not pay attention I should be okay yeah yeah I'm sure we it being 6:30 on Monday March 11th at uh 2024 I hereby call the meeting of the garden school committee to order and ask the clerk to please call the role uh M Rachel Cormier is absent tonight Mrs Hurst present Mr leer present Mrs Leon present Mrs pres Mr Schwarz mayor Nicholson pres and dro presid all the student rep is not present otherwise everyone is present thank you very much please rise for col of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic it stands Nation indivisible with liy and justice for all the first item on the agenda is open time for the general public is there anyone here from the general public who wishes to be heard seeing none moving on to recognitions by the superintendent Dr P there are actually no recognitions tonight all right moving on uh to item D the consent agenda this is included in your packet uh is there a motion on the floor regarding the consent agenda move to accept second uh motion made by Mr W Leon seconded by Mr lrer uh all any discussion on the motion seeing none we'll put the matter to a vote all those in favor say I I oppose nay motion carries item e sub committee reports beginning with the facilities subcommittee Mr Schwarz we met on Thursday March 7th um we review the uh maintenance Department's project list we find that uh the reab of uh Landry auditorium at the high school is slowly going on but progressing the the maintenance department has lined up contractors for the h GAC system and the electrical systems during the summer break the ceiling tiles will be replaced in the kitchen of the high school and they were looking also to replace the dishwasher and believe those things wear out the kitchen hood needs upgrading uh to code and compliance and there some will be replacing the asvestas tiles in the office as well as some carpeting at middle school I need to upgrade the generator and the attached fuel systems and uh there's an inground fuel tank as well as a a day tank the day tank is located underneath the generator but the main 800g fuel tank is INR seems to have contaminated fuel so that has to be address during the summer the fire sprinkler system needs upgrading and I said well is it time and yeah we're 25 26 years old the sprinkle heads they have a li time limit on them and they need to be changed there's a valve that needs replacement and there's a small Lake that's not of major concern right now and somewhere down the line down the line we'll replace the front doors and the walkoff grill and I thought what's the walkoff grill that's the PAD as soon as you open doors you you step in and it it you kind of sink a little bit but that's a walkoff pad and what happens is all the sand from your shoes and everything fall down underneath the pad we're replacing a parking lot lighting system sometime and we're pairing uh the gym divider right now it's inoperable there's a broken chain that assists the motor to open the Drive hopefully we'll repair and paint the divider divider and possibly even the gym sometime during the year on Elm Street School and we sometime we're going to relocate the the walk-in Frieza and I think we're going to locate it at the middle school too good to throw away not being used so we can put it to good use at the middle school that's all I have thank you very much Mr chairman is any questions comments or concerns so then moving on to the finance subcommittee Mr lrer thank you Mr Mayor the uh Finance subcommittee met on uh March 7th um the committee reviewed the expense report general questions were asked and answered uh about various line items uh Mr Schwartz noted some negatives and and uh some line line items and Mr Hawk assured him uh the funds remained to cover those negatives uh the committee reviewed the preliminary fy2 budget the budget sheets showed many uh expense reductions due to a few factors Chapter 70 uh receipts were less than expected and special education costs were far far higher than anticipated um the budget still showed a negative balance uh questions regarding the fy2 budget uh were asked and answered Mr Hawk stated that the uh next meeting uh the budget should be finalized and ready for public uh comment in school committee vote and that was it thank you very much uh Mr chairman is there any questions comments concerns on the report from the finance sub commmittee just just one question for John that he might want to consider at his next find at the at the top of the minutes it says Wednesday January 24th I saw that so took me a second to remember what the date was that we met he did have the wrong date on the top yes uh next we have the policy subcommittee Mrs Hur if you want to since there's no student Advisory Board update you can take items 3499 and 3500 out of order if that helps you with your report as well um okay so we met on uh Valentine's Day February 14th and um so tonight we have four policies for first read five for second reading and two for adoption do you want me to disc continue Che go ahead okay so the four for first read is IH hbg home education J joa field trips IJ School volunteers and illd student submission to educational survey and research is there one oh and jic FB bullying so that means that there was five I didn't see that one so those are in the packet for information those are in the pet for this information um then we have um we have two for adoption so I would like to make a motion to adopt ha negotiations goals and HF school committee negotiating agents is there a second I'll second motion made by Mr second by attorney pen to adopt after second reading uh policy ha negotiation goals and HF school committee