e e e all right so let's we're ready to start let's call the meeting to order uh as long as Bob is ready live we're live excellent good evening and welcome to the Thursday May 16th 2024 meeting of the school committee we have just returned from executive session and I would invite those here in this audience to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right so the first item we have have here um is our public hearing on school choice so I would seek a motion to open the public hearing on school choice so moov motion by Lori is there a second on that second second and I do believe we need a roll call on this so I'm going to start with you Lori hi Susan hi Amanda I I am also an i and the public hearing for school choice is uh now open so did you want to say anything for so I can do that now um so we do this annually and we are required by law specifically um Mass General law 762b I and so each School District in the Commonwealth either has to belong to and participate in school choice or you have to have a reason why you do not participate in school choice and one of those reasons can in fact be overcrowding um so you have to take your vote before June 1st and tonight you'll be doing that on your agenda and you can do both of those things have your hearing and your vote on the same night at the same meeting okay are there people here that would like to speak to school choice okay nobody all right so if there are no um members of the public here to talk about school choice then I would um seek to motion to end the public hearing on school choice I moved in the hearing on school choice okay second we'll do roll call again starting with you Lauren I Susan I Amanda I I am also an i and that will move us uh into uh public permit anybody would like to make a public comment okay you want to go no come on up welcome I know we all know you but if you could just introduce yourself nice to see you nice to see you guys too um just I talk in public all the time and it never gets easier so you do a great job oh thank you um so I'm Ashley fog five cross street um so I am under the three minute Mark tonight so and I timed myself so um but I do want to address something that I um I feel like is really important that isn't being addressed by this committee so I appreciate your time and hearing me out um so good evening school committee members and Dr Kavanaugh thank you for the time to speak to for giving me the time to speak tonight um School Committee Member Mr Monroe was elected last May but but as of tonight's meeting he has missed more than 50% of the school committee meetings once again he is absent tonight his attendance record has been abysal since his election in May of 2023 Mr Monroe has been absent for half of all school committee meetings out of the 32 meetings he has attended only 16 in person his absence include the meetings on May 25th July 6 August 3rd September 21st October 5th November 2nd December 21st January 11th March 7th March 21st April 4th and May 2nd and now tonight Mr Monroe was not present at any of the three nights of the most recent town meeting despite other school committee members being there to address any questions Dr Kavanaugh presented on the critical Hopkins vote yet Mr Monroe was noticeably absent during his absences Mr Monroe has missed several key votes including the charleswood naming vote budget votes and numerous policy discussions despite assurances during his campaign that he could balance his commitments his attendance record tells a different story it's also worth noting that Mr Monroe Miss to meet the candidate candidates event during his campaign for office where fellow hdtc member Amy ritterbush read his statement and endorsed him in his absence while I respect those who volunteer their time for board positions last year's election was highly contentious and Mr Monroe did not step into this role un un opposed he campaigned actively and received significant support from a political party in town his continued absences are a disservice to those who voted for him and put their trust in his commitment and it is an affront to our town at large the school committee is arguably one of the most important committees in our town hopkington Public Schools as Dr Kavanaugh highlighted in our recent T meeting are a key asset to our community attracting residents and maintaining High property values therefore it is completely unacceptable to have a Committee Member who fails to attend half of the meetings I urge the school committee to address Mr Monroe's ongoing absences according to section 63 of the Hoppington Town Charter a board member who misses four or more consecutive meetings or half of all meetings in a fiscal year may be removed by a majority vote of the remaining members while I'm sadly believe I have little confidence in this committee voting to remove Mr Monroe the lack of public public discussion about his absences is unacceptable I urge this committee to address this issue seriously and fulfill the responsibility to our town thank you thank you are there other public comments I have a public comment okay but I can hold it if you want this I think it's not really school committee related it's a I I'll do it it okay go ahead okay I did ask the chair if I could go a little over two minutes because it's my last meeting so and I'm gonna read it because I don't want to I just want to stay focused so tonight is my last school committee meeting and I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you it has been a privilege to serve this community in this role I can't say that I fully anticipated the journey we've been on over the last six years but it has been an AB my absolute honor to serve alongside all of you uh my also my former colleagues Dr Kavanaugh miss rmck Mr lbr and Miss Parson I have learned so very much from all of you and from the community and I have seen firsthand some of the Special Sauce that makes hopkington such a wonderful Community to raise our families in Passionate residents High unyielding standards concern for our neighbors honest recognition of failures shared joy and successes and the simple beautiful chaos of people working together each in their own unique way to make this community stronger because it's my last meeting I've been thinking back a lot in the last 6 years it's often true that in the moment we can't always see advancement we don't look out the window and necessarily see the difference between where we are today and where we've come from change is often slow and quiet I've been recently reading a book by global health expert Hans rosling in which he refers to quote the secret silent Miracle of human progress that description really res res Ates with me and thinking back over my time in school committee I realized that despite a pandemic and difficult budget seasons and the constant challenge of enrollment growth and a divided political world that secret silent Miracle has been happening here in our schools one of the things that I'm most proud of is that we as a committee have prioritized and advanced the collective values of this community while quietly supporting real progress for our district to share just a few examples we all value the support of our most vulnerable that's something I think Hoppington in general values over the last six years every budget has included the addition of new and necessary special education professionals and paraprofessionals we've also established a special education stabilization fund to set aside money to cover unexpected spikes and budget needed to deliver special ed services we've added social workers and adjustment counselors and student services staff to address the health wellness and Soo socioeconomic challenges facing our students we've increased access to financial aid by raising the income levels that are able to get full and partial fee waivers and we've designed our future learning spaces with appropriate and essential rooms for small group instruction in Hoppington we also all believe that bias and racism have no place in our community we've supported superintendent goals every year to slowly and methodically move our district and our town forward toward social justice the schools have been a real leader in this area for the entire community and this work must and will continue we've also established policies to protect students rights and dignity from policy jbd in 2019 supporting gender identity to more recently modif policy jici to honor our six students right to wear important religious artifacts to school and we've created a school calendar that recognizes and supports the important holidays for our diversifying students and families and while the calendar has been challenging for some as a community we're adjusting and we're slowly making room here for all cultures to feel seen and valued we also believe in the pursuit of Excellence which is not to be confused with the pursuit of perfection Excellence to me is fully engaging in whatever you do challenging yourself to grow and using your talents to do your best work to that end we've expanded AP programming to both make AP courses more accessible with ap preal and to offer more advanced AP courses to serve those who are ready for more like new levels of AP compi we've pushed to expand and improve our differentiated instruction within every classroom so every student is able to grow each year we've recently added levels to grade six Math to make sure all students have the learning environment they need for math instruction we've rehoused and expanded our 18 to 22 program programming to include more real life business experiences like running a business and we've expanded our Athletics unified Athletics and extracurriculars to help all students find a home in our schools and build stronger connections to the school community Through involvement since we know that feeling connected is a strong factor in Student Success and finally we all believe it is important to be responsible stewards of the community's financial and physical and natural resources in the face of unprecedented and sustained population growth that top the charts across Massachusetts we have worked hard to plan for the long term while not being Hasty with construction in the short term in 2019 we commissioned and leverage long-range projections to inform planning while simultaneously doing our best with incremental Investments to stretch capacity by time confirm projections and make a plan think of modular and adding lunches as some examples of that to reduce our carbon footprint and to and to reduce our operating budget we have commissioned solar projects on Marathon Hopkins the Middle School the bus lot and other locations and we' designed future construction to be fully electric with ground Source heat pumps we continually reduce our operating budget in countless small barely visible ways that add up including things like moving our buses to our own parking lot to eliminate annual excise taxes and expenses formally paid to Ashland I really could go on and on these are just a few examples that come to mind of what the school committee the administration the teachers and the staff have accomplished together over the last six years and I'm humbled to have been a small part of this prog ress and to be clear progress doesn't mean we're done there is so much new work to do so much to continue across the board there are countless gaps that need closing and opportunities that need pursuing but I believe that we can name and celebrate our progress and acknowledge that we have unmet needs and challenges to address we will never be done and it is comforting to me that the work is in such good hands going forward I hope the committee will continue to embody the values of the community and balance the needs of all students the vocal and the silent while while staying focused on the long run and building systemic and Sustainable Solutions I sincerely thank you for your dedication your patience with all my questions and I am looking at you Dr kavna and for indulging me in these few moments I'd like to offer a special thank you to Nancy who steps up year after year to serve this committee as chair which I know firsthand is a full-time and thankless job and a personal thank you to my family for enduring informing and supporting this journey I will always be grateful for my time on this board and I look forward to continuing to support the eff of the school committee and our