##VIDEO ID:Via3ZTvh1HI## 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 get other one welcome to the Monday October 7th 2024 meeting of the Dennis jth Regional school committee please stand and join me in the pledge allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all great welcome everyone uh we're going to start with our reports and discussion questions and we have our student representative we have M Isabella power hello everybody um Ava sends her regards again she's a busy girl she has volleyball every Monday up until next month pretty much she's very sorry to miss it but once you guys meet her I promise it's worth the wait I know I keep saying it I know and I know but she's trying her best to be here and she's very sorry she happy um I figured I'd start off by talking about our eighth grade elections that took place on Thursday so I know that I was there for the speeches they're always entertaining for eighth grade of course they have no exposure to it before but I mean class officers and student government so important at DUI it's a huge part of our culture so getting to see the eighth graders like kind of dip their toes in for the first time is always an amazing opportunity and definitely some good people in office for them right now uh we had our last football home game on Friday our last like regular season home game we have one more on Thanksgiving but I feel like Friday was the last big her offer di students we also had our boys and girls soccer win their games on Friday as well as field hockey it was girls soccer's first win of the season so huge celebration from us and we had a great time uh we had our progress reports come out on Friday so I think the email D was sent home to parents and grades closed on Friday for that uh we also held SATs on Saturday which was mainly attended by seniors uh almost entirely seniors I did see a few Juniors there but everyone's sort of racing for that November 1 deadline so so that's what that consisted of uh we have our first unified basketball game taking place on Wednesday at home they began their season a little while ago but this is the first time we have a home game and UniFi basketball is such a huge part of culture at DUI and it's always a great we get great turnouts it's a great event always so everybody's very excited for that uh we're hosting our credit for life for seniors on Friday the Friday the 25th which is a huge also I know I'm saying culture a lot di culture you know it's a big big part of the start of the year but credit for life is run by Cape Cod 5 and seniors get dressed up and go through a lot of Finance stuff that otherwise we don't really get exposure to so everybody's looking forward to it and we're taking a senior class photo later that day so it's going to be a big day overall I think uh then the next day we have our dolphin Dash which is kind of turning into the dolphin weekend because we're also hosting homecoming that evening aty so it's gonna be a great time thank you so much Isabella I could I know I had the privilege of meeting Ava at a community event where she was talking about our wonderful technology and Robotics Club so was able to meet her and introduce myself and tell her that we appreciate her dedication and it's why we're proud to be part of DIY right because we have so many student athletes so many people in clubs uh the music the Arts the theater it's such a great thing so we we know she's going to do wonderful things as as you do them we understand the how busy lives that you as students have as well so thank you um and then next we have our school Improvement plan presentations which I believe we're doing by the principles from the elementary up so welcome to the podium good evening everyone uh I'm Kevin deppon I'm the principal of the Ezra baker school and tonight we have a presentation for prek to 5 on school Improvement planning that is based on our strategic objectives for our district so maybe everyone will introduce themselves I'm Valerie Kelly I'm the principal at station AV I'm Shannon Carlson I'm the assistant principal at Margaret East small Elementary School Tim Blake principal of Dy intermediate great thank you great so again we built our uh uh our school Improvement planning and our goals for school Improvement around our strategic objectives and so as you know you know these better than than we have you seen them many times already our first strategic objective is is about eliminating disparities in Access and achievement for every student by providing learning experiences that promote student Independence through strong tier one instruction and tier one instruction is really the instruction that everyone gets in their classroom every student every day based on uh standards and so at Ezra Baker the way that we are going to um our goals for improvement are really to uh create and Implement and monitor a schoolwide schedule that provides sufficient time for Meaningful instruction so that's a lot of fancy words but basically uh we want to make sure that every minute and now we have 27 extra minutes at the elementary level that we have students it's meaningful and it's built for them and supports their learning and so you might hear each School talk a little bit about that extra time at Ezra Baker we're putting that time into our English language arts block with a strong emphasis on writing in both coaching and uh instruction and assessment um this next goal is a great goal and I hope Mrs Flanigan our assistant principal and I are able to meet it but we want to conduct classroom observations with actionable feedback in every classroom every month spoiler alert I didn't do it in September but I'm getting there uh so maybe by June uh we'll be there but it's really really important to be part of that conversation and to not just see a snapshot of what happens in the classroom but really to see what happens day in and day out and see strengths and weaknesses and be a partner in learning for our teachers and for our students uh we want to create in support a voluntary system of peer observations for the sole purpose of developing instructional and curricular expertise everyone has different strengths we have so such such wealth in our teaching um in our schools and we want those teachers to be able to learn from each other and to visit each other's classroom to both give feedback and also learn from um professional expertise and we want to create an active volunteer program because so many in our community want to help uh before Co we had a great volunteer program and since Co we haven't had one and so we really want to bring that back and have um a strong community volunteers support our students and our teachers all right hi everybody so for Amy small we our first goal is to support the implementation of District Curriculum by focusing on our observations and providing that targeted specific feedback to our colleagues our teachers and our staff on instructional practices that impact student learning and that's going to be consistent with our goals through the standards as well as our curriculum literacy collaborative and eure squared to ensure that equal opportunity every student receives that tier one instruction create the individual classroom schedules that are ample time that provide ample time for Meaningful instruction and designated service deliveries so that what we're talking about there is for our special education needs for our English language development instruction that every classroom has those specific times they're scheduled we have the time let's use it to maximize our instruction and use the Extended Learning Time to provide every student with systematic instruction on how written and oral language Works using the fontis and panel Phonics spelling and word study system what we're talking about is that word study block of time that tier one for every student to engage in that and then that's connected then every student's part of that our English language learner teachers are there and that extends into that ELD block that English language development block for our students as well so that's to ensure that tier one is provided to every student uh I just want to put a disclaimer I was still editing this presentation so there's some differences in what I'm about to say from what the one you received um so this summer Miss bu and I spent a lot of time looking through old class schedules the master schedule and we spent time um thinking about uninterrupted long Learning Blocks and so that was the driver for us to create Implement and monitor schoolwide schedules with longer as I just said uninterrupted Learning Blocks so that we could achieve the district non-negotiable time on learning by subject area uh we also created the wi the what I need block uh which is related to tier one because it in it protects that instructional time from other services or instruction which I'll get more into on the next strategic