##VIDEO ID:lTDzY2UULZk## right well wait until I start baking for theid I will bring [Music] [Music] them are you going to go to the youth student representative yeah I want to I have a fitness assessment that morning but it's pretty early yeah they're kind of like a little all right is everybody ready ready I need to get short bread recipe good evening and welcome to the Thursday November 14th 20124 regular meeting of the school committee we will be uh having an executive session as well at the end of the meeting but for now I would invite those in the audience to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance IED Al to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right welcome to everybody uh and for those who are here in the studio just want to remind everybody that we are not only being broadcast by hcam but we are also being recorded so that people may watch it at another time as well um so our first item is public Comon I don't know I know you guys are here for other stuff but I don't know if you want to make a public comment as well let me see if all right then that moves us into recognitions are there any recognitions that anybody has that they would like to share I can't read that bar okay then that moves us into reports and Savannah you are up um to start off we had Homecoming on the 26th of October and we had a lot of volunteers from underclassman grades help give out the neon bracelets and sell tickets at the door the student council did a great job setting up the athletic center that day and we had a pretty good turnout at homecoming and lot of people stayed till the very end and offered to help clean up which made it nice and fast we also celebrated Halloween on the 31st and the participation from teachers that Wednesday so the science department in particular did their annual um collaboration with the serenity house and they raised over $600 to make and distribute blankets for everyone that needed one the Spanish Department decorated their wing with an ofrenda and other things to celebrate deis moros and this was planned and put together by the Spanish club who is working towards becoming an Honor Society in the second semester finally we had senior Halloween and in Flex block all the seniors went down to the athletic center and to they showed off their costumes and awards were given out and I believe both hcam and HHS TV did coverage of that if you guys want to see my costume um next I wanted to mention Athletics because fall Sports just finished up in all of their playoffs so the girls field hockey team and volleyball team made it the farthest to the Elite 8 and the girls soccer team went to the round of 16 I believe that football and cross country are the only teams that are still practicing because we have the Thanksgiving game coming up which is at home this year that's exciting and cross country is training for all states while playoffs also means that preseason for winter sports is approaching so winter sports and captains are starting to plan preseason and some of the captains practices have started the night of the 5th from 7:00 to 9: Mr simos and Mr mvy from the history Department held an election night watch party um for their government and Law class classes and anyone else who wanted to join the school provided pizza and students got to watch CNN in one room and Fox News in the other we also hosted our own student election and discussed the data of those results in the next class over the course of the year and particularly now something that's the staff has pushed and the students at HHS have understood and respected is civil discourse the days following the election results HHS maintained a respectful environment and understood the value of being sensitive to everyone's emotions as well as seeking and being open into opportunities to talk about it I personally found a lot of value in the socratic seminars that we do in class not only politics wise but in general I think they provide great insight to other perspectives and the opportunity for civil arguments that don't disrupt the peacefulness of the classroom this week during Flex block Juniors have been doing Junior seminar and continue their conversation to get ready for senior year and postsecondary plans this includes standardized testing creating a common app login and creating a list of colleges if applicable some of the events that HHS students are continuing to work towards are the school play and the girls football game uh the school play will occur on Friday the 22nd and the following weekend and the girls or the school yeah and the girls football game is set for the following Monday on the 25th so all the kids who are in the school play get to be in the football game this year which they didn't get to do last year which is really exciting what's the school play I think it's The Adams Family yeah it's musical right yeah I'm really excited cuz it hasn't been a musical in a long time that's what we you date for girls football again the 25th Monday yeah show up guys Halloween costume I was Theodore from Alvin and the Chipmunks We Bought microphones that had like voice changing things and then I brought a huge thing of cheese balls to school it was empty by the time I I was to ask how many did you bring home n it's great other questions yes I have one did you have some kind of recording device that did Dave civil's the or unfortunately no but I have that on record at home that's great oh my God I'm going to run into Christmas Christmas running two weekends is that right um just the Friday Saturday Sunday on the 22nd okay gotcha all right thank you that's great all right that moves us into the construction update thank thank you um so I'd like to run through both the Hopkins Construction and uh where we stand with charleswood so this is the project dashboard for Hopkins um running through quickly there's been no safety issues um the project is still on schedule with final completion ready for students um aimed for August 21st of 2026 uh the budget the budget is on track on budget we have spent 86% of that our commitments today no quality issues um we will be starting to procure the technology package that is necessary for the building and there have been no issues again as a reminder what the construction site looks like you can see in yellow the existing school and play area the gray is the driveway and the parking Loop the green is the geothermal well um field the new building site is in brown and the construction trailers have been relocated which are over here in the green they were in lock K they now are within the construction fence and lock K will be used for contractor parking um for the duration of the project can I just say that men that are working on the project are lovely I run around there in the morning and they're very c c courteous and uh very nice to everybody making sure everybody safe and thank you that's very good to hear yeah yeah thank you so looking at some of the pictures which is always exciting um this first picture on the left is the grouting of the geothermal Wells so you can see the grouting around the piping that extends out of the ground um of course in New England there is ledge removal that goes on around the geothermal wellfield these are the trenches that will carry the vertical Supply and return for the uh geothermal that will go from the wellfield to the building you can see also the foundation walls being formed in this picture these are your foundation walls and some back filling that was starting to take place this picture shows The Damp proofing of the foundation you can see the black um and then again the um back filling with stone around that foundation and this gives you this first picture gives you a sense of the the building um in relation to the existing building as well so again progress this month the geothermal well drill has been completed it has been the flushing and pressure testing is um taking place the well grouting has been completed the trenching and piping um for the vertical installation for the system is ongoing ledge hammering and removal removal is still ongoing uh again the supply and return piping installation is in progress the footings and Foundation walls have been completed the trailers again have been relocated for next month there will be more ledge removal and trenching um finishing the uh Supply and return piping completing the damp proofing at the foundation walls and back filling and beginning the underground MEP which is the mechanical electrical and plumbing installation that's not related to the geothermal well in terms of change orders you can see that at this time that has no effect so looking at the budget The Architects uh budget at this point we have spent 2.2 million which is 64% of the contract the owners project manager the OPM spent 489,000 which is 24% of the contract value and the Construction contract has spent 2.2 million which is 6% of that contract value moving into charleswood um we've completed 60% construction documents that have been submitted to the msba uh they have achieved both the planning board and conservation uh commission approval there was a geothermal testwell that was completed in October and the meepa SE which is the Massachusetts Environmental Protection act statement of environmental impact report which is a mandatory requirement for the msba so that was submitted on October 15th um expecting certification back and at this time we are not being reimbursed by the msba pending um certification for the meepa process and then that that reimbursement will begin um the project right now is trending 1.2 million under budget as of the October estimates the next major Milestones uh the general contractor and subcontractor pre-qualification process will take place similar to what we did um what you heard for the Hopkins project concom will have a public hearing on the street improvements and there's a possibility that some of that needs to go to the select board for approval as well the final estimate at 90% construction documents will happen in January of 25 with bidding documents to go out in March and April of 25 uh looking to award a Construction contract in May of 25 so looking at the two projects schedule um overlaid together you can can see the charleswood project um brings us out open to students in the first quarter of 2028 which is out here in the green you can see the building construction in the red which spans from the end of the second quarter of 25 to the beginning of the fourth quarter in 27 and then overlaid again with Hopkins um um the building addition will go through the first quarter of 26 and that is that is the addition um and then you can see the different Renovations the summer of 25 renovation and the summer of 26 renovation the building addition will be open to students at the end of the first quarter in 26 and then the full building will be open at the end of the third quarter of 26 so this just gives you um kind of a relative visual of where the two building projects line up um and again the last um piece for Hopkins is relocating those modular from the Elmwood School which you can see down here in the red happens after charleswood would be open to the students quarter one is start of the school year is that how quarter one is calendar oh it's calendar so was it cor we operate on a fiscal year but the rest of the world operates on a calendar year right is it correct that um like June of 2025 will be groundbreaking for charleswood charleswood yes okay yep so the students will be moving in to charleswood in January of 2028 the actual it's open to students when we do that transition has not been decided okay meaning that that just means the building is ready for students question about the the $1.2 million under budget because that always sounds like good news um is that taking into account not only the timeline but also the amount that's completed on the project do you know I mean like isn't an Apples to Apples comparison or are there things that haven't been done that would have been projected to have been done well this is charleswood sorry I'm back on I I'm still back on Hopkins yes oh okay um so you're looking at the you're looking at what has been done what has been and what has been estimated thank you MH any other questions is this the timeline that we always had heard or is this um is the timeline shifted at all this is the timeline that has always been public all right there are no other questions or comments I will um we can move on to the superintendent's report okay there we go all right so thank you this is a superintendent report for November 14th 2024 and all I have for you tonight is just a little smattering of the professional development day so while all of our kids are at home you're probably