district forward both and this is really about making sure that you know as the the profile of the families in our district continues to shift you know as of this year 25% of the students in our district their first language is not English do we have a systematized process for ensuring that we are both communicating with and receiving information from um all families that make up the Dy School District uh and then um the next is um sort of going back to that piece that I or mentioned around systematized processes for things like payroll systematized processes there like the business side of the school district right obviously we're in a business we're in a organization around teaching and learning and we employ roughly 630 individuals and there's a business component to running a school district uh and we don't have standard some standard operating procedures in some places that we should have standard operating procedures that are written down that are clear that of an organization of our size that we should have so we need to establish those and then the last is a bigger broader piece we have on paper a set of core values um which if you look at them in our website they are um there's a triangle and in that triangle there are um a list of words um but I'm not as an outsider I even said this through my interview process I'm not sure they really say who we are and what we believe as a school district and what we stand for and a real strong set of core values will then drive our practices our policies our procedures our actions so we really have to spend some time as a school district defining what are the X number of things that it is that we firmly believe in as a school district that will help Drive our decision- making moving forward so that'll be a whole Comm School Community effort for us to work on um because it's you know a lot of us have have a stake in that uh but that's that's a an action item for us as well and then the last is our uh strategic objective three which has you know is about developing this Capital plan but there are obviously components to that so the first component is to develop the actual plan um and and develop a a comprehensive list of all of our needs uh as a as a district uh both as the fa facili needs uh our grounds needs Etc um and to prioritize those right so you know this building should be at the end of the list um but there are other you know other buildings have other needs but we're not going to be able to do everything in in year one so we have to look and see you know what and I think we actually had some early we had some conversations just the other day with um the administrative team over in the town of Yarmouth their CIP uses a nice rubric which I really like um uh there's two components one's Readiness and the other I forget the term of it but it's like it's basically like the need of the of and they have a four-point scale on both so having a consistent system that we use to apply to what are the needs that will allow us to prioritize and allow us to um rank order what our projects are and then the second component is that is working with the committee to determine what are is the the district's Financial ability to take on some of these projects and then what are we going to have to work with other uh funding mechanisms work with our town uh Partners in order to address some of these needs and what is the appropriate mechanism uh to uh go you know to travel through and then design a comprehensive communication campaign to secure the support of the appropriate governance boards ultimately the taxpayers who are going to have to vote uh at Town meetings Etc and that is that and I'm happy to take any questions Mr Morris in putting together a School academic and Facilities budget is a process that is not totally understood even by us people making the decisions and recommendations but I've noticed having been on the Yarmouth fincom that the concept of how to develop a multi-level budget and plan doesn't mesh 100 perc wise uh with the school equivalence and yet the needs and the willingness to do that together is there and you've outlined some of your conversations uh this would be very useful for avoiding some of the misunderstandings when grants and funding sources increase where should they go how should they be determined and how can you blend that with the need of the Two Towns which doubles the issue the Two Towns don't always even get together but I can see from your conversations that you're gearing up the school response with the school committee's partnership to set that in a way that illustrates and under and explains without coming into loggerheads yeah I mean both towns have a list I'm sure as long and so but if we are not showing up with an organized prioritized multi-year list then we're I'm trying to think of a good analogy off the top of my head but you know we're showing up to the party I don't know if we're Uninvited we're invited to the party but we're showing up without a you know without a housewarming gift we're just we're there but are we really participating if we're not coming with prepared to engage in the conversation I would argue no so it's our job it's our responsibility to have a 10-year plan that's says here the needs and here's how we've prioritized them and and and to work with our partners on where does that fit in with all the other needs across both places and then work with the taxpayers on you know and does it mean everything that we put on that list in the 10 years is going to get done in the 10 years probably not both towns I'm sure have 10year lists that they've had to bump stuff down there you know to the next year but at least we'll have a list and we'll have somewhere to start from and start that conversation Mr Mor the word partnership implies that we make an effort and they make an effort to understand the nomenclature the jargon so that when we go to town meeting who are the ultimate decision makers the finances in other words are not owned by the board of Selectmen nor are they owned by the school committee but we have to carve out a give and take and I think that that as long as we understand we don't apply the our process to them and vice versa that we're going to make town meeting and town voters more respective of our differences and feeling good about the outcome Miss Landers um I like the way these objectives are set out and defined and I really I see the logic to this I and I know why these have risen to the top based on lab conversations we've had so my question is what's the next step in terms of creating an implementation plan for this for you and how do you keep this moving and gauge progress on there's a lot of objectives in here and I worry about them you know some moving to the Forefront others getting lost not having movement on all of them and how do we gauge if you're making progress on them yeah fair question so um as I mentioned we established a one-year plan so you don't have on here is the onee um plan it was just I was