objective and then through the use of structured professional learning communities with support um from the literacy and math coaches we're adopting the regular practice of analy izing tier one assessment data to inform our instruction and our tiered obser intervention and finally um station AB Administration will conduct regular teacher observations as well as structured learning walks um to provide actionable feedback to ensure more Equitable learning environment and access for all students uh to tier one instruction so you might see more of me with the elementary school since Dy intermediate is more of an elementary school so it was great to be involved with the K to3s so Dy intermediate for reading establish agreement on data points to use for Progress monitoring Beyond map bass and mcast and better informed instructions so those three are all tests that we use all the time so we've already sat down with teachers and to agreed upon where some other things that we'll look at throughout the year because those happen too infrequently for writing analyze student writing samples at least three times a year to better inform instruction soone looking at writing it's not just looking at it and scoring it it's what are we doing back in our classrooms after we look at student writing in math we'll analyze topic quizzes and end a module assessments to better inform instruction and we're going to continue to focus on math rigor through observations and evaluations so when we talk about bath riger the easiest way to think about it would be we have a curriculum that we all use and agree to from the district and if we choose something that might be different that's laid out is it does it ask all of our students to participate is it strenuous for the kids is it cognitively engaging if we choose something different so I get two slides a little bit of a spoiler alert the last strategic objective is for Capital Improvements and we're in this beautiful building that I'm very lucky to be a part of so I will not be talking when we get to that part so also for Dy intermediate we're going to supplement and reorganized oural curriculum in the following ways we're to better delineate which zones of Regulation lessons that taught at each grade level we did this before Co and then kind of after Co lost our way a little bit so zones of Regulation would be for when you're talking with like young kids you can guess what red feels like green is like you're ready to go yellow is ankish so we have different colors for kids to describe their feelings and then we're going to implement an all-in curriculum to focus on bullying prevention efforts and then even more focused in is Boston vers bullies which is an anti-bullying curriculum in grade five so we've already started to launch those with teachers in terms of specific bullying prevention efforts and so now we're on to our second strategic objective and that's to establish consistent districtwide systems to support organizational Effectiveness that support student learning so at Baker uh one of the things that we really want to do is we wanted to Define our student study team process as well as our pre-referral process to stream streamline student access to academic and behavioral supports again a lot of words but what that means is we talked in our first goal about that tier one instruction that all children get but what we know is that some children need more and we want to make sure that we are um using a strategic process to identify those children who need uh extra support and also Define what support they need and that goes into our second objective which is to create a menu of intervention programs that are evidence-based and track student acceleration as they access instruction so it's great that uh if we decide that Jenny needs a little bit of extra support that's great but we don't want to say okay we identified you we're done we did it no we want to make sure that what we take her time with and when we're we're giving her that extra support that it's something that's proven to work and that we're really watching to make sure that not only is it a good intervention but it's the right intervention for that student um and so we really want to get better at that and really um really think about how the best way that we can accomplish that for all students and the last thing is that we want to meet with all teachers all classroom teachers three times yearly to re review classroom Benchmark assessment data both at the beginning of the year the middle of the year and the um winter and that is really around the time that we're getting a lot of information on benchmark assessments benchmark assessments are given to every student three times yearly to track progress and we want to make sure that we're looking at all data because in any one classroom there can be children who are flying and children who are struggling and we really tend to focus on on those two extremes but there's a whole lot of kids in the middle and we want to make sure that we're taking a look at them and making sure that with a few tweaks we giving them just everything that they need so that all can really um achieve their Highest Potential all right so at me small there are some similarities to our other schools as well and we're really trying to utilize those core structures that we have within the building one being our professional learning communities or our plc's their monthly Cycles or schedule if you will that has a specific focus and so one of those focus is in the area of literacy another focus is the area of math and the third Focus being on D data driven decisionmaking looking at not only grade level schoolwide but specific needs of our students within intervention groups as well so utilizing that struction to designate those monthly cycles for plc's and then Cor ordinating the efforts of we have a really solid student study team process right now we're utilizing that with multi- tiered systems of supports mtss to look closely at all right we have our three interventionists then who are you going to meet with what's the targeted area of support for that and then that's also embedded within that PLC structure so utilizing what we have and fine-tuning it so that it's really as effective as efficient as possible and taking data at the heart of it to make our decisions you'll hear a lot of Echoes of what Shannon and um Kevin have just shared and that was by Design we try and U we worked a lot closely together to make sure our school Improvement plans were in alignment so that there was intentional cohesion here so again with that Extended Learning time we developed What's um called the what I need block um where each Glade level will have 30 minutes of dedicated time to provide system atic datadriven instruction or intervention we'll use schoolwide scheduling for the Wind Block so that interventionists reading specialist special Educators and El teachers are all available uh for the four grade levels um to afford meaningful small group instruction or intervention finally we're also doing that similar model with a structure of plc's where they'll be um shifting focuses monthly um to dedicate to ELA math and that student support team and then furthermore in the student support team um will attend monthly plc's on a reliable rotation to afford four to six we intervention windows so that teams can be can come prepared with data demonstrating impact of the intervention and informed tailored supports for student students of focus going forward so I don't want to just say ditto to what everyone just said but it's pretty close so continue enhance subject specific professional learning community calendar so this is for literacy math and a little bit new this year we have specific data meetings for staff meeting time and professional Learning Community time uh PLC agendas will include notes on data and tier one instruction so we just in had a couple of these meetings before uh last week where we decide on specific things that we'll look at that we think we need to improve upon and how the teachers will get together with Administration say like when we teach this this is how we're going to teach it differently so they do better uh staff meeting calendar will Encompass data specific meetings for grade levels when we have plc's they're great but they're half the grade level so teachers are asking for time to get together as a whole grade level as well so we're going to use staff meeting time for that and finally on to our third strategic objective which is to address the district's short and long-term facility and capital needs so at ehba we ehb excuse me we have really just one goal and it's to work with the facilities Personnel to create a multi-year plan that prioritizes the needs in our 94 yearold facility now I was going to bold that um and Dr Smith has reminded me that Ezra Baker School is probably the only thing kicking around Dennis longer than me but