##VIDEO ID:adltZT5AUI0## putting money on Beyonce see us getting excited somebody we ready good evening and welcome welome to the Thursday August 22nd 2024 regular meeting of the school committee I would ask for those who are in the studio to please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance IED Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all all right so we have a pretty packed agenda tonight um but we'll start with public comment I know that I don't see anybody that I would suspect is here for public comment but if any of you have a public comment as well come on up all right are there any recognitions that people have okay well I will be recognizing people the super okay I don't want to jump on wait for that okay do you want to go right into uh your report or does it lengthy and do you want to do take no it's it's a little bit lengthy but we can zip right through okay goad okay all right so thank you uh the first thing we'll talk about tonight is enrollment we have an update for you there when we were together on August 8th if you look down here in the red oval you can see that the um last meeting on August 8th we had 4,129 students K to 12 and when we left in June we were at 4,128 so it was just about an even split 79 students exited our our school District 80 came in and in the preschool we had 46 students with 19 students pending and so this is a really nice illustration of just how quickly enrollment grows over the summertime so today we have 74 students with six pending in the prek so the old 65 has grown to 80 in just two weeks time wow and when we take a look at where we were on August 8th we had 4,129 and today we have 4,1 54 so if we add our prek count to the I'm sorry our our K to 12 count to the prek count we have 4,234 students the projection for June of 2025 is 4,290 and so we are about 56 students away and I was talking with Megan Cox today who is our registar um she thinks we probably have about 10 students not reflected in this number right now they they're just piling in now because school will start on Wednesday all right uh just a couple of welcomes to new administrators and Educators luren McDon has been hired as the Middle School's assistant principal and last time we talked about it uh we didn't have someone in that position so it's really nice that Lauren has um come from within our ranks she was a sixth grade English language arts teacher and now she'll be working as the assistant principal um I'm going to have Mr lead talk about the new teachers I can quickly run through the list at Marathon we have a new school adjustment counselor Tara bent Elmwood grade three Jillian Marshall at the middle school two new language arts teachers Lauren Weber will replace Lauren MCD and Margaret Hebert will be joining us in grade eight Brooke Dory is a moderate special education teacher in that building we have two new drama teachers so Michael mcken will be the Middle School Drama teacher and Cara Sullivan the High School Drama teacher Mark adiki will be a new High School guidance counselor Shay Ellard will be a 6 English teacher and a04 social studies teacher Luke thunberg will join us as a chemistry teacher and Colleen Stewart it will be working with intensive special needs students um also at the high school we have three new hires in the world language Department all teaching Spanish Jessica Garcia Aaron Stevenson in L Lindsay wil and then High School Middle School shared school nurse Jennifer goule she's replacing our friend Kelly Burke who had been here for a very long time and retired in June so we spent the last three days in new educator orientation through in hopkington and as Dr kavanau just shared we have a host of new Educators classroom teachers Specialists related arts teachers therapists nurses runs the gamut across uh the pre 12 setting what we're really excited about is actually and it speaks highly to our our community is the class that we brought in this of new Educators exceptional but small because we're not actually replacing that many people and what that hints at is our educators are really staying they're committed to hopkington they're finding it to be a high quality place for them to to conduct their craft and we really um we're really excited about that that said amongst the Educators that are joining us um in the as you can see there are a couple shots from the last couple of days you can see that they were able to collect connect they were able to collaborate and perhaps most practically and importantly they were able to prepare so you can see some shots of them uh analyzing a text together about what tools students really are going to need to be successful moving ahead you can also see them as part of an Interactive Group where they were learning about the district's priorities around social emotional learning that were led by two of our assistant principles on the next uh panel you actually if we go there you go um you can see that they were working with um our equity and access director Jen suker learning about one of our our tools to make sure that we are providing the most Equitable accessible uh curriculum across the board and then one of the the high points of our our 3-day orientation is our new educator panel this is something we started last year where we actually bring back members of last year's incoming class and they sit up front and they field questions things like you know what is it what's the best part of working in hopkington um what's the thing that that Jeff won't tell us about working in hopkington um and it's just a really wonderful wonderful um experience of all of our Educators that are joining us we tabulated that we have more than 204 years of experience um that is coming on the backs of those new Educators so most of them are not new to education most of them um are coming from another District which again uh is a feather in the cap of of the great stuff that is happening in hopkington so uh you can take a look and you can see there's our there's our class right there is this typical what's what's the average turnover each year I can say the last couple of years it's been uh anywhere from 25 to 35 um so this year having um about roughly about 15 Educators is is really great and and again a lot of those Educators were replacing either new positions or replacing retirements gotcha yeah and that's about 5% of our teacher Force yeah yeah okay all right just a couple of thank yous in here so this is perhaps where my recognitions lie um I did want to say thank you to our custodians and maintenance staff you can imagine what it's like to prepare all of those Acres of grounds and all of the square footage of our buildings over the summer our floors are looking super shiny in our un events we have new filters and New Motors and I'll tell you a little bit about that a minute and of course you um see Lou and Joe here and they are they've got that Dolly you can't imagine the deliveries that come to our Public Schools that's what they do for a good part of their day all day every day um so I'll tell you just quick about the filters in the univent what we are finding is that some of them at the Elmwood School are the original Motors in those those univent and they've been there since the 1960s and so the wires going in obviously have some kind of sheathing around them but if they're getting so old that it cracks it's so brittle and it just leaves the wire so when the wires are exposed they are burning out the motors and so now we're replacing the motors but it's just been kind of comical watching that happen and it's not frustrating it's okay because there's light at the end of the tunnel so all right and we've had a lot of kids back in our buildings over the last couple of days I was in the middle school and the ignite kids were preparing to welcome the incoming sixth graders and you can see that they are building some kind of theme as they do that these two ladies on the right were very creative with their minions and the minion hats I would imagine took them hours to build but um they were not uh daunted by that um at the marathon school they have been doing kindergarten orientation you can see our kids practicing get on the bus so they get on the bus they W by to their parents they take a ride around the parking lot and they come back and as Mrs Deo will tell you you actually watch some parents get a little Misty just watching their kids get in the bus for the practice ride so you can imagine how they'll be on opening day uh at the high school our rising Rising ninth graders uh they were meeting with their unite mentors during orientation a lot of great photographs from uh those that event uh so you can just see ice cream Tru trucks kids checking in looks like kids are having a great time uh outside there was a great Club fair so kids can see what all of the opportunities look like when you get to the high school uh just a couple of quick photos the at the diversity Club at the business Professionals of America and of course if you go out on our Fields kids are out there too you can see our trainer and her John Deere Gator that she manages to get around on uh socer field hockey everybody's out there and we as all the grown-ups in the district are ready too well we're kind of ready that's still what the Hopkins parking lot looks like if anyone wants to know but allegedly there will be asphalt going down there tomorrow and Saturday and on Monday morning the teachers should be able to park in that lot isn't that what we heard today Mr carer yes it is so that's going to be ready for next week I walk my dog there today I ran there this morning yeah that's telling us yeah really okay I hope you walk your dog there on Monday and it start I'm just gonna say that um okay so we are ready for real you can see our Librarians had a nice departmental meeting today our HR team is um in uniform and ready to go nice growth mindset message from the Elmwood School uh we were around the Elmwood school yesterday and we saw a mentor Lauren cook meeting with her new to Hopkinton not new to the profession mentee Jillian Marshall and Mrs McCarthy was up this spiffing up her classroom um uh torian Z at the middle school working on tor's classroom and at Marathon you can see that the inclusivity dolls have arrived in the prek uh they were sponsored last spring you'll remember you approved a grant from the uh Trustees of the grant again at the Elwood School Mrs H and Mrs Stanley ready to greet kids in the main office and Dr Singh was putting the finishing touchers on her classroom getting all the name tags on the desk classroom looks great and just a very quick Transportation reminder because I think transportation is where a lot of people get a little bit mixed up so uh student IDs are required to ride the bus now if you are a newly enrolled student you will get your ID within the first couple of days of school the bus drivers are aware of this so kids in and families should not be um worried if they don't have that ID right away if you ordered a new ID during the summer same thing your ID will be distributed through the Schools main office will find you let you know that they have their ID and you will receive it if you didn't have to order a new ID or you're not new to the district last year's ID should still be active so you'll just walk up to the bus be able to scan your ID and it should work if it turns out that you need one you can go right on the website to obtain a replacement um only one ID can be active at a time so if you get a new one and then you find your old one in your winter coat pocket you can't use them interchangeably only the most recent one will be active um and then finally please don't punch a hole in that ID don't scratch the ID there is an embedded chip in there and if it becomes damaged you're going to have to replace it so just be very cautious I know parents like to punch a hole in it so that kids can wear it like on a landyard around their neck but very often it becomes damaged that way so and that's all we have for you but this is it we're back to school on Monday for the adults and Wednesday for the kids and I think we're ready it's exciting thank you questions I was going to say when ideas are designed would it be possible like to to make a mark where they could punch their hole it's good that way you would so the kids are given um a sleeve to put it in oh and the sleeve has a hole that you can then use for a lanyard um so we prefer that you don't punch the card at all the sleeve is not sturdy just just not last it last about a month yep so I mean the sleeves are replaced you know there's Clips there's there's all kinds of other gadgets but the chances of damaging the card with a whole punch are like 99 % mathematically very high maema I calculated that okay I saw you crunching numbers over there anybody else with questions okay thank you okay and the school committee chair report payroll warrants s253 has been approved warrant 25- z6s 25-7 s 25- 008s 25- 009s 25- 010s 25- 011 s 25- 012s 25-01 3s 25-01 4s and 25-01 5s has been approved and uh should be included in your folder are there liaison reports um that people have um I did reach out to the chair of the youth commission and he will get in touch with me when they have a meeting scheduled in September fabulous and it's it's a high school student again I don't know yes he didn't say it okay that's great all right I think feels like things are about to get very busy all around all right so that brings us into new business uh we have the uh hopkington Public Schools handbooks uh do you guys want to come up in groups or all at once or how do you want to want to come up with Elementary together [Music] or welcome hello H good to see all of you it's nice to see you guys I imagine it's been a very busy recent days weeks maybe yes not as busy as Mr coner with that project oh yeah with the no park building right right right but as as we collaborate on so many things we've collaborated on the updates to the handbook so I believe that you have the red line copy if you will so we um are going to go over uh lines just to share what the updates were some of them might seem sort of mundane but overall the handbook was formatted so now we have numbers table of contents the titles match each section so I I don't think we need to say each section that applied to because it was a lot throughout that lengthy um handbook but when you read it now it's much cleaner the links are connected to the table of content so it's reader friendly it just is a more um you know user friendly document with that MH we updated members school committee members staff members that might have changed in the district um members at our school phone numbers counselors you know some of the new staff that you saw in the slides earlier made sure that they were reflected there if need be removed some old logos I think that were hanging at the bottom of a couple pages so we snagged those as well I think so a couple of ones of note uh we did update some language around uh cell phone use um when we were collaborating I'd specifically asked for this um especially for my kiddos in fourth and fifth grade as they're more apt to have those devices uh and we just wanted to put in some language around there that uh if kids are able to be responsible with SmartWatches and smartphones you know they can keep them on them we prefer phones go in the lockers but there's some language there where if it becomes a disruption that we have some mechanisms to get that out of their hands um so we just wanted to to memorialize some practices that we've already kind of been doing in the handbook to make that more transparent for families Y and if I could just quickly add to that I think just another driving um thought behind that even at you know second and third grade level we have students that come to school with devices on their wrists or in their pockets um many students uh use them respectfully and use them for really great reasons to maintain communication you know should something come up um but I think for uh anything that could potentially disrupt the learning process or something that could potentially um you know and it comes up I don't think with malicious intent but sometimes students if you have a device that's capable of taking a picture or doing these other things and and it's happening in a classroom we want to safu against that a little bit so it gives a little bit of of um sort of adult discretion in how we allow that to be into the hands of students and if they're needing some frequent reminders it allows us to be able to sort of remove it from um that being an option for that day and return it to the student and or the guardian at the end of the day is there a reason why they're allowed at all it's a great question um I think you know and I don't want to speak for any of the other folks uh high school or middle school but I think um I would love to be able to say it's just something that we're going