good evening I'm Christy Buro chair of the school committee and I'm welcoming you all to our fiscal 25 budget hearing for the Hatfield public schools and as we call this meeting to order I know our agenda reflected that we would start with public comment which is what we typically do however as a budget hearing it's an opportunity to give um some feedback to what you hear the news tonight and so it would make more sense if we started with the presentation over the budget and then we'll have um some conversation after if there are questions this is a hearing it's a different format than our business meeting and we'd be happy to take those um so with that we're just going to jump right into our conversation um and then we'll shift to the regular business meeting which has a whole separate agenda targeting around 7:30 so bear with us and welcome so with that we'll kick off our budget hearing and go to our first slide and U Dr Driscoll and I are going to tag team this um Adam Sullivan will chime in as he desires um so the just a little bit of background um the budget is something that comes through the school um finance subcommittee and we work on that in collaboration with town finance we present it to the select board um and we have to to take all of that into consideration um and understand what the landscape looks like for the whole town fiscally and so having had those conversations we bring back a recommendation to the full committee tonight so um what we're recommending we're proposing a two and a half% increase in town spending to deliver a near level service plan and the presentation's going to outline the anticipated revenues um and how that compares to our prior budget we're going to go into explaining some of the cost increases that we are facing not unlike any other District um just a heads up if we completely level serviced it would be for the total budget 99.2% more year-over-year just to level service um changes in service that are required to offset given the available Revenue we're going to break that out um Town funding will be a greater percentage of our total budget than it has been historically other sources of revenue are down we're going to detail that um and the overall fiscal 25 budget is $947 less than fiscal 24 um we also want to make sure that we're sharing with the public at large uh the broader context that really helps frame what gives the district confidence in its sustainability and so we're going to do a little bit of a look at enrollment and school choice Trends the enrollment history as compared to current numbers to briefly look at alternative costs which are not the same as alternative facts um and academic performance and offerings and so um with that before we get too far in we just we've heard publicly some questions about well what did you even do with that money we gave you last year um and this is a really good time to stop and appreciate the massive investment that the town of Hatfield made in the public schools um as taxpayers went to the polls and voted through an override of pretty much unprecedented levels um and what that afforded us to do and so um literally picking up the pieces of the presentation a year ago when we were saying here's what we will do with an investment um we said we would spend more in Steam and applied arts for Smith Academy we did that we said we would invest in marketing we did that we said we would invest in a Spanish teacher for hes and this is the place much to our dismay we were tried and could not hire so we made every effort to put a Spanish teacher in place and we could not find one to bring on to staff we said we would invest in chorus and theater um really just getting more Performing Arts into Smith Academy because we knew we were losing students over Performing Arts we did that we said we would invest in an ons School psychologist at HS and invest in social emotional learning and training for prek to six teachers we've done that um and we said we would invest in Middle School sports and we did that so I think did everything pan out exactly as we might have hoped when we planned that budget no um but to the best of our ability we did all of the things that we said we would do with the additional income um the positive imp act from that investment is that we've been able to maintain two classes per grade level at hes and six specials we've been able to maintain the Middle School model to continue small class sizes um including two core classes per grade level plus a really rich schedule of electives at Smith Academy JV sports program at sa stay the xblocks at advisory time which is part of how we help keep our students in District we have managed to maintain and grow AP and elective class offerings um five out of eight of those would have been cut if we hadn't been able to pass that override and increase our budget um and we would have had a loss of staff so we talked through some of the stuff that we we added um and I would I would show with data that we we see the tides turning in enrollment in our district so a year ago at this time we had lost six students that's 23% % of grade between sixth and seventh grade that transition up to Smith Academy was was really uh quite uh a big turn a year ago this year we lost one student at that pivotal change so while we needed to be up in enrollment and we weren't in all areas um we didn't see the loss that we have been seeing this year's kindergarten had seven more students in the previous year and since we've made um a policy change about accepting school choice students we've added 13 students since October 1st some of those are local students that moved into the district and some of them are CHS so taking a look at fy2 Revenue um we're always primarily funded through town who also gets State reimbursement through Chapter 70 um and so this year's forecast for Town budget is $ 6,122 $122 ,6 that's up like we said 2 and a half% that's the equivalent of $149,300 n think I need to get my screen just a little bigger to read some of the small print sorry um school choice we're budgeting 620,000 this is down from 827 in last year's budget that's a difference of 207,000 FY 24 current year budget included 647 what I refer to as new Choice dollars those were Choice dollars generated the previous year plus 180,000 from the revolving account and that's a pretty big piece of this puzzle so school choice dollars as those tuitions come in we have a separate account for those and those can gain and grow and as we have more Choice students that we might not need all of that Revenue we can bank that revenue and in previous years when we had very healthy school choice enrollment we didn't need all of those dollars and so we had a surplus that was running but we have been spending down that Surplus since 2018 this isn't a new thing and we knew it was going to come to an end and we really could not go to the town and ask for an override if we didn't also put in all that we had to give like how would you ask for that if you weren't willing to to put in your own and so this last year's budget included the balance of that Surplus which was 180 so when we hit October we knew we were going to be having some difficult conversations when we came to the spring and we anticipated that we would be around 620,000 and we're very close to that and that's not dramatically different than what last year's new school choice dollars are so it's not a big shift it's a small shift it's the difference of that offset it's the difference of what we had Surplus that is making the really big impact grants we're budgeting for 225,000 that's down from 233 it's not quite Apples to Apples we had a few eser dollars left for this year um and we're anticipating some additional circuit breaker funding for next the revolving accounts we're budgeting 169,170 it's also not quite Apples to Apples because we have after care in this year's budget because that was an added revolving account at last year's town meeting um prek tuition is projected down 21,500 um and after care a little bright spot here after care has shown great stability and could support Enrichment Services so this won't come as any surprise to anyone who follows any school news in the in the district area broad area so like every other District we're seeing significant cost increases year-over-year our new bus contract cont which we will need to review and approve in our business meeting is a 42% increase for the same routs it's significant we are not the only District that has gotten hit with that kind of an increase um we only had one bid come in and so one of the challenges we've discussed in our school Finance meeting is what are our options um most districts at the this point many of them are only getting one bid in and so you're you're if you choose not to take it and go out to bid there is no guarantee that you will get any bid coming back or that the same bidder might not come back in higher and so we have a 42% increase for services we required to provide um we have a contracted salary increase at 2.6% we have increased our available educational support Professionals in this budget and that piece we'll spend more time talking about our building maintenance contract for HS is an additional 21,000 um the costs for our facilities and utilities are up about 3% from last year but the facilities and utility costs compared to just three years ago is a 70% increase and that's using actuals not budgets um and so these are costs that we as a district don't have much Choice other than to pay um I would add that our solar at Smith Academy is helping keep giant increases at Bay I think we've saved what 19,000 since the solar panels went up at Smith Academy so as bad as a 70% is it could be worse if it were not for the solar I think the anticipation was solar would save us money and we would see US savings we've just seen that as holding ground so when we talk about the 3% that's really because of the solar panels coming into play um we've included in this budget a new rotating equipment replacement um amount of 54,000 and that's because we have a large percentage of equipment that was all purchased at the same time it is all past is past its expected life cycle I think it's fair to say um and we need to start replacing that and the plan is let's replace it on a rolling basis instead of one lump sum because that means it will always be a little bit of a hit instead of Any Given year having a whopping Big Bill um and lastly I think we're looking in this budget to do better planning and so there is a line item that is new for food well actually we're putting in money into Food Services um revolving account to the tune of 25,000 so we expect to see free lunch continue which is great um but our food costs between food and prep exceed what the free reimbursement would be um I would add that while we're going to um manage that within a fairly small offset that we're looking to add in this budget previous years when families bought lunches there were no when there were free and reduced lunches for those families that dided it but everybody else paid for lunch in those windows we often had an accounting at the end of the year that was unbudgeted that was could be twice what we're putting in so the free lunches are making a big difference but we don't have enough families that take advantage of using the free lunch program that it's cost neutral so instead of getting surprised by it at the end of the year we're planning for it so for those of you following along with the graphics there is a bar that's going to continue to build and we're going to look at the graph when we get to the end um so you kind of see Apples to Apples 24 compared to 25 and you can see roughly that little box there is cost increase and how what it um I want to say that we've done a different job this year in school Finance than we have ever done before and I my hat is off to Dr drisol and Riley who have worked TIR tirelessly to rebuild our budget from scratch and add in actuals and what that has allowed us to do is just really ruthlessly look for where we might have any extra cost particularly in non non-staff kind of costs right and you sort of expenses where we can cut back um so that if we were going to have to make hard choices we knew we did it with a scalpel as best we could there um were 72 line item Cuts included when we cut costs the big ones to note the restructuring of administration to the program where we have a principal and superintendent role that is merged adding a dean of student support that restructuring is a savings of 107,000 there are a host of Staffing tweaks that don't impact class size or our offerings um there's a $95,000 savings there we'll have more detail on that the potential to shift from four Early Education classrooms to three we've had some conversations about the size of those classes that's a savings of 86,000 and we're anticipating a few retirements and as you know when you're at the end of your career your pay cycle and we're more likely to replace someone with a that is a little lower on the cycle so that they're with us longer which is great so our required reductions for that offset between revenues being down and increased cost we needed to find $760,000 624 in cuts um this budget is going to lack some flexibility that we have had in the past and we've been really transparent with town finance about that as well um by the close of this year we're probably going to have $156,000 of unbudgeted leave of absence this year fiscal 23 wasn't particularly better um we have never planned for that we've always just had to shuffle as the year went on um and that didn't feel like a responsible way to budget to this subcommittee and so this year we've managed to cover those leaves because we couldn't fill the Spanish opening and because we restructured Administration mid year um prior years when we had those kinds of unexpected costs we would have to go to town and ask for support and relief um but we know that the free cash for fiscal 25 for the town budget is especially limited and so we are planning accordingly um even though we don't know who might be out or what's coming we know that based on many years we need to plan for that and so we added a new line to this year's budget um and we're holding 44,000 right now for Le leave of absence if we have funding left over from this year we' seek to add it to that fund so that being a pretty big change does the committee have any questions about that before I move on okay um doing a little more for a little less as best we can our um budget puts in 99% of what Desi's preliminary posted tuition funds will be so we've we've budg for 620 if we get a little more we'll consider ourselves fortunate um as we talked through this last year we spent out the 180 that was in that balance this year's Choice dollars is 9% less than what we got last year but I want to take you back a year when the difference in Choice funding was a 28% drop so we haven't closed the Gap but it's getting it's it's a better story than where we were a year ago and so just to sort of give some proportionality to this if you look at the graphic at the bottom of that page you can see in the dark purple bar that's last year's budget the town total the town's amount and the total if you look at the Shaded area that reflects Choice revenue and grants so that's basically anything outside of town that's money cut that's that portion of the budget and then you can see in fiscal 25 five where the new costs came in it bumped that line out and so we had to find the reduction and you can see in the little bitty white box that's the difference in what we're asking town to make up so we're asking for 149,000 more and then the red dotted line that's on the other end is the difference in the total budget 94719 so it's 1.3% lessage total and that gets a little confusing because we're asking more from one but the total is a little down any questions about that so to detail out when we talk about near level service and what those service changes are we worked very hard to make sure that we kept reductions in every way as far from classrooms as we could um um if we could if you're on Zoom if you could mute please that would be great um we work to make sure that our changes were just and Equitable with two exceptions we're managing that through um anticipated retirements and no one wants to cut but but this is the funding we have so the detailed Services we're maintaining our superintendent principal with Dina student support model we're adding a new post of a library technician which will be split between schools so we currently have a full-time librarian who is retiring who also taught computer science um classes will be picked up but but there's been no Library coverage at the elementary and so the new library Tech will be a lower salaried position and not a library science position but they will split their time between schools we're reducing a post of the guidance counselor at Smith Academy from full-time to0 6 the focus will be on scheduling and college prep and it fits our our current enrollment needs and we're reducing one special ed teacher at Smith Academy which meets enrollment needs and that reduction is met through retirement at Hatfield Elementary we have a new post of a part-time .5 special education teacher and this is what we're being able to take advantage of the retirement of a one full-time post and we're shifting this down to Smith Academy um which is going to help balance workloads we're shifting um from We're recommending a shift from four early education classes to three the enrollment of our prek is right at the cusp of requiring two rooms our kindergarten is currently held at the potential of 22 depending on how many local residents come in um it could go over 22 if there are more local residents in both cases there could be a need to open a second class um and the teaching reduction that we're we're anticipating in that would be met through retirement we're recommending a more AV on guard change here to shift Elementry band into after care the potential is that it would open up music lessons to more grades um it would allow for More Time On Core Curriculum during the regular school day for Fifth and sixth graders who are currently pulled for band and it maintains the music offerings at Smith Academy and I'm sure there's questions about that and we're happy to answer them and not everything is final I would would say either and we're