um it is an old building and it's uh probably not in the worst shape among all the district buildings but there are many needs and so we want to make sure that we're thinking of all the things the things that we can see and the things that are the Bon of the building that we want to um continue make sure that this is a a a fine facility for our students to learn in all right at me small we're going to continue to work with the Massachusetts school building authority to secure support for the project to replace Mees we're going to create much like Kevin had just mentioned a prioritized list of necessary repairs and improvements for the short term and then work facilities Personnel to ascertain projects that can be completed internally and then collaborate with families Community groups and local government to facilitate the improvements of Mees um that our students deserve so station AV is the youngest of the elementary schools but it still is uh 30 years old so we do have some needs on the horizon and we've learned that deferred maintenance doesn't doesn't work so with that in mind um we've been collaborating uh with the director of facility Steve fer as well ass assistant superintendent Dave Flynn and submitted a grant um to the community preservation Committee in Yarmouth um we're hoping to combine funds from that with secured funds from um from the school as well to have a new playground in place by fall of 2025 for example we had a few injuries on the second day of school and we had to remove a third of the playground structure for student safety and so that reduced what we do have available and what's there is very dated um and then through in a different kind of vein of facilities we spent a lot of time over the summer looking at uh doing careful examination of all the working and storage space at station AV and partnered with facilities to create new Special Education offices to conduct valid testing and um as well as create three separated El spaces to provide adequate learning environments for 70 plus El students this matters especially for special education if you're doing special education eligibility testing and you don't have a valid testing space but using that testing to determine if a child is in fact disabled so our environments matter and that's why we took a look at that and we're able to make some advances even though there is uh as I'll get into in the next Point um a bit of overcrowding at station ab and so we're trying to identify what those contributors are and find ways that we can shift and recalibrate so that um we can kind of get the building back to potentially its intended population size and have space for things like a proper OT and PT motor room uh and we almost had to have our music on a cart and not in a proper music room this year so just paying attention to our numbers and things that impact and then um finally with our building being about 30 years old we we aren't in close competition with em small and asra Baker We recognize that um but we do still need to develop a priority list for anticipated larger um maintenance things such as a roof or a boiler and develop a capital plan for that so we're bearing that in mind all right I don't have a slide for this so I won't even start but I don't know if you have any questions for any of us any questions from the committee Marilyn my question isn't probably to you it could be to the superintendent I I I have a sense that and you might know this and he can answer it for us um that this is like a preview of Coming Attractions you're giving us a little bit letting it go out and seep into the community and let them comment and where you are but sort of there's a next phase of an action plan coming or uh I'm curious uh usually a school Improvement plan has a professional development component I I see that coming perhaps and then so you don't have to answer that I guess it's for any presentation and the third thing is um so I I see a hierarchy I see the the school committee now has goals we updated it superintendent goals we've seen now we're seeing your school goals but I'm wondering how it all links with sort of the system meaning Central staff curriculum directors and all of that linkage so everyone's supporting each other in these goals so that I guess is a question for the end I'll take them off the hook so um so big picture well I would say two things one I wanted to try to keep the presentation and meeting length to a minimum so I did I did uh gave them very strict instructions on how many slides they were allowed to have uh so that's part of the the brevity in the slides uh two uh School Improvement plans need to uh as I'm sure the committee is fully aware need to be run and through school councils so they're all in the process of conducting them with their school council so they're not fully fleshed out these are the uh in their they're in process and we also I'm a stickler for trying to get us things as lined up as possible so we're also trying to get them all in the same format to get them all look the same so then that takes a little bit of time uh so those that that you're right in noticing that and we do have a detailed District level AC plan right so you've seen the Strategic plan which is currently out for public comment which had the Strategic objectives and all the initiatives under it and then we developed a summer one-year action plan which has which are what are all the steps uh what are the timelines who's responsible for year one of five years and we will refresh that each year uh and the school Improvement plans are part of that and then another piece that I don't think we talked about this summer is then we all talked about our individual ual goals so everybody here from myself all the way down down that line and including people that are sitting out in the audience are all responsible for our own educator goals and we did work this summer you know I've done the focus indicators at working with the school committee I did the same process with the leadership team did Focus indicators lined up with this with the uh strategic plan and uh the I'm actually in my process right now of meeting with those that I have EV valuate and then like I know that there are others who evaluate others and they're having those goal setting meetings and it's all in line to continue to move the Strategic plan forward I hope that answers the question if you got follow-ups if I missed something in there please let me know great thank you thank you all and we ready for the middle school I'm excited to see your Capital Improvement plan too you everyone uh Mike mavino principal of Dy middle school so as Dr Smith spoke about you know we had the same structure of um slides so for the middle school we have three goal goals that we're really focusing on um the first one is creating and implementing a program for with all of our teachers focusing in on um incorporating fundamental reading practices in the classroom and instruction so that's that tier one um strategic objective um the next one is increasing our math achievement by 10% schoolwide by improving our tier one instruction um I'll get into how we're doing that um forther on into the slides but again that's that tier one um first strategic objective and then really looking at how our parent teacher conferences work at the middle school level um parent teacher conferences are relatively new at the middle school level we've um implemented them three years ago um we've tracked or anecdotally taken some data on the attendance of our parents um attending those parent teacher conferences and it's in the middle right um families have very busy lives um it's difficult to attend those uh meetings and having them majority of the time during the the work day um makes it challenging but we also want to recognize and have our students have more of a voice within those parent teacher conferences so this year with my leadership team I want to look at um how to develop a uh different type of model for parent teacher conferences at the middle school level so that um student students have more voice and it is more um available to the families so why are we doing all these um why are we focusing in on these three goals first obviously we want to enhance student achievement across all content areas so reading um with the fundamental reading skills within all of our classrooms we know that universally um reading skills are utilized in every content area and every related arts area as well so we really want to focus in on that so students are um comprehending what they're working on next um we want to build consistency and capacity within the instructional practices within the building so that's going to be happening within our plc's and then finally we want to obviously strengthen that uh family commun community engagement connection so how are we going to achieve those um we're going to be monitoring uh three times a year through our map