to leave at home um and I think that as much as sometimes we try to say some of those things they do come into school and I think when that happens um you know from a district standpoint in District policy do you think there's times where they're educationally appropriate um you know I know we have Chromebooks and and and iPads for purposes there too but um probably less so at the elementary level maybe middle and high school those are things that are more part of the active engagement with learning I don't want to speak for any anybody there um so I think if that was to be looked at as like a district policy I think it would require some some real conversation so I think for the time being we're sort of in this place of when and if they come to school like let's remind Families how to use them appropriately and especially at our level that's that's something I think we can probably regulate a little bit more effectively effectively is the wrong word a little bit more of a Hands-On approach and have to get off track but what is the district policy with cell phone use yeah what you see in these handbooks is what the policy is and I would say at fourth and fifth grade um a lot of times this is kids' first times walking home or going downtown on early release days so I think parents want to be able to connect with their kids but at the same time they have no reason to really have it on on their person in school right so it's very easy for us to say just keep it in your locker and for the most part that that works well um kids aren't on social media and texting as much at this age trying to you know meet up at during school things like that um I think it's more for the parents to connect with the kids and we connect it to the accept acceptable use policy so as we work on teaching digital citizenship what is it like to be responsible in the handbook that's where we connect this the cell phones to it along with t iPads any electronic devices and we've added including watches because over the years that wasn't even in there but now we've got watches and quite often it's a novelty um which you know at our school we've had smart watches come in um and unfortunately we've had them break and that's that's a natural consequence because they're really young and that that's an expensive lesson to learn but um and often even though the child might be able to use it appropriately it might disrupt others because of the novelty so we've said it needs to be tucked away um because it is interrupting the learning environment and the high school and the middle school I think are more restrictive in terms of they have to be put in I don't want to steal your thunder but I I did see the memo that went out that um that they have to be they can't be out in the classroom they have a place where they have to be B oh okay great um I think in oh did you have another yeah yeah got it thanks um another uh addition we did add make a addition to the uh attendance where we just wanted to add in some language that for students to attend after school events that they should be at school for at least half the school day um we've just had instances where kids are not at school and then want to come to enrichment programs or different after school activities and we feel like they should be at school and attendance in order to be at those events so there's always exceptions so we left some flexibility in there for that but but just wanted to provide some clarity around that expectation of attendance at school I think the most um significant change is updating the discipline language and the suspension language when you look at the the red lines there you sort of see whole sections wiped out so the reason being is that there were changes in the law to student discipline and suspension so it's ensuring that we are up to date with that the new language includes restorative measures uh and the change with that language brings us into compliance for the upcoming civil rights audit this winter by desie so we're trying to make sure that we're ahead of the game and that language you're going to see that in all of our handbooks so we can just sort of say that's the reason why and it the whole sections were swap swapped out we had our school um lawyers look at that make sure we were appropriate and um correct with all of that language so that it matches exactly as it should I think it's also more readable clear it is do you know our are looking now we wrote it more in a narrative format and it was you know it it it's hard to follow now that you see the improved version the new update is more clear and direct um for for what all of those steps and of those processes and um measures mean um only other point I would add to that is in terms of practice I don't I don't allow you to speak for yourselves at your school I don't think anything that's been added in terms of the legal side to what's in there is changing really the the practices that we have I think we've done a really good job of sort of adhering to that especially Elementary level you know restorative practices are a big part of what we what we try to do with kids so in terms of how it looks and feels for kids every single day I don't know that that's going to really feel too different um but it just clarifies it from you know the legal side making sure that we're up with the most current information and and the guidance that we have so yes and I would agree with that I don't see it changing what it looks and feels like in our buildings yeah and I think these laws changed it might be almost two years ago now and our practice changed when the laws changed but our language didn't change correct another update we changed the broadcast stations if there's closing for weather emergency some of them have changed their you know little signs or whatever they are on TV so that's a minor update little tweaks to years in the letter if we needed to update that but that's really pretty much it yep still a lengthy document but hopefully with the table of contents you can find things with greater ease um my name is spelled wrong it is let me look at that since you're editing it anyway um first name the A and the I the I is after the M yes okay we we've had a number of versions here there well there's a lot of different ways to spell Jamie MH yep okay I just fixed it in the red line version so then my family is also an ie at the end okay I apologize um problem profusely for that because oh that's a really Min okay I'm not concerned at all about that but those things you know I'm glad that you pointed it out now and that sort of trust to do that because I accept that and we've changed it it's already changed you all right anybody else all right thank you are we going to I think just approve them as in bulk at the end great okay thank you sounds good thank you very much hello how are you good how are you good welcome nice to see you all thank you still a few days of some are left August always goes fast really fast so thank you am I going with slides on the screen or people have everybody have them in them okay okay great um so I'll start the first update um to our handbook this year is just an updated welcome message um at the beginning um the last couple of years I've tried to include like a point of emphasis in the handbook because it is such a dense um document so what you see here um is an added statement um about cell phone use in school it's probably the biggest distraction that takes place um in the Middle School um we do confiscate phones daily so it is it is an issue um and I'm just asking families and we'll talk about this at our back to school nights as well but um asking families to please review the school's expect ations regarding cell phones um prior to the start of the school year or as the school year is taking place so we're all clear on that um and I think not aside from the distractions that cell phones cause the last sentence in here is really important to me if students are adhering to the expectations set in the cell phone policy it it does just lead to more positive interactions with staff academically in Social it's difficult for a teacher to you know take a phone from a student and hold on to it until till the end of the school day and it's embarrassing for the students so trying to avoid that as as much as possible uh the next change that I have um has to do with um participation in really after school events Athletics and drama production specifically um and it's stated in the handbook and it's been in there for years that students need to be passing all of their classes in order to participate in those act activities after school which makes perfect sense however I did think there was a missed opportunity here um to allow kids to stay involved in an after school activity that they might be really passionate about and looking forward to and use that as an opportunity to leverage a progress report conversation with the guidance counselor and their classroom teacher to earn and maintain a passing grade um in order to take part in that activity so um looking forward to working we tried that with a couple of students um it's I'll be honest it's a relatively rare circumstance um but that might speak actually to the necessity to have something like this in our in our policy was successful for us uh last last spring um this was a curious thing that's come up a couple times over the the last couple years when students arrive for evening events in our building such as concerts school dances Etc um we were actually finding some students that wanted to just stay straight through um from the end of the school day uh and that is a little unsettling to everyone that's in the building because they're not you know um adequately supervised um during that time so this just spells it out we welcome students to um to the event at the time that it you know it starts around the time it starts um and the second part of this is if students are you know 15 minutes or later to the event we would like them to check in with a parent so we do have students that for example walk to events um and I think um you know students um their parents might think they're going straight to the event and um this will ensure that that happens I hope did you ever find students who stayed between the end of school and the event that it was because they would not be able to get back yes um that I mean I can't tell you the number of times it's happened but at least once where we worked with the student and their family to try to find okay you know a safe safe alternative and uh in some families you know we'll communicate in advance too and ask the question you know is there a supervised place for my student to stay but um it is pretty rare okay um but we just want to work with families on that so that their student is supervised um so this uh this amendment is on page 32 um the boldface type is um the additions so while we're essentially maintaining our same practice around cell phones I wanted to spend some time maybe tweaking if you will adjusting language um to add some phrases that people can like latch on to in terms of our cell phone practice so what students and families will be hearing more of this year is that phrase phone free space phone free space just a quick go-to phrase that references um our practice so um from the start of our school day until dismissal uh hopkington Middle School is a cell phone free space um I would answer your earlier question by saying as a dad with three kids when my kids got to around 7th 8th grade um it was very helpful to us as a family for them to have their phone so that after school if they needed to stay after for extra help um some change with the sports practice we were able to get a hold of them so um this off and Away during the school day phone free space I hope is something that we can continue to um to to support um the addition at the bottom here in the bulleted sentence um I I do think that as as a school we're going to be um more consistent in sending an email home it might be just a really quick email notifying the family um that we needed to take a phone during the school day because um you know it's if we want to really have an effective partnership around cell phones I think that step um that step is necessary we met with um incoming seventh and eighth grade families new to Hopkinton I think that was yesterday morning and we just urge them to consider you know if your student is not going to be able to handle coming to school and powering their phone down uh please consider keeping it at home um during the school day and I think we're finding over I've found over the last couple years briefly in hopkington um that fewer sixth graders have phones so if you're a family of a sixth grader um you would not be the only ones you know kind of holding on a little bit longer to uh to give your student a phone in the middle of that yes yeah yeah it's coming for me for the third time so um uh the next the next change that I have is adding some language around the use of AI chat GPT um and just wanted to put this in there students have been hearing this for about a year now but um inappropriate use of um of AI um will result in consequences similar to those assigned for for plagiarism that always starts I think everyone knows that at the middle school we really value restorative practices and working on students to understand the mistake that they've made so that they learn from it going forward so you know that consequence for plagiarism is is typically sitting down asking the student why they made the decision um to plagiarize or use Ai and then providing an opportunity for them to do the assignment again or reflect on it next page is um some language change to our dress code um there was some language in here that was outdated that has been uh removed but essentially um you know we want our uh clothing at school to be school appropriate we're looking for families help with that um and then um there is um language and here I actually worked with um Abby hansam on director of student services um to have this language that I think is helpful clothing that may cause substantial disruption um or um you know might be offensive or invade the rights of others may not be worn um at our Middle School um the next page is what um uh the elementary principles uh refer to uh that major change with uh discipline procedures and uh the last substantial change that I have for our in-house language um if you will is just clean up cleaning up our language um around vaping um know this is an issue that we're confronting at the middle school um it's it's another serious distraction um to the to the learning environment um and what this sentence gets at um hopefully is the emphasis again on restorative practices um we have a counselor who's new to our school uh that has been trained in a program called I decide which is a set program um designed to you know help students um that may be having a problem with addiction to vaping um even at this young age so it's a cessation program 4-Hour session and we want to make sure that our focus is on that as opposed to out of school suspensions um just today one of our assistant principles was on a webinar on vaping and they reiterated once again that suspending students is not really providing them uh with the help that they need so again a focus on restorative practices and the last the last slide here is uh the changes again to student discipline that the other principles refer to that's great questions is there um maybe in the original document does it get into more information about the dress code or is it is this the the whole section of it there's a little bit after it but that's the spirit of the great the code yeah who decides what's offensive the assistant principal or the principal yeah looks like the administration got it thank you thank you Mr Bishop all right hello everybody good evening nice to see you hope you all had a nice summer you too so we're excited for the upcoming school year I know Dr kavanau showed some photos but this this week the school's coming alive with sports and all the different orientation so feeling good about the upcoming year uh and I think to ensure a safe and supportive trans position back you got to make sure you have your policies and your procedures and your handbooks where they need to be uh so I'm excited to come talk a little bit about what we're looking to add and some tweaks we're doing uh all of the changes are from feedback we've got from different stakeholders so we usually do some surveys at the end of the year hav't gotten some feedback from parents from staff and from students about some areas they'd like to see improved uh and I would say parking cell phone and and travel absenteeism were the ones that kind of rose to the top so I'll go through some of the additions first and then some of the kind of language tweaks so first edition is around extended absences and so uh we are seeing an increase in