looking to add four additional full-time educational support professionals plus there would be a pickup from one in the prek-k model so there would essentially be five additional esps working in the elementary school which helps meet anticipated needs and adds greater flexibility for any urgent support we're working hard to maintain our vibrant offerings it's really important that we don't cut any more than we have to as we continue to work to build back enrollment it lets this plan still lets us maintain small class sizes even in the world where we might have to cut back in Early Education it still lets us maintain a prechool offering with some potential to grow it keeps the number and diversity of electives at Smith Academy it keeps expanding sport offerings into middle schools wherever team sports are possible there's kids available it maintains software for students and technical support it continues rigorous professional development for staff and we're able to add two new electives through semester course offerings without a staff increase at Smith Academy so the detail of the Staffing required for this um and enrollment projections are shown there they are the current enrollment plus confirmed new school choice and so when we get to the business meeting we'll talk a little bit more about school choice but these numbers show not the people who have applied but the people who have applied IED and responded that they are accepting a spot in our district um it is a shift in the number of full-time teaching roles and it increases the esps the custodial and administrative assistance would be the same we would Reduce by one administrator um all in all it's a net gain of one head count compared to this year and that's because of the ESP counts which are going to be contractually based so if you didn't have enough numbers yet here's another way to take a look at that Pi so the town split the choice funds revolving grant money the difference in each of those so you can see our choice funds are 25% of what we had this year moving on a little bit of a history just as a reminder about what we have asked town to support us with um historically if we look at fy16 through 22 our increase was on average a 2.24% increase in town spending this year we're asking for 2.5 not dramatically different it is however dramatically different than what we asked for in 23 and 24 so we're getting back to the norm of what we have asked for and hopefully still building plans that left let us continue to build an enriching program and getting more keeping kids and getting new kids just a reminder there're stabilizing funds that help offset that Chapter 70 Goes to Town not to us we're not expecting it to be a significant increase maybe $30 more a student we did explore what would happen if Town opted to level fund us sort of a zero budget um if that was the case we would be looking at the loss of an additional two to three staff we would see a cut of probably a fair chunk percentage of our AP classes we would lose academic electives the Middle School model would be gone and we would lose some additional Elementary specials but while all that is sobering there's still a lot to look forward to um we think we have a healthy District in many ways um and the override put us in a much better position relative to a lot of neighboring districts um so when I think about you know Northampton as publicized they're looking at a 14% change to level service which they're not going to be able to get um and they're making massive Cuts we're reading about layoffs of teachers in several districts we're not we're not where they are thanks to the investment Hatfield made last year and there's some really good things we're seeing out of that and opportunities so for one the school choice enrollment while we need to grow it is still ahead of the curve so in fiscal 22 we were down 17 Choice students in 23 we were down 24 that's bad last year we were down but we were down eight and it was hard to be down any when we had 40 applications and what we realized and have rectified coming out of last year we couldn't we could not give earlier acceptances last year because we didn't really know what we were going to be bringing anybody into so when you think about a year ago we didn't know if we were going to be two classrooms per grade or one because if the override hadn't passed we would have had to have shifted a lot of those classes um and so we didn't take we didn't accept Choice students until after we knew where we were and that window is not a like parents need to know um and other programs doors were closing and so we didn't get those students we've since rectified that by changing our policies about when we accept students there can I think will continue to get better and better um and I think the fact that we're seeing the acceptance rates we already have so far this year is a testament to that um but even at that we have a higher percentage than most um Frontiers holding stud and their number of choice students but their overall enrollment is dropping so they have a higher percentage than we do at this point they're at 30% Choice students um Hadley's gaining in the number of choice students but not quite the same percentage of enrollment and I think that's du to their marketing Northampton has been dropping about 10 Choice students per year and it's only about 7% of their enrollment Pioneer is down to 48 kids coming in that's 8% and about 40 from their District that go elsewhere Mohawk trails at 133% choice ammer at 9 and Holio at three we've taken a look in previous meetings that talk about our potential to maintain our district and the past 20 years we've averaged 26 kids in kindergarten the current hes classes average 25 students in kindergarten of Peace So if we had the same general starting number of students for the past two de ades to what we have now that would point to being fairly viable um and we also know that traditionally we're we're picking up a number of students from kindergarten on so we're anxious to return to that um when you look at we talked about the alternative costs Hatfield's educational spending is on par for the state um as a percentage of its total budget um but its educational spending is notably less than our regionalized neighbors and you know we do hear the occasional cry for we should regionalize because it would be cheaper um and I think we can just say if it were our neighbors would be saving funds um so Sunderland um and Deerfield very comparable in many ways to Hatfield in financial ways um each of those districts are spending 59% of their total Municipal budget budg on education compared to our 51 so that's as a percent of the overall budget as a look at how much District spend per student we'll flip to the next slide and our per pupil expenditures were making grounds so a year ago when we looked at this same slide we were so at the bottom that it was kind of embarrassing um and now we've moved up we spend the bottom 35% of the state instead of the bottom 6% of the State uh if we spent per student what Sunderland did we would need to spend with our current existing enrollment we would need to spend an additional 1.4 million if we spent the way Frontier spends we would need to spend an additional $944,000 so this is just a way to sort of take a look at get if we H if we spent per pupil what would that look like um and also you know for the committee to see there it's a look at what their increases have been year on year because our increase um going into 22 was the last year desie made this available for we had an 11% increase average for the area was 11% however amrest was higher Mok Trail was higher Pioneer Valley was higher like it a lot of folks have been north of that um and one of the things that we make sure that we are mindful of when the regionalization conversation comes up as soon as you regionalize and your the increases are outside of the Town control there's no opportunity for negotiation the most important reason I think we should be optimistic about the our district comes with an academic comparison and we've pull together 10th grade mcast scores and so this is this is the last line this is this is what you have to be able to do to graduate right so meeting or exceeding expectations the graduation competency requirement Hatfield outscores all of our neighbors and the state with one small exception where I would say we are on par but if we want to take a look our Ela Math and Science scores compared to Hadley we're up third going Ela math math to science in ela it's we're up 13 in math we're up 27 points in science we're up four compared to East Hampton up 20 up 39 up 15 compared to Frontier in ela up 20 in math up 18 in science up 14 compared to Hampshire up 12 in ela 27 in math and 18 in science in compared to Northampton we're up seven in Ela 16 in math and our only spot where we are not above our peers is against Northampton in science where we are slightly behind them by two points when we compare Hatfields mcast our academic competency at the end of the Hatfield career compared to the state our English Language Art scores are 25 points above the state average our math are 33 points over and our science is 25 and that's why we'll do well so with that you have before you a total budget of 1 million or excuse me 7,367 if I misspoke say it again the town piece of that $6 million 12216 the choice percent is 8.7 for $620,000 the grants are budgeted for 3.2% of the budget and the revolving accounts would make up the last 2.4% so before we put this to a vote I'm going to first ask the committee do you have any questions it's a lot to take in Kudos kudos to uh Dr Driscoll and Riley for their total restructuring of the budget and laying it out in a much clearer and comprehensive way and to the finance subcommittee Christie Adam you guys have outdone yourselves this is by far one of the best budget pre presentations I've seen it's not been easy choices no Adam did we miss anything that you want to speak to not in particular I just I want to take a moment just to recognize that we're being more conservative with some of our numbers than in previous years less budgeting on Hope um and more budgeting on what we know we'll get when it comes to Grants when it comes to Choice funds when it comes to uh circuit breaker funds for special education we're budgeting more on what we confident we're going to get as opposed to what we hope or what we think we will get so that we have less unknowns going through next year um and less hopefully fewer stressful finance committee meetings your surprises I think one of the things that we've worked really hard is to find ways to make cuts that are as Equitable as we could be and as far from kids and still giving a lot of support and it's I mean obviously we would we would love to fund everything just not I just don't it's not a it's not a given that we will get through town meeting unscathed so we still need to have supported town meeting to come speak to the budget and answer questions and and vote to pass the budget but right now that 6.1 million is what's in the proposed budget going forward as best I know 7.1 the town part is it's just six so anything you want to add No No I um I don't think so I well well I I appreciate the the gratitude that was shared I think it's worth noting that it's um you know not not a not a happy budget that we're looking at you know we're still talking about reductions um and that's never an easy thing um never an easy thing to do within the the presentation we we mentioned the shift from four early education classes to three do we want to talk about that structure at all now or is that for a different part of the night or is that I I think ultimately the committee needs to vote on a budget this budget supports that model um the budget would not support that class reduction happening somewhere else in the district because from a cost stpoint if we were to say I'm just going to pick on fourth grade because my K right um if we were going to merge that into one classroom that wouldn't have the same cost savings as a reduction in early Ed because both a teacher and a par professional or ESP excuse me so I think the vote itself determines that it happens within those two grades um but I don't think it's the committee's purview per se to determine what that looks like ultimately it's administration's job to figure out exactly what that would look like do you want to say more about what that would look like well I think um or how you would determine we'd like to make that decision any change in in model or programming with um input from the early childhood team at the elementary school in administration um who is the I think I've got all this but who is the it's an additional licensed support staff that is the um the library technician the library Tech so it's essentially moving out of it teaching position into that professional role okay and then we had talked in previous meetings about um hiring rbts are does the district currently have any rbts in District Define rbts for every okay so that was then my question so is that would in in this budget would an RBT be considered different than an ESP or in the budget is it all kind of as needed it's lumped in together currently they're they're in the same line um right now we have I believe one RBT um that we hired districtwide um when that cost is in could either of you what an RBT is the acronym please because not everybody will know what an RBT is yeah it's a registered Behavior technician thank you thank you we have um several other rbts that are helping fill unfilled roles currently but that's being paid through the seal mental health grant for this year so um but we have one that is ours um that would continue I have a comment but not a question I like the idea of the library Tech covering both buildings the elementary has been without Library services for many many years and that's unfortunate um so having a librarian back into the elementary school to help process books and do things there will be a really nice addition it feels equable yes Dr J I had a question about shifting Elementary band to aftercare MH so right now band is available to students as just part of the curriculum it's available there's no charge Aftercare is a charged program if a student wants to be part of band but not specifically part of Aftercare or if their family struggles financially to pay for aftercare is there an option for them yeah we we would have uh scholarships available or um you know need-based programs to support that similar to how we do with field trips or or that kind of thing thank you is that set in stone yet that change no changes are set in stone yet we have to vote a budget through before things would start moving oh but I believe the administration did try to make sure that anyone who was personally affected isn't finding out about it through this meeting and would contracted services be included in the budget under teachers and licensed staff they're going to fall into the budget in instruction mostly yeah I believe so where it's part of the in it's part of that instruction total so they're not they're separate line items if you look at the line item based budget they're not part of teaching staff costs they're separate from that but they roll up into instruction the committee do you have problem if I shift to taking questions from the public you here you can come back public that's with us do anybody have questions or comments that you would like to make okay is there anyone with us on Zoom that would like to make a comment or a question I don't know if there is still anyone on Zoom there there are okay so anyone from Zoom okay take everything this is quite the conversation guys um Dr jco can you up to date now like you your best your best knowledge what do our numbers look like for preschool and kindergarten next year for enrollment 20 20 students we have 11 students Monday through Friday six students Monday Wednesday Friday and two students coming um um yeah two days a week sorry three students coming two days a week 18 of those are residents two are non-residents could you say could you give that one more time since that's not on our sheet yep there are 20 total preschool confirmed there are 11 that would come five days a week Monday through Friday there are six who will come three days a week and there are three that will come two days a week 18 of those are residents two are non-residents when you work out a schedule that looks at how many preschoolers you have on any given day what do you what is your sort of FTE version of preschool we first take a look at the Monday through Friday students and then we try to divide we basically look at it and try to divide it equitably so there's an equal amount of students in each classroom so right but right now we're topping at it looks like 17 I believe it's actually 18 one of the um two day a week is falls on one of the same days as as a three day week y okay but historically that's how we've done it right but that's up since we've talked about it lot and I have up to unless you have something different I have 16 that have responded Yes to coming to kindergarten did that change there was a few more that had come in so that's 20 20 for kindergarten y I knew there was a few more that had just registered the kindergarteners have been very two be kindergarteners have been very fast back getting their responses in is that 20 resident students or is that combination of choice and it's total choice and res confirmed choice ch right yes and local at this point we have 21 students uh new school choice students who have confirmed for next year districtwide out of 30 applicants 31 yep so we had given the school choice students a deadline which has passed that has passed y the ones who have not said yes have they said no or just not responded some have said no um majority have not responded okay one way or the other okay do we continue to follow up anyway we will Y in fact uh we've been doing that this week so is there a motion to question absolutely it's about preschool um Alo you gave us the breakdown of days of the week do we have any breakdown for three-year-old versus fouryear old I did not look at that data I just was looking at totals all right you want a motion if you guys are ready for it I'll make a motion to approve the fiscal year 25 budget as presented is there a second I'll second I'll in favor of the presented fy2 