amazing community in the months and years to come thank you thank you that is a tough uh tough act to follow I'm sorry no that's that that is um a lot just in terms of all that has been happened in the time that you have been on the committee JY some very it's been a journey but some very big uh big pieces any other public comment okay so let's move into recognitions then okay you want to start I will yes so our first recognition is for you jack um thank you so much for being our student rep this year and for chiming in when we said H what's the student perspective on that and bringing us all kinds of news and information from Hopkinson high school and staying up really late with us I'm sure in the back of your mind you were thinking I have a lot of homework so so thank you for all of that and we just have a little gift for you thank you thank you hope you enjoy that now and next year the happiest place on Earth abely is thank you so much oh no we are grateful to you thank you is Jack is this your last meeting um I it this is the last one you are welcome through the end of okay maybe it is my last love we we love seeing you you can also I'm sure watch remotely yes of course be tuned in I bet he will yeah so when you're Boston College next year you'll have to tell your friends I'm sorry it's Thursday night I no every every other Thursday yeah so you have been a real asset to the committee and you have done uh tremendously well when we've on the spot said Well Jack um to ask for your perspective it really it brings a lot to us to be able to have your voice here so we you'll be missed you leave big shoes for next year's uh yeah student uh council rep do do we have any we don't know who it is yet right I don't think so yeah be a surprise I know I had yeah I had reached out to Mr Bishop around this time this last year so we might people actually reach out for this I say yeah you volunteer I think it have been me but he I think he might have said very stiff competition yeah good luck to you next year thank you I appreciate it all right I also um would like to make a recognition for both of our outgoing uh school committee members uh Lori you stepped in and came back to this role after a few years off uh much appreciated jumping in in the middle of our budget uh to fill a vacancy at the time um and Amanda you it's I feel like you've been here um almost as long as I have and it will be it will be very different to not have you next year on the committee you have been a tremendous voice as well so appreciate all of your comments I I certainly will miss you on policy I'll miss policy 7:30 730 in the morning and policy is great we have some wonderful conversations there policy is great all right we too wanted to say thank you thank you Lori for stepping in for it's not even close the last five months oh flowers yes and just really coming in with your expertise and your transition in was seamless and your transition out is a little sad to see no so thank you for your yes thank um lot of flowers over there thank you for six years of you know you describe it as a journey it has been a journey and you've been wonderful to work with for these six years we we did accomplish all those things and you don't really think about that while you're kind of in the mix I sometimes call that like wind erosion like you don't see it while it's happening and then one day you look and it's all there and feels really good so thank you all right so we have some flowers for you and plants so the plants will last forever and the flowers you don't know my lack of green thumbs the flowers May last longer than me this is just so pretty all right call me I have a green Thum now everybody that's watching us will know toar a lot of people already do all right that transitions us back to you jack uh what could be your final student council update thank you um hello everyone at the high school students are nearing the end of the year with many seniors already out of school working on their Capstone projects a few important events at the end of the school year uh begin with the all school art show the event features selected works from over 20 visual art electives from the high school works from the six 7eventh and 8th grade as well as artwork from the three elementary schools the art will be on display from May 16th to May 23rd following the art show Hopkin and high school music presents pops this Sunday May 19th at 2 pm the show will include performances from the chorus orchestra band jazz lab Jazz Ensemble and tenor Bas chorus a quick congratulation congratulations to the following students for winning local Awards in the annual Congressional Art competition Kaylee steer third place for digital art Frederick mon Alto first place for photography and Grace Dunn second place for photography a few reminders for the end of the school year the sophomore class will be attending uh an end of the year trip to Apex entertainment in Marboro on June 13th only 100 spots are available so if you are not within the first 100 purchases you'll be put on a wait list and on June 12th at 6: p.m. in the athletic center Rising nth graders will have an Athletics Fair each program will be set up up at a table in the athletic center and they will be able to answer any question regarding tryouts games and practice schedules uh as well as program expectations and speaking of Hiller Athletics as of this week our spring sports are having great Seasons the Hiller baseball team currently stands at 13-3 and ranked second in division two the softball team is 12-5 with a ranking of 11th in division 2 boys and girls lacrosse stand at 12-2 and 10 and 4 and 10 Respec ly and the boys and girls tennis teams are both ranked high in division 2 with records of 11- one and 10 and4 thank you thank you any questions I'm excited for pops this my favorite concert of the year I love the Pops concert good luck to you Jack I just wanted to say that because you're going to my favorite colle and Mr lead's too slightly bias it's okay is is the it in the main part of the high school yes yes it's in the atrium okay oh yeah if you have time to stop in definitely do I I'm allowed to just go in you'd have to be buzzed in I if I my little wand after school hours you could do it okay good thank you little Juan doesn't work at the high school only works for central office oh it only works for central office okay all right so that moves us into the superintendent report sure all right so this is a superintendent report for May 16th 2024 uh and tonight I'm only going to be talking about the myap Grant and really I'm stealing Mr lead's Thunder I went back in my email to think about when we first started talking about this and it was the fall maybe August of 2022 MH and then it was uh the fall of 2023 when we actually secured the Grant and the grant as you can see is in the amount of $115,000 um so what is a mycap grant and we get this through desie uh but it is f uh focused on engaging all students in education and post-secondary planning the myap process involves students creating their own path to post-secondary success but by providing them opportunities to discover their individual interests talents and skills to identify careers that match those and to understand how their coursework aligns to their career choices and so really the myap grant um is for every student they really start to think about and that will happen as early as th grade but what kinds of things are they interested in what kinds of courses are they taking how do they sort of pursue those those passions um and so here's our timeline we were notified as I said about the Grant and fall of 2023 the key players for us right now we have a group of teachers and counselors at both the high school and the middle school and we really are using that grant money to offer them stiens to kind of take a look at um what it would look like to build a program so this year we have spent some time studying our program and really thinking about what do we already have in place so you'll see that on a subsequent slide next year in 2425 we will be sort of building this program and then in 2526 we hope to be launching this this program formally so here are some of the the folks who are and if you want to talk about this slide you certainly can because I know that you were the photographer here that's the pets are worthy right there um yes so this is just snapshot of some of the participants that uh I was able to attend a um a dayong workshop with a few months back really bringing different distri we were one of about more than 12 districts in the in the room working with uh desie and some of the experts there around what it would look like for a district to uh synchronize and unify its efforts to prepare students for post-secondary Life whatever that might be um so you can see a few of our our Educators from our Middle School and High School some familiar and friendly faces there um this group in particular has a real passion um for this work and it it happens to be outside the domain of their typical work so it's really a wonderful thing to see all right so in the three domains uh we will be growing kids uh personal social and emotional uh Wellness um looking at what career development education might be and then thinking about their academic achievement um um so in the first category they would organize and record progress related to personal and social skill development uh one thing that we already have in place there is the HSA data that could really help our kids to think about um you know where they need to grow and where they have strength um in the second they will be setting personal and attainable goals based on their individual interests and strengths and that would begin um as early is grade seven and then in academic achievement they'll think about um you know the ways in which they need to promote their own academic achievement accessing their teachers accessing their counselors as they need to do that and so in terms of current exploration I'll let you do that slide if you want to because I know that you are working with them as they are kind of taking a look at what we already have in place and thinking about what other opportunities there out are out there to inform our our program so it's a it's a true privilege to be able to work alongside this group we have seven uh we have eight Educators seven serving as um task force members and one serving as the group facilitator um and what their charges right now as as Dr Kavanaugh has said is to study um what we're doing what we have done and what we could do and what they're doing right now is they're Gathering all that information uh they're learning about it and they're they're um synthesizing it into essentially what would be considered a consultancy report and so they're going to make some recommendations to to Dr Kavanaugh and me about what we could likely do in the next three to five years to really um not only have a great program in place but make sure that it's sustainable and has legs to move forward um so right now we're looking at what are we already doing um what other things um what should it look like so you think about we already have a strong vision of a graduate students right now at the sen at this in their senior year are either engaged in a senior Capstone or an internship or doing an internship in one of our elementary or middle schools um we're studying other districts and what they're doing we have a lot of neighbors who have either um gotten a little ahead of us or who are deep into this work and um we've been in touch and partnership with them and have been able to learn from them which has been a really wonderful experience we also have a lot of really great Partnerships so um you know hopkington is one of the um Tech member districts Tech has a a an internship coordinator so we're working in partnership with that person in particular we're also partnering uh we partnered for several years now with the massire Metro Southwest Workforce board and then finally what this group is doing is they're saying all right so if we want to achieve x what do we need for that is it time is it resources is IT personnel is it um is it new people is it redeployed people um so that's the work that's underway right now and we're really excited to see what this group brings us so as Mr Le just said our IND District team is preparing a report that will make recommendations for a hop inton specific