um students traveling and having extended absences uh for periods of time oftentimes outside of the country uh and so we have a policy in place uh for students we as you probably know we have an attendance policy if a student misses more than seven classes in a semester they can lose credit so if a student is traveling for a particular reason for more than 7 Days uh we uh have them um enroll for their time in a home education plan uh and they usually do that through the assistant superintendent's office uh they notify us ahead of time and they go through that process of what they're going to be working on and then hopefully when they get back we'll be able to reintegrate them back into the coursework um so we wanted to make sure we had that in our handbook it's a policy we've been using we've been communicating that with families but we haven't had the specific language in the handbook so we wanted to make sure that was in there so we're upfront transparent communicating with families ahead of the school year if they're going to be making some plans to travel during the year so that is an addition that we're adding into our attendance section uh our second edition and we've heard a lot about this tonight is around cell phones a topic we've had quite a few conversations about at the high school um with students with parents School counsel staff you name it uh and if you look at the news or watch the news as different states with all these different policies around cell phone so you know I met with a number of principles around the area high school principles to find out what they're doing just to get a sense of if we're in alignment and we are for the most part um in the past we've allowed students to have their before and after school during lunch and in between passing times and then in the classroom where it's most important it's been teacher discretion we've provided every teacher with one of those cell phone holders that drapes open the back of the door that has like numbers so the kids can put them in there and I would say about half the staff roughly would use that on a given day uh definitely during tests and quizzes the phones go away but towards the end of the year some staff came to me and they like we really need to have a universal policy across the board you know it's hard if you're saying it's okay and then you're saying it's not okay right it causes some some friction so I said I totally understand we'll do that so uh now we're making this the the the statement that phones are off and Away mandatory during class time and that includes if a student wants to leave and go to the bathroom because there was some like I think Mr Carter mentioned it before there's some texting going on we'll meet you in the bathroom let's walk around the hallway so we want to make sure we we remove that uh distraction and that Temptation so once the student comes into the classroom phones go away we hope the teachers will use the phone holder but if they have another way of collecting phones during the day in their classroom they can do that as well but they have to be away and my message to staff on the first day is we have to do this together we have to make sure we're all consistent with this policy and then we'll see how it goes and if that's working great if it's not working we'll continue to do different things to make sure that we're removing these cell phones from the classroom I was at a conference this summer and they showed a a video clip of all of the distractions during an hour a student has on their phone from Snapchat from texts Instagram you name it it was upwards of hundreds of of distractions so so it just really sinks in how much how important is to get those phones away so that is going to be an addition in our cell phone section and then the third addition uh our my uh colleagues my principal colleagues did a nice job of mentioning this already is is some of this language around suspension that uh Abby hensim and our attorneys have helped us put into the uh handbook I guess the biggest way I'll summarize this really quickly for us is in a situation for a 37h and 3/4s not to get too into the weeds of the different types of suspensions but it is my responsibility or my Design's responsibility to make sure that we're not suspending right way that we're going through the process of trying to find an alternate remedy to make sure that we're working with the student now sometimes that that works and sometimes that doesn't but we have to document our efforts uh and that could be mediation it could be restorative practices it could be what we call a highly structured day we have all these different moves that we try uh but it all depends on the actual circumstance as well if it's something that's going to cause serious harm then that that gets us into a different category uh but we have been doing this now for a number of years we're just kind of making sure we have this um in our handbooks as stated so those are the three kind of additions to the the handbook Mr Bishop yes explain a highly structured day yeah yes thank you yes it's something that we uh we incorporated probably two years ago uh and basically it we wanted the consequence to fit the crime so to speak and so there's a lot of times where a student let's just say it's a cell phone situation we've had a few teachers come to us and say we're having trouble with the student with the cell phone right I know we're talking about that so a highly structured day we meet with the parents we call the student in we come up with a contract and an agreement of two or three things for one day or week right could be a highly structured week could be a highly structured day where you have to drop the phone off in the office and then you pick it up at the end of the day and then on this piece of paper you bring to each one of your teachers that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing you're on time you're behaving in class the teachers will check off it seems a little old school but it works they'll check off that they're doing a good job they bring it back to the office and then we give the phone so that's can go from a day could go from a week could go from a month we've done a lot of that with tardies students that are chronically tardy for different reasons we try to kind of do that where kids are getting there on time getting it signed off on and then we will give them their privileges back so um it's one of the many restorative practice kind of ideas that they give you when you go to different conferences and it's worked for us uh so it's it it's not cookie cutter it's whatever we feel like as a group Family Team student that would work for them yeah so I can bring an example to you next time I come oh that's good I I got it okay all right awesome um so then going to some of the just language changes uh this is in our um drugs alcohol sect page 35 around tobacco uh so this is the language from this past year and if you go to the next slide for me Dr K this is the updated language not a significant change but we wanted to add tobacco SL nicotine and then at the bottom of that add oral nicotine products we're seeing an increase in what uh what's called zins not sure if you're familiar with that it's uh tobacco packets that students will put in their mouth between their U their gums and their lips so that has been on the rise uh and so teachers have been talking to us about a students have come to us a lot about it so we want to make sure we put something like that in the handbook uh also it's I'm not not sure if if Ricky will talk about it but it's also something that violates the Mia uh rules when it comes to student athletes we want to make sure that we had this in our handbook because we are seeing an increase in in Zen use at the high school uh another uh kind of change is around parking uh that's another topic that we've had a lot of conversations with at the high school this summer and over the school year uh so as we continue to grow and our enrollment continues to increase and we it's been great we've had buildings built we've had additions built but we haven't expanded our parking and so when I started here this is going to be my 20th year um time flies um we could have all the seniors parked there all the Juniors could park there and that wasn't a problem now we're at a point where only the seniors can park there barely and only a few Juniors if there extra spots and so we've had to be really um overthe toop transparent communicative to the families about this because often times Juniors don't really want to ride the bus right and then if they're dropping off that's more traffic every morning so we're trying to figure out the the best course of action when it comes to parking so um we have enough spots for the seniors unfortunately last year with the Middle School solar panel we lost those spots during the year so it was a little bit of kids parking everywhere and then this upcoming year with the Hopkins project we do have a lot back there that some of our Juniors used to park at but we won't be able to park at that this year because of the construction so we are limited even more so on space so we just wanted to be up front about what our our policy is around parking so seniors will have a spot we're actually lining the spaces and numbering the spaces so the students know where they should be parking uh and we're doing that same thing with staff because we had a lot of concerns from Staff last year that sometimes kids are parking in that lot or parents and so it did get to a point where we said okay we really need to tighten this process up a little bit so if you look at this language that was last year's language this year's language just kind of states the different lots that we'll have assigned numbered spaces for our students which they're very excited about as you can imagine um and also we put in the idea of other in incidents uh that students might U tardies other disciplinary incidents that might contribute to you not getting the parking spot you want next year so we added that in there as just an incentive of getting to school on time being a good citizen being a good student being respectful being supportive all the things we want from a student and that can contribute to maybe not letting students because we're going to get to a point where not every senior is going to be able to park on campus at this point with the size of our classes so can I just ask clarifying that so if we're all seniors at this table and Jamie is driving a car she's got number 298 I have slot 297 is that the gist of it the gist of it I would think that would also increase the or decrease the number of kids who are sneaking and parking illegally because if somebody parks in 297 and that's my spot then you're going to come tell me we're going to call exactly that's the Hope yeah that's the Hope yeah we have we've we've gotten a lot of feedback that a lot of kids will say okay it cost me this much to get a parking pass I'll get this many tickets we'll leave in this much so I'm just going to not buy a parking pass and try to find a spot and so that is what's contributed to we got to make sure everybody has a pass we got to make sure we're checking everybody's passes so at one point I had heard anecdotally there were underground passes being printed that always there always a step ahead maybe a chip needs to be they can't put a hole through yeah yeah how much is the parking ticket it's uh $200 for the year no oh a parking ticket uh it's it's um boy $20 $25 I think I think we said 50 $50 $50 yeah School issued one will be 50 because the police used to issue them at $20 i y y yeah so kids would say I'd be happy to get 10 parking tickets because it would just add up and they would just tell you right there the parking fee so 50 okay that makes yeah right you know it was a good conversation about math in terms of what it I love the optimism so that is some of our new language and then the next slide um it just kind of goes into this is the actual consequences when comes to parking without a uh a permit or parking in the wrong lot in the slide after that we just added that you're going to get a parking ticket plus the potential Saturday school and loss of privilege it was just being very clear with what the process is going to be around parking this year uh it was the we had orientation on Wednesday we had uh 75 seniors who were unite mentors and that was the biggest not even the cell phone they were like oh cell phone that that policy is great it's the parking that they wanted to talk about so hopefully it hopefully it'll be good we'll see uh and then the last two slides I have here is just uh this has always been a policy of us if you're a junior and you're parking in a senior spot and you get a ticket then you lose the ability to park in the closest senior lot when you are a senior uh and last year we gave out quite quite a few tickets to sophomores who had their license so we want to make sure we put that in the policy that if you're a junior or a sophomore parking in a spot you shouldn't you might lose the chance to park in those spots when you're a senior so again it's just it's one of those things where we we uh I hate to have put so much time into this but we felt like it was needed this summer to kind of clean it up a little bit so that's really the the the the changes and the additions to the high school handbook and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have about it are there a bunch of students that park at like at the EMC yeah so they not supposed to park there okay yeah I just I noticed but yes they are yeah yep yep so I think that was uh that's not school property it's not school property n not school property and we've had conversations with the parks and W about it and um you know we told the students they should not be parking there so and yet as you're driving by it just dismiss time flood coming out can the Can the police give tickets down there oh yeah sure can maybe the police could help with that you think yeah it's great thank you well this thiso something it seems like their parking is a huge issue have we ever considered adding more parking in that area parking garage I hear that trust me I hear that they have a entering high school that lots and parking spaces are incredibly expensive yeah yeah that's the issue I we discuss about parking at the parking lots and spaces new childwood schol and those kids aren't driving yeah hope hope it's a problem if they are any other questions for Mr Bishop okay thank you then if there are no more questions on any of the handbooks uh we seek a motion relative to the 2024 2025 handbooks I move to approve the 2024 2025 School handbooks as presented with that one edit motion by Jamie second by Kyla all those in favor I and opposed or abstain all right great thank you very much um all handbooks good to go thank you thank you all right that brings us into the athletic handbook welcome sounds like you guys have had a busy week uh in athletics oh yeah Summer's over for me so a lot of the changes specific to Athletics um in our Athletics handbook are updates that haven't been made in the last several years maybe due to the turnover at in the position um maybe due to covid and so much of the language is updates either from the Mi that's now consistent within our handbook um or some changes that were're in line with now the high school and the middle school um and so you know some of those you're going to see in this um in these slides but you know our first change and this is just an addition so this is kind of the first statement in our um philosophy page so it's it's an addition of you know Athletics being a privilege and extracurricular activities being a privilege um I think at times people kind of lose track students lose track of you're a student first then you're an athlete um and so this is kind of a you know remember you are given the privilege to be a part of a team if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing in school um and then the second part of this completely voluntary I've actually gotten emails from incoming student students um who asked me is this mandatory and so I think that just kind of gives the answer right off the bat um and so I think that hopefully this kind of recenters us to be again thinking student athlete the next update is again hav't touched on it a little bit but just updating our handbook to have um the oral nicotine products as part of um kind of the tobacco um rules that we have in place in addition to gambling um you know with the legalization of gambling within the state I know you know it's a huge business and now I think I hear it a lot within the school kids talking about it um it's something that's hard to catch quite frankly um because you don't really see the you know money exchanging hands or anything like that but it's important to have this um in here as you know again to remind our students and our student