7 o'clock and I'd like to call together the May 16th 2024 school committee meeting if you would please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all all right this time uh this is our first meeting since election so I'd like to turn the meeting over to superintendent clenchy who will help facilitate the election of the new school committee chair um and then from there we'll conduct our regular business thank you good evening everybody uh today's uh tonight's meeting is reorganizational meeting along with some other very important agenda items first order of business though uh at this time I will accept nominations for the position of chair I nominate Justin McCarthy to be any other nominations any other nominations at this time I will entertain a motion from the school committee to appoint Justin mcy as chair of the midon school I move that we appoint Justin McCarthy as chair of the Wilton school committee all in favor I congratulations Justin great I'll turn the read back over to you thank you very much thank you um at this point I'd also like to introduce our newest member uh Janine wood thank you very much and congratulations on your election thank you um next order business is to elect a vice chair um so are there any nominations for vice chair I nominate benol Fel okay V's not being here that's probably not a problem I think Bol had expressed interest in that we can confirm that uh upon her arrival she'll be here in a few minutes uh we have a nomination for venol is there a second seconded all those in favor indate by saying I I that unanimous as well we'll just confirm that with V when she shows um in the last position here is a clerk so a nomination for school committee Clerk that's yeah nomination for Elena's clerk is there a second second perfect motion made by Stacy second by Janine All In favorate by saying I I I congratulations we now have a clerk all right um it's unfortunate that F's not gonna not here just yet because the next door of business is to roll through our subcommittee appointments um we will go ahead and do that and again just catch her up to speed once she shows up but it's in page starts on page six of our packet uh so the first subcommittee some of these subcommittees um I would say have a significant lift others uh not so much we can we can talk through them as we proceed um or we can roll through them pretty rapidly so just ask questions or uh stop if we uh if we need to but the first one here was the Bradford Sam scholarship trust um this committee typically becomes active during the month of May however we haven't heard from this scholarship trust in I think a few years um but Stacy you sit on that subcommittee presently would you like to stay on there okay we move forward with that the next one here is superintendent evaluation this assignment involves the management of the superintendent evaluation including compilation of individual member ratings and presentation of results uh I had served on that committee thankfully Elaine had expressed some interest and some guidance this past year and I understand ela's interested in taking that over I am we'll mark that one for Elaine thank you very much welcome Municipal bu building committee this is a town committee appointed by the selectman to plan and oversee construction use or new of town and school building Stacy you currently sit on that you're also on the Shaker land subcommittee Building I think it's important that we have some uh consistency there are you okay staying there yes everybody else okay with that all right great well Stacy will stay there technology committee updates District technology plan and makes recommendations for development implementation of Technology programs Elaine you currently have that assignment yeah I'm happy to stay on that but we had when I met with the technology team we had talked about when this rolls around in this spring to change the language with the technology committee because the current language makes it sound like we're updating a technology plan which is really not the way it works in this District it's more of a rolling plan it's not something that has a beginning and an ending so um I'd like to change the language on that sure do you have a proposal tonight back to us no I something like um serves as the liaison between the district's technology department and the school committee makes recommendations on the implementation of the technology program or the tech technology plan sounds fair to me any opposition there superintendent gleni on a rewarding of that description are those words accurate like is it technology department or would you call it something else it's a department techology Department okay so it serves as the liaison between the district's technology department and the school committee makes recommendations on the implementation of the technology F very good you're happy to stay there happy to stay there perfect Janine we're getting some opportunities for you but by all means speak up if you have uh it's okay I'm good uh legislation uh this assignment involves keeping up to date on pending legislation working together with superintendent on keeping the school committee informed of legislative matters and occasionally expressing the committee's opinion on legislative matters to our Representatives um that was my assignment it could somewhat goes hand inand with the uh working relationship with the superintendent I'm happy to stay there unless anyone else has a burning desire to steal that one no okay I'll stick with that one policy um this is noted as a whole committee responsibility because um we review policy and approve policy as a uh as a committee however typically one or two members take the organizational lead for this work benol uh is presently serving on that committee um J we had sh added I don't know if you express interest if you'd like to help me know with that I would be happy to step forward as as paron okay that's fine we don't we won't have a quorum with two and I think that's a great way to get acclimated to all the various policies so we'll have beist the lead and chanine as assisting there oath the bills and payroll um requires the ability to stop by central office although docu sign has made that much easier um usually every Friday it's not necessarily Friday defend school department payroll and the official designity representative of the school committee I'm happy it's it's a review of docy sign a couple times a week I'm happy to continue on with that unless someone else that's no all right I'll stick with that one uh the liaison with town government to serve as a school committee contact for Town boards that was that's a vacancy presently would you like me to take that that can be can be yours what you good with that yeah great thank you very much so when we say town government can I just clarify um is it mostly select board and planning board is there are there other boards committees that um are very important for me to make more meetings select board finance committee and the town administrator's office are typically the folks that you'll be interacting with okay likely all through or in conjunction with the superintendent okay um so that would be great thanks so much uh negotiating subcommittee to work with the school committee's attorney and superintendent during negotiation collective bargaining agreement uh sorry bargaining units presently filled by my myself and Stacy um optimistic that this committee won't have a lot of work to do this year U never know um you good to stay on with that does anybody else have a desire to get involved in that all right it'll remain Stacy and myself um next one could be a fun one I suppose representative to community community services the Park and Recreation Department it's a current vacancy just be just on the school Stane building committee PBC I just don't know if that's a good for me to be already involved with them um kind of work I'm already on PC so maybe I think so take on great uh budget sub committee that was myself and it was uh the other member there vacancy it's it's great to have two members on this committee uh we meet maybe once a month and say 75% of the calendar year um doesn't necessarily have to be someone that's good with numbers or or um maybe just a good Problem Solver I I will help Janine yeah all right it be myself and Janine Safety and Security um currently filled by Stacy you want to stay on wna see if anyone else wants that one nobody else wants it you on looks like it's you thanks so much uh let's see CPAC currently filled by elae that's CPAC representative um that that that could be a heavy lift there they run a lot of meetings they ask you to attend when you can um how did that go this past year do you want to stay fine yeah I'm happy to stay all right down with aaine uh master plan of implementation currently filled by Stacy want to stay on it's a pretty light V but um would you want to take that if you're already doing the Le on town government sure yeah we can get you some inform okay so far no it'll be fine we wouldn't set you up the first meeting um school start time committee that was very active two years ago I think we kept the committee in place the field questions concern Fallout if any which there was none from the shift and start of time um I'm happy to entertain keeping that committee around for another year none of us feel that it's necessary with the superintendent's recommendation we could also vote to dissolve the committee what do you guys what do you you think yeah I mean it doesn't I mean I'm I wasn't on the committee single purpose committee right and it seems like the purpose to ended right I believe so yeah motion to dissolve the school St time committee motion motion made by Stacy second seconded by El all those in favor and by saying I I no more start time committee uh curriculum and instruction elain is was a suggestion of yours last year I'm assuming you'd like to stay on with that current role perfect thank you so much and then research data analysis committee which was an idea by uh Vino last year um with her not being present I would I'll recommend that she stays on that committee and if she can get back to us otherwise right we all set there everyone uh everyone good with that great all right um we'll move on with the consent agenda which are the minutes from our May 2nd 2024 meeting hope everyone had a chance to review those as well as the bills and payroll so if there are no questions uh I will accept a motion for the consent agenda to pass the consent agenda I move that we um pass the consent agenda motion made by Elaine seconded by Stacy all those in favor indicated by saying I I I opposed okay we'll mark that unanimous all right this is our first uh opportunity for interested citizens uh there's a second opportunity at the end of the meeting but if there's any anybody um with us this evening either in person or on Zoom that wishes to speak before the school committee we'll take a brief pause to recognize you have anyone onl all right we get a second chance that at the end of the meeting we'll close that portion of the meeting and move on to recognition um we have both we're so lucky we have both student Representatives this evening um I just want to take a moment to thank both Jay Kang and jind S ERS for uh I think between the two of you I think you made every meeting I know that both of you were involved in a ton of extracurricular activities um hearing your reports and keeping us up to date on all the fun things that are happening within all four schools uh was oftentimes the best part of the meeting no offense to the present company excluded um but can't thank you enough you'll be uh big shoes to fil we have a small token of appreciation you can leave with your name bles and we also have a a gift for you from the school committee Jay that's yours thank you thank you very much thank you s and we will turn it are you guys doing a like a duet this evening for the the floor is yours wion middle school students finished their math and cast this week and now it's just the e8th grade civics left before testing season is over and the lon Middle School drama production of Lucky Harden and the 12th Street gang premieres tomorrow night and ends on Sunday and tickets are available online and after later and for the high school from May 6th to May 17th we had AP exams go on and that just ended or will end tomorrow on May 8th there was a Roman banquet and on May 9th there was a spring concert and art show and on May 16th is the band and chorus banquet which is actually today looking forwards on May 18th the environmental Club zero waste day is at the middle school from 10:00 a.m. to 2: p.m. from May 20th is the senior send off reception and awards night at 6:30 p.m. from May 21st to May 22nd is 10th grade's math mcast and from May 21st and on May 21st is the financial literacy fair for seniors which is basically where we go through like a little simulation of what it's like to live in the real world and how to budget and things like that on May 21st the National Honor Society senior reception at 6:30 p.m. and on May 22nd to May 24th is when seniors will take their final exams and on May 24th there's a senior breakfast and parade and on May 28th is the senior's class trip to Marth Vineyard and finally on May 29th is the senior Athletics Award night at 7 p.m. that's all thank you Marth Vineyard we're getting fancy now that great didn't see any CH re that one um thank you very much both of you superintendent clench do you have other recognition this evening two acknowledgements Dr har and I Dr Harington and I have the pleasure of attending the msba superintendent Association schar lunch in yesterday and we selected two of our students to attend this lunch with us uh Hood Adia and uh they they represent uh what Litton high school stands for it's always a pleasure to attend this this function there are 30 other school districts there and uh both uh Lisa and aia's families were able to attend as well and U when you walk out of that function John and I look at each other and say the world is in good hands there just there so many incredible students out there with so many talents and and uh and so motivated to make a difference in the worlds and it's one of our highlights of the Year again I want to congratulate Lisa and Nadia for the outstanding academic performance and and not only academic performance they're just great students and they represent them to high school commity congratulations to to of them uh Dr ferty was here at the last meeting to talk about stem education the science fair Dr finity uh received a certificate for the Massachusetts science engineering Fair committee for her dedication and commitment to stem education not only in our school district but throughout the state so congratulations to excellent that's it very good thank you so much um so we'll move on to our next line item here which is the fincom school representative um we were we were hoping that we were going to have an applicant this evening um we don't at presently so this is really just a placeholder Public Announcement uh service here so the Littleton school committee is seeking an interested citizen to fill a three-year term on the Littleton finance committee expiring May 2027 kindly forward your letter of interest and resume which details your qualifications to Littleton school committee care of chairperson PO Box 1486 33 shadik Street Littleton Mass 01460 or just email call text any one of us um and if the other school committee members wouldn't mind it would be great we have one meeting left May 30th and then the plan is if we don't have any burning school committee business to likely take a bit of a summer break and reconvene when the school year starts back up again um I think it would be great to fill this seat um at our next meeting so I've heard from potentially two individuals that are interested but we haven't seen any applications yet if new folks wouldn't find spreading the good word um as we saw at town meeting finance committee is an important position within uh local town government other towns are looking at overrides and um I think it would be well served to have an additional member on the Littleton finance committee who also represents the school so it's an important one for us we should try to get the