trying to decide how much to give and how much was too much so the one year gets even more granular than this so we took um a the first thing we did is establish which of these initiatives were sort of the ones that needed to happen first um and there so as a team that was that was really the August work so the July work was was getting what you see here and we've done some editing and revising once um after we've had some time to look back at it and the August work was saying okay so what needs to happen like I said what needs to happen first what's the first step in A Five-Year Plan and then what are the pieces of those initiatives that we need because some of these initiatives are going to take more than one year so then what's the first step and what's the first piece of those initiatives um so for example like we can't really do a financial analysis of our Capital plan until we have a capital plan so like this year our team is focused on establishing what are those priorities and what are the needs that's what we're going to accomplish this year um for the tier one instruction one of the things that we're going to focus on for this year is uh we established a pattern of learning walks last year we're going to use the pattern of learning walks this year to focus on taking a baseline on uh in structional strategies that we are seeing utilized across the district and also matching that up against research to establish what are the most effective instructional strategies that are both last year we really kind of focused on content specific walks we're going to be looking across content areas like what are the effective strategies that cut across all content areas and then by the end of the year be able to use that to develop being able to use the Baseline data that we established to determine a professional learning plan plan so you know we don't expect people are just if just because we say these are the things that everybody should be able to do that they're just going to be able to magically do them we we understand that we need to support that with appropriate professional learning and that means an professional learning plan so that's where we've decided to focus in year in year one so those are like two small examples and then your question to the monitoring structure is I have several different structures in which I meet with my with different leaders ERS ship teams and in each of them I've baked in depending upon which of these objectives we regularly visit that one-year plan um and some of this stuff is like directly overseen by me but some of it's overseen by other individuals so then they have to report back to me some of them like the one of those ones that you saw about establishing or uh no U doing an assessment of uh or no it was establishing a dis um a a sing singular data system for all the all the student data I'm losing the wording of the the initiative but that's going to be the the the team determined that that should be done by a committee and they established the me so we had a a leadership team meeting the beginning of the month and so my job in the action steps was to establish a committee so we established the committee and I don't know if we've set the meeting yet but we're almost set so we're working on setting a meeting in which I will the purpose of the first meeting will be for me to set the agenda I mean I'll set the agenda which is to um elect a chair for that meeting and then um set future meeting dates talk to them about their charge and then that committee will move then the the act the action plan that we developed has I don't know I think it's about eight other steps for that committee to then take the work and then they'll report back to our larger group so we built in the plan also action steps timelines and we'll continue to revisit that as a um team because I believe I've seen strategic plans that get made and look fancy and superintendent comes and does these presentations and then five years from now they're they're so they're just nice Dusty pieces of paper um and I believe that if we're going to actually make them work we got to work them M beus so I guess this is this is my follow-up to what she was asking you I I can see this is a very active and and doing plan as opposed to thinking and planning and envisioning um but when I was looking at it I'm going there's no introduction there's no Preamble there's no title so uh and you know I keep saying well where's the mission where's the vision where's the anchor um and now it seems that uh and you mention that you're looking at what we might have had before and thinking about either redoing it revising it or or thinking about it differently so tell me how that process is going to work as as things are happening you're observing you're doing or getting feedback what's the sort of anchoring group that's going to move the final document so to clarify a couple things so one I put a presentation together for you um so the the actual document that we've been creating that is for the Strategic plan has a little bit more of what you're talking about so it it starts with the district mission statement and vision and the core value section or theory of action then it goes into a glossery of terms because there's tends to be some educational jargon in our plan that we wanted to make sure that everybody understood what those key terms were then it goes in actually no the initiatives first then the terms um and then we have a section on outcomes like if we're successful in this 5year plan what do we expect to see and we have like student achievement marker terms we have some like specific things that we expect to see this is like 10 different um District level things that we expect to see if this plan is is successful what it also needs is so these are the things where I said it's not quite ready like the superintendent needs to put a message in the front um and then after public comment then we will it'll need some uh prettying up for lack of a better term like if you look it'll need some graphics it'll need this like like a front page that I've seen a lot of other school district do that gives some just basic information on the school district enrollment breakdown on the enrollment etc etc so but that'll come after the public comment phase and then going back to the second part of your question which is the the only part that I think needs revisiting is the is the core values because I just don't think they really speak to the core values of the district I think they're a list of important words but they don't like to me and if we go and visit other school districts websites that talk about their core values they say we believe in and then Define what that thing is and what it is that you mean um and I don't want to start to list things because I don't yet know what those things are for us but whatever those things are you know we believe in and they Define really start to define the school district and what the school district is who what the