budget say I I I any opposed okay so with that Kathy you're right I was late we're late getting on to the next meeting so um La I will make one last opportunity anybody last comment there you'll get a chance in the next meeting we have another public comment um with that we're going can I have a motion to adjourn our business our a motion to adjourn our second all in favor I great that concludes our budget hearing for the year thank you for your patience so moving in to our next meeting of the night technically um as we call to order as we do at the start that's my fault all better okay um we always kick off with an opportunity for a mission moment um and just ways that our district is meeting and exceeding our goals any any good stories from yeah I want to to say a huge kudos to the uh Frank Jackson Jamie phet I'm gonna mispronounce her name um Leah Gardner the bringing back the musical um I went Thursday night it was fantastic to see more Elementary School students participating and cast members in the um production of Willy Wonka Jr um it was just heartwarming to see and so many people enjoyed it myself it it was awesome we got a golden ticket so lucky it was very fortunate other Mission moments I'd like to Echo that one that was my mission moment as well going there and seeing not just the um not just the the the talent and the hard work that the um student actors put on but also the uh the support of the community there were a lot of people I went opening night there were a ton of people in the audience there um in front of what I hear there was about the same crowd at every show so it was really um a well attended event to support the um to support the musical I have a mission moment from this week I had the opportunity to sit with Kim TR who you're going to hear with hear from in a minute and um we opted to sit outside of hes to talk which is a great space to use on a nice day um it also gives you the opportunity to see what's going on in school and for someone who has been with our district for a relatively short time I was so wowed by the number of people who came by and lit up when they saw Mr TR and the number of kids who he knew by name and the parents who he knew and like and just that interaction and thinking about how that we look to enrich our community and sort of have an invested community and I just saw that on display the entire time we met and you know one student was out on a break and came over to say hello and another one actually sat down with us for a few minutes just checking it out um but it it really spoke to what kind of a community is is happening and the investment that Mr TR is made in in us which I thought was really beautifully displayed and I have one other I actually put it on here because it's not a mission moment so I have a little moment of recognition so miss Maloney this is your last meeting it is I'll cry but you won't um so I'm just pass that to you but I just um want to give us a chance to say thank you for three years of service I don't know that any of us know what we're getting into when we sign up for this gig um but I appreciate your insights that you've shared the knowledge that you've brought um and that you've come along for the journey through changing dramatic years on occasion so thank you very much I I will miss service I will miss up oh that might mean she's coming back someday you might come back never know so um we don't have a consent agenda for tonight um you skipped public comment and I did just right over it saw the little video link there and moved right on so forgive me I will re open public comment would anybody like to speak to anything that is on tonight's agenda we don't often get guests we're so happy you're here but you're very quiet is there anyone on Zoom that would like to make a public comment about anything on tonight's agenda okay see none we will move on um we have conversation about the sixth grade on here twice I'm going to defer to have that in the administrative updates and move straight on to um a conversation in our Deep dive for the month about social emotional learning and an update on that and so we have a presentation which I'm excited to have I think you you might have seen part of it right so be so sad if you felture you stay great if you don't honestly I encourage you to not we won't frown on it if you go they might want to talk about the amazing that you're all here it really does speak to this town and I'm still relatively new to this town um but yeah it's amazing so you all stay okay great um yeah so this is my first time doing a presentation in this format I'm excited for it it's going to be a good way for me to practice and preach my social emotional learning knowledge can I move this or tilt it so you can see it better yeah that be great see where we are in the slideshow yeah so oh yeah that' be great you can just give me some kind of signal when you want me to switch okay sounds great yeah and I'll try my best to man it's so late everybody I feel so sorry I hope you enjoy it anyways you got like three more hours you're fine okay well there you go all right um so yeah so my name is Kim Tran and I am the district's mental health liaison it's a fully grant-funded position I just want to make sure that's very clear based on the budget um before we begin though we've just been through a lot of serious uh conversation and everyone's been through a whole day of school whole day of life and I always feel it's really important for us to try to shift gears in a way for us to be able to just kind of reduce the clutter in our minds um it's called the mindful minute so anyone that's willing to participate I would encourage you to I Will Not pressure anyone to not if you um aren't on board with trying it so um I want just ask you to close your eyes for just one minute I want you to focus your on your breathing um normally we would use a YouTube video for this but based on the format it might not be the greatest way to do it so I'm just going to try to have you close your eyes take some deep breaths try to let go of the day um and hopefully it'll allow us to really be in tune with this presentation starting now for and we can go and open our eyes I hope people are feeling a little more relaxed hopefully not completely asleep yet and we can move on to the next slide generally this is done with music or it's done with a timer but um I really hope you were able to um get something out of that so today we're going to talk about a workshop a social emotional learning Workshop that we went through um with both faculties um Hatfield Elementary as well as Smith Academy I just want to say before we dive into it that I was very impressed with both staffs they were both um very much uh present it would have been very easy for them to not be I've been in other districts and other staffs which were all great but we're all human and you know after a long day of school it's really hard to to not have side conversations and not um be completely focused but I was very impressed with our with both staff they they did a great job and I really enjoyed it to start out the presentation and I would encourage anyone that's watching as well as the school committee uh just to think about four questions we opened this before we even talked about social emotional learning is what do you wish for your students just in general what would you wish for your students and this is all going to be rhetorical at this point but um that's that was the basis of this whole presentation uh three underlying questions that go along with that is how can we help our students what do you do to help our students achieve these wishes and what can we do as a team to achieve these wishes um this was the point of this was to set the stage it's being a teacher or an educator in general principal um parent it's so easy to get off track with uh and forget about why we started this in the first place and social emotional learning is really about getting back to what we were here for um some of the answers that were given were incredible that I'll be happy to share um at a different time but there was I I I figured that there would be the same answers um I wish my kids my students to be happy I wish for them to get a good education but there was just such an impressive multitude of answers that were given with all four of these questions that I will be happy to share at a different time we can move on so so I was able to compile this is uh not the entire list of what was the answers that were given but uh if you would like to just take a a minute or two to read for people that aren't able to see this some of the um answers are to become kind and safe to themselves and others as adults to feel part of the community feel respected confident in their abilities I won't read the whole list but if you can see um we didn't talk we didn't I didn't start the presentation by saying we're going to talk about social emotional learning we just want to talk about what do we want our students to gain out of their experience with us and if you see some of these answers that they blew me away we can go and move to the next one so I literally I didn't edit any of the statements that were given I I honestly took everyone's feedback I had them write it down during the workshop and if they were willing to turn it in which they all did which was pretty great um I was to um try to go through it all and see what themes came out but given how great the answers were I honestly just I wrote them all down or at least most of them and uh the answers are pretty pretty great we can just keep moving on yeah it it wasn't just one if you notice the themes of that you don't see uh cliche answers they were they gave genuine true answers and there was just a great variety but it all came down to supporting our students helping them feel part of the community of course getting a great education is important but um it it just showed that both staffs really do understand that uh it really is about helping the kids the students feel like they're part of the community and that they that they are they're worthy of being part of schools and that everyone's important some of the answers they give about how they work together um how how they how they personally achieve uh these wishes um were great and they didn't have any chance they didn't have time to uh think about it the night before or anything these were all genuine answers that came during this Workshop okay I titled this Workshop the Hatfield Public Schools inaugural state of theal program I say Inaugural because um my hope is that this becomes an annual conversation just a disclaimer there's been it's clear that there's been a lot of great social emotional learning work in hfield I am relatively new um so if I say anything that makes that discredits uh what's been going on here here I strongly apologize but my hope for this anyways is that this is something that becomes uh a more consistent conversation hence the term inaugural next year hopefully it will just St state of the SL program uh I thought it was very important for them to understand who I was um so once again I'm Kim Tran I'm the mental health liazon I graduated I'm from Washington State so I'm new to Massachusetts uh my career I've been very blessed honestly to have a multitude of positions I was a par educator to start out which is what's called an ESP here um I was also a substitute teacher I was fortunate enough to become a special education school counselor for a year um I was able to work with students with IEPs and be their personal school counselor um and help them set Behavior goals and also work with them um on school counselor related activities as well as with their with staff and with their parents um I was a PE teacher for one year uh my bachelor is in K12 education um with health and fitness uh I was a school counselor in three different schools one school I had a position uh as a half a full-time counselor but with 700 50 students uh split between two schools I had another school where I had 350 students and then I had another school where I had a 750 students so um fortunately it allowed me to be able to see a lot of different uh programs and hopefully take the strengths of those programs while also acknowledging limitations of those programs and bring it to Hatfield and try to enhance an already great program I was a social emotional learning coordinator um up North for a year and then uh when I came back here I I became a cafeteria cashier um the school district when I first got to Hatfield my daughter was in preschool last year and they really needed a cashier so they sent out a flyer and um I was like okay well I can do this for for a little bit until you find someone permanent I stayed there the whole year which was great it was a great opportunity um but that also allowed me to get to know uh staff and get to know the students um and by Fortune the mental health liaison position uh opened up and I applied and fortunately have has been part of it for about a year and a half now um last but not least I am a father to a student at hat Hatfield and I say and I'm also a resident of Hatfield and I say that because I want you to understand that I have a true genuine stake in the success of this school district and I'm highly invested in helping us become even greater than we already are so this is for reference only um the purpose that I had for the at each of these uh workshops we did one at Hatfield and one Elementary and then one at Smith Academy uh I honestly wanted to congratulate each each and every staff member unfortunately esps weren't at those ones but I honestly anyone that's been in education understands that the esps are the glue that keeps the school running um but I do want to congrat I wanted to congratulate each and every one of them for everything they do for our students uh which is why when we talk about the framework it'll all start to make more sense um I want to congratulate them because honestly if you've been in education you would have a pretty good understanding that teachers and staff support uh they're their harshest critics as far as that might be to believe sometimes um they are their their biggest critics and they deserve credit for what they're doing and all the hard work they put in and and when we go into the framework you'll part of it was to help them understand that they're doing so much that they might not even realize they're doing and I I just wanted to make sure that that was very clear um the next purpose was to have a team understanding and a review of our current strategies uh and just to begin a team dialogue of what we would want to achieve together in regards to social emotional learning we have so you're going to hear me say this over and over but our staffs are truly incredible um they all have their own skills you know we all have our room to grow but they have so many skills and honestly the point of the framework I'm already kind of skipping ahead a little bit is just to help us all kind of unite and um work together to make sure we're all have the tools that we need understand um what we're working towards together so one thing I just wanted to point out and I want to make sure they understood this I I would imagine most people understand this but just in case um some common M conceptions ofcl social emotional learning or sometimes called cell as well uh it's not rewarding disruptions it's not allowing students to get away with everything it's not zero consequences some people might believe that uh social emotional learning doesn't have consequences but honestly you need both to be able to be effective um and I want to make sure it was clear that I understood that it's not giving in and it's not making excuses and above all else it's not brainwashing um social emotional learning as we as you'll see when we go into the definition it's it's honestly about kids learning about themselves staff learning about themselves all of us learn about ourselves and um what makes us us during the presentation I asked them to have a little turn and talk time which is where uh people partner up during a workshop and they answer questions that answer prompts so what I asked them to think about before I gave my definition because I I want to Value their opinions is what do they think social emotional learning AKA seel actually is is it important or is it not and I want to make sure that the not part was was emphasized because there might be people that don't think social emotional learning is important and that's okay too it truly is um if I if I said you had to believe social emotional learning was important then I would be doing a disservice to social emotional learning in general um I believe I put down some of a few of the answers that were given in the next slide it was wonderful I wish oh it didn't show up that's okay um there were some really great answers that were given and I was able to this is how I wish you could have been there because the conversations were great it wasn't about hey so what are you doing later today or I you know I hope this is over soon at least not out loud anyways um some of the answers that were given uh was that social moral emotional learning is learning effectively communicate not with just your classmates but outside of the school as well and that just that that answer resonated with me and just understanding that our teachers aren't just about you know everyone getting in line at school and doing their job and then when they go home they can be whoever they want I mean that part is true too but they do care about um what the kids how the kidss perform and how they behave outside of school as well that they are that they do have the skills to be effective outside of school one other answer that I that resonated with me was someone saying that social tional learning is being allowed understanding that you're allowed to have feelings in general and I thought that was incredible as well um there were so many answers that were given that were just wonderful um before we go into the definition of social emotional learning and the soci and the framework I'm G to sayal moving forward I apologize um just to make it easier for everybody um I wanted to give a brief description of Castle and Castle is the collaborative for academic seal um it's basically the gold standard of uh the organizations that uh create social comp competencies um and criteria and trainings there's other just full