word out all right um we'll move on to our one and only new business item and then we'll roll through our presentations so new business item number one Littleton Public School hiring process and review of related safety protocols superintendent Kelly gleni will discuss the LPS hiring process and give a review of related safety protocols but before you go there I just want to recognize benol thank you for joining us v a couple things happened in your uh in your absence you were appointed elected as I sh are you okay with this okay thanks so much and uh we we went through the subcommittee reports um I can catch up to speed after the meeting but I think by and large you're on the same committees um as last year and the event that you wish to make a change we can address that next meeting or anything like that okay thank you for making the meeting and superintendent Clen the floor is yours thank you uh our internal hiring practices for our staff include obviously a search for the best candidates every position that we have they're interviewed reference checks are are conducted we thorough reference checks on all candidates and we also do a dive into uh the online Arena as well so we use online check to to just see if there's anything that we may have missed reference checks we uh also uh require every employee within our district to be fingerprinted and Cory as part of the process one can't be throrough enough to do whatever you possibly can to make sure that every individual that enters our district you know is is there without something in the background that would be concerning to us we work very hard that continue to to to work hard it's one of the most important things that we do in a district who high in staff we all know that our staff are the backbone of our school district to want to make sure that we have the best people in positions that we can we we did we do a great job there is another component to school districts and that is contracted Services St Mark this this evening our business man manager is a charge of of contracted Services uh every contracted service that comes into our district their employees are required to be fingerprinted and C our expectation is as well is to do a thorough betting of anybody that comes into our district our standards for our whole hiring and staff should not be dis similar to the standards that that contractors use when they're bringing their employees into our district unfortunately as everybody knows we were faced with a situation that we never thought we would be faced with with employee of debas uh being charged with uh with a serious crime against a child i' like to remind everybody that it's a debus employee not a Littleton School District employee which prevents me as a as a superintendent from uh saying very much about it because employees uh uh definitely have confidential rights uh as a result they're part of the personnel and any any comments about this individual must come from DBS I can say that uh we're deeply disturbed about about what happened uh there isn't a day or an hour that a number of us within this District keep asking ourselves how and why did this happen our job now as a district is to work with theboss go through their hiring process or policies and protocols turn over every Rock and make sure that that whatever they do when they hire employees are line with our safety requirements in our district and that's what we intend to do uh debus has been fully Cooperative with us we've had three meetings with debas to uh We've started the process they uh feel terrible as well and they're committed to do whatever they can to make sure that it doesn't happen in in our district and any other District that that they serve I'd like to apologize to our community and apologize to the families that had children that that rode that bus I mean it's a terrible terrible thing to go through and we know we all have have children I have children of my own I have a grandchild that's a very similar age so the children that were riding that bus and and uh it's it's scary there's so many words I could use hurtful you feel deceived there's a lack of trust in and you know like anybody else in this situation we wish we could turn the clock back and and uh have another kick of the can before this individual came into the district but again that's a debus responsibility but when these things happen you you have to ask those questions and and you have to do whatever you can to make sure that that every employee whether it's ours or not is screened thoroughly before they come into our that's what we are committed to do any questions I just want to thank you for how transparent you've been throughout the process and how well you've commun communicated with the community you know multiple emails as the story unfolded and um I want to thank you for being on top of all that thank you great appreciate I um Echo those sentiments uh you superintendent L and I were on the phone that late Friday afternoon and uh a letter went out that evening um and then as more information became available a second letter went out and then a letter went out to uh the families of Shay carain and I understand you had a a group meeting with families where they had children on that bus which I think is all you know a nice um part of the process right get those families together so they can talk they share information um helps bring any type of uh closure they can assist one another um with their needs I had a question about the Corey check so when you run a Corey just because I don't know you know it it runs against the database but then does the Corey hang out there forever in the event that the database information changes we would get a flag or do we would we need to constantly run Corey like every quarter to try to do better than what we're doing now practices aren't aren't every quarter standard practices every three years uh bus drivers are CED every year it's part of their requirement for relicensing the there's also other steps involved in the hiring of bus drivers uh certainly a background check was checked by R&B a driver record check as well the individual that I've referred to pass those requirements say yourself fer printing inquiries are pretty detailed they don't just include what happens in Massachusetts National and international and convictions and not conviction great amount of information come out of I mean not everybody that does bad things has a record that's something I think for all of us to remember and I I guess I'm just going to finish you know fig back off your question just in that the best thing that we can do is as a community and anywhere you are is if you see something that doesn't look right say something tell somebody who can actually do something about it and and in this case uh again we're still looking into this with the bus there is nothing that U certainly came to the district concern about this thank you for the update um any other questions are we okay to move on looking at on yeah and I was gonna ask you to talk about supp you sort of talk about it but sure we uh you know obviously we've S four letters out since we found out about this incident first I heard about this was about 5:00 on Friday and I follow the police department gave the individual's name they a search and us some information so we could work with our Publications once we have that information we identifi bus room driving and connected with par schools we uh you know I've had emails from parents uh principal King has been meeting with parents our guidance counselor uh has met with every child that that rooll that bus I had a meeting with uh Miss Snow our director of student services and Miss K the principal and myself and with those parents that have children on that bus had an opportunity to have a conversation with them our job is to to continue to to outreach for those families make sure they have the support we need to to begin a healing process it's really important and again the trust is lost so doubt it should be it's going to take a while and it's going to vary from Individual to individual to start building trust again is that what you yeah yeah thank you and I know I don't want to leave uh school resource officer M Linsky out of the conversation as well from what I heard she was a tremendous fielded phone calls from families families found that conversation extremely helpful it's just wonderful to have uh her in the district and assisting with us uh during a time like this so yeah I'm glad you said that that was my my uh forgetfulness on that pent uh we we are so lucky to have the police department that we do in our community detective wasinski has been incredible through this whole situation uh parents were were notified if they had any information that they wanted to share about this situation we would contact police department they are uh looking into the situation as well so it's not just U the district it's the police department as well all right thank you for sharing all right uh well next we've got our presentation portion of the evening uh lots of good stuff coming up that first on the agenda is uh Facing History survey results um I'd love for those in attendance that are going to be making the presentation to take the podium um please introduce yourself so we know who you are and uh we're excited to see what you have to present I thought the news was here for you guys or the athletic [Music] update this is the real story [Music] hi good evening we are representatives from Littleton high schools Facing History in ourselves class uh my name is Sydney my name is Ruby my name is Maggie I'm J I'm Tyler my name's K I'm jelle welcome and thank you we're here to talk about a survey that we put out in high school Community um here oh next slide please so here's our just agenda of what we're going to get into tonight we will talk about how we got to the survey and why we made it and then some of the overarching themes that we tried to touch on with the survey and some proposed Solutions and of course discussion and questions uh next slide uh we decided to make the survey after watching in January a movie in class called traces of the trade which basically followed the descendants of one of the largest slave trading families in the US as they tried to reconcile with this tough history and their family and it followed them basically retracing like slate traving route from Rhode Island to Ghana down to Cuba in B and we found this movie very interesting and we found ourselves kind of frustrated at it and criticizing a lot of the like just the privilege that these people seemed ignorant of in the movie and we thought it was kind of badly made and then it kind of had us reflect on ourselves and as a predominantly white class and a predominantly white school how like if we're going to criticize them we have to also kind of reflect on ourselves and our own actions and we started talking about just racism today in Littleton within the school and we wanted to see if other students had similar ideas to us and we were just curious about what everyone thought next slide all right so here's some general background information about the survey before we get into the results of it we received 206 total responses which is about 43% of the total student body I think we were um kind of surprised by the number of responses we got it was totally optional students did not have to fill it out we kind of thought it would be us plus maybe 20 30 other people um the survey was also given out during advisory at the end of the day on the day that the eclipse was happening so um lots of classes were outside watching the we kind of thought people forget about it um but we ended up getting 206 total responses which is wonderful um and we also only received four parents and guard or Guardians who chose to opt their students out of taking the survey um this is an option at all surveys that are taken from high school parents parents can choose to essentially you know say their students have no option but they're not allowed to take the survey um students generally have an option um themselves whether or not they take it but parents always have this option to prevent their students from taking the survey and we only receive four of those who said they did not want their students to take the survey um we also wanted to share that this presentation only shows a portion of the questions we asked um it was I don't know about 21 maybe a little bit more um questions lots of them were multiple choice but many were also open response and only two were required um those were the first two questions of the survey which asked students to identify um which grade they were in and which racial or ethnic group they were part of um but both questions also include an option that said prefer not to say or um an you know open space where they could write whatever they please um and that the content we're displaying in this survey is kind of uh just a summary of what we thought the most striking responses were obviously there's a lot of varying in those 206 responses um but this is what we thought was most important to highlight out of the results next slide please so starting off with this first slide which um covers ignorance and miseducation we asked the question do you think your education at Littleton High School up to this point has provided you with an accurate and respectful approach to learning about people from different cultures races and we got a lot of responses on this 200 responses out of the 2006 and you can see that pie the pie chart shows that over half responded Yes and although um many students did respond yes it is more alarming to see that a lot of students also responded no or unsure um it highlights that there needs to be Improvement LHS ensure students have access to resources that educate them on different cultures and races and it's also important to know how to respect people from all different walks of life that's something that you'll carry on for the rest of your life in um in real world inter next next question continuing on in the ignorance miseducation category we asked or we asked people to respond to the statement I have made a conscious effort to combat racism at LHS and just under half you can see 48.1% said yes I try my best but I think there is more I can do but even more alarming is the 12.2% of the 189 responses that said yes and there is nothing else I can do which is just upsetting to see because I like we all know there's always more you can do and it just shows maybe people don't know what to do or they just don't care enough to know what to do um and some and 20% said I that they just don't think there is racism at all in our school which I think our survey kind of disapproves slide when asked have you ever taken time the time to reflect on how your actions contribute to racism at Littleton High School um 115 out of the 192 said no and this just shows that there is a misconception about race and racism with in the school because students are either not considering how racism is in their actions and racism is in their day-to-day lives and they might just not know that it is a part of their day-to-day Liv and it could be just unknown to them and they might not see how race could play a factor into their school lives and how they treat other people so that's just another ignorance that students at the school may have and there's also a level of ignorance where some students may feel they don't even need to reflect on how race plays a role in their school lives because they just don't feel it's a problem to them when there is evidence that there it is a problem to some students in school next slide please uh moving on to another section we really wanted to highlight within the survey were questions about joking and microaggressions and before we start we wanted to highlight that we chose um intentionally not to include the term microagressions in any of our questions um because we believed that it was highly likely that many of the school students did not know what the term meant um and so to define microaggressions the Nea which is the National Education Association defines microaggressions as verbal Behavioral or environmental slides that are the results of an individual's implicit bias they are often automatic or unintentional and incur on a daily basis microaggressions