school district believes in it can be used for recruitment for for uh new faculty because new faculty especially younger faculty um are uh ethics driven they're attracted to organizations in which their values align with the organization um it's a it's a lovely um facet of Millennials and gen Z is that they're often more drawn to the the values of the organization than a lot of the other traditional factors that tend to draw people into an organization so if you can clearly Define who you are and what you believe as an organization then you're going to draw in new younger folks who believe those things too um so anyway so that process will be one that'll be what actually started already a little bit with the faculty I asked them a question which was a followup to the entry report I asked because there was a a question and I'm not going to remember it verbatim but the phrase that I asked when I met went I did a quick survey when I met with all the faculty groups and it was something to the effect of like I understand I know one understand the the values that are driving the decision the core values that are driving the decision- making in the district I'm kind of butchering it but it's something along those lines and when you see the data that returned and it's in my entry report so you can go back and see what the specific wording was but it's a really strong alignment it was on a lered scale and the vast majority or our three or stronger like 80 something per 85% or more or three are stronger so my follow-up question which I asked the faculty on the convocation I had them fill out an online survey was just to tell me what do you think the core values are because to me I see the triangle and I see the words but I don't know what they're actually speaking to so I've captured that data and then I want to do something similar with a broader with a whole school community and then I want to put together a like a steering committee which will then take that data and start to move that work forward Mr new I appreciate the effort that you put into this document and the content that it has uh going forward what is your plan for the periodic updates that I think you're going to be giving us you know timeliness time frame yeah um it's a good question um I guess it depends upon the committee's desire for updates I'll update you every week if you'd like them or every week cuz we don't meet every week every week is a little much but I just don't want this to end up in a dust spin five years I would you know I think so I think there's there's specific parts that are aligned to my um my goals so you'll be getting those specific updates as part of my goal updates and I can update the committee to the frequency that you all want if you want quarterly updates I'll give you quarterly updates if you want um by anual updates I can give you biannual updates I think minimally they should be annual updates um annual updates you'll have obviously have more I can give you sort of a full rundown on what the year's plan was and how we did do I you know I've said to the leadership team we're going to try our hardest to hit every one of the objectives that we established for year one do I believe that we're going to hit we're probably going to miss a couple um but I I think I hope everybody's learned from me at this point I believe transparency is the is the way we should be so I'll show you this is what we said we were going to do in year one and here's what we did and here's what we made missed so and here's what we're planning for your to I anticipated you were going to do that I was just looking forward an answer and I'll just give my input I'd like at least by annually yeah yeah so there's a good there's an opportunity then for us to do something in the winter I can do tie it in with um the midyear goal um presentation I can maybe do it in the opposite meeting of when doing because I think it might be a bit much if I try to squeeze all that into one meeting but if I did um an update you know uh February we did one that was uh the superintendent's goals progress meet uh on uh I'm losing my my train here one that was update on my goals and then the next was update on the Strategic plan perfect thank you I think I think uh I appreciate all the work that people behind you have done over the summer I think it's important as a district that we continue to look at how we can improve I think you know the one-year plan and the 5year plan is important I know that we created our goals for the first time in many years so we have a understanding of where we want to be and to the point of I think biannual is a great way to you know see where we are the Midway point and see how we finish the year would be an accurate way to do that so you know like we appreciate the work that all of you have done and you know the people that are in here that's worked behind the scenes too because it's important it you know part of that vision of what our dis district is right and one of the goals was to make you know Dy a place for people will be proud to say they're a member of and having clear goals will will help us get there so thank you yeah and if I can just build off of what you said you know my main role over the four days was facilitator uh they did and there a good chunk of the leadership team here and as you mentioned there there's others that are not here and you know I told them after the two days in July and told them after the two days of in August I couldn't have been more proud um to be superintendent of this team um what you see in front of you is because of their hard work my job was to organize the meeting structure to move them through the work but they did the work um so the work that you see in front of them is because this is the work that they thought was important this is the work that they lifted up that they put down on paper and then I took it back did a little bit of what what they've labeled as Mark smithing um I'm not allowed to call it word smithing anymore um but they did the they did the work um so they they deserve all the credit for the work thank you appreciate it and then next we have uh school committee lead Mr chair point of order I uh not to interrupt I just um I'm sensitive to the fact that we got a lot of Educators who have long days here and I'm wondering if we might just take a second if they need to go I know I was was speaking to a u a former educator in the district who was going to go home and watch the meeting and I said to her uh do you uh have trouble sleeping um but uh hi Mrs Potter um and um so I just thinking that maybe we might give them an opportunity to to uh get out otherwise I'll get into the uh school committee report I mean uh liazon I think we can continue on do the school committee Le I going start with Miss beus first with Dennis uh there's a special town meeting on October 1st at this school at uh 7 o'clock and then I know at the town of Yarmouth I know Dr Smith presented and I know uh Mr Glenn was uh present as well remotely