negotiating agents is there any discussion on that motion seeing none we'll put the matter to a vote all those in favor say I I oppose nay motion carries M first okay then we have um policies for uh HB the negotiations IC IC uh school year school calendar IGA igd curriculum development and and adoption IH m a parental notification relative to sex education ihb g-e notice of intent to pursue a program of home education I make a motion to um accept these as uh presented in the packet is there a second second motion second W Leighton to adopt the uh adopt the for mentioned policies of HB negotiations legal status IC IC school year school calendar IG igd curriculum development and adoption I MA parental notification relative to sex education and ihb g/e notice of intent to pursue program of home education uh the difference from this is that it's amending an existing policy where the other ones were new policies on the book that that's why they had to we made in two separate motions is there any further discussion on the motion seeing none all in favor say I I oppose nay motion carries going back up to program of studies there's a vote required on this one item number 3495 just a quick note um Paula buer wanted to be here but she's at the uh well she actually wanted to be at the Early College thing but um because we're just we're thrilled about the program but she's up at a a mandatory parent night tonight however she said if we have questions I can call her and have any questions answered if necessary move to accept the program of studies is there a second second motion made by attorney second by Mr frener to adopt the program of studies as presented is there any discussion on a motion see put the matter to vote all those in favor say I I oppose nay motion carries next item item number 3496 student Opportunity Act Dr yes thank you um so my apologies for having to do this so quickly um it was um late January when desie let us know that they would be rolling this out and they would be giving us plenty of time um in uh second week of February is when we got the materials um we typically do a ga like a public gathering so we did have a convening of um parents and staff um uh and folks um folks came several of you were there too thank you for coming um giving input into what the SOA plan would be just a reminder this is um although this plan we we have an um an increase right now um it's not finalized but of $2.8 million and that's um due to the student Opportunity Act which is larger than we used to get in the past most definitely however at this point um it's also taking over for Esser so we were very fortunate again you know um I give a lot of credit to representative lotnik for working with very closely with us figuring out where our number should be um to make sure that we don't have a cliff this year um and so we're very fortunate we don't have a cliff but with that SOA money what we're what we're not doing is saying oh we're doing all these new things what we're supposed to do is take the information from um from the convening and the information that we gathered and make sure that that is um what our plan is going forward because our money should be supporting the education that we're designing not the other way around um so we um right now we have two goals one is empty this should be no shock at anyone in this room multi-tiered system of supports um for social emotional learning and multi-tier system of supports for academics everything that we're doing falls under those two umbrellas and the SOA plan you'll see it's millions of dollars the amount is over the next three years um for the cost and it's almost all for things that we're currently doing um some of the things we are purchasing some new um uh curricula um but for the most part it's positions that we already have supporting the system that we have in um making sure it keeps moving forward are there any questions on the plan itself I don't have any questions on the plan but what was interesting to me is that we were split up into different groups but each group when they hung up the papers where people had taking notes they were pretty much the same so it was like you had three different schools three different groups of people all going for the same thing so it was just really good to to see that and have everybody like on the same page it it's should be very validating for us because quite frankly the it just aligned perfectly with the plan that we have um for our district Improvement plan which the district Improvement plan the difference between that and the SOA is that the district ovement plan is all-encompassing of everything we do the student Opportunity Act is specific to evidence-based practices and we're doing a lot of those evidence-based practices so it it's actually was pretty easy to write it was a little cumbersome um and unfortunately it's due April 1st at 11:59 um so we it has to be voted on by school committee right so we had to have the vote um tonight is there thanks for that feedback move to accept the plan is there a second second attorne to adopt the student Opportunity Act plan as presented in your packet is any discussion on the motion just that the report was awesome it was it was really detailed and really awesome so thank you for pting it together so fast any other discussion on the mo second it's already been made in second so just any other discussions all in favor say I I oppose nay motion carries unless there's objection we'll hold off on item number 3497 and 3498 for a little bit and we'll jump ahead to 3501 curricul coord curriculum coordinator up update this is included in your packet for information is there