grade 7 to 12 postsecondary planning program and that's what we have for you tonight they' I think sort of what got me on this train was that they've been asking to have individual meetings with you know Mr Bishop Mr LeBron with me with many of the key players throughout the district and you know as he said the excitement in the room was kind of palpable like they are very interested in getting this thing going can I ask a question um can you give us an idea of what how specific the postsecondary vision is that we're hoping students will create so the myap program if myap as Dr K kav referenc is a structure uh that desie uh really promotes really celebrates and so um we are going to look at what semblance of that we want to follow do we want to follow it as written do we want to take different elements of it um but the mycap program actually starts in the middle school and goes all the way through senior year and has a progression of exploration so um they're at different stages you're you're talking about your interests you're talking about what excites you what skills you have um thinking about what is it that the the community Society needs you to do and how can how can you Channel those those interests those passions and what do you need to get there some of it is thinking about internships and career preparedness and other elements of it are helping students understand if you want to be able to do a certain thing you need to make sure that you have certain coursework lined up um especially throughout your your your high school years that you can do that as far as how concrete we're going to get with this that's kind of the work of our group right now is to figure out where they want to land with that so would we anticipate next year that you will bring us later in the year bring us a kind of a finished plan I think that's if that's the request of the committee then I absolutely would be be happy to to do that alongside Dr Kavanaugh I do think that um you know what one thing that um I've asked of our our group's facilitators to think um you know build out incrementally over the course of a few years we can't Carol said this the other day and it was perfect we're not going to wake up one morning and say here it is we have this program but rather what can we do each year to build upon successes from the prior year so that we can um you know get to a place of actualizing what we want this to be and I think one of the best things about where we're positioned is we have so many great elements in place we've got great course offerings we've got wonderful Educators we've got great counselors we've got opportunities whether they be senior capstones or internships or or or so many other opportunities that um part of it is organizing it and making sure that it all fits into a tidy system I'll be anxious to see this okay yeah we will be as well yeah it will be interesting to see what the teachers put together for us and counselors It's so critical for for students um especially um my niece was always tossing around what do I want to do do I want to do this do I want to do that and sometimes she would look later on and go H gee I didn't calculus didn't exactly strike me so that kind of rules out me probably going in this direction or that direction okay thank you so that brings us into the school committee chair report I'm going to start by saying that payroll warrant S2 4021 has been approved warrants 24- 062 s 24-0 63s 24-0 64s 24-0 65s 24-6 6s 24-0 67s 24-0 68s 24- 069 s 24- 070s 24- 071 S and 24-72 S have been approved uh the warrants have been included in your folders uh and then on April 25th 2024 executive session minutes from July 6 2023 December 7th 2023 were approved and not released because the purpose of the exec executive session still exists January 18th 2024 executive session minutes were approved as amended and released on May 2nd executive session minutes from February 1st 2024 and April 4th 2024 were approved and released with redactions February 15 2024 was approved as amended and not released because the purpose of the executive session still exists and March 7th uh was approved and not released so that is it for uh minutes from our executive session the one piece I did want to address in our my chair report is just the um because it's coming up around town and I I think there's a little bit of confusion on the town Charter uh in terms of the school committee and absences in the school committee it is governed by the town Charter section 6-3 um it is that if a member fails to attend uh four consecutive or more than 50% the committee has the right to vote to declare a vacancy on the committee uh as of um prior to this meeting the percentages in terms of people's attendance because able to track for all of us at this table there is um one member as has been referenced whose um absence is a little bit higher or actually quite a bit higher than the others but it is not at the 50% threshold the percent as of the last uh meeting was 44% uh there were some I think what's confusing in the public is people maybe look up here and they see don't see everybody here but sometimes we have people attending remotely um just for that piece if uh the committee seeks to have somebody removed that hits the 50% Mark we would have to wait until the person hits the 50% Mark hopefully nobody gets to that point um but uh it not less than 10 days before any kind of a vote to declare a vacancy is to happen uh a member would need to have a c either by certified mail or inhand a uh notice that such a vote is intended to be taken so that's um something certainly that as a committee that I think it it's not on people's radar um should be on people's radar so that's um did you mention it's it's 50% or for consecutive or for consecutive correct so that is something that could be coming some of some of you may not be here at that point um but um that is I think what was referenced in public comment it also was something that we have been aware of in terms of tracking um for everybody and just by way of comparison at this table the next highest absent rate is is 3% so it is sort of an something we like to try to work with people if there are issues um I have not been able to figure out kind of what the intention would be going forward but if we do hit 50% it is something that would come back to the committee for a discussion or the four consecutive meetings so so has the four consecutive meetings not happened so it there's the this is the second consecutive regular meetings it depends on whether you would be counting the annual town meeting as posted meetings versus it where we didn't deliberate um for two of them I think that would be isn't this the third this is the second consecutive um because he was here on now I got to pull the dates up here on April 5th but not on got it May 2nd and then again tonight so that is um you know it's we we put a lot of work into a lot of different things I know people are busy but it we do need to have um the commitment of people that are at this table to be able to represent the town and make decisions going forward so I will continue to try to connect with um Mr Monroe to have some conversation on that and then reconfigure the percentage after tonight but as a committee uh that's where things stand this wasn't an agenda item so we're not this is part of the this is just part of my chair report we did happen to have the the percentages it it happened to come up in public comment as well I think for the same reason that it's been on our radar um I think it's been on people's minds and the public wondering what's happening as well so with that um I will move that into liaison reports do people have liaison reports um I'm anxious to um hear Abby's presentation tonight I was at the um meeting with Abby and Dr um Kavanaugh and CPAC and it was quite interesting what she was sharing with us and I think everybody will find that interesting the um youth commission um they're trying desperately to get up and running a site where you can list volunteer opportunities that you have in your group and you can also then volun through that send emails and volunteer for those activities and um there's some tricky pieces to it sometimes it's up some times it's not so as soon as it gets up and running um I'll come back and let you know about that all right excellent nothing for me okay I did just want to say just to Circle back to town meeting um to thank members of the community for coming out um to discuss all the Articles um but particularly we you know we had some big items for the school uh up forward and just to remind people that the Hopkins Edition uh is also a ballot question and requires a vote a majority vote at the ballot on Monday so I would also thank the administration for saying during one of the lengthiest and most chaotic Town meetings I have experienced in my 12 years in the town so thank you for coming yes all PR Nights night it was an interesting meeting for sure yeah and I will pass it on to Mrs rck as well okay so that moves us into the superintendent summative evaluation results um I did send an out a I sent it as a PDF so we could track the changes but do you want to share the did you made some grammatical fixes in a Google doc that would be easier probably for people if we wanted to do any editing on the sure yes start and do you want to just sure talk about the pieces that and this is why it's good to have many eyes on this before we get it um beforehand I had hoped to get it out to the committee sooner so I do hope people had an opportunity to read through it um yeah I mean I I just will say um first of all thank you for yet another um school committee chair job that is difficult um so I think you did a really nice job of folding in everybody's comments my just to you know very specific things were um a correction on where was I UND um step four evaluator comments in the first sentence uh it's a Dr Kavanaugh was given an exemplary rating due to her having exceeded the expectations on four of her seven goals set by the school committee and for receiving two exemplary ratings on the evaluation of standards and if you actually tracked with the check marks that occurred in nany's Doc as well it was three out of the four were exemplary so it was a minor just a typo I think so that I believe that was my comment and it was based on my yep I think what I didn't do was when I transferred it I didn't catch that piece that it was based on what my ratings were not the group's ratings so okay so I think would it be an acceptable amendment to that comment to just change the the two to the three as part of the final it won't be changed in your personal one it's just I think it's fine being that we making these group comments now so that that's fine and and I mean and if you want to take out that sentence completely it's fine too it's just um but I think that's where the numbers came from um and yeah I didn't I didn't edit for Content I didn't see the submissions we just sent them to Nancy so the only other um like blanket comment that I made is um one of the commenters I believe it might have been me use the first person singular pronoun and in my own comments and I think if the comments stand for the committee they should be we instead of I um so throughout and that was mostly in the indicators section um and so we can don't have to do like right here in the moment but we could if people are people want to authorize me to to fix those from eyes to we or if there are any comments people would like Struck from the anything that people are not in agreement on and sorry I one last one last thing I think was a correction from what I took away from our group discussion um and that was on District Improvement goal three the comments uh in here again I think they were mine um I had said I believe this should be a two-year goal I think in our discussion we agreed that the goal was met in the in this year as stated so the comments don't really reflect the spirit of the group uh discussion so I think I would just strike that okay can you actually strike that from the sure I think I might I might recommend striking the entire comment okay and this is um all INRI Improvement goal three it's it's close to what we said but it was more reflective of my individual rating than the collective discussion does anybody mind if I strike where it it says I commend this work and appreciate the efforts and then talk about