um I didn't know if you there was discussion uh between the town of Yarmouth and uh I obviously I watched as well but um about something we'll talk about later about the plans with margarit small um was there anything else Joe that maybe I missed or you wanted to add um yeah just uh about that there was um there was a meeting following that um and they wanted to invite Dr Smith back again and um members of the school committee um uh selectman Forest uh had mentioned that he's he wanted to um make sure that it was inclusive um that you know we were there and kind of develop that um uh dialogue um but also there was a public comment question about uh the enrollment increase um in the school choice and I think there's some confusion that we might want to address you know publicly because there's there's a concern about that so um but I those were um two but then there was also that discussion about the um the um Margaret small and and the and the madaky um you know reuse committee so there was all those discussions yeah but I know there's a discussion in superintendent report about arget small so we'll leave it for that um then School building committee I know David's not here yeah I mean the big thing I have um it would just be the um work with the fields we continue um to move that project forward um the the project the design is out to bid currently uh and so once we get the the bids back then we'll be able to work on a construction like plan as far like we've done a lot of that pre-planning so really more about timeline is probably a better word than plan because the plan's already in place um and the big sort of X Factor is now going to be the weather um the timeline and and how long we can leave the the field and I guess it's not really a field it's the the void open um like once we start to rebuild it um how long that can be left open before the field gets laid and the field can only get laid in certain weather conditions so depending and you know the weather can obviously be a little unpredictable here between December and March so if we don't if the construction company doesn't feel like they have enough of a timeline here in the fall then we may have to push the whole project starting until we know we're going to have um enough time to get it it done which we already knew about anyways uh and we've been working on contingencies for athletics Etc and it we're like I said we're just kind of waiting to see um when the bids come back but we're they've been moving on a very quick and aggressive timeline so uh we should know fairly shortly uh we have we meet every week uh on that specific project excellent thank you now the superintendent report all right uh let's see starting with uh recognitions and donations I just want to start uh uh with thanking the sons of Aaron who donated uh over $700 in school supplies to the district I know I know I'm a broken record on this one but I just continued to be uh Blown Away by the generosity of Our Community Partners by individuals who just give and give and give to the school district um is just uh absolutely outstanding and then the next bit I have to get either the mouse or actually Sam's going to help me out here so uh so the next bit is on superintendent evaluation and the I want to update the committee on a couple of forms should be the PDFs there yeah um if you just can you just hand me the mouse and then I can just drive from over here perfect thank you sirate it um so uh the committee voted I should remember the date uh but I don't and I should have written it down but I didn't um but earlier um few weeks few meetings ago uh to approve the superintendent uh goals in the associated Focus indicators so just like last year we have taken the superintendent rubric and edited it for you all so that you can be focused on the indicators and you have a copy of this in your packet but so what you'll see in the packet is the strikethroughs on the indicators that are not the focus indicators for this year so here's like for example one A and B are Focus indicators for this year the in uh curriculum and the instruction indicators and onee if I remember correctly if I can get this thing to scroll a little bit faster um yeah onee why isn't it scrolling here we go onee is also a focus indicator data uh driven decision data informed decision making so you'll see the ones that are the focus areas are the ones that are um left for you to look at and you know from a rating of unsatisfactory on the left all the way to exemplary on the right and then the other form that you have is if I can get the mouse to cooperate here this document so you have the uh end of cycle uh report which whoops come on work with me here no come on yeah sure I need I don't think it likes the green let's try it on this there we go there we go all right um so here this is the form that you'll each individually use to um construct your evaluate Ro to individually rate the superintendent and to provide your narratives so actually the form that you're looking at doesn't have this first page so this is the F this these first two pages are the pages that get filled out by the chair at the end so these are the pages that give the overall rating to the superintendent and that summarize uh all your individual pages so this these two pages they are actually replaced with just a cover page which has uh says superintendent evaluation individual School Committee Member submission then has a spot um for you to put your name your signature and the date and then the rest of it's exactly the same and so what you'll see here are my five goals for this year with the focus indicators plus the um actual uh actual goals written out without all this other um benchmarks and Etc that on the other document that I shared with you but have the high level goals in and then a spot for you to rate whether I did not meet some progress Etc and then as you move on to the other pages are each of the standards so in standard one again what you'll have here is the focus indicators are highlighted the other indicators are crossed out in a spot for you to rate based upon the rubric uh from needs Improvement excuse me from unsatisfactory all the way to exemplary and then a spot at the bottom bottom for you to provide a narrative and then uh what additionally I will be providing you at the end of this week in my weekly communication to you all is a link to the folder in which I'll house all the evidence uh for those of you that did this last year um I just create a Google fold for those of you that's new I'll create a Google folder in there I keep all evidence organized by go uh there's also a Direction sheet um which just outlines the timelines about when this has to be in um it gives a couple of background bits of information I'll I'll edit it for the timelines for this but essentially it's uh the week before the elections and I don't have those dates off the top of my head but but I'll have again I'll have it all in there and I'll put it all in the email that the