##VIDEO ID:2DT7gTtPLDU## go Ahad good evening it's Monday September 16th it is 7 o'clock and I'm Christy Bud chair of the Hatfield school committee calling our our September business meeting to order and as I do so I just want to call out that we are going to be amending our agenda tonight um so that we will not be discussing the sixth grade move to Smith Academy or our superintendent annual goals um and we'll be having another meeting later this month in which where we will bring those up and um look forward to having Dr Driscoll back with us for those conversations um so as we come into tonight I want to open it up for public comment um and I believe we might have public comment coming from our Zoom connection can I can I speak please do well actually I'm not sure if if I can at this point because I was just going to speak out and say I was planning to be there this evening to discuss the sixth grade move I know that there was an emergency and that um isn't happening but I did want to just continue to express my support you're very welcome it's on the agenda you're welcome to speak to it we're also going to be speaking again so if you want to say more you're sure welcome to I don't have a whole lot more to say tonight I just was planning to be there to answer any questions or be involved in the conversation but I'm h with a nasty cold so I didn't want to share my germs thank you thanks hope you feel better on all fronts thank you okay so um seeing no one else with us by Zoom or in our meeting that's probably it for public comment um but we will go ahead and open up for Mission moment does anyone have a mission moment that they want to share from this last month I miss Petra um we have a new Library person um Rachel oo and I think believe it's Otero and I just have to say that she has done an amazing job at cleaning out and setting up and organizing our library it was a bit of a hot mess after having been shut down when covid happened and became kind of a catch-all now at this point in time she has it's it's just amazing it's it's fun to walk in it's beautifully decor ated she's done so much work in such a short period of time it's been quite impressive so I'm excited for students to start Library this week uh she's going to be planning on sending home permission slips for families to check out books kids are going to first come this week to be looking at books but we are excited to have her join us on a more regular basis fantastic awesome and so we'll get to see this here in open house yes you can anyone else have a mission moment I was just want to say I had the highlight of my last week was hearing from one of our kindergarten students who um I asked what they learned in kindergarten that day and um she very clearly articulated to me that she learned that when other people are talking you cannot also talk that you have to listen because not only does that allow you to listen it allows everybody else to listen I was like well said so yes A Life Lesson A Life Lesson in kindergarten they're getting it early so um a shout out to Miss Lori for some excellent kindergarten instruction there um we have a consent agenda this month it has three sets of minutes does anyone need to take anything off of that so with that those three months of those three meeting minutes are approved um there was a student representative report they could not be with us this evening is there anything anybody wanted to address off that chance to see that um we will come back and discuss the potential for sixth grade moving when we have Dr Driscoll um many of his district report elements some of that's going to be captured in a finance update and probably some policy stuff um and so we'll have an opportunity to ask questions of him later this month and so we're going to move directly on to miss Petra's update on Hatfield Elementary sure so we have successfully started our school year um teachers have begun utilizing morning meeting to um build community set expectations around procedures for the classroom which then lead into hopes and goals um or hopes or hopes and dreams end up leading into uh classroom rules um I'm I've started two assemblies I did one last week um the other one is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon in which students are practicing a new setup of how we're sitting in the cafeteria for our all school meetings and assemblies as well as a dismissal procedure so that accompanied with trying to do uh utilize the sharing aspect of our morning meeting or our all school meeting to go over some key aspects of the um handbook so that students are all in the know and getting the same information as well as bringing to their attention the different posters that we've had displayed around the class uh the hallways and school both in the bathrooms the cafeteria and the hallways um we begun our fall assessment so students right now are in the throws of I ready math our 4 through six are doing I ready reading Dibbles and uh dras are all being conducted now with tentative dates of um having meetings in the early part of October to review that assessment data we have our open house this Thursday we have a half day for professional development this Friday um our first PTA meeting is on the 24th of September school picture day is September 25th and we have our first movie night on September 27th do you know what grade is hosting the first movie night uh it's me I always do the September how lovely and what's the movie yeah I knew you were gonna ask that and I wish I could remember um they did pick one it's a good one it's a fun one it's a Disney one um I I will put my memo this Friday huh migration is the movie oh was it migration migration is the movie excellent excellent choice fun I actually have seen that once most of I haven't seen so it's like a new thing for me okay committee do you have questions will we be able to see the uh um assessments like the aggregate Assessments in October November like me the commit it's scheduled for the November meeting okay did we ever see the spring assessments like see how we progressed last year I don't remember I believe we shared