any questions comments concerns on that update I think you have the old agenda yes you do we updated it yeah it was updated uh the next one should be the field trip three 497 don't have the field trip on my added in today yes okay thank you so next item is item number 3497 the field trip for the GES third grade class on May 28th 29th and June 4th June 7th 7 2024 to the Stonewall Farm Kean New Hampshire these are different classes going at different times um and it's just over the Border um but we wanted to make sure that we're following school committee policy uh move to make a motion to uh approve the field trip I'll second motion made by mrr second by Mrs Hurst to approve the field trip is there any discussion on the motion all in favor say I I oppose nay motion carries now move forward to item number 3501 the curriculum coordinator update still not the right 02 that's right I got the new numbers now 352 curriculum coordinators update this was included in your packet for more information uh is there any discussion questions comments concerns on that update thank you very much Dr Goen item number 3503 Grant administrators update this was included in your packet for information is there any questions comments concerns moving on to item number 3504 special education update this was included for any packet for information are there any questions comments or concerns I number 3505 special education parents advisory Council update Mrs HST yeah um the CPAC they um they held a meeting on February 21st um and they presented on what the CPAC is um they had a special election that was also held that night and the co-chair seat was filled by Katie Donovan uh they're continuing to focus on increasing parent engagement and they're going to be meeting with the family engagement specialist next Thursday um next week uh on March 21st will be the annual basic rights workshop and it will be presented by Joyce West the flyer will be provided at some point this week or early next week and they're working on um the language barrier and have reached out to Lorie Simpson are there any questions comments or concerns on that just a lot of good things going on and they have the chair the vice chair and a secretary now and yeah all right are there any questions comments concerns on that item all right the uh uh the commit will be in a brief reset for uh we will reconvene at 6 50 uh the next item is on our agenda thank you the what's that 50 the committee will be back in order and we'll take item number 3497 School Improvement plan for Gardner Elementary School principal Martin all yours great so uh yeah the I wanted to update folks on a couple quick things before I get into the school Improvement plan first of all last time I spoke last year uh it was still a very big building work in progress you probably remember we had a lot of work to go still on our playground on our uh Landscaping various punch list items indoors we are now getting down the very finer details so that you could see our uh long awaited uh mailboxes for our front office for all the staff uh the really cool flat screens now have um a working setup where we can uh input different things like student of the uh student of the week so you could see that just an example there um another change that I know um was in the um uh items that you looked at we are changing our kindergarten schedule uh towards the end of this here and the reason being uh well there are a few reasons but the major uh one being that the screenings that are mandated by the state we we do a screening uh of every single kindergartener they uh we had been doing them at the very start of the school year and the problem with that is it really wasn't beneficial for placing kids in in a in a class that uh met their needs um it it frankly we didn't know a lot of their needs as we were entering the school year um so we decided and and it's what most schools do actually is to do it towards the end of the of the um uh prior year before they start kindergarten so we've made a lot of progress on registering students before the summer for kindergarten which had been a struggle in the past we've really done a lot we we pretty much get almost all our kindergarteners registered before the summer so our hope is while we're getting them all registered we also give them a screening the only way we could do that from a staffing perspective is to have them come at the very end of the year and actually end preschool and kindergarten 2 and 1/2 days early we usually do that for preschool uh but to have all the to Avail ourselves of all the kindergarten staff and all the preschool staff to be able to do it uh we came up with this plan so will be a change in our schedule we will of course inform all the families we'll give them uh the reasoning uh but we and kindergarten is not mandatory so it doesn't need to go through the formal process uh through school committee but we wanted to uh make sure we informed you of our why and what we're doing we will then um do the other change would be next year we'll be doing our orientation instead of doing it you know when all our other students are in the building we're actually going to do it during the professional development time uh the prior week so it just logistically it helps us out a lot and this is a a great example of why the superintendent should have uh done me um uh the slideshow piece but that's okay we'll go with it now I no it's um our my school Improvement plan like the district school Improvement plan is heavily centered on the multi-tiered systems of support it's our process it's embedded in everything we do uh and a lot of my school Improvement plan outcomes