week before the uh elections is when you want to have your individual evaluations into the chair and then the chair will have two weeks to compile those uh we'll work actually you'll submit them to Sarah Sarah will work with the chair to organize them and compile them and then the chair will present it at the that the next meeting and you all take a vote on the um summarized version determine whether or not that's the evaluation you want to spend on the superintendent and that's that and then this document um these two documents if you prefer not to be paper and pencil uh Sarah after tonight's meeting will email you all digital versions of these you'll get a PDF and an editable PDF of the of this document so that you can type you can you know check right off those boxes type right in the um comments boxes if that's your preferred method of Engagement if you prefer old paper or or pen to paper you have copies here you can also ask us to send you additional copies when we get closer if you misplace this packet um we're happy to supply you with whatever you need in order to get this accomplished all right uh pause there or keep going on the keep going all right next is daycare update uh so things have stabilized since week one uh the we're still in the hybrid mode where we have our staff working alongside um the alphab best staff they haven't fully taken over yet the INSP inspections of all the sites have been completed by the eec staff so remember so e is the licensing group so they have come and done all the inspections uh they've had their staff Recruiters on site recruiting they've onboarded several staff including they were at the high school doing recruiting for high school students uh and it looks like we'll have a full handoff by the end of this current week so by Friday it looks like we're ready for full handoff um alphab best has waved the fees to the families for this month um and they'll be reimbursing the district for the costs we've been paying staff to to be um um Staffing yeah that's redundant but yes to to staff the daycare but they'll be reimbursing us for the cost of that Staffing um they also set up a specific contact for Dy families so part of what the challenge we were running into is um they're big National company so our families were getting kind of lost in the wash in the registration system so they set up a very a specific Dy um email and Dy registration separate system uh and they were present at all the open houses uh well all the open houses for the 3 K to 3es in the intermediate like the the schools that they'll be serving uh and answering questions for families and um working on repairing the relationships so they've been upfront and working to try to repair um quite frankly the damage that has occurred in the beginning here next I just want to update the committee on the conversation we had around the liquor license uh in Dennis um that abutted the Ezra baker school so you'll see a copy of the letter that I drafted uh following your direction it's in the packet so that's there for your review just largely for your information the meeting the of the licensing board got postponed so they're actually meeting tomorrow um I I am planning on going to attend in case they have any questions um but they do have a copy of the letter um I heard from the chair specifically that they received it and informed me that they were postponing them the the the hearing um next FY 26 budget uh it's obviously very early in that process but based upon the learnings from last year I had mentioned that last year that wanted to really start to engage both towns much earlier in the budgeting process and make sure that we were a part of their early they start their budgeting process earlier than we do um and so that I've already had meetings with both Town administrators and both uh Finance directors uh David myself and the two they weren't a joint meeting it was two separate meetings uh with each towns just to for us to go over what we do largely know is our expenses for last year because obviously our contracts are settled um a lot of things on the expense size is settled obviously our Revenue pictures we don't have any information from the state at this point but David put together some um and some of our expenses are still in fluxes we're still hiring um so there's still some pieces that are in flux uh but uh we're close enough that we could start to put together some early projections so we were able to do that we and then we then rolled forward some assumptions we rolled forward an assumption of Chapter 70 based upon last year's Chapter 70 because s SOA still has a couple of more years of implementation we rolled forward um we just and we were transparent about this we don't know what the minimum required contribution was going to be so we used last year's minimum required contribution in trying to figure out what a rough and again everybody at the table understood these were rough ballpark numbers just to have an early initial conversation and both uh Town administrators and finance directors were appreciative the fact that we're having this much this very early conversation um what'll happen next is um in the process of starting to organize a meeting similar to what we had last year when we were in more like crisis mode trying to figure out how we were going to solve the challenge that we had in front of us instead we're trying to plan something for early October that's a similar in nature to this um meeting with just the the administrators but bringing in so it would be with the the school committee chair and the chairs of each of the boards and again the the leaders of each of the or the the administrators for the two towns and the schol schools to have a joint meeting to start to talk sim basically the same um conversation around early projections for the school budget but then also to start to have a conversation around uh some of the stuff that we talked about tonight the district strategic plan the long-term needs of the district from Capital planning perspective and I think what came out of last year's meeting that group that got together said we should doing this more regularly and we should be doing this earlier in the process so uh this is me holding my up my end of the bargain and and starting that conversation earlier and then additionally um for those of you that are on the sub Finance subcommittee you'll be hearing from Sarah soon about organizing a finance subcommittee meeting um so that we can start to talk about that as well as some um Capital things I'd like this the finance subcommittee to start to some present Capital expenditures that maybe we should be making um that I'd like to discuss with the finance subcommittee so those things are all that's actually really more FY 25 than 26 um and that leads me to the Emmy small uh senior study so uh as was mentioned we did have a meeting with the town of Yarmouth last week the week before time flies um and I know it was the it was the 10th yes it was the 10th