that the I one yeah I remember given you that data I believe okay we're trying this year we're using um and I'm excited to use it but I've never used it before as mclass so we're utilizing a platform that's going to be able to give us different um more parent friendly uh data sheets around our fall assessments particularly around Dibbles and what that means um so we're going to be having some training on that for staff but we are still in the process of onboarding that because currently our it team has changed over so that's been a little bit of a hiccup as far as trying to get them to help with the onboarding so that we can have all of our student dat and information there before we start giving the assessment okay or at least transferring the assessment data to this particular platform other districts have used it and we do have some other people who said they'd be resources to us if we still have questions so perfect yeah other questions okay Dr Salvador you want to speak to Sure student services so probably the the difficult thing right now is to talk about vacant positions that we still have open we have several ESP positions actually open at Hatfield Elementary and we are still looking for a part-time PT we've tried to do some things like expand our search relevant to where we're posting We have actually put out indeed posts for the PT position and also for the the pairs we've had some kind of like rough starts or some stalls relevant to hiring where we've hired a person they've come in for a day and then left um we have had uh actually an influx of applicants over the last weekend from our indeed posting which I'm hopefully is going to be encouraged by we also talked about different ways that we've been posting the positions and they are full-time positions but we also talked about posting part-time hoping that we could possibly piece full-time positions together with folks that might be more interested in working part-time PT we've also reached out to I believe 11 different districts in the the region trying to see or find if they have part-time staff themselves that might be willing to pick up another half day relevant to the position that we have I did get a reply back from another director in the region excuse me that did let me know that uh they did have somebody who works part-time for them they would pass our information along but so far no applicants for for those positions uh tiered Focus monitoring we have actually uh started that process we did a review just before school started with our auditor from desie and we have our civil rights uh component of the tier Focus monitoring actuallyy do this week and then we'll be submitting uh after that special ed documentation and this process will go until probably about December early January uh before they actually uh do the record review and then come in for the site visit beyond that the beginning of the year we actually did training with staff everybody's probably aware of the new IP document that was actually released by the state Ashley easted released the document for use on August 13th uh I had an opportunity to actually use it for a few days and actually write an IEP for the first time using that document which actually helped me quite a bit during the presentation because I was able to see what some of the screens really looked like and how they or how the person could actually interact with them and filling in information so we did uh training the first couple of days of school uh we also talked to the pair of professionals a bit about training relevant to not the the new document so much but about how they can access information so one of the things we've or several of the things we've been talking to the pars about is really them understanding what is in the new document what is also in the behavior plans and that's something we've been trying to kind of pull the information together in one location so my office is going to be used as really kind of a Central site for at least Hatfield so that the paers if they want to look at a hard copy of the documents whether it be the IEP or behavior intervention plans they'll know that they have access to those documents in my office we're also trying to give them access as readon staff to at least easted so if they had access to an electronic device uh they could possibly pull it up and read it that way the part of the problem is with the hard copies if they're in my office that's fine and they can look at it in that way but it's if they made a copy and left with them they have to lock them up somewhere to maintain confidentiality and that's more of an issue for them but I did find that the two times that I've met with the pair of professionals actually one time was planned and scheduled but after we met uh the pair is actually asked to meet with me uh some more to actually go over some of the information uh in more depth so we talked about the I APS a bit and how to read some of the technical information in them so we actually covered things like testing scores so that they could see or have a better understanding of that information that's included in the documents because I do kind of feel that if they if they have a better understanding of what the actual deficits are or what the challenges that the student has and can understand some of that information that's included in the document they're going to have an easier time or be more successful actually applying those services to the students questions at all so how many esps are we currently down at hes four four and can you either or both of you speak to if we're down for esps that's a mult that's multiple plans that are probably not currently being met um can you speak to how we're covering services and and I I just want to also say for the sake of people who might listen to this later it is not uncommon as I understand to be down like it's really hard to hire this role it's not like we're not doing something um and we're probably as well staffed if not better than most districts around us so and I think we pay better on this front than many districts around us so um so so it's no judgment in what