##VIDEO ID:h4yoFmmPZpY## at 7 o'clock and I'd like to pile together the October 24th 2024 school committee meeting you would please rise and join me Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance flag of the United States of America the it stands one nation under God indivisible justice for all right this evening we have our consent posted as well as the minutes from the October 10th 2024 meeting and the oath bills and payroll there a motion to accept I heard Janine first motion made by Janine second second there you go um all those in favor indicate by saying I I I carries unanimously so our first opportunity for interested citizens check on Zoom seeing and hearing from no one we'll move into our recognition portion of the evening uh Raquel Rodriguez you have the student representative rep board for us tonight yes I do thank you for Shaker Lane the Shaker Lane students are looking forward to the Halloween parade next Thursday at 1:50 and community members are welcome Shaker Lane would also like to invite the community to their joint cultural fair with Brussel Street on Wednesday November 6 from 5: to 7.m the event the event will consist of family presentations and other activities that promote Global cultural experience for students and for Russell Street students the Russell Street students had a successful FIT safety Jour last week and they are grateful for LPD and signups for teacher conferences will be in coming next week teachers will reach out to the families to schedule a time to meet and discuss students progress so far this year at the middle school elements hosted their first grade six kids night out on last Friday and the kids had a blast they will open their doors for the grade seven and eight Halloween dance on Friday from 5:30 to 7:30 and parent conferences are approaching and they will have an email soon for the high school model un and drama Club hosted the first annual lip sync battle last th Thursday which was the big hit this past Friday we had the homecoming football game and Saturday following the homecoming dance there was a dawnland screening for Q&A on Monday as well and then coming up we have the PSATs on Saturday mostly for sophomores also Juniors playing the spooky Edition is next Wednesday term one ends next week as well marking term two starting the week week following and then November 7th sweets sweets and sweets 7M High School cafeteria for band excellent thank you so much questions for work anything additional you'd like to share good thank you see Mark hitting for superintendent clenchy tonight another point I don't think I'm filling in but I do have one recognition uh we did receive a check from the Mighty Oak fund for $22,000 uh it's un um it's not tied to anything so it's it's at the discretion of the superintendent so we will bring that to the admin Council and decide where the best use those funds but we'd like to thank Bobby Chen and the Mighty O fund for his donation again this year perfect thank you very much Mighty O fund all right we have two presentations this evening scheduled um as well sub commmittee report we usually roll those pretty quickly but I think I'd like to hear a little bit more about Shaker Lane since I um since we had some things happen recently some public uh public sessions so we'll start with our presentations first one is financial budget updates Steve Mark business manager will give a financial and budget update reports in your packet reports on the screen um it's been my manter all year um we're in good shape uh uh um we're I did a a quick analysis on uh salaries expected salaries for this year and we're right on budget wise for that uh we're watching some expenses uh we do have a couple of unanticipated expenses that we're watching we believe we can cover those through um other areas and and savings within the budget um we're going to have to hire a temporary uh central office staff for maternity leave and that's going to cost probably a little bit U more than uh we had anticipated but um overall we're in really good shape so be glad to answer questions or provide additional information other than uh this is one of those things where when you say too much we get questions um other than the maternity leave what what's an example of some of the other um expenses that are coming we have a fire panel at the Russell Street school that's uh needs to be repaired uh some of the STS aren't working um so we have to fix that um there are a couple other things I don't remember off the top had I have a schedule in office but it's about 70 or $80,000 worth of items that were unanticipated expenses that we didn't budget for so and I can provide that list uh next next meeting if you prefer great be helpful all right thank you PR offset with that topic great all right thank you thank you tonight's Feature Presentation uh District professional development plan for the 2024 school year uh Elizabeth director of teaching and learning today it says brief but we're allotting 15 minutes so please take all 15 minutes this is a topic that's very important to the district and school committee thank you I'll try to stick to the brief 15 minutes of time that we have um for this plan today so I'm happy to share our professional development plan with you this evening I think it's important to note that this is the PD plan where professional learning happens all the time um and in structured and unstructured ways and so our PD plan the areas of focus um we continue with universal demand for learning we've been talking about that for a couple of years now so udl um we continue to look at it and dive deeper into it and what we are really focusing on is really trying to live it right so not just kind of one and done one year right we've been sitting in it for a little while so something that's on all of our minds with that one out and about we're seeing it in action and really embracing it and doing it and implementing it ourselves in addition to udl um particularly at our elementary level we're focusing on literacy with our new weight and wisdom literacy program those are our large areas of focus that are kind of taking up a lot of the mental space that's happening but there's a whole lot of other things happening at the same time including recently updated Comprehensive Health and physical education standards social emotional Learning multi- System of support cultural responsive teaching practices elementary math which we're still working um to improve and continue implementation and Technology um in AI as it comes and and continues to