centered around merging our systems uh between the the two schools that are now one and so uh those the two uh major systems that we merge are as you can see on the right the are social emotional and Behavioral Systems and then of course our academic systems on the left um we've made um tremendous progress as a from a system perspective but also in terms of results using our mtss uh processes and fine-tuning it um and doing a lot of things on that that behavioral side and we're still trying to um uh really get down our processes around and systems around the academic side um but we're making a lot of progress on that and and the way I our school very simply defines mtss I know we've talked about it I know Mark has talked about it um quite a bit but it's basically getting kids what they need to succeed um it and one of the ways we do that is we look at data we try to be not only responsive but proactive with that data um and we very much look at equity which is some kids need more than other kids and our data and our systems help us identify that and give the interventions that the kids need uh whether they're reading whether they're it's they're struggling um to learn certain social skills so I put in here um you know we had four strategic objectives strategic objective 1 and three centered around um our our school uh uh Vision which was U that all community members would experience Joy achievement and Care um and again through mtss uh but the this uh one in three center around achievement as it pertains to social emotional and behavioral skills um and so one of the it's difficult a little bit for the joy piece to to really look at data but we did we do have um data points that we look at one of which is our our school survey we look at kids and um their enjoyment at school um and and how they treat each other at school and one of the areas that was a little lower than some of the um uh others was how kids treat each other um and so when our upper level grade students we obviously you know it's a little tougher with kindergarteners to take the survey but our upper grade students do take the survey and that was one area that we wanted to focus on so a great examp this is a great example of how we use our ntss systems we looked at the survey identify that kind our school values of safe respectful responsible and kind um we still need to really work on that kind feature so we had a um a kindness rally you could see there at the bottom we had a kindness Spirit Week um the last day being the rally which was a kind of just like a superhero day I'm captain administrator you can see in the orange you can see that there um and then my Friday message that week centered around that send the kids a video YouTube video uh with our school puppet Daryl there around kindness and how kids can treat each other kindly uh one of the other data points we looked at um and we created as part of the school Improvement plan in our mtss system was just a survey for kids that teachers would help our younger students administer our goal our outcome in our school Improvement plan was that 90% of our students would enjoy coming to school um which we felt really tied into that Joy element um and we came close um you know uh 88.6 um said said they always or sometimes enjoy coming to school um you know we obviously love it to all be in the yellow always enjoy coming to school but um this was last May we're going to do it again um this upcoming may as well now part of the NTS systems as you know is um our tier one are Universal interventions what we do for all kids to help them learn our um uh our school values and our expected behaviors so um again this is still the behavioral part of that mtss uh triangle so we do a couple things we have a paths curriculum which is what we use to teach all kids social emotional behavioral skills uh we also use our PBIS system um to teach and you can see there um that is our hallway expectations um for being safe respectful responsible and kind that it's not just a a banner that we put up there it's not just something that's in the teacher's desk drawer this is something that the teachers actually teach we do Fidelity checks to see how well it's going and then we also send out reminders periodically um for them to retach some of these skills you know so for example some of the students uh forget and struggle when they come back from vacation after different expectations at home so this teachers will teach these things for everyone that's what tier one is and then they reward those who do do it and do it well through um dojo points which is an app where every kid is on um and every time they meet one of our expected Behavior not every time but it's it's it's used to kind of emphasize our expected behaviors um and again this is this this data piece right here we collect and look at our dojo points throughout the school we look at different teachers um how they're administering them and uh this is part of our TSS meetings so it's it's it's something we're always working on refining and and looking at and then this was um you know a source of Pride I put up strategic objective three again we're looking at a lot of the objectives centered and outcom centered around uh creating the processes for the school the new school and the and merging the old schools um our numbers this year this is office discipline referral so great indicator how well kids are learning the behavior we expect for them um and the blue is this year now it does look a little higher than the green last year um and this is because this and again this came out of our mtss looking at data trying to be proactive um we inserted bus referrals