I ask but probably the best criticism I could give myself is that yes we need to probably do more to reach out to parents now there's definitely some things that we've taken the initiative to reach out to say especially with our PT Services anybody who had PT Services we've actually tried to send out a letter to parents saying this is what we're working on we're trying to cont contract with vendors that might be able to help us out um but we will be owing compensatory Services once we actually have somebody in place uh and that we will keep you posted as as things develop so there there are certain things that we've tried to reach out to say to parents formally this is the information we have this is what we're actually trying to do with it I have had some parents reach out to me uh themselves without me reaching out to talk about uh some of the services that they feel that their child is is missing and so in those cases we try to set up meetings to talk about it more at length some of the things that we've done internally last Wednesday we actually spent close to five hours uh in kind of a work group talking about where some of the gaps are in the scheduling to see what we could fit and what we could actually make happen relevant to the Staffing that we have now the thing with compensatory services in compensatory when we actually offer that is usually because we have missed Services of some sort but if we can try to even if I'll say it's going to be a Band-Aid type of fix even if we can put somebody in there who's not the staff that's assigned we're still trying to do something to actually apply for support the services in the classroom so it doesn't meet exactly what the child needs but it is at least some effort to try to keep things in place so with the esps it has been kind of a whack of mold to definitely times where we're missing services with with kids and we've had a couple well at least two or three high-profile cases of students that have had a hard time actually regulating or adjusting to being in school and they've required sometimes more than a staff member or two to actually help with keeping them regulated and that's again pulled staff out from where they need to be for other things I should say they need to be where we we actually place them but we're definitely trying to utilize our staff as best we can but there are still gaps we looked pretty closely and started initially at trying to do some combinations of having multiple students with one adult where that would not have been the case had we been fully staffed so we've just been trying to be creative with the Staffing that we have and trying to meet the needs as best we can other questions how many hours of PT services do we usually provide in a week if we were staffed actually the position is like half a day a week so it's it's it's not a huge position but okay we don't have anything in place to to provide it right now so like four three or four hours a week it's pretty s and we reached out to PT providing provider actually get ghosted by the first one that I reached out you're probably not the only one as yeah related Services Li state license positions can be hard to to fill since the pandemic yeah is that the kind of thing where if if if a if a family has a student with um PT as part of their plan and can if the family goes and gets it serviced on their own can they get reimbursed for the schools for that or not really they possibly could but there's also a good possibility that their insurance would cover it as well okay do we talk to those families and if it's a half a day a week we're not talking about a lot of huge yeah number right it it would definitely cost more than if we were providing it ourselves for sure and is it the kind of thing that we can help make it make it up once we have someone we could yeah well and I think with the parttime position that's one thing that might be beneficial is if we had somebody if we hire them at like a certain amount of hours and we needed to do compensatory services and the person doesn't have another job that's like 08 then there's probably a lot of room to do the compensatory there's another problem with this as well some people have said well why not hire like a PT assistant you could have somebody to supervise that person under a license if you don't have that then it's it's really difficult to hire a PTA without somebody to supervise um I will note for the public from our report from Dr Driscoll that while we do have these staff openings at the elementary school Smith Academy is fully staffed so which is good news yes so far so um okay any other questions lot of conversation tonight so we're going to move on to the finance subcommittee report um as you saw by my update the subcommittee did not get to meet but I was able to check in with Dr Driscoll on on financial matters and so the top line is the district is operating within our budget um with some natural variation that we would always expect and that's allowed for us to sort of cover some unexpected things so we have a handful of District software expenses that prior years just weren't captured in a place that anybody thought that they might be so when they went back in budgeting last year and we zero budgeted from actuals there were some actuals that didn't get accounted for because they thought they were in another line item that they were not in and so we have we had had some unbudgeted costs um for that the upside is that um as you heard earlier we've had a tech change so our tech services provider just if you're playing along at home we had an inhouse Tech provider um and then when we lost that staff person and we hired a new staff person right before they actually started they got recruited to go work for an outside company provided out of House services so that you had to have a vendor for it and at that point we could not find another staff person and so the company suer Tech that hired away our staff person said we will cover your needs for the same cost as that salary and so that worked for that year and costs have increased um the ability for them to continue to provide the