progress and change so you can see that we have um a couple of major Focus areas but there's always a lot happening um and we are committed to providing ongoing embedded professional development throughout the the school year for our all of our Educators and as you'll see um we try to provide some options in different ways to learn and to have our traditional learning and it's just like our students right and it's just like plants and the them of our slides this evening that we all require a little something different right we don't all learn at the same rate we don't all learn through the same thing um and so we are trying to make sure that we're providing enough access points and avenues for people to invest in themselves and in they're learning in ways that they would like on our next slide we have our PD calendar for this year and so you will see the structure of our professional development is that we have 10 early release days um in addition to that we have our first day back where we always try to organize a short PD opportunity on that day really to engage again together as a staff um and to Center our work for the year we also have the cross District professional development day which is coming up very shortly in just under two weeks on November 5th um and then there's other opportunities throughout the year right we provide um typically at least one or two summer structured opportunities for professional development the summer is also a time that a lot of our Educators do their own learning and cours workk um because they have a little bit more bandwidth to do that during the summertime um we have upcoming professional development opportunities we it's we have a document that constantly is up updated started at actually during the pandemic um as an opportunity to just kind of put things in one centralized location and it's something that we've just upkept um and continue to post on website and share it with our staff of just different opportunities um some that are cons are consistently offered and then others that are onetime opportunities will put on that document for everyone to see and then our staff take courses as I said a lot of times um during the summer but throughout the school year they will take courses as well as attending conferences and workshops of the source um what's interesting about the conferences is that a lot of our staff are members of their professional organizations and so for example the professional organizations will meet across the country in different places this year the National Council for social studies is actually meeing in Boston um in mid to late November and so we have a handful of our um social sciences department members attending that conference and so it's always nice when we're able to really support that um and and use to reimbursement funds to allow them to go to that for their professional learning and it's nice that they go get to go together it's always nice to sometimes the front if we dive in a little bit deeper into our plan the district plan on the next slide please um on our first dayback as I said we try to have a um opportunity for a brief professional development in some way shape or form this year our ele Elementary reading literacy uh Educators took part in wit and wisdom to get right in and get some some background before school this school year started all other Educators in the district took part in professional learning in a way that they wanted by using a PD playlist and so you see a screenshot of the choice Board of playlists there on the screen um for you so we have had a lot of conversations of we no longer do the sit and get kind of PD um it's not as engaging for us right it's it's not producing um you know as an educator what you want to get out of it and so we constantly think about when we are offering PD how do we offer PD that is engaging and that's modeling what we're talking about what we're trying to get to right and so this was a way for us to kind of model the udl framework um in a way that staff could pick what they wanted into it and learn in a way that felt right for them and both so the PD playlist what you see here is the choice board each square is a playlist and so what that means is that they the staff members click on the link and then on that document are several options and so a lot of them have a um section of several articles and typically like read one or two of these articles then there's a listen section where there might be a few podcasts there's a watch section where there might be a few short videos and then there's a a reflect section a practice or a create section right and so staff get to choose one or more than one from each of those categories to build their learning and then they get to reflect and create and practice for that day and so um each one of those has a has that PD playlist um so our staff are really generating right their own learning in that way what's nice about this PD playlist is that um we took two of them and you might be able to see if you if you zoom in there's ASCS on two of them and so those were kind of our model ones and so the Connecticut state board of um Department of Education created playlist for their um educational system and I found them and I was impressed by what they what they had offered and what they looking like and so we took those as two exemplars and brought that to our elementary curriculum Council our secondary curriculum councel and our administrative Council and then together those three bodies of educator and administrator leaders created all the other playlists that you see there and so what's nice is that this is not just me saying this is what we need to work on right it's all of our leaders coming together saying this would be an interesting topic for our Educators to dive deeper in this is something our educators are interested in um so that is a nice variety of options for our staff coming from their colleagues and their peers um the playlist is available and accessible to all of our Educators throughout the entire school year and so each Square each playlist is two hours of professional learning and so they can do that at any time earn those professional learning hours and they can bundle them together in order to earn their pvps should they choose to do that um so that was the first day back and then it has been used by a variety of Staff members from the first day back and will'll continue throughout the entire schoolat year the district based early release days um we just had one on October 23rd and our next one is on