wondering what are the teachers and Par professionals and administrators doing in the hopkington public schools we can just give you a little glimpse into that um and thank you to Mr lead who really is in charge of arranging this day and I think what we tried to do this year was to make sure that people were um kind of immersing themselves in things that were really close to their discipline or the kind of work that they uh are most likely to do in the hopkington public schools um so the first slide that you see there are our uh music educators and they went off to the LSD um and I think that that is learning for staff development opportunities uh and it looks like they engaged and a lot of music making and I think probably a lot of fun our Visual Arts teachers so these are both K to2 groups of they went to the Danforth museum at Framingham State University and that it was very nice because you could see pictures also that I'm not posting where they talked about how they would modify the kinds of instruction that they do for esol students students on IEPs and um to sort of grow their cultural proficiency this this was a really nice day for them our BTE folks um business Technology and Engineering led by uh Doug Scott they went off to MIT our guidance counselors uh behind the scenes they actually established relationships with all the area colleges so when we have a student who's looking to go to one of those schools we kind of had a connection there uh the looking at these photos it was kind of fun if they weren't standing in front of the college sign it was almost like a wear's Waldo opportunity so in the upper left they're at Mass Maritime if you can't tell by the great big ship in the background our K to5 teachers they spent some time on literacy and then um the other half of their day was given to new science curriculum uh so you can see that in the center on the bottom left photo they are seated in a circle and they are practicing what we will expect our K to5 kids do something called science talks and it's pretty amazing when you can actually see six-year-old children talk about science in ways that are inquiry based and then on the rightand side you can see some of our teachers and they had made oble and then the question was is it a liquid or a solid what is h cornstarch and water thank you very much gucky kind of when you touch it English teachers don't make those kinds of they do we make words Sal because there's a book that accompanies that a Dr Seuss book every time so your English teacher could oh really I just that's called that yeah I should make some a copy of the book all right our par professionals and I think they were our B Paris and C Paris they were part of a book study uh the book was entitled lost at school uh and then in the right hand photo that is very large the Middle School folks did a whole series of sort of literacy based things so in the morning they got refamiliarizing with um star record book and they did look at both Ela scores and math scores uh we're really being very careful to progress monitor this year our students that we think are not performing at grade level so that we're measuring the interventions that we're trying however in this particular photograph um Julie Matson who is the 6 to8 literacy director is talking to all of our disciplines about doing instructional read alouds so really how do you kind of mimic for kids what would be going on in your brain while you were reading a particular passage so it kind of grows their reading skills because you're modeling that for them and we do that in science social studies math Ela we do across the board uh we had a session entitled where cognitive science neuros neuroscience and reading meet um that on the right is Beth Callahan and on the left is Sher Kent she's our new K to 5 Ela director um and they spent a lot of time thinking about how reading takes place in the brain and then how that translates to what happens in the classroom and those are the ones that uh I'm showing you I will tell you that Mr labrad and I did a riveting inquiry based social studies if we do s so ourselves uh presentation with the grade four and five teachers uh really unpacking those social studies standards in the afternoon so overall it was really a super great day the high school teachers were like really drilling down into Data by Department um and uh I met with Sarah Ellum who is the English department chair or the subject matter leader for ELA this morning and we got to see her data as well as the math data we had a math team group yesterday and Carla Chris auli who is the math department chair at the high school is really showing us you know how growth looks in particular courses and when you take a look at a course and you see that the growth is pretty consistently low what we're thinking that across the board is that that rigor in that classroom could be raised we actually have a foundations class and in that foundations class there are seven students and they are struggling Learners and when we looked at their SGP scores uh they started at 58 and went all the way to 98 so if those kids are landing in the almost 60th to 100th you know sort of percentile or 99th percentile those kids are doing amazing work in that class so it really gives us a sense of if you wer doing uh had great growth is it because we are missing a particular thing or is it because we need to bring up the rigor in the entire course so great work all around on the PD day and I think that um you guys probably enjoyed your day away thoroughly enjoyed my day glad to hear that wonderful any questions all right that moves us then into the school committee chair report uh payroll warrants s 25009 and s24 26v have been approved warrs 25-33 s 25-34 s 25-35 s and 25-3 6s and 25-0 38s um they're all included in the folder are there Lea on reports that people have to share I have a question um the marathon fund we there was a the letter is that me I do believe that is you I think that that is I thought that that that we didn't have and they haven't met yet we saw that in so I wrote down the date so great okay thank you uh Turf committee we met last two weeks ago and then had a followup meeting with uh Ricky and John um to discuss uh some plans to try and uh generate additional Revenue with the turf fields all the fields the um field three I think it's the stadium field football yeah is the football field I think it's I think it's field I think it's field three they that needs a new track they want to Turf it um and there was uh Ricky had a good idea to try and uh leverage the relationship with the VA a and some of the sponsors of the marathon to do some fundraising um and then also try and figure out ways again to maximize the use of the fields when the schools and the town internal program isn't using it to generate Revenue to then cover um upkeep of the fields um so um they have a plan in place and it was a productive meeting and the first meeting I had been to and there's two a year so I'll report back in the spring what's happening but um I I think there's a good plan in place and I think Ricky is on top of trying to figure out how to get um more use out of the fields upkeep pay for the upkeep and um give the schools uh more time on the field as well as some of the Town programming as well so um so the Happ running club does a workout in the track every Tuesday morning at 6:00 a.m. they could be a good partnership okay yeah as well okay yeah I'll pass that along to Ricky um yeah it's a little unique that uh parks and wreck and I might I if I get this right the height the the school um have some oversight together um the high school's in charge of the fields behind the high school do I have that correct and then and wreck also um has some oversight of trying to rent those and working together and um there's some discussion about having a using a platform so that everyone town and wreck in the school can see who's on them when's it open can we start renting those out more um and and trying to generate additional Revenue so uh I thought it was productive meeting and keep everyone posted great yeah thank you anybody else I know um there was an lpac or there's an lpac uh meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning I've been in touch with Jen suker about that um I'm not able to attend because it conflicts with another meeting I have to attend um but it's happening and then the next youth commission meeting happens the same night as the Wizards game that I'm taking my kids to um but I might be able to call in for half an hour but I'm in touch with Don Alcott for any of those updates when is the youth commission meeting it is and do you want somebody to try to to cover in your place sure um the 20 it's next week Wednesday at 6:30 it's a virtual is there anybody that has availability we can discuss offline sorry what night that the Wednesday at 6:30 Wednesday the 20th same time as the Wizards game if you're going the Harlem Wizards it's like the oh yeah okay okay I was thinking I I don't follow NBA no it's a it's a fun and I'm thinking Washington Wizards and it's a great fundraiser for the PTO oh okay where is it it's at the high school high school high school it's really fun you should come or you should go to the use commission I may be out of town so I don't yeah all right that then if there are no other liaison reports um moves us into uh Susan if you want to introduce the um the yearly update C packs yes um several years ago there was some um acrimony between CPAC and the committee a lot of misunderstanding so studies were done and agreements were reached and twice a year CPAC comes and sit down sits down discusses with us what's going on and what needs to be improved and how things are operating and uh as the lia all my role is to be present at uh CPAC meetings and invents in order to provide you guys with information and to get get a sense of the quality of the interactions and so tonight Jen H chairman of CPAC the special education parents advisory committee and her Merry band of Warriors um I know Erica I'm not sure Melissa Melissa okay and do you have enough name cards okay we got our name cards okay Aliss Melissa's got one good great how did your presentations in Canada go Nova Scotia Jen they went quite good oh I guess I have to be connected to the internet we see it that's right BL TV I don't think you need to it's showing uh it's showing but it's small it's not CLI slideshow because it won't connect it's robot B9 what up the Wi-Fi if you guys want to slide your name plates out a little Ang it will be helpful for um any news media yeah I was thinking people watching if they want to quote you guys or something robot B9 I believe and then the password well they're trying to get in um Jen was asked to present Wii umer if you can a very uh to to present in Nova Scotia for teachers on interactions with uh parents and um special education students and uh I think I reported back that I sat through her pre practice presentation and it was outstanding so she I think she was warmly received up there even though it was cold it it went very good yes and I wasn't there as an officer C Paco is there as a parent uh you know there's what life is like and uh constructive feedback for teachers of what parents would like them to know awesome have child with special needs I had heard you were doing that and I was not able to go to the practice but I know that you're a wonderful presenter so I'm sure that it would I think yes and I love it so much you always say that but you do a nice job you're you're stalling and you're keeping me up here sorry no just just as as side I think that AG cam should have you present that that I think there would be a lot of people in the community who might be interested I don't know if you would be interested in sharing it that wide of an audience I I I would do it per in person but I don't know if I would want it recorded mostly because um I'm talking about my kids yeah and there's videos too and it gets out yeah yeah I I don't know if I'd feel super I'd be more than happy if you felt it would be a benefit of I I think it would be a tremendous benefit okay welcome hi good evening I'd like to thank the school committee for offering us a chance to speak tonight regarding Hopkinson CPAC CPAC is your special education parents advisory Council my name is Jen Halliday I'm the CPAC chair with me to tonight is Melissa Shear our CPAC Vice chair as well as Erica seikel our events coordinator uh tonight we'd like to cover a few things um firstly I would like to introduce you to our six member board and and then we'll talk about our vision community outreach efforts and finish with our next steps towards the future as a board so our CPAC is a wonderful group of individuals