services changed the Staffing changed pretty significantly and I believe everyone that was servicing the district left the company and and moved to another one and so um Dr Driscoll for continuity has also switched over for sort of looking at the long-term plans for the district felt that we would be better served um by a new company and so that shift is happening now so we're switching to the company that everybody left to go work at yes so I believe we're consistent with our Personnel correct but it's they're built from a different organization okay and the cost is 30 the the cost is going to be slightly in our favor for now so it's comparable longterm so the cost is higher or lower cost is once the shift is all done it's going to be lower overall for the year but that doesn't mean that when we get to next year it's going to be any I I don't expect year two to be lower I think the transition we found some savings my sense um and I I will say was good negotiating on Dr Driscoll's part so it didn't start there um so that's going to help offset some of those unplanned costs our current special ed transportation is running slightly under budget that's highly subject to change so um we're not banking on having that um this was a a particular part of our budget that last year had a lot of unforeseen costs um and so I think we planned better but so right now it's on the it's on the plus side which is grand um another unforeseen or budgeted cost to some degree was how we are currently Staffing the star program um and so that's being contracted out with the field Center and historically we've had esps and our staff in that classroom we now through the field Center have I believe two rbts yes the cost difference for that staffing change is notable um however it also means that it's staffed and that program is still even with that change to the field Center is still a cost savings versus out of District placements which would be the alternative it also means that we're only down four esps and not six esps so that's a plus as well additionally we're Staffing that with a different type slightly different type of Staff because it now has register Behavior technicians not ESP so it's not an Apples to Apples change so part of that increased cost is a a difference in service is that because that's just what is that like the field Center standard is to have rbts or is that just because that's what they had so that's what they gave us that's their standard okay it is kind of an ABAB based program so the rbts have more direct training on APA techniques so it it's probably both what they have and what we need from my understanding as well is that accurate yes yes do we still have students tra uh tuition in to that program I don't not at the moment not this year we did last year we've talked about that but not at this moment okay um and I think they're still exploring whether there are some possible income streams partnering with Field Center but this was like let's just see how this work works now before we rock that boat um for those of us signing warrants we would tell you there have been some mighty big roof bills come through um so we've had $23,000 of roof repair at the elementary school we knew we had significant issues with the roof and budgeted accordingly um so right now while that is a lot it did Cover a lot it's held through the last really big rain where there were problems I will speak to I know there was at least one house on Main Street had a problem um so if we if it was going to have an issue it we would probably have seen it uh a week or so ago and it's so far so good um we still have additional funds in that budget knowing that we have had issues um on the upside we did um see some additional school choice funding come in that when we were doing budgets we could not Bank on so we budgeted every dollar we knew we were going to get for school choice and we've had some additional dollars come in so right now that's covering those incremental costs and when we get to October we're going to have a better look at anticipated Choice revenues for the fiscal 26 budget um right now we're projected that those would be higher than this current Year's Budget on a student basis not not on a oh we got some extra cash bases so I'm not going to try and forecast that so all in all we're in a good place Budget Finance related questions okay well then we're going to come to the highlight of tonight's meeting which is the policy subcommittee report and um a couple of a couple of things to vote on this evening I believe potentially yes um so uh policy has been moving forward with a couple different things and um I would like to start by talking about our school choice policies um the main changes to the policy um is in jfbb which is school choice but we have two sort of um related policies that if we pass jfbb we propose also voting on changes in these other two policies to align timelines and um ensure that sort of all our school admissions are happening um during similar time frames so um to start with jfbb school choice um at the last meeting based on our committee feedback the policy subcommittee discussed um different date options for school choice application periods and adjusted timelines so essentially our goal in subcommittee was to create a balance um between being able to sort of widely attract new students and be open to new students while also maintaining optimal classroom environments for those students who are already enrolled um in our schools so um the committee has in front of them both an edits version and a clean version and um because we had already made many changes to uh the policy jfbb um I did go ahead and highlight the most recent changes in yellow okay committee this is our third reading we typically for things with significant changes would make sure that we had three readings um I think that the subcommittee is Seeking a vote this evening sorry to be more clear we would propose a vote after um conversation I have a a few questions but I would like to open it up to everyone else first does it read oddly to anyone else that we are saying applications are due on