##VIDEO ID:EAkEACxaMj8## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good evening hollon and welcome to the September 26 2024 uh meeting of the hollon school committee um we will get right into business we started at a reasonable almost on time today um so recall the order uh I will now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda do anyone has any um any part of it that they want to talk about and that includes the grants that includes the grants yes move by Cynthia second by Dawn all in favor okay that carries 7 to zero Lisa um moving right along uh we we do have our our student Representatives here with us tonight um I know I think you introduced yourself at the end of last year but why don't you just take a quick second to introduce yourselves again and then if you have an update for us I give that um my name is Ry my name's Caroline Harris um and so the updates that we have from the school right now are that homecoming is coming up on October 4th and the theme was just announced as camouflage um we've had a lot of college reps visiting um and they're coming into guidance and a lot of students are going down um the fall Musical Harry is um happening right now um but the old director is on maternity leave right now so there's a um class of 2020 student representative Liv scary who's like stepping in right now um and then the soccer teams are doing really well right now both boys and girls um we recently had the club Fair last week it was held in the cafeteria instead the hallway and there was like a really big turnout and I think a lot of people signed up for new clubs um we have some like opinions about the cell phone policy that they just added personally I think it doesn't really affect me but some kids like some of our friends said that they don't like the policy because like some electives are a little less rigorous and they would like to have the option to use their phone but they're happy with them like in like math science and those kind of classes um we don't have advisory this year and a lot of kids are very happy about that because they'd rather have more time spent on their academics and we had open house yesterday and the NHS senior students were helping out with that um thank you for the comments about the cell phones um let you work with Mr list about that um school committee comment uh no comment I'd like to say congratulations to the um Adam School the uh Blue Ribbon award that was congratulations um and all the schools hon High School RS Miller all showed really strong Improvement and their accountability percentiles and their progress toward their targets so there was a lot um to celebrate um in the 2024 mcast data so congratulations students teachers and leaders thank you I just Echo the um congratulations to Rams it's a really big deal and it's a huge accomplishment so I think Administration staff all the teachers everyone who helped make that happen it's it's really wonderful so thank you for that um and yeah we had the open house at the high school last night and that's always a really fun night and thank you to um I think the National Honor Society kids who help direct all the parents who have no idea how to get to the classroom I mean how many no I know it's confusing I can't find the staircase I can't understand the numbering of the rooms so anyway they did a great job so thank you for that and it was really fun to see the teachers and it's always a good night so thank you uh I was same thing I was going to say about the Blue Ribbon um programs I think congratulations to Dr Jordan I I just throw that out there too um what 315 schools Rams was the only Middle School it's really impressive so you should be really proud of that Massachusetts yeah yeah so you should be really proud of that accomplishment so thank you for your leadership on that um and that's it for me tonight no comment a few things I just want to um the parks department has been on Facebook but I'm probably I'm sure they'll they'll do more marketing of it but on October 19 1 p.m. is going to be the uh sort of the dedication of the NIT Field Complex up here at the high school and so we last year voted um to approve the naming of of that and that uh is a really exceptional uh honor that uh to a well-deserved individual so I hope as many people uh can can come to that as as possible um let's see moving on uh we are going to have to talk in the near future maybe at our our our meeting next week about uh just our our Capital request I'm just sort of doing this now for for the for the Rams roof we've had some back and forth not so much the amount but just sort of any kind of conditions around it so just so um I just wanted to sort of announce that now um let's see um I also wanted to say that I just appreciate the work that Ben Sparrow has been doing on the town manager act we'll get into that a little bit later but uh he's been working very hard to find compromis language on on many sticking points and um well I know I'm no longer on the finance committee um I think that they last no two nights ago on Tuesday it seemed like they came into some compromise uh language that that works for everyone which I think will help make things a lot smoother and uh I really hope uh I think it's supported by Travis and and and Ben I hope that the full um select board adopts it um and then lastly I just want to thank and apprec thank and show my appreciation to the to the community that all the compliment and and sorry not the compl all the comments and complaints uh have reverted to normal everyday issues and they're no longer around an override so you know all all the the emails of problems I'm getting are runof-the-mill so that's uh that's great Dan it's pass so I'm just saying like you know we're moving on moving out yes productive composition um okay um that so no public comments so Bri we want to come somewhere sure want to use this B sounds good just your name and address good evening uh my name is Jason Cooper I live at 121 Mohawk path in Holliston and I'm the president of Hall newth Basketball Association and I I'm here on its behalf also have a sixth grade daughter at Rams and a fourth grade daughter at Miller hon Youth Basketball Association is a nonprofit organization which is 100% volunteer we're expected to have 500 hollon children participate in the program this year grades K to8 our basketball Pro program has grown tremendously and we are facing a gym shortage it is great to see so many hollon kids have interest in basketball along with other sports and clubs in town I am personally involved with hallson youth basketball not for the sport itself but rather for the lifelong skills and traits that our children develop in Youth Sports such as self-confidence teamwork and communication skills and of course less screen time I'm here to explore options for Hall newth basketball to specifically rent the Adam school gym during the week Monday to Friday starting at 5:00 p.m. our current gym rental begins at 6:00 p.m. the extra hour start time would be a game changer for fulfilling our gym needs we have currently been told we cannot start our Adams gym gym rental until 6:00 p.m. we are willing to pay additional fees for custodians if needed I will also note that we Cory all of our coaches lastly the additional one hour of gym time rent gym rental time from 5: to 6:00 p.m. would equate to approximately $3,600 of rental income to the schools this year alone thank you for the time and I just want to mention that uh Hall with basketball really appreciates the partnership that we have with the school the administration and everyone so thank you very much thank you Jason um you guys have had conversations with them yes okay Y no again we we've had a policy um you know a longstanding policy of that Jim that we keep school and and public separate from events and so it's been successful for 24 years has been 6:00 is when the school ceases to be a for available for school activities unless something predefined and becomes available gym rentals whether that be Youth Sports whether it be Community groups or whatever it's it's been a long-standing policy so Keith is there any events happening at P today for the school there's no there's no guarantee on any given day that there won't be whether it be an athletic event or whatever um I do know that from time to time our athletic teams do practice down there you know girls basketball sub varsity basketball does practice down there um the middle school does run activities there um you know after school back when we had extended day there extended day there was to there till 6:00 p.m. so that would then remove the opportunity for extended day to go back there I mean it's again we these rules were established again probably before me in all seriousness I don't think I establish them um but again it's it's again we've just found success that we don't have to have the you know for people who have unsupervised uh uh exposure to to children to our students um you know we require a COR and fingerprint and um the the if we I I hate to make it sound badly but if we have like co-mingling in that scenario it makes it challenging you know to to be able to keep those things separate and because again things do go on and there are things after schools and we have Athletics um you know especially in the springtime that do run later at the middle school um I just again you can certainly order us and and change that practice or policy it's not a policy but a practice um uh you know for doing it earlier you know I'm just saying that this has been a long-standing practice we've had success with that's all is the policy the same at the high school they po the same the high the high school has no availability because of Athletics here none um Keith how long has extended day been out of RS so it's before the pandemic um maybe a year before the pandemic um I think it was there in 1920 and then because of the pandemic that was stopped it could be I I don't yeah it's been a couple years yes oh no again I'm not saying I'm not saying that that they're rushing to get back or anything like that I'm just saying that again it just it room its options Jason how many coaches are there uh in the program uh we have 100K to8 in travel basketball for specifically coaches coaches yeah we have 100 coaches in the progam coaches I'm sorry 100 coaches no I'm just explaining Hol basketball across the board k to8 for TR a travel program which would be looking to use it in that time slot from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. it would probably be around 10 coaches approximately and the other pieces that we do make it available till 10: p.m. they only used it till 9:00 so again ke3 I well is it is house basketball still looking are you looking to use it from say end of November until middle of March or is it uh exactly November 12th to approximately March 1st okay thank you I don't want to give into too much more of a discussion but maybe we can add it to to to a future agenda as far as just trying to see keep the if the coaches got fingerprinted let's just say if so I think it's two things that I'm hearing so if they were to be record and fingerprinted they would have to come the results would have to come to us first of all that's that's state law but I think I'm hearing a separate issue from Keith yeah okay that's a separate okay yeah that's separate from his is more about also the time okay so we'll get it on the agenda we'll talk about it we'll have to see but yeah okay thank you thank you okay um no reason to move anything around right we'll just go raise presentations okay so uh we now have two presentations uh from our esteemed um director of uh in equity and our director of um no our student services director it's always confusing when director comes first comes at last I mean it's just I change it all the time make it interesting wow that's interesting for me and how I roll all right we're all set to go all right um hey everybody um hope everybody's doing well um Jess and I are really excited to be here um I'm excited to share a lot of what I believe is good news a lot of good work that's happening in our schools um I'm here to share our staff is really motivated and excited about where we're headed uh and I'm sh I'm going to share why um and we're also going to share some data that'll start to ground why it is we're doing the work that we're doing so the way um one of the things you're going to start to hear from me um often um is as we transition to a approach in which it's the same approach but we're moving towards integration after you start to move the work um and we've heard us talk about different pieces happening within our schools you you move to a place where you need now need to start to integrate the work so what I mean by that is that when you think about um a a piece of thread a piece of thread could be snapped but when you take that thread and you bind it into and you braid it into a strong rope it's a lot harder to break those systems and in many ways what we're going to move towards is integration we want to move towards a place where we're moving beyond silos and we're moving to a place instead of a school saying we do uh ruler we do PBIS we're trauma informed to moving to a place of in our school we live this and the this would be an integrated language where you're hearing trauma sensitive practices where you're hearing culture responsive practices where you're seeing embedded not just in a block that's foral but social emotional learning is embedded within what teachers do there's no reason why social emotional learning cannot be a part of launching a chemistry lesson right um and I'm going to talk a little bit about what I mean by that but we're moving towards that because when we think longterm sustainability is about being able to embed something and then sustain it over time and that's where we're headed um in the in the coming years so Focus areas when I think about you've heard me in our presentations talk about trauma sensitive practices teachers who've been taking courses at at uh Les University who've been offering here on campus on trauma sensitive practices you've heard us talk about and the transition from uh a program with ucu open circle to ruler um you've heard us talk about positive behavioral intervention supports that builds the common language across our schools you've heard us talk about having a a task force and a focus on chronic aism and thinking about what we're doing around engagement of schools um you've heard us talk about cultur respons for education and and what why is it so important for students to see themselves reflected um within the curriculum and within the classroom and feel that they're connected to that classroom and that they belong um and then you've heard us also even last year T and talk about how do we transition to a data informed District a district that feels comfortable talking about data and doesn't see it as a as a place to run away from um and as we head into the future the the trick will be how do we embed this so this is part of the conversation and it's not a silo conversation um and the last piece that I would say is a piece of um focus is that our professional development that we've been doing is about this work but our professional development will start to evolve into into PD that's about embedding this work right so it won't just be one thing you're learning about is how do these things come together and how does it what does this mean to me so how did we start to kind of move our trajectory so we're launching the year in that way one of the things we did is that we offered over the summer teams at each building working to build their entry plans this summer um and I was amazed as I walked around our buildings and I saw and I got a chance to see their entry plans and I believe when they do their presentation um at schools to you guys you'll you'll get a chance to hear those and what you'll see is their trajectory for this work embedded there is no just this is just what we do forcl this is what we do for Dei what you'll see is purposeful planning