communicate hostile derogatory or negative viewpoints the use of microaggressions perpetuate a worldview of white supremacy culture so we chose not to include that term in our questions because we genuinely believe the students at our school might not um fully understand what we were trying to get at by asking them um if they're aware of these things or they see them in their day-to-day lives or perhaps if they perpetuate them them themselves um so instead we chose to focus in on joking and so the first question we asked about that was have you ever witnessed someone making a joke about another person at school on the basis of their race whether or not you think it was quote unquote serious and follow to follow that up we asked have you or anyone you know ever made a joke about another person at school based on their race whether or not it was intended to be harmful and so for the question first question we can see that the majority of students about 62% responded Yes they have witnessed someone at the school making a joke about another person on the basis of the race whether or not they thought it was like quote unquote serious which is something that we also wanted to include because we think that students this is maybe a large misconception at the school as that people don't realize that by making a joke they're potentially harming another person they might not um see that because it's on the inside they're not it's not like bullying they're not hurting anyone physically perhaps um but they're including these microaggressions in their daily lives they don't really realize this is really shown by the next um question which said um only about 40% of students answered yes um have you or anyone you know ever made a joke about another person based on their race um which we're a very small school we see pretty much everyone on a daily basis we would have really expected um the answers to these questions to be pretty similar in proportions as like if we're hearing these jokes they're probably made by people we know this also highlights people's um or students is potentially their lack of self-accountability they don't want to admit that they're potentially part of like would both problem um and they don't want to admit that to themselves so potentially um forther education or talking about these things might help them realize that a making jokes about people's races is harmful to others um and that b um they might be part of this problem but you know there's always people can always U make changes and improve in their life and that um that's okay next slide please in continuing on with joking and microaggressions we um posted a statement for S respond and it says there's a problem at oand high school related to how people treat others based on race and you can see that it was kind of evenly split between agree and disagree with a fair amount of neutral also um and I think it's important to note that going along with the previous slides where people students at LHS have witnessed um jokes being made based on race um the data in split in this slide really represents how they take that seriousness at kind of face value don't think it is serious at all um and it speaks to a larger issue of um they don't think that geograph racial jokes really perpetuate harm when it does cause a lot of harm to the PC students um receiving those jokes um and also the neutral section in the yellow also speaks to students not being adequately equi to answering this question or answering this statement in the sense that the El has has provided them with the resources to agree or disagree next slide please um is anyone joking and microaggressions we ask the students do you speak up when you witness racist comments or actions of LHS and there we found that uh 20% said no they they don't speak up when they witness racism in our school and as a class we kind of uh came up with a couple reasonings to like why this 20% of kids said no know one being that they're not educated enough and they don't feel that they've been taught on how to handle a situation where racist comments come up and then another reasoning being they're too uncomfortable to call it a brend or a peer in these situations when someone makes like a racist comment or even a racist action and then we had 47.4% saying sometimes and that's the majority of like 60% saying sometimes which is like hesitating to speak up whenever racism is occurring in our school and that leaves 32% saying that they do speak up and if the majority of students at LHS aren't speaking up when they witness racism then the problems are just going to continue happening and we won't really make any progress towards getting creating like an inclusive environment next slide please um continuing on question open ended question um it reads is there anything else you would like to share relating to racism at La JS we got a variet of responses I'm highlighting three here today um the first one essentially says that at LHS the students do joke about race but it's never discriminatory or negative in any way and this goes to what jelle was saying earlier about how if the majority of white students aren't on the receiving ends of these jokes then they're never going to deem them as negative or harmful in any way and to the last uh quote one student said I don't think this is a problem at all and I think that also goes to show that if you're a white student at LHS you might be um overlooking some of these issues that are really prominent to our POC students next slide please um moving on to the school's relationship of race question 18 stated there is fair and accurate racial representation in the LHS faculty and we noticed that 77 students strongly or somewhat agreed with this statement um and as a class we took in this information and we were honestly shocked to see this amount of people agree that there's fair and accurate racial representation in the LHS faculty because we looked around at our school and our staff and noticed there really isn't it's all white pretty much and we wondered to ourselves um do so many people believe there's very and accurate racial representation in the LHS faculty because their teachers love look like them white next side please um continuing on with school's relationship with race question 17 ask do you think the school has taken any concrete steps to combat racism in our district and please explain so this was another open-ended question um overall we received a lot of contrasting answers to this question um students expressed a lot of unsureness in these in their answers um which led us to believe there is some confusion as to what uh concrete step exactly is and what you can do um some did mention info sessions for students um caught making racist comments or actions which is a good start however many responses stated very little conversations are had about race outside of their history classes which are PR predominantly taught through a white perspective um and as one student State States a more active approach is necessary to prevent and combat acts of racism in our school next slide these are just more examples the prev question right and so some ideas that that we've had we came up as as a class is the first one is that students should be involved in the hiring process of the teachers and this goes beyond just a problem of race in the school we think that it is just students should be able to help choose who's teaching them because a student should feel represented by their teacher regardless of race even on like a deeper level so we know Littleton does have student on the hiring committee for administrative roles but we think it should be extended to teachers as well because students really should have a say on who teaches them at least at some level and then idea we came in came up with is we looked into what's called a restorative justice program which our understanding of it is that it would be on certain conflicts within the school between students they would both be brought into like a conference room and they would have a mediated conversation with um someone someone who's trained to do that when the teachers are Le principal or vice principal and they would have a conversation and that focuses on the why behind the action and once they get that they can then move on to the greater implications behind the actions done so that the one of the parties can get a more deeper understanding of what why what they did was wrong and so they can have they can take something away from it rather than just be maybe suspended for three days and then go on with their life learn nothing from their actions and then our other suggestions all pertain to just a further education of everyone including staff and students we think that staff during professional development could be better trained to understand the subject and maybe handle the subject and when we presented at the faculty meeting yesterday a lot of the faculty agreed that there is probably more they can do during professional development regarding DVI diversity Equity inclusion and such things within their training so we think that's one option and then within classes we all notice that our history classes were pretty diverse in what not what was taught but how it was taught and sometimes what was taught or focused on and we think that there maybe can be a more consistent teaching of history in regards to race and how it is taught and we think that should be present within all classes and then we also think that the curriculums should be Diversified for example in English classes at least in the high school level we read a lot of books written by white authors rather than POC authors and we think that a much deeper perspective a greater perspective of the world can be shown through other novels written by authors of color that we're just not really exposed to in the school and that we think would definitely help at least Broad in what students are learning about culturally and we also think that in some classes especially history it's taught through a white perspective of history when we learn about Black Culture we found that we really majority learn about slavery and oppression and there is so much more to Black Culture to learn about than just labor and oppression and that's the same with Asian culture it's more than just World War II in thrl Harbor there's more to all these different cultures that we like brief over in history than just the tragedy based and how white people have view that Ministry um that's the end of our presentation if there's any questions we'd be happy to answer anything your name first of all your self-reflection and intellectual curiosity is beautiful please never ever lose that you are doing wonderful work here and I'm so excited by what you're saying I wanted to ask you what your awarenesses of this subject on a national level your peers in other schools have this subject swirling around them in many different ways what is your awareness and how is that affecting you a lot of schools especially with the black lives matter movement being very um popular and mainstream now a lot of schools have been raising their voices um I think it's interesting to our town specifically because we are so predominantly white and there is a lot of diversity that's coming into the town I think it's we should focus on making it more comfortable and respectful to our growing community and I think that's true to a as a whole like including people and raising voices that haven't historically been um in the Center of scotle um so I think that's really important to going as I I want to thank you all for coming this has been um incredible initiative and I really applaud you for presenting this to the faculty for bringing it to us I think this has the potential to really make a difference at LHS um I was really when I was looking at your slides ahead of time the one of the circle graphs that really struck me was was question nine about there there was a problem at LHS related to how people treat others based on race and that almost 25% said they strongly disagree which which just struck me that um that would mean that they St strongly disagree that there's potential for being a problem and not really acknowledging that it could be perceived otherwise by other people so I didn't know if if that was as as you were going through the data on some other questions was that a trend that you were seeing that there was sort of a denial that there could be a problem even if they weren't aware of it that's definitely something we saw in a lot of the responses and it kind of um L us to reflect on maybe people have something you call like a me Centric view of the world um that there's like a a trend that there's a population essentially every question we asked is like no nothing's wrong like if we're asking like um we gave kind of a scale of severity for the questions to give people the option to be like well there's a little bit of a problem but maybe it's not a massive problem or I don't really think there is but maybe there could be and so it was very interesting for us to see that idea that um so people felt very strongly that there's no problem I think it's similar um to the question about whether or not we think there's um accurate um fair and accurate racial representation in the staff which if you look at the numbers the proportion of teachers of color um is much smaller than the proportion of students of color at the school which is like numbers or numbers that's not necessarily fair and accurate representation um but we were kind of thinking about well um if it's predominantly white students who were thinking about this and they're thinking about themselves oh I'm white my teachers are white yep there's fair and accurate racial representation and so we definitely think we we saw that Trend kind of carrying for other questions they're thinking about um just their um experience at Lon High School which is not necessarily what our questions asked they were kind of more General do we think that everyone's experience or um the school culture as a whole not or fa yeah thank you and I you know with all of your data I'm really glad that you came up with some potential Solutions that's always the best outcome of something like this and um I really applaud your idea about having student representation on hiring committees I think that would be such an asset so um if if you can make that happen that would be but and the the other piece of all of this of course is that there's there's not as many candidates of color as there are districts that want them every district is in this situation where you know their their student population is becoming more diverse but the Stu the the um the pool of candidates is typically not as diverse and and teachers of of color are in high demand across districts especially more diverse than ours so it's it's a challenge for sure um and and the other thing that really struck me you were talking about um mediation as as a restorative justice and I know some other districts have had peer mediators you students who have been trained as mediators um rather than having a teacher do it and that it's been a really powerful model so I don't know if that's on your radar at all but it's something to think about so thank you [Music] again I have so many thoughts keep them Limited um but first just really again applaud your courage in coming to talk to us about it and to the faculty um also it was interesting because I the survey results weren't as alarming as they were brutally Hest and that is incredible and such a great place to start because if you're not starting there then you've got a whole other battle to get people to even recognize like where you are and you're actually starting with a place where like those are really honest answers and you have actual data of where the town is and you can build from that so that to me was actually really I shouldn't say exciting but it was it was good to see that that's where you're starting I also this you know you talked about faculty and you brought up such a good comp that this is a challenge in Massachusetts certainly for schools for organizations it's sort of everybody's hiring within a limited pool and this is a lot of what I do in my work is to think about these barriers in the system and so I just have to say that for you all to