testing how our students are progressing uh that happens in in our individual ual content plc's throughout the year um we've already looked at our mcast scores from last year and um kind of tailoring some of our instructions so that we are moving in the right direction there um on a day day-to-day basis we use a program called formative which helps the uh teachers monitor the student progress within the classroom on a day-to-day basis so we're utilizing that within the classroom we're also piling a program called EXL currently which helps has another um diagnostic piece that can help us monitor the students progress throughout the year um uh classroom observations targeting uh specifically Ela and math um Miss Pontius and I are working directly with uh teaching lab who helped the elementary levels last year with classroom observations and some uh administrative coaching so this year we're moving on to the Middle School level so that we are um up to speed just like the elementary levels and then um monitoring and working through the development of that new student Le um conference parent teacher conference program so those are how we're going to achieve and go through our goals any questions thank you so much for moving on any questions from the committee sure Jenny just a more of a comment I guess and this applies also to the the elementary presentation which is I'm glad to see in I think almost all of the Improvement plans the some emphasis on your observation in the classrooms um you know I I don't know maybe covid and remote learning and sort of getting back to normal after all that I I don't know if it's fallen off a little bit but I I don't think there's any substitute for you all as leadership in your buildings to being there in those classrooms and seeing what's going on and that's the way right I mean that's the only way you're going to know if you're if these goals are right on if you're you know meeting these goals and what the needs are for your building so you know kudos to all of you for putting it in there and you know I'd love to see reports back later in the year on how this is going you know you're observations in the classrooms and what you've learned from these observations and are you know were these the right goals based on your observations and and how you've done in meeting them so I'd love to see report back on that based on that and I just had one question about you know you talked about parents not I I know I know them from my experience in the schools the younger they are the more uh involved the parents are you know especially if they're newer parents or whatever as they're super young there's a lot of parent participation as a they get older little less participation um do you think power school has any anything to play with you know parents wondering how their kids doing since they can see live data of where they are um you know kind of where they're at in school or where they are with their homework and stuff like that yeah that was uh two big pushes for our open house that I really tried to help emphasize so um as tomat States uh Power school provides basically uh an open Gradebook system for families to be able to track and monitor their students progress um starting at the sixth grade level and going through graduation um so that is a big push um they have to you know have log in and make create their own account but um it's encouraging the families to to do that piece so that they are um informed of of how their students is doing um we also use use a uh another program called Live school which is a uh Behavior kind of tracking piece um so that has its own uh account that families have to to log into so we're finding uh the best ways to encourage families to to sign those up and and uh monitor those um through Live school I can send out uh weekly kind of summaries of how their their students is doing and and the family gets an email um through Power School is very um individually driven by that family they have to go out and and find that information so thank you I think whatever we can do to give people the option to know ahead you know not the the report card comes at the end of the season and you're like well okay you didn't do any of your homework and it's a little too late um you know but our goal is always to have you know families involved and it's not always going to happen but that we give them the ability to know and give them the opportunity to to jump in maybe a little earlier so that you know we can increase the involvement there is great so so thank you yeah another practice we do just inhouse is grade checks so within their advisory and their home rooms students are responsible for going into their own power school Portal and and checking their own grades um documenting what they may be missing or what they were successful on kind of like a student-led conference on their own and then bring that report home to to the families um we encourage them to have fames sign off at that and bring it back to their advisory teacher by doing that they'll get additional um live school points so that is kind of the incentive program there but again that's a three-week program so that they're monitoring their own progress throughout the year and we're again we're not waiting for that end of the trimester or midterm report to say you didn't do anything great thank you so much for your president presentation Mr new thank you Mr chairman I just had a request uh permission I tried to get your attention earlier for the student representative report I had an addition I was wondering if it would be possible to sure you can thank you all right as you heard from Isabella there's a lot of wonderful things going on at the high school I just wanted to highlight the fact that the marching band went down to Fall River this past weekend and they they finished first in their division uh they won all the caption awards which is best music best color guard best percussion and best visual design uh want to highlight the fact that out of the 14 high schools on Cape Cod uh Dennis Yarmouth is one of two that has a marching band it is the only high school that has competitive marching band at this point and so it's been a rich tradition over the past 60 plus years uh that they've competed and marched and uh the students in the program have gone on to uh participate March at number power five schools Notre Dame Boston College uh University of Illinois Purdue University as well as a number of others but uh I'll be adding more reports if Isabella doesn't bring them in I've talked about moving my seat so I could see the end of the table so we'll discuss that so thank you and thank you Miss Bennett we'll move him to the high school great thank you so much so my name is Kendra Bennett principal of the high school and here is is our um School Improvement plan so um we have seven goals that we're focusing on in this 5-year uh School Improvement plan the first one again is to increase that quality of tier one instruction that is aligned with the Strategic objective of eliminating disparities in access to achievement um number two is the to develop a strategic plan to address the neas four Focus areas that came from the collaborative conference so the collaborative conference happens on year 8 out of 10 and then you have your um desial conference on year 10 so we were given feedback and we have about a year and a half to work on those Focus areas our goal number three is to develop a oh sorry just to back up that is aligned with strategic objective number two for the district which is to increase organizational Effectiveness number three is develop a resource to communicate Progressive discipline effectively to teachers that is essential for maintaining consistent and fair disciplinary practices across the school you also saw some of that with the added information in our handbooks um again aligned with organizational Effectiveness in strategic objective number two our fourth goal is to enhance a system to support the Dolphin Way in and Beyond traditional learning environments again the high school's Dolphin Way is be here be responsible and be respectful number five is to increase academic achievement and access to enrichment opportunities through our uh through Dolphin time which again is a tier one approach similar to station AVS wi time uh what I need number six is increase effectiveness of the school leadership team to drive School Improvement and Achieve organizational goals the leadership team um what we call the leadership team at the high school consists of the department chairs so again um you'll see this in the full uh School Improvement plan but we have blocked off we meet weekly and the last meeting of each month is observation so along the lines of that continued observation number seven is to increase the effectiveness of the high school administrative team to enhance leadership improving operations and fostering a positive