potentially not being done and needing a two-year goal okay I'm going to start again thank you right I'm just looking through I mean from what I read it's hard to you didn't it's hard to make it I got into trouble for that one year yeah exactly so it's a bit um sort of Patchwork but I think the spirit of all the other comments in my reading reflected the discussion as long as we're using you know the instead of the eyes and and so forth so for me personally I thought it I don't know how you guys felt but I thought you know even though it's a little bit um Cobble doesn't flow as well because it's different voices yeah yeah as opposed to when yeah it's all one person's voice it flows differently but yeah all right all right I'm just catching some of these we to eyes but I can fix that later if are there other um comments that you guys have that just things that you think should be changed or anything that we I missed okay all right since we went through the ratings at length um at our last meeting I'm not going to read through the ratings again um but I I will clean up the document and get it to Georgette and to you to have the full context of the comments thank you okay so if there are no other comments on this then I would seek a motion sorry do you want to just for anyone who didn't watch I mean do you want to just summarize the overall outcome of our just just the overall not reading all through but just to summarize for people who tuned in to see yep so well I could go well you know I think it's hard to summarize without going through goal by goal okay um just because the areas and the different strength I can I I can say kind of looking at the I'm not a fan of this form to be totally honest is the way scrolling through it's not um there was an overall rating that's what I'm scrolling down to but um the overall summi of performance uh rating was exemplary uh for the end of cycle um Summit of evaluation report and that's backed up by the um steps one and two and the ratings that we did and then the indicators three of them were noted as exemplary one of them is Prof ient and when I scroll down to that part of the overall I can me just well you just go it's a 32-page document just for people who are wondering why it takes me so long to find what I'm looking for I just want to say I think you know we ranked you as exemplary and honestly you know in in sort of six years of watching very closely the work that you do I've never worked next to somebody who is so committed put so much time and thought and energy early mornings late nights constantly and your consistency in being professional and focused and gracious in your interactions with the community I mean just my personal overall um assessment this year and other years is just you know very very impressive very very well done I would agree with that entirely okay so the first the first indicator um was one that we is the instructional leadership that was one that was exemplary um the second indicator is management and operations and that was also rated as exemplary the third one family in Community engagement uh I feel like I skipped something you know I'm going to go to my notes because maybe let's have it more all right so the the indicator one two and three were exemp as I noted and then indicator 4 which was uh professional culture was rated as proficient so thank you very much for uring partly for enduring this this long process of the evaluation in public which is a little bit awkward to do but um and also for all the work you put into this year hitting your goals and indicators um well thank you yeah high standards so thank you anybody else have any comments before we um look to take a vote vote on this okay in that case um I would seek to a motion to accept the Su superintendent Summit of evaluation for 2023 to 2024 as amended um in this meeting some motion by Susan second second by Lori all those in favor I I okay it is approved thank you very much and that moves us into the school choice um agenda item separate from the public comment the vote okay um so just to reiterate what we talked about at the start of the meeting um you're required to take this vote every year by June 1st um unless you are already participating in school choice and you intend to keep doing that we are currently not a district that does that and in my time here we have not one of the reasons that you can vote not to participate in school choice is due to overcrowding and we certainly have that situation here and so my recommendation to you tonight is that you would vote not to participate in school choice for the 2425 school year thank you I did want to just also add in that we did have a an email regarding this um from a pair of professional in the district who very much supported not having school choice because of the space constraints that we have as a district and that has been the conversation as long as I can remember um so other thoughts or somebody who feels like they would like to make a motion on that or comment on it this is a tough one because we just don't have room I mean there's often the will of the community wants to be able to open our doors to neighboring districts we just don't have room so I think every year it's tough you know people want to see us you know letting everybody in you know giving Fair access to such a high quity quality education as you can get in Huffington and we just it would be irresponsible to do that we just don't have the space but it's not without thought it's not that we just are you know care carelessly voting this agree and the just as the evidence of how we have worked so hard in the entire time that both you and I have been on the committee uh we have been working hard to increase capacity because we don't have the capacity for the students that we have here um it is my hope that once we get through with these current building projects that we this will not be the discussion about capacity and we can evaluate school choice for other reasons or or not but um I just don't see that we have the space any other okay is there somebody who would like to to make a motion not to participate in school choice for the 2024 to 2025 school year I move not to participate in school choice for the 2024 2025 school year thank you Susan motion by Susan is there a second on that second second by Lori all those in favor I I okay that brings us to the disproportionality report Mrs ham welcome thank you nice intro Susan no that you're interested in disproportionality as much as I am I thought it was quite interesting it is so thank you for um letting me have a little bit of time tonight to brief you on an important topic which has a very long name uh so it's a very long slide disproportionality um and so we're going to proceed step by step tonight to provide you with what I hope will be a thoughtful overview of what can be a somewhat comp Lex topic and my intention tonight is to stay focused on the big picture so if you have very complicated math questions for me I will take them after this evening's meeting but one of the data sets we're working with here has over 900,000 students in it so it's not the kind of thing I can do off the top of my head all right so um if we uh want to jump right in the first question of course is what is disproportionality and so um the law that governs special education in the United States the Ida uh requires that states look at these three very important factors in order for each state to receive the federal portion of their funds under the idea so we're inside a federal mandate to track data on these these very important um categories so we're just briefly going to talk about them for a second so we have the identification of children for special education and there are six specific disability categories that the federal government requires Massachusetts to track to look for Trends then we're looking at placement so we're talking about are some students being placed in more inclusive settings versus other students being placed in more restrictive settings and then finally you may have heard about some of this in the Press but this idea of disproportionate disciplinary outcomes for students based on race or class or disability status and so those are three really important uh things to keep track of and those are um three things that Massachusetts is required to track uh in order to um be in alignment with the federal government okay so then we next have to ask our question um what's the connection to Hopkinton so here we have a little bit of information about State examples so this is not Hopkinton specific data this is Massachusetts data but I I think it helps frame the conversation um to the more um state level so clearly the federal government has indicated that as a commitment to looking at equity in in the American public education system disproportionality is an important indicator so um they have tasked Massachusetts with that and here in the state of Massachusetts currently you know um African-American students with disabilities are 1.7 times as likely to receive a disciplinary removal than all other students with disabilities so when we talk about a disproportionate impact it means that that impact is greater for a subgroup as compared to all children in the group similarly in Massachusetts Hispanic students in Massachusetts are 1.94 times as likely to be identified as a student with an intellectual disability than students in other racial or ethnic groups and those are hard stats to hear and those are important things to think about the big picture as well as at the local level all right so our job in Hopkinton is to um align inside the requirements of desie for the locality for the municipality so the way that happens is that desie calculates identification placement and disciplinary removal rates for our students based on the data we send up um in our student information system every October we're looking uh for this conver ation tonight at data going back to the 2020 2021 school year and that pipeline then forward to today and um specifically desie is looking at racial disparities and they're using seven racial or ethnic categories which you have on on the slide that um again align to these broader Federal categories so desie is doing that and they're comparing numbers for students um in each racial category um which include African-American black African American Indian um Alaskan native Asian Hispanic or Latino multi-racial native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and white and then they're comparing each of those subgroups to the totality of students in the district okay so um as we said there are these three kind of categories and the good news is that hopkington is not disproportionate for discipline in any category for any subgroup and that's um wonderful and something that should be celebrated as well as something that should be uh maintained right similarly um hopkington is not disproportionate in terms of kind of the categories that we think about in terms of the severity of a placement how far removed you are from general education right we're not that's good news um similarly we um are not suspending or excluding students by racial category and disproportionate matter that's very very good news however Jesse has um just this year identified that hopkington is disproportionate in a specific subgroup for the identification of a disability and that's what we're really going to talk about so you have a slide with a math ratio on it and um what I guess I I want to start out by saying is that broadly speaking it's a numerator denominator kind of situation where each subgroup is being compared to the total um number of students in the district and desie has calculated what they refer to as a risk ratio so we're starting to get into big data sets and kind of Big Data where we're talking about risk ratios so that we can start to have a sense of large populations of students so in um the example you see here um the the students um end up with a risk ratio of 2.0 and that is not disproportionate Jesse has set the ratio at 3.0 so you can have variability in subgroups you can have unique situations in communities individual situations but broadly speaking they would say if this ratio of students in a subgroup gets so disproportionate that the difference is a factor of 3.0 or higher uh they flag that yes what does Lea stand for I went through this over back and forward I know and I was