athletes that this isn't acceptable and it's not legal um and so it's the same um the same discipline as a tobacco violation so if hypothetically someone was caught exchanging money in gambling they would face a 25% suspension in the first offense second offense would be a 60% suspension of the year just ask a quick question on that so is the problem that has been found related to um gambling on High School athletics or just gambling at large um not totally on High School athletics there's some sometimes kids will talk about that sort of stuff but it's mostly you know you know and I passed by conversations of oh like the Celtics W and they you know covered it's like okay that's not what we should be talking about in school um so it's more that than High School yep I just was curious that yeah um so the next update is again this Bonafide team rule um it's an update that's was changed in the MIA last year and so I'm updating it in our handbook to again stay consistent um with the wording in the Mia handbook next one um is actually just the inclusion of our anti-bullying plan and so that again with working with that plan last year through the school year I wanted to make sure that that was part of our handbook um in addition to um our part that talked about the other general laws around hazing and discrimination um and so adding that into our our handbook I think stays consistent with our messaging in other handbooks as well one of the additions that I've added is um an athletic activity fee kind of late process so last year I Came Upon This a lot where we had students and they're not necessarily students who are um new to the town or anything they're just kind of students who are late to the game with signing up um so in particular with our bigger non-cut Sports you know our track and field teams have upwards of 200 kids that participate and I'll get emails three weeks into the season saying I'd like to join um we found that a lot a lot of times last year those kids joined for a week and then just dropped off and what it ends up happening is it it adds like another thing that our U coaches have to think about and takes them away from their kind of coaching duties and so this little rule that we put in place is I'm hopeful that it will help cut down a little bit on those I don't know if I want to do this or not I'm going to sign up well I don't have to pay user fee if I quit a week later um and so this is just kind of in place to help with that process and really help out teams that have um huge numbers that are non-cut and so you know for the fall I I have a deadline of the Friday after Labor Day a lot of that is because we have a lot of new students coming in Sometimes they come into the school um you know that first week of school and they don't know that they can join a team so I'm giving them a little bit of like a a leeway there um once we kind of get into the winter and the spring that window is a lot shorter just knowing the kids are already in school messaging has been sent out to everybody about when to sign up um and so it's the first Friday of the season in the winter and the first Friday of the season in the spring and so um if a student wants to sign up they're going to be required to pay the user fee up front obviously there are exceptions for students who need financial assistance um and those are kind of case by case but hopefully again this helps with kind of our numbers and our coaches and uh helps you know curtail the kids that are joining for a week and then leaving this next change is um something that we talked about a lot last year and you know for me I I harp on the student athlete part of this like you're student first athlete second our rule currently SL in the P was you had to be in school for half of the school day in order to be eligible to participate in athletics I saw this as you know with our rotating schedule sometimes kids would just be missing the same class every single day but still meeting this requirement so you come in at 9:00 stay till 1 you miss your last class you're good to go come in at 10:00 stay till the end of the day you miss that class again again you're good to go so having this rule in place where we're going to have a hard cut at 11:15 where you have to be in school and then in school for the rest of the day um is going to help kind of with that issue as well as help us um get on top of kind of like our process of sending out an attendance report to all of our coaches to make sure that they're kind of on the same page with us and they know you know hey so and so says they're in school okay well I have something here that says you know otherwise why don't we figure out what happened um and again there are exceptions to this a lot of seniors have senior privileges so they can kind of leave during studies um you know and college visits appointments there are exceptions but this hopefully this kind of helps with um those students who are kind of habitually absent from certain classes and and really um helps us stay on TR on on task and with the goal of being a student athlete this next change um is a change to our language around um our grading periods so this doesn't affect a whole lot of our athletes um I think it affected maybe two of our athletes last year but you know when we kind of looked at it it was a little bit um murky little gray little gray areas there so we decided to do this as an opportunity to kind of like you know here's specifically what we're going to do when we encounter these situations where we have student athletes in danger of becoming academically ineligible so um a week prior to each grading period which is the first of every month so starting October 1st November 1st December 1st um I'm going to get a report of students who are failing two classes or more I'm going to notify any of those athletes who are failing those two classes of this report of this um and and try and really you know push them to seek help to help them get their grades up so that they remain eligible and at the end of the week on October 1st if they haven't got their grades up then they aren't eligible until the next grading period which is the following month's first date the next Edition is really an update and a a little bit more um intensive Captain part of our um handbook I think what I've seen is that our captains are great people they are Role Models but they have a little bit of I don't want to say entitlement but there's a little bit of like a a shift in kind of like I you know deserving to be a captain versus earning to be a captain and so you know having some updated language in here about you know portraying your yourself as a role model within the community and the school on the field with your teammates being inclusive um really kind of resets that expectation um and then included in here is you know our Captain's councils which we'll have three a season uh which will take place during school so you know expectation is for all of our captains to be attending those as well as um completing the bullying hazing and inappropriate behaviors course which is consistent with our hington anti-bullying um plan and it's consistent with the coaches having to take that course as well um and so again this is just kind of a revamp of our Captain's U section of the handbook and then our last addition um is really just to bring the Middle School athletics part of the Middle School handbook into our handbook um and so this information is all found in the Middle School athletics Middle School handbook and now it's you can find it in our at the end of the Athletics handbook um as of today thank you questions okay all right uh this does is not called out looking for a motion do we need a motion on this though I don't think that you need to vote on this one the other thank you nice job thank you thank you all right and that brings us into the HMS Special Olympics unified team Mr Le you're on schedule on the dot on schedule welcome back thank you um I have the memo up on my phone in case I need to refer to it um so thanks for receiving this memo and entertaining the discussion tonight um this is a part of our school that's really important to me um so I appreciate you listening to this this idea um earlier this summer um um Ricky uh Nicole Smith one of our special education teachers and I um and uh chip Collins from the high school uh met with representatives from Special Olympics to learn about um hopkington Middle School earning the designation of a Special Olympics unified Champion school and what does that look like what is that what is that criteria um so this memo represents some of the work we're going to do to take a step towards that designation I just think it speaks to um our value that we place on inclusion so for now this memo is is a little bit of a heads up of a couple of coaching positions that will be coming um as a result of seeking this designation um so we this fall will be running a unified botch program um this is new um from Special Olympics we got a a memo about it last year and just weren't able to launch it but we're ready to get that off the ground um this year as you seen the memo um they will through a grant will provide a stipend for our um botchy coach um and I don't think I put it in there I apologize but they also um Supply the materials for us because it's a special weighted ball um there's essentially like a PVC pipe frame so our team will really be able to practice get their botu practice wherever um and I think one of my hopes is that um this is a sport that's accessible I mean we all love playing bot um so I hope that you know this is something that they can enjoy with families Neighbors in a social experience as well um the second sport um a lot of our students participate in unified basketball but it's through the high school um so we're going to try a unified basketball team exclusively at the middle school and we're looking at it kind of Bridging the winter and spring Seasons um that's important for uh for gym space um but also because it is really nice that our eighth grade students participate on the high school unified basketball team because it serves as a nice part of their transition to to the high school um so that's the second coaching position they will also fund that um this year but um these will be coming forth as a as coaching stien um requests um after after this year that's fantastic I'm excited to see Unified sports moving into the middle school me too thank you questions comments um do you know what the stiped amount will be as we look to fold it into the next budget I can speak to that for botchy so given the length of the Season that they're looking at um Special Olympics recommends one practice after school a week for roughly an hour so given that length of time we were comparing it to our other typ anded like Club activities that are um I think right now they're paid at just under $560 thank you for the coach for the coach and that's part of how we looked at stiens during the last negotiating uh contract for the teachers was looking at coaching stiens and as well as um non-athletic sens that we have so that they would be comparable in terms of of the amount of work being done for each one and we would work through this with the HTA as well before we put the stiens into place because those have to be negotiated because it would become part of the collective bargaining agreement would there need to be um potential Paris support for the student athletes I would expect that so would that be an additional cost uh eventually yes probably yeah yeah how much 60 that doesn't seem like a lot it's not a lot I know it doesn't it's such a great program just I I don't know how to respond to that I just trying to put it um other than to say it's not a lot um yeah so I think as Dr Kavanagh stated it's a stien that needs to be negotiated so we may be a little ahead of ourselves stating what that would be right sorry I want to ask ask Susan just and you may not know the answer tonight but just in general um bouncing off of what Jamie had said how much Paris support is provided do you know typically on the our high school unified teams uh it really is student dependent okay so that's hard to say yeah but so it's something that we're prepared for because we've done it is we we do that at the at the high school level for Beyond unified even if students um are participating in any kind of after school activity okay sorry if I don't I should probably know the answer this but is there I know for certain Sports the high school or maybe the middle school there's a fee to play certain sports right mhm would this also be something where there's a fee to participate in the Unified sports is there at the High school is there a fee as well I'm not sure I know who would know there is there is there is okay so I would wonder too though because the other sports that we have in place with the athletic fees are based on a like basically a five-day week so if we're looking at one practice and would you say one competition kind of a thing that the model might be different I would think for the athletic and I know it's way ahead of where we are but the athletic f might be structured differently if it's not a f day a week well I'm wondering if you have after school clubs right I do yeah which is uh sponsor of that club gets 560 many many clubs receive that okay so basically it's functioning like an kind of like an after school club then yeah all right I was just curious if seems like a way to 560 seem like much and you need some Paris to help and they should be they well they need to be paid as well too yeah and if those participating are paying in a little bit I mean there's again I don't know how it works from money from the school for some of it and and how all that works but there got to be a way to make sure that those that are helping out these kids um are taking care of to the point where it's making sure it's worth their while and especially if there's a lot of kids that participate in these that um as a way to kind of make all those numbers work um I just didn't know be if it even at the middle school if there's fees for athletics and all that kind of stuff and clubs which makes sense that there are so that that's helpful to know not for clubs though right just for athletics I think it's just for athletics just for athletics kids don't pay a club fee okay you mean like drama club or music Club not club sports like that's right nonathletic I got it okay all right sorry I got to head on the on the number there um and not to derail derail the conversation um but like we need to get stuff like this um off the ground uh for a student so I'm excited to excited to do it um we've seen I mean the the benefits of inclusion um are so far-reaching uh the the peer leader program that Nicole Smith was really instrumental with Rene Lockwood getting off the ground was just incredible this year um for all students in the building um so just look forward to expanding those those opportunities and this is a good step for us it's really exciting thank you yeah it's great yeah we'll find the money I look forward to working with you on that well and the good news is we're getting money from spe Special Olympics we are so they'll help us in our pilot in our pilot year that gives us a year to figure it out yeah yep and we'll have some great data of all the wonderful things that happened from the program to support it we should yeah just wait till we we get real botchy uniforms it's going to be awesome what's that look like yeah what's aot uniform we're about to find outed on this we do not no they don't have to have little stoies in their mouth come through just the high school oh just bubblegum ones thank you all right thank you very much appreciate thank you have that look forward to hearing more about it all right that brings us into the Hopkins lower middle school project update welcome thank you Chris the hard copy uh change is this latest version latest vers I'll go through that when we get to that okay okay I'll hold on to them till then what's that promis day for asphalt Monday uh supposed to go down tomorrow start tomorrow Friday they'll be Paving tomorrow and Saturday I believe Saturday I don't know if we have to pave Saturday yet okay hopefully it'll be done tomorrow we hopefully not going to have to pave Saturday agreed be my goal um so uh Matt and I are joining you this evening to talk about um the turn to school at the Hopkins school um construction is an exciting time and it is also a stressful time and when you're in school construction the return to school is always a big day so we want to make sure that we're prepared we want to make sure that the community is aware of the changes that they're going to experience and we thought this venue presented a good opportunity to um continue our communication that that Matt started earlier I think last last week with some of your Zoom calls and some of the information that he's been sharing