who each bring something different to the table from left to right is me Jen I'm the chair and outside of that I'm a retired orthotist and the mother of two high schoolers my oldest is now a senior he's on an IEP and he attends the high needs Learning Center at hopkington high school I'm also the liaison to the 18 to 20 program next is Melissa our vice chair she's an attorney and a 15-year resident of hopkington as well as a mom to a middle schooler and a high schooler Melissa is liaison to the middle school middle school right looks like she's also a parent to two dogs yes yes that's right too too very loud dog next is Nicole leblan our secretary Nicole thought she could take a break from us but it turns out she just couldn't quit us we actually uh had to have her come out of retirement help us out cuz uh one of our board members moved out of state so Nicole is the mom of one and he attends Hopkins school and uh she's also the liaison at uh at Hopkins and on the bottom row we've got Karen lamb our education chair Karen recently moved back to Massachusetts from Singapore and Doven with both feet to make Hopkinson a better place for kids she's a digital strategist and has one daughter who whom she refers to as neuros spicy Karen is the liaison to the high school next we have Erica everyone's favorite Rockstar events coordinator she's a pharmacist and a care partner to two kids one of whom is a medically complex kindergartner who attends the education collaborative Erica's uh liaison to Marathon school and lastly but not leastly we have Megan oo our media coordinator and she's a mom of three she works in information security and is a self- declared playground expert which is great because she was able to represent families as a member of the accessible playground committee Megan uh also is a leaon of Elmwood School so each of us brings specific and complimentary abilities to the table and it makes CPAC what it is so the vision of CPAC um being a parent is heard and add to that being the parent of uh a child or children with special needs at a whole it adds a whole new layer of challenges like you planned your trip to Italy and you ended up in Holland uh you need a whole new guide book and you need support from people who have been there navigating the school system for our children can be overwhelming and getting the right support can often be frustrating that's why CAC is here and what helped me the most as a parent of a child with a disability were the connections that I made with other moms and dads who were experiencing similar struggles people who I could lean on to ask questions to talk about the real parts of parenting that often is too difficult or uncomfortable to talk to parents of typical kids um you know parents you can share anything without feeling that you're being judged for your parenting like oh my kid ate a paper clip today or whatever um a common feeling for parents of disabled kids is a feeling of uh isolation so my social connections with parents who get it it's more effective than therapy for me and I consider my role in CPAC as an important job I don't want other families to feel alone as they navigate the world for their children so our aim with CPAC is to create a safe space for parents in a casual setting where parents can relax and share their stories the good and the bad with other parents without judgment Hopkinson CPAC is like a family ready to cheer one another on through the ups and downs of Life what exactly is the CPAC CPAC is different from other parent Le groups like the PTO every public school system in the Commonwealth is required by law to have a CPAC we're State mandated partner of the district CPAC represents families of children on IEPs and 504s in hopkington and as of today the numbers are if I'm if I stand corrected uh 602 uh children on IEPs 212 on 504s 34 out of District placements and that's were representing basically 14% % of the student population so the mission of CPAC we have four tentacles uh bring together the parents and the school administration to provide direct input on all matters related to the education and safety of students with disabilities deepen the trust between parents and administration by collaborating together on Solutions provide workshops resources and a supportive Network to empower parents to become effective advocates for their children and lastly develop a sense of community and inclusion for all parents and children with special needs in the town of Hopkinson so now I'm going to hand it over to Melissa and she'll tell you some of the great things that we've been up to okay so I get to do the fun part talk about the events that we've done which are in a large part um due to our Rockstar event coordinator Erica next me here so she really is the force behind those in a lot of ways everyone contributes um so our events are the monthly coffee chats they're hosted at the hopkington public library um we often do have guest speakers but it's a really um lovely way to connect families and to um have those families with kids who are in IEPs and 504s in different schools kind of connect and and be a community um and get support that way and navigate um some of the common issues that parents face um and sort of outside of the you know having the kids there sort of in an adult but casual um setting and there that's actually how I found CAC it's really great um really great support for parents um we also I think it was this first time we did it right the first day of school breakfast um that was an amazing opportunity again sort of for the families to get together um summer is hard for all parents right having the kids home and unstructured time is often really hard especially for kids with special needs um so it's a it's a long haul and we sort of celebrated that by bringing the community together um having a breakfast we did one at um the spoon um and then the other one was at the library for just prek families I believe so and it was really well attended um really supportive um and great for the families um that came another way to help connect everyone um we also have our seasonal and holiday family events um that are hosted at marathon and those have been those have grown a lot um this past year really well attended um ice cream social was fun um we have our fall festival uh that we just had it was really beautiful day outside lots of families um also really important for the kiddos to connect and be together um as well we had some older kids helping out with the younger kids too so it was a really great um opportunity in that way too um we have our beers and tears at start line Brewery so again just you know a very appropriate name I think sometimes but also just a really fun way for everyone to connect and especially for those parents that aren't available during the day when we have the coffee meetups at the library um they can come in the evening after work and sort of um again connect um with the parents in their Community um and we have coming up our snowman Saturday which again is a really fun seasonal event bringing together their families and kids um in the community um in a really just fun and supportive manner where everyone can kind of just be themselves and connect and have fun and we do also oper um provide an opportunity for educational seminars co-sponsored educational seminars we have um student services 101 F fcsn basic rights Workshop um we have one of those coming up in November um understanding the new IEP which I think is going to be really important for a lot of families um in January January 14th and another important thing for special education parents bul and all parents really at this time bullying what parents need to know um February 11th so we do connect people in an educational um format as well and provide community outreach which is really fun as well we had um involvement in Pride day you can see that fun picture there Jen um extended school year picnic which is really well attended and a great um opportunity Hopkinson family day which is an awesome event that we um take part in have a booth at as well CPAC um we're at all the fall back to school nights providing answers to questions that parents might have about CPAC and how to get involved and connecting parents in that way which I think is really important at the start of the school years in each um each school we have the unified basketball Banner raising and I was really sorry to miss that one but that was an awesome um event that we had here recently really um really great and supportive for our um athletes Hopkinson playground um committee were involved in we had a submission at oh and there's Emma that's a really cute picture that's Erica's daughter it's an Adaptive swing it's an Adaptive swing and you can see just like how happy and um Jo how much joy that things to be in that um and then we had this awesome um submission for art and the trail by Nicole our secretary um and I wish I could speak a little more intelligently about it but it basically is just like about the heart and soul um just really artistic sort of representation um of people with disabilities and neurodiversity that she submitted and then we have the CPAC little Library which is such a great um thing that we installed at the um Marathon uh School basically it's a free little library that is going to have resources for the community for parents on neurodiversity mental health issues um just all sorts of resources like that that people can sort of trade and have and um yeah it's a great I don't know when we're passing off here this I did I go into your area sorry there so okay just on a rooll there because those are all fun things but um er thanks Melissa so I'm just going to talk about future development so um in the future we are planning a peer-to-peer mentorship program um this is geared towards older students as an opportunity to connect students with similar experiences and build community um in the future we're also looking to see increased participation from school committee in collaborating on addressing concerns of CPAC data requests copies of consultant reports related to special education to support the mgl mandated role of CPAC and we're Al also interested in budget previews regarding special education so we can utilize our reach to support positive reception of information among our membership so Switching gears now um we are very excited to announce project shark this year so shark is an acronym for CPAC helps add resources for kids so what is Project shark we have asked our special Educators and related service providers to make a wish list of items that would be helpful in their work with students uh with special needs so examples of these items could be Therapy Supplies items for the classroom equipment for learning ADLs so that's activities of daily life um so this is similar to how a PTO provides additional education items or supplies that transcend the school's operating budget so what is our goal with this um our goal is to is to support our Educators in the amazing work they do every day with students with special needs and disabilities um we also hope to promote awareness as well um to put a spotlight on special education the phenomenal work of our Educators and the different needs of students with disabilities so we are collecting wish list items in two ways we are using amazon.com wishlist you can find a registry uh by searching um hackington CPAC it's live right now and we also have a donation list uh for gently used items that we're accepting uh we're just starting this project right now and we do hope that many families um participate so next steps um we will continue to partner with school committee and hopkington Public School administration to improve communication and rebuild trust uh we will continue to reach out to families and find out how to best support them and we will also um identify systemic challenges because more feedback translates to better coordinated work in our Partnerships and so that takes us to the last slide um we're happy to take any questions at this time and for those tuning in at home we can be reached at CPAC Hopkinton gmail.com or on Facebook and we also have a website um thank you for having us today Jen could you go back a couple slides sides uh on Erica's uh forward a couple where were things that you would like to see more from the school committee on um how can we go about helping you with those things I don't think we need we are anytime we've asked for something in the you know near near days um we've gotten what we need okay so just when we reach out that we um get an answer basically okay um you would also like us to be able to to preview to you what what we're looking at in terms of budget on special education it's nice to have a heads up even