be so passion about this gives me hope that you will go into roles in the future where you will break down these barriers that exist so that we can TR to change these demographics I hope that that's what you think about because you all have sort of that mind of wanting to make that change and to present Solutions so I hope that you keep doing that um last thing is you um in addition to the restorative justice training a lot of what the data was um seemingly asking for is bystander training so that's another piece that you may want to include in your suggestions because it feels like that would be really important you had that we brought up yest it was brought up by the yeah after your slides were prepared and I think if I can add on to that a little bit too so I think this is really important for our district to see because we have a very big discrepancy between our little guys right now who are going to be growing up in a school district where dib is now a part of culture and we're working very progressiv to make sure that those kids are are learning and progressing and changing the way that they're not even changing the way that they're thinking just thinking in more ways more quality for us we as adults and young adults have a lot of reprogramming to do we have a lot of work to do and we have to do it fast um so I'm I'm hopeful that if in 10 years my little guys and Sh may take a survey like this I'm very hopeful that the answers are going to be different if we're we're if we're really trying to make those efforts but we're able to make those efforts because you guys have a voice voice and I really appreciate you giving you and your peers a voice so that we as adults can say okay like we really need to make a change for our community um so I really appreciate the work you guys did guys do a really job thank you um is everybody a senior or do we have some oh that's a problem yeah it's a senior class yeah um I was hoping that wasn't the case because the works so good we you know what are the next steps right so we've got to try to hand this off to the junior class or get some underclassman involved so that the work continues because you've done you you know you've done such a good job starting the process here and you know in actuality like the districts this is an emphasis within the district as well but it's awesome that you guys put the survey together um I'd love to see a plan in place where the folks you know the class behind you or class behind that can kind of continue with this initiative and I would just ask those folks that um that take this on like continue to let us know how we can help so it's like you've got the proposals in here these are all great ideas um change is difficult um but feel free to come back to you know invite those those students back to the school committee um next year and let us know what's working where we need more assistance because being an LHS student just isn't learning the curriculum and learning what you need to pass the mcast and to get into college right it's becoming uh like a global citizen we want we want to graduate students who are going to make an impact um you know locally nationally internationally and um and this is really important work so I thank you for taking the initiative you're off to a great start um I think we all realize that there's loads of work to be done but something that the district takes uh seriously and we're prioritizing these efforts so thank you for bringing it to our attention again this evening and thank you for your uh demonstration of the importance of student voice School C I mean this is this is ground you you taken on a a task that you were passionate about did a thorough job of your investigation of it your presentation it's phenomenal I had the pleasure of of see your presentation once to before and you truly do make a difference and you're you're an example of of any of the attributes that we look towards form correctly with our graduates so very proud of what you've done the challenge now talked about was here the first time is how do we perpetuate this and I think that's going to be a task of Dr Harrington as well first of all we need to keep student voice we need to to find ways to en Camp student Voice Within high school and we we need to continue to move forward with all the good work that you've done determine what our next steps are you made some great recommendations it's my hope that any of these recommendations that you presented to us tonight become part of with the high school thank you so much thank you all right that's a tough one to follow uh next we're going to hear from the staff so the state of the curriculum reports part three free content area uh jada2 World Language curriculum coordinator Elizabeth Kelly provide an update on the World Language curriculum after that we're going to hear 6 through 12 history and social science curriculum coordinator Joseph Dennis and then following that be David scoi with an update on the ELA curriculum all right hi everybody hello I'm Liz Kelly uh I am the world languages curriculum coordinator for 6 to 12 so thanks for inviting me tonight um that is a T act to follow for sure um so um if I could get my slides all right normally wouldn't matter but actually I'm starting with a lot of words this is unusual but words you are the one that actually told the students yesterday about the bystander PD that a couple years ago you actually did online a few other stuff I can tell some time all right I don't to okay um yeah bystander training is great it's free um it's online I shared it with the staff again today a couple of us did it a couple years ago we found it and um it was wonderful so I shared it with the kids too um so uh thanks I think we need to go back a slide or two okay there we go okay so that's my slide of a lot of words I don't normally do that um and I apologize for that but um what I have on here um is our Department's vision statement and I just wanted to share it with you um at least the opening paragraph of it is what's there um in order to provide a sense of focus and I just wanted to highlight a few key phrases from it um because I'm going to be talking about them tonight so um in Littleton Public Schools we believe that all students should have the opportunity to learn a second language in order to communicate success y AS Global Citizens uh that's the first statement and I I'm going to talk about global citizenship tonight and um a little further along um our courses promote linguistic and cultural proficiency while connecting students to their peers local community and worldwide users of the target language and I'm going to be talking about uh linguistic and cultural proficiency as well um as always we're most proud of the fact that in this District in this small District um that we are able to offer a full sequence of three languages um which again can be quite a challenge due to our small size and the number of hours of language exposure needed um to acquire a practical level of proficiency in any language um we also worked on our curriculum review uh this year so I will share some of our findings with you we you go to the next slide please so as we undertook our curriculum review um our student survey results uh we also have survey uh demonstrated several key areas um of strength in great numbers students noted that the variety of activities they encountered in language classes uh helped to prepare them for the next level due to these learning opportunities they also recognize the value of world languages in their education um and I've included um excuse me and lastly they felt well prepared for the next level of language study uh which is great uh because we've done a lot of work over the years on vertical alignment of curriculum so I've included uh several images of this variety of learning activities uh that students might encounter in our classes um and I'll just highlight one you can see an eighth grade uh Spanish class um after reading a novel they completed a one-pager uh and then they shared what they learned next slide please uh also dur during our curriculum review uh we identified some areas for growth and our response in includes uh the following uh with new uh French textbook and materials we are streamlining the 6 through 12 curriculum with even more proficiency Based Teaching strategies in Latin at the upper levels we're adding more novellas to provide uh more vocabulary and content support for students as they begin to read traditional Roman authors at a higher level of proficiency and Spanish is adding an audiovisual program called Bob lingua uh to add more depth and variety for the primary curriculum additionally uh we are always pursuing uh professional development both formally and informally on these topics and we're really proud uh that we were able to secure a a dese funded spot for Maas Proficiency Academy this summer for our new uh French Middle School teacher Morin deuso uh through their Rising leaders program next slide uh what I want to talk most of the time tonight about is uh linguistic and cultural proficiency so we continue to offer dual enrollment courses via middle sex Community College um so students can earn credit for up to two college courses uh by studying World languages at Littleton High School um and as you can see um from previous slides students demonstrate a fairly high level of language proficiency which is the level of intermediate High um in order to earn the massett state seal of biliteracy on their diploma um I've actually included a link for you all um in case you wanted uh to get some more details um desie has recently updated their informational slideshow uh so I did link that there it's up to date um as of think January is um in the infographic on the left um I know some of the data is old uh but you can see how many years um of language study it usually takes to reach uh each level of proficiency um since we currently begin in seventh grade um our students can progress a little bit beyond these levels but only marginally uh since the higher up you move um the more language there is to acquire and you end up spending a lot more time at the even the intermediate levels uh with these challenges regarding uh time spent on learning uh we are very proud to share our own results in proficiency testing um we have 13 seniors this year who will earn the state seale of biliteracy on their diploma um some of the highlights of that um of those 13 are four are native speakers uh two students are earning it in two languages other than English um Chloe Buckaloo earned it in Japanese um as well as Latin uh she learned the Japanese on her own wow yeah it's unbelievable um she also achieved the level of uh the Massachusetts state seal with distinction which means the advanced level so even higher uh and um Elijah for niola who also earned it in two languages um uh he earned the uh he also earned the statesa distinction one of them so that was that was really exciting for us um in related exciting news um state colleges and universities are offering credits uh for students earning the Seal of biliteracy um and just two weeks ago uh I don't believe it's been formally announced but we have we have official word through channels uh from uh des's office of language acquisition uh the UMass ammer plans to offer credits now so it's moved Beyond colleges to the universities um and so we we anticipate now that all the state universities will be offering credit for the seal uh 12 credits uh you mer is offering off for the seal and 15 credits if someone earns a seal with distinction um related I just added a little note here to uh trying to increase diversity in education um is the fact that any student who earns the Seal of biliteracy uh has a a voucher uh that they can have for their life which is uh they can take the mtel and um uh for free so there is there is this you know idea to try to include students who um have uh you know language proficiency and at least that level of diversity so um next slide please um lastly um another vital component of our vision is global citizenship um I'd like to share with you just some of our activities um from uh the last year um through the video uh meeting technology platform ontio some High School Spanish classes that virtually uh with schools in Ecuador and Argentina this spring and they shared stories about their school day their towns and themselves and they each did this in their respective uh Target languages um uh the senior Spanish class invited members of the Council on Aging uh to their class in April to finish out uh their unit on the golden years um and they painted together um while sharing music and refreshments um so you can see some other examples up there as well um of our Focus um on students AS Global Citizens and with that I will end uh and I'd be happy to answer any questions thanks questions comments I'm so impressed at your achievements with three languages um is there ever any discussion to bringing it below seventh grade or is our district just too small to because what I've heard is that kids minds are more flexible at the early years when the teachers yes there so some some it's a it's a struggle across Massachusetts um in order to you know work a schedule and funding and um we have we have been looking at the possibility of it um looking at sixth grade right now we're running up against um scheduling issues um and of course Staffing would be an issue too and funding so yeah I mean yeah it's so many things um yeah of course the the longer students have to uh have you know the more input they receive the higher level of proficiency they can achieve and so I think that when we look at countries outside of the US you know when we look at Europe and um they start you know in first grade kindergarten that that's why people speak more than one language it's it's a struggle in the United States but the sale of by literacy is really um hoping to help um acknowledge that um deficit that we seem to have and and try to promote um in a positive manner um people who are able to achieve it so that it's a goal we than I got a lot of confidence in Jason figuring out the scheduling thing I think you might need some more stuff for that so this is it one language that they pick seventh grade on or they so so they have an exploratory program in sixth grade um right now um between the three languages French Latin and Spanish and then in seventh grade they they pick one and um they we to get them to commit for that for two years um seventh and eth and then they can either continue that language um at the high school or they can pick a new one or what we like to say they could always add another um you know if there's room in their schedule but yeah how do you support the students who are interested in other languages like Japanese um so you know there are there we do have VHS um there it we really there's not there's really not a lot we can do um as a small District um what we can do is we can um we can encourage them in what other avenues there are like I said VHS is the primary one um and then we can also talk to them about what their goals are um and how really learning any any other language than your first language does open up you know neural Pathways and and helps you with learning other languages so we try to we try to talk about that and if someone's interested in a romance language um you know we've got it if it's not a romance language that it's trickier but um it it's a challenge again Staffing trying to maintain continuity and a strong program and we've done a really good job I think and our result our proficiency results are really starting to show that um with the three that we have right [Music] now do a great job thanks so much um I'm Joseph Dennis I'm the history history and social science uh Department coordinator welcome they did your job for you I know right I was like gosh I'm gonna be this like it's tonally all over the place um so hopefully it's a all right um all right so next slide please no memes this time things are last time um okay so we also had curriculum review this year um I'm not going to go too deep into the things that we did it was successful um I will give the high school teachers a a shout out because they had to do most of the work because luckily for the middle school we had already done a lot of that stuff