with parents about what you would see when you return to school on the screen here um I have sort of where we were where Hopkins was when the project started um there was quite the uh the configuration to get into the parking and um anybody who has visited Hopkins knows that if you have to go there in the middle of the day your chances of parking somewhere are poor um um we're not entirely able to correct um that as much as the final project will but we have increased the amount of parking with the plan that we put forward so when um folks return to school they will find a new configuration and it's similar to what happened before but it also has some differences and so we thought it made sense to come before you highlight some of those differences that people will see about what Hopkins will look like when the school year starts and hopefully stem some of the confusion that parents might have as they're dropping um their kids off this is the plan that we'll have when um parents return and what it will do is um previously we had about 14 parking spaces in the North Lot which is up here and we had 72 spaces in the staff parking lot at the back of the school because of the configuration changes that we're introducing we're actually going to have the majority of the spaces um 46 of them at the front here as we've talked about previously there will be a paved play area for the students that will be protected by some Jersey barriers sat on the pavement and then there's a grassy area that will remain and that'll be a mix excuse me that'll be a mix of um PE uses and recess uses as well as uses of some of the surrounding Fields the construction fence will be in place and we've been having lots of conversations to make sure that we tighten up all the edges so that we don't provide any opportunities um for mixing of the construction and the children and um we're Paving path around the fence um that will be mostly in place um at the start of school we do have some work that we're trying to advance to make next summer a little bit easy here um but that'll provide a pathway for kids to access the playing fields that are going to be utilized for um PE as well as the path for kids to safely reach um fire drill assembly areas so that they don't have to walk in any unsafe areas in order to reach those fire drill areas so safety is the number one thing that we're looking at we're also going to be meeting with the school administration the day before school starts to make sure that we've put as many eyes as possible on um any issues that could arise and we've also looked at um addressing some of the um issues that the permanent project will um address at least on a temporary basis so we've if anybody's driven the Loop Road lately we added some additional Jersey barriers at the end of where the Bus drop off was so previously kids would actually get on the bus in the start of the staff parking lot and so now we'll have a continuous path along along the side of a protected bus routee um or a bus lane so that we can line up all the buses involved in that one lane and board the kids um similar to how they were boarded before I wanted to highlight sort of that overall um the other big change for any of the disabled um users of the school in hopkington um to ensure that we have an accessible route throughout construction we've relocated all all of the Ada parking spaces to the north lot previously they were split between the two lots and given the realities of temp construction and often having to change things we thought it was wise to have the most straightforward path into the building that could be made accessible for those users so if you're a parent and you're headed to pickup you've if you have a kid in Hopkins already you've seen this because you're probably sitting here waiting to be let in to either pick up or drop off your child I want to highlight this because this route really um showcases the difference previously you would have been waiting until you passed the little green Transformer here before you could turn into the lot and because we're Paving tomorrow and not today this didn't work out quite as well as I had hoped but as you approach you're going to see the start of the erosion control there will not be a fence and this will be your turn in to the weird turn is gone the weird turn is gone fabulous so as soon as you get to the end of the grass you're going to turn in and if I jump back to our plan for a second you're going to follow this green line and we'll work with the school to make this available maybe throw it up on the website and send it out as an email blast to parents as well if if that hasn't happened already yeah I've already it is on our presentation that we've shared already and I'm including it tomorrow and so parents will follow this Green Path in a single line and they'll continue until they're able to drop off their child we uh came up with a little Emer I'm going to call it an emergency Lane but it's essentially going to be a short paved area that is allows for if a car is taking a little more time or otherwise has an issue with picking up their child rather than have them sit and hold up the whole area um the staff will have a cone that they can move and they can pull that car into the little paved area and they can wait there for the longer period of time that they need and we also um we'll be controlling this through staff so there is enough room to bypass a car so that if staff needs to do so they can direct a parent to continue on while another car Waits but that will only be at staff's Direction so we are asking parents to form a single file line to wait your turn and then after they leave they'll pull out into the Loop Road and they'll continue around the corner and it will continue to be one-way traffic all the way around what we do want to highlight and this is really important for everybody to understand as part of the logistics plan that we proposed the last little end here is going to be used as a supervised two-way road so we'll add signage at that location and if there is two-way traffic Commodore will have staff in the area that will be clearly visible and will be directing traffic on a short-term basis so that Vehicles can come into the school we did that purposefully because we wanted to make sure that the construction traffic would mostly be going around the Loop Road and backing into the site as opposed to constant trucks coming around the Loop Road at the school and creating noise and other issues for the students in the school the other thing that I just want to make everybody aware of because I've done this for a while now construction makes noise and the first few weeks we do have some noisy things that are going to be happening on the site that are exciting from a creating a new building perspective but may serve as a distraction for some of our more distractable students and also May create some challenges for the teachers who are teaching those distractable students we will be doing some um limited Rock removal to prepare to build the foundation up where we've come up with as many strategies to limit that as much as possible and we'll also be beginning to put in the geothermal wells in the next few weeks um so that is also a a somewhat noisy thing that I think was a controllable nuisance when we did the test well yeah actually we heard them going yesterday two days ago um and because it's so far off in the end of the field it's not as bad the rocks is the loud one yeah the and sometimes you do feel so if any of the parents um of children who are on that area come home and say the entire building was shaking I want you to view that in context and know that we are taking all the safety precautions that are necessary to remove those rocks safely and as quickly and efficiently as possible one one thing we're also adding not for noise but for kids that like to watch all the trucks I found myself watching something for like 20 minutes days ago um we purchased it looks like stained glass windows but it's actually just like stickers almost that cover that first layer of windows so let's light in um so it's not super dark in there but the kids can't just stare at the trucks um that was it's like the fake frosted glass or like R yeah that was great idea veteran teacher Miss trumble's idea so yeah uh we'll put those in we offered to put that in on the first floor and second floor of the classrooms in the back so how long does it take how long will it take to get the new addition building framed out and a while if I'm honest it's probably going to be um I think we're going to probably see Steel in an October to um November time frame and then um following that we'll begin framing the outside and um once the framing is complete we'll we'll be following that with the masonry so I think um you'll begin to see a shape to the building um probably in the winter and I think when you get to Spring and um probably spring it'll begin to look like a building uh folks are always surprised at how quickly it looks like a building from the outside um that's that's been the a recurring theme in in much of my career that oh wow they're almost done we're not almost done there's still a whole bunch of stuff on the inside that also takes a really long time but um it'll begin to take shape and then um the the really AG as we shared previously the really aggressive um focused parts of the work are the Summers because that's when we're going to be doing renovation that's when we're going to be making sure that everything's ready and that's where we also have a really hard deadline at the end that we want to ensure that we can meet and I think as we went through the iterations of plans we decided to prioritize the parking lots this first summer not getting those done first would have caused other disruptions so that as a team we decided that had to be done first and as I check my cheat sheet you'll open at the start of this year with three more parking spaces than you had last year questioned it it just from looking at that is the play equipment gone the play equipment is gone but the um shade structure that was there was preserved um at least on a temporary basis yep um once we will be back with you in I believe it's two uh 3 weeks time at your next meeting where we'll be discussing the larger projects uh guaranteed maximum price and um the we've seen positive signs on that but as part of that discussion we may revisit some of not as part of that discussion but in the future as the project progresses we may have opportunities to revisit some of the things that we didn't pursue up until this point yeah so for recess we are purchasing some different recess equipment that we can then repurpose um we have a Gaga pit on order I'd always said I wouldn't do Gaga but um what is that it's a good question uh it's like a it's like a summer camp cult activity um it's it's a good description yeah it's like a plastic barrier that maybe 20 to 30 kids can fit in and it's like a mhit yeah and it's like dodge ball but you don't actually grab the ball you hit it with your hand and you can only um hit kids with the ball like below the knees um so we have to provide structure to limit the conflicts on who's out and who's not and all of that um but we want to start finding things that kids can entertain themselves with in the confined space um buildings and grounds have also worked really hard to get us access to the field 10 um so we'll have that for soccer and other things that kids like to play football is that down that purple two-way road so yeah there's two ways to access it that's one way uh I'm more excited about the other way which is they've through here right man yeah building ground sort of renovated that path for us um which checking in with some of the teachers that have been at Hopkins longer have said we used to use that all the time um even when teaching we'd walk through there so uh I'm excited to have that as part of uh as an option that they don't even have to use for recess but so we're definitely going to be out on the campus a little bit more this year utilizing the campus space um so just I know people like to use that during the day and they should just expect to see that kids will be using it too the grade out area that's recessing PE that eventually turns into more parking that um when when the entire site is complete yeah it's done um that is actually the extent of the proposed parking and you introduce the new uh you can sort of see it ghosted in the image the new playground occurs in this area and then there is some hard top play spaces in this area and then this whole area over here in the final condition is your new athletic field so I had asked for that space yeah um so that we have a plowable um hard top for the winter so that we can still get some kids outside if it's yeah kind of yucky out and the last point that I wanted to make about this given that we're we've mobilized and things are starting to move forward I did want to highlight um in Lot K at the at the corner here it's it's around the corner where that little rotary is that is the construction trailer so Commodore staff is there and vertex has a staff person there during the day um so if anybody has any concerns and needs to reach someone um who isn't affiliated with the school um that would be the location to bring up any concern um I have an excellent staff person out there who uh the permanent staff person will be beginning on September 3rd his name's George McMahon and um George will be happy to hear you out take your information and we'll work with the school um to make sure that we respond appropriately question more for this side of the table that as you're talking about Lot K and I'm thinking about everything going on on the site in General I know there are people from the community who go out they come up the center Trail and they go out by lck K up the path that way is that something that we want to make sure people are that we want to keep people off of L K is accessible they can still walk through Lot K to get to that path okay I can sort of speak to that too um because we sort of it's like a uh give and take right with the community around the school with safety for students and also people want to be able to access at it right it's a great place to run walk your dog take your baby for a walk so um I've always sort of settled with community members that if you're able to stay on that side right don't don't walk down the sidewalk when the kids are running to the buses um you know that seems reasonable right um teachers will definitely get on alert when people walk across the field and kids are out at recess right so um we did add that sort of the binder sidewalk that is for us to get to the fire um emergency Meetup places and that is for the kids to get to recess so and that is closer to the school so I we did add some or we're adding signage that says only open to public or close to public during school hours but if people still want to walk along that grass side where they always have I mean take advantage of the the nice and space that we have here and um I'll I'll add that we had uh I'll describe it as a constant public education um campaign throughout the summer um with reminding people to remain safe and not walk all the way through the construction site and um now that we're preparing for school all of that and we're beginning to build um all of the construction areas will be fenced in and from a safety standpoint um we'll have something identifiable on all of the workers so that if there is an issue that should arise which we work very hard not to occur um the worker in question will be identifiable and um as you know everybody is Corey checked and we make sure that um only the appropriate people are on site so um we're working really hard to make sure that that safety is moves forward and to help the school with the transition we do have a text chain with the principle and assistant principles at Hopkins and the vertex and commodore teams on site so that if an issue does arise there's multiple people who are hearing about that all at the same time and someone can appropriately respond that's great so that was the extent of that agenda item we don't really have any action for that one um the other one that we wanted to present to you I wanted to just give some context to it um because obviously when change order one is coming as a result of um your early pack package it might give you pause but I want to alleviate any of that concern up front um what is before you for consideration tonight is a change request to purchase the generator for the project this is not a construction change this is a document that adds this scope of work into the larger construction project we had had initial discussions early in uh or late in the design phases we were doing the other construction Amendment that you voted on previously as to whether or not the generator should be part of that change at the time we