School environment so again you've seen a lot of goals that are aligned with strategic objectives one and two of course number three the high school would like um to be part of that Capital needs plan and um be put on the list of those priorities but it's not in the five-year School Improvement plan so why these goals matter is uh you know through the summer and even now it's given the school a Clear Vision and direction this will result in improved student performance it will also result in enhanced teacher performance and morale and then we'll have a stronger School climate and culture key benchmarks and actions um to Define and set expectations for tier one instruction write schoolwide goals aligned with a focus areas again like we've been all talking about our goals um I along with the leadership team have written schoolwide goals so that teachers goals are aligned with the district strategic um plan and the high school 's School Improvement plan develop a document with clear understanding of tiered behavior and tiered responses and then utilize after school meetings for training and professional development aligned with strategic objectives I think I have one is that it I um I do my the high school strategic or sorry School Improvement plan has gone through the school council so I think we're very very close to publishing this the whole school Improvement plan excuse me which um goes into after year 1 after year three after year two all the way down to year five and then it also has the desired outcome for each strategic objective excellent other than complimenting the amazing student musicians and performers anyone have any comment or questions for Miss Bennett I'll take it no we we appreciate it thank you so much thank you and thank you to all of you who help put these together I know it's it's a whole team we appre appreciate those who presented but I know everyone worked together hard to put these together and to Marilyn's Point earlier um to use Dr Smith's terms you know the the the Dolphins are all swimming the same way right it it's been a a great summer of our committee and our executive team and our leaders um working on on ensuring that we're all swimming the right way and it's great to hear the things that all of you are doing um to ensure that I think it will make our whole Community all of our schools a better system right when we're all on the same page we understand we're in many different buildings many different age groups but if we all have the same vision and the same going the same way it's going to bring us all up so I appreciate all the effort everyone's put in next next we have a discussion uh about the Margaret e small elementary school thank you very much um so just rewind time a little bit um the committee uh is aware I should have written down the date but last would have been last actually no it would have been this year and it doesn't I should have written down the date so the the committee supported an application for um statement of Interest for me small um and again I should have written down when that was but time a flat circle April thank you thank you yeah thank you um uh so in April uh to submit an application uh we were invited by the msba to participate in what they refer to a senior study um analogous to maybe like a finalist interview uh we're not we're not invited in but it it's a sign that they wanted to take a closer look at our application that occurred in September uh we had that uh visit so a team from msba came down included a couple of Engineers and then a couple senior staff members from msba the MS the engineers are contractors for msba uh they went through our spent about an hour going through our application uh asking us specific questions and then toward the building and so as a part of that conversation there's one one remaining question uh that we need to answer uh which is will we our application was focused solely on em small uh and they wanted to know whether or not our application if we get invited in the first step would be to enter into feasibility study and they want to know whether not we and it's a larger we than us uh which I'll give a little bit of more context to that in a second uh but whether the the larger we will be interested in studying consolidation so consolidation means would be be willing to study and doesn't mean this is the path that we have to go but as part of the feasibility would be be willing to study uh consolidation which would include the two Yarmouth Elementary sites uh so and that I've said publicly that I don't that I'm concerned I have concerns over bringing an me small building over to the station a current Station Avenue and doing some type of an addition there I worry I've stated my concerns around traffic and um congestion and a bunch of other concerns around that what they said during the meeting is that is a site specific um consolidation concern that shouldn't limit your ability to look at consolidation in general because that's meaning you couldn't bring the site there doesn't mean you couldn't explore other options for consolidation uh again it doesn't mean that ultimately that that's the direction the community would have to go but that would we be interested in studying consolidation at in general so basically after a long bit of conversation where we endend up is there's pretty much three things that we could if we studied consolidation there'd be three options that I least I see and maybe there would ultimately be other ones but there'd be sort of I see three things that would be studied one would be an option where we would consolidate the two schools on the current Station Avenue site right so some type of an addition renovation that would bring the two elementary schools together where Station Avenue Elementary currently resides that would be option number one option number two would be you leave Station Avenue Elementary School completely alone and you do some type of complete renovation or rebuild or brand new build at me small and option number three is some other third consolidation which is sort of analogous to this building where you no longer have Station Avenue Elementary School and you no longer have Margaret small elementary school and you have a new third Consolidated site that combines the two into some new building X Yarmouth Elementary School X um that doesn't exist in any current vision and so and I would say and and we had this conversation in front of the select board last week no Tuesday it was already just this week no yeah it was last last week today's only Monday so it wasn't last it wasn't this week um on Tuesday uh so myself Tomas and Joe Glenn went in front of the Yarmouth select board because they have to be a part of this conversation as well and we had this very same conversation and in in my opinion this what I I told the the select board is that I personally think we should study everything and I think we should have a very public conversation about what the options are and I think then you put the options on the table and then the community ultim makes the decision that the community thinks is the best decision um and I think you have a transparent open process and and then ultimately whatever the community feels is the right path forward is ultimately the path that you take forward but you're not locked into anything other than to study the options so the select board agreed that and voted to to support con studying consolidation and so what I need the school committee to discuss and then ultimately to take a motion on is whether or not the school committee supports studying consolidation because we owe a joint letter myself and uh Bob rittenau owe a joint letter to the msba saying will we study consolidation or will we not study consolidation should we be invited in that's and we need that by the middle of this month uh as part of our to sort of finalize our application and I'm happy to answer any further questions but I think that's the that's it in a nutshell Jenny I'll make a motion and then we can discuss the Motions so um I move that we direct the superintendent to notify the Massachusetts school building authority to include consolidation as part of the feasibility study second we have a motion in a second so discussion Jenny um I fully support this um I think the more options the better I think that when we embarked on the M the um madaky project um we were opened up to a whole world of possibilities by msba and I think that you know the you know I'm sure that there are you know there were glitches along the way and there are still you know glitches that remain to be sorted out um with having this new building and this location and all the but I really feel like this was a huge win for the district um and who knows what msba will come up with they've got experts on board and the more options the better U maybe they'll come up with as you said some third option that we hadn't considered I still do