previously um so we really focused on two main things we had a Civics education that we were we were trying out a new uh program and we were aligning the genocide education requirement across the different bre so that's kind of what I'm going to be focusing on today um we also uh just continue to use Universal Design for Learning so we're we have different types of ways that students can show um their understanding of different cont that we're doing the class there projects we do tests just like you know they've always done um and some other highlights we have uh the Civic showcase um projects are coming up in a few weeks and we have country Expo beginning of June um I don't have any pictures for that obiously because it hasn't happened yet um yeah so next slide please um okay so uh the Gen the genocide education uh requirement um littleton's uh very good with this so this is something that we've been doing already uh in sixth grade it is not present in social studies it just doesn't really align with what is taught in that course it's ancient history and geography there are opportunities that we can look in the future we do have an optional reading assignment in ela where students can choose the circle fiction novels there's a Alan Graves uh graes uh text that students can choose from they're like pre-World War II World War II and the Holocaust focused um novels that were very popular last year I haven't talked to um the English teacher this year but last year the seventh grade that I have I'm I'm the seventh grade social studies teacher um it's something that's very popular with the kids they have a lot of interest in learning about um this topic already um so it is in ela but it's not in Social stud for grade seven for for my course it's the first year that we've done that so we've um talked about the history of anti-Semitism and islamophobia in medieval Europe uh last week we talked about the Crusades and how that um changed sort of the way that people were treated in Europe and the Middle East in North Africa uh we defined genocide as a term and we kind of just sort of just an introduction to this idea pretty heavy stuff for seventh grade but they they actually handled it very well I personally as like a teacher that I never taught it I was quite nervous but kids were really good about it um in eighth grade is a similar situation with sixth grade and that it's not covered in the social studies corul um but students do read The Diary of a young girl which is the diary van Frank for what it's most commonly known as um that is something that the eighth graders are either wrapping up right now or they had done it relatively recently um for grade nine world history I will say I will Echo what um the seniors were saying earlier it is still a eurocentric course um but we are trying to have more voices in different types of history for this world history class is it's something that even back when I was in high school it was very eurocentric um genocide is a topic that is not just about Europe and students learn about the Armenian genocide in the Holocaust right now but there are other opportunities for the future uh for grades 10 and 11 which is uh US history there are uh different topics around the interactions between American European colon colonists and indigenous people of North and South America and in grade 12 we have the face of History foret available to some Juniors some years next slid yeah I feel silly kind of jumping into this this this thing we just um so for the Facing History and ourselves course um it's an honors coures for upper classmen they uh are lucky to have a variety of speakers that come in that talk about their experience in Survivor stories um we have I have a photo here um of ymin isic uh Survivor the bosan genocide and students uh they read the river runs salt and run sweet which is herla and she spoke to um that F next SL um and uh Christen mcmanis she's amazing she actually I'm G to give her all the credit I was just kind of there uh she secured a genocide educa genocide education grant through desie which we are finalizing right now for next year so we're we're focusing on uh P pedagogy and um courses through S State uh history specific workshops for for history department but the Facing History um PD will be open up hopefully to The English Department and other teachers that are interested um and then we have some other things like guest speakers and buying more curriculum we're hoping to use some of this money to purchase uh books uh for different classes in the high school next slide pleas um all right so shifting gears a little bit I want to focus on the cic project and um generation citizen the partnership that we are doing this year for the year the first year of two um I was uh in it me and Beth Morgan were at u a fall PD where we learned just like the process of doing this action research project uh is a requirement that all eighth graders do an action research project and um we have Civic day which is next week it involves three students from each other five sections and they attend um basically a big showcase where they see other other students in Massachusetts project and they get to also show off their project and all the work that they've done um it is a very complicated project that is um quite impressive and a big thing for to to ask for an eighth grader um they are still going through it right now they're so you know finalizing but um essentially they are contacting stakeholders in the community they are choosing their topics as a class they are discussing debating whates of things they want to um Target their their six action research um the topics for this year were uh sidewalks and the safety of sidewalks in town um ncast as a requirement for graduation and then there were there was a mixture of some classes that wanted to focus on uh teens and uh vaping and drug use um because teenagers um and then uh the other requirements it's a lot for civics um there are two mcast pilots that we are doing there's an end of course exam that the students have to do there two days and it's just what it sounds like they have to show off what they know from the course um and then there's a performance test which is I think the better of the two if I'm going to share my opinion it is a primary source sort of analysis they're going to they get a pre-assigned topic ours freedom of the press and media literacy and the students uh are given documents and then they use those documents to show off what they know about the topic next slide pleas so shifting tone um this is my classroom so uh I teach uh ancient history and geography the second second uh half of it and um it's kind of like the stuff I I did last year I just wanted to show you guys some different stuff so I'm looking at it I looks like we are obsessed with swords um so in the the left side here uh this was this was a skit so we did a project where students were they learned about the Roman Empire they be write a short story they create a skit and perform in front of the class or um they could do a comic and there's a comic of a different different topic of the same project and uh did not get any pictures of the third activity that I have here but we did um a few weeks before we went to the heavier topics of genocide I wanted to kind of let the kids have some not so heavy you know very sad depressing sort of topics for such a young age so we did a tournament where the kids thought each other with do is very fun um so a little bit of my class um I have a few other slides about my CL I think I'm to go through but next slide please uh yeah so um it's uh these are just some slides about one of the activities that I've done in my class it is around um divine right to rule so I like to focus on politics and government to try to get the kids a little bit ready for eth grade so this was an a game that we played beginning of the year when we were learning about ancient Imperial China and uh essentially the game is it's all randomly selected there are scenarios you want to switch slides please um and there's a wheel it spins there are different scenarios the kids are in teams one person from each team is the king or the queen and they have to figure out a response to whatever random thing that happened in their society and then they discuss as a group The spokesperson then tells the rest of the class how they're going to solve the problem and then uh if you switch slides please we pick based on voting which uh one of these are going to click so you click one of the things it goes to a new um wheel which switch the slide please and you could receive based on some math that I did you could either get a you lost the Divine Right To Rule because X or you gain you kept the theine right to so it's just it's a silly game that I play with the kids just so they are learning about different types of governing and how people are selected to rule try to keep it like next slide please uh this is from world history uh honors course so this was a simulation that uh Miss do had done with her her students um yes it's good next slide please uh this is from one of our very popular electives that we have at the high school it's a US Film goes to war so this is um something that Ryan Walsh does with the kids they um can make a movie poster and answering prompt and then they have to Pur to the class next slide please and that's it I will answer any questions um I have two questions this really great um one is you mentioned in your class you teach sism mon all that do and you talked about s the time period that you you also connect it to current events um so the the this year I did um it was the first time I've done it because it it was the first time so I I'm sure that it's going to be more robust next year I used uh materials from Facing History and ourselves because they offered online for free yeah um and yeah it it wasn't any current events um but it was not just this is this isn't the past it was very much a through line we talked about the Holocaust when we talked about anti-Semitism and then when we um talked about islamophobia we weren't talking about what's going on in the Middle East right now but it was definitely a discussion around islamophobia in the 21st century that was that was definitely something I we talked about yeah I appreciate that and I think especially given the survey of what the students have shared like often times youan you connected to to racism it's thought that you know slavery is over and so that doesn't exist anymore and so that bringing the connection to now especially because literally right now is like all over the news and the colleges and all the proten and stuff and so I appreciate you sort of bringing that through line in um and then the second question was again sort of based on what the students had shared like and I remember this even in school history is often very depressing and when we learned about India it was about the British rule of India and so I just wonder if you all are thinking especially given what they had shared how s we can diversify content so that different are looked at more than just how they were ruled but like for what they are and this may be a Massachusetts standard thing I don't know because I don't I don't know the standards I I can't speak to the India Stu with yes I know but just general well so I I do teach that topic and it's like it's actually very I find it very fun to teach we uh we've done um actually this year we and and Jason was was there for part of it I invited into my classroom we did um a a much much a bridge uh r on sort of performance and it just it just aligned with the Vol this year somehow I just worked with the planning um and uh we had the Indian folk art um so we are doing some yeah yeah we I I would say yes I would say yes absolutely great great yeah um I have some questions um so I I understand you're um you're rolling out your initiatives with Geno side and with with the action Civic project so that's great um it sounded like from I know you got the Desi grant for genocide education is that for this coming year is that mostly going to be focused at the high school was that what you were saying or is um so like the professional development will be middle school and high school um and we haven't we haven't finalized every aspect of where the money is going to be used a lot of it will be for the high school um just uh because we know where we want like we know what we want to use it for um and a lot of it um spits better in that way I mean because there's there's some opportunities with the seventh grade social study standards to teach genocide too because it's are are you aligned with the standards the way desie is it has laid them out or are your regions a little different among the grades so there there's no standard in seventh grade for genocide education is this is through the wall that was passed right so the guidance is that you can tie to geography and I felt that that was um it was just a weird it was guidance not required so what I decided was that we're going to do the legacy of the Roman Empire and then we learned about the uh the Crusades and how that connected to islamophobia anti-Semitism we talked about blood liel and the history of how that created anti-Semitism and that is the through line and then we talked about how those two things are in the 21st century so it wasn't we didn't talk about I guess what you're refering to they're not written in the standard yeah that's that's the problem it's when the legisl I thought it was a pretty when they get on top of the uh the curriculum and and then it's up to teachers to try to integrate it but there's like when you teach about ancient China you know you can bring it into the current Day by talking about the Wagers oh yeah so yeah that is that is like almost an exact thing in there I yeah I had a different idea yeah and then when you talk about southeast Asia of course there's the Cambodian genocide so there's lots of but it's you know already piling into a very busy um curriculum that you have so it's but I there's since that law was passed there's so many resources out there now about how to support middle school teachers and high school teachers with teaching about genocide and dealing with the emotional impact of that because it's as you were saying it's very heavy history and how do you process the emotions that that that brings up and the other the other thing that I was you know I'm very grateful that you're addressing it at all the grade levels 6 through 12 like that you found an entry point and um you know so it sounds like you're you're you're doing a great job with uh teaching them about his the history of different um incidences of genocide but I was wondering if you if you also get into the the signs of what to watch for when um a society is heading toward side are you refering to like the sign of fascism and stuff like that yeah could be that um you know because there's some resources out there if you're heading in that direction so that is that I would say yes that is something that's covered um in eth grade like I was saying before they learn about um the Holocaust through the The Da van frame um so that's something that would probably be covered in the 8th grade um yeah yeah yeah just you know skills that students can take forward as they become you know we were talking earlier about being Global Citizens you know how to as as active hopefully active citizens in their society how can they watch out for changes in society that are warning signs um and that will be part of our Facing History connection through our genocide Grant next year we have a significant the grant funds actually going into a partnership with Facing History and ourselves and Joey Chris and I have had that conversation of doing want it right because there's kind of two ways well there's multiple ways to looking at it right but one is do we want PD like content area PD so that we as Educators understand history better or and or realize what it should be of um as Educators having delivery of that content of that information or how do we have students uncover that information in a way that's safe and comfortable um but also real and raw with the information at hand yeah and so that I what you're saying is we're going to enhance Upon Our Own knowledge and skill sets moving forward which I