weren't ready to pull that trigger and so um we put it off but as we got closer it made sense to move forward with procuring the generator in advance um one of the things in the pandemic that has come up is that particularly as it relates to electrical equipment um the lead times have exploded and so generators and switch gear and Transformers are three of the things that are really difficult to get um this opportunity arose where through another canceled project this generator was already in production and became available and so it met the needs that were specified for ours but rather than ordering one and waiting for it there was one that was already available with sort of a defined um availability date that we could um purchase for a cost that was in line with with what we were it's actually below what we were expecting to pay um I know you did receive a an alternate version of this and um in further discussion with Commodore we um discussed the fact that it was easier to treat this as a construction amendment in terms of the markup that we were assigning to it as opposed to a change order because contractually there's different markups that are associated it's a little easier to calculate the GMP and make sure that we're not double charging for anything if we do it in the way that's before you so that is why this is $713 less than what was an originally in your meeting packet and it's also includes um $ 3898 in construction GMP contingency I know we've talked about contingencies before this is the contingency that's within commodore's guaranteed maximum price that they have available to them to cover things that otherwise weren't done and that's a percentage of the overall construction so because this is increasing their construction amount it's also increasing proportionally the um contingency when we do the final GMP in the next 3 weeks we'll level out that contingency at the contractual amount as part of the broader um what will be a 30 million or so package that will be before you in three weeks any questions on that comments so we're just buying it sooner instead of later correct and the um bids that we got from the electrician were also under budget so between this being lower and the electrician bid being lower it um it appears to be a a good price that's in the town's best interest what's the fee 7922 and 7 um as part of the overall construction um contract the CM agrees to to certain markups so the um the bond the glp which is the liability insurance and other construction related insurance and the construction fee is all set at a fixed amount as part of their original Bid And so you'll see this again when the GMP comes out and it was um also in the early construction Amendment and that's fixed at a 2% of the amount they're they all comp pound so if you're doing trying to figure out the math um it's um the bond is I think it's 68% of the construction number and then the bond plus the construction number is one or the uh liability insurance is 1% of the bond plus the construction number and then the bond and the liability insurance and the construction number together you're it's 2% of that amount is the fee am I allowed to ask a question sure sorry I'm I'm okay with it does buying at earlier get it installed earlier um it's still we still find the right sequence in but one of the challenges that this alleviates is that our schedule had a generator challenge to it of when's the right time to do it because it's tied into how the life safety works so there's only so many times that you can take a life safety system offline in a school and make sure that it goes in so that was questionable of when exactly that would fit because lead times are challenging even still lead times are challenging this environment it takes that lead time issue off the table by having an available generator that meets our specifications that we can have ready to go when we're ready to install just avoids the potential for any delay correct right I'm still confused um the fee is 2% of what so it's it's 2% of the total amount so of the amount of the not of the change of the so it's um trying to think what the best way to illustrate this is so each one of the fees compounds on the previous or each one of those three items compounds on the construction number so the bond is a percentage of the 15 155 that's the cost of the generator right the liability insurance sorry so the fee is the fee is tied to the cost of the item it's tied to the cost of the item plus the cost of the bond plus the cost of the liability yeah and it's a percentage of that total that's a fixed 2% for direct okay and then when we transition and this is why I wanted to sort of explain how we shifted um when we transition from the GMP which will have that fixed fee to a change order process after the GMP that fee becomes overhead and profit essentially which is the 2% fee and then 3% for General conditions and other markups for items that their subcontractors are providing so you'll see almost the same um percentage markup except that instead of 2% it becomes 5% and that's part of the contract that the town signed with Commodore just as the 2% is part of what they bid the project on originally when we hired them um last April commodor getting 2% of the entire that's yes got it 2% of the cost of construction and insurance and bond right okay thank you you call Life uh life safety so um yeah what is that so life safety is the industry term for anything that is a code required system so fire alarms generators okay um things that help you to leave the building in the event of an emergency I had a I thought that might be it but I wasn't all always feel free to stop me and ask me to explain the industry terms I live inside of this live inside of a lot of acronyms all the time ask just a lot of questions all the time join the club thank you all right so this one does uh require a motion there are no more questions if there's somebody who would like to make a motion relative to this I move to approve the early construction package two the electrical generator motion by Jamie I think it's actually just for clarity I think it's a change request 1 R1 oh so not early construction package there are hard copies if you want to see them because they're not the same as in your packet the dollar amount is just a little bit have copies as well if you need one so it's change request one one revision one okay paragraph five I move to approve the change request one revision one thank you motion by Jamie second by Kyla all those in favor I any abstained or against thank you very much appreciate all the updates look forward to a nice year with all see good luck have good luck day yeah happy first day to come check yeah the parking lot on Monday and if anybody I do have extra copies of the plan if anybody is interested in having some might be fun to come sit in the traffic no it's not take one if you want and pass it through oh yeah anybody want I'm not a good waiters so it is about pick up at the mil thank you say which building is the you guys want some down here sure something hang on the wall all right so that brings us then into item e which is the district Improvement plan okay that up on the screen oh we're late well I feel like we may have gotten a little too excited on the timeline there keep optimistic all right so thank you I will present to you the district Improvement plan and just so you are aware the department of Elementary and secondary education anticipates that every school district has one of these and a not this past summer the summer before so it would have been the summer of 23 we really did sit down and uh take a good hard look at what our district Improvement plan said and so this past summer in 24 just a couple of weeks ago we really just made some light revisions to it one of the things I think you're going to see here is that we take a look at what the needs are for the entire hopkington public schools and then we think about the roles and responsibilities of all of the players and if all of those things get into this District Improvement plan what it means is that the district should in theory have all of its people rowing in the same direction with sort of this as a Guiding Light um when you see the school Improvement plans come before you in a couple of weeks so each building has to put together a school Improvement plan and they should in some way work in service to this document and then all of the administrators in the district have to put together a goals document which would either be a um a school Improvement document a a professional practice document or a student Improvement document student achievement document and so all of those things really fall kind of under the umbrella umbrella of this District Improvement plan so we start by outlining our vision statement which is the hopkington public school district aspires to be a community of educational Innovation where children are challenged and inspired to reach their fullest potential afforded the agency to Define who they will become and celebrated for their human kindness and that our mission the Hopkinson Public Schools ensures Equitable access for all students to academically challenging curricula in a community that supports their social emotional learning ultimately guiding young adults to create their own Pathways engaging citizenship and respon and Foster respect for yourself and others um so when we get together with the entire School District on Monday morning which we will everyone who works here will get together in the High School auditorium uh the presentation that I make a superintendent should really start to outline some of the expectations as they fall under this document even for people who are in our classrooms every day and you are all welcome to come on Monday morning at 8 was my next question we allow certainly do that yes it would be lovely if you do um so the administrators in the district have three buckets that we say we need to fill we need to plan for the enrollment growth we need to make sure that we are meeting every student's needs and one of the things that you will hear Jeff and me say repeatedly all means all all really can mean all all means all every student every day however it is that we say it we sincerely mean that all of our kids should have access to um grade level and rigorous curriculum um and then our third bucket is to build a community of respect and collaboration so we have a rational for each one of those buckets and the enrollment growth one is pretty obvious I think to everyone in the community sorry trying to find a a power SHP to PL oh it's okay S I don't know if you can find one maybe behind the c sometimes Susan toward Jam are you using yours me it might be the other side of you keep going this is all right thank you Bob to the rescue okay so our rationale for the enrollment growth is with predictions of reaching over 5,000 students by the 2030 2031 school year and you know we're about 760 students from that today um the Hopkinson Public Schools continue to focus on growing our physical plants and extracurricular spaces bringing new and renovated schools online in the next few years responsibly our construction projects are focused on accommodating future growth as well as ensuring the environmental health of the community accordingly the schools must use budgeted resources wisely to provide the highest quality Innovative education for all students flexing programs to ensure equity and access as student profiles demand fortunately behind beyond our campuses lies a community of invested of invested stakeholders and we truly mean that the hopkington community has always been very generous in supporting our schools um meeting every student's needs the Hopkinson Public Schools see each child as an individual learner and human being it's imperative to note that hopkinton's student profiles are diversifying resulting in broader student needs academically we Center first on learning foundational skills within the community gradually introducing more diverse Pathways as students mature and near graduation we pledge an invest ment in students social emotional behavioral and physical wellness and we commit to Growing programs that help all students access challenging curricula with the hope to graduate well-balanced young adults who take risks think independently believe in themselves and persevere and then finally the rationale for building a community of respect and collaboration while it might be easy to focus on academic successes alone the Hopkinson Public Schools believe in helping children develop a capacity for kindness respect compassion and service to others we believe in Collaborative Learning and fostering the growth of relational competencies students must must understand how others live and build relationships across race class gender and learning abilities to create caring learning communities every member of our community is expected to model these behaviors we engage in this work believing that the ends are best met when we also have strong relationships between families and schools and so what we do is we take those three buckets and we talk about all of the things that we are going to do to ensure that we are moving toward toward those goals so in terms of enrollment growth and you see a lot of that as you are here we are continuing to construct and renovate our physical spaces we're trying to grow Innovative programs um expand our campuses to accommodate our external needs which are also precipitated by increases in enrollment growth so I think as Mr Bishop was saying tonight we have increased our classroom spaces we think about growing our cafeterias uh we grow our programs but we have not grown that parking lot and so when we talk about external needs those are the kinds of things will come up you know as a result of just more and more students and the need for more faculty uh we're working with the elementary school building committee the um Massachusetts school building authority the msba our ownest project manager and the designer on the Elmwood School replacement project we are also working with an owners project project manager designer and construction firm on the Hopkins school um addition project we have been employing and we will continue to employ creative scheduling and building use to optimize student learning as the district addresses space constraints we are budgeting to ensure increases in uh full-time equivalents including our support Personnel so whether they are cafeteria workers or custodians or par professionals or teachers or administrators uh we want to make sure that we have enough people there adults there to support the children uh we want to make sure that those increases are commensurate with student enrollment increases student needs and departmental demands develop a three-year plan for special education and budget for its implementation analyze our transportation needs in anticipation of new buildings changes in start times and ridership and then expand our grade 2 to four curricula to maximize the educational opportunities presented by the charlesw school and we know that will be be a state-of-the-art building and so some of the things that we teach we will be able to teach differently just because the physical plant has changed all right in terms of meeting every student's needs this is a year that we are really going to focus on mtss which is the multi-tiered system of support there are three tiers tier one is what everyone gets tier two is what you get if you need a little something extra and tier three is when you need a lot more of something and very often it meets an individualized need or a very small group's need so we'll start off here by looking at those things that break away barriers so that kids are able to access curriculum we'll be using the holistic student assessment PBIS ensuring that specially designed instruction SDI is there for students whose learning profiles demand it especially in our co- talk classrooms and we'll make sure that our teachers facility with those Co teaching appro uh approaches is um the best that it can be we will evaluate and redefine current support programs including our Empower program the bright program the Start program and some of those are behavioral some are for kids who are returning to school after extended absences such as hospitalization um some are just kids who need to grow their resilience all kinds of things um and to ensure that the programs enable all students to access curriculum at high levels continue to develop our cultural proficiency practices and we'll use the cry up to measure them expand the implementation of disciplinary literacy strategies that include all grades K to 12 continue the elementary level written language curriculum revisions and expand teachers reading instruction repertoire especially for students reading below Benchmark as you know the state has been doing a whole lot of work with um dyslexia