um and uh to discuss uh oh you know a little bit about sort of what's the state status of the emys small project also to understand my perspective on whether or not Emy small might fit over um as a Consolidated project at Station Avenue um also to discuss sort of some of the history around that whole conversation help me have a better perspective and understanding around the history of that conversation um and and then the following day we had a visit uh we had been I don't know if invited is the right term but the we've been contacted by msba that they were going to do a senior study of our SOI application so um it's not a guarantee that we've been invited in but it's means that they're taking a closer deeper look at our application um if you don't get this it usually means your application's not going through if if you do get this it doesn't mean your application's going through but it's a better chance that your application's going through so uh so this was that meeting was on the 11th of September um 9:30 over at emys small five staff members from msba came down um there was a two-hour meeting myself so the five msba staff members Bob rittenhauer myself the school principal the assistant principal uh David Flynn and who am I forgetting Steve fer yeah um trying to think if anybody else was there I think that was everybody we're all crammed into Carol's little office um and uh so the main purpose there is they they sort of went through our application asked us some some information and they they they're the msba staff represented different um roles I guess for lack of a better phrase so like for example there was two Engineers that were there so they were asking like very specific facilities related questions and then there were a couple like program um focused folks who were asking about our the the building's ability to meet our needs for special education students for English Learners intervention spaces etc etc so that was about the first hour hour and 15 minutes of the meeting and then we toured the facility um and were're able to show them some of the things that we were talking about that we talked about in our application um and some of the things that we've all talked about right talked about some of the roof issues some of the class space issues some of the iCal issues you name it we showed them as much the only thing we couldn't get them to do was get up on the roof we had actually brought a ladder brought a lift we were totally ready to get them up on the roof but they didn't take us up on our offer um so what yeah yeah they was probably smart on their part um the only thing the only thing that I would have made it better is if it was a raining day yeah it wasn't a raining day unfortunately it was one of the beautiful days that we had had um what will happen next is uh Bob ritar and I have a meeting scheduled um because obviously this is a Yarmouth specific project so he and I have a meeting um to follow up and have some conversation and um as Mr Glenn mentioned I've been invited back to to have a conversation with the select board they have asked a representative from the school I had to get some clarifications that's why I was just whispering to Sarah whether they wanted the board the I mean excuse me the whole committee and whether so then we'd have to sort of Point post a joint meeting but they are looking for a representative from the community to join me um so I don't know if you all want if you want to appoint somebody or somebody wants to volunteer but anyways they are looking for a representative to join me at their next meeting um I am scheduled to go to their next meeting um next meeting is tomorrow is it tomorrow or no it's the meeting after that sorry I was wrong I apologize I was like I don't know because I'm in Dennis tomorrow so I couldn't be in two places at one time all right so October 1st thank thank you specif Emmy small yeah y um and then I have one other item that isn't on the agenda because it just popped up this morning um I had a meeting this morning again with town of Yarmouth um uh staff so it was uh with um Mary maslowski was the clerk for the town of um Yarmouth and there's a conversation in within the town down around polling locations and their concern around the senior center and its ability to B basically be able to handle the volume from the for the presidential election so the the conversation we had was about whether or not this space could be used not this space actually the gymnasium could be used as a polling location um so it was a meeting with Mary uh the the chief of Yarmouth Deputy Chief of Yarmouth myself and facil Steve fer facilities director to talk through the potential of using um the gymnasium as a potential polling location obviously there's lots of other stuff that has to happen on the select board side for this even to happen but she was seeing if it was even a possibility so we talk through some of the logistical pieces that day the presidential election we don't have students in the building um we have staff in the building we have staff in the district um so some of the things that we talk through around Safety and Security was we if we were to do this we could use the gym has two exterior entrances so we could bring poll I mean um voters in one entrance and out the other entrance in the back of the building and never have them come into the main lobby at all um they talked about um stationing um police detail to ensure that nobody was entering into the building even though we don't have students in the building we don't want to necessarily give access to the whole building to um just from a Safety and Security standpoint um traffic flow the our biggest issue would just be about directing our faculty about where to park on that day just to ensure that voters had access to the polling location easily make sure all our handicap spots were available unless our handicap staff need obviously needed in order to get into their workday um and then so that's that's sort of one piece of the puzzle the other piece of the puzzle is would we be interested in it being a permanent polling location so and that has sort of two pieces to the two tiers to that conversation um so if it was a so the next election after the presidential election is a special Town election um for uh Mike Stone's uh seat as select board member which is scheduled for Saturday that again not really a a big challenge for the school district I believe the next one is in May and it's like on a Tuesday that one becomes a real challenge for two levels one um for a student safety issue because now you're adding a whole another layer of having students in the building and and the police and I are on board on both of these issues W the student piece but then anybody who's been here at arrival or dismissal for this build building or for station a knows the CH and and Mary was fully aw understood this challenge in that keeping a polling location open and accessible while we're trying to dismiss a thousand kids