think does directly really sad students yeah I'm taking the face history class this year and like we learned about the un's definition of genocide the 10 different stages of genocide so maybe it's possible to incorporate that through like the curriculum to earlier grades yeah no that's that's kind of um that is exactly what I was thinking about so that is like they get taste and then they get a little bit more and that's kind of it was mindfully uh crafted in that it's not every year they're learning the same exact thing it is puzzle pieces so that once they're Olden they can they can put it all together just like with any other any other topic and I'm excited that you're using generation citizen that's such a great program and uh will you be bringing it up to the high school as that is the plan yeah that the well good luck with your projects it's PR exciting thank you yeah Joseph good job you've got a heavy lift here especially with on the tals though um the student the uh the student presentation we had it's nice to see that we have a group of seniors that were hungry for um you know carrying a lot of this forward and trying to make a difference and you know I don't want to suggest that you know your department partners with those individuals and guys to carry this forward but I think it's a districtwide um issue that we're going to continue to address and certain like fundamentally lands within the subjects that you teach so you carry that burden my man do you do you think that with the standards the way they are written that the department has the necessary flexibility to Pivot adjust to topics that our students need knowledge of discussed I me one of the concerns I'm an advocate of of crical standings curc but we also live in a world that has various things happening at a rapid pace so I guess what I really asking is do you feel that there's some latitude that allows our teachers to uh go into areas that that they feel are important areas or events that are happening at the moment and I I'm just curious about that uh I I do think so um so speaking for my like my own experience last year my my original plan um I I did some reworking this year but last year my original plan was to um talk about British British colonialism in the in South Asia and then talk about the partition and the genocide of U in East Pakistan Bangladesh um and I when I got to that point I realized that there was too much for a seventh grader to uh learn um when they don't understand the concepts of colonialism necessarily at that age um but I had the ability to reinterpret and interpret and figure out a way that this work so I absolutely do think that this is something that teachers can figure out and have the ability to do and have the freed to do I would say thank you thank you evening David pasi I'm GNA present for The English Department grade 6 through 12 thank you um so uh some pictures here and you know had a little time to to make this slideshow this presentation then I kind of put it away for a few days and looking at it it's always interesting seeing how how much some of these Juniors have grown in you know the eight eight months or so since this picture was taken so it's just funny um so just some picture of some students at the beginning um learning students names obviously so important um and just you know the idea of just understanding a child um culturally and just getting the name right it's so important recognizing their Humanity right off the bat so that's that's where we start day one um also the uh the poster of MC Beth that was something that Adam and Co obviously uh did an amazing production and that was something that um you know we incorporated in the English Department as well uh for some of the classes and um obviously some of the students in our class were acting in that so it was a fun collaboration um and then there's a couple of other assignments there in the bottom right hand corner um some mixtapes that students made so that's fun because we're teaching about Romanticism and Nostalgia and uh some of the kids are learning about mixtapes and they're wondering how to like burn a CD and I said where are you get these cases so fun things like that so whenever possible we we do try to incorporate some tangible Hands-On learning um in the ELA Department next slide please um so some highlights and accomplishments um so with the help of an Alf Grant Mr tomino acquired various literary journals to supplement his creative writing classes with the best um modern writing um and so that's a you know it's a great way to uh keep keep the literature very up to date to diversify uh the curriculum so that's sort of uh writing that song and Cutting Edge from a wide range of writers um in the mcast uh student corts on average had um 133% increase in students moving into the meeting or exceeding category in in ela um so generally we're we're doing uh quite well um and we're trending in the right direction so there's continued uh positive growth in the ELA mcast cross all grades um ninth grade student you can see in the right hand corner here gab ganas uh entered and earn a certificate of Merit in a writing contest and his works are published so he's now a published author he can post of that and um our department continues to develop student writing across um a number of curriculum areas uh one way we can do that is with vocabulary um vocabulary enrichment can go you know across um you all all levels all classes um and it's really that's one simple but clear way of embracing um interdisciplinary connection next slide please uh some professional development uh in line with district and state plan goals faculty engaged and collaborative projects within and across departments um we had a cross District development with uh a Shirley and Harvard Public Schools um and so we uh worked on some problem solving techniques through protocols and that was uh applied for adults and teachers working but also some protocols that could be used for class discussions um so incorporating mechanisms for um reflective feedback and productive uh discussions that uh have really clear parameters also um during that cross District uh curriculum Workshop I I led a favorite poem project um activity and that's something I've been doing in my classroom and other other teachers have been doing in their classroom as well um and that's a great way again uh to open up um lots of different voices so poetry is one way that we can kind of uh you know really um incorporate lots of uh different voices without um necessarily um having to overhaul the curriculum so that's one one great thing also with poetry and the favorite poem project um sometimes it's about uh person's connection with the poem um so it's always interesting to see uh how one person has a valid reading of a poem that might be a little bit different um from someone else um uh AI I know people are hearing about that all the time that's come up in several meetings U so we're trying to be proactive about that um and using AI um to to guide our teaching and instruction um as best that we can obviously it's it's a challenge in some ways it's it's changing uh so rapidly but we've talked about AI for teachers and approaches to dealing with AI in our Eli classrooms and also um you can see the picture here um there was something that was introduced recently um having like AI generated um conversations from uh historical figures from the past um so like you could have like a chat with a historical figure so it's kind of an interesting uh connection and I just happened to grab a couple of people there but there was a wide range of people um from famous authors the famous leaders like MLK orilia airheart um and we're continuing with our focus on udl right so ELA teachers attended evidence-based professional development on multi-tiered support systems evidence-based tiered interventions evidence-based literacy models and effective leadership practices um so udl allows Educators to identify and to reduce barriers in order to allow all students um the best access to learn next slide please um continuing um a tradition that started uh in a coup a couple years ago uh mcast ma magnificence in the Middle School uh so MLS students created posters to Mo motivate excuse me and Foster positivity and there's some really great posters I did get a chance to um snap a picture of some of the more recent ones but the Hulk smash is a is a favorite that greets kids in the U in the hallway so I I apologize it right up front I know I know I I apologize I have a picture of that um but it's better in person it's like you know it's like the Mona Lisa you gota see yourself you know um so anyways but this is sort of you know trying to strike the balance of realizing that um you know sometimes um we have to test our knowledge um and it's important to measure student learning but of course um we want students to have a positive mindset But realize that you know um you know testing is uh sometimes um it can be exhausting right so sometimes students can have test fatigue so trying to strike that that balance between um instruction and helping kids feel prepared so that they can they can do their best um and some Proctor observed outcomes is that student students worked so hard that they required uh some extra time they were really involved and wanted to keep on working it wasn't something that just wanted to get done and check off the list and more students than ever uh created and use graphic organizers to plan out their right so you know usually for writing at the middle school level high school level wherever you know student just starts writing that's probably not a good sign right so it takes some time to think about um what they want to write about so Proctors observed that that great strategy next slide please um here's just again another example of some you know tangible Hands-On uh learning this is just a a project that Miss Barry um has been working on with u with her students over the years so this is a Scarlet Letter diary project so students um basically after or when they're close to finishing the Scarlet Scarlet Letter they um choose a character and write from that person's perspective so narrative empathy right so taking on someone else's perspective quite literally um so that's important and then also thinking about point of view perspective so in life in in history you know there's no one single truth right so you know it's kind of interesting to think about different perspectives um and then of course of course the the concept of of voice and you know we do connect that with it's quite popular now for people have blogs and and uh having a voice online not just uh you know an old school uh diary one last slide um no sword in this but um we do have some chalous young men here and um we have a I know I just somehow the statue I don't know if it was a prop from uh from the stage but that happened to be in my room one day and I figured that would be a fun photo to take so think of these two young men as shos characters so ended with them excent questions comments observations from the scho committee um so thank you this all seems very wonderful but I think well and I think considering what the students the presentation that the students said I'm thinking that's just a really hot topic right now on my mind for like the literature that the kids are learning through your program but you also highed something where you know we have M you have certain standards that the kids have to have to reach um so how are you balancing what the kids need to know to do well for these standardized tests versus kind of what they need and what is kind of important within our district to start to incorporate a little bit more diverse literature and a little bit more exposure to that um yeah that's a great question um it's striking the right balance I think so I kind of I mentioned how you know poetry is one great way to do that especially if you don't necessarily have all the funding we are going to have um curriculum review coming up in our department in a couple years so that's going to be we're going to make a lot of big purchases um so I think it's important to incorporate um stuff right away but I think we have a lot of short stories and poetry um sometimes to be honest um a text that we might be teaching is because we happen to have 60 copies of it right so you know I mean we have to keep keep in mind the Practical Ms most of that stuff um and also I think it's important to know um that students have the best tools um so sometimes reading and challenging older texts is is important for just learning uh English grammar like syntax and stuff like that um and then another simple thing that I know all our teachers do is independent reading right so I think that's really important and guided independent reading so one thing a lot of our um my colleagues encourag to do is to read some non-fiction right some brand new non-fiction whether that's a bi graphy a memoir or about a certain topic I think that is um another way that we're trying to um incorporate diverse voices I'm glad you asked that I was going to ask that question too about the diverse literature I mean it I think there you know there certainly is much to learn from reading the classics but it's also um it's good for students to read things that are more relevant to the world that they're in right now and I love that you're encouraging the independent reading I'm sure that the library would be able to help you out with curating um books to um on a cart you know for the the high school kids to go down and select from for a project but um I'm glad you've got that on your mind especially after what the students said earlier that that was one of their recommendations that that they're noticing I think it's a I consider Tony Morrison a classic right beloveds a classic um and that's a probably one of the hardest books that we teach so I think it too we have to we have to think about what you know what we mean by that term and all that so I think yeah it's it's it's a developing thing it's something that we're we're constantly revisiting and I know um some schools at some districts have done like a like a bias sort of rubric for purchasing new texts I think that would be something that we would definitely look at for our curriculum review so sort of thinking about like um you know what what are some of the you know key areas that this book is hitting or lacking on right for representation um yeah so that's definitely something we would go through all of our our our texts I'm glad you've got that on run and the other thing I wanted to ask you we we talk about udl a lot we've heard a lot about that in different presentations and um so I'm glad you brought it up too I was wondering since you're living and breathing it um is there an example you could give us of How It's implemented because when when we talk about it it's up at this level you know and what's it actually look like in practice sure and I have you know this is a very concrete answer so it'll be it'll be short and sweet but I I think it's concrete um so you know maybe five six seven years ago I very rarely would show a movie with like closed captions right something like that now that's something no matter what we're doing we have closed captions um things like that so I know that's like very simple and practical but I think that's one thing that really opens access um for people on um for lots of different reasons whether language is you know it's their first language third language that they have trouble hearing all that sort of stuff so that's like one really kind of just in the trenches answer yeah thank you also just wanted to give a shout out to the AI because Beth and I had gone to that conference a few months ago and we we've often talked about technology and AI in the school committee and ask questions about you how can we be prepared for like a things that's coming in that conference I think at least for me be and I think based on this too for you sort of opened up the opportunities that it could be and that was a really cool one having conversations yeah oh so you saw I don't know if get engrossed in the conversation and it's very well built because you try to distract the person like I was talking to Amelia aart and I'm talking some nonsense and like she just keeps pulling me back to the so