December 11th and the focus of those afternoons are curriculum mapping and so just to really brief overview a curriculum map is a method um to document and align what we're doing in class our instructional practices our instructional ities with the standards that are given and so it's a way for us to ensure that our curriculum what we're doing aligns with the standards um and that there aren't in gaps that are missing and so it's a multi-year process um and a really collaborative effort to get to where we are with our curriculum mapping our ECC and our SEC the elementary curriculum Council and secondary curriculum Council have worked together over the past couple of years to create a template of our Curriculum maps that will be usable for their colleagues and their departments and in their teams in order to do this work and our key of coming at it was really to make it a living breathing document in education sometimes a curriculum map can just be a check the box to say that we have it we've documented we're good to go and then it's not looked at which doesn't really feel like a really valuable use of time and so we wanted to make sure that we're creating something that is beneficial that can be used and passed on um and live longer within the district to be supportive of those that are entering the district um in future years as well and so on those two early release days all of our Educators have the options to be working on their curriculum out and then the other District based day right is that cross District PD Day this year it's on November 5th election day coming up in less than two weeks um it's the same three districts again us with Harvard and air Shirley this year air Shirley is coasting um and it really is one full day of choice and Collaborative Learning what's interesting this year is that in the past we've had typically done like a Kino in the morning something to bring everyone together to hear a similar message and what we've heard and um is that teachers really like the workshops they really like to get into their interests and their specific ones that they want to attend and so this year we're we're switching the day up and we're doing workshops and so we're going to jump straight into um two Workshop sessions in the morning lunch and then a workshop session in the afternoon followed by a final session of department and team time in the afternoon so we're looking forward to that day on November 5th just to give you an idea some of the workshops that we're going to have this year are um support through connectivity Empowering Families embracing productive struggle with deeper learning getting kids to love coming to school AI the new IEP Math Games Unified sports and inclusion co- teing restorative circles and that's just to name a few there are several others that will be on that day so we're looking forward to another collaborative day of cross District learning the other large piece of our early release days right so our district base days are technically two of the early release days and then we're able to kind of um get in on that first day back and then the cross District day half of our early release days are faculty LED so our staff are the ones that actually get to decide to offer um a professional development session or attend one by that is being offered and facilitated by colleague and so this year we have the option um it's a similar model that we've done in the past there are five full five full afternoons so people can offer two sessions three sessions or five sessions so that way it's not just a one off right it's really supporting that idea of it's not a one and done you you're going to engage in something and you're going to do it for at least two afternoons if not more we are still collecting so staff members are still submitting um their proposals for faculty Le so far I've listed just a few of the topics that people have submitted that they have interest in continuing on their professional development in those areas um it's always nice to kind of see what our staff are putting in and then what we as a district are focusing on and to see kind of the alignment or sometimes the the disalignment right and then re being able to kind of sit back and say what do we need here in this moment and do we need to change or pivot in any way um so more faculty-led proposals are coming in and will continue to come in until the um about December when we officially publish what those workshops and offerings will be so if you look at our PD calendar as a whole we are four days technically three early release days into to our PD plan um more to come um it always feels like at the beginning it's kind of um a lot to like jump in and we always want and I've had this conversation with our principles we always want to frontload a lot of what we do but we have to remember that we have to keep an in stride because there's a lot happening at the beginning of the school year um and so we have still more time to go um with our staff for that thank you very much that's our Mig this year 1330 very good and I'm sure we have questions comments we won't count that against your time of course came Ding and I was like be you always do such a nice job with balancing the um the choice and and the district initiative so that everybody's got something relevant it's it's really it's a it's a tough thing that districts deal with because when we've got a district-wide initiative like udl or wh wisdom you know districts tend to provide a lot of PD for that and then not consider people that aren't involved with those initiatives and they get dragged into stuff that's not relevant to them and you know so I I'm always so appreciative of how intentional you are of of making it important for everybody um I do have a question about um how you support teachers with implementing what they've learned like do you have common planning time or plc's where teachers can continue to process and Implement what they've learned in these sessions or do you do you have um opportunities to do walkthroughs and see if udl strategies are being implemented yes all of the all of all of the above yeah um I think one thing that is really amazing about our educators is that they invest themselves in the PD that they do so they're not just doing it to do it because they have to do something right they're doing something of their choosing and really diving in and implementing it and that's the other reason why we do two three or five sessions right so they have to come back to the table and say this is what I did this is