to say in a safe and supported school at placentino or at Miller these things have to come together to support our students right and laying it out in a way in which there's a theme every month these things are interconnected and helping teachers think about how do I make this live in my classroom um you'll also see um when I think about you know I tried to kind of think if someone asked me what's my goal as I head into this year it's a lofty one but it's one that I head towards is how do we build consistent schoolwide impl ation for this work right consistent is the key when we learn and when we start to build new systems and new practices teachers are almost like trying that on trying different pieces on how does this work for me but over time we want to see consistency right we want to be able to go to more and more classrooms more and more schools and see a consistent feel for what schools feel like um our professional melon days have already started with this work in hand this year um one of the things I'm actually going to share with you is we've received data over the past year or so in different places I'm going to share some of those data points but our school teams are diving into that data and questioning the data questioning the data from a space of what else do I not know how do I use this data to inform my practice we actually were working with our counselors to think about how does that data inform their own goals how does that data inform the things that they want to get better at for professional development for the for the things that we want to offer them as tools and resources right that's when you really are turning the needle on how to use data um and then lastly is that um the work that you'll see here is embedded in our strategic plan when we get a chance to uh report that but also last year I had a chance to lead the equity AO steering committee and that work will also be embedded in a strategic plan so one of the things you'll be seeing is when we report out at a later date when we have that kind of strategic plan share out is you're going to see that work integrated into where we're going the other piece too that that's important that also is a movement for this year um it's it's almost like that that phrase when you know better you do better every year there's something happening in which I I work with stakeholders to think about how do I become informed around what the gaps are in the work and one of the things when I think about and when you think about alignment and integration there's no way for myself or my partner um Miss Bey to at the central office space to think about how can we best integrate this work in a silent way we need to be talking with our Educators at each of our schools who are leading the work from the ground up right they're the ones who are trying to lead this work at the school level so one of the things we just started and I'll share some pictures about that that we did um is we we started a district safe supportive leadership team with the purpose of each school has Representatives on that team so we have administrators we have leaders who've been either been leading PBIS work traum people who've been part of the trauma sensitive work people who' been like part of each one of those things that I shared on the previous slide they're in the room because as we start to think about how does how do we integrate this work how do we embed this work we need the people who are living every day to help us think about that and it'd be foolish for me not to think that there we're not going to hit dips and valleys in this work right things that we thought would be launched in this way it didn't work that way so how do we what do we do differently people will bring ideas and say oh could we try this how do we vet that and this becomes a place where collaboratively with those leaders in the school building and teachers right we have math um a math curriculum person we have different people who are leading the work are in the room helping us think about things that maybe we don't see right so this team is going to be critical in decision- making in the future and also critical in thinking about how do we continue to evolve our vision for where we go so what you see here are examples of and these things happened within the last couple weeks right because we've only been and it feels like we've been in school for a while but we've only been in school for like three weeks um and these are two different teams who a are wrestling with data and what you'll see on the left and this to me is kind of one of the most inspirational pieces for me often times when we think of schools and when people talk about schools we almost feel like it's this heavy thing that is hard to move and one of the things that I found so um to be honest made me happy was for our Educators to be able to put on paper this concept 3 years from now if there was a new story what would it look like and in many ways what you see here is their vision for what this work will be which tells me that are those those Educators who are part of that team who are leading the work at a school level are hopeful for the future they have pride in what they're doing and they want to do the work right that's what that's what we need to move the work we need inspiration we need hope and we need Vision um and so just having that and and starting the year in that way to me tells me we're headed in the right direction so that's one piece right that's almost like the what are we doing why are we doing it where did we start this year but the next piece is as we move into the space of a building a data culture building a data culture is building a space where we can reflect on data and not it be about right and wrong but about where do we need to go right some of the data points I'm going to share with you is the Metro West adolescent Health survey data that's been done across our district and across the Metro West Region for a long long time we're going to assure data from Mo Che which is um a screening tool that is utilized in our school um around um depression anxiety and suicidality um we're going to look at some attendance data to share how those things are interconnected we're going to share some care Solace data which is a referral source that we utilize to connect students and or families to counseling resources um and some climate and culture data just as well so one of the things that we did from the very beginning um is that we had to kind of build a data culture we had to build a space where we can have Educators in the room and you feel comfortable asking questions so I wanted to share the same norns with you so you could see how we're building that relationship and that culture with data one it's about Insight we wanted our we wanted our staff to feel that it's not about right and wrong but it's about identifying where do we move and identifying gaps if there's areas we need to move towards because it's not what we want we need to be to see that work right this work is foundational it's it's the building block when analyzed in a real meaningful way we should be building from what the data tells us not just building from where we ended there's quantitative data which we'll get a chance to share but there's also qualitative data and the qualitative is the experiences in our classroom the experiences of what students tell us the experiences of what parents tell us and what our educators are telling us and then as Educators and administrators we have to try to map the two right the qualitative of experience with what the quantitative data of the math and the numbers in those pieces and then the other piece that is that is hard is that this work is evolving and expanding there might be another data set that we're looking at next year because the move work has moved in a certain way and and that's okay and these two pieces to me are actually the most important pieces when we think about building the data culture it can be extremely frustrating when you're looking at data is that often you leave with more questions data doesn't necessarily just generate answers it often generates more questions it generates idea formation and often requires more conversation that's exactly what happened these days when we're doing data reviews with our counseling teams and our professional development day is that it was sparking aaz they were they were asking questions like now I want to know about blank or the students who might fall on the 20% who are they do I know who they are how do we find out who they are that's what building a relationship with data should be about in the last piece that that was important for us to Norm is that data can feel real personal each one of our Educators is engaged in this work trying their very best with students every day so if we're going to have conversations about data part of the practice is how do I step away from the data look at it in a third person way and objectively think about what the data is telling me because when the data is so close to you and you live it every day it might be hard to objectively look at that data and think about where it so in many ways this is how we kind of normed data conversations with our group and I know it feels tedious but it's important for people to kind of release that feeling of of you know am I doing am I doing this right am I doing this perfect and just say let's see where we are and let's see where we need to grow towards so let's start looking at some of that data so some of that one of the pieces that you'll see here are actually some examples um some screenshots from the actual data dashboard that we're started to utilize one of the things you heard us say is that um we are looking at Chronic aism and these are this is actually some for me exciting um is that last year we ended uh 5% higher 94% .3% of our students were attending school regularly which is which is great it's amazing I think higher than the state and um we went down 5 percentage points in our chronic aism um for the year ending at 11.7 now that's still too high but a 5 percentage drop in a year is impactful and to me in all honesty what it tells me is when you engage in the work and you start to Target the work and you start to align the work that around it and a share with the work that goes around it you start to have an impact and to be honest this work isn't about perfection it's about everyday moving the need to closer to what we want it to be the other piece too that I wanted to share is that I think sometimes when we talk about attendance we just think about students in schools but here's the reality in a community that really wants to see their kids shine and do well this chart and this is one of the charts that that's mapped in our data dashboard you can clearly see is that as kids miss more school days it has direct impacts to the students who are meeting or not meeting standards when it comes to the mcast efficiency and the reason I wanted to share that is because one of the things we've seen is that since covid there's been a higher percentage of students not attending regularly and and many times when you talk to families and talk to people there's a sense of but they're doing fine in school their grades are fine um we lived digitally for a long time how's important is it to be in school and what this data telling us is there's actually a direct correlation with the amount of days you are in school to outcomes when it comes to achievement and then one of the things that I also wanted to share is that this work is also about identifying gaps and so as you can clearly see this also is is from that uh tenance look um demographically when you think about chronic attendance um when you look at our our white student counterpart 11 they have 11% rate of students who are chronically absent but when you look at either Hispanic or or black African-American or I know we only have students but still their students American Indian there's a discrepancy in the data right when you think of black African-American students 17.5 to 11% that's about a 6% difference in students who are chronically absent which tells us there's a gap there's something we have to move towards not just to better understand but to work with differently when you look at demographic data um across El status not El 11.3% of our students are chronically absent students who are El 23.6% that's significant difference right additionally another difference is when you look at our students 10% who were considered who don't receive have an IP and then students who do have an IP 7.5% these are disproportionate gaps that we're moving towards but this only to be honest comes when you start to look at the data and start to have it in front of us and say what do we do about that and that's the work that's happening at each of our schools right now jro can can the can the data dashboard drill in two to sort of take some of the the um elll status say and put it up against the racial data too to sort of see if there if some of it is some of it can some of it can um but I'm sure well I haven't met something that they said they couldn't do um but this is the beginning of the work right so absolutely absolutely as as trying to figure out what the actual the other piece too that I can't show because of um confidentiality is that with a click of the button I could click on any one of these groups and it'll tell me exactly who in my school that is which then allows me to start to think about is there patterns is there across a grade span is there a conversation I need to like it allows us to go from a trend to Who falls within that category and are they in my building and then what could I do to help them right this work is about how do we support not about how we say You're not meeting the standard or why aren't you in school this work is about how do we what do we got to do to get you into school and help you engage because we know it has impacts in school the other thing that I in um meant to say um was because as we go through data and I know just Bey has hers my suggestion was if you make a note to the slide and then we could do questions at the end because if not I can see probably a lot of questions come different pieces and I don't want the momentum to not be there for just be's uh presentation so if that makes sense that that's okay we can do that we interrupt her too just huh no point so um all right so the other piece too I'm going to share other points I'm just going to tell you what that data is and I'm going to give you guys about a minute or two to just read it for yourself okay the Metro West adolescent Health survey data it's a it's it's risk factor or protective Factor data it's Anonymous data that students fill out anonymously across the middle school and high school and what it looks at are what are the protective factors and what are the risk factors that our students might be engaged with at any moment they then also Norm it across the metro west region where we see how do we Faire against the Metro West uh schools um how do we F against other middle schools how do we frag against high school and do we have any Trends so I'm just going to give you a minute or two um I'll highlight a couple pieces and I'll move on to the next slide so a couple pieces from the slide that I make reference to in a summary slide also um is that we've seen some really encouraging numbers H deck is is to be honest one of the Le leaders not just in the Metro region but in the area of engaging this work and we're partnering with them as well um and we've seen some really um positive uh protective Factor specifically um students identifying um the protective factor of that they at least have one adult in and outside of school that they feel connected to at a high rate that is to be honest having an adult that you feel connected at home or in school is one of the the strongest protective factors any student can have for strong outcomes in their life um cyber bullying and bullying as we know is a is an issue Across the Nation and one that we still have to stay in engaged