and other reading uh disorders and so we do have our dyslexia team that um has been attending those sessions grow students fact fluency skills in math K to 5 further develop our 18 to 22 program so that we're able to offer a wider array of postsecondary opportunities explore opportunities to broaden students postsecondary planning and Readiness and then finally maximizing the use of our professional learning communities we are a district that is very fortunate to have time for our teachers to meet and when they're able to do that it helps with uh growing instructional repertoire in curriculum looking at student work thinking hard about where how kids performed on assessments and and much much more and then finally what will the whole District be doing to build a community of respect and collaboration we will continue to enhance and growth uh CPAC and English learner um parent advisory lpac stakeholder groups continue to conduct information sharing and language history meetings with multilingual families and our uh J suker does that with uh any incoming family that has um language needs further to develop the senior Capstone project at the high school as a complement to the vision of a graduate work continue to develop capacity in implementing restorative justice practices at the high school and middle school and really I think you'll see that at the elementary levels too based on what you learned tonight about the handbooks in 37h and 3/ quarters uh continue professional development that grows the cultural proficiency of our faculty staff and students especially by introducing the cry up at the classroom level I know you saw it as an assessment tool in the previous one if you have a Criterion referenced assessment very often it can used as an it can be used as an instructional tool so that's how we will be using that with our faculty staff and kids so that they can see what kinds of things are excellence in best practices and then they will know how we assess those things um identify priority actions from the secondary curriculum and instruction audit and adopt the tool to vet our curricula and instuction for biases use our Desi data to address disproportionality and to ensure Equity of access and representation and then carry on with the work of the district climate team so those are all of the things that we will be doing as a district and um again you'll see those things kind of manifest in the school Improvement plans questions on that I know there are probably some things that what were the um were there changes from last year like were there specific things that um yes there were I would have to show you a redlined copy of that or at least show you last year's and this year's side by side sure just I know it it looks like a lot of wonderful work um and I was just curious which details were adjusted from last year since it's my first year at the table yes we could get you side by-side copies thank you can I think we started this year thinking that we would be making some tweaks but I think that we did more wholesale work than I anticipated we would do y would imagine the last year's is still on the website oh I'm sure it is yes that's right because we would not have taken this that down until you vote on this one okay if there are not any other questions um do people feel comfortable enough to make a motion to approve this or do you want to hold it for another meeting and it's intended to be relatively broad right where it's yes like the broad sweeping plans and the details are school yes so and it really encompasses everyone's work so if you look at the next to the last bullet on that page for example where we're talking about using our data to address disproportionality the bulk of that work lives with Mrs hansum as our director of student services um but it will trickle out to building principal work and and other places but as you look at those bullets in some places they really belong to a specific person so for example the senior Capstone really belongs to Mr Bishop and the high school folks and we asked them to only put their big rocks in here you if you're making a very subtle change don't include a very subtle change I move to approve the district Improvement plan motion by Susan is there a second on that second second by Chris all those in favor I I any opposed or abstain okay thank you for bringing that uh forward I know a lot of work goes into it to get it to this point brings us into Old business a which is the superintendent 2024 to 2025 okay I think 150 should do it I know that I went through all of these last time uh just to ensure that there aren't questions when you look at the first goal for example and it says that um this year we're going to be taking a look at something like the 2 to2 Ela analysis um and we are thinking about um monitoring students growth to make sure that their achievement is you know taking place at the appropriate uh levels over time so that we can look at a kid in September setember October January June and we can say is that child growing at least a full year you know while while they're in third grade or sixth grade or 10th grade um all of that for me falls under the heading of student achievement goal and so when I make my goals they all have to be either a student achievement goal a professional practice goal or a district Improvement goal and so when you see those you don't need to confuse them with the district Improvement plan they'll just have those kinds of headings but as you can see in here as a process Benchmark the district will continue to take take part in the dyslexia action plan so you know that this does fall in under the uh District Improvement plan as well one of the things that as you're looking at this you can see what the process benchmarks are and those are the things that I will be doing along the way and maybe halfway through this process I'll share with you uh some of those pieces but sort of the bigger pieces I think are the key product bench marks those are the ones that at the end I will have something for you that feels more tangible so that you can really see this is the evidence of the work that has been done on that particular goal in in a given year we also tie them to the superintendent rubric so that there's a a meshing of these with the indicators and then we also tie it to the district Improvement plan so all of those pieces should be streamlined together and I don't know if there are any of these goals that I had talked about last time that you're think thinking I'd love to hear more about that one any so under the like under goal One MH when I'm looking for when I write goals they're always like like specific measurable time bound um which I think is a different structure than this is but so there's a lot of information here what is the actual goal like just to undertake the analysis which may lead to additional programmatic like which may blah blah blah I think like that's I'm trying to right I think when you get to write about there where we say accordingly we'll continue to grow the programs through professional learning and curricular revisions um and then a a much larger piece of that I think because this is entirely Ela is that we are going to undertake a grade 2 to2 Ela analysis and that may lead to additional programmatic instructional leveling changes this is similar to the work that we did last year in math and um it's it's very interesting because Mr lead and I and our K to 5 math coordinator and one of the Math teachers who's a CTL at Hopkins we went and presented on the work that we had done last year but we did that at the mass conference to a group of superintendents and assistant superintendents over the summer and when we did that we said we started out and we thought we knew what the problem was we thought that because parents would call and say my child who's a very skilled mathematician is bored in grade six Math and when we started to break down the data we realized that those kids could not have been bored because their growth was super high so they had to have been being challenged because they were growing but when we looked at the kids who fell into the category of partially meeting expectations we started to realize that those kids growth scores were were very low and that's what we mean by you could end up having a programmatic or an instructional or a leveling change but we don't know if any of those things will be warranted we're just going to do a great big dive a deep dive into the ELA data for this year typically when you do this if if you don't start with a preconceived notion uh you'll you'll find something along the way and you'll make changes that make your Ela instruction or curriculum better right now when we get our Ela scores back from the Department and I know people there are a lot of people who say oh that MC test is very bad but what it is good for is it's a very good report card for us we get to see how we're doing as a district with our kids who are high Achievers with our kids who are moderate Achievers with our kids who are struggling Achievers and so when we look at that data we say there there is room for growth because about 25% of our kids not in grade 10 but in some of our Elementary grades are not meeting or exceeding expectations and so a deep dive like that into star data local data really helps us to understand what that is it is time sensitive because typically these will end in June unless we get to June and we say oh my gosh the work that we're doing it it actually needs more study and then sometimes one of these single year goals will become a two-year goal that was the case with the math goal we started one year and we weren't down at the end of that year so it's reasonable to expect that there's not a specific outcome listed in the goal like so that there's not a clear goal post of we've met this but there's the analysis which could etc etc yes I mean if there is a an outcome to this we hope that over time our math achievement scores will go up but when you make those kinds of revisions to curriculum and instruction sometimes there's even an implementation dip right because people are now being asked to do something that they haven't been asked to do before and they're unfamiliar with it so sometimes it takes about 5 years before you'll see that mathematical change in your mcast report card so while I would like to say that that's going to happen it may not happen immediately right no I wouldn't yeah I wouldn't expect the student performance to change but just that the the outcome of the goal is really just we'll find out yes and that's very frequently what happens when you do data Dives and research right you don't know what you're going to find there are the benchmarks though that weol see along the way yes that says that we're actually doing this work we just don't know the outcome right and can we have um the dyslexia action plan is that something that we can look at and not right now but just um I believe it is linked in the document it is but I don't have access to it oh okay we can fix that for you because any questions comments on the goals do people feel ready to adopt vote to adopt these for Dr kavan off for the year um at this point or do we need more time I'm good I'm good right okay we're not going goal by goal oh I'm sorry I didn't realize you had more I was just I I that was so the like the places where it say things says things like develop to develop positive relationships with CPAC and lpac um how is how are things like that being measured I'm looking at go to key process Benchmark 10 and again I I from a where I have like really measurable goals so these are pretty Broad and I'm just trying to understand so there's always a caveat to be careful about saying that you are going to develop a positive relationship because a relationship relies upon sort of my behavior and the other party's Behavior so one of the things that our director of student services has I think tried to do is to when we had a a meeting with the CPAC a couple of years ago and we had a facilitator come there were things that we agreed to and we said okay we'll start to have monthly meetings between the director the superintendent and CPAC leadership um we said that we would work with the CPAC so that um they could come back to the school committee and have a conversation about the ways in which their work is Manifest in the district and the ways the school committee may or may not be better able to support them um they are still doing monthly meetings for parents they're doing all kinds of activities with um families in town where they invite them to you know a fall event a winter event um and so the hope is that when we bring that sort of body of these are all of the things that we are doing and we're working very hard to grow those relationships that you know there will be the outcome of an improved relationship but at I would say that at this point the work that the director and I do um are the kinds of things that we are hoping will grow the CPAC grow the lpac and grow our relationships with them as well as sort of help the school committee to grow your relationship with them because I know that that was a piece of of the puzzle as well thank you yeah and ultimately when you think about CPAC and lpac the reason the state has those bodies in place is because we want to make sure that students have the highest quality teaching and learning and so you develop those Partnerships sorry I'm the only one asking questions um my last question is just um with the I'm looking down at goal four um so with the the climate survey which sounds like it was extremely fruitful as far as giving information and discovering information and things to work on is that something that you anticipate to plan to revisit in a couple years that you can compare um maybe revised or done by you know someone like run by an outside agency or something is that part of the plans that you'll be able to compare current to the first one that would be great uh one of the things that we do need to remembered maybe it would be helpful if I open this is that when we work on this and this is a running agenda so it lasted through the en entire school year so the very first meeting that we had as a district climate team last year took place on um September 29th hope that's helpful it is and we had building principles from all five buildings the director of student services theal director um Mr lead was there we had one educator pair of professional and we would come together and so the goal really is to have that group work as as people who are growing the climate through the district not just me in isolation so yes what we would like to do is I mean one of the first things that we did was we we talked about you know where do you see needs for growth where do you see things that are going swimmingly and we kind of did a a Post-It note activity we took the Post-it note and we said all right we're going to pick a big ticket item from the Post-it notes and we're going to take something that is low hanging fruit and we're going to work on those things in each one of those buildings and then eventually we got to the place of we said all right why don't we now put out a survey after we had come to the place of things that we we thought were important to measure and we presented this to to the school committee last year so that we could we had pie charts in here and we could say you know teachers and staff are treated with respect and so to what degree did they feel that way and it was about 65.7% of the teachers felt that they and staff felt if they were though they were treated with respect um and so you can kind of go through all of these they're available to you you can look at them they've been again publicly presented students care about and treat each other with respect and compassion we got very high marks and that um and so it would be nice for us to work on some of the things that we see as issues so one of them was we would love to see ad central office administration in the buildings with more frequent frequency and so just the other day Mr lead said to me why do I have all of these requests to walk through the buildings twice month and so that's one of the things that I have put into my goals for this year is to conduct walkthroughs in every building at least twice monthly teachers reported a desire to see central office administrators in their classrooms so we have them now built into our calendars and it really is an opportunity for us to get into classrooms get into buildings and just see faculty as just human build Rel relationship yeah absolutely so that's what the survey has helped us to do and maybe in a few years it would make sense to give those same surveys and hold them up side by side yeah especially with all the work you're doing yeah I will tell you that if you took the one that we gave in the fall of 2021 nope the fall of 2020 that survey was was really terrible I mean I think