how it went how do I improve it right so having those conversations um and that's one thing that I have been very aware of of when we're doing PD of when can we come back or allow for that followup conversation to happen um because that is where a lot of the learning actually happens right is being able to share afterwards and get that feedback from others and so um it happens um in through the multiple professional um development sessions and then a lot of times teams or departments will do a PD together and so when they're going up in their grade level meetings or in their department meetings it comes up again and then if something is very cross um cross-curricular in a way that it crosses departments or crosses grade levels a lot of times naturally those conversations continue on because it's a unique way for them to work together that they typically don't always get and so it's an opportunity to actually connect with someone else who's typically not one that they are always talking to for lesson planning purposes or anything of that sort and then so when you've been walk doing walkthroughs what what have your results been so far with um how teachers are implementing udl so that's I mean we're living in it so we can really be diving deeper into it right I think with udl a lot of times the very obvious is the voice and choice particularly that choice right and so a lot of times in the first couple years we saw a lot of options happening right of you can do this project and you can do it through a poster you can do it through a paper you can do it right um which is great I mean that's that's a great way right of using the udl framework but we can be diving deeper into it and that's where we've seen a bit more of the very intentional diving deeper um which has been really great and reason why we're living in it so we can continue that and so Educators that are kind of fully embracing are able to share that and then sometimes we'll say hey you want to offer a faculty Leed on that topic or for a cross District PD would you be willing to offer a workshop on that um because I think sometimes we just don't know the amazing thing that we're doing in our classroom because as Educators you don't always get the opportunity to see what people down the hall are doing and I think sometimes that's a really amazing DD um and just highlighting really an empowering some of our Educators sometimes they just talk about how good people well I mean and I I think it's especially important because the district uses udl as a tool for differentiating instruction for special students with disabilities so um but that feels like a a more intense use of udl than just the choice boards so you know I think that's um I'm glad you're focusing on that yeah thank you next I just want say really quickly I'm really you have the um ability to have all those resources there for the teachers throughout the years so they can kind of keep away at it if they don't have time kind of in your VI time interested to have it so I appreciate them I really appreciate the collaboration that you discuss because we're going to teach collaboration should do it through exactly exactly and model it and and that's where I mean these you know the playlist was such a collab and for me and I said this to some of our staff afterwards and they were like I really lik that I was like oh like because you know sometimes you just don't know if it's going to be a total flop or not right it's like a lesson plan sometimes you don't know until you try it right um and so I'm glad we had success and now it's like okay how can it right um this is such a robust offering and I think really incredible especially in this climate of sort of educator burn out to continue to offer opportunities for leadership to spark the joy in learning like just keep learning instead of I've been doing this forever and it's getting more and more challenging um I remember that Littleton is really good about like the professional development funds we offer for teachers if they want to like go out and do something do you see that being used and do you see like Educators bringing back stuff that they're doing off time yeah so um in a couple different ways sometimes it's uh educators are coming back and directly implementing something in their own classroom um and sometimes they're coming back and doing that but then also offering workshops during District PD day or faculty Leed um or even at like staff meetings when they have share outs um so being intentional about that right so that way we can all benefit from the learning that's happening yeah I think sometimes it's also tricky because you want to send everyone to a conference but you can't because you you can't have the entire fre level out or you can't have the entire department out right and so having some go with the understanding whoever is going is coming back and sharing that knowledge with their team with their Department with their school yeah yeah um and sorry your first question um our our staff members are definitely utilizing the tuition reimbursement program um it sometimes EDS in es and flows it goes with when their recertification is and so sometimes we have one year where there's a lot of recertifications and those are years typically the year before we see an increase of access to those funds um but typically those funds are utilized um can you talk a little bit about the building based on 911 and 925 some of the I maybe I maybe I missed that but it seems like we talked about all the other formats yeah but um what what's typically being covered on those says so those are the principles and the assistant principles that to decide and facilitate those PS so those are very specific to what the school is doing so a lot of times it'll be right the district based days are kind of like our strategic plan and making sure that that gets put in there the school Bas days are the opportunity for the schools to dive into their sips and have um their goal try action steps to meet those schools right so for example um Russell Street in shap berain use those days for w wisdom fory so implementation of a new curriculum which you heard a couple weeks ago Colin and Michelle share that that was a goal for them this year um we also had um another example do Dr um hbur at the middle school um came and did a a presentation Trum practice relationship building at the middle school and so those days are opportunities for our principes to dig in and try and take some action steps that are very a lot more specific to school that may not