this year and we inserted uh Behavior referrals for our sub separate system um so that's why it's higher but you'll notice each month it's gone down so our interventions that we Implement after we look at the data and see what we can do better is is yielding some uh fruit so it's it's benefiting um the kids and their behavior so now our major tier 2 intervention one of our tier 2 intervention is a small um counseling groups uh to again help teach some of the our students who are struggling with behavior tier two they need a little more support um so that's one of the things we do but our other um uh uh major intervention is called checkin checkout it's based on Research that says kids when they have a connection with at least one adult um it it really helps them uh socially emotionally behaviorally um at at a school so um that reports a little confusing it's it it really um is those each line represents all the kids that are on our check-in checkout program and what they do is they meet with their uh trusted adult every morning they set a goal for each um class period during the day around safe respectful responsible and kind it's actually a number goal um and then we at the end of the day they check in with their trusted adult and say hey did you did you meet your goal um and they have a conversation around that to again help teach those skills and um we were really happy that 65% were making progress um and you could see that little slash that means um they met8 80% of their goal and that's what the progress is if you're meeting 80 on average meeting 80% of your goal um and so most of them you could see are above that those slashes are above that 80% marker and this is just an example of um some of the data we look at our mtss meetings which again happen every week one week we meet um for look at tier one data develop problem statements and ways we're going to help our students um tier in in tier one interventions the next week it's tier two and the following week it's tier three this is just an example from one of the spreadsheet data items we looked at in our tier three meeting um and it's kids who are on again tier three they need more support um they still need their all their tier one interventions all their Universal supports they may also need tier 2 supports but in some cases they need what's uh you see if there's bsp it's just the Behavior Support plan they need really targeted um help to to achieve their behavior and so social emotional goals and um even though the number the percentage it's a very fluid thing um don't always show growth um that are in Circle Number 14 um that is a real source of Pride for us because of a school of 1,80 students um only 14 require a Behavior Support plan um which is it's really fits in with that um TR that that that that if your mtss system is working um it should be 1 to 5% of your population so that that that was uh really positive for us and speaking of This was um data that we're very proud of it was just presented last week in Chicago um on the left is just the standard if you're doing your mtss systems right this is what it should look like only 1 to 5% of your kids should be in the red they should only need that amount of of intensive supports 15% should be in the yellow and then 80% should only need tier one and no tier 2 or tier three and that triangle report to the right is our discipline referral data the red is kids who have registered six or more referrals for the year um and it's it it was only 38 students which is 3.5% of our population so you can see our triangle um really is a source of prize because it means our mtss systems around behavior is really is really doing well um just a note presented in Chicago means that it was presented at a International Conference on PBIS so our results um were quite frankly shown around the world and mtss and our intervention is only good if they're done with Fidelity because if they're not done with Fidelity that triangle will look different um and you know we might get frustrated why are our interventions not working well we aren't doing them right um so we do part of our the school Improvement plan Cent around Fidelity and making sure we're implementing things with Fidelity um and so you could see uh and we have outside Consultants comeing to actually monitor some of our Fidelity systems or the Fidelity of some of our systems and it's I know it's small but um T the figure on the left is tier three we were I think it's 93% um and then the tier one and tier 2 graph on the right the orange circle um is uh yeah 90 93 and 92% so my school Improvement plan one of the outcomes was that our Fidelity would be 90% or higher so I'm really proud that this is our concluding year and this was one area that showed our those systems are happening and they're happening well Y and so this is 20 2021 2022 202 yeah thank you that green is where we are currently at so you could see we had a long way to go and um we've made some great progress and so the other big piece obviously is academic and we we are right and we've been working really hard at mimicking some of our great success around our mtss processes with behavior and trying to move it to um our academic areas um our big goals in elementary school centers around reading I've talked to you folks about why that's so important we set a goal of 85% although at this point I had a goal a very ambitious goal of 90 95% uh reading at or near proficiency which I'm still optimistic we'll get to um because we do have some um things that we're still feel we can grow in uh but I was very proud um you could see that blue bar is this year the first bar in each of those rows