like where did we Define this so we are the Lea the local educational agency and we're the Lea of Hopkinson thank you yeah there are so many acronyms in education I'm your Lea design how about that there you go the local if the education educational like agency I think it might have been Authority years ago so um we don't need to go through too much of the of the math but essentially desie is taking our data that we send up they're doing that calculation and if the ratio comes out at a factor of three or higher they consider that subgroup to be disproportionate okay so you have a couple charts and I I really just wanted to highlight a couple of things for you I realized the numbers are tiny um but what I wanted to give you an opportunity to do is see what we get in terms of reporting so this is one blown up set of cells from a report that has many many many cells um but essentially these are the students who have been found to be eligible for special education here in hopkington compared to all the students in Massachusetts the denominator there's 923,50 education considered disproportionate that's in the aggregate so in terms of the risk ratios we have you know 41 1.42 those are very low numbers and nothing has been um flagged by Desi here in Hopkinson at all I did want to draw your attention to the the bottom you can kind of see that here in Massachusetts in 2020 2021 18 .7% of students in the state were identified um as eligible for special education the next year it was pretty stable at 18.9 and then the next year it went up to 19.4 that's a pretty big number the other kind of interesting Factor here is we have data from 2021 21 22 22 23 we do not have data from this year so all of this is retrospective data do you have an opinion about whether the 19.4 is a lagging impact of the pandemic or is it just 19.4 I would say that it would be reasonable to think that's possible right I mean it does seem like a significant jump but certainly all of the things we're talking about tonight have multifactorial uh drivers and that's one of the reasons this is a complex topic yeah are you thinking I get a question just and I love the way the data is organized in Hopkinton where the 13.5 and looking at the state at 19.4 do you have thoughts on why Hopkin TS like what has made hopkington and even looking back a couple years back I know it's been even lower in hopkington yeah well so I mean it's a trend historically so it's been this way for quite a while I uh my first blush look would be that it's the quality of the total educational program right that people are really attending to students needs individually um over time here and that's a pattern that you've Dev veloped um and I also would say I you know I'm going to watch that number to see if it continues to go up it increased from 12.1 to 13.5 in just three years so that's some you know a significant growth uh but you know that number certainly is lower than the state but again you know that's a big number it's it's you know there's 180,000 kids in special ed in the state of Massachusetts so those numbers represent a a great you know number of families and students it it is a lot I I was wondering if there's a lag in tier one supports that other districts are able to offer things that are well now you're getting to like my next slide so hold on a minute we'll get there so okay so spoiler alert we go I know you're jumping ahead so if we go to the next one you can just see an example of a subgroup so this is students with autism right so we're not disproportionate on the whole when you think of all students in special ed so now let's just look category by category so students with autism now that you're expert disproportionality chart readers you can see we are not disproportionate right our little risk ratios are 0.95 and 1.25 so you can see in this example also that here in Hopkinson there are many cells that are just dotted lines and that's because we have fewer than six students in that subgroup and so Desi does not report that data publicly um it makes it hard when the cells are mostly blank for us to draw conclusions and make decisions um and we'll talk about how we handle that here but so in the good news category you can see that for students with autism we are not disproportionate okay we go to our next slide for some instances there actually is so little data in hopkington in all that they can't do the risk ratio and we get a little asterisk next to our number and that's because they have to go out and look all the way out to the 900,000 kids in Massachusetts to even do the the calculation and that's called an alternate risk ratio and even under that criteria we are not disproportionate in this instance for students in the category of emotional disability so then the category that we have been flagged for is specific learning disability and so I just want to take a moment to say that specific learning disability which goes by the acronym sorry for more acronyms sld is composed of um multiple subcategories uh and we talk about sld perhaps in dyslexia right sld perhaps in math we would call that disc calcula or perhaps in writing disg graphia and you can have an sld in executive functioning and other um other factors so sld which is its own category here in Massachusetts you can see that back in 2021 hopkington t over at 3.39 so we were yellow we got a little yellow like dot next to our number nothing happens that's just data to know but then in 2122 that pattern continued and that risk ratio went up to 4.63 Which is higher than the cut off significantly in two years in a row and then finally we received notice this year that when they looked retrospectively at our data from 2223 three that pattern continued and we were at 4.71 for white students being identified with specific learning disability so our subcategory is white students being as desie would say overidentified in the category of specific learning disability can I ask you a question yes okay so when did we introduce like dyslexia screening for all students do you want to Hazard a guess from our our chart me because you can start to figure things out I would 2021 I would yeah and so you can start to see that there are many factors so we don't want to draw an A to B conclusion here what we want to do is say clearly there's some chronological um alignment there for that topic similarly we were coming out of the pandemic similarly we were talking a lot about um you know literacy instruction in general right so there are many many factors about people maybe were Hearing in the news about the law and the regulations so there's multiple drivers here um we are not disproportionate for any other group in this category but for white students in specific learning disability we are is the specific learning disability identified as dyslexia for us or not great question um so they can't see that in our data but in order to get our draft plan together we dug in and yes the answer is that it it does reside in that category as opposed to math for example okay so thank you for staying with me I'm sorry if I'm being at all pedantic all right so then we get our extremely unique situation here in Hopkinton which is our next slide where we've been um informed by desie that we are disproportional specifically in the identification of white students with specific learning disabilities so that's our next slide um and so we've been identified so our status is identified and that's important and that um leads us to have to take some actions and so really what I'm here tonight is just to foreshadow those actions uh for you and answer some questions were we identified last year when we were no so you don't get identified until it tips along for multiple years two years or it three in a way yeah you could almost say um but this is the the first time this has occurred okay so um so what happens you might ask so what you do is you um are notified and then uh desie provides you with some resources and you create a plan and that plan is a draft plan that has certain particular parts to it um and so a cousin of it might be like the SOA plan that you've probably heard over the years and so this is a different plan but the model is the same you draft something you send it into them desie reviews it and they either approve it they send you back edits or they give you kind of like shaping comments and they ask you to resubmit it uh so we did the work and submitted our draft plan um in mid April and the plan includes a number of actions that are on the next slide that I we thought would be helpful to just give you a sense of um we're we're thinking about four main things that attach to each of the drivers that we think are the most likely drivers for why this has happened so the first is we're really interested in just our prek to 12 tiered systems of support how do we support students and refining that and continue to work together so I'm very excited to work with Mr LeBron next year on that because instruction for all kids teaching all kids how to read is one of the drivers right high quality instruction for all students that may alter that ratio yes I need to back us up just a minute so but the issue is on identifying students we haven't been told that we are delivering the instruction disproportionately or like it's identifying them right so and the issue is is that we are identifying white students in particular at a higher rate correct so it's so I'm just wondering as we make a plan does it address the identif or the delivery or all of the above so and and this is why it's still a draft plan right so this is the other pieces I'm I want to make sure um you guys understand like the big picture and we will get feedback from desie on exactly those um points uh the next action really is thinking about continued professional development for General Ed teachers who are teaching reading particularly at elementary um on the provision of basic reading skill instruction right and again again so that goes to your question is that the provision of instruction versus the identification right so that's a provision of instruction intervention well sorry I guess the question I have in my head and you're probably G to get to this I should just be quiet but I'm gonna say this anyway is when are we identifying these students is it when they are first in District at whatever like is it or is it students who have been in our programming that are we're identifying later and our programming is not uh maybe addressing a need that they have so is it when they first move in or they first start kindergarten or when are we catching them do we know that do we have it so it's different for every single student but one of the things we know is that there certainly is an increase in referrals for sld in Reading second and third grade okay right can I ask a question on the other the identification piece it is it possible that it's part of the problem is that we're not identifying other kids that actually have spe the the SL than you for asking that okay yes so there's two ways to change a ratio change the N numerator change the denominator right and so we're we're approaching this from all of those possibilities being potentially uh con contributing factors so yes right so you'll see the next draft idea would be professional development for all staff General Ed and special education staff on the procedures steps requirements and data used in a RTI model of Eligibility determination for special education so exactly to your point you know really um reviewing with people the eligibility process steps and the technical part right so 100% I agree with you that that driver is probably you know significant in terms of this issue um but another important issue which Nancy I think you're being very thoughtful about is this idea that perhaps we're not hearing from everybody for whom their child might have a reading issue and there might be very important reasons why we're not hearing from them and that's perhaps creating this disproportionate um result so this is um one of the reasons why um I think it was it was very nice to sit with Susan and preview this um a little bit with the CPAC because this is an elegant example of how a CPAC can really be super helpful because what we would do is is a robust parent Outreach and education campaign about how how this process works and talk about stigma and talk about questions and and provide people with education and so you can kind