with we have seen some positive results some de some decrease in overall bullying from since 2008 but it is still it is still an issue that needs to be continued and especially another space within the bullying of identity based bullying which is kind of tied to the work around Dei and those pieces as well um you know when I think about and this is before my time um the district had taken on the concept of stress and one of the outcomes we see and I I I couldn't say it's because of that work but I will say that our school counselors and our schools in general have done a lot of work to kind of think about how to think about student stress and how to support students we've seen some nice decreases in that as in that area um the other piece you're going to hear me say because it's true about you'll see that same data point across other pieces which is anxiety anxiety is a rising symptomology and is actually seen as one of the highest Reasons Why students why we're connecting students for counseling services and in all honesty what how we're connecting adults to Services is a rise in anxiety so as a district we're going to be moving to how do we support students um in in understanding anxiety in today's day um so mood check is another data set that we're looking at um moood check is a is is an actual mental health screening that we do seventh and 9th and 11th grade um you do have a a parents can opt you out but if you're screen we screen for anxiety depression and um signs of suicide and if you for whatever reason um were flagged as needing additional support there's counselors that day available to support and if you need more you get more that day um so one of the pieces I'll give you this is a shorter slide I'll give you about 30 seconds just take a look at it for yourself so um one of the pieces that that a um that I always find extremely important um is that 20% um of our students who took the screening were flagged and I ended up being about 87 students um but that point B to me is why we we have to do this work right that day whenever they did that screening um for students disclose suicidality for the first time um and and six safety plans were created that day right and then five of them occurred at the middle school level and one at the high school why that's important because data like that helps us to start to think about what kind of targeting or support do we have to do differently by grade level or by school level right there has to be something done differently what the data tells us um and then the last piece right that goes to equally like this is how some of this data can next to the attendance data the subgroups such as Latino Hispanic Asian lbtq plus were disproportionately um identified or flagged so in other words out of the students flag there was a higher percentage of students flagged who fall into these subgroups than normal right um the other piece too and I forgot to mention the reason I'm laying this data points after I did attendance is because each one of these data points impacts attendance how students feel connected to school how students feel just walking into school with what they carry in their kind of emotional backpacks every day um how students um you know what they have in their life impacts coming to school and staying in school and feeling engaged in school um this is just a care Solace piece I I won't give the silent time to give you read but I just wanted to share with you that um you know over the last year we had 87 cases that kind of came in 60 direct counseling appointments happened for students and that could be students and or amilies um in the hollison area and when you think about when you see the refer the referral reasons you also see the jumping off of the screen of anxiety being the highest reason for students being or or looking for counseling services um and then depression being second right next to that and then collabing and culture um this is one this year that we're actually going to make we're going to be aligning to make sure that we're using the same measure cross of school um but for this measure we looked at a like questions for instance the high school did the nas survey and they had to do Nas climate and culture survey whereas our schools did other surveys but in many ways they asked the same similar questions such as um 73 to 83% of our students across all four schools reported having a trusting adult in school right that is a that is a really strong data point that we saw on the other data as a protective Factor but that also tells us that at any school there could be about 20 to 25% of our students we don't have that and that's where we start to drill the conversation the school level to say hi how do we how do we start to increase that number as I said this is not 100% kind of work but how do we come back here next year with more students feeling connected to someone in their building that's the work that we have to head towards um the other piece that we found extremely important um and that was a a data point here from the high school is that high school students reported knowing knowing how and where to access academic supports but only 50% are accessing them when needed right so they the students here at the high school know how to access it nowhere to go but only 50% of our students reported going to it when they needed it right so that that tells me that we have a it's not an it's not an access piece but it's maybe a comfortability piece it's a understanding how to or maybe feeling comfortable to or it's even to be honest some of our data points tells us that there's some sigas as well when you I couldn't show you every data point but a data point that we did see is that males are less likely to ask for support when it comes to mental health than um female students they could be some um learn cultural gender pieces involved as well so those are all things that we have to think about as a school how do we how do we tackle that because other data points tell us that students need help and we see that with the data but if only 50% are accident when they when they need help that definitely tells us there's a gap to get better at right so this is this is why we're doing this this work so based on the data what are we prioritizing this year right so I shared with you like the system stuff but what are we prioritizing iing one we're prioritizing addressing the rising anxiety um which not only highlights the need to kind of continue to build trauma sensitive understandings but it equally thinks about how do we ensure that we continue to build the resources available for mental health for our students um and continue to partner with agencies who can help us do that as well um we did see St like depression levels haven't increased or decreased for the most part but when you look at research in academian schools what they would say is one of the biggest protective factors in is ensuring that you are building a tier one social emotional learning program for students and I'm I'm going to switch a slide and then come back to it here's why I haven't had a chance you know in a while to share this slide but when we say social emotional learning this is a slide of what we mean the blue the purple and the green those are the four competencies that are considered to fall under social emotional learning that's self-awareness self management responsible decision- making relationship skills and social awareness but if you really step back from that all five of these are necessary for students to feel connected for students to feel connected to each other and if you extrapolate to one even kids go into adulthood these are skills that are important in the workplace these are important that are skills for future success um and they're they're important for students to think about how do we build that into how how do we as schools get better at helping our students build these skills right it doesn't mean perfect it means build them and continue to practice them that's why we have a K to 12 vision for this work because I imagine the day when a kid enters in preschool or whenever they enter within the trajectory and every year we're building those skill sets that's a different in my mind future trajectory to to resiliency to protective factor to the different things that come across their daily B on a daily basis um so going back to this we've seen curring encouraging substance abuse Trends um specifically you know around integrated approaches I shared with you the positive climate and culture we do have students at at least about close to 80% rate saying they feel connected and they go to a positive school but we also have a good amount of students who don't feel connected uh and that needs to be a targeted area um and then you know the other piece which is why we established a safe and supportive leadership team of a multidisiplinary team with people who aren't just celor but people who lead math people who lead the Arts and people who lead health because um we need a team to help also wrestle with this data this data is not just owned by administrator this data is not just owned by counselors these are students we have every day which means our English teachers math history teachers we all have a part to play in how we impact this data in some way um lastly we're going to continue with the chronic absm task force we shared that that we've had positive results in that area um we're going to continue with our supports that we've launched car Solace um with referral piece cartwheel which directly matches someone with a counselor that they have available within two weeks um with a cwh referral not only can you get counseling yourself um but you also have access to Psychiatric Services U for medic medical medicine management uh family counseling and actually we're launching this year um is that our staff can get direct counseling within 7 days with a counselor through cartwheel as well no limit um so one of the things we're going to be sharing with our staff across the district um is exactly sharing them how to how to connect and how to access those services with no weight time um and what the data tells us is just like our students are struggling with mental health pieces our families and our adults are as just as well um we're also going to be doing a lot of webinars this year focused on the data so anxiety is going to be one of them another one will probably be understanding and and and seeing you know depression um and then thinking about how can build social connectors for our students in the community and in school so we're going to be building we like live webinars with families or in person that speak to what the data points is telling us um and then our professional development this is one of the last pieces before I hand it over to Jess um that I've been really excited about is that because we've been doing data dive with our staff the other thing that we started to do is that I started to shift um they're actually co-creating their own professional development in other words this is what the data tells us our kids are struggling with our families or our schools based on your level right either class elementary middle high what skill set do you think you need to grow where do you need to develop let's build professional development that's geared towards that and we're actually working with our staff where they're almost like creating proposals on the professional development they'd like to see which to me is truly collaborative when we think about filling that Gap what better way than to ask our own Educators around what are the gaps they see providing that profession development which then hopes we turn into the work that we do with students so that's the work that we've just been engaging in and you know I hope you felt my excitement in this work and I know Jess is equally excited but it's really great after three years within this District starting my fourth year to see starting from let's start building this thing this thing to let's start to integrate and now starting to see some data points that are shifting in a positive direction that benefit kids while identifying areas that we still need to grow in and then moving towards that and having staff not feel judged for that but be optimistic and excited to explore that Gap so with that I'll pass it over to uh wonderful Miss Bey thank you J flip through here yeah just hit this side Arrow yeah okay all right um so what I did with the slides I've put together and Jerel and I were collaboratively looking through the data and trying not to be redundant for the nights so he did an amazing job and really aligned that data presented it and kudos to him and um Dan McLoud really for bringing open Architects and the data dashboard and all of that because we are really even as a central team um using that to drive the work and I think that part of what I just want to talk about tonight is that is my work as the Director of student services with my team of ssas my psychologists my bcbas and and all of my um staff that kind of fall under that umbrella is really ensuring that we are now using the data to drive the work and really um not pulling from thin air on what we think we need but really looking at what is student data telling us and their performance telling us to help best support them so um with that what I wanted to do is just set the stage really on where the data for special ed is and then kind of roll through the goals of our work with student service um and I put this slide up just because I think it's always important to ground all of you in the population that we best serve um and recognize that it's ever changing and as I you know am going into my third year in this role really looking at are we stabilizing our numbers right because I think we often look at you know where are our increases going are our students continuing to struggle and so while I would like like to say we are at a point of stabilization and you know we feel like things are in a really good place um I think I am holding on to this article that sits in front of me that my team and I have looked at through the New York Times and what this article really suggests and and shows the data for and it's called the youngest pandemic children are now in school and struggling and I I feel like I need to set that stage because what we're finding now is our prek and our kindergarten kids are our kids that were really the babies of the 2020 pandemic and what that means for us is we need to intervene earlier um identify earlier so that we can close that gap for them and so as we look at data we're we're also looking at research right as part of our data and having conversations with our placentino team and what are they seeing from our Litt right um and how if we don't intervene what would that mean right so um you know they talk about in this article that these babies you know our bucket babies that are sitting in those bucket carriers and the little toddlers walking around were less exposed to communication to language to you know just the Open Play of taking them to the playground and running around and learning those social skills and going to Target and hearing different kinds of language and the impact that that has we're now seeing um so you know there are kiddos really struggling and coming in in prek in kindergarten that um have less tolerance their ability to regulate their emotion their ability to sit on a rug and listen to a book um you know their inability to identify shapes colors quickly right um and so we do have a lot of work that needs to continue to do and I think our staff are up for it but I think it's always not losing that sense that okay we're we're through the pandemic and we're all set right um and so we're doing a lot of work with you know the youngest of our Educators um working on that and really recognizing and what this article talks a lot about is there is time to fix that there is time um to help these kiddos but it's really about making sure we're evaluating identifying doing a lot of tier one tier 2 intervention so that we can catch that