February 14th and then in line 8 um admissions will or applications will be accepted until September 30th it just seems like one contradicts the other I get the point we're trying to set it up like a I mean it says it we will continue to accept applications until September 30th really the first deadline is for sort of that Lottery based admission if we're against our our cap right right right so kind of the point of having that deadline is that then on February 15th we would hold a lottery and then between February 15 and September 30th if we receive new applications um then they would be just um accepted in the order that they are received they would be considered if we have on a space available basis exactly so some of my questions are just little clarifying things just for someone way down the road in point number three we talk about voting on the number of spots per grade available yes I clarify that that's for new so that's not a spot including existing school choice that's a number of spots that are open for new because yes that was clarified with our legal legal department do we do we want it to read the number of new spots per grade um I don't care I'm happy to make the change if more clear um sure I don't know if anyone else I think there have been some conversations at points in time where people are like how many school choice students do you have in that grade totally and so yeah and and yes it is all based on of what we vote on say new spots or um current available or open hold on let me pull up the actual working file it could be new it could be open it could be available it could be H because it's not necessarily new if a spot didn't get filled from before if you still had an open C integrate it's not necessarily a new is open is more actual the one reason I'm asking and I'm pushing a little bit and and stirring the pot is in part because when we get to the midyear admission section if we refer to that as open spots you can then bring up open spot like I think there's some language that might be easier in the midyear admissions piece because you can refer like whatever you call it up at the top you can refer to it again totally so what do you want it to say in point three of the well to Cathy's point they're not necessarily new I think open is simple number of open spots per grade available yeah that would be my thought okay no I appreciate consistency so perfect good catch I have a question related to number nine um applications beyond the number of approved will be added to a weight list yes what is the expectation for any weight listed student this is I just want to understand the intent so a weight listed student could join up to the 30th of September that is how I would consider the policy because this is all still under fall admissions so if in August or on September 15th spot became available okay do maybe want to switch eight and nine or do you like them the way they are no I like nine at the end I mean on number five we do refer to the waiting list like if there's a lottery and we have more spots then we create a waiting list at that point so if they hadn't said yes and there was still room they could theoretically come back yes without replying okay I'm fine with that I just wanted to to double check totally so the other piece I really wanted to just clarify was in midyear Admissions and understanding if the goal here is to have applications come in starting so starting October 1st until the 15th of December people can apply but they're going to it's unclear to me a little bit in this language if they find out like yep you're going to have a spot knowing that that spot doesn't actually they don't get to go sit in that spot until after winter break because and I think you guys did a really nice job of finding that balance like I feel like that worked out really well my just like apparently had my lawyer hat on when I read today so um if the goal is you get it as and a sort of a first come first serve basis or is the expectation that there's going to be another lottery for mid year so that is a really good catch and I don't know how this did not I think you I think it just accidentally Point number four didn't get removed exactly I feel like we thought in our heads what we wanted so um Kathy certainly correct me if I'm wrong the intention of this was to accept students I believe in the order in which they were received on a space available basis not make students who have you know families who have applied on October 2nd wait until December 15th to find if they have been admitted I agree I don't think very many would stay I think we think hon was like a hold over from some previous I think that's probably prev uh iteration of this policy so I make a recommend can I just strike that I would hope so I think that would help great um the other thing I think might help is there are two ideas going on in in point one that could be separate and might make this clearer so the Hatfield Public Schools will allow midyear school choice admission if you then finish that sentence with the end of what's there to begin on the first day following winter December break period so it's like that one idea is there's going to be a mid year and here's when it starts and then the idea of open spots is something that you're already addressing in point two and so then it sort of like there's going to be a midar thing and then you go to Applications are going to be accepted from October 1st until the 15th of December of every year on a space available B basis or with you know and even if you even without the space available basis like on a first come first like there might be a based on the number of openings or something like that families have two weeks from the notification to confirm I think less actually might be clearer yep got it um all right so how about point1 the Hatfield Public Schools will allow midar School Choice admission for students to begin on the first day following winter December break and then point two um instead of just saying on a space available basis do you want that to what you suggest Al I think you keep school choice applications will be