the day before it hits the papers kind of thing just to absolutely especially if it's something where there usually is an explanation behind you know decisions and things like that and gives us a little bit of time to Workshop how to how to uh talk to the community voted yeah because I I think that the connection between CPAC and school committee and I'm not sure that I always am serving as the pipeline so anything I need to be doing better I would like we definitely and we have our meetings every month too right and that's you know um everything's been going great okay with the meetings so I feel like communication is there okay yeah because that's part of what this is supposed to do is to make sure that if there are rough edges they they get smoothed out and everything so and technically you guys should know before it shouldn't come as a surprise when we're here you know we would have already discussed any issues yes before getting to the I have a small question um the gently used donation is where is that list physically exist so uh we're rolling out with the project um very soon we're going to email that out um we'll probably post that on Facebook and on our website as well that's great and I love the Amazon wish list yep so that'll be specific also to each School too because you know different ages and stuff so yeah and this isn't something that's we're just doing for a month or two this is going to be an ongoing uh drive to to get and it's not stuff the teachers need to have it's kind of like a a want to have be nice to have you know wouldn't it be nice if we had this in the classroom you know so um and a lot of times we know teachers buy stuff for their classrooms that are their own pocket money so we just want to help a little bit and with when you think of of teachers of typical classes it's a lot more students you know you a special education teacher might not have so many students as a full classroom but they probably work twice as hard so they don't get their recognition you know Christmas Time end of the year that sort of thing they don't get recognized the same as a a typical classroom teacher would I think it's great and I think a lot of people would want to be supportive of that I I think even parents who have like would see teachers that had worked with their kids in Prior years that would want to be supportive that and there's lots of kids who aren't necessarily on an IEP that might work with some of the professionals you know they might work with a speech therapist for a short time if they they need to help have helped pronouncing a a a sound you know um so these people affect all the kids in the classroom and I I often will tell people your kid can't learn if my kids have back of the class RI and the posters off the wall so the work that these people do it affects every student in the in the school district so we just want to make sure that they're recognized and we'll we'll focus on each month we might uh focus on one specific Department oh did you know that we had this in the school you know for myself we didn't even know um really what a nurse did until this year we had some medical issues and and now um my son goes to the nurse every day but before then we went through well 13 years of school and the only time was one time D lost a tooth and he came home with a little Treasure Chest oh yes only time only time we had any any um interaction with a school nurse so it's it's amazing and you don't realize how important they are until you actually need them so we want to make sure that we focus on on parts of the school that people might not know about but are very important that's great I will look for that on social media and other and try to share it as much as I can in my thank you I appreciate that where at Marathon is the little Library if people wanted to go look in behind you have to go all the way into where by the it's right next to the Buddy bench yes yes but it can be moved we designed it with that purpose that it's it could be put on a dolly and moved to other places it will never be in the way it'll never be in the way yes exactly so um and if we find that it's not going getting a lot of traffic there we might move it to another spot but for now it's it seems to be pretty good how do you determine traffic by how many books you're missing you have a camera on it right yes we do we have several cameras on te I pulled up the wish list and I just want to note that there are items that are like as low as like $3 um and up so I love that it's a really access ible way for parents and families to support the work of our Educators I know that like every class my kids have been in we will you know send things in from wish list and our special Educators don't don't always have that option um to reach the parents so easily what would you say your percent increase in event attendance has been over the LA like compared to a year ago and compared to two years ago I would say it's double of what it was last year to it but we we ran out of pumpkins at the fall H Festival it was very well and we had how many pumpkins we had many almost a hundred I don't know if people they were there were small pumpkins so I don't know if some people took more than one but it I felt bad cuz we were we didn't have enough but but now we will be prepared going forward so so over a 100 pumpkins worth of attendees and I didn't let my kids take pumpkins because like we're going to get our own like we don't need to use now who has the backyard to be growing next year's miniature pumpkin you'd have one shriveled up one if it was me anyone else so appreciate you guys coming out um thanks for having us thanks for putting us towards the beginning because it it does we have kids with a pretty strict bedtime routine I completely understand that no appreciate it thanks to see you guys nice to see you as well thank you thanks thank you you tomorrow morning have a good evening we doer oh it's over isn't it it's okay the next is a pair of professional request for Elmwood and I would invite Mrs hansum up to discuss that hello hello hello speaking of the devil I know right thanks Susan you're most welcome but that was a lovely presentation great partnership uh thank you for having me this evening so um I think you have the memo in the packet so I can give a quick summary if that makes sense that would be great um so I'm here tonight uh in partnership with Mr bringer who could be here this evening um because the Elmwood Elementary School is requesting the addition of 1.0 FTE ABA par professional which we call a par professional level C um in order to meet the IEP needs uh present at the school specific to students with intensive needs um related to the population of students as we now have it here in November and as you guys know we budget very early and lots of moving parts and lots of changes with kids and families and everything and so at this time we are requesting the addition of this FTE I wanted to highlight the budget piece that's in the memo just um for folks at home who may be not following along but just that the cost is going to be supported by the grant um the Ida Grant this year and then it will be it looks like offset by the circuit breaker in FY 26 is that partially I think that you can anticipate that the budget request coming forward would poten include it in the future I want to be honest and say the circuit breaker provides a a proportion of reimbursement um but it isn't a total reimbursement um we are being more aggressive with our claiming for IND District expenses and this is an excellent example of the return on investment you can get from circuit breaker for IND District costs um and this will certainly be included in our claim this spring Abby could you remind me what circuit breaker money is oh Susan that's a big question I'll try my best um I'm probably not the only one yep so broadly speaking just like in your house if the electricity exceeds the power of your circuit panel you have a circuit breaker that assists in managing that load circuit breaker is the name that we use in Massachusetts for the mechanism the legislature developed to offset very high costs for students with disabilities so circuit breaker is a term of Art in the field and um essentially it allows uh after a very rigorous claiming process for a a community to receive a reimbursement a percent one year in a re of the expense so we will claim this spring for expenses and then the money will come in for the following year which is pretty accurate I do the the only thing is it has to be over and above a threshold that is established for circuit breaker so the first 38 or 40,000 the district owns over and above that can be reimbursed to 70% was a part of that because of um when you need to send you have students that have to go out of the district my my mind was somehow thinking that was invol it's not just that it's as um as Miss hansom said it's high cost okay so it's quite frequent that um uh par professional with the expertise of an ABA par professional will trigger the circuit breaker um and then additional services and we um claim down to like the minute of service and so that's part of my job every June is to uh produce that claim and then we hear over the summer what the amount is and we plan for the following year so it isn't a rear reimbursement okay excellent thank you very much you're welcome I would just um say that I just want to be thoughtful and and um say that I think this is a request that is made very thoughtfully by the The Faculty at Elmwood and is intended to both support individual students but programming and and staff as well appreciate that question I guess for Susan just because we're talking about the circuit breaker if my recollection was the year that the tuition special education tuition jumped up so much there was there a change in the way that the circuit breaker the threshold I feel like was changed a little bit in the percentage threshold changes every year and the percentage that it is funded changes every year it all it's all part of the state budget so sometimes it can be a very low reimbursement percentage and sometimes you know they'll get us up to that 75 but you don't know until they pass and we have to spend the money before they and then you spend you know we know what it is yeah so well we budget for what so we know what we're receiving this year and that is what we'll use as our offset next year so we never budget until we know what that money is thank you any other question do we anticipate any problems with hiring this individual they're highly Specialized or highly sought after hiring is better okay than it has been and I am confident that if we have a position we will find a skilled person that has been our pattern uh recently in and that's a lovely Improvement well I would move to approve the addition of a 1.0 level um level C pair professional for Elmwood second motion by Susan and a second by Jamie all those in favor I okay it's unanimous thank you very much thank you for your support appreciate it of course all right then that moves us into the Hopkins memory book coordinator okay so uh Mr Carter at the Hopkins school is looking for approval to at a $1,000 stipended into the budget the Hopkins school has long had sort of a a yearbook that they call their memory book and when we had Tech integration specialist the elementary Tech integration specialist would work with the kids to put that together uh when we eliminated the elementary position I think in FY 24 uh what happened was HPT parents took on the role kind of in a voluntary basis but there's too much to it and so he's looking for a stien so that a teacher in the building would be able to make that happen I have a question I'm to jump in in terms of our stiens is that stifen in line with other comparable um stiens it is and that's sort of why he had chosen that that was my hope mhm any other questions is there somebody who would like to make a motion I'll move to approve the $1,000 sement for the Hopkins me memory book coordinator okay motion by Kyla second second by Susan all those in favor I I and it is approved thank you for bringing that um forward and that moves us then into the superintendent's goals update right should be getting on that TV in a moment this where she says that she want to eliminate 95% of the previous goals yeah her hers tend to grow nut I a switch Bob thank met them all maybe maybe she has have you met them all already and the new ites my um I think that you all have access to this document because I continue to update the same one over and over again but I will reshare it with you okay um so we'll talk a little bit about the oops it's not up there there we go coming now it might do it looks promising oh well um did come through the