people were just so spent they they couldn't bring themselves to feel any Joy right right thank you for walking me through that sure any other all right so Susan I think you were was it you making the motion yes do you want to repeat your motion I move that we accept the superintendent's goals is that it yes second okay so motion by Susan second by Chris all those in favor I I any opposed obain okay great thank you thank you for the work on that and just for folks at home uh this is something that we'll come back to pretty regularly just as the year progresses because it does at the end of the year this is the basis of our evaluation I don't want to be the bear of bad news but you have to do the indicators as well oh yes okay motion to approve the superintendent's goals and indicators for 2024 and 2025 thank you second motion by Jamie second by Chris all those in favor I okay I didn't see the motion in time I got you all right so that brings us into Old business B which is policy acab sexual and sex sex-based harassment and retaliation Dr Kavanaugh okay so that you know that this is the second reading of this we read it uh last time we were together and what you see in here is really the masc policy and the redlined parts in here are things that we had added just because of the experience of um working in our district or um because it was recommended to us um through as we looked through other policies so for example we looked at the policy that Weston had and we put some of the pieces of their policy into this if you're not in a place where you have concerns about what this says before you vote it I think it would be prudent for us to send it up after Murphy lamary and Murphy for their review so that our legal counsel can take a look at this one and then we could bring it back to you for a final approval after legal counsel make some comments on it so my copy that I'm looking at linked through the agenda is not redlined um is there red text lower one if you go back to the agenda I think the lower link is the one that brings you to the red l I'm in the same boat I I clicked on both no I don't see any red L see any red lines this one here the lower second one yeah there is no are you getting at it from the from the agenda the yeah the one I'm picking up from the agenda doesn't have any red lines do you have the whole packet agenda open Jamie M that might be why oh that's why I can't see it what you have that open do you want to just hit share on it and I will project it on the screen the my other thing is that this will also go out to the public I did unless it did already go out to oh I don't know typically we send Georgette usually very good about as well check with her I anyone with the link should be able to see it right might be in your email just got there this one does have okay yellow highlights Chris do you have it yes this one it has green that I'm looking at right now oh on my screen it's like Maroon fny I I don't have a red line have gray lines and then red uh yellow highlights you know it's so interesting Chris is I can see your icon up there so why you're not getting the red line is I'm not sure yeah now I got it okay here we go so again this is the masc they typically leave them blank so you can put your information in at the top where it says that we are committed to maintaining an education and work environment for all School community members that's free from all forms of harassment including sexual and sex-based harassment and other discrimination on the B basis of sex because that text is green we added that um and our legal council had suggested did um years ago a couple of years ago now that we always include pregnancy or pregnancy related conditions in this list of protected classes um this definition of sexual harassment was not in here before and we felt like we needed to Define it this was tricky in here because the district takes allegations of harassment including sexual harassment seriously the district shall respond promptly and meaningfully for to every known report of sexual harassment and shall investigate every formal complaint of harassment um that we had a long conversation about because um there are times when someone will say I think I should investigate this as sexual harassment and a parent will say I don't want you to I you know in investigate that as sexual harassment um and and it's an interesting thing because there's a form that says I would like you to to investigate this is sexual harassment I would not like you to investigate this is sexual harassment so we do want to make sure that if um we hear and this continues on um the district shall have prob to eliminate the conduct and impos corrective action as is necessary including discipline AC action where apprpriate it's the expectation of the district that incidents that may constitute a title 9 violation be reported to building Administration the complaintant does not have to be the person at whom the unwelcome sexual conduct is directed the complaint regardless of gender may be a witness to and personally offended by such contact conduct so if I suspected that there was some kind of sexual harassment a title n violation I could go to my building principal Mr LEF for example and say this is what I'm seeing Mr lefave could say okay okay student is a minor so I'm going to call the parents and the parents may say I don't want you to investigate that as sexual harassment but I do want this Behavior to stop and whether the parent wanted the behavior to stop or not we would make sure that that the behavior stopped um but and Mr lead actually has all of that paperwork now out to Murphy lamry Murphy because in addition to a policy we also have to have a practic ISM protocol document um that tells us how we are going to to deal with families how people fill out forms you don't necessarily have to fill out the form you can make a phone call you can send an email there are lots of different ways to express bullying or harassment complaints to your Administration anything from the policy working group want to add I have a question if the parent says I don't want that investigated as a sexual kind of thing M and yet everybody involved recognizes that that's exactly what it is does it make a difference how that recorded in the uh criminals the the I think that sometimes that might be why a parent would say that they didn't want it investigated that way because it will in fact become a police matter and so they want the school to handle it in terms of discipline differently so once once they want it to stop but they but once it you put that tag on it it becomes police matter M it does but it could have school-based consequences regardless yes and we will deal with the school-based consequences without taking it to the next legal stat it only becomes a legal matter if the family makes a declares that hey I want this I'm making a formal um charge or or complaint and I wanted it I want it investigated as a formal complaint and that triggers bringing it to the police if if it's found to be sexual harassment then it does become a police matter so we can investigate Behavior between kids and we can believe that it is sexual harassment but a parent might say I don't want to do any police work on this thing I just want that to stop from my kids yeah okay it's not that we don't investigate it we always investigate it it's just how is the outcome dealt with would it be a policeman or would it not be a police matter who gets to make that call we had a situation like this about a year ago and we asked all of the parents would you like this investigated undertile Title 9 as sexual harassment and only one parent said yes initially initially and then recanted y so the um perpetrators parents also get asked do you want this pursued no no it's the person the agreed yes that is correct okay okay I I would imagine there must be some circumstances in which it becomes a mandatory reporting issue because we're dealing with minor right it there's always when you say so so if you're looking at say the high school I see what you're saying like through DCF yes well that would be the case if like both kids weren't 13 do you know what I mean but if it were an adult perpetrating you know and thinking crime against a child High School you could have an 18year old with a correct 14 year old yes that's a totally different thing okay do I understand correctly is a legal matter a 15-year-old could perpetrate um violation of another person and it not be considered a criminal am I making sense yes okay one thing I that we think I think we tried to do was we tried to think about all of the places the ways that things could constitute sexual harassment and we talked about the language of the law saying depending on the totality of the circumstances incl cluding the severity of the conduct and its pervasiveness um and I think we were very careful when we were writing the bulleted items I was going to say something that we included or added in was including AI generated materials when we talked about suggestive objects pictures cartoons MH yes and added that in that's appreciated bringing it up to current standard that has happened in the district and kids being kids you know occasionally they will do something where you see something that's sexually suggestive or and a lot of times if you have a conversation with them administrator to to kid that stops and I think that that's why when we talk about the severity of the conduct and its pervasiveness like there's a difference between making a mistake and then doing the same same thing repeatedly so that it becomes harassment right and so I think that's why a parent has an opportunity too at some point to decide do I want this investigated is sexual harassment or do I understand that a kid has made a mistake and I just want the behavior to stop right yeah I think it's important to have that in there yes yeah all right so we will wait for that to uh come back from our legal team as well as from a circulation in the community of some sort if it's not already gone out y okay right thank you that brings us into that is a lot and it's a very heavy topic uh brings us into item C which is the school committee minutes uh Jamie that it says me but it's not really me um so I sent around the examples from different school districts that I had mentioned um over my spotty Zoom connection last time um as well as a historical example of minutes from one of our meetings um and just to reiterate what I said I think that we are doing a lot of really careful thoughtful work um making sure that we are following the budget and being mindful of how we spend and when we go into budget season with the town I think it will be beneficial to all of our work if our minutes are detailed and we are able to point back to oh we asked questions about this we were careful about this um and I think it would make sense for a minutes to come in line more with other similar districts as far as the detail level that we document since this is our official record I can say I like the examples that you provided and I do agree that the more information that we can provide in minutes I think is beneficial to both ourselves as a record and to the community who doesn't have time to watch a 3-hour video recording or the fortitude right understandably um how might this IM um impact Mrs wag wager wager your executive secretary um yeah it'll be a little more work for her would it be um Chris mentioned AI yeah there's some really great tools that will summarize bullet point it does it I mean it also gives a a transcript if anyone wants a super deep dive but in a transcript as opposed to video you can just search for keywords and right the way it works now is that after the meeting she will go back and watch the entire meeting and then take notes on it so if she's sort of expanding the summaries or you know taking more detailed notes I think that you will have increased Pages you know to the to the minutes um and it may take her longer because you know she's going to have to kind of pause and stop and think about what was just said and make sure she's capturing like the spirit or the the content of what was just put out would be curious on and I'm not as familiar with the different AI for minute taking but more so than even the transcript you said there are some that can do a little bit more of a summary yeah piece that I think makes it less labor intensive for people that would eliminate georgette's well but I think we need a human oh yeah we would definitely need a human to check AI is far from perfect um and then we don't say our names every time we speak so there's also like who's saying what and I don't know that to me who said it sophisticated yeah I'm not saying a human doesn't have to double check it to do it but I assume it would save her some time and yeah cuz I was saying her her workload pretty heavy that if we she does a lot for us can find something that would help her out on that it would be excellent there is the consideration that most uh free AI programs platforms will take anything that you feed into them to um promote their large language model learning and so we'd want to be mindful of anything that we granted it's a public meeting but to be mindful that anything that we decide we want to put into an AI to spit out output um most of the free models do take everything in so if we would purchase we would be better off well that's a there some of the platforms then have privacy protections if you're using a paid version so maybe a starting point here would be to I know that Georgette has probably seen the examples of the minutes um that were provided in the email or could have access to them to request just more information be put in and then kind of move from there and see where we're at we just and see if then if we need something more if she needs it might be good to let her take a stab at it take a stab at it and see then if it's too labor intensive if we want to move to an AI model or something else because I I don't want to I I I know that she does a lot for us but also for you um what do others think on that that makes sense um I think we'd want to really understand what's involved if we go the AI route our um Tech guy that's what I was going to say maybe somebody from the technology office could be assisted it sounds like you have some experience with do you have specific programs that you think or well there's two that that I've that have been used in meetings I've been at and I've been I'm stunned at how good they are I mean you can also use it and and have Georgette do her thing at the same time and just compare and say oh this AI platform this was terrible yeah doesn't work we tried forget it or wow this is great this should saved Georgette 3 hours 2 hours eight hours I don't know how long she takes to just to go through the whole thing I mean tonight is two and a half end up being two and a half three hours and take notes it's got to be five or six six hours of her time I don't know what to I don't know how to be honest with you I really don't know how much it Tak take but I'm sure it takes a long time to watch yeah yes so maybe offer that out she would prefer to it to she can take use her own judgment as to what works for her and then come back with what we're looking at and see if it meets what work yeah and I think we we should also be mindful when we think about the AI we'll remember that Michelle mcel who's our legal council had said you have to be just be cautious that you're not creating a transcript because that's different for minutes right okay thank you thanks all right that then moves us into items by consensus okay as superintendent I recommend the school committee approve the items by consensus as outlined in your agenda and there are no minutes in there right this week so that I move to approve the items by consensus motion by Jamie is there a second second by Susan all those in favor I I okay then that moves us down uh into executive executive session so I would seek a motion to enter into executive session to comply with our act under the authority of mglc 30 S21 A2 specific to conducting strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with the Hopkinton Teachers Association because having the discussion in an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the school committee's bargaining position and then we'll adjourn in executive session which means for folks at home we will not be returning um here to the public some moved motion by Susan second second by Chris all those in favor oh wait actually we're going do a roll call sorry my bad Kyla yes Chris yes Susan yes Jamie yes and I am a yes and we are adjourned in new executive session at 7:32 thank you all for tuning in 93 and 9:32 it's been uh thank you all for tuning in to watch uh our meeting tonight another and good luck for stimulating session does anybody want Com or change your special getal office negotiations not the they yeah e