disclosure there are other organizations that are great as well such as the American School counseling Association um but Castle is widely recognized as um how you would want to create your comprehensive program or or and or your um social emotional learning framework we can move on so social emotional learning according to Castle is the process through which young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge skills and attitudes that help us to understand ourselves connect with others achieve goals and support our communities that was a mouthful but um there's so much that goes into social emotional learning and there's a wide variety of answers but the idea is that not only are you learning social skills how to effectively communicate but you're also learning um that there are more than two emotions happy and sad or younger cases happy or mad um and that teaching our students while also teaching ourselves honestly um that there that you can have multiple emotions and there's multiple responses there's varying responses that are more effective than others in being able to meet the needs of whatever you're at at a given time so what why is social emotional learning important um there this has been a debate maybe not a debate that's probably not the right way to say it but there are so many different answers if you ask someone even within this room most likely what is the overall goal of of school and some might say it's job Readiness uh some might say to become smarter some might say to get to to have self-actualization to understand yourself um or even become a an effective member of society and all those answers would be for the most part correct um hopefully a blend of all of those answers um and the point that the reason why I bring that up is because through a different conversation I would I would highly I would be very um trusting that I would be able to prove that social emotional learning can help with whichever goal of Education um is what you would think would be the overall goal that social emotional learning can support that it'd be a much longer conversation than the time the time we have here but um that is why we are investing in our time and energy uh and the grants to to enhance our social emotional learning program in at Hatfield uh so I wanted to share that we one of the highlights of that you'll notice in this framework is that we were able to identify and Implement uh a curriculum an anal curriculum called second step and second step is aligned with castle and for the longest time was K through 8 and starting next year will be K through 12 uh people might have different opinions on Second Step In general but one thing that one reason why we chose second step for the for this time being is that it it does allow a scope and sequence that goes from K kindergarten all the way through 12th grade and it it highlights uh the points that we're trying to cover um this is just an example for grades K through five unit one is about growth mindset and goal setting unit two is about emotional management unit three is empathy and kindness unit four is problem solving we were able to um pay for second step through the grant that uh Dr Bremner and um Believe It or Not uh nurse Jean who I have to give a lot of kudos to uh it's a behavioral health grant that was that they worked very hard and I I apologize if I didn't include the anyone else that was involved in those grants um to be able to have the funding to hire me and as well as uh all the other initiatives that you'll learn about uh today and moving forward Second Step being one of the main highlights so we keep I keep saying framework without talking about what a framework actually is and according to Castle a framework creates a foundation for applying evidence-based secl strategies uh without repeating everything that's on the slide what it does is it allows us to um in an organized fashion see where we're at as a district and that will allow us to see if there's anything we can do to enhance any parts that can be stronger um so I've spent the better half of a year uh working with the school counselors observing in classrooms talking to teachers uh working with Dr Bremner and everyone else just to see like what does this District do uh my goal wasn't to come in and just say here's what I think is the best thing to do do it my the way that I I went about this was to see what are we doing first what are all the awesome things we're doing because these students aren't becoming awesome on their own and this town isn't isn't great on its own there's got to be a reason and through through the work that I will I will be sharing um you'll get to see that there's a lot that is happening and the SEO framework uh just wanted to make sure it's very clear it will include the signature practices of our district meaning um whatever is on that framework is what generally all teachers are doing um I just want to make it the reason why I want to make that distinction is because it's it's not created to tell teachers this is what you have to do the only thing that you can do um a lot of teachers come with their own uh bag of their toolkit is what uh we generally call it that might be different than exactly what's on there but the framework allows us to see to have like alignment of what our signature practices are and of course teachers and Educators and esps are able to take that and build off of it so once again why is theal framework important uh to me not most importantly but very importantly is that it does give credit where credit is due once we're able we're still in draft form on the framework I just want to um be clear about that and we're getting closer to a final document and I want to put in quotation that I say final document because it's honestly it's going to be a live document that can change it's not going to be set in stone and we're going to create it in a way that allows for us to work together with our staffs to keep it consistent and keep it uh up to date it's not going to be something that's you you you'll see changes um throughout time uh for as long as the framework is is around most importantly is that it creates transparency for our stakeholders that was the main reason why we created it because you can watch movies you can read the news you can just open your ears you'll hear many different um opinions about what schools are doing to support kids uh all the way from going above and beyond to just throwing things on the wall and seeing if they stick um I believe that this framework will allow our stakeholders and by stakeholders I mean the community parents students even staff uh to see what our plan is what are we doing to support our students and the hope is that it will lead to increasing trust and a stronger understanding of how we support students I truly believe a lot of districts are struggling because they aren't transparent with their with their Community um and I don't think they do it maliciously I think it's there's just so much to do in school and honestly the staff here at Hatfield what I found out was that they were working on a framework as well and they they built a good portion of it before I even got here but I'm hoping that I can be have the flexibility that they don't have to be able to uh finish the product together it allows us to be aligned as a school as a full uh District team as well um one of the big benefits of Hatfield being the size it is is that we are able to communicate a little more effectively I come from districts that have 10,000 students and 20,000 students and multiple schools and it's it's really difficult to become aligned as a district team in those districts and that's that is one of the big benefits of course Hatfield's going to grow and that always wonderful um but the hope is to become aligned now uh before we become bigger and bigger and hopefully uh the size that we're in right now allows us to be able to to really get this to to get this job done because it was at if it was at a different District it would take years and years uh last but last not least it does ensure that social emotional learning is officially a top priority I'm biased but I do believe that social emotional learning is up there with math reading and Science and all the other subjects but by having a framework and having um strategies and having competencies for it uh it will officially be a top priority moving forward and hopefully our stakeholders and Future um future stakeholders will get to see that and they will understand how much we value it so this is just a snapshot of what the framework is going to look like um once again it's in draft form I got I've already been taking the feedback that's been given our teachers are awesome we want to make sure that it wasn't just me creating it or it wasn't just the principles creating it it was a full team effort and they've already given me some great um points one being to make sure that it's uh easier on the eyes so this is a lot of words um as you scroll down it gets even more confusing and I promise that I will make it more understandable uh more readable so that uh it's effective um each school has a tiered support document as well um that goes along with the framework uh it breaks down there's when it comes to education in general we always talk about tier one tier two tier three tier one is generally all students are ex accessing um whatever is under tier one tier two is generally for students that need a little bit more support uh we have they get all the tier one supports as well as a specialized uh um support to meet their needs and then tier three is for students that um need even more support So Smith Academy has their own document it's still in draft form but I do want to share that these what's on here is being um implemented already uh if you see it highlighted in green um that means that these are future near future fure uh strategies that we're hoping to implement I promise it looks better than this but uh it's very wordy on this slide um but the document this is just another this just a snapshot of what's included in in the teer support document this one in particular being Hatfields tier support the elementary school at the elementary yes this is just for reference only during the workshop uh we gave copies of the draft of each document and gave a decent amount of time of course you could always use more time but with the time frame we had we had Workshop activities the main goal was to help our staffs understand that their input really does matter and that we're not just telling people what to do so Workshop Activity one was individual review Workshop activity number two was to partner up and give feedback and then Workshop activity number three was to switch partners and see um compare and contrast thoughts from the previous group we were able to yield a lot of great information um that I'm still going through and will uh we'll come up with the the next draft and the next feedback share hopefully one or two more times so the next steps is to continue to collaborate with all District staff to create the final draft of the framework um another exciting next step for me is that we are going to create anal page for the district website this is going to be one of our uh most likely many ways of being transparent to Stak current stakeholders and future stakeholders and hopefully when people decide are questioning whether they want to Choice their students into our dist or into our yeah into our district they'll get to see that how we support our students not just academically but via social emotional learning and then like again just finding increasing transparency to all stakeholders and by transparency also getting more input um from stakeholders such as having surveys or finding other modes of um getting information to to just in build the trust of our district as well as uh continue to work together with our stakeholders the overall goal is to team together to meet the needs of all students and their families and the community as a together everyone achieves more thank you I believe I is there one more slide or is that it that's it I think that's it all right I have one more it just says thank you okay I included my email address for anyone that wanted to reach out personally um best to just defer to the school counselors and principal Dr bre um if you have feedback for me or ideas or thoughts I welcome um all information I also welcome negative information if you feel like something I did was wrong just putting that out there thank you everybody thank you thanks do do you want to say anything about stuff before we have a conversation sure um and what I just handed out to the committee towards the end of that slideshow um is is one of those draft framework so and you have it electronically as well yeah yes so you can take a look through this and see this is really um a lot of hard work that that Mr tr's been been doing here um to align what we do in our school so what we do for instruction direct instruction what we do for schoolwide policies procedures how we respond to things how we proactively address things uh in how we communicate and partner with families um current practices and and hopeful future practices that align to the the five um competencies of C so the five social emotional competencies of um self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision-making um as you flip through it you can see you know if one a is included it's spelled out in the first one here but if it carries into multiple competencies there is a lot of carryover between competencies rather than write it out you know a bunch of times we we we label it there um so as you take a look through this you can see what some of those things are that we we already do or are in the process of on boarding um at Smith Academy to kind of drill into those those different areas um there's a a a similar framework draft that exists for Hatfield elementary school as well so how about let's start with questions specific to to the presentation before we broaden out the conversation is this this a a oneye grant I think you're in this are you in the second you like a year and a half so far yes it's multiart so jeans dph Grant comes every year um but the the amount shifts drastically it seems it's been in the right direction which has been lovely um and then uh we've been able to supplement with purchas of additional curriculum and signs and staff training and assessments through the seal mental health Grant which ends June 30th of this year so what's the timeline to finish the framework my goal is to have a quote unquote final by the end of this school year um as stated this is a year-by-year grant and my hope is to have it in a way that it can carry over unfortunately it will fall on the it'll fall on the responsibility of the school counselors and the team present uh to carry it as far as they want to um of course if I'm back next year then we'll continue the work but the live version will be done by the end of the school year that's the goal while also creating the our main mode of transparency will be the website that I'm GNA start working on very soon you forgot to list on your number of various jobs that you have been a webace designer maybe somewhere you've had some web yeah experience yes I do just as it happened before I didn't want to keep talking about myself forever um so when white might we know if you're coming back for next school year or not that's a great question I would like to know that as well but I'm you know honestly this is probably going to bite me later but if I'm not to come back next year via Grant um I do plan to continue to support in some fashion because I do I am invested in this my daughter is here I believe in this community I believe in this District um I will continue to be um part of this in some fashion maybe just not to the level that it is when it's Grant funded we're we're actively looking for ways to make sure we can support that that'd be great other questions before anyone else I have a few but I don't want to jump in um you noted in the curriculum that there's four different units are those happening at every grade level and there's a amount of time per unit is that yeah that's a really that's a great question um I actually created a slide that did have that but somehow got lost during this presentation yes so K through K through 5 has their four units uh the themes are consistent of course the lessons are developmentally appropriate and then grades six through eight have their own units and their own lessons that are developmentally appropriate and actually as of two weeks ago literally um Second Step the committee for children created a curriculum for 9 through 12 which um is adopt it comes with our current license because they we didn't have to pay anything extra for it which was which was pretty wonderful so can the principal speak to when this shows up in the day and how this shows up start yeah so what some of my teachers have done is they combine classes but there are 20 lessons and most of them have that as a professional practice goal to get through the entire curriculum this school year so some have done it individually but a majority of them combine their classrooms and do it together collectively so not quite every week there's a lesson correct okay and they're in duration anywhere from maybe 25 to 40 minutes and at Smith Academy um our um Miss Anderson our adjustment counselor is also our advisory coordinator and so part of what she does is she reworks some of these lessons to fit into our advisory block which is a little shorter in duration than the time that we should all lot to every lesson so she breaks them down a different way so we can do uh one lesson broken up into a couple sections over the course of the week in our advisory classes so they do that uh twice a week they um they do uh Second Step in advisory is that right Mr wall twice a week usually three Tuesday Wednesday Thursday okay we split the lesson into third great can I add something about that as well um I wanted just to make sure it was noted that this is the first full year of implementation um I want to commend the teachers for building this into their schedules their schedules are already super busy as they are um but I've been impressed with how much they've been able to accomplish and the goal moving forward with the information we've had for this year is to make this even smoother um with additional