share again for people to where oh in the did you get it your email should have the link for it just there we go oh did it just come through yeah yeah okay takes longer to get to that end of the table very long to the next all right so the first goal um is the one where we were talking about Ela and math curriculum um you may or may not know that last year we spent an awful lot of time taking a look at math scores and um how the instruction was Landing for kids who are very high performers moderate performers and low performers and so what we did was we created a class called math 6 Plus in each one of the teams at the middle school and there were about you know 24 students in those classes and those were the kids who app probably ranked in the 97th 998th and 99th percentile and it may seem unusual that we have that many kids who are in those uh percentile ranges but in fact we have them so um in addition to that we have had a math working group and now we have an Ela working group a lot of this really does have to do with the work that we're doing around mtss and so I'll start by talking about that dyslexia action plan you have access to that so you can click on it and you can see what the hopkington public schools have already achieved in that plan what we're working on and the things that we have not yet started but these uh this goal of mine is actually tied to that uh because what we're trying to do is to ensure that we are screening our kids very early on um they are doing computer-based measures so that we can really drill down and say what is the problem if kids aren't reading making a reading benchmark so for example if we are testing kids on things like CBC words and we expect that they should be able to read say 40 of them in a minute and they can read with accuracy 20 of them what we realize is that they just don't have the phonics skills that you know that automaticity about phonics so they're reading only half of them so it makes it a whole lot slower for them so then we say we need to do a whole lot more Phonics work if we realize that phonics isn't the problem but you know sort of fluency might be what we'll do is we'll have put kids on youly and we'll have them reading and reading and reading and reading the same passages kind of over and over again to gain that kind of automaticity so anyway that's what you'll see in the dyslexia action plan um the ELA group I think is what we're talking about here now y uh we have people from the high school we have central office administrators we have uh all of our building principles we have anybody affiliated with English language arts and we have teachers at different grade levels and we started together and if you click on the link that you see in here from our September 11th meeting you'll see what we did we drilled down into some data and we said you know what what this data is really telling us um is that we have a couple of issues going on one is we need to think about our kids who are on IEPs and not making growth the second is that we want to look at our kids who are scoring between 490 and $499 the cut off for Proficiency in mcast is 500 and so if you're 490 to 499 we think that those are places where kids have the aptitude but somehow there may be an instructional component that's me missing and then what we're seeing with some of our higher achieving kids is that when they get a reading score that might be 80 the writing score can be down at like 56 and it's not we don't believe the physical active writing but rather it's that when you're doing that kind of reading are you engaging in a meaning making process so you're reading one text two text three text and kind of synthesizing that information so it's more of a thinking issue than a a writing issue so those are the kinds of things that that group is working on uh I want you to know that we have not abandoned the math while we're taking that new um course configuration uh for a test drive this year the math group met on September 25th and November 13 uh we to are drilling down and now this year the group is very proficient in data use so we asked them just yesterday to bring their data and talk about what they're doing with it and so we were really able to look at how they are compiling the data and then what's happening in terms of student instruction and so if we have say 13 students in the middle school that were watching very closely after we try an intervention we can put them back on Star math and see if that intervention is promoting growth or if it is not um in terms of differentiation and co- teing our teachers uh were at the middle school we have co- teing paays they went to the accept collaborative for U some professional de velopment work this summer with a woman whose name is Lisa deaker that's her area of expertise she does uh co- teing and she figures out ways to make sure that they're using the six different C- teing models and that they have a means to communicate even if they don't always have professional collaboration time uh the admin team is doing Middle School walkthroughs of math classrooms as well as the ELA classroom we have a woman who's name is Jennifer St John and she's working directly with the entire uh group of Math teachers to think about different ways to differentiate their uh instruction in our classrooms because as we've said even though we have taken the 9798 99th percentile kids out there still a really big swath of Learners so that you have some kids who are struggling in some kids who have very very high math skills and so how do we make sure that within a single math classroom all of the needs are being met and then um the last on the professional development day we did not have a picture of that in my slideshow but Nicole Murray did a uh co- teing PD entitled are we co- teing or taking turns because sometimes we do have people who are both involved in the lesson and one person says something and the other person says something else but it doesn't necessarily mean that that co- teing model is offering what we would call specially designed instruction um and then finally star record book has been presented to all of the schools uh the cbms have been done K to five and I think the teachers who are teaching students who have uh presented with CBM needs are um they they've got an intervention in place now we'll see how that goes and then star was represented to all of the Middle School departments um early in the morning on November 5th I'm sorry what's the CBM a computer based measure no curriculum based meas I'm sorry yeah all right uh so we can move to the next goal which was uh kind of helping our kids grow um socially emotionally and behaviorally and to make sure that we are validating our kids identities along the way uh most of this work is taking place at the secondary level the Metro West adolescent Health survey we should be getting that data uh very soon our Pathways after graduation we do have that uh data and we should be able to synthesize that make that information available to the community we have a fellow she is is involved in a PhD program at Harvard her name is Alicia Williams and part of her fellowship with us is going to be to assist Mr lead and me in the myap program at the high school that started through a grant a couple of years ago and we are thrilled to have Alicia working with us because she brings amazing talent and she does at the very very low cost of free free so yes my cap review what that means again so it's my um career and academic and so it's a structure uh that the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and secondary education has rolled out um and has strongly urged uh various school districts to to take a look at program is the the P I say yeah yeah okay and um and is encouraging us to you know has encouraging districts to consider that as a structure for supporting students as they start to plan their their postsecondary experiences uh Mr Le actually put a group of teachers together who got a lot of PD on this last year and the sort of culminating activity was to analyze the things that are in place right now even if they are not sort of collected under one umbrella at the high school and we really are doing a lot of those things it will just be nice to codify some of that and the last thing that Mr labrad reminds me of all the time is that this is really for every student so you kind of start your career trajectory planning when you're even in middle school and you know that becomes an iterative process so kids keep changing that up as they go and I know that that is something Savannah that never happened for you so oh so it's not available to aging out I'm done I'm pass you're done we didn't help you with a career choice at all the good thing about about what we found when those when that those the group of teachers that the superintendent was referencing found was that we have so many pieces of good things so Savannah is definitely better benefited from things from middle school onward um but what we're trying to do right now is make sure that um everything has legs so that it will go on forever won't be a one-off and that we're doing it in the most efficient and effective way that we can sounds good all right the HSA which is the holistic student assessment and that really helps us to uh see what kinds ofal competencies our kids are coming in with it's really not a deficit but an asset-based model um so we are looking to see you know our kids able to self-regulate that they have social interaction interpersonal communication are they um able to assert themselves as needed and so we did get um that first round of administration completed in November and our kid our administrators will soon have that data and that data does inform curricular modifications but it also helps our counselors to work with students who um demonstrate individual needs what level is that given to from grade four on grade yep 4 to 11 y we don't do it with the seniors because they won't be here for the next time it's taken took the HSA this year seniors took it this year oh maybe the fall yeah they wouldn't take it this spring and there isn't something comparable to the younger grades yeah it does the same kind of measuring yeah yeah starting in fourth grade you're talking about pre young yeah know so the um the HSA is not designed for any child under under the fourth grade level oh that's too bad it seems like self-regulation starts before fourth grade oh instructing along that absolutely begins far beyond HS measures we can't measure it not using this tool we can't uh all right the cell phone protocols it feels at least to our administrators and this is really just anecdotal right now um but they feel like it has been very successful at the middle school really those kids are cell phone free all day so that that shows pretty good um and teachers are reporting that they are far more attentive in class good uh I think you saw the cry up in everyone's School Improvement plan so you know that that's there and the work to ensure that you know our teachers are implementing culturally responsive strategies whether it's instructional or communicating with families uh that's ongoing and when we did our PD day we asked people to kind of tie in the cry off as appropriate and to tie in mtss which is the multi-tiered system system of support for kids uh very good news um at black prince recommendation um they had suggested that we should select a tool to vet our curriculum um we are still working on that and we did get a $116,000 grant from Senate of spilka spilka and um part of that will be used to train more people in the restorative practice as we do that through suffk University we made a very good dent in it in past years and this money just keeps sustaining that program so more and more people continue to be trained uh Jen suker still doing a great job with um parent family and community outreach um she meets with a lot of families individually as they arrive and they need help navigating our uh school system and very often you know it's Jen who's setting up meetings where there have to be um translators or interpreters um let's see yep I think we already saw Abby here tonight and I know that we've talked about the things that Jen does with her elpac folks both of those groups had a really nice uh fall event this year and I think we put that in the previous superintendent report uh we now have another subgroup who is identified as disproportionate so one of the things that Mrs hansam does is she works very hard to ensure um that we are making Corrections around that disproportionality you know that last year we talked about the fact that we had um a disproportionate number of white students identified with a specific learning disorder namely dyslexia we