represents the fall reading benchmark and then the second bar represents uh for each grade um and the the school one is just it's it's the same but um you can see the growth and every grade had had significant growth in kids reading ability um uh for based on the dibles Benchmark which is our reading benchmark um um and then Mark if you want so this is this is the first one this this was the top one was earlier in the year and then the second one yeah and so this is like this month yeah Boi is beginning of year middle of year so we're doing uh we progress part part of our mcss process we progress monitor of that teachers um assess kids in different skills on reading every two weeks and we enter that data we look at that data um we do tier 2 and tier three interventions based on that data to really get the kids as far along as we can because we know that by second grade if kids aren't reading at a near Benchmark it's they won't have um it it could affect their their um School trajectory and academic trajectory but also their life trajectory so um again we still um hold a hope for 85% reading at are near um and we were particularly proud um last year that bottom row um we were um at 73% again not where we want to to be but when you look at where we came from in 2019 which was again before Co before Co we were at 64% so we've had over the even through covid even though our third and fourth graders um you know had to deal with learning to read through during Co um we're still our intervention systems is still um showing growth and betterment and um and right now this year we're two percentage points ahead of where we were at the midyear Mark last year so still ways to grow but um definitely strong growth so strategic objective two again really centers around academics um and part of that is is monitoring the quality of our in tier one instructional practices because we know um and you know I know Mark preaches this um all the time teaching causes learning so we want to look at our teaching practices and make sure every kid is getting quality tier one instruction um the blue is what um we do kind of sweeps and this graph pertains to what we call um our CSS process a curriculum support systems we have people go in and actually they go through training on how to observe instruction and monitor how well we're doing certain areas and so um one of the biggest ones is that one of the I you can see an OTR there and that mean just means opportunities to respond so a lot of you when you were in class you remember your teacher you know um calling one at a time you know oh Mr Schwarz you know I see you have your hand raised why don't you share your answer all the other kids are just sitting passively um and they may look like they're paying attention but we don't know if they are so that OTR is really been a big focus in terms of hey when I asked a question instead of just calling on Mr Schwarz every kid has an opportunity to respond whether that's talking to their neighbor and the teacher goes around and monitors that whether that's having them hold up a whiteboard showing their math answer and saying okay I can see who has it and who doesn't so so that's been a big Focus um our first uh three uh grouping categories obviously we're not at our red which is the goal that's the goal um but um the first one is is instruction happening um uh over 90% of it the class time so focusing on less transitions less downtime and so we still have some uh growth there uh but um and then the the middle two bars the praise um and the correction we really strived on a research based practice that says that teachers praise kids 5: one a 5:1 praise to correction ratio so every time you have to correct a kid is hopefully proceeded by five positive statements um it's shown to really help um kids academically as well so we're focused on that and behavioral and here's just another our coaches do sweeps um again quality instructional practices all those things on the red you can see that OTR but as well as some other elements we have we're fortunate to have um sometimes multiple staff in a room are they teaching the whole time are they both involved in helping kids the whole time so that's that two plus adults and you can see from October those percentages to the sweep we did in January um did grow for this particular sweet of 34 classrooms so um yeah it was pretty good so we do have coaches who go in so not only do we hold some teachers accountable we have training um each building has coach um um coaches that go into a um go into a teacher's classroom make observations and then provide that feedback which is not part of the evaluation process it just gives folks feedback on how their price ER correction ratio is whether or not there are opportunities to respond and that way they're getting the professional develop because that to us is the best form of professional development it's giving it it's very individualized and it's very specific in terms of what they need to do to um to take the next steps and um and so we're looking obviously mcast and some of the goals we set in there centered around growth and we have made growth um in in our mcast scores but one of the ways that we really look at how we're doing year toe is through our link it um benchmark assessments which tie very well to to mcast and how how we'll do on that so the item on the left I just pulled the sample graphs the item on the left is um the fall Benchmark for math item on the right in fourth grade is the fourth grade um Benchmark uh in mid year and U but based on all the math um uh benchmarks for the whole school we grew um 11.75% so each each were obviously wanted that growth