cross School it's convenient that she going acoss the street we able to cross right they can collaborate a lot of times it's School based specifically what's happening there and so they there's three of those days and we have um her discussion with our with our admin team the first two the past couple of years we've always made School based so that they can frontload their school information get that kind of out there get that moving get people kind of up and going and engaged there um then we shift into our district B then we shift into fact we Leed and then what we've um learned that we like a lot is ending with a school-based day so they're able to revisit as a School faculty back together for professional development of their administrators choosing got it thank you um you mentioned giving the staff faculty an opportunity to work one of these um breakout sessions at the tri District PD day is that is it like a third a third a third or does Littleton offer more workshops and maybe something like I was just kind of curious as to how the burden is on the break on the breakout like what's our participation in that varies year to year right um I will say littlton consistently has a solid number of Educators that step up to the plate to offer workshops um this year we have about 12 to 15 workshops that are being facilitated by our staff members sometimes it's two members collaborating together on a workshop um we also have some who our offer more than one workshop and so they're offering multiple um a lot of times it does vary year to year this upcoming year air Shirley and Littleton are doing maybe a few more workshops um than Harvard is offering it all it can change it all depends on kind of what the the professional learning and the focuses of the district and what they what individual ucats have also done before sounds good um sorry I don't know if you guys have some some of the same questions but I like to clarify if I I like the uh the two session three session five session so I just want to make sure I understand this correctly if you sign up for the five session it's like one topic you're getting it continuously I loved your point about coming back and revisiting it because I do think that everyone gets access to the same information at the same time and then people are probably some folks are probably better implementing it than others right we're all different and um so when you come back for session two session three and you start hearing about what maybe some folks have done and they're like you know what I could have done that or if it's that like I didn't think of doing that exactly um so if you don't sign up for the five you start with two and then that ends and then you're gonna end up three so it's not like I can just choose one here and there and okay so there's some consistency exactly yeah exactly and then I think maybe my last question is who would be implementing who are the wit and wisdom implementers for the professional development if it's kind of new districtwide yeah have we brought in outside folks is it the people that perhaps piloted it or yeah I'm curious yeah great question so um the publisher is great minds and so we've brought in the publisher um in order to kind of dive in what's nice great sometimes publishing PD is really just a how right of here's the book here's the structure of it this is how you do it um great minds proposes it with the why of why are you making the shift to this curriculum right like why did you decide to do this because it has needs benefits to it and then it goes into the how and so we have front-loaded our Educators with that PD of um going through with great minds another piece that is we're kind of something different that we're trying with the implementation of w widom that we created an implementation team and so that team was formed um uh end of last school year and we met several times over the summer to discuss and go through PD ourselves so that team consists of our reading specialists at both Russell Street and shaer Lane as well as grade level representation from every single grade level P to five and so those Educators come together and have done um extra professional learning from great minds as well as professional learning from uh neighboring District who's implemented it for a couple of years they have a coach who has offered um a lot of great kind of process points and so we brought that individual in over the summer in order to kind of help us figure out how do we lesson plan here what are the best strategies from people who are actually implementing it um and then our implementation team also has done a lot of work with regards to teaching their colleagues and supporting their colleagues or the implementation and so it is we have not done an implementation team like this before so we are kind of testing it out of how does it work um with regards to that and I can't say enough great things about our implementation team they have really done a lot of heavy lifting to make it work and to be the cheerleaders for their teams because it's implenting something new is not always the most fun exciting thing right it's hard and so they're the ones that are the cheerleaders and making sure that is happening at their great levels um and so it has been a mix of the publisher PD another Outsider who is actively implementing the professional development and then our own team leaders um or implantation leaders who are doing it so we're we're trying to get again multiple perspectives to come in to help withing thank you very much I think you guys do a great job of professional development 100% um I I believe I'm not speaking for all of us but I believe all five of us um value this tremendously within the district and it's because you guys take it so seriously and you get so much out of it because as as parents some of us as young parents we we see the other side of it right so like Russell Street in Shaker land like it's a big problem the kids getting off the bus at whatever it is noon and then if you happen to be on Russell Street and you watch the sidewalks there's like 150 kids head it to the point and it's like the poor people at the paper store like you know like well got party cities with that they were the go-to place for a while so so you know it it's um it's necessary I believe you get a lot out of it I believe the pros far out away the cons but living the other side of it um but for now continue to support it 100% love it awesome thank you so great thanks thank you thank you right Jason's not even here so he'll