weren't sure if that was because of the screening that has been taking place here for a few years now um but now we also have an overidentification of Asian students in intensive special needs classrooms so um and then the last one is um about my blogs many of them do have to do with social emotional uh learning and behavior and cultural proficiency so you can click on those and take a look at them sort of at your leisure we can move into goal number three where do you post your blogs oh emailed yeah we send them out an email but they're also on the district website so you can go back in and when there are some here that when you click on it it will look like it doesn't match to the right date it's because you have to scroll down okay one of the things I would love to do is change that so that you could just go and get the title of them and just keep clicking on them but right now it's just a running scroll and that's the way the website is set up W I missed the email all right goal number three is just continuing to address enrollment growth um building use and expansion um and just making sure that um we are updating the community on those construction projects thinking about um how enrollment in academic and seal needs of our schools can be uh met through some of those building processes and so the first one is to work with the assistant superintendent for finance and operations Mrs rmck and the director of facilities Mr person to continue to educate the community on the in progress building projects you saw tonight that Mrs rmck brought you um some information on that um monitoring enrollment growth we do that at I don't know maybe every third meeting we take a look at where we are with enrollment growth um it has since the last time I talked to you about it it's a little bit flat right now um the 5-year Capital plan you know that you vote on that and you will vote on that only for FY 26 but we keep carrying it out and you and you know we update it accordingly we think about things like how much money has the town sort of authorize us to spend and I use authorize in air quotes um and then we think about what are our needs just in terms of the buildings because we want to make sure that we are keeping our physical plants up to date and making sure that they are safe to be inhabited by students and faculty uh we want to make sure that our projects are on time and on budget you can see that we're currently meeting that goal based on what Mrs ramc shared tonight um creating and pass a budget that carefully analyzes the needs for increased Personnel based on enrollment and you're going to start to see those those presentations at our next meeting next week behind the scenes the building principles and all of the directors have been working super hard to whittle those budgets down to the things that are need to haves and then over two years time looking at grades 2 to four curricula um I don't know if this group is aware but when we first started working with the msba and we submitted the educational plan for the new elenwood school now the charleswood school one of the things that the msba really demanded was that because that building is going to be shifting uh they wanted to make sure that we had new science and new social studies curriculum that the physical plant could really contribute to in ways that the current Elmwood School cannot um and you'll see that we have also built physical plants where we have spaces for one adjustment counselor for grade level one assistant principal for grade level and we're going to need to get there when we have 400 kids at a grade um so Mr labrad is doing amazing work with um a curriculum now called children discovering justice among other things in social studies and we also have a consultant working with us so that we are changing the science curriculum to really be Hands-On experiential and um inquiry based and so little by little we'll be putting in a new unit and taking one out and then putting in a new one but we don't want to overwhelm our faculty and staff by changing it wholesale all at once you know the finding is that it doesn't really work when you overwhelm people with entirely new curriculum leave them them something they're comfortable with stretch them and then leave them something they're comfortable with so that is the plan all right and then finally the last goal was the one where I was kind of stretching myself in terms of leadership oops I'm sorry that's just more on where am I here my oh sorry go four um yeah I apologize I skipped right over a go four uh so this is the one where we are thinking about the climate in the district uh you know that we are now immersed in contract negotiations with the HTA and pretty soon it will also be the cafeteria the custodians and the nurses and so um you want to make sure that you are working a very positive climate uh when you are going through a negotiation cycle because sometimes that work can become very stressful but also that District climate team was put into place a year ago and um this year we have 7even me meeting set we have already had our October and November meetings uh we have some things that we're doing in place for example um the teachers last year said it would be really nice to see the administration more frequently in our building and so Mr LeBron and I are out in the buildings more frequently I have a running list that you can take a look at of when I'm visiting buildings and if I am meeting with par professionals or teachers or nurses in those settings you get to kind of see how that's that's playing out and sometimes it's planned and sometimes it's just super organic which is I think really nice um we've had two meetings this year the first one we really talked about something that we wanted to leverage and then the last one which was just last Friday we talked about um someone who had worked in another District did something along the lines of storying and we are really encouraging our people to kind of highlight those things in our buildings that make hopkington hopkington and because we have a district climate team that goes all the way from Marathon school to the 18 to 22 program what happens at the marathon school isn't always known to someone who's at Hopkins or to someone who's at the high school and we are thinking about ways to talk about the things that our kids carry as a result of something they've experienced or um just something amazing that's unique to Hinton um and so we're hoping that this is going to be way for us to expose our culture as well as some of the very cool things that we do I've already talked about kids social emotional and behavioral needs and um I can present to you some of the climate team uh activities I hope that we're going to start seeing some of those writing pieces come out of the work and then you know that in the summertime we had our admin Council two-day Retreat the admin Council meets regularly and we can share with you some of the admin Council agenda so that you can see maybe some of the team building things we do in that setting as well um and then finally this is the last one uh where I talked about just stretching myself in leadership places as you know I'm chairing the board of directors at the accept collaborative this year uh you can I can share with you all of those meeting agendas um and there's an awful lot of work that goes into I think budgeting there um as well as the transportation subcommittee we are one of the primary users of accept transportation and what we're trying to do is streamline that a little bit this year because right now the way the billing works at except is that you know if Susan the van comes and picks you up and you uh r a single Rider there's a single Rider fee and then if it takes you 13 1 12 miles they take you a 13 1 12 miles and they charge us a you know per mileage fee for that but every one of those Riders has a unique Bill and it is overwhelming to the except Transportation billing uh team and it's overwhelming when it comes into districts so if we have say 40 Riders through except our people in central office are going through each one of those bills sort of with a fine tooth comb and it's not working great for districts and it's not working great for excepts so those are some of the things that we are hoping to bring to fruition you'll be happy to know the transportation it accept is still working at a profit um because that's helpful to all of the collaborative member district and of course that's us um we are working with um oh I'm still on the ma professional development subcommittee I am a member of the Tri County superintendence and we are working on our concussion subcommittee the next item on tonight's agenda is to look at that policy again and our subcommittee has asked if this group would hold on voting on that policy till they match it up to the protocols and the things that they have in practice just in case they want to further inform policy so we'll talk about that in a moment um and then the last one is the districtwide crisis guide we realized that our crisis guide while it had been updated in dribs and drabs really needed a good look so I had an initial meeting with um Mr Bishop Mr go Dr go and Mrs um dbo and the three of us got together and I chose them because they had the most institutional memory about the way uh the crisis uh team and the crisis guide had worked here in hopkington so they each took a portion of that everybody on the admin team was part of this process now we have three pieces of it that has had at least a first pass of revisions lots of questions embedded in there and I will meet again with them and we'll go through our revision process and then bring it back to the team and then bring it to the school safety task force so that's where we are with all of that and I don't know if you have questions about some of those things but I think that gives you a little bit of an update on on on my work so far great are there questions okay I sorry yes um I'm really interested to learn more about the climate team and the climate survey um is there I dat that we can read think Jamie that you can take a look um let me see I thought that I had at some point oh chrisis is the one above oh no wonder I'm not finding it U yes so the district climate team there's a request to participate that you can take a look at first meeting welcome there's the running agenda here and um I think in that running agenda you will be able to also click on the results of those surveys okay so the AG like when I looked at the agenda it just it looks more like notes or is this the are the notes taken in the agenda or like who's the I I can't tell okay so this up on the screen um so in this last one this one is is a little bit confusing because when we had the previous meeting which if you scroll down you can see took place on October 11th this looks more like a traditional agenda uh we did review all of the survey data so if you go in there you would be a able to see that survey data on let me make that a little bit larger because if you're a person at home you can't see this you can go in and look at that survey data and then we came up with a some beliefs like we need to focus on the good um thinking about the school Improvement goals are there things that might be formal or informal that we want to play with there um how do people feel about their relationship with staff and with students um do we have the do we model the seal that we want and are we sure that the the adults in our school are modeling the SE behaviors that we would like our kids to have and then we talked a lot about growing school spirit and um we talked about theme days and did we want them to be replaced with spirit days or things that surrounded things like social justice day or an seal day or vocabulary day or holiday days and that was all the feedback that they had given to me and then I had individual meetings with the principles and that's why you see this very long narrative right here because that was sort of my feedback to them which is what we read through when we were together last week it kind of gave us sort of a historical view of where we had been and then we got to talking about the storying and whether or not each building could start to promote the good and in that process of promoting the good make sure that we're able to see what happens in classrooms what happens cultur um and really sort of celebrating ourselves um when you look at these um last year you shared some results from like a a climate was at a climate survey that all the students did so that the work of the climate group then is addressing those issues where they were low numbers yes what happened was at the end of the year last year the climate team got together and we said okay