of see our idea is to tackle this from all all of the potential pieces I like that can I ask a question so is there also an element to this where like certain like ethnicities are more prone to dyslexia than others like where then you cannot like no plan is going to thwart that like there are certain like when you just think like medical wise not even like we're talking social education where you have certain races that are more Act to get like CLE cell anemia yeah I'm not aware of that so like for dyslexia there isn't it there's not a like genetic component where it would show up in more of certain races than others where you would no amount of planning is going to change that ratio then yeah so that I'm not aware of that I think that you know the reality is that we can only control the factors we kind of control desie is a plans as we know um and we are attempting here to reach both the technical and The Human Side of what is probably a a pretty complicated situation um I feel good about these approaches and I think they will give us a good shot at changing this ratio um and I'm excited to work with the CPAC on it because I think it's great Parent Connection and parent engagement for real right which is wonderful so um in terms of steps we've sent our draft plan in it basically says what I've just told told you it but in more detail and we anticipate we will hear back the the mechanism to do this process is that we will earmark a chunk of the funds from the Ida Grant and the little preschool Grant which we refer to as the 240 Grant and the 262 Grant and that's required so once you become disproportionate that ear marking happens kind of automatically um we will develop a professional development plan around this idea of early literacy specifically um I think that's very important we'll mat marry that up with all other initiatives here in the district we'll start collecting ongoing data um specifically related to Trends around race and and identification for disability and we're going to start looking at our data in that lens and then we're going to survey the parent Community about three times next year and see if we see some movement in terms of people's um knowledge understanding and comfort level and asking for support if that's appropriate for their child okay so feedback at this time from the Department of Ed none yet but it's early we anticipate we'll hear most likely in the next month but because of the way the school year is kind of rapidly coming to a close we wanted to at least get this part of the conversation out um to you tonight my suggestion would be that as once we receive feedback we would come back to the committee share the feedback and share a final plan um there's like one person who works on this at desie and I I got his email and I've emailed him multiple times and so I am confident they will review our plan promptly um and then finally I think um the real next steps are both to provide professional development to staff on the process and some of the reading specifics do some community outreach and then measure change over time so this is probably a two or threee project to really move this number um and I'm just very excited frankly to be able to think about this um at the district level and to see um what we can do to make sure that everybody's getting what they need here in hopkington and it that support is tailored to to kids needs uh and I think this process might help us to do that questions yes um the slds we're we tend to have dyslexia is the the main one being identified is that correct so yes um there are multiple others and um for some students they might have more than one at the same time okay and at what grade level do you you administer a test to check one dyslexia correct so we have Universal screening okay um in the early grades here in hopkington as part of the response to the Massachusetts regulation for dyslexia screening and I believe if I remember it's K1 2 and is it three can't remember it happened in all three grade levels y it does yep y yep and that's Universal and so that's how our screening process is that once they're screened that's how we're picking up these numbers um so we don't know that as a fact but what we would say is certainly that by screening um we're then um obligated to inform parents if there's um the result Falls below a certain level and certainly as a parent who might receive that letter it certainly would increase the odds they might then ask for an evaluation or be engaged in a process of of learning more about that do how often do you run into a parent to parents who do not react to that letter you've sent out I don't know that we have the opposite data we could look and tell you that but I'm sure there's a subset of people for whom they wait or they're unsure or they are embarrassed sometimes maybe yeah so just so you know we we screen we using our um star measurement tool three times a year um fall winter spring uh and Report out following the state's um guidance we report out on the on the first two of those the of the year um and so um letters go out from our elementary literacy Department um in consult ation with with Abby and in special education um and so that the parents do have access to that regularly and we're we're proud of of doing that we again it's never a competition between school districts but if it were um we have we have um good evidence that says hopkington is ahead of the curve um against other districts who are trying to fulfill the the stipulations of the Mandate I agree with Susan I think it' be really interesting to know are we screening and finding four to six% students with disability with um specific learning slds and because that you're a lot of parents might receive that there are certain probably certain parents who would receive that and think oh we'll just you know work a little bit on homework more together or you know we'll read more books or we'll do you know maybe they wouldn't um know that it's okay to process that and ask for help and they might know how to ask for help and I do think it's great that we engage CPAC I also think there probably are a number of students where this is identification issue who are not part of the CPAC Community yet they don't so they might not get reach be reached by that group yeah and and one thing we need to remember too is that when we use the term screening that's just what it is it's not a diagnosis it's a screening tool right gu I wouldn't want people at home to think that after your child is screened and we send that letter that there is a problem what we've said is that your child hasn't met a particular Benchmark yeah and that's again this larger professional development conversation because in fact in fact sld is a very specific um set of things and for many children they're learning how to read it either at their own pace or at a pace that perhaps is you know in impacted by other factors that are not an SL and so pulling that apart is what really thoughtful teams are doing every day in the buildings um and we can always improve right we can always do better so what if you as a district screened everybody like and I'm not advocating this but what if you screened everybody but you're like disproportionately finding that a certain race in your district is has the disability whatever disability it is you're screening equally so like in terms of a plan there's nothing to change on that right I see what you're saying like this just seems very like arbitrary to me that like you know that there because you're doing more screening you may find that I mean if you were actually to like compare the ratios of race disparity in our district to the race disparity in this like in these diagnosis ranges would it be pretty similar you know what I mean and so that's where I'm wondering I do so let's imagine that you have 350 students in grade one and you screen them all and 70 of those students So 20% of them are flagged as as not meeting a benchmark and all 70 of those students are white and then you have 35 students so 10% of them are non-white students who are flagged is not reaching the Benchmark it's like that's how your data is actually kind of playing out right that they're their white students are being overidentified that might just be coming right out of the screening as opposed to that's coming out of kids then get on an IEP right right and we've struggled with those same um questions internally I would also just say that um special ed is inherently an individualized program and this feels very un individual um however we're trying to really take the the good intention and the important message about monitoring for disproportionality and and really use that to improve our practice and I'm I'm pretty confident that we're going to be able to balance both of the things you're talking about um and you know we can also always say to desie you know we've worked on this for a year or two and our data is stable and consistent and we feel that we um you know are in a good place and that's that's okay we're very early in this process at this time so lots of work to do and they only look at race they're not looking at socio economic status or English language Learners all the things they don't and all those other categories were fine correct okay interesting isn't it it is interesting I don't recall having had an in-depth um um report on disproportionality in the time that I've been on the committee is that because this so probably because you were not disproportion so it was an easier thing to I mean sometimes I have reported out in like a one sentence good news you know in my previous jobs like we're not disproportionate in people say that's great and they move on to I can remember you having said that oh well there you go yes that was your okay yeah but this is the when you get not as good news this is what happens and I refer to this as is disproportionality 101 so you've now passed that class this was great we'll come back for the AP level once we have a full Ro you know a full you know plan from desie and then we'll um if you send me questions in the in the meantime I can try to build in those answers okay great I I feel like the one last thing I have to represent Leah here because Leah would say how's that screener screener is you know what kind of a test are we using what is it a screener that someone who's you know Young six or seven years old has been largely at a home in home environment very influenced by whatever cultural or home environment they have are they culturally or ethnically able to access the words that we use and I know you did a welcome session uh for the district once and just the different meanings that different words have when seen through different lenses based on your own background so I guess I wonder is our screener a effective equally effective for all the groups that we have so I believe we use a desie approved screening tool of which there is a list that has been vetted um you know no tool is perfect um but I would I would argue that of the tools that are available of the screeners of the Benchmark tools that that we could have access to um we're using one of the best um we also work really hard to triangulate that data so we don't rely on just one single point of reference so um desie has a couple couple of different tools that they are encouraging districts to use one of which we are in the second year of piloting as a second tier screener so believe it or not after we get one data set and we have a question we say you know what let's let's try another one to see if it actually says if that original data set tracks um it's given us some good information um the flip side is the the assessment is incredibly long it's a 40 minute assessment um computer based that teachers administer oneon-one desie recommends that districts do that for all students which would mean we'd finish somewhere around July if we started in September so we don't do that we're being very selective with how we do that um but it is yielding an an added layer of information for us so um pair that with teacher observations in the classroom um and it gives us a sense of of who our kids are and what they need when do you give this horribly long assessment uh you mean Wonder wonderfully thorough um yeah what what triggers from so there are different um there are different uh scores and they get colorcoded and if we see a student hits a certain or doesn't hit a certain