training um they had training but we can always improve on that so as the goal is to hopefully have this for multiple years and each grade level will carry it over to carry what they learned over to the next year so it will just become smoother and smoother as we go so it it's not a question but it's a little bit of commentary and I don't usually have my phone out in meetings but I um was having a conversation with a school Committee Member in another District of late and I asked the question if they if this committee chair hears from parents with conversations or questions or complaints about what's going on in the classroom and I just wanted to share is really relevant to this conversation and so I wanted to share what the answer was um and so I'm I'm going to quote I really don't get any classroom level complaints even from Friends occasionally some grumbling from teachers um but we've done a lot in the last few years at creating uniform expectations strategies across the schools for community building andal and it seems to have really made a difference and so when I look at what hits our inbox on occasion or our text messages or our passing friends at a sports field um I just look at what this work looks like and the impact that it can make because it's working in our in other districts around us um and it's not to say that there wasn't good stuff happening but clearly that sort of building a uniformed set of expectations and the training that goes with that can only build our district so and I didn't mean to really poke at you for grumbling I wasn't suggesting any of you would but I just thought that was insightful so other questions about seal in general that maybe not necessarily specific to the presentation or the framework I guess see no one jumping up at this I my big one I come back with repeatedly is how are we measuring our growth when it comes to social emotional learning as a district I get that we have students that we can measure and we can look at that but that is not a discussible thing um so how are we taking inventory of our skill set because there is no mcast right there is like how do we look at this what are we what are we tracking so so there a couple different ways there so um there is no mcast there are mcast like surveys that um exist to provide us with some information things like the vocal data that's um that's collected uh we have the um the spiffy group that comes in they do a social emotional uh or or uh youth risk survey um I believe Mr TR mentioned the um or maybe it's in in here a universal screener that we'll be utilizing called the Desa screener which actually is sort of a way of of um taking a benchmark kind of assessment of social emotional learning competencies so there there are ways that we um we can measure sort of objectively in that so I think that's that's part of it the other way the more um kind of um qualitative way is just by what's happening in our schools so are we seeing um increases or decreases in um student behavior that we'd like to see changed and what are we uh when we put specific plans in place for students are we seeing results of those plans um that data is tracked individually with with specific students um and so we can say Yep this is working nope this intervention is not working what are we going to do differently do we need to um pull a team meeting together what what what supports uh do we need um are the responses that we're having are they are they being effective or not um we can measure that through office referrals so I know that when um I or Mr Duncan at Smith Academy have students referred to the office for something we track that and so we can say yep um Conor Driscoll's been to my office four times this month but he was down to my office eight times last month so things may be going in the right direction um we can do that more generally for for all office referrals uh as well as um you know for specific students is too so I office referrals are tracked what are the other things that we're tracking related to behavior so one of the other things that we I least in the elementary school is we have a meeting every Friday with myself and the two the two counselors our behavior interventionist specialist as well as the counselor and the nurse and we constantly are having conversations around students that are of concern things that we have been hearing about frequent flyer kinds of things so we are always kind in conversations and talking about what are the plans are we updating those plans do we need to do something different um that's a piece of it I know that one of the things that we've talked about is having a more paper copied version of a behavior tracking so again this is something where um staff has been in the process of creating that it's also mentioned in this as something that we need to continue to work on and flush out as a way of being able to also have conversations around noticing Trends noticing if there needs to be something addition to the tier one supports that we're providing that maybe there's some tier two or tier three so that's something else that we're in the process of creating are are we tracking if classes are evacuated for disruptive behavior yes and those have been going out to families again because that was a a conversation that was had about wanting to give information because there's a disconnect between the idea of a student goes home and says you know a student did something the perception is that that disrupted the entire day or a very long amount of time when in reality it isn't that it's a it's a blip in the day and then everybody gets back on track but I think it's important to be able to notify and let parents know that so I'm trying to be more proactive and ensuring when I know that a room has been evacuated that I am forthcoming with that information that's just specific to the detail of here's the time duration this is what happened this is how quickly kids got back to class A couple couple things to that point I I think that are important is I don't think um there's an incident which occurs um at least not to my knowledge where there would be something like a room evacuation and administration wouldn't know about it um that that comes directly to us um the other piece that I think is worth seeing is this is a an element of transparency that we have kind of committed to here in Hatfield that isn't Universal um most schools if there's some if there's something that happens where it requires um you know students to to go to a different location um unless something happens where there's an injury you likely wouldn't hear about it um through you know through official official means yeah you might hear about it from from your kid but not not through official means so I think you know I think that that speaks to the the transparency we're shooting for here too is that we have those mechanisms to communicate that out so if we're tracking things like Behavior referrals for the to the office and evacuated classrooms are we looking at that on a at least a month-to-month basis to see what the trend line Looks like for a building or a grade level or some some grouping to see if we have Trends we look at that Weekly my Friday meetings numerically not just anecdotally yes okay and what is our Trend we um well it depends right right now we are seeing an increase in a particular class but that's in the process of being I guess I'm looking schoolwise not classroom based um I wasn't anticipating that particular data question um sorry yeah room I mean there aren't as many I think this year no I mean maybe about the same amount as last year from this year is that something that you could come back to the next meeting and let the committee know and just sort of like here from a broad rush I really don't want classroom or grade level information just like on some scale that we can look at because the conversations and what we hear from the community and what we get this conversation they don't always match up and the data would be so helpful and I think it's great that we're transparent I think sometimes it also creates new challenges for sure yeah I just make a comment for sure this is could be just purely my own opinion um I think if you data is very important of course it it allows us to see where we're at and provide a Baseline and see a trend line but I would I would caution utilizing the type of data that you were mentioning to track progress as far as social emotional learning because not in this District necessarily but districts in general you can skew that so easily um some ideas that are coming down the line that we're considering are more school climate surveys seeing are people actually happy do they feel safe I think that's more valuable than I it is of course it's valuable to find out are kids being evacuated daily or weekly or is that number increasing but I think it's more valuable to to just have a general understanding of how you feel at school just my own thought on that and that's something that that is in the works and I appreciate hearing that because we we don't necessarily know that that stuff's coming families don't necessarily know that that stuff's coming um and if there's a better way to measure it all for it but I think we're at the point of we don't we don't have any way to look and see how it's going except to hear anecdotal stuff and if by the time it gets to a Committee Member and it's anecdotal it's not likely to be a positive story someone wants to share which is unfortunate because I think there are a lot of positive stories I heard one today um but we don't we don't often get that and so think it would be really helpful if we're going to be transparent with families that we're also finding a way to report back out the broad Trends and truthfully if if people could hear to counteract some of the blips if it's a five minute blip to also have the like yeah and here's what kids have to say about how how they feel at school um assuming that that H that there is a functional way that that happens at different grade levels because usually that's stuff I hear about for more secondary focused this could be stuff is older kids is there what's the version of this that looks for elementary kids I don't know well a piece of a piece of it is adding in the Desa um the other piece is um that we're having um through the as Elemental Health Grant is partnership with UMass and having um Dr come come in and do um observations and surveys in both buildings but in different ways so uh I don't know if each prin as principal want to talk about how you're going to be using that I mean one of the things that the staff have said we have a very different staff's background in responsive classroom some people have had it haven't had it recently I brought someone who came in in November to do a presentation and generated a lot of excitement about wanting to move forward and then we had a whole bunch of other things that kind of came up in different future staff meetings that we kind of like it just we it lost some momentum however at the same time responsive classroom is more than just the morning meeting there's so many different other parts to it and because of that it'd be great to do a Fidelity check it's great to say we want to get back on ensuring that we have consistencies and common language with students with each other the adults themselves but part of that is just kind of doing an inventory and then having some actual coaching that happens throughout the school year that's not just once in a while it's done actually more consistently you know and the other piece I I was about to say earlier too is you know it's unfortunate that you're hearing so many parents complaining to you when I'm not hearing as much of those complaints because part of this is we need to be able to hear from the families if there's something of concern and I can say that I've had at least one family reach out and I have shared what I can but sometimes they have reached out to me they just don't like what they're hearing because I can't give too much information so hearing we're taking care of this we're aware of this we have a plan in place doesn't sit well when a student is going home reporting something that's upsetting to them but so it's it's a tricky line to walk around this perception that nothing happens when there are things happening and it they happen slowly Behavior doesn't TR you know doesn't change on a dime we need to put some things in place and give it time and we've had some great successes in the in our school and yeah there are things that are going to perk up we have kids who have trauma we have kids who have had death in the family we have kids who have medical issues those kinds of things sometimes will cause big feelings so as well as we get some things under control there are definitely other things that then start to perk so that's the reality of school it really and it's the reality of school everywhere yes and it's just a matter of we continuous Improvement and this I think the work that's been going on looks like great continuous Improvement and I just want one more thing we have some amazing teachers doing some amazing things I hope can I just say it right there I hope that this conversation hasn't in any way given the impression that I'll only speak for myself but it's probably not just me I don't think any of us would question that we have amazing things going on I think we're just looking to understand more and making sure that we're making positive Trends right that because the conversation has been challenging of late and I think the conversation is challenging in a lot of places I don't think it's specific to us and frequently there's a lot that we cannot say corre MH and hopefully my final comment I just want to make sure it's very clear that um that wasn't a response directly at your answer because you're right data does need to be collected my take was just that what data we collect will be really important to keep in mind I think it's just a matter of my interest isn't the specific data it is help find a way to measure it so we can so we can track progress because what gets measured gets done and I think this matters and so it's a matter of like okay how are we watching this unfold so that we can celebrate the successes because right now I don't know that we I don't know that that's happening are we celebrating the successes I don't know I I think Behavior data is more complex than any other kind of data because if a child knows 3 + 4 is 7 they'll know 3+ 4 is 7 next weekend they'll know it a month from now but if they're able to regulate their body when they're given a demand on Monday and their life happens a social conflict happens they have a tummy ache any number of things that regulation ability does shift it's different than math point so I the other piece of it is we have new we have um we are so small that there is some kids that come some kids that go some kids that need a different level of support um and so there is an apples to oranges piece of this um and it's important for folks to understand that when we're working with individual students or classrooms we are working Apples to Apples but due to confidentiality we cannot not share that and so I do think it is it is the trickiest type of data to share um because it changes in a way that academics don't um so we've created these systems over the last three years um the teachers have done an amazing job taking on and shifting and increasing tier one supports um from you know I think we where where we were three years ago but also in the last 3 years we have consistently increased academic demands of our students postco um so that piece is changed as well and we're facing other trends like Staffing um which is a national thing um so again they're also needs to be some some degree of trust when we're sharing that things are going a certain way because there are so many components to behavior that are not the same as academic achievement I I like the idea of potentially anal survey to the community because I think that administrators having that um that mode of getting information from the community might help get all on the same page and and Bridge um a gap or just kind of lay the the the strengths and then the needs kind of on the table in a way that's not emotionally charged and is objective um I I think that clearly by all the text in some of those slides that there's some great work going on and I think it's a great um it's a great way to be looking at tiered supports and setting up those supports and kind of having a a framework right that sets kids up for success and then looks to kind of build on that I think the concern of um some of the concerns I'm seeing and how I'm how I'm missing in the presentation is is how that supports or applies to students that might currently be in active crisis that need a lot more um you know of that tier three plus because we're coming out of Co and there's a lot of and and there's a mental healthare crisis and resources are um not available in a lot of places I think that and I can say that as as someone who's been on the committee for a long time it's not even clear to me for those kids and not in a um you know not in a student specific way of reporting out what are you doing but in a very general way what are the supports and resources that the district has what might those interventions look like for today the principal sent out an email that a classroom was evacuated so that there has been some type of extension of this presentation that speaks to um how is Hatfield handling um crisis situations so that everybody is is safe how are we skill building right because to Molly's point about um you know Behavior shifting and changing but what are the skills that we're teaching every single day to prep kids that we know might have trouble with math or might there might be an increase in behaviors if they're tired or they might have not taken their medication that day and we didn't know what are what are the skills we're teaching to set them up to be successful in our classrooms who are the resources who are the people that are doing that do we have enough of that because I I think that the concern from the community I think that once that information gets out to the community once or twice like everybody is everybody is understanding but when it seems to be continuing and you're not sure of not specific to that situation but you're not even sure