there are a lot of things in here and some of them are things that we need to work on but some of them aren't things that all the people at that table needed to work on so for example if someone said I'd like to see the central office administrators in our buildings more frequently that would be something that Jeff and I would Undertake and so we kind of divvied up that work and so Jeff and ion bu buildings more free but we also said there there was some talk about taking these goals and divvying them up so K to five would be one group and six to 12 would be another group and when we talked about them we said you know what that kind of flies in the face of what we're trying to do we're trying to come together as a district and so that's when we thought about that storying piece well will it work and so we're going to take it for a little test drive and see what happens and we would love to have students do it as well like if you have kids at h High School who would say I would be able to write this piece about some thing that happened it's Hopkinson unique we would love to have you guys do that if you would take that back to kids that would be so cool because you probably have almost better Insight than any of the grown-ups truly and you most of you have many of you have lived through the entire experience and I bet there are a bunch of students willing to do that I know there's a lot of people who cuz I think one of the only opportunities to kind of show student voices through student government and that's a very limited amount of people so I think opening the opportunity to the whole school would be nice and now you have newspaper and lit mag but this will be just a little bit different we okay that's great I will jump on all right thank you that then moves us into the 2025 to 2026 school year calendar I don't know if people saw we did receive one email on this uh today I also did receive another email um just requesting access to what the proposed calendar is um which is in the packet so I did send that out um we this is a first look at it for us this year uh I would let Dr Kavanaugh um discuss it but I also um think that we we don't have to pass this tonight uh and in fact there might be an argument why not to vote tonight go ahead we can this isn't locked in this correct and that that would be a you know part of the the discussion I think that we can have a discussion about how we want to move forward but it's we always put a a motion on there it's TBD but we don't actually have to take any motion at all tonight so were you going to say something yes I have a controversial point of view the kids don't get out of school until the end of June correct round that it's late it's interesting because we have juneth now so some times you get out before right but my position is why they could get out two weeks earlier if there weren't two weekl long Vacations so I think we should hold that thought um I'm not saying it's a not weighing any EV valuation on it um until we it's one of those Pennsylvania things it's not necessarily but there is I don't know if you want to talk all about the historical context of how many times we've had calendar subcommittees different opinions that that pieces of that have been explored uh and kind of what we want to do going forward okay sure so I can I'll just take you back to May of 2021 in May of 2021 the school committee had said we need to have a calendar subcommittee and so when we do that only two School commit members could be on it because otherwise you'd have a meeting and um the school school committee asked us to review the pros and cons of the current school calendar survey faculty families and secondary students to think about the impact of the calendar on teaching learning and people's just personal lives we had to conduct research on calendars that we used by other school districts we determined if our school calendar would be would better serve faculty children and families if it was revised or if um it stayed exactly the same and then we had to create if it was recommended to revise the calendar a new one honored before December 1st 2021 and we would present that to the school committee and then we would seek a formal vote of the school committee on the recommended calendar so there were a whole bunch of people who got onto this committee um I was there the former assistant superintendent Jen parison the director of um English language acquisition equity and access Jen suker and assistant principal from the Middle School assistant principal from the high school Amanda fragano as the vice chair of the school committee uh Connor zanini as a high school teacher Jen Jordan as the vice president of the HTA we had four parents and we had one high school student that committee met as a whole group on June 28th August 5th August 17th October 19th December 7th and December 14th and in between we met as small groups so the three small groups that we had created one was to to think about the Calendar's impact on teaching and learning and that was very interesting because we had a group of people who would say why don't we just give kids for example the day off if they observe dwali or E Al feder or rashash or yapor whatever and the kids I think spoke very articulately about how even if you have the day off there's something worrisome that's happening because you know that there are kids in there learning something and you're at home and it's hard to observe your day um so we you know kind of put that into our back pocket and we said okay but what if we did things like cancelled all you know big quizzes or tests or those things on that day and they said but that then slows down teaching and learning because if I'm not really going to present something new then is it really a day of learning so there was a lot of controversy around that anyway the next one was to um conduct a survey seeking feedback from family students and faculty and what's super interesting is you can go on the desie website and desie will tell you things about how people identify as you know Hispanic Latino Asian whatever but they never tell you ever anywhere uh what kinds of holidays people observe so our survey asked you know how if there were holidays that people felt like they really needed to include in the school calendar that weren't currently there and we you know if we had only four people say something we were like well we're not closing school for four people but if we had a preponderance of people and we did with dewali Lunar New Year in E Al theer very high numbers we said oh that might be something we should consider and then we got and that was even more so than some of the the holidays we or observances we already have like we had more people stay dwali than like Good Friday for example um anyway when we did that we said oh but we can't miss that many days of school like it might become a huge problem and then we did an analysis of other District's calendars so I was just working at a girl with a girl at the high school who's writing a story about this because of just the Curiosity of high school kids about how we got to this calendar um and she said but in Medfield they don't do dwali so we went to the Jessie website we said well how many kids are identifying as Asian because they put everybody under one big umbrella and in Medfield it 3% and in Hopkinson it's like 33% I said ah see that might be why that is so we had a really nice conversation but we understood how calendars reflect the people who live in a particular place so after long deliberation we got to a place where we said okay we could keep the calendar exactly as it exists so people would still get Christmas they'd get Easter because the calendar is sort of built to make sure that Christmas is always a guaranteed time off very year eurocentric they'd still get Good Friday they'd still get rashash Shani they'd get yam kapor but the people who voted for things like Dali e aler and Luna New Year would not be considered and people started to think oh I don't know how fair that feels then we said we could go in the opposite direction and remove every single non-state and non-federal holiday and we noticed that Christmas Eve December 24th would not be a federal or state holiday so you'd be required to come to school on that day and the same was true for Good Friday and that also caused people some concern so if we created that calendar of Greater inclusivity we said what is that going to look like so we looked at the 2223 school year that would be the first one that it impacted and only and the days that were off would be dual yam kipor and rashash Shana because Lunar New Year fell on a Sunday and E Al feeder fell fell on a Saturday so that added one day to the calendar we thought it's not so terrible and then we looked at 23 24 and Diwali rashash sh and Luna new year were all weekends so that didn't add anything to the calendar um then we looked at 2425 and yam kipor and El Al feder were both weekends and now this year coming up 2526 none of those days will land on a weekend but we are back to starting at a very early August date in the 25 26 school year the start for for teachers is the 25th of August so it didn't push out the end of school people think that it pushes out the end of school and it may by be like by a day or maybe two but I think the bigger culprit is snow days and of course now we observe juneth so sometimes things fall in a funny way like you'll go to school on Friday and then Saturday is the 17th Sunday is the 18th Monday is the 19th and it's juneth so kids are coming on the 20th so that one snow day will push things all the way out to the 20th as opposed to letting our kids out of school on say for example that Friday which would have been the 16th which is much earlier anyway what I want to point out is the calendar subcommittee determined that they would make that recommendation to the school committee at the time that we should go with a more inclusive because it wasn't really adding days to the calendar even though it felt to people like it was one thing we could do now is we could look historically and the years before juneth and imagine that we still did not have juneth and we could say let's take a look at the last decade what were the dates on which school ended and I wonder if there would be great disparity that might be a good exercise for this group um so if people think that it was the superintendent who made that recommendation I write the report but it was truly the calendar subcommittee that made that recommendation um and the vote was very close and I know that there were people on the subcommittee who were disappointed in the way it played out out but one of the things we say to subcommittees in the beginning is that we are a body and you may not get the outcome you want but we will work together and whatever is decided as this group we we put forth as the report of the whole group even if it doesn't feel like what you wanted so um ultimately that's what we got and um that came about I believe in we actually didn't get there on December of 21 was January of 22 I think when when it all played out so so that's it historically do I understand it correctly that let's just say we eliminated five oh that would be a big difference okay MH the last day of school would be June 10th well that's not accurate so no if we eliminated all five in the 2425 school year you would not lose a day for Yam kapor or E alfer because they both fall on weekends so it would have been like three days earlier if that makes sense so you would oh no it would actually be four days earlier because Good Friday would be gone as well because Good Friday's always Friday so we didn't put it in our table I thought it was five I must have misread okay may maybe it is but you could be correct okay I thought but yeah four or five but we just back up from the 17th however many days right and the you're saying that the students were the ones who pushed back on saying I'm Christian okay my kid wants I want to keep my kid home on Good Friday okay but on rashash Shan and yam kapor we don't celebrate that so I want to see him in school but you're saying that the students were the ones who said well even if we observe that holiday and we get an excus day off right we don't like that they did feel like it was challenging because you're always thinking about these were high school students or students high school students High School you always have work to make up because you missed the class yes you're making up work and you're stressing out because someone's learning something you're not they stress out the same way if they are sick you think yes let's ask the student yeah being sick I think is um personally it takes like a huge toll on the amount of work I have because