support consolidation on this property if it's possible um you know I love that we have this centralized campus um I feel like it only benefits our students and our staff to be Consolidated in this way and our budget right I mean so if there's a way to consolidate I would love to see that happen um and I support this fully Mr new I also support the consolidation uh and and I would encourage us to uh think about Baker as well it's a 90-year-old school as it was pointed out to us earlier and we're consolidating two schools that are 60 and 30 years old um I think some consideration needs to be given to Baker and um I don't know if it's possible or not I realize the two Town aspect in wanting elementary schools in both towns but potentially a consolidation of all the elementary schools might be looked upon very favorably by the state and maybe between the two towns as well uh so going forward maybe a little bit more discussion of that but I do cons you know totally support the consolidation of Station Avenue and uh em small great Marilyn I don't have a decision I guess I'm curious why the msba thinks this is sort of in the mix always and I I guess in light of the fact uh it's a K3 with which is community walking families you very young children I I wonder are there other models out there or what what did they tell you uh so two things so one um so there's two factors that play So one it's it comes to them budgeting so if we're going to explore consolidation they need to set so they're they're setting aside funding for a project that's like six years down on the road so they need to set aside funding for the potential size of the project so if they're going to invite us into a project that could be Consolidated they need to say Okay so this could be an 800ish 850 student elementary school and then they run their estimates based upon number of students times square footage estimates and then they say okay we need to hold X number of millions of dollars aside and then they use that to figure out okay how many people can they invite in right because they have a prioritized list and they say but if it's a 450 kids school or a three you know whatever then they then it then it's obviously a smaller amount of money and then maybe that means they can invite another school in the mix at the end of the line that's part one and then part two is the quite frankly the based upon their behavior I don't think they have a public statement on this anywhere but msba doesn't tend to like to fund small building projects um they tend to encourage bigger building projects um came from a district that wanted to build a smaller high school they said we won't fund you until you explore regionalization sure enough they ended up as region then they got their High School um so and as bigger High School than what they originally were going after um so it is just tends to be their process is they want you to look at the bigger project before they'll let you do the smaller project I think it's it's it's economy of scale you know that when you start doing square footage there I mean there is there are cost savings it's a bigger ticket item for sure a bigger building but per square foot it's less expensive when you think about the number of kids you're serving you know and if you think about it from a state level when you think about the number of kids you're serving with the building project you're you're their money is going further Mr new in keeping with those comments so if we do consolidate the two schools in Yarmouth uh that potentially will leave uh the one Elementary School in Dennis without an option as you're saying the state does not want to fund a smaller school with a a lower student population so is that potentially an outcome uh I don't know we haven't had as far as I understand we haven't had Ezra Baker in the mix now this conversation came up with the Yarmouth select board as well and I the it's a complicated conversation to talk about a town not having an elementary School whether that's consolidating all the elementary schools into a site in Dennis and Yarmouth not having an elementary school or consolidating all the sites in from so that we had some centralized yarma site and Dennis no longer having quite frankly any schools in their um within their boundary that that that's a that's a big Community conversation I'm not saying we can't enter into it but that is definitely a big Community conversation to have um and and up until this point I'm still learning the lay of the land but up until this point uh the the conversation while Baker being an older building hasn't been a replacement conversation that building is built different like they don't build the old expression they don't build them like that anymore like that's structurally a much better building than uh any of the other buildings it needs HVAC replacement it needs um boiler replacement but the actual plant the building like a hurricane could come through and that building would be just fine um but it needs stuff it doesn't that definitely needs stuff I mean you can you can dress it up but it's still a 90-year old building yeah but it's it's a beautiful 90y old speaking as as a dentist resident I'm looking at a brand new Intermediate School in Yarmouth I'm looking at a renovated High School in Yarmouth and now we're talking about a Consolidated brand new Elementary School in Yarmouth and uh Dennis has closed wixon and we have a 90-year old elementary school yeah I and I appreciate that and this building serves the students of Dennis and the high school serves the students of Dennis so that's correct right I'm just I'm I'm not I I'd have to you we'd have to enter enter that conversation with the town of Dennis like there hasn't been a conversation with the town of Dennis up until this point as as far as I understand Jenny yeah I mean it this is my ninth year on the committee and you know years before that following all of this my son was at Ezra Baker and you know there's never even been a question of us even looking at feasibility for Ezra Baker in those years because you know in Dennis we've put a lot of money over the years you know from town meeting into Renovations at Ezra Baker and um you know I'm sure we could get some reports you know but I think for everything we've learned over the past at least nine years that I've been here is that Ezra Baker is in good shape and was never in and is not in need of the kind of repair and renovation that would put it into a feasibility study so you know I'm sure msba you know is looking at our district as a whole and I'm you know I wouldn't be surprised if you know that's already something they you know that goes into their calculus but um you know I guess twofold my point being twofold one I think that I don't know that I don't think Ezra Baker is at the point where it would need to be put into a consolidation like this and second you know I do feel this community concerned for you know not having an elementary school in the town for those young kids but and that's something that you know msba would certainly look at and I you know I'd be interested in seeing you know the community feedback on that yeah and I'm I'm I'm happy to reach out to msba and find out because with this actually yeah I'd have to I'd have to have a conversation with msba because it's [Music] too different I guess it and and I have to I I I I don't have enough information to speak intelligently about it because it's not like so this is a Regional building the high school is a Regional building and so now it operates under the region where those are both town-owned buildings so like this has been a up until now it's been a Yarmouth specific project so I've been dealing specifically with Yarmouth because we're talking about a Yarmouth building on Yarmouth property but if we're going to bring Dennis into the conversation then it's a different process and I just I I honestly I just don't I don't know enough um I can't speak intelligently enough on it I'd have to do some further invest vation to understand what would be involved to even bring that conversation into it if I'm if I'm being clear I'm not saying it's not a possibility I just I don't know enough to give you a straight answer and I don't want to give you a not straight answer because I'd prefer to be straight than I was going to say something that wouldn't be good for TV so I'd rather be I'd be rather be straight and and rather just say I don't know right now because I don't know Glen so it's what I'm hearing is that um essentially this motion was to direct you to tell the uh msba that we are willing to do a f uh to include this in a f feasibility study we're not making a final decision and we're not doing anything like that right now so we haven't even been invited in right so would uh would us being being willing to participate in this feasibility study and kind of it would definitely open up more options for us it would definitely