it's really smartly designed and as a teacher you can watch because we were all pretending and saying this is stupid this is stupid as kids would do but the teacher can see the conversation so there's real opportunity there and I think also with his history as well like that very much applies to a history class or um so appreciate how we're thinking about incorporating more aiut in a safe way it's scary in some ways but it's exciting in others absolutely yeah very good thank you so much thank you all right presentation three uh spring sports update right athletic director Mike Glenn the podium please thank you for being patient all right thanks for having me um yeah next slide um so I think I I was supposed to present like a month ago so this might seem not as uh applicable now but anyways we we stayed with the presentation but winter Athletics just a recap of of what we did there um you know you can see the list of uh sports that we offer some of those are Co-op Sports we talked about that back in the fall when I did a preview of The Winner the winter season coming up we had 11 11 teams 17 total we had 11 at Littleton Public Schools and 17 we had about 200 athletes in the winter good next slide please uh probably more important is our participation um that's where we always start with we want to see the most participation possible you can see our numbers there um you where they fall as far as each sport ice hockey just a you know an example of that Co-op concept that we that I've talked about before we had 35 student athletes but only 20 them from Littleton 12 from bronfield three from Parker and you can also see some of our other co-ops like our Varsity grills Ice Hawks we had seven seven of our student athletes but that was on the Wester Academy team and you see swimming and Diving Aline skiing all the breakdowns of our student athletes where they fall next slide and at the middle school the winner all we have is uh boys and girls basketball we don't have as much in the winter as we do in the fall for middle school students in our Varsity records you can just I don't show you the the JB and middle school records it's not really the focal point of those programs but at The Varsity level we do I do want to show you what how those teams spared um something interesting we did an indoor track this season there was no the the Dual there weren't dual meets per se there was Invitational meets where um because that's just a unique sport um we spent a lot of time going into Reggie Lewis Center uh and we changed the Dual meet format back as far as our our meets at the the schools in the midwatch league that have those IND track which is three venues um we find our our higher level student athletes they don't really have much interest in running on a flat rubber track anymore and they want to do everything at Reggie Lewis on a bank I think they call Mondo surface so we've responded to that by by going this new format it seemed to work pretty well um but anyways there's our records for the winter sports next slide please we had our second season of unified bowling uh we're we're still the only School in midusa League that's doing bowling um to my knowledge I don't think any of the schools have done it to the level we are I think a couple schools have bowling as an activity but we do it at a competitive level um Mr Mr Eric Arnold runs the team uh brings him to you know these meets at the state and District level uh so that's been uh something that we're doing I think we're on the cutting Edo with our unified program uh next slide please uh I have another slot plaque here for Hy's Wall of Fame in his office you got it yeah um we had another new season in indoor track for the boys another state championship um I think we're up to like 10 state championships at this point and nine of them are in the running Sports uh we had a a run of girls cross country indoor and outdoor running winning state championships and then now we're in the middle of a boys one um and they won the indoor and they're I don't want to jinx them but they're projecting to potentially win the outdoor as well so we'll see how they do uh next week that takes place next Thursday and Saturday it's a two-part meet it'll be up at Marram college and um I just got news while I was sitting here tonight that both of our boys and girls uh outdoor track teams both won their leag Championship tonight but today and last week if you follow Twitter or whatever you probably would have seen that they both won the sectional Championship so as of right now our boys and girls outdoor track teams have won Central Mass they won the league today and they both compete at the state level um next Thursday and Friday uh Saturday rather so that was kind of exciting and that's why Kelly has another plaque for his wall need a bigger op I know maybe it's not bigger you're getting a different one no walls no walls it's all walls yeah so these uh these two boys both won individual uh Bona had a real big need he won two State you know individual state championships uh Tyler who was here tonight earlier um the um the the student presentation you had uh he won the 55 meter and um we'll see what they do on the outdoor at the outdoor meet coming up next week if the England state championships in that at the individual level too next slide please uh spring Athletics not so much a preview at this point I think this I think that was supposed to come in March uh but uh so anyways here we are now basically in the final stages of the spring season so um but you know we have quite a robust offering in the spring uh we have nine Sports um at at LHS we have 14 teams we have 288 uh student athletes participating 152 of those student athletes are running track um but yeah so it's just really popular right now and we will within the next few weeks we'll finish up this season we will play over 190 contests in now I'm going to tell you in Spring those 190 contests it's never easy it's John sees me day to day and some days I'm really stressed in Spring it is not easy in Spring between the weather um we have a an official shortage that's very real in uh the sport of baseball in and girls lacrosse which really can be challenging you might have a beautiful day and you can't play or you have to play at night instead of playing at 4:00 like you had planned just to make it work but uh hopefully we're going to make some Headway in those sports but those two sports in particular were the two most challenging there um busing has got a lot better with d as far as being able to have the been able to provide enough buses to be able to keep us playing on the days we want to play and keep everything on schedule but the spring season Bar None um with all the competing events too um just creates the most scheduling issues but uh there's our spring participation you can see it um at the high school uh where we fall like there's 92 student athletes in the high school loan then there's another UH 60 middle schoolers Who Run Track um we filled up every roster across all of our Sports and uh yeah so there you see that next slide middle school like I said 60 student athletes running track um that's what we offer there we do have some middle schoolers on baseball and softball and even boys lacrosse we we waiver them up um just to fill up those rosters that's on a year by year Case by case basis if we have room for them it seems like the Trend we've been seeing is that in baseball and softball we're going to continue to do that for the foreseeable future because just we're seeing a decline of participation there so let's open the door for those kids to play on JD teams and uh also on our boys lacrosse we had some e like three eighth graders on that J team next slide so I want to keep the school committee and superintendent and and Steve who isn't here tonight just um keep you informed about the age of probably our two Prem premier sport facilities uh Alumni field opened in 2017 we are finishing up our seventh year and this will be our 14th season of usage on that turf field um that I I mentioned this before that facility just was such a game Cher for us it allowed us to fix all of our grass fields and they really stayed like that like if you walk our grass fields you're not going to see dirt patches anywhere honestly you used to have that we would call Fields but they were really just rectangular dirt and uh you know they you just there's certain sports that are very very hard on um on the playing surface and we've been able to put those Sports predominantly on this surface but um this facility is aging but it's aging very well it's held up incredibly well my forecast would be that I think you'll I think the town will see probably 12 years before they need to do anything with this um facility but I want to just you know I'll continue to keep you informed on that but we're 14 seasons in and it's we've made one repair uh during that time and I found one other little seam that needs to be repaired it be the second repair in seven years in 14 Seasons so um it's it's performed incredibly well um next slide this would be our other like feature outdoor facility the track and I just this one is coming up on a scheduled maintenance we opened this facility in 2013 it was resurfaced in 2016 by the by cap and Island track because the initial surface failed because of um the the the material had a FL in it so we then reset the clock I guess you can say on 2016 on that on that Plexi track surface that we have it's a rubber surface and um it will be due for Reco though in 2026 when it comes up on the 10year mark and at that point I we would I would advise anyways that we add a pvt Runway which we're right now using a you can attest that right we're using that rubber roll out one that we have it's not great um it's it's it works kind of but what we want to do is um we would want to coat that surface and then we also maybe want to look at a javelin venue and then the other thing I would recommend that the look at is on Inside Edge of the straightaways there there should be like some sort of a coping system there whether it's a steel rail or a granite curve and for whatever reason back in 2013 we didn't do it was probably the cut cost I'm not sure but the reason why you going to have that is you don't want that pavement and that material to be kind of getting um broken off and what that does it'll just secure that that Inside Edge the the D areas don't need it it's those straightaways and if you're ever over the track you can take a look you'll see what I'm talking about might see little bits of payment starting to break off just from kids coming on to and off that surface I I think it would be I think it's something we want to look at and get get a price on when that rolls around as part of that recod Ser uh process in 2026 and once you do that you'll be you should be the town should be good till 2036 so the and then it will be due for probably more significant maintenance uh overhaul and these are just these are the recommendations by cap and Island track and lastly just some contact information just where are you thinking of putting the the job Runway so Casey wants to put it along that burm on the left side there he he feels like there's you know um room there so if you look if you're kind of at the track and you're I don't know if you're looking at the highway I guess it's along that edge of the outside of the fen area um I don't think it'd be nice to have that right now we've been we've been throwing the javelin inside the oval but um you know you switched over to tennis this year but you've been a part of track prior to that so it does extend the meats a little bit because we can't throw the javelin until we've done discus and done some other things and we could open up safely open up that oval for throwing the javelin which obviously there's some safety risk that that uh event um outside the oval would be great you could have it going on concurrently with viscus and shot and all the jumping events and everything like that but right now we have to kind of coordinate it but it's worked um it works what we do but there probably is a better way it will cost money though so something in town needs to decide if it's possible the other thing too going along with that slide um the lto which I don't know how much communication we've had since that organization was formed but that organization form to to help fund any kind of track related issues in this town and that facility so and you know as we get closer to that 2026 Mark there we have to do a um a recod not a resurface but a Reco on and look at maybe some other upgrades there um with track being where it is I just told you that 152 student athletes are running outdoor track and countless community MERS I think that inside that inside rail that inside Granite would would make a lot of sense when to do the Reco the pulvo runways are Nob brainer we we kind of need that but we're just we've got a Band-Aid kind of situation here the javelin piece that would be something to discuss yeah yeah sa the future I mean a former track track person I I love I love the r of the track for having when I was running we had we had those stretches too which were really really fun and excited to be a part of um but as always I get to say thank you very much for all the time um I don't think Micha will ever tell anyone what a bear this job is TR a full-time position that you dedicate a lot of time for after school to make sure that the kids have what they need um to participate in a number of programs um we have such a high participation rate kids are loving it we're successful in logistics that you have to logistical gymnastics that you have to go through to make sure that the kids have what they need yeah it's just something behind the scenes I don't think anyone will really understand how really big it is um but thank you as always and leave some really big shoes to fill one realize it there but yes thank you very much so thanks Mike well said Stacy being an ad is a difficult job and it takes a lot of time and a lot of skills so thank you for everything you do mik Mike I do have a question about the lto we've had a lot of changes in leadership uh with that organization throughout the years are they still communicating with you well um not really you know when Mark saier mov on and uh moved to New Hampshire and he was kind of my main he was our coach for a long time for those of you who know Mark maybe don't but um I he's was a great coach and a great friend and great resource you know stepped away a couple years ago and um I don't think I have that that level of connectivity there um I should probably talk with uh Casey about that I'm not sure if Casey's a member or not or who who that person would be that we should be communicating with um but that organization my recollection was it was formed in order to you know we we we got this new facility and that was to be some um be able to subsidize maybe down money or whatever he happen I don't have a dollar amount on that that Reco process that we need to do but I think that's something that Steve and I should work on and maybe get cape and Island out here to give us an idea of what we're looking at in two years to to stay on the timetable that they've outlined for us that the manufacturer outlined for us and um you know we want to make sure we're taking care of that it is the track track surface is a rubber surface it's a Plexi track and you know certain areas we areas like with the starting line you're starting to see some degradation but it's not that bad but you're star to see that and you know it's clearly why they recommend that a 10 year mark you you do a significant maintenance on I do know theyve they've been funding a account with the town I it was four or five years ago we had a conversation with them they they felt better if if that money went right into the town account okay I mean when the when you I'm sure you remember all this but when the track was fill uh there were certain sections of our community especially the people that U love the track and f that were involved in lto part of their not mandate but the desire was to make sure that they're raising money on a year basis to put it into a evolving account for when these repairs were needed and uh we're we're already almost there if you find out the individual's name