what the district's resources and supports would look like as far as space like is there a separate state place to bring students that are that are um potentially going to be a safety concern to or what do are what self-contained or specialized programs does the district have maybe a presentation of in that way again just objective of here's what we have here are the resources and here how here's how we would plan for students that really you know the the skill set that is required in a classroom is is really much greater than we're finding that they may or may not have at this moment but how are we planning for those kids I'm not sure that for although I will I did like look through all of it quickly but I'll say that I have not fully like sat down and digested so I apologize if that information is in here but for me that information um this presentation didn't answer any of those questions that I that I have had for for a while and I think that's that's certainly some information that as we flesh out the um theal framework where we break it down into those tiers when we get into those those tier three areas that those are supports that we could outline and we could document um Hatfield being as small as it is it it is really difficult to get um that information out there specifically following some kinds of kind of Crisis incident without doing it in a way that readily identifies a student um who is being supported or whose service is may be um you know directed towards um and so that you know one of the one of the challenges with sharing that information out um in in you know not in a in a broad sense um but in any kind of response to anything is to do so in a way that maintains confidentiality um so I think that can certain be an offshoot of something that we do with the theal framework um to document the kinds of resources we have the kinds of services we're able to provide in a in a general sense um but it would be very important to do that in a way that is um is crafted so as to not single anyone or even any any class or grade level out I guess I hear if tell me if I've got this wrong but what I hear you saying is in general if x happens then the school's disposition is to do y and that that there is a clear understanding of like action and Next Step that is unrelated to any individual and and that that that is something that we can certainly outline I think more more clearly in some of our our codes of conduct with the understanding that for Conor Driscoll student um it may be that there you know why may not be something that works or maybe it's a XYZ there's the menu of things it wouldn't have to be prescriptive per se but I I guess I hear us saying we don't know any of like we don't know what the menu looks like sure even you know even in and I did pick up in in one of the slides like oh the behavior support team like okay does each building have one what individuals are included on that team at what point do they become involved what does that look like very general and and maybe you make it like quarterly just updates on that so it's it's not tied to anything that may or may not be going on at that moment but here's what we have here's where we're seeing that we may need more supports or we're looking to hire rbts because we're finding that we have more need I think that it's going to in a in a town this size um you know that information is is always going to to come out so um so you know just kind of having it scheduled and being transparent of hey like we have these needs and we posted for all these esps but we you know we don't have any um you know candidates so we're subbing out I I think is I think would be helpful in the TR and in the transparency moving forward and I also think that um you know I'm I'm talking very much about supporting kids in crisis who who need who have significant skill deficits in the realm of social emotional learning and need to build those skills but then also circling back and saying and not forgetting well what is the impact as we're trying to figure that out to the rest of the students in the classroom because I think sometimes teams get so concerned about because you have a student in crisis that you are trying to support and you're trying to keep everybody safe but we have to have time to Circle back to everybody else and say how is everybody else doing and and what does that look like because I you know if you're being told like you know don't laugh at the student when they're doing this to you because that that you know whatever it is but just to check in with everybody else to make sure that that's not you know another student that observed it or saw it or whatever it is having beginning to have you know um beginning to need additional support from from just beginning to need additional support I'm trying to align the great presentation that we just got and all the information that that the administration is giving us with kind of the inbox um because there certainly there's there is a perception reality mismatch and we talk about this often how you know the the stories they get out to families might not actually match what's going on but everyone's reality is kind of shaped by their perception anyway so it it's real to their student to that family we have I I get feedback on things like you know daily disturbances or multi-week disturbances in individual classrooms um and parents feeling like the students who are perhaps causing the disturbances are not adequately supported um by by Design or by our school and then you know even if it's just if it's a blip if it's just a five minute blip a 15 minute blip if it's three to five times a week that takes a toll on on that on all the other students in the classroom and it gives families of those students a lack of confidence in our school and that we are perhaps I don't want to I don't want to say prioritizing one student over the rest but that that's their perception and I don't know how to kind of right side that I don't know how to respond when I have parents reaching out and saying you know what this this has been ongoing for for months and months we're not noticing a change or the only change that they've noticed is you know a few new kids have joined the classroom and things have gotten somewhat worse it's again perceptional reality I if they're coming to me at that point then it feels like they are feeling a they are feeling a failure on the administration's part to address the issue adequately and I don't know if it's just communication or if it's if it's showing that there's something more than just communication that we are in need of doing more um we've lost families who have choiced out in the current fiscal year or next fiscal year and worried that it could be more and I don't know how to how to address that so I I mean first first and foremost I think if I would hope that if families are reaching out to you or anyone on the committee that they've also reached out to Administration prior um so that they could you know they they we could have the chance to provide some of the information that you might not have um that you know about some supports that that do exist I do think uh to to Jen's point before I I think having a concrete way that we can outline both the supports that exist for for individual students as well as for you know classes um I I think that that may be helpful in to have not not just for for communication purposes but also for you all to have so you can say well you know did you you did you get a chance to take a look at this communication or this update that was sent on at this time some information might be in there um but you know please make sure that you're you know you're sharing these concerns with administration too so um you know that that we're not hearing it when uh you know when it's got to a point that that folks are so upset they're contacting you all that that we we have a chance to to speak to them first um I will say as a general rule I send them back to start I I usually say have you have you talked to the classroom teacher I try to send them all the way back there first um because that feels like that should be the first place um and if they can't resolve then that then we're like then you should go to the building administrator um so and and if you would prefer we send them elsewhere we can talk about that but right maybe in the in the first meeting that outlines kind of the supports in place outlining a a hierarchy of CH of here's where to go first and then that makes it really easy then for committee members if they're getting those types of emails to then just be relaying here is here's the chain of command here's the the policy and procedures on who you should be contacting if you have concerns and and to what we were speaking about earlier with that kind of outlining those supports that that we we put in place broadly um Mr was talking talking about the the having theal designated portion of our website that could be information that's readily available not just for uh you all but for community members um who can go in and say okay here's you know here are here here is the the way that that students are supported um so I think that that could get get to that piece as well I just wanted to yeah sorry to interrupt okay I just want to share that that's a big part of why we had this presentation today and why we're creating the framework because not that it's going to cure every situation but hopefully um if the our stakeholders have a better idea that we have a plan and that we have that they have more information that they don't have to uh use perception or use General um thoughts about education is Nationwide that we actually are doing things and hopefully that that will help dissolve some of the worries that nothing's being done they'll be able to see all the things that are being done proactively and then also to your point as well um not reactively but on an as needed basis and part of that website will include um IDE uh things like yeah change change of command um what is our BST team our B support team what does that consist of hopefully if I do it well it'll have all of that not that that everyone will go to that website but hopefully if you get a response like that you'll be able to say someone right so I mean there's times that you need to push information out and there's times it's got to be available for somebody to get it and Pull It in yeah and and as much as I'd like to think we could educate people adequately for all of that that's unrealistic they're going to have a going to there's going to be a thing that happens in a day and they're going to speak up and and we can we can help redirect um but I still think getting some proactive communication as this gets up will be helpful um it nothing is ever a oneandone if you're trying to you know as Educators as a communicator it's like six to 21 times before someone gets it you have to say it um so it's going to take some some time and and change for Behavior takes some time and we might need a little education on what is an appropriate timeline like how long does how long does it take in a classroom to see those kind of changes if if it's big emotions if it's big stuff um so that we set expectations accordingly sometimes I wonder if if we as parents have appropriate expectations often we don't have another comparison so some of you that work with kids every day have a comparison like oh this is what it looks like all first graders are like this this is are all third graders are like this and you kind of can level set that for most parents who aren't sitting with kids every day it's like this seems like it's a really big deal is this a really big deal I think it's a really big deal and you go to someone who's there they're like you know what it really wasn't that like I get why it feels like that was a really big deal it really isn't and here's why we believe that and here's what we've done about it anyway but but I don't know that we have a level set for expectations of what we should expect for seal and behavior as parents which can lead us to be under involved or overreactive like there's a wide spectrum of that yeah may I ask a couple of for instances like do we have a plan in this situation if if a student has or a classroom has a PA professional ESP assigned to them and that par is out for the day what is the point typically we try to find a sub um so that may might be um getting someone from pulling someone from a different set of services that are are less pressing if that's needed um it might be we get a you know fingers crossed we get a sub on the sub list who comes in uh but try to we try to staff those absences as we can so it's not impossible that the student may just become less well serviced that day it's not impossible no is there a point at which we can say that unfortunately we're not able to best serve a student's needs at our schools yeah and that that typically would come through a team meeting so we have a um both a legal and I would AR moral obligation to try to um exhaust our own resources um to serve to serve students every student who comes into our schools um if it gets to a point where we are you know we are not able to do that then we would go typically uh through a team process to determine placement um but there are a n number of steps again all confidential steps um that would need to be taken be before that you know it's not like you know someone joins on Tuesday and on Thursday we're you know we're we're we're making that decision that it's a process it takes time it takes data collection um and it takes you know we need to need to make sure that we're doing our due diligence as a school and as a district first there are also extremely few other options just to be particularly at certain age levels so there's almost no options under the age of nine in this in the valley other than for certain types of populations so local districts build their own um we we have placed in other um public districts that have programs we have accepted students from other districts tuition into ours the step down at Smith program where they didn't have a program but we've built one um so uh there's that too we have to really you know think about is there anything else out there um and sometimes the answer is no so okay a question I've frequently gotten and I know it's late so if you guys want me to stop tell me um for school choice students who either come with an IEP that requires a pair professional or we determine they need one and we go through all the the work of getting that approved by their home District we don't get that approved by their home District okay if okay so if we but either if we determined after they get here that they need additional support what is the reimbursement for that bike do we get if we have to pay X number of dollars for that does that come in from that district and 100% amount the following year or in a one to one so the state sets allocations in their own algorithm for school choice claiming it's actually what I'm doing this week is because it's due on the 10th um and so it sets its own um costs uh related to every service so you know student has one time a week speech I put that in in school choice claiming we get the state algorithm reimbursement from that sometimes it's in our benefit sometimes it's a little bit different um and and so there is a we do get a higher uh reimbursement through the school choice claiming than just a traditional school choice placement um but it it's not a it's not one to one like I said sometimes because it's a state rate sometimes it is on in our benefit depending on you know where that professional is on the scale whatnot um sometimes it may not be collectively looking at it from a budgetary sense though it typically is those tuition dollars that have helped us have the volume of service needs and the budget available to have a lot of things on staff and the cost for having professionals on staff versus if we did not need quite the number of services and did not have that offsetting tuition we would more in more occasions we would be having to cont ract out for that and the premium on that is phenomenally high like a 300% maybe at least at least depending on which one depending on what it is so sometimes we don't get we might not get exactly the dollar back or we might get a little more we might get a little less but frequently the difference in those budgets are what let us have our own local students needs met too and to your answer on when it comes it's so we get it the next year so yeah like I'm claiming right now for this school year um we put in the final claim we put in our our initial claims Now by May 10th and then at the end of the year we certify in case something changed a little bit um and then that's how we get that funding next year okay okay while we're on that subject can I dispose another myth which is is we have we just are like this Mecca to take in high needs and you can look at the financial data and the tuition dollars for our local students going out is higher than the students coming in which means that we aren't getting a disproportionately high number of kids with needs than our local kids MH so that is just a little rumor that it comes through regularly that isn't true in that thread a similar question that popped up is so last year we changed our policy to accept school choice throughout the year does that create a heavy burden on our school to accept students mid year it can we we don't know who comes right so we have X amount of open seats and whomever comes comes and so it can but it also might not in your estimations is it worth it to have that policy extended Beyond a traditional school choice deadline you may I think there are plenty of plos and clans like right now I'm doing the school choice claiming I will be claiming more things than I would have if we didn't open it if that makes sense but in some ways we've had to spend that this year in an unplanned way yeah I mean the the amount of students that came in right after Christmas Vacation were pretty large and overall we've only had one currently that is we are you know we are working on some some some plans for the others have not we they've not been you know we've not needed any other additional adult support okay so that's good to know but it's also still tricky because again you're you're thinking about entering a classroom community in which it's well established at the same time