be so proud all right that wraps up the presentation portion of the evening we pause for a second opportunity for interested citizens if anyone would like to have a chat no hearing none um we'll go through subcommittee reports um pnbc Jeran building committee update want to tackle that one first want to start with SH well unless you have a separate pnbc po to yeah there's nothing yeah sh is I am the yeah let's go through onc so start with start with SH all right first I wanted to start with some dates because we've had two big um there two meetings that were open for 16th and October 23rd those were held here at the police station for the public to come in and ask questions did a presentation on the design the scope of work the needs of the elementary school locations funding options tax implications there was a kind of ran the full gamut of kind of what the Project's going to entail it's all very rough it's not anything set in stone yet but it is a starting point for us to get the community involved um to start to get that information out there um so there are more opportunities for the community to get involved so I wanted to go over those so we have um let's see two Community tours that are going to be scheduled for Shaker Lane on um November 13th and the 19 19th from 6:30 to 8 o'clock so during those times we'll be able to walk through Shaker Lane I believe and there'll probably be some information hopefully some type of information on what we have designed for the new project so for any interested citizens who want to see the shape of Shaker Lan kind of what the reasons that we might need to get it replaced and start working on it that would be a good opportunity to really get your eyes on that um also on those same dates a half hour before from 6 to 6:30 there will be um two 30 minute Shaker line building committee meetings that will be open to public as well so those will be Zoom meetings um so if you can't make it to the school or you're interested in getting some information about the project there's still two more zoom meetings that will be um open to the public on schedule right now so we have lots of meetings so that's what we have on the agenda for right now I'm glad to know about this because I can get it into the town newsletter that comes out November today so yeah so that's that's really great to know and do you need people to RSVP for those um tours I don't know just yet I can't imagine that we would need RSVPs it's it's an open meeting to the public it's an open session to the public well it's just that when we did the tour a couple days ago they wanted us to RSVP so that they that was because it Wasing okay perfect so I'll put this in building yeah I'm really glad to have those stes thank sign up so that we have a rough idea of numbers but anyone would be welcome to just show up and okay yeah okay per um and let's see I'm trying to go through all of the information there lotss of information there is a Sherling um building landing page that we have on the LPS site for anyone who's looking for more information we're going to be getting an FAQ up there so that will be addressing a lot of the questions that have come up in all of our meetings um so if you just kind of want a quick shot of what the project looks like and have some questions answered that's going to be um launched fairly soon we're still working on that but the landing page is there for people um another big date is October 29th this town meeting lots of important topics being spoke about there but we will be presenting again on the building project there I think we have about 10 minutes to present um it will be I think a lot of what we've already spoken about at the past two meetings here scope of the Project funding options tax implications potentially I think they're still kind of working on that um so that's an important one to go to as well if you're looking for more information so that's October 29th the time is is that usually at like start starts seven um yes and we first I think that's those are like some big dates that I wanted to get out there but you have any questions or anything so um two Public tours if I heard you correctly yep uh elen and I went on a private tour but it was it was public um and we got to see the school uh in use which was great all like the cute sming faces of the kids um and as a parent like my kids just went through Shaker Lane so we're we're out effectively out of Shaker Lane and I'll just share this with the audience who might be listening like you drop your kid off at the bus they're gone for six and a half hours which is awesome they're they're in great hands they you know they learn something they get well fed they come home and they tell you school was great you don't get to see the behind the scenes like it's like going to a Broadway show and then getting to peek behind the curtain like the performance is wonderful but you would have no idea of the chaos that takes place behind the screen so we got firstand literally people shoved in closets the music room is not students no staff St St St students the student experience like the student experience is largely good I mean there are a couple places where it's rough um yes there are like U highly educated highly compensated staff members in cles yeah that are in closets and we're calling them cluses because we're trying to make it sound like an office the music room's like substantially undersized like I cannot believe that 25 people even fit in this and they're going to play music it's like your worst nightmare right if you had to take music in this room um children are that have no other place to offer pull out so they're in the they're in the hallways there's people coming and going there's obser ations as to why is that child in the hallway you know that type of stuff um I really encourage anyone to take the tour you won't get you won't get to see it firsthand but whoever's giving the tour be Michelle or somebody else will will tell you all these things and I can ATT test like they are true this is happening um so I just wanted to share that but my questions were about the dates so I encourage anyone to go on the dates it'll be eye openening and like also the classrooms are mostly well-sized but technology has changed and now there's like portable technology being brought into the classroom which now shrinks the classroom down because it's not up on the wall and there's virtually zero counter space in any classrooms and these are at the age where it's a lot of handson learning like this will all get covered in