early enough I show this Peri you know each year at the beginning of the year just so that people can see um our areas of identification for the majority of our students on IEPs and much of this is is remained pretty stable um I think the area that we have grown um and really grown because of our own training and our own ability to identify and follow dese's dyslexia guidelines is that sld category and really naming that um which I'm very very proud of our staff for doing that and and I've seen tremendous growth over um just identifying that but then also honing in on how do we help those kids and what how do we help our staff know how to help those kids and so we're doing a lot of work um around that area so Jerel and I talk a lot about and and he talked a little bit um before about how do we guide this work from a central level and I was reflecting back on our work together right and I remember a couple of years ago us putting up a slide of the school building and building that Foundation right and I feel really proud um of the work of student service that I feel like we have built that foundation for student service and we're kind of flying now so I mean what I mean by that is our processes are really in place we're using criteria across the district um to determine um what kids belong in what continuums um we're not just making you know assumptions based on a behavior we we might see um so we're using those um criteria we're beginning to look at um the efficiency of student supports and Par professional support and when does a child need a one to one versus a a one to2 versus an inclusion model per um so we're really looking at those pieces and we have all of those processes in place um and so now it's it's our time to dive into the work and really work through it um so I feel like for our staff my much of my work is leading that and constantly looking at um how do we evaluate what are our conversations about um and are we of that mindset of kids can right and so I really feel like we're starting to shift in that we are working as jerielle talked about um within student service as well is when we're looking at professional development I'm no longer making assumptions on what I think our staff need but we're engaging them in those conversations so it feels meaningful and it feels like when they're sitting there learning um that it it is something that they can use in their everyday practice and so we've worked really hard at that um I feel like the central office staff and the admin building admin are working hard and listening to that feedback um we just held a really fantastic par professional PD um that they learned a lot and Dove really deep into things where they were saying J we've never really Dove this deep into understanding the IEP right so those things are really important because those are the people that are on our front lines and engaging our kids um so I feel really proud of that um and then so far as our students is really making sure we're looking at the data as jerel's talking about and making sure that we're engaging that whole child from all perspectives right so while much um of my role is often associated with special ed I think I need to you know we continue to dive into theal piece the health piece from the nurse lens the legality pieces and so those are the things that we're working on doing and then providing opportunities to collaborate with families so continuing to bring in more family presentations teaching them sharing data with them research how can they help their kiddos at home all of those things are things that my team is really passionate about um and we've developed you know the part two of our family Ed series which we're continuing into this year which is really great so just remembering what's under the umbrella of student service I I try really hard to not say you know that this is all special ed and so I think it's really important to paint the picture out there of the counseling supports that we work through and jerielle and I I feel like team really well together um and and do a lot to help support that entire um you know support team there for them and really listening to what they need um and really ensuring that we're giving them the support they need to be able to help kids um and and get through education our nurse team has been absolutely amazing and I think they've done a lot of work over the past two years really aligning their own health practices really getting information out to families about um you know what kids need what they need so far as being able to best help kids um and they're engaging in some really um critical professional development through Boston Children's Hospital lately we've got a lot of kids coming in with really um challenging medical issues and I'm proud to say that we're keeping these kiddos in District and we're servicing them in the community that they grow up in and live in um but it it comes at understanding what they need and how we can best support them and so our nurses are doing a really amazing job with that um and then finally just you know under my role as a director is making sure we're keeping up with all of the everchanging um laws and requirements and Title 9 is changing our 504 regulations are changing um the way in which we you know maintain Student Records um all of those things are things that I you know am tasked with and enjoy sort of working with our staff and making sure that they know what to do to best support kids so our work ahead um what I want to do is just spend a couple quick minutes going through the goals of the student service team um and this is you know we've set our foundation now where are we going to plow ahead in and really do some meaningful work so you've heard me talk a lot um over the last year about launching Desi's new IEP that is mandated across the state all districts are now required to do that we did a tremendous amount of training and professional development last year and I feel like we are doing an amazing job launching that it is um a very dense and lengthy document um in which we um are working through it and have developed ways to make the IEP process for families as fast as possible but meaningful um and so we will be holding a night coming up um in October where I walk families through what that document looks like we held one last year as well with Alan bloom um but I think it's important for them to understand that um we are utilizing special programs to house all of that documentation I feel like we have worked out the majority of the Kinks um and I'm getting better better better feedback on it now um quick turnarounds in consents and IEPs getting back to us signed so that we can actually implement the services we talk about at the meetings and offer um our team is working hard to create what we call um IEP goal Banks so really making sure we're aligning what a goal looks like making sure it's measurable making sure benchmarks align and are accounted for so that we can see whether kids are really making progress and if they're not why is that and calling that team back to place to kind of make those things um pertinent for kids um and then really making sure that the way in which we collect data is Meaningful but also transparent I think for families to know why we might feel a student has achieved something or is ready to come off an IEP or really needs an IEP is taking that data and being transparent and making it userfriendly but to show families that we are making meaningful decisions based on data that we're receiving I forgot my little arrows down here spoke right through it without putting up my arrows um we want to ensure high quality services and what I mean by that is really looking at uh making sure that we are providing service regardless of whether a student is on an IEP or not right so we will always have students that struggle in different areas and I think what we need to really do as a district and we're working towards is that first that tier one level things that every kid should get um so we're working on pulling in some professional development I'm working with Landmark to really bring in some literacy interventions for General Educators even when they're noticing a kid struggling with language or an area of reading in their classroom that it's not a special ed thing it's what can I provide in my classroom to this child and see if that is going to make a difference for them and oftentimes it really does I think the challenge we face is so many things come at our Educators that they're grasping at what can I do to help this kid um and then it gets overwhelming to them as well so making sure we're providing them the training so that they feel confident and trying different approaches as well um really looking at fading supports where we can so what I have noticed over time is students really becoming dependent on Services even if they don't need them anymore and it's because we're really great at wanting to support all Learners um what I think we need to reflect on is when is a student ready for us to step back a little bit and see if they can do it on their own because the reality is our goal is to get them to be the vision of The Graduate right and head off in the world and be able to do these things independently um we want to ensure that you know teams are using our criteria they're using data and then we're also wanting to really continue that literacy Focus so research is showing us that that's an area nationally for kids right now and it's not a Holliston issue right um so you've heard me talk a lot about um over the past two years training in Orton Gillingham um enhancing our ability to identify dyslexia really bring in teams and talk to families about what does that mean what does it you know what kind of resources can you use for your child to help them um we recently applied to be part of the dyslexia Institute through desie so I'm hopeful that our team will be one of many chosen um and if we're chosen uh that they are there to help us put together a continued action plan so what they will do is help us vet what resources we already have in place are we using using them as effectively as we can um and then how is it impactful is what we're doing impactful right so really helping us look at our data from a broader lens and and from a group of people that aren't Us in the in the mud right so um we find out soon if we're chosen for that but I'm really excited and and hopeful that that will come to fruition and last um we're looking at the review of resources so um what what we want to continue to do um and what I want to enhance last year we started dipping our toe in looking at different types of technology and Dan McLoud and I have partnered in this work um with his Tech integration specialist we have a few Specialists some of our OTS our speech and language um some of our building Administration coming together to really look at all the technology that's offered out there what can we bring into our schools that one is going to really help push them um to be able to access content in curriculum in a more reasonable way um what is going to help teachers um so you know we have some things that we're looking at where we have some kids who may be non-readers and when we're using textbooks and we're using PDFs and we hand those to kids that are struggling to read we're going to see behaviors or we're going to see shutdown because they're you're giving them the very thing that makes it absolutely challenging for them to access what you need them to access so there is technology out there that will take that PDF and um you know bring that down in a reading level so that it's more manageable for kiddos um so looking at all of those pieces and also using our Tech integration to really do some um we're going to start embedding in our IEPs Tech consults so that they're meeting with all of our Educators when we feel like a kid would really benefit from technology and be able to provide them um training and understanding on how to use those things and last I love this quote and jel gave me a hard time for it he really liked it too I think he was mad I chose it first um but no school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in Partnership on behalf of the children's best interests and so I say that because I close with in in the area of student services and I know um in theal area as well we're really working hard to support and collaborate with everyone right so not just our staff but also making sure we're collaborating with the community and we're understanding what's out there for our families we're working really hard to examine the data we have um and how does that impact Community how does that impact families and so these are a few bulleted areas in which um myself as the Director of student services is going to continue that work um I've gotten a lot of great feedback on our family Ed Series so we're continuing that calendar and we've come up with um many different other topics that parents have given me saying we want you know information on this we need to better understand what mcast vers mcast alt means what you know what if my kiddo needs to be in high school for an extra year what does that look like what are services so there's all kinds of things we're going to talk about throughout the year I have presenters I have people from the district that are presenting and and I'm really excited about that um my continued partnership with CPAC I absolutely love our CPAC and um it's an amazing group of parents and and we're doing really wonderful work together um and then out of the um Equity audit lost my train of thought for a minute um one of the things that I you know in reading through that really heard is how um efficient and impactful are the services we provide here in hollison and are they reaching all the Learners that they need to so one of the things I would like to do um and we'll be doing it in the upcoming months is sending out um information for parents and for students to join a focus group with me um and we'll look at and I would love to hear from a student perspective are these supports and services in place working do do parents feel like they're working and if yes great we're going to keep doing what we're doing if not how do we make them more impactful and meaningful for for kids and for families so that will be coming out soon um and then I've put together um a family Hub which is essentially um a location on our web page that has every link imaginable that parents often ask me to better understand special ed um our handbooks our policies our procedures um so just trying to put it in a One-Stop shop place um to make it more accessible for families so with that get rid of oh we should get rid of that it's thank you from the both of us right um love to open it up for questions for us if you have any um but thank you for listening in your time great thank you questions yeah I have a question uh one thing that really caught my eye was on slide 12 there was a 25% drop of uh students in Middle School uh to high school who felt connected to their peers and I don't know if the student Representatives could speak to this but um what do you attribute to that is it the heightened levels of anxiety something else a combination of things I mean I'll just say a short thing and the students might have way better answers than I but what I would say is this came directly from students um and I'm not sure right but but in my role my my responsibility is to support my schools and their teams to ask that question right and and that might mean the administration here at the high school maybe connect with students and ask that question like why do we see a drop and students feeling connected to each other um how does social media play into that or positively or negatively right like is this question mean what we think it is or is it right do we need to ask a different question to get better acclimated with what we need to do to connect more students with each other because definitely students feeling connected to each other or students feeling connected to adults