Benchmark level we'll say you know let's let's have that let's put that student um on that assessment to see if that gives us information it goes much more granularly into um the reading skills the the foundational skills 40 minutes what grade level would that starting in in Karen CER Garden 40 minutes so that's why we're being very selective with how we use it you'd lose me after five and one thing that we one thing we are doing um you know Amanda to your point about what um what makes sense um Deb morard our director of Elementary literacy has um with with her uh teacher leaders have have looked at this and they've decided to recommend for this coming fall that we shift that out from the first couple of weeks to of school into the beginning of October because we really think that once kids get in they're going to say wait a second I remember that from last year when I was in a prek program or my teacher taught me that on the first week of school now I've got it so we that's another layer of what we might see different moving ahead and it's a testament to this District really looking critically at at these tools and taking nothing at face value we'll also do some nice Outreach with our lpac right so you can see how it all starts to come together great thank you very much than you my recollection was we started this a few years beforehand and we were using a different tool before it became a mandate is that we've been using star yeah star early literacy for a while yeah okay I think that might be the the next item on your too I'll just stay yes you are my God the Abby has it's okay so we are moving into special education Transportation contract um so you have before you a memo from Susan who's not here tonight um who's um empowered me to explain it to you uh which essentially indicates that the special education Transportation contract which is exempt from the uh requirements under the procurement act um is in front of you for uh a recommendation to um move forward so we've completed a due diligence process uh seeking a quote from two vendors those vendors were ride right and vanpool uh ride rri is the current vendor um vanpool stated they were unable to accommodate our transportation needs and I think that's an an important thing for the committee to just hear is that the transportation sector continues to be significantly disrupted um and to not bid is is a is a decision you know yeah so here we have your rates you can see them laid out for you by type of van and type of day if you'd like to talk talk about that I certainly do that the most important um Factor on the back of the page is that we um received a um contract from ride R which has an 8% increase year-over-year we budgeted 3% which historically has been a very uh rational number um I want to say that my from what I hear from my colleagues around the communities um 8% is is low compared to what some other communities received so I just want to say that um at this point 8% um is a number that we would recommend that we accept um it speaks to both their costs as well as the complexity of Transportation right now um in general we're looking at a um cost if our ridership uh at the estimated moment that we have right now that cost would be $512,000 uh we anticipate that about $80,000 will come out of that number as students change change placements between now and September however we can't say that for sure because people have decision- making choices they're making at the end of the year but that's our our sense of things and that's um a good a good number um and then we have $397,000 in the approved budget and we also have another set aside of $140,000 uh for potential future placements so combined we're we are able to absorb the 8% increase um and that number will continue to fluctuate up and down and I will monitor it closely with Susan throughout the year um to make sure that we're on track and that would be the ride right um rates and we are recommending to accept them so I just want to just backtrack a couple steps to what you had said is that the budget is able to absorb this correct just want to highlight that for that was the piece that I think jumps out and the other piece that jumps out is they have no other options they well yes but my my thought was more are we going to need to do something else to find the money so no and what I would say is that um the the the increase up to 8% is substantial um it accounts for some of the difference um but this is a very volatile piece of our budget and you know we have a good sense at this point of the Year about what our our true costs will be better than we did in November and December um and between all of the factors we're we're able to absorb this okay right any questions comments people feeling moved to make a motion I moved to accept the raids provided by ride ride for fy2 okay motion by Susan is there a second on that second second by Lori all those in favor unanimous thank you very much for coming out you're welcome thank you they've been a good partner to the district that's good to hear I know that Transportation has been challenging at at different points and got to get thank you very much thank you have a good evening what's left right that brings us into item e which is the uh s that should be fy2 adult meal price increase or school school year yep um okay so uh currently what it costs us so to speak to produce an adult meal is $4.99 throughout this entire school year we've been charging you know any faculty and staff who buy a lunch $4 so we have essentially been out of compliance on that um every year what happens is the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and secondary education will send out a memo typically late in August and what they'll tell us on that memo is uh how much would a student free lunch cost and then we would add in the USDA food assistant level and then we would add in meal tax at 6.25% and it gives us the actual price of an adult meal so for this year it's $4.99 what the Food Services Department is asking you to do is to raise the adult meals for the next school year up to $5.50 we don't know if it will be $5.50 but um what that dollar amount does is sort of Ensure compliance moving forward so is that supposed to say up to or to 550 what Michelle kakas is saying in terms of this memo is that she would like to raise the adult meal price to $5.50 so it's a $150 increase okay year over year any questions on that is is setting the meal price typically something the school committee votes on I don't remember ever voting on any adult meal price in the past probably been a while yeah yeah I I don't know if you have voted on the meal price in the past um I think that you are supposed to vote on on the meal price because there's some fluctuation in there you know the minimum meal price next year for example could be 525 or 5 31 or like we don't really know what that number is so if you are essentially setting that number now you know you're doing that for the school year 25 and if we if our price is over the cost of the meal the Delta goes into the revolving account yes M did you say the hold up I believe I did I'm sorry then the difference oh okay that revolving account pays for Staffing and okay sustaining of the actual cafeteria so yeah our food services department really the whole program just is self- sustaining right if it's at all helpful that's probably a third of what most people would pay for lunch outside of the schools that's true go McDonald's in 10 bucks and we have refrigerators for staff to bring meals from home so if this is not appealing to them they can yes do it okay well I move to approve adult meals to 550 okay motion by Susan is there a second on that second second by Amanda all those in favor I that moves us then into item F which is sy25 Food Service Staffing okay so what Michelle kandus would like to do here is just have a little bit of flexibility to uh manipulate or change up the food service um workers hours but she would keep that of course within the confines of the contract that we have with the cafeteria workers so in school year 25 um she would like to say that all assistant cook Bakers would have a six and a half hour day that the high school and middle school managers would have an 8 hour day and that the K to 5 managers would have a 7 and 1 half hour day and currently the kitchen man manager hours will range anywhere from 7 to 8 hours and the assistant cook Bakers range from 6 to 6 and A2 so it's very small in terms of the increase it may only be a half hour in in some places uh but she would like to be able to to do that and then you know if a time comes where we don't have to be that high all the way to the 8 hour day and and she wants to bring them back down to 7 and 1 half hours she'd like to sort of just be able to do that as long as it stays within the confines of the contract okay any questions okay do we know if the staff is I the contractually we can do this it's within our limits um do we know if how the staff is feeling about this I think that the staff would welcome the change um because I think that they would like to be able to to know that they're working an 8 hour day as opposed to I think I have a 7 and 1 half hour day but it just became an 8 hour day or tomorrow can you come in a half hour early it would just make that consistent for them or work really really hard for the time they there to try and get everything done okay there are no other questions um is there somebody who would like to make a motion well I move to approve school year 25 work hour increases in accordance with the SEIU contract without prior school committee approval motion by Susan is there a second on that second second by Lori all those in favor I I it is unanimous brings us to item G did we want to pass over that sure and then move into item H which is scholarships okay so we have discovered that uh there has historically been um actually two drama Scholarships in the amount of $500 each and the town Treasurer does need authorization to pay them I don't think it's anything that you've ever voted on before but we know now that we need to start voting on those um so really we just need you to authorize the payment of two drama scholarships for two students at the high school in the amounts of $500 each and how are they funded I think that theyve been around for a very very long time and so somehow they just exist in the town treasury I'm not sure how they keep existing like through interest or if there's a family in town that originally started this um the way it came to our attention is that Laura car was you know working on them and Georgette said see that seems very strange that we're asking the treasurer to pay something and it doesn't go through school committee that's how we learned about them all right 12 is there somebody who would like to make a motion on that just on item one we did get in touch with Valerie Von Rosen MinGa about them in he said that's never happened before I moved to authorize a payment of two drama scholarships for $500 each okay motion by Amanda is there a second second second by Susan all those in favor I I I and it is unanimous and so carries and that brings us into the second one okay so this one you Al you know about and I think this one also kind of came up just in recent years uh so there are two Mary Roach $75 scholarships and they go to the two students graduating seniors and that person those children had to have attended the Elwood school when they were here um so it can't be somebody who just joined the Hopkinson public schools in grade 8 for example and they would be the uh graduates who have the two highest GPA totally off topic what what are they going to do once this becomes charleswood charleswood that's very interesting I would imagine that you would have had to attend the charleswood school after that right all right it's good point that is something to think about aemotion on that I moved to authorize the two Mary Roach scholarships for $75 okay motion by Susan is there a second on that second second by Lori all those in favor I I it is unanimous and so carries and that brings us into the bullying report for the 2023 to 2024 school year okay thank you um so just a little bit of mgl before we get started um each School District shall develop adhere to an update a plan to address bullying prevention and intervention in consultation with teachers School staff professional support Personnel