as high as possible to hopefully do well and Achieve on mcast but this is just an example of um some of that growth um and then the next one is um Ela um not as not as robust is the math growth but um growth nonetheless and then one of the other uh areas that we've really focused on this year um we always focus it but even more so this year um uh if kids aren't in school they can't learn so this uh attendance has been a big um emphasis and um we've been really monitoring it looking at a lot of different metrics and you could see that um our numbers this year uh have improved uh quite a bit from uh last year for the same month and the last strategic objective centers around um collaborating with families creating a joyful School Community reaching out to business partners um this is our strategic objective I feel like still has the most grow um even though we did do a lot of things um we we have a more robust PTO we've merged the pto's for the two schools we've merged the parent input councils for both schools um the we're still I I just met with the parent input Council uh a week ago and we still are looking to recruit more families to be more involved and not only um um you know fun activities but also decision making um so the next slide just shows some of the the the um you know the PTO has been great in terms of really helping us to fund and and organize different events you can see there's a kindergarten dance Park kindergarten preschool dance party we're having um and then one of the things that we talked about academically is is some of the parents were saying you know different teachers communicate different things and have different um you know methods of doing it and so uh you know couple months ago the parent inro Council said we'd really like that information to be uniform so um each grade now collectively creates a a newsletter home that has certain elements and um it's uniform for each grade and even though that looks different so the one on the left is a second grade uh sample of a newsletter and the one on the right is uh third grade they both have the same elements um including what can families do at home to help their kids academically um and so that is uh that's kind of an update on our school Improvement plan which uh will be redone starting next year are there any questions comments concerns for Mr Martin you should be proud of everything that's happening thank you appreciate that thank you it's some good yeah girl when you in a classroom when you only have one or two students that readily answer questions from the teacher um does he or she check the others I think you did say that yeah yeah that's the hope with giving more opportunities to respond is that there is that is it a reluctance or a shyness sometimes and that's why we want to give kids different ways to communicate that could be through a whiteboard and showing their answer um and monitoring um it that way it might be they instead of talking front of the whole group and raising a hand front of the whole group and we all know even as adults when I run professional development with adults and I'm staring staring out at 180 staff you know very few will raise their hand and participate so you know the teachers are really skilled that you know hey think quietly yourself then talk to a a partner or Andor share with a group and then we'll share out um and so that's a way too when they're talking with their partner they're talking with their group the staff in the room will go around and monitor see if they they they kind of picking up what they're growing down and understand so yeah sure I love you much for reports too oh thanks I read them I do read oh I appreciate that yeah no I um I I TI right to our school always progress towards that school Improvement plan those objectives so thank you thank any other questions comments concerns from the members of the committee you said I just wanted to say that as someone who's been advocating for this kind of stuff for many many years and inclusion that I am just so grateful to see this comeing to fruition thank you so much for everything you're doing yeah no problem man appreciate it you said Dibbles and I heard dbqs in my head for a second can I tell you my son's about there really US History starting I think next year they love dbqs yeah yeah so he'll be doing those all right if there's no more Mr Schwarz one more questioning talk about U kids learning to like each other or get along with each other and you find this sort of a downgrade in between school breaks is it that's probably because of change in a family environment right as opposed to an academic environment yeah absolutely um that's what we notice based on the data that some of our highest office discipline referrals are um you know the day after daylight savings times which uh was uh you know you know something that affected their behavior today Behavior I apologize but after school vacations as well um and we you know look at sometimes it's puzzling like Wednesday is our highest day for discipline referrals and you would think the weekend again coming from a home environment which might be a wonderful loving caring environment but very few academic being placed to academic you would think Monday and Tuesday would be the toughest but for whatever reason I don't know if it's the running out of steam by Wednesday and that's when it hits um but also right after school vacations because again the it's it's there's the home in school it's just different demands it's different unstructured time versus time unstructured versus structured pure relationships it's one of the U biggest skill deficits understandably that young