is a real challenge um so we're so I don't know we're not sure we could solve the we could have a solution for when kids were in in in session um I do think it's a viable solution as long as it isn't a time when kids are in session and I didn't really think the committee had and I personally as superintendent don't have much interest in altering the school calendar I mean I don't mind moving the professional learning day on the presidential election years to the November date but creating a whole another day in May where we don't have school in order to host an election to me is problematic um so I don't know that was that that came up today that's what I got great as all of us are elected officials I don't think that we've ever seen lines long enough that would need that obviously a presidential election we we would understand that um we would love to see the you know 90% of our voters come out not 7% that are seen at some of our elections unfortunately but um I know we're not voting or anything today and this is preliminary and obviously would have to be approved by a select board um you know to consider it and then obviously more input from that but I'm sure there'll be more to come from that um and as more comes I'm sure we'll we'll have plenty of questions and and comments about that um PR precincts I think there's N I believe or seven plus like a half or something eight eight precincts currently and there's a a and a B I believe in a because I think I'm on a half of one yeah um so we believe we could fit them all in the gym yeah yeah yeah I think currently right now I believe there's three polling locations the senior setting the town of Yarmouth hall and then on Town Hall the okay Senior Center Church in Kingsway thank you Mr Glenn yeah more to come um so next thing on we have as school committee business um so we are a committee um and you know we just as uh Dr Smith gets feedback um I get feedback we all get feedback about different things and some of the feedback I've gotten since I've become chair in the short time is about public comment um so I wanted to have an open communication about our feelings about public comment and you'll hear this in a short while but the public comment is the opportunity for for people to comment on issues that affect the district um and things that we are under our scope certain uh some select boards I think both select boards have their public com in the beginning um we're not required to have it at the beginning um in the past we've always had it on the end it's currently the the last item on our agenda before adjournment but uh I I wanted the opportunity to have a discussion with all of our members to kind of talk about um the placement of it if it should continue um to be at the end or if there was a a strong willingness to um move it to the beginning um so I'll open up the floor Jenny if you would like to start sure um I I would just like to start because I was the person who moved it to the end of the meeting so just to share a little bit of that logic maybe to help um as long as I've been for many years while I was on the committee it was at the beginning of the meeting and what I was experiencing was people coming coming for public comment and speaking on issues that they didn't actually have information on because later in the meeting there was going to be a report or a presentation that was actually going to share what was happening you know whether it was a presentation from staff or whatever it was so we were spending a lot of time at the beginning of meetings on public comment on something that actually wasn't even true some sometimes or something or comments that weren't based on actual facts or information and people would come to public comment give us their thoughts on this thing whether it was an issue or not whether we were Jing or not and then they would leave and not stay and get the information or the responses to their comment so it was just sort of this vacuum for complaining and to be frank that didn't feel very productive to me um um I know I didn't win lots of friends by moving into the end of the meeting because people have to stay obviously for the whole meeting if they want to address something and it's a long meeting as we all know and experience but it at least I felt like allowed people to collect all the information um to hear what was actually going on and to be educated on something before they spoke on it now I can certainly see how it's problematic because if someone wants to address something and we're taking a vote on it obviously public comment at the end doesn't allow them to give us their input beforehand but I will say people also have access to this entire agenda and this entire packet of information before a meeting and they also have all of our email addresses and phone numbers and could contact any of us before a meeting and tell us give us their you know tell us what they want to tell us about the thing we're going to be voting on and that happens in my you know I've this is my ninth year on the committee and I think I've had nine right emails from people who've anticipatorily read the agenda and the packet and want to you know give me information about why I should vote one way or the another so Tomas if you want to move it to the beginning I would fully support that I think you know we'll hear what everybody wants to say but I think you know sometimes change is is good just to see how different things work um I wish we could have two different public comment sections one at the beginning where people could address things that we're going to be voting on and one at the end where people can say can talk about other issues um I don't even know if that's possible I feel like I've been to some Dennis select board meetings where there are different public comment portions of it so I don't know how they do that but um just to give you all background and know and I'm not an expert and I not a proponent of of making a change it's just that as I said taking feedback that's what what you know Dr Smith has done and I want to continue that and the feedback that I've gotten from both towns um because I've heard from both select boards as well as some teachers and other people so I you know I I'm aware of the history but I wanted to talk about it out loud and if if people felt a certain way and wanted to make a change then it now is the opportunity to discuss that before we continue on Mr Glenn yes Mr chair um I'm going to agree with everything Jenny said I I I'm glad that you brought this up um because it um several of the select board members in each town have brought this up uh ARL aison who's here tonight have brought it up at our meeting and our um our uh uh Union uh uh president brought it up in an email um which gets to what I think is important uh that happens when we have a controversial situation where we get hundreds of emails um we see them I know I read you know the mass debate or the reopening of school um you know I read all of them um so