both of those are major protective factors for students um in in school and in long term but I I'll turn it over to you if you had any ideas go that um personally I think the drop is because once you get to high school I feel like a lot of people around you are blossoming into like different people so it's hard to feel the connection between certain people but also social media does have to play with it like it can be both positive and negative but what I see is mostly negative I feel mhm yeah I think sort of the same I think that when like students were kind of having their phones I mean they don't have school and then they used to I you don't anymore but um but then as like the transition into high school when you do have your phones a lot of people spend more time just on their phones instead of like interacting face to face with everyone which definitely like Alters their connections because they're really like looking on a screen all day instead of like talking to people which is like hopefully going to change now that the policy is in place I mean I definitely feel like even like with like the cell phone policy now like it's like more like I'm like talking to my classmates more like there a lot of more interactions and then also I think just that as classes get harder and more stressful like students aren't spending as much time like hanging out with their friends and stuff because they have a lot more work to do um and I think that that also has to do with like how connect people you know it's funny as you were so I didn't want to be the old gry guy who's just like it's phones but you know it's great that you highlighted that because on the flip side when I talked about qualitative stuff I've been hearing from some teachers that are observing kids engaging more peer-to-peer in the classroom right now I'm sure from not all students love that right you have heard from students who were like we want phones but I think some adults are noticing kids engaging more because of that you wanted to say something no I was just going to say this is the very reason why we want to do the student focus groups right because we can look at day we want but when we hear from them as well it really you know em what what we need to do right and why we need to do it so it would be interesting to see a year from now what if there's a change in that but I also was just wondering too we also have the teams set up in the middle school and they're staying with the same group all the time we in high school you're traveling to multi different places I don't know if there's an impact there but that could be you're you're not having the long connections as you do with the Middle School the long-term research here's a gry guy the long-term research behind phone in um social media has told us this is a consequence of that is that although students will report feeling connected to a global net when you ask connected to each other it's a different it's a different um answer right so I think this is the other piece that's probably connected to some anxiety anxiety data points as well um but it's also part of like where we're at as a nation where we're at as a country so as Educators we're tasked with how do we help right in the reality in which digital media is a part of our Lives what's our role in that and how do we help our students navigate that in a healthier way can I just comment that on a from a policy perspective um so this is something that we've been discussing for many years in policy about how do we how do we do how are we thoughtful about addressing this issue without kind of marginalizing students about the about using their cell phones um but noticing that this increase of feeling connected like you said to the outside world but being incredibly lonely and feeling isolated and um and not engaged as well as they had been previously so I think this was a good compromise I think solution to this at this point and I would be really interested to see because it's not like we haven't been talking about it we were working on it all for the for the last few years we've been talking about how do we address this and how do we how do we make sense of it so this wasn't just a roll out like we decided this year was the year like it's been an ongoing discussion and debate um that we felt like we needed to do something to kind of maybe jar us to the next level um I I also would suggest that when we talk about how we have block scheduling here that students don't you know they they have their teachers for like half the year so I feel like the engagement of being able to have somebody full for the full year makes a difference too I I I mean that's just my you know interpretation but um I think it might yeah I wondered um also kind of on that same data point at slide I think it's 10 um the mood check most common stressor in all grades was school so I've wondered about like how that data point is informing your works like thinking about how you're bringing that the culture and climate piece to integrate into instruction to kind of alleviate that anxiety for kids and help them take academic risks yeah um so I could give you examples probably not to just that data point but what are schools doing to bring that data to the classroom um at Miller school for instance they during staff meetings last year they started looking at the data themselves um from the classroom perspective as leadership um and they started to think about different ways to um create safe spaces within classrooms um I think the other piece though um is trying to understand this in a longitudinal space right like no data point is just that day that's a story behind that data point and I think the other piece that we're kind of thinking about is what pieces of school are the pieces that are it's almost like there are demands that are placed in schools that we can do nothing about right there's assignments there's work that has to happen but what are the places that we can support students to navigate differently um that does make school feel different um and I think that one of the ways is is also by looking at other data points if we can start to increase the way kids feel connected to school um I think feeling connected feeling that you belong feeling that school is a safe place will equally have impacts um into the level of stress schools feels like and I think the other piece too is that you know um the house in public schools is a district that really is is focused on academic rigor um and that's hard and hard doesn't mean um hard shouldn't feel stressful hard should feel challenging and they're not the same right so how do we tease that out and to be honest that's probably like a lot of these questions are almost like as adults we can think and theorize we got to bring students into the discussion to think about like what do we do with that right there's a piece of school that is important and might feel stressful but how do we how do we help within that piece right when you talk to students that might have I me I'm not sure your schedule but one or two AP courses and honors courses and as time goes on I'm sure school might feel stressful but I wonder how we can shift it to challenging and and and have kids feel less stress right how do we how do we make that shift so and it's funny cuz data is doing exactly data does exactly what we're doing which is we now have more questions and more ideas and bring in students and now what at each school and each school can look at that data point and think of what can we do at our school right and that's one data point within a a schema of data that we have great I had a question um for you just and and I appreciate the application to the dyslexia Institute when do we so I guess it's a couple questions all bundled up but when do we hear about that are we still partners with I think it was Landmark Outreach where we were okay excellent um and then I you know I appreciate all the the IEP 504 out of District numbers and I know we often like to compare them to what's the look back of last year and the year before what's the trend I know you really dove in on on literacy and dyslexia last year and there was discussion about increasing the Orton Gillingham training and and how many of the staff are trained I would love to see I know it's not for tonight but just sort of like a progress report on where we are training our staff on OG and then especially with the new guidelines for dyslexia and what we learned about it last year like what are the what do this year's numbers look like compared to last year's great yeah great questions um so yes I'm looking at First Take take a step back and looking at our special ed numbers from last year we're growing but not like exponentially right so um when we you know looked mids spring last year we were hovering around like 58 kids in District I'm just looking at the in District um and now we are at about 537 um so it's growing but it's also taking into consideration the things that I talked about earlier so those pre kids prek kids now qualifying coming from early intervention um the amount of kids that came on board there that is continuing to in increase so it is looking at those numbers um of course kids that move in from surr you know there's other factors that kind of make that number go up um so far as our Partnerships around intervention and literacy and all that yes we're still continuing our work with Landmark Outreach um and utilizing them to one provide that tier one that's my hope is in January and March we bring them in to do some of that tier one education in PD for Ed teachers but we're also utilizing them to continue to grow our language-based program so we really solidified that language based program down at Miller which is amazing and they're like flying High um and now we're continuing to grow that into grade six seventh and then hopefully eighth um over the next year or two years um so that Landmark Outreach sends their team down to meet with our Educators to go in and make observations um provide the ability for not only the special Educators but the general Educators where we're including those kiddos into their classroom to kind of talk to the landmark um staff to say you know what what could we do differently what would be helpful what if I did this you know and then give it reciprocating that you know I saw this this would be helpful to break it down here um so that's we're really excited about that work um the OG training um I always caution that OG is a methodology and we often talk about it as if it's a class that kids take and so I want to sort of bring us back a little bit to that and really recognize that there's a there's a multitude of ways that we can help children with literacy and reading and so um OG is just an additional training that we provide we're really doing an amazing job keeping up now with the new staff special Educators coming in and we're training them as they come in um I trained a few staff over the summer that were super excited to spend there you know a couple weeks of Summer to go through OG training um and there is you know some discussion and and um the company we use MC um is creating trainings for administration um so that they can understand what the what does it mean when we say OG and they've also created a par training that I would love to be able to provide for Paras as well um you know to be able to really focus on groups that are working with the most struggling Learners right it would be really hard to keep up with training also staff but um you know it's not something I'm willing to let go I think we can't I don't think our staff want us to Let It Go um so that's continued work we're doing any more questions you have a question you have a question you know when you answer something I I I bet this is how people feel after debates is it you get a question and you're like oh man I wish I would have said this and I just wanted to add to the stress question cuz after like I should have said this part of why we're focused on a tier 1cl is directly connected to some of this and here's what I mean you've heard me say the comment of ruler and ruler really is helping student understand that emotions matter um and when I say emotions matter ruler stands for a recognize the emotion stress is an emotion in a feeling understand the causes of that emotion label the emotion express it cuz it's healthy to express it right bottling that in doesn't do anything but create more more emotions um and then think about how to regulate that emotion That's What ruler is and the reason it came to me after as we were talking is that part of our tier one approach if done over time I also believe will have direct impacts too if we ask students down the line my hope would be and you asked about stress this students would have more Tools in their tool belt and would be able to express it more efficiently and and there wouldn't be stigma to express stress and would feel comfortable to express it show it and then regulate it so just wanted to share that because I think that's also why our schools are focused on a piece and are all um teachers training and ruler or is that more of our guidance and adjustment no so um I it's yes and so the yes is last year we started and all staff across K 8 received ruler training um and it doesn't end in a year like you continually do PD around ruler this year they start they're at those levels are starting to roll out ruler students one of the first things students learn is called the mood meter where they start to label and learn their like learn how to describe their emotions and then kind of almost like put it on a meter like where am I with this emotion um and build emotional vocabulary because often times when you talk to the littles and you ask about emotions they might have like three or four ways like angry sad happy but if we're thinking about how to help build that we have to build the vocabulary so the students can utilize it to better Express how they're feeling um which I think will also build connections and make communication more uh integral um because students are going to have more workably for that so sounds like that and then is kind of one of the tier one supports to help kids access the curriculum access what they need for Learning and then you talked just a lot about the tier one Services as well um in addition to the Decap that's already implemented so how are you both and your teams kind of monitoring what the lived experiences in the classroom how is that students are regularly getting access to all of those tier one supports um and make sure those are implemented for all kids rock paper scissors you're on a roll go ahead you start I I would start by saying to be honest one of the first integral pieces is that leadership team I just shared about because those are the lived experiences at the school levels who are leading PD at their building level who are talking with teachers and saying we thought this would you know for example we rolled this out teachers tried it they struggled what do we do next or we really love this how do we integrate it into other aspects of our school how do we teach Families how to use some of the same language at home um that leadership team is going to be critical but also every school in many ways and I suspect you'll hear some of that when they present they have their part of I believe Jess and I leadership is that we believe schools work best when a provided resources and services aligned but you also give an autonomy to decide to think about how do we make this work in my building so the expectation is the work I shared is living how that plays out do we do videos and PD do we do Hands-On learning do we a little bit of both every school's leadership team really thinks through how that make that happen my role our leadership team's role is to provide feedback to help them along that Journey yeah and I think what I would add to that is really taking our leadership teams and also um other staff in doing learning walks right I think there's Great Value in being able to get into classrooms see what we've