accepted the first part and I mean I could do a different point and just be like applications will be accepted on a space available basis in the order in which they're received that's the place I think if you referred back to the open if you used open above perfect because then you go on to talk about they have two weeks from notification and they would be in reapply and then if four goes away that all clears everything up so I apologize for being really particular I team team support right it's fine this policy went through a lot of different revisions by the time we were revising it the last time that's why I started just like highlighting things it's like there were different colors yeah yeah um I feel like all in all it balances out the needs nicely so that was the aim to balance out our desire to be open and accepting students but also uh recognizing and hearing the staff's concerns about a continuous rolling enrollment throughout the year so we tried to I think for families too like just kind of trying to create like the best student environment in so um other feedback from the committee I think those were very good amendments no those were great thank you for reading it through carefully and I'm sorry I always get a little worried when people are just like yeah it's fine I'm like I can almost find an improvement I think she has more do you have more no there that was like my they were all I kept looking like they all kind of went together I was like how do we just tweak that here I just want you to we just did that Adra do you have any other I think that was pretty much right and then I add there perfect now they align so I'll just accept them so if we passed this tonight yes this would mean we would accept students to the 30th of this year yes to start and then have a mid year yes which was part of the reason we were trying to keep on track yep totally okay is the committee ready to vote on jfbb um do we want to lump the three of them together because the other two were just aligning the ihbb or do you want them separate we have time to take them separate let's just make it simple okay keep them clean so jfbb I'll make a motion to accept policy jfbb with the changes made tonight I'll second it all in favor I I any opposed any extensions all righty so a five o great so then we have what do you want to take next bench okay sorry I was just making sure that's all good I'm just amending it to the final copy so that can be updated in the uh the thing okay I would be happy to entertain the next three together because I think they're all kind of of that o yes sure that's fine all right so um we did briefly um see these first two policies in a previous meeting um we have ihba which is the preschool policy and JF school admissions and in both cases the um small edits are intended to align the admissions timelines um and we did look at them again in subcommittee and I changed the dates at the bottom but the policy content has not changed since the previous reading um because the edits were not substantial I only provided an edits version to the committee um does anyone have any comments about either of those I have a quick one sure table a priority One you say by 2 o'clock but you don't say PM oh well I'm you know he's not here right now so I'm just gonna let you know that was Conor Driscoll just kidding it's totally fine let me you said table two uh table a priority One in the notes oh look right there if it were you know hopefully it's not right that would be exciting uh okay yes I'm GNA why this isn't working whatever okay good catch any other comments not on preschool but I want to look at JF and I have a question yep so it's speaks to any Resident student who moves out of the district after the start of the school year may complete the school year upon request of the superintendent does that student count on the number of open school choice seats so when they move out of District according to the lawyer we it doesn't like suddenly open a school choice spot so like if we had three school choice spots and this person moved out and then applied via school choice technically we would be down to two and we would just the committee would just have to vote to open another one okay it is irritating no I'm just checking but we can't just say we can't put it in the policy that they won't count against our opening because because of that legal guidance and we have in there the family is encouraged to apply to apply I took that encourage to apply as a down the road but it's the superintendent encouraging them to apply and that's part of why we were like we want the superintendent to have a conversation because if there are spaces available please just apply right now particularly if it's before the first of October exactly and if there're are not perhaps we can explore other ways to make things happen okay if it's later in the year if it's after the 1 of October do they technically qualify as school choice could are they just like non-residents here with a waiver I mean we we can um accept students through school choice at any time right so I'm just trying to think of a way we could do it without tying up the slot I we could do a waiver but we do get some reimbursement for school choice students before March 1st particularly if they were students with Services we would we would receive reimbursement so we do still want people to en you know to encourage it and it might take us two years to see some of that it might take a little while before because reimbursement is always a year off that might be a little extra yeah but we're not kicking them out of the district is what we're trying to say that's basically it is we're saying like we trying to work with families who move out great and it does also say does not guarantee admission for following years right because then they're back into the the pool from the jfbb right stuff we just went through exactly okay Administration any comments all righty any other feedback um I'll just break the norm I would like to make a motion to approve ihba with the one edit brought up and changed and JF as presented hold second okay all in favor