kids have uh they don't they're learning still how to interact with their peers um you know and so it's it's incumbent on us to help teach that and partner with families and teaching that but it's uh it's something that you know the the data shows that they do sometimes struggle to come back from that those breaks different environment inter L of growing up yeah for sure pandemic really brought it out thank you for that yeah sure if there's no other questions comments concerns we'll move on to item number three four 98 kindergarten 2024 2025 Dr actually kindergarten um is that the thing that he talked about so that information was presented earlier in the presentation any questions coms concerns on the change in the kindergarten schedule all right thank you very much Mr Martin uh moving on to item uh H Communications from the superintendent um first off I just wanted to thank you all and I really wanted to thank our staff and administrators um for their their um you know hard work while um air the um consulting company came in from desie um you know a lot of good um got a lot of good information is probably going to come from that um but I have to say you know our staff um handled themselves very professionally and very well so I'm very proud to be working for this District so and that's all I have to say for today all right item I final comment of the school committee Mrs W L um I it's I know it's busy a lot of things are going on I know we have cheerleaders at States right now now um I know sports are underway but um I wanted to just give some kudos to the the theater and the music department right now we've I think that we're in our second out of three weekends where there was musicals this past week was Winnie the Pooh it was adorable um it was Wild on Thursday night but it was adorable and um they were great um High School is doing year in town this weekend um the name don't let the name turn you off it's a really funny musical about having to pay to go to the bathroom um and it's it's really funny and then the middle school is going to do Shrek junor the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd um so if you get a chance to get out there um the kids are just awesome to see and um just it's March in schools just keep on keeping on folks we can do it take care Mrs Hurst I have anything thank you this flavor um I think I saw today um that Dan Fort had posted there were 200 kids were you going to talk about that I think there were 200 kids that had participated in the winter sports season in some form and then he had a whole list of all of their achievements and I mean it was just amazing to see and like the plays obviously like there's so much going on right now and the kids are joining it and being part of everything and I think it's really great when we talk about the Outreach part that's another piece of it too and hopefully some of the other pieces with the F you know different families getting more involved and parents being more involved or starting to come along too but I think it's just amazing to see the variations in the kids that are joining the different you know things that we have available in the district right now thank you and thank you Earl for your presentation yes thank you Mr Schwarz I'm all talked out all right thank you Mr Leia nothing tonight thank you all right I just have uh two updates the Williams Rockell educational gift fund did award 80 just under 83 ,000 this year for grants for different projects across the school uh those Awards letters have been put out and there's a list on the city's Facebook and website of what those awards are everything from a tuba for the high school concert band a laser cutter for the uh Gardener Academy a uh Comfort dog for Gardener Elementary School uh with Melissa Henry um artboards field trips to Nature's Classroom and the theater at the mount uh there there's a lot that's there so take a look at those I'm really looking for for to seeing how they benefit the school in the long run and uh Mrs pen mentioned this but I thought it was worth reading uh what our athletic director Dan Fort posted yesterday because I thought it really hit home on I'm normally the music guy but I get to be the sports guy today so it's cool uh today our varsity cheer team competed at States and we officially close the books in our winter season since we broke Camp the Monday following Thanksgiving over 200 student athletes another huge number for US found a way to leave their mark on our school community of the 200 athletes 98 of them maintained their academic standing throughout the duration of the winter season we were also once again highly decorated with seven academic League Allstars 22 individual League Allstars five central Mass Regional Allstars nine State qualifying swim uh swim times two national swim qualifiers 14 State qualifying indoor track times one National indoor track qualifier one League Championship team and four State Playoff qualifying teams finally we had the opportunity to celebrate 26 seniors on their senior nights and thank them for their time with us great job to all our student athletes coaches parents boosters and the community for all you have accomplished this winter looking forward to the spring uh and I think that says a lot about the great work that our coaches and everyone's just doing with our student athletes because that's a very impressive number and I was very impressed with that and with that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second motion made by attorney for second by Mr alren to adjourn all those in favor say I iose nay motion carries thank you all see you next month happy St Patrick's Day