though we have amazing teachers who are doing an an awesome job at being able to assign models and here this is your buddy your buddy student just like I mean so it's it does work that we can have students come in mid year and acclimate to a classroom Community because it's different but similar and as far as how it's run and then there are is that opportunity or option sometimes where it's a bit of a change and it's something that we are still in the process of of supporting and I um I think a lot of the kiddos that we've brought in throughout the throughout what would have been our deadline um we're still kind of dealing with that postco were homeschooled in some way and and looking to come back or it's not working wherever they they are and it's an option so I think it'll be interesting to maybe survey that group of folks to learn more about why they came mid year why they wanted to come midy year um and to be clear we also had new local students come in M oh yeah we had a bunch of kids move in yeah and those we we take no matter when they come yep no matter what so I mean I think kid kids come in all shapes and sizes so there's all sorts of that just is what it is I mean and ultimately the reason why a lot of the the families that have come school choice specifically midy year were because they were dissatisfied where they were and heard nothing but positive things about our school and our district and our teachers so that's a huge draw I mean we're clearly doing things right in some people's eyes because they're saying hey hat feel is an amazing place to be you should come here and parents are touring and then choosing to come here to to to get back to Adam's question about um you know that that policy I think it I think it's certainly worth considering um especially given if we are shifting our deadlines of when you know when we make the call when we when we vote on slots when we have those um those times open you know I think one of the one of the challenges we found at the end of last year um and we we talked about this in the the budget presentation is that we had we had 40 applicants we had all all the students that we needed for school choice to to to have a sustainable budget for going forward we had those applicants we were not able to provide them with a guarantee um before they needed to make a decision so I think I think by you know it's worth considering that if we are have revised those deadlines when we let them know when they need to let us know uh if we if we have done that effectively then we may not be in a um position where we need to say you know we're going to we're going to open for a longer duration you know we did that this year and we got a lot of new students this year we've revised when we're you know our practice in in in telling students when they have a slot and when we expect when we expect them to tell us by and we have 21 who have committed for next year already and so that's you know that's a change that's a shift um in our policy that I think gives a little more certainty to those numbers and gives a little more certainty to those families um so it it may be that as we are changing those practices that we can relook at some of the others too and it may be worth considering I think now too is a good time to go back and re revisit that because we've done it and then get back from the teachers that have now yep maybe another survey that I've lived at I I also to say we have another policy I'm just going to cut some of this a little short I'm sorry we have another policy that will be coming up that is going to reexamine those dates um and so we're probably like that's probably on next month's agenda um so there's going to be time for this conversation to have more depth um I'm just I also I think this is a really important conversation and so we've extended it because it's important for us to have I think it's important for the transparency that we've had questions coming in and this is a chance for you guys to have input and give some feedback um I think it's incredibly helpful for for existing families to hear about what the perception is beyond our town borders and why we're seeing 21 acceptances come in quickly overnight right that amazing quick turnaround because there's a lot that's going on that's right and so tonight has been a good opportunity for you guys to get to speak to that um in ways that I don't think everyone has had a chance to hear and sometimes we know stuff that we don't you know we don't have a way to share that um because it doesn't come up in a meeting and so tonight it's been and and I'm hoping that the seal conversation continues because it's part of what makes us shine so I'm really thankful for that I do know that we have more on our agenda and I don't want to forgo that and anyone that felt like they were ready to go if they wanted to sneak out we would totally understand um so I everybody had a chance to read administrative reports is there anything you want to bring up off of those reports and discuss about I'm gonna give him a chance okay or not um I think it might be worthwhile Dr Driscoll as I think it was in your Smith Academy report to speak to safety practices in the building sure if you want to here I'll even share the printed version if you need it oh thank you I just pulled up um so so as I mentioned in my report we um we've had a re recent inquiries about the safety of our schools and practices to ensure um how we how we um ensure that margin of safety is maintained for our all of our students um so we you know when we have events it's it's always a it's always a balance you want your schools to be open to the community you want people to feel welcome to come in to celebrate our sporting events to come see our band concerts to to come you know to come take part in that and you also want to make sure that your schools are secure um so we you know when when visitors come during the school day we ask them to check in we've um kind of revised our practice to make sure that during those kinds of events there's someone um going out to to welcome people and and ask them to check in um we've changed practice so that all of our contractors do any work they come through the front office so you know even if we know that Cody's coming to work on the HVAC system that would they you know they come in there's a you know they go through that that protocol uh we practice fire drills shelter and place drills um lockdown drills and when we have you know acute situations um we'll make sure that we're Consulting with Hatfield PD um putting safety plans in place um for any students who may need those um and to ensure that that margin of safety those are individual plans um and those are are not publicly shared um you know if if I had a concern about Conor Driscoll um and needed a safety plan to help help you know ensure that that he was being safe at school that plan wouldn't go out publicly that would go to Connor Driscoll's parents and Guardians um to um you know to to to know that those steps were being taken okay thank you anything else the committee would like to pull off of those reports okay can we just there's two line items under the superintendent report let's make sure that we discuss those quickly um one I think we have on here twice is to um update on the sixth grade move so I guess I want to make sure that I publicly on camera say I am terribly sorry that our last meeting on the 22nd of April was not recorded there was no intention to have that unrecorded um it was scheduled to be here we just had a snafu in scheduling for um our town YouTube channel to also be here this is not a facility that lets us record through Zoom the building doesn't really support that um and as a result it it was a conversation that people couldn't participate in or listen in on and I'm and I'm sorry for that um and so we've sent out a letter we've made that publicly the the outcome of that meeting went out um but I think the part that maybe didn't get wasn't as clear as we wish it had been is that a there's a lot of appreciation for the time and the investment that went in from many many staff members to H to bring that conversation forward um and that none of it was in vain because it's a conversation that will continue and we will pick up in the fall and so it's it the conversation and the vote about moving sixth grade was that we would we would come back and continue to discuss that so is there anything you want to update in that um no except to again thank everyone for the work that they they they did leading up to it I know there's a lot that went into it um and that I look forward to working with the community to um continue the conversation and and uh yeah um so there is a place here to talk about we've had this conversation in bits and pieces but a quick look at school choice enrollment update for 2425 so the committee has a sheet where predicted enrollment was going to be the in town existing the current school committee or excuse me the current school choice numbers the approved number of slots from the meeting a month ago and then the yes column speaks to if they've applied and they've already responded positively doesn't mean that there aren't other applications that just may not have come back in yet and we continue to reach out to those folks yep any questions Dr jll I had emailed you earlier today and asked about based on Census Data who's eligible for kindergarten preschool and this year and upcoming couple of years the number you gave me for next year for kindergarten doesn't match the number here you you had said there were I think there were 25 potential kindergarteners local kindergarteners mhm so that number is not on this document but I'm just wondering if if we can double check that number we can absolutely double check that number and how many letters went out to like potential kindergarten families and do we need to reach out to them again we do have our welcome prek event this Thursday behind the library that we partner with the collaborative and last year that was when we were able to pick up a couple stragglers awesome um so we'll make sure that we have enrollment packets and things there um so that that's an annual event that we do um and last year we definitely picked up a couple that hadn't quite made it all over we like hey who are you and are you on our list excellent okay I dare say you guys feel like you've heard from the budget subcommittee sufficiently tonight I'm going to take all those smiles to Mean Mr Sullivan is off the hook for giving a report unless there's anything you want to add I think they've heard enough for me tonight regardless okay um there is one piece of financial business that we must attend to and that is um the busing bid review for fy2 so are as you will remember back to I don't know November or December when we went through and put the bus bid out and we made sure that we had in before the budgeting season started and um we got one bid in and so we need to take a look at that tonight did you bring that I forgot it okay I left it on my desk ready to go right in the folder is there anything different about it nothing has changed nothing's changed except for the amount is 43% more than it was a year a year ago well not since we had the review of the bid and everything we had a review of the bid in in in the Sub sub commmittee but we haven't we didn't bring it to the committee until we brought it with the full budget so it's some point we need to approve that bid if we're going to approve it and that's the subcommittee doesn't do that the full committee needs to and the full committee never got the post contract we were G look I thought we were going to look at it tonight I thought at some point we had it before we know the total of it and it was the 43 3% increase yes ma'am I really thought we had it somewhere I don't think I I don't I thought I don't have I don't think I have an electronic copy of it I mean I could pull up in the budget um to get the numbers actual like paperwork exists except with the hard copy I thought I think I have a PDF of it I can send it do you yeah I think so of the new one thanks so I don't remember having that you pleas I think I think perhaps because I asked Dr disco for it what's the shortcut for emailing school committee is it just SC yes he look at that so is it gonna get mailed or just put in the sh your inbox in a second I think thank you adamc yay Adam oh team what was that I said go team I know I was like trying to remember the acronym from the yeah every more it's yep okay here's right it wouldn't be in my inbox because I sent it no should be yep in your email it's in your email I'm looking in my email I have a really slow connection here do you want to look on did you get it still spinning here look with me oh like I can see that far well I'm it I'll Zoom it in Dare I ask about how many kids do we have that ride the last Connor you have confidential information up oh my goodness Shar my computer it was sorry share make sure Zoom is no longer yeah no zoom's not sorry thank you oh but it's on those things sorry yeah I just thanks all right so we weren't looking at that the good stuff is p three page three about how many kids ride the buses not enough I mean at the elementary school there's more there's those buses are pretty full um tell in the probably 20s to 30s on each at the high school we have one bus that I think nine kids come off and one bus that six kids come up can't we combine the route or no no yeah we we we have eligible to ride the bus we have a we have a lot of students so we have two full buses if every student who's eligible Rod the bus there is potentially a path to appeal to the state to be relieved of the rule but that is not something we can achieve for we need to have a bus is it worth an email to our state representatives to have like to encourage a Statewide review of us oh I had a meeting last week with um representative sabadosa about that very subject yeah because I know we're not alone no we're not I collected I collected information from um District Statewide and we are right in the mix with everyone across the state even the more populous areas are seeing oftentimes just one bid with um astronomical increases same with special ed Transportation we've been ADV ating with Russ and now Russ is in charge of everything at desie but um I it it's um it's just amazing um that like a very short run in in town even can be several hundred dollar a day yep um so the perception that bus companies are working together to yeah create there's a perception of collusion absolutely yeah um we don't have any proof no Pro but it's a perception that's I said it there's also driver shortage they're having to increase their driver pay their their gas costs their cost are going up their costs are going up too but the um it it is there's no at least for special education there's no there's no control over it they can set their own rate and um and sometimes they do it based on the complexity of students on families on mileage on all sorts of different factors feels like a a spot ripe for regulation like some states are looking at like regulating ambulance costs because cost can be you know exploitative and and it's um you know even on singular runs um you know it's not the same bid process but it you know I do reach out to multiple companies every time um and often don't hear back or if I hear back it's in two different ways and I negotiate it down negotiate you know I I go back and forth and it I don't sometimes know why they finally say yes to whatever I cut them down to but um it's it's incredible just for fun do we still have a position for a driver posted oh yeah um and I actually we partnered sorry to go off script a little bit um we partnered with uh Northampton recently and leased one of our RS for a few days um which we've talked about doing um there was one day where I pulled in and all three vans weren't in our parking lot um with Smith Academy was using it for a Honor's side field trip thing and then uh Northampton had leased one for the day and we we're using ours um and so the um transportation there's a a whole person who transportation in Northampton um and she's uh setting up her own uh 7D training thing so it'll be more local because the person we've been using is the other side of the state um so uh she knows that we have Vans she knows that we need drivers um so hopefully a continued partnership with Northampton will be fruitful on that 7D Van World um because it is is as much as that it's the same exact thing for these little runs that the percentage increases or astronomical one of the um avenues that may be worth pursuing down the line I don't know if it's worth pursuing it right now is that there are incentives uh Grant incentives for districts to um bring things inhouse specifically around um purchasing electric buses um if they were if we were able to find our own drivers there could be Grant incentives to get our own own buses to keep in house I worry that we end up like provinc toown we have our own buses D that's where I was going next the challeng we're with Vans we got three vans One driver and the challenge with that is that they had they had their own bus and their own driver they lost their driver and then they had to contract out and they saw increases of 140 something percent um and and had a bus and they had a bus sit there yeah so that's I mean that's which they could have leased to the they paid 140% more too yeah so um I say we did look at Alternatives we've had long conversations if there's what we can do we've taken the actions we can take it could be worse is the fear I'll make a motion to accept the bus contract as presented okay is there a second reluctantly a reluctant second okay all in favor of approving the grico buscon bid as presented say I I any opposed and it passes um next up we have a reading I will turn it over to Kathy to talk about the jid student cell phones and portable electronic devices policy and I believe you have a copy of this just as a handy reference yeah and smart watches was the edit um this is technically the first reading of this we didn't get to com we didn't have time to converse about it last time and this is essentially a draft because we don't have a policy that we're amending um Becca highlighted smart watches um not knowing if we should include those or not um yes maybe at the elementary level but I I it's it's there highlighted to spark a conversation