taught them through PD or see what you know new things they want to try that they're saying hey can you come check this out and you know does it does it look like it's working right um and then the focus groups are another good point of data for us to say here from kids how is it working hear from parents and then hear from staff like is the training we're providing you is what you're learning helpful and you're able to implement it effectively and have better outcome right like that we don't want to do it for not so that's always what we're looking at can I just add to I mean one of the things we're working on as a leadership team the administrative team is really having some calibration with our teacher evaluation to help support them and this year we said the two things we're going to focus on as a leadership team is our learning walks and supporting teachers through the evaluation process and calibrating that more strongly because it has not really been calibrated the way I think we should be doing it I've seen tremendous growth in the the leadership team as a whole with some new players as well but you if you look at the the team we have in place now this is jelle's third year um this is actually the fourth year he just started Joan's fourth year Jess's third year my fifth year in this role and we have other leaders in the district that are moving along with us and the nice part is you do see every 3 to five years when you start to see when you start have sustainable change and I I'm seeing that you're seeing the growth you're seeing the data change it's all moving in the right direction the alignment we've talked about with our strategic plan we're in year three of that strategic plan it's all moving the way we said it would if we all start to align it so I'm seeing such tremendous um progress and growth in the leadership team and the cohesivity cohesivity with them and I'm just really proud and this is a example of that these two leaders together how well they work together in our team great I don't know how to end it better than that okay sorry l so close so close you almost sorry sorry I just um I wanted to ask this before I was like I was wait but I don't want to wait now um so the on the on the climate and culture piece where it talked about 50% of the kids are not accessing the help that they need it but they they know how to do it so what do we think is attributing to that what's accounting for that do we think is it just not the right format for them so what I could say so we did this data dive with the high school intervention team which is their whole counseling staff their whole admin team um and they were wrestling with that data point um and I could tell you here some of the things they're they're what these what data points bring up is ideas so some of the ideas they're wrestling with are um is our mod too much come see us when you need help do we need to push in more what does push in look like um just saying hey I'll be sitting in the lobby come see me if you need me is no really no different than on the hall right so what does it look like to be proactive um and that may not be what every student needs so thinking about different strategies to Target different students because every some students might need this some students said that so I think they're wrestling with that but to me that's the beauty of like wrestling with data because they don't get to a place of examining can we try something different that 50% is bothering me what do we got to do differently if we don't put that data and then challenge each other around those questions so that's some of the things that we're talking about and we're actually probably going to be meeting soon to kind of like go deeper into like so what do we want to do then um and I think that's what's really great right is we have a student support team that isn't okay with that data point um and that doesn't want to be complacent and just say well they know where to find me you know so let's get creative and figure out how to really engage our students in in that home do we put up a poster that says have a d come see me like I mean right just I mean you could be part of the start brainstorming and and the hard part is is that adults we can think of that then you might have you might have a student say that's never going to work for me right and and you also need to like collaborate with students to think about here's some ideas we have what do you think and then they might say those two yes these three no go back to the drawing Bard right so you know cuz we're older so yeah they know better that's what I always said I'm sorry L I promise it's our first time we got two of this before we were R by I feel like we were really you know five it's taking time not a question just a statement but I know that day is only um two days old but I'd love to unpack the students of disabilities data at a a later meeting to go deeper yeah agree and we are going to um try to embed when we do our school goals October 24th and and Desert Gold we're going to try to really show you some of that data within the thank you perfect thank you we good y thank you very much thank you than that's great have a great thank you all right uh on to policy um I don't see I yeah that's kind of a problem so I for some reason I thought that it was going to make it into being actually uploaded that didn't happen so we're not going to be reading it cuz nobody got a chance to look at it sure um ikf is supposed to be ik KFA for those of you who might recall that's a typo I think it wasn't like like it's not another policy it just is it's the early graduation report correct it's early graduation and what I'm recommending or what the subcommittee is also recommending is that we resend that policy in favor of the already established handbook changes that we made last meeting with we have a conflict now so we kind of have to yeah exactly so we have to but we had to wait till we had approved those before we could sure resend it because these are now giv people to different pieces of information so I I will entertain a motion to resend policy ikf a yes uh which is the early graduation requirements which is now going to be covered within the student handook at high school move by Don second s Al sended great done and we'll get I move on and be right back in to we're early now all right now you're early um the uh C office updates sure so a number of things are going on some great things are happening uh J and I met with uh the math study group for the first time yesterday we had really robust conversations with the people that met with us um we looked at some of the equity recommendations from the steering committee we looked at a lot of different uh we have some research articles some assigned homework going to take turns read the different articles and one of the things Joanie and I had talked about yesterday was maybe thinking of doing some surveys to get a larger broader audience because it's a small group it is you know in the evening 3:30 5:30 was the time it's hard for people to meet after school so to get more teacher input we're probably going to put together some surveys with this group and then also um we talked about maybe having some focus groups as well right Joanie so we're going to plan that out at our next meeting when we meet with the team if you want to add though I mean I thought it was a great um start to the process it was a lot of expertise at the table really exciting that people are sharing their knowledge um and we'll dive deep into looking at schedules looking at levels looking at Pathways to get into different levels in different classes so we'll Encompass a lot and the people are really excited for the work so it's nice to see so we'll keep you posted on that and then we who who is on the M study group like what our can't hear our four stem C interventions are part of that we have um principal slany uh Ron Taylor Sarah Sarah and a middle school math teacher um and we're looking to add to that okay all right and then um we already talked about the National Blue Ribbon um award and we're very excited about that I'm proud of that um having that award um for our district one of the things that comes with that is we have been invited to come to Washington DC in November get a real Blue Ribbon do you get a real blue yeah I think it's like a big one I think should be so they do invite the superintendent principals can you wear up to four people are invited to this and it's usually the the principal at the time and it could be the Principal who's now you know because he David was that the one who actually fills out all this paper myself and then potentially one other person it does come with the um you know we would have to pay airfair so we would want to know that we're supported with that um the ear fair in one night hotel in order we'd have to leave on a Thursday afternoon and stay overnight Friday when they hand out the award which is very exciting so we would keep that as a very low modest amount but it is um something that we really should want to um have bragging rights on and attend at all possible and know super excited about um the award I think we what was nice about that presentation um which speaks to our district as a whole but to the middle school as well um I I take pride in our academics but I think that it's the social emotional state of our students that got us there um I think our students were in a place where they felt that they could learn uh where they felt safe where they were valued by peers and their Educators they could be collaborative um and could take risks um combined with an aligned curriculum um with uh mtss and structures and interventions that we had in place it was just very very Collective effort to uh get the students where where they ended up very excited it is and I think it goes back to you mentioned the thecast data so I've been looking at it that we all have and we're going to dive deeper into that and you can see some of that real growth in some of the areas and some areas not so much and we want to dig into you know where we're seeing the best growth and how we can replicate some of that as well yeah the the nomination came based off of the 2023 data and then you I heard from uh the Massachusetts Department of head they were makinging the recommendation of the Middle School to the US Department of Ed US Department of Ed sends you this like big thing you fill out like explaining all the details of your school all the structures that you have in place um they decide whether you're cool or not and whether they like really like you as a school or whether it's a fluke um and then your 2024 data validates needs to validate whether like you know you are in fact like able to do the sustain this uh two years in a row so I would encourage folks in the links that were sent out um read the full profile of the middle school on each of the areas um it's a great way to go beyond maybe our presentations uh as to what really happens at the the hollon public in the hollon public schools and then no no just oh thank you and then we also um David and Keith and I went and we know that you have something on the agenda tonight about the schedule bus schedules for next year so in preparation for those meetings we met with Chief Cassidy uh trying to be proactive because I know that's going to come up as a question again about the access road behind placentino and Miller and I I I knew bring it up I knew the answer but I also want to make sure did laws change did anything change since we last had these conversations with with Chief Cassidy and he reiterated we looked at it together again um perod The concerns that there was really no safe way to have safety Vehicles get behind the there if you were having traffic through there when when I think of the hundreds of cars that would be coming in at that time there's no other place for them to go so today for example um the timing of some of those cars if they were Miller cars are placentino children's are in the playgrounds and the way our parking lot and also not our parking lot but the um the structure that they play on not just the playgrounds the kids are flowing back and forth so they're literally be running through the traffic so that that's a huge safety issue because by the time the day of um you know kids coming going we have an extended day they would be going if it was if all the kids were leaving at the same time then you've got extended day kids but then also if you had that one line of traffic there's nowhere to go to get an ambulance through there or a fire engine or anything else so there really is the laws don't allow it but even just from Common Sense there's just no safe way to allow cars behind there it would just be blocked completely so he said he'd be happy to discuss it further he's going to send us some of that information but I just wanted to bring that already we also have Maggie Burke from sa to schools kind of participate maybe offer some thoughts too do you want to in what in to school about what what they you know she did an analysis of our dismissal and drop off in what 2021 but I don't think it was about the access Ro that was I don't know whether that was I don't know I'm so I'm just asking a question the thing is we might be at like a cold like hard not from the chief chief Cassidy that's what actually I heard from him was like a I think we should I mean the the subcommittee can talk about this but it would be nice to get something in in writing for him yes he said he would do that but I just and he also I said that um would you be willing to come to the the study group as well would be nice if come but I would like to just argue that in the event that there was a real emergency at any of the schools like an active shooter or whatever do you think for one second that any of those emergency vehicles are going to mind Road signes right they're going to drive the straightest um you know route to get to the schools in the fastest time in terms of like you know what I mean I'm just I don't see they run through fences like we've seen it right like on the news you've seen this happen I just don't see a representative of sa R to school over ruling our fire well I'm not asking to overrule I just part of the discussion it wasn't an overrule or not yeah and and I think you know we talk about the access road the high school just happen to come up and he said I don't feel good about people trying to use at night they're using that as well the difference with that one is that there's a lot more grass on the side so those and there there the people could literally get out of the way so that's kind of what he was talking about he said when those cars that there's hundreds of parents and they aren't able to move and they had to get the vehicle behind the back of the building and they just have nowhere to go so I mean like I said I you're I'm happy have with him I just want you to know that we were doing our due diligence to try to rege him ahead of time Y and we also went over to look at the playgrounds and the BMS up and I think you have pictures we show those do but I'm not prepared put okay so he had some pictures that we'll share with you about just what the worms look like and the new playground structure at in the middle playground is looking really great all ads done and then homecoming is October 4th so I wanted to mention that as well okay Dr Mard yes uh Dr Kus can you I just wanted to visually show you what was going on at our first uh District professional development day so she's going to bring it up I went around and took pictures all day and and got to see a lot what was going on a lot of exciting work and I wanted you to visually see it I'm not going to read all of this but fancy slides there Dr right so this is not just everything that happened I just wanted to kind of highlight some of the important work so um neas schols were addressed at the high school grading practices we have new software replacing go Guardian um that is one of those ISL and Department curriculum work you can see they all gathered um at