since the msba is the one who kind of suggested it you know it would behoove us to approve this and and say yeah we'd love to participate in this you know we can't have too much data we can't have too many options we can't have you know too much uh information so us you know I would hate to see us kind of handcuff ourselves by not by being like you know we're really not interested in the study and you know such like that you know and then have them kind of pull back their interest in us so that would be all for um participating in the feasibility study and it would be I I can't imagine that the um msba would not look at the whole picture including Ezra Baker as opposed to just kind of zeroing in on on em small or and or Station Avenue or you know I I I would see that they would want to dot all the eyes cross all the tees and and give us as many options as they could feasibly come up with so um so that um that I think is kind of the long and short of it and I think that we would be kind of remiss and not doing our due diligence if we didn't you know put forth our agreement in doing the feasibility study and just a comment on some of what everyone said discussion that was had at at the Yarmouth select board um was very similar to this like it may not be what everyone wants but just agreeing to do the feasibility study with the option to consolidate would put us ahead if it went that way and we were accepted in then it would go to town meeting to approve prove the $475,000 it takes to do the feasibility study so we're not making the decision to make a feasibility study today we're just saying the option to consolidate if we're entered in then there' be the $475,000 that would need to be approved by the town to do it and then once the feasibil given as Dr Smith said then we'd have to look at all the options that are given to us and then in essence the town would vote on options based on recommendations so there's a lot more to come but this is just to get us to hopefully get approved at least through the feasibility study and there's been discussions obviously we need to have discussions about informing our neighbors of dentist of of what's going on and what what the town of Yarmouth is doing and that was a recommendation from them as well um because again the best of our knowledge the building is going to stay there for the rest of its life but um but maybe they have thought about it maybe they have plans for the property we don't we don't know that we haven't had those conversations but by each of the schools earlier talked about their Capital plans once we start knowing what each School needs um then we kind of know what we need to help fund for what they need to fund for and then maybe the towns will maybe maybe dentist will see there's a larger need than they think so it'll be interested in it so okay we had motion with a second we have plenty of discussion uh we'll take a vote all those I don't I don't think we need a roll call vote for this all those in favor of making a recommendation say I I any opposed great so we can send that joint letter uh as soon as possible and then school committee leads on to the board of Selectmen marily would like to go for Dennis that town meeting Noe Mr Town Dennis had the town meeting here on Tuesday and then on uh last Tuesday we met with the Yarmouth select board and we discussed what happened at the meeting for there so that's what we have for that school building committee uh yeah things keep moving around moving along rather we're largely at the punch list there's a couple of um things with the security system here which are for lack of a better word like chasing Gremlins um in the security system those that's like one of the remaining um pieces other than the the field project which is out to bid currently for pricing um so th that those are the sort of the remaining items anything else that you can think of off the top of your head it the punch list is really down to like almost nothing at this point um so other than when we will need to start construction on fixing the fields perfect then Finance subcommittee guess I one of you all want to report out do you want me to do I can do it okay right perfect uh we met prior to this meeting we discussed uh FY 26 preliminary expenses David went through what we've started discussing with both towns trying to give a idea of what our expenses will be for 26 um all of our contracts were signed over the last couple years so we have an idea if every single employee were to be here next year what they would be at um based on a lot of Trends we discussed that as well um the second thing we talked about was the substitute pay rate we're the second lowest in the in the on the cape so we had a discussion um and are looking to make recommendations to the committee next meeting on what we feel we need to do we talked about plans for our Capital stabilization fund stabilization fund on how to utilize money for that and then uh kind of talked about things that uh each School talked about is projections for and D which will be submitted in October and we find out by January and how to use the money um for renovations throughout the district and that was that next we have superintendent report recognition of donations and acknowledgements thank you very much uh yes so starting with uh acknowledgements and uh recognitions just want to start uh with a couple of donations first uh Miss Menton who donated 100 reading books uh to the district uh these the books will go a great way to helping support a lot actually a lot of the reading supported initiatives that you saw uh in the school Improvement plans today and then also to the Andrea Holden Foundation who uh donated $15 $100 gift cards to me small to support students and Families in Need I know I say it every time but the just the generosity of the community that supports our students and families our staff is just um is second and none really uh it's absolutely fabulous uh next I just wanted to give an update I know at the last superintendent report I had mentioned that I had had a meeting with the town of Yarmouth uh with the town clerk who was interested was uh about seeing if we could utilize this space for the nove November elections that just there wasn't enough time there wasn't enough runway in order to pull that off uh so that is not going to happen so just an update to the school committee uh we did have an email exchange and a phone call about maybe having a later conversation about some type of future option so it's not entirely off the table for you know the future future like distant future but it's tabled for now we're not making that adjustment for now there again there just was not enough time to to get all the planning all the proper votes in place all the discussion that needed to happen just was not enough runway in order for that to happen so no changes uh for that uh next school safety week so school safety week is October 20th through the 26th uh as a school district we're going to be using that opportunity to publicly roll out our new SRP standard response protocol uh this will include some presentations from our team of school resource officers that'll include a presentation to the committee at your next meeting on the 21st uh so they'll come and do a presentation on the new SRP you have a a copy in the pack which gives you uh a little uh teaser I guess for lack of a better phrase on the new SRP uh the staff as of last week uh the sro's completed training with the with all the staff and they're also going to do presentations at schools all the school PTO pack pack meetings depending upon how the each school is structured uh we'll also be I'll also be pushing it out through my superintendent um newsletter with some parent U facing materials and um there's going to be there's a joint letter that I've drafted and I'm passing around right now to all the Chiefs to get their it's going to come from myself and the four Chiefs uh just just trying to lift up the importance of this shift and that we're all on board and we all think this is um important and and that we're all in line uh with this direction of the district and just as a reminder this is connected to one of my one of my goals that to oversee and lead the implementation of rised revised SRP for the district so it's just continuing to move that that work forward and more details as I mentioned to come at the next school committee meeting and then lastly uh I just wanted to update everybody on the communications and community relations coordinator position uh so we had a lot of interest in that position uh we had over 30 applicants uh we were able to narrow the pool down to nine uh that we interviewed uh we interviewed last Monday through Wednesday we uh with a representative uh interview team conducted the interviews plus each person had to uh they came in a little bit early had to do a writing sample based upon a prompt they were given they had