people have the opportunity to contact us before um if it's a public hearing which may be what you're thinking about um you know a public hearing is separate if we have a public hearing on the budget say um which was part of their concern um then that's in itself its own public comment period in there um and it's opened up to to the public um but I think that we answer a lot of those questions as I think Jenny said um during the course of our meeting um so I think it's I think it's better at the end um I you know our meetings aren't as long usually as the selectman's meeting I know people don't always want to stay for the the whole meeting um in a lot of those cases but they could email us first they can email the superintendent um you know on any subject that's not on the agenda um but any subject that's on the agenda that comes out Thursday um so we're lucky you know a lot of places they have their if they have a a meeting on a Thursday they only have the 48 hours we we have you know we put our agenda out on a Thursday because the weekend doesn't count so we actually give more notice to the public for them to answer the questions and then we have the questions come to us uh we can see them especially on those controversial ones and and we're supposed to have a beat on the community we're supposed to know a lot of these questions and have them answered um beforehand and we follow social media and all all the other um questions and and issues um and we try to communicate that to the superintendent so I I would uh I I think that the reason that Jenny change it uh originally was valid and I think it's it's okay to keep it this way I'm sure that um you know the I I I think that that the select board member and Dennis had valid valid points um the teachers union president had valid points and and our laa on from yarm had valid points about why we should move it but I I think that everybody should know that you can always contact us you you know parents can always talk uh contact the the teachers and the principals and the superintendent and the district office on any questions and and we usually preface it with that in the in the uh preamble to the public comment so that's my two cents Mr Morris there's really two types of meetings that we have one is the public hearing one which required by law when we introduce and explain the budget and that one is where during the meeting questions are raised and and answered and then there's the one where people have information they want to share and try to shape our thinking or our vote and that's what Dy had as a longstanding advaned meeting advaning before the business the bottom line is we're a business meeting of an elected body that discusses policy budgets and therefore I'm in favor of letting people hear what our business is because we could always come back if it gets out of hand or gets explodes for some reason needs further discussion that can be placed on the next school committee meeting that is on the scheduled on the agenda uh items the idea of having a business meeting after particularly a heated meeting really makes it more difficult to get business done historically I have been in meetings where there was an Angry Crowd that wanted to batter down The Doors they were always unlocked uh but we had a difficult time getting it on task I read everything that is ever emailed or written to me try to answer as many as I can with I've got the time but really if there's an issue that requires some pretty heavyduty uh debate and back and forth my first role as a member of a school committee is left the chair know if something's going on and to let the central office or the superintendent know so I think we have a better opportunity to gather information without being subjected to abuse and nevertheless we're open for all the time comment by various electronic and written means so I'm in favor of keeping it at the end of the meetings perfect um I I feel the same I feel that um you know a lot of the times comments in public comment are things that we don't have perview of right and we have to direct them who to contact or give them the correct information obviously if there's a specific topic that's on the agenda um you know people have feedback about it and sometimes it's after we're after we voted um but we are the elected officials and charged with making decisions for that and people do have the right to email us call us and all the information is on the website um if no one else has a Miss beus let's assume there is something that's bubbling up or something around the school budget or uh something like that do we have the robits rules prerogative to know that there we've received a lot of in input and that people are attending the meeting and at the date of the meeting decide to change the agenda that's always available as an option so if there's no other comment it it's up to the committee if someone wants to make a motion to change it if not if there's no motion we'll continue the meeting seeing none next on it is the consented agenda which we have the donation uh from the sons of uh which Dr Smith talked about before with almost $700 in school supplies and then the minutes from the September 9th meeting move the consent agenda all in favor I I oppos None Bill's requisitions and payrolls have gone through calendars we talked about all the open houses we had we have our first early release uh this Wednesday the 25th an hour and a half so if you know what time school's over subtract 90 minutes um the thing that they said you'd never have in your life a calculator you do it's on your phone um except if you're a student in the school which we learn talked about today um next our public comment uh our publicity on public participation in meetings could be found on the table with the agenda the public is reminded that a school committee meeting is a meeting of a governmental body at which members of the body deliberate over public business we welcome your attendance and appreciate app your interest in viewing a school committee as we conduct our regular business meeting school committee believes that the school district Community should have an opportunity to comment to the committee on issues that affect the school district that are within the scope of the committee's responsibilities some questions you may have may not be within the scope of the committee's responsibilities in that case I will suggest that you send or give your question in writing to the appropriate person so that your concern be given proper consideration indidual May individuals may address topics on the agenda items specific specified for public comment for other items within the scope or responsibility of the school committee this is an opportunity for individuals to address the topics on the agenda each citizen will be allowed to speak for no more than three minutes would anyone like to speak for a public comment seeing none I move that we adjourn second all those in favor I oppose thank you have a great day everyone