the beginning of the day in the library and go on this is Rams work this was taken in the in Ram's Library they also had ISL training um aligning instructional guidelines in content areas the department and grade level goal work differentiation work which is really important Jess and Jerelle talked about that mcast data analysis and also the same training as the high school receip if you can move on please at Miller we had allers Network that is the math group from Vermont that we were talking about that really does a nice job of of helping us choose our um high priority standards as well as how we can differentiate and how we can have student voice and choice within the classroom they had curriculum work mapping units common assessments and writing strategies they were reviewing French literature they also worked on weda models modules which supports our English language Learners learning at placentino they also had all Learners Network geared just for them so placentino and Miller were separated so they got their area uh their content area their grade level um open Architects some people dug into that data dashboard some of the roles are going to be using it sooner than some other people multicentury small group structure ruler and deescalation strategies and also weeda modules and then we had we really are uh creating tracks for lack of a better word um really differentiated in PD for different groups so our world languages and unified Arts was led by Dr IA papus they did ruler collaboration uh calibration and implementation by their disciplines and they had Department collaboration which they don't get a lot of time to do so they were really looking at lesson development and resource allocation so they were very excited to get together across the district we had pair professional training um a track for them they dug into IEP and special programs deescalation ruler um how to identifying conducting strategies for the students individualized programming and really empowering the par jerielle LED school counselors um sac's bcbas and school psychologists they actually utiliz Town Hall um which was a great spot to have them they really looked atal practice data really dug deep into the data they talked about handling sensitive disclosures with like police and outlin organizations and really connecting the work together and then basis Network and occupational therapists had their own trainings and you can see some of them in the central office conference room they really appreciated it and when we're dividing these up we really are looking for those leaders in their fields to run a lot of this professional development so kudos to all of them the nurses got together and um BR the Barton range for adolescent substance use triage in the health office and behavioral strategies um really concentrating on anxiety and depression so a full day and really doing a lot of nice work and people are really stepping up to the plate and sharing their expertise I will say one of the things about um the PD schedule this year as you probably remember in the past we've had I remember I think it was four half days and three full days we really were finding these disjointed half days with challenging to get really meaty PD in so this year we have four full days of PD so that we can get also our par on the same schedule they doing two full days and those 6 hours are a long chunk of time for staff but we are actually we're able to do more align PD with these smaller subgroups because we're not on four different schedules as a result so that's really helpful great Keith if Dr Kuser call my 47 slide document um wait I've got I've got a couple of Student Activity items I'm not sure it's the right place on the agenda for it but you know that wasn't it says well put it there so um so the first one that refers to inactive class accounts um our our auditor on a both for Best Practices as well as for the fact that we're not a Bank um we actually have a uh a recommendation requirement from him that uh within 180 days they really want it within 60 days but I got it up to 180 a number of years ago that we're supposed to dissolve those accounts um the high school bookkeeper Works diligently at trying to find them um this is just some old cleanup from place from accounts that we have not been able to find any anybody in the class interested in their money so um typically what has happened in the past when this happens um is we put the we put the uh funds into a subledger account um with your approval obviously um that's why I'm here um but we put them into a subledger account that's called student programs that allows uh uh the principal to either you know help fund some new programs um activities uh pay for students who maybe can't afford to do certain things that are related to Student Activities so it keeps it within the Student Activities program but it you know and again it kind of gives the the the principle some funds to be able to make assist where you know he thinks it's important to so okay so i' like oh sorry any questions yes thank you um I I guess the class of like 2017 funds that's not something that traditionally goes into an account where they have it for uh seed money for a reunion years later cor okay so they still have that not any no this is the money that would go to that but they again because they have not um they we have not been able to reach people who reach back to us and can you just describe the type like what that Outreach looked like so that people uh phone calls emails snail two class officers that again we we use their families address um class officers some some of our advisers have personal contacts reached out that fashion as well um this I when I tell you this has been completely vetted this has been completely vetted that's why it's taken so long in some cases so so we have your assurance that they've reached out to at least four different um students within that class the officers I would I would virtually guarantee it's more than that number so okay but we are definitely not a bank that we have as much red tape as Banks do so um speaking experence I mean well the one advantage actually is that when the money is here based on on massachus state law um we get the in the the student activity program itself gets the interest unlike like funds that are that schools have like in lobing accounts that goes to the town so wow you didn't know something about inal Finance wow I interesting we to talk Travis about that um the more you know all right so you want a motion to um liquidate the 2011 2015 and 2017 uh Student Activities accounts and move them into the uh student program sub lger correct move by second to all in favor so liquidated and then the second thing is um the the again our our independent auditor um wants to see an affirmative vote that you approve um all the uh clubs that uh have been proposed by the principles at the three schools that have uh after school activities um the reason they want an affirmative vote is because Student Activities is one of those um it's one of the ones that again nobody to the right of you Dan um has any Authority in um it's it's an account that is a an arrangement between the principal the um the town treasur and the town accountant and so we have no statuto author statutory authority to say no to things or whatever we're here to represent your interests only in that so that they want to see an affirmative vote since we are not in our normal type of rol so just acknowledging that they they do exist they may have balances there may be Financial transactions that we can audit and and and assure that the right things are happening but that being said the the the authority over them does not exist on this side of the table okay I I have some concerns because we're voting to approve some and I'm concerned that maybe it's not a completely comprehensive list I'm worried about some of them that aren't on here and because we just got that this list I'd like to maybe defer this to the next time C you certainly can I can say though these are these are ones that every single one that was a posted job and in you know a posted position back in June um these are all Clos okay but for example like photography club is in on there and we can see something over there reflecting it so I just want to follow right but I want to follow up and ask the principal like what's the status because sometimes we know you can try a club out for a year or two I mean they just had a club fair this week at the high school I think on Wednesday Tuesday or Wednesday and there were things like Red Cross club or cyber security and newspaper that are on here and I just need understand why they're not on and those ones may be the pilot clubs but I I if they are they haven't come up to me yet it do also possible that something was put forward by a student and it doesn't necessarily make the pilot because it might not be someone to do it I will follow with Mr L but I can tell you the perfect example that's the nerd club which existed probably for seven or eight years even before it made it to Pilot stage so as an example they just ran it because kids like to do it and we had one of our teachers that wanted to do it with them and they operated as an independent I just wanted an insurance though because they're not on the list of things that we're voting but they're not going to get prohibited in some way especially if okay that that doesn't happen Don these These are clubs that that you are authorizing to be part of the the Cadre of clubs that we offer that are that are paid stiens etc etc that's what this is about it's not about a number of students getting together with a teacher and and liking pickles but we will remind the principles of the every year we remind them the are there clubs that don't have advis no no they have to Once become a club they have to be sometimes the child students will propose one but it doesn't they don't find an advisor and they can't even do the pilot correct and then are we sure about the names cuz I thought that the GSA was now gender and sexualties Alliance these are the ones that were posted okay it's just online it says that well there's also something that's in the contract and so okay we'll postone that and bring it back um I just want to follow I don't not debating them I just want be more inclusive not less inclusive no and then you know a number of prior to the contract settling we had a number last couple days we had a number of clubs that I brought forward to you so those are not in the contract yet so I did reach out to Mr Powell to say they need to be added to the contract so we can just hold on so check yep I will run this past to three princi thank you we move on to Staffing update so I did um check in again on where we are with our current Staffing we we are still um down just one teaching position at placentino a special education position I do think we have some applicants but they have not hired as of yet and then um we always know the power number is have been flowing constantly I think the last time we met a budget sub we had about 7 and a half Physicians we just had a couple of resignations and I think one of them is a math tutor that got a teaching job so this is going to continue to happen it's always a moving Target but we're about at 9.25 as a result of some of those changes for power professionals okay and we're pretty well staffed in most other areas normal turnover all right um reports from subcommittees Communications I just wanted to um we met uh last week um that two days ago sorry long week I mean this week um and we we kind of talked about this a little bit before but then we were busy with a lot of communications that were specific to the override so we kind of wanted to get back to um some of the things we talked about back in May um kind when we had new people join was that we wanted to do a slightly different job of how we're reaching out to the community and I think that's especially important since we did just have this vote I think there are a lot of people who are kind of wondering and would like to see what's going on in the schools on a little more regular basis and obviously they can watch these meetings or they can look at the minutes they're posted um but what we were going what we kind of talked about was um kind of following a practice where that after after our school committee meetings we would take turns the three of us on the communication subcommittee we'd take turns writing a very short recap yeah and then meeting like either Friday or Tuesday after I posted it for Tuesday because of the time um and just review the recap for accuracy and then post it to the like the hollon reporter as a um communication from the communications sub committee I just wanted to make sure everyone was okay I think it's a great idea I'm in boarded with that I think it's a good idea and we'll probably put a link in that to the actual um meeting the meeting with the minutes like where you can find the minutes and to the YouTube video people want to watch but it would be mostly like these are some of the topics we talked about so if you were interested in any of these things you didn't see the meeting you didn't look at the minutes or the agenda here's another but I you the minutes won't be approved by then but correct so they're not out there that quickly but it won't be opinion based it's just this is what we discuss and this where the votes we things like that yeah so if you were if you're if this was something that's on your agend on your radar screen here's a link to find out more information okay just pushing out one thing I did find online the other day I was looking there's a website I don't want to give it I don't even know what it was but you can if you Google it you can actually um paste the the um link to a YouTube video and it will create a transcri transcri it is a horrible transcript however if you're if you're looking for a specific keyword or something so you can then go and watch that section of the the timing of the timing it's very helpful to sort of find that that area but the transcript itself is God awful but it get it can help you sort of get to the right place I can think about no no I'm not I'm just no but that would be interesting if in our little recap we said you know here's the link to the YouTube video if this is the topic you're interested in look at you know minute 15 yep there might be a better one out there me well an H cat's going to PO though too so we could link it to them they have publish transcripts no I'm sorry just the no not the meeting right just for anyone who doesn't want to watch the whole evening to find their topic but anyway so that's that was great I don't know if you you vote but just go forth and py um our next meeting is October 23rd which is a Wednesday at 4:15 in central office okay budget we will have a meeting before the next um General school committee meeting of October 10th but it is not yet set okay and then superton EV valid we have not had a meeting yet okay do you think have you been working on your your goals for this year I working so I think it would be good to get that going because we were late last year and Y um on the radar okay great um okay I think that's so then moving on to the uh bus start times advisory committee we formed it last week or two weeks ago uh we now need to appoint the remaining members I just put into your folder kind of the comprehensive list um I'd recommend that we we I'll we'll read the names to read them into the the record once everyone's good with it um but Ben barell did reach out to me um as a so like remember asked if if we would be interested in KN a select board remember there the select board did have a representative of the tuition free field day kindergarten um committee that was you know 10 years ago so I thought it was a good idea so like we're did sort of I told him that I thought that would be a good idea um obviously need to vote for it but um then the the slite board uh voted to to make him their uh representative is everyone good with this list and no read it okay so before