asked to draft a a they were given a little scenario essentially as if they were in a bit of a crisis situation in the district and they had to draft a public relations response so that was part of their initial interview from there the interview team got us down to three finalists those three finalists will come back at the end of this week uh for some one-on-one with me plus they were given an additional uh task to complete in the interim which is really more like public relations and um like graphic design fol Centric some of the other additional work we'd like to have this position do and so hopefully here in the next by about a week from today should have able to announce somebody for that position and then depending upon where they are in current employment have somebody on boarded in the next few weeks um so that is update on that great we appreciate the the length of of going through to find the the right person to help represent the district I think I don't know if any of us thought it was going to be that much of a interest or that much of an interview process and I can see from everyone's faces mine is we're excited that we're going very strongly to find the the perfect person for the district so thank you yes Jenny um I was hoping to hear in your report and maybe you could address it next time um it's not on the agenda so I don't know how much we can go into it but um I've heard staff and I've heard from staff and parents concerns about use of this building by an outside group and I know that there is um some sort of agreement uh hopefully it's a written there's a written lease somewhere I'm sure um for this group to use this building and there's concern over their use schedule conflicting with the school schedule things like um Arts programs theater music Etc and also with um the condition in which this group is leaving this building when they leave um and their use of um District property and how they're using the property um during their time here so um I know that there are probably conversations happening you know at admin level and I would like um an update to the committee please if you could do I can't address it but it's not on the agenda I would prefer if we can just have a whole presentation or not not just I think on on the policy for people renting space and then maybe a followup of you know similar to the email that you've sent out before about uh the the the specific group that's being talked about Y and work that's being done with the administration here and the any any part of our school district that uses the space to ensure that priorities are there um and and typic I I would assume also if we copy of of the agreement if there is a written agreement uh to the committee you know so that there's a better understanding for us as well do you want a copy of the specific agreement with a specific group or do you want a general um I would I would say both I think I I think I know I found the uh agreement on the website to use space B but I think specifically for this group I think um if we could get a copy of that as well to CU I know all of us many of us have been Fielding questions about it so we have a better understanding of the whole process and understanding of it would be appreciated but yeah Marilyn I'd like an update on how the new bus schedules are working now that we're well into the school year or things have leveled out or it's turned into uh and if there's anything else in the budget that you notice that's going well or an update or anything unexpected that has occurred be nice to know that sometime by the end of this month great uh next would be the consent agenda we have the uh as Dr Smith said the donation from the Andrew Holden Foundation of 15 Stop and Shop gift cards of $100 each and then we have the Meredith Menon Yarmouth report of 100 reading books Elementary schol schools our minutes of September 23rd and then uh they we approved minutes for April August 12th but they were actually June 17th in there I believe so just reapproved the August 12th uh minutes that were given to us on September 9th meeting move the consent agenda we move a second second all in favor say I I I any opposed great uh bills requisitions and payrolls have been passed around calendar I think we do have some half days coming up we have a holiday next Monday uh we have our school committee on the 21st the 22nd and 24th or half days at all schools for parent teacher conferences and the 30th is an hour and a half early release too bad Halloween was on on Wednesday could have got that much time to get ready so and then November we can talk about next one and then uh public comment our policy and public participation at meetings can be found at the table in the back 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 your interest in viewing your school committee as we conduct our regular business meeting school committee believes that the school district Community should have an Unity to comment the committee on issues that affect the school district and are within the scope of this 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 your question in writing it to the appropriate person so that your concern be given proper consideration individuals may address topics on the agenda items specific for public comment or items within the scope of responsibility of the school committee this is your opportunity for an individual address topics on the agenda each citizen will be allowed to speak no more than 3 minutes if everyone would like to speak for public comment Miss post my first most important question is why is it so cold in here if you see me sitting out here with the Snuggie in the future just ignore me um these are my comments not those of my committee so uh Tracy Post yarma select board member um watching your meetings over the past few months have been very impressed with the district Improvement plan I'm very happy to see it most importantly um not for not only for the students success in education but watching the process with capital it's been very difficult for us as a committee in the past because we didn't have any substantial data when a request was put before our Capital Improvement plan in order for us to act upon it which um you know for whatever reason it's problematic but I think it got us to where we are now with ma with Emy small so I'm happy that we're moving forward with the feasibility study a few points about that um you know their interest in in a joint uh building so to speak I I you know I hear what Jenny's saying about Ezra Baker I wouldn't think that station a would rise to the level either of wanting to go in um to be re revamped but apparently they spoke about that and to Dr Smith's Point uh madak kees and wixon were both individual Town buildings as well um which leads me to my next Point um just one point of reference the 475 was what we paid at the last time I don't know what that would be this time it's probably a different number but um just because you said it I don't want people to hang their hat on that it's just the number that was the last time but it caught us off guard the way that the process happened right so it was a same scenario it was a Yarmouth situation going into it and then all of a sudden it flipped right we didn't have those conversations so I'm happy to hear that we're going to have those conversations I hope we have those conversations early even before we get into the process so we're not taking off off um guard um it would be nice if we you know if that is the scenario that we're prepared for it we were not prepared for it which brings me to my next Point um there were a lot of things with the regional agreement that that didn't get addressed in our last go round and the only people who can appoint uh a committee to U address the regional agreement would be this committee and it might be something that we start early um because like I said we addressed some very limited things very last minute but not all the items and none of those committee members that were on that are are here so I were you on it I know Joe and Brian were on it for a while yeah well I don't want to get to that point again I want to you know I think we should have some really good conversations and start early so we're all on the same page and my last uh point or question is I didn't know if this committee was going to um take a position or have a discussion on the mcast ballot question um from a citizen I Look to You to uh tell us what's best for the education of our students and that ballot question is coming up and it affects the education of our student students and what this District does so I would hope that there would be some discussion and position uh to inform the electorate of how you feel about uh I think it's bid question too thank you thank you anyone else for a public comment seeing none look for a motion motion to adjourn second all those in favor I any opposed thank you everyone