around that um or to just leave it as cell phones and personal electronic equipment because we also don't know what else what's coming up next what's going to be the next thing um this policy was pulled mainly [Music] from South Hadley correct honor yes uh we looked at several other um surrounding towns that did have it not everybody does some were much more restrictive [Music] um you know where students walked into the building and the phone immediately went into a locked zippered bag and stored for the day and they have to pick it up at the end of the day this is proposing that students um would shut off the phones and keep it in their backpacks or wherever and we're not taking it from them unless it's become a problem and it needs to be removed and it's been a disturbance uh this policy does not outline specific discipline um we didn't feel like going to that level yet because we'd like to hope our students would respect not using their phones because of this policy there are there was a conversation about um you know cell phones are so much a part of everybody's lives is this a reasonable request and my my personal argument would be that we're setting students up for expectations in the future if they go to a job or they're working wherever they need to know they don't need to be attached to the phone for their work shift if it's four hours if it's six hours and right now school is kind of their workshift they're there to learn and be present in the classroom we've also talked about the equity issue of this um not everybody has a phone it may seem like everybody has a phone but there are instances that in certain grades not everybody does and so if a teacher requests yes you can use your smartphones for this or pull out your your phone and and look up this or do that and there's even one student in the classro who does not have a phone for whatever reason it's an equity issue we we also have onetoone devices and we do so they have a way to look things up y we are not preventing anybody from looking anything up they have other Alternatives um so I guess the one piece of feedback I heard thus far because we did put it out for staff to take a look at and um we heard back from our art teacher who they regularly use things for photography um because your cell phone picture versus your Chromebook picture is a mile apart and so I don't there there may be an equity solution for that um but if there's someone who regularly uses the device or specifically uses the device do we are we giving classroom teachers and and the equity issue is a piece of it maybe we don't give anybody an isue like if it's it's just the thing or is there a a way to craft some language that gives classroom teachers some opportunity if it's specific to the need of their class that a Chromebook doesn't won't handle it's it's worth discussing but one of the things that spurred this to the subcommittee was that there was inconsistencies amongst classrooms or teachers of oh this teacher doesn't mind if if you have it this teacher does and the Hope was that a policy would make everything level and so while I understand what you're saying if we have allowances here or there it's just going to it could fall right back into what it currently is instead of having a policy that is for everyone um I haven't thought specifically about the art class solution but it could be that there is uh a camera that is purchased for that purpose that for all the art classes for any of the students to use rather than individual students using their phones I don't know but um have a donation of old phones just used for that yeah anything you know there are there are ways to solve it I agree I'm just raising it so we talk about it at a first reading yeah one of the biggest things for the first reading was are we going in the right direction and do we want this policy what's the feedback from an Administration yes I haven't got much feedback from teachers but I would say yes the feedback I have got is um yeah I mean we could we could do more specific things for the elementary school school versus the Middle School versus The High School uh if that is a direction that you would like to see hearing that I feel like the policy should probably be Universal okay like there's a there's a policy and then within our handbooks if there's um you know if there's any differences we can we can kind of articulate them there but I think um you I think we we've seen the need for something like this increase okay um we don't deny students the ability to make a phone call home to a parent they need something but we also have gotten parents phoning us because their kids texting them from when they've gone to their locker about something because they're upset about something it's like no no no that's not how that works it's not helping anybody no no correct or parents that call in to say are you staying after for practice today in the middle of the day um where they could call the office and say is their practice in the vein of avoiding a power struggle and additional behaviors related to this would it make sense to like explain that a confiscation process is in the handbook or something I like I'm I'm just you know in thinking about you know when when kids are asked to put it away that has been a moment where we've had behaviors um so I'm just not sure I see a lot of upside to Universal standard I mean I I've heard too it's like oh that teacher's okay with it and this one's not like that puts the teacher who's not in a no- win spot it puts a lot it just I don't know it makes me think of kids who get to play their parents off each other is just not a fun spot I was wondering too if we needed to put I the art teacher wouldn't like it very much but if we needed to put something in the policy about that teachers should not be having students use their devices for um for class assignments or because everyone has an individual device well hopefully if the policy is saying you get the phones are supposed to be off and stowed away I but is teacher is gonna think well that doesn't apply if I tell the whole class take out your phones to to Administration then to hold teachers to follow a policy that is for the district yeah I I agree I don't think we need to call out teachers in a policy to follow the policy yeah I mean it's a district policy it's up to us to enforce the policy I would need to be I mean I assume Administration would explain like this means we're not going to use in class except for what's assigned if this assigned device all the readings and is appr I would ask at the beginning of the school year when you have your opening days that all the teachers are informed there there is a new policy and this is what it is and and students and parents yes everyone but yeah teachers students headline news the Falcon flyer that's right there's a are we seeing anything other than cell phones and smartw watches no I mean earbuds but if cell phones and smart watches are turned off and stood they shouldn't be what would I think earbuds could follow I was gonna ask iPads what about yeah we haven't seen many tablets to high school but so personal electronic equipment would definitely cover gaming and tablets and earbuds oh like um I like the direction of it I don't know yeah you too the only question I have um is around the and maybe I'm just trying to sort it out like SM the definition of a smartwatch that means that it's there's a different there's a difference between a smart watch and like a fitness tracker or a digital watch my Fitbit is not in any way shape or form a smartwatch I don't have phone calls or text messages or anything that through this we might need to find what constitutes smart well I I'm wondering um communication able to play it gets tricky because like the basic Fitbit does not but the higher end Fitbit will transfer so like now we're asking faculty to check people's wrists every day to find out well and are you saying that they can't you know can they not wear a smartwatch or they can't be using Smartwatch features I the part of why I asked that is it's pretty common now in the younger grades that um students who are toilet training have smart things that vibrate to remind them to use the restroom we have multiple students that are using that as a strategy um so and there is that clause in here um yeah some AR these are not all students on plans for medical reasons these are it's just individual cases for reasons of medical necessity or other serious needs exceptions may be granted by School administration and that would absolutely fit into that yep y you know um as we talked about in subcommittee that there are students who are diabetic and have the need for that and we totally get that and that's we just don't want the student that's you know and even that their social media or texting or you know so I dare offer this while Becca's not here but this might be lovely if you guys when you go back and are Contin to work on things to have like a clearly permitted bullet list and a clearly not permit it like just so there is zero confusion just to kind of make sure that all of that got captured clearly and headline it with a caveat of this may not be an exhaustive list just right things change right so it's like permitted before school after school as we know Becca loveing yes tables are Big L I feel like this calls for a table I'm just gonna say it and she'll get to do that can I just ask one one of the things that in speaking to um miss lanaville it says and one of the paragraph students are permitted to use cell phones before and after school hours outside or inside the school building um with the approval of the director okay I'm just going to say that that is not going to be something that we want to support we want kids not to be using them before school or during box or after school for that same reason as students are permitted to use cell phones at after school or sports activities only with the permission of the coach instructed instructor or program director so how how is that different from the teacher can say it's okay and this teacher can't St up here it's extracurricular it's extracurricular it's not during the school day okay and you know for sports you need to be able to say practice is done early or we're running late or the game is and at that point the office is often closed that would that's the difference for me is that during the school day kid needs to call home they can come down to the office call home after school at a game or a practice if the office is closed they can't get in they they may still need to communicate so us old grayhair folks used to have a pay phone um at at sa anyway is there any viable alternative to that at this point that would be public you know that any student could use after hours and have access to doesn't exist I don't think so it just there's just not a thing anymore right all right hasn't been for a long time yeah even before kids had cell phones it wasn't a thing we went through a period of time where kids didn't routinely have access to cell phones but there weren't any more payones either oh okay so there there was this there I don't know what time you the phone left Umi High School too remember is there any conversation with the group that supported wait till 8th come back around because that was a big deal for a while the whole it was a huge deal for a long time and that seems to have ebbed away I feel like as we get more and more information about clones and stuff we're learning that isy for you know adults anyone so um why stop at eth no offense 9th through 12th graders no no no but I'm just saying in general like this bringing this policy up we I don't know which group there was a group that supported that was a parent group I thought nurse genene was maybe in the middle like she may have been part of there was it it was brought forward um by a particular parent and she was pushing for it for a long time and then got more traction on it okay and nurse Jean I believe it join because I I came in kind of Midstream with that right kind of toward the tail end and the understanding that I had is as it was kind of petering out was there was some feedback from parents and community members that felt that the schools were overstepping and trying to dictate how they um you know what they what they were deciding as parents for kids what I recall though is that it the school didn't clear clearly take a position on it and that's what affected the parent involvement that was pushing for it because the school wouldn't totally get behind them and say yes because the school is trying to remain more neutral on it but that makes sense you know didn't discourage the parent group from promoting it I see a question in the audience yes Can I some yes please well actually wait none of you can say yes we would love to hear from you in this unofficial onetime capacity all right thank you um so I was a parent of that class that pushed for that when my child was in fifth or sixth grade and I teach Middle School over at Smith Academy we were never told about that policy as being anything that the school district was doing um and the only reason I knew about it was my child was in sixth grade or fifth grade at the time where that was taking place um so it was kind of kind of a good intention but not a follow through component to that weight to eight um said it was parent Leed right school didn't but it was it was presented by the elementary school as a districtwide thing and then the middle school is never told of it so that's kind well it was elementary parents right that were promoting it and trying to do more with it on their own they could only get so far without joining forces and at the time the administration did not want to join forces in that and make that kind of statement so would you like more feedback or you feel like you've got stuff to go on I got stuff to go on but we're always happy to take more feedback on this okay um you know we think it's important we'd like to get it right and um I think this is definitely one that will come back three times because some point we well because it's new as well yeah and parents may have some feelings and let's hear it but it sounds like there's widespread as a teacher do you have a perspective I've been typing an email okay I saw him nodding a few times so based on he was noding the body language was like yes I've spent years promoting and hoping that kids would use cell phones appropriately um I I've had classes where they've done amazing jobs where they would a kid would take a picture of the notes on the board and air drop it to everybody else and it was absolutely amazing and I loved it um I would hope the school committee investigates bags the magnet seal them away telling kids to have them off in their locker is going to increase bathroom trips where kids stop at their lockers to text home but it says they're not supposed to use it then or at lunch there's no specific Hall Monitor to make sure that they're not doing it um I know chiap has bags the state supposedly has grants for bags think wakona has bags think that's the like that we should have some provision of where they can be put to avoid confiscation that that power control piece of confiscation is is tricky yeah um so even the word feels harsh and so so I don't know if if you know when we do safety plans and behavior plans we say you know the kid will do this the family will do this the school will do this so I know like we can't put in policy all that but I I wonder if just that we somehow the school will provide something to get this implemented you know in terms of of bags or a place or whatever but um I know we have the secured spot once it's been confiscated but ahead of that so you guys might have to come back and give us an education on how the bags are working yeah and and how effective they've been and what other we did briefly talk about it in subcommittee about or a box or something to that effect and Connor I believe it was you that wanted to have um a measure of trust in our students yeah we may need the bags we may need the bags conversation with some districts who've tried multiple things and see let's learned from them it maybe a difference of grade level like age level because you know we we deal with it I mean I I see that we deal with it at the elementary school I I we obviously deal with it at the at Smith so um you know I don't know if bags or some other system worked better with younger kids versus older kids versus whatever but just out of curiosity what percentage of kids at the elementary school would you say have cell phones or SmartWatches that they're bringing to school almost all of almost all of I fourth fifth and sixth and SE bu Bunches of downstairs all the way to kindergart yeah I I might have told my child that there is a wait until 8th Rule and that you cannot in Hatfield have a cell phone before 8th grade let him watch these meeting minutes I tried that too and I'm telling you I'm but uh but no I hear like well my but such and such has I'm like you guys are at the time they were seven like seven year olds with cell phones I don't I know a four-year-old with yeah that's rough okay so thank you for the feedback if you further thoughts um please feel free to email about them happy to hear more opinions and suggestions as we continue to look at it thank you but we just wanted to be sure that this was a direction that looked good to people and now we can tweak it so thank you thank you so I feel like Miss Maloney we got your we got our money out of you for your last to run until 10:15 um would anyone like to make a motion to adjourn ask a question quick sure I have floating on my calendar that we're holding next week are we I do not believe we're going to need a meeting next week okay so um a couple of us have a prep meeting tomorrow if I learn something that changes that I will reach out but I don't believe we'll need too okay I hope that everyone would join together and come to town meeting do we have babysitters available yet we put the uh put the saw the notice go plug it out again we haven't had any respondents yet but that doesn't mean they're not there okay okay oftentimes they wait till their parents encourage them to some volun holds we need some volun holding yep all right okay with that is there a motion to adjourn so moved is there a second a second excellent last act all in favor I I thank you thanks everyone thanks for the light late night