I read the list I just want to say that the um the responses we got from the community were were actually far more than I was expecting we got over 25 uh people to uh you know submit interest I mean that that was uh quite quite incredible I I was hoping we we'd get five and and so we got 25 so it actually almost was a problem because there there were so so many uh good people so uh you know Sarah and I kind of went through the list tried to distill it find people from different schools um some voices who had been around and some who newer voices to try to get kind of kind of a mix um just because if you're just because you were not selected though I mean these are going to be public meetings they're going to be broadcast on Zoom or or you can you can um come in in in person so I I anyone who did not who's not on this list I um hope that you stay engaged and and and continue on with this process because the whole point is to keep up with with the community engagement so um but we really appreciate it all the the interest um and uh I don't know if anyone else wants to say anything but uh okay so then I will uh entertain a motion uh to appoint the following people to the the bus SL start times um committee it's not really a sub commmittee but Committee of the special committee or advisory committee there you go advisory committee of the of the school committee um um Alysa Sanford uh Alexandra Horton Katherine um McCarthy Britney Ella Tony sanano Rick gallamore and Karen de de demon demono uh and then Ben Sparrow from the select board uh for our teacher Representatives uh Lori Anderson York Michelle Hastings Beth O'Reilly and an kenon and the rest we voted for the admin and um and the teachers were actually submitted by by the teachers by the teachers yes those were not chosen by us those were not chosen by us clear about that yep um so I I have that do I have that motion second motion motion all right all in favor so I will officially communicate that to those people and then also send an email to to those who who were not selected and sort of reiterate our desire for them to to remain engaged um the first meeting is October 1st um I'm going to post that tomorrow um just to get things started and then you guys can kind of take over um I reached out to the town clerk to see if I she she does house calls to sort of swear everybody in at once I don't know if that's going to be possible but uh but I'm not to put put her on the spot but I know she's been at a conference uh otherwise people will have to go to town hall get sworn in correct um before they can officially um participate which in this case is a little different than most other committees but it does matter as far as creating a quorum because obviously we're going to have a certain number and you have to have a quum to meet so sure do um it is important uh in that regard because I I think it's 17 members we're going to have to be eight people present n nine n nine I don't it's it is 9:00 yes so so 9 correct so nine people will have to be present um and I did realize we put out a date of of uh November 5th as the the last meeting that is not a really a Val a possible date because it is the election and you can't actually meet uh while the polls are open so so but that the committee can figure out when it wants to to meet uh or maybe work will be done by that point um so uh either congratulations or you know condolences to those appointed um and go we'll go forward I get everything on that what's that nothing moving on Transportation update uh so you know we Keith you have some information for us about uh or ke Dr Jordan about any how the the the buses are going no change no change working through a normal issues but yes I still have full buses and a waiting list so sorry I can't hear you I'm sorry we still have full buses and a waiting list so four buses and a waiting okay thank you so there's still some conc issues that we're working through them as best can it's a Daily Grind it always is it always is the first month of the year that's this is nothing new from that perspective the issue was being short being down a bus so I lost 60 seats so a lot know you're going to lot from famili is about the busing and trying to arrange car pools so kids aren't missing instructional time I again we're not ignoring the fact and it just talks about that enhances or frightens um the issues for next year you know that we're having problems with with getting 15 buses here so we only have 14 when we're talking about 17 18 whatever we're going to need for next year more challenging so we're getting on it with this committee wooo is it bus driving uh a bus driver Staffing or okay yes I mean it's also it's also a Time issue but we've had time issues time issues have been exasperated with the bridge being out there's no question about that um the the and that's not going to resolve itself for next year either so um you know and again with the way in combining the roots um I can say with confidence that the roots will be physically longer time wise cuz there'll be more stops so so and is that the reason why we have the late late bus the later the late late bus is that where there are no drivers so they have to come later and and again the late bus is a courtesy there is no fee attached to it is you know there's no you know there's no legal requirement for it there's no and it's a cost to the school committee so I and I just the vendor cannot provide it earlier that simple um update on the uh hollon coalision against hate and bias yes so we initially the smaller group um of six of us that had been meeting to try to schedule these meetings we had initially proposed a date of restarting October 8 but um we still need to vet who's on the committee on who's coming to those meetings the last meeting at the endia was not very well attended somebody I think Sarah you might have been no I so we had less attendance there so we're still reaching out trying to commit people to who's attending for different departments so um wait it's not going to be October 8th I've actually engaged since Jerelle is not doing the equity steering committee in as robust a manner he's still going to be doing it this year but it won't be as many meetings so I did ask if he could work with us and be part of that Coalition work so we'll be doing and I'll get the meeting date out as soon as I know I'm looking at his schedule mine and the other members to see what we can do we'll be doing the first meeting ourselves and then trying to reach out to the the committee members and see who can actually help support some of this work because we weren't getting a lot of we got a lot of interest in this work but not a lot of um volunteerism and that's the challenge it's hard to sustain this work if people don't step up to do it so that's what we're going to try to get some commitment to that work and um we did have a consultant that we met with last year he came to a couple of our meetings but it we don't think that's going to work out he isn't we tried to get him to modify it to what we feel the community needs he was trying to come back into more working with the PTO and pack and it's not that I don't think that's a need we just want to get more out into the community cuz we've already done a lot of work in the schools so I think we're not going to make it going that route with him I'm going to try to handle it as much as possible in housee and let something changes yeah I think if if we're going to use consuls in a way that it's going to cost money I think it' be good to come up with a plan and so that we can discuss it and have a an idea of what what that's going to going to look like right and that's why we weren't getting like what the exact plan would be and what it would cost we weren't really getting that and it just didn't seem like it was going to work out even though I think the work that the celton does is great it just doesn't seem to be aligned with what we need right now um I do I'm decided next week though on Monday the leadership team the administrative team is having training with our arm Monti Jackson and she's going to help us support our Equity work as a leadership team and then I know she's meeting with you on Tuesday night as well so we're excited to have her come and she's not inexpensive would be nicely put but very good at her work she might be someone that I would love to see if we could even get her to come and do one Community event for us I'm not I don't know if that's possible but that's something I'd like to consider in the future as well do you feel like it's about like bandwidth season like maybe it needs to not be maybe meets four times a year instead of monthly or yeah we we did not meet monthly we only met like four times last year so we are trying to keep it manageable and that's what we were thinking for this year we're not trying to plan major events but we want to get something in this to have some kind of community event like I talked to Jerelle be lovely to do something like let's have a community event where many people can come and it's a no place for hate and bias in hollist we have some kind of way to memorialize that and P a path or something so that's what I'd like to get to but again it's hard to do that with a small amount of Municipal Employees that are actually you know initiating all this work right so stay tuned changeing the venue I wonder if like we have it at the town hall or something no oh we did at the rec department no parking yeah but we certainly could use the town hall it hasn't been large if we did like a larger event that's what my plan would be would have it up at the Town only so hopefully I'll have more news in a few weeks okay um last up is the uh Town manager act I put that on here just most independent boards are are taking a stand or stands on it just um you know there's obviously a lot of debate last time they have made a lot of changes to as relates to the school and so we're just looking at that as it relates to the schools and they there's one other change it does seem like as I said earlier that there's a lot of compromise going on and a lot of good work to to to come to a consensus um I put in the the packet the May version uh as well as an email that I received um from Ben spel after getting receiving um Council review of one last thing that I thought just needed uh to sort of carve the schools out I guess if you will uh which is just sort of about the emergency crisis powers of of of the Town manager um I just wanted to see that not be something that we're not that I think that our current incumbent sort of Town Administrator potential you know potential future Town manager would would do this but we this is legislation that is going in being passed by the the state house right it's not even a bylaw which could easily be kind of changed so um so they did as you see in front of if you add language basically accepting the school department from from those powers and I think at that at this point from my perspective as far as the schools go I think that uh it's it's an acceptable um piece of legislation so they were looking for any last input before the 30th so that's Monday um so that's again why I put it on here um and I mean does anyone have anything else they want to discuss or request any changes to it um I'm I'm curious about the addition that Ben Sparrow you had forward to him I guess or he forwarded it to you he forwarded he forwarded to with the exception of the school of our when overseas Crisis Intervention right so I mean that that's essentially saying that if there's a crisis in involving the schools that the town manager that doesn't say that just says a price emergency situations it doesn't say with the exception of the school department right I know Bas means the time manager is not going to oversee a crisis of the schools a look we Dr Kusa Keith Dr Jordan uh Dr Bernard everyone's going to work collaboratively with with with everyone else but but but we're not talking about the people the incumbents in the role now we're talking about you know passing legislation that's no I know right right so this was just simply being saying that if I one of the things that you know I was thinking of is you know snow days could have could have very sort of activist Town manager decides to declare a snow day because you know for for the schools because they consider it a crisis and look maybe there needs to be a definition of what a crisis is well that was that was one thought but then that I think I think Travis felt that J above already refers to that we're not this is not the school department that referring to so that it's a little bit redundant I me but I mean law gives the superintendent the right to desie applies that superintendent is the person that has to make these decisions but it's part of that so they can't oversee like in Boston though the mayor declares sh I'm so so there's because this is legislation if it passes through the the state house in theory it becomes the law and even if that's there's another law you just don't want sort of conflicting laws at the state it's not just a bylaw that then state law would would automatically supersede so I think that's one of the differences here when as people think about it is we're not just talking about B we're talking about state law and if the state passes it that means if it's in conflict with other state law then that has to sort of be wrestled out but it there's not necessarily one that that I'm sure Boston has some special act that gives the the mayor that sort of power and I think the it's always the case where the town manager DPW we talked to them and if they felt the roads are unsafe we take that under advisement too because if if they say that we can't get through the roads then we'd be full hearty to not listen to that no no of course and that's what happens most reality but it just if there was a you know a fire of the schools obviously the the fire chief is going to come in but this actually talks about the fact that the town manager is the one who oversees it not the fire chief or or the police chief and so obviously you you as the Inc would would work collaboratively with people but I think it's just important that when we're passing legislation we make sure we're as clear as possible retain the authorities that we we have so that was that was all but you know Ben and and and Travis are Council obviously are comfortable with this language so um any more thoughts questions no I think it's good that we're modernizing our town and how we manage it so I'm on board that's good okay yeah me this is again this is more we're not necessarily voting to person you know personally support the town manager this more just that we're voting as as a school committee we have things are that are carved out for us I feel like that we're protected in it right so then I'll entertain a motion to um support from the the school's perspective the the town manager act as amended with this with this you know language to be clear this language is not officially in the version right now this the the select board has to put that in there so our our I think our our sort of support would be contingent upon that getting in there and then if they didn't then we could reassess what we supported it without it did they ask for us to vote that we were okay they didn't but other independent boards are doing that so I'm sort of offering that uh support like yeah we're good with the language yeah we're good with the language we're not going to not we're right support it assuming that this gets in there and if it doesn't then we can have a conversation about whether we still do or not but yeah okay move by Cynthia second by Sarah okay all in favor okay passes and I'm I'm sure they'll all be pleased that uh we did that um and that brings us to the end of our meeting uh we do know have an executive session our next uh you know regular school commit meeting will be on October 10th um if there's nothing else I will entertain a motion to adjourn move by Cynthia Let's go people second by all those in favor we stand a j thank you very much e e