I any opposed five well thank you policy team would you have more to share sure do we're on a roll okay so we also have Title Nine uh policy updates um so we have presented for the committee policy acab which is titled sex-based harassment SL discrimination policy um we are recommending this as a first reading with a vote waving the second and third readings um these are significant updates um related to Legal changes to Title 9 this policy as we have presented to the committee it was sent by the legal team directly to the superintendent and simply put our school name inside of it um and we are proposing just adopting this policy wholesale so there's not really an edits verion it's already been vetted um and we think it's important to you know align with the law and also um the handbook changes were already updated so this will align the handbook and the district policy together so um we included for the committee the current version of acab and then the new version um I only sort of put the dates and everything at the bottom in future subcommittee meetings we do plan on reviewing some of the other related policies to acab but for the time being we think it's important to pass this great discussion this might be out out there the acronym acab I did not come up with it and it was I mean literally came over from can we make it anything else I mean it's it's m kind of like standard across the state okay so all schools have policy yeah this is not unique to us that's unfortunate it's you know like you can see when we first passed this policy yeah yeah they were set up a long time ago yes yeah maybe that's what all the graffiti is about about Title Nine yeah from 1994 when we first had this would you like a motion I will I'll make a motion to a to pass or approve do you want to move to wave readings first I'm going to make a motion to approve policy acab waving the second and third readings as presented I'll second all in favor I I any opposed okay I was trying to call it the Title Nine policy for Adam's sake but figured I better say the correct yeah all right I'm finalizing that um and then um the last thing that we have this is sort of just a um it's not a appro it's just sort of a general review um is that we have started making some potential changes to policy ikf which is graduation requirements um we did um include what we have been working on for the committee um do we want to continue discussing I yeah let's have a conversation because this would this would be a bigger change than many of our policy changes right so this is sort of just like our initial here we are um so we are proposing some updates to you know the Smith Academy of graduation requirements um the handbook actually was updated um to increase the math guideline um so what we have done in the district policy sort of um update the math and the foreign language requirement and we are thinking about adding a community service requirement um since we're in the policy we also took the liberty to soften the language regarding the mcast um because it's very specific about needing to pass the mcast to graduate and we basically changed it to say that we are going to comply with the law so if the law were to change we would comply with the law I like that and these really came from from Connor so right now foreign language isn't required but it will be I think actually foreign language is in the it is in the handbook yeah it's it's really like what is recommended for high school students so 10 credits would be two full years of foreign language I think it might have been lumped in with the electives at some point yeah that's we were kind of trying to figure out but it has been a requirement even looks before this they took 10 from from broke down in different ways yeah because electives used to be and there was this weird comment about additional 1.25 in junior year like that's not necessarily always true we thought we could get rid of that um yeah so this UPS the number of credits to graduate slight I mean yes by um half a year one semester right wait from it's less than three credits so it can't it's like one a full year a year of class yeah that's what I'm saying half half a year of one class right yeah a full year class is five credits do we know how these requirements align with other schools I mean this is a lot of what this is about is like aligning it to okay best practices and high schools and college requirements and things like that so one of the things that I think would be interesting as you guys keep talking is as we have some other um really robust programming coming down the pipeline things like like the adventure leadership Innovation pathway yeah um dual enrollment with Vermont State University some of those kind of opportunities like how how that does or doesn't affect yes and there we do have um it they aren't like cross referenced on here but there are certainly other policies that relate relate to this so we'll need to yeah review you know kind of like we just did with jfbb there be other policies that we need to sort of tie tie together so I think tonight is probably the first night everybody's hearing about the potential for 20 hours of community service per year no total total total that's only five hours you have four years to get your 20 hours in yes I wanted a higher number this is I mean right now we have zero requirements that's true it's true it's it's five hours a year you know but he was thinking that some kids might wait until their junior senior year and then have to get it all done right but I think as a start 20 was a fair number to throw out and and we're giving them opportunities because they could go help at after care as community service I'm assuming if if they're not paid as long as they're not paid yes if they volunteer Conor and I have in conversations around how to better support the possible community service needs of the Smith Academy students by trying to bring them down to hes more frequently throughout the school year so or maybe the Council of Aging yeah needs help now and then there's a lot of opportunity the library used to do the book sale every year and