I'm not being taught it in person so I have to do the homework as well as the inclass work by myself so I think that's also the same thing probably with the people who observe the holidays cuz it's not necessarily an excused absence when you have all the work to make up so so the the kids were kind of they pushed back a little bit they did what what did the teachers what was their feedback uh the so with Lunar New Year um one of the things sorry when is lunar when is that yeah it will usually come like January February is um it's it's a moving date so sometimes it lands on a weekend the teachers also expressed that there were some holidays that they would like to see so for example we do have more teachers in our district now that observe dwali we have some that would observe eel feeder but we had no one who said that they would need Lunar New Year off so what we do is if it's a presidential election we hold our PD day on the November presidential election day cuz it's too crazy to have kids there but when it's not presidential and there are far fewer people voting if Lunar New Year is on a school day we move the PD day to January or February to Lunar New Year and then that way there the kids are still get to come to school and no teacher is missing a holiday one piece just in terms of I that i' like to add is that we do a we have done every few years a calendar subcommittee the results are varying from one iteration to the next the before I was on the school committee I I served as a community member on a calendar subcommittee and it brings out passion for people who want don't want particular days or want it one way or another the the one thing that I recall very vividly and it came as a result of some changes that were presented the prior school year year calendar was that the families uh who observed that the Jewish students that were observing rashash and yam kipor felt very strongly that that was a hardship because those holidays fall so early in the year in September and then it's difficult for kids to be pulled out in miss a day that's in school where they're losing instruction in the beginning of the year just for context the other piece um historically um in terms of looking at kind of all different sides there was a point in time um when my kids were in young that we did have a half day on Christmas Eve I I think that's unpopular among many different people who celebrate Christmas I happen to celebrate Christmas I actually really liked when my kids were in school that's part of Christmas Eve but just because there's you know a lot that needs to be done around holidays as adults for whatever holiday you celebrate so that and then um you know it definitely at the time that this decision was made it it came from the subcommittee to the school committee I would say it was incredibly divisive in the community we had a lot of um I would like to say fan mail but it wasn't all fan mail um from people with all different types of views so I assume there's see there's two there's two camps right we want the kids out earlier and get rid of some some of these holidays right I there's more than two camps but yeah for the most part okay and then another group that says these are important let's keep them no one loses any schooling and no matter what decision is made half of the group is going to be upset half the yes that is so whether if it's slightly under what's the third group The the other group was have been people who have proposed other measures to alter our calendar so so things like looking at that um first week of school then it sort some of it is contractual where the teachers go Monday and Tuesday the students go Wednesday and Thursday and then Friday is a day off looking at gaining days in that period or one thing that was discussed at one point was looking at the I think it was the February break and making it not a full week making it a longer longer weekend I think some Rhode Island schools had gone that way but then get we've gotten rid of it okay so there are a lot of different options to achieve different goals and not I'm not expressing it is is this a New England thing to take two weeks off during the school year yeah we didn't have that I believe the historical thing was to save heating costs in the school in February was a very big long time ago because I know we we still need to keep the pipes from freezing yeah back in the day when I taught in Pennsylvania the kids were out like May 31st but when did you start too did you we started at the end of August okay but we didn't know a lot of kids start at the beginning of August and get Happ I mean just to be clear the administration is happy to come to school on any day I mean it's really this body that sets that calendar with input from your community I just think a calendar is reflective of its Community that's a lesson that we we T this week so I imagine if if we were to take those two weeks away of vacation the community would come after me with Hatchet I feel like we get letters letters letters like which letters in the alphabet would they come after me with a red a a red a okay I feel like we've got two things that we're looking at one is the 25 26 Calendar that we do have a a timeline that we do have to we I would recommend again that we not approve this tonight because I feel like there's a lot of things out there but the the other piece is I feel like we're also looking ahead to Beyond 2526 it would perhaps make sense to convene a calendar subcommittee that starts well in advance at the beginning of the next school year does do we have this presentation for subsequent years so subsequent years we I I mean I just didn't know if there's one already in existence that just wasn't included in the packet it it wouldn't matter if it it was or not we could scrap it and do whatever no I just was curious to look at to see which got if they fell on Saturdays or Sundays and and so is it a one for one with snow days one snow day equals one extra day so right five snow days is f does it C ever get capped or could we be in school in mid July no it is only capped if you get to June 30th because the teacher contract you know doesn't allow people to go into the next year so for 20 so for 24 25 so Easter you got if there is two snow days it okay W oh Jun falls on a Saturday okay are you I'm sorry that I missed the part of what you said then juneth in 2026 or 26 sorry yeah 25 26 yeah right this year the last day should be June 17 correct so it should actually be June 18th because the one change that has to be reflected in here is the 183rd teacher day for professional development oh I mean 2425 so in this calendar that we're looking at then is juneth one of those days that if the date falls on a Saturday like it wouldn't not the 26th or 27 is it observed then on a weekday okay does it bump to the Monday or just Friday or Monday I think if it's Sunday it goes to Monday if it's Saturday Saturday to Friday Friday I think that's true yeah thoughts from people on how we want to proceed um both with this calendar and then with subsequent calendars um in terms of an appetite for creating a subcommittee for subsequent years when when was the last one four or five years ago it was 20 we started in May of 21 yeah January 22 to do that again and then do we want to I I I think we should hold on this until at least another meeting to give it yeah we can certainly hold what are we what are we considering would change like are we just looking to receive more feedback are we just looking to marinate on the calendar ourselves I would say I would say both I my fear of making a decision tonight is we've received one um email on it I think probably because we've discussed it here in public it's going to become more of a discussion M I mean anecdotally yeah I've had people talk to me about it I I one that lives at my house your J me too uh that I did hear yeah I I I have as well and I've heard equally passionate things on yeah multiple things I think think it'd be good to do another subcommittee and if we get the same results we did four years ago it's probably okay this is just how it is but maybe the subcommittee comes up with some findings that can steer the decision one way or the other or we could be right back where we are which my guess is where we'll be with kind of a town divided with some people want this some people want that and there's another smaller group that's maybe in the middle but or maybe somebody's got an out of the box Solution that's going to Susan already proposed it think people can direct yeah um are you any thoughts in it sounds fine to Marin yeah so we'll just marinate all right then that brings us into the athletic concussion policy okay so that is the one I know we had a I think this is our second reading um and I think that I met with um Ricky andred our athletic director Amanda masjer who is the trainer Mr Bishop Sarah Patterson who is the head nurse and nurse at the high school and they took a look at our policy but they also take a look at the protocol um what we would call the concussion plan so it's really kind of a protocol document and Amanda who is the trainer is sort of very well versed in this and she spends a lot of time because she is the person who lets kids who have concussions either get back into play or not um and she's looked at the policies and the procedure doc documents from many districts so she would like to spend more time looking at the procedure do document which is really the one that the school administration has sort of control over you have the control over the policy but they're wondering if you'll hold on this so that they might inform the policy and I would recommend that that's a good I think that's an excellent idea okay they are people in the know I'm good with that okay so we'll just table that one okay that's great that moves us then into items by consensus all right as superintendent I recommend uh the approval of the items by consensus as outlined in your agenda I'd like to pull the minutes I have a couple things okay which that's H yeah item age 1024 minutes M okay okay so is there somebody that would like to make a motion for the items by consensus with the exception of item H so moved okay second so motion by Susan a second by Jamie all those in favor I and then would you like to discuss the item H um yeah so is that something we should discuss um here or on the side or so I think that we we should discuss that here okay um so I again I really appreciate the uh detail level um there were a few typos unfortunately and I just as a document I'd rather fix that um and then the um on my Brief Review I felt like some of the mcast uh report data that Mr Le prepared so diligently um we didn't catch all of it um and so those were the things that stuck out to me um on reading through it um we have information on the high achievement notes but nothing about the needs that were presented which I think it's important to highlight the opportunities as well as the wins and those were the specific things that I noticed in my Brief Review okay anybody else have anything on um the 24th that you want to share or discuss all right so we can send that feedback on to um Georgia and we can look at them again at the um at the next meeting all right so with that um I would seek a motion in to enter into executive session if somebody would like to read that entire all of A and B under executive session I move to enter into executive session to comply with our act under the authority of mgl chapter 30A 21 parentheses a parentheses 2 for the purpose of discussing strategy concerning collective bargaining with the Hopkinson teachers's Association because having the discussion at an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the school committee's bargaining position and to comply with or act under the authority mgl chapter 30A section 20 A3 specific to the review of executive session minutes for the meetings of May 16th 2024 June 13th 24 July 11th 2024 August 22nd 2024 and October 24th 2024 and to adjourn the meeting in executive session than okay so motion by Jamie I'll second second by Kyla we'll do a roll call since we're going into executive session starting with you Kyla yes Chris yes Susan yes Jamie yes I am also a yes we are entering into executive session at 8:58 and just a rem reminder for folks uh watching us at home that our next meeting is uh next Thursday November 21st here at hcam and then we'll have another meeting on December 5th but also for uh Folks at home uh there is a special town meeting uh on Monday the 8 the 18th at uh 7 p.m. please attend please attend all right thank you all um a good night add Saturday and Sunday classes down months there's a children's book thats doing that do it us to read it to my kids all the time yeah