the tour and it was fascinating um but my question was so you folks are going to have a meeting online right before the tour starts so yeah in theory like people couldn't go to both and you probably none of your Shaker Ling building committee will probably be at the tour because you'll all be remote 30 minutes before Community tour so I don't know the logistics I don't know the logistics just yet of how we pulling that I was wondering like maybe you could have it in person in person there there and then I don't know it just seems like none of you folks would be able to go on the tour yeah and you folks are probably pretty what's that said we've all Ted it no no but in the event that there is like a decent turn on from the public and questions get asked yeah like you folks are decent folks to try to answer those questions I believe going okay and then and then broadcast remotely okay so the folks will be in person we'll working that up that's a public meeting people could go they'll get the information there'll be a tour and along the tour there's a lot of Q&A there perhaps is going to be like a Q&A either before or after the tour to kind of cover some stuff yeah okay that all makes sense yeah and for town meeting my understanding is AD minute Pres presentation for anyone that's listening we we won't have the opportunity for questions because it's town meeting and hopefully there's 300 people there maybe there's 500 who knows but we want to respect everyone's time like we don't want to derail the meeting with Shaker Lane so it's 10 minutes of information and there's like a year or whatever a year ahead of us to get all these questions figured out and all this planning and all this good stuff and we're following that up with two tours where you can ask all the questions you want but just not the floor of town meeting because that would they're ra the meeting entirely but the um Studio G also has a couple different ways for you to ask questions or provide input like they'll be a link to a Google form where you can say whatever you want and they were also going to have like a physical box with like old school code yeah oh a QR code on the town meeting presentation there'll be a QR code which I believe will either have the presentation or I'll take you to the FAQ um something that's really easy for people just who are there to access um the information um and then you can go to the landing page right now um and there is already a questionnaire there for people to fill out um if there's any what would you like sherland project team to know um so that's way to get some Community input as well but I just wanted to build on what um Justin was saying about the tour that um I think some of the messaging has been that you know sherlan is overcrowded like that was that's sort of the the broad stroke but that can lead one to think that that class sizes are too big or you know but it's not that at all it's just that um education now is just so different from even when I was teaching like we didn't have all of these Specialists that um serve as interventionists before um you know right right in the moment um even like you know physical therapists occupational therapist therapists um bcbas um I was really impressed with it they had a deescalation room you know if a student was um disregulated that they there was a place where they could go until they felt like they could go back into the classro and it wasn't like a punishment it was just like oh this is a better setting for you right now you know when you're feeling better you know and it it's it all of that takes space um and it's all so important for what we now know our best practices in education so um but I don't think anybody was thinking about that when the Shaker Lane building was um was built or right or even when the remodel happened so I you know I think somehow in the messaging it's important to say that that is the reason why we're bursting it the seems It's not that our class sizers are getting enormous and that you know the general population is is suffering because clearly they're not like there's wonderful things going on in that school but um also such kudos to how um the admin there is managing this process for staff because morale is really good in such high pressure situations you know like how do you keep your morale up if your office is a closet but um you know you walk through and everybody's making the best of it and putting like little lights in their space and trying to make it look cheerful and you can just you just catch the vibe of everybody pulling together in a difficult situation so um that was one of my big takeaways and I agree with all the all the things that you said it's really eye opening when you have a chance to go through there I think principal Kane had like 12 moves this past summer reshuffling space and we we went through the entire building and like I could not think of a possible 13th thing that that could have been done so like in the event that there needs to be another like we are every square inch of that building is being used I mean it's being the building's being abused the status at it's end like um so if you know anyone that's like ah they'll be fine we should just renovate we should just do something like please come to the tour and see it and then if you still have that opinion fine like we're going to agree to disagree and that's totally that's totally acceptable but you you got to come and see it firsthand before you have that opinion of everything's going to be fine um I wanted to ask the committee on in the spirit of really reaching out to the community and to to getting as much um cooperation and or getting as many people involved as we possibly can would it be okay for us to have a space in each of our school committee meetings to accept any questions that that that come in I mean as immediately as we can maybe we can't answer them maybe we need to take them to to to other um professionals but to just like okay there's a school committee meeting this tonight and if you want to email um put a post a question that we will see that we will read out maybe we'll be able to answer it maybe we won't people are always you know Welcome to our meetings just like it really lean into this is a big deal for the town it's a huge um uh um um facility and and a big part of the town that we are changing up changes is something we all need to live with a little bit so let us help you um and I'm not really sure exactly what this looks like but I'm just like trying to think of ways to really reach out to