who uh charge about maybe reach out and I would love to to meet with the individual and you as well I'll talk to the town and and get a fun balance of the account about it's been a while since we've had any Communications yeah I think it's time proba to sit down yeah just so I get this right in the minutes what does lto stand for littleon track organization what I thought and they they run the I I believe they run the road race uh road race in the fall um not sure what other fundraising Endeavors they they do um but I know that's a major major event for them um I don't think they run the triathlon I think that's run by the rotary that's run by the Yeah be a recipient of some of the proceeds though I don't know yeah yeah I think we probably need to so add some context here and the Name Escapes me and I apologize but I did have a conversation this winner about into somebody in basketball they've got uh they've got funds to for us you know the custody through the town again um they kind of wanted to connect on where the funds are and what the balances are and just ensure that again the funds are that they're that they're giving to US every year to set aside for this resurfacing um that they're still there and they haven't slipped into another account or anything like that so we should make best efforts to to start that conversation again with that that approaching quickly yeah and just everybody in the room understands the dynamic and how we do things in Littleton because every town does the stti how you manage these outdoor facilities the turf essentially is is little than public schools basically we kind of own that piece of land there the track also is pretty much as I understand when we did this was going to be under our our supervision and jurisdiction the grass fields are big predominantly our property but it's kind of a hybrid situation where we work collaboratively with the rep department and the maintenance comes out of DPW right so the parks is out of DPW um we don't have any any outdoor U maintenance Personnel per se in our town that's how we do it other schools do it differently where maybe custodians work outside then lner they go they work inside but we don't do it that way here so it is you know the turf and the track or some our responsibility that Ras field could work with the rec department and with the parks department on um and how that's all funded but it all depends to work but it is it isn't that clear cut maybe in some ways and there are the lto is an organization that's was put in place to try and help for track expenses as they come up down the line which we're coming up on those and then there was another one for Turf friends of alni field which now is kind of a defunct um not really a functional or a I don't believe anymore but there is a you know some money there that is they're still overseeing and might be absorbed by um by uh laa that's still all the infig off too um I saw that that windshield went uh wind wind fencing Shield not a wind shield but you know went up around the one night field just recently right a couple weeks ago it did in in friends of onni field F that was F money that paid for that um and that was considerable you know like everything now you're like well that cost that much like all right I had an idea what that might cost and then the vendor came at it but we've been had just so people because I've had some people ask why' you put that up like just for looks I said yes aesthetically it frames the field looks great it it just cleans up that that uh you know that side there you're not seeing as much of a parking lot so it like it for that reason has a logo on it but the functionality piece of it was during night games we' particularly when it was cold or hot people would pull into those parking spots and they leave their their car running with their lights on so we'd have to stop games to get them to turn their lights off they don't even know they're doing it so we're hoping that that's going to filter out the light enough that the officials won't see F they need to stop the game in order to get that person to turn off their lights in their car so that was the main reason why that that uh run that whole section of fence has the uh windscreen so um anesthetically it looks good too but it was functional too I one question later um user fees this is our first full year of our user fees being bumped up by a pretty good portion because we voted that in last year to help support the buses how was that been with the kids suppos to feed back then I don't even remember I can find like we changed the cap y you went to we went from I don't remember how many years it was $200 but it was a long time I think it was over 15 years um um because I this is my 19th year as athletic director and I believe my first year it I think it was $200 by memory serves me it was I think I was years last changed yeah so it went to 250 it was 20000 with a 550 family Max and now it's 250 with a 1250 um Family Max um haven't really gotten a lot of push back from people I mean um people have pretty much complied and understand that everything has gone up and this is reaction to that um our busing Con G up I'm just our Charter just this latest contract be moved up on the hourly rate but um so each of those trips is costing more money um and I mentioned the popularity of track um sometimes people think track is a really uh you know cheap sport to run the transportation of track is very very expensive particularly indoor track that's um and meat fees and things like that when we're renting all these facilities but um track Mees are long duration events those buses we're paying for those buses and when we're moving on we're moving you know 92 kids like we just moved today to Gardener um you know that's two buses and it's a long duration event and those are expensive buses um so yeah I think the fees hasn't been a major issue puration rate still high but I just yeah right and in June in a couple weeks I'll send I'll send Kelly a document this just kind of annual report and um once I can have all those figures and one of the things that'll be in there is the the overall dissipation rate where we're at but uh yeah postco we've been down about 8 or % from where we were pre you know we were hovering around 70% and now we hover in like the 60 61% um so we we never really got back to where we were but hopefully someday that'll happen but um you know things evolve and change and uh that's where we tend to be at these days we'll see we'll see what come in this year uh as far as overall percentage of participation great thank you so much right thank you right last but not least got the update on the I implementation would you like to move that to the next agenda or see to the next onefor I'm totally indiff you want to move to the next week all next meeting were you planning to come to that me okay want to make you come back and sit and wait some them all so we will table uh update the IEP implementation to our May 30th meeting and before I get to the interested citizens I just want to Circle back to um the code of conduct that was uh part of tonight's packet so it's Pages three and four uh this was a request from the Town Administrator so just recently the select board had discussed and implemented and and voted through a Cod conduct uh the school department was very kind and tweet the uh select board code of conduct and made it fit for the school committee um so I believe everybody had an opportunity to review this ahead of time um but essentially this code of conduct outlin three general areas of a member's responsibility um Community uh one Community responsibility two responsibility to District administrator uh sorry Administration and three um relationship to fellow school committee members and persons appearing before the school committee couple high points here um in terms of the community responsibility um realize that their primary responsibility is to all Littleton public schools and school committee members to represent the community at all times recognize that their function is policymaking and not administrative I remember that they are one of a team and must by abide by all school committee DEC decisions once they are made be well informed concerning the duties of the school committee member on both state and local issues with Littleton and accept the office of school Committee Member as a means of unselfish Public Service stop me if you guys have any questions but I think this is all pretty straightforward uh second responsibility here responsibility to little the Public School District administration um establish an update through the committee sound clear defined policies in which to governance support the district administr I think I think school committee is well ahead of probably many other boards um in town because we have clearly outlined policies that we update regularly recognize and support District administration chain of command and refuse to act on complaints as an individual outside of the school districts all communication should go through the superintendent um refer all complaints to The District Administrative Solutions and only pursue satisfactory results through the framework of the school committee structure if such Solutions fail request assistance and information from school staff only through the District administration so all of us should be communicating through Kelly as it relates to staff um the only employee that we supervise uh an employe is uh superintendent and relationship to fow school committee members and other persons don't need to read through all of these because I think we've been fortunate that we've been a highly functioning and respectful uh committee um see if anything jumps out at me open meeting laws important so unless specifically exempt uh such as executive sessions conduct the business of public manner um a public in a manner that promotes open and transparent government and maintains full compliance with the open meeting law uphold the confidentiality of sessions and the document presented during the same scanning these here to see where we might have particular interest never publicly criticize an employee of the town concerns about staff performance should be made in District administration through private [Music] conversation and then just conduct official business in such a manner as to give the clear impression that they cannot be improperly influenced the performance of their official duties enforcement of the code the school committee shall enforce the code of conduct any school Committee Member violating the code of conduct may be subject to public censure by the school committee during a meeting after initial warning a member who acts in an inappropriate manner um is unruly disorderly may be removed from the meeting by majority vote of the remaining members it's all very straightforward we received pretty good training at school committee members um like we've we've been fortunate uh School committee's acted as a high performing organization and we're all very fortunate to be part of that so if there aren't any questions or concerns or possible uh proposed edits I would ask for a motion to to accept um the code of conduct as as presented in the packet I just gave a high level overview motion to accept the code of conduct as present motion made by benol second seconded by Len by saying I I opposed hearing none we'll mark that as unanimous thank you so much uh select board and town administrators office be happy that we've got that taken care of um this is our second opportunity for interested citizens got anybody on Zoom with us still first one would better the news was here so they could have Pi that up um we roll through subcommittee reports if uh you don't have anything that but I WR bnbc is there an update from um no updates specifically but I am wondering as the Indian Hill project is starting to ramp up is that something we need I should do updates on because that's where all the offices are going right that's where all the administrative offices are going is the correct but I just don't know if that's a part of our school conversation here or if it's kind of just building can sure we can always anything we we want to talk about we can uh we're still waiting at this point in time in terms of when you're actually going to hire a crew to start the work I've heard a rumor that they're hoping that the renovation will be done by March so we'll see hope that'll be great uh you know it's exciting that uh they they they purchased the space and and it's been kind of a limo for over a year and it's nice to see that that town is moving forward to uh create a space that would be functional for Park and re still for many years we're excited about that if anything more exciting com during my pmpc meetings I'll share those as get what said feel free to share uh budget subcommittee uh budget subcommittee is thrilled that uh the townwide budget passed a town meeting and um we will be well staffed and in a position to uh have continue High academic performance all all the necessary support uh the anticipation is that uh you know fiscal year 25 and 26 also be challenging um until some of the the projects get online and create some tax revenue associated with the the sewer system um so jine will'll get ready to ready to work you know if not this summer but certainly uh early in the the fall to prepare next year's budget um policy subcommittee you guys have anything as we're sort of wrapping up present at the next meeting right yes we we do have a policy that we'll be bringing to the next meeting particular interest are you just teasing this or what we want to keep you Wellness Wellness nutrition okay it's actually well there are two components there's a a district policy and then there's an operational policy so the wellness committee has been uh working on a operational policy for months and they they tied they tied it with desie and they had great conversation about you know what is what what Vision should we have and and how do we start how do we continue to move forward it's important to note that the wellness committee and districts are probably one of the hardest entities to keep alive and uh our district has manage to to do well and and kudos to the people that that are passionate about it and also a couple of our staff who we keep co-chairing committees so we're excited to bring this forward next meeting and uh want to leave some time because they want to present yes right yes okay yeah so we'll have to make sure we we put it in the presentation so thanks for that okay great um Sheran building committee update yes uh we just met last night last night just met last night um we made some some good progress things are going to moving really fast um within the next few weeks so as of right now we have our contract negotiated with Architects with Studio G I think they're just being reviewed by Council right now um The Hope is that the contract gets signed next week so that Studio G can just start with us um our timeline's really tight on trying to get as much input we can from Educators um and anyone who's going to be at the school you need to get their input before they head off the summer um so we're hoping to be able to get as many heads in the in the room as we can that are necessary um so hopefully sometimes next week we'll have a little bit of an update on that um beyond that our next step is we just have to have a meeting with so the sherane building committee has to have um a meeting with mspa as well as Studio G and essentially they'll sign they'll assign of Consultants with us to specifically work with us from the msda um I think that was that's yes okay it was a lot took a little longer to go through all that T great good work um so next agenda item here is uh ger I'll just ask if there's any other new business or old business or anything committee's members wish to share seeing none I'll announce that our next meeting is May 30th 7M wellon police station community room and we'll ask for a motion to adjourn and before prior to that we will be uh celebrating our retirees High School cafeteria send you some information all are encouraged to attack motion to adjourn made by I move to adjourn made by a lsy Ed by Stacy all those in favorate by saying I I I have a j thank you just shut down at that moment your