they had Boy Scouts help them set up now that could be community service for students PTA is always looking for helpers always I'm sure the librarian is will need some help once the classes start and books get checked out never the actual Community look Community we've got we got school yeah we can come up with something for them this is I don't think this is an unreasonable bar no and it does say if stud we have students that are here less than the four years that those hours could get prated I'm assuming that's how this gets implemented as well so that once it gets passed totally right if you're a senior right you're not doing yeah like what this takes us three months to pass and we're like hello seniors it is February yeah why do we have everyone down to the elementary school there was a really good article in The Gazette this week about like uh NHS students at Northampton High volunteering to clean up downtown Northampton prior to the taste of Northampton cleaning up graffiti and power washing stuff and painting trash cans and stuff City beautification it was nice yeah you know I can picture in a similar vein having students like clean up along the Dy in town where there's you know random trash and lots of dog poop and cleaning up the playground areas in town and things like that there was a school district I forget who last year their student council and National Honor Society kids um put up all the flags in the cemeteries for Memorial Day and Veterans Day and took care of all of that for the legions there's plenty to do we should run a document with all the ideas that abilities yes um and who oversees that guidance probably we did we did briefly discuss that as well okay yeah that there would need to be some kind of need around that more to come on ik KF I think that's kind of exciting to start looks great so far cool so I don't I didn't hear any Committee Member freak out at the idea of adding community service well policy rests okay so with that we're um tabling the superintendent goals for this evening um and as we mentioned uh at the beginning of the meeting we're going to look to schedule probably around the 30th of SE September to come back and talk about sixth grade's potential move um as well as the superintendent goals so and and to get some exciting opportunity updates from Dr Driscoll on some things that are planned for Smith Academy so do do we have any update on the school books my school books I know that's under his report I love that you just asked that question because it's not so so training has finally yeah so Connor and myself Julie Lille and um Michelle for all attended an online training right before she went out on leave so that we could get the information on how to set this up they the committee or the people who work for my school Bucks have already created um a place to purchase preschool payment after school box it's just a matter of there's a couple of small tweaks and things that Connor just needed to deal with before we can send out information to families and make this live so October payments crossed fing I don't have to walk a check into the building fing so far away the checkbook is a mystery I mean it's always a the it last what did we use it for it's the only thing to write a check for anymore I think but exactly um fingers crossed okay yes great as soon as that's live We will we have there's a whole website in place that people can go and access to learn how to set up their account on help things contacts all kinds of getting the updates has been slow coming out of the vendor yeah I know it's been a lot of work so and would it make sense to um train kit as well or Michelle being out for a while well Michelle's out for six weeks so gonna come is this going to launch while Michelle's out very possibly that's probably the reason why I was also on this call in uh training um but you know ultimately this I believe more F I mean yes preschool is a big piece of this um puzzle however it's more for Julie because she does a lot with the box and the after care so being able to have families um because some families take part in box but not after care or do both so just being able to have a oneplace thing to be able to have monies and payments happen so just to set expectations the way this is set up you cannot put a bulk chunk of money in so let's say you do do after care and box and have a preschool tuition hypothetically you cannot put one lump sum in for all three things you're going to have to break out those accounts and the reason is because on the back end the funds from that all go to separate accounts so they get which is good for a little bit of a hassle for parents better for the school district because it keeps those funds separate but there's no way to shift funds around so if you've put money into one bucket you can't put too much into you can't shift it you can let it sit there and come up and be applied to the next payment but you can't say I want to move that over here it doesn't allow for that um and we may want to keep our expectations in check over um after care dates because right now it doesn't recognize our calendar schedule so if you go on Mondays and it's a holiday like we're going to have to there's some room for sorting that out it's and that's part of what we are needing to go double check yes we're confirming the dates because there are 4 day weeks versus 5day weeks and so we are just going into check the calendar they took our school calendar but didn't account for some of those days where after they just assumed after care happened on half days they did not know that that was not a thing so just small tweaks and just double-checking holidays so those are the things that Julie's in the process right now going in and double-checking so things that might take two clicks instead of one okay but at least it's but it doesn't require a checkbook find the checkbook yes so amazing okay so we'll plan tentatively for September 30th for our meeting after confirming with I want to confirm with Dr drol yeah so okay Al righty is that it that is there Mo to adjourn second Al righty all in favor I thank you all so much