our community and to be sure people know that they are always welcome to bring their questions their concerns what do they want to talk about let's let's give the whole Community the opportunity over this next year to really talk this through and understand what what what's happening um so I'm open the questions but that was my thought of like every every school Comm meeting for the next year okay here's our one little place on the agend and we will look whe there any questions online if we even if we like I said even if we don't have the answer let's let's bring those those issues up um I'm just throwing some ideas out but but you know you you brought up that you're you you've seen another Community handle this really well and it seemed to be because so there was so much Outreach to the community so this was I was just brainstorming what ideas I I like the idea there's um there's two opportunities for interested citizens if someone submits something to you like I can't make the meeting or gez I would I wouldn't want to take the podium or I don't know how to get online you can by all means say you know I received this I think it's a good question I'd like to share it and hopefully we would have you know you had it in advance so hopefully we would have an answer for them yeah absolutely and I meant for all of us you know like you know we are ambassadors and and you know I just hope over the next year to to be really accessible to the community and to really um have this this conversation be very robust and have everyone feel like that they've have their thoughts their questions all answered respectfully and you know like they've been part of this process this will be the biggest project in this scene so we need to have as much Community engagement as possible I can't just kind of fall into the lab of taxpayers who don't really know that it's happening um so yeah thank you anything else anything else no that was I think those are those last so I you know I wasn't there I wasn't I had prior commitments you know other stuff going on I wasn't able to make either meeting what was the attendance like I'm pretty low I had to sign in on both of them but was yeah yeah I mean it was a joint um you mean like the one last night yes yeah I mean it was it was just the board members there were maybe board members and a couple Community Mers two interested citizens and um the previous week I think there were four or five people that came to watch and to ask questions and to and to comment and yeah although yeah so and I'm not sure it was sounded like it was put together as as a joint board and may me there there's a this one this meeting this is for you all the citizens um if you have a question it were it was two people we've seen before good I'll set there great uh budget subcommittee let's see I can I can report that I have followed up with the chair of the finance committee as it relates to our conversation about the financial policies working group discussion so Mr vudi had a chance to watch our meeting he says yep I seem seems like we're all kind of talking the same language that's um you know probably something that we can work through um why doesn't he offer a revision or he and I collaborate on revision bring it back so we can finally put it to B and ratify it and be done with it oh good so um that's good there and then in terms of our budget subcommittees we have a we do have our next meeting scheduled right unless one's coming November 5 so it's scheduled and at that meeting we will um dive a little deeper into cost centers and take a look at the capital projects and what our use of revolving funds is and all that all that fun stuff do you anything to add on that on my do you have anything to add on that or kind of hit it no okay moving on to policy subcommittee we do have a policy for um proposed first reading today um there is uh well let me just uh point out what the revisions are in this um and it's really to bring it sort of up to date with uh legal terms and S connected to um where we are now but the um it's on the screen thank you so there are a couple places where um I think it's towards the bottom where it says pregnancy status [Music] status that is being Dorothy this is not though the updated one right because pregnancy status is what we're proposing oh is it not policy yeah but I I also was there this is the one that was that had veteran status and it got taken out and then you sent us a message that that was a typo yeah veteran status is not on here and that's a typo oh I see it okay sorry I could the glare was on there so where it says gender identity pregnancy pregnancy related conditions pregnancy status that is the main sort of update from what the previous policy was um like Janine said what we actually noticed was that in the previous policy it's also included veteran status and that is actually missing in this one we do need to change that but this is a first reading okay so we can come back with that revision the next one does this wording originally come from mask yes yes yeah okay yeah there it's very repetitive but I imagine lawyer decided to be that way and this is really to update to for the current legal princi I think it came to our attention because at one point there was a question about veteran status and some of the other and um I'm I'm glad they're going to put that back in it it turned out to be a tyo yeah so who is our compliance [Laughter] officer you volunteer yourself told yes Des it's designated okay that would have been my those other duties as a sign clause in the contract I mean it sounds connected to title yeah it's an update back yes okay um I don't have any questions it's the first reading I see if anyone has any comments or questions but we'll see it again next meeting yes and we can we can update it for next meeting then right we'll vote next we will vote the up through next we okay y very good is there a seatback update no do you need a motion to accept the first oh I'm sorry thank you little out of practice here yeah um I move that we accept the first reading of policy AC motion made by Elaine second second and by boo all those in favor to keep by saying I hi I that makes it official we'll see you at next meeting all right uh no CPAC update um I'll ask if there's any other subc commune reports or new business before the school committee I'll announce that our next meeting is November 14th 2024 7 police station and last for a motion forour motion made by Stacy second seconded by Janine all those in favor indicate by saying I I we have a jour