School volunteers administrators Community Representatives law enforcement agencies students parents and Guardians at least banally and you know that we just did that um again recently so we are a district that is very good about every two years updating our buling prevention and derion plan um we are also required to do the presentation that you're seeing tonight so each year at the end of the school year um we present data to you that includes but isn't limited to the number of reported allegations of bullying or retaliation the number and nature of substantiated incidents of bullying or retaliation and the number of students disciplined for engaging in bullying or retaliation so that's what you'll see tonight um I want to clarify that there has been a change in Desi in the way we report so these numbers might look just a little bit higher so for example in the past if there had been one student um who reported that um he she year they was were being uh bullied in the hopkington public schools and they alleged that they were being bullied by three students we would still in the past have considered that to be one incident of bullying now if there are three alleged aggressors we would have to call that three instances of bullying so just so you know these numbers might be just a little bit higher than they have been in the past um so at Marathon Elementary School we had six allegations um reported a bullying we subst iated three of those so we determined that in three of those cases it was actually bullying and in three of those cases it was unsubstantiated and we've had no reports of um or allegations of retaliation at Elwood we had four reports of bullying uh sometimes what happens is after you have a conversation with parents about the definition of bullying the parent would say you know what I'm going to withdraw that I realize that what we're talking about here is more student conflict and so one of those allegations of bullying was in fact withdrawn after we did investigations um none of them were found to be bullying but three of those were um unsubstantiated cases so again student conflict um at Hopkins we had 10 allegations of bullying but then one of them was withdrawn one of them was substantiated as bullying and eight of them were unsubstantiated cases what about the one that's not in the oh that's the withdrawn one okay yes so one of those yeah was withdrawn I'm using my math that's okay we we're with you U so at the middle school we had 16 allegations of bullying one of them was was withdrawn so we were down to 15 and four of them were substantiated as bullying 11 of them were unsubstantiated cases at the high school we had five allegations of bullying one with was withdrawn two were substantiated two were unsubstantiated so in total we had 41 reports with four of them being with withdrawn uh we had 10 findings of bullying and 27 uh cases that were unsubstantiated you know that we have the bias incident reporting fir form and we use that at the high school and the middle school this year at the high school they had two submissions one was Anonymous and it was thoroughly investigated and one was uh one report was simply a prank and then at the middle school we had 15 submissions to that uh online portal three of them were identified and followed up on and two of them so this is essentially two submissions but it was in regard to the same incident um eight submissions were reports of conflict or incidents that were not technically related to bias but I think kids put things in there because they think this is a way for somebody to listen to me um so even if it wasn't bias related we go back and we take a look at it and we established that it was student conflict and we work with the kids and then two of them were just kids messing around what's a bias incident uh so if someone does say for example like a microaggression would qualify um if somebody said something that was racially insensitive or you know any form of bias really so if you see that something has happened where um someone is perpetrating you know something that would be um illustrating that that person has a biased against you that's unsubstantiated um they can use this form and then we talk with kids about what does it mean to you know sort of be biased or prejudiced against someone else okay and this is kind of a homegrown tool for us Jack can I ask you a point of view since it's your last meeting pull you in the the bias reporting form we've that was introduced like two years ago maybe or year oh it may even be more and it it has taken quite a while it probably still is not well known but take taken quite a while to get it to get it out there so that students know what's happening do you think that a decent percentage of students are aware that there's such a thing yeah I think there's I mean I knew of it and I know that it's been like told to us like a decent amount of times that like this is a tool for you to like feel more comfortable in school but I think like not many students use it just because they don't want to make a big deal out of something more like like because I'm if you're going to Administration then it becomes sort of like a problem Beyond just you and whoever committed the bias but um I I think most students at the school do know that it's have it there how how do you actually how do you have do you know how you would access it I think there was an email that went out or it could be on the the student memo I think it's in the student say used to go out in all of the Mr Bishop's things that he sent out at the bottom of the memos yeah yeah when we first started it may still be this way there was a a QR code and so that would take you to a Google form that you would just fill out and all of that information ends up in a spreadsheet yeah thank you thanks okay thank you great thank you uh I always like to to reflect on that a little bit after and kind of absorb it but um the higher numbers I don't think are always a bad thing I don't think it always means that the number of cases is going up but I think sometimes means that people are more comfortable reporting and kind of questioning you know what what happened even in light of the way that you they've changed the reporting any other comments or questions before we move on okay right that moves us into Old business item a naming of facilities the hopkington high school stage all right so we have um gone 60 days from the time we initially announced that uh there was an interest in naming the Hopkins and high school stage after Valerie Von Rosen vinga who is retiring at the end of the year and who has been our Drama teacher for a very very long time um the original letter came to us from Mr Bishop and it may bear um repeating one of the paragraphs um that he has written over the past 22 years Valerie um and her longtime assistant have supported nourished LED and loved many Hopkin and high school students who may not have had a place to call their own at school Valerie took in everyone and made them feel special and more importantly seen from the first round of auditions to the final closing Circle Valerie encourages and supports the casting crew at every turn the bonds they form give the students a reason to come to school and to be a part of something furthermore naming the stage after Valerie symbolizes our gratitude and appreciation for 22 years of exemplary service it's a way for us to express our respect and admiration for all that she has accomplished during her tenure and to ensure her Legacy lives on for years to come um and so uh I did see her tonight at the art show prior to coming here you know that tonight is like a great big celebration because they do all of the one act plays um she was very emotional tonight this being her last round of one act plays and um and I think that this is a really nice way to honor her it was one thing I did enjoy about when we had our school committee meetings at the high school was that we walked in and we were able to do this on the way yes is there there's not a date set yet for the when it's going to be done in June the actual dedication right no I it would happen before um she departs at the end of the school year okay there any questions no I mean I think this is a a lovely tribute and they probably haven't planned the DAT yet until we vote okay fair fair in the time that we've had the window open have we heard anything has there been any com I haven't seen any emails to the school committee but I did receive one email from one mom and I think I did bring it to a meeting and read it aloud to you it was really nice a lovely email about Valerie and how impactful she's been on students not just in teaching and and directing drama but in student lives so is there somebody who would like to make a motion motion to rename the hopkington high school stage I I'll will make that motion I was hoping he give worries this is TVD uh I would like to make a motion to rename the hopkington high school stage in honor of Valerie Von Rosena and so rename it the Valerie Von Rosen vinga stage upon her retirement in June 2024 okay motion by Amanda is there a second on that second second by Lori all those in favor I I okay that is unanimous uh I will look forward to uh seeing the the stage with the new dedication it'll be lovely that brings us into the final intent to travel for Spain uh Dr Kavanaugh okay um so uh we have a group of students going from the high school to Spain their departure day and date is April 20th 2025 which is a Sunday and they will be returning six days later on a Saturday which is April 26 2025 um I think that this is yeah this is our final approval and so we just need your vote to get those kids Spain okay I moved to approve at trip to Spain for April 20th to the 26th of 2025 okay motion by Lori there a second on that second second by Susan all those in favor I I I'm a little excited to vote on that one because my daughter's going on that trip oh that's very exciting I should have commented I didn't catch the like previously when we saw this that this is not EF Tours this is a different company so I was kind of excited to see that we're trying another world strides yeah I've actually traveled with them before have you um our club soccer um Club organized a trip to London last April through World strides and they were excellent okay I couldn't honestly as soon as I saw that they were running this I was like feeling instantly better because they're um the organization like just how organized the whole thing was they like you were you had one guide who was so knowledgeable and like gave you just even when you were on the bus traveling through different areas would give you like little tidbits about where you were so I just found them to be an incredibly Professional Organization and hopefully they had the similar experience that we had in London but I think it's great that we're diversifying our our provider of these tours to make sure that we getting the right the best tour available so I think that's great I would agree I didn't actually even though the was a lovely picture in the package um I did not make the connection either right yeah I caught that today and I was like oh yeah should have seen it before it's great yeah I'm a little jealous of this one I would have that is loved to on not looking for chapons at least I haven't heard of any yet but I don't know that I would be invited by the high schooler been made clear by my middle school that I am not not welcome to chaperon basically anything basically anything all right so that moves us into the items by consensus all right laiana aand it's the last time you'll hear this one all right as superintendent I recommend the school committee approve the items by consensus is outlined in your agenda we're going out with the bang because this goes all the way to M this is a lot M by consensus the second page oh sorry and didn't make it yes and okay so move motion by Amanda is there a second on that second second by Susan all those in favor I I and that is a unanimous and so moved and then looking for our final um motion to adjourn for this election cycle so moved motion by Lori is there a second second second by Amanda all those in favor I I and we are adjourned at 857 uh our next meeting is June 6th uh it's the reorganization and regular meeting of the school committee thank you all for tuning in and I hope everybody will make it to the ballot uh to vote on Monday thanks